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Ministers Of Christ
By Walter Lowrie
Edited by Theodore O. Wedel
186 pp. New York, Seabury Press, 1963. $3.95.

The contents of this book can be easily summarized. In 1946 a book by the late Dr. Walter Lowrie was published dealing with the essential character of the Christian ministry in the light of its historical origins. At the time negotiations between the Protestant Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church were in progress looking towards the unification of the two bodies and Lowrie's crystallization of his own views, the result of more than forty years of careful consideration of the issues involved, was offered as a contribution to the debate. But the negotiations broke down. Today an even wider union is being contemplated. It seemed therefore a favorable opportunity to re-publish Lowrie's thesis and at the same time to invite comments on it by a representative group of theologians drawn from outside the Episcopal Church,

The Editor, Dr. Wedel, contributes a brief but helpful introduction and epilogue. Lowrie's seven chapters occupy roughly half of the book.

These are followed by a somewhat sharp criticism by George S. Hendry from the Presbyterian tradition, an enthusiastic response by Ralph D. Hyslop from within Congregationalism, an instructive relation of the main thesis to Protestant bodies of the "sect" or "restitutionist" type by Franklin H. Littell of the Methodist Church, and a qualified appreciation by John Meyendorff of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Lowrie's own chapters a-re vigorous, well-informed, enlivened by personal references and witty asides and definitely eirenic in their general intention.

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While regarding the historic episcopate as the only possible framework within which any large-scale union of the Churches can be achieved, he is most anxious to give the fullest recognition to existing ministries and indeed to urge that a single ministry is already in operation in separate communions. His concern is for outward unification of that ministry through the use of forms appropriate and acceptable to each negotiating body.

The debate recorded in this book is interesting and well-sustained. I offer only three comments:

(1)With all respect for Lowrie's writing I should have preferred the initial thesis to have been formulated in the light of all that has happened since 1946. Advances have been made in historical, theological, and liturgical studies which could have sharpened and in certain respects modified Lowrie's "tract." It is a pity, for example, that certain statements to which Dr. Hendry takes strong objection should have been repeated. I have the feeling that "Liberal Catholicism" would be presented differently today from what it was by Lowrie nearly 20 years ago.

(2)1 doubt if the way of advance at present is by further investigation of the history of the first two centuries through specifically Christian documents. We can certainly gain much from further knowledge of the general patterns and practices of Jewish, Hellenistic Jewish, Hellenist and Roman social groupings at that time. We also need many more studies of the relation between the Christian ministry as it has come to be established in different periods and areas and the structures of its contemporary societies. In other words, unless it is assumed that a form of social structure, including a hierarchy of ministerial offices, came with direct authority from the Lord Himself to His Church, and that it is therefore impossible to make any kind of formal change or adjustment through the centuries, it is of the highest importance to give the closest attention possible to all that social history and contemporary social science can tell us about the organization of structures which will promote the growth of and not strangle the life of free communities.

(3)Most important of all I doubt if we can get very much farther in our discussions of possible forms of ministry in a united Church until we deal much more radically with the question: What justification is there for a set-apart, ordained, authorized ministry at all? As an outspoken critic has recently said: "Is it sensible to assume a priori that any of the main traditional activities of the clergy-preaching, conducting services, administering sacraments, parish visiting, giving pastoral guidance-are still essential, or even valid, for expressing Christianity?" Dr. Lowrie's final word is this: "When various liquids in a vessel tend to separate because of their different specific gravities and you want to mix them,

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what do you do? You stir them or-if by way of illustration one may venture to refer to a practice far too prevalent-you shake them." I have a suspicion that in the matter of the nature of the ministry we are in for a shaking far more violent than even Dr. Lowrie could have conceived.

F. W. Dillistone
Oriel College
Oxford, England