Christian Community in History (3 vols.)

Roger D. Haight presents a historical ecclesiology which is concrete, realist, and historically conscious. In what he terms an “ecclesiology from below,” Haight charts the history of the church's self-understanding from the origins of the church in the time of Christ to the late Middle Ages. While the ultimate focus of the work falls on the structure of the church and its theological self-understanding, it tries to be faithful to the historical, social, and political reality of the church in each period.

Roger D. Haight’s “ecclesiology from below,” moves through the actual church of history to ecclesiology or to an understanding of the church both as it is and as it should be.

In volume 2 of Haight’s series, Comparative Ecclesiology, ecclesiology itself becomes directly the subject matter of the book, without losing sight of concrete history and the degree to which these ecclesiologies are historically conditioned. The main goal of this “comparative ecclesiology” is not just to examine different ecclesiologies that emerged over the last 500 years, but also to show the richness, vitality, and creativity of the whole church as it moves through history, adjusting to new times, places, and cultures.

The first two volumes of Roger Haight’s Christian Community in History received enormous critical attention. They described the historical diversity of the church across its history, and among the churches after the Reformation. The third volume, Ecclesial Existence, describes what the churches have in common—finding the apostolicity, the catholicity, and the unity amidst the plurality of the churches.