Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical Introduction
Overview
In this introduction to ecclesiology, respected scholars Brad Harper and Paul Louis Metzger offer a solidly evangelical yet ecumenical survey of the church in mission and doctrine. Combining biblical, historical, and cultural analysis, this comprehensive text explores the church as a Trinitarian, eschatological, worshipping, sacramental, serving, ordered, cultural, and missional community. It also offers practical application, addressing contemporary church life issues such as women in ministry, evangelism, social action, consumerism in church growth trends, ecumenism, and the church in postmodern culture. The book will appeal to all who are interested in church doctrine, particularly undergraduates and seminarians.
Essential for students, scholars, pastors, and laypeople, this informative volume brings fresh perspectives on theological matters. With the Logos Bible Software edition, searching by topic or Scripture references will further help your understanding—you’ll compare, for example, the systematic theologies of various scholars or denominations.
Key Features
- Combines biblical, historical, and cultural analysis
- Offers thoughts on current church life issues
Contents
- The Church as a Trinitarian Community: The Being-Driven Church
- The Trinitarian Church Confronts American Individualism
- The Church as an Eschatological Community
- Eschatology, the Church, and Ecology
- The Church as a Worshipping Community
- The Worshipping Church Engages Culture
- The Church as a Sacramental Community
- Sacraments and the Search for the Holy Grail
- The Church as a Serving Community
- Church Discipline—The Lost Element of Service
- The Church as an Ordered Community
- The Role of Women in the Ordered Community
- The Church as a Cultural Community: Christ, Culture, and the Sermon on the Mount Community
- Getting Past the Ghettoizing of the Gospel in Today’s Culture
- The Church as a Missional Community: The Being-Driven Church
- From Building Programs to Building God’s Missional Kingdom
Top Highlights
“As Dietrich Bonhoeffer claims, the church is the church ‘only when it exists for others … The Church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving.’12 Just as God gave his Son to save the world, so God gives his church to the world.” (Page 44)
“The church’s purpose flows forth from its identity, because the church’s communal identity is purposive.” (Page 20)
“It is important to differentiate the missional church from a church with a missions program” (Page 238)
“‘He became what we are so that we might become what he is.’12” (Page 23)
“Modern attempts to justify scripture’s legitimacy as fundamentally a textbook for gleaning doctrinal truths (fundamentalist-evangelicalism), exemplifying moral and philosophical ideals (liberalism), and demonstrating relevance for practical living (seeker-sensitive Christianity) fail to register that the Bible is the paradigmatic story and that it envelops ours. The ancient and medieval perspective that God’s story is all-encompassing is profound and life-giving; once we make the shift in our thinking from trying to find a place for God in our lives—carving out a place for his story in our faith journey—we find that God has actually made us participants in the story, which constitutes reality and makes our lives relevant and worth living.” (Page 132)
Praise for the Print Edition
This is a marvelous volume on ecclesiology in the contemporary setting. Harper and Metzger have produced a text that surveys the broad range of issues related to the church with freshness, theological depth, and genuine insight. Indeed, I have not read a better introduction to ecclesiology and hope that it becomes a standard textbook in college and seminary classes and finds a wide readership outside of the academy. It is a splendid example of theology in service to the church.
—John R. Franke, theologian in residence, First Presbyterian Church, Allentown, PA
This is an important new book. Evangelicals have often emphasized individual faith in Christ at the expense of the corporate character of the Christian community. This book shows why that dichotomy is false by pointing us toward a more holistic ecclesiology—the church biblical, Trinitarian, sacramental, missional, and eschatological. This book needs to be read and heeded!
—Timothy George, dean and professor of divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University
Harper and Metzger provide evangelical Protestants an ideal entree into what has been the long-neglected stepsister of systematic theology in North America. The authors root ecclesiology in the life and missions of the triune God, nourish it with scripture and the rich tradition of the church catholic, and glean abundant fruit by engaging the crucial issues of our time and place. A must read for evangelicals who intuitively know that the church is not incidental or just instrumental to the Christian life.
—Barry Harvey, professor of theology, Baylor University
Harper and Metzger keep their promises with an ecclesiology at once deeply ecumenical and sharply evangelical. They offer a richly Trinitarian and eschatological orientation even as they ground the doctrine of the church in an American context. As a generation of younger evangelicals discover ecclesiology—no, discover the church—I am happy and grateful to be able to refer them to this book.
—Matt Jenson, associate professor, Biola University
Product Details
- Title: Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical Introduction
- Authors: Brad Harper and Paul Louis Metzger
- Publisher: Brazos Press
- Publication Date: 2009
- Pages: 352
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Topic: Ecclesiology
About the Authors
Brad Harper is a professor of theology at Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon. He is the college adviser for The Institute for Theology of Culture: New Wine, New Wineskins and the book review editor for Cultural Encounters: A Journal for the Theology of Culture. Harper has also worked as a pastor and church planter.
Paul Louis Metzger is a professor of Christian theology and theology of culture at Multnomah Biblical Seminary and director of its Institute for the Theology of Culture: New Wine, New Wineskins. He is the editor of the journal Cultural Encounters and the author of Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church.
