Christian Community in History. Vol. 1: Historical Ecclesiology (review)

The prior decade, but especially the last few years, has seen a short but rich shelf of books on ecclesiology from both established and emerging scholars (Joseph Komonchak, Thomas Rausch, Richard Gaillardetz, Bernard Prusak, Gerard Mannion, Christopher Ruddy, et al.). This research represents a natural summation, re-evaluation, and reconfiguring of the generation of scholarship sparked by Vatican II's promulgation of Lumen gentium and Gaudium et spes, now just over forty years ago. Roger Haight's Historical Ecclesiology joins this company as the first of his two-volume Christian Community in History. (Volume 2: Comparative Ecclesiology covering the Reformation through contemporary developments, appeared in 2005.) Haight intends Christian Community in History to form a sort of trilogy with his Dynamics of Theology (1990, 2001) and Jesus Symbol of God (1999).

Haight begins with a discussion of what he defines as historical ecclesiology: an exploration of a lived rather than a theoretical ecclesiology, despite the fact that the study must attend to theories of the nature and function of the Church in addition to her actual experiences. He explains that he intends the phrase "historical ecclesiology" to mean ecclesiology "from below" as opposed to "from above" or an abstract and ahistorical approach. Indeed, a "from above" approach has not been characteristic of the most recent studies in the field, although Haight's date of publication indicates that he was probably unable to engage some of the newly-published scholarship of his colleagues who have likewise been pairing ecclesiological concepts with the difficult realities and diverse contexts of church history.

Haight "intends to do more than simply lay out the various ecclesiologies that have been generated in the course of history. . . . Drawing out these principles results not in a metahistory of ecclesiologies, but a more empirically based set of guidelines for reflection on the church at any given time. . . . The goal of the work is to display a historical and developing church with multiple ecclesiologies" (pp. 2-3, 6). He pursues this goal by looking at developments in history and theology, while also applying concepts from sociology and anthropology, to form a "multidenominational and interdisciplinary analysis of the church" (p. 11). It should be noted that the author approaches this goal as a systematic theologian and not as an ecclesiologist or a church historian; at times he is not in dialogue with the latest research on particular topics, which weakens especially the chapter on conciliarism.

Each chapter, after the first on methodology, has four similar sections—historical narrative/development, a social-theological (and sometimes anthropological) analysis, a description of the period, and a summary "principles for a Historical Ecclesiology"—treating, in turn, the Church's genesis, the Church before and after Constantine, the Gregorian reform and the medieval Church, and the late medieval Church, considering especially conciliarism. The parallel structure makes for helpful comparisons, particularly for the graduate and seminary student best suited as the book's audience. The volume's technical language and somewhat formal delivery might not work well with undergraduates or the uninformed general reader. For the dedicated reader, however, there is a great reward in learning more about a Church that should be constantly self-reflective; that should discover how she has developed and changed; and that should understand the critical difference and creative tension between continuity and discontinuity in her past and present life.