Jesus and the Church, the first of a projected two-volume work, develops ideas that Paul Avis has worked on for almost 40 years. It aims to do two things. First, it offers a constructive overview of biblical language about the church. Second, it surveys Protestant, Catholic, and Anglican answers to the question, ‘Is the church what Jesus meant to happen?’ (p. 15). Each of these goals occupies roughly one half of the volume. Avis is unapologetically foundationalist in his approach. Although recognizing that, in the wake of post-structuralism, foundationalist appeals are generally derided, Avis counters that biblical imagery and the larger history of Christian hymnody render ‘foundation’ an inescapable ecclesiological concept.
The first half of the book is excellent. These five chapters offer much helpful introductory material for thinking about the Church. Drawing upon his earlier scholarship on metaphor, Avis compellingly defends asking whether and how Jesus is rightly described as foundational. Insofar as the history of Christian thought begins with Scripture, and insofar as the public reading of Scripture is liturgically central to all churches, the third and fourth chapters are worthy of especial note. The former explicates the English vocabulary for church, the relationship of Greek to English, and shifts in meaning through translation. The latter ranges across New Testament images of Christ and the Church, concluding that the Church is fundamentally corporate.
The second half of the book contains three chapters that respectively analyse Protestant, Catholic, and Anglican theologians from roughly the last 100 years. The goal is to look at the current state of ecclesiological thought. Here Avis is less consistent. Some authors receive more sustained analysis than others, but it is not clear why. For example, in the chapter on Protestantism, Avis covers Schleiermacher in 8 pages, von Harnack in 4, and Barth in 16. Why? The same inconsistency is found in the chapters on Catholic and Anglican theologians.
But one might press the matter further. Can a survey of theological writings really offer helpful insight into modern ecclesiology? The Lambeth Conference was not the product of theologians; nor was the World Council of Churches; nor was Vatican II. The institutional framework of any church will be less influenced by academic theology than theologians might like, but this might say more about theologians than about churches. Religion is a thing of the heart, sustained more by bedtime prayers between parents and children than by academic lectures between professors and ordinands. Ecclesiology should be intimately bound up with the experience of being and doing Church.
It might be that, going forward, it would be helpful to reflect not only upon major theological treatises, but upon the dissemination of key texts as well. Thus in a chapter on Catholicism, the Catechism of the Catholic Church would have pride of place, as it is used around the world; various papal and conciliar documents would follow; the work of theologians, however interesting to other theologians, would likely come in a distant third.
What is the relationship of theology to the Church? It is a question for ecclesiologists – but not just ecclesiologists. Nonetheless, there is much valuable material here.
