Christian Community In History: Volume 2: Comparative Ecclesiology

by Roger Haight

"Ecclesiology from below," as it operates in this work, is directed to history; it 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 the first volume that passage was fairly explicit because comprehensive ecclesiologies in our sense did not exist. In this volume ecclesiology itself becomes much more directly the subject matter of the book, but without losing sight of concrete history and the degree to which these ecclesiologies are historically conditioned. Put somewhat differently, the main goal of this "comparative ecclesiology" is not simply to lay down one after another different ecclesiologies that emerged over the last five hundred years, although that describes the book with empirical accuracy. Its larger intent is to show the richness, vitality, and creativity of the whole church as it moves through history, adjusting to new times, places, and cultures.

528 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Roger Haight was an American Jesuit theologian and president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. His experiences with censorship led to widespread debate over how to handle controversial ideas in the Catholic church today.

Reviews

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Height continues his ecclesiology trilogy. He draws heavily on reformed ecclesiology and compares it with Catholic understandings of the church, moving from the Reformation era to present day struggles for church unity. This is a heavy read - I have been reading it and the third volume in bite size chunks over the last few months - but ultimately rewarding. What we see here (and in volume three) is Haight’s attempt to create an ecumenical ecclesiology that stresses common ground over differences while not denying that differences exist. Some will appreciate this, some will not. I fall in the former category.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a great structure as it seeks to examine the ecclesiological developments from the Reformation through the twentieth century. The problem is that there are typos throughout the book, each chapter ends with a ten-page rehash section (which is only general and vague), and Haight (the author) tends to skip over many things. For example, the chapter on the English Reformation is quite poorly done in that it really only focuses on the church structures and changes under Elizabeth. Thomas Cranmer doesn't even really factor into the discussion. Overall, decent book, but I would have rather have had someone else write it.