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Book Reviews / Pneuma 29 (2007) 131-178
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Walter Kasper, T at T ey May All Be One: The Call to Unity Today (London: Burns & Oates, 2004). 202 pp., $25.95, paper.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, who is currently the president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, has in this collection of articles and essays maximized his plat- form from which to address the current state and future prospects of the challenge of ecumen- ism. For the most part, each chapter represents an article revised after having been presented at a conference given on various occasions. The articles have been posted on the Vatican web- site individually, and have now been brought together as a book aimed at reasserting the priority and inescapability of the call to ecumenism for the church of the twenty-first century.
In his survey of the ecumenical landscape Kasper weighs in with insight, creativity, and courage on a broad range of issues. Tese include his balanced perspective on communio- unity as the guiding concept of Catholic ecumenical theology; the importance of the Vati- can II concept of “sister churches” ecclesiology in the resolution of divisions between the Latin Church and the Eastern Church; the ecumenical significance of the differentiated con- sensus reached by Lutherans and Catholics as represented by the Official Common Statement of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification; his utilization of then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s insights in boldly calling for new forms and expressions in the exercise of the Petrine Ministry that could have implications for visible church unity; and a nuanced approach to contemporary pluralism that engages and critiques both postmodern philosophy and religious pluralism while positioning the church in a dialogic and diaconal relationship with other religions. Along the way Kasper engages Catholic and ecumenical theologians and the primary ecumenical documents that have emerged out of and since Vatican II, and he is particularly fond of the ecumenical theology of Johann Adam Möhler of the Catholic Tübingen school. But I will confine extended remarks to two of his issues of emphasis: the renewal of pneumatology in contemporary Catholic life and theology, and the idea of spir- itual ecumenism.
Kasper engages Pentecostals in his discussion of pneumatology as a fundamental ecu- menical problem. He places importance on how to understand Christian freedom, tracing the concept of the freedom of the Holy Spirit as a church-dividing issue from Orthodoxy and the filioque controversy, through the revivalistic and pietistic movements and Free churches emerging after the Reformation, and most recently as expressed through the Pen- tecostal and Charismatic movements. While he criticizes Pentecostals as not being the easi- est of dialogue partners, and criticizes their aggressive, proselytizing reputation among the Catholic Church in Latin America, he nevertheless affirms their beliefs and ethical convic- tions, summarizing them as “serious Christians who lack a developed ecclesiology, espe- cially a universal ecclesiology which transcends their respective local communities” (25). He marks the significance of the current international dialogue between his office and Pen- tecostals, stating that the questions raised by it will be of great importance for the future of ecumenical dialogue.
Kasper credits Vatican II’s emphasis on mutual relationship between bishops, priests, and lay people built on brotherhood and friendship with helping to usher in the Catholic Char- ismatic Renewal. He sees the invigorating effect of the Charismatic Renewal within the
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 DOI: 10.1163/157007407X178300
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Book Reviews / Pneuma 29 (2007) 131-178
sacramental structure of the church as a model of communal freedom of the Holy Spirit in which “the different roles and charismas co-operate in an open interplay,” and where the Spirit is “not beside but within and through the ecclesial communion, which is at the same time both institution and an ever-new charismatic event” (27, 103-4).
One of the key concepts to which Kasper returns throughout the book is that of spiritual ecumenism. He echoes Vatican II and John Paul II in calling spiritual ecumenism the heart of the ecumenical movement. He calls for an ecumenical spirituality that is biblical, chris- tological, sacramental, and ecclesiological. An ecumenical spirituality functions as the con- science of the church; it always thinks ahead prophetically and anticipates a lifestyle that can become the paradigm for the whole church as (from John Paul II) the recognition of the other in his or her otherness. Kasper calls for ecumenical dialogue that “does not aim to convert others to our side,” although “individual conversions cannot and must not be excluded,” and great respect must be given to such decisions of conscience (170). Ulti- mately, Kasper challenges all to a continuing, never-ending process of conversion and to dialogue that strives for reconciliation without absorption. Spiritual ecumenism will lead to consensus that, while experienced as a gift of the Holy Spirit, must be prepared for through many consensual processes at different levels of the life of the church. Kasper expresses the hope that one day there will be a future consensus of the universal church, one that will be experienced as a renewed Pentecost experience (172).
Reviewed by David Cole
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Troy Day
the whole unit in the Noah community was NOT in Wagner @followers Philip Williams
Troy Day
Desiring to avoid what he sees as contemporary misunderstandings of “Spirit,” John A. Studebaker, Jr., Adjunct Professor at Cornerstone University and Spring Arbor University and Executive Director of Bridge Ministries in Michigan, raises the question of the Holy Spirit’s authority. Studebaker contends that among the proliferation of recent scholarship on pneumatology, the Spirit’s authority — not to be confused with the Spirit’s power — remains largely unarticulated. He states that this is detrimental to both systematic and practical theology and that evangelicals need to recognize the fundamental importance of a theology of the Spirit’s authority, even to the extent of giving it place within theological prolegomena. Studebaker’s inquiry leads to considerations of the Spirit’s role within the larger pattern of divine authority, various aspects of the Spirit’s authority (e.g., “executo- rial,” “veracious,” and “governing”) and their relationship to the authority of Christ, as well as their implications for hermeneutics, church structure and guidance, and Christian spiri- tuality. He proceeds by examining relevant pneumatological debates in the history of theol- ogy, assessing some tendencies in current systematic theology in light of select scriptures, and addressing the import of the Spirit’s authority for church practices. Studebaker’s most consistent argument is that the Spirit is a “person” that cannot be reduced to human sub- jectivity or to an inanimate force or process within the world. In fact, this is a primary reason that he goes to such lengths to demonstrate from scripture that the Spirit acts authoritatively, usually in contrast to fi gures like Jürgen Moltmann and Peter Hodgson, whom he curiously and with little elaboration labels “postmodern.” Decrying the overem- phasis on the Spirit’s immanence in their “panentheism,” Studebaker reasserts the Spirit’s transcendence — wishing to balance the two — by enlisting Colin Gunton, Paul Molnar, and T omas F. Torrance. While this engagement with the Spirit’s personhood is not prob- lematic in itself, it receives inordinate attention in a book devoted to the conceptual rela- tionship between “Spirit” and “authority.” Too frequently arguments return to the rather banal conclusion that the Spirit is a divine person who acts.