People Of Bread Rediscovering Ecclesiology

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Book Reviews / Pneuma 31 (2009) 291-329

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Wolfgang Vondey, People of Bread: Rediscovering Ecclesiology (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2008). xi + 420 pp., $29.95, paper.

The ecclesiological literature has been enriched in recent years by a new and vital interest from scholars in the Pentecostal and evangelical traditions. This volume is an important contribution to that literature. It is solidly grounded in biblical scholarship, enriched by resources from history and contemporary theological discussions, and attentive to the urgent needs of the present world.

Vondey moves the discussion of bread, community, and church out of the often narrow, ritual framework developed in liturgical and sacramental studies over the centuries in the classical churches to a fundamentally biblical, relational, and world oriented theology that is both a challenge and resource for contemporary ecumenical discussions.

The volume includes seven chapters with introduction and conclusions. The introduc- tion and ﬁrst chapter lay out important methodological considerations, outlining the mul- tiplicity of approaches to ecclesiology, to biblical uses of bread and community, and to the role of images in illuminating theological understanding. He clariﬁ es his methodology as an oﬀ ering to the churches and their theologians rather than a deﬁ nitive and normative ecclesiological treatment.

Subsequent chapters treat the themes of companionship/koinonia, hospitality ethics, mission and outreach, the sacramental nature of the church including the Lord’s Supper, eschatology, and the ecumenical vision of unity rooted in a theology of universal hospitality. The conclusions both synthesize the arguments of the volume and challenge the churches and theological community with his particular proposals.

Vondey is particularly skillful in surfacing a variety of meal, bread, and fellowship situa- tions and texts from both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, bringing to bear the best of modern scholarship while using them to provide a fresh perspective on the theol- ogy of the Church and its mission in the world. His approach to mission transcends the narrow conﬁ nes of evangelism, developing from an ethic of hospitality and ecclesiology of communion to a strong, active role of the Church in identiﬁ cation with the poor, transfor- mation of the environment, and building an inclusive community in Christ by the power of the Spirit. He has a particularly fascinating development of discernment, and an active eschatology of engagement.

Vondey’s own view of the role of the Lord’s Supper is more central than in traditional evangelical and Pentecostal ecclesiologies, and more mission-oriented and hospitable than the more classical Orthodox and Catholic ecclesiologies. He draws creatively on a wide variety of Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic ecclesiological, missionary, and sacramental reﬂ ections to illuminate what is fundamentally a biblical and pastoral approach to the Church. Finally, he proposes a diversiﬁ ed community in solidarity around a common table:

The table of bread is not formed by one universal ecclesiology but by a variety of eccle- sial self-understandings and nuances that are theologically complementary and desir- able since they are often born from and determined by the people’s experience and praxis of faith rather than a division of doctrine. (304)

Reviewed by Jeﬀ rey Gros, FSC

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