Great God, in Christ You Call Our Name

This year’s Good Friday hymn is one that belongs more appropriately to Maundy Thursday. I cited stanzas three and four (below) at our church’s Maundy Thursday Breaking of Bread service this year.

I always find the stanzas deeply moving when I return to them. They’re a much-needed reminder that if I don’t always see Jesus, it’s probably because I’m looking in the wrong place. He’s not necessarily ‘up there somewhere’; as often as not, he’s ‘down there’, washing out the muck between my toes.

Great God, your love has called us here

as we, by love, for love were made.

Your living likeness still we bear,

though marred, dishonoured, disobeyed.

We come, with all our heart and mind,

your call to hear, your love to find.

We come with self-inflicted pains

of broken trust and chosen wrong;

half-free, half-bound by inner chains;

by social forces swept along,

by powers and systems close confined;

yet seeking hope for humankind.

Great God, in Christ you call our name

and then receive us as your own,

not through some merit, right or claim

but by your gracious love alone.

We strain to glimpse your mercy-seat

and find you kneeling at our feet.

Then take the towel, and break the bread,

and humble us, and call us friends.

Suffer and serve till all are fed,

and show how grandly love intends

to work till all creation sings,

to fill all worlds, to crown all things.

Great God, in Christ you set us free

your life to live, your joy to share.

Give us your Spirit’s liberty

to turn from guilt and dull despair

and offer all that faith can do

while love is making all things new

Brian Wren (b. 1936)

Foundations 69 (Autumn 2015)

Issue 69 of Foundations: An International Journal of Evangelical Theology, published by Affinity, is now available (here in its entirety as a pdf), with the following contributions:

Ralph Cunnington

Editorial

Nathan Weston

“But That’s Just Your Interpretation!”: Foundations for an Evangelical Response

Postmodern scholarship has radically challenged the notion that texts have clear and accessible meaning which corresponds to the author’s intent. This has led to particular scepticism towards any claim of certainty within biblical interpretation. At best, such certainty is largely considered to be inappropriate and potentially divisive; at worst it is thought to represent a manipulative power play. Christians are often confronted which such scepticism when they seek to propound Scriptural truth to outsiders (or even to those in their churches), often expressed in the objection: “that’s just your interpretation”. This article aims to provide the foundations for an evangelical response to this scepticism, arguing that the only secure criterion for religious (or indeed any) knowledge is a revealed word from the truthful Father applied by his Spirit to the heart of a sinner redeemed by his Son.

Ralph Cunnington

The Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper in Adolphe Monod’s Preaching

This article traces out the significance of the Lord’s Supper in the life and ministry of Adolphe Monod, a minister in the French Reformed Church during the nineteenth century. The Supper held a high place in his theological and pastoral thinking and played a crucial role in disputes in both Lyons and Paris. While Monod’s Reformed contemporaries in North America were jettisoning Calvin’s doctrine in favour of a modified Zwinglian view, Monod remained committed to it. For Monod, communion was “the Lord’s love feast” and it was a feast he could not bear to see profaned.

Robert Strivens

Response to John Stevens, “Not Reformed Enough: Critiquing Contemporary Practice of the Lord’s Supper”

This article is a response to John Stevens’ contribution to “Foundations 68” (Spring 2015), in which he argues that the NT views the Lord’s Supper as a new covenant community celebration meal. It argues from systematics, church history and biblical exegesis that the Lord’s Supper does not require a full meal but that, as one of the two new covenant sacraments, it is a visible sign which points to gracious spiritual realities and by which believers participate in those realities by faith. It is argued that John over-emphasises the horizontal aspects of the Supper at the expense of the vertical element by which believers together in the Supper come to Christ himself and partake of him by faith. At the same time, it agrees with some of John’s reservations as to the manner in which the Supper is sometimes conducted in evangelical churches, particularly to an overly morose approach which also does not reflect the corporate nature of the Supper. Reform in these areas would be most welcome.

Tim Ward

Book Review:

Preaching with Spiritual Power: Calvin’s Understanding of Word and Spirit in Preaching

Samuel Hyde

Book Review:

The Plausibility Problem: The church and same-sex attraction

Foundations 68 (Spring 2015)

Issue 68 of Foundations: An International Journal of Evangelical Theology, published by Affinity, is now available (here in its entirety as a pdf). This issue looks at the Lord’s Supper from several perspectives within evangelicalism, with the following contributions:

Ralph Cunnington

Editorial

William B. Evans

Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper and its Relevance for Today

Calvin’s approach to the Lord’s Supper, which sought to mediate between the local-presence theologies of Rome and Luther on the one hand and Zwinglian memorialism on the other, is closely connected with his soteriology, eschatology, and ecclesiology. In the Supper, the incarnate humanity of Christ is objectively offered and subjectively received by faith and by the power of the Holy Spirit, and through this union with Christ’s “flesh” both the power of his deity and the forensic benefits of salvation are received. However, subsequent developments in Reformed theology rendered Calvin’s formulations implausible to some, such that by the nineteenth century outright opposition to Calvin’s doctrine of the Supper was being expressed by Reformed luminaries such as Charles Hodge, William Cunningham, and R.L. Dabney. Others, such as J.W. Nevin and J.B. Adger, vigorously supported Calvin’s intentions. Nevertheless, Calvin’s doctrine of the Supper is rooted in Scripture and in the great tradition of the church, and it offers important resources for the renewal of Reformed and Evangelical theology and practice.

John Stevens

Not Reformed Enough: Critiquing Contemporary Practice of the Lord’s Supper

The celebration of the Lord’s Supper is central to the life and worship of most evangelical churches. However contemporary practice of the Lord’s Supper is far removed from that described in the New Testament. Whilst the magisterial reformers overturned the theology of the Roman Catholic Mass they retained its essential shape and failed to introduce a truly biblical pattern to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The contention of this article is that we need to recover the New Testament practice of the Lord’s Supper as a community celebration meal of the New Covenant, eaten in the presence of the Lord Jesus as he dwells with his people by his Spirit in the new temple that is his church. A carefully reading of the key New Testament texts demands a reform that goes beyond resolving the well-trodden differences between a Calvinist and Zwinglian understanding of the Lord’s Supper to a practice that embeds the identity-shaping, assurance-building and community-forming functions of the Lord’s Supper.

Richard Wardman

The Lord’s Supper in England: Then and Now – A Look at How Thomas Cranmer’s Eucharistic Theology Compares with Today

What happens in the Lord’s Supper? To answer that question this article critically explores the mature Eucharistic theology of Thomas Cranmer. Cranmer’s theology is then used as a point of reference for discussing the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper in contemporary English Evangelicalism. The relevant scriptural passages are also explored when discussing both Cranmer and contemporary Evangelicalism. The conclusion seeks to offer comparative remarks and also provide a basis for further discussion.

Ian Hugh Clary

Throwing Away the Guns: Andrew Fuller, William Ward and the Communion Controversy in the Baptist Missionary Fellowship

Since the Baptists first emerged in seventeenth-century England the question of open vs. closed communion has been strongly debated. The majority of Baptists in history were closed communion, believing that only those who have been baptised by immersion on profession of faith should be admitted to the table. This debate had the potential to ruin the Baptist Missionary Society in the eighteenth century. Were it not for the friendship of men like Andrew Fuller and William Ward, who were on opposing ends of the controversy, and their shared sense of mission, the society may have been derailed. This essay traces the history of the debate in early Baptist history and pays particular attention to the BMS. It concludes with brief thoughts on how differences over important doctrines can be handled in the church today.

Oliver Gross

Review Article: Messy Church Theology (ed. George Lings)

Martin Salter

Book Review: Sanctification: Explorations in Theology and Practice (ed. Kelly M. Kapic)

Word & World 33, 4 (2013) on Bread

The latest issue of Word & World is devoted to ‘Bread’. The content (with main articles and abstracts as below) is available from here.

Editorial

Frederick J. Gaiser

On Eating

Articles

Jeff Wild

Anniversary Bread

David Beckmann

Bread for the World: What Pastors and Christians Need to Know about Hunger Today

Worldwide, hunger is retreating. Still, a staggering number of people live in perpetual hunger. Jesus and the prophets call us to respond, and together we can make a difference. But concerted action is required. Donating one can of food at a time, be it ever so useful, will not be sufficient to meet the crisis.

Rebecca P. Judge and Charles Taliaferro

Companionable Bread

Do U.S. trade and agricultural policies promote “companionship” (the “sharing of bread”) with other nations and peoples, or are they ways to exercise control over the bread supply to the detriment of others? The question does not permit an easy answer, but even raising it is important in our consideration of our role in an imperfect world.

Peter Speiser

Farm, Bakery, Table: Reflections on a Path of Daily Bread around the Globe

Participating in the production of our “daily bread” – whether rice in Japan, baguettes in South Africa, or lavash in Armenia – produces not only social and economic insights but theological ones as well. God provides for our physical needs, and Jesus, as the “bread of life,” satisfies even more than the rumbling of our stomachs.

Walter Brueggemann

Food Fight

The “food fight” extends throughout the Bible – the struggle for food between those who have much and those who have little. The fight betrays two contrasting ideologies or theologies about food: the conviction that the world is a closed system of limited resources versus the view that the creation is a process open to the continued gifts of a God who is anything but parsimonious.

Pamela Fickenscher

From Catherine to Katniss: Disordered Eating, Resistance, and the Eucharist

In a culture of bread and circuses, when some are obsessed with food and bodies but seldom name God as the source of nourishment and growth, the Christian community has the opportunity to celebrate and proclaim Holy Communion – the “body of Christ” – in life-giving ways that resist the reduction of food and bodies to market consumption.

Susan E. Hylen

Seeing Jesus John’s Way: Manna from Heaven

By using manna as a metaphor for Jesus, John points backwards to understand Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection as part of the Jewish story that begins with the exodus; John also points forward to the Eucharist, allowing those who partake of Jesus as manna to walk as Israelites and disciples whom God feeds with the bread of life.

Bryce Johnson

The Bread of Life

A community bread oven can be a way to gather members of a congregation and the broader community. In the oven, people bake the “bread of life” – both for their own use and the Eucharist – and they become the body of Christ in a new way.

Frederick J. Gaiser

Which Bethlehem? A Tale of Two Cities

Two stories of Bethlehem (the “house of bread”), back to back in our present Bibles, contrast the ugly consequences of hospitality denied (the Outrage at Gibeah) and the delightful consequences of hospitality given (Ruth). The hospitality granted Ruth leads even to the messianic line of Jesus – a remarkable promise to us and a lesson for our own behavior.

Face to Face

Christian Scharen

Vocational Formation for Ministry: The Need for Contextual Reflection

Walter Sundberg

Vocational Formation for Ministry: The Need for the Classical Disciplines

Texts in Context

Shauna K. Hannan

When Scripture Speaks out of Both Sides of Its Mouth: Dueling Preachers on a Faithful Food Ethic

So which is it? Do we, with Scripture, enjoy the abundance God has provided? Or do we, with Scripture, practice care for those who suffer hunger? Before we get to a too-easy “both,” we should think more deeply and theologically about the implications of each.

Reviews

Kim Riddlebarger on the Lord’s Supper

Kim Riddlebarger, ‘The Reformation of the Supper’, in R. Scott Clark and Joel E. Kim (eds.), Always Reformed: Essays in Honor of W. Robert Godfrey (Westminster Seminary California, 2012), 192-207.

The above essay is available here as a pdf.

Essentially, Riddlebarger seeks ‘to offer a rationale for the frequent (weekly) celebration of the Lord’s Supper’ (192).

His argument unfolds in three sections:

(1) The biblical evidence for the frequent celebration of the Lord’s Supper – looking especially at Acts 2:42, 20:7, and 1 Corinthians 11:17-22.

(2) The historical evidence for frequent celebration of the Lord’s Supper – taking in the Didache, Justin’s First Apology, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Calvin, Zacharias Ursinus, John Owen, and Thomas Goodwin.

(3) Some pastoral and theological implications of frequent celebration – interestingly suggesting that a less frequent celebration tends to lead to introspection and self-examination while those who ‘come to the table with confidence of knowing that we are justified sinners’ (205) will tend toward a more frequent celebration.

‘Because the observance of the Lord’s Supper is the logical (and liturgical) culmination of the preaching of the word, the frequent celebration of the Lord’s Supper provides the fitting, natural and, dare I say, “biblical” culmination of the worship service. The gospel promises are proclaimed from the word, and then ratified in the Supper... The Supper not only strengthens our faith, but it reminds us that all believers are members of Christ’s one body. Not only this, in the Supper we are continually pointed ahead to the great messianic feast when Christ’s kingdom is finally and gloriously consummated (cf. Rev 19:7–9). In light of this, it is proper to conclude that the preached word naturally leads to (and culminates in) the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, as seen in the apostolic pattern’ (206).

N.T. Wright on the Meal Jesus Gave Us

Tom Wright, Holy Communion for Amateurs (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999), viii + 97pp., ISBN 978-0340745793.

[The following review was first published on London School of Theology’s website in January 2000. The book has since been published in the United States by Westminster John Knox Press with the title The Meal Jesus Gave Us: Understanding Holy Communion.]

The author stands with the best of the best New Testament scholars in the world today. The large heavyweight books he has published have ‘N.T. Wright’ on the spine; but to many, he is Tom Wright, former Dean of Lichfield Cathedral [and now Bishop of Durham since 2003], and author of Lent Guides and many other helpful semi-devotional works. Here he offers a popular introduction to Holy Communion (or the Jesus-meal, as he calls it), in Hodder & Stoughton’s new ‘For Amateurs’ series.

Those familiar with some of his fuller works will smile as the discussion in the book embraces the importance of ‘symbols’ and ‘stories’ for how we understand ourselves and the world in which we live. Nor will it come as any surprise that a few of the fifteen short chapters are devoted to looking at the Old Testament and New Testament (both Jewish and Pagan) setting to the Jesus-meal. Nor again that the focus of Christian end-time hope is for the renewal of all creation.

Not that one needs to have prior knowledge of that material to get the best out of the book. Unlike some other volumes which bear the designation ‘for amateurs’ or ‘for beginners’, this one is clear and concise, with full use of helpful illustrations and stories, as the author leads us through the Jewish Passover meal to the Last Supper (‘or was it the first?’, he asks) to the breaking of bread in the early church to wherever the Jesus-meal is celebrated by Christians today, and its significance both in looking back and in anticipating what’s to come.

Along the way he deals with some of the historical and theological issues (e.g., the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, the disagreement between Luther and Zwingli, Thomas Cranmer’s influence on the Prayer Book) – all in a way that will introduce the significance of those things to the novice, and which may make many a seasoned theologian a little envious of his ability to present the pertinent material in such an appetising way.

The book might well be used by a home-group leader as the basis for some studies on the topic, or a copy could bought for a church library. It would be a shame if the inflated cover price for a relatively slim volume kept potential readers away from such a helpful introduction to one of the foremost celebrations of the church.