Reddit mentions: The best ecclesiology books

In addition to all the great suggestions already in this thread, I'll recommend two more specific, narrowly-focused books by Mark Dever: The Church and By Whose Authority? Elders in Baptist Life. I know that you're not looking for full-length books right now, but both of these are fairly short, easy reads.

One of the biggest points of divergence between Reformed Baptist theology and pretty much all other branches of Reformed theology is the issue of ecclesiology. Whereas most other branches of Reformed theology place a great emphasis on structure, authority, and upward chains of accountability within denominations, a central tenant of Baptist theology has always been local church autonomy. Thus, because each church is in charge of its own structure and is beholden only to itself, it's hard to make blanket statements about Reformed Baptist ecclesiology. That being said, I think Mark Dever's two books do a great job of explaining some good, solid principles from a distinctly Reformed Baptist perspective. Often, a lot of Baptist churches with a reformed bent merely accept a Calvinist soteriology without really incorporating too much more from Reformed traditions. Dever, on the other hand, really focuses a lot on the structure, function, and purpose of the church in his writings in a way you don't see that often, especially from big name, prominent Baptists.

There is a lot of interesting writing out there about pastors who are pushing the envelope on humanism/consequentialism/secularism, naturalism, deism, biblical non-literalism, and other things that are so religiously liberal, they're practically atheism. The envelope is different in different places (a pastor can get a lot further in Seattle than in St Louis, a lot further in a United Church of Christ than in a Southern Baptist church), and different pastors feel more or less need to push it, but it's a very interesting dynamic. Every pastor learns in seminary that the Sunday-school understanding of God and the Bible and Jesus are wildly oversimplified, and the pastor must then decide how much of their deeper and more nuanced understanding to bring into their church. Saying these things will "rock the boat" and will make the pastor "sound like an atheist" to many of the church-goers. How does the pastor reconcile their narrow-mindedness with his duty and desire to make them honest and capable religious thinkers?

As an atheist, I try really hard to understand the religious mindset, so I got a whole lot out of reading "The Dishonest Church"; It's a book about this tense issue, written by a Christian pastor who laments the fact that most Christian church-goers are not very free-thinking and this causes good pastors to have to hide a lot of their relatively enlightened views. A more extreme version of this are pastors who have become atheists but who feel they cannot leave their jobs for a variety of reasons. That phenomenon is being studied by Daniel Dennett; He has a very interesting preliminary article here and a video about it here.

TL;DR: “Oh, you can’t go through seminary and come out believing in God!” (Quote from Dennett's paper by one of the pastors he interviewed).

> See a problem with traditionalism and an authoritarian system like the Vatican?

That's not how the Magisterium works. Neo-conservative Catholics may act that way, but most of the things that come from the modern Vatican are not high level or authoritative. Proclaiming a "year of Darwin" for example doesn't mean I have to hold Darwin as some kind of saint or hero. It just means that the Pope and some people in the Vatican wanted to do that for whatever personal reason. But that action and others like it doesn't employ infallibility and they certainly do not have a gift of impeccability. Neo-Conservative Catholics like to defend the modern status quo even to the point of rejecting past teaching in favor of modern or novel ideas. But the principle that proper belief should be what was always and everywhere taught has been established long ago.

Humani Generis allowed for "research and discussion" but it did not accept evolution as doctrine or as more than a theory. Included in his call for research and discussion was to hear out both sides, which includes the "creationist" side, which simply states correctly that all of the Church Fathers believed in a literal interpretation of Genesis. Which really, is supported by Humani Generis in the sense that Humani Generis states that Adam and Eve were real people, and not only real people but the first couple.

I've summarized a number of sources in this thread.

A better explanation of magisterial authority can be found in Fr. Ripperger's book Magisterial Authority.

Hey, thanks for briefly sharing your experiences. I would be interested in hearing more if you have the time. Do you align with a denomination of Christianity, or are you non-denominational? If you do consider yourself of a particular denomination, what one, and what are the primary reasons for the choice?

It sounds to me like you don't hold your beliefs (about Christianity) with certainty (correct me if I am wrong). To me this is a great thing to see, and in my particular experience more unexpected than not for a Christian. On this point, do you think that certainty is a bit too common in modern Christianity? I know Christianity isn't uniform and can't be generalized, but it is a common experience for me to see absolute certainty in Christianity, and I don't think it can be entirely explained by a selection bias on my part.

If you agree with me on this point, as a Christian how what do you think are the most effective methods for reducing certainty? Do theologians and scholars need to do more to make information available to congregations? Is it the responsibility of pastors etc to convey modern learnings and their implications on certainty?

This book I found to be an eye opener on the subject.

I'm currently reading Alan Jacob's The "Book of Common Prayer": A Biography.

Next up is Economic Shalom: A Reformed Primer on Faith, Work, and Human Flourishing by John Bolt.

Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic ed. by Michael Allen and Scott Swain will jump to the top of my list when it comes out in April.

I don't generally plan what I'm going to read very far in the future, but here's an (incomplete) list of books I'm wanting to read. I almost certainly won't get to all of them this year (if ever).

• A History of Western Philosophy and Theology by John Frame
  
• Baptists in America: A History by Thomas Kidd and Barry Hankins
  
• Church History: An Essential Guide Paperback by Justo L. González
  
• Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought by Marilynne Robinson
  
• Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation by Jamie Smith
  
• Faith Speaking Understanding: Performing the Drama of Doctrine by Kevin Vanhoozer
  
• How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor by James K. A. Smith
  
• Knowing Christ by Mark Jones
  
• Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel by Russell Moore
  
• Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume by Herman Bavinck.
  
• The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus by Michael Bird
  
• Union with Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church by Todd Billings.

As a current student in Seminary (Lutheran, on my Vicarage year), I think very highly of the Book of Concord, written by the German reformers who would eventually become known as the Lutheran Church.

I also can't recommend highly enough Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology vol I II & III. They're notoriously dry, but incredibly brilliant and fairly concise, given the topic he works with.

Gordon Lathrop is also an incredible author, and has changed the way I understand the liturgy, tradition, and the Church itself. His 'Holy ____' trilogy (Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology, Holy People: A Liturgical Ecclesiology, and Holy Ground: A Liturgical Cosmology) is something that I think many Christians would find insightful, interesting, and surprisingly poetic.

I will spare you a long reply and suggest that you read the recently released The Word of God and the Words of Man (Books II and III of Hooker's Laws), released by Davenant Trust and available on Amazon here. The 16th century language has been updated and is happily accessible to a broad lay audience today.

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Hooker provides a thoughtful, nuanced handling of Holy Scripture and its relationship to human authority, defending both its clarity against Rome's innovations, but also pointing out its boundaries against a sort of comprehensive, subjective employment advocated by the early English Puritans.

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It is a work, as the late, great Fr. Peter Toon used to emphasize, that is both Reformed and Catholic, as the Church must always be.

Yes, all good points! Chan has written a whole book about liturgical theology. I've never read it but would really like to one day. I'm sure he would agree with much of what Benedict is saying

If you want an actual Orthodox point of view on this, instead of a Catholic view of the Orthodox view, read The Primacy of Peter. It contains the referenced article by Fr. Nicholas Afanassieff. Further reading might include You are Peter, by Olivier Clement, and Eucharist, Bishop, Church by Metropolitan John Zizoulas.

There's also the excellent His Broken Body by Fr. Laurent A. Cleenewerck, which should basically be required reading for anyone remotely interested in the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.

There's also Primacy in the Church (Volume 1), which will be coming out on Jan 31st. It contains the essay often recommended by /u/LeonceDeByzance, The Meaning and Exercise of “Primacies of Honor” in the Early Church by Fr. Brian Daley, SJ, which I haven't had access to until now, and am quite interested to read. The rest of this anthology looks similarly excellent.

> Baptist

Enter, in response, a new focus on "Evangelicals and Tradition". You can see this in American Baptist academics like Steve Harmon (GARDNER WEBB), Barry Harvey, D.H. Williams, , Ralph Wood, (ALL BAYLOR) and Curtis Freeman (sort of) (AT DUKE) among others who see what evangelicalism has lost and are trying to frame Baptist life not as a restoration/ total breaking away from a church tradition but part of the larger whole--and open to looking to and respecting it in liturgy and practices even while maintaining some Baptist distinctives.

For example, Ralph Woods church does some of the stations of the cross and weekly observance of the Eucharist/ Lord's supper is becoming somewhat more common.

I'm a Baptist who sort of counts himself as part of this camp. So I'm interested in the phenomenon.

No. It implies that you have not gone public in your salvation. I'm not close communion myself, but I do understand the logic. If the church has a responsibility to see to it that the elements are distributed only to worthy recipients, it makes sense that the definitive external sign of conversion is a prerequisite for partaking. Personally, I don't believe that "if" is true. I think Paul leaves the process of determining worthiness up to the partaker not the body as a whole.

If you would like a more developed case for close (baptism required) communion, see Bobby Jamieson's book Going Public or this highly condensed article version of the book.

>taxation is wrong because it is essentially stealing money from people to fund the government.…Is taxation not essentially theft and thus immoral?

Taxation is not theft because, under God, the government has lawful authority over the legal definition of property and its limits and/or obligations. Private property, although having some type of grounding in natural law, is primarily a matter of human law and is subject to prudential deliberation.

>If Christ has all authority in Heaven and on Earth, shouldn’t biblical law be the standard in our governments?

>Are my theonomic/reconstructionist tendencies wrong?…Is Christ’s rule of Heaven and Earth right now mean something different?

Theonomy/reconstruction is right to say that Christ has authority even over all governments and politics and societies. It is wrong to think that this requires implementing the Mosaic civil code. See Theocracy without Theonomy at the Calvinist International, and Richard Hooker's superb explanation of law in Divine Law and Human Nature: Book I of Hooker's Laws: A Modernization and The Word of God and the Words of Man: Books II and III of Richard Hooker's Laws: A Modernization.

I really enjoyed this article. I think one of the most powerful aspects of Christian unity is its diversity. Or as de Lubac might have put it, "catholicity is primarily diversity rendered harmonious." And I think this goes well beyond racial and socioeconomic diversity - it can extend to practices (various rites), disciplines, devotions, and some doctrine (not dogma). The church was never, and should never be, a homogeneous group of like-minded people.

As a recent re-vert to the Catholic faith, this was one of the most appealing aspects of the Catholic church to me. Not that diversity is a goal in and of itself, but isn't this kind of diversity what the church should be made up of?

Ed Clowney, The Church

Cornelius Van Dam, The Elder

Newsom and Habig, The Enduring Community

James Bannerman, The Church of Christ

Michael Horton, People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology is decent, but I diverge from him on a number of points.

Ligonier has a list of books, as well, but I haven't read some of these, so I won't be helpful on the ones not mentioned here.

Also pick up any systematic theology like Berhof, Bavinck, Calvin, etc. They've got sections on Ecclesiology (Book 4 for Calvin).

It's not on kindle yet but you should give this book a proper read for a good understanding of Magisterial Authority (i.e. what is infallible, when is a council or pope infallible, ect.)

Magisterial Authority by Fr. Ripperger

If you want I can scan you a few chapters and send them to you when I am not at work.

If you want more than a soundbite, I suggest doing some reading. Here is a great book to get you started.

Currently in the middle of reading Fr. Adrian Fortescue's The Early Papacy: To the Synod of Chalcedon in 451. It has been a good read so far on understanding the papacy in general.

I also got His Broken Body. I heard it gives a good understanding of the schism between East and West, albeit from an Orthodox perspective. Not exactly what you may be looking for, but may contribute as well.

This is the book you’re looking for if you want a fair rundown of the historical and theological divergences. Others can suggest more general books on Orthodoxy, such as those by Ware. Happy reading!

His Broken Body: Understanding and Healing the Schism between the Roman Catholic: An Orthodox Perspective - Expanded Edition

Here's a book I think might help you make a decision. It's called The Church Event: Call and Challenge of a Church Protestant by Vitor Westhelle. He discusses the church as an entity that can become either too focused on itself (thus becoming guilty of Idol worship, i.e. focusing more on itself than the Church within the world) or too focused on the outside world (thus becoming demonic, i.e. unable to speak for itself). Many churches have a hard time finding the balance between the two, where Church does the most good. It is a difficult read, but it may shed some further light as to what could be causing issues for you in your church.

Christian Theology by Millard Erickson would have a baptistic view of ecclesiology. Charles Hodges systematic theology would be reformed and probably more presbyterian. The book I used in Bible college is the one by Everett Fergeson The Church of Christ. Lot's of scripture. Edmund Clowney's book The Church From the Contours of Christian Theology series would be worth looking at too. Let us know how it goes.

This book is helping me through this same question at the moment. The basic thrust is that the Orthodox view St Peter’s chair as being held by all bishops, not just the bishop of Rome

I think part of the problem nowadays is a lack of understanding on the heirarchy of the levels of magisterial teaching and the assent we have to give to various teaching.

Truth cannot contradict truth and we must always base our understanding of things on first principles. The teachings of the doctors of the church and specifically St.thomas aquinas are of a higher import than other theologians.

The magisterium of the church has itself given a higher place to The teaching of St. Thomas especially and also St. Alphonsus as he is the doctor of moral theology.

I think if everyone read the following two books it would help tremendously in our understanding of how the Tradition of the church and the binding force of the various levels of the magisterium.

http://www.amazon.com/Binding-Force-Tradition-Chad-Ripperger/dp/0615785557

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1503022420/ref=pd_aw_sim_b_1?refRID=173BEEXXM4JP875HHD5W

I cannot recommend Fr. Ripperger enough, these works are fairly short but full of numerous footnotes to further investigate the sources.

Perhaps we should add a good book on the schism to the suggested reading on the sidebar, such as His Broken Body or The Primacy of Peter.

That's a suuuuper complicated question.

I don't think a Christian political state is inherently a bad thing, but historically it's resulted in fallible humans trying to claim some of God's sovereignty for themselves. And in some sense, the Church always has a political aspect, though not quite the same aspect as the State. I also believe that all things are ordained by God in some sense, so even evil political leaders can end up enforcing God's social order, but not intentionally.

Our "separation of Church and State" model (which comes from Augustine via Luther) has, in practice, usually ended up turning into "subsuming of Church into State", where the State takes over some of the functions that historically belong to the Church. This includes some ultimate attributes, symbolic immortality, etc. It's been a slow migration. People living in politically stable areas (so disregarding tribal warfare, e.g. Britain during the Dark Ages, for now) who were once willing to die for "God" then were willing to die for "God and Country" and then "King and Country" and now just "Country".

So, I guess my answer is "kinda" and also "you should read some William Cavanaugh".

> Where? I could have missed it, it's true. They put out a good amount of vids. But I see no acknowledgment of failure, or responsibilities, of the clergy. Clergy responsibilities are regarded as 'Church' responsibilities, spoken of in terms of "we/us". Laity responsibilities are spoken of in singling out the laity.

Fr. Ripperger literally wrote a book about the problems created by the hierarchy and their poor management of authority. Its called Magisterial Authority.

He also wrote a rather well-known piece (at least, among trads around here) about the difference between 'conservative' and 'traditional' Catholicism.

Further, his book The Binding Force of Tradition touches on the duties of the hierarchy. I'm sure there is more out there. Suffice it to say, Fr. Ripperger isn't one of the priests guilty of ignoring the problems in the Church - which is one of the reasons why I'd give more weight to his criticism of the traditional movement than any random speaker.

> When it's good advice, yes. But here's an ongoing problem with Christians: they mistake masochism for humility. To the point where criticisms of their faults is taken as, by default, true.

I agree with you - it is a mistake to take any criticism as truth without examining it, as is often the case when the world criticizes the faith or the Church to modern Catholics. But I see the opposite problem in the case of many fellow trads, where criticism is brushed off without examining it and praying/meditating about. Perhaps this isn't an issue elsewhere?