One should not be tempted to judge a book by its cover, but, were one to do so in the case of this latest elegantly produced and highly attractive contribution to the Oxford University Press's series of theological handbooks, one would not be misled: favourable first impressions are more than confirmed when sustained attention is given to the text itself.
The handbook's editors set themselves an ambitious triple task, and, on the whole, they succeed in accomplishing it, providing a context in which over forty theologians from diverse traditions come together in a project which is both ecumenically generous and intellectually robust, neither overlooking the differences confessional allegiance makes to the shape of sacramental theology nor magnifying such differences polemically.
Professors Levering and Boersma sum up the threefold purpose of the volume as historical, ecumenical and missiological, and this description of the project well expresses their shared belief in the possibility of a scholarship which is simultaneously, in their own words, ‘painstakingly objective’ and religiously committed. Contributions from Catholic, Orthodox and a variety of Protestant sources speak of that commitment, inevitably, in different accents, but always in a way grounded in humble acknowledgment of a shared desire to explore and communicate truth. This confidence about the at least partial availability, and the academic respectability, of theological truth is audible in all the otherwise disparate voices represented in the collection, and perhaps constitutes the work's deepest unifying principle.
Slightly more than half of the essays in the Handbook are historical surveys, beginning with a very comprehensive set of articles on broadly biblical themes which deal with the Hebrew Bible and the inter‐testamental literature as well as the obvious New Testament foci of sacramental interest, and continuing with contributions on patristic, medieval, early modern, modern and contemporary sacramental theology. In the patristic and medieval sections, due attention is given to the difference of emphases between East and West, whilst the articles on post‐Reformation themes cover not only developments within Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran sacramentology but also within Christian traditions at first sight less obviously marked by a high degree of sacramental sensibility, including those communities stemming from the Radical Reformation. Whilst each essay evinces acutely specialised scholarship, in most cases they do so in highly accessible terms. Thus, very many of these texts, each of which is relatively brief and furnished with its own bibliography, could usefully find a place on reading lists for first degree courses in scripture, church history and doctrinal development, offering as they do, careful and balanced introductions to complex and often controverted areas of study.
At the same time, there is much here that is fresh, and in the very best sense of the word provocative. To give but one instance of this, in John D Rempel's essay on Radical Reformation sacramentology there is a striking assertion of a ‘parallel of thought’ between Anabaptist and patristic Eucharistic ecclesiology. This example is both telling and representative because of the use the Mennonite author makes of 20th century Catholic scholarship: one might take issue with aspects of Rempel's reading of Henri de Lubac's seminal work on the concept of the Corpus Mysticum, but it is surely a case of the ecumenical desideratum outlined by the editors in their introduction: an invitation to a conversation across confessional divides which is focussed not on juridical ecclesiological concerns but on the person of Christ, his work, and his sacramental gifts, variously conceived as these may be within the traditions of world Christianity.
The historical chapters of the Handbook are followed by eight essays under the general heading of Dogmatic Approaches. Although there is repeated acknowledgment throughout the work that the number and identity of the sacraments is ecumenically contested, the editors have chosen to structure this section of their text around the Catholic canonical enumeration, prefacing the seven contributions on the individual sacraments with an essay on the connection between liturgical and sacramental theology by David W. Fagerberg. Those who are familiar with Fagerberg's work will recognise distinctive themes here: the concept of the ‘thick liturgy’ of divine initiative mediated by the churchly liturgy of rubric and ceremony; the cosmic dimension of the work of Christ the ‘premier liturgist’ and the ascetical demands implicit in Christian apprenticeship to him. Old and new readers alike, not least those with practical responsibility for organising liturgies in church, will find stimulation and invigoration here: this essay alone amply justifies the editors’ contention that this is a work whose academic sophistication does not negate but rather undergirds its pastoral, ‘missiological’ value.
The final section, on Philosophical and Theological Issues in Sacramental Doctrine, gathers together a series of essays on points of connection between sacramentology and other provinces of the dogmatic theological map, notably Christology, Trinitarian theology, eschatology and ecclesiology. It also contains a simultaneously rigorous and imaginatively expressed account of sacramental causality and the relationship of the sacraments to the virtue of religion, under the perhaps slightly misleadingly general title of ‘sacraments and philosophy’ by Thomas Joseph White OP; a highly suggestive essay on the importance for theological culture and religious practice of a ‘sacramental world’ by David Brown, whose partners in dialogue range from the J. A. T. Robinson of Honest to God via the Anglican sermons of J. H. Newman to the poetry of Les Murray and Gerard Manley Hopkins; and a typically dense and intriguing account of the relationship between sacramentality and embodiment by Catherine Pickstock.
Inevitably in a work such as this not every essay will be of equal appeal to all readers, and, despite its scale, there are notable absences. More could have been said, for instance, about the distinctive sacramentology of the Ancient Assyrian and Oriental Orthodox families of churches; about the difficulties and opportunities the sacraments present not merely for ecumenical but for interfaith dialogue; about the intersection of sacramental theology with political and aesthetic concerns. Nevertheless, the Handbook deserves to become a standard work of reference, and it is an unusually inspiring one.
