Christian Assembly

by Lathrop, Gordon W.

• ISBN13: 9780800636609
• ISBN10: 0800636600
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-03-01
• Publisher: Fortress Pr

Summary

What is "church"? What makes the church one? While these questions may seem innocuous, church has become conflicted territory recently, with internal factions, external pressures, and ecumenical turmoil all calling for a more positive, studier, more resilient notion of Christian community. Wengert approaches the questions as a Reformation historian. He shows how the New Testament notion of "marks" of the church was taken up by Luther and developed by Melanchthon not as descriptive tag but as a criterion for authenticity in Christian community. Lathrop, the liturgical theologian, shows concretely how those marks can stamp the worship life of a congregation as well as the evaluative work of congregations with their pastors, bishops, superintendents, and conference ministers. Only with a sturdy sense of their own identity--as a holy people, grounded in common practices and commitments--can Christian assemblies truly engage and even transform today's cultural context. This volume originated as six lectures jointly presented to the Academy of Bishops of the ELCA in

Author Biography

Gordon W. Lathrop is Charles A. Schieren Professor of Liturgy at Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia

Table of Contents

Abbreviations	ix
Preface	xi
Part One: Marks
1. Church Is Assembly	3	(14)
2. A Brief History of the Marks of the Church	17	(20)
3. The Marks of the Church in the Liturgy	37	(16)
4. The Marks of the Church in The Book of Concord	53	(28)
5. The Marks of the Church in the Later Luther	81	(32)
6. The Marks of the Church as a Theme for the Visitation of Parishes	113	(22)
Part Two: Mutual Conversation	135	(12)
7. The Liturgist Reads the Historian
8. The Historian Reads the Liturgist	141	(6)
Appendix 1: The Promotion Disputation of Johann Macchäbaus of Scotland	147	(6)
Appendix 2: Excerpts from Martin Luther's Sermon on Matthew 3:13-17	153	(6)
Notes	159	(18)
Index	177