Church: Living Communion

by Paul Lakeland

Overview

Drawing on the wisdom and teaching experience of highly respected theologians, the Engaging Theology series builds a firm foundation for graduate study and other ministry formation programs. Each of the volumes 'Scripture, Jesus, God, Anthropology, and Church 'is concerned with retrieving, carefully evaluating, and constructively interpreting the Christian tradition. Comprehensive in scope and accessibly written, these volumes, used together or independently, will stimulate rich theological reflection and discussion. More important, the series will create and sustain the passion of the next generation of theologians and church leaders.

Paul Lakeland's recent award-winning books on the place of the laity in the contemporary Roman Catholic Church have prepared him well to take on this ecclesiology from below." While paying close attention to the classical "marks of the Church, "Lakeland's focus is on what we can learn about the nature of the Church as living communion by examining the values and practices of ordinary believers. Following the advice of Bernard Lonergan, Lakeland adopts a resolutely inductive approach to ecclesial reflection. He explores ten questions that the Church must address, both those that affect the internal workings of the faith community and those that have to do with its relationships to other groups, religious and secular. Finally, he offers a constructive proposal for a contextual ecclesiology of the U.S. Catholic Church that utilizes the images of hospice, pilgrim, immigrant, and pioneer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814659939
Publisher:	Liturgical Press
Publication date:	11/01/2009
Series:	Engaging Theology: Catholic Perspectives
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Paul Lakeland is the Aloysius P. Kelley, SJ, Professor of Catholic Studies and founding director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Fairfield University, a Jesuit institution in Connecticut. Educated at Heythrop Pontifical Athenaeum, Oxford University, the University of London, and Vanderbilt University, he has taught at Fairfield since 1981. He is the author of nine previous books, the most recent of which is A Council That Will Never End: Lumen Gentium and the Church Today (Liturgical Press, 2013). Lakeland is a member of the American Academy of Religion, the American Theological Society, the College Theology Society, and the Catholic Theological Society of America. He blogs occasionally and reviews fiction for Commonweal, a Catholic journal of opinion.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS
Editor’s Preface   ix
Preface and Acknowledgments   xi
Chapter One:
The Marks of the Church   1
     Holiness, or “What is the Church?”   2
     Eternity, or “When is the Church?”   15
     Oneness, or “Who is the Church?”   29
     Catholicity, or “Where is the Church?”   42
     Apostolicity, or “What is the Church for?”   51
Chapter Two:
Ten Challenges for the Church Today   60
     Internal Challenges:
     Identity and Commitment   62
     Ministry, Ordained and Lay   68
     The Roles of Women in the Church   74
     Church Teaching and the Individual Conscience   82
     The Religious Formation of the Young   87
     The Scandal of Sexual Abuse   95
     External Challenges:
     Ecumenism   100
     Religious Pluralism   105 
     The Church and Political Life   110
     Building on the Strengths of the Church   116
Chapter Three:
An Inductive Ecclesiology   120
     The Idea of Inductive Ecclesiology   121
     Be Attentive, or Read the Signs of the Times   131
     Be Intelligent, or Practice Discernment   138
     Be Reasonable: Ecclesiological Models and the American Experience   146
        The Church as Hospice   147
        The Church as Pilgrim   149
        The Church as Immigrant   151
        The Church as Pioneer   154
     Beyond the Images: From the Local to the Global   156
     Be Loving . . .   160
     . . . And if Necessary, Change   164
        Democracy in Church Life   165
        The Reform of Ministry   168
        Teaching with Authority   170
        Leadership and the Life of Faith   173
Epilogue: Living Communion   179
Further Reading   182
Index   184

Editorial Reviews

Church is a learned, stimulating, and forward-looking book that will engage both scholarly and general audiences.
America


. . . this is not your average cookie-cutter intro text, but rather a knowledgeable, philosophically interesting, and at points original account of the Catholic Church written in difficult times.
American Catholic Studies


Lakeland has written a comprehensive, constructive, and compelling work of ecclesiology.
America


Church is an engaging and enlightening read that should not be missed for would-be Church leaders.
Midwest Book Review


Church is a learned, stimulating, and forward-looking book that will engage both scholarly and general audiences. The author calls for those engaged in parish ministry, and especially church leaders, to re-vision the concept of ‘church,’ practice discernment, and be open to change.
Catholic Book Club
America Magazine


Paul Lakeland’s brilliant account of ecclesiology may well come to be recognized as the first truly twenty-first-century analysis of the Church. His study addresses the events and insights of the last decade and then transposes into a new key historical-critical readings of the New Testament, themes from Vatican II, ecumenical consensus statements, Lonergan’s methodology, and postmodern concerns. In an engaging, refreshing style, he also faces up to the Church’s failings in hard-hitting language, marked by stark realism. Finally, he gently poses ten challenges to the Church, which he deems eternal.
Michael A. Fahey, SJ, Professor, Boston College


This is a teaching moment in the Church and this is a teachable book on the Church. In this eminently readable book, Paul Lakeland offers his readers only what they need to know to think and talk intelligently about the identity and mission of the Church. With honesty, he describes the challenges facing the Church that perplex and polarize in a way suitable for debate in the classroom and in reading groups. He invites his readers to develop an inductive approach to ecclesiology, and in the process he promotes the cultivation of practical wisdom that can help communities respond to these challenges with genuine hope.
Bradford Hinze, Professor of Theology, Fordham University


Paul Lakeland’s Church: Living Communion seizes the moment of a church on the brink of change and points the direction forward. He defines the church realistically through its marks, and leads us through the serious internal and external challenges to its authentic witness. Attentive to the laity, he then builds a practical strategy for moving beyond survival to revival. All this in limpid accessible prose: brilliance in simplicity. This authoritative book will appeal to everyone who has a stake in the Catholic Church in North America today.
Roger Haight, SJ, Scholar in Residence, Union Theological Seminary

From the Publisher