Author GERHARD LOHFINK
Publisher THE LITURGICAL PRESS
ISBN 0-8146-5928-4
This book was originally published in German in 1998. It is a valuable and insightful read. Slowly, steadily and methodically its author traces a vision of God’s people right through from Genesis to Revelation. The people of God as community underlies the whole story and there is so much this author says that will resonate with those who have some Biblical understanding and longing that the church would become what it should be. Lohfink is a Roman Catholic theologian who was the professor of New Testament at the famous seminary in Tubingen. He relinquished his position there and became a member of the Catholic Integrated Community and its Association of Priests in Munich. This book actually concludes with a chapter in which the author explains his motivations for such a move and traces something of his history in the church in the days of Germany under Hitler and right through to the nineteen nineties.
How helpfully Lohfink shows quite conclusively that the church is not to be a kind of evangelistic and missional organization nor simply a place of multiplied charitable works, not even supplying a solace for people and their religious needs. The weight of scripture points to the church as the place of the Kingdom of God, a new society and the place where salvation is to be found. The church is to be thoroughly countercultural, a place where God is seen and made known and His ways manifested. This author honors the Bible as history as well as that place where a theology of God and His church are to be to be discovered. It is intriguing to see how he finds solid links in every action and word of the Lord Jesus as flowing from and fulfilling what God was doing in calling our His people Israel. The continuity of the story is exciting and enthralling and should witness with any who have a desire to know what church is in God’s purpose and intention. What a new people Israel was called to be, truly a holy nation in the midst of other nations with their culture and laws and ways. So, in this book there is plenty to illuminate the heart and mind of the diligent reader. Yes, it is a theological book and there are some parts that have to be labored through but there are others that are very helpful.
