Book Review: The Lord’s Supper: Five Views

Projects with a multiplicity of views have been stalwarts of theological formation at the undergraduate and seminary level for some time now.  A book with more than one view, each written by a proponent of that view, bridges the gap between Wikipedia and a full-length scholarly book on each view.  Books with four or five views are like reading five books in one, and then sitting around a coffee table and discussing the views with the scholars themselves.

I have fond and frustrating memories of "views" books. I remember gleefully chuckling to myself at the spot-on, spitting mad critiques of George Eldon Ladd in "The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views" and how I soaked in all his arguments as a scholarly backing to my theological movement away from the dispensational pre-millennialism I was surrounded by back in the glory days of the Left Behind series.  As I look back, one of the most frustrating feelings about those books is that I took some of the angst of Ladd along with my changing theological views, and that was not a good thing.

The Lord’s Supper: Five Views is four parts fondness and one part frustrating.  Where most "views" books are "View #1" versus "View #2", "View #3", and "View #4" in a theological fight to the death for the reader’s soul, it is comforting to see a coffeehouse style discussion pervading the book.  All the authors, save for the infuriatingly frustrating John R. Stephenson, are amiable in their differences, similarities, discussion, and responses.  Gordon T. Smith has done an excellent job with a team of authors who are friendly, creating a generous orthodoxy in the midst of a complicated issue.

There seems to be a strong current of sacramentalization amongst Protestantism, as the Reformed, Baptist, and Pentecostal views all touch upon.  Particularly intriguing is Olson’s excellent summation of recent attempts at a sacramental view within Baptist theology stemming from a return to the Anabaptist theologians of the 1600s.  Also interesting is the Pentecostal view espoused by the remarkably talented Veli-Matti Karkkainen, who, along with Olson, draw a line between the proper theology of these Protestant movements and the folk theology that is often preached and followed in individual churches.

The Roman Catholic view is presented in a way that is non-dogmatic or puffed up in traditions.  Gros is an excellent writer who, along with Van Dyk, work within much older traditions and deliver a contemporary argument from ancient, old, and modern sources.  Van Dyk was a pleasant surprise!  A female author who is a Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Reformed Theology, it is high time a woman is included in these conversations, and I appluad Western Theological Seminary for employing her in such a way and IVP Academic for including her writing in this book (I will be reviewing two books by women theologians in the near future).  Van Dyk summarizes well the three predominant views of the Lord’s Supper in Reformed theology and gives ground for cohesion amongst them.

The one rough spot in this book is the Lutheran section, written by John R. Stephenson.  Stephenson appears to have not gotten the "be cordial" memo, and he writes with a scathing traditionalism that is typically reserved for Protestant’s caricatures of Catholics.  He is argumentative and condesending, but to his credit he spreads the force equally between his own denomination and other views.

This book is highly useful as a refresher for the predominant views of Western Christian thought: Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed, and is a great entrance point into the formulated perspectives of Baptists and Pentecostals.  And most important of all, it shows that differences in view do not need to keep Christians from engaging in discussion of said differences and from serving, speaking, and writing alongside one another for the kingdom.

The Lord’s Supper: Five Views
Edited by: Gordon T. Smith
Authors: Jeffrey Gros (Roman Catholic), John R. Stephenson (Lutheran),
Leanne Van Dyk (Reformed), Roger E. Olson (Baptist), Veli-Matti
Karkkainen (Pentecostal)
$14.40
IVP Academic
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