Papers by Ralph McMichael
Introduction: What is the Eucharist? Chapter 1 Tradition: History and Theology Chapter 2 Presence... more Introduction: What is the Eucharist? Chapter 1 Tradition: History and Theology Chapter 2 Presence Chapter 3 Sacrifice Chapter 4 Ecumenism Chapter 5 Church Chapter 6 Culture Chapter 7 Language Chapter 8 World Epilogue: The Eucharist of Theology.
This volume is a textbook on Anglican theology that includes both newly written chapter on basic ... more This volume is a textbook on Anglican theology that includes both newly written chapter on basic subjects of theology and excerpts from Anglican theologians from the tradition of Anglican theology.
Pro ecclesia, Aug 1, 2006
The task of presenting eucharistic doctrine drawn from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (hereafter,... more The task of presenting eucharistic doctrine drawn from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (hereafter, BCP) offers its own problems and possibilities. Problems arise when developing or explicating eucharistic doctrine while "restricted" to a particular text or source for this doctrine. It would seem that the scope and depth of this eucharistic doctrine might be limited by the exclusive use of one source rather than the full range of sources for any given theology. However, the task of this essay is not to develop a personal doctrine of the Eucharist. Rather, I will seek to express the eucharistic doctrine that resides within the BCP. Confining eucharistic doctrine to the texts and use of the BCP offers the possibility that the Episcopal Church might have an accountable theological engagement with its celebration of the Eucharist. That is, the practice of eucharistic liturgies should engender thoughtful reflection on their theological content. Therefore, my method is the theological analysis of the eucharistic liturgies of the BCP in the effort to express the doctrine of the Eucharist found within these liturgies. The question of the locus of eucharistic doctrine, which has been identified within the eucharistic liturgy, gives rise to the question of doctrine itself. In the past few years there has been a growing debate about the nature of doctrine. 1 This debate, coupled with the increasing attention given 304
Pro ecclesia, Aug 1, 1999
Ecclesiology, May 28, 2015
As befits a collection of essays honoring the theological work Carl Braaten, the contributors to ... more As befits a collection of essays honoring the theological work Carl Braaten, the contributors to this volume tackle a variety of enduring and perhaps intractable issues in ecclesiology, those subjects that either hinder or might help the advancement of an ecumenism that will not be fulfilled until there is visible unity among the churches, the unity that resides with Christ alone. Some of these essays visit past ecumenical struggles (not achieving unity) or ecclesial failures (the creation of new disunities), while other essays engage theological topics that could provoke and progress the ecumenical trajectory of visible unity, or at least a mutually accountable ecclesial existence. Like similar volumes, there are essays that deal directly with the contribution of Braaten and essays that can be viewed more in the 'spirit' of his work. Of course, when speaking of the contribution of Braaten, one is not just referring to books or articles in learned journals, but to editorials, publishing journals, directing the Center of Catholic and Evangelical Theology (along with Robert Jenson), and the organizing of several conferences. One of the pervasive themes of this collection is an appraisal of communion ecclesiology and its dependence on the understanding and application of the Pauline concept of koinonia. In 'The Ecclesial Meaning of the Eucharist' , Susan K. Wood rehearses the developed understanding of the church as a eucharistic reality. As is customary for this account, she references Henri de Lubac's study of the swapping of the terms 'true Body' and 'mystical Body' between the sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist and the Church. With the controversy surrounding Berengar's reflection on Christ's presence in the Eucharist in the eleventh century, the 'true Body' of Christ was located within the Eucharist, and the church is now deemed the mystical Body. Again, employing de Lubac's phrase, 'The Eucharist makes the Church' , we have moved into a situation whereby the Church as itself the Body of Christ is not fully appreciated. If it were, then we would draw a greater sense of accountability between the risen Body, the eucharistic Body, and the ecclesial Body. Simply put, a divided church is a divided Body of Christ. Thus, to re-inhabit this Body in its fullest and faithful ecclesial existence is the ecumenical agenda. What this looks like in reality brings us to communion ecclesiology, to the koinonia among all who share Christ's body in baptism and Eucharist. In this regard, Robert Jenson reprises his emphasis on the Church as the Body of Christ, but with the critical distinction that exists between the historical/risen Body and the ecclesial Body, in his essay 'The Bride of Christ' .
Anglican theological review, Oct 1, 1998
Systematic Theology, Volume I: The Triune God. By Robert W Jenson. New York: Oxford University Pr... more Systematic Theology, Volume I: The Triune God. By Robert W Jenson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. x + 244 pp. $49.95 (cloth). Throughout his productive career, Robert Jenson has been concerned with the Doctrine of God. Beginning with God after God (1969) through Unbaptized God: The Basic Flaw in Ecumenical Theology (1992), Jenson has engaged in creative and thought-provoking discussion of the nature and identity of the Christian God. As presented in his previous seminal work The Triune Identity: God according to the Gospel (1982), Jenson has sought to identify the God of Jesus Christ who is known paradigmatically in the gospel accounts of Scripture. In other words, Jenson eschews any starting point for theology other than the narrative of Scripture. In this regard, he is a faithful student of Karl Barth whose theology was the subject of his dissertation at Heidelberg. With the publication of The Triune God, Jenson brings his theological thought into the form of a two-volume systematic theology. This volume is the first half of his systematics; Volume II, The Works of God, has not been published yet. This first volume has three parts: Prolegomena, The Triune Identity, and The Triune Character. The first part treats the nature of systematic theology and the norms for making a theological judgement. It concludes with a chapter on "The Identification of God," and this chapter introduces the second part: Jenson's discussion of the Triune identity of the Christian God. As will be explained below, this second part includes chapters on how God is to be identified, and what this identification means for our understanding of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit. The third part deals with the Christological continuum of Jesus's nature and mission, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. In light of all that has preceded, Jenson then returns to the question of God's being. The last chapter of the book, "Our Place in God," takes up how humans know God and how we are to live into the trinitarian life. This chapter paves the way for the second volume of Jenson's systematics. In writing this systematic theology, Jenson sets out to write theology for what he calls the true church. This is the undivided church of the creeds. Recognizing that this true church presently does not exist, he contends that theology should serve the expectant existence of such a church. In this way, his systematic theology is an effort in ecumenical theology. However, he does not swim in the mainstream of ecumenical theology. He does not believe that continuing efforts of "convergence" will lead to the one church. Rather, Jenson holds out for an act of God. By this, he certainly means that God will have to make the one true church. Also, theology can play its part by getting God right: theology needs to expound the proper understanding of God. Along the way in his exposition of the Christian God, Jenson relies on a variety of theological patterns that cut across denominational lines and across periods of theological history. For Jenson, this is the God narrated by Scripture, and who is identified by and with the Exodus of Israel and the Resurrection of Jesus. This last sentence condenses two guiding themes of Jenson's present work. First, he habitually includes the God of the Hebrew Bible in his explication of the Christian God. For him, the God of Jesus Christ is the God of Israel. The God who brought about the event of the Exodus is the God who raised Jesus from the dead. The second theme emerges from the first. God not only brought about the events of the Exodus and the Resurrection; God is identified by and with these events. Jenson seeks to understand the God who can be identified by these events and is identified with these events. …
Anglican theological review, 1998
Systematic Theology, Volume I: The Triune God. By Robert W Jenson. New York: Oxford University Pr... more Systematic Theology, Volume I: The Triune God. By Robert W Jenson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. x + 244 pp. $49.95 (cloth). Throughout his productive career, Robert Jenson has been concerned with the Doctrine of God. Beginning with God after God (1969) through Unbaptized God: The Basic Flaw in Ecumenical Theology (1992), Jenson has engaged in creative and thought-provoking discussion of the nature and identity of the Christian God. As presented in his previous seminal work The Triune Identity: God according to the Gospel (1982), Jenson has sought to identify the God of Jesus Christ who is known paradigmatically in the gospel accounts of Scripture. In other words, Jenson eschews any starting point for theology other than the narrative of Scripture. In this regard, he is a faithful student of Karl Barth whose theology was the subject of his dissertation at Heidelberg. With the publication of The Triune God, Jenson brings his theological thought into the form of a two-volum...
This volume is a textbook on Anglican theology that includes both newly written chapter on basic ... more This volume is a textbook on Anglican theology that includes both newly written chapter on basic subjects of theology and excerpts from Anglican theologians from the tradition of Anglican theology.
Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology
Pro Ecclesia
The task of presenting eucharistic doctrine drawn from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (hereafter,... more The task of presenting eucharistic doctrine drawn from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (hereafter, BCP) offers its own problems and possibilities. Problems arise when developing or explicating eucharistic doctrine while "restricted" to a particular text or source for this doctrine. It would seem that the scope and depth of this eucharistic doctrine might be limited by the exclusive use of one source rather than the full range of sources for any given theology. However, the task of this essay is not to develop a personal doctrine of the Eucharist. Rather, I will seek to express the eucharistic doctrine that resides within the BCP. Confining eucharistic doctrine to the texts and use of the BCP offers the possibility that the Episcopal Church might have an accountable theological engagement with its celebration of the Eucharist. That is, the practice of eucharistic liturgies should engender thoughtful reflection on their theological content. Therefore, my method is the theological analysis of the eucharistic liturgies of the BCP in the effort to express the doctrine of the Eucharist found within these liturgies. The question of the locus of eucharistic doctrine, which has been identified within the eucharistic liturgy, gives rise to the question of doctrine itself. In the past few years there has been a growing debate about the nature of doctrine. 1 This debate, coupled with the increasing attention given 304
Anglican Theological Review, Oct 1, 1998
The ministry of bishops, and how this ministry is exercised, is the fulcrum point of the Anglican... more The ministry of bishops, and how this ministry is exercised, is the fulcrum point of the Anglican Communion. Bishops are not the essence of the Christian faith and life. However, how this essence is perceived and lived is directed or misdirected by the self-understanding of bishops. Put another way, if we all shared the proper understanding and practice of bishops in the life of the church, then the life of the Anglican Communion would not become, as it is now becoming, a fragmented and confused ecclesial reality. We would still argue, but we would do so within communion and for the sake of communion. It is more important to be in communion than to be right, but it has to be the right kind of communion. What follows is a reflection on the essential ministry of bishops as guardians of the Body of Christ. This reflection proceeds in three phases: St. Joseph, the resurrection, and the Eucharist. St. Joseph provides an example of behavior that could seem very strange to us. Here is a man who is given the responsibility of taking care of what someone else has done. Not only is he to accept what has happened, he is charged with the duty to provide for a life he did not create. Joseph sacrifices the satisfaction that comes with starting a work and seeing it through to the end; he has no claims on the generative genealogy of the person for whom he is now a parent. While Joseph has his own genealogy-he is a son of David-this history places him at the juncture between history and the Spirit, between what the world has seen, and what God is doing. That is, Joseph stands in a long line of those persons through whom God acts without confusing the divine act for a human one. Poor Joseph, he commits himself to the maturing of a life for which he can take no credit. Joseph is called to live with, and live for, the person who emerges from Mary; the one who is born into the world without being born because of the world. He will have no
The Holy Eucharist: the paradigm that does not shift The Rev. Ralph McMichael, Ph.D. Center for t... more The Holy Eucharist: the paradigm that does not shift The Rev. Ralph McMichael, Ph.D. Center for the Eucharist The purpose of this paper is both ambitious and modest. The ambition is to present the Eucharist as the central and formative place for theology and for the church. Furthermore, I will argue that the Eucharist is the generative event of the accountable relationship between theology and church, the place where and whereby the ecclesia has a theological life and theology inhabits its ecclesial existence. This is a modest effort because, while I hope to give a sense of this Eucharistic centrality and of some crucial directions it would take for both academy and church, I am not presenting a full or complete program or picture of what theology and church would look like if they fully embodied and expressed the centrality of the Eucharist. Of course, we already have such an image or embodiment, the celebration of the Holy Eucharist itself. That is, I am not proposing some startling innovation or dazzling creative maneuver; I am engaging where we are already, but also where we are called to be and what we are called to become. In this way, I am speaking of a Eucharistic renewal of theology and church. I will proceed in three phases: the shift to paradigm shift; the Eucharist as paradigm; and the Eucharist as the paradigm that does not shift. The Shift to Paradigm Shift In the world of consultants, workshops, and webinars, there is a phrase that is probably second in the frequency of its use, following somewhere behind the phrase 'thinking outside the box': the phrase 'paradigm shift.' This phrase is employed as an argument that one cannot believe, think, or act the way one has to this point. Things have
The Rev. Ralph McMichael, Ph.D. If any one saith, that, in ministers, when they effect, and confe... more The Rev. Ralph McMichael, Ph.D. If any one saith, that, in ministers, when they effect, and confer the sacraments, that there is not required the intention at least of doing what the Church does; let him be anathema. Council of Trent, Seventh Session, Canon XI I begin with this quotation from the Council of Trent, because it conveys in a concise form what is customarily the concern expressed by the phrase "valid intent." That is, the intent in question belongs to the minister understood to be the one who "effects" and "confers" the sacraments. Also, we can note that all of the sacraments are included within this economy of valid performance. The acknowledgement of what constitutes a valid intent is done so along side the identifications of valid form and matter. Intent is not isolated; it accompanies form and matter. How a sacrament is performed, what is said, and what is the object of this performance, cannot be separated from each other. They are dimensions of one theological or sacramental act and reality. Focusing our attention on the question of valid intent does not mean that we can explore and explicate this question without regard for the questions of form or matter; indeed, valid intent is related to valid ministry, and ultimately, to the question of a valid church. While I will be reflecting on the question of valid intent within the Eucharist, it is a question, as the Trent quotation testifies, that is usually found within the theological subject 'sacraments in general.' However, exploring this concept within the economy of the Eucharistic performance, and as a dimension of the Eucharistic theological reality, will lead to a deeper appreciation of the place sacraments occupy in the redemptive life given by God the Father in the Son Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
What should the church be doing, and how should the church operate? It is fair to say that this q... more What should the church be doing, and how should the church operate? It is fair to say that this question, or line of questioning, is a dominant theme in much of our reflections and arguments on 'what it means to be the church.' This is not surprising. Overall, human thinking is largely directed toward performance: the how question. Our patience with the contemplation of whatever or whomever quickly wanes and yields to the powerful temptation of wanting to know what we can do about the situation. For the question of human performance is so delightful because it is a human question; it permits us to explore our personal identity and power; we get to think and talk about ourselves. Our agency confronts the world without mediation. Hence, we embark on the adventure of expertise, the quest to attain the requisite authority to be recognized as the one who can enable others to become better and more successful doers. Consultants have replaced philosophers and theologians. We have lost the capacity to marvel at what or who is, and instead, our hubristic eyes turn their gaze to what we have accomplished. Our personal worth resides in our achievements so much so that we question the personhood of those among us who apparently cannot act on the world in any 'meaningful' way, i.e. the unborn and the terminally ill. If you cannot change the world, perhaps you do not belong in it? Why is it that we are fascinated and focused on the details of the lives of the rich and powerful and not on the lives of the poor and oppressed? Who has our attention? The answer may lie in our ever-shifting fantasy of surrogate agency: human performance writ large. When human performance is placed in the center of our attention, the gravitational center that pulls us toward what we must attend, we easily become
Books by Ralph McMichael
Eucharist (T&T Clark), 2010
This book is the effort to both transcend and transform the customary questions and concerns of E... more This book is the effort to both transcend and transform the customary questions and concerns of Eucharistic theology. After an introduction, there are six chapters: Tradition, Presence, Sacrifice, Church, Life and Theology.
The Vocation of Anglican Theology (SCM Press), 2014
This volume is a textbook on Anglican theology that includes both newly written chapter on basic ... more This volume is a textbook on Anglican theology that includes both newly written chapter on basic subjects of theology and excerpts from Anglican theologians from the tradition of Anglican theology.
The Eucharistic Faith (SCM Press), 2019
The first volume of a five volume Eucharistic systematic theology in which the Eucharistic origin... more The first volume of a five volume Eucharistic systematic theology in which the Eucharistic origin and nature of theology is presented. This Eucharistic theological perspective is brought to a transformed appreciation of tradition and Scripture followed by a Eucharistic appraisal of knowledge, language and truth. The volume concludes with an exposition of the Eucharistic faith as the Christian faith.
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Papers by Ralph McMichael
Books by Ralph McMichael