Can These Bones Live?

A Catholic Baptist Engagement with Ecclesiology, Hermeneutics, and Social
Theory.
Harvey sees in the valley of dry bones of Ezekiel 37 as a
metaphor for the state of the church today: fragmented and scattered -
dismembered - in its life and witness. Harvey critiques the church in its
present state, and traces the developments that led it here. Yet just as there
was hope for the people of Israel, there is hope for the church, that it can be
re-membered into the earthly-historical form of the crucified and risen Christ
that it is intended to be. For this to happen, the church must recover and
reinvigorate core ecclesial practices. These include the spiritual
interpretation of scripture, the development of sound doctrine, the centrality
of baptism and the Eucharist, practices of spiritual discipline, and
cultivation of the church as the social body of Christ.
Here is
rich and thoughtful ecclesial and social criticism, written from a Baptist
heritage yet decisively informed by the Catholic tradition. Can These Bones
Live? will vitally contribute to the recently revived discussion of
theological politics, and is sure to spark lively discussion in both the church
and the academy. It will be of use in courses in theology, ecclesiology,
missiology, social ethics, and hermeneutics.
'Shaped by Protestant,
Catholic, and Orthodox theology - with the footnotes witnessing an impressive
erudition - Harvey's ecclesiology recovers earlier Baptist emphases (notably
that of the Church as the alternative polis) while being deeply shaped by
Catholic and Orthodox sacramentalism. [...] The greatest strength of Harvey's
book is its overt sacramental ontology, along with its recovery of mystery as
central to the ecclesial discipline of theology.' - Hans
Boersma
Recommended € 27,90