Dogmatic Ecclesiology

"Tom Greggs is a wise and trusted guide in providing urgently needed reflections on ecclesiology from a Protestant perspective. Wide-ranging and deep, this volume repays careful study and reflection. A remarkable achievement."

"There is a great need for a substantial, lively, and wise Protestant theology of the church, and Greggs is producing it. And he gives us even more: a beautiful architecture that works for this first volume and yet is open to the next two; daring, liberating insights and verdicts on major issues; and a profound, prophetic vision of what the church--local, regional, and international--is called to be in the twenty-first century. Whatever denomination you are in, and indeed if you are not attached to any, this is a book in which to immerse yourself and then to take as a companion as you let it shape and inspire your imagination, thought, prayer, and love."

"Contemporary accounts of the church tend to describe a body either so indistinct from the world as to be indistinguishable from it or so separated as to be sectarian. Neither pattern has been persuasive. Earlier accounts have tended to take either a liturgical approach (the Eucharist makes the church) or one based on polity (personal episcopacy is of the bene esse of the church). These are equally self-favoring. Tom Greggs instead grounds his ecclesiology on the classically understood three offices of Christ--Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King--seeing the church's proclaiming, healing, and sacrificial aspects held together in a series of fractals rather than a set of deductive statements of dogma. It's a work of practice, belief, and passionate vision. Were my father, T. F. Torrance, still alive, I know how delighted he would be."

"This is an intellectual tour de force from one of our leading contemporary theologians and will undoubtedly be a lasting reference point for ecclesiology. Greggs develops a distinctively Protestant account of the church that is also thoroughly ecumenical in tone and approach--informed by deep and perceptive readings of Scripture and tradition, consistently focused on the core theological questions, and communicated with clarity and grace. His rigorous attention to what the church is, rather than what the church does, enables him to develop a hospitable ecclesiology that can speak across contexts and traditions."

"Tom Greggs has produced one of the most substantial accounts of the church in recent times. In offering a theologically rich ecclesiology, he nevertheless remains alert to the complexity of Christian communities in their different forms and styles. While deeply influenced by Protestant theology, Greggs describes a church that is properly catholic, ecumenical, and extrovert in its relation to the world. The first in a trilogy, this volume will shape future discussion."

"Tom Greggs refuses the temptation to make ecclesiology about the usual second-order things of polity and institution. He offers instead a resoundingly theological account of the place of the church within the work of God. Clear-eyed about the state we are in, he renders more exciting an understanding of what the Holy Spirit is doing in creating a church. The result is a timely contribution to the church, which is (as he reminds us) a priestly church, a church for the world. This is a truly exhilarating read, with many 'Ah, of course' moments, a generosity towards his sources, and a searing clarity of argument. It brings so much to the ecumenical table, of the very fullest expression of church."