Tilling the Church: Theology for an Unfinished Project
by Richard Lennan
Who should read this?
Theologians and advanced theology students, lay and ordained ministers (bishops, please!), anyone interested in deepening their theological understanding of the church and exploring its need for self-understanding, self-criticism, and ongoing conversion as a way of opening the church out to the world and fulfilling its mission of proclaiming and living the gospel message.
Why is this book significant?
On the heels of the devastating clergy sexual abuse crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic in the Catholic Church, Lennan provides a hopeful but also realistic image of “tilling” the church, as one would till the earth to promote ongoing growth and renewed life. Though it builds throughout to only a relatively short section on dialogue and synodality in the final chapter, the entire book serves as a sort of prolegomena to synodality in the mode of Pope Francis as a faithful way forward in the “unfinished project” that is the pilgrim church, an ancient but new way to continue into the future the living tradition established by Christ and animated by the Holy Spirit.
What intrigued me the most?
Lennan masterfully and elegantly weaves Rahnerian theological themes (grace and freedom, incarnation and sacramentality, the theology of symbol, theological anthropology, even quasi-formal causality) throughout this work of ecclesiology, making it both an example of the systematic nature of theology and a lively overview of Rahner’s thought in dialogue with (especially) Pope Francis along with many others. One example: he invokes Rahner’s use of the notion of the church as an “open system”: “the church is not simply incomplete at any moment in its history, but can and must continue to change in response to the Spirit,” while at the same time “being unfinished . . . does not equate to being totally fungible” (151). Such a non-totalitarian system is in contrast to the former “perfect society” characterization of the church: “The Eurocentric emphasis relegated Catholics in other parts of the world to be little more than recipients of what emanated from a centralized ‘export firm’” (Rahner’s term), in an era where “Catholic communities were often more attentive to Rome than to their local social, economic, religious, and political settings” (8).
Quibble.
A minor quibble, this. To his credit, a pervasive pneumatology characterizes Lennan’s understanding of the church, and it is critical to his argument that newness originates in the creativity and “artistry” that flows from the life of the Spirit. While there are hundreds of references to the Holy Spirit through the book, unless I missed it earlier it took until the concluding chapter for a reference to the Spirit’s work and life outside of the church to make an explicit appearance (where Lennan asserts that official church teaching is viewed as suspicious when among other things, it does not show “an appreciation for the Spirit’s presence in current cultural circumstances,” 233). It isn’t that the ubiquitousness of the Spirit is denied elsewhere, but it does seem that making this connection more than implicit earlier on would strengthen Lennan’s theological argument for dialogue throughout.
Kudos.
Lennan offers a challenging, coherent, and deeply satisfying ecclesiology that so often reminded me of a phrase from Byzantine Orthodox liturgical theologian Alexander Schmemann, who described theology as “the conscience of the Church, her purifying self-criticism, her permanent reference to the ultimate goals of her existence” (in the essay “Theology and Eucharist,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 1961). Readers of Pray Tell will surely be drawn to the second chapter, “Symbolizing Grace,” where Lennan appeals to Rahner for connecting up the church’s sacramentality, humanity as marked by grace and freedom, and the incarnational nature of reality. “The incarnation…is not a subsequent addition to creation, and certainly not merely the correction of a damaged creation whose decline dates from the first exercise of human freedom… The incarnation is the reason for the whole of creation, not a supplement to it. God’s desire to express Godself fully outside of God, the desire that takes flesh in Jesus, brings about creation, especially humanity that that can enter explicitly into relationship with God” (69).
Among numerous worthwhile themes in Tilling the Church, I might highlight the one that gives chapter 6 its title, “The Art of Faithfulness.” Lennan writes, “The faithfulness of the church, especially in decisions about change, is more a matter of graced creativity than of adherence to precedent, obedience to authority, or submission to ‘popular opinion’ within the ecclesial community. At the same time, faithful artistry in the church differs from a disregard of precedent, disdain for authority, or rejection of the graced insights of members of the church… This paradox illuminates ecclesial artistry as a response to the Holy Spirit…” (210). Such artistry is unquestionably needed in the plurality of contexts in which the church lives out its mission today, where no “blueprint” (see 14-15) is possible.
Lennan, Richard. Tilling the Church: Theology for an Unfinished Project. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2022. 264 + xxiv pages. $29.95. ISBN: 9780814667439.
REVIEWER: David Stosur
David Stosur (he/him/his) is Teaching Associate Professor of Theology at Marquette University. He specializes in liturgical theology.