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Bound to Be Free: Evangelical Catholic Engagements in Ecclesiology, Ethics, and Ecumenism

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This book is composed of a series of essays carrying on the task of ecumenical discussion. Hutter is well read in both Lutheran and Roman Catholic traditions. He brings the two into dialogue throughout the book. It is divided into 3 sections. The first addresses what it means to be the church, particularly with the Catholic/Protestant divide. The second gives an account of what Christian freedom is in light of the law and gospel. Freedom is said to be the ability to live toward an end, participation in the life of the Triune God. The final section advances ecumenical dialogue through a reading of several Catholic documents. Though the language is difficult and the arguments rigorous, I believe the reward is worth the challenge. This book is for anyone who longs for unity in the church.

Everybody thinks that we have to make ourselves free by shaking off the constraints of law and tradition. We dont think that previous generations have anything to teach us or that the guidelines and rules they have discovered are worth trying out. But getting rid of Church tradition is no more going to make us free any more than stopping listening to other people is going to make us wise. Reinhard Huetter shows that the road to Christian freedom is also the road to Christian maturity, and it involves learning how to take the advice and the discipline of the Church, perhaps even before we fully understand it for ourselves. Christian discipleship means being formed by the practices of the Church not only as they are in our own day, but as they have evolved into the great tradition of Christian discipleship through the long experience of the Church in history. This is a clear and wonderful piece of work that says that the modern Church needs to grow up, and shows that it can by going back to school with the fathers of the Church.

This book delivers a powerful message of ecumenical hope. In this superb work te author explores the biblical concepts of church (ekklçsia), freedom (eleutheria), and truthful speech (parrhçsia), showing not only that the proper meanings of these three concepts interpenetrate one another but also that rending them asunder lies at the root of Christian division today. Christian division, he argues, issues from the all-too-familiar individualistic accounts of church, freedom, and speech that have haunted modernity and clouded the gospel. Here at the start of the twenty-first century, it is imperative for Christians to reconsider the interrelationship of these concepts in the God of the gospel. The author discusses the meaning, role, and importance of each concept, engaging classical and contemporary voices in theology, philosophy, and culture that reveal how church, freedom, and truthful speech support one another.