Customer Reviews

What Happens in Holy Communion

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I had high expectations for this book. Welker is a highly respected, Reformed, moderately liberal systematics prof at Heidelberg, Germany and visiting faculty at Princeton Seminary. The book is attractively packaged by Eerdmans, well organized, and written in a pretty accessible style for such a notariously confusing topic. But while full of great insights, ultimately I found this book highly dissappointing.

Welker starts by sharing some interesting personal experiences with the meal (exhilarating and depressing). He was saddened, for example, by a Russian Orthodox service where the meal was celebrated entirely behind a curtain. Finally the priests emerged with a mushy mix of bread and wine in a pot, fed to the congregants with a long spoon!

Some of Welker's conclusion are as depressing as that visit to Russia. He frankly seems to teach that skepticism about the bodily resurrection of Christ is fine (in fact, he seems to argue that teaching a real physical resurrection has been a barrier to faith for many and is itself a cause of trouble in the meal! -- see p. 10, for example).

After undermining the ministry of Christ, he moves on to undermine the basis of community. Beginning with pp. 72ff. (see also p. 146) Welker makes a sustained assault on church discipline. His sub-chapter heading is unambiguous: "The Supper Must Not Be Misused for the Purposes of Moral or Church Disciplinary Control." No one can ever be barred from the table (literally "ex-communicated") in Welker's view. P. 73 states that because those who would sit in judgment are not perfectly 'righteous' therefore they can never seek to shepherd others. Of course, Jesus orders us to do just that, out of love and hope for repentance in Matt. 18:15-20, and Paul applies this directly to the Supper and other benefits of church community in I Cor.

He argues for paedo-communion, but based on his cheap grace ditum ("no baptized person should be barred from the table for any reason") rather than covenant theology. He has a whole section (pp. 146ff.) on paedo-communion without any reference at all to the Supper's unity with the Passover meal (where children ate and drank). He sees a problem with children struggling to understand the meaning of the meal theologically, and wonders if they should really partake before they 'get it.' But if that is his concern (usually not for other pro-paedocommunion folk) than he might also ask whether they should take it before they not only know but also TRUST and believe. He may possibly be right to offer the meal to covenant children, but he doesn't seem to be asking any of the most important questions about this.

This raises another issue: for all of his ecumenical concerns, his footnotes, index, and ideas evidence interactation with almost no Americans and ZERO evangelicals. About the only Americans he seems to reference are (liberal and neo-orothodox) colleagues from Princeton (Pat Miller, Dennis Olsen, Dan Migliore, Greg Faulkner).

There are MUCH better books out there. Try Peter Leithart, Blessed are the Hungry; Keith Mathison, Given for You; NT Wright, The Meal jesus Gave Us; Robert Letham; even Gordon T. Smith's new book.

Great overview of the latest scholarship as well as the foundational and primary source material of the Bible and literature on early Eucharistic meals. All of this research is woven through with theological reflection using a narrative methodology which is readily accessible to scholar, pastor and laity.

The information given as to the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church on the Eucharist/Holy Communion are superficial and inaccurate. The author shows lack of indepth research of the teachings of the Church starting with the teachings of the early Church Fathers, such as Ignatius of Antioch and Hippolytus of Rome who lived at the time of the formation of the New Testament, to the teachings of the Church councils up to the Second Vatican Council. His suggestion that the Church's teaching on the Eucharist is changing is also inaccurate. The author focused on practices which over time do change rather than on the actual doctine. For those who would wish a more detailed study of the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist, I suggest The Hidden Manna by James T. O'Connor. For a look at the practice of the early Christian Church, I suggest The Mass of the Early Christians by Mike Aquilina. Both works show that the Roman Catholic teaching on the Eucharist has been refined in wording and understanding but has not changed over the centuries.