The End of the Church: A Pneumatology of Christian Division in the West

by Ephraim Radner

In this first serious assessment of the meaning of church division, Ephraim Radner provides a theological rationale for today's divided church in the Christian West that goes far beyond the standard socio-historical explanations of denominationalism. Through an examination of controversial, post-Reformation discussions about the church, Radner offers a significant theory that describes the relation between Christian division and the work of the Holy Spirit within Western modernity. Radner's description of the church is based on the traditional notion that a divided church is, in a significant sense, a "dead" church, after the figure of the pneumatically abandoned "dead Christ," who himself suffers redemptively the disintegration and restoration of divided Israel in his physical and spiritual passion. The hermeneutical basis for the usefulness of this figure lies deep in the scriptural practice of the undivided church, and was common up through the Reformation. Radner's recovery of this figural perspective is applied to the cluster of pneumatological issues that define ecclesial life.

Genres: Theology

365 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1998

Reviews

[Alex Strohschein · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this is a provocative, important, and erudite (how did Ephraim Radner read so many Jansenist and pre-20th century French theologians?!) book, but I found much of this unfathomable. Radner is a learned theologian but his charism isn't down-to-earth clarity. One thing that stood out to me was the figural interpretation of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism as rent Israel when the kingdom was divided between North and South.

[James R · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is written for scholars, not for laymen. The language and concepts are complex. My view is that this book is needlessly pedanic and wordy, and he could make his point in a far shorter volume.

I've read through the first chapter & conclusion. This book is clearly an attempt by a Protestant to salvage ecumenism. I think there was hope in ecumenism in the 1960s and 70s, but by the 90s it was obvious that ecumenism was a stupid idea.

Rather than question his own assumptions and presuppositions, he instead creates this theory that God wills division and that this is part of the plan. Nobody else believes this, as both the Catholics and Orthodox think they are the one true church, and that everyone needs to drop their errors and join them. Christians reject the concept of a "divided church" instead saying it's impossible for the church to divide, that what looks like division is simply schism, with a false group breaking away. Most Christians would say Radner is simply not a Christian and not in the Church, because he's not in the Roman Catholic Church (taking the perspective of a Catholic here).

My take is that scholarship has exposed Christianity for what it is. Until recently, people didn't know the truth about the first 300 years of the church, or how we got the church that we did. In reading scholarship, it's clear to me that much of what modern Christians believe is largely a lie, and it's hard for Christians to come to terms that all they believed was a lie. There were numerous competing groups in the first 300 years, and gradually empire took over one version, and they made it a tool of empire. There never was unity, because there never was such a thing as "Christianity" or "Orthodoxy" except in an artificially enforced way in the 4th century. The creed was something pushed by the imperial elites in order to control the masses. It only appeared that there was unity, through lies in history, burning books, and killing heretics. Empire tried to hide the truth about the early church, which never really existed.

I'm not sure what Radner thinks today (2022), but I think they need to drop the concept of "the church" since this was nothing but an imperial and elite construct of the 2nd to 4th centuries. My view is that Christianity will collapse and morph into something else, as is already happening. As scholarship becomes more widely available, people stop believing in the lies told by the imperial church from 325 to 1960. The Roman Catholic machine is still going strong, because they're getting new converts in Africa, but as everyone in the world learns the truth, the church will hollow out.

[Shaun Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

The End of the Church is a quite impressive work. Radner shows the way that Protestants and Catholics understood each other in the aftermath of the Reformation, and the differences which led to division and continued the division. He also helpfully points to the way that the church needs to repent and do penance for its sin of divisiveness.

At the same time, I'm not completely comfortable with Radner's concept that the Holy Spirit has abandoned the church due to the church's division. At times, Radner uses the image of Israel in exile to demonstrate the Holy Spirit's abandoning of the church. But this illustration does not take into account the way that Ezekiel demonstrates to the people that even though they are away from the land and temple, that does not mean that God has abandoned them, for God "has wheels" (Ez 1).

Also, as William Cavanaugh says, "Radner's conclusion that the Holy Spirit has abandoned the church is problematic, for then any kind of sacramental sanctification would be impossible. The sharp division he makes between the work of the Spirit and the body of Christ does not seem sustainable" (Migrations of the Holy, 168). Despite this critique, however, Cavanaugh also sees some helpfulness in Radner's proposal: "Nevertheless, his point about the church's repentance as a participation in the death of Jesus Christ, who became sin, opens the possibility of a comic, not a tragic, resolution to the drama of salvation."

[Mu-tien Chiou · Rating 5 out of 5]

The church in its current divided state is dead as the Spirit of the Lord as departed from it. No prayer request will be heard or granted until you repent and come together as one!

-What a bold statement and outcry by this Anglican ecumenical theologian!

[Victoria Gaile]

Or maybe not.. David S. Cunningham has a persuasive review/response/critique in the Anglican Theological Review (83:89-100).