Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry, Eerdman’s Publishing 2011.
Hans Boersma has done it again. Heavenly Participation is, in many ways, a compact, succinct and incisive synthesis of Boersma’s earlier books, Violence, Hospitality and Cross and Nouvelle Theologie and Sacramental Ontology. This third book continues the probes into the riches of the Patristic Tradition, and what such an unearthing can mean for a critique of modernity and postmodernity.
Heavenly Participation has two dominate themes: a drawing together of evangelicals and catholics by a turn to the classical sources (ad fontes) and a substantive reading and application of just what such sacramental resources can offer in renewing the church. The book is divided into two sections: 1) Exitus: The Fraying Tapestry and 2) Reditus: Reconnecting the Threads. ‘Exitus: The Fraying Tapestry’, rightly so, highlights how Christianity appropriated and internalized the meaning of presence and sacrament by being immersed in the contemplative depths of the Platonic way, and how, sadly so, the scissors of modernity cut the organic and seamless fabric of the sacramental way. There is hope, though, and Boersma is committed to reweave the fragmented fabric for younger evangelicals who are thirsting for a fuller cup to slake a dry and parched soul and spirit. Section I, bit by bit, diagnoses the dilemma while pointing a way forward, whereas Part II is a more popular return to Nouvelle Theology as a prognosis and way forward by going backwards in a more searching manner. Most of the important theologians in the ‘New Theology’ movement are brought to frontstage, and they are done so to illuminate an older way of being the church by understanding the closer relationship between Bible, Interpretation, Tradition and Sacrament. The book comes to a close with an Epilogue on ‘Christ-Centered Participation’.
Heavenly Participation is a radical book in that Boersma, consciously so, is calling the church to her thick and deep roots, roots which once supported and nourished a unified and thick tree of life. Heavenly Participation is also radical in that it is a solid critique of protestant modernity, postmodern emerging church ideology and a type of Roman Catholic thought that has been taken captive by modernity. Such a radical vision of what it means to participate in Christ, the Church and the World is a clarion call that will be both welcomed and opposed. The apologists of modernity and postmodernity in the church will not be boosters for Boersma’s Newman-like prophetic vision, whereas those that realize the modern and postmodern paradigm have serious blind spots will applaud Hans’ heroic attempt to recover the larger and epic vision of Christ and the Church.
There are a few questions I have by way of conclusion. First, I heartily approve of the desire to draw together evangelicals and catholics by grounding such a vision in the wisdom and mystical theology of the Patristic ethos. This is desperately needed and Boersma has done it in an exquisite manner. The sacramentalism of the Fathers was public and political, though. Why was this not dealt with in the way the Fathers were committed to? Second, the Orthodox tradition could also, in a more deliberate way, be brought into the evangelical-catholic dialogue. Why was this not done? I know Hans is most supportive in addressing these questions, but more work on the broader ecclesial and public witness of sacrament-deification would enrich and further the path taken. Third, Thomas Merton was in touch with many of the ‘New Theologians’, and Merton could bring to the table insights that most of the theologians Hans mentions tend to miss or ignore. Why, in short, is Merton not dealt with? He has been called the most important writer on spirituality in the 20th century.
Heavenly Participation is a plough to the soil book. It is a challenging missive, and to the degree the message of the book is heard and internalized, the church will be renewed in a radical manner. If the book is ignored, the modern and postmodern devotees will continue to fragment and fray the church, and the body of Christ will continue to dim and diminish.
Ron Dart
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