Book Review of Church: Community for the Kingdom by John Fuellenbach, Orbis Books, 2002.

Church: Community for the Kingdom was written by John Fuellenbach, an author and theology instructor at the Gregorian in Rome. The purpose of this book is to look at the church in light of the kingdom of God and to flesh out the identity of the church in this framework. Fuellenbach begins by emphasizing the universality of salvation but takes this concept too far by stating: “Every human person, no matter what his or her faith, may effectively be saved by following his/her own religion and conscience (1).” The author next describes the communal aspects of salvation, giving the Israelites as an example and noting that the covenant God made with them was “God’s view of how he envisions a society in which human beings will live as God’s children in justice and peace w/ one another (21).” Catholic scholars have differing views on how Jesus went about restoring this covenant ranging from Jesus being the founder of the church to the church gradually coming into existence over time with Jesus’ focus being the kingdom of God.

Fuellenbach also discusses the idea of election with a twist: “election of one does not mean rejection of the other (41).” Those elected are chosen to “participate more actively in God’s plan of salvation meant for the salvation of all human beings (42).” The Vatican II used the images the new people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit to demonstrate the importance of community ahead of the individual, the movement towards the fullness of the kingdom of God, our duty to carry on Christ’s mission, and the Holy Spirit’s role in the creation of the church. The Vatican II also looked at the church as the local congregation “held in the Communion of the Church by one Gospel,” the community of the baptized, and the people of Israel to further demonstrate the importance of looking back to learn from those who’ve gone before (68-70).
Defining the relationship between the kingdom of God and church, Fuellenbach quotes George Ladd: “The kingdom creates the Church, works through the Church, and is proclaimed by the Church. There can be no kingdom without the Church-those who have acknowledged God’s rule-and there can be no Church without the kingdom… (89).” The author also agrees with Karl Rahner’s theory that the church today is transitioning from being a western church to a world church, similar to how the early church transitioned out of being solely Jewish to including Gentiles. This portion of the book was the most interesting to me. Although my case study is focused on my neighborhood, I am currently in the Cross-Cultural Studies program with the desire to serve in cross-cultural ministry in the future. For me, the kingdom of God reflected in the church includes a more global perspective. In contrast to colonial imperialism and the ideas that the Western way of doing religion is God’s way of doing religion, the church needs to learn from the mistakes of its past and realize that loving and serving God can be expressed and lived out differently around the world. That does not mean that the core beliefs of Christianity must be skewed or altered, but that our culture will necessarily impact how we relate and interact with God.