Religion and Community

TLDR: Ward as discussed by the authors reviewed the first three volumes together in this journal (ATR 82:1, pp. 181-189), under the title "An Anglican Magnum Opus," and suggested that the fourth volume would need to examine the nature of religious community and the means of human participation in the divine.

Abstract: Religion and Community. By Keith Ward. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 366 pp. $72.00 (cloth); $19.95 (paper). With this volume the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford brings his quartet of comparative theology to a successful conclusion. When I reviewed the first three volumes together in this journal (ATR 82:1, pp. 181-189), under the title "An Anglican Magnum Opus," I suggested that the fourth volume would need to examine the nature of religious community and the means of human participation in the divine: "Comparative ecclesiology must be the next frontier." Little did I know that by then the present work must have been nearly finished. Whatever we may think about either Ward's comparative method or his substantive conclusions, it remains an extraordinary achievement to have written and published four major studies of this quality in less than a decade. The introduction recognises that religions become embodied in social forms of life. I have a suspicion that Ward assumes that religions are basically ideas that become clothed with social forms. There is some ambivalence as to whether he is studying religions (which one might say are social forms) or theologies (which are components of religions). At any rate, his main interest is in the ethical vision that lies at the heart of religions. The ethical is to be the guiding thread of this study. Thus the Christian Church is seen as "a transformative community living by the power of the Spirit of Christ." But all human institutions, including the churches, are fragile, fallible and liable to corruption. Religion is not intrinsically ennobling of human nature, but granted moral vigilance it may become so. The combination of diversity and tolerance can provide safeguards. The bulk of the book is divided into three roughly equal parts. The first is a descriptive, phenomenological account of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. The secular state is considered alongside the four world faiths as an ideology of our time. Individual religious commitment and public tolerance can reinforce each other, as in the United States, provided that the state stands back. Ward seems to advocate a secular state (while noting that the only fully secular state in Europe is France-and even that needs to be qualified), provided it encourages freely chosen religious commitment (p. 127). I am unhappy with Ward's drift here. A state that actually encourages religious commitment, even of various kinds, does not qualify as secular. A secular state must, at least tacitly, reinforce secularity and secularism. On the other hand, it is arguable that the idea of a state that is completely neutral about religious values is an incoherent concept. Part two considers the Christian Church as a fourfold community: teaching, charismatic, sacramental and moral. On the doctrinal authority of the Church Ward comes clean as a "liberal Protestant" (p. 148). The Church of the New Testament was not the guardian of unchanging formulae. …