The Role of the Bishop: Changing Models for a Global Church

The Role of the Bishop: Changing Models for a Global Church. Edited by Maria Elizabeth Erling and Kirsi Irmelt Stjerna. Minneapolis: Kirk House Publishers, 2002. 156 pages. Paper. $14.00.

This book of essays is a product of the 2000 Luther Colloquy of Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, on the topic of "episcopacy in global context." The essays address the ecumenical and global dimensions of the role of bishops, which the editors claim have been inadequately attended to in ELCA debates over the full communion agreement between the ELCA and the Episcopal Church.

Martin Lind and Manas Buthelezi address the subject from their experience as bishops in the Church of Sweden and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in South Africa, respectively. G. R. Evans, Cambridge University, writes of the role of bishop in the Church of England. German theologian Gunther Gasmann provides a detailed account of the Anglican-Lutheran Dialogues in the U.S.A., Europe, and Canada. Gasmann also underlines the importance of "reception" of the full communion agreement.

The specifically Lutheran-in-America context for these ecumenical and global dimensions is provided in essays by Michael Cooper-White, President of Gettysburg Seminary, Maria Erling, who teaches the History of Christianity in North America, and Global Missions at Gettysburg, and Kirsi Stjerna, director for the Institute for Luther Studies at Gettysburg. Missing is anything from an ELCA bishop. Cooper-White, however, writes from his experience as staff to the ELCA Conference of Bishops.

In her Epilogue, Stjerna's reference to the "highly symbolic and utterly pragmatic office of episcopal servanthood" (p. 17) encapsulates what I believe to be the value of these essays. On the one hand they raise the ecclesiological profile of bishops by pointing out that they symbolize the historic and theological continuity of the church of Christ; on the other hand they lower the profile by describing the ordinary pastoral nature of the functions and experience of "real-life" bishops. As a consequence, most participants in the debate will find some support for their positions in these essays but also information and analyses that should provoke reassessment. I recommend that it be read and discussed in congregations, seminaries, synod and churchwide councils, and the Conference of Bishops.

Also, I recommend "Elders as Leaders in 1 Peter and the Early Church," by John H. Elliott, in Currents 28:6 (December 2001) as a biblical complement to these essays.

Walter M. Stuhr, emeritus

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary

Berkeley, California

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