Brad East on the Church

I've just read the newest book by Brad East, a theologian teaching at Abilene Christian University whose essays appear, it seems, several times a week in various outlets (e.g., Christianity Today, Commonweal, or his own blog). This new book is on The Church and it's part of Lexham's Christian Essentials Series. The books in this series are brief theological overviews of an important—essential—topic. The twelve chapters of East's book cover about 160 pages. It's a quick and rewarding read. 

East loves the church. I recall reading somewhere (in a blurb? in an introduction? I can't find it now) that this book is a love letter to the church. This is a very positive account of the nature of the church as God's people and as the body of Christ. That's the dominant note: love, or maybe wonder at God's grace in investing a people with such glory. This is a book that explores how Paul (or Saint Paul, as East would say) could tell husbands to love their wives "just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Eph 5:25). 

The subtitle of the volume is "A Guide to the People of God," and of course the "people of God" did not start with the ministry of Jesus and the apostles. East begins his story with Abraham, and perhaps half of the book treats the Hebrew Bible. 

One part made me chuckle (or chortle?). Near the end of the book, he mentions "the oft repeated phrase of biblical scholar N. T. Wright, 'The world is put to rights'" (p. 145). The citation provided by East says, "The phrase probably appears in every book he has published, but see Wright, How God Became King" (p. 180 n. 86).  

This is not a book for people looking to find things wrong with the church. East sometimes acknowledges those issues. He briefly mentions "our divisions, lamentable though they are" (p. 142). He recognizes that he could have said more about the unity of the church, and he points readers to resources on this topic (p. 177 n. 68). But his longest discussion of something that might be considered negative is on pp. 146–47, in a section that begins: "It must be said at once that failure is characteristic of the Church, for never has there been a time in the Church's life when she has wholly succeeded in following Christ." Here one reads: "'The world' is within the Church, not only without." 

There are other books that explore this territory in nauseating depth. The one that springs to mind is Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez (2020). The nausea is a product of the topic about which Du Mez writes, not any failure on her part as a writer or reporter. Indeed, as I have told my students many times, the value of Du Mez's book is that she brings the receipts in her footnotes. She amply documents that "The world is within the Church, not only without." 

But for those who have gotten their fill of the (much-needed!) exposés of the Church, or for those looking to balance that portrait with something more positive, East is a cheerful guide. We have been inundated with the fact that the devil can be found in the Church, but that is not East's project. He concentrates instead on the positive case that "Christ is to be found in His Church" (p. 136).