Ministry: Lay Ministry in the Roman Catholic Church.

Some of my graduate students, most of whom are training for lay ministries, have felt confused and depressed upon reading John Paul II's Christifideles laici (1989). The pope stresses that the special mission of lay people is not in the church but in the world. He cautions against lay people becoming too interested in inner church matters to the neglect of their involvements in family, work, and society. He warns also of the danger of "a |clericalization' of the lay faithful and the risk of creating, in reality, an ecclesial structure of parallel service to that founded on the sacrament of orders." Lay people derive their mission in the world directly from Christ, but when they perform ministries within the church they are assisting the hierarchy in a sphere that is not properly their own. A number of my graduate students (though certainly not all) feel that the pope is pulling the rug out from under them.

In Ministry, Kenan Osborne offers an alternative vision. He sees the justification for in-church lay ministry as flowing directly from one's life as a Christian; it is not something that needs to be derived secondarily through the hierarchy. Osborne holds that any false dichotomization between clergy and laity represents both an overly selective reading of Vatican II and a misreading of the New Testament on the crucial topic of discipleship. Osborne uses his own reading of the New Testament and Vatican II to help Catholics reconfigure their understanding of the interrelationship of clergy and laity. Catholics share first a common humanity and a common Christian discipleship; only when that context is well established can they begin to think about distinctions in role or rank.

Stressing commonalities before distinctions is not in itself a new idea; Osborne's contribution lies in the extraordinary range and depth that he brings to bear on this topic through his synthesis of Scripture, tradition, and Vatican II. He displays a remarkable grasp of the history of Christian ministry and reform movements as he traces the dissolution and reemergence of lay discipleship against the background of the rise of clericalism. Osborne demonstrates how the first Christian millennium witnessed the gradual but scandalous loss of lay status. By the year 1000, lay people were regarded as simply the passive recipients of the hierarchy's powers. The various Protestant reformations, the American and French revolutions, Vatican II, Christian feminism, and African and Latin American liberation movements all represent attempts during our millennium to reestablish lay power. In Osborne's opinion, some current official positions regarding laity, women, and ministry are impeding this development.

This is an important book, one that can find a place alongside Edward Schillebeeckx's The Church with a Human Face, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza's In Memory of Her, and Leondardo Boff's Church: Charism and Power as ground-breaking scholarship that will contribute to the shaping of the church of the twenty-first century. For all of these associations, however, the book most reminds me of Hans Kung's The Church, published in the wake of Vatican II.

Osborne and Kung both offer mammoth works that interpret the council against the background of Scripture while reviewing the entire sweep of church history. Each strongly prefers Scripture to tradition; each seems to put little stock in the guidance of the Holy Spirit in developments that cannot be traced to the Scriptures; each derives the authoritative interpretation of Scripture more from contemporary scholarship than from an examination of how the Scriptures have been received; and finally, each declares confidently that many official positions, past and present, are based more on preserving power than on promoting discipleship. Behind each of these works, for all of their impressive scholarship, lurks an impassioned evangelical reformer who insists on dragging his Catholicism along with him.

Vatican documents operate with a different set of presuppositions concerning the relationship between Scripture, tradition, and authority. The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith holds that the intentions of Jesus and the guidance of the Holy Spirit are reflected in many early developments that are not found in the Scriptures in a way that is accessible to modern scholarship. The CDF acknowledges that it is often placed in the position of defending its own authority, but that this is done not for authority's sake but for the sake of the gospel. Osborne consistently launches theologically competent challenges both to these presuppositions and to the conclusions to which they lead. I wish that he had done so in a manner that explored these stances more sympathetically, that anticipated the way that the Vatican would respond to his arguments, and that displayed more awareness of the tentativeness of his own sets of presuppositions.

Osborne might also have conceded more the merits of documents such as Christifideles laici, which, despite its flaws, will itself contribute positively to the shaping of the church in the twenty-first century. John Paul II's liberating insight, that life lived within the world can be a primary locus of Christian discipleship, is a point given insufficient attention by Osborne.

The theme that Osborne does emphasize, however, the full discipleship of all Christians within the church, is equally of great significance. I predict that my graduate students will love this book, being awed by its scholarship and empowered by its vision.

Above all else, the third-millennium Christian will return to the gospels again and again, seeking to establish in his or her personal and social life the very meaning of gospel discipleship. Only if and when he or she reflects Jesus, at whatever level in either the church or in society-at-large, will he or she truly live the gospel.