This is a book about a traditional subject, the church, written by one who confesses little concern for ‘specific theories, theologies or traditional viewpoints’. That may be the volume’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. It holds promise of a fresh new look, but it abuses a fundamental of communication on this subject. How can you write about the church and ignore what it has said?

Assuming this almost anti-traditional stance Howard Snyder, who is currently director of Light and Life Men’s International, forces the reader along new trails of thought. This is always an exhilarating experience. But by turning his back on the church of yesterday he can offer us no models for his view of the church today. And how are we to move ahead without models?

What does Snyder attempt to accomplish in this book? He tries to show how the church and the kingdom ought to be ‘perceived in these days between Jesus’ first and second comings’ (p. 17).

By kingdom, Snyder understands the dominion of God. Not a realm but the rule of God. This rule is seen in ‘the ongoing reconciling work of God in Christ seen from the perspective of the final definitive establishment of God’s dominion when Christ returns to earth’ (p. 16).

And what does Snyder mean by the church? The church is the agent of the kingdom. It is ‘the suffering form of the Kingdom’. It is the eschatological community living now under God’s rule.

Snyder insists that the church is a charismatic community, not a formal institution. The gifts of the Spirit are completely central to the life of the church. Thus he can insist that two or three gathered in Jesus’ name ‘adequately defines the church’ (pp. 74, 75), that a Bible study is ‘a new local church’ (p. 137), and that ‘any group of missionaries may be a legitimate embodiment of the church’ (p. 167). Hence Snyder’s basic position for viewing the church seems to be a combination of small-group (relational) theology and charismatic Christianity, although he obviously admires the Anabaptists.

Several helpful emphases appear in Snyder’s discussion of the church as a charismatic community. He feels that the church holds the key role in God’s cosmic plan and that ‘the Church is an indispensable part of the gospel’ (pp. 55, 56). He also sees clearly that evangelism cannot operate effectively without the sustaining community, the church. He sees, too, as few American evangelicals do, that the Word of God is not a dead letter but dynamic, creative and ever new. There are, in fact, a number of features to commend this book.

One fundamental contradiction, however, seriously weakens Snyder’s case. On the one hand, he reluctantly admits that the church has an institutional side ‘in the same way the family does’, and he confesses that a ‘degree of institutionalization is inevitable and even desirable in the church’ (p. 63). Yet, on the other hand, he does nothing with this fact but tries instead to build a case for non-institutional, charismatic community. Among other things this means that in handling the early chapters of Acts he has to say that ‘the early church was not entirely unstructured although no formal structures existed’ (p. 143).

Who can not appreciate Snyder’s lack of enthusiasm for institutional Christianity? How often the institutions we create for the furtherance of the gospel became its greatest hindrance! But Snyder seems to think that ‘charismatic communities’ are free from the flaws of human sinfulness. Where does the Bible teach such an idea? Surely the Corinthian ‘charismatic community’ is no model! What did Paul do in the face of its pride, divisiveness and disorder? He insisted on institutions!