Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry

Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental TapestrySurveying the barriers that contemporary thinking has erected between the natural and the supernatural, between earth and heaven, Hans Boersma issues a wake up call for Western Christianity. Both Catholics and evangelicals, he says, have moved too far away from a sacramental mindset, focusing more on the "here and now" than on the "then and there." Yet, as Boersma points out, the teaching of Jesus, Paul, and St. Augustine indeed, of most of Scripture

Surveying the barriers that contemporary thinking has erected between the natural and the supernatural, between earth and heaven, Hans Boersma issues a wake-up call for Western Christianity. Both Catholics and evangelicals, he says, have moved too far away from a sacramental mindset, focusing more on the "here-and-now" than on the "then-and-there." Yet, as Boersma points out, the teaching of Jesus, Paul, and St. Augustine -- indeed, of most of Scripture and the church fathers -- is profoundly otherworldly, much more concerned with heavenly participation than with earthly enjoyment.

In Heavenly Participation Boersma draws on the wisdom of great Christian minds ancient and modern -- Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, C. S. Lewis, Henri de Lubac, John Milbank, and many others. He urges Catholics and evangelicals alike to retrieve a sacramental worldview, to cultivate a greater awareness of eternal mysteries, to partake eagerly of the divine life that transcends and transforms all earthly realities.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Published: 02/01/2011
ISBN: 9780802865427
Pages: 206
Weight: 0.69lbs
Size: 8.98h x 6.14w x 0.61d

Review Citations: Books & Culture 11/01/2011 pg. 10