Abstract
In this short volume, Geoffrey Wainwright convincingly illustrates the three Pauline virtues of faith, hope, and love with three rites of the Church: baptism, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Eucharist respectively.
The text originally appeared as lectures given by Wainwright at Baylor University, Texas, and they retain their conversational tone. Wainwright takes his theme of virtue from 1 Corinthians 13, referring also to the wider Pauline corpus and texts produced by the World Council of Churches (WCC). Accordingly, he has a laudably ecumenical focus; in describing each act of worship, he notes theological and ecclesiological conversations that have united or divided the modern church. For instance, in 1995 Pope John Paul II extended Vatican II’s sanction of ‘Eucharistic hospitality’ from Orthodox to ‘rightly disposed’ Protestants, who may receive the Catholic Eucharist in extreme situations (p. 55). Wainwright also alludes to the WCC’s Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry suggestion that infant- and believer-baptism be seen as ‘equivalent alternatives’ (p. 18). Each chapter closes by returning to its thematic virtue in the life of the individual.
Wainwright has a broad scope for so short a discussion, and is to be commended for balancing individuals’ faith with global ecclesiology. His presentation of the Lord’s Supper as the ‘sacrament of love’ (p. 41) is especially convincing, especially his assertion that ‘it is Christ who invites to the meal and Christ who presides at it’ (p. 49). There is thus an appropriate sense of pathos when Wainwright mentions the vigil of confession and repentance which replaced a general Eucharist at the WCC Assembly in 1998.
However, at times the three virtues feel too strongly forced into their respective rites. Having identified an eschatological overtone to the Lord’s Prayer, by an exegetical sleight of hand Wainwright presents ‘give us today our daily bread’, as really praying for ‘tomorrow’s bread’, i.e., the heavenly banquet (p. 30). Wainwright does not explain this interpretation, instead moving swiftly on to discussing the next line of the prayer.
Delivered as lectures, this text must have been engaging and inspiring, but the argument feels stifled in so short a book. If Wainwright expanded the text to include more thorough exegesis and eccelesiologies, this book could have real pastoral and ecumenical potential.