Between Babel and Beast
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The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift for James B. Jordan

Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Athanasius
(Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)

The Four: A Survey of the Gospels

Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom

From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John

Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture

Jane Austen
(A Biography)

Solomon Among the Postmoderns

The Baptized Body

1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary

The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter

A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons

Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature

Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen

The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism

A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel

Against Christianity

From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution

Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy

Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper

A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament

Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature

Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays

Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life

The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church

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Theology - Liturgical: Fatal Flaw

As John H. McKenna sees it (Become What You Receive: A Systematic Study of the Eucharist (Hillenbrand Books), 207), neither Protestants nor Catholics started from the right spot in debating Eucharistic sacrifice.  The “fatal flaw” in both was the equation of sacrifice with immolation. Catholic equated the two and said the Mass was a sacrifice; Protestants equated the two and said, No.

This fatal flaw was actually two flaws.  On the one hand, they started from the premise that “sacrifice necessarily meant immolation or destruction of some sort.”  On the other hand, they failed “to focus on Jesus’ personal sacrifice as doing away with or over-turning the understanding of ‘sacrifice’ as requiring ‘immolation.’”  Theologians “might have made their starting point the relationship between Jesus and the Father, and, in the Spirit, between Jesus and his body the church. The outward form of meal would then be the efficacious sign or symbolic embodiment of those relationships.”

Drawing on the work of Robert Daly, McKenna suggests a Trinitarian and liturgical understanding of sacrifice helps cut through the impasse: ”Sacrifice ‘is, in the first place, the self-offering of the Father in the gift of his Son, and then the free self-offering response of the Son in his humanity, and in completion, the faithful, in the power of the Spirit, being taken up into that Father-Son relationship.”