After completing Bloesch's book, The Church: Sacraments, Worship, Ministry, Mission, I was left highly wanting. Little did Bloesch really discuss Sacraments, Worship, Ministry or Mission in a manner that will enhance the Church. His touch points on each of the subjects, were summaries, based off a few authors, primarily Forsyth, Kung, Bonhoeffer, Tillich and Troeltsch. After laborious paragraphs, the author finally gives his own opinion, which, in many chapters, was short at best.
His Reformed background and Evangelical imperative frustrated me at times. His approach and personal opinion on many of the matters, especially those mentioned in the subtitle, was incredibly one-sided. He parotted a Western Evangelical Subcultural mantra.
Bloesch is highly critical of ideas that do not allow for Word to be primacy above all. His biased opinion quickly discounts many other aspects of church authority and nearly deifies Scripture. He occasionally does throw in statements of affirming tradition and Spirit, but these comments serve more as parentheticals than propositions.
I imagine Bloesch to be just the type of person I would get along well with in a work environment. He is very one-sided in theology, but does communicate in a manner that is not cocky, just over-confident. I strongly disagree with his outcome and his positions on Eucharist, Ecumenism and other pseudo-contra-Evangelical subculture topics. Nonetheless, for a Reformed, reasonable reader, I would recommend this book as an introduction. The sources and credibility are lacking, so a non-reformed, educated in theology, reader would probably be best searching for another book on Ecclesiology.
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