Blough, Neal. Christ In Our Midst: Incarnation, Church and Discipleship in the Theology of Pligram Marpeck. Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora Press, 2007.
Neal Blough on Pilgram Marpeck
Neal Blough’s book aims to “analyze and present” Pilgram Marpeck’s theology. Blough introduces Marpeck by laying out the historical landscape prior to the peak of the Reformation era. Due to the conflicts within Roman Catholicism, such as retrievals of Neo-platonism or Augustinian versus Aristotelian principles, including the Waldensians, Franciscans, John Wycliffe, and John Huss’ spiritual and ecclesial reformation, these had caused skepticism, exhaustion, and the urge for revolution in their times. According to Blough, Marpeck had a first-hand experience of all these contexts—political, ecclesiastical, and societal reformations. Nevertheless, Marpeck embarked on a spiritual journey by embracing one of the radical reformers, the Anabaptists. Blough presents that Marpeck dealt with these challenges in a Christological approach, which he calls ‘Christ in our midst.’
Blough is a Mennonite theologian, a professor of Church History at the Free Faculty of Evangelical Theology in France, and a Faculty member of Protestant Theology at the University of Strasbourg. Moreover, he had written and presented plenty of articles and lectures about Anabaptists, Mennonites, and the Reformation in general. His dissertation was about Pilgram Marpeck’s theology, specifically the centrality of Christology in his theology.
Pilgram Marpeck (1495? -1556) was an engineer with extensive experience in the political and social realms of the cities where they lived. While he had no formal theological training, his critical thinking, ability to theologize, and faithfulness to the Scriptures had led him to be on the active radar of the Reformers in his time. The Reformers he interacted with, refuted, and influenced him were Martin Luther, Martin Bucer, Ulrich Zwingli, several Anabaptist ministers, and Caspar Schchwenckfeld. Marpeck was a radical reformer and an Anabaptist minister in Rattenberg in Austria, Strasbourg in France, and Augsburg in Germany.
Christ In Our Midst
Neal Blough structures this book by offering Marpeck’s theology in its historical situation. Thus, the entire work is categorically a historical theology book. For better engagement with readers, Blough divides it into seven chapters. Chapter 1 presents the broader historical Reformation context where Marpeck is also situated. It slowly shifts to how Marpeck disagrees and refutes the Spiritualist Anabaptist movement. His anti-spiritual refutations were grounded in his Christological understanding of the incarnation. Marpeck also rejects the neo-platonic notion of good and evil. Christ’s incarnation is a unified reality; therefore, the realms of inner spirituality and outward ceremonies are in union (35-36). Inner reality overflows to outward means—sacraments, discipleship, church, and ethics. For Marpeck, “The ceremonies prolong God’s presence in time and space” (37). Moreover, obedience is possible because of the outworking presence of the Spirit from within that extends Christ’s presence in our midst. The first chapter ends with the comparison and similarities between Marpeck’s and Luther’s incarnational theological principles.
Chapter 2 focuses on Marpeck’s disagreement with Martin Bucer’s covenantal understanding of continuity and discontinuity. Blough states that Marpeck heavily borrowed from Caspar Schwenckfeld’s theology to refute and clarify the distinction of the covenants. Moreover, Marpeck’s understanding of ‘justification by faith’ differed from Luther and Bucer’s theology. For him, justification ties with Christian discipleship. Once a person has been justified, there ought to be an improvement of life or a flourishing life afterward. It is more than just forensic justification; for Marpeck, sanctification marries justification where there is no dividing line. Another covenantal distinction is that circumcision in the Old Testament is not related to water baptism in the New Testament. The new covenant is the circumcision of the heart that occurs the moment a person believes in Christ, together with the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Blough ends this chapter with the continuation of Bucer and Marpeck’s major theological disagreements rooted in the continuity of the two testaments, which profoundly affect baptism and church/State relations. Bucer and Marpeck’s debates ended with the reformed notion of the ‘rule of love’ for the betterment and the unity of church and State (77). Marpeck disagrees with this notion and why he had written the Expose. Chapter 3 extends Marpeck’s theological debate in Strasbourg but focuses on his Expose of the Babylonian Whore, which directly refutes Lutheran principles. The Lutheran principle of the unity of church and State—that was evident in the Schmalkaldic League—influenced Bucer in Strasbourg and Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich. Besides disagreeing with covenantal distinctions, Marpeck furthers the separation of ecclesiastical and political ruling. Likewise, he rebuked and corrected this principle through his Expose before or after being exiled from the city of Strasbourg in January 1532. The city was a beacon of religious hope and liberty, yet it had fallen under the wrong theological premise that Marpeck pointed out.
Chapters 4 and 5 explore the significance of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Marpack’s Admonition was a great response to the Lutherans’ view and the Spiritualists’ indifference to the sacraments. For several Anabaptists, Christ’s humanity is a ‘celestial flesh’ and different from the regular human flesh. This view is categorically Docetism. Nevertheless, for Marpeck, three elements constitute a True Church: (1) true proclamation of the gospel, (2) correct baptism, and (3) correct communion—outside these three things, there can be no true church of Christ (104). For brevity, Marpeck perceived the sacraments as spiritual reality and commemorative. Likewise, grounding from his Christology, the inner and outer realities of the sacraments ought to be united like the Incarnation of Christ. One cannot receive the outer sacrament without experiencing the inner spiritual reality.
Chapter 6 offers the compilation of Marpeck’s soteriology. While the chapter focuses on his understanding of salvation history, Marpeck also keeps away from the commonly reformed understanding of justification by faith, as stated in the first chapters. Moreover, Marpeck aligned himself with the classical and medieval soteriology but differed with the reformed forensic justification. His soteriology marries ethics. This chapter is a preparation for his final chapter.
The final chapter strengthens Marpeck’s thesis of ‘Christ in our midst’ theology. The inner outworking of the Spirit prolongs Christ’s humanity through the community of the church, discipleship, ceremonies, baptism, Lord’s supper, missional identity, and overall Christian living (226). While it was supposed to be the defining chapter, it abruptly shifted to different topics like theological interpretation, methodology, and peace theology. Evidently, this shift was influenced by wanting to make Marpeck’s theology relevant in the contemporary. This final chapter concludes that since Christ is in our midst, then peacemaking is necessary.
Marpeck’s model of critical thinking and biblical studies is commendable. He did not easily embrace nor have been persuaded by the pressure of other prominent and influential Reformers in his time. Overall, Blough’s work is easy to read. His writing style offers the readers a bit of historical context that is really helpful and engages with secondary sources. Another helpful observation in this work is his broad awareness of Marpeck’s historiography and ability to create a dialogue in a more relevant way for his readers. However, as Blough presents, Marpeck’s theological underpinnings have agreements (and disagreements) with Martin Luther’s theology of Christ’s presence. But taken from another angle, his theology of ‘Christ in our midst’ somehow has similarities to the idea of Catholic sacramentalism. Lastly, this work is a good resource for those who are students of church history with a focus on Reformation.
John&Paul's Reflections 