Mission Sha (Ed or Paul Shaped

Mission-Shaped or Paul-Shaped?
Apostolic
Challenges to the Mission-Shaped Church
Fergus J. King1
Fergus.King@newcastle.edu.au
ABSTRACT
John M. Hull has raised a number of criticisms about
the understanding of worship found in Mission-Shaped
Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in
a Changing Context. In this article, some of these criticisms
are explored further. Analysis of Paul’s proposed reforms
to the Lord’s Supper in Corinth show that worship must
address social concerns and not focus exclusively on a
God-ward aspect. Paul does this by describing the Lord’s
Supper as a paradigm for behaviour and world-view using
the Greek symposium tradition. Paul’s response to the
Corinthian situation raises questions about the suitability
of the Homogeneous Unit Principle and its role in mission,
as do aspects of the controversy with Peter documented in
Galatians 2. His wider exploration of the sacramental
dimension of ritual meals (1 Cor. 10–11) further shows that
worship cannot be divorced from ethics and behaviour if it
is to be truly effective and based on Pauline principles
KEYWORDS: Mission-Shaped Church, Paul, sacraments,
Homogeneous Unit Principle, symposium tradition, worship
Introduction
The Church of England’s 2004 report Mission-Shaped Church: Church
Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Context2 (hereafter
1. Fergus J. King is Rector of the Parish of the Good Shepherd, Kotara South in
the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle and Conjoint Lecturer in theology and religious
studies at the University of Newcastle, specializing in New Testament and missiology.
2. Graham Cray (ed.), Mission-Shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh
Expressions of Church in a Changing Context (London: Church House Publishing, 2004).
Journal of Anglican Studies Vol. 9(2) 223–246 [doi:10.1017/S1740355310000264]

r The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2011
224 Journal of Anglican Studies
Mission-Shaped Church) has led to a wealth of material being produced

on the shape and nature of the church. Some of these works have
adopted the principles of the report and aimed to produce resources
to implement its findings in other contexts: among these are the
Anglican Church of Australia’s Building the Mission-Shaped Church
in Australia,3 Messy Church: Fresh Ideas for Building a Christ-Centred
Community4 and Starting Mission-Shaped Churches.5 Some have devoted
their replies to particular constituencies such as children (Mission-
Shaped Children: Moving towards a Child-Centred Church),6 the elderly
(A Mission-Shaped Church for Older People?),7 or rural communities
(Mission-Shaped and Rural: Growing Churches in the Countryside).8 Other
literature has engaged more with the theology of the report: Emerging
and Fresh Expressions of Church,9 Evaluating Fresh Expressions: Explora-
tions in Emerging Church: Emerging Theological and Practical Models,10
Mission-Shaped Questions: Defining Issues for Today’s Church,11 Mission-
Shaped Spirituality: The Transforming Power of Mission.12 St Mark’s
Review devoted an issue to responses from Australian theologians.13 A
notable voice among the theological responses is that of Professor John
M. Hull who has made three contributions in the form of two articles
3. Alan Nicholls (ed.), Building the Mission-Shaped Church in Australia: A

Resource Book for Churches, Home Groups, and Diocesan Staff Meetings with Questions
for Small Group Discussions (General Synod Office: Sydney, 2006).
4. Lucy Moore, Messy Church: Fresh Ideas for Building a Christ-Centred
Community (Abingdon: Bible Reading Fellowship, 2006).
5. Stuart Robinson, Starting Mission-Shaped Churches (Sydney: St Paul’s
Parish Council, 2007).
6. Margaret Withers, Mission-Shaped Children: Moving towards a Child-
Centred Church (London: Church House Publishing, 2006).
7. Michael Collyer, Claire Dalpra, Alison Johnson and James Woodward, A
Mission-Shaped Church for Older People? (Solihull: Levenson Centre, 2008).
8. Sally Gaze, Mission-Shaped and Rural: Growing Churches in the Countryside
(London: Church House Publishing, 2006).
9. Ian Mobsby, Emerging and Fresh Expressions of Church: How Are they
Authentically Church and Anglican? (London: Moot Community Publishing, 2009).
10. Martyn Percy and Louise Nelstrop (eds.), Evaluating Fresh Expressions:
Explorations in Emerging Church: Emerging Theological and Practical Models (Norwich:
Canterbury Press, 2008).
11. Steven Croft (ed.), Mission-Shaped Questions: Defining Issues for Today’s
Church (London: Church House Publishing, 2008).
12. Susan Hope, Mission-Shaped Spirituality: The Transforming Power of Mission
(London: Church House Publishing, 2006).
13. St Mark’s Review 200 (2006).
King Mission-Shaped or Paul-Shaped? 225
and a book.14 While sympathetic to the aims of the endeavour, he has

major misgivings about some of the theological principles which
inform the report. His short but provocative response, Mission-Shaped
Church: A Theological Response takes issue with a number of the
report’s key principles: the relationship between Church, Kingdom
and mission, diversity, Christendom, its Deuteronomic spirituality
and its understanding of inculturation. What follows is not a rebuff of
any of those criticisms, but an attempt to show how Hull’s criticisms
of diversity find further endorsement in the Pauline treatment of the
Eucharist in 1 Corinthians and the Judaic traditions which shape
Paul’s response to Corinthian practice. Biblical theology may function
as a means of testing our practice (and theory) by contrasting them
with the biblical witness, and what follows is offered in that spirit.
However, before engaging with diversity per se, the context of worship
as outlined in Mission-Shaped Church must be outlined.
Mission-Shaped Church makes the bald statement that ‘there is a
church because there is mission, not vice-versa. Apart from worship,
everything else is secondary to this’.15 Hull sees in this a dangerous
separation of worship and mission. His response is that worship, too,
is part of mission, especially since it is the mission of God:
worship does not represent a transcendental area immune from the
concrete character of incarnation. In the life of the church militant, if
worship becomes an end in itself, immune from the missionary nature
of the church, it becomes a fetish. Worship is instrumental to mission.
Worship provides resources and motivation for mission by recalling
Christians into the presence of God who sends.16
Concerned that the report might dangerously advocate a retreat to

purely religious activity, Hull brings a further criticism in his 2008
essay, ‘Mission Shaped or Kingdom Focussed’, warning that ‘if the
churches withdraw into purely religious activity y and only preach
Christ without lifting a finger to alleviate human suffering, our message
will become mere words.’17
More specifically, he says of the Eucharist,
14. John M. Hull, Mission-Shaped Church: A Theological Response (London:

SCM Press, 2006); ‘Only One Way to Walk with God: Christian Discipleship for
New Expressions of Church’, in Percy and Nelstrop (eds.), Evaluating Fresh
Expressions, pp. 105–21; and ‘Mission-Shaped and Kingdom-Focussed’, in Croft
(ed.), Mission-Shaped Questions, pp. 114–32.
15. Mission-shaped Church, p. 85, quoted in Hull, Mission-Shaped Church, p. 27.
16. Hull, Mission-Shaped Church, p. 27.
17. Hull, ‘Mission-Shaped and Kingdom-Focussed’, p. 129.
Being a communion, most usually taken together, and being a sacra-

ment of reconciliation, it has powerful elements of prophetic faith. The
broken bread brings us into a single body as we eat it, meaning that in
the body of Christ we become his body, the reconstructed social body.18
Hull is advocating an understanding of worship in general, and the

Eucharist in particular, in which Christians make and perform a statement
about the world in which they live, and about God’s engagement with
that world, not just the transcendent. It is a picture of worship which
includes the ethical and the behavioural as well as the transcendent. To
those who would criticize such an approach as too worldly, it can only be
said that its theology is thoroughly Pauline, and has the strongest possible
credentials in his discussion of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians.
The Eucharist in 1 Corinthians

At first glance, Paul’s writing about the Lord’s Supper may not appear
to address social issues. It is debatable whether Paul’s advice to the
Corinthians addresses the issue of hunger. Two things point to this in
1 Cor. 11.23-34. First, there is the simple fact that 1 Cor.11.34 advises
those who have problems about hunger to eat at home before they
come:
all should partake together, with no distinctions in rank or food. The
point of the Lord’s Supper is not to satisfy hunger, so it must not be
treated as just another banquet (v. 34a).19
The second, but more contentious, is that the meal proposed does
not appear to be a particularly effective means of addressing hunger,
for Paul’s corrections seem to indicate a token meal, comprising
bread and wine. This scenario draws on a particular view of how the
Eucharist developed. The Passover meal is not considered as sig-
nificant as a Jewish token meal tradition which finds its expression in
the Jewish romance Joseph and Aseneth.20 J.C. O’Neill, drawing on the
work of G.D. Kilpatrick, argued that a token meal tradition lies behind
18. Hull, ‘Mission-Shaped and Kingdom Focussed’, p. 131.

19. Ben Witherington III, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical
Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster,
1992), p. 252.
20. It is held that Joseph and Aseneth is a Jewish text originating outside Palestine
between 100 BCE and the time of Trajan (98 CE–117 CE). For a detailed bibliography on
the provenance and date, see Fergus J. King, More than a Passover: Inculturation in the
Supper Narratives of the New Testament (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2007), p. 85.
the meals described in Joseph and Aseneth, and the Supper Narratives
of the New Testament, noting that ‘there is no early evidence of a
stage in the history of the eucharist when the distinct act of worship is
being disentangled from something embedded in something like a
full-scale meal’.21 Behind O’Neill’s comment lies the fact that the
descriptions of the Last Supper given in the Gospels which connect it
more explicitly to a full Passover meal postdate the Corinthian corre-
spondence, and may thus import an anachronistic identification with the
Passover seder into the accounts. Christoph Burchard argues that an
alternative tradition such as that in Joseph and Aseneth may help:
explain why the central rite of that new religious movement, Chris-
tianity, was a solemn form of consuming artos and poterion, why ges-
tures concerning just these two things were remembered from, or
attributed to, Jesus’ last supper (such gestures are what Mark 14.22-24
par. is about, after all, not a meal), and why a narrative concerning them
was formed at all.22
It suggests a scenario rather, in which a token meal is intended, and

may even originate with Jesus himself: this, certainly, is the source that
Paul claims (1 Cor. 11.23).23
Paul does not provide a quick fix to the problem of hunger. Tucked
into his advice on eucharistic celebration is ethical teaching of a dif-
ferent order, but it is revolutionary within his context. To grasp this
fully we need to consider Paul and the context of the letter, and, in
particular, what social scientific criticism brings to our understanding
of the dynamics of the situation. Paul is writing to the people of
Corinth, a city with a strong Roman character situated in Greece.24
The behaviours of its citizens reflect both Romanitas and Hellenism.
Their social interactions are governed by principles and practices from
those cultural trajectories. Paul uses these together with the prophetic
21. J.C. O’Neill, ‘Bread and Wine’, Scottish Journal of Theology 48 (1995),
pp. 169–84 (179). See also George D. Kilpatrick, The Eucharist in Bible and Liturgy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 59–68. On the dating of the
Last Supper and the Passover, see King, More than a Passover, pp. 201–208.
22. C. Burchard, ‘The Importance of Joseph and Aseneth for the Study of the
New Testament: A General Survey and a Fresh Look at the Lord’s Supper’, New
Testament Studies 33 (1987), pp. 102–34 (118–19). The Greek in the original has been
transliterated.
23. Anthony Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Carlisle:
Paternoster, 2000), pp. 866–68.
24. Joseph Fitzmyer, Romans (AB; London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1993), pp. 275–76;
Witherington, Conflict, pp. 5–9.
traditions of Judaism which linked ritual observance to right beha-

viour. The prophets never wish to abolish the cult, but rather to ensure
that cult practice is not divorced from ethics:
Isaiah, speaking for the Lord, did not intend to abolish them but to drive
home the fact that (whatever may have been the case earlier) God was
no longer pleased with offering sacrifices unless the one approaching
the altar was both ritually and morally pure and upright of heart.25
The upshot of Paul’s approach is that the practice of the Eucharist be

extended into the full life of the community. Hunger may not be addressed
immediately, but wider questions are. What happens in the celebration
should exemplify the life of the community — and be put into practice.
Thus returning to Hull’s categories, worship becomes expressive of
mission by providing a ritual expression of the values of the Kingdom.
Graeco-Roman Society: The Meal as Paradigm of Community

A considerable body of literature built up in the Hellenistic world in
which meals figured prominently in philosophical writings: the sym-
posium tradition.26 This appears in a number of locations: Plato’s
Symposium, Xenophon’s Apologia, Plutarch’s Table-Talk and Athenaeus’s
Deipnosophistae are recognizable examples of the genre. In Judaic Greek
literature, Philo Cont. 57-64 sets the description of the Therapeutai within
this literary tradition, effectively to show their superiority to many of
their Hellenistic counterparts.27 In Old Comedy, related material is used
to satirize society and democracy, even if it never provides practical
advice for improving either.28 The symposium traditions allow actions
or sayings to be invested with significance through their being singled
out and set within a narrative frame or dialogue.29 Indeed, they do
more than this, for they set up a scenario in which the meal parallels
25. A. Milavec, ‘The Purifying Confession of Failings Required by the Did-

ache’s Eucharistic Sacrifice’, Biblical Theology Bulletin, Summer 2003. Online: http://
www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0LAL/2_33/103673632/print.jhtml.
26. D.E. Smith, ‘Table Fellowship as a Literary Motif in the Gospel of Luke’,
Journal of Biblical Literature 106 (1987), pp. 613–38 and Dennis E. Smith, From
Symposium to Eucharist (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), pp. 47–66.
27. H. Szesnat, ‘ ‘‘Pretty Boys’’ in Philo’s De Vita Contemplativa’, The Studia
Philonica Annual 10 (1998), pp. 87–107 (91–93).
28. A.M. Bowie, ‘Thinking with Drinking: Wine and the Symposium in
Aristophanes’, Journal of Hellenic Studies CXVII (1997), pp. 1–21 (21).
29. J. Brumberg-Kraus, ‘ ‘‘Not by Bread Aloney’’: The Ritualization of Food
and Table-Talk in the Passover Seder and in the Last Supper’, Semeia 8 (1999),
pp. 165–91 (171).
the beliefs or world-view of those who take part in it: it becomes a

model example of the ways in which the beliefs of the school should be
practised, not just their etiquette:
The verisimilitude of what is said is measured, step by step, against the
real event which serves as its model and is offered within the text as a
backdrop. In some cases, parallels, analogies, and cross-references
underline the mimetic similarity of words and deeds, the referential
value of the speeches.30
Or, ‘[the meal] might be in many regards a microcosm of the aspirations

and aims of the culture as a whole’.31
This literary tradition does not, however, stand in a vacuum. It is
the tip of a larger social iceberg. The symposium tradition is revealed
in how meals are celebrated in the different cultures of the ancient
world. Dennis E. Smith considers that Paul stands within such ‘ban-
quet ideology’:32 this is revealed in the controversies at Antioch,
Corinth and Rome. This ideology has a particular social significance:
As Paul develops his arguments, he will refer to the power of the meal
to create social bonding and social boundaries. His arguments for social
ethics within the community will draw on banquet traditions of social
obligation towards one’s meal companions. He will respond to issues of
social stratification at the table but will especially develop the theme of
social equality. In his discussion of early Christian worship, he will utilize
many features from the rules of banquet entertainment, suggesting that
worship took place at the community table.33
Paul’s advice on the celebration of the Lord’s Supper thus provides advice
on how the Christian community ought to function, not just celebrate
its rituals. We might paraphrase this as ‘you are (or should be) how you
eat’. The substance of Paul’s reflections on the meal as a paradigm for
behaviour focus on two areas: status and honour, and sacramentals.
Graeco-Roman Society: Status and Honour

In our post-Marxist age it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that
issues of poverty and exclusion have a predominantly economic basis.
30. A. Lukinovich, ‘The Play of Reflections between Literary Form and the
Sympotic Theme in the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus’, in Oswyn Murray (ed.),
Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposium (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), pp. 263–71
(269–70).
31. Witherington, Conflict, p. 244.
32. Smith, Symposium, p. 174.
33. Smith, Symposium, p. 175.
While this may be increasingly the case, it is not universally or

necessarily so even in the modern world, and no less a political
thinker than Julius Nyerere counselled against the unthinking appli-
cation of post-industrial theory to pre-industrial societies.34 Certainly,
economics played a part in the stratification of the ancient world, but
this role was not unique.35 A number of other factors made an impact
on the ordering of society:
Family, ethnic background, legal standing (free, freed or slave), occu-
pation (artisans, traders, physicians, etc.), citizenship (civic or imperial),
education, skill, and especially wealthy36
This analysis provides a reminder that local status and official

position could well vary,37 and a further rider, that local context
influenced rankings, also may be added.38
The social scientific analysis of such societies, based on modern
anthropological theory and ancient rhetoric39 suggests one in which
honour and shame are key components. Scott Bartchy has identified
five features which characterize such an honour-based society:
1. Honour is the pivotal social value.
2. Seeking honour for the family was the primary task of males.
3. Honour was limited in supply: to gain honour meant someone
else lost it.
4. A loss of honour demanded retaliation of some form. The
society was thus agonistic and competitive in nature.
34. See further Martin N. Nkemnkia, African Vitalogy: A Step Forward in

African Thinking (Nairobi: Paulines, 1999), pp. 50–56; J.K. Nyerere, ‘The Church’s
Role in Society’, in John Parratt (ed.), A Reader in African Christian Theology
(London: SPCK, 1997), pp. 109–19 (113–14).
35. One of the criticisms made of Gerd Theissen, (‘The Strong and the Weak
in Corinth: A Sociological Analysis of a Theological Quarrel’, in Gerd Theissen
(ed.), The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1982), pp. 121–44), is his use of the predominantly economic ‘class’
rather than ‘status’ to delineate Corinthian society. ‘Status’ involves a ‘multi-
dimensionality of stratification’ with a number of components: see Wayne A.
Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1983), p. 54, and John Fotopoulos, Food Offered to Idols in
Roman Corinth (WUNT 2. Reihe 151, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), p. 13.
36. Philip A. Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a
Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 27.
37. Harland, Associations, p. 27.
38. Meeks, First Urban Christians, p. 55.
39. Jerome H. Neyrey, Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), pp. 6–7.
5. Status and honour were revealed in the ways in which

participants were treated in social settings such as meals.40
Such stratification was indicated by a number of signs: seating, portion
size, food quality and so on. Two illustrations from first-century CE
writers indicate this. The first comes from a satire by Martial, in which he
chides his host for the way he has been treated:
Since I am asked to dinner, no longer, as before, as a purchased guest
[i.e., a client], why is not the same dinner served to me as to you? You
take oysters fattened in the Lucrine lake, I suck a mussel through a hole
in a shell; you get mushrooms, I take hog funguses; you tackle turbot,
but I brill. Golden with fat, a turtledove gorges you with its bloated
rump; there is set before me a magpie that has died in its cage. Why do I
dine without you, although, Ponticus, I am dining with you? The dole
has gone: let us have the benefit of that; let us eat the same fare.41
The second, from Pliny the Younger, uses a debate about stratification
at meals to show how his ability to be austere is a triumph for his
Roman virtues over the profligacy of his interlocutor:
Some very elegant dishes were served up to himself and a few more of
the company; while those which were placed before the rest were cheap
and paltry. He had apportioned in small flagons three different sorts of
wine; but you are not to suppose it was the guests that might take their
choice: on the contrary, they might not choose at all. One was for
himself and me; the next for his friends of a lower order; and the third
for his own freed-men and mine. One who sat next to me took notice of
this, and asked me if I approved of it. ‘Not at all,’ I told him. ‘Pray, then,’
said he, ‘what is your method on such occasions?’ ‘Mine,’ I returned, ‘is
to give all my company the same fare; for when I make an invitation, it
is to sup, not to be censored. Every man whom I have placed on an
equality with myself by admitting him to my table, I treat as an equal in
all particulars.’ ‘Even freed-men?’ he asked. ‘Even them,’ I said; ‘for on
these occasions I regard them not as freed-men, but boon-companions.’
‘This must put you to great expense,’ says he. I assured him not at all;
and on his asking how that could be, I said ‘Why you must know my
freed-men don’t drink the same wine I do, but I drink what they do.’42
40. S. Bartchy, ‘The Historical Jesus and Honor Reversal at the Table’, in
Wolfgang Stegemann, Bruce J. Malina and Gerd Theissen (eds.), The Social Setting
of Jesus and the Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2002), pp. 175–83 (178). There
is an extended description in Neyrey, Honor, pp. 5–34.
41. Martial, Epigrammata, 3.60, quoted in Smith, Symposium, p. 45 and
Witherington, Conflict, p. 242, n. 3.
42. Translation in William Melmoth, Pliny the Younger: Letters (Harvard Classics,
New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14). Online at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/
ancient/pliny-letters.html. See also Meeks, First Urban Christians, p. 68.
What is happening at Corinth appears rooted in such conventions.

Note that here I assume that Paul is dealing with a real rather than
a fictional practice. The Corinthian congregation, to borrow a phrase
from the late Douglas Adams, seems to have had ‘problems beyond
the dreams of analysts’:43 it is hard to imagine the apostle inventing
fictional scenarios to resolve. Paul’s rhetorical flourish to introduce his
reflections (1 Cor. 11.18) does not detract from the reality of the pro-
blem.44 Reports from Corinth45 have revealed that participants at the
meal are either distinguished by when they eat or what they eat:
Much depends on how we take the word prolambanei. Does it mean ‘go
before’ or ‘anticipate’ in which case the wealthy were eating before
others, or does it simply mean ‘take’, that is, ‘eat’? Lexical evidence
favours the former, but even so the point may not be that some poor
people are arriving late, but that while all are already present the
wealthy are being served first and are receiving the better portions, and
then the poor in the atrium get what is left over.46
Either way, their practice is making distinctions, and this is challenged

by Paul.
43. Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. in Douglas
Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Trilogy (New York: Harmony, 1983), p. 153.
44. Witherington, Conflict, p. 247. Cf.Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul and the
Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition
of 1 Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991), pp. 151–57.
45. Thiselton, First Epistle, p. 849.
46. Witherington, Conflict, 249; cf. Thiselton, First Epistle, pp. 898–99 for whom
the key issue is shame, not hunger. Those who stress timing as the source of Paul’s
concern include Burchard, ‘The Importance of Joseph and Aseneth’, p. 127, Hans Frör,
You Wretched Corinthians! (London: SCM Press, 1995), p. 59 and S.W. Henderson, ‘ ‘‘If
Anyone Hungersy’’: An Integrated Reading of 1 Cor 11.17-34’, New Testament
Studies 48 (2002), pp. 195–208 (200). Others think timing is not an issue: Thiselton,
First Epistle, p. 863; Schrage, Die Erste Brief an Die Korinther (EKK VII.3, Zurich: Zurich
Benziger Verlag, 1991), p. 57. For some, the use of prolambanei implies a further twist,
on the grounds that food shortages caused participants to rush to eat (Thiselton, First
Epistle, pp. 852–53, 863). Critics of the timing thesis include A.A. Das, ‘1 Corinthians
11:17-34 Revisited’, Concordia Theological Quarterly 62 (1998), pp. 187–208 (188–89).
Others argue that people ate what they brought, and this led to distinctions on the
basis of foodstuffs: thus, O. Hofius, ‘The Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s Supper
Tradition: Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:23b-25’, in Ben F. Meyer (ed.), One Loaf,
One Cup: Ecumenical Studies of 1 Cor 11 and Other Eucharistic Texts. The Cambridge
Conference on the Eucharist August 1988 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1988),
pp. 75–115 (88–92). L. Schottroff, ‘Holiness and Justice: Exegetical Comments on 1
Corinthians 11.17-34’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 79 (2000), pp. 51–60
(53) also thinks food lies at the centre of the problem.
Paul’s Response: Status and Honour

Viewed against this background, Paul’s advice on how the Lord’s
Supper should be celebrated becomes one in which the standard
conventions of stratification are shattered. All the guests, whatever
their background, are to eat the same food at the same time, irre-
spective of the issue of physical hunger (1 Cor. 11.34). Put simply, it
shows that all are equal in the sight of God. It is a ritual embodiment
of the principles we are more familiar with from Gal. 3.26-29.
It is even possible, but this is more contentious, that, should wheat
bread rather than barley bread (as may be implied by the use of artos,
as opposed to maza, ‘barley bread’ [Hippocrates, VM 120]) be con-
sumed, it could imply that all hold a high status in the sight of God.
For both wheat bread47 and wine48 were arguably considered high-
status foods. This is a very different outcome from meals stratified by
ranking and food types such as Pliny described.
The position taken by Paul has severe implications for a principle
adopted in the Mission-Shaped Church, and identified as the ‘Homo-
geneous Unit Principle’ (HUP) in which:
‘People like to become Christian without crossing racial/linguistic/class/
cultural barriers.’ In other words, they prefer to remain who they are cul-
turally while changing to be Christian. Culturally they remain the same and
tend to gather with others from the same culture who share their faith.49
This principle has its origins in the writings of Donald McGavran,

whose 1955 The Bridges of God50 articulates a theory that the best
47. Peter Garnsey, Food and Society in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999), p. 121; Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John,
Vol. 2 (London: Burns & Oates, 1980), p. 442, n. 25.
48. R. Langer, ‘Wine’, in Ed Kessler and Neil Wenborn (eds.), A Dictionary
of Jewish-Christian Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005),
pp. 445–46). Hofius, ‘The Lord’s Supper’, pp. 85–86, is more skeptical about the
privileged status of wine noting that it need not be associated solely with the
Passover or festal meals.
49. Mission-shaped Church, p. 108. Hull, Mission-Shaped Church, p. 15, notes
that McGavran (see n. 50) might not agree with the implications of the use of his
work as manifested in the report. Yet, C.R. Padilla, ‘Unity of the Church and the
Homogeneous Unit Principle’, in Robert L. Gallagher and Paul Hertig (eds.),
Landmark Essays in Mission and World Christianity (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,
2009), pp. 73–92 (89–92) is highly critical of MacGavran’s theorizing for reasons
very similar to those given by Hull.
50. Donald A. McGavran, The Bridges of God: A Study in the Strategy of Mission
(London: World Dominion Press, 1955).
foundation for mission is ‘people movements’, and that people will

respond more readily to mission when there is no demand that they
be moved out of their society. His later works develop the theme.51
It is worth noting how McGavran describes the principle in his early
work, defining a ‘true people’ viewing themselves as a ‘separate
race’.52 Their self-perception of themselves as distinct, or ‘race prejudice’,
is, in his view, something which should be built upon, contrary to
popular contemporary views:
Because of the intense battle against race prejudice, the concept of separate
races of men is discredited in many circles. yBut to ignore the sig-
nificance of race hinders Christianizationyit makes an enemy of race
consciousness, instead of an ally. It does no good to say that tribal peoples
ought not to have race prejudice. They do have it and are proud of it. It
can be understood and should be made an aid to Christianization.53
While its advocates view HUP as essentially a pragmatic category, some

theologians have raised concerns about its theoretical bias. David Bosch
noted two concerns: the first, the possibility that the Church growth
movement might share the presuppositions of the German missiologist
Keysser that ‘Der Stamm is zugleich die Christengemeinde’ (‘the tribe is at the
same time the Christian Church’), the other, that their preferred inter-
pretation of ethnê (Mt. 28.19) in an ethnological and sociological sense is
unsupported by ‘a single NT scholar of any repute’.54 Bosch’s sensitivity
to the language of race may be over-played, but is generous compared to
Barth’s brutal summary of this exegesis: ‘It is worthless!’55
51. Donald A. McGavran, Understanding Church Growth (rev. edn; Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 223–43. For a fuller definition and analysis of the
sociological underpinnings of the term, see Bruce W. Fong, Racial Equality in the
Church: A Critique of the Homogeneous Unit Principle in Light of a Practical Theology
Perspective (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1996), pp. 10–12. Fong,
Racial Equality, pp. 39–69 summarizes the exposition and criticism of the HUP in
recent missiological debate.
52. McGavran, Bridges, p. 9.
53. McGavran, Bridges, p. 10.
54. D.J. Bosch, ‘Nothing but a Heresy: Church Unity amidst Cultural
Diversity: A Protestant Problem’, in John W. DeGruchy (ed.), Apartheid Is a Heresy
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 24–38. (27–28). See also D.J. Bosch, ‘The
Structure of Mission: An Exposition of Matthew 28: 16–20’, in Wilbert R. Shenk
(ed.), Exploring Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 218–248
(236–40) and Fong, Racial Equality, for an exposition of the HUP interpretation
(pp. 20–21) and critique (pp. 59–60).
55. K. Barth, ‘An Exegetical Study of Matthew 28:16-20’, in Gallagher and
Hertig (eds.), Landmark Essays in Mission and World Christianity, pp. 17–30 (25).
Others take a more positive line: Richard Pierard argues that Keysser’s
pattern was ‘to preserve the Volksstructur, while replacing the aboriginal
religion — which served as the social glue — with Christianity’,56 that
while the debate about ‘race’ was coloured by the ideological con-
troversies of the 1930s and 1940s,57 and that these corporate approaches,
sometimes referred to as indigenization,58 have remained valid.59 That
said, indigenization and the HUP are not co-terminus categories. Even if,
as the Dutch scholar Johannes Hoejendijk, reflecting on Barth’s and
Brunner’s examination of such methods, concluded, ‘the approach
is treated as one of the possibilities [of mission] there is nothing
sinful in talking about Volkskirche’,60 there is surely a huge question
begged here. It is this: how may ‘race prejudice’ be accepted within
a missionary programme without some degree of clarification? For
McGavran seems to suggest that either for utilitarian ends, or to some
unspecified degree, race prejudice is acceptable. And, as people living
after the Holocaust and other genocides in the late twentieth century,
never mind the smaller, less spectacular, but no less alienating treatment
of minorities within many cultures, we must not be so naı̈ve. We might
circumvent the problem by renaming it as, say, pride in one’s identity,
but still the question remains: at what point does ‘race prejudice’ become
unacceptable?
There are further more concrete problems. As used in Mission-
Shaped Church, this principle contradicts what Paul does in bringing
people from diverse social groups together in Corinth. This seems so
straightforward that really no further exposition is needed. If Paul had
advocated ‘race prejudice’, he would simply have advised the Cor-
inthians, ‘Look, just eat with whom you like in honour of the Lord.’ If
such an approach is right, Paul’s whole attitude seems completely
wrong-headed: why bother to get different types of people to come
together, especially in a society in which status was affected by so
many different factors? As we shall see, this is not the final word.
56. R.V. Pierard, ‘Significant Currents in German Protestant Missiology’

(Currents in World Christianity Position Paper Number 102, Currents in World
Christianity Project, Westminster College, Cambridge, 1999), p. 22.
57. Pierard, ‘Significant Currents’, p. 22. Timothy Yates, Christian Mission in
the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 48–54.
58. Thus, Pierard, ‘Significant Currents’, p. 22.
59. Yates, Christian Mission, pp. 54–56.
60. Johannes C. Hoekendijk, Kirche und Volk in der deutscher Mis-
sionswissenschaft (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1967), p. 280. This translation in
Yates, Christian Mission, p. 54.
The second point, and here I depart from what might strictly be
called biblical theology into missiology, is that the HUP is based on a
category mistake, and cannot be applied universally. We may illus-
trate this by considering Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Advocates of
the HUP claim that such principles informed the strategy which
ensured that it was easier for non-Jews to be admitted:
To paraphrase McGavran in the context of Paul’s ministry, first century
pagan Greeks found it less difficult to become Christians when they
were not forced to cross formidable cultural barriers such as circumci-
sion, dietary regulations, and a Mosaic law code alien to their experi-
ence. So Paul insisted that the church should place no barriers between
potential converts and the salvation of Christ except those God had
already placed there — confession, repentance, faith and baptism.61
While initially attractive this is not an analysis which holds up

under scrutiny. The HUP essentially says that there are cultural
categories (exemplified by circumcision, dietary requirements and the
like) and theological categories (such as confession, repentance, faith
and baptism): whatever is deemed cultural may be rejected. Yet these
two categories are not distinct. What are described as ‘cultural bar-
riers’ have a patently theological content.62 Following Bruce Chilton’s
arguments about food purity in Mk 7.14-15 where he describes Jesus
making ‘an assertion concerning defilement, not a general denial of
defilement’,63 I would suggest that within emerging Christianity the
supposedly ‘cultural’ elements are not purely cultural, but also have
theological significance. This does not have to be fulfilled through the
following of one set of practices: alternatives are possible. So, elements
within emerging Christianity view it as permissible to achieve these
ends without following the existing pathways. This is a phenomenon
which is visible at a number of points within Second Temple Judaism.
In the development of synagogues, it can be seen when a worshipper
fulfils the requirements for attendance at a Temple festival by hearing
the appropriate texts read in the synagogue.64 In the Qumran/Essene
nexus, the sectarians, after walking away from what they considered a
debased and sacrilegious Temple priesthood, evolved a community
61. R.L. Plaisted, ‘The Homogeneous Unit Debate: Its Value Orientations and
Changes’, Evangelical Quarterly 59.3 (1987), pp. 215–33 (228–29).
62. Cf. Bosch, ‘The Structure of Mission’, p. 237.
63. Jacob Neusner (with Bruce Chilton), Judaism in the New Testament: Prac-
tices and Beliefs (New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 202.
64. Frederick C.N. Hicks, The Fullness of Sacrifice: An Essay in Reconciliation
(London: SPCK, 1959), pp. 106–07.
way of life in which their community was identified as the Temple

in which sanctity, purity and covenant responsibility were more
important than a particular building.65 This process, identified by
Cheryl Newsom as ‘re-accentuation’ sees traditional theological lan-
guage reappropriated and invested with a fresh significance:
Ordinary words, words traditionally important for self-representation,
such as ‘righteousness’ or ‘spirit’, may be given a slightly different
nuance by being associated with a different range of terms or employed
in unusual constructionsy
and in the new utterance that is created out of those traditional ele-
ments, it is possible to create the sense that one is only now under-
standing the true meaning of words that had long been familiar and
important.66
In this understanding, the HUP advocates’ distinction of culture

and theology no longer seems appropriate or relevant. It also has the
merit of explaining why non-Jewish converts might have found their
theological needs answered by early Christian preaching and teach-
ing, for there were commonalities with their religious traditions. The
observer here seems to be setting up an artificial distinction between
the two: a bifurcation of theology and culture.
There is an additional issue of the historical accuracy of the HUP,
for the congregations at Galatia and Antioch were evidently, like
many other of the NT communities, heterogeneous.67 The Galatian
correspondence reveals difficulties in using the HUP within such
groups. Gal. 3.28, for example, does not lend itself to the establishment
of ethnic churches, despite HUP advocates interpreting it thus on the
grounds that the differences cited are essentially irrelevant:68
it is evident that due to Galatians 3:28 along with Colossians 3:11
and Ephesians 2:11-22 that HU churches, in particular ethnic churches
that remain deliberately separate in multi-ethnic regions are not God’s
65. Maria Mamfredis, ‘ ‘‘A Nation of Priests’’: The World-View of the Temple
Scroll and its Application to the Way of Life Prescribed in the Sectarian Scrolls from
Qumran (unpublished PhD thesis, Concordia University, Montreal, 2000), pp. 197;
205–206; 209–10; 235–36.
66. C.A. Newsom, ‘Apocalyptic Subjects: Social Construction of the Self in the
Qumran Hodayot’, Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 12 (2001), pp. 3–35.
(6–7).
67. F.W. Norris, ‘Strategy for Mission in the New Testament’, in Wilbert R.
Shenk (ed.), Exploring Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 260–76.
(272–73).
68. Fong, Racial Equality, p. 27.
primary intent and that the use of this concept in ‘growth strategies and
evangelistic plans’ should be re-evaluated.69
Further, the argument with Peter (Gal. 2.11-14) is a further example

of Paul’s disapproval of ‘race prejudice’ which he would obliterate
from the new Christian community: it would set up distinctions which
Paul is determined to break down. If anything this passage suggests
that acknowledgement of ‘race prejudice’ is a retrograde step —
reversing a practice of eating together (Gal. 2.11-13).70 F.F. Bruce,
following T.W. Manson, suggests that such practices may have
become known further afield and become an obstacle to evangeliza-
tion.71 If this is so, Paul’s refusal to accede to the demands of the
visitors from Judaea is, in fact, the antithesis of the HUP: unity within
the congregation is not to be compromised for the sake of evangeli-
zation. Far from tolerating a principle of homogeneity for the sake of
the wider mission, Paul appears opposed to it, judging it ouk ortho-
podousin (Gal. 2.14), a ‘crooked, wavering, and more or less insincere
course’.72 The apostle’s verdict should at least prompt modern con-
gregations to consider whether the HUP is really appropriate to their
circumstances. Those who persevere with the HUP must address
Robert Gration’s reminder that what really matters is how individual
churches ‘function both in their internal organic relationships and in
their external relationships with other parts of the Body. It is here that
the unity of the Body will be exhibited or denied’.73 They also will
need to address the issues of conversion raised by Bruce Fong which
imply that there must be some change from the social identity which
was held prior to conversion because this in itself is a proclamation of
transformation in Christ:
Once conversion takes place, then an individual because of sanctifica-
tion, is called upon to demonstrate a life of change more significantly
than the HUP theory allows. The concept of mixing different people
together in an intimate spiritual fellowship is made possible by the
69. Fong, Racial Equality, p. 61.

70. Hans D. Betz, Galatians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979),
p. 106; Ernest D. Burton, Galatians (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1979), pp. 104–105;
Joseph B. Lightfoot, The Epistles of St. Paul. II — The Third Apostolic Journey. 3.
Epistle to the Galatians (London: Macmillan, 1880), p. 112.
71. Frederick F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek
Text (NIGTC; Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1982), p. 130.
72. Burton, Galatians, p. 110. See also Bosch, ‘The Structure of Mission’, p. 240.
73. R. Gration, ‘The Homogeneous Unit Principle: Another Perspective’,
Evangelical Missions Quarterly 17.4 (1981), pp. 197–202. (202).
wonder of sanctification and the local church is an arena to display it to

a watchful world.74
Graeco-Roman Society: Sacramentalia

It has already been suggested that there were affinities between the
different religious traditions of the ancient Mediterranean. Both
Graeco-Roman and Judaic religious traditions included a sacramental
dimension. I purposefully call these sacramentalia, following Christoph
Burchard’s lead,75 rather than sacraments, to stress that these are
not identical with the later doctrinal understandings of sacraments.
G.D. Kilpatrick stresses this point:
We are used to the definition of the Eucharist as consisting of an out-
ward and visible sign and an inward and spiritual grace, as the
description of a sacrament. As we saw in the first lecture, this notion is
as old as Augustine but no older. The Bible does not know it.76
It is worth, then, clarifying what is meant by sacramentalia. In Judaic

thinking sacramentalia are essentially ordinary items, such as food,
drink and ointment, used for a ‘heavenly’ purpose, given a fresh
power by the use of benedictions and blessings which are effective
when administered by one gifted by God.77
Graeco-Roman religions also knew of sacraments: rites which were
spiritually effective when carried out in a correct way.78 Thomas
Söding offers the following definition:
Actions and objects, originally belonging to the realm of the profane,
that refer, in the context of hierophany, a self-manifestation of the divine
(like symbols) to the realm of transcendent holiness and, more impor-
tantly, that convey at the same time, and effectively, the power of the
transcendent, thus regenerating human (and cosmic) life.79
However, there appears to be a difference between the two which can

be expressed as follows. Again it is difficult because later sacramental
74. Fong, Racial Equality, pp. 67–68. See also Roland Allen, Missionary Meth-
ods: St Paul’s Or Ours? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999 [repr.]), pp. 70–71 for
anticipated criticism of theories such as the HUP.
75. Burchard, ‘Importance’, p. 117.
76. Kilpatrick, The Eucharist, p. 57.
78. Charles K. Barrett, Essays on John (London: SCM Press, 1982), pp. 82–83.
79. Thomas Söding, translation and quotation from Eckhard Schnäbel, Early
Christian Mission. II. Paul and the Early Church (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2004),
p. 1347.
theology has complicated the terms used. In medieval and post-

medieval sacramental theology the phrase ex opere operato has come to
mean that the rite is effective irrespective of the moral or spiritual
condition of the one performing the rite. In the ancient world it had a
related meaning, but with a different emphasis. The same phrase
meant that the correct performance of the ritual guaranteed effec-
tiveness, and that morality really was an irrelevance to this process:
Both of the Christian sacraments, in their earliest phase were considered
to be primarily dono data, namely blessings conveyed to those who by
nature were unfit to participate in the new order inaugurated by the
person and work of Jesus Christ. Pagan sacraments, on the contrary,
conveyed their benefits ex opere operato, by ‘the liberating or creating of an
immortal element in the individual with a view to the hereafter, but with
no effective change of the moral self for the purposes of living’.80
Such a view is based on an understanding of Graeco-Roman mysteries

and religious practice which places little emphasis on the ethical
behaviour of participants in the rites. A text which illustrates this is
found in Diogenes Laertius, where the Cynic philosopher Diogenes
makes the following criticism of the mysteries:
When the Athenians entreated him to be initiated in the Eleusinian
mysteries, and said that in the shades below the initiated had the best
seats; ‘It will,’ he replied, ‘be an absurd thing if Aegesilaus and Epa-
minondas are to live in the mud, and some miserable wretches, who
have been initiated, are to be in the islands of the blest.’81
However, we must be cautious not to oversimplify. The Graeco-

Roman mysteries are not reducible to a standard pattern: a cult like
that of Dionysus, for example, changed considerably over time,82 and
it is also highly contentious to make one cult paradigmatic for all.83
Further, some of the descriptions of the cults by ancient writers as
licentious and uncontrolled may say more about ‘novelistic stereo-
types and upper-class pretensions than the reality’,84 and some did
80. Bruce Metzger, Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish and Christian
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), p. 14.
81. Diogenes Laertius, The Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers,
Vol. VI. From Yonge’s translation online at http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/
diogenes/dldiogenes.htm.
82. R. Beck, ‘Ritual, Myth, Doctrine and Initiation in the Mysteries of Mithras:
New Evidence from a Cult Vessel’, Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000),
pp. 145–80 (172).
83. Beck, ‘Ritual, Myth, Doctrine’, pp. 173–74.
84. Harland, Associations, p. 75.
have moral prerequisites for admission, which dealt with sexual

morality and obedience to the deity.85 Thaddeus Zielinski noted that
within some traditions those who participated and behaved badly
might incur ‘spiritual destruction’.86 Christopher Fraser notes that the
Andanian Mysteries appear to have an ethical component,87 but the
behaviour outlined in the descriptions of the mysteries is sketchy:
those which appear in detail refer principally to behaviour concerned
with the celebrations of the rituals.88 In short, we may conclude that
Graeco-Roman mysteries ascribed varying significance to ethics in
relation to the efficacy of their rituals.
Paul’s Response: Sacramentalia

Paul brings a strong ethical dimension to his understanding of the Lord’s
Supper by placing it after the material of 1 Cor. 10.1-13. Here Paul uses
the people of Israel in the wilderness as an example, or rather a warn-
ing.89 Given the chance to enter into the Promised Land, they forfeit the
opportunity and perish in the wilderness because their behaviour, which
characterizes their response to God, is inadequate, and manifested in
disobedience. They are held up as a warning to the Corinthians not to be
complacent. It appears that Paul is saying something like this: ‘do not
rely on rites and rituals to get your reward, what you do is also
important’. That will later be manifested in the way in which the Lord’s
Supper is to be celebrated. It may be celebrated wrongly,90 so that those
who take part do so ‘unworthily’ (1 Cor. 11.27), become ‘fit to be pun-
ished’91 and even guilty of the death of the Lord.92 1 Cor. 11.23-34 marks
an attempt to ensure that the celebrations of the Lord’s Supper are
85. Harland, Associations, pp. 70–7.1.

86. Thaddeus Zielinski, The Religion of Ancient Greece: An Outline (translated
from the Polish with the author’s cooperation by George Rapall Noyes; Chicago:
Ares, 1974), p. 149.
87. C.G. Fraser, ‘The Jewish and Hellenistic Influences on Paul: A Case Study
of Mysterion’ (unpublished MA thesis, University of Windsor, Ontario, 1998),
pp. 28–29.
88. Marvin W. Meyer, The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Ancient Texts
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987), pp. 50–59. for the relevant
texts from Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 4: Messenia 33:3-6 and the Rule of
the Andanian Mysteries.
89. Fotopoulos, Food, pp. 227–29.
90. Witherington, Conflict, p. 251.
91. Thiselton, The First Epistle, p. 889.
92. Ernst Kasemann, Essays on New Testament Themes (Studies in Biblical
Theology, First Series, 41; London: SCM Press, 1964), pp. 122–23.
characterized by suitable behaviour, and this appears to be an argument

for a change to current practice.
The section which follows the warning-cum-example (1 Cor. 10.1-13)
makes a demand for exclusivity and obedience to the will of God,
demanding that the Corinthians separate themselves from other cups
offered to demons or other deities (1 Cor. 10.14-22). The sense of
communion which follows is one which is often given a diminished
significance in contemporary use, in which koinonia is reduced to
‘fellowship or ‘sharing’. Yet something much more intense is meant:
Our translations ‘participation’ or even ‘fellowship’ are thus much too
weak, because the concept is intended to describe the experience of
forcible seizure, of the overwhelming power of superior forcesy.
Because his gift cannot be separated from himself, this gift does not
merely convey impersonal death-or-life-giving powers. Because, on the
contrary, it brings with it the Giver himself, indifference towards it is
impossible. His presence can never leave us unchanged. We do not, by
our own lack of reverence, render his gift ineffective nor turn the pre-
sence of Christ into absence. We cannot paralyse God’s eschatological
action: salvation despised becomes judgment.93
John Fotopolous links this to the example of the people of Israel:

Paul is opposed to idol-food consumption in temple contexts because of
the religious koinonia with pagan gods that constitutes idolatry and
stands in opposition to the exclusive religious koinonia with Jesus in the
Lord’s Supper.94
This is part of a wider debate about religious ideology — and that

includes the sacramental dimension of Graeco-Roman cults.95 In place
of the ex opere operato machinery of Graeco-Roman practice, Paul
seems to place a dono data system in which the sacraments are only
effective when those who take part in worship also manifest signs of
behaviour which resonate with the will of the deity.
That said, a note of caution must be introduced. It has been common
for New Testament scholars to propose a controversy which identifies
sacramentalism as ‘external, crude and magical’.96 Interestingly,
Hull’s critique of worship does exactly this in the modern context
when he suggests the Mission-Shaped Church’s concept of worship may
93. Kasemann, Essays, pp. 124–25.

94. Fotopoulos, Food, p. 8.
95. Schnäbel, Early Christian Mission, p. 1346.
96. D.E. Aune, ‘The Phenomenon of Early Christian ‘‘Anti-sacramentalism’’ ’,
in David E. Aune (ed.), Studies in New Testament and Early Christian Literature:
Essays in Honor of Allen P. Wikgren (Leiden: Brill, 1972), pp. 194–214 (200).
turn it into a ‘fetish’.97 The ancient debate must be described differ-

ently. Magic and worship were distinct, but so distinguished by factors
which drew the line between illicit and licit religion (respectively,
religio and superstitio) at a point different from our modern reckoning.98
An ex opere operato mechanism was not a distinguishing characteristic.
Fotopoulos argues that at no point does the Corinthian material
directly give evidence that a magical, apotropaic understanding of
sacraments was held: he would rather see idolatry than sacramental-
ism as the root of their problem.99 While he seems here to rule out
sacramentalism in favour of idolatry, it still remains possible that such
a dimension remains.
First, a sacramental dimension to such religious practices found in
the temples at Corinth was part of Graeco-Roman theology and
worship, and Fotopoulos notes as much, criticizing Wendell Willis for
his dismissive approach to sacramentalism.100 Thus, even if there is no
direct evidence in the Corinthian correspondence, it may reasonably
be assumed that sacramentalism was part of the world-view which
shaped the meal practice in Corinthian temples. After all, the word
koinonia arguably appears to be part of the terminology of the Graeco-
Roman mysteries and has a sacramental feel to it. Here, Paul uses that
term and gives it a sacramental significance at variance with the
dominant understandings in the mystery traditions: not so much
giving deification to the believers as strengthening them in fellowship,
and introducing them to a right relationship with God.101 David
Aune’s wider conclusions are apposite: debates among or within
Christian groups were not about accepting or rejecting sacramentalism,
but what constituted ‘appropriate sacramental piety’.102
Second, discussions about what is appropriate need to span Judaic
and Graeco-Roman theology. We have already noted differences in
the way Graeco-Roman mystery cults engaged with ethics, ritual and
behaviour. Judaic theory and practice adds a further perspective
97. Hull, Mission-shaped Church, p. 27.

98. C.A. Walz, ‘The Cursing Paul: Magical Contests in Acts 13 and the New
Testament Apocrypha’, in Robert L. Gallagher and Paul Hertig (eds.), Mission in
Acts: Ancient Narratives in Contemporary Context (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,
2004), pp. 167–82 (168–72).
99. Fotopoulos, Food, p. 231.
100. Fotopoulos, Food, p. 22. Wendell L. Willis, Idol Meat in Corinth: The Pauline
Argument in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985).
101. Schnäbel, Early Christian Mission, p. 1347.
102. Aune, ‘The Phenomenon’, p. 213.
which arises from its combination of prophetic and cultic elements.

Writings like Joseph and Aseneth locate proper sacramental behaviour
firmly within a setting of idolatry and true faith. Two quotations from
Christoph Burchard’s writing illustrate this. The first is the contrast
made between the eating patterns found in Paul and Joseph and
Aseneth with those offered, in their terms, to demons:
Moreover, since for Paul the Lord’s Supper holds the place which the
blessed bread, cup, and ointment hold in JosAs as opposed to food and
drink from the idol’s table, he is able to express the contrast between the
two by means of an antithetic parallelism.103
The second reinforces Paul’s Judaic style of thinking:

Therefore, contrary to what some think, Paul does not seem to operate with
a prima facie resemblance of the Supper and certain pagan ceremonies. He
is at pains to get a measure of it established, building on a traditional
Jewish opposition between Jewish food and food from the idols’ table.104
All this points to sacramental thought as symptomatic of, not distinct

from, idolatry: these are not exclusive theological categories. Ulti-
mately, the key point, however nuanced, remains the same: partici-
pation in the meals demands certain behaviours. Paul implies that
these are changes which the Corinthians need to make irrespective of
whether scholars find their source in sacramentalism, idolatry, or
some combination of the two. True worship demands modifications of
behaviour as part of faithfulness to God: it has an ethical dimension.
Even if it appears that there were divisions within the mystery tra-
ditions regarding the role of behaviour and its effects, Paul’s Judaic
sensibilities105 indicate a bias towards those traditions which would
include a much greater emphasis on morality: he significantly ‘ups the
ante’ on behaviour by implying in 1 Corinthians 10 that it is not just
behaviour during ritual which is of importance.
Conclusions
Paul’s advice to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10–11 raises major
questions about the relationship between worship and mission pos-
ited by the Mission-Shaped Church. Paul’s use of symposium traditions

105. Schnäbel, Early Christian Mission, pp. 1347–48. For an overview and cri-
ticism of critical trajectories which have attempted to divorce Paul from a Judaic
background, see John G. Gager, Re-inventing Paul (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2000), pp. 40–42.
sets the scene, suggesting that the way in which worship and the
ritual meal are celebrated should proclaim the values of the ‘school’, of
the new social entity centred on Christ. This world-view demands
engagement with social issues which centre on status and honour.
Paul argues that the Corinthians should celebrate in such a way that
their ritual meal expresses an equal status through the consumption of
the same food (bread and wine) at the same time. Further, he uses
Judaic understandings of sacramentals to insist that right worship
does not function effectively in an ethical vacuum: true worship is
accompanied by changes of behaviour in which the believers live out
the obedience to God which is expressed in their rituals.
Such a scenario raises major scriptural concerns with the Mission-
Shaped Church’s proposals about worship divorced from mission, and
its advocacy of the HUP, a principle which appears more reminiscent
of what Paul is arguing against than what he proposes.
While these conclusions have been reached through, primarily, a
consideration of the social-scientific setting of the Corinthian material, it
has to be said that the demand that worship be integrated with ethics is
by no means claimed as a new insight. As one example of this, consider
Bishop Frank Weston’s challenge to Anglo-Catholics of the 1920s:
when you come out from before your tabernacles, you must walk with
Christ, mystically present in you, through the streets of this country,
and find the same Christ in the people of your cities and villages. You
cannot claim to worship Christ in the tabernacle if you do not pity Jesus
in the slumyIt is folly, it is madness, to suppose that you can worship
Jesus in the sacrament and on the throne of glory when you are
sweating Him in the bodies and souls of his childrenyYou have your
Mass, you have your altars, you have begun to have your tabernacles.
Now go out into the highways and hedges, and look for Jesus in the
ragged and the naked, in the oppressed and the sweated, in those who
have lost hope and in those who are struggling to make good. Look for
Jesus in them; and when you find Him, gird yourselves with His towel
of fellowship, and wash His feet in the person of His brethren.106
That simple quote, arguably more neglected than upheld, is well worth
remembering as Fresh Expressions, and appropriate forms of worship, are
explored. For, if its meaning is taken to heart, the dichotomy between the
vertical and horizontal relationship which Hull so trenchantly criticizes107
will have been overcome. Indeed, it must be overcome, for a cross with
106. Frank Weston, In Defence of the English Catholic (London: Mowbray, 1923),
p. 30.
107. Hull, ‘Mission-Shaped and Kingdom Focussed’, pp. 114–15.
only one arm is not a cross, and the central act of worship, in which Paul
extols us to proclaim the Lord’s death (1 Cor. 11.26) must surely be a
ritual expression of the Cross of Christ as both event and exemplar,
shaping the behaviour of his followers.
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Mission-Shaped or Paul-Shaped?

Journal of Anglican Studies Vol. 9(2) 223–246 [doi:10.1017/S1740355310000264]

Mission-Shaped Church) has led to a wealth of material being produced

3. Alan Nicholls (ed.), Building the Mission-Shaped Church in Australia: A

and a book.14 While sympathetic to the aims of the endeavour, he has

Concerned that the report might dangerously advocate a retreat to

14. John M. Hull, Mission-Shaped Church: A Theological Response (London:

Being a communion, most usually taken together, and being a sacra-

Hull is advocating an understanding of worship in general, and the

The Eucharist in 1 Corinthians

18. Hull, ‘Mission-Shaped and Kingdom Focussed’, p. 131.

It suggests a scenario rather, in which a token meal is intended, and

traditions of Judaism which linked ritual observance to right beha-

The upshot of Paul’s approach is that the practice of the Eucharist be

Graeco-Roman Society: The Meal as Paradigm of Community

25. A. Milavec, ‘The Purifying Confession of Failings Required by the Did-

the beliefs or world-view of those who take part in it: it becomes a

Or, ‘[the meal] might be in many regards a microcosm of the aspirations

Graeco-Roman Society: Status and Honour

While this may be increasingly the case, it is not universally or

This analysis provides a reminder that local status and official

34. See further Martin N. Nkemnkia, African Vitalogy: A Step Forward in

5. Status and honour were revealed in the ways in which

What is happening at Corinth appears rooted in such conventions.

Either way, their practice is making distinctions, and this is challenged

Paul’s Response: Status and Honour

This principle has its origins in the writings of Donald McGavran,

foundation for mission is ‘people movements’, and that people will

While its advocates view HUP as essentially a pragmatic category, some

51. Donald A. McGavran, Understanding Church Growth (rev. edn; Grand

56. R.V. Pierard, ‘Significant Currents in German Protestant Missiology’

While initially attractive this is not an analysis which holds up

way of life in which their community was identified as the Temple

In this understanding, the HUP advocates’ distinction of culture

Further, the argument with Peter (Gal. 2.11-14) is a further example

69. Fong, Racial Equality, p. 61.

wonder of sanctification and the local church is an arena to display it to

Graeco-Roman Society: Sacramentalia

It is worth, then, clarifying what is meant by sacramentalia. In Judaic

However, there appears to be a difference between the two which can

theology has complicated the terms used. In medieval and post-

Such a view is based on an understanding of Graeco-Roman mysteries

However, we must be cautious not to oversimplify. The Graeco-

have moral prerequisites for admission, which dealt with sexual

Paul’s Response: Sacramentalia

85. Harland, Associations, pp. 70–7.1.

characterized by suitable behaviour, and this appears to be an argument

John Fotopolous links this to the example of the people of Israel:

This is part of a wider debate about religious ideology — and that

93. Kasemann, Essays, pp. 124–25.

turn it into a ‘fetish’.97 The ancient debate must be described differ-

97. Hull, Mission-shaped Church, p. 27.

which arises from its combination of prophetic and cultic elements.

The second reinforces Paul’s Judaic style of thinking:

All this points to sacramental thought as symptomatic of, not distinct

103. Burchard, ‘Importance’, p. 123.

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