This book engages ecclesiology across the 20th century as worked out in ecumenical and global contexts and explores how the four marks of the church--one, holy, catholic, and apostolic--were remade, contested, and reaffirmed in surprising and innovative ways.

Foreword by Ephraim Radner
Introduction
1. The Rending of the Cloth: The Church as One
2. To Be like God: The Church as Holy
3. In All Times and All Places: The Church as Catholic
4. In the Past, the Present, and the Future: The Church as Apostolic
Conclusion: On Earth as It Is in Heaven; A Modest Proposal for the Twenty-First-Century Church
Index

"A unique and creative exploration"

This book engages ecclesiology across the twentieth century as worked out in ecumenical and global context and explores how the four marks of the church--one, holy, catholic, and apostolic--were remade, contested, and reaffirmed in surprising and innovative ways.

"Werntz leads readers in a scholarly way through stories and journeys of the Spirit's work in the church, never giving in to methodological naturalism or to ecclesial pessimism. Global in horizon and ecumenical in foundation, outlook, and scope, this book offers a wise and exciting account of the four marks of the church in a way that offers hope and looks to renewal. It deserves reading and rereading by church people and theologians alike."
--Tom Greggs, Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton

"Werntz offers a unique and creative exploration of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan marks of the church through an examination of a wide-ranging selection of lived stories and contestations of the church in the twentieth century. In this way, he invites a fresh consideration of what this history--in all of its messiness--might teach us today about the church's identity as a people through whom the Spirit yet continues to work and bring renewal."
--Cheryl M. Peterson, Wartburg Theological Seminary

"At a time when each step forward of bilateral and multilateral ecumenical progress seems met with two steps backward into worsening division, Werntz offers a promising approach to thinking theologically about the church: engaging the concrete locality of the marks of the Spirit's work of making ecclesial community and encouraging practices of formation by which they are made more fully visible."
--Steven R. Harmon, Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity

"Contesting the Body of Christ shows us the church's marks as living wounds, openings through which Christ's passion flows into our traumatized world. In Werntz's reading of twentieth-century ecclesiology, contestation emerges as an unexpected gift of the Spirit--not a symptom of disunity but a space opened for our sanctification. This is theology that bleeds and breathes."
--Chris E. W. Green, Southeastern University; bishop of the Diocese of St. Anthony (CEEC)