Is the Church the Primary Sacrament? Implications of this understanding for traditional Sacramental models

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Theology - Systematic Theology grade: 1 Durham University language: English abstract: At its dawn the twentieth century was hailed as the century of the Church. As a result in recent years there has been a renewed interest in the Church both in terms of its role and functions but also in terms of its nature and ontological sacramentality. Of particular interest is the emerging concept that the Church may be the primary or primordial sacrament. This understanding if correct has considerable implications for traditional models of sacramentality both in the seven-sacrament tradition within the Roman Catholic Church and also the understanding of sacramentality represented by Reformed and Protestant models. This essay analyses the theological understanding of the church as a sacramental agent and explores alternative forms of sacramantality.