– H. Räisänen – 10/20/2011

 

The crux of Räisänen’s thought is that Paul is arguing that the law serves as an antithesis or a competing dichotomy to a Christian Soteriology. Räisänen is careful to separate his thought from the old Lutheran style, which typified Judaism as “formal, mechanical and anthropocentric piety, an arrogant counting of one’s merits” in his words. Räisänen points out E.P. Sanders’s work, and his theory of ‘covenantal nomism’ as a leading theorist, working to rebut long-standing caricatures that Judaism has had within theological circles.  In addition to favorably engaging Sanders – Räisänen goes through Bultman’s Pauline theory: that to strive for salvation through the law is to embody sin; but this time – he engages Bultman in a critical way, showing that his theory is flawed and subject to various contextual problems.

Räisänen essentially argues that the only real problem with Judaism is that it does not have Christ, and that in this sense he figuratively embodies the idea of a ‘stumbling stone,’ as is described in Romans 9:32.

Räisänen differs from Sanders in that he holds out a caution that Sanders may be quilty of an overuse his rubric of covenantal nonism- in that it may not necessarily be the ‘end all, be all’ in terms of an appropriate systematic theology.

In keeping with the idea of pointing out the so-called Pauline ‘plight-to-solution’  accusation-rubric that the New Perspective employs – it is possible that this same point may affect some of Räisänen’s criticism’s of Bultman. Merely biblically proving a lack of correspondence – does not necessarily confidently discard Bultman’s thesis – especially if credence is given to a Historical-Critical Methodology or other such meta-biblical perspective. Though Paul may not expressly point out the law as a pathway to boasting, does not mean that in the greater some of things – this is not in fact a guiding principle. It is true, that biblical hermeneutics are guided by extra-biblical understandings, in moderate to liberal backgrounds.

 

 

 

Total Word Count: 307

 

– C. E. B. Cranfield – 11/1/2011

 

 

The purpose of Cranfield’s essay is to unpack his observations of Paul’s theology as it relates to the law. Cranfield makes the argument that it is a very nuanced and “intricate” doctrine. Cranfield then goes through a list of bullet points – which serve to illustrate various points of delineation in regards to how the law functions, when interpreted through an appropriately understood Pauline theology. Cranfield’s first point is that the law is not our own – but rather God’s and that it is a  “in no way illusory, though it is a dangerous, privilege.” Secondly, that it manifests the sin that has always been present in man, as the disobedience to God that it is, and that it [thirdly] not only enhances/clarifies sin but also [fourthly] causes that sin to be more pronounced and deliberate on our part when we engage in it.

An important aspect of then law then becomes [fifthly] that it provides for the possibility of legalism, whereby man is tempted to somehow ‘make a claim upon God,’ through the law. [Sixthly,] the law is a pronouncement of God’s curse, but also [seventhly, and (most importantly) ] manifests the “ultimate goal and innermost meaning of itself” (not in the condemnation of sinners) but in the revelation of Christ. This distinction between potential for an inappropriate legalism and the crucial necessity of Christ as the culmination point of the full and total revelation of the law, serves as the focal point of the rest of Cranfield’s essay. Cranfield tries to unpack exactly the ‘Christ as Goal’ interpretive rubric looks like arguing for what the ‘claim of Christ’ upon a man’s life looks like in ‘meaning and substance.’

One possible flaw in Cranfield’s thought is a loss of the dialectic, especially of liberty is seen as ‘thesis’ and legalism is its counter ‘antithesis.’   An apologist for Cranfield may argue that Cranfield’s Christ is the just such a dialiectical synthesis, spelled out.

 

 

 

Total Words:  321

 

“And All of Their Frustrations Come

Beating on Your Door” –

A ‘Transmodern’ Critique of The New

Perspective on Paul, with Reference to Proposed Kierkegaardian vs. Hegelian Modalities of Premodernity, Modernity,

Postmodernity & Transmodernity.

By Matthew Lipscomb
For Perspectives on the Apostle Paul

Dr. Barry Matlock – Fall 2011 – UTC

 

 

 

Every generation

blames the one before.

And all of their frustrations

come beating on your door.

 

Trans-generational Frustrations

In the classic 80’s rock song In the Living Years, by Mike + The Mechanics, we hear the story of a intergenerational conflict between a father and a son, and how these conflicts are dealt with in terms of frustration, pain, regret and hope.  It is arguable that the song opens up a window – through which we can see how multiple generations of people see and interpret the world around them from within the contexts of the biases of their cultural times and respective Weltanschauungen[1], or world views/ways of seeing how things are – and then how subsequently proceeding generations both contest and conflict with their own respective predecessors. In the world of Pauline studies – this is a very familiar metanarrative. The so-called New Perspective on Paul is in many ways a son – arguing about the wrong ways his father saw the world and his subsequent accounting of all his father’s frustrations that have ‘come beating upon the doors’ of present day Pauline scholars.

 

The Moving Models of Modern Man

What does it mean to be a ‘modern man’? Or – more importantly – what does it mean to be a ‘modern scholar’? This is the question that is being increasingly asked, in light of what is now being referred to as Postmodernity[2] – and what some regard as it’s logical successor: Transmodernism.[3] Postmodernism is generally seen as a rejection of what is referred to as the ‘modernity mindset.’ Advocates of Modernity typically see it as the end-all-be-all of cultural and technological socio-cultural evolution.  What is thought to be ‘modern’ is presupposed to be greater and necessarily opposed to the inferior and technologically/culturally ‘pre-modern’.

A full explanation of the modern vs. postmodern fracas is certainly beyond the scope of this essay – but its essence can be fruitfully explained in the understanding that just as Modernity has rejected the rights and the adequacies of the pre-modern, Post-modernity has judged Modernity to be critically unauthoritative and limited in its own capacity to rhetorically encompass, technologically manage, and philosophically understand the whole of existence as it relates to both man, nature, and everything in between.[4]  Trans-modernity stands as an ontological abruption to the successive teleological rejections of the pre-modern and then subsequent modern understandings. It takes a meta – or an integrative (rather then rejection-mediated) approach – purposefully embracing and finding syntheses between prior rejections.

 

Regressing the Modernist Progression: a Proposed Pauline Interpretive Transmodernist Rubric, with Reference to Keirkaardian Post-dialectical Delineateism

When Søren Kierkegaard published his famous polemic against G.F.W. Hegel’s dialectical philosophy entitled Either/Or, he fully intended it to be to be a tool to justify the idea of separation as a means of progression –as apposed to the Hegelian dialectical synthesis-model, which advocated integration as a way of progressing ideologically and culturally. In this way, Kierkegaard stands – not just the ‘father of Existentialism’ – but also as the father of what might be called ‘the Delineation Imperative:’ that things should and ought often be separated, and that separation – the process of saying “Either this, or That” – is a good way of thinking. [5] In this way – Kierkegaard modeled the first modern mindset; in that he laid the foundation for the separation of the modern from the pre-modern (or Classicist) Weltanschauungen. Modernity rejected the pre-modern, just as Postmodernism would later delineate itself from the modern.

It is arguably doubtful that Kierkegaard – who often wrote purposefully self-defeating essays pseudonymously, which contradicted his own beliefs, as a way of underhandedly deceiving his readers into what he thought to be the truth[6] and actually earned a masters degree in the subject of Irony[7] – would have wanted a ‘delineation imperative’ to take on such massive influence on such a grand, epochal scale – at least in so far as the ways of seeing the world for eons would be summarily dismissed by forthcoming generations as inescapably passé. And yet with the dawn of Modernity – this is exactly what happened. And it was in an even much quicker fashion that Modernity itself gave rise to its own familial delinquents who sought to build their own house and their own ways of seeing the world for themselves. It is against this long-standing tradition of ideological and cultural delineation that Trans-modernism rejected its own rejection – and sought a synthesis with past delineations.

            In order to better grasp the task of critiquing The New Perspective from a Transmodern perspective, three interpretive rubrics will be used – each with a unique contextualization as they each relate to pre-, modern, post- and trans-modern understandings of modernity: the issues of the possibility and acceptance of miracles and a supernatural/mystics worldview, the issue of Community, and the concept of Systematization.

Crumpled bits of paper

Filled with imperfect thoughts

Stilted conversations

I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got

Rubric One: Miracles

 

One element of the New Perspective is its seeming obtuse condescension of the supernatural.[8] When Wrede writes that “Angels, in our time, belong to children and to poets; to Paul and his age they were a real and serious quantity,” it is hard to imagine that he was not sneering when he wrote it.[9] Bultman is in the same vein, when he writes that all of the supernatural content of the bible – is essentially stories made up to convey discursive & cultural truths via mythological narratives.[10] These ‘new perspectives’ are arguably not really as much new – as they are merely in keeping with the ‘ideology of the modern age’ in that they advocate secularity over the supernatural and scientific process over the divine essence.[11] Modernist theologians who further took these ideas to their logical conclusions, created a great ruckus in the seventies. Harvard theologian Harvey Cox in his book The Secular City – in which he argued that all vestiges of supernatural belief would pass from the religious scene[12], and the so-called “death of God” movement, initiated in part by professor J.J. Altizer[13]  – all went down these paths.

Contrary to the prophets of its doom – a belief in the supernatural is not just flourishing, but growing exponentially within Christendom. The continued growth of the Pentecostal movement is both noted and seemingly lamented in Cox’s own most recent book The Future of Faith, whichgrudgingly seems to accept this reality. In this sense, the perspective of Paul’s own Weltanschauungen – how he saw and understood the world to work around him – remains relevant and integrated with the theology of millions of Christians, in a deep and systematic way that should not and cannot be ignored.

 

Rubric Two: Community

 

A second and equally important interpretive rubric for understanding the New Perspective as it related to Pre-,Modern, Post-, and Transmodernism is the issue of Community.[14]  The standing accusation against Luther is that his theological perspective was ego-centric, and that his own feeling of inadequacy served as a framework that presuppositionally mars an accurate understanding of Paul. But is this a fair assessment? Modernity is generally accepted as causing personal alienation[15] and against this – Postmodernism archetypically emphasizes interpersonal relationships and community.[16] A fair assessment of New Perspective thought must account for the ideological presuppositions of it own thinkers. Indeed Luther may have been persuaded to think on an individualistic level – but to what scope and degree New Perspective thinkers have been influenced by their own Postmodern presuppositions of community-centric thinking is a question that must be honestly posited.

 

 

Rubric Three: Systematizationality

A third, important interpretive rubric is the endeavor of systematization. The beginning of the Age of Modernity is often said to have been heralded by the invention of the cotton gin.[17] The essence of Modernity can essentially be summed up in part by 1) a preoccupation with efficiency, 2) reproducibility, and 3) a correspondingly increasing complexity in both the planning of and the innate knowledge of the given subject matter. Systematization is the grand and illustrious fetish of the Modern world, and like an addict – the Modernist looks to both find and apply it everywhere.[18]

But to what degree can we appropriately force a systematization of Paul’s thought? Is the idea of ‘solution-to-plight’ itself a good rubric, by which to understand Paul? Should we hold Paul to the same standard that we would hold a doctoral candidate in Systematic Theology?  Volcanoes are acts of Nature that can be highly geologically systematized in terms of their origins and causes – but are also completely and frustratingly random and unpredictable in their presentation. Should it be inappropriate to also see Paul in this way?

So we open up a quarrel

Between the present and the past

We only sacrifice the future

It’s the bitterness that lasts

 

 

Summary Conclusions

In so far as scholars of the New Perspective force a non-supernatural “modernist” view over and against the ‘pre-modern’ view of both Paul and current Pentecostals – they are themselves divisive and non-integrative, if not guilty of brute force ideological suppression and consequential sterility.  If condescension against the vibrancy of an integrative-supernaturality persists, then these scholars risk being locked away in their ivory towers – far from the flourishing, growing truly-modern church.

Furthermore, in regards to community vs. individualist presuppositions – an honest accounting of New Perspective thought must take the contextual presupposition that its members are themselves subject to terms of a preference towards community-oriented interpretive tendencies. Otherwise, it is fair to say that Luther’s critics are as waylaid (of not more) then Luther was himself.

In regards to Systematization, are we just as guilty as Luther would have been in his supposed ego-centrism – to forcefully systematize and objectify Paul’s thought?

It is the opinion of this author that a synthetic understanding of cultural and philosophical understandings is crucial for an honest undertaking when looking at the New Perspective’s thinking. Without an open honesty in regards to the philosophical presuppositions mediated by one’s own epochal Weltanschauung – we become a slave to our presuppositions and become blind to other perspectives that can be seen when we have the courage to change our own perspective’s orientation. Too often we fall victim to the worship of our own perspectives – and worship at the altar of our own cultural interpretive dynamics; those Pre-, Modern, or Post-. We take our tools – and make foundations of them: having seen the beautiful efficiency of using hammers to build our home, we start to use hammers for the foundation of the house itself.

The foundation that we ought see – is Transcendence. The integrative, synthetic mediation of a Trans-modern Weltanschauung can move across these categories of epochal understandings and presumptions more easily – and is less prone to the condescension of disregarding the ideas of our theological and philosophical fathers before us. Rather then fall for the same successive rejections of things prior, we can and should use the frameworks of the past as rubrics in and of themselves: apt tools for an archeology of knowledge. For many of us – it will be too late when we ourselves come of age – too late to tell our fathers that the things they told us, eventually came to ring just as true for us – as those things we first sought to sing within our own hearts.

So Don’t yield to the fortunes

You sometimes see as fate

It may have a new perspective

On a different date

And if you don’t give up, and don’t give in

You may just be O.K.

 – Mike & The Mechanics, The Living Years

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

About.com. The Cotton Gin – Eli Whitney. Mary Bells. 30 11 2011 <http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/cotton_gin.htm >.

 

Ali, Salwat. Interview: Transmodernism: the way forward | Magazines | DAWN.com. 22 May 2011. Dawn.com. 30 Nov 2011

 

<http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/22/interview-transmodernism-the-way-forward.html&gt;.

 

Bultman, Rudolf. Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate . New York: Harper Collins, 1961.

 

Casserley, J.V. Langmead. The Retreat From Christianity In The Modern World – The Maurice Lectures For 1951. New York: Longmans, 1953.

 

Cox, Harvey. The Future of Faith. New York : Harper Collins Books, 2009.

 

—. The Secular City. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966.

 

Ellul, Jacques. The Meaning of the City . Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1973.

 

—. The Technological Society. New York: Vintage, 1964.

 

Fosdick, Harry Emerson. Dear Mr. Brown – Letters to a Person Perplexed about Religion. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1961.

 

Galloway, Dale and Warren Bird. Innovative Transitions – How Change Can Take Your Church to the Next Level. Kansas City : Beacon Hill Press, 2007.

 

Kierkegaard, Søren. The Concept of Irony, With Constant Reference to Socrates. Trans. Lee M. Capel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965.

 

Lyricsfreak.com. The Living Years – Mike & The Mechanics. 30 11 2011 <http://www.lyricsfreak.com/m/mike+the+mechanics/the+living+years_20093565.html&gt;.

 

Marriam-Webster. Marriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 30 11 2011. Marriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 30 11 2011 .

 

Pagels, Elaine. Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. New York: Vintage Books, 1988.

 

Palmer, Donald D. Kierkegaard for Beginners. London: Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc. , 1996.

 

Putman, Robert D. Bowling alone : the collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster, n.d.

 

Rubenstein, Richard L. After Auschwitz – Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1966.

 

Ryder276. Mike & The Mechanics – In the Living Years – YouTube. 12 April 2009. Mike & The Mechanics. 30 Nov 2011 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGDA0Hecw1k&gt;.

 

Smith, James K. A. Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008.

 

Spark Notes, Inc. SparkNotes: Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855): Either/Or. 30 11 2011. 30 11 2011 <http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/kierkegaard/section1.html&gt;.

 

Spong, John Shelby. A New Christianity for a New World . New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002.

 

Sponheim, Paul. Kiekegaard on Christ and Christian Coherence. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968.

 

Ward, Glenn. Teach yourself Postmodernism . Rayleigh: Brookpoint, 1997.

 

Westerholm, Stephen. Perspectives Old and New on Paul. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004.

 

Yaconelli, Mike. Stories of Emergence: Moving from absolute to authentic. Grand Rapids: Emergent, 2003.

 

Paul Tillich

The Essential Tillich,
An Anthology of the Writings of Paul Tillich

Matthew Lipscomb – Modern Christian Thought

 

Background

 

Paul Tillich (1886-1965) is one of the most influential yet challenging Christian theologians to be found in the halls of theological luminaries both past and present. His work was purposefully & unapologetically geared towards having both a transcendent essence & function: dynamics that essentially looked beyond traditional thought structures and their attendant assumptions/dynamics. For this reason – he has been referred to not just as an Existentialist theologian; as is reflected by the philosophy/technique that informed his endeavors – but also a his being a ‘Theologian of the Boundaries’ and a ‘Theologian of Transcendence.’

 

 

Focus,

The Essential Tillich An Anthology of the Writings of Paul Tillich is essentially a collection of Tillich’s writings, collected and assembled by F. Forrester Church, a Unitarian Minister of the Liberal stripe.  Each chapter explores the various aspects of religious thought that Tillich wrestled with in his time. Underlying each exploration, are both Tillich’s Existentialist ‘tools,’ as well as the guiding principle of his ideas and affirmations of what transcendence looks and how it functions in the argument at hand. Tillich was fond of neologisms, and one almost has to learn his “code” to understand him.

 

 

Logic

 

Part 1 of The Essential Tillich, is titled Ultimate Concern, and in it Tillich explores the idea of God and Faith. For Tillich God is “The Ground of all Being.” True faith is making “The Ground of all Being,” one’s “Ultimate Concern.” For Tilllich, eventually all other concerns are finite and limited. “Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned,” and to be able to see and appropriate (in an ironic sense) an understanding of God that is completely and totally beyond our actual understanding of Him.
Part 2 discusses ways of addressing the Christian Faith, as interpreted through the metanarrative goal of Transcendence. Here, Tillich addresses the concept or ideas of Symbols and how they function in accordance to these tasks within the religious sphere.

 

In Part 3, Tillich explores the Protestant mindset through Luther –and also through his relational/contextual contemporaries. Here he explores the idea of Faith – and how it can become anchored into a transcendent nature of God using utter despair as a tool.

 

Part 4 is entitled Love, Power, and Justice – and explores these concepts within the Judeo-Christian faith through Existentialist tools and the Transcendency metanarrative. Perhaps his most well-known essay, included here, The Shaking of the Foundations, draws from the Old Testament prophets and how their concept of the power of their trust in God was based on something more then any potential concept of power and stability extant in their own cultural/societal frameworks. ‘When everything that can be shaken is shaken’ – God will still be intact and strong – and a faith that is anchored in the trancendency of an unshakeable God – is itself, unshakeable.

 

Part 5, consists of various readings which deal with the concept of anchoring an existential self-awareness in the foundational strength of “the God above God” through making Him our “Ultimate Concern.” “The God above God” is the concept of the Divine as something that is beyond the capacity of human-based epistemological frameworks to describe or relate to; understandings that will always eventually be dismantled by doubt. One of Tillich’s best known quotes is the last sentence. “The courage it be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt.”

 

Part 7 is entitled The Future of Religions, and discusses the idea of Holiness as posited in various different faith systems, the Mystical through the life and thought of Martin Buber, as well as the inherent inclusiveness of Christianity and how it has been affected throughout history through the act of confrontive , alternate faiths – such as Islam, and the narrowing effect that it has had on the Universitality of Christianity – or it’s ability to relate/appropriate/celebrate truth extant in other faiths.  He concludes this chapter with reflections on the ramifications of these dynamics and the various ways of dealing with them that a Systematic Theologian must address in his own method.

 

Lastly, in Part 8, Tillich includes a discussion of the idea of ideological boundaries as they relate to transcendence, using the history of Germany and it’s struggle with Nazism as a reference point. Church concludes this section with an autobiographical section, wherein Tillich gives some of his personal history and events/people that he feels potentially shaped his own theological development, followed by Behold, I Am Doing a New Thing, a section from The Shaking of the Foundations, in which he discusses the renewal dynamic found through a crucial, prophetic, and personal appropriation of the transcendency of “The Eternal” – God – in our finite, secular and religious experiences.

 

Implications

 

History shows that several equally influential theologians of this century are essentially German classmates of Tillich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer & Karl Barth – to name just two.  Each were German theologians and were also brought into conflict with their fellow countrymen and were eventually asked to leave their native soil when the Nazis came to power. Was this ‘ungrounding’ – which could be viewed as traumatic to almost anybody – something that served to uproot Tillich epistemologically and set him at his task of finding transcendence as the metaphor that essentially informed all his work? Tillich struggled with political dynamics as well as moralist forces –which he addressed in his search for something that could be shown as transcendent, as well. It is said that when his widow opened up his desk, after his death – she found love letters from many different lovers, all from throughout many years of his life. Tillich’s his own first marriage was broken up by the birth of a son – not of his own fatherhood. Were these also ‘ungrounding’ forces as well – likewise forging changes deep within his Existentialist self-awareness? As he lay dying, it is said, he called for and embraced his copy of the Septaguint. In the end, as he faced his own ultimate transcendence, he grasped hold of something that was for him still foundational, dogmatic and sure. Regardless of whether there is or is not an exact etiology behind Tillich’s transcendence metaphor, it does serve as one of the predominately guiding and influential dynamics present in his thought.

Today, Tillich’s thoughts on transcendence are embraced by those who seek to affirm the relational dynamics which exist beyond readily apprehendable and accepted structures and beliefs, such as those from the Deconstructionist schools are want to do.  Those who either affirm or want to create structure or Dogmatic guidelines find Tillich’s Neo-liberalism to just be a re-imagined liberalism  – and would accuse him of merely finding different routes to the same places. It is not all that unlikely that if asked, Tillich would welcome the discovery and exploration of any such new route – or even old ones, long forgotten. Were Tillich alive today – he would no doubt be ‘between the conversations’ that are present-day going on between Reformed Evangelicals and Postmodern Emergent-types. He would not argue, necessarily for or against Homosexuality- for example; in a modern conversational archetype that takes place between modern liberal and conservative Christians. Tillich would be looking for the argument behind the argument. And he would say that the solution would be likely illusively, but provably findable – yet even further behind the standard, respectively embraced perceptions of each party. Perhaps this is both Tillich’s greatest strength – yet also his greatest weakness, and in such  – he will forever keep the conversations going and standard assumptions, forever and always reimagined in a potentially transparent light.

Matthew Lipscomb, Modern Christian Thought, 4/22/09

 

Reason & The Resurrection – Soteriological Intersections in the ‘Big Tent’ of Modern Christian Thought

 

 

 

Life in the “Big Tent-“ the Rings of Reason & The Resurrection

As is the case with many things of a like-in-kind nature – Christianity is a ‘big tent:’ full of the hustle and bustle of both similar and very different thoughts; ever agreeing and then disagreeing, connecting and disconnecting amid the stir of questions, convictions, knowns & unknowns.  In the central area of this veritable ideological circus, lays the issue of the resurrection. Centrally placed also in this ‘tent’ is the issue of reason. Some people come along and consider these issues to intrinsically lie together. Still others push them far aside and – as in the case of the Fideists[1] – they try to push reason out of the tent altogether and out onto the ontological scrapheap, citing the need for a radical faith that needs nothing at all, even reason, for its sustenance.  Most, however, agree that each are important – even as an increasing minority think that that neither are;[2] rather substituting the rings of personal experience[3] and mystery[4] into their respective positions. The only thing that everyone can agree on – is that no one agrees completely as to what to do with not just everything – but especially these two things.  The purpose of this paper is to make a precursory foray into this cacophony of belief – and, hopefully, find an order to what some see as a pun-intended, literally hell-bent madness. How and even if the issues of reason & the resurrection should interrelate – is and will forever be one of the foremost discussions & controversies that both now and likely will forever more inject both vibrancy and a great deal of contention into the life of the Church.

Amid this discussion, two distinctly like-minded theologians both argue something that is unique. They teach that the relationship between reason & the resurrection begins at an unassuming place: René Descarte. Helmut Thielicke[5] and Paul C. McClasson[6] both make a case that a traditionally accepted theological, macro-historical division in Judeo-Christian thought begins with him. These are the Modern vs. Classic schools, as proposed by J. Gresham Machen[7] in the 1920’s and various Evangelical authors such as Karl F. Henry[8] in the 1970’s. In more modern times, this division is referred to in terms of a Liberal vs. Conservative dichotomy or even Progressive vs. Traditionalist; depending on the perspective and/or agenda at hand. Thielicke makes the argument that regardless of whether you use the title “Conservative” or “Fundamentalist” to describe them – one side will be primarily concerned with salvation and holiness, and the other – the “Progressive” or “Liberal” faction – will be more interested in Justice, Peace and ‘how one’s faith makes one feel’ vs. ‘where one’s faith will posit one’s soul a thousand years from now.’ Each side generally ignores and potentially even denigrates the concerns of the other side – as alluded to in Henry’s introspective caution when he wrote:

The average Fundamentalist’s indifference to social implications of his religious message has been so marked, however, that non-evangelicals have sometimes classified him with the pessimist in his attitude toward world conditions.[9]

 

It is not fair to say that the ethical platform of all conservative churches has clustered about such platitudes as “abstain from intoxicating beverages, movies, dancing, card-playing, and smoking,” but there are multitudes of Fundamentalist congregations in which these are the main points of reference of ethical speculation. In one of the large Christian colleges, a chapel speaker recently expressed amazement that the campus newspaper could devote so much space to the all-important problem of whether it is right to play “rook,” while the nations of the world are playing with fire.

 

Dr. Carl F.H. Henry The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism [10]

 

This stands in sharp contrast to the ‘Social Gospel’ of Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918); who taught that man rarely sinned against God – but more so often against society and his fellow brother[11] or the theology of Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher (1768-1834), who’s theology – as described by the great German theologian Karl Barth – concerned itself with how one’s faith made one feel; in his words – a “theology of feeling, of awareness.”[12]

 

Proposed Intersect Number One: Kairos vs. Chronos Ontological Intersects

Each of these theological figures has different agendas – argues Thielicke & McClasson – but each has a central starting point: how Christs’ resurrection/redemption is interpreted and related to reason.  “Liberals”/”progressives” tend to see the resurrection as a ‘Christ event’ which is Kairotic[13] in nature. It represents a change in the nature and opportunity of time & reality – whereas “conservatives”/”fundamentalists” see the resurrection as not just a kairotic event (that nature of such being generally, intrinsically assumed) but also a chronos/chronologic or actual time that has taken place within a space of quantitative time.  Great emphasis is usually placed on the factuality of the resurrection and a great deal of apologetical resources spent to prove the authenticity of the historical record. An example of chronos-oriented thought is Norman L. Geisler’s book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.  Geisler makes strong use of a chronologically-based ontological argument, in which he attempts to prove the factuality of both Christ and His divinity from a series of proposed, alleged to be logical proofs.[14]

Two examples of kairos-oriented thinking (from the modern/liberal tradition) are The Kairos Document & Paul Tillich’s own redemption dynamic. The Kairos Document is a theological position paper that came out of South Africa, which was written by a group of South African theologians. It is a mix of both contextual & liberation theology, and sought to affirm a statement that it was necessary to assert a concerted effort of awareness at a crucial moment of African history in light of the oppression, apartheid and struggle that was/is taking place. The contention was made by them that “the time had come” and a qualitatively decisive moment of action was at hand to potently act in regards to a previously ongoing situation.[15]

A second example can be found in Paul Tillich, from Ultimate Concern – Tillich in Dialogue by D. Mackenzie Brown,[16] where Tillich differentiates himself from the classical conservative chronos-focus on the historicity of Christ, and instead, asserts the necessity for a kairos-oriented salvation approach.

 

Student: Suppose, somehow or other, science could come and expose St. Paul, Christianity, and all these things as just a big hoax. My understanding of your theology would be that this would in no way invalidate Christianity as a religion.

Dr. Tillich: Now what do you mean by “a big hoax”?

Student: If they could prove that Christ, or Jesus, never existed.

Dr. Tillich: Oh, then he had some other name! That wouldn’t matter. I want to say that if we were able to read the original police registers of Nazareth, and found that there was neither a couple called Mary and Joseph nor a man called Jesus, we should then go to some other city. The personal reality behind the gospel story is convincing. It shines through. And without this personal reality Christianity would not have existed for more than a year, or would not have come into existence at all, no matter what stories were told. But this was the great event that produced the transformation of reality. And if you yourself are transformed by it, you witness to the reality of what happened. That is the proof.[17]

 

What Tillich is saying is that the chronological details regarding Christ are not intrinsically relevant to the salvation metanarrative of the Gospels. He even goes as far as to say that Christ’s name is not important either – but that there was a “transformation of reality” that took place – and that “if you yourself are transformed by it…that is the proof.” It is arguable that a balanced theological view has room for both chronos-oriented & kairos-oriented thinking – but, as we see here, the liberal & conservative traditions respectively tend to place almost exclusive emphasis on either one or the other, as the conservative, evangelical scholar & theologian Carl Henry passionately states:

Jesus’ resurrection was no bizarre contingency that defied human logic. It was not an utterly incoherent incursion into history. However unique and unparalleled as a historical event, the resurrection of Jesus Christ took place in a coherent framwork of meaning. Its context stretched back far beyond the events of Passion Week. (NSF, 68)[18]

 

 

In the introduction of Tillich’s own three part systematic theology, after a long discussion of the historicity of the resurrection – he does finally offer the honest conclusion:

It is obvious that these arguments do not prove the assertion of faith that in Jesus Christ the Logos has become flesh.  But they show that, if this assertion is accepted, Christian theology has a foundation, which infinitely transcends the foundations of everything in the history of religion which could be called “theology.”[19]

 

 

Proposed Intersect Number Two: Soteriological Applications

Perhaps the most marked intersect between liberal vs. conservative thought is how each group represents their assumptions in regards to a soteriological problem/solution dichotomy. For the conservatives, the problem is the human race is “guilty of sin and wrongdoing”[20] – and “Jesus’ death pays the full penalty for human sin.”[21] In contrast to this, liberal protestant belief is that “the human race suffers from ignorance of the teachings and ways of Christ,”[22] and the like-wise solution is to understand that “Jesus’ example and teachings inspire us to work compassionately for social justice.”[23] Emergent Church figure Brian D. McClaren makes these distinctions in his book, A Generous Or+hodoxy, and goes on to make additional problem/solution relations in Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anabaptist and liberation theology traditions. McClaren seems to do a good job of going through and picking the best aspects of a wide diversity of sometimes inherently conflicting theological traditions – and he is not without his own critics who accuse him of sloppy work,[24] pointing out that McClaren himself throws out important conservative doctrines such as substitutionary atonement because he agrees that such doctrines are akin to “divine child abuse.” [25]

The ideas of abuse and redemption/justice themselves factors into a growing number of theological streams and rivers – some of which seem to ever be dividing and expanding in their scope and affluence. As previously mentioned in reference to The Kairos Document, liberation theology has found both traction and diversity since it’s inception through the pen of Gustavo Gutiérrez and his book A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, Salvation. What contextually started off as an affirmation of justice for the repressed peoples of Latin America has been further expanded into the forums of feminism and so called “gay theology.”[26] Wherever there is alleged to be repression – voices have risen to seek justice and a framework of salvation and redemption for the respectively alleged bondage and repression stated to have been experience by those who would claim to seek freedom and deliverance through the message of Christ & the Gospel.

Conservatives counter that there is an inherent danger in approaching the fundamental issues and doctrines of Christianity such as the resurrection and redemption[27] with either subjective or existential lenses, citing the potential traps of reason by means of “subjective irrationalism or objective rationalism,”[28] as Clark H. Pinnock and Barry L. Callen point out in their book The Scripture Principle, Reclaiming the Full Authority of the Bible.

 

Proposed Intersect Number Three: Eschatological Despair/Gnostic Dualist vs. Redemptive views

There is no doubt that the kairos vs. chronos ontological intersects & the various soteriological problem/solution frameworks found across both liberal/conservative and other dichotomies serve as a fertile substrate for a great deal of controversy and conversation.  There is another, much more subtle intersect which can also be found – though it is more diverse and potentially much more hidden in its explicitness: how to apply the ‘profanity’ of life & culture to the Christian experience in relation to the resurrection and it’s attendant redemptive dynamic.

The Rev. Daniel Preston, a former administrator & teacher at the now closed Tomlinson College – which was affiliated with the Pentecostal denomination the Church of God of Prophecy – once remarked that he once had someone tell him that they knew a lady who could “pray down heaven,” but “could not read their own name if it were spelled out in box car letters.” It was spoken to him as a veiled insult, as he himself was one of the few leaders in his own denomination at the time that possessed a master’s degree in theology and was a foremost proponent of further education in his own denomination.  The individual who made the comment was essentially letting him know that education was not really as important as Preston was trying to make it out to be. This dialogue[29] captures, to some degree, the distrust of education that was stubbornly engrained in many conservative churches of various stripes and natures, Pentecostal being only one of many, for many years.

Whether this type of thinking found its base in the belief in a generalized feeling of futility, secondary in nature to an emphasis of an immense and pending eschatological end/rapture mentality[30] or just a general distrust of the World or ‘worldly’ things[31] – just as C.S. Lewis emphasized that outside of redemption any form of love becomes demonic[32] – many Christian sects have traditionally had difficulty applying this same redemptive dichotomy to education.

It is not just reason and education that have been at times seen as irreconcilable with any soteriologically-based redemptive dynamic – but also issues of food, such as alcohol[33] & culture, such a movies, dancing, and playing cards as in the game of rook.[34] This condescension of physical reality, with preferred emphasis on spiritual concern, is referred to as Gnostic Dualism, and has a long history in the Christian church.[35]  But as Jim West points out in his book, Drinking With Calvin and Luther! A History of Alcohol in the Church – there is a rich, historical tapestry regarding alcoholic beverages in the history of the church – even if some churches seem it have been stricken with acute amnesia in regards to the truth of it. Luther wrote love letters to his wife praising the quality of the beer she made[36], and John Calvin was paid for his preaching in wine casks.[37]  The venerable theological lion, J. Gresham Machen, famously apposed what he saw as the “Fundamentalist preoccupation with material evil,”[38] in his opposition to the prohibition movement – even as he saw mass support among his theological colleagues for the prohibition gather as a rising tide.

How some parts of the church apply or exclude the issue of redemption to education, alcohol, culture or a wide diversity of other issues, comes back to how much they are willing to cede to eschatological condescension and/or Gnostic Dualist condescension – and more importantly – if they are willing to even see these dynamics as being ‘in play’ in their theological formulations & World views. Are there gray areas where the issue of redemption does not apply? Does the resurrection necessitate a thorough analysis of each and every posit of human experience and understanding? Can society and it’s dynamics, traditions & cultural aspects be subject to a change in their nature and apprehension by the application of the dynamic of redemption made potential by the resurrection?  What do they look like if they can be – and then are – redeemed? If the preceding is possible – then what does a responsible cultural-redemptive process/dichotomy of engagement look like? Does redemption mean avoidance in light of historical abuses?[39]^, [40] Does what redemption looks like change as the culture around us changes – as it did with Calvin & Luther and the way that they understood alcohol in their own respective cultures and how we do now? Shortly before his death, the Flossenbürgmartyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in what eventually was published as his book Ethics, tried to envision what an incarnationally-redemptive Christology could potentially look like.[41] Amos Yong, an ordained Assemblies of God minister, has also continued a similar work, in exploring what he refers to as the “multidimensionality of salvation:” that there are actually seven different modes[42] of salvation, as apposed to the traditional 4[43] or 5[44] fold understandings.[45] Yong’s work has taken the idea of salvation & redemption beyond just a personal application, and has applied it to larger constructs & dichotomies such as culture, history, physicality, and even the entire World. Looking past just the idea of personal and family salvation – he asks what ecclesial, material, social, and even cosmic salvation looks like. Just as in times past when the Arminianism vs. Calvinism debate raged regarding whether or not God intended salvation for every man – the same debate in regards to culture moves along with equal intensity. Against this backdrop the words of C.S. Lewis seem to ring more and more relevant.

There is no neutral ground in the universe:

every square inch,

every split second,

is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan. [46]

– C. S. Lewis

 

 

An Proposed Example Solution: Thielecke-McClasson – Reassessing the Role of Reason; Scripture as Proposed Foundation

Against the previously discussed classical liberal/conservative dichotomy of classification and how they variously interpret and intersect the issues of reason & redemption, Thielicke & McClasson suggest a bold move. Having proposed that both theological movements, especially the “Modern,” are essentially rooted back into Descartes’ idea of the Ego, they are, in the words of Paul C. McClasson, thereby rooted back into the “cannons of rationality” to which the church “owes nothing whatsoever.”[47] But what then forms the basis for any theological thought? Both McClasson and Thielicke propose that the nature of both reason and the understanding of the resurrection must center – not upon man’s own thought of it – but rather an uncompromising view of Scripture. The argument does hence arise – is this purported view a merely a regurgitated fundamentalism? The argument that both McClasson and Thielicke make is that the soteriological urgency of fundamentalism and the societal concern of liberalism are merely “two sides of the same cartesian coin”[48] – in that they are both true and need not be so needlessly separated from one another. Reason – or our ability to think and digest and understand both scripture and doctrine and then the subsequent application of it – are to be firmly grounded in the foundation of the Scripture, not our own potentially fanciful logical outworking of it; no matter how thought-out and thorough they might be, to both the actual and the perceived shortcomings of scriptural admonitions.

Thielicke proposes two theological dynamics – each of which represent alternate potentialities of doctrinal formulation in relation to Christian scripture: Actualization & Accommodation. Actualization is “ a new interpretation of truth, in it’s readdressing, as it were. The truth remains intact. It means that the hearer is summoned and called ‘under the truth’ in his own name and his own situation.” Accommodation, on the other hand, represents truth “under me” and is essentially pragmatic in its nature.  Beginning with Descartes, truth is subjected and potentially countermanded by the “I” or the cogito of self. Rather then “Self” being under the “Truth” – Truth is interpreted and authorized by man’s own affirmation of it.  “Descartes paves the way for making the relevance of the knowing self the center of thought.”[49] Essentially – the dynamic in play becomes “‘reason’ or ‘self’ seeking understanding” contra the classic Augustinian/Anselm dictum of fides quaerens intellectum – faith seeking understanding. Descartes based every potentiality for understanding on his own self-awareness; whereas Augustine based a capability to reason on the motto credo ut intellegam – I believe (have faith) in order to understand.[50]

Neither Thielicke nor McClasson reject the value or the potential of reason or ‘self-awareness’ – rather they assert that there will always be a teleological foundation in any theological epistemology – and that for all it’s limitations – Scripture is the only suitable foundation, and reason should remain what it is essentially in relation to it: a tool.

As a nontheological foundational epistemological basis for dogmatics, any form of human philosophy, from Aristotle to Wittgenstein, is absolutely to be rejected. To any that would set the agenda or determine the parameters of Christian truth, our answer is simply no![51] However, as a set of tools that may bring some clarity to the process of faith seeking understanding, any form or human philosophy and culture may be legitimately brought to bear upon the questions at hand, provided the usage is in accordance with the inner logic of the subject matter as learned from the scriptures. The church theologian should be fully educated in the history of human culture and fully conversant with the issues of the day, but the theologian is absolutely free from the imperialistic claim of any human system.  [52]

 

The style and understanding of Christianity as advocated by Thielicke and McClasson is not the ‘check your brain at the door’ varietal – a precursory reading of any works penned by their own hands reveal both men to be astute and their own writings and their respective work far from the palladium offered by many self-proclaimed modern philosopher-kings. Rather, perhaps, their efforts mark a correction to the Enlightenment’s efforts to make one’s own self-awareness and Reason the ‘end-all’ & ‘be-all’ for theological formulation. Their contestations of an unchecked Cartesian self-centric and ego-authenticated epistemology perhaps echo the words of the Judeo-Christian cannon of Scripture itself, which warns that the Deity which it purports to reveal to the reader is in no way beholden to the logic or the common sense of anybody, anywhere – and if anything, He would rather use “foolishness” and “brokenness” to achieve the revelation of Himself to those who will find Him in it’s pages; confounding the wise and using weakness to outwit the strong.[53]

The thoughts and contentions of Thielicke & McClasson stand apart from many of the other arguments for or against reason and redemption working together, and their thoughts bear an honest examination in the light of it. Taking the analysis back to Descartes’ idea of the Ego and consequences of the Enlightenment and its proposed ongoing influence upon theology does seemingly move the conversation in a radically different direction. Thielicke & McClasson work to avoid accusations of fiedism, while yet remaining true a ‘scripture as foundation’ or Reformed sola scriptura principle, yet while also finding a place for reason’s use as tool – and thus also potentially breaking down many of the previously discussed intersects between reason and redemption.

 

A Conclusion Amid other Conclusions: The Ongoing Search for Solutions

Thielicke & McClasson are not alone is proposing solutions in regards to how we are to treat the intersections of the issues of reason & redemption. How culture and it’s thought and then its attendant dichotomies are related to the issues of resurrection and then redemption is a study in a search for foundations.   Where Thielicke & McClasson propose scripture as a final and authoritative foundation for interpretation & analysis, in the 5O’s, the German neo-orthodox theologian Rudolf Bultman popularized the notion of “demythologization” – through which he assumed that the stories of the bible were told as stories, and our job for today is to merely find their ‘meta-narratives’ and then correctly reinterpret them for today within the scope of modern epistemological frameworks and current cultural ideological references.[54] Another neo-orthodox theologian, from the same time period – Paul Tillich – used an Existentialist tool-set to interpret scripture, through which he described God as ‘The Ultimate Concern” and how that related to one’s own “Ground of Being.”[55] Another giant in the arena of theologians, Karl Barth – who wrote the incredibly long-winded, 14 volume series entitled Church Dogmatics; and was still writing/working on it the day he died – was once asked impromptu by an eager news reporter, in so many words, “Professor Barth, tell us something very deep and theologically profound about your work,” to which he responded, with the nursery rhyme – which arguably succinctly distilled all the endless pages that he had himself written: “Jesus Loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”[56] Can something be so complex that it cannot fit into 14 volumes; so much, that the entire productive life of a theologian is yet not enough to write it – and still yet can it really be so simple as to be capable of being conveyed in the silliness of a nursery rhyme? The ways that reason and resurrection intersect in however big a tent we like to think Christianity to be, may very well genuinely be just this simple to relate – but this difficult to describe. The search for adequate solutions also includes those who embrace an understanding of mystery and unknowing as integral to an accurate Christian epistemology.  Emergent Church leader Peter Rollins says that this itself is the only real way to understand God – that He is essentially un-understandable and that any attempt to ground doctrine on propositional truth is essentially missing the point.[57] Whereas Thielicke and McClasson point to the scripture for a basis of propositional truth, others would point to tradition as a source, as in the Roman Catholic tradition.[58] Still others, want to incorporate both a biblical foundation, but also a pneumatological base as well. Even among these schools there are those who are aggressively seeking points of syntheses and collaboration between themselves, such as the ongoing Roman Catholic & Pentecostal dialogues, [59] which Pentecostal scholar and theologian Frank Macchia[60] has participated in. Whether one agues for the fideist position of  ‘faith is a foundation unto itself’[61] or Anselm’s famous statement of fides quaerens intellectum, ‘faith seeking understanding’[62] this much is true: Karl Barth’s proposition that the life of the scripture is not in the ink and the paper of the bible but is rather manifest and made living in the space between the words and man’s understanding of them,[63] seems to at least ring true in the essence of the fact that there is great zest for continued discussion in regards to reason and the work of Christ. Tremendous energy is expended to breath life into these ongoing questions and every attempt made by both old and new theologians alike to keep the hustle and the bustle ‘in the big tent’ ongoing and full of productive activity. Perhaps Barth would agree that this is a sign of life itself; one being intrinsically crucial to the task of keeping the church full of vibrancy and health. If we cease to ask these questions, and if no one comes to see and watch, then both discuss and comment, and then postulate and refute – then a great deal of potency and exuberance will have left the church with the falling of that curtain. May we never tire from the zeal and the energy of what well may actually truly be the real ‘greatest show on earth:’ the work of Christ in our minds and the World at large. May this tent be one that truly never closes, for in the words of P. T. Barnum – “the show must go on.” [64]

 

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pp_downloads/pp_4187_abstinence.pdf>.

 

Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. New York, New York: Westminster Press, 1955.

 

Barth, Karl. Protestant Theology in the 19^th Century. Valley Forge, Great Britain: Judson Publishing, 1976.

 

Behr, Edward. Prohibition, Thirteen Years that changed America. New York, New York: Arcade Publishing, 1996.

 

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich (author), Clifford Green (editor), Reinhard Krauss (translator), Douglas Stott (translator) and Charles C. West (translator). Ethics. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2004.

 

Brown, D. Mackenzie. Ultimate Concern – Tillich in Dialogue. 22 April. 2009. Religion-online.org. <http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=538&C=603>.

 

 

DeYong , Kevin and Gluck, Ted.Why We’re not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be).  Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2008.

 

 

“fideist.” The Free Dictionary by Farlex. 22 April 2009 <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fideist>.

 

 

Geisler, Norman L., Frank Turek, and David Limbaugh. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. Maryknoll, New York: Crossway Books, 2004.

 

Gnosticism. Advent, Catholic Encyclopeia. 22 April 2009. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06592a.htm>.

 

 

Gomez, Fr Juan Usma. Dialogue With Pentecostals. EWTN, Global Catholic Network Online. 28 March 2001. <http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PCCUPENT.HTM>.

 

 

Gutiérrez, Gustavo. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, Salvation. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2007.

 

Hauerwas, Stanley. A Better Hope, Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy, and Postmodernity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2000.

 

Hart, D. G. and John R. Muether.  J. Gresham Machen and the Regulative Principle. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church Online. 22 April 2009. <http://www.opc.org/OS/MachenRegulative.html>.

 

Henry, Carl F. H. God, Revelation, and Authority, Volume 1, God who Speaks and Shows, Preliminary Considerations. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1999.

 

Henry, Carl F. H. The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism.
Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmands Publishing Company, 2003.

 

Henry, Carl. Carl Henry, At His Best – A Lifetime of Quoteable Thoughts. Portland, Oregon: Multinomah Press, 1989.

 

Hird, Ed. Jesus Loves Me, This I Know… Deep Cove Crier. November 1993. <http://www3.telus.net/st_simons/cr9311.htm&gt;.

 

“Kairos.” Encyclo Online Encyclopedia. 22 April 2009 <http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/Kairos>.

 

Kairos Document. South African History Online. 22 April 2009. <http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/library-resources/official%20docs/kairos-document.htm>.

 

 

Kobler, John. Ardent Spirits, The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New York, New York: De Capo Press, 1993.

 

Lewis, C.S. The Four Loves. Maryknoll, New York: Harvest Books, 1971.

 

Larson, Chris. The Imagination of C.S. Lewis. Ligonier Ministries. 22 April 2009. <http://www.ligonier.org/blog/2008/05/the-imagination-of-cs-lewis.html>.

 

 

Machen, J. Gresham. Christianity and Liberalism. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Bethany House Publishers, 1996.

 

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McClasson, Paul C. Invitation to Dogmatic Theology, A Canonical Approach. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2006.

 

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Peter Rollins

The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief

 

Background

 

Much of protestant Christianity embraces what is referred to as cataphatic or “positive” theology. Often, in reaction to this, there exists a stream of thought which is it’s natural opposite: apophatic or “negative” theology. Apophatic theology refers to that which speaks to what we cannot say about God in relation to doctrine, belief & reason. In this tradition, Peter Rollins seeks to make a readjustment to what he sees as modern Christian thought’s overemphasis on faithfulness, knowledge and systematized belief structures.

 

 

Focus

 

Using Hebraic Mythology and Classical Philosophy, Rollins undertakes the task of reasserting a proper place for a belief structure, but one that operates outside of a structure of its own making – and a faith that is beyond faith itself. Rollins makes his case by reassessing the understandings of what faithfulness looks like in the contexts of various biblical characters, and then in the understanding of how we view and understand both God and the scripture.

 

 

Logic

 

Rollins’ book can be potentially be seen as a reassertion of what is often termed ‘postmodernist’ thought – in that it strikes against the assertions of modernism and it’s integral foundation: reason. Rollins does a good job of providing an apologetic for the necessity of a destabilization of the Christian faith from the security of aligning it too closely with both human potential and human understanding. In other words, he urges an understanding that the Christian faith has more to do with Christ then it does with Christians – in that we must constantly remind ourselves that it is ‘beyond us.’ He urges us to create a place within our belief for the ‘unbelievable,’ and embrace the understanding that a  true fidelity to our faith may mean the rejection of what being true to God & the  bible commonly are assumed to mean and interpreted to look like.

 

Rollins begins his project by initially examining the issue to fidelity – and how it may be actually necessary to be unfaithful to the faith to be truly faithful to it. He explores this through a succession of Hebraic, apocryphal, and biblical stories. He then addresses the idea of approaching the scripture through the indirect, Barthian perspective of seeing ‘The Word’ behind ‘the word.’ Rollins also explores alternate interpretations of the name of God “I Am,” and then what a ‘religionless religion’ might look like. He further explores the idea of what faith & miracles are, and then concludes with what communities that celebrate these ideals, along with their seeming contradictions, could potentially look like when a radically subjective view is adopted rather then the traditional objectification/rationalist positions are espoused.

 

 

Implications

 

Rollins does a good job of “unpacking” an apophatic understanding of theology. It is arguable that it is true: that the larger portion of Christian thinkers tend to be almost exclusively cataphatic in their thinking – and reserve a degree of aversion, if not derision, for any apophatic inclinations.  Rollins may likewise do a good job of speaking a correction to this balance, but it can also be argued that he may go too far – as is often the case with original and/or corrective thinkers – in seeing his way only, rather then the potential for a more integrated apophatic/cataphatic epistimolologic-theological framework/worldview.  Perhaps a further correction might be towards a ‘meta-‘modernity: in which both classical mysticism, modernity, and its counterpart, postmodernity are respected and in – in parts – appropriated. It is certain that what Rollins offers is a fantastic tool – but he may be guilty of inadvertent hypocrisy by insisting that his own ‘tool’ be used as an all encompassing ‘foundation.’ It is argued by some that true theology is both all anthropology (Feuerbach) & all Christology (Barth) as well as classicist-mystical/modern/postmodern in it’s cultural application. Hopefully – if asked – Rollins would agree that true theology is truly transcendent in its relation to all our own epistemological tools, yet – in parts – also grounded in them by virtue of Divine condescension – or as Calvin would say – God’s own “lisp.”

 

Merton Makes a Foray – Exploring Merton’s Raids on the Unspeakable as a Third Spiritual Path, With Reference to the Traditional Liberal vs. Conservative Split.

Increasingly, when one looks at the state of theology as it is today, the contentions that the Liberal vs. Conservative views of doctrine are merely two sides of the same Cartesian coin[1] – seem more and more believable. But are we really forced to choose, in what seems to be an inescapably bifurcated dichotomy, between either one of two sides –  in terms of how we are supposed to apply reason to theology? Can there really be only two ways of seeing Christian spirituality? In the midst of this intersect – there stands a theologian & philosopher  – who for many – serves as a gatekeeper to what some would consider ‘a third way:’ Thomas Merton.  Merton would say that Rene Descartes’ motto “I think therefore I am” is, in today’s mindset, taken in far too simplistic a fashion. Rather then just holding to an idea or concept – Merton would say – ‘In meditation, I find wholeness.’ To all the exactness and ideological certitude inherent to Modernity – Merton would disavow the absoluteness of most decisional knowledge – and would rather welcome to the epistemological table the possibility of not just not knowing all there is to be known about a certain given subject – but also the possibility that it may actually be impossible to know about some things. It is this task that he attempts to take up in his 1960 book, Raids on the Unspeakable.

Raids – as a book – is essentially an embodiment of Merton’s thought & philosophy in regards to both life and theology.  Merton believed that while we can simply know some things, the best – if not the most important things – are those that demand careful and meticulously careful meditation, and not just knee-jerk acceptance. Coupled with this – is Merton’s deep suspicion of epistemological surety: he asserts that that there is a crucial need for the integration of mystery and the unknown/unknowable into anybody’s philosophical/theological framework or worldview.  Against the tide of modernist theology and culture, Merton resolutely sets these twin rocks of contemplation & mystery midstream, eagerly embracing the resultant froth and fury as merely an ongoing part of the process of finding not just truth, but a way to approach that which may in fact – forever be just out of reach. But this is exactly what Merton is doing in Raids – making raids, or incursions into the bounds of the Unspeakable: that which cannot be understood or known in a sense of completeness of understanding. Be they as impenetrable as they might – Merton makes a foray into their boundaries – if not for just a moment; and does not steal from the unspeakables their mysteriousness –but seeks to merely find a way to appropriate their content into his own spiritual mediation – and in sharing these raids or forays – create a conversation that finds a way to express them in such a way that creates meaning without divulging their full content, and understanding – without erasing their intrinsic mystery.

In his book, Merton explores everything from the rain to Nazis. In one of his first essays, Rain and the Rhinoceros, Merton talks about the mysteriousness of a simple rainstorm, and uses it as backdrop for a discussion of personal identity, using Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros, in which a character named Berenger awakes to find that all his friends have suddenly become Rhinoceroses – and he alone remains human. In another essay entitled A Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolf Eichman, Merton explores the unthinkable atrocities of the Nazi regime, and explores the reality that the vast majority of the perpetrators were neither insane nor stupid – but were completely mentally competent and well educated. How could the same nation that brought us such great art and science also bring upon the world such horror and desolation?  How can you wrap your head around the Holocaust or the pedagogs who did it with a perfectly perfunctory sense of it all as just being merely a simple duty to country and fellow German? For Merton – it has to – and, much like the rain remains – will forever be the embodiment of an impenetrable mystery – one that we can think about – but will never fully understand. If we think we understand it – then we have not even begun to genuinely try to.

Various influential theological figures such as Gustavo Gutiérrez[2] and his emphasis on a “theology of liberation,” Dr. Carl F.H. Henry and his emphasis on fundamentalism being an active agent in culture and not being obsessed with legalism[3] and eschatological despair or J. Gresham Machen when he drew lines as well in his distinction between Modernism/Liberalism and Christianity in terms of the radical distinctive between that he proposed; [4] each find an issue that they build their work and subsequent reputations upon. But in almost every case – they each reach back, either into a Scriptural/Soteriological (Conservative), or a Social-centric/Personal-Existentialist (Liberal) foundation. Merton is both of these – but more.  His path is not an ‘either/or’ decision– neither is it a ‘neither,’ but – it is both – through mystery and contemplation. Merton is, for the most part, a scriptural and Christ-centered writer –who also cares very deeply about social action and personal identity.

The mystery and contemplative components of Merton’s thought – introduced and explored in Raids – are arguable becoming more and more important, as in the American theological culture, it is increasingly more and more easy to see the ‘Cultural Christianity’ that Kierkegaard railed against, when he addressed his fellow Danes. There are many individuals in almost every theological tradition, who have become so accustomed to their own doctrines that they cease to have any wonder or to any longer hold to any mysteriousness intrinsic to what they believe in at all. In it’s most crude forms – there is a total ignorance of almost all substantive content; individuals guilty of such, having embraced the notion that they are Christians, merely because they are Americans – or because they go to church 3 times a week. Against this mindless, automaton-like spiritual existence Merton takes great exception and seeks to make his greatest impact. This is perhaps Merton’s gift to the ‘theological conversation:’ he strives to bring back a degree of wonder, meditation, and the depth that the unknown brings.

But can we go too far? And did Merton, himself, go too far in his own quest? This is a topic that enjoys a lot of discourse both among both Merton admirers and his detractors. Towards the end of his life, he arguably drifted closer and farther into Eastern Religions – and some say – too far from an emphasis on Christ and His salvation. There is also a good argument to be made against misapplied or overused mysticism. If one takes revealed truth and push it back into mystery, then the result is neither mystery, nor truth – but merely yet another contrived spiritual invention created by one’s own hands.

In all of our lives, we each come across things that are unspeakable. They are not evil – or wrong – they’re just not communicateable. They exist in that space and place that exists beyond the limits of not just language – but more importantly – understanding. They exist – but cannot be described. They can be appropriated intellectually – but cannot be understood. They exist within language – but cannot be explained. It may be something deceptively simple like the rain, the Triune concept of the Trinity, or the Holocaust – they will forever defy any attempt to completely understand them or explain them. We can try, though. We can – make a raid; a foray into them –and find at least, in part, an understanding: one that coupled with thought and imagination, we can find something to grasp hold onto – even if just for a moment; it can be ours. It was what Merton did best – and it would do us well, to learn how to do it as well, lest we lose our own identify and merely become just another part of another theological rhinoceros herd. It takes bravery, courage – even responsibility – to make a raid. But we can. We should. We must.

 

 

Matthew Lipscomb

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography.

 

Helmut Theilicke. The Evangelical Faith. Volume One: Prolegomena, The Relation of Theology to Modern Thought Forms. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmands Publishing Company, 1974.

 

Carl F. H. Henry. The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism.
Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmands Publishing Company, 2003.

 

Paul C. McClasson. Invitation to Dogmatic Theology, A Canonical Approach. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2006.

 

Gustavo Gutiérrez. A Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll, New York:
Orbis Books, 2007.

 

Carl F. H. Henry

The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism
Matthew Lipscomb – Modern Christian Thought

 

Background

 

Carl F. H. Henry (1913-2003) was an evangelical theologian who established a reputation as an outstanding theologian and scholar. Henry positioned himself as a strong advocate of biblical authority while also rejecting modern liberalism.   Henry helped launch various evangelical institutions and with the publishing of this book, cemented himself as one of Evangelicalism’s brightest and most respected scholars.

 

Focus

 

Carl F. H. Henry was an advocate of Evangelicalism’s engagement – not just into intellectual and scholarly realms – but also the cultural sphere as well. The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism is Henry’s addressment of the cultural failures both extant and possible within the Evangelical movement, which Henry was a part of.

 

Logic

 

Preface
In the introduction to his book, Henry outlines both the possibility and the need for ‘surgery’ to be made to then-modern fundamentalism. He sites that it while some disagree with the necessity, it is always under attack, and that it had in fact failed to fully address the full potential of the “Hebrew-Christian Genius” in relation to problems that are intrinsically social in context.

 

I: Evaporation of Fundamentalist Humanitarianism
In this chapter, Henry discusses Fundamentalism’s failure to address an entire litany of ongoing social ills, having chosen to rather focus on superanturalist concerns, over the everyday plight of people all over the world.

 

II: The Protest against Foredoomed Failure
Here, Henry discusses the alignment of millennialists and millennialists against postmillennialists. Essentially, he criticizes those who embrace a despair-centered eschatology and thereby have abandoned hope for a ‘better future’ and instead have written off any potential for a Christ-centered societal affluence, which for eschatological reasons, they view as being a lost cause.

 

III: The Most Embarrassing Evangelical Divorce
In this chapter, Henry explores the fact that metaphysics and ethics once “went everywhere together” but that in the modern fundamentalist mindset, the redemptive “theologico-ethical” emphasis had been lost.

 

IV: Apprehension Over Kingdom Preaching
In this chapter, Henry discusses the anxiety extant within millennialists and millennialists mindsets of preaching a ‘kingdom theology,’ because of their intrinsic eschatological despair. Henry concludes this chapter with what he considers a biblical view of what ‘kingdom preaching’ should look like, as well as it’s intrinsic necessity in terms of fundamentalist essentials and world-relevance.

 

V: The Fundamentalist Thief on the Cross
In this chapter, Henry discusses the necessity for Fundamentalism to remain connected to the redemptive power of a personal Faith in Christ, not just in history – but also “superhistory.” He argues that rather then just expressing theological positions, fundamentalism must strive also for a  “temporal focus” that applies the redemptive dynamics of Christianity to everyday life.

 

VI: The Struggle for a New World Mind
In this chapter, Henry discusses the need for the Fundamentalist worldview to change in accordance and relation to it’s present and ever-changing socio-political situational frame works, without compromising it’s teaching or it’s intrinsic redemptive emphasis.

 

VII: The Evangelical “Formula of Protest”
In this chapter, Henry outlines a plan of action by which Evangelical groups can constructively interact with like-minded social action endeavors- when either in the majority or the minority positions of affluence.  Here again – he emphasizes the need for the inclusion of a redemptive mindset.

 

VIII: The Dawn of a New Reformation
In his final chapter, Henry outlines what a future evangelicalism must look like, and the things that it must intrinsically espouse to remain not just influential but also affective and, more importantly – Christ centered. Here again, he maintains the importance of divine redemption and that it alone is “the best solution of our problems, individual and social.”

 

Implications

 

In recent years, there has been much talk of evangelical and conservative Christians being too involved in politics in culture. Usually these voices come from those with oppositional views. The rise of political and cultural activities among conservative Christians has served as the genesis behind many antithetical organizations.   In recent years, the terms “Christian Right” or “Moral Majority” are often used in derogatory and critical ways. Almost all agree, however, that not all of the criticism is unwarranted. Were he alive today, Henry would probably be writing a book aimed at not just affirming – but also brining further corrections, as his scholarly side would be want to do. His thoughts on cultural engagement are just as timely and crucial to the walking out the balance of the secular and the sacred, today, as they were when he first published them.

Matthew Lipscomb – Modern Christian Thought – 1/14/09

A Précis on Friedrich Schleiermacher’s

On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers

 

 

Background

 

Friedrich Schleiermacher was a German pastor, who was born into a religious family highly influenced by Reformed (Calvinist) theology and the pietistical Moravian Brethren. In 1785 Schleiermacher began his theological education at the Moravian seminary in Barby. It was also there that Schleiermacher began to rebel against the strict dogmatic theological assertions of his background. This culminated in letters to his father, stating his changing beliefs, and his eventual transfer to the more liberal University of Halle where he studied philosophy and continued his theological education. Schleiermacher never considered himself to be removed from his former belief system, but still chose to identify with it – describing himself in his later years in terms of being a “Moravian of a higher order.”

 

 

Focus

 

On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers represents his effort to reach those of his own generation with the Gospel that he still held dear, despite his apparent break with his strict background and its various dogmatic assertions – such as the traditional understanding of the Atonement of Christ and the Virgin Birth – while writing from the perspective of his faith, as he had come to see it. On Religion is Schleiermacher’s attempt to move past the institutional dogmaticisms of his day, in such a way that he hoped could reach those who have otherwise written off the validity of Christianity. Proponents point out that it must be read from the perspective of this specifically intended audience – lest it be potentially misunderstood.

 

 

Logic

 

On Religion is broken into five speeches, each entreating the skeptic to consider his given propositions, even in light of the reader’s acknowledged contempt for the given subject. It is not a theological analysis of church doctrine, nor an attempt to make a persuasive argument based on theological/scriptural assertions.

 

Speech one is aptly titled Apology. It serves as a foundation for the proceeding speeches and is an attempt to state exactly who he is writing to, to make candid acknowledgments of the state of present Christianity, to outlay his intended method and states that he lacks any pretensions that his audience has to or will listen to what he has to say. He merely entreats them to consider what he will speak to them regarding.

 

Speech two is titled On the Essence of Religion, and explores what he terms the “intuition of the universe -” which he says is not related to philosophy, nor which can be considered a system, but that rather is an inherently personal and individual essence; the only authentic source for true religion in a person’s life. Schleiermacher further details the abuses of what other people substitute for it.

 

Speech three moves past this proposed substrate and explores the process of self-formation, for which it is likewise titled. Speech four moves the progression further from substrate  formation, on to the issue what religion looks like in a social context – which he believes is crucially necessary. Schleiermacher’s final, fifth speech explores the varieties of religion present in the world and if a true plurality of truth is possible. In his conclusion, Schleiermacher proposes a nature of Christianity which, when properly understood, radically separates it from other forms of religion.

 

 

Implications

 

Just as Renée Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy in 1641 did before him, Schleiermacher’s On Religion charted a new course in apologetics. Schleiermacher wanted to push the art past the standard assumptions to reach those hostile to the faith, and his bold move reverberates still today.  As C.S. Lewis did with his Mere Christianity and Donald Miller has done for today’s so-called postmodern generation with his Blue Like Jazz, such efforts are not without risk to either the writer or the theological establishment.

 

Schleiermacher’s On Religion continues to affect more then just the disaffected. When he wrote it, he intended it to be an apologetical work and not a systematic theological treatise, such as his later work, The Christian Faith [Glaubenslehre], published in 1821 & 1830. Yet, both Schleiermacher’s theology and his apologetical method have both been so influential, that many feel him responsible for the liberal side of the liberal/conservative dichotomatic split in Christian theology. Indeed, he is considered by many to not just be the father of modern Christian thought, but also liberal thought as well. Some have even suggested that the criticism of him has been so harsh that it masks over the spirit of what Schleiermacher was trying to accomplish, resulting in a “Barthinian Captivity” (Barth was both a respecter but a harsh critic of Schleiermacher) of the church, because of the overshadowing suspicion and negative attitudes, held by and associated with other theological figures/counterparts, in regards to not just his theology – but also his apologetic method.  Few theologians will continue to be rediscovered, reanalyzed, reasserted and even rerejected as Schleiermacher will ever be. He is no doubt a permanent fixture in an impermanent theological landscape.

Karl Barth

God Here and Now

 

 

Background

 

Karl Barth is considered one of the most influential theologians of this century. Initially educated in the classic, liberal German tradition – he rebelled and embraced a primacy – not just of the scripture – but of a necessity for an overall centrality of Christ. His phrase, there is “no Anthropology without Christology,” serves to both underscore and embody his thought. Barth is one of the mountains that any aspiring theologian must eventually try to climb. God Here and Now is perhaps an introductory hike into his thought.

 

Focus

 

Barth’s book Epistle to the Romans was once referred to as a ‘bomb gone off in the theologians’ playground,’ because of it’s radical and resonating challenge to liberal thought. These same contentions are essentially spelled out in this book – which serves as a primary introduction to both his theological method and it’s attendant assertions. Barth outlines his Christological focus and the supremacy of the position of the scripture in all theological formulation via a series of transcripts and reflective comments regarding 7 addresses that he made throughout the course of his theological career.

 

 

Logic

 

Each chapter/speech represents an applicative dimension of his thought and the contentions unique therein.

 

1)    The Christian Proclamation Here and Now
In this chapter, Barth describes the essence of the Christian faith and explores it’s theological assertions in regards to it’s own nature, the nature of man, the position of scripture within it, and it’s relation to the world to which is it made known.

2)    The Sovereignty of God’s Word and the Decision of Faith
In this chapter, Barth explores the nature of God’s Word, the reasons and the ways that it’s sovereignty has been lost in theology and must be rediscovered, the decision of the believer to believe in it, and the centrality of the believer’s decisions as it relates back to the God’s Word.

3)    The Proclamation of God’s Free Grace
In this chapter, Barth explores dynamics and essences of Grace as it relates to the believer; God’s aseity, the freedom of God’s grace, the potentials for both it’s expanse and limitation, and the centrality of Christ within it.

4)    The Authority and Significance of the Bible: Twelve Theses
In this chapter, Barth discusses the authority of the and maintains that any correct discussion of it can only contribute to it’s further affirmation. He goes through a list of statements that seek to explore the nature of it’s authority as it relates to itself, man, the world, and belief itself.

5)    The Church: The Living Congregation of the Living Lord Jesus Christ
In this chapter, Barth discusses the nature of the essence of the Church in terms of how it functions and relates to itself, the nature of the threats that exist against the church in terms of how it can actually experience death, and then the renewal of the church – or how it can be resurrected to life.

6)    Christian Ethics
In this chapter, Barth explores the world of ethics in terms of its relation to the human state and the world, it’s source, and it’s limitations.

7)    Humanism
In this chapter, Barth reflects upon a conference that he attended – of which the topic was Humanism.  He comments in regards to what it is generally accepted as being, as well as the futility that others experience in both further definition and application. Barth reflects on the inherent awkwardness of  a ”Christian Humanism” and the potentially inherent futility thereof. He also explores the incompatibility of the Christian faith because of the nature of its “exclusiveness” in relation to all other human states/thoughts.

 

 

 

Implications

 

Barth finds both acceptance and concern across both liberal and conservative isles of theological thought. Some Evangelicals have difficulty with Barth’s idea of the Scripture becoming the Word only when it actually “impacts” the reader – whereas Liberals view Barth as potentially constraining and “Patriarchal” in his theological method. Few theologians offer a body of work as expansive, deep and as potentially confrontational as does Barth. He takes his work seriously – but often, not himself. It has often been said that he was the one true theological genius of his time. It is very likely that even with the coming of our next generation’s revealed luminaries, they will themselves always be cast as a shadow within his own light.