A Critique of the ‘What Would Jesus Do? Society’

I really like how John Webster describes Barth’s understanding against the Liberal Protestantism of his day. Ironically, I think, that the way Barth understood the Liberal Protestants of his day, could (should) be the way (by and large) that we understand American Evangelicals of our day [please note: I am speaking in generalities, there are obviously many exceptions to this amongst American Evangelicals, just as there was exceptions to the Liberal Protestants in Barth's day]. In fact, I think this dovetails nicely with the post I just posted on Occupy Wall Street. It gets to the question of how it is that “good” honest hard working (even Christian) people can be duped into thinking that the aformentioned attributes serve as the garb that justifies their place in society (i.e. as good honest hard working folk). There is always room for conviction and self-”criticality;” I know we don’t like this, and I know that much of this ultimately bothers our sensibilities; but we are Christians, people of  love and truth (insofar as we participate in God’s life in Christ).

As I’ve already alluded to, the following is Webster commenting on Barth and his critique of the Liberal Protestants (which I am lifting and applying to American Evangelicals). This is intended to decenter our trust in ourselves, and instead cause us to throw ourselves at the mercy of God in Christ. This is intended to turn our lights on so that we can more critically see how what counts as Christian and Ethical (in America and the West), probably is not as ethical and Christian as we think. This is intended to highlight how it is that “we” so easily become the standard for what is good and right in the world instead of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

[A] large part of Barth’s distaste is his sense that the ethics of liberal Protestantism could not be extricated from a certain kind of cultural confidence: ‘[H]ere was … a human culture building itself up in orderly fashion in politics, economics, and science, theoretical and applied, progressing steadily along its whole front, interpreted and ennobled by art, and through its morality and religion reaching well beyond itself toward yet better days.’ The ethical question, on such an account, is no longer disruptive; it has ‘an almost perfectly obvious answer’, so that, in effect, the moral life becomes too easy, a matter of the simple task of following Jesus.

Within this ethos, Barth also discerns a moral anthropology with which he is distinctly ill-at-ease. He unearths in the received Protestant moral culture a notion of moral subjectivity (ultimately Kantian in origin), according to which ‘[t]he moral personality is the author both of the conduct with which the ethical question is concerned and of the question itself. Barth’s point is not simply that such an anthropology lacks serious consideration of human corruption, but something more complex. He is beginning to unearth the way in which this picture of human subjectivity as it were projects the moral self into a neutral space, from which it can survey the ethical question ‘from the viewpoint of spectators’. This notion Barth reads as a kind of absolutizing of the self and its reflective consciousness, which come to assume ‘the dignity of ultimateness’. And it is precisely this — the image of moral reason as a secure centre of value, omnicompetent in its judgements — that the ethical question interrogates. [John Webster, Barth's Moral Theology: Human Action in Barth's Thought, 35-6]

The ‘Human culture building itself up’ was the German one (for Barth) that ultimately expressed itself in German bourgeois society, and ultimately Nazi Germany. For Barth, for the Liberal Protestant, because of the collapse of the Christian self into the self as the moral self; there no longer remained space for Christ to break in and speak a fresh word of holiness over and against the established norms of what the Liberal Protestant had come to already think of what counted as such. In other words, Barth was against a What Would Jesus Do? society.

I am appropriating this critique from Barth (a la Webster) for the American Evangelical in particular. We have come to think that what counts as moral is captured by the symbol ‘Conservative’. It is this absolutized ‘Conservative Self’ that presumes that what it means to be moral, and Christian is to ask, simply, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ This perfectly illustrates Barth’s critique of the German Liberal Protestant. For them, as for us, to be Christian, was to be nationalist, exceptional, and normal. It is this posture that negates any space for the Word of God to break in on all of these norms or the status quo; since the status quo is synonymous with being Christian. And it is this self-evidential situation which allows for atrocities to take place in the name of Christ; through the “absolute self.”

*A rererererepost .

‘What It Meant’ ‘What It Means’: Biblical Theology in Discussion

What the text of Scripture ‘meant’ and what it ‘means’ has been one rubric by which Biblical Theology (as a  movement) has sought to identify a working definition of what it means, in fact, to do Biblical Theology (especially in the 19th century and onward into the present). Without adequate attention to the history of this dialectic (between meant/means), we all too often can repeat history, and not appreciate the kind of material impact that uncritical acceptance of these kinds of formal questions can have on our own conditioned and particular interpretation of Scripture today. I have N.T. Wright in mind, but he is not the only one. What I want to consider further (and not much deeper than just posing a question and my own thoughts here), is if there has been thorough enough attention given to the someone like Wright’s own appropriation of his conditioned employment of past hermeneutical practice? In other words, I often hear many of Wright’s most vocal proponents repeating and building upon his material exegetical and historical conclusions; but I am just curious as to whether or not enough attention has been given to the actual methodology that Wright is indeed employing to come to the theological conclusions that he is coming to in his own project—as he attempts to mediate ‘what it meant’ with ‘what it means’?

My questions about Wright above could be applied to many contemporary Biblical Theologians of our day. I suppose I simply want to register my own hesitation in regard to whether or not enough critical self-reflection has been maintained among Wright’s & companies’ proposals in regard to bridging the gap between what it mean and what it means (and in fact if this gap ought to be bridged at all); and furthermore, whether or not this is indeed what Wright is attempting to do? And if so, how is he doing it? Does he have a well thought out prolegomenon (hermeneutical methodology) that indeed engages with these kinds of more formal questions; or is Wright & co. so focused on their material conclusions, that they simply presume upon a certain mode of: What it meant, must be what it means? This seems to me to be the mode that Wright & co. often operate in; a mode that does not attend strongly enough to some deeper and important methodological questions—I realize that I am generalizing quite heavily (esp. when I write Wright & co.), but I think some generalization here, at least in order to provide heuristic purchase, is necessary.

In light of some of these questions, I thought that I would do a series of posts that seek to engage with them a bit. Let me offer a quote from Gerhard Hasel as he offers something from D. H. Kelsey in regard to the dialectic of what it meant and what it means; Kelsey’s questions for this dialectic are meant to be critical, and in fact to problematize in such a way, that ‘what it meant’ ‘what it means’ is shown to be too reductionistic of way to attempt to relate meaning in the text of Scripture.

[I]t is evident that the distinction of modern times between “what it meant” and “what it means,” i.e., theological interpretation which is normative, is problematical in both its distinction and its task. D. H. Kelsey, for example, has stated succinctly that there are several ways in which both “what it meant” and “what it means” can be related to each other with varying results. First, it may be decided that the descriptive approach that seeks to determine “what it meant” by whatever methods of inquiry is considered to be identical with “what it means.” Second, it may be decided that “what it meant” contains propositions, ideas, etc. that are to be decoded and translated systematically and explicated and that this is “what it means,” even though those explications may never have occurred to the original authors and might have been rejected by them. Third, it may be decided that “what it meant” is an archaic way of speaking dependent upon its own culture and time that needs to be redescribed in contemporary ways of speaking of the same phenomena, and that this redescription is “what it means.” “This assumes that the theologian has access to the phenomena independent of scripture and ‘what it meant,’ so that he can check the archaic description and have a basis for his own.” Fourth, it may be decided that “what it meant” refers to the way in which early Christians used Biblical texts and that “what it means” is simply the way these are used by modern Christians. In this case there is a genetic relationship. Kelsey notes, “None of these decisions can itself be either validated or invalidated by exegetical study of the text, for what is at issue is precisely how exegetical study is related to doing theology.” If this is the case, then one must ask on what grounds one makes a theological judgment in favor of one over the other of these or other ways of relating “what it meant” to “what it means.” [Gerhard Hasel, Old Testament Theology: Basic Issues In The Current Debate, 37-8.]

Far from merely critiquing N. T. Wright, these questions take issue with all would be exegetes and theologues who see Scripture as something significant enough to take serious. And I am not trying to totally critique Wright by offering these questions; he is just the nearest, most public and popular and prominent Biblical Theologian of our day who makes himself readily available as foil for such considerations as I am offering in this post. My concern with Wright is what is asked by Hasel in the last clause above, “If this is the case, then one must ask on what grounds one makes a theological judgment in favor of one over the other of these or other ways of relating “what it meant” to “what it means.” I am not sure that Wright & co. attend themselves enough with this concern. It seems to me that he/they usually just presume upon whatever their theological predisposition is, and then act as if all they are doing is Biblical study; but then of course this begs the question that Hasel gives voice to.

I will continue this series of posts by following Hasel’s subsequent and developing thought in the directly subsequent paragraphs to the one I just shared. Stay tuned …

Hellbound?

I just finished watching the documentary by Kevin Miller, Hellbound? As some of you know I have already been thinking and reading on the issue of Christian Universalism for sometime (for at least a couple of years, if not longer). I wouldn’t say that this documentary, in particular, added anything to what I already have known about the issues involved in this debate (among Christians). My general impression of this film is that it was well-done, even if it did at points maybe caricature certain positions (like the Eternal Conscious Torment position), and privilege others (like Christian Universalism). But in the end, I think that Miller still struck a good tone with the documentary by hearing from multiple voices—although it would have been nice if he had consulted with a Barthian scholar, and got this type of more theological understanding of classical Christian concepts revamped in a methodologically Christ-centered fashion (especially in regard to understanding Jesus as both the elect and reprobate in his vicarious humanity for us). I think that they included the author of The Evangelical Universalist, Robin Parry, into the mix of voices was very commendable. If there is anyone, and any treatment of the text of Scripture that could persuade me of a Christian Universalism it would be Parry’s (along with some implicates from Barth and Torrance).

I think the most important point that was made in the film, and it is one that Parry hit home especially, is that what stands behind our exegetical and interpretive decisions primarily is a vision of God. What does it mean for God to be love? Is love defined by our own sentimentality and culturally conditioned conceptualization of that, or is there Revelation of God as Love that breaks in on our conceptions and reorients them to His? And how does Scripture, and the exegetical process dialectically and spiralingly chasten over-theologized conceptions of what Triune love might be? These are the tensions, that for me remain. And I think these tensions are illustrated over and again in Scripture; as we have the passages that are clearly universalist, and then we also have the passages that are clearly particularist (and according to Jerry Walls in the documentary, we have passages that are clearly annihilationist—although I am not so sure I agree with that as much). In fact, I think Walls’ sketch of the tension is probably the best most clairvoyant one in the film; he identifies (through the editors of the documentary) multiple passages that stand out in each category (that I just noted), and then highlights how the Tradition has tended to favor the particularist passages (so the ones that seem to suggest an eternal conscious torment view of hell), and used this set of passages as the clear ones (so the classical analogy of faith or as Grant Osborne has called it the analogy of Scripture approach) to interpret the less clear ones, which the Tradition would presume are the passages that are more universalist and/or annihilationist. And he notes that what the Universalist does with their set of passages is to inversely use these passages as the cipher through which to read the particularist passages of Scripture (that might seem to argue that hell is eternal conscious torment). They come back to Walls, and in the end, I think he ends up where I am at in posture; that is, that there remains an somewhat undecided tension between all of the passages (undecided relatively speaking, from the human perspective). And thus, he is hopeful and happy to be surprised by God in the eschaton, that in fact the Christian Universalists were right after all.

As I opened this post up with; much of the decision making on this comes back to our conception of God (in fact it all comes back to this). The reality is, though, that while I hold to the fact that God’s very nature and life is un-impeded free love for the other in His life, at the same time, the clarity of Scripture (given by Him) is, as I just highlighted, less clear about this issue than either the Dogmatic Traditionalist or the Dogmatic Christian Universalist might be. So I remain chastenedly hopeful, but would probably not be considered a Christian Universalist, proper. I live in the tension that is identified and articulated by Thomas Torrance, and I quote this often from him, and with this I close:

God loves you so utterly and completely that he has given himself for you in Jesus Christ his beloved Son, and has thereby pledged his very being as God for your salvation. In Jesus Christ God has actualised his unconditional love for you in your human nature in such a once for all way, that he cannot go back upon it without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying himself. Jesus Christ died for you precisely because you are sinful and utterly unworthy of him, and has thereby already made you his own before and apart from your ever believing in him. He has bound you to himself by his love in a way that he will never let you go, for even if you refuse him and damn yourself in hell his love will never cease. Therefore, repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. ~T. F. Torrance, “The Mediation of Christ”, 94.

A Birds-eye View of Calvary Chapel’s Senior Pastor’s Conference, 2013: And a Reflection on the Trajectory of Calvary as a Movement

As I have referenced previously, I have had involvement in Calvary Chapel since in and around 1995. I attended their Bible College for a year in 1996-97; attended the flagship church of Calvary Chapel, founding pastor Chuck Smith’s church in Costa Mesa, CA (for four years); and more recently we attended Calvary Chapel, Vancouver (WA), now Calvary Downtown for a couple of years. Before all of this Calvary Chapel stuff came into my life—as most of you know by now—I grew up in the Conservative Baptist Association (CBA), my dad as one of this denomination’s ordained pastors. Currently we attend Columbia Presbyterian Church in Vancouver, WA; this has become a better fit for us (my wife and I), theologically (and the church, and in particular the senior pastor, Dr. Fitz Neal, has a great sense of the Spirit’s koinonial presence). That said, I am still very intrigued and interested in the politics and the goings-on in the Calvary Chapel movement. I am still friends with the pastor at our former Calvary Chapel here in Washington, and am able to kind of stay aware of how the movement is going. The reason I am writing about this right now is because today is the kick off day for the 2013 Calvary Chapel Senior Pastor’s Conference (which goes from today 06-03 through Friday 06-07). The rest of this post will be a description and reflection on the polity, politics, theology, and church government that defines Calvary Chapel as a movement.

History and Inception

Here is how the Calvary Chapel Association (and by the way, this ‘Association’ language is rather new, Calvary prides itself on not being a denomination [point of fact, they are one of the most denominational non-denominations you might ever encounter]) describes the history and founding of Calvary Chapel by Chuck Smith:

[I]n 1965, Pastor Chuck Smith began his ministry at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa with just twenty-five people. From the beginning, Pastor Chuck welcomed all, young and old, without judgment, placing his emphasis on the teaching of the Word of God. His simple, yet sound, biblical approach draws 25,000 people weekly.

With a sincere concern for the lost, Pastor Chuck made room in his heart and his home for a generation of hippies and surfers; generating a movement of the Holy Spirit that spread from the West Coast to the East Coast, and now, throughout the world.

What began as a small local church has now grown into an international ministry of over 1500 fellowships throughout the world.

Here in our website, we invite you to find out more about who we are today, what we believe, where we are throughout the world and we invite you to join us as we meet and worship our wonderful Lord and Savior, study His Word, fellowship together, grow in His grace and desire to make disciples and go into all the world. [website]

So this movement really started when Chuck Smith opened the doors of his church to the hippies and surfers (and this whole kind of 60′s culture) when nobody else really would. From there the Lord did radical things in the lives of many many people, and most of the most prominent (and even less) Calvary Chapel pastors today can trace their lineage back to being saved out of the drug and free-sex culture of the 60′s and 70′s under the leadership of pastor Chuck Smith; in fact the common refrain among most Calvary Chapel pastors today is that Chuck Smith is their pastor. Interestingly, this kind of clues you in to the kind of implicit hierarchical ‘episcopalian’ style of church government that gives the Calvary churches their shape (Chuck=Pope, his inner circle of big named pastors=the college of cardinals, the regional leadership they have in place=archbishops, and their local pastors=bishops) (you can read more about the kind of fall out this government has been producing of late in the Calvary movement in general here).

Theology

By and large, Calvary Chapel (given its background in Foursquare ecclesiology and theology) is broadly what can be called ‘semi-charismatic’. They believe in what some have called the ‘second-blessing’ (which they would repudiate this language), or what they call ‘the baptism of the Holy Spirit’; this is a post-conversion experience and event, wherein a Christian person needs to be baptized with the Holy Spirit in order to accomplish the work of the ministry, and to experience a powerful life of sanctification where victory over personal sin is the sign; along with this ‘baptism’, they like other charismatics believe that a sign of this will be speaking in tongues (in the charismatic understanding of this)—unlike other charismatics, they do not press that a person needs to speak in tongues, and they restrain speaking in tongues from happening in the main church service (they have what is called ‘after-glow’ services where such “gifts” can be practiced freely).

As far as their doctrine of God; they are typically Evangelical, and affirm that God is triune, and that He has incarnated Himself for us in Christ, dying for all people (so universal atonement) to forgive them of their sins and reconcile them unto God.

Their view of salvation is essentially Arminian (but I would argue that the way it is usually communicated in most Calvary Chapels, incidentally as it is, that it actually tends more towards a historic understanding of semi-Pelagian); they believe and teach (and I generalize, because there is a range of belief here among the various pastors; I base my generalization on the teaching of pastor Chuck Smith who is the pastor’s Pastor) that essentially a person could conceivably fall away, but they usually caveat this with the qualification of “but why would a true Christian ever fall away’? This teaching can be quite unnerving the contemplative type.

Ultimately, Calvary Chapel, in line with their heritage (Foursquare) is anti-intellectual. One example of this from my personal experience is this: I told my fellow students at Calvary Chapel Bible College that I was going to be leaving there to attend Multnomah Bible College (where they had real doctors for faculty etc.); their instant and unanimous response was “oh brother, be careful that you don’t quench the Spirit!” I have also heard multiple times from various prominent pastors in Calvary Chapel that one of the real dangers facing the Calvary movement is intellectualism; the only caveat they have for this, is that they will appeal to sanctioned intellectuals (mostly from Dallas Theological Seminary), who meet the snuff relative to their heavy heavy dependence upon classical Dispensational theology. And this leads me to my next point; if they do have a theological approach and hermeneutic, it is classical Dispensationalism.

Calvary Chapel is known (even in the State of Israel itself, i.e. the leadership of the nation of Israel) for being Christian zionists, and this is a result of their internalization of dispensational theology, and the “literal” reading of the text of Scripture. They have, as I’ve heard, directly sent financial support to the nation of Israel (because if you bless Israel God will bless you cf. Gen. 12.1-3ff); they see Israel as the key to interpreting Scripture and Biblical prophecy (instead of Jesus, by implication); and they see all of this support correlate with a proper Pre-tribulational, Premillennial, Dispensational reading of Scripture. Indeed, this is their theological way.

Current Events

So what is interesting to me, currently, is that given all of the above background, what is happening right now in the Calvary Chapel movement is something of either death thralls, birth pangs, or both. The founder, who still tightly holds the reigns of the doctrinal direction of Calvary Chapel as a movement (or now an association), Chuck Smith, is determined that any Calvary Chapel who diverges from a strict Classical Dispensational (so you can’t as a Calvary Chapel pastor even be a Progressive Dispensationalist) reading of Scripture is essentially (and this is not too strong!) a heretic (or someone who does not take Scripture seriously at all). Beyond this, anyone who might even hint at being less Arminian (which they don’t even call themselves Arminian, which illustrates Calvary’s de-emphasis on doing theology) in orientation, and instead Reformed (meaning 5 point Calvinist), or worse, Covenantal (although I have never come across any Calvary pastor who is this far removed from the Calvary way) is basically anathema.

The problem facing the upper leadership of Calvary Chapel right now (well one big problem anyway) is that there is a whole new crop of younger pastors who have grown up in the Calvary Chapel movement, and are 2nd and 3rd generation (in some instances) from their 1st generation forefathers. And this newer crop of pastors have not, for lack of a better word, been as ‘indoctrinated’ into the Calvary way as many of their forebears. And a lot of these newer or younger pastors are much more open (just because of cultural norms) to new theological ideas that do not align, at all, with dispensational theology. The influence for many of these guys might be John Piper and/or The Gospel Coalition, which is much too ‘Reformed’ for Calvary tastes; or they might be being influenced by the writings of N.T. Wright, who is not dispensational, and in fact is quite Covenantal in orientation—and there are many other influences giving shape to the new direction of these younger pastors and their flocks.

Indeed, as I observe this as an informed outsider (now), what I think this current pastors conference is intended to do is to reign a lot of these younger pastors back into the fold of the Calvary way. The problem, as I see it, is that a lot of these pastors (and many of them are actually 1st generation Calvary pastors who have continue to study outside of the Calvary sanctioned scholarship) are not interested, at all, in preaching/teaching and endorsing the hard lines drawn by classic dispensational theology. Furthermore, I don’t think many of these types of Calvary pastors (and most of them are outside the boundaries the hub of Calvary Chapel in Southern California) are actually willing to bend the knee to Chuck Smith (and his cohorts) on having to read Scripture in this hard core (and even idiosyncratic) understanding of Pre-Tribulational, Premillennial Dispensational Theology. And yet, Chuck Smith (and those close to him), have actually been giving these types of pastors in Calvary Chapel, as I see it, an ultimatum. That is, either you teach the Bible as I see it (Chuck Smith), or you can no longer brandish the name of Calvary Chapel—so in effect they will be disassociated. I think this kind of doctrinal fissure is already present in the Calvary movement, and so this, I think, pastor’s conference might be very defining in regard to the way that Calvary Chapel is going to look in the near future. I could actually see a massive rupture or split happening in this movement; if it hasn’t already happened functionally.

Last year they streamed the conference live; unfortunately this year they aren’t. So I will have to wait and hear what happens, if anything. Maybe the leadership will back off on pressing their pastor’s in the direction I have described, but I highly doubt it!

Getting Past ‘Pervasive Theological Pluralism’: On Scripture

I have had a long and varied blogging career (since 2005, so relatively speaking), and in that career lots of life has happened. One part of that happening has been continued theological development, hopefully toward the unity of faith that has already found its terminus in Christ’s unity for us with the Father by the Spirit. Some of you have been with me for my entire blogging career (almost), and others started with me mid-career, while others of you are just new comers. Much of my career has been characterized by polemical speech. In the beginning of my career, being new to the online world, I was more intrigued than anything else; and the sense of anonymity coupled with being too close to the halls of Bible College and Seminary dorm life, fused together in a way that found ultimate expression in online debates about minutiae that might only be characterized by Fundamentalist idiosyncrasy, and zeal. This zeal, though, I can honestly say, was not born out of a vindictive heart, or a desire to show people that I was smarter than them, or better at rhetorical wit (well, maybe sometimes it could be so reduced!); but really, I have always had a passion for the truth of the Gospel and the edification of the body of Christ. My zeal for the Gospel, in its best moments could be stated this way and for this end:  “Zeal is public passion for gospel truth; without it the church drifts into indifference, weariness or irony of the late career religious professional.” [John Webster, The Domain of the Word, 167.] I don’t ever want to experience this kind of drift, but a growing in zeal with knowledge. And I would like to believe that most of my blogging career has been characterized not by wandering polemic aiming at a bunch of moving targets; but a ‘zeal’ and ‘public passion for gospel truth’!

In this spirit, John Webster offers five reasons wherein theological controversy can be fruitful and edifying. I was contemplating only emphasizing the last thesis statement by Webster, but I think I will give it a go, and transcribe all five reasons; because, well, they are that good! I will offer each thesis, and then provide a summary/response at the end.

[F]irst, and most generally, theological controversy must be an exercise within the communio sanctorum. Those who contend are saints, not mere ‘civil neighbours’. They are bound together by bonds beyond the natural, together placed in the tranquil realm of reconciliation. It is as reconciled and sanctified persons that they engage in controversy; reconciled and sanctified controversy is a very different exercise from its unregenerate counterpart. Moreover, the end of controversy is the furtherance of communion, not its erosion. Righteous conduct in theological controversy requires charity, and therefore resists the flight from society which contests commonly precipitate.

Second, theological controversy must be undertaken in a way which displays and magnifies the truth of the gospel whose author and content in is peace. This principle brings with it a remarkably demanding ascetical requirement: controversy will only serve peace in the church if it has an external orientation, if it is a movement in response to an object beyond the contending parties. Without this reference to the object – an object, we should remember, which is primarily and antecedently a divine subject, living, personally, active communicative and directive – controversy will simply reinforce discord by embedding in the public life of the church the self-absorption of sensuous minds which, the apostle tells us, do not ‘hold fast to the Head’ (Col. 2.19). may controversy be conducted without self-conceit, mutual provocation and envy (Gal. 5.25), and assist in the uniting of the hearts and minds of the saints in a common object of delight.

Third, theological controversy must not allow divergence of opinion to become divergence of will otherwise it will fail as an exercise of charity. ‘Concord is a union of will, not of opinions’. In many cases, however, we allow divergence of opinion to become inflamed, and so to erode concord, failing to rest content with the fact that those from whom we diverge in opinion may be at one with us in a commonly cherished good. There are, of course, conflicts which are generated from fundamental divergences about the gospel, and which cannot be contained within concord, there being no common object of love. But these are not conflicts within the church so much as about the church. In such cases concord must wait for conversion to the truth.

Fourth, theological controversy must have an eye to the catholicity of the object of Christian faith and confession, an object which exceeds any specification of it which we may make. The object which constitutes the peace of the church and which is the substance of common Christian love is infinite and inexhaustible. This does not give licence to any representation which may court our favour – the object of common love is this one, not a formless reality. Yet, of all possible objects of love, this one is not such that we can ever end our dealings with him, determine him in such a way that we put ourselves beyond learning from our companions. Controversy turns into conflict when opinions become weapons of the will, that is, when some one reading of the gospel becomes that to which others must conform even at cost to that friendly concord in which ‘the hearts of many are joined into one focal point’.

Fifth, and most of all, theological controversy must be undertaken with tranquil confidence that, with the illuminating power of the Spirit, Jesus Christ will instruct and unify the church through Holy Scripture. Properly conducted, theological controversy is an exercise in reading the Bible in common with the calm expectation of discovering again what makes up peace and builds up our common life. We often talk ourselves into (or perhaps allow ourselves to be talked into) a kind of barren naturalism according to which appeals to Scripture founder on irresolvable exegetical and hermeneutical conflict. Once confidence in the power of Scripture to determine matters in the church is lost, the politics of the saints quickly slides into agonistic practices in which we expect no divine comfort or direction. This is not a new experience in the history of the church; it has afflicted Western Protestants since at least the early seventeenth century – John Owen, in a melachonly aside, lamented that ‘men do hardly believe that there is an efficacy and power accompanying the institutions of Christ’. The only corrective to loss of trust is recovery of trust. Because there are divine institutions, because there are prophets and apostles in service to the prophetic presence of Christ, we are not devoid of divine assistance and we may be confident that exegesis, rightly and spiritually ventured, will not exacerbate conflict but draw its sting, and guide our feet into the way of peace.[1]

All of these are good (even excellent, at points!). But let me close by focusing on the fifth point. This is one that I have struggled with over the years, and what Christian Smith has called the problem of Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism; the idea that we all have our own kind of Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience. And given this reality, coupled with the ‘Reformed’ Priesthood of All Believers, it becomes almost terminally difficult to come to any commonly held interpretive conclusions around the text of Scripture. And so in argument, among ourselves (per some of the dictates highlighted by Webster), we all appeal to Scripture, but we proof text right past each other. I have often argued in the past that we need to become aware of the theology that we are committed to prior to using Scripture to challenge each other’s conclusions; but what I have fallen prey to, is what Webster cautions us to. That is, a sequestering of the text of Scripture by theological concerns, such that Scripture no longer really has any kind of norming norming effect or centrality of place in our theological discussions. Scripture becomes a relic and trophy of our  heritage, but not the place where the Lordly Word can accost us in such a way that it can strip all of us bare and level us out in a way where we all our kneeling together at the foot of the cross, which is the preamble and shape of the throne at the right hand of the Father. So I am convicted by Webster’s last point! And the rest too …

 

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[1] John Webster, The Domain of the Word:Scripture and Theological Reason, (London: T&T Clark, 2012), 169-70.

Barth, Brunner, Bauckham, and Grow on Christian Universalism and Eternal Fire

I just came across a mini-paper written by Richard Bauckham which provides a survey of Christian universalism (the belief that all people will eventually be “saved” through Christ, and hell will be emptied of at least its human occupants). Here is what he wrote of Karl Barth and Emil Brunner under this foci:

Barth and Brunner

Neither Karl Barth nor Emil Brunner was strictly a universalist, but both regarded the final salvation of all mankind as a possibility which cannot be denied (though it cannot be dogmatically asserted either). This is a significant step beyond traditional theology, which always asserted not only that final condemnation is a real possibility but also that some men will actually be lost. It is also a position which has probably had more appeal to conservative Christians (including Roman Catholic theologians) than dogmatic universalism; it allows us to hope for the salvation of all men without presuming to know something which God has not revealed.

Barth refashioned the Reformed doctrine of predestination by making it fully Christological. It is Jesus Christ who is both rejected and elected. The rejection which sinful man deserves, God has taken upon Himself in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ all men are elected to salvation. He is therefore in the true sense the only rejected one. Predestination thus becomes not an equivocal doctrine of God’s Yes and No, but a fully evangelical doctrine of mood’s unqualified Yes to man. The reality of man – of all men – is that in Jesus Christ the reconciliation of all men has taken place. The Gospel brings to men the knowledge of what is already true of them:

[p.53]

that in Jesus Christ they are already elect, justified, reconciled.

It might be thought that this line of thought logically entails universalism, much as Schleiermacher’s doctrine of universal election did, but Barth refuses to follow this logic. There remains an irresolvable tension between the election of all men in Jesus Christ and the phenomenon of unbelief. The unbeliever’s true reality is that he is elect, but he denies that reality and attempts to change it, to be instead the rejected man. In this perverse attempt (it is no more than an attempt) he lives under the threat of final condemnation, which would be God’s acquiescence in its refusal to be the reconciled man he really is.

Will this threat be carried out? Barth does not here appeal to man’s freedom to continue in unbelief: he is committed to the sovereignty of God’s grace. The reason why universal salvation cannot be dogmatically expected lies in God’s Freedom: ‘To the man who persistently tries to change the truth into untruth, God does not owe eternal patience and therefore deliverance…. We should be denying or disarming that evil attempt and our own participation in it if, in relation to ourselves or others or all men, we were to permit ourselves to postulate a withdrawal of that threat end in this sense expect or maintain an apokalastasis or universal reconciliation as the goal and end of all things…. Even though theological consistency might seem to lead our thoughts and utterances most clearly in this direction, we must not arrogate to ourselves that which can be given and received only as a free gift.’[39] But universal salvation remains an open possibility for which we may hope.[40]

That universal salvation must remain an open question is also the conclusion that Brunner reaches by a different route.[41] He stresses that we must take quite seriously the two categories of NT texts: those which speak of a final decisive division of men at the Last Judgment, and those which speak of God’s single unqualified will for the salvation of all men. The two are logically incompatible and are not to be artificially reconciled by attributing to God a dual will (double predestination) or by eliminating the finality of judgment. The texts are logically incompatible because they are not intended to give theoretical information. To the question ‘Is there such a thing as final loss or is there a universal salvation?’ there is no answer, because the Word of God ‘is a Word of challenge, not of doctrine’.[42] It addresses us and involves us. Its truth is not the objective truth available to the neutral observer, but the subjective truth of existential encounter. The message of judgment, then, is not a prediction that some will be lost; it is a challenge to me to come out of perdition to salvation. The message of universal salvation is not a prediction that all men will be saved; it is an invitation to me to make the decision of faith which accepts mood’s will to save me. The Gospel holds the two together in proclamation. Theology may not objectify either. [read full essay here]

And here is what I once concluded at the end of an article I wrote on this topic for the blog in the past:

No matter what, in the end, the conclusion must be that Jesus did teach what some would call the Traditional view of hell as ‘eternal conscious torment’. How one places that, in its ‘universal scope’ is what still needs to be contended with (MacDonald has, I’m still working on it).

My personal conclusion, at the moment, is that Jesus’ teaching on hell should serve as the standard; I see it with ‘universal force’ and thus am not willing, as of yet, to annex it, or particularize it to his specific audience in the 1st century (which would be what MacDonald does, amongst others). I continue to hold to the trad teaching, but I also am willing to hold out that once we are present with the LORD in the consummation that he could surprise us in keeping with his life of grace and love. [You can read the full article here]

As you can see, then, I am somewhat in the Barth, Brunner tradition of a Christian hopeful universalism, but with the strong caveat that I believe that Jesus taught the doctrine of Eternal Conscious Torment, in regard to hell (or Gehenna, if the culturally prevalent language of hell bothers you); and so I currently believe that people outside of having a personal union with Jesus Christ, at their death, that they are eternally lost.

A Mini-Paper in Rough-draft Form: Rapproachment Between Biblical Studies and Systematic [Dogmatic] Theology

As usual I embroil myself in lively discussions online. Last week and into the present, I began to engage in some discussion, primarily with Pastor, Blogger, and Facebooker, Lawrence Garcia; the discussion revolved around the relation between biblical studies and systematic or dogmatic theology, and because of this quote that Garcia posted on Facebook:

The caveats advanced by Piper are well-known, and no scholar of repute would engage in the oversimplified procedure envisioned by him. That said, it is possible to trace trajectories of Jewish thought from Ben Sira to the Mishnah; it is possible to have a reasonably certain grasp of the theology engaged by Paul and the other New Testament authors. At this point in time, it should not have to be said aloud that the New Testament documents were not, in the first instance, addressed to us, and a common-sense recognition of this basic datum must inevitably result in a certain amount of reconstruction of the context of Paul. This is not to make the context more important than the text, nor is it to say that Paul is not to be understood on “his own terms.” Rather, it is just Paul’s Sitz im Leben that serves to illuminate what “his own terms” actually are. When it comes to such central vocabulary items as “law,” “covenant,” “righteousness,” and “justification,” there is sufficient intelligibility from the sources that the so-called New Perspective on Paul, in principle including Wright, may fairly claim to have shed considerable light on the actual issues under debate in Paul’s day. Certainly, caution must always be exercised in the weighing of historical texts, but even with all the caveats in place, the cause of biblical exegesis is not served by turning back the clock. Once a Copernican revolution has occurred, it will not do to retreat into a pre-Copernican universe. [Don Garlington]

I took some issue with the idea that Wright & co. has offered this kind of Copernican revolution in biblical studies. And so this launched me into (off the cuff) trying to articulate an alternative approach to biblical studies that is more theologically and ecclesially attuned (relative to its appeal to the history of interpretation). It is no secret that Wright & co. rather denigrate Mediaeval theology in general, and Reformational theology in particular; indeed the quote from Garlington contra Piper (a contemporary representative of a branch of the Reformed faith) illustrates this kind of disdain—by the way I have disdain for Piper’s kind of Reformed theology as well, but at the same time I do not have a problem with engaging with  Mediaeval theology in general, and think that it offers some helpful theological and biblical categories that ought to be seriously considered by any Christian student of the Bible.

Rather than rehashing some of the stuff I have already offered (which is the material of the last post), I would like to somewhat close this foray (with the qualification that I can revisit this at any time I deem necessary in the future) by quoting a kind of healthy rapproachment between what may have been polarized much too quickly in my talking points with Garcia; a rapproachment between how we ought to conceive of the relationship between the two disciplines, respectively, of Biblical Studies and Systematic (Dogmatic) Theology. Here is how C. Gavin Rowe and Richard B. Hays end their essay entitled simply Biblical Studies in the Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology (at length):

[W]e thus come, finally, to the question with which this essay began: the relation of biblical studies to systematic theology. The history of the relationship outlined in this essay suggests that where the subject matter of biblical exegesis and of dogmatic theology is not taken to be the same, there exists no real ground for mutual interaction between the two disciplines. Indeed, such interdisciplinary interaction may even be logically precluded, and the point of a biblical studies essay for this handbook would then be to say ‘Hands off!’ to the systematicians. At best, systematic theology could attempt to appropriate the ‘results’ of biblical exegesis. Such an essay would consist of a simple summary of the most significant advances in biblical studies, which the systematicians could then put to use–a contemporary remnant of the older proof-texting approach.

However, where the subject matter of biblical exegesis and of dogmatic theology is thought to be the same, the two disciplines are of necessity inseparable. In this respect, to refuse interdisciplinary work between biblical interpretation and constructive theology is to deny the coherence of the subject matter itself. Today, however, the complexity of the interpretive task may warrant a continued, though always provisional and cooperative, division of labour between biblical scholars and systematicians. The exegete concentrates upon the refraction of the subject matter through the particular witnesses, thereby penetrating more deeply into the particular shape of the subject matter and helping to avoid banal theological generalities (Childs 2004: xi). And the theologian concentrates more upon the whole of the subject matter as it is expressed through the understanding of scripture in the dogmatic tradition, thereby helping to avoid the tendency toward fragmentation in exegesis (the old problem of losing the forest for the individual trees).

Yet, in continuity with the ancient church, there is no final division between biblical interpretation and theological reflection, for they are united in the common task of attending to the subject matter of scripture. Their actual relationship is thus dialectical, in the sense that within their respective foci there exists a constant movement between the particulars of the biblical text and the whole of systematic reflection in an effort to do justice both to the exegetical thickness of doctrine and the theological coherence of biblical exegesis. [C. Kavin Rowe and Richard B. Hays, Biblical Studies, in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology, 452.]

Rudolf Bultmann

The Modern period (the 18^th and 19^th centuries respectively) has engendered a methodological gap between biblical studies and systematic (dogmatic) theology; one  that the precritical Christian church (starting early on in the Patristic and even Apostolic period) never knew of. I think what Rowe and Hays are calling us back to, along with people like Matthew Levering, John Webster, J. Todd Billings and others, is to get back to a more organic approach to thinking Christianly and Scripturely, and yet to do so with the gains made through the Modern period (of which both N.T. Wright & co. as well as Barth & co. are representatives of).

At the end of the day, I think my concern with N.T. Wright in particular (as I have already highlighted elsewhere) is his tone and posture toward Dogmatic theology. I think like all of us are prone to do, he is too invested in his own discipline, and thus this posture fosters a certain trajectory for those who follow him; a posture that becomes almost antagonistic toward what might be perceived as dogmatic (or even Mediaeval) theology–and a posture that make the sons and daughters of Wright’s seed twice the sons and daughters of hell as he is (in other words, I mean to say that many of Wright’s students have not waded through the process that Wright himself has in order to arrive where he has personally, and so his offspring do not, in general, have the same kind of balance that Wright himself may or may not have).

And thus instead of working from this dialectic between biblical studies and systematic theology, Wright, and even more so, Wright’s students tend to reinforce the Modern divide between biblical studies and systematic theology; a divide that was self-consciously present even as it was being developed. Johann Philipp Gabler in 1787 in a lecture identified this divide between biblical studies and systematic theology (as noted by Rowe and Hays), and Rowe and Hays describe this kind of Gablerian divide (the one that I see happening once again, in general, among many of Wright’s students today):

[T]aking these matters together, it becomes apparent that Gabler’s model of the theological enterprise mandates a wall between historical exegesis and systematic reflection, since systematic theology in itself is in principle incapable of inquiring into the biblical text. It is the wrong tool for the task—like trying to eat soup with a fork—for the Bible is not theology but religion. Systematic theology is thus removed from the Bible and placed in a separate sphere of inquiry. Systematic theology, if it seeks to be ‘biblical’, will have to wait for the completed results of historical exegesis. [Rowe and Hays, p. 442.]

This sounds a lot like the sentiment I encounter frequently (not just from my buddy Larry Garcia) among the adherents to the New Paul Perspective[s] in particular, and biblical studies folk in general. There is a kind of repristinating of the Modern period, and the hard and fast lines between the two disciplines; such that Systematic theology  (per the perception among biblical studies practitioners) remains in the realm of a kind of Docetic, Gnostic, Idealist pie in the sky dream world that has no real traction in the real world offered by biblical studies.

Rowe and Hays continue:

[T]he corollary, furthermore, to the notion that historical exegesis is the science proper to biblical interpretation is that the biblical texts are situated first of all not in the immediate life of the church but in the past. A sense of the vast chronological distance between the genesis of the texts and the present theological reflection thus became a constitutive feature of biblical interpretation. In that the Bible could no longer speak directly from its time to ours—it needed mediation through historical research—the space was opened for the (now perennial) question of ‘development’ to arise: how did we get from there to here? It was but a short step from this question to the inference that truly historical interpretation—that which attends to phenomena in their proper chronological sequence—not only entails the bracketing out of later ecclesial doctrine and systematic theology but also potentially undermines it. [Rowe and Hays, p. 442.]

This gets back to the tone that I am concerned with among many of Wright’s & co’s. adherents; it is not usually or all that frequently some of Wright’s material insights, per se, but the tone within which his conclusions are couched–it is this tone that causes me to dig my heels in, and thus turns me towards a stronger polarity in regard to my appropriation of Wright than I actually have.

I would like to move beyond this ‘wall’, once again, between Biblical Studies and Systematic (Dogmatic) Theology. I think the rapproachment that Rowe and Hays offer above is a helpful summary towards a way forward. And I think Matthew Levering in his book Participatory Biblical Exegesis and John Webster in his book The Domain of the Word (among other authors, like Francis Watson et al.) offer a more fruitful trajectory past this apparent impasse. The proposal is that we get back to the Thomist sacra doctrina reality of the community’s relation and engagement with the text of Scripture, that we understand that as we read Scripture we do so in dialogical conversation with the Teacher (pace Thomas Torrance, see his The School of Faith & Divine Meaning), and we do so from a posture of relational and participatory love within the Triune life of God (pace Augustine) that we have been adopted into through the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ by Spirit wrought faith. And we understand that as part of this ongoing dialogue and fellowship between our Christian God, and ourselves as His people, that attendant to this we have critical tools available to us to help thicken our conversation with God through the text as He has given it to us, and continues to give it to us grounded in the ongoing heavenly session of the Son for us (pace Barth, cf. Heb. 7.25).

Matthew Levering summarizes this kind of way forward this way:

[...] The emphasis on scriptural interpretation as seeking union with a Person (the triune Teacher) makes intelligible the claim that the real Jesus, taught in the Scriptures, is not obscured by the development of the Church’s teaching. Rather the Church’s teaching, as a participation in the revealed sacra doctrina that is Scripture and tradition, illumines more deeply the Teacher narrated in Scripture. [Matthew Levering, Participatory Biblical Exegesis, 78.]

There is a way forward; all sides just need to be Christian (Bobby!) in posture about it, and we can live, move and breathe together.

The sum of all we have said since we began to speak of res thus comes to this: it is to be understood that the plenitude and end of the Law and all the sacred Scriptures is the love of a Being which is to be enjoyed and of a being that can share that enjoyment with us…. That we might know this and have the means to implement it, the whole temporal dispensation was made by divine Providence for our salvation…. Whoever, therefore, thinks that he understands the divine Scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all.

-Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book I, 35-36, §§39-40 (p. 30) cited by Levering, p. 81-2.

Trying to Clarify My ‘Kind’ve’ Barthian Theory of History [and everything else] Juxtaposed with a Wrightian Biblicism

Let me post a long comment I made on my friend’s wall, Lawrence Garcia, on Facebook; the comment is seeking to clarify a problem that I perceive is present in N.T. Wright’s kind of biblicism and historicism:

@Larry, let me clarify a few things:

1) I have never claimed (in fact the opposite) that I don’t read Scripture w/o as you say ‘extra-canonical presuppositions’, my point is different, actually.

2) Barth’s usage of historical criticism would not end up with NT Wright’s usage of it; in fact Barth actually uses historical criticism against historical criticism. Meaning that for him historical criticism actually implodes upon itself terminating in the dogmatic and theological realities of the text (the living Word of God) behind the text (the written and proclaimed word of God). Here is how TF Torrance describes Barth’s prolegomena/hermeneutic:

**Because Jesus Christ is the Way, as well as the Truth and the Life, theological thought is limited and bounded and directed by this historical reality in whom we meet the Truth of God. That prohibits theological thought from wandering at will across open country, from straying over history in general or from occupying itself with some other history, rather than this concrete history in the centre of all history. Thus theological thought is distinguished from every empty conceptual thought, from every science of pure possibility, and from every kind of merely formal thinking, by being mastered and determined by the special history of Jesus Christ. [Thomas F. Torrance, “Karl Barth: An Introduction to His Early Theology 1910-1931,” 196]**

So the way Barth uses historical criticism is not in a naturalist way (pace Wright), but an intentionally and principial christological way, as if redemptive history’s inner reality is God’s life [the Covenant] (so a theologically rich and dogmatic way) of which creation becomes the outer expression. If anything, Barth’s usage of historical criticism might terminate in Brevard Childs or Hans Frei (but even these guys are too ecclesiocentric for Barth’s approach, ultimately). Anyway, to appeal to Barth’s historical criticism and its application actually supports what I am getting at and not what you appear to be, Larry.

3) Larry, I ask the “so what” not to register disagreement (per Hector’s perception) so much, or as if I don’t understand how NPPr’s answer that, but I, in this instance I use it rhetorically to make a larger point, and that is; so how is someone supposed to move from a discipline (history) that is by definition “descriptive” to a discipline that is by definition for Christians “prescriptive” and “constructive” (theology)? Are we just simply able to read off of what “is” (historical and naturalist reconstruction) and convert that into what “ought” to be/or is (theological and dogmatic construction)? As I read what Wright & co. are attempting, their answer to my question resides in a usage of Scripture that is *solo scriptura* (V. sola scriptura), and the method for moving from “is” to “ought” is a self-directed natural theological approach, and thus one that it is not driven by a chastened Christian belief that accurate reconstruction of history (as if history itself is “Revelation” as if there is a ‘pure nature’) cannot really be done given the noetic effects of the Fall and the ‘darkening’ that that has cast, like a shadow, upon our capacities to know God. I don’t see Wright attending to this issue at all in his method, and so this is why his “theological/exegetical” conclusions are highly suspect to me. This is why Barth, Torrance & co. press the idea that *Revelation “is” Reconciliation”, because outwith, there is no possible or natural way to access a pure kind of history [which is a myth V. mythos] that might ultimately terminate in providing meaningful revelational truth. As my friend Darren Sumner has written about Barth in this regard:

**… God does not relate to time in the same way that creatures relate to time. As the Son of God, Jesus Christ relates to time from the eternal point of view — that of the Creator; and as Son of Man, we might say that his relation to time is “temporally determined.” The sense in which Jesus Christ is “before Adam” is not as the Logos incarnatus or ensarkos but as the Logos incarnandus — that is, in the mode of anticipation of the incarnation that takes place in time. This is real for the being of the eternal Son — but it is not so without the corresponding moment of its actualization. With respect to revelation, then, because God is its subject it must come into history from without.**

So because I reject natural theology (and affirm what Barth in reified form has called an analogy of faith/relation), then I ultimately must reject NT Wright & co’s. movement from their descriptive historical work to their theological/exegetical conclusions. That said, I don’t fully reject Wright’s (et al) work, in the sense that as a historian he incidentally is uncovering some very helpful and fruitful lines of inquiry that have theological import. But because I don’t accept the kind of anthropology that funds Wright’s approach about “Revelation” and our capacity to access it, then I will remain critically suspect of his work and theological conclusions because I disagree with his apparent theory of revelation (and thus his doctrine of Scripture and subsequent ontology of Scripture), and the confidence he has in our kind of “natural” capacity to read revelation directly off of the pages of a tenuously shaped reconstruction of history.

4) Furthermore, I don’t see either Barth or Torrance stuck in the 20th century, per se; I see them as intentionally and critically engaging with the Tradition of the Christian church (from the 20th century to be sure!), based upon an ideal and their belief that God has spoken and continues to speak right throughout the history of His church (so this includes the 1st century a.d. right through the Patristic, Medieveal, Reformational, Modern, etc. periods). And I see Wright cutting most of this heritage off when he writes things like this:

**Second, I take care precisely NOT to ‘fault’ the great creedal tradition. I use the two classic creeds in my regular prayers and worship – in the Anglican manner: the Apostles’ Creed every day, and the Nicene Creed at the Sunday Eucharist. (Just as they do at Calvin, of course.) The creeds are not the ‘villains’. They were not written to provide a teaching syllabus. They are the symbol, the badge, the list of things that were controversial early on which the church had to hammer out. The problem comes – and at what point in church history this occurred I couldn’t say, that not being my period – when the creeds are used as teaching outlines; because of course they skip precisely over the ‘middle bits’ of the gospels, and thereby, quite accidentally and non-villainously, collude with a quite different movement, with which many of my readers tell me they are all too familiar: a form of Christianity in which it would be quite sufficient if Jesus of Nazareth had been born of a virgin, died on a cross and never done anything in between. The rise of such a truncated form of Christianity is not at all (I suggest) the fault of the wonderful and beloved Creeds, but of quite different movements which have then (ab)used them as a teaching outline which has reinforced (quite accidentally in terms of the Creeds’ original purpose) the omission of the kingdom of God as a present reality. In other words, I not only don’t reject Nicene Christianity, I embrace it, affirm it, love it, live it, and pray it. But the best sort of Nicene Christianity has always insisted that you read the gospels themselves, and indeed pray the Lord’s Prayer, and that these are just as important for shaping who we are in Christ as the formulaic creeds themselves. They weren’t intended to ‘cover all the bases’, and to use them as though they were is, however subtly, to misuse them. And what then happens is a form of ‘Christianity’ from which the main thing Jesus himself was doing and talking about has quietly been removed or hushed up. Very convenient, of course, especially after the Enlightenment.**

So Wright, in my view, gives lip service to these creeds (because he must), but does not see them as providing serious theological grammar for helping us actually understand who God is, and thus helping us to engage with the theological implications of the text of Scripture (and I should say that both Barth and Torrance only critically receive the creeds themselves, in fact Barth critiques and moves beyond them at points, but in actual conversation with them). So, I don’t really see an “catholic” appreciation, in actual mode and practice, in Wright; this gets back to my earlier point on “solo scriptura”.

Conclusion) With all of the above noted, ultimately, it isn’t that I don’t think Wright is not making some important material historical findings relative to clearly articulating the Gospel (i.e. like I think the idea of an emphasis on corporate salvation is important); my issue with Wright is that he really does cut off and even pooh-pooh the teachings of the church catholic (especially for people who un-critically sit at his feet), except for the fact (as I read him) that he offers a charitable gesturing towards it when he must. I think Wright should definitely be included in the ongoing conversation that God is having with His people, the church. But I don’t think Wright is the latter day prophet and thus dominating voice (nor his tribe) that many seem to think (and for some of the reasons I have noted above).

Barth and Torrance definitely have some problems of their own, but I think that their general critique of natural theology as applied to Christian theological/exegetical conclusions is spot on. So in the end, maybe some of my misgivings with Wright are more of an ultimate (methodological) concern V. a proximate one, relative to some of the interesting historical things he is uncovering.

I should also clarify, beyond what I wrote to Larry; I am still on the way here, or in short, I am still processing and learning myself. But the above represents the way I have been processing now for the last few years, at least. Although, how self-consistent I am with what I sketch above, in regard to Barth’s approach, is hard to say, at points.

We All Do Theological Exegesis, and Trinitarian Exegesis, Or It Isn’t ‘Christian’ Exegesis

Something that the whole movement being spawned by N.T. Wright and company is failing to emphasize (and in fact is undercutting) is the reality that theology has in biblical exegesis. As Christian interpreters, we do so from a certain vantage point; we, along with the rest of historical orthodox Christianity affirm that God is Triune, and that He has Self-revealed in hypostatically unioned person, His Son, Jesus Christ. Neither one of these bedrock conceptual realities about the Christian God are something that can simply be read off of the pages of Scripture; nevertheless, this reality is the ultimate one that shapes all of the writings found in the Holy Scriptures. And it is this reality, at a fundamental level, that tenses the way we interpret and think as Christians; and yet it is not something that is contingent, per se, upon recovering or reconstructing history, it is contingent on who God is. Every Christian affirms this reality about who God is, and thus it behooves us to be consistent in our hermeneutical thrust; viz. in the way that construct our hermeneutical posture. The history of second Temple Judaism certainly offers enlightening insights into the text of Scripture, but to pretend as if these insights are definitive and ultimate and terminal relative to the reality of the Gospel needs to be re-considered; because really, all of the history is contingent and given meaning by something and someone else. 

The following is a repost that I wrote that was seeking to illustrate how it is that all Christians do theological exegesis; and I use the Trinity to illustrate this.

Inner Logic is an important concept to realize when approaching Scripture and its interpretation. These two words actually signify another way of saying theological exegesis; yet I find that many in my own tradition of “Evangelicalism” shy away from such thinking when it comes to Biblical interpretation. There is this unspoken (but often spoken) belief that when we interpret scripture that it is simply a staightforward exercise (of course the multitudinous interpretations of scripture put this belief to death quickly). The irony of this perspective is that so many of our Essential Christian Beliefs are grounded in anything but straightforward exegesis. Let me provide an example:

One of the bedrock, touchstone foundations of Historic Christian Belief is the doctrine of God known as the Trinity. Of course nowhere in the Bible will we find the nomenclature of Trinity; in fact one of the so called church Fathers, Tertullian, coined the term Trinitas very early on in the Churches’ genesis; here’s what J. N. D. Kelly says:

. . . He, too, is a ‘Person’, so that the Godhead is a ‘trinity’ (trinitas: Tertullian is the first to employ the word). The three are indeed numerically distinct, being ‘capable of being counted’. . . . Thus Tertullian can state: ‘We believe in on only one God, yet subject to this dispensation, which is our word for economy, that the one only God has also a Son, His Word, Who has issued out of Himself . . . which Son then sent, according to His promise, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete out of the Father’; and later in the same context he can balance the divine unity with ‘the mystery of the economy, which distributes the unity in Trinity, setting forth Father, Son and Spirit as three’. (J.N.D. Kelly, “Early Christian Doctrines,” 113)

I mention this to further substantiate that the language of Trinity, itself, is indeed foreign to the text of scripture; in fact as Kelly notes it came from a church Father. What I would like to further add, in flow with the context of this post, is that while the language of “Trinity” may be foreign to the text of Scripture; indeed, the grammar or concept is not. This brings us back to the language of inner logic or theological exegesis. In other words, how did Tertullian and the other church Father’s come to conclude that God is not only one (de deo uno); but in fact He is three (de deo trino) in one and one in three? Simple they read scripture, and discerned that when they read the Apostle Paul, for example, that there was an unstated theological concept about God that Paul was assuming in order to make benedictions like this:

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.” ~II Corinithians 13:13

As you engage the rest of Paul’s writings (like all of II Corinthians for example) there is this constant assumption that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are at work in salvation. This is what discerning the inner logic leads to; i.e. key and fundamental doctrines upon which the Christian faith hangs — starting in the early church and into the present.

So there is more to scripture interpretation and exegesis than engaging in exegetical and syntactical analysis of the Koine Greek of the New Testament; there in fact is an inner logic that holds the text of scripture together. It is the theologian’s job to discern and lay bare this “logic” and work out the implications of that “inner logic” for the church and all of her exegetes. The Trinity is just one example of working out the inner logic of scripture; all of Scripture actually hangs together on Christo-logic, but this is discussion for another post.

I hope folks realize the depth embedded within the scriptures themselves; if you do you will be set up to enjoy the richness and freshness that scripture has to offer.

Reflections on Historical Theology

Something that drastically changed my theological development and life was and is Historical Theology; I first engaged with it in my seminary Reformation and Patristic Theology classes. For the first time (at that point), pieces really began to fall into place for me (including my undergrad Bible College experience which didn’t get into, so much, actual historical detail [just generalities]), and it enabled distanciation (critical space) for me in a way that allowed for critical space wherein I was finally able to identify the conceptual and historical forces that had brought me to where I was at that seminal point (i.e. my first exposure to Historical Theology). What good Historical Theology does is primarily engage in descriptive detail; in other words good Historical Theology carefully and slowly attends to reconstructing as accurately as possible how theological ideas formed in various periods and strata of the Christian Tradition. Once this step is taken, then we are able to resource the categories and emphases present in whatever period we are looking at, and bring all of those threads into a constructive framework that helps serves the present purposes of the advancement and articulation of the Gospel. What engaging in Historical Theology also has the capacity for (as I already alluded) is to provide a kind of third party perspective on my (our) own theological approach. In a sense, Historical Theology can marginalize a theological notion or trajectory that I might think is novel; and it can marginalize in a  way that helpfully keeps me from going down a path that might in the end be fruitless, and ultimately a real waste of the time I am supposed to be redeeming. So Historical Theology can serve as a regulative control on how and what I research, and more prominently it can give me insight into whether or not I am on a fruitful or dilapidated trajectory.

So Historical Theology is a very important discipline that I think any serious Christian theologian and exegete must attend to. But one danger of Historical Theology is that we forget that God still speaks. We can get so caught up into listening to the past that we can forget that there is a present.  So good Historical Theology will, in my view, always give way to Constructive Christian Dogmatic Theology. Which means that we will not only soberly engage with the past, but in this sober engagement we will be doing so with a purpose; the purpose is to listen to the living voice of God as it provides continuous communication from the past into the present. And it is this coming into the present by incorporating the voice of God from the past (so theological remembrance, a very biblical motif) into the present that we are able to constructively join in to the diaology of the voices present in the people of God. In other words, good Historical Theology, while providing necessary perspective and fruitful lines of thought, should never be seen as an end in itself; and that is because good Historical Theology is framed by a doctrine of God that is understood as Triune and lively. And God Himself, in Christ, ought to be the One who sets the stage for how we go about engaging in the conversation of His people the Church.

And so in the end, obviously, my view of Historical Theology is that if it is going to be a fruitful endeavor must be understood from a genuinely Christian frame of reference. Good Historical Theology provides perspective because it is an act of humbling ourselves, and accepting the fact that God has meaningfully (and is) spoken to our brothers and sisters in the past. And since God has meaningfully spoken in the past, this guarantees the integrity of what has been communicated in the past since it is not ultimately contingent upon whatever period God’s voice was spoken in and through; but truly, it is contingent upon the integrity of God’s voice. This is not to deny the various modes, expressions, and periods of history in which this voice was given; but it is to recognize that God has spoken, and we need to listen whenever He speaks.