Twentieth-Century Trends and UCC Theological Identity: Challenges and Opportunities

My understanding of the focus of the Confessing Christ (CC) network is the concentration on “serious and joyous theology” aimed at identifying what is valuable as well as what is problematic in the theological focus of the UCC leadership  http://confessingchrist.net/.  While there are a divergence of theological voices on the CC steering committee as well as the broader network as exemplified on this list the appellation  of “liberal” to describe the prevailing theological viewpoint of the CC leadership, as someone had mentioned, seems wide of the mark to me.  In fact, from everything I’ve seen, the prevailing voices in this network exhibit a highly nuanced, profoundly biblical perspective that is, indeed calling the UCC back to its Reformation heritage.  Within the broader network, as exemplified by this list, there are a range of voices from theological conservative to modestly liberal, but a far cry from the center of gravity among the progressive viewpoint of the denominational leadership.

Moreover, as I understand it, the ecclesial focal point of the CC network is reconciliation rather than hostile confrontation with the prevailing progressive denominational thread, and also, I think, an appreciation among many in this network that there is something to learn, as well, from the progressive sector, even theologically, notwithstanding a need to nudge the denominational leadership back to its heritage in the Reformation.

As I had previously mentioned, these dilemmas are rooted in the progressive/fundamentalist tensions within Protestantism that go back to and prior to the onset of the 20th century.  In the mid-19th century there was a broad convergence at least within the North within the major denominations, a working consensus, of sorts of what has been referred to as the “benevolent empire” stemming out of the energies of the Second Great Awakening.  The theological conflict between the perfectionist leaning Charles Finney and the Princetonian Calvinist Charles Hodge did point to some brewing problems, yet by and large a broad center did hold through the Civil War.

• Then Darwin
• Then critical historiography
• Then increasing cleavage between Yale and Princeton
• Then fundamentalism and inerrancy
• Then the social gospel
• Then the kingdom of God interpreted as the brotherhood of man
• Then premillennial vs postmillennial eschatology
• Then the Scopes trial

The emergence of liberal Protestantism was grounded in these epochal changes in religious thinking of the 1875-1925 era.  The same applies to fundamentalism, a distinctively modern phenomenon. In working out a biblically-based centrist position, part of the challenge is to determine how the conflicts of these various issues are re-interpreted in the current period.

I, for one, can accept the broad premises of evolutionary biology and critical historiography as intellectually normative, subject to ongoing scholarship without the need to attribute theological significance to them.  That is, evolutionary science tells me something about the origins of species while critical historiography sheds some light on the formation and structuring of civilizations that I would accept as empirically verifiable even if they contradicted certain historical-like statements embedded in the Bible.  This gets tricky because I agree with Gabriel Fackre and others that there are historical components to the Biblical story, though I also argue that there are historical-like narratives also embedded which may not have been accurate at all as factually based.  An easy example is whether there was a literal Adam and Eve.  The short answer is I doubt it, and many taking strong biblical theological positions would agree with such skepticism.  Where the issue gets dicey is when we get to the NT and think about such matters as Virgin Births and the literal resurrection of the dead.  If such events did happen that would be fine with me. My common and critical sense understanding necessitates profound skepticism on these matters—not outright rejection, but profound skepticism, in which it is up to those making such claims to put up the evidence.

I won’t go on with these examples, as the point is really that in order to work through the tensions between fundamentalism and Christian modernism, the wheat from the chaff in critical analysis needs to be separated.  In terms of history and science, both may provide empirically-based reasons to reject or at least challenge the literal veracity of certain biblical events, even the important ones.  At the same time neither history nor science, as currently practiced, tells us much, if anything about God, or about the authenticity of the Christian revelation.

In reading Gabe and others I am gaining a better appreciation for the entire scope of the Christian story from creation to final eschatology and the depth of this story in comparison to those of our own far less comprehensive ones of self creation.  I have also believed for a long time, and still do, that the Christian revelation is about much more than the travails of the historical Jesus, even if we did have thorough and accurate information about this person.  In himself this personage was quite an insignificant player in the scheme of ancient history and could very well have been lost to historical memory.  However what the NT teaches is that the revelation of Jesus as the Incarnate Christ was the result of God working through the historical Jesus in part through the apostolic succession, the emergence of the church, the creative inspiration of Paul and the formation of the NT canon some several centuries after the life of Jesus.  There’s much else, too that one could undoubtedly point to as signs of God working through Christ in bringing the Incarnational revelation to humankind.  To me, this revelation itself is the mystery; some 2,000 years later in its capacity to speak and profoundly so to the perpetual condition of humankind.  On faith (for we do see dimly, but we see by faith) it speaks like no other revelation in the realm of human history.

It is not evangelicalism, but the incarnational faith of Trinitarian orthodoxy, which I believe is the standard upon which Christians need to put their stake in the ground.  That’s a broad tent, but it does have its standards.  It is the tent, I believe, which provides the solid basis for the CC community to engage the UCC leadership in rigorous, but respectful dialogue.  Such dialogue includes scope for the various lights beyond the evangelical community which speak a word or two of truth about critical dimensions of the mediation of the Word within the context of our times.  Thus, the CC community does it self well to learn what it can from Tillich, the Niebuhr brothers, Gilkey, Ogden, Hall, Moltman, Ruether, McFaque, Brueggemann, and other serious theologians of various neo-orthodox and liberal persuasions—not to accept everything that comes from their creative pens, but to probe with discernment what they have to say and to take what is essential from them in the ongoing work of establishing the level of theological thinking that is required for our times. 

Thus, when such work becomes mediated through our own biblio-centered evangelical premises the quality of all our theological thinking can only be thereby enriched.  One discerns this level of richness in the theological studies of Gabriel Fackre and from a very different tradition than that of Avery Dulles.  It is present, too, but in a more skeptical vein in the work of Donald Bloesch.

As I think through the vision of the CC network, I discern a distinctively different voice than that expressed by the liberal leadership and supportive progressive clergy of the UCC.  No doubt, there are substantial issues under consideration in the thinking and working through a viable theology of and for the UCC.  That needs to be done, however, with much discernment and in the process, coming to terms with the theological richness that comprises the more progressive and liberal perspectives, and calling that leadership, to reconnect in a more profound way than perhaps currently experienced with the fundamental truths of the biblical revelation.

Imaginative Construals and Canon Criticism in the Era of Postmodernity

(From someone who I was having a listserv dialogue with some years ago)

First, thank you very much for your astute and heartfelt words on WB.  In both of your messages, your WB quotes get at the essence of his core message at least in his powerful essays.  I haven’t studied his more formal writing in any depth, so perhaps he is a bit more systematic there in his book on Genesis and Theology of the Old Testament.  I assume there’s a fair amount of “leakage” there, too, though perhaps not as much as when he is writing “imaginative” (quote meant positively) essays in his confrontation with the hegemony of postmodernity.  I enjoyed his collection, Interpretation and Obedience: From Faithful Reading to Faithful Living a great deal and found in particular, “The Legitimacy of a Sectarian Hermeneutic” based on 2 Kings 18-19 nothing short of stunning, where WB speaks about being at and behind the wall in addressing the claims of the empire.  I also found his essay “The Third World of Evangelical Imagination” very rich in “daring speech” (my quotes, mimicking WB) about God in the very epicenter of secular modernity/postmodernity.

I’ve mentioned here what I take to be the core of WB’s project in the piecing of postmodernity one verse, one miracle, one revelation at a time, and the quotes that you provided in both of your messages provide a substantive demonstration of such piercing.

In terms of the canon, you point to its “unfathomable diversity.” No doubt there is a great deal of range, but I would still rather say, unfathomable depth.  One can discern such in Romans alone in Paul’s complex exegesis on the relationship between grace and the law.  Then there are the particularly poignant chapters, 9-11 where he’s struggling with his religious progeny, through an incredibly diverse use of the OT scripture in his various arguments by analogy (as exhibited throughout Romans).  The evocation of such speech undoubtedly had a powerful impact on the early church as if God himself were speaking through Paul’s words—speech which still resonates today for those who have ears.  The subtlety of 9-alone bears comment in his own grappling with the meaning of the new covenant in light of the permanency of the original one: “Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake (accent on the last three words), but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers” (accent on the last 6 words) (Rom 11:28). 

And as previously written in Romans, “If their fall is richness for the world and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness"” (11:1-12).  “For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” (vs 15).  Then, after three rigorous chapters of this intense wrestling he can only but accept what to human beings can only seem profoundly paradoxical: “Oh, the depth and the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” (11:33). As someone on the list put it, “I find the Gospel very exciting and out of control, at least of our control...”  Thus, Paul, himself seems to be downright Brueggemaniann in his “imaginative construals” of the OT text in his preaching of fresh words in and about the Gospel of Christ. 

The reconstruction of the Deuteronomic text through the mouths of the prophets in light of the Babylonian exile is another profound grappling with the narrative, which WB tells so well.  In short, fresh interpretation streams throughout the biblical narrative that at least to some readers brings home the core point that, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).  Accent here on “All Scripture” and “is profitable,” which speaks to potentiality, but nonetheless, all scripture, a point that WB does not deny, but then I get troubled when he privileges certain texts over others, which at least puts in jeopardy the notion of all scripture.

WB is the master of drawing out the imaginative depth of the individual text and in that he offers much potentially both to hungry liberals and conservatives seeking a fresh word of truth in a land that may be very dry.  In his wrestling with the text WB is a consummate preacher and expositor.  I take no issue with that, which I view moreover, as his primary gift to the modern/postmodern church.  What I do find troubling is an almost dogmatic-like aversion to the “grand narrative” of the canon as a whole, from Alpha and Omega to various points between.  While I agree with you that the biblical text can be domesticated, it not need be so and does not have to be to the extent that preachers, teachers, and other communicators of the Word honor both the text and the context in which the Word and people are situated.  Of course, this is what WB seeks to do, but I think we do have to look closely at his core project of “funding” postmodernity, which he views as kairotically integral to the times in which we (in the west) live.

I, for one, do not dismiss the potency of this moment; this off-centered (geographically defined) Christianity in which marginality rather than Christ the center defines the primary space of where so many people who are willing to hear the Word, live.  That has defined my own space for a very long time, one that I know quite well, which has its own allures and appeals, and who am I to say that it is not authentic space.  This Christ at the margins is a very real space where many who sit in our pews, and perhaps more than a few pastors, as well, live.  What WB does is to give them voice and in that he is making a substantial contribution to mainline identity and in the process he re-introduces the legitimacy of the Bible.  This is no small achievement.  His “angular” interpretation speaks to this mode.

I want to keep this angularity and the imaginative construals that fresh interpretations evoke.  I want to do this, however in a way that honors the canon in its entirety; the grand narrative as well as the many little stories that comprise this constructed text.  This, I believe, WB has not adequately grappled with, and, in fact, exercises a profound hermeneutics of suspicion against any such project, as indicative in his ongoing canon criticism of biblicist Brevard Childs.  The question that I pose back to you is what do we do with the grand narrative?  Is this simply part of a mythopoetic legend that speaks an idiom of an ancient world, but has no applicability today?  Be clear, I, too, want to separate the wheat from the chaff of critical historiography and modern scientific understanding, and the allures of obscurantism have no appeal to me either. 

That said, we still have to deal not only with the matter of interpretation, but the standards upon which interpretation is based; the standards upon which our faith is grounded; particularly the relationship between the text and the world.  What I find in the serious evangelicals like Bloesch, Fackre, Erickson and others is a profound grappling with the challenges of modernity/postmodernity, while at the same time, when push comes to shove, viewing the Bible as interpreting the world rather than the world setting the context in and through which the Bible is interpreted.  Obviously, the relationship is more complex in that there is considerable interplay between these two— complexity always leaking out against our best construals.  This I grant.  Nonetheless, we do have to decide at some level below having complete or perfect knowledge and our decisions are invariably based on where our ultimate vocabularies and commitments reside.  At his best moments, WB is nothing short of prophetic in his electrifying imaginative construals, which, in the very act of his speaking (writing) it is as if God is piercing postmodernity that is grasped at the moment of reading.  That is obviously very powerful and to lose that is to lose much.

Even still, and this is where I want to raise a very big issue, to what extent does he see funding postmodernity as he describes it in Texts Under Negotiation as THE kairotic moment of our times?  For if that is our times, then WB's marginalized but very powerfully spoken Christian faith may be nothing short of the will of God for our times.  However, if he is holding onto this vision tighter than perhaps God intends, then perhaps there is some idolatry lurking in his insistence that marginality is in fact the key characteristic state of our times, or that even if it is, sustained inward cultural migration is simply not a feasible place for “serious” Christians to confront and address the world (Hauerwas).

Again, I'm very glad that you have raised these important issues.  I don’t think anyone here is saying there are simple answers.  Sill, there is direction and choices have to be made on the basis of where one locates ones ultimate commitments and vocabulary.  For me, the Bible, all of it, is a very solid place to go; a place I go with my eyes wide open and with a fair amount of knowledge of its many contextualizations, but where I go as a predominant resource as the Spirit leadeth.

The Viability of God Talk in the Secular City

Given the current emphasis on the term (or title) Lord, Avery Dulles’ reflections in The Assurance of Things Hoped For may be of relevance:

Faith is a religious act.  It involves an adoring submission of one’s whole self to God as supreme lord of all things.  In faith I abandon the self-centeredness of my normal vision and consent to look at reality from God's perspective.  I transfer my concern from narrow self-interest to the God on whom I depend and who is to be unconditionally esteemed, trusted, and loved for his own sake.  The intrinsic motive of faith, the ‘authority’ of God, is God himself in his wisdom, truthfulness, holiness power, and fidelity. These divine attributes, though conceptually distinct, are all identical in God (p. 275).

In the important work of coming to term with modernity many of the more liberal Protestant denominations and theologians sacrificed at least to some degree the clarity and power of this fundamental faith act.  In reading through Dulles I get the impression that on the whole, Vatican I & II did a better job than Protestantism of grappling with the intellectual premises of modernity as well as that of inter-religious dialogue, while maintaining the radical particularity that in Christ the fullness of God’s revelation to humankind has been given once and for all even as there are always new insights to be gleaned from this core revelation.

To be sure this religious act is a matter of faith all the way down which cannot be proven by human reason, logic, or evidence.  Nonetheless, these can, and need to be helpful, for without signs it would be very difficult to see, even in a glass darkly.  Even still such faith viewed exclusively through secular channels might readily be viewed as absurd, or more charitably as obscurantist. 

In seeking to come to terms with modernity, liberal Protestantism at its worst accepted too readily the underlying assumptions of secular intellectualism, particularly a diminishing of the radicality of God as transcendent Other over and above anything that can be conceived in the natural world or in the realms of our inner and social experiences.  Thus, one might say that the notion of God was repressed from 20th century intellectual history and philosophy as a manifestation of a broader “death of God” phenomenon, particularly in Europe and less so in the US, notwithstanding persistent strains of fundamentalism as well as evangelical resurgences throughout the century.

At its best the effort to come to terms with modernity is indispensable, if there is going to be a credible apologetic aspect to the faith at all, not only in response to overt unbelief (and therefore to the culture at large), but in response to the multiplicity of identities among many who are overtly Christian (like many of us?) in their (our) various constructions of reality which are anything but purely Christian.  Perhaps I might suggest that at least in Protestant circles that apologetic work has barely begun to take place outside the realms, say, of Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Langdon Gilkey.  One might also place Walter Brueggemann in this apologetic category in his “funding” of postmodernity in the compelling breakthrough of the kairotc moment through the imaginative stimulus of the Holy Spirit.  Such apologoteic theology is indispensable if such fundamental religious acts of claiming Christ as Lord and Savior are going to mediate in ways that are compelling.

As many here have pointed out, there is a broad range of problems linked to the liberal (post or otherwise) or neo-orthodox solution.  Might we see as a next step a thick reformed-grounded evangelic apologetic that does not merely collapse into dogmatics, but confronts the intellectual premises of modernity and postmodernity on their own terms while maintaining a distinctively Christian perspective?  Donald Bloesch and Gabriel Fackreand George Hunsinger, UCC centrist stalwarts, have done substantial work in this arena. I suppose one could argue that Barth’s turn to dogmatics was also a subtle form of apologetics by indirection, but a fuller apologetic effort may be needed, such as that as exhibited by Jurgen Moltmann if the religious act of faith is going to be viewed as credible by more than a remnant.  

I don’t disagree that the more fundamental work may still be the need to sharpen a subtle dogmatic project right in the heartland of the UCC denomination and its supporting seminaries.  In fact, I think it’s essential. Let that work go forth! On Bloesch, on Fackre, on Brueggemann, too!  Still given the pervasive cultural and religious pluralism of our times along with a profound agnosticism in the heartland of the “thinking” middle class and contemporary intellectuals, perhaps there is a need to move beyond Karl Barth’s dogmatics (while drinking richly from his wells) and incorporate richer apologetic work in the very creation of a more subtle articulation of faith.  On that score, perhaps Dulles may have a point or two in Ch 11 in The Assurance of Things Hoped For, titled “Properties of Faith.”  In that chapter, Dulles points to five key properties:  “supernaturality, freedom, certitude and doubt, and obscurity.”  For Dulles, faith is primary, but it is faith in search of knowledge amidst the dynamic tension of certitude and doubt within the context of the ultimate obscurity of the mystery of God, given the fathomless range of His Kingdom and the inherently limited and flawed nature of our own understanding and will.  The gap between what we seek and what we possess is itself fathomless, though we press toward the mark in the midst of our groaning and travail, and in the process are occasionally given the light of the beautific vision of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of human history. 

Wither Walter Brueggemann's Hermeneutic?

The biblical text, in its fullness, which remains beyond our capacity to exhaustively grasp, is the ultimate vocabulary upon which Walter Brueggemann stakes his identity.  At the same time, given the profound impact of secularism, anti-foundational postmodernity, and our post-Christian society and culture (fundamentalist/evangelical revival notwithstanding), from the point of view of perception and reception, imaginative construal may be one of the most dynamic hermeneutics available to many contemporary people in coming to grips with the revelation embedded in the Biblical text.  This may be particularly the case amongst those who have fundamentally challenged the precepts of the Christian faith and who have embraced one aspect or another of the secular city as their primary vocabulary.  There are many reasons why those who have had some level of decent Christian formation in their background who have left the primary vocabulary of faith, or who, even if, in faith they continue to adhere to its primary truth, have not heard an Authentic Word in a very long time.  Simply put, for many the assumptions of the secular city seem to be existentially primary and anything which fundamentally violates those precepts takes on the appearance of the unreal.  I haven’t done a formal study, but I bet there are many people in our UCC congregations, if not pastors as well, who at some powerful (and perhaps unconscious) level embrace the secular as their primary (at least at the level of a very potent penultimacy) vocabulary.

In my reading of WB, it seems that he is appealing in his many collections of short essays to these people as his primary audience, while secondarily, encouraging the evangelical sector to overhear the conversation.  For the former in particular, the eruption of the Spirit of God one verse, one miracle, or one revelation at a time within the epicenter of the secular city may be precisely the Word needed in order to break the logjam, however temporarily, of the secular assumptions that ground their primary vocabulary.  It is not as an absolute truth, but as a manifestation of the contemporary kairos that WB is skeptical of grand narratives as reflected in his ongoing dispute with Brevard Childs, even as, at some profound level, as Gabriel Fackre suggests, he adheres to the entire Story.  Gabe quotes the following WB text:

The Bible is inherently the live word of God, revealing the character and will of God and empowering us for an alternative life in the world. While I believe in the indeterminacy of the text to some large extent, I know that finally the Bible is forceful and consistent in its main theological claim. It expresses the conviction that the God who created the world in love redeems the world in suffering and will consummate the world in joyous well-being. That flow of conviction about God’s self-disclosure in the Bible is surely the main claim of the apostolic faith, a claim upon which the church fundamentally agrees. 

As Gabe states, “this of course is not the fullest summation of WB’s hermeneutic, but I think that there appears to be more in common and for conversation than has been suggested.”

            When WB refers to the dynamic of the imagination—the importance of imaginative construal—I hypothesize that he is referring to nothing less than the Holy Spirit in illuminating the disclosed Word to receptive listeners.  What he is implying, I think, given the current kairos, is that the third voice of the Trinity requires a certain primacy in order to break through the logjams of identities highly influenced by secular existentialism.  It is always the Word of which the imagination illuminates on WB’s interpretation, and on this there is no equivocation. What is at issue is the extent to which strongly formed Christian identities, particularly in mainline congregations will play a central or more marginal role in the total identity formation of believers.  While WB would like to see more, I think what he is saying, given the temper of the times is that there is little choice, particularly among the mainline, than to come to terms with this marginality.  Given this assumption it is through the imaginative dynamic encounter that the text may break in once again one verse at a time in the important work of “funding” postmodernity.  WB does hope that through an accumulation of these individual encounters something more coherent and stable will emerge at this time in the history of the west even as he remains highly suspicious of comprehensive theologies breaking in within the foreseeable future.

That said, it’s also limiting to leave things there, which at his best, WB does not, even in Texts Under Negotiation. For while WB speaks to an important some, there are important others even within the mainline for whom this message remains unconvincing and certainly unsatisfactory.  There is a thirsting too (however repressed, at least in certain UCC congregations) for what Gabe Fackre refers to as the “full-orbed” Word and the need to grapple with entire Story with the sophistication and nuance that he does in The Christian Story and The Doctrine of Revelation.  The critical message of Fackre’s work is that any substantial encounter with the Spirit itself requires a through understanding of and illumination by the Word, including a solid appreciation of the entire Story.

I don’t think WB would deny this, although he might wonder how that would occur in the given postmodern reality.  Certainly comprehensive Bible study needs to become a major congregational focus which is far from given in the current reality of mainline Protestantism.  In the process many of the imaginative encounters of which WB illuminates in his powerful narratives need to be experienced if there is going to be any revitalization movement within the UCC.  Broadly speaking, what is needed is not so much a dialogue, but at the least a very ongoing tripartite encounter between Walter Brueggemann, Donald Bloesch, and Gabriel Fackre (which includes the various schools of thought which their work together embodies) in order to substantially grapple with the many issues that are on the UCC table in the current era.

May it be so!

Encounteriing Walter Brueggermann

Bruegemann's strength, in my view, in addition to his profound understanding of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is his knowledge of post-reformation theology and his powerful exegesis, as exemplified in his various collections of essays.  Also extremely provocative is his tapping into the imagination as the most potent means of linking the biblical text to the ethos of the contemporary setting.  In this respect he may be viewed as the apostle to the postmodern secularists.  In this capacity he would play a formidable role in the UCC God is still speaking campaign http://www.stillspeaking.com/intro1.htm. For those on the margins of faith and doubt, WB, on personal testimony, offers an extremely powerful way of re-entering the strange new world within the Bible that for many, more dogmatic approaches would not have been convincing.  The seeming irrelevance of the Bible is a phenomenon that shapes the thinking of more than a few who attend mainline (or perhaps even evangelical) congregations, who at some level are still seeking a Word where one has not been found for a long time.  The deep influence of secularization, even in the midst of our congregations, is a factor that cannot be lightly dismissed, in which the pastoral call very well may be, in WB’s terms, that “funding” of the Word of God, one verse, one miracle, one revelation at a time, in which to attempt more could very well turn into sterile bibliolatry.  I hope it is clear that I am speaking at the level of reception and I am speaking for some and not for all. 

In any event WB played a very similar role with me that Jurgen Moltmann did some years earlier in opening up the hermeneutical possibility that God could speak a vital Word through his text.  I spent a good part of two years pouring over everything I could get my hands on by WB. In the process of following the trajectory of his interpretations, I also read substantial portions of the OT.

I also experienced some limitations, such as WB’s privileging of some texts over the others, which I interpret as at least partially contradicting the spirit of 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”  While WB might have viewed it as ironic, my re-encountering the Bible through his theology pushed me toward an evangelical faith retrieval of some enduring stability, which I needed to reclaim if the Christian faith were going to prevail in my life in a compellingly vital way.  This retrieval— illuminated, as far as I could discern by the Holy Spirit—has depended, in no small measure, on the capacity to embrace the Bible full without privileging certain texts over others, as the very source of my ultimate vocabulary. 

The second, and related limitation I find in WB, is, notwithstanding the “existential” power of his “funding” of postmodernity one text, one miracle, one revelation at a time, is that I simply could not fathom how, at least, I could construct a stable religious life from that basis, or how a congregation could establish an ecclesiology which could mediate the religious needs and passions of a congregation from week to week.

I could imagine, in theory, a postmodern/post-Christian congregation, which gathered week-to-week from their travails within the secular city.  This ideal congregation would encounter the Word once again through the imaginative dynamic of the charismatic preacher who would reach those in the pews through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, where the Word would come alive, once again one verse, one miracle one revelation at a time.  I do believe this is a place where many people, and perhaps congregations in such denominations like the United Church of Christ are, and in this respect, the voice coming out of the theology of WB may very well be the authentic Word of God that such a congregation may need to hear.  Interpreted from this vantage pint WB is an authentic UCC voice that needs to be thoroughly heard and respected within the Confessing Christ network, at least as a viable Kairotic option of where a certain sector of the faith community may be in our secular era of modernity/ postmodernity  http://confessingchrist.net/.

Yet, if taken as the gospel itself, or as THE authoritative theology of our times, WB’s vision could also be viewed as extremely repressive and oppressive to boot.  The possibility for a thoroughly biblically-based evangelical encounter through the likes of Bloesch, Vanhoozer, Barth, Henry, Fackre, Lints, and others is also a critical need which has been profoundly repressed within the mainline denominations going back to the struggles with fundamentalism at the beginning of the 20th century.  In order to get at the root of these issues, the historical dynamics that lent them their intensity would need to be imaginatively re-encountered and reconstructed.  That is work for another message. 

Someone had suggested a dominant role for Bloesch at an upcoming Craigvlle conference.  Whether at Craigville or elsewhere, I would recommend a thorough and respectful encounter between WB and Bloesch where some of these critical issues could be aired out. For this is one of the crucial encounters I believe that needs to take place between the CC community and the UCC Cleveland leadership and progressive ministry throughout the denomination.  Let us assume that both brothers deserve a respectful place at the UCC table, and then establish the places where they could mutually sit and where we could respectfully engage them.

Whither Brueggemann’s Hermeneutic?

The biblical text, in its fullness, which remains beyond our capacity to exhaustively grasp, is the ultimate vocabulary upon which Walter Brueggemann stakes his identity.  At the same time, given the profound impact of secularism, anti-foundational postmodernity, and our post-Christian society and culture (fundamentalist/evangelical revival notwithstanding), from the point of view of perception and reception, imaginative construal may be one of the most dynamic hermeneutics available to many contemporary people in coming to grips with the revelation embedded in the Biblical text.  This may be particularly the case amongst those who have fundamentally challenged the precepts of the Christian faith and who have embraced one aspect or another of the secular city as their primary vocabulary.  There are many reasons why those who have had some level of decent Christian formation in their background who have left the primary vocabulary of faith, or who, even if, in faith they continue to adhere to its primary truth, have not heard an Authentic Word in a very long time.  Simply put, for many the assumptions of the secular city seem to be existentially primary and anything which fundamentally violates those precepts takes on the appearance of the unreal.  I haven’t done a formal study, but I bet there are many people in our UCC congregations, if not pastors as well, who at some powerful (and perhaps unconscious) level embrace the secular as their primary (at least at the level of a very potent penultimacy) vocabulary.

In my reading of WB, it seems that he is appealing in his many collections of short essays to these people as his primary audience, while secondarily, encouraging the evangelical sector to overhear the conversation.  For the former in particular, the eruption of the Spirit of God one verse, one miracle, or one revelation at a time within the epicenter of the secular city may be precisely the Word needed in order to break the logjam, however temporarily, of the secular assumptions that ground their primary vocabulary.  It is not as an absolute truth, but as a manifestation of the contemporary kairos that WB is skeptical of grand narratives as reflected in his ongoing dispute with Brevard Childs, even as, at some profound level, as Gabriel Fackre suggests, he adheres to the entire Story.  Gabe quotes the following WB text:

The Bible is inherently the live word of God, revealing the character and will of God and empowering us for an alternative life in the world. While I believe in the indeterminacy of the text to some large extent, I know that finally the Bible is forceful and consistent in its main theological claim. It expresses the conviction that the God who created the world in love redeems the world in suffering and will consummate the world in joyous well-being. That flow of conviction about God’s self-disclosure in the Bible is surely the main claim of the apostolic faith, a claim upon which the church fundamentally agrees. 

As Gabe states, “this of course is not the fullest summation of WB’s hermeneutic, but I think that there appears to be more in common and for conversation than has been suggested.”

            When WB refers to the dynamic of the imagination—the importance of imaginative construal—I hypothesize that he is referring to nothing less than the Holy Spirit in illuminating the disclosed Word to receptive listeners.  What he is implying, I think, given the current kairos, is that the third voice of the Trinity requires a certain primacy in order to break through the logjams of identities highly influenced by secular existentialism.  It is always the Word of which the imagination illuminates on WB’s interpretation, and on this there is no equivocation. What is at issue is the extent to which strongly formed Christian identities, particularly in mainline congregations will play a central or more marginal role in the total identity formation of believers.  While WB would like to see more, I think what he is saying, given the temper of the times is that there is little choice, particularly among the mainline, than to come to terms with this marginality.  Given this assumption it is through the imaginative dynamic encounter that the text may break in once again one verse at a time in the important work of “funding” postmodernity.  WB does hope that through an accumulation of these individual encounters something more coherent and stable will emerge at this time in the history of the west even as he remains highly suspicious of comprehensive theologies breaking in within the foreseeable future.

That said, it’s also limiting to leave things there, which at his best, WB does not, even in Texts Under Negotiation. For while WB speaks to an important some, there are important others even within the mainline for whom this message remains unconvincing and certainly unsatisfactory.  There is a thirsting too (however repressed, at least in certain UCC congregations) for what Gabe Fackre refers to as the “full-orbed” Word and the need to grapple with entire Story with the sophistication and nuance that he does in The Christian Story and The Doctrine of Revelation.  The critical message of Fackre’s work is that any substantial encounter with the Spirit itself requires a through understanding of and illumination by the Word, including a solid appreciation of the entire Story.

I don’t think WB would deny this, although he might wonder how that would occur in the given postmodern reality.  Certainly comprehensive Bible study needs to become a major congregational focus which is far from given in the current reality of mainline Protestantism.  In the process many of the imaginative encounters of which WB illuminates in his powerful narratives need to be experienced if there is going to be any revitalization movement within the UCC.  Broadly speaking, what is needed is not so much a dialogue, but at the least a very ongoing tripartite encounter between Walter Brueggemann, Donald Bloesch, and Gabriel Fackre (which includes the various schools of thought which their work together embodies) in order to substantially grapple with the many issues that are on the UCC table in the current era.

May it be so!

The Crucial Importance of Intentional Theology

"The spirit bloweth where it will.  Against that there is no argument.  One can also experience (I experience it within myself) the stench of religious language to the extent that it is not directly linked to the power of the living spirit of God."  I think you (my interlocutor) have done a nice job in putting for us in a few words, something of the spirit of the UCC vision.

Still, unless one is going to depend on an experimental epistemology as the center of value, and I’m not sure this is UCC teaching, without providing some stabilizing structures to ground a christo-centric calling.  For evangelical theology it is in sola scriptura as the final authority.  As put by the astute Gordon-Cornwall theologian, Richard Lints:

We will understand ourselves only if we first understand Scripture.  Once we understand the framework of Scripture, we may then interpret our place in the historical unfolding of the redemptive activity of God.  The Scriptures ought to interpret the modern era rather than vice versa.  This is a lesson from which modern evangelicals might greatly benefit (The Fabric of Theology, p. 190)

This perhaps is even the position of Brueggemann when powerfully pushed from the perspective of his narrative theology, although he is also immersed in contemporary critical biblical scholarship and is largely empathetic to it.  For WB it still remains difficult to determine whether culture (postmodenism) or the strange new world of the Bible is the determining source of legitimacy.  While WB would wince at the “essentialism” of Lints’ evangelical theology, he does say elsewhere that the Scriptures are normative, although, for WB, the revelation through the spirit comes only one verse at a time in its “funding” of secular postmodernity, a voice that is extremely difficult to articulate, never mind legitimize in the current era.  What WB identifies is a moment of time, and those moments can be very crucial.  Still, except for a theology based on the grounding point of the “spirit bloweth where it will,” one wonders how one can come close to stabilizing a religious identity, and more perplexingly, perhaps, how that plays out for the life of a congregation.  I’m not rejecting such “funding” as one of the crucial ways in which the Kairos is speaking to modernity/postmodernity.  What I want to do is examine the implications of such an existential theology, however much it is grounded on a certain reading of narrative theology.

What happens when we can’t hear the spirit, or when we hear “the spirit,” what makes the voice of Christ determinative?  What grounds the choice for that voice as opposed to another—Ghandi, Buddha, Krishna, the Jewish God without the mediation of the Christ, the voice of secular reasoning?  Does it matter?  Perhaps not so at the level of the pure indwelling of the spirit, a place, however, that even Pentecostals cannot perpetually live, never mind staid New England Congregationalists.  Does experience (the pure phenomenology of it as a living truth), then become the ultimate arbiter, for not only the spirit, but for experience itself, which bloweth where it will?  On this topic, I heartily recommend Modes of Revelation by Catholic theologian, Avery Dulles.  As he puts it, “Scripture and tradition are not used atomistically to provide logical premises for deducing arguments, but organically and imaginatively to provide symbols and clues so that the mind of the believer can be ever more fully attuned to the truth of the revelation” (p. 283).

For Dulles and Lints, the construction of theology is a late work, essential to the development of faith in the fleshing out of the “full meaning” (which can only be aspired to) of the Christian revelation through the flow of historical time.  Both Lints and Dulles draw on different founding premises.  However, they both press hard on the necessity for theology as a discipline of faith and the need for grounding faith in something more stabilizing than the ineffability of subjective experience.  The key is not to minimalize the discipline of theology, but to view such formal probings as critical tools (more formally, heuristics) in the thinking and working through the matter of faith.

Then what are we to make of the Incarnation?  One can reject easily enough (raise the most acute of suspicions about) any simplistic claim that the historical person Jesus of Nazareth ever said, “I am the truth, the way, and the life.”  What one cannot do is deny that it is a core statement of the Christ Jesus of the New Testament, in which the claim is nothing other than this Christ is God in human flesh, and that this Christ (through grace) is accessible to those who seek after him with all their heart, mind, strength and soul.  This is a form of biblical literalism that narrative theology cannot lightly move beyond short of denying what is fundamental to its premises.

One may interpret this incarnational New Testament claim in a variety of ways (and much subtlety as well as the greatest simplicity is warranted as the spirit bloweth).  Even still, I cannot fathom how even the most “generous orthodoxy” can equivocate on this central claim without sacrificing something essential of such orthodoxy.  (One may move beyond orthodoxy, but that is another matter). That is, one may quibble about this and that interpretation, but I cannot fathom how any orthodox belief can do other than accept the Incarnation as a foundational source of Christian truth.  On that, can there be equivocation?  That is a question and not a statement, and it is not a rhetorical one.  Of course, unless that belief is spiritually based, dogma, as mere words is worse than dung.  But let us assume that we have some sense of what we are speaking here and that every once in a while we actually experience the indwelling of the holy spirit, which I view as nothing more and nothing less than Christ consciousness speaking within and to our consciousness, however partially and fragmentarily so.  It is neither spirit nor word alone, but spirit and word together which is essential, even as at any given time within any given individual or community of believers, one may prevail over the other.

This is where dogma, or more formally, theology, as well as apologetics comes into play, to say nothing of a grappling of the relationship of faith within the context of culture, articulated most programmatically, perhaps in H.R. Niehbur’s (as timely as ever) Christ and Culture.  More to the point, one cannot even begin to deal with theology and apologetics in any thorough way unless these critical topics of faith are grounded in what the philosopher John Dewey refers to as the “cultural matrix.”  For, if nothing else, the Judeo-Christian tradition is about a faith in God moving through historical time at specific times and places. However fictional such history may be, the Bible is a historical-like narrative that seeks to account for the drama of human history through the prism of God’s redemptive work in time.  However apologetically and hermeneutically construed, these dynamics of faith need to be factored in within our own contemporary accounts, particularly for any theology that purports to be orthodox.

Such work might be viewed as a sterile academic exercise if the theological dimension of faith did not matter.  That it does is based on at least three assumptions:

(a)   The practical impossibility of living in the continuous sphere of the spiritual realm as even as one does not want to do anything that stifles such an indwelling of the spirit of Christ.

(b)   The compelling questions and problems that people in the pews and those who might attend the pews have that do not beget easy answers is often the source that drives the quest for a meaningful theology and apologetics, which are far from merely “academic,” matters.  While such questions may or may not be posed in formal theological terms, as defined by theologians, just by their very nature they are theological in intent in the manner of faith seeking understanding, and understanding, at times, challenging core faith assumptions.

(c)   The need for the UCC to grapple more dynamically with the creative tension between Christ and culture because it is in and through this nexus where we reside.  Given our residence as post-Constantinian Christians in the secular city of postmodernity, it is impossible, in my view to grapple meaningfully with faith over any extended period of time without a coming to terms with where we are situated within the Christian drama.  And how where “we”, for whomever and however that is defined, relate to “they” whether, they are traditional evangelical Christians or those who reject any claim of religion at all and embrace purely secular values.  Can these relations and these nexus of situations be mediated purely in the spirit, or does it take the full work of our collective heart, mind, strength, and soul to grapple with these matters even in the acknowledgement of our diverse gifts?  Obviously, I sense that something is incomplete without this intentional grappling.  To press this further, the lack of willingness as a denomination to engage in more intentionally theologically probing analysis of the human condition within the context of faith, at this time and place, may be in part, an unconscious desire to escape from the more radical implications of what it may mean to believe.  I offer this as a hypothesis only, but worthy of consideration.

The Logos speaks in its own idiom.  Since we do not live perpetually in that state of blissful at-one-ness with God, formal thought about what drives us when the spirit is more evidently active is also crucial—hence theology and apologetics even for the experience-driven, spirit seeking UCC.  When theological work is well done it forces the writer and reader to come more acutely to terms with ultimate issues.  This is why it is indispensable work—work that all of us as lay theologians, in one form or another, need to take on both for ourselves as individuals and collectively as the body of Christ.

The Inescapability of"Center's of Value"

The question is what makes my living authentic, to the extent that it is?  In short, what is my ortho-praxis?  I don’t know that I can provide an exhaustive answer, because it is far from crystal clear to me.  Still, one does have a certain direction, however much through a glass darkly one sees.

My point is that the matter of what a UCC theology is has to be grappled with first, in which the prevailing UCC values of “open and affirming,” inclusiveness and embrace of diversity can point to a theology, but are not synonymous with a theology.  I believe the personal application is important, downright crucial, in fact, but that the historical and cultural forces which have influenced the UCC throughout the 20th century, have to be grappled with and somehow made comprehensible. Otherwise, such “personal” faith will have a tendency to be solipsist. That is we do not exist as simply selves, or selves with God as co-pilot, but are historical creatures through and through.  To deny or sidestep our history is to marginalize crucial aspects of who we are as persons.

With that rationale as a backdrop, I draw on H.R. Niebhur’s concept of “centers of value” as he discusses in Radical Monotheism in the Western World, particularly on his core argument that the value issue is inescapable.  That is, as Niebuhr argues, we have no choice but to decide even as choice is a matter of faith, which, strictly speaking, one cannot get to from pure reasoning, analysis of the evidence, or logic. No matter what the belief, there is always “a leap” of some sort.  Having embraced a value center (Niebuhr posits radical monotheism against henotheism (a central belief, e.g., nationalism, and/or polytheism, e.g., postmodernism in contemporary guise), the faith in that center discloses various realities that would not be otherwise accessible without an entering into the chosen pathway.  Based on my own reasoned logic, life experience, and awareness of alternatives, I choose to take a leap of faith, stimulated by whatever leanings are nudging me in this direction, and thereby embrace radical monotheism.  One might say that this is not simply my choice, as there is a gift dimension to this, in the unique way that I encountered Niebuhr’s text once again at this time in my life, and the ways in which his ideas opened up to my imagination.  I think it’s fair to say that in some sense I was seeking what Niebuhr was suggesting, and that at another time and place his book would not have necessarily made an impact.  It is not the vehicle of transmission that is important, but the message.  God could have used a donkey instead to have convince me.

Thus, in faith I posit a belief in the monotheistic God of the Bible, noting, that if I lacked this plausibility structure in my background it may not have been a viable pathway, and that no matter how much I become convinced of the truths of the traditions of Israel and that of Christ as the New Israel, it remains a matter of faith and not that of certitude—a faith that in principle I can stake my life on.

Niebuhr may lead one to God, but not necessarily Christ.  My embrace there also comes out of a combination of my own experience (born again, June 20, 1972, even while incredibly conflicted over the reality of the revelation in light of various autobiographical developments and grappling with various world views over a 30 year period), reasoning, and awareness of alternatives.  On the doubt dimension on my 30- year odyssey with Christianity, I grapple with many of the tensions with this faith-walk that I have encountered in a theotalk web essay titled In Search of the Kairos in Modernity/Postmodernity (http://www.ctconfucc.org/resources/theology/insearchofkairos.pdf).  In that piece I am raising a broad range of issues largely, though not exclusively from an empathetic, but outside the camp perspective.  In writing I was seeking an external interlocutor who could respond from inside the camp.  That has not taken place, which in one sense is unfortunate because the issues raised in that piece, I believe, are quite germane for mainline Protestantism, which requires some type of formal theological counter-response, for a fully vigorous coherent sense of faith that speaks both to the mind and the heart in the context of our embedded middle-class modernity/postmodernity.

Notwithstanding this crucial work, raising questions and living out the faith (however imperfectly) are two different things in which the gap between the two simply requires some leap of faith.  In drawing on Niebuhr as a critical scaffold, I have taken the leap (once again) and am beginning to answer, for myself, at least, some of the questions I raised in the Search for the Kairos document.  In a sense, the Kairos document and The Small Still Prompting of the Shadow Voice of Secular Modernity (http://www.ctconfucc.org/resources/theology/smallstillprompting.pdf) are different shades of a single cloth based on the NT mandate, “seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened.”

This deliberate (re) turn to a more centralized Christian focus does not mean that the searching has ended, but that the pathway has taken on a more definitive shape. Working more from within does open up certain perspectives that are not necessarily evident from without. In stating this I realize that my categories of inside/outside perhaps are overly polarized, but it’s not simply the objective reality of such categories, but their symbolic significance in the iconography of my own imagination.  Even in my much more overtly secular orientation, I was virtually always aware of an evangelical subtext, or to use the language of Jungian psychology, an evangelical shadow.  The tables have now turned in that the subtext has become more of the main text in which the shadow voice of the secular city still remains. While from the point of view of God, perhaps, this is all of the same cloth, in the nearness of my own experience my imagination is more impressed by the distinctive hues of the various colors of the text’s cloth.  It is valuable to become immersed in the aesthetic beauty of the colors and patterns that seems most vivid, which, nonetheless, can become so real that it can become easy to confound the symbols of grace with the substance that is beyond our ability to grasp.  Even still, we have little choice but to work with the light that illuminates while keeping attuned to the mystery that both engulfs and transcends our individual searching.

Notwithstanding the highly unique ways in which the Spirit of God unveils Himself (in staying with the biblical language), those who seek the pathway through the Incarnation of God in Christ have a very rich tradition upon which to draw in establishing certain commonalities in the quest.  That is, we are not simply working out of our own unique stories.  Rather, we share a common discourse in the underlying belief that in Christ, the Incarnation of God in human flesh has been revealed, and, through Christ consciousness and the body of Christ, this revelation, (however mediated), is accessible to us.

I view these resources as instruments through which the revelation of Christ has been and is mediated.  I do not view any of the mentioned pathways (scripture, the cloud of witnesses, past and present, common sense, critical scholarship) as singularly normative.  Rather, all are critically important in the shaping of what Brian McLaren refers to as a “generous orthodoxy” (http://agenerousorthodoxy.blogspot.com/) although it is God who ultimately disposes, working through, beyond, and in spite of our own constructions.

Truth and Tolerance Part II

Further Reflections on Cardinal Ratzinger’s Truth and Tolerance

I neither endorse nor reject the position articulated by the eminent evangelical theologian Carl Henry as summarized in this brief article, which does, however, crystallize some of the issues involved in claims of Christian truth: http://defendinginerrancy.com/biblical-inerrancy-orthodoxy/

Here also is a statement by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in his Truth and Tolerance:  Christian Belief and World Religion.  I believe the statement below is an important one, but neither proves nor disproves unequivocal claims of truth:

"Christianity’s claim to be true cannot correspond to the standard of certainty imposed by modern science, because the form of verification here is of a quite different kind from the realm of testing by experiment, because the kind of experiment demanded—pledging one’s life for this—is of a quite different kind.  The saints who have undergone the experiment, can stand as guarantors of its truth, but the possibility of disregarding this strong evidence remains" (p. 226).

At least in any penultimate sense, the issue is an existential one grappled within and throughout the crucible of human history—past, present and future within the context of the Kingdom of God.  In my view, there’s much merit in the quest for certainty (but it is a quest).  Even still, there is also the problem of the quest overextending its reach, which is ultimately a discernment that requires what can only be, fallible, finite, human judgment.

Nonetheless, any seriously committed value system requires an ultimate faith in its core principles, which serves as an axiomatic platform for the construction of its beliefs.  In Christian parlance, the quest is that of faith seeking knowledge, with faith remaining axiomatic (often in a matter that can assimilate at least a certain degree of doubt) as long as one remains within the circle of faith as one’s own grounding point.  Traditions are resources, and they can be very profound, but in themselves are not the carriers of the truth, but of the possibility of truth.  And even though the question of what is truth is often raised, there is something core about the concept itself which human beings have a feel for even in their full capacity to complete embrace or know it.  I deal with some of these issues in another context in a paper titled Postpositivist Scientific Philosophy:  Mediating Convergences: http://www.the-rathouse.com/Postpositivism.htm

  

Reflecting once again on the quote by Ratzinger, I may not know God as truth in the scientific sense of the term, but I know God to be truth in the existential bones of my existence, and upon that hermeneutical basis I can engage the world and even engage in evangelism and missions on the basis of my claims.  Also, while the depths of the Judeo-Christian God are unfathomable (and it is important to know something of the heights and the depths of the Story,) the truths of other religions are neither denied, nor accepted dogmatically as equal.  With Ratzinger, I believe in the continued importance of the Christian experiment, even among those of us who are not saints.

Commentary on Cardinal Ratzinger’s Truth and Tolerance Part One

Some time ago I completed a reading of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s thoughtful book, Truth and Tolerance:  Christian Belief and World Religions: Ignatius Press, 2003.  Ratzinger [now, Pope Benedict XVI] who was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, has written widely on theology in a manner that is both subtle and accessible to an informed lay readership.  In this book, he examines one of the most fundamental issues contemporary Christians need to grapple with, namely, the universality of the Christian pathway to salvation in light of the ineradicable pluralism, both religious and secular, of our times.  Simply put, he places the entire focus of his book on the singular claim placed in the mouth of Peter in Acts 4:12 that “There is salvation in no other name [Christ] under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”  A close reading of the book leads me to conclude that while Ratzinger has not answered the question in an absolutely definitive way (which would require the mind of God), he makes a strong case in positing Christianity stemming from the Apostolic faith as the way, the truth, and the life for all of humanity, which in its bold assertion sounds imperialistic indeed.

Ratzinger is clearly aware of such a charge and would agree that any form of Christianity that was indeed imperialistic is not the real article, by definition.  Examining both the ancient Roman and contemporary world scene through a similar light (also the strategy of C.G. Chesterton in his important The Everlasting Man), Ratzinger paints a broad, but not unconvincing portrait of the contending value system in the belief that all the religions of the world (or the Roman Empire for the time of Christ and the early church) are essentially alike, and are pathways to the same thing, leading ultimately to the unification and harmonization of mankind.  He acknowledges the power of this world view, built on its underlying value of tolerance and essential sameness, and notes that to offer a critique from the stance of a singular religion is to place oneself under the charge of anachronism in which “the Christian theologian looks like a dogmatic stick-in-the mud, who cannot get away from his know it all attitude” (p. 24). 

However, his concern is the fear of that approbation results in Christians, by definition, muting their core belief system and separating the quest for harmonization from that of the search for truth.  Stated in other terms, it is to cut asunder the engagement of theological reasoning and positing a separation between the heart and the mind.  As Ratzinger puts the query:

If the future of religion is something close to his heart, if he is convinced that Christianity and not some vague religion of the spirit, is the religion of the future, then he will feel compelled to ask further questions and to conduct further research in order to gain a clearer idea of the meaning and direction of the history of religion and the place of Christianity within it (p. 25).

This is the topic that Ratzinger seeks to address.

A satisfactory analysis of the book extends beyond the time I can devote to it here.  What can be said is that Ratzinger is clearly writing from the epicenter of faith, and that writing, believing, and acting from that place opens up different pathways of understanding than examining faith from the outside in.  In the scheme of things, both directions are valuable.  Yet, I agree with Ratzinger that contemporary Christianity is clearly in a crisis period, and there is more need of a focus now among both mainline Protestants and Catholics to concentrate more intently on the epicenter of faith (however much our puny knowledge fails us) and allow questions and provisional answers to emerge from that epicenter.  For without that, the likelihood of a non-fundamentalist Christianity, while not disappearing, is clearly in danger of mutating beyond the specificity of its core teaching, namely the centrality of Christ, to which every chapter in the New Testament points.  On this reading I neither reject modern scholarship nor the perspectives of those outside the realm of this faith tradition.

However, I bracket (and thereby relativize) these concerns in order to concentrate first and foremost on The Way.  I do so because with Ratzinger and others, through The Way, I find a very powerful pathway (the central one for me) into the truth, the way, and the life that, nonetheless, can only be experienced partially and fragmentarily, which, in the fullness of Christ as “the substance of things hoped for” (Heb: 11:1) is sufficient for me.  I have not come to this lightly and the journey into “generous orthodoxy” is a continuous one in which the searching has not stopped, but has taken a certain pathway, which, without a full (humanly speaking) embrace of Christ I could not have otherwise taken.

There are many reasons for taking this pathway, though in the final analysis, the combination of the leap of faith and grace cannot be dismissed, and from this place one does perceive things differently than from outside this pathway.  This is an empirical fact.  What may be of issue is its significance, but whatever that significance may be the narrative constructs that do emerge will be different when told from within rather than outside the camp.  Respect, tolerance, openness are clearly valuable traits, but so is the embrace of truth in the limited way that one understands it in the very act of being human.

I close with the following from Ratzinger, who in this passage speaks of the monotheistic God of the Bible:

This particular and wholly other element lies in the fact that the God of the Bible is not seen, as by the great mystics, but is experienced as one who acts and who remains (for the inner and outer eye) in the dark.  And this in turn is because man does not, here make his own attempts to rise, passing through various levels of being to the innermost and most spiritual level, thus to seek out the divine in its own place, but the opposite happens:  God seeks out man in the midst of his worldly and earthly connections and relationships; God whom no one, not even the purest of men, can discover for himself, comes to man of his own volition and enters into relationship with him.  We could say that biblical “mysticism” is not a mysticism of images but of words and that its revelation is not a contemplation of man but the word and the act of God.  It is not primarily the discovery of some truth; rather, it is the activity of God himself making history.  Its meaning is not that divine reality becomes visible to man, but that it makes the person who receives the revelation into an actor in divine history.  For here, in contrast to mysticism, God is the one who acts, and it is he who brings salvation to man (p. 42).

In short, this is radical monotheism of the most fundamental sort and the core assumption that undergirds the biblical revelation.  This faith, I assert, is something with which contemporary Christianity needs to fully contend, in which anything else, including inter-religious dialogue (though important) remains secondary.  Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be given on to you, but seek ye first the kingdom of God.

Evaluation of Nancy Pearcey’s Theology

This link provides a review of Nancy Pearcey’s new book, Total Truth:  Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity (http://arn.org/docs/pearcey/np_mohler0904.htm)

I saw much of Pearcey’s presentation of the book, recently, on C-Spann.

I take issue with her politics, which is clearly conservative in its elevation of issues surrounding abortion and the definition of marriage as the core of Christian morality and her embrace of President Bush who some may view as Christ’s Vicar in America. However, there is much in her theology that I would embrace as viable for a comprehensive (or “generous”) orthodoxy, particularly in the author’s insistence that Christian orthodoxy, broadly defined, articulates a solid worldview that can effectively engage other worldviews (secular and religious). 

Where I would challenge her theology is in her assurance that Christian orthodoxy does represent the absolute truth in relation both to the human condition and the cosmos as well as her insistence that the depiction of Christ and the early Christian community as portrayed in the NT is synonymous itself with historical experience and sound science.

With Peacey, I accept the crucial importance of embracing what Brian McLaren refers to as a “generous orthodoxy” as an article of informed faith in order even to begin to experience anything closely resembling the fullness of Christ as the embodied incarnation of God in human flesh.  In that, there’s much that I share with G.K. Chesterton in his two books, Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man, C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity and other key books, and with many other fine authors such as John Stott.

The challenging issue which these authors bring to the forefront is the exclusivist claim that the Christian revelation is the universal final word about the relationship between God and humanity, in which “all other ground is sinking sand,” as a certain hymnist put it.  What I like about all of this work is that these well read and astute authors are unafraid to push the issue. To a person, the published authors mentioned unequivocally make the case that there is not only something unique, but ultimate and final bout the Christian revelation, namely the Incarnation through the mediational character of Jesus the Christ.  In a respectful and enlightened presentation, in Truth and Tolerance:  Christian Belief and World Religions, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger makes a similar case in juxtaposing Christianity to other world religions.

Collectively, these are important books, and those within the Christian who are grappling with the critical issue of the uniqueness of the Christian revelation would do well to work their thinking through some of this literature.  For the purposes of this message, I focus on Pearcey’s Total Truth:  Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity based upon her C-Spann comments.

Pearcey makes an important distinction between truth and values. This potentially adds important clarification to one’s thinking in the association of orthodox Christianity with the truth rather than simply what one values.  Thus, on her argument, Christianity not only speaks to individuals at the evaluative level but has a ring of objectivity to it which can stand the test of truth through rational argument and empirical evidence.  Again, there is much that I accept here, specifically, that unless Christianity (or any other revealed religion) can speak compellingly to the fundamental issues (intellectual, political, and cultural) of the era, it is ultimately only a marginalized reality that may resonate with an individual or a community, but has no higher source of authority than its subjective claims.  With Pearcey, I believe there is something of primary importance in the Christian revelation, particularly on the claim of the fullness of God via the Incarnation of Christ.  If there is something fundamental about this claim in relation to the human condition, then it is crucial that those embracing this faith find compelling ways to speak to the complex and diverse exigencies of our (or any) time. In short, to what extent does the Christian revelation matter, to whom, and how so?  How far, to what extent, and how should formal apologetics be carried out in the mediation of the faith to our times?  Whatever the answer, I argue that these are no minor questions.

With H. Richard Niebuhr, however, I point to the ineradicable nature of the value issue, wherein Niebuhr spoke to three primary value centers which he characterized as “radical monotheism,”  “henotheism,” and “polytheism.”  On Niebuhr’s reading, whatever it is we believe at the core of our identity we place a sense of ultimacy on it, which can be applied to various aspects of the created order, or in the belief that the center of value is transcendentally grounded in another source, namely the, monotheistic God as revealed in the Bible.  This value center or faith precedes knowledge even as there is reason operating as to why one chooses one value center over the other.  Once a value center is chosen, e.g., radical monotheism through the Incarnation of Christ as the very embodiment of God revealed in human flesh, then a certain understanding emerges through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, Christians claim, that otherwise would not be accessible.  To put this in secular language, there is a hermeneutical unfolding through an empathetic bonding with the very text of faith, which partially reveals its message in the act of living through its core narratives, however partially and fragmentarily that may be. 

With Pearcey, there is knowledge here, and a knowledge that is “sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12), in which the fullness of Christ is revealed, but in a glass darkly.  While for the Christian seeker, all the mysteries of the universe are far from revealed in Christ, still, for the orthodox believer, it is Christ who, on faith, is nonetheless sufficient on which one can rest one’s ultimate identification.  As the various authors cited have argued good reasons can be given for such an identification, the grappling of which may be critically important to working out one’s salvation in fear and trembling.  Even still, the reality remains that faith precedes, even as it inform, reason, so that as long as I am walking in the Christian orthodox pathway, by definition I am placing my ultimate identification on Christ even when that rubs against my own independent thought.  On this reading, either my identity is anchored in Christ or it is anchored somewhere else.  While the reality may be more complex, in matters of faith the critical issue is the intention of the heart in the seeking of Christ to where one continuously keeps moving toward.

There is much within this revelation, which has the capacity to inform and enrich autonomous human understanding, and a truth that extends well beyond mere subjectivism, one of Pearcye’s major concerns.  Where I differ from Pearcey is I’m not so quick to associate the faith with the objectivity of human rationalism, even while I am able to accept that there is much rationalism built into a well thought out theology, and even as I accept the important office of the theological/philosophical enterprise through the rigorous exercise of our embodied minds. 

             

The temptation here is to associate the Christian revelation with the historical record, which in turn requires a squaring with a certain scientific rationalism—a rationalism, by the way, which feels compelled, if not to reject, to seriously question Darwinian biology in the hope of some type of literal association of the revelation of God with the walking of an Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden at some (not too distant) definable time in history.  That kind of “objectivity” is unfortunate, in my view, in its historical and scientific literalism, and incumbent rejection of aesthetics and the poetry of language.  One can still make profound sense of the orthodox revelation through the spirit of Christ as revealed in the New Testament, however much that revelation squared or did not square with actual historical events.  For the revelation was never merely about Jesus, the relatively unimportant Galilean of the first century, but God working through Christ as revealed in and through the Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and the 2000-year history of the Christian church (the cloud of witnesses), notwithstanding its many flaws and hypocrisies.  The revelation, rooted in this historical faith, is ongoing in the hearts and minds of those who seek to walk in The Way, and live out, however partially and imperfectly by becoming the body of Christ to each other and the world.

In terms of the inclusive/exclusive issue, I think one can say in fairness that God is revealed uniquely in and through Christ and that uniqueness, the Incarnation, has much more depth and fullness than we can ever imagine.  How important, or exclusive that Incarnation is to the fabric of all of human experience, is a matter well beyond my ability to grapple.  What I can say, is that it is sufficient for me, as it has been sufficient for many, in faith—a faith seeking knowledge—even while acknowledging that its working out is an ongoing process that can only end with the end of time itself.  In that sense, those of us who walk in this pathway do have a sense of direction and purpose, even as the full mystery of reality continues to elude our puny capacity to understand and grapple with.  For “we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone (Heb: 2:9).  To accept this is to accept much.  Similarly, to equivocate on this is to reject much.

Whatever disagreements I may have with Percey, I am one with her on placing central importance of the revelation of Christ as the Incarnation of God as depicted in the New Testament.  This does not prove the insufficiency of other pathways, but it does point to the centrality of the one, which any serious embrace of Christian orthodoxy demands, by definition.