Let me make something crystal clear: I repudiate David Congdon’s theology tout court. Something I tacitly was aware of was made really clear to me earlier today. In my early days of blogging (2005-06) I came into contact with two Princeton Theological Seminary students: David Congdon and W. Travis McMaken. I developed a better relationship with Travis than David, but they were two guys I thought I shared certain trajectories with (although not at first). As they finished their MDivs and went on to do their PhDs at PTS I followed along with them through their blogs and other writings. Over the years it became clear that they were progressing in ways that I wasn’t. I think the clincher for Congdon was his decision to study the theology of Rudolph Bultmann for his PhD dissertation. He has since published that, and an expansion of it in a massive tome (almost a thousand pages); which I am currently half way through. It has become apparent that David has not only been overcome by Bultmann’s way of thinking, but he has, as far as I understand Bultmann, sought to radicalize even Bultmann’s thought.

What was made really clear to me today was that a former (he may still presently read, I don’t know) blog reader of mine let me know that I was the one who introduced him to David Congdon (and the whole crowd and feeling that has developed around Congdon and his type of theology). I know that there are others out there who also were turned onto David because of me exposing them to him. When I would refer to David or Travis at my blog they both were on the way, and my reference to them had to do with Barth’s theology; not Bultmann’s! Be that as it may, Congdon, who surely is a very smart articulate guy, was attractive to these young impressionable theological minds; he hooked’m (not that he was intentionally attempting that).

If there is any lingering doubt about my relationship to Congdon’s theology (I mean I’ve been quoting from him recently here at the blog) in particular, let me be crystal clear: I think David has gone off the rails, and I, yes, repudiate his existentialist, apocalyptic, eschatological, deworldizing, dialectical, actualistic, radicalized-Butlmannian theology. David rejects the orthodox faith and if he becomes aware of this post will mock me referring even to the language of “orthodox” since he thinks that a cute little trifle from the premodern past. See, for Congdon, who cut his teeth on theology in its modern form (his first real exposure according to his own testimony was to devour Eberhard Jüngel when he started at PTS, and then ‘progress’ from there), his whole project is attenuated by an obsession to erase any sort of “metaphysical” component that the classical theisms offered the Christian through the centuries. For my money, this is actually the driving force behind David’s many theological decisions; it underlies what he is about in reduced form. As a result the Jesus of history is reduced to the kerygmatic reality as that is actualized in the soteriological experience of the saved. In other words, while David, along with Rudolph clearly affirms the reality of the historical personage known as Jesus Christ, this personage in a qualified way becomes a sort of husk wherein his reality is only given reality in the eschatological coming and actualization of his existence as that is located in the existential offering of the kerygma. Unfortunately this demetaphysicizing and radical subjectivizing of the Christ to the Christ-event allows David to arrive at the erroneous conclusions that Jesus did not rise bodily from the grave (instead he rises in the kerygma of faith), and as corollary that there will be no conscious afterlife for believers. In other words, David immanentizes the eschaton to the Christ-event as that is experienced and actualized in the kerygmatic reality.

Michael McClymond offers some good summary as he reviews David’s book The God Who Saves (2016):

Congdon states that his “starting point had to be the saving event itself rather than God, and this saving event had to be simultaneously objective and subjective, or rather it had to dispense with the distinction between objective and subjective altogether.” For Congdon, “the being of God as an isolated metaphysical entity in itself … does not exist.” What exists as a topic for theology is “the concrete being of God for us…which is deity as such.” Throughout The God Who Saves, a blurring of distinctions between objective reality and subjective experience generally works in favor of the latter. “Talk of God is always also talk of the human subject and her historical situation,” writes Congdon. He rejects any notion of an “essence” or “nature” (Greek phusis), whether the term is applied to God or to humanity. “With the exclusion of all worldviews goes the exclusion of all talk of permanent natures or essences in theology. ‘So-called “deity” can no more be interpreted as a phusis than humanity.’” He adds: “Theology is therefore necessarily and thoroughly actualistic … because the truth of the Christ-myth, which is the norm for both form and content, is itself an active occurrence and relation.”

In describing his own intellectual development, Congdon speaks of his conservative Protestant background, and “my complicated, often antagonistic, relationship with my evangelical heritage.” In adopting universalism, he acknowledges the influence of Robin Parry, though he says that “I never shared MacDonald’s particular view” of universalism. On Barth’s influence, he comments that “Barth taught me to see Christ’s save work as the actuality of salvation and not merely its possibility.” It was “initially quite a shock” for Congdon to encounter Bultmann’s 1959 essay—“Adam and Christ”—which repudiated Barth’s claim in Christ and Adam of a universal participation of all human beings in the humanity of Christ. Congdon explains: “The problem with universalism—as well as any notion of pretemporal election—is that it makes a judgment about the individual without regard for her particular historicity and is only, at best, indirectly related to personal existence. Reading Bultmann thus validated an instinct I had inherited from my evangelical upbringing.” He adds that “I would gradually internalize Bultmann’s insights into the historical nature of both God and appropriate talk of God.… The result was a deep internal tension—a tension between a Bultmannian methodological starting point and a Barthian soteriological conclusion.” Congdon is thus self-aware concerning the tensions within his own theology.

And further:

Congdon explains that his intent in writing The God Who Saves was “to develop a nonmetaphysical conception of the atoning work of Christ, which means that the ancient substance ontology is done away with entirely,” resulting in a “universalism without metaphysics.” The definition of metaphysics that Congdon uses is highly pejorative—“a mode of thinking that constrains rational inquiry from the outset with abstract, ahistorical presuppositions.” On this basis, Congdon sees it as useless, and indeed as mistaken or even harmful, to speak of God as “being” or “substance,” or to accept the ancient Christology that defined Jesus as “two natures” in “one person.” He comments on “the internal coherence of Chalcedonian christology.” Condgon’s theology seeks to make a clean sweep of metaphysics, while at the same time intending “to develop an account of participation” that “does not require recourse to a substantival ‘logic of assumption.’” Congdon rejects the idea of “human nature,” and for this reason his presuppositions will not allow for Christ to “assume” human nature or then to act in behalf of other human beings, in the way that was assumed by classical Christian thinkers. In cleansing the gospel from all vestiges of metaphysics, Congdon advocates a theological liberationism that he refers to as a “demetaphysicizing,” “detheorizing,” “deconstantinizing,” “deideologizing,” “desacramentalizing,” deinstitutionizing,” and “delegalizing” of Christianity.[1]

This is to just give the reader a feel for David’s theology; I think McClymond does a pretty good job summarizing the loci present in Congdon’s theology.

The bottom line that I am attempting to impress through this post is: that I am as far away from David’s theology these days as the whale is the elephant (and I mean that absolutely). You shouldn’t be turned onto David’s theology by reading anything I am promoting here at the blog; even if I constructively quote Congdon. I think David needs to repent and come back to the Gospel reality. He offers not just a heterodox Gospel, but a heretical Gospel. He is a fellow with the Westar Institute / Jesus Seminar, and has been for many years. He denigrates and literally mocks people on his Twitter handle who affirm the ‘orthodox-historic’ faith (the only way I know that is through my ghost-Twitter account). And he’s more than just a confused, smart, and erudite young theologian; he’s a dangerous teacher who is leading many young minds away from the orthodox Christ who is bodily-risen, and is coming again in like-manner that he left to physically establish a new heavens and earth in the eschaton. Clear? Good.

One more thing: I recognize that it’s a lost cause in calling back those I turned onto David years ago. But I would like to say I’m sorry for that, and sincerely wish I hadn’t. Does this sound melodramatic? Not to me. None of this is inconsequential when we think from eternity’s perspective. God doesn’t care about our little Twitter or Facebook or blog groups; there’s no source of ultimacy or “but” there in the finalization of things.

[1] Michael McClymond, Apocalypse Now: The Neo-Bultmannian Universalism of David Congdon’s The God Who Saves, accessed 08-29-2018.