You don’t have to love, you don’t even have to like him; but I think David Congdon offers some valuable insights, particularly with reference to issues surrounding theological prolegomena and hermeneutics. His insights are penetrating, for my money, because he isn’t working from within but without the evangelical theological mainstream; and yet he is aware of the subculture that world is characterized by. I have my own and serious qualms with Congdon’s theological conclusions, but to constructively engage with him in spotty fashion does not commit the thinker to arrive at the place he has, respectively. With these ground clearing caveats in place, let’s engage with Congdon’s poignant critique of what he calls ‘the antihermeneutical turn.’

Hermeneutics or prolegomena (theological method) represent a very significant part of what I am about; if you hadn’t noticed. For many years as an evangelical I never realized that people weren’t just reading the Bible, as it is, straight off the page. In other words, it wasn’t until about seminary (a little prior in my later years of Bible College) that I realized the power that ‘interpretive tradition’ has for everyone! Once this sort of ‘Kantian’ lightning bolt hit me, I came to be a big believer in discerning how one’s prior theological system contributes to their biblical exegetical conclusions. In fact, one day in Reformation Theology class, when this realization hit me with passion, I raised my hand and pressed my professor on this very problem; viz. the hermeneutical problem. He simply, and at that point, wisely said: ‘that’s a good question.’ If we all have informing theologies shaping the way we read Holy Scripture, then who’s to say that my reading is more biblically faithful than that person’s? This represents the nub of the hermeneutical problem. There are differing ways to engage with it. Typically, at least among many Protestants, it is either to disengage with the problem; or if one is more disposed toward the more academic bent, it has become popular in those circles to simply refer to the rule of faith (regula fide) of the ‘Great Tradition’ of the Church to serve as regulative for how one reads Scripture. In fact, I have a Protestant friend who is just going to publication with an essay that, as I recall, premises in this very vein.

Congdon identifies the genealogy of the antihermeneutical problem in a lengthy footnote taken from his big tome on Bultmann. I want to share what he communicates therein, and then engage further with what I take some of the implications of his genealogy (and critique) to be. He writes:

The history of this “turn” is closely connected with the legacy of Bultmann. In the 1970s the academic fascination with Bultmann’s theology came crashing to a halt. There are two equally valid explanations for this. On the theological “left” Bultmann was superseded by theologies (represented especially by those of Jürgen Moltmann and Dorothee Sölle) that relocated the hermeneutical problem within sociopolitical praxis. On the theological “right” Bultmann was superseded by two interconnected movements, what we might call ecumenical ecclesiocentrism and antihermeneutical postliberalism. The ecclesiocentric revolution was initiated by the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) and gave rise to what has become known as communio ecclesiology. Even many of those who rejected this specific ecclesiology nevertheless embraced the ecumenical insight that there is a common ecclesial-doctrinal substance beneath its contemporary permutations, namely, the shared Nicene orthodox faith. For our purposes the key aspects of this movement have been (a) the identification of the church qua corporate body as the primary and authoritative reader of scripture and (b) the identification of the church’s orthodox tradition as the criterion for the reading of Scripture.

Ecumenical ecclesiocentrism, in all its various forms, is closely related to the second movement that contributed even more significantly to the overthrow of the Marburg school’s dominance in the theological academy. What I have called antihermeneutical postliberalism names the turn away from the hermeneutical problem to the plain text of the Bible. Many of the leaders in postliberalism, such as Robert Jenson and George Lindbeck, were also leaders in the ecumenical movement. As with the ecclesiocentric turn, the antihermeneutical turn is notable for the way it came to be embraced by North American evangelicals. While evangelicals had their own concerns, they were nevertheless involved in the surge of interest in biblical interpretation and authority that was taking place more generally; in response to postliberalism many evangelicals (e.g., Roger Olson and Kevin Vanhoozer) developed their own postconservative alternative. The following are some key dates: in 1970, Brevard Childs published Biblical Theology in Crisis; in 1974, Hans Frei’s Eclipse of Biblical Narrative appeared; in 1975, David Kelsey’s The Use of Scripture in Recent Theology; in 1976, Carl F. Henry’s six-volume God, Revelation and Authority; also in 1976, Harold Lindsell’s The Battle for the Bible; in 1978, the “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy”; and in 1980, David Steinmetz’s seminal article, “The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis.” These early developments continue today in the form of so-called “theological interpretation of scripture,” which has become a joint movement of both mainline postliberals and evangelical postconservatives. The cumulative effect of this intense interest in scripture has been, at least in many circles, the overthrow of critical hermeneutical inquiry—the Sachkritik approach advocated by Bultmann—in the theological academy. This is what I mean by “antihermeneutical.” To be sure, many postliberals and evangelicals show a profound grasp of the hermeneutical problem, but they respond to this problem by neutralizing it via recourse to the church and its tradition. Today many of those who were once enthralled with historical-critical methods are advocating the use of the regula fidei as the norm for exegesis. Whether these developments are to be welcomed is another matter entirely.[1]

What resonates greatly with me are the folks David lists as being formative for the evangelical surging into the antihermeneutical problem. In other words, in my evangelical training, almost every single person he lists, whether postliberal or conservative, figured greatly in my education. Towards the end of that in my undergrad days, I began to discern and sense some of the problems associated with the way these teachers were seemingly attempting to gloss over the hermeneutical problem; mostly by deferring it.

I want to suggest, along with Congdon, that this antihermeneutical mode has only become that much more acute over the last two decades. There has been a doubling-down by evangelicals, in particular, to abandon the historical-critical method of biblical engagement, for the rule of faith and precritical biblical exegetical method. There typically is very little argument given for this move, except for demonizing the whole modern period of thought; and it is now just assumed that return back to the past is the way forward for the development of evangelical theology and bible reading practices. So, the evangelical response, is to throw themselves in with the high Church, and defer to its authority for arriving at the most faithful exegetical and theological conclusions the Christian can ostensibly arrive at.

This doesn’t sit well with me; indeed, my whole project, my whole blogging career might be my attempt to engage with this problem at some level. With many evangelicals, and others, I have issues with the modern historical-critical reading of Scripture; but I equally have problems with the retrieval movement currently underway in the evangelical sector. The former, in my view, is simply a deferment to the authority of the individual (even collectively), and the latter a deferment to the authority of the “Church.” Neither of these options honestly engage with the ‘problem,’ they simply kick the can back to what they deem as established authorities as those have taken form in the history, one way or the other. But you see how this only reinforces the problem, right? We are deciding who has the authority to tell us what the text means; yet all this then becomes is a self-projecting project of ‘my’ or ‘our’ authority to defer to someone else’s. The loop never has any other beginning but the human agent; even as that is constituted by the institutional Enlightenment or the institutional Church. Indeed, this is what Feuerbach was so critical of: the issue of self-projection and the circular nature that entails.

Congdon’s denouement is a turn into missiological theory, and Bultmann’s contribution to and development of that in his own method. My denouement is to turn to dialogical and dialectical theology, primarily that of Barth’s and Torrance’s. I am not totally sure how to highlight the distinction between my alternative and David’s, other than to say that ecclesial grammar has greater play for me than it does, I think, for Congdon. Congdon is arguing for a greater convergence between Barth and Bultmann than many of the Bultmannians have wanted there to be; and following Congdon’s line, I think there probably is. But in my view, Bultmann still gives too much place to the human agent, and an existentialism devoid of real groundedness in history, than does Barth. Barth still has an ‘existential’ component, particularly as that is grounded in his analogy of faith/relation (see Jüngel), but he still moves and breathes within the contours set out by the Nicene grammar that Bultmann seemingly moves beyond; and Congdon certainly moves beyond.

What is the real conclusion here?: I need to write more on dialogical and dialectical theology in such a way that the distinction I am noting between myself and Congdon gains greater traction with understanding. My approach to biblical studies is grounded in ‘encounter’ that is continuous and ongoing with the living Christ. In this sense, there is an aspect of existentialism present. But I would argue that the “authority” is not from ‘my side’ but in the One who is encountering me as Lord. How this gets turned into a normative hermeneutic that has some sort of salience between me and others, without reducing to an absolute subjectivism, is fodder for another post. But I think there is a way forward that takes Congdon’s points seriously, without committing oneself to a Bultmannian roadmap. More to come.

[1] David W. Congdon, The Mission Of Demythologizing: Rudolf Bultmann’s Dialectical Theology (Minneapolis: Fortess Press, 2015), 545-46 n. 95.