I once posted this, and then took it down. I wanted to post it again because I think it is important for my readers to see. Why? Because back in the day I pointed many to Congdon. If I could I’d un-point them. The following is why.
I wanted to offer something of a response, or actually a reflection on David Congdon’s move from orthodox historic Christianity to something else. For some background: I came into contact with David probably all the way back in 2006 through blogging (when blogging was all the rage). In fact, through Halden Doerge, I came into contact not only with David, but with his bosom buddy, Travis McMaken (and a whole orbit of other folks, in their orbit, who I normally wouldn’t have had exposure to theologically). My contact with David has always been of the contentious sort, indeed one of our first real interactions came when he posted a response post to a blog post that I wrote on Barth and inerrancy (he has since taken that post down). The contention only really increased, apparently, to the point that both David and Travis completely cut me off from being able to access their social media outlets (Facebook and Twitter) at the same time. To this day I have no contact with David; it is what it is.
I say all of the above to provide some context for what I am going to write next. In other words, I don’t want this to appear as if this is simply out of the blue and that I just randomly came across David Congdon, and his writings; no, I have a past with David, and it is out of that exposure to his thought and development that I wanted to at least register the following.
In 2016 Congdon published his book The God Who Saves: A Dogmatic Sketch. In this book, which I have only read an extensive summary of from David himself, David comes out from orthodoxy, as it were, and attempts to reformulate a doctrine of salvation (and really the whole of the Christian faith) within and from the confines of the existentialist Christianity he has been in-formed by via his PhD work on Rudolf Bultmann. David writes:
What I set out to do instead in TGWS is rethink salvation from the ground up…. I define salvation existentially as the divine act of interruption that places us outside ourselves in solidarity with our neighbors, and specifically in solidarity with those who have been abandoned by the world and so participate in the Christ who died in God-abandonment. To be “saved” is to ally ourselves with those who already participate in Christ. Salvation already belongs to them in the sense that God is already with them and for them. Faith thus calls each person to follow the way God has already trod and continues to tread in each moment. Discipleship has nothing to do with moral purity, biblical knowledge, or theological correctness; it is in fact a willing abandonment of all such religious achievement and spiritual security in pursuit of the one and only thing that matters: a life shared in community and solidarity with others. Such a life alone counts as Christian, since such a life alone is faithful to the crucified one.[1]
This comes in response to two book reviews of David’s book—two favorable reviews—indeed the whole of my post here will be engaging only with what David references in that particular response of his. But what immediately stands out from the quote is David’s desire to rethink salvation from the ground up. Now, this isn’t necessarily a novel move, many constructive theologians through the centuries have attempted to think salvation (theoretically) from the ground up; indeed what we count as ‘orthodox’ today is a result of certain thinkers in the history of the church doing exactly this. So it isn’t this impulse that is ultimately problematic in David’s approach; instead, there’s something else, materially, that evinces as a result of David’s rethinking that becomes quite concerning—indeed, exceedingly sad. Yes, even in the quote we just shared from David we can see inklings that might begin to raise our antennas, but nothing, as of yet, that fundamentally represents an abandonment of the orthodox Christian faith.
Before I share what I found particularly disheartening from David’s personal development, I wanted to make one more point; an observation that I think might represent a cautionary for us all. What we find in Congdon’s approach is what we might want to call, in a typological fashion, a Cartesian Methodological Skepticism and deconstructionism. As critical thinkers we will all engage in the deconstruction and reconstruction of ideas; again, there is nothing unique to see here. But when such deconstruction is driven by a principled or methodic skepticism what was at first merely a tool of critical and modal thought has now become something of an acid that once let loose almost becomes impossible to contain. This, I would suggest, is what I think has happened in Congdon’s thought. I believe David, as many before him, started out in a very good place. Armed with his voracious appetite to learn, and an intellect and wit, just as voracious and tuned-in, Congdon moved into the theological world and made a series of decisions, for a complex of reasons that ultimately led him to conclude things about orthodox Christianity that led him away from orthodoxy itself. Here is the conclusion that reflects most what I am asserting in regard to David’s abandonment of what has counted as the historic orthodox Christian confession:
I should clarify here, for those who have not read the book, that universalism is no longer the concern it once was for me. I contracted the book because I was a convinced universalist, but by the time I wrote it, I had serious misgivings about all universalisms and no longer believed in a conscious afterlife anyway, so the driving question of most Christian universalisms—will everyone be saved from damnation and live with God for eternity?—had become moot for me.[2]
Right away, for most Christians their red flag rose up as they saw that David was a universalist; this in and of itself, for many Christians is a test for orthodoxy. For me, that is not the ultimate test. In other words, a person can hold a Christian or ‘evangelical’ universalism and not deny any of the tenets of what makes someone an orthodox Christian confessor (i.e. doctrine of God; doctrine of Christ; doctrine of salvation; authority of Scripture; etc.). Personally I repudiate universalisms (meaning views that see that all people one way or the other ending up in beatific vision, included in the heavenly kingdom, whether or not they said ‘yes’ to God in Christ pre-mortem), but this is not ultimately the problematic thing, I think, in David’s belief. It’s his rejection of a conscious afterlife. Belief in a ‘conscious afterlife’ in a noetic web of beliefs touches upon an extensive amount of interrelated beliefs, in a Christian dogmatic account, in such a way that it undoes some very basic touchstone and informing ideas that orthodox Christian belief has maintained through the centuries (in all expressions of orthodox Christian tradition). Most primary, and what may be the ultimate touchstone implicated by this rejection, is belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ himself. As we know, as Christians, the Apostle Paul sees this belief as the centraldogma of what makes Christianity viable
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.18 Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.[3]
It can’t be articulated any clearer. Congdon’s rejection of a conscious afterlife undercuts not only the hope of the Christian through millennia, but it undercuts the very foundation of Christian belief itself; i.e. the concrete, bodily resurrection of the God-man, Jesus Christ. Without the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ Christians have no hope, not only for the present, but for the future; and as such ought to go eat, drink, and be merry, along with Epicurus, for tomorrow we die.[4]
I wanted to highlight this because Congdon has verbosely highlighted all of this and more through his many publications and writings. I have known about this for awhile, but just as of yesterday read the blog post from David that has prompted me to write this. David has made it public, and as such has asked for public responses; indeed David ends his blog post this way: “…I am grateful to Juan Torres and David Roberts for continuing the conversation and look forward to future dialogues, both critical and constructive, not only about my work but more importantly about the fundamental question: what is the gospel for us today?”[5] I am afraid the concern goes beyond mere academic or internecine jousting, but indeed is of such a sober nature that it requires at least acknowledgement of the sort that David leaves off his post; i.e. ‘what is the gospel for us today?’
The reality is such that David Congdon has young minds, learning minds and hearts who pay attention to what he thinks and has to say. The concern is that if such minds and hearts were to follow David’s lead they will end up abandoning, just as David has, the historic orthodox Christian faith; they will abandon the real Jesus and the eternal life that he is in himself for them; and will ultimately be separate from the reality of God’s triune life and the attendant beatific vision that comes through communion and participation with the physically risen Savior of the world, Jesus Christ. This issue is really that sobering, and as such ought to be considered with this type of reality in mind. I am not suggesting that David is ultimately anathema, that is not my place to discern. What I am noting is that if someone, not a believer, came across David’s teaching, and internalized it, the Jesus they encounter there would have no redemptive power in their lives; because the Jesus David offers to the world is dead.
As David has noted, in the same post, he has suffered immense fall-out from publishing this book. He writes:
This was a very personal book to write, and it has become even more personal to me in the months since publication. The book cost me my job, forced my family to relocate, and has been the cause of great, enduring pain. In a way, the book’s theme of cocrucifixion and existential abandonment has become more real to me since writing it. But I do not regret a single word. It was something I had to write; the words were almost drawn out of me, as if I were more their amanuensis than author.[6]
It is unfortunate indeed, the type of fall out that is produced when someone not only personally moves away from orthodox Christian confession, but the fall out that is produced when someone publically makes this move. There is always a price to be paid for such moves, and the consequences affect real life people, like David and his family, as well as those who might place themselves under Congdon’s teaching (as he articulates that for public consumption through his various publications). It genuinely saddens me to see the path David has chosen, but he has indeed, for this season anyway, chosen such a path.[7]
We all have choices to make as we wrestle with the complexities of this life. At the end of the day it is important, I suggest, to keep our feet squarely planted on the foundation that no other can lay, but Jesus Christ alone; and to prayerfully and humbly ask that the Lord keep us situated within the parameters that he has provided through the teachers of his church in such a way that most accurately represents the Way.
P.S. I will have comments closed on this particular post. If you want to respond then email me at growba@gmail.com. I think a post like this has the potential for fomenting things in such a way that might not be fruitful in general, and might make me respond in such a way that it personally would not be fruitful. So for my protection, and yours, I am keeping comments closed on this post. I think I have kept things civil and irenic enough that further expansion and more words might result in things said by multiple parties that might undercut the spirit of this post. The spirit of this post has been one that is intended to simply reflect and respond, at a level, to a guy I’ve known (at a level) for many years; it’s a response or reflection that allows me to not only process my own thoughts, but then alerts others who have remained unaware, until now, of Congdon’s own developments as a thinker and theologian.
[1] David Congdon, Reversing Theology—A Personal Reply to Torres and Roberts, by David Congdon, accessed 02-27-2018.
[3] I Corinthians 15.12-19, NRSV.
[4] I don’t have it in print, but have heard that David rejects the bodily resurrection of Jesus. As apiece, this all fits with a subsequent rejection of conscious afterlife.
[7] If David reads this my guess is that he’ll take my concern here as disingenuous; but it’s not.