Category Archives: Contextual Theology

Reflecting On Charles Taylor’s Social Imaginary and Buffered Self

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I read through Charles Taylor’s tome, Secular Age, a few years ago; it took me a couple years to get through. I think his sociological analyses, peppered with theological riffs, represents some of the most profound observational insights available. While I was reading through it, I found some of his theological eloquence lacking, especially with reference to his reading of Calvinism. But ultimately that lacuna didn’t subtract from his overall cultural and sociological analysis. For me his most poignant themes remain his thinking on the social imaginary along with the buffered [secular] self. These two intellections, respectively, have been most applicable in my day-to-day existence out there in the big world. These themes have helped me keep the world in order so to speak. In other words, they have allowed me to have the critical valence and distanciation necessary to continuously place the various cultural-identity-posture expressions into some identifiable frame; indeed, expressions presented by the heathen, the religious, and the Christian alike.

On social imaginary: this has served as a helpful psychologizing factor, as far as realizing that all of humanity has various ideational categories that they are consciously or subconsciously drawing from in order to navigate their relative places in this ‘world system.’ It isn’t always easy to identify the various in-forming and out-forming pressures from whence the people are indeed formed. Even so, just knowing that there are clusters of various social imaginaries present in the world, an ordered filament, to one extent or another, an intellectual press that has a pedigree of development in the history of the world’s ideas, this helps me to approach people with an understanding that they aren’t as ‘naked’ or absolutely subjective as they think they might be. And of course, this sword doesn’t just cut on them ‘out there,’ but also on me, ‘in here,’ in my own spiritual and intellectual development.

On the buffered self: this dovetails with the social imaginary. People, whether conscious or not, use various belief-structures, social imaginaries, often-times, as coping mechanisms that allow them to navigate a world of other people who might present with competing social imaginaries. This is to say, the buffered self in the modern and postmodern periods, respectively, often-times and relativistically, picks the ideas and theories of life that they have inherited from the past, consciously or not, to keep the other competing social imaginaries, out there, at bay. That is to say, that in our highly individualistic world, people deploy mechanisms of ideation and belief in order to keep the world of the other ‘out there,’ in an attempt to keep a semblance of order internal to their own self-development and truths. The buffered self, I would contend, is simply representative of what might be identified as a modal collapse, an absolute immanentization of total reality, as perceived atomistically by each individual, into the turn-to-the-subject. That is, the buffered self, as the fallen self, vis-à-vis God, necessarily imbibes what it perceives to be the attributes of God into their own preponderances and activities in the world as human and individual agents. Thusly, the buffered self seeks a life of absolute autonomy, as monadic centers circumscribed purely by their own self-perception as gods among other gods; each god ostensibly capable of constructing their own worlds, their own truths.

The above, on a sketch, represents how it is that I have personally appropriated a couple of Taylor’s themes as critical mechanisms that allow me, in an attempt, to find some semblance of intellectual and sociological order, even whilst living in the midst of a world wherein each individual human agent believes themselves to be gods. From a biblically narratival vantage point what I have been describing, clearly, is a reference to the fall of humanity as that is described in Genesis 3.

On “The Neo-Dark Ages of Modern Theology”: Getting Beyond the Smorgasbord of 21st Century Evangelical Theology without Ditching the Modern

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Theology isn’t a smorgasbord, but to view my evangelical world you’d never know it. High church confessionalists/traditionalists have greater clarity in this area than does the low-Free-church evangelical world. This is largely due to the fact that us evangelicals were formed out of the post-Enlightenment, deconfessionalized mode of ecclesial identity. In other words, evangelicals, by and large, are a people of the Book, yet abstracted from the Bible’s broader historical reception as that perdured into the medieval and Post Reformed orthodox period. It is difficult to write on this just because what it means to be an evangelical these days represents a massive continuum. Many so-called evangelicals were raised in the sort of deconfessionalized vanilla evangelicalism I am referring to above, and it is for precisely this reason that these types are attempting retrieve what they believe to be the theological foundations of evangelicalism; particularly as that is found in scholasticism Reformed.

But what I largely take evangelicalism to be is indeed a mode of modernity. That is, most of evangelicalism is a product of the 18th and 19th centuries, and the revivalism/conversionism therein. This is a religion shorn of its historical antecedents, and one that focuses on the turn-to-the-subject, on a warm-hearted pietism that focuses more on an individualistic understanding of Christian spirituality rather than on a spirituality formed by the communio sanctorum. With this ‘turn’ in place, evangelicals, modern in just this way, feel free to roam the planes and valleys in search of whatever expression of the Christian development suits their fancy; however said fancy may have developed for them. These evangelicals aren’t anchored to a tradition, or a confession, per se; at best, their confession is: ‘me-and-my-Jesus-me-and-my-Bible.’ Armed with this mantra, girdled by a staunch solo Scriptura, such evangelicals have little time for church history; especially when church history for them started the day they received Jesus into their hearts. When church history starts in a center in the self-possessed self, it is this self that gets to determine what sorts of theologies they will be formed by. And even if this type of evangelical looks to the past it will always be grounded in the touchstone of their lives, them.

As far as sketches go, I think the above, in an oversimplified way works. When attempting to fellowship with Christians who have been spiritually formed under such conditions (the ones just mentioned) it becomes quite difficult to achieve any sort of depth dimension, insofar as that dimension exists in the tradition[s] of the church. If such evangelicals have intentionally shucked the husk of the church’s confessions it becomes almost completely impossible to go any deeper than 1973, or whenever said evangelical said yes to Jesus. This produces, at an essential level, a fragmented communion, and as such when communions like this attempt to stand together, say against the wiles of the devil, what ends up happening is that the spiritual vacuum their lives are funded by quickly becomes exposed. In an attempt to shore up this vacuum the evangelical will collectively project their sense of individuality onto their leader; i.e. their erstwhile charismatically gifted pastor. As such, a personality cult is born, and the peoples’ unity becomes contingent upon the man, instead of the cosmic Christ, as He has leavened His church with His wisdom throughout the centuries in the communio sanctorum (communion of the saints).

Maybe this helps frame the way of evangelicalism in these our days. Maybe you feel famished, bereft of any depth reality in your daily Christian spirituality. The church is part of a cosmic reaching reality just as her esse is grounded in Jesus Christ and the Triune God. When Christians are cut off from this deep theological (and even historical) well, it becomes seemingly bleak when attempting to move and breath as a Christian in the 21st century. Is the antidote to this to do what the evangelical theologians of retrieval are attempting, to demonize modern theological developments, and jump back to the ostensible formations of “genuine evangelical” theology, as that is supposedly funded and founded in the Post Reformed orthodox developments (of the 16th and 17th centuries)? This doesn’t seem, to me, to be the best way forward. While I am a proponent of being critical of the negative turns made by the ‘new theology’ of the 18th and 19th c. I am not of the belief that modern theology, and even aspects of so-called turn-to-the-subject are purely evil. I believe it is possible to take what modern (and its antecedent mediating) theology has handed to us, and constructively reify that from within a genuinely Christ conditioned confessional frame regulated by what I take to be the regula fidei (rule of faith) of Christ’s life who continuously is in-breaking into His church even today.

Personally, while I reject the smorgasbord self-interested spirituality and doctrinal quilting of most of 21st c. Evangelical style, I think it is imprudent to simply ditch the whole modern period as if representative of a neo-dark ages that must be ignored. I think this is imprudent because in order to do so the “jumper” (of the ditch of modernity) must posit themself in such a way (which itself is a purely modern way to think) to imagine that they aren’t inherently modern themselves. But they are indeed a modern people, and when they attempt to ignore modern theology, in se, they only assume modernity’s anthropological mode of positing or starting with a self-asserted self in search of the ‘true-theology’ (the one developed, in their discursive reasonings, in the 16th and 17th c). In my view, it is best to simply acknowledge that we are a modern people, and to understand that God has been speaking to and in His church in and through all periods. This way we, as the people of God, are starting in a position where we are not the magisterium, but the ministerium of God’s Holy people the church. In other words, when we acknowledge that God has been present throughout, as if a yeast, the ambit of all church history, up to and into the present moment, we are recognizing that we are simply beggars-all, waiting upon God. As we are formed from this alien starting point, in the center of God’s life for us in Jesus Christ, as He ever afresh anew makes Himself known to us, it is from this eagle’s nest, seated at the Right Hand of the Father, high above all rulers and principalities, that the Christian can genuinely operate from the confessional reality of God’s life for us in Jesus Christ.

This is just the beginning of a proposal.

Christian Atheists, Woke Christianity, and the 19th Century as its Antecedent

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Having historical perspective can actually change your life, but only as a subset of having eternal perspective; insofar that genuine human history is Christ’s history for us. As such I like to study church history and historical theology, among other histories, in order to gain this sort of perspective; particularly when it comes to ideas. I have been reading through James Ungureanu’s most excellent book (published PhD dissertation) Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition: Retracing the Origins of Conflict in order to help me get the sort of historical footing I think is so pivotal towards understanding my place in the stream of ideas and movements thereof. Ungureanu is a historian of science, but with a theological twist. In his book he offers a seismic perspective on how the so-called ‘conflict thesis’ (or warfare thesis) developed between science and religion. What he demonstrates is just how much of this ostensible warfare is really an anachronistic imposition upon the past; i.e. that this so-called conflict, and the people it is typically assigned to, as its progenitors (Draper and White), is fake news. Be that as it may, in order to establish his thesis, James must do the deep-dive archeological work of uncovering the artifacts of history that others have moved quickly past (without making the proper connections etc.).

I want to simply pause and share a morsel of this artifactual work that implicates our current cultural moment, in regard to the socio-politico-religio sitz im laben we inhabit as Christians in the Protestant West. For some reason, most likely because of historical illiteracy among the masses, the Young, Restless, and Progressive seem to think they are engaging in something fresh and new; in regard to the liberal nature of the sort of activist and ‘woke’ Christianity they are attempting to live out in the churches and in the streets of America and across the Western globe. This all has ideational and historical antecedent that I’d propose most are ignorant of. It has already played out before. The young (and the historically ignorant) are simply playing out what has already been played out in the history; and to its adherent’s eternal destruction. Ungureanu writes of what was known as ‘new theology’ (or religion without theology), and its historical landscape this way:

The previous chapters give some indication of the vast changes Christianity experienced during the nineteenth century. Advances in natural and historical sciences, intentional or not, seemed to many a direct assault on traditional Christian belief. Debates about the character of Christian faith raged both inside and outside the church during the century, and out of these debates emerged new ways of thinking about the nature of faith, the historical Jesus, the character and authority of Scripture, the truth of revelation, and the future of religion.

While the nineteenth century was undoubtedly an intensely Christian era, it was also a time of much doubt and disillusionment. As scholar of religion Linda Woodhead has put it, the nineteenth century witnessed the “reinvention” of Christianity. Those who rejected traditional Christian belief, but who claimed to remain theists, often adhered to some form of liberal theology. This new or “reinvented” Christianity was part and parcel of nineteenth-century liberal Protestantism. For the religious liberal, there was an “acute sense of the need for a reformation of Christianity,” an attempt to accommodate Christianity to the modern era. Recognizing that advances in the sciences and historical-critical scholarship had supposedly contradicted established religious ideas, many attempted to ameliorate the emerging malaise by readjusting or reconstructing the meaning of religion. As we have seen, nineteenth-century liberal Protestantism generally responded to higher criticism and scientific naturalism by transforming rather than abandoning the faith. By the last decades of the century, the New Theology or “new religion” movement had found numerous supporters on both sides of the Atlantic.

What this “new” or “freer” religion looked like, however, was deeply contested, as we saw in the previous chapter regarding the “Quadrangular Duel” between Herbert Spencer, Fredric Harrison, James Fitzjames Stephen, and Wilfrid Philip Ward. However the “new religion” was conceived, many men and women in the nineteenth century believed that the reconciliation of science and religion depended on it. One important strategy used by liberal Protestants and religionists at the end of the century was turning “theology” into a pejorative. By contrasting the ideal of a free, progressive scientific inquiry against the authoritative, reactionary methods of theology, religious liberals imagined dogma, not faith, as the true obstacle of modern thought. Conflict occurred, they believed, not between scientific truth and religious truth, but between scientific truth and religious truth, but between contesting theological traditions. If religion would only rid itself of dogmatism and ecclesiastical authority, science and religion would be in harmony. The distinction between, and separation of, religion and theology was thus incredibly important—indeed, everything hinged on it. Many liberal Protestants believed the separation of religion from theology was the best approach to bridging the schism between modern thought and ancient faith, and thus for bringing about reconciliation between science and religion. The separation of religion from theology of course antedates the late nineteenth century. As we discussed earlier, a number of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thinkers used this distinction in their effort to construct a “rational” or “natural” religion. But the distinction was tainted by a strong anticlerical polemic that largely remained in effect into the next century, when mainstream Protestants were beginning to adopt more modernist ideas. By the late nineteenth century, however, this anti-Catholic polemic has transformed into a Protestant self-critique, and subsequently into the “Protestantism minus Christianity” narrative we have seen in the work of Edward L. Youmans and the scientific naturalists.[1]

Earlier I may have laid too much emphasis on the young, but millennial and younger seem to have taken a certain reception of the mainstream progressive liberalism Ungureanu refers us to. But as noted, all of the ‘new’ developments have been around for many centuries, in their most modern instance, though, as we find it in the 19th century. If you have had any exposure to mainline Protestantism the ‘feeling’ that Ungureanu narrates for us in its historical iteration is a known quantity; in other words, these things are not foreign to you.

One problem with thinking this way is that progressives and the ‘new religion’ seems to think they can escape dogma and ecclesiastical authority. But as should be apparent this sort of movement away from such realities doesn’t actually remove them it only creates a vacuum wherein new dogma and ‘ecclesiastical authority’ emerges; even if it only masquerades as their negations. The issue of dogma and authority isn’t a matter of if there is going to be such components, but whether or not the dogma and authority are good. When we look at how this new religion has been fleshed out in the broader culture today it is clear that in fact a hyper-dogmatic and hyper-authoritarianism has replaced the old dogma and ecclesiastical authority. Wokeness, which is the new religion of today (that finds correspondence with the feeling of the 19th century iteration), has all sorts of dogmas, and authority figures that intend on keeping people in line with their works-righteous and liberating view of salvation.[2] This is what happens when we do a religion minus Christianity; or more pointedly, minus the orthodox and risen Christ who is homoousios.

[1] James Ungureanu, Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition: Retracing the Origins of Conflict (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), 216-17.

[2] Think, Liberation Theology and its neo-Marxist and Critical Theory nexus.

The SBC, Enemies Within The Church, and the Discernment Ministers: Discerning the Discerners

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Let me offer a brief word on so called ‘discernment bloggers.’ Discernment blogging is still alive and well, it used to be bigger about a decade ago; but it’s still operative in various corners of the ethernet. Discernment bloggers are typically of a fundamentalist caste, often hyper-fundamentalist. Their primary modes is to sniff out “liberalism-creep” wherever it may or may not be. They still operate out of that turn of the 19th and 20th century fundy-fear wherein the belief that dominates is that the evil liberals are attempting to break into the evangelical churches through whatever means they might find access to. So, for the rest of this post I will engage with an example of this that I just ran across.

Phil Johnson, executive director of John MacArthur’s radio ministry Grace To You, and editor of most of JMac’s books has been a spearhead for discernment blogging as far back as 2004 or 05 (when I came across him). He still maintains his team blog called Pyromaniacs; although it is pretty much dormant these days. Nevertheless, Phil is still very active on Twitter; and I follow him. He just shared a link to a podcast done by a guy named Jon Harris; a self-loathing graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Phil commends Harris’s podcast (which can be watched here) as Harris is engaging with what he, Phil, and many others of their ilk take to be liberal drift currently underway in the Southern Baptist Convention; according to their lights. Now, I’m not associated with the SBC in any way; although I am Baptist in orientation (but Conservative Baptist by trade). Nevertheless, I have many contacts on social media and in real life who indeed are Southern Baptist. And so, it is interesting to see the impact this sort of “discernment” is having in this arena, and among these contacts.

Harris’s podcast, and Johnson’s recommendation of it, have to do with what is called Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and its current movement into the SBC. They see a seepage of CRTI into the Southern Baptist seminaries; particularly at its flagship where Al Mohler is the president. In the podcast, Jon Harris engages with a video produced by an online group called Enemies Within: The Church. EWTC is in the process of producing a documentary that will be an attempt to shine a light on what they take to be the erosion of the evangelical churches in toto; indeed, they see CRTI as the primary means by which the liberals are penetrating the churches. They write in description of their motive and documentary the following (in full):

Enemies Within: The Church is an educational, historical, and evidence-based movie experience that provokes a passionate return to orthodox Christian faithfulness across the western world. As is necessary for such a wonderful turn toward Christ, the movie heralds a clarion call for Christians to turn away from popular, yet errant beliefs held in contradiction to carefully interpreted Holy Scriptures. But Enemies Within: The Church is much more than a mere movie. It is also an invitation for believers to employ a proven Biblical recipe capable of producing restored strength and blessing for all who answer.

Specifically, the movie encourages the Church to cleanse itself from contamination imposed by cultural Marxism and a heretical teaching known as “The Social Justice Gospel.” By hearing the exchanges between the movie’s host and experts interviewed around the world, viewers are provided with a bright light shining upon truths formerly hidden behind the white noise of shallow pop-culture. In the end, the audience is pointed toward a hope-filled and practical action plan that produces solutions found only in and through the royal Law of Christ.

The movie elucidates the fact that every single problem faced by western civilization is, ultimately, a theological problem, and every solution to every problem is a theological absolute. It answers the question: “What happened to living, powerful, transformative, nation-shaking Christianity?”

The documentary reminds its audience that during the twentieth century, the twin evils of communism and fascism were responsible for the slaughter of nearly 200 million people. Both forces attempted (and were often successful) to co-opt Christianity to serve their goals. Filmmakers Judd Saul, Trevor Loudon, Curtis Bowers, and movie host, Pastor Cary Gordon, of Cornerstone World Outreach in Sioux City, Iowa, show that the Marxists are still actively and successfully pursuing this goal in a church near you at this very moment.

In Matthew 10:16, Jesus intentionally warns: “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep amid wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” In John 8:44, Jesus refers to the devil as the “Father of Lies.” Leaning upon empirical, unassailable evidences, this documentary film reveals the subversive ideas, persons, and organizations who are clearly shown as active participants in efforts to undermine the Christian Church and systematically destroy its foundations from within.

The production team of Enemies Within: The Church is faithfully committed to working within the Biblical parameters of such important duties, as commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 18:15-20, echoed by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, and in Ephesians 5:1-15.[1]

They clearly are taking their work seriously, and have assembled a team of guys with the experience to pull off a professional looking and sounding documentary. They have funders, and are in the process of raising more monies to fund their project.

In the short video produced by them, that Harris engages with, they go after a young new professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary named, Walter Strickland. Strickland is a black gentleman, and teaches in the area of theology; while also serving as the Vice President of Diversity at SBTS. In the video they offer select examples from various interviews that Strickland has done, in order to prove their case. In the clips of Strickland, they cross reference what he is saying with clips of the ostensible founder of Black Theology, James Cone. The clips they share of Strickland have him saying that he is a serious student of all of Cone’s works. As he lists many of them, they then cut away to Cone as he explains these same books; then they also post quotes from some of Cone’s work along with another black liberation theologian named: Roberts. By stringing these various clips together, the viewer is led to believe that Strickland is an uncritical and even flaming follower of Cone in every way. Beyond this, they also offer a short vignette on Mohler’s righthand man named, Matt Hall. They offer a clip from him where he seems to be claiming that simply because he is white, that he can’t help but be a racist and white supremacist; that is, under the conditions set forth by CRT. EWTC believes they have presented an air tight case for demonstrating, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Strickland, Hall, Mohler, and the SBTS et al. are all willing proponents of CRTI. Thus, the further implication of this is that SBC (under Mohler’s leadership), and SBTS (and the other seminaries) have given themselves over to a full-fledged theological liberalism; of a heretical hue.

Harris calls Cone, and by implication, Strickland, Hall et al. heretics. Indeed, this is why these discerners are so amped up. They believe that in order to be accepted by the broader culture that these leaders in the SBC have sought the praise of men rather than God. But I see no evidence of this; not even after I watched EWTC’s video, or after listening to Harris’s podcast. At the moment it simply seems to be a witch hunt, and an attempt to find some sort of controversy in order to rile up the base that these discernment men see as their flock.

My post here is an attempt to discern the self-proclaimed discerners. None of these guys seem to actually understand what actual progressive theology entails. They are confusing some in the SBC for progressives, when mutatis mutandis, those in the SBC couldn’t be further from the progressives/liberals. I am quite conservative socially, and most of these guys in the SBC by comparison make me look like a progressive. I only note that, to underscore how off point these discernment ministries/bloggers are. They are constructing a boogeyman where there is only an attempt on some of these SBCr’s part to attempt to engage critically with the broader culture.

Maybe SBC is awry. I am not a fan, per se, of Critical Race Theory or Intersectionality, and see them as unnecessary ‘tools’ in order to engage with the culture. I recognize that these discernment folks have the same sort of concern. But what is driving them is ill-founded precisely because they don’t seem to have the ability to more critically discern what in fact is afoot in the SBC in actuality. I just don’t see the SBC sliding into liberalism because they are okay with using CRTI as an analytical tool; which is what they have recently said at their convention. Do I think there are better ways to engage with the culture, more theologically rich ways that elide the intellectual problems that I think come with CRTI? Yes.

But my whole point in this post is to discern a problem I see with the discernment people out there. If it wasn’t this issue, they would have some other reason for finding liberalism in the evangelical churches; other than their own local churches (where they are the leaders). They have made an idol out of finding their identity in sniffing out liberalism even if it isn’t present. They look to their origin story in the formation of Fundamentalism in the early 20th century, and attempt to keep that spirit alive. They are of the mind that liberalism is always waiting to pounce, and they are the ones to find it and crush it. And it is true, progressivism would like nothing else but to take over the world. But the SBC isn’t even close to that world. I don’t see it in Strickland, or any of these others. But the discerners traffic in sensationalism, and that’s what they’re in the process of constructing currently.

[1] Enemies Within: The Church, Synopsis, accessed 08-14-2019.

Speaking OF God Rather Than ABOUT, Speaking OF the Text Rather Than ABOUT: Josh Harris and the Classical Calvinists as a Case Study

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I just recently had interaction with some classical Calvinists, once again. The topic was Josh Harris and his ‘apostatizing,’ from the faith of Christ. The claim was made that Harris was unregenerate all along: “It’s sobering that an unregenerate pastor could give God’s people great insights into the Scripture without knowing the God of the Scriptures. It’s also sobering to think that many who were with the Apostles turned away from the Gospel preached by the Apostles (2 Tim. 4:10).”[1] But at this moment I am less interested in discussing Harris, and am more focused on the hermeneutical theory to arrive at the exegetical conclusion that someone like Harris was unregenerate all along. My interlocutor references 2 Tim, but more apropos, and what I think is informing even more didactically is 1 John 2:18-19, which reads: “18 Children, it is the last hour, and just as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen, by which we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out[, in order that it might be shown that all of them are not of us.” This represents hard teaching, which 2 Tim. is illustrative of rather than a direct teaching. But this issue, again, points up, in my view, a prior commitment to a particular theological or dogmatic construct which is used to artificially arrive at exegetical conclusions that aren’t as ‘objectively’ present in the [con]text as it might seem. Categorically we might affirm the idea, in a de jure fashion, that there are people who fabricate an appearance of salvation in order to reach certain social statuses, and other achievements; whatever vanity might drive those. But just because there are a sampling of people who meet this criteria, as laid out in passages like 1 John and 2 Timothy, does not necessarily mean at a de facto level that all people who “deny the faith,” are not ‘regenerate,’ per se. In other words, it would be wrong to simply read passages like 2 Tim. and 1 Jn. and presume that all people, at a prima facie level, simply fit that category in a reduced way. And this gets us into the issue of theological exegesis.

All people do theological exegesis when they read Holy Scripture; even atheists. If Kant has taught us anything, he has taught us that we are captive to our own enculturation and location; as such, we need to be critically aware of this, and understand how that impacts our interpretation of the biblical text. This is where many classical Calvinists, and many others (myself included) fall prey to the idea that their ‘confessions, creeds, and catechisms,’ represent some sort of objective standard by which the “most faithful” reading of Scripture can be gained in codified fashion. With this belief in hand, the classical Calvinist (just picking on them for this post) feels free to dogmatically assert that someone like Harris was never regenerate to begin with; and this having less to do with the biblical texts, and more to do with the metaphysics and doctrinal material that stands behind their reading of the text. For example, in the history of interpretation, classical Calvinists have concepts like ‘temporary faith’ and ‘experimental predestinarianism’ at play. Temporary faith (which Calvin ironically also held to) is the idea that someone can look, sound, and smell like one of the elect, but in the end never really were to begin with. We can see how this might superficially correlate with a passage like 1 Jn. 2. Conversely, experimental predestinarianism maintains that a person might indeed have only a temporary non-efficacious faith, and as such the proof in the pudding will be to see if they actually and finally persevere to the end. If not, they never were one of the elect, and thus never were “of us.” With these doctrinal loci in play the classical Calvinist will dogmatically read these into passages like we’ve had reference to, and arrive at conclusions that the text itself, in contextual array, may well not be teaching whatsoever.

All of the aforementioned noted to get us into a discussion about how our engagement of Holy Scripture always entails a level of subjectivity that cannot simply be surpassed by assertion. In order to push into this further I wanted to refer to David Congdon’s treatment of Rudolf Bultmann, and how Bultmann confronts the faulty notion of catechetical objectivity as that implicates our interpretation of the biblical text. Congdon writes:

Bultmann’s response is one he would continue to give throughout the entirety of his career: such an approach is simply impossible. “Every exegesis, as something undertaken by a subject, is subjective.” The claim by these forms of modern exegesis to have overcome subjectivity by way of a fixed method is simply a “new subjectivism,” for the chosen method is always the “perspective that follows from the underlying interpretation of human existence.” The very selection and execution of a method is a subjective act, involving specific judgments and contextual presuppositions. For that reason “there is no neutral exegesis.” The modern pursuit of a purely nonsubjective interpretation is an act of “self-delusion,” for “the interpretation [Auslegung] of the text always goes hand in hand with the self-interpretation [Selbstauslegung] of the exegete.” To interpret the text is to interpret oneself, or rather, to find oneself interpreted by another.

Here we have the hermeneutical equivalent of Bultmann’s theological-epistemological claim, also published in 1925, that “talking of God, if it were possible, would necessarily be at the same time a talking of oneself.” In the same way that there can be no meaningful talk about God, so there can be no meaningful talk about the text. Talking about each is the delusional attempt to confine either God or the text to a purportedly objective and neutral method. Instead, one can only meaningfully talk of God and of the text, which means there has to be a genuine encounter in each case, one in which the human subject participates in the reality of the subject matter. The pursuit of neutrality is the truly pernicious form of subjectivism, for there the human subject is in full control of the text that denies the text’s capacity to speak to us with authority. For this reason “exegesis must be explicitly guided by the question of self-interpretation, if it does not want to fall into subjectivism.”[2]

In order to engage Scripture under the terms outlined for us by Congdon, vis-à-vis Bultmann, requires that the interpreter live in a mode of vulnerability and humility before the living God with trust that God truly speaks and has the pneumatic capacity to confront us in all of our vainglorious certainty about just how things are. The moral of Congdon’s development is ‘the question of self-interpretation,’ this is a matter of being self-critical and understanding that we never approach the text of Scripture from a neutral standpoint. In the case of the Harris and classical Calvinist example, the reality is that the classical Calvinist exegete ends up reading an a priori theological construct onto the text of Scripture with the result leading to a view that absolutely damns Harris (and others like Harris) to an eternal hell. But maybe the classical Calvinist should move slower. If we are being self-critical interpreters, do these texts operate from an inner-theological thrust that necessarily leads the exegete to the classical Calvinist conclusion about Josh Harris? Is it possible that the collectively formed confessions and creeds appealed to by such interpreters are so mired in the subjectivities of their drafters that the text of Scripture ends up being sublated by the culturally inspired intellectual mores of their day?

These are deep matters. But the basic point should be to highlight the fact that we all bring theological constructs to the exegesis of Holy Scripture. The question remains: which constructs are most organically proximate to the Gospel reality? Which constructs are most open to recognizing that God still speaks; that He didn’t stop doing that in 16th and 17th century Western Europe? These are important questions. There are important questions to ask of Bultmann’s thinking as well. That will have to wait for another day.

[1] Anonymous Facebook Source.

[2] David W. Congdon, The Mission Of Demythologizing: Rudolf Bultmann’s Dialectical Theology (Minneapolis: Fortess Press, 2015), 716-17.

 

Contextual Theology, A Reflection for Karl Barth

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There is often an attack on the reality that theology is contextual; this is a point that folks often bring out when they want to marginalize a theologian or a theological system that they don’t especially appreciate. This tactic, in my experience, is most often brought in to play when discussing Karl Barth’s theology. Again, as a result of a discussion I had yesterday, I have been prompted to reflect upon this once again. The point is usually made that because Karl Barth’s theology (for example) took shape in lieu of the Kantian ‘Modern’ backdrop, and in particular the Natural Theology abused by the Third Reich and Nazi Germany in World War II; that Barth’s theological approach was shaped ‘in response’ to these all compelling external forces which impinged upon the way Barth theologized. This claim is also made by folks who call themselves ‘post-colonial’ theologians (really post-modern), who want to marginalize what they consider to be an imperialistic hegemony of theological kingsmanship; which is to say that they think that Anglo-European/American dominated theological power-structures have imposed themselves on the way we think theologically, and thus the best way to relativize this power is to identify the ‘power’ that gave shape to the Anglo-European theologies in the first place. In Barth’s case, the usual suspect of “Evangelicals” and “post-Colonialists,” it is again, to go back to Barth’s time and place, and suggest (argue) that because Barth was located where he was; that his theology can really only speak to the context in which he worked. The charge is that the categories that Barth used (like Kantian) place his theology in an obsolete book-shelf somewhere in Berlin wherein the dust and moth-balls ought to have their due-course. The suggestion is that since we can now identify the forces that compelled Barth’s theology into existence; that now we can discard Barth’s theology (or only look at it from a distance) for something “cheezier,” or better — i.e. “their theology.”

Part of a counter-reply I would offer to this non-sense; is that simply identifying the contextual realities that were in place in a particular theologian’s life pretty much is meaningless. If by doing so, the critic thinks he/she has successfully de-legitemized said theologian’s offerings as a theologian. If we followed this practice to its logical conclusion, it would make all theologians irrelevant and incredible; since we are all locally situated in our particular contexts. And yet, these same critics fail to realize that given their own locatedness, that they themselves are making claims that some how transcend their personal situadeness in order to condemn the situadedness, in our case, of Karl Barth. In other words, these critics method is the height of circular reasoning (petitio principii). [Beyond that, these critics, ironically, are appealing to Kantian categories themselves]

Beyond this, some critics can agree with what I just said; but they still, as a result of identifying the contextual forces on Barth, want to challenge his material out-put as a theologian. Meaning that his insights and grammar do not hold sound or credible force for today because his family (theologically) affiliation represents a time and an era that these critics find to be incredible. In other words, they think working through Kant or Heiddeger and others to be an “unsalvagable” move that ultimately denies Barth a voice that says something that is “true.”

My own approach would simply be to respond: Indeed, we are all products of our times; we are all contextualized persons; and we all speak in response to other voices. So what! I would suggest that because of God’s concursus Dei, or his providential work alongside creation (creating situation and space for his purposes to be accomplished within his creation), that it is precisely because of our context and situadedness that we can speak about what matters about God. That through various crises and problems that this world situation throws up at God’s people; that in response to these crises, we encounter God’s Word to us anew. This can be witnessed throughout the history of interpretation in the Church of Christ; most notably, as I reflect, during the times of the Church Councils. The ones that were prompted by heresy against the truth of God’s Word in Christ. We have people like Athanasius who have come to be known as Christians who have stood in the face of dogmatic crises presented by people like Arius and others. Or we have had people like Martin Luther stand up against ecclesiopolitical-doctrinal crises, and in so doing he encounters the Word of God in Christ afresh and anew. Examples can be multiplied exponentially. The point is, is that all of these people were contextually located; and because of their contextual-historico location they were in a providential position wherein they encountered a fresh Word from God that (given one’s perspective) has resulted in a fruitful way forward for the body of Christ catholic (or universal). The ultimate example of this is of course the eternal Word’s incarnation. It was through his particularity and contextual situation (cf. Gal. 4, “the fullness of time”) that he provided universal hope for all times and places. It is this same ‘Word’ that breaks in upon us in our various contexts that allows us to speak theological truth that can have force for “all.” This is how I would seek to salvage Barth from the unsavory approaches that would like to marginalize him.

I, ultimately, don’t agree with everything that Barth has written or taught; but at the same time, the ground upon which I would disagree with Barth (if I do) is not to contextualize his theology out of existence. Instead, I would have to disagree with Barth the same way I would have to disagree with any other theologian—whether that be in 4th century Latin church, or the 21st century Post-modern church—it would have to be on material theological grounds; and not merely on genetic-causal grounds. The task for the theologian-historian is to help describe how a certain theologian’s ideas may have come to be; but the next task for the constructive-critical-theologian is to make a judgment about said theologian’s ideas based upon (for the Protestant theologian) the Reformed principle of sola scriptura. That is, how well does the theologoumena (theologian’s opinions) proximate to the teaching of God’s second Word in Scripture? This is the standard! It is not to make Barth irrelevant by appealing to contextual-cultural forces. If we were consistent with this method; then we could ultimately rub Jesus and the Bible out of the realm of the credible as well. Oh wait, that’s what some have sought to do . . .

I am really just venting here . . . thanks for paying attention 🙂 !