Another View of “the Story”

The value of seeing the theological big picture is well illustrated at the practical level in James Choung’s evangelistic presentation, True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In. In my theology classes I have often assigned students to write their own view of Christian story in 200 words or less (which generally elicits a few frustrated responses). In a second stage, I have them revise the story in a smaller collaborative group (still keeping it at the 200 word limit); this helps to illustrate some aspects of the communal nature of theology. Finally, in a third stage I ask them to rework their narrative in some kind of creative and practical way (e.g., with a PowerPoint presentation, art work, or by converting thei narrative into some type of specific application). While one might quibble about details, James Choung’s napkin sketch would have earned an A+.  The book is published by InterVarsity Press, and was recently reviewed in Christianity Today.

How (Not) to Read Peter Rollins or “The Storyteller”

Two years ago I read and reread Peter’s How (Not) to Speak of God. I intended to post on that inaugural volume, but first wanted to read it yet again. I did (not) recommend it to my brighter students. Now his second work has arrived on my desk: The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief. I have finished the first reading (underlined, annotated with lots of question marks, exclamation points, smiley faces and frowns).

For years I have been trying to persuade my students to always listen to their interlocutors carefully and empathetically, especially if they intend to respond in a critical way. I have been afraid that few would do this with Peter Rollins. I still think he is being largely ignored (he is not easy to read [the little stories can be deceiving], though easy to react to). That will probably change. I have not met Peter Rollins, though I heard him speak at a panel once with McClaren and others.

Most theology books don’t matter. This one does. Not because it is right or wrong. But because it may change the conversation. Not everyone can easily read it. And few who can, will be able to quickly glean the wheat from the chaff. That’s what makes a good book; it is over our heads (and perhaps, in places, over our hearts).

I once read a critique of Paul Tillich’s Systematic Theology by Alexander McKelway (a student of Karl Barth’s). It was a model of careful critical engagement. Only when such empathetic and discerning work is done is one really in a position to say something worthwhile about a theologian. I hope some will give Peter Rollins this courtesy. As with Tillich we may well have serious disagreements (and deep pastoral concerns), but we may also have something useful to learn. For an example of some preliminary discussion see the conversation going on at Christians in Context.

By the way, for all their differences, I note some interesting connections between Rollins and Tillich. For example, Tillich was concerned about the tendency in Protestantism wherein “faith as the state of being grasped [is reduced to] the belief in doctrine” (S.T., II, 85). Compare Peter throughout his two volumes, and for example: “God is not a problem to be solved but rather a mystery to participate in” (Fidelity of Betrayal, 115). Tillich famously defines God as “the ground of being.” Peter writes, “God is that which grounds our world and opens a world up to us” (115). There are, of course, vast differences as well.

Rollins makes for a stimulating read. Many of his stories are insightful, and he tells them well. My biggest concern, and I am willing to listen more, is well summarized in McKelway’s critique of what he sees as the central problem in Tillich: “This problem and danger, to put the matter simply, is the lack of a consistent focus on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ” (177). Peter would probably object.

Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective

This introduction to Christology is an excellent model of careful, creative, and yet confessing theology. The intentional integration of Christology with a rich Trinitarian theology is refreshing. Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective is edited by Fred Sanders and Klaus Issler.

Here is a sample (following a wonderfully concise and helpful summary of the early church councils on Christology):

“At the center of the open space marked out by the boundaries of Chalcedon are two things: the apostolic narrative of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and the confession that this person in the gospel narrative is an eternal person distinct from the Father, yet fully divine. What stands in the middle of the Chalcedonian categories is the biblical story of Jesus, interpreted in light of the Trinity” (p. 25).

The following also resonates with me:  “To think rightly about the Trinity, the incarnation, or the atonement, the theologian must think about all of them at once, in relation to each other.” (p. 226).

The Mission of God

Chris Wright has written a magisterial work on biblical theology – and from a missional perspective.  His full title is:  The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative. Any danger that a Christ Centered Trinitarian theology might fade into a reductionistic christomonism is warded off by a faithfully Trinitarian focus, and the organic way in which God’s mission in Christ becomes the focus of YHWH’s redemptive self-revelation.  Such a balance is enriched by this thoroughly canonical and missional treatment of biblical theology. 

Christian theology is at its core both mission and ethics.  Along the way Wright wisely treats the ethical nature of God’s mission (see his earlier work on OT ethics).  Surely this book will become a mainstay in missional theology. 

The Drama

Kevin Vanhoozer’s 2005 work The Drama of Doctrine is worth a long slow thoughtful read, preferably with a doctrinally competent study group.  The following summary of Part 1 reveals some of the its richness:

“The gospel is ‘theo-dramatic’ — a series of divine entrances and exits, especially as these pertain to what God has done in Jesus Christ.  The gospel — both the Christ event and the canon that communicates it — thus appears as the climatic moment in the Trinitarian economy of divine self-communicative action (chap. 1).  Theology responds and corresponds to God’s prior word and deed; accordingly, theology itself is part of the theo-dramatic action.  The mission of theology involves human speech and action, but what ultimately gives these significance is their role in the Trinitarian missions (chap. 2).  This insight leads to a first statement of the directive theory of doctrine that lies at the heart of the present work.  If theology is about the speech and action of the triune God and the church’s response in word and deed, then doctrine is best viewed as direction for the church’s fitting participation in the drama of redemption (chap. 3)” (31). 

Missio Dei

The value of consciously functioning within a Christ centered trinitarian matrix is, in part, its utility for disrupting fossilized theological systems.  It stimulates a kind of healthy "strategic chaos,"  which encourages lateral thinking about what really matters in the Christian confession.  At the same time it can be fruitfully (and faithfully) creative within concrete historical and social contexts.  Exploring the features of this matrix is the task before us.

We have been saying much about the Trinity.  But it must be emphasized that we are advocating a Christ-centered trinitarian model.  This is critical.  A theology whose christology cuts loose from its trinitarian moorings quickly sails away from Orthodoxy.   But a trinitarian approach that is not sensitive to the primary historical, redemptive and revelatory function of the Son,  runs the risk of being an abstraction.  The faithful Christian confession must be both christocentric AND trinitarian. 

The christological focus keeps us close to the missio Dei, and thus to the heart of things.  Those theologians who are moving towards a "missional" theology, and the churchmen [/women] who follow in their trail, are to be celebrated.  Perhaps it is time to critically and prayerfully reread David J. Bosch's monumental work, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission.

In his closing section ("Whither Mission?"), Bosch writes, "The missio Dei purifies the church.  It sets it under the cross — the only place where it is ever safe.  The cross is the place of humiliation and judgment, but it is also the place of refreshment and new birth" (p. 519).  May the Lord purify the church today!

“First Theology”

Anyone working on the boundary between a postconservative evangelical theology and the best of the more traditional theologians, needs the wise counsel of Kevin Vanhoozer.  A good place to start in his 2002 work, First Theology: God, Scripture, & Hermeneutics.  Vanhoozer's concern is for fidelity to the "sensus scripturalis."  He writes, "I am…advocating a distinctly Christian and theological, which is to say trinitarian approach to biblical interpretation that begins by recognizing God as a triune communicative agent and Scripture as the written locus of God's communicative action" (p. 38).  In a footnote, he instinctively adds, "Jesus Christ is, of course, the Word of God made flesh.  The life of the incarnate Jesus therefore is God's communicative act as well.  The point is, however, that one can begin with Christ only by attending to the apostolic (divinely authorized) testimony about him." 

Whether or not one agrees completely with Vanhoozer's use of speech-act theory [and I understand he may have some qualifying thoughts himself], his work is always astute, careful, and a joy to read.

The Subject of Theology

Whether one agrees with it in toto or not, one of the few serious and constructive works on evangelical  prolegomena, is John R. Franke's The Character of Theology: A Postconservative Evangelical Approach. 

John's theological journey and contribution is to be watched carefully.  One might find weaknesses here or there [John would probably be the first to admit it], but one cannot seriously engage contemporary evangelical theology and ignore his work. 

Chapter two is entitled, "The Subject of Theology."  John writes, "For Christians, the subject of theology is the God revealed in Jesus Christ.  Accordingly, the Christian answer to the question of God's identity ultimately leads to the doctrine of the Trinity…the confession of the Triune God has been the sin qua non of the Christian faith" (p. 45).  He continues, "the trinitarian conception of God is so closely tied to the biblical narrative that it serves as a shorthand way of speaking not only about the God of the narrative but also about the narrative itself as the act of the God of the Bible" (p. 46). 

On this the church must speak with one voice.    

Nexus Mysteriorum

The observation that there has been a lack of trinitarian imagination in Western theology, a kind of trinitarian forgetfulness, is painfully close to the mark.  Many, while confessing the Trinity at the formal level, live their everyday lives as though God were a bare monad.  How do we faithfully bare witness to the gospel, if our speech and thoughts are nearly Unitarian?  How, at this critical hour, does the church  give a certain sound before Dar Al Islam, if the Christian community is confused and forgetful about it's own confession?  Therefore we ought to listen to those who help us remember, and who stimulate us to biblically faithful trinitarian imaginations. 

Such voices are coming from many directions.  Anne Hunt, an Austrailian Roman Catholic writer, recently published a book simply entitled The Trinity. While the careful non-Catholic reader will filter her labor through his or her own tradition, Anne has much to offer. 

The full title of this useful volume is Trinity: Nexus of the Mysteries of the Christian Faith.  The thesis is that the Trinity is the nexus mysteriorum, i.e., that which provides the interconnection of all the doctrines.  [The Catholic use of the term "mystery" here is not to be confused with the NT usage of "mysterion," which has a special redemptive historical sense.]  

Anne's aim in her own words is "to awaken the trinitarian intuition and to foster an explicitly trinitarian imagination that extends and enriches the entire theological enterprise" (p. 4). 

This is a worthy goal. 

“Theology” in Cultural Perspective

Today many careful scholars are contributing toward a theology that flows in a healthy direction.  A stimulating work is Colin Greene’s Christology in Cultural Perspective.  The opening statement is rich: “At the centre of Christianity stands not a timeless truth, nor a principle, not even a cause, but an event and a person - Jesus of Nazareth experienced and confessed as the Christ.”

This volume is a helpful model for serious theological work.  Is Green an advocate for a Christ centered Trinitarian theology?  Note the following:

“Hitherto, postmodernity has been almost entirely an exercise in radical deconstruction, decentring and wholesale dethroning of usurpers and pretenders to the throne of absolute power and truth.  The resulting epistemological blitzkieg has devasted the intellectual landscape of modernity beyond repair including the ideological interment camp to which religion has been banished.  If this analysis is correct, then the opportunity is there to try to construct again a sustainable, credible and intellectually convincing christological vision of reality…

[After summarizing some helpful recommendations on Christology, he then concludes]

We have arrived at a point where Christology dares to go no further, except, as we have indicated, when it is subsumed within a Trinitarian expostion of the doctrine of God and that is not our particular task” (pp. 351, 368).

Ah, but at the end of the day [and at the beginning] for the believer, this MUST be the task.