Postmodernism, Hermeneutics, and the Future of Theology

The current interest in postmodernism, the emerging church, and the question of truth [as important as these issues are] should not distract the church from the larger task of actually doing and living theology.  We must be about the constructive task of reading and living the gospel for our own moment. 

A work that I have found helpful toward this end, but which seems to have been largely neglected, is Jens Zimmermann's  Recovering Theological Hermeneutics.  The subtitle is An Incarnational-Trinitarian Theory of Interpretation.  Given my interest in a Christ centered Trinitarian theology, the title alone had my undivided attention.  The book was not disappointing. 

He concludes, "Complemented by the doctrine of the Trinity, incarnational theology offers an ontology that places being-in-community at the heart of reality and gives ethical transcendence definite contours in the divine kenotic and redemptive events of cross and resurrection" (p. 318).   Here is meat to chew on.

The community and ethical focus resonates with me:  "Selfhood is understood as person in relation, a subjectivity that neither begins with, nor is defined as, solitary, independent consciousness but is brought to life by the call of the other….I have argued that this call is possible only as the electing call of God in Christ, by which we gain an identity that is sustained not by us but by concrete hermeneutical appropriation in community through word and sacrament" (319).  This naturally needs careful unpacking and that is what the book is all about.  I trust this wets the appetite.

The Fundamental Christian Story

Richard B. Hays has written a thoughtful and insightful book entitled The Moral Vision of the New Testament.  On p. 153 he gives the following summary of the story which ostensibly provides the unity of the NT.  In my view, it is on target, and does what I have been asking my theology students to do:  express the Christian worldview in 200 words or less.  Hays does it in the following 89 (!)words:

The God of Israel, the creator of the world, has acted (astoundingly) to rescue a lost and broken world through the death and resurrection of Jesus; the full scope of that rescue is not yet apparent, but God has created a community of witnesses to this good news, the church.  While awaiting the grand conclusion of the story, the church, empowered by the Holy Spirit, is called to reenact the loving obedience of Jesus Christ and thus to serve as a sign of God’s redemptive purposes for the world.

And the Word was made flesh…

Many theologians are speaking afresh of Christ within the context of the Trinity.  I am fully persuaded that this is the right direction for the Church.  Over the last seven years, I have been struggling to teach theology to college students.  I am finding that a christocentric trinitarian matrix holds promise on several fronts.  I am moving in that direction, and integrating more and more of my work within that framework. 

The Trinity is what makes the gospel possible; it is what distinguishes orthodox Christianity from every other religion, philosophy, or worldview; it is what shapes the believer's experience within the community of faith.  A careful integration of relational theology within a trinitarian matrix, centering on God's redeeming self-revelation in Christ, can be amazingly fruitful.  Welcome to the conversation!