gary@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (gary w buchholz) (08/08/85)
>Some of your comments suggest that the Christian tradition is somehow >separable from Christ and his Church, and that its inheritors are >elsewhere. I'm not quite sure what you could mean by that. In my >view, anything that finds an ultimate source of value outside of God >and his revelation in Christ, is idolatry and has no claim to the term >Christian. Christianity has now survived enough changes in culture, >both in ancient and modern times, that I think this judgement can be >seen as historical as well as ideological. That is, I think we have >transported Christianity to enough different cultures that it can be >clear that its essense in not cultural. I have to answer your posting in piecemeal fashion as I am somewhat cramped for time. I will address what I consider the most important issue first, namely, continuity and inheritance of the Christian theological tradition, and on this you and I seem to have something of a disagreement. To get right to the point and in all honesty I will say that my criticism of your position and my criticism of everyone who walks through the doors of a church on Sunday is that they have failed (utterly in the latter case) to appropriate for themselves the Christian theological tradition post-Reformation. I am well aware that "Christianity" in its popular form (the masses of believers) takes its primary articulation NOT in intellectual categories but rather, is embedded in social matrices in the worshiping, praying and preaching believing community. Insofar as Christianity makes real historical claims, and insofar as Christianity makes statements regarding the ultimate cosmological and physical order of the cosmos, then, I submit that its ultimate validation lies in interdisciplinary discussion with those disciplines that claim for themselves expertise in these areas of inquiry. On the other hand I would quickly point out that Man is condemned to live in a meaningful world and Christianity as a "map" on an utterly meaningless natural order serves as a "useful fiction" for those who are able to be convinced of its intellectual integrity. The exqusite beauty of the situation is that it is the good fortune for "popular religion(Christianity)" that the primary mediation of Christianity from community to individual and from generation to generation is social structures (family) and NOT the tradition in its intellectual form. One might pause at this point to reflect on the real empirical events that surround a "conversion" to Christianity. One might pause at this point to reflect on the importance of family as regards the future religious association of the children. If your son or daughter is the same religious "persuasion" as you the parent then exactly how has this happened ? What is the mechanism of transmission ? As an intellectual system seeking interdisciplinary validation Christianity is an utter failure in the modern world. But, at the same time, Christianity is an unparalleled success as regards solving the ontological problem of human being for those members of society who either never bring Christianity to the interdisciplinary court or who are so steeped in Christian "logic" that they are able "consume the whole world" by means of it. A few remarks from George Lindbeck are apropros on this latter point. "For those who are steeped in them {authoritative texts}, no world is more real then the ones they *create*. A Scriptural world is thus able to absorb the universe. It supplies the interpretive framework within which believers seek to live their lives and understand reality. This happens quite apart from formal theories" "Scripture creates its own domain of meaning ... and the task of interpretation is to extend this over the whole of reality." "Intratextual theology redescribes reality within the scriptural framework rather than translating the Scripture into extra- scriptural categories. It is the text, so to speak, which absorbs the world, rather than world the text." (catch this... * = emphasis mine) "The normative or literal meaning <of the Bible> must be consistent with the kind of text it is taken to be *by the community* for which it is important. The meaning must not be.. something the text reveals, discloses,.. or suggests to those with *extraneous metaphysical <philosophical>...or historical .. interests*. It must rather be what the text says in terms of the communal language of which the text is an instantiation." "Scholarly nontheologians who want to understand religion are concerned with how religions *work* for their adherents, not with their credibility." "In short, intelligibility comes from skill, not theory, and credibility comes from good performance, not adherence to independently formulated criteria." Lindbeck (theologian at Yale) knows that Christianity hasn't a chance at intellectual integrity in the interdisciplinary matrix of the modern world. Therefore, his (Postliberal) theology is to displace Christianity back into the social matrix from which it was born, away from the "extraneous interests of philosophy and historiography" such that it will appear (to the believer) as credible and will continue to function as "useful fiction" serving the necessary ontological needs of the believer. Thats a slick game. I'm sure Lindbecks future seminary of Postliberal theology will supply a heavy education in classical rhetoric such that Post liberal ministers will have the requsite "skill" and "good performance" to hawk a religion that they don't believe for the benefit(?) of those not intellectually inclined. (Not to get too far off the subject but the cruncher of Lindbecks book is that to arrive at what he calls Postliberal theology Lindbeck uses an avowedly non-religious paradigm or religion invoking the latest advances in semiotics, hermeneutics and language analysis (ala Chomsky, Wittgenstein and Austin) which are at the antipode and are the antithesis of the system he sets out *for* the believer. Lindbeck wishes that Scripture "interpret the whole world" for the believer but he does not wish that for himself. Rather, "Scripture" for Lindbeck in practice is in fact the whole edifice of the modern interdisciplinary intellectual matrix (without which his analysis and theology is impossible) which according to Lindbecks system the believer should have no part of. Its obviously a 2 part theology - a theology for you (the believer) and a theology for me (the privleged theologian - Lindbeck). If Lindbeck really believes that Christian Scripture can interpret the whole world then I would ask him where in Christian Scripture he finds his non-theological "cultural linguistic" model that serves as *the* paradigm for his understanding of religion and the primary language for the articulation and explication of his Postliberal theology) So much for irony and digression - back to the subject. The dilemma between intellectual integrity and traditional confession is as old as the Enlightenment. So begins the era of what Van A. Harvey called "alienated theology" and the advent of the Christian theologian as the "unhappy lover" of Christian theology. The case is exemplified by D. F. Strauss and the 19th century quest for the historical Jesus. In the "concluding dissertation" at the end of The Life of Jesus Critically Examined published in 1835 by Strauss (of which Schweitzer wrote "... is one of the most perfect things in the whole range of learned literature.") there is a discussion of the dilemma posed by the results of the work in that they are antithetical to orthodox Christian beliefs. Strauss discusses 4 options. Of the last option (preaching for the sole purpose of edification for believers of something the preacher himself does not believe) Strauss writes this: "...- the danger is incurred that the community may discover the difference, and the preacher appear to it, and consequently to himself, a hypocrite.... In this difficulty, the theologian may find himself either directly to state his opinions, and attempt to elevate the people to his ideas: or, since this attempt must necessarily fail, carefully adapt himself to the conception of the community; or, lastly, since, even on this plan, he may easily betray himself, in the end to leave the ministerial profession." Strauss goes on to remark that his age (1835) has reached no firm decision on what to do regarding the collision between "orthodox belief" and the antithetical results of critical inquiry. But Strauss is confident that the criticism is a necessary development of Christian theology. "But this collision ... is necessarily introduced by the progress of time and the development of Christian theology; it surprises and masters the individual, without his being able to guard himself from it." How does one guard against the "critical results" ? "... he can do this with slight labour, if he abstain from study or thought, or, if not from these from freedom of speech and writing. Of such there are already enough in our day, and there will be no need to make continual additions to their number through the calumnination of those who expressed themselves in the spirit of advanced science." Strauss is right when he says that the process of doing theology and its critical results are something that lays hold you rather than you laying hold of it. Chuck, here is the difference between you and me. I am willing to go with the (theological) tradition while you are not. And in this sense I may accuse you of the same idolatry and ideology that you accuse me of. That is, your ideology is the unfinished theology of the 16th century Reformation with the emphasis on the Bible (sola scriptura), on Christ (Luthers canon within a canon) and the role of God (some obsolete Western metaphysics). If you are one of those "social Christians" then I have no quarrel with you as there is no common ground for dispute. On the other hand, if you bring your Christianity to the interdisciplinary court in 1985 then my response is that you come with an instantiation of theology that is some 150 years out of date. The collision between honest investigation and "orthodox" belief is unavoidable. Strauss concludes his massive critical work on the life of Jesus with this. "But there are also few, who, notwithstanding such attacks, freely declare what can no longer be concealed - and time will show whether by the one party or the other, the Church, Mankind, and Truth are best served." (p. 784) In my mind, Lindbecks response to the dilemma posed by the Enlightenment tradition is unacceptable - it is simply not honest. The response by confessionalism is also inadequate: as regards its intellectual form (such as confessional Lutheranism it simply does not take the modern world seriously and is overtly ideological to the reformation; as regards its social form (the church as instantiated in "ice-cream social" / popular Christianity) it fails all tests and need not even be bothered with. The only viable option for theology today, given that literal 1st century Christianity makes historical and philosophical claims about reality as such (ontic reality and not ontological reality) is to continue the critical tradition in interdisciplinary conversation with those disciplines that claim expertise in those areas of concern. Anything less than this is neither honest nor appropriate for the modern world, even less is it in continuity with the historic Christian theological tradition. This is not my speculation as to "where" the historic Christian tradition might be in the future. Rather, it is simply a description of where it is now, as practiced, at the cutting edge of theology in the academy. I quote again Thomas J.J. Altizers introduction to Mark Taylors book Deconstructing Theology published by Scholars Press in the AAR Studies in Religion series. "Thus the project of Deconstructing Theology is not one of actual or literal deconstruction, for that has long since occurred, but rather one of seeking the renewal or rebirth of theology by way of a passage through the end or death of the primal ground of the Western theoretical and theological tradition. This is just the point at which theological thinking is now being reborn, even if reborn in a non-theological form, which is to say a form of thinking that bears no manifest sign of the presence of theology..... ... We have long since learned that there is no hope of a modern Church theology... and the time has arrived for a renewed modern Protestant or post-ecclesiastical theology, a theology fully situated in the world or worlds of modernity..... wherein theology is free of the Church, and thereby free of the very power and ground which theological thinking itself negated in realizing its modern epiphany. ...it is no longer possible to return... decisively makes manifest the impossibility of returning to the Bible or to a 'biblical' revelation. In conclusion, the social instantiation of popular Christianity is fine - it is a good solution to the ontological problems of those who can be convinced of its truth (by social means/conventions) and who do not or can not pose the intellectual question. But some cannot help being drawn to the intellectual problems given that Christianity in its literal form makes claims about the ultimate structure of reality. And it is here in this latter forum of interdisciplinary study and inquiry that Christianity meets its ultimate demise as an authority in these matters. Christianity will survive but only in popular form in church backyards at ice-cream socials and rummage sales - in short, in purely social forms and contexts. The historic theological tradition is elsewhere wanting nothing to do with ice-cream or used clothes. To "us" the former is "heresy", worse, it is apathy, and still worse it is a denial, betrayal and noncommitment to the historic Christian tradition post-Reformation. Secular theologians in the modern world are the true inheritors of historic Christian theological tradition. So Chuck, do you prefer ice-cream to theology ? Gary (grudgingly apologizing for my (earned) arrogance)