So a few days back I made the decision to switch my summer reading from Current (New) Progressive Roman Catholic theologies to Roger Haight's Christology. I still have the packet from Prof. Haight's class on the Catholic theologies which I still plan on reading through sometime in the future. If you're curious as to who made the list, he includes the following in the readings: Amaladoss, Aquino, Copeland, Ellacuría, Espín, Goizueta, Gutiérrez, Haight, Johnson, Lonergan, Metz, Nyamiti, Rahner, Schillebeeckx, Schüssler Fiorenza, Sobrino and Tracy.
However, despite such an interesting reading list, I decided to go with Haight's Christology. I didn't want to regret not taking a guided reading from the author on his own material, particularly when AAR itself has held sessions titled "Haight's Thought." So now the blog will get a dose of some hard core spirit Christology that the Vatican (read here: Ratzinger) really doesn't like (but is still faithful to Vatican II, or so Haight claims).
In other news, I finished Volf's The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World and I'll write about it later.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Merging Moltmann and Metz: An End Course Review
I was excited at the beginning of the semester to take a Jürgen Moltmann class, but now at the close, I find that I am more partial to Johann Baptist Metz - the other theologian we read for the class. As I thought about closing out the class, I found a tack that incorporates various positions of Moltmann and Metz and begins to both satisfy and improve my own theological voice. As much as this is a closure paper for a class, it is also a continuation paper and, probably most appropriately, a future looking paper toward fusing my own voice with positions certain from Moltmann and Metz. The following sections on Moltmann and Metz are the highlights of their theologies and the class for me.
Moltmann: Future and Hope in Christ and Basileia
The heart of Moltmann’s use of the term “eschatological,” and subsequently his whole theology of hope, is found in the Christological dialectic of the cross and resurrection.1 That is to say, both the suffering death and the glorious resurrection hold an equal amount of weight as they continually inform each other and push us forward into the promise and hope of the future horizon.2 Simply put, “one could say that Christian eschatology is the study of the tendency of the resurrection and future of Christ.”3
While eschatology finds its specific understanding in the cross and resurrection, we cannot rightly understand the death and resurrection without the greater foundation of the basileia (kingdom).4 It is in the cross and resurrection that the basileia and its promises are fulfilled and proclaimed; the basileia breaks into the current reality in proclamation and action about and through the cross and resurrection, while at the same time speaking of a future in the “mission and love of Christ” through the cross and resurrection.5 To understand the cross and resurrection, particularly as the basis for eschatology and the breaking in of the basileia, it is necessary to understand death and re-life as a theological category, as opposed to an andocentric idea. Fundamentally, the cross and resurrection are not existential (Bultmann) or historical (Schweitzer); rather, they are an action that makes our history and locating us within a promise and identity, while pushing us toward the eschaton.6
History is best understood through promise – specifically, God’s revelatory and eschatological promises. History understood this way is history in flux, which is to say history is dynamic and driven by hope rooted in promise.7 The promises themselves and their fulfillment continue throughout history, and this “overspill” changes history from merely event oriented to an ongoing fulfillment and revelation of promise.8 Therefore the active story that history tells, framed by promises, is re-imagined at every fulfillment; the promises become larger and larger as the fulfillments continue and increase.9 Thus history, or the representation of the past, continually changes in light of the revelation of promise/fulfillment. It “will lead us to open ourselves and our present to that same future,” while still mired in present circumstances.10
Eschatology is inherently participatory and political: we proclaim the hope of Christ as the Christ who proclaimed the basileia, while at the same time we imbue the missional idea with Christ-like suffering and solidarity in faith.11 Thus it is hope that fuels our human faith; faith, our belief in the divine, “hopes in order to know what it believes” and it is hope, from our faith, that drives our vitality so necessary to faith.12 Consequently faith and the hope of the future brings the future into the present resulting in church participation in funneling the vision of the future – “righteousness, freedom and humanity” – into the current events of today.13
Metz: Hoping Rightly, Remembering Dangerously, and Solidarity with the Dead
A Christian historical consciousness is radically and diametrically opposed to a “purely historical relationship with the past that not only presupposes that the past is past; it also works actively to strengthen the fact that what has been is not present.”14 Rather Christian historical consciousness – remembering – is a reforming experience; it brings an idea of change, pushing Christians to change not only themselves, but also the surrounding world. “Identity is formed when memories are aroused” and likewise narrative achieves the same ends – we are given a vision of a great past and a brilliant future.15 This idea of a tangible past changes who we are in the present and gives hope to move our current present towards the eschatological hope. Thus the Christian vision of dangerous memory interrupts our conception of the present, by giving an alternate vision of history; we are re-contextualized within a different story, an informative and liberating story. This new and biblical story, informs us on who we are, gives a new identity – practitioners of a social, Christian praxis.
Simply put, envisioning the Christian mission through memories is the beginning of solidarity with the dead. We are made responsive to past suffering through anamnesis, for it is the nature of Christianity to imitate the suffering Christ, as it is also a religion of the oppressed.16 Thus the Christian praxis, attuned to suffering, consistently interrupts the apathetic world through solidarity for and with the helpless and suffering, in the present.17
However, we have lost the “messianic praxis” of “discipleship, conversion, love, and suffering”, because we have accepted the secularized notion of a nationalistic anthropology and hope (both espousing the ideology that humanity will overcome, thrive, and conquer future frontiers).18 With secularized theologies and the forgetting of Christian suffering, the church does not act in its prophetic role to the world; instead of liberating, the ideology holds the globe within Americana’s oppressive custody.19 The secularization of the church through a form of secular hominization has caused us to lose not only the idea of suffering with and for others, but we have also lost ourselves. Thus the American church has ceased remembering the atrocities of Auschwitz, or cannot respond well to current genocides, by accepting the hope of American promises.
Metz: Bourgeois religion and Privatization
A Bourgeois religion is dependent on privatization; in order to envision the Messianic nature of Christianity, we must first understand who we are.20 How we see ourselves is less universally governed by the church’s direction or definition, rather, as American’s our most universal understanding as to who we are is fundamentally through individual and nation-state interaction – a privatizing, enlightenment document we call the Constitution. The American Christians needs to realize the influences of the Constitution and understand how the idea of a church is fundamentally a contrary social institution – the body of Christ.21 We can only get to the Christian call when we get past the American Dream and its hopes.22
Moltmann, Metz, and I in Agreement
As a person “the Christian has the responsibility to develop his faith’s relationship to the world as a relationship of hope, and to explicate his theology as eschatology.”23 All of Christianity, not just single Christians, is to be grounded in a “horizon of eschatology,” and more specifically in an eschatological foundation that is primarily a creative and militant.24 Thus the church reveals the Christian forward-looking hope to the world. This revealing is inherently political, as it forms the church according the mission of Christ and moves the church toward declaring the eschatological hope of the kingdom to the world.25
It is the church that stands within the kingdom, as the kingdom’s mission; it is the church that continually interrupts the world’s attempts at self-redemption or self-production through love, sacrifice and solidarity.26 The church is the breaking of the kingdom into the now by visibly crystallizing the intensifying nature of the Christological sacrifice on the cross.27 Thus the church points for the world from the suffering and resurrected past to the future and its hope. Fundamentally, the church interrupts the world, by proclaiming the hope of the future in a revolutionary and imaginative way; the center of Christian life is rooted in the forward-looking, eschatological hope that places Christianity within the kingdom within the world.
Moltmann and Metz in Contrasting Ecclesiology
Despite their many similarities, Moltmann and Metz have divergent approaches to ecclesiology. This is especially clear when Moltmann asserts that the church ought not “claim any direct power in secular matters,” specifically in economics, politics and culture.28 Metz disparages bourgeois Christianity in favor of a messianic Christianity that requires the de-privatization of Christianity. In contrast, while Moltmann supports liberation, he does so by way of individual Christian action in the political, economic, and cultural sphere that results in the ethical actions of the church carried out through the privatized social contracts between citizens and government.29 For instance, when Moltmann talks about a Christian opposition to immoral ethical systems, he does not appeal for collective church action such as withdrawal or criticism – instead he uses the word “Christians,” which connotes individual movements.30
Metz calls for the church to be the relational model that answers the Christian call by continually critiquing both the church and the world. It is through this that the church becomes a vision for the world to understand right relationships through the basileia of God. However, Moltmann distinguishes himself from this – the church does not become the agitator for resistance or representation, nor is the church supposed to be envisioning and displaying right relationships concerning racialism, sexism, or valuing the handicapped; instead, the social problems are confronted by a reformationist idea of justification and the I-identity.31
I much prefer Metz’s ecclesiology over Moltmann’s. Moltmann leaves his theology, and subsequently the church, open to a modernist individualism when he calls for the church not to involve itself in economics, politics, or culture. The church ceases to become a holistic, alternative reality and critique to the secularized world when individualism governs the church’s dialogue with the world, and thus the church lacks greater strength engage structural evils.
Blending Metz and Moltmann
I highly value Moltmann’s emphasis on faith, hope, dialectical Christology, and basileia. Not only are they decidedly Christian categories, but they also work well as a foundation upon which to build a political theology. Likewise with Metz, I am heavily indebted to his formulations of solidarity with the dead and dangerous memories, along with his critiques of secularization (as apposed to hoping rightly), Bourgeois religion, and privatization. The merging of Moltmann and Metz in both their agreements and understanding their disagreements is very fertile ground. I am grateful for the strong foundation they offer as I begin to construct my own theopolitical voice.
________
1. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) 200.
2. Ibid., 211.
3. Ibid., 195.
4. Ibid., 216.
5. Ibid., 210-211, 220.
6. Ibid., 165, 181.
7. Ibid., 18.
8.Ibid., 107-108.
9. Ibid., 105.
10. Ibid., 108.
11. Ibid., 211, 212, 219, 224.
12. Ibid., 33.
13. Ibid., 22.
14. Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Foundational Political Theology, (New York: Seabury Press, 1979) 190.
15. Ibid., 66, 188.
16. Ibid., 52, 71.
17. Ibid., 57-58, 229.
18. Johann Baptist Metz, The Emergent Church: The Future of Christianity in a Postbourgeois World, (New York: Crossroad, 1981) 27 and Theology of the World, (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969) 68.
19. Johann Baptist Metz, Faith and the Future, (Maryknoll, N.Y.; Orbis Books, 1995) 55.
20. The Emergent Church, 12.
21. Theology of the World, 133.
22. Ibid., 146.
23. Ibid., 90.
24. Ibid., 90, 94.
25. Theology of Hope 330, 337, 338.
26. Ibid., 338; Metz, Faith in History and Society, 171.
27. Faith in History and Society, 89.
28. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) 167.
29. Ibid., 164.
30. Ibid., 174.
31. Ibid., 194, 182-186, 189.
Moltmann: Future and Hope in Christ and Basileia
The heart of Moltmann’s use of the term “eschatological,” and subsequently his whole theology of hope, is found in the Christological dialectic of the cross and resurrection.1 That is to say, both the suffering death and the glorious resurrection hold an equal amount of weight as they continually inform each other and push us forward into the promise and hope of the future horizon.2 Simply put, “one could say that Christian eschatology is the study of the tendency of the resurrection and future of Christ.”3
While eschatology finds its specific understanding in the cross and resurrection, we cannot rightly understand the death and resurrection without the greater foundation of the basileia (kingdom).4 It is in the cross and resurrection that the basileia and its promises are fulfilled and proclaimed; the basileia breaks into the current reality in proclamation and action about and through the cross and resurrection, while at the same time speaking of a future in the “mission and love of Christ” through the cross and resurrection.5 To understand the cross and resurrection, particularly as the basis for eschatology and the breaking in of the basileia, it is necessary to understand death and re-life as a theological category, as opposed to an andocentric idea. Fundamentally, the cross and resurrection are not existential (Bultmann) or historical (Schweitzer); rather, they are an action that makes our history and locating us within a promise and identity, while pushing us toward the eschaton.6
History is best understood through promise – specifically, God’s revelatory and eschatological promises. History understood this way is history in flux, which is to say history is dynamic and driven by hope rooted in promise.7 The promises themselves and their fulfillment continue throughout history, and this “overspill” changes history from merely event oriented to an ongoing fulfillment and revelation of promise.8 Therefore the active story that history tells, framed by promises, is re-imagined at every fulfillment; the promises become larger and larger as the fulfillments continue and increase.9 Thus history, or the representation of the past, continually changes in light of the revelation of promise/fulfillment. It “will lead us to open ourselves and our present to that same future,” while still mired in present circumstances.10
Eschatology is inherently participatory and political: we proclaim the hope of Christ as the Christ who proclaimed the basileia, while at the same time we imbue the missional idea with Christ-like suffering and solidarity in faith.11 Thus it is hope that fuels our human faith; faith, our belief in the divine, “hopes in order to know what it believes” and it is hope, from our faith, that drives our vitality so necessary to faith.12 Consequently faith and the hope of the future brings the future into the present resulting in church participation in funneling the vision of the future – “righteousness, freedom and humanity” – into the current events of today.13
Metz: Hoping Rightly, Remembering Dangerously, and Solidarity with the Dead
A Christian historical consciousness is radically and diametrically opposed to a “purely historical relationship with the past that not only presupposes that the past is past; it also works actively to strengthen the fact that what has been is not present.”14 Rather Christian historical consciousness – remembering – is a reforming experience; it brings an idea of change, pushing Christians to change not only themselves, but also the surrounding world. “Identity is formed when memories are aroused” and likewise narrative achieves the same ends – we are given a vision of a great past and a brilliant future.15 This idea of a tangible past changes who we are in the present and gives hope to move our current present towards the eschatological hope. Thus the Christian vision of dangerous memory interrupts our conception of the present, by giving an alternate vision of history; we are re-contextualized within a different story, an informative and liberating story. This new and biblical story, informs us on who we are, gives a new identity – practitioners of a social, Christian praxis.
Simply put, envisioning the Christian mission through memories is the beginning of solidarity with the dead. We are made responsive to past suffering through anamnesis, for it is the nature of Christianity to imitate the suffering Christ, as it is also a religion of the oppressed.16 Thus the Christian praxis, attuned to suffering, consistently interrupts the apathetic world through solidarity for and with the helpless and suffering, in the present.17
However, we have lost the “messianic praxis” of “discipleship, conversion, love, and suffering”, because we have accepted the secularized notion of a nationalistic anthropology and hope (both espousing the ideology that humanity will overcome, thrive, and conquer future frontiers).18 With secularized theologies and the forgetting of Christian suffering, the church does not act in its prophetic role to the world; instead of liberating, the ideology holds the globe within Americana’s oppressive custody.19 The secularization of the church through a form of secular hominization has caused us to lose not only the idea of suffering with and for others, but we have also lost ourselves. Thus the American church has ceased remembering the atrocities of Auschwitz, or cannot respond well to current genocides, by accepting the hope of American promises.
Metz: Bourgeois religion and Privatization
A Bourgeois religion is dependent on privatization; in order to envision the Messianic nature of Christianity, we must first understand who we are.20 How we see ourselves is less universally governed by the church’s direction or definition, rather, as American’s our most universal understanding as to who we are is fundamentally through individual and nation-state interaction – a privatizing, enlightenment document we call the Constitution. The American Christians needs to realize the influences of the Constitution and understand how the idea of a church is fundamentally a contrary social institution – the body of Christ.21 We can only get to the Christian call when we get past the American Dream and its hopes.22
Moltmann, Metz, and I in Agreement
As a person “the Christian has the responsibility to develop his faith’s relationship to the world as a relationship of hope, and to explicate his theology as eschatology.”23 All of Christianity, not just single Christians, is to be grounded in a “horizon of eschatology,” and more specifically in an eschatological foundation that is primarily a creative and militant.24 Thus the church reveals the Christian forward-looking hope to the world. This revealing is inherently political, as it forms the church according the mission of Christ and moves the church toward declaring the eschatological hope of the kingdom to the world.25
It is the church that stands within the kingdom, as the kingdom’s mission; it is the church that continually interrupts the world’s attempts at self-redemption or self-production through love, sacrifice and solidarity.26 The church is the breaking of the kingdom into the now by visibly crystallizing the intensifying nature of the Christological sacrifice on the cross.27 Thus the church points for the world from the suffering and resurrected past to the future and its hope. Fundamentally, the church interrupts the world, by proclaiming the hope of the future in a revolutionary and imaginative way; the center of Christian life is rooted in the forward-looking, eschatological hope that places Christianity within the kingdom within the world.
Moltmann and Metz in Contrasting Ecclesiology
Despite their many similarities, Moltmann and Metz have divergent approaches to ecclesiology. This is especially clear when Moltmann asserts that the church ought not “claim any direct power in secular matters,” specifically in economics, politics and culture.28 Metz disparages bourgeois Christianity in favor of a messianic Christianity that requires the de-privatization of Christianity. In contrast, while Moltmann supports liberation, he does so by way of individual Christian action in the political, economic, and cultural sphere that results in the ethical actions of the church carried out through the privatized social contracts between citizens and government.29 For instance, when Moltmann talks about a Christian opposition to immoral ethical systems, he does not appeal for collective church action such as withdrawal or criticism – instead he uses the word “Christians,” which connotes individual movements.30
Metz calls for the church to be the relational model that answers the Christian call by continually critiquing both the church and the world. It is through this that the church becomes a vision for the world to understand right relationships through the basileia of God. However, Moltmann distinguishes himself from this – the church does not become the agitator for resistance or representation, nor is the church supposed to be envisioning and displaying right relationships concerning racialism, sexism, or valuing the handicapped; instead, the social problems are confronted by a reformationist idea of justification and the I-identity.31
I much prefer Metz’s ecclesiology over Moltmann’s. Moltmann leaves his theology, and subsequently the church, open to a modernist individualism when he calls for the church not to involve itself in economics, politics, or culture. The church ceases to become a holistic, alternative reality and critique to the secularized world when individualism governs the church’s dialogue with the world, and thus the church lacks greater strength engage structural evils.
Blending Metz and Moltmann
I highly value Moltmann’s emphasis on faith, hope, dialectical Christology, and basileia. Not only are they decidedly Christian categories, but they also work well as a foundation upon which to build a political theology. Likewise with Metz, I am heavily indebted to his formulations of solidarity with the dead and dangerous memories, along with his critiques of secularization (as apposed to hoping rightly), Bourgeois religion, and privatization. The merging of Moltmann and Metz in both their agreements and understanding their disagreements is very fertile ground. I am grateful for the strong foundation they offer as I begin to construct my own theopolitical voice.
________
1. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) 200.
2. Ibid., 211.
3. Ibid., 195.
4. Ibid., 216.
5. Ibid., 210-211, 220.
6. Ibid., 165, 181.
7. Ibid., 18.
8.Ibid., 107-108.
9. Ibid., 105.
10. Ibid., 108.
11. Ibid., 211, 212, 219, 224.
12. Ibid., 33.
13. Ibid., 22.
14. Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Foundational Political Theology, (New York: Seabury Press, 1979) 190.
15. Ibid., 66, 188.
16. Ibid., 52, 71.
17. Ibid., 57-58, 229.
18. Johann Baptist Metz, The Emergent Church: The Future of Christianity in a Postbourgeois World, (New York: Crossroad, 1981) 27 and Theology of the World, (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969) 68.
19. Johann Baptist Metz, Faith and the Future, (Maryknoll, N.Y.; Orbis Books, 1995) 55.
20. The Emergent Church, 12.
21. Theology of the World, 133.
22. Ibid., 146.
23. Ibid., 90.
24. Ibid., 90, 94.
25. Theology of Hope 330, 337, 338.
26. Ibid., 338; Metz, Faith in History and Society, 171.
27. Faith in History and Society, 89.
28. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) 167.
29. Ibid., 164.
30. Ibid., 174.
31. Ibid., 194, 182-186, 189.
Monday, May 21, 2007
THO
I recently made my way again to the seemingly defunct Christian satirical website, The Holy Observer, only to find that they are starting up again after years of ... deadness? Anyways, I was plenty happy to discover that they are no longer dead and figured those who appreciate a bit of dry humor would like to know. So go see 'em.
The Current State of Affairs
"Good news everyone!" (said in the Professor’s voice from Futurama) I finished all my classes for the semester, which means the school year is over. Yay. Now for those summer readings I signed up for. Doh. However, I do plan on posting some thoughts from the readings which I posted off to the side, right over there --->. So stay tuned for torture, theology and current, progressive Roman Catholic theology.
Now for the real reason for this post. After a year at Union, I find my self in an interesting and expected, but also awkward place. And that is to say, I am stuck between orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right practice) – the tradition I grew up in and that which my undergrad also espoused in contrast to progressive Christianity taught here at grad school.
First, what really is orthodoxy and orthopraxy?
Orthodoxy today ranges from hard-core fundamentalists to progressive evangelicals (and beyond) and while their doctrine (core tenants of belief and other peripheral beliefs) may differ widely, their common link is through the foundational idea of specific, correct belief (orthodoxy). No matter how much a 1611 King James Only person disagrees with someone from, say Tony Campolo or Jim Wallis, it is a disagreement on what is right, on what to believe.
In orthopraxy creativity and imagination are privileged and exalted, and largely it is a creative imagination that constructs a philosophy and hints at the language used here at Union (“using theology”), rather than an imagination that revisits Christian metaphors in a new, descriptive light (or at least it was that way with some, while others do both – use and revisit for a fresh understanding of belief). I have observed numerous times students employing the word “using” when talking about theology, as though theology is there to lead to an ethic or a specific response that the student desires; theology is an imaginative reasoning that is conditioned from the beginning by a problem and must result in the answer the student is looking for. No wonder theology seems formulaic or tool-like and the aim more about the outcome than on the theology itself – it is. Most simply stated, liberal theology is pragmatic to the core.
I think this idea of theology, reasoning towards a specific conclusion, is what grates on me (however, do not get me wrong, I am not condemning reason at all). Perhaps I am still essentially orthodox in this respect or leaning towards a conservative liberal (whatever that is), but I know I felt far more sympathy and companionship with Pittenger (a process theologian) who covered the Trinity, ecclesiology, revelation, the hypostatic union, miracles, and more, than most process theologians. Pittenger largely stayed within a theological framework, describing the classical Christian images, while appropriating Whitehead and sought to rethink the basic metaphors of the Christian faith (Gary Dorrien, American Theological Liberalism: Volume 3, 198). I can roll with a few process theologians, but most seem to annoy me because they seem out of reach – some are more philosophers than theologians.
On the other hand, orthodoxy has its limits it seems to me. Perhaps orthodoxy and orthopraxy are two sides to the same coin. It seems to me that while I simply want to collapse the categories into each other, maybe I ought to be okay with the mystery and tension without dissolving the dialectic. I suppose the rest of my life will be a conversation between the two sides, I am not sure I could have it any other way, but that does not make it any easier. Its hard to have closure (that is if one ought to) when trying to live in tension.
Now for the real reason for this post. After a year at Union, I find my self in an interesting and expected, but also awkward place. And that is to say, I am stuck between orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right practice) – the tradition I grew up in and that which my undergrad also espoused in contrast to progressive Christianity taught here at grad school.
First, what really is orthodoxy and orthopraxy?
Orthodoxy today ranges from hard-core fundamentalists to progressive evangelicals (and beyond) and while their doctrine (core tenants of belief and other peripheral beliefs) may differ widely, their common link is through the foundational idea of specific, correct belief (orthodoxy). No matter how much a 1611 King James Only person disagrees with someone from, say Tony Campolo or Jim Wallis, it is a disagreement on what is right, on what to believe.
In orthopraxy creativity and imagination are privileged and exalted, and largely it is a creative imagination that constructs a philosophy and hints at the language used here at Union (“using theology”), rather than an imagination that revisits Christian metaphors in a new, descriptive light (or at least it was that way with some, while others do both – use and revisit for a fresh understanding of belief). I have observed numerous times students employing the word “using” when talking about theology, as though theology is there to lead to an ethic or a specific response that the student desires; theology is an imaginative reasoning that is conditioned from the beginning by a problem and must result in the answer the student is looking for. No wonder theology seems formulaic or tool-like and the aim more about the outcome than on the theology itself – it is. Most simply stated, liberal theology is pragmatic to the core.
I think this idea of theology, reasoning towards a specific conclusion, is what grates on me (however, do not get me wrong, I am not condemning reason at all). Perhaps I am still essentially orthodox in this respect or leaning towards a conservative liberal (whatever that is), but I know I felt far more sympathy and companionship with Pittenger (a process theologian) who covered the Trinity, ecclesiology, revelation, the hypostatic union, miracles, and more, than most process theologians. Pittenger largely stayed within a theological framework, describing the classical Christian images, while appropriating Whitehead and sought to rethink the basic metaphors of the Christian faith (Gary Dorrien, American Theological Liberalism: Volume 3, 198). I can roll with a few process theologians, but most seem to annoy me because they seem out of reach – some are more philosophers than theologians.
On the other hand, orthodoxy has its limits it seems to me. Perhaps orthodoxy and orthopraxy are two sides to the same coin. It seems to me that while I simply want to collapse the categories into each other, maybe I ought to be okay with the mystery and tension without dissolving the dialectic. I suppose the rest of my life will be a conversation between the two sides, I am not sure I could have it any other way, but that does not make it any easier. Its hard to have closure (that is if one ought to) when trying to live in tension.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Ekklesia Project
Its official now. Despite that I've been a signer for a year or two now, I'm be going to my first Ekklesia Project Conference this summer (July 16-18 in Chicago). Yay. Who else is going?
Monday, May 7, 2007
A Book Meme
I was included in a meme about books. However, it was nearly two years ago. Oops…. Well better late than never right?
How many books do you own?:
A lot. I’d say some where around 800 now, maybe more. I once tried to count them in undergrad, but I lost track after awhile.
Last book I read:
Well for class that was Gary Dorrien’s The Making of American Liberal Theology: Crisis, Irony, and Postmodernity. For fun? Uh, hm. I did get half way through Dorrien’s The Word as True Myth during Christmas break.
Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me:
The Crucified God by Jürgen Moltmann,
Torture and Eucharist by William Cavanaugh,
Risks of Faith by James Cone,
A Theology for the Social Gospel by Walter Rauschenbusch, and,
aw why not, Theopolitical Imagination by William Cavanaugh (I really like what that guy writes.)
And now to tag five people:
Halden, you meme fiend (I will be getting to that favorite theologian soon) choose some books – however, we already know Jensen and Lewis will be on your list, so find some others, dear God find some others… heh.
Adam M, post away.
Travis “I’m living in the Midwest” Waters, how about you bring some landlocked fun.
Mike at Catholic Anarchy, you can’t be all Cath…er bad with someone as much fun as Metz. Perhaps you could bring some color to our dreary, white-walled Protestantism?
And lastly, I’d like to see if anything changed in nearly two years (which is conceivably enough time for the meme to go all the way around the internet and back), so Chris, have you got a new list?
As for the rest of the readers of this blog, feel free to post away as well, this is by no means exclusionary, rather, I would at least hope to insure some response from someone and therefore the list above.
How many books do you own?:
A lot. I’d say some where around 800 now, maybe more. I once tried to count them in undergrad, but I lost track after awhile.
Last book I read:
Well for class that was Gary Dorrien’s The Making of American Liberal Theology: Crisis, Irony, and Postmodernity. For fun? Uh, hm. I did get half way through Dorrien’s The Word as True Myth during Christmas break.
Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me:
The Crucified God by Jürgen Moltmann,
Torture and Eucharist by William Cavanaugh,
Risks of Faith by James Cone,
A Theology for the Social Gospel by Walter Rauschenbusch, and,
aw why not, Theopolitical Imagination by William Cavanaugh (I really like what that guy writes.)
And now to tag five people:
Halden, you meme fiend (I will be getting to that favorite theologian soon) choose some books – however, we already know Jensen and Lewis will be on your list, so find some others, dear God find some others… heh.
Adam M, post away.
Travis “I’m living in the Midwest” Waters, how about you bring some landlocked fun.
Mike at Catholic Anarchy, you can’t be all Cath…er bad with someone as much fun as Metz. Perhaps you could bring some color to our dreary, white-walled Protestantism?
And lastly, I’d like to see if anything changed in nearly two years (which is conceivably enough time for the meme to go all the way around the internet and back), so Chris, have you got a new list?
As for the rest of the readers of this blog, feel free to post away as well, this is by no means exclusionary, rather, I would at least hope to insure some response from someone and therefore the list above.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
More Moltmann and Metz
The Question: Granting the analogy between the ecclesiologies of Metz and Moltmann on the fundamental level, do you find Moltmann's X substantially differentiates his ecclesiology from Metz's or is Moltmann's ecclesiology sustantially the same as Metz's?
Moltmann and Metz share many similarities, nevertheless, Moltmann’s tendency to privatize Christianity diverges from Metz.
Moltmann and Metz share a great deal in common. In the preface to the paper back edition (1990), Moltmann calls for a move towards a small ecclesial community, similar to Metz (xiii). Also in the readings, Metz is footnoted twice (17, 276), particularly concerning the political nature of Christianity. Despite these and other similarities, Moltmann stands in contrast to Metz when Moltmann asserts that the church ought not “claim any direct power in secular matters,” specifically in economics, politics and culture (167).
Metz continually rails against a bourgeois Christianity in favor of a messianic Christianity and to do so requires the de-privatization of Christianity. In contrast, while Moltmann calls for liberation, he does so by way of individual Christian action in the political, economic, and cultural sphere that results in the ethical actions of the church carried out through the privatized social contracts between citizens and government (164). For instance, when Moltmann talks about a Christian opposition to immoral ethical systems or actions, he does not call for the church to break away or criticize in some fashion, rather he uses the word “Christians” which connotes an individual’s movements, rather than the movement of the body of Christ (174).
It seems that Metz calls for the church to be the relational model that answers the Christian call, a model that both continually critiques the church and the world. It is through this that the church becomes a vision for the world to understand right relationships through the basileia of God. However, Moltmann distinguishes himself from this – the church does not become the agitator for resistance or representation (194), nor is the church supposed to be envisioning and displaying right relationships concerning racialism, sexism, or valuing the handicapped (182-186); instead, the social problems are confronted by a reformationist idea of justification and the I-identity (189).
_______
Text quoted is: The Church in the Power of the Spirit. However, the pages we did read were not the entire book so as to find some congruence with Metz's more systematic approach. It seems possible that my critique is off base, but after reading Prof. Haight's comments, I think I do have a point that is not dealt with elsewhere in the text and therefore can stand.
Moltmann and Metz share many similarities, nevertheless, Moltmann’s tendency to privatize Christianity diverges from Metz.
Moltmann and Metz share a great deal in common. In the preface to the paper back edition (1990), Moltmann calls for a move towards a small ecclesial community, similar to Metz (xiii). Also in the readings, Metz is footnoted twice (17, 276), particularly concerning the political nature of Christianity. Despite these and other similarities, Moltmann stands in contrast to Metz when Moltmann asserts that the church ought not “claim any direct power in secular matters,” specifically in economics, politics and culture (167).
Metz continually rails against a bourgeois Christianity in favor of a messianic Christianity and to do so requires the de-privatization of Christianity. In contrast, while Moltmann calls for liberation, he does so by way of individual Christian action in the political, economic, and cultural sphere that results in the ethical actions of the church carried out through the privatized social contracts between citizens and government (164). For instance, when Moltmann talks about a Christian opposition to immoral ethical systems or actions, he does not call for the church to break away or criticize in some fashion, rather he uses the word “Christians” which connotes an individual’s movements, rather than the movement of the body of Christ (174).
It seems that Metz calls for the church to be the relational model that answers the Christian call, a model that both continually critiques the church and the world. It is through this that the church becomes a vision for the world to understand right relationships through the basileia of God. However, Moltmann distinguishes himself from this – the church does not become the agitator for resistance or representation (194), nor is the church supposed to be envisioning and displaying right relationships concerning racialism, sexism, or valuing the handicapped (182-186); instead, the social problems are confronted by a reformationist idea of justification and the I-identity (189).
_______
Text quoted is: The Church in the Power of the Spirit. However, the pages we did read were not the entire book so as to find some congruence with Metz's more systematic approach. It seems possible that my critique is off base, but after reading Prof. Haight's comments, I think I do have a point that is not dealt with elsewhere in the text and therefore can stand.
Philemon Revisited
In a course titled “Advanced Bible Study Methods” during my undergraduate studies, I was given an assignment similar to writing a biblical theology of Philemon. The goal was to focus upon themes, attempting to find the overarching theme and its progression throughout the text. I interpreted the central theme as brotherly love, and encapsulated the resulting developed concept thus: “To love your brother and/or sister is the end all for Christian ethics – love is fundamentally how we ought to see others who are in Christ.” For this textual interpretational essay, I have elected to re-examine both Philemon and my previous assignment.
Having looked back at my previous assignment, I am in fact quite embarrassed as to my writings and thankful that I have made my way to Union. Largely the previous assignment does not seem directly counter to what Philemon states, rather the previous assignment misses out on a great deal of other themes within the text and possibly the thrust of the document. This essay will not be a restatement of my previous paper, rather, I envision a telling critique and better interpretation of Philemon.
Philemon as Sibling Love
There is no doubt that Philemon speaks the language of love and indeed love is informative as it guides our relationships one to another.1 After all, Paul and Timothy are connected to the intended audience through close relational terms, familial terms in fact (brother, dear friend, co-worker and fellow-soldier) and most importantly linked directly through the love of Christ.2 Indeed Paul continues the theme of sibling love, proclaiming the joy he receives from the love that the intended audience gives, but also urging the audience on further through a prayer and noticeably not through a demand.3 The author maintains a sibling dynamic with the audience, appealing on the basis of love and good will through Christ.4 Likewise, the author continues to maintain a family dynamic, stating how valued Onesimus has become to him (like a father to a son) and now, Onesimus is precious to Paul as his “own heart” in which Paul sends out.
The theme of love continues throughout the rest of the text, however, the love that I saw was a gentle love – a comfortable love, but really, a love that was lacking the sharp edge to actually cut at evil, social structures. My previous interpretation missed the part of the love that turned the emperor on his imperial head. I did, fortunately, recognize that: "this love subverts the traditional response of a master to a runaway slave. Instead of lashing out in severe rage and dispensing a sanctioned revenge under patriarchal law, love brings mutuality to the relation between the master and slave. While the structure of slavery might still exist, this love submits the harsh reality of slavery to the loving reality of Christian mutual submission."
Nevertheless, the applications I derived from the exercise, while they were needed changes in my life that I genuinely professed, lacked anything other than encouragement, love, and graciousness. Though these applications were relational, they were in fact rather privatized – none of them offered anything in response to the injustice of social structures. After four whole years studying how to see the text, I still saw a kind love, not a love that deconstructed evils or that stood for the oppressed and enslaved. I saw the comfortable kind of love that a white, partriarchal Bible college will profess: mutual submission. Apparently, I had to come to Union to see what I missed.
Philemon Revisited
Somehow, in all the interpretation that I did, I missed the intentionally liberative edge of the text. I first missed the opening salvo: the Pauline prayer in verse 6. It is worth noting the repetition (the function of which is similar to an inclusio) in verses 4-7: that Paul and Timothy receive encouragement, joy and thank God for the faith and fellowship of the intended audience. Verse 6 is different, as it is a prayer or wish of Paul’s, surrounded by the profession of encouragement that Paul and Timothy receive.6 It consequentially legitimizes the audience, their faith and fellowship.
Verse 6 also appears to point toward the argument that Onesimus’ redemption from slavery is part of the Christian call. The sharing/fellowship of the faith becomes all the more effective when the audience understands and sees the good done in Christ – contextually this seems to be the sibling love for one another. The author calls for the audience to understand deeper their faith and fellowship among believers – a faith and fellowship that is not oppressive or allows for the worldly structures into the “church in their house.”7 The placement of the prayer in verse 6, sandwiched between the saints and their encouraging love, appears to proclaim that this prayer, subtly calling for Onesimus’ release, is just as much for the good of the community as it will be a witness of the community.
I also missed the crucial, and indeed, explicit transition of Onesimus’ status in verse 16. As Paul intercedes, Onesimus ceases to remain at the level of a slave in his relationship to Philemon; rather, Onesimus becomes a brother – he is liberated within the Christian fellowship. The relationship between Philemon and Paul is not the only relationship that the text speaks to; it speaks also to the transforming of the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus: “no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but ho much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.”8 The slave in the relationship becomes brother, and the master-slave hierarchical dynamic is transformed into one of brotherly equality.
Furthermore, the Letter of Paul to Philemon is a freeing argument and reaches beyond mere guiding already established relationships within the fellowship into Christ, the love that Paul calls for is redemptive and corrects our relationships one to another.9 As significant as the redemptive action that Christianity enacts when it brings people together as siblings, much more happens in the world outside of Christian relationships within the text. This text becomes a political text as Onesimus seems to be freed from the political world of the emperor who saw him as a slave; this letter is an action by Paul as the body of Christ intervening for liberation in other areas of the body of Christ from the oppressive structure of slavery that the world attempts to impress upon the fellowship.
Paul intercedes for Onesimus not only with words, but with action as well. Paul calls for the fellow Christian to not hold Onesimus liable, and to let Paul pay for any wrong.10 Yet Paul does not stop at mere repayment; he anticipates something far greater of Philemon: “Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.”11 And as Paul anticipates this greater action on the part of his fellow Christian, perhaps the freeing of Onesimus, Paul’s promise to visit confirms his own plans to follow up on his promises and personally see the matter to its conclusion.
Lastly, now I am hesitant to assert the link I made between Ephesians and Philemon was correct, or at least there ought to be a re-understanding the Ephesians text, otherwise my assertion that Philemon acts like an extension of the Ephesians text is woefully incongruent with the “household codes.”
Safety and the Edge
I find it rather telling that I developed an interpretation that recognized a love that turns over master and slave dynamics, but shied away in my application from the kind of dangerous love that was clearly called for. In fact, this interpretation I think says just as much about me as it does the text itself – certainly I have grown some, but to do so I needed to leave the white theology behind in order to find the edge within the text and its dangerous love.
_________
1. v. 4, 7, 9, 16
2. v. 1, 3
3. v. 4-7
4. v. 9
5. v. 10-12
6. v. 4-5, 7
7. v. 2
8. v. 16
9. v. 16
10. v. 18-19
11. v. 21
Having looked back at my previous assignment, I am in fact quite embarrassed as to my writings and thankful that I have made my way to Union. Largely the previous assignment does not seem directly counter to what Philemon states, rather the previous assignment misses out on a great deal of other themes within the text and possibly the thrust of the document. This essay will not be a restatement of my previous paper, rather, I envision a telling critique and better interpretation of Philemon.
Philemon as Sibling Love
There is no doubt that Philemon speaks the language of love and indeed love is informative as it guides our relationships one to another.1 After all, Paul and Timothy are connected to the intended audience through close relational terms, familial terms in fact (brother, dear friend, co-worker and fellow-soldier) and most importantly linked directly through the love of Christ.2 Indeed Paul continues the theme of sibling love, proclaiming the joy he receives from the love that the intended audience gives, but also urging the audience on further through a prayer and noticeably not through a demand.3 The author maintains a sibling dynamic with the audience, appealing on the basis of love and good will through Christ.4 Likewise, the author continues to maintain a family dynamic, stating how valued Onesimus has become to him (like a father to a son) and now, Onesimus is precious to Paul as his “own heart” in which Paul sends out.
The theme of love continues throughout the rest of the text, however, the love that I saw was a gentle love – a comfortable love, but really, a love that was lacking the sharp edge to actually cut at evil, social structures. My previous interpretation missed the part of the love that turned the emperor on his imperial head. I did, fortunately, recognize that: "this love subverts the traditional response of a master to a runaway slave. Instead of lashing out in severe rage and dispensing a sanctioned revenge under patriarchal law, love brings mutuality to the relation between the master and slave. While the structure of slavery might still exist, this love submits the harsh reality of slavery to the loving reality of Christian mutual submission."
Nevertheless, the applications I derived from the exercise, while they were needed changes in my life that I genuinely professed, lacked anything other than encouragement, love, and graciousness. Though these applications were relational, they were in fact rather privatized – none of them offered anything in response to the injustice of social structures. After four whole years studying how to see the text, I still saw a kind love, not a love that deconstructed evils or that stood for the oppressed and enslaved. I saw the comfortable kind of love that a white, partriarchal Bible college will profess: mutual submission. Apparently, I had to come to Union to see what I missed.
Philemon Revisited
Somehow, in all the interpretation that I did, I missed the intentionally liberative edge of the text. I first missed the opening salvo: the Pauline prayer in verse 6. It is worth noting the repetition (the function of which is similar to an inclusio) in verses 4-7: that Paul and Timothy receive encouragement, joy and thank God for the faith and fellowship of the intended audience. Verse 6 is different, as it is a prayer or wish of Paul’s, surrounded by the profession of encouragement that Paul and Timothy receive.6 It consequentially legitimizes the audience, their faith and fellowship.
Verse 6 also appears to point toward the argument that Onesimus’ redemption from slavery is part of the Christian call. The sharing/fellowship of the faith becomes all the more effective when the audience understands and sees the good done in Christ – contextually this seems to be the sibling love for one another. The author calls for the audience to understand deeper their faith and fellowship among believers – a faith and fellowship that is not oppressive or allows for the worldly structures into the “church in their house.”7 The placement of the prayer in verse 6, sandwiched between the saints and their encouraging love, appears to proclaim that this prayer, subtly calling for Onesimus’ release, is just as much for the good of the community as it will be a witness of the community.
I also missed the crucial, and indeed, explicit transition of Onesimus’ status in verse 16. As Paul intercedes, Onesimus ceases to remain at the level of a slave in his relationship to Philemon; rather, Onesimus becomes a brother – he is liberated within the Christian fellowship. The relationship between Philemon and Paul is not the only relationship that the text speaks to; it speaks also to the transforming of the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus: “no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but ho much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.”8 The slave in the relationship becomes brother, and the master-slave hierarchical dynamic is transformed into one of brotherly equality.
Furthermore, the Letter of Paul to Philemon is a freeing argument and reaches beyond mere guiding already established relationships within the fellowship into Christ, the love that Paul calls for is redemptive and corrects our relationships one to another.9 As significant as the redemptive action that Christianity enacts when it brings people together as siblings, much more happens in the world outside of Christian relationships within the text. This text becomes a political text as Onesimus seems to be freed from the political world of the emperor who saw him as a slave; this letter is an action by Paul as the body of Christ intervening for liberation in other areas of the body of Christ from the oppressive structure of slavery that the world attempts to impress upon the fellowship.
Paul intercedes for Onesimus not only with words, but with action as well. Paul calls for the fellow Christian to not hold Onesimus liable, and to let Paul pay for any wrong.10 Yet Paul does not stop at mere repayment; he anticipates something far greater of Philemon: “Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.”11 And as Paul anticipates this greater action on the part of his fellow Christian, perhaps the freeing of Onesimus, Paul’s promise to visit confirms his own plans to follow up on his promises and personally see the matter to its conclusion.
Lastly, now I am hesitant to assert the link I made between Ephesians and Philemon was correct, or at least there ought to be a re-understanding the Ephesians text, otherwise my assertion that Philemon acts like an extension of the Ephesians text is woefully incongruent with the “household codes.”
Safety and the Edge
I find it rather telling that I developed an interpretation that recognized a love that turns over master and slave dynamics, but shied away in my application from the kind of dangerous love that was clearly called for. In fact, this interpretation I think says just as much about me as it does the text itself – certainly I have grown some, but to do so I needed to leave the white theology behind in order to find the edge within the text and its dangerous love.
_________
1. v. 4, 7, 9, 16
2. v. 1, 3
3. v. 4-7
4. v. 9
5. v. 10-12
6. v. 4-5, 7
7. v. 2
8. v. 16
9. v. 16
10. v. 18-19
11. v. 21
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