Morality as distraction?

"But as for you, teach what is consistent with sound doctrine. Tell the older men to be temperate, serious, prudent, and sound in faith, in love, and in endurance.

Likewise, tell the older women to be reverent in behaviour, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink; they are to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self-controlled, chaste, good managers of the household, kind, being submissive to their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.

Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, gravity, and sound speech that cannot be censured; then any opponent will be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us.

Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to answer back, not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity, so that in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Saviour.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

Declare these things; exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one look down on you.

- Titus 2.

Is morality a distraction from the good news?
Some Christians believe that discussions of morality are a distraction from the gospel, a secondary concern that can dilute the focus of the church's attention away from witnessing to God's grace revealed in Christ. But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of both morality and the gospel. To understand why, let's look at the Titus passage quoted above.

I don't intend to discuss all of this chapter, and certain instructions probably require further reflection; the words addressed to young women and slaves in particular may have jumped out at some readers. Instead, I would like to consider the reasons given for these moral instructions, what are the motivations put forward to drive readers to adopt or maintain these practices?

First, these exhortations are to be followed in order to be "consistent with sound doctrine". Doctrine is simply another word for teaching. We are to live in accordance with what is true, with the teachings that are sound and reliable; we are not to be in denial of reality.

Second, the teaching passed on between generations includes an account of "what is good". We are to remember and transmit ways of life that are good, that are life-giving, that affirm what is truly valuable and make life worthwhile. Indeed, Jesus Christ "gave himself to redeem us from all iniquity". Sin is not a matter of going against some arbitrary will of God, but is living poorly. Jesus came to set us free not simply from the consequences of our wrongdoing, but from the doing of wrong.

Of course, we may have philosophical questions about the nature of goodness or how we come to know what is true, but these two affirmations, that our actions are guided by what is true and what is good are probably not in themselves particularly controversial.

But there are two more strands here also worth noting. On the one hand is God's coming future: "while we wait for the blessed hope". I have written quite a bit on this blog about Christian hope and its relation to ethics and will not add to that here.

The fourth reason for action is repeated in a few different forms: "so that the word of God may not be discredited", "a model of good works", so that opponents have nothing to criticise, "so that in everything they might be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Saviour". The basic idea of all these reasons is that our behaviours have an influence on others for good or for ill. Our actions are performed in front of a human audience who note them and make evaluations on their basis. We are to do what is true and what is good in light of what is coming, but also what will be a good model for others to copy, what will not distract from the proclamation of good news, what will in fact serve to make it more attractive and intriguing. Seeing a life filled with grace and truth is compelling; living well can be infectious. Morality is linked to credibility.

Christian moral behaviour is therefore intimately tied to the good news. We are to take account of it as news, as a message that is credible and which contains truths relevant to how we live. We are to take account of the goodness of this news, that it is a summons to a way of living that is itself good, liberating and humanising. We are to take account that this news informs us of God's promised future. And we are to take account of the ways in which our behaviour serves to attract or distract people from paying attention to these glad tidings. Morality is not a distraction from the gospel, but is both included within it and can make it more credible. Indeed, it is immorality that is a distraction, or at least a detraction, from the gospel.

Let us consider the matter of credibility a little further. I've heard that during the Third Reich, a number of German Christian leaders argued that political questions and the treatment of the Jews and other minorities were distractions from the gospel.* Such matters were best left to the discretion of the state authorities whom God had appointed for tasks of that nature.
*I have never seen a reference for this, but have heard it a couple of times. If anyone knows of relevant sources, I'd be interested to hear whether this is an accurate account. Wikipedia has a readable introduction to the Confessing Church, which gives some of the context.

Leaving aside the questions of whether this stance was in accord with sound doctrine (though I think there are some very problematic theological assumptions about the nature and role of the state involved) or whether it was a denial of the goodness of the gospel and of God's promised future, the widespread failure of the church to stand strongly against the persecution of the Jews and other minorities did not put the message of Christ in a positive light and indeed continues to be an active detraction from it to this day. We rely on a relative small number of exemplary figures to show that the apparent moral blindness was not total. Even the Confessing Church (which may have compromised about twenty percent of German Protestantism) placed far more emphasis by and large on state interference with ecclesial matters than on the escalating persecution of minorities. While there were some noteworthy exceptions, with hindsight the general Christian silence appears to have tacitly condoned the oppression, doing no favours to Christian credibility in the process.

Or to select a contemporary example much in the headlines, ongoing revelations of the abuse of children by Christian leaders does all kinds of damage to the credibility of the gospel. Whatever the denominational stripes of the abusers (and I don't think any group has either a monopoly or an entirely clean slate, though there may be significant differences in extent), the abuse itself is horrific and the widespread failure of Christian leaders to discipline abusive pastors has become a further blight on the church's reputation.

These two examples are highly emotional and heavily discussed. I selected them not because they were clichés within easy reach, but because amongst the somewhat relativised ethical assumptions of contemporary western society, these two topics serve as a couple of the most widely-shared ethical agreements left. People reach for child abuse and the horrors of Nazi Germany in order to ground a discussion with the reassurance that "these at least we can agree were truly wrong". In each case, the strength of this shared moral conviction turns the failures of Christians into barriers to hearing the good news.

Are ecological ethics a distraction from the gospel?
I could well be wrong, but it seems to me that the emerging ecological catastrophes of industrial society may well lead in decades to come to another issue where censure is widespread and relatively uncontested. Will the church again be found on the wrong side? Will we have constructed another roadblock to sharing the word of life?

I am not arguing that the church is to be merely responsive to changing social mores, following the prevailing outrages of the day. Nor am I saying that ecological responsibility is only for the sake of appearances. I am simply suggesting a supplement to the concern for what is true, what is right and what is coming (which all ground a robust Christian ecological ethics), namely, the consideration of whether contemporary apathy or disparagement of ecological concerns by some Christian leaders and teachers will increasingly become a stumbling block to a society awakening to the destructiveness of unthinking consumption.

Andrew Katay and the New Perspective

For those from Sydney Anglican circles with a particular set of theological and biblical interests, you might be interested to see Andrew Katay go on the record about the New Perspective on Paul and the place of doctrine in Christian fellowship. I've made some comments of my own about the latter a while back and it generated a little discussion (I think that only NSW politics and the science of climate change have generated more comments on a single post), so it will be interesting to see where this conversation goes.

Introductory theological text book?

In first term next year I will be teaching a Moore Theological College external studies course over seven weeks at Pennant Hills. The course is "Doctrine 1" and covers the doctrines of God, revelation and the person and work of Christ (and perhaps some other things; I'm still yet to receive a syllabus). I'd love to hear suggestions of possible introductory level textbooks to set as required reading. The participants are likely to have never studied any formal theology before and the classes are only two hours per week, so conciseness and accessibility are priorities. I am happy to include more stretching exercepts or texts as extension or recommended reading. Any ideas?

Williams on Spong

As I alluded to earlier in the week, controversial retired Episcopalian bishop John Shelby Spong is in town at the moment.

What I didn't know until today was that back in 1998 Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury (though he was then Bishop of Monmouth), responded to a list of twelve theses Spong had composed criticising various traditional tenets of Christianity, such as theism, the incarnation, the fall, all miracles (including a bodily resurrection), the ascension, and the role of prayer and the scriptures. The theses were an echo of Luther's famous ninety-five theses of 1517 and they are here, together with Williams' response. Despite expressing appreciation towards some of Spong's other contributions, Williams was not impressed, calling the theses confused, "uninteresting" and "the sort of thing that might be asked by a bright 20th century sixth former." In his conclusion, Williams says:

It is no great pleasure to write so negatively about a colleague from whom I, like many others, have learned. But I cannot in any way see Bishop Spong's theses as representing a defensible or even an interesting Christian future. And I want to know whether the Christian past, scripture and tradition, really appears to him as empty and sterile as this text suggests.

I am sympathetic to those frustrated by their experience of church, who have not found life together in the Christian community to be a taste of God's future. I believe there is an important role to be played by a faithful opposition. But in my brief and limited experience, it seems like there are better critics, more insightful contemporary prophets, and more worthwhile conversation partners than Bishop Spong. Nonetheless, I'm willing to be corrected. Can anyone recommend Spong's best book?

CORRECTION: I initially misquoted Williams as saying that the theses were "poorly-thought through". My apologies for sloppy work. Williams used this phrase about the issues raised by the theses, agreeing with Spong that these issues need further thought, but still sharply criticising Spong's answers to them.
Archbishop Williams' image from the official Archbishop of Canterbury website. Bishop Spong's image from the Harvard University Gazette.

The play's the thing: Vanhoozer's Divine Comedy

The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005)
What is the place of doctrine in following Jesus? Is it a human construction that distorts the Bible? Or a luxury of decadent, introspective Christianity substituting for practical action? Neither, claims Vanhoozer in The Drama of Doctrine; doctrine is precisely what relates the Scriptures to our individual and corporate obedience. In doing so, he aims to reclaim doctrine as energetic, energising and ecumenical in an age that sees it as dull, distracting and divisive.

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Taking his cue from the world of theatre, he proceeds at some length to develop the metaphor of drama in four directions: drama, script, dramaturge and performance.

First, adopting and adapting von Balthasar's Theo-drama, Vanhoozer recasts salvation history as a divine comedy, a ‘theo-drama’ in which God is protagonist and Jesus the pivotal climax. Of course, like all good plays, this one has five acts: Creation, Israel, Jesus, Church, and Eschaton (which came first, the metaphor or the biblical theology, remains unspecified).*
*Indeed, it is difficult to either prove or disprove the effect of the theatrical allegory in providing an unacknowledged (even unconscious) ‘confirmation’ of certain details of his approach.

The triune hero performs a fully rounded part; the destructive dichotomy between divine actions and words is healed with the help of speech-act theory. God’s mighty actions communicate, and his words get things done.

Second, having oriented us to the (theo-)drama, we meet the authoritative script: the Bible. In constant dialogue with Lindbeck’s influential The Nature of Doctrine, Vanhoozer agrees with Lindbeck’s desire to move beyond a narrow pre-critical cognitive theology of fundamentalism and an equally reductionist liberal experiential-expressivism. For Lindbeck, the cultural-linguistic turn in twentieth century western thought means that biblical hermeneutics (and thus theology) must be grounded in the practices of the ecclesial interpretive community. Yet there is a dangerous circularity in which the Bible read through the lens of contemporary church life can only affirm that very life; the church becomes unreformable and the externality, the potentially critical otherness of God’s voice in Scripture, is silenced. Therefore, while loath to lose the hermeneutical insight linking reading to community praxis, Vanhoozer argues for authorised canonical practices that guide our reading and help avoid the solipsism of fundamentalism.* Thus, he retrieves the possibility and actuality of error in and by the church (p. 233), yet without thereby cutting loose hermeneutics from tradition. And so, instead of Lindbeck’s postliberal cultural-linguistic theology, Vanhoozer introduces a postconservative canonical-linguistic one.
*Two examples of such canonical, even dominical, practices are figurative readings of Scripture (pp. 220-24) and prayer to the Father (pp. 224-26).

Third: enter playwright, stage left. Just as in the larger theo-drama, the climactic third act of the book sees the author join the action. Unlike the primary performance, however, this is no divine hero-saviour come to set all things right, but merely a theologian. The function of the theologian is instead that of the little-known dramaturge, mediator between script and director.* The theologian as dramaturge is a resource for the company, helping the director in ensuring the script is understood and applied with creative faithfulness, neither parroting nor forgetting previous acts and scenes of the theo-drama.** Performing this task requires both scientia (to read the script with disciplined understanding) and sapientia (to relate it practically to the mundane dramas of quotidian experience); each scores a full chapter.
*The director (or at least assistant director to the Holy Spirit) is the local pastor, mediating the script(ures) to his company of players.
**Faithfulness is thus dramatic fittingness: both to the primary theo-dramatic performance and to the contemporary context of a local production (pp. 256-63).

One example of theology’s sciential function is seeing the doctrine of Trinity as a dramatis personae, a crucial abbreviated guide for an understanding of the canonical script, yet itself arising authentically from a careful scriptural reading.

A key sapiential concept is ‘improvisation’, which, when undertaken by serious actors, is no arbitrary ad-libbing of lines for quick laughs, but a discipline of focussed memory and creative attention that seeks what new thing must be said or done in order to drive forward the action while remaining consistent with the drama thus far. Understood in this way, even God is an improviser: ‘The theo-drama itself develops largely through divine improvisation on a covenant theme…. God overaccepts even human blocking by incorporating it into the broader covenantal comedy.’ (pp. 340-41)

Fourth, the contemporary performance itself takes the spotlight. Again, he shares Lindbeck’s concern for the regulative function of doctrine but wants to based this primarily on canon, not church. More than a collection of true statements about God, doctrine orients performers towards apt action. Here, his ubiquitous (and by this stage more than slightly stretched) metaphor comes into its own in foregrounding the instrumental rather than intrinsic value of the Bible and theology. The goal of both script and direction is to serve the drama: ‘script and performance are equally necessary, though not equally authoritative. Biblical script without ecclesial performance is empty; ecclesial performance without biblical script is blind’ (p. 362). The authority lies with script (Bible); the teleology with performance (praxis); the mediation with direction (theology). Indeed, in yet another self-reflexive moment, Vanhoozer’s theological metaphor-making is at this point executing precisely the task of theology in his allegory: helping us see how the Bible can and must be lived out with creative faithfulness. To illustrate theology in service of praxis, he stages some scenes with the motifs of martyrdom and forgiveness under the direction of atonement.

For an encore, he places creeds, confessions and pastors as, respectively, masterpiece and regional theatre, and assistant directors (under the Holy Spirit): pp. 445-58.

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Vanhoozer admits at the outset that the relationship between theologian and thespian has long been frosty, and many readers may feel uneasy about the trapdoors hidden in the floorboards of his metaphor. Before walking out too quickly, however, it’s worth taking a seat and perusing the benefits of admission.

All but the most unreformed modernists recognise the great explanatory power (and canonical basis) of narrative in theological reflection. Drama is a species of narrative, and so retains all its conceptual benefits (e.g. sequence, configuration, characterisation), while adding fruitful modifications, such as a synergy with speech-act theory and a greater potential to get ‘caught up in the action’ through a more permeable barrier between ‘text’ and responder (pp.48-49).

The concept of ‘speech-acts’ helps to disentangle knotty disputes about the relationship of Scripture and tradition through the distinction between locutions (the words used) and illocutions (the actions performed by those words: promising, warning, inviting, asserting). Merely replicating canonical locutions can (and in shifting cultural-linguistic contexts will) result in distorting God’s scriptural illocutions (pp. 126-28). It is the illocutions that tradition seeks to preserve and translate, though it is only these locutions that are authoritative guides to the illocutions (p. 74). The concept of illocution also reveals the limitations of locating our doctrine of Scripture simply under the heading of ‘revelation’, since God does more through it than merely reveal himself (pp. 45, 277).*
*While appreciating the intellectual yield of speech-act theory, some basic narratology would have sharpened his claim that the illocutions of Scripture are God’s (p. 67) by specifying which illocutions are the relevant ones (viz. those of the implied author, though not necessarily of the narrator or every character). Similarly, infelicitous claims about the addressees of Scripture (p. 67) could have also been avoided.

These dramatic (in both senses) benefits notwithstanding, apprehension remains concerning his almost allegorical application of a single metaphor to explain a whole company of concepts. Has theatre become the master key to all theology? He vigorously criticises directors who use a ‘production concept’ to usurp the communicative intent of the authorial script (p. 250); is he, to invoke the Bard, ‘hoist with his own petar[d]’?

Before we jeer this show with cries of ‘hypocrisy’, it is important to note four mitigating factors: (a) the frequency of non-theatrical metaphors and the pivotal roles they play in his cast of images;* (b) the acknowledgement of the necessity of other voices in the theological dialogue (p. 275); (c) the recognisably orthodox account of doctrinal touchstones it yields; and (d) his en route corrections and criticisms of the limitations of his selected metaphor. This final one is worth further comment. Sometimes he corrects one piece of the analogy with another: using ‘improvisation’ to supplement and correct potentially misleading aspects of treating Bible as script. At other times, he debunks commonly misunderstood theatrical realities: improvisation as arbitrary ad-libbing (pp.340-41). Occasionally, he even simply abandons implications of the metaphor: ‘Like other analogies, this one can be pressed too far. To insist that everything in drama must have a theological counterpart runs the risk of turning a simple analogy into a complex allegory.’ (p. 243)
*To spotlight a few: trial (pp. 21-24), epic/lyric (pp. 84-93), fittingness (pp. 108-10), ‘transposition’ (pp. 254), map (pp. 294-99), habits (pp. 374-77), and dieting to be spiritually ‘fit’ (pp. 374-80).

Perhaps it is pressing too far to criticise the implicit activism of the church, whose raison d’être as company of performers is construed in instrumental fashion to the detriment of its intrinsic value as redeemed community (p. 71). Perhaps not.

There is nonetheless a certain messiness to the metaphor as it is pushed and expanded in multiple directions. Like a Shakespearean company with more roles than players, the same faces appear in different guises. God is the playwright, the executive director, and the protagonist (pp. 64, 243). While a robust Trinitarian theology may take this in its three-legged stride, the Bible also (somewhat disconcertingly) makes three appearances: as the authorised memory of the original theo-drama, as an actor in the ongoing performance (p. 35, 48), and as script for that performance (p. 115-241). Christians are alternatively audience then actors, mirroring God’s move from actor to audience (p. 37). Part of the confusion is comprehensible when one keeps in mind there are two performances: the primary theo-drama in five Acts, and a multiplicity of secondary local shows that comprise Act Four (p. 252).

Even so, the characterisation of the Bible remains somewhat unresolved. The Bible as ‘script’ works well in discussions of authority in Part Two, yet becomes cumbersome and is virtually denied by the idea of ‘improvisation’ in Part Three (pp. 307, 335). The ‘script’ doesn’t have all the lines for Act Four (the life of the church) and so its authority is of a particular kind: setting the dramatis personae, plot line, and ultimate resolution in Act Five,* as well as exemplifying previous faithful improvisations (p. 344). The Bible as actor also seems to be a category error (p. 48), unless it is always understood as a shorthand for God’s agency through Scripture as instrument.
*Indeed, much more could have been made of eschatology’s role in bringing a dead performance to life. The weight of the volume was retrospective.
**On this point, N. T. Wright is both Vanhoozer’s source and is clearer: “How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?”, Vox Evangelica 21 (1991): 7-32.

The slight ambiguity raised by the frequent personification of Scripture as agentive is compounded by some undifferentiated linguistic parallelism between Christ and the Bible (p. 31, 35, 295). Of course, Scripture as a fourth hypostasis is denied (p. 227),* but John Webster’s careful account of Scripture as a sanctified divine servant is less prone to confusion on this matter (p. 293).
*Does anyone own up to that?

Although it may seem masochistic to accuse such a voluminous volume of sins of omission, the treatment of Scripture’s relationship to Christ also lacked much recognition of the theo-dramatically relative role of Scripture: ‘The only Christ we have is the Christ of the Scriptures.’ (p. 46, emphasis added) Although it is true that even the apostles had ‘the Christ of the [OT] Scriptures’, they also had the Christ of the flesh.* Vanhoozer’s reluctance to get his hands too dirty in the history of canonical formation (pp. 142-43) is echoed in the lack of a detailed theo-dramatic account of how God communicated prior to the completion of the canon.
*And what of the Christ of the pre-(proto?)-scriptural oral traditions?

Those criticisms aside, his theological treatment of Scripture remains a highlight of his approach. Central to his project in Part Two is the claim that sola scriptura is not so much principle as practice (pp. 115, 141, 153). Crucially, this Reformation battle cry was not answering ‘How many sources should one use in doing theology?’ but ‘where can we find the supreme norm by which to measure Christian deeds and Christian doctrine?’ (p. 232). The sufficiency of Scripture is material, rather than formal (p. 156). Vanhoozer’s rich and nuanced account is thus able to acknowledge that tradition and church are valuable, even indispensable aids in the interpretive process, without compromising the irreplaceable and unaugmentable centrality of the Bible in our knowledge of and obedience towards God. The ‘logic of justification’ needn’t follow the ‘logic of discovery’ (p. 165).

Similarly, his recognition of the dangers of generic reductionism is refreshing (pp. 139, 215. 285). Each genre has its own voice (p. 270), its own factual precisions, ways of life and higher order illocutions (pp. 283-87), its own irreducible input to the diverse unity of God’s scriptural communicative act. The canon has ‘an eschatological completeness, differentiated wholeness and plural unity’ (p. 275). As with canon, so with theology: what no single genre can assert (a unique and exclusive possession of the entire truth), no tradition can demand; what each genre can enjoy (a unique and necessary contribution to the apprehension of God’s being and acts), each truly Christian tradition must be granted (p. 275, 422).

This insight promotes his vision of a catholic-evangelical orthodoxy: keeping a definite theo-dramatic centre without denying the genuine and legitimate catholic diversity of contemporary and historic performance (p. 30). In this vision, doctrine divides the right things, rather than Christ’s body, and this, not because theological truth isn’t important, but precisely because it is (pp. 421-26).

Of course, Vanhoozer is not the first theorist to earn an intellectual living making a spectacle of this metaphor in our mise en scène. Even theologians, traditionally slowest off the mark in realising the backdrop has changed, have started rehearsing their lines in preparation for this ‘brave new world that has such people in’t’. Vanhoozer’s novelty lies in attiring the task of doctrine in this fashionable analogy. And not only dramatologists, but also a number of influential voices in contemporary thought make significant cameos: Bakhtin, Derrida, Gadamer, Nussbaum, Wittgenstein. Divers alarums: has he sold out to philosophical trends? Has his great learning driven his orthodoxy mad? This very dynamic is (in line with postmodern orthopraxis) reflected upon in the text. His response is that plundering this particular Egyptian trinket is justified as part of theology’s task of translation, or transposition, of the canonical melody into a contextual key. And of course, as one voice in a dialogue, his contribution suffers critical appreciation and correction.

His eclectic and multi-disciplinary interlocutors enrich his contribution to each of the many academic conversations he joins. However, as already noted, this breadth can occasionally leave him looking sloppy or naïve. In his epistemological discussion (pp. 265-305), he mistakenly assumes foundationalism entails infallibilism (pp. 292, 295), misapprehends the purpose of the web metaphor and so commits a category error in comparing it to his map metaphor (p. 297).* Similarly, his brief reference to photography shows little awareness that the ‘objective’ reputation of photos is as ripe for deconstruction as that of maps (p. 296). His discussion of ‘propositionalism’, presumes an atomistic semantics (pp. 266-78).
*These two metaphors illustrate answers to different questions. The map is an attempt to say something about how knowledge relates to ‘reality’; the web is a picture of how different parts of a worldview relate to each other. Thus, web should be contrasted to foundation, while map should be pitted against the early Wittgenstein’s (indeed Aristotle’s) idea of language ‘picturing’ reality.

Unfortunately, even his specifically theological epistemology confuses the effects of sin with (good) creaturely limitations on our knowledge, and in doing so, obscures the hermeneutics of suspicion behind the hermeneutics of finitude. Human fallenness does not lead to fallibilism as he claims (p. 303),* but to a healthy suspicion of our ability to hide selfish motives, even from our own consciousness.**
*Fallibilism is instead another epistemic implication of being created in embodied socio-cultural particularity. See James K. A. Smith, The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic (Downers Grove, Il.: IVP, 2000).
**For an excellent discussion of this theme, see Merold Westphal, Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism (New York: Fordham, 1998).

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When all’s said and done, Vanhoozer’s (over)long performance is sometimes sloppy, often inspiring, always stimulating. The stars that shine most brightly are the indispensability of canonical authority (or rather Christ's authority through the canon), the urgency of contemporary obedience, the responsibility of conceptual creativity and the possibility of dogmatic relevancy. Four stars.

Hart on doctrine as winsome apologetics

I presume that a credible defense of Christian rhetoric can be undertaken only from within Christian doctrine: because the church makes its appeal to the world first by pursuing its own dogmatics, by narrating and renarrating itself with ever greater fullness, hoping all the while that the intrinsic delightfulness (and of course, truthfulness) of this practice will draw others into its circle of discourse.

-David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Eerdmans: 2003), 30.

Today, I started reading this fascinating book (a lovely gift). It will be heavy going, but looks very stimulating. His basic question is "Is the beauty to whose persuasive power the Christian rhetoric of evangelism inevitably appeals, and upon which it depends, theologically defensible?" By taking 'beauty' as his theme, a whole way into theology (and evangelism, and philosophy) is opened up that is often overlooked, particularly by Protestants. One of his main points in the introduction is that beauty is not abstract, but is irreducibly associated with particular things in their contingency; the Christian gospel is not a set of timeless truths of universal reason, but is a historical story of such particularity that a modernist is embarrassed.

Anyway, I'd love to hear what people think of the first quote, which comes at the end of the introduction. Is there an intrinsic attractiveness to the good news as it is narrated? Do we believe the good news will strike hearers as good? Is this a repudiation of an apologetics of cultural translation (at least as a first strategy) in which we try to first connect with where people are at and answer the questions they are asking?

In praise of... generosity

To kick off this series (introduced here), I want to praise an act of creative Christian generosity initiated by Ben Myers on my behalf, and taken up by many others. As mentioned previously, Ben set up an account to which many others also contributed in order to allow me to make Amazon purchases from my wish list. In a few days, US$242.54 (plus a US$20 voucher) was raised. From a friend whom I've only met once, this lovely gesture has been one of many times I've been touched, encouraged and challenged by his warmth and thoughtfulness (for another example, see here). And for the many who gave (many of whom I've never met outside the blogosphere), I thank God for your gracious sharing and desire to be a blessing with the things God has given you. I am excited about the many treasures being shipped Sydney-wards as I type! Although Ben has already published my choices, I thought I'd do so again with some brief explanations of why I picked this tasty menu of treats.

George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age
An important book on theological method that has set the agenda for much subsequent 'post-liberal' theology. I almost picked it to review for a college assignment last year, but read the much thicker Drama of Doctrine* by Kevin Vanhoozer instead. Since it has come up repeatedly in Patrik's recent meme (e.g. here) about most important theology books of the last 25 years, I thought I should grab a copy when Amazon had it for a reduced price.
*Drew rightly wants us to link to original publishers rather than Amazon, though WJK Press directed me to Amazon when I did a search. Go figure.

Robert W. Jenson, On Thinking the Human: Resolutions of Difficult Notions
I'm down to give a few sermons later in the year on doctrine of humanity as part of a five-part series inspired by this fascinating post from Kim Fabricius. I think this is my only pick from the wish list I had up when Ben launched the appeal. My apologies to those who were hoping to see more from this list, though I received a few of my wishes for Christmas and hadn't updated my list. I've always wanted to read more Jenson, one of the foremost living theologians.

David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of The Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth
Another frequent recommendation in Patrik's meme. A number of bloggers have been reading this book and posting their thoughts (e.g. here amd here and here). It sounds like quite heavy philosophical theology at points, but I'm keen to read it because my love of Nietzsche has driven a large wedge between Plato and Christianity for me and it sounds like Hart is keen to defend some aspects of Plato. I want to see whether such a thing can be done.

Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology
I've always been fascinated by Williams from a distance as he does his dance as Archbishop of Canterbury and theologian. I'm glad that this figurehead is both a serious thinker and media savvy, even if I'm sometimes puzzled by his comments (and sometimes delighted - check out this quote). I picked three Williams texts that grabbed my attention in order to get to know him a little better first-hand. I'd like to try to write something on him this year and so need to start getting familiar. This collection of essays has been recommended to me as a good intro.

Rowan Williams, Wound of Knowledge: Christian Spirituality from the New Testament to St John of the Cross
This text combines two areas of speciality for Williams: spirituality and patristics. Both are fields I've been getting into over the last few months. I'm particularly interested to see what he says about Augustine, though I'd also like to be better introduced to more of the desert fathers, who have not featured heavily in my own theological education, despite being influential on a number of people I love dearly. I'm keen to get more of an idea of what is going on in Christian mysticism.

Rowan Williams, Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another and Other Lessons from the Desert Fathers
See above. The bonus of this book (a republication of what was originally a short little book called Silence and Honey-cakes (a great title) is that it has many extracts from the desert fathers - and is cheap!

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: II/2; III/3; III/4; IV/2; IV,4
Ben regretted that the money wasn't quite enough for a full (paperback) set of Barth's life-work, the unfinished masterpiece of 14 volumes of Church Dogmatics (the greatest theological landmark of the twentieth century - see here for more praise). However, I already own a number of hardback volumes secondhand (I/1; I/2; II/1; IV/1) and so thought I'd do a little detective work for some secondhand Amazon bargains - the postage to Oz is a little steeper than usual, but the prices were worth it for these - each was under US$30 and some under US$10! I make no promises about getting through them all in the next months, but they are a resource for a lifetime of theological depth and pondering. Where Barth gets it wrong, he's still masterfully stimulating.

In all this, I've tasted God's generosity through his people. This imitation of God is also a participation in his giving.

Let us praise what is good.
Series so far: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X.

Augustine on resurrection again

‘If faith in the resurrection of the dead is taken away, all Christian doctrine perishes.’

- Augustine, Sermon 361.2.

Them's fightin' words

I will keep saying it until I have no more reason to: Evangelicals are propagating more heresies today than in any other era of the church. These include a Pelagian doctrine of salvation, a unitarian doctrine of God, a docetic christology and Bible, a gnostic doctrine of eschatology, and a Constantinian doctrine of church-state relations—which, by the way, was what led the German church to support Hitler. Do I really need to unpack these in more detail? I am afraid that I will have to, since I doubt most realize how much the American evangelical sector has capitulated to these grave heresies and called it "a personal relationship with Jesus."

From The Fire and the Rose. We'll have to see how that series progresses and how specific it is to the American scene, since 'evangelical' can have a range of meanings in different cultural contexts.

This great blog has a series of fascinating film reviews, including two of my favourites: Magnolia and Me and You and Everyone We Know. I highly recommend both the films and the reviews.

Oh, and just added is a collection of links to many many posts on universalism in recent blogging.

Barth on universalism as doctrine hope and prayer

There is no good reason why we should forbid ourselves, or be forbidden, openness to the possibility that in the reality of God and man in Jesus Christ there is contained ... the supremely unexpected withdrawal of the final threat ... If for a moment we accept the unfalsified truth of the reality which even now so forcefully limits the perverted human situation, does it not point plainly in the direction of a truly eternal divine patience and deliverance and therefore of a ... universal reconciliation? If we are forbidden to count on this ... we are surely commanded the more definitely to hope and pray for this. - CD IV/3, 478

This much is certain, that we have no theological right to set any sort of limits to the loving-kindness of God which has appeared in Jesus Christ. Our theological duty is to see and understand it as being still greater than we had seen before. - The Humanity of God (1961), 60.

Man can certainly flee from God ... but he cannot escape him. He can certainly hate God and be hateful to God, but he cannot change into its opposite the eternal love of God which triumphs even in his hate. [Reference?]

Thoughts? Reflections? Hate-mail?
UPDATE: Here are Augustine's thoughts on the matter.
Ten points for the first to name three controversial Sydney landmarks in this picture. Another five for naming the Sydney landmark upon which I'm standing to take this shot.

How can anyone speak of the future?

"But how can anyone speak of the future, which is not yet here, and of coming events in which he has not as yet had any part? Are these not dreams, speculations, longings and fears, which must all remain vague and indefinite because no one can verify them? The term 'eschato-logy' is wrong. There can be no 'doctrine' of the last things, if by 'doctrine' we mean a collection of theses which can be understood on the basis of experiences that constantly recur and are open to anyone. ... But how, then, can Christian eschatology give expression to the future? Christian eschatology does not speak of the future as such. It sets out from a definite reality in history and announces the future of that reality, its future possibilities and its power over the future. Christian eschatology speaks of Jesus Christ and his future. The recognizes the reality of the raising of Jesus and proclaims the future of the risen Lord. ... Death is real death, and decay is petrefying decay. Guilt remains guilt and suffering remains, even for the believer, a cry to which there is no ready-made answer. Faith does not overstep these realities into a heavenly utopia, does not dream itself into a reality of a different kind. It can overstep the bounds of life, with their closed wall of suffering, guilt and death, only at the point where they have in actual fact been broken through. It is only in following the Christ who was raised from suffering, from a god-forsaken death and from the grave that it gains an open prospect in which there is nothing more to oppress us, a view of the realm of freedom and of joy. Where the bounds that mark the end of all human hopes are broken through in the raising of the crucified one, there faith can and must expand into hope."

- Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 2-5.

Theologoumenon

Theologoumenon: a theological interpretation that is suggested as possibility, not a decisive call to belief.
Doctrine (or Dogma)*: a normative teaching of the universal church.
This distinction is quite useful, even where the may be no doctrine on what 'normative' means (nor 'universal church'), only theologoumena. Not every understanding, not every issue, not every interpretation is equally important. There are hills to die on, and hills to admire from a distance, and hills to climb over which looked good from a distance but on closer inspection don't seem to have anywhere to pitch tent, and hills to tear down.
The term 'theologoumenon' needs broader use. Joshua is doing his bit over here.
*As originally used - popular usage has shifted the meaning somewhat. Indeed, as C.S. Lewis often noted, when words shift meaning, it is usually that a useful descriptive word becomes a vague term of approval or disapproval, little better than boo or hurrah. RIP 'dogma' (at least until the resurrection, when I'm hoping we'll get a lot of good words back).