Interpersonal rather than propositional?

To reflect on the 1st chapter of Bevans' book I have to say the two points that really stood out and appealed to me were: 1) the shift in theological thinking from propositional to relational categories and 2) the growing awareness of how the doctrine of the Trinity reveals a God who is to be understood primarily as relational.

In many ways this amounts to the same thing: to stop trying to conceive of God in abstract terms and then feel that signing a list of statements about God is an act of faith and to realise that God is not knowable in terms of propositions but only as God is personally encountered through the scriptures, church and everyday life.

Evangelicals have long been fond of saying "it's not a religion it's a relationship" but have then proceeded to reveal a list of philosophical propositions which require your intellectual assent before you can be considered a Christian. The problem for us religious types is that when you really understand that Christ calls us into relationship rather than into a list of 'articles of faith' then it becomes very hard to work out who is in and who is out. If you can cast someone into the outer darkness for using 'infallibility' instead of 'inerrancy' to describe their view of the Bible (neither of which actually tells us anything useful) then it it easy to keep control of a religious group. But if you have to admit that the most heretical thinker might still have a closer walk with God than you do it should force you to greater humility, tolerance, and openness to other people's views. After all its not about 'being right' but about being in relationship. It's not about knowing about God but about knowing God personally.

Let me know what you think :)

Models of Contextual Theology 1: CT as a Theological Imperative.

In the first chapter of the Models of Contextual Theology, Steven Bevans lays out why it is imperative to do Theology contextually (i.e. it must be done). Because all theology is contextual (e.g. patristic, reformation, feminist, black, etc) Christian faith cannot be understood apart from which ever particular context it is found in.

For Bevans:

Contextual theology (hereafter CT) is NEW because theology was traditionally thought of as an 'objective science of faith' (p3) whereas CT approaches faith as something 'unabashedly subjective' not meaning 'relative or private' but reality that is 'mediated by meaning.' This meaning is given 'in the context of our culture and our historical period, interpreted from our own particular horizon and in our own particular thouht forms' (p4)

But CT is also traditional/OLD in that 'every authentic theology has been very much rooted in a particular context in some implicit or real way.' (p5)

CT needs to be done for the following external factors:

1. 'A general dissatisfaction in both the First and Third worlds, with classical approaches to theology.' (p9) Especially the use of classical philosophy as the base for theology. So theologians are now turning to other philosophies (process, existentialist, personalist, linguistic, evolutionary, emergence) or other approaches all together (e.g. narrative, biography, and the social sciences). As well as responding to unique philosophical and cultural conditions in particular contexts.
2. The 'oppresive nature of older approaches' to theology is resulting in those groups who have been oppressed (e.g. Black, Latin American, African, Women, etc) developing theologies that are sensitive to their issues (p10).
3. The development of CTs are also a sign of the success of the missionary activity of the last century as local churches in nations far from Europe develope their own identities and sense of self worth (p10-11).
4. Finally the social sciences have defined culture 'as a set of meanings and values that informs a way of life.' Moving culture from something 'out there' (and where only the elite could become 'cultured') to 'something that everyone particpates in already' (p11).

Bevans also sees internal (to Christianity) factors driving the need for CT:

1. Firstly the Incarnation (God manifesting himself in the particular, as a human being in 1st century Judea) demonstrates that God doesn't 'shout his message from the heavens' but becomes present as a human within a particular time, space and culture. We can then only know the gospel (the good news about Jesus) as something that is within culture (p12).
2. The 'sacramental nature of reality' (a lovely Roman Catholic doctrine) points us to the fact that 'God is revealed not primarily in ideas but rather in concrete reality' (p12). 'The whole movement of the Bible is one of interpreting the ordinary, the secular, in terms of religious symbolism.' (p13) And 'encounters with God continue to take place in our world through concrete things' e.g. through other humans, creation, and the symbols of baptism and communion (p12).
3. The last century has also seen a shift from thinking about divine revelation as 'propositional truth' and faith then being 'intellectual assent to those truths.' More recently a '"newer" understanding- always present in theology but seldom explicitly and systematically appropriated' sees divine revelation as an interpersonal action of God giving of God's self where faith is then a personal response to God's self giving (p13).
4. 'The all-embracing, all-inclusive, all-accepting nature of the Christian community' (that is its 'catholicity') means the church 'champions and preserves the local, the particular' even as it seeks to 'live and flourish in every part of the world' (p14). and so the church cannot truly be the church unless every cultural group within it 'is included in its particularity' (p15).
5. Finally the 'renewal and revitalisation' of trinitarian thought over the last century means that the idea of God 'as a dynamic, relational, community of persons, whose very nature it is to be present and active in the world' has [rightly] returned to the heart of theological thought. God is no longer conceived as some abstract entity in heaven but is understood to be present and active in every human context (p15).

And that, argues Bevans, is why CT needs to be done. et me know what you think :)

Why All Theology is Contextual and Why It Matters

For the last forty years there has been an increasing shift in the academic study of theology towards an understanding of theology as contextual. This is both a good thing and a scary thing and its something everybody needs to get a handle on and understand. I am currently reading a book called Models of Contextual Theology by Stephen Bevans (Orbis, 2005) which I found for a bargain price on Trademe (the NZ version of EBay). I thought I would share my reading/thinking with you on the blog and I would appreciate your thoughts, whether you can see the relevance and importance of thinking contextually, and how the insights of thinking about faith contextually affects your own thinking. What follows here is not so much from the book as a prelude to the book from me. After this I intend to deal with the book chapter by chapter...

What is contextual theology?

Contextual theology is an insight coming from the post-modern era that essentially recognises that depending on who, where, and when you are things can look very different than if you were someone, somewhere, sometime else. This obvious when we apply it to something like fashion. In the 80's fluro socks and 'power ties' were the height of fashion. Wearing clothes like that now would be a shortcut to ridicule. Old music videos that were once the height of cool are now the epitome of kitch. Now that is fine for something obviously changeable and subjective like styles of clothing or dance moves but surely that cannot apply to issues of truth? Surely if God is real then theology should be like maths. 2+2=4, how can who, where, when you are change that? Well Theology, like maths, is language dependant, the language you use enables you to express concepts but also limits you in the concepts which you can express. Not only that, but your language is embedded in your culture which creates further potential but also limits the concepts you can express. Now I expect that 2+2=4 in any language, but once you try and explain concepts like 'pi' or the 'square root of the hypotenuse' then you are relying on concepts and language that has been especially created around those concepts. If you do not know those concepts then maths is meaningless. For theology the situation is more extreme because all theological language is analogy.

Why is all theological language analogy?

If I say "there is a rock" and point somewhere, and you know what the word rock means, then you can look at what I am pointing at and see if there is a rock there or not. But what happens when we say something like "God is a/my/our rock"? When I say that you do not think of the same thing that you think of when I say "there is a rock." Instead you think analogically: perhaps that God is big, unmovable, reliable. That is certainly what I tend to think of when I read such language in the Bible. But what if I come from a tribe in a rain forest where the only rocks are small and good for throwing at monkeys? To say "God is my rock" has a very different meaning, the analogy does not work. Now suppose I am from a culture that has lots of big dependable rocks but no concept of a supreme being called God. If you say "God is my rock" I merely think you have a rock, whose name is "God." The difference between talking about rocks and talking about God is that you can take someone who has never seen a rock to a rock and say "there is a rock." But when you are talking about God you are always reliant on comparing God to something else because you cannot actually point to God. Now while those example were a little extreme to make the point what happens everytime Christianity is brought to a new culture and/or language the analogies we use potentially take on a different meaning. So theology must be done in a way that is aware of the way culture/language changes things.
Here is a more likely example: I am used to talking about God as 'Father,' because I came from a stable and happy family home this is a positive image for me. But what is my context was different? what if I had had an abusive father? Would that still be an apropriate analogy if the word 'father' only meant hurt and betrayal and abuse? It surely wouldn't. Either the word would need to be filled with a new meaning or a new analogy found. But regardless of positive or negative experiences of 'father' how does a 21st century western experience of 'father' differ from a 1st cetury middle eastern one? Are the analogies the same or are there subtle differences? How do we decide if those differences are important or not? And how do you decide if the analogy needs to be replaced or if you can just modify it a little?

Why is Islam like Maths?

Now Islam gets around this problem the same way that Maths does. Rather than try to translate concepts from one culture to another, if you want to comprehend those concepts you simply need to learn the language. So to become Muslim you really need to become, at least in part, Arab. The scripture must be learnt in Arabic. The prayers must be said in Arabic. and your lifestyle and world view must become, in part at least, Arabic. (This is of course a broad generalisation) If you want to learn Maths you simply cannot avoid learning the language of Maths. But Christianity is different because it carries in its very DNA the drive to jump culture and context rather than transplant the same culture/language everywhere. In the Bible the same God is worshipped, encountered, and described in various Hebrew (tribal, monarchial, and exilic) and Greek (Judean, missionary, persecution) Contexts. To do theology you do not have to be a Hebrew or a Greek, you only have to be yourself. But to do it well you do need to be aware how who, when and where you are can affect what you read and think and know. And when you do that you are doing contextual theology, theology that is aware of its own context.

Let me know what you think :)