American Theological Inquiry, Volume 2, Number 1 2009: Biannual Journal of Theology, Culture & History

AMERICAN THEOLOGICAL INQUIRY A BIANNUAL JOURNAL OF

Theology, Culture & History A p o s t o l o r u m , N i c æ n o , Q u i c u n q u e , C h a l c e d o n e n s e

Volume 2, No. 1

MINNEAPOLIS 2009.

AMERICAN THEOLOGICAL INQUIRY A Biannual Journal of Theology, Culture & History ISBN: 978-1-60608-459-5 (Print) ISSN: 1941-7624 (Online) 5729 France Avenue South Minneapolis, Minnesota 55410 General Editor Gannon Murphy, PhD Associate Editor Stephen Patrick, PhD Book Reviews Editor Ken Deusterman, MA PURPOSE STATEMENT To provide an inter-tradition forum for scholars who affirm the historic Ecumenical Creeds of Christendom to constructively communicate contemporary theologies, developments, ideas, commentaries, and insights pertaining to theology, culture, and history toward reforming and elevating Western Christianity. American Theological Inquiry (ATI) seeks a critical function as much or more so as a quasi-ecumenical one. The purpose is not to erase or weaken the distinctives of the various ecclesial traditions, but to widen the dialogue and increase inter-tradition understanding while mutually affirming Christ’s power to transform culture and the importance of strengthening Western Christianity with special reference to Her historic roots. ABOUT ATI was formed in 2007 by Drs. Gannon Murphy (PhD, Univ. Wales, Lampeter— Theology; Presbyterian/Reformed) and Stephen Patrick (PhD, Univ. Illinois—Philosophy; Eastern Orthodox) to open up space for Christian scholars who affirm the Ecumenical Creeds to contribute research throughout the broader Christian scholarly community in America and the West broadly. Subscriptions. A subscription is not needed to access ATI. Each issue is available free of charge in a PDF format by accessing http://www.atijournal.org/. Print copies are available for purchase from Wipf and Stock Publishers through one of the following means:

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Online: Email: Fax: Phone:

www.wipfandstock.com orders [at] wipfandstock [dot] com 541-344-1506 541-344-1528

Be sure to specify the volume and issue number with your order. Distribution. ATI maintains an email distribution list of over 4400 Christian scholars, clergy, and other interested parties primarily in the U.S. and U.K. Those on ATI’s distribution list receive notification of new issues and a biannual communiqué. To be added to ATI’s distribution list, please send an email to: distribution-list [at] atijournal [dot] org. Manuscript submissions should be addressed to the General Editor. Emailed submissions are acceptable (gmurphy [at] atijournal [dot] org). ATI is open to diverse submissions concerning theology, culture, and history from the perspective of historic, creedal Christianity. Particular topics of interest, however, generally include: • Theology (Biblical, philosophical, historical, and systematic). • Engagement with the Patristical literature. • Theological, cultural, philosophical, and ecclesial trends in the Western world. • Perspectives on history/historical events from an orthodox viewpoint. • Cultural/philosophical apologetics. Book reviews should be submitted to: bookreviews [at] atijournal [dot] org Requirements. Submissions should conform to the following standards: 1. Include your full name, title and/or affiliation, and a brief (i.e., one sentence) statement affirming the Ecumenical Creeds of Christendom (Apostles’, Athanasian, NicænoConstantinopolitan, Chalcedonian). Exceptions are permissible with reference to the filioque clauses and Athanasian anathemas. 2. The work has not been submitted elsewhere, or, permissory documentation is provided by the previous publisher indicating approval for publication in ATI. 5. Submit MSS or book reviews in a Microsoft Word, RTF, or text format.

Volume 2, No. 1., January 15, 2009 Copyright © American Theological Inquiry, All Rights Reserved Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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BOOK PROPOSAL: CALL FOR PAPERS Proposed Title Radical Religion: Christianity and Contemporary Scholarship Editor Dr. Ryan McIlhenny, PhD Assistant Professor of History Providence Christian College Chapter Submissions Seeking submissions from liberal arts scholars on issues related to new and even radical ways of re-conceptualizing Christian doctrine and practice in higher education. The goal is to offer an honest and constructive critique of the epistemological narrowness of modernism in the author’s chosen discipline and, more specifically, to appreciate the ways in which the postmodern condition, broadly understood, has aided in ushering in a kind of revival of Christian theology. On a related note, the editor is interested in those who employ nontraditional methods and concepts as they argue for traditional beliefs. If enough papers are submitted that fit with the intent of the project, the editor will then solicit the proposal to a select number of publishers. Papers that are completed or have been published elsewhere, therefore, will expedite the process. Submissions are restricted to professional academics (e.g., university and college professors, PhD holders, and ABD graduate students) who are professing Christians. For those interested please send a 200-300 word abstract and CV to Dr. Ryan McIlhenny at [email protected].

AMERICAN THEOLOGICAL INQUIRY January 15, 2009 Volume 2, No. 1. CONTENTS FROM THE EDITOR

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PATRISTICAL READING Homily On Ephesians, I:11-14

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St. John Chrysostom ARTICLES THE THEOLOGY OF GERALD O’COLLINS AND POSTMODERNISM

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Craig Baron LATE HAVE I LEFT THEE: A REFLECTION ON AUGUSTINE THE MANICHEE AND THE LOGIC OF BELIEF ADOPTION

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Charles Natoli JESUS ON THE BIG SCREEN

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Stephen Nichols LUTHERAN PURITANISM? ADIAPHORA IN LUTHERAN ORTHODOXY AND POSSIBLE COMMONALITIES IN REFORMED ORTHODOXY

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Daniel Hyde A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME: ATTEMPTS AT CLASSIFYING NORTH AMERICAN PROTESTANT WORSHIP

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Lester Ruth TWIN PARABLES OF STEWARDSHIP IN LUKE

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J. Lyle Story DEATH, KILLING AND PERSONAL IDENTITY

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Todd Bindig BOOK REVIEWS 133

Philippe Sellier. Port-Royal et la littérature, Vol. II. Charles Natoli John R. Muether. Cornelius Van Til: Reformed Apologist and Churchman. Ryan McIlhenny

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136

BOOK REVIEWS (con…) Bryan Spinks (ed.). The Place of Christ in Liturgical Prayer: Trinity, Christology, and Liturgical Theology.

140

James R. A. Merrick Edwin Christiaan van Driel. Incarnation Anyway: Arguments for Supralapsarian Christology.

141

Myk Habets Charles Natoli. Fire in the Dark: Essays on Pascal’s Pensées and Provinciales.

146

Trent Dougherty Karl Barth; Kurt Johanson (ed.); Christopher Asprey (trans). The Word in This World: Two Sermons by Karl Barth.

148

Benjamin Myers Timothy George (ed). God the Holy Trinity: Reflections on Christian Faith and Practice.

149

Benjamin Myers Christopher Hitchens; Douglas Wilson. Is Christianity Good for the World?

151

Ian Clary D. A. Carson. Becoming Conversant With The Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications.

153

Tim Challies Stephen Nichols. Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to The Passion of the Christ.

156

Tim Challies David Wells. The Courage To Be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World.

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Tim Challies Thomas Fowler; Daniel Kuebler. The Evolution Controversy: A Survey of Competing Theories.

159

Tim Challies BOOK NOTES AND COMMENTS

165

THE ECUMENICAL CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM

173

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American Theological Inquiry

FROM THE EDITOR1 “The world is my idea.” Or so the saying goes, made famous by the eminent Doctor of Grumpiness, Arthur Schopenhauer. From an historic Christian standpoint, Schopenhauer is at least a third right. The world is an idea. But it is neither Schopenhauer’s, nor is it merely an idea. Christian tradition teaches us that the world is a living idea, borne of the mind of God. It is God’s idea that “from one blood every nation of men [dwells] on all the face of the earth, and [have] determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings” (Acts 17:26, NKJV). This is the living idea which we all inhabit—no less a reality for being an idea. Surely quite the opposite. That it is God’s idea changes everything. We’re now presented with the mysterious reality of an idea which we strain to penetrate. What do we learn from our many books? Reading them, re-reading them, making them? We cannot avoid systematization. So be it. We cannot seem to disconstitute ourselves such that we (pace Averroes) can come to a place where we embrace in our hearts that which the powers of our intellect impel us to explode. That is, unless madness to you is a comfortable wool suit. Paradox, mystery, obscurity—yes; antinomy, contradiction, unqualified antipode, the mutually exclusive—no. This might make it seem, contra Paul, that we do not consciously cede how dark a glass it is indeed through which we peer. But this is one thing we actually know with great surety. I must confess to having reached a point where I am all too ready to engage in the systematic quest for all manner of things reasonably quantifiable and philosophically either/or. But I must also admit my own unvarnished failure of the imagination beneath the frightful weight of the mystery of experience. To put it succinctly, barring a personal modus vivendi of faith continually seeking understanding, I haven’t got a clue how to live. It seems to me that all theists should suffer a similar sort of doxastic myopia and share in the collective bafflement of how anyone should live “under the sun,” as Qoheleth regularly puts it, carrying merrily on without a fig of care for the Deity. Life is a choice, it seems, between outer darkness and the frightful light of mystery. Our goal at ATI continues to be to provide a cross-tradition forum through which the great mystery of the Christian Hope might shine ever brighter. Beyond endless, flaccid theoria—absent the nepsis and praxis of our oft-forgotten patristic exemplars—we seek a Christian reflection of Hope amidst the pivotal issues of our time that is at once calculatedly informative, watchful, practical, transforming. Providing a philosophic critique of the contemporary cultural milieu or of the growing tide of secularist, nay pagan2, thinking with 1 Gannon Murphy, PhD, is General Editor of American Theological Inquiry and the author of Consuming Glory: A Classical Defense of Divine-Human Relationality Against Open Theism (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006). 2 Recent surveys indicate that as many as 64% of Americans not only believe in aliens, but believe they have contacted (or abducted) us earthlings—and continue to do so at will. About as many believe that our principal hope for future “salvation” may lie only within the province of NASA and its lofty technological powers to create for us distant, habitable, planetary land with a manmade atmosphere. If these aren’t examples of a rampant and deeply-entrenched pagan mythology, then nothing else in

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American Theological Inquiry its attendant (and often militant) philosophical materialism and pantheon of new age mythologies can only go so far. We must also be able to integrate the undying, timeless insights of the historic Christian faith into our daily lives to help us navigate through the increasingly stormy cultural sea on which we’re set. We do well to cultivate in ourselves a fully lived-out triad of wisdom, integrity, and truth. Throughout the course of this, our third issue, our contributors once again draw upon the insights of some of the finest thinkers God has condescended to bless us with. These thinkers hail from both past and present and from around the world, and—though they’re certainly not the only sources of great wisdom—they form here a unified phalanx of shining lights making clearer our paths toward the triadic paradigm with Hope as its center and telos. Subsumed along this path is an eye to better understanding ourselves, our world, and the purpose for which we are created—to know and love God, to glorify Him, to celebrate His overflowing blessings with gladness (however easily this is missed amidst our growing morass of cultural kitsch and demented gimcrack, all ready-packed for public consumption in distracting, pretty boxes). Fie on that! I can hear Kierkegaard say. There is Hope to be had. It is not the easy road. But it is the only one that provides a room, contra Sartre, with an Exit. Pascal, we may well recall, regarded us as, “the glory and scum of the universe.”3 We are glorious when we seek the veridical light of Hope, yet wretched at every instance we show that Hope our defiant backsides. We first come to know Glory only when we reckon plainly with our own unattractive misery. The quest for knowledge has a twofold root. One, the root of despair and death, the other the root of Hope and life. Each must choose. To that end, there is no better place to turn than with the following Patristical selection from the eminent St. John Chrysostom. The glass through which Chrysostom himself gazed, some 1600 years ago, seems uncannily less darkened than our own. While we marvel, as Chrysostom did, at the “Many [who are] frequently raising edifices that glisten with pillars and costly marbles…” we wonder Who this is, in the midst of our lofty schemes, that keeps reminding us of the creeping emptiness that the best of our schemes and crafts cannot fill up. And yet, indeed, it is the same One “who worketh all things.” More than a spot of darkness fades in the looking glass if we can bring ourselves to embrace this particular paradox.

history qualifies. And if we are called by the Gospel to enjoin a certain perpendicularity of foolishness against each present and passing zeitgeist (I Cor 1), this is going to a high and difficult charge indeed in a 21st century, demon-haunted land of space cooties. 3 Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 434. -2-

American Theological Inquiry

PATRISTICAL READING HOMILY ON EPHESIANS, I:11-14 St. John Chrysostom 1 In whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will. Paul earnestly endeavors on all occasions to display the unspeakable loving-kindness of God towards us, to the utmost of his power. For that it is impossible to do so adequately, hear his own words. “O! the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God; how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past tracing out.” (Rom. xi. 33.) Still, notwithstanding, so far as it is possible, he does display it. What then is this which he is saying; “In whom also we were made a heritage, being predestinated?” Above he used the word, “He chose us;” here he saith, “we were made a heritage.” But inasmuch as a lot is a matter of chance, not of deliberate choice, nor of virtue, (for it is closely allied to ignorance and accident, and oftentimes passing over the virtuous, brings forward the worthless into notice,) observe how he corrects this very point: “having been foreordained,” saith he, “according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things.” That is to say, not merely have we been made a heritage, as, again, we have not merely been chosen, (for it is God who chooses,) and so neither have we merely been allotted, (for it is God who allots,) but it is “according to a purpose.” This is what he says also in the Epistle to the Romans, (Rom. viii. 28-30.) “To them that are called according to His purpose;” and “whom He called, them He also justified, and whom He justified, them he also glorified.” Having first used the expression, “to them that are called according to a purpose,” and at the same time wishing to declare their privilege compared with the rest of mankind, he speaks also of inheritance by lot, yet so as not to divest them of free will. That point then, which more properly belongs to happy fortune, is the very point he insists upon. For this inheritance by lot depends not on virtue, but, as one might say, on fortuitous circumstances. It is as though he had said, lots were cast, and He hath chosen us; but the whole is of deliberate choice. Men predestinated, that is to say, having chosen them to Himself, He hath separated. He saw us, as it were, chosen by lot before we were born. For marvelous is the foreknowledge of God, and acquainted with all things before their beginning. But mark now how on all occasions he takes pains to point out, that it is not the result of any change of purpose, but that these matters had been thus modeled from the very first, so that we are in no wise inferior to the Jews in this respect; and how, in consequence, he does everything with this view. How then is it that Christ Himself saith, “I was not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel?” (Mat. xv. 24.) And said again to his disciples, “Go not 1 St. John Chrysostom (c. 347–407) is one of the great Greek Fathers of the Church. After studying the Greek classics in Antioch, he became an anchorite monk (374), a deacon (c. 381) and a priest (386). For 12 years he indefatigably preached in the Antiochene cathedral during the reign of Flavian. In 398, he was made patriarch of Constantinople, during which time he spoke out strenuously, often at great personal risk, against the moral laxity of both the church hierarchy and royalty. St. John died while in exile.

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American Theological Inquiry into any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any city of the Samaritans.” (Mat. x. 5.) And Paul again himself says, “It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you. Seeing ye thrust it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” (Acts xiii. 46.) These expressions, I say, are used with this design, that no one may suppose that this work came to pass incidentally only. “According to the purpose,” he says, “of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will.” That is to say, He had no after workings; having modeled all things from the very first, thus he leads forward all things “according to the counsel of His will.” So that it was not merely because the Jews did not listen that He called the Gentiles, nor was it of mere necessity, nor was it on any inducement arising from them. Ver. 12, 13. “To the end that we should be unto the praise of His glory, we who had before hoped in Christ. In whom ye also having heard the word of the truth, the Gospel of your salvation.” That is to say, through whom. Observe how he on all occasions speaks of Christ, as the Author of all things, and in no case gives Him the title of a subordinate agent, or a minister. And so again, elsewhere, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, he says, “that God, having of old time spoken unto the Fathers in the prophets, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son,” (Heb. i. 1.) that is “through” His Son. “The word of truth,” he says, no longer that of the type, nor of the image. “The Gospel of your salvation.” And well does he call it the Gospel of salvation, intimating in the one word a contrast to the law, in the other, a contrast with punishment to come. For what is the message, but the Gospel of salvation, which forbears to destroy those that are worthy of destruction. Ver. 14. “In whom having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance.” Here again, the word “sealed,” is an indication of especial forecast. He does not speak of our being predestinated only, nor of our being allotted, but further, of our being sealed. For just as though one were to make those who should fall to his lot manifest, so also did God separate them for believing, and sealed them for the allotment of the things to come. You see how, in process of time, He makes them objects of wonder. So long as they were in His foreknowledge, they were manifest to no one, but when they were sealed, they became manifest, though not in the same way as we are; for they will be manifest except a few. The Israelites also were sealed, but that was by circumcision, like the brutes and reasonless creatures. We too are sealed, but it is as sons, “with the Spirit.” But what is meant by, “with the Spirit of promise?” Doubtless it means that we have received that Spirit according to promise. For there are two promises, the one by the prophets, the other from the Son. By the Prophets.—Hearken to the words of Joel; “I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions,” (Joel ii. 28.) And hearken again to the words of Christ; -4-

American Theological Inquiry “But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts i. 8.) And truly, the Apostle means, He ought, as God, to have been believed; however, he does not ground his affirmation upon this, but examines it like a case where man is concerned, speaking much as he does in the Epistle to the Hebrews; (Heb. vi. 18.) where he says, “That by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong encouragement.” Thus here also he makes the things already bestowed a sure token of the promise of those which are yet to come. For this reason he further calls it an “earnest,” (Cf. also 2 Cor. i. 22.) for an earnest is a part of the whole. He hath purchased what we are most concerned in, our salvation; and hath given us an earnest in the mean while. Why then did He not give the whole at once? Because neither have we, on our part, done the whole of our work. We have believed. This is a beginning; and He too on His part hath given an earnest. When we show our faith by our works, then He will add the rest. Nay, more, He hath given yet another pledge, His own blood, and hath promised another still. In the same way as in case of war between nation and nation they give hostages: just so hath God also given His Son as a pledge of peace and solemn treaties, and, further, the Holy Spirit also which is from Him. For they, that are indeed partakers of the Spirit, know that He is the earnest of our inheritance. Such an one was Paul, who already had here a foretaste of the blessings there. And this is why he was so eager, and yearned to be released from things below, and groaned within himself. He transferred his whole mind thither, and saw everything with different eyes. Thou hast no part in the reality, and therefore failest to understand the description. Were we all partakers of the Spirit, as we ought to be partakers, then should we behold Heaven, and the order of things that is there. It is an earnest, however, of what? Of Ver. 14. “The redemption of God’s own possession.” For our absolute redemption takes place then. For now we have our life in the world, we are liable to many human accidents, and are living amongst ungodly men. But our absolute redemption will be then, when there shall be no sins, no human sufferings, when we shall not be indiscriminately mixed with all kinds of people. At present, however, there is but an earnest, because at present we are far distant from these blessings. Yet is our citizenship not upon earth; even now we are out of the pale of the things that are here below. Yes, we are sojourners even now. Ver. 14. “Unto the praise of His glory.” This he adds in immediate connection. And why? Because it would serve to give those who heard it full assurance. Were it for our sake only, he means to say, that God did this, there might be some room for misgiving. But if it be for His own sake, and in order to display His goodness, he assigns, as a sort of witness, a reason why these things never possibly could be otherwise. We find the same language everywhere applied to the case of the Israelites. “Do Thou this for us for Thy Name’s sake;” (Ps. cix. 21.) and again, God Himself said, “I do it for Mine own sake;” (Isa. xlviii. 11.) and so Moses, “Do it, if for nothing else, yet for the glory of Thy Name.” This gives those who hear it full assurance; it

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American Theological Inquiry relieves them to be told, that whatever He promises, for His own goodness’ sake He will most surely perform. Moral. Let not the hearing, however, make us too much at our ease; for although He doth it for His own sake, yet notwithstanding He requires a duty on our part. If He says, “Them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed,” (1 Sam. ii. 30.) let us reflect that there is that which He requires of us also. True, it is the praise of His glory to save those that are enemies, but those who, after being made friends, continue His friends. So that if they were to return back to their former state of enmity, all were vain and to no purpose. There is not another Baptism, nor is there a second reconciliation again, but “a certain fearful expectation of judgment which shall devour the adversaries.” (Heb. x. 27.) If we intend at the same time to be always at enmity with Him and yet to claim forgiveness at His hand, we shall never cease to be at enmity, and to be wanton, to grow in depravity, and to be blind to the Sun of Righteousness which has risen. Dost thou not see the ray that shall open thine eyes? Render them then good and sound and quicksighted. He hath showed thee the true light; if thou shunnest it, and runnest back again into the darkness, what shall be thy excuse? What sort of allowance shall be made for thee? None from that moment. For this is a mark of unspeakable enmity. When indeed thou knewest not God, then if thou wert at enmity with Him, thou hadst, be it how it might, some excuse. But when thou hast tasted the goodness and the honey, if thou again abandonest them, and turnest to thine own vomit, what else art thou doing but bringing forward evidence of excessive hatred and contempt? `Nay,’ thou wilt say, `but I am constrained to it by nature. I love Christ indeed, but I am constrained by nature.’ If thou art under the power and force of constraint, thou wilt have allowance made; but if thou yield from indolence, not for a moment. Now then, come, let us examine this very question, whether sins are the effect of force and constraint, or of indolence and great carelessness. The law says, “Thou shalt not kill.” What sort of force, what sort of violence, is there here? Violence indeed must one use to force himself to kill, for who amongst us would as a matter of choice plunge his sword into the throat of his neighbor, and stain his hand with blood? Not one. Thou seest then that, on the contrary, sin is more properly matter of violence and constraint. For God hath implanted in our nature a charm, which binds us to love one another. “Every beast (it saith) loveth his like, and every man loveth his neighbor.” (Ecclus. xiii. 15.) Seest thou that we have from our nature seeds which tend to virtue; whereas those of vice are contrary to nature? and if these latter predominate, this is but an evidence of our exceeding indolence. Again, what is adultery? What sort of necessity is there to bring us to this? Doubtless, it will be said, the tyranny of lust. But why, tell me, should this be? What, is it not in every one’s power to have his own wife, and thus to put a stop to this tyranny? True, he will say, but a sort of passion for my neighbor’s wife seizes hold on me. Here the question is no longer one of necessity. Passion is no matter of necessity, no one loves of necessity, but of deliberate choice and free will. Indulgence of nature, indeed, is perhaps matter of necessity, but to love one woman rather than another is no matter of necessity. Nor is the point with you natural desire, but vanity, and wantonness, and unbounded licentiousness. For which is according to reason, that a man should have an espoused wife, and her the mother of his -6-

American Theological Inquiry children, or one not acknowledged? Know ye not that it is intimacy that breeds attachment. This, therefore, is not the fault of nature. Blame not natural desire. Natural desire was bestowed with a view to marriage; it was given with a view to the procreation of children, not with a view to adultery and corruption. The laws, too, know how to make allowance for those sins which are of necessity,—or rather nothing is sin when it arises from necessity but all sin rises from wantonness. God hath not so framed man’s nature as that he should have any necessity to sin, since were this the case, there would be no such thing as punishment. We ourselves exact no account of things done of necessity and by constraint, much less would God, so full of mercy and loving-kindness. Again, what is stealing? is it matter of necessity? Yes, a man will say, because poverty causes this. Poverty, however, rather compels us to work, not to steal. Poverty, therefore, has in fact the contrary effect. Theft is the effect of idleness; whereas poverty produces usually not idleness, but a love of labor. So that this sin is the effect of indolence, as you may learn from hence. Which, I ask, is the more difficult, the more distasteful, to wander about at night without sleep, to break open houses, and walk about in the dark, and to have one’s life in one’s hand, and to be always prepared for murder, and to be shivering and dead with fear; or to be attending to one’s daily task, in full enjoyment of safety and security? This last is the easier task; and it is because this is easier, that the majority practice it rather than the other. Thou seest then that it is virtue which is according to nature, and vice which is against nature, in the same way as disease and health are. What, again, are falsehood and perjury? What necessity can they possibly imply? None whatever, nor any compulsion; it is a matter to which we proceed voluntarily. We are distrusted, it will be said. True, distrusted we are, because we choose it. For we might, if we would, be trusted more upon our character, than upon our oath. Why, tell me, is it that we do not trust some, no, not on their oath, whilst we deem others trustworthy even independently of oaths. Seest thou that there is no need of oaths in any case? `When such an one speaks,’ we say, `I believe him, even without any oath, but thee, no, not with thy oaths.’ Thus then an oath is unnecessary; and is in fact an evidence rather of distrust than of confidence. For where a man is over ready to take his oath, he does not leave us to entertain any great idea of his scrupulousness. So that the man who is most constant in his use of oaths, has on no occasion any necessity for using one, and he who never uses one on any occasion, has in himself the full benefit of its use. Someone says there is a necessity for an oath, to produce confidence; but we see that they are the more readily trusted who abstain from taking oaths. But again, if one is a man of violence, is this a matter of necessity? Yes, he will say, because his passion carries him away, and burns within him, and does not let the soul be at rest. Man, to act with violence is not the effect of anger, but of littleness of mind. Were it the effect of anger, all men, whenever they were angry, would never cease committing acts of violence. We have anger given us, not that we may commit acts of violence on our neighbors, but that we may correct those that are in sin, that we may bestir ourselves, that we may not be sluggish. Anger is implanted in us as a sort of sting, to make us gnash with our teeth against the devil, to make us vehement against him, not to set us in array against each other. We have arms, not to make us at war amongst ourselves, but that we may -7-

American Theological Inquiry employ our whole armor against the enemy. Art thou prone to anger? Be so against thine own sins: chastise thy soul, scourge thy conscience, be a severe judge, and merciless in thy sentence against thine own sins. This is the way to turn anger to account. It was for this that God implanted it within us. But again, is plunder a matter of necessity? No, in no wise. Tell me, what manner of necessity is there to be grasping: what manner of compulsion? Poverty, a man will say, causes it, and the fear of being without common necessaries. Now this is the very reason why you ought not to be grasping. Wealth so gotten has no security in it. You are doing the very same thing as a man would do, who, if he were asked why he laid the foundation of his house in the sand, should say, he did it because of the frost and rain. Whereas this would be the very reason why he should not lay it in the sand. They are the very foundations which the rain, and blasts, and wind, most quickly overturn. So that if thou wouldest be wealthy, never be rapacious; if thou wouldest transmit wealth to thy children, get righteous wealth, at least, if any there be that is such. Because this abides, and remains firm, whereas that which is not such, quickly wastes and perishes. Tell me, hast thou a mind to be rich, and dost thou take the goods of others? Surely this is not wealth: wealth consists in possessing what is thine own. He that is in possession of the goods of others, never can be a wealthy man; since at that rate even your very silk venders, who receive their goods as a consignment from others, would be the wealthiest and the richest of men. Though for the time, indeed, it is theirs, still we do not call them wealthy. And why forsooth? Because they are in possession of what belongs to others. For though the piece itself happens to be theirs, still the money it is worth is not theirs. Nay, and even if the money is in their hands, still this is not wealth. Now, if consignments thus given render not men more wealthy because we so soon resign them, how can those which arise from rapine render them wealthy? However, if at any rate thou desirest to be wealthy, (for the matter is not one of necessity,) what greater good is it that thou wouldest fain enjoy? Is it a longer life? Yet, surely men of this character quickly become short-lived. Oftentimes they pay as the penalty of plunder and rapaciousness, an untimely death; and not only suffer as a penalty the loss of the enjoyment of their gains, but go out of life having gained but little, and hell to boot. Oftentimes too they die of diseases, which are the fruits of self-indulgence, and of toil, and of anxiety. Fain would I understand why it is that wealth is so eagerly pursued by mankind. Why surely for this reason hath God set a limit and a boundary to our nature, that we may have no need to go on seeking wealth beyond it. For instance He hath commanded us, to clothe the body in one, or perhaps in two garments; and there is no need of any more to cover us. Where is the good of ten thousand changes of raiment, and those moth-eaten? The stomach has its appointed bound, and anything given beyond this, will of necessity destroy the whole man. Where then is the use of your herds, and flocks, and cutting up of flesh? We require but one roof to shelter us. Where then is the use of your vast groundplots, and costly buildings? Dost thou strip the poor, that vultures and jackdaws may have where to dwell? And what a hell do not these things deserve? Many are frequently raising edifices that glisten with pillars and costly marbles, in places which they never so much as saw. What -8-

American Theological Inquiry scheme is there indeed that they have not adopted? Yet neither themselves reap the benefit, nor anyone else. The desolateness does not allow them to get away thither; and yet not even thus do they desist. You see that these things are not done for profit’s-sake, but in all these cases folly, and absurdity, and vainglory, is the motive. And this, I beseech you to avoid, that we may be enabled to avoid also every other evil, and may obtain those good things which are promised to them that love Him, in our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Ghost, be glory, strength, honor forever. Amen.

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American Theological Inquiry

THE THEOLOGY OF GERALD O’COLLINS AND POSTMODERNISM1 Craig A. Baron2 Gerald O’Collins has been a highly influential Roman Catholic theologian for over thirty years and has authored forty books on various themes of fundamental theology. He has worked tirelessly to proclaim, expound, and defend the classical doctrines of Christianity and has established himself as an important figure. At the center of his reflections is the unique event of revelation and salvation in Jesus Christ. According to O’Collins, the incarnation of the pre-existent Logos and Son of God into history yields a gift of salvation and revelation that is universal, absolute, and unsurpassable. He believes the incarnation must be understood realistically as the actual life, death, and resurrection of the (divine) Son of God. This union between God and creation is eternal and establishes a radically new relationship with the Triune God: infinity is humanized. Moreover, if theological reflection is to be ideal, it requires a personal encounter of the theologian with the risen Christ. In other words, theology is done from within the faith commitment, even though it is dealing with issues of universal truth about divinity and humanity. The incarnation is the central doctrine of Christianity and has been under fire since the opening centuries of its history. Along with a perennial desire of critics to reduce the incarnation to a metaphorical event, the postmodern context has brought the challenge of history to classical Christianity in a new way (the contextual/linguistic nature of truth and experience) and especially the disruptive history of suffering. Today, many theologians have called for the renegotiation of doctrinal soteriology from the perspective of victims, so as to circumvent a triumphalistic Christianity that too often avoids the reality of human suffering and the absence of God. The question of this paper: Can a traditional/classical type of theology, such as Gerald O’Collins’, address these postmodern challenges or is it destined to fall into irrelevancy by dint of its implicit foundationalism? I will argue that O’Collins’ work will not be rendered irrelevant in the face of such difficulties, even if his work may need to be modified by insights from certain aspects of postmodernism. Yet, no intellectual current can be allowed to dull, dilute, or delimit the radical contours of orthodoxy. This paper has four parts: first, a survey of the theology of O’Collins; second, key postmodern challenges to classical theology; third, an analysis of the relationship between the theology of O’Collins and postmodernism; and fourth, by showing how O’Collins’ theological method might be situated within the current postmodern theological conversation.

1 This paper was presented at the 5th Leuven Encounters in Systematic Theology Conference, “Godhead Here in Hiding: Incarnation and the History of Human Suffering.” The Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium (November 4, 2005). 2 Craig A. Baron, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Theology at St. John’s University, Queens, New York.

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American Theological Inquiry The Theology of Gerald O’Collins The theology of O’Collins finds its orientation, method, and grounding in his understanding of fundamental theology. He defines fundamental theology as the methodological reflection on divine revelation and the examination of faith; or the study of the theological knowledge recorded in tradition and scripture and an analysis of the conditions necessary in human experience to receive that revelation. For O’Collins, divine revelation has reached its climax in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.3 As a Christian believer, he sees no reason to begin theology by methodically putting aside the belief attested in Scripture and tradition and experienced in faith. Hence, theology needs to be faithful to its sources. At the same time, however, it must also be rational and reflective. The theologian must have an intelligent and self-conscious faith that combines the sympathetic understanding of the insider with the detachment of the outsider.4 From the intimacy of the insider comes a personal belief in the divine mystery that is born through participation and relationship.5 On the other hand, the detachment of the outsider comes from the use of reason and whatever intellectual tools seem appropriate from history, philosophy, or language studies. Fundamental theology, therefore, should never begin with some artificial doubting exercise, but with a critical realism. O’Collins states that this stance requires being conscious of the presuppositions of the reality of faith, the nature of human experience, and the role of reason that are operative in any theological discourse. As opposed to philosophical theology, fundamental theology is done in the light of Christian faith. For the theologian, this requires a realistic admission of his or her membership in the church and a sharing in the community’s faith experience.6 This notion of faith presupposes a theological anthropology whereby experiences of contingency and finitude create an openness and opportunity to see, hear, and accept revelation when graciously offered. In the fundamental theology of O’Collins, the historical and transcendental experience of God’s saving and revealing self- communication in Christ is central.7 According to this approach, every experience has an ultimate (hence, religious) element. This ultimacy relates the human being to God. In other words, there is an absolute, ultimate ground, horizon, or concern that is found in all human activities, as opposed to a relative and proximate one. This means that every human life is the realization and enactment of a saving dialogue with God.8 The ultimate or absolute horizon of being, meaning, truth, and goodness is to be identified with God; consequently, one can speak of this transcendental experience and transcendental revelation as part of the human condition. The transcendental experience concerns the a priori conditions for the possibility of any experience. According to O’Collins, theology can be defined as a religious experience in

Gerald O’Collins, Fundamental Theology (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1981), 22. Ibid, 6. 5 Gerald O’Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical and Systematic Study of Jesus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 49-53. 6 Fundamental Theology, 21. 7 Ibid., 2. 8 Ibid., 48. 3 4

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American Theological Inquiry search of understanding.9 The transcendental experience/revelation establishes the conditions for receiving divine revelation and salvation in the specific forms of historical existence, primarily, in the historical experience of Israel and the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Additionally, transcendental revelation adopts the form of historical revelation in and through the concrete experiences and free choices of individual people and communities. O’Collins explains that revelation is a total process involving a divine revealer; an act of revelation/salvation and a recipient. In short, it is the experience of divine selfcommunication wherein the individual subject or the community encounter the Triune God through grace and are in turn liberated from evil.10 The corresponding theological anthropology of O’Collins claims that human existence is the radical quest for life, meaning, and love,11 and so, a searching for a relationship with the divine ground and a longing for liberation from death, absurdity, and hate. While attempting to formulate a contemporary method that is attuned to the new vision of theology from the Second Vatican Council, O’Collins adopts an approach that is sensitive to the experiential, Christological, anthropological, pneumatological, contextual, and ethical dimensions of the faith. When surveying the pluralism of post-conciliar theology, he discerns three types or styles of theology that are prevalent: academic theology, liberation theology, and liturgical/spiritual theology. The academic style of theology cultivates reason and primarily pursues the meaning and truth of Christian revelation through consulting the religious writings of the past in dialogue with contemporary intellectuals.12 The liberation style is a more practical way of doing theology. It seeks to promote justice and the common good. This theology is done in consultation with the poor and suffering. It takes as its primary locus the victimized non-persons of the world and tries to think about what theology is called to do or leave undone in this flawed world.13 The liturgical/spiritual style of theology works in the setting of the church at public prayer. It meditates on the Triune God as revealed in the liturgical celebration and in the experiences of non-Christians at prayer. The focus is on the infinite divine beauty. In sum, all three styles of theology are forms of spiritual seeking: faith seeking understanding, love seeking a more just society, and hope seeking to liturgically anticipate the final vision of God. For O’Collins, Christian theology must combine all three styles if it is to survive and serve the people of God.14 An integrative approach to a true theology entails thinking, suffering, and praying about the great mystery of the crucified Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.15 While admitting to doing Christology in a primarily academic style, for example by using hermeneutics to study tradition and epistemology in order to analyze experience, O’Collins attempts to keep the practical and liturgical styles in mind. He fully realizes that it is false to assume that the Ibid., 53. Ibid., 59. 11 Gerald O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1983), 31. 12 Gerald O’Collins, Retrieving Fundamental Theology: The Three Styles of Contemporary Theology (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1993), 9. 13 Ibid., 10. 14 Ibid., 14. 15 Gerald O’Collins, Jesus Risen: An Historical, Fundamental and Systematic Examination of Christ’s Resurrection (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987), 209. 9

10

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American Theological Inquiry academic approach is the only access to truth in theology.16 Truth can be ascertained in various contexts through correspondence, coherence, disclosure, critical appropriation, and consensus.17 Following this brief look at the foundations of O’Collins’ theology, it is now appropriate to review his Christology. This will provide a glimpse of how he works out the balance of the academic, practical, and spiritual. O’Collins defines Christology as the systematic reflection on the person, being, and doing of Jesus of Nazareth. More specifically, Christology is centered on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This grounding in the Paschal Mystery also includes a look forward to the Eschaton and backwards to the pre-existence of the Logos before creation.18 From the beginning of Christianity, the Paschal Mystery has been the primary message of the faith, that is, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as Lord and the participation of believers in this great act of redemption through baptism and faith. The emphasis was on a functional Christology (soteriology) rather than on his actual being (ontology). The whole Christ event forms the source material for Christology. Beginning with the person of Jesus and including relevant Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) material as background, O’Collins thinks that Christology should also include the responses evoked by Jesus in its resources for reflection: the church, New Testament, creeds, doctrines, liturgical worship, millions of Christians lives, saints, preaching and theological reflection, private prayer and personal experience of Jesus, art, literature, plays, films, and the responses of other religions.19 However, real knowledge of Jesus comes only from the challenges of being a disciple.20 O’Collins believes that the ideal prerequisite for any theologian’s engagement with the christological enterprise is to have deeply experienced Christ in faith and to have been led by the Spirit.21 While historical scholarship, philosophical analysis, and theological investigations are important in coming to an understanding of Jesus’ being and work, ultimately it is love of Jesus that leads to the deeper insights surrounding the mystery of his personality. It is love that lets us see reality and know the truth, particularly of people.22 Christianity makes the startling claim that a personally pre-existent divine being has really assumed a human existence in Jesus of Nazareth. This is a unique claim among the world religions, because it goes beyond the acknowledgment of a general action and presence of God as merely creating and maintaining the world. As O’Collins understands it:

16Christology,

20-21. Ibid., 13. 18 Gerald O’Collins and Daniel Kendall, Focus on Jesus: Essays in Christology and Soteriology (Herefordshire: Gracewing, 1996), 1. 19Christology, 3-4. 20 Interpreting Jesus, 7. 21 Ibid., xi. 22 Gerald O’Collins, Easter Faith: Believing in the Risen Jesus (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2003), 33. 17

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American Theological Inquiry The incarnation involves a divine being who is by definition eternal, without a body, and unlimited in power, knowledge and presence (i.e., omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent) personally taking up an existence that is temporal, partly material and thoroughly limited in power, knowledge and presence. Through the incarnation God, who is pure Spirit assumes and (not merely creates and conserves) matter; the eternal God personally enters time. . . . The incarnation entails an immortal, unchanging divine person becoming subject to change and, above all, to death. The eternal Word, who necessarily exists and whose divine life is immune from suffering, becomes contingent, experiences suffering, and dies on a cross.23 This Christian belief in the incarnation has no Jewish or Gentile antecedents, which O’Collins interprets as a sign that it is a belief founded in a unique religious event, a divine interruption in history. The New Testament instantiates this divine and human theological trajectory by naming, at the same time, the one who was crucified and died as Jesus of Nazareth and as Lord and Son of God.24 Metaphysically speaking, O’Collins accepts the axiom that “action follows being.” Consequently, Christ’s proclamation of the divine kingdom at least implies his being on par with God.25 O’Collins argues that it is a mistake to take the doctrine of the incarnation as the central message of Christianity. He points out that it was through a series of doctrinal debates with the heretical views of the Ebionites, Arians, Gnostics, Nestorians, and Eutychians that the early church councils were pushed to emphasize the Incarnation and the relationship between the two natures of Jesus Christ at the expense of the Paschal Mystery.26 The first four ecumenical councils were acknowledged as presenting the essential and orthodox norm for understanding and interpreting the Christological (and Trinitarian) faith of the New Testament.27 According to O’Collins, the Incarnation means that Jesus Christ is consubstantial with humanity and divinity and that the hypostatic union entails that the divine Word is eternally united to his humanity. A full humanity and a full divinity are required for Jesus to be the true savior of the world. Moreover, it was because he had the divine nature and was the Son of God that Jesus could speak with divine compassion and authority and so could reveal the loving and demanding presence of God.28 From an ethicalpractical point of view, believers after the incarnation encounter a transformed universe that requires respect for the environment, other human beings, and one’s own body.29 And yet the Paschal mystery remains primary, since it was the experience of salvation through 23 Gerald O’Collins, “The Incarnation: The Critical Issues,” in The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God eds. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 6. 24 Christology, 168. 25 Ibid., 60. 26 Ibid., 172-190. 27 Ibid., 194. 28 Interpreting Jesus, 176. 29 “The Incarnation: The Critical Issues,” 18.

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American Theological Inquiry Christ’s dying and rising from the dead that generated the later reflection on his different natures. O’Collins takes a realistic approach to the doctrine of the incarnation. It is a unique and specific event that happened only once in human history. A realistic or strong sense of the incarnation says that there is a union between true divinity and full humanity of Jesus Christ. As a necessary element of any orthodox affirmation of the incarnation, this pre-existent Word of God or Son of God is understood as having assumed human form. As a matter of fact, for O’Collins, the divinity of Christ is upheld only by his “personal” existence within the eternal life of the Trinity.30 John Hick is representative of a group of religious scholars who argue that a Christocentric attitude, like that of O’Collins, should be replaced by a theocentric attitude instead.31 Hick, and those in agreement with him, are at odds with the several tenets of the Christocentric posture: that the resurrection lifted Jesus beyond the historical limits to become the effective way for all people to God, that there is no salvation outside of Christ, and that Christ is the unique mediator between God and humanity. By contrast, a Godcentered theology would provide for a more democratic vision of the divine (salvation offered through all religions) and would relativize the absolute claims of particular religious traditions. Jesus should be seen as differing in degree of religious experience but not in kind from other people, especially the saints and mystics of the world religions. O’Collins says that such a soft approach to the incarnation, or what he calls a “Neo-Arianism,” is in direct opposition to the New Testament and a conciliar understanding of the doctrine of the Incarnation: Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal Son of God who assumed a human existence to bring salvation through his life, death, resurrection, and sending of the Holy Spirit for all people, times, and places.32 In O’Collins’ view, the fundamental flaw of Hick is his ignoring the details of the New Testament where the significance of the resurrection, the Holy Spirit, and the divinity of Christ are clearly and affirmatively expressed. Moreover, Hick’s view is further skewed by his astonishing claim that the central theme of Christianity is the incarnation when, in fact, as O’Collins points out, it is the Paschal Mystery.33 In short, the metaphorical interpretation of the incarnation by Hick emphases that Jesus incarnated or embodied the divine purpose (functional view) as opposed to the literal interpretation of O’Collins in which Christ is the substantive incarnation of the divine (ontological view).34 O’Collins is forthright about his personal commitment to Christianity and its guiding role in his theology. As part of a stronger acknowledgement of the place of presuppositions in all thinking, he points out how a person’s particular worldview performs a similar function in his or her thinking. A person’s worldview or foundational beliefs determine what is possible or impossible in the working of the world, what is real and unreal.35 From the

Ibid., 3. Focus on Jesus, 15. 32 Ibid., 30. 33 Ibid., 36. 34 Ibid., 43. 35 Easter Faith, 5. 30 31

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American Theological Inquiry Enlightenment onward, many thinkers have adopted a scientific worldview that sees the cosmos and history as closed to anything new or novel; everything is explainable by cause and effect. For O’Collins, it is just such a mindset that is inherently incapable of duly considering the supernatural and miraculous. At this point, O’Collins turns to the place of analogy in theological discourse to try to exemplify the relationship he sees between the common and uncommon in human experience. While believing that the incarnation and resurrection are purely divine acts of grace—and so beyond naturalistic explanation and precedent—he still maintains that there must be something about them that is not totally new. Otherwise, how could human beings’ finite minds grasp anything of the infinite? Therefore, special, unique events of God disrupting the natural law are possible and are not denied by science—even if one cannot know in advance what the transcendent God will do—since it no longer inflexibly maintains a mechanistic or deterministic worldview but actually allows space for the unfamiliar and the unique.36 When dealing with the interventions of the divine, whether the incarnation, resurrection, or miracles, the historicity of these events as happening at a certain place and time can be categorized as unique events (heretofore unseen) but not a priori impossible. From O’Collins’ perspective, the creator has established the natural laws of operation in the world and, while normatively respecting those laws, is not hindered from breaking them from time to time for a good reason.37 This attention to the situation of the revelation event properly grounds theology as a discipline of faith and history. Also, when one accepts the resurrection, for example, this entails the transformation of how one sees reality and requires a new way of acting and being in the world38—what could be called an expanded plausibility structure. Consequently, whether one is reading the text of the world or the scriptures, there is a theological justification for searching for new facets about revelation and salvation.39 God can surprise. Therefore, symbols are the suitable means for God to offer revelation and salvation because of the human symbolic nature of body and soul and the plus-value of the symbol (its polyvalence and the impossibility of its meaning and truth ever being conceptually expressed definitively).40 This theological approach is vindicated by the Second Vatican Council’s Dei Verbum. This document established that God’s symbolic self-communication should be the starting point for doing theology. In sum, the Christian religion will flourish or diminish commensurately with what adherents of the faith believe Jesus to be and to have done for humanity.41 Classical soteriology expresses the general belief of Christianity; that it was Christ’s loving and obedient self-giving, total innocence, and divine identity that gave his sacrifice on the cross

Ibid., 29. Ibid., 3. 38 Ibid., 56. 39 Ibid., 84. 40 Retrieving Fundamental Theology, 103. 41 Interpreting Jesus, 2. 36 37

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American Theological Inquiry its unique value as the cause of universal salvation and, further, that the resurrection is its means of mediation.42 Postmodern Challenges to Classical Theology Having surveyed some of the major themes in O’Collins’ theology, we now turn to key contemporary challenges to such a theological method. The postmodern challenges to theology are well known. While the particular questions and concerns vary in detail from one thinker to another, they seem to have in common a rejection of foundationalist ontologies; an Archimedean point outside of history. Postmodern theorists claim that there are no unchanging truths nor is there an immutable human nature. The central or determining role of language, history, culture, and paradigm-determined reason for experience and thinking— understood as a deferring and differing of the sign—makes all conceptualizations transitory because of the in-flux character of Being. Moreover, modern notions of the self as autonomous, self-determining, and metaphysically grounded give way to a decentered subject. The postmodern self is thought of as an opaque product of variable roles and performances which have been imposed on it by the constraints of society and inner drives and conflicts.43 The self is deemed to be thoroughly relational, an interplay of properties and a function of the intersection of impersonal forces. The de-substantialization and de-individualization of the subject makes speaking of the “I” difficult in the postmodern world.44 Therefore, perceptions of the self accentuate that it is inculturated, communal/social, historical, and relational.45 Postmodernism also makes any claims for universal human experience (general) or unmediated knowing of self, world, truth, or God epistemologically untenable. Experience is always from somewhere in particular. As Thomas Kelly has pointed out, “postmodernism aims to undercut theological approaches that are generally optimistic concerning human possibility of encountering the divine (a construct) from within human experience itself.”46 In essence, according to Georges De Schrijver, this is the passing of the era of ontotheology and the metaphysics of presence. There is an awareness of the withdrawal of Being in the moment of its manifestation to a presence that has already been lost while continuing to send in favor of a de-centering release of difference.47

Christology, 286-299. Anthony Thiselton, Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self : On Meaning, Manipulation and Promise (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing, 1995), 121. 44 David Ray Griffin, “Postmodern Theology and A/Theology: A Response to Mark Taylor,” in David Ray Griffin, William A. Beardslee and Joe Holland, Varieties of Postmodern Theology (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1989), 33. 45 Terry Eagleton, The Illusions of Postmodernism (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996), 86. 46 Thomas M. Kelly, Theology at the Void: The Retrieval of Experience (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 3. 47 Georges De Schrijver, “Postmodernity and the Withdrawal of the Divine: A Challenge for Theology,” in Lieven Boeve and Lambert Leijssen eds. Sacramental Presence in a Postmodern Context (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2001), 39. 42 43

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American Theological Inquiry The religious responses to the postmodern vacuum range from the absolute no of atheology (nihilism), to the humble yes of western religions (holy mystery). Postmodern christologies have attempted to accommodate some of these challenges into their investigations while prescinding from the more radical aspects, such as the rejection of universal and transcendent truth. Contemporary christology has begun to exceed the limits of modern christology as set forth by Friedrich Schleiermacher and Karl Barth. These christologies presuppose the stability of Christian truth in history as established by either the experience of the divine or the revelation of the Word of God, even while acknowledging that it may be expressed in new forms.48 There has been a noticeable internalizing of the postmodern consciousness in numerous theological specializations: historical Jesus research, narrative theology, liberation theology, political theology, feminist theology, theologies of inculturation, and Christian theologies of religious pluralism. They have gravitated toward a theological method centered on historical consciousness (the social mediation of meaning and truth) and the sense that new interpretations/opportunities will be produced in different situations and by encounters with the other and the different. There has also been a tendency in postmodern christologies to move away from beginning with a christology from above and from situating the doctrine or theology of the Trinity as the source of christology.49 The construct of Roger Haight is an example of a postmodern christology. His approach defines Jesus as the symbol of God. He begins with the idea that when God’s transcendent presence is experienced by a group, the awareness and conceptualization of this divine reality will take the form and character of the specific situation, language, culture, and symbols that mediates it to consciousness.50 Concrete symbols are things, places, events, or persons that mediate a presence and consciousness of another reality. According to Haight, Jesus is the concrete symbol of God in the Christian religion. People encounter God in Jesus in the past and in the present. Jesus is the mediation of God’s presence to Christianity and the ultimate, transcendent reality of God is the object of Christian faith. Jesus Christ is the mediator of the specifically Christian faith. He is the single central figure. But, for Haight, Jesus is not the exclusive and determinant character of Christian faith.51 All religious symbols have a tension built within them between the autonomous identity of a symbol and the meaning of the symbol that transcends itself by pointing beyond itself to a universal relevance. The universal is found in the particularity of the medium through symbolic mediation. Christology is, to a certain extent, about the distinctive individuality of the human being Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus pointed to something other than himself: God and God’s rule in history. The interpreter or believer approaches him with the religious question about a salvation that comes from God. Jesus mediates God by acting like the God he preached and fulfilling people’s deep and existential religious interests.52 In other words, Jesus was not communicating an objective set of doctrine about God but was rather Roger Haight, Jesus: Symbol of God (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1999), 318. Ibid., 330. 50 Ibid., 13. 51 Ibid., 14-15. 52 Ibid., 203. 48 49

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American Theological Inquiry symbolizing in a particular way the presence of God and modeling a way of responding to that divine presence. Haight continually returns to the importance of the tension (dialectical character) in religious symbols between the reference and the referent. He says that, on one hand, Jesus is the object of Christology as its source and ground because he is the one who reveals God. On the other hand, Jesus is of interest only because he mediates God and God’s salvation. Therefore, as the symbol that mediates God, Jesus is and is not the object of Christology. Christians experience a finite person in history with Jesus and in and through him experience God.53 Haight asks a provocative question about Christian faith: Is Christian faith directed to Jesus so that it stops, or is its faith in God mediated through Jesus? He says the answer must be both yes and no. The council of Chalcedon affirmed as much with its doctrine of the divine and human natures of Jesus Christ. The two natures correspond to the dialectical structure of Jesus as the symbol of God and consequently can avoid the propensity to monophysitism. Haight recommends that one not think about the answer in conceptual terms that are static (i.e., substance) but must instead be seen as a dynamic and participatory process where Christian faith is faith in God mediated through Christ. These human and divine dimensions are found together in the dynamics of symbolic mediation. For example, Christian liturgy does not involve the worshipping of Jesus insofar as he is a human being. Rather he is worshipped because he embodies and makes present God as the symbol or sacrament of God. When this conviction is connected to the new situation of dialogical interaction with the world religions, Haight concludes that a theocentric worldview is required to replace the previous christocentric worldview.54 Additionally, the Christian understanding of God as Trinity will also need some readjustment. Haight says that the Trinity is a symbol itself that summarizes the Christian faith by confessing its belief that God is creator, historical savior, and inner power of authentic life and final salvation. Finally, the interpretation of Jesus as the symbol of God lends itself to a Spirit Christology. This, for Haight, is the most adequate conceptualization to meet the postmodern challenges and to take advantage of the new opportunities.55 The Christology of Gerald O’Collins and Postmodernism The history of Christology could be framed by the bordering options of fideism and rationalism. In fideistic christologies, reason does not have an important place in matters of revelation and faith. This is an insular religion. In rationalistic christologies, faith is reinterpreted purely by the dominant ways of thinking in a given time period. This is an accommodated or compromised religion. These extremes in Christology are usually the exception; though, they are helpful for constructing the outlines of the debate. In practice, the majority of christologies are mainline which, according to William Thompson-Uberuaga, form part of the faith-seeking-understanding perspective. This middle approach to Christology maintains a unity between faith and reason that keeps faith from succumbing to

Ibid., 205. Ibid., 206. 55 Ibid., 490. 53 54

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American Theological Inquiry superstition, and reason from being bracketed from imagination, affection, and action.56 Even among such divergent theologians as Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, mainline christologies attempt to inculcate the challenges posed to New Testament Christology by the historical sciences. They recognize how those sciences can offer a purifying critique to any naïve view of the Christian faith. Yet, they also believe that faith has its own ability to challenge and purify those sciences.57 This mainline method is realistic because it is based in the faith-reason tension and so avoids any propensity to claim an Archimedean point beyond the limitations of history. O’Collins is a theologian who belongs to the mainline tradition in Christology and tries to work through the limitations of modern thinking. This can be seen in his readiness to draw from philosophical, historical, and biblical resources. O’Collins’ faith-in-search-ofunderstanding approach is seen particularly when his dogmatic and fundamental theology seem to permeate each other. As with Rahner, the event of supernatural revelation is rendered credible not by an independent philosophical prolegomenon but rather by the meaningfulness, existential assimilability, and human indispensability of the fundamental dogmas of Christianity.58 In particular, O’Collins is concerned that his Christology primarily addresses questions of urgent, contemporary significance instead of timeless formulations. He wants Christology and soteriology to be linked with other branches of theology and he tries to balance the normativity of classical Christology with an awareness of its limitations such as the need to depart on occasions from conciliar terminology and frameworks of questioning.59 Finally, O’Collins contends that “the truth of Christian revelation remains irreducible to any set of abstract, timeless ideals.”60 To put it another way, the Christian faith is wedded to history. Individual Christians see their own history as founded somehow in the history of Jesus. This historical faith is always contextualized in the space and time of a concrete church community. The church is the place of revelation: the Word of God is proclaimed and the Spirit of God actualized in the community’s life. Believers are empowered by the faith and the sacraments to reveal to the world the Triune God and God’s desire to save people in their particular circumstances.61 Postmodern discourse highlights the notion of absence: absence of universal truth, absence of definitive meaning in language and texts, absence of a permanent subject and identity, and the absence of the divine from human experience. O’Collins has accorded a 56 William Thompson Uberuaga, “New Christologies: State of the Question,” Liturgical Ministry vol. 11 (2002): 3-4. 57 Ibid., 8. 58 See Karl Rahner, “Observations on the Situation of Faith Today,” in Problems and Perspectives of Fundamental Theology eds. René Latourelle and Gerald O’Collins (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), 281; Gerald O’Collins, Christology, 230-232. 59 John P. Galvin, “Jesus Christ” in Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives vol. 1 eds. Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 315. 60 Gerald O’Collins, Foundations of Theology (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1971), 65. 61 William Henn, “The Church as Easter Witness in the Thought of Gerald O’Collins, S.J.” in The Convergence of Theology: A Festschrift Honoring Gerald O’Collins eds. Daniel Kendall and Stephen T. Davis (New York: Paulist Press, 2001), 209.

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American Theological Inquiry central place to presence in his Christology and acknowledges its problematized status in deconstructive philosophy. He understands absence in dialectical relationship with presence. The discussion of God in his work can give one a sense of how he would negotiate absence in other areas of theology. O’Collins’ account of God draws from the two perspectives of the biblical-experientialconcrete and the philosophical-precise-abstract. From one perspective, God is supremely mysterious, indefinable, unknowable, and transcendent. From the other perspective, God is personal, relational, perfectly loving, compassionate, and immanent.62 This state of apparent opposites is overcome with the recognition that matter and spirit are naturally related from a theological perspective. God is active always and everywhere as the ground of being and efficient cause as he creates and sustains the world.63 How else could a completely spiritual God create the material world? How could the spiritual body of the risen Christ become the body and blood of the Eucharist? How could the eternal Logos become truly human in the incarnation? In short, any perceived ontological gap between the infinite and finite, time and eternity, and the human and the divine is never total or completely exclusive.64 Even in the functioning of symbols where a revealing, representing, and re-presenting of reality (i.e., God) is acknowledged as taking place, there is simultaneously the recognition that it is not fully expressed by the symbol. All professions of faith fall short of expressing their intended reality.65 A balanced theological perspective falls between the extremes of an idolatry of pure presence and an iconoclasm of complete absence. As seen in the revealing and concealing of God in the symbol, sacrament, and the incarnation, God is truly present and encounterable but is also absent in a way that preserves the infinity of God and generates a hope that looks forward to a future experience of God’s plentitude. In other words, symbols really contain and make present the symbolized. There are no empty symbols—symbols always give rise to thought. But they are richly open ended and cannot ever express conceptually once and for all their total meaning and full truth.66 Symbols provide a mediated presence; never a strictly and exclusively immediate presence.67 When this concealing and unconcealing of reality is analyzed from a christological viewpoint, the divine offer of salvation through the incarnate Word and crucified and risen savior is understood as being present everywhere, but mediated in infinitely various and limited ways. The situation is never a matter of asking if Christ is present or not present; rather, it is a question about the mode of his presence. The sensible mediates truth through the body, language, culture, tradition, and history. As Louis-Marie Chauvet observes, what is

Christology, 226. Ibid., 107-109. 64 Ibid., 233. 65 Fundamental Theology, 174. 66 Retrieving Fundamental Theology, 99-103. 67 Christology, 312. 62 63

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American Theological Inquiry most spiritual comes through what is most corporeal.68 If God is going to save humanity, it must be where it is in time and space. Bodily presence is the hinge of salvation.69 Therefore, Christ is really but not fully present and active in the liturgical community, the world religions, and in experience and history until the Eschaton when the risen Christ will be publicly present in an undeniably universal fashion.70 In other terms, Christ is present as a passing trace coming from the past of salvation history and moving toward its culmination in the future Parousia. Until then, all meaning and truth are relativized by time and place and so are caught up in a dynamic process of development, searching/questioning, and the dialectic of absence and presence of truth. In this way, O’Collins indicates a soft form of postmodern theology where the limitations of reason are understood, such as one finds in the Radical Orthodox theologian Graham Ward.71 As O’Collins succinctly puts it: “Christology is a matter of our now experiencing and systematically reflecting on the ‘presence of the coming Christ rather than our acknowledging (in a theoretical way) the future of the present Christ.’”72 The new must take precedence over the old because he who is and was presents himself also as the one to come.73 A new sense of evil and collective human sin is another key aspect in doing theology in the postmodern context. After the diffuse violence of the twentieth century, there is a deep pessimism about the future of the human race since it is now clear just how acute its tendency is for self-destruction.74 While never forfeiting the conviction that Christ is the unsurpassed and definitive savior of the world through the incarnation and resurrection, O’Collins couches such belief in a way that avoids a facile optimism or triumphalism.75 Evil is the absence of God, that is, the good, life, appropriate relationships, meaning, and truth. All of humanity shares in the irrational evil that killed Christ. The Christian interpretation of this history of sin is that God eternally planned to commune in love with the world. Salvation is one great mystery comprised of the three moments of creation, redemption, and future consummation through the activity of the Logos and the Spirit. Redemption comes as a divine gift of liberation from alienation, death, and ignorance. And yet, Auschwitz and Hiroshima have set Jesus’ own violent death in a ghastly new context of interpretation.76 The act of being tortured to death as such (e.g., Jesus on the cross) cannot be read as a loving God’s means of redeeming the world. According to 68 Louis-Marie Chauvet, The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2001), xii. 69 Christology, 314. 70 Christology, 322-342. 71 See Graham Ward, Cities of God (New York: Routledge, 2000), 22; Theology and Critical Theory 2nd edition (New York: St. Martin Press, 2000), 1-4; “Questioning God,” in Questioning God eds. John D. Caputo, Mark Dooley and Michael J. Scanlon (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001), 275-283. 72 Interpreting Jesus, 11-12. 73 Fundamental Theology, 17. 74 Jesus: Symbol of God, 332. 75 Christology, 13. 76 Ibid., 223.

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American Theological Inquiry O’Collins, it was his total innocence and divine identity that gave his sacrifice its unique value. God accepted and made this victim holy by raising him from the dead and glorifying him. The self-giving love of Christ with which he accepted his passion prevails over the worst of human malice. Christ expiates and makes reparation for sin by definitively dealing with it. As the victim of wrongdoing, he provides wrongdoers with the means of rising above sin by making them into adopted children of God through sharing in the divine life. The self-giving love of Christ was demonstrated in his acceptance of his passion. This love thwarts the worst of human cruelty. For O’Collins, then, love is the primary key to Christ’s salvific work, because God is love and activity flows from being.77 Love is an active presence (life giving and life enhancing) as the experience of Christ’s saving presence has shown from the beginnings of Christian faith. Additionally, he is especially present in suffering bodies. With the resurrection, the disclosive power of the cross is unveiled as the weak, the despised, and the suffering fools of Christ are transformed into special mediators of revelation and salvation. In short, God has a preferential option for the poor. O’Collins explains that redemption in Christian theology is not a spectator sport. The beneficiaries of redemptive liberation are to share in the ongoing struggle against evil.78 After the Holocaust, therefore, theology can no longer be distanced from praxis.79 It must work for justice for the living and the dead victims of history. Eternal salvation is received not by escaping from the specifics of everyday embodied human existence, but by working through it. Easter faith implies the obligation to set free those who suffer from economic injustice and human misery. O’Collins asserts that the pressure behind responsible Christian service stems from a hope for the full redemption of all human beings. Social and political action for the eradication of institutionalized sin verifies the truth of the Christian hope for the full redemption of every human being. The hope for the coming Kingdom of God is never separated from the hope for the world. This is no crass Utopianism.80 Christ is in agony until the end of the world. The many different negative experiences of suffering can be opportunities to mediate the transcendent value of justice. However, as O’Collins is quick to point out, there is never irresistible and overwhelmingly clear evidence in history and experience that redemption has occurred. There are only hints or signs of redemption that come through the sacramental life of the church, when hopeless situations are overcome and hope is maintained in the face of death. In other words, Christ’s redemptive activity is both limited in its present impact and not unambiguously revealed. A realistic point of view is encouraged: theology fails to match the mysterious depth of the Paschal Mystery.81 Johann Baptist Metz says that theology does not work out of an all-reconciling answer to the history of human suffering. Rather, it continually strives to find a new language and

Ibid., 286-287. Interpreting Jesus, 144-145. 79 Retrieving Fundamental Theology, 13. 80 Jesus Risen, 177-178. 81 Interpreting Jesus, 161-165. 77 78

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American Theological Inquiry praxis in order to make negative events or experiences unforgettable.82 O’Collins admits that such absurd evil and senseless suffering in the world must be made a part of the living memory or anamnesis of the community of faith. However, since it is beyond the usual theoretical paradigms of interpretation of academic theology, the only real response is to repeat in faith the biblical stories of liberation so as to make the mystery of evil symbolically bearable.83 Additionally, O’Collins believes that there can never be a universal Christology that could be adequately valid for all human experiences, world cultures, and geographic regions.84 Ultimately, O’Collins seems to advocate a quasi-apophatic theology that will allow God’s future to bring about the reconciliation of all things with the universal plan of salvation. He is also focused on the place of historical consciousness and pluralism in the Christology of the twenty-first century. Conclusion This essay has been an overview of the theology of Gerald O’Collins and a sketch of some of the major challenges launched against it by postmodernism. While the discussion is far from exhaustive, it highlights a few of the key issues that will certainly dominate theological/christological conversations in the third millennium: divine absence, relativism, historical consciousness, and the irreducible nature of human suffering. O’Collins adjusts to the period of thinking after modernity where grand and universal claims about truth, history, and soteriology are chastened by the realities of historical and embodied existence. However, under the assault of extreme forms of postmodernism (deconstruction) in contemporary Western culture, he performs gracefully. He strikes a balance between the extremes of traditionalism and relativism. By maintaining a high Christology that is grounded in the Chalcedonian conviction that the pre-existent eternal Logos became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, he judiciously incorporates into his theological enterprise the insights from the low christologies of some political and liberation theologies; and he does so without ever forfeiting a realistic view of the incarnation and its universal soteriological efficacy. While new ideas and fresh perspectives are welcomed from experience, history and philosophy, his theology is done primarily from within the ecclesial milieu of the Roman Catholic Church and in accord with the orthodox Christian tradition. O’Collins seems well-equipped to engage a critical correlation between the coupling of faith and reason that is so important in the postmodern world. He is a sober voice amidst the alarm of transience and nihilism, such as when he explains that it is an exaggeration to claim that the historical has replaced the metaphysical and the ontological—both are still needed when doing theology and both are still possible. There can be no severing of the ontological and functional in an investigation of Christ’s place in salvation. Also, he warns theologians of the dangers in adopting a theological perspective that is too lop-sided, narrow, limited, or cut off from a living community of faith. He encourages theologians not to forget the important insights that are to be gained from academic, liberation, and liturgical-spiritual resources. 82 Johann Baptist Metz, “God and the Evil of this World: Forgotten, Unforgettable Theodicy,” in The Return of the Plague eds. José Oscar Beozbo and Virgil Elizondo (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997), 4. 83 Retrieving Fundamental Theology, 105. 84 Interpreting Jesus, 31.

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American Theological Inquiry With that said, some of O’Collins’ christological positions will be subject to debate in postmodern theology. For instance, he adopts a maximalist approach to the New Testament that leads to a claim of divinity in the teachings of Jesus, the Gospel writers, and Paul, and to the facticity of the virginal conception, empty tomb, and resurrection appearances, all of which will be troubling to some biblical exegetes. Moreover, O’Collins’ situating of christological reflection in the living tradition of the church and in conjunction with faith, liturgy, and spirituality will draw criticism from Third Quest christology. And, his christocentric reading of the world religions, along with his ambiguous stance on the role of the cross in redemption, will also draw fire. Finally, O’Collins phenomenology of experience in general as a source for theology and the transcendental variety in particular will surely trouble postmodern thinkers for not taking seriously enough the determining place of language and its unstable nature. However, none of these possible concerns undermines the valuable contribution of O’Collins to craft a theologically viable method for today. His unashamed belief in Jesus Christ as risen lord and savior leads him to conclude that what is most radical, particular, and historical about truth is orthodoxy’s claim that God has become man.

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American Theological Inquiry LATE HAVE I LEFT THEE: A REFLECTION ON AUGUSTINE THE MANICHEE AND THE LOGIC OF BELIEF ADOPTION Charles Natoli1 It was fortunate that St. Augustine, who was so well versed in all the arts of controversy, abandoned Manicheism; for he would have been well able to remove its grossest errors and to make the rest of it a system that, in his hands, would have left the orthodox at a loss. —Pierre Bayle, Critical and Historical Dictionary, “Manicheans” We are told that when, as he often did, he requested a work of Tertullian’s, St. Cyprian would simply say, “Give me my master.” It is not too much to say that Augustine has been to the Christian West what Tertullian was to Cyprian: the master, the mentor par excellence though, of late, and especially since its noontide in seventeenth century France, his light has suffered some eclipse.2 This essay too takes Augustine for its master—not (alas!) out of a piety like Cyprian’s, but out of a conviction that, on the subject of religious and other beliefs, he has as much to teach us as he did Pascal, Newman, and many another whose thought his own foreshadows or informs. Sauce, Goose and Gander The Augustine we should miss the most, of all the Augustines that never were, is the one who never left the Manichees, who threw all his talent and energy into defending and defining the most extreme of his causes. —James J. O’Donnell, Augustine: A New Biography In On the Usefulness of Believing, his final work as a layman, we find Augustine still engaged with the Manichean faith he had left five years before. We will speak of Manicheism’s principal tenets before long. For the moment, let us just note how, in an aside, he queries the critique of Manicheism he has just been making: “But why do I not reply to myself that these elegant and delightful similitudes, and censures of this kind, can be poured out wittily and smartly by any adversary against anyone who teaches anything?” Let us therefore, he continues, have done with metaphor-mongering and charge-flinging so that “matter may clash with matter, cause with cause, and reason with reason.”3

1 Charles Natoli, PhD, is Chair of Department of Philosophy and Classical Studies at St. John Fisher College and author of Fire in the Dark: Essays on Pascal’s Pensées and Provinciales (University of Rochester Press, 2005). 2 See for example L. Kolakowski, God Owes Us Nothing: A Brief Remark on Pascal’s Religion and on the Spirit of Jansenism (Chicago and London, 1995). 3 I cite previous translations of Augustine where a good one is readily available, though I have sometimes slightly altered them. For the Confessions I use John K. Ryan’s fine version.

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American Theological Inquiry But what if, in the clash of reason with reason, it should be that either side can avail itself of essentially the same arguments and objections? In particular we may ask whether, with respect to Augustine’s conversion from Manicheism to Christianity, the type of objection that he used to fell the old belief would, if fairly pressed, have felled the new; and if the safeguards Augustine used to defend the new belief would, had he chosen to deploy them on behalf of the old, have protected it from refutation as well. After all, as the saying goes, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. For example, if in many faiths there are some knots of doctrine that seem to bid defiance to all reason, should only one be allowed to still objections to this by saying, to use Augustine’s own words, that “It is not a falsehood, but a Mystery” (non est mendacium, sed mysterium)? But in the story of the conversion of Augustine, the question most apt to provoke considerations like the foregoing concerns the interpretation of texts. As is well known, the young Augustine found the Old Testament to be a stone of stumbling (Confessions, 3.5). He found its style quite lacking in the nobility of Cicero’s, and he was sorely vexed by many passages which, taken literally, he could not find fitting or true. It was not until St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, taught him to interpret the Old Testament allegorically that his objections to it fell away (5.14). Now Augustine, while yet a Manichee, found grave fault with the Manichean scriptures for speaking poorly, not to say falsely, of corporeal things such as the heavenly bodies (5.5.). Indeed, mere astronomers seemed to know more about them! But why could not the offending passages in the Manichee scriptures have been intellectually rehabilitated in the same way as their fellows in the Old Testament—to wit, by allegorical interpretation? Why should what seemed literal errors on the part of the Manichees have been denied a saving, spiritual, figurative sense? Could Augustine not have said “Mani’s text is intended to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go?” After all, Augustine was quite willing to show the Christian Scriptures some indulgence on the score of literal accuracy in matters astronomical. And so in controversy with Felix the Manichee he will say, “. . . it is not written in the Gospel that the Lord said: I send you the Paraclete who will teach you the courses of the sun and the moon. For he wished to make Christians, not mathematicians” (Against Felix, 1.10). Is this sort of thing methodological good faith, or mere special pleading for a parti pris? The Manichees and Augustine Once baptized by Ambrose, Augustine chose to privilege one of his lives, the one lived as a baptized member of the Caecilianist church in Africa, as the authentic religious experience of his life, but not all who knew him shared that view. Manicheism was with him early and late, and was the one truly impassioned religious experience of his life. He was the sort of person who has a great love affair when young, sees that it just won’t work, breaks it off, then settles down in a far more sober and sensible marriage. What he says and does for the rest of his life will be marked by firm allegiance and commitment to the late-blooming relationship, but the mark of the first - 28 -

American Theological Inquiry never goes away, and some who knew him early will be unable to credit the marriage because they remember the passion. —O’Donnell, Augustine: A New Biography When Augustine was young, Manicheism was at its zenith in North Africa. It was a creed well suited to appeal strongly to talented and ambitious youth. Though widespread in high circles, it had also the allure of the exotic and the avant-garde—a kind of Bossa Nova, “Cool New Thing,” if you will. Moreover, by being outrageously demanding, the sect dispensed an oblique form of flattery that can have a powerful appeal to the young and talented. For by insisting that salvation could be won only through the most heroic asceticism and renunciation—on the face of it, a gospel little likely to appeal to the young or to anyone!—it implied that its faithful were, at least in embryo, a corps d’ élite capable of storming such heights. (But if not—well then, perhaps in another life! This was a fallback that might have its own allure for one who later famously longed to be made chaste “but not yet.”) Though preached as the fulfillment of earlier revelations, and though its founder claimed to be the Paraclete, Manicheism is better understood as a religion in its own right rather than a mere Christian heresy. Its founder, the Babylonian “apostle of light” Mani (210-277), spread it tirelessly far and wide until his execution by the Persians. Though in the West, Manicheism quickly dimmed after its high noon in the days of Augustine’s youth—indeed, its decline in North Africa began shortly after he left it—in the Orient it met with a much longer success, spreading east along the Silk Road and south as far as the South China Sea. It was powerfully entrenched in the western Chinese kingdom of the Uighurs until the ninth and tenth centuries when it declined under pressure from Buddhism. Remnants of it endured there until the early thirteenth century when they perished in the conquests of Genghis Khan. In the Middle Ages Manicheism’s core beliefs were preached by the Paulicians, Bogomils, and Cathars. The latter flourished greatly, especially in the south of France, until they perished in the fires of the Inquisition and of a twenty-year Crusade summoned by Pope Innocent III. Perhaps a million died in all. There is even a small neoManichean movement in America today. Manicheism’s principal features included a dualism even more rigid than that of Zoroastrianism (wherein the good and evil powers are brothers); a remarkably severe asceticism for those who would practice it fully (the perfecti); and a canon of holy scriptures including texts composed by the founder himself. In colorful, extravagant and sometimes obscene myths the Manichees portrayed the world as a battleground between two independent and coequal forces, Lords of Light and Darkness. As the result of an invasion of the Lord of Light’s realm by minions of the archon of Darkness, in man (as indeed in all material things) bits of Light are trapped in the foul embrace of matter, itself a stuff of Darkness. Salvation for us therefore consists in the liberation of our Light and in its return to the realm of the Lord of Light. This can only come to pass through a rigorously ascetic life-style founded on knowledge, gnosis, of our condition’s origins and nature. Augustine, the child of a pagan father and a devoutly Christian mother, became an auditor in the Manichean religion at about the age of nineteen (c. 373). As a mere auditor, “hearer,” he - 29 -

American Theological Inquiry was dispensed from the most extreme of the rigors mandated for its small elite of full practitioners. In the faith Augustine knew the latter, called the ‘perfect’ or the ‘chosen’ (electi), were forbidden procreation (along with all other sexual activity); professional careers; material possessions; and staple foods such as meat and wine. They were forbidden to engage even in the cultivation and preparation of such foods as were approved, e.g. figs, which were thought to contain a goodly part of the divine light that is everywhere entombed in matter. Obviously, then, the Manichee elect could only exist if proscribed but necessary activities (such as the preparation of ritual communal meals) were done on its behalf by the auditors. As for the sins that these lesser souls thus incurred, they could be expiated in a later life. For a faithful auditor, who needed only refrain from magic and idolatry while practicing a simple moral code, might hope to be reincarnated in the body of a perfectus and win his salvation then.4 By 384, Augustine, now the newly appointed professor of rhetoric in the imperial city of Milan, had become dissatisfied with Manicheism and he became a catechumen in the Catholic Church. Just as, at this time, his parting from his long-time though never-named concubine may have been seconded by ambition—for marriage would not only comply with current papal admonitions to quit one’s concubine for a wife, but could bring valuable social connections as well—so too there may have been a bit of policy in his becoming a catechumen. For Christianity (or more precisely, a strain of it) had the vigorous patronage of the emperor. Though at this time Augustine’s Manichean moorings were loosening, he was as yet not wholly satisfied with Christianity either. But by August of 386 he had irrevocably converted to the Christian faith as he had learned to interpret it from Ambrose. What chiefly impelled him to quit the old faith for the new? From the Lord of Light To the Light of God Augustine tells us that he originally became a Manichee, and persisted in the sect for nine years, because the Manichees promised him reasons in lieu of faith. They would make Truth manifest. (In point of fact Augustine, who always seems concerned to minimize his Manichean past, belonged for closer to eleven years). But, he goes on to say, it was also reason that kept him from committing himself completely to Manicheism (OUB, 2). But when even the celebrated and long-awaited teacher, Faustus of Milevis, was unable to resolve his problems with Manichean doctrine, particularly those relating to the heavenly bodies, Augustine began to have grave doubts that the Manichees’ epistemological promissory note would ever be paid off. Some of the reasons he gives for abandoning the religion of Mani are also, like his literalminded objections to the sect’s astronomy, two-edged swords that in his hands seem to cut but one way. For example, Augustine was scandalized at the immorality of some of the Manichean perfecti with whom he had come into contact. What are those who should be dead to lust and revolted at the mere thought of procreation doing whistling, and whinnying like stallions, at shapely women passers-by? Is this how the true faith bears fruit in its elect?

4

See Serge Lancel, Saint Augustin (Paris: Fayard, 1999), pp. 61-62. - 30 -

American Theological Inquiry Now in later Christian writers, the subject of bogus sanctity among the Church’s elite is a commonplace. For example, Boccaccio, in the third of the first night tales of the Decameron, tells of a Jew who, visiting Rome and seeing at first hand the flagrant immorality of the Church hierarchy, decides to convert! For he infers that only the favor of divine providence could be responsible for preserving a Church whose holy ones are so unholy. Later, Montaigne, in the early pages of the Apology for Raymond Sebond, will tell a like story. While on crusade, St. Louis (King Louis IX of France), knowing too well the flagrant iniquities of the princes of the Church, powerfully discourages a newly converted Tartar king from visiting the Pope and his prelates. Not unnaturally, Louis is terrified lest the convert’s desire to find inspiration in His Holiness and his satellites should backfire. But not to worry. When, finally, the Tartar king does visit Rome, like the Jew in Boccaccio he too will conclude that nothing less than the miraculous power of God could have preserved the Christian sheep-fold under such shepherds. We may fairly suppose that immorality among the Christian elite was not unknown to Augustine. Yet he never refers to Christians’ failings as a “by its fruits you shall know it” aspersion on the faith. Augustine taxes the Manichees with characterizing God in a way that was unworthy of real divinity. For the substance of God (Light) has become entangled with, and hence corrupted by, matter, the foul substance of evil (Conf. 3.10). But in the same work he will mention a special case of this very problem that would seem to tell against the Christians. Did not their doctrine of the Incarnation mean that God, because born in the flesh, would be defiled by flesh? (5.10). Though Christians, unlike Manichees, were not compelled to view matter as inherently foul, nonetheless for God to take on flesh is to stoop indeed—indeed, for him to stoop so low will be used to show that his love and mercy are without stint or limit. In a more irreverent vein, we may recall that Manichee dietary injunctions would have the faithful eat as much of the substance of the Lord of Light as they could at their ritual meals—for example, by consuming figs, held to be particularly rich in captive Light. Augustine will find this not only an unworthy characterization of divinity but an absurd one. He will ridicule the Manichees’ consumption of figs and consequent belching forth of bits of God (3.10). But to understand how this would strike a pious Manichee, a Christian would need only imagine similar witticisms at the expense of the Christian ritual meal where, in communion, the substance of the Lord in toto is consumed by the faithful. Under the influence of Academic skepticism, a philosophy that calls all in doubt and so by rights should function as a kind of universal belief-solvent, Augustine allowed to dissolve his commitment to Manichean dogma to dissolve. But he will not pour out the solvent of skepticism on the bedrock of Christian teaching that he learned over his mother’s knee, and in particular on his conviction that where truth is, there Christ will be. That will remain untouched and inviolate.5 At the time he was wobbling in his Manichee orbit, Augustine’s cardinal objection to Christian teaching lay in the apparent failure of Scripture, when understood according to the 5 The same point is made by Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (1967), p. 80. Cf. Confessions 3.5 and 5.14 for the ever unshakeable standing of Christ with Augustine.

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American Theological Inquiry letter, to speak fittingly of God and his elect. For example, how could the Old Testament patriarchs enjoy the highest divine favor notwithstanding their unbridled sexual concupiscence—seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, indeed! For shame, Solomon! But on his arriving in Milan he began to attend the sermons of St. Ambrose in which the Old Testament was expounded to him as edifying allegory. . . . when I opened up my heart to receive the eloquence with which he spoke, there likewise entered, though only by degrees, the truths that he spoke. I now judged that the Christian faith, for which I though nothing could be said against the Manichean objectors, could be maintained without being ashamed of it. This was especially the case after I had heard various passages in the Old Testament explained, most often by way of allegory, by which I was killed when I understood them according to the letter . . . Yet for all that I did not now think that the Christian way must be held to by myself, just because it could have its learned defenders who would fully and not absurdly refute objections made to it. Nor did I think that what I previously held was to be condemned, for both parties seemed to me to be equal in their defenses. Thus while the Christian position did not seem to be overthrown, neither did it appear to be the victor (Conf. 5.14). But there remained still a stone of stumbling. I then earnestly applied my mind to see if it were possible, by means of sure arguments, to convict the Manicheans of falsity. For if I were only able to conceive a spiritual substance, then forthwith all those stratagems would be foiled and cast out of my mind. But this I was unable to do (Conf. 5.14). When he became able to conceive how a substance might exist and yet be immaterial—an accomplishment whose first inspiration came likewise from Ambrose though its consummation derived from his reading of the Neoplatonists—then nothing stood between Augustine and commitment to Christianity but his self-will. And this, as all know, was finally vanquished by the “voice as of a child” calling to him in the garden, bidding him “Take up and read,” and the piercingly apt words of Scripture on which his eyes then fell. I grabbed it, opened it and read in silence that chapter on which my eyes first fell: ‘Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in strife and envying ; but put you on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh and its lusts.’ Nor did I wish to read further, nor was there need. Indeed immediately I reached the end of this sentence all shadows of doubt fled away as if before a tranquil light that infused my heart (Conf. 8.12). Here we find Augustine, whose long liaison with a common law wife would have barred his passage into the Manichean elite, fired with the certainty that this scriptural passage was providentially set by God before him. Now at last the man whose low-status, common law wife would have barred him from membership in the Manichean elite felt able, for the first time, to renounce “the flesh and its lusts.” - 32 -

American Theological Inquiry But even here, in relying on the “chapter on which my eyes first fell,” we find Augustine choosing to show a partiality. Earlier in the Confessions he had told us how his faith in astrology was sapped by an old and disillusioned former practitioner. When I enquired of him why it was true that so many of the things that they [the astrologers] foretold turned out to be true, he answered, as far as he could, that the power of chance, which is diffused everywhere throughout the nature of things, brings this about. If a man consults at random the pages of some poet who sings and thinks of things far different, a verse often appears that is wonderfully appropriate to the business at hand. It is not to be marveled at, then if . . . there should be uttered, not by art but by chance, something relevant to the affairs and deeds of the questioner (Conf. 4.3). Yet the possibility that alighting on just that text in the garden could be mere chance is not for a moment entertained by Augustine. Would a more equitable reasoner have entertained it as not only possible but, as a natural rather than a supernatural explanation, inherently more likely? Of this too more anon. Finally, although we do not know of his mistress being vouchsafed a revelation in a garden, a like moral result ensued for her. For we are told that, on being sent away by Augustine, she resolved to swear off men for good. This is always understood as high compliment to him. No other love could match what she had with him and so, though a mere consort, she would play the univira (“one-woman man”), a widow pledged never to remarry. But on the less charitable hypothesis that Augustine had soured her on men forever, her resolve would appear rather less complimentary. On Geese That Are Swans And so, in the event, Augustine became a Christian. But again, might he have remained a Manichee with as good reason? Might he not have triumphantly defended his old creed had he chosen to employ the resources, particularly the allegorical interpretation of troublesome texts with which he chose to defend the new? On the face of it there is no reason why not. Clearly his strongest objections to Manichee dogma—false accounts of the heavenly bodies and vexing descriptions of God and evil as corporeal masses—could have been construed as figures implying a plethora of more exalted meanings. Christians were wont to tax the Manichees with methodological bad faith when the latter rejected as spurious some New Testament passage that jarred with Mani’s revelation. To this the Manichees made the plausible reply that their way of dealing with the texts in question was no more arbitrary than the Christians’ practice of downplaying elements of the Old Testament whenever it seemed convenient.6 In fact, when explaining Old Testament descriptions of the heavens, Augustine is very willing to understand them figuratively so that they may not contradict each other. Is the sky a skin or a vaulted chamber? “Perhaps both of these, skin and vault, can be understood

6

Cf. George Widengren, Mani and Manichaeism (AMS, 1965) p. 126. - 33 -

American Theological Inquiry figuratively; how both could be true literally must be looked into, however” (On Genesis according to the Letter, 2.9). It would seem, then, manifestly ad hoc for Augustine to restrict the saving device of allegorical interpretation to Christian texts. But perhaps this is mere seeming. For was allegorical interpretation an option that was really open to orthodox Manichees, or was it an article of faith for them that the revelation of Mani must be understood as literally true? Augustine tells us that this was indeed the case. You preach especially that Mani came last for this reason: not to speak in figures but to explain them, so that having unlocked the figures of the ancients by his narrations and the clear light of his arguments he should be hidden by no figures. You add this reason for his presumption, that clearly the ancients who saw, spoke, or enacted figures knew that he would come last and that by him all would be explained. He however, knowing that no one would come after him, wove no allegorical obscurities into his teaching (Against Faustus 15.6). Yet, it is far from clear that the Manicheism of Augustine’s day ruled out allegorical interpretation. Some scholars consider that understanding Mani in a highly figurative sense was not only permissible but necessary given the form of Mani’s texts. As George Widengren put it, “[Mani] employed all the symbols, similes, and allegories of the gnostic language to give his preaching life and colour. . . . Fascinated, indeed almost obsessed, by obscene myths, he turned to them again and again. . . .”7 In the nineteenth century, Albert Newman found the literal sense so inadequate as to imperil understanding of what Mani was really teaching: “The highly poetical and mythological form which Mani gave to his speculations renders it exceedingly difficult to arrive at assured results with reference to fundamental principles.”8 But although the Manichean stories cry aloud to the modern reader for figurative interpretation—for how could such fanciful and coarse tales be taken literally by us?—it does not follow that Mani’s followers so understood them. And so, F. C. Burkitt maintained that “[W]e must not . . . regard Mani’s cosmological interpretations as allegories. Fantastic as Mani’s Gods or Angels may be, it is clear that he and his disciples believed in them as real. . . . As historians we must not treat as allegories the tales of the Primal Man and the rest of the Manichaean mythology because to us with our modern scientific conceptions of the material universe they sound silly and bizarre.”9 With this insight in mind, perhaps we may do best to believe Augustine’s assertion that the Manichees preached that Mani claimed to explain figures and not to use them. But Augustine’s own view of the matter, which is the point at issue when it comes to analyzing his decision to forego allegorical interpretation, seems to have been quite different. Thus, of the Manichees’ chief teaching he will say: “I did not agree with them [that the light seen by the eyes should be Ibid. p. 142. A. Newman, “Introduction to Augustine’s anti-Manichean writings” in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 1st Series, IV, p. 10. 9 F. C. Burkitt, The Religion of the Manichees (Cambridge, 1925) p. 21. 7 8

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American Theological Inquiry worshipped as highest godhood], but I thought that they hid something great with veils that at some time to come they would open” (On the Blessed Life 1.4). In short, while a Manichee Augustine was effectively “travelling in hope,” thinking the very crux of its literal teaching to be but a figure that would later be unriddled so as to reveal a meaning more exalted. Thus, whether or not an unimpeachably orthodox Manichee could expand his creed allegorically, it seems clear that Augustine felt that he could. But it is also clear that, for him, Manicheism never fulfilled its promise of providing clear reasons. It was so little given to philosophical argument, so little “scientific” even in a wide sense, that modern scholars join its ancient detractors in remarking on it. Widengren even suggests that Mani, a revelation bearer rather than a thinker, would have found Aristotelian logic, including the principle of noncontradiction, to be alien and opaque!10 We can see that Augustine came to a like conclusion from his complaints as a Christian that Manicheism was a “childish superstition”; that its doctrine shed no light but was itself a darkness; and that he had believed, not in men who taught, but in men who ordered obedience (On the Blessed Life 1.4). And yet, as a determined and resourceful exegete, could he not have read something refined and exalted even into the “childish superstition” of Mani? Is it not, after all, a boast of the New Testament writers that the evangel seems folly to the wise and that the Lord resists the proud (cf. Jas. 4.6, I Peter 5:5)? (This is a point so important for Augustine that he will place these words in the first few lines of the Confessions.) Why should not the Gospel of Mani do likewise? There is an old saw that wryly renders the idea of self-deluded partiality—as in the case, say, of doting parents whose unbridled fondness beguiles them into thinking their unexceptional spawn to be matchless paragons. (Readers acquainted with Harry Potter’s step-parents will not be at a loss for an example.) “They thought all their geese were swans.” Was Christianity Augustine’s goose that was a swan? The Heart Has Its Reasons On the whole, I think not. So far as reasoning is concerned, Augustine might indeed have shored up his belief in Manicheism by means of devices such as allegorical interpretation had he been bound and determined to do so—had he, in fact, chosen to defend it with the vigor with which he later repulsed attacks on Catholic orthodoxy. But he felt, and seems to have seen, that reason is more than reasoning, and his determination to defend to the utmost Christian but not Manichee belief can be seen quite rational in a large sense—though perhaps a troubling one. In the final analysis, what decided Augustine upon Christian belief was, more than anything, the conviction of certainty that it alone bestowed on him—or better, “on his heart,” keeping in mind that for Augustine, as for the Biblical authors and for Pascal, the human heart is profoundly intellective. “The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.” It is the inmost self with its own tongue for speaking, ears for hearing, and eyes for seeing. And for Augustine it was Christian belief alone that came to have a force of conviction, an effulgent certainty, that left

10 For some ancient criticism along with the author’s own appreciation of Mani’s “level of ratiocination” see Widengren pp. 135-144.

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American Theological Inquiry his heart nothing more to desire—phenomenon of the kind that Nietzsche would later call “proof by power.” Augustine is explicit that complete certainty is what he always sought, even during his brief flirtation with skepticism. Of that time he says: “I held back my heart from all assent, fearing to fall headlong, and I perished all the more from the suspense [suspension of judgment]. So that I should be certain, I wished to be made as sure of the things I could not see as I was certain that seven and three make ten.” (Conf. 6.4; cf. 5.14, end). This is the criterion—or should we say longing?—that, as we have seen, finally found fulfillment in the garden: “Nor did I wish to read further, nor was there need. Indeed immediately I reached the end of this sentence all shadows of doubt fled away as if before a tranquil light that infused my heart.” (8.12). Perhaps Augustine’s rejection of Manicheism was indeed seconded by the bar his concubinage would have opposed to his being numbered among its elect. But be this as it may, clearly the Manichean Lord of Light—passive, victim of a surprise attack by the Archons of Darkness, mutable, his substance torn asunder, contaminated, made prisoner in matter—is, at the end of the day, far too weak to command the passionate worship Augustine longed to give, or to function as guarantor for the kind of certitude he craved. As to the matter of which sacred texts were to be defended to the utmost, and which allowed to fall, here too we may infer a crucial behind-the-scenes role for the heart. Augustine believed that if we would hear all that a text can say to us, we must approach it with charity and in a docile spirit, and not filled with animosity or contentiousness (OUB, 13-14). After nine years of trying, he may well have felt he had made fair trial of Manichee text and teaching, and that they would always leave a residue of doubt in the heart. Perhaps the greatest question—not only for Augustine in his context but for would-be knowers in any domain—is one that, though usually unspoken, is always in the background: who or what “will hold the heart and make it stand still?” (Conf. 11.11). When do you know that you know? When is conviction no longer provisional, no longer subject to correction by future experience or reflection? When does one reach the point where the prospect of “trading up” to a better way of thinking simply no longer presents itself? When does belief leave the dock and, once and for all, assume the judge’s chair? Need we say that Augustine was well aware of the problem of delusive certainty? It is a state much to be feared inasmuch as it not only deceives us but, by quelling all desire for future searching, leaves us (to use a Scholastic phrase) “immutably confirmed in error.” As he says to Honoratus, a friend from his student days who became a Manichee under his urging, “Nothing is more easy, my dearest friend, than for one to not only say, but to think, that he has found out the truth” (OUB, 1). So by what right can Augustine be certain of certainty itself? (The question is especially acute in the case of a Christian certainty that holds our intellects to have been darkened by original sin!). Non-delusive certainty can only come from a Light that, once seen, makes itself inexorably known for what it is. In its effulgence it cannot be mistaken for anything else, nor anything else for it. It is quite simply unique. - 36 -

American Theological Inquiry . . . I entered deep within myself and I saw by the soul’s eye, of whatever kind it was, an unchangeable Light above that same eye of my soul, above my mind. . . . Nor was It above my mind as oil is above water or sky above earth; It was above because It made me, and I was below because I had been made by It. [A]nd who knows It knows eternity. . . . And you cried out from afar: I am who am. And I heard as one who listens in the heart. Nor was there anything on account of which I might doubt. And it would have been easier to doubt that I am alive than to be in doubt whether Truth might not exist . . . (Conf. 7.10). What Augustine is describing here could be understood as an earthly analogue of the certainty that would be felt in the Beatific vision by the blessed in Heaven. Absent such a certainty, even they could be gnawed by doubt and fearful that, though they think they see God, in reality mocking infernal powers are be beguiling them with a soon-to-be-lifted illusion. (Think Descartes’ malin génie!). Of course, one can say that all of this is just too ingenuous—even if perhaps charmingly so—and fraught with the gravest peril of never-ending self-delusion. But in point of fact, can one proceed otherwise than Augustine did—or can one only feign to? How can we not take as good epistemological coin a certainty so overwhelming that, in point of fact, it leaves no room at all for doubt—a certainty of which we could truly say “it would have been easier to doubt that I am alive”? As for Augustine, even if he was making a virtue of necessity, there is nonetheless a profound consistency to his views. For him, as Romano Guardini observed, there is “an elemental intimacy in all being . . . . All existence comes from God, is governed by its reflection of Him, is permeated by His love. . . all that exists stands as a whole within His objective intimacy, in the embrace of His significance and love. . . . Man’s heart is the realm of that attuned awareness that responds to this.”11 In short, for the believer there is a pre-established harmony between the knower and the known—both are cut from the same cloth insofar as both are “divine reflections.” At the level of being they are brothers, scions of the Light that illumines the one and pierces the other. God is, to evoke the syllogism, the universal Middle Term that makes knowledge possible. At the end of the day, those things that we cannot but believe will inevitably pass for what we ought to believe. In other words, pace Descartes, our rationality will consist in arguing and proceeding from those things of whose truth we are irresistibly convinced—and not from only those things that an abstract, rational-being-as-such might be compelled to grant under any and all conditions. (Keep in mind, too, that our conceptions of the latter will be inescapably conditioned by the former.) And so, when Augustine, foreshadowing Luther’s “Here I stand! I cannot do otherwise!” took his stand for God and Providence, he simply acknowledged that, in his sight, these were the overwhelmingly evident interpretations of the text of the world. To deny them would have been to say that he did not see things as in fact he did see them—to lie. Or, rather, to deny them 11

The Conversion of St. Augustine (Westminster: 1960), tr. by E. Briefs, p. 63. (German edition 1950.) - 37 -

American Theological Inquiry would have been to feign that he was not Augustine but another, one whose heart and inner eye saw otherwise. In fine, notwithstanding first appearance, it was by no means an arbitrary or irrational choice that Augustine made between Manicheism, which always left his heart with doubts and dubieties, and Christian belief, which conferred upon him a certainty that left the heart nothing more to desire. Let us even suppose that he did not, as he thought, come into possession of pristine and primordial Truth, but rather embraced the worst of illusions—one that will brook no denial. (Luther’s concluding “God help me, amen!” is a profoundly prudent last safeguard for one on the verge of a such an epistemological precipice.) Even so, his proceeding was a profoundly reasonable one. For when all is said and done, our reason, like the rest of our humanity, is part and parcel, not of an ideal world, but of what the French call “the world as it goes,” le monde comme il va—a world whose bedrock is unanswerable brute fact, a world in which what we call our ‘ought’ will be conditioned by our ‘is.’ Augustine pays implicit homage to this state of affairs when he thinks and acts in accordance with a view that, illusion or not, is bound up in our very selves: that what wholly satisfies the heart is Truth alone.

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FIRE IN THE DARK Essays on Pascal's Pensées and Provinciales Charles Natoli

University of Rochester Press, 2005 ISBN 13: 978-1-58046-187-0 166 pp. | $75.00 | hardback “. . . an excellent example of scholarship and of philosophy, thus an address to the circle of Pascal scholars . . . but also to any serious reader. In this book what was once known as the Republic of Letters survives. . . .” —Michael Platt, Review of Metaphysics  “This is a well‐crafted, erudite and engaging study. . . . [It] should find a broad audience among students of philosophy, the history or religion, theology, and French letters and culture.” —Susan  Read Baker, Seventeenth‐Century News

Charles Natoli, PhD, is Chair of Department of Philosophy and Classical Studies at St. John Fisher College. He is also the author of Nietzsche and Pascal on Christianity (1985).

“Perfectly at home in the literary, theological, and philosophical fields that inform seventeenth‐century France, Charles Natoli discusses Pascal's difficult and fascinating writings with great clarity and insight, and with the justesse these writings deserve. The essays are witty and enjoyable to read. Original in their discussion of Pascal's methods and of their potential limits, these essays too ask the reader to be mindful of Pascal's depth and value for our 21st century world. “ —John A. Gallucci, Colgate University. In this careful and learned study, Natoli burrows into a key tension of our time: the mystery of faith and how one proves the grounds for that faith. —Sara Melzer, UCLA Author of Discourses of the Fall: A Study of Pascal's Pensées In this remarkable analysis of Pascal's theodicy and the difficulties it presents to modern readers, Natoli joins theological, philosophical, and literary approaches to the Pensées and Provincial Letters. — David Wetsel, Arizona State University, author  of Pascal  and Disbelief.

Publisher’s URL: www.urpress.com

 

A SPECIAL CALL FOR PAPERS in honor of The Rev. Dr. John L. McKenzie American Theological Inquiry (ATI) is seeking interested parties to contribute papers for a special journal edition in honor of the life and work of The Rev. Dr. John L. McKenzie (see bio below). We are hoping to publish this special issue as Volume 3, Issue 1; January 15, 2010 to generally coincide with the reprinting of McKenzie’s magisterial work, The TwoEdged Sword: An Interpretation of the Old Testament (to be published by Wipf & Stock). While papers dealing directly with McKenzie’s work are certainly welcome, Fr. McKenzie himself need not be the central foci. Rather, papers dealing with themes that were important to Fr. McKenzie are principally desired (e.g., Old Testament and Ancient Near-East religious studies, biblical historiography and cosmogony, ecclesiology, culture, etc.). We do, however, ask that such papers make at least one reference to one or more of McKenzie’s works. Submissions: To submit a paper, or an idea, please contact ATI’s General Editor, Dr. Gannon Murphy, directly at [email protected], or 952-426-0733. Submissions will be reviewed through November 1, 2009. The Rev. Dr. John L. McKenzie John L. McKenzie (1910-1991) was a biblical scholar specializing in the Old Testament. He was an American leader among post-World War II Catholic scholars and highly influential in the beginnings and orientation of modern biblical scholarship in the 1940-50s. Fr. McKenzie’s work had a tremendous influence in orienting Catholic thinkers to the Old Testament using modern biblical scholarship and tools; he helped to make respectable among Catholic bishops and scholars what had previously been regarded as largely a mainline Protestant enterprise. Indeed, his mid-1950s introduction to the Old Testament was controversial enough at the time to have been held up for three years by church authorities. The Jesuit scholar was also an outspoken pacifist and critic of the powerful, be they ecclesiastical or civil. Fr. McKenzie accused the church of tampering with the internal intent of Jesus’ words in order to accommodate violence. Dr. McKenzie was the first Catholic to be president of the Society of Biblical Literature, was a past president of the Catholic Biblical Association, participant in archaeological investigations at Ben Zur and Gideon, president of Clergy and Laity Concerned, and received numerous honors. His writings include: The Two-Edged Sword, Dictionary of the Bible, The Civilization of Christianity, The Power and the Wisdom, The Theology of the Old Testament, and regular articles in Catholic Biblical Quarterly and The Critic. Fr. McKenzie taught for most of his academic career at Loyola University of Chicago, University of Chicago, Notre Dame, and DePaul University.

American Theological Inquiry

JESUS ON THE BIG SCREEN1 Stephen Nichols2 Before they can be anything else, American movies are a product. —Sidney Pollack Every Jesus film has been about the current moment. —Stephenson Humphries-Brooks This film is not based upon the Gospels but upon this fictional exploration of the eternal spiritual conflict. —Martin Scorsese, Opening To The Last Temptation Of Christ Based on a survey of Hollywood insiders, Entertainment Weekly declared Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ the most controversial film of all time. But, surprisingly, for a Hollywood flick, the ruckus was not being raised by the Religious Right or the stalwarts of evangelicalism. Instead, the religious conservatives were buying tickets by the gross and renting out whole theaters for evangelistic outreaches. Gibson, a committed Roman Catholic, had found some good friends in unlikely places. He also stirred up quite a controversy.3 Controversial Saviors The controversy over The Passion movie seemed to come in two veins. First, was the violence—the “R” rating gave many of those aforementioned evangelicals pause and sent their leaders scrambling for damage-control spin. Second, and this far outshadowed matters of violence, was the charge of anti-Semitism. Some of the truly challenging questions that the film and the phenomenon it spurred raise, however, have been eclipsed by these issues that have garnered the headlines of the protest. American evangelicals on the whole tended to applaud the movie and to quickly seize the opportunity the movie presented for evangelism, all the while giving little critical thought to what they were doing and what they were watching. Roman Catholics defended the movie—and Gibson for that matter. The clearest defense came straight from the Vatican by Archbishop John Foley, president of the

1 From chapter 6 of Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to The Passion of the Christ (2008). Reprinted her by kind permission of IVP Academic. 2 Stephen Nichols, PhD, is professor of theology at Lancaster Bible College and Graduate School. His publications include The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World (Crossway, 2007); Heaven on Earth: Capturing Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Living in Between (Crossway, 2006), and Pages from Church History: A Guided Tour of Christian Classics (P&R Publishing, 2006). 3 Entertainment Weekly, June 9, 2006. The cover story runs “The Most Controversial Movies Ever,” with The Passion of the Christ taking the no. 1 spot. The November 23, 2005, edition of the movie magazine named The Passion among “the top fourteen most notorious hot-button movies ever,” along with The Da Vinci Code and Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ.

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American Theological Inquiry Pontifical Council for Social Communications, “If they’re critical of the film,” Foley reasoned, “they would be critical of the Gospel.”4 The ironies abound when considering The Passion phenomenon. Evangelical organizations like Dobson’s Focus on the Family often bemoaned Hollywood’s offerings, especially chastising the industry for its depictions of violence. Yet from the moment these same leaders were privy to a personal screening they became the film’s biggest cheerleaders. Neal King expresses this irony similarly: Evangelicals teach each other how to be evangelicals by recounting the ills of current cinema, the movies of craven Hollywood, and the poisonous effects of moviegoing on their children. . . . However, the prerelease marketing of The Passion of the Christ inspired the same groups to book whole theaters and to share its religious ritual. Christian leaders also seemed to enjoy cozying up to Gibson, perhaps relishing being a part of that world even for a moment, despite the fact that in the past such associations of evangelicals with movie stars and moguls were to be shunned. Moving away from film to the broader cultural landscape can be instructive. Evangelicals and their fundamentalist forebears had been in a cultural semiretreat from the 1920s on. In the 1950s Billy Graham gained a seat at the table for evangelicals in American culture. In the 1970s evangelicals and some fundamentalists began battling for a seat at the table in American politics. In 2000 they had one, with a professing evangelical seated at the head of the table in the White House. Evangelicals began relishing these new roles, no longer the cultural outcasts they once were. Sitting next to Gibson for private screenings only furthered their sense of having arrived.5 Evangelicals and fundamentalists alike supported the movie for evangelistic reasons. Some congregations and other institutions of a more fundamentalist stripe who impose movie restrictions on their constituents lifted the ban, granting a special dispensation for The Passion, citing evangelistic purposes as the reason. This too, however, is a surprising irony given Gibson’s explicit and the movie’s implicit Roman Catholicism. Again, many of the more conservative evangelicals seemed to have no problem embracing Gibson during the film’s run of success, while otherwise eschewing such evangelical and Roman Catholic bipartisanship. David Neff, a participant in a private screening cohosted by Gibson and 4 For a summary of the controversy surrounding the film, see Mark Silk, “Almost a Culture War: The Making of The Passion Controversy,” After the Passion Is Gone: American Religious Consequences, ed. J. Shawn Landres and Michael Berenbaum (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), pp. 23-34; Archbishop Foley is cited in Steven D. Greydanus, “The Vatican Film List—Ten Years Later,” <www.decentfilms.com/sections/articles/vaticanfilmlist.html>. 5 Neal King, “Truth at Last: Evangelical Communities Embrace The Passion of the Christ,” in ReViewing the Passion: Mel Gibson’s Film and Its Critics, ed. S. Brent Plate (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 151.

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American Theological Inquiry Willow Creek’s Bill Hybels, also points to this “surprising” evangelical enthusiasm given “that the movie was shaped from start to finish by a devout Roman Catholic and by an almost medieval Catholic vision.” Neff then explains in part how “Evangelicals have not found that a problem,” by explaining that “overall, the theology of the film articulates very powerful themes that have been important to all classical Christians.”6 Leslie Smith suspects there are other factors at work, as well, in explaining the embrace of the movie by evangelicals. She too takes notice of the movie’s violence and Gibson’s history of making violent films, and of the movie’s Roman Catholic tendencies as well as Gibson’s explicit Catholicism. All of which leaves her with the question, “Why did evangelical Protestants so eagerly embrace [this] film?” Her answer is a complex one: “It exemplifies many of the qualities of modern American evangelical culture: it privileges emotional experience, it appeals to traditional American consumerism, and it asserts supernaturalism and moral absolutism in a rationalistic, postmodern society.” Her first point concerning emotional experience is worth unpacking. Smith later notes, while attending a Bible study built around Lee Strobel’s accompanying workbook for the movie Experiencing the Passion: “The people with whom I spoke gauged The Passion’s [biblical] accuracy not by measures of specific historicity but rather by the emotions the film evoked in the viewer and the extent to which it could lead to a conversion experience. To put it simply, this group of evangelicals assessed the realism of the film by its emotional impact.” She then quotes from Strobel’s workbook: “For the first time in my life I felt as if I were really experiencing what Jesus had endured.” Smith adds to her list of experientialism, consumerism—based on the marketing campaign and related product lines the film spurred, not to mention its $370 million gross—and the tension with the larger culture: “The attention paid to The Passion was alluring to evangelicals because of the legitimacy that it granted both their group and their message.”7 Evangelical leaders and their constituents applauded the film for its raw authenticity and verity in retelling the biblical narratives. So true was it to Scripture that the movie even ran the dialogue in Aramaic and Latin. Yet from the opening scene, Gibson nevertheless succumbed to the temptation facing all would-be cinematographers of Jesus: going beyond the biblical account. As David Neff pointed out, when the biblical narrative let him down, Gibson turned to Anne Catherine Emmerich’s Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ to help the drama along. Gibson could also rely on his own creativity, so he has a playful Jesus flicking water in his mother’s face as she offers him a washbasin to clean up before lunch. This touching scene is nothing less than gut-wrenching, for we know the trial that Mary will face in watching helplessly as her son is taken and suffers and dies a too-cruel death. And it is in the end that the violence of the film takes over. To be sure, the historical Jesus’ trial was unjust, his precrucifixion torture brutal and the crucifixion itself despicable beyond

6 David Neff, “The Passion of Mel Gibson: Why Evangelicals Are Cheering a Movie with Profoundly Catholic Sensibilities,” Christianity Today, March 2004. 7 Leslie E. Smith, “Living in the World, But Not of the World: Understanding Evangelical Support for The Passion of the Christ,” in After the Passion Is Gone, ed. J. Shawn Landres and Michael Berenbaum (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), pp. 48, 51, 56.

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American Theological Inquiry comprehension. But in reading the Gospel narratives, we are hard-pressed to find the graphic depiction of violence that the movie relentlessly heaps upon its viewers. Gibson not only forces his viewers to watch, he forces them to linger through his relentless recourse to slow motion, a technique film critics tend to see as not only amateurish but also deeply manipulative. Gibson indeed succeeds in producing a visceral reaction, confirmed by Lee Strobel’s aforementioned confession that he never experienced the true passion of Christ until he watched the movie. Donald Hodel, president and CEO of Focus on the Family, similarly chimed: “The Passion was profoundly compelling and affecting. The quality and realism of the acting, the setting, adherence to the historical record, its intensity and pacing all amount to an outstanding and moving film. . . . For both Christian believers and for non-believers The Passion will penetrate the mind, heart and soul in ways that can only be memorable and positive.” Paul Crouch Jr. of Trinity Broadcasting Network offers his endorsement, “It is without a doubt the best portrayal of Christ and the Crucifixion I’ve ever seen. In fact, it makes you want to take all Biblical epics and most ‘Christian’ films and throw them right in the trash.” Greg Laurie of Harvest Crusades stresses the evangelistic appeal of the movie, calling it the greatest moment of the century: “I believe The Passion of the Christ may well be one of the most powerful evangelistic tools of the last 100 years, because you have never seen the story of Jesus portrayed this vividly before.”8 But what is the movie’s impact now, even just a few years later? Or what was the average moviegoer’s reaction even by the time they made it back to their car in the parking lot? People magazine dubbed James Caviezel, who starred as Jesus, “the Sexiest Savior” in its 2004 annual issue devoted to the sexiest men alive. It’s unlikely that this was the cultural impact that evangelical leaders hoped for. For all of its pungent reaction at the time, the ongoing effects of The Passion seem flaccid. The media and broader cultural circles have long since moved on. Posters may be found rolled up here and there in the corner of youth pastors’ offices, but even the church has lost its passion for the movie. The movie, it appears, has gone the way of all fads, a bright meteor that became a bit of a spent force. The Passion, however, wasn’t the only controversial Jesus film. In fact, it might come as a surprise that two of the most controversial films of the twentieth century both took as their subject the age-old story of Christ. And that’s about the only thing these two films—Gibson’s The Passion and Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)—have in common. The controversy over Scorsese’s film came from the side of the aisle that lined up behind Gibson. The American Council of Catholic Bishops organized protests, as did evangelical leaders. Bill Bright went so far as to offer ten million dollars to Universal Studios to destroy the movie. Hollywood insiders seemed to think that all of that protest only served to spur on box office tickets and draw attention to a movie that otherwise would have had a mediocre showing. The boycotts, however, came from the deeply rooted belief that the movie fell nowhere shy of blasphemy. 8 These endorsements, as well as others by evangelical and Roman Catholic leaders alike may be found at “‘The Passion of the Christ’: Assessment by Conservative Christians,” <www.religioustoler ance.org/chrgibson3.htm>.

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American Theological Inquiry Even the consultant hired by Universal Pictures to counter all of the negative publicity resigned three months before the movie’s release, citing the film’s blasphemous content as one of the reasons.9 Not only do Jesus films have a controversial history, they also have a long one. The first attempt to put Jesus on film came from the French Director Alice Guy, whose short, silent film Jesus Before Pilate (Jesus Devant Pilate) came out in 1898. Americans would produce their own short film in 1912, the Kalem Company’s From the Manger to the Cross. But the honor of producing the first full-length film goes to American movie legend Cecil B. DeMille, who released the big-budget (for the time) silent film The King of Kings in 1927. Jesus films took a hiatus until the 1960s. Since then, however, Jesus films have been made with an impressive regularity. As Stephen Humphries-Brooks, an astute scholar of Jesus films, observes of all of these silver screen portrayals of Christ, they tend to have more to say about the cultural moment that produced them than the moment they wish to depict, the moment captured on the page in the Gospels. In fact, it seems that all films depicting historical events and all biopics suffer from anachronisms; they tend to reflect the times in which the film was made as much as the times in which the film is set. It might not be too much of a stretch that, for the most part, these Jesus films also have more to say about the directors, producers and screenwriters than they have to say about the central figure of the script. These problems seem to plague the effort of putting Jesus up on the big screen. To borrow an oft-repeated mantra since Marshall McLuhan first coined it, the medium does matter. He actually put it more strongly, “The medium is the message.” Jesus, as this chapter argues, doesn’t shoot well. He’s not a very good celluloid savior.10 This is not to suggest that nothing can be gained from the enterprise of converting the Gospel accounts into film, evangelistically or otherwise. Some of these film projects have been quite successful, which is to say they work. This is especially true of the 1979 Jesus film and the Jesus Film Project, which occurs mostly out of the arena of commercial venues. But putting Christ on the silver screen involves tradeoffs—many things can be lost in translation. This chapter looks at this roughly one hundred year history of Jesus in American film, from the silent 1912 From the Manger to the Cross: Jesus of Nazareth to the most controversial film of all time, the 2004 The Passion, and even some 2006 additions to the genre. The Greatest Story Ever Told The first attempt to put Jesus on the screen goes all the way back to 1898 with the silent film Jesus Devant Pilate (Jesus Before Pilate). A full decade later an American silent film was shot on location in Egypt and the Middle East, From the Manger to the Cross: Jesus of Nazareth (1912). These films’ short scripts were taken directly from the Gospel accounts. Jesus himself tended to be “off camera,” more present by allusion than by direct visual 9 W. Barnes Tatum, Jesus at the Movies: A Guide to the First Hundred Years (Santa Rosa, Calif.: Polebridge Press, 1997), p. 163. 10 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Boston: MIT Press, 1964).

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American Theological Inquiry contact. Like other silent films, a few episodes would tick by before the words appeared on the screen to let the audience know what was happening. Most of the “dialogue” comes directly from the biblical text. Both films were placidly received as “solemn and overly reverential.” Even audiences of silent black-and-white films wanted something more than church on a silver screen. These audiences found their wishes coming true when no less than the veritable Cecil B. DeMille released The King of Kings in 1927. This movie, like DeMille’s others, came with all the grandeur of old Hollywood. Gibson may very well have taken a few pages from DeMille’s playbook. DeMille’s colleague on the film, Jeremiah Millbank, saw the film as having evangelistic appeal. In his autobiography, DeMille reveals, “To this day Jeremiah Millbank has not taken a penny of profit from The King of Kings: All his share in its continuing earnings goes to make and distribute new prints of it, principally for use by churches and missionaries.” DeMille estimates that such efforts resulted in 800,000,000 people seeing the movie. In part those numbers are due to the religious leaders that DeMille courted and then mobilized on behalf of the film. Curiously, as with the lightning strikes during the filming of The Passion, events occurred around the shooting that made people think the heavens themselves were endorsing the film. In the case of The King of Kings, when doves were released to fly into the sunset, they instead “went straight by themselves to fly around the Cross of the Savior.” DeMille also credits the film’s success to H. B. Warner’s “supernatural” performance. “All my life,” recalls DeMille, “I have wondered how many people have been turned away from Christianity by the effeminate, sanctimonious, machine made Christs of second rate so-called art, which used to be thought good enough for Sunday schools.” DeMille gave the twentieth-century world a savior of “virility,” the same as the original “Man of Nazareth had.” Bruce Barton, who turned Jesus into a businessman fit for the early twentieth century, served as DeMille’s theological consultant on the project. DeMille’s The King of Kings would set the gold standard. Some have even argued that this film “proved so popular and enduring that it was some time, literally decades, before anyone had the courage or the reason to attempt another cinematic version of the life of Jesus.”11 By the 1950s, however, filmmakers were ready to give it a try. Three movies in particular hover around Jesus and the Gospels, Mervyn LeRoy’s Quo Vadis? (1951), Henry Koster’s The Robe (1953) and William Wyler’s Ben-Hur (1959), all three of which were originally novels. These movies have Jesus off-stage, though central to the storyline and the main characters. Quo Vadis? picks up the story after Christ’s death, following Peter through the difficult persecutions of Nero’s reign. The Robe too deals with the conflict between Rome and early Christianity by telling the story of Marcellus, the centurion who won Christ’s robe at the foot of the cross. The story also moves along not only by political intrigue but also by romance between Marcellus and Diana. Both he and Diana met their fate together, at the hands of Caligula. Wyler’s Ben-Hur is subtitled A Tale of the Christ. In it, Jesus appears at a distance, and the only two times he speaks, his face is off camera. Jesus nevertheless 11 Cecil B. DeMille, The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille, ed. Donald Hayne (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959), pp. 274-84; Richard C. Stern, Clayton N. Jefford and Guerric Debona, Savior on the Silver Screen (New York: Paulist Press, 1999), p. 62.

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American Theological Inquiry functions as the overwhelming figure in the life of Judah Ben-Hur, played by none other than Charlton Heston. Having been emboldened by these attempts, in the 1960s not a few films returned Jesus to center stage. Two in particular are Nicholas Ray’s King of Kings (1961) and George Stevens’s The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). The title of the first is a nod to DeMille. Otherwise, the film is pure 1960s. It offers a more human Jesus than that of DeMille’s film. This Jesus, the authors of Savior on the Silver Screen argue, “is primarily a speaker of sayings, not a worker of miracles . . . a ‘rebel with a cause,’ who tries to bring about the revolution through a message of peace.” Max von Sydow, lending his gravitas, takes Jesus in the opposite direction in The Greatest Story Ever Told. This cinematic telling of the greatest story also racked up one of the greatest cast of characters, including Charlton Heston, Sidney Poitier, John Wayne, Martin Landau and Angela Lansbury. This film and its stars seem bent on portraying the ideas of Jesus over his action and over his sayings, and even over the events of the Gospels. According to the authors of Savior on the Silver Screen, “Jesus seems to be the most Gnostic in this film.” One scene alone proves this point. As Max von Sydow’s Jesus presides over the table of the Last Supper, arms outstretched and angelically backlit, he nearly appears to levitate. This is Jesus hovering on the Earth, his white robes always pristine, not walking in the dust.12 Peter Hasenberg has noted that this moment of film history, like the broader culture of the 1960s, emphasized “(1) a dominance of the subjective point of view, (2) a critical view of society, sometimes even with a strong political motive, and (3) a conscious and critical use of conventional narrative and genre structures.” All of these tenets directly affect Jesus and the screen’s portrayal of him. The dominating subjective viewpoint allows the filmmaker’s or the scriptwriter’s sensibilities to take over the Gospel portrayal. Hasenberg’s second point, a counterculture animus, also means that Jesus of the 1960s and 1970s takes on a hippie persona, with the overthrowing of the moneychangers from the temple—the rebel against the establishment—receiving significant attention. The third point, in effect, tells us that these new Jesus films aren’t like the films of our fathers and grandfathers. These three tenets also have the cumulative effect of allowing for more artistic license. Filmmakers were free to roam beyond the Gospel accounts, and freely roam they did.13 Jesus films of the 1970s took the hippie Jesus to new heights and introduced the types of controversies that would later encircle The Last Temptation and The Passion. The two in particular are the musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell, both from 1973. Two other 1970s Jesus films represent the ridiculous and the sublime. The latter is Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth (1977), while the former is Terry Jones’s Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979). Indeed, it was a strange decade. Zeffirelli’s film has been hailed as the greatest cinematic achievement of portraying the life of Christ. That may very well be the case. One thing for certain, at over six hours running time, it easily ranks as the longest. Zeffirelli’s Stern, Jefford and Debona, Savior on the Silver Screen, pp. 69, 145. 11Peter Hasenberg, “The ‘Religious’ in Film: From The King of Kings to The Fisher King,” in New Image of Religious Film, ed. John R. May (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1997), p. 43. 12 13

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American Theological Inquiry directorial skill can be seen in just how riveting those six hours are. He seems to move almost seamlessly between the locally situated story of the first-century Jesus and the universal and perennial story that historically situated life tells. Then there’s Monty Python’s Jesus. The British comedy troupe’s cinematic portrayal met with all of the criticism directed toward Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. Despite its maker’s contentions that the film’s acerbic wit was aimed at religious formalism and institutional Christianity, and not at Christ himself and the Gospels, Catholics and evangelical Protestants took the film as nothing less than blasphemous. The film actually isn’t about Jesus; instead it tells the story of Brian, a hapless comic figure whose life eerily intersects with that of Jesus.14 At least one biblical scholar, however, takes Terry Jones to be nobody’s fool. Philip R. Davies confessed, “I have long been of the conviction that Monty Python’s Life of Brian is an indispensable foundation to any student’s career in New Testament studies.” (Welcome words for me since I tend to tell my students that Monty Python and the Holy Grail is indispensable for church history studies.) He tells them this because, in his view, the film “engages with a number of basic scholarly historical and theological issues.” Davies may be right, watching the film likely hones one’s hermeneutical skills.15 In the 1980s came the not-very-popular but critically well-received Jesus of Montreal (1989) by Denys Arcand. This is the classic story within a story; as the main character, Daniel (Lothaire Bluteau), plays Jesus in a passion play in modern Montreal. He soon, however, takes on a messiah complex, complete with an interesting twist on the well-worn cinematic episode of throwing the moneychangers out of the temple. In this case exploitive directors and movie financers are chased out of a theater as cameras and equipment are destroyed in a fit of righteous indignation. Daniel eventually dies, from a bizarre accident, getting knocked over while hanging on the cross playing Jesus in the passion play. Jesus of Montreal unfolds a cleverly embedded story within a story that works on a number of levels. The film to dominate the 1980s, however, was Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. Here too Scorsese unfolds a story within a story, as he tells the inner psychological struggle of Jesus, played by William Defoe, alongside of episodes vaguely reminiscent of the biblical story line. Perhaps studios refrained from Jesus films in the 1990s in order to recover from The Last Temptation. But some made-for-television movies stepped in. Kevin Connor’s Mary, Mother of Jesus aired on NBC in 1999, the same year that Roger Young’s Jesus aired on CBS. Both movies seemed to have the net effect of creating some controversial headlines, such as “Dueling Saviors: CBS, NBC Face Off This Season with Jesus Movies,” in the Chicago SunTimes. Otherwise, they had little impact, reaching few viewers and garnering few other headlines. Not so with the Jesus films so far in the 2000s. In fact, American Jesus films reach 14 For a discussion of The Life of Brian, see Stern, Jefford and Debona, Savior on the Silver Screen, pp. 233-63. 15 Philip R. Davies, “Life of Brian Research,” Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies: The Third SheffieldColloquium, ed. J. Cheryl Exum and Stephen Moore (Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), p. 400.

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American Theological Inquiry a crescendo in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004). His is not the only movie of the first decade of the 2000s, however. In 2006 Jean-Claude La Marre’s Color of the Cross (2006) opened with a modicum of controversy and ended with a mere sliver of the attention and the profits of The Passion. La Marre was busy in this film, serving as its writer and director, and taking on the lead role of Jesus, the first black Jesus, that is, in a major motion picture. La Marre’s film set another precedent in making race the issue that put Jesus on the cross. And then there’s the much-hoped-for film by Catherine Hardwick, The Nativity Story (2006). The film had significant commercial backing and courted the same evangelical leaders that Gibson had. This film, however, had none of the controversy, offering a safe, tame retelling of the biblical tale. It couldn’t live up to Gibson’s success, not only falling way short of The Passion’s gross but also getting eclipsed by Gibson’s Apocalypto (2006) that hit theaters the same week as The Nativity Story opened. This survey of the translations of the greatest story ever told to the silver screen raises a number of significant points worth developing. First, American movies work best when there’s romance, a slight problem given the story line of Jesus. What American filmmakers, scriptwriters and novelists lack in material, however, they more than compensate for through creativity, inched along as they are by some developments in New Testament scholarship. The likely suspect for adding the romantic intrigue to the story is Mary Magdalene. From the days of Cecil B. DeMille, she has been well used for the part. She takes a rather strange route to the role of leading lady. Mary Magdalene, however, isn’t the only element of the story that gets elaboration. The Gospel accounts in general disappoint if we’re looking for good, cinematic material. Consequently, filmmakers and scriptwriters rush in where the canonical Gospel writers feared to tread. The medium almost demands departure from the biblical text. Jesus films also reveal a tendency to transplant Jesus from his age to ours. Of course, more than films do this. Sermons, theological works, even Bible translations do the same things as these movies. The difference is the medium, which allows for a more intense contextualization. While some films like Jesus of Montreal (1989) explicitly and blatantly move Christ forward, other films, even ones sporting Aramaic dialogue, do it subtly. This moving of Christ forward has a curious effect on our reading of the Gospels. Film is a significantly powerful and influential medium, and has a tendency to overshadow our perceptions and interpretations of the people and the events that films depict. Do people think even a little bit differently about Nixon after watching Scorsese’s interpretation of him (Nixon, 1995)? It might be the case that Jesus films, at least for the season they dominate the discussion, tend to have a significant impact on popular-level hermeneutics, the way people read the Gospel texts. Finally, Jesus films have difficulty, almost by definition, depicting the hypostatic union, Christ as the God-man. Stern, Jefford and Debona make the point directly when they charge that Jeffery Hunter, who plays Jesus in the 1961 film King of Kings “surely plays up Jesus’ humanity.” And since then Jesus films have tended to emphasize the humanity of Jesus. These four points emerge from the American Jesus films: the trumping of Mary Magdalene’s role, the virtual necessity of adding to the biblical story, the transplanting

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American Theological Inquiry of Jesus from his context to the context of the filmmaker and audience, and the (again seemingly necessitated) emphasis on the humanity of Jesus. Each deserves some attention.16 There’s Something About Mary Of all the supporting characters in the Jesus movies, one that has taken a rather interesting road is Mary Magdalene. The biblical narrative actually tells us very little of Mary Magdalene, but in the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great taught that she was a prostitute. This requires some reading between the lines of the Gospel narratives and then some additional filling-in to boot. First, we have to identify Mary Magdalene as the same person who is the unnamed woman “sinner” who anointed Jesus’ feet with a precious ointment kept in an alabaster box (Lk 7:37-39). Gregory was helped along by looking past Luke 7 to Luke 8:2, which speaks of Mary Magdalene, “from whom seven demons had gone out.” Of course, there’s nothing in the text that demands the unnamed woman of Luke 7:37 is the Mary Magdalene mentioned in Luke 8:2. But while there’s nothing in the text to make the connection, the need for a good story does. In fact, Gregory’s (over)interpretation of Mary Magdalene is rather tame compared to what happens to her at the hands of other interpreters. There’s a rich French tradition that has Mary capturing Jesus’ blood in the Holy Grail and escaping to somewhere in France. Over time, the Holy Grail became understood as code: Mary herself was the grail and the blood was in fact their love child, the bloodline of Christ. All we need now is a blockbuster novel, turned into yet another movie—The Da Vinci Code—and it’s off to the races. This attention and interpretation runs counter to the sparse references to Mary Magdalene in the Gospels. As one writer has intoned, Mary Magdalene “wasn’t bad, just interpreted that way.”17 Mary Magdalene’s history on the silver screen is also quite a ride. She actually opens Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings, which he did on purpose to “jolt” audiences “out of their preconceptions with an opening scene that none of them would be expecting.” Indeed, surely none of them did expect it, and likely none of them were prepared for what they were to see: Mary Magdalene looking rather seductive in her lavishly appointed courtyard villa being admired by courtesans while she pets a tiger. She also, especially for 1920s film standards, is dressed rather scantily and wearing an awful lot of makeup. It’s easy to figure out, in other words, her profession. She’s all abuzz at the news that Judas, one of her “admirers,” has been “bewitched” by a carpenter from Nazareth. As the film progresses, she finally encounters Jesus, who heals her and rescues her from her life of sin. DeMille transforms the seven demons of Luke 8:2 into the seven deadly sins, each one leaving her as rather phantom-like creatures. DeMille also uses her conversion as the tipping point for Judas Iscariot. Apparently, Judas, found on Mary Magdalene’s calling card, that he would no longer be able to visit her now that she was converted. First it was Mary Magdalene who was Stern, Jefford and Debona, Savior on the Silver Screen, p. 63. Before Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln wrote Holy Blood, Holy Grail (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982), offering a self-proclaimed scholarly account of this fanciful story of Mary Magdalene as the mother of Jesus’ child. In 1969, the Roman Catholic Church reversed the interpretation of Gregory the Great, arguing against identifying Mary Magdalene with the unnamed woman in Luke 7:37. 16 17

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American Theological Inquiry upset because Jesus took Judas away. Now Judas would be upset, and apparently, contrary to Shakespeare, hell’s fury is stronger in a scorned man. Consequently, as Jesus heals Mary Magdalene and she converts, the camera pans left to catch an angry gleam forming in Judas’s eye. That angry gleam eventually matures into his betrayal of his Master. Cecil B. DeMille, while drawing from tradition, added his own unique cinematic stamp to Mary Magdalene. And the American psyche was forever changed, thinking that, indeed, there is something about Mary.18 DeMille’s cinematic license with Mary Magdalene, however, was only the beginning. Even the inimitable Johnny Cash would make his own contribution to the story. After his conversion in 1968, Cash set about a project that was for him a labor of love, entailing both an album and a full-length feature film retelling the story of Jesus. On October 23, 1972, most of Nashville gathered for the premier showing of The Gospel Road. Cash mostly selffinanced the picture. He also shot it in Israel, hoping to bring as much authenticity to the story as he could. The disciples would be played by, fortunately for Cash, a group of European backpackers who just happened to be milling around the deserted town where the film was shot—this was the 1970s. The director, Robert Elfstrom, sporting long, blond hair and looking like a hippie, played Jesus. The part of Mary Magdalene went to June Carter Cash. Cash introduces the conversion of Mary with the narration, “I wonder what Mary Magdalene really looked like. The Scriptures don’t tell a lot about her. But what little is told has made her the subject of more speculation and controversy than any woman I ever heard of.” Cash also adds, “Jesus was to suffer much for his association with people of,” at this point he stops looking down and drills his eyes directly into the camera, “questionable character.” But Jesus, Cash reminds us, didn’t come for the well but for the sick. In other words, Mary Magdalene “needed him.” Cash next moves to add to the speculation and controversy in his encounter of Mary Magdalene and Jesus. As his biographer Michael Streissguth puts it, June as Mary Magdalene and the scene itself was “altogether sensuous.”19 In the wordless interaction, until June’s solo dubs over the scene, Jesus caresses June’s face and removes her head scarf as it gently falls to the ground. Viewers actually view the scene no fewer than four times and from as many camera angles. At the end of the scene, June, looking mesmerized, speaks to the camera, “Seven times he touched me,” apparently one time for each of the seven demons mentioned in Luke 8:2, “and each time he touched me I felt something go out of me and I’m clean. I am clean.” Then Johnny Cash offers the final word, “Mary was the kind of woman that Jesus was to have a lot of love and compassion for,” before adding with frankly an uncomfortable emphasis, “A lot of love and compassion for Mary Magdalene.” No doubt both Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash were sincere in their movie and especially in this scene. Though true of Johnny more than June, prior to 1972 both of them had rather public contentions with their own “demons.” When June, in character, said, having met Jesus, “I am so happy,” she more than likely meant it from her heart. Their sincerity aside, the scene stresses a nearly romantic attachment

18 19

Cecil B. DeMille, Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille, p. 275. Michael Streissguth, Johnny Cash: The Biography (Cambridge, Mass.: De Capo Press, 2006), p.

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American Theological Inquiry between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, punctuated by the numerous references to the words touch, feel and love. It would take Martin Scorsese, however, to bring the romance of Jesus and Mary Magdalene to its zenith. Scorsese’s Jesus gives in to the temptation, a lapse that Scorsese celebrates. When we first meet up with Jesus in this film, we find him to be a rather tortured and conflicted individual, psychologically that is. He’s plagued by pain, inner voices and sin. “I’m struggling,” are the very first words that Jesus utters. Mary Magdalene becomes in many ways his special project; he will, in a stereotypical fashion, rescue the prostitute even though she doesn’t want to be rescued. He doesn’t make an ideal Savior, however. One evening he sits among the many men who came calling. When he finally does go in to see her after the last one leaves in the early dawn hours, his question of her is would she forgive him of his sins. Eventually and reluctantly Jesus goes to the cross. In what feels like a dream, a young, blond angel, complete with a British accent, comes to Christ, tells him that God doesn’t want him to die and takes him down off the cross. In the next scene Jesus and Mary Magdalene consummate their marriage. Jesus raises a family and lives out his life. Jean-Claude La Marre also picks up on the Mary Magdalene prostitute in The Color of the Cross. Following DeMille, La Marre has Judas as one of her clients. In fact, in his movie Judas uses the thirty pieces of silver to successfully tempt Mary Magdalene back to the life Jesus rescued her from on the night of the betrayal. Scorsese’s radical introduction of a sexual dalliance with Mary Magdalene has now, in a post-Da Vinci Code culture, become commonplace. Helped along by biblical and patristics scholars infatuated with Gnostic texts, the thesis that Mary Magdalene and Christ had sexual relations, produced an offspring, and triggered the greatest cover-up of all time has gained much traction. This is the conspiracy theory of all conspiracy theories. Quite recently a novel writer, whose qualifications include her quite confident self-claim to be in that long line of offspring from Jesus and Mary Magdalene, offers a treatment of the alleged romance between her first-century ancestors. Kathleen McGowan calls her novel “partly autobiographical.” While (hopefully) not believing her, her publisher, Simon and Schuster, invested quite a bit in both a marketing campaign and a large first print run. What is it about Mary that has brought all this on?20 The better question might be what is it about contemporary culture that has brought all this on? Perhaps the answer is as simple as the notion that in order for it to be a truly good story it has to have romance. Every leading man needs a leading lady. The audiences of the silver screen thrive on this, as do the readers of novels. If you can’t find the romantic plot line in the Gospels themselves, a little literary and cinematic license can help. It’s quite likely that most evangelicals remain nonplussed by all of this ado about Mary Magdalene, which is to say that these movies have had little or no impact on American evangelical thinking about Christ. There still is, however, something about Mary that we should pay attention to, even if only as a cautionary tale. From Cecil B. DeMille to La Marre what happens to Mary Magdalene reflects the need to go beyond the text, to see more of the human dimension of 20 Kathleen McGowan, The Expected One: A Novel (New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 2006); Andrew Buncombe, “Kathleen McGowan: The Da Vinci Descendant,” The Independent, July 23, 2006.

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American Theological Inquiry Christ than comes off from the flat, two-dimensional text of the Gospels. In earlier chapters, especially in chapter three on the Victorians, we saw how the Word was perceived to have failed, not answering our unanswered questions about Christ, not filling in those scenes our imaginations call for. The perceived failure of the Word becomes by definition all the more acute when it comes to putting Christ on the silver screen. Jesus Laughing This extracanonical Mary Magdalene of American Jesus films represents a larger tendency to freely fill in the Gospels, to go where the text does not take us. After all, Jesus surely had times when he laughed with his family and with disciples. Surely he shared many tender moments with them. It’s not too much of a leap to conclude that having a fuller picture of Jesus, having these gaps filled in, would most certainly be a good thing. Evangelicals applauded Mel Gibson’s verity to the biblical narrative in The Passion, ironic because in many ways Gibson drifted from the biblical narrative, sometimes far and wide. First, the opening scene in the garden of Gethsemane, the moment of Christ’s struggle in prayer over this final step in his messianic mission, Gibson has Satan appear to him offcamera, furthering his struggle and toil. Gibson then has Satan send a snake Christ’s way, which Jesus forcefully—rather manly?—crushes. The scene becomes a stroke of cinematic and theological brilliance. It harkens the viewer back to Genesis 3:15 and the promise that while the serpent strikes the heel of the seed of the woman, the seed of the woman, whom later biblical texts identify as Christ, will crush the serpent’s head. It’s not, however, in the Gospel texts. I’m not being overly nitpicky: Gibson takes cinematic license quite often, maybe more often than the film’s rather vocal proponents wish to admit. Gibson’s focus on Mary, the mother of Jesus, also requires him to fill in the gaps. In a flashback scene, Mary recalls a playful Jesus splashing water in her face before sitting down to eat dinner. Again it becomes a tender moment that helps his story line, but one absent from the Gospels. So too with Gibson having Pilate’s wife offer Mary a fine linen cloth as Jesus’ precrucifixion torture finally moves to an end. This scene comes from Emmerich’s Dolorous Passion of Our Lord, not from the Gospels. Darren J. N. Middleton summarizes the film’s sources, “Gibson blends late-medieval catholic visual art, the fourteen stations of the cross, Isaiah 53, and the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich.”21 Perhaps most troubling, however, is the movie’s relentless focus on the gruesome violence. The Gospels themselves do not linger over the precrucifixion torture anywhere near the extent that Gibson does. Lorenzo Albacete contrasts Gibson’s account with that of the Gospels, observing, “It is surprising to see how concise and devoid of detail the passion accounts in the Gospels are. One could read all four of them during the time it takes to watch the flagellation scene in Gibson’s film.” Albacete then explores the dangers of Gibson’s obsession, noting that it has the effect of reducing the Gospel story to a gutwrenching, emotional drain. Gibson’s telling also fails to connect the story of the passion to the rest of the story of the incarnation, except by some relatively slim attempts through flashbacks. But even there Gibson exercises license. And, while we are on the subject of 21 Darren J. N. Middleton, “Celluloid Synoptics: Viewing the Gospels of Marty and Mel Together,” in Re-Viewing the Passion, ed. S. Brent Plate (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 71.

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American Theological Inquiry Jesus’ mother, Albacete, himself a Roman Catholic, notes, “Gibson’s depiction of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is entirely a result of his Catholicism.”22 This criticism of Gibson is not to minimize the truly physically grueling and torturous nature of the passion event, nor does it dismiss the experiential in the lives of Christians today. But Gibson’s movie wrests the passion account from its theological and historical context—despite all of the Aramaic and Latin—making it an existential moment. Albacete insightfully refers to this as a “disincarnation.” There are far more extreme examples than Gibson when it comes to adding to the Gospels to put Jesus on the screen. The Passion is the kind of film that most Christians, both evangelicals and Catholics alike on this one, hail as biblically accurate and faithful and true. As Pope John Paul II said after viewing the film, “It is as it was.” If such a film, despite papal pronouncements, adds to the script, then how much more do other films add to the script? Jesus In Montreal Another phenomenon of Jesus movies worth considering concerns the desire to recast him into our own cultural context. Denys Arcand’s 1989 Jesus of Montreal presents a salient example. In this rather existential film, an aging priest enlists the services of a young actor to rewrite a thirty-year-old script for the passion play staged by Montreal’s diocese. Daniel, played by Lothaire Bluteau, begins researching the scholarship of the quest of the historical Jesus. In the process he learns that Jesus’ death was an accident of history, as Jesus assumed a messiah complex that got out of hand, ending in Jesus’ death as an insurrectionist at the hands of the Romans. Now enlightened, Daniel wishes to recast the play along these lines, putting a much fresher face on it than the bishop bargained for. Daniel, much like Jesus gathering the disciples, calls other actors to join him, some accepting, some choosing other work. The play, set outdoors, mystifies some and attracts others. Church officials, however, decide to bring down the curtain, so to speak, on the operation, thus playing quite well the role of the Pharisees. The movie actually has much to commend it, having won the jury prize at Cannes in 1989. It is probably by far the most engaging of Jesus films. Arcand’s genius in the film, according to Brian Stone, is “the dynamic confrontation of Daniel as Christ-figure and the Jesus-portraits among which he moves,” the portraits including the Jesus of form criticism that Daniel researches, the “lofty” Jesus of the church officials, the entertainer Jesus that the crowds went out to see, as well as the many iconic images of Jesus that pepper the film. Theologian Richard Walsh also applauds Arcand for depicting not a nostalgic Jesus but one who is unnerving and disturbing, like the prophets of old. Critics too praise the movie, but for far different reasons. One declared the film “valuable precisely because of [its] lack of dogma.” In the words of one, “Arcand penetrates Christianity with agnostic wit,” giving moviegoers a “secular savior” and suggesting that “where religion has failed, art may yet

22 Lorenzo Albacete, “The Gibson Code,” in After the Passion Is Gone, ed. J. Shawn Landres and Michael Berenbaum (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), p. 109.

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American Theological Inquiry offer salvation.” The problem with removing Jesus from the boundaries of the Gospels, as the film intentionally does, is that one indeed is left with a secular savior.23 Most movies, however, tend to be more subtle in bringing Jesus forward. Again, Johnny Cash’s Gospel Road is an example. Like just about every Jesus film, Cash includes the infamous expunging of moneychangers from the temple. In Jesus in Montreal, Daniel chases greedy directors out of a theater with electrical cords in his hand instead of a leather whip. Cash has Jesus walking through what is supposed to be the temple courtyard, overturning tables, chasing off livestock, smashing produce and hurling money boxes. He then has Christ rebuking the leaders and the merchants for their greed, hypocrisy and their sin of defiling God’s, his father’s, holy house. Cash then offers narration, commenting on Jesus’ “public exposé” of the “religious establishment.” Cash’s word choice is instructive, as these expressions reflect more of 1970s counterculture than they do the biblical idiom. So ensconced are we in our own age that we hear Cash’s word rather seamlessly alongside of the biblical words, not even taking notice of the difference. When we remember that the character playing Jesus looks exactly like a California hippie we see how much this scene reflects the 1970s. The fast-forwarding of Jesus into contemporary settings may also be seen in the 1970s movie musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. Both of these started life as Broadway musicals in 1971, the exact same year the Jesus People were garnering the covers of national news magazines. From the moment the brightly painted bus pulls up to the Roman pillars in the middle of the desert and unloads its enthusiastic troupe of actors, musicians and dancers, anyone sitting in the audience of Jesus Christ Superstar knows they are in for a 1970s rock opera and not a historical depiction of historical texts. The brightly colored spandex-clad dancers drive the point home in song after song. Some of the more telling anachronisms of this movie include Judas being chased across the desert by three tanks and King Herod asking Jesus to walk across his swimming pool. Lloyd Baugh speaks of the film’s “almost total lack of correspondence between the film and the gospel.” Baugh continues by noting that the film’s lack of coherency and consistency as it moves from at least a biblical frame of reference to utterly foreign reinterpretations and retellings, creating what he wants to call “the first postmodern gospel.”24 Godspell is even more blatant in contemporizing the message, having John the Baptist call followers to join him splashing around in a fountain in New York City’s Central Park— the equivalent to the baptisms by him in the Jordan River. The followers look more like mesmerized zombies, hearing the call to discipleship as if it were some dog whistle on some special frequency. The Pharisees and Sadducees that rebuff Jesus in the Gospels become the police, and Jesus, whose face is painted as a clown with a teardrop, hangs out with the 23 Bryan P. Stone, Faith and Film: Theological Themes at the Cinema (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000), p. 56; Richard Walsh, Reading the Gospels in the Dark (Harrisburg, Penn.: Trinity Press International, 2003), pp. 45-68; the movie critics’ citations are found in Tatum, Jesus at the Movies, pp. 187-88. 24 Lloyd Baugh, Imaging the Divine: Jesus and Christ-Figures in Film (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1997), p. 36.

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American Theological Inquiry disenfranchised in a junkyard, when they’re not twirling around the streets to Barry Manilow-esque songs. At the end, Christ dies on a pedestal, fashioned after the kind circus animals stand on, against a chainlink fence. His disciples arise in the morning to take down the dead body and carry it through the streets, singing “Day by Day,” which initially sounds somber and chantlike before becoming more upbeat and hopeful. Both of these movies have been labeled “important cultural artifact[s],” which has a side effect of allowing academics to justify showing them in courses. To call them cultural artifacts also means that they both represent and contribute to culture and to cultural attitudes about Christ. In both the cases of Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell, Jesus looks like he would be right at home in 1970s counterculture. Of course, that’s not the Jesus of the Gospels. Both films suffer irreversibly from downplaying Jesus’ divinity. As Richard Wightman Fox quipped, “Jesus Christ Superstar displayed plenty of divinity. It was simply located in the Father, not in Jesus.”25 Most evangelicals would give little, if any, time to either of these 1970s movies or their soundtracks, or their continual on-and-off Broadway reincarnations. But evangelicals have, from time to time, sanctioned the rechristening of the Gospel story in contemporary fashion. Most such contemporizing of the Gospels and of Jesus occurs off the screen and off the stage. The wildly popular Cotton Patch Gospel transports the Gospels from the distant geographical region of the Mediterranean to the American South. There are also more subtle ways, such as the ways most contemporary Christian writers speak of Jesus in colloquial terms and current idioms, or the way they recast and retell the Gospels in contemporary settings and circumstances. The desire to do so reflects the healthy impulse of bringing Christ and the Bible to bear on the context of our lives. But it can also cause us to distort Jesus and the Gospels or to miss out on how Jesus and the Gospels could correct what we assume to be true, what we take for granted culturally. Putting Jesus on the silver screen invites the overtaking of current cultural forms in the telling of Jesus’ story. In the process, Jesus himself gets swept away, as the case with the disciples in Godspell carrying him off through the streets of New York (or Quebec). How Do You Shoot The Hypostatic Union? It might be unfair to expect of film that which it cannot deliver. It appears to be too difficult to offer an entire biblically informed movie on Jesus. It appears to be even more difficult to portray Christ as the God-man on the screen. These limitations may not be so much the fault of the screenwriters, producers and directors, as much as they reflect the limitations of the genre. One exception to this contention, if not an exception to these Jesus films, is Jesus (1979) by John Krish and Peter Sykes, with the backing of Bill Bright and Campus Crusade. In the 1990s, the Jesus Film Project became a veritable institution, offering whole kits for screenings and postscreening classes. The film has been translated into hundreds of languages, with more translations added annually and more in the works. If you want to read the script, as the website for the project informs you, simply open your Bible to Luke. The film was shot on location to further its authenticity. As Bill Bright and five hundred others began to put the project together, they followed five principles. The first two 25 Stern, Jefford and Debona, Savior on the Silver Screen, p. 193; Richard Wightman Fox, Jesus in America: A History (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), p. 380.

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American Theological Inquiry are “The film, must be as archaeologically, historically, and theologically accurate as humanly possible. The presentation must be unbiased, acceptable to all as the depiction of Christ’s life.”26 The Jesus Film, as it has come to be called, is the exception, however, that proves the rule. But even here, too, as its creators realize, the film still needs to be interpreted. Depicting Christ’s birth, life and death, and even his resurrection is one thing; understanding the full weight of all of those events is another. The Passion of the Christ, too, has been hailed for its evangelistic value. Given the intensity of the film, how anyone can escape without even a modicum of reaction defies imagination. Yet many moviegoers did. Having seen Braveheart, they expect violence from Gibson. Having seen many, many violent movies, American audiences may have been impressed by the sheer duration of the violence Gibson put before them, but many likely could watch without wincing. Even if they did wince at the violence, something significant remains missing. The Passion can portray the violence of the crucifixion, but it can’t portray the break in the eternal fellowship of the Trinity, the break in the divine union between the Father and the Son as the Son bore the wrath of God for the sin of humanity. It’s not Gibson’s fault. No director can pull it off. Putting Jesus on the silver screen focuses almost necessarily on his humanity. Even the crowds who lived during the first century and encountered Jesus grasped his humanity much more readily than his deity. And when he confronted them with his true identity, they responded with incredulity and suspicion. Following the Puritan era in American theology, the humanity of Christ has been on the rise. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century the religious establishment belonging to denominations and movements—which in previous eras held strongly to the Nicene and Chalcedonian formulas of the two natures of Christ, that Christ is the God-Man—began to drift from and then eventually jettison such statements in favor of seeing Christ as a divinized or enlightened human. At times, American Christianity tilts the other way, allowing his deity to eclipse his humanity, as in the Christmas carol that goes, “The little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.” But by and large in our culture it’s the humanity of Jesus that wins out. In the broader circles of popular culture, Jesus too shed his trappings of divinity and became mortal, one quite close to God but entirely and only just like the rest of us. This trajectory follows the cinematic portrayal of Christ almost to a T. As the century churned out films, Jesus became one of us. It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s A . . . Christ Figure? Theologians who work with film and culture have distinguished between “Jesus figures” and “Christ figures.” The Jesus figure is Jesus himself, played across a spectrum from the painstakingly authentic and realistic to the entirely stylized. Think Jesus of the Jesus Film Project versus the Jesus of Godspell. Christ figures, on the other hand, are messianic figures, playing the role of redeemer or savior. For this category, think of Rocky Balboa or even Sylvester Stallone’s other character, Rambo. The hero in The Matrix, Neo, an anagram for the One, also serves as a Christ figure. Replete with cinematic nods to Jesus films, The

26

“History of the Project,” The Jesus Film Project <www.jesusfilm.org/aboutus/history.html>. - 57 -

American Theological Inquiry Matrix adds to the mix the world of technology and even a dash of Eastern religious traditions in its setting forth of a Christ figure. Then there’s the ultimate and time-tested hero, Superman. Recently, the new Superman, Superman Returns (2006), also fits the part. As Jacob Adelman notes, “As one of society’s most enduring pop-culture icons, Superman has often been observed as more than just a man in tights.” The new Superman movie, however, takes the messianic overtones to new heights. Superman is sent by his father to Earth. Their names are “Kal-El” and “Jor-El,” El opaquely representing the Hebrew word El, which means God. Search the blogs and you will find many, many more examples. Stephenson Humphries-Brooks argues that films depicting the epic hero, beginning in the 1950s and especially including the Westerns, have merged the story lines of the Messiah with the American hero, creating what he terms an “American Christ.” Lloyd Baugh concurs, noting, “The western, a most American genre of cinema, provides a remarkably apt and increasing context for the development of the cinematic Christ-figure.” The more you watch, the more you will likely find Christ figures in American film.27 A third category could be added to Jesus figures and Christ figures: films that explore rich theological themes, such as alienation and reconciliation, loss and redemption— redemptive films. Sometimes these films have a Christ figure, other times the role of the Christ figure is played off camera. But in all, the characters are confronted with their limitations, their losses, their alienation from their fellow human beings, or even from their own selves. Some characters remain in that state, though such films tend to be more popular with critics than with audiences. We have been conditioned to like a happy ending—imagine the expression on your kid’s face if Wilbur the pig in Charlotte’s Web “bought it” in the end instead of returning to the farm. Other characters, however, make it through the conflict, out of the night and into the dawn of day. They find redemption and reconciliation. David Dark, William Romanowski and others have made a compelling case for a theological reading of films. Dark especially focuses on films by Joel and Ethan Coen, including O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996) and The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001), among others. As with finding Christ figures, the more we watch, the more we see these redemptive themes. What is a good story without confronting the human condition and holding out hope and salvation?28 In chapter five I referred to Andrew Greeley’s labeling of popular culture as the “locus theologicus.” While that’s certainly true of music, it’s also true of film, perhaps more so. This means that we don’t need a full-fledged Jesus film to launch an evangelistic campaign. In fact, given some of the problems with

27 Peter Malone, Movie Christs and Antichrists (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 17-19; Jacob Adelman, “Superman as Messiah?” Associated Press, June 16, 2006; Stephenson Humphries-Brooks, Cinematic Savior: Hollywood’s Making of the American Christ (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2006), pp. 115, 127-32; and Baugh, Imaging the Divine, p. 157. 28 David Dark, Everyday Apocalypse: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, the Simpsons and other Pop Culture Icons (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2002). See also William D. Romanowski, Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2007).

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American Theological Inquiry putting Jesus on the big screen, Christ-figure films and redemptive films might actually be the better way for telling the story of the good news. Conclusion Just in time for the Christmas movie season in December 2006, New Line Cinema released The Nativity Story. Unlike The Passion, this movie opened to none of the controversy and a fraction of the box office, just under one-tenth of the take in the first week, to be exact. The reviewers, not at all missing its lackluster performance next to that of Gibson’s movie, spoke of it as “low on passion,” “dull” and “unimaginative.” The reviewers continue, noting that the movie lacks special effects, which produces a yawn from the audience, nothing akin to Gibson’s work and the reactions of Gibson’s viewers. One of the few favorable reviews came, not surprisingly, from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Hollywood,” the Bishops’ Office for Film and Broadcasting declares, “finally gets it right.” Getting it right, however, simply doesn’t sell. The review, however, is forced to admit that screenwriter Mike Rich, described as both “thoughtful” and a “practicing Christian,” fleshes out the sparse details of the New Testament accounts. Even so the collective yawn of the movie shows the difficulty in putting Christ on the silver screen. Movies that are less risk-averse tend to fare much better. In fact, the Jesus films, as mentioned in this chapter, have done so well that Stephenson Humphries-Brooks speaks of the “Cinematic Savior,” while others speak of the “Celluloid Savior.”29 Jesus films bring together two things Americans love, Jesus and movies. The significant question seems to be, Do they mix well? Whether they mix well or not, they become the way many understand Jesus. William R. Telford points out, “Given its popularity, the Christ film is arguably the most significant medium through which popular culture this century has absorbed its knowledge of the gospel story and formed its impression of Christianity’s founder.” For audiences in the 1920s through the 1950s it was DeMille’s Jesus they were coming to know, while today’s audiences have Gibson’s Jesus. This silver screen Jesus tends toward a human Jesus, though in Gibson’s case a human Jesus who withstands an extraordinary amount of punishment.30 American Jesus films also invite us to use our imagination, even a sanctified imagination, to add to the biblical text. This furthers the trajectory that began in the nineteenth century in which the biblical accounts failed to address contemporary readers’ and viewers’ needs, which in turn legitimized the action of adding to the text (see chap. 3). The additions tend to have a strongly emotional appeal, embedding one’s encounter with Christ in experience, an experience limited by one’s cultural horizons. The Jesus of Scripture comes from outside,

29 Scott Foundas, review of The Nativity Story, SFWeekly.com, May 29, 2006; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Office for Film and Broadcasting, review of The Nativity Story, n.d.; Jeffrey H. Mahan, “Celluloid Savior: Jesus in the Movies,” Journal of Religion and Film 6, no. 1 (April 2002). 30 William R. Telford, “Jesus Christ Movie Star: The Depiction of Jesus in the Cinema,” in Explorations in Theology and Film, ed. Clive Marsh and Gay Ortiz (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p. 122.

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American Theological Inquiry not from within, our cultural horizons, standing above, over and even, at times, against those horizons as the Lord and Savior. The Jesus of American film, however, looks more like a homegrown action hero. At least that’s the conclusion of Stephenson Humphries-Brooks. He sees America’s fixation “to identify with, cast itself as, and become a hero in its own view” as underlying the development of Jesus as the action hero in this wave of Jesus films. Even Gibson’s The Passion speaks to “America’s preferred view of itself as a suffering hero.” This leads Humphries-Brooks to pose the question, “Where is the real Jesus? For Hollywood he is no longer to be found in the gospel tradition.” He continues with an explanation of why the Jesus of the Gospels no longer suffices, “We seem to desire a new kind of more heroic and more reassuring Savior,” adding, “Hollywood certainly seems willing to create and to market him to us.” In the turning from the Christ of Scripture to the cinematic savior, “we have lost those limits and questions posed by the individual Gospel portraits of Jesus that have from time to time ameliorated the tendency of all readers, the faithful and the not-so faithful, to see in him what they want to see.” We have made Jesus a celluloid version of our own image. Maybe, at the end of the day, that is the true controversy of Jesus films.31

31 These endorsements, as well as others by evangelical and Roman Catholic leaders alike may be found at “The Passion of the Christ: Assessment by Conservative Christians,” www.religioustolerance .org/chrgibson3.htm.

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American Theological Inquiry

LUTHERAN PURITANISM? ADIAPHORA IN LUTHERAN ORTHODOXY AND POSSIBLE COMMONALITIES IN REFORMED ORTHODOXY Daniel R. Hyde1 Adiaphora. From the vantage point of the Reformed Christian, the word evokes “smells and bells” in holy worship all in the name of Christian freedom. Yet the reasons for the Lutheran doctrine and practice of indifferent matters in the liturgy are shrouded in mystery for those on the Calvinistic side of the Reformation in the twenty-first century. The reality was that there were times in Lutheran polemics with Rome that adiaphora were argued against in what we may anachronistically call a Puritan-esque fashion.2 No less a scholar of Lutheranism than Robert Kolb makes the analogy between the Anglicans and Puritans of sixteenth and seventeenth century England and the Philippists and Gnesio-Lutherans of sixteenth century Germany. Ignorance of the historical situation has led many Calvinists to popularly caricature the Lutheran principle of liturgy as the “normative principle,” in which whatever is not forbidden is permitted, while the Calvinist “regulative principle” is that in which whatever is commanded is required.3 Since issues of substance are always more nuanced and complicated than their simplistic reductions, the purpose of this article is to investigate adiaphora in sixteenth century confessional Lutheranism and to chronicle some of the historical debate over its use and non-use in order to understand this “Puritan”-sounding language and place it in its context. The end result will be a greater appreciation for Lutheran liturgics and polemics as well as

1 Rev. Daniel R. Hyde, M.Div., is the pastor of the Oceanside United Reformed Church (URCNA) in Oceanside/Carlsbad, California and is a Th.M. candidate at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He is the author of Jesus Loves the Little Children: Why We Baptize Children (Reformed Fellowship, 2006); The Good Confession: An Exploration of the Christian Faith (Wipf & Stock, 2007); What to Expect in Reformed Worship: A Visitor’s Guide (Wipf & Stock, 2007); God With Us: Knowing the Mystery of Who Jesus Is (Reformation Heritage, 2007); With Heart and Mouth: An Exposition of the Belgic Confession (Reformed Fellowship, 2008); and In Living Color: Pastoral Counsel on Images of Christ (Reformed Fellowship, 2008). 2 Andreae and the Formula of Concord: Six Sermons on the Way to Lutheran Unity (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1977), 24. 3 E.g., Horton Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1997), 16; Terry L. Johnson, Reformed Worship: Worship That Is Reformed According to Scripture (Greenville, SC: Reformed Academic Press, 2000), 23; D. G. Hart and John R. Muether, With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship (Philipsburg, PA: P&R Publishing, 2002), 78; William Young, “The Second Commandment: The Principle that God is to be Worshipped Only in Ways Prescribed in Holy Scripture and that the Holy Scripture the Whole Content of Worship, Taught by Scripture Itself,” in Worship in the Presence of God: A Collection of Essays on the Nature, Elements, and Historic Views and Practices of Worship, ed. Frank J. Smith and David C. Lachman (Fellsmere, FL: Reformation Media and Press, 2006), 75–76; R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice (Phillipsburg, PA: P&R, 2008), 227–29.

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American Theological Inquiry finding possible points of commonality between confessional Lutheran orthodoxy and confessional Reformed orthodoxy. The Augsburg Confession In proceeding chronologically, the place to begin is with the Augsburg Confession (1530) which confesses what the early Evangelicals believed on the issue of “Church Regulations” (Kirchenordnungen). In its fifteenth article we read: Concerning church regulations made by human beings, it is taught to keep those that may be kept without sin and that serve to maintain peace and good order in the church, such as specific celebrations, festivals, etc. However, people are also instructed not to burden consciences with them as if such things were necessary for salvation. Moreover, it is taught that all rules and traditions made by human beings for the purpose of appeasing God and of earning grace are contrary to the gospel and the teaching concerning faith in Christ. That is why monastic vows and other traditions concerning distinctions of foods, days, and the like, through which people imagine they can earn grace and make satisfaction for sin, are good for nothing and contrary to the gospel.4 The Augsburg distinguishes between those ceremonies that Rome understood to be necessary to salvation and those ceremonies that may be done “without sin” and that promote “peace and good order.” The former are rejected and the latter two may be retained. Vernon Kleinig has illustrated some of the “church regulations” that “serve to maintain the peace and good order” of the church in the thought and practice of Martin Luther. Having any given liturgy itself is adiaphora: “It has never been our intention to abolish the liturgical service of God completely, but rather to purify the one that is now in use.”5 Of course, liturgy is inevitable. Yet Luther intended his Formula Missae (1523) only for local use while later supplementing it with the Deutsche Messe (1525) for the German people. In these adiaphora were included the use of the medieval lectionary (although Luther complained of its moralistic bias), the introits, collects, and prayers.6 He also kept the elevation in communion (although it was omitted in Wittenberg in 1542), which he understood to be raised towards the people to whom it is given, not towards God.7 Luther’s liturgical principle is seen with regard to the elevation in his 1524 treatise, Against the Heavenly Prophets: “We, however, take the middle course and say: There is to be neither 4 The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, trans. Charles Arand, Eric Gritsch, Robert Kolb, William Russell, James Schaaf, Jane Strohl, Timothy J,. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 48. 5 Cited in Vernon P. Kleinig, “Lutheran Liturgies from Martin Luther to Wilhelm Löhe.” Concordia Theological Quarterly 62:2 (April 1998): 128. Cf. Bodo Nischan, “Ritual and Protestant Identity in Late Reformation Germany,” in Protestant History and Identity in Sixteenth-Century Europe: Volume 2, The Later Reformation, ed. Bruce Gordon (Hants, England: Scholar Press, 1996), 144. 6 Kleinig, “Lutheran Liturgies,” 128. 7 Ibid., 130.

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American Theological Inquiry commanding or forbidding, neither to the right nor to the left. We are neither papistic nor Karlstadtian, but free and Christian regarding elevation . . . In the parish church we still have the chasuble, alb, altar, and elevate [the host] as long as it pleases us.”8 At the heart of Luther’s liturgical thought, then, was the Christian freedom Christ has granted his Church in justification.9 As John T. Pless says, “The doctrine of justification is therefore the dynamic principle in Luther’s liturgical revisions.”10 This meant that the particular liturgy of the Mass was accepted as the traditional form of worship but that it had to be regulated and modified according to the doctrine of justification, sola fide. Therefore, the Reformed summary of the Lutheran principle of worship was not Luther’s principle at all. Instead of what is not forbidden is permitted, Luther’s principle was whatever was according to the doctrine of justification sola fide was necessary and whatever is not is forbidden. An important source for the Augsburg Confession were the Torgau Articles (1530). In fact, article fifteen of the Augsburg Confession is a summarized version of the much longer first article in the Torgau Articles. In these articles the Elector of Saxony’s theologians not only stated what would later be the fifteenth article of Augsburg, but also gave many Scripture proofs and citations from the church fathers to refute Rome’s claims. Ecclesiastical ordinances had been retained in Saxony as long as they were not “contrary to the Gospel” (Augsburg: “without sin”) meaning they did not hinder but served the proclamation of justification by faith alone. Ordinances were also retained “for the sake of peace” (Augsburg: “maintain peace and good order”).11 Yet the opponents of the Saxons taught that church customs were necessary: “Some people, however, let themselves be told that no change is permitted without approval of the church or the Pope and that the sins which arise from the doctrines of human invention are much more tolerable and less hurtful than the schism which has now begun through such changes.”12 The Torgau Articles answered in three ways. First, citing Acts 5:29, it was noted that, “We must obey God rather than human authority.” Second, citing the Creed, it was noted that the church was confessed to be “catholic.” This meant that, . . . the church is in the whole world and is not bound to a single place. Rather, everywhere, wherever God’s Word and ordinances are, there the

Cited in ibid., 132. On the centrality of Christ, justification, and faith as the essence of Lutheran worship see Norvald Yri, “Worship in Lutheranism,” in Worship: Adoration and Action, ed. D. A. Carson (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 128–34. 10 John T. Pless, “The Relationship of Adiaphora and Liturgy in the Lutheran Confessions,” in And Every Tongue Confess: Essays in Honor of Norman Nagel on the Occasion of His Sixty-fifth Birthday, ed. Gerald S. Krispin and Jon D. Vieker (Dearborn, MI: The Nagel Festschrift Committee, 1990), 197. 11 Sources and Contexts of The Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb and James A. Nestingen (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 94–95. 12 Ibid., 95. 8 9

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American Theological Inquiry church is. Since external human ordinances are not the same everywhere, it follows that such variance is not contrary to the unity of the church.13 Third, citing Augustine, the Torgau articles supported its claim that “the unity of the church does not exist in external human ordinances.”14 The heart of article one of the Torgau Articles, as well as the Augsburg’s corresponding article fifteen, was on the issue that certain church ordinances were necessary for obtaining grace and forgiveness. Things such as fasting, certain foods and clothing, festivals, songs, and pilgrimages were not to be seen as necessary to receiving grace and forgiveness. On the contrary, grace and forgiveness were granted by grace and received by faith, citing Galatians 2:21, Romans 3:28, and Ephesians 2:8–9. The Articles went on to say, “Furthermore, Christ has forbidden that sin and righteousness be defined with reference to the distinction between foods. He intends that such things be left free.” Here the Articles cite Colossians 2:16 and 1 Timothy 4:1–3.15 The Elector, therefore, “allowed such traditions to be set aside because it is obvious that people regarded them as works performed to receive the forgiveness of sins.”16 Positively, the Torgau Articles spoke about church ordinances that were utilized to teach Christian doctrine to the people in article ten: Since ceremonies are supposed to support doctrine, we have adapted some German singing so that through such exercises the people should learn something. As Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 14[5,19], in the church we ought not speak or sing anything that is unclear. Nevertheless, we do not make a law of this and also continue to sing Latin, as practice for the youth.17 The Schwabach Articles, written in October 1529 to unite the reform-minded lands of Germany, speak briefly on the issue of ordinances. In article fifteen the issue of obtaining grace and forgiveness through church customs was addressed: It follows from all of this that the doctrines prohibiting marriage and ordinary meat and food for priests and clergy, together with all monastic life and vows, are simply condemned doctrines of devils because they seek and intend [to obtain] grace and salvation through them, and they are not left free, as St. Paul says in 1 Timothy 4[:3]. Of course, Christ alone is the only way to obtain grace and salvation.18 The last of the Schwabach Articles, article seventeen, invokes the distinction between those ceremonies that oppose the gospel and those that are retained for the sake of peace: Ibid., 95. Ibid., 96. 15 Ibid., 97. 16 Ibid., 97. 17 Ibid., 104. 18 Ibid., 87. 13 14

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American Theological Inquiry We also abolish the ceremonies of the church which oppose God’s Word. We allow the others to be free to be used or not, in accord with love, so that we might not carelessly offend without reason or disturb the general peace unnecessarily.19 The Marburg Articles also touched on this subject in October 1529. In its thirteenth point of agreement, it states: [We believe] that if what we call tradition (a human ordinance in spiritual or churchly matters) is not contrary to the clear Word of God, then we may freely keep it or lay it aside, so long as, among the people with whom we associate, unnecessary offense is avoided and the weak and the common peace and so forth are served through love.20 In summary, the Augsburg Confession set the trajectory for Lutheran thinking and practice on adiaphora by stating that whatever was required that denied the doctrine of justification sola fide was to be rejected while those things that could be retained without causing the faithful to sin and that kept peace and good order in the churches were permitted to be utilized.21 The Apology of the Augsburg Confession Soon after the Augsburg Confession was presented to the imperial Diet on June 25, 1530, over a dozen Catholic theologians began drafting a response, known as the “Confutation of the Augsburg Confession.” In dealing with Augsburg article fifteen, the Confutation agreed that those customs that could be observed without sin ought to be observed, although the Catholic theologians added that they should be done so with “Christian devotion.” They went on to say: However, the appendix of this article is completely rejected. For it is false that human ordinances instituted to placate God and make satisfaction for sin are against the Gospel. This will be made clear when we examine the articles concerning vows, the choice of foods, etc. in more detail.22 In responding to the Confutation’s defense of the necessity of ceremonies for salvation, Philip Melanchthon said, Although we expected our opponents to defend human traditions for other reasons, we never dreamed that they would actually condemn the proposition that we do not merit the forgiveness of sins or grace by observing human traditions. Since they condemned this article, we have Ibid., 87. Ibid., 91. 21 For an illustration of how Luther himself applied the principle of adiaphora in the case of causing the weak among the faithful to sin, see Timothy J, Wengert, “Luther and Melanchthon on Consecrated Communion Wine (Eisleben 1542–43).” Lutheran Quarterly 15 (Spring 2001): 24–42. 22 Sources and Contexts of The Book of Concord, ed. Kolb and Nestingen, 115. 19 20

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American Theological Inquiry an open-and-shut case. For the opponents openly Judaize and openly supplant the gospel with the ‘teachings of demons.’23 As John T. Pless has argued, the center of the Lutheran Confessions’ discussion of adiaphora is the doctrine of justification by faith alone.24 Melanchthon went on to explain what he meant by his usage of the Pauline phrase, “doctrines of demons”: When someone teaches that religious rites are useful for meriting the forgiveness of sins and grace, Scripture [1 Tim. 4:1–3] calls such traditions the ‘teachings of demons.’ For this obscures the gospel, the benefits of Christ, and the righteousness of faith. The gospel teaches that we freely receive the forgiveness of sins and are reconciled to God by faith on account of Christ Our opponents, to the contrary, appoint another mediator, namely, these traditions through which they wish to receive the forgiveness of sins and to conciliate the wrath of God.25 Melanchthon went on to say that, just as Paul condemns the Mosaic ceremonies because “they were considered to be works that merit righteousness before God,” so he has condemned traditions since they “obscured the work of Christ and the righteousness of faith,” which are promised “not on account of those works but freely on account of Christ . . . in such a way that we receive it by faith.”26 Melanchthon further addressed the objection that “we do not merit the forgiveness of sins, but that those already justified merit grace through these traditions” when he said: “Here again Paul replies [Gal. 2:17], Christ would be a ‘servant of sin’ if after justification we must henceforth maintain that we are not accounted righteous for Christ’s sake but must first merit [grace] by other observances.”27 Melanchthon then invokes the ancient fathers who “did not institute a single tradition for the purpose of meriting the forgiveness of sins or righteousness; they instituted them for the sake of good order in the church and for the sake, of tranquility.”28 Ritual and ceremony themselves are not evil, in fact they are inevitable, yet Melanchthon sounded a Puritan-esque note against the institution of ceremonies that were required because they were seen as ways of meriting forgiveness and therefore evil: Now if someone wants to institute certain works for the purpose of meriting the forgiveness of sins or righteousness, how will that person know that these works please God without the testimony of God’s Word? How will they make others certain about God’s will without God’s command and Word? Does not God throughout the prophets prohibit people from instituting peculiar rites of worship without his command?29 The Book of Concord, 223. Pless, “The Relationship of Adiaphora and Liturgy,” in And Every Tongue Confess, 196–98. 25 The Book of Concord, 223. 26 Ibid., 224. 27 Ibid., 224. 28 Ibid., 224. 29 Ibid., 224. 23 24

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American Theological Inquiry Melanchthon’s point in saying that a person cannot know that their service to God in the liturgy pleases God apart from the testimony of God’s Word is that if we say something is required of the faithful there must be Scripture to support that assertion. This “Puritan”sounding language was over against those things that were not necessary and therefore could either be rejected or retained as a means of promoting peace and order. Melanchthon continued with the point that if we were allowed to introduce ceremonies in order to merit grace, “the religious rites of all the nations will have to be approved—even the acts of worship instituted by Jeroboam [1 Kings 12:26f.] and by others apart from the Law.”30 On the contrary, “the religious rites of the Gentiles and Israelites were condemned because they believed that they merited the forgiveness of sins and righteousness through them.”31 And since “we can affirm nothing about the will of God with the Word of God” and “these religious acts have no testimony from the Word of God, the conscience cannot help but doubt whether they please God.”32 Melanchthon made no qualms about this issue, stating, “If our opponents defend these human acts of worship as meriting justification, grace, and the forgiveness of sins, they are simply establishing the kingdom of the Antichrist.” This kingdom was “a new kind of worship of God, devised by human authority in opposition to Christ, just as the kingdom of Mohammed has religious rites and works, through which it seeks to be justified before God.”33 Returning to the “holy Fathers,” Melanchthon said although they had “rites and traditions,” yet they never taught “that these things were useful or necessary for justification.” On the contrary, “they taught that we are justified by faith on account of Christ and not on account of these human acts of worship.” Their human rites were for the sake of “usefulness for the body, so that people may know at what time they should assemble, so that they may have an example of how things in the churches might be done in decently and in order, and finally, so that the common people may receive some instruction. (For different seasons and various rites are valuable in admonishing the common people.)”34 Adiaphora such as the church calendar (“different seasons”) and elevating the host (“various rites”) were freely retained as means to order the lives of the faithful and to instruct them in Christian truth. Melanchthon then brought forward testimonies from the Word of God “against this appearance of wisdom and righteousness in human rites which deceive people”: against the belief that these can merit before God forgiveness of sins or justification, he cited Colossians 2:16–17, stating, “Our opponents do not know what they are talking about. If the gospel denies that the ceremonies of Moses (which were divinely instituted) justify, how much less do human traditions justify!” Against the power of bishops to institute required ceremonies, he cited Peter in Acts 15:10 and Paul in Galatians 5:1, stating, “Therefore the apostles Ibid., 225. Ibid., 225. 32 Ibid., 225. 33 Ibid., 225. 34 Ibid., 226. 30 31

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American Theological Inquiry wanted to maintain this liberty in the church so that no religious activity of the law or of tradition is judged as necessary.”35 Melanchthon concluded this section with an illustration: “But just as Alexander once for all untied the Gordian knot by cutting it with his sword (since he could not disentangle it), so also the apostles have once and for all freed consciences from traditions, especially from those that were handed down for the purposes of meriting justification.”36 Against the Confutation’s charge “that we abolish good ordinances and church discipline,” Melanchthon declared that the Lutherans “gladly keep the ancient traditions set up in the church because they are useful and promote tranquility.” In fact, Melanchthon said, “We can claim that the public liturgy in the church is more dignified among us than among the opponents.”37 The catholicity of the Lutherans was shown in various ways with the ancient church in celebrating the Lord’s Supper “every Lord’s day after [the people] are instructed, examined, and absolved,” in singing, both by children and people to learn the Psalms as well as to learn to pray, in ministers catechizing the children, and in preaching, which is called “the chief worship of God.”38 Melanchthon concluded this article, saying, “This topic concerning traditions involves many difficult and controversial questions,” in fact, “we know from actual experience that traditions are real snares for the conscience. When they are required as necessary, they terribly torture consciences that omit any observance.”39 The difficulty was that on the one hand, Paul says traditions “neither justify nor are necessary above and beyond the righteousness of faith,” while on the other hand, We teach that liberty in these matters should be exercised moderately, so that the inexperienced may not take offense and, on account of an abuse of liberty, become more hostile to the true teaching of the gospel. Nothing in the customary rites may be changed without good reason. Instead, in order to foster harmony, those ancient customs should be observed that can be observed without sin or without proving to be a great burden. In this very assembly we have sufficiently shown that, for the sake of love, we will reluctantly observe adiaphora with others, even if such things may prove to be somewhat burdensome. We judge that the greatest possible public concord which can be maintained without offending consciences ought to be preferred to all other interests.40 This final paragraph serves as a faithful summary of the issue of adiaphora up to this point in Lutheran liturgics. While the churches were free to use or disuse human rites, Melanchthon said the Lutherans “reluctantly observe[d] adiaphora . . . even if such things may prove to be somewhat burdensome.” The driving force behind this was accommodating Ibid., 228. Ibid., 228. 37 Ibid., 229. 38 Ibid., 229. 39 Ibid., 230. 40 Ibid., 230. 35 36

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American Theological Inquiry themselves to the weak in faith. As Melanchthon said, the Lutherans did not want to offend consciences so that people would not “become more hostile to the true teaching of the gospel.” The Augsburg Interim For more than a decade the Lutherans worshipped freely in this manner. Then the imperial army of Charles V defeated the Lutherans in the Schmalkaldic War (1546–47) at the Battle of Mühlberg on April 24, 1547. This led to the Augsburg Interim of May 15, 1548.41 This political settlement re-imposed a Catholic doctrine of justification and liturgical practice in Germany.42 Since most of Ernestine Saxony had been taken from Johann Friedrich and given to his cousin, Moritz of Albertine Saxony, Moritz sought a further settlement for his new lands between his Catholic political allies and his co-religionist Lutherans, centered in Wittenberg. This led to what the Gnesio-Lutherans called the Leipzig Interim of December 1548. Since Moritz’s political settlement was led by the Wittenbergers, Philip Melanchthon and Georg Major, as well as Prince Georg III von Anhalt and Johan Pfeffinger, they became known as the “Philippists” by their Gnesio-Lutheran opponents led by the Magdeburg theologians Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Nikolaus von Amsdorf, and Nikolaus Gallus.43 Melanchthon sought to distinguish essential doctrinal matters, such as justification by faith alone, from indifferent matters (adiaphora) that could be compromised for the sake of peace in the civil realm in which the church realm existed. This led to the Adiaphora Controversy in the aftermath of the Interim. The Adiaphora Controversy Luther D. Peterson’s study, “Johan Pfeffinger’s Treatises of 1550 in Defense of Adiaphora: ‘High Church’ Lutheranism and Confessionalization in Albertine Saxony”, has demonstrated how the Philippist side defended the Leipzig Interim.44 Pfeffinger’s first point was to demonstrate that nothing had changed in Albertine Saxony since the beginning of reformation therein 1539. As Peterson shows, besides Brandenburg, the Albertine church may have been the most “Roman” of Lutheran churches. This is seen in its retention of all seven sacraments, calling the extra five “rites” while removing from them all non-Lutheran elements, as well as its decidedly “high church” form with the retention of matins, vespers, the name “Mass,” vestments, and several traditional festivals.45 Besides being viewed as betraying the Gospel in the Interim, all that actually changed from the pre-Interim church to the post-Interim church was the addition of the festival of Corpus Christi, the change of

41 On the Interim, see Robert Kolb, Nikolaus Von Amsdorf (1483–1565): Popular Polemics in the Preservation of Luther’s Legacy, Bibliotheca Humanistica & Reformatorica Volume XXIV (Nieuwkoop, The Netherlands: B. De Graaf, 1978), 72–82. 42 Cf. Kolb, Andreae and the Formula of Concord, 20–21. 43 On Amsdorf’s contribution to the Adiaphora Controversy, see Kolb, Nikolaus Von Amsdorf, 69–122. 44 Confessionalization in Europe, 1555–1700: Essays in Honor of Bodo Nischan, ed. John M. Headley, Hans J. Hillerbrand, and Anthony J. Papalas (Hants, England: Ashgate, 2004), 91–105. 45 Peterson, “Johan Pfeffinger’s Treatises,” in Confessionalization in Europe, 95–97.

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American Theological Inquiry “visiting the sick” back to “unction” with the use of oil, and the reestablishment of the Confiteor by the priest at the beginning of the liturgy. Despite the Leipzig Interim never being enacted much outside the Merseburg diocese of Albertine Saxony, its never being officially promulgated, and its Excerpt only being distributed to a few superintendents and pastors, it became the occasion for the Adiaphora Controversy courtesy of Flacius. Since most Lutheran lands and church had made a more outward break with Roman ceremonies in the decades before the Interim, it became a cause to rally opposition against Rome, the Emperor, and those who “apostatized,” such as Moritz, who became known as the “Judas of Meissen.” The Gnesio slogan was coined in these times: nihil est adiaphora in casu confessionis et scandali. Not only did adiaphora such as the surplice (Chorrock), confiteor, elevation of the host, and feast days look like a return to Rome for the common people, they were viewed as signs of the “eschatological struggle with the Antichrist, and therefore there could be no compromise, only continued resistance.”46 On the contrary, Pfeffinger invoked the Augsburg’s distinction. In the words of Peterson: . . . he distinguished adiaphora from ‘impieties’ that were against God’s Word and even often bound consciences with the claim of being necessary for worship of God and salvation. Adiaphora were those traditions of the church which did not oppose God’s Word, and instead of being necessary for salvation were useful to virtue, uniformity, and order, and might be maintained out of love for the sake of peace among the churches or for the sake of remembrance and adornment. Adiaphora were practices that could be accepted or rejected in freedom.47 In his writing in 1548, Flacius published a list of Luther’s quotations in which he rejected compromise with Rome. In it was a letter from Luther to those at Augsburg in 1530.48 Yet Flacius deleted something Pfeffinger later used: “I for my part am willing and ready to accept all such external matters for the sake of peace, so far as my conscience is not injured thereby.”49 As Bodo Nischan has demonstrated, the adiaphora controversy was about the confessional identity of Lutheranism vis-à-vis Rome. In the words of Flacius: Ibid., 99. Cf. Robert Kolb, Nikolaus von Amsdorf (1483–1565): Popular Polemics in the Preservation of Luther’s Legacy (Nieuwkoop: de Graaf, 1978), 81, 99–100; Kolb, Luther’s Heirs Define His Legacy: Studies on Lutheran Confessionalization (Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Variorum, 1996), 9–11; Kolb, “Confessional Lutheran Theology,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Reformation, ed. David Bagchi and David C. Steinmetz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 72. 47 Ibid., 99. 48 Robert Kolb, Martin Luther as Prophet, Teacher, and Hero: Images of the Reformer, 1520–1620, Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought, gen. ed., Richard A. Muller (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 42. Joachim Westphal also published a Luther quotation list in 1549, pointing out that the context of Luther’s earlier statements about protecting tender consciences had changed. Ibid., 43. 49 Peterson, “Johan Pfeffinger’s Treatises,” in Confessionalization in Europe, 101. 46

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American Theological Inquiry All ceremonies and ecclesiastical usages are free in themselves, as ever. But when they are imposed through coercion, or through the erroneous impression that they are required for worship, or through deceit, scandal, or public pressure from the godless, and when they do not benefit God’s church in some way, but disrupt it and mock God, then they are no longer adiaphora.50 Nikolaus Gallus explained that Lutheran thinking on adiaphora further distinguished them from all others: “To distinguish ourselves from Anabaptists, Sacramentarians, Papists, Interimists, Adiaphorists, and others with novel and strange teachings . . . we are taking the right middle road by neither rejecting nor endorsing all ceremonies.”51 Adiaphora even distinguished Lutheran from Lutheran, as the tumultuous pastor, Tilemann Hesshusen (1527–1588), warned his readers to beware of “the wolf’s howling of the Adiaphorists, who insist that our confession is not reflected in surplices or external garb and ceremonies.”52 The Formula of Concord With the Peace of Augsburg (1555) there was relative peace on the issue of adiaphora, although there were at least two Lutheran camps. Eventually the desire for reconciliation and unity led to the Formula of Concord in 1577. One of the sources for the Formula were Jakob Andreae’s Six Christian Sermons of 1573. In his fourth sermon he preached on adiaphora. He chronicled the history of the controversy, explaining that those in favor of the Augsburg and Leipzig Interims compromised because “the churches would be deserted or handed over to the wolves, and the faithful servants of the church would be driven into misery with their poor orphans and children,” while those opposed “taught and zealously contended that at such a time and in such a situation you should neither accept nor yield on the least little thing to please the enemies of God’s Word.”53 The reason for this opposition was that “this matter arose not just over the surplice and that sort of thing; it concerned an important article of our Christian religion, Christian freedom.”54 By taking away Christian freedom, “papist errors” such as “the falsification of the doctrine of justification and of repentance” would result.55 Andreae went on to address how the “common layman” should respond in such a situation:

Cited in Nischan, “Ritual and Protestant Identity,” 144. Cited in Ibid., 144–45. 52 Cited in Ibid., 145. For a brief description of Hesshusen’s tumult in Heidelberg over the cup at the Lord’s Supper see J. I. Good, The Origin of the Reformed Church in Germany (Reading, PA: Daniel Miller, 1887), 144–45; R. Scott Clark, “The Evangelical Fall From the Means of Grace: The Lord’s Supper,” in The Compromised Church: The Present Evangelical Crisis, ed. John H., Armstrong (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998), 133–47. 53 Kolb, Andreae and the Formula of Concord, 93. 54 Ibid., 93. 55 Ibid., 94. 50 51

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American Theological Inquiry A layman should look at the Ten Commandments in his catechism and take to heart the First Commandment, which says: ‘I am the Lord your God,’ etc. ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.’ The Lord Himself has explained this commandment through Moses: ‘Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to it or take from it’ (Deut. 12:32).56 The conclusion the layman should derive from the First Commandment is that “God has commanded us whatever is necessary; what He has not commanded is not necessary.” When something is added, therefore, and taught as necessary for observance, it is sin for the one to impose it just as it is sin to offend someone by being burdened by it.57 Why is this sin? Andreae goes on to say because “the truth of the holy Gospel stands or falls with the matter.”58 Andreae’s “Puritan”-sounding language that “God has commanded us whatever is necessary [and] what He has not commanded is not necessary,” is Luther’s principle in summary after the decades of controversy. Moving to the Formula of Concord, it is divided into two parts, the Solid Declaration, which is much longer, and the Epitome, which was drawn up by Andreae as a summary.59 We will examine this shorter document since it gives the essence of the longer.60 Article ten of the Epitome, entitled, “Concerning Ecclesiastical Practices, Which are Called Adiaphora or Indifferent Matters,” is introduced by saying, “A dispute also occurred among the theologians of the Augsburg Confession over ceremonies or ecclesiastical practices that are neither commanded nor forbidden in God’s Word but that were introduced in the churches for the sake of good order and decorum.”61 Then the status controversiae was explained to be whether in a time of persecution “certain ceremonies that had been abolished . . . could be revived under the pressure and demand of the opponents, and whether compromise with them in such ceremonies and indifferent matters would be proper.”62 The Epitome went on to express affirmative theses, described as “The Proper, True Teaching and Confession concerning This Article,” and negative thesis, described as “False Teaching concerning This Article.” The positive theses were the following: 1.

That ceremonies or ecclesiastical practices that are neither commanded nor forbidden in God’s Word, but have been established only for good order and decorum, are in and of themselves neither worship ordained by God nor a part of such worship.

Ibid., 94 Ibid., 94. 58 Ibid., 95. 59 The Book of Concord. 514. 60 For the Solid Declaration see Ibid., 635–40. 61 Ibid., 515. 62 Ibid., 515. 56 57

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American Theological Inquiry 2.

That the community of God in every place and at every time has the authority to alter such ceremonies according to its own situation, as may be most useful and edifying for the community of God.

3.

That all frivolity and offense must be avoided, and special consideration must be given particularly to those who are weak in faith.

4.

That in a time of persecution, when an unequivocal confession of the faith is demanded of us, we dare not yield to the opponents in such indifferent matters . . . For in such a situation it is no longer indifferent matters that are at stake. The truth of the gospel and Christian freedom are at stake. The confirmation of open idolatry, as well as the protection of the weak in faith from offense, is at stake.

5.

That no church should condemn another because the one has fewer or more external ceremonies not commanded by God than the other has, when otherwise there is unity with the other in teaching and all the articles of faith and in the proper use of the holy sacraments.63

In the next section, the Epitome listed its negative theses against false teaching on the indifferent matters: 1.

That human commands and prescriptions in the church are to be regarded in and of themselves as worship ordained by God or a part of it.

2.

When anyone imposes such ceremonies, commands, and prescriptions upon the community of God with coercive force as if they were necessary, against its Christian freedom, which it has in external matters.

3.

That in a situation of persecution, when public confession is necessary, one may comply or come to terms with the enemies of the holy gospel in these indifferent matters and ceremonies.

4.

When such external ceremonies and indifferent matters are abolished in a way that suggests that the community of God is not free at all times, according to its specific situation, to use one or more of these ceremonies in Christian freedom, as is most beneficial to the church.64

Adiaphora Versus The Calvinists The Adiaphora Controversy and the eventual settlement in the Formula of Concord also brought the Lutherans into controversy with the Reformed. Again, Bodo Nischan has shown that liturgical adiaphora became a mark of confessional identity especially in German

63 64

Ibid., 515–16. Ibid., 516. - 73 -

American Theological Inquiry lands that shifted from Lutheran to Reformed such as Brandenburg, Anhalt, and Saxony.65 In Nischan’s words: “Some of the very same liturgical practices which earlier critics of the interim had condemned as ‘Catholicising,’ many followers of the Augsburg Confession were now defending as a useful prophylactic against Reformed and other sacramentarian perversions.”66 In 1591 the Wittenberg theologian, Zacharias Rivander, explained that a “simple layman” could know a minister was Reformed not by his confession, but by his liturgical practice: “If he distributes Holy Communion without reverence . . . [and] runs to the altar like a hog to its trough.”67 At this same time in Anhalt, Johannes Olearius explained what the introduction of the Calvinism looked like: “the public ceremonies of the mass that we have kept to instruct people . . . florid descant, church organs, altars, wax candles, mass vestments, golden vessels, communion hosts, genuflecting as one approaches the Lord’s Table, and similar practices” were removed.68 This was an accurate description, and no mere propaganda, as the Calvinist Duke Johann Georg of Anhalt said, “Exorcism [in baptism] . . . altars, crucifixes, pictures, chasubles, mass vestments, capes, candles, etc. do [not] belong among Christian ceremonies.”69 The Fractio Panis The two Protestant confessions showed their theology through liturgy especially in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. With the Lord’s Supper, among other things, the breaking of the bread (fractio panis) became debated. The issue was the doctrine of the presence of Christ in the Supper—not whether he was present—but how. In the words of Simon Gedicke, “With their theatrical fraction the Calvinists do not merely wish to break the bread, but signify the absent body and deny the real presence of Christ.”70 This is confirmed by the Heidelberg theologian, Zacharius Ursinus, who in his commentary on Heidelberg Catechism question and answer seventy-seven, said, “The breaking of the bread is, therefore, a necessary ceremony both on account of its signification, and for the confirmation of our faith, and it is to be retained in the celebration of the Supper.” His reasons were four: first, because Christ commanded “do this;” second, because the apostles’ example was to call the entire sacrament the breaking of bread; third, to comfort us that Christ’s body was broken on the cross for us “as certainly as we see the bread broken;” and, fourth, “That the doctrine of transubstantiation and consubstantitation may be rejected, and abandoned.”71

65 On the struggles over the Calvinist Reformation in Brandenburg and its effects on the LutheranCalvinist debate over adiaphora, see Bodo Nischan, Prince, People, and Confession: The Second Reformation in Brandenburg (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994). 66 Nischan, “Ritual and Protestant Identity,” 145. 67 Ibid., 146. 68 Ibid., 146. 69 Ibid., 147. 70 Ibid., 150. Cf. Bodo Nischan, “The ‘Fracio Panis’: A Reformed Communion Practice in Late Reformation Germany.” Church History 53 (1984): 17–29. 71 Zacharias Ursinus, The Commentary of Dr. Zacharius Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism, trans. G. W. Williard (1852; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, reprinted 1985), 385. Cf. the Basel Old Testament scholar and preacher, Johannes Wollebius (1586–1629), who wrote in his

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American Theological Inquiry Exorcism in Baptism While the Reformed considered exorcism in baptism to be a “papal relic,” the Lutherans kept the service, utilizing Martin Luther’s translation and adaptation of the service “as a powerful prayer whereby the child’s sinfulness and total dependence on God’s grace is acknowledged.”72 Nischan illustrates the popular response to the Calvinist attempt at cleansing the baptismal service in Saxony and Anhalt in the 1590’s. Many pastor’s refused to submit to the new ruling. One country pastor was afraid of being stoned and chased out of town if he refused to include exorcism; a riot broke out in Zeitz; in Naumberg, over 200 parishioners walked out of a service when the pastor, who deleted the ceremony, began his sermon, those parishioners refused to take communion from this pastor while neighboring churches that kept the rite were overcrowded with worshippers. Most illustrative is the account of a Dresden butcher who stood next to the baptismal font with a meat cleaver in hand, threatening the minister if he excluded the ceremony.73 Seventeenth Century Expression Early in the seventeenth century, the Wittenberg theologian Leonard Hutter (1563–1616) published his Compendium locorum theologicorum (1610), which was used as a Lutheran textbook for some time.74 In article eighteen he exposited the doctrine of Christian liberty and church usages, or, adiaphora, in a series of eighteen questions and answers. As the rest of the Latin title suggests, Hutter’s compendium was derived ex Scripturis Sacris et libro concordiae, therefore it follows very closely the Lutheran confessional material cited above. Hutter begins by stating the doctrine of Christian liberty from sin, the devil, the curse of the law and everlasting death, and the yoke of Levitical ceremonies and human traditions.75 There are four degrees of liberty, the fourth of which is “freedom from human ordinances in the church; namely, that such ordinances are not considered a ground of divine worship, of merit, or of unavoidable necessity, but that they can be neglected and omitted without sin.”76 These ordinances concern “ceremonies and external usages . . . for the maintenance Compendium Theologiae Christianae (1626), “The breaking of bread is not adiaphoristic.” Reformed Dogmatics: Seventeenth-Century Reformed Theology Through the Writings of Wollebius, Voetius, and Turretin, ed. and trans. John W. Beardslee III (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1965), 133. 72 Nischan, “Ritual and Protestant Identity,” 151. 73 Ibid., 153 74 For a summary of worship practices in Lutheranism from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, see Joseph Herl, “Insights from Early Lutheran Worship” (WELS National Worship Conference, July 22–23, 2002) [Published online at: http://www.wels.net/s3/uploaded/6038/herlpresentation.pdf]. The ideas in this paper can be read in their entirety in Joseph Herl, Worship Wars in Early Lutheranism: Choir, Congregation, and Three Centuries of Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 75 Leonard Hutter, Compend of Lutheran Theology. A Summary of Christian Doctrine, Dervived From the Word of God and the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, trans. H. E. Jacobs and G. F. Spieker (Philadelphia: The Lutheran Book Store, 1868), 153. 76 Ibid., 153–54. - 75 -

American Theological Inquiry of proper order and wholesome discipline in the church” such as “distinctions of times, of festivals, of dress, also of hymns, lessons for the different Sundays, and prayers.”77 Those ordinances that may be observed without sin must be retained so long as “the consciences of men dare not be burdened . . . as if such a service were necessary to salvation (Augsburg Confession, Art. xv.).”78 The danger of this is that both God’s grace of justification and his commandments are obscured as well as the fact that consciences are bound.79 In the tenth question, Hutter asks about the “character” of these ordinances so that the reader “may attain to greater certainty concerning them.” These ordinances have a threefold character: first, “they dare not be impious, but must be of such a nature that they may be retained without sin;” second, “they must be useful, that is, they must contribute to peace and good order in the church;” and third, “they dare not burden the conscience, either by their multitude, or by the false opinion that they are meritorious, a service of God, or necessary to be done.”80 Hutter ends his discussion of Christian liberty and adiaphora by dealing with them in casu confessionis. He asks the question: “But what is to be done in case of persecution, and when the confession of our faith is involved? Is it allowable in that case to adopt new adiaphora in favor of our opponents, or to abolish the old.” Here Hutter covers the twofold situation against Rome (adding new adiaphora) and Calvinists (abolishing the old adiaphora). His answer is in harmony with classic Gnesio-Lutheranism that such a situation is a casus confessionis: “Neither is allowable. For such customs are no longer to be reckoned among the adiaphora, which in any wise present the appearance of apostasy, or through which, in order to escape persecution, it is pretended, externally, at least, that our religion does not differ much from the doctrine of our opponents.”81 Hutter’s next question and answer presses the point: “Then you maintain, that we dare not, in times of persecution, yield to our adversaries in regard to adiaphora?” Answer: “Certainly; if at a time when the confession of the divine truth is demanded, the whole church and every individual Christian, especially the ministers of the Word, are bound frankly and openly to confess the genuine doctrine according to the Word of God . . . I maintain that we dare not yield to our adversaries at such a time, even in such things, which truly and in themselves are adiaphora.”82 What is the driving force behind such a confession? Hutter’s next question asks, in effect, what is the big deal, since these are merely adiaphora? His answer is that the issue is no longer the adiaphora themselves, but

Ibid., 154. Ibid., 154. 79 Ibid., 154–55. 80 Ibid., 158–59. 81 Ibid., 160. 82 Ibid., 160–61. 77 78

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American Theological Inquiry . . . the chief article of our Christian faith, as the Apostle says, ‘That the truth of the Gospel might continue.’ For the truth of the Gospel is obscured and perverted, either as soon as adiaphora or new observances are by force and command imposed upon consciences for observance [pace Rome], or when they are commanded to abolish the old [pace Calvinists]; especially when this is done to confirm superstition, false doctrine, and idolatry, and to suppress Christian liberty and pure doctrine.83 Possible Commonality? To move from Lutheranism to Calvinism in the area of liturgy in the prospect of finding common ground on the issue of adiaphora would seem an impossibility given what was said about contemporary expositions of the Reformed “regulative principle” over against the Lutheran “normative principle.” Added to this is the historic position of the Presbyterians and Independents in England.84 Yet at least one point of commonality can be found between Lutheranism and the continental Reformers in the area of adiaphora with the use of the so-called “evangelical feast days.” The Continental Reformers, as opposed to English Presbyterianism and Independency responded to the medieval system of worship in two ways.85 First, they re-established the

Ibid., 162. Seen for example in the liturgical theology of John Owen. On Owen see Daniel R. Hyde, “For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free: John Owen’s A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, and Their Imposition. The Confessional Presbyterian 4 (2008): 29–42. 85 See James Hastings Nichols, Corporate Worship in the Reformed Tradition (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1968), 100; Hughes Oliphant Old, Worship That Is Reformed According to Scripture (Atlanta, GA: John Knox, 1984), 37, 161. Many have missed this important distinction between the Continental Reformation (mid-1500’s) and the later Presbyterian movement in Britain (mid-1600’s). This is exemplified in Douglas Kelly’s article, “No ‘Church Year’ for Presbyterians,” Presbyterian Journal (November 1979), in which he characteristically polarizes the Reformation in two approaches: the “Continental” (by which he means Lutheran and Anglican) and “Puritan” (by which he means Reformed and Presbyterian): “The great Protestant Reformation of the 1500’s basically divided into two major camps in regard to worship: the broader, Continental approach, and the stricter Puritan interpretation. Germany, Scandinavia and, later, England followed the Continental approach, which retained a number of medieval Roman Catholic rituals and practices in worship. They said, in effect, “If something is not expressly forbidden by Scripture, we can include it in our worship.” Hence, they kept medieval nonScriptural innovations such as the Church Year, a complex liturgy and so on. This approach was decisively rejected by our Presbyterian ancestors. In large areas of Switzerland, France, Holland, England for one generation, Scotland, and then in the American colonies, especially New England, the Reformed Churches adhered to the “Puritan principles of worship.” They wanted to be as close as they could in every possible way to God’s revealed will in Scripture. Hence they said, in effect, “We will not allow in worship that which is not expressly required or instituted by Scripture.” In other words, the Continentals said that if something is not expressly forbidden, it is all right. The Puritan Presbyterians 83 84

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American Theological Inquiry Lord’s Day as the primary feast day and focal point of the Church’s worship and community life. Second, while removing all “holy” days besides the Lord’s Day, the magisterial Reformers retained what they called the “evangelical feast days.”86 Instead of viewing these days as a part of the Christian’s accomplishment of his or her salvation, they viewed celebrating these days as a celebration of the salvation which Christ had already accomplished for them in his Incarnation (Christmas), death (Good Friday), resurrection (Easter), ascending to the Father (Ascension), and giving of his Spirit (Pentecost). The Palatinate The first example of this was in the Palatinate, the electoral region of Germany whose capital was Heidelberg, from where the Heidelberg Catechism originated. In the Reformed Palatinate, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Christmas, as well as New Year’s Day were celebrated.87 In the first hymnal published for Palatinate worship in 1565, there were 44 Psalms, 55 canticles, and 11 hymns. Later, in the second edition of 1573, all 150 Psalms were included, the canticle section was expanded to include the Nunc Dimittis and Te Deum, while the hymn section was divided into Luther’s catechetical hymns, hymns for the church calendar from Advent to Pentecost, and then topical hymns.88 The Palatinate liturgy, contained in the Kirchenordnungen began with the following rubric: Before the Sermon, especially in the morning on Sunday and holy days, and on fast days, the following prayer shall be delivered to the people, in which the Christian Congregation is explicitly reminded of the misery of man, and the saving grace of God is implored, so that hearts become humble and more desirous of receiving the Word of grace (Emphasis added).89 The rubric entitled, “Order of Holy Days,” stated: Order of Holy Days: Holy days shall be kept in the same manner as Sunday. These holy days shall be observed: all Sundays, Christmas and the day following, New Year’s day, Easter and the day following, Ascension day, Pentecost and the Monday following. On Christmas and the day after, the basis of our salvation, namely the two natures in Christ with the benefit we obtain therefrom, shall be

said, “That does not go far enough. Unless it is actually approved by the Bible, then it is not acceptable.” 86 For a helpful little introduction to this topic, see Leading in Worship, ed., Terry L. Johnson (Oak Ridge: The Covenant Foundation, 1996), 103-4. See also Old, Worship, 34-37. 87 Nichols, Corporate Worship in the Reformed Tradition, 79. 88 Deborah Rahn Clemens, “Foundations of German Reformed Worship in the Sixteenth Century Palatinate” (PhD diss., Drew University, 1995), 171–72. 89 The Living Theological Heritage of the United Church of Christ, series ed., B. B. Zikmund, 3 vols. (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1997), 2:360. - 78 -

American Theological Inquiry expounded in the narratives of the birth of Christ, as that is dealt with in the end of Part I and the beginning of Part II of the Catechism. The Ministers in the towns are also permitted to begin to explain the narratives of the Passion on Invocavit Sunday and pursue the same until Easter, according to the convenience of each particular church. On Easter and the Monday following, the narratives of Christ resurrection shall be preached, so that the Christian congregation may receive good, basic instruction from the holy, divine Scripture upon the two principle articles of our Christian faith, namely, that Christ arose from the dead on the third day, and that we woo shall arise from the dead. The festival of Christ’s ascension also has its narratives, as they are written in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 1, and elsewhere. Upon them, we may teach and preach concerning those articles of our faith in which we profess that Christ has ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God, and from thence will come to judge the living and the dead. On Pentecost and the Monday following, the second chapter in the Acts of the Apostles shall be the basis of preaching.90 The Kirchenordnungen specified the texts to be preached on Christmas, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost, while permitting freedom to the churches to celebrate “Good Friday” on the Sunday of Invocavit.91 There are also prayers for Christmas, New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost.92 In his Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, Heidelberg’s leading theologian, Zacharius Ursinus (1534–83), gave the justification for this practice in answer to the question, “Is it lawful for the Church to institute ceremonies?” He commented that, “The church may and ought to institute certain ceremonies, inasmuch as the moral worship of God cannot be observed without defining and fixing the various circumstances connected with it.” He went on to say that while it was “proper for the church to institute ceremonies,” these had to be done under certain conditions: 1.

They must not be unholy; but such as are agreeable to the word of God.

90 Ibid., 374 n4. Cf. Bard Thompson, “The Palatinate Church Order of 1563.” Church History 23:4 (December 1954): 339–54. 91 Ibid., . 92 J. H. A. Bomberger, “The Old Palatinate Liturgy of 1563.” The Mercersburg Review 2:1 (January 1850): 84. For the prayers for Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, see J. H. A. Bomberger, “The Old Palatinate Liturgy of 1563.” The Mercersburg Review 2:3 (May 1850): 275–77. On Bomberger’s contribution to the liturgy of the German Reformed Church in the mid-nineteenth century, see Michael A. Farley, “A Debt of Fealty to the Past: The Reformed Liturgical Theology of John H. A. Bomberger.” Calvin Theological Journal 39:2 (November 2004): 332–56.

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American Theological Inquiry 2.

They must not be superstitious—such as may easily lead men astray, so as to attach to them worship, merit, or necessity, and which may occasion offence when observed.

3.

They must not be too numerous, so as to be oppressive and burdensome.

4.

They must not be empty, insignificant, and unprofitable; but tend to edification.93

Strassburg In the city of Strassburg, Old Testament scholar Wolfgang Capito (1478–1541) and liturgical reformer Martin Bucer (1491–1551) studied the issue of the church calendar. After originally rejecting any day but the Lord’s Day in the 1524 Grund und Ursach, they came to the position of celebrating the evangelical feast days.94 The Strassburg Psalter of 1537 and after began to include festal hymns, especially those of the Church of Constance. This would, of course, indicate the observance of these feasts. As well, in 1548, Martin Bucer, in the name of the ministers of Strassburg, wrote “A Brief Summary of Christian Doctrine” in response to an unnamed Anabaptist tract against them. One of the points Bucer took up was “Christian festivals,” no doubt because these Anabaptists rejected the Lord’s Day as well as other celebrations. After a brief exposition of the Lord’s Day, the “general festival of the Lord,” Bucer went on to say: In like manner must be observed the other festivals and seasons which have been prescribed, with a view to the increase of godliness by meditating upon the great deeds of the Lord accomplished for our redemption and eternal salvation, and to the giving of thanks to God for them. Such festivals are those of the Incarnation and Nativity of Christ, of his Ascension, etc. (Emphasis added)95 Notice the purpose of these festivals was twofold: to increase godliness by means of meditating upon the work of Christ and to give thanks for this work. What was the basis upon which the Church celebrated such festivals? Later, in 1562 Bucer’s Lectures on Ephesians were published. At the end of his lectures on chapter 1 he discusses the unity of the Church and speaks of things necessary for unity and things indifferent (adiaphora), saying, “But unity is not necessary in anything not set forth in the word: here a degree of liberty obtains. So in the matter of man-made rites, different arrangements can be made in different quarters the better suited to edification.”96 The observances in the Church are divided into three classes: Ursinus, Commentary, 574. Ottoman Frederick Cypris, Basic Principles: Translation and Commentary on Martin Bucer’s Grund und Ursach, 1524 (Th.D diss., Theological Seminary of New York, 1971), 142 cf. Old, Worship, 36. 95 Common Places of Martin Bucer, trans. and ed., D. F. Wright, The Courtenay Library of Reformation Classics 4 (Appleford: The Sutton Courtenay Press, 1972), 90. 96 Ibid., 208. 93 94

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American Theological Inquiry 1.

Observances concerning which Scripture contains explicit instructions.

2.

Observances which are not explicitly prescribed by Scripture but can nevertheless be shown to be in accordance with Scripture [here Bucer gives the examples of infant baptism, hallowing of the Lord’s Day, and admission of women to the Lord’s Supper].

3.

Observances instituted by revered men in the Church, such as the forms of prayer, the times of fasting, lectionary arrangements, details of place, etc. So long as they do not militate against the divine will but rather have its promotion as their object and also have regard to complete doctrinal purity.97

As well, in his 1549 treatise, The Restoration of Lawful Ordination for Ministers of the Church, Bucer lists the points in which a candidate for the ministry was to be examined, among them the following: 23. Whether he believes that we incur God’s stern displeasure when we fail to devote the Lord’s Day and other specially consecrated days to godly exercises, abandoning not merely useful physical labours but much more all the useless and harmful works of the flesh . . . For whatever lawful recreation to the people are granted, it can never be rightly permitted on days specially set apart for divine worship.98 Church Order of the Synod of Dort Finally, there is the testimony of the Church Order of the Synod of Dort (1618–19). Before the Synod adopted what became the Church Order of all Reformed churches of Dutch heritage, the earlier Synod of Dort (1574) spoke only of the Lord’s Day being observed. Nevertheless it decided that the Sunday before Christmas ministers should preach about the birth of Christ and that on both Easter and Pentecost Sundays, the resurrection and outpouring of the Holy should also be preached.99 Then at the next Synod of Dort (1578), it was decided to have sermons on Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, and the days following them, as well as Ascension and New Year’s, because these were national holidays upon which licentiousness was known to be rampant. The churches, then, used these opportunities to gather the churches for holy exercises of piety rather than unholy partying and living.100

Ibid., 210. Ibid., 264. 99 Idzerd Van Dellen and Martin Monsma, The Church Order Commentary (reprint; Wyoming, MI: Credo Books, 2003), 273, 274. 100 Ibid., 274. 97 98

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American Theological Inquiry And so the Synod of Dort, at the insistence of the commissioners from the States of Holland,101 said the following regarding the feast days in its Church Order, article 67, The Churches shall observe, in addition to Sunday, also Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, with the following day, and whereas in most of the cities and provinces of the Netherlands the day of Circumcision and of Ascension of Christ are also observed, Ministers in every place where this is not yet done shall take steps with the Government to have them conform with the others.102 The Principle Behind the Continental Practice One example of how these feast days could be observed while holding to a Reformed view of the regulative principle of worship is the Second Helvetic Confession. Written in 1561 by Heinrich Bullinger (1504–75), in it is confessed that the celebration of the evangelical feast days belonged to the “Christian liberty [of] the churches” and were approved of “highly” (ch. 24). Notice the fine distinction implicitly made between Rome’s obligation and the Gospel’s freedom. Instead of viewing these days as a part of the Christians’ ongoing contribution to salvation, these days were within the Gospel liberty of the churches to commemorate the salvation that Christ had already accomplished for his people. This was also the teaching of Johannes Wollebius (1586–1629), the Old Testament scholar and cathedral preacher of Basel. In expositing the Sabbath commandment in his 1626 Compendium Theologiae Christianae, Wollebius said, “The holy days of Christians, instituted not because of human “will-worship” but as a means of reminding people of Christ’s benefits, are similar to the Sabbath, provided they are not enforced as an absolute necessity for conscience.”103 The Christian Church, then, is not obligated, but free to assemble for divine services in order to remember what Christ has already done for them. Another example of this freedom is found in the Genevan theologian of the seventeenth century, Francis Turretin (1623–87). In his Institutes of Elenctic Theology (1679), he addressed the question of whether or not the churches were free to celebrate the high points of Christ’s work or not on days other than the Lord Day: “This the orthodox think should be left to the liberty of the church.” The reason is that their celebration is “not from necessity of faith, but from the counsel of prudence to excite more to piety and devotion.”104 Their observance is not due to any intrinsic holiness of the day, but to “positive right and ecclesiastical appointment; not, however, necessary from a divine precept.”105 Turretin demonstrates that these days were celebrated in this manner by the Reformed in unity with 101

J.L. Schaver, The Polity of the Churches: Volume II (Chicago, IL: Church Polity Press, 1947),

164.

As cited in The Psalter (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, July 1999 edition), 187. Johannes Wollebius, Compendium Theologiae Christianae 2.7.2.15 in Reformed Dogmatics: Seventeenth-Century Reformed Theology Through the Writings of Wollebius, Voetius, and Turretin, ed. and trans. John W. Beardslee III (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1965), 223. 104 Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 3 vols., trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1994), 2:101. 105 Ibid., 2:101. 102 103

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American Theological Inquiry the ancient church, quoting the ancient historian Socrates, who in detailing the debate between East and West on the celebration of Easter, said, “Neither the apostles, nor the gospel itself imposed the yoke of slavery upon those who yielded to the doctrine of Christ, but left the festival of Easter and others to be celebrated according to the free and impartial judgment of those who had received on such days blessings.”106 This is illustrated as well, according to Turretin, by the examples of the celebration of Purim and the Feast of Dedication by the Jews. These celebrations do not prove “that this custom ought to prevail in the Christian church,” but, “It shows only that on certain days (annually recurring) there may be a public commemoration of the singular benefits of God, provided abuses, the idea of necessity, mystery and worship, superstition and idolatry be absent.”107 And so, as Turretin concludes, “If some Reformed churches still observe some festivals . . . they differ widely from the papists,” for four reasons: 1.

These days are dedicated to God alone, and not to creatures;

2.

No sanctity, power, or efficacy is attached to them above other days;

3.

Believers are not bound to a scrupulous and strict abstinence on these days from servile work;

4.

The church is not bound by necessity to observe these days unchangeably.108

Conclusion In these principles of Christian freedom and not obligation, the increase of piety, and the celebration of the finished work of Christ, expounded by Bullinger, Wollebius, the Synod of Dort, and Turretin, we find the area of commonality between Calvinsim and Lutheranism on the issue of adiaphora. These principles, then, bring us full-circle to where we started with Lutheranism. As we have seen, the Lutheran doctrine and practice of adiaphora was not established to allow anything in worship. Instead, it was developed in polemics with Rome as a way to protect the faithful from the righteousness of rites and to place one’s faith in Jesus Christ alone. As well, it was meant to protect the weak in faith from the turmoil of the Reformation, allowing certain ceremonies for the sake of peace and order in church and society. During times of upheaval in Lutheran-lands-turned-Calvinist, adiaphora became occasions to proclaim the freedom won for God’s people by Christ that allowed them to celebrate or not celebrate certain ceremonies in their freedom. While at times in polemics with Rome the Gnesio-Lutherans sounded like later English Puritans—a far cry from the popular caricature of Lutheranism by Puritans—Lutheranism differed from its Calvinist cousins by including among adiaphora many more things that were seen as papal leftovers by the Reformed. The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus, rev. A.C. Zenos in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, reprinted 2004), 130. The translation offered here is that of Turretin, Institutes, 2:101. 107 Turretin, Institutes, 2:102. 108 Ibid., 2:103. 106

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A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME: ATTEMPTS AT CLASSIFYING NORTH AMERICAN PROTESTANT WORSHIP109 Lester Ruth110 How would you classify the worship of your church or parish? It is “contemporary” or “traditional”? Are those terms too limited? Would the terms found in some recent youth ministry training materials be more helpful? In that case, would you classify your worship as “linear” or “organic”?111 Are you still at a loss for the right classification? Would these terms from a recent online worship forum be more accurate: “multi-sensory worship,” “indigenous worship,” “innovative worship,” “transformation worship,” “blended worship,” “praise services,” “spirited traditional,” “creative,” or “classic worship”?112 Or would ethnic or racial designators be more descriptive of your service’s character? Is it helpful to label your worship service as “African-American,” “Hispanic,” “Euro-American,” or by some other similar designation?113 Has the exactly right term not been mentioned yet? If so, then how about “multi-media worship,” “authentic worship,” “liturgical worship,” “praise and worship,” or “seeker services”?114 Perhaps terms rooted in various intended “audiences” would be better: “believer-oriented worship,” “believer-oriented worship made visitor-friendly,” or “visitororiented worship.”115 Some now advocate classifications by generations. And so is your worship service “boomer,” “buster,” “Gen-X,” or “millenials’ worship”?

109 From chapter 2 of Conviction of Things Not Seen, The: Worship and Ministry in the 21st Century (2002), Todd Johnson (ed). Used by kind permission of Baker Publishing Group. 110 Lester Ruth, PhD, is Lily May Jarvis Professor of Christian Worship at Asbury Theological Seminary. His books include: A Little Heaven Below: Worship at Early Methodist Quarterly Meetings (Kingswood Books, 2000), Accompanying the Journey: A Handbook for Sponsors (Discipleship Resources, 1997), Creative Preaching on the Sacraments (with Craig Satterlee; Discipleship Resources, 2001), and Early Methodist Life and Spirituality: A Reader (Kingswood Books, 2005). 111 As found in recent Youth Specialties training material. Cited by permission of Dan Kimball, Santa Cruz Bible Church, Santa Cruz, California in an email to the author, 14 March 2001. The terms refer to the logical sequencing of actions within worship. Organic provides opportunity for multilayering of actions. 112 As used in July and August, 2000 on the online forum accessed through <www.easumbandy.com/forums.htm>. 113 Kathy Black, Worship Across Cultures: A Handbook (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998). Black analyzes worship in Southern California in twenty-one different ethnic groups. 114 For “multi-media worship,” see Paul Franklyn, “Tech-Knowledge for Ministry: Multimedia Worship,” Net Results (1997): 4; for “authentic worship,” Sally Morganthaler, “Out of the Box: Authentic Worship in a Postmodern Culture,” Worship Leader (May/June 1998): 24-32; for “liturgical,” “praise and worship,” and “seeker,” see Andy Langford, Transitions in Worship: Moving from Traditional to Contemporary (Abingdon, 1999), 18. 115 Timothy Wright, A Community of Joy: How to Create Contemporary Worship (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 57.

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American Theological Inquiry As you can see, there exists a dizzying array of terms and classifications for worship. This diversity of classification schemes reflects the current state of Protestant worship in North America. A cacophony of terms describe the wide range of worship services. Even single resources can contribute to the Babel of classification schemes. In one recent anthology on worship, for example, the titles for the various essays showed designations derived by stylistic, theological, ethnic, and age-specific considerations.116 Is it possible to find some resemblance of order within these widely different taxonomies for worship? To do so here, the first step will be to take a look at four current taxonomies, recognizing their strengths and limitations. Then, building on some of these taxonomies and filtering the usable data through some categories derived from Robert Webber, I hope to suggest some ways of classifying North American Protestant approaches to worship that are true to their breadth. While the new schemes do not exhaust all possible taxonomies, hopefully they will offer some helpful designations. The suggested taxonomy will use classifications based on the nature of liturgical commemoration (what is remembered over time from worship service to service?), the dominant sacramental principle in a congregation’s worship (what is the primary way worshipers assess God’s presence in worship?), and liturgical polity (what is the method by which worship is planned in individual congregations?). These taxonomical categories are suggested because they are broad enough to be able to be applied to all North American Protestant worship and yet are important enough to show true differences among these Christians’ worship today. A Popular Scheme: The Traditional/Contemporary/Blended Worship Taxonomy One of the most used classification schemes today is this set of terms: “traditional,” “contemporary,” and “blended worship.” Among American Protestants, these terms are pervasive in conversations, in popular literature, and, unfortunately, in “worship wars.” A sizable number of Protestant churches have moved to offering multiple worship services every week, distinguishing between services by these labels. Despite their pervasiveness and some kind of assumption about general meaning, the terms’ specific meanings are unclear. Very often they are code words. “Traditional” designates “what we have been doing,” usually meaning a way of mainstream Protestant worship reflecting practices of the mid-twentieth century with roots in the Victorian Era. “Contemporary” typically designates “what we could or should be doing.” Often what is in mind is worship with some combination of these “contemporary” characteristics: worship attuned to popular culture, particularly in entertainment forms; use of music which is highly repetitive, syncopated, and reflective of pop music; a reliance upon electronic technology; a quick pace and rhythm in the service; minimal ceremonial; an informal style of leadership; and the use of worship leaders to demonstrate the physical and emotional dimensions of

116 Experience God in Worship (Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, Inc., 2000). The categories used included “convergence,” “liturgical,” “contemporary,” “evangelical,” “African-American,” “Charismatic,” and “Gen-X.”

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American Theological Inquiry worship.117 In popular usage “blended worship” tends to refer to worship using a variety of types of music, that is, both “traditional” hymnody and “contemporary” choruses.118 While some—most notably theologian Robert Webber119—have a more sophisticated, nuanced use of the term, the term frequently amounts to little more than an quota system for music and dramatic skits. All these terms, “traditional,” “contemporary,” and “blended worship,” have severe limitations and should be rejected in any serious taxonomy of worship. Simply put, as commonly used, they are too general of terms for too limited a phenomenon. For one thing, their limited usefulness is seen in that many of the works that seek to explore how to do contemporary worship sometimes include within “contemporary” what might be popularly designated as “traditional.” For example, one recent writer includes as one of the types of contemporary worship what he calls “liturgical.”120 What he describes as “liturgical worship,” however, others would label as “traditional.” If the terms are that fluid, what real meaning do they have? The traditional/contemporary taxonomy suffers other serious limitations. Given worship’s inherent conservatism (over time congregations tend to stabilize and maintain patterns, even if newly created), eventually the term “contemporary” must fall out of usage or churches will end up with the oxymoron of “traditional contemporary” worship in a few generations. In addition, those who use traditional/contemporary language usually have too limited a historical horizon. From one angle, “contemporary worship” really is not. When I reviewed the multiple orders of worship for so-called “contemporary worship” on an online forum, for instance, all the orders reflected a very “traditional” order of worship featuring proclamation as the climatic act. Such an order of worship with a different stylistic veneer has been the mainstay of much American Protestant worship for a couple of centuries. Other than a change in the stylistic veneer, what is truly contemporary about that? Similarly, using a longer historical horizon, “traditional worship” really is not. By “traditional” most do Compare the characterization in Daniel T. Benedict and Craig Kennet Miller, Contemporary Worship for the 21st Century: Worship or Evangelism? (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1994), 1016 and 120. 118 See, for example, Eva Stimson, “Praise God with Guitars and Organ?” Presbyterians Today (September 1998): 12. 119 See Robert Webber, Signs of Wonder: The Phenomenon of Convergence in Modern Liturgical and Charismatic Church (Nashville: Abbott Martyn, 1992); republished as The Worship Phenomenon: A Dynamic New Awakening in Worship is Reviving the Body of Christ (Nashville: Star Song, 1994); republished as Blended Worship: Achieving Substance and Relevance in Worship (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994). See also Webber’s Renew Your Worship: A Study in the Blending of Traditional and Contemporary Worship (Hendrickson, 1997), Planning Blended Worship: The Creative Mixture of Old & New (Abingdon, 1998), and Robert Webber et al., Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship (Carol Stream, IL: Hope Publishing Company, 1995). 120 Langford, Transitions in Worship, 18. See also Benedict and Miller, Contemporary Worship for the 21st Century. 117

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American Theological Inquiry not have in mind deep worship traditions, whether those of the early church or of originators of various Protestant movements like Luther or Wesley. Consequently, the traditional/contemporary taxonomy is inadequate for describing certain whole approaches to worship, whether denominationally or congregationally. For example, how should we classify a vibrant congregation of Quakers worshiping in complete silence until they receive the Holy Spirit’s unction to leave. Is this “traditional” because it follows a classic Quaker approach having a long history back to the seventeenth century? Or it is “contemporary” because the worshipers might be wearing casual clothing? Since there is no music at all, musical style cannot be the key to classifying this service. And what about an African-American congregation using a Black Gospel setting for a classically structured eucharistic service? Is it “contemporary” because the music has been composed recently and has a beat? Or is it “traditional” because many of the texts can be traced back to the patristic era as can the basic order of worship? Similarly, what about the two Episcopal churches close to my home using their Book of Common Prayer eucharistic services albeit with a praise team leading the music while the congregation follows the service on PowerPoint projections? Is this “traditional” or “contemporary”? Is it “blended” even though there is only one style of music and leadership? Seeing the limitations in the terminology, some scholars show signs of moving away from the traditional/contemporary taxonomy. Leonard Sweet is one. Seeking a term that speaks more of worship emerging from a worshiping people rather than merely being imitated from elsewhere, he prefers the term “indigenous” over “contemporary.”121 Others reject the alltoo-often antagonistic positioning of the terms (traditional vs. contemporary), noting that each speaks of qualities desirable for all worship services: Attempts to reform worship that rely exclusively on either traditional or contemporary models are not adequate solutions to our longing for more faithful worship. This is actually a false dichotomy since authentic Christian worship is by necessity both contemporary and traditional. It is traditional because it must continue the story of Jesus Christ in the world in history, and it is contemporary because it must be engaged with the present, with actual people who live in particular cultures.122 Even the “blended worship” term is too limited for serious use since too often it just describes a kind of quota system to worship. As one scholar recently lampooned: “[In] many congregations…we’ll do a traditional hymn, then we’ll do a praise song. We’ll have the classic structure, but we’ll spice it up with skits. A little of this and a little of that, and

121Leonard Sweet, Soul Tsunami: Sink or Swim in New Millennium Culture (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 390-1. 122 L. Edward Phillips and Sara Webb Phillips, In Spirit & Truth: United Methodist Worship for the Emerging Church (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 2000), 30. See also Thomas G. Long, Beyond the Worship Wars: Building Vital and Faithful Worship (The Alban Institute, 2001), 3 and Marianne Sawicki, “How Can Christian Worship Be Contemporary?” in What is “Contemporary” Worship?, ed. Gordon Lathrop (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995), 27.

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American Theological Inquiry everyone will be happy.”123 Such an approach to blended worship tends to deal only with the surface of worship performance without dealing with more substantial issues of worship’s structure, content, and purpose.124 Given that these terms—”traditional/contemporary/blended”—are too ill-defined and are likely to pass away from usage, a comprehensive taxonomy for North American worship must be found elsewhere. A Polemical, Apologetic Scheme: The Taxonomy of William Easum and Thomas Bandy Well-known church consultants William (Bill) Easum and Thomas (Tom) Bandy provide an example of a liturgical taxonomy shaped by a polemic that seeks to promote a certain evangelistic agenda. Easum and Bandy work together as Easum, Bandy & Associates, an organization that provides a range of church educational and consulting services. They publish both individually and collectively. According to its web-posted “approach to ministry,” this organization “helps leaders organize priorities, identify goals, innovate new strategies, and motivate congregations to address the spiritually yearning, institutionally alienated seekers of today.” They claim to have prepared more than 75,000 church leaders in the United States and Canada since 1988.125 It is somewhat inaccurate to speak of a single taxonomy by Easum and Bandy. Their writings reflect related but ever shifting sets of terms to classify worship. In an short 1997 essay, Easum lays out an early two-term taxonomy: “traditional” and “contemporary.”126 According to Easum, the former is a form of worship that uses the printed page, a sixteenth century of music and “linear, somber, slow forms of printed liturgy.” Creeds and quiet are important, too. “Contemporary” worship, in contrast, does not have much quiet time; it produces a visual experience and uses “indigenous” music that is “plugged-in and turned up.” In their joint book published that same year, Easum and Bandy offer several taxonomies for classifying worship. The most fundamental in the book is a variation of the traditional/contemporary scheme. Seeking to define “basic categories” to begin worship planning, the two describe three possibilities: “traditional,” “praise,” and “sensory” worship.127 In “traditional” worship, “participants give thanks in formal, historically grounded, rational ways.” This “track” is for those who prefer “robes, hymnals, creeds, quiet

Long, Beyond the Worship Wars, 12. Constance Cherry, “Blended Worship: What It Is, What It Isn’t,” Reformed Worship 55 (March 2000), 6-8. 125 “About Us. Easum, Bandy, & Associates Organizational Assumptions,” 12 July 2001 . 126 William M. Easum, “Worship in a Changing Culture,” in Contemporary Worship: A Sourcebook for Spirited-Traditional, Praise and Seeker Services, ed. Tim and Jan Wright (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997), 17-8. 127 William M. Easum and Thomas G. Bandy, Growing Spiritual Redwoods (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997), 73. A comparative chart is provided on pp. 73-4. 123 124

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American Theological Inquiry time, and Elizabethan-type music.” “Praise” worship “seeks to release the emotions and express the joy many people who were formerly estranged from relationship with Jesus now feel.” “Praise” worship is a “celebration” focusing on a certain kind of music. It is a “spectator or entertainment style of worship, with little quiet time and no emphasis on guilt.” “Sensory” worship is characterized by a heavy use of other forms of sensory experience other than hearing. It occurs “less in words, and more in the sights and sounds, images an music, that surround the worship experience.” It consists of permeating sights and sounds, video and visuals rather than print or verbal speech, and “extra-loud, plugged-in, turned-up music.” 128 Easum and Bandy connect this taxonomy to generational appeal: “traditional” worship appeals to those who “by physical age or mental orientation” find “some form of Christendom worship meaningful,” “praise” worship to baby boomers, and “sensory” worship to the vast majority of people born after 1965.129 This traditional/praise/sensory taxonomy is not the only one in this same book, Growing Spiritual Redwoods. Elsewhere they speak of “transactive” worship (conveys the gospel across gaps), “interactive” worship (involves participants in a reciprocal or mutually shared thanksgiving), and “actualized” worship (makes faith as realistic and comprehensive as possible).130 Later in their book, the two men provide a taxonomy based on different ways worship services can respond to human need. This taxonomy offers four options: “healing,” “coaching,” “cherishing,” and ‘rejoicing” worship.131 They provide another taxonomy of a sort later in the book when they describe the characteristics of “indigenous” worship. Such worship makes experience more important than content, is interconnected with everyday life, uses indigenous music, uses video and sound systems as crucial elements, replaces choir practices with technology rehearsal, and has “constant, uninterrupted flow.”132 In subsequent writings, Easum and Bandy continue to evolve their taxonomies. In a 2000 article on “multi-tracking” worship in a congregation (that is, providing multiple worship opportunities targeted at different groups’ spiritual needs), Bandy expands a taxonomy laid out earlier, noting differences in “healing,” “coaching,” “cherishing,” “celebration,” and “traditional” worship.133 Similarly, Easum takes the earlier traditional/contemporary or traditional/praise/sensory categories and adds some qualitative adjectives. According to Easum, he now sees four kinds of worship services: “spiritless traditional,” “spirited traditional,” “praise,” and “postmodern.” 134 For Easum, “spiritless traditional” is the most prevalent, found in 80% of churches. It is “slow, linear, and predictable” with people able to sleep through them. The music is slow and played on organs. The service is filled with dead spots. To outsiders these services feel lifeless, dull, and boring. “Spirited traditional” is found in less than 10% of churches according to Easum. It is characterized by passion in the pulpit Ibid., 74-5. Ibid., 72. 130 Ibid., 76-7. These categories are not real clear. They appear to deal with individual types of interactions with the gospel message. 131 Ibid., 80-3. 132 Ibid., 94-5. 133 Thomas G. Bandy, “How Do We Multi-Track Our Worship,” Net Results 21, 7 (July 2000): 17. 134 William M. Easum, “What I Now See in Worship,” Net Results 21, 6 (June 2000): 20-22. 128 129

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American Theological Inquiry and vitality in the pews. It moves with precision with lots of good music. Despite its current vitality, however, it reflects a “culture whose day has long passed.” “Praise” worship is used by 90% of growing churches in Easum’s opinion. The most notable element of the service is the music itself. Other common characteristics include solid preaching, drama, informal atmosphere, and no “dead spots.” “Postmodern” worship uses a variety of musical styles in an ever changing tide of services. It uses every form of technology, offers a clear and uncompromising message, and develops authenticity, intimacy, and community. Although the precise terms vary from publication to publication, there are several constants in the Easum’s and Bandy’s taxonomies. For one thing, their tone does not vary. The taxonomies are polemical and apologetic throughout. The two men bring an iconoclastic tendency to their descriptions. Determined to advocate measures that will achieve evangelistic success, the two consultants attach descriptions to their categories that will make what they are advocating the most attractive and what they consider problematic the least attractive. There is no concern for detached, objective description. Indeed, there tends to be a certain kind of dualism running throughout their liturgical writings. In their opinion, some ways of worship are bad; others are good. Generally, those they associate with mainstream Protestant forms of the latter half of the twentieth century are bad because they show so little potential for accomplishing Easum’s and Bandy’s evangelistic goals. In Easum’s terminology, these are the “spiritless traditional” services. The men describe these services in very harsh terms. In contrast, the two consultants portray other kinds of worship in glowing terms. Standing behind this dualism is the two men’s fundamental concern: what they perceive as people’s experience in worship. Easum’s and Bandy’s classification schemes are really taxonomies of how they understand people to be responding to the current variety in worship. They root their taxonomical method in a concern for a personal positive experience in worship. Consider the emphasis on personal experience as a fundamental category in Easum’s summary of worship: “No matter what type of worship a church uses, one thing is important: People must experience the transforming presence of God. Anything less isn’t worship, no matter the style.”135 The two typically see newer forms of mainstream Protestant worship as creating positive experiences. This concern for experience has two facets within their thought. One is assessing people’s immediate reaction to different kinds of worship. The other is an emphasis on communicating in a culturally accessible way as the primary purpose of worship. Thus Bandy can suggest two reasons why people are not attending his reader’s worship service. Either “your current worship service does not address their spiritual needs” or “your current worship service does not communicate in their cultural forms.”136 These concerns color their taxonomies thoroughly. Easum and Bandy view a category of worship highly if they see it creating a positive experience of Christ in people.137 Likewise, since a primary purpose of Ibid., 22. Bandy, “How Do We Multi-Track Our Worship,” 15. 137 Only a few statements indicate a concern with the theological content of worship. See Easum and Bandy, Growing Spiritual Redwoods, 51-2. 135 136

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American Theological Inquiry worship is communication, ways of worshiping that they see using newer communication forms receive a more glowing endorsement. There are several limitations in Easum’s and Bandy’s taxonomies. The first comes from their writings’ polemical nature. They are so eager to advocate a certain approach to be adopted by churches that too often their descriptions fall into caricatures. This is true even for the types of worship that they advocate. Their writings universalize their own experiences and perceptions of the struggles in mainstream Protestantism.138 Their biases seep through, cutting off consideration of worship’s true breadth. Consider, for example, two depictions of “traditional” worship. Traditional worship involves “robes, hymnals, creeds, quiet time, and Elizabethan-type music” and “the linear, somber, slow forms of printed liturgy.”139 Using our recurring touchstones, how would this description apply to a African-American congregation using a Black Gospel musical setting for their weekly eucharistic service or to an Episcopal eucharistic service using so-called “contemporary” music? Consider another caricature: the idea that sensory worship that appeals to younger adults will use “extra-loud, plugged-in, turned-up music.”140 How does this caricature square with the increasingly popular phenomenon of young adults attracted to services using the quiet, contemplative music of Taizé, the ecumenical community of France?141 Unfortunately, if one does not read carefully, Easum’s and Bandy’s prescriptions for worship too often verge on being absolute—but inaccurate—descriptions of worship. Another limitation to the Easum and Bandy writings is their lack of emphasis on the theological content of worship. Given their liturgical method (the use of qualitative categories based on worshipers’ positive responses and the presumption that numerical growth validates worship practices), it would be possible to misuse their categories to make legitimate forms of worship which should otherwise be illegitimate for Christians. For example, the shallowness of their categories connecting “inspirational” and “spirited” to “transformative” could be used to affirm classic Shaker worship of the nineteenth century despite its heterodox anti-Trinitarian theology. The Shakers were evangelizing effectively with new forms of worship that moved people (literally) and resulted in transformed lives. Could not Easum’s and Bandy’s categories be used to affirm this worship although it was clearly unorthodox? Admittedly, the two men do not overtly advocate unorthodox worship but, given the lack of theological concern in their taxonomies, one wonders why Shaker worship would not fall into their “good” categories. That is precisely the problem with an intentionally dualistic, polemical taxonomy like theirs: too little thoughtfulness stands behind the categories. In addition, their classification schemes are limited in that any taxonomies that roots the classifications in worshiper’s reaction tells us more about the worshiper (or classifier) than 138 For a similar critique of Easum, see Frank Burch Brown, Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste: Aesthetics in Religious Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 238-42. 139 Easum and Bandy, Growing Spiritual Redwoods, 74 and Easum, “Worship in a Changing Culture,” 17. 140 Easum and Bandy, Growing Spiritual Redwoods, 75. 141 See Brown, Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste, 243.

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American Theological Inquiry the worship itself. Using categories based in experience or reaction is too highly subjective since different people could have a completely different reaction to the same worship service. Different theologies, cultural backgrounds, capacities for ritual activity, and spiritualities among worshipers could result in vastly varying interpretations of the same worship service. In that case what does “spirited” or “inspirational” worship mean? One suspects that such terms in Easum’s and Bandy’s writings always means a kind of worship that they like. An Evangelical, Pastoral Scheme: The Taxonomy of Paul Basden Paul Basden provides another recent taxonomy of North American worship142 Basden, a Baptist pastor, creates his taxonomy for a different purpose and audience. Compiled to provide to help evangelical churches understand to different approaches to worship that they may follow, Basden’s taxonomy is instructive in that it shows how a current American evangelical might see the diversity of North American worship. As a comprehensive taxonomy for North American worship, however, it is incomplete. Basden constructs his taxonomy as a one-dimensional, horizontal spectrum using popular, non-technical labels. The distinct categories assess different kinds of worship “styles,” which Basden appears to use as a broad term for a way of worship. The elements which he assesses to determine different styles of worship include the following: attitude, mood, order of worship, “target audience,” congregational singing, special music, musical instrumentation, amount of Scripture, offering, manner of preaching, manner of “invitation,” and approach to ordinances/sacraments.143 He develops his five point spectrum in order to go beyond simple “traditional /non-traditional” or “traditional/contemporary/blended” categories often used today.144 With the goal of discerning distinct styles of worship, Basden identifies five main styles placed along a spectrum where the left-hand side is the most “traditional” and the right, the least.145 When charted, Basden’s spectrum looks like this: Liturgical Traditional Revivalist Praise & Worship Seeker Basden’s main concern is to describe the nature of each of these styles. Identification of each category with a particular denomination, ethnic group, or historical figure is offered, but is a secondary concern. When such are identified specifically, Basden’s spectrum could look like this: Liturgical Lutheran Anglican

Traditional Reformed Separatist Puritan

Revivalist Zwingli Quaker Wesleyan

Praise & Worship Black worship Pentecostal

Seeker Willow Creek Saddleback

142 Paul Basden, The Worship Maze: Finding a Style to Fit Your Church (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999). 143 Ibid., 101-3. 144 Ibid., 36. 145 Ibid.

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American Theological Inquiry Basden details what he means by each category. Generally, “liturgical” worship has the strongest historical roots and is worship whose goal is “to bow before the holiness of God in structured reverence.”146 It is the worship of most mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches. “Traditional” worship is a hybrid of its two neighbors, “liturgical” and “revivalist.”147 From its “liturgical” roots comes a sense of dignity and reverence; from its revivalist connection comes a concern with moving the hearts of the worshipers. “Revivalist” worship derives from American frontier roots. It is characterized by “informality, exuberance, zeal and aggressive preaching,” all aimed to convert sinners.148 Basden identifies “praise and worship” mainly with Pentecostal worship. It is musicorganized worship aimed at bringing believers into an intimate sense of God’s presence through music.149 The “seeker” approach is a rehash of the “revivalist” goal, albeit in a toned down format. “Seeker” worship attempts to present the gospel to unbelievers.150 Basden’s taxonomy has some strengths. It focuses on congregational phenomenon and thus offers itself as a possible taxonomy for assessing what is happening currently. It recognizes diversity within denominations. It is concerned with God’s presence in worship, which as I will argue, is an important way to distinguish among approaches to worship. And, importantly, Basden attempts to be open-minded as he tries to provide a fair, attractive description of each worship style. Basden’s taxonomy does have some flaws, however. Because he does not limit himself to current expressions of worship, Basden at times makes historical overstatements. For example, it is quite surprising to find the sixteenth century Reformer Ulrich Zwingli, the seventeenth century Quaker founder George Fox, and the Anglican priest John Wesley, a founder of the Methodist movement in the eighteenth century, grouped together as examples of the “revivalist” category.151 Those preferring a history-based taxonomy would do better with James White’s more historically accurate one described below. A severe flaw occurs in the use of “liturgical” as a taxonomical category. Any such use must be questioned on theological grounds. Basden, following popular evangelical usage, seems to intend this term to mean a certain way of doing worship involving a high level of ceremony, use of historically-grounded texts, and a certain reverential tone. Although this might be a common occurrence among evangelicals, it is poor theology to limit “liturgical” to one “style” of Christian worship because it implies that the rest of Christian worship is not “liturgical.” All Christian worship, however, must be “liturgical” in a theological sense if it is truly Christian. In a theological sense, “liturgical” does not refer to a certain style of worshiping—formal with much ceremony—but a church’s worship participating in the ongoing ministry of Jesus Christ before God the Father (Hebrews 8: a-b). “Liturgical” refers to worship as a work of the people, a public service. In worship it can refer to both Christ’s work on humanity’s behalf and the church’s participation as the body of Christ in the Ibid., 54. Ibid., 55. 148 Ibid., 66. 149 Ibid., 77. 150 Ibid., 89. 151 Ibid., 67. 146 147

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American Theological Inquiry ongoing ministry of Christ for all people. In this theological sense all Christian worship must be “liturgical” to be truly Christian. Thus the theological question is not whether any certain kind of Christian worship is liturgical or not but how it is liturgical. “Liturgical” should not be used as a classifying term to distinguish a worship style. Basden’s spectrum literally breaks down at some points, too. Looking at whether the different styles plan worship with Christians or non-Christians primarily in mind, their placement on the spectrum does not indicate a style’s approach. Thus “revivalist” (in the center on the spectrum) and “seeker” (on the far right end) aim for non-Christians while “praise and worship,” located between these two, is concerned with leading Christians into worship. (“Liturgical” and “traditional” are, too.) Basden’s taxonomy is also limited in that it is not comprehensive enough. Basden is Baptist and that perspective, naturally enough, seems to be the real point of reference. Many of his examples of each kind of worship in the book are Baptist examples. Because his intended audience seems to be evangelical churches trying to find their way through the worship “maze,” he tends to underemphasize approaches to worship that are not viable options for mainstream evangelicals. Basden’s taxonomy tends toward caricature at several points. For instance, because he uses classification based on worshiper’s elicited, Basden can paint a picture that presumes all Christian approaches to worship have as a primary purpose a desire to elicit responses from the worshiper—possibly a projection of Basden’s own experience. That is not necessarily the case for all Protestant approaches to worship. Likewise, even a strength in his taxonomy, such as assessing the manner of God’s presence in worship, can lead to caricature. Basden spends quite a bit of time linking what he sees as different dimensions of God’s presence to different types of worship. Thus “liturgical” worship cultivates a sense of God’s transcendence but not immanence.152 “Traditional” worship, in comparison, yields both a sense of God’s transcendence and immanence while “praise and worship” focuses on a sense of God’s immanence.153 While seeing how God is present in worship has potential for a solid taxonomy—and will be revisited below—Basden’s use of this aspect of worship is too subjective and can lead to inaccurate caricatures. It would not be too hard to find “liturgical” churches with active, deep fellowship that would speak of a tremendous sense of God’s immanence during the exchange of the peace of Christ or reception of the Eucharist. Similarly, one can imagine a Pentecostal church bowed before a sense of God’s transcendence after a particularly moving word of prophecy embedded within the time of music. Basden’s taxonomy would benefit from looking not at a subjective qualitative sense of God’s presence but at the ordinary means by which the worshiping congregation senses God’s presence. In other words, not whether the Presence is experienced as transcendent or immanent but whether the people expect to find the Presence in their music, their preaching, or in their sacraments.

152 153

Basden, The Worship Maze, 42. Ibid., 60, 85-6. - 95 -

American Theological Inquiry Finally, Basden’s taxonomy suffers from his overstatements. He describes the purpose of Praise and Worship, for example as guiding worshipers “to offer a sacrifice of praise…in a spirit of joyful adoration.” Surely, this is such a broad and basic enough statement that one wonders who in Basden’s taxonomy would not want to claim it. A Thorough Historical Scheme: The Taxonomy of James White Noted liturgical historian James White has created perhaps the most thorough Protestant liturgical taxonomy. This thoughtful scheme reflects the breadth of White’s knowledge and is the place to ground any serious study of Protestant liturgical classification. White’s evenhanded scholarship shows as he continually developed it into its present, mature form over nearly a fifteen-year period. White began intentionally publishing a comprehensive taxonomy for Protestant worship in 1975. Several revisions followed until he published a final form of the taxonomy in 1989.154 White’s goal is a comprehensive taxonomy to classify the different traditions of Protestant worship from their origins to present expression. The heart of White’s taxonomy is his identification of nine Protestant worship traditions: Lutheran, Anglican, Reformed, Methodist, Puritan, Anabaptist, Quaker, Frontier, and Pentecostal. White identifies these nine traditions based on key enduring characteristics for each. White emphasizes this ethos-of-each-tradition approach rather than the older approach in his discipline that emphasized relationship by liturgical texts. White chooses to emphasize each tradition’s ethos rather than its liturgical texts because, as White himself points out, some Protestants do not have liturgical texts, having rejected their use in worship as part of their ethos. From his first published taxonomy to its mature form in Protestant Worship: Traditions in Transition (1989), White keeps fairly consistent his list of elements that determine the distinctive ethos of the various Protestant liturgical traditions. These “central elements” that distinguish one Protestant tradition from another include the use of service books or their absence, the importance or unimportance of sacraments, tendencies to uniformity based on codification or lack thereof, congregational autonomy or connectionalism, the varying roles of music and the other arts, ceremonial or its absence, variety and predictability, and various sociological factors.155 Upon these factors White builds his taxonomy, first identifying a cluster of characteristics that constitute a distinctive ethos, then labeling that ethos as a Protestant worship tradition, and finally describing how those characteristics define that 154 James White’s earliest attempt came in the mid-1970s: “Traditions of Protestant Worship,” Worship 49, 5 (May, 1975): 272-281. This article was substantially reproduced in Christian Worship in Transition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1976), 61-75. Refinement continued in the 1980s: Introduction to Christian Worship, 1st ed. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1980), 41-3; “Creativity: The Free Church Tradition,” in Liturgy: a Creative Tradition, Concilium, vol. 162, ed. Mary Collins and David Power (New York: Seabury Press, 1983), 47-52; “The Classification of Protestant Traditions of Worship,” Studia Liturgica 17 (1987): 264-272. In 1989 a mature form of the taxonomy became the basis for a whole book: Protestant Worship: Traditions in Transition (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989), 21-4. 155 White, Protestant Worship, 22. Compare to White, “Traditions of Protestant Worship,” 272 for the earlier version.

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American Theological Inquiry Protestant tradition. Thus the Lutheran tradition shows a basic conservatism, a love of music, a concern for preaching, and a toleration of indifferent matters (for example, robes) as long as they do not suggest works righteousness. The Methodist tradition is a hybrid tradition mixing certain Anglican roots with a Free Church attitude. Added to this mix are both a good dose of pragmatism and, at least originally, an interest in examples from the early church. The Quaker tradition, in comparison, emphasizes direct access to the Holy Spirit and a reliance upon the Spirit to move before any action is taken in worship. As such it is a form of corporate mysticism as a classic Quaker approach abolishes all presupposed outward forms of worship. White’s earlier works describe each tradition in an abbreviated form. His 1989 book, Protestant Worship, gives a chapter-length examination to each. Differences in essential character or ethos is how White distinguishes between the various Protestant traditions. Having established a distinctive identify for each, White places the nine traditions under three broad classifications: left-wing, central, and right-wing. While acknowledging that these are terms pulled from the political arena, White does not mean them in a literal political sense.156 Instead, White intends to show in these broad political terms a tradition’s relative position to late medieval Western liturgical roots, one of his main criteria for distinguishing among Protestant worship traditions. White labels two of the Protestant traditions (Lutheran and Anglican) as “right-wing,” meaning that, with respect to late Medieval liturgical forms, their worship practices have reflected a more restrained revision. In contrast, the centrist groups (Reformed and Methodist) reflect a more remote attachment to the ways of worship of the late Middle Ages. The left-wing groups (Anabaptist, Quaker, Puritan, Frontier, and Pentecostal) show the least connection to Medieval roots.157 In addition to these two bases for distinction—a tradition’s enduring characteristics of ethos and its relative position to the medieval past—White also notes each tradition’s time of origin to develop his full taxonomy. The result is a two-dimensional spectrum that visually represents the relative position of each Protestant tradition to each other and to its Medieval roots. The horizontal access in this spectrum represents the relative connection to medieval roots with the “right-wing” traditions, as might be guessed, on the right hand side of the spectrum and vice versa. The vertical access represents the passage of centuries. Thus locating each tradition on this axis represents its point of origin in history. The older Protestant traditions appear at the top of the vertical axis and the younger, toward the bottom. This mature taxonomical chart first appeared in 1989 and is reproduced below.

White, Protestant Worship, 22. One of the major changes in earlier forms of the taxonomy to the latest is the elimination of the “Free Church” terminology to define certain Protestant traditions. Earlier forms of the taxonomy speak of three different historic manifestations of a Free Church approach to worship. Later forms of the taxonomy use other terms: Anabaptist, Puritan/Separatist, and Frontier. 156 157

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American Theological Inquiry White’s Chart of the Protestant Traditions of Worship158 Origins 16th century 17th century 18th century 19th century 20th century

Left Wing Anabaptist Quaker Frontier Pentecostal

Central Reformed Puritan Methodist

Right Wing Anglican, Lutheran

A subsequent version included lines to show shifts and developments. In another adaptation, White has also produced a version of the taxonomy that links the different traditions to European regions when appropriate. 159 White’s taxonomy has both strengths and limitations. It is strongest when used for describing the origins of historically distinct approaches. White’s tremendous grasp of liturgical history is shown in the taxonomy. Not surprisingly, his taxonomy—based on this grasp of history—is a good tool for showing the nature of distinct approaches to Protestant worship when they started. In addition, the characteristics he identifies for assessing the traditions’ different ethos are very perceptive and remain useful. The taxonomy is less useful for showing the actual types of Protestant worship now. 160 White himself hints at this limitation in his classification scheme when he notes that it is easier to define the center of a tradition than its periphery.161 In addition, White recognizes how cultural and ethnic differences can deeply affect the expression of a tradition in any context. Moreover, White recognizes a degree of blurring among the traditions as certain cultural shifts (for example, the Enlightenment) can cause similar fallout among the traditions.162 Similarly, White recognizes that ecumenical sharing also causes the blurring of lines between traditions.163 Failure to recognize these limitations could lead to a false picture of the current state of Protestant worship in North America. If a reader failed to see the factors that lead to blurring over time and now, it would be possible to overemphasize a distinction between, for example, Methodist and Reformed worship. In actuality, due to a variety of factors, many White, Protestant Worship, 23. James White, Documents of Christian Worship: Descriptive and Interpretive Sources (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992), 7, 9. 160 See the similar critique in Keith Watkins, “Protestant Worship: Many Traditions or One?” Worship 64, 4 (July 1990): 309. Another critique of white’s taxonomy is given by Frank C. Senn in “Protestant Worship: Does It Exist?” Worship 64, 4 (July 1990): 322-330. Both scholars argue, not persuasively I believe, that Protestantism properly defined constitutes a single worship tradition. 161 White, Protestant Worship, 22. White, “The Classification of Protestant Traditions of Worship,” 266. White also notes an awkwardness in his taxonomy in that certain groups (Moravians, Shakers, Brethren) do not easily fit within his tradition labels. See White, Protestant Worship, 23. 162 White, “The Classification of Protestant Traditions of Worship,” 267. 163 Ibid., 272; White, “Traditions of Protestant Worship,” 282. White has primarily in mind the sharing within the Liturgy Movement but the same point could be made about more popular influences like certain mega-churches such as Willow Creek and Saddleback Community Churches. 158 159

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American Theological Inquiry of the traditions named by White can now represent a rather wide spectrum of worship practices. Put more simply, can anyone really say what it means to worship according to the Methodist or the Reformed tradition right now in North America? Churches belonging to a tradition identified by White—even to the same denomination within that tradition—can vary widely in worship practices today even though they are just down the street from each other in the same city. White’s own prophecy, spoken at the beginning of publishing his taxonomy, seems to have come true: “It is quite possible that the greatest differences will soon be discernible within groups that previously would have been reckoned distinct traditions.”164 That would suggest that a different set of labels other than the ones suggested by White, which tend to be historically based labels, would be helpful for describing the actual current diversity of Protestant worship in North American. Suggestions For A New Taxonomy Where does that leave us? If we desire a taxonomy that is simple enough to distinguish basic differences among Protestant churches yet broad enough to cover the full range of current North American practices, whose taxonomy offers the most guidance? The popular traditional/contemporary/blended taxonomy is hopelessly simplistic. Easum’s and Bandy’s taxonomies are too polemical; they provide more information about the agenda of these two men than they do about the true range of Christian liturgical practices. Basden’s taxonomy has some helpful points but is too narrow and, at times, inaccurate. James White’s taxonomy is the most thorough, well-developed, and historically sound. It is strongest, however, as a historical taxonomy for Protestant worship. Its categories are not as helpful in distinguishing the variety of approaches to Christian worship at the present time. All is not lost with these taxonomies. I believe it is possible to take the root information behind White’s taxonomy—his notion of various liturgical ethos—and combine it with some insights from Robert Webber in order to achieve the goal of a simple, accurate, yet broad set of classifying terms for Christian worship in North America today.165 First, the insights of Webber. In speaking about the planning of worship, Robert Webber often makes a distinction between content, structure, and style in worship.166 This framework is itself a helpful step in that it takes us beyond just looking at stylistic issues, which is where some popular taxonomies stop. In fact, I suggest that it is the two other elements (content and structure) that offer the most help areas for developing categories to classify worship. This takes Webber’s terms beyond what he himself does with them. For Webber, who tends to advocate a certain approach to worship in his publications, the content and structure of worship should remain fairly steady. The content and structure he suggests is derived from the Bible and based on deep historical norms.167 The fact that he must advocate certain White, “Traditions of Protestant Worship,” 282. To a lesser degree Basden’s analysis of the inner character of different liturgical approaches is also helpful. 166 Robert Webber, Planning Blended Worship, 20. See also Robert Webber, Worship Old & New, Rev. Ed. (Zondervan, 1994); 149-51 and Renew Your Worship, 32. 167 See, for example, Webber, Worship Old and New, 149-50. 164 165

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American Theological Inquiry classic content and structure in worship highlights the fact, I believe, that it is precisely here on these crucial matters that diversity abounds in Christian worship. And so, taking White’s notion that different liturgical approaches can be defined by ethos differences and Webber’s distinctions between content and structure, I suggest two initial ways for classifying worship today. One deals with the question of content. Specifically, what is the content of a church’s worship in terms of whose story is told. No one service or Sunday is likely to disclose fully how to classify a congregation. This must be assessed over a longer period of time, evaluating the worship from week to week. In terms of classifying by content, I suggest two categories: personal-story churches and cosmic-story churches. There are churches whose worship over time is most focused on the personal stories of the worshipers and how God interacts with their stories. In contrast there are churches whose worship over time unfolds a more cosmic remembrance of the grand sweep of God’s saving activity. The goal here will be to show how worshipers have a share in salvation history. Personal-story churches and cosmic-story churches can be distinguished by how their worship answers this question: what needs to be remembered corporately in worship? The different answers may not be readily identifiable in a single element in a single congregation. Rather, over time, one must assess how a church selects the Scripture it will read, what the normal purpose of the sermon is, the regular content of prayers and music, the nature of any dramatic presentations, and what special holidays are observed. Evaluate, for example, the content of a church’s worship music. Over time, are the main metaphors and content relational, emphasizing our relationship to a wonderful God? Are there few references to a historical man Jesus or to biblical stories of God acting within human history? In comparison, is the content mainly historical, using this remembrance to make statements about a saving God? One could look at even how the congregation primarily explains the meaning of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Are these about each one’s personal experience of a gracious God who has given us life abundant or are they signs by which, to use the language of the newest United Methodist baptismal service, we are “incorporated into God’s mighty acts of salvation”?168 A few examples may clarify the difference in personal-story and cosmic-story churches. An example of the former is a church that plans its worship on themes of particular interest to the worshipers. This approach usually creates personal-story based worship, particularly if the church is intentional about identifying its participants’ “felt needs.” Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Ohio represents this approach. Worship planning begins with naming a felt need as perceived in the church’s target audience. From that worship planners develop a theme and a metaphor that serves as the root visual image for the service. Everything else is selected on that basis.169 In contrast, the worship of a Methodist church strictly following the Revised Common Lectionary operates on a much different basis. If all the musical texts, prayers, readings, and sermon content were connected to the lectionary texts, the result would be a telling of a very different story than Ginghamburg’s. 168 The United Methodist Book of Worship (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1992), 87. 169Kim Miller et al., Handbook for Multi-Sensory Worship (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999), 9.

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American Theological Inquiry Another way for classifying worship deals with different structures for worship services. When Webber discusses the structure, he usually is advocating a four-fold order rooted in the services of the early church.170 I do not intend such a narrow focus here in using different structures as a key to classifying different kinds of worship. I intend structure in a broader sense to designate the organizing principle in a congregation’s worship. Put more specifically, where is the most time and energy spent within a service and what gets the most prominent space and most expensive furnishings and equipment? When these questions are answered I believe that most North American worship services can fall into one of three categories: music-organized, Word/preaching-organized, or Sacrament-organized (meaning the Lord’s Supper). In other words, one of these usually serves as the dominant aspect of worship around which other things orbit. I also suggest that these three categories—music, Word/preaching, and Sacrament—are not just the main organizing principles in what gets the most time, energy, and dominant position in the order of worship. These three, I believe, also serve as the primary sacramental principles at work in different approaches to North American worship today. In other words, one of these three is usually the normal means by which a congregation assesses God’s presence in worship or believes that God is made present in worship. This assessment or belief does not have to be at the level of formal theology. It can be at the level of popular piety. The point is the same. A congregation will devote time, energy, attention, and money to the worship activity where the people find God present. I am not the first to suggest this three-fold approach to different sacramental principles. Reformed liturgical scholar John Witvliet has suggested a similar thing: Worshipers in nearly every Christian tradition experience some of what happens in worship as divine encounter. Differences in Christian worship arise not so much whether or not God is understood to be present, but rather in what sense. Those who mock supposedly simplistic theories of sacramental realism at the Lord’s Supper wind up preserving sacramental language for preaching or for music. Speaking only somewhat simplistically: the Roman Catholics reserve their sacramental language for the Eucharist, Presbyterians reserve theirs for preaching, and the charismatics save theirs for music. In a recent pastors’ conference, one evangelical pastor solicited applications for a music director/worship leader position by calling for someone who could ‘make God present through music.’ No medieval sacramental theologian could have said it more strongly.” 171 I suggest that Witvliet’s description of different approaches to sacramentality is accurate enough that it can form the basis for a new kind of liturgical taxonomy, although Witvliet an example, see Webber, Signs of Wonder, 37. John D. Witvliet, “At Play in the House of the Lord: Why Worship Matters,” Books & Culture 4, 6 (November/December 1998), 23. For a popular description of the same thing, against which Robert Webber reacted negatively, see Robert Webber, “Reducing God to Music?” Leadership (Spring 1999): 35. 170For 171

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American Theological Inquiry himself does not take it that far. Everyone speaks of encounter with God’s presence in worship. The difference, which can offer categories for a liturgical taxonomy, is how and where they expect to have that encounter in worship.172 Some may be surprised by attaching a notion of God’s presence to music itself although they understanding doing so to the Word of God or the Lord’s Supper. Such a connection to music, however, is quite prevalent in some current approaches to worship. It is the basic premise, for example, in any praise and worship service based upon a typology of the Old Testament temple. In that case, music is the vehicle which moves worshipers into the holy of holies of God’s presence.173 One book based on this approach states the matter bluntly in its title: God’s Presence Through Music.174 Even the very recent sociological study from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research suggests a connection between a stronger sense of the “immediacy of the Holy Spirit” and those churches using newer musical styles and electronic instrumentation.175 These are often the churches having a central role for extended music in their services. The categories in this taxonomy can be overlaid on White’s chart in order to update it. One could place the music-organized, Word/preaching-organized, and Sacrament-organized categories on top of his chart. The result would show tendencies in North American worship today. Traditions on the right-hand side of the chart tend to have worship which is Sacrament-organized. Centrist traditions’ worship tend to be Word/preaching-organized. Left-hand traditions is where one tends to find music-organized services and the emphasis on music-as-sacrament. Such a scheme is too simple, however, in two respects. For a more accurate picture, this kind of taxonomy must take into account the diversity whether within denominations or White’s traditions. Yet even then this classification scheme can be helpful. For one thing, I suggest that churches at either end of an expanded version of White’s chart are more likely to be in line with the tendency for that end of the sacramental-principle spectrum. Thus Pentecostal churches currently are more likely to have music-organized services but not exclusively so. Lutheran and Anglican churches, in contrast, are more likely to have Sacrament-organized services but not exclusively so. This sacramental-principle spectrum can suggest what is likely to be the second most likely kind of service. In other words, a Pentecostal church is more likely to have a Word/preaching-organized service than it is a Sacrament-organized one. Similarly, one is more likely to find a Word/preaching-organized service in a Lutheran or Anglican setting than a music-organized one. An example would be 172 Could the internal fights many congregations have over worship style actually be disputes about different approaches to liturgical sacramentality, not about the styles themselves? 173John D. Witvliet, “The Blessing and Bane of the North American Mega-Church,” Jahrbuch für Liturgik und Hymnologie (1998): 201-2. Witvliet provides an extensive bibliography in note 15 of the same article. 174 Ruth Ann Ashton, God’s Presence Through Music (South Bend, IN: Lesea Publishing Co., 1993). 175 Carl S. Dudley and David A. Roozen, Faith Communities Today: A Report on Religion in the United States Today (Hartford, CT: Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary, March 2001), 12 July 2001 , p. 40.

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American Theological Inquiry an Episcopal church I once attended whose services had no music at all. For White’s centrist traditions, particularly Methodist and Reformed, this sacramental-principle spectrum suggests the true diversity—and fights—which now takes place within these traditions. Within these centrist traditions some forces are pulling churches toward a musicsacramentality while some pull toward a sacramentality finding God’s presence most acutely in the Lord’s Supper. Thus it is currently possible to find services within these centrist traditions anyplace within the spectrum of sacramentalities. In addition, to show the true diversity within Christianity, this scheme must take into account combinations of sacramental principles.176 In other words, there are churches whose services balance a music-organized and Word-organized sacramentalities and churches whose services balance a Word-organized and Sacrament-organized sacramentalities. Less likely are churches who combine music-organized and Sacrament-organized sacramentality. Less likely, too, are churches who combine all three. These combinations suggest a difference meaning for the term “blended worship.” Rather than referring to a blending of music or even worship style, perhaps it is a term better used to describe congregations which sense God’s presence in worship in a variety of means. Finally, I would like to suggest another set of classifying labels for North American worship today that are rooted in White’s assessment of different ethos but are not connected to Webber’s. I believe that one of the aspects White identifies as distinguishing different ethos still serves as a clear and crucial element in classifying worship today. The particular element in question is whether a church in its liturgical planning operates as an independent congregation or starts with the assumption that it will use resources common to its tradition or denomination.177 The first approach I call “congregational” and the second “connectional.” (Non-Methodists must excuse my selecting a term with long roots in my Methodist heritage for the second term.) Of course, there is a third option: churches that are officially connectional but actually operate as autonomous congregations. (I could point to my own my Methodist church.) This classification is a useful one for understanding how it is that single congregations are likely to make worship decisions. I believe, for example, that the literature on liturgical inculturation can be separated along this congregational/connectional divide. There is one set of writings on how we should adapt worship to fit different cultures that presumes a connectional method. In this perspective, the goal is to take a common resource, whether created by the denomination or derived from history, and then adapt is to different cultural groups. Most of the literature from Anglican, and Lutheran sources fits this approach. In contrast, literature on culturally-adapted worship from Church Growth experts, including Easum and Bandy, emphasize the absolute autonomy of local congregations in creating new worship forms. 176 To be truly accurate two other possibilities for different kinds of sacramentality must be included: fellowship-organized and aesthetics-organized. In the former the emphasis is placed on the community by itself as the locus of God’s presence. This is how classic Quaker worship might be identified. In aesthetics-organized sacramentality, the worship environment itself is how the worshipers sense God’s presence. 177 White, Traditions in Transition, 22.

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American Theological Inquiry This classification scheme can line up generally with White’s chart, too. Churches on the left-hand side of his chart will tend to have a congregational liturgical method whereas churches on the right will have a connectional one. As before, the centrist traditions will be split. Individual denominations there might officially be connectional but truly act congregationally. Conclusion And so, back to the original question. How would you classify your church’s worship? Using these new classifying terms I have suggested, does it usually tell a personal-story or a cosmic-story? How do people organize the worship service and assess God’s presence? Is your service music-organized, Word-organized, or Sacrament-organized? How do people expect to encounter God in worship? Is it in the music, in the preaching, or in the Lord’s Supper? And, finally, was your church’s worship planned using a method that is congregational or connectional in its approach? Given the variety of liturgical taxonomies now in use, it is a daunting task to suggest another scheme. Hopefully, the categories given in this new taxonomy can provide some real insight about the substance and diversity of North American worship today.

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American Theological Inquiry

TWIN PARABLES OF STEWARDSHIP IN LUKE 16 J. Lyle Story1 Luke 16 reveals vital concern for responsible stewardship. Two parables (16:1-8, 19-31) are linked with other paragraphs in Luke’s “Travel-Narrative,” which introduce a rich person: •

The Parable of the Rich Fool (12:16-21)—”the land of a rich man brought forth plentifully. . .” (12:16)

•

The Parable of the Dishonest Manager (16:1-9)—”there was a rich man who had a steward. . .” (16:1)

•

The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (16:19)—”Now there was a rich man. . .” (16:19)

•

The Rich Ruler (18:18-39)—”But when he heard this he became sad, for he was very rich.” (18:23)

•

Zacchaeus (19:1-10)—”he was a chief tax-collector, and rich.”

In each instance, wealth poses a problem, expressed in parable or narrative form. The rich fool lived life in a self-sufficient manner without taking God seriously. The desire for wealth led the dishonest manager into his original squandering, compounded by his dishonest treatment of the debtors. The rich man, who lived in luxury, had no regard for the poverty-stricken Lazarus who daily lay in misery at his gateway. The value of the rich ruler’s possessions was greater than his desire to follow Jesus. Zacchaeus’ wealth is introduced prior to his encounter with Jesus, but his “salvation” (19:9-10) issues in his subsequent honest self-reckoning and willingness to reverse any prior dishonesty. Responsible Stewardship in Luke 16 The two parables in Luke 16 need to be understood together. Both story-parables begin with the words, “There was a certain rich man” and relate to the explicit command of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount to, “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matt. 6:20). That command is illustrated positively by the manager (Lk. 16:1-8) and Jesus’ application of the parable (vss. 9-13), negatively by the rich man (Dives) in 16:19-31, who laid up for himself “treasures on earth” (Matt. 6:19). Both parables call for responsible stewardship in the present with a view to an impending future. Moreover, Jesus’ answer to avaricious opponents (16:14-18) serves as the seam which holds together the overall message of the two parables. In the first parable, the dishonest manager prepared, albeit dishonestly, for his future life by his actions toward those who were in debt to his master. By generously reducing the debt 1 J. Lyle Story, PhD, is Professor of Biblical Languages and New Testament in the School of Divinity at Regent University and coauthor of Greek to Me (Longwood, FL: Xulon Press, 2002), as well as The Greek to Me Multimedia Tutorial (CD-ROM) and other teaching aids.

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American Theological Inquiry of each one, he insures a reception into the homes of his master’s debtors after his official discharge. The debtors would have a kindly feeling toward him because of the generosity he had shown to them. He “laid up treasure” for his future life. He acted quickly (v. 6) and shrewdly (v. 8) and from his master he received commendation for his sagacity. In the first parable, there is a crassness and selfishness about the manager’s behavior as he curries the favor (with his master’s money!) of the debtors and thereby provides for his own future wellbeing. As for the second parable, Dives “laid up treasures on earth” (cf. Matt. 6:19). Since he knew Lazarus by name (Luke 16:24) and since Lazarus was lying facing his gateway (16:20), in keeping with the graphic portrayal, we surmise that he had passed by Lazarus more than once. Thus, he could not help but sense something of Lazarus’ miserable and helpless condition. Whether Dives gave the order that some table scraps be taken to Lazarus is not clear. Nor is it clear if, before the scraps arrived, the dogs devoured them as they proceeded to lick the open sores of the leprous one. What is abundantly clear, however, is that Dives lived in luxury and extravagance as though Lazarus had no real claim upon his time and resources and, therefore, the beggar was no object of his concern. Manifestly, there is a stark inhumanity ingrained in Dives’ nature. In his splendid clothing and with his delectable banquets (16:19), Dives lived as one whose “treasure is on earth” and the enjoyment thereof consumed all of his time and energy for as long as he lived in this world. He gave no thought to the future and, accordingly, laid up no treasure for the next world. There is a selfishness and aloofness about Dives, an ability to close his heart completely to one in dire need and an inability to see any life beyond the present. Torment alone was his new experience on the other side. Lazarus was also there on the other side— not to “welcome” him as the debtors would be ready to welcome the dishonest manager (“they will welcome” in 16:9). There is no expression of regret by Dives for his blatant neglect of Lazarus’ need while Lazarus was languishing at his gateway. He simply wants Lazarus to administer momentary relief in his painful need and to minister to the need of his five brothers still living in the world. Unitedly, the parables point the readership to a life on earth of responsible stewardship with material possessions and—preeminently—to stewardship on behalf of fellow humans who are in desperate need of tender and compassionate care. The Parable of the Dishonest Manager: Luke 16:1-13 Introduction There is a change in audience from the Pharisees and Scribes (15:1-2) to the disciples (16:1) and then, to the Pharisees, characterized as “lovers of money” who hear “these things” (16:14). In essence, the parable is a summons to resolute action in crisis—to deal with the crisis wisely and to stake all on the future. Specifically, there is a particular directive to use money in a proper way in the present age, so as to ensure a “Well done” in the final age. While wealth endangers people often leading them astray, disciples should make use of (be friends with) the mammon of unrighteousness that others might receive them into eternal dwellings. - 106 -

American Theological Inquiry Interpretation Introduction to the parable (v. 1a). The immediate audience of the parable is the disciples, a different audience than the religious critics of 15:1. Parable: problem of the dishonest manager (vss. 1b-2). The reader is introduced to two actors, the rich man and the manager, seen through a clear chain of events: Report about manager

the

Reckoning time for the manager

Loss of the manager’s job

1 There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property.

2 So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management.

because you cannot be my manager any longer.’

The “manager” is a house steward in a privileged position, manages his master’s property and estate,2 possibly as a treasurer.3 Usually born as a slave,4 the manager possessed great economic freedom and responsibility with which he could realize personal benefit through loans with extravagant interest.5 A second person brings charges6 to the rich man about the steward’s squandering of the master’s property, a report which the master apparently believes. This charge7 leads to an official summons of the manager for a reckoning. The rich man demands that the steward produce proof that would refute the accusation. The rich man’s anger is expressed in two crisp expressions: “What is this that I hear about you?” and “Give me an accounting8 of your management.” The result of the reckoning is clear—it will lead to the manager’s loss of his job, “because you cannot be my manager any longer.” 2 BAGD, p. 562. The opposite portrait of a “faithful” (pi/stoj) or “wise” (fro/nimoj) manager is portrayed elsewhere in the NT: Luke 12:42 And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and prudent manager whom his master will put in charge of his slaves, to give them their allowance of food at the proper time? 1 Cor. 4:2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. 3 MM 1977, 442-43. 4 We might expect that the man is not a slave, but an employee—he is not afraid of being punished. See Wilhelm Michaelis, Die Gleichnisse Jesu, (Hamburg: Furche-Verlag, 1956), pp. 14-15. 5 Some interpreters have tried to justify the integrity of the manager by pointing to the command against usury in the OT (Ex. 22:25; Lev. 25:36; Deut. 15:8; 23:19). Simon J. Kistemaker, The Parables of Jesus, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980), p. 228ff. However, the text of the parable does not lead us in this direction. 6 diaba/llw—”to bring charges with hostile intent, either falsely and slanderously.” BAGD, p. 180. 7 A true charge in the light of the property which has been squandered. 8 The term lo/goj, here means computation, reckoning, account, and is used with the verb a)podi/dwmi—to mean give account, make a reckoning. BAGD, p. 479.

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American Theological Inquiry Envisioned solutions to the manager’s problem (vss. 3-4). The manager engages in a monologue, “What shall I do?”9 In view of his ability to speak and act before the final reckoning, there is a period of grace. At the same time, the outcome of the reckoning is clear to him. Even though there is some leeway, his actions are governed by a sense of urgency (v. 6).10 His pink slip is a reality—he is going to lose his job: What will I do? now that my master is taking the position away from me? At this point he is aware of a looming crisis, but before the ax falls, the manager thinks with prudence and self-interest and plans a further sly use of his master’s financial resources. “The verb, is taking the position away signifies the process of dismissal, which will not be completed until the steward has had time to set down his accounts.”11 The next part of his monologue is concerned with two possible ways to make a living. Each possibility is raised, and then dismissed as impractical for him: I am not strong enough to dig, and I am too ashamed to beg. He will not easily be able to find another posh job as a manager—his references will not “check out.” Due to his sedentary job, he has not acquired the strength to dig12 and he is too ashamed to beg. At least the rogue is honest about his desire for a life of ease. It is clear that there is no future for him unless he does something radical. After the two possibilities are raised and dismissed, a new thought strikes13 the manager: 4 I know [it just now hit me] what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. He faces a real crisis in terms of future employment and survival. But he has a plan—an idea that will provide for his physical needs—at least for a period of time while he looks for ti/ poih/sw, a deliberative subjunctive. See v. 6, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, 11 I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1979), p. 618. 12 The vocation had become proverbial for strenuous activity, BAGD, p. 761, “Digging is the hardest kind of work the uneducated man must engage in.” 13 Moule notes that an instantaneous action is over before it can be commented on, and that a Greek punctiliar has to be translated on occasion by an English simple present, so the meaning is ‘I know what I will do’, more exactly, ‘I found out (a moment ago) what I will do.’” C.F.D. Moule, An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek, (Cambridge: University Press, 1953), pp. 7, 11. A. T. Robertson, p. 893. 9

10

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American Theological Inquiry employment. The subject of the verb, they may receive anticipates his master’s debtors.14 The readers are not told whether he was welcomed after his dismissal. But it is ironical that the manager, about to lose his job because of his incompetence (low profits for the master), plots a course of further planned incompetence, “by means of the very reason (low profits) that had created it in the first place.”15 Actual solution of the manager’s problem (vss. 5-7). The plan (v. 4) is now made clear through a brief description of the manager’s actions. The summoning of the debtors and their reckoning presuppose that some time elapses between the rich man’s summons of the manager and the final reckoning. While the general invitation to the debtors may have been more extensive (one by one), attention is devoted to two debtors only and the reduction of their debts: Debtor 1

Debtor 2

he asked the first,

7 Then he asked another,

Original Debt—’How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil’.16

Original Debt—’And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’17

New Debt—He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’

New Debt—He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’

“Thus we see an internally connected movement from threatening crisis, through decisive response, to an improved situation. The image of man is that of a being who is capable of recognizing that he is in a crisis and of laying hold on the situation in such a way as to overcome the threat.”18 He believes that his new “debtor-friends” will be honor bound 14 “Extortion ‘squeeze’ is the key-word all over the East . . . If the tenants wanted to keep alive and prevent their families from starving, nothing was left but to accept the conditions and shoulder the extravagant extortion. Therefore, when asked how much they owed their master, they sullenly quoted the amount which by force of circumstances they had written down on their bonds...These bonds were the dreaded instruments of oppression. Great must have been their surprise, when, as the parable goes, the steward invited his tenants to write out new documents with a substantially lesser amount to pay.” Paul Gächter, “The Parable of the Dishonest Steward”, CBQ, vol. 12 (1950), pp. 127-129. 15 John Dominic Crossan, In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus, (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), p. 110. 16 The amount is at least 900 gal. of olive oil., which is roughly the yield of 146 olive-trees. The size of the measure (ba/toj) is close to 8.6 gallons. Marshall, p. 618. The reduction of 50% is about 450 gallons—or an equivalent to 500 denarii. Jeremias, p. 619. 17 The debt is the rough equivalent of 1100 bushels of wheat, the yield of at least 100 acres of wheat. The term container/measure (ko/roj) is a dry measure and was sold for ca. 25-30 denarii per cor, giving a total price of 2500 denarii. The reduction of 20% is roughly equivalent to 500 denarii. 18 Dan Otto Via, The Parables: Their Literary and Existential Dimension, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), p. 158.

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American Theological Inquiry to welcome their newfound “benefactor” into their homes when he is dismissed from his managerial position. Through his shrewdness he has provided for his well-being at his master’s expense. Tribute to the manager by his master (v. 8a). The dishonest manager is commended, not condemned. The crisis that occurred through dishonesty is “overcome by more questionable behavior.”19 Substantiation for the commendation is given in the clause introduced by a conjunction “because he had acted shrewdly.” The idea of undivided service to a master is carried over from the parable and sayings. Matt. 6:24 and Lk. 16:13 presuppose the possibility of a slave having two owners with equal shares to him and therefore with equal claims to his services . . . Jesus is attacking the man who suffers from the illusion that he can do what is implied by the infinitive “to serve” without concentrating all his powers on rendering service in the sense of an exclusive commitment and obligation.”20 The saying is both a warning against unfaithfulness in Christian commitment and a warning against enslavement by wealth. The Seam—The Teaching Paragraph (16:14-18) •

The theme of stewardship advances into the interchange between Jesus and his opponents, the Pharisees, characterized as “lovers of money,” who “sneered” (v. 14, “to turn up the nose to someone”)21 at Jesus for his teaching on responsible stewardship. Jesus enjoined his disciples to make friends for themselves by using the world’s medium of exchange discreetly, to build a solid and eternal future, where they will be welcomed (16:9) into eternal tents.22 Their wealth is not to be “lord,” but to be placed on the altar of service of the one Lord (Jesus) through its use in the lives of others, thereby producing an eternal reward. But his opponents have “sold out” to the love of money, i.e., avarice, and look only to what money can provide in the present age. Jesus knows that their possession of wealth easily becomes “lord” in their lives. He had just instructed his disciples that wrong attitudes towards wealth will thereby make ineffective any service that is rendered to the Lord Jesus (16:13). His opponents’ hostility and sarcasm reveals the truth of Jesus’ prior statement that the love of wealth will issue in hatred for God (v. 13), amply expressed in their contemptuous23 response to Him as the revealer of God. Their retort reveals that their master to whom they give devotion, is wealth of a temporal sort—with no eternal reward in view. Jesus attacks the illusion that one can give exclusive devotion to two masters. The following parable demonstrates how wealth exercises such complete mastery over Dives.

Ibid., 158. Rengstorf, “dou=loj”, TDNT, v. II, pp. 270-271. 21 The verb e0kmukthri/zw means lit. to “turn up the nose” to someone. BAGD, p. 242. 22 The word “tents” skhnai/v (v. 9) may suggest the patriarchal history of Abraham when at the door of his tent (skhnhv in the LXX of Gen. 18:1), he welcomed the disguised angelic messengers (cf. Lk. 16:22—Lazarus received into Abraham’s bosom). 23 The verb katafrone/w, “look down upon, despise, scorn, treat with contempt”, BAGD, p. 421 is well expressed by their sneering response. 19 20

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American Theological Inquiry • The hostile interchange between Jesus and his opponents also reveals the related issue of pride and prepares for the second parable. That is to say, the love of money and pride fit hand in glove. Through his words, “You are those who justify yourselves before men” (v. 15), Jesus exposes how his opponents think that temporal wealth is a sign of special favor and self-importance.24 The same two issues (love of money and pride) lie at the root of Dives’ extravagant lifestyle. • Stewardship also means to recognize the one to whom Christians belong—the true Lord. The thoughts, intents and priorities that govern behavior are known by Him, “God knows your hearts” (v. 15). What is treasured by people may be an abomination to God. • Honorable stewardship is also related to the law and the prophets and the fruition and fulfillment of both in the new economy of the Kingdom of God. The strength of the claim, “everyone is striving to enter [the Kingdom of God]”—16:16, may rest on the affirmation in the larger context (15:1—”all the tax-collectors and sinners”). The fulfillment of each part of the law is assured (16:17), finding fruition in the good news of the Kingdom of God to which everyone is “urgently invited,”25 but it is accompanied by the higher law of Jesus (16:18). The reference to “the law and the prophets” anticipates the same authoritative claim of the OT that appears in the following Parable of Dives and Lazarus (vss. 30-31). The aggressive response of “all” who are urgently invited into the Kingdom of God, witnessed by the law and the prophets, is countered by the insensitivity of the six brothers to the ongoing witness of Moses and the prophets. Either the divorce-remarriage text is a dislocated text or it provides one specific example of commitment to the Law’s ongoing validity. Application The parable teaches one central truth. It is not an elaborate allegory in which each person, attitude, word and action represents a hidden code. Nor does the parable provide an exemplary or normative pattern as found, for example, in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The major thrust of the parable lies in the praise of the manager’s shrewd use of money in the face of an impending crisis.26 Thus, the manager develops a plan, knowing that soon he would be destitute and friendless. He uses his power with money to make some friends and collect some favors, presuming that those favors could be “cashed in” when his dismissal took effect. The adjective, shrewd, implies keen, astute, artful action and innovation, which is expressed in creative strategizing; it may well include the energetic planning with respect to one’s physical resources. The parable speaks of intensity, creativity, innovation, and limitless commitment—and by virtue of its broader literary context, it certainly speaks of the wise and prudent use of finances. 24 Jesus says that this human pride is an abomination, i.e., idolatry in God’s sight. See T. W. Manson, The Mission and Message of Jesus, p. 587. 25 The translation “invited urgently,” understands bia/zetai as passive. The lexicon, BAGD, p. 140b, cites its passive use in the LXX of Gen. 33:11 and Judg. 13:14—”the genteel constraint imposed on a reluctant guest.” 26 This approach combines the two main lines of interpretation. See Craig Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables, (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1990), p. 246.

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American Theological Inquiry The words more than in v. 8 are especially important. Since the people of this age are resourceful and creative with respect to money, then how much more should the people of God, who belong to the Lord Jesus, be committed and resourceful, including in their financial dealings? Jesus asks the pointed question, “Why is it that the worldly people plan, manipulate and strategize with respect to money, yet you hardly pay attention to the crisis that you are in—and fail to show a plan or purpose, and act creatively with your life and resources?” Jesus admires a clear-sighted shrewdness which senses a crisis and effectively deals with it. The manager was about to lose his job, the books were about to be opened up, and the verdict was clear—guilty. Jesus desires that his people come to grips with their crisis. Where will people spend eternity? How faithful are they with respect to the wise and prudent use of our physical resources? Although Jesus is not opposed to money, he is aware of its power to displace God and his claim upon human life. That is why He insists that money is to be used as a utility in making friends with God and others. When a client goes to a bank for a loan to finance a car, make some home improvements, even purchase a new home, the loan officer will a perform a search in terms of her background. He will want to know how faithful she has been in terms of previous loans. Has she been regular with car payments over a three year period? He will want to know if she is a good risk and if there will be a return on the bank’s investment. Jesus puts it bluntly that if you have not been faithful in the use of what is another’s, who will give you what is your own? Jesus wishes to project his people into a position wherein they can see God’s oversight over their lives with his resources of spiritual and material blessings. He wills that his people become adequately prepared for greater blessings and responsibilities to be used for God’s glory. In the 21st Century, the need for social justice reflects itself in the high proportion of people living in poverty in the U.S. and the broader global community that is rich and prosperous. Although the poor in America live better than the global poor, manifestations of abject poverty call Christian commitment into question of the need to help the poor in our midst (both locally and globally). The existence of widespread, abject poverty in the world’s poorest nations must also be met with practical help to relieve suffering and to empower the poor to help themselves. The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus: Luke16:19-31 Introduction The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is the only parable that contains a proper name, “Lazarus”; the traditional name “Dives” is the Latin word meaning “rich.” There is no moral or religious component to the story of Dives and Lazarus—at least in the earthly scene. 27 27 Mention should be made of an older form of the story in the Palestinian Talmud (Hagigah, II, 77d). T.W. Manson, H.D.A. Major, C.J. Wright, The Mission and Message of Jesus (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1938), p. 589. See also Ruth Rabbah 3:3 and Ecclesiastes Rabbah 1:15:1. Harvey

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American Theological Inquiry The parable is a story of contrast. It begins with the contrast between rich and poor, fine linen and skin ulcers, sumptuous feasting and longing for scraps. The story continues with contrasts between earthly and heavenly spheres, between torment and bliss. The conclusion holds still a final contrast. The hope of Dives that his brothers will repent if Lazarus goes to them from the dead appears in contrast to the stark words of Abraham, “they [your brothers] will not even be persuaded [i.e., repent] if someone should rise from the dead” (16:31). With its eye on the future, the parable warns people about the perils of wealth, selfsatisfaction, skepticism and unbelief, blind to divine revelation which so easily controls the rich. They must know that a future reckoning is yet to be faced, issuing in bliss or torment. Great surprises lie in store for both the rich and the poor. The second parable clearly contrasts with the Parable of the Dishonest Manager in that Dives laid up “treasure on earth” (Matt. 6:10) with no provision for the future to be welcomed by others into eternal “tents” (16:4, 9). The proud, greedy and sneering Pharisees (vss. 14ff.) are depicted in the parable by Dives, a rich man who has no name. He stored up treasures on earth which remain—on earth. Similarly, the authoritative witness of the law and prophets (Lk. 16:16-18) fails to convince Dives or his five brothers (vss. 29-31). Interpretation Act I: Earthly Earthly condition of the rich man (v. 19). The parable briefly summarizes the earthly stations of the rich man (v. 19) and Lazarus (vss. 20-21), and brings the men together in their earthly lives, i.e., Lazarus, a poor beggar lies at the gate of the rich man’s house. The parable begins with brief summary statements of the earthly condition of the rich man told in three crisp clauses: 1) he was rich; 2) he would dress in purple and fine linen; 3) he would live in luxury every day.28 The first statement affirms the wealth of the man;29 he does not need to work for a living. The second statement narrates his usual30 clothing, purple and fine linen, clothing for prominent people, “arrayed in a costly mantle of purple wool with underwear of fine K. McArthur & Robert M. Johnson, They Also Taught in Parables, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1990), p. 195. The Egyptian demotic literature offers a story in which we clearly see a reversal in the next life, e.g., “Setne Khamwas and Si-Osire (Setne II)” Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), p. 139. Meyer says, “The reason why Lk. 16:22f. had this influence in Egypt is coolness. Fresh water is available for Lazarus, v. 24. The rich man, however, languishes in the heat of Hades.” Rudolf Meyer, “ko/lpoj”, TDNT, vol. III, p. 826. 28 The verbal forms are customary, depicting what he habitually did, strengthened by the expression, “daily” (kaq’ h(me/ran). 29 BAGD, p. 679 30 Use of the customary imperfect, “would dress himself with” (e)nedidu/sketo)

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American Theological Inquiry Egyptian linen.”31 The last clause notes his luxurious living every day, i.e., “he fared sumptuously every day,”32 which is linked to the participle “being glad, enjoying oneself, rejoicing,” and is used elsewhere in Luke to refer to the physical satisfaction of eating. His feasts were not reserved for special occasions, but were enjoyed on a daily basis. The verb “be glad, enjoy oneself” is used of the rich fool in 12:19, “eat drink, be merry,” in the celebration of the father’s household upon the return of the lost son, “let us make merry” (15:23), and the sour demeanor of the older son “you never gave me . . . in order that I might make merry” (15:29). Earthly condition of Lazarus the poor man (vss. 20-21). By way of contrast, Lazarus is introduced as “the poor man.” (ptwxo/j). The name “Lazarus,” a Jewish name (“God helps”), is an abbreviation of “Eleazer.” He is a beggar, a cripple, who lay33 at the rich man’s gate and is covered with ulcerous sores. The rich man’s luxurious clothing is clearly contrasted with the poor man’s covering—ulcers on his skin. His food is meager in that he wishes34 to be fed with scraps that fell off the rich man’s table.35 But, in place of food, the dogs come and lick the ulcers on his skin.36 The dogs are the street dogs which “cannot refrain from nosing the helpless, scantily-clad cripple.”37 Maybe his body is too weak to drive the dogs away. His pitiful condition is reinforced by the painful reality that the dogs were able to eat the table scraps while Lazarus only received their licking on his sores. The mention of the “gate” indicates a palatial residence and there, Lazarus is open to view—an opportunity for Dives to minister to the leprous man. He could not pass out of his house without seeing him. The stark scene cannot be overlooked for misery presents itself to Dives at his gate every day. “Lazarus represents opportunity for the exercise of humanity.”38 Lazarus is an individual in the story but is also indicative of a class of people that fill the world and daily come into contact with the rich. Like the priest and Levite, Dives passes by on the other side (Lk. 10:31-32). As we learn from the other-worldly scene, there is no indication that Dives was unaware of Lazarus’ condition, lying at his gate. Act II: Other Worldly Death and afterlife-position of Lazarus (v. 22a). The poor man’s death is simply recorded with no mention made of a funeral or burial and is followed by a brief statement about

31

Jeremias, p. 183. This clothing was regard by the Rabbis as luxurious. Encyclopedia Biblica, col.

2800.

BAGD, p. 467 on the adverb, “splendidly” (lamprw=j). The verb ba/llw is often used with someone on a sickbed, e.g., Matt. 8:6. 34 The same verb, e0piqumei=n is used of the prodigal son’s unfulfilled desire for the swine’s food (15:16). 35 Jeremias draws attention to cultural practice with respect to the fragments—especially true with respect to a rich man: “One should not bite a piece of bread (which has been dipped in the dish) and then dip it in again, on account of danger to life.” (from infectious disease) Tosephta Berakoth 5.8. 36 Again, the verbal forms are customary—habitual. 37 Jeremias, p. 184. 38 A.B. Bruce, The Parabolic Teaching of Christ, (Minneapolis: Klock & Klock Christian Publishers, 1980 reprint), p. 385. 32 33

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American Theological Inquiry where he was carried—in the bosom of Abraham. He has a benefactor who welcomes him (16:4, 9), the great patriarch Abraham. During a middle-eastern meal, as the guests recline, the place of honor is at the right, where the guest reclines “on the chest of” the host. The readers are intended to supply the participle “reclining” to the text. Thus, the phrase would be understood, “reclining in Abraham’s bosom in the place of honor at the banquet in the next world.”39 He is carried off and accompanied by the angels to this place of honor or intimate fellowship.40 What a reversal for him—from being a hungry and ulcerous beggar, to be the honored guest at Abraham’s banquet! For reasons unknown to us, Lazarus’ miserable lot in life is transformed into endless bliss with the patriarch Abraham. Death and afterlife position of the rich man (vss. 22b-23). The rich man also dies and is buried. We read of no happy entourage to Abraham’s bosom but the simple fact of his death (v. 22b) and then of the place (v. 23a) which comes as no surprise. There is no one who is ready to welcome him. The one who has loved himself only is in hell. The place is Hades, the place of the dead, in the depths, in sharp contrast with heaven.41 Generally, within Judaism, Hades is the intermediate state, the shadowy underworld, which does not seem to have the finality of Gehenna that we find developed in the intertestamental period. Hades is regarded as a kind of trash-heap for worn-out and tired human beings. However, in this story-parable, Hades is a place of torment or torture (vss. 23, 28). Thus, there is a somber contrast from the general stereotype of Jewish (esp. Sadducean) belief about Hades—it means “torment.” Later in the parable, the rich man wants to keep his five brothers from this awful place (v. 28). The rich man discovers—albeit too late, that there is something horrible about Hades. Although the place is far removed from Abraham and Lazarus (“from afar”), he nonetheless is able to see Abraham with Lazarus in the position of honor at the banquet. It appears that this is the first time that he had really seen Lazarus. Personal plea (v. 24). The rich man calls to father Abraham and cries out for mercy. He appeals to his Jewish ancestry; somehow he knows enough to recognize that he cannot move from Hades to the place where Lazarus is—with Abraham. But he requests that Lazarus be sent to him as his servant for the temporary relief of his torment (“tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue”). Clearly, there is an implicit contrast between Lazarus’ desire for a scrap from the rich man’s table (earthly), and Dives’ request to Abraham for a drop of water—from Lazarus (heavenly). How he recognizes Abraham—even Lazarus—this no39 BAGD, p. 443. In the fourth Gospel, just as the utterly unique One is in the bosom of the Father who is in a position to reveal the Father (John 1:18), so the Evangelist is the one who is in the bosom of Jesus (13:23), who is in the position to make Jesus known. See Rudolf Meyer, “ko/lpoj”, TDNT, III, (Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1972), p. 825. 40The Testaments of the XII Patriarchs (Asher 6:4-6) conveys the idea that the souls of the righteous are conducted by the angels: “For the latter ends of men do show their righteousness (or unrighteousness) when they meet the angels of the Lord and of Satan. For when the soul departs troubled, it is tormented by the evil spirit, which also it served in lusts and evil works. But if he is peaceful with joy he meeteth the angel of peace, and he leads him into eternal life.” 41 BAGD, p. 16.

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American Theological Inquiry named figure that had begged at his gate, is not told. His pain is reiterated, “I am in anguish in this flame.”42 Originally, the parable may have been directed against the Sadducees, who did not believe in anything more than a shadowy underworld called Hades without real existence. The parable, by way of contrast, discloses to his horror that this underworld is no shadowy extinction, but a frightful existence characterized by anguish. Reason for refusal: reversal of condition (v. 25). The divine refusal, expressed through Abraham, summons the rich man to remember the way it was in earthly-life, which is now dramatically reversed in the afterlife. Earthly-life

Afterlife

Rich man

A remember that you in your lifetime received your good things,

B but now he is comforted here,

Lazarus

B’ and Lazarus in like manner received evil things;

A’ and you are in anguish.

Abraham’s response, expressed in chiastic form, brings the reversal before the rich man’s eyes. The first explanation of the condition in the afterlife is that the respective conditions of both persons have dramatically altered—as if to say, “It’s only fair!” Lazarus’ poverty, sickness and hunger have now been replaced by honor and comfort; the rich man’s luxurious life-style has now given way to isolation and anguish. At first glance, Abraham’s word might suggest a mechanized reversal between the experience of a person on earth with the opposite experience in the afterlife. However, the text points the reader to sense the contrast between the time of decision in the earthly sphere and the time when no decision can be made—in the afterlife. The veil is drawn back and the readers view in plain sight the firm and immutable destinies of Lazarus and Dives. The one who held no regard for Lazarus on earth can have no bona fide affiliation with him in the next world. The contrasting after-lives of the two men are not due to ignorance. As the story develops, we see qualities of the rich such as pride, impiety, lovelessness, hardness, etc. Conversely, those who are physically poor often develop qualities of humility, compassion, and dependence upon God—they have no other recourse. It does not appear that the rich man is condemned simply for his wealth, but because he had not seized the opportunity to help the beggar at his gate. Lazarus was daily at his gate, but the rich man evidently believed that there was only one life to live and spent everything in the pursuit of his own satisfaction.

42 u(pa/rxwn e)n basa/noij—v. 23, o)dunw=mai e)n th=| flogi\ v. 25, to\n to/pon tou=ton th=j basa/nou—v. 28 Enoch 8-10 speaks about the springs of water as part of Paradise’s landscape while the terrible place is filled with “all manner of tortures in that place: cruel darkness and unillumined gloom, and there is no light there, but murky fire constantly flameth aloft...”

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American Theological Inquiry Reason for refusal: impassable chasm (v. 26). Lazarus will not move with mercy and relief to the rich man for he cannot. Even if it were right for Lazarus to extend momentary relief, he cannot by virtue of a chasm which is impassable, fixed and unbridgeable;43 the phrase “expresses the irrevocability of God’s judgment.”44 In brief, neither person can go to the other’s place. Plea for brothers (vss. 27-28). Abraham’s verdict is accepted in terms of the rich man’s own person, i.e., Lazarus will not and cannot move to relieve the agony of Dives. At this point, the story-parable introduces a feature distinct from the traditional story about fortunereversal in the afterlife. His thought turns to his five brothers who will find themselves in the same horror of torment. What would Lazarus tell them? Perhaps the rich man believes that Lazarus can convince them of life after the grave with a fearful retribution. He hopes that in some way Lazarus can visit them (reincarnated, visionary?) and then witness to them (v. 28), so effectively that they can be spared the same torture. Perhaps they will make the necessary changes and live their lives in the light of the future. From a positive standpoint, at least the rich man’s plea moves from himself to others, his own family members. Reason for refusal (v. 29). The reason for refusing the request for a revived Lazarus is that the brothers do not really need another witness since they already have Moses and the prophets, i.e., the witness of the Old Testament. The imperative is clear, “Let them hear them,” while the outcome of the imperative is likewise clear—the five brothers will not hear the witness of the OT for they are already deaf to its message. Dives, also a Jewish man, has been surprised at the turn of events. Evidently, he and his five brothers had lived as if the grave were the end of all things. Paradoxically, while the Scriptures, which they possess are the only authority they recognize, yet these very Scriptures point to a life beyond the grave. Further plea (v. 30). Although the reason is adequate, it is not enough for the rich man for now his plea is more explicit, “if the brothers will see a man brought back from the dead, who goes to them, then surely they will repent.” This is the first time in the parable where there is some type of attitude or action which the rich man should have expressed, which would have led to a different fate. Repentance would avert the disastrous fate and subsequent torture. He hopes for a different fate for his brothers than what he was experiencing. Dives’ use of the word “repentance” with reference to his brothers is curious. The word appears to be a mockery on his lips since repentance means turning to God “while practicing deeds worthy of repentance,” i.e., to the neighbor (Acts 26:20). Dives’ use of the term “repentance” indicates that he knows the word, though it has no place in his life. Moreover, the rich man disagrees with Abraham that the witness of the Old Testament is sufficient for them. Dives pleads that they need a special miracle to bring about a change. Evidently the brothers are pursuing the same course of wealth and power as Dives had done. Restatement of reason for refusal (v. 31). The language of the last verdict is resolute, expressed in a major-minor form of argument; the negative appraisal is certain; nothing will 43 The perfect participle, “fixed” (e)sth/riktai) suggests that the result of the “fixing” stands, i.e., the chasm remains immutable and impassable. 44 Jeremias, p. 186.

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American Theological Inquiry persuade them. The witness of the OT is more powerful than an awesome display of power in a revived Lazarus. Major If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets (which they do not)

Minor

⇒

neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead

The record of the OT—Moses and the prophets—is always available. If they continue to turn a deaf ear to that record they will likewise close themselves to any further revelation. In the parable, there is a clear link forged between “hearing” (v. 29), “repenting” (v. 30), and “being persuaded” (v. 31)—all of which express the same openness to the Word of God. Reading “through the lines” of the parable’s structure, it is clear that another audience surfaces late in the story—the brothers who have the problem of unbelief. Jeremias finds the counterpart of these six brothers “in the men of the Flood generation, living a careless life, heedless of the rumble of the approaching flood (Matt. 24:37-39 par.).”45 They have not listened to the voice of Scripture, the ongoing witness of God. Those who fail to respond to the witness of the Old Testament will not be converted by a miracle of a magnitude such as the raising of a brother from the dead.46 Indeed, in the fourth Gospel, the raising of Lazarus from the dead (Jn. 11) becomes the very instrument for sealing Jesus’ own death sentence (Jn. 12:9). And his critics want to put Lazarus to death—who had just been raised from the dead! “The demand for a sign is an evasion and a sign of impenitence. Hence the sentence is pronounced: ‘God will never give a sign to this generation’ (Mk. 8:12).”47 The parable affirms the reality of a future life and shows the hearts of Sadducees to be unresponsive since they disavow an indisputable future with its rewards and punishments. Application The over-all message of Luke 16 speaks of what responsible stewardship means. The rogue of the first parable underscores positive stewardship, “treasure in heaven,” while the nameless Dives exemplifies negative stewardship, “treasure on earth.” The story-parable of Dives and Lazarus challenges a popular assumption (then and now) that material “blessings” are a sign of divine favor reserved for special people. It is easy to assume that God smiles favorably upon people who “have it made,” live in comfortable homes, eat lavishly, drive luxurious cars, expect an abundant and regular income, and who have amassed a sizable “nest-egg” stored up for retirement. Indeed, some of the promises in Scripture seem to make such an equation (e.g., Deut. 27-28). The argument is subtle and often convincing that God would not pour out such blessings upon one whose life is corrupt.

Jeremias, p. 186. Similarly, the appearance of Samuel through the Witch of Endor did not compel repentance (I Sam. 28:7-25) 47 Jeremias, p. 186. 45 46

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American Theological Inquiry Yet, Jesus tells this story in the context of strong denunciations of the wealthy (“lovers of money” v. 14) and religiously proud (“those who justify themselves before men” v. 15). He is well aware that his opponents allowed their love of money, pride, and position to control their lives. They simply were not using their wealth or position to serve others. Since God knows their hearts, Jesus speaks even more pointedly that what they prized (wealth and position) was loathsome and repugnant to God (v. 15)—certainly no sign of divine favor. The story reveals a surprising reversal of positions in life when this world gives way to the other world. While Jesus does not intend to satisfy curiosity with details of the afterlife, he nonetheless paints a canvas. A great chasm separates a life of bliss, honor, and fellowship with Israel’s saints from a life of torment. The images are similar to other passages in which Jesus speaks of “many who will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness; there men will weep and grind their teeth” (Matt. 8:11-12). The parable does not say that all the wealthy will experience torment in the afterlife, while all the poor will experience bliss. Rather, the parable probes the attitudes of the human heart, found in both rich and poor. In the case of Dives, there is an attitude and behavior that expresses extravagance, unbelief, skepticism, and a callous indifference to human need and misery at his doorstep, indeed, a mercy-less living. Lazarus is a beggar, hungry, diseased, weak, living for scraps—living with no apparent sign of divine favor. Yet, this man experiences manifest favor and honor with God in the afterlife. The rich man served riches and was given the reward of self-serving wealth—torment. Lazarus received the promise of God for joyous fellowship with Him and others. The parable indicts the other brothers who are living the same mercy-less, skeptical, and unbelieving existence as their rich brother. The surprising message is voiced, “they will not move from their skepticism and unbelief even if they see Lazarus brought back from the dead.” A miracle of this proportion will avail nothing, since they are unresponsive to the call of Moses and the prophets (v. 31). Faith will never arise from compelling miracles or material signs of apparent “blessings” of God if the heart is indifferent to the divine revelation that has already been bestowed. True disciples do not look for spectacular “signs,” such as physical wealth and comfort. Such “signs” are due to divine grace and God’s people can take no credit for them. The people of God are to appreciate what God has already given in the wonder of divine revelation, whether they are rich or poor. The divine purpose is already at work, which will be manifest in the afterlife. Jesus pleads for a genuine assessment of true wealth, which leads to expressions of trust, thankfulness, and dependence. The people of God are to look beyond the confusing perplexities of pain and hardship—aware of the love of God that will create wonderful surprises of an eternal sort. Those entrusted with wealth must demonstrate practical stewardship in using their means to see the poor and move in compassion to alleviate pain and hardship. Those caught in cycles of poverty, addiction, and suffering must similarly trust God to work out his purpose with the firm assurance of a glorious future yet in store.

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American Theological Inquiry In our day, as well as in Jesus’ day, it is very difficult for people to reflect upon and accept the Christian message when their primary concern is physical survival; Jesus expresses the gospel in a holistic manner. In our culture, such needs are well reflected in issues related to the needs of the poor for housing, food, clothing, and a much-needed job for people to empower themselves. When people vocalize the unconscionable words, go in peace, be warmed, be filled (James 1:16) or ‘go get a job,’ when it is clearly within their power to meet their physical needs—their words do nothing but mock the impoverished. What can their glib and thoughtless sayings do but reinforce the community’s social stratification? Treasure laid up in heaven may appear as an imperative to the Church of economic responsibility that is moved with compassion and courage to provide for the legitimate needs of the impoverished, through its witness through words and compassionate activity for those in the local and global community. GREEK TO ME: MULTIMEDIA TUTORIAL FOR BIBLICAL GREEK 3.2 Lyle J. Story. CD-ROM $40.00 http://www.greektome.biz/purchase.asp The Greek to Me Multimedia Tutorial builds upon the text Greek to Me and introduces an innovative method to learn Koine Greek faster, easier and more efficiently than conventional methods, such as the “painful” and ineffective images (mnemonic aids) to help students learn grammatical concepts and principles, vocabulary words and rules, thereby removing most of the tedious and ineffective rote-memorization associated with the learning of biblical Greek. Throughout the tutorial students find substitute words to aid in the mastery of the entire Greek grammar (including 600 vocabulary words-words that occur 25 times or more in the Greek NT). The practices and assignments use each word at least 5 times. Not only are individual words and endings learned by substitute words and linkingbut the entire grammar incorporates the time-tested memory techniques. Virtually every new concept (case, tense, participles, etc.) has its own mnemonic device. Example: An example of one vocabulary word may help illustrate the approach: Observe the Greek vocabulary word, pronounced e-gei-row, and it means “I raise up.” A young would-be Robin Hood says, “I raise up an egg-arrow” (“I raise up”).

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American Theological Inquiry

DEATH, KILLING AND PERSONAL IDENTITY Todd S. Bindig1 It is an extremely commonly held intuition that death is a “bad” thing—something to be generally avoided. Most also hold that death is a particular “harm” for the one who dies. In addition to this, most hold that because of the harm of death, killing is a serious moral wrong. The connection between the badness of death and the wrongness of killing seems to be generally in accord with our strongest held intuitions. Many, such as McMahan2 and Bradley3, have argued that the argumentative force required to defeat this basic intuition would need to be considerable, and it is likely that its defeat is impossible. However, if a general Materialist approach to personal identity is true, it is extremely hard to explain why death can be wholly bad and thus why killing is wrong or why it generally makes good sense to avoid death. Epicurus famously argued that death is not, in fact, bad for the one who dies4 and yet it seems clear that an Epicurean would not abandon the intuition that killing is generally wrong. Most Materialists who attempt to salvage common-sense intuitions about death do so by comparing two lives—the actual life led with the life that would have been led had the individual not died. However, this is not actually an answer to the Epicurean challenge of comparing being dead with being alive, but rather changes the subject; it is never explained how death is bad for the dead when they are dead. Examples of this “change of subject” are Marquis’ claims that killing a person deprives that individual of a “valuable future” or a “future like ours”5. In addition to this, there are others, like McMahan6, who argue that interests—rather than personal identity7—are what matters to us and that the frustration of these interests is what is bad about death and wrong about killing. Hershenov8 believes that there is another way for the Materialist to salvage commonsense intuitions about death. He explains this by illustrating the fact that while death is not experienced as a harm by the one who dies, killing is wrong because it prevents the individual killed from experiencing possible future goods. The distinction between this position and that of Marquis is that, in Hershenov’s view, no individual remains to be 1 Todd S. Bindig, PhD, is Assistant Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Niagara University. He is the author of Identity, Potential and Design - How they Impact the Debate over the Morality of Abortion (VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller e.K., 2008). 2 McMahan, Jeff The Ethics of Killing: Problems on the Margins of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002: p.104 3 Bradley, Ben “Why Death is Bad for the One Who Dies” Nous 38, no.1 (2004): p. 18. 4 Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus” in: Epicurus: The Extant Remains trans. Cyril Bailey. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926. 5 Marquis, Don “Why is Abortion Immoral” in Journal of Philosophy, 86, no. 4 (1989): 183-202. 6 Ibid, McMahan ch. 2. 7 I shall, momentarily, explain what is entailed in this view in much more detail. 8 Hershenov, David “A More Palatable Epicureanism” in American Philosophical Quarterly. 44, no.2 (2007): 171-180.

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American Theological Inquiry deprived of anything, so it is more accurate to say that the individual has been prevented from having any future experience9. The problem with these answers is that they do not fully capture our moral intuitions about death. It is my view that personal identity is important, even if interests are also important, and that while the wrongness of killing is not dependant on the badness of death, the fact remains that death is an unnatural state for a human being and is thus bad, or harmful, for the individual who dies. So, while the wrongness of killing does not require death to be an experienced harm for the one who dies, the fact that it is harmful makes killing all the more wrong. As a consequence of this, I shall argue that a Hylomorphic approach to personal identity, rather than Substance Dualism or Materialism, is most consistent with common-sense intuitions about death. Epicureanism, Interests, and Identity Epicurus famously argued that death is not something to be feared as it is not experienced by the one who dies. He writes: “death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we don’t exist. It does not concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not and the latter are no more.”10 The general point being: one needs to be in existence to be harmed, at death we cease to exist, therefore death is not something that is experienced as a harm by the one who dies, i.e.: it is not bad for us. Many argue that this has disturbing implications for the wrongness of killing. Silverstein11, for example, argues that accepting the Epicurean argument would have an extremely negative impact on our general intuitions that killing is wrong: if death isn’t bad, why would killing be wrong? However, Hershenov points out that it is a mistake to make this criticism. He argues: “What we should say is that killing is wrong because it prevents the victim from having more goods, i.e., a longer rewarding life.”12 So, even if it is true that the individual ceases to exist at death and can therefore no longer experience harm, or anything else for that matter, it is still wrong to kill this individual because killing him or her makes it impossible for him or her to experience the goods that he or she otherwise would have experienced by living a longer life. Marquis makes a similar point, stating: “When I am killed, I am deprived both of what I now value which would have been part of my future personal life, but also what I would come to value. Therefore, when I die, I am deprived of all of the value of my future.”13 The distinction between the views lies in the details, not the essence of the arguments. In Hershenov’s view, things like deprivation and misfortune are states and a state needs a 9 I shall address the distinction between Marquis’ and Hershenov’s views in more detail momentarily. 10 Ibid, Epicurus 11 Silverstein, Harry s. “The Evil of Death” in Journal of Philosophy 77, no. 7 (1980): 401-424. 12 Ibid, Hershenov 179. 13 Ibid, Marquis 192.

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American Theological Inquiry subject. Since, as he argues, after death no subject remains, it makes more sense to speak of preventing the individual from having future goods rather than depriving the individual of that future. The general point made by both Hershenov and Marquis is that in killing an individual we take away things that the individual in question values or would value if given the opportunity. In a different approach to this problem, McMahan argues that personal identity is not really what matters to us, in such cases, but it is rather our interests that are of primary importance. The way that this position is generally argued is with the following example: let’s suppose that an individual brain is damaged from a stroke, such that only the left hemisphere remains functional. We would usually say that the individual survives with half of his brain and if we transplanted that functioning hemisphere, we would have transplanted that individual. However, let’s suppose that we separate two halves of a fully functional brain and place them in two different individuals. Both individuals can survive with half of a functioning brain, as has just been shown. It seems, however, that the original individual does not survive as either of the new subjects, for it would be arbitrary for him to be one rather than the other, illogical for him to be both (if they were not identical) and implausible that he be a scattered being. However, it seems that the original individual’s psychology survives in both the two other individuals—at least in part—and thus, it is argued that, the original individual ought to be extremely concerned for the well-being of these other individuals. The claim is that though he, himself, does not survive, the survival of his psychology is just as good. McMahan, and others, thus conclude that our psychology, or our interests, is what is ultimately important to us, not our personal identity. He defends this in an account of the badness of death called the “Time-Relative Interest” account, which: …evaluates death in terms of the effect that it has on the victim’s timerelative interests14 rather than on the value of his life as a whole. It holds that the badness of death is proportional to the strength of the victim’s time-relative interest in continuing to live. The strength of his timerelative interest in continuing to live is a function of both the net amount of good his life would contain if he were not to die, and the extent to which he would be bound to himself in the future, if he were not to die, by the prudential unity relations.15 Basically, what McMahan is arguing is that, when evaluating the death of a given individual, we need to make this evaluation based on that individual’s interests in continuing to live at the time of death, rather than making this evaluation on the basis of the individual’s life as a whole. The reason that McMahan argues in this way is that he does not believe that an individual’s connection to his or her self is constant over time—he believes that we are more or less connected to ourselves over time. For example, an infant is less connected to By “Time-Relative Interest” McMahan means our interests at that given moment. Ibid, McMahan 105-6. By “prudential unity relations” McMahan means the connection we have at that given moment to the individual that will exist at a later time. For example, McMahan thinks that the connection between an infant and the adult that will exist twenty years later is extremely weak. 14 15

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American Theological Inquiry the future thirty-year-old than is the twenty-year-old or the forty-year-old. This is simply a result of his position that an individual’s psychological connections and interests are what matter, rather than the individual continuing as a single substance—we have more in common, when we are thirty, with the interests we had when we were twenty than when we were 3 months old. The way McMahan argues that we ought to assess the badness of death is to judge how much good this individual’s life would have if the individual didn’t die and measure this in relation to how connected the present individual is to the individual who would exist in the future. If the present individual is not strongly connected to the future individual who would be experiencing the goods, then the present individual does not have much interest in continuing to live. Thus, McMahan argues that the death of a fetus or infant is not very bad because, in his view, they are not closely bound to the individual who might experience goods in the future. It seems clear that a fetus or infant does not have future plans or dreams—at least none of us seem to recall any of these things when we reach adulthood— and thus it seems that the fetus or infant is not strongly psychologically connected with the individual he or she will grow to be in the future. McMahan further believes that common intuitions support his view because most do not see the death of a fetus or infant as equally tragic to the death of a youth. To begin with, it seems that McMahan’s observation about people’s response to different deaths might be more accurately explained relationally, rather than as an evaluation of differing degrees of tragedy. Isn’t it also the case that we grieve more over the deaths of our friends than we do over the death of a stranger? And is it not also the case that we grieve most for those friends whom we have known the longest and with whom we had the greatest connection? It seems that it is at least possible that the difference in our response to the death of a teen-age child as opposed to the death of an infant child or a miscarriage might have more to do with how long and well we have known the child who dies and the strength of our connection to that child, rather than that the deaths somehow have a different level of tragedy in themselves. Additionally, it seems odd to say that personal identity is not important. Taking the view that psychology and interests are primary seems mistaken as it is the person, who is the subject of these interests, that is generally identified as significant. Certainly interests matter, but the person who has those interests, or will have those interests, matters significantly more. A person is something that changes and develops over time. In that development, interests also come into being and diminish over time. Whether or not an individual has a given interest at a given time, that individual either is or is not relevant per se. To make the point that it is in fact personal identity that matters, let us further examine the separated-brain-transplant example, used above to argue that psychology and interests are what actually matter, rather than identity. It is not clear that I ought to care more about the two individuals that get the halves of my brain than any other individuals. Having my interests and psychology continue does not seem as important to me as my personal survival. Let’s suppose that I programmed my computer to respond as if it were me—with the same insight and wit—and let’s suppose that it was also capable of completing the projects on which I am currently working, all on its own. If a terrorist were to take me hostage and, - 124 -

American Theological Inquiry before cutting off my head, attempt to reassure me by making reference to my computer persisting with my psychology and completing my projects, I would feel absolutely no comfort. Therefore, it seems to me that personal identity is important—it matters a great deal to me that it is actually me, and not just my psychology or interests, who continues to exist. Furthermore, just because an individual is not strongly psychologically connected with his or her future goods, does not mean that is morally acceptable to prevent, deprive or remove those goods from him or her. Taking things of value away from an individual—or, in terms that Hershenov would use, “preventing an individual from having something of value he or she would otherwise have”—is wrong whether or not the individual experiences that event. For example, an individual who is completely addicted to drugs might not be aware—or care if he were aware—of the loss of valuable things in his life, for example the loss of his house in order to support his drug habit, but losing this valuable thing is still bad. Additionally, on an interesting side note, just because someone values something does not make it wrong to take it away: imagine taking the drugs away from the addict. In so doing, we help him but he believes that he is being seriously harmed. The point is that it is not the perceived value of that of which one is deprived or prevented from having, but the actual value of the thing that impacts the wrongness of taking it. It does not seem to be necessary for death to be experienced as bad for killing to be wrong. Thus it is safe to conclude that the wrongness of killing is not necessarily dependant on the badness of death. However, I believe that most not only hold the intuition that killing is wrong, but also that death is experienced as bad by the one who dies. Here I am not merely discussing the event of dying, but also the state of being dead. Most hold some view of a paradise-like after-life, but most people would also prefer to be alive, all things considered. So, when I am saying that most would say that the state of death is a bad thing, for clarity’s sake, it might make sense to think of this as bad relative to the alternative of being alive, rather than a wholly negative experience, like eternal damnation, for example. We can understand the badness of death and the wrongness of killing the way that philosophers like Hershenov explain it, that we avoid death not because it is a bad state but because we desire future goods, but this does not seem to thoroughly capture the common intuition regarding the badness of death. If in order for us to be the subject of an experience we must be present, and our intuition is that we are the subject of a negative experience via death, then it seems that our intuitions are telling us that we are present in the state of death. It is my view that the reason for many contemporary philosophers rejecting, or having trouble with, this conclusion is that many contemporary philosophers take some version of a Materialist approach to personal identity. While there are a few Materialists who accept some notion of an after-life16, most Materialist hold the view that death is the end of our existence—as this seems more consistent with the view that we are simply material beings. However, if we have the strong intuition that we experience anything at all—positive or negative—in the state of death, these intuitions only make sense if Materialism, or at least the general Materialist view that we cease to exist at death, is false. 16

Peter Van Inwagen, Kevin Corcoran, David Hershenov, etc. - 125 -

American Theological Inquiry The Necessity of an Immaterial Soul If we continue to exist as the subject of interests and experience once the material body dies, this implies that at least one element that makes us up is immaterial, i.e.: a soul. But how shall we understand this immaterial soul in the light of our intuitions about the badness of death and the wrongness of killing? If, as a Substance Dualist17 approach to personal identity would generally hold, what we primarily are is a soul that interacts with a physical body for a period of time, then there are a number of odd implications to our argument. First of all, it would seem that death, the separation of the body and soul, would not only not harm the person dying, but would rather be of great benefit to this individual. Most Substance Dualists believe that the body somehow frustrates the “true” or “complete” activities of the soul and thus is somewhat of a detriment. Therefore, being rid of the physical body would actually be not only helpful, but our most natural state. This, however, is directly contrary to the intuition that death is bad and therefore seems to fly in the face of common-sense. Not only would we not experience something negative or be deprived of or prevented from having a valuable future, Substance Dualism seems to imply that death puts us in a much better state of affairs than we would have with a longer life! In addition to the problem of Substance Dualism implying a counter-intuitive conclusion about the badness of death, there is the problem of the wrongness of killing. If death is a great benefit for us, why would killing ever be wrong? It seems that, contrary to one of our most deeply ingrained common-sense intuitions, killing would have to be a good thing to do. After all, if by killing someone you put them in an infinitely better and more natural state than even the best they could experience in life, it seems that killing them would be the best thing that you could possibly do to them. The only answer given as to why killing one’s self or others is generally wrong even though death is a good thing is an appeal to a divine prohibition of these actions18. This appeal, however, seems arbitrary and irrational. If death is much better than life, why would any god who was good command us to never kill ourselves or others lest we face eternal punishment?19

17 See: Plato, “Phaedo,” in: Complete Works of Plato. Edited by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997. or, Descartes, Rene, Meditations of First Philosophy. 3rd ed. Translated by Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993. 18 Plato Phaedo in: Complete Works of Plato. Edited by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997. 19 While I am sympathetic to using theology in one’s philosophy—indeed, I do not believe that it is possible to separate the two and have a comprehensive system in either—I, like St. Thomas Aquinas, believe that the two are compatible. Therefore, I don’t think that theological positions will ever be irrational or that God’s commands are arbitrary, rather the dictates of faith and reason are compatible and that which God commands is rationally defensible. Thus, it would make no sense for God to prohibit something that was good for us, as this position implies death to be. Therefore, either God is irrational—which I do not accept as a possibility—or this position is irrational.

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American Theological Inquiry Ultimately, the logical implications of a Substance Dualist approach are even less compatible with our intuitions that death is bad and killing is wrong than is a Materialist approach. However, in order to maintain common-sense intuitions, it seems that we have to accept some sort of theory of personal identity that includes an immaterial soul while still maintaining that death is a bad, unnatural or undesirable thing for those who die. A Hylomorphic Answer to the Problem Let us examine a Hylomorphic solution to this problem. A Hylomorphic account of personal identity will propose that we are a composite of form and matter. Many of the functions of the soul are exercised through the physical body, but we are not ultimately to be identified with a physical thing; some functions are not materially exercised—i.e.: will and intellect. So, our identity is not merely material and it is not merely immaterial, but a composite of both. Therefore, when the physical body dies, the immaterial part of us remains but we can only claim that “we” remain in an extremely privative state20. This solves the problem of how death could be experienced as bad or unnatural—if we naturally are a form/matter composite and the matter is removed, then we are in an extremely unnatural state and unnatural states are generally considered to be bad. This also gives additional weight to why killing would be wrong—not only do you deprive someone of or prevent someone from having future goods when you kill him or her, you also place him or her in an extremely privative state. Hylomorphism, then, seems to be generally consistent with our intuitions that death is bad and killing is wrong, especially when compared to Materialism and Substance Dualism. It is true that the vast majority of people do not accept a Hylomorphic account of personal identity, but it seems that this account is most consistent with common-sense intuitions about the nature of death and killing. However, there are serious concerns that have to be addressed by a Hylomorphic account of death. Addressing concerns with the Hylomorphic account of Death The first problem that presents itself is a theological one. Most people who believe in the existence of an immortal soul also believe in the existence of some sort of god. Why would God create beings who would necessarily, eventually die and experience this severely unnatural state? It seems that the only answer that would be consistent with a god who is good is that God did not intend us to die. This is consistent with a Catholic theological position. The Catholic position (as well as that of some Protestant traditions) is that death was not intended by God, but entered the world as a result of the sin of mankind. The Bible testifies to this21: “but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for the day that 20 This position is in agreement with the “Non-Thomistic Hylomorphic Account” given by KochHershenov and Hershenov in “Personal Identity and Purgatory” in Religious Studies: An International Journal of the Philosophy of Religion 42 (2006) 439-451.—though there are slight and subtle differences. 21 As does the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “1008 Death is a consequence of sin. The Church’s Magisterium, as authentic interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that death entered the world on account of man’s sin. Even though man’s nature is mortal, God had

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American Theological Inquiry you eat of it you shall die.” (Gen 2:17), “because God did not make death and does not delight in the death of the living.” (Wis 1:13), “Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned” (Rom 5:12). Therefore, we can conclude that this unnatural state of death was not the fault of God but a logical consequence of sin; an unnatural result of unnatural behavior. Once death has occurred, it is the Catholic position that the individual ends up in one of three destinations: Heaven, Purgatory or Hell22. For our purposes we shall concentrate primarily on Purgatory, as this state is most consistent with the conclusions drawn by the arguments made in this paper and it is generally assumed, by Catholic thinkers, that this is where the vast majority of individuals wind up immediately after death23. The point of Purgatory is to cleanse the forgiven individual24 of any connection to sin and thus make him or her ready for an eternity in Heaven. This cleansing is assumed to be unpleasant25. Ultimately, however, all those in Purgatory may look forward to a final destination in Heaven. How can we rationally understand this process in the light of a Hylomorphic understanding of personal identity? If Hylomorphism is correct, death occurs when the form and the matter are separated. At this point the matter immediately begins the process of decay—there is nothing to configure it so it begins to fall apart (at varying rates depending on the surrounding environment). The form, or soul, remains. All functions of the soul that were previously exercised via the matter—movement, growth, sensations, etc.—are now unable to be exercised as there is no matter through which they may be exercised, though these powers continue to exist virtually. The functions that never directly utilized matter in their

destined him not to die. Death was therefore contrary to the plans of God the Creator and entered the world as a consequence of sin. Bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned is thus the last enemy of man left to be conquered.” 22 Actually, Catholics believe that Purgatory is temporary and that all individuals who go there will eventually go to Heaven (as I shall point out momentarily). Therefore, ultimately, there are two destinations. For our purposes, because immediately after death there are three options though one is temporary, we shall address all three “destinations”. 23 Heaven is, by definition, an entirely miraculous state and thus our speculation—no matter how rationally based—as to how things work there is uncertain at best (Is Heaven a strictly immaterial state? Do we have a body in Heaven?). Certain elements of Heaven become important to this theory at “the end of time” but the situation between our time and that time is essentially unknown as those details have not been Revealed to us. As for Hell, it is supposed to be the worst state imaginable, so any negative conclusions that we come to about the state of affairs for any individual in Hell ought to be expected. 24 One who has been redeemed by Christ. 25 Catholics interpret the following passage as a description of Judgment and of what one might expect in Purgatory (emphasis added). “ each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:13-15) - 128 -

American Theological Inquiry exercise—will and intellect—will continue to work.26 The soul, generally speaking, now exists in a state called Purgatory where it is prepared for its final heavenly destination. If the purpose of Purgatory is to cleanse the individual from all connection with sin, we can see this state as rehabilitative. Two problems arise with the Hylomorphic account because of this. The first problem is raised by Koch-Hershenov and Hershenov27, there is a question of fairness involved in making the soul suffer for the acts of the person, as the soul is but a part of the whole. In addition, how can whatever benefit is gained by the soul carry over to the person if the soul is but a part of a greater whole. The second problem, which is ultimately answered by Koch-Hershenov and Hershenov, is the question of continued identity: how can I be said to continue to exist when all that remains of me is my disembodied soul, which is just a part of me? To answer the first question, we must examine the nature of sin. Sin is a complicated action with many elements. Generally, though not always, sin has to do with some physical object of desire; some “lesser good” that we choose over a greater good that we ought to be choosing. However, the location of the event of sin lies in the will and the intellect. When one commits a sin of lust, has his or her eyes, hands, genitals, or some other part of his or her body acted in dysfunctional manner? No, the physical parts have done exactly what it is in their nature to do. It is the will, the intellect, or both, that have become attracted to the object of lust and thus caused the whole individual to sin. Therefore, the location of the dysfunction is in the will and the intellect, i.e.: the intellective elements of the soul which continue to function after the death of the body. When one injures one’s ankle such that it does not function properly, it seems that it is proper to say that the person is injured and the location of the injury is in one’s ankle. The ankle is part of the person. Though the injury to the ankle is distressing to the whole person, it is not necessary that the whole person be rehabilitated, only the injured part. We don’t usually do wrist and arm strengthening exercises along with the prescribed ankle and lowerbody strengthening exercises when we undergo physical therapy to rehabilitate an injured ankle. It seems that rehabilitation is usually only done on the area where the dysfunction is primarily located. Therefore, if sin is based on the will and the intellect, rehabilitation only needs to involve the will and the intellect. The will and the intellect continue to function in the afterlife with no distractions from any other objects of attention than God. Therefore, it seems that it makes logical sense to have the soul existing without the body, for a time, to clarify that those things to which we were attracted and that led us to sin were not as important as God. It does not seem that we necessarily have to be in the throws of the physical world and all of its temptations for this rehabilitation to occur.28 On the contrary, it seems that the clarity 26 Aquinas, St. Thomas Summa Contra Gentiles. Vol. 2, Translated by James F. Anderson. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1956. and Aquinas, St. Thomas Summa Theologica. Vol. 1+3, Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Allen, Texas: Christian Classics, 1948. 27 Ibid, Koch-Hershenov and Hershenov 437. 28 This argument is in response to a comment made by Koch-Hershenov and Hershenov at the end of their paper, Ibid.

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American Theological Inquiry necessary actually requires that we be removed from the temptations to be rehabilitated. It seems that a heroin addict has a much greater chance of recovery if he is kept away from the drug. Continuing to “shoot-up” will probably not result in rehabilitation. The objection of Koch-Hershenov and Hershenov to this is that virtue involves not only doing the right thing but having the right desires and that we must habituate both, which seems impossible if the object of desire is removed. While it is true that habituation is required in order to reach virtue, it is habituation of behavior, not of desires. Desires are automatic responses that are not under our direct control. While self-control is not a virtue, it is the path to virtue. By learning what is right and internalizing this we start down the path of virtue. Desires fall into place automatically when we truly embrace a virtuous life. The way that this would work out in Purgatory is that eventually the individual’s intellect and will would be rehabilitated. At that point, the desire to sin would never again occur as the individual would have now embraced virtue. To connect it to the example of the heroin addict, let’s suppose that the addict goes to an in-patient rehabilitation facility. The addict is physically prevented from being in the presence of the drug. Over time the process of rehabilitation takes place, such that the addict never again desires the drug. It is not necessary that he be physically able to choose to shoot up during the rehabilitation process for that rehabilitation to occur, rather it seems that he only need to learn healthy behavior to be rehabilitated. To put it another way, it does not seem necessary—and in fact would likely be detrimental—for me to be barraged with images of naked women for me to habituate the virtue of chastity. Rather, it seems that for me to manifest this virtue I ought to live a chaste life and keep myself away from unchaste situations or images. Only then would I both do the virtuous thing and have the virtuous desire. One might ask how one could manifest a virtue, say courage, if not by habituation? While I do think that habituation is generally necessary for a virtue, it might not be necessary to habituate virtue in the way stated by Aristotle in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics: “we become brave by doing brave things”29 (emphasis added). Rather, it is possible that we can habituate a virtue by repeatedly learning its value in an intellectual sense. Note that in Book III of Plato’s Republic30 it is not argued that the young guardians learn courage by fighting or facing fears, but by being taught what to fear. Therefore it seems that it is possible for habituation of virtue to be intellectually, rather than physically, based. Oderberg31 addresses the problem of the fairness of the soul being held accountable for the acts of the person. He compares this to the example of a C.E.O. being held accountable for the illegal actions of his corporation. He explains how placing responsibility in this way makes rational sense thusly:

29 Aristotle, “Nichomachean Ethics” in: The Basic Works of Aristotle, Edited by Richard McKeon New York: Random House, 1941. (1103b) 30 Plato, “Republic” in: Complete Works of Plato Edited by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997. 31 Oderberg, David “Hylemorphic Dualism” in Personal Identity Edited by Paul, Miller & Paul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

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American Theological Inquiry All we need to see is that it is coherent to suggest that a part might be held responsible for the actions of the whole—moreover, that not any part will do, but only that part (or those parts) which are, as it were, in the driver’s seat. … the person I am continues to exist as a soul (even though I am not numerically identical with a soul), it must be me who is responsible precisely for what I did when my soul informed a certain body. … the soul is held responsible solely in virtue of its being the chief part whereby I, the person, did whatever I did that incurred responsibility.32 Oderberg is simply explaining that it makes sense to hold a part accountable for the actions of a whole when that part was in control of the whole—as it seems the soul is in a Hylomorphic account. He then makes the further step of stating that the person continues to exist as the soul after the death of the body. This important step leads us to our second problem. This first problem, of it only being the soul that is rehabilitated in Purgatory, can be solved even more completely if we can say that the soul that continues to exist is not merely a part of the individual, but the individual himself that continues to exist in Purgatory. Thus, the second problem—how can I be said to continue to exist when all that remains of me is my disembodied soul, which is just a part of me—is still quite serious and must be addressed but in finding its solution we will also more completely answer the first problem. The answer to this second question is that though my soul, which up until death was only a part of me, is all that remains of me, I continue to exist as distinct from, but temporarily sharing all my parts with, my soul. Koch-Hershenov and Hershenov illustrate this idea with an example of a tree. At one point in time, the tree consisted of a trunk and its branches. If we cut all of the branches off of the tree, the tree would remain, but as a spatially coexistent entity with its trunk, which was once merely a part of the tree. Therefore, it is now proper to say that though they share all of their parts, they have different modal and persistence conditions—they are distinct though there is no part that one has that the other lacks33. The soul remains after the death of the body. Before the death of the body the soul was merely a part of the person, but now it is the only part that remains. Therefore, this part that is all that is left of the whole, is now coexistent with the whole, i.e. we are reduced to this part. If all that were left were some inert limb—say a severed hand—it seems that it would be odd to say that I continued to exist as this hand. However, the soul is the “active principle of life”—in other words, it is a part but it is the most important part, where all of our proper functions originate. Therefore, to say that at the death of the body the soul remains as all that is left of us and that we thus continue to exist as a being that now only consists of one proper part is not that far of a stretch. However, it must be made completely clear that we do not continue to exist in a natural, but in a privative condition. An extremely important element is missing, namely a material body. Therefore, though we continue to exist, we do not continue in a natural state. This conclusion solves the first problem, in that the soul being rehabilitated in Purgatory is not, strictly speaking, merely a part. During that portion of our existence we are reduced to 32 33

Ibid, Oderberg 98. Ibid, Koch-Hershenov and Hershenov 445. - 131 -

American Theological Inquiry this part, so it is actually more proper to say that we are rehabilitated in Purgatory rather than our soul is rehabilitated there. In the end, our now-rehabilitated soul is reunited with a physical body34. This occurs when God recreates the world with a new Heaven and earth that are not separated. Therefore, things like human beings, who are by nature a form/matter composite, can coexist with God and the angels, who are by nature immaterial forms. At this time, there is no more death and we exist in our natural state eternally. Conclusion It seems that we can safely come to the conclusion that a Hylomorphic explanation of personal identity is most consistent with our common-sense intuitions about the “badness” of death and the “wrongness” of killing. A Substance Dualist approach has moral consequences that are directly contrary to our general intuitions, so we must completely abandon either one or the other. A Materialist approach, on the other hand, can be framed so as to allow us to maintain the intuition that killing is wrong and death is something that makes sense to avoid or prevent, though it seems that we would have to give up the idea that death is experienced in a negative way by the one who dies. Hylomorphism, however, allows us to maintain both the general intuition that death is bad, and experienced as such by the one who dies, as well as the intuition that killing is wrong. In fact, the case for the wrongness of killing with Hylomorphism is stronger than a Materialist understanding because the follower of Hylomorphism can not only appeal to the “denial of future goods” or “prevention of future goods” arguments, but also can point to an actual harm that is experienced by the individual killed, i.e.: that he or she is put into an unnatural/privative state. Most people have a natural aversion to death. Some have explained this away as a fear of the unknown or of change. Others have said that it is based on a desire to experience more good things via a longer life. I believe that our aversion to death is based on the fact that death is an unnatural state for us; that we were not originally supposed to die. Ultimately, we now must come to grips with the reality of death. It is my view that a combination of a philosophical explanation—a Hylomorphic account of personal identity—and a Catholic theological explanation—the nature of Purgatory and the ultimate resurrection of the body—yield an explanation of the badness of death and the wrongness of killing that is most consistent with our common intuitions on these subjects.

34 A physical resurrection at the end of time is neither a new nor uniquely Catholic belief. It has been held by all Christians, from the beginning (e.g., Rev 21).

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BOOK REVIEWS Port-Royal et la littérature. Vol. II. By Philippe Sellier. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2000. A preeminent scholar of Pascal, of Port-Royal and of Augustinianism, Philippe Sellier has collected in this volume eighteen studies which elegantly and insightfully reveal a vista of “l’ampleur du rayonnement de Port-Royal” in the grand siècle. No less fruitful than seminal, they have already made their influence deeply felt—all but one are retouchings of essays which first appeared elsewhere—but their concentration in a well-ordered and convenient volume will only widen and intensify their own rayonnement. Whereas the first volume centred on Port-Royal and Pascal, this one opens with two studies of general topics -- literature and theology in the context of Port-Royal, and PortRoyal as an emblem of Catholic reform. It proceeds to groupings of essays centred on Augustine’s influence on the century’s bitter controversies over grace; on la Rochefoucauld’s Maximes, whose esprit mondain it informs and imbues despite the absence from their pages of the Christian ideal; on the vernacular Bible, especially of course the Bible of Port-Royal; on women writers, most particularly Mme. de Lafayette; and on Racine. The volume closes with a vue d’ensemble, “Augustinisme et littérature classique,” and a study of the Augustinian subtext of Romantic mal du siècle. The latter, which aims to complement Pierre Courcelle’s inventory of Romantic authors haunted by Augustine in Les “Confessions” de Saint Augustin dans la tradition littéraire (1963), takes as its axis the preëminently Augustinian theme of l’inquiétude unforgettably evoked in the opening of the Confessions: “Fecisti nos ad Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in Te, ‘Vous nous avez créés pour Vous, et notre cœur est toujours agité de trouble et d’inquiétude jusqu’à ce qu’il trouve son repos en Vous’” (p. 268). It can emerge as l’inquiétude noire of Senancour for whom “[L’homme] cherche [son vrai lieu] partout avec inquiétude et sans succès dans des ténèbres impénétrables,” or again as l’inquiétude blanche of Chateaubriand, Lammenais and Manzoni where “Aux ténèbres vont se substituer le clairobscur et l’espérance” (p. 272). If we add to these the theme of “la hantise de la corruption” that besets the writing of even some modern unbelievers (p.85); the theme of l’inconstance noire, “la précipitation torrentueuse du temps” which leaves us “hantés par le travail de la mort au sein de la vie apparemment la plus riante” (p. 260); and, finally, the theme of the vitiating role of amour-propre in all merely human virtue (pp. 139-169), then we have the core, but only this, of the augustinisme littéraire whose power continuously to fascinate Sellier tellingly details. This volume and its predecessor belong on the shelf next to Sainte-Beuve’s Port-Royal. They are not merely “Parerga and Paralipomena,” to borrow Schopenhauer’s title, but a deepening and a widening. They are also a demonstration—and not only of the truth or limitations of particular views and insights, including some of Sainte-Beuve and of other forerunners. Taken together, they afford a preuve convaincante that, thanks to the work of Sellier and others, today one may call the siècle classique “le siècle de saint Augustin” without - 133 -

American Theological Inquiry risk of hyperbole, let alone whiff of extravagance (cf. esp. pp. 253-7). Surveying the last fifty or so years one might well say, with Blake, “What is now prov’d was once only imagined.” Yet, the story of Port-Royal and Augustine’s influence in the seventeenth century is one by no means fit to quicken the pulse only of specialists in theological controversies and literary influences. More than a slice of literary history, ranging from throne to cell, it is a whole human comedy or tragi-comedy, a protracted drama (likened by Sellier and others to Sophocles’ Antigone). It has all the allure of great personalities and of high endeavor spiritual, moral and political. It affords the affecting spectacle of a moral and theological resistance at grips with a Protean modernity and the relentless power of Church and State. It has all the pathos evoked by brutal persecution, most notably of religieuses incontestably devout and arguably innocent; all the romance of a Lost Cause (Lee and Hannibal will always have an aura that victorious Grant and Scipio do not); and all the drama of a high-stakes struggle for the soul of the Church in which it, and indeed the world, are beckoned to a road not taken.1 To the victors honors, peace, preferments; to the losers prison, exile, disgrace, disbanding, disinterment. The present volume contains two inédits: “Index biblique de Racine: Esther et Athalie,” and, the longest of the studies, the encapsulating and revealing “Qu’est-ce que le jansénisme?” A glance at the latter will give an idea of of the particular riches of the whole (ex ungue leonem), though indeed the same might be said of others of the essays, especially those on the context, genesis and principles of translation of the Bible de Port-Royal. These include a significant letter (with commentary) on biblical translation from Angélique Arnauld d’Andilly to Antoine Arnauld; though printed in the eighteenth century, it is so little known as to be virtually an inédit. “Jansenism,” a coinage of the adversaries of those who mostly styled themselves “disciples de saint Augustin,” is, as Madame de Sévigné2 averred, Antoine Arnauld argued3 and Jean Orcibal showed,4 in effect the name of a “straw man” whose religion of fear, sorrow, austerity and rigorism is largely an illusion. In fact, its only significant grounding in reality lies in the rigorism of the Augustinians’ censure of the theatre. The fear and sorrow imputed to the Jansenist outlook are especial calumnies, for the Augustinians are “toujours soucieux d’équilibrer l’inquiétude et la joie.” Indeed, “Saint-Cyran répétait que nul ne serait heureux dans le ciel s’il ne l’avait été sur la terre” (pp. 49-50). Fear and sorrow would far better befit the unbeliever. For in Augustine’s uncompromising view -- one well in accord 1 The Augustinians beckoned towards a God whose justice, as evidenced by his allotment of the grace needful for salvation, was an impenetrable mystery, and away from a spirit of innovation and accommodation lest all should be for the times and nothing for the truth. The Church turned towards a conception of grace (Molinism) that reflected a divine justice agreeable to le sens commun, and towards a spirit of aggiornamento. For a concise account of this momentous turning see Leszek Kolakowski, God Owes Us Nothing (Chicago, 1995). 2 Letter of 9 June 1680. 3 Phantôme du jansénisme, ou justification des prétendus jansénistes (l686). 4 In a study of the same title as Sellier’s (l953, also 1997 in Études d’histoire et de littérature religieuses, Paris, Klincksieck).

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American Theological Inquiry with La Rochefoucauld’s critique of the despotic reign of self-love over our all-too human, merely apparent virtues—the unbeliever’s whole life is a sin (omnis vita infidelium peccatum est).5 To these remarks one might add the obvious point that “Jansenist,” by implying membership in a sect --this of course is the meaning of the Greek root of “heresy”-effectively begs the question of the group’s orthodoxy or unorthodoxy. Moreover it, and for that matter “Augustinian,” merit the caveat that they might beguile us into undervaluing other influences on the group of Port-Royal, e.g., St. John Chrysostom. The story of his influence, though unlike Augustine’s little likely to involve the emergence of a “continent englouti,” nonetheless remains to be told in full. But if, as unforgettably represented in Pascal’s Provinciales, their Jesuit adversaries were Protean in the manifold forms in and with which they sought to accommodate a changing, modern world, neither were the Jansensists immune to metamorphosis. The “jansénismefantôme” had its nimbus centred on controversies over grace—and Sellier has a succinct but authoritative account of the famous Five Propositions and the censure of St. Augustine himself implicit in theirs (pp. 67-71). But after the bull Unigenitus (1713) it emerged as a “jansénisme-Protée.” Now a response to the bull’s ultramontanism, restrictions to access to the Bible, et. al., it fostered a climate in which “Port-Royal est devenu un veritable mythe, le symbole de la résistance à la tyrannie des pouvoirs” (53). Yet, when we turn from myths and phantoms, we find the reality of Jansenism scarcely less elusive than they. If we keep in mind that an Augustinian as engaged as Pierre Nicole distanced himself from his fellows by espousing “une grâce générale,” we see that a better term than “Jansenist”—more apt because less theory-laden -- would be “Port-Royal” or “le groupe de Port-Royal.” Indeed, many “grandes dames” linked to Port-Royal—and, “une illustration éclatante,” Racine -- cared very little about the Five Propositions. One might say they represent a social Jansenism -- knots of Augustinian adherents, sympathizers and fellow travelers. These networks of friends and kin, including habitués of certain salons, were imbued with the culture of Port-Royal and/or bound to it by personal ties. Their make-up, extent and importance has been the object of much work in recent years by Jean Mesnard. There is also, of course, “un jansénisme littéraire” which shares many exemplars with social Jansenism but goes far beyond those for whom, as in the case of Arnauld, “Toute l’œuvre littéraire . . . se repose sur un socle jansénien, et maintes pages soutiennnent la pensée d’Augustin sur les Propositions incriminées” (p. 73). It will include “Fénelon, qui a polémiqué contre les idées de Jansénius”; La Rochefoucauld, qui “nourri de La Cité de Dieu, borde d’ébluissantes variations sur la corruption de l’homme déchu et sur l’amour de soi”; Madame de Sevigné, “toute jansénienne de cœur . . . [qui] prend ‘notre père saint Augustin’ à la lettre et sans biaiser”; and Madame de Lafayette, whose vision of the amorous passions is as imbued with Augustinian pessimism as are the pages of La Rochefoucauld (p. 74). Prévost, Hobbes, Baudelaire, Machiavelli, Mandeville, Mauriac, Montherlant, Gide and Green are only some of their successors.

5

This striking formulation of Augustine’s view is by Prosper of Aquitaine (p. 59 n.20; cf. 142-3). - 135 -

American Theological Inquiry Indeed, one might argue that the Augustinian point of view, taken in a large sense, though it may wax and wane is almost certain to resist eclipse. It can be seen as the manifestation of a fundamental element in the human perception of self and world: a sense of helplessness before what seems the irresistible power of each. Hence the deep longing for an asylum of stability amidst l’inconstance noire of a world and self undergoing inexorable dissolution. (Whence the demand, reflected crisply in the Provinciales, that the times conform themselves to a Faith too hard for the teeth of Cronos.) Hence l’inquiétude. For if to attain self-knowledge involves the realization that only Abiding Good can fully satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart, it also involves the fear, and often the realization, that our self, if left to itself, is not fully able to resist the seductions of evil. (Whence the necessity of an irresistible grace, la grâce efficace.) This Augustinian realization can underlie even resistance to Augustinianism. For it can give birth to despair of ever persevering in a Right that is more than a mere alright, of being Good rather than merely good enough. “[V]ous ne trouverez plus étrange qu’ils [les Jésuites] soutiennent que tous les hommes ont toujours assez de grâce pour vivre dans la piété de la manière qu’ils l’entendent. Comme leur morale est toute païenne, la nature suffit pour l’observer.”6 The ground of this sense of helplessness? “A considérer les cinq millénaires accessibles historiquement de l’aventure humaine, on est frappé par la réalité d’un ample basculement culturel: longtemps démunie devant la nature et les événements sociaux, l’humanité s’est aisément soumise à l’impitoyable ordre des choses. […] Le christianisme ancien, tout en insistant, avec Origène, sur le libre arbitre, a respiré ce fatalisme. Il a flotté, il a hésité dans les formulations de sa vision du monde.” True, “C’est à partir de la Renaissance que s’est affirmé le sentiment des pouvoirs de l’homme” (p. 76). But though this development has meant struggle and setback for Augustinianism, it has not sapped its force and fascination. To this fact Professor Sellier’s work bears eloquent and far from lonely witness. If the Faith is founded on the stone that the builders rejected, much of early modern and, indeed, contemporary consciousness is reached by a path that the Church chose not to travel to the end. Charles M. Natoli St. John Fisher College Cornelius Van Til: Reformed Apologist and Churchman. By John R. Muether. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishers, 2008; 288 pp., $24.99. According to the rather elusive Socrates, the moral end of all cognitive speculation is to know one’s self. His method, however, was a bit narrow in that deep soul searching was the responsibility of the individual and no one else. Yet coming to a better knowledge of the self may be aided by the perspective of another. This is where biography becomes vitally important. Along with J. Gresham Machen, a principal figure in the modernist-fundamentalist controversy of the early twentieth century, Cornelius Van Til must be ranked among the

6

Provinciales V, p. 78, éd. Cognet and Ferreyrolles (Classiques Garnier, 1992). - 136 -

American Theological Inquiry handful of individuals who, as a founding faculty member of Westminster Theological Seminary and leading architect of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, indefatigably worked to preserve a truly confessional Christianity. In his latest book, Cornelius Van Til: Reformed Apologist and Churchman, John Muether, Associate Professor of Theological Bibliography and Research at Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando), has offered the most complete biography of this leading philosopher, theologian, and churchman to date. No stranger to the history of reformed Presbyterianism, having recently co-authored with D. G. Hart Seeking a Better Country, a history of American Presbyterianism, Muether’s latest biography is part of the American Reformed Biography series published by P&R a co-edited by Sean Michael Lucas and Darryl Hart. Works in the series have included Lucas’s Robert Lewis Dabney: A Southern Presbyterian Life and Hart’s John Williamson Nevin: High Church Calvinist. Using a variety of sources, from personal correspondences to General Assembly records, in constructing eight well written chapters, Muether begins by presenting some of the formative elements of Van Til’s life: his Dutch separatist (afscheiding) and neo-Calvinist roots; his bridging the Dutch Reformed world with that of American Presbyterianism; his scholarly acumen at Princeton; and his role in the start of both a seminary and a new denomination. Muether coherently organizes these elements in such a way as to show that a proper understanding of Van Til’s “theological commitments” cannot be divorced “from his ecclesiology” (15). Directly challenging what many have come to recognize as Van Til’s “ivory tower apologetic methodology,” Muether offers a glimpse of a committed churchman and erudite apologist who in life pursued faithful submission to a covenant keeping God (16-17). “In truth,” he writes, “Reformed apologetics drove [Van Til] to the pulpits of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, to General Assembly study committees, to hospital beds, and even to New York City street corners” (17). Van Til’s apologetic, in other words, was closer to the pews than at the highest reach of the church steeple. Much of the book revolves around the array of individuals who contributed to the development of Van Til’s thought, including Abraham Kuyper, whose notion of the “antithesis” played a significant role in presuppositional apologetics, Geerhardus Vos, who introduced the importance of the redemptive historical method for biblical exegesis, Herman Dooyeweerd’s idea of the inescapably religious “ground motive” of all human thought, and perhaps most importantly the theological commitments of J. Gresham Machen. His attraction to these towering intellectuals rested on the ways in which they stressed the centrality of a biblical Calvinistic framework in countering the fallacious “wisdom” of the fallen world. The maturation of Van Til’s thought—worked out with both Westminster Theological Seminary and the Presbyterian Church of American (later the Orthodox Presbyterian Church) in mind—also came through controversy. Two leading issues had a tremendous impact on the young scholar. First, the identity of the OPC and Van Til’s status as a seminary professor was forged by the debates “surrounding the ordination of Gordon H. Clark” (98). Van Til was at the forefront of the battle. Clark seemed to come dangerously close to collapsing the distinction between the mind of God and the mind of man. The

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American Theological Inquiry Clark-Van Til debacle, dismissed by some as an expedient misunderstanding, divided presbyters and thrust Van Til into theological warfare for the remainder of his life. A second more threatening issue centered on the growing influence, especially in America, of Karl Barth, a leading figure in the neo-orthodox movement and one of the most prolific writers in the history of Christian thought. Van Til’s opposition to Barthianism shared an affinity with Machen’s rhetoric in Christianity and Liberalism. Indeed, the latter’s apologetic “flowered from the central feature of Machen’s conviction” (69). The essential challenges to confessional Christianity advanced by Barth included his relegation of the absolute authority of scripture, the elevation of the existential spiritual crisis of the individual, and the rejection of the historicity of the messiah’s life and work. Van Til identified “Barth as an enemy and not a friend” (121). In the same way that Machen refused to recognize the liberalism within the PCUSA as orthodox, so too Van Til rejected the theology of Barth, whose work captured the mind of Princeton, as anything but Christian. And unlike the unfortunate falling out with Clark, Van Til’s “sustained polemic against Barth” lasted “over three decades” (121). Such influences, both positive and negative, were finally codified in his 1955 publication, Defense of the Faith, “the first lengthy exposition of his apologetics for a general readership,” according to Muether. Inspired by Machen, Van Til grew increasingly unsettled by how the inconsistencies of traditional apologetics (viz., its failure to develop a method for defending the faith that was in line with the church’s confessional heritage) and also American evangelicalism served to undermine the Reformed faith. Only a biblically faithful theology— one not restricted to a simplistic five-point Calvinism—would guard against the loose evangelicalism seeping into the church and the humanistic theology threatening the training of young men for the ministry. Van Til pressed this issue in both the classroom and the pulpit. Pushing the “without excuse” dictum offered by Paul in his letter to the Romans, Van Til encouraged fellow Christians not to shirk their responsibility in exposing what unbelievers in actuality presupposed—namely, the Creator and his created order. This was the heart of what became known as presuppositionalism: the one who rejected the Triune God could only do so after presupposing that same God, his word, and his work. But Van Til’s method spoke also to Christians. Believers regularly needed to be reminded of the limitations of their own rationality. Human knowledge was analogical, not identical, with God’s knowledge. Furthermore, the relationship between the creature and the Creator was one not of pure reason, but of covenant faithfulness. This was the source of his disagreement with Gordon Clark and evidentialist apologists, who relied too heavily on the neutrality of reason as the starting point to get to God. Maintaining such an epistemological distinction was consistent with the ontological gulf between God and humanity. Studying the life of such a figure as Van Til helps us to appreciate the complexities of his thought. Personalization often mitigates intellectual abstractions. Van Til’s somewhat stubborn methodology continues to stand as a two-edged sword against unbelief and the inconsistencies of traditional apologetics. And as intimidating as he was—and continues to be—his concentration on the defense of the faith has contributed to the spiritual journey of numerous Christians within the reformed community. But the many who have been influenced by Van Til over the years have not always read him the same way. It would have - 138 -

American Theological Inquiry been helpful for the author to discuss the varying differences among so-called Van Tillians. Was there something in his system that associated Van Til with theonomists or the theologically misguided teachings of Norm Shepherd? How have these camps diverged to such virulent extremes? Muether locates himself in the camp of the amillennial and redemptive-historical camp of Van Tillians, which is quite distinct from Van Til’s chief expositors, Greg Bahnsen and even, in a different way, John Frame. I’m not sure the issues dividing these groups have been fully satisfied. Given the multiple and contradictory uses of such a thinker’s method, the question remains as to whether we are any closer to understanding the thought of Cornelius Van Til. This reviewer questions whether or not scholars like Frame, Bahnsen, and now Muether have disentangled the complications of Van Til’s all-or-nothing epistemology. Such difficulties emerged from his years of difficulty reconciling the idea of common grace with his presuppositional method, which, Muether writes, subjected him “to ruthless caricature that bordered on mockery” (166). While I do not wish to descend into mockery, I will say that it does hint at a problem, especially when considering Van Til’s distinction between the metaphysical affinity of believers and unbelievers with their stark epistemological differences. For Van Til, the unbeliever cannot truly know that 2 + 2 = 4, because he cannot provide a justification from within his own unbelieving framework. The question is, however, does the unbeliever need to justify his belief in the ultimate sense in order for him to possess knowledge? Do we have to justify every belief claim before we can say that we have knowledge? Can the unbeliever truly—however redundantly you want to use “truly”— know that 2 + 2 = 4. What is more, such a belief is justified—and presupposed by the unbeliever—by way of the fact that God himself created it to be so. This, in fact, is all that the believer needs to demonstrate. The unbeliever can have knowledge and his knowledge is—and must be—the same as that of believers’ knowledge. The latter is made in the image of God and has no option to use the mind his creator has given him. But the reason why the unbeliever rejects this is not because his mind is functioning improperly, but because he suppresses it in unrighteousness. There is no doubt that knowledge is wrapped up in morality, but there is bridge spanning the two. They are not inextricable. For instance, the reformed believer that loves God and his neighbor is aligned morally, but that same believer that rejects the historical fact that slavery played the central role in the Civil War is wrong on the knowledge end of the spectrum. A further problem related to Van Til’s epistemology brings us back to the influence of Immanuel Kant. For Van Til, a leading reason why Barth’s theology lacked consistency with confessional Protestant thought stemmed from the fact that its basic structure was Kantian. Acknowledgement of this, however, should not exonerate Van Til, for his own apologetic structure also shared an affinity with Kant. In the same way that humans presuppose the non-empirical cognitive categories in the structure of the mind to awaken empirical experience, so unbelievers presuppose not only the structure of their being as image bearers of God but also presuppose the work of the Creator even as they suppress him in unrighteousness. Articulating Van Til’s philosophical influences and the theology of his

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American Theological Inquiry enemies (e.g., Barth) may have required a bit more discussion. Presenting a fair view of Kantianism, for instance, is no easy task. Such observations in no way undermine the nuanced argument presented by Muether, showing himself, once again, to be capable scholar. Van Til’s methodology may have been abstract, even incoherent, to many, but Muether shows us someone whose work was done not for the praise of men but for the building up of the faith, which could only be done within the borders of the institutional church. Ryan McIlhenny Providence Christian College The Place of Christ in Liturgical Prayer: Trinity, Christology, and Liturgical Theology. By Bryan Spinks (ed). Collegeville, MN: Pueblo Books, 2008; 378 pp., $49.95 This volume publishes the papers presented at a conference convened during February 2005 on christology and trinitarian theology in liturgical worship and prayer hosted by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. The title is a deliberate allusion to Josef Jungmann’s influential classic by the same name. Not every essay is directly concerned with Jungmann’s work, however. Rather, these contributors take their orientation from Jungmann by examining the relationship between christology and prayer. The result is a substantial, invaluable collection of diverse studies on the ways in which worship and prayer are informed by and/or inform christology. After the editor’s introduction, which focuses primarily on pointing out a few inaccuracies in Jungmann’s work, the volume’s fifteen essays are apportioned into three parts. The essayists represent several Christian traditions. All treat their topic in a generally historical way; the volume lacks constructive proposals and tends to ignore or keep implicit questions about what patterns are normative or more appropriate. Part I explores the NT and several early worship traditions. Larry Hurtado distills his previously published research on the “binatarian shape of earliest Christian devotion.” Paul Bradshaw surveys early Christian prayer and concludes that prayers were addressed to each member of the Godhead directly. Robert Taft examines the christology of the Byzantine office. His essay is followed by Baby Varghese’s on prayers offered to Christ in the west Syrian tradition, Gabriele Winkler’s on the christology and authorship of Basil’s anaphora, and Peter Jeffery’s insightful correction of Jungmann’s account of the origin and function of the Kyrie. Part II, “Piety, Devotion, and Song,” has a bit more of a sociological feel to it, as most authors are concerned to consider the meaning of liturgical formulae for spirituality and worship experience. It begins with Michael Findikyan’s paper on the christology of early Armenian liturgical commentaries. Kenneth Stevenson then explores Augustine’s, Maximus the Confessor’s, Lancelot Andrews’, and Karl Barth’s interpretations of the christology of the Lord’s Prayer. Maxwell Johnson in his essay attempts to redress the assumption that Theotokos was a purely christological concern, arguing that the title grew out of Marian devotion before the Council of Ephesus that was part of the development of the larger cult - 140 -

American Theological Inquiry of martyrs and saints. Liturgical piety and trinitarian worship in the Reformed tradition is explained by John Witvliet. Stephen Marini reflects on the Trinity and christology manifest in Isaac Watts’ communion hymns. The final part focuses specifically on contemporary Protestant worship. It contains essays on the christology of recent Protestant hymnals (Karen Tucker), the Trinity in the most frequently sung worship songs (Lester Ruth), and feminist liturgical trinities (Kathryn Greene-McCreight). The consistently high quality of the research makes this volume a standard resource. The essays are mostly technical, and therefore their primary audience is scholars. But patient pastors, worship leaders, and liturgists will find much that can enrich their current practice and understanding. Readers come away with knowledge of several different traditions and historical precedents, and, within that, a sense for how the christology-liturgy relationship can be construed and why. In all, a particularly fertile volume that will prove beneficial for scholar and practitioner alike. James R. A. Merrick University of Aberdeen Incarnation Anyway: Arguments for Supralapsarian Christology. By Edwin Christiaan van Driel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008; viii + 194 pp., $74.00 In less than 200 pages Van Driel (newly appointed Associate Professor of Theology, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary) defines and examines a theologumenon largely out of favor today—that of the Primacy of Christ, or as van Driel calls it, a supralapsarian Christology. First articulated by Rupert of Deutz (c. 1075-1129), this argument is predicated on the absolute election of Jesus Christ. Rupert discussed the issue within the context of a counterfactual formulation: “would the Son of God have become human or not even if sin had not intervened?” For advocates of the Primacy of Christ, the answer is an assured “yes.” Following Rupert the great medieval thinkers took up this hypothetical question and interrogated it with considerable skill and attention. The result was the well-known divergence and then disagreement between the Franciscans and the Dominicans. For the Franciscans, John Duns Scotus advocated the Primacy of Christ and developed a rigorous biblical, theological, and philosophical defense of this position. For the Dominicans, Thomas Aquinas advocated the opposite, arguing that the incarnation is due to the fall of humanity into sin, therefore, while we must remain cautious, without human sin there would be no need for an incarnation of the Son of God. While this issue received considerable attention by medieval theologians it did not attract the attention of the Reformers or many of their heirs. Speculative hypotheses about possible world semantics and counterfactuals were considered a luxury by those fighting for their faith and their lives on many occasions. More recently, due to various factors, theologians today are still adverse to speculative theology. This is, in my opinion a pity for several reasons, most important of which is the fact that the doctrine of the Primacy of Christ is not primarily about counterfactuals or hypotheticals, but is, rather, about the absolute - 141 -

American Theological Inquiry predestination of Christ and the implications this has for Christology, soteriology and the other theological loci. And this is where the work of van Driel proves to be so useful. In Incarnation Anyway van Driel avoids all appeals to speculative theology and thus cut through the criticism of many over the place of hypothetical philosophy. This is a masterful methodological move as it allows the issue of the Primacy or otherwise of Christ to dominate the discussion, not hypothetical speculation. Second, this move allows the great advocates of the Primacy of Christ to receive a fair hearing and brings their biblicaltheological arguments and insights to the fore, rather than their philosophical logic. According to van Driel supralapsarian Christology and its opposite, infralapsarian Christology, stand for “family names” or two “families of ideas”. Infralapsarians agree that God had to become human in order to take care of the sin problem, but they disagree on the reasons why. Likewise, supralapsarians agree that the incarnation is not contingent upon human sin, but they differ widely on the reasons why (p. 5). Van Driel’s work examines three examplars of recent supralapsarians: Friedrich Schleiermacher, Isaak Dorner, and Karl Barth, before offering three brief chapters, one of which offers his own proposal based on his research. Schleiermacher is, according to van Driel, “the first major supralapsarian theologian since the Middle Ages” (p. 9) and constructs his supralapsarian Christology within an ontological framework of redemption in which the notion of absolute dependence plays a crucial role. Van Driel presents Schleiermacher’s ordo salutis as follows: 1) there is one divine decree, 2) to impart the divine essence to humanity, 3) one person is elected with whom God unites his essence to, 4) redemption is the instrument to impart the divine essence, 5) sin is ordained to make humanity receptive to redemption, and 6) humans are created so as to fall. The ontological foundations for this ordo are based on two assertions of omnipotence that van Driel labels omnipotence I and omnipotence II. Omnipotence I involves a qualified notion of human freedom and omnipotence II states that God cannot do otherwise than what he does (i.e. no counterfactuals or middle knowledge is possible). Van Driel notes several major “fault lines” or criticisms of Schleiermacher’s supralapsarian Christology, notably the unacceptable felix culpa argument. Schleiermacher expounds a nonreciprocal foundation for the single divine decree which encompasses all history. If God does not respond to human actions, the incarnation cannot be interpreted as a divine answer to the human problem of sin. Thus sin must be ordained by God and the incarnation is seen as accidental to human nature as human sin takes logical priority over divine incarnation. On the basis of this criticism and others van Driel rejects Schleiermacher’s supralapsarian Christology. The next supralapsarian proposal examined is that of Isaak Dorner who constructs his theology on the basis of creation. From this basis he develops an ethical ontology by which God the ethical is necessary. God is love—the amor amoris—who creates human creatures to share in this love. The incarnation is thus the perfection of revelation; it establishes an absolute religion, and an ethical relationship. “Thus, the incarnation, as the absolute revelation of God, is necessitated by the need for an absolute religion” (p. 48). One curious

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American Theological Inquiry conclusion drawn from Dorner is that even in a world without sin, Christ would have come twice: one in incarnation and a second time in the Parousia! The criticism of Dorner’s supralapsarian Christology that van Driel notes is his diverging interpretations of the incarnation which have the net result that Dorner is unable to consistently answer several fundamental questions. The first question is this: “is the Godhuman relationship primarily ontological or interpersonal?” (p. 56). This becomes a key question for van Driel which I will discuss further below. On van Driel’s reading, Dorner inconsistently oscillates between these two positions making his proposal incoherent. A second critical question is this: how does the incarnation relate to God’s ultimate goal? (p. 58). That is, is the incarnation a means or an end? Once again van Driel considers Dorner’s theology as inconsistent, he wants to say the incarnation is interpersonal and is the end but his three fundamental arguments for supralapsarian Christology do not consistently support such conclusions. The ultimate criticism van Driel has of Dorner’s position is that he is ambiguous on the ultimate motivation behind the incarnation because he constructs his theology on the basis of creation rather than the consummation. The third and final advocate of a supralapsarian Christology examined by van Driel is Karl Barth, and two chapters are devoted to explicating his argument. Unlike Schleiermacher who based his supralapsarianism on redemption, and Dorner who based it on creation, Barth basis his on the eternal election of Jesus Christ which is in turn based on the consummation. Barth’s supralapsarianism is thus founded on the election of Jesus Christ who is the subject and the object of election. This makes Jesus’ election the first divine decree and thus the primacy of Christ is made explicit. Humans are elected “in Christ” and thus are contingent upon Christ the electing God. In the second chapter devoted to Barth, Chapter 5, van Driel offers an exegesis of Barth’s doctrine of Christ as the subject of election— and of Barth’s commitment to creational entropy. In dealing with Jesus as the subject of election van Driel canvasses four ways to interpret Barth’s notion of the eternal being of Christ: 1) as pre-emption of the temporal (Brunner and Berkouwer), 2) as reflection of the temporal (Colwell), 3) as divine self-constitution (McCormack), and 4) as divine self-determination—van Driel’s own interpretation. The examination of the third view is the most extensive and continues a lively dialogue between van Driel and Bruce McCormack over this issue. While van Driel believes McCormack’s view may not be entirely without grounds, he finds it finally incoherent. The criticism van Driel has of Barth’s work is that it is too ontological. In eternity past humanity is ontologically incorporated into Christ’s eternal election and in eternity future humanity ceases to exist except as a memory of a lived life in the mind of Christ. Much of this is predicated on the basis of creational entropy by which creation in and by itself lapses into evil by ontological necessity. Van Driel’s point is that while this may be consistent to the internal logic of Barth’s dogmatics, it is by no means self evident that this is consistent with Scripture or Tradition. Chapter 6 is a summary of the conceptual schemes of the three supralapsarian thinkers in which van Driel offers additional arguments and critiques of their positions and builds a case for constructing a supralapsarian Christology on the basis of consummation or eschatology - 143 -

American Theological Inquiry rather than upon creation or redemption. In Chapter 7 van Driel offers a brief proposal of his own in which he strongly argues, consistent with Scripture, for an embodied human existence in the eschaton which he links with the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. This eschatological life is the telos of creation and thus explains in part the Primacy of Christ: “If Easter morning’s implications are fully acknowledged, we need to understand the gift given in Christ as supralapsarian” (p. 149). Three arguments constitute van Driel’s rationale for a supralapsarian Christology. First, the eschaton is not the restoration of the proton. In the eschaton there is a superabundance, a rich intimacy with God that the proton did not know, “In Christ we gain more than we lost in Adam” (p. 151). This superabundance involves a transformation of human existence into the form of the resurrected Christ, and an increase in the experience of divine intimacy as humans “see” God face to face in the face of Jesus Christ. As a summary van Driel states: In other words: the eschatological superabundance is a gain in Christ. The theological question pressed by the supralapsarian therefore is this: I the superabundance o the eschaton is thus so intimately bound up with the person of Christ, can Christ be contingent upon sin? Would this not make the eschaton itself contingent upon sin? (p. 152). A second argument is an extension of the first and involves Christ’s role in the visio Dei. If the visio Dei is sensory and intellectual, and van Driel thinks it is, then the eschatological goal of humanity in the beatific vision is only possible if God makes himself present in bodily form, that is, the incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. The final argument mustered by van Driel is one basic to his proposal and concerns divine friendship. Friendship, divine and human, is motivated by love. When in the Old Testament God calls his people his friends (Abraham, Moses, etc) and in the New Testament Jesus addresses his disciples as friends, this defines these relationships as motivated not only by human sin and need for reconciliation, but by a deeper, preordinate sense of love (p. 160). The logic of friendship is then applied to the supralapsarian Christology van Driel recommends. The death of Jesus is motivated by friendship; the friendship is not motivated by death. If the incarnation only happened as a function of God’s reconciling action, there would be no need for a continued bodily existence of Christ after crucifixion and death. In the Epilogue van Driel contrasts his proposal with alternate suggestions and again comes back to the issue, raised on several occasions, as to the recipient of the gift of the incarnation—human nature or human persons. Van Driel makes much of the distinction between the incarnation as primarily ontological or interpersonal. The two, he argues, result in very different supralapsarian christologies. If the incarnation is to establish an ontological relationship then by assuming a human nature, God is able to change and complete the ontological structure of reality (p. 57). In this schema the incarnation is given to human nature: “by assuming human nature, God is able to change the ontological status of humanity from the inside out” (p. 139). This presupposes that in the incarnation God assumes a human nature like ours, a nature that God will now change for the better. This is premised on the unity of human nature. Van Driel rejects this position mainly due to the fact - 144 -

American Theological Inquiry that it presupposes some common human nature (Platonic?) and it does not respect the “over-againstness” between the Word made flesh and our human natures. “It has the relationship between the incarnate One and other human beings governed by the logic of assumption, but assumption is a category which implies that there is no over-againstness between the assumer and the assumed” (p. 166). If the incarnation is to establish an interpersonal relationship of mutual love and commitment, then God becomes incarnate to establish a kingdom of love, in the form of a suitor, pursuing an answer of his beloved (p. 57). Under this schema the incarnation is a gift given to human persons: “by assuming a human nature, God makes Godself available for interpersonal interaction, from one human being to the other” (p. 139). This assumes that in the incarnation God takes up a human nature like ours, a nature that allows God to be present to us in human form. This is premised on the similarity of individual human natures. Van Driel rejects the first position in favor of the second. For these reasons and more van Driel argues for the superior logic and faithfulness to Scripture of supralapsarian Christology over all versions of infralapsarian Christology. Incarnation Anyway concludes with a modest (4 page) bibliographical appendix on the genealogy of supralapsarianism in which thinkers from Rupert of Deutz to Robert Jenson and Hans Küng are mentioned. This is a helpful little bibliography and allows the interested reader to follow up on particular thinkers and representative positions should they wish to do so. The bibliography is by no means exhaustive however, and does not clearly show just how many thinkers in the tradition have subscribed to some form of supralapsarian Christology. Consulting a work such as J. Carol, Why Jesus Christ: Thomistic, Scotistic and Conciliatory Perspectives (Manassas, VI.: Trinity Communications, 1986), would significantly help the interested reader. Incarnation Anyway is a well written, concise introduction to supralapsarian Christology and offers one of the very few modern treatments of the subject and for this it fills a crucial lacuna in the literature. As one who has published on this doctrine I am in total agreement with van Driel in his central arguments against all versions of infralapsarian Christology and support his contention that supralapsarian Christology is more faithful to Scripture and the logic contained therein. As previously mentioned, van Driel’s decision to avoid the speculative theology which has tended to dominate aspects of this discussion was successful and as such the doctrine may have wider appeal than attempts which adopt modal logic or counterfactuals. This is a much needed work of constructive theology and will be a welcome addition to many classes on Christology and soteriology. There some odd moves in this work, however, which deserve mention. The first observation is simply a comment on terminology. What van Driel terms “supralapsarian Christology” has traditionally been labeled the doctrine of the Primacy of Christ, however, nowhere in this volume does that term appear, nor does van Driel show an awareness of this. It would have been of use to others to have this pointed out in the book should they wish to research in this area themselves. A second observation concerns the decision to remove all appeals to counterfactuals or modal logic—the hypothetical questions raised so often in the Tradition. While as I noted - 145 -

American Theological Inquiry earlier this may appeal to many today I wish to push back a little as someone who finds modal logic useful in speculative theology as long as it serves the ultimate purpose of articulating a constructive theology which is faithful to Scripture and the Tradition. In this regard I find the medieval debates over the primacy of Christ by Scotus and Aquinas in particular continue to be fruitful areas of reflection. A further observation concerns van Driel’s distinction between the incarnation understood as a gift to human nature or a gift to human persons. While this is a useful distinction to make and van Driel applies it well to the authors he examines, the details of both positions require further description and analysis for it to be clear what each position actually involves. According to van Driel these are mutually contradictory position so that one cannot logically adopt and apply both in a doctrine of the Primacy of Christ. Dorner and Barth respectively are critiqued for attempting to do this very thing without success. However, that these two figures fail to keep both senses of the gift of the incarnation in logical harmony should not imply they can’t be harmonized. Reformed theology, with its covenant theology and doctrine of the federal headship of Adam and Christ, for instance, could arguably hold both in harmony in order to emphasize the vicarious life and death of Christ for all humanity (gift to human nature) as well as endorse a theology of the duplex gratia whereby human persons are justified and sanctified, and will one day be glorified to participate in the divine life of love (gift to human persons). A final observation is really a compliment: the constructive proposal van Driel offers amounts to one small chapter of 17 pages and this was simply not enough. Having whetted our appetites with his critique of Schleiermacher, Dorner, and Barth, I expected van Driel to present an extended alternative proposal of his own, not simply a short précis of such. Perhaps OUP placed limitations on the length of the text (a common and constraining complaint against academic publishers today), or perhaps van Driel is preparing such a work for a subsequent volume. One hopes the latter is the case and I for one look forward very much to reading it. Myk Habets Carey Baptist College Fire in the Dark: Essays on Pascal’s Pensées and Provinciales. By Charles M. Natoli. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2005; ix+145 pp., $ 75.00. The central fact about the Christian religion by which this book is animated—and rightly so for it surely animated Pascal—is the hiddenness of God. Since others (Platt and Baker7) have noted the historical and literary, even linguistic merits of the book—though I cannot help but commend his use of Aristotle—I will focus on the antidote of mystery and hiddenness: revelation. Since Pascal’s is primarily a work of natural theology, the revelation in question is the uncovering of truth for the subject by Reason. Thus I will focus on Natoli’s incisive treatment of Pascal’s notion of Reason as revealed in his concept of proof.

7 Michael Platt, The Review of Metaphysics, 2006; Susan Read Baker, Seventeenth-Century News, Fall-Winter 2006.

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American Theological Inquiry Natoli’s investigation of this notion, however, begins with a mystery. He notes that in Pascal’s discussions of mathematical proof, he exalts geometric proof with its deductions from self-evident principles. Yet throughout the Pensees Pascal refers as “proofs” to various arguments which bear little resemblance to the formal methods of Geometry. The key by which Natoli unlocks this mystery is the notion of persuasion. For any given proposition, the question can be asked: “Why do you think that?” or “What makes you think that?” Note the call for a causal explanation, and thus a tacit reference to the notion of psychological force. Though Natoli doesn’t pose the question in these terms, his analysis suggests the question: On what grounds could we reject the heart’s acceptance of self-evident principles—upon which the most “objective” and certain knowledge is founded—while rejecting the heart’s judgment on matters theological? In light of this, Pascal’s statement that “The Heart has its reasons the Reason knows not” applies just as much to Geometry as Theology. Natoli supports this hermeneutic with ample, careful quotations from the corpus of Pascal’s work as well as secondary literature both contemporaneous with Pascal and latterday commentators as well. The textual digging, though, does turn up some potential counter-examples. For example Pascal enjoins us to believe according to reason, rather than being carried away by fancy or fashion. Yet the latter is more persuasive to the undisciplined mind. Natoli responds to this by ramifying the theory to include a hierarchy of types. So he attributes to Pascal the belief that persuasion by reason is more firm than persuasion by other means—recalling to the reviewers mind Plato’s Meno. One worry I have about this proposal stems from the fact that those carried away by intellectual fashions often believe they have been persuaded by reason. This seems to put Pascal’s account of proof back on par with Descartes’ (see p. 83) in offering no route to a “manifest criterion of truth.” This is, of course, Pascal’s problem, not Natoli’s. It could be that Natoli has just revealed that one of Pascal’s desiderata is not able to me met. Having defended his exegesis, Natoli considers two objections to Pascal’s placement of Sentiment at the heart of Reason. Like his influential contemporary Descartes, Pascal intimates that without reference to a good God, there will always remain some residual doubt attached to the very faculty of sentiment by which we become persuaded of the first principles of logic and of theology. Faith, being precisely such a God-grasping faculty, surely cannot be the final guarantor that God is there, the good designer and guarantor of the veracity of faith. In response to this “Pascalian Circle,” Natoli speculates that the best route for Pascal to take is to see Faith as involving an encounter with the divine which breaks down the barrier between knower and known. Thus Natoli bequeaths to contemporary theorists motivation for a significant research project in the epistemology of religion. So Natoli’s final taxonomy of Reason according to Pascal—his “logology” as Natoli puts it—looks like this. Proofs divide into “proof from without” and “proof from within”. The external modality is what Hume called “constant conjunction.” Both our regular experiences and our regular behaviors can lead to conviction. The latter are an important category of - 147 -

American Theological Inquiry proof for Pascal, since one way it can work is that when one wagers and attends Mass, participation in the sacramental life of the Church can diminish passions that are obstacles to belief. One must note here—as Natoli makes clear but less able readers often miss—is that this is a perfectly rational process, for ex hypothesi the passions are keeping one from believing what it is rational to believe. Proof from within can be either discursive or immediate. If discursive, then it is either (broadly speaking) deductive or inductive. If immediate—emanating from “the heart”—then the object is either logical or theological, but in any case epistemological bedrock. Intuition tells us, convincingly, that a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time in the same sense. The inspiration of faith can tell us, just as convincingly, that we are contingent beings in a position of total dependence, wretched non-knowers in an epistemological predicament that divine revelation would be happy to ameliorate. As should be clear by now, Natoli takes us through a tour of the linguistic, historical, and logical lay of the land in that often misty and sometimes scary forest which are the Pascalian wilds, the written remains of a marvelous mind. We could ask for no more able and sympathetic a guide, and should be thankful for this extended map. Trent Dougherty University of Rochester The Word in This World: Two Sermons by Karl Barth. By Karl Barth; Kurt Johanson (ed); Christopher Asprey (trans). Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2007; 66 pp., $7.95. In this splendid little booklet, two remarkable sermons by Karl Barth appear in English for the first time. The juxtaposition of these two sermons provides a striking picture of some of the ways in which Barth’s preaching changed over the years. On the one hand, both of these sermons were preached amidst situations of global catastrophe and crisis. The first was preached in April 1912, just days after the sinking of the Titanic; and the second was preached in November 1934, two days after the Confessing Church had taken a public stand against Hitler (and two days later, Barth would be dismissed from his university post). Both sermons thus take the form of emergency proclamation, of urgent announcement amidst crisis. On the other hand, the two sermons are remarkably different. In the first, Barth takes the sinking of the Titanic itself as his text—he insists that this event is the organ of divine revelation through which “God addresses us with…power and urgency” (p. 32). The sermon is thus entirely immersed within its specific situation; there is (in good liberal fashion) a presumed identity between divine revelation and the movement of history. This was precisely the position that Barth would later denounce and repudiate so fiercely in his commentary on Romans. Needless to say, by the time of the 1934 sermon, Barth’s mode of preaching had changed greatly. Here the contemporary situation is even more urgent and more dangerous than in April 1912—here, the German nation as a whole is steaming towards hidden disaster. But Barth only alludes to these specificities in passing; his entire sermon, from the first word to - 148 -

American Theological Inquiry the last, is absorbed by the world of the Bible and by the sovereign command of God. Hitler, for example, is never named directly, but only alluded to as a mere “nothing.” The two sermons thus offer a striking contrast. Indeed, the later Barth looked back on his Titanic sermon with considerable horror—in his Homiletics (WJKP, 1991), he called it “the monster of a full-scale Titanic sermon”! Following Barth’s lead, William Willimon also suggests in his introduction that this is a very “bad” sermon (p. 18), since its text is the newspaper rather than the Bible. Nevertheless, I think it is possible to say something in defense of this early (liberal) Barth—for all the theological failings of the Titanic sermon, it is still an extraordinarily gripping and powerful piece of preaching. Even if the whole sermon is structured by the sinking of the ship itself (rather than by any biblical text), Barth’s perception of this event has already been filtered through a biblical imagination—so that the true starting point of this sermon is not merely a historical event, but a biblical “reading” of the event. Barth’s main argument is that the sinking of the Titanic is the judgment of God: it is God’s judgment on the “crime of capitalism,” in which “a few individuals compet[e] with each other at the expense of everyone else in a mad and foolish race for profits” (p. 40). Barth thus sees the sinking of the Titanic not merely as an isolated occurrence, but as an event wholly conditioned by a larger web of social and economic relations—the same web of relations which also structures the lives of the working-class parishioners here in the little village of Safenwil. For that reason, the judgment of God on the Titanic is connected— urgently and immediately—to the lives of these parishioners. The theological horizon which shapes Barth’s interpretation of the Titanic, in other words, is the same horizon against which his parishioners must understand their own material struggles. So while I will be quick to admit that this very “liberal” sermon on the Titanic is a far cry from Barth’s later preaching, I think this sermon also expresses something important about authentic Christian proclamation. In the sermon, God is addressing these particular people. And so the preacher must interpret not only the biblical text but also the world itself through the lens of the gospel. On one occasion, the Word of God might be proclaimed by making Hitler disappear anonymously into the world of the Bible as a powerless “nothing”; on another occasion, the Word might be proclaimed by speaking directly against the “crime of capitalism,” and by summoning the people of God to re-imagine their own material world as the place of God’s reign. Two very different sermons, but—if we listen carefully—might it not be the same Word that we are hearing? Benjamin Myers University of Queensland God the Holy Trinity: Reflections on Christian Faith and Practice. By Timothy George (ed). Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006; 175 pp., $20.00 This little volume draws together nine papers originally presented at a Beeson Divinity School symposium on the Trinity. The papers, edited by Timothy George, represent a wide range of ecclesial traditions: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Baptist, Holiness, - 149 -

American Theological Inquiry and Presbyterian. The collection aims not at conceptual discussion of trinitarian theology, but rather at elucidating the relationship between that doctrine and the concrete life of Christian faith and worship. Thus the crucial question addressed is: “How does the doctrine of the Trinity shape the ways of the Christian life, its worship and prayer, its service and mission?” (p. 13). In the opening paper, Alister McGrath emphasizes the fundamental mystery of trinitarian dogma: “The doctrine of the Trinity represents a chastened admission that we are unable to master God” (p. 20). McGrath thus wonders whether some contemporary trinitarian thought has become too speculative and too detached from the witness of Scripture. His target here is especially social doctrines of the Trinity, which leave one “with a sense of bafflement” at how “a series of rather ambitious social and communitarian doctrines [can be deduced] from the mystery of the Trinity” (pp. 31–32). In contrast, McGrath follows Robert W. Jenson in arguing that the doctrine of the Trinity “identifies and names the Christian God,” so that the doctrine functions as “an instrument of theological precision, which forces us to be explicit about the God under discussion” (pp. 33–34). McGrath’s paper sets the stage for the rest of the collection, since the remaining essays focus on the significance of the Trinity for the concrete practices and experiences of Christian faith. Gerald Bray argues that the doctrine of the Trinity did not arise from philosophical speculation in the early church, but “from the realities of Christian spiritual experience” (p. 55); and James Earl Massey offers a fascinating account of the underlying trinitarianism of the African-American spirituals. Avery Dulles stresses the ecumenical significance of the concept of the divine processions of the Son and Spirit, while J. I. Packer gives an account of John Owen’s Puritan trinitarian piety. Timothy George highlights the significance of the doctrine of the Trinity for interfaith dialogue between Christianity and Islam, while Ellen Charry seeks to revive the notion of the divine perfections by emphasizing their practical and soteriological significance. The most enjoyable chapter, however, is Frederica Mathewes-Green’s reflection on Rublev’s great icon on the Trinity. Mathewes-Green is a popular Eastern Orthodox writer rather than a theologian; but she offers a beautiful, concise meditation on Rublev’s depiction of the Trinity. As in much iconography, Rublev “distort[s] perspective in order to give us a sensation that the scene is bursting out toward us, with the chalice in the center pressing itself our way”; as the scene rushes towards us, this distorted perspective gives us a sense “of being off-balance in an unfamiliar, powerful world” (p. 89). Most significantly, though, Mathewes-Green observes that none of Rublev’s three figures is speaking: “The tranquility of their silence is sufficient” (p. 90). Finally, and fittingly, the volume closes with a deeply moving sermon by Cornelius Plantinga: “From all eternity inside God, inside the mystery of God …, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit make room for each other, envelop each other, call attention to each other, glorify one another. It is the ceaseless exchange of vitality, the endless expense of spirit upon spirit in eternal triplicate life. The only competition in glory of this kind is to outdo one another in love” (p. 155).

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American Theological Inquiry Benjamin Myers University of Queensland Is Christianity Good for the World? By Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2008; 72 pp., $12.00. Is Christianity Good for the World? is a book that any Christian can confidently give to a an atheist friend, or to somebody struggling with their own faith in light of atheism. This is so for a variety of reasons. First, if one is to look for a “winner” in the debate, rest assured that the Christian “wins.” There is no moment, from a Christian perspective, where the reader will wince and think, “Whoa! Wilson really blew it there!” The reasons for this judgment will become apparent as one reads the rest of this review. Second, and related to the first, the gospel is clearly presented so that there can be no misunderstanding that through the cross of Christ alone a person can be reconciled to God. This should give every Christian pause to rejoice and pray that Hitchens and non-Christian readers would believe on Christ and be saved. Third, the interchange between the atheist and the Christian is highly entertaining. Both Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson are brilliant writers who have a knack for getting to their point using satire, irony, wit and other such literary devices. Readers who enjoy this kind of exchange will grin their way through most of the book. Fourth, it is mercifully short and easy to read. Many walk away from university auditoriums after a debate over the existence of God scratching their heads thinking, “What was that all about?” Not so with this book. Coming in at sixty-one pages with wide margins, a student who is heavy-laden with homework will not have to take too much time away from study to finish the debate. Technical jargon rarely appears, thus making it accessible to the layperson. And the entertainment value will keep one from putting it down until every page is turned. Christopher Hitchens, the atheist, is well known in popular western culture, particularly in Britain (where he is from) and the United States. This is especially so since the publication of his recent book God is Not Great where he argues that all forms of religion are essentially bad for the progress of the human race and society. Hitchens is no stranger to intense Christianity vs. atheism debates—one only has to think of his regular bouts with Dinesh D’Souza to see that Hitchens is accustomed to pugilism of this sort. Personally, this reviewer finds Hitchens to be the most dynamic and interesting of the so-called “Four Horsemen” of the so-called “New Atheism” that includes Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. There is a sense with Hitchens that one could come away from a conversation over coffee with him actually liking the guy in spite of his blistering, sarcastic attacks on the Christian faith. Douglas Wilson, the Christian, is less well known as Hitchens in popular culture, but no less dynamic. In fact, the Hitchens/Wilson pairing could not have been better. Although he has not sold as many books as Hitchens, Wilson is a prolific writer who addresses a wide variety of topics from family, theology, history, education, worship and philosophy. He is the pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, the founder of the Association for Classical Christian Schools, a key leader in the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches and editor of Credenda/Agenda a webzine and print magazine devoted to Reformed theology. Wilson is no backwoods fundamentalist when it comes to understanding and appropriating culture (note the reference to Wodehouse on page 19), nor is he one who thoughtlessly - 151 -

American Theological Inquiry drinks it in without regard to his Christian faith. A staunch Calvinist, Wilson appropriates the method of apologetics founded by Cornelius Van Til and honed by Greg Bahnsen in essentially proving that Hitchens and the atheism that he represents renders the world unintelligible. Like Hitchens, Wilson comes across as a likable guy. Both of their personalities endear the reader making the book personable and personal. The nature of this debate circles around morality. This is seen in the interrogative proposition under dispute: “Is Christianity good for the world?” The morality of Christianity is a relevant point of discussion because that is one of the dominant themes of Hitchens’ anti-Christian writings. In fact, Hitchens argues in his introduction, “Although Christianity is often credited (or credits itself) with spreading moral precepts such as ‘Love thy neighbor,’ I know of no evidence that such precepts derive from Christianity” (15). He goes on to say, “Many of the teachings of Christianity are, as well as being incredible and mythical, immoral” (16). In fact, “[I]f Christianity was going to save us by its teachings, it would have had to perform better by now” (17). Hitchens believes that the first step Christianity needs to make is to humbly admit that it does not stand on moral high ground and that religion is simply “man-made” (18). What is interesting is that Hitchens seems to inadvertently give up the ghost early on: “I cannot, of course, prove that there is no supervising deity who invigilates my every moment and who will pursue me even after I am dead…But nor has any theologian ever demonstrated the contrary” (18). It is the opinion of this reviewer that at least one has: Douglas Wilson, who like many other theologians argues that the contrary is impossible. The main thrust of Wilson’s response to Hitchens is, “Given atheism who cares?” How, from an atheistic perspective, can the words ought or should have meaning? What standard does Hitchens (or any atheist for that matter) appeal to in order to make sense of morality (or anything else)? In his introduction Wilson writes, “My argument does not focus so much as a challenge to what Christopher Hitchens wants to reject (God) as what he still desires to keep regardless. He has chopped down the tree and yet still wants the fruit to be there at harvest” (12-13). Wilson points out that Hitchens essentially removes the foundation for ethical value and then still wants to make moral pronouncements. Without the objective standard of the biblical worldview, Hitchens’ value statements are arbitrary and irrational. In response to Hitchens’ discussion of the genocides of the Old Testament, Wilson says, “Should the propagators of these ‘horrors’ have cared? There is no God, right? Because there is no God, this means that—you know—genocides just happen, like earthquakes and eclipses. It is all matter in motion, and these things happen” (21). The rest of the book keeps coming back to this main point—something that Hitchens either misses or ignores. Wilson shows that Hitchens’ belief that ethics comes from human solidarity (29), that it is innate (38, 46) and that it evolved (53) is essentially a non-answer. What standard does human solidarity appeal to in order for ethical laws to be universal or how is innate law authoritative (see pages 35, 42, 49, 57-58)? For Hitchens to answer the question, “Is Christianity good for the world?” in the negative, he has to essentially affirm what he denies. In other words, he has to presuppose the existence of God in order to deny the existence of God. As the conversation progresses Wilson becomes like a broken record constantly asking Hitchens to give an account for morality, sentence structure, respect for the individual and the like. For as good a writer that Hitchens is, it is surprising that he is not as good a reader. One - 152 -

American Theological Inquiry wonders whether Wilson was amused by this or found it terribly frustrating; judging from the following quote, he probably found it amusing: After this many installments, I now feel comfortable in asserting that I have posed this question to you from every point of the compass and have not yet received anything that approaches the semblance of an answer. On this question I am tempted to quote Wyatt Earp from the film Tombstone—”You gonna do something or just stand there and bleed?”—but I think I’ll pass (49). Hitchens thinks that Wilson evades the challenges brought to the Christian faith. However, even a cursory read reveals that it is Hitchens who evades the challenges brought to his atheistic faith. Wilson asks, “When another atheist makes different ethical choices than you do (as Stalin and Mao certainly did), is there an overarching common standard for all atheists that you are obeying and which they are not obeying? If so, what is that standard and what book did it come from?” (27-28). Throughout the argument Wilson argues negatively that atheism cannot make sense of the world, let alone argue that anything can be considered “good” for it. But he also posits his argument positively: “The Christian faith is good for the world because it provides the fixed standard which atheism cannot provide and because it provides forgiveness for sins, which atheism cannot provide either” (28). The need for forgiveness of sins is demonstrated by Hitchens’ evasion of Wilson’s point, which is ultimately an evasion of God (Rom. 1:21). Wilson calls for “intellectual repentance” (27), which can only occur if one believes the gospel. Poignantly, Wilson explains the nature of the gospel and applies it specifically to the life of Hitchens in the last two pages of the book. Is Christianity Good for the World? is an excellent book. It is a delight to read and it does the job of demonstrating that the atheistic worldview, consistently held, destroys ethics—along with knowledge and reality. Buy this book in mass quantities and give copies to your friends, Christian or not. It will serve to build the faith of the believer, and by God’s grace will promote faith in the non-believer. Ian Clary DiscerningReader.com Becoming Conversant With The Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications. By D. A. Carson. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008; 256 pp., $14.99. While much has been written about the Emerging Church (henceforth known as EC), D.A. Carson is, as far as I know, the first person to write a book-length treatment evaluating and leveling critiques at the movement. At any rate he is certainly the most widely-respected. And yes, I know the EC leaders prefer to call it a “conversation,” but since Carson does not shy from calling it a movement, nor will I. In Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, subtitled “Understanding a Movement and its Implications,” Carson seeks to introduce the movement, assess it, and address several of the most glaring weaknesses. There are few men who are better suited to this task. Carson is a scholar and is known for his - 153 -

American Theological Inquiry conservative, biblical theology as much as for his sound research and presentation skills. All of those admirable attributes are displayed throughout this book. In the preface Carson writes, “Whenever a Christian movement comes along that presents itself as reformist, it should not be summarily dismissed. Even if one ultimately decides that the movement embraces a number of worrying weaknesses, it may also have some important things to say that the rest of the Christian world needs to hear. So I have tried to listen respectfully and carefully; I hope and pray that the leaders of this “movement” will similarly listen to what I have to say” (page 10). That spirit of love and charity pervades the book. The book follows a logical format—introduction, admiration, criticism. The first chapter, “The Emerging Church Profile,” is an uncritical summary of the Emerging Church. Carson arrives at three conclusions. First, the EC must be evaluated as to its reading of contemporary culture. Second, the EC needs to be evaluated as to its beliefs regarding Scripture. Third, the EC’s proposals for moving forward in this postmodern culture need to be examined. The second chapter examines the strengths of the Emerging Church. Carson praises four aspects of the EC. First, they are adept at reading the times and are able to think through the implications for our witness, our grasp of theology and our self-understanding. Second, they value authenticity. Third, they recognize the social location of the church, and know that the church is within a cultural context and cannot be removed from it. Fourth, they place high value on evangelism. Fifth, that they probe tradition and seek to build a faith that is rooted in the past while still being relevant to the present. Having shown the strengths of the EC, Carson turns to several weaknesses in the third chapter. He critiques their evaluation and denigration of modernism, their condemnation of confessional Christianity and accuses them of having a view of Christianity under modernism that is both theologically shallow and intellectually incoherent. The fourth chapter serves as an introduction to postmodernism and the postmodern mindset. For those who are unfamiliar with the changing times, and our society’s emerging epistemology, this chapter is a valuable introduction. Carson goes on, in chapters five, six and seven to critique the Emerging Church’s response to postmodernism. He is especially critical of the EC’s handling of truth, and frustrated by their refusal to deal with the tough questions. He finds that more often than not, the EC leaders refuse to deal with the tough questions related to claims of absolute truth. He is also concerned with the EC’s stubborn refusal to use Scripture as the norming norm against appeals to tradition, as well as the EC’s emphasis on “belonging before believing.” He deals with two books in some depth—Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy as well as Steve Chalke’s The Lost Message of Jesus, thus representing leaders of the Emerging Church on both sides of the Atlantic. Carson arrives at a chilling conclusion. “I have to say, as kindly but as forcefully as I can, that to my mind, if words mean anything, both McLaren and Chalke have largely abandoned the Gospel...I cannot see how their own words constitute anything less than a drift toward abandoning the gospel itself” (page 186187). - 154 -

American Theological Inquiry The book concludes with a list of relevant Bible passages and “A Biblical Meditation on Truth and Experience.” He closes with a challenge. “So which shall we choose? Experience or truth? Damn all false antitheses to hell, for they generate false gods, they perpetuate idols, they twist and distort our souls, they launch the church into violent pendulum swings whose oscillations succeed only in dividing brothers and sisters in Christ...If emerging church leaders wish to become a long-term prophetic voice that produces enduring fruit and that does not drift off toward progressive sectarianism and even, in the worst instances, outright heresy, they must listen at least as carefully to criticisms of their movement as they transparently want others to listen to them...If they manage this self-correction and worry less about who is or who is not emergent and rather more about learning simultaneously to be faithful to the Bible and effective in evangelizing the rising number of alienated biblical illiterates in our culture, they may end up preserving the gains of their movement while helping brothers and sisters who are more culturally conservative than they are learn to reconnect with the culture.” (page 234). Carson faced a great difficulty in this book. How does one fairly and adequately critique a movement as eclectic as the Emerging Church? Many have criticized this movement for being so hard to pin down. Carson admits that not every critique he makes will be valid for every person who considers himself a part of this “conversation.” Yet I feel that Carson did as well as could be expected, focusing the majority of his attention on those who have the majority of the influence. My concerns with the book are twofold. First, while the Emerging Church is emerging at the popular level, this book is written to appeal more to scholars and to those who are wellversed in theology than to the neophyte. If it is true, as Carson claims, that most Emerging leaders come from a fundamentalist background, then perhaps this is appropriate. But I am not sure that this book offers a lot by way of popular appeal. If your teenage son has become enamored with an Emerging Church while at college, I do not know that this book will interest him or convince him to re-examine his church. That being said, he was not Carson’s target audience for Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church. I have little doubt that the majority of the major players leading the Emergent conversation will read and absorb this book. I pray that the Spirit works in their hearts to humble themselves before the Word, that they can test what Carson says in the light of Scripture. My second concern is that Carson does not address in any depth some of the major concerns of believers who examine this movement from the outside. Among these are the mysticism and ecumenism that seem foundational to the Emerging Church. This book is surely the most valuable contribution available to us in challenging the Emerging Church. Carson evaluates the EC in the light of Scripture, showing where it falls far short and providing suggestions for appropriate remedies. This book succeeds in its task and I highly recommend it. Tim Challies DiscerningReader.com

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American Theological Inquiry Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to The Passion of the Christ. By Stephen Nichols. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008; 237 pp., $24.95. Allow me to break standard book-reviewing protocol and simply sum up my thoughts on Jesus Made in America: It is one of the most engaging, informative books I’ve read this year. In fact, I’ll be surprised if this book doesn’t make my annual Top Ten list of “favorite reads.” Jesus Made in America is not a history of Jesus Christ. Looking at the cover, one might expect to find a novel that tells the story of Jesus in a contemporary setting. No, Jesus Made in America is mainly about America, specifically - how Americans tend to remake Jesus in our own image and to service whatever needs or promote whatever causes we believe are important. Listen to Nichols: “The history of the American evangelical Jesus reveals that such complexities as the two natures of Christ have often been brushed aside, either on purpose or out of expediency. Too often his deity has been eclipsed by his humanity, and occasionally the reverse is true. Too often American evangelicals have settled for a Christology that can be reduced to a bumper sticker. Too often devotion to Jesus has eclipsed theologizing about Jesus. Today’s American evangelicals may be quick to speak of their love for Jesus, even wearing their devotion on their sleeve, literally in the case of WWJD bracelets. But they may not be so quick to articulate an orthodox view of the object of their devotion. Their devotion is commendable, but the lack of a rigorous theology behind it means that a generation of contemporary evangelicals is living off of borrowed capital. This quest for the historical Jesus of American evangelicalism is not just a story of the past; it perhaps will help us understand the present, and it might even be a parable for the future. This parable teaches us that Jesus is not actually made in America. He is made and remade and remade again. What will next year’s model look like?” (18) Nichols sets the bar high by devoting his opening chapter to the Puritan view of Christ. By drawing on the theology of Jonathan Edwards and the lesser known Edward Taylor, Nichols shows how the Puritans combined a fervent devotion to Christ with a fervent desire to know more about Christ. Overall, his picture of the Puritans helps put an end to some of the unfair generalizations made about the Puritan period. And yet, Nichols does not view the Puritans through rose-colored glasses. He criticizes their propensity to act in un-Christlike ways. (41) Next, Nichols turns to the Jesus of the Founding Fathers. Here, he takes issue with the evangelicals who see their reflection in the beliefs of the founders. Nichols shows from their letters and writings how Jefferson, Franklin, and even Washington and Adams were all basically Deists (though some were more orthodox than others, of course). The Jesus of the founders was focused on virtue, not theology… on morals, not salvation. With the foundation of the American view of Jesus set (through the pious orthodoxy of the Puritans and the Deistic, individualistic ideals of the Founders), Nichols then takes us through the previous two centuries of Christian life in America. He shows how Jesus was - 156 -

American Theological Inquiry viewed by the frontier people as tough, casting off all ecclesiastical authority. He describes the meek and mild Jesus of Victorian culture in the late 1800’s. He watches the rise of liberalism in the early 1900’s, making Jesus out to be a “hero for the modern world.” The last four chapters hit closer to home. Nichols devotes space to the Contemporary Christian music scene, the portrayal of Jesus in Hollywood movies, the consumerist impulse that markets and sells Jesus “stuff,” and the alignment of Jesus with the Religious Right or Left (depending upon the politician). (My only quibble with Nichols is that he seems to be more enamored with Jim Wallis than James Dobson. But I could be reading him wrong.) The point of Nichols’ book? Jesus is the patron saint of everything. Every culture, in some way, seeks to mold Jesus into its own image. We are all susceptible to the danger. And yet, we can avoid the excessiveness of our own versions of Jesus by listening to Scripture first, tradition second, and experience third (instead of reversing that order, which is often the case in American spirituality). Nichols encourages us to uphold Jesus in all his glorious complexity, not shrinking back from theological reflection. He helps us learn from the mistakes of those in the past, while offering words of wisdom for those of us seeking to be faithful to Jesus in the present. Tim Challies DiscerningReader.com The Courage To Be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World. By David Wells. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008; 253 pp., $25.00. My interest in reading good books came a little bit too late to read David Wells’ four part series of books as they were released (No Place for Truth, God in the Wasteland, Losing Our Virtue and Above All Earthly Pow’rs). I now have the four volumes sitting on my bookshelf and have often thumbed through them wishing I could muster up the motivation to dive into the series. The problem is that I am intimidated as I look at them and consider that each of them weighs in at several hundred pages. I know that twelve hundred or more pages of dense content would prove quite the challenge to me and to my too-short attention span. This is the very reason Wells chose to write The Courage To Be Protestant. This is not a fifth entry in the series as much as it is, or as much as it began at least, as a summary of them. “Once this work got under way,” Wells writes, “I found myself not so much compressing as recasting all that I had done and then updating it. The result is that this book is less a summary and more an attempt at getting at the essence of the project that has engaged me over the last fifteen years. And, hopefully, it will be more accessible than the previous books, not to mention less taxing on readers!” Wells gets straight to the point. “It takes no courage to sign up as a Protestant…To live by the truths of historic Protestantism, however, is an entirely different matter. That takes courage in today’s context.” The truths that Protestants have lived and died by have somehow become no more welcome within a Protestant context than in the outside culture. - 157 -

American Theological Inquiry Those who would seek to live by the distinctives of the theology of the Bible must have courage to stand not only against the world but against much of the church. In an opening chapter Wells describes the lay of the Evangelical land and here he refers to three distinct constituencies into which Protestantism seems to be dividing in our day. These constituencies, though, are not drawn around issues of theology as they may have been in days past. “When all is said and done today, many evangelicals are indifferent to doctrine.” What rearranges the evangelical territory in our day is the culture around us and our engagement with it. This is not a serious engagement with culture, but instead a pragmatic catering to it. “This quest for success, which passes under the language of ‘relevance,’ is what is partitioning the evangelical world into its three segments.” The partitions Wells refers to are classic evangelicalism, marketers and emergents. Having described how marketers and emergents arose out of classical evangelicalism, he provides a chapter called “Christianity for Sale” in which he shows how in recent decades churches became convinced that they must change their way of doing business or face inevitable extinction. This “church as business” model transformed the way churches perceived themselves and led to the raising of methodology over theology. “What began as a simple recognition by church marketers that parking should be convenient, signs evident, and bathrooms clean has somehow begun a migration.” The migration eventually led to the transformation of not only the traditional church but also the traditional theology it lives by. The church began to look at the unchurched men and women around them as customers and those customers soon became their theology. The Bible fell out of favor as pragmatism took over. The bulk of the book looks to the five predominant themes arising from Wells’ previous four books. The themes are truth, God, self, Christ and church. Each one is treated in a substantial chapter. Time would fail me to describe each of these chapters. Suffice it to say that this book is much like watching Sportscenter or another sports highlights show. It is a highlight reel of the previous books. Where during the course of a typical ballgame you can expect there will be stretches where you will witness little of great importance, during the highlight shows you need to pay attention as you’ll see only the most important moments. This book is similar. Every page is important and every chapter is packed with fascinating content. Rare is the page in my copy of the book that is not stained with substantial amounts of highlighter. The Courage To Be Protestant marks the end of Wells’ magnum opus—the work to which he has dedicated himself for almost two decades. It is an utterly brilliant book and one that I feel is a recommended read, and maybe even a must read, for any Protestant. Wells kept me glued to his text for page after page as he challenged me, as one who seeks to be a classical evangelical and who seeks to hold faithfully to the theology of Scripture, to display the courage it takes to be Protestant in the church today. Tim Challies DiscerningReader.com

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American Theological Inquiry The Evolution Controversy: A Survey of Competing Theories. By Thomas Fowler and Daniel Kuebler. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008; 384 pp., $26.00. There are few topics that are the source of greater controversy (at least in the United States) than the topic of evolution. Evolution is the source of controversy within churches, schools, the halls of government, and even popular culture. Over 150 years after the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, this controversy shows no signs of slowing. For Christians seeking to get a grasp on the complexities of the controversy, the number of books and articles defending and critiquing various views can often become overwhelming. Terms such as “Neo-Darwinism,” “Intelligent Design,” “Young Earth Creationism,” “Punctuated Equilibrium,” “Theistic Evolution,” “Evo-Devo,” “Irreducible Complexity,” and many more are commonplace in the writings devoted to the subject. For the interested layman, understanding who is saying what, and why, can be difficult. The Evolution Controversy by Thomas Fowler and Daniel Kuebler is not another book advocating a particular position in the debate. It does contain an annotated bibliography for those looking for such books and articles, but it is itself not one of those books. The stated purpose of this book is to provide “an unbiased scientific overview of the leading theories about evolution” (p. 13). In other words, it is a survey of the different views. It does not, therefore, get into any in-depth discussions of philosophical, theological, or exegetical issues. Despite the fact that the authors’ intention is not to defend any particular view but only to provide an accurate, balanced, and in-depth survey of all the major views, such a goal remains a tall order. On an issue as hotly debated as this one, it will be interesting to see whether proponents of the major views believe that their position is presented fairly. The book itself is divided into three major parts. In Part One, the authors examine in four chapters the background issues they consider necessary to an understanding of the controversy. In Part Two, separate chapters are devoted to an in-depth look at each of the four major schools of thought. Finally, in Part Three, the authors discuss some of the public policy implications of the controversy. Fowler and Kuebler begin by clarifying the definition of “evolution.” They helpfully distinguish different ways that the word is used, pointing out that equivocal uses of the term have caused some of the confusion in the controversy. The authors also point out the distinction that must be made in science between facts, inferences, and philosophies based on such inferences. This is important because in this controversy inferences are often presented as facts. In chapter 2, the authors provide a summary history of the idea of organic evolution from ancient times to the present day. Readers should know that there were philosophical and biological precursors to Darwin. In other words, the idea did not appear suddenly and without precedent in the middle of the nineteenth century. In chapter 3, Fowler and Kuebler lay out the “raw data” that any theory of origins must explain. In other words, this chapter sets forth the basic observations that scientists from each of the various schools of thought have made and are able to make. Such “raw data” includes the fossil record; the observable geological features of the earth; the anatomical, physiological, biochemical, genetic, and functional similarities among various creatures; the distribution of flora and fauna; the adaption of flora and fauna to their environment; and the - 159 -

American Theological Inquiry complexity of biological molecules, systems, and structures. Scientists within each of the major schools of thought attempt to explain these observable details of the physical world. In the final chapter of Part One, Fowler and Kuebler clarify the principal points of contention among the various schools. They identify six major points of dispute: 1. Common descent of organisms from a single progenitor versus common design plan. 2. The ability of random mutation to create new biological information. 3. The efficacy of random mutation coupled with natural selection. 4. The age and chronology of the earth and the universe. 5. The scope of naturalistic explanations in science. 6. What constitutes a bona fide scientific theory. The authors look at each of these points, explain the position of the various schools of thought on each one, and explain the way each point affects those schools’ overall view. In Part Two, the authors turn to a survey of the four major positions. Each of the four chapters in this section is devoted to an in-depth explanation of one of the four main views. In each chapter, the authors attempt to look as objectively as possible at the strengths and weaknesses of the theory under consideration. In chapter 5, they look at Neo-Darwinism, the dominant position within the modern mainstream scientific establishment. Chapter 6 is devoted to an examination of the Creationist school of thought. In chapter 7, the authors look at the Intelligent Design Movement. Finally, in chapter 8, they look at what they have termed “Meta-Darwinism.” The various theories under this umbrella term seek to supplement Neo-Darwinism with additional naturalistic explanations. Some readers may be wondering why “Theistic Evolution” is not included among the major views. The authors address this question and explain their reasoning as follows: Where do the theistic evolutionists fit within this scheme? Theistic evolutionists are found in all camps except the Creationist camp. Theistic evolution is an attempt to harmonize or reconcile theological doctrines and the Bible with some particular scientific understanding of evolution. It comes in many varieties, including continuous creative activity, “front loaded” activity, and completely indirect or hands-off approaches. Theistic evolution is thus not a new scientific theory to explain observed facts, but rather an interpretation of some existing scientific theory (p. 25, n. 4). The four chapters in Part Two are particularly helpful in that they carefully explain what each school of thought does and does not teach. This is necessary because the heat of the discussion has led at times to misrepresentations of what one or another school actually teaches. Since it is impossible to evaluate an idea if that idea is not accurately understood, the authors provide an invaluable service by clearing away many of the misrepresentations. The fact that the authors subject each of the four views to detailed scrutiny and critique, however, means that there will likely be proponents within each of these schools who are - 160 -

American Theological Inquiry not entirely happy with the book. In this reviewer’s opinion, however, the authors have done the proponents of each school a service by forcing them, if necessary, to move beyond rhetoric and deal with the arguments. Many proponents of each school already acknowledge the weaknesses in their arguments that Fowler and Kuebler point out. This book can only help them as they seek either to strengthen those arguments or replace them with stronger ones. Regarding Neo-Darwinism, the authors observe that among the stronger arguments for the theory are the observed physiological and genetic commonalities found among different species. On the other hand, weaknesses are seen in Neo-Darwinism’s propensity to confuse “just-so” stories with actual arguments and to equate microevolution with macroevolution. To propose, for example, a story of how something could have happened is not a proof that it did happen in that way. Unfortunately, many Neo-Darwinians seem to think that such hypothetical stories constitute evidence. Many Neo-Darwinists also assume that evidence for microevolution (which is accepted by proponents of all schools including Creationism) is proof of macroevolution. As Fowler and Kuebler point out, this is simply not the case. In their discussion of Creationism, the authors point out that many proponents of this school of thought have rested almost everything on the argument that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. They note that there are many “old earth” Creationists, but focus on young-earth Creationism since it represents a completely different interpretation of the “raw data” discussed in chapter 3. Old-earth Creationists believe that young-earth Creationists have misinterpreted the early chapters of Genesis and that this misinterpretation forces them to interpret the observable data differently. The authors do not discuss this exegetical debate. Instead, because the age of the universe is key in this discussion, the authors devote much of the chapter to evaluating the various arguments and theories that Creationists have proposed to explain the apparent old age of the universe (e.g., the proposal made by some Creationists that the speed of light has changed). They also look at various Creationist explanations of the observable geological features of the earth, explanations which are usually related in some way to the Genesis flood. In other words, geological features that Neo-Darwinists would attribute to very slow and gradual processes are attributed by Creationists to catastrophic processes associated with the worldwide upheaval caused by the flood. The authors take a particularly close look at Walter Brown’s hydroplate theory because it makes testable predictions that can be verified or falsified (They note that some have already been verified). The authors point out, and many proponents of Creationism readily admit, that the major hurdle faced in the effort to have Creationist theories taken seriously by those who are not Creationists, is the apparent age of the universe. This issue, therefore, remains at the forefront of Creationist research. The Intelligent Design school, often referred to as “ID,” is the most recent player in the evolution controversy. As the authors explain, the primary argument made by proponents of Intelligent Design is that the complexity observed in many biological systems is too great to be explained by any purely naturalistic mechanisms. Proponents postulate that direct intervention by an intelligent designer can be inferred from this observation. One major argument of the Intelligent Design school is that it is possible to come up with a testable scientific filter for detecting design. Fowler and Kuebler look at this claim and point out its - 161 -

American Theological Inquiry strengths and weaknesses. They also devote considerable space to the idea of “irreducible complexity,” an idea which has arisen in the work of Intelligent Design proponents in connection with their research into complex biological systems. Fowler and Kuebler cite Intelligent Design proponent William Dembski for a definition: A system performing a given basic function is irreducibly complex if it includes a set of well-matched, mutually interacting, non-arbitrarily individuated parts such that each part in the set is indispensible to maintaining the system’s basic, and therefore original function. The set of these indispensible parts is known as the irreducible core of the system (p. 253). An example the authors provide to illustrate this concept is an old pocket watch. The glass and the chain are not essential, but there are a set of gears that are absolutely essential for the watch to function. If even one of these gears is removed, the watch ceases to function completely. It does not retain some of its ability to keep time. Instead, it is completely unable to keep time. Furthermore, the new arrangement of the watch minus one of its gears, serves no new function. Proponents of Intelligent Design argue that many biological systems are irreducibly complex in a similar way and, more importantly, that such systems could not have been the result of the gradual step by step assembly required by Neo-Darwinism. Because Intelligent Design is still in its early stages, the observations of Fowler and Kuebler regarding its strengths and weaknesses should prove beneficial to its proponents as they continue to refine their work. Fowler and Kuebler have coined the term “Meta-Darwinism” to refer to those evolutionists who remain committed to purely naturalistic explanations but who find the Neo-Darwinian theory lacking and who propose natural mechanisms in addition to or instead of natural selection working on random mutations. The discussion of MetaDarwinism may prove most informative to Christian readers who have heard of Darwinism, Creationism, and Intelligent Design, but who may not have been aware of dissent among the ranks of scientists operating within a purely naturalistic framework. In their discussion of Meta-Darwinism, Fowler and Kuebler focus on eight specific theories, looking at their strengths and weaknesses in explaining the raw data. These eight theories are: 1. The punctuated equilibrium theory of Steven Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge. 2. The idea of hierarchical selection also proposed by Gould and Eldredge. 3. The idea of exaptation proposed by Gould and Eldredge. 4. The neutral theory of molecular evolution proposed by Motoo Kimura. 5. The idea of developmental mutations (evo-devo) proposed by Sean Carroll and Jeffrey Schwartz. 6. The theory of morphogenic fields proposed by Brian Goodwin. 7. The self-organization/complexity theory of Stuart Kauffman. 8. The theory of endosymbiosis proposed by Lynn Margulis.

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American Theological Inquiry Because the proponents of these various theories do not agree on every point, the authors’ task is made somewhat more difficult, but they do a good job explaining complex concepts and making them understandable to readers with little or no background in the natural sciences. In Part Three, the authors turn to public policy implications of the evolution controversy. The chapter focuses on six basic questions: 1. Who is the legitimate spokesperson for science? 2. What types of evolution research should be funded with public money? 3. Should equal time or any time be given in the classroom for theories other than Darwinism? 4. Should the courts be the primary battleground for the evolution controversy, or should they not be involved at all? 5. What are the moral and ethical dimensions of the controversy? 6. Do purely naturalistic theories of evolution function as surrogate or virtual religions? The answer to each of these questions is disputed, and the authors provide a helpful survey of the arguments used by those on all sides of the debate. A particularly noteworthy point they make is that the truth or falsity of scientific theories should not be determined in the courts. In a final chapter, the authors summarize the major points of the book and reveal their own position. I did not skip ahead in my reading of the book to discover the position held by the authors because I wanted to see if I could guess it by detecting any bias in their presentation of the various views. The fact that it was somewhat difficult to guess precisely indicates that the authors largely succeeded in their quest to present all of the views as objectively as possible. For those readers who are interested, Fowler and Kuebler believe that there is some evidence favoring the Darwinian account of evolution. They also believe there is evidence against it and problems with the theories associated with it. Furthermore, they do not believe that supporters of Darwinism are always candid about those problems. They believe that each of the other three schools face problems as well that must be met head on, but they believe that none of the three can be definitively ruled out at present. They do state, however, that they believe young earth Creationism faces the most serious hurdles. Creationists will, of course, strongly disagree. Since the stated purpose of this volume is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the four major schools in regard to their handling of the common observational data available to all, it succeeds rather well in reaching that goal. A problem arises, however, since proponents of each of the schools look at all of this evidence with different starting assumptions. For Creationists, whether old-earth or young-earth, and for some proponents of Intelligent Design, the teaching of Scripture is necessarily taken into account. On the other hand, those Neo-Darwinists and Meta-Darwinists who are not also theistic - 163 -

American Theological Inquiry evolutionists do not consider Scripture relevant to the debate at all. What this means is that the controversy will not be resolved by mere study of the “raw data.” Underlying philosophical and religious (or anti-religious) assumptions must be taken into account as well. Although Fowler and Kuebler recognize this, they purposely limit themselves to a discussion of the observable natural evidence. This means that while their book is very helpful in many ways, it will have to be supplemented by other works dealing with underlying philosophical and metaphysical questions. One such question concerns the very definition of “science.” Considering the limited purpose of the book, my only serious complaint is that the authors did not spend more time discussing this issue. Neo-Darwinists regularly mock Creationists and Intelligent Design proponents for advancing arguments the Neo-Darwinists consider to be “unscientific.” On the other hand, proponents of Creationism and Intelligent Design argue that many aspects of Neo-Darwinism are “unscientific” and use many similar arguments. They argue, for example, that Neo-Darwinism incorporates philosophical issues into its “scientific” theory. The problem is that so much of this controversy involves historical events that are unrepeatable and untestable. It also involves events that some claim occur very gradually over enormous periods of time. Such events are therefore unobservable. Because of this, it is necessary to understand precisely how the study of such events fits within the normal definition of “science.” The authors indicate early on that they will not be dealing at any great length with detailed philosophical and religious aspects of the debate. However, since even the discussion of “scientific” evidence requires some kind of agreement on the definition of “science,” it seems to this reviewer that more discussion of this particular philosophical question might be necessary. Tim Challies DiscerningReader.com

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American Theological Inquiry

BOOK NOTES AND COMMENTS Beale, G. K. We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry. IVP Academic, 2008. Description: The heart of the biblical understanding of idolatry, argues Gregory Beale, is that we take on the characteristics of what we worship. Employing Isaiah 6 as his interpretive lens, Beale demonstrates that this understanding of idolatry permeates the whole canon, from Genesis to Revelation. Beale concludes with an application of the biblical notion of idolatry to the challenges of contemporary life. Bird, Michael F.; Crossley, James G. How Did Christianity Begin?: A Believer and Non-believer Examine the Evidence. Hendrickson, 2009. Description: The objective of How Did Christianity Begin? is to present two contrasting perspectives on the history of early Christianity. The contrast is evidently sharp as one coauthor comes from a conservative Christian background (Michael Bird), while the other coauthor (James Crossley) approaches the matter from a secular standpoint. The volume works sequentially through Christian origins and addresses various topics including the historical Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, the Apostle Paul, the Gospels, and the early church. Each author in turn examines these subjects and lays out his historical arguments concerning their origin and meaning. The volume also includes short responses from two other scholars (Maurice Casey and Scot McKnight) to the arguments of Bird and Crossley so as to give an even handed and broad evaluation of the arguments and debates that unfold. Cambridge History of Christianity, 10 Vols. Cambridge University Press, 20052009. Description: The Cambridge History of Christianity will provide the first complete chronological account of the development of Christianity in all its aspects—theological, social, political, regional, global—from the time of Christ to the present day. This ambitious project in nine volumes will connect the institutional history of the churches with the study of systematic and applied (pastoral) theology, and will cover popular piety and non-formal expressions of Christian faith as well as the more formal. The sociology of Christian formation, worship and devotion will be placed in a broad cultural context, and proper attention will be paid throughout to issues of spirituality and the spiritual content of Christianity’s development. This is not a history merely of Western Christianity. Into the study of the early church and beyond, consideration of Eastern and Coptic Christianity will be properly integrated; and later, African, Far Eastern, New World, South Asian and other non-European developments in Christianity will receive proper coverage. The relations between Christianity and Islam, Christianity and Hinduism, and Christianity and Judaism will be kept in sight. Each of the nine volumes will be of value as a free-standing contribution within its own period; and when complete, The Cambridge History of Christianity will constitute one of the major works of academic reference of our times. Comment: Series is now complete. Nine volumes. - 165 -

American Theological Inquiry Cavanaugh, William T. Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008. Description: Should Christians be for or against the free market? For or against globalization? How are we to live in a world of scarcity? William Cavanaugh uses Christian resources to incisively address basic economic matters—the free market, consumer culture, globalization, and scarcity—arguing that we should not just accept these as givens but should instead change the terms of the debate. Among other things, Cavanaugh discusses how God, in the Eucharist, forms us to consume and be consumed rightly. Examining pathologies of desire in contemporary “free market” economies, Being Consumed puts forth a positive and inspiring vision of how the body of Christ can engage in economic alternatives. At every turn, Cavanaugh illustrates his theological analysis with concrete examples of Christian economic practices. Christensen, Michael J.; Wittung, Jeffery A. (eds). Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions. Baker Academic, 2008. Description: This critical volume focuses on the concept of deification in Christian intellectual history. It draws together Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant scholars to introduce and explain the theory of deification as a biblically rooted, central theme in the Christian doctrine of salvation in diverse eras and traditions. The book addresses the origin, development, and function of deification from its precursors in ancient Greek philosophy to its nuanced use in contemporary theological thought. The revival of interest in deification, which has often been seen as heresy in the Protestant West, heralds a return to foundational understandings of salvation in the Christian church before divisions of East and West, Catholic and Protestant. Copan, Paul. Loving Wisdom: Christian Philosophy of Religion. Chalice Press, 2007. Description: Presenting a distinctively and deliberately Christian philosophy of religion, Loving Wisdom addresses a wide range of topics and questions. Copan acknowledges the difficulties, mystery, and disagreement of religion, and instead of using the language of “proofs,” he attempts to show how the Christian faith does a much more adequate job of answering a wide range of questions. Disbrey, Claire. Wrestling with Life’s Tough Issues: What Should a Christian Do? Hendrickson, 2008. Description: Sometimes Christians, faced with making ethical decisions informed by the Bible, are torn between “keeping the law” and “doing what love demands”—there is evidence in the Bible supporting both approaches. In this book Claire Disbrey suggests that in an effort to utilize both trends when making decisions, Christians should be guided by Virtue Ethics—the idea that we seek first to become virtuous people who value the right things and then express our values in the way we treat people. A good life is one lived in harmony with other people and the biblical truths and can determine what is trivial in life - 166 -

American Theological Inquiry from what is serious and worthwhile. This third way of virtue ethics heeds the Bible’s challenging call to let God’s Spirit change us so that we “live well” with the fruit of the Spirit manifest in our lives. The author provides helpful “case studies” of people caught in complex life situations. In these case studies the reader studies relevant passages from the New Testament and thinks through the sometimes difficult process of deciding how best to apply Biblical truths to specific personal decisions and painful ethical dilemmas. The author demonstrates how the ancient, rediscovered notion of Virtue Ethics can help us heed the Bible’s challenging call to let God’s Spirit change us, so that we learn to live well, with the fruit of the Spirit manifest in our lives. Finlan, Stephen; Kharlamov, Vladimir (eds). Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology. Pickwick Publications, 2006. Description: ‘Deification’ refers to the transformation of believers into the likeness of God. Of course, Christian monotheism goes against any literal ‘god making’ of believers. Rather, the NT speaks of a transformation of mind, a metamorphosis of character, a redefinition of selfhood, and an imitation of God. Most of these passages are tantalizingly brief, and none spells out the concept in detail. “Deification was an important idea in the early church, though it took a long time for one term to emerge as the standard label for the process. That term was theosis, coined by the great fourth-century theologian, Gregory of Nazianzus. Theologians now use theosis to designate all instances where any idea of taking on God’s character or being “divinized” (made divine) occurs, even when the term theosis is not used. And of course, different Christian authors understood deification differently.” “While some articles in this collection discuss pre-Christian antecedents of theosis, Greek and Jewish, most focus on particular Christian understandings. The article by Gregory Glazov examines OT covenant theology, with an emphasis on divine adoption, and on bearing the fruit of knowledge or attaining the stature of a tree of righteousness in Proverbs, Isaiah, and Sirach. The article by Stephen Finlan on 2 Pet 1:4 (‘You may become participants of the divine nature’) examines the epistle’s apparent borrowings from Middle Platonic spirituality, Stoic ethics, and Jewish apocalyptic expectation. The epistle stresses ‘knowledge of Christ,’ which means cultivation of godly character and growing up into Christ.” Comment: ATI feature article contributor, Dr. Myk Habets, has a delightful and informative chapter in the book titled, “Reforming Theōsis.” Gorman, Michael J. Elements of Biblical Exegesis: A Basic Guide for Students and Ministers (rev, exp edition). Hendrickson, 2009. Description: In this revised and expanded edition of Elements of Biblical Exegesis: A Basic Guide for Students and Ministers, Michael J. Gorman presents a straightforward approach to the complex task of biblical exegesis. Designed for students, teachers, and ministers, this hands-on guide breaks the task down into seven distinct elements. For each of these, Gorman supplies a clear explanation, practical hints, and suggested exercises to help the reader develop exegetical proficiency. The new edition addresses more fully the meaning of theological interpretation and provides updated print and internet resources for those who - 167 -

American Theological Inquiry want to pursue further study in any aspect of exegesis. Appendixes offer three sample exegesis papers and practical guidelines for writing a research exegesis paper. Heimbichner, Craig. Blood on the Altar: The Secret History of the World’s Most Dangerous Secret Society. Independent History and Research, 2005. Description: What’s beyond Freemasonry? That’s the question investigators have pondered for decades and Craig Heimbichner furnishes fascinating answers as he probes deeply into the sooty arcana of the Ordo Templi Orientis—or “OTO”—the higher secret society to which elite Freemasons emigrate as part of a process of occult succession. Blood on the Altar pursues the shape-shifting trail of this successor group, on the Left as the pillar of a libertarian ethos, avant-garde drug culture and radical hedonism; on the Right, as the pillar of aristocratic preference for authoritarian rule and classical culture. Heimbichner has deconstructed not just a Janus-faced secret society but a method of operation so deceptive, the reader can hardly believe that such audacious and far-flung duplicity and misdirection could possibly succeed for so long without exposure. But succeed it has, until now. The head-spinning trail of the OTO leads from the US government to the NASA rocket program, from the Hollywood film industry to Right-wing “patriot” groups, from the New Age craze for the Kabbalah, to an attempt to control the conservative enthusiasm for traditional liturgy. The OTO has marched from triumph after triumph, as the spectre of its “Great Beast”, British Intelligence officer Aleister Crowley, cast its Thelemic spell over a double-minded populace alternately seeking freedom-and-constraint, sex-and-repression, magick-andChristendom, science-and-superstition. “Blood on the Altar” shows the OTO to be the signature secret society behind the most dazzling—and puzzling— charades of the modern Cryptocracy. Comment: Though it’s surely par for the course for a book of this kind, the subject matter is exceedingly dark and, at times, grotesque (though, without celebration). Informative, but difficult at times to ascertain precisely to what extent Heimbichner believes these dark, occultic forces to be “pulling the strings.” Heschel, Susannah. The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany. Princeton, 2008. Description: Was Jesus a Nazi? During the Third Reich, German Protestant theologians, motivated by racism and tapping into traditional Christian anti-Semitism, redefined Jesus as an Aryan and Christianity as a religion at war with Judaism. In 1939, these theologians established the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life. In The Aryan Jesus, Susannah Heschel shows that during the Third Reich, the Institute became the most important propaganda organ of German Protestantism, exerting a widespread influence and producing a nazified Christianity that placed anti-Semitism at its theological center. - 168 -

American Theological Inquiry Comment: Sure, but is the title really necessary? Leithart, Peter J. Solomon Among The Postmoderns. Brazos Press, 2008. Description: Solomon’s words from a famous passage of Ecclesiastes have been translated, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” In Solomon among the Postmoderns, Peter Leithart says those words are better translated “Vapor of vapors, all is vapor,” emphasizing that human life is fleeting. He uses this theme, as well as the entire book of Ecclesiastes, to indicate how Solomon resonated with the themes of today’s postmodernism. Comment: A thoroughly engaging and enjoyable read which Fr. Neuhaus of First Things— while remaining mildly critical—calls “a pleasant stroll through contemporary philosophy, literary theory, and cultural studies...[and is] going in the right direction.” Mason, Steve. Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins: Methods and Categories Hendrickson, 2009. Description: A collection of essays focusing on the threads in Josephus that are of particular interest to people studying the background and development of Christianity. The book takes up basic but often overlooked questions of historical method in studying first-century Judea and the origins of Christianity. Many of these questions concern the use of Josephus for reconstructing this history. Chapters deal with Josephus’ authority, his method of publication and audiences, “Judaism,” Pharisees, Essenes, “gospel,” and much else. Comment: Has the sense of setting a new, definitive standard of scholarly treatments of the Josephian corpus. Mason’s comprehensive volume will no doubt quickly merit the gramercy of all scholars of Christian antiquity. McGlasson, Paul C. Invitation to Dogmatic Theology: A Canonical Approach. Brazos Press, 2006. Description: Pet doctrines can be dangerous, whether they come from conservative or liberal believers. Former seminary professor Paul McGlasson, now a Presbyterian pastor, invites all Christians to come together to think about the Word of the living God with the mission of the church in mind. His desire is that Christians must “turn directly to Scripture itself, seeking to hear the living voice of Christ through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.” Along the way, he examines liberal and evangelical theologies, church movements, and politics. This thought-provoking book will be stimulating reading for pastors, seminary students, and any other Christians concerned with the health and unity of the body of Christ. Natoli, Charles M. Fire in the Dark: Essays on Pascal’s Pensees and Provinciales. University of Rochester Press, 2005. Description: Pascal’s Pensées afford a deeply penetrating view of the human condition (or predicament) as a prelude to a luminously reasoned defense of the Christian faith. His Provincial Letters are best remembered as a wickedly funny satire of “obliging and accommodating” Jesuit moral theologians who, guided by policy rather than piety, are willing to put virtue and salvation within the easy reach of all but the diabolical. Both works are landmarks of French prose that have fascinated readers of all sorts from his day to ours. The - 169 -

American Theological Inquiry eight essays in Fire in the Dark, two of which are new and four of which first appeared in French, frame and probe Pascal’s underlying contention that the darkling, “hidden” God of Christian Revelation, though Himself a profound mystery, especially in the matter of his justice towards fallen mankind, can nonetheless be used to demystify questions that matter most to us. But can the Supremely Obscure, like a dark lantern that is supremely dark, really illumine our whence, whither, and what now - our nature, destiny and duties? “Watchman, what of the night?” The answers Pascal offers to Isaiah’s query, whether they finally shed light on our world’s chiaroscuro or not, can at least claim the authority of coming from out of the dark. Comment: Scholarly exegesis of the Pascalian corpus does not get better than this. Need, Stephen W. Truly Divine and Truly Human. SPCK Publishing, 2008. Description: Truly Divine and Truly Human traces the fascinating story of how Christians came to proclaim Jesus of Nazareth as both ‘truly divine’ and ‘truly human.’ It follows the centuries of debate—-and the Church councils—-that led up to this proclamation and the years of argument and schism that followed. This declaration has remained central to Christianity down the centuries and an appreciation of how it was made is crucial not only for an understanding of Christian history but also for an understanding of Christian identity today. Between 325 and 787 AD seven ecumenical councils took place in the early church. This book discusses what they had to say about Jesus Christ in the context of the developing Trinitarian theology of the time. Stephen Need examines the controversies that led up to the first seven ecumenical councils, the councils themselves, the decisions they made, the key theologians involved and the cities in which the councils were held. A final chapter looks at the contemporary significance of these councils and their positions for the church. Shults, F. Leron. Christology and Science. Ashgate, 2008. Description: The dialogue between theology and science has blossomed in recent decades, but particular beliefs about Jesus Christ have not often been brought to the forefront of this interdisciplinary discussion even in explicitly Christian contexts. This book breaks new ground by explicitly bringing the specific themes of Christology into dialogue with contemporary science. It engages recent developments in late modern philosophy of science in order to articulate the Christian beliefs about Jesus Christ in a way that responds to challenges and opportunities that have arisen in light of various scientific discoveries. The main chapters deal with Incarnation, Atonement and Parousia. After a brief treatment of the history of the shaping of these ideas, the author traces developments in some of the sciences that have challenged these formulations: evolutionary biology, cultural anthropology and physical cosmology. Each chapter also summarizes some of the popular constructive responses to these developments. After clarifying the way in which the Christian understanding of God and of humanity shape the task of reforming Christology, each chapter concludes with a programmatic outline of ways in which we might articulate the identity, agency and presence of Jesus Christ in dialogue with late modern science and culture. - 170 -

American Theological Inquiry Comment: I (the General Editor), have read three of Shults’ books, each of which claim to be following a trajectory of theological reconstruction (contradistinguished, by Shults, from deconstructive and/or paleo-constructive approaches which should be tarred and feathered). I’ve not looked at this particular volume yet, but if it is at all in line with the other three I have read, it is probably better classed as deconstructive by sheer dint of a consistent, overreaching confidence in—and fascination with—modern/postmodern science and psychology. But what a paleo-constructive thing to say! One might also mention Shults’ unrelenting prolixity. A good re-reading of Orwell’s seminal essay concerning the English language (i.e., “Politics and the English Language,” 1946) is highly recommended. Sure, theology and philosophy have their own storehouses of technical terms and phrases. But, if Orwell is correct (he is), we should manifest our fabulous indices of thesauri-mined words in an ever-conscious mode of verbal economy, that is, say more with less. Simmons, William A. Peoples of the New Testament World: An Illustrated Guide. Hendrickson Publishers, 2008. Description: Making sense of the New Testament requires navigating your way through the labyrinth of different cultural, religious, political, and economic groups that existed in firstcentury Jewish society as well as in the Roman Empire at large. In this introduction to the major people groups of the New Testament world, William Simmons clarifies New Testament history and teaching by providing a historical analysis of major Jewish groups such as Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes, as well as important Greco-Roman groups such as Philosophers, Herodians, and Centurions. Important sub-groupings within the first-century church, such as Hebrews and Hellenists, are set in the larger context of the JudeoRomanmix. Color photographs of ancient sites and archaeological discoveries highlight the descriptions. A helpful resource for anyone interested in understanding the world of the New Testament better, this book would also make an excellent textbook for an introductory college or seminary course on early Christian history or backgrounds. Comment: Beautifully bound, up-to-date, eminently readable, and comprehensive. No stinginess with the illustrations either, which appear on just about every other page. Sure to become a staple on the bookshelves of religious academicians and students everywhere specializing in the Christian history and New Testament studies. Sloane, Andrew. At Home in a Strange Land: Using the Old Testament in Christian Ethics. Hendrickson, 2008. Description: The Old Testament is a problem for many Christians. Some find it puzzling, or even offensive; others seem to glibly misuse it for their own ends. There are few resources aimed at enabling ordinary Christians to understand the OT and use it in their lives as followers of Jesus . . . Andrew Sloane seeks to address this need. He outlines some of the problems that ordinary Christians face in reading the Old Testament as part of Christian Scripture and provides a framework for interpreting the Old Testament and using it in Christian ethics. He identifies some of the key biblical texts of both the Old Testament and the New Testament that both inform Christian ethics and challenge us to live as God’s people. Using the paradigm of learning to travel in unfamiliar places, Sloane seeks to equip the reader with tools for understanding many of the puzzling and difficult passages found in - 171 -

American Theological Inquiry the Old Testament. In sum, the book aims to “rehabilitate” the Old Testament for ordinary, even skeptical, 21st century Christians. Vardy, Peter. An Introduction to Kierkegaard. Hendrickson, 2008. Description: An accessible introduction to one of the most influential philosophers of the nineteenth century. Peter Vardy makes Kierkegaard’s often complex and difficult thinking accessible to a wide audience. He sketches a few of the central themes of Kierkegaard’s thought and gives the reader a feeling for the way he approaches problems and some sense of the breadth of his work. This revised and expanded edition is an ideal introduction to Kierkegaard for both students and the general reader. Comment: If you’re a Kierkegaard lover, nothing makes you cringe more than seeing all the simplistic, far-too-abridged, usually-off-the-mark condensations and interpretations of his massive corpus (especially those that try to systematize it!). Thankfully, in Vardy’s case, there is cause for jubilation. His Introduction fares well indeed by teasing out SK’s key thoughts, mood, and contributions, but without ever reducing it to anything so terribly unKierkegaardian as a system! For those who don’t know SK at all but want to, this will now easily be my first recourse.

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American Theological Inquiry

THE ECUMENICAL CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM THE APOSTLES’ CREED (OLD ROMAN FORM) I believe in God the Father Almighty. And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary; crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried; the third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit; the holy Church; the forgiveness of sins; [and] the resurrection of the flesh. THE NICÆNO-CONSTANTINOPOLITAN CREED I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spake by the Prophets. And I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen. THE ATHANASIAN CREED Whoever desires to be saved must above all things hold to the catholic faith. Unless a man keeps it in its entirety inviolate, he will assuredly perish eternally. Now this is the catholic faith, that we worship one God in trinity and trinity in unity, without either confusing the persons, or dividing the substance. For the Father’s person is one, the Son’s another, the Holy Spirit’s another; but the Godhead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one, their glory is equal, their majesty is co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, such is also the Holy Spirit. The Father is uncreate, the Son uncreate, the Holy Spirit uncreate. The Father is infinite, the Son infinite, the Holy Spirit infinite. The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Spirit eternal. Yet there are not three eternals, but one eternal; just as there are not three uncreates or three infinites, but one uncreate and one infinite. In the same way the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, the Holy Spirit almighty; yet there are not three almighties, but one almighty. Thus the Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God; and yet there are not three Gods, but there is one God. Thus the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, the Holy Spirit Lord; and yet there are not three Lords, but there is one Lord. Because just as we are compelled by - 173 -

American Theological Inquiry Christian truth to acknowledge each person separately to be both God and Lord, so we are forbidden by the catholic religion to speak of three Gods or Lords. The Father is from none, not made nor created nor begotten. The Son is from the Father alone, not made nor created but begotten. The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made nor created nor begotten but proceeding. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. And in this trinity there is nothing before or after, nothing greater or less, but all three persons are co-eternal with each other and co-equal. Thus in all things, as has been stated above, both trinity and unity and unity in trinity must be worshipped. So he who desires to be saved should think thus of the Trinity. It is necessary, however, to eternal salvation that he should also believe in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now the right faith is that we should believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is equally both God and man. He is God from the Father’s substance, begotten before time; and He is man from His mother’s substance, born in time. Perfect God, perfect man composed of a human soul and human flesh, equal to the Father in respect of His divinity, less than the Father in respect of His humanity. Who, although He is God and man, is nevertheless not two, but one Christ. He is one, however, not by the transformation of His divinity into flesh, but by the taking up of His humanity into God; one certainly not by confusion of substance, but by oneness of person. For just as soul and flesh are one man, so God and man are one Christ. Who suffered for our salvation, descended to hell, rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, sat down at the Father’s right hand, from where He will come to judge the living and the dead; at whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies, and will render an account of their deeds; and those who have done good will go to eternal life, those who have done evil to eternal fire. This is the catholic faith. Unless a man believes it faithfully and steadfastly, he cannot be saved. Amen THE DEFINITION OF CHALCEDON We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Onlybegotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning have - 174 -

American Theological Inquiry declared concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.

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BOOK BY ATI’s GENERAL EDITOR The Great Apologists Throughout church history, an unbroken phalanx of apologists willing to defend historic Christian teaching have arisen and helped to preserve the faithful against every imaginable crises of faith, inimical philosophy, challenge and heresy. Spanning two millennia of Christendom, Voices of Reason in Christian History takes a fascinating look at the lives, legacies, and primary writings of eleven key defenders of the faith including: Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Blaise Pascal, Joseph Butler, William Paley, and C. S. Lewis. A well-written and helpful analysis of a wealth of apologetic materials from great Christian apologists throughout the centuries. Dr. Norman Geisler President Southern Evangelical Seminary Gannon Murphy has done a great service for both Christian apologists and the wider believing community. With impressive depth, he presents the ideas and arguments set forth by the leading defenders of the faith across the ages. He reminds us of the debt of gratitude we owe to the giants on whose shoulders we stand. Dr. Paul Copan Pledger Family Chair in Philosophy and Ethics Palm Beach Atlantic University It seems that even Christians who enjoy apologetics are seldom very knowledgeable regarding the history of this storied discipline. Further , very few books ever address this subject. Gannon Murphy’s volume seeks to remedy that lack, not only by choosing major, influential apologists of past generations, but by linking each to his historical context. This should be an invaluable addition to Publisher: Wingspread Publishers the literature. Retail Price: $16.99 Dr. Gary Habermas Web Price: $21.60 Chair of the Department of Philosophy and ISBN 10: 0-88965-233-3 Theology ISBN 13: 978-0-88965-233-0 Liberty University Pages: 233 Binding: Soft cover Publication Date: August 2005 Category: Theology, Church History

BOOK BY ATI’s GENERAL EDITOR Challenging Open Theism While several works have taken the important step of addressing open theism’s scriptural deficiencies in its denial of Gods foreknowledge, none have dealt with the vital issue of divine-human relationality and how it can be understood in a classical, orthodox framework that maintains such foreknowledge. Consuming Glory remedies that lack by first providing a fresh critique of open theism using Clark Pinnock's version of it as representative, but then offering a reconstruction of divine-human relationality centered on the Biblical principle of Christus in nobis (Christ in us). Christus in nobis is coupled with an outworking of meticulous divine providence that serves Gods own self-glorifying orientation. It reverses the relational ordering advocated in open theism by grounding human love of God theologically rather than anthropologically. Love of God and divine-human relationality is established precisely because it is Gods own self-love that is providentially given to us and thus reciprocated as believers are brought into adoptive communion with the Triune Godhead. Drawing on diverse resources throughout the corpus of historical theology, Murphy concludes that divine-human relationality can be summarized as God delighting in himself, in us. This work is not merely a critique of [open theist] Clark Pinnock, and neither is it a re-assertion of traditionalist Evangelical theology in the face of open theism. While convincingly out-flanking Pinnock and offering his own original view of divine-human relationality, Murphy displays a Publisher: Wipf and Stock degree of argumentative precision and attention to Retail Price: $27.00 the depths of the tradition which far surpasses Web Price: $21.60 Pinnock's work. He provides a fresh contribution to ISBN 10: 1-59752-843-9 the debate concerning the doctrine of God which ISBN 13: 978-1-59752-843-6 will be of interest to a wide constituency. This book Pages: 266 is to be very warmly welcomed. Binding: Paperback Dr. Simon Oliver Publication Date: September 2006 Associate Professor of Systematic Theology Category: Theology University of Wales, Lampeter

The Basis of Belief

A Century of Drama and Debate at the University of Minnesota by Steven J. Keillor The Basis of Belief tells the story of the University of Minnesota’s unofficial educational agenda. Steven Keillor considers selected controversies that have been energetically debated by educators, administrators, and students for over a century at the University. Keillor describes the clash between an experimental, scientific basis for knowledge and a reliance on testimony, as in stories and first-hand accounts. Which means of obtaining knowledge was best? Which direction should a university take in influencing and promoting one or the other? These arguments concern the place in the University curriculum and student life of such matters as science, religion, psychology, literature, evolution, American Studies, academic freedom, and loyalty, as well as less scholarly activities, such as student protests and strikes. Keillor carefully draws upon diaries, letters, published accounts, and interviews to assess how religion affected these subjects in academic life. 304 pages, 6” x 9”, paperback, © 2008 ISBN 13: 978-1-880654-440-8 Order Number: PP408…$15.95 Pogo Press An Imprint of Finney Company 8075 215th Street West, Lakeville, Minnesota 55044 Phone: (952) 469-6699 or (800) 846-7027 • Fax: (952) 469-1968 or (800) 330-6232 E-mail: [email protected] • Web sites: www.pogopress.com and www.finneyco.com

Around the world some 120,000 new books are published each year. That adds up to ten thousand every month; over 300 each and every day. Americans buy over 4.5 million books every day, including many of these new titles. This adds up to over 1.5 billion books per year that are consumed within America. Yet even this totals only 35% of the books that are sold worldwide. While it might seem that television and the Internet are decreasing our love for reading, it is clear that books sell better today than at any other time in history. Discerning Reader is a site dedicated to promoting good books--books that bring honor to God. At the same time, we hope to help Christians avoid being unduly influenced by books and teachers that are not honoring to God. Visit Discerning Reader today at: www.discerningreader.com

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PATRISTIC READING: “EXPOSITION OF THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCHES” St. Basil ARTICLES WHY ASK THE FATHERS? THE DYNAMICS OF A LIVING TRADITION Dr. Thomas Weinandy, O.F.M. Cap PANENTHEISM, THE OTHER ‘GOD OF THE PHILOSOPHERS’ Dr. John W. Cooper THE OPENNESS OF GOD AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS Dr. Samuel Lamerson SAME AS IT EVER WAS: THE FUTURE OF PROTESTANTISM IN THE GLOBAL NORTH Dr. D. G. Hart A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY: THE HARLOT AND THE CHURCH (1 CORINTHIANS 5-6) Dr. Tom Holland A RECENT HISTORY OF THE ORDINARY UNIVERSAL MAGISTERIUM Raymond W. Belair, JD PRAXIS THEOLOGIES AND THE PROJECT WELCOME SUDANESE REFUGEE COMMUNITY Dr. Joan Mueller, OSC BOOK REVIEWS

PATRISTIC READING: THE CONFERENCES, FIRST CONFERENCE, XVI-XXII St. John Cassian ARTICLES A TALE OF TWO DEITIES Dr. Kelly James Clark POST-SECULAR FAITH: TOWARD A RELIGION OF SERVICE Dr. Fred Dallmayr TRIUNITY, CREATION AND AESTHETIC RATIONALITY Dr. Michael Hanby JACQUES MARITAIN ON THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF CHRIST Dr. Patrick Doering DEVELOPING A RETROACTIVE HERMENEUTIC: JOHANNINE THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT Dr. Myk Habets CHRISTOLOGY AND THE RELATIONAL JESUS Dr. J. Lyle Story THE POSTMODERN CONDITION AS A RELIGIOUS REVIVAL Dr. Ryan McIlhenny THE BODY AND HUMAN IDENTITY IN POSTMODERNISM AND ORTHODOXY Scott Prather, MTS TEACHING NEW DOGS OLD TRICKS: RECONSIDERING THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION IN A POSTMODERN SOCIETY Dr. Paul D. Jacobs BOOK REVIEWS