HISTORIC THEOLOGY > THE MODERN PERIOD TO PRESENT DAY
The Modern Period, 1750 to the Present Day
In this final chapter, we shall consider the development of Christian theology up to the present day. During this period, Christianity underwent significant transformation and expansion outside its traditional European homelands, while experiencing considerable difficulties and tensions within them. From 1700 onward, Christian theology moved away from a western European context to become a global phenomenon. The colonization of North America by western Europeans, especially from Scandinavia, Germany, and England, led to the various schools of Protestant theology – Lutheran, Reformed, and Anabaptist – becoming firmly settled in a North American context. Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), closely linked with the religious revival generally known as the Great Awakening (c.1726–45), is the most significant American theologian of this age. Later waves of immigration, especially from Ireland and Italy, led to Roman Catholic theology becoming of increasing significance. The establishment of seminaries by various denominations (such as Princeton Theological Seminary by the Presbyterians) consolidated the importance of the United States of America as a leading center of Christian theological teaching and research. However, it was not until the middle of the twentieth century that America came to assume global significance in theological discussions; until that point, German and British theology tended to dominate, partly on account of the continuing immigration of European theologians into the United States. Such theologians, who had trained in European contexts, tended to maintain a European emphasis in their teaching and orientation. Elsewhere in the world, expansion continued. The enormous impact of Christian missions in Australasia, India, the Far East, and sub-Saharan Africa led to Christian theological seminaries, high schools, and universities becoming established in these regions, and gradually divesting themselves of their western European roots. The development of “local theologies” has become an issue of increasing importance in such regions, particularly as the perceived “Eurocentrism” of much Christian theologizing has been subjected to considerable critical comment on the part of native writers. This can be seen in Latin America, where there has been a reaction against the Catholicism exported to the region at the time of the Spanish and Portuguese conquests. The rise of liberation theology (see pp. 204–6), with its characteristic emphasis upon the importance of praxis , the prioritization of the situation of the poor, and the orientation of theology toward political liberation, may have mitigated this trend, but it did not reverse it. The chief beneficiaries of this trend appear to be evangelicals and charismatics in the region. Given the vast expansion and diversification of Christian theological writing, exploration, and debate since about 1750, this survey chapter aims to note some trends and developments that are important for historical theology. Limitations on space mean that a detailed engagement with everything that needs to be covered is quite impossible. We shall, however, try to gain something of a bird’s-eye view of the historical developments that shape the contemporary theological landscape, even if we cannot fill in the fine detail that is needed for many purposes. We begin by surveying some of the many cultural developments that shape the environment in which Christian theology has been done in recent centuries. This is followed by an exploration of some of the denominational distinctives of recent theological debate. Finally, we consider some of the schools of thought or movements which have emerged as important in this period.
A Cultural Watershed: The Enlightenment
The movement which now generally known as “the Enlightenment” ushered in a period of considerable uncertainty for Christianity in western Europe and North America. The trauma of the Reformation and the resulting Wars of Religion had barely subsided on the continent of Europe, before a new and more radical challenge to Christianity arose. The origins of the Enlightenment lie partly in English Deism, a movement that developed in the late seventeenth century. Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) had argued that the universe was like a vast machine, rationally designed and constructed by an intelligent creator. Deism minimized the supernatural dimensions of faith, and presented Christianity essentially as a rational and moral religion, easily harmonized with human reason. God was the creator of the kind of regular, ordered universe that Newtonian mechanics had uncovered. The phrase “Age of Reason,” often used as a synonym for the Enlightenment, is a little misleading. It implies that reason had been hitherto ignored or marginalized. As we saw in an earlier chapter (pp. 94–5), the Middle Ages can quite legitimately be thought of as an “Age of Reason.” A defining characteristic of the Enlightenment is its emphasis on the ability of human reason to penetrate the mysteries of the world. Humanity is able to think for itself, without the need for any assistance from God. Unaided human reason is able to make sense of the world – including those aspects of that world traditionally reserved for theologians. The Enlightenment is of major importance to historical theology, not least because it championed the historical critique of traditional Christian doctrines – a trend probably most associated with the “quest of the historical Jesus,” which has its roots in the early Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment Critique of Christian Theology
The Enlightenment criticism of many traditional Christian beliefs was based upon the principle of the omnicompetence of human reason. A number of stages in the development of this belief may be discerned. First, it was argued that the beliefs of Christianity were rational, and thus capable of standing up to critical examination. This type of approach may be found in John Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), and within some philosophical schools of thought in early eighteenth-century Germany. Christianity was a reasonable supplement to natural religion. The notion of divine revelation was thus maintained. Second, it was argued that the basic ideas of Christianity, being rational, could be derived from reason itself. There was no need to invoke the idea of divine revelation. Christianity, according to John Toland in his Christianity Not Mysterious (1696) and Matthew Tindal in his Christianity as Old as Creation (1730), was essentially the republication of the religion of nature. It did not transcend natural religion, but was merely an example of it. All so-called “revealed religion” was actually nothing other than the reconfirmation of what can be known through rational reflection on nature. “Revelation” was simply a rational reaffirmation of moral truths already available to enlightened reason. Third, the ability of reason to judge revelation was affirmed. As critical reason was omnicompetent, it was argued that it was supremely qualified to judge Christian beliefs and practices, with a view to eliminating any irrational or superstitious elements. This view, associated with Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) in Germany and many eighteenth-century French rationalist writers (often referred to collectively as les philosophes ), placed reason firmly above revelation. This view of reason was symbolized in one of the landmark events of the French Revolution – the enthronement of the Goddess of Reason in the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris in 1793. Having sketched the general principles of the Enlightenment challenge to traditional Christian thought, we may now explore how these impacted on specific doctrinal themes. The rational religion of the Enlightenment found itself in conflict with several major areas of traditional Christian theology. The following are especially important.
The notion of revelation
The concept of revelation was of central importance to traditional Christian theology. While many Christian theologians (such as Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin) recognized the possibility of a natural knowledge of God, they insisted that this required supplementation by supernatural divine revelation, such as that witnessed to in Scripture. The Enlightenment witnessed the development of an increasingly critical attitude to the very idea of supernatural revelation. In the first place, it was unnecessary. In the second, it lacked the universality of human reason. Everyone had access to reason; only a select few had access to revelation. The phrase “the scandal of particularity” was used by Enlightenment writers in expressing their concerns about the traditional notion of revelation at this point.
The status and interpretation of the Bible
Within orthodox Christianity, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, the Bible was still widely regarded as a divinely inspired source of doctrine and morals, to be differentiated from other types of literature. The Enlightenment saw this assumption called into question, with the rise of the critical approach to Scripture. Developing ideas already current within Deism, the theologians of the German Enlightenment developed the thesis that the Bible was the work of many hands, at times demonstrating internal contradiction, and that it was open to precisely the same method of textual analysis and interpretation as any other piece of literature.
The identity and significance of Jesus Christ
A third area in which the Enlightenment made a significant challenge to orthodox Christian belief concerns the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Two particularly important developments may be noted: the origins of the “quest of the historical Jesus” and the rise of the “moral theory of the atonement.” Each of these significant historical developments is linked with key themes of the Enlightenment worldview. Both Deism and the German Enlightenment developed the thesis that there was a serious discrepancy between the real Jesus of history and the New Testament interpretation of his significance. It was argued that a simple human figure, a glorified teacher of common sense, lay hidden behind or underneath the New Testament portrait of the supernatural redeemer of humanity. While a supernatural redeemer was unacceptable to Enlightenment rationalism, the idea of an enlightened moral teacher was not. H. S. Reimarus and others argued that it was possible to go behind the New Testament accounts of Jesus and uncover a simpler, more human Jesus, who would be acceptable to the new spirit of the age. The second aspect of traditional ideas concerning Jesus to be challenged by Enlightenment thinkers concerned the significance of his death (an area of theology often referred to as “theories of the atonement”). For orthodoxy, Jesus’ death on the cross was interpreted from the standpoint of the Resurrection (which the Enlightenment was not prepared to accept as an historical event) as a way in which God was able to forgive the sins of humanity. During the Enlightenment this “theory of the atonement” was subjected to increasing criticism, as involving arbitrary and unacceptable hypotheses such as that of original sin. Jesus’ death on the cross was now reinterpreted in terms of a supreme moral example of self-giving and dedication, intended to inspire similar dedication and self-giving on the part of his followers. Where orthodox Christianity tended to treat Jesus’ death (and resurrection) as possessing greater inherent importance than his religious teaching, the Enlightenment marginalized his death and denied his resurrection, in order to emphasize the quality of his moral teaching.
The doctrine of the Trinity
The doctrine of God as a trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – was widely ridiculed by Enlightenment thinkers, who held it to be logically absurd. How could any rational person accept such mathematical nonsense? Under the pressure of rationalist criticism, many orthodox Christian thinkers de-emphasized the idea, believing that it was impossible to mount an effective defense of the doctrine, given the spirit of the age. It is important to note that the revival of the doctrine of the Trinity dates from the twentieth century, as the influence of the Enlightenment began to wane. Throughout the period of the Enlightenment, rationalist pressure led to many Christian theologians developing approaches to the doctrine of God that came close to Deism. God was the supreme governor of the universe, the creator of all things. This approach is especially evident in eighteenth-century English theology, which saw God as the “divine watchmaker,” the constructor of an ordered and regular universe. Trinitarian theology went into hibernation for much of the Enlightenment period, and only reemerged in the early twentieth century, as confidence in the Enlightenment worldview began to collapse after the trauma of World War I.
The critique of miracles
Much traditional Christian apologetics concerning the identity and significance of Jesus Christ was based upon the “miraculous evidences” of the New Testament, culminating in the Resurrection. The new emphasis upon the mechanical regularity and orderliness of the universe, perhaps the most significant intellectual legacy of Newtonianism, raised doubts about the New Testament accounts of miraculous happenings. David Hume’s Essay on Miracles (1748) was widely regarded as demonstrating the evidential impossibility of miracles. Hume emphasized that there were no contemporary analogues of New Testament miracles, such as the Resurrection, thus forcing the New Testament reader to rely totally upon human testimony to such miracles. For Hume (1711–76), it was axiomatic that no human testimony was adequate to establish the occurrence of a miracle, in the absence of a present-day analogue. Similarly, the French rationalist writer Denis Diderot (1713–84) declared that if the entire population of Paris were to assure him that a dead man had just been raised from the dead, he would not believe a word of it. The past was analogous to the present, and the absence of resurrections in the eighteenth century was a telling argument against any hypothetical resurrection in the first.
The rejection of original sin
The idea that human nature is in some sense flawed or corrupted, expressed in the orthodox doctrine of original sin, was vigorously opposed by the Enlightenment. Leading figures of the French Enlightenment – such as Voltaire (1694–1778) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712– 78) – criticized the doctrine as encouraging pessimism with regard to human abilities, thus impeding human social and political development, and encouraging laissez-faire attitudes. German Enlightenment thinkers tended to criticize the doctrine on account of its relatively late historical origins in the thought of Augustine of Hippo, dating from the fourth and fifth centuries, which they regarded as debarring it from permanent validity and relevance.
The problem of evil
The Enlightenment witnessed a fundamental change in attitude toward the existence of evil in the world. For the medieval period, the existence of evil was not regarded as posing a threat to the coherence of Christianity. The contradiction implicit in the existence both of a benevolent divine omnipotence and of evil was not regarded as an obstacle to belief, but simply as an academic theological problem. The Enlightenment saw this situation change radically: the existence of evil metamorphosed into a challenge to the credibility and coherence of Christian faith itself. Voltaire’s novel Candide (1759) was one of many works to highlight the difficulties caused for the Christian worldview by the existence of natural evil (such as the famous Lisbon earthquake of 1755). The term “theodicy,” coined by the German philosopher Leibniz, derives from this period, reflecting a growing recognition that the existence of evil was assuming a new significance within the Enlightenment critique of religion.
Romanticism and the Critique of the Enlightenment
In the closing decade of the eighteenth century, increasing misgivings came to be expressed concerning the arid quality of rationalism. Reason, once seen as a liberator, came increasingly to be regarded as spiritually enslaving. These anxieties were not expressed so much within university faculties of philosophy as within literary and artistic circles, particularly in the Prussian capital, Berlin. The Romantic movement replaced an appeal to pure reason with an appeal to human intuition, imagination, and feelings. “Romanticism” is notoriously difficult to define. The movement is perhaps best seen as a reaction against certain of the central themes of the Enlightenment, most notably the claim that reality can be known to the human reason. It protested against any reduction of reality to a series of rationalized simplicities. Instead, Romanticism made an appeal to the human imagination, which it held to be capable of providing a synthesis of the complexities and tensions which it observed in nature and in human feelings. The Enlightenment, according to its Romantic critics, failed to do justice to the complexity of the world in its attempt to reduce the “mystery of the universe” – to use a phrase found in the writings of Augustus William Schlegel – to neat logical formulae. The development of Romanticism had considerable implications for Christianity in Europe. Those aspects of Christianity (especially Catholicism) which rationalism found distasteful on account of its symbolism or appeal to emotions came to captivate the imaginations of the Romantics. Rationalism was seen as experientially and emotionally deficient, incapable of meeting real human needs that were traditionally addressed and satisfied by Christian faith. As F. R. de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) remarked of the situation in France in the first decade of the nineteenth century, “there was a need for faith, a desire for religious consolation, which came from the very lack of that consolation for so long.” Similar views were common within the German context in the closing years of the eighteenth century. That rationalism had failed to undermine religion is clear from developments in England, Germany, and North America. The new strength evident in German Pietism and English evangelicalism in the eighteenth century points to the failure of rationalism to provide a cogent alternative to the prevailing human sense of personal need and meaning. Philosophy came to be seen as sterile, academic in the worst sense of the word, in that it was detached from both the outer realities of life and the inner life of the human consciousness. It is against this background of growing disillusionment with rationalism, and a new appreciation of the importance of human “feeling,” that the contribution of Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) is to be seen. Schleiermacher argued that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, was a matter of feeling or “self-consciousness.” His major work of systematic theology, The Christian Faith (1821, revised 1834), is an attempt to show how Christian theology is related to a feeling of “absolute dependence.” The structure of The Christian Faith is complex, centering on the dialectic between sin and grace. The work is organized in three parts. The first deals with the consciousness of God, concentrating upon such matters as creation. The second part handles the consciousness of sin and its implications, such as an awareness of the possibility of redemption. The final part considers the consciousness of grace, and deals with such matters as the person and work of Christ. In this way, Schleiermacher was able to argue that “everything is related to the redemption accomplished by Jesus of Nazareth.” Yet Romanticism was ambivalent toward traditional Christianity. While recognizing the importance of religious feeling, and acknowledging the importance of the quest for a transcendent dimension to life, some Romantic writers – such as Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) – saw this quest as having no necessary connection with the Christian faith. This naturally leads us to consider what is widely described as the “Victorian crisis of faith,” which is often seen as setting the context for many themes in modern theology.
The Crisis of Faith in Victorian England
In his important book God’s Funeral (2000), A. N. Wilson documents and analyzes the rise of atheism in Victorian Britain. One of the most interesting things about the book is his careful documentation of the ambivalence felt within late nineteenth-century England over its loss of faith. The secular enterprise, begun with great enthusiasm, had achieved substantial successes by the end of the century. Politically and socially, Christianity remained highly significant in national life, and would remain so until after World War I. Yet its ideas were increasingly seen as discredited, unattractive, and outdated by novelists, poets, and artists. Wilson brings out clearly the deep sense of emotional loss and confusion which the inexorable elimination of God brought in its wake. It is difficult to seize on a single figure as illustrating or causing this crisis of faith. However, the novelist George Eliot (the pen-name of Mary Ann Evans, 1819–90) is regularly identified as a major figure in this emerging climate of suspicion and hostility toward religious faith. Many of Eliot’s misgivings about Christianity concerned its apparent lack of concern for issues of morality in its own doctrine. Why, Eliot asked, did Christianity so devalue human love, except when directed toward the praise of God? We can see here a leading theme of the Victorian crisis of faith – a growing moral revolt against Christianity on account of its leading ideas. Writers such as J. A. Froude, Matthew Arnold, and F. W. Newman abandoned their Christian faith on account of a growing sense of the immorality of such doctrines as original sin, predestination, and substitutionary atonement . Eliot, like many others, therefore turned to a “religion of human sympathy” in place of this rather dark and dismal conception of God. Similar patterns of alienation from conventional religion are found throughout her novels, from Adam Bede (1859) through to Middlemarch (1871–2). The moral aspects of faith can, she believed, be maintained without the metaphysical basics of Christianity. We can be good without God. Indeed, belief in the Christian God can be a significant obstacle to the achievement of “individual and social happiness.” These views became the received wisdom of the age, shaping the emerging late Victorian consensus on the ability of humanity to shape its own destiny. While some – Thomas Hardy comes to mind – were more pessimistic than Eliot about humanity’s ability to construct morality without God, they were a distinguished minority in this discussion. The Victorian era is widely regarded as undergoing major changes from about 1870 to 1900, which can be seen as ultimately subverting the values and beliefs of its earlier phases. Many writers of the period were conscious of standing at the threshold of a new age, uncertain of what it might bring, yet suspecting that the old ways of thinking were on their way out. In his Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse , written around this time, Matthew Arnold (1822–88) spoke of being caught Between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born, With nowhere to lay my head. Arnold’s journey through the Alps is the backdrop against which he explores his sense of displacement, focusing especially on the erosion of faith in his culture – and perhaps even in himself. His once robust faith, he comments, more than a little wistfully, now seems “but a dead time’s exploded dream.” Arnold expresses a sense of melancholy and sadness over his nation’s loss of faith, which he saw pathetically mirrored in the ebbing of the tide on Dover beach: The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. That tide was now ebbing, and Arnold never expected to see it return. It is impossible to read his poem “Dover Beach” without glimpsing something of his pain and bewilderment over his nation’s willing loss of its religious soul.
Postmodernism and a New Theological Agenda
Postmodernism is generally taken to be something of a cultural sensibility without absolutes, fixed certainties, or foundations, which takes delight in pluralism and divergence, and which aims to think through the radical “situatedness” of all human thought. In each of these matters, it may be regarded as a conscious and deliberate reaction against the totalization of the Enlightenment. To give a full definition of postmodernism is virtually impossible. In part, this is because there is substantially less than total agreement on the nature of the “modernity” which it displaces and supersedes. In fact, the word “postmodernism” itself might be argued to imply that “modernity” is sufficiently well defined and understood that – whatever it is – it may be said to have ended and been superseded. The problem is particularly acute in the case of literature, where “modernism” has always been a contested notion. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify its leading general feature, which is the deliberate and systematic abandonment of centralizing narratives. Kevin Vanhoozer has recently suggested that the complex phenomenon of postmodernity is best summed up in four criticisms it directs against older ways of thinking: Reason . The “modern” approach of reasoning by argument is viewed with suspicion by postmodern writers. Where modernity believed in a single universal reason, postmodernity holds that there are many different kinds of rationality. “They deny the notion of universal rationality; reason is rather a contextual and relative affair.” 2. Truth . Postmodernity is suspicious of the idea of truth on account of the way in which it has been used to legitimate oppression, or give justification to vested interests. Truth, on this view, is “a compelling story told by persons in positions of power in order to perpetuate their way of seeing and organizing the natural and social world.” 3. History . Where modern writers tried to find universal patterns in history, Vanhoozer suggests that postmodernity is “incredulous towards narratives that purport to recount universal history.” From the standpoint of Christian apologetics, this means that any attempt to see universal significance in the narrative of Jesus of Nazareth will be viewed with intense suspicion by some in today’s culture. 4. Self . Following on from this, postmodernity rejects any notion that there is “one true way of recounting one’s own history” and thus concludes that there is “no true way of narrating one’s own identity.” All ways of understanding the individual are open-ended and partial. There is no universal answer to the question of human identity. It will thus be clear that there is an inbuilt precommitment to relativism or pluralism within postmodernism in relation to questions of truth. To use the jargon of the movement, one could say that postmodernism represents a situation in which the signifier has replaced the signified as the focus of orientation and value. In terms of the structural linguistics developed initially by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), and subsequently by Roman Jakobson (1896–1982) and others, the recognition of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign and its interdependence with other signs marks the end of the possibility of fixed, absolute meanings. According to de Saussure, a “sign” consists of three things: the signifier (the acoustic image of the spoken words as heard by the intended recipient of the message), the signified (the meaning which is evoked in the mind of this recipient through the stimulus of the signifier), and the unity of these two. For de Saussure, the unity of the signifier with the signified is a cultural convention. There is no universal or transcendent foundation which relates signifier and signified: it is arbitrary, reflecting the contingencies of cultural conditioning. Developing such insights, writers such as Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007), Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), and Michel Foucault (1926–84) argued that language was ultimately arbitrary, whimsical, and capricious. It was not grounded in any overarching absolute linguistic laws, and was thus incapable of disclosing meaning. Baudrillard argued that modern society was trapped in an endless network of artificial sign systems, which meant nothing, and merely perpetuated the belief systems of those who created them. One aspect of postmodernism which illustrates this trend particularly well, while also indicating its obsession with texts and language, is deconstruction – the critical method which virtually declares that the identity and intentions of the author of a text are an irrelevance to the interpretation of the text, prior to insisting that, in any case, no fixed meaning can be found in it. This movement arose primarily as a result of Jacques Derrida’s reading of the works of Martin Heidegger in the late 1960s. Two general principles can be seen as underlying this approach to the reading of texts: 1. Anything that is written will convey meanings which its author did not intend, and could not have intended. 2. The author cannot adequately put into words what he or she means in the first place. All interpretations are thus equally valid, or equally meaningless (depending upon your point of view). As Paul de Man (1919–83), one of the leading proponents of this approach in the United States, declared, the very idea of “meaning” smacked of fascism. This approach, which blossomed in post-Vietnam America, was given the semblance of intellectual respectability by academics such as de Man, Geoffrey Hartman (b.1929), and J. Hillis Miller (b.1928). “Metanarratives” – that is, generalizing narratives which claimed to provide universal frameworks for the discernment of meaning – were to be rejected as authoritarian. Far from discerning meaning, such narratives imposed their own meanings in a fascist manner. The rise of postmodernism has had an important influence on the shaping of many theological discussions. We shall consider two areas of theology briefly in order to indicate the significance of postmodernism to theological reflection in recent decades: 1. Biblical interpretation. Traditional academic biblical interpretation had been dominated by the historico-critical method. This approach, which developed during the nineteenth century, stressed the importance of the application of critical historical methods, such as establishing the Sitz im Leben , or “situation in life,” of Gospel passages. A number of leading literary critics of the 1980s – such as Harold Bloom (b.1930) and Frank Kermode (1919–2010) – challenged such ideas as “institutionally legitimized” or “scholarly respectable” interpretations of the Bible. The notion that there is a meaning to a biblical text – whether laid down by a church authority or by the academic community – is thus regarded with considerable suspicion within postmodernism. 2. S ystematic theology. Postmodernism is, by its very nature, hostile to the notion of “systematization” or any claims to have discerned “meaning.” Mark Taylor’s study Erring (1984) is an excellent illustration of the impact of postmodernism on systematic theology. The image of “erring” – rather than more traditional approaches to theological system-building – leads Taylor to develop an anti-systematic theology which offers polyvalent approaches to questions of truth or meaning. Taylor’s study represents an exploration of the consequences of Nietzsche’s declaration of the “death of God.” On the basis of this, Taylor argues for the elimination of such concepts as self, truth, and meaning. Language does not refer to anything, and truth does not correspond to anything.
Key Theologians
A close study of works dealing with theology during the last 200 years demonstrates that a relatively small group of theologians are regularly cited as representing theological benchmarks. Those who feel that theology has been dominated by white European males will, I fear, find many of their concerns confirmed by this finding. It is my hope that this situation will change, and that new names will secure increasing recognition as time passes, so that future editions of this work can respond accordingly. The purpose of this present section is to introduce the names and agendas of the theologians who have had such an impact in this most recent period of theological reflection. Although many will be discussed in greater detail elsewhere in this volume, readers will find these brief introductions helpful in orientating themselves within the complex landscape of modern theology.
F. D. E. Schleiermacher
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) is widely regarded as the most important Protestant theologian of the nineteenth century. He rose to fame through his recognition of the need to make Christianity relevant and accessible to its “cultural despisers” of the Enlightenment. His Christian Faith (1821–2; revised edition, 1830–1) set out a systematic approach to Christian theology, based on an appeal to the “experience of absolute dependence.” Although widely respected for his contributions to the interpretation and criticism of Kant, and his work on hermeneutics, Schleiermacher is best seen as a theologian who laid the intellectual foundations for the rise of liberal Protestantism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
John Henry Newman
Few English-language theologians have had such an impact as John Henry Newman (1801–90). Newman studied at Oxford University, and went on to become vicar of the University Church, Oxford. He became a leading figure in the Oxford Movement, which sought to renew the High Church tradition within Anglicanism. In 1845, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church, becoming a cardinal in 1879. Although Newman wrote several works of historical theology, these do not show him at his best and often rest on questionable judgments. His most important work concerned the development of doctrine in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845), and the clarification of the relation of faith and reason (see especially his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent , 1870).
Karl Barth
The Swiss writer Karl Barth (1886–1968) is now virtually universally regarded as the greatest Protestant theologian of the twentieth century, and possibly since the Reformation. Initially brought up within the context of liberal Protestantism, Barth placed an emphasis on divine revelation which forced a reevaluation of much existing theology. The style of theology associated with Barth was initially termed “dialectical theology” or “neo-orthodoxy,” although neither is particularly helpful in understanding his theological agenda. For Barth, theology was an autonomous discipline, whose task was to respond to what it found in God’s self-revelation. Although Barth’s early writings are often critical, rather than constructive (such as his famous Romans commentary of 1919), his Church Dogmatics (incomplete at the time of his death) is a positive, constructive presentation of his theological program. Barth has had a major impact on many areas of theology, particularly in relation to the concept of revelation. The twentieth-century renaissance of Trinitarian theology is widely put down to his influence.
Paul Tillich Although
Paul Tillich (1886–1965) originally studied theology in Germany, he was forced to resign his teaching positions due to his opposition to Nazism. He emigrated to the United States, and initially taught at Union Theological Seminary, New York, before accepting a position at Harvard University. He became an American citizen in 1940. Tillich can be seen as continuing and extending the theological program of F. D. E. Schleiermacher. His theological agenda can be summarized as an attempt to correlate culture and faith in such a way that “faith need not be unacceptable to contemporary culture and contemporary culture need not be unacceptable to faith.” Making extensive use of existentialism, Tillich set out to present and interpret the Christian faith to modern western culture, stressing the “correlation” between the “ultimate questions” of humanity and the answers provided by the Christian faith. Although this approach is clearly set out in works such as The Shaking of the Foundations (1948), it is best studied from his major work, Systematic Theology (1951–63).
Karl Rahner
Of the many Roman Catholic theologians to rise to prominence during the twentieth century, the German writer Karl Rahner (1904–84), a member of the Society of Jesus, is generally regarded as the most significant. One of Rahner’s most impressive achievements is the rehabilitation of the essay as a tool of theological exploration. The most significant source for Rahner’s thought is not a substantial work of dogmatic theology, but a relatively loose and unstructured collection of essays published over the period 1954–84, and known in English as Theological Investigations . These essays show how a relatively unsystematic approach to theology can nevertheless give rise to a coherent theological program. Perhaps the most important aspect of Rahner’s theological program is his “transcendental method,” which he saw as a Christian response to the secular loss of the transcendence of God. Whereas earlier generations attempted to meet this challenge through liberal or modernist accommodationist strategies, Rahner argued that the recovery of a sense of the transcendent could only be achieved through a reappropriation of the classical sources of Christian theology, especially Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Rahner’s particular approach involves the fusion of Thomism with central aspects of German idealism and existentialism.
Hans Urs von Balthasar
The Swiss Roman Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–88) has had a major impact on recent theological debate, especially in relation to questions of beauty. Von Balthasar’s chief work, published over the period 1961–9, is entitled The Glory of the Lord. It sets out the idea of Christianity as a response to God’s self-revelation, laying special emphasis upon the notion of faith as a response to the vision of the beauty of the Lord. His analysis of theology in terms of contemplation of the good, the beautiful, and the true has won many admirers. Other major works include his Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory , a five-volume work on what he terms “theodramatics,” the action of God and the human response, seen especially in the events of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Day; and his Theo-Logic , which deals with the relation of Jesus Christ to reality itself.
Jürgen Moltmann
The German Protestant theologian Jürgen Moltmann (b.1926) developed his interest in theology during his time spent in a prisoner-of-war camp near Nottingham, England, where he recalls reading Reinhold Niebuhr’s landmark work The Nature and Destiny of Man . After returning to Germany, Moltmann began his career as a theologian. The work that brought him to international attention was his trilogy: The Theology of Hope (1964), The Crucified God (1972), and The Church in the Power of the Spirit (1975). In the first of these, Moltmann addressed the question of hope in dialogue with the Marxist writer Ernst Bloch. The Crucified God explored the relevance of Christ to a suffering world, and developed a pioneering approach to the notion of “a suffering God.” Although Moltmann has subsequently made landmark contributions to other areas of theology (especially the doctrine of creation, the doctrine of the Trinity, and ecological issues), he is still chiefly remembered for these earlier works.
Wolfhart Pannenberg
The German Protestant theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg (b.1928) rose to prominence during the 1960s on account of his work on “revelation as history.” This approach to theology argued that revelation could be discerned within the historical process itself. For Pannenberg, God conducts his self-disclosure through his actions, primarily in the history of Israel, and in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Developing this theme in Jesus – God and Man (1968), Pannenberg pointed to the resurrection of Christ as providing the vantage point from which history could be properly interpreted. Pannenberg’s interests include questions of theological method (best seen in his early work Theology and the Philosophy of Science ), which have more recently been extended to include an important discussion of the interaction of Christian theology and the natural sciences. The definitive statement of his mature theology is to be seen in his Systematic Theology (1988–93).
Some Recent Western Theological Movements and Trends
In previous sections of this chapter, we have looked at some of the broader cultural influences on Christian theology in the modern era, as well as noting some theologians of importance. In what follows, we shall explore some major recent movements and trends in western theology.
Liberal Protestantism
Liberal Protestantism is unquestionably one of the most important movements to have arisen within modern Christian thought. Its origins are complex. However, it is helpful to think of it as having arisen in response to the theological program set out by F. D. E. Schleiermacher, especially in relation to his emphasis upon human “feeling” (see pp. 188–9) and the need to relate Christian faith to the human situation. Classic liberal Protestantism had its origins in the Germany of the mid-nineteenth century, amid a growing realization that Christian faith and theology alike required reconstruction in the light of modern knowledge. In England, the increasingly positive reception given to Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection (popularly known as the “Darwinian theory of evolution”) created a climate in which some elements of traditional Christian theology (such as the doctrine of the seven days of creation) seemed to be increasingly untenable. From its outset, liberalism was committed to bridging the gap between Christian faith and modern knowledge. Liberalism’s program required a significant degree of flexibility in relation to traditional Christian theology. Its leading writers argued that reconstruction of belief was essential if Christianity were to remain a serious intellectual option in the modern world. For this reason, they demanded a degree of freedom in relation to the doctrinal inheritance of Christianity on the one hand, and traditional methods of biblical interpretation on the other. Where traditional ways of interpreting Scripture, or traditional beliefs, seemed to be compromised by developments in human knowledge, it was imperative that they should be discarded or reinterpreted to bring them into line with what was now known about the world. The theological implications of this shift in direction were considerable. A number of Christian beliefs came to be regarded as seriously out of line with modern cultural norms; these were dealt with in two ways: 1. They were abandoned , as resting upon outdated or mistaken presuppositions. The doctrine of original sin is a case in point; this was put down to a misreading of the New Testament in the light of the writings of Augustine, whose judgment on these matters had become clouded by his over-involvement with a fatalist sect (the Manichees). 2. They were reinterpreted , in a manner more conducive to the spirit of the age. A number of central doctrines relating to the person of Jesus Christ may be included in this category, including his divinity (which was reinterpreted as an affirmation of Jesus exemplifying qualities which humanity as a whole could hope to emulate). Alongside this process of doctrinal reinterpretation (which continued in the “history of dogma” movement: see pp. 10–11) may be seen a new concern to ground Christian faith in the world of humanity – above all, in human experience and modern culture. Sensing potential difficulties in grounding Christian faith in an exclusive appeal to Scripture or the person of Jesus Christ, liberalism sought to anchor that faith in common human experience, and interpret it in ways that made sense within the modern worldview. Liberalism was inspired by the vision of a humanity which was ascending upward into new realms of progress and prosperity. The doctrine of evolution gave new vitality to this belief, which was nurtured by strong evidence of cultural stability and progress in western Europe in the late nineteenth century. Religion came increasingly to be seen as relating to the spiritual needs of modern humanity and giving ethical guidance to society. Many critics of the movement – such as Karl Barth in Europe and Reinhold Niebuhr in North America – regarded liberal Protestantism as based upon an unduly optimistic view of human nature. They believed that this optimism had been discredited by the events of World War I, and that liberalism would henceforth lack cultural credibility. This has proved to be a considerable misjudgment. At its best, liberalism may be regarded as a movement committed to the restatement of Christian faith in forms that are acceptable within contemporary culture. Liberalism has continued to see itself as a mediator between two unacceptable alternatives: the mere restatement of traditional Christian faith (usually described as “traditionalism” or “fundamentalism” by its liberal critics), and the total rejection of Christianity. Liberal writers have been passionately committed to the search for a middle road between these two stark alternatives. Perhaps the most developed and influential presentation of liberal Protestantism is to be found in the writings of the German émigré Paul Tillich (1886–1965), who rose to fame in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s, toward the end of his career, and who is widely regarded as the most influential American theologian since Jonathan Edwards. (Some scholars, however, prefer to refer to Tillich as “neoliberal,” recognizing that his work represents a development, rather than a mere reworking, of classic liberal Protestant themes.) Tillich’s theological program can be summarized in the term “correlation.” By the “method of correlation” Tillich understands the task of modern theology to be to establish a conversation between human culture and Christian faith. Tillich reacted with alarm to the theological program set out by Karl Barth, seeing this as a misguided attempt to drive a wedge between theology and culture. For Tillich, existential questions – or “ultimate questions,” as he often terms them – are thrown up and revealed by human culture. Modern philosophy, writing, and the creative arts point to questions which concern humans. Theology then formulates answers to these questions, and by doing so it correlates the gospel to modern culture. The gospel must speak to culture, and it can do so only if the actual questions raised by that culture are heard. For David Tracy of the University of Chicago, the image of a dialogue between the gospel and culture is controlling: that dialogue involves the mutual correction and enrichment of both gospel and culture. There is thus a close relation between theology and apologetics, in that the task of theology is understood to be that of interpreting the Christian response to the human needs disclosed by cultural analysis. The term “liberal” is thus probably best interpreted as designating “a theologian in the tradition of Schleiermacher and Tillich, concerned with the reconstruction of belief in response to contemporary culture” (David Tracy), in which form it describes many noted modern writers. However, it must be noted that the current use of the term “liberal” is somewhat imprecise and confusing. Liberal Protestantism has been criticized on a number of points, of which the following are representative: 1. It tends to place considerable weight upon the notion of a universal human religious experience. Yet this is a vague and ill-defined notion, incapable of being examined and assessed publicly. There are also excellent reasons for suggesting that “experience” is shaped by interpretation to a far greater extent than liberalism allows. 2. Liberalism is seen by its critics as placing too great an emphasis upon transient cultural developments, with the result that it often appears to be uncritically driven by a secular agenda. 3. It has been suggested that liberalism is too ready to surrender distinctive Christian doctrines in an effort to become acceptable to contemporary culture. Liberalism probably reached its zenith in North America during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Although continuing to maintain a distinguished presence in seminaries and schools of religion, cultural changes during the 1990s have led some to see it as a waning force both in modern theology and in church life in general. The weaknesses of liberalism have been seized upon by critics within the postliberal school, to be considered shortly. Much the same criticism can also be directed against a movement known loosely as “modernism,” to which we now turn.
Modernism
The term “modernist” was first used to refer to a school of Catholic theologians operating toward the end of the nineteenth century, which adopted a critical attitude to traditional Christian doctrines, especially those relating to the identity and significance of Jesus of Nazareth. The movement fostered a positive attitude toward radical biblical criticism, and stressed the ethical, rather than the more theological, dimensions of faith. In many ways, modernism may be seen as an attempt by writers within the Roman Catholic Church to come to terms with the outlook of the Enlightenment, which it had, until that point, largely ignored. Among Roman Catholic modernist writers, particular attention should be paid to Alfred Loisy (1857–1940) and George Tyrrell (1861–1909). During the 1890s, Loisy established himself as a critic of traditional views of the biblical accounts of creation, and argued that a real development of doctrine could be discerned within Scripture. His most significant publication, The Gospel and the Church , appeared in 1902. This important work was a direct response to the views of Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930), published two years earlier as What Is Christianity? , on the origins and nature of Christianity. Loisy rejected Harnack’s suggestion that there was a radical discontinuity between Jesus and the church; however, he made significant concessions to Harnack’s liberal Protestant account of Christian origins, including an acceptance of the role and validity of biblical criticism in interpreting the Gospels. As a result, the work was placed upon the list of prohibited books by the Catholic authorities in 1903. The British Jesuit writer George Tyrrell followed Loisy in his radical criticism of traditional Catholic dogma. In common with Loisy, he criticized Harnack’s account of Christian origins in Christianity at the Crossroads (1909), famously dismissing Harnack’s historical reconstruction of Jesus as “the reflection of a Liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well.” The book also included a defense of Loisy’s work, arguing that the official Roman Catholic hostility to the book and its author had created a general impression that it was a defense of Liberal Protestant against Roman Catholic positions, and that “modernism is simply a protestantizing and rationalizing movement.” In part, this perception may be due to the growing influence of similar modernist attitudes within the mainstream Protestant denominations. In England, the Churchmen’s Union was founded in 1898 for the advancement of liberal religious thought; in 1928, it altered its name to the Modern Churchmen’s Union. Among those especially associated with this group may be noted Hastings Rashdall (1858–1924), whose Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology (1919) illustrates the general tenor of English modernism. Drawing somewhat uncritically upon the earlier writings of liberal Protestant thinkers such as Ritschl, Rashdall argued that the theory of the atonement associated with the medieval writer Peter Abelard (1079–1142) was more acceptable to modern thought forms than traditional theories which made an appeal to the notion of a substitutionary sacrifice. This strongly moral or exemplarist theory of the atonement, which interpreted Christ’s death virtually exclusively as a demonstration of the love of God, made a considerable impact upon English, and especially Anglican, thought in the 1920s and 1930s. Nevertheless, the events of World War I and the subsequent rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s undermined the credibility of the movement. It was not until the 1960s that a renewed modernism or radicalism became a significant feature of English Christianity. The rise of modernism in the United States follows a similar pattern. The growth of liberal Protestantism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was widely perceived as a direct challenge to more conservative evangelical standpoints. Newman Smyth’s Passing Protestantism and Coming Catholicism (1908) argued that Roman Catholic modernism could serve as a mentor to American Protestantism in several ways, not least in its critique of dogma and its historical understanding of the development of doctrine. The situation became increasingly polarized through the rise of fundamentalism in response to modernist attitudes. World War I ushered in a period of self-questioning within American modernism that was intensified through the radical social realism of writers such as H. R. Niebuhr. By the mid-1930s, modernism appeared to have lost its way. In an influential article in The Christian Century of December 4, 1935, Harry Emerson Fosdick declared the need “to go beyond modernism.” In his Realistic Theology (1934), Walter Marshall Horton spoke of the rout of liberal forces in American theology. However, the movement gained new confidence in the postwar period, and arguably reached its zenith during the period of the Vietnam War. However, we must now turn back to the opening of the twentieth century, to consider an earlier reaction against liberalism, which is especially associated with the name of Karl Barth: neo-orthodoxy.
Neo-orthodoxy
World War I witnessed a growing disillusionment with, although not a final rejection of, the liberal theology which had come to be associated with Schleiermacher and his followers. A number of writers argued that Schleiermacher had, in effect, reduced Christianity to little more than religious experience, thus making it a human-centered rather than a Godcentered affair. The war, it was argued, destroyed the credibility of such an approach. Liberal theology seemed to be about human values – and how could these be taken seriously, if they led to global conflicts on such a massive scale? By stressing the “otherness” of God, writers such as Karl Barth (1886–1968) believed that they could escape from the doomed humancentered theology of liberalism. These ideas were given systematic exposition by Barth in the Church Dogmatics (1936–69), one of the most significant theological achievements of the twentieth century. Barth did not live to finish this enterprise, so that his exposition of the doctrine of redemption is incomplete. The primary theme which resonates throughout the Dogmatics is the need to take seriously the self-revelation of God in Christ through Scripture. Although this might seem to be little more than a reiteration of themes already firmly associated with Calvin or Luther, Barth brought a degree of creativity and rigor to his task which firmly established him as a major thinker in his own right. The work is divided into five volumes, each of which is further subdivided. Volume I deals with the Word of God – for Barth, the source and starting point of Christian faith and Christian theology alike. Volume II deals with the doctrine of God, and volume III with the doctrine of the creation. Volume IV deals with the doctrine of reconciliation (or, perhaps one might say, “atonement”; the German term Versöhnung has both meanings). The final incomplete volume V considers the doctrine of redemption. Apart from the predictable (and relatively non-informative) term “Barthianism,” two terms have been used to describe the approach associated with Barth. The first of these terms is “dialectical theology,” which takes up the idea, found especially in Barth’s 1919 commentary on Romans, of a “dialectic between time and eternity,” or a “dialectic between God and humanity.” The term draws attention to Barth’s characteristic insistence that there is a contradiction or dialectic, rather than a continuity, between God and humanity. The second term is “neo-orthodoxy,” which draws attention to the affinity between Barth and the writings of the period of Reformed orthodoxy, especially during the seventeenth century. In many ways, Barth can be regarded as entering into dialogue with several leading Reformed writers of this period. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Barth’s approach is his “theology of the Word of God.” According to Barth, theology is a discipline that seeks to keep the proclamation of the Christian church faithful to its foundation in Jesus Christ, as he has been revealed to us in Scripture. Theology is not a response to the human situation or to human questions; it is a response to the Word of God, which demands a response on account of its intrinsic nature. Neo-orthodoxy became a significant presence in North American theology during the 1930s, especially through the writings of Reinhold Niebuhr and others, which criticized the optimistic assumptions of much liberal Protestant social thinking of the time. Neo-orthodoxy has been criticized at a number of points. The following are of especial importance: 1. Its emphasis upon the transcendence and “otherness” of God leads to God being viewed as distant and potentially irrelevant. It has often been suggested that this leads to extreme skepticism. 2. There is a certain circularity to the claim of neo-orthodoxy to be based only upon divine revelation, in that this cannot be checked out by anything other than an appealto that same revelation. In other words, there are no recognized external reference points by which neo-orthodoxy’s truth claims can be verified. This has led many of its critics to suggest that it is a form of fideism – that is to say, a belief system which is impervious to any criticism from outside its own boundaries. 3. Neo-orthodoxy has no helpful response to those who are attracted to other religions, which it is obliged to dismiss as distortions and perversions. Other theological approaches are able to account for the existence of such religions, and place them in relation to the Christian faith.
Ressourcement , or, la nouvelle théologie
During the broad period 1930–50, traditional Catholic theology in western Europe found itself facing a series of challenges that its traditional, rather scholastic approaches were ill equipped to meet. Many writers in Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands attempted to rise to this challenge, developing new approaches to theology that maintained what was good about the tradition while at the same time allowing it to engage with the questions of the day. Yet it was in France that these questions were pursued with particular energy and insight. The French theological revival of these years included some of the greatest names in twentieth-century Catholic scholarship – writers such as Henri de Lubac, Jean Daniélou, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar, Marie-Dominique Chenu, and Louis Bouyer. Why France? Partly because of the urgency of the question in that country. France had a long tradition of secularism, going back to the French Revolution. Yet the theological soul searching that we see in this movement was sparked off by the publication of Jean Godin’s book France – A Nation of Mission? in 1943. This book argued that Catholicism was losing its influence on young people and the working classes. The Catholic church was galvanized: the years 1946–7 witnessed an unprecedented level of institutional self-examination and renewal. Part of that process of renewal was the movement known as la ressourcement by its advocates, and la nouvelle théologie (“the new theology”) by its critics (who wished to dismiss it as uncritical innovation). A key theme of this “ressourcement” was a return to the sources, traditions, and creeds of the early church. Many regard the manifesto of the movement as being a 1946 article by the young Jesuit writer Jean Daniélou, entitled “The Present Orientations of Religious Thought.” A chasm, he declared, had opened up between systematic theology and biblical exegesis . The result was inevitable: the church had developed a theology that was divorced from biblical studies on the one hand, and the life and spirituality of the church on the other. Daniélou’s solution to this difficulty was simple, and not unlike that used by Christian humanists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To equip the church to confront the challenges of the modern age, it must rediscover the riches of the church’s 2000 years of history by returning to the very fountainhead of the Christian tradition. The French term “ressourcement” (which is difficult to translate adequately into English) encapsulates this program of “rediscovering and reappropriating the original sources of theology.” Such theologians did not see this program simply as a repetition of what had been said in the past. Rather, the tradition was interrogated and interpreted in the light of the questions of the present. As Charles Péguy noted, the modern crisis of faith demanded “a new and deeper sounding of ancient, inexhaustible, and common resources.” Like the humanists of the Renaissance, the advocates of this reform found themselves advocating what seemed to be a paradox: in order to advance in theology, one first has to go backward. “If theological progress is sometimes necessary, it is never possible unless you go back to the beginning and start all over again” (Étienne Gilson). Nor did these theologians see theological scholarship as of purely academic importance. The ressourcement envisaged and advocated by these writers was not primarily a work of academic scholarship but rather a work of religious revitalization. Indeed, many placed the emphasis on the pastoral orientation of theology, and the need for theology to connect with the situation of ordinary people. This “primacy of the pastoral” (Yves Congar) extended to worship, addressing the widespread perception that a sense of God’s transcendent mystery had been eroded by a rationalistic theology. The recovery of the transcendent in theology was seen as an integral aspect of the program of ressourcement , and helps us understand why the movement emphasized the link between theology and spirituality.
Feminism
Feminism has come to be a significant component of modern western culture. At its heart, feminism is a global movement working toward the emancipation of women, arguing for gender equality and a right understanding of the relationship between women and men to be affirmed by contemporary theology and practice. The older term for the movement – “women’s liberation” – expressed the fact that it is at heart a liberation movement directing its efforts toward achieving equality for women in modern society, especially through the removal of obstacles – including beliefs, values, and attitudes – that hinder that process. Feminist theology thus aims to understand and criticize male-dominated tradition and to challenge androcentric images of God and humanity. The movement has become increasingly heterogeneous in recent years, partly on account of a willingness to recognize a diversity of approaches on the part of women within different cultures and ethnic groupings. Thus the religious writings of black women in North America are increasingly coming to be referred to as “black womanist theology.” Feminism has come into conflict with Christianity (as it has with most religions) on account of the perception that religions treat women as second-rate human beings, both in terms of the roles which those religions allocate to women, and the manner in which they are understood to image God. The writings of Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) – such as The Second Sex (1945) – developed such ideas at length. A number of post-Christian feminists, including Mary Daly (1928–2010) in Beyond God the Father (1973) and Daphne Hampson (b.1944) in Theology and Feminism (1990), argue that Christianity, with its male symbols for God, its male savior figure, and its long history of male leaders and thinkers, is biased against women, and therefore incapable of being salvaged. Women, they urge, should leave its oppressive environment. Others, such as Carol Christ in Laughter of Aphrodite (1987) and Naomi Ruth Goldenberg in Changing of the Gods (1979), argue that women may find religious emancipation by recovering the ancient goddess religions (or inventing new ones), and abandoning traditional Christianity altogether. Yet the feminist evaluation of Christianity is far from as monolithically hostile toward Christianity as these writers might suggest. Feminist writers have stressed how women have been active in the shaping and development of the Christian tradition, from the New Testament onward, and have exercised significant leadership roles throughout Christian history. Indeed, many feminist writers have shown the need to reappraise the Christian past, giving honor and recognition to a large group of faithful women, whose practice, defense, and proclamation of their faith had hitherto passed unnoticed by much of the Christian church and its (mainly male) historians. Sarah Coakley (b.1951) is an important voice in such discussions. In her Powers and Submissions (2002), Coakley explores how feminism can be used constructively to provide a new appreciation for certain early church figures, without losing sight of its critical and corrective role. The most significant contribution of feminism to Christian thought may be argued to lie in its challenge to traditional theological formulations. These, it is argued, are often patriarchal (that is, they reflect a belief in domination by males) and sexist (that is, they are biased against women). The following areas of theology are especially significant in this respect.
The maleness of God
The persistent use of male pronouns for God within the Christian tradition is a target of criticism by many feminist writers. It is argued that the use of female pronouns is at least as logical as the use of their male counterparts, and might go some way toward correcting an excessive emphasis upon male role models for God. In her Sexism and God-Talk (1983), Rosemary Radford Ruether (b.1936) suggests that the term “God/ess” is a politically correct designation for God, although the verbal clumsiness of the term is unlikely to enhance its appeal. In her Metaphorical Theology (1982), Sallie McFague (b.1933) argues for the need to recover the idea of the metaphorical aspects of male models of God, such as “father”: analogies tend to stress the similarities between God and human beings; metaphors affirm that, amidst these similarities, there are significant dissimilarities between God and humans (for example, in the realm of gender).
The nature of sin
Many feminist writers have suggested that notions of sin as pride, ambition, or excessive self-esteem are fundamentally male in orientation. This, it is argued, does not correspond to the experience of women, who tend to experience sin as lack of pride, lack of ambition, and lack of self-esteem. Of particular importance in this context is the feminist appeal to the notion of non-competitive relationships, which avoids the patterns of low self-esteem and passivity which have been characteristic of traditional female responses to male-dominated society. This point is made with particular force by Judith Plaskow (b.1947) in Sex, Sin and Grace (1980), a penetrating critique of Reinhold Niebuhr’s theology from a feminist perspective, although the earlier work of Valerie Saiving anticipated some of these themes.
Pastoral theology
In the last few decades there has been increased interest in pastoral (or practical) theology, which explores how the Christian tradition feeds into pastoral care (pp. 7–8). Feminist writers have noted how much work in this area has been undertaken from a male perspective, and offered alternative or supplementary approaches. In her influential work Transforming Practice (1993), Elaine Graham (b.1959) points out how a feminist pastoral theology offers important corrections to traditional models. Instead of relying upon somewhat abstract scientific and medical models of care, feminist reconstruction of pastoral theology seeks to use sacrament, prayer, sermon, and community life as sources for healing and community.
The person of Christ
A number of feminist writers, most notably Rosemary Radford Ruether in Sexism and God- Talk , have suggested that Christology is the ultimate ground of much sexism within Christianity. In her Consider Jesus: Waves of Renewal in Christology (1990), Elizabeth Johnson (b.1941) has explored the manner in which the maleness of Jesus has been the subject of theological abuse, and suggests appropriate correctives. Two areas of especial importance may be noted. First, the maleness of Christ has sometimes been used as the theological foundation for the belief that only the male human may adequately image God, or that only males provide appropriate role models or analogies for God. Second, the maleness of Christ has sometimes been used as the foundation for a network of beliefs concerning norms within humanity. It has been argued, on the basis of the maleness of Christ, that the norm of humanity is the male, with the female being somehow a second-rate, or less than ideal, human being. Thomas Aquinas, who describes women as misbegotten males (apparently on the basis of an obsolete Aristotelian biology), illustrates this trend, which has important implications for issues of leadership within the church. In responding to these points, feminist writers have argued that the maleness of Christ is a contingent aspect of his identity, on the same level as his being Jewish. It is a contingent element of his historical reality, not an essential aspect of his identity. Thus it cannot be allowed to become the basis of the domination of females by males, any more than it legitimates the domination of Gentiles by Jews, or plumbers by carpenters.
Liberation theology
The term “liberation theology” is now used to refer to the distinct form of theology which has its origins in the Latin American situation in the 1960s and 1970s. The same term could, in theory, be applied to any theology which is addressed to or deals with oppressive situations. In this sense, feminist theology could be regarded as a form of liberation theology, as the older term “women’s liberation” suggests. Equally, black theology was particularly concerned with the issue of liberation during the civil rights movement in the United States. Some classical works on black theology and feminist liberation theology were actually published at about the same time as the first major statements of Latin American liberation theology. Nevertheless, the phrase “liberation theology” is now generally used to refer to the specifically Latin American embodiment of a theology that focuses on human liberation. The origins of this movement are usually traced back to 1968, when the Catholic bishops of Latin America gathered for a congress at Medellín, Colombia. This meeting – often known as CELAM II – sent shock waves throughout the region by acknowledging that the church had often sided with oppressive governments in the region, and declaring that in future it would be on the side of the poor. This pastoral and political stance was soon complemented by a solid theological foundation. In his Theology of Liberation (1971), the Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez (b.1928) introduced the characteristic themes that would become definitive of the movement, and which we shall explore presently. Other writers of note include the Brazilian Leonardo Boff (b.1938), the Uruguayan Juan Luis Segundo (1925–96), and the Argentinian José Miguéz Bonino (b.1924). This last theologian is unusual in one respect, in that he is a Protestant (more precisely, a Methodist) voice in a conversation dominated by Roman Catholic writers. The basic themes of Latin American liberation theology may be summarized as follows: 1. Liberation theology is oriented toward the poor and oppressed. “The poor are the authentic theological source for understanding Christian truth and practice” (Jon Sobrino). In the Latin American situation, the church is on the side of the poor: “God is clearly and unequivocally on the side of the poor” (Bonino). The fact that God is on the side of the poor leads to a further insight: the poor occupy a position of especial importance in the interpretation of the Christian faith. All Christian theology and mission must begin with the “view from below,” with the sufferings and distress of the poor. 2. Liberation theology involves critical reflection on practice. As Gutiérrez puts it, theology is a “critical reflection on Christian praxis in the light of the word of God.” Theology is not, and should not be, detached from social involvement or political action. Whereas classical western theology regarded action as the result of reflection, liberation theology inverts the order: action comes first, followed by critical reflection. “Theology has to stop explaining the world, and start transforming it” (Bonino). True knowledge of God can never be disinterested or detached, but comes in and through commitment to the cause of the poor. There is a fundamental rejection of the Enlightenment view that commitment is a barrier to knowledge. This last point has caused debate, on account of the movement’s apparent indebtedness to Marxist theory. Liberation theologians have defended their use of Marx on two grounds. First, Marxism is seen as a “tool of social analysis” (Gutiérrez), which allows insights to be gained concerning the present state of Latin American society, and the means by which the appalling situation of the poor may be remedied. Second, it provides a political program by which the present unjust social system may be dismantled, and a more equitable society created. In practice, liberation theology is intensely critical of capitalism and affirmative of socialism. Liberation theologians have noted Thomas Aquinas’s use of Aristotle in his theological method, and argued that they are merely doing the same thing – using a secular philosopher to give substance to fundamentally Christian beliefs. For, it must be stressed, liberation theology declares that God’s preference for and commitment to the poor is a fundamental aspect of the gospel, not some bolt-on option arising from the Latin American situation or based purely in Marxist political theory. It will be clear that liberation theology is of major significance to recent theological debate. Two key theological issues may be considered as an illustration of its impact. Biblical hermeneutics Scripture is read as a narrative of liberation. Particular emphasis is laid upon the liberation of Israel from bondage in Egypt, the prophets’ denunciation of oppression, and Jesus’ proclamation of the gospel to the poor and outcast. Scripture is read not from a standpoint of wishing to understand the gospel, but out of a concern to apply its liberating insights to the Latin American situation. Western academic theology has tended to regard this approach with some impatience, believing that it has no place for the considered insights of biblical scholarship concerning the interpretation of such passages. The nature of salvation Liberation theology has tended to equate salvation with liberation, and stressed the social, political, and economic aspects of salvation. The movement has laid particular emphasis upon the notion of “structural sin,” noting that it is society, rather than individuals, that is corrupted and requires redemption. To its critics, liberation theology has reduced salvation to a purely worldly affair, and neglected its transcendent and eternal dimensions.
Black theology
“Black theology,” a movement which concerned itself with ensuring that the realities of black experience were represented at the theological level, became especially significant in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. The first major evidence of the move toward theological emancipation within the American black community dates from 1964, with the publication of Joseph Washington’s Black Religion , a powerful affirmation of the distinctiveness of black religion within the North American context. Washington emphasized the need for integration and assimilation of black theological insights within mainstream Protestantism; however, this approach was largely swept to one side with the appearance of Albert Cleage’s Black Messiah . Cleage (1911–2000), pastor of the Shrine of the Black Madonna in Detroit, urged black people to liberate themselves from white theological oppression. Arguing that Scripture was written by black Jews, Cleage claimed that the gospel of a black Messiah had been perverted by Paul in his attempt to make it acceptable to Europeans. Despite the considerable overstatements within the work, Black Messiah came to be a rallying point for black Christians determined to discover and assert their distinctive identity. The movement made several decisive affirmations of its theological distinctiveness during 1969. The “Black Manifesto” issued at the Inter-Religious Foundation for Community Organization meeting in Detroit, Michigan, placed the issue of the black experience firmly on the theological agenda. The statement by the National Committee of Black Churchmen emphasized the theme of liberation as a central motif of black theology: Black Theology is a theology of black liberation. It seeks to plumb the black condition in the light of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, so that the black community can see that the gospel is commensurate with the achievement of black humanity. Black Theology is a theology of “blackness.” It is the affirmation of black humanity that emancipates black people from white racism, thus providing authentic freedom for both white and black people. Although there are obvious affinities between this statement and the aims and emphases of Latin American liberation theology, it must be stressed that, at this stage, there was no formal interaction between the two movements. Liberation theology arose primarily within the Roman Catholic church in South America, whereas black theology tended to arise within black Protestant communities in North America. The most significant writer within the movement is generally agreed to be James H. Cone (b.1938), whose Black Theology of Liberation (1970) appealed to the central notion of a God who is concerned for the black struggle for liberation. Noting the strong preference of Jesus for the oppressed, Cone argued that “God was black” – that is, identified with the oppressed. However, Cone’s use of Barthian categories was criticized: why, it was asked, should a black theologian use the categories of a white theology in articulating the black experience? Why had he not made fuller use of black history and culture? In later works, Cone responded to such criticisms by making a more pervasive appeal to “the black experience” as a central resource in black theology. Nevertheless, Cone has continued to maintain a Barthian emphasis upon the centrality of Christ as the self-revelation of God (while identifying him as “the black Messiah”), and the authority of Scripture in interpreting human experience in general.
Postliberalism
One of the most significant developments in theology since about 1980 has been a growing skepticism over the plausibility of a liberal worldview. The emergence of postliberalism is widely regarded as one of the most important aspects of western theology since 1980. The movement had its origins in the United States, and was initially associated with Yale Divinity School, and particularly with theologians such as Hans Frei (1922–88), Paul Holmer (1916–2004), and George Lindbeck (b.1923). While it is not strictly correct to speak of a “Yale school” of theology, there are nevertheless clear “family resemblances” between a number of the approaches to theology to emerge from Yale during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Since then, postliberal trends have become well established within North American and British academic theology. Its central foundations are narrative approaches to theology, such as those developed by Hans Frei, and the schools of social interpretation which stress the importance of culture and language in the generation and interpretation of experience and thought. Building upon the work of philosophers such as Alasdair MacIntyre (b.1929), postliberalism rejects both the traditional Enlightenment appeal to a “universal rationality” and the liberal assumption of an immediate religious experience common to all humanity. Arguing that all thought and experience is historically and socially mediated, postliberalism bases its theological program upon a return to religious traditions, whose values are inwardly appropriated. Postliberalism is thus anti-foundational (in that it rejects the notion of a universal foundation of knowledge), communitarian (in that it appeals to the values, experiences, and language of a community, rather than prioritizing the individual), and historicist (in that it insists upon the importance of traditions and their associated historical communities in the shaping of experience and thought). The philosophical roots of this movement are complex. Within the movement, particular appreciation can be discerned for the style of approach associated with the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, as noted above, which places an emphasis on the relation between narrative, community, and the moral life. In this respect, postliberalism reintroduces a strong emphasis on the particularity of the Christian faith, in reaction against the strongly homogenizing tendencies of liberalism, in its abortive attempt to make theory (that all religions are saying the same thing) and observation (that the religions are different) coincide. Liberal critics of postliberalism have argued that it represents a lapse into a “ghetto ethic” or some form of “ fideism ” or “tribalism,” on account of its retreat from universal norms of value and rationality. Postliberals respond to their liberal critics by arguing that the latter seem unable to accept that the Enlightenment is over, and that any notion of a “universal language” or “common human experience” is simply a fiction, like – to use Hans-Georg Gadamer’s famous analogy – Robinson Crusoe’s imaginary island. The most significant statement of the postliberal theological agenda remains George Lindbeck’s Nature of Doctrine (1984). Rejecting “cognitive–propositional” approaches to doctrine as premodern, and liberal “experiential–expressive” theories as failing to take account of both human experiential diversity and the mediating role of culture in human thought and experience, Lindbeck develops what he terms a “cultural–linguistic” approach which embodies the leading features of postliberalism. The cultural–linguistic approach denies that there is some universal unmediated human experience which exists apart from human language and culture. Rather, it stresses that the heart of religion lies in living within a specific historical religious tradition, and interiorizing its ideas and values. This tradition rests upon a historically mediated set of ideas, for which the narrative is an especially suitable means of transmission. Such ideas can be seen in an earlier work of importance to the emergence of postliberalism – Paul Holmer’s Grammar of Faith (1978). For Holmer, Christianity possesses a central grammar that regulates the structure and shape of Christian “language games.” This language is not invented or imposed by theology; it is already inherent within the biblical paradigms upon which theology is ultimately dependent. The task of theology is thus to discern these intrabiblical rules (such as the manner in which God is worshiped and spoken about), not to impose extrabiblical rules. For Holmer, one of liberalism’s most fundamental flaws was its attempt to “reinterpret” or “restate” biblical concepts, which inevitably degenerated into the harmonization of Scripture with the spirit of the age. “Continuous redoing of the Scripture to fit the age is only a sophisticated and probably invisible bondage to the age rather than the desire to win the age for God.” Theology is grounded on the intrabiblical paradigm, which it is obliged to describe and apply as best it can. To affirm that theology has a regulatory authority is not to imply that it can regulate Scripture, but to acknowledge that a distinctive pattern of regulation already exists within the biblical material, which theology is to uncover and articulate. Postliberalism is of particular importance in relation to two areas of Christian theology. Systematic theology Theology is understood to be primarily a descriptive discipline, concerned with the exploration of the normative foundations of the Christian tradition, which are mediated through the scriptural narrative of Jesus Christ. Truth can be, at least in part, equated with fidelity to the distinctive doctrinal traditions of the Christian faith. This has caused critics of postliberalism to accuse it of retreating from the public arena into some kind of Christian ghetto. If Christian theology, as postliberalism suggests, is intrasystemic (that is, concerned with the exploration of the internal relationships of the Christian tradition), its validity is to be judged with reference to its own internal standards, rather than some publicly agreed or universal criteria. Once more, this has prompted criticism from those who suggest that theology ought to have external criteria, subject to public scrutiny, by which its validity can be tested. Christian ethics Stanley Hauerwas (b.1940) is widely regarded as the most distinguished writer to explore postliberal approaches to ethics. Rejecting the Enlightenment idea of a universal set of moral ideals or values, Hauerwas argues that Christian ethics is concerned with the identification of the moral vision of a historical community (the church), and with bringing that vision to actualization in the lives of its members. Thus ethics is intrasystemic, in that it concerns the study of the internal moral values of a community. To be moral is to identify the moral vision of a specific historical community, to appropriate its moral values, and to practice them within that community.
Radical orthodoxy
Finally, we may turn to consider a movement that has recently arisen within Englishlanguage theology, which has generated some important discussion and debate. The term “radical orthodoxy” is used to refer to a broad approach to theology which emerged in the 1990s, associated with writers such as John Milbank (b.1952), Catherine Pickstock (b.1952), and Graham Ward (b.1955), all of whom were originally based at Cambridge University. Its ideas are set out in works such as John Milbank’s Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (1993), and especially the edited volume Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology (1999). The agenda of the movement is complex and sophisticated, and is perhaps best understood in terms of the need for Christianity to construct its own alternatives to both modernity and postmodernity. Milbank, Pickstock, and Ward hope to articulate a comprehensive Christian perspective that will both supersede and replace secularisms, whether modern and postmodern, finding in writers such as Augustine of Hippo models worthy of emulation. While it is still too early to determine how successful the movement will be, it is clear that it will be the subject of continued discussion in the near future.
Source: Alister McGrath, Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought (2012), 183-209.