First Be Reconciled

The Mennonite publishing company Herald Press has already released three great books in their series Polyglossia: Radical Reformation Theologies, and it looks like they’re about to release another entitled First Be Reconciled: Challenging Christians in the Courts by Richard Church. According to Herald Press Polyglossia is

A series intended for conversation among academics, ministers and laypersons regarding knowledge, beliefs and the practices of the Christian faith. Polyglossia grows out of John Howard Yoder’s call to see radical reformation as a tone, style, or a stance, a way of thinking theologically that requires precarious attempts to speak the gospel in new idioms. It is a form of theological reflection that blends patient vulnerability and hermeneutical charity with considered judgment and informed criticism.

So far I’ve only read Chris K. Huebner’s fantastic work A Precarious Peace in which he creatively engages thinkers as diverse as John Howard Yoder, John Milbank, Karl Barth, Alistair MacIntyre, Paul Virilio, Terry Eagleton, Atom Egoyan, as well as many others. Adam Steward has written a helpful review here.

The other books include Tripp York’s The Purple Crown (review here) and Alain Epp Weaver’s States of Exile (introduction here).

Love Alone is Credible: Series Index

The following is an link index to my recent series on Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Love Alone is Credible:

§ 1 Apologia and the credibility of love
§ 2 Theological aesthetic and perceiving truth
§ 3 The incarnation as the form of love
§ 4 Grace and perception
§ 5 Overcoming reductions and divisions

Love Alone is Credible § 5

The turn to the subject in Kant and later in Schleiermacher to justify Christian belief, what von Balthasar calls the anthropological reduction, is precisely what Karl Barth reacted against. Von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics treads a path that appears to be both a departure from the cosmological and anthropological reductions. His approach places God’s self-revelation in Christ, a revelation that appears as love, at the center of his apologia. Of course, Karl Barth was both critical of both Schleiermacher on the one hand and the cosmological reduction on the other. The result for Barth was also a retrieval of a radically Christocentric theology that placed God’s Word at the heart of any presentation of the Christian faith to the world. There is no doubt that von Balthasar and Barth diverge on many points which cannot be overlooked. Nonetheless, it is immensely beneficial to see their convergence on perhaps some of the most important aspects of their work. Indeed, both argued that the form of God’s self-revelation in Christ is primary for theological reflection and shapes our understanding of humanity. Like Barth, von Balthasar does not advocate a “translation” of the truth of the gospel into more “neutral” philosophical terms. In other words, there is no appeal to “natural” reason in von Balthasar. For von Balthasar, the preaching (and embodying) of a particular form of love, that is, the love of the Son for the Father, appears to be more fundamental and persuasive than any form of natural reason. For these reasons both von Balthasar and Barth stand as correctives to elements of their respective traditions.
Von Balthasar’s “third way” attempts to carve out an apologia, a justification for the Christian faith that escapes both the reductionism of the older cosmological approach and the modern anthropological appeal to “consciousness” and “religious experience.” The result is a radically Christocentric approach to theological knowledge that seems to share striking affinities with the Reformed theologian Karl Barth. Of course, this should not be terribly surprising, for von Balthasar wrote extensively and favorably (though not uncritically) on the theology of Karl Barth. From an ecumenical perspective, however, Love Alone is Credible offers us an insightful and useful contribution to the Roman Catholic/Protestant divide about issues such as the relationship of nature and grace, creation and redemption, and the question of natural and revealed knowledge of God. Above all, perhaps, von Balthasar’s work is most useful for the preaching of the gospel today, as it presents a promising way of defending the credibility of the gospel in the face of the challenges posed by (post)modernity.

Love Alone is Credible § 4

According to von Balthasar, in order for the revelation of the Creator’s love to be perceived by the creation, there must already be some “glimmer of this love” within humanity, for “love can be recognized only by love” (75). In von Balthasar’s view, the love of God, which is grace, “necessarily includes in itself its own conditions of recognizability” and so brings the possibility of perception with it (75). To be sure, von Balthasar wants to maintain that the human response to God’s love is always free. In other words, it is, in fact, the creature who responds to God by her “own nature” and “natural powers of love” (80). Still, this is only made possible by God’s free gift of grace. God’s self-revelation which is love comes to “meet” us and “invites” us, and indeed “elevates” us to “an inconceivable intimacy” (57).

As von Balthasar points out, the Reformation (and later Karl Barth) questioned the legitimacy of raising the question of the Word’s “credibility,” for such an attempt seemed to lower Christian truth to the terms of human reason (21). Von Balthasar rightly notes that nothing could have weakened the credibility of the Christian faith more than a hopelessly divided church (22). As a result of the division in the church, von Balthasar argues that the place of the “theological credibility” of Christianity took second place next to what became rigorous rationalism. Von Balthasar carefully charts the rise of so-called “natural religion” and the ever deepening division between nature and grace. He attributes to Herbert of Cherbury the “severing of knowledge and service of God from their Christian roots” (26). Indeed, because of the hardening divisions between nature and grace, after the collapse of Catholic Romantic theology and with the arrival of neoscholasticism, Christianity could no longer justify the credibility of the faith (30).

Love Alone is Credible § 3

As the condescending incarnate Logos, God expresses himself as Love, a love that is divine and therefore glorious, free, absolute, and unconditional. Precisely because the incarnate Logos is revealed as love, Christ not only fulfills but transcends the Hellenistic search for a cosmic reason (55). However, the plausibility of God’s love is not apparent to us by reflecting on our own human experience of love; rather, it is “illuminated only by the self-interpreting revelation-form of love itself.” Von Balthasar employs the aesthetic category of “glory” and “majesty” to convey the beauty, radical otherness, and irreducibility of God’s love. In the Spirit, the Son interprets the Father as divine love. This divine love is so overwhelming that “its glorious majesty throws one to the ground; it shines out as the last word leaves one no choice but to respond in the mode of pure, blind obedience” (57). Von Balthasar warns against the search for a greater “truth” lying behind or above the “appearance” of God’s kenotic love expressed in the form of the incarnate Logos. In doing this, von Balthasar rightly emphasizes the fundamental irreducibility of the form of God’s self-revelation.

Love Alone is Credible § 2

Love Alone is Credible provides us with a brief sketch of von Balthasar’s larger theological project, which is more fully developed in his multivolume work The Glory of the Lord. Von Balthasar refers to his work as a “theological aesthetic” in the sense of “a subjective theory of perception and a theory of the objective self-interpretation of the divine glory”(11). For von Balthasar, “aesthetic” is something distinctly and “properly theological” in that it is an act of reception of the “self-interpreting glory of the sovereignly free love of God” perceived with the “eyes of faith” (11). He locates his “theological aesthetic”within the tradition of the great saints of Christianity including such figures as Augustine, Bernard, Anselm, Ignatius, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, and Thérese of Lisieux (12).

After discussing the shortcomings of the cosmological and anthropological attempts to provide a credible justification for belief in the Christian gospel, von Balthasar presents his “theological aesthetics” as a “third way,” which attempts to escape the reductionist pitfalls of the common approaches. In his view, the compelling plausibility of the gospel is best captured in the “experiences of extraordinary beauty” (52). To illustrate the power of aesthetics von Balthasar uses the example of Mozart’s Jupiter. The finale of Mozart’s symphony is not something that can either be anticipated or derived on the basis of anything within me, rather “the symphony possesses its own necessity in this particular form, in which no note could be changed, unless it be by Mozart himself” (53). The beauty of Mozart’s symphony draws me in and compells me to listen to the finale; yet, it remains something other than what I have conjured. Although the aesthetic appeal of a symphony is limited to “worldly nature,” for von Balthasar, it stands as a valid sign of how Christian truth can be perceived.

Love Alone is Credible § 1

Over the course of the next few days I’ll be posting a series of reflections on Hans Urs von Balthasar’s book, Love Alone is Credible.
Here is the first installment:

Over the course of the history of Christianity, by a variety of means and methods, thinkers in the church have attempted to articulate the logic and truth of the gospel in such a way as to persuade and even overwhelm the many “logics” of the world. Compelled by the Holy Spirit, the church offers her apologia, her defense of the logic of faith, in order to provide justification for her faith in the living Logos of God, Christ Jesus. The New Testament authors fervently claimed that all of the hopes, dreams, and expectations of the people of Israel, and indeed the entire world, had been fulfilled in a Galilean peasant. According to the earliest witnesses the person and work of Jesus Christ was “in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3-4). Further, in the ancient and medieval world the logic and credibility of the gospel was presented with reference to cosmology and world history. When these arguments became increasingly less persuasive to the modern “enlightened” mind, Christian apologists turned to the individual subject, appealing instead to our shared “religious experience.” However, as Hans Urs von Balthasar cogently argues in his magnificent work, Love Alone is Credible, both of these approaches ultimately fail, “for neither the world as a whole nor man in particular can provide the measure for what God wishes to say to man in Christ”(10). Instead, von Balthasar claims that the “logic” of the gospel is only credible as love, that is, “as God’s own love, the manifestation of which is the glory of God” (10).

James K.A. Smith on Greg Boyd

I just came across an old review of Greg Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Nation by James K.A. Smith that I wanted to share. As Smith rightly points out, although Boyd’s book is peppered with citations from Stanley Hauerwas and John Howard Yoder his approach to politics is a lot more Lutheran than Anabaptist. For instance, his stark dichotomy between the “kingdom of the sword” and the “kingdom of the cross” “lacks insight” and indicates both an “indequate theology of creation and an under-developed imagination.” Although Boyd rightly challenges the Constantinian underpinnings of the Christian Right, his alternative is a resurrection of “pietist withdrawal.” Check out the review here.

Terry Eagleton on the God Delusion

Since my last post on O’Reilly vs. Dawkins has generated such a good discussion, I thought I’d continue to post on the subject of atheism. I thought I’d direct you to Terry Eagleton’s review of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion in the London Review of Books. It is a somewhat lengthy review but well worth reading. I look forward to hearing people’s thoughts.But, first a little snippet from his introduction to whet your appetite, “Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.”    

A Review of Hauerwas’ Commentary on Matthew

Stanley Hauerwas has recently published a “theological commentary” on Matthew with Brazos Press. I bought it a few weeks ago and quickly read it. I am always skeptical of “theological commentaries” or “theological reflections on the Bible” for they are often either shallow theologically or historically. Of course, the problem of a biblical scholar writing a theological commentary is that usually he or she fails to have adequate theological training. The reverse is true for the theologian who though may be theologically articulate, has little training in the biblical languages, textual-criticism, or any of the other historical-critical methods. The reality is that this is the natural consequence of specialization. As an avid reader of Hauerwas and a student of the historical-critical method I was particularly interested in this commentary. The following is my review of the book:

Hauerwas, Stanley. Matthew. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006.

In recent centuries the task of writing biblical commentaries has almost exclusively been left in the hands of “the experts.” Due to the ever-increasing specialization of the theological disciplines and the high value placed on the pursuit of uncovering the “truth” via the utilization of modern historical-critical methods, biblical scholars have found themselves holding (even if inadvertently) a virtual monopoly on the content and nature of the Bible. To be sure, the recognition that a great historical wedge exists between the first century and the present day is nothing new, but the belief that truth about God can be known only if Christian convictions are disentangled from our reading of the biblical text, surely is. Of course, the “hijacking” of the Bible by disinterested biblical scholars has not gone on without a great deal of protest. Indeed, many theologians and biblical scholars alike have pointed out the “bankruptcy of the historical criticism.” However, many of the recent attempts to read the Bible both historically and theologically have failed to do either justice. As a result of specialization and the disinterested nature inherent in historical-critical methods, many biblical scholars have lost the ability to couple their historical findings with useful theological insight. On the other side of the fence, “like stroke victims,” theologians have forgotten the skills of careful interpretation.

The editors of the “Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible” series were not unaware of this dilemma, but they have nonetheless taken the risk to, once again, invite theologians to reflect on the Bible, not as disinterested critics but as theologians. Perhaps an even greater risk was taken when the series editors asked Stanley Hauerwas to write the commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, for in his own words, “few could be as ill prepared as I was for this task”(18). No doubt reflecting the feelings of many theologians Hauerwas laments in the preface of Matthew, “…most of the habits that come with being a theologian in modernity do not help us know how to write a theological commentary”(18). Nevertheless, true to form, Hauerwas rises to the challenge bringing his theological creativity and theo-political critique to every page of this commentary.

Unlike modern historical-critical commentaries, Hauerwas’ Matthew is not concerned about historical questions. In fact, he does not even address basic questions regarding authorship, origin, or the date of the Gospel. Instead, Hauerwas approaches the gospel as a text of the church that witnesses to the revelation who is Jesus Christ. He does not attempt to get “behind” the text or get in the mind of the author in order to find the “real” or “historical” Jesus. Rather, Hauerwas is comfortable working with the final form of the text. Because Matthew wrote in order to “make us disciples of Christ” we must in obedience “submit to Matthew’s discipline”(19). Thus, Hauerwas’ first goal is to retell the story faithfully by writing “with” the author of Matthew.While retelling the narrative first told by Matthew, Hauerwas seeks to script “our lives into the story.” Of course, by ‘our lives’ Hauerwas is referring to himself along with his foreseen audience, that is, Christians living in the United States. In his many books and articles Hauerwas has decried what he perceives as “the accommodation of the church to America,” or what his mentor John Howard Yoder referred to as “Constantinianism.” This commentary is no different; Hauerwas refuses to ignore the “privatization” of Christianity in the United States and the need for a more truthful and faithful politics. He calls for nothing less than the complete renunciation of worldly politics to be replaced by the politics of the kingdom of God. Hauerwas demonstrates that the politics of Jesus runs counter to the politics of the world. He points out that the United States is not an exception to the politics that defines the nation-states of the world, for all states secure power over others through the use of violence. For Hauerwas then, the message of Jesus as outlined by the Sermon on the Mount “is not a list of requirements, but rather a description of the life of a people gathered by and around Jesus” (61).

In the commentary Hauerwas’ recent interest in the life and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is also evident. Threaded throughout the work are dozens of quotes from Bonhoeffer. Hauerwas is convinced by Bonhoeffer’s emphasis on the importance of “truthful speech” and the visibility of the church. In his comments on Matthew chapter five Hauerwas talks about what it means for Christians to be the salt and light of the world. He agrees with Bonhoeffer that the church must become a people capable of truthful speech, which must always be “as visible as light in the night, as a mountain in the flatland” (63). Truthful speech is not a private affair; for Christians, visibility means nothing less than participation in an alternative politics: one that challenges the politics of death by living faithfully and obediently according to the Beatitudes.

If it has not yet become obvious, Hauerwas’ Matthew is thoroughly theological. He has not written a traditional verse-by-verse commentary. Instead, this book is much more like reading a novel. Hauerwas moves almost seamlessly from description and narrative to constructive and prescriptive theological reflections for today’s church confronted by globalized consumerism. Although he wants to be faithful to the text of Matthew, he is not overly concerned about the “intended meaning of the author” or historical context. He is looking for how the narrative told by Matthew challenges our modern assumptions about the truthfulness of democracy and liberal individualism. He does not try to adapt the content of Matthew to our new historical context; rather he points the church back to the assumptions of Matthew and the early church – that Jesus is the Son of God.Hauerwas does not state his methodology, and if there is a consistent approach, it is difficult for this reviewer to discern. At times, one wonders whether Hauerwas simply does not care about the results of historical biblical scholarship or whether he is just ignorant. At the beginning of his commentary, for instance, Hauerwas talks about the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew: “The book of the genesis of Jesus Christ.” He seems to think that Matthew has in mind the actual book of Genesis or at least the origins of humanity. It becomes clear that Hauerwas thinks this way because he makes certain assumptions about Matthew’s Christology. Whereas most modern critical scholarship has argued that Matthew has a “low” or underdeveloped Christology that would have no concept of a pre-existent Jesus, Hauerwas seems to presuppose that Matthew would have affirmed the traditional creeds of the church. Once again, it is difficult to know whether Hauerwas is ignorant of scholarship on this issue, or whether he just does not care. After all, he is writing a theological commentary that attempts to bring Christian convictions to the text.

Despite the existence of a few more historical errors like the one above, Hauerwas generally manages to be faithful to the content of Matthew. His lack of historical commentary actually allows more space for theological reflection on the narrative of Matthew, something which Hauerwas does exceptionally well. Surely a better understanding of modern research on the subject could have strengthened this commentary, but this does not take away from the theological insights of the commentary. In the tradition of Yoder, Hauerwas helps to shed light on the social and political significance of the gospel. Furthermore, he reshapes our concepts and assumptions about what is private and what is public about faith. Above all, Hauerwas wants to point out that the church is called to a higher standard of speech and living. In order to be faithful to Jesus he calls the church to become better witnesses to the kingdom of heaven by speaking truth and the peace of God in a world that secures kingdoms through deceit and violence.