The simple premise behind this website is that an emerging church needs an emerging theology. Such a theology will not appear overnight: it will be the product of a multitude of conversations, some of them scholarly, many of them informal and unrecorded. From listening to some of those conversations, however, it seems to me that we can begin to identify some of the key features of an emerging theology. This is a very personal, and no doubt idiosyncratic, overview – others will see things differently, and I hope that they will contribute to the discussion.
1. There will be less need to have recourse to a doctrine of inerrancy in order to safeguard Christian truth. We will develop an approach to Scripture that is both critical and committed. We will find more honest ways to manage the beliefs and ideas that determine the Christian worldview.
2. The relocation of Jesus within the political-religious landscape of first century Judaism will generate a concrete and compelling narrative core for an emerging theology.
3. New Testament teaching about the end of the age and the ‘coming of the Son of man’ will be recentred on the period of crisis that saw the destruction of Jerusalem, the defeat of institutional Roman opposition to the church, and the emergence of an international people of God. This recentering of eschatology will have important implications not only for how we interpret heaven and hell but also for our understanding of the role of the church in the world.
4. The ‘post-eschatological’ church will recover a sense of its place within both creation and human history. We will need to develop a corporate and individual spirituality that is both more holistic and more expansive.
5. Salvation will be understood not as qualifying people for heaven but as incorporating those who are prepared to be disciples into a community which in all respects draws its identity and purpose from Christ as Lord. Jesus died so that not only Jews but also Gentiles might enjoy the life of the ‘age to come’, but this life is experienced now through the power of the Spirit in the context of a renewed covenant community.
6. The purpose of the church is given in the covenant to Abraham: to be blessed by God, but on the basis of that to be a blessing to those outside the covenant. This purpose is fulfilled not primarily by bringing people into the covenant but by giving healing and justice and compassion to the world.
7. A community that has a clear sense of its relationship to the one God and of its calling to serve the world, will affirm humanity’s natural instinct for God and for goodness outside the boundaries of the covenant. At the heart of the church there will always be the dynamic of forgiveness, worship and prayer. But in many respects it is what happens outside the church that will be more interesting, where the sacred and the secular overlap and become confused.
8. It is on the basis of faith that people become part of the covenant people and share in the promise given to Abraham. But any community that claims to be the people of God must understand itself as a servant, called by God to be a light to the nations. We have, therefore, a responsibility to do the work of God in the world and will be held accountable for this in a final judgment.
Relocated eschatology
I think you’ve worded this very well. I’d be interested to see more on the “relocated eschatology,” as that is the direction in which my interpretation of apocalyptic NT literature leans. I am constantly awed at how much I resonate with what is going on here at OST. Keep it up!
I can answer my own question.
I can answer my own question. Andrew’s article here discusses it near the end.
Emerging theology
I appreciate the comments on emerging theology. It seems to me that emerging is a good metaphor for how we could look at not only the theology of the church, but the church itself, and a way to describe the path that the church is on. As the theology is emerging so is (hopefully)the church, and as emerging intimates a continual process, so I think that the healthiest way for the church to view itself is as an organism in process, under way, never assuming that it is complete or has arrived. It is perhaps the very modernistic perception on the church’s part that we had arrived (theologically)that created the atmosphere in which we as followers of Jesus could treat others overly critically and thus put people off the person of Christ. If we are “emerging”, perhaps we will be a bit more humble and willing to listen.
“Emerging” is a good thing to hold onto as theology does begin to take shape in this new matrix (and thus inevitably gain structure, form, and patterns of thinking and living). Once we get settled in our language and conventions, what is now new and alive can become a means by which we, as others have done in the past, pass judgement on others. Keeping ourselves from getting settled is I think essential both to the life of theology and to reminding ourselves that we are, after all, only one small point in a very long history of theology, and subject to all the same traps as the many generations that have gone before. We too will need to be kicked in the pants now and then.
I heartily echo most of the points in Andrew’s outline. I am very curious as to where the first point will take us. I think in reality a spectrum of descriptions about the Scriptures must certainly be allowed, but Andrew’s “both critical and committed” is a good description of the attitudes that should remain constant behind the discussion. And hopefully we can trust that we have these in mind as we discuss…
I would like to see more of point two in point three. What I mean is this: as the life and mission of Jesus set within its own socio-religious landscape forms the core of our narrative, so does the social and historical reality of the early church in the formation and description of eschatology. As the life and mission of Jesus intitiated something new, so the church’s views of eschatology describe a way to respond to the new, and the new that is yet (belieing my beliefs here) to come. It is for this reason that I think we need to define what we mean by “‘post-eschatological’ church” in point four. At least I need to know what is meant by this.
I agree wholeheartedly with point six in that we are reminded why we are called into relationship with God: to learn to give as he himself gives. For this reason I also like point seven, in that I think that affirming that which is good in humanity is as important as pointing out our many deficiencies.
Post-eschatological church
Russ, some good remarks, thanks. The idea of ‘post-eschatological church’ is me going out on a bit of a limb - though it ties in quite well with your other comments about Willard. There is some explanation in The church and the kingdom of God, though you really need to read the whole of The kingdom of God in order to appreciate the argument, and What was Jesus’ gospel?
Post-echatological church and emergent theology
Andrew,
Just to let you know, I’m reading through the articles you mentioned, and taking some time to note a few thoughts as they come to me. I very much agree with the need to interpet the mission and viewpoint of Jesus and the early church within the parameters of Jewish apocalyptic thinking (as also argued by N. T. Wright), but am wondering about the consequences (and necessity) of limiting the perceptions of the early church to that framework. But I’m reluctant to try to advance an argument yet, as I’m still reading and thinking, both on this and other issues raised.
Consequences of limiting to historical framework
Russ, I’m looking forward to hearing your response. I have a couple of thoughts on the point about limiting the early church to the eschatological framework.
1) Even if we do come to the conclusion that the New Testament church had a restricted eschatological horizon, I would say that there is enough in Scripture as a whole upon which to construct a broad ecclesiology and missiology.
2) My principle concern is to ensure that we first properly understand the ‘end of the age’ crisis of judgment and redemption that centred on Christ’s death and resurrection within the context of the story that Israel told about itself before we assimilate the new Christ-centred story into any story that the church might tell about itself. In fact, Wright’s argument would be that to some degree a proper understanding of the Jewish-Christ story is likely to modify, if not actually subvert, our own self-understanding as twenty-first century Christians (see here).
I should also add that I am much more confident about the general approach than about the details of the exegesis - but we cannot assess the exegesis simply by matching it against some dogmatic scheme. The texts must be allowed to speak for themselves: we should not be putting words in their mouths.
Consequences of limiting the historical framework
Andrew,
Thanks for the comments. I wholeheartedly agree that we have to first try to understand - as much as is possible for us given the data available - how the early church (and Jesus!) would have/could have thought about it’s place, purpose and mission. And I want to learn to allow the texts to speak for themselves, which means that even an historical estimate of how the early church could have thought needs to come under the scrutiny of the texts themselves (and our own critical faculties). When I read of an interpretive grid for understanding the message and purpose of the early church (historical or theological - or both), I tend to view these not as solid structures (modernistic absolute frameworks), but rather as tools for understanding. One can get dogmatic about historical as well as theological grids.
I don’t mean to assert that Wright (or you) are doing that, but merely stating my starting point. I want to be able to hold the theories themselves fluid in my hands, so that I can let the texts speak for themselves, from a literary (not theological) point of view. Theologically I am not (here comes my heresy) Sola Scriptura in the classic sense - I lean more toward a Wesleyan approach to understanding spirituality, in that I see a matrix of various sources influencing how we believe and live. When it comes to the texts themselves, like you I want to let them have their own voice and not impose (as much as possible) from somewhere in the distant future.
Thanks for the link to the article on Wright. His text is high on my “to read” list.
Sola Scriptura?
Granted, thanks for the historical correction.
I like Wesley’s approach to spirituality because it takes cognizance of - if I remember it rightly out of my head - Scripture, the writings of the church fathers (thus implying the use of church history) and experience.
Currently I am reading Wright’s first installment of his NT Theology. His idea of the Scriptures containing (as Andrew points out elsewhere) four of five acts in a play (the fifth needs to be inferred by actors fluent in the first four acts) is quite interesting. It allows for the Scriptures to remain the base, but still for there to be real development in theology. John Polkinghorne argues something similar when he writes
Polkinghorne views the development of most of the doctrines found in the Creeds as a extrapolations from the base of Scripture as the church fathers were interacting with the real issues of their time. Important is the idea of extrapolation - the fathers took the “hint” from the Scripture and developed doctrines which were, in their eyes, the logical (or necessary, or both) outcome of the base texts. I am curious to see how these concepts fit - or don’t fit - with the idea of Sola Scriptura. How do you read what the Reformists meant by the dictum?
Response...
See the response here.
Re: Outline of an emerging theology
Andrew,
Excellent post.
One question I had in relation to the Temple destruction and especially N.T. Wright.
I don't have this thought fully formulated and certainly not to the point of a detailed argument, but do you ever get the sense that Wright has supersessionist leanings—or maybe crypto-supersessionist?
The Gospels are certainly all dealing with the massive upheveal of a post-temple world. Mark is writing to argue that the Temple was destroyed because "the Jews" killed Jesus.
Paul however is not it seems to me particularly—focused on the temple. He's more interested in the in-gathering of the Gentiles as sign of the End Times. When he references the Temple he seems to be repeating fairly standard Jewish piety and love of it.
To the degree that the issue of Rome comes up for Paul I think he saw Rome as the prophets did earlier imperial powers: they are agents of God's working/vengeance but they themselves will overstep the proper role and God will redeem/restore the people.
I raise the issue because I think among many other things, an emerging theology (or theologies) should be consciously engaged with an eye to the Jewish-Christian dialogue post-Holocaust.
It's a fine line because as you correctly point out we want not to say it's an entirely different covenant or worse a different God as a lot modern liberal (esp. Lutheran) exegesis leaned towards. So we want to emphasize the organic unity motif and the deep and abiding notion of covenant/election (Wriight's more Calvinist leanings show through here) while at the same time I think NOT go down a supersessionist road.
One way might be to see Pharisaic Judiasm and Christianity as two branches growing out of the same root of the earlier (pre-Temple destruction) Judaism.
Peace. Chris
Re: Outline of an emerging theology
Chris, I have the same problems with the insinuation that Wright is a ‘crypto-supersessionist’ that I have with my argument about the Son of man being labelled ‘preterist’. The labelling tends inevitably, I think, to suggest that the reading of the New Testament arises out of a prior dogmatic commitment and is likely to be distorted by the biases of that commitment. I think Wright would want to insist - and I would certainly want to insist - that what precedes the exegetical argument is not a dogmatic commitment but a hermeneutical commitment to, say, a historically contextualized, critical-realist reading of the texts, or however we wish to classify it. I accept, of course, that hermeneutics and dogmatism are not easily separated and that hermeneutical commitments are also in their way biased. But I don’t see how ringing the alarm bell of supersessionism or the alarm bell of preterism really helps the task of interpretation. Am I supposed to be shocked that Wright has ‘supersessionist leanings’? Does he emphasize covenant and election because he has ‘Calvinist leanings’ or because he finds that these are persistent motifs in the biblical narrative?
It’s only a minor point here, but is this the best way of putting it? Does Mark actually say this? In the parable of the tenants in the vineyard the owner destroys the tenants not simply because the tenants killed the son but because they persistently failed to provide him with the fruit of the vineyard. There is no suggestion, in any case, that the killing of the ‘son’ results in the destruction of the temple. Also note that the parable is directed not against the Jews as a whole but against the corrupt leadership of Israel.
It’s true that Paul has little to say about the temple and it is not certain that he foresaw its destruction in the way that Jesus did. However, he clearly envisaged the (possible? probable?) destruction of Israel in some sense (eg. Rom. 9:22), and historical and biblical precedent would suggest that the destruction of Israel would entail the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. He foresaw the desecration of the temple (I understand that this is disputed: see The Coming of the Son of Man, 134-136) in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, which in view of the narrative in Daniel is bound to have been interpreted as an aspect of God’s judgment on his people. He also regarded the congregation of believers as in some sense a replacement for the temple in Jerusalem (1 Cor. 3:16; cf. 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21). But as you say, his focus was elsewhere.
I fully agree with your comments on Rome. It is a central theme in New Testament eschatology that the imperialist enemy of YHWH first is the instrument of God’s wrath against his unfaithful people and then itself comes under judgment.
The question of whether or in what way the people of God in Christ replaces the people of God in Moses is a tough one and far too complex to address here. To my mind the larger argument is i) that when God called Abraham, he brought into existence a people for his own possession to be a new creation, and ii) that the message of the New Testament is that this ‘new creation’ is unsustainable other than on the basis of the grace demonstrated in Christ’s death. I find it very difficult to see why on biblical grounds (rather than on moral or political post-holocaust grounds) we should suppose that this ‘new creation’ has branched into two. I think that if Paul had written Romans after AD 70, chapters 9-11 at least would have read rather differently.
So does that make me a supersessionist as well as a preterist?