Webber puts forward a now familiar critique of enlightenment thinking and of the modernist evangelical position. According to his analysis the modern paradigm entails three convictions, shared by Christians and non-Christians alike: foundationalism, structuralism, and the notion of the metanarrative (18-20). The postmodern paradigm constitutes a radical departure from this way of thinking: 1) there is ‘a shift away from the distinction between subject and object’; 2) the notion of absolutes has been abandoned; 3) there is no single unifying factor to the universe; 4) language is recognized as incapable of transmitting universal truth (22-24).
Webber’s basic thesis is that the church will most effectively address the challenges of postmodernism if it draws on the theological and spiritual traditions of the early church. The theoretical grounding for applying classical thought to the postmodern world is found in Gadamer’s ‘fusion of horizons’, which allows for the re-presentation of one historical paradigm in the thought-forms of another; and in Lindbeck’s ‘cultural-linguistic’ understanding of doctrine as ‘intratextual’, according to which the truth value of a creedal statement, for example, is determined by how it fits into a particular system of language and thought (29-30). Both these ideas are only very cursorily defined.
The rest of the book attempts to demonstrate how this thesis might be worked out in relation to our understanding of Christ, the church, worship, spirituality and mission. The most important theme is that of Christus Victor. On the one hand, Webber believes that it is the phenomenon of Christ, rather than the Scriptures, that must be central to, and determinative for, the reconstruction of faith in a postmodern context. On the other, he argues that the classical understanding of Christ’s death as a victory over the powers of evil, rather than the later emphasis on sacrifice and satisfaction, constitutes the more useful christological paradigm.
This is the core of the book and is worth expounding a little further. There appear to be three main strands to the Christus Victor theme as Webber develops it. The first is the incarnation of Christ in human flesh. The second is the defeat and restraining of evil. The third strand is cosmological: Christ becomes the centre of a renewed creation. ‘In the disparaging relativism of postmodernity the Christian faith speaks directly to the desire for a unified center to the world and to the search for an “original blessing” that will bring an end to all evil and establish the Shalom of God over the entire creation’ (67).
There is a lot of very useful material in this book, and I certainly think that the retrieval of an ancient theology will be important part of the church’s response to postmodernism. I do have a few reservations, however, about Webber’s approach. I’ll mention two here.
First, I’m not sure we can make the incarnation so central to our theology. It is a somewhat marginal motif in the New Testament and is probably better understood functionally than ontologically. It seems to me that the indwelling of the Spirit is far more significant, with respect both to Christ and to the church, but this is largely sidelined in Webber’s reconstruction. It occurs to me that the incarnational emphasis may unwittingly encourage a bifurcated spirituality of the inner and the outer. Webber argues that in a postmodern world Christian spirituality must recover a sense of mystery, but does that really lead to an integrated spirituality? Or does it merely reinforce the dualism of public and private, mundane and sacred, outward and inward?
Secondly, I’m uncomfortable with Webber’s lack of interest in the interpretation of Christ’s death as a sacrifice. The language of sacrifice is an important point of contact with the Old Testament and was clearly a crucial element in the initial process of making sense of Christ’s death. I’m not sure that Webber really explains why the victory over evil motif is to be preferred to that of a sacrifice for sins. It allows for a cosmic scope that is perhaps missing from the traditional conception, but by the same token it risks diminishing the personal dimension: Christ died for my sin, not just to defeat evil. To a large extent I suspect this comes back to the failure to contextualize biblical argumentation.
Webber outlines three main interpretations of the work of Christ: a victory over evil, a sacrifice for sin, and a moral example (43-44). However, these are all universalized constructs. I am not sure that they adequately explain the significance of Jesus’ death in relation to the historical self-understanding of Israel. The Christus Victor motif, I think, needs to be historically contextualized: within the final phase of ancient Israel’s history, within the period of Roman opposition to the emerging Gentile church, and within the life of the church. The most appropriate categories for this narrative are apocalyptic, because it is apocalyptic discourse that most powerfully interprets the crises of salvation-history. This aspect is missing from Webber’s exposition of the Christus Victor theme, which accounts for the personal dimension to evil (the binding of the strongman, the casting out of demons, the overthrow of the prince of this world) but not the historical (the destruction of the temple, the hostility of both Israel and Rome to the church, the prophesied victory of Christ over the kingdoms of the world, etc.). publisher: Grand Rapids: Baker Books date: 1999 reviewer: Andrew Perriman cover:
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