Articles – Page 281 – Religion Online

The Teaching Life: Defining a Calling

Book Review

The Scoope of Our Art: The Vocation of the Theological Teacher.

Edited by L. Gregory Jones and Stephanie Paulsell. Eerdmans, 268 pp.

What is the vocation of the theological teacher? The "Cambridge Platform" written by New England Puritans in 1648 says, "The office of . . . teacher is to attend to doctrine and therein to administer a word of knowledge . . . given by Christ for the perfection of the saints, and edifying of his body." Comparable descriptions can be found in classic statements from other Christian traditions. If The Scope of Our Art is indicative, we’ve come a long way since then: no such systematic definition is readily available today.

The Lilly Foundation funded a gathering of a cross-section of theological teachers and administrators from seminaries, university divinity schools and colleges -- Protestant and Catholic, mainline and evangelical, well-known schools and those in the outback -- to explore the subject. The editors acknowledge that the attempt to articulate a shared meaning of the "office" appeared unrealizable and an autobiographical turn was taken. "Rather than producing a systematic definition of ‘vocation,’ we decided to draw upon our diverse perspectives in a way that did not smooth out the differences among them." The volume is a "conversation," not a credo. For all that, it is a conversation worth overhearing by all who teach, in whatever capacity, in the church.

Animating the project are concerns about the "commodification" of teaching, the "maceration" of teachers by institutional tasks, the pressure of performance according to guild standards, and the disdain of intellectual work by the culture. All these factors erode the graces of "desk," "classroom" and "school," the categories by which the book is organized.

The question of "how" is focal throughout, dealt with often in personal narrative. W.Clark Gilpin ponders how doctoral education can respond to Emerson counsel to foreswear the privatized career of a "mere thinker" for one that "breathes and lives on public and illustrious thoughts." Stephanie Paulsell, moved by the 14th-century Carthusian nun Marguerite d’Oingt’s practice of writing as a spiritual discipline, offers guidance on how daily writing can encourage the "audacity and humility" necessary for one’s craft. Paul Griffiths turns to reading as a spiritual discipline, with an illuminating threefold typology of reading -- reading can be for technical mastery ("academic"), for the catalysis of pleasure ("Proustian"), or for that which "contributes-to the reader’s wisdom and that permits advance toward divine wisdom" ("Victorine," from Hugh of St. Victor).

Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, reflecting on a formative 1959 article in this journal, Joseph Sittler’s "The Maceration of the Minister," considers her own struggle, representative of women faculty who have family as well as academic responsibilities, and argues for a kind of contemplation that lives redemptively with, rather than retreats from, "disruption, interruption and confusion." Rosemary Skinner Keller tells how her teaching has been enriched by a "vocational kinship with Georgia Harkness," pioneer woman theologian, drawing on what she has done in her winsome biography of Harkness. Susan Simonaitis reminds us of the power possessed by the teacher, how it can be abused or exercised responsibly by attention to the student "other" according to a paradigm of teaching as "conversation."

Paul Waddell describes his collision with the "intellectual and moral relativism" of today’s undergraduates, who display loneliness, depression and indifference to "the God who fashioned them." He urges us to view teaching as a "ministry of hope." Lois Malcolm takes up her seminary’s rethinking of its role in terms of an "apostolate," distinct from the confessionalist "abbey" and cognitive "academy" models, exploring how the best of the latter two can be brought together in an institution that is also aware of its social context and oriented toward mission. Michael Battle is clear about what a theological teacher in a divinity school is: one "whose work is to articulate God’s presence on behalf of the Christian community . . . so that we may help equip pastors and teachers for ministry," and he goes into "how to know God in our midst" through a communal practice of "apophatic . . . ceaseless prayer."

Claire Mathews McGuinnis gives autobiographical evidence of how the monastic Rule of St. Benedict can provide stability and depth in the midst of the distractions and "quotidian tasks" of teaching so as to "find and be found by God." Frederick Norris, drawing on the record of Gregory of Nazianzus in the Cappadocian "hinterland" speaks for the richness and possibilities of teaching in schools in the "outback." Leanne Van Dyk explores as an institutional model her seminary’s decision to orient its teaching to "the newly emerging missionary encounter of the gospel in the cultures of North America." Gordon Smith, reflecting on his experience as an a administrator, makes a case for the importance of a school discerning its own corporate vocation. A refrain in the essays is the importance of "attention" in teaching and learning (Simone Weil’s rumination on the topic is regularly cited).

L. Gregory Jones identifies a cluster of questions on the minds of the contributors:

How does one understand a vocation to theological scholarship in the midst of competing loyalties to family and children, to church and other communities, to the institution where one teaches, to the guild, and to one’s own internal rhythms of work, rest, and playfulness? how does one sustain a vocation when I am blocked by political dynamics from securing a teaching job in order to exercise that vocation? How should one understand the seasons of a vocation, including especially the potential cost that sacrifice may be required at precisely the time one most needs to discover a sense of fulfillment? . . . How should one understand and live out a vocation that requires sacrifice if one inhabits a community, or an institution, that is unwilling to acknowledge any flexibility, much less sacrifice, in the ways it deals with its employees?

Enriched by the diverse proposals on how theological teaching might be done better, I put this book down still wondering about the "what" of the matter. Just what is a theological teacher today? What are the distinctives of this vocation? Could not all of the helpful counsel in this volume apply to any Christian teacher with a sense of calling in any subject in any venue? Indeed, much of the wisdom here can benefit every teacher, with or without faith commitments. But the title and subtitle point to the vocation particularity of "the theological teacher." Is there an alternative to, or a contemporary reformulation of, the Cambridge Platform and its classical counterparts? Hints appear here and there about this "what," but they are largely undeveloped.

Suppose an attempt were made to exegete Gregory of Nazianzus’s bold assertion on which the title draws: "The scope of our art is to provide the soul with wings, to rescue it from the world and give it to God, and to watch over that which is in His image." For Gregory, skopos referred to the aim of theological teaching, rather than "scope" as a range of views on how it might best be executed. My guess is that for all of their caveats, the Cambridge Congregationalists might recognize their own teachers in the Nazianzus formulation. What would such a scope entail today?

Picking up some of the clues, we can say this: theological teaching is loving God with the mind by communally stewarding the story of God so that souls may take wing in the world. Such a description presumes academic rigor and loving care of the Christian lore (not conventional catechesis) and the corporate nurture of the soul as well as the mind -- for life in the world, not out of it. Couldn’t that Christian-specific skopos be pursued in any of the settings represented here -- seminaries, university divinity schools and secular colleges? An addition would be in order for a theological teacher in a school-of-the-church: "for the preparation of church leaders." Some research done by this reviewer on systematics departments suggests that this is, in fact, the perspective in many seminaries and divinity schools. If we don’t deal creatively with the what as well as the how, a price will be paid. The nature of that price is suggested by a parallel volume, Theological Education in the Evangelical Tradition, edited by D. G. Hart and R. Albert Mohler (Baker, 1996), a history and interpretation of counterinstitutions born out of restiveness with mainline theological teaching. The country’s first free-standing seminary, Andover, arose in 1807 out of disenchantment with Harvard concerning the "what" of the matter. Today’s thriving evangelical seminaries, in turn, grew out of challenges to the mainlining of Andover and its heirs. And now, signs of new ventures -- such as congregation-based teaching and related counterinstitutional forms -- are questioning both oldline and evangelical teaching habitats.

The importance of knowing who we are and what we are doing in our Christian calling as teachers is surely rein- forced by September 11, 2001. The aim of our art is different than the pedagogy of the madrasas, the schools created by the Taliban. Strengthened by the wisdom in this work, we need to keep pressing the question: Christianly speaking, just what is "the office of the teacher"?

Some Themes in Protestant Theology Today

Twenty-five years ago Union Theological Seminary professor Roger Shinn described a change in theological direction with a vivid image. Alluding to his own institution in New York City, he said: "For many of our students the time has come to break the prolonged mood of introspection ... the fashionable reveling in anxiety. [They have] learned instead to march and sing.... The American ear ... heard the clear strains of 'We shall overcome someday... (Union Seminary Tower [Fall 1963], p. 3). Shinn's observation signaled not only the church's involvement in the civil rights movement but also the coming of the theologies of renewal, humanization, secularity and hope.

For today another image seems more apt: not a singing march but a sober walk. The setting is not theological academia but a local congregation. The mood is one not of celebration but of determination. It is the Sunday of the Boston March for Hunger. The place is "First Church" in suburban Newton, a stop for the weary walkers, an oasis with 20 chemical toilets and lots of refreshments. After the Sunday service most of the congregation will join the walk. The pastor preaches on the lection from the fifth chapter of Romans, Paul's memorable discourse on justification. But the homily is not on the salvation of sinners by grace through faith. The sermon, titled "Suffering and Hope," focuses on the text, "We know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character and character hope. " The pastor reflects on both the hunger walk and the upcoming via crucis on Good Friday in which hundreds of churchpeople, including a small contingent from First Church, will carry crosses memorializing the Nicaraguan dead in the annual Quaker peace vigil on the Boston Common. Citing South African Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu's book Hope and Suffering, the pastor speaks of the endurance needed to participate in the marathon walk for justice and peace, a walk possible only through a mobilizing yet sober hope that anticipates a Good Friday on the way to Easter.

Of the recurring quandaries in Christian theology -- suffering, sin, ignorance and death -- suffering, historical suffering, appears to have become the chief concern of Protestant theology in the latter 20th century, replacing the 'Classical Protestant accent on sin and God's answering word of forgiveness. Some years ago Horst Symanowski made this same point (against a more secular and more hopeful background) when he declared that people do not lie awake anymore worrying about Luther's question, How can I find a gracious God? People's anguish is not over the alienation between the soul and God but rather over the estrangement between black and white, rich and poor, male and female, East and West. The question is, How can I find a gracious neighbor,?

Protestant theology in the United States has continued in the direction that Shinn and Symanowski identified: historical suffering is its focus and "hope in action" its response. Hence the rise of liberation (black, feminist, Third World), political, ecological, public, process, peace and holocaust theologies. Hence, too, the attention paid by leading theologians to particular ethical issues -- economic, sexual, medical and biomedical, nuclear -- as well as the higher visibility of theologically informed ethicists. The same currents are to be found in selfidentified evangelical theologies; from the political fundamentalism of the Christian right, through the personal and social ethical concerns of the evangelical center, to the more radical stance of "justice and peace evangelicals. "Where these movements differ from the ones identified by Shinn and Symanowski is in their sobriety about the future, their acknowledgment of radical opposition, their limited immediate expectations, and even their sense of historical horror. They move toward the future, yes, but at a slower pace-a walk, even a stumbling one.

This vein of theological thinking is the "suspicionist" hermeneutics, the more dire forecasts of the liberation and political theologies, the nightmare scenarios of the peace and holocaust theologies and the modest metaphors of process and public theologies. Joining this mood at the right end of the spectrum is the neofundamentalism that oddly couples the expectation of an imminent tribulation-filled end-time with an activist political agenda.

Sometimes the walk almost comes to a standstill. Suffering seems so overwhelming that hoping becomes essentially a way of coping. This is the situation addressed by some of the Protestant theodicies of our time, those that stress the suffering of God in and with human misery. The renewed interest in spirituality, in forms that range from the psychological to the liturgical, is also a response to what is perceived to be intractable suffering. Are developments in the "theology of religions" also bound up with the cultural quandary of suffering? The modern experience of being shocked by the pluralism of the global village is the usual explanation for interest in world religions, and the search for a place for them in Christian interpretation. However, the attraction of specific non-Christian traditions (Hindu and Buddhist especially) may be due as much to their treatment of the question of suffering. Yet in all these cases Protestant theology tends to be restless with quietistic solutions, and tries to harness coping and hoping to cultural action.

Insofar as theology does address the other perennial perplexities, it tends to relate them to historical suffering and the hope for a historical resolution. Thus sin appears in a Reinhold Niebuhr boomlet as the note of Christian realism needed in social ethics; ignorance receives attention through "the epistemological privilege of the poor" or an action hermeneutics; death is addressed in the issue of nuclear winter. Not to be forgotten here are the movements that protest all talk of suffering/sin/death and wish for us self-esteem, "new age" pieties and creation-oriented spiritualities as medicine for our morbidities.

Yet there is something else afoot in Protestant theology: a counter question to the one of historical suffering. Returning to the scene at First Church, Newton, we might note that the homily on suffering and hope is based on the lectionary and set in the flow of a classical liturgy with attendant paraments and garb, all departures from the informalities of First Church's free-church tradition. Furthermore, Bible-study groups have been springing up in the congregation, and there is a move to introduce a back-to-the-basics Christian educational curriculum. The pastor and some of the members are active in a theological renewal movement in their denomination (a denomination dubbed by a national newsmagazine as "the social action church"). They want to clarify the church's doctrinal identity, recover its theological heritage and ground its actions in biblical faith. These concerns suggest the counter question and its ecclesial overtones in Protestant theology today: Have we so allowed the world, with its question of suffering and its plea for hope, to set the church's agenda that the very identity of Christian faith and validity of the church are imperiled? Is it not time to question the culture's questions instead of rushing to answer them, and often answering them on the culture's own terms? Is not the recovery of the unique Christian identity bound up with the struggle for the church's integrity?

The assertion of Christian identity and ecclesial integrity is found in various counter developments in Protestant theology. Prominent among these is the so-called "Yale theology" (granting its diversity), which interprets doctrine as rules for the discourse and action of the Christian community, emphasizes the canonical reading of Scripture, and views worship, pastoral care and ethics as the celebration and articulation of the community's story. The quest for a convergent Christian identity and ecclesial integrity appears also in theological developments within official church structures. The influential ecumenical documents of Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry and the Consultation on Church Union are cases in point. Another example is the theological soul searching going on within various Protestant denominations and local congregations. Similar (though different in appearance) is the search within evangelical theology, where internal debate has to do with just this issue of identity/integrity-the authority and interpretation of the Bible. We might also put in the category of counterquestions the small Barth revival and the interest in the Barmen Declaration, which may be due as much to a desire to resist cultural accommodation as to the recent anniversaries of the figures they involve.

The drama of cultural question and ecclesial counter question is also being played out in an interesting way in narrative theology. On one hand, "life story" versions of theology point to the narrative character of human experience and thereby connect theology to the drama of suffering and hope. But on the other hand, narrative is also used to tell the Christian community's singular story in juxtaposition to these cultural and experientialist preoccupations. Another theological development showing the point-counterpoint in Protestant thought is the appearance of a small but steady stream of systematic theologies. Some of these are offered as answers to the cultural agenda, but others stress the clarification of historic identity. Yet more evidence of the counter questioning spirit is the recent proposal in the pages of this journal for a postmodern theology of identity (William H. Willimon, "Answering Pilate: Truth and the Postliberal Church" [January 28, 1987]; see also Readers' Response, "A Challenge to Willimon's Postliberalism" [April 1, 1987]).

"One feature of this theological scene is the predominance of what Hugh T. Kerr, Jr., editor of Theology Today, calls "single-issue theology." His observation is worth pondering: What is the locus of single issues within the grand theological orbit of the Bible as a whole, of Christian tradition past and present, and of the universal church everywhere? The kind of symmetry that theology was once supposed to imply may not be a viable option among theologians in our day, but it still must be true that any portion of the Gospel belongs within an implicative network of the whole of God's plan and purpose. Advocates of single issues tend to avoid such wider theological ramifications. Why?" ["Trademarks of Theology," Theology Today (January 1987), p. 469].

Kerr's concern somewhat resembles Paul's query to the Corinthian congregation: "Can the eye say to the hand, I have no need of you? If all were a single organ, where would the body be?" (I Cor. 12:19). Is a conversation possible amid our pluralism and partisanship? Could it be, for example, that a kairos for suffering and hope does not preclude theological attention to other clarnant issues, not only as they bear upon this one, but also in their own right-sin as how we all stand accountable before God, death as our common mortality, error as our common lot-and what the Good News says about all these things, i.e., forgiveness, resurrection, revelation? Can a culture answering theology learn nothing from a culture-questioning theology? And vice versa? Are the concerns of each mutually exclusive? Can Protestant theology be catholic?

Perhaps the grass-root Afro-American, Hispanic and Asian-American theologies and congregations have something to teach the rest of us about the partnership of identity and vitality. It appears that for First Church, Newton, and its theological counterparts, forging that partnership is the major task set before them in the closing years of the second millennium.

Reorientation and Retrieval in Systematic Theology

Are seminary professors churchless agnostics? Purveyors of the culture's latest fads and fancies? More evidence of the decadence of mainline churches? Some recent media reports on the molders of student minds have painted this picture. But 115 syllabi of basic courses in theology from schools around the country tell a different story. They are part of information I gathered from colleagues in systematics who shared what they are doing in required and often year-long courses, and where they believe we are going in theology. I wrote to all the systematics teachers I could find in North America (219) using memberships of theological societies and catalog listings, I received 140 replies, representing 92 institutions. Respondents were a cross-section of systematic theologians, mostly from denominational seminaries (Protestant and Roman Catholic), university divinity schools and evangelical seminaries.

What colleagues do or think is not the same as what should be so, of course. The present mood could be quite wrong. As Bonhoeffer put it, we should not be "servile before fact." However, knowing the actual lay of the land does challenge caricatures of the church and its institutions. What follows is a glimpse of life in our classrooms, with a comment here and there from this teacher.

Sweeping generalizations about what doctrinal positions are in or out make little sense. Many theologies are among us. This diversity is different from other epochs-for example, the time when a Princeton scholasticism dominated the 19th-century Protestant landscape, or even the recent period when neo-orthodoxy was at the least the common reference point for theological debate.

Diversity itself comes in a variety of shapes and sizes: First, contextual perspectives are highly visible. The dramatic emergence of African-American, feminist, womanist, North American Hispanic, Third World and Two-Thirds World, laity, Native American, Asian and Asian-American points of view is a fact of life in much of the field of systematics, minimal but growing among systematics teachers, significantly present in required readings and supplemental bibliography, and proffered by guest lecturers. The large number of second-career seminarians, including those who bring histories of personal and vocational crises, together with a growing multi cultural constituency, brings its own kind of contextuality. Students themselves engage in theological reality-testing from the workplace, family life, cultural ferment and contexts of oppression.

Second, schools of thought are providing overarching frameworks. Some respondents said these schools break down into two basic categories: the "postliberal" and the "revisionist" positions, or the "Yale" and "Chicago" schools, or the Lindbeckians and the Tracyites. A few concluded: What else is new? It's Barth and Tillich all over again, the old kerygmatic and apologetic options.

This division, however, is obviously oversimplified once one considers evangelical theology. Even within this major alternative, a case could be made for at least six subsets: old evangelicals, new evangelicals, justice and peace evangelicals, charismatic evangelicals, fundamentalists, and ecumenical evangelicals. Add to that a variety of liberation theologies plus transcendental Thomists, neoCalvinists, confessional Lutherans, Anglo-Catholics, process and pluralist theologians, the unrepentant neo-orthodox and neo-liberal, the Eastern Orthodox, three kinds of narrative theology and more. We may need a moratorium on typologizing.

A case can be made for an easily overlooked third kind of diversity, that of movements. These are points of view and perspectives that have a significant institutional base and momentum. Evangelicalism, with as many students in the 15 schools represented as all the rest put together, along with para-church networks and mass-media outlets, is a major new player on the theological scene. And there are other points of view with similar social dynamics. African-American theologies have a black church and seminary base, and North American Hispanic theologies may be developing on parallel lines, along with feminist theologies and their support structures. Two other movements with lower profiles are the longstanding ecumenical movement with special momentum these days in bilateral dialogues and interfaith settings, and the charismatic-Pentecostal movement now producing its own systematic works and nurturing large constituencies in its schools and churches.

Fourth and often missed in theological map-making is the presence of ecclesial traditions. Being Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Reformed, Baptist or Eastern Orthodox figures increasingly not only in theological pluralism but in systematics curricula. It emerges in the required reading and in the stress on church roots, according to both school and faculty survey comments.

What do we do with all these differences? If one believes in a Corinthian catholicity (I Cor. 12, 13)--the potential for mutual enrichment through diversity, as Paul contended in the face of the partisanships in the church at Corinth--then this is a moment of special opportunity. It requires, however, that we acknowledge our limitations, recognize the partiality of our perspective and remain open to learning from others. If we do not seize upon the promise of this moment through what we might call "the mutual conversation, consolation and correction of the brothers and sisters" (to rephrase Luther), we could be in for a period of theological Balkanization or Beirutization-armed camps firing away at each other from their places of epistemological privilege.

Diversity, yes. But all across the spectrum, some commonalities are discernible. The first and most visible is the motif of retrieval. The period of cafeteria theology, "adhocracy," preoccupation with prolegomena, or unremitting contemporaneity seems to be over. Know the tradition!

The reasons for retrieval vary. Many assert the heritage because they believe it to be true as is and hold that it has been lost in recent theological adventurism. This view is found in a pronounced way in evangelical seminaries and to a significant extent in mainline schools as well. Its espousal is not an outright rejection of advocacy perspectives nor a denial of the importance of contextual and cultural encounter, for these things are regularly linked to retrieval. But the stress is much more on recovery than on "relevance."

Others who also believe in retrieving the heritage are more concerned with keeping contextuality in tandem with it. However, they too worry about the erosion of theological identity and want to bring "the message" to parity (and more) with "the situation." While tradition must always be reread in terms of the context, that can only be done if the past formulations are at least known, they assert. Teachers who want to recontextualize are often stunned by how unfamiliar their students and the churches are with that heritage. So bringing the tradition to higher visibility is a priority, even as contextuality and contemporaneity are also stressed.

A few give attention to the tradition because they want a foil for the radical reformulation they believe is demanded by qualitatively different times. They believe the inherited theology has either been hostage to an oppressor class, race or sex, or employs a dying paradigm that is being replaced by new sensitivities to world religions, cosmic consciousness, historicist realities or postmodern ambiguities. But these innovators contend that we also need to know what has been in order to sharpen awareness of our new age and to appreciate the power of new proposals.

How the tradition is recovered varies in all three versions of retrieval. And while most basic courses in systematics cover the traditional loci by using one or more texts that touch on each major doctrine, the diversity of texts is very interesting. Current texts that cover all the doctrines predominate. In mainline seminaries often more than one such text is required, reflecting to some extent the desire to give students an alternate reading of basic Christian convictions. In many seminaries one or more texts are supplemented with selections from other points of view on specific doctrines, along with assigned readings in collections of historical excerpts.

In the past ten to 12 years over 30 new projects in full-scale systematic theology or "introductions" have been launched, ranging in length from one to seven volumes. Additional major projects are under way. New texts on systematic theologies, along with new dictionaries, encyclopedias and biblical commentaries, are significant signs of efforts at retrieving the faith and "getting it all together." Another kind of resource for covering the traditional loci is the use of the giants and near-giants of the 20th century. Karl Barth stands out above others, Rahner and Tillich appear, and the old standby John Macquarrie, who was writing systematics when virtually no one else was, is still used in a few places.

Some teachers settle only for classical texts--Calvin, Luther, Aquinas, Augustine, Schleiermacher, Wesley and a scattering of the early Fathers and medieval Mothers. Excerpts from these authors are also assigned, along with dictionary entries and confessional, catechetical and creedal texts. Again, "Know who you are"--know your tradition. A few schools avoid all use of formal systematics works and rely instead on a variety of authors, often with different perspectives on given topics.

Whatever else the variegated pattern of retrieval means, a few modest generalizations seem apt: First, the charge that seminary teachers are "post-Christian" is a gross misrepresentation. At the very least, recovering the tradition Puts Students in touch with the assumptions that function in the hymnbooks and prayerbooks of their prospective parishioners, the lections from which they will preach and the ordination papers they must write. Second, retrieval is not, as such, repristination. The character of most of the readings and virtually all of the respondents' comments indicates a desire to interpret the tradition in a contemporary light.

"Contemporaneity" is a broad term for making connections with time and place. No galvanizing center of contemporary concern is discernible in North American systematicians, as may be the case, for example, in the seminary world of Germany, South Africa or Latin America. Nevertheless, very high on the North American agenda is the plight of the marginalized. We have already spoken of this under the rubric of diversity: the victims and the voiceless demand a hearing. Here we note the much wider concern to confront the oppression of women; the rights of African-Americans and Hispanics; the agony of the homeless and the hungry, battered women and abused children; the tragedy of AIDS, the Holocaust history of Jews and the decimation of Native Americans. The hermeneutics of suspicion seems to have hit home in the sense of a growing awareness that we can't recover the fullness of the tradition itself without expanding our vision beyond our captivities to one or another wielder of social power.

Contemporaneity also includes a range of other cultural concerns. Sometimes scholars sum them up under the rubric "globalization"-- North American systematicians becoming aware of pandemic hunger, disease, war and perceptions of reality found around the world, religious and otherwise. Developments in science, especially the implications of the new physics and uncharted medical and biomedical questions, are also studied, although only here and there. Theologies of creation reflect both the environmental crisis and new cosmic horizons. In Roman Catholic seminaries, philosophy--contemporary and classical--is given much more attention than in other places, usually in "fundamental theology" courses conjoined to systematics ones. An increased awareness of contemporary religious pluralism is everywhere, and responses to it reflect the full range of diversity indicated earlier.

Respondents made it clear that the church is the environment in which theology is and ought to be done--evidence that collides with some journalistic and even academic generalizations. Consider the refrain expressed variously by these testimonies, all from mainline seminary faculty:

Whatever else dogmatic/systematic theology ... might be for, it has to be for proclamation. Theology has to be done so as literally to drive its practitioners from the lectern to the pulpit.

I am interested in how the believing, worshiping, praying community of Jesus Christ appropriates and then lives the Bible and its tradition. . . . Systematic theology must begin in prayer (communal and individual), be sustained by it, and even end there because God is always the ever-great Mystery.

I am committed unashamedly to teaching Christian doctrine and draw a clear distinction between that which is taught in a secular environment ... and what is confessionally committed.

Theology finds it primary task in assisting the community (of faith) to listen, worship, preach and serve.

My lectures tend to emphasize a lex orandi standpoint-- doctrines informed by and grounded in the church at worship and prayer.

And from a syllabus:

On most weeks, one hour of the Thursday class will be devoted to dealing with theological issues involved in pastoral situations.... For each pastoral situation, the student... is expected to 1) isolate the theological issue or issues involved; 2) explain where s/he would go/have gone for resources to deal with that issue.

And from an exam:

Set forth the doctrine of the Person of Christ implicit or explicit in the Christmas hymn by Charles Wesley, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," and evaluate it from your perspective.

And more of the same in many places. Those who bewail the abstractions of theology teachers will be surprised to know of these churchly concerns in systematics classes, as will the Atlantic readers who were recently led to believe that "the hands that shape the souls" of the next generation of pastors do not hold hymnals.

For me, the accents on retrieval, contemporaneity and church commitment are signs of hope. So too for a hundred or so pastors who responded to a parallel inquiry I made on the state of theology to check how those on the front line of teaching felt about the same issues. They spoke much about the "disarray," "confusion" and "decline" of theology in congregations and urged seminary teachers to attend to the "foundations" and to link them with current issues and the mission of the church.

What happens in theology may, humanly speaking, finally hinge on what we do with the phenomenon of diversity. If we resist the temptation of tribalism the claim that our restricted angle of vision has a God's eye view of the truth--then we make possible a mutually enriching conversation that could lead to a more ecumenical understanding of Christian faith–an "evangelical catholicity," as the old Mercersburg theologians called it. Or, to edit a bit the phrases of 19th-century German theologian Rupert Meldinius:

In perspectives, diversity

In essentials, catholicity

In all things, charity.

Gadamer, Derrida and How We Read

The literary phenomenon of "deconstruction" is regarded by many as an irresponsible fad that has now become passé. Fortunately, most of the wild, irresponsible readings of texts that went under the banner of "deconstruction" are passé. Yet in the same way that the historical performance movement has so deeply influenced classical music that it has become virtually the norm, the work of Jacques Derrida and Hans-Georg Gadamer has so affected our ways of reading texts that we are no longer aware of it.

With the deaths of these two thinkers -- Derrida in October at age 74 and Cadamer in 2002 at the remarkable age of 102 -- we are in a position to reflect on that influence.

My joining the two figures may strike some as odd, since Gadamer and Derrida are often portrayed as polar opposites. According to the usual account, Gadamer is the conservative upholder of the traditional way of reading and Derrida the deconstructer of all that is sacred. If you’re for Gadamer, you must be against Derrida -- and vice versa.

Yet the similarities in the way they’ve changed how we read and think about texts far outweigh their differences. Both, for example, stress the role of "play" in reading texts and the way in which we are controlled by (rather than in control of) history.

Derrida’s early work is particularly marked by a kind of Nietzschean playfulness. In Of Grammatology, for example, he gives a playful yet exquisitely subtle reading of Rousseau that brings the complexity of writing to the fore. Derrida recognized that writing has both advantages and disadvantages, and that it cannot have the one without the other On the one hand, writing can make an author’s thought present even without the author’s presence. On the other hand, the fact that in writing (unlike in speech) an author’s presence is unnecessary means that the author is no longer able to control interpretation. Charitable interpreters often make appeals to "what the author really meant," but the absence of the author means that we are left with only the text. And texts can be understood in different ways.

For some early followers of Derrida, that recognition provided cover for sloppy ways of reading texts -- as if a text could be read in any way. Derrida himself was an extremely careful, even scrupulous, reader of texts. That care is certainly evident in Derrida’s own writing. I found it also amply demonstrated in the seminars that I was privileged to take with him and the many times I heard him speak. Although a central theme in his thought is that texts can be read in various ways and at multiple levels, the depiction of Derrida as not believing in the possibility of an author’s ability to communicate by way of writing, or as giving license to readers to make texts mean whatever they want them to mean, is a caricature.

Not only did Derrida insist on the need for careful study of texts, using the appropriate "instruments of criticism," but he was annoyed with those he felt had "avoided reading me and trying to understand" and so ended up with an interpretation of his texts that he deemed "false" (Limited Inc).

Yet Derrida was well aware that "this indispensable guardrail has always only protected, it has never opened a reading" (Of Grammatology), and that even a careful commentary is already an interpretation.

The recognition that there are no "purely literal" interpretations is just as much a theme in Gadamer, who claimed that we always bring our prejudices to a text and so read it in light of our own experience. He went against the grain in thinking that prejudices are not necessarily bad; he went so far as to say that they are absolutely’ essential for there to be any understanding at all.

However, Gadamer never suggested that we could or should rest on our prejudices. Truly entering into a conversation with a text means that we put both ourselves and our prejudices at risk. The text may have something to say to us that overthrows our prejudices, so that we find ourselves "pulled up short by the text" (Truth and Method).

Like Derrida, Gadamer thought that reading a text involves entering into a kind of play between text and reader in which the text has an effect upon us and we an effect upon the text. Of course, that play requires a certain degree of humility on the part of the reader. Gadamer himself radiated that kind of humility. In my encounters with Gadamer I found him to be just as interested in asking questions about my work as I was about his. When he agreed to read some of the early portions of my dissertation, not only was his critique gracious but also it was clear that he was interested in learning from me.

That kind of receptivity is precisely what Gadamer thought was necessary for understanding to take place. He thought of understanding as a kind of "event" that happens to us. For that event to take place, we have to be willing to listen. Given that willingness, events of understanding can take place continually. Not surprisingly, we are sometimes startled by these events of understanding, for they demonstrate to us just how little we are in control of texts.

This idea of being at the mercy not just of texts but also of history is a theme in both Gadamer and Derrida. Although Derrida is commonly read as either overthrowing or at least attempting to evade the effect of history and tradition, he made it clear just how much we are embedded in Western ways of thinking. Americans are usually amazed to discover that Derrida was often criticized in France as too conservative because of his insistence on studying classical texts. While Derrida was always trying to think beyond the bounds laid down by tradition, he realized that one can only go beyond those bounds in small ways and that, even in going beyond them, one displays a profound indebtedness to them.

Here we come to a point of difference between Gadamer and Derrida. Gadamer had a great respect for tradition and believed that being steeped in a tradition is what makes understanding possible. Derrida would no doubt have criticized Gadamer for being too positive about tradition. In turn, Gadamer would likely have criticized Derrida for not being sufficiently appreciative of the wisdom that tradition hands down to us. That difference is mostly a matter of emphasis, however, and not something fundamental.

Probably the most profound way in which Gadamer and Derrida have shaped hermeneutics is in how we think about texts. Both thinkers saw texts as constituted not by dead letters but by living words. Gadamer went so far as to claim that a text does not fully exist except in the moment in which it is read and understood. Further, the very reading and understanding of texts has an impact upon the texts themselves. Thus, rather than being static, texts are constantly in motion, since our interpretation of them affects their very being.

As living entities, texts have a history, and that history becomes so intimately connected to the texts themselves that there can be no clear distinction between text and interpretation history. Rather than their being merely an expression of an author’s thought, texts are mutually constituted by author and reader. That balance is one found in both Gadamer and Derrida, despite the fact that Derrida has often been (wrongly) read as saying that readers have the sole control of texts.

So what do these two figures mean for a pastor preparing a sermon on a biblical text? They call for rethinking the very essence of interpretation. Explicating a text requires a willingness to play with it, a willingness to hear what it has to say with open ears. While we all come to texts with our prejudices, engaging a text in a genuine dialogue means that those prejudices are put into question.

In reading a text like the Bible, one is well aware of its special authority and its peculiar way of questioning us. Yet, if we are to be truly faithful interpreters, we need just as much to question it. It is within this mutual questioning, this to-and-fro movement, that understanding takes place. Although Derrida is somewhat less sanguine about the ability of texts to communicate truth, Gadamer closes his magnum opus Truth and Method by saying that the "discipline of questioning and inquiring" indeed "guarantees truth." We merely need to be willing to enter into dialogue and able to listen.

Jean-Luc Marion Tests the Limits of Logic

When Jean-Luc Marion’s God without Being first appeared in translation in 1991, it was immediately clear to many that here was a new and prophetic voice in theology and philosophy of religion. Since then Marion’s influence has continued to increase. David Tracy helped introduce him to the English-speaking (particularly American) theological world, and he soon became a permanent visiting professor at the University of Chicago. He has also become a visiting professor in the philosophy department at Boston College in addition to teaching at the University of Paris.

Marion is first and foremost a philosopher, and his academic credentials are primarily those of a Descartes scholar. Increasingly, though, philosophers’ interest in Marion has been directed toward explicitly religious works like God without Being. Certainly that religious interest was the primary reason for Marion’s being invited to speak (and also participate in a discussion with Jacques Derrida) at the first Religion and Postmodernism conference at Villanova University in 1997.

The prophetic voice is usually a challenging voice, and Marion challenges basic assumptions of theology and philosophy He does this in writing that is tough going, often technical and theoretical. Even though very practical concerns lie just beneath the surface, sometimes they’re not easy to see. If the formula for becoming a "famous French philosopher" is that of demonstrating sheer brilliance, then Marion has the formula down pat -- having learned it well from his teacher Derrida. Being Given is, in this respect (and many others), simply dazzling: it is a work of tremendous depth and highly original thought although hardly the sort of book one picks up casually and immediately understands. Moreover, Marion’s thought is not merely inspired by phenomenology (which to many is difficult enough already) but propelled by startling revisions of some of its most difficult notions, particularly "givenness."

How does Marion challenge our thinking and practice? One might answer that question by pointing to three themes running throughout Marion’s thought----idolatry, the gift and love. These themes are so closely linked in Marion that it is impossible to discuss one without the others. Marion’s reflections on them are distinct in how he combines phenomenological and theological concerns so that theology (or, more accurately, revelation) becomes primary. Like the prophet who directs attention away from himself to the prophetic message, Marion wants to move away from focusing on the receiver -- a focus that he thinks characterizes virtually all philosophy and theology -- to that of the sender.

It is no coincidence, then, that the theme of "givenness" is central to his thought, and also that Being Given stands as the summation of his thinking to date. In relentlessly pursuing this theme, Marion is certainly not alone. In effect, he takes over the prophetic mantle of the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, who draws attention to the ways in which the "other" -- particularly the widow or orphan -- disturbs our self-centered world and moves us to action. Levinas was a deeply religious thinker whose Judaism was always implicit in his philosophy (and explicit in his Talmudic commentaries). The Roman Catholic Marion, however, expressly turns to scripture, often giving breathtaking readings of familiar passages that question the very orientation of both philosophy and theology.

Some of the most remarkable of these readings are found in God without Being, a text concerned first and foremost with idolatry. In an earlier text, The Idol and Distance, Marion affirms Nietzsche’s famed account of the death of God, but takes it in the opposite direction of the "death of Cod" movement of the 1960s, For Marion, that death is not the death of a living "god" but the death of the "god of the philosophers." Such a death signifies the end of any theology or philosophy (or, more technically, metaphysics) that assumes the possibility of categorizing or properly naming "God." Like Nietzsche, Marion sees both philosophers and theologians as often "idolatrous" in the sense of creating God in their image and postulating God as the highest "being."

In God without Being, Marion explores various ways of thinking of God as "beyond being." He begins by drawing a marked contrast between the idol and the icon, a contrast for which lie finds scriptural support. Whereas the idol is something that merely reflects our gaze, the icon points our sight to something beyond it and thus to something beyond ourselves that we cannot master. The ultimate "icon" is Christ himself, whom Paul describes in Colossians 1:15 as "the image [eikon] of the invisible God." Marion works this out practically by saying that theology is "done" in the Eucharist. Just like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, it is at the moment when the bread is broken that we finally "see." As he puts it, "the Word intervenes in person only in the eucharistic moment."

All of this has to do with how the Word is "given" to us. In effect, there is a clash between the logos of philosophy and the Logos of the Gospel of John. For the ancient Greeks, logos (which can be translated as reason or order) is all about control: to understand something’s logos is to master it. But, since the logos of philosophy (not to mention that of theology) at least tends to originate in us, it usually turns out to be idolatrous. In opposition to this idolatrous logos, the Johannine Logos is not of this world and so is controlled by neither philosophy nor theology. Or, to put that another way, this Logos is given.

In an important sense, Marion is merely taking the phenomenological orthodoxy seriously. And here we digress for just a little "Phenomenology 101." Put simply: phenomenologists claim that the basic problem with philosophy is that philosophers tend to start out with theories and then bend the world to fit them. That sounds like a fair enough charge. The solution, then, is to turn this around and let the phenomena (what the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, called "the things themselves") dictate the theory. It’s like saying to the philosopher: "You ought to get out of your ivory tower a little more. But Marion -- ever the radical -- contends that even Husserl didn’t go far enough. For Husserl still thinks that there is a kind of "horizon" (i.e., a background) against which all phenomena appear. In other words, when I see a person or object, I always see that person or object in relation to a background (and this includes a cultural and even historical background).

Not only does Marion want to do away with that background (or at least suspend it), he also claims that the phenomenon of the Logos (not to mention other phenomena) appears to us as a "saturated phenomenon." In other words, there’s so much there that we can never get our puny little minds around it. The Logos simply defies our categories and ways of making sense of things. Here we come to the real nub of the debate. Is there (as Marion would put it) a "pure givenness" of any sort of phenomenon, whether mundane or spiritual?

Husserl can be read more than one way on this point. Marion wants to insist that there really is a givenness that transcends, frustrates and ultimately doesn’t depend upon us or our concepts. And our response to that pure givenness is probably best summed up as love. For, at least in its purest sense, love operates without asking why or who or ally other question. Love is not about concocting philosophical theories or ethical justifications. Instead of responding to that which is given us by trying to master it byway of concepts, we simply respond by loving. Or we might say: whereas the logic of theorizing is possession, the "logic" of love is simply letting be. There is good reason, then, why love crops up over and over in Marion’s thought. For he sees it as offering an alternative to philosophical logic and also providing a better way of speaking about God. But Marion also sees himself as being true to what phenomenology has always been about. The penultimate sentence of Being Given reminds us that love is the "basic motive for phenomenological understanding" (a quote from Heidegger).

Marion is trying to reverse the very way in which philosophy and theology have usually operated. Instead of beginning with us and our categories and background and ways of thinking, he is attempting to turn the whole business around. As to whether he can do that, of course, the jury’s still out. And I suspect it will be out for quite some time. Marion (very much like Levinas) is attempting to push philosophy and theology in a truly radical direction.

The question is not merely whether he can do this, but whether it’s really a good idea. It’s hard to imagine many who would be against moving a way from philosophies and theologies that turn out to be idolatrous. After all, philosophers have long thought they were doing just that, however much they may have been self-deceived. What’s much more worrisome is whether there is something inherently problematic with the project itself. Does Marion’s reduction to pure givenness obliterate the very conditions that make it possible to understand and appreciate that which is given? Put in a theological context, does the revealed Logos break through as a "pure phenomenon’ without any horizon? Or does that Logos depend upon the context of, say, Old Testament prophecies for its very identity (at least for us)? Or, alternatively, when the Logos becomes present to us in the breaking of the bread, how much does its meaning (again, at least for us) depend upon the very ordinary biological reality that bread sustains life and the very particular historical occurrences of the Passover and the Last Supper?

Those are some of my worries about Marion’s path, and I think they’re substantial. But, having said that, I have to add that Marion makes for fascinating, edifying and even exhilarating reading. If I were to put this in good old -- fashioned evangelical terms, I’d say I feel "blessed" whenever I read Marion.

It’s amazing to me how much Marion (along with Levinas and Derrida, not to mention some lesser known though hardly less important figures like Jean-Louis Chrétien, Jean Greisch and Michel Henry) has changed the landscape of phenomenology -- or what we on this side of the Atlantic call "continental philosophy of religion." When Dominique Janicaud published his report on the state of philosophy in France in 1991 (see Phenomenology and the ‘Theological Turn’), he pointed out that phenomenology in France is now dominated by religious and ethical concerns. For some of us, that’s particularly welcome news. The result is that philosophy is being rethought in some truly profound ways, ones that are prophetic in both tone and substance. Where exactly that will go is hard to predict. But I think it’s safe to say that continental philosophy of religion -- as practiced on both sides of the Atlantic -- will grow exponentially in the coming years. And Marion’s prophetic voice is one of the reasons why.

Heidegger: Master of Questions

BOOK REVIEW: Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil, by Rüdiger Safranski. Harvard University Press, 474 pp., $35.00.

"Moths fly into the light." So Heidegger's most prominent student, Hans- Georg Gadamer, characterized Heidegger's effect on his students at the University of Marburg in the 1920s. Although Heidegger expressed doubts about whether he would ever be capable of any original philosophical insights, he rightly described himself as a kind of museum attendant, pulling back the curtain on the philosophy of the past.

Given Heidegger's view of truth as aletheia--"unconcealment" which takes place in a moment of insight--it was appropriate that he was so gifted at illuminating such thinkers as Aristotle and Kant by making them speak to our time. What Heidegger teaches us (and what makes him perhaps the greatest philosopher of our century) is the art of rethinking old philosophical questions in dramatically new ways.

If philosophy is the art of asking questions, then Heidegger was truly a master. But, as Rüdiger Safranski makes clear throughout his carefully researched, philosophically informed and remarkably lucid account of Heidegger's development, the master of questions was considerably less a master of answers. Indeed, a former Marburg colleague who later vied with Heidegger for the position of "Nazi philosopher" denounced Heidegger's thought as "downright atheism" and "metaphysical nihilism."

Were such labels merely propaganda? Heidegger began as a seminarian studying for the priesthood and made strong pronouncements against irreligious "modernism" as having no universal commitments. Yet he soon distanced himself from the provincial Catholicism of his youth by leaving the seminary and taking up philosophy. Although he first worked in medieval scholasticism, by 1919 he wrote to his earlier Catholic mentor that he no longer found "the system of Catholicism" acceptable. He did not make the same judgment on "Christianity per se or metaphysics, the latter albeit in a new sense."

Yet that commitment seemed to fade. The aged Heidegger might have anointed himself with holy water whenever he chanced upon a church while hiking, but when he ominously said that "only a god can save us" in a 1966 Der Spiegel interview (published upon his death ten years later), he seemed to be talking about some "god" who is yet to be revealed, or perhaps the Greek gods to which the German poet Hölderlin had returned. In any case, the religion of his youth became in later life (as he put it) a thorn in his flesh: he could no longer accept it, but he couldn't quite leave it either. If "questioning is the piety of thinking," as Heidegger later claimed, then perhaps he adopted a new sort of piety.

Does Heidegger fare any better against the charge of "metaphysical nihilism"? Despite his breathtakingly brilliant phenomenological descriptions of human existence in Being and Time, what he calls Dasein or "being" really turns out to have nothing at its core. For Dasein's "being" is its ways of existing, not its commitment to any particular content. In place of a positive account of ethical values, Heidegger holds up the goals of authenticity, resolution and liberating care as ways to overcome the inauthentic "they" who partake in idle talk and allow their possibilities to be decided for them.

Even though Heidegger talks about such human phenomena as "fallenness" (which sounds remarkably like a Christian conception of sin), he repeatedly emphasizes that his account is scientific, not religious. The result is that Heidegger's "authenticity" turns out to be little more than another version of the modernistic ideal of individual autonomy, his "resolution" a resolve toward nothing in particular, and his "care" simply a concern for the self. When Jean-Paul Sartre formulated his own atheistic existentialism on the basis of these Heideggenan concepts, Catholic existentialist Gabriel Marcel criticized Sartre's philosophy as empty.

It is not too difficult, then, to see how Heidegger himself became a moth flying into the light of a Führer who promised to bring a new era into being and act as an "authentic" hero. Of course, Heidegger was also politically naïve, almost completely oblivious to the wider implications of his action, and emotionally detached to a dangerous degree. Hannah Arendt, with whom Heidegger began an affair when she was a student of 18, described him as someone who "lies always and at each opportunity." He was deceitful, disloyal, arrogant--and remorseful only when caught.

But Heidegger's allegiance to the National Socialists and his appointment to the rectorship of the University of Freiburg by Hitler cannot be explained simply by ignorance or deviance. Rather, Heidegger adopted Hitler--at least for a time--as his own personal Führer. In so doing, he was merely following his own earlier recommendation that authentic Dasein must "choose its hero."

Although his longtime friend Karl Jaspers was shocked that Heidegger took part in what Jaspers saw as a movement of mass hysteria, Heidegger himself never seems to have recognized his lapse of authenticity or acknowledged any wrongdoing. The best he could do in later days was to criticize his lack of judgment.

Much has been written on Heidegger's Nazi past, but Safranski gives us the most complete, accurate and fair account to date. Even so, the true degree of Heidegger's complicity is hard to determine. Though Heidegger makes quite a number of positive public references to Hitler and to Nazi ideas, Richard Rorty's statement (in reviewing Safranski's book) that the images of Hitler and Heidegger "blend into one another" is farfetched.

However much Heidegger turns out to be tainted by his Nazi connections, one must take his philosophy seriously. His impact--not only on philosophy and theology but on a wide variety of disciplines--has been so great that one cannot understand the current intellectual climate without at least some understanding of him. Jacques Derrida's claim that there is no thought in his work which is not dependent upon Heidegger is only a slight exaggeration. But another--and just as compelling--reason to read Heidegger is that he makes us think in fresh and helpful ways. This is what drew Arendt to him in the first place, and enabled her even later in life to speak glowingly of his mental acumen.

In one important sense, Heidegger does not give us a philosophy, for he provides us with nothing to believe in. But his focus on everyday human existence has helped philosophers realize how rooted their theoretical commitments are in practical life. Perhaps because Safranski is a freelance writer rather than a professional philosopher, he is able both to make Heidegger accessible and to do him justice.

Called to Unity Through the Cross

When I was growing up in Detroit, I lived in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. Most of my high school friends went to Hebrew school and followed kosher diets. I was different: I went to church. And in that mixed cultural setting I was not always sure what it meant to be a Christian.

I do remember, however, that on my 13th birthday my parents gave me a little gold cross on a chain. I wore it proudly. It reminded me that I was a Christian and told others that I was different. Although I did not fully grasp the meaning of that cross (or any cross), I understood its power to bind and divide people. And, of course, when you are a teen-ager you need to know where you belong.

The most well known of all Christian symbols, the cross has for centuries marked the graves of Christians, perched high on steeples, inspired soldiers to wage holy war, or rested silently on altars between two candles. What is it for us? How does the cross of Christ call us into Christian unity?

We all know that the cross originally was something not to revere, but to abhor. It was not a symbol, but a concrete means of cruel and agonizing death. To be crucified, or to have known someone who was crucified, was shameful and demeaning.

But Jesus Christ transformed the cross from a brutal tool of execution into a promise. Jesus died on a cross, between two thieves; yet, because of who he was and because of the transforming experiences of Easter, the cross became for Christians a symbol of glory and victory. In the cross of Christ we glory, even as our lives are judged beneath its shadow.

The cross, therefore, is a supremely ambiguous force in the life of every Christian. It is both bad and good, shameful and inspiring, a burden and a blessing, a curse and a cure. It is both condemnation and salvation. The cross uniquely symbolizes the complex theological content of the entire Christian faith.

We are one through the cross in that we are broken, but still bound together, for despite our divisions we share a common promise. Although we know that the broken body of the church is real, we also come together in hope for its healing. The ambiguity of the ecumenical journey is grounded in the ambiguity of the cross. As some theologians say, it lives within the now and the not yet. In our denominational bureaucracies and confessional traditions, which partake of the brokenness and shame of the cross, we also have an ecumenical faith that the Easter promise calls us to be one.

When I reflect on the cross I am reminded that its ambiguity is its strength. It symbolizes the ironic fact that many of the divisive forces at work in the world, seeming to embody evil and destruction, also contain the seeds of hope. Things springing from the divisive, troublesome and even evil aspects of human life can also lead to redemption. Signs of unity can be discerned even in the fragmentation and confrontation of the daily news. What crosses today call us to discover that we are really one?

I think especially of three contemporary developments that seem to contain the promise of the risen Christ even as they express the pain of Golgotha. These three things frighten and discourage me daily, yet I also know that they are generating powerful forces for unity and human salvation.

The first of these is the worldwide concern about the arms race, and the cry for peace rising from the human community around the world. The specter of nuclear war is akin to a corporate Golgotha: it threatens to kill with prolonged pain and torture; it allows us to have conversations with the enemy, even as we face death; it dramatizes our relationships to others who are crucified; it reduces our possessions and property to stakes in a cruel game; it limits onlookers -- like the women at the cross -- to watching and praying from afar, powerless to stop the destruction.

Yet this cross of the threat of unthinkable war, like the cross on which Jesus hung, sometimes speaks to us of forgiveness and redemption. Jesus forgave those who crucified him, blessed the thief dying with him, and charged others to care for his mother. In the pain of that cross the wonder of God’s love and care was shared, and the nature of human faithfulness became known.

The increasing awareness of the horror of nuclear war is also generating faithfulness. In the peace movement there is promise. Against this threat of war our historic divisions and differences and our nationalistic and ideological loyalties pale. Because nuclear war is unthinkable to everyone, the call for peace transcends and ignores every human difference, making us one.

How ironic that out of the threat of war we experience the promise of unity. Christians are joining with other Christians; Christians are joining with peoples of other faiths; peoples of all faiths are joining with those of little faith. Is the threat of nuclear calamity a cross pointing toward Easter?

Or consider the struggle for human rights. Throughout the history of the world there have been peoples suffering terribly under oppressive rule and inhumane social systems. In the past, family structures, slavery and caste kept many from recognizing or challenging social injustice. Today, however, certain common understandings of human rights are emerging among the majority of the world’s population. National and international organizations formalize and seek to protect these rights for everyone. World opinion and global communication keep nations and leaders accountable.

Yet the very technology which crosses cultural barriers also allows new forms of oppression to flourish. In recent years many people have lost some of their basic rights. Terrorist conflict, martial law and nonrepresentative governments distort the quality of life for millions of citizens around the world. It is a depressing Golgotha scene where a few soldiers gamble for the possessions of the crucified.

But in the midst of this pain, faithfulness emerges. The shared knowledge of injustice is empowering. Because neighbors refuse to pass by on the other side, resistance does not always lead to martyrdom. In the midst of massive human-rights violations, the promise of human dignity draws diverse peoples together. A more global awareness of human-rights violations is calling people everywhere to speak out against injustice and to work to assure that every person has fullness of life. Is this another cross pointing toward Easter?

And finally, I notice that the controversies raised by the women’s movement are disturbing and spiritually unnerving the faith of many church people. Although this issue may not be as life-threatening as nuclear war, or as universal as human rights, it is very distressing. The women’s movement highlights ambiguity, while we yearn to escape from ambiguities. Today women are challenging understandings of the right to life, our definitions of priestly authority and the nature of the church, and even the very language we use to share our faith. Yet this cross of controversy, like the cross of Calvary, also contains the promise of Easter.

Women have always been caretakers of life, conceiving, anticipating, birthing and feeding the young, healing and revering the ill and the aged. In recent years. however, women have become more self-conscious about their moral responsibility in making choices. Medical progress has changed the context for decision-making. In every community of faith, contemporary women seek the freedom and the assistance which will allow them to make responsible choices that are faithful to their understanding of God.

“Freedom of choice” and the “right to life” do not need to be opposites. In the midst of bitter controversy some women are finding that the common struggle to be faithful draws them together. Unity emerges in the cross they share.

Or consider the divisive question of women’s ordination. Although women have always been ministers in the church, definitions and authorizations for ministry have been rooted in patriarchal Scripture and tradition. Church leadership has been defined according to the mores of existing cultures. In our time many women (and I number myself among them) believe that the gifts of ordained leadership must be honored in women as well as in men. We press for recognition of these gifts.

Yet many Christians, even those who agree with us, urge us to be patient. They fear that the fragile ecumenical community that has emerged in the past 100 years will be destroyed if we are too assertive. They believe that the goal of unity should not be weakened by excessive concern about women’s place in the church.

This is an attitude that many women resent and fight. In the midst of their pain and discouragement, however, they also find hope. Women and men are discovering new patterns of unity, while isolated women find that sisters in distant parts of the world share their call. Angry women insist that a unity failing to recognize the radical equality of women and men in the church is not the unity of Jesus Christ. Out of struggle Christian oneness is strengthened, not weakened.

Finally, the language we use to speak about our faith has become controversial, dividing rather than uniting us. Women have raised theological consciousness about the patriarchal bias of certain words shaping our prayers and even our thoughts. They have challenged forms of piety as well as theology.

In recent months the publication of the Inclusive Language Lectionary by the National Council of Churches has highlighted the importance of language. It was created because many Christians were concerned that faith must free itself from the linguistic habits of the ancient world and the interpretations of previous translators.

The Inclusive Language Lectionary seeks “to recast some of the wording of the Revised Standard Version in order to provide to both the reader and hearer a sense of belonging to a Christian faith community in which truly all are one in Christ.”

At the same time many other Christians have found this effort offensive. They argue that we cannot change language without compromising the very nature of the faith. A small book by Vernard Eller, The Language of Canaan and the Grammar of Feminism (Eerdmans, 1982), puts their case this way:

We can possibly know of God only as much as he has chosen to reveal of himself. And he has revealed himself to us only in, by, and through our own history, by way of that which is relevant to our own historical existence. He has addressed us only as his beloved, only as feminine co-respondent to his own masculinity, not as confidant to his existence before the worlds began.

To press for language which describes “the God beyond gender” may be “evading the subordination attendant upon confessing him as husband or father or lord.”

Although I do not agree with this position, I know that Christians feel strongly about language. It is a controversy which threatens to weaken our life together. Sometimes it seems petty to argue about word choice in the face of life-threatening problems. But in the controversy over language there is ecumenical energy. Past divisions and previous alliances among Christians are rearranging themselves. Christian women and men concerned about their capacity to communicate accurately are finding new opportunities to share their faith with each other.

In women’s concerns about choices, about the church’s ministry, and about the language of faith there is great pain. But it is also possible to see the ambiguity and irony of the cross in these controversies. Do they, too, constitute a cross which points toward Easter?

The cross stands at the heart of our hope for unity. Paul noted how nationalistic divisions could set nations and peoples against each other; yet he believed in the power of Christ to bring peace between Jew and Greek. Paul recognized those social systems which violated human dignity; yet he believed that in Christ slavery was transcended. And finally, Paul observed that gender had nothing to do with faithfulness. Christian unity involved the entire community of women and men. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, and there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

When I consider the escalating arms race, the insensitivity of oppressive governments, and the unrest created by women’s issues in our churches. I am not likely to view them as redemptive. Just as the disciples could not see Easter beyond the cross, I become discouraged and look in other places to find God’s grace.

But if we are called into unity through the cross, we need to look again. It may be that the most horrible, discouraging, divisive or troublesome developments in the world and the church today are the very things that can lead us toward our oneness in Christ, for struggle and conflict create continuity. After all, we are the people who believe that death on a cross gave Easter its power. We are called to be one through the cross of our Lord.

Women in Ministry Face the ‘80s

Text:

A recent study sponsored by the Ford Foundation reports that female enrollment in the seminaries of nine leading Protestant denominations has jumped dramatically in the past decade. From 1972 to 1980, the number of women in these seminaries grew from 3,358 to 10,830. Many people in theological education readily admit that if it were not for the women, seminaries would be in deep financial trouble. In the mainline Protestant schools women make up 30 to 50 per cent of the student bodies. And although most laypeople in the churches have had little experience with women ministers, the situation is changing rapidly.

People are always asking why this change has come about so quickly. Why do women choose ministry? Why would a woman today seek out a career so obviously dominated by men? Yet it makes sense. As women have moved outside the home to seek employment, the church has offered great appeal. Many women have received excellent educations. In the economy of American Protestant values, when one has a talent or a resource, it is wasteful not to use it. Women are seeking meaningful ways to use the benefits of education. Women are newly aware of their talents. Furthermore, the inflationary spiral has forced many women into the marketplace to supplement shrinking family incomes.

Historically, women have been the backbone of American churches; their volunteer efforts have kept many mainline churches going. Consequently, when women begin looking around the society for employment outside the home, the church is very appealing. Women know the church. They know that they can carry on its ministries effectively, because they have been serving the church as volunteers for years. And when the church preaches a theology that celebrates the gifts of all people, regardless of race and sex, women feel comfortable openly seeking more direct leadership. Women who have never claimed their sense of calling are coming forward to do what they have thought about for years.

Although women are challenging the sexist patterns of the past, most women who choose to prepare for ministry are not on a crusade. They are responding to a genuine call to service. While they are hurt and angry that the church has limited the exercise of women’s talents in the past, they are hopeful that a new era for women’ s ministries is emerging.

Women in seminaries today and women moving out to serve in local churches in increasing numbers have shared some unique experiences. In talks with such women, three common concerns emerge: credibility, rivalry and calling.

Women want to be accepted and effective -- and women ministers, like women in many predominantly male professions, do not have the automatic acceptance and unthinking support which their male colleagues enjoy. Consequently they must spend considerable energy establishing and maintaining their credibility as ministers. It begins with externals.

Because women are often quickly judged in our society by “appearances,” concerns about what to wear and how one’s voice carries cannot be ignored. Women clergy work very consciously on the interrelationship between their private lives and their roles as ministers. How to nourish meaningful relationships with the opposite sex? What to ask of their husbands? Whether to have children? How to balance home responsibilities with the job? These are common concerns for all professional women. In the Protestant ministry, however, these questions have special implications for a woman pastor.

Throughout the history of the American church, the minister’s wife has contributed to her husband’s credibility. She tended his home, supported the women’s program, sang in the choir and generally supplemented his image as a stable family man. In recent years’ this ideal has faded with clergy divorces and clergy wives who take less part in the church. But it remains a special problem for women clergy. Laity worry about the personal happiness of an unmarried female pastor; but if she is married, they have even more trouble knowing what to do with her husband. Sometimes he is unwittingly forced into a pseudo-pastoral role he does not choose. At other times, if he maintains a career and identity outside the church or is not even a church member, his wife’s ministry (and/or the marriage) may be questioned.

If both members of a couple are ministers, it might appear to be easier, but the woman/wife usually has a difficult time gaining credibility as a pastor in her own right. People turn to male leadership first and view her work as secondary; or they squeeze her into the sex-stereotyped ministry of Christian education. Clergy couples find that the double demands of their ministries on one marriage make it especially difficult to separate their private lives from their professional obligations.

When a woman pastor chooses to have a family, the situation gets even more complicated. In today’s economy many mothers work because their families need the money. But as one pregnant minister told me, “People don’t go into ministry for money.” So when she tells people that she has no intention of leaving her position when the baby comes, they cannot understand. Everyone seems to assume that she ought to choose between motherhood and ministry. Somehow a woman’s call to ordained service is thought to be more easily compromised by parenthood.

Yet ironically, when the pastor is a mother, her credibility is often enhanced. One minister recalled an introduction at a regional women’s fellowship meeting. After spelling out the educational and ecclesiastical credentials of the speaker, the woman making the introduction said, “But I know that you will really want to hear what Reverend X has to say, because she is the mother of a two-year-old son.” And in that audience her credibility was increased. For the same reasons, divorced and widowed women clergy sometimes gain credibility from the fact that they once were married (and had/have children).

Credibility is measured in many little things. Women clergy often notice that people are overly concerned with how they sound and how they look. If they are single, they are more vulnerable to matchmaking and overprotective laity. If they are married, their husbands and families are regularly measured by parsonage standards which do not fit. It is a double standard, but until our society becomes less preoccupied with women’s appearances and relationships, female clergy cannot ignore these concerns.

Rivalry is another issue for women moving into ordained ministries. Because ministry is a profession which rewards individual excellence and builds upon unique personal gifts and talents, staff relationships are often difficult. Successful ministers are strong leaders who attract followers, and in many cases they are not skilled team workers.

Yet many seminary graduates, male and female, receive their first appointment or call as the assistant or associate pastor in a large church. Although it is good not to begin one’s ministry all alone, working in team ministry is invariably difficult -- especially for women. The rivalries that emerge are complex. If the senior pastor (who is usually male) is threatened by a competent woman, her energies will be dissipated in frustration and anger. If he is young and attractive, there may be sexual innuendos and jealousies. If he is supportive, his best intentions sometimes come out in paternalistic ways. In all cases it is difficult to obtain the helpful feedback necessary for professional growth.

Often denominational staff people seek out a new woman pastor to serve on committees and to take a visible role in regional or conference meetings. Being a token, or being pushed into leadership before one is ready, is lonely and frightening. The situation gets worse when patronizing executives lean over backward to help. One well-meaning moderator changed all of the “brother in Christ” language at an ordination service to “daughter in Christ.” Not until someone pointed it out to him did he realize that “sister in Christ” would have been more appropriate.

Rivalry among clergy is commonplace. For everyone starting out in the Christian ministry, it is disillusioning to function within the hierarchical and patriarchal patterns of church power. It is common for assistant and associate pastors to become discouraged and cynical. For women, however, the rivalries are more intense and layered with sexism. Male seminary classmates see women as favored candidates for those jobs that take heed of affirmative action goals. Established male pastors worry about how they will measure up when compared with exceptionally able women. Clergy wives become uneasy after a woman joins the ministerial staff. Active laywomen feel devalued because they have not been to seminary. Even other women clergy sometimes begrudge sharing the limelight with another woman. Rivalry is a powerful reality in the lives of many women clergy.

The calling to ordained ministry in much of Protestantism today has a double meaning. On the one hand, to have a call means to have a job, a particular invitation from one church to become its pastor. On the other hand, a call to the gospel ministry is a theological and spiritual reality. Women ministers have special concerns about their calling in both senses.

Placement of women seminarians is a major issue in many denominations. Special educational programs and bureaucratic efforts are under way to help the increasing numbers of women ministerial candidates find employment after graduation. Although some free-church denominations have been ordaining women for over 100 years, they have done little to help place women in other than small, out-of-the-way and marginal pastorates. Many women have had meaningful and significant ministries in these unprestigious places, but their salaries and their capacity to move through a normal ministerial career have been severely curtailed. Where each local church is free to call its own pastor, pressures to change common preferences for male pastors must be indirect. It is a slow process, but the sheer numbers of women graduating from seminaries at the present time are helping to change attitudes.

In those connectional denominations that deploy clergy through an appointment system, change has been even more rapid. When a bishop accepts a female candidate for ministry, the aspirant has powerful forces on her side. Although some ecclesiastical systems are saturated with candidates and there is an oversupply of clergy, when positions do open up, and when the appointment officer is a strong advocate for women, women move into significant pastorates.

For many women, their first call or appointment is not the problem. In today’s economy there are many small churches seeking fresh seminary graduates to be their pastors, and there continue to be fair numbers of openings for assistant or associate pastors. Although it usually takes longer than placement for a male graduate, most women who want a position eventually get one.

After several years, however, in a typical minister’s career, it becomes time to move to a slightly larger church, or to graduate from being an assistant or associate minister to having a parish of one’s own. At this point many women find themselves trapped. They have lost touch with the support networks they developed during seminary. They have learned some things about themselves, and they are less willing to settle for the lowest salary. They have developed greater self-confidence so that they are able to state what they want to do in ministry, not simply to respond in gratitude to whatever is available. Furthermore, women clergy seeking their second placements are often limited geographically because of their husband’s job, or they may be limited because they have or want to have children. Single women have a bit more flexibility at this stage, but they too have developed ties and relationships they cherish. Those clergy couples who settled for team ministry when they wanted churches of their own (or the other way around) may become impatient. At the very practical level, ecclesiastical systems of all types do not have structures that are supportive of the career/life cycle of women ministers. Consequently the burn-out and drop-out rate for women clergy runs high.

Those who do survive often have trouble getting another job, and they struggle with the issue of calling in its deeper meaning. Some women ministers learn to adapt to current definitions of “success” in ministry. They are usually strong personalities with a willingness to sacrifice aspects of their personal life to God’s service. Others, however, keep reaching for a new balance between their identity as women and as ministers. It is a difficult life, because there are few models.

These women raise basic questions about Christian vocation and professional ministry. They want to succeed by past expectations, but they believe that the calling to ministry is itself changing. When they reflect upon their situation, it is not easy to interpret. As one woman put it, “I keep wondering if I am successful because I am a woman, or because I am competent?” Or if something goes wrong, “Is it sexism or me?” With increasing numbers of ordained women these concerns are common. What is normal? How do we measure “success”? What structures and leadership resources are best for the church of tomorrow? Without necessarily seeking to do so, women clergy are presenting some serious questions about the nature of Christian vocation. In their efforts to gain credibility, to deal with rivalry, and to claim their calling, women ministers raise issues which ought to concern all Christians.

Trinity and Women’s Experience

The role of women in the church is as old as the Christian movement itself. In recent years, however, we have witnessed some new developments. Women are claiming new roles in congregational life. They are challenging some of the old patriarchal habits. And they are asking all Christians to expand their understanding of the human community, and even of God. These trends are, I believe, healthy ones.

For most of us, faith development is a process. We grow in wisdom and stature and favor with God. As a Christian woman I know that my consciousness about the feminist agenda has evolved in stages.

First, I became aware of generic language. Words like "mankind," "brotherhood" and the overused pronoun "he" were supposed to describe all of humanity. But it was clear that they contained a masculine bias. Little girls were hearing those words literally and scaling down their self-image. I decided that even if I was not personally bothered by such terms, inclusive language was a matter of justice. Language both reflects the way we think and informs what we think. That was stage one in my feminist journey.

It was not long, however, before I moved beyond my concern about language referring to human beings and became concerned about the masculine bias in language about God. If Christians insist that God is without gender, why do we call God "he" at every turn? In this second stage of my journey, I argued that any words which defined and limited God through male metaphors and pronouns were not only exclusive, they were idolatrous.

At this point I refused to use any gender-specific "God language. " God was the Holy One, the Rock, the Wind, the Spirit, the Eternal or the Still Small Voice. But I had a problem: I continued to believe that God is personal. The very meaning of incarnation informs us that the God whom we know in Jesus Christ cares about us and loves us like our parents, our friends, our lovers. Yet I had never met a "person" who was not male or female. It was clear that the understanding of God as objective force or philosophic idea was not an aspect of Christian theology; furthermore, faith in the unmoved mover was personally inadequate.

So in stage three I happily recovered certain w6rds about God. I learned to pray to God who is like a mother as well as a father. By celebrating the feminine attributes of God, I sought to redress the imbalance of language habits that focus on God's maleness. And in this process I even discovered that the traditions of Goddess worship can enrich Christian theology.

My faith journey, however, has moved on to yet another stage. In recent years I have reclaimed a very old and very important Christian way of speaking about God: the doctrine of the Trinity. I am now convinced that trinitarian theology captures some of the unique message of the gospel and expresses certain understandings of God consistent with women's experience.

On one level the trinitarian formula of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is totally unacceptable -- an old man, a young man and a dove. The words are redolent of hierarchy and patriarchy. Even when it is argued that the Hebrew word for the Spirit is feminine, the masculine bias of trinitarian dogma seems overwhelming. Furthermore, trinitarian theology is hierarchical (the Son proceeds from the Father, etc.). Implying that all of creation is ordered from the top down, such theology can justify oppressive political and social systems. It can also be argued that the doctrine of the Trinity violates the unity of God, calling on Christians to worship three gods instead of one. At first glance it is hard to imagine how any modern feminist committed to the liberation of the community of women and men in the church can find trinitarian theology helpful. But let us examine it more closely.

First, we must place all theology in context. As the Old Testament affirms, God is incomparable. Isaiah writes that we dare not make our God out of gold, or carry the divine around in a neat package to sit here or stand there. God reminds Israel, and all peoples, that "I am God and there is no other, I am God and there is none like me" (Isa. 46:3-11).

Yet Christians assert that in Jesus Christ we have a special revelation about God. The letter to the Colossians tells us that "Christ is the image of the invisible God." In Christ, God created everything; in union with Christ all things hold together; in Christ all things are reconciled to God, bringing peace on earth and in heaven (Col. 1: 15-20). To be a Christian is to assert that Jesus Christ has reshaped human knowledge about God. But how?

The early Christians agreed that it was essential to explain the relationship between Jesus and God. Yet their assertions about Christ raised questions about the unity of God. Trinitarian theology provided an important solution; it kept Christians from backsliding into superstitious polytheism, but it also prevented Jewish monotheism from undermining the significance of Christ. The distinctive contribution of Christianity was not monotheism, but a trinitarian understanding of God which recognized differences in the work of God in history, and also maintained the unity of God (Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., Beyond Theism [Oxford University Press, 1985], pp. 14-15).

Two words have been used historically to speak about the Trinity. One is the Latin word "persona"; God is three persons in one nature or substance. Derived from the language of the theater, the word "persona" refers to masks worn by actors in their roles on stage. Today we give the word "person" more individualistic connotations, but in trinitarian theology the persons are three different characterizations of one dynamic actor.

A second word used to explain the Trinity is the Greek word "hypostasis." "Hypostasis" is more than a mask or mode of appearance; it points to the individual existence of a particular nature. Although this word is also translated into English as "person," it emphasizes the belief that the trinitarian persons are not simply "modes of being" but individual, noninterchangeable subjects of the one common divine substance. Trinitarian persons are unique, but they are defined not only by their relationship to their common nature (or how they appear to others); they exist as community.

Historical theology reflects these two ways of defining the Trinity. The first refers to how the One God is known, as when we speak about God the creator, redeemer and sustainer. These words describe God's work in the world (the oikumene). But this so-called economic definition of a triune God fails to express the trinitarian truth that there is One God existing in community. This is the view of the Trinity as immanent, the way in which God embodies the very nature of reality as relational or communal.

As children of God we experience God's love in many ways, and we believe that we are created in God's image. Therefore, we need both "economic" and "immanent" understandings of the triune God. We are called to respond to God's various ways in the world. And we are invited to discover who we are by recognizing the relational nature of God. It is in connection with this second insight that I find trinitarian theology consistent with women's experience.

Carol Gilligan, in her study of psychological theory and women's development titled In a Different Voice (Harvard University Press, 1982), contends that, unlike men, women find their identity in relationship. Furthermore, she notes that women's relationships do not follow patterns of hierarchy, but borrow more comfortably from the image of the web. Assumptions about hierarchy and power, common to men, are replaced by women with experiences of interconnection. Women know themselves as separate only insofar as they live in connection with others, and they experience relationship only insofar as they differentiate other from self. In short, for women there is a fusion of identity and the web of intimacy (pp. 62 and 159).

Jean Baker Miller, in her book Toward a New Psychology of Women (Beacon Press, 1977), states that women know relationships of dominance and subordination and the resulting experiences of oppression. However, women also know the positive potential of relationships. Miller calls for a new psychology of women that will build upon the context of attachment which characterizes women's lives and upholds affiliation above the male ideal of self-enhancement (p. 83).

Some theologians who value trinitarian theology insist that what is most important about belief in a triune God is not that we see God in three ways, but that we understand God as dynamic community. Within the triune God there is a special energy which expresses the love of God experienced in Jesus Christ (Juergen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom [Harper & Row, 1981]).

All of us who have fallen in love know this reality. A friendship between two persons may "exist" for years; the relationship is there, but it is static. Then, suddenly it changes, and the interpersonal situation comes alive with intense emotion and empathy. Lover and loved are one. Individuals shine and actually discover themselves in the love of the other. Their caring is so deep and full that it spills over into the lives of family and friends, and we cannot be in their presence without being touched by that love.

To believe in a triune God is to suggest that there is an inner relational energy within Godself which spills over into the Christian life. John of Damascus, an eighth-century theologian, describes this way of understanding God by proposing that there is an exchange of energy between the persons of the Trinity by virtue of their eternal love. The unity of the Trinity is not static substance, or even familial relationship; it exists as open and loving community. John of Damascus uses the Greek word "perichoresis" to describe what is going on within Godself. "Perichoresis" comes from the same root as the word "choreography." It suggests that there is a circulatory character within the eternal divine life (Moltman, pp. 173-174).

When we worship a triune God we celebrate the love which flows in God's eternal dance of togetherness, and which we know through Jesus Christ as Lord of the dance. And when women, dancing Sarah's circle, affirm the importance of relationships in human life, they are doing more than reflecting women's psychology; they are showing all Christians what it means to be created in God's image.

The doctrine of the Trinity erodes the monarchical and patriarchal power of monotheism. When God is no longer viewed as solitary and stark unity, or absolute unrelated personality, we are able to live with -- not just fall down before -- our God. Much theology has emphasized the dominance of God and the sinfulness of humanity. But a truly social doctrine of the Trinity contains the vision of a community of women and men in church and society without privilege or subjection to each other-or to God. Trinitarian theology asserts that relationship is fundamental to God and that community is the foundation of God's interaction with the world. Instead of an unmoved mover, God as community calls us to shared responsibility.

Understood in this way, the doctrine of the Trinity sets forth a radical ethic of justice and care very similar to the ethic that psychologists see within women's lives. It is based on a vision that the self and the other should be treated as of equal worth; that despite differences in power, things should be fair; that everyone should be responded to and included and that no one should be left alone and hurt (Gilligan, p. 63). It sees morality as a problem of inclusion rather than a balancing of claims. It sets up standards of nurturance, responsibility and care (Gilligan, pp. 159-160).

Women have experiences that lead them to understand God as community and to share an ethic that measures strength in terms of relationships. Just as the love of human lovers sometimes invades our lives with its passion, so God's community will not let us rest. "Christ came to heal, reconcile, and invite the world to enter freely and fully into the divine life" (Patricia Wilson Kastner, Faith, Feminism and the Christ [Fortress, 1983], p. 128). We are called to be faithful to the dynamic reality of the love of the triune God.

In one sense, the community of God is the church -- those of us called out of the world to be about God's work in the world. In another sense, the community of God is the Trinity -- a uniquely Christian way of confessing our faith about the very nature of Godself and the ramifications of that confession for discipleship. Women's experience invites us all to take the doctrine of the Trinity more seriously.

Postconservative Evangelicals Greet the Postmodern Age

Are "evangelical" and "theologically conservative" synonymous? Are all evangelical theologians conservative? Most observers--both inside and outside the large and diverse subculture of North American evangelical Christianity--would probably answer yes. Evidence is growing, however, that some theologians who insist on wearing the label "evangelical" (or cannot escape it even when they try) are shedding theological conservatism. A new mood, if not movement, in North American evangelical theology can be described as "postconservative." The best analogy is to "postliberal" theology--the posture of theologians who see themselves moving beyond liberalism while preserving some of its qualities.

Postconservative evangelicals continue to hold to four defining features of evangelicalism (to use the widely cited categories formulated .by David Bebbington): conversionism, or an emphasis on the "new birth" as a life-changing religious experience; biblicism, a reliance on the Bible as ultimate religious authority; activism, a concern for sharing the faith; and crucicen- trism, an emphasis on Christ's atoning work on the cross. But they no longer make their chief role that of defending historic orthodoxy--especially Reformed scholasticism--against the "acids of modernity."

Postconservative evangelical theologians often find themselves more comfortable in the Evangelical Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion (begun around 1980) than in the Evangelical Theological Society. In fact, the former group, which attracts hundreds to its annual meeting, is a primary breeding ground for the new postconservative mood. It tends to regard the older, stodgier ETS as held captive by an old guard of scholars obsessed with baffles over inerrancy, higher criticism and liberal theology in general.

Is postconservatism simply a stage on the way to all-out modernist and liberal theology? Are these mostly younger evangelicals slipping down the slope toward heterodoxy? Many of them would say that the old guard of evangelical theology has itself been slipping down a disastrous slope for at least two decades (since the publication of Harold Lindsell's Battle for the Bible)--back toward fundamentalism. Postconservatives might echo the famous saying of Baptist theologian Bernard Ramm: "Let us remember, brethren, that it is as possible to sin to the right as to the left!"

Postconservatives are convinced that both modernist and fundamentalist slopes are sides of the same cultural Mt.St. Helens--modernity. Like the volcano of the Northwest, modernity is virtually extinct--it's passé. It is no longer a majestic hunting ground for, or a sinister obstacle to, truth. Postconservatives are exploring new cultural landscapes and encountering new opportunities and dangers along the way. To them, both theological liberalism (in all its varieties) and theological conservatism (with as many varieties) were and still are obsessed with "the modern mind." The new landscape is "postmodernity" and has barely been explored.

Postconservative evangelicalism is a small and diverse movement. Its adherents share a few common concerns, not a tight agenda. They are, to begin with, eager to engage in dialogue with nonevangelical theologians, and they seek opportunities to converse with those whom conservative evangelicals would probably consider enemies. At the recent AAR meeting these postconservative evangelicals held a forum with Paul Knitter, a "pluralist" on the subject of other religions, and Jürgen Moltmann, an ecumenical theologian. Both commented informally that they found their evangelica1 conversation partners surprisingly open and the discussion stimulating and challenging.

Other evangelicals are reaching out to nonevangelicals to heal divisions caused by conflicts over modernity--clearly a postconservative move. Messiah College, an evangelical liberal arts institution with roots in the Men- nonite tradition, is sponsoring a project titled "Reforming the Center: Beyond the Two-Party System of American Protestantism." In April, Wheaton College and InterVarsity Press sponsored a conference focusing on interaction between evangelicals and postliberals.

Postconservatives are also concerned with theology's domination by white males and Eurocentrism. While refusing to accept a version of the sociology of knowledge that would lead to doctrinal relativism, the new evangelicals acknowledge the inevitable influence of social location on theologians' endeavors. They seek to add the voices of women, people of color and Third World Christians to the chorus of evangelical scholarship. Here again, the Evangelical Studies Group has led the way by making sure that women and people of color are represented on its steering committee and on most panels. The group will devote a session to evangelicalism and Hispanic theology at its November 1995 meeting.

One voice leading the way into evangelical theology's postconservative, multicultural future is William Dyrness of Fuller Theological Seminary. Dyrness recently edited a volume titled Emerging Voices in Global Christian Theology that includes chapters by leading evangelical thinkers from Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. For the most part, postconservatives heartily embrace the work of Christians for Biblical Equality, and they encourage such feminist thinkers as Elaine Storkey and Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen.

Postconservatives seek to broaden the sources used in theology. Stanley J. Grenz refers to this as "revisioning evangelical theology" (the title of his re- cent programmatic statement of evangelical theological method). According to Grenz and others, the essence of evangelicalism is an experience and a distinctive spirituality centered around it. The experience is an act of God the Spirit known as conversion, and the spirituality is a community-shaped piety of the converted people of God. Theology is second-order reflection on the faith of the converted people of God whose life together is created and shaped by the paradigmatic narrative embodied in scripture. The essence of both Christianity and theology, then, is not propositional truths enshrined in doctrines but a narrative-shaped experience. This is not to demean or demote doctrine. Postconservative evangelicals believe that doctrine matters--but not as an end in itself. Doctrines are the necessary rules that reflect and guide the converted community of God's people.

Theology can never replace experience and doxology. As second-order reflection, it aids experience and doxology. In this servant task, theology draws on several sources, placing them all under the norm of God's narrative-shaped Word in scripture. These sources include the Bible, the tradition of Christian thought (especially from the early church and the Reformation), culture (including philosophy, science and the arts), and the contemporary experience of God's community, including popular religion.

Beneath and behind the postconservatives' approach to theology lies a growing discontent with evangelical theology's traditional ties to what Wheaton historian Mark Noll describes as the "evangelical Enlightenment," especially common-sense realism. Postconservatives see postmodernism as providing more appropriate resources for evangelicalism's philosophical underpinnings. Many of them opt for some version of critical realism, while others, such as Fuller professor Nancey Murphy, turn to philosophers such as Willard Van Orman Quine and Alasdair Maclntyre in developing a new philosophical orientation. A few have begun to explore the potential of postmodern antirealism. But the majority reject ontological relativism as incompatible with the gospel in any culture.

Postconservative evangelical theologians reject a "wooden" approach to scripture, preferring to treat it as Spirit-inspired realistic narrative. In describing his approach to scripture in The Scripture Principle and Tracking the Maze, Clark Pinnock accepts the terms "verbal inspiration" and "inerrancy" as part of a truly evangelical doctrine of scripture, but insists that their meanings must not be determined by traditional scholastic, deductive theology. One significant move made by many postconservatives with regard to scripture is to treat it holistically: it is as a canon that the Bible is inspired, not as bits and pieces of infallible information communicated to individual authors. In its entirety, with the parts viewed interdependently and in terms of the whole, scripture is the church's divinely authored narrative of God's surprising work in creating a community and its thought world.

Postconservative theologians are moving away from classical Christian theism and toward an "open view of God." Not all postconservatives agree with every part of this move--it is a gradual paradigm shift rather than a monolithic move. An open view of God entails seeing God as historical. The God of the biblical narrative is not an unmoved mover, majestic monarch or all-determining controller of history who is untouched by the vagaries of time and change. Rather, God is the self-limiting, vulnerable lover of humanity and the earth who enters into intimate relation with creatures and accepts their pain and suffering into himself.

Postconservatives hold to creatio ex nihilo and to God's omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, but reject the notion of untouched transcendence. Theirs is a God who voluntarily and graciously makes room in his reality for creation with its time and space and moves on a journey together with people toward that fulfillment. God is a risk-taker and suffers setbacks along that joumey, but God is also an omnipotent redeemer who knows how to bring good out of evil.

Is postconservative evangelical theology succumbing to process theology? In The Openness of God, Clark Pinnock, Richard Rice, John Sanders, William Hasker and David Basinger insist that the new "free will theism" espoused by many evangelicals differs from process theology on this point: the idea of the self-limitation of God. God is limited not by flaws of character or power but by God's self-emptying relation to creation.

Another common element of postconservative evangelical theology is a new view of nature and grace. Conservatives have traditionally emphasized grace to the detriment of nature. Postconservatives are open to learning from the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions about the dynamic relationship of nature and grace. Nature, though fallen, is never abandoned by grace; grace, though supernatural, pervades nature. Thus, though many postconservatives may still sing "This World Is Not My Home," most would strongly disagree with the song's message. This world of nature is their home for now, and they see themselves as created cocreators with God, caring for creation on the way to its final redemption. Among others, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson and Stephen Bouma-Prediger press for an evangelical theology of nature that encourages ecological activism as a spiritual discipline.

Closely connected to this nature-grace dialectic is the postconservative hope of near-universal salvation. Many postconservatives abandon exclusivism and opt for a new inclusivist view of salvation, believing it is possible for many who never hear the gospel message to be saved. Two theologians who have pioneered in this move are John Sanders and Clark Pinnock. Both imply that all cultures involve enough grace to lead people to a saving relationship with God if they seek it earnestly.

Neither theologian wishes to suggest sheer universalism, and both remain critical of Knitter, John Hick and others who recognize saviors apart from Jesus Christ. Like Hans Küng, they refuse to cross that Rubicon. But unlike conservatives, they go beyond some vague, theoretical wishful thought about a "second chance" or hope for the good heathen who somehow repents. Both express genuine appreciation for the grace of non-Christian cultures and religions founded on belief in the cosmic Christ (John's Logos that lights everyone coming into the world) and the immanent Holy Spirit that strives with humans everywhere. For postconservatives, God may not be an equal-opportunity savior, but he is a caring heavenly parent who never leaves himself without a witness in nature and culture.

Another postconservative shift is in Christology. While resisting the notion that Jesus is the son of God by adoption, not by nature, these theologians often emphasize the humanity of Jesus Christ, and many would say "as this man Jesus is God." In other words, they are willing to rethink traditional incarnational Christology and its categories of substance and person and to reconceive Jesus' divinity in relational terms. Jesus Christ is God's Son, the second person of the Trinity, because of his special relationship of unity with the Father. A dynamic Christology "from below," such as that outlined by Canadian Baptist theologian Russell F. Aldwinckle in More Than Man, is attractive to many postconservatives. While there is little or no consensus as to the future development of Christology, most postconservatives feel free to move away from the language and concepts of Chalcedon while preserving its central intent--to safeguard the full and true humanness and deity of Jesus Christ.

Postconservative evangelicalism is also characterized by a quiet resurgence of synergism with regard to the God-human relationship in salvation. In the past, the Reformed paradigm reigned supreme in conservative evangelical thinking, with various versions of Augustinian-Calvinist thought dominating. Synergism, the notion that human wills work together with God's grace to bring regeneration, was and is still in many quarters suspected of being thinly veiled Pelagianism leading inevitably to theological liberalism. Lead- ing the way in the ranks of postconservatives are new-style Arminians, Wesleyans and revisionist Calvinists strongly influenced by Hendrikus Berkhof rather than Louis Berkhof. No longer is it possible for an evangelical to write or speak as if Reformed theology is synonymous with biblical truth without provoking a withering challenge from representatives of the "Pentecostal paradigm" in evangelical thought.

Finally, postconservative evangelical theology rejects triumphalism. Conservative Protestant theology--especially those elements influenced by fundamentalism--is seen as suffering a kind of hubris with regard to truth-claims. Postconservatives are critical of their conservative colleagues' fasci- nation with "epistemological certainty" and "theological systems." Several evangelical authors have expressed this need for greater modesty, tentativeness and flexibility: Daniel Taylor in The Myth of Certainty, Michael Baumann in Pilgrim Theology and William J. Abraham in The Coming Great Revival: Recovering the Full Evangelical Tradition.

Postconservatives tend to be impatient with exclusive claims to "the correct interpretation" of the Bible or tradition. Yet they are equally impatient with individualistic reveling in ambiguity that results in relativism. Their interest lies in developing open theological systems rather than timeless frameworks of propositional truths. They do not want to ignore the words of the early English Separatist John Robinson: "God always has more light to break forth from his Word!" Sometimes they can be a bit harsh in their struggle to "come out from among" their conservative evangelical forebears in this regard. William Abraham spoke for many postconservatives when, after writing that Carl F. H. Henry's God, Revelation and Authority is "the monument of a generation's work," he added: "Yet given its barren orthodoxy and turgid character, it can at best inspire mediocrity."

Have postconservative evangelicals produced any systematic theology? The best and perhaps only example to date would be Grenz's Theology for the Community of God, an 800-page exploration of Christian doctrine. Clearly intended as an outworking of the kind of "revisioning" of evangelical theology he had called for earlier, Grenz's work proposes "the eschatological community" as the central unifying theme of evangelical theology. This community arises out of the people's faith in God and their common experience of fellowship with the Trinity in conversion, worship and work.

Unlike traditional conservative systems, Theology for the Community of God places the doctrine of scripture within an understanding of the Holy Spirit--and it isn't mentioned until two-thirds of the way into the book. Those looking for discussions of such traditional evangelical concerns as propositional revelation, inerrancy of scripture and conversion-sanctification will not be disappointed, but they may be surprised at where the topics appear and the roles they are given.

In a manner reminiscent of the early 20th-century Baptist theologian E.Y. Mullins, Grenz emphasises experience over supernaturally revealed propositional truth as the heart of Christian theology. He defines theology as reflection on the faith of the people of God --a second-order activity that provides useful models rather than the scientific deduction of intellectual truth from a mother lode of truth in scripture. Yet he clearly regards the biblical message as the norma normans for all Christian faith and practice, and his evangelical commitments are clear in his emphasis on the miracle of conversion.

Postconservative evangelical theology is a movement in its infancy--crawling aand groping toward a new model of evangelical thinking. It probably does not see itself as a movement yet, and only time will tell whether it develops into one. This sympathetic observer would offer this bit of advice:

First, postconsevatives need to be careful not to lose their evangelical cutting edge. If anything and everything becomes in one way or another compatible with the gospel, then the gospel is meaningless. In their newfound acceptance of ambiguity, postconservatives need to hold fast to the core of the gospel, which is the axis of sin and redemption. Evangelicalism is at heart a prophetic form of Christianity that denounces sin and proclaims supernatural restoration.

Second, and closely related, is that postconservatives need to resist forms of postmodernism that involve antirealism. It is one thing to acknowledge the perspectival and paradigm-dependent nature of all human knowing; it is another thing entirely to embrace multiple realities or ontological subjectivism. The latter would involve postconservatives in another form of cultural accommodation--denial of transcendent and objective truth--that can only lead to polytheism.

Third, postconservatives should be very careful not to fall into their own kind of reactionary mentality. There is the temptation in every reform movement to harshly denounce every vestige of the "fathers' faith." Postconservativism need not mean anticonservativism. Respect for even the fundamentalist heritage would be more seemly than snide dismissiveness.