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William Placher's reply to my inquiries about "postliberal" theology (April 7) is necessarily brief, and this response to him must be briefer than desirable. I think, however, that it is important for this discussion to take place. The "Troeltschian" questions that I have raised—about historical and cultural relativity, about the relation of Christianity to other faiths, and about the relation of Christianity to the methods and findings of modern science—are not foreign to pastors and members of their congregations. Straightforward discussion of them will make some pastors and parishioners very uncomfortable, but others will be relieved to have their ponderings explicitly addressed. I will follow the order of Placher’s reply.

Placher missed what I asked for in seeking a definition of postliberal theology; a genealogy of any movement, theological, political or scientific, does not define it. Such an account, however, does show a particular social location of its inception, at Yale—a place where I taught for 17 years. And Placher specifies some of the authors his generation of graduate students at Yale were moved by their mentors to go beyond. Yet the three Americans named—Schubert Ogden, Gordon Kaufman and David Tracy—if they constitute "the center of mainline academic theology," form an exceedingly broad center, since each approaches theological issues from very different perspectives and comes out with very different systematic positions. The warrant for naming them together, I think, would be that each faces Christian theology with the kind of Troeltschian interpretation of the intellectual and cultural issues that I am suggesting Christians (not confined to theologians) confront in our time. And perhaps one warrant for moving more to narrative theology is that it frees Christians from having to confront the three principal questions I’m raising. Narrative theology can provide relief from these questions by limiting the intellectual and social context within which theologians and pastors can think about what they are saying and doing.

Placher’s qualification, "we inevitably bring.. . assumptions" to a reading of the biblical narrative, despite efforts to avoid starting with a cultural framework, is worth underscoring and applying to the positions of postliberals themselves. Narrative theology, like the wider preference for narrative in scholarly studies, simply begins with a different cultural and philosophical framework than does, for example, Troeltsch.

A different account of Placher’s puzzle over liberalism’s identity in the 1990s is possible, but that would be a digression. It may be helpful to note, however, that an account of the perceptions and interpretations of the cultural context of theology and church life is as important as a description of a current trend in some graduate schools. Liberation theology was de rigueur in many seminaries and denominational headquarters not long ago; an accurate analysis of its diminished visibility and audibility would have to be very multidimensional. So, I think, would any analysis of the apparent effectiveness of postliberal theology and many things similar to it.

Placher’s answer in (1b) to the question about whether God chose to reveal Godself in a unique way in Jesus is as straightforward as anyone could ask for. I can only speculate about how persons who answer so honestly might also go on to say, "Yes, and. . ." or "Yes, but. . ." What are the implications of the "yes" for practical as well as intellectual relations to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, persons with a powerful sense of divinity who are not in Christian congregations, and others? What inferences are such persons to draw from the "yes" with reference to their religious traditions and life outlooks? Does the "yes" indicate that all others are in error, and that, like the old Roman Catholic teaching, error has to be tolerated because not to do so would affect the common good? Does it mean that the television evangelists—which the old sociologist of religion in me observes—are correct in informing me that if I do not believe that "yes," I am condemned to the fires of Hades?

My guess is that most postliberals do not wish to be confrontational in ways these questions indicate; they do get along with Jews, Muslims and others, and with persons with natural piety. Does the capacity to do so indicate honestly that the religious error of saying "no" is tolerated? Or that one affirms the "yes," but it really does not make that much difference? Or, if my surmise that postliberal Christians are not confrontational is accurate, does that suggest that maybe the "yes" should go on, "yes, but...".

Placher's answer to my question about the relative truth or falsity of religious claims touches upon my comment that current forms of epistemological relativism provide a justification for affirming the truth of beliefs without worrying about whether they are true for more than those who affirm them. This is an important matter both within the boundaries of postliberal—or any other kind of—theology, as well as across the boundaries of theology and other intellectual endeavors which interpret the same phenomena that theology interprets, but in radically different ways. Placher chooses to answer the question more in the latter context than the former. I would like postliberals to address the issues among themselves, and then reflect upon their answers for the wider context.

If all who might call themselves postliberal do not agree on some things (Placher indicates he has some disagreements with Martin Copenhaver and Anthony Robinson), how do they go about deciding which is the most adequate opinion? Placher counsels that we should start with what we can agree to. But something about narrative theology (and narrative in other disciplines as well) that has inhibited its lure is how its proponents decide which narrative is preferable even within the larger whole they generally agree upon—biblical narrative. (In the context of a pedagogical endeavor I recently argued the plausibility of John Howard Yoder’s account of the New Testament narrative of Jesus’ life and teachings, but my narrative-sensitive audience contended that Yoder got the story all wrong.) There have to be criteria for at least plausibility, if not truth claims, to settle differences among postliberal (and any other "school" of) theologians.

Regarding the question (2) about other religions, Placher cites the writings of J. A. DiNoia. I don’t know his work, but I find the phrase "providential diversity of religions" to be interesting, and Placher’s sentence that follows—"Jesus Christ reveals and anticipates the culmination of God’s will for creation, and in that sense Christianity is uniquely right about what is most important in the ultimate purpose of things"—is worthy of some queries. Perhaps I am a skeptic. Perhaps I have studied too many books which question whether there is an ultimate purpose to things, and many which offer different interpretations of the ultimate purpose of things, and some which try figure out how one could decide these matters. Here traditional orthodox Christianity and postliberal versions are, and must be, forthrightly revelational; the "yes" in (1b) and its implications for (2) are backed by a view that what is revealed in Christ reveals the ultimate purpose of things. No evidences from human experiences (Holocaust, hurricanes, slavery) or from other interpretations (evolutionary theory and Marxism) will ever count against the revelation whatever the content of the "ultimate purpose" might be. My own consternation about this view was evoked by one particular Christian interpretation— that God created all things for the sake o f the human. But this is not the place to rehearse the many reasons why I think such a belief is wrong.

It is clear that postliberal theology and church life want to be generous to other religions and can find theological justifications for their generosity. But at the same time they want Placher’s "yes." "It may well be that God’s will is best served by some adherents of other religions pursuing their own traditions to their depths," Placher writes, But it may just as well be that such pursuit "serves God’s will" by demonstrating the limitations of Christian theology and experience. And an old historical relativist perspective reminds me that, like most Christians, my being such is an accident of history and biology just as accidents of history determine other religious traditions and who belongs to them.

Regarding (3), my question about our ability to see our daily lives absorbed by the biblical world, Placher uses anecdotes which, unfortunately, do not address the complexity of my initial inquiry about postliberal theology I agree that visions of the world which try to dictate details collapse. And every tradition or ideology or academic discipline that seeks to transmit and sustain itself over time necessarily is involved in a "cultural-linguistic" method— interpreting realities in the light of convictions. That is a sociological, not a theological, observation.

Placher writes, "But if the biblical world absorbs our world, then we will try (a) not to hold views incompatible with what we take to be its central claims, and (b) regularly to consider whether its categories might be unexpectedly helpful in understanding any aspect of our lives." The (a) part of the sentence seems to suggest that if interpretations of realities from physics to psychology, from biology to dramas cannot cohere with central claims from the Bible, then they are—what? False? Inadequate? Susceptible to having a meaning overlayed on them which irons out tensions or contradictions with the biblical? Is "the biblical world" untouched by insights and knowledge from other sources? Postliberals are liberal if they find the evangelical Protestants’ continuing battle with evolutionary theory to be wrong. And if evolutionary theory can be accommodated by calling creation accounts myths, presumably other aspects of the biblical world need to be corrected or altered in meaning when confronted by materials from more sources of knowledge than I wish to list. Or does postliberal theology invite us to lead lives of what, for decades, was called cognitive dissonance? Alas, there may be more persons in congregations who are disturbed by cognitive dissonance than theologians and pastors acknowledge.

And is there one biblical world? It seems trivial to ask that question, since differences in theology and in religious and moral outlooks and life have appealed to different "biblical worlds," beginning with the New Testament itself. But it has to be asked. (In my daily biblical readings I have been pondering passages I would like never to have to use as texts for sermons. There are many, but from recent weeks, try Psalm 58.)

Placher does not appeal to the notion that the biblical view and Christians represent a "cognitive minority" in contemporary cultural and intellectual life. Some others do, and that may be true as a sociological observation. Minorities do not, for that reason, have epistemic privileges.

Nor do Placher’s anecdotes address my interest in seeing, for example, how political, historical and ethnographic interpretations of the persistent conflicts in what we call the Middle East would be reinterpreted from the biblical view. Would such an interpretation be more accurate? With reference to what? Would it provide a better basis for resolution of conflicts? Would it simply say that the meaning of events is different when seen in the context of a biblical view? If that is the case, would a postliberal reinterpretation of a political interpretation differ, in principle, from the interpretation of Jerry Falwell?

With reference to (b) in the quotation above, I concede that the biblical view might be unexpectedly helpful in understanding aspects of our lives. But so might Gary Becker’s economic interpretation of our behavior or Melvin Konner’s bioanthropological interpretation. Special authority for the biblical view cannot be claimed on the grounds of its potential utility in understanding life; other sources of potential utility can make the same claim. Something more has to be affirmed, namely, that what one understands from the biblical view is deeper or truer. And, again, what are the criteria for evaluation?

On this point, as throughout his response, Placher is duly modest, as we all have to be. He wants to find out how much the biblical world can absorb—which entrails, I should think, determining what it cannot absorb and why it cannot, and judging whether what it cannot absorb is sufficiently reliable as to require discarding something biblical.

Placher’s response in (3b) to the question about God’s intervention in the world should be more complicated than he makes it. My question was not whether God is always acting in the world, but whether God intervenes in particular ways to answer the particular petitions of Christians for particular outcomes. To say that God is always acting in the world is like saying that God is always ordering the world. Neither claim, at that level of generality, helps one judge whether particular "actions" of God are intentional agential responses to particular petitions. Placher’s anecdote is susceptible, as he would readily acknowledge, to other interpretations and explanations than he gives. To take recourse to "some relations of a sort unknown to me between my praying and what happened" is to admit agnosticism.

I hoped that my initial question would lead to both theological and religious reflection on whether the Deity is more an impersonal power ordering all things or an intentional agent, active like human agents are. This was one of Troeltsch’s concerns in the face of scientific accounts of events as they were understood in his time. My concern is not only with grand cosmological interpretations of how the universe came to be and what it is likely to become, nor only with sociobiological interpretations of the basis of morals and religions, but also with more particular biochemical genetic research and neurosciences. Barth and others would say that such knowledge is about phenomenal man, and not the real human. And the question is not whether, for example, in the neurological processes and structures there is evidence for God. It is whether such accounts, revisable as they are, require changes in traditional theological interpretations of human "nature" and activity. Placher’s Sam, one might suggest, died of inexorable physiological causes written into the impersonal ordering of nature, ultimately by the Deity.

(4) gets at one of the wonderings which provoked my questions: Is there a right flank to postliberal theology, relative to evangelical Protestantism and other quite conservative theological and religious movements? He speaks for himself, as he does throughout his response, and I find his personal pauses to be helpful. His points are probably acceptable to persons who would consider themselves "liberal" Christians rather than postliberal.

I appreciate that Placher accepted the editors’ invitation to respond to my queries. Both he and I could say much more, press each other for more precision, and do so with mutual respect. My concerns are not only about academic theology and academic theological ethics. They are about the church, ministers and members of congregations. To be sure, the world I inhabited for decades led me to develop most of my closest personal and professional relationships with secularized persons and with faithful adherents of other religious traditions. Academics and intellectuals are members of "the real world," though not the only ones.

I cannot provide numbers, but I am convinced that there are Christians in churches, clergy and others, who would appreciate forthright discussions of answers to my Troeltschian questions. Surely, among various reasons people have left churches or are not joining them is the fact that matters I have raised, and William Placher has responded to, are not openly addressed. That is the point of my conjecture that Christians’ first language, the language used to interpret daily events of many different orders of magnitude, is not biblical. That was the point behind a previous submission of mine to this journal, "Don’t exaggerate!" (Oct. 29, 1997).

In times when other forces determine the interpretations of events, nature, human life and what have you, more than religious ones do, it is, in my view, a temptation to find philosophical, theological and ethical positions that can disengage Christians from intentional interactions with alternatives. Faithfulness to what gives distinctive identity to the religious community becomes the celebrated norm, rather than openness to participation in the intersections of religious and theological outlooks with other outlooks on the same realities that religion and theology address.

No one inhabits only one frame of reference, one community of interpretation, in our society and culture. Religious outlooks do not have epistemic privileges in the intersections. The modern world that Troeltsch construed as the context in which religious life and thought existed a hundred years ago (and Schleiermacher a hundred years before that) is still with us, and more complex than it was then. Theologians, pastors and other Christians have to confront it and respond, even if that makes them despised "liberals."

Reading a recent issue of the Christian Century finally provoked me to register a concern raised by other reviews and articles over many months. It would help me a great deal if the editors and writers would delineate, if not define, the "liberal" we are "post" (see especially "The making of a postliberal," by Anthony Robinson and Martin Copenhaver, October 14, 1998). On the basis of my reading I gather that the word "liberal" has now come to stand for whatever it is that various current authors wish to define themselves against. In midcentury "liberal theology" was what "neo-orthodoxy;" as it was called then, was against. Now, some authors who were earlier classed as "neo-orthodox" are sometimes cited as "liberal Protestants."

Some placement of the position claimed by postliberals would help clarify things. Since postliberal theology seems most interested in defining itself against what one could call its left flank, it might be useful to learn whether it has a right flank against which it would also like to defend and define itself. How "orthodox" does postliberal theology want to be? How biblicistic does it want to be? Is postliberal theology the same as (another. big term) Protestant evangelical theology? If it is not, how does it differ?

But, for the moment at least, postliberals are more concerned with the place they claim to have abandoned than they are with the place they may be headed. Unfortunately, concern does not always translate into c1arity~ and the impressions that postliberals convey about what they have left behind are frequently less than satisfying. So what are the "liberal" forms of Christianity that now are "post"? Is there any consensus about the answer to this question among those who apply the label "postliberal" to others or use it to classify themselves? Who are the "liberal" theologians that now reside on the wrong side of the "post," and why are they called "liberal" rather than something else?

In my retirement I have been rereading a lot of Ernst Troeltsch, partly to commemorate my first study of his work under James Luther Adams 50 years ago. In my reflections about his and others’ works, it seems to me there are three questions that "postliberal" theologians and pastors need to answer clearly.

The big one is also Troeltsch’s main concern: Christianity’s relations to particular historical and cultural contexts at the time of its origins and in the course of its development through the centuries. It is very easy in the "postmodern" (another loose term) period we are passing through to accept a radical historical relativism that qualifies all claims to truth. Indeed, historical relativism can be invoked as a solution to Christianity’s truth claims rather than being seen, as was the case for Troeltsch and some of us, as a major challenge to them. But if a philosophical justification is made for "postliberal" Christianity on the ground of historical relativism, are its proponents ready to accept the implications of that paradoxically universal claim—that is, that there are no ways to grade the better or worse, if not the truth or falsity, of historically relative claims? That there are no ways to judge that one version of "postliberal" theology is better than another version?

Pastors and theologians might find the radical historical particularity of their current religious interests to be satisfying and even marketable. They and others want a particular identity defining the church or Christian beliefs over against whatever they choose to call the other—in the past it used to be called the "world." Certainly concern for the particular identity of Christianity was one of the poles that Troeltsch and those of us influenced by him have to be concerned about. But why is Christianity’s particularity a concern? For sociological and/or psychological reasons? Or are "postliberal" theologians ready to make a stronger historical claim, for example, that God chose to reveal Godself in a unique and exclusive way in a single historical event, Jesus Christ? If they do not make that claim, they can be called "liberal" theologians in the eyes of most "orthodoxies." If they do make that claim, they are "orthodox" and should say so forthrightly. In my opinion Barth was straightforward: it was clear that he was claiming the universal significance of a unique particular historical event because God chose to be revealed in it.

The second question follows from the first: What are the implications of "postliberal" views of Christianity for the unavoidable consciousness of radical religious pluralism, not to mention the plurality of various functional equivalents to religions? Karl Rahner’s idea of "anonymous Christians" was one answer to that question, backed by a complex philosophical and Christian theology. And if "postliberal" Christians accept Rahner’s main point about religious pluralism, even if they reject his terms and theological defense of it, can they still be so comfortable about their satisfaction with Christian particularity? If they do not accept something like Rahner’s view, do they not have to proclaim the "superiority" of Christianity in relation to Judaism, Islam and other non-Christian religions? Troeltsch attempted such a claim—in ways that I strongly reject. If "postliberals" do not want to make that claim, they are certainly "liberal" in the eyes of many orthodoxies.

The third question is about how "postliberal"Christians relate the very reliable findings of various modern sciences to their theologies or religious practices and convictions. There are many dimensions to this question, and I can only be illustrative.

Since first reading George Lindbeck's The Nature of the Doctrine, which has become a defining work for many who call themselves "postliberal," I have been struck by the penultimate sentence in which he commends "the ancient practice of absorbing the universe into the biblical world." I will remark on only two implications of this statement. One is practical. While it would take an empirical study to solve the issue, my hypothesis is that most persons in our culture--liberal, postliberal or what have you—interpret their experiences and "the universe" primarily in terms that are neither biblical nor theological. Various nonreligious interpretations of anxiety inform the lives of many people. Similarly, many people turn to a variety of nonbiblical interpretations to understand experiences of natural and moral evils.

In light of these interpretations, the practical theology of "postliberal" Christianity has to do one of two things: either a) show the falsity or at least inadequacy of nonbiblical explanations and interpretations of events or b) become explicit about the relationships between the biblical theological interpretations of the events to those which are not explicitly biblical. My hypothesis is that very few "postliberal": pastors, theologians, or laypeople use biblical symbols, analogies, metaphors or explanations as their first order of discourse in dealing with life in society, history or nature. If these persons concur in this hypothesis, a daunting pastoral and theological task has to be faced: and interpretation of life on an agential, personal, interpretation of God, they must (to return to previous themes) defend the unique particularity, adequacy and universality of biblical "revelation."

Practical implications, of course, attend such a defense of biblical revelation. For many of those who adhere to such a view of what the Bible reveals—especially the revelation of the Deity as a loving person—particular interventions by God into events, from hurricanes to headaches, are warranted expectations of answers to prayers. Now, if "postliberal" Christians wish to qualify some of the reasonable inferences that can be drawn from very traditional views of divine personhood and activity, they are probably liberal in the eyes of many orthodoxies. If they do not wish to make such qualifications, can they claim to be differentiated from the virtually magical expectations of divine interventions that one hears proclaimed by television evangelists and in "joys and concerns" expressed in Sunday services? If they do claim such a differentiation, on what grounds?

The wider issue is the scope of the context within which Christian life and thought are to be seen, interpreted and understood. Again, Troeltsch’s concerns were on the mark. He was concerned with how Christianity would cope with ‘modernity," which meant coping with historical relativism, religious pluralism and the sciences. Whatever "postliberal" Christianity is, it has to face the realities not only of "modernity" but also of "postmodernity," and it needs to define itself against a right flank as well as a left.

"Postliberal" Christian thought and religious life might be simply an avoidance of the questions, not answers to them, that a Troeltschian "liberal" Christianity asked. But then, how does its agenda differ from very traditional, very orthodox or Protestant evangelical views of the Christian faith? Those questions are still with us. If one wants only to avoid them, and not answer them, please -- editors and authors in the Christian Century -- be straightforward about that.

Ernst Troeltsch died 70 years ago, and his theology was shortly thereafter declared dead as well. Famous in his own generation as a theologian, philosopher, historian and politician, he was soon forgotten, or remembered as the best example of what not to do. For Karl Barth, Troeltsch was the last theologian of the 19^th century; a man whose failure revealed the true character of liberal theology. Barth’s judgment shaped an entire generation of theologians.

But all that has changed. Interest in Troeltsch’s thought is greater today than ever before, and also more widespread, attracting attention in Eastern and Western Europe, North America and Japan. What began about 20 years ago as a trickle of articles, dissertations, books, translations and reprints in German, English, French, Italian and Japanese has become a steady stream. Far from being the last theologian of the 19^th century, Troeltsch is coming to be seen as the first theologian of the 20^th century—or perhaps even the 21^st.

But why do the life and thought of this early 20^th-century man now seem so relevant? Because Troeltsch, at the beginning of this century, was keenly aware of many trends that became apparent to most observers only at its end: the collapse of Eurocentrism; the perceived relativity of all historical events and knowledge (including scientific knowledge); an awareness that Christianity is relative to its Western, largely European history and environment; the emergence of a profound global pluralism; the central role of practice in theology; the growing impact of the social sciences on our view of the world and of ourselves; and dramatic changes in the role of religious institutions and religious thought. Moreover, he was a profoundly interdisciplinary thinker whose contributions embraced philosophy, history, sociology, philosophy of history, ethics and politics.

Precisely because Troeltsch understood the forces that were and are shaping 20^th-century religion and society, he can provide us with needed perspective on contemporary theological and religious movements. Furthermore, his willingness to confront some very difficult theological is-sues—issues that the intervening generation of theologians mostly ignored or evaded—makes his insights uniquely instructive. The issues Troeltsch confronted are many, but I will focus on three: 1) Christianity as a historical, relative phenomenon, 2) Christianity as a social phenomenon, and 3) theology as a practical discipline. Troeltsch’s contributions are far more complex than this division suggests, but it provides a convenient format in which to summarize his chief insights. Then in light of this summary, I will explore how a theology informed by his insights might differ from what we see in theology today.

"Everything is tottering!" Troeltsch exclaimed at an 1896 conference, initiating an exchange that ended with Troeltsch slamming the door as he left the room. Everything is tottering, because Christianity was now known to be a historical phenomenon. From the beginning, Troeltsch took a historical approach to the study of religion and theology. He was convinced that there was no reason to exclude Christianity from the history of religion as a whole. The Bible, Jesus and the church were all part of history; they were neither exempt from historical investigation nor entitled to a privileged historical method. This meant that almost all of late 19^th-century theology was on shaky ground.

The modern study of history had established that Christianity was not a supernatural phenomenon that had just appeared in history without cause or antecedent. On the contrary, Christianity was influenced by a host of non-Christian and non-Jewish factors. Christianity could not, therefore, on historical grounds be proven final or absolute. Troeltsch stated this conclusion in The Absoluteness of Christianity—tentatively in the first edition of 1902, emphatically in the second edition of 1912. Nor could Jesus be exempted. He too was relative to his origins and history, influenced by the spectrum of opinions and practices of the Judaism of late antiquity.

But relativity is not the whole story for Troeltsch. The fact that Christianity and Jesus are both historical also demonstrates their relatedness. And what is more, it demonstrates our interrelatedness with them. We can dispense neither with the historical Jesus nor with the revered Christ; he remains indispensable, for "we possess these religious powers of the present only in association with the present and revered person of Christ."

The historical character of all religion that Troeltsch recognized still serves to check the shallow individualism and subjectivism so characteristic of our age. Faced with the awareness that everything historical is also relative, the individual is tempted to think (with Kierkegaard and the early Barth) that history is without significance, or indeed that nothing has any significance. But a study of history, on the contrary, demonstrates that religion is not a purely subjective phenomenon; it is rather a historical phenomenon that shapes and transcends individual experience. Individual belief is historical, relative and related. The autonomous individual never—not even in the case of Jesus—spontaneously produces faith within his or her isolated individuality. The individual needs the stimulus and impetus of history—and of community. Troeltsch understood these relationships and thus paid careful attention to religion’s social dimension.

Troeltsch began to address the social context of religion partly as a result of his friendship with the sociologist Max Weber. He had already called attention to the historical relativity—and relatedness—of Christianity; he now began to note its social and institutional relativity—and relatedness—as well. The result of this interest was the nearly 1,000-page work, The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches and Groups (1912), which remains a classic of religious sociology, social history and ethics.

Christianity, Troeltsch taught, can assume any of three basic social forms or types: the church, the sect and mysticism. The church, into which one is born (like the medieval Catholic Church), is distinguished by an ethic of conservation and compromise in its relationship with the surrounding society; the sect, which one must join as an adult (like the Anabaptists), rejects the surrounding society and has an ethic of rigor, perfection and transformation; the mystic is primarily a subjectively religious person who is not linked to any particular religious body (or, if linked to one, does not find it very important). The church emphasizes the sacraments and education; the sect emphasizes conversion and commitment; the mystic emphasizes inner experience. All three types are authentically Christian, each has roots in the New Testament, and all three have decided strengths as well as weaknesses, according to Troeltsch.

But the most rapidly growing type, Troeltsch held, was mysticism—and studies of contemporary American culture confirm his analysis. "Mysticism," in this sense, does not refer to miraculous visions or signs or supernatural experiences. Instead, it signifies a personal and subjective form of religion that is more internal than external, more individual than institutional, more experiential than scriptural. For the mystic, Troeltsch said, membership in church or sect is of no significance—it is the free personal experience that matters.

This kind of mysticism abounds in all ages, in churches and in sects, and outside of any formal religious body—from medieval mystics to modern Quakers to contemporary college sophomores who talk about their personal "spirituality." But the modern era in particular has seen a tremendous growth in Troeltsch’s mystical type, as the authority and influence of both churches and sects have declined. A noninstitutional mysticism was already, according to Troeltsch, "the secret religion of the educated classes." Today we must add: not so secret anymore.

Troeltsch himself was deeply attracted to mysticism. In part this attraction was rooted in his antagonism to dogmatism and authoritarianism, and no doubt it also grew out of his awareness of historical relativity. Yet Troeltsch was no simple individualist, which is what makes him so very refreshing today. He knew that religion would die without symbol, cult, and myth. And he knew that religion would grow socially and ethically impotent without institutions. So despite his own attraction to mysticism, he knew that it was an inadequate and unsustainable expression of religious faith. Troeltsch could never overcome this contradiction between vital personal religious experience and its institutional mediation, and it remains a problem for us today—one far more serious than that of relativism.

Following Schleiermacher, Troeltsch refused to call his theology "dogmatics." The whole idea of dogma—timeless, nonhistorical facts about God, Jesus, the church and so forth—had been completely undermined by the study of history. "We are no longer in the business of fixing permanent dogmas from an inspired Bible. Instead, we formulate teachings which express the essence of Christian piety," Troeltsch wrote. In other words, theology is inextricably linked to practice.

Theological statements do not describe objective facts about God and salvation, according to Troeltsch. Instead, they "express the preconditions and contents of the Christian consciousness of faith, i.e., a living, practical-theoretical orientation to God, the world, and humanity." It is a "theology of consciousness" instead of a "theology of facts," for God "can never be known apart from subjective experience." Troeltsch argued that religion is primarily a matter of experience and subjectivity, not dogma and fact. "It comes not from the desk, but from life." In his later writings he also came to emphasize the role of decision in relation to the religious life.

But Troeltsch’s religious decision was not like that of Kierkegaard, which supposedly took place apart from social-historical conditions. Troeltsch never capitulated to mere subjectivism. Knowledge of God is never possible apart from subjective experience, but it is always more than subjective experience. Troeltsch maintained that such knowledge is "not a frivolous subjectivity but something that takes shape within us, overwhelming us with an irresistible inner sovereignty." Or put another way, subjectivity "does not mean a matter of arbitrary taste, but a subjectivity which is saturated with God." In other words, Troeltsch believed that authentic subjectivity involves more than the mere subject alone. Genuine faith "lifts the individual subject above its own limitations and brings it into full and living contact with the divine life for the first time."

This observation brings us back once more to Troeltsch’s emphasis on the indispensable role that history and community play in Christian life. To re-emphasize a cardinal point of Troeltsch’s thought, faith—even in the case of Jesus—is never spontaneously produced by an autonomous subject. Faith needs the stimulus and impetus of history and community. Any attempt to sever these ties that bind would result in the destruction of genuine religion, and in "an utterly individual, personal, and emaciated mysticism." Troeltsch’s theology is a highly sophisticated combination of personal experience and social history, of subjectivity and historicity, of individual and community.

What do Troeltsch’s life and thought mean for today? His relevance can be indicated with regard to three contemporary theological movements: postmodern theology, narrative theology and liberation theology. All three movements share some of his interests, yet each displays serious deficiencies that Troeltsch’s work can illuminate and help correct. Not that Troeltsch has all the answers, or that his theology itself can be revived lock, stock and barrel. For all his achievements, scarcely one stone of his theology can be left standing on top of another. But theology today will have to reckon with these very stones, or else stumble over them.

Postmodern theology: The desire to be postmodern often outpaces the ability to articulate just what postmodernity is all about. An enormous number of intellectual and pseudo-intellectual movements now rally to the postmodern juggernaut, often with contradictory agendas. Since pluralism is itself a hallmark of postmodernism, generalizing about the movement is dangerous. But in most respects, postmodern theology as represented by figures such as Thomas Altizer and Mark C.Taylor rejects any attempt to formulate enduring principles and doctrines or to identify any ontological or foundational reality. It also rejects Enlightenment beliefs that there are universal truths of reason, that history is characterized by progress, and that rational science and technology are the solution to our problems. Postmodernists tend to be particularly critical of the claim that science knows the "real" world. This devaluation of science is usually coupled with the rejection of all dualisms: mind/body, man/nature, man/woman, and so on. Finally, postmodern theology declares that the modern era—that is, the one characterized by all those Enlightenment beliefs—is now over.

Troeltsch has great affinities with many postmodern in-sights; indeed, he anticipated many of them. He was aware that scientific knowledge is relative to its time and culture, just like religion. He knew that all values are in flux, and that true knowledge of value is always a challenge and a process. Yet he was also aware, in a way that many post-moderns are not, that no one can completely break with the past; any claim that one has done so is illusory. Compared with Troeltsch, much of postmodernism can be seen as more hypermodern than postmodern. It is largely another attempt to carry out the old Enlightenment program of demolishing tradition, ritual, cult and historical narrative, except now without the Enlightenment’s faith that reason and technology can assume their place. At the same time, much postmodern thought perpetuates Romanticism’s narcissistic glorification of emotion and irrationality, except now without the romantics’ esteem for tradition and the people. Postmodernism is simply the Enlightenment once more with feeling—combining the worst excesses of rationalism and romanticism.

In terms of Troeltsch’s writing, postmodernism is closely linked to what he called mysticism—and it shares in that religious type’s contemporary inevitability and in its inadequacy. Troeltsch does not provide us with a solution to the problems that postmodernism both reflects and raises, but he can help puncture the pretensions of those varieties (and they are many) that pretend to have left the Enlightenment behind while continuing to perpetuate some of its most unfortunate errors. History, community and tradition are the true basis of autonomy and decision. As Troeltsch understood, these features of human experience cannot be separated.

Narrative (or postliberal) theology: The major rival to postmodern theology in intellectual circles is the narrative theology movement represented by such figures as Hans Frei, George Lindbeck and (in a maverick version) Stanley Hauerwas. Narrative theology accepts the premises of post-modernism at many points but draws a radically different conclusion. Since we cannot survey history from some universal, purely rational point of view, narrative theologians argue, we have no choice but to operate out of the historical narrative in which we find ourselves—and for the Christian theologian that means the Christian narrative, shaped by the story(ies) of Jesus Christ as found in the Bible. The Christian narrative embraces within itself the claim that the meaning of all history is to be found in Christ, narrative theologians say, but they also hold that such a claim cannot be demonstrated from a standpoint outside the narrative. In the cases of Hauerwas and Lindbeck, at least, this line of reasoning is linked to a preference for the sect type of Christian community.

Of all the theological options on the horizon today, narrative theology has the most direct ties to Troeltsch, though they are not usually acknowledged. The narrative theology movement itself may be traced back to H. Richard Niebuhr’s The Meaning of Revelation, a book in which Troeltsch’s emphasis on history and subjectivity appears on nearly every page. But contemporary narrative theologians seem to have forgotten two lessons from Troeltsch that they should have remembered: that the narratives themselves are historical and relative, and that we find ourselves participating not in one but in many different narratives.

For instance, Hauerwas lives not only within the Christian narrative but also (as he has said) within the Texan narrative, and he shares in an academic narrative and a personal narrative as well. These are all creditable stories, but how are they to be distinguished? And, more important, what about the narratives that he excludes, such as the liberal democratic narrative or the feminist narrative? Moreover, the Christian narrative itself exists in a wide variety of versions, and it has never existed in such magnificent isolation as narrative theology seemingly supposes. Starting from the time of Jesus, it has woven together diverse narratives: Pharasaic, Zealot, Hellenistic, Stoic, Platonic, Catholic, Russian, Anabaptist, African and so on throughout history. The Christian story has never been monolithic. Narrative theologians must come to terms with the relativity of the Christian narrative.

Liberation theology: Liberation theology is multifarious and diverse. It embraces German political theology, Latin American liberation movements, African-American theology, feminist theology, womanist theology and many more varieties besides. Generalization is dangerous here too, but it is safe to say that liberation theology is characterized by an emphasis on the experience of oppression and a Marxist-inspired social analysis that divides society into oppressor and oppressed. Practice (or praxis) is central to liberation theology; such theology seeks to be part of the historical political project of liberating the oppressed.

Troeltsch also has much in common with liberation theology. He emphasized theology as a practice, and his own practice became increasingly political. He was one of the first theologians to make a positive (though also critical) use of Marxist thought. Yet he pointed out both the limitations of Marxist tools and the hazards of simplistic appeals to experience. Through these criticisms, Troeltsch can provide us with a needed sense of perspective on the liberationist project. Any criticism of the liberationist program is perilous, for it can quickly put the critic in the uncomfortable position of seeming to favor the oppressor. How can one "criticize" the experience of the victim of domestic abuse or incest, the child refugee who has seen his family slaughtered by the national police, or the mother who must watch her children starve? We cannot. But although we dare not criticize the experience, we can and must be willing to challenge some interpretations of that experience. Much liberation theology exhibits a dangerous tendency to jump from the experience of suffering to the assertion that some x must be the cause of that suffering, whether that x be capitalism or patriarchy or Eurocentrism.

A fine example of such a short-circuit was the recent Presbyterian study document on human sexuality that was justly excoriated by Camille Paglia for its exceptionally shallow analysis. Overall, the entire field of Christian social ethics—liberationist or not—pays scandalously little attention to empirical data and social science, as when Karen Lebacqz cites the Hite Report as though it were a statistically representative sample of sexual attitudes and behaviors, or when Michael Novak draws simplistic comparisons between Japanese and Latin American political economies. Troeltsch, by way of contrast, was well versed in the social science of his time, and sought to make careful use of it in his theological, political and moral judgments. In this respect, the contemporary practical theology movement (represented by Don Browning, among others) is much closer to Troeltsch’s standard.

Why does the Troeltsch revival continue? Because the questions he raised are still worth asking, because his attempts to deal with these questions are still instructive, and because he can provide us with perspective on what is happening today and is about to happen tomorrow. He is, indeed, only now coming into his own.