James McGrath calls me a liberal: my response (2)

There are examples of salient differences which sort out liberal from conservative biblical scholars. But liberals and conservatives do not necessarily differ over the recognition of a diversity of voices in scripture, or over the need, from a confessional point of view, of interpreting individual passages in light of all others (a long-standing principle of the Reformed tradition, one reason it tends to be theocentric rather than merely christocentric). We also do not differ over the importance of identifying correctly the literary genres in which texts are written.

To take a specific topic discussed a bit on this thread [see below for my contribution to the thread],* we do not necessarily differ that much on the historical Jesus either. Take a look at Michael Bird’s recent volume if you don’t believe me. Sure, if I’m reading the gospel of Luke, since I am conservative, chances are, I am going to draw the line between content to associate with the historical Jesus and content to associate with the early church along the lines of an I. Howard Marshall or Richard Bauckham rather than a Jesus Seminar scholar. I’m not so sure that is of earth-shaking importance, except in the sense that it dooms me to thinking of the historical Jesus of someone like Crossan or Horsley – not to mention Bultmann - as unacceptably truncated.

The salient difference has more to do with different approaches to the risen Jesus and to the resurrection. We conservatives believe in the reality of the risen Jesus, whom we encounter in worship to this day, just as much as we believe in the reality of the historical Jesus. One and the same person, which gives us a nice set of problems to stew over. But we are all grown up now. We can deal with it.

We believe that faith healing that Jesus practiced was genuine, though of course we can’t prove it. We think of nature miracles and the virgin birth as perfectly conceivable, and choose to believe they happened, though of course whether they did or not is not subject to historical investigation. I could go on like this, but I think I’ve made my point.

Perhaps you’ve heard the old SBL story, from the days of the great Samuel Sandmel, the first Jew to serve as its president. After listening to a long discussion among liberal Protestants who were postulating meanings of the resurrection that do not depend on the resurrection ever having actually happened, Sandmel got up and asked to speak. “I think,” he said, “that when the early Christians said that God raised Jesus from the dead, they said that because they thought that’s exactly what happened.” Stunned silence.

But of course Sandmel was right. Conservative Christians today, though of course we want to be as intellectually responsible as possible in how we affirm it, stand with the early Christians. Liberal Christians do not (and the neo-orthodox in the mold of Karl Barth do not either; I’m not sure about Schweitzer; a lot of paleo-liberals were orthodox in a number of ways).

Now, if you tell me that you stand with the early Christians on that one, James, then you already have one foot in my camp. In that case, you would fit right in at IBR, if not necessarily (yet) ETS.  

*On the thread, I stated the following:

It's not that hard to describe the historical Jesus.

(1) He was an itinerant missionary who saw himself as one called on to seek and save the lost of Israel. To his own surprise he ends up becoming a means of salvation for a few Gentiles as well.

(2) He was a public preacher and moralist, an innovative interpreter of the Torah, one whose first-hand knowledge of and loyalty to the scriptures of his people are everywhere evident. He does not imagine God to be non-violent, though he counsels non-resistance to the violence of the Roman occupiers. He expected his followers to someday judge the twelve tribes of Israel.

(3) He was a controversialist who took on the Pharisees even if he did not question their essential role (see Matthew 23). He is close to that movement in a number of ways, that stream of Judaism which, besides the movement Jesus gave rise to, had within itself the strength to survive the destruction of the Temple. This is not coincidental but speaks to fundamental commonalities over against other streams of Judaism of that period.

(4) He was an enormously gifted composer of parables, a healer, and an exorcist. If the parables of the sower and the like which Mark suggests are programmatic to Jesus' message were indeed that, a reasonable hypothesis, then Jesus was not fundamentally about outrage. He believed on God's own wondrous power. He believed in defeating sin, sickness, and the devil through faith, prayer, and fasting. He expected God to overthrow the system as it were, in terms of a restored Israel according to the promises of God, but when that didn't happen, his followers understood him - now risen – to be presiding over a massive detour (see texts like Romans 9-11). The detour was *not* revolutionary in nature except in the sense that yes, the ecclesiai then and now are revolutionary in some sense.

(5) He saw himself as an eschatological prophet and in some sense as the Son of Man of the book of Daniel, though it is difficult to pin down the details (see the balanced presentation by Michael Bird in his recent volume).

(6) He seems to have understood his imminent death and suffering in light of Scripture which speaks of vicarious suffering. But it's hard to know for sure because this understanding of his death became so important for early Christians that it's hard to figure out what part of the gospel sayings of this kind goes back to Jesus.

(7) Given that his disciples see him as if (I speak as an historian must) God had raised him from the dead, everything Jesus said and did and in particular, his death on a cross, are re-interpreted in light of the resurrection and the continued felt presence of the risen Christ in worship.

From there the movement's understanding of the risen Jesus widens out on the basis of what they see the Holy Spirit (as they take it) doing among the Gentiles. This causes further retrospective interpretation of the historical Jesus, but along somewhat varying lines in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, not to mention other components of the NT.

[The] Jesus [of a Horsley or a Crossan] is too uni-dimensional. [Such a] revolutionary Jesus is far less likely to correspond to who he was than what we find in the gospels.

Comments

[smijer]

Surprised to find no comments on this post. I'm also a tad surprised to see McGrath characterize you this way... but I think I know where he is coming from.

I'm a very analytical person myself. I think that maybe he is, too. You, on the other hand seem to take a more "holistic" or syncretic approach.

I think I've read you enough to guess that you would not insist that the details of Luke's nativity can be fully harmonized with Matthew's nativity. That, for instance, you believe Herod was King, but Qurinius was not actually prelate of Syria at the time of Jesus' birth. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Analytical thinkers like myself would then stop, before going on to your wider view of scripture, and say that this is enough to make your specific view of these passages not "inerrantist" by the modern conservative definition of same. I might have said it was consistent with a "moderate" view if I had lived when "moderate" was still a viable designation.

It seems you go on to say that read together and with the remainder of scripture, read in proper poetic tension, etc., etc., these passages create a broader message that it is true even if they are not technically true in their details.

So, it is hard for us to overlook the more moderate view on one level of reading and focus exclusively on the conservative view on the other level of reading.

I that many conservative inerrantists would agree with the notion that the moderate view you seem to hold on one level is not an "inerrantist" view by their standards. I think that many of *them* would characterize your view as liberal on that account.

Labels are odious. I often find it difficult to know where you are coming from, but you clearly make an effort to communicate your unique perspective, and in the end it matters very little how that perspective is named. It matters whether that perspective is well-conceived, but that's up for you to decide, not me.

[smijer]

Ha - this comment was intended for post (1)... I hadn't read post 2 when I pasted it out of text editor. Post 2 kind of anticipates it I see.

[JohnFH]

Smijer,

I'll copy over your comment to the other thread and reply there.

[Robert Minto]

This is not entirely related to the content of the above post, but I have to say it anyway.

I followed your link to the original "discussion" at McGrath's blog, and ended up reading the entire epic thread. I confess that I am absurdly addicted to blog flame wars of the you-vs-Thom variety. But generally I don't read all the way through them. What kept me enthralled was your continuing good humor through the whole thing --- utterly rare. In the flame wars I have observed (and, alas, participated in) things usually tip toward mutual recrimination. I kept waiting for you to come back with a stinging insult. But you didn't and it was a great experience for me to see that such patience in the face of trollish behavior is possible. Thanks!

[JohnFH]

I confess to enjoying a flame war once in awhile myself. God I miss Italy. In seminary, among students, we used to have them all the time. One minute we were at each other's throats. The next we were embracing.

[G. Kyle Essary]

Barth (according to Torrance) continued to affirm a literal, physical resurrection throughout his life. Of course, so did Brunner, Berkouwer, Torrance, Jungel, etc. who are all fully neo-orthodox. Furthermore, modern theologians like (Alister) McGrath would fall in this Torrance/Barthian camp and he clearly holds to a literal, bodily resurrection.

The neo-orthodox are a mixed group, but I don't think the resurrection is an area where they should be grouped with theological Liberalism.

[JohnFH]

I could be wrong but of the original "Zwischen den Zeiten" crowd, Bultmann, Gogarten, and Tillich are the ones who left behind belief in the resurrection of the flesh.

The others did not, and in the Swiss-German and Swiss-French areas (think of the great Oscar Cullmann), it was rare for a long time.

I do wonder what's the point of being a Christian if resurrection of the flesh is taken away.

[G. Kyle Essary]

I wonder that as well...fortunately, it hasn't been taken away by a long stretch and it's one of the bedrocks of my faith.

In your listing I don't really associate Bultmann, Gogarten or Tillich with neo-orthodoxy. All three were much more influenced with the early Heidegger and seemed to try and build an entire theology around his being-unto-death...yet using quasi-Christian terminology. I'd add Macquarrie to this list...he seems more a "Christian" Heideggerian than a Christian theologian (theology assuming the necessity of Theos) in my opinion.

[JohnFH]

The trouble with the term neo-orthodoxy is that it is not very descriptive historically speaking.

There was a group of intensely creative theologians who saw themselves as more or less on the same page in the 1920s and published a journal entitled Zwischen den Zeiten. If one studies the history of theology on the Continent (which I did) one speaks of dialectical theology. Barth, Brunner, Thurneysen, Bultmann, Gogarten; on the periphery, Tillich. Except for Barth and Thurneysen, they all ended up going their separate ways.

It is a fascinating, fascinating story which Moltmann tells in Anfänge Der Dialektischen Theologie, which hasn't even been translated into English except for the first volume (I read it in Italian! The Catholics in Italy, believe it or not, are careful to translate all the best stuff).

The fact is, they were united more by what they were against (the Protestantism of Harnack and the like) than what they were for. It was only later that Tillich found his own voice so to speak (though a friend and Tillich scholar, J. Mark Thomas, claims otherwise, at least for his social thought). Gogarten fell for Nazism and so, after the war, though he continued to write, was not really forgiven. Anyway he headed in the direction of seeing secularization as the true vocation of Protestantism, a thesis which is brilliantly true in both good and bad ways.

The reason why Barth was for a long time a theologian laypeople and not just other professors read (not any more) was because he combined crisp kirchliche dogmatik (churchly dogmatics, and boy did he take that seriously, which meant he returned to orthodox dogma [already an out-of-fashion word] in loci in which all of Protestantism had gone the way of either revivalism, pietism, spiritualism, scholasticism, or liberalism) with an anti-fascist stance.

Anyone who was street-smart was an anti-fascist, or later, when didn't matter any longer, wished they had been, and tried to make up for it by becoming socialist or even communist.

Nobody writes theology today like Barth did in his day. [I don't agree with plenty of things in Barth; that's not my point here.] Nobody. He wrote for doctors, lawyers, politicians, and other intellectuals who wanted to read the Bible with all of their geistliche faculties and were already reading the equivalent of the New York Times including the book reviews.
Imagine reading the volumes of the Dogmatik as they came out one by one as you went about your business as a lawyer, a doctor, a public servant, all the while attending church assiduously of course, and reading your Bible.

The closest thing to that in America was Reinhold Niebuhr.