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Faith in the Age of Reason: Navigating the Journey of Modern Theology · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer, and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions,
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Speaker 1: Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the
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Speaker 1: world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions
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Speaker 1: that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto
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Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this
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Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer and I'm
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Speaker 1: joined today by doctor Roger E. Olsen. He's the author
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Speaker 1: of a book called The Journey of Modern Theology From
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Speaker 1: Reconstruction to Deconstruction, and he is emeritus Professor of Christian
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Speaker 1: Theology at the George W. Truett Seminary at Baylor. And
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Speaker 1: so we're going to be talking about theology today. We're
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Speaker 1: going to be talking about what modernity means and sort
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Speaker 1: of the journey the theology is taken through time. And
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Speaker 1: so I'm excited about this one. And Rob, I really
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Speaker 1: appreciate you being on the show. Thanks for being here.
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Speaker 2: It's good to be with you. Thank you yeah.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, talk a little bit about what drew you to
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Speaker 1: this topic. Why did you feel like this book needed
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Speaker 1: to be written?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this book has a story, so I'll tell it briefly.
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Speaker 2: Stanley Grin's was my friend and a well known evangelical theologian,
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Speaker 2: and in nineteen ninety or nineteen ninety one he contacted me.
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Speaker 2: We were friends, and he said, I'd like you to
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Speaker 2: write a chapter or two for a book I'm editing
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Speaker 2: friends of Varsity Press, called Twentieth Century Theology. And I
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Speaker 2: hadn't written anything in book form before that. I'd written
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Speaker 2: some articles and chapters for books, but never written a book.
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Speaker 2: And I said to him, well, why don't you and
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Speaker 2: I just write it together. We'll co author it. And
1:46
Speaker 2: he jumped for that idea right away, So over the
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Speaker 2: next year or two we wrote Twentieth Century Theology, which
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Speaker 2: caught on and was a textbook used by many professors
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Speaker 2: and colleges, universities and seminaries, and won an award. I
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Speaker 2: can't remember what award it was right now, but it
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Speaker 2: was a pretty big deal at the time. And stan
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Speaker 2: died in his sleep in two thousand and five at
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Speaker 2: the age of fifty five, and after that the publisher
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Speaker 2: into Varsity Press, came to me and said, we'd like
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Speaker 2: a revision of twentieth century theology, and we'd like you,
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Speaker 2: that is, me, to write it, and we'd like you
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Speaker 2: to add some chapters, especially nineteenth century theology. So we'll
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Speaker 2: give it a new name. And they asked me to
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Speaker 2: come up with the name. Well, I've always been interested
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Speaker 2: in modern contemporary theology. I taught that subject at Bethel
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Speaker 2: College in Minnesota, and I taught it at Truett Seminary
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Speaker 2: at Baylor University in Texas, and in my PhD program
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Speaker 2: at Rice University, I specialized or focused on modern theology,
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Speaker 2: both Protestant and Catholic. So I said, I'll be happy
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Speaker 2: to and I wrote the book. I incorporated a lot
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Speaker 2: of twentieth century theology into it, but I rewrite the
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Speaker 2: whole book, the twentieth Century Theology book. I completely rewrote it,
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Speaker 2: so it's not like it's just in the book. But
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Speaker 2: I started with twentieth century theology and then rewrote it
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Speaker 2: and added many chapters, and it got longer and longer
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Speaker 2: as I was writing it, and I remember saying to
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Speaker 2: the publisher, maybe this should be two volumes, one on
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Speaker 2: nineteenth century theology and one on twentieth and they said, no,
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Speaker 2: we're not afraid of big books. I said, well, how
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Speaker 2: big can it be? And they said how big do
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Speaker 2: you want it to be? They said, well, I just
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Speaker 2: want to finish it. So I finished it and it's
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Speaker 2: seven hundred and some pages long, which I'm sure does
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Speaker 2: has not helped its sales at all.
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Speaker 1: I enjoyed it so out of it and I've.
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Speaker 2: Never been had it to I've never had an interview
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Speaker 2: about it, So thank you for doing this.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no problem. I you know, part of what
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Speaker 1: I try to do on the podcast is sort of
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Speaker 1: bring academic theology and make it more accessible for folks.
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Speaker 1: And so, you know, we won't get through all seven
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Speaker 1: hundred pages of your book today, but I think it's
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Speaker 1: important that folks really understand why they might go out
4:06
Speaker 1: and pick up a seven underd page book. And I
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Speaker 1: think what you've done is you've traced the major trends
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Speaker 1: through theology, you know, after and we can talk a
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Speaker 1: little bit about this, but modernity starts. You trace it
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Speaker 1: all the way through really to post modernity. So maybe
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Speaker 1: we could start with what are the major periods? Am
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Speaker 1: I understanding? You right, like you do pre modern modernity
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Speaker 1: and then postmodernity you know as those major categories. But
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Speaker 1: what are some of the characteristics maybe at the beginning
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Speaker 1: of modernity that are starting to drive and influence theology.
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Speaker 2: So the big change with the beginning of modernity from
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Speaker 2: what went before, from pre modernity is the idea, a
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Speaker 2: couple of ideas. One is that only what can be
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Speaker 2: proven can be counted as knowledge. We call that. The
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Speaker 2: Enlightenment began with a philosopher by the name of Renet
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Speaker 2: Decard who was actually a Christian, but wanted to know
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Speaker 2: what could he know for sure without any doubt? And
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Speaker 2: that was, of course, I think, therefore I am his
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Speaker 2: own existence. And then he went on to build on that,
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Speaker 2: and he actually thought he could prove the existence of
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Speaker 2: God from his own existence and so forth. And so
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Speaker 2: I wrestle with that throughout the book. What is knowledge?
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Speaker 2: And is knowledge more or something else than can be
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Speaker 2: proven in modern secular terms, And of course my answer
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Speaker 2: is no. The second theme of the beginning of modernity
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Speaker 2: is you know that science is the arbiter of truth,
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Speaker 2: and that anything that science doesn't prove and know really
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Speaker 2: can't count as knowledge. So it's kind of up at
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Speaker 2: the other side of the same theme knowledge proof, what
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Speaker 2: counts as knowledge and so forth, And science is a
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Speaker 2: major player in that. But then philosophy comes alongside that,
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Speaker 2: and philosophers like Hegel and others in the nineteenth century say, well, no,
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Speaker 2: there are other ways of knowing than just through science.
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Speaker 2: So I take the idea of modernity, and throughout the
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Speaker 2: book talk about how Christian theologians have responded to all
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Speaker 2: the major emphasis of modernity. How do theologians answer the
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Speaker 2: issues of modernity? And some have accommodated to it, and
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Speaker 2: some have rejected it entirely, And so there's a lot
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Speaker 2: of variety, a lot of diversity in Christian theological responses. Now,
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Speaker 2: why should someone buy and read the book well to
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Speaker 2: understand their world, to understand themselves in their world. We're
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Speaker 2: all affected by modernity. We can't escape it. Even Christians
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Speaker 2: really can't escape it. I know some have tried by
6:51
Speaker 2: going off and living in an intentional community apart from
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Speaker 2: the rest of the world. I have friends who've tried that,
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Speaker 2: but I notice when I go out to their commune,
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Speaker 2: they're even influenced by modernity by rejecting it, And so
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Speaker 2: that's really the theme of the book is theological responses
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Speaker 2: to the challenges of modernity. And I start the book
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Speaker 2: with science and philosophy, what we call the Enlightenment, beginning
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Speaker 2: in the late sixteen hundreds through the seventeen hundreds, and
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Speaker 2: then I jump into what we call liberal theologies with
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Speaker 2: Fridrich Schleiermacher, the father of modern theology, or modern liberal
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Speaker 2: theology at least, and a German theologian. Most people have
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Speaker 2: never heard of him, but he just completely revolutionized theology
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Speaker 2: by basing it on human experience rather than on divinely
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Speaker 2: given revelation. And so I talk about various liberal theologians,
7:48
Speaker 2: and then I talk about the opposite, orthodox theologians and
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Speaker 2: even the precursors of fundamentalism, evangelical theologians, especially the Princeton
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Speaker 2: School of theology. Then I talk about mediating theologians who
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Speaker 2: try to discover a via media, a way between accommodating
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Speaker 2: to modernity and rejecting modernity. And that was something in
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Speaker 2: the book I was really proud of, because most books
8:14
Speaker 2: of this kind don't talk about these people. American by
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Speaker 2: the name of Horace Bushnell, who was very important. What
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Speaker 2: I would say, you know, among the top five American
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Speaker 2: theologians of all time, although he's been largely forgotten unfortunately,
8:30
Speaker 2: but his influence is trickled down. So I just mentioned
8:33
Speaker 2: they're my trickle down theory of theology. That people are
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Speaker 2: affected by theologians they've never heard of. So that's something
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Speaker 2: that the book does. This tells them how that's true.
8:44
Speaker 2: And then I talk about bart and Boltmann and Nieber
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Speaker 2: and kind of lump them as dialectical or charigmatic theologies.
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Speaker 2: They really don't fit together very well, but some have
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Speaker 2: called them all neo orthodox theologians. Definitely not liberal in
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Speaker 2: the way that the nineteenth century liberal theologists were liberal,
9:04
Speaker 2: but at least, you know, I certainly think Rudolph Boltman
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Speaker 2: counts as a liberal theologian, but very much different from
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Speaker 2: the optimistic nineteenth century theologians. And then I talk about
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Speaker 2: chastened liberal theologians who accommodate to modernity but with a
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Speaker 2: more pessimistic view of the world and of history, Paul
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Speaker 2: Tillik and theologians. And then I go on to Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
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Speaker 2: who gets his own chapter. I think he's the only
9:33
Speaker 2: one who gets his own chapter in the h and
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Speaker 2: then some theologians who look to the future with hope,
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Speaker 2: and those who would be Jurgen Moltmen and Wolfhart Pannenberg
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Speaker 2: who I studied with in Germany and I knew Jurgen Moltmann,
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Speaker 2: and then liberation theologians, and then Catholic theologians Karl Rauner,
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Speaker 2: Hans Kohn, Hans orzvon Baltazzar, and then evangelical theology. And
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Speaker 2: that's just one chapter, but I talk about the main prototypes,
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Speaker 2: the movers and shakers of mid twentieth century of evangelical theology,
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Speaker 2: people like Carl Henry of course, yeah, and then postmodern
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Speaker 2: theologians Stanley Howard Wass and John Caputo deconstructions.
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Speaker 1: So that's the book talk a little bit about because
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Speaker 1: that I think what I want people to sort of
10:26
Speaker 1: walk away from from that overview is these are all
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Speaker 1: the theologians that you would study in seminary in you know,
10:34
Speaker 1: like I did an MD of another Master's Scream, then
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Speaker 1: a PhD. And so I've read most of these, I
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Speaker 1: would say, Bushnell, I had not read until I read
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Speaker 1: your book, so I picked up some of this stuff afterward.
10:46
Speaker 1: But yeah, you're right, he'd been kind of lost from history,
10:49
Speaker 1: but you can see how he's sort of weaving things through.
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Speaker 1: But I think it's just important for people to understand
10:54
Speaker 1: these are sort of the markers for theologies you go through.
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Speaker 1: These were some of the people who wrote the may
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Speaker 1: your works of theology that began to shape the understanding
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Speaker 1: of the theological world and or provide thlash points for
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Speaker 1: other theologians to react against. And so these are really
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Speaker 1: people who are part of the conversation. What I want
11:16
Speaker 1: to circle back to just a couple of terms. When
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Speaker 1: people hear liberal nowadays, they usually hear left, you know,
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Speaker 1: or opposite of conservative liberal in the Schleiermachian sense, and
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Speaker 1: the way you're using it here is slightly different.
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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, So I also wrote a book more recently
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Speaker 2: called Against Liberal Theology, in which I try to explain
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Speaker 2: that liberal theology is a tradition. Now in that book
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Speaker 2: Against Liberal Theology, I focus on American liberal theology, not European.
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Speaker 2: So it really began in Europe with Schleiermacher and Dietrich
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Speaker 2: Ritzel in Germany. But in America, liberal theology is a
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Speaker 2: tradition that goes back to the late nineteenth century. Bushnell
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Speaker 2: is sometimes considered the American father of liberal theology. But
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Speaker 2: I really try to explain that's not really accurate. He
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Speaker 2: believed in the supernatural, he believed in miracles, he believed
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Speaker 2: in the duty of Jesus Christ. But he's lumped into
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Speaker 2: liberal theology sometimes because he had a different view of
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Speaker 2: the atonement than traditional evangelical theology. But he didn't accommodate
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Speaker 2: to modernity. I don't think anyway, certainly not in the
12:24
Speaker 2: way liberal theologists do. So that's the definition of liberal
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Speaker 2: theology is theology that begins with modernity and says, now,
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Speaker 2: what can we believe? What can we still believe in
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Speaker 2: light of the acids of modernity.
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Speaker 1: So it'd be fair to say to what they're doing
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Speaker 1: is they're saying, Okay, here's this modern framework we've developed
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Speaker 1: in a set of criteria that's going to determine what
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Speaker 1: can and cannot be proven, and thus what we can
12:53
Speaker 1: and cannot really act on and order our lives by.
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Speaker 1: And that then narrows. You would look at in scripture
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Speaker 1: and say, no, no, Scripture is the final authority for
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Speaker 1: life and faith. We can look at all of this
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Speaker 1: and have a gauge for what we understand. They're just
13:09
Speaker 1: sort of narrowing that down. Although it's not through a
13:12
Speaker 1: selection of texts per se that happens, but it's really
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Speaker 1: through this framework and great a philosophy, if you will,
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Speaker 1: a world view whatever we want to call that, that
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Speaker 1: is in and of itself narrowing. Am I correct on that?
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Speaker 2: Yes? The definition given by a Yale University theologian in
13:31
Speaker 2: Claude Welch was the liberal theology is maximal accommodation to modernity.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: The theologian liberal is a theologian who says we can
13:44
Speaker 2: no longer believe in miracles, for example, at least not
13:47
Speaker 2: in the way that medieval theology did previously did so
13:53
Speaker 2: they redefine everything. So they still talk about Jesus Christ
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Speaker 2: as a revelation of God, might even talk about him
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Speaker 2: as God in some sense, but not in the traditional
14:05
Speaker 2: sense of the incarnation or the two natures of Jesus Christ.
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Speaker 2: They reject classical Christology, but still try to hold on
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Speaker 2: to Jesus Christ as someone unique and special, but onto
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Speaker 2: logically only a man, so not God in substance. He
14:23
Speaker 2: was just a man, but he was a unique man.
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Speaker 2: The spirit killed man something like that.
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Speaker 1: And to understand how they do that. My understanding of
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Speaker 1: Schleiermacher is that he would that's where he focused on
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Speaker 1: personal experience, So he's losing all the you know, Like,
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Speaker 1: let's just take Christ, for instance. We would believe today
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Speaker 1: that he is God and man. But if you jet
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Speaker 1: Us in the god part and you still want to
14:46
Speaker 1: hold onto Jesus, you've got to have something more than
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Speaker 1: just some guy. And so Schleiermacher said, no, it's the
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Speaker 1: sort of way that this idea or a notion of
14:57
Speaker 1: Jesus animates within me and change, but it's not an
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Speaker 1: ontological reality out there that I can touch and feel.
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Speaker 1: Is that a fair snippet of Schlierrockers.
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Speaker 2: I think Schleiermacher was very inconsistent. He was very confused.
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Speaker 1: He's hard to read. I know that he.
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Speaker 2: Sure was, and he was struggling. He was struggling to
15:22
Speaker 2: be both to have one foot in modernity as it
15:26
Speaker 2: was developing in Germany and Berlin in his time in
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Speaker 2: the early eighteen hundreds, he was part of what was
15:32
Speaker 2: called the Romantic movement, which was saying, look, the Enlightenment
15:36
Speaker 2: has been too focused on reason. We need to bring
15:39
Speaker 2: emotion back into knowledge, so we can call some things
15:43
Speaker 2: knowledge that are based on universal human feeling. For example,
15:48
Speaker 2: gotcha okay? He would say of Jesus Christ that he
15:51
Speaker 2: was the most self sorry, the most God conscious man
15:57
Speaker 2: that ever. I see. Ye, God consciousness was perfect and
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Speaker 2: ours is not, but it can be elevated through the
16:06
Speaker 2: Church and its communion with the living Christ. But he
16:11
Speaker 2: did not believe in the incarnation, the pre existence of
16:14
Speaker 2: Jesus as the son of God in heaven or anything
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Speaker 2: like that. You catch it?
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Speaker 1: Oh sorry, I was going to say, you catch a
16:21
Speaker 1: similar tone in some of the folks who today are
16:26
Speaker 1: sort of popular in the public sphere. I'm thinking somebody
16:29
Speaker 1: like a Jordan Peterson, let's say, who for a long
16:31
Speaker 1: time I think was talking and I haven't listened to
16:33
Speaker 1: him in a while. But he would espouse the value
16:36
Speaker 1: of religion, but he espoused it from the perspective that
16:39
Speaker 1: it did good things for society, that it gave people
16:42
Speaker 1: a purpose and a meaning, not as an ontological reality.
16:47
Speaker 1: Like he wouldn't affirm that God was real or something
16:51
Speaker 1: like that. He would just kind of say, no, it
16:53
Speaker 1: orients you, and in that orientation you see goodness. It's
16:57
Speaker 1: kind of a similar feel to it.
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Speaker 2: Social fire Maker was very much influenced by some philosophers
17:04
Speaker 2: of his time, and so is Jordan Peterson. He's influenced
17:07
Speaker 2: by Carl Jung j U n g. Yeah, with psychologists
17:12
Speaker 2: who us the student of Freud's but then broke away
17:15
Speaker 2: from Freud. And Jordan Peterson, like Carl Jung, is really
17:19
Speaker 2: big on archetypes. Yes, that our lives are shaped by
17:23
Speaker 2: archetypes and we need to find the right archetypes and
17:26
Speaker 2: live by them the right way. And for him, I
17:29
Speaker 2: think Jesus is the ultimate archetype.
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Speaker 1: Archetype. Yeah, very good. That's helpful. With liberal theology, I
17:36
Speaker 1: think that makes good sense. When we kind of move
17:39
Speaker 1: down your list here, you've got you know, conservative Protestant theology,
17:45
Speaker 1: I think we kind of understand what that is. That
17:47
Speaker 1: would be a theology in contra addiction to the liberal
17:51
Speaker 1: theology we just described that is really holding on to
17:54
Speaker 1: that old orthodoxy. That is there anything more really to
17:58
Speaker 1: be you want to add there?
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Speaker 2: I could say so much more about it. So in
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Speaker 2: that chapter I choose to jump into conservative theology with
18:07
Speaker 2: Charles Hodge, who was the principle I sink this title
18:11
Speaker 2: of Princeton Seminary for many many years and famously said
18:17
Speaker 2: at the fiftieth year celebration of his being the leader
18:21
Speaker 2: of the seminary, he said something I'm paraphrasing. I'm proud
18:25
Speaker 2: to say that during my fifty years leading this seminary,
18:29
Speaker 2: there has been no new thought here and somber quote
18:35
Speaker 2: after what we call Protestant orthodoxy. Not necessarily Luther and Calvin,
18:40
Speaker 2: they were the Reformers, but what happened after Luther and
18:42
Speaker 2: Calvin a strong emphasis on rational Christianity, beginning with the
18:48
Speaker 2: Bible and deriving from it principles that can be directly
18:54
Speaker 2: rationally fleshed out in doctrines and dogmas of the faith
18:59
Speaker 2: that need to be held on. So a very confessional,
19:02
Speaker 2: very conservative orthodox emphasis, including the inerrancy of the Bible,
19:08
Speaker 2: that became a standard for many conservative evangelicals, especially in
19:13
Speaker 2: the Reform tradition, not only but especially and they were
19:17
Speaker 2: Hodgen after him, Warfield at Princeton.
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Speaker 1: Were right right. So when we get to these mediating
19:23
Speaker 1: theologians after that, because I mean, when you say like that,
19:26
Speaker 1: when you say you're deeply rooted in rationality, there's part
19:30
Speaker 1: of me that says, Wow, that seems like it's great,
19:34
Speaker 1: but also problematic. You know, like you can see, it
19:38
Speaker 1: go both ways depending on how that rationality works itself out.
19:43
Speaker 1: So the mediating theologians trying to push retain a sufficient
19:48
Speaker 1: amount of rationality that things can make sense, but also
19:52
Speaker 1: release this open and say, but we do know God
19:55
Speaker 1: through experience, we do under you know there is something
19:58
Speaker 1: more here than just our intellectual rational way of understanding
20:02
Speaker 1: the world.
20:03
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, let me back up to Hodge. So Hodge
20:07
Speaker 2: famously said that he was in favor of rationality, but
20:11
Speaker 2: not rationalism, okay, whereas he thought that the Enlightenment and
20:17
Speaker 2: liberal theology had fallen into a rationalism that was alien
20:22
Speaker 2: toodox and living Christianity that had killed Christianity. But by
20:28
Speaker 2: rationality he meant we are completely right and justified in
20:33
Speaker 2: beginning with the Bible as our foundation. Just like scientists
20:38
Speaker 2: start with nature. We start with the Bible and derive
20:42
Speaker 2: from it all these principles and truths, but very very
20:45
Speaker 2: big doctrines being rational from there on. In other words,
20:49
Speaker 2: they have to cohere. Yes, no coherence, and there's a
20:55
Speaker 2: tendency there to minimize mystery. Though I wouldn't say Dodge
21:00
Speaker 2: were filled to ever denied mystery in the faith, but
21:02
Speaker 2: they were uncomfortable with mystery, trying to resolve paradoxes, you know,
21:09
Speaker 2: and I don't think they would say they were trying to.
21:11
Speaker 2: I think they were saying the Bible does.
21:13
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
21:14
Speaker 2: So here's how I describe it for them, as appears
21:18
Speaker 2: to me anyway. The Bible was for them a not
21:21
Speaker 2: yet systematized systematic theology.
21:25
Speaker 1: I like that, Yeah, it kind of and it really
21:28
Speaker 1: does kind of make sense. I mean, I think, you know,
21:31
Speaker 1: I came up more biblical studies than theology, and so
21:34
Speaker 1: you do see the biblical theology movement doing some interesting
21:38
Speaker 1: things with this, almost I wouldn't say desystematizing the Bible,
21:43
Speaker 1: but moving outside the boundaries of the normal systematic theology
21:48
Speaker 1: categories to develop coherent understandings of these different themes within
21:52
Speaker 1: the scriptures. And it just strikes me that that's part
21:56
Speaker 1: of the way it has to cohere. But it all
22:00
Speaker 1: so creates than these tensions because those now we have
22:03
Speaker 1: to ask ourselves, well, how does this theme with this theme,
22:05
Speaker 1: you know, how does all how do all these puzzle
22:07
Speaker 1: pieces go together?
22:08
Speaker 2: Right? Are there missing pieces to.
22:10
Speaker 1: The are they missing pieces?
22:12
Speaker 2: Yeah?
22:14
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah.
22:15
Speaker 2: So here's how I view that. It's important to talk
22:19
Speaker 2: about this because a lot of conservative evangelical theology still
22:23
Speaker 2: considers Hodge the norm yes theology, and he's he's been
22:28
Speaker 2: used for one hundred and more years at the Conservative Seminary,
22:32
Speaker 2: says the main textbook, and so forth. I think it
22:34
Speaker 2: was David Wells at Gordon Conwell's Seminary who wrote an
22:37
Speaker 2: article in Christianity Day called the stout and persistent Theology
22:42
Speaker 2: of Charles Hodge. And so this then causes some reactions
22:48
Speaker 2: among evangelical theologians who are more leaning into an experiential
22:52
Speaker 2: kind of Christianity, like my friend Stan Gren's. He was
22:56
Speaker 2: really big on spirituality being part of theology and that
23:00
Speaker 2: there are mysteries and so forth, and so on. Well,
23:02
Speaker 2: we don't have to flesh it all out in detail,
23:05
Speaker 2: but I think that's the essence of what I treat
23:08
Speaker 2: as conservative orthodox theology as the reaction to liberal theology
23:13
Speaker 2: in the labeenth century.
23:15
Speaker 1: And would you say that as a reaction right When
23:21
Speaker 1: you say that, it feels to me like some of
23:23
Speaker 1: this really is as a reaction that you almost have
23:27
Speaker 1: You're going to have difficulty within a given time period
23:30
Speaker 1: of moving in one direction or another because you've got
23:33
Speaker 1: this sort of powerful influence of a theology you disagree
23:38
Speaker 1: with and that you find things wrong with on the
23:40
Speaker 1: one hand, and you have to sort of create a
23:43
Speaker 1: boundary and stick to it so that you're not eking
23:46
Speaker 1: into their what you would consider their bad method.
23:50
Speaker 2: And almost always also overreacting to some degree.
23:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, pendulum swing the other way.
23:58
Speaker 2: The way you understand philosophy and theology, but I think
24:01
Speaker 2: you could apply this to psychology and others. To other
24:04
Speaker 2: disciplines is a series of pendulum swings. Yes, and every
24:09
Speaker 2: important thinker is reacting to something. Nobody sits down and says,
24:13
Speaker 2: I'm just going to write a book for no reason,
24:17
Speaker 2: writing a book for a reason. I wrote this book
24:19
Speaker 2: and the one before at twentieth Century Theology, because I
24:23
Speaker 2: had tried many textbooks of modern theology and didn't like
24:27
Speaker 2: any of them, and so that I got to write
24:29
Speaker 2: my own. And I think that's the case of my books,
24:32
Speaker 2: is having used other textbooks and so. But I'm also
24:36
Speaker 2: in this book reacting to you know, what I would
24:40
Speaker 2: consider mostly liberal treatments of modern theology that exclude evangelical theology,
24:48
Speaker 2: orthodox theology and so on. I found that most of
24:51
Speaker 2: them said almost nothing about the Princeton theologians, Hodge, for example,
24:56
Speaker 2: Ordolical theologians. It was all just considered, Yeah, they're not
25:01
Speaker 2: worth studying, you know, they didn't contribute anything. So I
25:04
Speaker 2: wrote the book and reaction to that. But you brought
25:08
Speaker 2: up the mediating theologians, and they were reacting to Schleiermacher,
25:14
Speaker 2: but also at the same time saying he wasn't completely wrong.
25:17
Speaker 2: He had some good things to say.
25:20
Speaker 1: Right.
25:21
Speaker 2: An example would be for Bushnell, experience enters into theology.
25:25
Speaker 2: We can't just exclude spirituality from theology. And he had
25:31
Speaker 2: his own dramatic conversion experience that came out of fighting
25:34
Speaker 2: the Bible and the British philosopher and poet Coleridge. And
25:40
Speaker 2: so I bring that out in there. How each of
25:42
Speaker 2: these theologians is influenced by somebody before them or alongside them.
25:48
Speaker 2: And so the mediating theologians I like because and I'm
25:50
Speaker 2: not saying I'm one, but they're trying to say, well,
25:54
Speaker 2: can we bridge this gap between modernity and liberal theology
25:59
Speaker 2: on the one hand, and orthodoxy in the Protestant scholastic
26:05
Speaker 2: kind of way. Right, Princeton theologians, Hodge and bush Nell
26:10
Speaker 2: had this awful relationship of reviewing each other's books and
26:15
Speaker 2: tearing them up in their reviews. And that's sad, I think,
26:19
Speaker 2: because bush Nell has some really good things to say,
26:21
Speaker 2: but Hodge went after it in a really harsh way
26:25
Speaker 2: for not being like him.
26:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, more more conservative, He's trying to be a little
26:30
Speaker 1: bit more progressive. The neo orthodox theologians are probably the
26:34
Speaker 1: ones I'm most familiar with, just largely because of Carl Bart,
26:39
Speaker 1: but also Ryan Hold, Nieber, and so talk a little
26:43
Speaker 1: bit about I know, you kind of lump them together Bart,
26:46
Speaker 1: Boltman and Neber, and I actually didn't find that odd.
26:50
Speaker 1: I think it it made some sense to me having
26:54
Speaker 1: read all three. I know they had their different emphasis
26:58
Speaker 1: and you know, different areas, but all three are doing
27:01
Speaker 1: something that is fairly, in my mind, quasi similar, and
27:06
Speaker 1: so I kind of appreciated the grouping. But talk a
27:09
Speaker 1: little bit about that chapter and maybe this time period.
27:15
Speaker 2: So in the period after World War One, it was
27:19
Speaker 2: hard to be optimistic in Europe with the liberal theologians. Now,
27:25
Speaker 2: it wasn't until after World War Two that that pessimism
27:28
Speaker 2: really hit in America. But after World War One, these
27:31
Speaker 2: European theologians, and after World War Two, especially American theologians,
27:36
Speaker 2: discovered Soren Kirkigor, the melancholy Dane father of existentialist philosophy.
27:42
Speaker 2: And you know, it just irks me when I hear
27:45
Speaker 2: people talk about him as a philosopher because he was
27:47
Speaker 2: a theologian. He had a doctor in Koreean theology, and
27:50
Speaker 2: he taught theology. He was more of a theologian than
27:53
Speaker 2: a philosopher, But somehow they choose to call him and
27:56
Speaker 2: categorize him as a philosopher. But Soor and Kirkugor influenced
28:02
Speaker 2: all three of them, and that's what they have in common.
28:04
Speaker 2: That is, Boltmannieber, and Bart. I should have thrown in
28:08
Speaker 2: Abel Brunner, a Swiss theologian who I really admire and like.
28:12
Speaker 2: They're all somewhat pessimistic about human the human condition, contrast
28:18
Speaker 2: to liberal theology, which was very optimistic. They all see
28:23
Speaker 2: history as a series of tragedies, and they don't see
28:27
Speaker 2: it as going uphill toward the Kingdom of God dawning
28:31
Speaker 2: on ear if before Jesus even returns, which liberal theologians
28:35
Speaker 2: didn't even believe in the return of Jesus. Certainly Bart
28:38
Speaker 2: did Brunner. Did you know, the one who doesn't really
28:42
Speaker 2: fit very well is Boltmant. But they started out. Bart
28:46
Speaker 2: and Boltman started out as i think co editors of
28:49
Speaker 2: a theological journal and were on friendly terms until Boltman
28:55
Speaker 2: came out with his Well, it was an essay that
28:59
Speaker 2: he wrote got included in a book of essays denying
29:02
Speaker 2: the Resurrection, denying miracles. Now he didn't say he denied
29:07
Speaker 2: the resurrection. He said that he de mythologized the resurrection.
29:12
Speaker 2: Is that it happened but in the hearts and minds
29:15
Speaker 2: of the disciples, not in outer history. Right, So if
29:19
Speaker 2: someone had been there, you know, and investigating it, they
29:22
Speaker 2: wouldn't have found an empty tomb. They would have found
29:25
Speaker 2: a tomb with the body of Jesus in it. And
29:26
Speaker 2: yet the message of Jesus lived on and came alive
29:32
Speaker 2: in the early Disciples. Bart was horrified by that. So
29:37
Speaker 2: at the beginning in the early twenties and throughout much
29:40
Speaker 2: of the thirties, these three had things in common that
29:44
Speaker 2: causes us to kind of lump them together as dialectical theologians,
29:48
Speaker 2: dialectically coming from Kirkigre. And yet even Nieber thought that
29:55
Speaker 2: Bart was too conservative knew Neiber was really an ephicist
30:02
Speaker 2: more than he was a theologian, so he could get
30:04
Speaker 2: away with not telling what he thought about the resurrection
30:07
Speaker 2: for example.
30:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, Bart really couldn't get by with that.
30:13
Speaker 2: I mean.
30:15
Speaker 1: When I read those chapters where I think I resonated
30:18
Speaker 1: most with the commonalities would have been in some of
30:21
Speaker 1: Bart's lesser known works, you know, his books on prayer,
30:26
Speaker 1: divine freedom, those kind of things, and then you read
30:30
Speaker 1: them alongside Boltmann, who you know obviously is demathologizing. Process
30:34
Speaker 1: is problematic in my mind, but you do see some
30:39
Speaker 1: commonalities in the way they're approaching things, even though they
30:42
Speaker 1: come to radically different conclusions. Nieberd, You're right, he would
30:47
Speaker 1: have been the one. The Christian realism aspect, I think
30:50
Speaker 1: is what really separates for me, at least Neiber from
30:53
Speaker 1: Micah Boltmann. I just found that to be sort of fascinating.
30:58
Speaker 1: I mean read back through those chapters, so, yeah, fantastic stuff.
31:03
Speaker 2: And then you've got are still alive and well, I
31:06
Speaker 2: mean nieber yes, it's still brought up all the time
31:10
Speaker 2: in all by people that are talking about Obama. For example,
31:13
Speaker 2: when Obama was president, someone asked me his favorite theologian
31:17
Speaker 2: was and I think it was Obama who said Nieber Neieber.
31:21
Speaker 1: I believe that's right.
31:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Neiber had a huge influence on Martin Luther King.
31:26
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and Stanley howiwas keeps Nebro alive in a
31:30
Speaker 1: lot of ways. I know, you reference him and the
31:32
Speaker 1: postmodern theologians, but he he draws on Nebro a good bit,
31:36
Speaker 1: which makes sense because he's a theological ethicist, and so
31:40
Speaker 1: he you know.
31:43
Speaker 2: Ended up saying that Nieber was not a Christian, which
31:46
Speaker 2: I thought was terrible.
31:47
Speaker 1: But that's that right. I didn't see that very interesting.
31:52
Speaker 1: Why I want to get into I want to skip
31:55
Speaker 1: over the Chase and the liberal theologies just for a second,
31:57
Speaker 1: because I want to go to Bonnhoeffer. So Bard and
32:00
Speaker 1: Bonheffer were relative contemporaries. You know, they were both involved
32:03
Speaker 1: with Barman Declaration. They're both you know, sort of impacted
32:07
Speaker 1: pretty deeply by World War Two, and they had those connections.
32:10
Speaker 1: And so I'm wondering Number one, I found it interesting
32:14
Speaker 1: that he got his own chapter, and I'm wondering how
32:17
Speaker 1: you saw his experience in World War two, which was
32:21
Speaker 1: different than any of the I mean, Bart went back
32:24
Speaker 1: up to Switzerland. You know, he's not really in the
32:26
Speaker 1: throes of World War Two. Bonhoeffer is, And so I'm
32:29
Speaker 1: wondering if that how you felt like that conditioned his theology.
32:35
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I don't know that Bonheffer would
32:39
Speaker 2: even be remembered, at least in the way he is
32:43
Speaker 2: if he hadn't been killed by the Nazis right right
32:47
Speaker 2: at the end of World War two. And I'm sure
32:49
Speaker 2: a lot of your listeners or watchers have heard the
32:52
Speaker 2: story of how he participated on the periphery of a
32:56
Speaker 2: plot to kill Hitler. Now there's still some controversy about that,
32:59
Speaker 2: but I'm convinced that he did participate in it. And
33:05
Speaker 2: so the fact that he ended up dying in a
33:07
Speaker 2: concentration camp, being hanged by the Gestapo and so forth,
33:12
Speaker 2: he just makes him seem like a martyr, which he was.
33:16
Speaker 2: But then they discovered his theology, you know, backwards, because
33:21
Speaker 2: of that. Right after World War Two, one of bon
33:24
Speaker 2: Hoffer's disciples, a man by the name of Everhart Beitka,
33:28
Speaker 2: wrote a biography and translated into English Bonhoeffer's writings, and
33:33
Speaker 2: so he became very famous through Baita. I think that
33:39
Speaker 2: his awareness of Hitler and the Nazi Party as being
33:43
Speaker 2: idolatrous in the nineteen thirties leading up to World War Two,
33:48
Speaker 2: which he spent a lot of the war in prison,
33:50
Speaker 2: so he didn't really experience it accept indirectly, but you know,
33:54
Speaker 2: he felt that this was an idolatrous religion, and there
33:59
Speaker 2: was a group of people called German Christians, they called
34:01
Speaker 2: themselves German Christians who viewed Hitler and the Nazi Party
34:05
Speaker 2: as a new revelation of God. Well, he stood apart
34:08
Speaker 2: from that and helped form the Confessing Church and helped
34:11
Speaker 2: write the Barman Declaration, which is against all of that.
34:15
Speaker 2: And I think that did influence his theology just as
34:18
Speaker 2: it did Bart's theology in many ways. And they were shocked,
34:22
Speaker 2: just absolutely shocked by the German Christians and their attitude
34:27
Speaker 2: toward Hitler and the Nazi Party, and it just convinced
34:30
Speaker 2: them that humans are prone to evil, and you know,
34:34
Speaker 2: that we are not naturally innately good or something like
34:37
Speaker 2: that like the liberal theologians thought. So I'm most familiar
34:42
Speaker 2: with bon Hoffer through his letters and papers from prison
34:45
Speaker 2: and his book Ethics, which are early collections of essays
34:49
Speaker 2: that he wrote, and he would have I don't see
34:52
Speaker 2: him ever having written a systematic theology, so we kind
34:55
Speaker 2: of have to imagine what his theology might have been, like, yeah, yeah,
35:01
Speaker 2: that's about it.
35:02
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's circle back around to at least process theology.
35:09
Speaker 1: Paul Tilliche is somebody that comes up an awful lot
35:12
Speaker 1: when I'm reading, you know, depending on what I'm reading,
35:15
Speaker 1: you hear a lot about Paul Tillage, And I would
35:17
Speaker 1: just say this is sort of an aside for everybody
35:19
Speaker 1: who's listening. Part of the reason this book, I think
35:22
Speaker 1: is so helpful is because it does contextualize these authors,
35:25
Speaker 1: so that as you're reading other things and you see
35:28
Speaker 1: these folks sort of cited some of them make their
35:31
Speaker 1: way into more popular works as well, you have a
35:34
Speaker 1: handle for them. You understand where these people are coming from,
35:37
Speaker 1: and you can sort of re situate some of the
35:39
Speaker 1: quotes maybe that are coming out of their theology, and
35:42
Speaker 1: you have this general idea, maybe even a skepticism or
35:45
Speaker 1: at least a realism, about what this person might actually
35:49
Speaker 1: be saying and whether or not you really are prepared
35:53
Speaker 1: to believe it. And so as we get into sort
35:56
Speaker 1: of process theology, Paul Tilliche, I know, those aren't exactly
36:00
Speaker 1: the same. But process theology seems to me to have
36:03
Speaker 1: made sort of like we talked about with Bushnell. It's
36:07
Speaker 1: influencing things without ever being talked about in my mind.
36:11
Speaker 1: Do you have that same sort of impression or am
36:13
Speaker 1: I an off base there?
36:15
Speaker 2: Well, they're talked about very much in theological circles. There's
36:19
Speaker 2: a worldwide Tillic professional Society, the society of theologians all
36:25
Speaker 2: over the world who continue to read and study and
36:28
Speaker 2: talk about Tillic, and so you know, in those kind
36:32
Speaker 2: of ivory tower situations, there's still a lot of interest
36:36
Speaker 2: in Tillic. He is one of the most difficult theologians
36:40
Speaker 2: to read, almost more than any other, I think, and
36:44
Speaker 2: I had to spend a lot of time over the
36:47
Speaker 2: years reading Tillic and books about Tillic and so forth
36:50
Speaker 2: really get a handle on him. But what I say
36:52
Speaker 2: about Tillic is he was trying to deliteralize Christianity and
36:58
Speaker 2: that he was very dependent on Hegel, a German philosopher
37:02
Speaker 2: of one hundred years before him. And I'm right now
37:04
Speaker 2: in the middle of studying Hegel again and trying to
37:07
Speaker 2: get a grasp on Hegel because he had more of
37:08
Speaker 2: an influence than people know. And Tillick wanted to deliteralize,
37:14
Speaker 2: which is kind of like demathologize. So he and bolten
37:17
Speaker 2: were were kind of twins in a way. But Boltman
37:21
Speaker 2: was a New Testament scholar, not a systematic theologian. Tillick
37:25
Speaker 2: was a systematic theologian. But they came out with almost
37:28
Speaker 2: the same conclusions about the resurrection. For example, Tilloic also
37:31
Speaker 2: believe that the resurrection did not happen, but it happens
37:35
Speaker 2: in the believer's heart when they come to realize that
37:39
Speaker 2: the message of Jesus, which was what he called new being,
37:43
Speaker 2: which was the realization that you are accepted, is the
37:49
Speaker 2: essence of Christianity. It's so history doesn't matter to Tillic
37:54
Speaker 2: or Boltman either one. In fact, Tillick said, if it
37:57
Speaker 2: should turn out we found out that Jesus never existed,
38:00
Speaker 2: it wouldn't change the essence of Christianity at all.
38:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating to think that through when you read
38:08
Speaker 1: First Corinthians fifteen, for instance, I mean it, they have
38:14
Speaker 1: to dismiss that text. And I don't know that I've
38:16
Speaker 1: ever studied Boltlant enough Ortilic enough to understand what they
38:19
Speaker 1: would do with a passage like that. You know, if
38:21
Speaker 1: Christ was not resurrected, our faith is in vain. That
38:25
Speaker 1: passage there in First Corinthians fifteen. You really have to
38:29
Speaker 1: ignore an awful lot of basic historical reference and hey,
38:34
Speaker 1: this actually happened, sort of statements even within an early
38:37
Speaker 1: New Testament letter like First Corinthians. To get to that point,
38:42
Speaker 1: I don't fully grasp how they get there.
38:45
Speaker 2: Well by beginning with the naturalism of modernity. So they're
38:50
Speaker 2: liberal in that sense that they begin I see belief
38:53
Speaker 2: that nature is all there really is except spirit, but
38:59
Speaker 2: that nature is a closed causal nexus and there's no
39:04
Speaker 2: interrupting it. And that includes God. It's not so much
39:08
Speaker 2: that he can't, but he doesn't interfere with the workings
39:13
Speaker 2: of nature. Because if we believe that, they said, then
39:16
Speaker 2: science would be no use to us, because we're constantly
39:19
Speaker 2: being medieval in our thinking about the world and how
39:22
Speaker 2: it works, and we'd be seeing angels pushing planets around
39:26
Speaker 2: and things like that. So in order to go all
39:28
Speaker 2: the way with science, but to hold on to what
39:32
Speaker 2: they thought was the essence of Christianity, they had to
39:35
Speaker 2: reduce Christianity to a subjective set of experiences more than beliefs.
39:42
Speaker 2: But then you're up by the three volume systematic theology, right.
39:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's interesting. I mean those are
39:51
Speaker 1: interesting questions. I think even now, you know, how do
39:54
Speaker 1: we navigate the I'm an Old Testament guy, so you
39:57
Speaker 1: know you you do when you get into those early
40:00
Speaker 1: chapters of Genesis, You're trying to sort of navigate, Look,
40:03
Speaker 1: what's theologically important here, you know, and how do we
40:08
Speaker 1: not get lost in the tedium of discussing how this
40:10
Speaker 1: exactly connects to history, but really get a theological export
40:15
Speaker 1: out of it. But then you also don't want to
40:19
Speaker 1: give up on the history, and so there is a
40:22
Speaker 1: bit of a tension there that we always deal with.
40:24
Speaker 1: I think, just you know, ripping it out and saying, ah,
40:26
Speaker 1: we don't care about history anymore. It's all literary and
40:29
Speaker 1: it's just about this book and the spirit of Christianity.
40:33
Speaker 1: I gotta say it means that would mean nothing to me.
40:39
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe in supernatural events, he couldn't believe in miracles. Yeah,
40:48
Speaker 2: to deny the resurrection, but he held on to the
40:51
Speaker 2: crucifixion as absolutely essential, as did Boltman, and they both said,
40:57
Speaker 2: the cross, the crucifixion is God's way of reconciling humanity
41:02
Speaker 2: to himself. But both of them had disciples who said, no, no, no, no,
41:07
Speaker 2: come on, you're being inconsistent. There go the rest of
41:09
Speaker 2: the way. God does not act in history. He only
41:12
Speaker 2: acts in our inner lives, in our psychology, our spiritual experiences,
41:18
Speaker 2: not in history. And they both were so appalled by it,
41:22
Speaker 2: And Tillock's widow wrote a biography of Tillock after he died,
41:27
Speaker 2: saying that he was not an atheist, but the Death
41:30
Speaker 2: of God theologians claimed him as their mentor when they
41:36
Speaker 2: told him that, it sent him into a downward spiral
41:40
Speaker 2: that he died from just a few days later. So
41:42
Speaker 2: she actually blamed the Death of God Theologians the radical
41:47
Speaker 2: of the sixties, for killing him because he didn't think
41:52
Speaker 2: he was an atheist.
41:54
Speaker 1: He might have been, well, we're obviously not going to
41:59
Speaker 1: get through all of this, but I think, for one,
42:05
Speaker 1: I think it would be awesome at some point to
42:09
Speaker 1: hear your experience with your moment. Your in moltment is
42:11
Speaker 1: probably one of my favorite theologians to read. Theology of
42:15
Speaker 1: Hope is one of my favorite books. I'm actually using
42:19
Speaker 1: Source of Life. I've got it sitting over here off
42:21
Speaker 1: camera on the side of my desk, and so, uh,
42:28
Speaker 1: it is the Source of Life. It's on the Holy Spirit, yes,
42:32
Speaker 1: ok yeah, the titles of the Source of Life.
42:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, called the Spirit of Life too. But anyway, go ahead, Okay, But.
42:38
Speaker 1: I'm wondering you sort of to sort of fold this
42:41
Speaker 1: in as we move toward the end of modernity and
42:46
Speaker 1: go into postmodernity, and you've got the post liberal theologians
42:50
Speaker 1: in there, Stanley how Us in there. You know, John
42:53
Speaker 1: Camputo and deconstruction talk a little bit about the assumptions
42:58
Speaker 1: that begin to change with postmodernity. And then maybe let's
43:04
Speaker 1: just clarify post liberal as well. I know there are
43:07
Speaker 1: post liberal political movements, and so those two just want
43:10
Speaker 1: to talk through that transition and then we'll go on
43:13
Speaker 1: from there.
43:14
Speaker 2: So I had to kind of cram these two. Stanley
43:17
Speaker 2: Howard wasass as a post liberal and John Caputo as
43:21
Speaker 2: a deconstructionist into one chapter. Yeah, probably deserve their separate chapters.
43:26
Speaker 2: But they have some things in common, and that is,
43:29
Speaker 2: you know, breathing in the atmosphere of a post modern culture,
43:34
Speaker 2: and postmodernity is a hard to define thing, you know,
43:40
Speaker 2: just so much diversity in it. But the essence I
43:43
Speaker 2: think of postmodernity is a reaction against the sterile rationalism
43:50
Speaker 2: of the Enlightenment and of modernity and opening up the
43:55
Speaker 2: realm of possibilities to things that modernity supposedly doesn't allow.
44:01
Speaker 2: So Stanley howerwass of course, Time magazine labeled him America's
44:06
Speaker 2: most influential or the best theologian when he heard said
44:11
Speaker 2: best is not a theological category.
44:16
Speaker 1: He sure is fun to listen to. I got to
44:18
Speaker 1: give him that.
44:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, Meyer, Stanley, We've got a lot in common. So
44:24
Speaker 2: Stanley is really trying to recapture what he what he
44:28
Speaker 2: sees as or as authentic Christianity. For for him, it
44:33
Speaker 2: is non violence. He's on the ethical side. He is
44:37
Speaker 2: an ethicist, like like a Nieber, not a systematic theologian.
44:42
Speaker 2: But he thinks that especially American Christianity, has really distorted
44:47
Speaker 2: true Christianity with things like celebrating war and so forth.
44:53
Speaker 2: So you know, he's he's a postliberal. That means he
44:57
Speaker 2: may have been liberal at one time, but he chose
44:59
Speaker 2: not not to be anymore. And it's hard, it's hard
45:03
Speaker 2: to define post liberalism. I try it in my chapter. Yeah,
45:08
Speaker 2: John Caputo is really different. Also an ethicist, but a
45:12
Speaker 2: philosopher who became a theologian on his own, you know,
45:16
Speaker 2: without really studying theology, and uh, a deconstructionist, which is
45:21
Speaker 2: kind of a radical form of postmodernity, uh, where he
45:26
Speaker 2: says that Christianity, what it really is, is all about
45:31
Speaker 2: deconstructing oppressive regimes of knowledge, and that we should as
45:38
Speaker 2: Christians be deconstructing, undoing, looking deep within and undoing opening
45:45
Speaker 2: up totalitarian or the other words, escaping me right now.
45:53
Speaker 2: But anyway, claims that are violent are the violence.
45:58
Speaker 1: What you like? And I'm just had this little itch
46:02
Speaker 1: in my head for a while, and so I'll ask you,
46:04
Speaker 1: but would you like in liberation theology to that deconstruction.
46:09
Speaker 1: I know, deconstruction focuses more on the knowledge aspect, liberation
46:13
Speaker 1: more on the political aspect. But they seem to have
46:15
Speaker 1: such a you know, a common trend line.
46:18
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't remember that I said this in
46:20
Speaker 2: the book, but I did tell my students later as
46:23
Speaker 2: I taught the book that liberation theology really was the
46:26
Speaker 2: first postmodern theology, because they said, all the post all
46:31
Speaker 2: the liberation theologians agree that there is no such thing
46:34
Speaker 2: as purely objective knowing that your social location always influences
46:41
Speaker 2: your thinking. And then they go on to say, you know,
46:45
Speaker 2: and that wealth and power and privilege corrupts your thinking,
46:49
Speaker 2: and that there is a sense in which only the
46:53
Speaker 2: oppressed can really see reality as it really is. And
46:57
Speaker 2: they're talking about social reality, not physically, and so that
47:02
Speaker 2: really does a way for them with the objectivity of
47:05
Speaker 2: the enlightenment and of knowing objectively and proof and so forth,
47:11
Speaker 2: and so yes, they're deconstruction ists very much in that sense.
47:17
Speaker 1: Let's end with just sort of giving us a little
47:20
Speaker 1: bit of a glimpse into evangelical theology, probably the sort
47:24
Speaker 1: of theology that both you and I would most readily
47:28
Speaker 1: ascribe to. You know, what were we mean when we
47:32
Speaker 1: say evangelical theology? And why is it important?
47:36
Speaker 2: Oh that's a big question when someone asks me if
47:39
Speaker 2: I'm an evangelical and my automatic response is how long
47:42
Speaker 2: do you have to listen?
47:44
Speaker 1: Yeah? I hear you.
47:48
Speaker 2: So I trace evangelical theology. I mean I could trace
47:53
Speaker 2: it back to the Bible, of course, but what we
47:56
Speaker 2: call evangelical theology in the West today, I trace back
48:00
Speaker 2: to Edwards and Wesley, who are both born in the
48:03
Speaker 2: same year seventeen oh three, and the Great Awakening and
48:08
Speaker 2: the combination of Orthodox Christian belief with revivalism and inner
48:13
Speaker 2: experience and life changing experience conversion, and really, in a
48:17
Speaker 2: sense in recent times, Billy Graham is sort of the
48:21
Speaker 2: standard of evangelicalism in the world. Actually, now I know
48:26
Speaker 2: that the media is using the word evangelical in political ways,
48:30
Speaker 2: I do not ever use it in that way. To me,
48:33
Speaker 2: vangelicalism is not political. It's not uniquely American. It's a
48:39
Speaker 2: worldwide theological and spiritual movement that emphasizes the inspiration and
48:45
Speaker 2: authority of the Bible, conversion as an interchange that can
48:51
Speaker 2: only be wrought by the Holy Spirit Orthodox Christianity. My
48:56
Speaker 2: colleague at Baylor, David Bebington, said there are four marks
49:00
Speaker 2: of evangelicalism. Bible centered or Biblicist, conversionist activist that is
49:09
Speaker 2: changing the world through evangelism and social transformation, and Crucis centrism,
49:13
Speaker 2: and emphasis on the Cross. You know, I think that's
49:18
Speaker 2: changing on the ground, you know, among people who call
49:22
Speaker 2: themselves evangelicals in America to a large extent today, I
49:25
Speaker 2: don't see the Cross being emphasized as it always was
49:30
Speaker 2: among in the past. But I add a fifth, and
49:34
Speaker 2: that is Orthodox belief. So I don't think you can
49:38
Speaker 2: be really evangelical and reject the trinity, the deity of
49:44
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, the incarnation, salvation by grace alone not works,
49:50
Speaker 2: and maybe two or three other wholes of traditional Orthodox
49:54
Speaker 2: Christian belief that are shared by Christians of all denominations
49:59
Speaker 2: in the past. Anyway, So I'm pretty I have a
50:03
Speaker 2: pretty broad definition of evangelical. It's trans denominational. No denomination
50:09
Speaker 2: owns it, No type of theology like Reformed or our
50:13
Speaker 2: Minion owns it. It's trans denominational. It's big, it's broad,
50:18
Speaker 2: but it's not anything and everything. If it were, it'd
50:22
Speaker 2: be nothing.
50:23
Speaker 1: Would you say? Those major doctrinal points are fairly well
50:27
Speaker 1: captured in the Nicene Creed, yes, yeah.
50:30
Speaker 2: And in the National Association of Evangelical Statement of Faith
50:35
Speaker 2: in the Sun Covenant and certain statements that have been
50:40
Speaker 2: put forward. But yeah, ultimately in the Nicene Creed, which
50:44
Speaker 2: doesn't say everything. And I think we need to add
50:47
Speaker 2: on to that the idea that you can only be
50:51
Speaker 2: a real Christian by being converted, that there is no
50:55
Speaker 2: such thing as simply growing up fully Christian from birth on. Understood,
51:01
Speaker 2: true Christian can always say, even if they can't describe it,
51:05
Speaker 2: I accepted Christ. I made a decision.
51:10
Speaker 1: Gotcha.
51:11
Speaker 2: Now there are some orthodox Christians who don't believe that
51:15
Speaker 2: and still call themselves evangelical that I have problems with them, understood.
51:22
Speaker 2: I want to name names. No, okay, I'm talking about
51:26
Speaker 2: people who really emphasize infant baptism as conversion baptismal region. Yeah.
51:32
Speaker 2: I think if you believe in baptismal regeneration, you cannot
51:35
Speaker 2: really be an evangelical Christian.
51:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's and it's a sacramental and normally an odd
51:45
Speaker 1: way of conferring grace. That is, would you say, sort
51:50
Speaker 1: of reverses the normal relationship between grace and faith.
51:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, of course, as a Baptist and Anabaptist, that
51:58
Speaker 2: is what I think. Now most people don't know that,
52:04
Speaker 2: but I have to retirement. I joined a Mennonite, an
52:07
Speaker 2: evangelical Mennonite church.
52:09
Speaker 1: Very good, very good, Well, Roger, this has been fantastic.
52:14
Speaker 1: I appreciate you just walking us through a lot of this,
52:17
Speaker 1: and I know, yeah, and for listeners, I really do
52:21
Speaker 1: think this is important. I mean, I wouldn't have done it.
52:23
Speaker 1: This isn't just like hey, I needed another episode. I
52:27
Speaker 1: think these things are crucial because they do influence even
52:31
Speaker 1: contemporary writers. You'll watch contemporary writers cite some of these people,
52:37
Speaker 1: and I mean even for me, like Hans ersp On
52:41
Speaker 1: von Baltazar, right, I have seen him sighted, I've read
52:45
Speaker 1: a little bit of his stuff, but this book really
52:47
Speaker 1: helps me to situate him where he should be and
52:50
Speaker 1: to understand with a little bit more depth how to
52:53
Speaker 1: place him. And so I think it's a really helpful book.
52:57
Speaker 1: It might not be one that you want to sit
52:59
Speaker 1: down and read all the way through just in one sitting,
53:02
Speaker 1: but I have it, and obviously I read a bunch
53:05
Speaker 1: of it and I keep it around now for reference.
53:08
Speaker 1: So it's really helpful. And just so appreciate the work
53:12
Speaker 1: you put into it, which had to have been yeah,
53:15
Speaker 1: a long It had to have taken you a long
53:17
Speaker 1: time to write this, brother, So.
53:19
Speaker 2: Actually I wrote it in four months.
53:21
Speaker 1: Four months. Wow, that's impressive.
53:24
Speaker 2: I was on sabbatical and I knew I only had
53:27
Speaker 2: four months to It's.
53:30
Speaker 1: Almost not fair on sabbatical though. Yeah, well, very good, Roger,
53:36
Speaker 1: thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate you.
53:38
Speaker 1: Welcome and yeah, and thanks everybody for listening. We will
53:42
Speaker 1: catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take
53:45
Speaker 1: care everyone. I just want to take a second to
53:48
Speaker 1: thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with
53:50
Speaker 1: us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to
53:53
Speaker 1: life audio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith
53:56
Speaker 1: centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer,
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Speaker 1: Bible study, parenting, and more.