Wright, Cone, Dorrien and the New York Times

There was a decent summary piece on Black Liberation Theology in the New York Times yesterday. It attempts to locate Dr. Wright within the historical movement of Black Liberation Theology, and in order to do so, James Cone and Gary Dorrien, both professors at Union, are interviewed. Its worth a quick read and it is certainly better than much of what the media has put out so far.

Interestingly, the article covers two specific subjects that I want to make sure are addressed — one normally ignored, and the other, a focal point for controversy. The first is the acknowledgement of Catholic Liberation theology in the discussion of Black Liberation theology:

Even as Dr. Cone and others such as the Rev. William A. Jones at Bethany Baptist in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, crafted a theology of black liberation, Catholic theologians in Central and South America crafted their own liberation theology, arguing that God placed the impoverished peasants closest to his heart.

There is little evidence that one liberationist talked to another; rather, these were cornstalks rising in a fertile and revolutionary field. “These were remarkable similar arguments, that oppressed people have their own way of hearing the Gospel,” said Dr. Dorrien of the Union Theological Seminary.

On this note, I’ve got a copied picture of Dorothy Sölle, Jürgen Moltmann, Gustavo Guitérrez, James Cone, and Christopher Morse from years ago taken here at Union - Cone still had his fro and some were wearing plaid. And after seeing this picture last year, I asked Dorrien, since Guitérrez spent a year at Union in the early 70s (hence the picture), if there was much talk then between Guitérrez and Cone, and Dorrien said the same thing then as he was quoted in the article, “there seemed to have been little talk, if at all.” I suppose this shows how far Liberation theology has come today, where there seems to be a lot of conversation. However, I am also wary that the article does not spend enough time on the Marxist aside. It seems that still today Marxism is a loaded term and to have such a small mention might have been irresponsible.

The second issue addressed in the article are Wright’s comments concerning AIDS as understood by Cone:

Dr. Cone, the black liberation theology theorist, has known Mr. Wright for decades and says he much admires his provocations. But when Mr. Wright opined recently that the United States government may have used AIDS as a form of biological warfare against black people (Mr. Wright notes, correctly, that the United States has tried biological warfare on foreign nations), Dr. Cone winced.

“I don’t believe that,” Dr. Cone says. “But I will say that when blacks look at what government has done to black people, the eugenics and the syphilis, it’s easy to get angry.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: I hope our government didn’t introduce AIDS, but its not like the United States has a track record that says the contrary. I don’t want to believe it happened, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore the other abuses that the United State pulled, which was so similar to the Nazi doctors in concentration camps. With all this in mind, no wonder liberation theology operates through a hermeneutic of suspicion.

The Challenge of Political Theology

Johann Metz constructed his political theology in the aftermath of Auschwitz. As did Jürgen Moltmann and Dorothy Sölle. It seems that today, political theology is reactionary and constructive — reactionary because the church exists in a world that it does not control and constructive because the church must find a way to situate itself within the world. Any theology that does this, no matter how critical it may be, is not sectarian. To be critical of complicity and to try and find our way that lives the basileia is the task of political theology — out of God, theology, and the church, we find our body politic, our social engagement.

With this in mind, I find no shortage of problems that the church must react to, particularly for those of us who are Americans. And yet, the church, or at least the Christians in America, do not seem to see many issues. Consider torture, among the myriad of problems. The National Religious Campaign Against Torture and organizations like it have helped voice opposition to torture. However, I find in some ways that these non-governmental organizations lack a driving force. Simply, they lack the church as they have tried to fit into the state’s categories and therefore lacks the unparalleled force of ecclesial movement. So, how do we respond to this?

Bonhoeffer and Moltmann

Note: I wrote this paper some months back for a Cone class on Liberation theology. It was part of my attempt to get credit for a study I really wanted to do – to find a Christology that answers questions from both my conservative undergrad and my current liberal gradschool. Here is my logic for why the Christological dialectic of Moltmann is so helpful to me.

Suffering, Hope, Blood, and Guts: The Suffering Christ of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jürgen Moltmann in Conversation with Liberation Theology

Given that theology has shifted from a focus upon the believer/atheist dichotomy to the person/non-person, Professor Cone has made the point in recent classes that many theologies have lost their relevancy insomuch as they address an old question. However, there is a motif within European-born theology that was only hinted at in the readings for class that holds promise for continuous relevancy between old and new theology: the suffering Christ.1

Two strikingly similar theologians of recent importance – Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jürgen Moltmann – center their theology upon a suffering Christ. This paper compares the two theologian’s contexts, views of Christ, and the influences a suffering Christ has on their ecclesiology to depict their pertinence to both the theology of old and the theology of today.

Suffering Christ
The theme of the suffering Christ is a rich vein within Christianity and is crucial for Christology, both in abstract and pragmatic thought. Importantly, a Christ who suffered can be both transcendent and immanent; within a strong trinitarianism a suffering Christ is socially rooted in transcendence, while at the same time entirely immanent and receptive to the pain inherent in the human world. It is this immanent Christ – whipped, bruised, and crucified – who extends understanding and hope – “justice, truth, humanity and freedom.”2

A suffering Christ is also important for shaping and informing other aspects of Christianity, beyond the human suffering within Christology. The church universal, an extension of Christ to the world, is shaped by an understanding of who Christ is. Thus, a suffering Christ shapes a church towards sensitivity to human suffering, therefore creating a space in which Christ tangibly exists and from which Christ can then reach the world and its distress.

Bonhoeffer’s Context
While Bonhoeffer lacks the cohesive direction of a grand systematic theology, his thought is still consistently characterized by a focus upon the centrality of Christ.3 In the late 1930s Bonhoeffer helped lead a seminary for the Confessing Church at Finkenwalde that was declared illegal by the Nazis. The school “followed the innovative format of engaging in theological education within the context of a close-knit community.”4 Beyond regular theological courses, “the participants in the school sought to learn to live the Christian life in genuine brotherhood and in total dedication to the Lord.”5 It was out of this marginal and oppressed experience that Bonhoeffer wrote Life Together and The Cost of Discipleship, both of which are works heavy with a focus on relational community born from a suffering Christ.

To read Bonhoeffer outside of his context or as a systematic theology would be problematic at best, at worst it would do injustice to his writings. To view Bonhoeffer’s Christology of a suffering Christ is to view a suffering church and amazing grace, for Bonhoeffer inextricably ties together the identity of Christ and the church. Christology is ecclesiology; the two cannot be split or considered separately: Christology is inherently wound into the themes of “creation, community, and costly discipleship.”6

Bonhoeffer’s Christology
Bonhoeffer is perennially concerned with answering the question, “Who is Christ for today?”7 His answer is simply that God suffered for us.8 “If we speak of Jesus Christ as God…we must speak of his weakness, his manger, his cross. This man is no abstract God.”9 Thus the incarnate one is humiliated and exalted, and yet, in between lies the hope of the empty tomb.10 His flesh is like our flesh; however, Bonhoeffer does not leave much room to talk simply about Christ suffering, but leads into the suffering as relevant for humanity. “The Law of Christ is a law of forbearance. Forbearance means enduring and suffering.”11 Thus Christology, Christ’s nature and actions, ushering in the Kingdom of God, informs the church.12

Bonhoeffer has a specific idea of the make-up of the body of Christ. Importantly, “the Church is not a religious community of worshippers of Christ”; rather, the church is a space within a community of humanity where “Christ has really taken form.”13 However, the church’s hope or the appearance of Christ in church is not based on only a messiah or even a human messiah, but specifically a suffering messiah. “‘Christians stand by God in his hour of grieving’…thus creating Christ in us by participating in his suffering.”14 It is because Christ suffered that the church can visibly extend Christ and his hope and justice to the world because the church is Christ. It is here that Bonhoeffer’s answer for the question “Who is Christ for today” is found, not only for him over half a century ago, but still the answer is relevant for today. Christ, as his church, suffers for creation. Because of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection, the church’s hope and call for justice never dies.

Moltmann’s Context
While Bonhoeffer was “probably the most influential German theologian of the generation immediately following Barth’s,” Moltmann is “probably the most influential German theologian active at present.”15 Moltmann is largely known for reviving eschatology from the trash bin of theology, as it were. It is slightly lesser known that he was also “one of the first theologians seriously to study Bonhoeffer’s work” – it is in fact this is one of the sources from which Moltmann inherited his focus upon incorporating both social ethics and the dialogue between the church and the world.16 As a prisoner of war (not unlike Bonhoeffer), Moltmann experienced both “God as the power of hope and of God’s presence in suffering,” two themes that made their way later into his works.17 Also like Bonhoeffer, Moltmann retains a theological core of themes and through the rest of his life’s work progressively addresses them to create a mature theology in contrast to Bonhoeffer’s inchoate theology.18

Moltmann has found a sophisticated, mature theological voice open to multiple influences, writing volumes, with at least nearly 20 works translated into English, and teaching scholars like Miroslav Volf. Nine major works comprise Moltmann’s theology: the first set, a trilogy, comprised of Theology of Hope, The Crucified God, and The Church in the Power of the Spirit; and the second set of six, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, God in Creation, The Way of Jesus Christ, The Spirit of Life, The Coming of God, and Experiences in Theology. The first set is described as “complementary perspectives on Christian theology”; however, he chooses to see the second set, though it is similar to a systemic theology, as “‘contributions’ to theological discussion.”19

The themes Moltmann addresses are numerous. Aside from eschatology and suffering (also related to theodicy), he produces a complete Trinitarian view of God, formulates “the relationship of God and the world as reciprocal and as internal to God’s own Trinitarian relationships”, and departs from “the modern paradigm of reality as human history and giving theological weight to the reciprocal relationship of humanity and the rest of Nature.”20 Despite the diversity of the themes, the controlling, meta-theme lays within the trilogy – the dialectic between Jesus’ suffering death of cross and the hope filled resurrection – only to be rooted within the thorough trinitarianism of his later work. In fact, Stanley Grenz and Roger Olson state, “Taking his cue from Bonhoeffer’s statement that ‘Only the suffering God can help,’ Moltmann opened up a veritable new chapter in theology, in which the suffering of God is almost a new orthodoxy.”

Moltmann’s Christology
As already stated, Moltmann views Christology dialectically, holding in tension the cross and resurrection – both the suffering and hope inherent to God in history. The cross represents the current condition of humanity of “subjection to sin, suffering and death,” while the resurrection is God’s promise and humanity’s hope of redemption or creation made anew.21 Thus Moltmann grasps the suffering Christ of Bonhoeffer, and builds upon it the dimension of a hopeful future.

For Moltmann, Jesus is the Christ of both God and the human race. “The Christ of God represents God himself in a still unredeemed world.”22 And speaking in Trinitarian terms, “the Son of God represents the Father in a godless and forsaken world.”23 It is only through the resurrection that Jesus could be “the Christ of God.”24 Thus the suffering and death of Jesus is the “suffering and death of the Christ of God.”25 Simply put, the identity of Jesus as Christ is only fulfilled in hope; a suffering Jesus without the resurrection would not have embodied the fullness of God. Nevertheless, the resurrection does not wrap the cross in glory; instead, the cross is always the point where God suffered, filled “with eschatology and saving significance.”26

In Christ’s resurrection preceding the resurrection of all humanity, the Christ of God becomes Christ for humanity.27 “Thus the cross of Christ modifies the resurrection of Christ under the conditions of the suffering of the world so that it changes from being a purely future event to being an event of liberating love” – Christ anticipates the future bodily resurrection and so ushers in the kingdom of God.28

The relevance of Moltmann is just as clear as Bonhoeffer, if not more so. Moltmann frankly declares that the Crucified God is for all people: the divine is “stateless and classless” – “He is the god of the poor, the oppressed and the humiliated.”29 This is a God who is clearly accessible to the non-person, and yet at the same time transcendent; He/She is located in a lofty position operating in the suffering world through the body of Christ (the church) as part of the basileia.30

Answering the Needs of Liberation Theologies
It may appear on first glance, that the Christ of Bonhoeffer and Moltmann do not meet the needs of black, feminist, and womanist liberation theologies. Not only do they not address the particular needs of liberation theologies, but as is typical of older theology, Bonhoeffer and Moltmann in their silence do not even mention the possibility of an either black or female Christ. Presumably, this Christology remains white and inaccessible to liberative modes of Christian thinking; however, little could be farther from the truth.

It is exactly the suffering nature of Bonhoeffer and Moltmann’s Christology that makes it relevant to these newer particularized communities. Indeed, when Cone formulates a Christology around a black Christ, he does not require a physically black Jesus; rather, Cone is describing a suffering Christ contextually in light of current oppression.31 In fact, Cone explicitly asserts that it is the suffering nature of Christ that enables him to be a “black Christ.” In A Black Theology of Liberation he states, “The Jesus of history is… the Christ of today as interpreted by the theological significance of the death-resurrection event.” When he declares “Black theology certainly agrees with this emphasis on the cross and resurrection,” Cone is confirming the consonance between Moltmann’s Christological focus and the needs of liberation theologies.32

Theology of Hope
Insomuch as they are theologians of hope, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jürgen offer a focus as desperately needed in Nazi Germany and its aftermath as in our contemporary culture of cynicism and oppression. Bonhoeffer first sketched out a theology of God’s suffering which was able to speak to the suffering of many particular situations, but which lacked a necessary second dimension – future. Moltmann completed this view of the cross by raising the hope of the resurrection to equal prominence in this suffering Christology. The suffering Christ – and subsequently the church, when it focuses upon this Christ – is able to engage, share, and heal the pain of even the most oppressed, both with an existential understanding and a tangible eschatological hope for the future.

_______
1.Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, translated by R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), xi.

2.Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, translated by Neville Horton Smith (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 61.

3.Stanley Grenz and Robert Olson, 20th-Century Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age, 149. Wayne Whitson Floyd, The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology since 1918, edited by David F. Ford and Rachel Muers (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1992), 56.

4.20th-Century Theology, 148.5.Ibid., 148.6.Wayne Whitson Floyd, The Modern Theologians, 55.

7.20th-Century Theology, 149. John W. De Gruchy, “Bonhoeffer, Dietrich (1906-45),” The Dictionary of Historical Theology, edited by Trevor A. Hart (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 81.

8.Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together; Prayer Book, edited by Geffrey B. Kelly, translated by Daniel W. Bloesch and James H. Burtness (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 100. Also see footnote 14: “The sufferings of God in Jesus Christ and Jesus’ sufferings in and for God’s people are major themes in Bonhoeffer’s theology.”

9.Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christ the Center, translated by Edwin H. Robertson (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), 104.

10.Ibid., 112.

11.Life Together,100.

12.Christ the Center, 111.

13.Ethics, 84 and 85.

14.Letters and Papers from Prison, 361.

15.Justo L. González, A History of Christian Thought: From the Protestant Reformation to the Twentieth Century, vol. 3, revised ed. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1987), 447 and 452.

16.Richard Bauckham, “Jürgen Moltmann,” The Modern Theologians, edited by David F. Ford and Rachel Muers, ed. 3 (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), 147.

17.Ibid., 147.

18.The Dictionary of Modern Historical Theology, 376.

19.Richard Bauckham, The Modern Theologians, 148.

20.The Dictionary of Historical Theology, 376.

21.The Dictionary of Historical Theology, 377.

22.The Crucified God, 179.

23.Ibid., 179.

24.Ibid., 182.

25.Ibid., 182.

26.Ibid., 182.

27.Ibid., 184.

28.Ibid., 185.

29.Ibid., 329. Also see the quote a few lines below, “Christians will seek to anticipate the future of Christ according to the measure of the possibilities available to them, by breaking down lordship and building up the political liveliness of each individual.”

30.In using the Greek word for the “kingdom of God” (basileia), I hope to avoid master/slave presumptions that feminists have pointed out are connoted by the phrase, while still retaining the sense of transcendence that the alternate “kindom” seems to lack. All previous uses in the text of the term “kingdom” have been part of the process of quoting and in the spirit of retaining the author’s language.

31.James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (New York: Orbis, 2006), 119-120.

32.Cone, 118.

33.The Crucified God, xi.

Critiquing a favorite theologian

This is a rather late response to halden’s meme – critique a favorite theologian.

Edit: Looking back, I did do a post on Hauerwas that might also apply to Halden’s challenge. While Hauerwas is technically an ethicist and not exactly systematic, he does collapse the categories of theology and ethics into one category and has covered a great deal of territory in his many writings. So I suppose the reader can take their pick between Moltmann’s lack of method, or Hauerwas’ faulty use of history.

This challenge exposes a weakness I have, for all the reading I have done, I have rarely focused on one person’s systematic theology. And this limits the choices I feel even somewhat confident enough to talk about. However, if I were to pick someone, it would be Jürgen Moltmann. Given that theology in some areas (most prominently seen in liberation theology) has shifted from a focus upon the believer/atheist dichotomy to the person/non-person, James Cone has made the point that many theologies have lost their relevancy insomuch as they address an old question. However, there is a motif within European-born theology that holds promise for continuous relevancy between old and new theology: the suffering and hopeful Christ. This is why I have chosen Moltmann (no matter how much Halden might dislike him. heh.). Moltmann seems to be able to bridge the gap between many aspects of liberal, liberation, and conservative theology, but still retain a Christocentrism and this strength of Moltmann is very important for me right now.The truth be told, I’d begun writing a rather lengthy response to this meme sometime ago, only to realize that I should read more to adequately critique and thus I kept putting this off. So now as I actually write this, in an effort to not come off crazy or extend beyond myself, I’ll attempt to level one solid of crititque that I have noticed myself, but have also been vocalized by others as well, particularly by some faculty here.

Despite all that Moltmann has accomplished (helped revive Trinitarian work, helped revive eschatology, a great deal of thought on theodicy, a theology of Creation and even “opened up a veritable new chapter in theology, in which the suffering of God is almost a new orthodoxy” says Grenz and Olson in 20th Century Theology), Moltmann is not flawless – far from it.

In my book the most difficult flaw to deal with, is the lack of method. Moltmann simply does not line out a hermeneutical method (although I hear he says that he will finally write one). I like his writing and understand it well enough, but as far as he approaches the Biblical text or theology as a whole, there is next to no information on method from what I have seen. In fact, this is also a gripe I have heard from a few professors here at Union. So for me, to access Moltmann’s conclusions, I sometimes have to construct my own arguement, an argument that satisfies me and reaches his conclusion, because it just does not exist in his writings. With a lack of method, the rest of his writings seem to take on a whole other level of difficulty.

For instance, Moltmann came by Union for a Q and A while giving lectures in the city. We were given the lectures ahead of time to read. Here is a section:

The justice which Christ will bring about for all and everything is not the justice that establishes what is good and evil, and the retributive justice which rewards the good and punishes the wicked. It is God`s creative justice, which brings the victims justice and puts the perpetrators right. The victims of injustice and violence are first judged so that they may receive their rights. The perpetrators of evil will afterwards experience the justice that puts things to rights. They will thereby be transformed inasmuch as they will be redeemed only together with their victims. They will be saved through the crucified Christ, who comes to them together with their victims. They will `die` to their evil acts against their victims and the burden of their guilt in order to be born again to a new life together with their victims. Paul also expresses this with the image of the fire through which every human work is proved: `If any man`s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire` (1 Cor. 3.15). The image of the End-time `fire` is an image of the consuming love of God and not an image of the wrath of God. Everything which is, and has been, in contradiction to God will be burnt away, so that the person who is loved by God is saved, and everything which is, and has been, in accord with God in that person`s life is preserved.

The purpose goal of erecting the victims and correcting the perpetrators is not reward and punishment but the victory of God`s creative justice over against all that is godless in heaven, on earth and under the earth. Victorious divine justice will not separate humankind into blessed and condemned at the end of the world, but will unite them for God`s great Day of Reconciliation on this earth. On this day all the tears will be wiped away from their eyes, the tears of suffering as well as the tears of remorse, for there will be no more suffering and pain nor crying (Rev 21, 4). The earth will than be cleaned up from the dirt of sin and death. The shadows of sin will disappear together with the night of death: “And death shall be no more”. Annihilated are the powers of annihilation.

Now, I was curious as to how this plays out in light of the scriptural text, Matthew 25, specifically about the sheep and the goats. I asked him and he said we are misreading the text. Well of course we are reading the text differently, but the only answer he gave to the question was that we are both the sheep and the goats – we are at least one point in our life, the person in prison, the visitor and the one who does not visit. Alright, I got that, but how does this work with the surrounding text? I would love to arrive at his conclusion (and kinda do actually), but he has not voiced well his hermeneutical method. So, the only way I can reach some of his conclusions is by creating my own theology and determining my own method with some goal in mind. Right. ‘Cause thats easy, especially with all the other hermeneutical problems to consider. Sigh. So in the end, until he lines out his method, Moltmann in my book will be someone with great insights and a visionary, but not a very good theologian in the professional sense.

Merging Moltmann and Metz: An End Course Review

I was excited at the beginning of the semester to take a Jürgen Moltmann class, but now at the close, I find that I am more partial to Johann Baptist Metz – the other theologian we read for the class. As I thought about closing out the class, I found a tack that incorporates various positions of Moltmann and Metz and begins to both satisfy and improve my own theological voice. As much as this is a closure paper for a class, it is also a continuation paper and, probably most appropriately, a future looking paper toward fusing my own voice with positions certain from Moltmann and Metz. The following sections on Moltmann and Metz are the highlights of their theologies and the class for me.

Moltmann: Future and Hope in Christ and Basileia
The heart of Moltmann’s use of the term “eschatological,” and subsequently his whole theology of hope, is found in the Christological dialectic of the cross and resurrection.1 That is to say, both the suffering death and the glorious resurrection hold an equal amount of weight as they continually inform each other and push us forward into the promise and hope of the future horizon.2 Simply put, “one could say that Christian eschatology is the study of the tendency of the resurrection and future of Christ.”3

While eschatology finds its specific understanding in the cross and resurrection, we cannot rightly understand the death and resurrection without the greater foundation of the basileia (kingdom).4 It is in the cross and resurrection that the basileia and its promises are fulfilled and proclaimed; the basileia breaks into the current reality in proclamation and action about and through the cross and resurrection, while at the same time speaking of a future in the “mission and love of Christ” through the cross and resurrection.5 To understand the cross and resurrection, particularly as the basis for eschatology and the breaking in of the basileia, it is necessary to understand death and re-life as a theological category, as opposed to an andocentric idea. Fundamentally, the cross and resurrection are not existential (Bultmann) or historical (Schweitzer); rather, they are an action that makes our history and locating us within a promise and identity, while pushing us toward the eschaton.6

History is best understood through promise – specifically, God’s revelatory and eschatological promises. History understood this way is history in flux, which is to say history is dynamic and driven by hope rooted in promise.7 The promises themselves and their fulfillment continue throughout history, and this “overspill” changes history from merely event oriented to an ongoing fulfillment and revelation of promise.8 Therefore the active story that history tells, framed by promises, is re-imagined at every fulfillment; the promises become larger and larger as the fulfillments continue and increase.9 Thus history, or the representation of the past, continually changes in light of the revelation of promise/fulfillment. It “will lead us to open ourselves and our present to that same future,” while still mired in present circumstances.10

Eschatology is inherently participatory and political: we proclaim the hope of Christ as the Christ who proclaimed the basileia, while at the same time we imbue the missional idea with Christ-like suffering and solidarity in faith.11 Thus it is hope that fuels our human faith; faith, our belief in the divine, “hopes in order to know what it believes” and it is hope, from our faith, that drives our vitality so necessary to faith.12 Consequently faith and the hope of the future brings the future into the present resulting in church participation in funneling the vision of the future – “righteousness, freedom and humanity” – into the current events of today.13

Metz: Hoping Rightly, Remembering Dangerously, and Solidarity with the Dead
A Christian historical consciousness is radically and diametrically opposed to a “purely historical relationship with the past that not only presupposes that the past is past; it also works actively to strengthen the fact that what has been is not present.”14 Rather Christian historical consciousness – remembering – is a reforming experience; it brings an idea of change, pushing Christians to change not only themselves, but also the surrounding world. “Identity is formed when memories are aroused” and likewise narrative achieves the same ends – we are given a vision of a great past and a brilliant future.15 This idea of a tangible past changes who we are in the present and gives hope to move our current present towards the eschatological hope. Thus the Christian vision of dangerous memory interrupts our conception of the present, by giving an alternate vision of history; we are re-contextualized within a different story, an informative and liberating story. This new and biblical story, informs us on who we are, gives a new identity – practitioners of a social, Christian praxis.

Simply put, envisioning the Christian mission through memories is the beginning of solidarity with the dead. We are made responsive to past suffering through anamnesis, for it is the nature of Christianity to imitate the suffering Christ, as it is also a religion of the oppressed.16 Thus the Christian praxis, attuned to suffering, consistently interrupts the apathetic world through solidarity for and with the helpless and suffering, in the present.17

However, we have lost the “messianic praxis” of “discipleship, conversion, love, and suffering”, because we have accepted the secularized notion of a nationalistic anthropology and hope (both espousing the ideology that humanity will overcome, thrive, and conquer future frontiers).18 With secularized theologies and the forgetting of Christian suffering, the church does not act in its prophetic role to the world; instead of liberating, the ideology holds the globe within Americana’s oppressive custody.19 The secularization of the church through a form of secular hominization has caused us to lose not only the idea of suffering with and for others, but we have also lost ourselves. Thus the American church has ceased remembering the atrocities of Auschwitz, or cannot respond well to current genocides, by accepting the hope of American promises.

Metz: Bourgeois religion and Privatization
A Bourgeois religion is dependent on privatization; in order to envision the Messianic nature of Christianity, we must first understand who we are.20 How we see ourselves is less universally governed by the church’s direction or definition, rather, as American’s our most universal understanding as to who we are is fundamentally through individual and nation-state interaction – a privatizing, enlightenment document we call the Constitution. The American Christians needs to realize the influences of the Constitution and understand how the idea of a church is fundamentally a contrary social institution – the body of Christ.21 We can only get to the Christian call when we get past the American Dream and its hopes.22

Moltmann, Metz, and I in Agreement
As a person “the Christian has the responsibility to develop his faith’s relationship to the world as a relationship of hope, and to explicate his theology as eschatology.”23 All of Christianity, not just single Christians, is to be grounded in a “horizon of eschatology,” and more specifically in an eschatological foundation that is primarily a creative and militant.24 Thus the church reveals the Christian forward-looking hope to the world. This revealing is inherently political, as it forms the church according the mission of Christ and moves the church toward declaring the eschatological hope of the kingdom to the world.25

It is the church that stands within the kingdom, as the kingdom’s mission; it is the church that continually interrupts the world’s attempts at self-redemption or self-production through love, sacrifice and solidarity.26 The church is the breaking of the kingdom into the now by visibly crystallizing the intensifying nature of the Christological sacrifice on the cross.27 Thus the church points for the world from the suffering and resurrected past to the future and its hope. Fundamentally, the church interrupts the world, by proclaiming the hope of the future in a revolutionary and imaginative way; the center of Christian life is rooted in the forward-looking, eschatological hope that places Christianity within the kingdom within the world.

Moltmann and Metz in Contrasting Ecclesiology
Despite their many similarities, Moltmann and Metz have divergent approaches to ecclesiology. This is especially clear when Moltmann asserts that the church ought not “claim any direct power in secular matters,” specifically in economics, politics and culture.28 Metz disparages bourgeois Christianity in favor of a messianic Christianity that requires the de-privatization of Christianity. In contrast, while Moltmann supports liberation, he does so by way of individual Christian action in the political, economic, and cultural sphere that results in the ethical actions of the church carried out through the privatized social contracts between citizens and government.29 For instance, when Moltmann talks about a Christian opposition to immoral ethical systems, he does not appeal for collective church action such as withdrawal or criticism – instead he uses the word “Christians,” which connotes individual movements.30

Metz calls for the church to be the relational model that answers the Christian call by continually critiquing both the church and the world. It is through this that the church becomes a vision for the world to understand right relationships through the basileia of God. However, Moltmann distinguishes himself from this – the church does not become the agitator for resistance or representation, nor is the church supposed to be envisioning and displaying right relationships concerning racialism, sexism, or valuing the handicapped; instead, the social problems are confronted by a reformationist idea of justification and the I-identity.31

I much prefer Metz’s ecclesiology over Moltmann’s. Moltmann leaves his theology, and subsequently the church, open to a modernist individualism when he calls for the church not to involve itself in economics, politics, or culture. The church ceases to become a holistic, alternative reality and critique to the secularized world when individualism governs the church’s dialogue with the world, and thus the church lacks greater strength engage structural evils.

Blending Metz and Moltmann
I highly value Moltmann’s emphasis on faith, hope, dialectical Christology, and basileia. Not only are they decidedly Christian categories, but they also work well as a foundation upon which to build a political theology. Likewise with Metz, I am heavily indebted to his formulations of solidarity with the dead and dangerous memories, along with his critiques of secularization (as apposed to hoping rightly), Bourgeois religion, and privatization. The merging of Moltmann and Metz in both their agreements and understanding their disagreements is very fertile ground. I am grateful for the strong foundation they offer as I begin to construct my own theopolitical voice.

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1. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) 200.
2. Ibid., 211.
3. Ibid., 195.
4. Ibid., 216.
5. Ibid., 210-211, 220.
6. Ibid., 165, 181.
7. Ibid., 18.
8.Ibid., 107-108.
9. Ibid., 105.
10. Ibid., 108.
11. Ibid., 211, 212, 219, 224.
12. Ibid., 33.
13. Ibid., 22.
14. Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Foundational Political Theology, (New York: Seabury Press, 1979) 190.
15. Ibid., 66, 188.
16. Ibid., 52, 71.
17. Ibid., 57-58, 229.
18. Johann Baptist Metz, The Emergent Church: The Future of Christianity in a Postbourgeois World, (New York: Crossroad, 1981) 27 and Theology of the World, (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969) 68.
19. Johann Baptist Metz, Faith and the Future, (Maryknoll, N.Y.; Orbis Books, 1995) 55.
20. The Emergent Church, 12.
21. Theology of the World, 133.
22. Ibid., 146.
23. Ibid., 90.
24. Ibid., 90, 94.
25. Theology of Hope 330, 337, 338.
26. Ibid., 338; Metz, Faith in History and Society, 171.
27. Faith in History and Society, 89.
28. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) 167.
29. Ibid., 164.
30. Ibid., 174.
31. Ibid., 194, 182-186, 189.

More Moltmann and Metz

The Question: Granting the analogy between the ecclesiologies of Metz and Moltmann on the fundamental level, do you find Moltmann’s X substantially differentiates his ecclesiology from Metz’s or is Moltmann’s ecclesiology sustantially the same as Metz’s?

Moltmann and Metz share many similarities, nevertheless, Moltmann’s tendency to privatize Christianity diverges from Metz.

Moltmann and Metz share a great deal in common. In the preface to the paper back edition (1990), Moltmann calls for a move towards a small ecclesial community, similar to Metz (xiii). Also in the readings, Metz is footnoted twice (17, 276), particularly concerning the political nature of Christianity. Despite these and other similarities, Moltmann stands in contrast to Metz when Moltmann asserts that the church ought not “claim any direct power in secular matters,” specifically in economics, politics and culture (167).

Metz continually rails against a bourgeois Christianity in favor of a messianic Christianity and to do so requires the de-privatization of Christianity. In contrast, while Moltmann calls for liberation, he does so by way of individual Christian action in the political, economic, and cultural sphere that results in the ethical actions of the church carried out through the privatized social contracts between citizens and government (164). For instance, when Moltmann talks about a Christian opposition to immoral ethical systems or actions, he does not call for the church to break away or criticize in some fashion, rather he uses the word “Christians” which connotes an individual’s movements, rather than the movement of the body of Christ (174).

It seems that Metz calls for the church to be the relational model that answers the Christian call, a model that both continually critiques the church and the world. It is through this that the church becomes a vision for the world to understand right relationships through the basileia of God. However, Moltmann distinguishes himself from this – the church does not become the agitator for resistance or representation (194), nor is the church supposed to be envisioning and displaying right relationships concerning racialism, sexism, or valuing the handicapped (182-186); instead, the social problems are confronted by a reformationist idea of justification and the I-identity (189).

_______
Text quoted is: The Church in the Power of the Spirit. However, the pages we did read were not the entire book so as to find some congruence with Metz’s more systematic approach. It seems possible that my critique is off base, but after reading Prof. Haight’s comments, I think I do have a point that is not dealt with elsewhere in the text and therefore can stand.

The Church and Race Part 3: Trinitarian Solidarity

I am excited to hear that at my undergrad, Multnomah Bible College, Dr. John Perkins is giving lectures. Coming to Union last semester was dramatically different to say the least (though it was something I was looking for) and in that difference I found myself reading and listening to critiques, some solid and others flimsy. Here following is part three of three responsorial writings to three books I read for Social Ethics as Social Criticism dealing with race, as I presume some of Multnomah is going through too.

Part 3 – The Solidarity of Others in a Divided World: A Postmodern Theology after Postmodernism, by Anselm Min (New York: T&T Clark 2004).

For the most part, I liked this book. Before reading the book, I had never encountered Emmanuel Levinas and only had a decent working knowledge of Jacques Derrida; however, Anselm Min wrote The Solidarity of Others in a Divided World in such a clear and readable fashion that my use of reference materials were minimal. Certainly Min’s language was a bit different than what I am used to, but, after a short time, his language seemed like second nature and in fact, maybe even a better way of describing the universal – totality.

In the past few years, I have discovered Trinitarian theologians, like Colin Gunton, and even more recently, the suffering, Trinitarian Christology of Moltmann. With this in mind, it seems obvious I would like this book, but aside from the prolific use of Moltmann (and critique), I found that the author addressed a topic that has literally been on my mind for years – “the oddity of the Holy Spirit” (109). The social nature of the Trinity is clear, after all the words Father and Son are relational terms of identity; however, the Holy Spirit seems to lack a similar relational name. Min answers well the question with verse after verse from the Bible and finally concluding with the selfless nature of the Spirit and the role the Spirit plays as the one “who actualizes the full potentialities of the model” – a relator for others (118, 121, 125).

I found it a wonderful stroke to ground solidarity as a reflection of the social God and inherently within the Trinitarian framework – to the Christ of God by way of the cohesive Spirit. Granted much of what Min is saying is not necessarily new because he grounds so much in Moltmann, but the way Min says it is new for it is geared towards the first steps of communion – solidarity – as the next step for theology. Also, Min is talking ecclesiology throughout his book when he says solidarity, and that the church, or better said the body of Christ, finds not only unity in the past and future acts of the suffering, resurrected Christ, but also in the now through the Holy Spirit.

Another chapter in the book that delighted me was “Solidarity of Others in the Body of Christ.” I have found this particular metaphor of the body of Christ to be particularly rich and vivid. I was thrilled that Min covered the variety of subjects that the metaphor addresses and I know it will be a reference in the future merely because of its brevity and clarity.

However, I am unsure as to the success that Min achieves when addressing pluralism. I myself am undecided on the extent for Christianity and pluralism. The body of Christ seems a great metaphor for explaining Christianity’s identity in the world where it interacts with religions, but as Min notes, the metaphor is at least partially exclusive (150). I know some classmates will object, but if the church (Christianity) does not draw its identity from Christ, what then makes it Christian? I think Min makes a good point, that within a pluralistic world, being Christian does not mean one does not have boundaries; rather that, Christianity confesses its own boundaries, enters into sensitive dialogue with other religions and finds commonality from which to work together (150, 174, 175).

Moltmann and Metz

Note: I know earlier I said I was done reposting from myspace, but I realized that the theses I put up would probably do a lot better on blogger than on myspace.

I am taking a class from Professor Haight on Jürgen Moltmann and Johann Baptist Metz. And in the class we present weekly papers. The parameters for the paper are rather specific: a short thesis at the beginning, interact with the readings, address one of the themes, answer the question posed by Haight, and prove/display your thesis in 300 words or less. So here reposted are three theses.

Part 1

The question we were to answer was: which theme, out of the many themes (of which secularization was one), do we find the most crucial for today? I went with secularization (which Metz spends a long time talking about), but I also saw the connection between another theme that Metz addresses over and over – Auschwitz.

Thesis: The memory of Auschwitz has been supplanted within the church by the secularized American hope to the detriment of the church.

Our culture, as Metz shows, has become increasingly hominized (The Future of Faith 57). While it seems we may be shifting back towards a more cosmological idea due to scientific discoveries, these breakthroughs have had little effect on some aspects of secularization, namely an ideological, secularized hope – a hope that clings to the idea that humanity will overcome, thrive, and conquer future frontiers. It is the secularized and nationalistic hope provided by Reagan (one of many proponents) that has become a controlling ideology that Metz warned against (The Future of Faith 68). This ideology of hope has taken hold of even the American church by mimicking the eschatological Christian hope and, instead of liberating, the ideology holds the globe within Americana’s oppressive custody (Theology in Struggle 55). Thus the American church has ceased remembering the atrocities of Auschwitz for the hope of American promises.

It is no wonder that the church has largely ignored Darfur, for the American church has found its hope in the bright, anthropological destiny preached by Reagan. Consequently the church has held to theologies that remain unchanged and unresponsive in the face of Darfur, much less other civil wars, starvation, and drought. We have in turn lost the “messianic praxis” of “discipleship, conversion, love, and suffering”, because we have accepted the secularized notion of a nationalistic hope (Christians and Jews 27). With unchanged theologies and the forgetting of Christian suffering, the church does not act in its prophetic role to the world. The secularization of the church through a form of secular hominization has caused us to lose not only the idea of suffering with and for others, but we have also lost ourselves.

Summary for the net: when the church here rejects the Christological hope of the cross and the future for the nationalistic hope of america (we accept the secular hope), we lose our ability to reach out for those who are oppressed — this acceptance of the American dream (and American “Manifest Destiny) by the church is killing our ability to be the church.

Part 2

This paper covers about the first hundred and forty pages of Theology of Hope.

Thesis: Moltmann’s vision consists of hopeful promises revealed in dynamic history finding their culmination in the now, future and ultimate horizon.

The foundation of Moltmann’s vision (hope) comes from the revelatory promises of God; hope, driving theology, is rooted in promise, and therefore, capable of standing in “contradiction to the reality” of present experience (18). These promises come in the midst of history, but at the same time orient a believer from the “dawn” of the day, looking forward with expectation although still mired in one’s circumstances (31).

Since history is framed by promise, history is in flux, which is to say, that history is dynamic. The fulfillment of promise continues throughout history, and this “overspill” changes history from merely singularly event oriented to a continual fulfillment or revelation of the promise (107-108). Thus the active story that history tells, framed by promises, is re-imagined at every fulfillment; the promises become larger and larger as the fulfillments become bigger and bigger (105). Thus history, or the representation of the past, is changed continually in light of the revelation of promise/fulfillment and in turn “will lead us to open ourselves and our present to that same future” (108).

However, hope is not merely related to promises, but also fuels our human faith, in fact, hope and faith are inextricably linked. Faith, our belief in the divine, “hopes in order to know what it believes”; it is hope, from our faith, that drives our vitality so necessary to faith (33). Thus faith and the hope of the future explodes the future into the present and the future to come, resulting in church engagement with the world funneling the vision of the future – “righteousness, freedom and humanity” – into the current events of today (22).

Part 3

Here again is another thesis and taken from Theology of Hope.

Thesis: Moltmann’s term “eschatological” is defined by a forward-looking, Christological dialectic between the cross and resurrection within the kingdom of God.

To understand the cross and resurrection, particularly as the basis for eschatology and the breaking in of the kingdom, it is necessary to understand death and re-life as a theological category, as opposed to an andocentric idea; cross and resurrection is fundamentally not existential (Bultmann) or historical (Schweitzer), but rather an action that makes our history and locating us within a promise and identity, while pushing us toward the eschaton (165, 181).

The heart of Moltmann’s use of the term “eschatological” is found in the Christological dialectic of the cross and resurrection (200), this is to say, that both the suffering death and glorious resurrection retain an equal amount of weight and continually informing the other, all the while, both push us forward into the promise and hope of the future horizon (211). Simply put, “one could say that Christian eschatology is the study of the tendency of the resurrection and future of Christ” (195).

While eschatology finds its specific understanding in the cross and resurrection, we cannot rightly understand the death and resurrection without the greater foundation of the kingdom of God (216). It is in the cross and resurrection that the kingdom and its promises are fulfilled and proclaimed; the kingdom breaks into the current reality in proclamation and action about and through the cross and resurrection (the conquering of death, 210-211), and at the same time speaking of a future through the “mission and love of Christ” through cross and resurrection (220).

Eschatological also has another aspect that is inherently participatory; we proclaim Christ as the Christ who proclaimed the kingdom (219), while at the same time we imbue the missional idea in Christ-like suffering and solidarity (211, 212, 224).