Theology I Lecture 01

okay we begin with a topic that that may be disappointing to those of you who were hoping to show up on the first day of class discussion class lecture and open your Bible and just start reading okay I warned you on Tuesday that we begin a study of systematic theology in the field of prolegomena and prolegomena has been compared by by one scholar to the public speaker who clears his throat before he begins to speak that's what prolegomena is it's a philosophical and theological clearing of the throat as we prepare to speak on the doctrine doctrines will be does examining the semester there are a number of preliminary issues that we need to talk about not the least of which is well what is theology what are we doing when we do theology what does it mean to do theology how have people done theology in the history of the church and where are we situated in the flow of that timeline and and and what does that look like and aren't there different kinds of theology you hear people speak of biblical theology versus systematic theology versus philosophical theology versus practical theology a term that just makes me shiver I don't like the term practical theology because it implies that there's such a thing as impractical theology and I'm not real happy about that idea although there I would have to admit that there is such a thing as impractical theology and I think Paul uses terms like vain speculation and old wives tales and that sort of phrase to speak of what we might call impractical theology but that's a discussion for later so so this is what this is what the first few sessions we're going to have together are going to cover we're going to be having this discussion I had you read the article packet over the last couple of days to begin to situate you with regard to the historical discussion the Oracle issues in this discussion what are thing what what what are some of the things that are going on these days in the world of evangelical theology and of course I'm focusing this discussion on specifically on evangelical theology I'm going to mention some traditions outside of that one or two during today's discussion but that's only for the sake of helping us to situate ourselves and and evangelical theology in that overall picture so we begin and I'll be in your class notes incidentally excuse me I'll be using PowerPoint for most of the sessions that we have together this semester the PowerPoint is designed to augment what you have in your class notes so if you're following the PowerPoint and you're following class notes sometimes there will be gaps in your class notes that the slides will fill in sometimes you'll have on the slides the same thing that's in your notes and sometimes you'll have two different things your notes will say one thing the screen will say something else and that's just to kind of flesh it out a little bit so it's up to you to filter through that it's I see a lot of you using laptops it's best if you use your laptop to take notes it's certainly not absolutely necessary but you'll find if your handwriting on a hard copy you'll find that there are a number of places in there where you don't have enough room to take notes and so you'll have to stick paper in there or use the left hand side or something okay so I I have found over the last couple years we're up in the 90s now with the percent of students that are simply taking the class notes file and adding their notes to it that tends to work well because that way the file expands along with your notes so okay so the question before us as we begin is the nature of theology what is what is theology now I'm going to begin with a statement that might seem a little I don't know might might be controversial for you theology is a human activity first of all you notice that for me theology is a verb the algae is a verb it's something you do and I'm saying here that theology is a human activity why do I say that because theology is our well it involves our interaction with the scriptures theology is not equal to the Bible if that were the case and that's why I say as I said on Tuesday some of you may be expecting you know that you bring your your bucket in here or the empty bookshelf in your mind and you expect me to fill the bucket or to stock the bookshelves okay and hopefully you will increase in in knowledge as we generally tend to use that term during the semester but that's not what that's not only what this is about it's not like I can take some body of formulated doctrine and lay this down in front of you and say here is theology okay here's the faith once for all delivered to the Saints the TMS doctrinal statement no theology is a human activity it's something that we engage in and sometime next week we will finally get a get around to a definition an actual definition of systematic theology and we'll see that it centers on the scriptures but see the danger in regarding doctrine and scripture at the same level or theology and Scripture as as being sort of equivalent is that at some point you settle on a statement of faith whether it's TM s statement of faith or someone else's or you you settle on somebody systematic theology book grudem's or someone else's and pretty soon that formulation or that collection of formulations a statement of faith or a systematic theology begins to take the place of Scripture we're going to see later that's one of the accusations that postmodern theology has against a more traditional modernistic theology that you you become so settled in what you think doctrine is on what doctrine you believe is right what formulation of each doctrine you believe is correct that you stop reading the scriptures or you begin reading the Scriptures through the lens of those formulations and and and subtly your doctrinal statement or your systematic theology book becomes your authority rather than Scripture well that would be a serious problem wouldn't it we don't want that to be the case so we have to get it in our heads immediately that theology is a human activity but then we have to ask the question what are we doing when we do theology what are we doing when we do theology well there are a variety of ideas and we're going to look at each one of these in turn there are some who have essentially said that when we do theology we are doing a kind of science when we do theology we're doing a kind of science so we're employing almost a version of the scientific method trying to explain we're examining an object God or the scriptures and we're trying to give a full scientific explanation okay so theology is a kind of science we follow a method break it down into smaller parts examine them apart a time experiment hypothesize come up with theories and we go through that cycle so theology is a kind of science there are others who have said or proceeded as if theology is a kind of psychology that when we're doing theology we're actually doing psychology we're trying to explain the the spiritual experiences of the human being others and this is more recent we're going to develop these a little more have have said that theology is a group activity it's an exercise in a kind of groupthink where the community of faith over time and with its traditions formulates doctrine formulates its rules for as we'll see in a little while today rules for discourse attitude in action and then it's a communal activity a kind of groupthink what are we doing when we do theology so everybody has a concept of what it is that we're doing when we do theology what I want to do is unpack each of these briefly although in a different order than I just mentioned them beginning with liberalism the guy in the middle sitting on the rocking chair the psychologist that represents broadly the liberal tradition liberalism now I don't know what tradition you come from the kinds of ecclesiastical influences you've had the war and how you react when you hear the word liberal I don't know how you respond to that but liberalism isn't necessarily a dirty word it's not a name that you call someone when you want to insult them okay liberalism is a kind of theology there are people out there who say yes I'm a liberal theologian okay and then that's in their eyes that's a good thing okay liberalism began with Oh Friedrich Schleiermacher the father of modern liberalism in the mid 1700s and he was disillusioned with I'm not going to give you a full historical account of the the birth of liberalism of course but liberalism proceeds in theology as if the goal is to account for man's experience with God or man's experience with the infinite or man's sense of the divine okay July mocker was disillusioned with the the cold religious formalism of his day that had descended upon the Lutheran Church and he was distressed about that there must be something experiential about our religion beyond going to church and and so he ended up flipping the whole thing upside down that the whole thing was about experience the theology is about account giving an account of mankind's experience with God and what that became was an exercise in psychology and exercise matter of fact in the early 19th century early 20th century you you had liberal theologians who who who came out and said that that when we do theology what we're really doing is anthropology we're studying the human being and how the human being experiences this sense of the infinite or this sense of God the sense of the divine what is religion from the human point of view and so there there came in this anti supernatural bias along with and lightened with the the influence of the Enlightenment where again the emphasis was on the scientific method and what you can experience with your senses what you can verify scientifically mathematically and the discussion said the discussion concluded that while miracles can't be verified miracles are clearly just the the attempt of the human being who has in some sort of inherent sense of infinity or a sense of the divine it's their effort to explain their religious experiences so miracles in Scripture didn't actually happen it's just a part of the religious part of the account of early Christian religion and so now liberalism is famous for its anti supernaturalism you find this now in contemporary mainline denominations the major Protestant denominations in the u.s. the various with one exception may be the various Lutheran denominations the Episcopalians speaking in North America here the PC probably the PC USA in in many cases that it's an uneven denomination but Methodists the United Methodist denomination you'll find a lot of liberalism there okay so this is this is a this is an intentional approach to theology so theology is about under liberalism theology is man's account of his experience with God so of course on these grounds the Scriptures the scriptures are simply human documents right human documents that give witness to mankind's experience with God over millennia therefore theology can't be systematic you don't have you know you don't have a basis for a systematic theology other than human experience so the Bible is a collection of human documents and each person's experience is different I got a couple of clicks behind every now and then you may have to wave at me or yell at me and tell me that I forgot to hit the button it happens okay so theology can't be systematic all right now you have a little moment here guys what makes someone a liberal let's go back to my first comment okay liberal is not a mean name that you call someone when you don't like them okay a liberal is not anyone who just disagrees with me see he's not a premillennialists I see I knew he was going liberal okay and you begin to demonize people who have doctrinal disagreements with you by calling them liberal please don't do that some cases it might be an insult to an honest liberal somewhere okay just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they're a liberal okay liberalism is a system and it's a very serious thing to for someone to be a liberal and this isn't a comprehensive list but what I'm doing is I'm going back to the early 20th century at the publication of what was called the fundamentals you can now you can still get that in in reprint it was a series of 11 volumes I think 11 or 12 very small volumes that have been compiled into one or two and if you read those essentially the the fundamentals came down to these five or six things the inerrancy of Scripture the virgin birth the deity of Christ substitutionary atonement the death and resurrection of Christ and the second coming of Christ okay so denying these things would make you a theological liberal yes sir well that's an interesting question we could take we're going to look at post liberalism which is in my opinion is is and the opinion of many others is theological liberalism and postmodern clothing okay now you take a major post liberal we were just talking about Brian McLaren inerrancy of Scripture he would deny that in the sense that we affirm it although he would not deny that Scripture is true he would say well of course I believe in the truthfulness of Scripture so he he'll affirm and deny almost the same thing the virgin birth I think he would affirm at least at this point in his in his trajectory in his development the deity of Christ he would affirm although I would be really interested to hear him explain what he means when he says Jesus is the Son of God I would be really interested to hear that however number four on the list substitutionary atonement he has come out fairly strongly denying that the cross is a penal substitute for sinners who deserve God's wrath and you'll find that others in his movement are doing the same thing that's one reason why last year's faculty lecture series here was on the topic of penal substitution area tone minh because it's something that is is really becoming the support for that fundamental of the faith is becoming fractured even in the evangelical community especially among guys like mclaren okay so i would say that he has a tendency toward liberalism because of that and because he would also deny the exclusivity of christ which i didn't put up there but I think it's an implication of the deity of Christ and and the the atonement itself so this is not some sort of a litmus test it's not a checklist you can say well as long as he as long as you know theologian X doesn't deny all of these that he's not a liberal it's not the case I mean denying the virgin birth is a pretty clear hallmark of liberalism traditionally you know and by traditionally I mean going back the last 100 hundred and ten years so this isn't designed to be a checklist this is designed to be a reality check if you're if you're inclined to call someone a liberal think think back to this list do they affirm these things okay rather let me give you that this is just kind of an informal suggestion I it's not as if I I think that this is a catch-all definition of the indicators of liberalism this might be a statement of the fruit or the effect of liberalism that it's liberal theology is the or constitutes the reinterpretation of Scripture such that Christ is other than God and the gospel is other than Christ substitutionary death and resurrection for sinners who otherwise face eschatological divine judgment I've tried to weave most of those fundamentals into that one statement so to be a liberal you have to have a lower view of Scripture if you're going to see that if you're going to understand Christ to be someone other than fully God you have to have a lower view of the Scriptures you have to not deny key things that the Scriptures say at least in the sense that they say them and you have to re reinterpret the gospel to something other than substitutionary atonement and deny the resurrection perhaps I mean it's a it's a it's a fundamental shift away from the the central fundamentals of the the story of redemption that we have in Scripture okay so just because someone holds a different millennial position than you do you know that doesn't mean he's a liberal good I mean he could be but not by virtue of being a millennial or post millennial okay there are lots of faithful Christian brothers and sisters who are all mill and post mill which by the way brings me to two another thing that you'll notice not immediately but as we get into the later parts of the syllabus after prologue Aminah you'll find that I've begun to bring in quotations from outside of our immediate or speak for myself my immediate tradition meaning the reformed tradition the reformed Calvinistic tradition because in the area of biblio and theology proper we have a great deal in common with the Armenian tradition for instance and last week when I was going over the doctrine the Trinity I had a bunch of theology books open on my desk and I had you know the Calvinists on this side and the Armenians on this side you know although it's probably wrong I put the Armenians on the right I'm not sure I should have done that but anyhow I've got the you know the some of the stalwarts of the reformed tradition over here from long ago and from now going back to shed and of course my mind goes blank when I try to remember them but as far back as shed and Dabney you know the mid to late 19th century and then up to some of the great reformed Presbyterian Calvinistic theologians of our day like John frame and Robert Raymond guys like that and I had grudem there and then over here I had some of the great classical Armenians like Richard Watson British Methodists of the mid 19th century Thomas Oden a guy from our generation while out at least our day John Miley Miley and Wiley write the two theologians that you should think of when you think of the Armenian tradition John Miley and and J Orton Wiley and you know the best quote on the Trinity that I got from that you know half day or one day sweep through these theology books the best quote that I got I put it in the syllabus was from the one of the Armenian guys junior Dan Wiley it was just a great quote and so we have a lot in common with those guys and so I've tried to make sure to to represent some of those because they're brothers and they have contributed significantly to the advancement of the gospel in various eras of recent history so anyway because they're Arminian and I disagree with them on key areas of soteriology and a little bit in theology proper I'm not going to vilify them as liberal because they're not okay all right any questions about what we mean by liberalism that's one traditional take by traditional I'm talking about the last few hundred years because what I'm doing is I'm setting up a contrast between traditional ways of doing theology and postmodern theology the second one that I'm looking at is the reformed I don't know what to call this it's it's not the reformed scholastic tradition because that's a specific term for a specific group of theologians who were the descendants of Calvin and lived in the 18th into the 19th century they're the reformed scholastics so I don't want to limit it to that but this is a part of the reformed tradition definitely and it's the more scholastic end of the reformed tradition so I have reformed / scholastic tradition which isn't very elegant but hey it's seminary it doesn't have to be elegant right in this tradition and this is this is one we're all familiar with I mean we're a part of this tradition most of us in this room I think or I have at least been adopted into it in in you know the last twelve years or so in the reformed scholastic tradition scripture is a systematic revelation of God to humankind it's God's revelation of himself for us to interpret into a systematic expression of its propositional content in the 20th century you had the battle especially the early 20s early to mid 20th century the battle for propositional revelation you may have heard the buzzword propositional revelation and this or that guy is a modernist because he denies propositional revelation Carl Henry wrote some wonderful things that in God revelation and authority on the topic of propositional revelation okay God revealed himself in Scripture and that is a propositional revelation this this tradition goes further to say that not only is it a propositional revelation it is systematic that scripture is in agreement with itself that it is holistically in agreement and therefore we should be seeking the system okay and establishing the the system and so the way we go about doing that is and see I'm behind already there's an emphasis on propositional content and systematic intent okay so theology becomes the science of God that was on the first slide a guy with the microscope the tradition at times has treated the scriptures or God as being on the on the glass slide under the microscope it's that the theology is the science of God and we proceed systematically and procedurally methodically and if you up if you follow this procedure then the result of it will be a right interpretation of Scripture that yields a systematic doctrinal formulation and as I said before it seems kind of like the tendency can be to to be working toward the perfect systematic theology that will one day take the place the Bible let's be careful in this tradition we also have the division between natural and revealed theology and see this is why I it's kind of hard to know what to call this tradition because there actually are minions in this tradition you read the particularly the Great British Methodists of the of the 19th century that mid 19th century in particular and late 19th century and you'll see that the they had this division in their theology as well natural verses revealed theology natural theology is that which can be reasoned about God from nature and logic so natural theology is a truth that we can arrive at without the aid of special revelation simply by the proper exercise of our rational faculties in the world that God has created we can reason out certain things about God and then of course revealed theology would be that which is known about God only by scriptural teaching and here's where we begin to see post-modernism objection or this is one place how can you expect to come to truth about God apart from revelation that is thinking that that's where you're expecting that there are non theological truths that undergird theological truths you follow that the assumption seems to be that there are non theological truths that undergird theological truths that somehow theistic or Christian theistic thinking is grounded in secular thinking and that's really what it becomes or what it could become we'll see that in just a minute as we look at post-modernism subjection to to this stream of the tradition I've got some examples from from theologians in this tradition in your syllabus to kind of flesh out or give you examples of this idea in sheds theology he says theology is a science that is concerned with both the infinite and the finite with both God and the universe so that was his way of saying that theology is the queen of Sciences augustus hopkins strong Fiala g is the science of God and of the relations between God and the universe my favorite one is Lewis Lewis Sperry chafer he's my favorite one systematic theology made to may be defined as the collecting scientifically arranging comparing and exhibiting of butterflies I mean it sounds like a bug collection doesn't it right up until that point collecting scientifically arranging comparing and exhibiting and then he goes on to say defending of all facts from any and every source concerning God in his works you see that implication of natural vs. revealed theology systematic theology means you take all the facts and they're there there are some very important presuppositions in his mind when he uses the word facts in that sentence okay all facts from any and every source not just scripture but philosophy and science logic ok there are other sources grudem I like grudem's of all those in this tradition his is the one that's most scripture centered I think systematic theology is any study that answers the question what does the whole Bible teach us today about any given topic and then he goes on with that scientific understanding in order to do that you have to collect and understand all the relevant passages on various topics and so again you have that the scientific mentality that you're collecting and organizing and exhibiting so that's what I'm calling a reformed / scholastic tradition now I don't have nearly as many disagreements with that way of doing theology that approach to theology as I do with the first one we talked about so I'm not putting them both in the same kind of putting them both in the same trash bag and throwing them out at the same time it's not what I'm doing it's I hope you see that but these two together represent a perspective on theology that post-modernism reacts against okay both classical liberalism and what I'm calling the reformed and the Reformation and scholastic tradition they are both what post-modernism would consider modernistic ways of doing theology they treat they treat theology as a science to be pursued rather than what post-modernism is interested in okay so that sets sets the one end of the spectrum so let's look now at how postmodern post-modernism has reacted to this are there any questions so far don't be afraid to raise your hand to interrupt okay postmodern theology what I'm going to do first of all is give you their broadest objections okay post-modernism is broad objections and I'm going to show you how those have become embodied in two different movements post liberalism and post conservatism which are not terribly distinct that I think it's probably a continuum but first of all we get we're going to begin with the broader objections of postmodern thinking okay first of all postmodern theological scholarship objects to the emphasis on doctrine as systematic and timeless systematic and timeless those are not words that in general you'll find postmodern thinkers to be friendly with McLaren in particular hates the idea that that anybody would think that there is such a thing as timeless truth and there's a you know there's there's a there's a kernel of truth timeless truth in his objection there is a kernel of truth there and we'll talk about that but in general what he does he uses that objection to sort of sweep away the entire Reformation tradition yeah right and you know the goofiest thing is he's very happy about that he's very happy to say of course you know that I'm I don't know exactly how he says it but I'm on the journey to you can't take what I say too seriously because what I say is going to be superseded anyway you know read generous orthodoxy by McLaren and you'll see there that in in the first chapter he it's almost as if he's trying to persuade you not to read the book and for me it almost worked you know if I hadn't assigned it to some THM students or doctoral students whatever I might have just put the book down at the end of chapter zero he actually has chapter zero in that book generous orthodoxy and it's in that chapter he says listen I don't know maybe you shouldn't read this thing after all and then the rest of the book sort of goes downhill from there but that's another that's another discussion okay why why do they object to systematic timeless truth well because claims to timeless truth claims to a systematic systematic theology as revealed in Scripture have often been under girded with a foundationalist epistemology epistemological foundationalism is a construction of the Enlightenment era it's modernism in full bloom and it has been discredited philosophically the philosophical community those who do epistemology for a living if you can imagine such a thing they they all understand that that enlightenment era foundationalism is passe well let's talk about that for a minute what is what is foundationalism and why is it so horrible foundationalism is is the is the the philosophical whipping-boy of post-modernism and of course it's associated with Rene Descartes who is the the father of foundationalism and when we talk about the strong kind of foundationalism or the might say the more extreme forms of foundationalism that's called cartesian foundationalism named after descartes and i think therefore I am cogito ergo soom is the famous line by Descartes that was the rock bottom when he finally reached the bottom that was the one thing that he couldn't doubt and so that was the first indubitable statement the first timeless truth if I'm thinking I must be existing will not debate the philosophical merits of that right now but that's that's sort of the quintessential foundationalism and the idea behind it was if if I exercise my powers of reason I can drill down I can I can adopt this this method of doubt where I try to doubt everything that I can until I reach a foundation until I reach the bottom and there's there's something that I can't doubt and then I can build up from there and pretty soon I can build I can build an edifice of truth that is indubitable that means you can't doubt it and therefore the goal was absolute certainty I can have certainty in my truth claims and here's the key apart from divine revelation okay so human reason can attain to truth that carries with it a claim of absolute certainty absolute certainty meaning there's no possible way to doubt postmodern post-modernism as it has begun to influence evangelicalism has raised some of the same objections listen they say this is a discredited philosophy Cartesian foundationalism is dead and so they begin to doubt the entire theological enterprise as it's represented in actually much of church history but especially the last few hundred years so foundationalism there there's a book that is one of the key sources on post conservatism which is a sort of a moderate influx of postmodern thinking into evangelical theology and the book is called beyond foundationalism beyond foundationalism by stanley Grenn's and john frankie and the idea is we've got to get beyond beyond the modern era we've got to get beyond the Enlightenment era because it it was an idolatrous philosophy that said the human reason can attain to truth by itself okay so first main objection is foundationalism foundationalism is dead and foundationalism undergirds the entire theological project of the Enlightenment era right down through the Reformation tradition to today secondly there's no all-encompassing meta-narrative for God's relationship with human beings all doctrine is community oriented and therefore designed to serve the needs of that group of people if you've studied post-modernism at all speaking of secular postmodern thinking you will have heard the the famous statement by one of the key French post modernists that post-modernism is incredulity toward meta-narrative incredulity toward meta-narrative that's the idea that you can't from one perspective explain all of reality okay there's no overarching meta narrative that explains it all and especially that is authoritative for all well when that idea becomes a theological one particularly in evangelical theology then you hear people talking about how the Christians story has been embodied in many different communities the Christian story has has been embodied in different cultures at different times in different parts of the world and so we should expect that from community to community there's variation in what people believe in how people are Christian and of course this is where the the charge of relativism tends to arise because if there's if if there is no timeless truth if there's no one way of telling the story then we should expect that there will be all sorts of differences in Christian doctrine over the span of time and culture now the objection that there is no systematic timeless truth I said there is a kernel of truth in that objection here's what I mean by that it is true that all all truth all formulations of doctrine all truth claims arise in a particular situation okay when I formulate doctrine I am doing so as the person that I am with the background that I've grown up with the particular kind of training that I have okay having grown up in the culture that I did so there is a sense in which all formulations are situated in the term situated they all have a situation that's true but that doesn't mean that there is no overarching standard by which we judge the truth of those those things okay but we need to grapple with that that's important in particularly in the subject of hermeneutics with the grapple with fact that we do have a pre understanding of some kind that pre understanding affects the way we approach the text and part of our pre understanding is formulated by the the kind of theology that we subscribe to and that's something we have to think about that's something we have to be aware of that doesn't mean that that you know significantly different interpretations can both be true but it does mean that we have to think carefully about what our presuppositions are and how how they're affecting our interpretations and our doctrinal formulations okay so the first main point to be made is that post-modernism objects to systematic timeless truth on the basis of their rejection of foundationalism and the idea of a meta-narrative now let's look at a little a little more specifically how that's become embodied how that's been applied in the orbit of evangelicalism okay and you know don't don't let your blood pressure get too high over the fact that I'm calling these guys evangelicals okay evangelicalism is now a broad tent there's nothing that I can do about it there's nothing that you can do about it that's simply what the term means now and hey words change over time there was a I keep forgetting to look at this website there's a there was this document that was written a year or so ago called evangelical manifesto where there were a number of evangelicals who wanted to take back the term to take back the term evangelical and I read the manifesto and it wasn't bad number of good people were signing it I'm somewhat pessimistic about the idea of reversing you know semantic drift that has taken place over time words change in meaning and they do so because culture brings that about and there's nothing sinful about that that's just the way it is so unfortunately I have to admit that these guys are now within the evangelical category some of them okay we're gonna look at post liberalism and post conservatism post liberalism and post conservatism okay post liberalism I've given you a few examples this is there's no slide for this sometimes post liberalism is called the Yale school and I am summarizing in one phrase post liberalism as liberalism beyond existentialism I'll tell you what I mean by that liberalism beyond existentialism first of all let me make this point post we live in a world of posts okay you may have realized that by now post-modernism post conservatism post liberalism post colonialism post propositional ism I mean there's a post for everything posed in this usage does not mean anti okay post does not mean anti it means beyond beyond in a couple of senses it means beyond as in after in time post liberalism follows liberalism in time but also it's a conceptual advancement post liberalism does not reject everything that liberalism was okay so post liberalism is not anti liberalism and that's why it's in it it's important to apply this to post conservatism post conservatism does not mean anti conservatism post conservatives are trying to move beyond simple conservatism in various ways depending on who you're talking about okay and some of them are more post conservative than others so post does not mean anti it means beyond so post liberalism is liberalism beyond existentialism you remember I defined liberalism or I described liberalism's goal as giving an account of mankind's religious experience liberalism had an existentialist bent looking at the individual the individuals experience of the divine okay it was existentialist and you look at many of the late 19th century liberal liberals into the early to mid 20th century and you see a lot of philosophical existentialism there okay post liberalism is is liberalism beyond existentialism they've moved beyond existentialism to to embrace the community not just the individual so where classical liberalism focused on the the individuals religious experience post liberalism focuses on the community's religious experience now I'm pretty sure that many post liberals would not say it that way but when you read to read their literature you can see that relationship and it's becoming more and more evident as time goes by that post liberalism is really just liberalism in in postmodern dress its liberalism from a postmodern philosophical point of view again louder please yes yes right wow you you're still waiting for me to to close the loop on that thank you the third image on that first slide there was the scientist the psychologist and then the group there was the huddle and that's where we are now post liberalism and and to a degree post conservatism as well because that's post-postmodern theologies our postmodern thinking focuses very much on the group on the end of it on the the community yeah good question I've given you some of the literature post liberalism tends to look back to 1974 and hunts Frye hunts fries book the Eclipse of biblical narrative and then his student George Lynn Beck wrote a book ten years later called the nature of doctrine that really is highly influential that is a seminal book in postmodern evangelical theology even post conservatives appeal to Lynn Beck's analysis of the nature of doctrine okay so how does post liberalism view theology post liberalism and I love this this is George Lynn Beck I should have cited that on the slide I apologize communally a communally authoritative rules of discourse attitude and action that's that's doctrine under George Lynn Beck's view this is the post liberal and a lot of people appeal to this definition communally authoritative rules of discourse attitude and action now that those first two words should make you stop and think communally authoritative rules of discourse the way you talk attitude the way think action the way you live now these rules are formulated by the community based on their traditions in the Christian community our traditions tend to be dominated by the Scriptures so the traditions on which the community basis its formulations of doctrine include the scripture in post liberal thinking but it's not just the scripture it's also the way we've always done it okay well we'll develop that more under post conservatism too where they bring in the the work of the holy spirit and because they are communally authoritative rules the rules are thought are are authoritative for that community and again this is where that source of that's where that that charge of relativism tends to arise you say well how do you recognize it as Christian I mean couldn't one community could you know say that Satan is God and call that Christianity the answer is no it doesn't work that way communities don't work that way communities are generally self policing self managing entities Wikipedia right that's a very postmodern idea but it is an interesting study in the self-policing nature of communities it police's itself a little better in some ways than others doesn't it don't get me started on Wikipedia right yes it does yeah and the Christian community has an agenda okay which would be the advancement of the way of Christ whether you know the gospel the post liberals would say it somewhat differently okay so communally authoritative rules of discourse attitude and action and they do police themselves fairly well in my class this semester on theological method were reading a paper that was given by Tony Jones who has won a key post liberal of our day one of Brian MacLaren's buddies and the former director of emergent village and his his paper at the Wheaton theology conference last year he was like two years ago was on this this idea of community generated doctrine and the the main message of his paper which was on orthodoxy was that orthodoxy happens orthodoxy is not a static body of propositions floating out there somewhere in history or in the ether but orthodoxy is a living breathing thing and orthodoxy is happening in the Christian community and he uses the most fascinating analogy and that is the the strike zone in Major League Baseball now the strike zone in Major League Baseball is very very specifically defined in the rulebook I'm not a big baseball fan so I can't I can't quote it for you from the rulebook but he quotes it in his paper okay the strike zone is very clearly and specifically defined however in actual practice the strike zone has moved hasn't it those of you who are baseball fans out there nod your head you know don't you the strike zone has shifted in actual practice and and it not shifted just once it floats a little bit depending on the the whose Commissioner that year who's you know over the the League of umpires whatever that's called the actual practice of the umpires themselves okay it depends on various things but the strike zone never goes all the way to the shoelaces or all the way to the eyebrows right the strike zone always floats just a little bit up and a little bit in and out he says that's a good example of Christian orthodoxy over time and culture it has floated a little bit but that's because it is meeting the needs of truth is meeting the needs of the community let you chew on that one for a while but that is a classic example of this idea communally authoritative rules of discourse attitude in action see the rulebook has not changed major league rulebook still says the same thing that it always has that just like the Bible all right how does post liberalism view traditional conservative theology the the term that George Lynn Beck uses is cognitive propositional list so the emphasis is on thinking and on stating things in propositions and he says this is a wrongheaded way of looking at scripture because it's thing it assumes that scripture is nothing but propositions the scripture is nothing but propositions that it's something to be investigated and understood like a scientific object like a dead insect so this idea seems static but the Christian faith is a living thing and the Christian community is a living breathing organism right I mean the biblical name analogy is that of a body which is a living growing changing thing so post liberalism looks at traditional theology in the in the vein of the you know the Reformation tradition or that reformed scholastic tradition that I was describing and this says that is a that's a dead cold way of looking at theology and looking at the Christian faith yes there are propositions in Scripture but scripture is not just a book of propositions on the other hand they look at traditional liberal theology and they see they see a low view of scripture that is just human documents that the documents of scripture just describe personal experiences with God and that there's no sense of the community there and Linda causes the experiential expressive istil and there's no sense of community there's no sense of organism like the living breathing community of faith that's a quick and inadequate overview of post liberalism but that gives you it gives you some of the main lines of distinction for post liberal thinking yeah Justin a little louder please I'm sorry is this a principle of like the community of faith mankind kind of thing is that relate at all to like maybe a more Eastern Way of thinking how people talk about how like in a lot of Eastern countries like even learning is more communal whereas in North America it's about you and it's individual kind of thing is that related at all um I can't I can't define the relationship there maybe I'm not sure which is the chicken and the egg or exactly how they're related but the the you'll find in post liberal writing a much friendlier attitude to Eastern ways of thinking they'll say that Christianity has been heavily westernized and and and so yes the sense of community communal learning I've seen that and but I can't recall off the top of my head where I saw that in post liberal writing yes that's one of the main claims of postmodern theologies in general is that Christianity has become violently westernized and we need to get back more to our Eastern roots and you'll see that's why you see the number of people that will convert that are converting back to Eastern Orthodoxy that's not quite as far east as what you're talking about but it represents a tradition that contains a lot of that mysticism that that I think you have in mind when you ask the question yeah yeah I met a lady in March of this year when I was at a meeting of evangelical theologians who are doing work on the topic of worship theology of worship and various aspects of worship and I met a lady there who is a worship theologian who is at the time was in the process of converting to Eastern Orthodoxy the Antioch II and Orthodox Church I think is what it was you know stuff blue see Mike he first read those page he's totally converted to Eastern Orthodox and I thought that was very strange yeah makes more sense now yeah it seemed like totally out of left field cuz we're very conservative Church and you know I don't know I haven't talked to it all but it seems really strange to me yeah there's there's quite a quite a stream of especially former conservative evangelicals who are making that move for for a variety of reasons some of which I think are rooted in postmodern thinking yeah and it's a in I think in most cases it's a wild overreaction without careful theological thinking yeah anyway so we we turn the page from postmodern or post liberalism to post conservatism again a species of the influence of postmodern thinking into evangelical theology these days samples of the literature you read a couple of them since Tuesday the articles by Roger Olsen who by the way released a book last year called how to be evangelical without being conservative did I tell you about that on Tuesday yeah I got the book and I'm really looking forward to reading it how to be evangelical without being conservative or how to be evangelical but not conservative something like that and he is one of the leading post conservatives that I believe is still within evangelicalism the way that I would like to define it one of Roger Olsen's best strengths is his skill as a historian particularly a recent historian and that's why had you read those articles on post conservatism and particularly the second one on how Clark Pinnick embodies certain aspects of that I've already mentioned beyond foundationalism by grenzen Frankie and then Stanley grins also wrote revision evangelical theology and renewing the center two books that have also been very influential as a matter of fact a group of conservatives got together in the in 2001 I believe and wrote a response to his proposals and it's called reclaiming the center and that's an excellent book excellent collection of essays okay what do we what are we talking about when we talk about post conservatism the problem is it's really nebulous it's hard to define it's kind of cloudy however we can make these these statements about it it's not liberal it's not theological liberalism as much as you might be tempted to say he's going liberal I believe in most cases that that wouldn't be accurate it's not theological liberalism it's not fundamentalism as a matter of fact it's anti fundamentalist Roger Olson in particular draws that distinction early on in his move to post conservatism in the mid 90s I believe drew a distinction between evangelical and fundamentalist said I'm going evangelical but not fundamentalist and I think that you can trace that back further that's rooted in Carl Henry and others of his day his heyday who wanted to draw that distinction between fundamentalism and the cultural militancy that it represented to an evangelical ISM that was a little more centrist a little more culturally active and that that's why I gave you the reference to Carl Henry's book called the uneasy conscience of modern fundamentalism so it's not fundamentalist it's anti fundamentalist yeah yeah it's ten years and the reason I had the reason I had you read them both is because in the Festschrift for pinic he's actually writing against the background of his earlier article from 1995 so he's saying I'm gonna give you an update on what I wrote ten years ago that does interesting in the first article he gave kind of a list of warnings there at the end yes post conservatives but then it seemed like by that other article it seemed like he had kind of thrown his lot in with post conserva and he wasn't really mentioning any yeah yeah he has I haven't read everything that he's written but he has gotten less prescriptive and more descriptive in those kinds of things that he's written yeah he's written I really like his writing he's written a really good book on Arminian theology that came out last year also called Arminian theology and it's really helpful yeah yeah as a matter of fact you probably should read the book because I would be willing to bet that if there are 45 guys in here that there are at least 35 of you that have pretty serious misconceptions about classical arminianism so it would be good to learn it from the from the horse's mouth hear it from the horse's mouth so to speak okay so it's not liberal it's anti fundamentalist and yet it's not doctrinally conservative it's evangelical post conservatism evangelical but not doctrinally conservative Olson in a in that Christian century article you remember he gave those for descriptions those four basic principles that all evangelicals live by including post conservatives and it's the idea of activism sharing your faith faith biblical is the authority cruces centrism that the the center of what we believe is the cross and what's the other one conversion is omit there's a focus on the new birth that you convert to Christianity okay so and and they believe in those things and those are legitimate claims on his part but at the same time they would ascribe to those four principles but at the same time they would say we're not about defending historic orthodoxy we're not about rooting out doctrinal error and that's what we'll see in a minute at this the focus on a center rather than on boundaries they're focusing on the center on what we have in common as opposed to what we don't have in common what we disagree about okay so it's not primarily a doctrinal movement and grens a statement because evangelicalism is not primarily constituted by a body beliefs the evangelical ethos is more readily sensed than described theologically gives rise to a number of interesting questions how do you know that your evangelical I sense it I feel it well how do I know how you feel you'll have to describe it for me so it's a it's a rather nebulous concept but hey it's it's got a strong flavor of post-modernism so that shouldn't be too surprising okay that's a basic description of post conservatism now methodological distinctives I just said based on what we saw there it is focused on a center rather than on boundaries they they want to get down to the least common denominator it's interesting to hear guys like this talk I was at a I was a regional ETS a few years ago where a guy was presenting a paper on this concept that we need to stop being as evangelicals we should stop making it our goal to draw lines you know and and making judgments about who's on which side of the line who's in and who's out we should focus on the center draw people toward the center what the basic things that we have in common and that's what defines evangelicalism and the obvious question then is what where's the center don't you have to define what the center is and once you've defined the center haven't you by virtue of having done that excluded someone of course you have you've drawn a line al Mohler wrote an essay in a book called hold on is coming the book is called a confessing theology for postmodern times a confessing theology for postmodern times the essay in there is called a center without a circumference and and he makes that point really well in that essay that you can't have a center unless you have a circle right how can you talk about a center if you don't have a circle

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Length: 71min 26sec (4286 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 28 2012