New issue of JTI and my first published article

The table of contents for the new issue of the Journal of Theological Interpretation is now available online. The issue includes articles by Francis Watson and Richard Hays. But right there in the middle you’ll find an article by one David W. Congdon! It’s my first peer-reviewed publication, and I am very grateful to Shane Berg, NT prof here at PTS, for his invaluable guidance in making this publication possible. (I hadn’t even considered it for publication until he mentioned it one day in the cafeteria.)

Here, then, is the table of contents for the new issue:

• Brent A. Strawn, “Docetism, Käsemann, and Christology: Can Historical Criticism Help Christological Orthodoxy (and Other Theology) After All?” (p. 161)
• Francis Watson, “Scripture in Pauline Theology: How Far Down Does It Go?” (p. 181)
• Richard B. Hays, “Can Narrative Criticism Recover the Theological Unity of Scripture?” (p. 193)
• Patrick J. Willson, “A View from the Retail Market: The Promise of Theological Interpretation of Scripture for Preaching” (p. 213)
• David W. Congdon, “The Trinitarian Shape of πίστις: A Theological Exegesis of Galatians” (p. 231)
• George C. Heider, “Atonement and the Gospels” (p. 259)
• Robert E. Meditz, “Review Article: ‘Too Hard for the Teeth of Time’: Difficulties in Using Scripture in the Church Since the Reformation” (p. 275)
• David Lincicum, “Review Article: Benedict’s Jesus and the Rehabilitation of Christian Figural Reading” (p. 285)
• James R. A. Merrick, “Review Article: Giving God Hermeneutical Glory: Biblical Interpretation as if God Mattered” (p. 293)

A Primer on Missional Theology §1: Exegesis

1. Exegesis and Missional Theology

One of the great developments in recent years is the turn to theological interpretations of Scripture, in part because it seeks to rectify the modern split between systematic theology and biblical studies within the academy. While there are many positive consequences of this development, a key consequence has been, I think, the interest in missional theology. This is because when one looks at Scripture theologically and canonically, beyond the myopia of historical criticism, one sees the mission of God unfolding throughout history. This burgeoning field is called “missional hermeneutics,” which is the missional form of theological exegesis. Many scholars have already examined this field in depth, so I will not rehearse the exegesis here. One of the best efforts is by OT scholar, Christopher J. H. Wright, in his massive work in missional-biblical theology, The Mission of God. Works like Wright’s argue that from beginning to end, Scripture presents a missiological narrative. This mission occurs within the context of God’s covenantal relationship with humanity, beginning with Abraham and continuing through David to Jesus of Nazareth, who is the actualization of God’s mission of reconciliation and the covenant of grace. Jesus fulfills Israel’s call to be a blessing to all nations. In him, the mission of God finds its origin and telos.

Another virtue of missional theology in terms of biblical exegesis is that, unlike other theological frameworks, it highlights rather than ignores the role of Israel in the economy of grace. Israel is not just a sacred bypass on the way to Jesus. On the contrary, Israel’s raison d’être is grounded in God’s mission to the nations. The exodus from Egypt is a liberation from Pharaoh for the purpose of establishing Israel as a royal priesthood among the nations of the world. Israel is liberated by God for the sake of its mission as the covenantal community. The wrath of God is poured out whenever Israel loses sight of its mission and compromises its ability to witness to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The prophetic texts not only call Israel back to this mission, but they also describe the eschatological fulfillment of this mission in passages like Micah 4, in which we read about how all the nations will gather together at Zion in peace and worship.

While Wright focuses his attention on the OT texts in his missional interpretation of Scripture, others focus on the NT, for obvious reasons. Throughout the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus sends his disciples out on missions which correspond and reflect Christ’s own mission to the poor and the weak (cf. Luke 9-11). Jesus begins his ministry in Luke by identifying himself as the fulfillment of Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor . . .” (Luke 4:18ff.). The Synoptics present a Jesus who identifies himself with the hungry and the naked, and who calls his disciples to follow him in faithful obedience by “taking up their crosses” in radical discipleship (cf. Matt. 10:38, 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). Taking up one’s cross thus means living in mission: it is a life in via, a life that follows the way of the cross. And, of course, any account of mission in Scripture has to take account of the so-called “Great Commission” (Matt. 28:19-20), where Jesus sends the church out to baptize the nations. Those who are disciples of Christ are sent out to disciple others. We are called to be “ambassadors for Christ,” as Paul puts it (2 Cor. 5:20), which takes the doxological shape of baptism and eucharist. Most importantly, though, we are called to “love God” and “love others,” including both neighbors and enemies (cf. Matt. 5:44, 22:37-39 and par.). In this twofold commandment of love, the so-called “Jesus Creed,” we find the NT summary of our mission as God’s people.

In recent years, the Gospel of John has become the central text for grounding missional theology. Whereas the “Great Commission” was once the rallying cry for a theology of mission, now missiologists turn to John 20:21, in which Jesus declares, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (cf. John 17:18). The primal mission is therefore the one in which Jesus, the Son of God, is sent by the Father into the world. The Father is identified as the authoritative sender by Jesus himself throughout the gospel of John. The fact that the Father is the sender grants authority to Jesus as the one who reveals the Father and sends the church in his name. The divine mission has its basis in the Father’s missionary will to save the world rather than condemn it (3:17). Jesus, the one sent by the Father, is the one who then acts as sender of the church (cf. 13:20). In correspondence to his own mission, Jesus sends the church “into the world” (17:18). Just as Jesus is the plenipotentiary of the Father in the world, so too the church is the plenipotentiary of Jesus in the world. Jesus is sent in his Father’s name (5:43), while the church is sent in the name of Jesus (14:13, 15:16). Interestingly, Jesus speaks of the church as those “given to him” by the Father (17:2, 11-12), and because they are given to him, Jesus can then send them out as “his own” people, his own flock (10:14).

All of this is only a taste of the missionary material in the Gospels, which is itself only a taste of the missionary material in the rest of the NT. While missional theology finds plenty in the Gospels to exegetically substantiate its claims, no missional theology could possibly ignore the Acts of the Apostles. As the continuation of Luke’s Gospel, Acts narrates the incipient mission of the church. Together, Luke-Acts encapsulates the twin emphases in missional theology: the mission of God in Jesus Christ, and the mission of the church in pentecostal correspondence to Christ’s mission. It is one of the great failures of Jaroslav Pelikan’s commentary on Acts that he entirely ignores mission as a topic of discussion. Remarkably, he disregards Acts 1:8 altogether, which functions as the “thesis” of the book as a whole: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The Pauline and Johannine letters are no less missionary in nature, though to discuss them here would take far more space than we can allow. Suffice it to say that Scripture is a thoroughly missional text. In the narrative of Holy Scripture, we learn that God is a missionary God and the church is properly a missionary church.

[Series introduction and outline]

Five Theological Words I Like and Five I Do Not Like

After D. W. Horstkoetter wrote a list of theological words that annoy him and a list of theological words that he really likes, I was inspired to draft my own similar lists. I have combined both lists together in this post.

Five Theological Words I Like

1. Missional. I firmly believe that theology has to be missional if it is going to be truly theological. Missional theology forces us to rethink all of the doctrinal loci around a center in mission. Missional theology grounds our understanding of the gospel in the triune mission of God (missio Dei)—actualized in the reconciling history of Jesus Christ—and the corresponding mission of the church, which witnesses to God’s reconciliation of the world as the contextual and inculturated community of God. The implications of this position are vast, capable of addressing many, if not all, of the theological debates we currently face today. In my opinion, theology needs to become missional or perish.

2. Apocalyptic. The word “apocalyptic” is perhaps on the verge of becoming a word that annoys people, but I still find it deeply useful and meaningful. The word is often paired with eschatological language, which is certain appropriate. However, the word is often limited in its semantic range to the eschatological future, when it has a wider meaning. The word comes from the Greek word meaning “to reveal,” the basis for our word “revelation.” The “apocalyptic” is a moment of divine revelation, a shattering of the old world and the in-breaking of the new, primarily in the eschatological present but also in the eschatological future—or, rather, the present moment is the in-breaking of the future.

3. Liberation. Here I agree with Horstkoetter in using “liberation.” I am both happy and sad that we have liberation theology: happy because we need to be reminded of the politically radical nature of the gospel, but also sad because they seem to have monopolized the word. Liberation is a far more rich concept than one might suppose from the writings of liberation theologians. I find it very helpful in connecting the Exodus event to the Christ event in the cross and resurrection. We are liberated from sin and death just as Israel was liberated from Pharoah and Egypt. We need to recover and explore the depth of this word.

4. Theological Exegesis. One of the happiest developments in recent theology is the emphasis on the theological interpretation/exegesis of Scripture. The notion of “biblical theology” is really problematic, for two main reasons: (1) it assumes that biblical interpretation forms the foundation for later theological reflection, and (2) it implies that other forms of theology are not necessarily biblical in nature. Theological exegesis, by contrast, understands that our interpretation of Scripture is guided by theological presuppositions. Theological reflection and biblical interpretation both condition and determine each other. While Brevard Childs is to be commended for showing the promise of biblical theology, we have people like Daniel Treier and Kevin Vanhoozer to thank for showing the promise of theological exegesis, but they are only the beginning.

5. Extra nos. Latin for “outside ourselves,” the phrase extra nos gained currency in Barthian circles, specifically in the work of Eberhard Jüngel. The term is used properly to speak of the reality of the gospel which both exists and comes to us from outside ourselves. The reconciliation accomplished in the cross and resurrection of Jesus exists extra nos, and is thus a reality for us independent of our acknowledgment of the event. As a result, we are disrupted by the grace of God which is extra nos, which comes to us as a word of death and new life, a word of interruption and redemption.


Five Theological Words I Do Not Like

1. Perichoresis/Perichoretic. The word “perichoresis” or “perichoretic” is not problematic in itself, but in practice, the word has come to be used (1) as a way of making three divine persons into one deity and (2) as a synonym for “relational.” The most crude form of the first type of thinking is found in Moltmann’s worst book, The Trinity and the Kingdom, where he throws around the word “perichoretic” in ways that are simply unacceptable, using it to do all kinds of theological work which it is not cut out to do. “Perichoresis” needs to be used in an analytic sense—describing the nature of the unity in the Trinity—rather than in a synthetic sense—establishing the unity among the triune persons. The second use of the word is epitomized by the work of Colin Gunton and other social trinitarians. In books like The One, the Three and the Many, he uses perichoresis analogically to describe human relationality: God’s eternal interrelatedness is analogically mapped upon human interrelatedness. Gunton thus defines “perichoretic” as “a dynamism of relatedness.” This kind of language about the Trinity is far too abstract and watered-down. It fails to acknowledge that perichoresis describes a reality proper to God alone.

2. Biblical. Again, I agree with Horstkoetter here. Applying the adjective “biblical” to something is less a mark of theological content than it is a power-play, an attempt to mark something as “right” over against other things that are “wrong.” The word “biblical” becomes a way to discriminate between what a person likes and does not like, regardless of whether it has any relation to Scripture. It’s sort of like the conservative evangelical counterpart to the liberal’s usage of “fundamentalist.”

3. Orthopraxy. How many times do we have to hear people talk about moving past orthodoxy to orthopraxy? I am sick and tired of hearing people blame orthodoxy for the church’s problems and claiming to solve them through orthopraxy. What this basically means in the end is that they want to toss out theology and doctrine in exchange for ecclesial practices and sociopolitical transformation. I heard this kind of talk repeatedly at the Envision Conference, and emergent types love it. If we’re going to use it, then use it in conjunction with orthodoxy, and always be sure to emphasize that “right action” must always correspond with “right belief” and vice versa. The two go together as a dialectical pair, never one to the subjugation of the other.

4. Doxological. Here I have to be careful: doxological is a perfectly good word. But I feel about this word the same way Ben Myers feels about the word “trinitarian”: that more often than not it “has become an obstacle to real theological thinking.” Doxological covers up a lot of bad theological thinking by ushering us all too quickly into the numinous realm of divine worship. In this sense, it functions similarly to “orthopraxy,” which brushes over the dullness of doctrine to get us into the sexiness of praxis. The word “doxological” often seems to sublate all theological thinking into the warm and mysterious embrace of the divine glory and the heavenly liturgy. Such ideas are trascendent in their aesthetic power, but all too often are superficial in their theological reflection. I’m looking at you, Halden—with a smile and a wink, of course.

5. Postmodern/Postmodernism/Postmodernity. Need I say more?

Princeton Theological Review: Theological Exegesis

The latest issue of the Princeton Theological Review is now available online. The spring 2008 issue is on the topic of theological exegesis. It features eight articles, four of them on theological exegesis in general, and four others on the life and legacy of Brevard Childs. You can download the issue here as a .pdf. The table of contents includes:

• Daniel Treier, “In the End, God: The Proper Focus of Theological Exegeis”
• Murray Rae, “On Reading Scripture Theologically”
• Angus Paddison, “Theological Exegesis and John Howard Yoder”
• J. Scott Jackson, “Jesus Christ as Humble Lord: Karl Barth and N.T. Wright on the Philippians ‘Christ Hymn’”
• Dennis T. Olson, “Seeking ‘the Inexpressible Texture of Thy Word’: A Practical Guide to Brevard Childs’ Canonical Approach to Theological Exegesis”
• Richard Schultz, “Brevard S. Childs’ Contribution to Old Testament Interpretation: An Evangelical Appreciation and Assessment”
• Philip Sumpter, “Brevard Childs as Critical and Faithful Exegete”
• Daniel Driver, “Later Childs”

The quality of these articles is very high, making this issue a necessary read for anyone interested in the subject of theological interpretation of Scripture. Treier and Rae provide helpful introductions to the topic, while Paddison engages in a creative dialogue with Yoder. Paddison states, summarizing Yoder’s views:

There is, Yoder notes, a tendency for those with high views of the biblical text to have a low view of what they can learn from re-reading the text. The Bible for Yoder is important for the function it has in churches of discernment and performance, not for any presumed textual properties. Yoder’s motivations here are a combination of his well-advertised suspicion of methodology, a corresponding wariness of overly-wrought hermeneutical models, and a misgiving that talk of hermeneutics often marks little more than the evasion of following Jesus in his ways of non-violence. When one is rooted in a community that reads the canon as authoritative, it simply is not helpful, in Yoder’s view to reflect on why Scripture has authority.

In other words, Yoder refuses to separate the words of the Bible from the work of Jesus and our calling to a life of discipleship. Authority and action, inspiration and mission, go together. Paddison also responds to the criticism that Yoder eschews issues of realism and ontology in exegeting the New Testament. In the last of the four articles on theological exegesis, Jackson examines the respective interpretations of Phil. 2 by Barth and Wright and how that passage informs their christologies.

The four articles on Childs form their own separate section within the journal. They seek to honor the life and work of Childs as a pioneer in the field of theological exegesis. The current interest in this topic can be traced in part to his many writings and his massive interdisciplinary influence in the fields of theology and biblical studies. Dennis Olson, professor of Old Testament at Princeton Seminary, provides an initial introduction to Childs’ work. Schultz, a professor at Wheaton College, approaches his legacy from the perspective of contemporary evangelicalism. Both Olson and Schultz studied under Childs at Yale. Sumpter and Driver are second generation scholars who have been guided in their studies by students of Childs. I should note that Driver is my cousin (by marriage) and his article is the only one to look at the later works of Childs, which are often ignored by contemporary scholarship.

Finally, there are a number of book reviews at the end of the issue. The first one is by yours truly and examines Jaroslav Pelikan’s commentary on Acts, the inaugural book in the Brazos series on the theological exegesis of Scripture. While I respect Pelikan’s work, I have some strong criticisms of this volume. It does no one any good to praise the work simply because of a desire to honor Pelikan after his death, which I suspect is the basis for so many oleaginous reviews.

On a personal note, this was my last issue as co-general editor of the PTR. It was a great end to two years of editorial work on this fine publication. We have left the journal in very capable hands, and I look forward to the fall issue on the life and legacy of T. F. Torrance.

Demythologizing demons

Can we speak today of demons? Do we know what we mean when we use words like “demonic” or “satanic”? What meaning does talk about the demonic still have for us today? More importantly, perhaps, is demon-talk on the same level as God-talk? Would “demythologizing demons” require “demythologizing God”? If not, what makes God-talk so distinct from demon-talk? In a modern, de-spiritualized world, how can such a distinction be communicated with any efficacy?

These are the kinds of questions that concern me. In what follows, I wish to explore some different ways of demythologizing demon-talk. It may be that these are all valid uses of talk about demons. Certainly, they are all species of the same genus—viz. demon-talk as a form of metaphorical speech. In that sense, these are all reinterpretations of the biblical narrative that differ from the tradition.

1. Demons as the reification of humanity’s disordered being (i.e., sinfulness). Sin is the perversion or distortion of humanity, particularly the distortion of human relationality. Luther captured this well when he spoke of humanity being incurvatus in se—curved in upon itself. Demons are the reification of this being-curved-in-upon-oneself. We see an example of this in Matt. 9:32-33 (cf. Luke 11:14):

While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke.

The demon prevents this man from speaking—i.e., from communicating with others. Being incapable of dialogue is a distortion of human relationality, and hence a mark of creation’s bondage to sin. Jesus interrupts this bondage by bringing liberation to this man. The act of exorcism is thus the act of restoring this man to a world of right relations.

2. Demons as the personification of human illness. Most of the passages about demons in the NT are ancient attempts to deal with illnesses that were outside of their experience or knowledge. Mark 7:25 speaks of an “unclean spirit” in a little girl, and when Jesus heals her, the mother finds her “lying on the bed,” healed. There is no indication that the girl displayed the “classic” examples of demon-possession. Rather, she was, by all indications, sick. In a Jewish world, such sickness would be seen as being “unclean,” hence the unclean spirit. A more obvious example is found in Luke 9. There a man calls out to Jesus and says, “A spirit seizes [my son] and he suddenly screams; it throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It scarcely ever leaves him and is destroying him.” This is a common description of demon possession in the NT, and most likely a description of what we would identify today as epilepsy (one symptom of an epileptic seizure is that the person may cry out or make noise in addition to having convulsions). The most famous example of a reified illness in Scripture is the demon-possessed man in Mark 5:1-20 (cf. Luke 8:26-39). Another perfect example of epilepsy is found in Mark 9:17-18: “Whenever [the demon] seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid.”

None of this should surprise us in the least. Throughout history people have ascribed to some supernatural force things that could not be explained based on the knowledge currently available to them. But there is something especially apt about the NT use of demons, because human illnesses are not just medical problems; rather, they represent a broader cosmic Fall, a distortion of creation as a result of sin. The ancient Greek theologians knew this well, and thus they spoke of Christ’s resurrection as a cosmic act of redemption, in which the cosmos is eschatologically restored to its proper wholeness. When we encounter epilepsy, we should be reminded that all is not yet right with the world. Christ came to restore creation from its bondage, and it is perfectly for the Bible to speak of demons as the reification of this bondage.

3. Demons as the reification of systemic evil. One of the insights gained in modern biblical and theological research is that sin is not only personal but systemic. In other words, sin is not only a personal act but also an institutional reality, perpetuated by structures of sin which hold people in bondage against their will. We see this indirectly throughout the NT: in Jesus’ condemnations of the religious leaders (who perpetuate a system of religious fear), in the early church’s opposition to the Roman government (which perpetuates systems of violence and wealth), in Paul’s criticism of the Corinthians (who perpetuate systems of class division and cultural immorality), in the Johannine condemnation of the Roman empire in the Apocalypse (which is the embodiment of all systemic evil, i.e., Babylon).

Demons are a reification and personification of these sinful human structures. In Mark 1:21-28, Jesus encounters a demon-possessed man after teaching in the synagogue for the first time: “Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an unclean spirit cried out.” The demon represents a direct challenge to Jesus’ authority, and in that sense the demon is a personification of the established religious system. In virtually every case, those possessed by demons are (ironically) part of the dispossessed class in Roman society; they are among the poor and the socially excluded. Demon possession is something that marks their exclusion from society. In that case, possession—like the man born blind (John 9:2)—has nothing to do with individual sin but with a corrupt social system.

4. Demons as the literary foil for Jesus’ self-disclosure. Unlike the previous attempts at demythologization, this fourth possibility looks for literary, rather than strictly metaphorical or symbolical, significance. The role of literary foil is common throughout the Bible, and in the NT, demons serve as the foil for Jesus’ own mission of proclamation. For example, in Mark 1, the possessed man declares: “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” This role is particularly emphasized in Mark’s gospel, which presents Jesus as the bearer of a messianic secret that he intends to keep hidden throughout his ministry. The demons are the literary antagonist to Jesus as the mysterious protagonist.

Questions for discussion:
What do you think is the proper role for demon-talk today?
Is there a need for demythologization? Or is such a notion illegitimate?
How do you see demons functioning in the New Testament?