Comments on: Church and Postmodern Culture

By: christopher

christopher — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 13:55:10 +0000

i think i agree with you. There are some “principles” that are unchanging within Christian theology/orthodoxy. The problem is that the application of such does change and clouds the water (so to speak). i like that Hauerwas quote, especially when taken into context.
With my disagreement, i don’t think i disagree with S.A.. It’s just that i like to acknowledge its historical context, which many who champion it as the “only true theology” fail to notice. We’re never going to “figure God out”–that’s an impossibility because of our limited/finite/fallen/whatever nature. But, through conversation, we may gain different perspectives that are helpful (if not outright nicer/cleaner). Of course, that doesn’t mean we won’t run into crap as well.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 21:40:30 +0000

Thank you for the clarification. I think I’m still a little unclear on the fine points of your disagreement, but I’m finding this is the subject of no little debate in contemporary theological circles. There’s a particularly fiery post about this here which has a line even I can agree with: “Stanley Hauerwas says, “If you need a theory to worship Christ, worship your f—ing theory!””
And believe it or not, I’m completely on board with your comment that theology is an open-ended set of beliefs, if within that comment is an understanding of certain immutable principles. We might disagree (as we have before) on which principles, but if we can agree that G-d is infinite, and the Creator responsible for the complexity with which we deal with around us, then it follows that our relationship with Him is necessarily complex, perhaps infinitely so, and that no one man’s (or two millenia’s worth of men’s) thinking about that relationship is going to be a complete understanding.

By: christopher

christopher — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 17:32:52 +0000

Well, it’s not that S.A. is a false construct, it’s just that it’s not the “original” message. It has a level of historicity to it. i’m not against changes in theology (such as S.A. was at it’s time). It is, though, that i see “tradition” as being a major source of our theology, even if Protestants claim otherwise. It is through tradition that we understand Scripture, and by saying that, i am implying that theology is still an open-ended set of beliefs, which is something many in the Reformed tradition claim to be wrong.
With the atonement, before Anselm the belief was less of a legal transation model and more of a sacrificial model. Jesus’ death wasn’t one to fulfill any kind of legal transaction (the God-as-Judge-and-Jury type of analogy) or even to pay for our sins (mainly the concept of imputed righteousness), but as a way of changing God’s view of the believer (mainly the concept of infused righteousness). But, i think this distinction is more hair-splitting than necessary. Just because something isn’t what was originally believed (e.g. Substitutionary Atonement, Premillenialism, etc) doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. It just means that it wasn’t thought of before.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 03:21:47 +0000

It looks like this guy is definitly in line with your belief that substitutionary atonement is a false construct. I’m curious then, if Jesus’ death was not for the purpose of saving us all from damnation, what was it for? Is it some postmodern tragedy (don’t hate me for using that word) where the suffering is pointless? What then is the meaning of 1 Peter 2:24?