Bird Evangelical Theology

Why and Evangelical Theology

I am referring to a historic and global phenomenon that seeks to achieve renewal in Christian churches by bringing the church into conformity to the gospel and by promoting the gospel in the mission of the church. -19 -Evagnelicalism

“Bebbington Quadrilateral”: - 20

• conversionism, the belief that human beings need to be converted to faith in Jesus Christ

• activism, the belief that the gospel needs to be proclaimed to others and expressed in a commitment to service

• biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible as inspired and authoritative

• crucicentrism, a focus on the atoning work of Christ on the cross

Another summary of the cardinal points of evangelicalism is given by Alister McGrath: -20

• the supreme authority of Scripture for knowledge of God and as guide to Christian living

• the majesty of Jesus Christ as incarnate God and Lord, and the Savior of sinful humanity

• the lordship of the Holy Spirit

• the need for personal conversion

• the priority of evangelism for both individual Christians and for the church as a whole

• the importance of Christian community for spiritual nourishment, fellowship, and growth

“People suck, they suck in sin, they are suckness unto death. And the God who is rich in mercy takes the initiative to save people from the penalty, the power, and even the presence of this sin. This is Calvinism, the rest is commentary.” - 23

“Catholicity” signifies the church as the whole people of God, spread out over space, across cultures, and through time. “We believe in one … catholic church.” The evangelical unity of the church is compatible with a catholic diversity. To say that theology must be catholic, then, is to affirm the necessity of involving the whole church in the project of theology. No single denomination “owns” catholicity: catholicity is no more the exclusive domain of the Roman Church than the gospel is the private domain of evangelicals. Catholic and evangelical belong together. To be precise: “catholic” qualifies “evangelical.” The gospel designated a determinate word; catholicity, the scope of its reception. “Evangelical” is the central notion, but “catholic” adds a crucial antireductionist qualifier that prohibits any one reception of the gospel from becoming paramount. 24

According to Baptist theologian Robert Culver, “Christian theology is study or organized treatment of the topic, God, from the standpoint of Christianity.” - 29 ROBERT CULVER - BAPTIST

Pelikan, who regarded theology as, “What the church of Jesus Christ believes, teaches and confesses on the basis of the word of God: this is Christian doctrine.” - 29

But there are at least two key differences that distinguish theology from other intellectual disciplines like philosophy and religion. The first difference is that theology is not the study of ideas about God; it is the study of the living God. Christian theology, then, is different from the study of seventeenth century French literature, ancient Greek religion, and medieval philosophers because the Christian claims that he or she is in personal contact with the subject of study. It is one thing to discuss William Shakespeare in the classroom, but it would be quite another thing to do that if Shakespeare was standing in the classroom with you. Theology, then, is not an objective discipline (i.e., a detached study of an object) like the physical sciences, nor is it a descriptive discipline like the social sciences. Theology is speaking about God while in the very presence of God. We are intimately engaged with the subject of our study. 30 - Beautiful

Second, theology is studied and performed in a community of faith. Theology is something that is learned, lived, sung, preached, and renewed through the dynamic interaction between God and his people. Theology is the conversation that takes place between family members in the household of faith about what it means to behold and believe in God. Theology is the attempt to verbalize and to perform our relationship with God. Theology can be likened to the process of learning to take part in a divinely directed musical called “Godspell.” To do theology is to describe the God who acts, to be acted upon, and to become an actor in the divine drama of God’s plan to repossess the world for himself.

Evangelical theology, then, is the drama of gospelizing. By “gospelizing” I mean trying to become what the gospel intends believers to be: slaves of Christ, vessels of grace, agents of the kingdom, and a people worthy of God’s name. Dedication to the art of gospelizing is crucial because “evangelicals need to recapture a passion for biblical formation: a desire to be formed, reformed and transformed by the truth and power of the gospel -30

To pursue Kevin Vanhoozer’s image, the task of theology is to enable disciples to perform the script of the Scriptures, according to advice of the dramaturge the Holy Spirit, in obedience to the design of the director, Jesus Christ, with the gospel as the theme music, and performed in the theater of the church. The company of the gospel shows what they believe in an open-air performance staged for the benefit of the world. The purpose of gospelizing is to ensure that those who bear Christ’s name walk in Christ’s way. Consequently, theology is the task for disciples of Jesus to begin excavating the manifold truth of the gospel and to start reflecting the spiritual realities that the gospel endeavors to cultivate in their own lives. - 30

§ 1.2 WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING?

The Enlightenment eventually established the intellectual period that is commonly called “Modernity.” We could say that Modernity lasted from the fall of the French Bastille in 1789 to the Fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Modernity had several philosophical characteristics. First, reason itself was viewed as universal and unassailable. Truths ascertained by way of reason—as opposed to beliefs derived from tradition or superstition—were universally and incorrigibly true. - 34

Symbolic of this age is that during the French Revolution, Notre Dame was rechristened as the “temple of reason” and a Parisian courtesan was enthroned as the goddess of reason. God had been displaced by a human-centered reason. Ironically, Christian theology, once queen of the sciences in the great universities of Europe, now struggled to sustain its existence in the wake of criticism and neglect. -35

They also ran the risk that the failings of Modernity with its claim to unbridled access to absolute truth could also become the failings of Christian theology. By showing that the Word of God aligned with “reason,” they were in the end subjecting the Word of God beneath reason. 37 (Hodge and issues with modernist theologies -

But whose “reason” is authoritative in the end? Whose “science” is the benchmark for all truth: an atheist scientist like Richard Dawkins or a theistic scientist like John Polkinghorne? Reason and science are not religiously neutral fields. One can believe in reasonable beliefs and one can believe in scientific pursuits. I only wish to point out that what is considered reasonable and what is considered scientific are debated, constantly in flux, and often freighted with other “Trojan” beliefs

Nonetheless, Barth is clear in his rejection of modernist prolegomena for three reasons.

1. We should not assume that the modernist objection to Christian belief is any more vociferous than pagan critiques of Christianity encountered by the ancient church.

2. The church measures its talk about God by way of reference to divine revelation and not by the standard of “godless reasons.”

3. Prolegomena makes theology hostage to “relevance” and becomes reducible to theological polemics or theological apologetics. Although the conflict of faith and unbelief is significant, theology must be grounded in its own discourse about God. Our response to unbelief is not apologetics but declaring the revelation of God. -38

-Fair points - I believe in divine revelation over rational truth - or human’s ability to find truth on thier own.

Triune God as the God who speaks). Winfried Corduan aptly summarizes Barth: “Therefore, prolegomena does not prepare the way for theology but is the first part of theology itself. It does not lay the groundwork for content: it already consists of content. Prolegomena, for Barth, describes the initial contact of God with man.” -38 (is this that starting truth - divine revelation has happened and we have to work all of our truth and living off of this divine revelation. (if not true then have it in figuring out your truth).

French philosophers like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida became the philosophical high priests of this new intellectual climate. Foucault argued that all claims to truth were not neutral but were de facto claims to power. Derrida asserted that there is no single interpretation of a text, only interpretations, as one can use a text for anything or one can expose the ideology behind a text. Hence a new and more self-critical rationalism was needed—enter stage left, Postmodernity. -39

McGrath’s project involves identifying nature as a crucial locus for theology; he opts for a “critical realist” approach to epistemology, where we can know an objective reality but never independently of ourselves, and he draws parallels between the pursuit of reality in science and theology. -40

I prefer the Barthian approach of asserting the fact of divine revelation as the counterpoint to unbelief. If prolegomena is concerned with orientating ourselves to the theological task and setting forth the divine revelation, then the primary function of an evangelical prolegomena should be a setting out of the gospel. The gospel explains why we are in the theological race in the first place, and the gospel is the nexus into the reality of the God who has revealed himself.