John Cobb discusses ‘liberal theology’ as a mindset rather than a particular set of conclusions. If being liberal means taking up this mindset then I am pretty liberal while sharing a number of the criticisms Niebuhr and others have made. What do you think of this definition as a mind set? I think it avoids something that can be easily demonized and pushed aside, while also not being tied to a particular theological vision.
… liberalism … just an openness to new thoughts? … just a willingness to learn?
well, I’m open to new thoughts, willing to learn … and ready to think analytically and highly critical: which kills a lot of new thoughts as ‘nothing new under the sun’-stuff, just wrapped in new-ish rags and utopist’s pipedreams.
At the first glance your website gave me the impression that it stands close to religious pluralism and relativism, in parts at least: people who believe they have overcome dogmatic thinking – but if you look closely: stick to just another set of dogmata.
Usually these guys end up with a pitted sort of Christianity: Jesus has ceased to be man and God, and Jesus as Christ is no longer crucial for our reconciliation with God.
New thoughts? Not at all. Just their reasoning sounds a little new (which usually abandons reason along the way: contradictory truth claims, logically exclusive, will be overcome through the mystical approach. [sad to say: also true for Richard Rohr; my heart aches by stating this, because I really loved some of the things he said and wrote, and I like that guy]
So if the ‘historical-critical method’ with it’s good questions but uncritically applied ‘criteria’ bodes well with you, also their deistic presuppositions, if this is ‘new thoughts’ to you and ‘willing to learn’ for you, then you’ve managed the first step into liberalism.
But it doesn’t stop there:
If the world religions are more or less equally valid messages about the transcendent, even though they decribe the world in each other excluding ways. If you don’t mind because all those diverging decriptions of the nature of the world (Christianity: God’s creation; Buddhism: an Illusion), the nature of man (Christianity: build after the image of God, made for eternal community; Buddhism: no soul, just a fluent entity which has to return into ‘nothingness’: becoming a mere possibility, indistincive in the ocean of ‘nothingness’), …. if you don’t mind, because all those diverging truth claims are reconciled by ‘mystical thinking’, then you’ve managed the second step.
But don’t rest, move on with your new found mindset:
The practical application – a third step, if you will – will then be a ‘brave new world’-utopianism, accompanied by ‘social engineering’ of the new man for a new mankind: in equality, social justice, peace on earth and peace with the nature!
… that much of it comes down to the ordinary socialist mindset with it’s Christian roots but Antichristian disposition makes it sound a little trivial. And: can’t be reckoned under ‘willingness to learn’; I’d rather call it UNwillingness to to learn crucial lessons from history.
(usually accompanied by an unwillingness to learn Economics 101; Thomas Sowell would be a good start; Ludwig von Mises on Socialism: excellent; free pdf on the web; with an Antichristian edge though.)
David, with another mindset,obviously; but willing to learn … and to discern.
David, I think you have misread me at least. John Cob and I NO deists. I would rather be an atheist than a deist. I have a rather high Christology, a robust eschatology, and both are centered on God’s reconciling work in Christ. The spirit of liberalism isn’t antithetical to these doctrines. I would suggest Wolfhart Pannenberg’s “Jesus – God and Man” as an example of a Christology that is thoroughly engaged in historical criticism and committed to articulating Christology. Cobb has in fact written an award winning book on economics called “For the Common Good” where develops an ecologically sustainable theory of economy and community.
Tripp, I was not talking about you or Cob. I was talking about liberalism in theology. Higher Criticism IS deistic in it’s presuppositions, even if the scholar who does the research prays at home (Bultmann did, even in front of his university students!). Praying doesn’t do much for a staunch deist, does it?
And Pannenberg: As true for many German theologians, he is living in two worlds: the one is the realm of historical-critical research, and for his faith and his SystematicTheology, he is living as if he reads the bible like Luther did, by and large at least. This is prevalent, but inconsistent.
If you use comments written by liberal scholars, keep these two questions in mind: 1. what are his presuppositions? 2. How did he substantiate and gauge the criteria he uses in order to determine the historicity of a text and it’s becoming?
… there’s more to say, and if you agree, I’ll continue …
David
I would be more harsh and say the historical-critical method is atheistic or agnostic at best. When the God one seeks to affirm is the one who comes to us, making New Creation a present and future reality, then this God can’t be established by examining a text through a lens that is thoroughly a construct of ‘old’ creation. That said I don’t think the church can go back to doing theology as if the historical critical method (and the larger world view shift that occasioned it) didn’t occur. Knowing, engaging, but not being defined by the HCM seems to be the (or at least a) way forward.
Thanks for the convo.
(…”If you use comments written…” … it’s commentaries; is it possible for you to get that right?)
I don’t know about atheists or even agnostics among the Historical Critical Scholars I’ve heard of. Their ‘research’ produced some atheistic or agnostic pastors: that’s what I could state positively; but their starting point, for those I could think of at least, is ‘God as watchmaker’, the rest follows his natural laws: no miracles, no wonders whatsoever.
And I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater: there is genuine scholarship and real knowledge among their ‘findings’. Just keep those two questions in mind.
… but there is also the link to religious pluralism or religious relativism, represented by Richard Rohr, for instance, (and Brian McLaren seems to represent a ‘evangelical derivate’ of that stuff), and there is a link to the HCM (probably not in the case of McLaren)
… and it has been already in place at the time and in case of Wilhelm Bousset [1865-1920], (‘discovering’ Brazilian religious cults for himself, if I recollect it rightly)
I’m going to comment on this one, making use of your interview with Father Richard … if you agree, but not this time.
David