A Guide to Contemporary Faith Wes Campbell, November 2011

1 A Guide to Contemporary Faith Wes Campbell, November 2011 Introduction Our time presents a crisis for Christian faith. In our situation which some describe as ‘post-Christian’ or post-Christendom, the challenge reaches into the heart of faith, challenging God in the name of ‘atheism’1. The crisis produces both pastoral and intellectual challenges, as the Christian community seeks to chart a way in our contemporary world. Often it is suggested that there are but two ways of responding, each offering an extreme position: either, a return to pre-modern (fundamentalist) ways of thinking, or, an unqualified (progressive) acceptance of modernist (or postmodernist) modes of thought. It sometimes seems as if we are being required to choose between two different fundamentalisms. However, as Christians grapple with these challenges, we are faced with an even more fundamental challenge: the challenge of God who speaks to our situation, bringing a crisis which challenges, judges and renews the world2. This paper is a brief response to our contemporary situation. Our main interest is to assist people to hear Jesus Christ’s call to discipleship in the 21st century. Here we will be reminded of the basic commitments made as the Uniting Church was formed. The discussion here will offer some pointers for the task of interpreting and understanding the Christian faith now3. Understanding Christian Faith From the beginning understanding biblical faith has been a controversial and challenging matter. The most obvious reason for this is that faith itself emerged from challenging and controversial circumstances. For example, the faith of Israel has its early origins in the escape of Hebrew slaves from Egypt, led by Moses. Christian faith came about as a response to Jesus of Nazareth, whose ministry produced astonishment and anger, liberation and aggression, culminating in his brutal crucifixion. His appearance as the risen Lord is no less astonishing. A Uniting Church Discussion The Uniting Church in Australia (formed in 1977) has The Basis of Union as its foundational statement which has ongoing significance. This Basis describes the act of uniting as a response to ‘Christ’s gift and will for the Church’ and prays that the union may be ‘to the glory of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’ (para 1). The Basis acknowledges that ‘[t]he Uniting Church in Australia lives and works within the faith and unity of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church’ (para 2) ‘built upon the one Lord Jesus Christ’ (para 3). Biblical Interpretation The Basis of Union explicitly accepts the Old and New Testaments ‘as unique prophetic and apostolic testimony, in which it hears the Word of God’ (para 5), acknowledges ‘faithful and scholarly interpreters of Scripture’, ‘enters into the inheritance of literary, historical and scientific enquiry which has characterised recent centuries, and gives thanks for the knowledge of God’s ways with humanity which are open to an informed faith’ (para 11). The Contemporary Context and Biblical Interpretation The rise of modern society, with its critical science and philosophy, and its industrial-technological systems, has generated a crisis for Christian faith. New astronomy, physics and biological sciences, associated with names like Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin and Einstein, have altered the way we understand and perceive the world. The clearest effect of that change is the way we view the universe. Once the earth was believed to be the centre of the universe circled by the sun and moon; now we understand our solar system has the sun at its centre which the earth rotates with other planets. And, much more, we are one of countless galaxies. Again, our understanding of the emergence of life on earth has been profoundly affected by biological study, leading to a revision of 1 The most recent form of that attack, under the rubric of ‘new atheism’, is found in ‐ among others ‐ Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Bantam Press, 2006. For a telling critique see David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions, Yale University Press, 2009. 2 The Greek word for judgement is ‘krisis’. Karl Barth, at the beginning of the 20th Century, facing the collapse of modern belief and the catastrophe of the First World War, issues a challenge in his address, ‘The Righteousness of God’, (1916) in The Word of God and the Word of Man, translated by Douglas Horton, Harper & Row, NY and Evanston, 1957. 3 The reader is also invited to read other publications offered by the Assembly Working Group on Doctrine, such as Doc.bytes [particularly Worksheet 2: Doctrine], pamphlets and discussion papers, available on the doctrine webpage and in hard copy from the Assembly office. See the list of ‘Helpful Guides’ at the conclusion of this paper. 2 the old view of ‘creation’ which took place over six days to an acceptance of a long process of ‘evolution’. It is no secret that the creation-evolution controversy is still a hot topic in some circles! Another remarkable feature of modern understanding is our appreciation of the way the Bible itself came to be written. Earlier generations understood the ‘books’ of the Bible to have been written by one person (eg. it was understood that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament; the writers of the various Gospels were disciples of Jesus). Modern scholarship has uncovered instead, a long process of composition: the documents which we have as written documents were first oral accounts, carried by word of mouth for long periods of time, before first being written down. Following that, over time, differing strands of tradition were edited together and finally accepted as written Scripture4. Authority The conditions described here continue to produce conflict about Christian faith and theology. A key concern underlying the conflict is that of authority. The developments in modernity have challenged previously established theological authority. There have been sustained attempts to reinstate theological authority in the face of these threats. For example, Roman Catholicism adopted ‘papal infallibility’; Protestants adopted ‘biblical inerrancy’. Much more telling is the turn which has taken place in Christian theology, placing Jesus Christ at the centre as the living Word. The modern crisis has prompted a variety of attempts to address theological claims and methods. These are variously described as conservative-liberal; dogmatic-progressive; propositional-existential. Other characterisation in theology speaks of the theological left-theological right. A more subtle distinction is ‘world-verification/revelation verification’ (Dietrich Ritschl); Cartesian and non-Cartesian theology (Helmut Thielicke). The opposition is also associated with places of learning: Chicago vs Yale. Attempts to move beyond a simple bi-polarity are found in, for example, George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, where he discusses a post-liberal doctrine: Propositional/ Experiential-Expressive/ Cultural-Linguistic models.5 Our ‘Modern’ and ‘Postmodern’ Context Such is the power of the changed worldview, the argument in support of taking modernity and the canons of modern thought as the necessary presuppositions for Christian life and theology seem compelling. However, for Christians and non-Christians alike, there are equally compelling reasons for recognising the destructive capacity of modernity (consider the fragmentation of culture, the production of the nuclear bomb, mass warfare, global poverty and the warming of the planet), and also remembering that Christian faith and theology rely on a longer story than that of modernity. The church and its thought have faced various cultural and scientific changes over the past twenty centuries, and Christian theology itself has been a powerful influence in the shaping of life and society. Moreover, theological work, responding to new intellectual and cultural settings, has been undertaken from the earliest years of the church’s existence. The modern and postmodern setting has led to a style of Christian thought (sometimes called Liberal or Progressive) which argue for the primacy of modern cultural and intellectual presuppositions. That is to say, the church accommodates its ways of thinking and being to the contemporary environment, seeking to find a way of winning a place there. However, the church has another option. That should not be taken to mean that Christian theology is free to ignore the discoveries and ‘advances’ in modern thought, science and culture, as some contemporary Christian movements argue. By contrast, trusting in God, Christian theology is free to engage fully in contemporary thought and culture6 but never uncritically. Rather, Christian theology as a ‘free science’ is at liberty to engage fully (and critically) in today’s life. It is crucially important, however, to ensure that Christian faith and theology do not give up their freedom by so allying themselves to modern thinking that it loses its own integrity. That is to say, Christian theology has as its fundamental building blocks a foundation in Jesus of Nazareth. Theology, true to its name, will grapple with the task of explicating the faith which we have received from the church’s story – and prior to that, the story of God’s relationship with the Jews. Confessing the Faith: the Canon 4 The German New Testament scholar who wrote in the first half of the 20th century, Rudolf Bultmann, was very influential, as was his term ‘demythologising’. Since Bultmann other scholars have offered ways of engaging in contemporary biblical understanding. For some of these see the list at the conclusion of this paper. 5 George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine (1984) – see the list at the end of this paper. 6 cf. Dietrich Ritschl, The Logic of Theology, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1987. 3 This paper takes the view that the doctrine of the church, based upon its received dogma, relies on the confession of the Christian community over time, that Jesus is lord (Philippians 2: 11). We do not begin from nothing.

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