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Theological Table-Talk
By Hugh T. Kerr

TILLICH IN DIALOGUE

This phrase appears in the title of a book published some months before the death of Paul Tillich (Ultimate Concern: Tillich in Dialogue, edited by D. Mackenzie Brown, Harper and Row, 234 pp., $3.95). It is an edited transcript of a seminar in the Spring of 1963 at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Since it contains questions asked by students as well as answers and self-scrutiny by one of the last of the theological patriarchs, it is a dialogue between generations. And this surely was one of Tillich's talents, to be able, even in his semi-retirement, to speak to and with much younger inquirers.

One of the recurring questions discussed in this dialogue, and a crucial one for the understanding of Tillich's theology, has to do with the life, death, and rebirth of doctrinal symbols and theological terminology. (The fact that we do ask this question, and are bothered by it, separates us definitely from previous, more assured generations.) Even to use the term "God" these days immediately raises in the minds of most hearers the question, "Does he exist?" But as Tillich reminds us, "the very asking of the question signifies that the symbols of God have become meaningless. For God, in the question, has become one of innumerable objects in time and space which may or may not exist. And this is not the meaning of God at all."

What then can be done? Can the classic religious and theological terms be reinterpreted? Must they be dropped altogether? Are there other, substitute terms that are more meaningful? Tillich's answer involves all three possibilities. Perhaps it must be said that "the existence of God" is a powerless and meaningless symbolic term for our day, but that is not to proclaim the "death of God." "Ground of being" may not appeal to those who still

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experience the power of the traditional terminology, but it may greatly assist those who can no longer find meaning in the classical vocabulary.

Some symbols, however, just vanish away and cannot be restored. Reformation Protestantism, for example, eschewed the whole medieval worship of Mary and the saints, and while it may have become over-masculinized in the process, Protestantism couldn't restore these lost symbols, assuming it tried. Even "original sin" is a term that may be forever lost, and Tillich quotes Reinhold Niebuhr as saying to him, "Let's drop it." In its place Tillich has used "estrangement," and he thinks it not only covers what the traditional phrase involved but that it suggests instant meaning for today's self-conscious generation.

But this verbal exchange is not just a linguistic game for Tillich. Though many of the classical and biblical terms cannot be restored and are empty of meaning, the realities for which they once stood have not disappeared, though the more radical thinkers today suspect that too. In any case, it is part of the preacher's and theologian's responsibility to reinterpret the basic realities of the faith, for faith means to risk the possibility of "still unexhausted powers in the Christian reality" and to be open to new possibilities. "I believe," says Tillich, "that openness is so much an element of Christianity itself, of its original meaning, that this may be the way in which it can be reinterpreted to make it fully alive." Quite a manifesto for a theologian at the age of seventy-nine whose three-volume theology did not signify the close of either his career or his thinking!

RE-MYTHOLOGIZING

It has often been suggested, contra Bultmann, that what we need today is not so much a de-mythologizing as a re-mythologizing of the biblical imagery. Myth, symbol, saga, parable-all act as media for conveying truth and meaning. If the form of communication is so primitive and unsophisticated as to be unacceptable to modern, scientific man, the reality which is being interpreted ought not to be dismissed along with the mythological package in which it happens to come to us. Or at least this is how many reply to the de-mythologizing challenge.

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A recent example of this attempt at a re-mythologizing apologetic is a chapter by Desmond A. Pond, "Has Psychiatry Replaced Religion?", in the paper-back Faith, Fact, and Fantasy (Westminster Press, 125 pp., $1.45. There are three other essays in the book by John Wren-Lewis, P. R. Baelz, and C. F. D. Moule.) Dr. Pond is a consultant psychiatrist at University College Hospital, Cambridge, England, and he answers the question posed in his title with a definite negative. Research has shown, says Dr. Pond, "that the themes of the great religions are still the main ones in most people's lives." The Gospel therefore needs to be re-mythologized rather than demythologized by mere intellectual explanations, for most people cannot "relate creatively to an idea."

But much as this apologetic seems to defend the faith, one sometimes wonders whether it is made to carry too much freight. The question arises whether what was once known through myth can be reinterpreted into a faith context after the myth has been explained (de-mythologized) scientifically, psychologically, or in some other non-supernaturalistic way? If, for example, we no longer read Genesis as a description of the origin of the world but rather look to science for what information would be acceptable, is it possible to re-mythologize the creation narrative? Certainly it can be tried as many exegetes, theologians, and preachers have shown. Yet the question plagues honest thinking.

Dr. Pond inadvertently provokes this question in some of his psychoanalytic interpretations of religious experience. Consider this impressive paragraph:

Everyone knows that psychiatry is full of oral and sexual language. This is because the primitive and very intense experiences of love and bate in the baby persist in one way or another throughout life as partial determinants in later human relationships. Likewise, sexual feelings are the deepest and strongest of adult relationships, and coping with them, for better or worse, is very closely connected with mental health or ill health. The Christian language is full of similar symbolism. We need only mention the words Holy Communion and the concept of Mother Church, which is also the Bride of Christ. These words have a literal meaning that links them with the everyday facts of human nature. This is one reason why the Gospel can be so gladly received and understood even by the most illiterate. It may also help to explain why some reject it, especially those very clever people who are very often not good at these everyday human

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relationships. Amongst scientists one finds that their apparent passionate concern for objectivity in their research spills over into their lives generally and results from a fear of human involvement rather than any abstract love of truth itself.

Now I must say I never thought of these things in quite those terms. And what bothers me is not whether the interpretation is correct, but that from now on these matters will be so de-mythologized as to preclude any possibility of them being re-mythologized in any biblical or religious context. Certainly the essence of Christian faith has not been replaced, but-just to be technical according to a contemporary distinction-doesn't psychology often replace "religion" if by that we mean man's ritualistic mores by means of which he pretends to get right with God? If psychiatry, or anything else, can rid us of this sort of religion, it is not to be feared as a threat but welcomed as judgment. This might then be less an exercise in defensive apologetic; rather it would appear to be a good illustration of "religionless Christianity." Who will write an article on "The Expulsive Power of _____" (insert the discipline of your choice)?

PRESENCE

For a long time now there has been growing uneasiness, especially among students, with the vocabulary usually associated with Christian responsibility to proclaim, interpret, and apply the gospel. Heretofore such terms as "mission," "witness," "testimony," encounter," "evangelization," "communication," "confrontation," challenge," "decision," have been employed more or less interchangeably and uncritically. But recent discussions within the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF), including delegates from many parts of the world, indicate that the traditional language claims too much and actually misrepresents what is implied today in making the Christian faith known. (See, for example, the quarterly, The Student World, No. 3, 1965, WSCF, 13 Rue Calvin, Geneva, Switzerland.)

There is, so it is suggested by Philip Potter, WSCF chairman, a certain aggressiveness and overagainstness in the conventional "mission" terminology, as if the Christian's task is to call people out and away from their "secular" lives and communities, urging them to

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come into other, isolated church-type enclaves. Furthermore, to "witness" in the older sense may impute too much assertiveness on the part of the Christian. Is it really possible or desirable to be that definite, that sure, that ready with conceptualized categories?

Out of this word-study has emerged the term "presence," and "Christian presence" is now being tried on for size as a tentative, but biblically oriented, way of talking about "just being there." Related to the French engagement experiment of worker priests, the notion of "presence" is very much post-second-world-war. It implies an adventuresome "being there" in the concrete structures of society in the name of Christ, but often anonymously and often in a listening rather than a speaking mood. The biblical understanding of God's presence in the world, particularly in the incarnation as Christian "Shekinah" and in the present-future dialectic of the "parousia," illuminates the Christian's method of contemporary operation.

More than this, "presence" seems better suited for describing the Christian claim on the academic level and in a campus situation. And in the rapidly changing world situation, the relation of Christianity to other religions might be creatively reconsidered under the presence" rubric. At least so it is argued in the notable "Christian Presence Series," sponsored and published by the Student Christian Movement Press. (Cf. The Primal Vision: Christian Presence Amid African Religion, by John V. Taylor, SCM, London, 1963, a portion of which was reprinted in THEOLOGY TODAY, January 1965, pp. 415 f.)

We must hear more about "Christian presence" and especially about its theological assumptions and implications.

CHURCH AND/IN SOCIETY

There are many reasons to anticipate with great expectations the forthcoming World Council of Churches Conference on Church and Society to be held in Geneva, July 12-24, 1966. For one thing, there has been no such conference since Oxford, 1937. For another, the "world," which provides the subject-matter, has 'undergone, as the phrase goes, "rapid social change" or perhaps more precisely "revolution."

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In the interim between Oxford (where the focus of attention was Nazism) and Geneva 1966 (where there is not likely to be any single ethical issue but a whole miscellany of problems), the church has been struggling with at least three internal controversies. First, the very foundation and resource of ecumenical discussion, namely the Bible, has itself become a matter of violent differences of opinion in the pursuit of the "new hermeneutic." No longer will it be sufficient to exhort churchmen to "listen to the word of God." What only a few years ago seemed a major victory, namely, the renewal of biblical theology, is today an intramural problem. The same can be said, in the second place, for theology, and, in the third place, for ethics itself. What better, or more chaotic, time for a world conference?

We hope to give more serious attention to this crucial ecumenical conference later on, but, in anticipation and preparation, mention may be made of an important study guide. It comes as a joint publication of Social Action (United Church of Christ) and Social Progress (United Presbyterian Church, U. S. A.), entitled, Christian Response to the Technical and Social Revolutions of Our Time (single copies at fifty cents from either the Presbyterian Distribution Service, 225 Varick Street, New York, N. Y. 10014, or the Council for Christian Social Action, 289 Park Avenue South, New York, N. Y. 10010). This compact and inspired pamphlet of 64 pages contains articles by Robert S. Bilheimer, John C. Bennett, Cameron P. Hall, Richard Shaull, Alan Booth, Ralph Poller, Daniel Day Williams, Walter J. Muelder, Victor Obenhaus, Albert Rasmussen, Garry Oniki, and Arthur Gilbert. The Association Press will soon publish four major symposia relating to the world conference, and these volumes are reviewed in advance of publication in the pamphlet.

Robert Bilheimer, pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church, Rochester, New York, in his preface to the Social Action/Progress document, senses the dilemma which the conference will confront, namely, whether to pronounce platitudinous, banal generalities or single out specific, concrete issues. "Let no one," he says, "think that the conference next summer can get away with mustering enough votes to pass favorably upon a theology which merely reaffirms that Christ is the transformer of society." The massive, intruding question that cannot be stilled is: "How?" But if gen-

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eralities are irrelevant, is there any prospect for concrete recommendations and imperatives? Bilheimer is unsure about this. On the one hand, he says, "the conference will not be a place to devise new social programs for Christians to follow," yet a few sentences later he urges that the conference may, through prayer, show us "clear lines for thought and action." The big question for the conference will be whether the new kind of ethical ferment in our midst can resolve this dilemma.

A local, denominational case-study on this dual ethical option may, or may not, be instructive. The proposed Confession of 1967 of the United Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., the text of which appears in this issue, includes a section on "Reconciliation in Society." This is an attempt to deal briefly, but definitely, with three major contemporary ethical-social issues: race equality, nuclear warfare, and poverty, all this, however, in 43 lines of text (out of a total of 416 lines).

Two different kinds of criticism have been directed against this sort of social statement. First, a self-styled group taking the name of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, Inc., has among other things deplored the denomination's official social involvement and suggests that in future it should refrain from such pronouncements. Others, and in particular Jack L. Stotts, Instructor in Christian Ethics at McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, deplore the "vacuous" character of the 1967 statements and urge more "specificity." (See the thorough critique of the Confession of 1967 in the January 1966 issue of the McCormick Quarterly, 800 West Belden Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60614, forty cents a copy.) Important as it is to say something rather than nothing about the church and society, the proposed confessional assertion, says Dr. Stotts, is no more than "a consensus document." Perhaps in these days of consensus politics that is all that can be expected. Have we hope to expect more from Geneva 1966?

FEEDBACK

We have received more comments on the last two issues of THEOLOGY TODAY than on any previous numbers. Most of the reaction, though not all of it, has been on the negative side, and some of it has

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been vigorously hostile. The following are more or less verbatim reactions: I hope the journal will soon return to theology"-"don't renew my subscription, the beer is too thin"-"the sex articles are offensive"-"the death-of-God discussion is theological double-talk"-"I don't understand what the author means and furthermore I don't think he does either"-"the 'new judgment' seems a better phrase than the 'new optimism' "that editorial on 'The Open Option' will kill the journal"-"a little radicalism now and then is OK, but a theological journal should concentrate on more scholarly pursuits."

Nels Ferré, as might be expected of a faithful reader and charter member of our Editorial Council, prepared the careful critique which we are printing, with his permission, in the "Critic's Corner" of this issue. In thanking him for this appraisal (and hoping there were more readers who wrote us), the editor tried to set forth some guidelines to keep the discussion within reasonable grounds. The following may be of interest to our larger audience: (1) it shouldn't need saying but obviously does that editors hardly ever agree with everything they print, consensus theological journalism being even less creative than consensus politics; (2) the October and January issues were deliberately experimental, partly to see if anyone was "out there" reading us and -whether they cared enough to say so, and partly to give voice to inchoate musings so that the theological implications, if any, might become articulate (the two "Playboy" pieces, as noted, were first sponsored by the National Council of Churches' "Look Up and Live" Sunday TV program, a consistently open and daring forum; we should have observed, by the way, that "Playboy II" was co-authored by Harvey Cox and William Hamilton); (3) our has always tried to open its pages to new ideas and trends and particularly to encourage younger thinkers who remain unmoved by the more conventional topics and themes of theological discourse (every week the editor reads and returns at least one unsolicited manuscript on some such title as "Luther and Kierkegaard on justification by Faith").

What is really disturbing about the general and specific reaction to such articles as THEOLOGY TODAY and others have printed on the "radical theology" is the undisguised hostility that accompanies much of the criticism. Whether what we have published is theologically respectable is no doubt open to debate (our own position is the Ga-

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maliel one; time will tell whether this is "of God"). But few take the time to study these trends carefully, preferring to reject them out-of-hand as unthinkable to begin with, or to ridicule them with unfunny jokes (as a recent "Pen-ultimate" contrivance in The Christian Century suggested).

Most discouraging has been the defensive and emotional negativism on the part of preachers who feel threatened by the whole thing but who are unable to come up with any responsible critique. A notable exception, -reported in The New York Times (Dec. 13, 1965), was a sermon on the subject preached by Robert J. McCracken of Riverside Church who said: "I suggest that instead of dismissing them [the death-of-God theologians] contemptuously or denying them a hearing, we try to understand them, what they are saying, why the) are saying it, what faith they are substituting for the faith they have discarded." To which we urge the pious, conventional (and biblical) response: "Amen!"