Theology Today - Vol 42, No. 1 - April 1985 - BOOK REVIEW - Religion in the Secular City: Toward a Postmodern Theology

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Religion in the Secular City:
Toward a Postmodern Theology
By Harvey Cox
New York, Simon & Schuster, 1984. 304 pp. $16.95.

In Religion in the Secular City, Harvey Cox, facing approximately one hundred and eighty degrees away from his 1965 book The Secular City, argues that religion is and will continue to be a (the?) significant force-moreover, a public political force-in our era. On its simplest level, the book is a provocative discussion of two major popular religious movements today: fundamentalist Christianity in the U.S. and liberation theology, rooted in the "base communities" of Latin America. Cox provides vivid introductions to these movements through visits with Jerry Falwell at his Liberty Baptist Church and with "Padre Munoz" at his south American village, "La Chispa." Moreover, he makes a convincing argument that, despite all the obvious differences between these two movements, they share important features. Both, for example, are highly critical of "modernity" and its characteristic secularization.

104 - Religion in the Secular City: Toward a Postmodern Theology

Both are profoundly antagonistic to modern theology, especially what they call "liberal" or "progressive" theology…. Both are creating new forms of religious association that are rendering denominations … obsolete. Both emphasize the Bible and claim to be recalling people to the Original Message, away from the errors and idols of modernity. Both emphasize increased participation of Christians in political life (pp. 24-25).

Its subtitle, "Toward a Postmodern Theology," invites us to evaluate this book on a second level, namely as a serious theological prolegomenon. Here is Cox's three-part theological argument: (1) "With the passing of the modern age, the epoch of 'modern theology' which tried to interpret Christianity in the face of secularization is also over." (2) "The essential rudiments" of "postmodern theology" are "already appearing," borne by the two "vigorous antimodernist religious movements" indicated above. (3) This new theology must "appreciate and use the accomplishments of modern theology" (p. 21).

No sooner has Cox stated this argument, however, than he undermines it by his own analysis and elaborations, particularly with respect to point two. One of the two "vigorous antimodernist religious movements" is almost immediately judged irrelevant to the argument when we are told that "I do not believe fundamentalism has much to offer to a postmodern theology" (p. 25). Why discuss fundamentalism then? Cox himself is clearly troubled by this question, for he raises it rhetorically at the beginning of his chapter on "Fundamentalism and Postmodern Theology" (p. 72).

In that chapter, Cox dismisses the fundamentalist critique of modern secular society as based on nostalgia for an illusory past when society was fully attentive and responsive to religion. This nostalgic critique is a "cri de coeur" which "must be understood neither as diagnosis nor prescription but more as the groan issuing from the wounded victim who does not know why he hurts" (p. 81). Cox does not seem to notice that, with this uncharacteristically patronizing dismissal of the fundamentalist position as the outcry of an ignorant victim, he has (a) not answered, but instead added new force to, the question, "Why was fundamentalism injected into this discussion of resources for postmodern theology?" and (b) eliminated the first of his antimodernist movements in such a way as to suggest the possibility that the second one, too, might be simply a well-intentioned but theologically useless "groan issuing from the wounded victim."

That, however, is not the case in Cox's view. Liberation theology is enormously promising" (p. 267) as a source of postmodern theology, and may well give rise to "A New Reformation" (the title of the book's last chapter) parallel with that of the sixteenth century. Cox does not share with his readers either the method, or the criteria, by which he is able to decide that one of these movements is a mere groan, the other the basis for fundamental theological change.

This points to a third level on which the book should be evaluated, namely as a response to the difficult question: "How, using what norms

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and what method, should we apply our theological tradition to interpret the present?" Cox is explicit in saying this is a central concern of theology (pp. 20-21), and in saying that, since 1965, he has changed his mind a good deal about such issues (pp. 19-20, 204-205, 267-68). Regrettably, however, Cox chooses to understate the profound and radical character of his own change of views, and hence to avoid the crucial questions this suggests about the consistency and integrity of contemporary Christian theology in general. He says, for example, that he still believes in the "thesis" of The Secular City that "secularization might not be the unmitigated scourge it was often seen to be," and that "Christians should concentrate … on the positive role they could play in the modern secular world" (p. 20). As Cox stated the thesis of The Secular City twenty years ago, however, it was far less innocuous than this, and far more difficult to reconcile with Cox's present book. "Secularization rolls on, and if we are to understand and communicate with our present age we must learn to love it in its unremitting secularity. We must learn, as Bonhoeffer said, to speak of God in a secular fashion and find a non-religious interpretation of biblical concepts." More specifically, "the secular city provides us with the most promising image by which … to understand what the New Testament writers called 'the Kingdom of God"' (The Secular City, pp. 4, 110).

Today, on the other hand, it is the "eruption of the poor"-who live on the fringes of modern secularism-which is the clearest "expression of the presence of God within … human history" (pp. 139-40). Insofar as Harvey Cox is a theologian, it is important to know how he comes to such profound changes of mind. How, using what method(s) and applying what norm(s), should the contemporary Christian theologian select, or reject, the key symbols to be used in interpreting our era and God's presence in it? If this question is ignored, then nothing can save the theologian from that addiction to passing fads so characteristic of contemporary American culture. Harvey Cox should face the challenge of this intractable question, lest he be writing, in twenty years (or less), a book entitled Beyond the Death of Religion in the Secular City.

William H. Becker
Bucknell University
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania