225 - Theological Table-Talk

Theological Table-Talk
By Daniel L. Migliore

WHAT IS THEOLOGY?

The Gallahue Conference on Theology, sponsored by THEOLOGY TODAY and Princeton Theological Seminary, met at Princeton, April 17-21, 1968. Five position papers (by Albert Outler, Harvey Cox, Charles West, Stephen Rose, and Daniel Callahan) provided extensive texts on various aspects of the main theme, "Next Steps for Church and Theology." Each paper was followed by two formal criticisms and general discussion. In addition to the response and discussion sessions there were public lectures by John A. T. Robinson and Jürgen Moltmann, and a remarkable art presentation by Sister Mary Corita.

The intent of the Conference was to take for granted radical critiques of traditional theological thought and ecclesiastical forms and to consider creative possibilities for tomorrow. "Where do we go from here?" was to be the central question. It was not a common theme, starting-point, or set of categories and criteria which the fifty participants shared, but a common interest in probing, raising questions, exercising the imagination, examining new proposals for church and theology.

Measured by its visionary intent, the Conference was rather disappointing. The result did not match the expectation. Nevertheless, a striking diversity and fluidity of theological inquiry today, both in style and agenda, were displayed by the participants. Perhaps this very openness was a sign of many creative "next steps" yet to come.

This report and critique has been prepared by Daniel L. Migliore, Assistant Professor of Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Acting Book Review Editor of THEOLOGY TODAY. In addition to the names mentioned in his report, other participants in the Conference included: Diogenes Allen, Thomas J. J. Altizer, Eugene C. Blake, David Burrell, James Dittes, Joseph Fletcher, William Hamilton, Seward Hiltner, Richard Luecke, Bruce McLeod, John Meister, Gabriel Moran, Bruce Morgan, Paul Pruyser, Carl Reimers, John Smylie, Sallie TeSelle, David Tracy. Certainly the most significant theological gathering of the year, the position papers, critical responses, and public lectures will be published in subsequent issues of THEOLOGY TODAY.

226 - Theological Table-Talk

If any proof of the vigorous pluralism of contemporary theology were needed, a sample of some definitions of theology represented at the Conference would suffice. The task of theology is to create provisional models of meaning for man (Rosemary Ruether). Theology is iconoclastic talk about man, as anthropology is iconoclastic talk about God (Gabriel Vahanian). The business of theology is to remind everyone that the quest for meaning is hazardous, risky, and uncertain (Paul Lehmann). Theology carries on a creative dialogue between the Christian symbols and secular attempts to establish more favorable conditions for full humanization (Richard Shaull). Theology is reflection about the basis and responsible exercise of Christian hope (Jürgen Moltmann). Theology explores the religious spirit of festivity and fantasy, and its contribution to the present search for personal style and political vision (Harvey Cox).

Even after adding to this list those who underscore the metaphysical dimension of the theological task (Schubert Ogden, John Cobb), and those who employ language analysis to clarify theological problems (Frederick Ferré), we would still not have exhausted the variety of approaches to and styles of theology represented by the Conference participants.

Built into the first position paper, presented by Albert Outler in his characteristically biting fashion, was still another distinctive understanding of the theological enterprise. Scolding "iconoclastic perfectionists and puritans," Outler defended the integrity and value of the tradition not as the bearer of answers but of the "integral Christian problematic," which, in every generation, continues to baffle and instruct. "In every age since the beginning, the Christian answers have been more time-bound than the Christian questions. There has been, and still is, a typical configuration of perennial inquiry generated by the bare fact of the Christian community and its typical truth-claims about God and man, and about Jesus as the decisive revelation of God to man. The integrity of the faith depends less upon its formulated doctrines than on its irrepressible questions, generated as they are by the Christian reality-that 'God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself."'

Respondents questioned Outler's picture of radical theologians as furies of pure negation. Arthur McGill argued that it is not alienation from the tradition as such which drives the radicals but the celebration of change, the affirmation that the structure or form

227 - Theological Table-Talk

which does not break holds back life. Vahanian wondered whether the real issue is iconoclasm vs. the integrity of faith or the relationship between integrity and the iconoclasm of faith.

Beyond the question of the proper understanding of the radicals, Outler's defense of the tradition as a configuration of questions rather than a set of answers is full of problems. Can questions cast up to us by the tradition be so antiseptically cleansed of their "time-bound answers" as Outler suggests? Do not questions condition the ways in which answers may be given? Are the constellations of questions in the tradition beyond the vertigo of historical contingency?

Despite the difficulties in Outler's proposal, he did address himself to the basic question of what it is theologians do and how they go about doing it responsibly. Unfortunately this question received surprisingly little consideration at the Conference. Avoiding it, however, does not lend clarity or relevance to theological discussion today. Perhaps one of the important "next steps" for theology is careful analysis of the different sorts of things we do in the name of theology, the different settings in which theology is done, the different purposes which it serves, the different kinds of arguments which we use, and the different kinds of criteria to which we appeal.

What is theology, and what is the positive significance of the plurality of its styles and agendas?

THEOLOGICAL MAN-TALK

While it would be impossible to speak of any consensus of the participants in this Conference, there was evident, I think, a converging interest on man and his future. Not God-talk as such but a special kind of man-talk seemed to be the focus of attention.

Appealing to the Christological mystery, J. A. T. Robinson told the Conference that theology might well explore the possibility of an ultimate intersection of Christian God-talk and humanist man-talk if each is pushed to its outer limits. Robinson referred specifically to the dialogue between Leslie Dewart, a Christian theologian, and Roger Garaudy, a Marxist humanist. In this dialogue, the Christian speaks of transcendence as a summoning and gracious presence, whereas the Marxist speaks of the experience of absence and exigency; but the two approaches, according to Robinson, are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.

228 - Theological Table-Talk

For all of its grouchiness toward the radical theologians and the questionableness of its defense of the tradition as a bearer of the per-during axial questions, the positive thesis of Outler's paper was very much in the modern mood. Since the anthropology of traditional Christianity is dualist and authoritarian, the real task of theology in our time is theological anthropology, "the coaptation and synthesis of the wisdom of the sciences of man and the Christian views of man's origin and end in God-which is to say, the general problems of the psychology of religion, sociology of religion, religion and psychotherapy, etc."

"Here, then, is where modern theology really has its work cut out for it: a doctrine of man emancipated from both the psychological models of 'Christian platonism' (including those implicit in 'process metaphysics') and yet also liberated from the pseudo-empirical models of Marx, Freud, Pavlov, Pareto, et al. It would be a fruitful sublimation of the frustrations of our new iconoclasts if they could get themselves variously involved in the constructive tasks of psycho-anthropo-sociological theory and practice."

Two other position papers focused on the peculiarly modern form of the perennial quest for individual identity and social purpose. The secular search for religious experience, Harvey Cox said, assumes the form of concern for personal style and political vision. This sets the agenda for responsible and relevant theology today. "The pursuit of personal style today can best be understood and enriched through a rediscovered theology of experience which understands the self as a center of generative innovation. The recuperation of man's frazzled capacity for political vision, on the other hand, will be facilitated only by a rebirth of eschatology, by a convincingly contemporary theology of hope." According to Cox, a new religious sensibility is emerging which has considerable resources for the development of personal style and political vision, and should be theologically cultivated and interpreted. This new religious sensibility is "the comic é1an, the spirit of festivity and fantasy which one finds at the creative edges of the churches and in the religious underground. It can be felt in jazz liturgies, in the almost dionysiac verve of Catholic underground worship, in the magical quality of some new forms of religious drama, in the art of Sister Corita, in the return of the dance to the sanctuary, in the self-mimicking playful spirituality of so many young people."

229 - Theological Table-Talk

This "playful spirituality" permits the individual to affirm present experience rather than austerely mortgaging it to some distant goal. Unmitigated seriousness is dehumanizing because freedom and play are close companions. On the political level, the comic sensibility, which refuses to take present structures and possibilities with grim seriousness, is able to "play around" with new possibilities. This is basic to the development of political imagination and vision. "A theologically informed investigation of man as imaginer, player and hoper (homo ludens et sperans) instead of man as sinner, or even as creature, might yield some beneficial results."

In discussion, a number of similar questions were prompted by Cox's identification of authentic religious experience with the comic sensibility. Can a responsible theology accept the alternatives implied in the proposal to view man "as imaginer, player, and hoper instead of man as sinner, or even as creature"? What is the relationship between sin and celebration, singing and suffering, joy and judgment? Genuine festivity, Arthur McGill noted, is not the same as mere joviality which may be superficial and escapist. Christian celebration occurs in the midst of the realities of suffering and death. At another point in the Conference, J. Moltmann made a similar observation. Genuine hope always stands in opposition to the established facts.

In another position paper, Daniel Callahan asked the question: "Can there be a valid Christian self-identity which does not presuppose a belief in cosmic purpose?" This question needs to be raised in view of the emergence of therapeutic man in western culture who is interested not in historical destiny or cosmic purpose but primarily in his own well-being and self-fulfillment (cf. Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic). Even if Rieff is wrong in supposing that modern psychological man can do without social purposes and a community identity, he appears to have strong support from the man sciences today in assuming that man can get along without a sense of cosmic purpose and a self-identity grounded in such a purpose.

Now if all theology has a therapeutic element (which is not to say that it is only therapeutic), it should be possible, in Callahan's view, to construct a Christian self-identity model which is radically immanentist and thus intelligible to men who have no antennae for cosmic questions and transcendental referents. This is not to deny that the

230 - Theological Table-Talk

transcendental model of Christian self-identity, with its concern to anchor self-identity in cosmic purpose with a transcendental ground and goal, is especially meaningful in certain epochs or even for certain people today. The immanentist and transcendental models are not mutually exclusive but are related like the swings of a pendulum. "To be unfree is to refuse to let the pendulum swing, refusing, that is, to let a different identity model come to the fore when it is needed."

"The possibility that Christianity may be amenable to two very different identity models means that it can be validly therapeutic. It can choose that corrective cure which people and cultures need at different moments in history, yet make its choice in terms of its own tradition. And if these choices can be made with just a modicum of amusement that they must be made, even with a certain joy in switching blithely from one identity model to another, then theology will have achieved the kind of psychological and cultural self-awareness it so sorely lacks."

While there was general sympathy for the focus of these papers on man and the new openness to experience, empirical data, and phenomenological studies, some participants sensed a loss of theological nerve (cf. Callahan's theologian who swings blithely from one identity model to another). Has theological anthropology anything to contribute to an understanding of man or is it merely a quaint echo of the man sciences? Peter Berger, while on record as sympathetic to a theology which proceeds in step-by-step correlation with empirical studies of man, expressed dismay at the rather uncritical accommodation of theology to the norms and frames of reference of the scientific community. He asked whether theology could not muster even a little bit of contempt for the intellectual fashions of the time.

RENEWAL OR REVOLUTION?

How might the church renew the shape of its common life to enable it to accomplish its mission in modern society? What does Christian ethics have to say in the debate between proponents of gradual and orderly change and revolutionaries? These two questions were discussed, respectively, by Stephen Rose and Charles West.

Stephen Rose's position paper argued the need "to create a model

231 - Theological Table-Talk

for the church that will be as relevant to potential schismatics as to the possibly deluded status quo." Development of such a model, which would offer a viable institutional alternative to present structures, depends upon a recovery by the church of its own integrity. This in turn requires a rediscovery of the gospel which paradoxically unites the church to the world. It is neither the internal structures and language of the church nor the nature of urban-technological society which explains the impotence of the church today. The present malaise of the church is due primarily to the "internal ambivalence of the church as it confronts new reality." Resolution of this ambivalence hinges on the rediscovery of the central paradox of the gospel. "The central paradox and wonder of life is that worldly identification and Christian identity are reconcilable, indeed inseparable." Not mere sociological and historical analyses but the gospel must be the basis of the renewal of the structures of the church.

On the basis of the gospel as the paradox of worldly identification and Christian identity, Rose thinks it is possible to conceive of the functions of the church "regardless of the historical situation." The basic functions of the Christian community in any society are chaplaincy, teaching, and abandonment. Rose's model for the future church, which embodies these three functions at the local, regional, national, and international levels, emphasizes de-centralization, grassroots ecumenicity, and the relating of experimental ministries to clusters of congregations. (Details of the model are provided in Rose's paper, published in THEOLOGY TODAY, April, 1968.) In the church of tomorrow, prayer and picketing, worship and writing to congressmen will not stand in opposition. We can promote evolutionary development of present institutions while making room for new institutions and social involvements.

As an advocate of renewal, Rose is sharply critical of radical proposals which would polarize the church and lead to unproductive schism. "The most radical contribution of the church to the world will lie in a recovery of essential Christianity and of the sacrificial action which Christianity makes possible." Rose continues: "At this point in history I would make my commitment to renewal rather than the formation of some underground church. I would do this because I believe, for many reasons, that a creative schism is impossible today." At the same time Rose warns: "Unless present institutions restructure, and soon . . . the renewed church will not be

232 - Theological Table-Talk

the product of evolution but of schismatic revolution, carrying with it the threat of institutional extinction or total apostasy on the part of the status quo."

To respondent Martin Marty, Rose's model of the church tomorrow was "anything but audacious or visionary." To begin with, the model is "all-purpose-any environment." (Cf. Rose's statement that the basic functions of the church can be conceived "regardless of the historical situation.") This non-historical approach is unrealistic and evasive. Would it really have no bearing on the question of the shape of the church whether the situation was a 1984 society or a relatively free society? Then too, Rose's appeal to the gospel (which is not spelled out too clearly) does not seem to require the particular institutional forms proposed. Further, Rose does not even mention the fact that some churchmen are opting for neither of his alternatives of schismatic revolution or massive efforts to restructure present institutions but for a kind of Marcusian use of present structures without investment of much energy to transform them. On this view, the point is to get on with the real job of participating in the humanization process, using present structures of the church when possible, neglecting them when necessary.

The paper by Charles West first described the breakdown of liberal humanism under the strain of the increasing gap between rich and poor nations, the nuclear arms race, and the racial hostilities in American society. It then discussed the crisis in revolutionary thought and action which is issuing in the substitution of guerilla action for classical theory and mass organization. Christian ethics must be done today in the middle of these crises of technocracy and revolution. For West the uniqueness of the Christian style of life is "perpetual metanoia, a continual rebirth of hope amid the ruins of old structures and methods." When Jesus rejected the way of the Zealots and chose instead the way of the cross, he was not capitulating to the status quo nor practicing nonviolence to bring about social change. Instead his action was "a basic expression of the meaning of human life in relation to other human lives in the context of God's covenant promise for us all. It expressed the fact that man lives not from the solidarity of his participation in some future achievement (important as future goals are), not from his fight against oppression (important as it is to combat evil), but from the relations of personal

233 - Theological Table-Talk

give and take, the transforming and future-directed guidance, the forgiveness and love which are established in God's covenant."

This continuous metanoia, or capacity for creative death, permits Christians to seek the forms of kenosis to which they are called in their situation. The church should reflect this metanoia in its common life. As West sees it, this will involve a frankly sectarian direction, as Christians identify with the revolutionary struggle, yet seek in love to interpret to the middle class the nature of its responsibility. "There is no valid ethic for exploited, alienated man in a revolutionary mood except from within the solidarity of his experience, with all the risks this brings of partaking also of his ideology. There is no ethical help for the anxious, responsible defender and reformer of a loved and threatened social order, except through sharing his conviction that here a tradition is worth saving, and his hope that the Lord may yet be gracious to a repentant society." In West's view this missionary task of the church will both divide and unite it.

Bishop James Pike felt that West had taken the wrong turn in his paper when he claimed that Jesus had rejected the way of the Zealots and their resistance movement against Rome. Referring to S. G. F. Brandon's new book, Jesus and the Zealots, Pike contended that Jesus was indeed a Zealot (or at least sympathized with them), and that the church later whitewashed the political revolutionary nature of his activity.

While somewhat dubious about Pike's exegesis, Lehmann was also disquieted by the inconclusiveness of West's position. Talk of metanoia and the necessity of identification with both the revolutionaries and the defenders of a loved and worthwhile social order ought not to obscure the primacy of the question of justice today. The real hang-up of Christianity (not frankly dealt with by West) is its lame attitude toward power.

Berger, conference gadfly, expressed puzzlement at the discussion of revolution by theologians. Is "revolution" merely rhetorical jargon for dynamic social change? Or do theologians think that revolution more strictly understood and including sabotage, assassination, acts of terrorism like throwing bombs into crowded cafes, etc. is the appropriate style of Christian responsibility today? West responded that the creative function of Christian ethics is the relativization of necessary violence in the process of transforming human life in expectation of divine transformation. Lehmann held to the centrality

234 - Theological Table-Talk

of the question of justice for Christian ethics and mission today, to his description of the church as the "fellowship of revolutionaries," and to the potential creativity of schism.

POSTSCRIPT

As will be evident from the foregoing, it is necessary to speak very modestly of any "results" of this Conference on "Next Steps for Church and Theology." In part this is to be explained by the large number of participants, the diversity of the topics of the position papers, and the limited time for careful analysis of the many problems raised and proposals offered. It is also no doubt due to the fact that the task of theological construction is considerably more difficult than critical analysis of the tradition or the demolition of current theological fads.

Still, if the Conference did not blaze new paths, it did serve to confirm some guesses about the mood and direction of theology today. Perhaps most obviously, the Conference reflected the "post-ecumenical" nature of the coming theological community. In the introduction to New Theology No. 5, Martin Marty and Dean Peerman speak of "an emerging Christian-humanist community in which Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic boundary lines are no longer meaningful." They continue: "For the coming generation, many of the ecclesiastical issues of the ecumenical movement are of little consequence. However those issues might be decided, the outcome would have no effect on the way they do theology or on the themes they choose. Their dialogue is with Marxists, revolutionaries, radicals, representatives of world religions, university colleagues, and men in the street, without regard to denominational proprieties." While this statement would not characterize the mood of all participants in the Conference, it would hold for most.

The Conference papers and discussions also confirmed the increasing openness of theologians to study in the psychological and social sciences as constitutive of their own task. Cox pointed out that whereas in the nineteenth century the struggle of faith involved a coming to terms with historical criticism and natural science, the frontier issues for theology today are being raised by the social sciences and particularly the scientific study of religion. Just as re-

235 - Theological Table-Talk

trenchment in the nineteenth century is now viewed as misguided and even as a failure to understand the meaning of authentic faith, so a timid and defensive theology today in relation to empirical and phenomenological studies of man and of religion will doubtless be severely judged by future generations.

In this connection the categorical distinction between faith and religion, a popular device in recent theology, must be challenged. While the self-critical intent of this device may be acknowledged, it may be employed to avoid confrontation with the man sciences and thus generate obscurantism.

On the other hand, as increasing attention is given by theologians to psychological and sociological analysis, a sustained effort must be made to get beyond positivist and pragmatist norms and frameworks. As Richard Shaull has written, "Today in a situation in which the social sciences have won their rightful place in Christian social thought, and in which we tend to accept the given structures of thought and of society as the framework within which we work, we now need to give priority to the formulation of new categories of transcendence and transgression that can break our thought open to new insights, perspectives, and approaches."

Heightened awareness of the social relativity of traditional perspectives and structures will involve a shaking of the foundations for individual Christians and for the Christian community as a whole. Yet this exposure of the extent to which the articulation and institutionalization of Christian belief and practice may serve as a support of personal or class interests and as a legitimation of the status quo will not necessarily bring the collapse of faith but may help to free the church from its idolatries and enable it to take up its missionary responsibility in the modern world.

Finally, the Conference confirmed the end of the era of "biblical theology." In the not too distant past, "biblical theologians" would have played a central role in a gathering of this sort. Yet absence of a strong exegetical concern in the papers and discussions does not mean a massive defection of interest in and respect for the biblical witness. Rather, it may be understood as a challenge to a new agenda for biblical studies (and for historical theology as well), that would make critical dialogue possible between the biblical documents and the search for a responsible socio-political, as well as personal, expression of Christian faith.