Clichés have a way of acquiring the force of fact in our time. One that has achieved outstanding success today runs like this: each generation must rewrite theology for itself. According to the conventional wisdom, Christian truth constantly eludes verbalized expression; changing forms of speech and communication invalidate previous formulations.
Underlying this way of thinking is the assumption that all phases of culture, including the religious, are shaped largely by linguistic structure. To this has been added the implied claim that the overall attainments of the present era are not only quantitatively greater than those of previous generations but also qualitatively superior. New theological models are being proposed. How continuous these will be with those of the past is not at the moment clear. There is some evidence to support the fear that the architects of today’s theology are largely convinced that the norms of historic Christian thought are irrelevant to today’s world.
There are signs that models drawn from other cultures may be used in the redrafting of theology for our era. This is true, not only within the movement toward a black theology, but with those who have placed themselves at the theological drawing board of mainline religious thought.
Avant-garde theologians no longer feel any special need to justify a radical departure from conventional models. They seem to assume that it is man’s need, rather than God’s mandate, that must determine theological formulation. And they are not noticeably shaken by the fact that our century has witnessed a series of theological debacles: the decline of classical liberalism, the fragmentation of dialectical theologies, and the meteoric rise and demise of the God-is-dead movement(s).
Several characteristics mark the mood that insists on the rewriting of theology for each generation. First, those who advocate a do-it-yourself theology every few years are all but unanimous in their patronizing attitude toward the Christian Scriptures. It is standard procedure among them to assume that the Bible abounds with manifest errors, contradictions, and unhistorical materials. Thus the updating of Christianity is equated with a downgrading of the Word, and with it a dilution of the historic view of the person of our Lord.
A second and parallel tendency is the assumption that the entire traditional definition and conceptualization of God is now outmoded. Some undergird this assumption with a straw-man technique: they portray the historic conception of God in terms that no responsible advocate of traditional theism would recognize, let alone advocate.
Others base their rejection of traditional definitions and conceptions of God upon grounds that, if they may be open to objections, are at least more fair to historic Christian positions. These persons tend to zero in upon what they believe to be the untenable cosmological assumptions of biblical language. Involved here is, of course, the larger form-critical movement, which we cannot consider in detail.
A third characteristic of avant-garde theologians is the tendency toward dispersal of authority. In place of sola scriptura, the regarding of Scripture as the final source of religious truth, there is advocated a sort of a tripod of authority, formed of Scripture, tradition, and contemporary religious consensus. By this logic, historic creeds and confessions can be retained in denominational manuals, alongside contemporary formulations. This procedure forms the basis for the currently “sacred” expression, “theological pluralism.”
Underlying these forms of thought that clamor for periodic complete reformulations of Christian theology are deeper ways of viewing man and things. Modern man has largely ceased to understand himself as a finite being who is part of a cosmos possessing fixed structure and established orders. He insists that “existence is prior to essence” and concludes that he, as an existing being, is the measure of both reality and truth.
He is little disposed to explore the realm of structured reality. Rather, he maximizes his own role as the maker of truth. His predicament, rather than the demands of reality, becomes the measuring rod for what is true. Applied to the understanding of the Christian faith, the existential principle causes him to maintain that revelation demands his response as an essential constitutive element. Thus revelation is always the Bible-plus.
The existential mode of interpretation not only subjectivizes the entire range of truth but also has a profound effect upon the understanding of transcendence. Those who are conditioned by it see the world as an object, and thus become world-transcending. It is, we think, an inescapable consequence that this way of thinking leads to the internalization of the entire range that for lack of a better term we call the transcendent.
Not only is “transcendence” radically redefined as something experienced in man’s inner dimension; God, it is said, can no longer be defined or conceptualized in objective terms. To state the matter bluntly, existential man casts himself in the role of a this-worldly God—that is, of the only God there is.
Theologians who think in these categories feel qualified to assemble a “theology” using concepts that chance to be in vogue to replace the elements that belong to historic Christian faith—occasionally appealing to the Jesus of their construction to validate their non-evangelical construct. Avant-garde theologians seldom have the candor to acknowledge that their products are deviant and non-biblical. Some sense a need to pay lip service to the Scriptures. For example, one far-out thinker reportedly said: “I believe everything that the biblical writers intended to say.” He then proceeded to drain large sections of Scripture of their essential content.
Closely related to this is the tendency of newer theologians, not only to substitute social activism for creedal commitment, but also to sanctify their formulations by an appeal to a redrawn “Jesus.” It is assumed here that our Lord is somehow being reincarnated in contemporary forms of agitation for social change. In keeping with this mood is the assertion that any program that “makes man more human” is by definition Christian. Avant-garde forms of social action thus assume the status of “relevant” theologies.
The basic question may be put thus: Has the Christian faith come to us in throw-away containers? Some will appeal to our Lord’s words about “new wine in old wineskins” as a justification for a “disposable can” type of theological approach. But if Jesus Christ is the way and if the Christian faith has a particularity and finality that derive from the uniqueness of his Person, then Judaism was the old, and Christianity is, in a definitive sense, the new. In this light, the appeal to “new wineskins for each generation” becomes pathetically irrelevant.
Certainly every committed Christian wishes to present his faith in a manner intelligible to his generation. A meaningful approach and vocabulary, yes. A redrafted form of Christianity, no!
HAROLD B. KUHNS
