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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that

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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become

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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer, and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions,

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Speaker 1: Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the

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Speaker 1: world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions

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Speaker 1: that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto

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Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this

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Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer and I'm

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Speaker 1: joined today by doctor Roger E. Olsen. He's the author

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Speaker 1: of a book called The Journey of Modern Theology From

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Speaker 1: Reconstruction to Deconstruction, and he is emeritus Professor of Christian

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Speaker 1: Theology at the George W. Truett Seminary at Baylor. And

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Speaker 1: so we're going to be talking about theology today. We're

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Speaker 1: going to be talking about what modernity means and sort

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Speaker 1: of the journey the theology is taken through time. And

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Speaker 1: so I'm excited about this one. And Rob, I really

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Speaker 1: appreciate you being on the show. Thanks for being here.

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Speaker 2: It's good to be with you. Thank you yeah.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, talk a little bit about what drew you to

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Speaker 1: this topic. Why did you feel like this book needed

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Speaker 1: to be written?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this book has a story, so I'll tell it briefly.

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Speaker 2: Stanley Grin's was my friend and a well known evangelical theologian,

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Speaker 2: and in nineteen ninety or nineteen ninety one he contacted me.

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Speaker 2: We were friends, and he said, I'd like you to

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Speaker 2: write a chapter or two for a book I'm editing

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Speaker 2: friends of Varsity Press, called Twentieth Century Theology. And I

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Speaker 2: hadn't written anything in book form before that. I'd written

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Speaker 2: some articles and chapters for books, but never written a book.

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Speaker 2: And I said to him, well, why don't you and

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Speaker 2: I just write it together. We'll co author it. And

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Speaker 2: he jumped for that idea right away, So over the

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Speaker 2: next year or two we wrote Twentieth Century Theology, which

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Speaker 2: caught on and was a textbook used by many professors

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Speaker 2: and colleges, universities and seminaries, and won an award. I

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Speaker 2: can't remember what award it was right now, but it

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Speaker 2: was a pretty big deal at the time. And stan

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Speaker 2: died in his sleep in two thousand and five at

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Speaker 2: the age of fifty five, and after that the publisher

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Speaker 2: into Varsity Press, came to me and said, we'd like

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Speaker 2: a revision of twentieth century theology, and we'd like you,

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Speaker 2: that is, me, to write it, and we'd like you

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Speaker 2: to add some chapters, especially nineteenth century theology. So we'll

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Speaker 2: give it a new name. And they asked me to

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Speaker 2: come up with the name. Well, I've always been interested

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Speaker 2: in modern contemporary theology. I taught that subject at Bethel

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Speaker 2: College in Minnesota, and I taught it at Truett Seminary

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Speaker 2: at Baylor University in Texas, and in my PhD program

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Speaker 2: at Rice University, I specialized or focused on modern theology,

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Speaker 2: both Protestant and Catholic. So I said, I'll be happy

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Speaker 2: to and I wrote the book. I incorporated a lot

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Speaker 2: of twentieth century theology into it, but I rewrite the

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Speaker 2: whole book, the twentieth Century Theology book. I completely rewrote it,

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Speaker 2: so it's not like it's just in the book. But

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Speaker 2: I started with twentieth century theology and then rewrote it

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Speaker 2: and added many chapters, and it got longer and longer

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Speaker 2: as I was writing it, and I remember saying to

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Speaker 2: the publisher, maybe this should be two volumes, one on

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Speaker 2: nineteenth century theology and one on twentieth and they said, no,

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Speaker 2: we're not afraid of big books. I said, well, how

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Speaker 2: big can it be? And they said how big do

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Speaker 2: you want it to be? They said, well, I just

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Speaker 2: want to finish it. So I finished it and it's

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Speaker 2: seven hundred and some pages long, which I'm sure does

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Speaker 2: has not helped its sales at all.

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Speaker 1: I enjoyed it so out of it and I've.

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Speaker 2: Never been had it to I've never had an interview

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Speaker 2: about it, So thank you for doing this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no problem. I you know, part of what

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Speaker 1: I try to do on the podcast is sort of

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Speaker 1: bring academic theology and make it more accessible for folks.

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Speaker 1: And so, you know, we won't get through all seven

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Speaker 1: hundred pages of your book today, but I think it's

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Speaker 1: important that folks really understand why they might go out

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Speaker 1: and pick up a seven underd page book. And I

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Speaker 1: think what you've done is you've traced the major trends

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Speaker 1: through theology, you know, after and we can talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit about this, but modernity starts. You trace it

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Speaker 1: all the way through really to post modernity. So maybe

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Speaker 1: we could start with what are the major periods? Am

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Speaker 1: I understanding? You right, like you do pre modern modernity

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Speaker 1: and then postmodernity you know as those major categories. But

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Speaker 1: what are some of the characteristics maybe at the beginning

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Speaker 1: of modernity that are starting to drive and influence theology.

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Speaker 2: So the big change with the beginning of modernity from

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Speaker 2: what went before, from pre modernity is the idea, a

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Speaker 2: couple of ideas. One is that only what can be

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Speaker 2: proven can be counted as knowledge. We call that. The

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Speaker 2: Enlightenment began with a philosopher by the name of Renet

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Speaker 2: Decard who was actually a Christian, but wanted to know

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Speaker 2: what could he know for sure without any doubt? And

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Speaker 2: that was, of course, I think, therefore I am his

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Speaker 2: own existence. And then he went on to build on that,

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Speaker 2: and he actually thought he could prove the existence of

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Speaker 2: God from his own existence and so forth. And so

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Speaker 2: I wrestle with that throughout the book. What is knowledge?

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Speaker 2: And is knowledge more or something else than can be

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Speaker 2: proven in modern secular terms, And of course my answer

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Speaker 2: is no. The second theme of the beginning of modernity

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Speaker 2: is you know that science is the arbiter of truth,

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Speaker 2: and that anything that science doesn't prove and know really

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Speaker 2: can't count as knowledge. So it's kind of up at

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Speaker 2: the other side of the same theme knowledge proof, what

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Speaker 2: counts as knowledge and so forth, And science is a

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Speaker 2: major player in that. But then philosophy comes alongside that,

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Speaker 2: and philosophers like Hegel and others in the nineteenth century say, well, no,

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Speaker 2: there are other ways of knowing than just through science.

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Speaker 2: So I take the idea of modernity, and throughout the

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Speaker 2: book talk about how Christian theologians have responded to all

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Speaker 2: the major emphasis of modernity. How do theologians answer the

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Speaker 2: issues of modernity? And some have accommodated to it, and

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Speaker 2: some have rejected it entirely, And so there's a lot

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Speaker 2: of variety, a lot of diversity in Christian theological responses. Now,

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Speaker 2: why should someone buy and read the book well to

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Speaker 2: understand their world, to understand themselves in their world. We're

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Speaker 2: all affected by modernity. We can't escape it. Even Christians

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Speaker 2: really can't escape it. I know some have tried by

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Speaker 2: going off and living in an intentional community apart from

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Speaker 2: the rest of the world. I have friends who've tried that,

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Speaker 2: but I notice when I go out to their commune,

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Speaker 2: they're even influenced by modernity by rejecting it, And so

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Speaker 2: that's really the theme of the book is theological responses

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Speaker 2: to the challenges of modernity. And I start the book

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Speaker 2: with science and philosophy, what we call the Enlightenment, beginning

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Speaker 2: in the late sixteen hundreds through the seventeen hundreds, and

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Speaker 2: then I jump into what we call liberal theologies with

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Speaker 2: Fridrich Schleiermacher, the father of modern theology, or modern liberal

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Speaker 2: theology at least, and a German theologian. Most people have

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Speaker 2: never heard of him, but he just completely revolutionized theology

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Speaker 2: by basing it on human experience rather than on divinely

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Speaker 2: given revelation. And so I talk about various liberal theologians,

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Speaker 2: and then I talk about the opposite, orthodox theologians and

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Speaker 2: even the precursors of fundamentalism, evangelical theologians, especially the Princeton

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Speaker 2: School of theology. Then I talk about mediating theologians who

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Speaker 2: try to discover a via media, a way between accommodating

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Speaker 2: to modernity and rejecting modernity. And that was something in

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Speaker 2: the book I was really proud of, because most books

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Speaker 2: of this kind don't talk about these people. American by

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Speaker 2: the name of Horace Bushnell, who was very important. What

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Speaker 2: I would say, you know, among the top five American

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Speaker 2: theologians of all time, although he's been largely forgotten unfortunately,

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Speaker 2: but his influence is trickled down. So I just mentioned

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Speaker 2: they're my trickle down theory of theology. That people are

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Speaker 2: affected by theologians they've never heard of. So that's something

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Speaker 2: that the book does. This tells them how that's true.

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Speaker 2: And then I talk about bart and Boltmann and Nieber

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Speaker 2: and kind of lump them as dialectical or charigmatic theologies.

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Speaker 2: They really don't fit together very well, but some have

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Speaker 2: called them all neo orthodox theologians. Definitely not liberal in

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Speaker 2: the way that the nineteenth century liberal theologists were liberal,

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Speaker 2: but at least, you know, I certainly think Rudolph Boltman

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Speaker 2: counts as a liberal theologian, but very much different from

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Speaker 2: the optimistic nineteenth century theologians. And then I talk about

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Speaker 2: chastened liberal theologians who accommodate to modernity but with a

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Speaker 2: more pessimistic view of the world and of history, Paul

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Speaker 2: Tillik and theologians. And then I go on to Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

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Speaker 2: who gets his own chapter. I think he's the only

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Speaker 2: one who gets his own chapter in the h and

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Speaker 2: then some theologians who look to the future with hope,

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Speaker 2: and those who would be Jurgen Moltmen and Wolfhart Pannenberg

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Speaker 2: who I studied with in Germany and I knew Jurgen Moltmann,

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Speaker 2: and then liberation theologians, and then Catholic theologians Karl Rauner,

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Speaker 2: Hans Kohn, Hans orzvon Baltazzar, and then evangelical theology. And

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Speaker 2: that's just one chapter, but I talk about the main prototypes,

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Speaker 2: the movers and shakers of mid twentieth century of evangelical theology,

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Speaker 2: people like Carl Henry of course, yeah, and then postmodern

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Speaker 2: theologians Stanley Howard Wass and John Caputo deconstructions.

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Speaker 1: So that's the book talk a little bit about because

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Speaker 1: that I think what I want people to sort of

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Speaker 1: walk away from from that overview is these are all

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Speaker 1: the theologians that you would study in seminary in you know,

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Speaker 1: like I did an MD of another Master's Scream, then

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Speaker 1: a PhD. And so I've read most of these, I

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Speaker 1: would say, Bushnell, I had not read until I read

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Speaker 1: your book, so I picked up some of this stuff afterward.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, you're right, he'd been kind of lost from history,

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Speaker 1: but you can see how he's sort of weaving things through.

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Speaker 1: But I think it's just important for people to understand

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Speaker 1: these are sort of the markers for theologies you go through.

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Speaker 1: These were some of the people who wrote the may

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Speaker 1: your works of theology that began to shape the understanding

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Speaker 1: of the theological world and or provide thlash points for

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Speaker 1: other theologians to react against. And so these are really

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Speaker 1: people who are part of the conversation. What I want

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Speaker 1: to circle back to just a couple of terms. When

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Speaker 1: people hear liberal nowadays, they usually hear left, you know,

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Speaker 1: or opposite of conservative liberal in the Schleiermachian sense, and

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Speaker 1: the way you're using it here is slightly different.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, So I also wrote a book more recently

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Speaker 2: called Against Liberal Theology, in which I try to explain

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Speaker 2: that liberal theology is a tradition. Now in that book

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Speaker 2: Against Liberal Theology, I focus on American liberal theology, not European.

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Speaker 2: So it really began in Europe with Schleiermacher and Dietrich

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Speaker 2: Ritzel in Germany. But in America, liberal theology is a

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Speaker 2: tradition that goes back to the late nineteenth century. Bushnell

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Speaker 2: is sometimes considered the American father of liberal theology. But

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Speaker 2: I really try to explain that's not really accurate. He

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Speaker 2: believed in the supernatural, he believed in miracles, he believed

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Speaker 2: in the duty of Jesus Christ. But he's lumped into

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Speaker 2: liberal theology sometimes because he had a different view of

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Speaker 2: the atonement than traditional evangelical theology. But he didn't accommodate

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Speaker 2: to modernity. I don't think anyway, certainly not in the

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Speaker 2: way liberal theologists do. So that's the definition of liberal

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Speaker 2: theology is theology that begins with modernity and says, now,

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Speaker 2: what can we believe? What can we still believe in

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Speaker 2: light of the acids of modernity.

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Speaker 1: So it'd be fair to say to what they're doing

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Speaker 1: is they're saying, Okay, here's this modern framework we've developed

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Speaker 1: in a set of criteria that's going to determine what

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Speaker 1: can and cannot be proven, and thus what we can

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Speaker 1: and cannot really act on and order our lives by.

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Speaker 1: And that then narrows. You would look at in scripture

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Speaker 1: and say, no, no, Scripture is the final authority for

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Speaker 1: life and faith. We can look at all of this

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Speaker 1: and have a gauge for what we understand. They're just

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Speaker 1: sort of narrowing that down. Although it's not through a

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Speaker 1: selection of texts per se that happens, but it's really

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Speaker 1: through this framework and great a philosophy, if you will,

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Speaker 1: a world view whatever we want to call that, that

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Speaker 1: is in and of itself narrowing. Am I correct on that?

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Speaker 2: Yes? The definition given by a Yale University theologian in

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Speaker 2: Claude Welch was the liberal theology is maximal accommodation to modernity.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: The theologian liberal is a theologian who says we can

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Speaker 2: no longer believe in miracles, for example, at least not

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Speaker 2: in the way that medieval theology did previously did so

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Speaker 2: they redefine everything. So they still talk about Jesus Christ

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Speaker 2: as a revelation of God, might even talk about him

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Speaker 2: as God in some sense, but not in the traditional

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Speaker 2: sense of the incarnation or the two natures of Jesus Christ.

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Speaker 2: They reject classical Christology, but still try to hold on

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Speaker 2: to Jesus Christ as someone unique and special, but onto

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Speaker 2: logically only a man, so not God in substance. He

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Speaker 2: was just a man, but he was a unique man.

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Speaker 2: The spirit killed man something like that.

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Speaker 1: And to understand how they do that. My understanding of

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Speaker 1: Schleiermacher is that he would that's where he focused on

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Speaker 1: personal experience, So he's losing all the you know, Like,

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Speaker 1: let's just take Christ, for instance. We would believe today

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Speaker 1: that he is God and man. But if you jet

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Speaker 1: Us in the god part and you still want to

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Speaker 1: hold onto Jesus, you've got to have something more than

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Speaker 1: just some guy. And so Schleiermacher said, no, it's the

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Speaker 1: sort of way that this idea or a notion of

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Speaker 1: Jesus animates within me and change, but it's not an

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Speaker 1: ontological reality out there that I can touch and feel.

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Speaker 1: Is that a fair snippet of Schlierrockers.

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Speaker 2: I think Schleiermacher was very inconsistent. He was very confused.

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Speaker 1: He's hard to read. I know that he.

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Speaker 2: Sure was, and he was struggling. He was struggling to

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Speaker 2: be both to have one foot in modernity as it

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Speaker 2: was developing in Germany and Berlin in his time in

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Speaker 2: the early eighteen hundreds, he was part of what was

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Speaker 2: called the Romantic movement, which was saying, look, the Enlightenment

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Speaker 2: has been too focused on reason. We need to bring

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Speaker 2: emotion back into knowledge, so we can call some things

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Speaker 2: knowledge that are based on universal human feeling. For example,

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Speaker 2: gotcha okay? He would say of Jesus Christ that he

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Speaker 2: was the most self sorry, the most God conscious man

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Speaker 2: that ever. I see. Ye, God consciousness was perfect and

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Speaker 2: ours is not, but it can be elevated through the

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Speaker 2: Church and its communion with the living Christ. But he

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Speaker 2: did not believe in the incarnation, the pre existence of

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Speaker 2: Jesus as the son of God in heaven or anything

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Speaker 2: like that. You catch it?

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Speaker 1: Oh sorry, I was going to say, you catch a

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Speaker 1: similar tone in some of the folks who today are

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Speaker 1: sort of popular in the public sphere. I'm thinking somebody

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Speaker 1: like a Jordan Peterson, let's say, who for a long

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Speaker 1: time I think was talking and I haven't listened to

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Speaker 1: him in a while. But he would espouse the value

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Speaker 1: of religion, but he espoused it from the perspective that

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Speaker 1: it did good things for society, that it gave people

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Speaker 1: a purpose and a meaning, not as an ontological reality.

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Speaker 1: Like he wouldn't affirm that God was real or something

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Speaker 1: like that. He would just kind of say, no, it

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Speaker 1: orients you, and in that orientation you see goodness. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of a similar feel to it.

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Speaker 2: Social fire Maker was very much influenced by some philosophers

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Speaker 2: of his time, and so is Jordan Peterson. He's influenced

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Speaker 2: by Carl Jung j U n g. Yeah, with psychologists

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Speaker 2: who us the student of Freud's but then broke away

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Speaker 2: from Freud. And Jordan Peterson, like Carl Jung, is really

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Speaker 2: big on archetypes. Yes, that our lives are shaped by

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Speaker 2: archetypes and we need to find the right archetypes and

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Speaker 2: live by them the right way. And for him, I

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Speaker 2: think Jesus is the ultimate archetype.

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Speaker 1: Archetype. Yeah, very good. That's helpful. With liberal theology, I

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Speaker 1: think that makes good sense. When we kind of move

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Speaker 1: down your list here, you've got you know, conservative Protestant theology,

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Speaker 1: I think we kind of understand what that is. That

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Speaker 1: would be a theology in contra addiction to the liberal

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Speaker 1: theology we just described that is really holding on to

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Speaker 1: that old orthodoxy. That is there anything more really to

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Speaker 1: be you want to add there?

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Speaker 2: I could say so much more about it. So in

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Speaker 2: that chapter I choose to jump into conservative theology with

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Speaker 2: Charles Hodge, who was the principle I sink this title

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Speaker 2: of Princeton Seminary for many many years and famously said

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Speaker 2: at the fiftieth year celebration of his being the leader

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Speaker 2: of the seminary, he said something I'm paraphrasing. I'm proud

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Speaker 2: to say that during my fifty years leading this seminary,

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Speaker 2: there has been no new thought here and somber quote

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Speaker 2: after what we call Protestant orthodoxy. Not necessarily Luther and Calvin,

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Speaker 2: they were the Reformers, but what happened after Luther and

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Speaker 2: Calvin a strong emphasis on rational Christianity, beginning with the

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Speaker 2: Bible and deriving from it principles that can be directly

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Speaker 2: rationally fleshed out in doctrines and dogmas of the faith

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Speaker 2: that need to be held on. So a very confessional,

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Speaker 2: very conservative orthodox emphasis, including the inerrancy of the Bible,

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Speaker 2: that became a standard for many conservative evangelicals, especially in

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Speaker 2: the Reform tradition, not only but especially and they were

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Speaker 2: Hodgen after him, Warfield at Princeton.

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Speaker 1: Were right right. So when we get to these mediating

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Speaker 1: theologians after that, because I mean, when you say like that,

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Speaker 1: when you say you're deeply rooted in rationality, there's part

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Speaker 1: of me that says, Wow, that seems like it's great,

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Speaker 1: but also problematic. You know, like you can see, it

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Speaker 1: go both ways depending on how that rationality works itself out.

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Speaker 1: So the mediating theologians trying to push retain a sufficient

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Speaker 1: amount of rationality that things can make sense, but also

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Speaker 1: release this open and say, but we do know God

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Speaker 1: through experience, we do under you know there is something

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Speaker 1: more here than just our intellectual rational way of understanding

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Speaker 1: the world.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, let me back up to Hodge. So Hodge

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Speaker 2: famously said that he was in favor of rationality, but

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Speaker 2: not rationalism, okay, whereas he thought that the Enlightenment and

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Speaker 2: liberal theology had fallen into a rationalism that was alien

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Speaker 2: toodox and living Christianity that had killed Christianity. But by

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Speaker 2: rationality he meant we are completely right and justified in

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Speaker 2: beginning with the Bible as our foundation. Just like scientists

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Speaker 2: start with nature. We start with the Bible and derive

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Speaker 2: from it all these principles and truths, but very very

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Speaker 2: big doctrines being rational from there on. In other words,

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Speaker 2: they have to cohere. Yes, no coherence, and there's a

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Speaker 2: tendency there to minimize mystery. Though I wouldn't say Dodge

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Speaker 2: were filled to ever denied mystery in the faith, but

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Speaker 2: they were uncomfortable with mystery, trying to resolve paradoxes, you know,

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Speaker 2: and I don't think they would say they were trying to.

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Speaker 2: I think they were saying the Bible does.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So here's how I describe it for them, as appears

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Speaker 2: to me anyway. The Bible was for them a not

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Speaker 2: yet systematized systematic theology.

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Speaker 1: I like that, Yeah, it kind of and it really

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Speaker 1: does kind of make sense. I mean, I think, you know,

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Speaker 1: I came up more biblical studies than theology, and so

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Speaker 1: you do see the biblical theology movement doing some interesting

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Speaker 1: things with this, almost I wouldn't say desystematizing the Bible,

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Speaker 1: but moving outside the boundaries of the normal systematic theology

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Speaker 1: categories to develop coherent understandings of these different themes within

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Speaker 1: the scriptures. And it just strikes me that that's part

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Speaker 1: of the way it has to cohere. But it all

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Speaker 1: so creates than these tensions because those now we have

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Speaker 1: to ask ourselves, well, how does this theme with this theme,

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Speaker 1: you know, how does all how do all these puzzle

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Speaker 1: pieces go together?

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Speaker 2: Right? Are there missing pieces to.

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Speaker 1: The are they missing pieces?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So here's how I view that. It's important to talk

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Speaker 2: about this because a lot of conservative evangelical theology still

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Speaker 2: considers Hodge the norm yes theology, and he's he's been

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Speaker 2: used for one hundred and more years at the Conservative Seminary,

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Speaker 2: says the main textbook, and so forth. I think it

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Speaker 2: was David Wells at Gordon Conwell's Seminary who wrote an

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Speaker 2: article in Christianity Day called the stout and persistent Theology

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Speaker 2: of Charles Hodge. And so this then causes some reactions

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Speaker 2: among evangelical theologians who are more leaning into an experiential

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Speaker 2: kind of Christianity, like my friend Stan Gren's. He was

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Speaker 2: really big on spirituality being part of theology and that

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Speaker 2: there are mysteries and so forth, and so on. Well,

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Speaker 2: we don't have to flesh it all out in detail,

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Speaker 2: but I think that's the essence of what I treat

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Speaker 2: as conservative orthodox theology as the reaction to liberal theology

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Speaker 2: in the labeenth century.

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Speaker 1: And would you say that as a reaction right When

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Speaker 1: you say that, it feels to me like some of

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Speaker 1: this really is as a reaction that you almost have

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Speaker 1: You're going to have difficulty within a given time period

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Speaker 1: of moving in one direction or another because you've got

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Speaker 1: this sort of powerful influence of a theology you disagree

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Speaker 1: with and that you find things wrong with on the

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Speaker 1: one hand, and you have to sort of create a

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Speaker 1: boundary and stick to it so that you're not eking

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Speaker 1: into their what you would consider their bad method.

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Speaker 2: And almost always also overreacting to some degree.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, pendulum swing the other way.

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Speaker 2: The way you understand philosophy and theology, but I think

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Speaker 2: you could apply this to psychology and others. To other

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Speaker 2: disciplines is a series of pendulum swings. Yes, and every

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Speaker 2: important thinker is reacting to something. Nobody sits down and says,

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Speaker 2: I'm just going to write a book for no reason,

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Speaker 2: writing a book for a reason. I wrote this book

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Speaker 2: and the one before at twentieth Century Theology, because I

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Speaker 2: had tried many textbooks of modern theology and didn't like

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Speaker 2: any of them, and so that I got to write

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Speaker 2: my own. And I think that's the case of my books,

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Speaker 2: is having used other textbooks and so. But I'm also

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Speaker 2: in this book reacting to you know, what I would

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Speaker 2: consider mostly liberal treatments of modern theology that exclude evangelical theology,

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Speaker 2: orthodox theology and so on. I found that most of

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Speaker 2: them said almost nothing about the Princeton theologians, Hodge, for example,

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Speaker 2: Ordolical theologians. It was all just considered, Yeah, they're not

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Speaker 2: worth studying, you know, they didn't contribute anything. So I

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Speaker 2: wrote the book and reaction to that. But you brought

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Speaker 2: up the mediating theologians, and they were reacting to Schleiermacher,

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Speaker 2: but also at the same time saying he wasn't completely wrong.

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Speaker 2: He had some good things to say.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: An example would be for Bushnell, experience enters into theology.

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Speaker 2: We can't just exclude spirituality from theology. And he had

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Speaker 2: his own dramatic conversion experience that came out of fighting

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Speaker 2: the Bible and the British philosopher and poet Coleridge. And

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Speaker 2: so I bring that out in there. How each of

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Speaker 2: these theologians is influenced by somebody before them or alongside them.

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Speaker 2: And so the mediating theologians I like because and I'm

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Speaker 2: not saying I'm one, but they're trying to say, well,

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Speaker 2: can we bridge this gap between modernity and liberal theology

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Speaker 2: on the one hand, and orthodoxy in the Protestant scholastic

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Speaker 2: kind of way. Right, Princeton theologians, Hodge and bush Nell

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Speaker 2: had this awful relationship of reviewing each other's books and

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Speaker 2: tearing them up in their reviews. And that's sad, I think,

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Speaker 2: because bush Nell has some really good things to say,

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Speaker 2: but Hodge went after it in a really harsh way

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Speaker 2: for not being like him.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, more more conservative, He's trying to be a little

431
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 1: bit more progressive. The neo orthodox theologians are probably the

432
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 1: ones I'm most familiar with, just largely because of Carl Bart,

433
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: but also Ryan Hold, Nieber, and so talk a little

434
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 1: bit about I know, you kind of lump them together Bart,

435
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 1: Boltman and Neber, and I actually didn't find that odd.

436
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:54,680
Speaker 1: I think it it made some sense to me having

437
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 1: read all three. I know they had their different emphasis

438
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: and you know, different areas, but all three are doing

439
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:06,880
Speaker 1: something that is fairly, in my mind, quasi similar, and

440
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: so I kind of appreciated the grouping. But talk a

441
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:14,440
Speaker 1: little bit about that chapter and maybe this time period.

442
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 2: So in the period after World War One, it was

443
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 2: hard to be optimistic in Europe with the liberal theologians. Now,

444
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 2: it wasn't until after World War Two that that pessimism

445
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:31,200
Speaker 2: really hit in America. But after World War One, these

446
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 2: European theologians, and after World War Two, especially American theologians,

447
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:41,880
Speaker 2: discovered Soren Kirkigor, the melancholy Dane father of existentialist philosophy.

448
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 2: And you know, it just irks me when I hear

449
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 2: people talk about him as a philosopher because he was

450
00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 2: a theologian. He had a doctor in Koreean theology, and

451
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:53,359
Speaker 2: he taught theology. He was more of a theologian than

452
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,639
Speaker 2: a philosopher, But somehow they choose to call him and

453
00:27:56,680 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 2: categorize him as a philosopher. But Soor and Kirkugor influenced

454
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:04,400
Speaker 2: all three of them, and that's what they have in common.

455
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,879
Speaker 2: That is, Boltmannieber, and Bart. I should have thrown in

456
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 2: Abel Brunner, a Swiss theologian who I really admire and like.

457
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 2: They're all somewhat pessimistic about human the human condition, contrast

458
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,760
Speaker 2: to liberal theology, which was very optimistic. They all see

459
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 2: history as a series of tragedies, and they don't see

460
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:31,400
Speaker 2: it as going uphill toward the Kingdom of God dawning

461
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 2: on ear if before Jesus even returns, which liberal theologians

462
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 2: didn't even believe in the return of Jesus. Certainly Bart

463
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 2: did Brunner. Did you know, the one who doesn't really

464
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 2: fit very well is Boltmant. But they started out. Bart

465
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 2: and Boltman started out as i think co editors of

466
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 2: a theological journal and were on friendly terms until Boltman

467
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 2: came out with his Well, it was an essay that

468
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 2: he wrote got included in a book of essays denying

469
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 2: the Resurrection, denying miracles. Now he didn't say he denied

470
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 2: the resurrection. He said that he de mythologized the resurrection.

471
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 2: Is that it happened but in the hearts and minds

472
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 2: of the disciples, not in outer history. Right, So if

473
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 2: someone had been there, you know, and investigating it, they

474
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 2: wouldn't have found an empty tomb. They would have found

475
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 2: a tomb with the body of Jesus in it. And

476
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 2: yet the message of Jesus lived on and came alive

477
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 2: in the early Disciples. Bart was horrified by that. So

478
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 2: at the beginning in the early twenties and throughout much

479
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 2: of the thirties, these three had things in common that

480
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 2: causes us to kind of lump them together as dialectical theologians,

481
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 2: dialectically coming from Kirkigre. And yet even Nieber thought that

482
00:29:55,760 --> 00:30:01,959
Speaker 2: Bart was too conservative knew Neiber was really an ephicist

483
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 2: more than he was a theologian, so he could get

484
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 2: away with not telling what he thought about the resurrection

485
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 2: for example.

486
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, Bart really couldn't get by with that.

487
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 2: I mean.

488
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 1: When I read those chapters where I think I resonated

489
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 1: most with the commonalities would have been in some of

490
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 1: Bart's lesser known works, you know, his books on prayer,

491
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:30,600
Speaker 1: divine freedom, those kind of things, and then you read

492
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 1: them alongside Boltmann, who you know obviously is demathologizing. Process

493
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: is problematic in my mind, but you do see some

494
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 1: commonalities in the way they're approaching things, even though they

495
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 1: come to radically different conclusions. Nieberd, You're right, he would

496
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 1: have been the one. The Christian realism aspect, I think

497
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 1: is what really separates for me, at least Neiber from

498
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: Micah Boltmann. I just found that to be sort of fascinating.

499
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:03,520
Speaker 1: I mean read back through those chapters, so, yeah, fantastic stuff.

500
00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 2: And then you've got are still alive and well, I

501
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:09,720
Speaker 2: mean nieber yes, it's still brought up all the time

502
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 2: in all by people that are talking about Obama. For example,

503
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 2: when Obama was president, someone asked me his favorite theologian

504
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 2: was and I think it was Obama who said Nieber Neieber.

505
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 1: I believe that's right.

506
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Neiber had a huge influence on Martin Luther King.

507
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and Stanley howiwas keeps Nebro alive in a

508
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 1: lot of ways. I know, you reference him and the

509
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 1: postmodern theologians, but he he draws on Nebro a good bit,

510
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 1: which makes sense because he's a theological ethicist, and so

511
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: he you know.

512
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 2: Ended up saying that Nieber was not a Christian, which

513
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 2: I thought was terrible.

514
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 1: But that's that right. I didn't see that very interesting.

515
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 1: Why I want to get into I want to skip

516
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 1: over the Chase and the liberal theologies just for a second,

517
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 1: because I want to go to Bonnhoeffer. So Bard and

518
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:03,640
Speaker 1: Bonheffer were relative contemporaries. You know, they were both involved

519
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 1: with Barman Declaration. They're both you know, sort of impacted

520
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: pretty deeply by World War Two, and they had those connections.

521
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 1: And so I'm wondering Number one, I found it interesting

522
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: that he got his own chapter, and I'm wondering how

523
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 1: you saw his experience in World War two, which was

524
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 1: different than any of the I mean, Bart went back

525
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: up to Switzerland. You know, he's not really in the

526
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 1: throes of World War Two. Bonhoeffer is, And so I'm

527
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 1: wondering if that how you felt like that conditioned his theology.

528
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I don't know that Bonheffer would

529
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:42,920
Speaker 2: even be remembered, at least in the way he is

530
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 2: if he hadn't been killed by the Nazis right right

531
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 2: at the end of World War two. And I'm sure

532
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 2: a lot of your listeners or watchers have heard the

533
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 2: story of how he participated on the periphery of a

534
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 2: plot to kill Hitler. Now there's still some controversy about that,

535
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:05,719
Speaker 2: but I'm convinced that he did participate in it. And

536
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 2: so the fact that he ended up dying in a

537
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 2: concentration camp, being hanged by the Gestapo and so forth,

538
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 2: he just makes him seem like a martyr, which he was.

539
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 2: But then they discovered his theology, you know, backwards, because

540
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 2: of that. Right after World War Two, one of bon

541
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 2: Hoffer's disciples, a man by the name of Everhart Beitka,

542
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 2: wrote a biography and translated into English Bonhoeffer's writings, and

543
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 2: so he became very famous through Baita. I think that

544
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 2: his awareness of Hitler and the Nazi Party as being

545
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 2: idolatrous in the nineteen thirties leading up to World War Two,

546
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 2: which he spent a lot of the war in prison,

547
00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 2: so he didn't really experience it accept indirectly, but you know,

548
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 2: he felt that this was an idolatrous religion, and there

549
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 2: was a group of people called German Christians, they called

550
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 2: themselves German Christians who viewed Hitler and the Nazi Party

551
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 2: as a new revelation of God. Well, he stood apart

552
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:11,479
Speaker 2: from that and helped form the Confessing Church and helped

553
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 2: write the Barman Declaration, which is against all of that.

554
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 2: And I think that did influence his theology just as

555
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 2: it did Bart's theology in many ways. And they were shocked,

556
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 2: just absolutely shocked by the German Christians and their attitude

557
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:30,800
Speaker 2: toward Hitler and the Nazi Party, and it just convinced

558
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 2: them that humans are prone to evil, and you know,

559
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 2: that we are not naturally innately good or something like

560
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:42,760
Speaker 2: that like the liberal theologians thought. So I'm most familiar

561
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 2: with bon Hoffer through his letters and papers from prison

562
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:49,320
Speaker 2: and his book Ethics, which are early collections of essays

563
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 2: that he wrote, and he would have I don't see

564
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:55,480
Speaker 2: him ever having written a systematic theology, so we kind

565
00:34:55,480 --> 00:35:01,320
Speaker 2: of have to imagine what his theology might have been, like, yeah, yeah,

566
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 2: that's about it.

567
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:07,960
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's circle back around to at least process theology.

568
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: Paul Tilliche is somebody that comes up an awful lot

569
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: when I'm reading, you know, depending on what I'm reading,

570
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:17,240
Speaker 1: you hear a lot about Paul Tillage, And I would

571
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:19,800
Speaker 1: just say this is sort of an aside for everybody

572
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 1: who's listening. Part of the reason this book, I think

573
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:25,360
Speaker 1: is so helpful is because it does contextualize these authors,

574
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 1: so that as you're reading other things and you see

575
00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 1: these folks sort of cited some of them make their

576
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: way into more popular works as well, you have a

577
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:37,040
Speaker 1: handle for them. You understand where these people are coming from,

578
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:39,520
Speaker 1: and you can sort of re situate some of the

579
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: quotes maybe that are coming out of their theology, and

580
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:45,840
Speaker 1: you have this general idea, maybe even a skepticism or

581
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 1: at least a realism, about what this person might actually

582
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:53,280
Speaker 1: be saying and whether or not you really are prepared

583
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 1: to believe it. And so as we get into sort

584
00:35:56,640 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: of process theology, Paul Tilliche, I know, those aren't exactly

585
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 1: the same. But process theology seems to me to have

586
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:07,000
Speaker 1: made sort of like we talked about with Bushnell. It's

587
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:10,880
Speaker 1: influencing things without ever being talked about in my mind.

588
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:13,719
Speaker 1: Do you have that same sort of impression or am

589
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: I an off base there?

590
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 2: Well, they're talked about very much in theological circles. There's

591
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:25,719
Speaker 2: a worldwide Tillic professional Society, the society of theologians all

592
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 2: over the world who continue to read and study and

593
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 2: talk about Tillic, and so you know, in those kind

594
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 2: of ivory tower situations, there's still a lot of interest

595
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 2: in Tillic. He is one of the most difficult theologians

596
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 2: to read, almost more than any other, I think, and

597
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 2: I had to spend a lot of time over the

598
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 2: years reading Tillic and books about Tillic and so forth

599
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:52,759
Speaker 2: really get a handle on him. But what I say

600
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 2: about Tillic is he was trying to deliteralize Christianity and

601
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:02,319
Speaker 2: that he was very dependent on Hegel, a German philosopher

602
00:37:02,400 --> 00:37:04,839
Speaker 2: of one hundred years before him. And I'm right now

603
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 2: in the middle of studying Hegel again and trying to

604
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:08,719
Speaker 2: get a grasp on Hegel because he had more of

605
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 2: an influence than people know. And Tillick wanted to deliteralize,

606
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 2: which is kind of like demathologize. So he and bolten

607
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 2: were were kind of twins in a way. But Boltman

608
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:25,080
Speaker 2: was a New Testament scholar, not a systematic theologian. Tillick

609
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 2: was a systematic theologian. But they came out with almost

610
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:31,880
Speaker 2: the same conclusions about the resurrection. For example, Tilloic also

611
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 2: believe that the resurrection did not happen, but it happens

612
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 2: in the believer's heart when they come to realize that

613
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 2: the message of Jesus, which was what he called new being,

614
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:49,319
Speaker 2: which was the realization that you are accepted, is the

615
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:54,440
Speaker 2: essence of Christianity. It's so history doesn't matter to Tillic

616
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 2: or Boltman either one. In fact, Tillick said, if it

617
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 2: should turn out we found out that Jesus never existed,

618
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 2: it wouldn't change the essence of Christianity at all.

619
00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:08,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating to think that through when you read

620
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 1: First Corinthians fifteen, for instance, I mean it, they have

621
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 1: to dismiss that text. And I don't know that I've

622
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: ever studied Boltlant enough Ortilic enough to understand what they

623
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:21,759
Speaker 1: would do with a passage like that. You know, if

624
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:25,399
Speaker 1: Christ was not resurrected, our faith is in vain. That

625
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:29,440
Speaker 1: passage there in First Corinthians fifteen. You really have to

626
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:34,359
Speaker 1: ignore an awful lot of basic historical reference and hey,

627
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:37,800
Speaker 1: this actually happened, sort of statements even within an early

628
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:42,320
Speaker 1: New Testament letter like First Corinthians. To get to that point,

629
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:44,439
Speaker 1: I don't fully grasp how they get there.

630
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 2: Well by beginning with the naturalism of modernity. So they're

631
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:53,800
Speaker 2: liberal in that sense that they begin I see belief

632
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:59,319
Speaker 2: that nature is all there really is except spirit, but

633
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 2: that nature is a closed causal nexus and there's no

634
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 2: interrupting it. And that includes God. It's not so much

635
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:13,320
Speaker 2: that he can't, but he doesn't interfere with the workings

636
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,759
Speaker 2: of nature. Because if we believe that, they said, then

637
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 2: science would be no use to us, because we're constantly

638
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 2: being medieval in our thinking about the world and how

639
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 2: it works, and we'd be seeing angels pushing planets around

640
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 2: and things like that. So in order to go all

641
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:32,359
Speaker 2: the way with science, but to hold on to what

642
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 2: they thought was the essence of Christianity, they had to

643
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:42,399
Speaker 2: reduce Christianity to a subjective set of experiences more than beliefs.

644
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:47,760
Speaker 2: But then you're up by the three volume systematic theology, right.

645
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's interesting. I mean those are

646
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 1: interesting questions. I think even now, you know, how do

647
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 1: we navigate the I'm an Old Testament guy, so you

648
00:39:57,920 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 1: know you you do when you get into those early

649
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 1: chapters of Genesis, You're trying to sort of navigate, Look,

650
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:08,359
Speaker 1: what's theologically important here, you know, and how do we

651
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:10,799
Speaker 1: not get lost in the tedium of discussing how this

652
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:15,000
Speaker 1: exactly connects to history, but really get a theological export

653
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 1: out of it. But then you also don't want to

654
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:22,360
Speaker 1: give up on the history, and so there is a

655
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:24,560
Speaker 1: bit of a tension there that we always deal with.

656
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 1: I think, just you know, ripping it out and saying, ah,

657
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:29,120
Speaker 1: we don't care about history anymore. It's all literary and

658
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:32,439
Speaker 1: it's just about this book and the spirit of Christianity.

659
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 1: I gotta say it means that would mean nothing to me.

660
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:47,839
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe in supernatural events, he couldn't believe in miracles. Yeah,

661
00:40:48,200 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 2: to deny the resurrection, but he held on to the

662
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 2: crucifixion as absolutely essential, as did Boltman, and they both said,

663
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:02,239
Speaker 2: the cross, the crucifixion is God's way of reconciling humanity

664
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 2: to himself. But both of them had disciples who said, no, no, no, no,

665
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 2: come on, you're being inconsistent. There go the rest of

666
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 2: the way. God does not act in history. He only

667
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:18,720
Speaker 2: acts in our inner lives, in our psychology, our spiritual experiences,

668
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:22,040
Speaker 2: not in history. And they both were so appalled by it,

669
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 2: And Tillock's widow wrote a biography of Tillock after he died,

670
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 2: saying that he was not an atheist, but the Death

671
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 2: of God theologians claimed him as their mentor when they

672
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 2: told him that, it sent him into a downward spiral

673
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:42,839
Speaker 2: that he died from just a few days later. So

674
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 2: she actually blamed the Death of God Theologians the radical

675
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:52,359
Speaker 2: of the sixties, for killing him because he didn't think

676
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:53,400
Speaker 2: he was an atheist.

677
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 1: He might have been, well, we're obviously not going to

678
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:05,919
Speaker 1: get through all of this, but I think, for one,

679
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:09,040
Speaker 1: I think it would be awesome at some point to

680
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 1: hear your experience with your moment. Your in moltment is

681
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 1: probably one of my favorite theologians to read. Theology of

682
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:19,080
Speaker 1: Hope is one of my favorite books. I'm actually using

683
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 1: Source of Life. I've got it sitting over here off

684
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:27,319
Speaker 1: camera on the side of my desk, and so, uh,

685
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:32,120
Speaker 1: it is the Source of Life. It's on the Holy Spirit, yes,

686
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 1: ok yeah, the titles of the Source of Life.

687
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:38,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, called the Spirit of Life too. But anyway, go ahead, Okay, But.

688
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 1: I'm wondering you sort of to sort of fold this

689
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: in as we move toward the end of modernity and

690
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:50,160
Speaker 1: go into postmodernity, and you've got the post liberal theologians

691
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 1: in there, Stanley how Us in there. You know, John

692
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:58,919
Speaker 1: Camputo and deconstruction talk a little bit about the assumptions

693
00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:04,319
Speaker 1: that begin to change with postmodernity. And then maybe let's

694
00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:07,759
Speaker 1: just clarify post liberal as well. I know there are

695
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:10,879
Speaker 1: post liberal political movements, and so those two just want

696
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 1: to talk through that transition and then we'll go on

697
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 1: from there.

698
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:17,480
Speaker 2: So I had to kind of cram these two. Stanley

699
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 2: Howard wasass as a post liberal and John Caputo as

700
00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:26,480
Speaker 2: a deconstructionist into one chapter. Yeah, probably deserve their separate chapters.

701
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:28,799
Speaker 2: But they have some things in common, and that is,

702
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:34,320
Speaker 2: you know, breathing in the atmosphere of a post modern culture,

703
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:39,880
Speaker 2: and postmodernity is a hard to define thing, you know,

704
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 2: just so much diversity in it. But the essence I

705
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:49,800
Speaker 2: think of postmodernity is a reaction against the sterile rationalism

706
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 2: of the Enlightenment and of modernity and opening up the

707
00:43:55,080 --> 00:44:00,800
Speaker 2: realm of possibilities to things that modernity supposedly doesn't allow.

708
00:44:01,840 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 2: So Stanley howerwass of course, Time magazine labeled him America's

709
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:10,959
Speaker 2: most influential or the best theologian when he heard said

710
00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:13,440
Speaker 2: best is not a theological category.

711
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:18,719
Speaker 1: He sure is fun to listen to. I got to

712
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:19,160
Speaker 1: give him that.

713
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:24,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, Meyer, Stanley, We've got a lot in common. So

714
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 2: Stanley is really trying to recapture what he what he

715
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:33,759
Speaker 2: sees as or as authentic Christianity. For for him, it

716
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:37,800
Speaker 2: is non violence. He's on the ethical side. He is

717
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 2: an ethicist, like like a Nieber, not a systematic theologian.

718
00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 2: But he thinks that especially American Christianity, has really distorted

719
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:52,280
Speaker 2: true Christianity with things like celebrating war and so forth.

720
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:57,839
Speaker 2: So you know, he's he's a postliberal. That means he

721
00:44:57,840 --> 00:44:59,799
Speaker 2: may have been liberal at one time, but he chose

722
00:44:59,880 --> 00:45:03,839
Speaker 2: not not to be anymore. And it's hard, it's hard

723
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:08,160
Speaker 2: to define post liberalism. I try it in my chapter. Yeah,

724
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:12,920
Speaker 2: John Caputo is really different. Also an ethicist, but a

725
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:16,400
Speaker 2: philosopher who became a theologian on his own, you know,

726
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 2: without really studying theology, and uh, a deconstructionist, which is

727
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 2: kind of a radical form of postmodernity, uh, where he

728
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 2: says that Christianity, what it really is, is all about

729
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 2: deconstructing oppressive regimes of knowledge, and that we should as

730
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:45,320
Speaker 2: Christians be deconstructing, undoing, looking deep within and undoing opening

731
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 2: up totalitarian or the other words, escaping me right now.

732
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 2: But anyway, claims that are violent are the violence.

733
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:02,120
Speaker 1: What you like? And I'm just had this little itch

734
00:46:02,160 --> 00:46:04,120
Speaker 1: in my head for a while, and so I'll ask you,

735
00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:08,239
Speaker 1: but would you like in liberation theology to that deconstruction.

736
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:12,840
Speaker 1: I know, deconstruction focuses more on the knowledge aspect, liberation

737
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:15,200
Speaker 1: more on the political aspect. But they seem to have

738
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:17,800
Speaker 1: such a you know, a common trend line.

739
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't remember that I said this in

740
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 2: the book, but I did tell my students later as

741
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:26,759
Speaker 2: I taught the book that liberation theology really was the

742
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:31,359
Speaker 2: first postmodern theology, because they said, all the post all

743
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 2: the liberation theologians agree that there is no such thing

744
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 2: as purely objective knowing that your social location always influences

745
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 2: your thinking. And then they go on to say, you know,

746
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 2: and that wealth and power and privilege corrupts your thinking,

747
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:52,920
Speaker 2: and that there is a sense in which only the

748
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 2: oppressed can really see reality as it really is. And

749
00:46:57,560 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 2: they're talking about social reality, not physically, and so that

750
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:05,719
Speaker 2: really does a way for them with the objectivity of

751
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 2: the enlightenment and of knowing objectively and proof and so forth,

752
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:14,800
Speaker 2: and so yes, they're deconstruction ists very much in that sense.

753
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 1: Let's end with just sort of giving us a little

754
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:24,319
Speaker 1: bit of a glimpse into evangelical theology, probably the sort

755
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:28,080
Speaker 1: of theology that both you and I would most readily

756
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:32,359
Speaker 1: ascribe to. You know, what were we mean when we

757
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:35,360
Speaker 1: say evangelical theology? And why is it important?

758
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:39,480
Speaker 2: Oh that's a big question when someone asks me if

759
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:42,600
Speaker 2: I'm an evangelical and my automatic response is how long

760
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 2: do you have to listen?

761
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:44,880
Speaker 1: Yeah? I hear you.

762
00:47:48,200 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 2: So I trace evangelical theology. I mean I could trace

763
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:56,359
Speaker 2: it back to the Bible, of course, but what we

764
00:47:56,440 --> 00:48:00,279
Speaker 2: call evangelical theology in the West today, I trace back

765
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:03,160
Speaker 2: to Edwards and Wesley, who are both born in the

766
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:07,319
Speaker 2: same year seventeen oh three, and the Great Awakening and

767
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:13,360
Speaker 2: the combination of Orthodox Christian belief with revivalism and inner

768
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 2: experience and life changing experience conversion, and really, in a

769
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 2: sense in recent times, Billy Graham is sort of the

770
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:26,440
Speaker 2: standard of evangelicalism in the world. Actually, now I know

771
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 2: that the media is using the word evangelical in political ways,

772
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 2: I do not ever use it in that way. To me,

773
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 2: vangelicalism is not political. It's not uniquely American. It's a

774
00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 2: worldwide theological and spiritual movement that emphasizes the inspiration and

775
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:51,359
Speaker 2: authority of the Bible, conversion as an interchange that can

776
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 2: only be wrought by the Holy Spirit Orthodox Christianity. My

777
00:48:56,320 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 2: colleague at Baylor, David Bebington, said there are four marks

778
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:09,120
Speaker 2: of evangelicalism. Bible centered or Biblicist, conversionist activist that is

779
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:13,800
Speaker 2: changing the world through evangelism and social transformation, and Crucis centrism,

780
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:18,280
Speaker 2: and emphasis on the Cross. You know, I think that's

781
00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:22,160
Speaker 2: changing on the ground, you know, among people who call

782
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:25,360
Speaker 2: themselves evangelicals in America to a large extent today, I

783
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:29,840
Speaker 2: don't see the Cross being emphasized as it always was

784
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 2: among in the past. But I add a fifth, and

785
00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:38,879
Speaker 2: that is Orthodox belief. So I don't think you can

786
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:44,600
Speaker 2: be really evangelical and reject the trinity, the deity of

787
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, the incarnation, salvation by grace alone not works,

788
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:54,759
Speaker 2: and maybe two or three other wholes of traditional Orthodox

789
00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:59,400
Speaker 2: Christian belief that are shared by Christians of all denominations

790
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:03,400
Speaker 2: in the past. Anyway, So I'm pretty I have a

791
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:08,879
Speaker 2: pretty broad definition of evangelical. It's trans denominational. No denomination

792
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 2: owns it, No type of theology like Reformed or our

793
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:18,480
Speaker 2: Minion owns it. It's trans denominational. It's big, it's broad,

794
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:22,080
Speaker 2: but it's not anything and everything. If it were, it'd

795
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 2: be nothing.

796
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:27,439
Speaker 1: Would you say? Those major doctrinal points are fairly well

797
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:31,320
Speaker 1: captured in the Nicene Creed, yes, yeah.

798
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:35,080
Speaker 2: And in the National Association of Evangelical Statement of Faith

799
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:40,719
Speaker 2: in the Sun Covenant and certain statements that have been

800
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 2: put forward. But yeah, ultimately in the Nicene Creed, which

801
00:50:44,719 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 2: doesn't say everything. And I think we need to add

802
00:50:47,960 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 2: on to that the idea that you can only be

803
00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:55,480
Speaker 2: a real Christian by being converted, that there is no

804
00:50:55,520 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 2: such thing as simply growing up fully Christian from birth on. Understood,

805
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 2: true Christian can always say, even if they can't describe it,

806
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:09,280
Speaker 2: I accepted Christ. I made a decision.

807
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 1: Gotcha.

808
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 2: Now there are some orthodox Christians who don't believe that

809
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:21,719
Speaker 2: and still call themselves evangelical that I have problems with them, understood.

810
00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:26,160
Speaker 2: I want to name names. No, okay, I'm talking about

811
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:32,120
Speaker 2: people who really emphasize infant baptism as conversion baptismal region. Yeah.

812
00:51:32,560 --> 00:51:35,760
Speaker 2: I think if you believe in baptismal regeneration, you cannot

813
00:51:35,840 --> 00:51:37,600
Speaker 2: really be an evangelical Christian.

814
00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:44,800
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's and it's a sacramental and normally an odd

815
00:51:45,160 --> 00:51:50,839
Speaker 1: way of conferring grace. That is, would you say, sort

816
00:51:50,840 --> 00:51:54,400
Speaker 1: of reverses the normal relationship between grace and faith.

817
00:51:54,840 --> 00:51:58,799
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, of course, as a Baptist and Anabaptist, that

818
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 2: is what I think. Now most people don't know that,

819
00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 2: but I have to retirement. I joined a Mennonite, an

820
00:52:07,160 --> 00:52:08,800
Speaker 2: evangelical Mennonite church.

821
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:13,399
Speaker 1: Very good, very good, Well, Roger, this has been fantastic.

822
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:17,759
Speaker 1: I appreciate you just walking us through a lot of this,

823
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:21,239
Speaker 1: and I know, yeah, and for listeners, I really do

824
00:52:21,280 --> 00:52:22,960
Speaker 1: think this is important. I mean, I wouldn't have done it.

825
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:26,400
Speaker 1: This isn't just like hey, I needed another episode. I

826
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:31,760
Speaker 1: think these things are crucial because they do influence even

827
00:52:31,800 --> 00:52:36,880
Speaker 1: contemporary writers. You'll watch contemporary writers cite some of these people,

828
00:52:37,960 --> 00:52:40,880
Speaker 1: and I mean even for me, like Hans ersp On

829
00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:45,040
Speaker 1: von Baltazar, right, I have seen him sighted, I've read

830
00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:47,600
Speaker 1: a little bit of his stuff, but this book really

831
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:50,440
Speaker 1: helps me to situate him where he should be and

832
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:53,200
Speaker 1: to understand with a little bit more depth how to

833
00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:57,080
Speaker 1: place him. And so I think it's a really helpful book.

834
00:52:57,840 --> 00:52:59,239
Speaker 1: It might not be one that you want to sit

835
00:52:59,320 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 1: down and read all the way through just in one sitting,

836
00:53:02,040 --> 00:53:05,040
Speaker 1: but I have it, and obviously I read a bunch

837
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:08,080
Speaker 1: of it and I keep it around now for reference.

838
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:12,560
Speaker 1: So it's really helpful. And just so appreciate the work

839
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:15,279
Speaker 1: you put into it, which had to have been yeah,

840
00:53:15,400 --> 00:53:17,359
Speaker 1: a long It had to have taken you a long

841
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:19,279
Speaker 1: time to write this, brother, So.

842
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:21,520
Speaker 2: Actually I wrote it in four months.

843
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:24,480
Speaker 1: Four months. Wow, that's impressive.

844
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 2: I was on sabbatical and I knew I only had

845
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:33,560
Speaker 2: four months to It's.

846
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:36,240
Speaker 1: Almost not fair on sabbatical though. Yeah, well, very good, Roger,

847
00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:38,360
Speaker 1: thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate you.

848
00:53:38,440 --> 00:53:42,799
Speaker 1: Welcome and yeah, and thanks everybody for listening. We will

849
00:53:42,800 --> 00:53:45,279
Speaker 1: catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take

850
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:48,319
Speaker 1: care everyone. I just want to take a second to

851
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:50,759
Speaker 1: thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with

852
00:53:50,840 --> 00:53:53,480
Speaker 1: us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to

853
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:56,040
Speaker 1: life audio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith

854
00:53:56,080 --> 00:53:59,240
Speaker 1: centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer,

855
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Speaker 1: Bible study, parenting, and more.