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PNEUMA 39 (2017) 425–429
Christian Theology, the Logic of Critical Self-Description, and the Academic Disciplines What Do Empirical Methodologies Offer Christian Theological Identity?
Recently at a conference on The Future of Christian Theology at Florida South- ern College, Steffen Lösel voiced the opinion that theology’s future cannot be found in ethnographic studies but in the logic of God’s self-revelation located in the community of the church. He claimed that placing the future hope for the- ology in ethnography comes at the loss of Christian theological identity. This Barthian move, however, places the self-descriptive logic of theological revela- tion in contradistinction to other academic disciplines in the study of religion. Is the claim justified? What is the cost to theological discourse if it closes off Christian theology from other philosophical and scientific disciplines or sub- sumes it under them? What, then, is the relationship between theology and the other academic disciplines?
Hans Frei addresses this question in his seminal work on theological method,1 in which he differentiates different types of theology. Although Frei doesnot label his types,they could be distinguished as 1) theology asphilosoph- ical priority, 2) theology and philosophy in dialogue, 3) theology as reciprocal to philosophy, 4) theology as revelational, and 5) theology as a cultural language game. According to Frei, if Christian theology is to be an academic discipline it must conform to the criteria of intelligibility, coherence, and truth, but it also must stand in relationship to culture and semiotic structures that consti- tute it as a religion. Theology is a system of first-order statements on Christian belief and practice (for example: does God exist?) as well as a second-order appraisal of its own language and action internal to the Christian commu- nity (for example, God is love). As such, theology is both descriptive in its attempts to articulate the grammar and logic of its first-order articulations and critical in its attempts to adjudicate its language in its efforts to adhere to the norms governing Christian language. Frei’s theological types categorize different theological approaches as it fleshes out first-order and second-order
1 Hans W. Frei,Types of Christian Theology, ed. George Hunsinger and William C. Placher (New
Haven,ct: Yale University Press, 1992).
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theological statements for their descriptive and critical logic and coherence. Of the five types, the first three are correlative—the first subsumes Christian theological description under philosophical (including scientific and social sci- entific) categories; the second type is also correlative but takes Christian self- description seriously and attempts to merge the two; the third type is correla- tive but attempts to hold both theology and philosophical disciplines, methods, and categories in tension. The fourth type reverses the priority and subsumes philosophical categories under Christian revelation and self-description; and the fifth holds Christian self-description as functional with the particularities of cultural contexts exclusively and is unconcerned with other academic disci- plines.
So, to state the opening question in a slightly different way: What is the rela- tionship between revelational and self-descriptive theology (Lösel’s preferred option and the fourth type) and correlative types (types 1 through 3)? Stated differently, are the empirical methodologies of the sciences and social sciences valuable to Christian theology’s descriptive and critical normative criteria of intelligibility, coherence, and truth? The difference is one of what ought to be the beliefs, norms, and practices of Christian theology as it shapes Chris- tian identity within the community of faith and what are the beliefs, norms, and practices of the Christian churches and what can these empirical studies tells us about how Christian identity is being shaped. The ought in the former may be rendered as Kantian moral principles (though need not be) or could be the hoped-for kingdom of God that informs the identity and practices of the church. While appreciative of the issues and concerns of Christian self- description as a model of revelation that takes seriously God’s self-revelation (à la Karl Barth), correlative approaches with their empirical methodologies are also valuable to Christian theology as an academic discipline as they contribute to the criteria of intelligibility, coherence, and truth. In terms of methodologi- cal criteria, the Christian theological task employs analytical modes of thought in the one approach and empirical methods in the other. The following articles display this mix of analytical and empirical methods.
Jacqueline Grey leads the issue with “Embodiment and the Prophetic Mes- sage of Isaiah’s Memoir,” her Presidential Address delivered to the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Theology, convened in St. Louis, Missouri. Grey explores the meaning of the three children present as the embodiment of prophetic signs. Specifically, she teases out the significance of the phys- ical presence of Shear-Jashub, the first child, for the prophetic community, Immanuel,thesecondchild,astheembodimentof propheticsigns,andMaher- shalal-hash-baz, the third child, for the discerning and inclusive community. Of concern for Grey is the way that the body and embodiment are cast vis-à-
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vis the Hebraic culture that refuses to separate the body and spirit or mind into conceptual modes of thought. The physical body shapes beliefs, thoughts, and cultural location, and this is captured in narrative and dramatic modes. The implication of the memoir for Grey speaks to current issues for the Society for Pentecostal Theology, which, as a prophetic community, must be relevant, ecu- menical, inclusive, and global. The danger the society faces is the temptation to get caught up in the American cultural wars and lose sight of the fact that the society is an academic association that spans across scholarly disciplines with both insiders and outsiders contributing to the work of the study of Pen- tecostalism.
The next three articles are empirical studies. Adam Stewart, Andrew K. Gabriel, and Kevin Shanahan offer a picture of the changing beliefs and prac- tices of The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (paoc), the largest pentecostal and evangelical denomination in Canada. Stewart and Gabriel conducted a survey in 2014 of paoc clergy beliefs and practices that are compared to a 1985/86 survey conducted by Carl Verge in order to determine if there has been change over the last thirty years. The 1985/86 survey revealed a differ- ence in commitment to traditional pentecostal beliefs and practices between clergy with the three-year Bible College education required for credentialing and graduate education in religion. Specifically, clergy with a graduate educa- tion demonstrated a negative relationship in commitment to traditional pen- tecostal beliefs and a marginal negative relationship in commitment to tra- ditional pentecostal practices. The 2014 survey was compared to the 1985/86 survey and determined a number of shifts in pentecostal beliefs and prac- tices. First, the negative relationship between clergy with graduate education in religion and commitment to traditional pentecostal belief no longer exists. Moreover, clergy with just an undergraduate education has decreased in its commitment to traditional pentecostal beliefs. Second, the negative relation- ship between graduate education and commitment to traditional pentecostal practices also no longer exists. In fact, there appears to be a positive relation- ship that suggests an inverse from the trend in 1985/86. Finally, a significant decrease in commitment to traditional pentecostal beliefs and practices by the undergraduate cohort means that there has been an overall decrease in com- mitment to traditional pentecostal beliefs and practices among paoc clergy since 1985/86. The authors draw on Peter Berger to give explanation to these shifts. Stewart, Gabriel, and Shanahan theorize that the decline of traditional pentecostal beliefs and practices among paoc clergy is the result of a gradual transformation into the homogenization of generic Evangelicalism. In the plu- ralistic and individualistic context of a secular Canada, religions must compete in the market place and their traditions are commodified for a shrinking clien-
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tele. With its participation in Evangelicalism, paoc clergy have succumbed to the homogenizing effect of generic Evangelicalism in which beliefs and prac- tices are standardized and made palpable for consumer consumption.
The next article, by Julia Kuhlin, explores the lived religion of eight female Pentecostals in Sweden. She offers a qualitative case study of a church in Europaporten, Malmö, attempting to uncover the main characteristics of the women’s lives in order to identify and explain the practices and habits of their everyday religious lives. A number of the habits brought to light include the use of small talk conversations to communicate with God, family religious practices, opening one’s home to guests as evidence of faith, social life with other Christians, the use of Facebook to extend Christian relationships, and socializing with other Christians at church.These habits were some of the ways in which these Swedish women demonstrated a relational piety. Kuhlin thus concludes that unlike the Swedish Pentecostalism of the past that adopted a countercultural stance of world rejection and individualistic piety, the women in her case study adopted a relational piety that emphasized the relational side of Christlikeness and a communal interconnection.
The final article, by Esa Autero, is a study of the Epistle of James using a methodology he defines as empirical hermeneutics. Autero is interested in the church’s lived religion and seeks to discover the views of ordinary folk rather than the official views of professional scholars and practitioners. As Autero argues, little data are available on how regular churchgoers interpret the Bible or how their contextual location informs their hermeneutical decisions. As such, he combines qualitative empirical methods such as focus groups, partic- ipant observations, and interviews with standard approaches in biblical stud- ies in order to learn how ordinary churchgoers’ contextual situations inform their interpretations. In this study, Autero focuses on a marginalized Latino/a immigrant community that is socioeconomically disadvantaged and conducts a series of Bible studies on the Epistle of James to find out how they interpret. The author discovers that the Latino/a congregants move freely back and forth between the ancient text and their contextual appropriations based in current marginalized situations. Personal experience, testimonies, and life stories were related to shed light on the text. Autero places this interpretative approach in the theological framework of Retribution and Action-consequence, which assumes that God rewards obedience and brings misfortune to the disobe- dient in this life as well as the next. This framework features prominently in Latin-American popular religiosity as well as in pentecostal, Catholic, and non-Catholic traditions. The details of action-consequence were contested depending on the experiences of the participants, however. Finally, action- consequence theology connected quite readily to prosperity theology in the
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global South both negatively (fatalistic and magical thinking) and positively (motivation for positive action and personal responsibility).
The study of pentecostal and charismatic Christianity continues to expand as a variety of methodologies is employed to analyze the history, theology, and ongoing development of the movement.
Peter Althouse and Robby Waddell
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