THEOLOGY'S ENCOUNTER WITH LITERATURE

...If primary religious language is poetic and if, as Paul Ricoeur and others have shown, "the symbol gives rise to thought...

...However, while I present no defense of present practices, some changes might be suggested...

...A film on "the life of Jesus" (that subject of all subjects...

...However, it must be said that what I have briefly outlined is not by any means all that is going on between theology and literature...

...Literature and religion" is not a marginal enterprise, nice for those with interdisciplinary interest, but finally unimportant in the grand scheme of theology...

...Suspicion and didacticism have turned into appreciation of the foundational character of poetics for theological reflection...

...Current parabolic interpretation has supported the individualistic bias: individual characters are seen as the focus of the stories and the parables are viewed as addressed to listening individuals...

...5 Determining the disclosive power of symbols, of course, necessarily involves the theologian in acquaintance with the peculiarities of primary religious language (its metaphors, symbols and images) as well as the genres in which this language occurs in religious texts (prayers, poetry, parables, autobiographies, stories...

...The hermeneutical theologian, the theologian formed by poetics, is our best guardian against literalism and idolatry as well as the preacher's helper to move people to hear and accept the redescription of reality ingredient in Christian symbols...

...Niebuhr, Stanley Hauerwas, Brian Wicker and Wesley Kort have helped to educate formerly simplistic notions of "the Christian story" through an appreciation of the complexity and variety of narrative forms, their relation to history on the one hand and to belief on the other...

...The continuum between parable and autobiography is a legitimate one, but exclusive or even central focus on this line has meant an implicit continuation of a Bultmannian —and historically Protestant—concern with the faith and life-style of the individual to the neglect of the people, neglect of social and political transformations of a communal nature...

...A chastened sense of one's own limitations and an openness both to others contributions as well as changes in personal agendas are part of this call...

...Assuming that this pattern is a credible analysis of possibilities within the contemporary theological scene, what is the special contribution to it of heremeneutical theologians, those working to illuminate the disclosive power of the Christian symbolic tradition...

...To handle not only the human and natural events of Jesus's life "realistically," but to deal with the "divine" elements in similar fashion is a great travesty of where the 20th century is on the question of realism and reality...

...the hermeneutical, church, or systematic theologians...

...Anyone who follows the book reviews in journals knows that not only is the old didacticism very much alive as well as more subtle forms of apologetic interest in the arts, but thematic criticism of religious motifs in contemporary literature is also, and much of it is extremely sophisticated and ¦well-done.3 My focus is not meant to disparage other approaches...

...Now realism in this sense—picturebook, simple realism—in dealing with religious matters is so false that it must, if Christianity is not only to survive but to be viable for our time, be countered...

...This revolutionary insight has a second implication...

...Hermeneutical theologians, like other theologians, have a critical part to play in "responsible pluralism" in theology...

...It is, among other things, as Ricoeur insists, "a redescription of reality," which is to say it is certainly concerned with "reality," but that reality which it images disorients and upsets our ordinary, conventional views of reality...

...You have heard it said to you . . . but I say to you . . ." God's ways (on the issue of reality) do not appear to be our ways...

...I will begin, somewhat circumspectly, with some remarks on Zeffirelli's film Jesus of Nazareth, condemned at first by conservatives as dangerous in its departure from biblical texts and hailed by some liberals as a sensitive and sophisticated—though not entirely successful—rendition of the life of Jesus...

...Secondly, one way to increase social interpretation of the symbolic resources of Christianity would be for hermeneutical theologians to focus on some rather than other genres within the Christian tradition...

...Such a theologian stands within a symbolic tradition and illuminates the disclosive power of these symbols...

...In the one case a human life comes alive to the reality of God...

...The contributions here are, needless to say, many and varied...

...Although story-telling anc parables are fundamental to theology we cannot turn to these alone...

...At any rate, some forms of narrative art as well as corporate prayer, myth and drama are intrinsically social genres and therefore may be the most fruitful resources for hermeneutical theologians to work with for disclosing the socially transformatist power of the Gospel...

...In such a pattern, fundamental, hermeneutical, and praxis theologians complement and depend on one another, use the insights and work of each other, compensate for their own partialities and limitations by the work of others...

...Tracy is suggesting, not a hierarchy of theological reflection in which a "primitive" symbolic religious language is absorbed and surpassed by conceptual language—a hierarchy with parables and stories at the bottom and systematic, philosophical theology at the top—tout a pattern of mutual dependence and appreciation among different types of theological reflection...

...Now it is precisely that distance between conventional reality and a redescription of reality over which the hermeneutical theologian stands guard...

...The Achilles heel of "theology's encounter with literature" is precisely at the point of its focus on the individual...

...The art of the masses in technological societies appears to be either ideologically controlled (as in communist and fascist countries) or commercially prostituted (as in capitalist countries, aided by television...

...This is accomplished not by playing to conventional understandings of reality (which scarcely align with the reality of God), but by maintaining the distance between conventional reality and the redescription of reality in the Gospels...

...for the praxis theologian it is something a community of people does...

...rather, I hope only to show one direction in the encounter between literature and theology which I believe to be especially significant for theology...

...I will then comment on a particular positive contribution which the analysis of such genres and motifs can make to theology as well as on a major limitation of such analysis...

...should avoid "is" —simple realism—at all costs...

...To the extent that this is a viable description of tendencies on the theological scene and not a mere Utopian wish for "the communion of theologians," it is a hopeful counter to the prophecy that theology is dead...

...It is impossible for me, given my own excitement and involvement with the directions which this encounter has take in the last decade, not to focus on it as a genuinely important development...

...All who hear it today do so only by means of the community which preceded us and of which each of us is a part...

...One need not be very deep into contemporary epistemology to accept historical relativity on most issues: people nowadays know that political institutions, social and family patterns, economic structures, and even ethical decisions are determined by historical and geographic placement...

...Note that the model in which most hermeneutical theologians work is implicitly in terms of individuals experiencing a re-orientation in their understanding of reality, from "our ways" to "God's ways...

...The traditional western novel, tracing the highly individualistic search for selfidentity of ttie hero, is undergoing such changes, at least in avant garde circles, that it may eventually join hands with liberation theology in support of corporate experience...

...A parable, a prayer, a poem, a story have no relations with simple realism...

...While Tracy does not say so explicitly, what I see emerging from his analysis of the contemporary theological sense and its possibilities is "colleagueship" in theology of a fairly high order...

...The context of the current theological situation, as I see it, is a growing appreciation for what David Tracy calls "a responsible pluralism" in theology...

...What should have been evident about the nature of the primary religious language of Christianity—that like all such language it is poetic—has shifted the focus of the encounter between theology and literature from a didactic concern with "content" (whether this be understood as illustrating doctrines or manifesting "ultimate concern") to an appreciative interest in "form"—the genres of religious language as well as the symbolic nature of such language...

...Imagination as well as some degree of sacrifice (perhaps changes in teaching and writing interests to benefit needs within oppressed communities) are minimal suggestions...

...The film raises the issues of "realism" and "reality" in unavoidable and to me, disturbing ways, and it is these issues which I believe are the contemporary hermeneutical theologians' battlefield...

...Thirdly, praxis theologians insist with persuasive power that theologies betray their "social contexts...

...In that film Jesus is sufficiently "divine" so that the viewer feels that were he or she "there," belief in Jesus as the saviour would be the appropriate response and one that the viewer could and would have made...

...Recall that Jesus never answered questions about what the kingdom of God is except with that distance in place —he told parables, which did not say what the kingdom is but what it is like...

...The role of the hermeneutical theologians, says Tracy, is "to determine the disclosive or illuminating power of the Christian symbol system...

...Such a task doe not mean that systematic is a substitut for poetic language nor that poetic cai dispense with conceptual language rather, each type of language is legiti mate and necessary...

...No defense of hermeneutical theology would be appropriate—and probably not credible—at this point...

...The Gospel, say the liberation praxis theologians, was transmitted by the community, for the community...

...All of what I have suggested in this brief essay comes under the heading of Tracy's call for a "responsible pluralism" in theology...

...what is critical for our concerns are two points...

...The medium- of film is not necessarily "realistic" in a simplistic sense...

...The beginning of Christianity was the church, not a wandering Jew's relations with individuals for their personal salvation...

...Art, except in primitive and folk cultures, has, in the western tradition, been not only individualistic, but elitist...

...Moreover, the model of truth implied by the hermeneutical theologies is one of "disclosure" and "illumination"—the truth is perceived...

...It is not necessary or appropriate here to delineate the functions and concerns of each group...

...Tracy, on the contrary, is suggesting that while philosophical tools are still necessary to the hermeneutical, church theologian (though the dependence is less than in the case of the academic, fundamental theologian), what is of equal importance is hermeneutical skills to deal with the central primary religious language both in its traditional and contemporary forms...

...6 Poetics, then, is central to theology...

...It is also a painful issue since theologians have somewhat willingly exchanged their historical seats in the churches for academic chairs in the universities— the latter are not only better cushioned but, in our society, more prestigious...

...Ricoeur insist that the critical thinker must retun with a "second naivete*" to the sym bolic base of conceptually for its fue and fire...

...I would like first to speak of the current theological scene and the part literary motifs and genres play in the new form theology is taking...

...Now, traditionally, systematic theologians have depended upon philosophy as their "disciplinary partner...

...Zeffirelli's film, however, in spite of ghostly voices at the annunciation and some reticence at the baptism (and with the scenes dealing with the appearances), is realistic in the sense that most people can identify with easily and comfortably...

...film need not support a literalistic sensibility...

...However, the issue of identification, to whom one belongs and to whom one speaks, is critical...

...Likewise, Wilder has sait recently that "literature cannot taki the place of hard, systematic discursivi ~ theology, despite the defective theology of our time...

...and the praxis-oriented, liberation theologians...

...Symbolic language, what Philip Wheelwright calls tensive language versus steno language (or metaphoric versus conceptual language) lives off the distance between conventional views of reality and the new view encapsulated in the image...

...Finally, I wish to speak to a limitation—and I believe a severe limitation —of theology's encounter with literature in the work of most of its practitioners (including my own modest contributions...

...A caveat should be inserted at this point since the way one sees "the state of a field," in this case the encounter of theology with literature, is largely determined by the idiosyncratic perspective of the viewer...

...For instance, the parable—the characteristic form in which Jesus taught—is not a literal statement, it is not a "realistic" story, it is not a lesson or a moral which fits comfortably into conventional lifestyles and expectations...

...The issue of the social context of theology, the assumed expectations of die communities in which theologians work and to whom they address their work, is one of increasing importance...

...The contribution is so immense and its implications so vast that I can do no more than suggest parameters...

...Gone are the days of the theologian as prima donna, the days of the "total theologian...

...In the latter case, reflection on the experience of the oppressed in the light of divine action determines the method and the criteria of truth...

...Surely, we can do no more...

...let us welcome the era of "responsible pluralism" in theology where many work at different tasks with a high sense of public accountability and with appreciation for different perspectives and tasks not one's own...

...Autobiography and the traditional novel are basically individualistic forms, but some kinds of stories, including the parable, and certainly myth, drama, and corporate prayer are communal forms...

...And there is no ready and defensible answer...

...For the hermeneutical theologian, Christian truth is something a person believes...

...The church told the story of Jesus, interpreted and transmitted that story...

...The social (as well as political and egalitarian) dimensions of Christianity are a largely unplowed field for hermeneutical theologians...

...And one of the special contributions of hermeneutical theologians is to counter it...

...1 From Wilder's basic insights there has emerged in the last twelve years a plethora of books and articles on parable and metaphor, autobiography and story, symbol and myth, all of which are intent on pursuing the disolosive power of these basic genres arnd of religious language.2 In other words, the intent is hermeneutical not apologetic: poetics and poetic forms are intrinsic to the theological task, not prolegomena to it...

...New Testament scholars such as Amos Wilder, Robert Funk, Dan Via, Dominic Crossan, William Beardslee, Norman Perrin (as well as philosopher Paul Ricoeur) have made immense contributions to the enterprise of hermeneutical theology in their work on parables as metaphors, genre criticism of the New Testament, their insistence on the extravagance of biblical language as it moves hearers into "limit situations...

...One need only to think of what Bergman or Fellini might do given the assignment to film "the story of Jesus" to realize that this is so...

...In this book which appeared in 1964 (and which has since become a classic), Wilder shows not only that the New Testament is composed of various literary genres (story, parable, poem, prayer, sermon) but he insists on the unsubstitutability of each of these forms...

...life—the life of God manifest in a human life—demands most assuredly...

...25:31-46), is interpreted by these theologians as demanding not charity to naked and hungry individuals, but as a call for social and political revolution...

...Are the criteria of the academy the only or central ones for hermeneutical theologians...

...Those concerned with the disclosive powers of the central Christian symbols have not, for the most part, been centrally concerned with the redescription of reality ingredient in these symbols as they impinge on systematic oppression by class, race, and sex in our society...

...The littles between poetic and theological language THEOLOGY'S ENCOUNTER WITH LITERATURE SALLIE McFAOlJE resurgence of theological interest in the arts, epitomized in Paul Tillich's existential analysis of serious art as revelatory of ultimate concern, tended more towards its apologetic usefulness (however subtly the apology was framed) than towards the encounter of theology with the intrinsic nature and independence of art forms...

...the camera does not necessarily assume an omniscient, documentary point of view...

...The parables of Jesus, as well as the sayings, healings, miracles and aphorisms, "work" on the dialectic of our view of reality versus another view of reality...

...Theology's encounter with literature was in the beginning and it will be there in the end...

...First, the description of the middle group—the hermeneutical theologians —is such as to require of them radical dependence on poetics...

...Literary critics ananlyzing the rebirth, distortion and reformulation of Christian symbols in the novels of Flannery O'Connor, Melville, Dostoevsky, Walker Percy as well as the alienation from traditional symbols in the work of Camus, Sartre, Vonnegut, Robbe-Grdllet also contribute to the proper placement and present viability of such symbols...

...What New Testament critics unceasingly remind us of is the "distance" between the life of Jesus and belief, a distance epitomized in the four perspectival accounts we have of that life...

...Most of us do not like to hear the liberation theologians' indictments of academic theology (which for the most part includes seminary theology as well) as individualistic, unengaged, and distant from communities experiencing oppression...

...Having admitted to partiality, I would like now to concentrate on the assets and liabilities of the type of encounter I favor...

...A significant change in this encounter occurred with the work of Amos Wilder, especially his Early Christian Rhetoric: The Language of the Gospel...

...This shift has meant, among other things, that theologians nowadays are less interested in analyzing novels and plays to discover possible "God-talk" implicit in them than in learning from literature and literary critics the intrinsic connections between poetic and theological language...

...in the other, a society is transformed by that reality...

...The relations with art are intrinsic and unavoidable...

...In sum then, one central task foi the hermeneutical theologian is tc heighten the genuinely disclosive and illuminative symbols of the Christian tradition, both old and new ones, in such a way that they will "happen" as events in people's lives, re-orienting their perceptions of reality and, as a consequence of new sight, redirecting their wills and actions...

...that is, if poetic and conceptual language are on a continuum, then, retracing the way poetic language eventuates i conceptual language becomes a crucu hermeneutical task...

...In addition, current interest in parables has been accompanied by a fascination with Christian autobiography...

...A parable, a fable, a fantasy, a surrealistic 16 June J978: 410 drama might have retained the necessary distance which all religious matters demand and which that extraordinary (absurd...

...The interpretations are necessarily tentative and subject to change, for the distance of symbolic language from its referent is never overcome...

...It is also noteworthy that the marching orders for liberation theologians, the parable of the Last Judgment (Matt...

...But one contribution stands out in my mind as especially significant to theological reflection in our time...

...that is, academic theologians, doing their work in universities, share an ideology —a whole set of assumptions about methodology and criteria for truth— which differs radically from the ideology of theologians whose social context is Latin American villages...

...It is not accidental that Black, feminist, and third world theologies speak of "the story of the people," signifying by that phrase both the historical oppression this people has endured as well as the mythic stories that have sustained the pilgrimage of the community...

...No indictment could be sharper or more appropriately lodged...

...Tracy has analyzed the context in a variety of publications and its distinctive character is a call for public and cooperative discussion among different theological positions.4 While his terminology varies somewhat in his writings, three main groups emerge: the academic or fundamental theologians...

...Says Tracy, "religion, like art, discloses human meanings and truths to anyone willing to risk allowing that disclosure to 'happen' by faithful attendance to (and thereby in involvement in and interpretation of) that truth-disclosure of genuinely new possibilities for human life in a tradition of taste, tact and genuinely common (as communal) sense...

...The alternative is not that all theologians should live in the barrios (most third world, Black, and feminist theologians do not—in fact, most are in universities...

...Yet when it comes to religious issues, a kind of blindness occurs, buttressed undoubtedly by weariness with uncertainties and change on all sides, which encourages a desire for the literal, the absolute, the "realistic...

...to rearticulate, to reconfess, to render publicly available again the still disolosive classical expressions of the Christian spirit...

...First, there ought to be an insistence on the social nature of Christianity...

...Investigations into the nature of narrafive (particularly the novel and autobiography which historically have had close relationships with Christianity) by Stephen Crites, Dominic Crossan, David BurreM, William McClendon, H.R...

...Moreover, the central symbols of the tradition, whether these be the exodus, the kingdom of God, the people of God, the body of Christ, the eucharistic meal, are communal and social with vast possibilities, as the praxis theologians have discovered, for interpretations which bring to the forefront notions 16 June 1978: 412 of liberation, transformation, equality, interdependence, mutuality and community...

...It is a recognition in part of the variety of genuine theological styles and interests on the contemporary scene—a recognition that there are no one or two dominant systematic positions as in the days of Tillich and Barth...

...Religion is not only of the psyche, but is of the social order...

...She or he protects it, insists on it, remarks on its peculiarities, tries to run down its particularities, and finally, because "the symbol gives rise to thought," ventures interpretations on the meaning of the central symbols for our time...

...As the most flexible of all forms, narrative art remains an open question as to its potential for communal expression...

...While this does not mean mere intellectual assent, since it can and should include the emotions and will, nonetheless, it does not square with the transformationist model of truth for a more humane society of the praxis theologians...

...Now that is "realism" of a literal variety, albeit of a sophisticated sort perhaps, but still identifiable...

...Can theologians identify in significant ways with oppressed communities...