The challenge of post-liberal theology

...The search for the exact historical background of this or that statement of Jesus, for example, probably now an indispensable moment in the interpretation of a text, can obscure a key point, namely, that the Gospel narratives are Scripture, a story which claims us, and not just a mine of historical data...

...Once again: how can we escape relativism and fideism...

...We can agree with each other because we are all rational creatures...

...And if that is the case, one might wonder why one should bother with translating the rather cumbersome Christian mythological language in the first place...

...We cannot live to insure our ultimate security, but must learn to live on a day-to-day basis . . . For, ironically, when we try to exclude surprises from our life, we are only more subject to the demonic...

...They 40: Commonweal are, in other words, both reacting to an old human problem: the encounter with those who think differently, an encounter which inevitably raises uncomfortable doubts about our own position...

...The Gospel narratives, for example, as Hans Frei argues forcefully and learnedly in The Eclipse of Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (Yale, 1974) must be taken realistically as providing the shape of our lives, but not necessarily historically, i.e., as mere clues to "what really happened...

...The story is what is underneath...

...Obviously, such a people, did it exist, would not be co-terminous with the societas perfecta of the Catholic church or with any other traditional body...

...What good is freedom of speech," the post-liberals might reply, "with nothing to say...

...How do Christians talk to those who do not know or do not accept Jesus as Savior...

...Thus the first question we wanted to put to Hauerwas — is it possible to do theology without resting it ultimately on philosophy — is shown to be phrased in an unacceptable way...

...But for Hauerwas, the "foundation" is simply the story, and this is as true for philosophy as it is for theology...

...Mary's College, Moraga, California...

...The traditional theological problem of church and world...

...They are not interested in the classic liberal task of translating Christian concepts into the language of secularity, an enterprise they regard as impossible on its face...

...The cross here is not simply the symbol of the inadequacy of all human notions of God, as in Tillich...

...The argument between "realists" like Reinhold Niebuhr and those who "take Jesus seriously" is an old one...

...and that, finally, there is a certain intellectual amnesia, even dishonesty, in attacking liberalism when the benefits of liberalism — freedom of religion, press, and speech, for example — are not brought to mind...

...How does it account for them...

...project either, with its imperialistic rejection of philosophy and major world religions, though they have undoubtedly learned from it and its mistakes...

...42: Commonweal...

...That is, both these enterprises are carried on within the context of a set of goals, methods, and criteria which dwell in a particular group of people...

...According to Hauerwas, only a community which knows how to deal with its own mistakes — how to accept forgiveness — can continue to be open to the novelties which the future continually discloses: To be forgiven means that I must face the fact that my life actually lies in the hands of others...

...Though this may be caricature, Hauerwas might argue, it also may, like the caricatures of liberalism drawn by Flannery O'Connor, point to some harsh truths...

...It is an intellectual problem, to be sure...

...And so it goes...

...We seem to be trapped in the hopeless choice of a relativism which imprisons us in our own culture, and a universalism which is only the cleverly disguised arrogance of a culture powerful enough to impose its will on others...

...And one of those harsh truths is that many of us no longer really find the teachings of Jesus more compelling than thej wisdom of the world...

...But the trouble with universal reason is that what seems like universal reason to us is not all that universal to others...

...To see nonviolence as central to the Christian community is to invite a host of objections...

...We call knowledge about God "revelation," not because of the rationality or irrationality of such language, but because of what that knowledge is about...

...In other words, they got the problem wrong: "All knowledge of God is at once natural and revelatory," Hauerwas has written...

...Nor are they speaking from narrow confessional foxholes, waiting for the blessed day when doctrinal orthodoxy and conservative morality will be restored...

...Perhaps one fruitful way of answering this question is to raise two traditional (and related) theological questions and see how Stanley Hauerwas, as perhaps the best known and most influential of the post-liberals, would answer them...

...Hauerwas is by no means advocating, then, a retreat into sectarianism or a return to an imagined golden age when everyone thought alike...

...That knowledge is contextual will come as no shock to anyone today...

...When Hauerwas says, in Peaceable Kingdom (Notre Dame, 1983), his most extensive monograph, that "if we have a 'foundation' it is the story of Christ," he is not simply indulging in pious talk...

...that it is not, after all, so easy to discover the implications of Christ's teachings today...

...It has little to say because it allows secularity to control the vocabulary of the discussion...

...Against such a background, then, Hauerwas can see the ancient problem of reason and revelation as the problem of Christianity's relationship to the non-Christian world: how does our story relate to those strangers outside our gates who do not share our language and culture...

...True to their critical nature, liberals might reply that those who olaim to be true believers are often hiding their doubts, rather than dealing with them...

...But the Christian community not only has an account of the rest of the world, it is in some way constituted by its mission to that world...

...still less is it the event of the Atonement...

...but it is an intellectual problem because it is first of all a problem for a group of people trying to understand who they are and what they should do...

...Without such shared vision, conversation — and thus virtue — is impossible...

...it is a commonplace for many people who can't agree on much else, from Marxists to Heideggerians.The philosopher whom Hauerwas quotes more than any other on this point is, however, the neo-Aristotelian Alasdair Maclntyre, whose After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, 1981) argues that morality makes sense only within a community, i.e., a group of people who share a vision of the ends of human endeavor and of the virtues necessary to get there...

...It is a tradition (one thinks immediately of names like H. Richard Niebuhr and Jaroslav Pelikan) of concern for the stubborn, non-reducible particularity of Christian faith, and a profound willingness to learn from representatives of disparate traditions...

...In their search for security the fundamentalist and the hidebound positivist are cousins...

...Does such a people of God exist as a vibrant and persuasive alternative to a culture caught between macho posturing and self-indulgence...

...Do we really need the cross to remind us that life involves suffering...

...Rather, the cross is the revelation that the reign of God will only come through the suffering love of the people of God as they open themselves to the stranger outside the gates...

...Because all knowledge for Hauerwas is based on testimony, on tradition...

...Every community must have some account of the "others" — the strangers who do not speak our language...

...For Hauerwas, this is the real question, and to answer it in the negative would be effectively to deny the existence of God as described and revealed in the Christian Scriptures...

...Both are attempts to find firm ground upon which to build the house of certainty...

...Writes Hauerwas: Violence and coercion become conceptually intelligible from a natural law standpoint...

...And so, odd as it may seem, the philosophical problem of truth, the epistemological question, is inseparably linked with the notion of a nonviolent community, a community willing to risk death rather than to coerce anyone...

...Indeed, perhaps the very notion of universal reason has within it the seeds of a narrow will-to-power...

...To those who believe that, through technique or coercion or education we can come, finally, to universal agreement, Christianity preaches the cross...

...For Hauerwas, as for Yoder, the task of Christians is not to "build up the kingdom of God" nor even to make the world a slightly better place, but is to be faithful...

...He just published Faith and Knowledge (University Press of America...

...But these writers are not simply reviving the neo-orthodox PAUL GIURLANDA, F.S.c, teaches in the religious studies department of St...

...Younger Catholics (and others) may wish to ask: And how do we avoid falling back into the kind of religious intolerance which is not only not dead in the twentieth century, but seems to be growing in strength...

...Mao tse Tung, Milton Friedman, and Adolf Hitler are alike in their claim to represent reason...

...But what this openness to the stranger means is that we must love even those strangers who make themselves our enemies, with a love which must extend to the suffering of violence...

...Clearly, if one sets up these two terms (revelation and reason) as opposites, any attempt to deal with the "problem" of their opposition will be forever frustrating...

...Indeed, ecumenism is a major concern of both the Lutheran Lindbeck, an observer at the Second Vatican Council and commentator on Catholic affairs, and Hauerwas, who at one point found himself in the unlikely role of Methodist at the University of Notre Dame, making friends with Catholics like David Burrell...

...But it would certainly be visible to those who looked, perhaps in some surprising places...

...Hauerwas claims that it is possible to trust the words of Jesus, and that if we do this, we will find just enough truth to take the next step forward...

...Nevertheless, while liberation theology, with all its inherent drama, has captured the attention of seminarians and the media (not to mention nervous church officials), it is my contention that "post-liberal" writers like Stanley Hauerwas, George Lindbeck, and Hans Frei are saying things which, in the long run, might be just as significant for North American religious thought...

...such differences in principle should not exist...

...rationalism as a foundationalism of reason...

...For Hauerwas, to say that Christian convictions are "true" is, in part, to say that they are not simply "true for us," but for others as well: The less sure we are of the truth of our religious convictions the more we consider them immune from public scrutiny...

...Obviously, from the point of view of Christian post-liberalism, this pessimism is a form of theological despair...

...THE CHALLENGE OF POST-LIBERAL THEOLOGY TESTIMONY, COMMUNITY, & NONVIOLENCE PAUL GIURLANDA T he Exodus works as an increasingly satisfying background story for a variety of Christian writers these days,, whether their interest be feminism, economic justice, or spirituality...

...The universal presumptions of natural law make it more difficult to accept the very existence of those who do not agree with us...

...For only a community which has been freed ui'the need to coerce can know the truth...

...Universal reason has been — and still is — used to justify the imposition of one culture's view of reality upon another...

...To say that Christianity is like a language, or, as Hauerwas might prefer, a foundational story, is to say that one does not try to get underneath it...

...Do we really need the resurrection to remind us that suffering can lead to triumph...

...That these groups are not sealed off from each other, that they have permeable boundaries, is precisely the root of the problem: how do we reconcile our various communities of interpretation...

...The first question, it turns out, collapses into the second question we wanted to ask: Is it possible to see knowledge as communally based without giving up communication with other traditions and cultures...

...Without the transcultural certainty of universal reason, we are dizzy, frightened, without handholds, without points of reference* Ultimately, different human communities seem to be simply barbaroi to each other, those who utter nonsense syllables, those who are not human...

...To Catholics, and to many mainstream Protestants, Hauerwas's project will appear naive, even dangerous...

...It is phrased in a way which suggests that philosophy and theology need to be related to each other as foundation is related to dwelling...

...He argues that the Christian must be open to the stranger and his or her ideas...

...it is essentially a missionary movement...

...But in the process we lose what seems essential to their being true, namely, that we be willing to commend them to others...

...How can Hauerwas have it both ways...

...Hauerwas can agree with both sides in the ancient dispute, with both Justin Martyr and (to use the modern example) Karl Barth...

...He is disclosing an entire theological program, a program which will seek to avoid the twin perils of fideism and rationalism...

...Here Hauerwas aligns himself with those, like John Howard Yoder, who see the role of the church to be church rather than to improve the world...

...Perhaps one clue to the integrity of post-liberals will be whether they can resist manipulation by the left and right as well as Karl Barth did...

...It is at this most delicate point that Hauerwas comes to our aid, asking a profound question: What if we discover a community in whose language and practices, in whose tradition, is an attitude of suffering love toward the stranger...

...The Christian analogue for the concern for universal reason as the basis for universal human community is simply the love of the stranger, the love of the enemy, whose exemplification is the cross of Jesus Christ...

...What then are these hard-to-categorize theologians doing...

...The nonviolent character of the community is what makes its knowledge authentic and dependable...

...Here fundamentalism and liberalism — both children of Enlightenment doubt — are seen to have at least one thing in common: the narrative comes in second to a set of detachable principles...

...Perhaps it is precisely liberalism's bittersweet success to have had its achievements taken for granted — and thus unacknowledged...

...It is worth nothing that Maclntyre is frankly pessimistic about the possibility of such community in contemporary North American culture...

...When one encounters such strangers, one unsheathes one's sword...

...Fideism can be looked at as a foundationalism of revelation...

...One of the professed merits of the notion of universal reason is that it enables us to see each other, not as strangers, but as sharers in a common logos...

...Older Catholics may ask almost instinctively: But how do we relate to the rest of the world if we cannot assume, on philosophical grounds, that we can have a point of agreement...

...The traditional theological problem of faith and reason...

...He can do this because, in a sense, both sides are right, and both sides are wrong...

...It's worth mentioning that Frei, Hauerwas, and Lindbeck — as well as Charles M. Wood, whose Formation of Christian Understanding (Westminster, 1981) is appreciatively quoted by both Hauerwas and Lindbeck — come out of what a Far Western observer can only regard as the remarkable and impressive Yale theological tradition...

...Hauerwas refuses to see the issue in such terms: "Revelation" is not a qualifier of the epistemic status of a kind of knowledge, but rather points to the content of a certain kind of knowledge...

...But Hauerwas, and those writing in the same vein, are not so easily dismissed, if only because they have pointed to some real difficulties with the "liberal" consensus among middle-ofthe-road Protestants and Catholics...

...Liberal Christianity, one might argue, had little of force to say to the Nazis, has little of force to say to Caspar Weinberger...

...As George Lindbeck argues in his latest book, The Nature of Doctrine (Westminster, 1984), Christianity is not so much like a set of translatable concepts, as it is like a language with an integrity of its own, a language whose grammar and vocabulary can and must simply be learned...

...None of the postliberals has yet said that he would prefer the Geneva of Calvin, the Rome of Gregory XVI, or even the Paris of Aquinas, to twentieth-century New Haven...

...And why should it matter to the rest of us...

...All knowledge, in other words, is contextual, valid only within a particular community of interpretation, and the word story in the phrase "story of Christ" gives this away...

...Post-liberal here simply means that Hauerwas and the others mentioned refuse to let the secular world set the agenda for theology or for the church...

...To know anything is always to know it in the horizon in which our language and culture have made it possible for us to know it...

...More positively, Hauerwas's emphasis on Christianity as community, a very specific community with a unique nonviolent way of experiencing reality, a unique language of suffering love, will ring true for those many people who look not so much for truth as for truthful people, not so much for ideals, as for people who embody them...

...Let us ask: • Is it possible to do theology without resting it on a philosophy, in the sense, for example, in which much Catholic theology "rests" on Aristotle...

...For most 30 January 1987: 41 communities that account is essentially secondary and defensive...