David Fitch - The End of Evangelicalism?

So, I recently got my hands on a copy of Fitch's book, which makes me only a bit behind the game, as it was published in 2011. I had heard about the book already, on a podcast, and wanted to take a look at it, but to be honest, I wasn't searching too hard - and I was wrong!

 I was loaned this book on a Monday afternoon, and by Tuesday noon, I was through it. Fitch uses categories drawn from Žižek to critique evangelicalism as an ideology. After an introduction to Žižek’s thought, with the admission that Žižek would certainly not agree with Fitch’s own use of the ideas in some places, and certainly not with the constructive section, he gets going analyzing the ideology.

Over three chapters, Fitch looks at “The Inerrant Bible”, “The Decision for Christ” and “The Christian Nation”, examining how these have become empty master-signifiers within evangelical culture and how instead of contributing to faithfulness they help evangelicals define themselves by opposing themselves to what they are not, sometimes in an absurd manner. Fitch wishes to remain orthodox in belief, without the definition by the radical other or empty adherence to an ideology.

These chapters are spot on in describing what is going on in North America. I felt like I was reading an academic assessment of things that I either personally experienced or somehow knew were going on – and if for no other reason, if you identify at all with the term “evangelical”, you should pick up this book.

His final constructive chapter and epilogue walks a fine line – he is aiming at one of the bigger segments of evangelicalism, which necessarily leaves out some folks, and I feel that he (although he does give a few warnings) unnecessarily downplays what are true doctrinal differences between orthodox Christianity and movements that are in the gap created by the upheaval of evangelicalism. It is not the solution that I would advise, but then, I didn’t write the book. 

Overall, this book is a good view of what is going on in North American evangelicalism, and it is something I think everyone should be talking a look at – either to see yourself in a new light, to understand more about the folks you are not, or to figure out what is happening in general. The constructive part is, I’m afraid, the sort of advice that isn’t bad, but one knows when one reads it that it likely will be misinterpreted by those who made it far enough to read it – and I have my own doubts if Fitch’s vision is something to strive for, though in many cases he’s on the right track.

Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Sin

So here is something I’ve been thinking about. Ho w is it that we know our sin, i.e., that we know ourselves to be sinners? If we have some sort of connection between the knowledge of the law and the knowledge of God, as the Reformers seemed to have, we might get into trouble. Karl Barth tries to explain away this connection between knowledge of the law and knowledge of God in Calvin and Luther in KD IV/1 (§60.1), ultimately coming to the conclusion that we have an idea of our sin as sin only after the encounter with Christ which reveals God as God; prior to this our universal sense of sin is one which measures sin against other human actions in their imperfection. 

This sounds attractive at first, but I think it might be too strong. Barth’s main desire here is essentially to work out the idea that the function law as a curb inhibits the function of the law as a mirror, until God-side action is taken to give us a good look in the mirror. The problem is that the passages about the law being written in the heart are tied to the idea of a universal guilt – no one has an excuse. Now, I’m not at all holding the position that an unknowing transgression is somehow not a transgression, but I think that an account which preserved knowing transgression, even on a most rudimentary level, would be preferable.

I think this sort of account was present in the reformers. Calvin set up a logical situation in which knowledge of the law paralleled knowledge of God – This is even called, in certain areas of study of Reformed theology, the use of a rhetorical proof of God’s existence. Luther set the two as equal as well (WA 39 II, 323, 367), but made the specific comment that one doesn’t understand the entirety of one’s sin. This is because Luther wanted to run all knowledge of God through knowledge of Christ (a thought shared with Melanchthon and Calvin), such that even general revelation reveals Christ, when only partially. The Gospel and the Law are, in one sense, the same message. 

So it would seem, on this picture, that we recognize our sin as sin, and at the same time recognize our limits of recognition in recognizing our sin as sin. This preserves a lot more of the traditional ideas about natural knowledge of God and the law being written on the heart; what this account needs is a good story about why this partial knowledge is insufficient do to more than demonstrate our need in order not to fall prey to an accusation of inappropriate natural theology.

 (Side note: this position can also be read in a manner more palatable to Barth’s interpretation; one has to still assert a core “protoknoweldge” of God but can assert the factual result that human sinfulness results in a rationalizing of sin against human standards, so that awareness of sin as sin is only post-God-action.)

So we’ve moved the question: if we are willing to accept that one can have some sort of accurate knowledge about God without knowing God as God, then this is what the law gives us (as well as what many “apologetic” attempts might give us). The question is now twofold, firstly, “what good does it do us?” and secondly, “does it make sense to talk about knowledge of God in this manner?”

Each of those deserves at least one post of their own…

Blogging and Auto-Publishing

So it turns out that I'm not smart enough to use Blogger's auto-publish feature, which means that when I hit that stressful time before and during the MasterClass and my Greek examinations, nothing got put up on here. From now on, I will do everything manually. Sorry, readers!

Piper and Pannenberg

So John Piper has recently written on schism, and referred to Bonhoeffer and Pannenberg in order to support his position (here). Bonhoeffer scholars already have a problem with his use of Bonhoeffer; I have something to say about his use of Pannenberg.

Firstly, his quote ignores the fact that a paragraph and a half later, Pannenberg speaks of how the Church is to treat homosexuals (available here in German). Roughly translated high points: "the fact of homosexual attraction cannot be denied, and one may also not judge it...The Church must life with the fact, that a failure to keep the norm in this [ie the sexual, also heterosexual practice] area of life is, as in others, not seldom, but rather the rule [than the exception]. The Church must meet these people with tolerance understanding, but also call them to repentance."

That's a pretty different tone, huh?

A second point: this was Pannenberg in 1994; in 2005 he wrote a professional review of practice for the German Evangelical Church on the same topic (actually, the practice of homosexual pastors living together on church property). While Pannenberg still opposes homosexuality, his words on schism are striking (available here in German). Again he calls to tolerance and understanding, and again he calls for repentance; most important, however, he gives his greatest reason for worry: that "die homosexuelle Lebensform eines Pfarrers oder einer Pfarrerin in der Tat die Einheit der Gemeinde gefährdet", that is, "the homosexual lifestyle of a pastor [male or female] indeed endangers the unity of the congregation."

Schism? Pannenberg was worried about keeping the church together! He stayed, and stays, in a church body that makes to a rule a thing he opposes: but he opposes from within, the exact opposite of what Piper seems to be calling Christians to do.

Way to take people out of context...