A Thought on Baptism

Today in the church service, we had the special liturgy for the remembrance of our own Baptisms (along with one new Baptism). This is actually intended for the 6th Sunday after Trinitatis, but our pastor did it today, as we had another special event on that Sunday. It made me think a bit about baptism, specifically about the relationship between Baptism and faith (we had also last week one Baptism and one "blessing"; the latter being where the parents wanted "to let the child choose for themselves as an adult").

As one might know, I grew up in a credobaptist tradition, but am now theologically supportive of paedobaptism. There has also been a change in my theology from thinking of baptism as an ordinance and Baptism as a sacrament (see what I did there?), which has made me think a lot about the status of Baptism. If Baptism occurs chronologically before faith, it seems to be fully independant of the recipient; here we have the case of the parents who do not wish to choose something for their child (which cannot be undone, though I don't know if they had that in mind). If, however, faith precedes Baptism, is Baptism as a sacrament contingent on the human-side action or status of faith?

There is in my opinion a dual key to resolving this issue. The first is to have the proper definition of faith. Faith is not synonymous with assenting to a set of propositions, or "holding-to-be-true"; rather, faith is the faculty created by God in the believer which "apprehends" or lays hold to salvation. It is for this reason that Luther, for example, referred to faith as fides apprehensiva. Faith actually has not so much to do with intellectual assent, though it is accompanied by such assent in an adult. So the argument that an infant doesn't have faith in the first place is a rationalistic reductionism of the concept of faith in the first place. But wait, isn't some sort of assent and cognitive acceptance necessary (in technical terms, doesn't fiducia imply notitia and assensus)? Don't we have to know and acknowledge or agree with what we are laying hold of and placing our trust in? To an extent, yes - and this is where the sacramental nature of Baptism comes in. While the ritual act performed here is a temporal event which stands in relation to other temporal events, the presence of the eternal God in the sacrament necessitates that the sacramental aspect of Baptism is cotemporal with all temporal events. Our participation in Baptism is something that is always the case, and it is then the case that the individual at Baptism is the same individual who cognitively assents as a rational adult. The unity of the Christian as a person is held together through time by the eternal God, in whose life we participate. From a temporal perspective, it may seem like Baptism is retroactively actualized (cf. Wolfhart Pannenberg, for example), but a thorough application of the assertion that God's eternity is present to all temporal points and that the sacraments have us participating in God results in the sort of temporal unity I've just described.



Some of you who know me will notice what theory is doing the heavy lifting here, and if you are still waiting for that in print, I'm still working on the manuscript before I submit it...

What Jesus Really Said

I had a conversation with a colleague recently where a certain sentiment was expressed, basically: "It seems like people forget everything they have learned about the New Testament when they get into the pulpit. They preach as if these are things that Jesus really said, especially from the Gospel of John, when we know that, in all probability, that's not at all the case." We discussed it for a while, and I think there are a couple of things to point out in regard to this.

At the time, I framed my response as a matter of epistemic access. That is to say, I wanted to express that one has to already be in such a condition that one is able by faith to look at history in a certain way, otherwise one is necessarily using a different interperative paradigm. I argued that the rejection of the Gospels, or even of the Gospel of John, on the grounds that the words are not historical in the reductive sense of "word for word the case" is a one-sided, overly reductionistic argument. There's something to be said here regarding epistemic access and epistemic standpoint which will play into how I think about it, but I want to start somewhere else.

I think that this is probably best framed in a distinction between ipsissima verba and ipsissima vox. Ipsissima verba means "the very words", whereas ipsissima vox means "the very voice." Given that Jesus probably didn't do the majority of His teaching in Greek, and even if he had done so, the radical differences in vocabulary between John and the Synoptics make asserting ipsissima verba kind of problematic, in my opinion. That's not to say that there are not some things recorded that are Jesus' ipsissima verba, just that we can't assert that everything in the New Testament is.

But if I can argue from the standpoint of faith, I can say something like the following: Look at the process by which certain "gospels" were rejected, and the four we have made it into the canon. Even Mark is based on an earlier oral tradition, which preserved in part the ipsissimia verba and the ipsissima vox of Jesus. If we can accept providence in the formation of the canon, we can make the not-much-stronger claim that everything that got recorded as Scripture in those accepted works is providentially either ipsissima verba or ipsissima vox, and that for faith, the distinction doesn't really matter, as the providential inclusion of ipsissima vox which is true to the ipsissima verba wouldn't contradict the true teaching at any point. So I can have no problem with saying that, for example, John wrote certain things with a certain agenda, because the things that were written are a true expression of Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom present in Him and His resurrection. Additionally, on this providential picture, there is dual authorial intent - John intended to express something, and God intended to express something as well, as the preservation of true ipsissima vox requires God in the picture, if it's providence. We can even go so far as to treat things that seem to be ipsissima vox as ipsissima verba, because of the providential preservation. In a certain sense, with the Triune God's authorial intention in play, the ipsissima vox have to become the ipsissma verba, because what is recorded is still God "speaking" to us, and we can't abstract the Son from this action.

That, my friend, is how one can get into the pulpit and say that Jesus told us He is the Way, the Truth and the Life - because that statement is His true voice speaking to us, whether or not we can determine a specific temporal recording of this statement during His earthly life.

Not thinking much

We've recently had a major heat wave here, and though it is a bit better at this point, my notable lack of air conditioning has made thinking a last-resort action. So I've not got much to blog about. I will, however, share a number of links which have amused me in recent days:

Jim West on Football in Church

Theologygrams on Time and Eternity

Rock songs for 50 theologians

Rock songs for 25 more

The most interesting thelogians in the world

A response to the above from Die Evangelische Theologen

Apostles' Creed for conservative evangelicals

Apostles' Creed for liberals


Have fun, folks. Back to regularly scheduled programming when I darn well feel like it again.

The Future of Evangelical Theology

This week marked the end of the seminar I gave (in conjunction with Prof. Dr. Armin Kreiner) on Evangelical Theology ("Wohin Steuert die Evangelikale Theologie"), and I'd like to take a moment to reflect (now that the semester is over).

Through the semester, we looked at the origins and historical development of evangelicalism, especially in the english-speaking world, but the bit I found to be the most interesting was in the second half of the semester, which dealt with new developments and influences in evangelical theology. The point of the seminar was to present evangelicalism as something differentiated rather than a monolithic block, and especially to distinguish it from fundamentalism. I'll probably say more about some individual aspects here in the future, but for today I would like to give my summary thesis, which I formulated for the close of the course:

The future of evangelical theology is as one theological direction and influence among others in the so-called mainline denominations rather than in particular "evangelical" denominations.

 (OK, so I actually said something like "Die Zukunft der evangelikalen Theologie ist eher als eine Richtung bzw. Prägung unter anderem bei den sogenannten mainline-Konfessionen vorzustellen, anstatt als die Theologie besonderer und gesonderter evangelikaler Konfessionen.")

This seems to be the case not only from the doctrinal nearness of the New Evangelicals to the conservative-moving theologians of mainline denominations (Catholics included, by the way!), but also is supported by socialogical data in certain age groups (primarily my generation and younger) who change their church affiliation as well as rejecting single-issue politics. Prof. Dr. Michael Hochgeschwendner from the Amerika-Institut of the LMU was kind enough to guest-lecture for us once, and gave me the most support for my theory.

Evangelicalism lives in tension with fundamentalism. In distinguishing itself from the fundamentalist rejection of the world and society, and in taking a more active role in forming society, "evangelicals" end up on the same field of play as "mainliners", "liberals", and others. When the Christian conscience is not connected to the Religious Right, but decides on the basis of love and justice, "evangelical" social action starts to have a lot of similarity to "mainline" groups; the theological movements within "evangelicalism" are in conversation with the rest of the theological world.

That's probably pretty controversial, but I'm going to stick to my guns. I'm an "evangelical" in a "mainline" denomination, and there is enough evidence that the move I've made is one being made by many young adults. It's time to end the characterisation of church groups as being representatives of one or the other type of theology, and time to begin, for ourselves, representing the Truth for who He is, where and  how we can proclaim Him.

For my Barthian Friends

If you know me, you know I'm kind of skeptical about a lot of Barth's theology. Nonetheless, I am going to share a theology-nerd joke (which I heard for the first time a couple of days ago, but which was referred to as a joke that every theology student here has heard [side note: it was Hans Spiegel over at Tagebuch eines Pfarrers in a podcast from a while back]) which really turns on Barth's monumental Kirchliche Dogmatik.

Here we go: So, eventually the Kingdom of God is ushered in, and everyone is absolutely thrilled. There's a minor problem though: all the theologians who have ever lived have confused people so much, and done so many foolish things, that they have to take a short test before they can be allowed in. The Holy Spirit is examining them, and St. Peter brings them into a room one by one. The line is progressing quite nicely, and apparently the examination is quite easy, since it is only taking about five minutes per theologian. Near the front of the line, Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and Rudolf Bultmann are standing together. St. Peter beckons Barth inside, and everyone is waiting. 5 minutes turn into 10. Then a half an hour. An hour. Finally, after three hours,  St. Peter comes back out, and Tillich jumps up and asks "Did Barth fail? Did Barth fail? Did he finally fail at something?" St. Peter replies, "Well, Barth didn't fail..."

A Look Behind the Curtain, or: why I was silent on the blog for several weeks

So, as I have already mentioned, I recently wrapped up my "Rigorosum", the final examinations for a doctoral degree here at the Protestant Theological Faculty, and I thought I should write a bit about how it all went down. I am usually big about recommending graduate study in Germany, because, hey, I paid a whole 42€ in fees (not including printing the dissertation) for the whole degree, and because I think the academic climate here is at least comparable to leading schools elsewhere (LMU is in the top 50 worldwide, by the way, and the humanities such as theology rank higher).

So I had officially submitted my disseration at the beginning of April, which was officially accepted without revision on the 19th of June. Unlike other programs, the faculty here requires an "Examen Rigorosum" rather than a defense - this consists of one major and two minor subject areas. As my dissertation was written in Systematic Theology, that was my major; for the minor subjects I had to choose from two constellations: Old Testament or New Testament, and Practical Theology or Church History or Science of Religion. I went with NT and Church History. I was also officially informed on the 20th that the examination would be on the 26th, though I knew the date about a week before that unofficially. Preparation was brutal, mostly because I over-prepared, but I certainly won't be lacking the knoweldge later should I ever need it.

In the examination for Systematic Theology, I was examined on the topics of Christology and Justification (Prolegomena wasn't an option, as that was the area of my dissertation - the idea is to ensure a breadth of knowledge and prevent over-specialization) by my advisor, Prof. Jan Rohls. Prof. Harry Oelke examined me in Church History, on the topics of the social, political, and eccelsial situation prior to Reformation as well as on the life and work of the Pietist Philipp Jakob Spener. Prof. Loren Stuckenbruck examined me in New Testament on the righteousness of God in Paul's letter to the Romans. The whole thing took about three hours, and was actually quite a lot of fun (but, then, I'm strange and enjoy these things). I'm also quite pleased to say that I know my overall grades: I received the (latin) grade of cum laude (A side note here: this is not comparable with other grading schemes in other countries, nor is it totally standardized in Germany, not even in the same subject or the same university - each faculty of each uni has its own rules, and there is only a rough guide for the country-wide assesment. For the curious, it's about a 3.5 on an American-style scale).

In my opinion, this sort of examination is the perfect balancing mechanism for the fact that there is not a course of study in the program. One "merely" has to write a dissertation (I've heard the rumor that our give up + nonacceptance rate is 80-90% here, but I don't know if that's true), but there also has to be a concentrated period of broad theological learning, not just specific research. Lectures and seminars here are rarely (for now) divided by standing (aside from proseminars), so it's not uncommon to have doctoral candidates, folks in the early semesters, senior-students, and even professors from other departments in the same course.

And I still can't call myself "Dr." until I turn in a certain number of copies of my dissertation - when the secretary comes back from vacation...

I'm a wizard!

So I have just wrapped up the last bit I have to do for my doctoral degree here in Munich (side note: I can't call myself "Dr." officially until I get the diploma, for legal reasons in Germany, so this is not to be understood as such), and in honor of that I offer the following argument that I am a wizard:

The -ard suffix in English is an old holdover which turns an an adjective into a noun (example: drunk -> drunkard). A wiz-ard, then, is someone who is wise (*wiseard). Now, it's long been a claim of Christianity that theology isn't just a scientia, but a sapientia: not just knowledge, but wisdom. Now, achieving the requirements of a doctoral degree in "wisdom" seems to make one qualified as "wise" - one is doctus (learned) in wisdom, which is basically saying the same thing. That being the case, I lay claim to being a wizard. Bam!

(The only spell I seem to know is "transmute money to book", though)