Been reading Christian Theology: An Introduction by Alister McGrath. In the chapter on “The Modern Period” McGrath surveys and summarizes a grocery list of “major theological movements” during the “Modern” period.
Romanticism, Marxism, Liberal Protestantism, Modernism (found this one hard to understand), Neo-Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Feminism, Postmodernism, Liberation Theology, Black Theology, Postliberalism, Evangelicalism, Pentecostal and charismatic, and theologies of the developing world.
What I did not expect was to resonate strongly with how McGrath describes one of these movements. Care to guess which one?
Postliberalism.
Oh yeah. Time to order a custom made t-shirt.
Postliberalism rejects both the traditional Enlightenment appeal to a “universal rationality” and the liberal assumption of an immediate religious experience common to all humanity. (119)
Not entirely sure about that part. But hang in there.
Arguing that all thought and experience is historically and socially mediated, postliberalism bases its theological program upon a return to religion traditions, whose values are inwardly appropriated. Postliberalism is thus anti-foundational… communitarian… historicist.
It gets better.
Postliberalism reintroduces a strong emphasis on the particularity of the Christian faith, in reaction against the strongly homogenizing tendencies of liberalism, in its abortive attempt to make theory (that all religions are saying the same thing) and observation (that the religions are difference) coincide.
McGrath mentions several theologians – apparently I should have gone to Yale – including George Lindbeck who “develops what he terms a ‘cultural-linguistic’ approach which embodies the leading features of postliberalism” (119).
Where the summary of postliberalism gets downright scary (in a good way – I hope) is:
Theology is grounded on the intrabiblical paradigm, which it is obliged to describe and apply as best it can. To affirm that theology has a regulatory authority is not to imply that it can regulate Scripture, but to acknowledge that a distinctive pattern of regulation already exists within the biblical material, which theology is to uncover and articulate.
This seems to be a bold challenge to the claims of postmodernism and its intellectual cousins.
I do not mean to imply I agree with all of the above. Only that of the various approaches McGrath describes this is the one where I thought “yeah – that is more or less how I look at Christian theology at this stage of my life”. The goal is not to seize upon an “identity”. But to be encouraged that I am not entirely alone – including in my stubborn resistance to liberal Protestantism (which bears strong resemblance to the “emergent” church movement although I could be wrong – that movement claims to be postmodern). Also my theology has become much more “orthodox” – a deep concern for the traditions and teachings of the Christian church throughout the centuries. That is why I would qualify the point about “intrabiblical” interpretation. Surely how the church interprets Scripture is already part of this “pattern” which theology would uncover and articulate?
