Reviews for Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy: Postmodern Theology, Rhetoric, and Truth

The average rating for Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy: Postmodern Theology, Rhetoric, and Truth based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-06-05 00:00:00 Julia Alexander Walter Rauschenbusch states in his 1917 work, A Theology for the Social Gospel: "We have a social gospel. We need a systematic theology large enough to match it and vital enough to back it." This is the first statement in the book under the chapter heading. It seems at first to be a very agreeable comment that we should all board quickly. However, it very clearly points to Rauschenbusch's heart and own personal theology. If we are in the business of modeling our theology to something man-derived'as is the social gospel'we are starting out with God in our own personal box; meeting our own personal definitions and supposed needs in a sort of faux faith devoid of the important aspects of the real God. Are we ready to start with something as small as the social gospel and look for a view of God to match it? Rauschenbusch has some lofty aspirations. However, he does state: "the social gospel imports into theology nothing that is new or alien." I believe there are many conflicting and defensive statements in Rauschenbusch's book. In this review, I will seek to first highlight some of the history of the social gospel, and then provide some commentary on two points that resonated with me as I first read it. Overall, I believe that Rauschenbusch presents a very liberal case for how believers should consider theology, and I do not see evidence for all of his major thoughts in Scripture. Brief History and Definition of the Social Gospel What is the social gospel? The social gospel movement was basically an effort to incorporate Christian principles into society. In order to do this, one must get at the heart of Christianity, and that is accomplished through the study of God. Theology became a necessary tool in which leaders of the social gospel movement sought to determine the extent to which Christianity should direct society. William Lindsey, in Shailer Mathews's Lives of Jesus, says: "Rauschenbusch is widely regarded as the social gospel theologian." Lindsey states later in his work that there were three leading figures in the social gospel movement. In addition to Rauschenbusch, Samuel Zane Batten and Charles P. Henderson formed a group called "the Baptist Congress for the Discussion of Current Questions" in which he also cites was "an unofficial denominational forum" that met from 1892-1907. An Ever-Changing Theology? As he searched to define further the social gospel, Rauschenbusch came into a series of personal views about theology such as: "If theology stops growing or is unable to adjust itself to its modern environment and to meet its present tasks, it will die." He continues later: "Theology needs periodical rejuvenation. Its greatest danger is not mutilation but senility." By this, one can assume he means that our view of God must keep changing in order to match or update an ancient God with our contemporary lifestyle. How does this fit with the statement of Hebrews 13:8 that says: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (ESV)? While it makes sense to translate Scripture in a way that most accurately relays truth to all living generations in need of hearing it, it does not make sense to take the Word of God and contort it in a way that pacifies the newest theologies of today's secular society. This is a danger zone that Rauschenbusch dances around the edges of throughout many of his writings. Something that readers will see very early in A Theology for the Social Gospel is a scary threat of the study of God becoming extinct if we do not alter the very study in a way that it directs itself toward where culture wants to lead it. He says: "If theology stops growing or is unable to adjust itself to its modern environment and to meet its present tasks, it will die." He continues, "the social gospel is a permanent addition to our spiritual outlook and its arrival constitutes a stage in the development of the Christian religion." I want to press into some of these introductory thoughts because some of the strongest sayings of the book lie in that very first chapter. His very accurate statement about young ministers and college students made in 1917 still rings true today. Rauschenbusch says: Those who are in touch with the student population know what the impulse to social service means to college men and women. It is the most religious element in the life of many of them. Among ministerial students there is an almost impatient demand for a proper social outlet. Some hesitate to enter the regular ministry at all because they doubt whether it will offer them sufficient opportunity and freedom to utter and apply their social convictions. He then punctuates this statement with the idea that, "Whoever wants to hold audiences of working people must establish some connection between religion and their social feelings and experiences." Wow. This presents quite a tie between the stirring feeling of truth with a keen observation of young people and the speculation about a need for a philanthropic slant to the gospel. In an attempt to merge the thoughts from chapter one together, I would conclude Rauschenbusch believes that without coating the gospel with humanitarian deeds the desire for next generations to know and follow God will be dead. One can see the extreme viewpoints presented here and hope that what Rauschenbusch means is that we should strive to carry out our faith in view of Jesus' words in Matthew 7:19 that say: "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire" (ESV); however, it seems that the abundance of comments that are made throughout A Theology for the Social Gospel point to a belief that there is more than bearing good fruit to display inner regeneration. There is an undercurrent that says theology must change to follow society. What kind of god follows man? A manmade god. Again, on page five, Rauschenbusch puts the cart before the horse and says: "When the progress of humanity creates new tasks, such as world-wide missions, or problems, such as the social problem, theology must connect these with the old fundamentals of faith and make them Christian tasks and problems." He is creating a benevolent work first and then turning to scripture to support this thing that has been declared a "must" of modern day Christian principle. Rather, a proper theology would start with the Word of God and determine what actions man should take. Lindsey wraps up this thought nicely: The claim that the rise of the social sciences in the nineteenth century opens new room for Christian theology to discover the social significance of its soteriological affirmations is also central to such key social gospel texts as Rauschenbusch's Theology of the Social Gospel. To a great extent, social gospel theology in the first decades of the twentieth century was an 'unpacking' of this important foundational claim. Seriousness of Sin Much of Rauschenbusch's writing touches on the idea of human sin. This is no surprise as the goal of the social gospel is to redefine an ancient view of a never-changing God to meet the needs of modern society. Danny Akin in his textbook, A Theology for the Church, agrees: "The focus of the social gospel is upon the present-day struggles and problems of sin." Earlier in Rauschenbusch's book, he says: "Paul frequently and anxiously defended his gospel against the charge that his principle of liberty invited lawlessness, and that under it a man might even sin the more in order to give grace the greater chance." Never in the Bible does God say through any means that He encourages His people to sin so that He can show more grace. The Bible does, in contrast, say: There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him. (1 John 5:16b-18a, ESV) Rauschenbusch's issue with Paul's view of grace is clearly from Romans 6:1-2 that states: "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (ESV) If Rauschenbusch believes these things about Paul's letters, then he should affirm the truth that "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23, ESV) So why does Rauschenbusch later in his book diminish the initial sin of man? He insinuates that old doctrines no longer carry the weight that the new social gospel requires of the Scriptures to breathe into modern society. Even going so far as to say that the fall of man in Genesis should pale in comparison to new sins that more recent forefathers have made. Rauschenbusch says: …the doctrine of the fall does not seem to have as great an authority as it has long exercised…Theology has made the catastrophe of the fall so complete that any later addition to the inheritance of sin seems slight and negligible…Consequently theology has had little to say about the contributions which our forefathers have made to the sin and misery of mankind. The social gospel would rather reserve some blame for them. This seems to go against all that the Bible teaches about the need for a Savior emanating from the fall of man in the garden. Without the fall, where does the line get drawn between Eden and post-fall earth? Akin also continues his critique of Rauschenbusch by stating: In his formulation of the social gospel, Walter Rauschenbusch rejected the traditional, historical understanding of the fall in the garden of Eden. The intent of the Genesis account was not to provide an actual history of the entry of sin into the world but was rather to explain the entry of death and evil. In addition, it is important to tie this view of sin in the middle of the book to the end of the book where Rauschenbusch diminishes the message of the cross'the saving atonement for our sins. Jesus said: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor. 11:26, ESV). God wants us to remember the sacrifice made for our sins, not diminish His Son's sacrifice. However, Rauschenbusch says: "To us sacrificing is a matter of antiquarian knowledge, kept alive mainly by the Bible." In this way, he says that the sacrifice of God is old-fashioned and a fading picture of the price of the sins of humanity. He continues: "The theory that the death of Christ was a ransom to Satan was the outgrowth of the semi-dualistic religion of the Empire and the prevalent belief in the rule of demons." Couple this with Akin's review that states: "Social Gospel advocates saw 'hell' as the agony of oppressive social structures, rather than as the punishment of God in an afterlife" and you have one very shaky idea of the consequences of sin and the extension of grace under the conflicting views of the social gospel. Conclusion Walter Rauschenbusch offers several theological theories for contemplation in A Theology for the Social Gospel, but none of the major points brought up here line up with Scripture. His main fault is the backward idea of wedding Scripture to movements of modern day reform, which sadly was the whole point of the social gospel movement. The correct way to look at the world is through the lens of Scripture, not the other way around (looking at Scripture through the lens of the modern world). Even one of Rauschenbusch's colleagues said the following in a review of his work: The final obstacle that [Shailer] Mathews finds confronting the sociological exegete is the presupposition that it is relatively easy to extract from the gospels prescriptions for social reform…such a presupposition fails to advert to significant exegetical considerations, including the historical context, dating, and intent of scriptural texts. Because much Christian sociology fails to broach important exegetical questions, it is for Mathews simply philanthropic sentimentalism decked out with scripture verses. God is the same God as He was yesterday, today, and forever. How are we to offer the option to study Him through our own man-centered, human, physical needs? We are not to do so. We are to fear the Lord yet be in awe of the nonsensical truth that despite our fall He would call us His friends.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-07-15 00:00:00 Ghjhgj Jhjytuty The author's final work; a systematic exploration of the "social gospel" as formulated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and its relationship to "traditional" formulations of faith and doctrine prevalent in churches of the time. I was going in and expecting to find much disagreement. The author was very much enraptured with positivist postmillennial progressivism, and most of my criticism derives from those assumptions. But Rauschenbusch is not easily or glibly dismissible; his critiques of the institutionalized Christendom of his time are generally apt, and the deficiencies he finds in them very real. He is certainly correct to see what we would call Evangelical Christendom as way overinvested in the individual and the exaltation thereof to the detriment of the collective and the common good. He was not wrong to see a complete lack of Kingdom values and ethic, and was absolutely right to want to bring the Lordship of Jesus to bear in societal domains. He did well at exposing the overemphasis on individual and personal sin/transgressions and intentional ignorance regarding systemic (he spoke of them as "super-personal") sin and deficiencies. His critiques of capitalism prove extremely relevant; his praise of co-operatives sounds like something you could read from one of Elizabeth Warren's many plans. While I think his motivations for disassociating the Kingdom from the church are misguided, I can appreciate the effort: the church ought to be the church and do what the church is given to do, and Christians do well to participate in that and also maintain the perspective that the Reign of Jesus is to be brought to bear in other domains of their existence. The "secular/sacred" binary was always a lie. And yet. His progressivism and postmillennialism leads him to prove too dismissive of how Jesus and the Apostles actually worked and on what they focused as it related to social change. Postmillennial optimism was literally bleeding away on the killing fields of Europe as Rauschenbusch wrote; the promise of socialism, at least in its extreme form, would prove to be a horror not long afterward. All nations are corrupt, and while some things change for the better, other things change for the worse. It would be interesting to see what Rauschenbusch would think of America a century after his treatise: he would be able to see the many very concrete ways in which his type of thinking has led to societal change for the better, and yet the foundations of his positivist postmillennialism have been entirely dashed on the rocks of the trials of the 20th century. Few eschatological postures lead to such terrible dead ends as postmillennialism in any of its forms, and this should be a warning to any Christian Reconstructionists out there. Theologically he is a bit too enraptured with Continental scholarship of the 19th century; his portrayal of Jesus is as ahistorical as those he would critique. The various reasons for the death of Jesus he gives are not wrong, and they are worth considering as reflections of the works of the powers and principalities over this present darkness; but they do not justify the abandonment of other atonement postures. He is right to see that churches tend to elevate "priests" and have nothing to do with "prophets," but his disassociation of Kingdom and church goes too far; he very much remains a creature of Christendom, and the cognitive dissonance between what should be and what has been was too much for him. His dismissal of baptism is a bit much. His progressivism gets the better of him in his dismissal of Satan and the demonic, leaving the New Testament's foundational ground for his "super-personal" forces. And those who think they understand Jesus better than the Apostles generally get their comeuppance. One can perceive the strong impact of Rauschenbusch's theology on a lot of the social movements of the 20th century. And yet, just over a century later, most of what Rauschenbusch wrote in critique of American Christendom and capitalism are just as valid, if not more so, even though untold amounts of money and effort have been expended in various pursuits related to the "social gospel." Read this book for its critiques, and grapple with them; understand that salvation in Christ is to the end of relational unity between God and His people, not merely individual salvation; hear the clarion call to bring Jesus' lordship to bear in society, and to imagine a better conditions of relations among mankind. But understand that the powers and principalities over this present darkness are great in their power and working, and there remains wisdom in how Jesus and the Apostles went about turning the world upside down. This Kindle edition is very good for the price; a few scanning errors, but nothing that hinders understanding.