My quest for a theology of history

March 11, 2011 at 7:29 pm

In last week’s blog post, I talked about three sermons I’ve heard recently that have challenged my thinking about hope.  These same three sermons, especially that by Allie Hoffman, also challenged me on the question of my theology of history.  What is a theology of history?  It’s a set of beliefs about the relationship between God and history and what we can say about history theologically, that is, from a religious (and in my case Christian) standpoint.

I have to admit since becoming disillusioned with a lot of modernity’s narratives of progress, I’ve been a bit agnostic about my theology of history.  I would affirm that God is involved in history somehow, but when asked how I thought God might be involved, I would say something like, “Well, we’re just limited humans, and it’s really hard to say what God might be doing in history.  I’m sure God’s up to good things, though, even if I have no idea what those might be.”

Listening to Allie’s sermon convicted me that this is an inadequate position for me as a Christian and especially as a Christian who is also a professional historian.  Amazingly, I have not found all of the answers in the month and a half I have been thinking about this (hah!), but I have identified four positions I would like to reject and four that I think require further investigation.

Positions to I would like to reject:
1. God is uninvolved with history (what might be called a Deist view)

I find this position unappealing for several reasons.  First, I think it presents a weak view of God.  A God who is not involved in history is not involved in human affairs and thus is not very useful to humans.  Granted, the point of God isn’t to be useful to humans, but I really think such a view leads to a God that can be ignored.  Sure, some believe that God created inherent moral laws in the universe before he stepped away from the clockwork, but the evidence for such laws is sketchy, and I don’t think it makes this position any more appealing.

Second, I think this position devalues history.  If God is uninvolved with history, then God can’t care about history that much.  And since God is the ultimate source of value, if God doesn’t care about history, then history’s not worth much.

Finally, such a view seems to go against the Biblical witness.  I like the Bible, and if the Bible presents to me a God that’s involved in history, then that’s the type of God I’m going to believe in.

2. God controls everything in history (what might be called a Panglossian view)

This position also fails for several reasons, mainly related to an insufficient view of evil.  First, it seems to make God the author of evil.  We could radically revise our notions of evil and say the things that seem evil to us are really part of a broader, overall good, probably one that we’re unable to see.  But this seems to do away with any significance to the terms good and evil and go against how humans actually experience life.

Second, this view baptizes unjust structures by making them part of God’s will for the world.  This deprives Christians of a basis to work against economic, racial, gender, political, environmental, and other forms of injustice.  God must be outside of history and not fully identified with history so that the word of God can break into history to critique history.

Finally, this view also seems to go against the Biblical record, where although God is sometimes in control, there are also plenty of people doing things against God’s will.

3. History is just a place for individuals to have their souls saved (what might be called a fundamentalist view)

I will agree that history is the arena in which individuals experience salvation, but I reject the notion that history is only a place for individual souls to be saved.  Such a view, while in many ways at the opposite side of the theological spectrum from the Deist view, also seems to devalue history.  In this view, what happens in history per se doesn’t matter.  All that matters is what happens between individuals and Jesus.

Such a position is unappealing to me for two reasons.  First, I like to think about salvation in more wholistic terms that includes forgiveness of sins, but also restoration of right relationship with God, other humans, and the world around us.  Other humans and the world around us are part of history.  Second, history is part of the world and thus part of God’s creation, which God has termed good.  Thus, history must have some positive value.

4. History is building toward the actual coming of the Kingdom of God on earth (what might be called a modern/social gospel view)

I ragged on modern notions of progress in last week’s post, so I’m not going to completely rehash those arguments.  Suffice it to say that the Kingdom of God has not yet completely come on earth and the amount of sin and suffering left in the world suggest that if the Kingdom of God is to arrive by any gradual process of amelioration of the world, it’s not going to get here any time soon.  This view, then, also seems not to take evil seriously enough.

What’s left, then?  How can we talk about God’s relationship to history that affirms that God is involved with history, affirms the value of history, and takes evil seriously?

Positions that I think require further thought:
1. History is progressing in some way, just not in the ways modernity talked about so far

It seems like it might be possible to tell a story about history as progress that avoids some of the pitfalls of the sorts of progress stories that modernity tells.  One example of such a story comes from the field of missiology, where people talk about history as the progressive spread of Christianity to all nations and races (not that everyone will become Christian, but that some people from all racial and ethnic groups will become Christian).  Such a pattern does actually seem to be happening.  It might also be possible to tell a story of the progress of the interconnectedness of human society, if you thought God was into that sort of thing.

2. History is a process of growth and decay (perhaps repeated many times) before eventually new birth

It is also possible to believe that history has an ultimate telos or goal but that it won’t be a process of continued progress toward that goal.  Instead, history may be a process of decay, or growth and then decay, or cycles of growth and decay before ultimately reaching the end of history.  I think Christians can be optimistic that this eventual telos is a good destination (God’s new creation), but I don’t think we must be optimistic about the path to get there.

3. History is open, but influenced by a loving God in certain directions

This is a process theology view of history.  God doesn’t know where history is going, but God is influencing history in certain directions – toward love and justice, for instance.  I’m not a huge fan of process theology, but such a position would allow one to talk about God’s involvement in history without having to come to any conclusions about the telos of history.  It may, however, still suppose notions of progress that may be problematic.

4. History matters to God because it contains (and is) God’s creation, not because history is heading any particular place, even if God does eventually intend an end to history and a new creation

In such a view, God cares about history and is involved with history because God cares about humans and the rest of God’s creation, which exist within history.  A useful analogy here would be an individual life.  We wouldn’t necessarily say the point of life is to die.  (Even if you think the point of life is to go to heaven after you die, that’s different than saying the point of life is to die.)  I would affirm that God cares about us and is present with us throughout our life.  The value of a human life is not determined by death, but by God’s valuation of life.  Perhaps in a similar way, the value of history is not determined by its end, but because God values creation.  God is involved with history because God loves God’s creation.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that history won’t come to an end or God won’t make a new creation, but the value of history derives not from God’s establishment of the new creation, but from God’s establishment of this creation.

I’m not yet ready to hang my hat on any of these four positions, but I’d be interested to hear others’ assessments of these positions or others I may not have thought of yet.

By David W. Scott | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments (5)

How Can I Keep from Singing?

March 4, 2011 at 3:09 pm

I've had the blessing of hearing three sermons so far in 2011 that have challenged my thinking on the topic of hope.

The first of these sermons was preached by Rev. John Caldwell at the church I grew up in, First United Methodist Church of Decorah, IA, the first Sunday of this year.  John was preaching on Isaiah 60 and talking about exile and kingdom vs. empire, both of which seem to be important themes in his preaching.  John was making a connection between exilic Jews and Americans today.  He was claiming that we are disillusioned dreamers, as were the exiled Jews.  We have been disappointed before, and thus it is hard for us to have dreams in which we believe.  Yet John challenged us that we must still dream and believe in those dreams.

Bishop Peter Weaver preached the second of these sermons at my church in Boston, Union United Methodist Church.  Weaver was preaching the day before MLK Day and was again sounding the theme (appropriately for the occasion) of dreams.  Weaver, too, emphasized the importance and necessity of dreams.

In her preaching debut on Feb. 6th, (the future Rev.) Allie Hoffman delivered the third of these sermons at Union.  Allie talked about imagination rather than dreams, but explicitly connected her sermon to Weaver's.  Allie (taking as her text the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:1-12) asserted that we must have the imagination to envision a better world that is not a utopia, which is no place, but which comes about here in this place.  She challenged us to reject an easy cynicism about the world which belittles such imagination of a better world and to be the agents of God's blessing.

By the time I was done listening to Allie's sermon, I felt convicted by these three messages.  I have to admit that, as John says, I am sometimes a disillusioned dreamer.  My disillusionment comes from a couple of sources.  One is my disillusionment with aspects of modernity.  One of the basic narratives of modernity is the narrative of progress.  This narrative gets played out in a number of different ways, but boils down to a conviction that the world and people will become ever better.  Science will progress.  Liberty will progress.  Learning will progress.  Peace will progress.  Rights will progress.  For religious thinkers, religion will progress and the Kingdom of God will come on earth.  Darkness, ignorance, suffering, and conflict will fade away.

I have doubts about this narrative.  I do recognize that in some important ways our world has made progress in the past several centuries.  Modern medicine leads to less suffering and longer life.  The place of women is in many ways better than it was centuries ago.  African-Americans and Afro-Caribbeans are no longer kept in chattel slavery.  In other ways, change has certainly happened, but whether or not it represents progress is unclear.  Is getting together through Facebook progress compared to when we got together through box socials?  I'm not sure.  In other ways, modernity has failed to deliver on its promises of progress.  The twentieth century was not just the high point of modernity, but the century of two world wars, the Holocaust, and numerous genocides.  Poverty, disease, discrimination, exploitation, and a whole host of other causes and symptoms of suffering still exist.  Finally, because of its material basis in the unsustainable consumption of resources, modernity has led to regression in the environmental arena.

The second source of my disillusionment is looking at the world around me.  I don't worry about my own future that much.  I've lived through enough unpleasant things that I'm confident I can live through whatever other unpleasant things life throws at me, and I have enough faith that I'm not too worried about my own death.  I do worry, however, about those around me and the world in general.  I see people I care about suffering from loss, unemployment, sickness, mental illness, broken relationships, uncertainty about the future, and other issues.  And while some of these situations may improve, I know it's unrealistic to expect these things to cease altogether.

When I look at the world around me, I am aware that, far from the world being on a definite path to progress, there are significant chances that it will become (in my eyes) worse.  Workers may lose their rights and students their opportunity to get a good education in my beloved state of WI.  State laws may be passed elsewhere that are detrimental to the well-being of women.  Budgets may be cut such that those who have the least suffer the most.  Women and minorities continue to be discriminated against.  Immigrants and gays and lesbians are scapegoated for society's problems.  Starvation, disease, and warfare continue to be endemic in many areas of the globe.  Natural disasters threaten to get worse as humans move into more environmentally vulnerable areas and continue to affect the climate.  Climate change will likely have increasing effects on the natural and human worlds and could lead to widespread environmental collapse.  Increased demand for oil and decreasing supplies of it may lead to global war and/or drastic changes to the way and standard of life we in the West are used to.

I was thinking of all these things this last Sunday in church as Crystal Gardner was preaching about Jesus' injunction not to worry.  I was thinking to myself, "Even if I'm not worried about myself, how can I help worrying about others and the world around me?"  How can we dream, how can we have imagination in the face of all of the bad things in the world?  How can we have hope, and to what type of hope are we called?"

And then a song came to me.  It was song my mother had chosen as the postlude for her funeral, "How Can I Keep from Singing?"  Four of the verses are below.

My life goes on in endless song
above earth's lamentations,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
that hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear it's music ringing,
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?

While though the tempest loudly roars,
I hear the truth, it liveth.
And though the darkness 'round me close,
songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm,
while to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth
how can I keep from singing?

Choosing that song was an act of hope on my mother's part, even in the face of the certainty of her own death.  And it was a message of hope to those at her funeral.  So I've decided that this is what hope is: not the conviction that progress is inevitable, but the ability to "hear that real, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation" and the ability to sing along.  Hope is not conviction that things must get better but rather a recognition that they could get better and an exploration of how that might be possible.  This definition, of hope leads us not to complacency about a better future that is coming no matter what we do.  Instead, it spurs us to action to work toward those possibilities of a better world.

Rev. John, Bishop Weaver, and Allie are right.  We must have hope, and this task of hope is two-fold.  It is first to hear that hymn, to dreams those dreams, to imagine a better world.  And then it is to sing along with the hymn and translate our dreams and imagination into action on behalf of that better world.

By David W. Scott | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (8)

Postmodern anthropology and justification by faith

February 26, 2011 at 9:20 am

Modernity tended to have an optimistic view of humanity: It emphasized universal and reliable human reason, human goodness, and human perfectibility.  It also emphasized universality in its anthropology -- according to modernity, humans have a common mental and moral make-up.  In such a context, questions of righteousness were relatively easy - if humans weren't already innately good, they were at least able to clearly identify the good and then pursue it.

Postmodernity instead emphasizes human limitations and particularity.  Humans are, according to postmodernity, imperfectly reasonable and imperfectly good.  Their understanding of reason and the good is limited by their particularity: their culture, gender, class, life experience, etc.  Thus, universal standards of reason or morality take a big hit with postmodernity.  Furthermore, any student of history must at least admit that postmodernity is right in naming human variation.  Humans have and do believe greatly different things and act with greatly different standards of what constitutes right.

Such a postmodern anthropology has serious implications for a doctrine of righteousness.  The question of how it is that we can be considered righteous (conforming to the standards of the good and acceptable in the eyes of God) is one at the heart of Christianity.  Questions about justification often revolve around humans' ability to do good, but postmodernity raises even more fundamental questions.  If humans can only ever imperfectly know the good, how could we do that good, even if we were capable?  In a limited and particular world, how can we undertake the quest for righteousness?

There are several responses to this problem, it seems.  The first is accept that the relativist thrust of postmodernity makes the pursuit of righteousness impossible and abandon the quest, focusing instead on some other aspect of religion.  This approach, however, seems to me to be letting go of one of the traditional pillars of Christian theology, something I am unwilling to do.

Another approach is to reassert universality and attach the pursuit of righteousness to that universality.  This approach can come in a strong form of rejection of postmodern critiques of universality.  I find such an approach undervalues not only the intellectual weight of these postmodern critiques but also the real existence of human variety, both across contemporary cultures and historical periods.

This approach can also come in a weaker form in which postmodern emphasis of particularity is acknowledged, but it is asserted that despite such human variation, we can still identify some moral precepts that the vast majority of humans agree upon.  For instance, everyone agrees that murder is bad.  This approach, however, seems to me to lead to a lowest common denominator version of morality and the good.  Is everyone who doesn't murder really righteous?  Is righteousness just being nice?  Christianity has often answered "no", drawing on (among other things) Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount: "You have heard it said [such and such a commandment], but I say to you [some more stringent requirement]".  Furthermore, such an approach undermines a quest not just for righteousness, but for justice.  Justice is rarely a universally agreed upon quality, yet it is a critical one for Christianity.

A third approach is to take the attitude of "to your own self be true".  We may be unable to determine universal standards of righteousness, but in absence of those universal standards, we should be as true as we can to whatever particular standards we have inherited or fashioned for ourselves.  This may be viewed as a reassertion of the classic medieval doctrine of "facere quod in se est (do what is in you)".  Do the best you can with the knowledge and ability you have, and God will accept the result.  I find a lot to recommend about this approach, and I think it may be the best grounding for postmodern ethics, as long as some provision is made for critiquing one's understanding of the good through interaction with others.

Yet, as a Protestant, I don't find this approach (with is frequently the Catholic approach) fully satisfying.  Instead, I would suggest that postmodern anthropology and the challenges it poses for the question of righteousness is a chance for Protestants to reassert the doctrine of justification by faith.  We are righteous, not because we are able to discern what God's standards of righteousness are and are able to follow them, but because God has, through God's grace, regarded us as righteous.  This reassertion of justification by faith must define faith not in the confessional sense of assent to right propositions (for, as I've been saying, postmodernity poses too great a challenge to epistemology for us to be totally secure that we've got the propositions right).  Instead, it must define faith (as Luther did) in terms of relational trust (a securer move, since postmodernity is less critical of our ability to be in relationship with each other than it is of our ability to have correct knowledge).  We must trust God; we must have faith that God is loving enough to accept us despite our limited and particular nature.

By David W. Scott | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments (8)

Social media, here I come!

February 25, 2011 at 3:42 pm

I've been meaning to start an academic blog for a while now, and today happens to finally be the day (in part because on previous days I tried, BU's blog website was down 🙁  Anyway, the website's up today, so today is the day.

I also joined Twitter about two weeks ago and began using it extensively this week.  (You can follow me at http://twitter.com/#!/davidwmscott.)  I can see where Twitter could become quite addictive.  Seeing tweets appear in your feed gives the same sort of gratification I get when an e-mail comes in, but way more often.  And unlike e-mails, tweets never require me to do work 🙂

This blog, however, will require me to do work, but I'm looking forward to it.  I'm hoping to have thoughts to post on my academic studies at least every other week.  Here's to that being a success!

By David W. Scott | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments (1)