Week 9 – Bevans Chapter 9

Bevans remarks:

Like the prophets of Israel, perhaps the greatest service Christians today can render to humanity is to be a sign of God’s “No” to the world because of God’s deeper word of “Yes,” and to be an instrument and foretaste of what Christians beleive will surely arrive as a “new heaven and a new earth.”

It seems an apt response to today’s tendency toward consumerist, watered-down theology.  Without disrergarding the dangers of this approach (as rightly noted by Bevans), I affirm the place of centrality given to the gospel within this model.  It seems, perhaps moreso than other approaches, to recognize the efficacy of the gospel itself as a transformative agent. 

 I also, however, waiver on Bevan’s characertization of the approach because he so heavily emphasizes Yoder and Willimon.  While much of what these authors assert in Resident Aliens comes as fitting critique of a Christendom mentality, I would also suggest that their approach errs in its tendency to centralize “community” over and above the gospel itself.  (This is not to belittle community as a central part of the Christian life, but only to assert that it is a rightful outflowing of the gospel, rather than its source or its equivalent). 

Week 7 – Bevans Chapter 7

I affirm how the synthetic model seeks to recognize God’s truth in all contexts, not just our own.  I think it worhtwhile to assert that the soverign God can speak in and through circumstances and voices beyond our own.  Yet, I also strongly agree with the criticism that this approach is likely to become “wsihy-washy” if not grounded in something.  I think it dangerous for the authors to include “Hebrew and Christian Scriptures” among the many relevant contexts, without distinction. 

 Utlimately, we must appeal to some source as more central than the others (and I would argue that Scripture is that source).  Otherwise, our various truth sources are likely to simply “cancel out” one another and leave us with very little left to grasp. 

Week 5 – Bevans Chapter 5

This approach seems somehow more applicable (and perhaps marked with more humility) than the translation approach. I suggest that it is in line with Dr. Mouw’s (among others) understanding of common grace ( see his He Shines in all that’s Fair). Indeed, I would reject Bevan’s assertion that a “creation-centered” orientation is necessary for this model. Aside from the fact that this category (creation-centered) is itself overly simplistic and dichotomizing, I assert that the “common grace” framework would allow one to embrace the anthropological model regardless of one’s understanding on creation and fallenness.

Week 4 – Bevans Chapter 4

On of the primary objections to “dynamic equivalent” bible translations is the assertion that “meaning cannot exist outside of words.”  The assertion is that when we attempt to dissect the meaning from its formal presentation, we destroy the message.  A similar argument is relevant with regard to contextual translation (and noted by Bevans).  The presupposition is that there exists a “supercontextual” something that must be “put into” other words.   It seems that this is the central issue in the entire contextual theology debate: “we cannot have access to the gospel apart from some kind of human formulation.”

Week 3 – Bevans Chapter 3

One of the first classes I took in seminary was Mouw’s Christ and Culture class, in which our first text was Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture.  It’s interesting that this book was brought up here, since the topics discussed are relevant for the analysis in Cobb’s book on Tertullian and Augustine.  What I find interesting is that while I was reading Neibhur, I found the division into the five models to be confusing and pragmatically difficult.  In hindsight, however, it does seem that the model approach did much to clarify the dominant issues in my own mind and thus has, in fact, influenced my own perspective on the Christ and culture debate.  I think the challenge, of course, to models was clearly emphasized by Bevans: one must always anticipate and bear in mind the limitations of one’s model.

Week 2 – Bevans Chapter 2

I find it interesting that in a book that seeks to expose the influence of culture upon theology, Bevans falls subject to the presuppositions of his own culture. That is, in classic Western-style classification, Bevans creates a dichotomy between creation-centered and redemption-centered theological orientations. While his point is clear, it seems to me that the desire the classify these two perspective oversimplifies the issue and creates a false dichotomy wherein we must choose whether creation is inherently good or inherently bad. I wonder if we would do better to propose a more Eastern approach to theological orientation which allows us to embrace both perspectives at once. If we rejected the Western rationale which demands “either/or” we might find something more valid in the affirmation of “neither” or “both.”

Week 1 Bevans – Chapter 1

This first chapter in Bevans was very well written. In particular, I appreciated his insights concerning the impossibility of “noncontextual” theology (or thought in general). The suggestion that we are inherently involved in the “construction” of reality is noteworthy; and his comment that reality is “mediated by meaning” rather than merely “out there” is worthy of further reflection. Life experience does seem to lend itself to such a claim. However, as Christians I think we are also obligated to frame that statement within Scriptural witness: how does Scripture (albeit, as Bevans argues, itself a product of contextualized theology) understand truth/reality? Does the biblical perspective suggest that reality is subject to contextualization? And if so, to what degree?

Bevans “internal” reasons for the imperative nature of contextual theology were extremely well argued. His description of the incarnation as “a process of becoming particular” was insightful, as was his discussion of the “sacramental nature of reality.”