Conversing in Christian style: toward a Baptist theological method for the postmodern context - 1

Baptist History and Heritage, Wntr, 2000 by Stanley J. Grenz

The closing two decades of the twentieth century have been marked by spirited theological engagement among theologians in North America who either speak unabashedly as Baptists or who, while writing for a wider audience, are nevertheless affiliated with Baptist congregations. One sign of this spirited engagement is the number of systematic theologies that have emerged from the pens of Baptist academic theologians hovering either side of retirement. Notable examples include Dale Moody, (2) Millard Erickson, (3) James William McClendon, (4) Gordon Lewis, (5) and James Leo Garrett, (6) all of whom set themselves to the task of producing crystallizations of the systematic theological reflections that occupied them during their teaching careers. To this list could be added Baptist theologians such as Carl Henry, Clark Pinnock, and Frank Tupper, who have not produced complete systematic-theological distillations of their thought but have nevertheless produced works during these two decades that set the theological agenda for others.

Equally significant, however, has been the number of next-generation Baptists, theologians in their forties, who during the past two decades took up the task of composing their own one-volume systematic theologies (7) or who have entered the theological conversation on less auspicious terms. These thinkers, who are too numerous to list, represent a broad theological spectrum within Baptist life. Despite the great diversity within the theological scene that these thinkers represent, one reoccurring theme seems to be emerging among nearly all of these voices. Baptist theologians, like their counterparts in other traditions, are increasingly concerned with the question as to what might mark an appropriate response to the contemporary context, which for want of a better term is generally characterized as postmodern. (8)

Postmodernism is a notoriously slippery word that defies definitive description, for it designates a highly complex phenomenon encompassing a variety of elements. (9) Whatever else it may mean, however, the situation is--as the designation itself suggests--"post-modern." The postmodern ethos is on the one hand modern; it retains the modern. Rather than calling for a return to some premodern situation, the postmodern outlook accepts the Enlightenment, especially its elevation of skeptical rationality. On the other hand, the postmodern ethos is post modern; it sees the dangers inherent in the very skeptical rationality it accepts. For this reason, it seeks to live in a realm of chastened rationality.

One dimension of this chastened rationality is the transition from a realist to a constructionist view of truth and the world. (10) Postmodern philosophers assert that rather than viewing the world as an objective given from an Archimedean vantage point, humans structure their world through the concepts they bring to it. All human languages, these thinkers add, are human social conventions that map the world in a variety of ways depending on the context of the speaker. As a result, no simple, one-to-one relationship exists between language and the world. Nor can any single description provide an accurate "map" of the world.

The chastened rationality that typifies postmodernism is evident as well by the "loss of the metanarrative" and the advent of "local" stories. Postmodern philosophers point out that not only have the grand narratives of scientific progress that legitimated modern society lost their credibility and power (11); the idea of a grand narrative is itself no longer credible. As Jean-Francois Lyotard stated tersely in his description of The Postmodern Condition, "Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives." (12) Nevertheless, narratives still function in the postmodern world. But these narratives are "local" rather than universal. That is, the narratives that postmoderns consider legitimate are the stories of particular peoples, that is, the myths that lie at the genesis of human communities and provide the transcendent legitimization to particular societies.

The goal of this essay is to suggest the contours of a theological method that I believe holds promise for engaging theologically--as Christians in general and as Baptists in particular--with the postmodern situation. To this end, I note first the shift to a postfoundationalist epistemology and its implications for theology. I then describe postmodern theology as a conversation involving the perichoretic dance of Scripture, tradition, and culture. Finally, the essay concludes with a sketch of the triad of motifs that I believe ought to form our theology in the postmodern context.

Postmodern Theology As a Postfoundationalist Theology

Connected to the demise of philosophical realism characteristic of the postmodern situation has been the undermining of the older foundationalist model of epistemology. This philosophical turn carries far-reaching implications for theology. Specifically, the loss of foundationalism in philosophy calls into question the reigning foundationalist theological method, suggesting that theologians must come to terms with--even appropriate--the nonfoundationalist or postfoundationalist (13) turn.