797 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/98826b791b8335a577b40a24441d8d1f.pdf 4f89485f5759cb8a57dc7c293481ccdd PDF Text Text An Alternative To Church As Usual Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought September 1991, pp. 12-15 Our discussion went on for nearly two hours. The pain in ministry was expressed in example after example. Pastors—competent, committed, working hard, even loved and respected by the community—were nonetheless seeing little or no church growth; the traditional congregation in instance after instance was dying. I was one of only two pastors in the circle; the others served the church in the academy. Finally, the group leader turned to me and said, “In all of this discussion about the pain of ministry and grim prospects for the church, you’ve not said anything.” It was true; I had said nothing. I am not unaware of heartbreak, disillusionment, and despair in the ranks of clergy colleagues, frustration among laity, unrest in congregations, but the experience is foreign to me. I have had quite the opposite experience: delight in ministry; the joy of growth; a flourishing community rich in gifts, supportive, positive in spirit—making ministry for me a challenging, fulfilling vocation. Two decades of pastoral experience in the congregation I presently serve have seen the numbers multiply nearly five times over. The giving has grown proportionately, the site and facility expanded, and a large team is now engaged in creative ministry. Now, as I enter my fourth decade of pastoral ministry, I do so with greater zest, confidence, and joy than when ordaining hands set me aside for this task. I had listened and felt the hurt. I knew I had no answer, no formula for success, no quick fix to make the pain go away and turn it all around. Further, I, too, wonder about the future of the institutional forms of the church which, not only at the local level, but even more critically at the level of denominational structures, are experiencing sickness unto death. I felt disinclined to give some triumphalistic testimony of success in ministry. Someone suggested I write a piece explaining what people are fleeing when they come to Christ Community Church. I resist that idea lest it appear that large numbers have joined from other congregations, which really is not the case. Yet, © Grand Valley State University   �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 2   there are many among us who have fled the institutional church at some point; they have simply dropped out, despairing of finding an authentic spirituality and sensing that the church was a source of manipulation and coercion, imposing shame and reinforcing guilt, rather than offering release from it. They found the church to be ever so much like a dysfunctional family. Others have fled the reactionary posture of the church on contemporary issues, the slowness of the church to address matters of human sexuality, feminist concerns, and concerns for justice and peace. Weary of fighting, waging battles about questions on which contemporary society has reached a responsible consensus, some have left the church with bitterness and cynicism. Yet, eventually the hunger for spiritual reality sets them on a quest and many have found a home and kindred seekers in this community. We have welcomed many others who sense they had been cut off, rejected. The human situation is messy. At some point most folks color outside the lines; traditional expectations are shattered. And, too often, precisely at that point, the church is awkward, daring not to reach out and embrace lest it appear to sanction the life beyond the pale. If not in word, perhaps in body language, a person stained with grit picked up along the way senses he or she threatens accepted morality and the proper mode of behavior. I like to speak of Christ Community as “an alternative to church as usual.” Over and over again, witness is borne to the tangible experience of “something different.” To flesh out the ingredients that create the alternative is not an easy task, and I hesitate even to try, lest, defining too specifically, that elusive spirit be lost, becoming one more “formula for success.” What follows renders no formula, and what is proffered comes with the acknowledgment that Christ Community is fragile, flawed, and riddled with weaknesses. It is simply the story of a pastor and a congregation over two decades. The story actually begins in 1960 when I became the pastor of this congregation for the first time after seminary graduation. During those first four years of preaching and pastoral work, the theology with which I entered the ministry was tempered by concrete experience. Mary was a bright, lovely high school girl. She was one of those exceptions to the rule; her parents had nothing to do with the church, but she did—on her own. She was in worship, church school, and youth groups. She had a significant spiritual experience, was baptized, made a good confession. She was radiant and I was her spiritual guardian. For summer work, she left the community to join a friend whose mother was a strong Mormon. When she returned, she was in spiritual turmoil. I cited the Scriptures; she the Book of Mormon; two authorities and an impasse. I lost her and I was shattered. © Grand Valley State University �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 3   In that experience, I came to see that my every claim was banked on the person’s accepting the authority of the Bible as the exclusive source of saving truth. Otherwise, I was stumped. The foundation of my theological system was beginning to crumble. Moving to a conservative congregation in the East, I began to research the nature of biblical authority. At that time, the Reformed Church cooperated in the publication of a new curriculum for church school, and it was introduced by study papers that dealt with the questions of Scripture’s normative function in the church and scriptural interpretation. I became convinced that my own understanding of biblical authority was untenable; if I were to continue to preach, I needed a new basis upon which to do it. Evangelical passion was possible for me only if it could be coupled with intellectual integrity. I needed to find “my gospel” or I knew I would never be able to preach with power and authority, with a note of authenticity. That was the existential quest that led me to pursue graduate study in the Netherlands. Hendrikus Berkhof, then professor of dogmatics at the University of Leiden, agreed to become my mentor in a doctoral program in which my major area was the history of dogma. Hearing my questions and sensing the nature of my quest, his first assignment for me was to read Barth’s Church Dogmatics, Vol. I.1-2, The Doctrine of the Word of God. I was amazed; Barth took the Scriptures seriously, as seriously as I had ever experienced. I thought to myself, one day conservative Christian thinkers will run to Barth for refuge, if ever they discover the dynamic of this great mind and heart. I read with a voracious appetite. Pages 522 and 523 of that volume lie open before me now, dog-eared, as much underlined as not, margins full of my jottings as I struggled to understand Barth. Barth writes, The Reformers’ doctrine of inspiration is an honoring of God, and of the free grace of God. The statement that the Bible is the Word of God is on this view no limitation, but an unfolding of the perception of the sovereignty in which the Word of God condescended to become flesh for us in Jesus Christ, and a human word in the witness of the prophets and apostles as witnesses to His incarnation. (p. 522) As the passion and vitality of the sixteenth-century Reformers’ experience was replaced by the second-hand experience of their spiritual heirs, there was an effort to establish certitude of faith through a high doctrine of inspiration. Barth contends that the statement “the Bible is the Word of God” was transformed from a statement about the free grace of God into a statement about the nature of the Bible “as exposed to human inquiry brought under human control.” Barth goes on to point out that the eventual historical investigation of the Bible in the Enlightenment period was simply a logical consequence of viewing the Bible as under human control rather than as available as the instrument of God’s © Grand Valley State University �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 4   revelation by God’s free grace. He gives a thorough review of the history of the elevation of the doctrine of inspiration. I found myself in Barth’s description: But ever more clearly and definitely a certainty was sought and found quite different from the spiritual certainty which could satisfactorily have been reached on these lines, and which on these lines would have been recognized as the only certainty but also as real certainty. What was wanted was a tangible certainty and not a divine, a certainty of work and not solely of faith. In token of this change there arose the doctrine of inspiration of the high orthodoxy of the 17th century. (Ibid., p. 524) And the consequences? Should there be found even the minutest error in the Bible, then it is no longer wholly the Word of God, and the inviolability of its authority is destroyed. (Ibid.) Barth rejected the attempts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to make the Scriptures the object of historical investigation as one might investigate any literary piece, and he rejected, as well, the attack on the seventeenth-century’s supernaturalism. He insisted, We must attack it rather because its supernaturalism is not radical enough. The intention behind it [seventeenth-century supernaturalism] was ultimately only a single and in its own way very “naturalistic” postulate that the bible must offer us a divina et infallibilis historia; that it must not contain human error in any of its verses; that in all its parts and the totality of its words and letters as they are before us it must express divine truth in a form in which it can be established and understood; that under the human words it must speak to us the Word of God in such a way that we can at once hear and read it as such with the same obviousness and directness with which we can hear and read other human words.... The Bible was now grounded upon itself apart from the mystery of Christ and the Holy Ghost. It became a “paper Pope,” and unlike the living Pope in Rome it was wholly given up into the hands of its interpreters. It was no longer a free and spiritual force, but an instrument of human power. And in this form the Bible became so like the holy book of other religions, for which something similar had always been claimed, that the superiority of its claim could not be asserted in relation to them or to the many achievements of the human spirit generally.... The intention of establishing the authority of the Bible along these lines was to avoid historical relativism, but it opened up the way to it, and theology and Church did not hesitate for a moment to tread that way. In content the 17th century doctrine of inspiration asserted things which cannot be maintained in face of a serious reading and exposition of what the Bible itself says about itself, and in face of an honest appreciation of the facts of © Grand Valley State University �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 5   its origin and tradition. Therefore the postulate on which 17th century man staked everything proved incapable of fulfillment (Ibid., pp. 525-26) I was reading my own spiritual biography; the existential pastoral experience that had exposed the vulnerability of my own theological position and triggered the serious search for a new basis for preaching and pastoral care led me to the discovery that I had fallen into the very pitfall against which Barth warned. I struggled. Berkhof watched me dangle. I wanted him to give me answers, to solve the mystery of biblical authority. He only smiled and let me keep working. He did tell me he, too, had walked the path I was on, but I would have to find my own way. He was not forthcoming with answers but was most helpful in aiding me to clarify the questions. I remember suggesting I should write my dissertation on this matter. I was convinced there would be little theological progress on any front if in the RCA we were not freed from a doctrine of inspiration that, for all the protestations, looked suspiciously like the seventeenth-century version Barth attributed to the orthodox who lost the vitality of faith by lusting for certainty they could control. He responded simply, “Do you realize what they will do to you?” My dissertation subject did not develop in the area of biblical authority, but I did come to an understanding that enabled me to remain under the authority of Scripture as Word of God while recognizing as well the human nature of that witness and the continuing work of God’s Spirit making the witness the Word of God here and now. Just as I was forging a new foundation for preaching and pastoral care, I experienced a personal crisis, a painful divorce and breakup of my family. It seemed my future ministry was in jeopardy just when I felt more strongly than ever the desire to engage in the ministry of the Word. Then the congregation I first served, which is the Spring Lake, Michigan, congregation I still serve, invited me to return, an act of grace and, for me, the greatest confirmation of my call to ministry I have ever experienced. Grace became a tangible human experience. Grace was incarnate in this people. They touched me and I knew the touch of God. They took me in, supported me in the care of my three small children, believed in me, and through them, I was healed. That took courage, for in 1971 that was a radical thing to do. That is where it all started, I believe, for my experience became a paradigm for the ministry of grace in this congregation. Two decades of exhilarating pastoral ministry have issued from a mediation of grace from people to pastor. The conjunction of intensive theological reflection and concrete human experience created the occasion for a congregation to become an alternative to church as usual. That combination continues to be fruitful as we strive to live into our name, Christ Community, a name we chose in © Grand Valley State University �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 6   1971 to express a new vision and to create a new image. Newness did not come without cost, without a willingness to let go of congregational patterns which had grown and developed over 101 years of life in the Spring Lake community. The name change signaled a willingness to die to what had been, trusting the God of resurrection to create something new. A theological vision, hammered out of the dialogue with Scripture and concrete human experience, is at the center of our life. For me, human experience has driven me to theological reflection, and theological investigation has freed me to proclaim good news with evangelical passion and intellectual integrity. The vision that shapes us could not have evolved had I not come to a new understanding of Scripture, as indicated above. I believe Scripture is normative, God’s Spirit moving the human author to witness to the “happening” of God’s revelation. Scripture arises out of the history of Israel and Jesus, the locus God in freedom chose to unveil God’s eternal purpose for Creation, the “place” in which God’s grace has come to clear demonstration. But, the story goes on. Just as the biblical witness is the interpretation and reinterpretation in light of ongoing historical experience of living under the reign of God, so the church keeps alive the story of Israel and Jesus Christ, but must constantly re-frame the given story, casting it in new perspective, as it moves through history’s unfolding landscape. Any expression of Christian faith must be shaped through dialogue with that witness. The Bible is the inspired preaching of the community of faith, but preaching in the power of the Spirit is today, as well, Word of God. God’s revelation in Israel and Jesus is listened to in the context of concrete human experience. Revelation “happens” as Barth insisted, and it still happens. Traditionally, the Scriptures have been used in an authoritarian manner, laying the “then” over “now” in a prescriptive way. One preaches “correct beliefs” and is locked into specific practices of life and worship. We are seeking rather to experience God in concrete human experience illumined by Scripture so that our faith and our life connect. In preaching and teaching I have cultivated openness, affirmed diversity, and encouraged respect for a broad spectrum of opinion. A closed belief system disallows the possibility of a full human experience, which is always developing, to remain connected to one’s authentic spiritual perceptions—which cannot help but receive the impact of present experience. If an external rule holds absolute authority, then I cannot honestly evaluate my own concrete human experience. I have the answer before I can formulate the question. Where such biblicism is the rule, the gulf between “correct belief” and actual experience widens. Subscription to a doctrinal system that is absolutized forces compartmentalization of religious belief from everyday experience of the world and life. © Grand Valley State University �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 7   If there is a center to the theological understanding that shapes our total existence as a people, it is the theology of grace. Out of the barrenness of Sarah’s womb (Gen. 11:30) God began a movement with particular focus in order to realize the universal purpose expressed in creation. A theology of creation embraces the covenant of grace initiated with Abraham, through whom God would bring grace to all nations. God’s electing love found expression in the covenant community, not to the exclusion of the many, but on behalf of the many. If I would point to one theological insight that has transformed my preaching and released me to embrace all who come and, consequently, has formed the mind and heart of this community, it is the universal extent of God’s grace. I will not argue universalism; I think when we come to “isms” we generally know too much; we become ideological. But that God’s grace is of far greater extent than it has been traditionally understood is a deep conviction and it has changed my ministry. The limits of grace can be debated. Christians differ. But that to which I witness regarding my own experience of ministry and the tone quality of the congregation cannot be denied. It is rooted in a theology of grace that takes historical shape in Israel and the church and embraces creation. A profound sense of God’s grace brings one a very great freedom, freedom from fear and defensiveness, freedom from the anxiety of what the future holds for human development, scientific discovery, or philosophical formulation. Grace brings freedom and creates openness. There are no questions we dare not ask, no perspectives we fear to bring to expression. The people have joined me in a pilgrimage of faith. There is no “Christ Community line.” They trust me and give me freedom to probe and test, and I give them freedom to agree or disagree. I have continued to do serious theological study and I offer classes in theology. For example, we have studied Berkhof’s Christian Faith, Küng’s On Being a Christian, Does God Exist?, and A Theology for the Third Millenium, along with David Tracy, Charles Davis, Edward Schillebeeckx, and many others. I always let the congregation know where I am investigating, what questions are pressing to me, and in which direction I am moving. We do theology together—indirectly. Out of concrete human experience, the stuff of our present experience of life in family, community, and world, we think theologically. The biblical story illumines experience, and experience elicits new light from the Scriptures. Our theology is not a static given; it is in process, an ongoing adventure of seeing our life in God’s light, a joyful and serious endeavor of discovering what it means to live before the face of God. By seeking to define and clarify the questions that move our human existence, rather than claiming to have answers, we give space for a broad spectrum of © Grand Valley State University �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 8   persons to join the journey. The openness of the community creates freedom to be open to any contemporary quest for meaning, for transcendence. Those who are empty and rootless are not impressed if handed a ready-made answer before their question is sensitively heard. The recent widespread interest in the work in mythology by Joseph Campbell, popularized by the interview with Bill Moyers and published under the title The Power of Myth, is just one example of the spiritual quest of multitudes who have given up on the institutional church as a place where their quest might be satisfied. What responsibility do we bear for their despair of finding in the church some clue to spiritual reality, to the experience of God? Secure in the grace of God, our faith is not fragile. When I encounter the defensiveness and fear so common in our churches today, I am amazed at the lack of confidence in the truth of biblical faith as though it need be protected from the challenge of new insights and angles of vision. God’s grace—before it, I am in awe, humbled, full of gratitude. I rest in it and feel a freedom to let God be God, to entrust my flawed self and fallible understanding to God s mercy. I don’t know why some experience anguish in ministry and I have known such joy. I know all is Grace; therefore boasting is excluded, but so is despair. There is enough pain in the church to go around, and simplistic solutions and pious clichés only deepen the woundedness. Our story is simply a story of trust, resting in the good and gracious God, letting go of yesterday’s formulations if they no longer connect with today’s experience; letting go of church structures that have outlived the purpose for which they were created. Maybe the truth is that the institutional church has to die. Maybe our pain stems from our desperate attempts to rescue structures which are warring against the larger purposes of the Sovereign One. Maybe our techniques and promotional schemes, our growth strategies and evangelism campaigns are human control measures borrowed from the marketing strategy of a consumer society. We may have to let the church die, but God is not dead. Reference: Karl Barth. Church Dogmatics, Vol. I.1-2, The Doctrine of the Word of God. First published 1957; T & T Clark Ltd., 1961. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol I, 1961. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19910902 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-09-02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource An Alternative to Church as Usual Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on September 2, 1991 entitled "An Alternative to Church as Usual", it appeared in Perspectives, September 1991, pp. 18-21. Tags: Authority of Scripture, Faith Community, Church, Universal Grace, Inclusive, Spiritual Journey. Scripture references: Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol I, 1961.. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Authority of Scripture Church Faith Community Inclusive Spiritual Journey Universal Grace https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f93333c2cb59ee99c6c3c4503e8a5b80.pdf a5e44a26412ab4fb49e7eb3111954861 PDF Text Text   Finally Comes the Poet By Walter Brueggemann (Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1989) Review by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Publication of Review Unknown Brueggemann has done it again; here is a book about preaching that makes one want to find a pulpit and preach. The Old Testament scholar, who in his many works so effectively breaks open the text, making it appear to be something out of today’s newspaper, addresses specifically the task of preaching. But this is not a typical book about preaching; it is an eloquent plea for creative, imaginative, daring preaching; not prosaic, moralistic, angry preaching, but poetic preaching that paints images of another alternative possibility for human life and human community. The manuscript was prepared and presented as the 1989 Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School. Brueggemann not only portrays vividly the preacher as poet, but presents models of interpretation of Old Testament texts that address the contemporary horizon of human experience into which the preacher is called to address the Word of God. In the Preface, Brueggemann writes: I have sought to address the crisis of interpretation the preacher faces in our culture, what has either dismissed or controlled the text. Preaching as an act of interpretation is in our time demanding, daring, and dangerous. (p. ix) Perhaps more poignantly than any biblical scholar writing today, Brueggemann brings into collision, in the being of the preacher, the text and the contemporary cultural situation. He contends, It is increasingly clear that what the text “means” for us is not simply a matter of exegesis, but concerns the larger ideological realities in our society that rob us of our capacity to speak, our capacity to care, and our capacity to notice. Preaching and interpretation, however, exist precisely for such situations. It is the task of preaching to provide a ground and energy for speech, care, and notice. (Ibid.) Brueggemann points to the present cultural situation as a “prose-flattened” world in which the gospel is readily heard and taken for granted as though it contained no © Grand Valley State University   �Brueggemann, Finally Comes the Poet, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 2   unsettling news and no unwelcome threat; it has been “flattened, trivialized, and rendered inane.” His proposal is the practice of “another way of communication that makes another shaping of life possible.” The task demands a poet. Brueggemann reacts against our prose world “that is organized in settled formulae, so that even pastoral prayers and love letters sound like memos.” Rather, he calls for the poet whose language “moves like Bob Gibson’s fast ball, that jumps at the right moment.” The poet/prophet is a voice that shatters settled reality and evokes new possibility in the listening assembly. (p. 4) There are four partners who need to be present in the “speech meeting” so that “the new reality can be birthed,” the text, the baptized, the specific occasion for speech, and this better world given as fresh revelation. The meeting involves this old text, the spent congregation believing but impoverished, the artist of new possibility, the disclosure ... The newly claimed territory becomes a new home of freedom, justice, peace, and abiding joy. This happens when the poet comes, when the poet speaks, when the preacher comes as poet. (p. 11) In four chapters Brueggemann addresses the biblical word to the present cultural situation: Numbness and Ache (The Strangeness of Healing), Alienation and Rage (The Odd Invitation to Doxological Communion), Restlessness and Greed (Obedience and Missional Imagination), and Resistance and Relinquishment (A Permit for Freedom). In each chapter rich veins of biblical material are mined and interpreted so that the text powerfully addresses the situation of the baptized community of today. Woven throughout the fresh unwrapping of the biblical text is significant comment on the preacher’s task. The event of preaching is an event in transformed imagination. Poets, in the moment of preaching, are permitted to perceive and voice the world differently, to dare a new phrase, a new picture, a fresh juxtaposition of matters long known. Poets are authorized to invite a new conversation, with new voices sounded, new hearings possible. The new conversation may end in freedom to trust and courage to relinquish. The new conversation, on which our very lives depend, requires a poet and not a moralist. Because finally church people are like other people; we are not changed by new rules. The deep places in our lives - places of resistance and embrace - are not ultimately reached by instruction. Those places of resistance and embrace are reached only by stories, by images, metaphors, and phrases that live out the world differently, apart from our fear and hurt. The reflection that comes from the poet requires playfulness, imagination, and interpretation. The new conversation allows for ambiguity, probe, and daring hunch. It is only free people, in contexts of trust, who are able to walk close to the scandal, to be seen in its presence, to live by its gifts. (p. 109f) © Grand Valley State University �Brueggemann, Finally Comes the Poet, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 3   Brueggemann insists that the preacher does not simply report the old conversation between God and Israel “as though submitting an old verbatim.” Rather, a conversation “now to be imagined, evoked, and shaped in this moment of speaking and hearing” is offered. For all who are called to preach and teach the word of God, Brueggemann offers a rare combination of rich biblical interpretation, sensitivity to contemporary culture and contagious awe before the preaching event.   © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Walter Brueggemann, Finally Comes the Poet, 1989. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19910501 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-05-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Finally Comes the Poet Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Book Review created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 1, 1991 entitled "Finally Comes the Poet", on the book Finally Comes the Poet, written by Walter Brueggemann, it appeared in Perspectives, May 1991, p. 20f. Tags: Preaching, Scripture, Meaning, Faith Journey, Tradition. Scripture references: Walter Brueggemann, Finally Comes the Poet, 1989.. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Faith Journey Meaning Preaching Scripture Tradition https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/afd3b40b4aecfe3e3eb959246fc447f7.pdf 4bdbfa03d5b19d3667f982afeaad4e64 PDF Text Text Sleeping Through a Revolution Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought April 1991, pp. 8-14 Reformed theology in America, the roots of which lie in the Netherlands, has managed to sleep through the revolution of the modern world and survive. Through strong ethnic identity, internal growth, and a militant mind that maintained an adversarial attitude over against modern culture, a Reformed community of Dutch origin still exists. But the defensive posture that has largely characterized it has prevented it from translating the richness of its sixteenthcentury legacy of Reformation theology into a proclamation of the gospel to engage modern thought. I was struck by this fact as I read Hendrikus Berkhof’s Two Hundred Years of Theology. Berkhof wrote this work after retiring from the dogmatics chair at the University of Leiden. He calls it a personal journey because he wrote to satisfy his own curiosity about the philosophical and theological developments since the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. The engagement of the gospel and modern thought has been the passion of Berkhof’s own endeavor as a Christian thinker. He traces the efforts of those theologians who sought to build a bridge between the gospel and modern culture, a culture dominated by the assumptions of the Enlightenment: the autonomy of the human person, human rationality as the measure of truth, the historical conditionedness of all truth, and the epistemological dualism of subject-object, of knowledge and faith. Berkhof’s conclusions at the end of his survey are sober. Was the effort successful? He answers in the negative: “Secularized culture manifested polite indifference if not outright intolerance.” Nevertheless, the struggle was necessary and its consequences significant. What struck me as I followed the story of the past two hundred years – the world of modern culture in the wake of the Enlightenment – was that the community of which I am a part was not even engaged in the struggle. As I reflected on my own theological education, I realized I was thoroughly schooled in theological development through the Reformation, but understood very little of the revolution in cultural understanding effected by the Enlightenment, especially © Grand Valley State University   �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 2   the understanding of the human process of knowing and the rise of historical thinking. In an attempt to understand why there has been so little engagement with the thought and cultural assumptions of the modern world in my own tradition, I turned to the study of paradigm shifts in the history of dogma, a study spearheaded by Hans Küng. Küng traced theological development with major epochal shifts over two thousand years. He, along with David Tracy, gathered an international Ecumenical Symposium at Tubingen in 1983 to discuss “A New Paradigm of Theology.” Papers delivered at the symposium are published in the volume Paradigm Change in Theology. At the symposium, Küng charted the epochal shifts in theology to test his scheme of periodization. Beginning with the primitive Christian apocalyptic paradigm, the historical progression moves through the ancient church Hellenistic, the medieval Roman Catholic, the Reformation Protestant with its two consequent paradigms of counterreformation – Roman Catholic and Protestant Orthodox paradigms – the modern Enlightenment paradigm, and on to the present contemporary ecumenical paradigm. Küng came on the idea of paradigm shifts in Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which Kuhn portrayed scientific development as occurring, not as had been commonly assumed, in smooth cumulative progress, but rather in leaps triggered by paradigm shifts, the displacement of one model of understanding by another. Küng applied Kuhn’s discovery to theological development and found points of significant shift there as well. Paradigm as Kuhn defined it and as Küng utilizes it means “an entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community.” Küng’s periodization marks off those points in the movement of history where a major shift in understanding took place, a shift from one constellation of beliefs to another – a change in the explanation model through which Christian faith was interpreted. The points of shift can be debated and the flow of history cannot be rigidly sectioned off. Nevertheless, the periodization Küng has suggested has been widely received. Küng developed his study of paradigm shifts further in Theology for the Third Millennium. There he pointed out the interesting difference between paradigm shifts in the natural sciences and in theology. In science, as data pile up that cannot be explained within the existing paradigm, pressure builds to find a new paradigm. When the new paradigm becomes available, one that succeeds in explaining a broader range of data, it replaces the old paradigm, which becomes obsolete. But this is not the case with paradigm shifts in theology. The same process operates: new understanding of the knowing process and of the nature of human knowledge, new data – for example, data acquired through the rise of the historical-critical method of biblical study, new philosophical insights, scientific © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 3   knowledge – eventuate in a major shift in understanding of the Christian tradition. A new paradigm comes into being. But in contrast to the process in the natural sciences, the old paradigm does not become obsolete; it continues to be the paradigm within which certain Christian communities understand Christian faith and existence. Thus, the two thousand years of theological development traced by Küng, reveal eight major paradigms. But the fascinating fact is that all eight paradigms continue to claim the loyalty of significant communities. All eight continue to exert their influence down to the present. This insight enabled me to discover how Reformed theology, with roots in the Netherlands, has been able to remain largely unscathed by the world of modern thought. It has continued to live within the paradigm of Reformed orthodoxy that took shape in the Reformed scholasticism of the seventeenth century, insulated from the acids of modernity. A form of the gospel thus has been preserved, but at a great price. The failure to engage the modern world under the cultural assumptions of the Enlightenment has led to a kind of ghetto existence and a failure to bring the rich legacy of Reformation theology to new expression. An historically conditioned theological confessional position has been frozen in time, absolutized, and perpetuated largely intact over generations, largely untouched by ongoing cultural, philosophical, and scientific assumptions. Theologically we are stuck, and the best and the brightest know it. Reformed orthodoxy has slept through the revolution of human understanding and knowledge created by the Enlightenment, never to this day having come to terms with the autonomy of the human person, the throwing off of all forms of authoritarianism, and the rise of historical thinking. These cultural assumptions are now being challenged. Many observers believe we are living at an epochal hinge point in history, experiencing the emergence of the postmodern age. But we will not be able to move directly from a seventeenth-century paradigm to the postmodern world without going through the baptism of the Enlightenment. While its assumptions are losing their self-evident status, what will not be lost is the value of critical rationality, and what will not be tolerated is any return to authoritarian claims, be they of church, of tradition, or of Bible. In theology old paradigms keep their adherents even when theological development has left them behind. But they can do so only by some form of authoritarian claim. In the case of Reformed orthodoxy the authoritarian claim of the Bible has held theological movement hostage, hindering meaningful dialogue with the sciences and philosophy. We are theologically stuck, and we will not become unstuck until we learn to value Scripture as authority, but break loose from its authoritarian use. In order to give that contention foundation, I will review in brief the philosophical and theological movement of the past two and a half centuries, indicating how philosophical, especially epistemological, analysis has impacted © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 4   theological formulation in the broader Christian tradition. Under the domination of Enlightenment assumptions, that development has reached an impasse. I will then discuss new possibilities for theological breakthrough opened by the emerging postmodern paradigm. Finally, with reference to one of the great Dutch Reformed theologians, Herman Bavinck, I will suggest what is necessary if our tradition is to come to new and fruitful expression. The Copernican-Galilean controversy out of which modern culture arose was a severe challenge to the medieval synthesis of theology and Aristotelian science achieved by Thomas Aquinas. A challenge to the Aristotelian cosmology and natural philosophy was a challenge to theological orthodoxy, both to Catholic and to Reformation orthodoxy. In that opening battle between the church and natural science, science won its independence from the intellectual and theological authority of the church. The early representatives of philosophical and scientific endeavor lived in two houses: the house of human rationality in which they plied their scientific skills, and the house of faith, in which they remained faithful to the church and its theological authority, understood as based beyond human reason in revelation. This was true of Descartes, considered the father of modern philosophy. He remained in the church, but understood his critical thinking as belonging to the natural realm – a purely human activity. It was Descartes who set the thinking subject over against the object to be thought, the world of material reality. He argued for the certainty of knowledge that could be arrived at by the mind observing the universe, which was understood as a vast machine. This subjectobject split became determinative for modern thought in science, philosophy, and theology. The mechanistic character of the natural world became the premise on which Newton described the natural laws by which the universe operated. The solid success of the natural sciences, in their effort to understand and control nature, seemed to verify Descartes’ model of human knowing and Newton’s model of the physical universe. The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century cannot be explained or understood without reference to Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and his critical analysis of how human knowledge is attained. His Critique of Pure Reason (1781) is broadly acknowledged as the foundational work of German philosophy. In his Two Hundred Years of Theology, Hendrikus Berkhof contends that this work of Kant’s must be valued “as a radical new beginning for evangelical theology,” and that in the wake of its appearance, orthodox scholasticism, rationalism, and supernaturalism found that, at a single stroke, the road forward had been blocked. In addition, the appearance of Kant’s Critique meant... the birth of the new theology, or rather: The modern way of posing questions, and modern methodology, in theology. (pp. 1 ff) © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 5   Although Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason destroyed the traditional proofs for the existence of God, thereby striking terror in the hearts of conservative theologians, it is Berkhof’s conviction that Kant’s purpose was positive in intent. Kant himself wrote, “I therefore had to abolish knowledge in order to make room for belief.” For Kant, faith and knowledge were separate but complementary and both were necessary. Here again we see the split of faith and reason which Aquinas synthesized when the overwhelming influence of Aristotelian thought in the West forced an accommodation with revelation in the thirteenth century. It is the same split mentioned above in regard to Descartes and Newton. In Kant, however, we have an acute analysis of the human knowing process brought about by the growing autonomy of human reason, which was throwing off all authoritarian structures, whether ecclesiastical (the church) or revelational (the Bible). Kant was a child of the Enlightenment. Preeminent philosopher though he was, he nevertheless maintained an intense theological and religious interest. Berkhof believes that it was “Kant’s purpose to save religion as well as the Enlightenment: in this double objective... lay his deepest passion as a thinker” (p. 5). Dividing the realm of knowledge into two fundamentally separate domains, he posited the world of phenomena and the world of the noumena. The former was accessible to unaided human reason. The empirical knowledge gained by the knowing subject was not a direct mirror of the natural world but the product of the interaction of the knowing mind and the data of the senses. For the noumenal world, the things in themselves – for example, the universe as a causal whole, the human self as free agent, and God – no empirical verification was possible. Yet, for practical reasons, Kant argued, faith in them was absolutely necessary. This assertion was made in Kant’s second work, The Critique of Practical Reason. This fundamental dualism has shaped and determined modern culture; it is the inheritance of the Enlightenment, whose center is the autonomous human person. This dualism has been regarded as axiomatic – the climate of opinion that has dominated the modern period. It is on this background that the whole enterprise of modern theology must be understood, at least the theology that attempted to bridge the gulf between the gospel and modern culture, the theology of classic nineteenth-century liberalism, to use Küng’s schematization of epochal paradigms. This is evident in the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher, regarded as the father of modern theology. If Kant successfully blocked the road to the knowledge of God through rational inquiry, through metaphysical speculation, then what road remains open and on what basis can knowledge of God be grounded? Appeal to authority (of church, tradition, or Bible) was no longer compelling. Where, then, could one turn except to the interior life of the individual – to “the feeling of absolute dependence,” an experience that Schleiermacher maintained was common to all humankind at some time or other. This was not to claim, as did © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 6   Feuerbach and others later in the whole development of modern atheism, that religion, or specifically Christianity, arose from the feeling of dependence of the human person. No. Rather, the feeling of absolute dependence was the human precondition for it. Schleiermacher was pointing to the place into which revelation enters. The ongoing development of modern theology was filtered through Kant philosophically and Schleiermacher theologically, whether a theologian followed them or rejected them. They determined the shape of the playing field and the rules of the game. We can see this in the theology of Albrecht Ritschl, whose influence came to flower in the 1870s. Ritschl was the first German theologian to recognize the intellectual shift from idealism to realism under the impact of such thinkers as Feuerbach, Comte, Marx, and Engels; the significant achievements of science, technology, and industry; the alienation of the working class; and the impact of Darwin’s Origin of the Species (1863). The cultural mood in Germany turned more and more to the world of experience and to the natural laws governing it. Ritschl concluded in such a cultural milieu that the knowledge of God could be realized only in the act of faith – faith directed toward the saving activity of Christ. Religious knowledge, he claimed, consists in value judgments, a term for which he is best known and most misunderstood. Berkhof explains: He intends to maintain the uniqueness of the Christian faith as a way of access to the “conception of God” through trust in Jesus Christ – apart from any ground other than that given in the unity of revelation and faith. (p. 121) Wilhelm Herrmann developed the intention of Ritschl’s theology. He was convinced, as was Ritschl, that the highest of religion and morality was united in the figure of Jesus. Again following Ritschl under the impact of Kant’s epistemology, faith and knowledge were held distinct. The authority of Scripture, dogma, or creed had to do with knowledge, not faith. He wrote, They cannot bring about a saving personal encounter; they appeal to our thinking only as law. Religion is a totally independent world, though closely bound up with morality, because it relates us to divine revelation and must be the answer to the misery of our moral condition. Herrmann was deeply concerned about the philosophical base of his theology. For him, Kant loomed large, “whose mighty thoughts emerge increasingly in almost all domains of human learning as the select governor of all true research.” He valued Kant’s analysis of the knowing process positively “because in every connection he has placed the value of faith, its independence from science, in the clearest light.” In his analysis of Herrmann’s theology, Berkhof offers an © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 7   illuminating image by which to understand Herrmann over against the rising tide of historical consciousness and historical thinking. When I read Herrmann what emerges in my mind is the image of a rock in the midst of a rising flood. In Ritschl the rock of moral autonomy still had a broad surface. Now, however, with the waves of the flood rising higher and higher, it became much narrower. The parts that are closer to the sea – like corporeality, psychological deveopment, history, social relationships, and the authority of Scripture and Christian tradition – have already been inundated. Herrmann now withdrew to the narrow center, to individual (though conceived as interpersonal) inwardness where the individual is in communion with God through “the inner life of Jesus.” With a splendid sort of consistency, he devoted his intellectual powers to the defense of the peak of this rock. (Two Hundred Years of Theology, p. 146) The rise of the historical-critical method of biblical research led Herrmann to realize that the certainty of faith could not rest on the probable results of historical criticism. Faith does take shape in history, but its basis is above history and beyond the reach of historical research. Is it possible to posit a basis for faith above history invulnerable to the acids of historical criticism? Ernst Troeltsch, a student of Ritschl, did not think so. He rejected the possibility of grounding faith in inner experience, thereby finding an absolute ground in history. Troeltsch, too, recognized that the deterministichistorical mode of thinking was inundating the gospel, but he did not believe, contrary to Herrmann, that there was yet a ridge of the rock above the flood. Troeltsch saw no alternative but to plunge into the stream of historicism with its relativity. Jesus could not be lifted out of the stream of history. Every historical person and phenomenon is subject to historical conditionedness. In Berkhof’s words, history is an ever-moving stream in which the movement of each drop is determined by the mass of water that precedes it, and each drop shares in determining the direction of what follows. That is the fundamental view of “historicism,” another term for determinism applied to historical reality. (p. 150) Historical thinking, which arose in the eighteenth century, is another hallmark of modern thought. It has marked all subsequent modern thought as indelibly as has Kant’s analysis of the knowing process. In Troeltsch the full consequences of historical thinking were drawn; Herrmann’s “inner life of Jesus” was “time conditioned,” thoroughly enmeshed in the stream of history. The struggle to find a basis for faith continued into the twentieth century. The catalyst for a major reversal of the tide of continental theology was Karl Barth. The first edition of Barth’s Romerbrief sent shock waves through the world of © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 8   academic theology and philosophy. Associated with Barth’s name in the early period was Rudolf Bultmann, who affirmed Barth’s move, seeing in it a shift to an existentialist interpretation of the gospel – a direction soon rejected by Barth. For Bultmann, Barth’s early probings seemed consistent with the effort of their common teacher, Wilhelm Herrmann, to find a basis for faith beyond the relativities of history. For Herrmann and even more radically for Bultmann, there was a basic distrust in historically ascertainable facts as vehicles of revelation. Revelation for Bultmann occurs above history in the “existing” individual who, in the encounter with the claim of the gospel, is called to decision, the decision of faith or unbelief apart from recourse to the investigation of any ground for faith in historical data. Bultmann’s whole program of demythologizing the gospel was an attempt to peel off the husk of historical happening, for which only relative certainty could be gained, and find the kernel of God’s appeal in the Christ event. That Jesus was is all that can be claimed as certain. The “Das” of Jesus is the point at which God’s claim touches historical reality. Barth’s first edition of Romerbrief was a seismic shock, but for Barth it was only an initial probe – he was in transition. The second edition showed Barth not so interested, as was Bultmann, in the existential analysis of the human person addressed by the gospel, but in the God Who addresses the human person. In the preface to the second edition of Romans, he writes: If I have a system, it is limited to a recognition of what Kierkegaard called the “infinite qualitative distinction” between time and eternity, and to my regarding this as possessing negative as well as positive significance: “God is in heaven, and thou art on earth.” The relation between such a God and such a man, and the relation between such a man and such a God is for me the theme of the Bible and the essence of philosophy. Philosophers name this Krisis of human perception the Prime Cause: The Bible beholds at the same cross-roads the figure of Jesus Christ. The second edition of Romans marked Barth’s turn to the interpretation of the Bible, a turn precipitated by his disillusionment with involvement with the social democracy movement, which failed to mobilize resistance to World War I, and the “crisis” created by the need to preach weekly. In his wrestling with Paul’s letter to the Romans, Barth was overwhelmed with the sense of the absolute priority of God revealed in the event of Jesus Christ and the working of Spirit. Barth was on the way, on a new way, and for a time continued to grope and feel his way. For him – as for Bultmann - the thin ridge of the rock on which their teacher Herrmann had grounded faith was flooded. There was no place to stand. God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, effected in the individual by the miracle of the Spirit’s illumination, came “vertically from above.” In the world, in the domain of history, there were no vestiges of perceptibility except, for example, the crater which indicates that a meteor has slammed into the earth. © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 9   It is clear that even the paradigm shift to the contemporary period demonstrates continuity with the nineteenth century. Barth and Bultmann both radicalized the efforts of Ritschl and Herrmann to ground faith beyond history in order to place faith beyond the attack of historical criticism and the widespread Enlightenment assumption that historical reality can yield only relative certainty. It is further clear that the crucial question that has dogged theological reflection over the past two hundred years is the question forced by the rise of historical consciousness, the question of how absolute truth can be discovered in history’s ongoing movement, how faith can find a certain resting place in the ambiguity of history. The later Barth, the Barth of Church Dogmatics, turned more and more to history, valuing it as the “place” of revelation, in contrast to his early work. However, to the end he never answered what has been perhaps the most serious criticism of his theology, a criticism expressed sharply by his young friend and admirer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who spoke of Barth’s “positivism of revelation,” a “take it or leave it” approach that denied the legitimacy of questioning the grounds of the revelation, of the claims of the gospel’s appeal. In the final analysis, neither Barth nor Bultmann were able to ground the Word in history, within this worldly existence. The attempt to do so is the story of the post-Bultmannians and the postBarthians – students of these giants who felt the pressure of the cultural mood to find within human historical existence the experience that afforded a place for revelation accessible to empirical verification. The development of Christology “from below,” such as one finds in the early writings of Pannenberg and in Küng, are examples of this swing back to the attempt to give historical foundation to the gospel’s claim. In the Netherlands the work of Kuitert, Berkhouwer’s successor, is an attempt to find in history “the footprints of God.” The pendulum swings back and forth. Berkhof concludes that if one starts, as Barth did, with God, it seems impossible to reach real people, and to start “from below” as Kuitert and others have done makes it questionable whether one reaches God. It seems clear that the assumptions of the Enlightenment – the autonomy of the human person, the subject-object split in the process of human knowing, the historical consciousness – have created false alternatives (an approach from below or an approach from above) thereby bringing theological work to an impasse. If Enlightenment assumptions have led to an impasse, are there indications that by moving out from under the dominance of those assumptions, breakthroughs might be possible in a new cultural period? In a volume of essays entitled Postmodern Theology, James B. Miller contends just that. Miller sets forth the variety of forms in which Descartes’ subject-object dualism and Kant’s knowledge-faith dualism have been manifested in modern thought. From a different angle, he points to the impasse noted above: © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page10   The logical positivist movement implicitly accepted this dualism, but denied meaningfulness to the nonempirical, nonscientific side (i.e., the domain of the noumenal.) Reductionists sought to explain religions and religious phenomena in exclusively scientific (or social scientific) terms, thus denying the autonomy (or independent reality) of the religions (i.e., explaining the noumenal in terms of the phenomenal.) In contrast, the existentialist movement, while implicitly accepting the dualism, invested all significant meaning on the side of faith, moral action, and the religious life (i.e., in the noumenal domain. (p. 5) In Miller’s last group, the existentialists, we can see the line of development we have been tracing from Ritschl through Herrmann to Barth, Bultmann, and their successors. Indeed, we can see it already in “the father of modern theology,” Schleiermacher, who sought the ground for theology in the interior life of the individual. Miller himself sets in contrast the two poles represented by Barth with his “positivism of revelation” – the uncritical confidence that the revelatory “word” provides absolute knowledge of God and God’s purpose for the world, and the logical positivists who held that reason and empirical observation were the sole and sufficient sources of absolute knowledge of the world. Thus, Miller observes, the modern worldview or, as it has been named here, the domination of the cultural assumptions of the Enlightenment, continues to form the dominant perspective in Western and Christian culture. He writes: It is found in the popular understanding of science as an impersonal, detached, and objective search for the facts of nature. Its neoorthodox theological manifestation is “normal” Christian theology. The prophetic rhetoric of the theology justifies a program of cultural change through social action. Its existentialist roots encourage contemporary forms of pastoral care and spiritual renewal which turn people away from their intrinsic relation to nature and history and focus them on a kind of atemporal personhood. It offers a revealed (and so, absolute) dogmatics of transcendence for those who would claim for Christianity a right to cultural dominance. (pp. 7f.) Miller sees such dominance slipping away; he senses that we are entering a postmodern world. Developments in biology and physics are pointing the way to a fundamentally new worldview. If the Enlightenment paradigm characterized reality as mechanical and dualistic, the model for the postmodern world, according to Miller, is historical, relational, and personal. He describes what this means for the emerging understanding of the world and how the understanding of the human process of knowing is changing. The world is not simply here; it is evolving. In contemporary biology the world does not embody an eternal essence, but is rather on ongoing process of creating, humans being both the product of and participants in this ongoing process. © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page11   The world is understood “to be relative, indeterminate, and participatory.” Existence is fully relative, meaning nothing exists in and of itself; “To be is to be related,” in contrast to the absolutes of Newton’s time-space categories. Quantum theory in physics has overthrown the “substantial universe;” the world does not have a history, but is history. Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty points to the indeterminacy of the core of reality and this, in turn, points to the core of reality as an unfathomable mystery. Interestingly, there is more awe before mystery in contemporary physics than in much theology. We began this inquiry with Descartes and Kant and their epistemological analysis. The understanding of what it means to know is called in question by these developments in biology and physics. Miller contends, From a postmodern perspective, all knowledge is historically implicated. Nothing is known apart from its cultural setting, and that setting is constitutive of what is known. There are no culturally neutral facts. Knowledge is not so much found as made, or better, it does not grow so much as it is grown. (p. 11, italics his) There is a significant difference between this conception of the historical character of all truth and the historicism of the modern period as represented by Troeltsch, for example. Here the human subject is not caught in an impersonal historical determinism, but is a participant in the unfolding history of the whole of reality. Truth relative to any community of knowers makes all knowledge incomplete. Alfred North Whitehead described the world not in terms of substances, but in terms of events, pointing thereby not to a world of static substantiality, but to a world of dynamic temporality. From Whitehead has developed the inquiries of the school of process theology. Miller considers what new theological insights are offered from such a conception of reality. In regard to creation, the idea of the dualistic relationship between God and world is called into question, as well as the objectifying of the world as a thing. The view of God creating provides the possibility of overcoming cosmological dualism and historical determinism. Anthropology looks different from such a perspective as well. The processes producing the human person are not different from those out of which all else in the universe emerges. Humankind becomes in such a view part of but not the center of the cosmic drama. There are also implications here for Christology. Incarnation might be understood to characterize every moment of the history of the universe with Jesus of Nazareth being the one who articulates the incarnational model in his teaching and the one who in his person is said to demonstrate the © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page12   meaning of that model for human living. In this sense, Jesus’ uniqueness as incarnation is historical but not ontological. (p. 19) With these brief references to Miller’s application of a new understanding of human knowing and human knowledge, we can see the potential fruitfulness of theological inquiry that throws off the dominance of the cultural assumptions of the Enlightenment and allows the fresh breakthroughs in biology and physics to overcome the impasse into which modern thought has led us. The shape in which Christian faith has come to expression in every cultural epoch has borne the marks of the cultural assumptions of each successive epoch. This is no less true of the modern period under Enlightenment assumptions than of Reformation theology under the assumptions of the sixteenth century with its heritage of medieval thinking and Renaissance humanism. The challenge before us is to bring the legacy of sixteenth century Reformation theology to new expression, given the openings provided by the emerging postmodern age. In his Two Hundred Years of Theology, Berkhof provides a chapter on the engagement with modern thought in the Netherlands. What he has to say about Herman Bavinck is especially interesting in regard to this discussion. Bavinck was firmly rooted in the Reformed Church of the Secession led by Abraham Kuyper. Brilliant and highly gifted, he studied at Leiden under Scholten, against the prevailing tradition of his church. He was attracted to ethical theology, an attempt to mediate the gospel and modern thought. Kuyper appealed to him to be clear in his objections to this mediating theology but was never satisfied with Bavinck’s criticism – it was not strong enough. Bavinck remained within the Secession Church and, in time, became Kuyper’s successor at the Free University. He wrote his Gereformeerde Dogmatiek and in the first volume enunciated the theological foundations upon which his work was built. The objective principle of knowledge is primary: the Holy Scriptures. He was viewed, according to Berkhof, as “the faithful theological partisan and alter ego of Kuyper.” Yet Berkhof notes that apart from the second edition of his dogmatics and a onevolume summary, Bavinck produced little in the field of dogmatics during his years at the Free University, and nothing that was new and original. He observes, He [Bavinck] felt increasingly that the modern period needed a much more vigorous renewal of theology than he himself had produced or was able to produce. Particularly the issues arising from the historical-critical interpretation of Scripture needed a very different approach. (p. 113) Berkhof goes on to say that Bavinck’s views on the issues at stake became increasingly relativistic, and, in 1910, he sold a large part of his dogmatics library; during these years his interest turned to issues posed by culture. © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page13   Berkhof writes that after 1900 “Bavinck increasingly felt that his theological direction was leading to a dead end.” Was it only historical-critical research that undermined his earlier certainty? Berkhof asks. Or was it deeper? Did he finally yield to his earlier fascination with ethical theology, recognizing that the issue between it and his Reformed orthodoxy was not really an issue between theocentricity and anthrocentricity, but rather between intellectualism and personalism? Is faith submission to the authority of scripture truths or is it the personal encounter with God through the person of Christ by which we are transformed into personalities? Bavinck opted for the priority of the scripture principle, . . . Hence Bavinck remained more strongly burdened than he wished by the legacy of the Reformed scholasticism of the seventeenth century and gave up intellectual tools he could not well do without in the continuing confrontation with the modern spirit. (p. 114) One cannot help but wonder why Bavinck’s latter years were not more fruitful. Why did he sell most of his dogmatics library? Why did his interest turn to issues in the broader culture? Berkhof does not speculate, but he does tell us that Bavinck felt his theological direction was leading to a dead end. Could it be that he sensed he was stuck? Was he not perhaps blocked from fruitful engagement with modern thought by his own objective principle of knowledge, the holy Scriptures? Indeed, not by Scripture as such, but by Scripture as understood by premodern seventeenth-century Reformed scholasticism, a view still prevalent in present-day Reformed orthodoxy. Scripture itself is the cumulative translation of tradition over several centuries. Where it is not valued as an inspired human witness to encounter with the living God, but rather as a book of absolute truths not only about God but also about science, cosmology, anthropology, and history, how can genuine dialogue with ongoing human intellectual and spiritual development be engaged in? It is impossible. Given Bavinck’s ecclesiastical context, to raise that issue would have been fruitless; it would not have been tolerated. Reformed theology in this country faces the same dilemma. Its doctrine of Scripture has remained immune from the acids of criticism, and an authoritarian use of Scripture continues, making it impossible either to engage the cultural assumptions that remain as a legacy of the Enlightenment, or to capture the attention of an obviously spiritually destitute and groping present generation where the yearning for transcendence is pervasive. Perhaps the insights and breakthroughs in science and the spiritual bankruptcy of the West have created the moment that will compel us to move beyond both the theological impasse traced above and an authoritarian use of Scripture. In his biography of Karl Barth, Eberhard Busch records a conversation of Barth in which he referred to being dubbed orthodox. That was fine with Barth, if it pointed to a willingness “to learn from the Fathers.” © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page14   But he rejected any restriction to the doctrinal position of any teacher, school or confession.... “Confessions” exist for us to go through them (not once but continually), not for us to return to them, take up our abode in them, and conduct our further thinking from their standpoint and in bondage to them. (Karl Barth, p. 375) That is the freedom we must discover in order to enter the contemporary discussion, bringing the richness of Reformed theology into engagement with a postmodern world. References: Hendrikus Berkhof. Two Hundred Years of Theology, report of a personal journey. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989, translation by John Vriend of 200 Jahre Theologie: Ein Reisebericht, 1985) Hans Küng. Paradigm Change in Theology: A Symposium for the Future. David Tracy, editor. Crossroad Publishing Co., 1989. Hans Küng. Theology for the Third Millennium: An Ecumenical View. Anchor, reprint edition, 1990. James B. Miller. Postmodern Theology: Christian Faith in a Pluralist World. Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References H. Berkhof, 200 Years of Theology, 1989, Hans Küng, Paradigm Change in Theology, 1989, Theology for the 3rd Millennium, 1990, James Miller, Postmodern Theology, 2006 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19910401 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-04-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Sleeping Through a Revolution Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 1, 1991 entitled "Sleeping Through a Revolution", it appeared in Perspectives, April 1991, pp. 8-14. Tags: Reformed Theology, Orthodoxy, Historical Thinking, Faith, Postmodern, Nature of Religious Development. Scripture references: H. Berkhof, 200 Years of Theology, 1989, Hans Küng, Paradigm Change in Theology, 1989, Theology for the 3rd Millennium, 1990, James Miller, Postmodern Theology, 2006. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Faith Historical Thinking Nature of Religious Development Orthodoxy PostModern Reformed Theology https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/13a9d00a7f2ecf09fa68f37cf629635f.pdf 5cf0aa85d70012645b8362c29ecbde7b PDF Text Text Peace Among the Churches Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought October 1990, p. 3 As I write, the Middle East is at flash point. Saddam Hussein is calling the Muslim masses to a holy war, even though he himself has been one of the most secular of Arab leaders, allowing the fundamentalists no access to power in Iraq. Television news again brings us scenes reminiscent of the Iranian hostage crisis of some years ago. A Muslim cleric leads a huge congregation in prayers to Allah and then leads them in a rhythmic chant, “Death to America.” Hussein calls up images of the great Babylonian empire of ancient times and would appear to see himself as the new Nebuchadnezzar, firing the passion and imagination of Arabic masses with visions of a return to the greatness and glory of ancient time. It is not difficult to discredit Hussein, to puncture the logic of his rhetoric. One ought to be scandalized by his bald abuse of religion to incite people to hatred and to war. And it is difficult not to feel hostility for Muslim masses chanting “Death to America” and burning the American flag. Still, before righteous indignation rises up within us and rage consumes us, we must remember the tortured history of the region and especially the history of the last decades. The tangled web of Middle East affairs knows no boundary between the just and the unjust, the selfless and the selfish. So it has been throughout history. It was a holy war that Joshua waged against Canaan, the “Promised Land.” I wonder what it felt like to be a citizen of Jericho when the walls came tumbling down. But that is different, you say. God gave Israel the land. Canaan’s bloodbath was God’s judgment on their wickedness. Simple. Maybe. Maybe too simple. World history is history’s judgment, and certainly the biblical God is history’s sovereign, staying with creation, engaged with history’s unfolding drama. God’s prophets saw conquering pagan rulers as instruments of God’s judgment and grace. The poet of Lamentations who prayed God to curse conquering Babylon, © Grand Valley State University   �Peace Among the Churches Richard A. Rhem Page 2   sounding strangely like “Death to America” (3:64-66), also recognized Judah’s sinful recalcitrance. Where such prophetic insight is present and where humble acknowledgment of involvement in history’s tragic web of evil is confessed, there is hope. But such insight and confession have not always characterized religions, including the Christian church. A heart inflamed with hatred is not a hallmark of Islam; it is an ever-present potential of the human heart. And there is no more devastating instrument for inciting hatred than religion. Hans Küng’s claim made in the February 1990 issue of Perspectives is right: “There will be no peace among the nations... without peace among the religions. There will be no world peace without religious peace!” Muslim, Jew, and Christian have all had their turns at calling on the same God to curse the other. Is it not time rather to bless in the name of the one God? If that be granted, then how urgent it is for us to recognize the ecumenical vocation of the Reformed Church in America suggested by Arie Brouwer in this issue. In a piece appearing in the Christian Century recently, Brouwer cited Henry P. VanDusen, who spoke of “the denominational heresy.” Brouwer went on: Theologically, denominations are best understood as reform movements within the one Church of Christ which are temporarily denominated, or named, according to the reforms they embody until such time as those reforms are received by, and themselves reformed within, the whole Church, at which time the denominations lose their reason for being and cease to exist as separate bodies. Thus understood, denominations are themselves instruments of the ecumenical movement. They are members of the body of Christ struggling to reform and reconnect the body so that it may be whole. (The Christian Century, June 27-July 4, 1990, p. 632) Brouwer’s claim reminded me of the first time such an idea really registered with me. It occurred in an interview conducted by Paul Fries with Hendrikus Berkhof in the first issue of Perspectives. The RCA was trying to discover its identity. Fries asked whether a church can be both Reformed and relevant. Berkhof responded: I am inclined to look at this question from the other side and ask if it can be relevant and thus Reformed?... to focus on these identity problems might be both a sign and fostering of spiritual decline. Witness to a Lord who humbled himself and who was ready to lose his life for the sake of his Father’s kingdom, and for humankind, means that a church should not bother too much about its own identity, but concentrate on the identity of its Lord and his cause. Berkhof went on to explain that Reformed churches have less reason to be concerned with identity than other bodies: “The name implies catholicity and © Grand Valley State University �Peace Among the Churches Richard A. Rhem Page 3   carries the call to constant reform so that the church can become more Reformed.” Born at the crossroad “where traditional and modern in Europe intersect, the Reformed tradition is rooted in the Catholic tradition and open to the future sounding new calls and presenting new possibilities.” Küng is right; there will be no world peace without peace among the religions. But there will be no peace among the religions without peace among the churches. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19901001 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990-10-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Peace Among the Churches Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Editorial created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 1, 1990 entitled "Peace Among the Churches", it appeared in Perspectives, October 1990, p. 3. Tags: Interfaith, Ecumenical, Peace. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Ecumenical Interfaith Peace https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7343baf68ec2d1edecdc8126ef3e9296.pdf c1acdd19689a14c2f35f52c77378d5aa PDF Text Text Two Hundred Years of Theology, Report of a Personal Journey by Hendrikus Berkhof (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989, translation by John Vriend of 200 Jahre Theologie: Ein Reisebericht, 1985) 1990 Book Review “A Personal Perspective on a Personal Journey” By Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Publication of Review Unknown On Christmas, 1990, I spoke with Hendrikus Berkhof. His voice was strong, his mind clear; over the telephone one would not have known but that it was the same “Henk,” full of questions, intensely interested in all that was happening in the world and in the church – and, as always, there was his genuine interest in all that concerned me, my family and church. It was good to hear him thus, but even so I knew he was home for only a few hours from the nursing home where he now makes his home. On May 26 Hendrikus Berkhof was stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage that left him unconscious for two weeks and hospitalized into September. I flew over to see him and his dear wife Corry the first week in July. During those days I could see him make a turn. He recognized me immediately and immediately spoke to me in English, although in very weak voice. With his one good arm he reached out to touch my face, a kind of blessing, realizing I had come to be with him. Paralyzed on his left side, he cannot yet walk and how much progress remains to be made cannot be predicted at this point. My Christmas conversation, however, convinced me that he will keep up the struggle; that great mind and heart will not be muted. Perhaps the most moving aspect of our conversation was his expression of deep gratitude to God whose grace has been experienced richly as Henk and Corry have traversed this valley. In September they celebrated their golden anniversary. With his four children and their families gathered around him he spoke of the goodness and grace of God and God’s faithfulness in the present adversity. That this should be the case is no surprise to me; rather, it is precisely what I should have expected from this Christian gentleman, theologian, preacher, churchman and, for me, mentor and dear friend. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 2 of 41 One of the highest privileges of my life has been the opportunity to study under Hendrikus Berkhof for four years in Leiden and then subsequently to know the richness of intimate friendship with him and Corry. In 1989 we spent ten days together in Scotland, studying together and touring the Highlands. He spoke of our special relationship and denied that it could any longer be termed that of mentor/student. But of course I know better. He will always be my teacher. More than any other he has shaped me as a theologian and pastor. It was thus with great pleasure that I accepted the assignment of reviewing Two Hundred Years of Theology, with the request that I do more than review the book but also give a personal portrait of the author. I received this work almost as a personal gift from my teacher. The two hundred years he surveys from his own personal perspective is precisely the course of theological development I studied with him from 1967 -1970. His Christian Faith, which, after five reprintings, was revised in 1986, will obviously stand as his statement of the Christian faith as it comes to expression within the Reformed tradition in the last quarter of the twentieth century. But Two Hundred Years of Theology reveals the man in the passion of his life – to bring to expression the Gospel in such a fashion that it engages the minds and hearts of the contemporary generation. Obviously, to survey two hundred years of theology is to reflect on that endeavor to bring the Gospel to expression over many generations. But the sharp focus of the study consists precisely in the manner in which that task was executed in the several generations surveyed. There was much that transpired during the two-hundred-year period that receives no attention or is mentioned only in passing. Berkhof makes no claim to give a full review of theological inquiry for the period. His intention, clearly stated, is to trace the respective attempts to bridge the Gospel proclamation and modern thought. Ever and again and with increasing intensity I asked myself how, speaking generally, these two can coexist.... (p. xi) Modern thought, set in opposition to the Gospel, is the thought that arose in the epoch of the Enlightenment. (Berkhof uses the term “post-Enlightenment” to designate the two hundred years under review. That should not be confused with the designation of our present time as the Post-Enlightenment period in the sense of moving beyond the assumptions of the Enlightenment). Berkhof’s focus is theological thought in face of the assumptions of the Enlightenment. In the eighteenth century...modern thought assumed the position of leadership in European culture. Since then, as “self-evident” truth in cultured circles, it stripped from the Christian worldview its halo of self-evident truth which it had held in Europe for almost a thousand years. (p. xii) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 3 of 41 Berkhof was nurtured in the Reformed tradition as it came to expression in the Calvinism of the Netherlands. At the close of a long and fruitful career in the church and the university, preaching and teaching Christian faith, Berkhof surveys the dialogue of Christian theology and modern thought over the past two hundred years to satisfy his own curiosity first of all, for he recognizes that his whole ministry has been the articulation of the faith in the face of modern thought in the wake of the Enlightenment which overthrew all authoritarian structures in state and church and declared the autonomy of the human person. Berkhof’s strength and great gift to the Reformed tradition and the whole church is the articulation of the faith in face of modern thought, having earned his right to address the contemporary scene because of the seriousness with which he has grappled with modern thought, doing so with sensitivity, genuinely seeking to hear and understand; doing so with openness and humility, seeking insight on the way to a deeper grasp of truth; doing so with appreciation for the positive aspects of the broader culture. In his effort to understand and in his honest appreciation for the modern world of Western civilization he never lost sight of the fundamental contradiction of the sovereign and gracious Creator and the creaturely claim to autonomy – the discontinuity between God and humankind, the impossible gulf that separates the two, a gulf that can be bridged only from the side of God as an act of pure grace, a gulf that has been bridged in Jesus Christ. For me, coming under the tutelage of a person of such breadth of scholarship who evidenced at the same time a deeply personal Christian experience and commitment to the faith in its Reformed perspective, but with the enrichment of broad ecumenical appreciation, it was a whole new world. I was amazed at the gap in my own theological education: thorough through the sixteenth century but almost totally lacking in the whole development of modern thought, the thought patterns that have shaped the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thought patterns that must be engaged in any responsible proclamation of the Gospel in the contemporary world. I may have been at fault, not being ready or willing to hear the claims of philosophical thinking in the wake of the Enlightenment. What I missed completely, for whatever reason, was the factor that changes everything – the rise of historical consciousness that developed on the continent in the eighteenth century and led to what is now taken for granted in our culture, namely, that all biblical, theological, philosophical and ideological statements are conditioned by the historical context in which they arise. Fortunately, when the force of this revolution in human understanding took hold of me, I was under the careful and caring guidance of one whose whole life has been a passionate pursuit of bringing to expression the grace of God as it has been manifested in the ambiguity of the historical situation. Two things became strikingly evident to me: my own orthodox Reformed faith understanding was not a timeless expression of eternal truth but a timely confession of Christian faith shaped in the tumultuous context of sixteenth-century Europe. Secondly, the whole development of modern theology which I had viewed negatively, as threat, was an attempt to translate the © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 4 of 41 gospel into terms that took cognizance of the Copernican turn in human understanding effected by critical analyses of the knowing process and by the rise of historical consciousness. In other words, it was an attempt to do what the church is always called to do – to articulate the gospel in every generation and in the context of every historical epoch. From Hendrikus Berkhof I learned to listen with appreciation and openness to the broad spectrum of expressions of the Christian faith in the respective periods in which they were articulated. I learned, to borrow Clarence Becker’s phrase, that “the climate of opinion” in any given period is so powerful and controlling that often an honest attempt to bring the gospel to expression will end poorly with only a truncated message coming through. But even so I learned to value the effort and to learn, both from those efforts that were somewhat successful, and from those that lost the message in a maze of human reasoning. Hendrikus Berkhof is a gifted scholar. To read Two Hundred Years of Theology, one recognizes immediately that one is reading an author who has a thorough grasp of the subject matter, who has fully digested the thought of the persons about whom he writes and that, with an encyclopedic grasp of the thought development, he is not content simply to render a survey but rather goes on to critique, to question and finally to put his own feet down over against that which he has set forth. His own account of the faith which one finds in his Christian Faith is thus his own; arising out of a thorough grasp of the tradition out of which he speaks, the whole development of dogma in the history of the church, and a broad engagement with modern thought. The thinkers whom he treats in Two Hundred Years, …tried, more or less deliberately, to build a bridge between the gospel and their secularized cultural environment, but did they succeed? Were they able to translate the gospel into modern language such that it could again be heard and understood in intellectual circles and elicit a genuine yes or no? But who is able to judge whether they achieved this goal? We probably cannot say more than this: from where we stand now, this or that attempt seems to us successful or unsuccessful. Such assessment is important, for we are in the same situation and can learn, both in a positive and in a negative way, from preceding generations. (p. xiii) Berkhof invites us to join him in his personal journey through two hundred years. Beginning with Kant, Berkhof recognizes that the dialogue of theology and modern thought is a dialogue between theology and philosophy. The great German philosophical tradition was carried on by those who had genuine theological interest and involvement. From the development of philosophy, theologians gained knowledge of the modern person’s understanding of life. Throughout the study Berkhof will again and again point to the Lebensgefühl, life understanding, sense of life, that was influential in shaping theological expression. His survey will highlight those persons who acknowledged the © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 5 of 41 new situation for theology after the critical analysis of the knowing process by Immanuel Kant and insight in the milieu of modern thought to proclaim the gospel. Before we can fully appreciate the seismic shift in philosophical and theological thought effected by Kant’s critical analysis of the knowing process we need some sense of the pre-modern world. With the overwhelming influence of Aristotelian philosophy brought to the west by Averroës in the twelfth century, the Church was faced with the necessity of proclaiming its message in some sort of accommodation with Aristotle. Thomas Aquinas provided the synthesis which made room for Christian theology in an Aristotelian intellectual climate. This was a major accomplishment but the synthesis exacted a price: reality was now split into two realities, nature and supernature. A virtual metaphysical dualism was constructed separating the heavenly sphere from the earthly. For the latter, reason reigned supreme; the former was accessible to faith. Thus a bifurcation of reality resulted in a bifurcation of the knowing process. This split in reality would bear bitter fruit but it did forestall the onset of atheistic thought which became a dominant stream of modern thought in the period surveyed by Berkhof. Berkhof begins his personal journey with the critical analysis of epistemology by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). His Critique of Pure Reason (1781) is broadly acknowledged as the foundational work of German philosophy and, Berkhof contends, it must also be valued “as a radical new beginning for evangelical theology.” As a result of its appearance, orthodox scholasticism, rationalism, and supernaturalism found that, at a single stroke, the road forward had been blocked. In addition, the appearance of Kant’s Critique meant...the birth of the new theology, or rather: the modern way of posing questions, and modern methodology, in theology. (p. 1f) The pre-modern worldview had achieved a harmony between nature and grace, reason and faith, Aquinas offering the consummate articulation of that harmony. As James Miller writes: By the eve of the birth of modern culture, the relation between Aristotelian science (including a geocentric cosmological model developed by the secondcentury astronomer Ptolemy) and Christian theology had become so integral that it was virtually impossible to determine where one stopped and the other began. As a consequence, it was difficult to see how a philosophical or cosmological challenge to the system of Aristotelian natural philosophy could be anything less than a challenge to theological orthodoxy as well. Thus, the stage was set for the Copernican-Galilean controversy out of which modern culture emerged and in which natural science as a discipline became independent of the intellectual or theological authority of the Christian church. (Postmodern Theology, p. 2) Separating Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic harmonization of the natural and the supernatural and Immanuel Kant are four centuries which saw the Renaissance turning © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 6 of 41 to the human subject, the Reformation which could only have happened in a culture already permeated by Renaissance influence but which some would contend was a detour, a conservative reaction rather than a development of the ferment of the fifteenth century, and the birth of modern philosophy in the work of Descartes. The linkage between the pre-modern culture described above and Kant’s critical philosophy, however, should not be missed. The Enlightenment was the flowering of the Renaissance turning to the human subject. The bold declaration was the autonomy of the human person no longer under the tutelage of authoritarian structures, be they ecclesiastical (church or Scripture) or sociopolitical. The early representatives of philosophy had never at the onset of the modern period remained faithful to the church and lived in two houses: their critical analysis of thought and scientific experimentation was carried on in the autonomy of human reason; their spiritual existence was the appropriation of God’s grace, mediated through the church – this tidy possibility provided by Thomas’ dual structure of reality. It was not long however before the modern thinker found the supernatural realm optional; the autonomous human person found that critical rationality was quite sufficient to deal with “the real world;” the church remained a spiritual home for those who needed it. Enter Immanuel Kant. This is the beginning point of Berkhof’s journey because Kant’s analysis of the human knowing process changed everything. In his Critique of Pure Reason he destroyed the traditional proofs for the existence of God and struck terror in the hearts of conservative theologians. Actually his purpose was positive. He himself wrote, “I therefore had to abolish knowledge in order to make room for belief.” For him faith and knowledge were complementary. They were separate but connected and both were necessary. It is Berkhof’s contention that it was “Kant’s purpose to save religion as well as the Enlightenment: in this double objective, we think, lay his deepest passion as a thinker.” (p. 5) Dividing the realm of knowledge into two fundamentally separate domains, he posited the world of phenomena and the world of the noumena. The former was accessible to human reason – empirical knowledge which was not a direct mirror of the natural world but the product of the interaction of the knowing mind and the data of the senses. This he called the knowledge of the phenomenal world. The noumenal world consisted of things in themselves – the world apart from the activity of the knowing subject – that which simply was not available to empirical verification because no sensory experience was possible. For example, the universe as a causal whole, the human self as a free agent, and God. Yet precisely these three realities must exist, must be true. To cite James Miller again: Therefore, though knowledge of the world as a whole, of the self, and of God were denied by Kant, faith in them, he argued, was absolutely necessary for practical reasons. (Postmodern Theology, p. 5) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 7 of 41 This assertion was set forth in his second critical work, The Critique of Practical Reason. It is this fundamental dualism that has characterized modern culture; it is the inheritance of the Enlightenment and it is the “climate of opinion” that has dominated the modern period, the milieu in which two hundred years of theology has been executed. How did the Gospel come to expression in light of the limits of human knowing in a world where the authority of tradition and Scripture was no longer self-evident? This is Berkhof’s focus. He deals with the development of the German philosophical tradition because German philosophers were so theologically self-conscious and aware: Fichte and the beginning of the Romantic movement which included the great Schleiermacher who remained a theologian and pastor and sought to articulate the Gospel to its “cultured despisers,” many of whom made up his own circle of friends; and, of course, Hegel in whom German Idealism reached its fullest expression. Berkhof is comfortably at home in this philosophical dimension and is able to lift the philosophical threads that shaped the theological tapestry of the nineteenth century. Without some degree of philosophical orientation one can hardly begin to understand the theological thinking that came to expression in this 200-year period – or in any period for that matter. How can we understand Schleiermacher, regarded as the father of modern Protestant theology, except in the background of Kant? If Kant successfully blocked the road to the knowledge of God through rational enquiry, through metaphysical speculation, then what road remains open and on what basis can knowledge of God be grounded? Schleiermacher turned to the interior life of the individual – to “the feeling of absolute dependence,” an experience he claimed was common to all humankind at some time or other. As Berkhof is careful to point out, Schleiermacher was not claiming that Christianity arose from the feeling of dependence; rather, this feeling is the human precondition for it. He was pointing to the place into which revelation enters. Was he successful in bringing Christian faith to expression amidst its cultured despisers? Berkhof observes, One can hardly say that history proved him right. What he took such pains to formulate as the method of theology after the Enlightenment has become, consciously or unconsciously, the common property of the greater proportion of theologians. But there were, and are, only very few “Schleiermachians.” The actual execution of his design has prompted many to admire but few to imitate him. For some it was too radical; for others too traditional; and, of course, both possibilities were inherent in this method. (p. 46) Berkhof entitled the chapter “Schleiermacher’s Direction” because he understands Schleiermacher as having had a distinct base and goal. The base was the modernity which he totally affirmed. The goal was redemption in Christ, a subject which in his own time he wanted to express in all its fullness. Throughout his lifetime he was on his way from that base to this goal. (p. 48) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 8 of 41 Berkhof’s sense is that he was so caught up with the base that it is questionable whether he really reached his goal. Barth wrestled with Schleiermacher throughout his remarkable career. Strong rejection alternates with obvious admiration as Barth deals with this one who so strongly shaped the nineteenth century, which Barth had so strongly rejected in his own radical turn from his inherited liberalism to the theology of the Word. Berkhof, observing the whole movement from Schleiermacher to Barth, renders the opinion that They were both in motion from the same base (Woher) to the same goal (Wohin)... (p. 49). Only viewed thus in their commonality of concern, Berkhof contends, can the great difference between them come to light. The delight and profit of accompanying Berkhof on his journey is to learn from him the relationships and inter-connections that constitute the theological landscape of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He concludes the chapter on Schleiermacher with this paragraph: It is no accident that suddenly we have moved from Schleiermacher to our own time. As the first to think through so deeply the problems of modern theology, he is just as up-to-date and relevant for us as he was for his contemporaries. Perhaps we have to say: more relevant. For in his day most theologians had as yet no inkling of what the problems were and could therefore lightheartedly shrug off Schleiermacher’s answers. The bigger the blueprint, the longer the time before it takes effect. (p.49) We will go on to deal with Ritschl and the line of German theological development, but we must note here another alternative to Kant’s destruction of a reasoned proof of the existence of God. Schleiermacher moved to the interior life of the human subject; the Danish Lutheran theologian, Sören Kierkegaard, in strong reaction against Hegel’s idealism, pointed to the concretely existing individual who is confronted by the revelation of Jesus Christ and is called to conversion, to the leap of faith in the moment of decision. Sketching Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments, Berkhof writes, Only in the paradox of the God-man can one lay hold of the unity of the eternal and the historical; and this paradox is only acknowledged in faith. This faith has nothing to do with one’s intelligence or will. It is itself as much a paradox as the paradox with which it enters into a positive and happy relationship. Faith, therefore, is purely a gift received in the “moment” in which the eternal appears in time and by which the learner becomes “contemporaneous” with the teacher. In this contemporaneity, this leap from sinful alienation from God into existence, the historical distance from Jesus, who is now contemporaneous, falls away. (p. 74) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 9 of 41 Kierkegaard reacted strongly against Hegel not only, but also against confessional orthodoxy of his day, for there too, he claimed, the individual was pushed aside just as much by universal and objective truths. Berkhof sees Kierkegaard as an important figure in the relationship between culture and gospel: He brought the Christian faith into conflict with the Zeitgeist, doing this, however, in the concepts of that time. Having in his language become an idealist to the idealists, he proclaimed to them the faith in a new way so that it no longer appeared to them as something antiquated but as a stumbling block and folly. He did not do this by way of a fresh interpretation of dogma and tradition.... The new and contemporary dimension consisted in the fact that he focused the whole of revelation on the goal of subjectivity and by that means placed it in a new light. (p. 76) Was Kierkegaard the “most thoroughly reflective completion of pietism”? Berkhof raises the question but notes this critical difference: Whereas pietism presupposed and maintained the orthodox system of doctrine, Kierkegaard made its content existential. Kierkegaard failed to impact his own time and subsequent decades took little note of him, but the alternative he posed to both the liberalism flowing from Hegel’s idealism and confessional orthodoxy came to flower in the twentieth century in the early Barth and in the theology of Rudolf Bultmann. Following a discussion of Hegel and the Hegelian left, those thinkers that moved from Hegel’s system to atheism, Berkhof discusses “the after-effects of idealism in theology,” portraying the two streams that issued in confessionalism and liberalism. Berkhof points out: Two theological points of view were dominant here...: One could either, in company with Hegel, look in Christianity for the truth of universal reason (and run the risk of subordinating the gospel to the spirit of culture (Kulturgeist), or one could join Schleiermacher in proceeding from the independent source and nature of the gospel (and run the danger of isolating the gospel from the culture). This contrast led to two distinct theological schools. (p. 62) The first school, the liberal wing, Berkhof designates as the “Hegelian school” but he does not deal with this line because it lies outside his sharp focus. The second school, “the confessional group, the theology of mediation, gets major treatment because precisely here the bridge between gospel and culture was the center. The roots of this theology lie in Schleiermacher but there was little of the brilliance of Schleiermacher and the effectiveness of the movement was slight in terms of negotiating a dialogue with © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 10 of 41 culture. It did serve to strengthen the church – it was, in Berkhof’s words “an ecclesiastical modality;” it had “a saving influence internally.” Both the liberal and mediating theological groups declined abruptly with the rise of Ritschl’s influence in the 1870’s. This causes Berkhof to raise questions directly related to his own special interest. Both schools wanted to translate Christian truth into the idiom of modern consciousness (Lebensgefühl). And for both, this Lebensgefühl was unquestionably the atmosphere created by German idealistic philosophy. In that regard, however, both were fundamentally wrong. Already when those schools arose, idealism was close to its demise. (p. 68) The important insight here is that theologians that valued being up-to-date – related to the climate of opinion of the day – failed to sense that their cultural context was moving beyond them. Here is Berkhof’s statement: The worlds of Feuerbach and Comte, of Marx and Engels, the achievements of science, technology, and industry, the struggle of the working class, the “signs of the times” of 1848, and later the German translation of Darwin’s main work (1863) – all these events and influences occurred out of the hearing range of theological studies and lecture halls.... The theologians could not find a point of contact in the new empiricistic, naturalistic, and atheistic culture of Europe, as they had found it in the world of idealism. (p. 68) Berkhof does not fault theologians alone for this failure to sense where modern thought was going. Even “enlightened” members of the educated class shrank back from the forward movement of Enlightenment thought. Idealism as far back as the Hellenistic beginnings of the church, seemed the gospel’s native air; with this new intellectual climate there seemed no possibility of establishing a relationship. Albrecht Ritschl, according to Berkhof, was the first “to fling a plausible bridge in German theology to the Lebensgefühl of realism.” In the decade of the 1870’s Ritschl’s work had a major impact because, Berkhof contends, “what many scholars had felt unconsciously came suddenly to the surface: liberal and mediating theology had attempted to relate the gospel to a world that was no longer there.” What these theologians in both camps failed to recognize was that to make the gospel audible in the modern world requires the change of conceptual apparatus and theological language with the changing cultural climate and this means as well that any such theological construction will, given time, become obsolete. Berkhof gives a sympathetic treatment of Ritschl, acknowledging his considerable shortcomings, but valuing him for his serious effort to give voice to the gospel in a shifting cultural scene. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 11 of 41 The cultural mood in Germany turned more and more to the world of experience and the natural laws governing it. The reality of space and time gained much more weight and a much clearer autonomy than an idealistically disposed mind could handle. Still, this reality was not experienced in a deterministic fashion. The experience of the mechanisms of nature went hand in hand with a strong sense of progress, of human freedom and power. Humanity is clearly not a product and plaything of the powers of nature but superior to them as their ruler. By utilizing the predictable laws of nature humanity can establish a realm of progress that becomes ever more free. (p. 115f) This was the cultural mood into which Ritschl addressed his theological understanding. He moved from Hegelian idealism to open-minded research utilizing the historicalcritical method. He was serious, disciplined, wanting to be “heart and soul, a believing Christian, and at the same time belonging with the entire fabric of his life to his own culture and time.” Turning from Hegelian idealism to Kant’s critical idealism, he fluctuated in his relationship to Kant but seemed finally convinced that metaphysics and natural theology were no longer options. He held that the knowledge of God is realized only in the act of faith – faith directed toward the saving activity of Christ. Religious knowledge he claimed consists in value judgments, a term by which he is best known and most misunderstood. Berkhof cites him thus: “It is the duty of theology to conserve the special characteristics of the conception of God, namely, that it can only be represented in value-judgments.” Berkhof observes: He intends to maintain the uniqueness of the Christian faith as a way of access to the “conception of God” through trust in Jesus Christ – apart from any ground other than that given in the unity of revelation and faith. In that context he utilized Kant to the extent Kant is useful... (p. 121) Berkhof defends Ritschl against a common misunderstanding that with the concept of value judgment he delivered the Christian faith to pure subjectivism. But, Berkhof counters, the word value was much in vogue at the time and it intended to represent the autonomy of the world of the mind vis-a-vis the mechanism of nature. Berkhof cites two significant statements in which Ritschl explains his use of the word: Religious knowledge moves in independent value-judgments, which relate to man’s attitude to the world, and call forth feelings of pleasure or pain, in which man either enjoys the dominion over the world vouchsafed him by God, or feels grievously the lack of God’s help to that end. (Justification and Reconciliation, p. 205, cited in Berkhof, p. 122). In Christianity, religious knowledge consists in independent value judgments, inasmuch as it deals with the relation between the blessedness which is assured by God and sought by man, and the whole of the world which God has created and rules in harmony with His final end. (p. 207) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 12 of 41 Ritschl is striving to explain the relationship between divine providence and human dominion over the world. He also used the concept in dealing with the divinity of Christ and religious knowledge. Berkhof sets forth Ritschl’s intent sympathetically but acknowledges that the word value judgment...is misleading; it creates the impression that it is solely grounded in subjective human appreciation, as a postulate or projection, without having an objective context. Ritschl’s line of thought was not at all intended anthropocentrically but relationally and functionally... : in the face of the saving encounter with the Christ of revelation a person finds himself forced to make this judgment. (p. 123) Ritschl was welcomed by many who “in the age of Emperor Wilhelm II understood and welcomed this presentation of the gospel as moral power.” Others saw it as “a betrayal of the gospel to the spirit of bourgeoisie” and Berkhof observes that this is the fate of every theology that seek to articulate the gospel for its own time and culture. In any case he “let the voice of the gospel and the voices of the Reformation speak again.” One of his students who was to become the philosopher of religion of the religioushistorical school, Ernst Troeltsch, described Ritschl’s position thus, according to Berkhof: In his relation to history Ritschl remained stuck halfway. In this respect he seems to identify with the historical consciousness which marks the modern mind, though at bottom he is not modern at all but still supernaturalistic. One cannot simultaneously recognize the limited individuality and many-sided dependence of all historical figures on the one hand, and on the other, infer from the historical process the absoluteness of Christianity and its founders.... (p. 129) That was Troeltsch’s conclusion and he turned away from Ritschl developing to the full the implications of historical consciousness which he faulted his teacher for failing to do. Berkhof’s journey continues with a discussion of the alternative positions of Troeltsch and Wilhelm Herrmann who was deeply impacted by Ritschl and developed the line of thought he found in Ritschl in his own impressive work. We begin with Herrmann because he developed the intention of Ritschl’s theology. What impressed him about Ritschl, Berkhof notes, was his fundamental theme: “The calling of people to relate and conduct themselves as free personalities within a determined world.” Like Ritschl he found the highest of religion and morality united in the figure of Jesus. Faith and knowledge were held distinct as was true in Ritschl following Kant’s critical philosophy. This separation of faith and knowledge was evidenced in “his persistent struggle against any form of confusion between a personal faith in Christ and faith in the authority of Scripture, dogma, or creed: © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 13 of 41 They cannot bring about a saving personal encounter; they appeal to our thinking only as law. Religion is a totally independent world, though closely bound up with morality, because it relates us to divine revelation and must be the answer to the misery of our moral condition. (p. 144) Herrmann was more concerned for the solidity of his philosophical base than was Ritschl. Kant loomed large, “whose mighty thoughts emerge increasingly in almost all domains of human learning as the silent governor of all true research.” Herrmann valued Kant “because in every connection he has placed the value of faith, its independence from science, in the clearest light.” Berkhof offers an illuminating image by which to understand Herrmann in relation to the question of Berkhof’s quest – how in modern thought and culture the gospel was brought to expression. When I read Herrmann what emerges in my mind is the image of a rock in the midst of a rising flood. In Ritschl the rock of moral autonomy still had a broad surface. Now, however, with the waves of the flood rising higher and higher, it became much narrower. The parts that are closer to the sea – like corporeality, psychological development, history, social relationships, and the authority of Scripture and Christian tradition – have clearly been inundated. Herrmann now withdrew to the narrow center, to individual (though conceived as interpersonal) inwardness where the individual is in communion with God through “the inner life of Jesus.” With a splendid sort of consistency, he devoted his intellectual powers to the defense of the peak of that rock. (p. 146) The rise of the historical-critical method of biblical research led Herrmann to realize that the certainty of faith could not rest on the probable results of historical criticism. Faith does take shape in history but its basis is above history and beyond the reach of historical research. “The inner life of Jesus” which comes to expression in the narratives about him, legendary as well as historical, bring our personhood into contact with the reality of Jesus’ personal life. Berkhof dates Herrmann’s complete divorce between revelation and history around 1910, the period of the heated debates about the historicity of Jesus. The Ritschlian school attacked Kähler’s distinction between the historische Jesus and the geschichtliche Christ. This distinction which, as Berkhof notes, can only be made in German, became very influential. It gained broad acceptance because it promised a separate but peaceful relationship between the gospel and modern historicism which could serve as a bomb-proof bunker for faith in Christ. (p. 147) In his Ethik Herrmann entered into dialogue with the intellectual Umwelt and thus Berkhof focuses on that work first because in it “a bridge was built between the gospel and the modern world.” In human encounters in which trust relationships grow we recognize an “unconditional demand” and a longing to achieve “a different life than nature can furnish us.” © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 14 of 41 In religion man is referred to the “inner situation of human individualism” in which “he is faced before a power before which all resistance is excluded because he knows himself to be totally dependent on it in free surrender.” (p. 147f) Herrmann’s other major work Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott describes how the encounter with the superior personal life of Jesus proceeds and effects inner human renewal. How does the saving experience of the grace of God come about? Herrmann’s stress is on inward transformation – concrete human experience. A fact of redemption, for a person who wants to escape the bondage of his own powerlessness, can only be that which transforms him inwardly. That, however, is effected only by his own experience, not by that which he is merely told about. Hence we call a ‘fact of redemption’ the inner life of Jesus which became known to us in contact with the tradition. (p. 148) How does the process of becoming known actually occur? The personal mystery of Jesus is mediated to us through the transmission of his image. In that context we discover that “the Christ of the New Testament displays a firmness of religious conviction, a clarity of moral judgment, a purity and power of will, as they occur together in no other figure of history. (p. 148) Sounding like Luther, Herrmann writes, God takes our self-esteem and creates for us an unbreakable spirit; he destroys our joy in life and makes us blessed; he kills and makes us alive. (Der Verkehr, p. 94, cited in Berkhof, p. 149) Berkhof points out the difference with Luther being that for Luther it is the power of the law that kills while for Herrmann it is a natural human experience, an experience common to Christians and non-Christians. This was the Lebensgefühl of Herrmann’s Europe. The Gospel meets this need reflected in the common human experience. Berkhof puts the critical question to Herrmann’s formulation: “Is the God who is complementarily related to our needs still really God? Or is he perhaps only the projected reflection of human ideals and human misery? Berkhof notes, as we shall see later, that in the year Herrmann died (1922), the revised edition of Barth’s The Epistle to the Romans appeared. In it Barth, Herrmann’s admiring student, concluded that indeed Herrmann’s God was a human projection, not the “wholly other” of biblical revelation. Two alternatives flowed from Ritschl: Herrmann’s development of Ritschl’s intention and, from Ritschl’s student Ernst Troeltsch, a rejection of the attempt to ground faith in inner experience, thereby finding an absolute ground in history. With Herrmann, Troeltsch was recognized as the leader of German Liberal theology. But Troeltsch took another path. Recalling the image referred to above, Berkhof writes, © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 15 of 41 He [Troeltsch] also saw that the rock of ethical freedom and, connected with it, of the gospel was inundated by the deterministic-historical way of thinking in vogue. But he did not believe that he could occupy and hold a small peak as a last resort. He left this tight spot and plunged into the stream. To him an absolute moment in history was a contradiction in terms. For that reason he had to disagree with Ritschl and Herrmann, who sought to lift Jesus out of history with its laws of analogy and correlation. It is true everywhere and for everyone: history is an ever-moving stream in which the movement of each drop is determined by the mass of water that proceeds it, and each drop shares in determining the direction of what follows. That is the fundamental view of “historicism,” another term for determinism applied to historical reality. (p. 150) In that paragraph, Berkhof pictures vividly the climate of opinion created by the rise of historical consciousness and the rise of historical consciousness has marked all subsequent modern thought as indelibly as has Kant’s analysis of the human knowing process. Troeltsch admired Herrmann’s work but concluded that Herrmann had failed to ground faith in an historically unconditional place; rather, his orientation to “the inner life of Jesus” was “time conditional,” thoroughly enmeshed in the stream of history. Troeltsch endeavored to rescue Christian faith and ethics from the historical relativism which appeared all-encompassing. For him the historical as such can have only relative significance. However, utilizing metaphysical psychology, he developed his “philosophy of values.” Whereas the natural sciences look for causality and universality, the science of history looks for the individuality which expresses itself in the realization of transindividual values in history. (p. 152) With this theory of the transhistorical values realized in history in the individual, Troeltsch believed he had overcome relativism. History has not a limitless number of competing values; “such values are exceedingly few in number” and “disclosures of really new goals for the human spirit are rare indeed.” By what criterion are such disclosures to be judged? Berkhof cites the following statements from Troeltsch: We may likewise understand the criterion of evaluation as something that emerges within the movement of life as a result of a universal perspective on the one hand, and involvement in the movement on the other. The converging lines evident in these basic features suggest, however, a normative, universally valid goal toward which the whole is directed. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 16 of 41 It is the concept rather, of a common, orienting goal that may from time to time manifest itself in history in clear and distinct preparatory forms but always remains a goal “out in front.” At this point, Berkhof indicates, Troeltsch moves from the historically empirical to metaphysics. Berkhof cites Troeltsch further: This idea [namely, of an absolute goal] requires a turn to the metaphysical, a retracing of all man’s goals and orientations to a transcendent force that activates our deepest stirrings and is connected with the creative core of reality. The various eruptions, breakthroughs, and manifestations of the higher spiritual life are rooted in the goal-oriented character of this force. It stands over against what is merely given in nature and turns up at different points – ...till it has found concentrated expression, from that point on pressing forward to goals that exceed all knowledge and imagination. This is the permanent element in the concept of evolutionary development, which in this case signifies not only a postulate that accompanies all faith in the spiritual life but also a fact of experience that has been manifested with some degree of clarity. (p. 152f) From this position Troeltsch went on to claim for Christianity the highest level of the apprehension of truth. Berkhof comments, It would seem that, with this “absoluteness of Christianity,” an “absoluteness” based on historical development (because “absolute truth belongs to the future and will appear in the judgment of God and the cessation of earthly history.”) Troeltsch came very close to a kind of Hegelian pantheism and immanentism. Over against this, however, there is a strong personalism, because for Troeltsch as a modern person it is precisely the personalistic legacy of Christianity which constitutes a connection of culture, individual life, and progress. (p. 153) Herrmann and Troeltsch carried on a dialogue about the place of history in Christian experience. Troeltsch rejected Herrmann’s appeal to the personality of Jesus while claiming that although mediated by history, what came to expression of the inner life of Jesus was above history and beyond the reach of historical-critical research. Herrmann found it impossible to accept Troeltsch’s idea of development which brought with it the possibility that Jesus might in the future be superseded by a greater revelatory concretion in event or person. In the final analysis they were not so far apart except that Troeltsch appealed to the socio-psychological reality of the Christian community. In Troeltsch’s essay “The Significance of the Historical Existence of Jesus for Faith,” he dealt with the question whether the Christian church can have a future apart from its being grounded in the historicity of Jesus. Berkhof points out, He denies it on grounds of social psychology; without a fellowship, a cult, and a historical personality to ground it, only an individualistic spirituality remains. As © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 17 of 41 such a historically based cult community, Christianity can well maintain itself, even by historical-critical norms. (p. 155) Thus he is close to Ritschl and Herrmann. However, the difference between them lies in the fact that for Troeltsch, his claim is grounded in social-psychology; it is not for him a dogmatic pronouncement. But Troeltsch wearied of the struggle to claim absolute value out of history and historical development. A concluding sentence of his significant The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches reads, “The Truth is – and this is the conclusion of the whole matter – the Kingdom of God is within us.” World War I dealt his view that European culture was the highest stage of ethical-cultural development a blow. Universal history, which was once his starting point, now became a question to him. He began to see that even his central idea of “personality” lacked universal historical validity but was typical for one culture – namely Western culture. Even the basis of his historicism became historicized. Against a boundless relativism he sought shelter in a pantheistic metaphysic....(p. 157) Berkhof concludes the discussion of these two giants of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries under the heading “Convergence and Contrast.” They illustrate two ways in which, “while affirming the contemporary deterministic-empirical culture, one can still speak of ‘the absoluteness’ of Jesus or of Christianity.” Both sought to save faith and modern culture. But Berkhof claims, In their attempts at reconciliation neither Herrmann nor Troeltsch could in the end avoid returning to the supernaturalism they despised. In the case of Herrmann, Jesus – with his unique inner life – remained the big exception and the great miracle in the midst of history. Troeltsch radically exposed himself to the temptation of contemporary culture. But for him, too, Jesus remained the hitherto unsurpassed high point in the great movement of the Spirit. For the sake of redemption of the human personality neither was able to abandon faith in the personhood of God. For the salvation of human beings both men reached for a Beyond – Herrmann for the inner life of Jesus beyond observable history, Troeltsch for the kingdom of redeemed spirits, also beyond history. (p. 160) Concentrating on his own focus in this survey, Berkhof reflects on the contrasts and the convergence of the alternatives followed by Herrmann and Troeltsch. He contends that in the effort to reconcile the gospel and modern culture, one can begin at either pole. The gospel cries out for concentration on the one thing necessary; culture ventures into the full spectrum of life in the world. Beginning with either pole it is difficult to do justice to the other. Finally both Herrmann and Troeltsch experienced and expressed Christian faith entirely within the framework of the cultural presuppositions of their time. After the crisis of World War I both thinkers’ influence waned; yet, the significant intellectual and spiritual effort of both has gained a new hearing. Berkhof claims we have still not been able to free ourselves from the choice between the two and the struggle in which they engaged continues to challenge us into the present. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 18 of 41 We move now to the next generation, to students of Herrmann, who appeared for a brief time to be one in their development and radicalization of Herrmann’s effort to find a secure place for faith to rest beyond the relativities of history and the acids of historical research. Karl Barth’s Romerbrief, first edition, sent shock waves through the world of academic theology and philosophy and his salvo was affirmed by Rudolf Bultmann. Under the title of “The Split in the Herrmann School” Berkhof discusses these two formidable theologians and their followers. The word “split” indicates that the time of apparent agreement was brief; in Bultmann and Barth alternative answers were given to questions of faith and history. Understandably, Berkhof can do little justice to the gigantic theological enterprises of Bultmann and Barth in two chapters comprising about 45 pages. Yet the treatment is helpful because of his sharp focus – the deeply felt chasm between the cultural assumption of their sitz-im-leben and the gospel. Bultmann followed his revered teacher, Herrmann, who thoroughly mistrusted historically ascertainable facts as vehicles of revelation. Bultmann’s mistrust was even greater – closer to Troeltsch at that point, although repeating Troeltsch’s attempt to find some absolute point amidst history’s relativities. In Bultmann, “the Christian experience of faith is not in the conventional sense ‘grounded’; it implies a radical release from empirical certitude.” Berkhof suggests that Troeltsch’s influence may have caused Bultmann to radicalize Herrmann’s position. The Achilles’ heel of Herrmann was, certainly, that for his faith in Jesus he needed a little segment of history, namely, “the inner life of Jesus” or the “secret of his Person,” however nonvisual it might be. Troeltsch did not believe in this rock as a place of refuge to which one could go in the midst of the flood of historical determinism. And Bultmann...had to concur here with the opponent of his teacher. However, unlike Troeltsch he did not plunge into the sea, but believed he could find revelation concerning the sea above the inundated rock, in a higher atmosphere which the flood could not reach, in the free air of human existence addressed by God, on a level of reality which can only be reached by a radical detachment from the world. (p. 164f) Here we hear the echoes of Kant’s distinction between pure and practical reason; the historical Jesus belongs to the first, the preaching of the crucified Jesus to the second. Bultmann was concerned only with the “that” of the life of Jesus; nothing beyond the “that” of his historical existence is relevant for faith. Even Herrmann’s “inner life of Jesus” was surrendered to the relativization of historical criticism. As Berkhof explains, Bultmann wanted to sever the last remaining connection between Historie and Geschichte in order to protect the faith from any and every critical assault on the part of science. (p. 165) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 19 of 41 Barth’s Romans impressed Bultmann. Here he heard an undergirding and development of Herrmann’s theology. Bultmann, a trained New Testament scholar did object to Barth’s interpretation of Paul and he criticized Barth’s understanding of the relationship between revelation and history, an understanding similar to Herrmann’s, falling short of the radical disjunction of faith and history which Bultmann advocated. Berkhof feels that from the beginning Bultmann was more interested in Barth’s statements about the human self than he was in Barth’s primary concern to point to the goodness of God and the objectivity of the Word of God. Berkhof points to the center of Bultmann’s concern in his analysis of human existence which he gained from the early Heidegger, who for a time was his colleague at Marburg. Heidegger’s philosophy of existence presented Bultmann with an understanding of the human condtion into which the gospel is proclaimed. Berkhof cites Bultmann’s statement: For the existential interpretation of human existence says precisely that the human subject (or human being, I might also say) is not without his world, nor even without God insofar as the philosopher regards it as legitimate to speak about God, so that self-understanding is also understanding of (God and) the world. (p. 168f) Is this “natural theology” or a Christianized Heidegger? Berkhof contends the two converge in Bultmann and offers as evidence Bultmann’s statements in his essay “The New Testament and My Theology:” ...according to Heidegger the “mundaneness” of the world “causes people to be satisfied with an illusory existence; as a result they miss out on “the reality of existence.” This condition of lostness is what the New Testament calls “sin.” According to Heidegger people must now lay hold of existence on their own: Become what you are! (p. 169) Philosophy believes it is enough that one be shown one’s true nature but Bultmann denies philosophy’s self-confidence. People must first be liberated from themselves. This happens through the message of Christ, through the forgiveness of sin, by which alone people receive the “freedom for obedience,” surrender to the love of God, and therewith the authenticity of their existence. (p. 169) During the fifties Bultmann’s influence was powerful and pervasive. His existential analysis of the human person who is addressed by the Word of God, the proclamation of the Christ of faith apart from any rooting in history beyond the “that” of Jesus’ existence, enabled him to deliver the gospel safe from the relativities of historical research, research in which he himself was a master. But with the advent of the next decade the pendulum began to swing back and the climate of opinion was shifting. The © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 20 of 41 Bultmannian school was beginning to fall apart. First the work of Ernst Kassemann who actually stepped outside the Bultmann circle with its existentialist interpretation of the gospel, but then by Bultmann’s students Ernst Fuchs and Gerhard Ebeling who remained with the existentialist understanding but who sensed a need for a broader place to stand in concrete history, there was a return to interest in the historical Jesus, to something more than the “that” of his existence. Berkhof views this move on the part of the Neo-Bultmannians as a shift from idealism to empiricism which was similar to the shift that had occurred in the previous century. A theological generation grew up for whom the language of the great predecessors was no longer intelligible. However diverse Barth, Brunner, Bultmann, Niebuhr, and Tillich were, their basic concepts like “revelation,” “Word of God,” “absolute and infinite Being,” even the vocable “God,” all belonged to a conceptual Uberwelt which was not open to empirical verification....I see no indication that the Neo-Bultmannians consciously involved themselves in this shift toward empiricism. But since 1950 it was in the air, expanded rapidly, and manifested itself in many areas. The “shift” from “Christ” to “Jesus” belongs entirely to this new climate. For many during these years it made the gospel credible again to have it anchored in the historical Jesus. (p. 175f) Berkhof points out that this was really a return to Herrmann who also had to proclaim the gospel to a generation under the strong influence of empiricism. He never gave up the connection to empirical history. Bultmann argued with his students who moved back to the concern with the historical reality of Jesus and Berkhof comments: In my opinion, the conflict between Bultmann and his disciples has not been resolved. His disciples were stronger in their accentuation of the essential continuity between Jesus and Christ...Bultmann’s second objection against his disciple-critics is one they could not, in my judgment, invalidate: the post-Easter kerygma is not identical with the message of Jesus and does not (very often – I would prefer to say) refer back to the message and conduct of the earthly Jesus. (p. 177) As the debate came to sharp focus the questions that were clearly at issue were: Is the historical necessary to the explanation of the kerygma (Bultmann, Marxen)? And: is this minimal history sufficient for the explanation of the kerygma (Künneth)? By answering the first question in the negative one remains strictly within the existentialist framework. By answering the second question in the negative one breaks out of this framework in favor of an ontological mode of thought. (p. 178) The climate of opinion permeated with a move to the empirical opened up a return to concentration on the historical ground of faith especially in the work of a circle of young © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 21 of 41 scholars around Pannenberg. Berkhof explains this move as reflective of the way Troeltsch posed the issue. The gospel must not be positioned as far from history as possible but be understood altogether as historical power and as answer to the quest for truth in history. It seemed the path of theological development had curved back to where it was in 1910. The alternatives were still the same. (p. 178) But with our move to the Post-Bultmann School we have moved too fast, for we must backtrack and pick up the other student of Herrmann, generally acknowledged as the greatest theological thinker of the twentieth century, Karl Barth. Berkhof knew him personally and respected him deeply. While maintaining his own independence, he nevertheless himself was significantly impacted by this great man. Berkhof opens the chapter with the interesting development of Barth, biographical information so necessary to understanding him and the revolution he ignited. He cites the following statement of Barth from the preface to the second edition of his Romans: If I have a system it is limited to a recognition of what Kierkegaard called the “infinite qualitative distinction” between time and eternity, and to my regarding this as possessing negative as well as positive significance: “God is in heaven, and thou art on earth.” The relation between such a God and such a man, and the relation between such a man and such a God, is for me the theme of the Bible and the essence of philosophy. Philosophers name this krisis of human perception – the Prime Cause; the Bible beholds at the same cross-roads – the figure of Jesus Christ. (p. 194f) These are weighty sentences, Berkhof writes. He locates the respective emphases in Barth’s development. The Romans work came out of Barth’s turn to the interpretation of the Bible. With his friend Thurneysen he was disillusioned with involvement in the Social Democracy movement which failed to mobilize resistance to the war and together they were looking for a place to stand – a “crisis” brought about by the need to preach weekly. The first edition of Romans (1919) was the eruption of all that was stirring in the young Barth as he moved away from the nineteenth century with its classic liberalism, struggled with the Bible and the darkness that enveloped the continent torn apart with war. The first edition of Römerbrief was not a product of a finished theological position. Berkhof speaks of “The Detour of the First Edition of Römerbrief.” Berkhof cites Busch, Barth’s biographer: In Barth, the question of according God a place of central importance was becoming more and more fundamental. And since he had met Blumhardt, it was very closely connected with the eschatological question of the Christian hope. (Busch, Karl Barth, pp. 87, 89, cited in Berkhof, p. 186) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 22 of 41 Berkhof points out that Barth wrestled with the question of how the Kingdom of God manifested itself tangibly in a world hostile to God. In the grip of this question Barth had read Romans with the excitement of a discoverer. For him it became primarily the great witness to the absolute priority of God, visible in the work of Christ and the working of the Spirit, the Spirit who in an organic process, on the basis of Christ, transformed creation into the glory of Christ. This working of the Spirit is the inner side – perceptible to the eye of faith – of our secular exterior side. Ontology, objectivity, realism, and universalism – these are the categories which here determine Barth’s exposition of Paul. Paul helped him to proclaim the superior power of God in an alienated world and even to make it visible for those to whom this is given. (p. 186f) The publication of Romans sent shock waves through the philosophical and theological centers of the continent. Educated in the finest tradition of German culture, Barth’s move was incomprehensible to his teachers. It appeared that he had joined the side of orthodoxy. But, Berkhof contends, he was still far from the Reformation tradition and had no real appreciation for the classic teaching of justification. In the years following the publication (1919-1922), Barth continued to grope and feel his way. Berkhof, tracing the various ideas and persons that influenced Barth, concludes, I doubt that it was philosophical influence which helped Barth negotiate the great switch-in-subject which initiated in the 1916 lecture about “The Righteousness of God” and following the detour via the theology of Württenberg (The first edition of Römerbrief), provisionally found its “final” form in the second edition of Romans. According to Barth’s own sense of the matter, he owed the sudden shift in direction from the first to the second edition of Romans to an “inspiration” which at first even frightened himself.... If one nevertheless thinks here of extra theological influences, it makes more sense to look for them in the realm of the negative, in the disillusionments he suffered, especially after the war, from the liberal theology of experience on the one hand, and from social democracy on the other. These disillusionments drove him past all the relativities of human life to God – as the origin, the judge(crisis), and the hope of all that is known. In contemplation of the absolute God the merely human was condemned and redeemed to the status of relativity and so made bearable. In the first edition of Römerbrief Barth still viewed the relationship between God and the world as harmonious, organic, more or less perceptible. In the second edition of Romans discontinuity and imperceptibility predominate. God is no less present than before but his presence had fundamentally become “imperceptible,” “lightninglike.” (p. 197) Berkhof raises the question how in the space of four years Barth could read the same Pauline letter so differently. He is convinced the answer lies not in the domain of intellect but “in the depths of his Lebensgefühl (sense of life).” Educated in the Ritschlian theological school, the advancing secularization ate away at the ground on which faith rested. In Herrmann there was a thin ridge still rising above the flood; for © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 23 of 41 Troeltsch even that was gone, although he still sought the absolute in history’s relativity. For Barth, Berkhof contends, the “base” is totally gone. “History” is completely secularized and the event of the world of God is now “verticalized.” God’s work in the world has lost its final vestiges of perceptibility. The retreat has become a clean break...the second edition of Romans is also a document of that cultural epoch and the Lebensgefühl which was part of it.... A new, intensely painful experience of the godless world and, on the basis of that experience, a new quest for the God of the Bible – these two factors determined Barth’s groping progression during these years. (p. 198) Though he revered Herrmann, Barth nevertheless had to take leave of him. Bultmann had not noticed the “switch-in-subject” in the second edition of Romans and interpreted Barth in line with Herrmann. And there was structural similarity between Barth and Herrmann, as Moltmann points out: The “defenseless non-groundability of religious experience” in Barth becomes, in theologically consistent form, the “transcendental subjectivity” of the selfrevealing God, a process in which the “self” retains all the attributes, all the relations and distinctions in which it had been formulated by Herrmann. (p. 199, quoting Moltmann, Theology of Hope, p. 54) In a lecture in 1924 Barth pointed out where he separated from Herrmann. It was not a repudiation but rather a radicalization of Herrmann. Herrmann tried to ground his theology on “experience,” on “the facts we ourselves experience,” but in the section cited by Barth he continues: “But its beginning and its end is nonetheless man’s humbling of himself before the unsearchable.” Therefore, if experience lives from that which transcends experience, and if this is its beginning even, then “the unabrogable subjectivity of God” has become the starting point of our thinking, and it “becomes obligatory to ask whether dogmatics does not have to begin where Herrmann ends.” (p. 199) Surveying the whole of Barth’s theological enterprise, Berkhof holds that the relationship between Barth and his teacher must be characterized as “ambivalence” rather than a “break.” Barth’s strong stress on “the unabrogable subjectivity of God” led to differences: no point of contact in ethics; stress on the Word event; more space for salvation-historical facts, especially the cross and resurrection; a wider use of scriptural witness, including the Old Testament; and emphasis on the priority and superordination of justification over sanctification and of faith as acknowledgment over trust; also, a higher valuation of the church, its office, and its confession. But there were similarities as well: The twin pillars of his mature thought as it comes to expression in his Church Dogmatics are thus Christocentrism and, as its counterpart, the radical repudiation of natural theology. With these positions Barth was not in opposition © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 24 of 41 to the nineteenth century but to the Ritschl–Herrmann line of thought within that century. But when secularization advanced still more, Barth withdrew revelation even further from the world. It was not the “diastasis” which distinguished him from these predecessors but the degree of radicalism with which it was applied. Herrmann found final support in “the inner life of Jesus.” Barth also gives that up and then severs the connection between Geschichte and Historie. But is that a possibility if one wants to proceed on the basis of Jesus Christ, inclusive of his “historical” appearance? ( p. 200) Berkhof claims Barth could not do it even in the second edition of Romans. He quotes from Romans: In the Resurrection the new world of the Holy Spirit touches the old world of the flesh, but touches it as a tangent touches a circle, that is, without touching it. And, precisely because it does not touch it, it touches it as its frontier – as the new world. The Resurrection is therefore an occurrence in history, which took place outside the gates of Jerusalem in the year A.D. 30, inasmuch as it there “came to pass,” was discovered and recognized. But inasmuch as the occurrence was conditioned by the Resurrection, in so far, that is, as it was not the “coming to pass,” or the discovery, or the recognition, which conditioned its necessity and appearance and revelation, the Resurrection is not an event in history at all. (p. 201 from Romans, p. 30) Later, in Church Dogmatics, Berkhof writes, Barth attempted to bring Geschichte and Historie closer together but even there “failed to reach clarity on this decisive issue in modern theology.” Berkhof moves to Barth’s relationship to Schleiermacher which, in his early years, was unambiguous; he set himself over against Schleiermacher’s anthropological starting point, the grounding of religious reality in the “feeling of absolute dependence.” Despite his great admiration for Schleiermacher’s magnificent achievement, in general he found himself rejecting Schleiermacher’s theology. This rejection went so far that he closed with the question, “How can the idea [the idea that Schleiermacher has brought us to a dead end] be squared with the providence of God which rules over his church?” and with the observation: “What remains is clearly – and I do not see how it can be avoided – the possibility of a theological revolution [Barth’s italics], a fundamental NO! to the entire body of Schleiermacher’s teaching concerning religion and Christianity.” (p. 202) A bit later Barth treated Schleiermacher’s thought again, concluding that he “allowed himself to be forced into the fundamentally unworthy position of an apologist” because at bottom he was interested in Christianity “only for the sake of culture.” Yet Barth was never through with Schleiermacher. In 1968 he wrote, © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 25 of 41 I am certain of my course and of my point of view. I am, however, not so certain of them that I can confidently say that my “yes” necessarily implies a “no” to Schleiermacher’s point of view. For have I indeed understood him correctly? (p. 203) He ends, Berkhof writes, with the same ambivalence we saw above over against Herrmann. It is interesting to note here that in his revision of Christian Faith, Berkhof himself added a section on Schleiermacher’s appeal to experience. In the mid-1920’s, Barth seemed to have found his place to stand and he wrote Die Christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf. But after discovering the theological method of Anselm of Canterbury, he wrote a book on Anselm’s method and started over with his own dogmatics, this time calling it Church Dogmatics. The title Church Dogmatics brings out, for Barth, the binding force of the faith which underlies all dogmatic thought. Connected with this in Anselm’s thought is that reality precedes possibility, not vice versa. “I believe in order that I may understand” (Credo ut intelligam). The content of faith does not permit itself to be grounded by the human intellect but only to be unfolded by reflection. (p. 206) Berkhof concludes the chapter on Barth by raising the critical question which will be taken up in his next chapter, an interesting debate about Barth’s method that took place in the Netherlands. For us it is decisive to see how Barth gave up the goals of liberal theology and left its path behind him in order now to fall into line with classic theology as it was given its shape by Athanasius and Anselm, by Luther and Calvin. After the Enlightenment and after Schleiermacher, one can still do this with impunity? At no time in his life did Barth take this question lightly, but after intense struggle he nevertheless answered it in the affirmative. His students adopted his answer as self-evident and repressed the question. However, the question must make itself heard again, despite or precisely because of Barth. In the post-Barthian period Berkhof points out that question again became the central problem of theology. Barth’s influence was dominant from 1930-1960. His power of thought and consistently thought through position was cogent but not without its detractors. Brunner’s position was mediating in regard to the question of the “place” in the human person where revelation is received. Paul Tillich opposed Barth’s “Kerygmatic” theology with his own apologetic approach, a theology of correlation which finds the human question answered in God’s revelation. It was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who expressed for many the weakness of Barth’s approach. Berkhof writes of Bonhoeffer’s critique of Barth in his Letters From Prison: © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 26 of 41 Bonhoeffer is at his most genial when in these letters he treated the system which imprisoned him essentially as part of the past and concentrated totally on the rise of the new, “mature,” radically secularized “religionless” man. When the Letters were published this secularized sense of life (Lebensgefühl) was fully on the march, and people even spoke of a second Enlightenment ( Aufklårung). (p. 209) Bonhoeffer had become a disciple of Barth and they maintained a close personal bond but his prison experience moved him away from Barth’s theology. He characterized Barth’s position as a “positivism of revelation” (“take or leave it”) – a poignant criticism, and Barth was stung by it. Bonhoeffer ushered in the post-Barthian era. Berkhof observes, It arose directly from his analysis of the new cultural epoch. In the anthropocentric age in which Barth had sought his way as a theologian, his starting with God as the subject of faith and theology was a liberating new beginning. In Bonhoeffer’s time this point had already become self-evident in theology. But in the period which he foresaw, such a starting point would be completely unintelligible. For the people for whom the wording hypothesis “God” would be a total redundancy, “the authority of the Word of God” would only constitute a double enigma: first, because they would accept nothing on authority any more and, second, because they could not handle the idea of a “speaking God.” (p. 209f) Berkhof sees Barth’s starting point heavily influenced by the collapse of German cultural assumptions in the aftermath of World War I. There was a felt need for “a basic foothold in a higher, supramundane reality.” But in the post-World War II days the pendulum swung back. For different reasons, neither Barth nor Bultmann were ever able to ground the Word in history, within this-worldly existence. Technology in the after-math of the war also had a transforming effect on society. Life was understood as being shaped “from below.” Berkhof chooses the work of H.M. Kuitert of the Free University in Amsterdam as the representative of those who sought to come to terms with the new Lebensgefühl. Kuitert came under Barth’s influence through his teacher, G. C. Berkhouwer. Berkhof indicates that his understanding of Barth and subsequent departure from Barth center in Barth’s phrase “the unabrogable subjectivity of God.” Berkhof quotes Kuitert: For Barth revelation is an immediate occurrence; it is the speaking God himself….that is the figure of the transcendental subjectivity in optima forma to which Barth adhered throughout his entire life. (p. 213) Kuitert sees the line back to Herrmann and Kant here and claims that thereby Barth freed himself from any attempt to ground the knowledge of God either in history or in religious experience. But, Kuitert objects, Barth thus identified his faith concept with the subjectivity of God. Berkhof explains, © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 27 of 41 Barth claims an exceptional position for his own theological approach. He bases this on the subjectivity of faith granted us and realizing itself within us. Thus he excused himself from all discussion and from the necessity of giving an account of his thoughts. To the legitimate question: How do you know? He has no answer. (p. 213) Barth did later appeal to the biblical witness and the tradition of the church but the relationship between Scripture and the immediacy of the knowledge of God remains unclear. Barth also came to view the role of history more positively but even so God’s acts in history are alien to history itself. Kuitert insists that the alternatives cannot be avoided. Either the vocable God remains empty, or it receives an arbitrary content from within subjectivity, or it receives its content [i.e., we predicate] from within [historical] experience. (p. 214) Barth operates in a closed circle. Another Dutch theologian, Sperna Weiland, describes Barth’s theology as “a house without doors.” Berkhof explains, With its unreasoned appeal to revelation it withdraws from communication with the outside world and culture in general. (p. 214) Kuitert’s challenge to Barth’s approach engendered a lively debate within the Netherlands, young Barthians coming to the master’s defense. Our interest here, however, is in Kuitert’s alternative. In a new cultural milieu Kuitert felt the need to deal with prologomena in the traditional sense. As Berkhof points out, We must start with “man,” on an “anthropological floor” which believers and unbelievers have in common. Thus Kuitert again picks up the theme of the “apologetic” theology which Tillich opposed to the “kerygmatic” theology of Barth. (p. 220) Kuitert insisted that theology can claim to be a science only if it is willing to do more than simply bear witness, even though it cannot provide “verification” in the sense of the natural sciences. Theology must be descriptive in character: It examines religion and religions, and thus makes also God an object of its intellectual striving. (p. 220) The phenomenon of faith, Kuitert contends, can be described on three levels: anthropological, historical and institutional. On the first level, Kuitert deals with primal faith or basic trust. One trusts oneself to what one cannot as yet perceive. This basic trust has Christian-theological relevance. It does not turn theology into anthropology but humankind is bound to this “anthropological floor” in speaking about God. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 28 of 41 On the historical level Kuitert turns to the phenomenology of religion. Basic trust comes shaped in the form of a concrete religion. Berkhof points out, All religions have “God” as their point of reference. This does not mean, however, that the differences between them are immaterial. It is often certain very distinct experiences which press people to pronounce the name “God”: as an expression of meaning. Such experiences are only possible within certain frameworks of interpretation. (p. 221) Herein lies the possibility for testing plausibility. Built into faith, Kuitert insists, is an argument which makes an appeal to experience. Berkhof cites Kuitert: The grounds of faith therefore consist in that which religious people sense as the footprints of God in our world of experience. (p. 221f) When those footprints are no longer discernible, religious faith dies a slow death. Kuitert uses as an example the death of the fertility religion in the ancient Near East. When trade and industry, and finally artificial fertilizer, undermined the decisive role of the fertility of the earth, it turned out that what people took to be the footprints of God were not that at all. (p. 222) Kuitert also speaks of a religious conviction which is turned into a “search hypothesis” which guides one in the search for God. Without some such hypothesis, he claims, we perceive nothing of God in the world and whatever is perceived of God is dependent upon the search-hypothesis with which one begins. Such a hypothesis is not an end in itself; rather, the end is the personal experience of God and the experience of salvation. Kuitert’s third level is the institutional. The Christian search-hypothesis takes the form of Christian doctrine. Berkhof gives his own appraisal of the debate between Kuitert and the post-Barthians. He puts the issue in sharp focus: The question I have to answer is: For the interpretation of the gospel in today’s world, does Kuitert offer a better starting point than Barth? The weakness of Barth’s position is well known: since he starts with God, he does not seem to reach real people. Kuitert starts “from below;” can he, from this direction, arrive at the God of the gospel, the father of Jesus Christ? …The Christian faith orients itself to the footprints of God in the way and work of Jesus. His footprints can never be surpassed. How can one arrive at an assertion about them if even this faith ever has to be confirmed in history as it unfolds? (p. 226) Berkhof points out that Kuitert’s reference to the historicity of God and the claim that God is love are Christian assertions with no plausibility granted by outsiders. We are dealing with assumptions of the western Christian tradition and, Berkhof writes, we are © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 29 of 41 thus revolving within a cultural circle facing the same problem that Troeltsch faced – trying to find an absolute point within the history of religion. In contrast to Troeltsch, Kuitert is not looking for an absolute point but “for that which in history has proven itself tenable.” He is looking for certain presuppositons that will make dialogue with outsiders possible. But, Berkhof concludes, that …what emerges is that we are led, also from below, into a closed circle in a way similar to that of which Barth was accused with his starting point “from above.” It is of no help that this closed circle is presented as a concentration of experiences. For the people who have had no such experiences themselves, these experiences are transformed into authorities. (p. 227) And so, Berkhof asks, “Does Kuitert essentially understand Christian faith differently from Barth?” He takes Kuitert’s own statements that the knowledge of God is the fruit of God’s self-revelation and that a God humans can account for can never be the true God. Thus Berkhof contends, These statements, as also the theory of plural search-constructs, negate the capacity of the anthropological floor to support an accounting for the faith in dialogue with outsiders. In one’s belief one clearly has to do with a closed circle. (p. 227) Berkhof holds that Barth’s contention that only by starting with God does one come to God is confirmed by Kuitert by his own affirmation and, negatively, by the failure to ground an alternative approach. Barth’s weakness remains. Berkhof concludes, Both Barthians and post-Barthians live from the questions their counterparts do not answer. (p. 228) Berkhof concludes his journey with chapters on “Immanent Transcendentality: The Catholic Bridge,” “North America: From Social Gospel to Neo-Orthodoxy,” and “Paul Tillich: The Bridge of Correlation.” The chapters are interesting and well-done giving the survey a broad ecumenical and geographical spectrum, an important inclusion because the central question of the book comes into focus from new angles as was the case earlier in a chapter on Anglican theology and a chapter on Conservative theology which treated the work of Martin Kåhler. The treatment of Catholic theology deals most extensively with Karl Rahner as might be expected, but Berkhof also lifts up the thinking of Maurice Blondel and Henri de Lubac who made valuable contributions to the effort to bridge the gulf between gospel and culture. Berkhof notes the advantages with which Catholic theology begins over against Reformed theology, beginning as it does with the assumption of harmony between nature and grace, thanks to the synthesis worked out by Aquinas, whereas Reformed theology begins with the contrast between sin and grace. Aquinas, responding to the dominant influence of Aristotle brought to the west by Averrhoes, was carving out a place for the gospel in a world being shaped by the Aristotelian philosophy of nature. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 30 of 41 Berkhof says that one might have hoped that once again such an effort might have been made over against modern thought in the wake of the Enlightenment but, he claims, such an expectation has not been realized largely because of the suspicion with which the dominant curial theology in Rome has viewed such attempts: Fundamentally, the Roman hierarchy has continually sought, right into modern times, to rescue the validity of Thomistic thought, whereas thinkers it mistrusted wanted to make Thomas’ intent and motive operational again under changed conditions and with new, hence with non-Aristotelian, categories. (p. 229f) Having to fight their own hierarchy, Catholic theologians have been paralyzed in their struggle to engage modern thought, and the intramural battle has again and again been settled unilaterally in an authoritarian fashion. Nonetheless, Berkhof points to impressive achievements in Catholic theology. Preceding his treatment of Rahner, Berkhof summarizes the significant efforts of Blondel and de Lubac to do again what Thomas did: that is, to hold together in a greater unity the duality of nature and grace. In their work one sees the advantage of Catholic theology with its assumption of harmony between nature and grace. These thinkers recognized that in the modern world Thomas’ nature-grace continuum had resulted in a divorce of the two realms, leaving the whole development of nature to the secular sphere and thus to human autonomy. Writing at the time of Vatican II, de Lubac warned against “The dualist or, perhaps better, the separatist thesis:” While wishing to protect the supernatural from any contamination, people had in fact exiled it altogether – both from intellectual and from social life – leaving the field free to be taken over by secularism. Today that secularism, following its course, is beginning to enter the minds even of Christians. They too seek to find a harmony with all things based upon an idea of nature which might be acceptable to a deist or an atheist: everything that comes from Christ, everything that should lead to him, is pushed so far into the background as to look like disappearing for good. The last word in Christian progress and the entry into adulthood would thus appear to consist in a total secularization which would expel God not merely from the life of society, but from culture and even from personal relationships. (cited from The Mystery of the Supernatural, pp. xi-xii on p. 239f) The Catholic theologian that receives the fullest treatment by Berkhof is Karl Rahner who made the principle of transcendentality the basis of his theology, applying it across the full spectrum of dogmatics. Berkhof defines the approach thus: The principle of subjectivity has for its counterpart that of transcendentality because “this subject is fundamentally and by its very nature pure openness for absolutely everything, for being as such.” This experience is called transcendental experience because it belongs to the necessary and inalienable structures of the knowing subject itself, and because it consists precisely in the transcendence beyond any particular group of possible objects or of categories. Transcendental © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 31 of 41 experience is the experience of transcendence, in which experience the structure of the subject and therefore also the ultimate structure of every conceivable object of knowledge are present together and as identity. (Berkhof, p. 242 cites Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, p. 20) Transcendence as “experience,” Berkhof indicates, derives not from Kant’s analysis of the knowing process, but from the phenomenology and the analysis of existence. Another citation from Foundations is helpful: Whenever man in his transcendence experiences himself as questioning, as disquieted by the appearance of being, as open to something ineffable, he cannot understand himself as subject in the sense of an absolute subject, but only in the sense of one who receives being, ultimately only in the sense of grace. In this context “grace” means the freedom of the ground of being which gives being to man, a freedom which man experiences in his finiteness and contingency, and means as well what we call “grace” in a more strictly theological sense. (Rahner, Ibid, p. 34) Has Rahner, in attempting to avoid the new-scholastic dualism of nature and grace, let nature pass into the realm of supernatural grace? This is Berkhof’s question. He finds Rahner denying that. Rather, he advocates “a sort of supernaturalization of what we call ‘nature’.” For him creation and created human nature must be understood solely as the infrastructure of the grace-conditioned unity of the Creator and the created in the incarnation of God, and in the final goal of the beatific vision of God based on it. (p. 244) Rahner denies the existence of “pure nature,” and the possibility of human existence as autonomous. Rahner contends: Our actual nature is never ‘pure’ nature. It is a nature installed in a supernatural order which man can never leave, even as a sinner and unbeliever….And these ‘existentials’ of man’s concrete, ‘historical’ nature are not purely states of being beyond consciousness. They make themselves felt in the experience of man. By simple reflection on himself, in the light of natural reason, he cannot simply and clearly distinguish them from the natural spiritual activity which is the manifestation of his nature. (from “Nature and Grace” in Theological Investigations, Vol. 4, p. 183, cited on p. 245) Berkhof’s discussion of Rahner’s complex thought continues but this is perhaps enough to enable us to hear Berkhof’s critique. He points to the continuing dichotomy of nature and grace that shines through the more modern existential language, a different dichotomy than one finds in Reformation theology, the dichotomy of sin and grace. Still, Berkhof notes, the liberal and mediating theologies of post-Enlightenment © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 32 of 41 Protestantism in their engagement with modern thought struggled to express the nature-grace relationship and came very close to the manner of Thomas Aquinas as he sought to express the gospel in a thought-world dominated by Aristotle. Berkhof writes, Nature – in other words, the created structure of human existence – is for all of them the infrastructure which persists despite and in sin, an infrastructure on which the grace of revelation builds and without which it would be unintelligible. (p. 253) For Berkhof Rahner’s grand theological enterprise fails because he has subordinated the sin-and-grace dichotomy to the nature-and-grace dichotomy and the nature-and-grace relationship is, in Berkhof’s view, all too harmoniously construed. He concludes, As a result this grand theological project seems to overshoot the goal of a confrontation between the gospel and the modern world. For the (restricted) application of the notion of transcendentality we should – presumably – not go beyond the boundaries set by Blondel. (p. 255) Berkhof concludes his journey with a visit to the American scene beginning with the theology of Jonathan Edwards and Horace Bushnell, then the Social Gospel movement and the work of Walter Rauschenbusch, and finally a treatment of the Niebuhrs, thinkers for whom he has high regard. He reserves a chapter for a treatment of Paul Tillich. Tillich’s method of correlation, the gospel as the answer to the human question, is precisely the focus that Berkhof has kept through his journey of 200 years. Tillich’s life and vocation began in Germany. His war experiences destroyed the idealistic foundation of his thought. A man of great giftedness and broad interest, he was engaged with the full spectrum of cultural experience. Fleeing the Nazi plague, he came to this country to continue his long and fruitful career. Berkhof notes that, as a thinker and a Christian, Tillich had always lived and thought in the context of the polarity between question and answer. This formed the foundation of his mature theology and, consequently, he became for many “the bridge builder between their personal problems and the gospel.” His method was correlation. Tillich described it thus: The method used in the theological system and described in the methodological introduction of the first volume is called the “method of correlation,” namely, the correlation between existential questions and theological answers. “Correlation,” a word with several meanings in scientific language, is understood as “interdependence of two independent factors.” It is not understood in the logical sense of quantitative or qualitative coordination of elements without causal relation, but it is understood as a unity of the dependence and independence of two factors. (Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, American edition, p. 13, cited in Berkhof, p. 289) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 33 of 41 Berkhof raises the question whether then God in self-revelation is dependent on the human subject. He gives Tillich’s response that in God’s self-manifestation God is dependent on the way the human person receives that manifestation. As Brunner declared the divine-human encounter means something for both sides. For theology this means: Theology formulates the question implied in human existence, and theology formulates the answers implied in the divine self-manifestation under the guidance of the questions implied in human existence. (Ibid, Vol. 1, p.61, cited in Berkhof, p. 290) Berkhof discusses the method explaining Tillich’s contention that to raise the question belongs to the essence of human existence. Tillich favors the word “quest” rather than question. The quest is present whether or not it comes to expression; it is fundamentally singular and it rises out of the depths expressing one’s “ultimate concern.” Out of the human depths, the quest arises out of the human predicament, the experience of selfalienation, dread, brokenness, despair. It represents a search for integration, harmony, reunion with the true self. It is philosophy’s task to take account of all of this and to render a right analysis of human existence. Every human being, Christian or not, must be able to fathom life’s final questions and, doing so, will be confronted with the gap in human existence, a gap which cannot be bridged. One discovers a question without an answer. The description of Tillich’s thought sounds like a re-run of Heidegger’s Existentialist analysis of the human situation but, as Berkhof indicates, what distinguishes Tillich is the ontological framework of his thought – a shift also apparent in the later Heidegger. Tillich’s interest in the human quest is its theological value. He acknowledges that his analysis of the human situation derives from his historical context; the quest will differ according to the epoch. For the Church Fathers it was the quest for immortality; for the Reformation it was the quest for the justification of the sinner. Whatever the historical period and the quest, Tillich contends however that all the ultimate questions circle around the opposition between “finite” and “infinite,” “human existence” and “absolute being.” This is the quest that comes to expression in modern existentialism. The respective epochs of human history will have variously shaped quests but they will all be fundamentally oriented to the relationship between existence and essence. The answer does not lie within the question; it comes from without. The human subject is the question; God in self-manifestation is the answer, an answer not at human disposal. The two poles, question and answer, form an ellipse, the image of Tillich’s system. Philosophy, in an attitude of objectivity, is concerned with the question; theology is existentially involved in the answer. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 34 of 41 The center of Tillich’s theology is the paradox that universal being manifests itself in a historical person. The unity of the absolute and the finite, foolishness to philosophy, is the great miracle in which light we live and think. Berkhof notes that Tillich presented his doctrine of faith as “answering theology” in contrast to Barth’s “theology of proclamation.” He also spoke of his work as “apologetic” theology as against Barth’s “kerygmatic” theology – helpful contrasts by which to gain a feel for these two giants. And Berkhof points to Tillich’s popularity in the fifties and sixties in a theological world sighing under “the burden of Barth’s rigorous theology of the Word.” The alternative Tillich offers appears simple and convincing. But on closer scrutiny questions arise. Did Tillich correctly understand man’s existential quest (if we may speak of it in such general terms)? Is not giving answers as essential to human beings as asking questions? (p. 295) Berkhof doubts if human self-understanding can be captured in the word quest. Tillich struggles to give logical explanations of his correlation scheme but, Berkhof points out, he operates within a circle and intentionally so. Immediately at the outset of his prolegomena he introduced the concept of the theological circle. Like all humanities, theology is based on “mystical experience” and rests therefore on a “mystical a priori.” Besides, it works with the norm of the Christian message, and so its circle is narrower than that of the philosophy of religion. (p. 296) Tillich sought to narrow the gap between philosophy and theology, having admitted the circle, by claiming that modern philosophy bears a Christian stamp. Berkhof quotes him accordingly: In this sense [in the sense of a philosophy ‘whose existential base is historical Christianity’] all modern philosophy is Christian, even if it is humanistic, atheistic, and intentionally anti-Christian. (1:27) And again: The modern vision of reality and its philosophical analysis is different from that of pre-Christian times, whether one is or is not existentially determined by the God of Mount Zion and the Christ of Mount Golgotha. (1:27, cited in Berkhof, p. 296) The marks of the Christian tradition simply cannot be erased from the face of modern thought. Berkhof renders his conclusion regarding Tillich’s system thus: …in Tillich the answer shapes the question – as a rule by selection from given materials. Only the person who already knows the answer knows wherein the © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 35 of 41 true question consists: the question from within his anxiety, estrangement, and guilt (fundamentally Tillich’s anthropology is reformationally pessimistic) is for healing, salvation, and reconciliation and therein for the meaning of life and the courage to be. But can one view this question as a universally human question (since after all modern existentialism is a post-Christian phenomenon)? (p. 296) Tillich himself realized that the claim to universal validity could be called in question as he himself reflected on modern culture and Asiatic religions. But Tillich concluded that …nevertheless we must hold before all these groups the “mirror” of human misery, show them “the structures of anxiety, of conflict, of guilt,” because these structures mirror what we are, and if we are right, they are in other people also, and they will concur with our analysis. Whether we are successful is in question; we take the risk. In this regard Tillich turns to pedagogy: There are two principles we should follow in the religious education of our children. The first is that the questions which are really in the hearts of the children should be answered and the children should be shown that biblical symbols and the Christian message are an answer to just these questions. And secondly, we ought to seek to shape their existence in the direction of the questions which we believe are the more universal ones. This would be similar to what we do with primitive people in the mission field. We seek to answer their questions and in doing so we, at the same time, slowly transform their existence so that they come to ask the questions to which the Christian message gives the answer. (Theology of Culture, pp. 202-3, 205-6, cited on p. 297) Has Tillich offered an alternative to Kerygmatic theology? This is the question Berkhof’s interest raises. Whatever one may say, Berkhof argues, the gap between Tillich and Barth is much narrower than either suspected at the time. Referring back to Schleiermacher, Berkhof writes, As in Schleiermacher, so in Tillich, human self-understanding is not identical with the question to which revelation gives an answer; it is only the “place” (Schleiermacher) at which man finds himself and at which the gospel "calls” him. Nevertheless, like Schleiermacher and differently than Barth, Tillich avoids – as long as possible – presenting the transition to faith in the God-given answer-andquestion as a break with the presupposed human understanding of existence. God is at work everywhere, and hence there is a “latent Christianity” everywhere, which can, however, only be discovered in the light of Christ. Barth also asserts that the creation is “the external ground of the covenant” and that there are therefore many “lights of the world”; indeed, Jesus Christ, precisely in his exclusiveness, is universally inclusive. While Tillich would say that the right question is selected from the given situation in the light of the gospel, Barth would say that the gospel itself first creates in man the question appropriate to it. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 36 of 41 In Tillich the classic doctrine of “common grace” regains the place it had lost in Barth. (p. 297f) Berkhof’s critical question put to Tillich’s method is whether the answer of the gospel does not remain in the grip of a non-evangelical formulation of the question and therefore suffer distortion. Berkhof must conclude that it is impossible to view Tillich’s theology as a genuine bridge between the gospel and modernity, but this conclusion, he maintains, does not diminish the significance of this great theologian. Berkhof’s journey is concluded but he pauses to take a backward glance over the way he traveled. He begins his review with the question “What really happened?” He acknowledges that the reader may have experienced confusion; yet, one need not despair for, contrary to what many theologians – and the evangelical church tradition – generally maintain, theology is not a heavenly enterprise but a form of human scholarly quest involving trial and error. Theology is not like the natural sciences where progress is possible, one generation building on another (although Thomas Kuhn has called that in question even in the physical sciences). Rather, in theology and the humanities in general, there is not progress; rather, Here one …moves continuously in a circle around one’s object, ever and again viewing it from a different angle – and the angle changes with the experiences and predicaments of every given cultural epoch…. We are talking about a search, a questioning, an encounter, an interaction. Here neither subjectivism nor objectivism but inter-subjectivity is, in many cases, the highest obtainable measure of objectivity. (p. 299f) For theological method, this means that systematic-theological conceptions are the ways in which the Christian community gives an account of the gospel as its source and norm. The Western world out of which Berkhof speaks and in which his journey was taken is a culture estranged from the gospel and that is the challenge to the church – to bring the gospel to expression in such a fashion that it might again become a vital option. Theology serves an intermediary function interrogating the gospel from within its experiences within the culture. The theologian stands not outside, but within the culture, sharing consciously or unconsciously its experiences and presuppositions. The theologian stands between the gospel as a normative word and concrete human experience. He or she is in an encounter situation, more existential than in the other humanities because of the ultimacy of the issues involved. The best theologian is not the person who knows how to escape the dangers inherent in this process of encounter, for such people do not exist; the best theologian is the person who is most aware of these dangers and hence practices modesty and caution in what he says. (p. 300) Commenting on the modern culture, Berkhof holds that the presuppositions given with the Enlightenment have remained essentially intact: the autonomy of the human © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 37 of 41 person, the objectivizing and manipulating of nature, and the marginalizing of God. But experience has been varied: Great technical achievements, wars, revolutions, environmental exhaustion, etc., can change people’s views and conduct and force them to modify (not, however, to abandon) the presuppositions. The theologian will sense all this and in his feedback situation and mediating activity question the gospel from changing points of view. (p. 301) As Berkhof has indicated throughout the journey, this has been the case: Schleiermacher within the perspective of German idealism; Ritschl in the light of the realism of the technical-industrial world; Barth in the collapsing German culture after World War I. The situation in which theological formulation comes to expression is dynamic, calling forth different nuances and emphases at different times – not surrendering the gospel to the spirit of the times – but speaking in timely fashion the judgment and grace that the gospel offers. Theology appears chaotic and many theologians have given it a bad name by condemning the thinkers of the preceding generation for interpreting the gospel falsely. But, queries Berkhof, …was the interpretation of the previous generation really false? And did the succeeding generation then do it right? Against their better knowledge many theologians still seem to proceed from a static, unhistorical, freely available “truth” and to believe that it is most safe within their keeping….In contrast my journey has taught me that the basic concerns and aims of the several schools, modalities, and generations have much more in common than concentration on the larger and smaller differences…would ever lead one to suspect….For me as an observer the journey has been an exercise in tolerance. (p. 301) So that’s what happened. Was it legitimate? That is Berkhof’s next question. The great degree of commonality discovered among the respective theological schools does not lead Berkhof to a kind of relativistic mix without distinctions. There is room for mutual criticism and correction – a function he himself has executed with brilliance. The most fundamental question to be raised is the question with which he opened this study: Is an understanding possible between the gospel and the presuppositions of our modern culture? Modern culture’s presuppositions are described in the Old and New Testaments as sinful. Is the effort to relate these two worlds a hopeless enterprise? No. Central to both worlds is the human person and salvation. Human revolt is not a modern phenomenon; it is recorded as early as Genesis 3 and finds expression throughout the biblical story. Now the man who breaks his ties with God because he respects his salvation is there when God is not is nevertheless not abandoned by God,….God pursues this wayward human being with his judgment and grace. And judgment stands in the service of grace. Though man wants to live without God, God does not want to © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 38 of 41 live without man, and therefore man is never God-less….Whatever may have motivated the theologian not to take the godlessness of modern man with total seriousness – in the light of the gospel this attitude must at least in part be regarded as legitimate. (p. 302) The task, to be legitimate however, must involve both dialogue and dispute. The gap may not be patched over; rather it must be uncovered in order that it may be bridged. Berkhof points to Paul as a model of one who was in solidarity with his culture because of a greater solidarity with the gospel: “I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessing.” In I Corinthians 9:19-23 solidarity with Paul’s world is stressed. In I Corinthians 1:18-31 however, the break with his culture comes to expression. The message is a stumbling block and foolishness but is nonetheless proclaimed as God’s power of salvation. Paul in Athens, Berkhof contends, was right on, illustrating “the double solidarity, the mutual contradiction, and the conflict.” From this evidence one can infer that the relationship between the gospel and the world is dialectical, ever swinging back and forth between yes and no. The question concerning legitimacy can thus be answered with the observation that everyone is justified in his theological methodology provided that when he says yes or no he bears in mind the counterpart and brings it to his audience in one way or another. (p. 304) Berkhof explicates the key word dialectic by continuing with Paul. In Philippians 3:4b14, the autobiographical paragraph relating Paul’s movement from his Jewish experience to his experience of Christ, Berkhof points out a perspective not often appreciated. Paul, the Jew, was on the way. He was not pointing to that experience as a time of darkness and despair. Rather he speaks of his experience of Christ as so much more. The encounter with Christ brought him into crisis. He then moved from the crisis into Christian existence. There was continuity and break. Speaking of the theologians he has surveyed in this journey of two hundred years, Berkhof says, they were determined from the beginning to be Christian, but they wanted also to be modern people. On that basis they want to start their intellectual journey, traveling in the direction of the gospel. What unites the beginning and the end of the journey is the time of man and his salvation. In the course of that journey it has to become apparent sooner or later, however, that the road is not at all as innocuous as it seemed in the beginning. The wandered is thrown off course. He experiences the transvaluation of his values. Gain becomes loss and what he prided himself on turn to “refuse.” But the crisis does not mean the end of the road. After the crisis there awaits him a road that does not end within our world and time, one on which large differences of opinion can and do arise among travel companions, on which all sorts of lapses and aberrations are possible. (p. 305f) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 39 of 41 That says Berkhof is the journey that has been going on now for nearly two thousand years. On the journey everyone must travel by himself. This road is itself the Truth. One does not “stand” in the Truth but “walks” in it on the way toward the goal that is not attainable this side of eternity. (p. 306) Berkhof does not want to be understood in an individualistic fashion. There is a broad community with intensive interchange. There is the swing of the pendulum as the way develops. …The Spirit finds theological reflection where it is initially at home, however “carnal” that home may be. The Spirit then leads us toward a crisis in our thinking. After the crisis our thought has to and is allowed to proceed under the guidance of the motto “I believe in order that I may understand.” However, just as our thinking before the crisis is threatened by an uncritical modernity, so after the crisis there is the danger of scholastic sterility. The gospel is the great non-selfevident factum which is ever threatened by betrayal on our theological journey. (p. 306f) Berkhof then relates the question of legitimacy to the key word “dialectical.” I now venture to say: the measure of legitimacy belonging to a given theological method or system corresponds to the measure in which it is involved in the double movement toward crisis an away from crisis. (p. 307) Over the two hundred years, Berkhof observes, we have seen liberal theologians who in their movement toward the gospel stopped short of the crisis and we have seen, too, orthodox theologians who detached the gospel from the arena of struggle, thinking mistakenly they could begin the process of thinking beyond the crisis. The greatest theologian is one who consistently “plumbed and pondered the double movement: the one toward the crisis and the one following the crisis.” Paul remains for Berkhof the model. In the last two hundred years Berkhof points to Schleiermacher and Barth. Both were one-sided on opposite sides; yet the crisis was evident in both. Berkhof raises the question whether a person can ever think on some level beyond such one-sidedness. That for him is a major question. What one gains in comprehensiveness one loses in power. A third question in this backward glance is “Did it mean anything?” Berkhof uses “mean” in the sense of succeed – was the goal achieved? His answer is in the negative. With certain exceptions “secularized culture manifested polite indifference if not outright intolerance.” Orthodox theologians have been no more successful. Being regarded as they were, outsiders, some were respected for that but considered even less credible than their liberal colleagues. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 40 of 41 But Berkhof qualifies his negative response. Outside not much impact was made, but within the churches the work done has been crucial, enabling many brought up within the church to remain within it or to return to it. They have been useful, if not for the penetration of the light of the gospel, then for the presence of the gospel in the intellectual world. (p. 309) The efforts of theologians have thus been more successful in conserving the faith than recruiting people from outside. Berkhof concludes this retrospective with a final question: “Now what?” Today, Berkhof claims, theology on a world scale appears more confusing than ever. But actually this has a positive side because there is a broad and diverse interest in theological reflection. Everywhere large groups are joyfully discovering that they themselves, each in their own uniqueness, are known and called of God. In all these new theologies the word experience serves as a point of entry…. In the 1970s one often had the feeling that in the multiplicity of experiences and the demand of “contextuality” arising from them, the oneness of the object, the universal cause of the gospel, threatened to disappear from sight and that only a tower of Babel was left. (p. 310) Such was not the case, however, Berkhof contends, for even academic theology in the West operates out of its own sitz im Leben. The real difference lies in the cultural, social, and political climate from within which people are trying to discover the gospel and to which people want to communicate it. The recent plurality of theologies can be explained by younger theologians beginning their journey from within their own experiences (blacks, women, liberation theologians, etc.). But Berkhof argues, …they must sooner or later push their own experiences toward the crisis of the gospel and walk a road on which they do not harden into an ideology but let their experiences be criticized, corrected, deepened by the crucified and risen Lord, and placed in his context. (p. 311) Does two hundred years of theology in the West, which coincides with the heyday of Western bourgeois culture, constitute an epoch on its last legs? Berkhof thinks not. The issues of struggle for this post-Enlightenment period are to be found in the biblical record as well and non-Western theologies display the same experience-revelation tension that has characterized Western theology. However, Western theology will lose its predominance; it will die in its Western-ness in order to rise again in globalism and pluralism will be more extensive. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 41 of 41 The process is ongoing – taking the road that leads into crisis of revelation and emerging from the crisis able to incorporate our experiences into a new experience. We must again and again start within our respective contextualities in order then to fuse our context increasingly with the context of the gospel, in a way such that the message gains superiority over all that which emerges from our situational analyses…. Everyone who spends so much time in the praeambula fidei, be it of a sociological, linguistic, philosophical, or political nature, is in danger of losing the chance to enrich his Umwelt with the great and new experience of the Word of God. (p. 312) © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Hendrikus Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, 1989 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19900702 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990-07-02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Two Hundred Years of Theology, Report of a Personal Journey Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Book Review created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 2, 1990 entitled "Two Hundred Years of Theology, Report of a Personal Journey", on the book Two Hundred Years of Theology, Report of a Personal Journey, written by Hendrikus Berkhof. Tags: Hendrikus Berkhof, Reformed Theology, History of Theology, Modernity, Ecumenical, Historical Thinking, Enlightenment, Faith Journey. Scripture references: Hendrikus Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, 1989. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Ecumenical Enlightenment Faith Journey Hendrikus Berkhof Historical Thinking History of Theology Modernity Reformed Theology https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bd983f0bec9a670bbf53beb85df6fb2e.pdf 3d9f4e4030495c5bd9df41bb19283d1d PDF Text Text   The Anguish of Preaching Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought June 1990 The soil of Dutch Reformed pietism in which my early religious experience was rooted shrouded the call to Christian ministry in mystery. Central to the call to ministry was the call to preach. God calls one to be a servant of the Word; one did not seek the office nor would one presume to set one’s sights on it. But to be so called was high privilege, for the call to preach was the loftiest vocation a person could receive. What that early vision of ministry did not prepare me for was the anguish of preaching. A little reflection on the experience of various biblical witnesses would have pointed in that direction. Moses protested the call. Jeremiah tried to avoid it and, in the midst of executing the task, vowed he would “Call him to mind no more, nor speak his name again,” only to find God’s word imprisoned in his body “like a fire blazing in my heart,” until he grew weary of holding it under and could no longer endure. And Paul acknowledged that no one was sufficient for the task, but found he had no choice, for “it would be misery to me not to preach.” Reflection on the impossible nature of the task should also give one fair warning. What presumption it is for a person to speak a human word which makes the claim of being the very word of God. Could such a task be undertaken in any other way than in “fear and trembling”? If the human word spoken is to be transubstantiated into the word of God, might one not expect that it would involve a crucifixion? To preach is to suffer; it is to die a little every time one engages in the task. That is my experience three decades after the initial blush of having the call to ministry confirmed by the call of the congregation. No wonder that a thin volume of lectures by the late, distinguished Lutheran theologian Joseph Sittler, The Anguish of Preaching, caught my eye. Sittler speaks of the anguish of preaching Christ. He cites Jesus’ word, “I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how I am straitened til it be accomplished!” (Luke 12:50). The principal meaning of the © Grand Valley State University   �The Anguish of Preaching Richard A. Rhem Page 2   now unfamiliar Elizabethan word straitened is “to be aware of great and relentless pressure.” It was the divine mission of Jesus that constituted his anguish. In one who would listen to Jesus, who would think and feel and imagine coming to an understanding of Jesus, there forms “a hard and unloosed knot in the spirit” as well. Sittler maintains that on the level proper to the servant of the straitened Word of God, the anguish is as real as it was for the Lord. The church has a rich tradition of Christology, but Sittler notes, [T]here is another meaning to Christology. Not tradition but pressure; not the given but the terrifying and hard pressure to be as grave about Christ who is alive now as our fathers were grave about the Christ who was alive for them....What he has meant is indeed tutorial to what he means, but is never sufficient for the sheer pressure of present meaning in one’s own heart and mind, for one’s own time and place. [The Anguish of Preaching, p. 30.) The present meaning of Christology—for oneself and in one’s proclamation —is the issue, and it comes not without anguish. But if one would be true to the calling of servant of the Word, one has no alternative. Preaching Christ demands that “the heart [be] always restless and the mind always asking what the disclosure and concretion of the holy in the event of Jesus Christ means for the life of the world.” The heart always restless, the mind always asking; that is the perpetual state of the preacher who is never finished with the task of understanding. The present horizon of human experience calls forth and demands ongoing translation of the meaning of the once-for-all event of the Word made flesh, living, dying, risen, and reigning. The preacher is called to preach. Sunday morning approaches; the people will gather again out of their scattered worlds of contemporary human experience. Beneath their finely tailored Sunday attire beat hearts loaded with ultimate concern, crying out, “Is there a word from the Lord?” Who would dare enter the pulpit light-heartedly as though this were just another social occasion? Who would approach such a moment without anguish, trembling before one’s own inadequacy, one’s helplessness to effect that alone which saves and heals and transforms? Preaching is a tortuous task; one dies a little on every outing, and it does not get easier. If anything, the anguish grows greater. But if one is called to preach, one cannot help oneself and one knows, as well, that one is blessed indeed to bear the pressure of the Word of God. Living with a calling so serious, one might be tempted to take oneself seriously. That would be disastrous personally and deadly for the congregation. A healthy © Grand Valley State University �The Anguish of Preaching Richard A. Rhem Page 3   dose of self-mockery and a playful sense of humor are essential to enabling the preacher to distinguish the calling and the person. The calling is serious and cannot be executed in a breezy manner as though nothing were at stake and a casual mediocrity were all that was demanded. But the one who executes the calling is human, and one dare never forget it. Only candor about one’s own humanness and an ability to laugh at oneself will keep one from going mad in this vocation, both glorious and necessary. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19900601 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990-06-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource The Anguish of Preaching Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Editorial created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on June 1, 1990 entitled "The Anguish of Preaching", it appeared in Perspectives, June, 1990, p. 3. Tags: Preaching, Word of God. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Preaching Word of God https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e24c866d4fc8f971db1f98c6ef9feb68.pdf af35786b348ad742682d6dc8f6ba4f05 PDF Text Text An Intentional Ministry Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in The Church Herald The Magazine of the Reformed Church in America April, 1990, pp. 11-13 The people of God are a pilgrim people, a people on the move within the stream of history following a call from beyond history. The institutional form and witness of this people on pilgrimage will be shaped at any given point on the church’s journey by the present historical context of its life and by the transcendent reference which provides its identity. The church as the people of God will be in a constant state of tension, needing always to reflect faithfully the intention of the One who calls it into being and needing always to be in touch with the contemporary world in which its mission is executed. The very nature of the church’s existence in history means that it is never finished with this task of finding its own shape. Faithfulness to the Lord of the church and insightful understanding of the time keep changes coming. In going about this task we must first recognize that, just as the landscape of the world through which we are passing is changing, so the nuances of our message and our institutional structures must be open to change, to development. We have the given of the scriptural witness to God’s revelation in Israel and in Jesus Christ, and that remains the norm by which our institutional forms and our witness are to be determined and judged. But our understanding of the biblical witness is not static; it is a growing, developing understanding. Movement through history corrects us at some points, expands our insight into the tradition at others, and demands of us an ongoing translation of the biblical proclamation. The movement of history calls forth new forms of institutional structure and new shapes of corporate life. The first requirement for the church that wishes to be faithful to its transcendent call and to be significantly engaged with the contemporary world is to hammer out an identity arising out of the intersection of the gospel and the present horizon. The search for that identity must be intentional and executed through a © Grand Valley State University   �An Intentional Ministry Richard A. Rhem Page 2   serious wrestling with the biblical witness, with the cumulative store of the tradition, and with an in-depth understanding of contemporary society. At Christ Community Church we created an identity statement at the onset of the 1980s. We had begun the 1970s with an intentional posture and a clearly defined sense of identity and mission. We had experienced a genuine spiritual renewal and explosive growth. As the 1980s approached, a small group met over a period of months to reflect on where we were and what our context of ministry and the contemporary horizon were calling us to be. The box accompanying this article presents the essence of that statement. A decade later I can say that that statement indeed shaped us and, in large degree, expressed and formed the identity that our life was to become. A decade has passed, however, and neither we nor the world in which we carry out our ministry is the same. Position papers on various aspects of our corporate life and structure have been written in the meantime, but it is time for a major review as we enter the 1990s. The task now is to view the identity statement in light of the present state of the world and American society and, more specifically, the concrete setting of our ministry. Are there sociological trends or international developments or community concerns that will call for new emphasis, new structures, an adjustment of basic congregational posture? If the initial work on a congregational identity statement is carefully done, the basic document will probably not need to be altered, but the manner of its concrete application will change. What once was affirmed may even need to be opposed and vice versa. Let me illustrate. Habits of the Heart, a book by Robert Bellah et al. that appeared in 1985, was hailed as the most significant sociological analysis of American society to appear in decades. The title comes from Alexis de Toqueville, who studied American democracy and who in the 1830s published his Democracy in America. De Toqueville much admired what he observed here but warned of some aspects of our culture that disturbed him. He saw our individualism as potentially isolating Americans from one another. In Habits of the Heart the authors fear that this individualism may have grown cancerous. They wonder if the protective social shields remain by which a free society may sustain itself. They point to the flight of people to enclaves in which “self-interested individuals join together to maximize individual good.” The lifestyle enclave is a group of sympathetic people who spend their leisure time together in an atmosphere of acceptance, happiness, and love. In such a society the desire to be successful may tempt the church to forget its transcendent calling and to become simply one more enclave of like-minded individuals giving a spiritual legitimization to an essentially selfish existence. In a © Grand Valley State University �An Intentional Ministry Richard A. Rhem Page 3   recent national sampling of Roman Catholic opinion, the two things most desired were “personal and accessible priests” and “warmer, more personal parishes.” The authors comment, The salience of these needs for personal intimacy in American religious life suggests why the local church, like other voluntary communities, indeed like the contemporary family, is so fragile, requires so much energy to keep it going, and has so faint a hold on commitment when such needs are not met. In The Public Church, published in 1981, Martin Marty recognized the legitimate place of the church as community. He writes, “In the Church the possibility of mutual support and bonding, so needed in an impersonal world, lives on.” But he points out as well the weakness of the church’s voluntary character: “People are aware that they can choose a particular church, reject all churches, or switch between them should one or another inconvenience participants or challenge their cherished ways of life.” A 1978 Gallup poll reveals that 80 percent of Americans agreed that “an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent of any churches or synagogues.” Yet, traditionally, it has been precisely the church or synagogue that formed religious beliefs. If the society to which we are called to witness in large measure sees the determination of religious beliefs as a personal responsibility and prerogative, is it any wonder that many mainline churches, which hold historical and corporate beliefs, are in trouble? How should we react? Will we succumb to the methods of a consumer society? Must the local congregations compete like so many religious supermarkets? Must the pastor become an entrepreneur of religion? Will the church forget its transcendent calling and prostitute itself by pandering to popular taste? Should we forget our identity statement and simply seek to discover what works, what brings success? The answer to these questions is a resounding no, but the temptation is strong and many have succumbed to it. It is not enough, however, to sit smugly by with declining membership, salving our wounds with the claim that we have been faithful. We live in a time of unprecedented spiritual hunger and openness to transcendence. There is an immense longing for God, for reality, and there is a widespread network of people engaged in a quest for a new world and the transformation of society. The label New Age has been given this amorphous movement, and within its ranks there is to be found a broad spectrum of beliefs and practices, some serious, some bizarre. Whatever variety of forms and beliefs may be manifested, one characteristic is shared: a large-scale rejection of the traditional, institutional forms of religion. Certainly it is naive to think we can simply do away with forms and structures. But here, too, we must not grow defensive and, with some panic, frantically shore © Grand Valley State University �An Intentional Ministry Richard A. Rhem Page 4   up the traditional forms we have inherited and now oversee. Why is so much of contemporary society spiritually hungry but largely without interest in the institutional church? To what extent are the criticisms valid? Is there some dismantling that needs to occur, some deaths in order that the new may spring forth? It is easier to raise the questions than to give the answers, but the questions must be heard. Let me point to one more mark of contemporary American society that demands our consideration as we determine our posture for the 1990s. In 1971 Dean Kelly wrote Why Conservative Churches Are Growing. I remember taking his book into the pulpit and declaring that if Kelly was right, Christ Community was in trouble because all the things that characterized the conservative church in his description were the things we had set ourselves against. He was right. Nearly two decades later, the socially conservative attitudes he foresaw have increased. There is a conservative tide which has about it a mean streak, an adversarial air that militates against the openness, freedom, and civility which the gospel of grace creates. Again here, if it is simply success in externals that we seek, we had better tailor our message to this conservative tide, exploiting people’s fears and dishing out simplistic answers to complex problems. But here is an instance in which the church must simply set itself against popular demand no matter what the cost. For God’s sake and for the sake of society’s health, the church needs to find a voice that is “both civil and committed,” to borrow a phrase from Martin Marty. The above discussion is illustrative of the kind of hard thinking, reflection, and wrestling that must characterize the church whether on the denominational, regional, or local level. And it must be done not simply because the turn of the calendar has brought us into the 1990s, but as an ongoing process. Only thus will we be intentional in our ministry, self-consciously faithful to the God who calls us into being and fully cognizant of the changing panorama of the society to which we bear witness and in which we live out concretely the life of the kingdom. Christ Community Identity Statement: Christ Community is theologically self-conscious; it is catholic, evangelical, and Reformed. It is firmly rooted in the historic Christian tradition: catholic in that it seeks to express the one, holy, and apostolic faith symbolized in the Apostles’ Creed; evangelical in that it believes that God’s supreme revelation and the good news of God’s grace appeared in Jesus Christ—“Our message is that God was making friends of all persons through Christ”; Reformed in that its articulation of the faith finds its authority in the Scriptures and is never finished, but rather needs constant reformation and new translation, that it may be understood afresh in every age. © Grand Valley State University �An Intentional Ministry Richard A. Rhem Page 5   Believing in God’s eternal purposes of love for the whole created order, ours is a theology of grace. Grace is the heart of our theology, and this church is a community of persons who have received God’s grace in Christ and who extend that grace to one another in Jesus’ name. Believing in the sovereignty of God in the totality of the created order and in the lordship of Christ in the full range of human existence, we are seeking to bring the whole of life under the aegis of God’s gracious rule— fashioning here a center for creative Christian living, enabling a fully human existence. Consequently, we are committed to creating and maintaining here —A place where we live out the conviction that God’s cause is the human cause, where the quality of our lives is ever more enhanced and the fullest realization of our human potential is enabled. —A place where all persons can find a point of entry, experience unconditional grace and total acceptance whatever their history, wherever they find themselves on the spectrum of Christian experience; where those who are broken may find refuge and healing and those who are moving toward wholeness may experience Christ in their strength. —A place where the tone quality of grace creates a non-threatening atmosphere where all persons will be encouraged to live on the growing edge, stretching, probing, deepening knowledge and faith. —A place where we experience community, have a sense of belonging, find a home together; where the blending of traditions results in a rich and full expression of the Christian tradition and where the grace of God reconciles us into one body in which every barrier that separates and isolates persons is transcended. —A place where persons are motivated, discovered, affirmed, and equipped; their gifts identified and strengthened for mission, making tangible the grace of God locally and throughout the world. —A place where the majesty of God and the mystery of life is honored; where many answers remain elusive, but where life’s great questions are heard and acknowledged; where persons learn to live the questions and to enjoy the journey, resting in the all-embracing grace of God. —A place for the intersection of the Word of God and the world, of the Christian tradition and contemporary culture. © Grand Valley State University �An Intentional Ministry Richard A. Rhem Page 6   —A place where theological reflection happens in the setting of the Christian community where the ministry of grace is taking place. —A place where the Christian tradition is translated into the idiom of contemporary culture, giving it voice to speak meaningfully in the pluralistic society of our day. —A place where controversial issues—ethical, social, and political— find a forum for discussion enabling persons to understand the issues and to live out a faithful response as people of God. We must determine to be true to that which we believe God is calling us to be, whether that means harmony with the religio-cultural flow or not. We will adjust our program and mission with the dynamic movement of history, not in order necessarily to be successful in institutional terms, but in order to be faithful to what God is calling us to be and to be effective in mediating the grace of God to the world. Thus having a sense of who we are and a commitment to share the gospel in all of its dimensions, we will be open to the world and flexible in our life and mode of ministry in order to be instruments in God’s hand for the humanization of society to God’s glory. We commit ourselves to be alive and alert to what the movements and trends of society and church are. It will be incumbent upon us as well to evaluate ourselves annually as to the effectiveness of our ministry in terms of what we see happening in the world at large. A strong sense of identity and confidence in the grace that has set us free to be God’s servants will enable us to be open to our world and to enter vitally into dialogue with the world, being ready through engagement of world religions, political and economic ideologies, scientific and technological development, and the evolution of social customs and mores, to go back to the Scriptures, seeking new understanding in the light of new knowledge. In so doing, we will seek to translate the faith for our day, being faithful to God’s supreme witness, Jesus Christ. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19900401 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990-04-02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource An Intentional Ministry Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Church School Herald Journal Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 2, 1990 entitled "An Intentional Ministry", it appeared in The Church Herald, pp. 11-13. Tags: Church, Journey of Faith, Community of Faith, Inclusive, Reformation, History of Faith. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Church Community of Faith History of Faith Inclusive Journey of Faith Reformation https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d0fefc8cea4a1c2b52a7d9c2b3887261.pdf 52fd738b8e0a7d864f0a9c216a51f7ed PDF Text Text Pluralism’s Theological Challenge Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought February 1990 The narrative in Acts of the spread of the gospel has long fascinated me. Peter’s response to his noontime vision with its command, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat,” was “No, Lord” (Acts 10). His subsequent experience at the home of Cornelius confounded some of his most deeply held convictions. The experience of the Spirit’s baptism on those assembled proved to be demonstration enough for Peter. Subsequently, in Jerusalem before the apostles and elders, Peter persisted with the lesson of his experience in spite of its fundamentally revolutionary character. Relating his encounter with Cornelius, he concluded rhetorically, “If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?” (Acts 11:17). The early church, emerging from the womb of Judaism, had no handy catechism or systematic theology to which it could refer. The experience of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the baptism of God’s Spirit fit none of its categories. These dramatic events had to be assimilated and brought into relationship with the old covenant, with Abraham and Moses and David, with the promises of Isaiah and all the prophets. The Scriptures which came to their minds had to be searched anew because the tradition simply could not accommodate their new experience. The theologies of the New Testament are the consequence of the apostles’ wrestling jointly with their experience and with Israel’s faith tradition. The Christian understanding as it evolved in the early church and as it emerges in the New Testament is the result of that process of interpreting anew the historic faith. The New Testament already reflects the process of translation going on in regard, for example, to the question of Jesus’ identity. From the eschatological prophet of © Grand Valley State University   �Pluralism’s Theological Challenge Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Page 2   the early chapters of Acts to the incarnational Christology of the Fourth Gospel there is a whole range of interpretations of who Jesus is, not mutually exclusive, but rather reflecting the unfathomable richness of this One in whom dwelt the fullness of God. The sixteenth century, during which John Calvin wrestled with tradition and reformed theology and practice according to the Word of God, was a period of cultural crisis and upheaval. William Bouwsma writes in his study of John Calvin, “The century was tense, driven, fundamentally incoherent, and riven by insoluble conflicts that were all the more serious because they were as much within as between individuals and parties” (p. 4). Bouwsma’s study presents Calvin as a person very much of his own time with the tensions of society at large to be found within his own person. And, precisely for that reason, the tradition found new translation and expression, a retrieval of the tradition’s essential meaning. Such a translation process is the ongoing task of theology, for theology is not an external norm demanding obedience but, rather, reflection on the present experience of God within the context of the cumulative tradition of faith. In The Analogical Imagination, David Tracy points out that when the notion of authority shifts from a truth disclosed to the mind and heart to an external norm for the obedient will, the theological task withers to an exercise of repeating shopworn conclusions of the tradition. He writes, “Eventually, the central, classical symbols and doctrines of the tradition become mere ‘fundamentals’ to be externally accepted and endlessly repeated.” (p. 99) Then we have not a theology as hermeneutic but rather fundamentalism. Fundamentalism does not interpret and translate the tradition in dialogue with the present horizon of human experience, but is reduced to repetition and reiteration. Such repetition and reiteration eventually hollow because they are spoken into a vacuum devoid of present, living human experience. I am convinced that we need to rethink our own theological tradition as radically as did Peter when confronted with the experience of God’s grace in the home of the Gentile Cornelius. The dramatic shifts in our cultural situation, the ferment in the world-become-a-neighborhood, the knowledge of other cultures and faiths, and the existential experience of persons in whom they are embodied, make it incumbent upon us to search again our own faith tradition to see if the experience of our contemporary world may elicit new insights to which we have up to the present been blinded. Otherwise, increasingly we will have experience for which we have no theology, and our theology will be the reiteration of an external ideology unrelated to present experience, lacking passion and compelling appeal. As heirs of Reformation theology we are being challenged to practice what we have proudly claimed but poorly lived out—that we are a people re-formed according to the Word of God and always being re-formed. That is to live with one’s faith formulations always at risk because one begins with the © Grand Valley State University �Pluralism’s Theological Challenge Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Page 3   acknowledgement of their only relative adequacy. But in the process one’s faith experience will deepen with a new sense of freedom and a growing sense of awe before the mystery of the gracious God whose work of creation and redemption we have come to know through Jesus Christ our Lord. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References David Tracy. The Analogical Imagination, 1981. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19900201 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990-02-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Pluralism's Theological Challenge Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Editorial created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on February 1, 1990 entitled "Pluralism's Theological Challenge", it appeared in Perspectives, Feb. 1990, p. 3. Tags: Pluralism, Inclusive, Reimagining the Faith. Scripture references: David Tracy. The Analogical Imagination, 1981.. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Inclusive Pluralism Reimagining the Faith https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f7849459c69378db5a63263104de4e33.pdf 7fa6d0a910ddc3b4d5f92cd6508312a7 PDF Text Text   The Continuing Adventure of Faith Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought November 1989, p. 3 This issue of Perspectives is radical; it goes to the root of God’s creative purpose and redeeming grace; it goes to the root of the human condition and its healing. Dealing with matters of such fundamental import on which the tradition of the church has so long been codified, it is not easy to gain a fresh perspective. The very spectacles through which we read the biblical story already delimit what we will find there. It is difficult for the story itself to speak its own truth over the resounding force of confessional dogma that has reduced the story to a set of theological propositions. One of the exciting developments in contemporary theological discussion and in preaching is the recovery of narrative. As background for this issue we can do no better than to revisit Genesis 1-3. In my own development, I began reading the Genesis stories as literal accounts of historical events. Even beyond my early years in Sunday school, there remained for me seven twenty-four-hour days, a human couple, Adam and Eve, a garden, a tree, and a snake. I remember the sense of threat I felt at the suggestion that Genesis 1 and 2 were two separate creation stories, neither authored by Moses, deriving from different periods of Israel’s history, neither of which ought to be understood as narration of actual history. Finally, my defenses were worn down and I yielded to what now seems so obvious. The explosion of knowledge in the respective sciences combined with a recognition of the mythological character of the passages. As symbolic stories, those chapters became powerful purveyors of truth about God, the world, and human destiny. Richness of meaning grew in proportion to my release of a literalistic interpretation. Then I encountered Walter Brueggemann’s Commentary on Genesis. Brueggemann tells me there is no legitimate way I can separate Genesis 2 and 3 because there is an obvious dramatic cohesion between them. Further, Brueggemann challenged my easy accommodation to two parallel creation © Grand Valley State University   �The Continuing Adventure of Faith Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Page 2   accounts offering complementary perspectives on God’s creative action. Genesis 1 —2:4a, the later writing, gives the grand cosmic scope of God’s work in fine liturgical form. Genesis 2:4b—3:24 focuses on human persons as the glory and the central problem of creation. No longer can I isolate chapter three, reading it as the story of the Fall appended to two creation accounts. Brueggemann calls me up short with his claim. The text is commonly treated as the account of “the fall.” Nothing could be more remote from the narrative itself. This is one story which needs to be set alongside many others in the Old Testament. In general, the Old Testament does not assume such a “fall.” Deuteronomy 30:11-14 is more characteristic in its assumption that humankind can indeed obey the purposes of God. (p. 41) Brueggemann, the biblical exegete, disallows my tendency as a theologian to turn story into dogma, to create here an ideological lens through which to view humankind and thereby to speak of the human creature as fallen. Of course, this is not to deny the proud disobedience and consequent alienation portrayed in the story. But, contends Brueggemann, there is not one “fall” story but rather, in Genesis 1-11, four “falls,” four stories of invitation and refusal, all of which form the prelude to the story of God’s radical grace in the creation of a people out of the barrenness of Sarah’s womb (11:30). This is not the place to debate specific points of Brueggemann’s argument; I cite his discussion because he forces me to revisit familiar territory, territory so familiar that I know what it means before I read it and therefore mute its voice and short-circuit its power to address me, to confront me, to grant some new insight to me. If only I can move beyond the feeling of threat and the consequent defensiveness that wields traditional dogma as a weapon against the advance of human learning on all fronts, it just may be that the biblical story, freed from my preunderstanding, will reveal new insight that will illumine the contemporary scene and address questions left unanswered by our traditional formulations. The Christian pilgrimage is lived out in the tension between the valued tradition that has shaped us and the need ever and again to be liberated from the cultural, ethnic, theological prisons into which we are sentenced by our need for security and our lack of fundamental trust. The adventure of faith goes on, and faithfulness demands that we keep seeking to discover the translation of God’s radical grace into the idiom of our day. The task is not for the nervous, for those whose faith is tenuous, whose confidence is enmeshed in proof texts for a series of theological propositions that constitute a logically coherent system of thought. But if we do not engage in the serious and delightful probing of our faith and experience, we will not only fail to find © Grand Valley State University �The Continuing Adventure of Faith Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Page 3   expression for the gospel for the twenty-first century, we will not even be in on the conversation. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Walter Brueggemann, Genesis: Interpretation: a Bible Commentary_, 2010 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19891101 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989-11-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource The Continuing Adventure of Faith Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Editorial created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 1, 1989 entitled "The Continuing Adventure of Faith", it appeared in Perspectives, Nov. 1989, p. 3. Tags: Faith Journey, Tradition, Hebrew Scriptures. Scripture references: Walter Brueggemann, Genesis: Interpretation: a Bible Commentary_, 2010. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Faith Journey Hebrew Scriptures Tradition https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bfb1c800a9adfe0ec9458566769fceb5.pdf 345e4ec1d8472d3a9711ca08c8b67dda PDF Text Text What Is Good News? Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in The Church Herald The Magazine of the Reformed Church in America February 1989, pp. 24-27 The goal of preaching is not to get something said, but to get something heard. So contends Fred Craddock in his popular textbook, Preaching. That may sound obvious, but it is not so at all, at least not from the perspective of the preacher. Far too often, we who are called to the task of the weekly proclamation concentrate exclusively on developing something to say and fail to recognize that the problem is not to say Something, but rather...to be heard. We must never rest content with delivering a message; we must exercise our best gifts and our strenuous effort to get a message heard that forms in the consciousness of the congregation and shapes God's people. To make this claim is not to deny that whatever is effected through the preached word is finally the work of the Spirit of God, the Spirit who caused the Word to be written and who must make it in the moment of proclamation the living Word that effects the purpose of God. Such a conviction, however, must not be used by the preacher to evade the responsibility to work seriously at the task of preaching so as to be effective. Hans van der Geest studied the effects of preaching from a psychological perspective. A supervisor in clinical pastoral education in a hospital in Switzerland, van der Geest became interested in the personality of the preacher and its impact on effectiveness in the pulpit. Presence in the Pulpit: The Impact of Personality in Preaching reports his findings and presents a serious challenge to the traditional emphasis in the training of preachers. Practicing preachers, too, could profitably evaluate their own practices in the light of what van der Geest has discovered. Van der Geest was surprised to find that the most important quality in the preaching event mentioned by those surveyed was the personal manner of the preacher. This might well send shock waves through a church of the Reformed tradition with its heavily intellectual bent. Yet van der Geest, himself steeped in © Grand Valley State University ! �What Is Good News? Richard A. Rhem Page 2! the Dutch Reformed Church, found again and again that the content of what is said is much less important for the process of engaging the listeners than most textbooks on preaching allow. The author raises the questions that immediately come to mind as one views the results of this psychological perspective on preaching: Are we now going to judge preaching's effectiveness by whether or not it satisfies people? Is it legitimate to judge preaching by psychological effect? Van der Geest contends that the listeners' statements of response as to what they actually experienced have great value: It's not just primitive or, for that matter, illegitimate wishes alive in them, but also expectations wakened by worship services in the past and still alive. At least in part these expectations are a reflection of what a worship service and sermon intend to mean to a congregation. Taking the needs of the congregation seriously as they present themselves at worship is imperative. Van der Geest isolates three dimensions in the experience of a worship service that must be present if the basic needs that people bring to worship, and specifically to the sermon, are to be met effectively: the renewal and restoration of basic trust; a hope for deliverance, a sense of release from the everyday burdens and struggles of life; and a new perspective from which to gain understanding in light of the gospel. Security, deliverance, understanding: apart from these three dimensions, all of which must be present, a sermon will be less than effective and people will leave without the feeling of having been personally addressed. These three dimensions can be delineated for the sake of analysis, but they cannot be separated; they comprise a unity in the worship event. Van der Geest writes: There is admittedly a security without release, but it is an infantile security addressing only immature people; and without understanding, it is naive. Release without security is irrelevant; release without understanding is not dependable. Understanding without security is impersonal; without release it is sterile. The three dimensions are intimately related. They are variations of the trio of love, hope and faith. Security People need to feel they are being addressed as individuals. In psychological terms this need represents the necessity of having our basic trust renewed at regular intervals. Psychologist Erik H. Erikson coined the expression primal trust, the development in earliest infancy of the conviction that life in this world is a good thing. Theologically, it is the fundamental conviction of being loved and secured by God. While primal trust is formed in us through the earliest © Grand Valley State University �What Is Good News? Richard A. Rhem Page 3! experiences of infancy, it is in need of constant renewal. In the face of the deepest and final questions of life, people need the confirmation of this basic trust in the worship service. The questions that play on most people, according to van der Geest, include Do I have a future? Am I lost or supported? Do I have ground under my feet? Am I left alone by myself, or is there help? Do I have to defend myself, brace myself, or should I relax and be giving? Does it make sense to have courage, or should I be resigned? Life is simple for only very few. Disturbances and dangers are the daily bread of most. What are people at worship seeking? Here are some sample responses: I want to forget day-to-day sufferings for a while. I am looking for strength for the coming week. I would like to get out of the rat race and find a little quietness. No more arguments. I want a little peace now. Someone has to talk kindly to us once in a while, too, and give us courage. Is worship simply a comforter? Is there not also a disturbing side of the gospel? To be sure. But, as van der Geest points out, what he is advocating is not simply an affirmation of the status quo. There is more to worship than the renewal of primal trust, but for anything positive to result, it is essential that the people of God come into contact with the living God, the God in whose love they rest. How can this happen through preaching? Van der Geest's research reveals that feelings of security are aroused only if love is expressed. "Whenever people go into a worship service to find feelings of security, they are seeking love, clear signs of love." This happens where the preacher is perceived to be sincere and genuine in his or her concern for the congregation as individuals. The use of firstperson singular pronouns signals the preacher's personal commitment. Body language is important, at least as important as the verbal language of content. A cool, distant preacher signals a lack of emotional involvement. Rhetorical skill is desirable, but it will never make up for authentic caring and sincerity. Colloquial language gives the congregation the sense of being addressed personally. Pulpit language and any affectation of manner or tone build a wall between pulpit and pew. To achieve a renewal of basic trust, a sense of being loved of God, the congregation's members must sense that they are taken seriously. Just as the preacher must express personal commitment through the use of the first person pronoun, so the people must be addressed as "you" and invited to participate in the proclamation. The sense of participation is heightened by the avoidance of heavy dependence on a manuscript or written notes, according to van der Geest. There is much more at stake than those who support the writing down and reading from notes believe. The personal style, the direct address indispensable for awakening trust, is in general seriously impaired by © Grand Valley State University �What Is Good News? Richard A. Rhem Page 4! reading from notes. This is the case because not only the content, but precisely the presentation—including the visible—is essential for gaining access to the realm of emotion. But what does such reading from notes show us, no matter how sophisticated it's done? The sermon does not emerge; it comes from yesterday. The preacher misses the "act of restructuring during the moment of speaking." The sermon should be as natural as conversation. This, of course, does not mean less preparation, but more. Preaching personally is speaking in the name of God; it is not delivering a treatise about God. Finally, the preacher must communicate a clear expectation of the mystery of God. From his research van der Geest concludes that "the real mystery of encounter occurs for the experience of the congregation in the relationship between the preacher and the listeners." Deliverance From the analysis of listener reaction, van der Geest found not only the need for security but also for a sense of release, of deliverance from the anguish of the human experience. Deliverance cannot come through a denial of the darkness. If the dark side of life is not taken seriously, if life’s tragic dimension is rendered harmless, the congregation will be disappointed and leave dissatisfied. Rather, van der Geest argues: The people in a worship service want to have light offered to them in the darkness of their lives; they want to see the hopelessness of day-to-day life surpassed by a perspective which can’t be found in that day-to-day life itself. They yearn for a deliverance from the misfortune, oppression, and the misery which are, after all, a part of life. In this dimension the key is the encounter with that aspect of the message which awakens hope, the words about the beyond. This is the message the worshipers are waiting for, the language of release. The congregation looks to the preacher to communicate a hope that is incredible and that becomes believable only as the preacher manifests a personal wonder that such a hope should be true. What is sought here are not simplistic solutions to life's complexity. The reality of darkness must be acknowledged on the one side and, on the other side, the preacher himself or herself must have sifted through the results of the modern critical study of the biblical text. But finally the preacher must take responsibility for the text as it appears relevant to him or her and then proclaim the incredibly hopeful news of the gospel in the face of the real anguish of the human situation. The yearning for release or deliverance presupposes that there is nothing within the framework of human possibility that can effect transformation. It is into such a situation of human impossibility that the "nevertheless" of the gospel is spoken, © Grand Valley State University �What Is Good News? Richard A. Rhem Page 5! thus arousing wonder. The preacher's own astonishment is fundamental. "For the mediation of this improbable thing preachers must themselves be struck by the miraculous." When a preacher unconsciously ceases to feel the joy and freedom of the gospel or, even worse, has never really personally experienced the grace of God, preaching becomes legalistic and moralistic, burdening the congregation with the tyranny of "we must," "we should," "we ought." Still, the obligation of the gospel must be made clear, recognizing the reality of guilt and calling for commitment to a higher standard. Understanding If in a sermon trust is awakened and the message of deliverance through the gospel clearly proclaimed, there remains yet a decisive element. Listener responses point to that missing element: He was too sure about God and the beyond for my taste. It's too bad she turned away from the difficult things so quickly. I don't really know what to do with this unquestionable faith. My unbelief wasn't taken into consideration. Listeners are not always ready or able to accept the message. The hymns and prayers are easier to receive with trust; much greater demands are made of the sermons. The analysis of listeners' responses reveals that the congregation both challenges the sermon's claims and, at the same time, hopes to be convinced and persuaded of its truth. The preacher must reckon with the rhythm of human experience that is never static, but always moving between the poles of trust and doubt. It looks like a game, but it is no malicious game; doubts are spread out and the preacher is tested, but the listener does not want to win the game; he hopes in fact to lose, to be overcome. The listener wants to be convinced of the truth of the gospel, but the problem the preacher faces is that persuasion is being required in an area of life in which logical arguments have almost no value. Discursive reasoning does not suffice; rather, it is the preacher's own deep, warm, and living faith that persuades. Says van der Geest: The truth sought again by the people in a worship service is not an objective one, but is rather an existential truth precipitating engagement and participation, not cool ascertainment...: in the act of persuasion itself the emotional effect of the renewal of trust is inseparably connected with cognitive understanding. That process of being persuaded is thus a total experience, not just an intellectual comprehension. Sermons must be planned with the temptation to doubt in mind, but the doubt raised by the text, not the doubt raised by the great religious-existential questions of life. These questions arising out of tragedy, pain, and human anguish are not © Grand Valley State University �What Is Good News? Richard A. Rhem Page 6! helpfully addressed in preaching. The Christian proclamation does not solve life's inscrutable mysteries but rather announces the reign of God. The doubts aroused by the text and the resistance of the listener to the proclamation of the gospel are not removed by logical, conceptual speech of discursive reasoning. Rather, it is through story, image, and graphic speech that persuasion is achieved. Narrative preaching is widely advocated today and preaching as story is in vogue. Van der Geest's research would indicate that this is more than a fad, the swing of the pendulum. He points out: In contrast to the more conceptual approach, something graphic causes the listeners themselves to become active. Concepts are finished products which the listeners simply register. They need only to think, to think abstractly. But if the preacher tells a story, the listeners themselves construct the forms of the people, the appearances of the events. Now they can experience something. Images and stories are suited to the Christian proclamation; concepts are not. The sermon must activate the listeners' imaginations. Existential truth is grasped through metaphorical language. As the imagination is stimulated, a person's own creativity is engaged. Such preaching becomes dialogue. The listeners find themselves in the story and re-experience their own joy and pain, disappointment and hope. They are able to identify with the story's situation and characters. Graphic speech touches more than the cognitive level of our understanding; it reaches to the subconscious level of inner vision where truth is grasped as a whole. In this kind of evidence precisely the apparently impossible happens: The unseen becomes seen. This occurrence is always impressive and precipitates intense surprise. People are encountering their life's truth. Rational, objective truth does not require this kind of evidence; sense perception and logical argumentation are sufficient. In the worship service and the sermon, existential truth is being sought. The one who thus perceives is engaged, "struck at the very roots, and his or her whole life is affected: feeling, thinking, inner vision and will." The goal of preaching is not to get something said, but to get something heard. The experience of the worshiper is thus critical for the evaluation of preaching. The people have cried out, this is who we are, and this is what we need. Effective preaching will renew their basic trust, give them a sense of deliverance, and provide a new perspective, a fresh insight to the understanding. Where these three dimensions are present, the listener will feel spoken to by the preacher and by God. Reference: © Grand Valley State University �What Is Good News? Richard A. Rhem Hans Van der Geest. Presence in the Pulpit: The Impact of Personality in Preaching. John Knox Press, 1st English edition, 1981. © Grand Valley State University Page 7! � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Hans Van der Geest, Presence in the Pulpit, 1981 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19890201 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989-02-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource What is Good News? Great sermons must embrace the 3 basic needs of those who listen Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Church School Herald Journal Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on February 1, 1989 entitled "What is Good News? Great sermons must embrace the 3 basic needs of those who listen", it appeared in The Church Herald, Feb. 1989, pp. 24-27. Tags: Preaching, Gospel, Trust, Love, Mystery, Hope, Sympathy. Scripture references: Hans Van der Geest, Presence in the Pulpit, 1981. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Gospel Hope Love Mystery Preaching Sympathy Trust https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5ed849daff585919ae0770822a3e0e8c.pdf 47b593e3bbe46cf0b7fc7dcab77532b1 PDF Text Text   The Seasons of Our Lives Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought December 1988 Perhaps the most frequently heard expression this month will be “Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.” The order is dictated by the fact that Christmas is celebrated on December 25, followed one week later by ushering in of the new year. We speak of the period we are entering as the holidays. Holiday is derived from “holy-day.” The definition of holy-day is a day set aside for religious observance, but the dictionary notes that the derivative form, holiday, is now usually restricted to the sense of “day of recreation.” In our popular expression we combine a holy-day and a holiday. Although Christmas has been co-opted by the world at large and transformed into a holiday, it still retains its spiritual connection; it is still a holy-day. New Year’s Day, however, is a purely secular observance of the beginning of the new calendar year, a calendar year whose beginning and ending are quite arbitrarily set signifying nothing beyond the regular cycle of 365 days. It is not so with the calendar kept by the church. Although no one would argue for the exactitude of the specific date designated for Christmas, December 25; nonetheless it does point to a concrete event within our space and time—the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnation of the Word of God. So it is with the days that mark the critical moments in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord and the pouring out of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The Christian calendar keeps before us the landmarks along the path of redemption wrought in our history in Jesus Christ, and the annual observance of holy days gives a rhythm to our Christian existence, rehearsing for us the events which ground our hope. There is an increasing use of the Christian year in Reformed congregations. This value of such observance is being increasingly felt. As we are regularly involved in the drama of redemption, we are caused to remember what God has done and are stimulated to hope for what God will yet do. © Grand Valley State University   �The Seasons of Our Lives Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Page 2   The religious observance of holy days is deeply rooted in the Old Testament community of faith. Sabbath observance was the weekly celebration of God’s work of creation (Exodus 20:8-11) and gracious redemption (Deut. 5:12-15). The feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and Tabernacles punctuated the ordinary existence of God’s people with the dimension of eternity. The Christian church moved naturally to the observance of the first day of the week as the Lord’s Day, a weekly festival of Easter, and gradually the feast days of the Christian calendar took shape. This was a natural development because the redeeming God had moved into our historical reality, supremely in the Word made flesh. The observance of the Christian calendar gives shape and meaning to our existence and a framework for our corporate worship. Lessons, preaching, hymns, and liturgy whose themes are determined by the Christian year tie us to the central realities of Christian existence. Our spiritual formation is fundamentally shaped by the rhythm of the life of the worshiping community, and the growing observance of the Christian year is a source of great enrichment to the experience of worship. Religious observance is not a means of salvation; rather, it is an instrument by which we are reminded of a salvation which has been effected beyond us, for us, freely given to us in Jesus Christ, eliciting from us grateful worship of the eternal God whose redeeming grace has come to expression within our history. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis’s satire in which Screwtape, a senior devil, gives his nephew, Wormwood, a junior devil, an advanced correspondence course on how to corrupt human souls, Screwtape recommends that Wormwood work on Christians’ “horror of the Same Old Thing.” But, he acknowledges God’s wisdom in that all the same: He has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He has continued to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has made, by that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme. He gives them in His Church a spiritual year; they change from a fast to a feast, but it is the same feast as before. In his Letters to Malcolm, Lewis wrote: It is well to have specifically holy places, and things and days, for, without these focal points or reminders, the belief that all is holy and “big with God” will soon dwindle into a mere sentiment. Religious observance is not an end in itself but can be a powerful instrument for the personal and corporate appropriation of the good news that was announced © Grand Valley State University �The Seasons of Our Lives Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Page 3   at the Savior’s birth. Our observances always fall short of giving adequate expression to the mystery of God’s grace, yet pointing beyond themselves, they give us a glimpse of the grandeur and glory of the grace of the God of our salvation. There are those moments in our corporate worship when the glory breaks through and we are lost in wonder, love, and praise. May Advent well-kept issue in a Christmas observance filled with the glory of God bringing the water of life to our often arid lives. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19881201 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988-12-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource The Seasons of Our Lives Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Editorial created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 1, 1988 entitled "The Seasons of Our Lives", it appeared in Perspectives, December 1988, p. 3. Tags: Advent, Liturgical Year, Worship, Faith Community. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Advent Faith Community Liturgical Year Worship https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a4ec9202f4bb6074d67bc5961c6a241e.pdf b9e844b4e59c4ccc56959e4714d795eb PDF Text Text The Habit of God’s Heart Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought September 1988, pp. 8-11 In 1985, Robert Bellah et al published an in-depth study of individualism and commitment in American life under the title Habits of the Heart lifting that phrase from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Bellah described the mores of the American people as he analyzed the relationship between character and society in the nation. I borrow the phrase to describe the eternal, redemptive intention of the God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, witnessed to in the Old and New Testaments. It is the habit of God’s heart to save. That is the thesis of this essay. The whole church will readily embrace such a thesis. The one story of the Bible is the story of the searching, seeking God whose intention is the salvation of people and nations and the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. Raising the question of the scope of God’s redeeming action, however, elicits differing views. Will God save all persons or will God save only some, the others condemned to eternal damnation or to simple annihilation? The Reformed faith has historically held to the ultimate division of the saved and the lost, the distinction rooted in the mystery of God’s electing grace behind which it is impossible to inquire. The saving grace of God draws the elect ones irresistibly, the rest remaining in their lost estate of rebellion. The former demonstrate the mercy of God; the latter, God’s justice. Scripture passages can be cited pointing to what appears to be an eternal distinction between the saved and the lost. The parabolic language of Jesus in Matthew 25:46 and the straightforward words of John 5:29 clearly make that distinction. Yet the issue is not easily settled by scriptural citation. There are equally clear biblical statements that point in the direction of universal salvation, the conviction that God will finally not only renew the whole created order but will redeem and reconcile every person. The apostle Paul in the Adam-Christ discussion of Romans 5 indicates that God’s act of grace was out of proportion to Adam’s wrongdoing. Paul wrote, “Then as one man’s trespass led to © Grand Valley State University   �The Habit of God’s Heart Richard A. Rhem Page 2   condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.” After wrestling with Israel’s rejection of the Messiah in Romans 9-11, Paul wrote, “For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all.” He then broke out into a magnificent doxology, an eruption of praise called forth by the contemplation of the triumph of grace of the faithful covenant-keeping God (11:33-36). The universal reconciliation of all things is expressly stated in Colossians 1:19-20, reconciliation by God through Christ in whom by God’s choice the complete being of God came to dwell. And the Christ-hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 concludes with the confident assertion that every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God. These and other passages have been hotly debated and there has been no lack of wrenching of the plain sense of biblical passages on both sides of the issue. Exegesis alone will not likely settle the question since both particular and universal salvation come to expression within the canon of Scripture. This being the case, how may we come to some resolution of the question? It should be said, first of all, that we ought not to seek closure on questions that Scripture leaves open. We often desire a finality that our limited knowledge and understanding cannot produce. Not infrequently in the history of the Christian tradition we have claimed to know too much. A proper humility before the mystery of God and grace, of life and death and beyond, becomes us all. Nor should the question be settled by an anxious fear. Some Christians worry that the consequence of even contemplating the possibility of universal salvation would cut the nerve of evangelism and undercut the proclamation of the gospel. That simply need not follow; indeed, the very opposite could as well be the case, and the change in spirit and attitude with which Christ is offered might totally revolutionize the approach of the church to the world. With what contagious joy might not the gospel be proclaimed if the church executed its mission in light of a universal, redemptive intention and a certainty of the ultimate triumph of grace? Throughout Christian history some have understood God’s redemptive action in Jesus Christ to be universal in its scope. The early church was far more universalistic in its understanding of the radical renewal of reality, the radical alteration of the human situation through God’s action in Jesus Christ, than was the church of subsequent centuries. Among the fathers of the early church we find statements pointing to the final conquest of evil and rebellion, if not within history, then beyond, through some kind of purgation process. Clement of Alexandria wrote, Punishment is, in its operation, like medicine; it dissolves the hard heart, purges away the filth of uncleanness, and reduces the swellings of pride and haughtiness; thus restoring its subject to a sound and healthful state (Pedagog, 1.8). © Grand Valley State University �The Habit of God’s Heart Richard A. Rhem Page 3   Clement’s more famous pupil, Origin, wrote, ...God is a consuming fire, what is it that is to be consumed by him? We say it is wickedness, and whatever proceeds from it, such as is figuratively called “wood, hay, and stubble” (1 Cor. iii), which denote the evil works of man. Our God is a consuming fire in this sense; and he shall come as a refiner’s fire to purify rational nature from the alloy of wickedness… (Contra Celsum. Lib. IV. 13). Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, declared, All evil, however, must at length be entirely removed from everything, so that it shall no more exist. For such being the nature of sin, that it cannot exist without a corrupt motive, it must, of course, be perfectly dissolved and wholly destroyed, so that nothing can remain a receptacle of it, when all motive and influence shall spring from God alone (De Anima et Resurrectione). Theodore of Mopsuestia held That sin is an unavoidable part of the development and education of man; that some carry it to a greater extent than others, but that God will finally overrule it for their final establishment in good. Among these early Christian thinkers there is no denial of evil and sin, but they seem to entertain no doubt that God will finally conquer the last vestige of evil and restore all things through remedial punishment. It was not until 544 A.D. at a local council called by Justinian that the teaching of universal salvation was condemned. John Murray is considered the father of Universalism in the United States. Born in England in 1741, he was a fervent Calvinist preacher who came under the influence of a Universalist preacher named James Relly. Murray became an ardent preacher of Universalist conviction, not forsaking the high Calvinism of his early training except to see in Christ’s death an atonement not only universal in its sufficiency, but also in its application. He rejected the Arminian position that Christ died for the whole race but that only those who believed on him, accepting the gospel, would be saved. Salvation was all of God and all of grace. Following Relly, Murray taught that Christ died for all and therefore all would be saved. He accepted the orthodox, evangelical premises regarding human sin and need of redemption available through Christ alone, but he drew from them universalistic conclusions. In 1899 Lyman Abbott, editor of The Outlook, representing Congregationalists, addressed the Universalist General Convention on the subject “Why I Am Not a Universalist.” Agreeing with the universalist’s position against eternal © Grand Valley State University �The Habit of God’s Heart Richard A. Rhem Page 4   punishment, Abbott yet denied that all would be saved, not because Christ’s death did not provide the possibility of salvation for all. This he believed. However, he refused to go on to affirm that God would save all, for that would be to deny the creature’s freedom to refuse the gift. Abbott states bluntly: “I do not believe that some men are fore-ordained to everlasting death.” Yet he declares, “I am not a Universalist.” With precision, he states, “If I were a Calvinist, I should be a Universalist. If I believed that God could make all men righteous, I should be sure that he would make all men righteous; otherwise he would not be a righteous God.” In our century the question of universalism has surfaced in Reformed theology in the work of Karl Barth. Berkouwer’s early study of Barth was entitled The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth. Barth’s detractors labeled him a Universalist and wrote him off as dangerous. Yet the matter is not that simple. Barth resisted systematizing; he defied neat pigeonholing. In a lecture delivered to a Swiss Reformed minister’s association in 1956, he reflected on those early, heady days and the theological ferment he fomented. He entitled his remarks “The Humanity of God.” One consequence of the humanity of God, Barth maintains, is that the sense and sound of our word must be fundamentally positive. He writes: To open up again the abyss closed in Jesus Christ cannot be our task. Man is not good: that is indeed true and must once more be asserted. God does not turn towards him without uttering in inexorable sharpness a “No” to his transgression. Thus theology has no choice but to put this “No” into words within the framework of its theme. However, it must be the “No” which Jesus Christ has taken upon Himself for us men, in order that it may no longer affect us and that we may no longer place ourselves under it. What takes place in God’s humanity is, since it includes that “No” in itself, the affirmation of man (The Humanity of God, p. 58). After developing that notion, Barth raises the question, “Does this mean universalism?” He then makes three observations “in which one is to detect no position for or against that which passes among us under this term” (p. 59). Barth suggests one ought not surrender to the panic that that term seems to spread before informing oneself exactly concerning its sense or non-sense. One should, he contends, at least be stimulated by Colossians 1:19 and parallel passages to determine whether the concept could not perhaps have a good meaning. And he suggests finally that the “danger” with which universalism seems to be attended should be balanced by concern for an even greater danger: a theology that fosters suspicious questioning because of its own legalistic perspective and morose spirit. © Grand Valley State University �The Habit of God’s Heart Richard A. Rhem Page 5   Of this Barth is certain: we have no right to set limits to the loving-kindness of God which has appeared in Jesus Christ. Rather, he argues, it is our duty to see and to understand it as still greater than we have seen before. Barth declares that the Christian witness cannot allow people to remain entrenched in their darkness. Those whose eyes are not yet open to the truth of the gospel must be questioned, encountered, shaken, by addressing and treating them as those who are really and directly called already to a knowledge of what God has done for and to them and who therefore stand in the light of life even if they resist it or are unaware of it. The towering movement of the saving God in Jesus Christ effecting reconciliation and fulfilling the covenant with the human creature determines the outcome. The practical implication of such a conviction is that one can never view any person simply in the light of his or her sin, corruption, mode of life, perverted nature, and evil actions. All this must be taken seriously and will be true perhaps for a large majority of people, Barth acknowledges. To be indifferent to the unchristian state of those yet uncalled has always spelled the death of Christian responsibility in relation to others. But there is something else that has to be taken more seriously, and indeed infinitely more seriously from the qualitative standpoint, than their blatant non-Christianity. Their vocation is before them no less surely than that Jesus Christ has died and risen again for them. This is something of unconditional significance. Such a confidence will determine the Christian’s posture toward others, insuring an openness, an unlimited readiness to see in the aliens of today the brothers and sisters of tomorrow and to love them as such. Because every person stands in the light of life through what God accomplished through Jesus Christ, the called are free and responsible to address every person and all people in light of that reality; it is our obligation to do so. In being faithful to the call to witness, the one in whom the work of grace has been effectual experiences again and again the graciousness of God’s call. One cannot fail to be impressed with the grandeur of God’s grace, rooted eternally in the habit of God’s heart, the determination to reconcile all things, or with God’s gracious election in Jesus Christ, the alteration of reality through God’s action in history in Christ. One cannot fail to be impressed by the sense of awe and humility experienced by the one in whose life the miracle occurs, and by the spirit of openness, sensitivity, and confidence with which the church bears witness to the world. The nerve of evangelism is not only not severed, for the impulse to witness is grounded in and motivated by the magnificence of God’s saving intention and action. Rather than betraying an adversarial relationship, an over-againstness from which the witness is given, those consciously in Christ, the light of life, stand © Grand Valley State University �The Habit of God’s Heart Richard A. Rhem Page 6   in solidarity with all brothers and sisters, witnessing to what is not yet apparent, but what is nonetheless the real situation—all of God, all of grace. It ought also to be clear that an openness to the possibility of universal salvation is posited on the triumph of the good and gracious God and not at all on human worthiness or human potential. Further, it must be recognized that a conviction about the universality of God’s saving grace in no way eliminates the wrath of God against all unrighteousness and the seriousness of the judgment of God. In reality the conviction of God’s determination to redeem all people is a catalyst to reckon honestly and freely with the righteous judgment of God before whom no untruth or injustice can stand. Hendrikus Berkhof gives a full discussion to the question before us in WellFounded Hope, the chapter entitled “The Double Image of the Future,” reprinted in Perspectives (January 1988, pp. 8-9). He deals seriously with the biblical witness but concludes, as was stated above, that Scripture leaves us with a double track. Countless attempts have been made to subsume one track of texts under the other by ingenious “exegetical tricks” but, Berkhof concludes, “we cannot smooth out this contradiction in the New Testament.” All that we read about the future, texts offering consolation and texts of warning, do not “fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.” In the case of the passages giving warning, these present the gospel in its nature as a call to decision; the passages offering consolation give hope and the promise of eventual salvation of all. We must hear both witnesses; we must not reduce one to the other. But we cannot simply allow them to stand with no link between them. Berkhof suggests we pronounce them “one after the other,” for “only the person who has learned to tremble at the possibility of rejection may speak about universal salvation.” It is the believing church, declares Berkhof, that can confess the last secret. In the end it is the power of God’s “yes” that triumphs over the recalcitrance of the human “no.” This is our last word but a last word that must be spoken if we believe God is ultimately not powerless or cruel or arbitrary, but rather infinite in mercy through Jesus Christ. Summarizing his conclusion on the issue in Christian Faith, Berkhof writes, We know that the covenant means that God’s faithfulness ever and again does battle with man’s unfaithfulness. What ultimately will be forced to yield: divine faithfulness or human unfaithfulness? Paul raised that question with respect to Israel, as the trial grounds of God’s relationship to man; and he ends with the confession: “God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all” (Rom. 11:32). These considerations compel us, not to detract from the gravity of the human “No” against God and its consequences, but to think just a little more of the divine “Yes” to recalcitrant humans. God is serious about the responsibility of our decision, but he is even more serious about the © Grand Valley State University �The Habit of God’s Heart Richard A. Rhem Page 7   responsibility of his love. The darkness of rejection and God-forsakenness cannot and may not be argued away, but no more can and may it be eternalized. For God’s sake we hope that hell will be a form of purification (Rev. ed. p. 536). Gabriel Fackre comes to a similar conclusion. After surveying the various positions taken in the course of the Christian tradition, he sides with the position he calls “Light Overcoming Darkness,” which he says, “...is not a disclosure of what shall be, but a hoping for what might be. All our ruminations here about the destiny of the faithless and loveless must be put in this context of Christian hoping” (The Christian Story, p. 237). Fackre expresses his hope in these words: The judgment on that Day in which the sun of Shalom rises over all is one in which the fires of liberation and reconciliation refine and its light so burns away the shadows that the last darkness is overcome. The God whose “will it is that all men should find salvation and come to know the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4) has the power of the Holy Spirit to keep that promise and accomplish that Dream. The agony of this final contest of light and darkness cannot be understated.... There is hell and judgment. But the last word in the Christian Story is not that of a half-accomplished purpose, but of a promise kept and a Vision that becomes Reality (p. 240). One would look far to find Calvinistic universalism set forth more clearly and winsomely than was described by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. in a Banner editorial entitled “Who Is Saved?” (Aug. 24, 1987). Plantinga acknowledges it is “a glorious picture.” Yet he settles finally for the traditional, orthodox position which he calls “a painful scheme.” He writes: In Calvinist orthodoxy God wants to save everybody (1 Timothy 2:4). And God can save everybody: God arranges for the death of Christ to radiate sufficient power for the salvation of all. God also orders the gospel preached to all. But, at the end of the day, God abandons some. God wants everybody saved but never intends to save all. God wants everybody saved but doesn’t plan on it. The reprobates are heartbreakingly, finally, disastrously lost. God could save them, but he doesn’t. And nobody knows why. The practical, existential fallout of such a system is brought home poignantly by Plantinga as he goes on. “Probably none of us needs reminding that this is a painful scheme. The awfulness of it comes home to us when we look at the spiritual rebellion of a son or daughter. Could it possibly be that God has never intended to save this precious person?” At the risk of presumption, I, as parent and theologian, must respond: No! That could not possibly be! © Grand Valley State University �The Habit of God’s Heart Richard A. Rhem Page 8   William Barclay, whose New Testament studies have opened the Scripture to so many, wrote near his life’s end a Testament of Faith. After confessing his belief in life after death, he writes, “But in one thing I would go beyond strict orthodoxy—I am a convinced universalist. I believe that in the end all men will be gathered into the love of God.” Barclay gives a fourfold basis for his conviction, the first being that there is enough evidence in the New Testament itself to justify it. He cites John 12:32, Romans 11:32, 1 Corinthians 15:22, 28, and 1 Timothy 2:4-6. Secondly, he argues against the eternalizing of punishment on the basis of the Greek word aionios. Thirdly, he denies the possibility of setting limits to the grace of God—in this world or any other world there may be. “I believe,” he declares, “that the grace of God is as wide as the universe.” Finally, Barclay believed “implicitly in the ultimate and complete triumph of God, the time when God will be everything to everyone” (1 Cor. 15:24-28). He contended, If God was no more than a King or judge, then it would be possible to speak of his triumph, if his enemies were agonizing in hell or were totally and completely obliterated and wiped out. But God is not only King and Judge, God is Father—he is indeed Father more than anything else...The only triumph a Father can know is to have all his family back home. The only victory love can enjoy is the day when its offer of love is answered by the return of love. The only possible final triumph is a universe loved by and in love with God (p. 60f.). In light of God’s gracious election in Jesus Christ, of God’s steadfast love and covenant faithfulness, of God’s infinite power and patience, we have good reason to trust and confidently hope that the habit of God’s heart will finally heal every wound, overcome all opposition, and gather all God’s children safely home. References: William Barclay. Testament of Faith. Mowbray, First edition, 1975. Karl Barth. The Humanity of God. Westminster John Knox Press, 1996. Hendrikus Berkhof. Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979. Gabriel Fackre. The Christian Story: A Narrative Interpretation of Basic Christian Doctrine. Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1978, 1984. Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., “Who Is Saved?”, The Banner, August 24, 1987. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References William Barclay, Testament of Faith, 1975, Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 1996, Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 1979, Gabriel Fackre, The Christian Story, 1984, Cornelius Plantinga, "Who Is Saved?", 1987. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19880901 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988-09-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource The Habit of God's Heart Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Editorial created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on September 1, 1988 entitled "The Habit of God's Heart", it appeared in Perspectives, September 1988, p. 3. Tags: Nature of God, Universal Grace, Mystery of God, Judgment. Scripture references: William Barclay, Testament of Faith, 1975, Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, 1996, Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 1979, Gabriel Fackre, The Christian Story, 1984, Cornelius Plantinga, "Who Is Saved?", 1987.. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Judgment Mystery of God Nature of God Universal Grace https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/37288410423cb68b87178990448c2b6d.pdf df094e3aa7e8b27ee1884b39560c45f3 PDF Text Text   Easter Faith: Beyond All Human Potential Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought April 1988 In For The Time Being, W. H. Auden writes, Nothing can save us that is possible, we who must die demand a miracle. Easter faith is faith in the humanly impossible, impossible in terms of human potential. Easter faith affirms a miracle: The living God raised Jesus from the dead. Easter faith sees the resurrection of Jesus as a sign of the newness God is creating and will create in this Good Friday world, this old age that is passing away. With every returning Easter we are faced with the decision of faith: Will we settle for a Good Friday world, or will we believe in the newness of God's kingdom? Will we with stubborn pride see our world and our lives only within the limits of the humanly possible, or will we trust in God who brought forth the world from nothing and promises a new heaven and new earth? Will we with paralyzing despair see history's sad story of oppression, violence, and death, and our own life stories of failure and defeat as the final word, or will we look to the living God who breaks the power of darkness and defeats even death? The Easter faith of the church points to the living God whose love cannot be conquered and whose promise of new creation will finally come to consummation. Easter faith is radical trust in God, the God who is not limited to human potential or to historical possibilities. Easter faith fastens on the God who called Jesus from the dead to fullness of life in God's presence where he reigns and from whence his Spirit continues the drama of resurrection in this old world that is passing away, this old world that is a Good Friday world, now permeated by the freedom and joy and peace of the new creation. Easter faith is biblical faith; it is the faith of the people of God who still live in the old world but who have been captivated by a new possibility. Over the first eleven chapters of Genesis one could write disaster, the seemingly insatiable desire of human society to structure life apart from God. In the bridge paragraph between © Grand Valley State University   �Easter Faith: Beyond all Human Potential Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Page 2   the universal themes of those first eleven chapters and the call of Abraham in chapter 12, there is tucked away a brief notice so easy to overlook: "Now Sarai was barren; she had no child." Is that not striking? God calls a man to become the father of a great nation, but the man's wife is barren. Could that be an accident? No, because the Bible story is not first of all a story about Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Peter, and Paul. It is not a story first of all about humankind at all, but a story about God. It is God's story before it is our story, and the Genesis account of the call of Abraham is only secondarily about Abraham. God is about to fashion an alternative community in the midst of a creation gone awry. God will re-form the creation; God will transform the nations, and God is not boxed in by human limitations. What God promises cannot be discovered in what is; God creates newness. Both pride and despair, two opposite reactions to what is, are based on the assumption that the world is a project of humankind and that its possibilities are limited by human potential. But the biblical story is the story of the gracious God of life-giving power, a power beyond all human potential. It wasn't easy for Abraham or Sarah to believe. Abraham was getting older, but still he had no heir. Sarah had moved beyond the years of childbearing potential. Abraham asked God if his servant's son Eliezer would do. God said no. Sarah took matters into her own hands and gave Abraham her maid Hagar. But Ishmael, the child of that union, was not to be the heir. God said no to that human effort, too. When Abraham was ninety-nine, God repeated the promise. Then one day the Lord appeared. The coming birth was announced. Sarah heard it and laughed. She was responding from her knowledge of human potential. The Lord heard the laugh and said, "Why did Sarah laugh?" Then we hear the crux of the matter. "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" (Gen. 18:14) That is the point of this whole narrative: God's power to create life anew. And the result of such faith? Isaac. Sarah, the barren one, gave birth to a child and she laughed once more. And Sarah said, "God has made laughter for me; every one who hears will laugh over me." (Gen. 21:6) God had the last laugh, and it was God who prompted Sarah to laugh again. There are two kinds of laughs in the world. There is the laugh of the cynic who lives in a narrow world of human possibility. There is the joyous laughter of the one who trusts God and experiences the impossible. Isaac was born. His name means laughter. Isaac's birth was God's joke! The tears of laughter will run down our cheeks, too, when we learn to let go of our strenuous striving to make our world secure, to carve out our places in the sun, and to achieve success and health and happiness and simply fall into the © Grand Valley State University �Easter Faith: Beyond all Human Potential Editorial by Richard A. Rhem Page 3   unconditional love of God who alone can create newness, bring peace, and cause joy to well up. There are two worlds. One is a Good Friday world. It runs on human effort and is limited by human potential. Its hallmark is the performance principle. The other is an Easter world. It operates by radical trust in the power of the life-giving God. Its hallmark is grace. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19880401 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988-04-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Easter Faith: Beyond All Human Potential Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Editorial created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 1, 1988 entitled "Easter Faith: Beyond All Human Potential", it appeared in Perspectives, April, 1988, p. 3. Tags: Easter, Trust, Faith, Grace. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Easter Faith Grace Trust https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/38ad85e9decd838b26f99ef8cbc6d3a1.pdf f3307799ff6cfc9318a5d3006730c8e8 PDF Text Text Purgatory Revisited Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought January 1988, pp. 4-7 In the fall term of 1983, Hans Küng, the noted Roman Catholic theologian gave a series of lectures at the University of Michigan entitled Eternal Life? It was an investigation of life after death as a medical, philosophical, and theological problem. He faced squarely and straightforwardly all the difficult questions surrounding the subject, dealing with ancient and contemporary issues, the question in the history of religions, the modern denial of anything beyond death, and the near-death experiences recorded in recent years. He dealt with biblical material, the question of resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus, and the church’s teaching on judgment, heaven, and hell. The lectures were subsequently published under the title Eternal Life? By virtue of a sabbatical granted me by the Christ Community congregation, I was able to hear the lectures and to participate with Küng in a seminar. I came away with two striking realizations: first, that there was intense interest in these questions of death and dying, of life after death, of heaven and hell on the campus of a large secular university. The lectures had to be moved from the largest lecture hall available to the Rackham Auditorium. Secondly, I realized how little these vital questions were probed in the church, how little reflection I had personally given to them in my ministry, and how comfortably and uncritically we in the church have accepted traditional answers. Once awakened to the questions that are not nearly so simply answered as once I had thought, and also to the deeply existential interest of today’s people, both secular and religious, I began to open again questions on which I had come to premature closure. For me, the greatest surprise came in a new appreciation for the teaching of purgatory, which was resolutely rejected at the time of the Reformation and which has received little serious reflection in the Protestant tradition. This is quite understandable since the sharp reaction of the Reformers was precipitated by the Roman teaching and practice in regard to indulgences, © Grand Valley State University   �Purgatory Revisited Richard A. Rhem Page 2   intercessory prayers, and masses for the dead. The abuses at this point are well documented; Luther’s protest was justified, as Küng would testify. Calvin railed against the teaching of purgatory as “a deadly fiction of Satan, which nullifies the cross of Christ, inflicts unbearable contempt upon God’s mercy, and overturns and destroys our faith.” (Institutes, 3.5.6) Certainly there was enough abusive practice to make such strong reaction necessary. When the abuses have been exposed and the questionable teaching surrounding the state of the dead rejected, however, have we finished with the subject? The Roman Catholic church traditionally taught that people who died at peace with the church but who were not perfect (which included just about everybody) had to undergo a penal and purifying suffering before they could be translated to heaven. Purgatory was an intermediate realm and the purgation process was mild or severe and of short or long duration, depending on the moral condition of each individual. Traditionally, evangelicals have taught that those who in life embrace Jesus Christ by faith are saved by the grace of God and those who reject Christ are condemned eternally. One’s historical existence is the time in which a decision regarding Jesus Christ must be made and with the drawing of the last breath the issue is determined irreversibly and eternally. A little sober reflection shows us that the matter is not quite that simple. Even if those who are exposed to the gospel are judged on their acceptance or rejection of Christ, what about those who never heard? What about those who die in infancy? What about the mentally impaired? More questions arise: What about those who have been terribly wounded by the church? What about those who have been abused as children and are never able to trust? What about those whose only exposure to the gospel has been of a garbled and distorted nature? It would seem that we must begin to make some exceptions; some qualifications are necessary. Reflecting on the traditional teaching of evangelical faith, a further question arises: Do we imagine that the transformation necessary to complete in us the work of grace will happen in an instant at the moment of death? In his discussion of the resurrection at Christ’s coming, Paul does speak of those remaining alive as being changed “in a flash,” and in the First Letter of John we read that we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. But are we to understand instantaneous perfection by these statements, something totally foreign to the process of sanctification, which is our experience on this side of death? Obviously, the first thing we must admit is that we are dealing with a subject beyond our knowledge. And throughout this discussion we must be aware, as well, that we can speak only in temporal categories and think only of a succession of moments, while we recognize death as the break between time and eternity. Into the philosophical discussion of the relation between the two we cannot enter but the distinction must not be lost. © Grand Valley State University �Purgatory Revisited Richard A. Rhem Page 3   We must admit, too, as is recognized by both Protestant and Roman Catholic biblical theologians today that there is a paucity of biblical material to which to refer. The thrust of Scripture is the imperative to repent and believe, and the stress is on the urgency of decision. Yet there are indications that there is something more. For example, Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3 of the necessity of care in building the superstructure of the church which is founded on Jesus Christ. He points to two kinds of builders: one builds with wood, hay, and stubble; the other builds with precious stones, gold, and silver. The work of the first is consumed by the testing fire; the work of the second stands the test. He then wrote: If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (Cor. 3:14-15) The latter person will enter the life beyond, having lost everything. He will be secure in God’s eternal presence, yet with nothing to show for his earthly life. Paul seems to indicate that there is, beyond death or through death, an encounter with God in which one’s life is tested. The issue is not salvation or condemnation; the issue is whether we bring into God’s presence something or nothing. Does not this passage indicate that Paul thought in terms of encounter with God and perhaps a continuing process beyond death? If it is a matter simply of being saved or lost as we enter the moment of death, that is, entering a status of salvation or condemnation, and that is all there is, then why be concerned about what one brings to death’s moment—a fruitful life or a barren life? The apostle seems to suggest that at death there is not only break and discontinuity between our time and God’s eternity, but also continuity between this life and the life beyond death. We bring something (or nothing) with us, and whatever lies beyond is influenced and determined by what we bring (or fail to bring). In Luke’s gospel, Jesus calls us to be watchful and ready for the end. He is encouraging loyal, faithful stewardship of life (Luke 12:35ff). He then speaks of two servants, one who knew the master’s wishes, but failed to fulfill them, and the other who also did not comply with those wishes, but did not know them. The first was flogged severely, the second less severely. We must not attempt to push this vivid language of Jesus too far. Yet it seems that Jesus was saying that the judgment will vary in light of individual circumstances—a gradation of judgment on the basis of the individual life being examined. If at the moment of death the encounter with God will be very personal, individual, and discriminating, and if the sentences will vary, does this point to a process beyond death’s moment? © Grand Valley State University �Purgatory Revisited Richard A. Rhem Page 4   The traditional understanding of these texts is that, in the case of the Lucan passage, there is gradation of punishment—yet to be lost, eternally condemned, is to remain in a state spoken of as hell—separation from God. In the case of the passage from Paul, the understanding has been that the “saved” enter into heaven, or union with God, but some with greater, and others with lesser capacity to experience the joy of salvation. Let us push those conventional interpretations. I entitled this essay “Purgatory Revisited” not simply to get attention. Surely in a day when Roman Catholic theology itself is very self-critical and is engaged in a serious encounter with Scripture, I am not about to suggest we reinstate a teaching that has been thoroughly sifted and carefully redefined in contemporary Roman Catholic thought. Yet, I am suggesting that behind the teaching of purgatory there was a significant insight, even if the practical application of that insight led to disastrous results. That insight is simply that God is not through with us at our death. I am raising for reflection this question: “Is the issue of our lives irreversibly settled at the moment of our last breath?” This question is meant in no way to detract from the strong call to decision, the seriousness of choices in this life, or the urgency of the gospel call. However, is it not possible that in the experience of death itself, understood as an encounter with God, there is the possibility of something of eternal significance occurring? In Christian Faith, Hendrikus Berkhof, discussing the idea of the judgment of works done by believers in their earthly lives, writes: In Protestant theology, this viewpoint is almost completely pushed aside by the accent on grace. In Roman Catholic piety it is (or used to be) very prominent in connection with the veneration of saints and purgatory. The Roman Catholic Church assumes correctly that believers differ greatly in regard to their progress and fruitfulness.... So the idea of a judgment according to one’s deeds leads of itself to the consideration of a process of purification, called purgatory in the Roman Catholic tradition....The Reformation broke with that doctrine because of its moralistic conception of salvation and its detrimental effect on the practice of piety (indulgences, intercessory prayers and masses for the dead). It imagined a sudden, radical transformation after the judgment, usually without giving it further theological reflection and without connecting it with the struggle for sanctification on earth. Meanwhile Roman Catholic thinking, too, has become much more reserved. Typical of the modern Roman Catholic conceptions is the idea of “ripening”...which K. Rahner develops in “The Life of the Dead”(Christian Faith, Revised, p. 493). Referring to the text discussed above, 1 Corinthians 3:15, Berkhof asserts that © Grand Valley State University �Purgatory Revisited Richard A. Rhem Page 5   that statement does suggest that Paul thought of more than an abrupt recreation of man; salvation is accompanied by a painful becoming aware of one’s own failures on earth. The difficulties here are more an open question for theological reflection than a subject for back and forth theological denouncement. The matter of making inferences from faith about what lies beyond death is fraught with far too many difficulties. One can state with Bavinck: “After death there is no more sanctification, one enters upon a state of complete sanctity...for death is the greatest leap someone can make, a sudden transposition of the believer into Christ’s presence, and thereby a complete destruction of the outward man and a complete renewal of the inner man” (CD IV, no. 650, under 4). But one can also ask with G. J. Heering: “Does this change instantaneously, when God shows mercy to the repentant soul and takes it to himself?...Life is called a training school, but perhaps there is a higher training school above” (De menselijke ziel, 1955, pp. 190,192). (p. 494). In another context Berkhof writes: God is serious about the responsibility of our decision, but he is even more serious about the responsibility of his love. The darkness of rejection and God-forsakenness cannot and may not be argued away, but no more can and may it be eternalized. For God’s sake we hope that hell will be a form of purification (p. 536, Christian Faith, Revised). That word “purification” is one used by Küng. In the published lectures, Eternal Life?, Küng treats the idea of purgatory in his discussion of the question whether hell is eternal. Some theologians, however, argue that it is not God who damns man by a verdict imposed from outside. They are human beings themselves, by sins committed with inward freedom, who damn themselves. The responsibility lies not with God but with man. And by death this selfdamnation and distance from God (not a place, but a human condition) becomes definitive. Definitive? Do not the psalms say that God rules over the realm of the dead? What is supposed to become definitive here, contrary to the will of an all-merciful and almighty God? Why should God, who is infinitely good, want to perpetuate enmity instead of removing it and in practice to share his rule forever with some kind of anti-God? Why should he have nothing more to say at this point and consequently render forever impossible a purification, cleansing, liberation, enlightenment, of guilt-laden man? (Eternal Life?, p. 137) Then he refers specifically to purgatory. Purification, cleansing, liberation, enlightenment Here perhaps may lie—I want merely to prompt a few reflections—the particle of truth, the real core, of the problematic idea of purgatory, which has been translated in © Grand Valley State University �Purgatory Revisited Richard A. Rhem Page 6   German from the Middle Ages onward with the unfortunate designation of Fegefeuer (“winnowing fire”). This may be the true core, but it remains true only if the idea is not reified. [A]s no human being is entirely bad, neither is anyone entirely good. Any human being, even the best, falls short of what he might be, fails to meet his own demands and norms and thus never wholly realizes himself. For if he is to be fully himself, even the “saint” needs completion, not after death, but in death itself. And, in view of so much unpunished guilt in the world, a number of people wonder—not entirely wrongly—if dying unto God, the absolutely final reality, can be one and the same for all: the same for criminals and their victims, for mass murderers and the mass of the murdered; for those who have struggled a whole life long to fulfill God’s will, true helpers of their fellow human beings, and for those who for a whole life long have only carried out their own will and at the same time shut out others?...[H]ow this...purification, cleansing, follows is not left to the speculation or calculation of human curiosity, but remains a matter for God as merciful judge, is God’s all-embracing final act of grace. (pp. 137) The key idea Küng stresses is the shattering effect of the encounter with God. We die not into nothingness; we die unto God. Küng cites Karl Barth: Man as such, therefore, has no beyond. Nor does he need one, for God is his beyond. Man’s beyond is that God as his Creator, Covenant-partner, Judge and Saviour, was and is and will be his true Counterpart in life, and finally and exclusive (sic) and totally in death (Church Dogmatics Vol. Ill, 2, pp. 632-33). Küng also cites a Roman Catholic theologian, Greshake: From this standpoint we can understand what was pointed out earlier, that God himself, the encounter with him, is purgatory. But this means that we need not fall back on a special place or still less on a special time or special event to grasp the meaning of purgatory. Still less do we need to work out crude ideas about the “poor” souls. Instead we can understand what the Church teaches and has taught from the earliest times as an element in the encounter with God in death....[W]e should avoid any talk of fire and speak instead of purifying and cleansing as an element of the encounter with God. At the same time what should be particularly clear is that purgatory is not—as it often seems to be in popular piety—a “demihell” which God has erected in order to punish the person who is not entirely bad, but also not entirely good. Purgatory is not a demihell but an element of the encounter with God: that is, the encounter of the unfinished person, still immature in his love, with the holy, infinite, loving God; an encounter which is profoundly humiliating; painful and therefore purifying (cited, Eternal Life?, p. 139 from Starker als der Tod, pp. 92f.). © Grand Valley State University �Purgatory Revisited Richard A. Rhem Page 7   Küng concludes, That is to say that since it is a question of dying into the dimensions of God, where space and time are dissolved into eternity, nothing can be discovered, either about place and time or about the character of this purifying, sanctifying consummation (p. 139). A Lutheran theologian, Hans Schwarz, discusses the views of Ladislaus Boros (The Mystery of Death, p. 129), who suggests something similar—the significance of the final decision at the moment of death. Boros, he maintains, decisively modifies the traditional concepts of purgatory and death. Boros agrees that the Church has only gradually developed the doctrine of purgatory. Though the Scriptural basis of purgatory may be obscure, the fact and the essential nature of purgatory are of such quality that it must be called a “truth of revelation.” However, through his hypothesis of a final decision, Boros seems to view purgatory as the “point” of intersection between life and death. Purgatory is no longer conceived of as a process of purification which can be measured similar to the days and years we live here on earth. According to Boros, “purgatory would be the passage, which we effect in our final decision, through the purifying fire of divine love. The encounter with Christ would be our purgatory.”...Boros replaces an untenable concept of purgatory with the idea of a confrontation with Christ in death…[H]e calls death “man’s first completely personal act” and, “therefore, by reason of its very being, the place above all others for the awakening of consciousness, for freedom, for the encounter with God, for the final decision about eternal destiny.” (On The Way To The Future, pp. 142f.). It has been obvious to me as I have pursued this subject that those who have reflected on the biblical material, the whole context of Scripture, the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, and the human person are very restrained in their conclusions and very cautious in their statements. There is in all serious inquirers into this question, —a recognition of the serious nature of human decisions, —an acknowledgment of the urgent need for repentance and faith, —a reckoning with the reality of evil and human wickedness that demands response if there is any justice, —a serious view of judgment as the exposure of our lives to the scrutiny of the God of truth. All responsible biblical thinkers recognize that God takes us seriously; our wrong and guilt are not simply soft-pedaled, and our exposure to God’s light and truth will be painful, even while we are conscious of being embraced within a larger grace. Judgment will be experienced: No one will “get away” with anything. © Grand Valley State University �Purgatory Revisited Richard A. Rhem Page 8   If an eternal hell is questioned, it is not because passing through God’s final examination is not a serious matter, and neither is it because there is no sense of the need for change and renewal of the person who through the earthly pilgrimage has become scarred and tainted, falling far short of God’s intention. Recognizing that one cannot simply move from the ambiguity, partial insight, fickleness, and unfaithfulness of one’s human experience into the presence of the God of light and truth, there is the belief on the part of some that a purifying process will be necessary. C. S. Lewis has dealt as creatively and profoundly as anyone with the questions of heaven, hell, and purgatory. In The Great Divorce, he records an imaginary conversation with the Christian writer, George MacDonald, on the outskirts of heaven. Lewis exclaims, “But I don’t understand. Is judgment not final? Is there really a way out of Hell into Heaven?” “It depends on the way ye’re using the words. If they leave that grey town behind it will not have been Hell. To any that leaves it, it is Purgatory. And perhaps ye had better not call this country Heaven. Not Deep Heaven, ye understand....[Yle can call it the Valley of the Shadow of Life. And yet to those who stay here it will have been Heaven from the first. And ye can call those sad streets in the town yonder the Valley of the Shadow of Death: but to those who remain there they will have been Hell even from the beginning.” (The Great Divorce, p. 63) Lewis’s fertile imagination is thought provoking; great caution is there; our curiosity will not be satisfied this side of death’s portal. Yet, he clearly seems to be saying that the life processes and the significance of choice do not end at our death. In his Letters to Malcolm, chapter 20, Lewis speaks clearly on the subject of purgatory: Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy”? Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.” “It may hurt, you know.”—“Even so, sir.” I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering. Partly from tradition; partly because most real good that has been done me in this life has involved it. But I don’t think suffering is the purpose of the purgation. I can well believe that people neither much worse nor much © Grand Valley State University �Purgatory Revisited Richard A. Rhem Page 9   better than I will suffer less than I or more. “No nonsense about merit.” The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or much. My favourite image on this matter comes from the dentist’s chair. I hope that when the tooth of life is drawn and I am “coming round,” a voice will say, “Rinse your mouth out with this.” This will be Purgatory. I have raised questions for reflection more than coming to fixed conclusions about this subject veiled in mystery. But the questioning will prove fruitful if we open again for discussion a subject of intense existential interest, confident that the faithful and gracious covenant God will finally realize his eternal purpose for us who have been predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. References: Hendrikus Berkhof. Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith. Wm. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1979. Hans Küng. Eternal Life?:Life After Death as a Medical, Philosophical, and Theological Problem. Doubleday, 1984. C. S. Lewis. The Great Divorce. First published HarperColins, 1946; HarperOne, Later Printing edition, 2009. C. S. Lewis. Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. Harcourt, Inc., 1964. Hans Schwarz. On the Way to the Future: a Christian view of Eschatology in the light of current trends in religion, philosophy and science. Augsburg Publishing House, 1972. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 1979, Hans Küng, Eternal Life?, 2003, C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 1946, Letters to Malcolm, 1964, Hans Schwarz, On the Way to the Future, 1972 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19880101 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988-01-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Purgatory Revisited Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 1, 1988 entitled "Purgatory Revisited", on the book Purgatory Revisited, written by Hans Küng, it appeared in Perspectives, January, 1988, pp. 4-7. Tags: Purgatory, Judgment, Grace, Sin, Non-exclusive. Scripture references: Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 1979, Hans Küng, Eternal Life?, 2003, C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 1946, Letters to Malcolm, 1964, Hans Schwarz, On the Way to the Future, 1972. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Grace Judgment Non-exclusive Purgatory Sin https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a43c31c5c10a81787a95d4bdb209c65c.pdf 829061ce4613b83c2d29a96e9e07b1c8 PDF Text Text Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope By David Tracy (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987) Book Review by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Publication of Review Unknown “At times, interpretations matter. On the whole, such times are times of cultural crisis. The old ways of understanding and practice, even experience itself, no longer seem to work.” (p. 7) We live in such a time, according to David Tracy, a crisis of tradition, culture, and language so that we can no longer simply move forward by means of the usual ways of experiencing, understanding, acting or interpreting. Tracy names our time “post-modern” - a vague and ambiguous expression he admits; yet “there we are,” he avers. This being Tracy’s conviction, he continues to pour his energy into the interpretation of interpretation theory. “A crisis of interpretation within any tradition eventually becomes a demand to interpret this very process of interpretation.” Tracy stands within the crisis of Western culture. “... shaped by the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and the nineteenth-century industrial revolution and explosion of historical consciousness. We late twentiethcentury Westerners find ourselves in a century where human-made mass death has been practiced, where yet another technological revolution is occurring, where global catastrophe or even extinction could occur. We find ourselves unable to proceed as if all that had not happened, is not happening, or could not happen.” (p. 8) In such a time, the question of interpretation itself becomes central. Although the discussion of interpretation theory becomes extremely technical and one runs into the technical jargon in Tracy causing the uninitiated to despair; nevertheless the technical discussion is not simply an academic game without practical relevance or application, for, Tracy contends, © Grand Valley State University   �David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity, Book Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 2   “Every time we act, deliberate, judge, understand, or even experience, we are interpreting. To understand at all is to interpret. To act well is to interpret a situation demanding some action and to interpret a correct strategy for that action ... To be human is to act reflectively, to decide deliberately, to understand intelligently, to experience fully. Whether we know it or not, to be human is to be a skilled interpreter.” (p. 9) The theme of the present work is conversation. Tracy offers conversation as a model for all interpretation. He calls it a “game.” The movement in conversation is questioning itself. Neither my present opinions on the question nor the texts’ original response to the question, but the question itself, must control every conversation. A conversation ... is not a confrontation. It is not a debate. It is not an exam. It is questioning itself. It is a willingness to follow the question wherever it may go. It is dialogue. (p. 18) Understanding will move forward only where conversation exists; where one says what one means as accurately as possible; where one listens to and respects what the other (person, text, or event) says however different or other; where one is willing to correct or defend one’s opinion if challenged by a conversation partner, willing to argue if necessary, to confront if necessary, and to change one’s mind if evidence suggests it. Any act of interpretation involves at least three realities: a phenomenon to be interpreted, someone interpreting the phenomenon, and the interaction between the first two realities. Understanding these three realities is the problem of interpretation. Tracy suggests it is best to begin with the phenomenon to be interpreted (a law, an action, a ritual, a symbol, a text, a person, an event). For purposes of his discussion, Tracy suggests the classic texts, “Those texts that bear an excess and permanence of meaning, yet always resist definitive interpretation.” Tracy contends, The classic is important hermeneutically because it represents the best examples of what we seek: an example of both radical stability become permanence and radical instability become excess of meaning through ever-changing receptions. (p. 14) To understand is to interpret and conversation with a classic text is to find oneself caught up in the questions and answers worthy of a free mind. Conversation is thus an exploration of possibilities in the search for truth. One who enters upon such a conversation does so with the understanding that what is other from one’s pre-understanding may be possible. A good interpreter possesses an “analogical imagination” (a concept developed by Tracy in his book by that title) by which the interpreter is able to move from otherness, to possibility, to similarity-in-difference. Persons willing to risk conversation in interpretation are at a disadvantage from those who will not take the risk because © Grand Valley State University �David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity, Book Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 3   such a person begins with the possibility they may be wrong. But only such openness can advance understanding in the cultural crisis in which we find ourselves, a crisis which has revealed the poverty of both the Enlightenment and the Romantic Movement which was its reaction. As the Enlightenment unfolded, having freed us from the weight of certain oppressive traditions allowing us to dare to think for ourselves, it became trapped in ever-narrower models of what could count as truth until it retreated into a formal and technical rationality. But we cannot follow the reaction of romanticism thus becoming the latest expressions of the “unhappy consciousness” of the romantic. The “remystification of all reality” is not an option. It cannot be a pretense that the imagined joys of first naiveté can be ours. It cannot be the disparagement of science and the retreat into privacy. (p. 31) How do we move forward? Tracy suggests that two contemporary methods offer hope: historical critical methods and literary critical methods. Both affirm the necessity of method and the necessity of rejecting methologism. Tracy discusses the effects of historical critical and literary critical methods on our understanding of the classics of Western culture so that there is no longer such a thing as an unambiguous tradition - no innocent readings of the classics. And where does that leave us? Tracy contends, The historicity of every text, interpreter, and conversation has been clarified by historical consciousness. Certainty is no more. But relative adequacy for all interpretations remains an ideal worth striving for. (p. 39) Tracy grounds this contention in the third chapter: “Radical Plurality: The Question of Language,” a discussion of the relationships among language, knowledge and reality and an assertion of the results of critical methods – the radical plurality in language, knowledge and reality alike. “‘Reality’ is the one word that should always appear within quotation marks.” That claim of Nabokov, says Tracy, best expresses one major strand of postmodern reflection on language. Both positivism and romanticism held language to be secondary, derivative, coming after the fact of discovery and cognition, peripheral to the real thing. But language analysis has demonstrated its social and historical character. Our understanding comes through particular and public languages and language “shapes” reality - even constitutes reality. The result of this insight has been the dethroning of the autonomous ego from its false pretensions to mastery and certainty. We are inevitably shaped by the history we are born into. We are left with plurality and ambiguity. © Grand Valley State University �David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity, Book Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Plurality seems an adequate word to suggest the extraordinary variety that any study of language shows, and any study of the variety of receptions of any classic documents. Ambiguity may be too mild a word to describe the strange mixture of great good and frightening evil that our history reveals. Historical ambiguity means a once seemingly clear historical narrative or progressive Western enlightenment and emancipation has now become a montage of classics and new-speak, of startling beauty and revolting cruelty, of partial emancipation and ever-subtler forms of entrapment. (p. 69F) Neither optimism nor pessimism will prove fruitful in understanding the plurality and ambiguity of our history. Rather resistance, attention and hope must be exercised. Without resignation or cynicism, Tracy advocates conversation as limited, fragile and necessary exercises in reaching relatively adequate knowledge of language and history. In the final chapter, “Resistance and Hope: The Question of Religion,” Tracy declares that the purely autonomous ego has been mortally wounded, yet not erased; rather there appears a more fragile self - open to epiphanies. Postmodern coherence, at best, will be a rough coherence: interrupted, obscure, often confused, self-conscious of its own language use and, above all, aware of the ambiguities of all histories and traditions. (p. 83) Theological interpretation is one way to allow genuine conversation with the religious classics (for example, the Scriptures). A highly tentative, relative adequacy is all that can be hoped for as the same plurality and ambiguity that affects all discourse affects theology. Religions are even more intensely pluralistic and ambiguous than art, morality, philosophy and politics because religions do claim that Ultimate Reality has revealed itself and that there is a way of liberation for any human being. (p. 86) Pluralism is the attitude Tracy fundamentally trusts, but such an affirmation is the beginning, not the end for the interpreter of religion. The great pluralists of religion are those who so affirm plurality that they fundamentally trust it, yet do not shirk their responsibility to develop criteria of assessment for each judgment of relative adequacy. (p. 91) Reductionism is a real temptation in the interpretation of religion. The problem is one of totalization: only this method or this hermeneutic or this critique can interpret what religion really is. © Grand Valley State University �David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity, Book Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 5   All methods of reductionism, whether by believers or nonbelievers, are grounded in an unacknowledged confession of their own: the belief that so secure is their present knowledge of truth and possibility that the religious classics can at best be peculiar expressions of more of the same. Anything different, other, alien must clearly be untrue and impossible - that ‘goes without saying.’(p. 100) Thus, declares Tracy, the difference between fundamentalist and secular readings only appear startling; the differences are on the surface, not in fundamental hermeneutical approaches. They are reverse sides of the same coin of certainty, mastery and control. But, writes Tracy, When it is believable, religious faith manifests a sense of the radical mystery of all reality: the mystery we are to ourselves; the mystery of history, nature, and the cosmos; the mystery, above all, of Ultimate Reality. ... When it is active, religious love frees us from the illusion that to be a human being means to become an ego attempting mastery and control of all others. (p. 107) Tracy witnesses to his personal belief in belief. I believe that faith in Ultimate Reality can make all the difference for a life of resistance, hope, and action. I believe in God. It is, I confess, that belief which gives me hope. (p. 110) In a profile of David Tracy in The New York Times Magazine (11-9-86), Tracy is quoted as saying, The religious event described in the First Letter of John asks the question: What is the nature of the ultimate reality? And the answer is: God. And more explicitly, God is love. That is an extraordinary thought, that ultimate reality is love. All of his strenuous attention to interpretation theory is in the service of bringing that truth to expression, not just in the Church, but in the public arena. To follow his argument is not easy; it is rewarding. Tracy is a pioneer venturing into the new situation arising out of the cultural crisis of the present in order that the truth claim of God as it comes to manifestation might be understood and acted upon. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity, 1987 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19870901 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-09-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Book Review created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on September 1, 1987 entitled "Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope", on the book Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope, written by David Tracy. Tags: Postmodern, Pluralism, Religion, Mystery, Love at Core of Reality. Scripture references: David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity, 1987. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Love at Core of Reality Mystery Pluralism PostModern Religion https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/126ba9825c60dbc7351e7d14ab62377b.pdf fb19e087d6d022f041936c8bd7663b6c PDF Text Text   Diversity in Faith – Unity in Christ By Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986) Book Review by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Publication of Review Unknown This is a book addressed to the Church, to the Christian community. It is not an apologetic to instruct the inquirer in the content of Christian faith; rather, it is an explanation of the respective postures, attitudes and nuances of orthodoxy, liberalism and pietism. Guthrie's purpose is to enable self-understanding within each of these camps and thereby to create the possibility of understanding across the spectrum of the Church. Although a broad spectrum of the Christian community might agree on a basic definition of what it is to be a Christian, as soon as the discussion gets to specific theological, ethical and practical implications of Christian faith, division will be immediate - “Churches choose up sides, get red in the face, and either yell at each other or refuse to talk together at all.” To address the all too often rancorous divisions within the Christian community, indeed, within the same confessional family, denomination and local congregation, Guthrie suggests as a starting point the question: “Why is it that people who read the same Bible and talk about the same Christ, even when they belong to the same church, have so much trouble getting along with each other and committing themselves to a common Christian witness in the world?” His answer is that, before conversation begins, we all bring certain “conscious or unconscious presuppositions about the meaning of Christian faith and life that determine what we are able and willing - and unable and unwilling - to hear from scripture, from fellow Christians, or even from God!” Thus Guthrie sets for himself the task of identifying and clarifying the presuppositions operative and determinative of the respective postures of Orthodoxy, Liberalism and Pietism. Part I is divided into four sections (Liberalism being treated in two sections, Moralism and Social Activism). Each section is divided into a “In defense of ...” and “Criticism of ...” This first part is largely descriptive with Guthrie giving a fair and balanced analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each position. Part II is Guthrie's positive contribution toward transcending the division “Beyond Orthodoxy, Liberalism, and Pietism.” He suggests as a key to getting © Grand Valley State University   �Guthrie, Diversity in Faith-Unity in Christ, Reviewed by Richard A. Rhem Page  2   beyond the three conflicting positions, the concept of “witness.” A Christian, he contends, is first and last simply a witness to Jesus Christ and to begin there, he claims, will enable one to avoid the weaknesses and combine the strengths of the three positions described in the first part of the book. The last three chapters discuss what it means to witness to Jesus Christ, to the suffering love of God, and to the liberating power of God. Guthrie's discussion is helpful and convincing. This book would make a fine text for an adult education class in which there was a serious purpose to deepen one’s own understanding of the faith and commitment to Christian service, while broadening one’s perspective on the essential unity of the faith that comes to expression with varying accents and nuances. A more gracious spirit within the Church and a more effective witness without would result from a study of this text. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19870401 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-04-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Diversity in Faith - Unity in Christ Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Book Review created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 1, 1987 entitled "Diversity in Faith - Unity in Christ", on the book Diversity in Faith - Unity in Christ, written by Shirley C. Guthrie, it appeared in Perspectives, November 1987, p. 15. Tags: Diversity, Community of Faith. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Community of Faith Diversity https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9b2ceae1278f1251b86aea98cafa86b8.pdf d8ca92c9fc2a81a6f8c39414ac14413d PDF Text Text An Accident of the Incarnation Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought February 1987, pp. 4-6 The maleness of the human person in whom God was incarnate was an accident of the incarnation. That is the thesis of this essay, which contends that in another epoch of human history, in another cultural context, the incarnation of the Word might have found expression in feminine form. Accident is used here in its technical meaning in philosophical discourse, in logic, as “something contingent, not necessary, non-essential, or that might not have been,” not in its more popular meaning of “anything that happens, an event, especially an unforeseen contingency, a disaster something to do with chance or fortune. Accident as used here means specifically “a non-essential accompaniment.” Thus the contention is not that the maleness of the incarnation of the Word in its concrete historical manifestation in Jesus of Nazareth was a matter contingent, a chance occurrence apart from the predetermined will of God; on the contrary, given the time in which God took time for us, maleness was the historical garb chosen to accomplish the purpose of revelation. However, the gender of the incarnation was determined by the historical context of its manifestation; it was not determined by its purpose, namely, the revelation of God in human form. The same contention can be made from the opposite side using another technical philosophical term: the essence of the incarnation was the revelation of God in human form. The essential matter which came to expression was the humanity of the Word. To accomplish the essence of God’s purpose, to be revealed in human form, it was necessary to select a gender, male or female. But the selection of gender was determined by the time of the incarnation, not the essential purpose of the incarnation. The essence of the incarnation was God in human form; the accident of the incarnation was God in a human form of male gender. © Grand Valley State University   �An Accident of the Incarnation Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Given the patriarchial society of the world into which Jesus came, the purpose of the incarnation was best accomplished by the utilization of a human person of male gender. But the essential element of Jesus in whose face we have been shown “the light of revelation - the revelation of the glory of God ...” was his humanity, not his male gender. In The Preparation of the World for Christ, a history of the world into which Jesus was born, David R. Breed describes the historical circumstances which prevailed at the time of Jesus’ birth and points to the providential preparation of the large tapestry of history which made the time of incarnation “the fullness of time” - a time in which the revelation of God in human form took root and flourished and gained the ascendency over the great power of imperial Rome. It was one world united under the pax Romana, pervaded by Hellenistic culture, drawn together by the Greek language; a world empty of soul, hungering for a true word. Breed makes an interesting case for the preparation of the moment chosen for the supreme revelation of God in our time and space. It was indeed a Kairos time, a most opportune moment for God manifest in the flesh. However, recognizing a providential purpose operative in the course of human history preparing the world for the incarnation of the Word must not be extended to include the patriarchial character of Jewish society at that moment as essential to God’s purpose to reveal himself in human form. If that were the case, then the argument being made here would fall; then, indeed, not simply revelation in our humanity, but revelation in humanity of male gender would be essential and the superiority of male gender as reflective of God would be established. It is that that I am denying by asserting that the maleness of the incarnation of the Word was an accident, not an essential mark of the incarnation. Otherwise, we would be saying something about God which would distort the biblical image. Were male gender the essence of the incarnation, maleness would necessarily be ascribed to God. But such ascription would run contrary to the biblical understanding of God in spite of the fact that God is referred to as Father. Such reference is found in the Old Testament as well as in Jesus’ usage. It is also found in other religions of the ancient world. But the use of Father in reference of God is not a statement about gender. In the later of the two Creation accounts (Genesis 1:1-2:4), we read, So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male, and female, he created them. (11:27) Without getting into the complexities of the biblical idea of the image of God, it is obvious that in whatever that image consists, it embraces both maleness and femaleness. Maleness and femaleness reflect something of © Grand Valley State University �An Accident of the Incarnation Richard A. Rhem Page 3   God who must incorporate both within the Divine Being. Thus, God transcends our human sexual differentiation. It is interesting to note that even our human sexual differentiation is not an absolute differentiation; maleness and femaleness are the opposite poles of the human sexual spectrum. The individual finds a place not at one pole or the other, but somewhere on the continuum that connects the poles. In this, the human person would appear to be a reflection of the image of God who incorporates both male and female qualities and transcends sexual differentiation. Why, then, is God called Father in the Bible? As indicated above, the concreteness of the incarnation demanded a particular time, place, people, gender and person; the “scandal of particularity” comes to expression in our claim that the infinite and eternal God is revealed in the face of Jesus of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem during the reign of Caesar Augustus. An aspect of that concreteness was the patriarchal society and thus the use of Father. The “Father” image is so deeply ingrained that one wonders if it could ever be replaced by another image. It has been called in question, however. Hans Küng has raised the question about the appropriateness of the name Father. He asserts that such usage is problematic in the age of women’s emancipation. He asks, Should we without more ado apply to God a name implying sexual differentiation? Is God a man, masculine, virile? Are we not making God in the image of man, to be more exact of a male human being? (On Being a Christian, p. 310) He points out that the designation of God as Father is not determined solely by Yahweh’s uniqueness, but appears to be also sociologically conditioned, bearing the imprint of the male-oriented society. (Ibid.) But in the Old Testament, God is not “forthrightly male,” but has also feminine, maternal features. Today, however, we must be clear about this. He contends, The designation “Father” will be misunderstood unless it is regarded, not in contrast to “Mother,” but symbolically (analogously): “Father” as patriarchal symbol - also with matriarchal features - of a transhuman, transsexual ultimate reality. Today less than ever may the one God be seen merely within a masculine-paternal framework, as an all-too-masculine theology used to present him. The feminine-maternal element in him must © Grand Valley State University �An Accident of the Incarnation Richard A. Rhem Page 4   also be recognized. To address God as Father can then no longer be used as the religious justification of a social paternalism at the expense of woman or in particular for the permanent suppression of the feminine element in the Church (or ministry). (Ibid.) The God revealed in the human form of Jesus is a God of redeeming love, not a God who is in fact the projection of instilled fears, of human domination, lust for power, arrogance and vindictiveness. This Father-God is not a theocratic God who might serve as an excuse - if only indirectly - for the representatives of totalitarian systems, whether piousecclesiastical, or impious-atheistic, who attempt to take his place and exercise his sovereign rights. These men become holy or unholy gods of orthodox teaching and absolute discipline, of law and order, of dictatorship and planning, regardless of the claims of other human beings. (p. 312) Is there an image for God that might better reflect the divine-human relationship, avoiding the possible misunderstanding and exploitation of the father image? Alternating the pronouns referring to God, she and he, is being done by some; also the use of “father-mother” finds occasional expression. Our biblical understanding of God certainly justifies such usage even though it may not find easy acceptance. “Parent” is a possibility, although not carrying the emotional weight of father or mother. Anne E. Carr of the Divinity School in Chicago suggests that some would move away from the parental images ... which can inculcate a relation of childish rather than adult religious dependence. That is to say, while parental images express compassion, acceptance, guidance, and discipline, they do not express the mutuality, maturity, cooperation, responsibility, and reciprocity demanded by personal and political experience today. Carr refers to Sallie McFague who shows how the father image has expanded into patriarchalism as a “metaphysical worldview,” a “mindset” that becomes a “whole way of ordering reality.” McFague argues that this dominant father image must be countered with many images; no one image will suffice. She points out that we image God according to that which is most important to us humanly and suggests “friend” as perhaps the most appropriate image. Carr affirms this image, claiming that © Grand Valley State University �An Accident of the Incarnation Richard A. Rhem Page 5   The metaphor of God as friend corresponds to the feminist ideal of “communal personhood,” a relationship among persons, groups, and lifestyles that is non-competitive, mutually enhancing, and desperately needed in our world. Jurgen Moltmann supports the appropriateness of the friend image. He writes, The friend of God does not live any longer “under God” but with and in God. One finds this demonstrated in the life and death of Jesus who reveals a God who suffers for us and invites us into a fellowship of suffering for others. I have argued that the maleness of the Word of God was the accident of the incarnation, its essence being the revelation of God in human form. This is confirmed by Karl Barth who prefaces paragraph 15 of Church Dogmatics I, 2, “The Mystery of Revelation” this way: The mystery of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ consists in the fact that the eternal Word of God chose, sanctified and assumed human nature and existence into oneness with Himself ... (p. 122) In section 3, the splendid discussion of the virgin birth entitled “The Miracle of Christmas,” Barth speaks of the human involvement in the birth of the Word being ... only in the form of non-willing, non-achieving, non-creative, non-sovereign man, only in the form of man who can merely receive, merely be ready, merely let something be done to and with himself. (p. 191) He is in no way denying that the woman has her share in the determination of man. Only a foolish ideology of manhood or an equally foolish ideology of womanhood can deny her her share in this determination of man. (p. 193) But Barth argues there can be no talk of an equality of the two sexes in this respect. God alone knows whether the history of humanity, nations and states, art, science, economics, has in fact been and is so predominantly the history of males, the story of all the deeds and works of males, as it appears to be, or whether, for all that, the © Grand Valley State University �An Accident of the Incarnation Richard A. Rhem Page 6   hidden factor of female co-operation and participation has not, in fact, always turned the scale in a way of which chronicles, acts and monuments give us no information, because it involves an element which is deeply concealed both psychologically and sociologically, although it was not and did not need to be less potent for that reason. Be that as it may, if there had been a matriarchate instead of a patriarchate ... nevertheless it is - well, “significant,” that the historical consciousness of all nations, states and civilizations begins with the patriarchate. Male action is significant for the world history and characteristic of the world history with which we are acquainted, as it has been and actually is for us, even if it is not so in itself. (p. 193) Therefore, Barth contends it is precisely the male participation that had to be set aside. What takes place in the mystery of Christmas is not world history and it is not the work of human genius. His eternal generation of this eternal Son excludes a human generation, because a human father and human generation, the whole action of man the male, can have no meaning here. Therefore it is the very absence of masculine action that is significant here. (p. 194) Of interest in this discussion is not Barth’s argument for the virgin birth as a sign of the one who was fully in our history but did not arise from our history; rather, it is his contention that the virgin birth signified the setting aside of precisely the male domination of which history is full. The sign is a judgment on the willing, achieving, creative, sovereign action of the male. If one grants Barth’s contention that the sign of the virgin is a judgment on male domination, then it would confirm the argument pursued above that maleness was not essential to but accidental to the incarnation of the Word. To read back into the God of revelation sexual differentiation, specifically maleness, is to distort the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. And on the basis of such a distortion, to justify male domination of the Church and its ministry is totally without warrant. Carr cites the ethicist Daniel Maguire, who argues, Sexism is the elementary human sin. If the essential human molecule is dyadic, male/female, the perversion of one part of the dyad perverts the other. And, to distort femininity and masculinity, the constitutive ingredients of humanity, is to distort humanity itself. Maguire welcomes feminine participation in theological discussion which will bring a new wholeness to the public conversation in the Church. The © Grand Valley State University �An Accident of the Incarnation Richard A. Rhem Page 7   incorporation of affect, mysticism and concrete experience into theological and ethical discussion and the denial of the almighty, macho-masculine God whose exclusionary symbolism is utterly arbitrary will move us toward wholeness without distortion. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19870202 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-02-02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource An Accident of the Incarnation Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on February 2, 1987 entitled "An Accident of the Incarnation", it appeared in Perspectives, February 1987, pp. 4-6. Tags: Incarnation, Creation. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creation Incarnation https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b8a909cba54403e49ab4d428189c33ea.pdf cd619248d14037223dca58b02bbc86d4 PDF Text Text Praying To An Absent God Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in The Church Herald The Magazine of the Reformed Church in America January 1987, pp. 9-11 It is painful to pray to an absent God; most of us have felt that pain at some time in our lives. One feels alone, cut off; no answer comes and no light penetrates the thick darkness; it is the winter of the soul and one fears the killing snows will never pass. The Psalms are replete with expressions of lament and plea, of complaint and pathetic cry. They are expressions of deep human feeling and experience, the anguish of the soul and longing of the heart. Jesus found articulation of the desolation and horror, of the aloneness, the forsakenness that he experienced in crucifixion by reciting a Psalm. His piercing cry of excruciating pain, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” comes from Psalm 22. It has been understood as the expression of ultimate aloneness and dereliction, and it is that. Yet, those chilling words are not the whole Psalm. To be sure, there are few more poignant expressions of pain anywhere than Psalm 22. However, some biblical expositors suggest that what has come to us as a word from the cross was part of a recitation of the Psalm by Jesus. In the depths of anguish, he reached for the Psalmist’s expression by which to give utterance to what he was experiencing, but he most likely recited the Psalm to its end and it ends in an expression of trust. Light has broken through, the darkness is scattered, praise returns to the Psalmist’s heart. Thus, the recitation was perhaps the consummate act of trust by Jesus. That is the way it is in the rich and varied outpouring of spiritual life that we find in the Psalms. Lament, plea, complaint, even angry challenge to God are common, but before the Psalm is concluded, some resolution has been experienced, a sense of being heard and helped is declared and praise ensues. That is the way it is in all cases save one; Psalm 88 is a cry in the darkness and the Psalm ends with thick darkness still enveloping the Psalmist’s soul. There is no lightening of the burden, no assuaging of the pain, no sense of being heard, no © Grand Valley State University   �Praying To An Absent God Richard A. Rhem Page 2   promise of healing. Psalm 88 is a bitter cry to an absent God and the soul finds no relief. O Lord, my God, by day I call for help, by night I cry aloud in Thy presence. But no help is found; I ... have become like a man beyond help, like a man who lies dead... Still the Psalmist persists; I have called upon thee, 0 Lord, every day and spread out my hands in prayer to thee. … But, Lord, I cry to thee, my prayer comes before thee in the morning. Why hast thou cast me off, 0 Lord, why dost thou hide thy face from me? The Psalm ends with these pathetic words; Thou hast taken lover and friend far from me, and parted me from my companions. The mystery of suffering prevails; no shaft of light breaks the grip of darkness. Thunderous silence is heaven’s mute reply; prayer is raised to no avail, for God is absent. Leaf through the Psalter; see if Psalm 88 is not unique in that no final resolution is found, no word of hope offered, no sense of grace expressed. It stands alone; still it has found a place in Israel’s hymnbook. It is not familiar; it would not be on anyone’s “best-loved” list. Yet, within the rich variety of spiritual expression in the Psalms, its voice is heard. Then perhaps we should “hear” it. There is a temptation to limit our devotional reading to a few selected favorites. And there are so many inspiring, uplifting passages of Scripture, why pause to consider this painful cry? One would seldom find this text listed for Sunday morning’s message; its positive possibilities are severely limited. Who wants to come to church to hear of the agony of praying to an absent God? Perhaps we should simply cut this Psalm out of the collection; in fact, by our selective usage, that is precisely what we have done. Why stop to consider Psalm 88, then? Because life is like that even though it is threatening to our traditional piety to admit it, even though the fact is rarely mentioned in church. But life for many is like that; for some all the time, and for all, some of the time. The experience of praying to an absent God is a not uncommon experience even though we do not speak much of it. Honesty demands that we acknowledge that © Grand Valley State University �Praying To An Absent God Richard A. Rhem Page 3   even for the child of God there are periods of pain that know no relief, times of deep darkness when no ray of light brings comfort. In The Message of the Psalms, Walter Brueggemann speaks of Psalm 88 as leaving us “lingering in the unresolve, dangling in the depth of the pit without any explicit sign of rescue.” He goes on to assert, That is an important statement to have in the repertoire, precisely because life is like that. Faith does not always resolve life. There is not for every personal crisis of disorientation a way out, if only we can press the right button. Too much pastoral action is inclined and tempted to resolve things, no matter how the situation really is. Faith is treated like the great answer book. (p. 78) Sometimes when the way is hard and bitter and God seems deaf to our urgent appeal, we are made to feel that the problem must be with us - our sin and guilt, our feeble faith or faint devotion. It must be me; no aspersion must be cast on God. Clichés trip lightly over the tongues of the untroubled, assured in their safe tranquility that if there is a communication blackout, the problem lies not on the side of deity. Thereby we often add to the sufferer’s burden of alienation a load of guilt, undercutting perhaps the last vestige of self-confidence and self-worth. Not so Psalm 88 and that is why it is so important that it has found place in the Psalter. Brueggemann writes, Psalm 88 is adamant in its insistence, and it is harsh on Yahweh’s unresponsiveness. The truth of this Psalm is that Israel lives in a world where there is no answer. We are not offered any speculative answer... The Psalm is not interested in any theological reason Yahweh may have. The Psalm is from Israel’s side. It engages in no speculation. It asks no theological question. It simply reports on how it is to be a partner of Yahweh in Yahweh’s inexplicable absence. (p. 78F) We have not done well with inexplicable absence, with unanswered questions, with a silent God. To that extent we have not always been honest with human experience or honest with God and we have not joined in solidarity with the pain of the wounded ones. We are nervous before the mystery of suffering. We want to be in control, to manage the situation, to bring a cure; but sometimes we can only be present to the pain and wait in silence. In his meditation, Out of Solitude, Henri Nouwen writes of the ministry of Jesus. He points out, © Grand Valley State University �Praying To An Absent God Richard A. Rhem Page 4   What we see, and like to see, is cure and change. But what we do not see and do not want to see is care, the participation in the pain, the solidarity in suffering, the sharing in the experience of brokenness. And still, cure without care is as dehumanizing as a gift given with a cold heart. (p. 31F) The persons who mean the most to us, Nouwen contends, are the ones who can be silent with us in moments of despair, who will stay with us in an hour of grief, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness. (p. 34) That, insists Nouwen, is the person who cares. But our tendency is to run from painful realities, to try to change them. We are more comfortable as rulers, controllers, manipulators, but sometimes the human circumstance will not yield to the “quick fix.” Such “cure” without care is violent and insensitive; it leaves the suffering one even more alone in her pain. Nouwen condemns the preachers who reduce mysteries to problems and offer Band-Aid-type solutions. It is only out of compassionate solidarity with the one suffering that healing comes forth. Those who do not run away from our pains but touch them with compassion bring healing and new strength. The paradox indeed is that the beginning of healing is in the solidarity with the pain. (Reaching Out, p. 43) When there are no answers, when pain will not be alleviated, it just may be that the only comfort would be the comfort of such a word as Psalm 88 that acknowledges the pain that knows no healing. According to Brueggemann, ... The speaker is shunned and in darkness. The last word in the Psalm is darkness. The last word is darkness. The last theological word is darkness. Nothing works. Nothing is changed. Nothing is resolved. All things deny life. And worst of all is the “shunning.” (p. 80) Brueggemann raises the obvious question, “So, what is one to do about it?” The answer he gives is, “Wait.” That, he says, is what Israel has been doing for a long time. Wait or speak it again; keep on crying out. One has two options: either to wait in silence, or to speak it again. What one may not do is to rush to an easier Psalm, or to give up on Yahweh. (p. 80) Why does this Psalm appear in the Bible? As stated above, life is like that and the Bible addresses life - all of life, not just the pleasant parts. But beyond that, this is not a psalm of mute depression. It is still speech, speech addressed to God. © Grand Valley State University �Praying To An Absent God Richard A. Rhem Page 5   In the bottom of the Pit, Israel still knows it has to do with Yahweh. (p. 80) Sometimes God’s presence is most poignant precisely in the absence. Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why are you absent?” and paradoxically, that is the time and place of God’s nearness, of the ultimate expression of his love. When there is no answer, when one wearies of speech, then it is that one can only wait; but that word found frequently in the Psalms is not simply passive resignation, but rather “hoping intensely.” Sometimes one can only hope intensely in the darkness, conscious of a presence in the absence. Psalm 88 is not scripture’s only word, nor is it the last word. But in some situations of human suffering it may be the only word that can evoke any resonance in the anguished soul. We must have enough trust in the good and gracious God to let that word come to expression, to stay with it and let it be the present word of the God who is currently known only as absence. To wait in such a time of not-knowing and non-healing is the most helpful support that the sufferer can receive and the most caring ministry another can offer. Within history there is not always resolution; beyond history there is resurrection. Thanks be to God! References: Walter Brueggemann. The Message of the Psalms. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984. Henri Nouwen. Out of Solitude. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1974. Henri Nouwen. Reaching Out. Garden City: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1975. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms, 1984, Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude, 1974, Reaching Out, 1975 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19870116 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-01-16 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Praying to an Absent God Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Church School Herald Journal Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 16, 1987 entitled "Praying to an Absent God", it appeared in The Church Herald, pp. 9-11. Tags: Suffering, Prayer, Trust. Scripture references: Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms, 1984, Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude, 1974, Reaching Out, 1975. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Prayer Suffering Trust https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b56bb743eeb61d9017935a4878af8e18.pdf f2bfaaa9858c2328042028b9e4c47f25 PDF Text Text   Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith By Hendrikus Berkhof (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., revised edition, 1987) 1987 Book Review by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Publication of Review Unknown With the appearance of this revised edition of Hendrikus Berkhof’s Christian Faith, we are given not only a serious and thorough articulation of the faith from a Reformed perspective in light of the contemporary world, but we also have a model of how the systematic theologian must continue to be in dialogue with the ongoing developments in the historical arena so that new questions that are raised may elicit new understanding of the faith and the faith may bring new understanding to the present horizon. First published in Dutch in 1973, the work has proved highly popular, with a fifth Dutch edition published in 1985. At that time a significant revision was made. The original English translation based on the fourth Dutch edition appeared in 1979 and is now replaced by the revised edition based on the fifth Dutch edition. In a “Preface to the Revised Edition,” Berkhof tells us how he came to write a systematic theology in the first place. In May of 1969, amid the student revolutions that were common throughout the Western world, Berkhof - always a sensitive listener -heard the cry for greater freedom, equality and brotherhood in society. His response - intuitive at the time - was to determine to write a systematic theology. In retrospect he realizes that his response arose out of his deeply held conviction that what was being demanded in the student revolts could be gained only by going back “to what is firm and unchangeable, to God who makes history with his covenant and wants to involve our history in his covenant.” Thus he wrote this introduction to the study of the faith “against the backdrop of secularization and polarization.” Berkhof’s treatment of the faith lives and breathes because it arises out of a masterly grasp of the biblical material, the history of the interpretation of the faith, and a passionate engagement with life. An encyclopedic knowledge of the subject matter is obvious; one is confident the most difficult questions have been engaged, questions raised by the explosion of knowledge in the modern world; various options are sympathetically offered demonstrating the genuine openness of the author to a variety of voices and then, simply and straightforwardly, the author’s own position is stated. © Grand Valley State University   �Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, Book Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 2   This is theology written for the serious inquirer. Aimed in the large print sections at a broad audience willing to think seriously about the faith, Berkhof adds small print sections for more detailed and technical treatment of the subjects under discussion with bibliographical references for further study. This is theology written for the person who would both understand the faith from a Reformed perspective but within a larger ecumenical context in light of modern knowledge and be able to interpret the faith in the contemporary situation. Berkhof digs deeply into the biblical tradition in order to transmit that tradition in new translation. He summarizes his motives in writing, ... as concern for a world which is losing its cohesive power, which is pluralistically and permissively falling apart, and which is losing its sense of meaning, purpose and direction. That is a serious diagnosis. Yet, Berkhof maintains, and those who know him well confirm, that he is no “prophet of doom.” If it is true that God watches over his world, the counterforces are also bound to be there. We see these forces in a widespread quest for the meaning of life. Precisely in our culture this is a question which consciously or unconsciously occupies the minds of many. This is hopeful theology; the author is unequivocally committed to the biblical faith, sensitively aware of his own context and the broader world scene and confident in the redemptive purposes of the God of the covenant. Sensitivity to contextuality marks this revision. Berkhof notes that, about the time the first Dutch edition appeared in 1973, “contextuality” came into vogue. Berkhof recognizes the importance of being aware of one’s own context, but insists each context has its own questions and every context is a proper place to do theology - not only, for example, a context characterized by poverty or oppression. He calls for “a mutual awareness of the limiting significance of our stances” and the necessity of going “beyond the boundaries this imposes upon us ... striving for greater universality and catholicity.” Berkhof welcomed the opportunity for major revision because “dogmatics does not stand still.” But, he maintains, That is not the same as “making progress.” But it does mean that new angles regularly present themselves beside the earlier ones, or even dislodge them. In his preface to the new edition, Berkhof indicates the areas of major revision which is very helpful in tracing his own ongoing understanding and interpretation of the faith and the moving context of our times. © Grand Valley State University �Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, Book Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 3   One new paragraph is added: “Revelation and Experience,” paragraph 10. Here he deals with the concern with the experience which precedes the revelational encounter and leads up to it. The last two decades have seen a return to concern with such experience after the sharp reaction against any such consideration in the wake of Karl Barth. In typically balanced fashion, Berkhof presents the subject under three perspectives: a. Revelation is directed to people in the world of their concrete experiences. b. This approach always both determines and delimits at the same time. c. Experience itself can never bridge the gap between the person and revelation. The contemporary Christological discussion is given lucid and concise treatment in the small print section on pages 291-297. Within the compass of these pages one is brought up to date on where the discussion has come with pages 294-297 rewritten for the revision. Berkhof suggests that the new nuances of the revision will further be sensed by reference to the subject index, to such subjects as Auschwitz, liberation theology, experience, feminist theology and Pneuma-Christology. For all the value of the work of revision, the great contribution of Christian Faith remains its contemporary statement of the meaning of the faith. For readers not yet familiar with Berkhof’s work, we must point to the remarkable discussion of the attributes of God under the headings “Holy Love,” “The Defenseless Superior Power,” and “The Changeable Faithfulness.” The headings themselves should be enough to demand examination and the examination will not disappoint. Another great strength of this work is its focus on the history of the covenant. The history of Israel is taken seriously and the Old Testament is allowed to speak for itself before it is understood from the perspective of Jesus Christ. In contrast to the all too typical dogmatic treatment where, as in the Apostles’ Creed, the exposition jumps from the Creator to Christ with a treatment of the fact of sin interspersed, giving the impression that Jesus drops out of heaven, Berkhof follows the redemptive drama historically. There are ... not only vertical incursions from eternity, but there is also a horizontal course of God with us through time. Therefore following his treatment of “Revelation” and “God,” Berkhof discussed “Creation,” “Israel,” “Jesus the Son,” and “The New Community.” The latter discussion of the Church is creative and innovative, challenging the static descriptions of the older dogmatics. In the paragraph on “The Church as Institute,” for example, Berkhof departs from the usual institutionalized means of © Grand Valley State University �Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, Book Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 4   transmitting the grace of God - the marks of the Church. He suggests rather nine elements: instruction, baptism, sermon, discussion, Lord’s Supper, diaconate, worship service, office and church order. His final paragraph on the Church moves the focus outward, the orientation to the world, as he discusses “The People of God as the Firstfruits.” The final three sections treat “The Renewal of Man,” “The Renewal of the World,” and “All Things New,” handling aspects of the faith that especially address the question of meaning which Berkhof senses as at the heart of the Western context. Christian Faith is theology at its best: biblically rooted, aware of the transmission of the tradition, written in dialogue with the ultimate concern of the present context. It is up to date but not trendy; it is sensitive to the spirit of the age, but transcending that spirit. It is written out of faith for faith. It is the best available textbook for students of theology. Preachers will find it “preaches” well and congregations who receive it via the sermon will be stimulated, challenged and inspired. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith, 1987 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19870101 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-01-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Book Review created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 1, 1987 entitled "Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith", on the book Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith, written by Hendrikus Berkhof, it appeared in Pespectives, January, 1988, pp. 14-15. Tags: Meaning, Scriptures, Faith, Theology. Scripture references: Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith, 1987. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Faith Meaning Scriptures Theology https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c1f6246e5641efc935677d34dc98c262.pdf b36fcca1b2b21c674c86307eb53569c9 PDF Text Text Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought May 1986, pp. 9-11 Karl Barth is the Twentieth Century's towering theological figure. His name calls to mind the massive Church Dogmatics, theological movements from the early dialectical theology to the later theology of the Word. We think of the great European universities, Gottingen, Bonn and Basle, where he taught. Yet, Karl Barth was at heart a preacher of the Word and the great theological renewal of which he was the primary catalyst and which reversed the tide of Nineteenth Century Liberalism had its roots in the local parish, in the pulpit, in the demanding task of preaching. Not while he was a Professor of Theology but while he was a village pastor in Safenwil in his native Switzerland did he ignite the fire that would sweep the continent and dominate the theological discussion of the West for decades to come. Indeed, when he had become a professor and published his first volume of dogmatics under the title Christian Dogmatics, he changed the title and began anew under the title Church Dogmatics, a significant sign of his recognition that theological reflection arises out of the Church and must be in the service of the proclamation of the Church. An early collection of addresses, The Word of God and the Word of Man, gives eloquent testimony to the fact that it was the setting of worship of the local congregation and the desperate need of the preacher for a word to speak that sent Karl Barth to Paul's letter to the Romans to wrestle anew with the Christian message. In 1922 Barth was invited to address a ministers’ meeting to give an introduction into an understanding of his theology. He was embarrassed to hear of his theology being spoken of so seriously. He said, ... I must frankly confess to you that what I might conceivably call "my theology" becomes, when I look at it closely, a single point, and that not, as one might demand, as the least qualification of a true theology, a © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 2 standpoint, but rather a mathematical point upon which one cannot stand - a viewpoint merely.”1 Barth claimed to have not yet even gotten to theology proper even though his commentary on Romans had sent shock waves through the theological world. He denied that he or his friends had any desire or intention of starting a new school of theology. Yet if a new movement was in formation, Barth insisted, ... that it did not come into being as a result of any desire of ours to form a school or to devise a system; it arose simply out of what we felt to be the "need and promises of Christian Preaching... " 2 Then Barth shared his own spiritual pilgrimage as a pastor. He had received the finest of European University training in theology. Yet he writes, ... Once in the ministry, I found myself growing away from these theological habits of thought and being forced back at every point more and more upon the specific minister's problem, the sermon. I sought to find my way between the problem of human life, on the one hand, and the content of the Bible on the other. As a minister I wanted to speak to the people in the infinite contradiction of their life, but to speak the no less infinite message of the Bible, which was as much of a riddle as life. Continuing in this autobiographical vein, Barth said, ... But it simply came about that the familiar situation of the minister on Saturday at his desk and on Sunday in his pulpit crystallized in my case into a marginal note to all theology, which finally assumed the voluminous form of a complete commentary upon the Epistle to the Romans. 4 The reception of that volume amazed him. As an obscure village pastor it was difficult to get the work published at all. A small firm in Bern risked the venture, publishing 1,000 copies of Der Romerbrief in 1919. So, contrary to the current climate of opinion, it was received with dismay in his own country, but the shattering experience of the World War in Germany caused its strange message to find resonance. In retrospect, Barth wrote of the stir he caused, As I look back upon my course, I seem to myself as one who, ascending the dark staircase of a church tower and trying to steady himself, reached for the bannister, but got hold of the bell rope instead. To his horror, he had then to listen to what the great bell had sounded over him and not over him alone. 5 But that was looking back. As he spoke to the pastor's conference in 1922, he was still in the early phase of his theological development in which ten years of pastoral ministry had engaged him. Barth declared that the critical situation created by the necessity of having to preach became to him an explanation of the character of all theology. He raises the question as to whether it would not be for © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 3 theology's good if it attempted to be nothing more than this knowledge of the quest and questioning of the Christian preacher, full of need and full of promise. ... Must not everything else result from this knowledge? 6 Stating simply where he was coming from, Barth said, ... I do not really come to you armed with a new and astonishing theology, but I want to make my place among you with a theology ... which consists simply in an understanding of and sympathy for the situation which every minister faces. ... If then I have not only a viewpoint, but something also of a standpoint, it is simply the familiar standpoint of the man in the pulpit. Before him lies the Bible, full of mystery; and before him are seated his more or less numerous hearers, also full of mystery....What now? asks the minister. If I could succeed in bringing acutely to your minds the whole content of that, "What now?," I should have won you not only to my standpoint, which indeed you occupy already, but also to my viewpoint, no matter what you might think of my theology. 7 The whole gigantic enterprise of Barth's long and fruitful career was the outworking of the standpoint of the pulpit. It is in the act of preaching that the Word of God encounters people where they live, where the Word engages the world. If the engagement is to prove fruitful, then the preacher must know both the Word and the world. In Barth's colorful expression, the preacher must preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. Only then will the sermon "speak." Only then will the deeper longing of the people be met and the unspoken question of their lives be addressed. THE PRESENT HORIZON TO WHICH THE WORD IS SPOKEN It is in the congregation that the two constants of theological formulation come together: the message and the present horizon which is represented in the lives of the people. That present horizon must be understood by the preacher. It provides the approach, the access to the questions of the people. Barth speaks of the strange situation of Sunday morning. The strange building with its strange appointments, its ancient traditions, singing, praying to God! And then - "here is daring" he says, the preaching. Pervading the whole strange Sunday morning episode is a sense of expectancy because everything seems to point to the conviction that God is present. Yet the people come with expectancy not only, but also with the haunting question, "Is it true?" ... And so they reach, not knowing what they do, toward the unprecedented possibility of praying, of reading the Bible, of speaking, hearing, and singing of God. So they come to us, entering into the whole grotesque situation of Sunday morning which is only the expression of this possibility raised to a high power. 8 "Is it true?" That is the question beneath the surface that animates the people as they come to church. They may or may not be consciously cognizant of their © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 4 question and certainly they will not let on the seriousness of their quest even if they recognize it. People naturally do not shout it out, and least of all into the ears of us ministers. But let us not be deceived by their silence. Blood and tears, deepest despairs and highest hope, a passionate longing to lay hold of that which, or rather of him who overcomes the world because he is its Creator and Redeemer, its beginning and ending and Lord, a passionate longing to have the word spoken, the word which promises grace in judgment, life in death, and the beyond in the here and now, God's word... They expect us to understand them better than they understand themselves, and to take them more seriously than they take themselves. 9 It is with that profound sense of the longing of the people, of the deep question of their life that the preacher must approach the pulpit. The serious meaning of the situation in our churches is that the people want to hear the word, that is, the answer to the question by which, whether they know it or not, they are actually animated, Is it true? The situation on Sunday morning is related in the most literal sense to the end of history; it is eschatological, even from the viewpoint of the people, quite apart from the Bible. That is to say, when this situation arises, history, further history, is done with, and the ultimate desire of man, the desire for an ultimate event, now becomes authoritative. 10 Then Barth continues with words that must burn in the consciousness of every person on whom the call to preach is laid: ... If we do not understand this ultimate desire, if we do not take the people seriously (I repeat it, more seriously than they take themselves!) at the point of their life perplexity, we need not wonder if a majority of them, without becoming enemies of the Church, gradually learn to leave the Church to itself and us to the kind-hearted and timid. 11 Thus Karl Barth well understood that sensitivity to people, to their concrete existence lived out in the real world provides the present horizon which must be addressed - addressed not with a word of speculative philosophy or human cleverness of whatever sort but addressed by the Word of God. THE WORD Before the preacher on Sunday morning is the open Bible, the second pole, the other side of the equation. If it is imperative that the preacher have a great sensitivity to his people, it is equally necessary to grasp the message of the Word of God in order that that message may be translated into the idiom of the contemporary world. The Word of God must sound forth again. The preacher's task is to communicate the Everlasting Gospel so that the message comes through. That message is in the Bible but the message will be released only when that which occurred in concrete history and thus received a concrete shape and © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 5 sound is translated into the shape and sound that will "say" the same thing in a new historical situation. Barth had a profound confidence in the Word of God. The movement that he effected has been labeled the theology of the Word. With the open Bible before him, the preacher becomes the servant of the Word. We can never abandon the Bible ... because it has a somewhat uncanny way of bringing into the church situation its own new and tense and mighty (mightier!) expectancy. If the congregation brings to the Church the great question of human life and seeks an answer for it, the Bible contrariwise brings an answer, and seeks the question corresponding to this answer: it seeks questioning people who are eager to find and able to understand that its seeking of them is the very answer to their question. The thoughts of the Bible touch just those points where the negative factors in life preponderate, casting doubt over life's possibilities - the very points, that is, where on the human side we have the question arising, Is it true? ... where that last perplexed craving has seized him and leads him, let us say, to church. 12 And what happens when the perplexed person full of longing makes his way to church and is encountered by the Word? Barth answers: The Bible responds without ado to the man who has awakened to a consciousness of his condition and to whom certainty has everywhere begun to waver; and its way of answering him is to ask with him, in its own way - think of the forty-second Psalm, think of Job - Is it true? Is it true that there is in all things a meaning, a goal, and a God?13 The Bible takes the question of our life which drives us to church and gives it depth; shows us that the question beneath all the questions of our life is a question about God. And further Barth declares, ... as the Bible takes these questions, translating them into the inescapable question about God, one simply cannot ask or hear the "question" without hearing the answer. The person who says that the Bible leads us to where finally we hear only a great NO or see a great void, proves only that he has not yet been led thither. This NO is really YES. This judgment is grace. This condemnation is forgiveness. This death is life. This hell is heaven. This fearful God is a loving Father Who takes the prodigal in his arms. The crucified is the one risen from the dead. And the explanation of the cross as such is eternal life ... The question is the answer.14 When the question of our life is understood to be the question of God, then the question has become the answer; then the reality of a great grace fills the yearning void and stills the restless fear. But we are not yet finished. Every Christian sermon finds rootage in the Bible, the Bible that has the uncanny power, as Barth says, to bring the answer to the question which animates the human quest. But something critical must happen © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 6 in the process by which the words of the text become the Word which is heard in the words of proclamation. THE WORD PROCLAIMED IN THE SERMON The Word of God - what is it? Essentially it is the message of His redemptive grace through which He effects His purposes of salvation. Where do we find it? We find it in the Bible. The Bible is not God's Word in some static sense whereby we can say between these leather covers we have God’s Word. God's Word is always active, living, dynamic because it is God speaking. But the Bible is God's Word in the sense that for us, God speaks through and by means of this word written. The written words of the Bible are the reverberations of the Word of God which is the message of God's redemptive grace; or could I use the word "residue?" - the written words of Scripture are the residue of the "happening Word," and the connection between the Word and the words is the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit of God that illumined the Prophet's mind and heart. The Truth exploded in the person of the Prophet - who spoke the Truth to God's people and wrote the message so that the message could be communicated further. That Word, which "happened" to the Prophet and was then put into words, now becomes the occasion for the Word to happen again. Every message from a Christian pulpit is tied to a written word. Every message is an attempt to set free the Word that is in the words. At times we read the Bible and, closing it, realize that we know nothing of what we have read. But at other times we read a verse or chapter and feel its truth penetrate to our soul. What is the difference? Same book. Perhaps the same words. But when the Word happens, the words become the vehicle of the Spirit Who looses its meaning on us; the Word happens again. Sermons are that way. In fact, Karl Barth distinguished the Word written and the Word proclaimed as two forms of the Word. Again, sometimes the message strikes no fire, sets no cord of the heart vibrating. Sometimes in a message the Word happens. Having distinguished two forms of the Word, Barth added a third - the Word made flesh - Jesus, the Word incarnate. We read in the opening verses of Isaiah 61 how the prophet connects the agency of the Spirit with "the word of proclamation. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the humble, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to those in prison; ... The passage goes on; it is a message of grace and redemption - a beautiful, hopeful message; it is God's Word proclaimed in words by the prophet anointed by the Spirit - that is, authorized and authenticated by the Spirit - by God. © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 7 The words are familiar because they are the words Jesus selected to use as his text when he returned to his home synagogue in Nazareth. (See Luke 4:18-19). That was a tremendous claim that Jesus made and the hometown folks did not receive it kindly. They drove him out of town. Jesus was claiming the Spirit of God as His authentication and authorization and he was saying - in me today in your presence the salvation of God is present. Jesus used the words of the Bible to point to himself as the incarnation of the Word of God - the one Truth, the message of redemption and freedom. The Word of God is the message of a redeeming grace and a saving purpose. It finds expression through the power of the Spirit of God: –when the Spirit created Jesus ("conceived by the Holy Spirit"); –when the Spirit enlivens the written words of the Bible so that the Word happens; –when the words of Scripture find expression in the proclaimed word of the sermon and the Spirit drives home the Word behind the sermon and the written word from which it arises. Such is the Word of God. Behind the word preached, behind the word written, behind the word made flesh, is God, the God of grace and salvation. That powerful conception of the Living Word of God we owe to Barth and that dynamic and promising view of preaching we owe to him, as well. It was the task of preaching that drove Karl Barth to the Bible and it was out of that encounter that the theological renewal of our century arose. It was in the service of the Church that proclaims Jesus Christ that Karl Barth labored fruitfully throughout his life. His great legacy to the Church is the recognition that all theological reflection must arise from and be directed to need and promise of preaching. To the end of his life he preached. He was a regular preacher at the Basle jail. Asked why he went there when he could command the great pulpits of the world, he replied that if he preached in a cathedral people would come to hear Karl Barth; at the Basle jail they came to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. On New Year's Eve, 1962, he preached at the jail on the text, "My grace is enough." In beautiful simplicity he declared: My grace - that is myself: I for you, I as your Saviour in your place - I who set you free from sin, guilt, misery and death, all of which I have taken on myself and so away from you - I who show you the father and open up the path to him - I who let you hear the great Yes which he has spoken to you too, to you personally, from all eternity ... That is my grace. And this grace of mine is enough. It is what you really and truly need, and what you, moreover, may and must have. You can hold on to it, you can live by it. You can also die with it. It is enough for you just now, it will also be enough for you to all eternity. © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 8 ... But say it to him! He hears it and is glad to hear it from you. He expects nothing more from you and from me than that we should say it to him as "the echo of what he says to us: "Yes, your grace is enough." Amen.15 ENDNOTES 1 Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man. (New York: Harper and Row, Harper Torchbook Edition, 1957), p. 97F. 2 Ibid., p. 100. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., p. 101 5 Karl Barth, Forward to Die Lehre vom Worte Gottes: Prolegomena zur Christlicken Dogmatik. (Munohen, Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1927). p. IX. 6 Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man., p. 102. 7 Ibid., p. 103F. 8 Ibid., p. 108. 9 Ibid., p. 108F. 10 Ibid., p. 110. 11 Ibid., p. 110F. 12 Ibid., p. 116. 13 Ibid., p. 117. 14 Ibid., p. 120. 15 Karl Barth, Call For God. "New York: Harper and Row, 1967), p. 83F. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Barth, Karl, The Word of God and the Word of Man. New York: Harper and Row, 1957. Barth, Karl, Forward to Die Lejhr vom Worte Gottes: Prolegomena zur Christlicken Dogmatik. Mundien, Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1927. Barth, Karl, Call For God. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Karl Barth. The Word of God and the Word of Man, 1957, Call For God, 1967, Forward to Die Lehr vom Worte Gottes: Prolegomena zur Christlicken Dogmatik, 1927. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19860501 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-05-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Preaching and Theological Renewal Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Book Review created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 1, 1986 entitled "Preaching and Theological Renewal", on the book Preaching and Theological Renewal, written by Karl Barth, it appeared in Perspectives, May, 1986, pp. 9-11. Tags: Preaching, Word of God, Theology, Meaning, Church, Grace. Scripture references: Karl Barth. The Word of God and the Word of Man, 1957, Call For God, 1967, Forward to Die Lehr vom Worte Gottes: Prolegomena zur Christlicken Dogmatik, 1927.. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Church Grace Meaning Preaching Theology Word of God https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/40dadfb171bd4075b2533a4b00a5f8c4.pdf f74cf4b03a952e00e205e19b06941d2d PDF Text Text The Cross and the Theology of Self-Esteem Book Review Self-Esteem: The New Reformation By Robert H. Schuller, (Word Books, 1983) Reviewed by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought March 1986, pp. 10-13 The way of Jesus in this world led to crucifixion. God raised him up. Thus we have a gospel to proclaim, but only Jesus stands beyond the cross; our history is lived out under the shadow of the cross; those who follow Jesus are called to costly discipleship. An authentic biblical theology must embrace the cross and bring to expression the dying to self and denial of self, symbolized in the cross of Jesus and the cross Jesus calls us to bear. Does the theology of self-esteem outlined by Robert H. Schuller in his book, SelfEsteem: The New Reformation, meet the above criterion? Is there place for the cross in a theology of Self-Esteem? Schuller sketched the appearance of Christian theology, viewed from the perspective of self-esteem, which he contends is the deepest need of the human person. The whole spectrum of biblical truth is seen in light of this need. The traditional content of Reformed theology, which is Schuller’s heritage, is not changed, but the perspective of fundamental human need as a starting point does put that traditional content in a new light. That new light changes dramatically the appropriate approach to people. This is not surprising since this is theological understanding which arises from the pulpit, from the heart of an evangelist, and the passion of an apologist for the faith. Schuller’s conviction that the deepest need of the human person is the need for self-esteem or a sense of self-worth is coupled with an equally critical conviction — the dignity of the human person. The content of the gospel addresses the © Grand Valley State University �Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 2 person’s deepest need; the approach to the person is determined by the infinite value of the human person created in the image of God. Robert Schuller has called for a daring and creative rethinking of biblical faith; indeed, for a new reformation. He has written a call to action, drawing a first, tentative outline of what a theology of self-esteem would look like. He invites the church to think with him and to go beyond him. He is convinced that it is possible to move beyond our Reformation theology, characterized by reaction, into a new age characterized by expanded mission. His own ministry of over thirty years has gained him a worldwide hearing. His credentials are established. Now he has moved beyond concrete demonstration into the area of theological reflection. He invites us to join him on the journey. To do so we must be certain that the gospel of Jesus Christ centered in the crucifixion and resurrection comes to full expression. Let us seek to discover from his own writing whether this is the case. The Human Person Central to Schuller’s understanding of both the content and approach of the gospel is the dignity of the human person. He claims: Historically, the Church does not have a commendable success record in its effort to purge sinful pride out of Christ’s followers without insulting, demeaning, and bringing dishonor to God’s beautiful children. The theological task to which Schuller calls the church is to discover a full-orbed theological system beginning with and based on a solid central core of religious truth—the dignity of man. And let us start with a theology of salvation that addresses itself at the outset to man’s deepest need, the “will to self worth.” He is insistent at this point: No theology of salvation, no theology of the Church, no theology of Christ, no theology of sin and repentance and regeneration and sanctification and discipleship, can be regarded as authentically Christian if it does not begin with and continue to keep its focus on the right of every person to be treated with honor, dignity, and respect. At the same time, any creed, any biblical interpretation, and any systematic theology that assaults and offends the self-esteem of persons is heretically failing to be truly Christian.... Such forceful affirmations raise questions about Schuller’s view of human nature and the human condition. Is he naive about the demonic potential of the human © Grand Valley State University �Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 3 person? Is he not aware of the record of human history written in blood, laced with violence? Is his a Pollyanna view of the human situation, a refusal to see the darkness? That is scarcely the case; he does, however, make a critical distinction between the nature of the human person and the actual human condition. Human nature is marked by wonder and dignity, a reflection of the image of God in which the person was created. The human condition is marked by a reactive behavior which is not reflective of human nature but by a denial of that nature. The rebellious actions of a person are reactions, not the expression of a person’s true nature: By nature we are fearful, not bad. Original sin is not a mean streak; it is a non-trusting inclination. Label it a “negative self-image,” but do not say that the central core of the human soul is wickedness. If this were so, then truly, the human being is totally depraved. But positive Christianity does not hold to human depravity, but to human inability. I am humanly unable to correct my negative self-image until I encounter a life-changing experience with nonjudgmental love bestowed upon me by a Person whom I admire so much that to be unconditionally accepted by him is to be born again. Schuller uses the illustration of the golf ball. The outside dimpled surface gives little hint of what is really inside. Rebellion is our surface appearance. Why the rebellion? At the center of the golf ball is a hard rubber core. Around that core is a maze of stretched rubber wrappings. The core represents a negative self-image or an intrinsic lack of trust or simply fear. The stretched rubber wrappings are the reactions of that fear-filled core—all the anxieties and fearful reactions of negative emotions which surface as the rebellious exterior—angry, mean, violent. To use Schuller’s analogy, emanating from the core of the person constituted of fear, feelings of inferiority, and doubt are all forms of demonic behavior—enough to create hell on earth, presenting to the world an angry face. What is wrong with humankind is the ego run amuck, an ego threatened, insecure, desperately trying to establish itself, prove itself, justify itself, make something of itself. The consequence is sin and misery. One can hardly accuse Schuller of naiveté in regard to the darkness of the human situation. He is not content, however, simply to explain it in terms of wicked human nature. He asks why the human person reacts as he does. He finds the biblical picture of human sinfulness corroborated and explained by insights from the behavioral sciences. He sees the ego with its destructive potential reacting negatively because instead of trust which liberates for love, there is at the core a lack of trust which issues in fear, love’s opposite. What is needful? To be born again—changed from a negative to a positive selfimage through an experience of grace in an encounter with Jesus Christ. © Grand Valley State University �Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 4 Beginning with a strong conviction that every person must be treated with respect and accorded the dignity that is his because he is created in the image of God, Schuller has probed beneath the surface of human sin and rebellion to understand that one acts, not according to his nature, but reacts out of an intrinsic fear and lack of trust. That being the case, the approach to people is all important, and it is here that he is critical of the traditional approach of much of the church. One reason many Christians have behaved so badly in the past two thousand years is because we have been taught from infancy to adulthood “how sinful” and “how worthless” we are. The self-image will always incarnate itself in action. A negative diagnosis will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The most difficult task for the Church to learn is how to deal honestly with the subject of “negativity,” “sin,” and “evil” without doing the cause of redemption more harm than good. The Place of the Cross The cross of Jesus Christ plays a central role in the theology of self-esteem, and self-esteem is the perspective from which the cross is discussed. Therefore it may appear that Schuller reinterprets the meaning of the atonement, but that simply is not the case. He claims, “The Cross is the central force in the kingdom of God.” He discusses this claim under the double aspect of the cross of Christ and the cross of the Christian. Christ’s death for us witnesses to the infinite value we have in God’s sight. Such a realization changes one inside. The core of fear and lack of trust, which is the generating center of all negativity and rebellion, is transformed into trust and security—a positive sense of worth, liberating one in turn to extend love and forgiveness to others. Were this all Schuller had to say about the cross, his critics would be right in seeing in this interpretation the effect of the cross as “moral influence,” Jesus’ sacrifice inspiring us to emulate his example of self-giving love. To claim this as the heart of Schuller’s understanding of the atonement, however, is simply without warrant if we listen to his own statement. References to the atonement are to be found throughout the text and it is always the substitutionary atonement that comes to expression. For example: It is not until we meet Jesus Christ, who is perfect and he offers to share his robe of righteousness with us and his garment of grace is draped across our shoulders that we can then walk with him into the presence of God. He specifically discusses the crucifixion in another context. There he lists three ways in which we can say we are saved “by the blood of Christ.” © Grand Valley State University �Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 5 1. The Cross of Christ brings vitality to my dignity...I know the value of my life when I see the price God paid on the Cross to save my soul.... 2. The Cross of Christ makes atonement from guilt possible because it adds integrity to the positive Gospel...In the Cross of Christ we see the harsh reality of “negativity,” “demonic human behavior,” “collectivized social evil in institutions....” 3. The Cross of Christ adds morality to divine forgiveness. ...Negativity must pay its dues. Evil must be punished. So Christ has taken the rap “for our irresponsible negative behavior.” He experienced hell—on the cross...His suffering is credited to my personal account....So God is morally able and obligated to offer forgiveness to any person who claims the credit card of Calvary’s Cross to cover the guilt of his sinful behavior. As stated above, Schuller will always speak of the cross, and any other doctrinal truth for that matter, from the perspective of his central motif, self-esteem, because he is convinced that self-esteem affords an effective key for interpreting the gospel for our day. To say, however, that the atoning death of Jesus Christ for the sin of the world is not at the heart of that gospel in his understanding is simply not true. The second aspect in which the cross is “the central force in the Kingdom of God” he discusses as “the cross of the Christian.” This is the cross the person graced by God through Jesus Christ voluntarily assumes as his response to that grace. What does it mean to bear one’s cross? It means to respond positively to the dream God puts in the heart of the redeemed. Faithful to his Reformed heritage, Schuller is careful to stress that he is now speaking of the response of a grateful heart for a salvation freely given, a salvation fully accomplished and graciously applied. To experience grace is to respond out of gratitude, and that response involves commitment. Its price is self-denial—”The voluntary vicarious assumption of the Cross.” When God’s dream is accepted, we must be prepared to pay a high price. The dream that comes from God calls us to fulfill his will by taking an active part in his kingdom. The price? A cross. The reward? A feeling of having done something beautiful for God. It is the cross we voluntarily accept and willingly bear that distinguishes a dangerous egotism from healthy self-esteem. To pursue the dream and thereby to commit oneself to the fulfilling of God’s will as God reveals it to one is to bear the cross. There can be no success without a cross, but even here success must not be understood as “always winning and never losing.” Rather, success is to be defined as the gift of self- esteem that God gives us as a reward for our sacrificial service in building self-esteem in others. Win © Grand Valley State University �Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 6 or lose: If we follow God’s plan as faithfully as we can, we will feel good about ourselves. That is success! We will then be able to live with ourselves with dignity when we know deep down in our hearts that we did what God wanted us to do. Cross bearing is no minor theme for Schuller. Self- esteem restored in a person through the encounter with Jesus Christ and the experience of God’s grace becomes the dynamic of a fruitful life lived to the glory of God. If one has truly been overwhelmed by grace, redeemed by Jesus Christ, then one knows with Paul that he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him. For Schuller this is what it means to be a possibility thinker. To be saved is to know that Christ forgives me and I now dare to believe that I am somebody and I can do something for Cod and for my fellow human beings. Schuller contends that forgiveness is not simply the negation of our guilt but “a positive injection of saving and soaring faith!” Repentance follows the experience of grace. Our thinking is turned around; a whole new world presents itself and we are called to “caring, risky trust which promises the hope of glory...through noble, human need-filling achievements.” Cross bearing is costly. In many and various ways this fact comes to expression: There is no crown without a cross. There is no success without sacrifice. There is no resurrection without death...no accomplishment without commitment, and no commitment without conflict. For there is no commitment without involvement; there is no involvement without selfdenial; and there is no self-denial without personal sacrifice. So what is the real Christ-call to self-denial? It is a willingness to be involved in the spiritual and social solutions in society. Self-denial is the daring commitment of your name, your reputation, your integrity, your ego on the altar of God’s call to service. Mark this; it is important: The greatest Cross any person can carry is to risk sacrificing his or her ego by risking the embarrassment of a public failure in the pursuit of some noble, honorable, God-inspired dream. That is positive self-denial. It is denying your ego the selfish protection from a possible humiliating failure that might occur if you tried to carryout the divine idea. No one familiar with the ministry of Robert Schuller can doubt that he speaks here out of his own experience. Jesus followed a dream to do the Father’s will and he was crucified. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream and he was assassinated. Robert Schuller has followed a dream, and only the naive would judge the personal cost in terms of the grandeur of the Crystal Cathedral. © Grand Valley State University �Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 7 Cross-bearing in Schuller’s understanding is a call “to do something creative and constructive.” He rejects the “crusader complex.” While recognizing that sometimes a situation calls for frontal attack, confrontation, he is also aware that such an approach is a dangerous style and should be the exception, not the rule, because violence breeds violence. The difference between a positive, constructive approach to society’s problems and the confrontational approach is the difference between generating a social climate of polarization versus creating a community where creative and mutually respectful dialogue can happen. Finally, cross-bearing will move the Christian person into the whole spectrum of human society and its concerns. Schuller will not choose between a gospel of personal salvation or a social gospel. He proclaims a whole gospel that brings personal salvation to individuals and addresses the larger societal issues as well. It is Schuller’s conviction that the idea of self-esteem provides an integrating factor which can show how the personal and social dimensions of theology can be interconnected. Schuller thus sees the applicability of the gospel to the full spectrum of human existence, personal and social. He sees the theology of the Reformation as reactionary and the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries as the “reactionary age.” With the conviction regarding the dignity of the human person and the realization that the deepest human need and longing is for self-esteem, he is convinced a Christian theology will be able to address the whole person and the whole of society with its healing gospel ushering in a new age, the age of mission. As we reflect on our walk with Jesus Christ through another Lenten pilgrimage we raise the question of the human condition and what address this time of selfdenial makes to it. In a critique of the idea that low self-esteem is at the heart of the human dilemma, David G. Myers cites recent data from psychological research which seems to indicate that there is rather a “self-serving bias” that characterizes the human person. Myers contends, It seems true that the most common error in people’s self-images is not unrealistically low self-esteem, but rather a self-serving bias; not an inferiority complex, but a superiority complex. In any satisfactory theory or theology of self-esteem, these two truths must somehow coexist [The Christian Century, December 1, 1982, pp. 1226-1230). If Myers is correct, it would not be the first time that truth proved dialectical. We ought not immediately be forced to choose between Schuller and Myers. Rather, it would seem that each has hold of an important and critical insight. In all of the recent research data referred to by Myers we are dealing with the human person in action—acting man or woman in concrete, existential situations. In our analysis of Schuller’s position on the human person we saw that there is no dark shadow, no demonic dimension of human behavior that he denies. His © Grand Valley State University �Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 8 contention regarding the fundamental need of every person for self-esteem says nothing about concrete human behavior. What he does insist is that that behavior is a manifestation, not of human nature as human nature, but rather of human nature as distorted, wrenched loose from its native soil of resting in God. Once that separation of the person from God occurs, all hell breaks loose, literally, but it is reaction, not simple action as a reflection of nature. Thus the recent research data only confirms what we in the church have always known from Scripture about ourselves: our lives are marked by rebellion, pride, and self-love in the sense of selfishness. It is precisely here that Schuller—the pastor and communicator of the gospel — has so much to teach us. The diagnosis of the situation is dismal; will we be content simply to declare that dark truth? Can we be content to reinforce what our hearers already really know but which, if thrown in their faces, will only reinforce them in their already entrenched rebellion by which they are trying to deny the truth? Schuller points us to an alternative which is both theologically and psychologically sound. There is no need to recite the darkness of the person’s reactive behavior of which he or she is quite aware; what is needful is to show that through the creative action and intention of God, he or she is something quite other than the behavior would seem to indicate. Through an appeal to what he is, not what he does, one may just succeed in breaking through to the person because the approach will have been motivated by love, executed with grace, and grounded in truth. Defenses tumble; the cornered is known, feels no need to rush to justify himself, senses acceptance, and learns of the reality of forgiveness. Then it is that deep repentance occurs. It is not a prelude to salvation but a fruit of the experience of grace. It is in the presence of Jesus Christ in whose face is seen the good and gracious God that one knows unconditional love and acceptance; therefore it is in that presence that one dares see oneself deeply and that one “dies” to those old patterns of reactive behavior that bound him in chains of selfish existence and created havoc in his human relationships and, most seriously, alienated him from God. If the church would really hear Robert Schuller, there would be renewal and revitalization of major proportions. One of my most respected teachers, Professor D. Ivan Dykstra, wrote in personal correspondence about Schuller’s basic premise regarding the dignity of the human person and the basic need for self-worth. Commenting on Schuller’s book, Self-Esteem:... he judges it was Bob Schuller in search of a theology, or, better, in search of a Bible. And this is exactly the right order and the only proper order, despite our wish and our pretense that we find our Bibles first and then go on from there. All reformations, vitalizations of the faith, happen by our first responding to an instinct of authenticity and then going on to re-read our © Grand Valley State University �Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 9 Bibles accordingly or creating our theologies....The great prophets did it that way, Jesus did, Luther, and so on down the line. Dykstra then goes on to reflect on his own philosophical work which led him to an examination of Christian beliefs through use of linguistic analysis. He raises the question, are our Christian beliefs Christian? His conclusion is That religious terms, including Christian ones, begin always in the form of some great, situationally defined, instinctive authenticities. After the first flush of excitement...there is a time of intellectual and institutional structuring of the belief. There is a virtually complete discontinuity of meaning between the universe of discourse of the original intuition and the institutionalized universe of discourse into which we move the original terms. In the process the whole original meaning is simply buried. In Christian contexts, the over-all name for that structuring is “ecclesiasticizing.” And everything, every dominating concept in the ecclesiastico-theological structure, loses the authentic Biblical meaning: faith, sin, Jesus, inspiration, scripture, resurrection have no longer any discernible connection with the initial biblical intent. Until some courageous soul, (like Luther, as one example) has, and has the courage to act on, a new authentic instinct. To attack the ecclesiastical inauthenticities one does not need to attack the Bible on which they base themselves; one needs only to “out-Bible” the bibliolaters. To read the Bible via the instincts is not to invent a new Bible; it is to recover it. Dykstra suggests that Schuller’s authentic instinctual grasp of a deep biblical truth has ramifications for the whole theological system; that perhaps Schuller’s unquestioned Reformed orthodoxy is itself too confined a vehicle to contain the ferment of his own insight. Such is certainly the case, but Schuller did not write this slender volume as the complete and final word. He writes a first word pleading with others to join the question for a more adequate way to bring to expression his own authentic insight confirmed by the worldwide hearing he has gained. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Robert H. Schuller. Self-Esteem: The New Reformation, 1983. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19860302 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-03-02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource The Cross and the Theology of Self-Esteem a review of Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Book Review created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 2, 1986 entitled "The Cross and the Theology of Self-Esteem a review of", on the book Self-Esteem, written by Robert H. Schuller, it appeared in Perspectives, March, 1986, pp. 10-13. Tags: Way of Jesus, Theology, Unconditional Love, Human Nature, Christian, Self-Esteem, Forgiveness. Scripture references: Robert H. Schuller. Self-Esteem: The New Reformation, 1983. . Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Christian Forgiveness Human Nature Self-Esteem Theology Unconditional Love Way of Jesus https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4fa6a435f09e1814c4fa10de5a650117.pdf 0ee6ec047ba31a3f574ca1b011efdd5f PDF Text Text Theological Method: The Search For a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Reformed Review A Theological Journal of Western Theological Seminary 101 East 13th Street, Holland, Michigan Spring, 1986 Leafing through a manila folder labeled “Theological Methodology” was an exercise in nostalgia. A few of us requested a reading course with Dr. Osterhaven in which we would examine various models of theological method and write a paper for presentation to the group. Perhaps it was there that my interest in theological method was stimulated or, perhaps, the desire to study the subject with Dr. Osterhaven arose from a distinction made by one of his esteemed teachers, Dr. Albertus Pieters, whose Facts and Mysteries of the Christian Faith fascinated me as a youth. Dr. Pieters distinguished systematic and biblical theology and gave clear preference to the latter. It was a moment of awakening; I was faced with the fact that the systematician's logical formulations might not always faithfully reflect the biblical witness; indeed, at times they might actually distort biblical truth. No task places one in the tension between the richness and diversity of the biblical witness and the systematization of the faith more than the task of preaching each Lord's Day. Thus I have continued to be challenged with the need to do theology in such a way that what comes to expression in the sermon is a faithful witness to biblical faith evidencing sensitivity to the contemporary situation. The sermon is the end product of the significant encounter of the Word and the world in the mind and heart of the preacher, and the theological task must be pursued to that end that the truth may find expression within the present horizon. It will be my purpose here to reflect on the substratum on which the sermon rests in the conviction that preaching with integrity demands not only theological understanding, but also self-consciousness of one's theological method. © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 2 It is a great privilege to offer the following discussion of theological method in honor of a highly esteemed teacher in whose person the authenticity and integrity of the Christian thinker is modeled out. A NEW BASIC MODEL OF THEOLOGY? In May of 1983, seventy professors of theology from around the world gathered at the University of Tubingen in Germany. The international ecumenical symposium was organized by the Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago, the International Magazine for Theology, Concilium, and the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Tubingen. The leading spirit in organizing the event was Professor Dr. Hans Küng, head of the Tubingen Institute. The key question was, “Is a base consensus in Christian theology possible today despite all differences?” In his introductory remarks, Hans Küng set the stage for the discussion. He said, The natural sciences, humanities, democratic plural societies and freedom movements of all kinds all have radical consequences, specifically also for theology, whose outgrowths have not yet even been conceptualized, much less dealt with. But is theology dependent on such multifaceted tensions, such divergent systems, or even fads? Or is a new, changed basic model of theology recognizable? Is there, then, a new “paradigm of theology,” which might adequately react to the present changed experience? Are there universal constants despite all the differing theories, methods, and structures in such a “new paradigm” which every Christian theology must advance because, scientifically, they are held accountable by the Christian faith? The key word in understanding the task of this symposium is “paradigm” which was introduced into this theological discussion from a discussion in the natural sciences by Thomas Kuhn whose book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, became the catalyst for reflection on the history of theological development. Kuhn defined paradigm as, an entire constellation of beliefs, values, technics, and so on shared by the members of a given community.1 On the basis of that understanding of paradigm, Hans Küng charted the history of theology, attempting to locate those points of significant ferment in the Church which led to the evolving of a new model or paradigm. He set forth a tentative periodization beginning with the primitive Christian theology that was shaped by apocalypticism followed by the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Patristic period, the East-West schism of the Eleventh Century, the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, including the Counter-Reformation of the Roman Church, the development of modern philosophy and the natural sciences of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, including the Enlightenment, the French and © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 3 American Revolutions and the Twentieth Century theological movements beginning with Barth's Dialectical Theology and including Existentialist, Hermeneutical and the various Liberation Theologies of the present. From these major shifts in the history of the Church and in theological posture, Küng finds five models or paradigms operational in the present whose roots lie in the major shifts of the past. Stemming from the Ancient Church is the model of Eastern Orthodoxy; from the Medieval period there remains a Roman Catholic traditionalism; from the Reformation era there developed a Protestant orthodoxy which is still embraced; from the Enlightenment classical Liberalism developed and in strong reaction to that Nineteenth Century Liberalism, the revolution whose catalyst was Karl Barth in the early decades of this Century, Dialectical Theology with several variants in the present. His schematization gives credence to the contention that eruptive events in Church and society often result in new insights, new angles of vision which are the catalyst for the conception of a new paradigm, a new model of theology. The Symposium held at Tübingen in 1983 had as its purpose the endeavor to find a new paradigm that could gather the best insights of the biblical studies of the modern period along with the understanding of the world, history and human existence available to us through all of the academic disciplines. Such a paradigm, Kiting contends, must be truthful, not conformist or opportunist; free, not authoritarian; critical, not fundamentalist or traditionalist; ecumenical, not denominationalist or confessionalist. A theology in the horizon of the present world of experience and critically rooted in the biblical tradition would be a theology at the same time both Catholic and evangelical, both traditional and contemporary, both Christocentric and universalist, both theoretical-scholarly and practical-pastoral. In sum: the quest is for a critical, ecumenical theology. In a paper read to the Symposium, Küng discussed the process by which these major shifts took place in the history of the Christian tradition. As indicated above, the study by the historian of science, Thomas Kuhn, was the catalyst for surveying shifts in theological understanding. Kuhn's book was a major challenge to the traditional self-understanding of natural science. According to Kuhn, progress in the natural sciences has not come through an orderly acquisition of knowledge which has cumulatively issued in our present body of scientific data. Much rather, progress has come in spurts, through major breakthroughs in understanding which have forced the replacement of a former model of understanding with a new model or paradigm. Küng writes, Kuhn's heretical main thesis is that radically new theories arise neither by verification nor by falsification but by the replacement - in individual cases, highly complex and protracted - of a hitherto accepted explanatory model (paradigm) by a new one. 2 © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 4 As an example of this process, Küng cites the shift from a Ptolemaic astronomy to the Copernican view. ... The more the movements of the stars were studied and corrected in the light of the Ptolemaic system, the more material was produced to refute that system. And the same thing happened not only with the Copernican revolution but also with the Newtonian, the chemical and the Einsteinian revolutions. ... The process may be tedious, protracted and complex. And these are transitional periods in which at first only the stereotypes of the old model begin to break up. But the critical state of the traditional theory increasingly comes to light. A period of pronounced insecurity generally precedes the emergence of new theories, which in the end leads to the destruction of the paradigm. In a word, crisis is the usual condition for the rejection of a hitherto accepted paradigm. 3 Scientific progress according to Kuhn comes not through an evolutionary, cumulative process, but through scientific revolution. Confirming and developing the thesis of Thomas Kuhn in regard to systemological analysis is Stephen Toulmin, who in the preface to his basic work entitled, Human Understanding, states his central thesis as follows: ... in science and philosophy alike, an exclusive preoccupation with logical systematicity has been destructive of both historical understanding and rational criticism. Men demonstrate their rationality, not by ordering their concepts and beliefs in tidy formal structures, but by their preparedness to respond to novel situations with open minds - acknowledging the shortcomings of their formal procedures and moving beyond them.4 From Kuhn’s work in the history of science and Toulmin's study of human understanding we come to the surprising recognition that the respective scientific disciplines and philosophical movements do their model building and systematization in the wake of new insight - some breakthrough in understanding or some intuitive grasp of truth which shatters the prevailing model or paradigm, forcing upon the community (academic or social or ecclesiastical) a new way of looking at Reality. This development has been especially fruitful in the theological discussions being carried on by the Universities of Tubingen and Chicago, highlighted at the Symposium to which I referred above. Hans Küng's attempt at a periodization of theological development is an attempt to demonstrate that there are fascinating parallels between that development and development in the natural sciences. He lists five parallels: © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 5 A. As in natural sciences, so also in the theological community, there is a “normal science” with its classical authors, textbooks and teachers, which is characterized by a cumulative growth of knowledge, by a solution of remaining problems (“puzzles”) and by resistance to everything that might result in a changing as replacement of the established paradigm. B. As in natural science, so also in the theological community, awareness of a growing crisis is the starting position for the advent of a drastic change in certain hitherto prevailing basic assumptions and eventually causes the breakthrough of a new paradigm or model of understanding. When the available rules and methods break down, they lead to a search for new ones. C. As in natural science, so also in the theological community, an older paradigm or model of understanding is replaced when a new one is available, D. As in natural science, so too in the theological community, in the acceptance or rejection of a new paradigm, not only scientific, but also extra-scientific factors are involved, so that the transition to a new model cannot be purely rationally extorted, but may be described as a conversion. E. In the theological community as in natural science, it can be predicted only with difficulty, in the midst of great controversies, whether a new paradigm is absorbed into the old, replaces the old or is shelved for a long period. But if it is accepted, innovation is consolidated as tradition. 5 Küng adds a word from Albert Einstein at this point, who said on one occasion, “Smashing prejudices is more difficult than smashing atoms.” But Küng adds, “Once they are smashed, they release forces that can perhaps move mountains.” These theses set forth by Küng he calls only provisional. They are offered for discussion and he is well aware where the critical question arises. After stating these parallels, he continues, And yet the question is thrust upon us: Does not theology, even Christian truth itself, faced by nothing but paradigm changes and new conceptions, become a victim of historical relativism which makes it impossible any longer to perceive the Christian reality and makes every paradigm equally true, equally valid? Perhaps the natural scientist is not very much concerned with this problem, but it is of the greatest consequence for the Christian theologian ... Let us therefore pose the question: Does a paradigm change involve a total break? 6 Küng's conviction is that in both science and theology there is preserved a continuity when there is a shift in paradigm. In theology he insists, We have to avoid the choice not only between an absolutist and a relativist view, but also between a radical continuity and a radical discontinuity. © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 6 Every paradigm change shows at the same time continuity and discontinuity, rationality and irrationality, conceptual stability and conceptual change, evolutionary and revolutionary elements. 7 Further, in theology and the historical sciences much more than in the basically un-historical natural sciences, “ ... it is therefore not a question of a new invention of a tradition. It is a question of a new formulation of tradition, admittedly in the light of a new paradigm.” The problem of continuity is a more serious problem for theology because theology deals with “truth.” Kuhn as a scientist must leave alone the ultimate questions of the “whence” and the “whither” of the world process and the human drama. Theology addresses those very ultimate questions. Thus there are not only parallels between the development of natural science and theology but there are also some significant differences. Christian theology lives out of the primordial event which is its source, its norm and to which it must continually return - the event of Israel and of Jesus Christ as set forth in the Scriptures. This primordial event which has found its preeminent expression in Jesus and is attested to in Scripture is not simply a past datum to be analyzed and interpreted but is a dynamic living force which time and again breaks out - for example, in the personal crisis of a Martin Luther. As Küng expresses it, The gospel itself then - obviously always in connection with a particular development in contemporary world history - appears here as a direct cause of the theological crisis, as ground of discontinuity in theology, as impetus to the new paradigm. 8 Further, because theology is anchored to a past historical event, a new paradigm may emerge and theological upheaval may occur, but there can never be the total replacement or total suppression of the old paradigm. Thus Küng declares a revolution in Christian theology can never take place except on the basis of and ultimately because of the gospel, and never against the gospel. 9 Another difference from a paradigm shift in the natural sciences is that in theology, because of the existential nature of the “decision of faith,” the academic decision for one paradigm or another is not always distinguished from the “decision of faith;” the person for whom the Christian reality comes to clear expression in a new paradigm causing him to abandon the old paradigm may be seen as choosing against the gospel itself of which the paradigms are but structures for understanding. © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 7 Finally, and closely connected to the foregoing observation, is the fact that when the Church and theological community reject a paradigm, ... rejection easily leads to condemnation, discussion to excommunication; gospel and theology, content of faith and outward form of faith, are identified.10 Because this is such a powerful tendency in the Christian community, when a new model of understanding is accepted, it is soon turned into tradition and tradition in turn becomes a new traditionalism. With the discussion of how knowledge has advanced in the history of science as the catalyst, Küng has thus surveyed the development of theological understanding to the present, observing both parallels and differences between the history of science and the history of theology. But his purpose is not simply information but, rather, the study is being engaged in in order to determine if there is a base consensus in Christian theology today. Are all the elements of ferment at work today in the Church pointing to a new paradigm in theology and, if so, what would such a paradigm look like? We have noted some of the essential characteristics that must be reflected in a new basic model for theology in our day. Beyond the characteristics listed, the parameters of any new paradigm must be set by two constants which provide the two poles in reference to which the Christian message must come to expression: The first constant: The present world as horizon. The second constant: The Christian message as standard. The “horizon” within which theological reflection must happen and theological formulation must occur is “our own present world of human experience.” Küng asserts: One thing should now be clear: that the reality of world, humanity, myself, is revealed in depth in its obvious ambivalence, its radical contingency and its continual change: an ongoing history of success and suffering, justice and injustice, happiness and unhappiness, salvation and disaster, sense and nonsense. Nor does this mean making the world evil, so that theologians can more easily get their God involved; it means taking stock without prejudice of what is. Theology does not create any reality, but interprets it. 11 The second constant has already been noted in our discussion of the differences between theology and the natural sciences. Küng describes it this way: If ecumenical theology wants to be Christian theology, its other pole must be the Judeo-Christian tradition and its primary norm cannot be anything except the Christian message on which this tradition is constructed as on © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 8 its ultimate ground. That is to say, the Christian primordial and basic testimony, the gospel itself in the sense of the good news in its entirety, as recorded in the Old and New Testament Scriptures, is the basic norm of ecumenical theology. 12 These two poles or constants then form the context within which theological formulation must come to expression. If we observe the history of theology after the great awakening of the Sixteenth Century, we see how in both the Catholic and Protestant traditions there was a hardening of theological positions. The Seventeenth Century saw the development of an orthodoxy shaped by Rationalism, which froze the new insights of the Reformers into carefully defined doctrinal positions with little regard for the present horizon. In the wake of the Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century there was an attempt to come to terms with the new understanding of both human reality and the natural world. The classic Liberalism of the Nineteenth Century was an effort to proclaim the gospel within the confines of a weltanschaung - that had no room for transcendent Reality; the gospel, the second constant, was dissolved into the first, into the horizon of this world. In sharp reaction, Karl Barth reversed the whole tide of Nineteenth Century Liberalism, loudly proclaiming a theology of the Word, pointing to the God Who is the “Wholly Other.” Because he was in a posture of such sharp reaction, the early Barth nearly obliterated the present horizon, the first constant, although he was too deeply imbued with the culture of his day wholly to lose sight of it. The present discussion comes at a time when we are able with historical distance to gain some objectivity as we face the task before us. The theology of the future must never again lose sight of either constant. Our task is to find an expression of the Gospel which is faithful to the Word and honest with the world. If such an understanding of theology's task meets with anything like a consensus, then we may be poised for a fruitful period of theological activity. SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN A PLURALISTIC AGE Under the auspices of the Program for Studies in Religion at the University of Michigan, Hans Küng led a seminar during the Fall Term of 1983 on the subject of “Paradigm Change in Theology.” It was a cross-discipline seminar including students and professors from the schools of the arts and literature, law, and medicine. One of the papers studied was written by Professor David Tracy of the university of Chicago Divinity School, a Catholic scholar who has been a major participant in the discussion of paradigm shift in the symposium discussed above. Tracy has grappled with the matter of theological methodology. In his first book Blessed Rage for Order, published in 1979, he identified five theological models: Orthodox, Liberal, Neo-Orthodox, Radical, and a Revisionist model. These five © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 9 models are the result of a different schematization than that followed by Küng, cited above, but there is great similarity of view as to the models operative in the present period. Tracy's Revisionist model, which he will endeavor to build, is his attempt at finding a new paradigm. It is his contention that a Revisionist model must be constructed which will enable the ecumenical Church to proclaim a message that will make the claim of truth recognizable in a pluralistic age. The Revisionist model is a critical correlation of the two principle sources for theology, the two constants mentioned above, cited by Küng: Christian texts and common human experience and language. Tracy sets forth the following theses: The Principle Method of Investigation of the Source, “Common Human Experience and Language,” Can Be Described as a Phenomenology of the “Religious Dimension” Present in Everyday and Scientific Experience and Language.” 13 The Principle Method of Investigation of the Source “The Christian Tradition” Can Be Described as a Historical and Hermeneutical Investigation of Classical Christian Texts. 14 Having set the agenda for his endeavor, Tracy moved on in his next work, The Analogical Imagination, to set forth the method and execute it in terms of his own commitment to the Catholic Christian Tradition. The Preface announces, “In a culture of pluralism must each religious tradition finally either dissolve into some lowest common denominator or accept a marginal existence as one interesting but purely private option?” Tracy is not willing to accept either option. A theological strategy must be found that can articulate the genuine claims of religion to truth. This is the task he sets for himself: a responsible affirmation of pluralism through the discovery of public criteria by which truth can be affirmed. Theology must develop public criteria of truth and discourse because it deals with the fundamental questions of existence and because it speaks of God. Recognizing that the theologian addresses three arenas, Society, Academy and Church, Tracy insists that the criteria of publicness applies in all three areas. Theology is the generic name for three disciplines: fundamental, systematic and practical theologies. Publicness is demanded of each. The primary focus of fundamental theology is the Academy, of systematic theology, the Church and of practical theology, Society. They differ not only in their primary reference group, but also in terms of their modes of argument, ethical stance, religious stance and in terms of expressing claims to meaning and truth. On the way to a responsible pluralism all conversation partners must agree to certain basic rules for the discussion. Two constants are present: the interpretation of a religious tradition and the interpretation of the religious dimension of the contemporary situation from which and to which the theologian speaks. In regard to the first, it is incumbent upon the theologian to make explicit her/his general method of interpretation, to develop “criteria of appropriateness” © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page10 whereby specific interpretations of the tradition may be judged by the wider theological community. In regard to the interpretation of the contemporary situation there must be an analysis of the “religious” questions, the question of the meaning of human existence in the present situation. There are major differences as well. Tracy addresses the question as to what constitutes a public claim to truth in the three sub-disciplines of theology. Fundamental theology's defining characteristic is ... a reasoned insistence on employing the approach and methods of some established academic discipline to explicate and adjudicate the truth claims of the interpreted religious tradition and the truth claims of the contemporary situation. 15 Various models are available, but whichever model is chosen fundamental questions and answers are articulated in such a way that any attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible person can understand and judge them in keeping with fully public criteria for argument. Personal faith may not enter the argument for the truth claims in fundamental theology. SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY AS A HERMENEUTICAL TASK The systematic theologian's major task is the reinterpretation of the tradition for the present situation. Where the fundamental theologian will relate the reality of God to our fundamental trust in existence (our common faith), the confessional systematic theologian will relate that reality to their arguments for a distinctively Christian understanding of faith. Christian theology ... consists in explicating in public terms and in accordance with the demands of its own primary confessions, the full meaning and truth of the original “illuminating event” ... which occasioned and continues to inform its understanding of all reality. 16 Thus the task of the systematic theologian is a hermeneutical task. The “illuminating event” Tracy calls a religious classic. As in a classic work of art, the religious classic contains the possibility of ever-new “disclosures.” Classics Tracy defines as texts, events, images, persons, rituals and symbols that are assumed to disclose permanent possibilities of meaning and truth. The hermeneutical theologian seeks to articulate the truth-disclosure of the reality of God embedded in the tradition for the contemporary situation. If the systematic theologian speaks out of a particular tradition, is systematic theology public discourse? Can the claim of Truth be made for theological © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page11 statements arising out of a particular tradition? Tracy believes it can if systematic theology is understood as a hermeneutical task. It is Tracy's contention that systematic theology is hermeneutical. This means that systematic theology's task is to interpret, mediate and translate the meaning and truth of the tradition. Where this is not the case, where the notion of authority shifts from a truth disclosed to mind and heart to an external norm for the obedient will, theologians can no longer interpret and translate the tradition but “only repeat the shop-worn conclusions of the tradition.” Eventually, the central, classical symbols and doctrines of the tradition become mere “fundamentals” to be externally accepted and endlessly repeated.17 Tracy points to the contrast of a hermeneutical theology: The heart of any hermeneutical position is the recognition that all interpretation is a mediation of past and present, a translation carried on within the effective history of a tradition to retrieve its sometimes strange, sometimes familiar meanings. 18 How is this done? Recognizing that one begins within a tradition which has shaped one, that one is socialized, acculturated and thus without the possibility of finding some position “above” one's own historicity, ... the route to liberation from the negative realities of a tradition is not to declare the existence of an autonomy that is literally unreal but to enter into a disciplined and responsive conversation with the subject matter the responses and, above all, the fundamental questions, of the traditions.19 Tracy refers to Hans-Georg Gadamer's model of conversation as a model for understanding the dialogue with the tradition. Real conversation occurs only when the participants allow the question, the subject matter, to assume primacy. It occurs only when our usual fears about our own self-image die. ... That fear (dies only because we are carried along, and sometimes away, by the subject matter itself into the rare event or happening named “thinking” and “understanding.” For understanding happens; it occurs not as the pure result of personal achievement but in the back-and-forth movement of the conversation itself. The word “hermeneutical” best describes this realized experience of understanding in conversation. For every event of understanding, in order to produce a new interpretation, mediates between our past experience © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page12 and the understanding embodied in our linguistic tradition and the present event of understanding occasioned by a fidelity to the logic of the question in the back-and-forth movement of the conversation.20 Using the model of conversation Tracy shows how one enters into the history of the illuminating event. When interpreting a classic one recognizes its “excess of meaning” demands constant interpretation and is at the same time timeless – ... a certain kind of timelessness - namely the timeliness of a classic expression radically rooted in its own historical time and calling to my own historicity. That is, the classical text is not in some timeless moment which needs mere repetition. Rather its kind of timelessness as permanent timeliness is the only one proper to any expression of the finite, temporal, historical beings we are. ... The classic text's fate is that only its constant reinterpretation by later finite, historical, temporal beings who will risk asking its questions and listening, critically and tactfully, to its responses can actualize the event of understanding beyond its present fixation in a text.21 To be understood, a classic cannot be repeated; it must be interpreted. Thus Tracy claims, All contemporary systematic theology can be understood as fundamentally hermeneutical. This position implies that systematic theologians, by definition, will understand themselves as radically finite and historical thinkers who have risked a trust in a particular religious tradition. They seek, therefore, to retrieve, interpret, translate, mediate the resources ... of the classic events of understanding of those fundamental religious questions embedded in the classic events, images, persons, rituals, texts and symbols of a tradition.22 At the heart of Tracy's argument is the conviction that “classics exist;” they exist in all domains of human endeavor. He does not merely assert that they exist but builds a carefully argued case for their existence and specifically for the existence of the religious classic. The task of the systematic theologian is to interpret religious classics. Systematic theology intends to provide an interpretation, a retrieval (including a retrieval through critique and suspicion) and always, therefore, a new application of a particular religious tradition's selfunderstanding for the current horizon of the community. 23 Applying this understanding of systematic theology's task to the specific task of the Christian thinker, Tracy declares, In Christian systematics, that self-understanding is itself further © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page13 grounded in the particular events and persons of Jewish and Christian history: decisively grounded, for the Christian, in God's own self-manifestation as my God in this classic event and person, Jesus Christ. 24 SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY AS PUBLIC DISCOURSE But now the crux of the matter is reached: how does the systematic theologian address the wider public with discussion characterized by “publicness” thus stopping the retreat of Christian faith into the sphere of privateness and yet remain faithful to ... the radical particularity of the relationship of that gift's disclosure to the particular events of God's action in ancient Israel, in Jesus of Nazareth, in the history of the Christian Church? 25 Acknowledging the dilemma, Tracy believes it can be overcome. The means of overcoming the dilemma is the recognition of the public nature of the classic: ... grounded in some realized experience of a claim to attention, unfolding as cognitively disclosive of both meaning and truth and ethically transformative of personal, social and historical life. 26 Tracy therefore contends, Whenever any systematic theologian produces a classic interpretation of a particular classic religious tradition (as both Barth and Rahner have,) then that new expression should be accorded a public status in the culture. Every classic ... is a text, event, image, person or symbol which unites particularity of origin and expression with a disclosure of meaning and truth available, in principle, to all human beings. 27 And again, Any person's intensification of particularity via a struggle with the fundamental questions of existence in a particular tradition, if that struggle is somehow united to the logos of appropriate expression, will yield a form of authentically sharable public discourse. 28 Thus Tracy argues, classics exist, religious classics exist, and classic status in any field including the religious accords a text, work of art, symbol or other form of expression public status. Religious classics are © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page14 ... expressions from a particular tradition that have found the right mode of expression to become public for all intelligent, reasonable and responsible persons. 29 At the heart of the Christian tradition the classic expression is found in the event of God's self-disclosure in Jesus Christ. Tracy claims, One need not be a believer in Christianity to accord it (and thereby its central, paradigmatic, classic event) authentically religious status: a manifestation from the whole by the power of the whole. 30 Christology is the attempt to respond through some interpretation to the event of Jesus Christ in one's own situation. ... The Christian interpreter of this classic event recognizes in some present experience of the event - more precisely, in the claim disclosed in that event (paradigmatically in experiencing that event in manifestation and proclamation) as an event from God and by God's power. To speak religiously and theologically of the Christ event is ultimately to speak of an event from God. 31 The Jesus remembered by the tradition is experienced in the present mediated through the word of proclamation and sacramental action. Jesus remembered as the Christ is the experience of the presence of God's own self. The second part of Tracy's work entails the actual execution of the method here described. His is the attempt of a systematic theologian engaging in the hermeneutical task of mediating past and present so that the event of Jesus Christ remembered in the tradition comes to expression again in the present in a manner that affords the possibility of public discussion with all persons of good will who will engage in reasonable conversation. In Tracy's Revisionist model we find the essential characteristics set forth by Küng for a new paradigm in theology determined by a critical correlation of the present horizon and the biblical texts. Herein lies the present challenge to Reformed theology. Through the impact of biblical studies and the explosion of knowledge across the whole spectrum of human inquiry we have been alerted to the danger of confessionalism and the imperative to take seriously the horizon of contemporary experience. The opportunity is ours to realize the ideal of the Reformation. The Church of the Sixteenth Century was re-formed according to the Word of God and at its best it recognized that it must always be being re-formed. The Reformed branch of the Protestant Reformation expressed itself in many Confessional statements and refused to reduce them all to one credal formulation. The Lutheran branch sought to bring the various strands of its confessional position into a unifying © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page15 statement with the Formula of Concord which then served as the norm of right doctrine. The Reformed churches feared that such a statement of unity might impede the continuing efforts to confess the faith in each new historical situation and thus determined to continue to confess its faith in ever-new credal formulations as the times demanded. It goes without saying that the ideal was soon abandoned. The high Calvinism of the Seventeenth Century with its rationalism and careful scholastic definitions was a complete break with the best insights of the early Reformers. Not only in the Reformed tradition but Protestantism generally has been plagued with the fossilizing of doctrinal formulation, the absolutizing of historically conditioned creeds and a defensive posture which has ill prepared it to meet the explosion of knowledge in the sciences, natural and social. Failing to act on its own best insight that the Church needs constant reformation of its understanding of the Faith, Reformed Orthodoxy has been severely threatened by the rise of historical thinking which is so characteristic of the modern period. Of course, the Church can continue to close its mind to the knowledge and insight that streams forth in a mighty torrent as we continue to unlock the secrets of the cosmos and, with a mindset of an earlier Century and a defensive posture, it can ward off the demands for reformation. In so doing it will lock the faithful into a system of ideas and structure of belief that become increasingly out of touch with their experience of the world, and it will continue to offend its brightest and most sensitive spirits who will finally be forced out when they can no longer deny the compelling truth that calls for a new understanding of the Faith. This is not a new problem for the Church. It is new only in the rapidity of breakthroughs on all frontiers of knowledge and in the rapid spread of that knowledge that is now possible in the Electronic Age which is creating the “Information Society.” But a Church confident of the Truth as it has come to expression in Jesus Christ will find the present day an exciting day in which to identify the questions and find the appropriate mode in which to witness to the self-disclosure of the God in the face of Jesus Christ. ENDNOTES 1 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 175. 2 Hans Küng, Does God Exist? (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1980), p. 107. 3 Ibid., p. 108. 4 Stephen Toulmin, Human Understanding. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. vii. 5 Hans Küng, “Paradigm Change in Theology,” unpublished paper read at the Symposium. 6 Ibid., p. 17. © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page16 7 Ibid., p. 17. p. 20. 9 Ibid., p. 21. 10Ibid., p. 21. 11 Ibid., p. 25. 12 Ibid., p. 26. 13 David Tracy, Blessed Rage For Order. (New York: Seabury Press, 1979),p. 47. 14 Ibid., p. 49. 15 David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination. (New York, New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 62. 16Ibid., p. 65, 66. 17Ibid., p. 99. 18Ibid. 19 Ibid., p. 100. 20Ibid., p. 101. 21Ibid., p. 102. 22Ibid., p. 104. 23 Ibid., p. 131. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid., p. 132. 26 Ibid. 27Ibid., p. 132F, 133. 28Ibid.,p. 134. 29Ibid.,p. 233. 30Ibid.,p. 234. 31Ibid. 8Ibid., SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolution. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1962. Küng, Hans, Does God Exist?. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1980. Küng, Hans, “Paradigm Change in Theology,” unpublished paper at Symposium, University of Michigan, 1983. Toulmin, Stephen, Human Understanding. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1972. Tracy, David, Blessed Rage For Order. New York: Seabury Press, 1979, Tracy, David, The Analogical Imagination. New York, New York: Crossroad, 1981. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Hans Küng. Does God Exist?, 1980, "Paradigm Change in Theology,", 1983, David Tracy. Blessed Rage for Order, 1979, The Analogical Imagination, 1981. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19860301 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-03-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Theological Method: The Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The The Reformed Review a journal of the seminaries of the Reformed Church in America Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 1, 1986 entitled "Theological Method: The Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age", it appeared in The Reformed Review, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 242-254. Tags: Preaching, Theology, History of Christian Tradition, Pluralism, Ecumenical, Historical Thinking. Scripture references: Hans Küng. Does God Exist?, 1980, "Paradigm Change in Theology,", 1983, David Tracy. Blessed Rage for Order, 1979, The Analogical Imagination, 1981. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Ecumenical Historical Thinking History of Christian Tradition Pluralism Preaching Theology https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2cb8bee2634fdd0c2a082b9b8b13221d.pdf 6b3ea8330abee2529dccac62bfefefcd PDF Text Text The Ground of Hope Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in The Church Herald The Magazine of the Reformed Church in America December 20, 1985, pp. 6-7 Our hope for the future is grounded in what God has done in the past We have kept Advent, the time of waiting, of expectation. We have rehearsed faith's vision in the midst of the puzzle of history. In this time between the times we live by the vision, trusting that the King will come and we will understand. The King will surely come; that is faith's vision, a vision grounded in the fact that the King has come. If Advent is the time of expectation, Christmas is the time of fulfillment. Into the puzzle of our history a child was born, and in that fully human existence a light penetrated our darkness, and the darkness has never overcome it. Our hope for the future is grounded in what God has done in the past. To celebrate Christmas is to discover the ground of our hope as we grope through the darkness which is the puzzle of history. The King who is coming is the King who has come. We are a people of hope, a hope grounded in the past enabling us already to appropriate the future that still lies before us, living in the assurance of things hoped for. Christian hope is hope in God. Stating what may seem obvious is an attempt to distinguish the Christian hope from today's cheapened hope, a worldly term for wishful thinking regarding a thousand matters from the ridiculous to the sublime: Will you win the game? I hope so. Will you have more sales in 1986 than in 1985? I hope so. Will your health improve? I hope so. Hope has become a catch-all word for all sorts of situations and conditions that we would like to see happen or become realized. Hope in this sense refers to an uncertain outcome. We do not know; we cannot tell; we “hope so.” That is not Christian hope. Christian hope is hope in God. It is certain. © Grand Valley State University   �The Ground of Hope Richard A. Rhem Page 2   There is another distinction. We use hope in its cheapened sense to express our wish that something happens but about which we are uncertain. We also are then using it to refer to a favorable outcome which lies within our capacity to bring about: Will you win the game? I hope so—but the outcome is uncertain. Yet, I do have it in my capacity to win the game if I play well, if I practice and am ready, if I do not make the big mistake. Will you have more sales in 1986 than 1985? I hope so—but I am not certain. Yet it is very possible, if I work hard; if I make sufficient calls; if production is there. Will your health improve? I hope so—but I cannot be sure. We enter a gray area because my health is not wholly within my power. Yet, if I eat properly, get proper rest, exercise, and avoid stress, I can certainly influence the outcome. Thus, in the cheapened sense of hope in contemporary usage, hope refers to that which is uncertain, but is within my power to effect. Biblical hope is something quite other. Biblical hope is in God; it is the present certainty of what will be a future possession; it is certain of that which is impossible in terms of human capacity. As far as the quality of certainty is concerned, I simply refer you to the testimony of Scripture. Biblical religion is a religion of certainty. I am not speaking now of dogmatism. Surely there has been far too much dogmatism and far too many dogmatic people in the history of the church. There is a lust for certainty in the human heart and certainty about things that remain veiled in mystery. The Bible is no answer book for all the questions of the less than serious curious ones. Too many religious people “know” too much. The Bible is, however, a book of certainty about the matters of ultimate concern: That God is. That God is gracious. That God's kingdom will fully come. Biblical religion in those ultimate matters is serious and certain. It is hope-full, not “hope so.” It is the present certainty of what will be a future possession. Further, it is certain of what is impossible in terms of human capacity. Let me raise some questions to demonstrate that biblical hope is fastened on that which lies beyond human capacity to effect. Will there be a new creation as spoken of by Isaiah and in the Revelation to John? Our Advent affirmation was yes. Will it come through human planning and ingenuity? Will it come through human goodwill and harmony? Will some president, king, or dictator arise who will effect it? Will it come through the progressive education of the race, some evolutionary development? Only the naive, the simple, the one ignorant of the human story could answer affirmatively or even “I hope so.” Will there be life after life? The biblical faith says yes. Will it come through medical research and the development of new technology? Will death be defeated by future breakthroughs in science? I need not go on. What all that conjured up is not only scarcely thinkable, it is not desirable. It is apparent that biblical hope is certitude about a future reality which © Grand Valley State University �The Ground of Hope Richard A. Rhem Page 3   lies beyond human capacity to achieve. Hope reaches beyond what is possible. Hope claims a future that can come only as the result of an act of God. Living in hope means living in the tension between now and then. There is a great difference between present experience and the future for which we hope. This gap between the vision and reality, between the ideal and the real, becomes understandable in terms of the hope of which Scripture teaches. That hope is grounded in the Christmas event. Life is difficult. Human experience is thoroughly laced with suffering. Many have had their faith in God shattered on the rocks of human suffering and evil in the world. Such people have never been taught the true biblical faith because biblical faith will not be eviscerated by suffering but is rather the means for understanding precisely the hard reality of human experience. Our life is caught in the tension. The darkness is not denied, but the darkness is not ultimate; the Light has come and the light shines in our darkness. Therefore we endure; we live in hope. Hope is grounded in the faithfulness of God which came to expression at Christmas. God has acted. Hope has been vindicated. God has visited his people; the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen the heart of God in the face of Jesus. Generations waited through long centuries and then—Mary had a baby. Jesus was the fulfillment of God's promise and in him redemption was accomplished—we have been saved. There is a history to look back upon and a dramatic intervention in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to remember and in which to trust. God did move in faithfulness to his promises, and that move at history’s midpoint proved the ground of a new promise, a new expectation, a new hope. God's redemptive plan has touched down. He has connected with our history. He has shown himself faithful in our past. Therefore our hope is grounded in history and we have an anchor to which to hold as we wait in expectation. As we celebrate another Christmas we acknowledge that we see only puzzling reflections in a mirror, but our hope is renewed as we remember his coming and we wait in hope for the day we will see him face to face. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19851220 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-12-20 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource The Ground of Hope Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Church School Herald Journal Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 20, 1985 entitled "The Ground of Hope", it appeared in The Church Herald, pp. 6-7. Tags: Advent, Hope, God of Grace, Faithful. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Advent Faithful God of Grace Hope https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/53000072d1a70f81f792fb2453c2a205.pdf 2e81236d2593aff2d86951c2fdd44882 PDF Text Text The Vision of Faith Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in The Church Herald The Magazine of the Reformed Church in America December 6, 1985, pp. 6-7 The Advent season calls to our consciousness the end of history; to the realization that history has an end; that our personal history as well as the history of the world and humanity are moving toward a terminus, a final moment. If we can resist the insistence of the commercial world that the Christmas season begins before Thanksgiving and make space and time for the keeping of Advent, we will find rich resources for reflection on the biblical themes of the end of history. There is great curiosity about the “Last Things” and all too little calm and reasoned discussion about these matters of faith. Advent, properly kept, provides the opportunity to be reminded that the Christ who came is the Christ who is coming and to treat those questions which continue to live in the human mind and heart: What is the point of it all, this human drama? Where is it all going— whither the whole? What happens at death? What about heaven and hell, judgment and salvation? What do you mean by eternal life? In the autumn of 1983 I was involved in a seminar at the University of Michigan with Professor Hans Küng, who gave a series of lectures entitled “Eternal Life?” Standing in the center of that great secular institution of learning where there is but a token recognition of the whole sphere of religion, he spoke without apology on the themes of death, life after death, hell, heaven, and the kingdom of God. It was a fascinating experience to witness, not only because of the great depth of his discussion, but because there in the sophistication of this great university there were hundreds of bright young people eager to learn about life’s ultimate issue. This is simple witness to the fact that we can never be content to be born, to live out our days, and to die without asking why, whence, whither. God has put eternity into our hearts. When life has been experienced with its full spectrum of activities the question arises, “Is this all there is?” The biblical faith answers, “No, there is much more.” Reflecting the biblical teaching, Küng concluded his lectures © Grand Valley State University   �The Vision of Faith Richard A. Rhem Page 2   after a careful and thorough examination of the questions from medical, religious, and philosophical perspectives with this affirmation of faith: To believe in an eternal life means—in reasonable trust, in enlightened faith, in tried and tested hope—to rely on the fact that I shall one day be fully understood, freed from guilt and definitively accepted and can be myself without fear; that my impenetrable and ambivalent existence, like the profoundly discordant history of humanity as a whole, will one day become finally transparent and the question of the meaning of history one day be finally answered. That is a well-packed statement. It says in capsule form what Advent faith teaches. Advent means “coming.” Advent means Jesus is coming; God's kingdom is coming; consummation is coming. Test Küng's statement by this most familiar word from St. Paul. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide... (1 Cor. 13:12-13). These are familiar words coming at the end of Paul's “hymn of love.” We rarely recognize the fascinating future reference of his declaration, but in this great statement we find acknowledged both the puzzle that is our history and the vision of our Christian faith. Let these words of the apostle provide our Advent reflection as we realize anew that God calls us to live trusting that he will fulfill his promises and bring his kingdom to its consummation. We must acknowledge the ambiguity of our present state. Is it not our common experience that a veil of mystery hangs over our lives and over history as a whole? It is impossible from an observation of the course of history to find history's meaning, to detect purpose, direction, and goal. We are caught up in the stream of history itself; we swim in the stream. We have no privileged position above history from which to survey it. There are those who deny any detectable meaning. H. A. L. Fisher, in his History of Europe, writes: One intellectual excitement, however, has been denied to me. Men wiser and more learned than I have discovered in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following another, as wave follows upon wave, only one great fact with respect to which, since it is unique, there can be no generalizations, only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen. © Grand Valley State University �The Vision of Faith Richard A. Rhem Page 3   That is an excellent statement of the case by an eminent historian. From the study of history itself the conclusion is that it is “the development of the contingent and the unforeseen.” St. Paul admitted the same. If history itself be our focus or, more narrowly, the data of our personal histories, then, “we see in a mirror dimly.” For Paul, however, it is not only the data of history with which we have to do, but also the revelation of God in the history of Israel and in Jesus. Thus we bring something to history: the knowledge of the revelation of God. That revelation, which found its supreme expression in Jesus, embraced by faith becomes the interpretative principle by which we understand history. There is more to come. Paul went on to write: “Then [we shall see] face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been understood fully.” The meaning of history will be accessible to us only from history’s end. Paul believed that just as there was a beginning, so there will be an end. He who spoke and brought all things into being will speak yet again, and time will be no more. As another Advent season comes around, we realize anew that we are faced with a choice, a decision: Will we live by faith in God's promise or not? To do so is a decision, not a conclusion at the end of rational argument. Trust is necessary; not irrational trust but reasonable trust, trust as a decision of the whole person. Fundamental trust will live in the assurance of a gracious purpose threading its way through the confusing patterns of history. Such trust is a gift. Its foundation is laid in earliest infancy. We are from the beginning being pointed toward trust or mistrust. As an adult it is only through a significant emotional experience that one can move from mistrust to trust. An encounter with Jesus is the catalyst for a life lived in trust. Such trust is confirmed in experience; yet it always remains trust, an experience beyond verification in the scientific sense of verification. Mistrust is an option. It is the consistent position of atheism. The Nobel Prizewinning biologist, Jacques Monod, an atheist, maintains: If he accepts this (negative) message in its full significance, man must at last wake out of his millenary dream and discover his total solitude, his fundamental isolation. He must realize that, like a gypsy, he lives on the boundary of an alien world; a world that is deaf to his music, and as indifferent to his hopes as it is to his sufferings or his crimes (Chance and Necessity, p. 160). That is an excellent statement representing clear, concise thinking. As an atheist, Monod is consistent. If there be no God, then there is no future resolution of © Grand Valley State University �The Vision of Faith Richard A. Rhem Page 4   history's confusion, no future righting of wrong, no future realization of our hopes, dreams, and longing. If this be an impersonal universe with no heart, no mind at the center, no purpose at the beginning, and no consummation at the end, then it is true the universe is deaf to our music, indifferent to our hopes, our sufferings, our crimes. If, on the other hand, we bring trust to history’s puzzling data, then we live in the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Finally, we must choose. The vision of faith sees beyond history’s puzzle to the promise of his coming, who came to a people who had for centuries cried, “How long, O Lord, how long?” He has come. His promise is he will come again, scattering the darkness, revealing the eternal purposes of God which now are hidden from clear view. To keep Advent is to keep faith in the promises of God. The mystery will be removed and we will understand. Faith will be vindicated as the king comes and the kingdom comes to consummation. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19851206 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-12-06 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource The Vision of Faith Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Church School Herald Journal Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 6, 1985 entitled "The Vision of Faith", it appeared in The Church Herald, Dec., 1985, pp. 6-7. Tags: Advent, Faith, Eschatology, Mystery, Love, Fundamental Trust. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Advent Eschatology Faith Fundamental Trust Love Mystery