09.21.08

Post-Christendom Hermeneutics

Posted in culture, ekklesia, hermeneutics, learning, mission, theology at 5:30 am by len

Anabaptist scholar Stuart Murray writes that the protest movements grew out of a rediscovery of Jesus and the Gospels, long neglected within Christendom which needed Jesus for salvation, but was afraid of the ethical and political implications. Other principles, apart from the centrality of Jesus, characterized these protest movements:

* their conviction that untrained Christians could understand the Bible challenged the interpretive monopoly of priests

* their belief that the Bible was best understood in community challenged the individualism of much scholarship

* their determination to apply the Bible to their daily lives and communal practices challenged the prevailing emphases on philosophical or mystical reflection rather than discipleship

* their suspicion that the Old Testament had been seriously misused to buttress a Christendom system built on wrong foundations challenged the entire system. Murray continues,

“As Christendom fades, the approach to interpretation that characterized the Christendom era and went unchallenged by the Reformers has become increasingly problematic, whereas the alternative approach of the Anabaptists and earlier dissident groups may offer helpful perspective.

* In a context where churches are no longer at the center but on the margins, the perspective of earlier marginal movements makes sense. Things look different from the margins. Marginal groups identify with characters in the story, ask different questions, and apply biblical teaching differently. The experience of base ekklesial communities in Latin America supports this.

* Once the church recognizes it can no longer control society and does not need to worry that its biblical interpretation might challenge social norms, it can rediscover the prophetic tradition that permeates the Bible and in which Jesus must be understood. New ways of thinking become possible.

* The suspicion of ideological influences found in the radical tradition and its tendency to subject traditional interpretations to critique and reappraisal may be helpful. We have plenty of unlearning to do as we gradually recognize how much traditional interpretations of Biblical teaching were affected by the Christendom mindset. A degree of suspicion may be healthy.

* The insistence on recognizing Jesus as the center of the Bible and on adopting New Testament norms for ethics and ecclesiology may assist us to rediscover the Jesus whom Christendom marginalized and to question the ways in which the Old Testament was interpreted under Christendom.

Stuart Murray, “Christendom and Post-Christendom,” 13. The article is a fascinating exploration of the radical reformation as an “emergent” movement in its day, as well as a fascinating exploration of the limitations of the Reformation.

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