Alister McGrath,
Christian Theology: An Introduction
Chapter 4: The Modern Period,
c.1750 to the Present
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
Theology and Cultural Developments in the West
• The Enlightenment critique of traditional theology
–
–
–
–
The rationality of Christian beliefs
The basic ideas of Christianity can be derived from reason
Reason can judge revelation
Conflicts with traditional Christian theology
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The notion of revelation
The status and interpretation of the Bible
The identity and significance of Jesus Christ
The doctrine of the Trinity
The critique of miracles
The rejection of original sin
The problem of evil
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
• Romanticism and the renewal of the theological imagination
– Appeals to human intuition and imagination
– Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), The Christian Faith
• Marxism: an intellectual rival to Christianity
– Karl Marx (1818-83)
– Marxism in Russia and Europe
– Marxism and Latin American liberation theology
• The crisis of faith in Victorian England
– George Eliot (AKA Mary Ann Evans, 1819-90)
– Matthew Arnold (1822-88)
• Darwinism: a new theory of human origins
– Charles Darwin (1809-82), Origin of the Species
– William Paley; Charles Kingsley
• Postmodernism and a new theological agenda
– Abandonment of centralizing narratives (metanarratives)
– Deconstructionism
– Impact on biblical interpretation and systematic theology
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
Key Theologians
• F.D.E. Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
– Christian Faith: defense of the faith to its “cultural despisers”
• John Henry Newman (1801-90)
– From the Oxford Movement to the Catholic Church
• Karl Barth (1886-1968)
– God’s self-revelation
• Paul Tillich (1886-1965)
– Correlation of culture and faith
• Karl Rahner (1904-84)
– “transcendental method”
• Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-88)
– Theodramatics
• Jürgen Moltmann (b.1926)
– A suffering God
• Wolfhart Pannenberg (b.1928)
– Revelation as history
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
Denominational Developments in Theology
• Catholicism
– Second Vatican Council (1962-5)
– Catholic Tübingen School (1830s)
– Hans Urs von Balthasar and Karl Rahner
• Orthodoxy
– Russian Orthodoxy
– Greek Orthodoxy
• Protestantism
–
–
–
–
Liberal Protestantism
Neo-orthodoxy
Postliberalism
Fundamentalism
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
• Evangelicalism
– Four central assumptions:
•
•
•
•
The authority and sufficiency of Scripture
The uniqueness of redemption through Christ’s death on the cross
The need for personal conversion
The necessity and urgency of evangelism
– Adiaphora
• Pentecostal and charismatic movements
– Three “waves”:
• Classic Pentecostalism (early 1900s)
• 1960s and 1970s in mainline denominations and Catholicism
• The “signs and wonders” movement (e.g., John Wimber)
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
Some Recent Western Theological
Movements and Trends
• Liberal Protestantism
– Friedrich Schleiermacher
– In light of modern culture and knowledge, Christian beliefs were:
• abandoned (e.g., doctrine of original sin)
• reinterpreted (e.g., divinity of Christ)
–
–
–
–
Optimistic view of human nature
Middle road between traditionalism and rejection
Paul Tillich (1886-1965)
Critiques
• Universal human religious experience?
• Reliant on transient, secular cultural developments
• Willing to abandon Christian distinctives to be acceptable to culture
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
• Modernism
–
–
–
–
Catholic theologians and the Enlightenment
Alfred Loisy (1857-1940)
George Tyrrell (1861-1909)
Modernism in mainstream Protestant denominations
• England
• United States
• Neo-orthodoxy
–
–
–
–
–
Karl Barth (1886-1968), Church Dogmatics
The self-revelation of God in Christ through Scripture
Dialectical theology
Neo-orthodoxy
Critiques:
• Emphasis on the trascendence and “otherness” of God
• No external criteria to verify claims - fideism
• No account of other religions
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
• La ressourcement, or La nouvelle théologie
–
–
–
–
Catholic theological revival in France
Jean Daniélou, “The Present Orientations of Religious Thought” (1946)
Rediscovering and reappropriating original sources of theology
“Primacy of the pastoral” (Yves Congar)
• Feminism
– Conflict with Christianity
– Reappraisal of the Christian past (Sarah Coakley)
– Challenges to traditional theology
•
•
•
•
The maleness of God
The nature of sin
Pastoral theology
The person of Christ
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
• Liberation theology
– Latin American context, 1960s and 1970s
– CELAM II (1968 gathering of Catholic bishops at Medellín, Colombia)
– Basic themes:
• Oriented toward the poor and oppressed
• Critical reflection on practice
– Use of Marxist theory for social analysis
– Key theological issues
• Biblical hermeneutics
• The nature of salvation
• Black theology
–
–
–
–
North American context, 1960s and 1970s
Joseph Washington, Black Religion; Albert Cleage, Black Messiah
The “Black Manifesto,” Detroit, 1969
James H. Cone (b.1938), Black Theology of Liberation
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
• Postliberalism
– Rejection of “universal rationality” and common religious
experience; particularity of the Christian faith
– Antifoundational: rejects universal foundation of knowledge
– Communitarian: appeal to values and language of a community
– Historicist: importance of traditions and historical communities
– George Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine (1984)
– Paul Holmer, Grammar of Faith (1978)
– Theology as descriptive, intrasystematic discipline
– Christian ethics in communities (Stanley Hauerwas, b.1940)
• Radical orthodoxy
– 1990s movement in Anglican theology
– John Milbank (b.1952)
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
Theologies of the Developing World
• India
–
–
–
–
–
–
Christianity indigenous to India by the fourth century
European colonizers
Resentment of westernization
Keshub Chunder Sen (1838-84)
Indian independence, 1947
Christianity and Hinduism
• The cosmic Christ includes all pluralities of religious experience
• Christ is the goal of the quest of Hinduism
• Hinduism’s relation to Christianity is analogous to the Old Testament and
Judaism
• Christianity is incompatible with Hinduism
• The Hindu context gives to rise to a specifically Indian form of
Christianity
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
• Africa
– European missionaries and colonizers
– Indigenous African theologians
• John Mbiti (b.1931), Kenya
• Kwame Bediako (1945-2008), Ghana
• Charles Nyamiti (b.1931), Tanzania
– South Africa and apartheid
Wiley-Blackwell 2010