{"id":3952,"date":"2015-02-09T11:02:27","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T11:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=3952"},"modified":"2015-02-09T11:02:27","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T11:02:27","slug":"fully-immersed-the-contextuality-of-contact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/fully-immersed-the-contextuality-of-contact\/","title":{"rendered":"Fully-immersed: The Contextuality of Contact"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere is no such thing as \u2018theology\u2019; there is only contextual<\/em> theology,\u201d[1]<\/a> writes Stephen Bevans in his Models of Contextual Theology. There are a number of critics that take him to task for this statement and also for limitations they see in his six (used to be five; Bevans made it six in the current expanded edition) categorizations of \u201ctypes\u201d of contextual theologies that he delineates: Translation; Anthropological; Praxis; Synthetic; Transcendental; Countercultural. Some people see the first statement as an unfalsifiable claim and see the categorizations as ironic metaanalyses contradicting the very nature of contextuality.<\/p>\n

Well\u2026okay\u2026to an extent. However, overall, I don\u2019t buy the critiques.<\/p>\n

To suggest that we are finite and subjective doesn\u2019t ipso facto<\/em> mean that we are completely solipsistic condemned to infinite, unmitigable relativism.\u00a0\u00a0 As well, yes, categorizations are limiting and limited tools, but they are often \u2018necessary evils\u2019 allowing for further conceptualization. The key is to keep boundaries understood as semi-permeable.<\/p>\n

To play a bit loose with terminology, I lean toward practical application (the contextualization) rather than systematization of public theology. I note this to just emphasize my appreciation of \u2018the particular\u2019 and of \u2018the present moment\u2019 before noting that I think sometimes people should be a bit less cranky about limitations of categorization. Of course categories are limiting; that\u2019s actually the point. It means to bring comprehensible order to the vast cacophony of data that is existence. Apparently the silver lining of doing this is that it gives people room to offer critique and publish more articles and books. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

In the midst of Bevans offering us some overview and categorization, Tanner\u2019s Spirit in the Cities.<\/em>[2]<\/a> gives us a closer example of the particularity of first-hand narrative arising out of lived experience \u2013 particularly for her, shifting from car to train as transportation in LA, USA after having been broken of the automobile habit while residing in London, England. The exceptionally simple and rather mundane act of riding public transportation allowed Tanner to see with new eyes the connectivity of the world in which she lived. As I have often said, \u201cit is difficult to establish and sustain empathy without proximity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rounding out the ideas presented by Bevans and Tanner is a book by David Neville titled, The Bible, Justice and Public Theology<\/em>. I\u2019ve already quickly noted the term public theology above. Neville does a great job moving into this vast topic in his introductory chapter to this substantive reader. He sums up the topic well in a just a couple of sentences by noting Jim Wallis being fond of saying, \u201cChristian faith may be personal, but it is never strictly private\u201d and Jurgen Moltmann noting, \u201cFrom the perspectives of its origins and its goal, Christian theology is public<\/em> theology, for it is the theology of the kingdom of God<\/em>.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Neville\u2019s compare and contrast of public theology and political theology is important. In offering his thoughts he lands on noting that public theology is a broader conceptualization of theological structuring of social life. And vitally, he suggests \u2013 in my opinion \u2013 that public theology tends to be a bottom-up approach while political theology tends toward a top-down approach.[4]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 I offer this as my opinion because he specifically notes at one point that public theology shares a top-down conviction like political theology. However, the author goes on to further note that he means for this similarity to be understood to be the case in relation to a sense of connection with the Divine, not as necessarily related to human interconnectivity and communication.<\/p>\n

I greatly appreciated the author\u2019s connecting with Hauerwas and the Anabaptist tradition \u2013 both its moral\/ethical components as well as its strategic orientations \u2013 in discussing both the strengths and the difficulties of moving forward related to seeking the betterment of society. But perhaps most of all, I appreciated his discussion of Christ\u2019s genius in using parables as a strategic function of seeking to elicit the deepest affective as well as cognitive responses in his listeners. Far too the socio-political acumen of Christ gets lost in an inappropriately dichotomized and un-grounded spirituality. It was great to see this not happen to be the case in these three texts.<\/p>\n

These texts remind me of one of my favorite quotes. \u00a0The quote is by G.K. Chesterton, “Heaven is a house with a hundred gates and no two people enter at exactly the same angle.” \u00a0There’s enough difference to go around, but we’re also all in this together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Stephen Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology<\/em> (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), 3.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Kathryn Tanner, Spirit in the Cities (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2009).<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> David Neville, The Bible, Justice and Public Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009), 26.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere is no such thing as \u2018theology\u2019; there is only contextual theology,\u201d[1] writes Stephen Bevans in his Models of Contextual Theology. There are a number of critics that take him to task for this statement and also for limitations they see in his six (used to be five; Bevans made it six in the current […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,2,481,596,597],"class_list":["post-3952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bevans","tag-dminlgp","tag-lgp4-2","tag-neville","tag-tanner","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3953,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952\/revisions\/3953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}