ELEMENTS OF A POSTMODERN HOLINESS HERMENEUTIC ILLUSTRATED BY WAY OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION
by
John E. Stanley
Utilizing the Biblical book of Revelation to illustrate its thesis, this paper explores some features of a postmodern Wesleyan / Holiness hermeneutic. However, rather than beginning with abstract definitions of modernity and postmodernity or with outline- accounts of their origins, I will describe my personal pilgrimage in Biblical studies from the precritical stage through modernity and on to postmodernity. In the process, I will define modernity and postmodernity as these terms relate to Biblical studies.
I. A PERSONAL PILGRIMAGE THROUGH MODERNITY TO POSTMODERNITY
My initial introduction to academic study of the Bible occurred between 1961 and 1965. Although most of my Bible professors did not deliberately intend for their courses to be baptisms into modernity, in retrospect that is how I experienced my studies. In courses such as 'Literature of the Old Testament" and "Literature of the New Testament," we read significant articles in the introductory sections of The Interpreter's Bible. 1 Although the professors exposed us to the "salvation-history" movement, 2 the primary methodological approach was that of the historical-critical method. So, I was taught to ask five questions of a Biblical text: Who wrote it? When was it written? To whom was it written? Why was it written? Whence was it written and to what place? Implicitly, these five "W" questions were teaching me to approach the Biblical text as an historical object to be placed in an ancient context. So much effort was spent investigating these "five 'w' questions" that I seldom seriously asked the sixth question, "What does the text say and mean'?" Now I understand that I was experiencing what Edgar V. McKnight portrays as "... the attempt to make history the context for understanding the Biblical text." 3
But an uneasiness accompanied my historical study of the Bible. I found that some questions were unanswerable. For instance, who were the various authors named John in the New Testament? Was Galatia a northern political territory or a southern region of cities? Was Luke a physician and a companion of Paul? What was the nature of the resurrection? At best all I could do was list various options of scholars on historical issues. Exploring all these possibilities, 1 concluded that I could not know very much for certain in Biblical studies.
In his 1983 article "The Impact of Modern Thought Upon Biblical Interpretation," John Culp discussed three dominant perceptions of reality in modem thought. Culp stated that reality is historical, secular, and pluralistic. 4 My study of the Bible in college led me to perceive reality as historical and pluralistic. Two facts reminded me that reality is not secular-my Christian experience and the confessions of professors and ministers who, "'when push came to shove," affirmed the priority of their theological understanding of the Bible over their attempts to comprehend the Bible historically.
When I listened to outstanding preachers, including my professors, I noticed that their sermons did not spend a lot of time addressing the "five 'w' questions." I wondered, "Why am I spending so much time addressing these questions?" My personal intellectual pilgrimage since 1965 has sought to understand the Bible in light of the doubts regarding Biblical faith raised by the historical-critical method. I resonate with Robert Morgan and John Barton's observation that "modern historical scholarship on the Bible is rooted in the eighteenth- century rationalist attacks upon Christianity." 5 Barton and Morgan contend in their chapter entitled 'Criticism and the Death of Scripture" 6 that Biblical criticism created the death of Scripture as the Bible ceased to be authoritative when studied is the object of historical investigation.
My initial response was to move from a Biblical paradigm for my personal faith to a theological paradigm. Thus I read Reinhold Niebuhr, Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, Jürgen Moltmann, and others. I learned to think and preach theologically. But parishioners in my first parish pressed me to preach the Bible rather than theology. So 1 turned to the descriptive approach of the Biblical Theology Movement. I preached what I understood the Bible to say, even while I was personally struggling with the historical uncertainties and the pluralisms among Biblical scholars. In my third year of pastoring I began a Master of Sacred Theology degree with an emphasis in New Testament at Gettysburg Theological Seminary, which I completed in 1976. During my twelve years of pastoring I read widely in the areas of Bible and theology. Thus in the early seventies I discovered the Bible-based Black theology, Latin American liberation theologies and the holiness roots of Biblical feminism. I began building an exegetical approach and hermeneutic related to these emerging theologies. And I found that preaching from a Biblical paradigm began to produce conversions and new life in the church.
Imagine my delight when I began doctoral studies in 1980, to be formally introduced to the diverse methodological approaches then being used in Biblical studies. My doctoral program enabled me to formally evaluate in the academy the openness to diverse approaches which I had been forced to discover as a parish pastor in Maryland and in the inner city of Detroit. I believe my pilgrimage illustrates the transition from precriticism to modernity to postmodernity. Wesleyan-Holiness scholars in other disciplines may have experienced similar sojourns in their disciplines.
II. DEFINITIONS OF MODERNITY AND THE HISTORICAL-CRITICAL METHOD
My understanding of modernity features four traits. Descartes' dictum, "I think, therefore I am," established two of them: the twin priorities of the individual self and autonomous reason as the foundation stones of modernity. The rise of technology led to a belief in scientific, moral, and material progress. As Reinhold Niebuhr noted,
either by a force immanent in nature itself, or by the gradual extension of rationality, or by the elimination of specific sources of evil, such as priesthoods, tyrannical government and class divisions in society, modern man expects to move toward some kind of perfect society. 7
The fourth trait of modernity, even as it anticipated progress in the future, was a glorification of present knowledge. Ernst Troeltsch's three principles, which he believed should guide our approach to history (viz., analogy, correlation, and criticism), enabled modern thinkers to understand the past in light of the present, which was given priority. 8 After defining modernity as the ongoing effect of the Enlightenment, David Harvey states:
Enlightenment thought embraced the ideal of progress, and actively sought that break with history and tradition which modernity espouses. It was, above all, a secular movement that sought the demystification and desacralization of knowledge and social organization in order to liberate human beings from their chains. 9
Likewise, Albert Borgmann defines modernism as "the conjunction of Bacon's, Descartes', and Locke's projects, as the fusion of the domination of nature with the primacy of method and the sovereignty of the individual."' 10
If distinguishing traits of modernity include an emphasis on autonomous reason, the detached self, assumed objectivity, the primacy of the historical method, and understanding the past in light of the present, these elements took root in historical criticism and established historical criticism as modernity's exegetical method in Biblical studies. A glance at the methodological presuppositions of Wilhelm Wrede (1897), Krister Stendahl (1962), and Walter Kaiser (1981) reveals the methodological arrogance of some advocates of historical criticism.
Wilhelm Wrede wondered if the scientific study of New Testament theology "must be considered and done as a purely historical discipline." 1 Answering affirmatively, Wrede said, "My comments presuppose the strictly historical character of New Testament theology." 2 For Wrede,
… anyone who wishes to engage scientifically in New Testament theology ... must be capable of interest in historical research. He must be guided by a pure disinterested concern for knowledge. ... He must be able to keep his own viewpoint, however precious, quite separate from the object of his research and hold it in suspense. Then he will indeed know only what really was. 13
The appropriate name for the discipline of Biblical study, for Wrede, is "early Christian history of religion, or rather, 'the history of early Christian religion and theology.'"14
In 1962, Krister Stendahl continued the legacy of Wrede in his now classic article, "Biblical Theology, Contemporary." 15 Stendahl depicted the assignment of Biblical theology as a descriptive task that can be done by the agnostic as well as believer. Like Wrede, Stendahl understood the objective of Biblical theology to be to state what a text meant in its original context, or as he put it, ". . . from the point of view of method it is clear that our only concern is to find out what these words meant when uttered or written by the prophet, the priest, the evangelist, or the apostle." 16 A descriptive theology "yields the original in its own terms, limiting the interpretation to what it meant in its own setting." 17
Walter Kaiser is a respected evangelical scholar outside the Wesleyan / Holiness tradition. Kaiser and Stendahl posit identical goals for exegesis as is evidenced by Kaiser's dictum:
The sole object of the expositor is to explain as clearly as possible what the writer meant when he wrote the text under examination. It is the interpreter's job to represent the text, not the prejudices, feelings, judgments, or concerns of the exegete.18
Kaiser advocates a single-meaning hermeneutic because "the author's intended meaning is what a text means." 19
III. THE DEFINITION OF POSTMODERNITY
Stephen Toulmin is one among many voices announcing the demise of modernity: "Today the program of Modernity — even the very concept — no longer carries anything like the same conviction. If an historical era is ending, it is the era of Modernity itself." 20 Likewise Nancy Murphy and James William McClendon, Jr. believe that "there is a growing awareness today that the modem era, ushered in by Descartes and the Enlightenment, is passing." 21
If modernity represented the legacy of the Enlightenment, to what does "postmodern" refer? Thomas Oden says, "Postmodernity in my meaning is nothing more or less complicated than what follows modernity." 22 Harvey, developing an argument similar to Oden, says, "No one exactly agrees as to what is meant by the term, except perhaps that 'post-modernism' represents some kind of reaction to, or departure from, 'modernism.' " 23 Tightening up the definition, Angus Heller recommends "that the term post-modem be understood as equivalent to the contemporary historical consciousness of the modem age. Post-modern is not what follows after the modem age but what follows after the unfolding of modernity." 24 I contend that a self-consciousness regarding the aims, achievements, and shortcomings of modernity characterizes postmodernity. In one sense, postmodernity is still emerging. It is hard to characterize an epoch in its infancy. However, we might postulate that as the dominant influence and acceptance of the historical-critical method represented the zenith of modernity in Biblical studies, five assumptions inform a postmodern holiness hermeneutic. Using the book of Revelation, the remainder of this paper will explore elements of such a holiness hermeneutic.
IV. A HOLINESS HERMENEUTIC IS CONFESSIONAL AND COMMUNAL, PRESCRIPTIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE
John wrote Revelation that its words might be read, heard, and kept (Rev 1:3; 22:9-10). John sent the Apocalypse to seven churches in Asia Minor (Rev 1:11; 2:1-3:22). His confession, "I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus," attests his relational bond with his readers. John claimed to have heard and seen a voice that communicated a message from God and Jesus Christ to him. John's words constitute his confessionary claim that he is transcribing an account of his personal experience with God to the churches. John's confession is a faith statement designed to strengthen the church, as is indicated by Rev. 14:12: "Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus." The Apocalypse is a prescription for endurance.
An historical-critical approach emphasizes scientific detachment from and historical scrutiny of the text. On the contrary, a postmodern holiness hermeneutic values the faith commitment of the exegete who interprets the Bible for the church as a community of believers. A distinctive of the postmodern era is statement of one's presuppositions. Wesleyan / Holiness exegetes can state how their heritage informs their exegesis. Also, we can correlate our exegesis and our Christian experience. J. Christiaan Beker offers wise counsel: "Unless the experiential factors of our life's itinerary are taken into account — unless we attempt to integrate the New Testament text with our personal experience — both our theological analysis and our pastoral activities will become vacuous." 25
Historical-critical study of the Bible will continue in some academic settings. However, Robert W. Wall, in his Revelation: New International Biblical Commentary, 26 articulates a purpose for exegesis which should suit Wesleyan / Holiness interpreters. Wall states, "The ultimate aim of Biblical interpretation is to acquire knowledge that determines and shapes the identity of God's people in history." 27 Wall correctly maintains that "the proper hermeneutical judgment ... is that Revelation is useful in forming Christian faith for today." 28 Thus, just as John penned Revelation to fortify faith in the first century, contemporary Wesleyan / Holiness expositors interpret the Bible in relationship to the church and Christian experience rather than as a mere description of what the text meant in earlier historical settings.
A prescriptive reading of the Bible takes into account the diversity within the Bible. Revelation's rejection of the state and society, a Christ versus culture approach, must be read in light of three other New Testament teachings on the relationship of the Christian to the state. These diverse teachings appear in Mark 10:13-17, Romans 13:1-7, and 1 Timothy 2:1-2. In formulating ethical actions and policies, the Christian begins with the Biblical witness, even its diverse witness, and allows that witness to inform ethical decision-making. "Prescriptive reading" means that the Bible is the first source to which the Christian and the church look for guidance. The Bible must be supplemented by other influences such as tradition, experience, prayer, and deliberation. Exegesis can prescribe a life style for contemporary Christians as well as describe ancient life styles. 29
V. A HOLINESS HERMENEUTIC IS COMPREHENSIVE IN METHODOLOGY
Several texts in the Apocalypse demonstrate the inadequacy of the historical-critical method for explaining some of John's historical references. For example, who are the Nicolaitans? (Rev. 2:10, 15). Does "Nicolaitans," from the Greek words nikao and laos, have the symbolic reference of "people conquerors," or does it refer to incipient gnostics? To what does the mysterious number "six hundred sixty-six" of Rev. 13:10 refer? No less a scholar than Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza acknowledges that the meaning of the number 666 "must have been well known to Revelation's original audience, but it is no longer known to us." 30 Elsewhere she concludes, "Despite centuries of puzzling over the problem, scholars have yet to agree on whether 666 refers to Nero, Caligula, Domitian, or any other historical referent." 31 These two examples show that in spite of their faith in historical- critical research and reason, exegetes such as Wrede, Stendahl, and Kaiser cannot always determine the original context for a given text and therefore cannot always tell what that text meant. This would apply to Scripture in general and to the book of Revelation in particular.
But, having indicated some limitations of the historical-critical method, it is essential to remember that the historical-critical method has corrected some dogmatic and denominational readings of Revelation. For instance, Uriah Smith, a Seventh-Day Adventist expositor, and F. O. O. Smith, a Church of God (Anderson) interpreter, followed some earlier scholars and taught that the tripartition of "the great city" spoken of in Rev. 16:19 referred to a tripartite division of history into the age of Paganism, the age of Catholicism, and the age of Protestantism, after which ages their respective traditions were to emerge in reforming power. Their ecclesiologies determined their exegeses and hence their eschatologies. But we see scholars such as Mulholland helpfully utilizing the historical-critical method to show that the reference is not to stages of history but to the fragmentation of the "entire human structure of the rebellion (Fallen Babylon) ..., and [the crumbling of] its historical particularization ('the cities of the nations'). 32 So it is an ongoing positive aspect of the legacy of modernity in Biblical studies that the historical-critical study of the Bible can loose Biblical interpretation from the often theologically dogmatic approaches of the pre-critical era. But historical-critical study also constricts, as we have noted (and will note further).
David Harvey insists that the aim of "the postmodern theological project is to reaffirm God's truth without abandoning the powers of reason." 33 This implies an inclusive methodology which can use confessional, communal and prescriptive exegesis without abandoning the historical research intrinsic to the historical-critical.
Examples of cases in which Wesleyan / Holiness exegetes have minimized the historical-critical approach and emphasized instead the clarification of the contemporary theological significance of the Apocalypse in particular may be found in the work of M. Robert Mulholland, Jr. and Robert Wall. Interpreting the leopard-like beast of Rev. 13:1 - 10, Mulholland mentions no historical figures, such as Nero or Domitian, and simply interprets the beast as "a perceptual framework of life that is in total rebellion against God." 34 Wall, interpreting the same passage, also writes without historical referent(s) and simply interprets the beast as "a universal symbol for secular power and cultural idols with historical counterparts in every age." 35
These interpretations are too abstract! In their commitment to clarifying the contemporary theological significance of Revelation, Mulholland and Wall minimize the historical background which enables readers to understand that general and universal theological truths emerge from specific historical situations. And, they contribute to another problem: their work makes it clear that they know well the issues and "going" theses in historical-critical studies of the Apocalypse, and that they simply chose to muffle their influence; but less skilled exegetes than Mulholland and Wall may need the constraints of the historical-critical method to control possible idiosyncrasies.
I prefer a both / and approach which states the probable historical meaning of Revelation and its ongoing theological meaning. For me, then, the leopard-like beast initially refers to Domitian and it continues to refer, throughout history, to any ruler who places the claims of the state above those of Christ and the church.
To speak more nearly at the level of principle, we note that one might see in Interpreting God's Word Today, published in 1982, some chapters which mark the end of an era in Wesleyan / Holiness Biblical scholarship, an era distinguished by a methodological commitment to a historical paradigm. There, Wesleyan / Holiness scholars Wayne McCown, John Culp, and Robert Lyon explore the relationship between a holiness hermeneutic and historical criticism, 36 and Frank Spina contributes a chapter on canonical criticism. 37 The post-1982 publications of scholars within that tradition evidence considerable methodological diversity. 38
However (still at the level of principle, rather than at the level of specific focus on the book of Revelation), there is one area of methodology in Biblical studies in which the Wesleyan / Holiness Movement reflects continued entrapment in modernity, and that is in its sexism. Modernity arrogantly, and falsely, claimed that the heritage of the Enlightenment constituted the true center of culture. White North Atlantic males have dominated this heritage (i.e., "modernity"), of course — determining its issues, setting its priorities and standards, and controlling its social structures. Postmodenity recognizes and legitimates spheres of influence, of which there are many in any culture, rather than submitting any culture to any single dominant center or even to any single sphere of influence, such as that controlled by white males. As Borgmann reminds us, "Communities of memory and practices of commitment still have animating power at the margins of society. These we must learn to recover and respect." 39 Scanning the list of contributors to Interpreting God's Word Today and the Asbury Bible Commentary, 40 one realizes that Wesleyan / Holiness Biblical scholarship remains centered among white males. Despite our professed openness to women in ministry, the holiness movement has not affirmed and nurtured the call of women to Biblical scholarship. That is to say, the Wesleyan / Holiness Movement has kept on the margins or ignored the resources in exegetical insight of this particular "'community of memory, with its own unique ""practices of commitment." The Wesleyan / Holiness tradition needs to include and hear the voices and methodologies of women and minorities in Biblical scholarship.
Exegesis involves exploring the literary, historical, and theological contexts of a text. Diverse methodologies, including the controls of historical research, can guide the process. Even as we move into the post-modern perspective, with its recognition that the varying cultural situations of readers provide meanings for texts, we should continue to consider the meaning of a text in its historical context. Here, Jürgen Moltmann's observation is potent and useful: "History is undoubtedly the paradigm of modern European times, but it is not the final paradigm for humanity." 41 And Tremper Longman III, after surveying various literary approaches to Biblical interpretation, offers guidance for retrospection and future projections: '"The best approach is an eclectic one." 42 Eclecticism rather than historicism is the postmodern mode.
VI. A HOLINESS HERMENEUTIC VALUES INTERTEXTUALITY
In contradistinction to modernity's emphasis on determining the single meaning intended by a Biblical author, a holiness hermeneutic values intertextuality — i.e., the process whereby Spirit-influenced writers and readers discover new meanings in texts as they enter into relationships with them. W. S. Vorster defines the significance of intertextuality:
[All texts] are related to other texts and their meanings, in a network of intertextuality. The meaning of a text is the result of the similarities and differences between other texts. Intertextuality refers to the fact that one text is irrevocably influenced by other texts, and that its meaning is determined by its similarities with and differences from other texts. 43
Elsewhere, Vorster says, "All texts can be regarded as the rewriting of previous texts, and also as reactions to texts." 44
Texts relate to each other in a backward and forward manner. Thus, for Ellen van Wolde:
The exegete or textual analyst is the reader who informs other readers about the possible worlds of a text, or the person who on the basis of intertextual study actualizes the possible textual relationships so that the "universe of discourse" becomes visible. 45
In his monumental work, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, 46 Richard Hayes observes: ""No longer can we think of meaning as something contained by a text; texts have meaning only as they are read and used by communities of readers." 47 Edgar McKnight agrees that "meaning is in part a result of the creative involvement of the reader." 48 From this perspective on intertextuality, it may be said that a writer of a Biblical text stood in a creative relationship with prior written texts, with the immediate readers being addressed, and with the illuminating and imaginative influence of the Holy Spirit. Once the text is written, it becomes a source of referral and creativity for future readers. It gains a voice and, as Hayes points out, ""the text is reckoned as having a knowing voice that has the power to address the present out of the pastor to address the past about the present, in such a way that readers, overhearing, may reconceive the present." 49
The concept of intertextuality provides a vehicle for exploring the relationships between Scripture, reason, tradition, and experience in the interpretive process. It implies relationships with texts. It disallows any perspective which makes texts into objects to be dissected and analyzed from a distance. It invites interpreters into relationships with texts on the premise that legitimate meanings emerge from these relationships.
Albert Gray's understanding of Biblical inspiration shows that the concepts of intertextuality and reader-response criticism are at home in Wesleyan / Holiness traditions. Gray, a thoughtful teacher and theologian, and founding president of Pacific Bible College, now Warner Pacific College, wrote a systematic theology in which he entitled the section on Biblical inspiration "It Is the Person That Is Inspired." 50 Gray believed that "the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is not directed toward the papyrus, the pen, or the ink, but toward the persons inspired." 51 Elsewhere, he had said: "It is not the Bible, that is the book itself that was inspired, but the writers. The inspiration of the Spirit of God had its direct contact with the mind and spirit of the writers. It was the men who were inspired." 52
This Wesleyan / Holiness statement of Biblical inspiration is at least congenial to the concept of intertextuality and it allows us to return to and utilize the book of Revelation, where intertextuality abounds, as our "illustration" for postmodern hermeneutics within the holiness tradition. 53
And again, in true intertextual fashion, I speak autobiographically for a moment in order to set the stage even more postmodernity.
My doctoral dissertation explores the way in which the social situations of three first-century writers — John, IV Ezra, and Josephus — influenced them to interpret differently the visions of the four world empires of Daniel 2:31-45 and Daniel 7. 53 And, it was my own personal concern, my need, generated by the diverse understandings of the book of Revelation operant in my Church of God (Anderson) heritage, which prompted my sociological study of Rev. 13 and Dan. 7.1 was not familiar with the concept of intertextuality in the early 1980s, when I did my dissertation. In retrospect, however, I see intertextuality at work in that process. I, as a "text," was interacting with the written texts of Revelation and Daniel in order to define myself in relationship to the various interacting "texts" presented by my heritage.
VII. A HOLINESS HERMENEUTIC IS OPEN TO THE SPIRIT
Bearing in mind, then, my own experience, the methodological comprehensiveness of Wesleyan/Holiness hermeneutics, and the congeniality of at least one Wesleyan/Holiness understanding of Biblical inspiration to intertextuality, we return to the question of a postmodern Wesleyan/Holiness hermeneutic, utilizing the book of Revelation as our "illustration."
Commenting on Revelation, John Wesley wrote that John was "overwhelmed with power and filled with the light of the Holy Spirit." 54 The phrase "in the Spirit" appears four times in the Apocalypse: at John's call (1:9-10); when he looks into heaven and beholds a vision of God the Creator (4:2); as he prepares to announce the judgment of Babylon (17:3); and when he surveys the New Jerusalem (21:10). Three of these visions are positive as the Spirit empowers John to see and share what God has in store for the church. And the vision of the judgment of Babylon was so traumatic that John needed the enabling of the Spirit to describe it. The phrase "in the Spirit" suggests that John experienced periodic renewal throughout the writing of the Apocalypse. His references to the experience at critical junctures of his narrative correspond to Larry Shelton's understanding of what constitutes a Wesleyan view of inspiration: "[such a view] should reflect a cooperative, redemptive, interpersonal process that is validated by an existential encounter with the Holy Spirit." 55
To illustrate the difference that such an understanding of inspiration makes in hermeneutics and, as a corollary, to illuminate the distinction between the modem historical-critical method and postmodern method, we may compare an article of F. F. Bruce, published in 1973 under the title "The Spirit in the Apocalypse," 56 with Robert Mulholland's Revelation: Holy Living in an Unholy World, a Wesleyan / Holiness commentary published in 1990.
Bruce described what John wrote. He functioned as an historian of ideas and related John's references to the Spirit to other ancient texts. Like Stendahl, Bruce delineated the first-century meaning of the text without commenting on its meaning in 1973. I suspect that Bruce's commitment to the historical-critical method restrained him from combining historical study and contemporary prescription. In Revelation: Holy Living in an Unholy World, Mulholland issues a strong challenge to modernity by insisting that "[in order to] develop a more holistic understanding of Revelation, the reality and nature of visionary experience must be taken seriously as a primary factor in interpretation." 57 Mulholland maintains that to overlook or otherwise refuse to recognize the visionary character of the Apocalypse and to interpret it solely in terms of historical criticism, anthropology, sociology and literary criticism, "is to develop a sophisticated description of the shell of the vision and to miss the reality of the vision itself." 58 Mulholland aptly employs historical, literary, and sociological criticisms, but he insists that it is fundamental to remember "that John is reporting a genuine visionary experience, an enhanced state of consciousness, a mystical encounter with profound spiritual realities that moved John into a fuller dimension of perception and experience." 59
For Mulholland, to be "in the Spirit" is to be open to the possibility of experiencing the heightened consciousness intrinsic to existence in the spiritual realm. He asks readers to consider whether their modern and naturalistic worldviews prevent them from understanding Revelation as a vision; more particularly, as the vision which John experienced. 60 Further, Mulbolland, as Wall, asks contemporary readers of Revelation to consider whether their values and commitments are those of the New Jerusalem, symbolized by the faithful saints, or those of Fallen Babylon.
The commentaries of Mulholland and Wall bear three characteristics of postmodernity: they depart from a solely historical-critical method; they invite the reader to relate to the conflict between competing values — a conflict between the New Jerusalem and Fallen Babylon; and, they affirm the role of the Spirit, both in John's life as writer and in the contemporary reader's perusal and appropriation of the text. The idea that the Spirit continues to influence readers individually and corporately is a very significant idea basic to Wesleyan / Holiness hermeneutics.
VIII. A HOLINESS HERMENEUTIC IS UNEASY WITH DOMINANT CULTURAL PARADIGMS: BEYOND MODERNITY AND POSTMODERNITY
Bible scholars often refer to Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, and Ephesus as the centers of early Christianity, as loci of influential Christian communities. 61 To this list of cities we might add the island of Patmos. From Patmos emanated the apocalyptic message inherent in Jesus and Paul.62 As apocalyptic theology, Revelation affirms God's intention to culminate history in a cosmic redemption — a point of view suggested by Paul in Romans 8:18-25 and I Corinthians 15. This apocalyptic theology directly contradicted the claims of the Roman Empire that as continuator of "the realm of Troy" and heir of Hellenism, she was an eternal empire-in Virgil's words, ""boundless in time and power." 63 Thus, I would submit, the conflict between the Hellenism of the Roman Empire and John of Patmos was a first-century clash between tradition and modernity. 64 Further, I would submit that the book is a critique of the modernity represented by Hellenism within the emerging church, a Hellenism which, by 96 C.E., the date of the composition of the book of Revelation, was instrumental in reducing apocalyptic theology to a secondary role in the church's message.
Ironies abound in John's critique of the modernity represented by Hellenism. He challenged Rome's claim to be eternal by declaring that God is "the Alpha and the Omega ... who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty" (Rev. 1:8). To an Empire which sees itself as the very essence of the future, John relays the thrice-repeated, climactic announcement of Jesus: "'I am coming soon" (Rev. 22:7, 12, 20). The letters to the seven churches, apocalyptic as they are, are informed by John's insight into the culture and commerce of Asia Minor-the seven churches are in seven very real earthly cities. 65 Babylon / Rome's wealth and power are not to be denied, fallen though she be, and that in part because she values things over people (Rev. 18), but the wealth and power of the New Jerusalem, John tells us, far surpass that of Rome. The fierce and apparently indomitable beast, who initially represented Emperor Domitian, is outmatched and conquered by "the Lamb who was slain." Greek, the literary language of pervasive and seductive Hellenism and its attendant imperialism, flows from John's pen as a powerful instrument for telling of the collapse of that culture; and the very genre of John's work, a letter, is turned from its usual conveyance of worldly wisdom to an apocalyptic vehicle. 66 John knew Hellenism inside out, and now he appropriates that knowledge to challenge, to attack, Hellenism's modernity.
Wesleyan / Holiness exegetes can learn from John's dual strategy of attack and appropriation. We can positively appreciate modernity's emphases: rationality, the worth of the individual, scientific inquiry. At the same time, we abhor its arrogance. We need to understand, as McKnight counsels us, that "a dialectical relationship exists between the modern and postmodern; the postmodern 'advance' utilizes the assumptions and strategies of the modern in order to challenge them." 67
As modernity has come and gone, 68 so will postmodernity come and go. Postmodernity is currently fashionable, a trend. But it will eventually fade and its former luster will be criticized by proponents of some new era Like John of Patmos, we need to understand our culture thoroughly. Our holiness heritage, a heritage which emerged as the reform of an established religion, implies that we should not wed our hermeneutic to the dominant cultural paradigm A holiness hermeneutic which affirms an apocalyptic understanding of history can never be comfortable with dominant cultural paradigms. Amid inevitable transitions, our relationship to culture will alternate between attack and appropriation as we await the One who claimed to be coming soon.
NOTES
1 George Buttrick, ed., The Interpreter's Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1952), 1:lff.
2 G. Ernest Wright, God Who Acts (London: SCM Press, 1952), and G. Ernest Wright and Reginald H. Fuller, The Book of the Acts of God (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1957). Brevard S. Childs provides a critique of the Biblical theology movement in Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1970).
3 Edgar McKnight, "A Biblical Criticism for American Biblical Scholarship," in Kent Harold Richards, ed., Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers, 1980 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980), p. 123. David Bartlett shares a similar experience in '"Biblical Scholarship Today: A Diversity of New Approaches," The Christian Century 98 (October 20, 1901), p. 1090.
4 John Culp, "The Impact of Modern Thought Upon Biblical Interpretation," Wesleyan Theological Perspectives, Vol. I: Interpreting God's Word Today (Wayne McCown and James Earl Massey, eds., Anderson, IN: Warner Press, 1962), pp.112-118.
5 Robert Morgan with John Barton, Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1900), p~ 20.
6 Morgan and Barton, Biblical Interpretation, pp. 44-61. David Harvey portrays the Enlightenment as ". . . a secular movement that sought the demystification and descralization of knowledge and social organization in order to liberate human beings from their chains." Cf. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1909), pp. 12-13.
7 Reinhold Neibuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941), 1.24.
8 See Laurence Wood's discussion of Troeltsch in "The Bible and Truth," Asbury Bible Commentary, Eugene Carpenter and Wayne McCown, eds. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), pp.67-68. John Wilson says, "Modemism entails a kind of explicit and self-conscious commitment to the modern in intellectual and cultural spheres," in Mircea Eliade, ed., The Encyclopedia of Religion (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987), 10:18; also, Thomas Oden, Two Worlds. Notes on the Death of Modernity in America and Russia (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), p.82. (Hereinafter, Two Worlds.)
9 David Harvey, Condition of Postmodernity, pp. 12-13.
10 Albert Borgman, Crossing the Postmodern Divide (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 25.
11 William Wrede, "The Task and Methods of 'New Testament Theology,"' in Robert Morgan, The Nature of New Testament Theology (London: SCM Press, 1973), p. 69. (Hereinafter, Wrede, "Task and Methods.")
12 Wrede, "Task and Methods," p. 69.
13 Wrede, "Task and Methods," p. 70.
14 Wrede, "Task and Methods," p. 116.
15 Krister Stendahl, "Biblical Theology, Contemporary," in George Buttrick, ed., The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962), I: 418-432. (Hereinafter, Stendahl "Biblical Theology.")
16 Stendahl, "Biblical Theology," p.422.
17 Stendahl, "Biblical Theology," p. 425. Commenting on Stendahl's descriptive approach in 1991, Bruce Birch observes, "This approach still dominates. . . ." Cf. Bruce Birch, Let Justice Roll Down: The Old Testament, Ethics, and Christian Life (Louisville: Westminster / John Knox Press, 1991), p. 61. Heikki Räisänen illustrates Birch's observation. After surveying New Testament theology since J. P. Gabler, Räisänen concludes, "I have opted for Wrede's version in a modified form." Cf. Heikki Räisänen, Beyond New Testament Theology (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990), p.120.
18 Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Toward an Exegetical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981), p. 45.
19 Kaiser, ibid., p. 33; also, see pp. 46-47. Gerald Sheppard criticizes Kaiser's approach in The Future of the Bible (Toronto: The United Church Publishing House, 1990), p. 55.
20 Stephen Toulman, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (New York: The Free Press, 1990), p.3. Albert C. Outler concurs in "Toward a Postliberal Hermeneutics," Theology Today 42 (1985), pp. 281-291.
21 Nancey Murphy and James Wm. McClendon, Jr., "Distinguishing Modern and Postmodern Theologies," Modern Theology 5 (April 1989), p. 191. Darrell Jodock outlines eight events leading to the demise of modernity and the emergence of postmodernism in The Church's Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), pp. 72-73.
22 Oden, Two Worlds, p. 44. Oden dates the modem era as 1789-1989. Cf. ibid., pp. 12 and 32.
23 Harvey, Condition of Postmodernity, p. 7. Harvey roots the emergence of postmodernism "somewhere between 1968 and 1978." Cf. ibid., 38.
24 Angus Heller, Can Modernity Survive? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p.169. Borgmann contends, "Postmodern is now the vocable favored to invoke a sense of closure and transition. Whatever its faults, the term reminds us of what needs to be understood before it can be overcome, namely, the modem period, its character, and its boundaries." Cf. Borgmann, Crossing the Postmodern Divide, p.20. Similar to Oden, Harvey and Borgmann, I do not limit the term "postmodern" to structuralism as does Joey Earl Horstman in "Postmodem Christianity: Saussure, Derrida, and the Definition of God," Perspectives 6 (October 1991), pp. 19-20.
25 J. Christiaan Beker, "Integration and Integrity in New Testament Studies," The Christian Century 109 (May 13, 1992), p.516. Jean-Pierre Jossua begins with the "lived, commentated and interpreted experiences -39- of believers . . . known as narrative theology." Cf. Jean-Pierre Jossua, ""A Crisis of the Paradigm, or a Crisis of the Scientific Nature of Theology?" in Hans Küng and David Tracy, eds., Paradigm Change in Theology, Margaret Kohl, tr. (New York: Crossroad, 1989), p.256.
26 Robert W. Wall, Revelation: New International Critical Commentary (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991). (Hereinafter, Wall, Revelation.)
27 Wall, Revelation, p.37. One can accept Wall's thesis without accepting all the ramifications of the canonical criticism he espouses. For an evaluation of Wall's canonical approach see my "Some Words on the Bible's Last Word: An Assessment of Four Recent Commentaries on Revelation," Christian Scholar's Review (forthcoming).
28 Wall, Revelation, p. 55. Stephen E. Fowl and L. Gregory Jones also affirm that '"the aim of Scriptural interpretation is to shape our common life in the situations in which we find ourselves according to the characters, convictions, and practices related in Scripture." Cf. Stephen E. Fowl and L. Gregory Jones, Reading in Communion: Scripture & Ethics in the Christian Life (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmann's, 1991), p. 20; also, pp. 37, 59, 63-64.
29 Contrary to Robert Alter's claim that the Bible is not read prescriptively except by fundamentalist groups. Cf. Robert Alter, The World of Biblical Literature (New York: Basic Books, 1992), p.196.
30 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World, in Proclamation Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), p. 86. (Hereinafter, Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation.) 31Schjissler Fiorenza, Revelation, p.16.
32 Uriah Smith, Thoughts, Critical and Practical, on the Book of Daniel and Revelation (Battle Creek: Review & Herald, 1882), pp. 185-186, 667-706; E. G. Smith, The Revelation Explained (Anderson, IN: The Gospel Trumpet Company, 1908), pp. 235, 258-261. Also see M. Robert Mulbolland, Jr., Revelation: Holy Living in an Unholy World (Grand Rapids: Francis Asbury / Zondervan, 1990), p. 273. But, see infra, n 34.
33 Harvey, Condition of Postmodernity, p. 41; likewise, David Tracy states, "The hope of reason must be defended in any philosophy worthy of the name." Cf. David Tracy, "On Naming the Present," ibid., p.72.
34 M. Robert Mulholland, Jr., ibid., p. 226.
35 Wall, Revelation, p. 168.
36 Wayne McCown, "Toward a Wesleyan Hermeneutic," pp. 1-30; John Culp, "The Impact of Modern Thought Upon Biblical Interpretation," pp. 111-134; and Robert W. Lyon, "Evangelicals and the Critical Historical Method," in McCown and Massey, ibid., pp. 135-164.
37 Frank W. Spina, "Canonical Criticism: Childs Versus Sanders," in McCown and Massey, ibid., pp. 165-194.
38 For instance, Spina, Robert Wall, and Eugene Lemcio of Seattle Pacific University use canonical criticism. A sampling of diverse methodologies among Church of God writers appears in Barry Callen, ed., Listening to the Word of God (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, 1991). Michael Cosby uses rhetorical criticism in The Rhetorical Composition and Function of Hebrews (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1989). For sociological analysis, see John E. Stanley, "The Apocalypse and Contemporary Sect Analysis," in Kent Harold Richards, ed., Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers Series. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), pp~ 411-421.
39 Borgmann, Crossing the Postmodern Divide, p. 57. Thomas Oden's "Women in the Pastoral Office," in Pastoral Theology (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983), pp. 35-46 is much more supportive of women than his diatribe against feminism in Two Worlds, pp. 39- 40. Contrary to Oden's claim, feminism is not dead. Actually, given cultural lag, contemporary feminism's positive influence on the holiness movement is just coming into full force as evidenced by the women in ministry conference sponsored by five holiness groups in 1994. A text that demonstrates the diverse spheres of influence typical of postmodernity is The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis, David Jobling, Peggy Day, and Gerald T. Sheppard, eds. (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1991).
40 Cf. supra 36, 38.
41 Jürgen Moltmann, tr. Margaret Kohl, The Way of Jesus Christ (San Francisco: Harper, 1990), p. 215.
42 Tremper Longmann III, Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), p. 49.
43 W. S. Vorster, "'Genre' and the Revelation of John: A Study in Text, Context and Intertext," Neotestamentica 22 (1988), p. 110.
44 W. S. Vorster, "Intertextuality and Redaktionsgeschichte," in Sipke Draisma, ed., Intertextuality in Biblical Writings. Essays in Honour of Bas van lersell (Kampen: Uitgeverssmaatschappik: J. J. Kok, 1989), p. 20.
45 Ellen van Wolde, "Trendy Intertextuality?" Intertextuality in Biblical Studies, p. 48.
46 Richard B. Hayes, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
47 Hayes, ibid., p.189.
48 Edgar V. McKnight, Postmodern Use of the Bible: The Emergence of Reader-Oriented Criticism (Nashville: Abingdon, 1988), p.68.
49 Hayes, ibid., p.107; Eduard Schillebeeckx further explains the act of finding new meanings in texts: "The Christian perception of meaning takes place in a creative process of giving meaning, a re-reading of the tradition from within new situations. Interpretation produces new traditions, in creative faithfulness. This is what it means to hand on the tradition of faith in a living way to future generations." Cf. Eduard Schillebeeckx, "The Role of History in What Is Called the New Paradigm," in Küng and Tracy, Paradigm Change in Theology, p. 313.
50 Albert E Gray, Christian Theology. Vol. 1 (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, 1944).
51 Gray, Christian Theology, p. 80.
52 Albert E Gray, Basic Christian Theology, Book 1 (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, n.d.), p.16.
53 John E. Stanley, "The Use of the Symbol of Four World Empires to Inspire Resistance to or Acceptance of Hellenism in Daniel 2, Daniel 7, 4 Ezra 11-12, Revelation 13, and Antiquities of the Jews: Insights from the Sociology of Knowledge and Sect Analysis," (Ph. D. dissertation, University of Denver / Iliff School of Theology, 1986).
54 John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament, 18th ed. (New York Eaton and Mains, n.d.), p.654.
55 Larry Shelton, "Nature, Character, and Origin of Scripture," Asbury Bible Commentary, p. 28.
56 F. F. Bruce, "The Spirit in the Apocalypse," in Barnabas Linders and Stephen S. Smalley, eds., Christ and Spirit in the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 333-344.
57 Mulholland, ibid., p. 17.
58 Mulholland, ibid., p. 44.
59 Mulholland, ibid., p. 342.
60 Mulholland, ibid., p.12. Unlike Muiholland, I am not convinced that one can determine where John used vision as a literary category to communicate his apocalypse and where he reports his actual vision. To say this does not mean I am using a naturalistic interpretation.
61 As in Raymond Brown and John Meier, Jerusalem and Rome (New York: Paulist Press, 1983).
62 Ernst Käsemann spoke of apocalyptic as "the mother of Christianity," in "The Beginnings of Christian Theology," W. J. Montague, tr., in New Testament Questions for Today (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), p.102. J. Christiaan Beker states, "Paul is an apocalyptic theologian." Cf. J. Christiaan Beker, "The Relationship Between Sin and Death in Romans," in Robert Fortna and Beverly Gaventa, eds., The Conversation Continues.~ Studies in Paul & John (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), p. 56; also, Beker's Paul's Apocalyptic Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), and his "Paul's Apocalyptic Theology: Apocalyptic and the Resurrection of Christ," Paul the Apostle (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), pp. 135-181. Ben Witherington III offers an apology for apocalyptic in Jesus, Paul and the End of the World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992), pp.9-12 and 232-242.
63 Virgil, The Aeneid, tr. James Rhoades in Great Books of the Western World, ed. Robert Hutchins (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952), II.278-280. David Husser notes that the Roman historian Aemilius Sura regarded the Roman Empire as the fourth and final world kingdom, "The Four Empires in the Fourth Sibyl and in the Book of Daniel," Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972), p.159, n. 43.
64 Carolyn Osiek agrees that the clash between Hellenism, Judaism, and Christianity was an encounter between tradition and modernity. Cf. Carolyn Osiek, What Are They Saying About the Social Setting of the New Testament? (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), p. 14.
65 Colin J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting (Sheffield: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Press, 1986).
66 Recent commentators such as Wall, Mulholland, and Schüssler Fiorenza concur that the Apocalypse is a mixture of the three genres: letter, prophecy and apocalypse.
67 McKnight, Postmodern Use of the Bible, p.25, n. 1.
68 Peter Berger, Brititte Berger, and Hansfriend Kellner argued that modernity is not "an inexorable destiny" and that its processes may turn out to be somewhat reversible, in The Homeless Mind (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), pp. 19 and 229.
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