BOOK REVIEWS
John B. Cobb, Jr. 1995. Grace & Responsibility: A Wesleyan Theology for Today. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 192 pp. ISBN 0-687-00769-0.
Reviewed by Randy L. Maddox, University of Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls, S.D.
As the promotional blurb that I provided for this book suggests, I see its publication as a significant event. In it one of the most prominent contemporary United Methodist theologians finally engages his Wesleyan roots as seriously as he does current theological agendas. Moreover, he has taken the time to develop an informed reading of Wesley for this engagement, something few American Methodist systematic theologians have done for over a century.
The "back to Wesley movement," growing over the last few decades in Methodism, has been carried on more by historians, historical theologians, and sacramental/liturgical theologians than by systematic theologians. This helps explain Cobb's initial distrust of the movement, fearing that it sought merely a repristinization of Wesley's teachings that minimized the impact of intellectual changes during the past two centuries. He was also troubled by the tendency of proponents to champion highly selective aspects of Wesley. It was only as Cobb became convinced that those central concerns that provide cohesion to Wesley's thought have relevance for today that he gained interest in the call for Wesley's contemporary heirs to reconsider their founding father. The degree of his present interest is evident in the basic contention of this book, namely that such reconsideration of Wesley is the only way for the movement that he initiated to move forward today with some shared missional basis.
The pastoral concern expressed in this contention clearly influences Cobb's attempt to strike up a dialogue between Wesley and the present, rendering it a situated and "interested" reading. But all readings of tradition are such! The refreshing thing is that Cobb readily admits this reality, and he tries to articulate up front the situational dynamics that influence his framing of questions and assessment of contemporary relevance. Moreover, unlike those correlation-theologies which take as their situation the hypothetical "modern person" facing traditional faith claims, Cobb owns his concrete situation within a specific faith tradition - the United Methodist Church, with all of its present stagnation and fragmentation.
The very fragmentation of United Methodism, along with its historical distance from Wesley, poses Cobb's first challenge in this book. If he is to bring contemporary United Methodists into dialogue with Wesley's theology, he must first help them recognize their own operative theology, so that points of contact can be explored. Chapter one is devoted to articulating this largely subconscious operative theology. Cobb's central claim is that the various dimensions of this theology revolve around the question of how God is related to created reality. This question involves competing conceptions of the nature of God's power or how God chooses to exercise power. Cobb astutely relates the present polarizations in United Methodism (e. g., liberal/conservative, evangelical/liberationist, naturalist/supernaturalist) to disagreements or confusion in this area. This diagnosis provides the background for his recommendation of renewed consideration of Wesley, for Cobb recognizes that Wesley wrestled extensively and brilliantly with this question of how God works redemptively in creation. Cobb's hope is that a recovery of Wesley's way of conceiving how God is in the world and what God is doing in the world can help United Methodists address today's issues with greater insight and consensus (33).
In keeping with this hope, Cobb begins his exposition of Wesley in chapter two with an admirable sketch of basic themes in Wesley's conception of God's activity in the creation. Cobb's interest throughout the chapter is in how Wesley could affirm God's intimate interaction with creation without undercutting or overriding the integrity of creaturely being and action. As one would expect, Cobb occasionally reflects on possible points of agreement between Wesley's convictions and his own process theology. Cobb is fairly careful not to turn these occasions into a thinly-veiled prescription of process theology as the only legitimate contemporary translation of Wesley, or to read a process metaphysic back into Wesley.
For example, when Cobb cites Wesley's reference to God as the "Soul of the Universe" (50), he effectively highlights the distance that this emphasis places Wesley from deistic assumptions (including those of many classical theists!), while recognizing that Wesley's own view remains Newtonian, he was no panentheist. Likewise, when Cobb proposes that Wesley's model of God's responsible interaction with humanity be applied to all "individual events" (52), he is clear that this is his own extension by analogy of Wesley's convictions to process categories. He is a little less clear, however, in recognizing that the valid potential of this extension would be limited to rendering the "panpsychism" of a process metaphysic more Wesleyan in cast, not establishing that Wesley would embrace this metaphysic himself if he were in our context.
Chapter three narrows in on Wesley's understanding of God, humanity, and the interaction of the two. The discussion is framed in terms of the common scholarly claim that love is the central concept in Wesley's model of God and of human life. Cobb strongly affirms this centrality of love, both as true to theological standards and as relevant to contemporary needs and issues. At the same time, he raises some concerns (in both regards) about Wesley's particular formulation of the ideal of love. His major concern is that Wesley's strong emphasis on the primacy of love for God in the Christian life (e.g., prescribing that our conscious experience be continuously dominated by thinking of God) leaves little room for love of neighbor, let alone "lesser" loves like love for self or the enjoyment of food and friends. Cobb is quick to add that the alternative is not to debate what portion of love we ought to devote to God and what portion to others. The very assumption in such a debate, that one can sharply distinguish love for God from love for neighbor, is where Cobb finds fault in Wesley's formulation (65). While Wesley admittedly insisted that love for God and love for neighbor require one another, Cobb finds too little of a sense in Wesley that it is precisely through love for neighbor that one loves God. Some will worry that Cobb goes too far in the other direction, moving beyond the legitimate point of the complimentarity of our love for God and love for neighbor to the identification - or reduction - of love for God to love for neighbor (a move more in tune with process panentheism than with an authentic theism).
In chapter four Cobb probes Wesley's stance on the traditional themes of justification and assurance for their contemporary relevance. His analysis begins with a description of how such soteriological issues were displaced in nineteenth-century theology and an argument for renewing consideration of them. Two claims in his subsequent analysis of Wesley's stance are particularly noteworthy. The first relates to the traditional Western affirmation of inherited guilt. While endorsing Wesley's rejection of inherited guilt (via prevenient grace), Cobb observes that the direction of this move is toward greater emphasis on individual voluntary sins. He then argues that we are better served today to retain Wesley's actual balance between collective and individual guilt than to follow later Methodist theology in pushing this momentum to the extreme of sole recognition of individual voluntary sins (84).
Cobb's second noteworthy claim relates to Wesley's emphasis on assurance as an inward sense of peace, joy, and love that empowers Christian life. He has some difficulties with the idea of "spiritual senses" that Wesley uses to articulate this theme, preferring a process epistemology (72-4, 96). He wants to highlight - or push further - Wesley's mature recognition that assurance can coexist with some of the anxieties, fears, and frustration of life. Cobb strongly endorses the desirability of recovering in contemporary United Methodism an emphasis on the importance of an inward experience of peace, joy, and love as the working of God's grace in Christian life (96).
Chapter five shifts attention to Wesley's emphasis on the further soteriological themes of the new birth and sanctification. Cobb notes at the outset that the closest thing to sanctification in contemporary vocabulary is spirituality. He then identifies an important corrective that Wesley offers when read in this light. Most models forwarded in the recently renewed emphasis on spirituality focus one-sidedly on either moral behavior or inner serenity. By contrast, Wesley is instructive precisely in his refusal to separate the inner and outer dimensions of Christian life (101). In the context of this general affirmation, Cobb again raises some concerns about Wesley's specific formulations. For example, he joins many in charging that Wesley equates the life of love too univocally with a rigorous life of discipline (104). He also echoes a common worry among later Methodists that Wesley's emphasis on the instantaneous experience of entire sanctification distracts from the importance of gradual growth in holiness and serves to call the whole doctrine of perfection into disrepute (109ff). But, unlike many who then abandon language of perfect love, talking only of continual striving, Cobb calls for a renewed Methodist commitment to the goal of perfect love, while avoiding exaggerations about the meaning of love to which Wesley was rhetorically prone (112ff).
The choice of themes in Cobb's exposition of Wesley to this point was guided by their prominence in Wesley's own thought. The themes in the last three chapters are selected more in view of the current theological situation. In chapter six Cobb draws on Wesley to critique the prevalent bifurcation of law and gospel in contemporary Christian life and thought. Focusing on his own tradition, Cobb astutely notes that, while Methodists may have broadened Wesley's perspective by applying the law more directly to structural social matters than he did, they have abandoned the teaching of the law almost everywhere else - thereby breaking the dialectical relation of law and gospel that was so central to Wesley (123). Cobb's hope is that Wesley's model of repentance within the process of progressive sanctification can help United Methodists recover a preaching of the law of love that is suitably broadened to deal more adequately than Wesley did with social sin and corporate repentance.
Chapter seven turns to one of the most prominent issues in current Christian discussion about how to hold together a spirit of openness with a sense of identity, both in relation to other Christian groups and to other world religions. This topic plunges Cobb into a longstanding Methodist debate over Wesley's various comments on the essence of true religion and on the difference between theological opinions and essential doctrines. Cobb quickly sides with those in this debate who consider Wesley's emphasis on love and personal transformation to involve a minimizing of concern for orthodoxy. He issues a call for Christians to follow Wesley's example of working together to clarify our purposes without requiring the precondition of agreement on some confession or creed (143).
On the issue of religious pluralism, Cobb gives a sympathetic exposition of Wesley's own assumption of universal accountability for the "light" one receives, then argues for a somewhat different emphasis that takes more into account the historical-cultural situatedness of knowledge, a growing theme over the last two centuries. The clarity with which Cobb makes his case on both matters should serve well the critical discussion that he is sure to spark.
Cobb's final chapter takes up the methodological question of norms in theological judgment. He uses this chapter to contest a "hermeneutical" conception of the so-called Wesleyan quadrilateral. Cobb understands this conception of theological method to reduce tradition, experience, and reason to unduly subordinate roles in relation to the Bible. Since Cobb develops his critique of this conception in dialogue with my exposition of Wesley, I would clarify that my endorsement of a description of Wesley's theological method as a unilateral rule of Scripture with a trilateral hermeneutic of tradition, experience, and reason related to Wesley's self-understanding. I recognize (as does Cobb, 167) that this self-understanding reflected the lack of sensitivity to the influence of pre-understandings on one's reading of Scripture that was typical of Wesley's Enlightenment context. That is why I went on to describe Wesley's actual practice of theological reflection as relating the various norms in a "hermeneutic spiral" of becoming aware of and testing preunderstandings. I believe that this latter description affirms the dialectical relationship between the norms that Cobb rightly desires.
By contrast, it is the ambiguity of the relationship between the norms that troubles me about the explicit "dialectical" conception of the quadrilateral that Cobb champions as more authentic to Wesley and to contemporary experience. It is striking that Cobb's defense of his alternative focuses on the specific question of whether reason and experience can criticize and correct scripture (174). I looked in vain for similar emphasis on scripture correcting experience and current standards of "reason." This lack suggests more a model of the ultimate priority of reason and (contemporary) experience over scripture (and notably absent tradition) than a truly dialectical relationship! In terms of Cobb's specific example of the feminist critique (175), I would place emphasis on how experience and rational reflection helped recover a critique of patriarchy present within scripture itself, rather than cast it as a showdown between the authority of scripture or that of reason and/or experience. When issues seem to require such a showdown, I believe that the Wesleyan alternative must be to keep probing the hermeneutic spiral until a response, more adequate to all theological norms, is found.
While I am uncomfortable with some of the apparent implications of Cobb's framing of the quadrilateral, my own most significant reservation about his proposed appropriation of Wesley lies elsewhere. One of the differences that Cobb repeatedly emphasizes between Wesley and the situation of contemporary Methodism concerns the awareness of human psychological dynamics. Sometimes this is presented as a matter of Wesley's lack of knowledge of these dynamics, given his historical setting (e.g., 7, 126). At other times it is a recognition that psychological categories have superseded Wesley's theological categories in the common sense of the church (e.g., 22, 124). Either way, Cobb generally assumes that contemporary psychological accounts of the conditions of human responsibility and freedom in moral action should be adopted in reframing Wesley's account of the Christian life for today (cf. 24-5, 78). While I agree with Cobb's sense that any contemporary appropriation of Wesley must address psychological models and concerns, I would focus this agenda rather differently.
Scholars are finally recognizing that Wesley had an explicit (indeed argumentative) position on the psychological dynamics of human moral action. Wesley embraced an "affectional" moral psychology, in direct contrast with both the prior common intellectualist tradition and the emergent empirical determinism of such folk as Hobbes and Hume. The focal claim in Wesley's psychology was that the affections, like the mind, are dependent upon experience. In particular, it is only as we experience love that we are freed up and empowered to love. This conviction lay behind Wesley's concern to craft various means of expressing and experiencing the love of God and neighbors. Seen in this light, it is significant that it was precisely as Wesley's followers abandoned his moral psychology for alternative ones (first the rationalist psychology of Thomas Reid et al., then the naturalist psychology of James, and today any of the several competing schools of thought) that they found both his theological claims and his various means of grace increasingly puzzling or unnecessary. As such, I believe that what is actually needed is a reconsideration of Wesley's own moral psychology, in dialogue with present competing schools of thought.
I trust that the seriousness with which I have tried to recapitulate and assess Cobb's proposal demonstrates again my profound appreciation for both his willingness to undertake this task, his integrity in carrying it out, and the many insights that he provides in the process. While he frames his discussion specifically for his United Methodist tradition, anyone concerned with faith-fulness to Wesley's vision in the context of present realities and issues will find this volume instructive. I recommend it broadly, and look forward to the fruitful discussion that it is sure to foster among the range of Wesley's theological descendants.
Tessa Berget. 1995. Theology in Hymns? A Study on the Relationship of Doxology and Theology According to A Collection of Hymns for Use of the People Called Methodists (1780). Translated by Timothy E. Kimbrough. Nashvillege: Kingswood Books, Abingdon Press. Updated version of Theologie in Hymnen? 1989. Oros Verlag: Altenberge, Germany.
Review by Maxine Walker, Point Loma Nazarene College, San Diego, California.
Professor Berger's title in the interrogative mode appropriately announces that the work is an unfolding inquiry into the operative principles of doxology and how hymns can be analyzed for their theological content. Within the study and avowedly beyond the study, the controlling questions is "What is the essence of doxological speech and the relationship of doxology to theology?"
Berger constructs a tripartite study that explores answers and offers additional questions about how the language of doxology is related to the matter of theological reflection. In each of the three sections, Berger carefully outlines a "multiplicity of presumptions and perspectives" and then proceeds to define the common questions of context that may reveal a "concealed ecumenicalism." Berger chooses Wesleyan hymnody as the central case study not only because it offers an excellent example of doxological speech (hymnody is a genre of doxological speech), but also because Wesleyan hymnody shapes the identity of Wesleyanism. This suggests that doxological traditions and practices will reveal in doxological speech the unifying response of faith to the saving acts of God.
Part one surveys the major scholarly discussions of doxology and theology in Roman Catholic liturgy, Protestant systematics, the Orthodox traditions, and ecumenical dialogue. Berger reviews the contributions of major liturgists in each tradition, analyzes the differences in their respective methodologies that reflect on doxology and theology, and argues for "doxology" as the point of unity in the ecumenical dialogue.
A striking way that her work may contribute to Wesleyan scholarship occurs in her highlighting of the Orthodox tradition, a legacy that never alienate its theology for its "doxo-logical" expressions. It is Berger's concern that scholarly theological analysis can be applied to doxology. The extensive references that follow each chapter is a compelling show of the academic endeavors shaping her central question: "What meaning do doxological traditions have in relationship to theological tradition?"
In Part two, Berger answers the question by placing the debate in the context of a specific doxological tradition. She reviews the history of the Methodist "renewal" movement, the central features of John and Charles Wesley's spiritual biographies, and proceedes to outline the characteristic of Wesleyan hymnody in the 1780 Collection. Her analysis attempts to determine the poetical nature of the hymns and to trace the scriptural sources and literary allusions of this specific doxological tradition. The primary value of this section is Berger's thesis and analysis of the hymns as the spiritual journey or experience of the Christian rather than evaluation of the hymns according to the theological categories. Charles Wesley himself stated that the hymns "are not carelessly jumbled together, but carefully ranged under proper heads, according to the experience of real Christians" 1780.
This section illustrates the difficulty of theological reflection on doxological material. First, Berger, as a way to organize this part, enumerates theological characteristics that are evident in the hymns: 1. The soteriological emphasis; 2. The experience of salvation and the understanding of revelation; 3. The experience pf salvation as realized eschatology?; and 4. The Struggle for Christian perfection. Refrences from the hymns' phrases and stanzas interpret the theological themes. However, in the discussion of "Christian Perfection" (142-53), Berger seems to undercut her central thesis by suggesting that this particular theme in Wesley's hymns does not lend itself easily to "systematic consideration." In fact, Berger must confront the complexity, even contradictions, in reports of the experience of Christian perfection. She concludes that the hymns themselves capture the struggle for Christian perfection, but it does appear that theological themes and categories may be the only way to impose some kind of understanding on the exclusively divine action.
Berger, as any scholar trying to bridge two genera, must juggle differing methodologies, and particular must accommodate one that expressed Christian experience in images and symbols and the other in systematic analysis. She consistently urges that the genera not be reduced to a single genus or that a theological reading be understood as a final word on doxology. Her purpose appears to determine both the limits of systematic theology and the poetic hymnal expressions in order to restore collective meaning to the "Constitutive Multilingual Nature of Faith."
Second, Berger notes early in the work that part two may appear an "erratic block of [specific] material" since parts one and three seem organically related. One wonders if her interpretation or reflection on the hymns cannot help but produce "immediate illustrations" for the theological themes and thus for parts one and three because such is the nature (tension in?) of the questions about the relationship of theology to poetry. Berger's intellectual acumen is such that she constructs a worthy contextual scaffold for the discussions of the concrete material.
Part three builds on analysis of Wesley's hymns by asking how doxology qua doxology interprets the reality of faith. Particularly valuable is Berger's rhetorical analsysi that doxological speech is both dialogic and transcendent. Doxology responds appropriately to God's saving acts and thus may have some priority over theological reflection. The book makes a convincing case for "questioning" theology in hymns and encourages further inquiry into the relationship between doxology and theology.
H. Ray Dunning, Editor. 1995. The Second Coming: A Wesleyan Approach to the Doctrine of Last Things. Kansas City: Nazarene Publishing House. ISBN: 083-411-5255.
Reviewed by Jerry W. McCant, Point Loma Nazarene College, San Diego, CA.
Ray Dunning, professor emeritus of theology at Trevecca Nazarene College, has gathered nine colleagues and with them has sought to break the conspicuous silence on eschatology prevalent in the ranks of Wesleyan scholars. Three major divisions comprise this book: (1) Biblical Studies; (2) Historical Studies; and (3) Theological Studies. This structure signals the reader to expect a broad rather than a narrow focus.
All ten contributors are Nazarene educators. A book with such multiple authorship always is more difficult for a reviewer than a book with a single author. Diversity always creeps into such a volume. Each author has a distinctive style and vocabulary, particular strengths and weaknesses.
There are three essays in Part I. Using the book of Revelation as a "test case," Frank Carver concludes that the nature and function of the biblical canon are prophetic. Thus, he argues for a "prophetic hermeneutic" of the Bible. Roger Hahn discusses two phrases, "the last days" and "the signs of the times." Arguing primarily from the Synoptic instances of these phrases, Hahn notes the sparing use of these expressions in the New Testament generally. Both phrases refer more to the present and a relationship with Christ than to future eschatological events. In a redaction-critical essay, Jirair Tashjian concludes that the Marcan "Olivet Discourse" is an exhortation rather than apocalyptic speculation. He notes further the pluralism in the Synoptic perspectives and their attempts to deal with the "delayed Parousia."
In Part II three authors make contributions. George Lyons writes two chapters on eschatology in the early church and concludes that there is no patristic unanimity. For the early church eschatology was primarily the conviction that Jesus will bring salvation to a proper conclusion. William Greathouse describes John Wesley's view of eschatology. In his published works, Wesley has no sermon on the Second Coming. Regarding his interpretation of the book of Revelation, Wesley depended on the work of Bengel, engaged in fanciful speculation, thus making it difficult now to harmonize his various visions of eschatology. Greathouse concludes that Wesley was not an apocalpyticist nor a premillennialist. Harold Raser reviews the eschatologies of the American Holiness movement. He discusses the postmillennial, premillennial, and dispensationalist premillennial views and notes that in the Holiness movement eschatology was divisive, sometimes to the point of verbal violence.
Part III has four essays. Ray Dunning proposes four presuppositions of a Wesleyan eschatology: synergism, a chronos view of time, conditional covenants, and the "Jesus heremeneutic." He notes the antipathy of speculation in "authentic Wesleyan theology." Harvey Finley and Dunning co-author "Apocalyptic Eschatology," seeking to distinguish between apocalyptic and prophecy. William Miller discusses "the new apocalypticism," and provides an exposé of the dispensationalism of John Nelson Darby. He concludes that Darby's doctrines of the "secret rapture" and pretribulational premillennialism are not apostolic and are not self-evident in Scripture. In a final chapter, "The Theology of the Final Consummation," Rob Staples advances the proposition that eschatology and history belong together and concludes with a discussion of six images of the final consummation. Staples' title would be less presumptuous if he used the indefinite article "A" rather than the definite article "The."
The Second Coming is a collection of informative and provocative essays. Most of the authors move away from futuristic interpretations of eschatology toward a personalized moralism. Throughout the book there is a denigration of date-setting eschatology that knows too much about the future. There is obvious polemic against "pop eschatology" and dispensational pretribulational premillennialism.
However, the book fails to fulfill the implied promise of its title. This volume provides little discussion of the second coming. Staples devotes three pages to the second coming, but only as one of the six images of the consummation. Perhaps the subtitle should have been the main title since it promises a Wesleyan approach to eschatology. However, the first reference to Wesley appears on page 139. Greathouse makes soteriology the key to Wesleyan eschatology, even though he notes Wesley's confession of ignorance concerning eschatology. Wesley's "fanciful speculations" hardly inform his soteriology. Despite Greathouse's description of Wesley's "fanciful speculations," Dunning declares the antipathy to speculation in "authentic" Wesleyan eschatology. In his discussion of "the final consummation as separation," Staples engages in one style of eschatological speculation. Although the subtitle promises a "Wesleyan approach," Dunning's introduction expresses his hope that readers will "draw their conclusions regarding the position that is consistent with Scripture and Wesleyan theological commitments."
These essays in biblical studies are informative and interesting, but they neither discuss the second coming nor contribute to a Wesleyan approach. Their views on eschatology and apocalyptic flow against the stream of scholarly consensus. George Lyons provides massive patristic citations, but they do not inform a Wesleyan approach and the second coming becomes lost in the discussions of many other topics. The essays by Lyons conform to the "catalog" genre without revealing the developmental trends in patristic thought. How does Lyons' data illuminate a Wesleyan approach? Did Wesley read these "fathers" (assuming that there were no "mothers" - have the contributors to this volume not heard that sexist language is obsolete?)? Did Wesley appropriate or criticize patristic views? Is there any evidence of patristic influence in Wesley's eschatology?
The title The Second Coming promises a discussion of one aspect of eschatology. However, eschatology becomes the "tail" that wags the "dog" (second coming) in this volume. One wonders if the title was not simply a "marketing" decision. The only distinctive Wesleyan feature of the book is that all the contributors come from a denomination that professes to be Wesleyan.
Reinert O. Innvaer. 1993. Sennepsfrøet: En bok om misjon [= Mustardseeds: A Book About Mission]. Oslo: Rex Forlag. 164 pps.
Reviewed by David Bundy, Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Tomes by Wesleyan/Holiness and/or Pentecostal missiologists about mission theory are quite rare. Probably this is because the most important developments in Holiness and Pentecostal mission have not been either stimulated or controlled by "mission boards" following the model of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Mission. Scandinavian mission has had other models. This book is a passionate treatise arguing for the Norwegian/Scandinavian model of Pentecostal mission, a model profoundly rooted in the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition of William Taylor, J. Waskom Pickett, and E. Stanley Jones.
Behind this volume lies a history, generally unknown outside Scandinavia, of careful reflection and debate about the theory and practice of mission. Indeed, Norwegian Pentecostalism began partly as a protest by the Holiness Methodist pastor T. B. Barratt against the heavy hand of the U. S. Methodist Episcopal Mission Board on Norwegian Methodism and against the ecclesiology which sustained that Board.
The first Pentecostal mission agency, the Pentecostal Missionary Union (1908), was founded as a cooperative agency on a design proposed to the British leaders A. A. Boddy and Cecil Polhill. When Barratt felt this agency was prejudiced against sending Norwegians, he founded in 1913 the Norges Frie Evangeliske Hedningemisjon [NFEH]. After deciding that the NFEH was too far removed from the local congregations, Barratt withdrew from the NFEH and led in the establishment (1931) of the Pinsevennenes Ytre Misjon of which Innvaer has been Mission Secretary since 1987. The particular impetus for writing this book is the evolving lack of precision in the activities and goals of missions. As Innvaer points out in the introduction (pp. 7-12), nearly every humanitarian and ecclesiological activity has been defined as mission. Increasingly, these are not being held together by a common missional theme.
There are two primary foci to Innvaer's argument: the biblical and the historical. The biblical arguments about the nature of mission (pp. 23-71) present an interpretation of the imperative for mission. It is argued that mission must be occasioned by the Holy Spirit and that the local congregations are the primary locus of mission activity and the place from which persons are chosen for foreign mission (on the example of Paul).
Brief attention is given (pp. 73-91) to the development of mission theory in the early church, the Christianization of Europe, early Christian mission by East Syrian missionaries in China, Catholic expansion during the conquest of the Americas, and the modern Protestant missions movement in Europe stimulated by Pietism, including the missions of William Carey and the Wesleyans. This is a prelude to the discussion of the emergence of mission consciousness within Norway.
In Norway, as in Germany and England, the impetus came from Pietism within the Lutheran state church, influenced by L. Laestadius and Hans Neilsen Hauge. Into this environment came the Methodists (from both the U. S. and England), the Baptists, and, unmentioned by Innvaer but important for Barratt and others in Norway, the Salvation Army. Drawing from these heritages, Barratt and the other early Norwegian Petecostals drafted a model for mission which has become normative in Scandinavia and in much of the Pentecostal world. That model was based on Barratt's experience as a Methodist, on a reading of William Taylor, and on the Holiness/Pentecostal values of self-determination under the guidance of the Holy Spirit rather than on blind allegiance to an organization. It is through Barratt that the Scandinavian relationship with the "self-supporting" mission theory of William Taylor began [for a brief indication of Taylor's influence on Barratt, see, D. Bundy, "William Taylor (1821-1902): Entrepreneurial Maverick for the Indigenous Church," in Mission Legacies, ed. G. Anderson, et al. (American Society of Missiology Series, 19, Maryknoll: Orbis Press, 1994), 461-468].
Innvaer succinctly narrates the evolution of Norwegian mission theory and mission activity, insisting that there is no necessary distinction between "social ministry" and "evangelism" as some, under the influence of North American debates, have argued. He insists that mission is "grassroots work" (p. 121) which should eschew political participation in the host country. One can argue for religious freedom, against enslavement, but it is the task of the converts to restructure the political life of their countries. In the tradition of Taylor and Barratt, he argues for national self-determination in the churches, noting that the Methodist churches in South India, founded by William Taylor in 1870-1875, were already self-supporting and sending missionaries in 1884 (p. 129). He suggests that partnerships be developed between national churches/congregations for mutual aid and inspiration.
The conclusion is that there are a wide number of possibilities for mission in the modern period, including traditional long-term mission, short- term mission, radio-television, economic development and assistance, Bible translation work, and social ministry. The essential, Innvaer insists, is to plan and do this mission in light of the biblical priorities which allow the national churches their dignity and autonomous contextual development under the direction of the Holy Spirit.
Innvaer's work is an important contribution to Holiness and Pentecostal discussions of mission. Despite the fact that it is meagerly documented, it can lead the enterprising reader into a vast literature, a journey which can begin with the bibliography at the end of the volume (pp. 163-164) to which I would add, in addition a volume edited by I. M. Witzøe, De Aapne d¿re: Norges Frie Evangeliske Hedningemissions arbeidere og virke gjennem 10 aar (Oslo: NFEH, 1925,) and another by Erling Str¿m, Misjonen: Guds Hjertesak (Oslo: Filadelfiaforlaget, 1945) as well as selected texts by T. B. Barratt and some of the mission biographies published in Norway. These suggestions do not detract from the virtues of the book, which deserves serious attention both in Scandinavia and beyond.
Thomas C. Oden. 1995. Requiem: A Lament in Three Movements. Nashville: Abingdon Press. 176 pp.
Reviewed by Roderick T. Leupp, Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary, Rizal, Philippines.
"Conversion" is not too strong a word. A remarkable change has come over the writings of United Methodist theologian Thomas C. Oden during the past fifteen years. During the 1960s and 1970s Oden was a self-avowed "movement theologian," deeply immersed in the existentialist theology of Rudolf Bultmann and the humanistic psychology of Carl Rogers. Never as radical as the "death of God" theologians, Oden nevertheless was more likely to conduct an encounter group than a Bible study. His historical sense was fixated on the period from the eighteenth century Enlightenment to the present.
Beginning with his 1979 rediscovery of classical orthodoxy, detailed in Agenda for Theology, Oden has found his way back to Christian antiquity. He would probably say that it has found him, so faithful and tenacious is God's grace. Before, Oden was apt not to trust anyone over thirty; these days, he trusts no theological voice less than three hundred years old (excepting John Wesley and similar writers). He would rather read the Fathers of the Church than the New York Times. "Consensual ancient classic Christianity" (p. 138) is his guiding light.
Oden's return to the sources bore the rich fruit of his three-volume Systematic Theology (1987-92), wherein he makes the treasures of "ecumenical" (in the sense of what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all Christians) Christianity available to the working pastor and those desiring a fresh immersion into the living waters of their Christian affirmation. In Requiem, a shorter and much more pointed volume, Oden's intent is more polemical (combative) than it is irenical (peaceful). Profoundly disturbed by the drift within his own Methodist heritage, Oden is not about to abandon a sinking ship. Rather, he wants to take over the theological helm and steer United Methodism--and by extension all of mainline Protestantism--back to basic, elemental Christianity.
What does this really mean? Is Oden's reaction against liberalism and modernity merely another knee-jerk one against political correctness, displayed now in theological dress? What positive suggestions does Oden make? Virtually all of the action in Requiem (including the account of his leaving a communion service at the Theological School of Drew University when the celebrant invited worshipers to the Lord's table in the name of Sophia and not Jesus Christ) takes place against the backdrop of the world Oden knows better than any other, having given the past thirty years of his life to it. This is the theological seminary. Since when the seminary sneezes the local church catches cold, Oden is convinced that unless definite and even wholesale changes sweep over the liberal seminary, the United Methodist Church soon will go the way of the dinosaur.
Two Oden proposals are: (1) reform the seminary tenure system so that the liberal elite cannot dig in their heels with impunity; and (2) encourage the traditional, evangelical students in their struggle to get a "real" theological education, not one eclipsed by modernity, narcissism, naturalism, and other abortive orientations critiqued throughout Requiem.
John Wesley's theology was disarmingly simple. He believed in only three or four Christian fundamentals (although Wesley should not be considered a "fundamentalist" as this word is understood today) - original sin, justification by faith, the new birth, holiness of heart and life. Oden's message is equally simple: return to the pure milk of Christian orthodoxy. As Oden delivers it, however, some may find this milk a bit curdled and acidic.
Oden is not strictly fair in naming the enemies. He continually warns that theological education, presumably including that practiced at Oden's workplace, Drew University, is bankrupt and in the hands of a tenured knowledge elite whose only creed is "new is better." Oden actually names only one such seminary, the Episcopal Divinity School of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where one theological instructor is "a self-described lesbian feminist" (p. 58) who works amidst "an openly homosexual-welcoming seminary" (p. 59). Maybe no United Methodist seminary could be fairly described in such words. Or maybe Oden cannot bring himself to be so critical of his own tradition. Or maybe the problem of liberalism is not as widespread as Oden believes.
Is liberalism as bad as Oden makes it out to be? Oden readily admits that liberalism, when characterized as fairness and openness to critical inquiry, has benefited the church greatly. Oden continues to advocate cultural pluralism, which means, among other things, women in ministry, providing they are not "ultrafeminists." But it is doctrinal pluralism that he insists must be checked if the church is to thrive in the new century. Lest we forget what orthodoxy means, Oden includes three ancient creeds in Appendix C.
John Wesley engaged in pamphlet warfare with Calvinists after the Methodist revival had taken root. In Requiem, Oden is likewise engaged in combat against the perceived enemies of classical Christianity. Oden's personal pain is evident throughout; Requiem does live up to its subtitle of being a "lament." No one could accuse him of writing in bad faith. One may question, however, Oden's charity in comparison with Wesley, his mentor. Has he really given liberalism a fair hearing, as Wesley would have done? Does Oden always write with the sort of calm dignity that marked even Wesley's polemical writings? One thing seems assured. Whether Oden's proposals, including the revamping of the seminary tenure system and encouraging evangelical students in their struggles, will bear fruit will not be known until after his own requiem.
J. Steven O'Malley and Thomas Lessmann. 1994. Gesungenes Heil. Untersuchungen zum Einfluss der Heiligungsbewegung auf das methodistische Liedgut des 19. Jahrhundertsam Beispeil von Gottlieb Füssle und Ernst Gebhardt. BeitrSge zur Geschichte der Evangelisch-methodistischen Kirche, 44; Stuttgart: Christliches Verlagshaus. 74 pp. No ISBN.
Reviewed by David Bundy, Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana.
This volume gathers two extended essays presented at the 1992 meeting of the Historical Commission of the European Commission of the Evangelical-Methodist Churches. The authors are established scholars. Professor O'Malley, Asbury Theological Seminary, throughout his career has focused on the Evangelical United Brethern Church in the U. S. A. and Germany, contributing several books and articles to the subject. Thomas Lessmann is pastor of the Evangelical-Methodist Church at Recklinghausen, Germany. An earlier scholarly contribution was published in the same series: Rolle und Bedeutung des Heiligen Geistes in der Theologie John Wesleys (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Evangelisch-methodistischen Kirche, 30; Stuttgart: Christliches Verlagshaus, 1987). The method of this review will be to look at the two studies on "sung holiness" and then to offer a general appreciation.
O'Malley's study of the role of Gottlieb Füssle in the Holiness Movement within the contexts of the Evangelischen Gemeinschaft in Germany and Switzerland (the Evangelical Association, which became EUB) is the first major study of this influential musician. Füssle (4 Sept., 1839--17 March, 1918), born at Plochingen, Württemberg, Germany, experienced conversion at age 14 while listening to the preaching of the Evangelical Association traveling preacher Johann Nicolais. By 1865 he was song leader at the annual conference. Eventually, he settled into a pastoral role, first as the assistant of his mentor, J. G. Wollpert, near Reutlingen. Füssle accepted in 1878 the pastorate of the Zionskirche in Stuttgart where he remained for forty years until his death in 1918.
His musical output was significant as he sought to give voice to his spirtual insights. These were formed through his Pietist heritage in interaction with the American Holiness movement, first as experienced through the traveling preachers and missionaries of the Evangelical Association, and then, following his meeting Robert Pearsall Smith in 1875, by a wider range of Holiness thought. FYssle reported on his experience of Smith and the Holiness revival in Die Heiligungsversammlung in Stuttgart mit Beziehung auf die Allianzversammlung in Basel und das Auftreten R. Pearsall Smiths bei derselben mit Auszügen aus seinen Predigten (Stuttgart: G. FYssle, 1875), a treatise which remains one of the most important sources for this incursion of the American Holiness movement into Europe during early 1875. Füssle wrote extensively in the Evangelische Bottschafter and contributed a number of books on a variety of subjects related to the Holiness and Pietist heritages.
It was, however, his hymnody, the largest collection of which was published in Pilgermanna (Stuttgart: Christliches Verlaghaus, 1906) which influenced developments on both sides of the Atlantic. O'Malley analyzes the theological themes of the hymns and categorizes them into major and minor groups. The largest group reflected on the nature of the holy life in classical Holiness and Pietist terms. Successive themes were: (1) the new birth; (2) sanctification; and (3) "the wandering pilgrim on the way to God's kingdom" (p. 25). Secondary themes of Füssle's hymnody identified by O'Malley include the nature of Scripture [conservative but not fundamentalist], christology, sin, ecclesiology, the community of the Spirit, and healing. Füssle also dealt with the eucharist, the role of women, and secularization. O'Malley concludes that the themes were developed in ways congruent with the Pietist and Holiness heritages of the 19th century Evangelical Association.
Lessmann's study of Ernst Gebhardt is the first major study of this foundational German Methodist Holiness theologian/hymnographer since the somewhat hagiographical study of Theolphil Funk, Ernst Gebhardt der Evangeliumssänger (Stuttgart: Christliches Verlaghaus, 1969). Gebhardt (12 July, 1832--9 June, 1899) was a very productive writer; no one had even attempted to establish a list of his compositions, translations, and original hymn texts. Lessmann ascertaines that Gebhardt published, between 1870 and 1895, sixteen hymn and song books, only five of which are undated. From this corpus, Lessmann compiles a list of 605 contributions, including 179 original compositions, 369 translations, and 108 compositions (pp. 63-74). This list provokes many yet unanswered historical questions, not the least of which is: Who did Gebhardt translate, why, and for what contexts?
Lessmann identified several "theological accents" in Gebhardt's work. The soteriological themes are found to be prominent, as are issues of christology and sanctification. Lessmann is careful to point out that, according to his analysis, only four percent of Gebhardt's publications and ten percent of his works and translations focus on themes ideosyncratic to the Holiness movement. The conclusion that he was not, therefore, the "hymnist of the Holiness movement" is, in this reviewer's opinion, too quickly drawn. There are still the questions of what, when, and why. The Holiness movement, despite the efforts of some of its enthusiasts and critics, was never a single-issue movement. This was certainly not the case in Germany where Gebhardt and most of the proponents of the holy life remained in contact with a diverse public through ecumenical cooperation within the context of the Evangelical Alliance. Most remained within either the German state Lutheran church or the Methodist Church until the advent of Pentecostalism in Germany. It would appear that Gebhardt's theological and musical themes reflecte that context.
Such interpretative qualms aside, Lessmann's work is a significant development in the critical study of Gebhardt. The list of titles will give subsequent researchers more immediate access to the mind and heart of this influential Mehodist Holiness theologian and hymnographer. O'Malley's work on Füssle is indeed a pioneering work which has implications for the development of trans-Atlantic Holiness movement research. His identification of the confluence of Holiness and Pietist themes will merit considerable reflection and research. The volume makes a major contribution to the quite neglected subject of Wesleyan/Holiness music.
Edited by Michael Mattei for the
Wesley Center for Applied Theology
at Northwest Nazarene University
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