Welcome to the final post in the series on postliberal ecclesiology. The previous posts can be found here  here and here.

Strengths of Postliberal’s Ecclesiology

            There are two strengths in Lindbeck’s understanding of the community.  First, Lindbeck emphasizes the usefulness of catechesis.  Instead of having to redefine and reconceptualise the faith for each generation, the practice of catechesis “seeks to teach the language and practices of the religion to potential adherents.”[1]  Unfortunately there is a question as to whether catechesis is even possible in today’s world.  Lindbeck suggests that in many ways unbelievers in the West are “immunized against catechesis” because in this post-Christian culture there is an assumption “that knowledge of a few tag ends of religious language is knowledge of the religion [itself].”[2]

Second, the postliberal approach puts a strong emphasis on biblical literacy.  This literacy is more than knowing facts from Scripture, or even knowing theological facts.  Biblical literacy is about internalizing the story and fully adopting the grammar of the Christian faith.[3]  The truth of Christianity cannot be separated from the speech and action of the Christian faith, and thus there is a corrective against liberal tendencies to mythologize the faith, because in postliberal theology it is impossible to “treat Christian ways speaking and acting primarily as ways of expressing something else.”[4]  Lindbeck laments that the decline of biblical literacy, not only in the church, but also in society at large, for it means that “we have no common language in which we discuss the common weal.”[5]  Lindbeck suggests that this illiteracy is the result of modernism, because modernity “viewed texts primarily as objects of study, and that meant…that they were possessed of a univocal meaning, a single meaning ascertainable only by specialists.”[6]  The shift to postmodernity is allowing the possibility for a variety of ways of reading the biblical texts, including allowing the reader to see what the contemporary world looks like through the lens of Scripture.[7]  Alister McGrath suggests that this is the strength of postliberalism over liberalism, because liberalism is still trying to find “an absolutely firm foundation in a world that no longer accepts the existence of universals.”[8]

There are several correctives that postliberalism offers for modern evangelicalism.  First, it is a good corrective for the ‘evangelism without discipleship’ model that characterizes the consumerist element of North American Christianity.  The cultural-linguistic approach emphasizes the importance of learning the language and grammar of the Christian faith in order to fully enter into the story of the Gospel.  Second, postliberalism offers a corrective for the individualistic bent of evangelicalism.  Because postliberalism places a strong emphasis on the role of community, there is a safeguard against subjectivism, where experience becomes authoritative and the believer reads Scripture wanting to see what the Holy Spirit has to say for her individual benefit.[9]  It calls into question this modern notion that someone can love Jesus (be a Christian) without being a part of the community of faith.  The emphasis on tradition, historic Christian beliefs and liturgy means that a Christian is “ever and again reminded of its doctrinal constraints, [and] will be less apt to allow personal experience to become the arbiter of the Christian faith.”[10]  As well, the postliberal approach safeguards against the possibility of doctrine and theology being reserved for the halls of academia with no benefit for the church.  Doctrine is inseparable from praxis.[11]

Going Forward

The definition of the Church in postliberalism comes from the Scriptures, but at the same time the authors of the Scriptures, who were members of the community, also defined and interpreted the Scriptures.  And even though the definition of the community comes from Scripture, it does not mean that the question of authority has been answered.  Authority comes not from Scripture but from the community’s interpretation and use of Scripture.  For evangelicals, this can be a stumbling block to adopting the benefits of a postliberal approach to ecclesiology.  Vanhoozer’s canonical-linguistic approach demonstrates a way to adopt the benefits of the cultural-linguistic model while keeping the authority of Scripture as the foundation and measuring stick for all that the community says and does.  Vanhoozer creates a theology of doctrine that “conjoins the postliberal emphasis on theology as church practice with the notion of biblical interpretation as performance…”[12]  Vanhoozer argues for “spirited practice” where the entirety of the Church’s way of life, its doctrines and practices are the work of the Holy Spirit.  This “spirited practice” accomplishes two things.  First, by referring to the Holy Spirit, it answers the question, “Why consider this community’s practice as normative?”[13]  And second, it addresses the “pneumatological deficit of Lindbeck’s argument.”[14]

Related articles

• The Role of the Church in Postliberal Thought – Introduction
• The Role of the Church in Postliberal Thought – The Problem of Antirealism
• The Role of the Church in Postliberal Thought – Definition and Mission of Church

Welcome to the third post in the series on postliberal ecclesiology. The previous posts can be found here and here.

Definition of Church

            Vanhoozer’s critique of postliberalism assumes a definition of the community that is limited to a group of like-minded individuals in a specific time and place within history that would be susceptible to temporary cultural influences.  So the question becomes, what is the Church in Lindbeck’s understanding?

The Church is “the messianic pilgrim people of God typologically shaped by Israel’s story.”[1]  Lindbeck is clear that defining the Church can only be done by the witness of Scripture.  While nonbiblical categories can sometimes be used to define the Church, these are only to be used when it becomes “necessary for the sake of greater faithfulness, intelligibility or efficaciousness.”[2]  In his essay “The Church,” Lindbeck traces the history of the understanding of the Church.  First, he outlines the understanding of the Church for the early Christians.  For them, the story of Israel was their story, in that, “whatever is true of Israel is true of the church except where the differences are explicit.”[3]  Second, Lindbeck documents the transition into the postbiblical era where the continuity between Christianity and Judaism was severed.  Part of this separation came from the issue of unbelieving Jews, as well as the fact that Church was becoming predominantly Gentile.  The Church, by the time of Constantine, “ceased to be sociologically a Jewish sect.”[4]  The history of Israel was reinterpreted so that “the more unsavoury aspects of the history of Israel were no longer genuinely portions of the history of the church but were projected exclusively on the synagogue.”[5]  Here, the litmus test for what defined the Church was faithfulness, rather than election.  Groups of heretical traditions and individuals were excommunicated based on their lack of faithfulness as determined by the community.

Lindbeck also defines the Church as “cultural-linguistic groupings that can be meaningfully identified by ordinary sociological and historical criteria…”[6]  John Webster critiques this definition and suggests that it fails to adequately address the spiritual (or invisible) aspect of the Church.[7]  But the context of Lindbeck’s definition is his discussion of election.  He argues that Israel was elect even if there were believers and unbelievers in the community, and that Israel was elect even when she was unfaithful to Yahweh.  Thus, even when the Church is failing in its faithfulness to the Gospel of Jesus, she is still the church because “…communal degeneracy [does not] erase election,”[8]

Does this mean that for Lindbeck the Church is limited to a sociological group in a specific time and place?  Lindbeck would not argue for this.  Lindbeck emphasizes the continuity of tradition, and the continuity of God’s people.[9]  If the community is represented by two thousand years of tradition, then Vanhoozer’s argument that the cultural-linguistic approach leads to cultural whims is misplaced.  As Lindbeck writes, “…the preference is for the reform of past structures, not their replacement.  The burden of proof is on those who, for example, reject the historic three-fold ministry…of Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry.”[10]

The Mission of the Church

After tracing the history of the understanding of the Church, Lindbeck sets out to identify the mission and identity of the Church.  Here the influence of Karl Barth on postliberal thought can be seen.  The influence of Barth in Lindbeck’s writing specifically and postliberal’s theology in general comes through Hans Frei’s interpretation of Barth.[11]  Through Frei and Lindbeck, Barth was redefined as the first postliberal theologian.[12]  Frei believed that Barth “saw the Christian community as an integral language-world, possessing a kind of semantic logic all its own…”[13]  Lindbeck sees the mission of the church as threefold: witness, proclamation, and service,[14] thus making the work of the Church not so much about “saving souls” as about being “a faithfully witnessing people.”[15]  The Church as witness becomes synonymous with the work of the Spirit, because the Church is both the subject and agent of God’s narrative.[16]  And while this postliberal understanding of the mission of the Church is influenced by Barth,[17] it is important to note where postliberalism and Barth diverge.  For Barth, Scripture is “the semantic vehicle by which human utterances are brought into correspondence with the reality of God.”[18]  It is the Scriptures that mediate the truth of Jesus in a way that the Church cannot do.  In postliberalism, it is the Church that mediates the truth of Jesus, because according to Frei, the Church is the indirect presence of Jesus.  The Church is the embodiment of Christ’s Spirit, and “when Christians speak of the Spirit as the indirect presence now of Jesus Christ…they refer to the church…reference to the Spirit means affirmation of the spatial, temporal basis of Christ’s indirect presence…”[19]

Related articles

• The Role of the Church in Postliberal Thought – Introduction
• The Role of the Church in Postliberal Thought – The Problem of Antirealism