Baptistic Theologies Editorial Board The Revd Dr Keith G Jones The Revd Docent Dr Parush R Parushev Dr Lina Andronovienė The Revd Professor Dr Ivana Noble Dr Tim Noble The Revd Dr Ian M Randall International Consultant Editors Professor John H Y Briggs, Oxford University Professor Otniel Bunaciu, Bucharest University The Revd Dr Stephen R Holmes, St Andrew’s University The Revd Dr Craig R Evans, Acadia University Dr Curtis Freeman, Duke University Professor Nancey Murphy, Fuller Seminary Publication – Twice each year Editorial Office International Baptist Theological Seminary Nad Habrovkou 3, Jenerálka, Praha 6, CZ 164 00 ISSN 1803 – 618X Publisher Mezinárodní baptistický teologický seminář Evropské baptistické federace, o.p.s. Nad Habrovkou 3, 164 00 Praha 6, Česká Republika This periodical is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database® and it is also included in the full-text ATLASerials® (ATLAS®) collection. Both are products of the American Theological Library Association, 300 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 2100, Chicago, IL 60606, E-mail: [email protected], Website: http://www.atla.com. 2015 Nordenhaug Lectures VU Amsterdam on Monday 2nd November 2015 Delivered by Dr David P. Gushee Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics, Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life Mercer University, Atlanta & Macon, Georgia. Widely regarded as one of the leading moral voices in American Christianity, he is the author or editor of 20 books and hundreds of articles in his field, including Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust, Kingdom Ethics, The Sacredness of Human Life. He will deliver three lectures on the Monday on the theme of ‘What it means to say that human life is sacred’ What it means to say that human life is sacred… 1. Sacredness and Christian Scripture 2. Sacredness and Christian tradition 3. Sacredness and contemporary application The lectures will be followed by an IBTSC Conference on ‘Conflicting Convictions’ on Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th of November in Baptist House Amsterdam. This conference will explore disagreements among Christians on ‘matters that matter’ and responses to such. Call for papers from biblical, historical, theological, and practical perspectives until Monday 15 June 2015. Possibilty of publication in IBTSC Journal. Contact Stuart Blythe, for further details [email protected] While there is no charge for the lectures or conference those attending and participating in the conference will be required to meet own travel, accommodation, and subsidence costs in Amsterdam. iii Baptistic Theologies Volume 6, No. 1 Spring 2014 Contents Editorial iv Attending to Global Christianity: I Hospitality as Creating Space for the Other 1 Cathy Ross Attending to Global Christianity: II Attentiveness as Creating Space for Hospitality 12 Cathy Ross The baptist Vision 23 James Wm. McClendon, Jr. THIS AS THAT: Friendly Amendments to James McClendon’s “baptist” Vision 36 Barry Harvey Carrying out the Theological Task in a Baptistic Way 53 Parush R. Parushev Willem Zuurdeeg and the Concept of Convictional Theology 72 David McMillan Convictional Theology as Mapping Moral Space 81 Henk Bakker Athol Gill (1937-1992): Incarnational Disciple 98 Stuart Blythe Book Review 119 iv Baptistic Theologies 6:1 (2014) Editorial Readers of our journal have noticed that this volume is coming with a significant delay. The Editorial Board of Baptistic Theologies offers sincere apologies for the inconveniences caused by the postponement. It was largely due to the relocation of IBTS to Amsterdam. In its journey over the years Baptist Theological Seminary, now the International Baptist Theological Study Centre, moved from Rüschlikon in the vicinity of Zürich, where the earliest Anabaptist communities were gathering, through Prague, where the earliest Reformers led by Jan Hus and Petr Chelčický were trying to reform the Catholic church from within, to the town which offered hospitality and welcome to the British dissenters to form the earliest Baptist community. Led by John Smyth and Thomas Helwys they gathered for worship in 1609 in part of the East India Bakehouse, in Bakkerstraat, a building owned by a Mennonite Jan Munter. The original bakery was probably located behind the present-day Amstel Street 120 in Amsterdam (Ian Randall, Communities of Conviction: Baptist Beginnings in Europe). In changing times, cultures, languages and context, IBTS Centre continues keeping up vibrantly the legacy of experimenting in Christian and specifically Baptist internationalism in learning and research (Carol Woodfin, An Experiment in Christian Internationalism: A History of the European Baptist Theological Seminary). The collection of essays in this issue of the journal is a good example of this commitment. Regular readers of this journal may have noticed that it has on several occasions included the texts of the two major lecture series sponsored in alternate years by IBTS, the Nordenhaug and Hughey Lectures. In this volume we are honoured to publish the texts of two of the Nordenhaug Lectures delivered last November by Dr. Cathy Ross. The overall theme of her lecture-series was “Attending to the Global Christianity: Hospitality and Mission” relating organically Christian mission work in the globalised world with the venerated but often not hold firm to Christian virtue of hospitality. Her two lectures published in this issue reflect on hospitality as a metaphor for mission in our world today. Dr. Ross looks at such themes as: welcome of guest and stranger, the gift of sight, the importance of nourishment, attentiveness, presence and marginality. The rest of the materials in this issue are papers read and discussed at the international conference on convictional theologies, celebrating the theological heritage of the late Prof. James Wm. McClendon Jr. It was hosted by the IBTS Centre on 04-06 November 2014 in Amsterdam. It is fitting for the occasion to begin this collection with an essay of McClendon himself. We decided to publish an earlier account of his understanding of baptist with small b as a distinguished stream of being Christians in the line of the Radical Editorial v Reformation with distinct identity marks. The paper was delivered originally as the graduation address at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Rüschlikon in 1985 and it is deposited in IBTS Centre’s archives. McClendon argues for a unique narrative biblical hermeneutics or scriptural reading strategy of the baptists – the baptist vision captured in the motto ‘this is that’. His quest has been for an understanding of the baptist idea, its organising theme or vision. For him the best expression of that idea is one that incorporates other, partial expressions, yet displays the uniqueness of this distinctive baptist variety of Christian faith. In his essay Barry Harvey examines several discrepancies in the McClendon’s theological vision. Harvey insists that hermeneutical principle mentioned above perpetuates a troublesome ambiguity in the univocal force that McClendon attributes to the copula ‘is’. Harvey offers instead to rephrase it as ‘this as that’. He contests McClendon’s claim that the ‘is’ is ‘immediate’. According to him, it is problematic, because it opens up the possibility of an unmediated connection to Jesus. Such an unmediated relationship, he maintains, does not treat adequately the fact that most Christians are Gentiles and not Jews. Harvey also raises a question about the project of denominational or confessional-specific theologies, which he believes is on a collision course with the ecumenical aspirations of uniting Christianity. Parush Parushev on his part affirms James McClendon’s claim that baptistic communities, which the Baptists are a representation of, constitute a distinguished form of Christian life with distinct hermeneutics of the biblical narrative guided by the baptistic vision. This vision provides necessary and sufficient scope for an authentic baptistic theology to take shape. The baptistic way of theologising is defined as communal, convictional and contextual. The vector of theologising takes its direction from the lived-out or primary theology of the gathering, intentional, convictional community and points to the scholarly theological discourse. David McMillan’s paper demonstrates the significance of the work of the late Dutch theologian Willem F. Zuurdeeg for the later work of James Wm. McClendon Jr. and James M. Smith as they developed the concept of convictions in the hope of contributing a means of addressing convictional conflicts. The paper also provides a summary of McClendon and Smith’s critique and development of Zuurdeeg’s thinking. Henk Bakker set himself to investigate the intertwining of convictional theology with the abstract concept of moral space. In his view the development of convictional types of faith enhance the awareness of moral space for the church to live by? He advocates that the convictive knowledge of a Christian believer is redemptive knowledge, as it is primarily vi Baptistic Theologies 6:1 (2014) related to the person of Jesus Christ. Moreover, shared convictions form the community of believers into a body of intentionality, and consequently also into a communal ‘web’ of moral space, with shared values. Convictional communities aim at developing covenanting relations and forming a form of social life inclined to make moral interventions for the sake of God’s Kingdom. Stuart Blythe’s essay makes a fresh contribution to expanding on the domain of convictional theologising by including afresh the voice of the late Australian theologian and former alumnus of IBTS Athol Gill. Taking his lead from the concept of ‘incarnational disciples’ developed in the work of late Prof. Glen Stassen, Blythe identifies Gill as such a disciple – who have proven faithful in times of trial. This faithfulness can be attributed at least in part to their holding a set of convictions regarding Jesus Christ, the concern of God for the world, and the necessity of resisting the injustice inflicted by dominant ideologies. Blythe argues that the centrality of Jesus Christ as the model for discipleship, the importance of community, and the holistic nature of mission are at the heart of Athol Gill’s thought and actions. In Blythe’s view Gill exhibited the qualities, which Stassen attributes to those who should be recognised as notable examples of the Christian faith, by pursuing these concerns often in the face of institutional and social conservatism. The Editorial Board of Baptistic Theologies intends to make available to our readers all contributions discussed at the conference and submitted for publication in the subsequent issues of the journal. Our hope is that the thoughts conferred at this international gathering of scholars will enhance, refresh, enrich, and also challenge the discourse on convictional theologising. Parush Parushev Ross, Attending to Global Christianity I 1 Attending to Global Christianity:1 I. Hospitality as Creating Space for the Other Cathy Ross Abstract: Discussing the theme of attending to the global Christianity, the paper relates Christian mission work in the globalised world with the venerated but often not hold firm to Christian virtue of hospitality. It reflects on hospitality as a metaphor for mission in our world today. Hospitality is a vital component of mission in believers’ daily lives; actual acts of hospitality make Christians better disciples and ensure that another world is possible. Keywords: hospitality, attentiveness, presence, marginality, creating space Introduction Ever since we left Aotearoa in New Zealand for the first time in 1985, and have lived in a number of countries in Europe and East Africa, I have been reflecting on hospitality. I have also been reflecting on hospitality as I have observed it in practice in a range of church plants and missional communities I have visited around England as part of an ongoing research project. So, just what is hospitality? The online Oxford Dictionary defines it as “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers,”2 which is a good definition as it already implies, friendship, generosity and attentiveness to the other – whether they be friend or stranger. In the West, we have tended to water it down or commercialise it into an industry with training courses, certificates, five star ratings and ‘meet and greet’ attitudes. Increasingly, hospitality has also become a contested idea as we face fear of the stranger and ambivalence towards engaging with the other. However, hospitality is a fertile concept, full of potential and part of a rich Biblical tradition echoing through the ages. Most of the ancient world regarded hospitality as a fundamental virtue and practice, as do many cultures still in our world today. In the Ancient Near East there was a sacred bond between guest and host and when guest or host violated their responsibility to each other, the world was shaken. The offering and receiving of hospitality was holy ground. 1 These texts form the basis of the Nordenhaug Lectures, delivered by Dr Ross at the International Baptist Theological Study Centre in Amsterdam in November 2013. “The Nordenhaug Memorial lectures” were established in memory of Dr. Josef Nordenhaug, one-time President of the Baptist Theological Seminary, Rüschlikon, Switzerland (1950 - 1960) and a former Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance (1960 - 1969). 2 http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/hospitality accessed 18 February 2015. 2 Baptistic Theologies 6:1 (2014) Hospitality as welcome of the stranger Israel experienced God as a God of Hospitality. Stories of hospitality are foundational to their very existence and identity. These stories of hospitality contain themes and tensions which resonate through the centuries – stories of hospitality received and hospitality abused. The well-known story of Abraham and Sarah welcoming three strangers brought them good news and bad in the context of their hospitality. The guests confirmed they would have a son in their old age, but they also warned Abraham of the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Hospitality was considered an important duty and often we see the hosts becoming beneficiaries of their guests and strangers. So Abraham and Sarah entertained angels in Gen 18, the widow of Zarephath benefited from Elijah’s visit (I Kings 17), and Rahab and her family were saved from death by welcoming Joshua’s spies (Joshua 2). Christine D. Pohl remarks in her superb book on hospitality, Making Room, Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, ‘The first formative story of the biblical tradition on hospitality is unambiguously positive about welcoming strangers.’3 The very etymology of the word “hospitality” is illuminating. In Latin the word that signifies host is hospes and the word for enemy is hostis, from which we derive hostile. So this suggests ambiguity and tension around the concept of hospitality. However, the derivation from the Greek offers us something slightly different. There is an interesting and intriguing conundrum around the Greek word xenos which denotes simultaneously guest, host, or stranger. The Greek word for hospitality in the New Testament, philoxenia, refers not so much to love of strangers but to a delight in the whole guest-host relationship and in the surprises that may occur. Jesus is portrayed as a gracious host, welcoming children, tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners into his presence and therefore offending those who would prefer such guests not to be at His gatherings. But Jesus is also portrayed as vulnerable guest and needy stranger who came to his own, but his own did not receive him (John 1:11). Pohl comments that this ‘intermingling of guest and host roles in the person of Jesus is part of what makes the story of hospitality so compelling for Christians.’4 Think of Jesus on the Emmaus Road as traveling pilgrim and stranger, recognised as host and who he was in the breaking of bread during a meal involving an act of hospitality. Or think of the Peter and Cornelius story (interestingly, another story involving varieties of food)—who is the host and who is the guest? Both offer and receive, both listen and learn, both are challenged and 3 Christine D. Pohl, Making Room, Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), p. 24. 4 Ibid., p. 17. Ross, Attending to Global Christianity I 3 changed by the hospitality of the other. So we can see the importance of not only the ambiguity but also the fluidity of the host/guest conundrum. We offer and receive as both guest or stranger and host. In fact, strangers may actually enhance our well-being rather than diminish it. The three major festivals of the church—Christmas, Easter and Pentecost—all have to do with the advent of a divine stranger. In each case this stranger—the baby, the resurrected Christ, and the wind of the Holy Spirit—all meet us as mysterious or strange visitors, breaking into our world, challenging our worldviews and systems, and welcoming us to new worlds.5 Quaker scholar and educationalist Parker Palmer reminds us in his intriguing book, The Company of Strangers: Christians and the Renewal of America’s Public Life (1986), of the importance of the stranger. Our spiritual pilgrimage is a quest, a venture into the unknown, away from safety and security into strange places; for if we remain where we are, we have no need of faith. The visitors to Abraham and Sarah and the stranger on the Emmaus Road brought new truths to their lives. According to Palmer, we need the stranger. In his view, ‘the stranger is not simply one who needs us. We need the stranger. We need the stranger if we are to know Christ and serve God, in truth and in love.’6 For him hospitality is: …inviting the stranger into our private space, whether that be the space of our own home or the space of our personal awareness and concern. And when we do, some important transformations occur. Our private space is suddenly enlarged; no longer tight, cramped, restricted, but open and expansive and free. And our space may also be illumined… Hospitality to the stranger gives us a chance to see our own lives afresh, through different eyes.7 So the stranger, the other, becomes a person of promise. The stranger may be unsettling; the stranger may challenge or provoke us; the stranger may provide a wider perspective. Remember the injunction from the book of Hebrews: ‘Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it (13:2, NIV).’ Strangers save us from cosy, domesticated hospitality and force us out of our comfort zones. Strangers may transform us and challenge us. ‘Hospitality to the stranger gives us a chance to see our own lives afresh, through different eyes.’8 Palmer goes on to consider the invitation of people into our private space—probably our home. For most of us, our home is the place and space 5 See John Koenig, New Testament Hospitality, Partnership with Strangers as Promise and Mission (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2001), p. 5. 6 Parker J. Palmer, The Company of Strangers Christians and the Renewal of America’s Public Life (New York: Crossroad, 1986), p. 131. 7 Ibid., p. 132. 8 Koenig, New Testament Hospitality, p. 6. 4 Baptistic Theologies 6:1 (2014) we have available for hospitality. For a private culture, this may be a challenge—to open up our home and offer it as a shared space. Yes, there is risk involved, but when hospitality happens God is encountered in a new way: Hospitality questions one’s way of thinking about oneself and the other as belonging to different spheres; it breaks down categories that isolate. Hospitality involves a way of thinking without the presumption of knowing beforehand what is in the mind of the other; dialogue with the other is essential… To welcome the other means the willingness to enter the world of the other...9 So hospitality is transformational, and it may also be deeply counter-cultural in our current context. To love our neighbour, to enter into the presence of another human being, is to enter into the presence of God. In Genesis we are reminded that all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26- 27; 5:1-3; 9:6; 1 Corinthians 11:7; James 3:9). This is a profound way of speaking about human nature. This provides our starting point for relating to the stranger. As John Taylor reminds us in his book, The Go-Between God, The Holy Spirit and the Christian Mission, ‘If one is closed up against being hurt, or blind towards one’s fellow-men, [sic] one is inevitably shut off from God also. One cannot choose to be open in one direction and closed in another.’10 This understanding of the image of God is integrally related to the Trinity which means it is not primarily an individualistic understanding, but a relational one. This can help us in our relating to the stranger. Paul Fiddes, in his book, Participating in God, A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity, urges us to do more than just imitate the triune God by actually participating in the Trinity. He claims that this participation then enables us to truly appreciate the other because of our engagement with the other. Engagement in the life of God means an experience of otherness—the otherness of God from humanity, the otherness of the Creator from the created. He writes: Nothing in the world can prepare us for this gulf of otherness in a God who abides in the unity of love. …Because it is an otherness which arises in participation within God, it can only be known through participation. To engage in the relationships in God means that we are brought up against the challenge of the alien, the radically different, the unlike; but at the same time we have the security of experiencing a fellowship more intimate than anything we can otherwise know.11 9 Lucien Richard, OM, Living the Hospitality of God (New York: Paulist Press, 2000), p. 12. 10 John V. Taylor, The Go-Between God, The Holy Spirit and the Christian Mission (London: SCM, 1972), p. 19. 11 Paul Fiddes, Participating in God, A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity (London: DLT, 2000), p. 55.