4 Eschatologizing Apocalyptic An Assessment of the Present Conversation on Pauline Apocalyptic1 David W. Congdon The aim of this paper is to answer the question, “What does it mean to speak of apocalyptic?” Recent developments in apocalyptic theology make it increasingly difficult to give a clear and definite answer to this question. This paper seeks to clarify the enduring problem posed by this question and to put forward a way of answering it. My own research is in the relation between Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, and if Barth is, for some at least, the grandfather of contemporary apocalyptic theology, then Bultmann is “public enemy number one.” It is not an exaggeration to say that apocalyptic theology is an explicitly anti-Bultmannian enter- prise. It was my uneasiness about this state of affairs that led me on the path of this essay. I argue that apocalyptic theology is at a crossroads. There are so many different claims as to what counts as apocalyptic that it is becoming nearly impossible to gain clarity about what the word “apocalyptic” actually 1. A revised version of a paper given at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Francisco under the title, “Eschatologizing Apocalyptic: Bultmann, Taubes, and the Copernican Turn.” The paper was given at one of the ses- sions of the Theology and Apocalyptic Working Group. The session’s theme for that year was Jacob Taubes. I am grateful to Ry Siggelkow and Nathaniel Maddox for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 118 Congdon—Eschatologizing Apocalyptic means. I will not claim to put forward a general definition to encompass all the varieties—in fact, just the opposite. We need instead to be honest about our differences and not use ambiguous terminology to disguise our disagreements. I will proceed as follows: first, I will look again at the de- bate between Bultmann and Käsemann with an eye toward assessing what we mean today by “Pauline apocalyptic”; second, I will turn to the work of Jacob Taubes, whose materialist and messianic conception of apocalyptic warrants critical attention; and third, I will make some general remarks on the current state of apocalyptic theology and what questions need answers before we can make further progress. I Those of us who consider ourselves allies in the project of apocalyptic the- ology recognize our deep indebtedness to the work of Ernst Käsemann. Those who preceded him, such as Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer, pioneered the historical scholarship on apocalyptic, but they were quick to put these ideas behind them. If we have Käsemann to thank, it is because he willingly stood in the dross-clearing light of early Christian apocalypti- cism. In a footnote to his 1962 essay “On the Subject of Primitive Chris- tian Apocalyptic,”2 he writes poignantly of the work of the historian: “How many of our students today,” he asks, “grasp the truth . . . that he who does not himself mature in the historian’s trade will shake nothing but unripe fruit from the tree of knowledge? The principal virtue of the historian . . . is the cultivation of the listening faculty [Einübung des Hörens], which is prepared to take seriously what is historically alien and does not think that violence [Vergewaltigung, lit. “rape”] is the basic form of engagement.”3 Käsemann makes this statement in view of two critical articles by Gerhard Ebeling and Ernst Fuchs regarding his 1960 essay on “The Begin- nings of Christian Theology.”4 This piece attempts to provide a “reconstruc- tion” of the theological concerns of the primitive Christian community. Whereas Ebeling writes about the “basis” (Grund) of Christian theology, and Fuchs on the “task” (Aufgabe) of theology, Käsemann focuses on “the beginnings.” He does this, he says, because “some have to dedicate 2. Käsemann, “Primitive Christian Apocalyptic” (German ed.: “Zum Thema der urchristlichen Apokalyptik”). Citations to translated works will include the page num- bers for the original German publication in parentheses. 3. Ibid., 110 n. 2 (107 n. 2). 4. Käsemann, “Beginnings.” 119 part one: Apocalyptic and the Nature of Theology themselves to administering the literary estate [Nachlass-Verwaltung] of the historians with the object of preventing the interpreters from settling down too comfortably.”5 It is therefore as a historian that Käsemann is interested in the question of apocalyptic, in opposition to those whom he calls “the interpreters”—by which he means hermeneutical theologians like Ebeling, Fuchs, and of course Bultmann. The famous line from this essay on “the beginnings” regarding apocalyptic being the mother of the- ology is often treated as a normative claim about theology as such, and while Käsemann certainly points in that direction, he first and foremost understands it as a historical claim. We should not forget that a few pages later he says that the apocalyptic hope in an imminent end “proved to be a delusion” and resulted in the collapse of the “whole theological framework of apocalyptic, with its expectation of the parousia.”6 He insists on recog- nizing the “mythical character” of the early Christian understanding of history.7 He warns against the notion of a “perennial theology” (theologia perennis), a system of thought universally valid for all times and places. And yet he asks “whether Christian theology can ever survive in any le- gitimate form without this [apocalyptic] theme.”8 How then does Käsemann define “apocalyptic”? He fully admits that the word, like any other theological term, is “ambiguous” (mehrdeutig).9 In 1960 he writes, “The heart of primitive Christian apocalyptic, according to the Revelation [of John] and the Synoptists alike,”—notice his starting point—“is the accession to the throne of heaven by God and by his Christ as the eschatological Son of Man—an event which can also be character- ized as proof of the righteousness of God.”10 He goes on to say that Paul and the Fourth Gospel present basically the same view, though expressed in different forms from a religionsgeschichtlich perspective. The apocalyp- tic hope of the early Christian community is marked by Naherwartung, the expectation of something imminent within history.11 History has a “definite beginning and a definite end” in this perspective.12 His argument, 5. Käsemann, “Primitive Christian Apocalyptic,” 109 (105). More literally, “with the object of disturbing [beunruhigen] the interpreters.” 6. Käsemann, “Beginnings,” 106 (104); translation revised. 7. Ibid., 96 (95). 8. Ibid., 107 (104). 9. Käsemann, “Primitive Christian Apocalyptic,” 109 n. 1 (106 n. 1). 10. Käsemann, “Beginnings,” 105 (102). 11. Cf. ibid., 99, 106 (97, 103). He appeals to passages like Matt 10:23 as evidence of this apocalyptic expectation. 12. Ibid., 96 (95). 120 Congdon—Eschatologizing Apocalyptic in a nutshell, is that Christian apocalypticism functions as a thoroughgo- ing critique (and appropriation) of what he calls “enthusiasm,” viz., the emphasis on a present possession of the Spirit as the telos of history. The presence of spiritual gifts is identified instead as a pledge of the “impend- ing irruption [baldig Hereinbrechen] of the parousia.”13 In his follow-up essay of 1962, he further explicates the apocalyptic expectations of an im- minent Parousia with respect to Paul’s epistles and addresses the anthro- pological questions posed by Bultmann. He defines the central hope of the post-Easter community as “the return of Jesus in the role of the heavenly Son of Man.”14 The community’s hope is not Jesus himself but rather him only as “the bearer of the Last Judgment . . . to which the correlate on the human side is the general resurrection.”15 It is helpful, I think, to be clear about how Käsemann defines apocalyptic, because it is not a view that many, if any, of the current apocalyptic theologians subscribe to, at least not literally.16 But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. It is in this context that we should understand the debate between Käsemann and Bultmann on this topic.17 In 1964, Bultmann writes an essay entitled, “Is Apocalyptic the Mother of Christian Theology?” He begins with an illuminating clarification of the problem: In two significant essays Ernst Käsemann has championed the thesis that apocalyptic is the true origin of early Christian theology, indeed, the “mother of Christian theology.” I could 13. Ibid., 92 (91); my translation. 14. Käsemann, “Primitive Christian Apocalyptic,” 114 (110). The later emphasis in Christian teaching on a chronologically distant hope is the result of the failure of the Parousia to occur as expected. As Käsemann puts it in a footnote, “I speak of primitive Christian apocalyptic to denote the expectation of an imminent parousia [die Naherwartung der Parusie]. Where this is changed in apocalyptic literature to the expectation of something far distant in time [Fernerwartung], the change occurs be- cause of disappointed hopes and consequent caution in prophecy, without being able to conceal the original phenomenon. We can understand well enough why apocalyptic seldom enjoyed the good will of the dominant church or theology. For this reason it is all the more important to define the limits of the problem which is presented by the fact that the beginnings both of church and theology were conditioned by ‘imminent’ expectation” (ibid., 109, n. 1 [106 n. 1]). 15. Ibid., 115 (111). 16. I am thinking here of the work of Christopher Morse and Nathan Kerr, in par- ticular. Other Pauline apocalyptic thinkers could be mentioned as well, such as Philip Ziegler and Douglas Harink. 17. For a recent and comprehensive assessment of this debate, see Lindemann, “Anthropologie und Kosmologie.” 121 part one: Apocalyptic and the Nature of Theology accept this if instead of “apocalyptic” we speak of “eschatol- ogy.” Eschatology is the notion [Vorstellung] of the end of the world; it is a notion which as such does not intend to include a concrete picture [Bild] of the end-occurrence [Endgeschehen], which does not even think of the end as chronologically fixed. As Paul and John demonstrate, there is not only “future” but also “present” eschatology. By contrast, apocalyptic is a specific concretization of the eschatological notion. It draws up pictures of the end-occurrence, and it fixes the end chronologically. So because Käsemann chooses the concept [Begriff] of apocalyptic, he understands the early Christian eschatological expectation as the expectation of an imminent end [Naherwartung].18 Notice what Bultmann is objecting to in this opening paragraph. His pri- mary problem with apocalyptic is that it (a) fixes the telos of history at a particular point in chronological time and (b) claims to describe the specific form that this chronological telos will take. In support, he points to the fact that this apocalyptic emphasis on an imminent end of history is not the only eschatology present within the New Testament, and he appeals to Paul and John—a different starting point than Käsemann, it’s worth noting. Whereas Käsemann states that present eschatology is strict- ly included within a future, apocalyptic eschatology, Bultmann makes a crucial dialectical addition: “As true as it is to say—that is, against the enthusiastic pneumatics—that present eschatology is ‘anchored and quali- fied’ [verankert und eingeschränkt] by apocalyptic, it is, in my opinion, also true to say, conversely, that apocalyptic eschatology is anchored and qualified by the present.”19 It would be a mistake, however, to view the Bultmann-Käsemann dispute simply in terms of two different positions on the origins of Chris- tian theology, even though that is how it tends to be received. Bultmann is not nearly as interested as Käsemann in the attempt to reconstruct the theological climate of primitive Christianity, and he has strong reserva- tions about the very possibility of such a project. Bultmann is best read here as a theologian, as one who is seeking to articulate the conditions for the responsible proclamation of Christ’s significance for faith today, though certainly he does so on the basis of the biblical text. Bultmann’s real concerns become clear later in his essay, where he turns to Käsemann’s specific conception of apocalyptic as referring 18. Bultmann, “Ist die Apokalyptik?,” 476. For Lindemann’s explication of Bult- mann’s essay, see Lindemann, “Anthropologie und Kosmologie,” 167–70. 19. Bultmann, “Ist die Apokalyptik?,” 133 (127). 122 Congdon—Eschatologizing Apocalyptic to Christ’s reign and the subjection of the cosmic powers. Bultmann’s problem is that, taken literally, this view conceives of apocalyptic as a supernatural battle taking place “over our heads,” so to speak. Bultmann says that Käsemann’s view is right only “if Christ’s reign is understood as his lordship over me.” The subjection of the cosmic powers “must be understood as my active participation in this subjection through my obedience.”20 He agrees with Käsemann that Christ’s lordship is rooted in the defeat of death in the resurrection, but it is precisely on this basis that Bultmann insists on the existential and anthropological nature of Chris- tian apocalypticism. As Bultmann puts it, with reference to 1 Corinthians 15.57, “Paul thanks God, who gives us the victory.”21 Without this intrinsic relation to the particularity of life in the world, apocalypticism becomes little more than mythological or metaphysical abstraction. On Bultmann’s reading, however, Paul relocates “belief in the presence of salvation out of the realm of speculation . . . into the realm of concrete human existence.”22 Bultmann’s opposition to apocalypticism is thus bound up with his opposition to all forms of speculation. It is in this sense that he rejects the notion of a saving event that is “objectively” real and effective in the abstract apart from our concrete participation or acknowledgement of it. Bultmann does not mean that salvation is a mental fabrication or a work that we accomplish ourselves. Even though the event of Christ, he says, is “always a new beginning” for us in the sense that it “always demands our decision,” the event “is in actuality [faktisch] always a beginning for us, whether we want it to be or not.”23 But we cannot assume a neutral posture that would allow us to state in advance what Christ is for each person. One is either obedient or disobedient in relation to Jesus Christ, and this obedience is a contingent response that is new in each particular moment. To speak of Christ is to speak of a concrete active relation between God and a human being, and this relation cannot be universalized as a general 20. Ibid., 480–81. 21. Ibid., 481. 22. Ibid., 480. 23. Bultmann, Verkündigte Wort, 237–38. This is from a sermon, “Der Sinn des Weihnachtsfestes,” which he preached on December 17, 1926, in Marburg. Bultmann goes on to say: “‘The Word became flesh,’ God became a human being. It’s not about the miraculous transformation of some cosmic substance, but rather the fact that through the birth of a human being history has been decisively determined. It’s also not about the fact that we have sensed God’s grace in special contents [Gehalte] and special ex- periences [Erlebnisse] as something extra, but rather the fact that in the person of Jesus Christ God’s grace and reality have appeared and marked our history” (238). 123 part one: Apocalyptic and the Nature of Theology relation without turning the event into a substance and revelation into something revealed. Bultmann’s concern is finally identical with that of the Pauline apocalyptic theologians. He seeks to protect the contingency, otherness, and newness of God’s eschatological inbreaking. Is the defeat of death and the subjection of the powers and principalities an event like other occurrences in history and thus capable of articulation by any neu- tral observer, or is it rather an event that is known and encountered only by the one who actively participates in it by faith and is thus an event that, to use the terminology of Christopher Morse, is never “in hand” but only ever “at hand”?24 Why this rehash of the debate between Käsemann and Bultmann? In short, because contemporary apocalyptic theology has (perhaps un- knowingly) followed Bultmann, and not Käsemann. Where the decisive points of conflict between “apocalyptic” and “eschatology” are concerned, theologians today have largely—and, in my estimation, correctly—taken the path of a demythologized eschatology over against a literal apocalypse, though most still use the linguistic framework of biblical apocalypticism as a way of fleshing out what is, in fact, a post-Enlightenment interpreta- tion of eschatological hope. The point of drawing out this genealogical connection to Bultmann is not at all to suggest that contemporary apoca- lyptic theology is, in fact, non-apocalyptic. Much to the contrary, the point is to argue that if these recent developments are rightly identified as apocalyptic—and I believe that they are—then there is no reason not to acknowledge Bultmann as a truly apocalyptic theologian. The work of J. Louis Martyn marks the turning point in this Bult- mannian direction, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. A full defense of this claim is not possible here, but let me note the following points. One quickly notices that Martyn’s work places no emphasis on a chronologically imminent occurrence within world history as the basis for a Pauline apocalyptic, nor is there any attempt to describe some future catastrophic end of the cosmos.25 The accent throughout is rather on the 24. Cf. Morse, Difference, 5–7, 21–25. 25. I credit Martyn as the turning point because it is his Pauline scholarship that forms the theological framework for contemporary apocalyptic theology. He is the one figure consistently cited as exegetical evidence for the apocalyptic position. That is not to say Martyn was a lone innovator. In terms of differentiating Pauline apocalyptic from the version that prognosticates about the imminent future, his work builds upon that of Christopher Rowland. As Martinus C. de Boer points out, Rowland’s 1982 study of Jewish and early Christian apocalyptic is responsible for differentiating the concept of apocalyptic from a strictly futurist orientation. Rowland writes, “Apocalyptic is as 124 Congdon—Eschatologizing Apocalyptic transcendent otherness of God’s redemptive agency in Christ. The promi- nence of language regarding the cosmic-historical scope of this apocalyptic invasion does not mean for him that the Christ-event is empirically cosmo- logical or chronologically historical. While Martyn rightly insists that the apocalyptic invasion is never the imaginative creation of an individual, he does not define its “reality” within the category of what human beings generally refer to as the “real world,” because this invasion alone deter- mines what is truly real. God’s disruptive action in the advent of Christ “is not visible, demonstrable, or provable in the categories and with the means of perception native to ‘everyday’ existence. . . . The inbreak of the new creation is itself revelation, apocalypse.” The invasion of divine grace causes an “epistemological crisis,” he says, for those whom it encounters, since the world they inhabit now appears in an entirely new light. The one confronted by the apocalypse therefore “sees bifocally”; that person sees “both the evil age and the new creation simultaneously.”26 Martyn’s concept of bifocal vision is, in fact, equivalent to Bultmann’s concept of “paradoxical identity.” The point for both is that the apocalypse is not an event alongside other events in history, nor does it create a new historical age that appears to all people apart from faith. On the contrary, it is an epistemological crisis in the sense that it alters our very relation to the world. The Christ-event transfigures history for the one who faithfully participates in it. Where the apocalyptic theologians differ today from Bultmann is not at all where Bultmann and Käsemann differ. Instead, as Morse’s book on heaven makes clear, the real point of departure from Bultmann is over the sociopolitical implications of apocalyptic thinking. The assumption is that Dorothee Sölle and others are correct in judging Bultmann’s theology to be individualistic and apolitical, and for this reason primarily (though not exclusively) he is identified as non-apocalyptic.27 Whether this judgment much involved in the attempt to understand things as they are now as to predict future events” (Open Heaven, 2). Cf. de Boer, “Paul.” 26. Martyn, Galatians, 104. 27. To be sure, Morse renders a number of other criticisms against Bultmann be- sides the political problem. While he affirms demythologizing in the limited sense of deliteralizing, he also states that Bultmann imposes an “alien framework” and “ex- istential ontology” upon scripture (Morse, Difference, 40), as many have done ever since Barth rendered the same verdict. These are, however, passing remarks in Morse’s book. He does not spend any time examining the merit of these claims; he mostly takes them for granted as established judgments in theology. His much more important claim is that demythologizing interprets heaven “too exclusively in terms of the self in disregard of a wider social and political world” (39). The significance of this statement 125 part one: Apocalyptic and the Nature of Theology is accurate is a question I cannot take up in any detail here, but notice that this was not the concern in the debate between Bultmann and Käsemann. When Morse criticizes Bultmann for lacking “the sense of any cosmic and political eventfulness associated with heaven,” he has already made a de- mythologizing move to associate the cosmic language of apocalyptic with sociopolitical action in the world.28 As a historian examining the views of the early Christian community, Käsemann understands the cosmic lan- guage to refer quite literally to the future of the cosmos.29 is made clear by the fact that Morse devotes an entire chapter to developing precisely the sociopolitical implications of Christian talk about heaven (75–98), not to mention the numerous other places where these ideas appear in the other chapters. This justi- fies my argument that it is the judgment regarding Bultmann’s ostensibly apolitical conception of faith that is the real, or at least primary, basis for his rejection among the contemporary apocalyptic theologians. The reasons that someone like Käsemann gave are rarely, if ever, mentioned. 28. Morse, Difference, 39. 29. Käsemann as a mature theologian is another matter entirely. In his posthu- mously published writings from 1975 to 1996 (he died in 1998), collected in On Being a Disciple of the Crucified Nazarene, Käsemann affirms and extends Bultmann’s program of demythologizing in a way that reveals the surprising continuity between Bultmann and apocalyptic theology. See the following passage: “Bultmann was entirely correct to throw out this catchword that so horrified and enraged his opponents. There must be demythologizing. It was only that Bultmann was much too soft when he applied it principally to our worldview and called us from ancient Christian ideas to modern thought. Without question God does not intend that we run about as living mummies of the ancient world, everywhere assuming and making use of the technology of our time, but spiritually and religiously setting ourselves back 1,900 years. Faith must be lived today, and this means it must give thought today and give an account of itself. . . . Nevertheless, demythologizing may not only denote speaking in new tongues and with modern speech” (100–101). In other pieces he explains how demythologizing needs to be extended and furthered today. In an essay on the heritage of the Reforma- tion, he writes: “[Demythologizing] is no doubt necessary and the task of all preachers and teachers, but it must be radicalized. For no one can hear the gospel without being summoned to the reality of earth from illusions about oneself, the world and especially God. Demythologizing must proceed to ‘de-demonizing’” (177). By “de-demonizing,” Käsemann means that the apocalyptic invasion of God destroys the illusory power structures that enslave the oppressed peoples of the earth. This is made even clearer by another lecture from 1987: “This is why I acknowledge the demand for demythologiz- ing. The ancient worldview, which lived on in the Middle Ages and in our time openly or subliminally still haunts us, has no claim on us. Contrariwise, a demythologizing carried on and given legitimation theologically should not toll for a burial already conducted 200 years ago by rationalists inside and outside the church. Nor should it be used as springboard for a Christian existentialism that no longer needs theological heralds to remain up to date. Today, demythologizing must be more radical than in the days of the Enlightenment, more critical toward its faith in progress and science and toward the postulate of human maturity in the modern era. Not merely texts are to be 126 Congdon—Eschatologizing Apocalyptic My point is that the literature on apocalyptic has tended to obscure the way in which this word has been associated with a variety of different theological commitments, some of them incompatible with each other. The most recent work in Pauline apocalyptic theology is highly actualistic, dialectical, and existential in nature—aspects that come out very clearly in the work of Morse and Kerr, among others. Even the eschatology is largely present tense rather than future tense.30 In short, apocalyptic theology today is highly Bultmannian in nature, with the one crucial qualification being its explicitly theopolitical orientation. And it is with that in mind that I turn now to Taubes. demythologized respecting their ideological wrappings. In the evangelical sense de- mythologizing occurs as a battle and resistance against superstition. And superstition, at least according to Luther’s explanation of the first commandment, is everything that does not allow us most deeply and without compromise to fear, love, and trust God ‘above all things.’ Thus demythologizing, evangelically conceived and rooted, denotes ridding humanity and the earth of the demonic” (199–200). Käsemann then goes on to say that the demonic manifests itself today in “the cries of a humanity for centu- ries exploited by the white race, herded into the misery of slums and starved there, plagued by epidemic, and for the most part treated worse than cattle” (201). In this sense, “the gospel rids of demons” and “deserves to be called mother of the Enlighten- ment” (203). These passages, pregnant with numerous theological possibilities, reveal how misguided it is to limit demythologizing to deliteralizing or to reject Bultmann’s project because it does not seem adequately political in nature. Such critiques do not perceive the radical implications of Bultmann’s hermeneutical program. Despite his debates with Bultmann in his younger years, Käsemann later proved himself to be one of Bultmann’s most faithful students. Käsemann rightly perceived that New Testa- ment apocalyptic, the program of demythologizing, and liberation theology all belong together. See Käsemann, Disciple. 30. Despite the fact Morse concludes his book with a chapter on “the hope of heav- en,” there is virtually nothing said about the so-called afterlife or a traditional concep- tion of creation’s consummation. The chapter is instead a thorough demythologizing of Christian expectations; the eschatological “last day” is indeed the day “at hand,” that is, every today. Morse acknowledges that this is a very different kind of hopeful expectation: “What then is the hope of heaven, if any, expressed in these parameters? At the least this much we can acknowledge, to sum up from the foregoing observa- tions: The ‘real world’ is proclaimed to be one in which there is life currently arriving on the scene, in whatever situation we are facing, that is stronger than any undeniable loss threatening us, including death” (Morse, Difference, 117). I am in full agreement with Morse’s conclusions, but it is important not to cover up or ignore the way these represent a fulfillment of Bultmann’s hermeneutical insights and not their rejection. 127