Customer Reviews

The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology (Cambridge Companions to Religion)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

According to the introduction, 'Postmodernity allows for no absolutes and no essence. Yet theology is concerned with the absolute, the essential.' Not meaning to be postmodern to the extreme, this statement can hardly be taken as an absolute, either in regard to postmodernity or in terms of theological development. So, where does one start?

The definition of postmodernity is difficult to formulate. The modern is more easy to situate, in that it occurs in or after the Enlightenment, and the different developments in intellectual and philosophical areas that that entails. Postmodern, as the name implies, is defined in relation to (and in contrast to) the project of modernity. 'Postmodernity is upsetting, intentionally so. Postmodern thinkers have overturned the table of the knowledge-changers in the university, the temple of modernity, and have driven out the foundationalists,' according to editor Kevin J. Vanhoozer.

The book is divided into two primary parts. In the first part, there are essays by theologians such as Kevin Vanhoozer, Nancey Murphy and Brad Kallenberg, George Hunsinger, Thomas A. Carlson, Graham Ward, David Ray Griffin, Mary McClintock Fulkerson, and D. Stephen Long. These look at different types of theology that might be classified as postmodern - postliberal theology, postmetaphysical theology, deconstructive theology, reconstructive theology, feminist theology, and radical orthodoxy. No one form of theology in this list holds a monopoly on the term postmodern; no one form of theology in this list fully qualifies under all the parameters by which one might judge something to be postmodern. (Vanhoozer playfully comments that there are eight chapters, a sort of eightfold-path to enlightenment.)

In the second part of the book, various aspects of the traditional structure of systematic theology receive a 'postmodern' treatment. Most systematic theologies are divided broadly into sections that look at scripture, tradition, the Trinity, method, God, creation, humanity, Christology, soteriology (salvation), ecclesiology (church), and pneumatology (Holy Spirit). These are drawn together in essays by Vanhoozer, Dan Stiver, David Cunningham, Philip Clayton, John Webster, Walter Lowe, Stanley Grenz, and David Ford.

Prior to this collection, I was very familiar with many of the theologians (Ward, Griffin, Cunningham, Grenz, Ford), and had fleeting acquaintance with the work of many others. They constitute an interesting and diverse group to approach this particular topic - postmodernity as an enterprise eschews the idea of conformity and lock-step methods, and these writers approach their subjects from vastly different areas. For example, David Ray Griffin has been one of the leading lights in the school of process theology, but here writes on reconstructive theology, stating that 'not all process theology is properly called postmodern.' Graham Ward is known to me more as a writer in the area of radical orthodoxy topics, but here is developing the idea of deconstruction a la Derrida as applied to the theological task. Stanley Grenz is on the more conservative side of writers here; I was surprised (in a pleasant way) to see him dealing with the issue of ecclesiology through the lens of narrative theology.

This is a really interesting text, one of the most interesting theology books I've read in a long while. It is a good text for introducing many of the strands of modern, er, I mean postmodern (okay, contemporary) theology in a brief but systematic, clear and accessible manner.

This book is strong meat for anyone interested in the postmodern interfaces with theology. It is balanced, constructive and contains ideas that are 'dynamite' in every chapter. Particulary good are Vanhoozer's own chapters and the chapter by Walter Lowe on Christ and Salvation. It is certainly among my top five best buys on Amazon.

This 2003 volume is a broad, most useful, yet relatively brief (cf. the The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology (Blackwell Companions to Religion)) introduction to many of the currents of contemporary theology.

Here are some quotations from the book:

"For to be postmodern is to signal one's dissatisfaction with at least some aspect of modernity. It is to harbor a revolutionary impulse: the impulse to do things differently." (Pg. xiii)
"The postmodern condition thus pertains to one's awareness of the deconstructability of all systems of meaning and truth." (Pg. 13)
"(T)he postmodern condition is essentially, that is, structurally, messianic: constitutionally open to the coming of the other and the different. FAITH, not reason---faith in a religionless (viz., messianic) religion---is thus endemic to the postmodern condition." (Pg. 18)
"At the heart of this theology is its naturalistic theism. This theism is naturalistic not in the sense of equating God with the world, or otherwise denying distinct agency to God, but simply in the sense of rejecting supernaturalism, understood as belief in a divine being that can interrupt the world's normal causal principles." (Pg. 103)
"Postmodernity is not what comes after the new; it is the 'dissolution of the category of the new.'" (Pg. 127)
"What is radical orthodoxy? ... It is a Christian metaphysic that does not begin with transcendentalist assumptions that predicate knowledge of God upon a secure knowledge of ourselves. Instead it assumes that participation in the church makes possible a theological knowledge that must then mediate all other forms of knowledge. But this mediation must take place within the terms in which it has been received---as gift." (Pg. 144)
"Indeed, seen in this light, sola scriptura sounds positively postmodern to the extent that it questions whether any single human point of view captures universal truth." (Pg. 167)
"Yet postmodernism has rather famously tended to drift toward highly theoretical and abstract accounts of its subject matter; and these accounts are sometimes woven together into precisely the sort of 'metanarrative' that it had so heavily criticized." (Pg. 199)

In my unending search to discover a way in which the sacramental life of the church, LCMS, may be used to intersect post-modernism, I ran across this collection of essays. The collection is very good, however it tends to lean heavily toward the philosophical; I am much more concerned with the practical day to day life of the church. The work contains essays that deal with a range of theologies in the post-modern world. There are several that I thought were quite helpful to my own thesis: D. Stephen Long's Essay on "Radical Orthodoxy," and both of Vanhoozer's. The work also includes a "for further reading" section at the end of each essay that I also found helpful.

Very good book, it expands the spectrum for postmodern thought and keeps the theological aspect close at hand. This book is excellent for this genre, and it should be considered because of the diverse essays and authors.