Vladan Perisic

8/10/2019 Vladan Perisic

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/vladan-perisic 1/16

St Vladimir’ s Theological Quarterly 55:4 (2012) 399—436

C a n O r t h o d o x T h e o l o g y B e C o n t e x t u a l ?

Vladan Perisic

What Is Contextual Theology?

In the expression “contextual theology” the word “contextual

is

understood as the opposite of the words “universal,” “absolute,”

or “traditional.” So “universal theology” would be a theology

independent of context or unaware of its cultural, social, political,

and any other condition, while “contextual theology” would be

a theology that recognizes its context.1 Or even more accurately:

while every theology is de facto context-dependent, not every

theology is however conscious of that dependence.2 Contextual

theology underlines the dependence of the theological idiom on

every kind of its conditionality. As a result it insists that there is

no universal perspective in theology (but only a kind o f “openness”

toward a universal perspective), for each expression is embedded in

an existing culture.3

According to those who protest against disregarding the local

character of theologizing, the New Testament itself serves as an

example of contextual theology.4 There has never been a pure or

1 “God scarcely will be found beyond but in context” (Sigurd Bergmann, A Survey o f

Contextual Theology [Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2003], xv).

2 “Contextual theology is an interpretation of Christian faith, which arises in the

consciousness of its context” (ibid., 4, italics V.P.).

3 Although it would be an exaggeration to suppose that this implies an uncritical

adoption of that culture, many advocates of contextual theology give that impres- sion.

4 “The approach of conte t al theolog is not an thing ne It rather e presses an



ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY400

cultureless (but only a Jewish Greek-Roman culture-conditioned)

Gospel. For example, all the names given to Jesus in the New Testament were already-existing religious names o f Jewish or

Greek origin.5By understanding the meanings of those names, his

audience, and also (in later times) the readers of his words written

in the Gospels, could give him “his place” in their lives.6O f course,

the meaning of these names was not fixed forever, but underwent

transformation in the course o f history.7 Naturally, Jesus’ names are

only one example of the importance of respecting the contextual “here” and “now.” Therefore, the role of culture in the understanding

of the New Testament cannot be disputed.

Analyzing critically the role of culture in the New Testament,

we should always be aware that in the Jewish-Greek-Roman

culture, the Gospel was not something that was accepted as self-

evident, but was rather viewed as an alien element detrimental to

the indigenous cultures (equally Jewish, Greek, or Roman).8 And generally speaking, we can equally consider every culture both as

a bearer of and a hindrance to the Gospels true meaning (which

brings us to the question—what is the real role of the context in

contextual theology: to reveal or to hide the intended meaning of

the message ?). In today s pluralistic world we can accept more easily

than ever in our history that we should be sensitive to the culturally

the thought forms, or the culture of its particular place and time” (Stephen Bevans,

“What has Contextual Theology to Offer to the Church o f the 21st Century,” Mis-

sion in Context Lecture, Church Mission Society, Oxford, October 15, 2009).

5 E.g., “rabbi,” “messiah,” “prophet,” “son o f God,” “son o f Man,” “saviour,” “Word,”

“Truth,” etc., etc.

6 Compare K. H. Ohlig, Fundamentalchristologie. Im Spannungsfeld von Christentum

und K ultur (Munich: Kosel, 1986), 62 0- 21 .

7 J. D. G. Dunn ,Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making, Vol. I), (Grand Rap-

ids: Eerdmans, 2003), 553-54.8 “From the very beginning of the proclamation of the Gospel, we have to underscore

that the Gospel is a‘strange’Gospel We have to emphasize its over against’ character



401Can Orthodox Theology Be Contextual

conditioned way of understanding the Gospel message, which

should (by intention) save us from, for example, a Eurocentric interpretation o f Christianity, and guard us against the imperialism

of western theology.9

One of the messages of contextual theology, therefore, is that

we are limited by our own cultures in our interpretation of the

Gospel—that is, in our very manner of asking questions, in our way

of approaching the text of the Bible, in how we choose some things

to be more important than others, and so forth. The next thing we should have in mind is that the text of the Bible is as equally

conditioned as is our understanding of it. It has been sufficiently

shown in modern biblical science that the writers of the Bible

wrote within a specific culture which determined in a specific way

how they would think and write. Learning this, we simultaneously

learn that we too are limited, and should therefore try to become

aware of in what ways—similar or dissimilar to other cultures— we are limited, and also how this kind of (cultural) limitation

affects our doing theology.10 This shift in perspective (supposedly

achieved in contextual theology) should guide us in making sense

9 This reminds us that contextual theology in the modern sense explicitly appeared

on a large scale as Latin-American liberation theology, feminist theology, African

and North American black theology, Korean Minjung theology, Taiwanese third-eye

theology, Indian Dalit theology, Philippines people s power theology, Indonesian

Pancha Sila theology, and finally as eco-theology, to mention only the most popular.

These new contextual theologies, existing for only half a century, have emerged out

of the pains, struggles, and desire of people from these cultures to formulate their

own theologies (in contradistinction to “traditional” European theology) that would

make sense of God who became man to live with us in the context o f everybody’s

daily life.

10 “We must always be attentive not only to the knowledge o f God but also to the

knowledge of ourselves as human beings i f we hope to practice an approach to theol-

ogy that leads to wisdom. We must also be attentive to the fact that the knowledge of God and the knowledge o f ourselves are not available to us in the form of timeless




of the Christian message in local circumstances, and in making faith

relevant to one s life situations.

Hermeneutical Problems o f Interpretation

Given that there is no “pure,” uninterpreted Gospel (as well as any

other text), the question is not whether we will have interpretation or

not, but whether this interpretation will be successful or not. Some

kind of interpretation is always present, independently of our being

conscious of that fact.11 In other words, our understanding always presupposes a kind of /^-understanding.12 For our understanding

of the subject of investigation (i.e., the Gospel), it is better that we be

conscious of this, for it will nevertheless function even if we are not.

One of the main presuppositions that forms our pre-understanding

is our vital interest in the given subject-matter which reveals itself in

certain questions we ask.13So, every text arises from some con-text

(and also enters some other context). The understanding of certain phenomena requires the understanding of their context, but vice

versa, the very context is understandable only from the phenomena

we investigate.14The question remains: what comes first?

Now, Gods words are given to us not directly, but ashuman words

in human context.15This means that in order to understand them,

we need interpretation.16And what applies to every interpretation,

applies to the interpretation of biblical texts as well. If we consider

11 Cf. Paul Ricoeur: “To narrate is already to explain,” Time and Narrative, Vol. 1 (Ox-

ford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 178.

12 Although the lack o f presuppositions is not possible with regard to the understand -

ing o f any subject-matter, it is obligatory with regard to the expected results o f inves-

tigation.

13 It could be shown that it applies even to the way in which we ask the questions.

14 “... Every interpretation necessarily goes in circle” (R. Bultmann, Glauben und Ver-

stehen. Gesammelte Aufsätze, Bd. 2, J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck] [Tübingen 19582], 211-35).

15 S H W ld f l K t t ll F d t lth l i (P d b M i h






then, about other cultures and “their” truths? If every culture had

its own truth, then truth would not exist at all.22 Therefore, in trying to interpret some biblical truths, we should never take culture as a

norm, much less as the ultimate criterion of truth. We should notice

that among the so-called “context theologians” there is a tendency

to hypostatize culture. However, the truths of divine revelations

cannot be judged by the criteria of culture, so, it is important in

theology to avoid what one might call a “fundamentalism of

culture,”23 or an even more subtle form of same attitude, a “cultural foundationalism.”24 Furthermore, culture can sometimes contribute

to the understanding of some revealed truths, but more often than

not it can prevent it. In such cases, the understanding of culture

would not help in the understanding of the biblical message.25 Yet the

understanding (and living) of the biblical message can contribute to

because (supposedly) no other language can capture and convey what she wants to say. So, one of the main principles of contextual theology -communication with dif-

ferent cultures-cannot be realized just because o f respect for its other main principle,

being culturally determined.

22 “There is a clear danger in the emphasis on the contextual, o f Christian theology

committing itself to a process of fragmentation, resulting in a multiplicity o f peculiar

theologies unable to communicate with each other, and each tending to claim the

absoluteness of the significance of its contextual and cultural setting over all oth-

ers” (Keith Clements, “Theology Now,” in Companion Encyclopedia o f Theology, ed.

Peter Byrne & Leslie Houlden [London and New York: Routledge, 1995], 2 72- 90, at 287). Cf. also: “How Do We Preserve the Unity of Faith from a Diversity of Per-

spectives?,” J. M. Soskice, “The Truth Looks Different from Here,” in Christ and

Context, The Confrontation between Gospel and Culture, eds. H. D. Regan & A. J.

Torrance with A. Wood (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 51.

23 In the words of Alan J. Torrance, this exists where “the demands of culture, defined in

terms of its own prior selfunderstanding, are accepted uncritically as defining theo-

logical conclusions,” “Introduction” in Christ and Context, 2.

24 This exists where “it is believed (explicitly or implicitly) that culture defines the nee-

essary form o f theological questioning,” A. J. Torrance, ibid.25 “By making our own cultural particularity primary, we make it our God; and by

so doing we reduce the Gospel of Christ to just another subordinate world view ”






less theology,27 we should also recognize that the relation between

context and, for instance, Christology should be such that “the theological order or pressure of interpretation and revision should

be from Christ to our context, rather than from our Context to

Christ.”28 An additional reason for this is the fact that context is not

actually (as it is usually understood) something given, like a “thing.”

Rather, it is our (right or wrong) interpretation of the circumstances

in which we live.29 In a way, we are in a constant process of (both

mental and real) reordering of our contextuality. In other words, cultures are not fixed entities, but are dynamic, always in the process

of change. Moreover, our contextuality is (naturally, biologically,

socially, culturally) contingent. On the other hand, what we, in

theology, try to grasp, is not.

Theological Context

The main question we have to answer is: what is the proper context for theological reflection? The answer to this question will show what

kind of theology we are talking about. Under the influence of the

theologies from the so-called Third World, traditional, European

theology is held to be too scientific or elite, and functioning only

in the ivory tower as a kind of Glasperlenspiel, having nothing or

little in common with the real needs of ordinary people. To their

mind, theology should be context-dependent, which usually means that it should be a religious reflection on existing living conditions

27 And not only theology but also “Christianity that was pre-existent to culture and

history, or a culturally divested, a culturally naked Christianity does not exist,” Jo-

hann B. Metz, “The O n e World’: A Challenge to Western Christianity,” in Christ

and Context, 210.

28 Allan J. Torrance, “Response to Jürgen Moltmann,” in Christ an d Context, 194.

29 “‘Context’ is a mental, if not also a cultural, construct, one which serves to tidy up the

often confusing mixture of situations in which we find ourselves,” Daniel W. Hardy,

“The Spirit o f God in Creation and Reconciliation,” in Christ and Context, 237. Cf.




and social circumstances or events. Only then would theology

be realistic, for only in that way could it be helpful to believers (performing inverse influence on that society and culture which

bore it).

Contrary to the viewpoint portrayed,30 I would argue that the

proper theological context is philosophy?1Accordingto this, contextual

theology (not just reflection from the religious point of view)

would be one that is conscious of its philosophical presuppositions.

Every theology has philosophical presuppositions, but those that are conscious of them we can call contextual (if somebody thinks

that this name carries some advantages). This is not to affirm that

contextual theology has only philosophical and no other (social,

cultural, etc.) presuppositions. Nevertheless, the presuppositions of

theology are first and foremost philosophical. That could be shown

in the cases of Triadology, Christology, the theology of the person

or creation, iconology, and every other theology?1It would not be inappropriate to ask the following: If in Christ

there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither free nor slave, why should

their theologies be different once they became Christians?That their

Weltanschauungs were different before their entrance to Church

is more than obvious. But after that, when they have all become

members of the same body of Christ, and when they have all

obtained the same mind of Christ, why would their theologies be culture- or race- or social status-dependent ?33 Contextual theology

30 I do not want to deny that most of what contextual theology is doing is useful for

understanding the relationship between Church and society, religion and culture,

etc. It could also be useful for the self-understanding o f the Church and her place in

concrete historical circumstances. More than this, it could be useful for understand-

ing and meeting the daily needs o f Church members. But, however useful, the ques-

tion remains: is that really theology?

31 O f course, not as some particular philosophical system, but as philosophical rationality .

32 That can be shown even in the case of ethics, apologetics, Christian anthropology,

and all other theological disciplines




liberated us from our European self-centeredness. In my opinion,

that is its greatest achievement. But we need a further step, which is the liberation of theology from the shackles o f contextualization—

for this would, in fact, be its liberation from worldliness and its

reorientation to its proper “object,” the transcendent yet immanent

God, who is the same yesterday, today and forever.34 In other words,

what we need is not reading the Gospel in light of its cultural

context, but reading (and moreover transforming) the cultural

context in the light of the Gospel.Let me make a (rather rough) comparison. If we want theology

to be a science (and I would like it to be at least scientific35), then

can we ask whether mathematics, physics, and other sciences are

understood contextually? Is geometry contextually Greek, so

that in Australia, for the understanding of supposedly Australian

geometry, an awareness of the socio-cultural circumstances would

be necessary? O f course not!36 And the right objection to this comparison would not be that geometry is a natural science, while

theology is not, because they are compared here not with regard to

their being science (geometry being axiomatic, and theology not,

etc.), but with regard to their dependence on context. There is no

Greek, Australian, or Serbian geometry. There is only geometry.

The same applies to theology. By the providential will of the

the people o f God, whether based on race or culture,” Douglas Campbell, “Response

to John W. de Gruchy,” “Christian Witness and the Transformation of Culture in a

Society in Transition,” in Christ and Context, 170.

34 A. J. Torrance reminds us that in the opening paragraphs of what are now published

as Bonhoeffer s lectures on Christology it is argued (among other things) that “if the

Logos is to be taken seriously as the Word o f God to humankind, then this Word stands

over against our systems of thought and prior, (often subliminally, self-oriented and

self-interested) cultural agendas and context-conditioned direction of thought. The

Word serves, rather, to liberate and to reorientate our world-view, to bring us to new,

more inclusive and often more radical ways o f interpreting and reinterpreting the world

around us,” “Introduction” in Christ and Context, 5 -6 (italics V.R).




omniscient God, and not owing (primarily) to social circumstances,

mathematics (as a theoretical science) appeared in Greece, and from there spread across the world. The same happened with philosophy.

There is nothing sociologically, or psychologically, or historically

Greek in Greek mathematics or rationality in general. I believe

that it is impossible to show that ancient Greek mathematics,

philosophy, or any other theoretically rational discipline appeared as

a socially desirable product. Since they contributed nothing to the

practical needs of the members of society, they were not favored or supported by society. As a rule, they developed in spite of society. So,

taken in itself, and seen from a providential point o f view, rationality37

should be understood as Gods gift to humankind, and owing to Gods

providence it was developed in Ancient Greece exactly at that time, in

order to be the proper context for the theology that would come after

it and explain the revealed truths. Therefore, Christian theology from

the beginning had philosophical rationality as its “natural” context; and to my mind this is the same today, and always will be.

The Case o f Orthodox Theology

Concerning the theme in the title o f this paper, the question is posed:

What is the context o f Orthodox theology?38 Generally speaking,

in the first centuries it was Roman society, in the next millennium it

was the Byzantine empire, for the next half a millennium it was the

Turkish empire, and in the last two centuries it has been the ethnic

state. In every one of these historical epochs there was a different

social, economic, cultural and every other framework in which the

Church lived her life and in which theologians wrote their papers.

Nobody can deny that knowing about all these circumstances

37 It is always useful to remind ourselves that while Rationalism is a kind of (philo-

sophical) ideology, rationality is God s gift to humanity, making us what we are.

38 We have to ask also what is the context of Orthodox theology todayï And the answer

will not be easy, even if we take for granted that context means cultural surrounding,








context ywhich, o f course, is not the sense which context theologians

give to the term).Now we can return to Orthodox theology, and try to answer

the question in the title of this essay. The anti-intellectualism of

contemporary Orthodox theologians44 is hardly in harmony with the

emphatic endeavor of the greatest theologians of the first centuries

of the Church to “save” the human intellect, so as not to present

the Christian faith to the world in which they lived as irrational

and in conflict with the human mind. It is equally opposed to the warning made by Florovsky in our own time that “the example of

the holy Fathers encourages a speculative confession of faith.”45

In a “speculative” confession of faith, the context undoubtedly

cannot be social, but must be philosophical. So, on the one hand,

we may freely admit the credo of contextual theology, that the

knowledge of the social, cultural, and similar factors contributes to

the understanding of the Christian message. That is why we should encourage the research of that kind of “context”; and, concerning

this, Orthodox theology can and should be contextual. We cannot,

however, call this kind of investigation theology in the strict sense.46

On the other hand, the knowledge of philosophy is substantially

the knowledge of the theological context, of the medium through

which theology arises, or the atmosphere in which theology “moves.”

Nevertheless, that kind of knowledge cannot guarantee by itself

that any theological knowledge will appear; but if it happened,

it would be out of fertile philosophical soil (and, it goes without

saying, never without divine grace). Concerning¿/?¿^ (for contextual

and space eventually is.

44 See Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Reasonable Faith and a Trinitarian Logic: Faith and

Reason in Eastern Orthodox Theology,” in Restoring Faith and Reason, eds. Laurence

Paul Hemming & Susan Frank Parsons (London: SCM Press, 2002), 237-55.

45 George Florovsky, “Creature and Creaturehood,” in The Collected Works o f Georges

Florovsky, Vol. Ill: Creation and Redemption (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing




theology very unusual) meaning of “context,” we may conclude

that Orthodox theology once was contextual, and to my mind it could and must be such again. However, the present situation in

Orthodox theology with respect to that kind of “contextualism” is

not very promising.47

In summary, Orthodox theology can and should be contextual

in both senses of the word. In the usual sense where context means

the socio-cultural conditions of life and work, it can learn from (or be

reminded by) contemporary context theology that the knowledge of the variety of these elements can substantially contribute to the

understanding of the Christian message. In the second, narrower,

and unusual sense, where context means philosophical rationality,

Orthodox theology can learn from its own past (or from some

contemporary non-Orthodox, or from lonely Orthodox examples)

that the knowledge ofphilosophy is indispensable for the theological

enterprise. And if we cannot (and should not) divide these two meanings of the word “context” (taking for granted that, given the

gradualness of contextuality, philosophy as well has the “context” in

the first sense), we can (and should) differentiate them. In that case,

we can call the theology conditioned by the socio-cultural context

theology in a broader sense, and the theology conditioned by the

philosophical rationality we can call theology proper. It could be

shown that that which is theological in contextual theologies, and which may also be found in these theologies in the broader sense

(and it is the proper theological element in them), is not dependent

on context in the first, but only on context in the second sense.

47 T ti h l l f th O th d ( d t l th O th d )



Copyright and Use:

As an ATLAS user, you may print, download, or send articles for individual use

according to fair use as defined by U.S. and international copyright law and as

otherwise authorized under your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement.

No content may be copied or emailed to multiple sites or publicly posted without the

copyright holder(sV express written permission. Any use, decompiling,

reproduction, or distribution of this journal in excess of fair use provisions may be a

violation of copyright law.

This journal is made available to you through the ATLAS collection with permission

from the copyright holder( s). The copyright holder for an entire issue of ajournai

typically is the journal owner, who also may own the copyright in each article. However,for certain articles, the author of the article may maintain the copyright in the article.

Please contact the copyright holder(s) to request permission to use an article or specific

work for any use not covered by the fair use provisions of the copyright laws or coveredby your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement. For information regarding the

copyright holder(s), please refer to the copyright information in the journal, if available,or contact ATLA to request contact information for the copyright holder(s).

About ATLAS:

The ATLA Serials (ATLAS®) collection contains electronic versions of previously

published religion and theology journals reproduced with permission. The ATLAScollection is owned and managed by the American Theological Library Association

(ATLA) and received initial funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.

The design and final form of this electronic document is the property of the AmericanTheological Library Association.

Documents

Vladan Perisic