Context, Plurality, and Truth

Theology in World Christianities

Mika Vähäkangas

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781532682643, 9781532682650
• eBook ISBN: 9781532682667
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

The world has shrunk in the processes of globalization, and the old ways of actively ignoring plurality in theology are no longer viable. Contextual differences between different Christian traditions and theologies are highly visible due to improved communications and migration. These differences also witness that this plurality has existed since the very beginning of Christianity. Religious studies demonstrate that no religion is pure and hermetically sealed from others, but they all are syncretistic in the sense of giving and taking. In the world of religions, where boundaries are porous and the internal plurality of Christianity is vast, there is a temptation either to reject the plurality in a fideistic manner or succumb to relativism. The first solution is intellectually hard to defend, and relativism is often seen as detrimental to Christian identity. This book proposes a way of recognizing the contextual and syncretistic dimensions of pluralism while not surrendering to relativism. Christian identity and tradition can be affirmed while staying open to the challenges of pluralism.

6

On the Inevitably Syncretistic Nature
of Christian Theology

The question of contextuality in theology, even if it may be considered problematic by some theologians, is not generally seen as threatening in many theological and ecclesiastic circles. That may partly be a result of not paying enough attention to the consequences of contextualization or of resorting to some easy solutions that are not intellectually tenable. In this chapter, I will discuss the interreligious dimension of contextuality in theology maintaining that Christian theology is inevitably syncretistic and this state is theologically not only acceptable but actually in line with the basic doctrine of much of Christianity, namely incarnation.

Religion Is Naturally Syncretistic

For pious people it is often very difficult to admit that their religions are actually amalgamations of different religious-cultural elements—they are syncretistic, so to speak.275 Only a few theologians seem to be prepared to consider their faith and theology as resulting from religion’s historical metamorphoses and the borrowing and reworking of religious ideas.276 Yet, religious studies take it for granted today that there are no “pure” religions. Heikki Räisänen’s magisterial work on the formation of the early Christian faith shows in a convincing manner how multifaceted and varied the process of formation of Christianity was.277 Unlike in the popular pictures of the ecumenical tree showing how different Christian denominations grow from the same root—often referred to as “Jesus”—and divide into various branches, the beginnings of Christianity were not that uniform. Even a fairly casual reading, especially of the Acts, indicates the bewildering variety of understandings of the message of Jesus the resurrected, as well as the resulting practices that were to become Christian. Gustaf Wingren points out that even the fact that the Bible contains four Gospels witnesses to the fact of the plurality of interpretations from the very beginning.278

The fact that every religion builds upon the others and is, in that sense, not pure and unique is also a logical necessity: no religion can ever begin from a tabula rasa. Even if one were to believe like Christians and Muslims that God’s Word came directly from God, either as a person or as dictation, one builds on previous religions. In the case of Christianity, on Judaism (which, in turn, is based on several Middle Eastern religious traits) and in the case of Islam on Judaism, Christianity and the old Arabian religions. There is always a religious tradition through which the purported new revelation is interpreted.279 Actually, what one should rather debate about is how that syncretistic process happens: is it a matter of bricolage, hybridity, amalgamation or something else?280 The central theological question here would be what is the novum of the purported new revelation, what novelty does it bring to the world of religions.281 Or, in Christian vocabulary—what makes good news into news? The question can also be reformulated to direct itself to the special character of Christianity: what makes it Christianity?

What makes it so difficult for many theologians to consider their religion syncretistic? First, syncretism has a very pejorative ring to it, at least in Christian theology, especially in the Protestant dialectical one. It has been defined, among other things, as the “illegitimate mingling of different religious systems.”282 Here one needs to ask who defines the mingling illegitimate. At any rate, not the one who mingles! Secondly, according to Michel Foucault, in western cultures one tends to seek the truth of a phenomenon through its Ursprung, its origins, albeit in vain.283 This seems to address the nature of much of Christian theology. Many a theological program, which could be described as ad fontes-movements, can be considered to follow such an idea, for example: Lutheranism (the Bible against tradition), Neoscholasticism (scholasticism against modernity), or la nouvelle théologie (patristic theology against scholasticism). In each case, one claims to have recaptured something original that was lost through the course of church history. In each case, one could hardly speak of a naïve belief that one may delete the previous history and return to the roots but there was an understanding of varying levels of the historical intricacies involved. However, the idea is that the earlier understanding of faith was more profound and genuine and that there remains a possibility of grasping (some of) its genuine nature and ideas. Returning to the ideals of the past would, thus, redeem the fallen contemporary form of Christianity. However, subscribing to the view that there never was a sole original Christianity but, rather, a multifaceted and plural phenomenon, closes that route to a theological bliss of certainty and purity of faith.

Agreeing that there never was the ideal Christianity of the past to be replicated liberates theological imagination of today as well. The insight of plurality belonging to Christianity from the very beginning facilitates a bolder approach to the plurality of faith in Christianity today, also in relation to the contextual process in theology. Theologians should rather discuss the nature of Christian syncretism and the kinds of theological conclusions it leads us to, rather than what is pure Christianity.284 Before we have a glance at some of these theological conclusions, we will view some of the contemporary conditions for such conclusions.

From Imperial Religion to Heretical Imperative

A century ago, Christianity was, at least from the point of view of European religious elite, still a relatively easy phenomenon to define, because of its centrality in the ideological map of the hegemonic national cultures. The idea was that Christianity has its kernel and bulk in the western Christendom, and most so in one’s own country and national culture, and that it expands from there, especially to the colonies. “The West is the best and may evangelize the rest.” Naturally, this view has never been an adequate description of reality, because there have always been strong Christian churches outside of the western cultural sphere.285 The same applied to the doctrinal content of Christianity: that which was either held by one’s own denomination or generally considered as the common Christian heritage in the churches of the West, or in the largest conceivable terms European Eastern Orthodox churches, was taken as the yardstick of true Christianity. The pre-Chalcedonian oriental churches like the bulky Coptic churches in Egypt and Ethiopia were routinely left out of consideration, not to speak of the ancient Near Eastern or South Indian churches. The consensus of Christianity had, therefore, either a West European cultural consensus behind it, or at least a consensus of the Greek philosophical heritage. However, even the European reality was more diverse, with several ethnic groups not belonging to the Indo-European linguistic and cultural family on the fringes. Yet, that plurality was not very visible because the European theological hegemony was also imposed on those groups.

An idea gradually developed in Roman Catholic theology that considering the so called dogma non-necessaria, less central teachings, it was sufficient for a Christian to believe whatever the religious authority had decided, even without understanding or knowing those doctrines.286 In this way, the church was able to deal with religious plurality in its backyard when the general level of theological knowledge among the European Christian population was not at a satisfactory level. This move was also partly an outcome of the realization that many people were non-Christians only due to not having heard the gospel, like the peoples in the newly discovered America. This resulted in a need to re-examine the faith of the non-Christians, and to appreciate it as fides implicita, faith that was not a...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Missional Church, Public Theology, World Christianity
• Preface
• Introduction
• Globalizing World as the Context of Theology Today
• On the Need of Renewal of Theology in the Pluralistic World
• On Contextuality in Theology
• A Model of the Contextual Process
• On the Inevitably Syncretistic Nature of Christian Theology
• Four Levels of Theology: Do Special Revelation and Pluralism Fit Together?
• Concluding Remarks
• Bibliography