Charles L. Campbell's Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Han Frei's Postliberal Theology

The other day I finished reading Charles L. Campbell's Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Han Frei's Postliberal Theology. Charles L. Campbell (Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Hans Frei's Postliberal TheologyEssentially, the book is an exploration of the thought, teaching, and context of Frei's use of narrative preaching.The context seems to be the reemergence of biblical preaching by mainline denomination liberals as their move away from subjective religious experience and back towards the centrality of Jesus and the meta-narrative told through the Scriptures. During the 1960s, liberal preachers began to abandon neo-orthodoxy in favor of a more private spirituality and a secular politics, both completely divorced from the Christ event.

Much of the book - literary interpretations of the Bible, the meta-narrative of the Scriptures, refocus on neo-orthodoxy - is "old hat" to me. My studies of Kierkegaard, Mullins, Barth, Brunner, Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr, Moody, Stagg, Buber, and Wright taught me all this long ago. But it is nice to see liberal Christians starting to get it right to some degree.

The most interesting aspect of this book for me was the examination of how people become "Christians" culturally and how they come to believe what they believe. Essentially, the thesis here is that becoming a "Christian" is a process of socialization or enculturation within a particular cultural-linguistic community. One doesn't become a "Christian" by having a "religious experience" but by learning the particular language and set of practices inherent in Christianity, a denomination, and a particular faith tradition. Furthermore, people learn the "meaning" of a scriptural teaching and their way of "interpreting" Scripture by adopting the cultural practices of their faith community, not by drawing upon the sensus literalis.  All of this is really about the practical process of how individuals and community arrive at Biblical interpretation and theology, regardless of accuracy. All of this can be quite depressing to the learned Christian but it really seems to be the way the majority "Christianize" themselves in practice.

Frei is said to argue that the function of the gospels is to render the identity of Jesus. I find this highly questionable but probably only overstated.

I greatly appreciated Frei's assessment that Jesus enacted the way of God in the world as an embodiment of the reign of God. I think this is right on the money. This dips slightly into some of the deeper areas of Scriptural studies involving Jesus self-understanding and prophetic vocation.

I really don't think there are any deeper aspects of Scripture studies than the theology of Job, Roman 1, Deutero-Isaiah, and Jesus' personal understanding of his prophetic vocation.

The book is fairly technical and might be of some interest to preachers. However, it's probably more interesting to those who study preaching. And though I think most evangelicals would find this book uninteresting, liberal and more progressive Christians would find the more practical homiletic parts very useful.

Wager of Peace?

I've been practically gagging these past few days in my attempts to stomach the celebrations given to Nelson Mandela. It's so difficult for me to hear people from across the political spectrum and from every walk of life state that Mandela was a man of peace who waged non-violent resistance on the apartheid system.

I think the kicker was this article at the Associated Baptist Press: Nelson Mandela: Wager of Peace.

Wager of peace?

Nelson Mandela founded the terrorist organization "Umkhonto we Sizwe" (MK) in 1961 that carried out hundreds and hundreds of bombings on government installations, shopping centers and restaurants. He personally ordered these bombings. He was labeled a terrorist because of it. He went to prison for 27 years because of it. He was offered release numerous times if only he would renounce violence. He refused. And believe me, these bombings killed far more blacks than whites. And he, the MK, and the African National Congress (ANC) violently terrorized and tortured their own people to squash any collaboration and compromise with the apartheid government of South Africa. As late as 1988, Mandela refused to renounce violence as a means to end apartheid. Throughout the 1980s, the government of South African was in negotiations with the ANC to end apartheid on condition that they end the violence and break off relations with the Soviet Union, Mandela refused. The bombings of civilians in the 1980s continued. It wasn't until the break up of the Soviet Union and the end of their support that Mandela and the ANC were willing to renounce violence.

I'm sorry but no matter how noble his cause, Mandela never had a problem using excessive violence to reach his goals. There is nothing Christ-like about this. This is completely foreign to the non-violent teachings of Jesus. For people to compare Mandela to Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr. and others who actually did apply the teachings of Jesus is to do a great injustice to true non-violent resistance.

Wager of peace? Unfortunately, Mandela waged violent war.

There was nothing peaceful about what he did.