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INTRODUCING TRANSFORMATION THEOLOGY |
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COMMUNITY
Transformation Theology is first and foremost a new theological community. Or more precisely it is a new way of being theological community. The reason for that is that ‘transformation theologians’ allow the commissioning Christ of history to be at the centre of their theological method. This is to bring Church into the centre of theological practice. Of course it is not this which is distinctive to TT in itself, but rather the fact that TT offers a theological recognition of the place of the commissioning Christ in our lives and in the lives of others. What is otherwise ‘tacit’ or first order theology at this point becomes in TT an ‘explicit’ or second order (i.e. ‘high level’) theology. Since theology is a very important part of how we make sense of ourselves in the Church today in a developed or rapidly developing world, and so also shapes how we present the Christian faith to others, this new ‘high level’ theology allows a greater recognition and reception of the commissioning Christ of history in Church culture. It strengthens the capacity of theology properly to reflect an orientation to Christ who commissions in history. This in turn can feed into many different forms of Christian education, strengthening and supporting different forms of Church practice. It can also counter the various ways in which we allow those things which we associate with him to substitute for him whereas in reality they should mediate his life.
METHOD
What defines a ‘transformation theologian’ is that each poses in his or her own way the ‘where’ question: ‘where is Jesus Christ today?’ Where is he transformatively present in my life or in the lives of others? This Christological ‘where?’ has methodological implications, since we cannot finally separate where we are from where he is. It may mean for instance that theologians have to go from the place where they normally do theology to some other place. They may need to be with or among others who are also part of the ‘where’ question in the sense that their lives are immediately bound up with the transformational power of God in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, in social action or practice. The methodological implications here are primarily to do with movement and embodied life. They are not reducible to questions about the faith or otherwise of the individual theologian. Rather they concern the sociality of theological reasoning which cannot only be that of the modern research university, however important the resources of the university may be for sustained critical thinking. It must also be the distinctive sociality of the Church, which is the communion in him of those who are called by him and who act in his name. In this way theology grows from the Church and belongs to the Church rather than to individuals. In this way it becomes a theology that is conceived in Christ and in the Holy Spirit.
CRITIQUE
This focus upon the Christological ‘where’ has further implications for Transformation Theology as a critical theology. The space-time continuum has been conceptualized very differently in the ancient world, in modernity, and in our own contemporary world. Transformation Theology has to be aware of this evolution in the understanding of matter and the material since the ‘where’ question it poses itself presupposes space and time as the site of revelation. Revelation continues in our space and time to the extent that Jesus lives, according to the fullness of his continuing divinity and humanity. Transformation theology understands the ancient language of Christ’s ‘ascension’ and ‘heavenly session’ as normative but to be expressive in cosmological terms of his continuing sharing in our space and time. It models his presence rather than absence. According to this ancient cosmological language, the living Christ – through the Holy Spirit - shares our space and time as Lord of space and time. Drawing upon St Paul’s description of his encounter with the exalted Christ on the road to Damascus, Transformation Theology seeks to retrieve the doctrine of the exaltation in terms which are meaningful for us today. The emphasis upon the here and now demands that TT be self-aware as critical, historical theology. But this leads also to its constructive phase. Transformation Theology seeks to receive again the central doctrine of the exaltation or living Christ. It seeks to understand what the ancient Church meant when it spoke of the living Christ in terms of the cosmology of its own day. TT seeks to restate that in the terms of our own day.
CONSTRUCTION
Drawing upon St Paul’s careful description of his encounter with the exalted Christ in his Damascus road conversion, Transformation Theology seeks to build a theological ontology of the form of his living presence. The Christ who St Paul identifies in his experience is neither the mortal nor the post-resurrected Christ but Christ as risen and exalted. We are all with St Paul in a special way therefore since he directly encounters Christ in the same living form in which he exists also for us today. In that sense we are St Paul’s ‘contemporaries’. The Christ who emerges from the record in Acts of the conversion is present according to his Lordship, in the actuality of St Paul’s own situational history, and is integrally within the historical Church in Damascus who gather in his name. He is present in his personal identifiability but not in a way which removes the need for the Holy Spirit. He is not objectifiably present, as he was in the post-resurrection narratives (St Paul cannot touch him), but at the same time the reality of his presence seems more objectively given. We are told for instance that St Paul’s companions also witnessed it, but not that they were subsequently converted by it. This is not a passage in which the ancient cosmology plays a significant role, but it is beyond question that it is specifically the exalted Christ who St Paul encounters and to whom he subsequently gives witness.
CRITERIA
If Transformation Theology takes the living Christ of faith as its present material as well as formal object (to state it in technical terms), then the question arises of how we are to establish the criteria of what constitutes good Transformation Theology and where it misses the mark. This is a very important question. But it is in effect the same question as the one we pose about the Christian life itself. The question as to what is a good or deep Christian life can only be answered by discernment within the Church. Such a life has to be judged over time and by its fruits. As a distinctively ecclesial theology, Transformation Theology will need to be received and discerned over time by the Christian community. It too will need to be judged by its fruits.
INCLUSIVITY
If Transformation Theology can be defined by its primary orientation as theology to the commissioning Christ in history, not just as resurrected but also as exalted, then we have to ask: what difference does this make? It makes two particular kinds of difference. In the first place, it is in his exaltation that Christ becomes truly universal and so is also universally inclusive. A theology predicated upon the commissioning Christ has to be itself inclusive therefore in its orientation to the world. It can in principle exclude no one and no thing. But at the same time, Transformation Theology has to be Catholic in the fullest and most ancient sense. Those who theologize transformatively have a world in common with each other through a shared focus upon the commissioning Christ of history, whatever may also distinguish them. Transformation Theology does not remove the Christian distinctions of history, tradition and culture, but it does relativise these boundaries theologically by reordering theology to the Lordship of Christ through the Spirit in our own situational history and in the personal histories of others. Here the radical openness of Christian discipleship finds its theological receptivity. To be a ‘transformation theologian’ is to strive to think as someone who follows, and it is to give first place theologically to the act of following, as the real human response to Christ’s presence in history, which begins and ends, and begins again, in the posing of the ‘where’ question.
THEOLOGY FOR A GLOBAL AGE
It may be that Transformation Theology is a theology distinctively for a globalizing age. It may be a response to cultural pluralism (which makes it more difficult for Christians to make sense of the extent to which Christianity is not just a tradition – among others - which claims historicality but is also an event in history which gave and continues to give birth to a tradition). But it may also be a response to the pastoral need for the Christian community to give clearer witness to the oneness of Christ in a multi-faceted world. It may also simply mark a natural point of theological evolution as we move from one kind of scientific self-description to another. After all, what we think of as ‘modern’ theology was born as a response to the rise of a deterministic natural science, which prompted a turn to Idealism and to forms of theological rationale that were based in theological anthropology and different kinds of human meaning-making. In contrast, classical theologies (down to and including Calvin) were based more upon theologies of creation and the discovery in Christ of the meaning of the world of God’s making, and so also of our own meaning. It may be that the contemporary scientific self-description of the human which is overcoming the dualism of the ‘modern’ paradigm is also allowing the retrieval of ancient perspectives on the reality of Christ in the world, and of the reality of the world as God’s creation, which have been suppressed in ‘the turn to the subject’. If what drives TT is a more general scientific and cultural ‘return to the world’, then it may also have a broader part to play in today's world since, as a distinctively cosmological thought-form, Christian theology is perhaps uniquely positioned to contribute to an understanding of the broader cultural and global implications which might be in play if what we are witnessing is a radically new evolution in the Western model of self and world. In that sense perhaps, the unity of Trinity, Incarnation, World and Truth may once again be on the theological horizon.
Transformation Theology is first and foremost a new theological community. Or more precisely it is a new way of being theological community. The reason for that is that ‘transformation theologians’ allow the commissioning Christ of history to be at the centre of their theological method. This is to bring Church into the centre of theological practice. Of course it is not this which is distinctive to TT in itself, but rather the fact that TT offers a theological recognition of the place of the commissioning Christ in our lives and in the lives of others. What is otherwise ‘tacit’ or first order theology at this point becomes in TT an ‘explicit’ or second order (i.e. ‘high level’) theology. Since theology is a very important part of how we make sense of ourselves in the Church today in a developed or rapidly developing world, and so also shapes how we present the Christian faith to others, this new ‘high level’ theology allows a greater recognition and reception of the commissioning Christ of history in Church culture. It strengthens the capacity of theology properly to reflect an orientation to Christ who commissions in history. This in turn can feed into many different forms of Christian education, strengthening and supporting different forms of Church practice. It can also counter the various ways in which we allow those things which we associate with him to substitute for him whereas in reality they should mediate his life.
METHOD
What defines a ‘transformation theologian’ is that each poses in his or her own way the ‘where’ question: ‘where is Jesus Christ today?’ Where is he transformatively present in my life or in the lives of others? This Christological ‘where?’ has methodological implications, since we cannot finally separate where we are from where he is. It may mean for instance that theologians have to go from the place where they normally do theology to some other place. They may need to be with or among others who are also part of the ‘where’ question in the sense that their lives are immediately bound up with the transformational power of God in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, in social action or practice. The methodological implications here are primarily to do with movement and embodied life. They are not reducible to questions about the faith or otherwise of the individual theologian. Rather they concern the sociality of theological reasoning which cannot only be that of the modern research university, however important the resources of the university may be for sustained critical thinking. It must also be the distinctive sociality of the Church, which is the communion in him of those who are called by him and who act in his name. In this way theology grows from the Church and belongs to the Church rather than to individuals. In this way it becomes a theology that is conceived in Christ and in the Holy Spirit.
CRITIQUE
This focus upon the Christological ‘where’ has further implications for Transformation Theology as a critical theology. The space-time continuum has been conceptualized very differently in the ancient world, in modernity, and in our own contemporary world. Transformation Theology has to be aware of this evolution in the understanding of matter and the material since the ‘where’ question it poses itself presupposes space and time as the site of revelation. Revelation continues in our space and time to the extent that Jesus lives, according to the fullness of his continuing divinity and humanity. Transformation theology understands the ancient language of Christ’s ‘ascension’ and ‘heavenly session’ as normative but to be expressive in cosmological terms of his continuing sharing in our space and time. It models his presence rather than absence. According to this ancient cosmological language, the living Christ – through the Holy Spirit - shares our space and time as Lord of space and time. Drawing upon St Paul’s description of his encounter with the exalted Christ on the road to Damascus, Transformation Theology seeks to retrieve the doctrine of the exaltation in terms which are meaningful for us today. The emphasis upon the here and now demands that TT be self-aware as critical, historical theology. But this leads also to its constructive phase. Transformation Theology seeks to receive again the central doctrine of the exaltation or living Christ. It seeks to understand what the ancient Church meant when it spoke of the living Christ in terms of the cosmology of its own day. TT seeks to restate that in the terms of our own day.
CONSTRUCTION
Drawing upon St Paul’s careful description of his encounter with the exalted Christ in his Damascus road conversion, Transformation Theology seeks to build a theological ontology of the form of his living presence. The Christ who St Paul identifies in his experience is neither the mortal nor the post-resurrected Christ but Christ as risen and exalted. We are all with St Paul in a special way therefore since he directly encounters Christ in the same living form in which he exists also for us today. In that sense we are St Paul’s ‘contemporaries’. The Christ who emerges from the record in Acts of the conversion is present according to his Lordship, in the actuality of St Paul’s own situational history, and is integrally within the historical Church in Damascus who gather in his name. He is present in his personal identifiability but not in a way which removes the need for the Holy Spirit. He is not objectifiably present, as he was in the post-resurrection narratives (St Paul cannot touch him), but at the same time the reality of his presence seems more objectively given. We are told for instance that St Paul’s companions also witnessed it, but not that they were subsequently converted by it. This is not a passage in which the ancient cosmology plays a significant role, but it is beyond question that it is specifically the exalted Christ who St Paul encounters and to whom he subsequently gives witness.
CRITERIA
If Transformation Theology takes the living Christ of faith as its present material as well as formal object (to state it in technical terms), then the question arises of how we are to establish the criteria of what constitutes good Transformation Theology and where it misses the mark. This is a very important question. But it is in effect the same question as the one we pose about the Christian life itself. The question as to what is a good or deep Christian life can only be answered by discernment within the Church. Such a life has to be judged over time and by its fruits. As a distinctively ecclesial theology, Transformation Theology will need to be received and discerned over time by the Christian community. It too will need to be judged by its fruits.
INCLUSIVITY
If Transformation Theology can be defined by its primary orientation as theology to the commissioning Christ in history, not just as resurrected but also as exalted, then we have to ask: what difference does this make? It makes two particular kinds of difference. In the first place, it is in his exaltation that Christ becomes truly universal and so is also universally inclusive. A theology predicated upon the commissioning Christ has to be itself inclusive therefore in its orientation to the world. It can in principle exclude no one and no thing. But at the same time, Transformation Theology has to be Catholic in the fullest and most ancient sense. Those who theologize transformatively have a world in common with each other through a shared focus upon the commissioning Christ of history, whatever may also distinguish them. Transformation Theology does not remove the Christian distinctions of history, tradition and culture, but it does relativise these boundaries theologically by reordering theology to the Lordship of Christ through the Spirit in our own situational history and in the personal histories of others. Here the radical openness of Christian discipleship finds its theological receptivity. To be a ‘transformation theologian’ is to strive to think as someone who follows, and it is to give first place theologically to the act of following, as the real human response to Christ’s presence in history, which begins and ends, and begins again, in the posing of the ‘where’ question.
THEOLOGY FOR A GLOBAL AGE
It may be that Transformation Theology is a theology distinctively for a globalizing age. It may be a response to cultural pluralism (which makes it more difficult for Christians to make sense of the extent to which Christianity is not just a tradition – among others - which claims historicality but is also an event in history which gave and continues to give birth to a tradition). But it may also be a response to the pastoral need for the Christian community to give clearer witness to the oneness of Christ in a multi-faceted world. It may also simply mark a natural point of theological evolution as we move from one kind of scientific self-description to another. After all, what we think of as ‘modern’ theology was born as a response to the rise of a deterministic natural science, which prompted a turn to Idealism and to forms of theological rationale that were based in theological anthropology and different kinds of human meaning-making. In contrast, classical theologies (down to and including Calvin) were based more upon theologies of creation and the discovery in Christ of the meaning of the world of God’s making, and so also of our own meaning. It may be that the contemporary scientific self-description of the human which is overcoming the dualism of the ‘modern’ paradigm is also allowing the retrieval of ancient perspectives on the reality of Christ in the world, and of the reality of the world as God’s creation, which have been suppressed in ‘the turn to the subject’. If what drives TT is a more general scientific and cultural ‘return to the world’, then it may also have a broader part to play in today's world since, as a distinctively cosmological thought-form, Christian theology is perhaps uniquely positioned to contribute to an understanding of the broader cultural and global implications which might be in play if what we are witnessing is a radically new evolution in the Western model of self and world. In that sense perhaps, the unity of Trinity, Incarnation, World and Truth may once again be on the theological horizon.