MR: To offer a single definition of a single "postmodernism" would be a quite unpostmodern thing to do. Nevertheless, could you give us some insight into the contemporary context of your project.
EM: Your insight about definition is important. The act of defining could be mistaken for a foundationalist move, the attempt to set up some new founding discourse to replace older unsatisfying critical foundations. Postmodernism is too anti-foundational to spend much time in such definition. What is often found is a description of a particular expression of postmodernism (architecture, art, literature, philosophy, science, theology, and so on). But descriptions are dangerous when a particular description is taken to be a definition of postmodernism as a whole and used for criticism of postmodernism in general or for criticism of some other expression of postmodernism. In treatments of my work, for example, descriptions of how a postmodern awareness and sensitivity illuminates biblical interpretation have been taken as attempts to define postmodernism.
The description I would give of postmodernism is colored by my interest in a postmodern literary approach to biblical literature. The term "postmodern" is useful because of its imprecision and convoluted logic and because it allows connections to be made between a number of related movements. In a formal sense, the postmodern is an "advance" beyond the modern, but postmodernism in most of its expressions is not merely a new movement that has succeeded modernism. A dialectical relationship exists between the modern and the postmodern; the postmodern "advance" utilizes the assumptions and strategies of the modern in order to challenge them. "Modernism" may be used in a general way to refer to such things as the ascendancy of reason, the development of science and technology, and secularization, and the feeling that individuals and societies should be ushered toward such norms. "Postmodernism" from such a modernist perspective would be less confident of the values or "ideologies" of modernism. Postmodernism would look with favor on a modification of systems dependent upon such modernist ideologies and the formation of "systems" that transcend such ideologies. Postmodernism is not anti-modernism, however; the sentiment of postmodernism is that humans must move beyond the modern.
In my work, I emphasize the positive, constructive, or revisionary aspects of postmodernism-movement away from an obsession with the originating circumstances of biblical texts and movement to concern with the text itself and to ways that contemporary readers may make sense of the Bible. But I caution that this meaning (and even this way of making sense) must not be taken as final. For a foundationalist- or positivist-inclined individual, this caution may result in cynicism and skepticism. In the skeptical mode, the critic remains above the local (worldly) context where meaning and signification occur in order to fault any and all interpretations as illegitimate domestications and/or to chastise critics and interpreters for their complicity (conscious or unconscious) with linguistic, literary, and cultural "oppression." This "deconstructive" or eliminative move must be a phase in a comprehensive postmodern approach because of the temptation to universalize both the meaning one finds and the temporal cultural values involved in that meaning. The "domesticating" move that is criticized, however, must be maintained along with the postmodern if one wishes to engage in the business of making sense. One makes local, historically constrained, partial, temporary sense-or one makes no sense at all.
MR: How would you explain a "reader-oriented" approach to texts for those who might be hearing about this approach for the first time?
EM: Reader-oriented criticism approaches biblical literature in terms of the values, attitudes, and responses of actual readers. The contemporary reader, therefore, plays an active role in the production or creation of meaning and significance. Such approaches assume that texts and readers are not autonomous and/or complete in and of themselves. The text needs a reader to bring it to completion and the reader is influenced by the text in the process of making sense of the text. In order to appreciate reader-oriented approaches more fully, they may be seen first of all as poetic or literary approaches distinct from dogmatic and historical-critical approaches. Then, as literary approaches, they may be differentiated from other sorts of literary approaches-particularly from New Criticism.
Poetic or literary insights focus attention on literary conventions, on genre, the literary affinities of the different units of the literary piece, the unity of the work, and so on. With narrative, questions such as plot, action, character, and motivation are involved. Literary insights may be compared and contrasted with theological and historical insights. With the ancient dogmatic approach influenced by Platonism, the essential character of the Bible was its nature as a sign of God, a communication intrinsically far above the pitch of human minds but available as a sign. The Bible as divine revelation relativized (but did not preclude) historical and literary insights into the Bible. The critical and historical approach resulted from a transformation of worldview in the Enlightenment. The historicality of literary documents and of other cultural phenomena replaced the framework provided by revelation and the theological conceptualization of the ancient and medieval world. Cultural documents and artifacts are bound up not with a preexisting world, of which the artifacts are an exteriorization. They are to be understood precisely within the temporally and spatially limited context of their origins.
When the Bible is viewed as literature, historical and dogmatic factors are not ignored. The historical factors, however, are seen as circumstances of origin, and the discovery of such circumstances is not seen as the ultimate goal of study. The dogmatic aspects are not ignored, but they are coordinated not with an ancient or modern dogmatic system. A contemporary literary approach may be concerned with translating doctrinal emphases into terms that are relevant for the modern reader and consistent with the nature of the Bible as literature. And readers may be interested in moving back and forth between literary-critical insights and systematic and dogmatic theology.
The background for reader-oriented approaches to literature was the formalist and new-critical view of the independence and self-sufficiency of the literary work of art and its attention to close reading of the literary work itself instead of to history, biography, and so on. New Criticism has displaced approaches in the history of criticism that had focused upon the universe imitated in the literary work, the author, and the original audience. A "modern" new-critical literary approach seeks to find order within the works of literature themselves; a postmodern approach sees the ordering within literature as (in part) the result of the creative activity of readers. Readers (individually and in "interpretative communities") discern and actualize the form, conventions, and "ideas" of literary works in light of their competence, context, and needs. A postmodern sensitivity will guard against equating the meaning and significance found by readers today with the ultimate meaning and significance. But readers will-and do-make sense, though it be (from some hypothetical point of ultimate truth) pragmatic, ad hoc, and local. It may be seen as a piece of the meaning. The removal of the demand for universal quantification prior to finding local meaning and significance, in fact, increases the potential for meaning.
MR: In Postmodern Use of the Bible, you argue that: "A postmodern approach exists only in dialogue with modern or critical assumptions and approaches." Does that mean that, despite all of the talk of being post-critical, the entrance fee to sit at the table is acceptance of the conclusions of nineteenth-century German criticism? And doesn't that challenge the claim that your project is postmodern rather than modern?
EM: Postmodern scholars do not accept the specific conclusions of nineteenth-century German criticism as foundations for their work. That criticism is part of the "modern" complex that is found problematic by postmodernists. But postmodern scholars do see themselves in dialogue with the critical tradition. They are not precritical or noncritical. The question and the cryptic answer require fuller explanation. The way that I have used "postmodern" presupposes some "modern" perspective that is not satisfying in our contemporary epoch but opens the way for-and remains in dialogue with-a "postmodern" perspective. Postmodern approaches are indeed akin to premodern (precritical or noncritical) approaches. In a premodern epoch, the cultural and intellectual distance between the biblical world and the reader's world was small or nonexistent. No distinction was made between the world depicted in the Bible and the real historical world. Readers had little difficulty seeing their own actions and feelings and the events of their world in relation to the biblical world. Resources of allegory and typology assisted readers to see the Bible as a whole, as depicting the whole of historical reality. Old Testament stories referred directly to specific temporal events and indirectly (as figures or types) to New Testament stories, events, and realities. But these (both Old Testament and New Testament) also corresponded to the historical experiences of the reader. The biblical world extended to and impinged upon the present, upon the world of the reader of any age. The power of a precritical reading extending from the Old Testament to the readers' day without any rupture depended in part upon the fact that the world of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the world of Moses and Jesus were not the ultimate reality. Above and beyond the world extending from Adam to the present was a divine world which alone made sense of this world. The worldview of the ancient and medieval world did not methodologically exclude the sacred but rather made the sacred the standard.
With the Enlightenment, the cultural and intellectual distance between the biblical world and the reader's world increased, and the historicity of literary and other cultural phenomena replaced the framework of the theological conceptualization of the ancient and medieval world. History became the standard. The realistic feature of biblical narrative was related consciously to historical reference. The role of the biblical stories was to enable readers to uncover the historical sequence of events to which they referred directly or indirectly. Undermined was the correlation between the world of the reader and the biblical world made possible when both were seen as expressions of the preexisting divine world. This diminished the potential of the narratives to allow readers to make sense of themselves in relation to the world of the narrative in a somewhat direct fashion. A gap developed between philological and historical learning on the one hand and religious engagement and theological insight on the other hand.
Postmodern readers are readers who have experienced the intellectual distance between the biblical world and the contemporary world. Postmodern scholars, therefore, will indeed take cognizance of the work of German scholarship of the last century. They will see themselves as involved in the same intellectual enterprise as those scholars. But they will reexamine the presuppositions of those scholars and rediscover how the Bible may speak a word as effective on this side of "modernism" as it was on the other side of "modernism." I must also admit that my brand of postmodernism is "premodern" in that it opens itself to truths and values that are excluded with a "modern" worldview. The notion of the sacred in my brand of postmodernism, for example, is not automatically excluded by a "modernist" dogma.
MR: You have suggested the parallel between postmodernism and Anabaptist sectarianism in the sixteenth century. Could you summarize the point?
EM: The concept of "church" is vital for appreciating the parallel between postmodernism and the Anabaptists (or Radical Reformers) and their descendants. The Anabaptists and their descendants may be compared and contrasted with the Catholic and Protestant scholasticism and rationalism prevailing in their origin and history. In overly simplistic terms, the Catholic reading of the Bible was constrained by the church as a known extrinsic institution. The church was a foundational beginning and ending point, emphasizing tradition and authority. The Protestant reading was constrained by Bible and doctrine. Luther and the other Protestant Reformers stressed the authority of the Bible and the doctrine of justification by faith alone over against the authority and doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy. The Reformers were interested in getting the doctrine right. If the Roman Catholics were characterized by traditional authority, the Reformers were characterized by a rational-legal authority. The Anabaptists, for their part, felt that the Protestant Reformers had not completed the Reformation. The Reformers' subservience to the state authorities and particularly their failure to return to what the Anabaptists saw as the New Testament church created the Anabaptist movement in German-speaking countries. The Anabaptists were, of course, concerned with both church and doctrine, but the way they saw themselves as church influenced their reading of the Bible and their concern for doctrine. They existed as church in the present. But that present Christian community was aware of itself as the primitive and the eschatological community. The Bible, then, had contemporary and not mere antiquarian relevance. The Anabaptists were like the Qumran community in that they read the Bible as referring to them and their lives in the present. They were like the Jesus of Luke's Gospel who indicated that the Scripture he had just read in the synagogue in Nazareth "has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:21).
In the Anabaptist vision, Scripture effects a link between the church of the apostles and its own. Texts that are historically set in another time and place are thereby freed to display their redemptive power in the present. This program of biblical interpretation moves beyond historical questioning and critical understanding of the Bible. Doing church and reading the Bible are coordinate activities. There was an immediacy and self-authentication in the encounter between believers and the biblical text. The context of a new people of God, directed toward Christian lifestyle and discipleship provided control, direction, and vitality. Political and ecclesiastical controls and barriers were removed. This involves a freedom, a liberty of conscience, that was politically and ecclesiastically dangerous in the sixteenth century. This freedom distinguished other marks of Anabaptist life: biblical authority, mission, discipleship, and community.
MR: In your estimation, what were some of the weaknesses of the magisterial Reformation on these points?
EM: I have suggested a difference between mainline Reformers and the Anabaptists that implies differences between confessional approaches and postmodern approaches. But I would probably emphasize not weaknesses on the part of the historical magisterial Reformation but a weakness on the part of the descendants of the Reformation-a reluctance to recapitulate the work of the Reformers in a new day or to move beyond the Reformers. I would state this weakness in the words of John Robinson. Before they left for America, John Robinson cautioned the Pilgrims not to fall into the mindset of the Lutherans and Calvinists who refused to move beyond what Luther and Calvin saw. "I beseech you remember it is an article of your church covenant, that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written Word of God."
During the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals' Colloquium last year, I was asked about a creed that I would take as foundational. After consideration, I answered that for me the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord was in fact a foundation for my reading of the Bible. As a Christian, I do read the Bible against that New Testament confession. But later creeds and confessions are valuable-not as foundations or as infallible schemata, but as guardrails. Other guardrails are valuable-including historical-critical study-and the weight that these guardrails have depends upon readers and communities of readers-their values, attitudes, and responses.
MR: Your work has involved you in a great deal of dialogue with evangelical and confessional folks-including your participation in our Alliance Colloquium last summer. As someone coming from a different orientation, what would you say to us?
EM: I would not presume to set up guidelines for the Alliance-or any other group. But I would say that the Alliance has a valuable contribution to make within a more comprehensive ecumenical quest. That judgment rests upon my own experiences and so perhaps a testimony is in order-a testimony that may or may not resonate with the experience of readers. I have arrived at a hermeneutical reader-oriented literary approach to the Bible that frees me to read and interpret the Bible with confidence in light of my own history and tradition. The necessity to achieve certainty by means of universal scientific (or theological) validation seems to me too limiting. The certainty that I seek is the result of a fit between different circles or systems involved in interpretation. Early in my life, a devotional approach within a local congregation was sufficient. Later, historical-critical insights assisted in clearing up questions the devotional approach did not answer. Still later, hermeneutics in the tradition of Schleiermacher and Bultmann provided a way to coordinate critical and creative aspects of interpretation. Against that background, I saw value in formalist and new-critical approaches to biblical texts, but at every formal or structural level a hermeneutic core was evident. So I was prepared to give due weight to the contribution readers make (as individuals and in communities) in the actualization of biblical texts. I end up with a dynamic circle of interpretation that involves interdependent systems or circles. Praxis or the practice of religion in terms of individual piety, congregational worship and service, and involvement in the larger world of God's creation is one circle. Another is doctrine, the practice of doctrine, the statement of doctrine, and the theological task of critical examination and revision of that statement. History and historical study form an important system as does language and literature. We may begin with the circle of literature, but we check our experience of the Bible as literature with our experience with data from other circles. Does the language allow our reading? What about history and theology? We may relate the biblical material to our lives by retelling, by transformation into the various artistic forms, by preaching, or by fitting the Bible into theological conceptualizations. The Alliance will play its part by emphasizing doctrine (creeds and confessions), perhaps as a beginning point in the circle of circles and also perhaps as a conclusion. I am interested in observing how the circle of doctrine will be related to the nexus of other circles.
I do not have to find the one correct historical meaning before I find meaning and significance for me and my community in the text. I do not have to find the theological position from which all of the Bible makes sense before I find meaning in specific texts. I am freed to find and create meaning in my particular location. I am not only freed to find and create meaning, I am also freed to bless the interpretation of those whose position is different from my own. The recognition of the role of readers and, therefore, the possibility of different actualizations of biblical texts relieves me of the drive to insist that all others find the same meaning and significance that I find. I am able to participate with integrity in different communities of readers and interpreters.
