Shades of gray are the new black. For evangelicals who wonder why, if the church is one body with one spirit, we are divided by so many ideas, comes a new book by John Franke. You can label The Character of Theology; you can disagree with it; but if you are concerned about communicating the gospel in a postmodern world, you cannot legitimately ignore this book.
Franke, Associate Professor of Theology and Chair of the Faculty at Biblical Theological Seminary, begins his volume by surveying the theological landscape: liberals, postliberals and revisionists, conservatives, traditionalists, reformists, and postconservatives are among a few of the many shaded distinctions he makes. Calling himself postconservative, Franke also sees himself as postmodern (while rejecting relativism), arguing that the postmodern approach to knowledge "comports far better with Christian faith than does the modern" (8).
Modernity, explains Franke, was on a "quest for certain, objective, and universal knowledge" (21). In reaction to this, postmodernity maintains that "humans do not view the world from an objective or neutral vantage point, but instead structure their world through the concepts they bring to it, particularly language" (23). Since language is a social convention, "a sentence has as many meanings as contexts in which it is used" (25).
Postmodernity is also "nonfoundational." "Foundation-alists," says Franke, "are convinced that the only way to solve this problem is to find some universal and indubitable means of grounding the entire edifice of human knowledge" (26). The postmodernist questions whether this approach is "possible," since humans are finite and limited by the constrictions of this world, or "desirable," since humans are selfish and use knowledge to selfish ends (27).
For the evangelical foundationalist used to proof-texting Scripture, this may feel anticlimactic. Where does one hang one's hat at the end of the day? With knowledge subject to so many fluctuating factors, how does one approach the concept of authority? Is Scripture, or is it not, the unchanging truth?
Here he appeals to relational Trinitarianism. Early Christian Trinitarianism focused largely on the essence or being of the Trinity, depicting an "isolated" God, a "solitary individual" (65). While complementary to a foundationalist approach to theology, a relational Trinity offers a better understanding of the nature of revelation, says Franke. Relationality means there is a community of love internal to the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), but it is also external, or "missional," through the church: "The love of God lived out and expressed in the context of the eternal community of love gives rise to the missional character of God, who seeks to extend the love shared by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into the created order" (68).
This ongoing work of the Spirit in communicating the mission of God plays an important role in understanding the nature of theology. While Scripture is the "norming norm" of theology (131), says Franke, and the Spirit speaks through it, the two are "bound up" together (132). The Spirit, not limited to the original intention of Scripture, "appropriates" the biblical text (133). Therefore, "reading the culture can assist us in reading the biblical text so as to hear more clearly the voice of the Spirit in a particular circumstance" (140).
Theology looks to the text, but the "final authority in the church is not the theology based on the text but the Spirit speaking through it" (137). In "one unified speaking" the Spirit speaks through both Scripture and culture (142). Our historical and cultural contexts act as veils, he says, but our faith, through the Holy Spirit (the highest authority) gives us understanding (avoiding relativism). Theology, then, is not the "concordance model"-the systematization and arrangement of facts-but rather, it is "second-order discipline," meaning it is "ongoing" and subject to the voice of the Spirit (88, 104). Moving eschatologically, "the Spirit is at work completing the divine program and bringing the people of God as a community into a fuller comprehension of the implications of the gospel" (112).
Franke's controversial volume offers far more food for thought than can be discussed in a short review. Some of his resolutions are puzzling. While Franke says Scripture is the "norming norm" for theology, and "a nonfoundationalist conception envisions theology as an ongoing conversation between Scripture, tradition, and culture," one gets the impression that the first in this trivium is of little consequence to the overall discussion (79); his use of the biblical text is sparse at best. Furthermore, culture, which can also be affected by sinfulness and must be transformed, is invested with too much authority.
Historically speaking, Franke's panoramic of the development of Trinitarianism is helpful but incomplete, perhaps even too neat, leaving out key doctrinal concepts, such as perichoresis, which served as a basis for both trinitarian unity and community in Eastern theology. Similarly, his approach portrays diversity as far too quaint and easy and less messy than it usually is. "Diversity in the Christian tradition is by divine design," says Franke, and not necessarily "a problem to be overcome" (191).
This book refrains from an antagonistic tone and offers valuable insight into the theology of the growing post-conservative movement. My primary question as I read was, why is this movement gaining such momentum? The rising acceptance of the post-conservative proposal indicates a perceived failure on the part of Reformed theology. Reformed Christians must continue to proclaim the redemptive historical message, with its transformed epistemology, that offers hope to this dying world. It is only here, with our trust firmly planted in the timeless gospel of Christ, that our theology finds character.
