Thursday Theology #89
A Book Review of FAITH ALOUD: DOING THEOLOGY FROM THE HYMNS IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA.
by Marcus Felde,
Goroka, Papua New Guinea: Melanesian Institute, 1999.
Law-Gospel theology (aka Lutheran) was hard to find at the Tenth Conference
of the Int'l Association for Mission Research [IAMS] in Pretoria, South
Africa Jan. 21-28, 2000. Seminex alum Richard Bliese, missiologist at the
Lutheran Seminary in Chicago, said it was even worse than that: "Lutheran
theology is not just a minority voice in missiology today, Ed. It's no
voice at all." Would that Marcus Felde had been there and that his FAITH
ALOUD had been one of the major presentations! If so, IAMS Ten would have
been different.
This volume, basically Felde's Ph.D. project at the U. of Chicago, does
just that -- missiology with Augsburg Confession theology as the yardstick for
what makes something Christian. Now the fact that Marcus is a Seminex
grad, and that he quotes me with approval in his work, has nothing to do
with my own joy and gladness about FAITH ALOUD. It's the project he
undertakes here plus the skill and theological savvy with which he carries
it out -- that's the grounds for my good cheer.
Marcus's project was to examine the soteriology, the understanding of
salvation, in the texts of favorite hymns sung by the Lutherans in PNG -- and
they are a singing church -- and then compare it with the classic paradigm(s)
for salvation central to the Lutheran Reformation. He does this by
listening to "three voices." First is "the voice of the church, how it
proclaims its faith in its hymns." Next comes the "voice of culture
[accessed] through anthropological analysis." Finally "the voice of the
gospel" through what he calls "the theology of the Lutheran strand of
Christian tradition."
The first chapter demonstrates why you must "take songs seriously" if you
want to get to the center of the project. "Not only as Melanesians but
also as Lutherans, the people of this church come from traditions in which
singing plays a commanding role." The next chapter digs into the Lotu Buk
[Worship Book], one of the "centers of identity" of these Lutherans.
Within the Lotu Buk, "there is a core of hymns so well known as to
constitute their confession of faith." Chapter three unpacks the theology
of salvation present in those hymns. "The dominant metaphor turns out to
be closeness. We want God to be with us and we want to be with God."
In chapter 4 Marcus compares this picture of salvation in the hymns with
that present in local culture and contrasts the expectation embedded in
local culture with the answer provided in the hymns. The two pictures do
not coincide. Not that they necessarily ought to, for the salvation people
long for may well not be the one they genuinely need. Thus Jesus often
finessed his questioners away from their initial requests to a more
fundamental need of which they were seemingly unaware -- and even more
important, a need for which he had Good News to offer.
That's what we get in chapter 5, even though it is too brief and compact.
But it is a start, and it's what Marcus should spell out in extenso in his
next book. Simplest is to use his own words to describe it:
"In the final chapter, we bring to bear insights from the Lutheran
Christian theological tradition. Just as the starting point of our
theological task was a concern for what the church is confessing, so the
end of our task is to suggest what the church OUGHT to be 'believing,
teaching, and confessing.' We are not concerned with correctness for the
sake of correctness, or tradition for the sake of tradition. We are
concerned that the Gospel of Jesus Christ be proclaimed in its strength and
fullness, for the life of the world. If theology, like a good steward, can
bring forth from its storehouse something new or something old that
releases the power of the Gospel, that is good.
"We assert that the opposite of the good news (expressed as 'God is with
us') is not that God is FAR OFF, but that God is AGAINST us. As we examine
this possibility, we find that such a teaching is not only more faithful to
biblical evidence but also responds more effectively to the concerns of
local culture. A fair reading of the local culture, especially of the role
played by the underlying logic of reciprocity, leads us to the conclusion
that the experience of the wrath of God is as real, and reflection upon it
is as universal, as the experience of God's blessing. If we hope to make
meaningful contact with local culture, we will be wise to articulate this
not as the threat of hell but as the experience of God's implacable,
unremitting opposition to evil, and opposition that is a part of universal
human experience apart from revelation.
"In sum: We believe that the nearly canonical core of the Lotu Buk is
weakened by its inadequate soteriology. To strengthen it, the church
should make more use of the metaphor of divine-human reconciliation, the
overcoming through Christ of the enmity between God and us."
Marcus offers "a word about the Lutheran bias of our work. We believe that
the calling of denominations is to be REMINDERS, not DEPARTURES. Every
denomination or sect has an ecumenical responsibility to remind the whole
church of the truth, not a divine calling to depart from the one church.
We believe that especially in the whole area of contextual or local
theology the Lutheran theological tradition has important gifts to offer,
which are rarely seen." IAMS Ten verified the last four words of that
paragraph.
Both Marcus's book and IAMS Ten tease me to devote future issues of ThTh to
this topic. Richard Bliese, quoted earlier, was even feistier in wondering
out loud: "Maybe you can't even do missiology on the basis of Lutheran
theology." I know he doesn't believe that. But if it is "rarely seen,"
then those of us who think it's there must let folks see it. Felde's book
cheers us on. At one point he gets so explicit as to say "Luther's theory
of the 'hiddenness of God' holds promise -- for connecting the gospel in a
meaningful way to the cultures of the world. And a lean Lutheran
definition of church -- 'the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel
is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered
according to the Gospel' -- has broad ecumenical possibilities. Even the
centrality of the theme of justification by faith may give some light on
our common path."
FAITH ALOUD is not just for missiologists. But on second thought, maybe it
is, since today all six continents are mission fields. So I commend it to
all Sabbatheology subscribers. After many years in Papua New Guinea,
Marcus now pastors an ELCA congregation in Indiana. That's his current
mission field. Each of us has our own.
