[1] The final stage through which civilizations pass on their
way to social dissolution, according to C. Northcote Parkinson, is
"liberal opinion." His point is that the great spiritual
disease of any democratic society is the hegemony of a feeble
sentimentality that weakens the thinking and will of its
people. Parkinson avers: "What concerns our argument is not
that the world's do-gooders are mistaken but that their attitude is
decadent. They are moved by sentiment rather than by reason
and that is itself a symptom of decay. Still more to the
point, their interest is solely in the present and for them, too,
the future is merely the end."
[1]
[2] If the historian Parkinson's insight is applied to the world
of theological reflection, one must ask whether liberalism's end
result is the effective dissolution of all
theology. Certainly, Kathryn Tanner's latest book, Economy
of Grace, causes a Lutheran to question the value of the
interests currently occupying the time of academia.
[3] Tanner sets out with the noblest of intentions: her goal is
to discover an alternative to global capitalism, with its attendant
flaws, by searching the Christian Scriptures for a divine model of
a better world arrangement. She believes she has found just
such an economic option lying in wait in the great over-arching
meta-narratives of the biblical record. It is the paradigm
implicitly established by God in dealings with sinful humanity: a
model of giving according to the needs of God's children, and not
in relation to work or reward or "just desserts." Tanner's end
product is a prescription for an amorphous one-world arrangement in
which a "guided" or "command" economy functions according to
"Christian principles" of equity and common welfare.
[4] In this apology for a world re-made in the image of
Marxist\feminist\liberationist ideals, Tanner draws upon the
insights of deconstructionist analysis. Through this method,
she professes to find parallels between the two realms of economics
and Christian revelation. Having uncovered an "economic model"
of the Christian story by means of this highly controversial
approach to cultures and texts, she then proceeds to compare and
contrast the biblical economy of grace with the current realities
of our American, free-market economic system. It is apparent
to her that God's way of dealing with humans via
creation\salvation\Great Commission is not only preferable to the
familiar world of work and reward, but it is directly applicable to
the project of changing the "capitalist" system that has us all in
its death-hold.
[5] As a committed Lutheran in the evangelical-catholic mold, I
have serious disagreements with Tanner's understanding of what the
gospel requires of the believer, and of the goal a Christian should
have for society. First, Tanner appears to believe that human
nature is malleable, changeable according to the social
arrangements that nurture and harbor it. She obviously
believes that the individual, under her recommended regime, would
be non-competitive, co-operative, and selfless. (If that isn't
what she believes, then I earnestly hope she has made plans for
really big, really secure dungeons for the
recalcitrant!)
[6] But I - and Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther, Sts. Augustine
and Paul, and a host of witnesses throughout the history of the
Christian faith - think differently. Unlike the agreeable,
imaginary denizens of Tanner's utopia, we ordinary stiffs are
confessed, abased, and ornery sinners. And there are better
odds that all university faculties will tomorrow declare their
undivided support for the war in Iraq than that anyone on my street
will be sharing in the glorious harmony of an economy of
grace. (Is this what Dr. Tanner's father meant when he said
she didn't know the value of a dollar?)
[7] Being a Christian theologian ought to mean being willing to
face with candor certain intractable problems. One of
those "little bumps in the road of life" that a theologian should
account for in any constructive theology is SIN. The
"original" kind. You know, that nagging little blemish in your
character that causes you to assert yourself above all others -
even in theological debate - and that is never absent in your
spirit, even for a tiny fraction of a second. What Augustine
called the libido dominandi. What Luther knew as
concupiscence: something that rears its ugly head especially when
we are engaged in projects involving the control of others! No
matter how much she wants to wish it away, Tanner must one day face
this fact of Christian existence. I am afraid that the
beautiful dream of Dr. Tanner comes up short against the stubborn
reality of human nature, and that no amount of hoping can change it
this side of the eschaton. "A culture which underestimates the
problem of freedom and necessity in nature is bound to depreciate
the reality of freedom in man. The modern man is, in short, so
certain about his essential virtue because he is so mistaken about
his stature… Hence he hopes for redemption, either through a
program of social reorganization or by some scheme of education."
[2]
[8] But it is not only with regard to the nature of humankind,
it is also Tanner's irrepressible optimism for society that is
disturbing from a Christian point of view. I detect in her
work more than a trace of naive theological discourse merged with
political utopianism; a mixture that has a strong family
resemblance to the sectarian "enthusiasm" Luther encountered in his
conflict with Thomas Munzer and the chiliastic prophets. In
opposition to magisterial Reformation theology, this "spiritualist"
talk about God ignores or despises Luther's perceptive grasp of the
"Two-fold Rule of God," his law-gospel distinction, and his
profound grasp of paradox. Without these, a public theology
easily falls into the trap of mistaking the latest "progressive"
idea for getting rid of bullies in school, outlawing "running up
the score" in high school football, or forbidding selfishness by a
new set of laws with the onset of the Kingdom of
God. One can sympathize with those who desire a perfect
world, but not with the willful ignorance of the tragic character
of life. Contrary to anything Tanner would want, the attempt
to apply the perfectionist ethic of Jesus to the rough and tumble
world of social struggle can only lead to a crusader mentality on
the part of zealots, or to the ultimate despair of the
disappointed.
[9] Finally, a sectarian perspective upon reality results in an
interpretation of scripture in which law is turned into
gospel. Not only is Tanner's deconstructionist interpretation
alien to the nature of the Bible as the revelation from the world
of eternity to this world of chaos, it also leads to an expectation
that fulfilling God's demands will bring about a perfect world, and
deludes the believer into thinking that the extravagant love of God
can be a guiding principle for ordering life in this
world. Surely her goal of an economy of grace is inappropriate
for redeemed sinners living under the merciful dispensation of God
and awaiting the fulfillment of kingdom-promises.
[10] How to measure Tanner's book? Truthfully, one would
like to salute a theologian for attempting a systematic application
of theological principles to hard-edge public issues. That is
especially true when the theologian is as well-known as Kathryn
Tanner for maintaining a rigorously anti-Pelagian thrust in her
constructive work. For a Lutheran, this alone gives her work
an immediate favorable reception. But, alas, it is not encomia
which are merited by this small, yet sometimes dense,
tract.
[11] Instead, Kathryn Tanner's book forces the question about
the current state of theology as practiced in institutions of
higher learning which are held in thrall to the philosophical
trends of the day. She approaches the task of deciphering a
divinely sanctioned economic model in the Bible by using the method
of "comparative analysis." That is, Tanner chooses to frame
theological concepts within a post-modernist semantic
analysis. That is my way of contending that Weberian
sociological analysis, the structural linguistics of Ferdinand
Saussure, and the structural anthropology of Claude Levi-Strauss do
not seem fit vessels for faithfully representing Christian faith to
its critics.
[12] This kind of structural analysis has debilitating
defects. First, it denies the importance of the individual and
of humanist endeavors in altering the fate of society.
In their place, the structuralists give primary
place to the power of social structures to determine personal and
social well-being. Hence, in interpreting texts, including the
Bible, they look for the hidden role of social structures behind
every passage.
[13] Worse, in my view, the hermeneutic of a deconstructionist
is "anti-logocentric." Philosophy and theology, which take
words as referring to "real things out there," are relegated to the
sidelines as false consciousness. Those who accept this
interpretive principle are willing to forego all claims to speaking
about objective realities, or truth. Deconstruction sees this
as a futile goal. Rather, the most one can aim for is to
discover the duplicity of all texts, expose them for the frauds
they are, and open the path for the interpreter to insert his grasp
of reality upon the text in question. Is this honestly the
best option for Christian public theology to take?
[14] Needless to say, Tanner's approach to constructive theology
is markedly controversial. As theologians in her camp look to
cultural analysis and criticism rather than to philosophy as a
dialogue partner for cross-disciplinary studies, there is every
reason to expect the demise of theology. Her choice of a
grammatical approach to doctrine removes all ontological or
referential content for dogmatic statements. "Jesus is Lord"
no longer says anything about the ontological status of the second
Person of the Trinity. Rather, in her hands, it might say more
about economic status of the person making the confession; or it
may simply be a coded message containing the meta-narrative of
Western culture, legitimating capitalist ideology.
[15] The end result is a truly disappointing read for someone
wanting either a genuinely Christian view of present day world
realities, or just a little inspiration for living each day with
faith and integrity. Rather, what one receives is a dense book
lacking the kind of theological wisdom or political maturity that a
truly public theology would be expected to provide. We have
been given a book slanted against a rational approach to economics
and nursing antipathy toward traditional Christianity and the
culture it has created in the West.
[16] One unanswered question is raised by the advent of this
book on the current scene. What is driving the dissatisfaction
with the present state of the world? A concomitant issue: why
has theology forfeited its unique and priceless assignment to
proclaim Jesus Christ and Him Crucified in favor of a social
gospel? There is no denying that those occupying chairs of
theology in our land are frequently - like Tanner - clearly unhappy
with an American society in which people are free to work at what
they choose, arrange their lives according to priorities others
disagree with, and freely engage in business enterprises with their
own talents, time, and money. It is a world, in their minds,
totally out of whack: one that is dehumanizing, wasteful, and -
worst of all - contrary to the will of God, as they have been given
to understand it. So, they want to change it. Indeed,
they believe that changing this state of affairs is more important
than directly addressing the loss of a cosmic dimension to human
self-understanding and the attendant crisis of antinomian nihilism
which so beset Western civilization in our time. They spend
themselves in "prophetic proclamation" about the practical effects
of belief in God rather than doing the hard, creative, and truly
constructive public theology of demonstrating "that religion is an
intellectually credible path to the nature of ultimate reality, the
character of nature and history, the nature and destiny of the
human being, the character of human fulfillment, and a model for
moral life."
[3]
[17] This book is an accurate marker of the state of the world in which we live.
© July 2006
Journal of Lutheran Ethics
Volume 6, Issue 7