Based upon my last post in the series, I suggest the following diagram as indicative of a properly missional hermeneutical spiral:

1. We have to begin with preunderstanding. This includes whatever previous involvement in mission the interpreter may have, so I’m not trying to begin theoretically without praxis. “Step 1” is just the point at which we begin observing the spiral for heuristic purposes. Most of us began reading and interpreting before engaging in mission, so it is important to reiterate that all kinds of experiences are also shaping the worldview from within which we read. We are not blank slates. We are not objective.

2. Exegesis is our best effort at objectivity. We attempt to use the various methodologies of biblical studies to hear the author and allow the text to norm the subsequent theology. This is done with the humble recognition that we are not escaping our preunderstanding but attempting to submit it to the text.

3. Exegesis extends into biblical theology, where we attempt to place a particular text in the context of the biblical narrative. That narrative can be construed many ways depending on our preunderstanding of unifying themes etc., so this is also provisional.

4. This Bible study is a part of our lives in mission; indeed, it compels us into mission and sustains us. If we are engaging a context with intentionality, we will begin by assuming a relational posture of learning and service rather than immediately attempting to be “Bible teachers.”

5. Both the Bible study and the engagement with another worldview (or even our own of we intentionally engage it critically and humbly on a new level) reshape our preunderstanding. We are transformed. We reassess our assumptions and scrutinize our traditions. We are still not objective, but we are not entrenched.

6. In light of a revised perspective, we return to that big metanarrative framework that constitutes the methodology of our biblical theology in order to see what may have changed. Assumptions now challenged by our relationships or Bible study may need to be removed from our construal of the narrative, or new insight may need to be added.

7. Now we return to specific passages and listen to the authors with the metanarrative in mind. This is not intended to make the author conform to the whole but to place the passage in that larger theological framework as we endeavor to bring specific passages to bear upon life. There is still an interchange happening between the specific passage and biblical theology that may refine our understanding of either or both.

8. The next part of our intentional engagement with our missionary context is contextualization, by which we aim to bring the biblical worldview as we understand it (the metanarrative) into explicit conversation with our context’s worldview. The aim is, through engagement with the text—thus, specific passages—we seek to facilitate the same worldview transformation in others that, by God’s grace, is happening in us through our own critical engagement with the text (and submission to other teachers, etc.). Contextualization depends on both the previous biblical study and the previous incarnational solidarity as learner, because it is about, in large part, communication between the two worldviews and therefore requires a translator.

In order to describe the spiral, I still have to portray it rather more neatly and linearly than it really is. But the point remains, engagement in mission (4 and 8 ) are an integral part of the interpretive progression that circles back around to the text, affecting the outcomes of our interpretation and therefore our engagement and so forth.

What about systematic theology? It is conspicuously absent from this spiral. While some, like Osborne, see contextualization and systematics as virtually synonymous, I think that is a significant misstep. Systematics itself is the product of a cultural environment (speaking of macro-culture, i.e. “Western culture,” especially streams of the Enlightenment and modernity). In that sense, it is a specific contextualization, but it should not be generalized as a universal. That is a typically ethnocentric mistake. Thus, I subsume systematics under “tradition” in preunderstanding (as a Westerner) and under “historical theology” in biblical theology (because many doctrines defined systematically have affected my framework).

Yet, I also see that the issue in systematics is not necessarily the classical categories or methodologies so much as the endeavor to spell out biblical theology logically (granted there are different kinds of logics, there are also limits to that cognitive diversity that allow us to speak of human logic universally), often in terms of topics of interest. That will always happen eventually in some form or fashion in any context where Christians are invested in understanding their topics of interest biblically. The tension here, I believe, is still best described in terms of narrative versus proposition. While we have a basic need to rehearse and live in the narrative, there is nothing wrong with speaking propositionally. I think about this tension in this way:

Theology is implications.

Implications must be expressed propositionally, as logos.

Yet

The Logos expressed himself incarnationally, as story.

Story is metanarrative, the deep structure of worldview.

Because worldview ultimately determines perception of implications, they are inseparable.

Alan Hirsch is one of the leading missional church guys. The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church came out in 2006, a few years after his collaboration with Michael Frost on the big splash The Shaping of Things to Come. I read it over furlough, and now I’m working back through it chapter by chapter.

In FW, Hirsch explores the essence of “missional DNA,” (mDNA) which he calls the “Apostolic Genius” of missional church movements. There is a sociological dimension to Hirsch’s approach, as he claims to be a student of social and religious movements (22) and therefore intends to discern “quintessential elements that combine to create Apostolic Genius and to simplify them to absolutely irreducible components” (24) by virtue of comparative analysis. The primary comparison he has selected, though, is that of the early church and the current Chinese church, which may seem limited to some readers in terms of a comparative exercise intended to discern truly essential elements of all missional movements:

The object of this book is to explore Apostolic Genius and to try to interpret it for our own missional context and situation for the West. These two key examples (the early church and the Chinese church) have been chosen not only because they are truly remarkable movements, but also because one is ancient and the other is contemporary, so we can observe Apostolic Genius in two radically different contexts (20).

Part of the methodological problem here is that Hirsch simply starts with the question “How did they do it?” (stated in various forms on pp. 18–19), referring to the exponential growth of the early church. He then labels the unspecified answer “Apostolic Genius” and subsequently presumes the same cause-and-effect for another movement that has grown exponentially—the Chinese church. So the problem is, rather than doing a study of these two radically different church movements in order to decide whether or not they are indeed comparable in the first place and, secondly, whether what they have in common deserves to be deemed “quintessential” church, Hirsch assumes that “similar growth patterns” (20) are enough to proceed calling their commonalities “their truest nature as an apostolic people” (20).

I don’t know that Hirsch is necessarily proceeding wrongly, and I do know that his subsequent observations are provocative and helpful, but I have to point out that the way he lets on about his “study” of movements does raise the bar for methodology at least a little. It seems to me that he is basically just saying, “Whatever these two groups of rapidly growing, persecuted Christians have in common is Apostolic Genius.” It’s a (possibly justified) leap. Hirsch says that he is writing non-academically for practitioners (26), but there is still a circularity issue here even for the person in the field: These two movements have Apostolic Genius. What is Apostolic Genius? Whatever these two movements have.

Leonard Sweet claims that Hirsch “cleans up the phrase ‘missional church’ from frequent mishandling” (12), but I think Hirsch is actually confusing the phrase more by starting with movements chosen for their numerical growth in order to define the DNA of a missional ecclesiology. He is, in fact, specifically concerned with “what David Garrison calls church planting movements” (22, fn. 8). His strong critique of the “evangelistic-attractional church growth model” (34–37) does not extend to its fundamental measure of success: fast, sustained numerical growth. This measure defines church growth ecclesiology, and it also, quite literally, defines Hirsch’s. Yet, I do not believe that is what missional ecclesiology is really about. (See this video for Hirsch on the church as an “advancing body” and “how churches grow exponentially”—this is undoubtedly his main concern in the book.)

Rather, I think missional ecclesiology is about “translating best practices in mission developed over the last century in the two-thirds world into that of the first world” (22). And what makes best practices truly best is not simply a head count. Missional ecclesiology is also about activating the whole people of God for participation in mission and critique of institutionalism (22–23). Furthermore, I think Hirsch’s (and Frost’s) fuller label, “missional-incarnational church” is appropriate, because missional church is about the shift from attractional “outreach and in-drag” (34) missionary methods to “embodying the culture and life of a target group in order to meaningfully reach that group of people from within their culture” and “going to a target people group as opposed to the invitation to come to our culture group in order to hear the gospel” (from “Incarnational,” glossary of key terms, 281).

Moreover, the nexus of biblical and contextual concerns is where missional ecclesiology is forged. Hirsch puts it well:

The fact that you have started reading this book will mean not only that you are interested in the search for a more authentic expression of ecclesia (the NT word for church), but you are in some sense aware of the dramatic changes in worldview that have been taking place in general culture over the last fifty years (16).

In other words, missional ecclesiology arises from the concern for both true, authentic, biblical ecclesiology (i.e, we can get this wrong) and culturally appropriate, contextual, effective mission (i.e., we can work ineffectual models and strategies). Missional church seeks to be “relevant to the subcultural context but faithful to the ancient gospel” (32). Authentic and contextual. Relevant and faithful.

I believe that the concerns for relevance, missiological acumen, and best practice all arise (and therefore missional ecclesiology arises) from a desire for effectiveness. That is the inclination, among all who want to seek and save the lost and advance the kingdom of God, that causes even missional church leaders like Hirsch to frame ecclesiology in terms of numerical growth. But all of those other facets of missional ecclesiology lead me to believe that numerical growth cannot be the measure of quintessential missional ecclesiology.

In fact, as the story of Hirsch’s fascinating and inspiring mission experience unfolds in chapter one, he comes to a moment of crisis that causes him to reflect: “How do we know we are being fruitful? With what measures will we as God’s people be weighed? How does God assess our effectiveness” (40)? As it turns out, his conclusion was that, “for us, the central failure lay primarily in our inability to ‘make disciples'” (42). And that is precisely the problem reportedly plaguing many (perhaps most?) of the exponentially growing church planting movements to which Hirsch looks (22, fn. 8). It is certainly the case among the fastest growing groups in my Latin American context.

So, it seems that Hirsch is somewhat at odds with himself, though the majority of what he says is right on target for me. Part of the problem may be that he proceeds on the assumption that “if one is willing to die for being a follower of Jesus, then in all likelihood that person is a real believer” (21; I’d have to agree) and then graciously assumes that sort of dedication among all church planting movements. But if we limit ourselves only to groups of persecuted yet faithful followers who are also growing exponentially, then I have far less to critique. In that case, growth still isn’t the litmus test, but it certainly makes such movements the most interesting to study.

Though I’ve offered a rather extended critique, I think the introduction and chapter one have far more that is positive and helpful than problematic. The case study of Hirsch’s own church’s transformation is extremely enlightening, especially his discussion of “Phase 3: From a Church to an Organic Movement.” It is noteworthy, to conclude, that Hirsch says “in terms of DNA,” they found that the small congregation needed to “covenant to multiply itself as soon as it is organically feasible and possible. This ensures healthy multiplication and embeds an ongoing sense of mission” (47–48). On the practical side of things, it is often a bit fuzzy in the literature how to actually “embed” the sense that the church is missionary in its very nature. It is refreshing to read Hirsch say that, aside from structure, it is a matter of covenanting—making a commitment as a community.

The missional hermeneutics conversation has articulated at least four emphases (Husberger, 2009):

1. The Missional Direction of the Story
2. The Missional Purpose of the Writings
3. The Missional Locatedness of the Readers
4. The Missional Engagement with Cultures

George Husberger sums up his findings in this way:

Finally then, our collective sense of a missional hermeneutic . . . is taking shape thus far around at least these four questions:

1. What is the story of the biblical narrative and how does it implicate us? (missio Dei)
2. What is the purpose of the biblical writings in the life of its hearers? (equipping witness)
3. How shall the church read the Bible faithfully today? (located questions)
4. What guides our use of the received tradition in the context before us? (gospel matrix)

While I find this analysis helpful, I think it is possible to parse out some of the various sources’ contributions differently. In particular, I am interested in thinking about them in terms of the known aspects of the hermeneutical spiral. What do they revise? What do they contribute? What do they leave out? There are two areas that I believe are especially important to spell out more than Hunsberger’s construal does.

The first regards exegesis. In Michael Barram’s response to Hunsberger he continues to push a point he has raised for some time: “In the end, I’m still wondering, I guess, how concrete exegetical methodology relates to the notion of a larger, robust herementuic” (Barram, 2009; cf. Barram, 2006). Yet, in his 2007 Interpretation article, I think Barram has already spelled out the two most vital points for exegetical methodology (in addition to framing them within a very helpful discussion of the problematic facing the convergence of biblical scholarship and missiology):

First, the communities to which NT documents were written owed their existence to a missional impulse in early Christianity. God was active in the world, and the fledgling Christian communities found themselves caught up in that activity. Of course, the doctrinal struggles we find would never have arisen apart from a process of early Christian outreach. Second, the NT texts themselves are in some real sense missiological, inasmuch as they equip their original addressees for the community’s vocation in the world (Barram, 2007, 49).

This is the exegetical aspect of what it is to affirm that “mission is the mother of theology.” The formulations of Scripture itself (1) were born of participation in the missio Dei and (2) intended to serve the people of God in that context. To attempt to understand their original meaning outside of this rubric, as Barram calls it, is a methodological error.

I think it is helpful to distinguish this point from both (a) Husberger’s category of the purpose of the writings (advocated principally by Darrell Guder) and (b) Barram’s located questions. Regarding the former, there is a difference between recognizing exegetically what the author’s purpose was and affirming in the present what the canon’s purpose is. While I see the strong connection between the two on the grounds of (1) a continuous metanarrative and (2) Jim Brownson’s observation that the way biblical writer did theology is paradigmatic for us (Hunsberger, 2009), it is still important to make the distinction because of the methodological rigor of exegesis in biblical studies that Barram points out. In other words, those asking a methodological question from the standpoint of historical-critical exegesis cannot affirm that a passage’s function in terms of the present church’s reception of the canon is a concern proper to the realm of historical inquiry (even if those exegetes are willing to ask such questions subsequently).

For the same reason, Barram’s proposed located questions do not have to do with exegetical methodology, even though it is true that the questions a historical-critical exegete brings to the text cannot escape locatedness. That is to say, despite the recognition of locatedness, I am still advocating a struggle to understand the author in his location before turning to the present reader in hers. In that sense, I think missional hermeneutics needs to recognize clearly the significance of the two exegetical points Barram has made (in the block quote above) but also needs to make it clear that in another sense the answer to his lingering question about concrete exegetical methodology is: exegesis ought to relate to a robust missional hermeneutic as a part of the spiral, not by becoming fundamentally different methodologically. As a critical realist, I find historical-critical methodology still to be essential for the kind of continuity I seek hermeneutically between meaning and significance. (This raises a question about Western cultural influences that must be addressed.)

Second, Brownson’s response to Hunsberger correctly recognizes, I believe, that Barram’s located questions comprise the closest thing to an awareness of cross-cultural dynamics in missional hermeneutics. As the discussion of contextualization in my previous post indicates, it is missiology’s struggle with cross-cultural dynamics that constitute its unrecognized contribution to missional hermeneutics (unrecognized from what I can tell—I have a lot of reading to do; it is at least noteworthy that Hunsberger’s summary to date barely tips a hat to cross-cultural dynamics). As Barram states:

Perhaps it should not be surprising that sensitivity to social location is evident in recent missiological studies concerned with the character and function of the Bible. Given the historic and geographic scope of missionary activity, practitioners have explored issues of contextualization and pluralistic readerships for years. For that reason, missiological conversations regarding the process of multilateral and intercultural dialogue may be significantly more developed and sophisticated than analogous developments in biblical studies (Barram, 2007, 45).

Yet, Hunsberger lumps (1) Brownson’s (and Ross Wagner’s) observation about the paradigmatic nature of biblical authors’ theological m.o. in with (2) a passing comment on similarities to some of the most important missiological models developed in recent years. These are very different contributions to missional hermeneutics. One deals with exegetically illuminating the biblical author’s own missional hermeneutic (which is hugely significant), whereas the other has to do with the similarity between what seems to be the biblical author’s m.o. and what missiologists have been practicing for some time—precisely Barram’s point in the quotation above.

Therefore, one rich field for study is the missional hermeneutics of the biblical authors themselves. Assuming Barram’s missional rubric, what are the authors/editors of Scripture doing in the appropriation of existing Scripture? In other words, this sheds new light on intertextual interpretation. A totally different field for study is that of missiology, especially anthropology and contextualization. It seems common to refer to missiology in the missional hermeneutics discussion and thereby mean the missional church movement. Yet, missiology has much more to offer hermeneutically than working out David Bosch’s observation that the church is missional in nature (I acknowledge that missional church folks might not like that simplistic view of their work, but it’s the essence, I think).

A Basis for a Missional Hermeneutical Spiral

I propose the following four theses as a basis for revisioning the hermeneutical spiral missionally.

1. Mission was the mother of theology in the early church and Israel.

Exegesis takes into account that Scripture’s authors wrote in the crucible of participation in God’s mission. Their own formulations are attempts at contextualization, albeit not, of course, in the anthropological mode of current missiology. But the exigencies of mission did compel them to perceive and draw out new implications and articulate those in contextually and situationally appropriate ways. This thesis yields two distinct hermeneutical contributions. One, exegesis that attempts to understand an author’s intention without taking into account the missional context of the writing will fall short in its descriptive endeavor. Two, doing the exegesis in this way renders the authors mode(s) of operation as a paradigm for current missional theologizing. Specifically:

The authors’ original intention was to form readers for mission.

The authors make innovative yet cohesive articulations and determinations.

Insofar as these modes are paradigmatic, the exegesis can actually provide a signpost for doing hermeneutics (rather than producing prefabricated theological conclusions or principles). Hermeneutics should be done in service to the church in mission, imitating as far as possible the interpreters par excellence canonized in Scripture.

2. Mission is the metanarrative.

Biblical theology finds its continuity (or cohesiveness) in the metanarrative of missio Dei. The biblical worldview founded on this metanarrative can be explicated anthropologically and theologically as a synthesis of the biblical material. One of its fundamental aspects is teleological monotheism (Wright, 2006). This is a story of one particular God moving the plot forward toward a particular purpose. Yet, at the same time, the biblical worldview assumes pluralism and diversity (Brownson, 2009). As a metanarrative of diversity, it addresses, at least to some extent, the concerns of postmoderns who reject totalizing narratives (Bauckham, 2003, ch 4.). In this sense, the incarnational impulse of Christianity rejects an imperialistic understanding of transforming worldviews and instead seeks to understand transformation mutually as living in dialogue and tension with the distinctiveness of each cultural worldview, while affirming the normativeness of the biblical metanarrative.

The diversity of Scripture itself is a record of a variety of cultural worldviews in transformation (again, the texts were themselves attempts at cohesion, though deemed paradigmatic and normative after the fact). The unity of Scripture implies a shared metanarrative among the diversity of cultural worldviews. It is not totalizing, but it is transformative, especially in its teleological nature. All cultures are enlisted in God’s mission from their particularity. The canon exists as an expression of this particular unity, and the canon functions properly in service to mission. That is, mission is the way of life most cohesive with the canonical thrust of Scripture. The church can therefore only use Scripture rightly in mission.

3. Mission is the church’s praxis.

The lived appropriation of the biblical metanarrative is mission. God calls us and sends us to live incarnationally among other worldviews, understand and love them from the inside, and come alongside them relationally in dialogue with the biblical worldview. This is where Bosch’s observation that the church is missional by nature becomes hermeneutically relevant. Because the church is missional by nature, all of its praxis must be understood in terms of God’s mission. The church’s praxis is normed by the biblical metanarrative of God’s mission and cannot be legitimized apart from it.

4. Missional is still the mother of theology.

Missional praxis, rather than just any praxis, informs ongoing theology, because it is cohesive with the biblical metanarrative. Liberation theology gifted us the critical insight that praxis must inform theory, but it understood that praxis too narrowly. While solidarity with the poor is a vital part of the church’s participation in God’s mission, it is not the whole. Nonetheless, a missional hermeneutic recognizes that questions from the location of mission are epistemologically privileged, because the experience of mission uniquely reveals more about the metanarrative than the biblical theological (theoretical) reconstruction alone. To say that they are epistemologically privileged is not to say that they are canonized or normative, nor is it to say that all missional experience coheres equally with the biblical metanarrative. Rather, it is to say that missional hermeneutics affirms as a matter of methodology that intentional engagement in mission can shed light on the meaning of the Bible’s story of mission. Stated more simply, missional hermeneutics assumes that because the story of the Bible is ongoing, the interpreter is able to participate in it and therefore understand it more completely from the inside, rather than merely analyze it from the outside. But because the biblical story is the story of missio Dei, only participation in the missio Dei affords that hermeneutical advantage.

Moreover, only questions formulated through rigorous contextualization deal with deep worldview issues in the process of worldview transformation. Rather than merely privileging a location because it is vaguely missional, it is this transformational environment that missional hermeneutics appreciates as theologically generative. Located questions must be critically engaged on the level of worldview transformation to be of most hermeneutical value.

Barram, Michael. “The Bible, Missions, and Social Location: Toward a Missional Hermeneutic.” Interpretation 61, no. 1 (January 2007): 42-58.

Barram, Michael. “A Response at AAR to Hunsbergers ‘Proposals…’ Essay.” The Gospel and Our Culture Network. http://www.gocn.org/resources/articles/response-aar-hunsberger-s-proposals-essay. Jan. 28, 2009.

Barram, Michael. “‘Located’ Questions for a Missional Hermeneutic.” The Gospel and Our Culture Network. http://www.gocn.org/resources/articles/located-questions-missional-hermeneutic. Nov. 1, 2006.

Bauckham, Richard. Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003.

Brownson, James V. “A Response at SBL to Hunsberger’s ‘Proposals…’ Essay.” The Gospel and Our Culture Network. http://www.gocn.org/resources/articles/response-sbl-hunsbergers-proposals-essay. Jan. 28, 2009.

Hunsberger, George. “Proposals for a Missional Hermeneutic: Mapping the Conversation.” The Gospel and Our Culture Network. http://www.gocn.org/resources/articles/proposals-missional-hermeneutic-mapping-conversation. Jan. 28, 2009.

Wright, Christopher. The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006.

I recently spoke with a friend who is writing a book, and he made an interesting comment.  He said he is writing a book for a denominational publisher of a denomination that no longer exists—referring to the Churches of Christ.  That it no longer exists, he contends, is evinced by the fact the CofC publishers are going bankrupt.  The particularity of our identity has been lost, as have sales of books catering to that particularity.  He said that we’re not having an identity crisis in CofCs, because there has to be a “we” before “we” can have an identity crisis.

He also pointed to the fact that the recent discussion on women’s roles at ACU has not raised any sort of “brotherhood-wide” outcry, as it would have done a couple of decades ago, because there isn’t a brotherhood anymore.  Of course, there are extreme rightwingers who make outcry their primary agenda, but it is a noteworthy observation that on the whole, no one cares.

The corollary of this observations is that such publications or discussions are ineffective.  There has to be something to affect in order to be effective.

So just how far along are we in disintegrating?  Clearly, our universities provide some degree of cohesion—and this is done despite wide diversity essentially because they are the environments in which the conversation about identity is ongoing.  But looking at the output of the biblical studies programs is very indicative: we are less and less planting traditional churches, our students are more and more comfortable with transitioning to other faith traditions as adults, and there is a greater sense of “getting over” CofC preoccupations than ever before.

I am growing more convinced that this is all deeply rooted in the former “brotherhood” identity being thoroughly ecclesiological in foundation.  There were other doctrinal issues that defined us, of course.  But I continue to hope that there is in our heritage a more theologically substantial point of cohesion than beginning with ecclesiology can provide, by which we can proceed together.

Of course, the situation is complex.  That no one seems to care about issues affecting the theology and practice of RM churches also has something to do with the enervating relativism that characterizes our moment in history.  It’s not really that no one cares; it’s just that no one cares about what the other is doing.  “We” has not merely disintegrated.  “We” has fragmented and localized more radically than the congregational autonomy of RM churches ever intended.

An important question, therefore, is whether what we still have in common constitutes a distinctive ecclesiology.  If not, the question is whether our RM tradition as a de facto ecclesiology (read denomination) is a powerful enough influence to continue to identify us.  In part, Neo-Restoration is about identifying what these elements are or should be, in order to answer these questions.

But, there is a more important question that we have to answer even if one or both of these are affirmative. Is this distinctive ecclesiology—whether composed of past elements or present commonality or both—missionally consequential? In other words, beginning with ecclesiology is not the basis for proceeding together, because such an a priori way of being the church does emerge from the mission of God.  Therefore, Neo-Restoration is also about critiquing the neurosis of the RM “identity crisis” in relation to the primacy of God’s mission.

There are aspects of the SCM that comprise our historical baggage, which we dare not ignore; aspects that provide lessons learned, which are perhaps uniquely ours; aspects that merit appreciation, maybe even imitation.  Yet, all of these must be scrutinized in light of what God is doing in a particular time and place and our evolving understanding of God’s ultimate purposes.  And it is the willingness to let an ecclesiology die, to “sink into the Body of Christ at large,” that is most essentially restorationist anyway.  Our instinct, so to speak, is to seek and restore to prominence that which is more important than our ways of being the church.  It is altogether fitting that the “we” of RM churches should die to itself.  If we look radically diverse in ecclesiology for the sake of contextual mission, so be it.  Incidentally, it is the commitment to the mission in which we find our cohesion and our identity.  Let us pray that the cross and contextualization, rather than apathy and relativism, are what bring the “we” through death into new life together.

Grant Osborne published The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation nearly twenty years ago. It has become a standard textbook among evangelicals. I became aware of it quite some time ago but only had occasion to read a few chapters for a graduate class. It has been one of many books hovering on the periphery of the urgent. In the last year, I have been chipping away at its four hundred pages bit by bit, between other books, reading and rereading. It has been a very good refresher of many fundamentals I had covered in one way or another during the last decade, sometimes too quickly or superficially (cramming for tests, in other words). At the same time, Osborne intrigued me, even from the time I knew only the title of the book, because he opted for a metaphor that is the only model that makes intuitive sense to me hermeneutically: the spiral. I was hopeful that he had really pounded out the conceptualization of a spiraling hermeneutical progression, leaving me some dark corners to explore fruitfully. So, I read slowly, taking my time to consider the assumptions at work even in the most rudimentary exegetical theory (it is a comprehensive intro.), hoping to perceive the finer nuances of his developing thesis. As the book progressed, though, I realized that there were going to be more than a few corners yet to illuminate. In fact, my own thinking would perhaps lead me to discover quite a different building altogether.

I can say that I have never read a book that I both agreed and disagreed with so much. I’m not sure what that means about the consistency of my own mind, but it’s a fact. I think that, essentially, the book works with seminal ideas that get me very excited but then end up budding into a totally different plant than I expected. There was a lot of intellectual “go, Go, GO, GO! DOH!” in the course of my reading. I feel indebted, though, because the spiral continues to be the operating model for my own hermeneutical meanderings, and wrestling with Osborne has been incredibly helpful in refining my thinking. The idea is not original with him, of course, and while I was still in the process of reading Spiral, I read Orlando Costas’s Liberating News (published two years prior to Spiral) which contains a discussion of a hermeneutical “spiral” delightfully resonant with my own thinking (more on which later). Still, Osborne had the good sense to make much of the idea, so I give credit where it is due.

There have been some significant shifts in the last two decades, and an important part of my critique of Spiral finds its basis therein, so I freely admit that some of my dissension will be anachronistic (this post is a thought exercise rather than a review anyway). Tackling this book in 2010 is obviously a late swing. Yet, the majority of the book remains highly representative of conservative methodology, and more importantly, some of the most significant shifts were already well under way in 1991, indicating their poor acceptance in the author’s scheme of things. For the record, I have not read any reviews (alas for my lost access to ATLA Religion Database) or anything Osborne has written since. This is just me in Peru with a copy of Spiral (Note: I have the first edition, not the revised and expanded edition linked below—I have no idea how much he changed in 2006 ). Okay, that’s enough prologuing.

The Main Idea and the Basic Problem: Circle, Spiral, or Straight Line?

I disagree with Osborne as to what should comprise the hermeneutical spiral, though his basic procedure of putting so many pieces of the interpretive process together is indicative of what generally needs to happen. The easiest way to give a sense of it is to quote various passages that demonstrate his progression.

So, the idea is that there are various smaller spirals or spheres that combine into a larger, total spiral, something like the the moon spinning around the earth, spinning around the sun, spinning around the galaxy. In other words, we are dealing with a variety of dynamic interactions; the model’s first payoff is an appreciation for the inevitable complexity of interpretation. We have, in the first place, to set aside romantic notions of simplicity as we approach this ministry. They only blind us to the forces at work upon individual interpreters and their communities.

For Osborne, the smaller spirals are exegesis (interplay between semantics, grammar, syntax, history, culture, composition, genre), biblical theology (interplay between unifying themes, diversity, preunderstanding, historical theology, methodology), systematic theology (interplay between tradition, experience, community, philosophy), and homiletics (interplay between principlizaiton, current situation, application-making, and rhetoric). These are well-known categories, so the value added is really found in (a) the comprehensiveness of his overview and (b) the model of interaction proposed.

The basic problem is that, despite the description of a spiral, the process Osborne lays out seems very linear (“In one sense they flow in a straight line in the order presented here,” 267). Two of his diagrams are indicative:

He is attempting to move known descriptions of a hermeneutical “circle” to something that has a progressive (spiraling) movement, as one sphere of interpretation (small spiral) refines another, and so on. What he really has in mind, however, seems to be an interaction in which (1) historical-critical methodology corrects theological presupposition, (2) the whole canon (his analogia scriptura) corrects erroneous conclusions that single passages might generate, and (3) traditional consensus corrects erroneous conclusions that historical-critical excesses might generate. There is certainly circularity to this, as the traditional consensus is often the substance of theological presupposition, but none of these checks and balances are novel. Moreover, Osborne is really concerned with a process that gets from point A (exegesis) to point D (homiletics), and I find no indication that the spiraling continues from there. That is to say, his proposal is actually a spiral that stops at application.

The process starts over rather than continuing on—contextualization plays no positive role in relation to the spheres of of exegesis, biblical theology, and systematic theology in subsequent iterations of the spiral. The movement from exegesis to application-making is repeated over and over, meaning that there is a continual challenge from fresh exegesis to presupposition and from tradition to fresh conclusion—which is healthy—but the spiral is broken. There is a strong separation between the context considered in homiletics and the objective meaning (exegetically determined) that is the basis for biblical theology and systematics. In this sense, the process is far more unilateral than the spiral metaphor suggests—that is, from homiletics Osborne does not truly circle back to exegesis. It will be necessary to discuss this observation more below in contrast to the spiral I have in mind.

Osborne’s Critical Insight for Missional Hermeneutics: The Place of Contextualization in Theology

What most excited me about the book was the table of contents, because it includes near the end a chapter entitled “Homiletics I: Contextualization.” I was already firmly convinced of two things when I started the book. One, contextualization needs to be understood as an essential aspect of all biblical interpretation. Two, homiletics has long failed to recognize its place as a mere subspecialty of the larger theological discipline of contextualization and, subsequently, failed to practice this essential aspect of biblical interpretation, resulting in a phenomenon of widespread hermeneutical deficiency in American pulpits (and probably other contexts as well). So, I was hopeful that the book would work to this vital point and offer some significant correctives.

While it turns out that Osborne had the insight to recognize the need to bring the missiological discussion of contextualization into the mainstream of biblical interpretation—a critically important move in and of itself—he conceptualizes contextualization very badly and does not capitalize on all it offers the hermeneutical spiral. On one level, he simply misdefines contextualization; on another, his conservatism denies contextualization the theologically generative power it offers. It is this prohibition that breaks the spiral, as contextualization is not allowed to create significance that may then spiral back to the text.

Concerning his definition, one of the most bewildering aspects of the book is his equation of both systematic theology (294, 297, 309) and homiletics with contextualization. Furthermore, both uses of contextualization are wrongly defined. The former does not even refer to what is now called a “contextual theology,” which goes a great deal further than Osborne’s notion of merely shuffling or augmenting the theological topoi of Western systematics and updating the language for a “modern” (294) or “contemporary” (305, 309, 316) context. The latter actually reduces contextualization (and so homiletics) to de-culturizing a text so that it can be principlized and then concretely applied (i.e., he believes contextualization and application are synonymous).

This “application/contextualization” is where he discusses the meat of the significance-generation that hermeneutics aims for, but for Osborn it is controlled by an overwhelming defensiveness against letting the context have “hermeneutical control” (335; cf. the “crux” discussed on 322). Rather, the processes that he appropriates “contextualization” to describe are an exercise in avoiding hermeneutics when possible (i.e., stick with “meaning” if at all possible, foregoing the need for “significance”). This is symptomatic of the common conservative a priori commitment to the perspicacity of Scripture, which is usually expressed in terms of Scriptures self-evidently “universal truths.” In other words, there is much we do not have to think about contextually, because it is the same for all contexts. This universality is the ideal for such interpreters. All that remains are the passages too deeply encased in their cultural or situational particulars to be of immediate use (application). Therefore, the movement from meaning to significance reduces down to the tiresome conversation about what is “cultural” and what is not. The passages deemed “cultural” are dealt with by an astoundingly simple process of principlization (my word for it), whereby the “content” of those not-universal bits is recast propositionally and therefore universally, ready for application in any context—it is only cultural “form” that varies in Osborne’s “evangelical contextualization” (319-21, 325-26).

The difficulty with this procedure is exemplified in what Osborne calls “extended application” (259)—applying the “principle” of a passage to a situation that is not closely parallel to that passage’s own situation. He, like other conservatives (e.g., Fee and Stuart), warns against extended application. The impulse to apply a passage only to supposedly similar situations (333-35, 345-46, among many) is symptomatic of the anxiety about making passages say something they do not, which is natural to both the conservative and the committed exegete (Osborne is both). But hermeneutics, which ultimately seeks to move from meaning to significance, is about finding the significance of Scripture for radically different contexts. We do not actually need to interpret the Bible if passages either mean just what they say or supply applications that simply require imitation in parallel situations. Exegesis is enough, in those cases.

Yet, in fact, limiting the significance of Scripture to situations similar to those recorded in Scripture is, in a deeply ironic way, a denial of its universality. We need a hermeneutics that is not so fixated on reducing the distance between meaning and significance. While we do not want to make Scripture say what it does not, that is hardly grounds for a hermeneutics that operates on the assumption that distance is bad and to be avoided when possible (which implicitly casts the entire interpretive enterprise negatively). The existence of distance between meaning and significance does not inevitably lead to discontinuity. Rather, it calls for a hermeneutics that can legitimately deal with the distance as distance. In other words, whereas one hermeneutics attempts to reduce the distance between meaning and significance, another hermeneutics attempts to accept it as natural, traverse it, and discover continuity. I am advocating the latter as a positive, creative endeavor that corresponds to the church’s image-bearing vocation and as the only viable option for a missional church. It is not without risk, but fear is not its controlling characteristic.

Now I need to look more closely at Osborne’s limited hermeneutic of principlization. One way to come at it is to consider its assumption about the function of Scripture, which is also to consider the real operating assumption of conservative Christianity. The assumed function is to provide guidance, which may instruct, incite, or prohibit. This is why Osborne often refers to the result of his hermeneutic as “command” in the discussion of principlizaiton, even though one would expect command to be too narrow a category for discussing every result of a hermeneutical spiral. His hermeneutical process functions to produce applications, that is, specific commands that tell the interpreter what to do in a given situation. This is, for him, Scripture’s ultimate function. (In this sense, even instruction about truth is the command to believe that truth, which suggests how doctrinal error is perceived among conservative Christians: to believe falsely is to break a command.) This is the basis for what I refer to as the taxonomy of distanciation that frames Osborne’s hermeneutics. Because Scripture’s function is to tell me what to do, I simply do anything in Scripture that can be done immediately in my culture and situation. I do not need to move from meaning to significance in such passages in order for Scripture to function as it should. In other passages, I do need to move from meaning to significance, because I cannot (or should not) simply put the explicit command into practice in my situation. In these cases I principlize, which renders the command.

The purpose of taxonomies of distanciation, then, is to classify types of passages, in order to determine which ones actually need a hermeneutical movement from meaning to significance. Interestingly, Osborne rejects a couple of taxonomies of distanciation proposed by Charles Kraft (who, as an “ethno-theological anthropologist,” is a negative foil for Osborne, despite still working on the same assumption):

In applying [his] theory Kraft finds three types of passages in Scripture (1979:139-43): (1) culture-specific commands, which are completely tied to the ancient culture and must be altered to fit the current situation (such as head-covering on women, 1 Cor 11:2-17); (2) general principles, which apply ethical truths (such as “Thou shalt not covet,” Ex 20:17) that transfer directly from culture to culture; and (3) human universals, which automatically transcend their own cultural context and are mandated in every age (such as love of God and neighbor, Mk 12:29-31). The latter two types of commands do not need to be contextualized, while the former does (322).

Astoundingly, Osborne’s complaint with this taxonomy is that “there is too little left of the text when Kraft finishes, too little that is supracultural. The Bible as he sees it is too culture bound, with too little theological truth that carries over.” Kraft has only one category that requires contextualization, but that is too much. Rather than simply developing a hermeneutics that deals with category (1), however prolific it is, Osborne fights for a hermeneutical a priori that wants to reduce the need for hermeneutics as much as possible. He would rather have supracultural theological truth that carries right over without the need for the full hermeneutical spiral.

Osborne shortly returns to another articulation by Kraft, which he also rejects:

Kraft argues for a “dynamic equivalent” approach and believes that the key is the specificity of the command (1987:357-67). As the level moves to the more specific the command becomes more culture-bound as the product of “Western thinking.” He proposes three levels of abstraction: (1) the basic idea level, which is the most general category and therefore is true for all cultures; (2) the general principle level, which is true in all cultures but may be interpreted differently; and (3) the specific cultural form, which differs between cultures. The basic ideas would be those supracultural commands such as love for one’s neighbor (Mt 22:39) or the need for proper order in church (1 Cor 14:40). The general principle would be the command not to steal, a sin against your neighbor. The specific cultural form would then be the command for women to pray with heads covered, as in against proper church order (328).

The taxonomy that Osborne advocates is that of J. Robertson McQuilkin:

McQuilkin names three ways we can determine a “generic principle,” a biblical standard that applies to later situations (1983: 258-65): (1) it might be stated directly in the text, as in “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18; Mk 12:31); (2) in historical portions it might be implied on the basis of the text’s explicit interpretation of the event, as when Scripture itself commends the occurrence (such as the “thesis paragraph” on early church life and worship in Acts 2:42-47); (3) it may apply indirectly in terms of general principles rather than specific situations if the cultural/supracultural indicators so dictate (such as the holy kiss being the same as the loving greeting in Christ). Many historical passages, especially Old Testament stories, apply only indirectly to us . . . . In such cases we must search for the parallels or “implications” for us today (346).

I’m sure this figure indicates clearly that I think there is no real difference between what Osborn advocates and what Kraft proposes. All of the above assumes that everything in Scripture is universal, though some (and quantity is the real disagreement) is encased in non-universal forms. In other words, all of these taxonomies presuppose that the goal is to figure out the universal commands and applications that contemporary Christians need to do, which Scripture serves to provide, whether directly or indirectly.

The key to this part of Osbornes methodology is the phrase if the cultural/supracultural indicators so dictate, found in his description of McQuilkin’s meaning. This phrase references the hermeneutical model he lays out for deciding whether a particular command is normative or cultural (328). The four-page model constitutes his actual methodology for determining which parts of Scripture are not immediately universal, and it is akin to other conservative proposals (again, see Fee and Stuart for the most well-known). The entire procedure, therefore, begins with the assumption that, if possible, the Christian should literally obey or imitate the command/principle/form of Scripture. The purpose of the full hermeneutics is to address the ensuing doubt about the appropriateness of such literalism—that is, to examine the indicators and make a judgement as to the degree of immediate universality. From a historical vantage, one can make the general observation that conservative churches tend to start on the side of literalism and gradually work through the indicators of certain topics to arrive at less literalistic, more diverse practices and forms. Osborne’s hermeneutical paradigm is made to facilitate that process rather than challenge it starting point.

I still have not discussed Osborne’s methodology for actually moving from meaning to significance—for determining implications for us today—once the examination of indicators has ruled a passage cultural, which is rather significant for this scheme of things if we affirm, once more, that hermeneutics is essentially concerned with that movement. To restate, Osborne thinks of this in terms of principlization, because the principle spans the gulf between the past and the present, with a truth that is relevant to both (345; quoting Roy Zuck). He conceptualizes principles in terms of Charles Taber’s and Eugene Nida’s use of transformational linguistics, which yields deep structure—meaning principles in Osbornes usage. As it turns out, though, the back-transformation to the kernel level of meaning is merely a matter of informed syntactical analysis and restatement (94-96; cf. 333). Osborne is well aware of the complexities of this and related fields, as he demonstrates mastery of a vast amount of literature and grapples instructively with issues of meaning in contemporary philosophy (not least in the book’s two appendices). Yet, at the end of the day, he demonstrates that he, though aware of said perspectives and complexities, still opts for a fairly simple theory of correspondence. It is to this theory that he turns when it comes to principlizing cultural-situational bits of Scripture.

To sum up, Osbornes hermeneutics basically has two primary movements: (1) determine whether a passage is immediately universal or not; (2) if universal, apply concretely; if not, principlize, then apply concretely. Both of these steps depend on thoroughgoing exegesis (chs. 1-12 of 16) and a critical realist approach to authorial intent (meaning).

Toward a Fuller Hermeneutical Spiral

I share some basic commitments and starting points with Osborne, which is why I find working through his book so fruitful. Perhaps most basically, I too begin with an approach that is broadly critical realist. I believe authorial intent is accessible, and my hermeneutics is a quest for genuine continuity between meaning and significance. Moreover, I am seeking a full-orbed methodology for dealing with the biblical text, in part and in whole. The realist part of my approach finds expression in an equal advocacy of exegesis as essential to Scriptural interpretation, and I find little to critique in Spiral’s first twelve chapters (though certainly some particulars are debatable), which are an introduction to exegetical methodology. The critical part of my critical realism, though, expresses itself more strongly than Osborne’s. This is the root of much of what I will say in my proposal of a fuller hermeneutical spiral.

Of the issues I would like to discuss, which are all related in my thinking, it is easiest to begin with Liberation Theology, because it is something of a whipping boy for Osborne. Liberation Theology’s greatest contribution to hermeneutics is a simple principle: praxis before theory. Yet, it is not so general as that; it is embedded in a theological commitment: God’s preferential option for the poor. Liberation Theology understands Scripture itself to be the basis for beginning with a preferential option for the poor, so there is something of a chicken-egg issue here, but the point is that it is not an unfounded a priori. Perhaps it is helpful to say that in Osborne’s terms, Liberation Theology finds Scripture quite perspicacious in regard to God’s preferential option for the poor, so that the text clearly provides it as a methodological starting point for hermeneutics. The community’s engagement with the poor (praxis) precedes further theologizing (theory). The experience of solidarity with the poor is intended to shape perceptions of the text. Thus, it is a subjective norm injected into the hermeneutical spiral, which causes great alarm for Osborne, who wants to maintain a place for the text as the objective control over subjective experience.

The anxiety created for Osborne is the usual conservative reaction to Liberation Theology and other advocacy perspectives (Black, Feminist, etc.). The agenda, it is feared, will make the text say what it does not. Though there is a place to mention preunderstanding and experience in Osborne’s scheme, and his grappling with the literature causes him to admit they are not forces to be glossed over, the exegetical process he advocates is assumed to be sufficiently objective to provide a methodological control over those biases. This is, for him, the essential purpose of the spiral—the exegesis checks the preunderstandings affecting biblical theology and the experiences and traditions affecting systematic theology. In fact, he minimizes experience and tradition more than the broad Protestant tradition, for he says that they are not norms: “The important thing to keep in mind is that there are not several norms (Scripture, experience, tradition, philosophical speculations) but only one final source of revelation, the Word of God” (298).

Yet, these have usually been thought of as norms that are normed by Scripture, which is the norming norm (norma normans). The wording of the quotation hints at the real operating assumption in Osbornes spiral, however, which is that a norm is considered to be revelation. In other words, we are dealing with an epistemological concern. Osborne is ultimately after revealed principles and commands based upon an epistemologically foundationalist approach to Scripture, meaning that other norms threaten to compete for status as foundation (revelation). Note the language of the following quotations:

To summarize, Osborne is not content that praxis (community experience) should be an epistemological foundation, as he perceives Liberation Theology to employ it. Praxis should not affect the content of principles, which are only to be derived exegetically and syntactically (back-transformation). The context of praxis merely affects the form in which those principles are restated (forward-transformed).

These considerations bring me to make three affirmations in departure from Osbornes basic paradigm:

1. Scripture’s epistemological function is that of a metanarrative that corresponds to reality rather than that of a propositional foundation that provides truth claims.
2. Biblical theology renders that metanarrative, which may be understood in terms of biblical worldview.
3. Contextualization is the intentional dialogue between the biblical metanarrative and the metanarrative of another worldview.

Scripture’s Epistemological Function

I take my cue from George Lindbeck’s The Nature of Doctrine. While there has been thoroughgoing evangelical critique of postliberalism, I believe postliberalism as a whole is quite different than the substance of Lindbeck’s seminal work, as I have discussed in a paper available here. As demonstrated in that paper, because I believe the distinction Kevin Vanhoozer draws between his own proposal and Lindbeck’s is perceived rather than real, I can also point to Vanhoozer’s The Drama of Doctrine as indicative of my thinking and, indeed, Vanhoozer does even more to develop the sort of hermeneutic Lindbeck and peers allowed many to begin imagining.

The basic point here, regarding Osbornes limited spiral, is that it is limited first because of the assumed function of Scripture. To use Lindbeck’s categories, Osborne perceives Scripture in cognitive-propositional terms. This boils down to an epistemology that takes Scripture to be a storehouse of truth. It is a source of epistemologically foundational propositions, which it exists to dispense, thus his hermeneutic intends to make those available.

Lindbeck conceives of Scripture as story, and although the story as a whole or system corresponds to reality—is true (again, see my paper linked above)—it does not function primarily to provide foundational propositions. Rather, the story absorbs the world, and living from within it the church is able to articulate understandings (among other activities) that cohere with the story. These articulations are second-order, which means that they do not correspond with reality as the story itself does. Rather, they are intended to cohere with the story as much as possible, recognizing that their coherence may be challenged at some point and eschewed in favor of more cohesive articulations. It is important to note that this way of conceiving doctrine (the articulations) is largely motivated by the desire to account for major shifts in understandings of fundamental doctrines that were at times claimed to correspond directly to reality—to be indisputably true, not to mention essential to Christianity (e.g., justification; Lindbeck deals with Catholic and Protestant disagreements and subsequent agreements, but at this point the New Perspective on Paul may be mentioned to make the point all the more forcefully).

Metanarrative has become a common way of describing such accounts of reality as Lindbeck claimed Scripture to be. Therefore, because I advocate this construal of Scripture’s epistemological function, I refer to it in terms of metanarrative. Yet, there is an important caveat here: Scripture per se is not a metanarrative; rather, it gives witness to and reveals one. Its range of genres and diversity of perspectives combine into a whole that implies the metanarrative. It is the job of biblical theology to render that metanarrative to us.

Biblical Worldview

While biblical theology is recognized as a particular theological discipline, I prefer to conceive of exegesis and biblical theology as a coextensive interpretive movement called theological exegesis (which is also known terminology). Thus, while we can talk about the two separately, biblical theology cannot exist without exegesis, and for hermeneutical purposes exegesis is incomplete without biblical theology. Incidentally, I seem to be in agreement with Osborne here (the two are interdependent, 265). The short of it is that theological exegesis puts together the parts of the story so as to tell it in terms of its inherent meaning as a whole. If exegesis of a passage is interested in authorial intent, biblical theology is interested in metanarrative intent.

This synthetic description is itself second-order, but it can be extremely fruitful as the starting point for analyzing the worldview that corresponds to the metanarrative. Some would actually talk about worldview and metanarrative synonymously. Yet, while that equation is elementally correct, we can gain much more hermeneutically by considering worldview analytically from the perspective of anthropology (I rely heavily on Paul Hiebert’s Transforming Worldviews for my thinking here). And it is within missiological anthropology that we find an understanding of contextualization that moves far beyond Osborne’s superficial use of the term. Contextualization is, in fact, where worldviews collide.

Osborne points toward this function of biblical theology in relation to biblical worldview, though with a less developed conception of worldview, it seems. He refers to biblical theology’s concern with the thought patterns of the biblical period, which evokes one facet of worldview (266). Yet, his basic idea of biblical theology collating the data of exegesis and his topical emphasis on unifying themes is not actually conducive to describing a worldview. Moreover, he is sympathetic with the desire to avoid a romantic tendency to canonize biblical thought patterns, as if the modern person should think like the ancient Hebrew (278). This is a legitimate concern, for which my viewpoint will have to give an account, but it is also indicative of Osborne’s disinterest in a biblical worldview per se. At the same time, his reference to worldview in the chapter on systematic theology affirms that theology transforms the biblical worldview into a coherent and relevant worldview for the contemporary setting (296; summarizing Vanhoozer, let it be noted!). And along lines similar to what I will say below, he says:

Contextualization is the second half of a unitary hermeneutical journey from meaning to significance as the Word of God is actualized in human, cultural experience.
This does not mean that the interpreter can move behind his own preunderstanding to meaning, as if we can leave our own cultural history and move solely into the biblical world to objective knowledge. As Dietrich asserts, “Any theology is necessarily contextual. Therefore it will be more honest the more it becomes conscious of its context.” Within a proper hermeneutical spiral, the biblical worldview highlights our own and enables us to place our belief system in front of the context for challenge or (if need be) correction (335).

I find this to be very well stated. It must be noted, however, that he continues:

Certainly, once we have explained the meaning of the text, we have already contextualized it to an extent. However, if the process of backward and forward transformation diagrammed above works (as I believe it does), then we can discover that transcultural meaning which bridges from the text to our context without violating the original meaning. In this way we bracket and transcend our preunderstanding, yet communicate properly to our own cultural context (334-5; emphasis added).

If I am reading Osborne correctly, in light of the whole argument of the book, the expectation that Scripture will render a transcultural, objective meaning (first-order propositional truth), which allows the interpreter to bracket and transcend preunderstanding, is what undermines contextualization as a hermeneutically generative force.

Contextualization

While there are a variety of understandings of contextualization in the literature, for now I will simply advocate my own conceptualization. Rather than being the use of cultural forms (in the case of ecclesiology or liturgy) or the use of cross-cultural communication (in the case of evangelization or teaching), I believe a more substantial idea of contextualization begins with worldview, of which forms or language are merely expressions (and are therefore secondary, though important). Contextualization is the process whereby a an explicated worldview is strategically confronted with the biblical worldview. This needs some unpacking.

Worldviews consist of unconscious assumptions. They are very rarely explicit or conscious, though they can be explicated. Likewise, the biblical worldview is implicit in the expressions of Scripture.

Biblical theology reconstructs the narrative, which begins the process of bringing vital assumptions to the surface, but theology as a whole is about further explication: (1) making explicit what is implicit (not stated theologically in the text) and (2) then working out further implications of those assumptions. This resonates deeply with Lindbeck’s conception of doctrine (theological statements) as a cultural-linguistic system. He is, of course, borrowing from some of the linguists and philosophical anthropologists who have shaped the study of worldview, so the continuity is natural.

I am merely attempting to make the connection between what happens in contextualization and what happens in all theological formulation: the revision of a cultural-linguistic system that is attempting to cohere with the worldview to which Scripture gives us access, though always in dynamic tension with the worldview in which the theologian lives and speaks. That dynamic tension is hermeneutically generative of implications that are not available to other contexts from within their particular encounter with the biblical worldview. To say that all theologizing is done in tension with the theologian’s worldview is to say, in one sense, that all theology is necessarily contextualization. The difference is that contextualization as a discipline is done with intentionality. Contextualization attempts to deal with this cultural locatedness explicitly, in order to recognize theological implications as culturally appropriate, cohesive articulations.

Thus, theological discourse about the ways in which the biblical worldview confronts or affirms another worldview’s assumptions is contextualization. In confronting or affirming, contextualization entails a process of discerning the implications of the biblical worldview for the way of life predicated on the culture’s worldview. These implications can be stated theologically (propositionally). Contextualization, then, is the process of facilitating conscious worldview transformation. Stated in different terms, contextualization facilitates the appropriation of or absorption by the biblical metanarrative. This can be done to a limited extent by simple rehearsal of the biblical text, which gives the reader access to the world she may then begin to inhabit. But to call contextualization facilitation is a tacit admission that explication is often necessary, because the assumptions of both the biblical worldview and the cultural worldview can remain hidden, which is what often leads to syncretism. That is to say, theology—evangelizing, teaching, preaching, counseling, praying, worshiping, and so on—serves to help create the language (cultural-linguistic system) by which a culture can deal with those assumptions explicitly in ways that cohere with the biblical worldview, which facilitates the worldview transformation of disciples. It is critical to emphasize, however, that that theological cultural-linguistic system can only ever be formed from within the culture, in its own language, which is deeply rooted in its original worldview. This is the generative dynamic, and it is what cannot be bracketed and transcended. It is also the reality that precludes worldview transformation from meaning “cultural imperialism,” because the biblical worldview does not replace but rather shapes—challenges and affirms—the cultural worldview without interest in uniformity (more on which in the next post).

To conclude, one more quote will clarify why it is that Osborne does not conceive of contextualization as a generative interaction between two worldviews:

I believe that philosophy works functionally in terms of reference rather than empirically in terms of sense data and so we must consider religious statements in terms of a metaphysical world view rather than in terms of positivistic empiricism. This metaphysical world view is fact-oriented rather than logic-oriented and proceeds on the basis of ontology rather than on logical necessity. Paradigm communities critically interact on the basis of the criteria of adequacy and coherence, testing their truth claims. The Bible, seen as a revelatory communication from God, makes all this possible, for it provides the objective data for judging these truth claims (405; emphasis added).

While I agree that it is a worldview functioning in ontologically referential terms that provides the proper context for religious statements, I do not believe that fact-orientation is the best way to conceive that worldview, because the Bible’s revelatory capacity is not the provision of objective data than can fill in as those facts. Its revelatory capacity is that through contextually-specific lived appropriation of the biblical worldview—which is ontologically true as metanarrative—we may make ever more cohesive, adequate religious statements. Consciousness of this dynamic is far less ghettoizing for a given paradigm community (cultural-linguistic context) than the presumption of access to objective data; it fosters inter-paradigm discourse and discernment, which reiterates again and again the generative cross-cultural interaction between worldviews seeking to speak cohesively about the common biblical narrative.

Okay, that about does it for discussing Osborne in particular. I’m going to stop here and pick up my discussion of the spiral in the next post, where I will attempt to reconceive it in terms of ongoing discussions about missional hermeneutics.

George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age

Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart, How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth

Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation

Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine

Orlando Costas, Liberating News: A Theology of Contextual Evangelization

Paul Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change