An Interview with Lieven Boeve
“Recontextualizing the Christian Narrative
in a Postmodern Context”
Gregory
Hoskins, Journal of Philosophy and
Scripture
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JPS: To orient our exchange,
I would like to ask a few general questions about the context
of your work and your, so to speak, intellectual conversation
partners. At the Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, you
coordinate a research group titled “Theology in a Postmodern Context.” The stated aim of the group is “to
engage, from a fundamental theological perspective, with the challenges
posed by the present context of plurality and difference, and
to consider its consequences for Christian faith.” To define the
“postmodern context” you seem to draw primarily on the work of
philosophers, especially on the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard.
What are the benefits and hazards of an appropriation by theologians
of philosophical insights? Must
theologians rely on philosophers to determine the context of their
work?
LB: Many questions at the same time! The
research group officially started in 2000 when four research projects
were granted to me and scholars associated with me (cf. http://www.theo.kuleuven.be/ogtpc/).
But already years before I started a reflection on the way in
which theology was challenged by contemporary postmodern philosophy.
For my own work, indeed, this concerned a study of J.-F. Lyotard,
J. Habermas, Richard Rorty and later also work of J. Derrida,
J.-L. Marion, R. Kearney and others. Other members of the group
also investigate the challenges put by other thinkers to Christian
faith and theology, such as Th. Adorno, S. Zizek, G. Vattimo,
K. Hart, J. Caputo, E. Levinas, J.-Y. Lacoste, etc., or draw on
other resources from the humanities and even the natural sciences.
These thinkers or resources are always studied with a fundamental-theological question at the
background: how do they challenge today’s Christian theological
reflection on God, religion, human beings, history and world?
How do they qualify the context in which Christian faith exists
and from which this faith develops its self-understanding? And
finally: can they assist theology to come to a renewed understanding
of what Christianity is about – an understanding which possesses
both contextual and theological plausibility? Philosophy is at
the service of theology, both challenging
its shape and sustaining
its project.
But at the same time, in as much as theology
engages the discussion on contemporary critical consciousness,
it contributes to this very discussion, answering from this resulting
renewed self-understanding the questions coming from the contextual
critical consciousness under discussion.
As a matter of fact, it is, among others,
the German philosopher of religion Richard Schaeffler (Tübingen),
especially in his Religion
und kritische Bewüßtsein (1973),
who taught me that there is an intrinsic link between the
critical consciousness of religion (and thus of Christian theology
as a reflection on Christian faith) and the contemporary philosophical
critical consciousness. Only from an intensive and continuous
dialogue can religion and theology hold to and sharpen their own
critical consciousness (and the same holds true for philosophy
in relation to religion). Schaeffler
argued already in 1973 (years before, e.g., the publication of
Jean-François Lyotard’s La condition postmoderne) that philosophy
has become conscious of the crisis of modern rationality and can
be considered a contemporary critical consciousness inasmuch as
it reflects on this crisis, not to overcome it all too easily,
but to learn to deal with it as constitutive for rationality today.
From the dialogue with such philosophical critical consciousness,
according to Schaeffler, theology could test and express its own
ability to deal with the crisis at the heart of the Christian
religion, stemming from the non-identity between God and history/world,
while at the same time this God is only revealed in and known
from this history/world.
Such a view, stressing the hermeneutical,
dialectical and historical nature of theology’s reflection on
Christian faith in relation to its context, was very much in agreement
with the hermeneutical-theological methodology of the Flemish
Dominican Edward Schillebeeckx, professor of systematic theology
in Nijmegen (The Netherlands), which was prominent when I studied
theology in Leuven. Building on this view, while radicalizing
the inherent insight of the intrinsic link between tradition development
and context, I elaborated a concept of “recontextualization” to
understand both how Christian tradition has developed through
the ages, and how theology should relate to the challenges of
the contemporary context, and thus of the critical consciousness
conveyed in current philosophy, the sciences, the arts, etc.
As a theological category, recontextualization
implies that Christian faith and tradition are not only contained
in a specific historico-cultural, socio-economic and socio-political
context, but are also co-constituted by this context. For sure,
faith cannot be reduced to context, nor can tradition development
to mere adaptation to the context. Nevertheless, there is an intrinsic
bond between faith and tradition, on the one hand, and context,
on the other. Hence, contextual novelty puts pressure on historically
conditioned expressions of faith and their theological understanding,
and drives towards recontextualization. In both taking part in,
and confronting itself with this changed context, Christian communities
may find new ways to express their faith, in fidelity to the tradition
as well as to the context in which they are situated – balancing
between continuity and discontinuity. The concept of recontextualization
thus functions both descriptively and normatively. As a descriptive
category, it assists to analyze the ways in which tradition has
been challenged by contextual change and novelty – varying from
stubborn condemnation and suppression of this novelty to its uncritical
embracing and adaptation. As a normative category, recontextualization
calls for a theological program, in which the insight in the intrinsic
link between faith and context inspires theologians to take the
contextual challenges seriously, in order to come to a contemporary
theological discourse which at the same time can claim theological
validity and contextual plausibility. From this follows that a
theological recontextualization for today implies a thorough study
of the current critical consciousness, characteristic for a context
which already for more than two decades is qualified as “postmodern.”
So, indeed, there is an intense dialogue
with philosophy, social science, etc, going on in the research
of our group but always from a theological angle, with as its
aim to come to a renewed self-understanding which can engage,
from its own Christian-theological perspective, in the discussion
about God, human beings, history and the world.
JPS: At the heart of your work
is a conception of theology, of fides
quaerens intellectum, as a radical
hermeneutics. The radicality of this critical-hermeneutical
theology resides, in part, in the fact that it accepts what you
frequently refer to as the particularity
of the Christian tradition. This
tradition – I should say “traditions” – is a paradigm of what
you call an open narrative, a narrative that witnesses to the Other (God, the
excluded and ignored, the stranger and the poor, etc.) and that
is continually interrupted by the Other. I would like to ask you
about the origin and meaning of some of these terms and claims.
LB: The exercise to take the challenges
of contemporary philosophy seriously indeed has driven me to recontextualizing
Christian tradition as an open narrative and theology as a radical
hermeneutics.
First, where does the concept of the “open
narrative” come from? The criticism of the modern and postmodern
master narratives by Jean-François Lyotard has made me very conscious
that in the very structure of identity-constituting narratives
hegemonizing tendencies are at work, attempting to master and
secure this identity. Narratives all too easily forget the “differend,”
the otherness appearing at the border of every identity constitution,
both enabling and limiting it. And because of this forgetting,
narratives often have victimized this otherness, and caused the
many victims of history. Certain views of Christian tradition
and faith indeed could be analyzed as master narratives, or at
least as not wary enough of the creeping totalizing tendencies.
Nevertheless, and this is a point which is not so much elaborated
in Lyotard (but has been reminded to us by authors like Paul Ricoeur),
we keep on constituting identity, we cannot but tell narratives.
Therefore, the criticism of the grand narratives should not be
directed against the narrative as such, but against the forgetting
of these hegemonizing tendencies – that which makes of narratives
closed master narratives. In the same way as Lyotard perceives
the task of philosophy (and the arts) to bear witness to (the
forgetting of) the differend, I suggested that there still may
be other discourses, narratives, which must be able to foster
a critical self-understanding, a consciousness which does not
allow us to forget too easily this forgetting. Instead of master
narratives, they then could be conceived of as open
narratives: narratives which in the way in which they are
told – in which they are structured – both remain conscious of
the closing tendencies at work in them and bear witness to the
otherness which at the same time enables and limits the very narrative.
For me, the Christian tradition could be such an open narrative,
and this on theological grounds: because of the otherness of God,
both constitutive for, and limiting the Christian narrative. In
the way in which the Christian narrative is told, this critical
consciousness should be operative. The Christian narrative bears
witness to God who as the other of this narrative interrupts the
course of the narrative where it tends to close in upon itself.
Indeed, I have tried to show that, when
theology confronts itself with this conceptuality of the open
narrative, and its inherent criticism of master narratives, theology
not only on contextual grounds should take its lessons to heart. Moreover,
it is challenged on theological
grounds to recontextualize Christian faith into a Christian
open narrative – resulting in a theology of the open narrative.
For this conceptuality of the open narrative not only offers a
contextually plausible opportunity for recontextualizing theology,
but also assists to come to a theological self-understanding,
nurtured by faith and tradition itself. It is at this point, that
I have dealt with a reading of Scripture using the “open narrative”
as a reading key. At many instances, it can be shown that, e.g.,
Jesus, when confronted with closed narratives, is opening them
on God’s behalf; that the Jesus-narrative itself is told as a
narrative opened by God in the resurrection; and that the testimony
to God’s interrupting action in Jesus and in history is given,
in Scripture and tradition, in the modus of an open narrative.
And here, secondly, theology – as the reflexive
expression of the critical consciousness of Christian faith –
indeed is redefined as a radical
hermeneutics of God’s interrupting action in history, continuing
the hermeneutic labor Christians throughout history, in rereading
Scripture and tradition in relation to their contexts, have done.
I deliberately have chosen the notion “radical theological hermeneutics.”
First of all, it expresses my conviction that only a fundamentally
hermeneutical approach to Christianity may contribute to an understanding
of what is going on in Christian faith – in full respect of the
hermeneutical circle by which Christian faith operates. Understanding
Christian faith necessitates a taking a distance from within the
very involvement in it. Of course, I am very much aware that some
usages of “radical” these days indeed favor what some would call
a (closed) cultural-linguistic approach, not allowing for “external
criticism.” But there should be no mistake here: the very concept
of recontextualization that is at the back of this radical theological
hermeneutics (of the Christian open
narrative), resists such closure. On the other hand, others would
use “radical hermeneutics” to name some deconstructionist attempts
to strive at as much “openness” as possible, reducing the narrative,
the very particularity of the Christian tradition. For them, language
would primarily be contamination to be relativized in view of
a “religion without religion”, “prayer without prayer”. This has
resulted in kinds of apophatic theology (which on closer inspection
may well reflect on a speculative level the resurgence of religiosity
in the West). Both types of so-called “radical” thinking at the
same time point at insights which the radical hermeneutics I propose
needs to incorporate: the irreducibility of particular narrativity
as well as the radical challenge of otherness enabling and limiting
this narrativity. At the same time, however, they are not radical
enough, because they ultimately do not hold to the radical tension
an open narrative lives from: narratives close in upon themselves
without openness to the differend while at the same time there
is no openness without particular narrativity. Both these insights
are needed to prevent from falling back into master narratives.
It is at this point that I would claim that
a recontextualized radical-hermeneutical reading of the Christian
doctrine of the incarnation helps theologians to take a stance
in the philosophical discussion about religion (which has become
very prominent because of the so-called theological turn in continental
phenomenology and hermeneutics). The doctrine of Chalcedon - Jesus Christ is one person in two natures:
God and human - holds then
that God is manifest in Jesus Christ, not without Jesus’ humanity
but in and through it; Jesus reveals God as a human person without
thereby giving up his humanity.
Jesus’ concrete words and deeds reveal God historically
situated in a very specific context. Every actual statement about
this God and this revelation must comply with the same rules of
the game. Even today, it is only possible to give expression to
God’s involvement in history and the world in all-too-human terms.
Jesus’ particular humanity, concrete history and the events, narratives
and conceptual frameworks thereof, do not represent a stumbling
block on the journey to God, they represent the very possibility
of the journey. So doing, particularity and narrativity are neither
to be absolutized nor reduced, because from within the very narrativity
itself God is revealed as its condition and limit.
JPS: Does recognition of the
particularity of the Christian tradition
amount to an affirmation of fideism? That is, are “particular”
traditions incommensurable, to use the Kuhnian term?
LB: The acknowledgement of the very irreducible
particularity of the Christian tradition runs indeed the risk
of particularism, especially when it forgets the critical dynamics
at the heart of this Christian narrative because of its bearing
witness to God as the Other of this narrative – known to us through
this narrative but never to be reduced to it. Precisely this internal
tension does not allow for static conceptions of narrativity,
but involves a dynamical view in which encounters and conflicts
with other narratives, individual as well as communal, engender
processes of exchange, learning, conflict and confrontation. The
consciousness of the otherness of the other may serve a coming
to a better self-understanding, an understanding of the possible
differend between two narratives as well as awake an “analogical”
imagination, not to overcome the differend but to deal with it
from one’s own narrative on. The incommensurability of traditions
not necessarily should be conceived of as a static given, blocking
encounter and communication. The confrontation with otherness
with the same right may generate processes of recontextualisation,
and inspire attempts to live together in difference.
JPS: How would you link – or
distance -- your claim that Christianity is an open narrative to/from the deconstructive insight that underneath
the seeming unity of any narrative or tradition lies plurivocity
and multiplicity?
LB: Indeed, the insight that Christianity
is an open narrative also makes us alert for too easy appeals
to, or claim of, unity. Such appeals often betray the hegemonizing
tendencies at work in master narratives. Especially these views
which then are claiming to stand for this unity or would be able
to attest this unity, fall prey to this. However, it seems to
me that there is at an ambiguity in certain deconstructionist
accounts of religion (in terms of “religion without religion”).
They would seem to foster – insidiously and mostly quite contrary
to their ambition – a new way of thinking the unity of religious
traditions and narratives, by reducing the narrativity of these
traditions to the structure of religious desire (“prayer without
prayer”, the distinction between messianicity and messianisms,
etc.). So doing these accounts seem to focus too much on the “openness”
to the differend and undervalue too rapidly the very narrativity
and particularity which is equally constitutive of the plurivocity
and multiplicity as the differend or otherness they are bearing
witness to. At the same time, this implies that accounts of messianicity
are messianisms in their own right, to be read, respected and
criticized, from within their own narrativity and context.
JPS: I would now like to shift
our focus onto the social and political elements and implications
of your work. Communities organized around open narratives are
best suited, I think, to democracy. Democratic mechanisms for
preventing oppression – periodic elections, deliberative legislative
decision-making, judicial review, etc. – would discourage a community
from closing itself, as it were, and believing that it alone embodied
the general will. How
would a postmodern political theology contribute to or function
in democracy?
LB: It would seem that democracy indeed
would allow for open narratives to live together in difference.
Of course, this does not lead to a society without conflict or
confrontation, because of the dynamic nature of open narratives,
their competing and irreducible truth claims and so on. On the
contrary, precisely the insight in this dynamic reality fosters
a realistic-pragmatic view on politics as well as a critical stance.
First of all, it teaches – and also Lyotard would state this –
that politics as such should never become a narrative in its own
right, but should continue to open the field upon which different
discourse and narratives are striving to cope with each other.
This implies that these narratives, be they religious or not,
which usurp the political field are in fact master narratives.
At the same time, however, in as much as this field is not an
empty one, but colored by concrete narratives and their histories,
democracy as the outcome of the dealings of these specific narratives
on the political field involves a certain narrativity which both
puts limits to these dealings, as well as it is often object of
these dealings.
The reception of such thinking patterns
in a Christian political theology radicalizes the refusal to identify
history with salvation history (and thus re-introduces the eschatological
reserve), and to usurp the plurality of discourses from a Christian
theological meta-narrative. At the same time, it mobilizes critical
forces against all discourses and narratives that forget about
their own hegemonic tendencies and that result in victimizing
others. In line with Johann-Baptist Metz’ late-modern political
theology, a postmodern political theology, thus, is challenged
by the appeal of the poor and the others.
JPS: Finally, I would like to ask you to elaborate
on your reflections on the truth
of religious claims. In
Interrupting Tradition: An Essay on Christian
Faith in a Postmodern Context (2003) you write that religious
truth claims do not, or rather should not, have the pretense of
being “all-encompassing” or somehow “objective.”
In that work you write, “Truth is a matter of relating
appropriately to the intangible Truth, of giving witness to this
Truth in the full awareness that it is ultimately inexhaustible,
incomprehensible and inexplicable” (p. 99).
LB:
This concept of truth, of course, relates to the concept of what
an open narrative is. In such a narrative, truth claims will be
marked by the tension between openness and narrativity. Therefore,
they are irreducibly bound to the living of and from this concrete
narrativity, as well as never being fully identified with it.
As far as the Christian narrative is concerned, this is, as already
hinted at, most prominently shown in the doctrine of incarnation: the person who desires to know God
must look to Jesus Christ who, as a human person, definitively
revealed God in history. It is only in the all-too-historical,
the concrete, the accidental that God can become manifest, that
God becomes manifest. This does not mean that God coincides with
the concrete and the accidental, but that the concrete and the
accidental make the manifestation of God possible, not in spite
of but rather thanks to the concrete and the accidental. Every
concrete encounter, no matter how accidental, every particular
and contingent event, is the potential location of God’s manifestation.
For Christians, God’s manifestation in Jesus Christ forms the
hermeneutical key in this regard.
In theology, especially the discussion
of the plurality of religions, the way in which this affects the
Christian truth claim has put the question of theological truth
on the agenda. Whereas in the theological strategies of exclusivism
and inclusivism Christianity is universalised (Christian faith
is the one and only truth), theological pluralism particularises
Christianity (Christian faith is (only) one perspective on or
part of a greater truth). In this debate the radical hermeneutical
approach of a Christian open narrative would criticise the epistemological
observer’s position which is claimed by all three theological
strategies and advocate for a reflective participant’s perspective.
This would result in a kind of “different inclusivism” which is
conscious of the particularity of the Christian faith and brings
it into the discussion, not in order to relativize its own position
but rather to determine it in the plural inter-religious world.
At the same time, this participant’s perspective does qualify
the truth claims of one’s own position, and makes room for the
challenge of other truth claims, although they necessarily will
be perceived from one’s own perspective. For Christians, the mystery
of Christ constitutes then the perspective from which they speak
about religious salvation and truth, because they live in and
from this truth. Just as the universal salvific will of God, which
is revealed to them in Christ, provides the Christian point of
cross-reference that inspires them to seek traces of goodness
and truth in other religions.
JPS: On what projects/topics
are you currently working?
LB: I would like to edit two monographs
in the coming years. The first would be on the discussion with
philosophical critical consciousness which lead to the concept
of the open narrative, and the recontextualisation of theology
into a theology of the open narrative, or, in other words, a theology
of interruption (working title: Naming God in Open Narratives). Secondly, I am working on a volume
(for now in Dutch, later to be translated in English) on theological
method, which tries to overcome the anti-modern and modern theological
divide, in between the presumption of continuity between Christian
faith and contemporary context of a lot of modern theology, and
the presumption of discontinuity, guiding many anti-modern theologies
(working title: God Interrupts History).
At the same time I am collaborating in our
Leuven mega-project on “Orthodoxy: Process and Product”, which
engages a church-historical
and systematical-theological study of the determination of truth in church
and theology (http://www.theo.kuleuven.be/goa/).
And
when I would find some more time, I would like to go deeper into
the discussion of the “radical theological hermeneutics” I proposed.
