Either/Or: The Gospel or Neopaganism.

Sullivan, William J.

Edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995. Pp. 125. $9.99, paper.

According to Gordon Kaufman, Doing Theology has been organized so as to suggest that "a rather sharp contrast is to be made between what is called 'evangelical theology' and other approaches such as 'liberal theology'" (p. 347). The contrast is hardly surprising. It must be noted that that approach bypasses Lund in favor of Lausanne. This book includes six theologians writing of theology's helping disciplines, while five more write of contemporary Evangelical Protestant perspectives. Included are chapters on Lutheran, Reformed, Free Church, Wesleyan, Pentecostal, and Charismatic theological styles. Among other significant approaches, the editors included Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, feminist, liberation, liberal Christian, and neo-Orthodox theologies. Kantzer wrote the concluding chapter in this volume produced in his honor.

For almost the first 300 pages, this book is an easy, predictable, consistent read. Absent is the fire that caught the masses of earlier times in the debates of the ecumenical councils at which much Christian systematic theology was hammered out. The issues they have dismissed such as women's ordination and pluralism - to say nothing of the issues they have left unspoken such as gay rights - are more likely to stir and divide those who still care what Christianity teaches than the doctrines upon which they focused. In such a book you may write that "A woman functioning in the role of a pastor conflicts with the truth of the Gospel that the Son of the Father became incarnate in the man Jesus" (p. 214), but neither the pope nor a Concordia Theological Seminary professor may write such words without eliciting the sort of contradictions developed by Ruether and Costas in the second half of the book. Seventy years after Lausanne, Christians still announce the Word in doctrinal antitheses.

Two serious problems confront books of this sort. The systematic theology the authors value so highly is of little interest to most of their contemporaries, guaranteeing that their writings will be in-house documents that clarify what they believe for believers. However, even for that limited audience, a second problem exists: These doctrines were formulated in living languages for a church that cared so desperately about words that those using the wrong ones were exiled. Today, these formulae are repeated respectfully but in rote fashion by people who do not really understand them and, worse, do not even see why they should.

Either/Or agrees with that analysis and insists that the answer is a reassertion of systematic theology. Robert Wilken, quoting T. S. Eliot, would show "the necessity of Christian morality from the truth of Christianity." Like Eliot, he believes it is "dogma," not "enthusiasm," that "differentiates Christians from a pagan society." Maybe so, but the society in which I live has no burning curiosity about the beliefs of Christian churches. We Americans, as a nation, are more likely to be interested in what people do rather than what they may believe. Both books focus on "talking the talk," while society looks to see if people are "walking the walk."

That may be the ultimate curiosity of these two volumes. Clearly, they challenge all churches to get the words right, i.e., in accord with Sacred Scripture, their ultimate test of what is right and wrong. As Kantzer wrote, "If we attempt to add content not based on the Bible to our understanding of who God is and what he does, that attempt will only lead us to what is false or what is useless or both. It is what Calvin would have called empty speculation" (pp. 473-474).

The homo-ousios of Nicaea and the one person and two natures of Chalcedon fall within those guidelines. Nevertheless, it is the rare believer who understands why that word and those concepts were essential, even though in those times they answered a real need. Athanasius, relying on the homo-ousios, preached that God had become human so that humans might become God. Christians still repeat the English translation of that word in the creed but are more likely to be advised to become, in Arius's language, God-like. Repeating the words is like showing off one's antiques. They are beautiful and loaded with history, but only the initiated really understand what they mean. Surely, the Word was not and ought never be the secret code of a theological elite.

These volumes testify above all else to the futility of simply repeating the answers of the past, as well as Christianity's desperate need to deal seriously, intelligibly, and together with the real questions of today.

William J. Sullivan, St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY