2-14
Happy Valentines Day!
Just came from chapel, where I heard Tony Campolo for the second day in a row. We joked about the fact that he is a modern day prophet this morning my scriptures 2 class. Last night he was bold enough to say that you can’t be a New Testament Christian and own a B.M.W. The remark was followed up with some explanation. He said that you can’t spend $80 grand on a car when you can go to the local used guy and buy one for $8-9 grand. I suppose that puts me a in bit of a predicament. He also notes that as evangelicals we should care about environment. Suppose now that I heed the second call as well as the first. Is it ethical for me to spend $38 grand…say on a Toyota Highlander hybrid.
I really do consider Campolo a modern Walter Rauschenbusch, with one important caveat. He has an objective view of Christ and his efficacious act on the cross, which empowers his view of the Kingdom of God. I think this is where Rauschenbusch, Ritschl, and Von Harnack… and well …most of protestant liberal Christology fails. Campolo did an eloquent job (I wonder if you can really call anything he does eloquent) of offering Fukuyama’s neo-Hegelian hypothesis as a contrapuntal. If capitalistic democracy really is the greatest thing ever, then ouch!!!
But then there is this thing. There is this parousia. There is this moment when creation will all say an existential “yes” in harmony. The season of hanging in Elie Wiesel’s gallows is over. The song of song text 2:10-12, will finally be embodied
“ 10"My beloved responded and said to me,
Arise, my darling, my beautiful one,
And come along.
11'For behold, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone.
12'The flowers have already appeared in the land;
The time has arrived for pruning the vines,
And the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land
Gee I sure hope that this is the best and last idea.
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You forgot to mention Schleiermacher, who's without a doubt one of the most important figures in the field of Christology. He is generally regarded as the father of modern liberal Christology and even Karl Barth, one of his most severe critics admitted that "The first place in a history of the theology of modern times belongs and will always belong to Schleiermacher, and he has no rival." He does fall somewhat short of the mark, so to speak when it comes to explaining how Jesus managed to achieve perfect God-consciousness, but I very much doubt that anyone else could explain perfectly how one goes about becoming divine. To his credit he did take on the difficult of tasks and I find his explanations to be interesting and in general satisfying although I am sure that his theory's will be subject to constant criticism, scrutiny and hopefully revision to make them more complete.
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