D.D.K.K.
Becoming the Great Us, Featured — By David Zimmerman on September 7, 2010 at 8:00 amIt happens to all of us, I suppose. It’s a tragedy when it doesn’t. We age and age and age to the point where we are known as old. “Old” is not necessarily bad, O ye of few years; but “old” is limiting—and not merely in the physical sense. The older we get the less mobile we are, sure, but also, the older we get, the less imagination the people around us apply to us.
Such is the case with theologian Donald Bloesch, who died recently after a storied career at Dubuque Theological Seminary. I had the occasional pleasure of talking to Dr. Bloesch on the phone; my employer published his highly regarded systematic theology along with some other standalone books, and when there was a misplaced modifier or errant comma to be contended with, I was often Dr. Bloesch’s go-to guy. I pictured Bloesch as this delightfully delicate old man, whose refusal to use a computer was as endearing as it was annoying. I would page through his books making note of whatever errors had caught his attention this time around and promise to see them corrected. Then I’d hang up the phone and laugh to myself at the quirkiness of the aged. I actually never read his books.
But now that he’s died, I feel a strange obligation to Dr. Bloesch, which has led me to start reading his stuff—beginning with what I believe is his second book ever: The Crisis of Piety, published by Eerdmans in 1968. Bloesch published this collection of essays when he was forty—which, full disclosure, is my age today. Insert “old guy” joke here. I take some encouragement, however, that the dust jacket for the book describes forty-year-old Bloesch as “a distinguished young theologian.” Stick that in your hookah and smoke it, Relevant Magazine.
Anyway, 1968 was a particularly important time to be writing about the crisis of piety. Vatican II was radically reorganizing the Catholic Church, and Protestants were arguing back and forth whether God was in fact dead. Meanwhile, the Civil Rights Movement had descended into violence alongside the assassination of Martin Luther King, and the Rolling Stones were singing gleefully that “the time is right for fighting in the streets, boy.” Not only piety but culture was in crisis, and the church had no clear consensus of what it was about.
Bloesch didn’t reinvent anything in 1968, but he did reassert quite a bit, and given our own contemporary crisis forty-two years later—loud voices on either side of a theological divide claiming the heresy and apostasy of the other, global front-burner challenges ranging from war to economics to a steady supply of natural disasters—the role of the church, as Bloesch saw it, could stand to be re-reasserted. The church offers a unique gift to the world—a window into the kingdom of heaven, a world rightly organized under God—but its attention is often diverted so that its priorities become skewed and its mission becomes diluted. The church, too often, offers the world what the church itself doesn’t have, or demands from the world what it doesn’t need, all the while failing to set forth what only it can offer. In The Crisis of Piety Bloesch saw that as four things: didache, diakonia, kerygma, koinonia.
None of those words is recognized by my spellchecker, which should, I suppose, reinforce the point: only the church has special insight into these four things, and only these four things, the church historically has asserted, offer true hope to the world.
Didache is the teaching of the Scriptures—not the dissection or slavish restatement of the “words of God” but the active, thoughtful wrestling with the Bible’s great story, and its ongoing significance given our contemporary situation.
Diakonia is the active acknowledgment that, as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and as the church is sent as the hands and feet of that same Son of Man, so is service to the real pressing needs of people essential to the life of the church.
Kerygma is the proclamation of a message—the message—entrusted by God to God’s people in the world: that there is a God over all whose kingdom is characterized by love unmatched in the world, and whose love will one day judge and save the world as we know it.
Koinonia is the real relationship of people one to another, undergirded and fueled by this love that takes over the world. Our experience of koinonia characterizes our exposure to the light of the world, and organizes us to bring that light to the world.
For Bloesch these four were the central task of the church. A whole host of details followed out of these four, but those are just details. I picture a wristband, for some reason, with these words serving as a reminder of our calling as the church: to the extent that we are engaging the Scriptures, serving those among us and fallen through the cracks who need help, confessing clearly and consistently the primacy of God and the reality of God’s love, and committing ourselves to one another as a storehouse of this overflowing love—to that extent we’re becoming the great us that God has in mind for the present crisis.
5 Comments
David, Thank you for this. I am eager to read some of Bloesch myself. He is a familiar name, but I, too, have neglected to read what seems to be some crucial material for us gen-x and millenial Christians.
Bloesch has been a helpful guide to me. This line is spot-on: “Bloesch didn’t reinvent anything in 1968, but he did reassert quite a bit.” Bloesch, the man of the third way (before the third way was cool), was able to synthesize and recast in accessible and God-directed way. I’ve always appreciated him, even if not always agreeing.
I’m taking a course on Barth right now, and it’s turning me back to Bloesch (who loved him some Barth).
There’s a question I’d always hoped to ask Bloesch, but now will have to wait a while. Do you think you could get an answer from an editor – why did Bloesch never (so far as I’ve found) give a sustained treatment of the Resurrection with his Foundations? That seems odd, given his orthodox, gospel orientation – and even odd given that Resurrection was so central to Barth who Bloesch was often re-interpreting. I’m shocked each time I open Jesus Christ: Savior and Lord and don’t find a central interaction with Jesus’ Resurrection. Can you pull some strings and get an answer?
Pulling strings as we speak . . .
Here’s a response to Winn’s question from Gary Deddo, who edited part of Bloesch’s systematic theology for InterVarsity Press:
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Of course Bloesch firmly believes and strongly affirms the bodily resurrection of Jesus. There is no question about that. The question is why is there relatively little exploration and explication of its meaning and significance? The key may be that for Bloesch the significance of the resurrection is the sheer fact of it. It happened. And in a way there’s not much more to say about the brute fact of it. That’s what needs to be affirmed and if it is, full justice is done to the reality and meaning of it. It happened to Jesus and so it will happen to us. The role of the event in this frame is primarily epistemological. The resurrection proves to us that Jesus is the Son of God. The effect of it is essentially noetic. Jesus resurrection is primarily a display of God’s vindication, a proof, evidence that Jesus is God’s Son. The fact is a proof. Many evangelical theologians approach the resurrection this way. It ties in well with an evangelical apologetic. The historical fact provides an epistemological foundation for faith.
Now for certain other theologians the brute facticity of Jesus Resurrection does not exhaust its meaning and significance. Examples of a different approach would be Thomas Torrance and Karl Barth. For them the Resurrection is an event that accomplishes something essential for our salvation. Jesus resurrection is seen to be a radical change in reality, a new channel of destiny for humanity is actually created in and by Jesus resurrection. Humanity has a new future that does not lead to death through the substitutionary resurrection of Jesus. So it’s not just his death that is substitutionary but his resurrected and ascended life. As the Apostle Paul puts it, we were raised up in and with Christ (see especially Colossians and Ephesians). The resurrection has ontological, not just epistemological implications.
Another way to put this is that in some contrast with Bloesch some theologians think the Resurrection is best and most deeply grasped when seen in connection with Christ’s incarnation. The one who took on our humanity was the one both crucified and raised. Both his incarnation and resurrection and ascension were vicarious, that is substitutionary—in our place and on our behalf. See Hebrews in this connection. There is then seen to be an ontological connection between Christ’s humanity and ours, so that his Resurrection is essential to his saving accomplishment for fallen humanity. We are raised up in him and through him.
For all the great benefit of Don’s writings, he did tend to play down the ontological aspects of Christology, perhaps fearing they were somewhat speculative or abstract from genuine Christian devotion and piety. Consequently there is also little discussion of the nature of the humanity Christ assumed, or the significance of the ascension. This low key approach to matters of the significance of the ontology of Christ also is evident in his explication of the doctrine of the Trinity.
Of course none of these are denied, but in comparison with some other theologians they are not deeply explored. The emphasis in Bloesch’s theology tends to lean towards the implications for Christian life in the Holy Spirit and not exploring the significance of the vicarious humanity of Christ. It seems he did not see as well as some others the radical implications of the continuing humanity and so substitutionary priesthood of Christ for us and our salvation.
This DDKK business sounds like a pretty solid model for the church. Sadly, like many in my generation I’ve spent so little time in churches not because I didn’t take my faith seriously but because from my perspective the church was not doing much of any of these things.
What should be added to this model is an emphasis on directly engaging God through worship and prayer. I find that when a church takes prayer seriously, many other things fall into place.