Risking Proclamation, Respecting Difference. Chris Boesel
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demonstrate more fully in what is to come, the discourse of modernity has been forged upon the assumption that Abraham—and Abrahamic faith—is the religio-cultural paradigm of what is taken to be interpretive imperialism as such, but what I am calling the interpretive imperialism of the sectarian-particular in order to distinguish it from what I hope to show are other extant forms. The Abrahamic paradigm: God’s relation to all the nations (the universal) is understood in and through the unique election of the particular person, tribe, and tradition of Abraham.
The Universal-Elsewhere
I use this term to characterize certain contemporary attempts to remedy the interpretive imperialism of traditional Christian faith (perceived as the sectarian-particular). With a little help from certain postmodern philosophical analyses of modern discourse, I argue that these remedies can themselves be shown to constitute a form of interpretive imperialism. Universal, because of how they attempt to correct what is understood to be the sectarian-particular’s mistaken, over-reaching identification of the particular with the universal. The corrective move reverses, so to speak, the relation between the particular and the universal; the particular is approached from and properly understood through and within the context of the universal. In other words, the distinctive reality and identity of a particular community is properly understood—that is, it properly understands itself, as well as its neighbors—from and through the perspective of the universal and/or the whole. Elsewhere, because, as universal, the proper ground of a particular community’s understanding of itself, and its neighbors, in their particularity, is located elsewhere than that particularity itself; it is rooted in soil distinguishable from, and so elsewhere in relation to, those indigenous resources constituting the distinctive reality and identity of a community’s particularity in its difference from the distinctive particularity of other communities. The remedies of the sectarian-particular’s violent confusion of the particular with the universal are understood to be remedies precisely to the extent that they are rooted in the universal rather than (and so elsewhere than) the particular. And, I will argue, it is precisely as located elsewhere than the particular that, ironically, this remedy constitutes an interpretive-imperialism of its own. It ultimately constitutes a relation to the particularity of the neighbor “through a lens” that is external to the indigenous resources of the neighbor’s own concrete reality and identity. What is more, the interpretive imperialism of the universal-elsewhere can be shown to be a higher, more subtle and rarified form of the sectarian-particular that it attempts to remedy: the perspective of the universal always turns out to belong to someone in particular.
The Particular-Elsewhere
One of the chief burdens of my overall argument is simply to mark out the possibility of this form of interpretive imperialism, especially in distinction from the sectarian-particular. For, as indicated by the employment of the specific word, “particular,” it is in many ways similar to, and is often mistaken for, the interpretive imperialism of the sectarian-particular. Particular, because, with regard to structure, it also relates to the universal through the particular. And with regard to content, the particular is understood to refer to the particular Jewish flesh of Abraham. As regards Christian faith, the particular-elsewhere refers to the interpretive imperialism whereby the Church understands and relates to the reality and identity of the Jewish neighbor, and all its neighbors, in and through the lens of its confession of faith in Jesus Christ as fulfillment of the divine promise to bless all nations through the flesh of Abraham. The interpretive imperialism of the particular-elsewhere, then, is simply the gospel news, believed and proclaimed by the Church: God has redeemed all the nations, indeed, the whole of the cosmos, in and through the particular, and particularly Jewish, reality and event that is Jesus Christ.
But how is this at all distinct from the sectarian-particular? The distinction rests upon the “elsewhere.” Elsewhere, because—or perhaps we should say, if, given the context of argument—elsewhere, if the particular reality to which this Gospel points is neither the Church and its indigenous religio-cultural (e.g., symbolic) resources as a particular human community, nor the indigenous resources of Jewish flesh as such, but the eternal, personal Word and decision of the free and living God. As the eternal, personal Word and decision of the free and living God, Jesus Christ belongs neither to the Church nor to Jewish flesh, but they to he. As the living Word of God, Jesus Christ stands freely over against both, as the source and ground of their true meaning and reality, as he does in relation to all creaturely reality, that is, in relation to all the creaturely neighbors of both the Church and the children of Abraham. The interpretive imperialism of the particular-elsewhere (i.e., the Gospel of Jesus Christ) is distinguishable from that of the sectarian-particular, then, in as much as the Church’s understanding of and relation to the Jewish neighbor—and all neighbors, in and through its faith in and proclamation of Jesus Christ—can never be reducible to an imposition of the Church’s own indigenous reality upon another. For, its faith and proclamation, when properly understood and inhabited, can only point away from itself to a free and living reality of divine Word and decision. Under the judgment of this Word and decision, the Church can only stand alongside the Jewish neighbor, and all neighbors, in radical dependence upon divine grace and mercy, that is, in the hope of the promise made to Abraham; again, if that promise was made and fulfilled; if that divine Word was spoken and lives as free, personal Reality. The particular-elsewhere of the gospel news is indeed a form of interpretive imperialism—i.e., the particular reality of Jesus Christ is proclaimed to be the ground and source of all creaturely, that is, the Church’s and its neighbors’ (Jewish and Greek, human and non-human), reality and meaning. However, as strictly determined by the particular-elsewhere to which it points, it is a form of interpretive imperialism bearing concrete characteristics clearly distinguishable from the kind of nexus of knowledge and power that virtually (and often materially) obliterates the neighbor.
The Bottom Line
Theologically (and, finally), what distinguishes the particular-elsewhere from the sectarian-particular is the if, or perhaps in this phrasing, the whether—whether God has in Jesus Christ freely involved Herself (and does and will involve Herself) in the particularity of the flesh of Abraham for the redemption of all the nations. If She has, the distinction is possible; if not, it is not. And this “whether,” of course, as an issue of free divine activity, cannot be demonstrated, proved or produced by the thoroughly human activity (with regard to its own possibility) of the Church’s knowing and speaking. And this (ultimately theological) radical limit of utter dependence upon free divine activity is precisely what constitutes the ethical distinction of the particular-elsewhere from the sectarian-particular. Because of this utter dependence, the Church, if faithful (admittedly, a huge qualification), can never understand itself to possess so as to impose that reality to which it can only bear witness in its life and confession amidst its neighbors; it can only inhabit an interpretive imperialism “without weapons.”25 This is the theological logic of an ad hoc apologetic: faith seeking the ethical; or better, perhaps, faith seeking the neighbor.26
Barth and Ruether: Problem as Remedy, Remedy as Problem
My critical analysis of the problem of Christian faith’s endangerment of the Jewish neighbor proceeds by way of two theological exemplars. I read Karl Barth as a contemporary representative of the problem—a theological understanding of Christian faith constituting an interpretive imperialism in relation to the Jewish neighbor resonant with traditional supersessionism and anti-Judaism. I read Ruether as a representative of contemporary remedies of the problem—attempting to make Christian faith safe for the Jewish neighbor by leaving room for Jewish self-understanding and self-definition.
I use Barth for several reasons. First, he does indeed represent the problem.27 His robust affirmation of the Good News of Jesus Christ for all the world inescapably and unapologetically constitutes interpretive imperialism in relation to the Jewish neighbor. As such, Barth is a likely candidate for what contemporary remedies of Christian faith take to be the interpretive (and material) violence of the sectarian-particular. Second, his theological acuity allows a clear assessment of the precise theological grounds and stakes of this interpretive imperialism and the doctrinal