Contribution and Reduction of Narrative Theology to Biblical Hermeneutics in the Postmodern Era

This research examines narrative theology, which began to develop in the 1970s in the United States, and is now widely practiced in theological discourses, including in Indonesia. This theology, sometimes called postliberal theology, uses the postmodern interpretation paradigm, which seeks the meaning “in front of” the text (readers-oriented). The intended readers are the community, who have the same language, culture, and traditions. It turns out that narrative theology, which initially served as a theological reflection on Christianity’s claims to the biblical texts, has shifted into a hermeneutical lens in reading the biblical texts. Using analytical studies of library research and systematic review, the author discusses the contours of narrative theology starting from the thoughts of its pioneers (such as Hans W. Frei, George A. Lindbeck, Stanley Hauerwas, and Sally McFague), describing its characteristics, and evaluating them. The analysis results are presented in two points. The first is an appreciation of the contributions of narrative theology, i.e., simple-practical, confessional-dogmatic, relational, and inductive. The second is an evaluation of some reductive aspects of narrative theology, i.e., postmodern hermeneutics; a disregard of historicity and genre diversity; traditional-dogmatic fideism; sectarianism; and pragmatism.

Is New Testament Theology Still Having an Identity Crisis? A Review of Five Recent Contributions

This article reviews five recent contributions to the field of New Testament theology. More accurately, three NT theologies will be examined alongside two biblical theologies, given that some regard NT theology as inherently deficient apart from OT theology. These five works are notable not only for their diversity of methodology but also their diversity of cultural perspective—one book by a Finn (Timo Eskola’s A Narrative Theology of the New Testament), one by two Germans (Reinhard Feldmeier’s and Hermann Spieckermann’s God of the Living: A Biblical Theology), one by a Canadian (Thomas R. Hatina’s New Testament Theology and its Quest for Relevance: Ancient Texts and Modern Readers), one by an American (Craig L. Blomberg’s A New Testament Theology), and one by a native Briton (John Goldingay’s Biblical Theology). Along the way, this review article will consider how these works navigate the tricky and contested terrain of NT (or biblical) theology, particularly vis-à-vis matters of history, canon, synthesis and diversity, and contemporary relevance.

Loop, Hook, Pull

As a disabled person, Psalm 139:13–14 has long presented as theologically problematic for me. How could “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well” fall as praise from my lips when as young as six years old I realized I was differently abled; and that with all of the shameful, negative connotations assumed with being so. The theological narrative about disability centered on sins of the mother, shame of the family, pity of the public, and sympathetically low expectations for achieving, excelling, and fitting into mainstream ableism. This article weaves biographical vignettes and theological reflections to develop a liberation hermeneutic for creating a narrative theology of disability in the church; challenges commonly held perceptions about disabled personhood; examines familiar efforts to enhance the worship experience for disabled persons; admonishes practices which inconvenience or otherwise undermine a disabled parishioner; and examines the efficacy of ministry accommodations to equip disabled persons to worship, serve, and lead in the church.

Narrating Black Theology

Employing the theology of James Cone as a representative of black liberation theology, this chapter analyzes the narrative basis of his ecclesiology as a vision of the church untethered from whiteness. The analysis demonstrates the ways Cone’s ecclesiology contrasts and refines Hauerwas’s. It attends specifically to the ways his narrative theology offers more promising resources for rightly telling the story of white Christianity and offering better witness to our whiteness. This chapter identifies the three conceptual elements of an ethic of responsibility in his thought—memory, particularity, and concreteness. Then, drawing on womanist engagement with his work, argues that Cone offers the concept of “narrative blackness” that invites white theologians and Christians to a form of conversion he calls “becoming black.”

The Gospel of Jesus Christ as a Story to Be Told: The “Narrative” Theologies of Eberhard Jüngel and Hans Frei

This article explores how Eberhard Jüngel and Hans Frei employ the category of “narrative” in Christian theology. Although Jüngel and Frei receive inspiration from different quarters, they end up drawing some similar conclusions. At the same time, their approaches to narrative theology reveal deep and striking differences between their programs for theology. My comments focus on the problem of language’s referential character, that is, the capacity of words and discourses to signify external objects and states of affairs. As I demonstrate, both Jüngel and Frei seize upon the “problem” (as they both deem it) of the structure of referential language. And yet, how Jüngel and Frei frame this issue and what they do in order to resolve it are conspicuously different in the arguments they unfurl. This difference, I show, folds back upon their distinct agendas for recovering narrative in theological discourse.