[This series of essays seeks to define Progressive Theology and offer a critique of it.]
Progressive Theology, Ethic of Diversity, and Revelation 7.9
Rudolf Bultmann famously asserted
that ‘‘Every assertion about man is simultaneously an assertion about God and vice
versa.’[1] His actual understanding of this necessary
relationship emphasized the anthropological far more than the theological,
since his concern to demythologize Scripture leaned heavily into a scientific
rather than theological understanding, and his existentialism meant that
theology was meant to answer the question of human existence. While Bultmann’s anthropocentric
existentialism focussed more on the individual in light of the human condition,
Progressive Theology, also anthropocentric, is focussed more on the social
condition in light of power dynamics.
The language often used for this is ‘social justice’, which is
understood in reference to group identities and their relationships.
One trajectory for Progressive
Theology’s anthropocentrism entails a neglect of the Church as a theological
entity. It is conceived of as a
community that serves human need. The
ontological notion of the Church as the ‘body of Christ’, as growing into a
holy temple of the Lord indwelt by the Holy Spirit, as defined by Christ the
foundation stone and the apostles and prophets as the foundation, as passing on
the faith once for all delivered to the saints, as fulfilling the mission of
proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and as made up of individuals gifted by
the Spirit for the health and growth of the body is translated into communal
categories. Unity in Christ is
understood as fellowship across various human divisions. Rather than understanding that these human
divisions are irrelevant to being baptized into Christ, they are celebrated
as marks of unity. Consequently,
Christ is not the unity; unity is rather understood as multiethnic diversity
and gender equality. Moreover, diversity
is made the value in itself, rather than the result of valuing the Church’s
mission to all nations. Diversity—a condition
of humanity—is turned into a value that understands multiethnic
churches to be the primary goal of Christian community.[2] The result of this is that other defining
characteristics, such as holiness and truth, are made less significant (if not
ignored altogether). Diversity is also
treated as a virtue: we are considered better because we are ethnically diverse
rather than fully matured through Christ our head. Thus, the urban, large, multiethnic church is
considered to be better than the rural, small, village church. A rural community that has a simple
identity—monocultural, religious, traditional—is regarded as backward,
deprived, uneducated, boring, and so forth.
An urban, cosmopolitan community is regarded as preferable. Those advocating for diversity as a value run
into the problem of disvaluing such communities. In the area of theology, orthodoxy stands out
negatively as a monocultural product that, politically, is also regarded as an
exclusionary hegemony. Where diversity
is valued, alternative interpretations, convictions, ethics, and practices are
valued over against orthodoxy. Instead
of the diversity of Spirit-giftedness, the diversity of human categories
is celebrated.
Another trajectory for
Progressive Theology’s anthropocentrism is to prioritize ethics over theology
and to understand ethics as primarily social justice. This social justice is defined by
culture. Scripture is, of course,
engaged: it has much to say about justice.
Yet the understanding of justice comes first from the culture, and
Biblical texts are coopted for the foreign ideology. Social justice is understood by the same
values of society at large—in terms of tolerance, diversity, multiethnicity,
and equality. A Biblical understanding
can be given to each of these values, but the Biblical understanding is not the same
as the understanding of society at large. However,
Progressive Theology does not recognize this; it rather begins with what
society says about social justice and merely uses verses in Scripture strung
together to support the cultural ethic.
Particularly absent in such an ethic are doctrines that point to
understanding humanity in more universal ways than in terms of their group
identities. An identity politics replaces
teaching on creation in the image of God, universal sin, salvation through the
cross, and identity in Christ.
Progressive Theology also derives
its analytical method from the culture.
If Liberation Theology found Karl Marx and Marxism as the best way to
challenge the inequalities in South America between the wealthy landowners and
the poor peasants, Progressive Theology continues on this trajectory by
adopting Critical Race Theory to address issues of diversity and multiethnicity
today. Not aware of how racist it is, it
thinks it is attacking racism by adopting language such as ‘white church’ and
‘whiteness’. It adopts racial identity
in order to oppose racism and ends up as a highly charged, emotional
racism.
To understand this, note three types
of passages about identity in Paul: (1) Paul’s own identity; (2) believers’
identity; and (3) Paul’s ministry to ethnic groups. In each case, Paul redirects attention on
ethnicity to identity in Christ. First,
Paul’s identity is in knowing Christ Jesus rather than his identity as a Jew, in
righteousness through faith in Christ rather than as a Hebrew-speaking Jew, and
in sharing in Christ’s suffering and experiencing His resurrection power rather
than his following the law and zealousness as a Pharisee. His identity in Christ makes all other
categories irrelevant, and to relate to others out of those categories would
undermine Christ. He says,
Phil. 3:3 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—4 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
A faulty understanding of a minister’s identity is when the person’s ethnic identity is a basis for appointing a person to ministry. ‘Appointing’ is also a replacement for a theology of ‘calling’. Another faulty understanding of identity is when books for courses are chosen for the ethnic or gender identity of the author rather than the importance of the work for discipleship. When people are advanced in ministry positions primarily for their education, popularity, looks, and so forth, instead of their obedience to Christ, their love of God, their commitment to the Church, their faithfulness to orthodoxy, etc., then a human approach to ministry is made to undermine the purposes of God. An example of this error was in the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s insistence on quotas for women as elders. This is the equivalent of an economy that focuses on equal outcomes rather than equal opportunity. However, God’s concern is not some version of social justice in equality but in righteousness and obedience.
Second, Paul encourages believers to adopt his perspective of identity in Christ. He does not celebrate the diversity of ethnicities in the Church but makes these differences irrelevant. Once again, the new identity everyone gains in Christ makes human categories inconsequential. Paul is not celebrating multiculturalism but singular identity in Christ:
Gal. 3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
Col. 3:9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
1Cor. 12:13 For in one Spirit we
were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were
made to drink of one Spirit.
A faulty approach to communal
identity has already been described in some detail above.
Third, Paul makes ethnic
difference a matter of indifference in his ministry. He can relate differently to Jews and
Gentiles precisely because their differences in regard to culture are
inconsequential. The reason is that all
that matters is the Gospel.
1Cor.
9:19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I
might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews.
To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself
under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the
law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under
the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I
became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people,
that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel,
that I may share with them in its blessings.
A faulty approach in ministry is to teach that a culture’s identity adds value to a multicultural Church. This leads to syncretism rather than transformation of cultures under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Idolatry is at times the result. Every culture is subject to the Fall and needs transformation. The body of Christ is not a collection of cultures but a transformation of cultures into the culture of the Church. Where cultural differences may continue (as we see in Romans 14-15), they are matters of indifference. The celebration of multiculturalism presents a serious danger to the Church. The postmodern value of diversity is strikingly naïve about human nature, sin, and evil. Not everything is depraved about a culture, but every culture is to some extent depraved. Some cultures are more depraved than others (think human sacrifice, oppression of women, and slavery, e.g.). What Paul is concerned about is the Gospel and the blessings that derive from accepting God’s salvation in Christ.
Also, by valuing diversity,
culture is considered static. For
example, a multicultural immigration policy or a preference for multicultural
churches that sees the benefit of this diversity in an ethic of difference
is short-lived. The second generation of
immigrants, for example, often adopt the new culture as they are formed in
schools, clubs, by television and the internet, etc. Even homogeneous cultures can change,
especially in the world today. The value
of cultural difference is fleeting as communities are culture-producing and
ever changing.
Diversity tends to run counter to
other virtues, such as capability (natural capacities, e.g., physical strength,
health, intelligence), expertise (training), diligence (character), faithfulness
(communal identity), and individuality. Regarding
individuality, diversity emphasizes seeing individuals in light of their group
identity and the group identity that they bring to any other group. Ironically, advocates of diversity and
multiculturalism are often motivated by an anti-racial ethic that ends up as racist
itself precisely because individuals are identified in terms of their race. (Racism is seeing and treating individuals in
light of their racial identity.)
Example: Revelation 7.9 Read
as a Text Advocating Diversity
In light of the culture’s recent acceptance
of diversity and multiculturalism as values and virtues, Progressive
Theologians began appropriating Biblical texts for this purpose. One such text is Revelation 7.9, which says,
After this I
looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every
nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne
and before the Lamb…
The passage is seen as a great
statement of multicultural diversity in God’s plan for the Church and in
missions. To be sure, the Church is
multicultural. There is great diversity
within it—sometimes good, sometimes bad, and sometimes indifferent. However, it becomes a proof-text for the
culture’s agenda in Soong-Chan Rah’s advocacy of a multicultural church and a
text by which to upbraid ‘whitism’—European/American white culture.[3] He says,
The imagery of Revelation 7 points
to a gathering of all believers, across all races, ethnicities and
cultures. The call for those who are outside of Western culture is
to lift up the message of the gospel through the unique expression of the image
of God and the cultural mandate found in each culture.[4]
All this fits with Progressive
Theology’s use of Critical Race Theory to classify and castigate the perceived
white hegemony of power. The antidote to
this is, for Rah, multiculturalism.
Effectively, he turns the diversity of multiculturalism into a primary
value—even a virtue that will help the Church to do what it is supposed to do
well. He further sees the ‘white church’
as a hegemony of power and generational wickedness that must be opposed. In so doing, he makes multicultural diversity
become equal with looking at individuals in terms of their racial identity—a
definition of racism—and turns an opposition to ‘whitism’ into a virtue—instead
of the vice that it is with its anti-white agenda. This reaches a new level of racism with
Willie James Jennings’ lumping whites into a single white culture and then
attacking it (despite attempts at qualifying this as about culture rather than
people).[5] The irony of attacking racism with such
racism seems lost on such authors.
If one looks at translations of
Revelation 7.9, one can observe some rather surprising things. First, while the passage poses no translation
difficulties, it is rendered various ways.
The Latin Vulgate has what the Greek has—no different readings arose
through translation in much of the history of the Church. The English Standard Version translation,
above, is a fine rendering of the Greek.
Yet the King James Version that the plural, ‘nations’, is used instead
of the singular of the Greek. The New
International Version makes each of the nouns singular: ‘every nation, tribe,
people, and language.’ Martin Luther,
oddly, translated ‘nation’ with ‘Heiden’—‘heathen’—and he only has three
nouns. The New Jerusalem Bible and Good
News Bible, like the NIV, also have the nouns in the singular, and they
introduce the word ‘race’. There is
considerable overlap or confusion in English between the words ‘ethnicity’ and
‘race’. The former tends to refer more
to culture and the latter more to colour.
The New Jerusalem Bible swaps ‘race’ with ‘tribe,’ and the Good News
Bible swaps ‘race’ with ‘nation’. As we
move from such loose translations to a loose paraphrase like The Message,
we find ‘races’ used for ‘peoples’. All
these changes are rather remarkable when the text is perfectly understandable
with a more literal translation. What is
particularly interesting is the use of the word ‘race’ in the more recent
translations and in The Message.
Apparently, the word ‘race’ gets introduced because of the focus on race
since the 1960s. Any reader today would
think, from reading such renderings of Revelation 7.9, that race in the sense
of colour is in view.
As we turn from translations to
commentaries, we do not find a view like Soong-Chan Rah’s. Commentators simply do not focus on diversity
and multiculturalism, for good reason.
Yet different emphases are offered.
Is the text about size, universality, or, with the earlier part of the
chapter, the inclusion of Jews and Gentiles?
Are there other points as well? Brian
Blount, for example, says that the point of Revelation 7.9 is the large size of
the crowd: ‘the numbers are titanic’.[6] Second, he notes that the four nouns point
out the ‘vast crowd’s universal nature’ (the four corners of the world).[7] We might note that the four-fold phrase of
‘nation, tribes, peoples, and languages’ in Revelation 7.9 appears a total of
seven times (also in 5.9; 10.11; 11.9; 13.7; 14.6; and 17.15). Third, the passage is stating that the crowd
is made of both Jews and Gentiles.[8] Fourth, Blount notes that the passage,
including v. 10, has to do with spiritual and political salvation and
judgement, which often go together (cf. Revelation 6.1-8, 12, 17; 7.1-3; 12.10;
19.1-2). Since Revelation is written in
regard to Rome’s wickedness, ‘the attribution of salvation to God and the Lamb’
is ‘as political as it is spiritual.’
Rome claims to offer salvation but cannot deliver. He avers:
Though it is a
vision about the end time, it maintains an ethical message commending
politically active, nonaccommodating behavior in the present moment of the
churches of Asia Minor.[9]
This political understanding of
the text is surely warranted, given so much in the book of Revelation from
beginning to end is about standing firm in the face of persecution and God’s
impending judgement on the Roman Empire (e.g., chapter 18). Despite this rather extensive understanding
of the passage, Blount does not take a further step of trying to find a message
of diversity in the text.
In addition, the text’s relation
to the Old Testament needs to be considered. Greg Beale finds here a
fulfillment of the Abrahamic promises of Israel (cf. Gen. 17.5; 32.12; 16.10).[10] Craig Koester considers
the meaning of the 144,000. He rejects
the idea that these are Jews or martyrs.
Instead, ‘they are the heirs of the promises to Israel (7.4-8) and a
group of people from many nations (7.9-17).[11] Thus, the passage has to do with ‘the broad
scope of God’s purposes for redemption.’[12] Ian Paul says that the great multitude that
no one could count brings Genesis 13.16; 15.5; and 17.4 to mind.[13]
What these commentators do not clearly
point out is the connection between the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis
11, the promises to Abraham, the inclusion of the Gentiles into Israel, and
this fulfillment in Revelation. Sigve K.
Tonstad, however, suggests that the Jews of v. 8 and the countless number of
people in v. 9 are a fulfillment of Isaiah 49.6, where the gathering of the
Jews extends to the nations, in further fulfillment of the promise made to
Abraham (Genesis 12.3).[14] The story of Babel begins with all the earth
having one language and voice. Their
striving for greatness leads God to confuse their language into many languages
and to disperse them over the face of the earth (v. 9). The story of Abraham begins the salvation
history that will bring the nations back together: in Abraham and the people
that come from him—Israel—‘all the families of the earth shall be blessed’
(Genesis 12.3). Many texts in the Old
Testament, particularly in Isaiah, view the nations being included in Israel or
streaming to Zion. Isaiah 2.2-4, for
example, speaks of many peoples coming to the mountain of the Lord to be taught
God’s ways. Revelation 7.9 is the
fulfillment: now the nations are included with the 144,000 (the fulness of
Israel). The families of the earth are
blessed in Israel. The dispersion of the
peoples of the earth is reversed.
Thus, the point of Revelation 7.9
is not about diversity but unity.
Diversity is the point of Genesis 11.
It is negative, not positive. Revelation
envisions a reversal of Genesis 11. It is about unity, and it is
specifically unity in Christ. The
great multitude of people from the four corners of the earth are brought
together before the throne of God and the Lamb and are given a white robe and
palm branches, signifying peace. They
are those who come out of the great tribulation, and their robes are washed
white in the blood of the Lamb. The
vision is of peace and unity through the blood of Christ, which removes the
stain of sin. It is not a celebration of
human culture, ethnicity, diversity and the like. It is not the peoples’ multiculturalism but
their being given white robes that have been washed in the blood of the Lamb
that is celebrated.
In the early Church, diversity
was the condition of the Roman Empire.
Slaves were typically foreign peoples, and so a Christian house church
would have been multiethnic as a matter of fact: Jews, Greeks, Romans, Scythian
slaves, and so forth. The early
Christians did not have an agenda of diversity in their churches. Rather, given diversity, the focus was on
unity—particularly between Jews and Gentiles taken as a group. This unity was made possible through Christ
(cf. Ephesians 2.11-17). What the New
Testament opposes is exclusion of any who profess Christ, given this unity in
Christ. Moreover, its vision of the
mission of the Church is to go to all peoples to make disciples of them by
baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and teaching
them to obey all Christ’s commandments (Matthew 28.18-20). Thus, the Church’s unity and mission are the
focus of the New Testament. Church,
mission, Christ, not ethnicity, culture, and diversity, are the focus. The theology of the New Testament
cannot be replaced with the anthropocentric vision of contemporary
culture. The theology of the Scriptures,
however, is the answer to the misdirected longings of the culture.
[1]
Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (London, 1956) l. 191.
[2] Cf. Kenneth Matthews and M. Sydney
Park, The Post-Racial Church: A Biblical Framework for Multiethnic
Reconciliation (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Pub., 2011).
[3]
Soong-Chan Rah, The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western
Cultural Captivity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009).
[4]
Ibid., p. 134.
[5] Willie James Jennings, ‘Can White
People be Saved? Reflections on the Relationship of Missions and
Whiteness,’ in Can ‘White’ People be Saved? Triangulating
Race, Theology, and Mission, ed. Love L. Sechrest, Johnny RamÃrez-Johnson,
and Amos Yong (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Academic, 2018). Willie James Jennings, After
Whiteness: An Education in Belonging (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
2020).
[6]
Brian Blount, Revelation: A Commentary (Presbyterian Publishing, 2013),
p. 150. So also Eugene Boring, Revelation
(Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching;
Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1989).
Oecumenius, writing about 990, saw the verse to be about countless
thousands of Gentiles (Commentary on the Apocalypse 7:9-17).
[7] So also Leon Morris, Revelation
(Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 2009), p. 115. He also emphasizes the inclusion of both Jews
and Gentiles.
[8] Primasius, bishop of Hadrumentum and
the primate of Byzacena in north Africa (d. about 560), echoing Ephesians
2.11ff, saw the verse to be about the unity of Jews and Gentiles (CCL 02:126). Caesarius of Arles in Merovingian Gaul (d. 542), understood the verse to
refer to engrafting of all nations (cf. Romans 11.) into the root: the whole
Church is made of Jews and Gentiles (PL 35:2427). Bede (d. 735) of Northumbria noted the fact that v. 8 pictures the naming
of the tribes of Israel and v. 9 the ‘salvation of the nations’ (CCL 121A:323). (See ancient authors in William C. Weinrich,
ed., Revelation (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture; Downers
Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2005)). Gordon
D. Fee, Revelation: A New Covenant Commentary (Cambridge, UK: Lutterword
Press, 2011, 2013) says that the point is the complete number of God’s people
and that this contains not just Israel but all peoples (p. 111). James L. Resseguie, The Revelation of
John: A Narrative Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009): the
‘Israel of God includes all who follow the Lamb, both Jews and Gentiles (ad
loc.). John Christopher Thomas, Revelation
(Two Horizons New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
2016). ‘…the sealing of the 144,000
precedes the innumerable crowd, the implicit implication being that a necessary
connection exists between the mission of the 144,00 from the transformed Israel
and the universal, eschatological people of God present in 7:9’ (ad loc.). Also, Thomas says that the text moves from a
nationalistic (144,000) group to an ‘inclusive and universalistic crowd’ and
has an ‘innumerable crowd’ in view.
[9]
Blount, p. 152.
[10]
Greg Beale with David H. Campbell, Revelation: A Shorter Commentary (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015) ad loc.
[11]
Craig R. Koester, Revelation: A New Translation with Introduction and
Commentary, Vol. 38A (New Haven, CT: Anchor Yale Bible, 2014), p. 427.
[12]
Ibid., p. 428.
[13]
Ian Paul, Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale New
Testament Commentaries, Vol. 20; Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic,
2018), p. 161.
[14]
Sigve K. Tonstad, Revelation (Paidea Commentaries on the New
Testament; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2019), p. 176.
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