Abstract
A review of volume 3, A Theology of Interreligious Relations, of Henning Wrogemann’s three-volume Intercultural Theology. This work is a textbook appropriate for courses in the theology of mission, religious pluralism, and interreligious dialogue. It focuses especially on the problems of interreligious relations, both peaceful and conflictual, from a Christian point of view.
In his 2019 “Preface to the English Edition” of the third volume of his trilogy, Intercultural Theology, Henning Wrogemann sounds an alarm. After announcing that the subject matter of this book is non-Christian religions, he describes a simple cause/effect chain: unprecedented global migration is effecting a dramatic increase in religious pluralization, which in turn is demanding that Christian churches and congregations come up with answers to what they usually perceive to be increased competition. And then the alarm: Our current theories and theologies of religion, he argues, are not offering credible answers to the questions being raised. This book, A Theology of Interreligious Relations, he says, offers an answer. 1 Our question in this review: Is it a credible answer?
Judging the merits of answers offered, so-called credible answers, to a knotty philosophical/theological question is difficult. As W. B. Yeats might have said, “Such understanding comes dropping slow.” Indeed, such answers are in no small measure judged based on whether the question being asked is the appropriate one. As Bernard Roth wryly observes in his book The Achievement Habit (HarperCollins 2015), “We often think we are dealing with a question when in fact we are dealing with an answer (a solution) that turns out not to be a good fit to our actual problem” (64). And where does a question that really does fit come from? From careful analysis of a problem, whether philosophical, social, cultural, or psychological. Sparkling analysis, of course, depends on clear observation of the conditions surrounding and producing a problem. Answers from questions. Questions from analysis. And analysis based on clear-headed observation and statements of problems. The search for credible answers requires thoughtful work on all four levels. In this book Wrogemann provides abundant information on each of the four steps of this course of thinking. Again we ask: To what extent does that work—this book—produce a credible answer?
We could, I suppose, offer a quick summary of Wrogemann’s work at each of the four stages. The problem, as he sees it, is global migration of people with distinctly different cultures and religions who are coming into contact with Christianized cultures and religions. This contact (his analysis says) produces cognitive clashes, emotional upheavals, and relational challenges. The most important (and understudied) of these effects are the relational challenges. Relational challenges can be helpfully researched using philosophy, social science, and the hard sciences, but in the end we need a theology of interreligious relations in order to provide a credible answer to the problem. And the credible answer—as much an attitude as an answer—is to become adept at coming to “conclusions based on the orientational knowledge” (446) intercultural theology provides—“conclusions,” by the way, that are provisional, dynamic, and context specific.
This summary, however, cannot come close to doing the job of understanding the scope of this work done by Henning Wrogemann, one of the world’s preeminent intercultural theologians. At each of the four levels—problem, analysis, question, answer—Wrogemann does much, much more than offer his preferred position. At the problem level, for example, he acknowledges that the problem of interreligious relations is complex, including, in addition to the presence of non-Christian religions, political, social, and cultural factors that create not just a single problem but many problems. In the past, Christians have dealt with the situation by focusing on one of those many problems—epistemological, hermeneutical, soteriological, theological, ethical, or sociopolitical. As we will see in a moment, all of the attempts come up short today, most often because of an overreliance on “purely rational interpretive approaches,” (21) and a tendency to oversimplify the problem by seeing it as purely a religious issue.
Similarly, once theologians of religion have decided which problem is the focal point, the keystone in the arch as it were, their analysis comes up short, again, often because of an elitist, scholarly approach that tends to minimize (or ignore altogether) the life experience of everyday Christians. After analyzing some of these approaches (by Hick, Knitter, von Bruck, Heim, Clooney, and Yong), Wrogemann then offers comparative summaries of some Islamic and Buddhist approaches to the problem of analysis.
On the positive side, Wrogemann’s analysis narrows the range of questions to be asked to those that wonder what the Christian traditions, especially in their understandings of the New Testament, have taught us regarding both the theory and the theology of interreligious relations. He advocates mining the humanities and social sciences for theoretical ore that will provide what he calls “orientational knowledge” useful to theologians in their work of articulating normative positions and attitudes to inform Christians everywhere.
At each level then—problem, analysis, question, answer—Wrogemann offers possibilities, makes judgments about missteps, tallies evidence favoring his approach, and summarizes what he thinks is left to be done. In the following four sections we will investigate in more detail each level of thinking. As Wrogemann says often in this trilogy, “We will proceed by way of example, not comprehensiveness.” There is too much at each level to even summarize here, but hopefully we can provide enough flavor to whet your appetite.
Part 1: What is the real problem?
Before hazarding an opinion on the credibility of Wrogemann’s answer to the issue of inadequate interreligious relations in the West, we must ask whether he has identified the core problem satisfactorily. As we have seen, Wrogemann early on (xvii) teases us with a single problem statement: unprecedented global migration is creating dramatic increases in religious pluralization, which in turn put pressure on Christian churches across the globe. And when we ask the logical follow-up question, Puts pressure on the churches to do what? Wrogemann answers, “To come up with tentative answers.” We then follow with the logical, Answers to what? That is, is the real problem theological (e.g., Who’s saved and who’s not?), or is it philosophical (e.g., Whose religion provides adherents the most meaning in life?), or is it social? As Rodney King plaintively wailed in the midst of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, “Why can’t we all just get along?”
Assuming that all of these may be real problems, just what is the core problem, the problem whose solving will unlock the solutions to all the attendant problems? What is the core problem that unprecedented global migration is creating for Christian churches? After reading and reviewing volumes 1 and 2 of this trilogy on Intercultural Theology (see IBMR 41, no. 3 [July 2017]: 194–202, and 44, no. 1 [January 2020]: 34–42), I would expect Wrogemann’s inclination in isolating the “real problem” would have something to do with an inability disagreeing people in the church have in carrying out effective discourse among themselves in the search for an answer to unprecedented global migration. At least that is the core problem he felt Christians needed to address regarding ecumenical disagreements. The radical theological and cultural differences we find among Christian institutions, movements, and groups call for a new hermeneutic of discourse to enable us not just to get along but to build the kingdom of God. Could it be that the same is true of interreligious affairs?
Much of what Wrogemann presents here would seem to indicate that he thinks so. The very title of the volume, A Theology of Interreligious Relations, focuses our attention on relationships, and relationships are nothing if not about communicating with each other. In all the volumes but especially in this one, Wrogemann takes pains to insist that “communications” means much more than just talking to one another. It also includes cultural patterns we establish, body language, institutional and political forms of power, and even (especially?) the way we live our everyday lives.
In addition to the title, we get another clue from the use of the prefix “inter-” in the phrase “intercultural theology.” “Inter-” implies two sides, two “relators,” if you will: “The advantage of the word combination ‘inter’ and ‘cultural’ consists in its referentiality to the tension-filled relations between different religiocultural collective we’s” (441).
One of the most revealing of Wrogemann’s topics when it comes to his articulation of the core problem of interreligious relations is dialogue. For Wrogemann, dialogue is essential to developing effective interreligious relationships, but not all types of dialogue are equally effective. Not that there is just one type of effective dialogue. Types of dialogue are measured for their effectiveness not by their essence but by the context in which each is best used. Wrogemann classifies dialogues by their presuppositions (e.g., “participants must be open minded”), by their format (i.e., contact, information, consensus, persuasion), by their intentions, and by their goals (303–96). If you are looking for an argument pro or con in favor of or opposed to interreligious dialogue, this is not the place. And if you are looking for a practicum on how to do dialogue, you will not find it here.
Instead you will find an extended discussion of how to acknowledge, analyze, and utilize a vastly expanded approach to dialogue, or Wrogemann’s preferred term, the “dialogical.” As we mentioned above, Wrogemann’s most serious judgment of existing dialogue patterns is their almost exclusive focus on the verbal and rational: “Interreligious relations comprise far more than verbal-dialogical events of encounter” (322). As Wrogemann goes on to say, “The dialogical also expresses itself in nonverbal signs that either complement and back-up the spoken words or, conversely, serve to undermine them” (319). For example, I myself have always defined dialogue as follows: “Interreligious dialogue is a sustained conversation among parties not saying the same thing and who recognize and respect contradiction and mutual exclusions among their various ways of thinking,” based on the definition suggested by John Taylor in Mission Trends #5 (Eerdmans, 1981, p. 94). But seen through Wrogemann’s eyes, this definition obviously needs to be expanded and augmented by expressions that include performative action.
And so we add another word/prefix, “dia-” or the dialogical, to the distinctive vocabulary Wrogemann develops to adequately express his project. This list now includes inter- and intercultural, multi- and multicontextual, dialogue and dialogical, and inter- and interreligious. And of course, relation and relational. It is this vocabulary, as much as anything else, that expresses the core problem as he sees it and is the cutting-edge nature of his proposals. We will continue to augment this list as we proceed further into his proposals for an interreligious theology.
Part 2: How should we analyze the problem of interreligious relations?
In analyzing the problem of interreligious relations, Wrogemann devotes space to both negative analysis (critique) and positive analysis (endorsement). On the negative side he indicates in broad strokes why “many contemporary theologies of religious publications are simply incapable of answering the pressing questions of today” (xvii). And on the positive side he begins his explication of why there is a need for both a theory (211) and a theology (349) of interreligious relations. In order to carry out his via negativa analysis, Wrogemann classifies current theories in four categories: revisionist, interpretive, selective, and interactionist. And in order to accomplish his via positiva analysis, he lists and explains five “building blocks” for a proper theory (211ff.). Let’s start with his critique.
Wrogemann’s criticisms of some of what he calls “revisionist” theologies of religion are cogent and considerable. He defines “revisionist” theologies as those arguing that the dogmatic traditions of Christianities vis-à-vis non-Christian religion need to be revised in order to meet the pressing challenges of crafting an appropriate and effective theology of religions. His exemplars of this pluralist approach are John Hick, who argues that we need a dramatic rethinking of our doctrine of God, and Paul Knitter, who argues that we need an equally dramatic rethinking of soteriology. Both, in the process, recognize that in order to redo our God-talk and broaden our soteriology, Christology needs to change. Wrogemann’s general concern with this way of thinking is to ask whether in reframing these doctrines we lose more than we gain: “Surely these approaches factor out whole areas of Christian doctrine and surrender theological resources that could be used to develop important integrative aids for analyzing interreligious relations” (81).
Similarly, his critique of interpretive, selective, and interactional theories all begin with the observation that each of them is based on the dubious argument that the basis of religious intolerance resides in certain Christian doctrines. Other forms of interreligious interaction such as so-called comparative theology, which enables “deep learning across religious borders” (103), come up short as a result of an overreliance on religious texts and their elitist natures. That is, the levels of knowledge being advocated on both sides of the religious interaction, Christian and other religion, are so sophisticated that doing “comparative theology” is closed to all but a small percentage of scholars at the top of the intellectual food chain. Wrogemann is warmest to the interactionist theory of Amos Yong, who bases his theory on hospitality and gift-giving.
Let’s turn now to Wrogemann’s via positiva, based on what he terms the “five building blocks for a theory of interreligious relations” (211–302). He introduces the building blocks by calling into question six fallacies that modern theorists of religion tend to embrace:
the rationalist fallacy, that is, that “people are guided primarily by their thought processes”;
the individualist fallacy, that is, that “individuals make decisions according to a rational framework”;
the monolinear fallacy, that is, that “respectful recognition of people from other religions is an all or nothing affair, a choice between recognition and non-recognition”;
the elitist fallacy, that is, that theological paradigms are more important to interreligious relations than everyday religious praxis, made up of liturgy, ritual, symbols, and media;
the fallacy of forgetting the body and how important emotions, speech acts, public spaces, and other “topographies of power” are to interreligious relations;
the religionist fallacy, that is, that the assumption that religious motives are particularly definitive for interreligious relations.
To counter these fallacies, Wrogemann says, we need to build on a foundation made up of six foundation stones: multiperspectivity, media, performances, spaces, boundaries, and actors.
Multiperspectivity means not only that we adopt a wide variety of methodological approaches but that we apply them specifically to the key areas of interreligiosity: identity (which is never a given but always dynamically changing), inclusions/exclusions, recognition/nonrecognition, public spaces, and culturally dependent theories of pluralism.
Media means that interreligious relations are about not just cognitive concerns but also ritual, liturgy, symbolisms, and architecture. We “speak” interreligiously through all these genres, and in every context each must be accounted for.
Consider the third building stone: performances, which Wrogemann describes as follows: “A theory of interreligious relations will need to address the question as to how certain religions or worldview-related contexts are encoded into the human body” (299). This includes things like worship postures, ecclesial vestments, everyday dress, television shows watched, forms of greeting and parting, gestures, bowing and scraping, and the like.
Or consider the fourth stone: spaces. In considering religious encounters, spaces are not neutral entities but spheres of influence. Frances and I spent the day before I wrote this review article touring St. Petersburg, Russia, where we visited St. Isaac’s Cathedral, Peter and Paul Cathedral, Church of Our Savior of Spilled Blood, St. Vladimir’s Cathedral, and Trinity Cathedral. We need to consider, not only their glorious architecture and magnificent artwork, but their status as either active churches (Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic) or museums by fiat of the Communist Party, which represent different power structures.
A fifth stone is the one shaped and defined by boundaries. The two positions relative to boundaries adapted most often by modern theologians of religion are that boundaries are either fixed and therefore relatively impermeable (which is bad) or that we should break down all boundaries by a process of self-relativization (which is good). Wrogemann’s position (revealed several chapters hence) is that far from being an inhibitor to positive interreligious relations, articulated and clarified boundaries actually promote them.
The sixth and final foundational building block Wrogemann identifies is actors. “Last but not least, a theory of interreligious relations focusses its attention on the different actors, be they individuals, groups, institutions, movements, or organizations. . . . Religious configurations are shaped in many ways by . . . distinct collective-we configurations” (302). Thus actors, like the other building stones, need to be analyzed, following a multiperspectival approach.
As Wrogemann sees it, the process of analyzing the problem is largely a theory-related problem using science, social science, and the humanities to accumulate what he calls “orientational knowledge,” which theologians can use as a sounding board when constructing their theologies of interreligious relations. At first glance this seems to demarcate a clear line between descriptive theory and normative theology. But Wrogemann recognizes that this line is not always so clear-cut (see his discussion of this point on 436–37), which leaves room for analyzing that, strictly speaking, is neither via negativa nor via positiva but might be called via analogia. In fact, I will suggest that a great deal of analysis based on via analogia thinking runs through his text, often implied rather than stated explicitly. But more on that later.
As we now move from analyzing the problem to selecting the question(s), it seems we are crossing some kind of boundary between theory and theology.
Part 3: Selecting a question
Selecting a question to answer out of the many questions that will emerge from analyzing the problem calls for a different process than the mining exercise we just went through. Selection requires, either explicitly or implicitly, a value system of some sort that helps us rank the most valuable, appropriate question(s) to ask. Such a value system can come from many sources—the scientific method for scientists, an ethical theory for moralists, a theory of meaning for philosophers, to name a few. But a Christian theologian applies a value system derived from revelation. Admittedly, this system can mean different things for differently shaped Christian theologians. It can mean a value system from a specific theological construct (Augustinian, Thomist, Lutheran, Calvinist, Wesleyan, Barthian, etc.), or from ecclesial authorities such as the Roman Catholic magisterium. For Protestant theologians like Wrogemann, however, the revelatory value system comes primarily from a Holy Spirit–guided reading of Scripture.
Many scriptural resources are used to add content to theology-of-religions schemas. As examples, however, Wrogemann chooses to highlight four: (1) God and God’s uniqueness, (2) Jesus and Jesus’s communicative performances with others, (3) Peter and Peter’s argument in his first letter that we should recognize and value people of non-Christian religions because God recognizes and values us, and (4) the Book of Revelation. In each of these examples, Wrogemann identifies a biblical teaching that is often used by modern theorists of religion as an instance of Christian weakness in interfaith relations, and then he turns the teaching on its head and argues that in fact what some theologians of religion have seen as a weakness vis-à-vis adherents of other religions is actually a strength. For example, the Christian teaching regarding God’s uniqueness and almost unlimited power is often argued to be a cause of Christian triumphalism and disdain for other religious teaching, but Wrogemann quickly and easily demolishes the canard that monotheism leads to violence. Then he positively addresses the issue of God’s anger, jealousy, and revenge by arguing that the biblical texts actually make the case that because God takes the emotions of anger, jealousy, and revenge on himself, we are freed not to. And even then, the preponderance of God’s emotions are not anger, jealousy, and revenge but love, justice, and hope.
He makes a similar argument in regard to Jesus’s expressions of emotion in the New Testament. Jesus’s emotive words are slightly different from those of Yahweh in the Old Testament. Jesus rebukes evil spirits (e.g., Mark 1:25), reprimands Peter (Mark 8:33), and reproves James and John (Luke 9:55). These passages are sometimes explained away, seeking to project only a “meek and mild” image for Jesus. Wrogemann forcefully questions this move: “Conflicts and aggressions are part of social existence.” And Jesus is part of that existence. Thus, by extension, our interreligious relations will include conflict and aggression. The question for Wrogemann is not how to eliminate rebuke, reprimand, and reproof but how to handle each in ways intended to bring glory to God (380–81).
As for 1 Peter, Wrogemann argues that the letter’s message is especially appropriate for a theology of interreligious relations. The argument begins with the acknowledgment that because of our faith in Jesus Christ, suffering in relation to the world becomes a part of our identity. We become sojourners and exiles. This status gives us the opportunity to both prove our faith to God and witness to our faith to others. Suffering itself is not the witness but how we respond to it. “Non-Christians are to become open to praising God by seeing the good deeds believers do” (395). The key text, 1 Peter 3:9, is “the epitome of an oikoumenical doxology with a missionary impetus and at the same time also the basis for a Christian theology of interreligious relations” (392).
Wrogemann chooses Revelation as a text to be explored for a very different reason. It represents, at first glance, many features antithetical to what he is proposing as a model of interreligious relations. First, it is the most difficult New Testament book to understand, filled as it is with symbols and warfare imagery. In addition, it is extremely polemical and one-sided. Nevertheless, Wrogemann says, “Revelation confronts Christians first, by virtue of their correlation to the suffering of the lamb; second by symbolically representing in worship the victory that has already been won in heaven” (406).
Wrogemann reaches an overarching conclusion when it comes to the witness of the Scriptures in interreligious relations. It concerns what he calls “ultimate justification models.” Put simply, such models are arguments that a certain religion or worldview is the one right one, excluding all other, competing models. Modern theorists of religion argue that ultimate justification models are incompatible with good theories of interreligious relations. Wrogemann demurs: “Contrary to models calling for a relativization of Christian doctrine, our approach proposes that theological doctrinal contexts offer a great deal of latitude for the justification of respectful behavior without needing to abandon religious ultimate-justification models in the process” (422). He briefly makes this argument, using as evidence “the ongoing hiddenness of God’s action in the world” (424), such as the fact that we as Christians “do not know everything” (427) or the recognition that in interreligious relations we are not dealing with “fixed theory but are opening ourselves up to certain dynamics” (422).
What, then, is Wrogemann’s key question based on his identification of the core problem and on his theoretical and theological analysis of that problem? Something like the following: What are the elements of engagement with actors of non-Christian religions that will bring praise to God across the oikoumenical spectrum? This question is not about attempting to “solve a problem but about dealing constructively with ongoing ambivalences” (431).
Part 4: Wrogemann’s answer
A word about the form of Wrogemann’s answer before we dig into the task of judging its credibility. Since the question he has settled on calls for an identification of elements, the answer will be complex and multilayered. That is, it will be, in part at least, a list, which should not surprise us. Ever since the first volume of this three-volume textbook set, we have seen Wrogemann consistently avoid simple, pat answers. No “love is the answer” here. No “peace is the bottom line” when it comes to interreligious relationships. In volume 1 Wrogemann drilled into our consciousness variety and diversity of the forms Christianity takes in the non-Western parts of the world: Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America. In volume 2 he ceaselessly beat the drum of the variety of mission approaches the church has taken in proclaiming the gospel to the nations. And here in volume 3, list after list: Six Heuristic Questions (52), Theology of Religion Models (55), Six Heuristic Questions (again) (130), Building Blocks for a Theory of Interreligious Relations (211), Six Fallacies (213), Levels of Acknowledgment (258), Basic Principles of a Theory of Interreligious Relations (296), A Theology of Interreligious Relations: Theses (389)—and these just from the table of contents; many more lists appear throughout the text. To repeat: We should not be surprised at the complexity and diversity of Wrogemann’s answer.
Let’s begin by mentioning six of the elements he calls for in his question. These six may not be all of the elements he would include in his complex theory/theology (in fact, I would be surprised if they were), but they cover the major points.
Oikoumenical doxology. The first, of course, is Wrogemann’s foundational spirituality of mission, with which he concludes volume 2: oikoumenical doxology. This phrase refers to the belief that human beings, individually and communally, were created by God to give praise to him as creator. The bottom line for any mission encounter, result, or relationship is whether or not it brings praise to the one God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. Parenthetically, although in general terms Wrogemann is critical of theologians of religion who insist on a major revision of historic Christian orthodoxy, oikoumenical doxology seems to be at least a restatement, if not a full-blown revision, of traditional soteriological teaching in both mission and interreligious relations. More on this element below.
Fallibility. A second important element of Wrogemann’s answer is his understanding of the implications of human fallibility. He relentlessly reminds us of our human weaknesses in all of life, and especially in the area of this volume, namely, interreligious relations. Three specific forms of our human fallibility stand out. First, our creaturely status in comparison with God the creator. Without God, we are mortal creatures imprisoned by time and space. With God, however, this weakness becomes a strength. Second, as humans we are limited by our cultures. None are perfect; all have strengths and weaknesses. Third, our knowledge is limited by the eschatological nature of the narrative in which God has placed us. At any moment in time we see only shadowy shapes of reality. The eschatological promise (indeed the missiological promise) is that we will someday be face-to-face with God and see clearly. This overall fallibility has many implications for interfaith relations. It should caution us against triumphalism, self-centeredness, and dogmatism. It should especially warn us against premature judgments regarding the salvific status of non-Christians: “God’s prevenient grace applies to people of other faiths . . . and corresponds to a refusal to make definite assertion about the state of salvation of other people” (397).
Context. A consistent drumbeat, a rhythm underlying all of Wrogemann’s work, is the importance of context to everything having to do with interfaith relations. Just as realtors stress location, location, location, so Wrogemann chants context, context, context. Contextual diversity often complexifies interreligious relations in ways that have little or nothing to do with religion. The ubiquitous influence of context can be both good and bad. Acknowledging that diversity of context creates difference can help foster interpersonal understanding. In contrast, insistence that “my context is the best” can lead to unproductive conflict.
Respect/recognition. Perhaps the most fertile offshoot of acknowledged contextualization is the way it can help us develop respect for non-Christians, respect that does not do away with disagreement, conflict, and difference but that creates conditions that enable discourse, especially interreligious discourse. Wrogemann champions recognition without endorsement, a sometimes tricky balancing act. He is especially adamant that recognition and respect should be given to all “actors,” a word he uses to include individuals. institutions, religions, worldviews, movements, and others.
No self-relativization. Respect for others, however, is not to be bought at the price of what Wrogemann calls self-relativization. Put most simply, self-relativization means lessening one’s own religious commitments and beliefs of all sorts in attempting to accommodate the differing religions and beliefs of others. In Wrogemann’s eyes this is a fool’s errand. Nothing leads to worse interreligious relations than pretending (and it is pretense of the highest order) that you have no firm beliefs, nothing worth fighting for, no unalterable intellectual commitments. As a friend of mine used to say, in exasperation after attempting to interact with such relativizers, “So and so pretends he has nothing but vacate-able intellectual positions.”
Multiperspectival resources. Wrogemann’s answer should include a reference to the importance he places on the multiperspectival array of resources and study methods he believes are essential to mission studies and intercultural theology. This emphasis is the flip side of the complexity represented in interfaith relations. Relationships that must acknowledge thought, word, and deed, as well as socioeconomic factors, in order to begin to be understood need research methodologies crafted specifically for each of these elements.
Part 5: Is it a credible answer?
We are now ready to answer the question with which we began our review: Does Wrogemann supply a credible answer to the question his analysis distilled from the problem of growing religious pluralization as he sees it? If by “credible” we mean “believable,” then yes, his answer is believable—actually more than believable. It certainly is not “un-credible,” that is, falling short of being believable in some way. He teaches us the amazing complexity of the problem of interreligious relations, a complexity that goes far beyond simple religious difference. Yet at the same time his answer is not “incredible,” that is, going beyond what we are able to believe in some magical, mystical way. His use of the findings of the hard and soft sciences should satisfy even his nontheological, casual readers.
Wrogemann supplies ample evidence of the complexity of not just the Christian world, not just the religious world, but the world in its totality. It is more than reasonable for him to suggest that at least a contributing answer to the confusion and conflict that complexity can cause is a better mode of discourse. His vision of what that discourse entails in volume 1 is convincing and in line with the current findings of linguistic and philosophical scholars.
His argument (actually more of an assumption) that the days of one-way imperialisms and colonialisms (European and North American, among others) are over, replaced by two-way (and multiway) interactions facilitated by both economic factors and social media capabilities, seems incontrovertible. Others in recent years have made this argument so often and so well that Wrogemann can just assume it—and his arguments for a missions based on dialogue and multilateral discussion instead of prescription and dictation follow apace.
Similarly, his acknowledgment that interreligious attempts to find either theological/rational universalism or dominance of one theological/rational system of thought and belief have been successful only for tiny intellectual elites or separatist tribalisms is also gaining wide acceptance, though perhaps not yet to the extent that cultural-complexity arguments have gained ground. Attempts to reestablish old-time autocracies, whether political or religious, can be considered a worldwide movement, but one whose success is little assured.
All this together makes his identification of the key question as a relational and not a rational one must be considered a strong argument, given current world and ecclesial conditions, a choice based on solid evidence. And once this relational question is stipulated as the key one, his suggestions on how Christian churches in widely disparate cultural contexts can improve interreligious relations in faithful ways are invaluable.
We would be remiss, by way of summary, if we did not ask a further question, one that goes beyond credibility. The further question might be: Given that Wrogemann has identified a credible question and answer to the problem of interreligious competition, is his answer the right one? That is, is his answer not just credible but faithful to Scripture and the Christian narrative as a whole?
Actually, this is a question that can usefully be asked not just of this volume on the theology of interreligious relations but of all three volumes, including the first, on intercultural hermeneutics, and the second, on theologies of mission. That is, it can be asked of both ecumenical relations and interreligious relations. Are Wrogemann’s questions and answers faithful to Scripture and to the Christian narrative as a whole?
This is indeed a very big question, one that runs the risk of reducing all that Wrogemann is trying to teach in these volumes to just one more rational “theology of mission,” to be lumped together with all the other theologies of mission that Wrogemann helpfully describes in volume 2. I’m sure Wrogemann would love to avoid that conclusion if possible.
The question is too big to handle comprehensively, but let me briefly address two issues that seem to emerge from a theological reading of Intercultural Theology, in the hopes of showing how his work might be addressed by the guild.
Two thoughts on Intercultural Theology as a whole
Throughout the three volumes of his Intercultural Theology, Wrogemann occasionally makes the point that he sees his books as a “textbook set” to be used in seminary classrooms. In so doing, he downplays any emphasis on theoretical and theological innovation; traditionally, textbooks describe and teach about a known field of study—in this case Christian missiology, or as he likes to call it, intercultural theology.
Yet the way Wrogemann describes and teaches what he sees happening in twenty-first-century Christian mission efforts, he unavoidably innovates. His textbooks are far from being either theoretically or theologically neutral. The overall effect of these three volumes is to rethink entirely the field of missiology.
As we have seen, some of this description of the way the world is, the world in which mission work currently takes place, is incontrovertible to both believers and unbelievers alike. But Wrogemann does not stop with description of our current contexts. He prescribes. He advocates changes in the ways the church has traditionally understood mission, and in so doing he seeks to reframe the Christian church’s mandate to mission.
Let’s back up for a minute. In so many ways Wrogemann’s project is comfortingly traditional:
In his advocacy of ultimate justification models, he is simply reasserting the time-honored Christian conviction that our religion is the right one—the only thing he might add is an admonition that we acknowledge and respect that people of non-Christian religions also have the right to think that their religion is the one, true, right one.
Although it would be a stretch to call his arguments biblical exegesis, it is clear throughout that he sees Holy Scripture as Christians’ fundamental rule and guide to all questions religious. And he shows great imagination in mining the Scriptures for insights applicable to the great questions of ecumenical and interreligious relations.
His understanding of theology proper (i.e., the doctrine of God) and Christology is entirely orthodox. He does not think that these doctrines need to be appreciably changed in order to address the issues that Christian mission engenders (unlike some of the history-of-religion reformers he critiques).
Yet, one does not have to read very much of Wrogemann’s work before we see he champions positions that will surely give traditionalists pause:
Oikoumenical doxology. His so-called bottom line of Christian mission activity is not the traditional mission goals of increased number of conversions or the growth of the church. Faithful Christian mission activity, he avers, results in bringing glory to the God of all the churches and all the mission theologies.
Discourse over dogma. He clearly favors multisided conversations over unilateral pronouncements, dialogue over apologetics, cooperation over competition.
Missions not mission, theologies not theology. He accepts the proviso that different cultures produce different approaches to mission and different theological rationales supporting those approaches. And he believes strongly that certain so-called teachings of the Christian church need to be left in the category of “necessarily commented on but as yet undecided”—or we could better say, contingent.
Other areas of innovation could be listed. In two areas, however, Wrogemann suggests some important innovations—suggests but does not explicitly advocate. These two areas seem to warrant further discussion.
1. The intersection of ecumenical and interreligious relations
As we have seen, Wrogemann—after describing the essential problem Christian mission faces these days, and after his analysis suggests that the key question with the problem of ecumenical and interreligious diversity is how to develop better interpersonal and communal relationships—sets about to show how to do that: in volume 1, he suggests a method of discourse for ecumenical relationships, which he ties to the theologies of mission in volume 2. And then in volume 3 he reprises the same problem, analysis, question, and answer in regard to interreligious relationships. The question I would raise is whether there is really any difference between the way he frames the issue in ecumenical terms and the way he frames the issue in interreligious terms? Put another way, is there really any difference between what he calls intercultural hermeneutics in volume 1 and what he calls interreligious dialogue in volume 3? This is a question focused on the identity of the actors involved in missiological interchanges. Traditional missiological approaches have made ecumenics major and interreligious minor—that is, missiological discussions, both theoretical and theological, have usually begun with attempts to establish the right and proper way to do mission, while interreligious relationships have been largely a one-way street, with people of other religions the passive recipients of the gospel message.
Admit it. The differences between ecumenics and dialogues seem obvious, don’t they? Ecumenical relationships focus on winning contentious theological/missiological arguments among ourselves, and interreligious relationships have to do with proclamations, an active proclaimer and grateful receivers. This has been our default understanding for centuries. Its “truth” is most evident in the content of what we argue about and proclaim. Ecumenical content is for “us,” and interreligious content is for “them.” Ecumenics is all about mission theology, and dialogue is about sharing the gospel. Or so we have been taught.
Yet in truth, when examined more closely, the differences don’t seem so stark. Interfaith dialogue is not reducible to just sharing the gospel; it is also about listening to and learning from other people’s experiences of their gospels. And so often we hear clear resonances of God’s prevenient grace in the way he has made himself known to people of different religions. And ecumenics are not just about resolving ecclesial conflicts and winning theological arguments. Ecumenics are also about learning from one another as we go through the process of innovating missiological strategies. When engaged with the graceful search for ways to bring glory to God, we find ourselves joining arms in faithful obedience with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
The great value of Wrogemann’s approach, putting the primary emphasis on relationships for both ecumenics and dialogue, is that it reduces the differences between the way we treat our colleagues in the church and the way we treat people adhering to non-Christian religions. A focus on orthodoxy (right doctrine) produces irreconcilable differences; a focus on orthopraxy (right practices) produces differences, perhaps less irreconcilable, but distinct all the same. A focus on orthopathy (right feelings), on the other hand, sharply reduces difference. The command to love is universal, including not just fellow churchmen and churchwomen but everyone, even our enemies.
The question we are left with, then, is not whether or not this is a good approach (orthopathy is as good and important and true as orthodoxy and orthopraxy) but to what extent an acknowledgment of the Bible’s orthopathic requirements changes orthodoxy and orthopraxis. Wrogemann’s answer is that it does not change the fact of orthodoxy and the necessity of orthopraxy, but it should change the way we hold to right belief and the way we practice our religion in the public sphere.
2. The emphasis on “via analogia”
Is a hermeneutics based largely on via analogia powerful enough to carry the missiological freight Wrogemann loads on it in these three volumes? This question focuses on the method(s) of discourse used in advancing the agenda of mission-minded Christians. Traditional hermeneutical methodologies have mostly used via positiva and via negativa methodologies, and Wrogemann uses them sometimes also. But via analogia is his preferred methodology—he tells stories—and the implications of this preference are significant.
For one thing, it puts on the back burner the fiery search for the one true mission method, a search that has both positive and negative forms. Instead of saying, Here’s how the Scriptures and our received theology teach us to do it, we learn faithful, effective mission methods mostly from sharing stories about how so-and-so did or does it and from the strengths, weaknesses, and lacunae each such method entails. The faithfulness of such learning by analogy is measured by whether or not it brings glory to God and God’s church; the effectiveness is still measured by conversions and church membership.
The strengths of learning by analogy, by listening to and telling stories that in the telling become so similar, are manifold. Via analogia demands respect for others; we don’t just endure the experiences of transcendence that others tell us—we listen eagerly to hear echoes of God active in the world. Via analogia assumes that the ways of God are both evident and mysterious, that we should be grateful to hear the progress of other pilgrims—and their halting turns on the highways and byways of life. And via analogia acknowledges the never-ending challenges of seeking to serve God and help build his kingdom in a world that too often seems dead-set against it. Via analogia is built on respect for others, humility about ourselves, and reverence for the matchless glory of God.
Footnotes
Notes
Author biography