statements as expressions of depth-experiences, sees in music the potent articulation of the yearnings of the human spirit. The civil rights leader Andrew Young relates the story of the time police had blocked protesters from marching to the Birmingham jail.
When we go about two blocks from the jail, the police had blocked the street with the dogs and the fire trucks. When we got there, they said, “You can’t go to the jail.” And so everybody got down on their knees and started praying. And when people are in that kind of situation, it’s not a verbal prayer, it’s more a moan. And when the emotional, scared, religious people start moaning, something happens. And something happened not only to us but to the police.
And somebody jumped up. A lady said, “God is with this movement. We’re going on to the jail.” And we started walking directly at the police and the dogs. And all of a sudden, the dogs weren’t barking, and we started singing, “I want Jesus to walk with me.” And when you get through and you looked back, you saw all of these fire trucks blocking the street. And some good little sister hollered, “Great God Almighty done parted the Red Sea one more time!”32
The spiritual, “I Want Jesus to Walk With Me” not only expressed the protesters’ faith, but also impacted the police who had barred their way. The theological challenge for those in the liberal tradition is to capture Basil, Ambrose, and McFague’s sense of awe and wonderment at the beauty of the natural world and express it in a way that inspires people to break through barriers.
Postliberal theologians emphasize the power of language to shape experience and reinforce communal identity in a fragmented world. The postliberal ethicist Stanley Hauerwas speaks of the power of art to shape our vision of the world. “Art, whether representational or not, reveals to us aspects of our world that we are usually too dependent on conventionality and fantasy to be able to see. Art shows us how difficult it is to be objective by showing us how different the world can look.”33 Just as Basil refers to the world as “a training place for rational souls” (I.6), Hauerwas regards the church as the training ground for acquiring the skills necessary to see the world as described in the Christian narrative. The church’s songs, prayers and liturgical practices play an indispensable role in shaping the members’ vision of the world. As Ambrose recognized, the Christian practice of baptizing and breaking bread only makes sense within the narrative world of the Bible in which creation, redemption, and sanctification are inextricably linked. The postliberal strategy for revitalizing the image of the six-day creation would be to highlight the connections between the practices of the Christian community (e.g., blessings) and the biblical narrative’s depiction of the natural world as a contingent reality that owes its very existence to the love and will of God.
Postmodern thinkers, who are deeply suspicious of all definitive claims about truth, find in the improvisation of jazz musicians a fitting image of contemporary theology. In his recent work, Theology as Improvisation, the theologian Nathan Crawford writes, “My thesis is that theology is improvisation. I claim this because improvisation offers a way of thinking that is inherently open.”34 Crawford contends that improvisation requires being “rooted in a tradition” while at the same time remaining open to “reorienting and transforming the tradition.”35 The task of the theologian is to assemble the fragments of our highly pluralistic world into a coherent pattern without succumbing to the temptation of thinking that this coherence amounts to an all-encompassing account of truth. “The theologian needs a way of bringing the fragments together that does not seek to systematize or totalize them, but give them a certain coherence (although, this is, at times, quite loose) by thinking their similarities-in-difference.”36 Postmodern theologians bring the voices of criticism to bear on the attitudes and behaviors of Christians that have contributed to the environmental crisis, while at the same time, constructing what the postmodern Scripture scholar Walter Brueggemann calls a “counterworld of evangelical imagination.” According to Brueggemann, “Creation faith is a doxological response to the wonder that I/we/the world exist. It pushes the reason for one’s existence out beyond one’s self to find that reason in an inexplicable, inscrutable, loving generosity that redefines all our modes of reasonableness.”37 The springboard into this “counterworld of evangelical imagination” is the six-day creation story. Whether it be a symphony, a spiritual, a hymn, or a jazz performance, musical expression in all its forms has the potential to revitalize the image of the six-day creation in the lives of Christians who see the beauty of God’s creation, but fear for its long-term survival.
Discussion Questions
1. What features of the six-day creation story do you find most striking? What questions do contemporary Christians have in terms of the story?
2. Which theological approach do you find most compelling: orthodoxy, liberalism, postliberalism, or postmodernism? Why?
3. How would you describe Basil and Ambrose’s vision of the natural world?
4. Do you find the allegorical approach to biblical interpretation appealing or unappealing? Why?
5. How would you describe your own “relative absolute” in theology?
6. Do you agree or disagree with McFague’s understanding of the relationship between God and the world?
7. How might music provide a helpful way for thinking about theology, creation, or the Christian life?
Suggested Readings
For an introduction to postliberalism, see Ronald T. Michener, Postliberal Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013). For an introduction to postmodernism, see Kevin Hart, Postmodernism (Oxford: Oneworld, 2004). For background on Basil, see Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, Basil of Caesarea: A Guide to His Life and Doctrine (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012) and Stephen M. Hildebrand, The Trinitarian Theology of Basil of Caesarea (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007). For a discussion of Basil’s exegesis, see John A. McGuckin, “Patterns of Biblical Exegesis in the Cappadocian Fathers: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa” in S. T. Kimbrough Jr., ed., Orthodox and Wesleyan Scriptural Understanding and Practice (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005). For background on Ambrose, see the Introduction to Boniface Ramsey, Ambrose (New York: Routledge, 1997). For a discussion of Ambrose’s Hexameron, see Stanley P. Rosenberg, “Nature and the Natural World in Ambrose’s Hexameron,” Studia Patristica LXIX (2013) 15–24. For a discussion of early Christian thought on creation, see Paul M. Blowers, Drama of the Divine Economy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
1. Augustine, Instructing Beginners in Faith, 70.
2. Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 118.
3. McGrath, “Evangelical Evaluation,” 38.
4. Gustafson, Examined Faith, 9. Gustafson’s own theology is grounded in the Reformed tradition. See Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective, chapter 4.
5. Caputo, On Religion, 21.
6. Ibid.
