Kärkkäinen writes that “theology can no longer be the privilege of one people group. Instead, it must be context specific as it addresses God and God’s world in specific situations and in response to varying needs and challenges.”[1] It is with this in mind that Kärkkäinen surveys in this chapter process pneumatology, liberation pneumatology, ecological pneumatology, feminist pneumatology, ecofeminist pneumatology, and African pneumatology. He concludes the chapter stating that these surveys “reveal the need to connect theology to specific contexts,” and that “the future of pneumatology lies to a large extent in the emergence and proliferation of these new, fresh, contextual approaches.”[2]
Common among these pneumatologies is a negative view of Western theology which is blamed for the perceived evils of dualism, hierarchy, patriarchy, exploitation etc. In these pneumatologies it is as if the adherents are tired of the Holy Spirit’s work in salvation, and would rather attribute to him whatever particular interest their group has: process theology’s main concern is the compatibility of God with contemporary science, liberation pneumatology sees the Holy Spirit’s main purpose as liberating the poor and oppressed, ecological pneumatology sees the Spirit as the key to preserving the earth, feminist pneumatology sees the Spirit as the key to realizing feminist concerns, African pneumatology seems to see the Spirit as a key to prosperity and empowerment.
This chapter is the most shocking for me. It would take space and time that I do not have to properly prove, but I believe that each one of these views could be classified as un-biblical, seriously flawed, and certainly not in-line with the ancient creeds. I will give just a couple examples. According to ecological pneumatology, since the Spirit is enfleshed in the earth, he is vulnerable to serious loss and trauma commensurate with the earth being abused and spoiled.[3] In ecofeminist thought the exploitation of the earth is linked to the marginalization of women, which is due to the forgetting of the “Creator Spirit.”[4] In relation to African pneumatology, Kärkkäinen writes that Pentecostals and Charismatics do not accept mainline theology because they believe it is unable to provide prosperity and health.[5]
My question is how far off the mark, or how far unbiblical, does a certain theology have to be before it is declared wrong and not given a voice. I am surprised that Kärkkäinen can call the pneumatologies in this chapter fresh, rich, or complementary to Western theology, and I fail to see why the future of pneumatology lies in these approaches.
______________________________
[1] Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 147.
[2] Ibid., 174.
[3] Ibid., 164.
[4] Ibid., 169
[5] Ibid., 173.
No comments:
Post a Comment