One of the most prominent themes in Rowan Williams' theology is that of 'judgement'. He means the word in all of its senses - discretion or discernment, criticism, and in some senses, the 'final' judgement that lies ahead.
This quote is fairly typical:
part of my thesis is that the interpretation of the world ‘within the scriptural framework’ is intrinsic to the Church’s critical self-discovery. In judging the world, by its confrontation of the world with its own dramatic script, the Church also judges itself: in attempting to show the world a critical truth, it shows itself to itself as Church also.
On Christian Theology p. 31
What he has in mind by this term is the inexhaustible critical function that the narratives of Jesus have over the world and the church. In this sense there is a call for judgement by the church, but only insofar as it involves a self-criticism that involves giving attention to the pattern of life that was Jesus's and a recognition of the provisionality of our speech about God and its tendency to serve our ideological ends.
3 comments:
I'd love to hear your reflections on the links and divergences between Williams and O'Donovan on judgement. I'm really enjoying the latter's Ways of Judgment. And I hear they were undergrads together at some little backwater university (along with N. T. Wright).
Fascinating use of the word 'critical' in this post. 'Critical' in the sense of reflection beyond our own ideologies and preparedness to embrace others and their ideologies in dialogue is one way this seems to be used by Williams and you in your last sentence. I wonder though whether we can use the word 'critical' here in the sense of 'criticism' as you suggest in the first part of the post. I agree that we need to recognise the provisionality of our speech about God and its tendency to serve our particular ideological or hermeneutic ends, but I wonder whether this is more about the 'critical' than 'self-criticism'.
Well, yes, it kinda has to.
Byron, I am working on a bit of project about O'donovan and Williams use of judgement. It is interesting that it is so prominent in the thinking of both.
Judgement in O'Donovan is a much more robust term I think... but there may be some similarities... we'll see!
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