How does William come to place ‘judgement’ in such a significant position?
The answer, as Williams painstakingly works it out in a number of studies, is hermeneutical. Williams largely accepts that almost two centuries of historical-critical work on the text of the Bible have made reading scripture as a seamless unity hopelessly naïve. However, this is not a cause for dismay as far as Williams is concerned. Contrary to those older liberal voices who would see the authority of scripture as greatly diminished by historical criticism of the Bible, Williams actually sees the authority and significance of scripture as found in the diverse, inchoate and evidently worked-on text. The phenomenon of scripture always incorporated within its boundaries a plurality of voices and indeed a plurality of perspectives. The historical criticism has only revealed what was in fact always the case: that the New Testament is the record of the first awed, stumbling responses to an encounter with Jesus of Nazareth. We should not expect consistency; in fact, we should be delighted not to find it, because their inarticulacy and disagreements give us hope that our meagre efforts at talking about God are not ultimately futile, whatever their inadequacy.
This text has generated a huge variety of diverse and even inverse readings. For Williams, when the Church comes to interpret the world through its foundational narratives, the very act of interpreting affects the narratives as well as the world.[1] This kind of reflection is generative: a discovery of what the text may become and a discovery of the world, too. The Church, as it absorbs scriptural exegesis even from its own margins and beyond, discovers what it itself has been saying all along. Thus, the Church is exposed to a judgement, even as it holds out a judgement: ‘[I]n judging the world, by its confrontation of the world with its own dramatic scripture, the Church also judges itself’.[2] This work of self-evangelisation requires an exploratory fluidity and provisionality – as it holds out the gospel, the Church is always on the run, as it were, always under its own question. ‘At any point in its history the Church needs both the confidence that it has a gospel to preach, and the ability to see that it cannot readily specify in advance how it will find words for preaching in particular new circumstances’.[3] So, the Church, for Williams is constantly seeking a pathway between this confidence that there is a message, but an opennes to discovering what form that gospel will take as history twists and turns.
[1] It is, for example, not possible to read the Exodus story following its appropriation by the black slave culture of the Americas.
[2] Williams, "The Judgement of the World," p. 31. He is aware, too, that this places the church in the dominant positon over scripture (See the Wiles essay comment he makes)
[3] Williams, "The Judgement of the World," p. 31.
The answer, as Williams painstakingly works it out in a number of studies, is hermeneutical. Williams largely accepts that almost two centuries of historical-critical work on the text of the Bible have made reading scripture as a seamless unity hopelessly naïve. However, this is not a cause for dismay as far as Williams is concerned. Contrary to those older liberal voices who would see the authority of scripture as greatly diminished by historical criticism of the Bible, Williams actually sees the authority and significance of scripture as found in the diverse, inchoate and evidently worked-on text. The phenomenon of scripture always incorporated within its boundaries a plurality of voices and indeed a plurality of perspectives. The historical criticism has only revealed what was in fact always the case: that the New Testament is the record of the first awed, stumbling responses to an encounter with Jesus of Nazareth. We should not expect consistency; in fact, we should be delighted not to find it, because their inarticulacy and disagreements give us hope that our meagre efforts at talking about God are not ultimately futile, whatever their inadequacy.
This text has generated a huge variety of diverse and even inverse readings. For Williams, when the Church comes to interpret the world through its foundational narratives, the very act of interpreting affects the narratives as well as the world.[1] This kind of reflection is generative: a discovery of what the text may become and a discovery of the world, too. The Church, as it absorbs scriptural exegesis even from its own margins and beyond, discovers what it itself has been saying all along. Thus, the Church is exposed to a judgement, even as it holds out a judgement: ‘[I]n judging the world, by its confrontation of the world with its own dramatic scripture, the Church also judges itself’.[2] This work of self-evangelisation requires an exploratory fluidity and provisionality – as it holds out the gospel, the Church is always on the run, as it were, always under its own question. ‘At any point in its history the Church needs both the confidence that it has a gospel to preach, and the ability to see that it cannot readily specify in advance how it will find words for preaching in particular new circumstances’.[3] So, the Church, for Williams is constantly seeking a pathway between this confidence that there is a message, but an opennes to discovering what form that gospel will take as history twists and turns.
[1] It is, for example, not possible to read the Exodus story following its appropriation by the black slave culture of the Americas.
[2] Williams, "The Judgement of the World," p. 31. He is aware, too, that this places the church in the dominant positon over scripture (See the Wiles essay comment he makes)
[3] Williams, "The Judgement of the World," p. 31.
4 comments:
Look out for John Webster, "Rowan Williams on Scripture", in M. Bockmuehl & A.J. Torrance (eds), *Scripture's Doctrine and Theology's Bible* (Baker Academic, 2008).
Footnote 1 seems incomplete. Did you perhaps mean to say, "It is not possible to read the Exodus story following its appropriation by black slave culture without reference to that appropriation?" It is still, of course, perfectly possible to read the story (it's still right there in the Bible!); what seems to be your point (or perhaps Rowan Williams's point) is that the meaning of that story today is not the same as the meaning it would have had 500 years ago, or indeed the meaning it would have today to someone unaware of the slave culture's contributions to that story.
Am I mistaking your point?
Peace,
--Peter
Yes it is as you say... it is incomplete. And this is Williams' point rather than mine... he is emphasising the deep historical embeddedness of the text. You can't today read the text without recognising the impact that text has had on the context in which you now pick it up to read it.
Is that the Archbishops residence?
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