Reclaiming Narrative for Public Theology (Suny Series, Religion and American Public Life)

Mary Doak Reclaiming Narrative for Public Theology RECLAIMING NARRATIVE FOR PUBLIC THEOLOGY SUNY series, Religion a...

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Mary Doak

Reclaiming Narrative for Public Theology

RECLAIMING NARRATIVE FOR PUBLIC THEOLOGY

SUNY series, Religion and American Public Life William Dean, editor

RECLAIMING NARRATIVE FOR P UBLIC T HEOLOGY

Mary Doak

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2004 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207 Production by Diane Ganeles Marketing by Michael Campochiaro Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Doak, Mary, 1961– Reclaiming narrative for public theology / Mary Doak p. cm. — (SUNY series, religion and American public life) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-6233-1 (alk. paper) 1. Church and state—United States. 2. United States—Religion. I. Title. II. Series. BR516.D63 2004 261.7’0973—dc22 2003068662 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

“Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” —Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4th, 1861

Contents

Acknowledgments

xi

1. INTRODUCTION: THE NEED FOR A NARRATIVE PUBLIC THEOLOGY Narrative as a Resource for Historicizing Theology The Public Theology Project Why Call It Public Theology? Achievements in Public Theology Thus Far The Public Character of Narrative How This Argument Will Proceed

1 1 5 7 12 19 23

2. PUBLIC THEOLOGY IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY Arendt’s Defense of a Pluralistic Public Life Public Life as Resistance to Totalitarianism The Nature of Public Life and Action Is Christianity Inherently Antipublic? Conclusion Public Theology without Establishment of Religion The Complex Meaning of Religious Freedom Case #1. The Ten Commandments Religious Morality and the Limits of Legislation Case #2: Lawrence v. Texas and the Legislation of Morality Religious Freedom and Public Debate Public Theology Amid Diversity

27 31 31 35 38 47 48 48 53 56 60 63 67

vii

viii

Contents

3. E PLURIBUS UNUM? NATIONAL NARRATIVES AND THE RECOVERY OF PUBLIC LIFE Introduction: Why Nations and Why Narratives? A Defense of Public Life on the National Level Arguments Against the Nation-State A Qualified Defense of the Nation-State National Identity Historical Narratives and the Nation-State National Narratives and the Repression of the Other Ricoeur’s Theory of Narrative The Structure of Narrative The Narrative Structure of Historical Understanding Identity and Purpose as Conceptualized through Historical and Fictional Narratives Bifurcated Histories or a Common Narrative? Conclusion 4. TOWARD A NARRATIVE PUBLIC THEOLOGY Narrative in a Practical Fundamental Theology: J. B. Metz A Narrative, Practical Approach to Fundamental Theology Human Freedom in History Theology and the Critique of Narratives Metz’s Contributions to Public Theology North American Narrative Theologians: Stanley Hauerwas and Ronald Thiemann A Narrative Theological Ethics: Stanley Hauerwas Narrative as the Basis of Communal Identity The Christian Task in History The Public Mission of the Church The Christian Narrative and Public Discourse Hauerwas’s Contributions and Challenges to a Narrative Public Theology A Public Narrative Theology: Ronald Thiemann Thiemann’s Argument for Public Theology Why Narrative in This Public Theology?

71 71 77 77 79 85 86 86 89 89 90 94 100 104 107 110 110 115 119 122 126 126 126 131 135 140 143 145 145 147

Contents Thiemann’s Proposal for a Theological Method Thick Descriptions and Public Debate Oppositional or Publicly Engaged Narrative Theology? Conclusion: Towards a Narrative Public Theology The Importance of Narrative in Christian Theology A Double Narrative Construction for Public Theology Narrative and Public Debate

ix 150 153 158 159 159 163 166

5. LINCOLN, ELIZONDO, AND WILLIAMS AS NARRATIVE PUBLIC THEOLOGIANS The Argument for a Narrative Public Theology Summarized Abraham Lincoln: Narrating Judgment The Narrative Structure in the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address Public Theology or Civil Religion? Lincoln’s Contributions to a Narrative Public Theology Virgil Elizondo: Narrating Mestizaje Three Levels of Narrative Elizondo’s Contributions to a Narrative Public Theology Delores Williams: Narrating Resistance Narrating a Womanist Theology Williams’s Contributions to a Narrative Public Theology Conclusion

177 182 184 189 189 194 197 197 202 205

Notes Index

207 239

173 173 177

Acknowledgments

This project could not have been completed without the support and assistance of more people than can be named here. My family, friends, and colleagues at The University of Chicago, at North Park University, and at the University of Notre Dame have been a source of enormous encouragement and have enriched my thoughts and arguments immensely. I am particularly grateful to David Tracy, Anne E. Carr, and Franklin I. Gamwell for their insights and encouragement as I first developed these ideas in my dissertation at The University of Chicago and am especially indebted to David Tracy for having directed my work on that dissertation. Special thanks are also due to William Dean of Iliff School of Theology for his careful and insightful reading and comments on portions of this work, and to Martin E. Marty for his very helpful suggestion that my conclusion focus on Abraham Lincoln. The Divinity School of The University of Chicago and The Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion at The University of Chicago offered generous financial assistance and provided the conversations in which my ideas developed and were first tested, for which I remain truly grateful. This book is dedicated to Phil, who has been my steady support through it all.

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CHAPTER ONE

Introduction The Need for a Narrative Public Theology

Narrative as a Resource for Historicizing Theology History emerged as a major category in twentieth-century Christian theology. It has received considerable attention both as a subject of theology and as an aspect of the human condition that affects every act of theologizing. This focus on history (and on historicity) is likely to continue in the twenty-first century as well, since various forms of contemporary theology are committed to engaging these issues, including especially the many liberationist and political theologies that claim specific historical contexts as their loci for interpreting Christian faith. Insisting on the theological importance of our historical situatedness, these theologians directly engage the question of how the sociopolitical actions and events through which we participate in history relate to a Christian account of the history of redemption.1 Thus we have returned with renewed vigor to the ancient theological question of the relation between human history and Christian hope. At the same time, public discourse in the United States evidences a deeper awareness of the political implications of religious faith and is exorcised by questions of the proper role of religion in the public life of our pluralistic society. There is considerable disagreement not only over what particular political guidance our religious traditions provide, but also over the possibility of a religiously neutral government, and whether we should develop and encourage official governmental acknowledgments of the importance of Christianity (or perhaps of an amorphous “Judeo-Christianity”) as the basis of our polity. Is the construction of a 1

2


secular state inherently prejudiced against those who profess religious belief? Should we declare that this country is officially “under God,” or perhaps at least endorse the Ten Commandments as the foundation of our law and morality? The question of how to understand religious freedom, once we recognize that religious beliefs cannot be relegated to our private lives and set aside when we act as citizens, is currently engaging the attention not only of the general citizenry, but also of sociologists, historians, legal theorists, philosophers, and theologians. One might expect that these two developments, a focus on theological context along with increased attention to the public role of religious beliefs, would have led to a thriving U.S. political theology. Yet despite a rich American tradition of theological concern for the political implications of Christian faith, especially evident in the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries in the Social Gospel Movement, the theologies of the Niebuhr brothers, and the work of such Catholic thinkers as John K. Ryan and John Courtney Murray, discussion of the need for political theology on the national level in the United States has been rather sporadic. Instead, many important liberationist theologies have arisen in the United States that focus on the experiences and oppressions of particular groups, such as black, feminist, latino/a, and queer theologies. This work of theologizing from the perspective of specific groups remains important, but there is also a need for political theologies that address the national context as a whole, such as has been initiated by those arguing for a “public theology” in the last few decades. Perhaps one reason that a national political theology has been slow to arise here is that many dispute the continued relevance of the nationstate, calling for a cosmopolitan emphasis on our global responsibilities or for a more local politics. If, in the words of the bumper sticker slogan, we should “think globally and act locally,” where is there any room for national politics? Yet, sufficiently important political decisions are made on the national level (with regard both to domestic and to international affairs) that we cannot leave this level of political activity unevaluated. As Linell Cady argues, “nations today are the social units that wield primary power within the global arena. Because military, economic, social, and political decisions are made at the national level . . . it is essential to have a public life within which such decisions can be debated and held accountable.”2 To be sure, this project of a national political theology should not devalue or displace theologies that address other concerns. The national focus advocated here is not intended as an alternative to particular liberationist projects, but rather as the basis for a public discourse in which

Introduction

3

such liberationist projects can be pursued more vigorously and as matters of concern to all. Achieving the necessary balance between the particularity of any perspective, on the one hand, and the desire for an inclusive conversation about the good of the whole, on the other, is a challenge that a national political theology will require complex strategies to meet. One necessary and too often overlooked resource for this endeavor is narrative, especially as it construes a unified whole through attention to particularities. Indeed, it is the contention of this book that we need a political theology consistent with American religious freedom, and that this political theology must attend closely to the category of narrative as a specifier of historical identity and possibilities. If we would take history seriously, we must attend to the narrative structure through which history is emplotted, both when we define the history of a particular community and when we describe ultimate, or religious, hopes for the history of humanity as a whole. Despite considerable discussion of the theological significance of history and of the theologian’s historical context, much of the work in contextual theology has paid little attention to the narrative structure of the historical imagination, focusing instead on the theological importance of analyses of culture and economy.3 Yet, without attention to the narratives through which historical identity and destiny are envisioned, we cannot adequately engage the temporal dimension of our identities or our hopes, and hence we cannot further the project of giving theological meaning to “obscured and oppressed hopes and sufferings” in history, as J. B. Metz, among others, advocates.4 At least, such is the argument of this book. When narratives are mentioned in connection with issues of religion and public life, however, too often they are appealed to as the basis for a restorationist agenda seeking to perpetuate a previously established identity in the face of threats of change. This is an unfortunately truncated use of narrative, since careful attention to the structure and function of narrative suggests that it not only provides and reinforces a communal identity but is also a source of critique and transformation, enabling us to imagine possibilities for the future that are appropriate to the specific historical contexts providing the conditions and the limits of our praxis. Paul Ricoeur’s work in particular demonstrates that narratives so interweave past, present, and future that expectations for the future and experience in the present are inseparable from reception of the past. Goals for the future are embedded in historical narratives in such a manner that, if we intend to effect real political change, “we have to re-open the past, to revivify its unaccomplished, cut-off—even slaughtered—possibilities,” as

4


Ricoeur insists.5 Or, as Abraham Lincoln earlier argued, “if we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it.”6 This study thus intends to contribute to the bridging of what have developed as largely separate, if not opposing theological approaches— political theology and narrative theology. Each of these conversations has recovered an essential aspect of Christianity: political and liberation theologians remind us that Christian belief and practices have implications for all aspects of our lives, including the way we structure our social and political institutions, while narrative theologians have recovered a focus on the particularity of those beliefs and practices, grounded as they are in the stories of Israel, of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and of the beginnings of the Christian Church. If, as political and liberation theologians argue, the central stories of our faith cannot be properly understood as less than universal in import, it is also the case that those political and universal claims cannot be divorced from the particular religious faith in which they are rooted, as the narrative theologians proclaim. Yet few in political theology have paid adequate attention to the genre of narrative, and much of narrative theology has been deeply critical of political and liberation theology, which it accuses of betraying the specificity of Christianity in its eagerness to influence public policy and discourse. This opposition between political and narrative theologies must be overcome, I argue, since neither side can fully realize its agenda without some of the insights of the other. Without attention to narrative, political and liberation theologies cannot do justice either to the historical dimensions of their sociopolitical contexts or to the specificity of Christian revelation. At the same time, narrative theologians need to broaden their focus to account for the various narratives that form our identities, and to acknowledge that, despite their historical particularity, narratives are not immune to external evaluation and critique. The false dilemma demanding that we either accept that public life consists in an unnegotiable clash of narratives or engages in a discredited search for a universally accepted rational foundation must be rejected; only then will we develop a narrative theology adequate to the universal significance of Christian claims about the conditions for human flourishing. Our task here is to explore the feasibility of a multifaceted and public role for narratives in contemporary theology, one in which narratives function not only as a politically significant source of shared identity and common projects, but also as a means through which theologians can realize their task of relating sacred and secular histories. Without reject-

Introduction

5

ing the importance of synchronic analyses of a particular context, which Latin American liberation theologians have pioneered with their attention to social and economic sciences, we need to develop also the diachronic analysis that attention to history and to its narrative structure provides, as black liberation and womanist theologians have insisted. For all of the recent work done in contextualizing and historicizing theology, there has been surprisingly little attention to the following questions, for which we still lack adequate answers: What would it mean for theologians to be involved in analyzing, critiquing, and reconstructing the narratives through which people make sense of their temporal lives? How might we do this with specific attention to the narrative dimensions of Christian beliefs about the goal or end of history?

The Public Theology Project Primarily since the late 1980s, theologies concerned with addressing the United States as a whole have indeed begun to develop. Parker Palmer, Linell Cady, Max Stackhouse, Ronald Thiemann, Robert Benne, and Michael and Kenneth Himes are among those who have undertaken to relate the meaning of Christian faith to an interpretation of the social and political life of this country.7 James Cone and Victor Anderson have also taken up this task from their perspectives as an African-American theologian and an African-American philosopher of religion, respectively, while more recently Benjamin Valentin has argued for a Latino public theology.8 Despite their considerable differences, these thinkers have all chosen the term “public theology” to describe this endeavor, a term whose contemporary use originated in Martin E. Marty’s 1974 article “Two Kinds of Two Kinds of Civil Religion.”9 Important contributions are thus being made to the creation of the national political theology that has been lacking in this country, a project that my argument here for the public and theological significance of narrative is intended to further. Since the name “public theology” arose within a discussion of American civil religion and is too often confused with it, it may be helpful to clarify the differences between these two related but quite distinct approaches. There is, to be sure, an area of overlap insofar as civil religion is understood to be the “apprehension of a universal and transcendent religious reality as seen in, or . . . as revealed through the experience of the American people.”10 Insofar as public theology also seeks to articulate the religious implications of our American experiment, it then shares this task with civil religion. However, public theology differs from civil

6


religion in at least two major ways. First, whereas civil religion has come to be identified as the practice of invoking religious beliefs and symbols in support of a country’s values and practices, public theology’s goal is not simply to provide support but to engage in critical reflection on the nation’s culture, plans, and actions. As Robert McElroy nicely states, a truly public theology involves “acknowledging God’s participation in the life of the nation, while at the same time using religious truth to critique the policies and direction of the nation.”11 Second, civil religion consists of the public use of religious beliefs, symbols, and rituals that are thought to be commonly held by or acceptable to the majority of the people, a sort of religious “least common denominator”; the majority of those identifying their work as public theology, on the other hand, seek to address concerns of national public life with the resources of their specific religious traditions. Public theology, as I will defend it here, thus involves the development of particular theologies of our common public life although, as I will argue below, these particular theologies must also engage in critical analyses of American “spiritual culture” and must offer their perspectives not only to their own religious communities but to the entire public.12 This particularity of public theologies leads to yet a third difference from civil religion, which has begun to emerge in the public theologies that have carried through the project to the point where they issue in reinterpretations of Christian beliefs. These public theologies are genuinely contextualized theologies, providing reformulations (and not simply applications) of major themes of Christianity developed through attention to the demands of the American social and political context. For example, Cady interprets the doctrine of the Trinity in relation to the creation, redemption, and sustenance of our common life; Palmer understands Christian reconciliation to include the overcoming of social and class divisions; and Stackhouse articulates a political and economic vision of Christian stewardship. Thus, while continuing civil religion’s interest in the public presence of religious beliefs and symbols, public theology differs from civil religion in that, as a political theology for the United States, it is committed to providing a reformulation of the beliefs and practices of particular religious traditions developed through critical engagement with the ideas and practices of national public life. To be sure, much of the agenda of developing a religious discourse addressing public life has recently been pursued by neoconservative thinkers, many of whom may not describe their work as “public theology.”13 Some of this group will perhaps also object to my characterization of this project of public theology as a form of historicized theology in the

Introduction

7

same family as political and liberationist theologies, which are usually at least liberal and often quite radical, theologically and politically. Nevertheless, I maintain that the project of historicizing theology, of reinterpreting Christian beliefs through a critical address of issues of national life, is common to the neoconservative theology of George Weigel, for example, and to the considerably more radical theology of James Cone.14 Indeed, a close look at the theology supporting a Christian neoconservative political agenda indicates that even those who intend only to “apply” their beliefs to political issues are in fact engaged in theological reinterpretation: to understand Christian faith as centrally preoccupied with opposition to abortion and homosexuality has theological effects no less significant than does a focus on Jesus as liberator from the sin of economic oppression. Further, as I hope becomes clear in what follows, the project of developing a U.S. public theology did not originate as, nor is it now solely, a neoconservative project; the task of rethinking the meaning of a specific religious tradition in light of its implications for our national life can be undertaken from a variety of perspectives and may result in different and even opposing conclusions.15 While I insist that there is a methodological relation between public theology (whether issuing from the right, the center, or the left) and the various political and liberationist theologies, the project of contextualizing theology is not predicated on commitment to any specific interpretation of Christianity or of American public life.

Why Call It Public Theology? It has become commonplace to recognize that the various intentionally contextual theologies are quite distinct because of the different realities they grapple with and so properly have different names. Thus, Latin American liberation theology is not simply a variant of German political theology (or vice versa), and mujerista and womanist theologies must be named as such and not subsumed under the title of “feminist theology.” I contend that a political theology for the United States will also be to some degree specific to its context, and that the name “public theology” has been well chosen to represent this specificity insofar as it designates two key issues especially important in the United States: 1) the difficulty of reconciling a public role for religion with the reality of our pluralistic society historically committed to the disestablishment of religion, and 2) a currently widespread suspicion (at least, widespread in the national debates) of public projects and purposes, which are seen as less worthwhile than individual pursuits and less efficient than privately funded undertakings.

8


The first problem, that of defining and defending a public role for theological discourse in a religiously pluralistic society, is quite complicated and increasingly contentious. In the conversations of daily life, on media talk shows, and in newspaper op-ed pages, one commonly encounters the view that religious beliefs have no place in the political discussions of a people committed to a “separation” of church and state: any religious influence on legislative decisions or public policies is thought to be tantamount to legislating a particular religion. However, perhaps even more commonly, one finds the opposing assertion that recognition of the “Judeo-Christian” character of our nation is properly basic to any political discourse in the United States. With increasing recognition of the fact that Christian beliefs have public implications and that laws have religious presuppositions, neutrality is proclaimed impossible. We must declare ourselves to be a nation “under God,” we are told, or through silence implicitly acknowledge that we are not “under God”; no middle course is thought to remain. Interestingly, this is not a simple matter of disagreement between believers and non-believers, as fervent Christians (as well as people of other religious creeds) can be found on both sides. Nor does this disjunction seem to involve an inherent philosophical difference between conservative and liberal interpretations of Christianity or of U.S. politics, since within the past thirty-five years conservatives and liberals in this country have virtually exchanged positions on this issue. When religious leaders publicly participated in the civil rights movements and Vietnam War protests, some conservative Christians (notably the Rev. Jerry Falwell) decried the sullying of a truly spiritual (i.e., private and internal) faith with this-worldly politics. With the more recent development of a politically active Christian Right, liberal Christians can now be found condemning the “political” use of religion by such people as the Rev. Jerry Falwell! Nor is it the case that only the liberal side must explain its shift on this issue, as Eldon Eisenbach has suggested. The conservative side, too, and indeed all of us, must be able to proffer a coherent account of the public role of religion in relation to religious freedom and the First Amendment.16 The reality of our situation is that, despite our more than 200 years of experimentation and a plethora of publications and forums devoted to the role of religious discourse in a pluralistic society, we still lack consensus on how (or if) religiously informed political action can be allowed without infringing on the religious freedom that many of us believe our religious faith requires and that the Constitutional disestablishment of religion guarantees. The viability of any political theology for the United

Introduction

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States depends on our ability to justify its public role as consistent with religious freedom (or, if we decide otherwise, we ought clearly to acknowledge that religious freedom is being compromised and explain why this is justified). If we fail to do either, we will simply add to the confusion and indeed the suspicion and rancor that mark this debate. The second public issue that no American political theology should ignore is our lack of societal commitment to maintaining the quality of our public life and to pursuing a common good. This absence of what may be called “public virtue” (an interest in, and willingness to sacrifice for, the good of the larger society) is, I believe, particularly evident in the lack of support for the taxes needed to provide adequate public services, even when the market for luxury goods is flourishing. Michael Lind and Christopher Lasch, among others, have incisively described the irony of our situation, wherein governmental agencies find their financial resources severely strained, while those who resist tax increases to maintain the quality of public services are willing to spend lavishly to purchase education, police, and even garbage collection privately. The German theologian Jürgen Moltmann, an astute observer of the American scene, has aptly noted that this preoccupation with “privatization” in the United States is more accurately termed the “commercialization” of life here, as more and more aspects of our lives, public and private, are submitted to the dictates of the market.17 Many suspect that an exaggerated American emphasis on the individual is at the root of this failure of concern for the common good. For example, Robert Bellah, who initiated the interest in civil religion in 1967, has more recently joined those arguing that our individualistic approach to economic well-being (in which success or failure is the responsibility of the individual) has significantly blinded Americans to structural injustice. This individualism, Bellah concludes, is an important factor in our tolerance of the appropriation of the benefits of economic wealth by the top 5 percent of wage earners.18 To be sure, some public theologians on the right salute this privatization and economic individualism, and call for more rather than less of it.19 Yet even these theologians join Bellah in criticizing the individualism that undermines concern for public morality. These challenges to our hyperindividualism have been especially evident in the “liberal-communitarian” debate that has underscored the insufficiencies of, on the one hand, an extreme liberal proceduralism that reduces politics to a process of adjudication between competing personal agendas, and, on the one hand, a communitarianism prescribing a shared cultural vision that seems rather more appropriate to a homogenous

10


community than to our pluralistic society.20 Despite the various attempts to propose solutions that move “beyond” these two options, perhaps through a revival of “civic republicanism,” no clear resolution of this debate has yet been reached in our public life. However much we may insist, as does Bellah’s associate William Sullivan, that society is a cooperative endeavor with a good of its own surpassing “the sum of individual wants and desires,” there is little evidence that we retain a clear public commitment vigorously to pursue an adequate understanding of what this societal good is.21 It might be argued that the “events of September 11” changed all of this, as people in the United States have developed a deeper appreciation of this country and its institutions through the experience of being violently attacked. We are indeed experiencing a renewed commitment to public displays of patriotism, and thus we may have a particularly opportune situation for revising the widespread suspicion of the political processes that common action requires. However, even if this newfound concern for the nation should turn out to be more than ephemeral, there is little evidence thus far that we have also identified or are willing to pursue any greater common purpose than our own survival and the continuation of our dominance. The evidence suggests instead that the threat of terrorism will be used primarily to enforce greater homogeneity and to stifle rather than to invigorate public debate. When the most patriotic thing the president can call for from the American people is to further indulge our national addiction to recreational shopping, we are scarcely justified in concluding that that there is widespread willingness to sacrifice our personal interests for the common good. (Shailer Mathews once observed that people find it easier to die for the political ideals of their country than to pay taxes to support them; recent events confirm at least that the former remains a more publicly palatable policy than is the latter.22) To be sure, a lack of public virtue is only one of the many issues a national political theology is properly concerned with, so it is arguable that it need not be a defining issue for a U.S. political theology. However, I judge that the quality of our public life is indeed a major issue determining the context of a political theology for the United States: those who are proffering religious evaluations of national purposes cannot avoid engagement (if not explicitly, then at least implicitly) with the lack of public interest in clarifying a common good and with the widespread tendency to seek private resolutions for all public problems. Thus the work of those many social and cultural critics who have explicitly addressed this public disinterest is an important resource for public theologians,

Introduction

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whether they envision a “revised liberalism,” as Ronald Thiemann has proposed, or criticize the cultural dominance of instrumental rationality as has David Tracy.23 I submit that “public theology” is therefore an appropriate name for an American political theology, since the revitalization of public life and the development of a role for theology in public discourse are especially problematic issues in the United States, for the reasons suggested above. As Kenneth and Michael Himes have pointed out, the term “public” is of further value in that it signals a breadth of concern with issues of our common life, including not only policies of the state but also matters of society and culture.24 In Robert Wuthnow’s helpful distinction, “politics refers to all the formally organized or institutionalized ways in which a society governs itself,” while “public” is generally understood as referring to “something broader than either politics or public policy, namely, the ongoing discourse that takes place in any society about its collective values.”25 The subject matter of public theology is not, then, limited to governmental decisions or to particular issues of public policy (although these are certainly important), but also encompasses issues of social attitudes, institutions, and cultural practices. This is a point worth noting here, because much of our discussion in chapter 2 will focus rather narrowly on issues of governmental and legislative processes. While specific attention to the role of religious beliefs in governmental actions is necessary because of questions raised by our American tradition of separating church and state, our concern for these issues should not lead to the conclusion that public theology’s only interest is in influencing the state. Of course, a theology that is not simply concerned about the public but intends to contribute to the reconstruction of public discourse must itself be public. Public theologians have also taken this aspect of their project seriously if less than successfully, arguing that the claims of a public theology should not be defended in terms comprehensible only to those who share a religious creed, but rather should be proffered in public forums and should attempt to persuade all involved in the public conversation.26 This is the point at which those who share Stanley Hauerwas’s perspective reject the project of public theology, arguing instead that to accept a role in this public conversation (at least in principle) compromises the specificity of the Christian perspective. Yet even Hauerwas does not deny that Christianity has public implications and intends to transform public life; while I will discuss Hauerwas’s position in some detail in chapter 4 below, it will suffice to mention here that in my view we cannot influence a conversation about the public good if we do not enter that conversation, nor can we expect people to listen to our

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criticisms of their proposals if we refuse to entertain their criticisms of ours. However particular in origin, any worthwhile position should be proffered to the general population, and for this reason public theologians have argued against an unnecessarily restrictive professionalism that addresses itself only to academic audiences and in jargon that is incomprehensible to nonspecialists.27 The term “public” therefore specifies not only predominant aspects of the national context that this theology is concerned with but also the breadth of the audience addressed. In carrying out its project, public theology as thus envisioned engages three major and converging issues in our public life. These are: 1) What purpose(s) ought we to pursue as a people? 2) To what extent is a common vision and purpose possible or even desirable if we are to foster a heterogeneous and open society? 3) Perhaps most problematically, what is the role of particular religious understandings of the good in a society fundamentally committed to religious freedom? Narrative, as I will argue below, has a special role in resolving these questions because narrative is the form in which historical identity and direction are imagined, and because narratives comprise a whole out of particular events and characters without denying their individuality. I also argue that, while these questions about our common purpose and vision can and are being engaged from many different perspectives and with the resources of various academic disciplines, a theological perspective has its own contribution to make and should be included in these important conversations about our common life. Drawing on the nuanced arguments of Franklin I. Gamwell and of John Courtney Murray, I will defend in chapter 2 an alternative to the extremes of banning religion from public life, on the one hand, and legally establishing religion, on the other hand. This alternative depends not on governmental support for a generic “God” but on our willingness as citizens to publicly defend our particular religious beliefs, if and when they are relevant to the public order.

Achievements in Public Theology Thus Far Borrowing from and expanding the schema developed by Benjamin Valentin, I categorize the contributions in public theology to date as divisible into five major (though interrelated) areas: 1) the public role of the Christian churches; 2) the public nature of theological discourse; 3) the problem of religious freedom in a pluralistic society; 4) constructive theological assessments of public life; and 5) the need to attend to the

Introduction

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importance of diversity within our theologies as well as in public life.28 To be sure, each of these topics has been subject to theological debate for some time and continues to be pursued by thinkers who do not identify their work with the public theology project. While public theology does not proceed apart from these broader theological conversations, it takes up these issues with a specific interest in overcoming the deterioration of public life, the privatization of religion, and the parochialization of theology in the United States.

The Public Role of the Christian Churches Martin E. Marty made one of the earliest contributions to the development of public theology with his argument for the public role of the church. Responding to the waning of Christian enthusiasm for social activism and to the growing tribal belligerence that emphasizes group particularity over societal cooperation, in The Public Church Marty outlines a strategy of ecumenical cooperation among Christian churches, so that they might better fulfill their call to witness to the world. Parker Palmer, in his The Company of Strangers, similarly argues that the Gospel demands a concern for the world such that Christian churches have an ineluctable obligation to concern for and action in public life. Sociologist Robert Wuthnow has also furthered our understanding of church congregations as public bodies that form us for participation in the even more public life of our pluralistic republic. These scholarly contributions join an ongoing body of ecclesial statements addressing various aspects of the public witness of the Christian churches.29 Interestingly, the conversation today has only moderately shifted from the parameters Marty sketched over twenty years ago. Few Christian theologians now defend a privatized Christianity (though much of our preaching and church life does continue, perhaps unintentionally, to encourage a privatized faith focused on personal salvation). Instead, theological debates in this area remain largely centered on the alternatives of a church in opposition to a non-Christian public (which Marty describes as tribalism) or a church engaged in public life and cooperating with larger social movements. More recently, arguments for a new Christendom in which the church marshals its resources to shape public life according to a Christian model of society have also gained credence, especially through the academic arguments of John Milbank and Oliver O’Donovan.30 Nevertheless, all three major options (opposition, engagement, Christendom) accept that Christianity has political implications such that the church has

14


a proper and political mission to the world, even while they differ considerably on the terms of that mission. In the broadest sense of the term, all three of these stances are public theologies, since they are rethinking Christianity and especially the Church’s role in the world in light of questions raised by our current sociopolitical context. For the most part, though, the task of public theology is claimed only by those who both address the American situation and are seeking engagement in public life through an approach that is neither oppositional belligerence nor a new Christendom. This may be because those who favor an oppositional stance are highly suspicious of Christian involvement in public discourse, while those who seek a new Christendom tend to be less concerned with maintaining the diversity and openness that the word ‘public’ implies. While I will not here address issues of ecclesial roles as such, the argument of this book is intended to further the public role of the church as described by Marty and to do so largely by contributing a theological method for relating our Christian hopes for history to the specific possibilities presented by our particular historical context in the United States.

The Public Nature of Theological Discourse The task of defending the church’s mission in a pluralistic society is inseparable from the current debate over the public accessibility of specifically religious languages, texts, and ideas. The tenability of public theology is challenged by liberal rationalists, who oppose the inclusion of specifically religious beliefs in public policy debates on the grounds that religious beliefs lack the basis in shared rationality necessary for civil debate. (This position is, of course, remarkably similar to that held by those Christian theologians who insist that Christians involved in civil debate are required to translate their claims into publicly accessible terms that implicitly deny the distinct Christian perspective that gets lost in the translation.) Public theologians must then find a way to avoid the horns of the following dilemma: if we speak our distinctly religious perspective, our voice is too particular to be comprehensible beyond our religious community, whereas when we adopt commonly accepted terms, we seem no longer to have anything distinct to contribute.31 Many different solutions to this dilemma have been proposed by those who refuse to withdraw their specific religious views from the public discussion. Some insist that while religious beliefs provide the motivation, we ought to enter public life (or at least policy debates) with

Introduction

15

arguments presented in purely secular terms. Others, including public theologians Linell Cady and Benjamin Valentin, insist that secular arguments alone lack the rhetorical power and at times insight of religious traditions; thus, they maintain that religiously informed positions can and should be introduced into the public debate with their religious roots clearly intact, provided that these positions can also be defended in secular terms. Still others, such as William Dean and Victor Anderson, argue that theologians should take up the task of religious criticism, attending not to the beliefs and practices of specific religious communities but to an implicit spiritual culture shared by the majority of Americans.32 While these debates over how to navigate between religious specificity and public accessibility continue, David Tracy’s work on the public character of religious discourse has established a basis for moving the conversation forward. Along with his careful analysis of public forms of rationality, Tracy defends the public character of highly specific religious texts. Reminding us that these religious texts provide answers to common human questions, Tracy concludes that the particularity of origin should not distract us from the universal applicability of the insights gained. Anyone who shares the question of what a truly human life consists in, for example, can engage the particular answers disclosed in religious texts and traditions. If we determine that it is our religious perspective itself (and not merely the efficacy of the policies derived from this perspective) that is the source of our differences, then religious beliefs can and should be submitted to public examination and argument.33 Of course, debates will continue over the grounds for public evaluation of religious beliefs, especially insofar as Christians differ over how well those who lack the grace of faith (or, in the terms of Yale theologian George Lindbeck, those who have not been adequately formed by the community’s narrative) can truly grasp the meaning of Christianity. Yet we must not lose sight of the common Christian experience (rooted in our two millennia of evangelization) that in some manner people outside of the Christian community are capable of a level of comprehension that (through grace) enables them to accept or to reject the offer of Christianity. We should not overlook the fact that this capacity for at least a basic comprehension of different religious views is presumed to some extent both by those who insist that we should speak our distinctly religious perspective publicly and by those who seek in public conversations to emphasize the points of commonality that make such understanding possible. How much to defend our views on the basis of non-Christian argumentation and how much to speak a distinctly Christian idiom have always been and will remain a judgment call subject to debate (as it has

16


been throughout the history of Christianity). However, our real disagreements on this topic should not be exaggerated; more will be gained by careful attention to how and in what ways specific formulations may distort Christianity or fail to be comprehensible to non-Christians than has been achieved in the considerable broadsides for and against the general project of accommodating our language to public life. Given our focus here on the role of narrative in public theology, the discussion below will be primarily concerned with the grounds for the public evaluation of theological and historical narratives. However, this conversation will be pursued from a general perspective that I take to be consistent with that of David Tracy: while we will often find common values to appeal to in defending public policies and political positions, we cannot preclude the possibility on occasion that our differences “go all the way down” and will need to be engaged as the fundamental disagreements over religious beliefs that they are.

The Problem of Religious Freedom Efforts to include religious perspectives in public debate in the United States inevitably raise questions about how (if at all) this public theology can be consistent with the robust religious freedom protected by our official disestablishment of religions. Much of the resistance to the introduction of religious positions in public debate, whether the arguments are proffered in specifically religious terms or are translated into general philosophical principles, is rooted perhaps more in the desire to protect a meaningful religious freedom than in actual experiences of the incomprehensibility or the unfalsifiability of religious beliefs. Thus, those of us who advocate the inclusion of religion in public debate will need to clarify the meaning of religious freedom and the parameters it sets for public theology. Too often, our public conversation simply presumes that religious freedom precludes religious perspectives in public life or, conversely, that it guarantees the right to legislate our beliefs. Currently, we find many insisting that disestablishment applies only to particular Christian denominations but not to Christianity as such (we are a “Christian nation,” it is said), and others who seem content as long as religious authorities do not rule directly but allow lay Christians to determine the policies and laws to be pursued in accordance with Christian beliefs and practices. Given this state of confusion, public theology cannot responsibly ignore the need for a nuanced account of how and to what extent a

Introduction

17

religiously informed politics is consistent with the American Bill of Rights. A considerable amount of work has of course been done on this important and contentious topic, especially by historians clarifying the intentions of the Founding Fathers, by legal scholars seeking insight and coherence in the jurisprudential record, and by theologians who have engaged John Courtney Murray’s now classic arguments. The position I will defend below draws primarily on the work of Franklin I. Gamwell, who contends that a robust religious freedom does not require a secularism that bans religion from public life.

Developments in Constructive Public Theology A fourth area in public theology has been developed by those few who have produced substantive theologies reinterpreting Christian resources in a manner that affirms the value of public life and the importance of public virtue. Linell Cady, Max Stackhouse, Robert Benne, and Parker Palmer have made notable contributions to this discussion, deepening our understanding of Christianity and at the same time challenging the contemporary lack of public spiritedness and concern for the common good. Perhaps the most thorough analysis yet of this type has been developed by Kenneth and Michael Himes in their systematic assessment of the implications for public life of Christian doctrines on original sin, the Trinity, grace, creation, incarnation, and the communion of saints.34 Yet another type of specificity has been achieved in William Dean’s pioneering engagement in discerning a common American spiritual culture centered on improvisation, violence, and fantasy (or imaginative reinvention), as these are evident in jazz, football, and the movies, respectively. His “religious critic” approach to public theology differs significantly from the above theologies, since Dean focuses on a common American spirituality rather than on the resources of distinct religious communities. Further, Dean distinguishes between “religious” and “social” critics in ways that the above public theologians would not, concerned as they are to determine the social implications of religious beliefs (or, in Dean’s terms, to function as social critics on the basis of their theological perspectives). The differences between these approaches should not, however, be overestimated: after all, Dean would agree that the spiritual culture has sociopolitical implications, and the public theologians working with specific Christian beliefs are also concerned with and intend to influence the common culture that informs our policy-making.35

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An approach similar to Dean’s has been developed by Victor Anderson in his Pragmatic Theology. Like Dean, Anderson is concerned less with the resources of a particular tradition of religious creeds and practices than with a commonly acceptable form of religiosity. Where Dean engages sociocultural analyses to reveal an American “spiritual culture,” however, Anderson endeavors to bridge theology and philosophy of religion and to elucidate the contributions of pragmatic naturalism as a public theology.36 The degree of constructive contribution exemplified by these various thinkers is beyond the scope of my argument here, though the narrative method I propose is intended as the basis for a politically specific public theology. We need to move beyond general affirmations of the importance of public life and the common good, and begin to engage the particular ideals that we as a nation are pursuing and should (or should not) continue to pursue. While I share the above public theologians’ commitment to a specific and even doctrinal religious tradition, my approach is also consistent with Dean’s (and to a point, Anderson’s) insofar as the narrative public theology I defend seeks to engage widely shared presuppositions about transcendent values and to contribute to the transformation of our common culture.

Diversity in Public Theology New voices challenging us to take more seriously the exclusionary configuration of public discourse have recently joined those claiming the project of public theology. Cornel West has, of course, for many years championed a democratic and pluralistic public life, while calling attention to the obstacles that public conversations present to the inclusion of African-Americans as equals in the discussion. More recently, Dwight Hopkins, James Cone, and Victor Anderson have reminded us that the black churches in America have a long tradition of functioning as public churches and that black theology (especially black liberation theology) has always been to some extent a public theology, speaking to the wider public about the need to transform our common culture and institutions.37 Black theologians are especially important for my approach to public theology because, in addition to challenging public theology to attend to issues of race and power both in the topics it addresses and in whose voices count among public theologians, they also defend a combination of diachronic and synchronic analyses, pointing to the importance of history as well as of current social structures.

Introduction

19

Benjamin Valentin has also decisively interrupted the domination of public theology by white Anglo-Americans with his recent argument for a Latino public theology. While affirming the ongoing importance of efforts in Latino/a theology to defend their communities’ distinct cultural heritage, Valentin warns that Latino/a theology needs a complementary commitment to the task of building up civil discourse in public life. Only then will Latino/a theologians be able to form the coalitions necessary to secure the well-being of the Latino/a communities within a just civic order, he argues.38 A truly liberating public theology cannot, then, be captive to a white and middle-class vision of the common good, but must itself become the diverse and open conversation it envisions for our public life. Those of us who are white, middle class, and/or from mainstream religious traditions must find a way to contribute our voices without reinforcing a hegemonic discourse that stifles others. As I will argue below, there are resources in the Christian tradition for welcoming otherness and respecting diversity, and these should be a part of any theological contribution to public life.

The Public Character of Narrative The defense of a narrative approach to theology may seem to be in some conflict with the project of public theology, as it has emerged through this discussion. Should a project so concerned with fostering open, public discourse appeal to narratives that, after all, are about specific people and events, and are rooted in particular communities? This community-specific character of narrative (and its opposition to common discourse) is precisely the point emphasized in the postliberal (or narrative) theologies that have developed in this country under the influence of Hans Frei’s The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. George Lindbeck, for example, argues that religions are best understood as particular narratives through which we interpret the world and ourselves; he insists that a neutral or universal framework able to adjudicate between the claims of differing religions would entail yet another particular narrative encompassing the others, so that its neutrality is a charade.39 Thus it is commonly presupposed that an interest in narrative and an interest in public theology are at crosspurposes. It is certainly the case that for many the United States is more evidently a multiplicity of communities with particular traditions, narratives, and beliefs than it is a single unified community with a common tradition. Religious plurality has expanded far beyond varieties of Judaism and

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Christianity to include adherents of a multitude of traditional and new religions (as well as those who reject religion altogether), and we are less homogenous ethnically and racially than we are religiously. If public theology already raises the suspicion that it is yet another attempt to stifle dissent and diversity in the name of a common religiosity, will not the inherent particularity of narratives reinforce this suspicion? William Dean, in his The Religious Critic in American Culture, nevertheless argues for the important role of a national mythic narrative in a vital public life. Such a myth, arising from what Dean calls “an empirical sense of the whole” of our nation’s history, would indicate the direction and purpose of America’s role in history and would enable us “to speak positively about American responsibilities” as a basis for evaluating public policies. Without a mythic narrative, he warns, we will be left with an understanding of national history as being nothing more than a plurality of competing private interests, a “veritable myth of cacophony” that encourages people to support public policies that serve selfish ends.40 Thus in his more recent work, The American Spiritual Culture, Dean has proffered a common narrative of displacement as the basis of our spiritual culture.41 As I have indicated above, I share Dean’s concern for the role of the mythic and narrative imagination in establishing identity and purposes for the nation as a whole. He is, I believe, quite right to warn us against emphasizing our differences to the point where we can no longer imagine our shared participation in a common historical project. However, my approach differs from his in part because I place more emphasis on the fact that the exercise of the narrative imagination will always reflect the partial perspectives and particular judgments of those constructing the stories. This does not mean that we need be content with a clash of particular groups’ stories and their competing interests; rather, I argue that we should attempt stories of the whole, even while recognizing that every version of this story will be partial. No narrative of national life can hope to be the final word, but insofar as our narratives strive for relative adequacy to the whole and are offered to the public for further critique and revision, we might yet achieve that common discourse (and perhaps even genuine disagreement) about our national purposes that is the very opposite of mere cacophony. This project of developing and debating national narratives is vulnerable not only to the criticism of those who think that it is not possible (that is, that we do not have enough in common for a national story), but also to the perhaps more compelling criticism that such a common story is not desirable. “Grand narratives” suffer considerable disfavor currently,

Introduction

21

on the grounds that they disregard the perspectives and experiences that do not appear in or are marginal to the story.42 While this criticism must be taken seriously, I will argue below that the proper response to this potentially oppressive aspect of narrative is not to give up on national narratives but rather to be open to the criticisms that challenge us to attempt to construct more inclusive ones, for if we can no longer even narrate an account of our relations to each other as members of a larger whole, the result is likely to be even greater division and indifference to those marginalized or rendered invisible by our particular perspectives. I also concur with Dean that a narrative conveying the purpose of national history cannot be divorced from a religious “sense of the whole”; that is, the way in which the identity and purposes of a people are construed reflects whatever is taken to be of ultimate value. However, my approach again differs from Dean’s in that I am interested in encouraging critical perspectives on American culture and practices that are informed by particular religious traditions. In my view, one of the tasks of a Christian public theology is to offer a narrative of U.S. history within the context of a Christian perspective on the ultimate or comprehensive purpose to be pursued in history. A Christian national narrative will be differentiated from other national narratives not by the fact that it includes value judgments in its interpretation of American history, since all historical interpretations do so (at least implicitly), but rather by its use of an explicitly Christian point of reference for those value judgments. Some model must be found for bringing together national history and a Christian perspective on history. As I am persuaded that narrative is a privileged form of historical understanding, I will argue that one promising approach to bringing these two together is through the construction of a double narrative, a story-within-a-story, that narrates an account of American history as a moment within a larger Christian story of our hopes for, and God’s actions in, the history of humanity. Such a double narrative would be a contribution to the Christian community, providing an account of the religious significance of participation in public life and resulting in a more specific understanding of the political implications of Christian faith. God’s providential direction of history as understood by Christians remains abstract and indeterminate if not related to our particular historical experiences and possibilities, while, conversely, an understanding of any particular history requires a value judgment about the purpose of history as a whole. This double narrative should also contribute to the transformation of public life through its proposal of a narratival interpretation of American history as a collective project to be fulfilled, a project related to yet not

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itself the ultimate purpose of history. It is not likely (or perhaps even desirable) that there would be a single common story of American history, since such a story can be developed only from a specific perspective and through particular judgments about the inclusions of events and the strategies of emplotment, judgments that can be disputed and a perspective whose partiality should be challenged by other views. I will argue nevertheless that consideration of public policies would be enriched by attempts to formulate an acceptable national narrative since, without a story of our nation’s place in history, the ability to think concretely about the possibilities and opportunities specific to the United States is impeded and a motivating vision able to sustain the struggle is lacking. We need to encourage thought and debate about our shared identity and common project as Americans; we do not need to curtail such debate by insisting on allegiance to any single account of the American project. This will add to other work being done in public theology by drawing attention to the need more seriously to engage our historical identity and our future hopes and possibilities from a Christian perspective. Though important work has been done on particular Christian doctrines and on specific policies, sufficient attention has not yet been paid to theological analysis of our national history as determining our current situation and possibilities. In particular, an adequate Christian perspective should enable us to face our past history in all of its shame and glory with more honesty, with gratitude for the achievements and repentance for the failures; we might thus avoid the immature and distorted politics that sees our history as either wholly good or thoroughly evil. At the same time, other narrative accounts told from other perspectives will have their own corrective resources to offer our public life, so a Christian double-narrative must be proffered in a manner open to the challenge of other such narratives. The narrative approach that will be defended here is not, of course, the only method that public theology needs. Although historical narratives allow theology to engage the specific historical context, without the various social scientific analyses we will be unable to make informed judgements about public policies. Political attitudes and ideals may be influenced by theological narratives, but structural as well as attitudinal changes are necessary, if we are to create a just society. As Cornel West has reminded us, in revitalizing public life we must attend especially to the social and cultural realities that prevent us from meeting as equals in public debate.43 Further, as Dean himself points out in his advocacy of mythic narratives, an emphasis on narratives may focus on human history

Introduction

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to the exclusion of nature, resulting in a theology ill-equipped to respond to the environmental crisis. A narrative approach to public theology must, then, recognize its limitations and allow for other methods as well.44

How This Argument Will Proceed Since this study is devoted to exploring the contributions narrative can make to an American public theology, it will be necessary first to demonstrate that public theology is both appropriate to Christianity and consistent with religious freedom. Chapter 2 of this work will defend this properly public character of Christian theology, beginning with an examination of Hannah Arendt’s intriguing (if at times puzzling) account of the public realm. Investigating her claim that a pluralistic public life is an important human good, I will conclude that it is also therefore of value to Christians, and that there are theological grounds for resisting the devaluation of public life in our society. Having determined that Christians are properly concerned with public life, in the second part of this chapter I will further argue that religious beliefs are properly public claims that can and should be included in public debates in a manner consistent with religious freedom. This is an especially important point of discussion given that many “narrative theologians” reject engagement in a pluralistic public life, if this requires that the Christian perspective functionally serve as one narrative among others; public theologians cannot then assume but must defend the claim that religious freedom in a diverse and pluralistic public life is consistent with the Christian faith they espouse. Chapter 3 will evaluate Dean’s proposal for a national narrative in public theology by defending both attention to the nation and the importance of narratives for this project. After providing a qualified defense of the continued significance of national politics, I will focus especially on Paul Ricoeur’s contributions to clarifying the nature of narrative and its role in understanding history, in forming identity, and in envisioning new possibilities for our future. Ricoeur’s work also suggests standards for the public evaluation of narratives (thus demonstrating that narratives have a place in public debate) and establishes a basis for delineating the limitations of narrative in a public theology. Having explored the nature of narrative and its role in historical understanding, a critical examination of three currently influential yet quite different proposals for the use of narrative in Christian theology will follow in chapter 4. I will focus here on the methodologies of Johann

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Baptist Metz, Stanley Hauerwas, and Ronald Thiemann: each of these theologians not only develops a distinct argument for the role of narrative in Christian theology, but also is centrally concerned with relating this Christian narrative in some manner to sociopolitical issues. Through a critical analysis of the ideas of these three theologians, I will sustain their insistence on a narrative interpretation of Christian faith while critiquing the limitations in their approaches to narrative, especially as these compromise their understandings of Christianity as well as their contributions to public life. Through a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of these three theological methods, as evident particularly in light of the theories of public life and of narrative defended in the previous two chapters, I will defend the necessity of relating Christian and national narratives through the construction of a double narrative in which the national story is set within the context of a broader Christian story of the purpose of history. I will also return here to the question of whether and how we might debate the adequacy and the implications of such a double narrative, and will analyze the coherence and appropriateness of the standards for evaluation proposed by each of these three theologians along with those proffered by Paul Ricoeur. The concluding chapter (chapter 5) will concretize this proposal for a narrative public theology by demonstrating the complexity of the narrative imagination as developed in three examples of interweaving sacred and secular stories in a manner that interrupts and redirects our public life. Abraham Lincoln’s construction of a narrative of national history in light of his understanding of God’s historical purposes, Virgil Elizondo’s interpretation of Christian faith and of the colonization of the Americas from the perspective of the story of Juan Diego’s vision of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and Delores Williams’s reading of the biblical story of Hagar along with the stories of African-American women who have suffered and resisted on behalf of themselves and their communities are each important instances in which the power of multilayered narratives as means of resistance and as sources of new possibilities for public life can be seen. While thus providing examples of what a narrative public theology might look like, they also challenge any attempt to provide a single narrative sufficient for either U.S. history or the Christian faith, and remind us instead of the wealth of resources available to a narrative theology that eschews the comfort and clarity of such closure. The complexity of narrative theology as defended here will, I hope, make possible more specific theological contributions to public discussions by expanding rather than limiting our narratival strategies. Working

Introduction

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toward more honest, accurate, and inclusive national narratives may contribute to the sense of common identity and purpose necessary for public debate without silencing or excluding the voices that must interrupt any simple account of our identity or purpose. We might then yet achieve the revitalized public life that I argue ought to be valued by those committed to Christianity as well by those committed to American democracy.

CHAPTER TWO

Public Theology in a Pluralistic Society

If the project of public theology is to be coherent, the inclusion of specifically Christian perspectives in public discourse must be consistent both with the integrity of Christianity and with the pluralistic nature of our society. Alas, neither point can be taken for granted: there is no lack of voices insisting that a public role for theology violates either the essence of Christianity or our national commitment to religious freedom. Hence, some argue that Christianity is inherently distorted when submitted to the secular logic that governs our public life, while others maintain that our pluralistic polity prohibits the intrusion of a religious vision (or perhaps any shared purpose) in political matters. Given the persistence and prevalence of these views, the defense of public theology remains an uphill battle on at least these two major fronts: against those Christians who for various reasons repudiate involvement in a pluralistic public life, on the one hand, and against those theorists of public life who for various reasons reject a public role for religious perspectives, on the other hand. There is also the further problem that many who accept the basic idea of a publicly active faith are seldom clear about how (or whether) this public religiosity is consistent with the disestablishment of religion maintained in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.1 In light of these differing views, the task of this chapter is to demonstrate that Christian theology can and should endorse participation in a pluralistic public life as an inherent good to be valued by Christians and to be engaged in a manner consistent with religious freedom for all (including those who exercise that freedom by rejecting religion). This defense of public theology is especially important if we are to reclaim a role for narrative in public theology. Interestingly, it is often those theologians emphasizing the irreducible and formative role of the

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Christian story who are most opposed to public theology, insisting that the very structures of public inclusiveness distort the distinct voice of Christianity and the unique polity and political practice formed by this Christian story. Thus far, the majority of theologians addressing both narrative and public life are staunch critics of liberal pluralism and seek to oppose the alternative and “true” politics of the church to that of our secular common life.2 This opposition to liberal pluralism is particularly evident in the work of John Milbank, who has developed a more detailed version of the rejection of liberalism that Stanley Hauerwas has long maintained.3 Milbank, like Hauerwas, presumes that a secular polity necessarily embodies a liberalism that eschews any common purpose, serving instead only to mediate between competing private projects. In this view, Christians who agree to participate in public life on secular terms at least implicitly accept the liberal narrative of competitive individualism and the ontology of violence on which it is founded. The attempt to seek common ground between Christian and non-Christian points of view is then seen as wrong-headed in that it undermines a specifically Christian perspective. Instead of thus compromising with the violence of liberalism, we should clearly proclaim our Christian narrative of the fall from, and ongoing restoration to, an original harmony among humanity under the sovereignty of God, Milbank argues. Since the Christian narrative and the secular liberal narrative are in this view fundamentally incompatible, Milbank contends that instead of common ground there can only be a clash of narratives in which we seek to out-narrate one another and so to gain converts by the superior aesthetic quality of our own narrative. While Hauerwas and others in the United States have developed this oppositional stance into a repudiation of our political processes (and to a large extent of Christian involvement with them), Milbank argues that the boundaries between church and state should be “hazy,” so that liberalism might be overcome and religious beliefs allowed to determine the structures, policies, and practices of public life. Like his English compatriot, Oliver O’Donovan, Milbank’s position thus manifests theocratic rather than sectarian tendencies.4 There are, then, real differences between the narrative theologians who join Hauerwas in striving to maintain the politics of the church as a distinct counterwitness to society and those who join Milbank in seeking to transform society to mirror the beliefs and practices of the church. Nevertheless, they share a common yearning for some form of Christendom in which the lordship of Jesus Christ over all of society is formally and politically recognized (a yearning that becomes explicit in the works of both Hauerwas and Milbank).5


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These two approaches, the refusal to engage in the political processes of liberal polities and the attempt to ensure that the political order embodies Christian beliefs, are opposites as are different sides of the same coin; both reject a secular and pluralistic public life. As Milbank’s call for fuzzying the boundaries between church and state suggests, Christian efforts to transform public life are not easily reconciled with religious freedom. Yet the sectarian rejection of engagement in any politics not predicated on acknowledgment of God provides no real support for religious freedom either, though it refuses to impose Christendom by force. Any public theology that seeks to foster our pluralistic public life must then clarify how (if at all) this public religiosity is consistent with religious freedom and, more basically, it must show why a pluralistic public life (and the religious freedom it requires) ought to be affirmed rather than merely tolerated or even rejected. Is it the case, as these narrative theologians maintain, that insofar as public theologians would present their positions in terms comprehensible to a pluralistic society, they have contributed to the distortion of Christianity’s unique voice? Or worse, that our politics as Christians ought rather to be based on an uncompromising repudiation of religious freedom in a pluralistic republic? The coherence of the project of public theology (as here pursued) thus requires that the Christian proclamation of the universal sovereignty of God be compatible with just that secular and pluralistic polity that narrative theologians so often reject. Indeed, more than a bare compatibility is necessary: since public theology does not merely accept but actually strives to foster an open and broad public debate, it will endeavor to persuade Christians as well as non-Christians that this civic plurality is a genuine good to be sought (at least when conditions permit). In order to defend the value of a pluralistic civic life, our conversation in this chapter will begin with a close look at Hannah Arendt’s theory of public life. Her work is particularly worth engaging, in that it challenges not only the political presuppositions underlying Milbank’s rejection of secularism but also the instrumentalist view of public life presumed by so many supporters of a public role for religion. The alternative Arendt developed provokes us to question assumptions about the nature and purpose of politics that we may not have been aware we held (even if we must conclude that Arendt’s position cannot be entirely sustained). Notwithstanding the fact that Arendt’s position also differs from much contemporary Christian theology in that she maintained that Christianity is inherently unconcerned with public life, I will argue that, overall, her analysis provides a basis for demonstrating that Christianity can and should value public life as a genuine and human good.

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It may seem odd to draw on the work of a secular Jewish philosopher when the task before us is to develop a Christian theological defense of public life. Indeed, this move risks precisely the engagement with secular arguments that so many narrative theologians see as a betrayal of the distinct logic of Christianity. However, though I agree with their insistence on the ultimate priority of Christianity, I do not accept the conclusion that this priority limits the order in which an argument should be presented. Instead, I maintain that there is no absolute starting place for our thought, but rather that we always begin formal reflection in the middle, as it were, with the commitments we have learned and developed (often unconsciously), regardless of which discussion comes first as we articulate our arguments. In fact, we often discover what our position is only through encountering an opposing view. Thus, our discussion of Arendt will reveal the contingency of the presuppositions about liberal pluralism inherent in the way Milbank, for example, constructs his account of the Christian story. After establishing the value of a pluralistic public life, we will turn in the second part of this chapter to the more specific but nevertheless crucial issue of religious freedom. Since much of the theological address of public life by narrative theologians entails an implicit (if often unrealized) presumption that the longstanding Protestant and more recent Catholic affirmations of religious freedom were theologically mistaken, the task of reclaiming narrative for public theology has a special concern with a theological defense of the religious freedom necessary to a pluralistic society. Clarifying the manner in which theology can realize its public role without infringing religious freedom is all the more pressing given the general confusion on this topic, a confusion by no means limited to narrative theologians. Along with a theoretical defense of the compatibility of public theology and religious freedom, which will be developed primarily through engaging the insights provided by Franklin I. Gamwell, I will seek to specify more concretely the proper role and limits of religious beliefs in our political processes by analyzing two current public arguments in the United States. The first case we will discuss is the ongoing controversy over whether (or in what manner) the Ten Commandments can be properly posted on government property; this discussion will allow us to define the limits of explicit government support for religion. The second case explored here involves the recent Supreme Court decision (Lawrence v. Texas), which struck down the sodomy laws in Texas. This court decision provides an opportunity for clarifying the issues involved in distinguishing between the morality that is appropriately legislated and the morals legislation that jeopardizes religious freedom.


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The purpose of this present chapter is thus to defend the following three premises on which public theology depends: 1) there are fully Christian reasons to support and to be involved in a pluralistic public life; 2) Christian beliefs are in some way open to public evaluation and can be appropriately included in public debates; and 3) this public role for Christian beliefs need not violate religious freedom. The insights gained through the defense of these three premises are proffered not only to strengthen Christian commitment to public involvement in a religiously diverse society but also to revitalize civic virtue and public life in the United States, since the defense of pluralism proposed here is consistent with, but not dependent on, Christian beliefs and practices.

Arendt’s Defense of a Pluralistic Public Life Public Life as Resistance to Totalitarianism Having experienced the horrors of Nazi Germany, Hannah Arendt would certainly agree with Milbank about the dangerous capacity for violence in modern politics. She also, like Milbank, rejected the liberal individualism that considers politics to be the mediation between competing personal projects. Yet where Milbank sees secular pluralism as the epitome of modernity’s folly, Arendt insisted that this pluralism is precisely the prescription to follow if we would recover the meaningful political action that might prevent totalitarian violence. Indeed, a deep concern with preventing the destructive forces of totalitarianism motivated her many efforts at clarifying the nature of our public life and defending its pluralism. In her early work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt noted a connection between the acceptance of a single idea that explains all of history and the rise of totalitarian violence (that peculiar form of political violence that is not limited to securing a regime against its enemies).6 When people experience rapid social change, they often develop an insecurity, such that they are attracted to a simple account of the goal of all history; however, their vulnerability is of course only increased by accepting the totalitarianism that organizes all of society according to this single idea. After all, when the rulers rule in the name of the goal of history, why limit violence to the defense of the regime? Should they not also use that violence on behalf of the very purpose of history that they claim to have discerned? Arendt’s argument about the violent and totalitarian implications of seeking solace in a single idea governing all history is particularly challenging to our public theology project, insofar as we too risk subsuming

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all of politics and history into a single religious vision, and thus need to face the criticism Arendt has raised of the potential for oppression and violence following from a single and clear historical goal. This is certainly a possibility with Milbank’s insistence on a politics that is subservient to the Christian story and its discernment of the goal of all history as a restoration of human harmony under God. This Christian story may not be the absolutely final word on history, since it is open to the further correction of the Parousia, as Gerard Loughlin has pointed out, but Milbank leaves no doubt that he considers his Christian story to be superior to any and all other temporal views, and to need no correction from them.7 While his goal is a worthy one that will be defended below, we must ask whether this is not precisely the single-minded and overconfident vision that Arendt warned against. It can only give us further pause that Milbank defends the use of violence to constrain those who would damage themselves by refusing to act in accordance with this story.8 Can we be so sure that a Milbankian clarity about the Christian story is an antidote to the horrors of history and not simply another basis for future horrors? This might seem to lend support to those like Hauerwas who maintain a pacifistic refusal of the politics of this world. Yet Arendt (who was no pacifist) was also deeply critical of the delegitimation of pluralistic political institutions, on the grounds that such institutions and habits are our best protection against the establishment of a totalitarian regime. When the limits set by tradition and custom no longer have authority to constrain people’s actions, we depend upon the safeguard provided by the pluralization of perspectives and power, Arendt insisted. If the argument that Christians must resist our secular public institutions because they are inherently incompatible with Christianity were to gain widespread support among Christians, the resulting delegitimation would likely bring the violent chaos of anarchy and, finally, result in the establishment of a more consolidated and oppressive power rather than one that is shared and dispersed, as Arendt warned (and as so many instances of the fall of governments has shown).9 Arendt also warned that those who withdraw from politics risk losing the protection of their civil rights, a point confirmed by her experience as a Jew in Europe, as well as by our more recent experiences of the lack of political attention to the needs of those who do not form an organized voting block. From Arendt’s perspective, then, a withdrawal from public life is no more appropriate as a strategy against totalitarianism than is Milbank’s assertion of a Christian story to govern our politics. While attending to Arendt’s warning of the consequences of withdrawing from public life, we should also note that she would be no less


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critical of a social activist political theology that enters public life for the purpose of securing justice for the poor and the oppressed. Arendt was a relentless opponent of an instrumental view of politics in which political action is valued as a means to an end, even if that end is justice. This criticism was due in large part to her concern that the instrumentalization of politics too easily leads to an impatience with the inefficiency of a pluralistic public life and will result in the devaluation of precisely those institutions that constrain totalitarian tendencies; force and oppression, after all, are so much more efficient, at least in the short term. If our goal can be more efficiently achieved in another manner, why continue to work through the messiness of public life? And if we fail to achieve our goal, why not then just give up and withdraw from public life? This fear of the political disruption and violence that she believed follow the subordination of politics to other ends is especially evident in her work On Revolution. In this analysis, she argued that the terror that accompanied the French Revolution was due to the fact that it made central to politics the demands of the poor for food and shelter. As she explained, “Les miserables . . . carried with them necessity, to which they had been subject as long as memory reaches, together with the violence that had always been used to overcome necessity.” These compelling physical needs call forth violent means for overcoming resistance to their satisfaction, in her view, and in doing so they destroy the public realm of discussion and persuasion, since these are irrelevant to the basic and common instinct to survive.10 Physical survival is a matter on which no light is shed by pluralistic discourse because, Arendt argued, “the cry for bread will always be uttered with one voice. In so far as we all need bread, we are indeed all the same, and may as well unite into one body.”11 To Arendt, this tendency to conformity as well as violence is why physical needs must not intrude into our public life: in her view, the possibility of free and unique action is overwhelmed by the conformist and violent demands of physical survival. This is not to say that Arendt held that a minimal justice providing the basic means of survival is irrelevant to public life, but only that she believed justice should be established as the condition necessary for public life instead of being its goal. There is much that is troubling and puzzling in this view of public life, as Arendt at times suggested that public action must pursue no purpose at all, leaving her audience to ponder what this purposeless action might be. As Hanna Pitkin, an astute reader of Arendt, has observed, a curious unreality is inevitable in a public life where nothing of substance is at stake.12 Yet Arendt’s suspicion that tyranny and violence will displace political action when the ends of politics take precedence over its means

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is surely not unwarranted. Arendt’s nonteleological approach to public life is further supported by her astute recognition of the fact that we cannot guarantee that our actions will achieve the intended goal, especially when we are engaged in action with and for others who will respond with unpredictable actions of their own. (This point is of considerable significance to public theology, as we will see below in our discussion of Hauerwas’s espousal of a deontological Christian witness, predicated at least in part on our inability to determine the ultimate success of our actions.) Finally, Arendt is concerned with the value of public life, a value she believed could not be sustained if our political action becomes part of a meaningless chain of instrumentality. After all, if everything is done for the sake of something else, there is finally nothing of value. In Arendt’s view, then, the value of action is retained by ensuring that public action is an end in itself and that the exercise of public initiative is prized above any transient and unpredictable result. Arendt thus raised an important challenge to how we think about public life: if we value public action only as a means to establish greater justice, are we undermining the very processes through which we seek to secure and to sustain that justice? Is there something about public action that is valuable in itself and not only for the purposes we might achieve therein? For Christian involvement with public life, the question becomes even more pointed: if political action is merely an instrument to attain justice for the poor, will we not withdraw from public life when we fail to achieve this justice? Arendt’s attack on the instrumentalization of politics also calls into question common American attitudes toward politics, as she realized. As has often been noted, in the United States freedom is widely understood as freedom from politics rather than as a freedom for political activity. This attitude, Arendt pointed out, presumes an instrumentalization of politics, such that the government is primarily charged with administering the economy and with protecting our private lives. Physical needs and economic concerns have not only been allowed to enter into the public realm but in fact so dominate it that our political institutions serve what is little more than a “grand general housekeeping,” according to Arendt, a state of affairs better described as “social” than as the genuine public life that cannot exist without a distinct private sphere. “Society,” she argued, “is the form in which the fact of mutual dependence for the sake of life and nothing else assumes public significance and where the activities of sheer survival are permitted to appear in public.”13 With this dominance of the social, the plurality and distinctness that mark the public realm have been replaced by the conformity and loneli-


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ness of mass society, Arendt further argued. Because economic concerns are what we have in common and by necessity, public life is no longer the realm of free action in which to realize our own uniqueness or to encounter others in their difference; instead, the social world demands conformity. Without the possibility of distinguishing ourselves in a political realm given over to our common human needs, and without a private realm in which to develop what is not relevant to public life and to protect the experimentation that must be sheltered from publicity, the social is a conformist realm of lonely and shallow people. Arendt’s criticism of the detrimental effects of the social is especially evident in the following passage: It is decisive that society, on all its levels, excludes the possibility of action, which formerly was excluded from the household. Instead, society expects from each of its members a certain kind of behavior, imposing innumerable and various rules, all of which tend to “normalize” its members, to make them behave, to exclude spontaneous action or outstanding achievement.14

The Nature of Public Life and Action Arendt’s most detailed account of the nature and value of public life is presented in The Human Condition, based on insights she gained through investigating the structure and practices of the ancient Greek polis.15 The strict demarcation she found there between the public and the private provided the basis for her conception of what is proper to each. In the Greek polis, the private household was devoted to the needs of physical existence and to the continuation of the species, and so it was the proper arena for labor (understood as the repetitive activity directed to the satisfaction of recurring physical needs). Interestingly, Arendt also argued that work, through which we construct the tools and culture that ease our labor and provide us with a human habitat, is also private in nature (or at least not properly public) since, like labor, it does not inherently require the presence of others and is not necessarily self-revelatory. The Greek public realm, on the other hand, was protected from concerns with the survival and continuation of our species and instead was reserved for the action through which humans distinguish themselves. Action for Arendt was therefore a specific term for that activity that is inherently public and self-revelatory: it requires the presence of others (“to be isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act”) and must be

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accompanied by speech.16 As Andrea Nye explains, “In such a speaking, what is revealed is not ‘what’ a person is but ‘who’ she is. . . . When she speaks with others, she weaves a ‘web’ of relationship.”17 Arendt thus understood action to be both a competitive struggle for personal recognition and a cooperative process of establishing relationships and joining with others in plans of action, for it is only in public action that we engage one another directly and freely, in speech and deeds that reveal our individual identities and our uniquely human capacity to initiate a new course of action (the outcome of which is determined not by us but by others who exercise their own free initiative in responding). Not only is action distinct from labor and work due to action’s public character, in this view, but it also completes human life in ways the other two activities do not. As Arendt noted, there is an inherent interrelation between these activities: whereas work rescues the laborer from endless toil by providing the tools to make labor efficient, action creates the communities of remembrance and political processes that enable the human world constructed through work to endure. Further, since action is undertaken for its own sake, it frees us from the cycle of instrumental rationality and the attendant meaninglessness that work is otherwise liable to. As Arendt summarized: Labor assures not only individual survival, but the life of the species. Work and its product, the human artifact, bestow a measure of permanence and durability upon the futility of mortal life and the fleeting character of human time. Action, insofar as it engages in founding and preserving political bodies, creates the condition for remembrance, that is, for history.18 While neither the public nor the private can exist without the other, there can be no doubt that Arendt’s purpose in recovering these distinctions was primarily to underscore the specific value of public life. As the sphere of freedom rather than necessity, the public realm is where one experiences the presence of others as individuals possessing unique perspectives. This public encounter between distinct individuals is inherently marked by diversity, or plurality, which Arendt argued makes possible the construction of a common world that unites us in our differences and has the reality and objectivity that is the province of the public: those things alone seem truly real and objective to us that have their reality confirmed by others who, from different perspectives, also see what we see. “Compared with the reality which comes from being seen and heard, even the greatest forces of intimate life . . . lead an uncertain, shadowy kind of


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existence,” Arendt declared. Further, the public realm makes possible the development of more complete understandings because it provides a plurality of perspectives: “only where things can be seen by many in a variety of aspects without changing their identity, so that those who are gathered around them know they see sameness in utter diversity, can worldly reality truly and reliably appear.”19 Public life is thus valuable, she argued, because: To live an entirely private life means above all to be deprived of things essential to a truly human life: to be deprived of the reality that comes from being seen and heard by others, to be deprived of an “objective” relationship that comes from being related to and separated from them through the intermediary of a common world of things, to be deprived of the possibility of achieving something more permanent than life itself. The privation of privacy lies in the absence of others.20 For Arendt, as we have seen here, free and self-revelatory public action is inherently valuable and necessary to the development of our human capacities. When the public realm is destroyed, we are deprived of the benefits it alone can provide, especially the reality conveyed on our identities and experiences by being confirmed by others. This is, to be sure, a competitive realm, particularly in the sense of an agonal struggle for the recognition of one’s unique value, yet this is not the political liberalism of competition over resources for individual projects that Milbank rejects. Instead, the public realm is most essentially about constructing a common world and a web of relationships that enable us to act with and for others. Arendt may have bemoaned the loss of the heroic actions of great men vying for glory, but what was most seriously at stake for her was the reality of unique selves, the plural perspectives that construct and protect a common world, and the meaning to be found in a realm of free human activity that serves no higher purpose than its own existence. It is this insight that a pluralistic public life is of value in itself that is perhaps Arendt’s most important challenge to our contemporary conversation. However much we may value democratic institutions, few today appreciate not only the role a pluralistic public life serves in preventing totalitarianism, but that in itself it enables us to live more fully human lives. Theologically, the most common position is probably still an instrumental view of politics, arguing from love of neighbor to the requirement that Christians enter the public arena in order to transform public life for the good of that neighbor. Increasingly, however, even this willingness to

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use politics to achieve our ends is being called into question by those who reject the ideal of a pluralistic public life on the grounds that it is not united by the allegiance to the sovereignty of God and the Christian story that is the only basis for a true politics. In religious as well as secular circles, an Arendtian defense of a diverse public as a good in itself is far from common.

Is Christianity Inherently Antipublic? From Arendt’s perspective, the church cannot of course be the true polis or even an adequate model thereof, since it lacks the plurality that Arendt contended a genuinely public life demands. After all, the church is a limited community, such that one finds there neither opportunities to engage with the widest variety of perspectives nor the possibility of responsible action open to all who care to be involved in determining the conditions of their lives. While I will argue below that the church has much to contribute to public life, it cannot constitute a truly inclusive public sphere as long as religious plurality remains. Yet if the church cannot be the ideal polis in Arendt’s sense, must we conclude that Christianity is then inherently incompatible with the pluralistic public life that she envisions? Do we have to choose between a Christian understanding of community and Arendt’s pluralistic public life? Certainly those who seek a common life based on distinctly Christian beliefs and practices understand these two approaches to be in conflict, but they conclude that the problem is not with the church’s lack of plurality but rather with Arendt’s definition of public life. From an Augustinian perspective, some would argue, it is Arendt who failed to provide for a true public life, since she neglected the importance of being united by a common love and worthy telos.21 Indeed, Arendt herself believed that Christianity is incompatible with public life, as she understood it. A careful reader of Augustine, Arendt noted that Christianity promises a personal immortality that does not depend on the memory of a human community. Public life, then, came to be valued by Christians not as the source of meaning for our lives but, along with labor and work, for its contributions to securing physical life. In other words, Christians instrumentalize politics, valuing it for the security and convenience it provides. Early Christianity not only relegated public life to the same instrumental value as labor and work, but also taught people to seek a form of goodness that is antithetical to public life, Arendt further argued. Good-


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ness, in her view, is a profoundly and necessarily antipublic principle of action, because those acts that seek to be “good” must be kept hidden, avoiding the reward of others’ esteem. Jesus mandated that his followers act in secret (so that the right hand knows not what the left hand does) because he understood this: “the moment a good work becomes known and public, it loses its specific character of goodness, of being done for nothing but goodness’ sake,” Arendt insisted.22 It should be noted that Arendt did not simply repeat the old cliché that Christianity is indifferent to politics because its concerns are spiritual rather than material, eternal rather than temporal. She recognized that Christianity values physical life as the sine qua non for Christian redemption and immortality, and credited Christianity with rescuing labor from the shame attached to serving the needs of the body. She even proclaimed Jesus the discoverer of forgiveness, which is essential to maintaining our capacity for public action. (Since we cannot guarantee the outcome of our actions, we need to be released through forgiveness from the unintended effects of the plans we initiate, she argued.) Nevertheless, Arendt concluded that Christianity is fundamentally antipublic, since it seeks meaning and value elsewhere than in public life and cultivates habits of goodness that have no place there. In her view, Christians do not consider public life to be a good in itself but at best to be a burdensome (and somewhat spiritually perilous) undertaking that some must assume for the good of the community. In my judgment, however, Arendt’s deontological reading of Christianity as preoccupied with personal goodness is overstated. To be sure, a goodness that is hidden because it eschews personal aggrandizement is an important aspect of the Christian tradition, but Arendt’s suggestion that for Christians such an unrewarded goodness must be preserved at all costs, sacrificing even (perhaps) effectiveness for secrecy, is too extreme. A commitment to witness, for example, is also integral to the Christian tradition (as is evident in the very public ministry of Jesus and in the church’s public proclamation of the goodness of its saints and martyrs) and is contrary to an exclusive focus on unrewarded goodness.23 I contend that there is a complexity in Christianity’s relation to public life that is adequately represented neither by Arendt’s critique of Christianity as antipublic nor by the Christian rejection of liberal pluralism as the politics that knows not God. Certainly public life is not the final source of meaning for Christians as it was for Arendt, yet Christians can value public life for more than its contribution to sustaining human life and to protecting the private sphere, where goodness and love can develop undistorted by the pressures of public scrutiny. Arendt has

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argued that public action enables us to become more fully human: it allows us to take responsibility for the conditions of our lives and for our connections to others (past, present, and future); it is also a means to the enlargement of understanding that comes from discussing our common world from various points of view. If Arendt is correct, then, public life should be seen by Christians as a human good and an integral part of realizing one’s humanity. Further, if public life is a human good that provides unique capacities for our development as human beings, we should protect it and attempt to secure the opportunities it provides for all. As John Courtney Murray observed, “true religion and profound humaneness, [the church] says, are not rivals but sisters, who have nothing to fear from each other but everything to gain.”24 But can Christianity accept that diversity itself is a good, that we are enriched by encountering and learning from the plurality of perspectives through which our common world is seen? Would this not be a denial of the Christian claim to provide an adequate and true account of that world? If we have been given the truth, should we not seek to share it with others and hope that all come to this truth rather than persisting in their diverse errors? A brief return to Milbank’s version of the difference between Christianity and liberal pluralism suggests a way out of this apparent impasse between Christian truth and liberal tolerance (despite Milbank’s own conclusions). The public contribution of Christianity, as Milbank asserts, should be its confidence in an ultimate ontology of peace, a harmony among people in which their differences are not in competitive or irreconcilable conflict and so do not incite violence.25 As a Catholic Christian, I fully agree with Milbank on this point. Lumen Gentium, the “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church” issued at the Second Vatican Council, similarly describes our hope as directed to ultimate union with God and a unity among human beings, a unity which is clearly not a uniformity without difference but is rather a harmony between people in their differences. Yet if Christians truly believe that this unity is our ultimate goal, and one that we strive with God’s grace to realize insofar as possible within history, then Christians ought to be especially open to engaging people in their differences and should support institutions that facilitate such encounters. Rather than requiring that public life be so organized that Christian beliefs are presumed or privileged as the starting point of any political process, Christianity ought to inspire a hopeful ethos of welcoming diversity and trusting that we can work toward unity and harmony even with those who do not accept the Christian story, based on our belief that harmony is the ultimate reality of the universe and the


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work of the Spirit in the world. Instead of facing an impasse between a commitment to Christian truth and a liberal tolerance of pluralism, in other words, Christians have genuinely Christian reasons to embrace a pluralistic public life that is open to as many views as possible. We might further note that the role of the church as defined by Vatican II is to serve the world and the temporal process of achieving unity amid diversity. Insofar as our goal does not then involve a repudiation of the world, or even the incorporation of the world into the church, Christian faith in an eternal source of meaning need not lead to the devaluation of public life that Arendt feared. We must also struggle against the unfortunately common presumption that one either has all of the truth or none of it. To be open to learning from others, to having one’s perspective enriched by those who, as Arendt said, view our common world from a different perspective, does not entail a denial of our beliefs or a relativism that holds all views (however mutually contradictory) to be equally valid. In describing the importance of a diversity of perspectives, which allows for the validation of one’s view by others who see the same thing from different points of view, Arendt suggested that we might develop more adequate views through openness to this plurality without repudiating the insight we have achieved. Notwithstanding our confidence in divine revelation, Christians too can accept the possibility of such growth in understanding. After all, Christianity does not claim to possess the fullness of knowledge about God, since God surpasses human understanding. (As Catholic theologian David Tracy has argued, we have only partial and limited understandings of the partial and limited Gospel accounts of God’s self-revelation in the particular event of Jesus Christ.26) We grow in understanding of the revelation we have received, and throughout Christian history non-Christian wisdom has contributed to this growth. There is no reason that this should now cease to be the case; secular arguments for dialogue and tolerance might then contribute to rather than obscure our Christian hope for an ultimate unity amid human diversity. While we may thus discern a Christian basis for valuing the pluralistic public life that Arendt espoused, the careful reader will note that this Christian perspective remains predicated on a teleological account of public life. Indeed, not only politics but all of human life for Christians would be viewed in relation to the goal of ultimate harmony with God and among humans. Yet Arendt steadfastly refused to allow public life to be subordinated to a higher purpose, lest it lose its unique quality as the realm of human initiative (natality) and become merely a dispensable

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means to ends that can (often more efficiently) be attained through other means. Clearly this refusal of a purpose for public life is inconsistent with the version of Christianity I have described here; as we will see below, a refusal of public purpose is likely to be incompatible with any religious faith inasmuch as that religion upholds an ultimate value to which all else must be subservient. Even if, as I have argued, Christians can and should value the diversity of public life, can they avoid instrumentalizing it in a manner that sacrifices what Arendt was so concerned to protect? Arendt was surely right that democracy and civil liberties are in serious danger when held only as means to another end, for when a tyrannical government can better achieve those ends (as it often promises), tyranny would then be the logical choice. However, as commendable as are Arendt’s resistance to totalitarianism and her defense of natality (the human capacity to begin afresh, to strike out in new and unforeseen directions), public action that pursues no purpose would seem to be an exercise in futility (besides being unacceptable to those who ascribe to a comprehensive purpose). On this point, Hanna Pitkin challenges Arendt’s insistence that not even justice can safely be made the purpose of public life. Pitkin insightfully points out that if justice as an end is so defined that it cannot be achieved without the means of a just public life, then we need not fear that allowing public life to pursue greater justice would lead to tyranny or even to the instrumentalization of public life.27 Similarly, in my view, the Christian goal of ultimate union with God and unity among humans cannot be achieved in ways that disregard or devalue the building of unity among humans in their diversity, and so public life, as a means that is inherently part of the end we seek, is of more than instrumental value. Arendt’s concern to maintain the inherent value of a diverse public life can thus be satisfied without her problematic insistence that public life itself serves no higher goal. It is, of course, not only Arendt’s refusal of a purpose for public life but also her strict separation between matters appropriate to private life and those appropriate to the public realm that call for further thought. She is certainly right that these two areas, public and private life, depend on, yet must be differentiated from, each other; as she argued, without a private life shielded from public scrutiny, people become shallow, while if we have no public life, the private cannot be protected and sustained. There must, then, be some distinction between the activities and concerns appropriate to each, though I question whether her (or any) rigid designation of the activities proper to each sphere can be sustained as an absolute principle. Economic purposes, for example, are arguably proper to public life, when an economy is as large and interconnected as is ours.


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(Indeed, Arendt suggests as much herself, when she notes that economic justice is the precondition for public life, and when she criticizes past instances of the conciliar style of government, which she is for the most part highly favorable towards, for underestimating “to what enormous extent the governmental machinery in modern societies must indeed perform the functions of administration.”28) To be sure, starving people seeking the means of survival are not likely to be concerned with the niceties of maintaining a full and free public debate on the topic, but Arendt’s argument that the administration of the economy is a technical matter that does not properly benefit from debate among a variety of perspectives is unpersuasive. There is considerable room for diverse viewpoints here not only because our economic science has not achieved the level of certainty in which expert knowledge has resolved all differences on how best to administer the economy, but also because there is considerable disagreement on what our economic priorities ought to be, in which directions we should seek to develop, and how the benefits should be distributed. Feminists, of course, have a special interest in this issue of how we determine what is and is not appropriate to public life. Since women’s attempts to realize their own natality by acting together to change the conditions of women’s lives have been dismissed as matters of private rather than public life, feminists have directed considerable attention to challenging the manner in which private and public are configured. Too often, women’s special concerns with raising children, providing food and shelter, and taking charge of their sexuality have been relegated to the private or prepolitical sphere, so that feminist challenges to the ways in which social arrangements and public policies limit women’s opportunities can only with difficulty achieve a public hearing. To counter this, feminist activists developed the slogan “the personal is political,” and some feminist scholars have presumed that Arendt’s distinction between public and private life makes her an opponent of those who would advance the status of and opportunities for women through a political agenda. Adrienne Rich, for example, sees in Arendt “the tragedy of a female mind nourished on male ideologies.”29 At the other extreme, Jean Bethke Elshtain has explicitly appealed to an Arendtian distinction between public and private in order to repudiate the feminist claim that “the personal is political.” Alleging that some feminists are “overly politicizing our most intimate relationships,” Elshtain condemns them for collapsing the proper distinctions between public and private (which she has somewhat confusingly conflated with “personal”); in Elshtain’s view, feminists have contributed to precisely that shallowness

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and loss of both private and public realms that Arendt opposed.30 Elshtain has further invoked this distinction between public and personal/private to oppose what she terms “the politics of displacement,” the assertion of issues of identity as political matters rather than as the private concerns she maintains they properly are. While acknowledging that people have the right to pursue their personal projects free from harassment, she insists that there is no concomitant right for public approval or support for those projects. Further, she argues that this contributes to the erosion of civil discourse and to the loss of willingness to compromise in politics, because politicizing identity leads people to the conclusion that those who oppose their political projects are enemies of their identity.31 This conversation over what is and is not properly a public issue is important not only to the concerns of women but also to work in cultural politics, as is evident in Benjamin Valentin’s vision of a Latino public theology. Valentin argues (rightly, I believe) that Latino theology must continue to defend Latino cultural identities, and he understands this to be a genuinely political project challenging the configuration of the public world in a manner that deracinates those who do not share the dominant race, culture, or ethnicity. While he defends a public theology that seeks to build coalitions and to pursue a common good, he envisions this as an extension of and in collaboration with the political project of defending Latino cultural identity.32 Yet Elshtain’s work suggests to the contrary that an identity-based theology is inherently opposed to a public theology, since the former is not properly a matter of public concern and would in her view be destructive of the public sphere it enters. As this difference between Valentin and Elshtain indicates, public theology cannot ignore the need for further thought not only about whether any purpose or all economic matters must be removed from public life, but also about the proper demarcation between public and private concerns. In particular, insofar as we approve of some distinction between the public and the private, are all matters of the body, including sex, marriage, family, and even ethnic and racial heritages, to be assigned to private life and hence to be dealt with privately rather than through public action? Bonnie Honig has provided helpful insights on this matter, returning to Arendt’s agonal concept of public action and expanding the idea of a performative production of identity to encompass the construction of gender and ethnic identity as well.33 As Honig points out, it is a mistake to presume that all matters pertaining to bodily experiences and the satisfaction of needs are biologically determined, such that we cannot act creatively to express our uniqueness in these areas. To be sure, Arendt’s


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rejection of the conformist and controlling implications of the “social” and her resistance to the tyrannical possibilities evident in proscribing diversity are embraced by Honig, but Honig argues that we should extend our resistance to include resisting conformity in the construal of primary bodily experiences. Human corporeality is not, she insists, necessarily univocal, determined, and experienced as the same by all; indeed to maintain that the body is so constrained is in itself an exercise in proscribing diversity. There are, of course, certain basic needs that are biologically determined, but there is much room for interpretation and creative configuration even of these. Honig would thus allow for constructive political debate over issues pertaining to physical needs and desires since, rather than excluding bodies and physical experiences from politics, she intends to “pluralize” bodies. Interestingly, Honig also defends the “agonal” aspects of Arendt’s concept of public life, the very part that has been rejected by other feminist theorists, such as Pitkin, Lisa J. Disch, and Seyla Benhabib.34 Instead of conceiving of political life as the competitive production of identity, these latter thinkers advocate Arendt’s “associational” approach in which peers cooperate in deciding upon and initiating plans of action. Honig, however, reminds us that for Arendt public action is about both the confirmation of one’s unique identity and the enactment of common plans with others. The agonal and the associative views need not be inherently in conflict, she clarifies, because “politically engaged individuals act and struggle both with and against each other.”35 According to Honig, Arendt’s understanding of the agonal “quest for individuation and distinction against backgrounds of homogenization and normalization” should be applied to the fullness of human experience, including experiences of bodily needs and desires. Thus Honig contends that Arendt’s concept of the agonal is an important contribution to feminist theory, enabling us to “re-found, augment, and amend governing practices of sex/gender” for ourselves and for others.36 Though Honig would not, then, relegate all matters concerning basic human needs to the private realm as matters of human constrainedness, she does not, of course, deny that there are legitimate distinctions between what is public and what is private. There is an in principle distinction between these spheres, in her view, but this does not mean we should accept any permanent delineation of what is proper to each. Rather, Honig argues that “not everything is political, but nothing is ontologically protected from politicization. The division between public and private is seen as the performative product of political struggle, hard won and always temporary.”37 Public and private life are best preserved,

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then, not through a rigid and permanent separation of spheres (in which issues related to human bodiliness are barred from public life), but through taking seriously the importance of both public and private life and establishing through debate what is proper to each in a particular context. Arendt, of course, argued against the intrusion into public life of basic physical needs not only because she considered them to be matters that do not admit of free and self-revelatory action, but also because they are so urgent that they tend toward violence rather than persuasion. Yet Arendt would surely agree that the desperation of the starving is an indication that the public realm has a proper concern with establishing at least a minimal justice as the basis of its own survival. Further, we may question whether, in relegating basic human needs to the private realm, she would go as far as Elshtain in barring issues of gender and racial identity as inherently private matters. After all, for Arendt public life is precisely where we seek to have our individual identities and uniqueness recognized, perhaps even memorialized by others. This may be where Elshtain’s conflation of private and personal shows itself to be a major rather than a minor deviation from Arendt’s analysis, as Elshtain insists that identity is a private matter, while identity for Arendt was a central part of the initiative and diversity that belong in public life. To be sure, Elshtain’s concern that the intrusion of issues of gender, race, and ethnicity into public life will foreclose debate in a manner similar to the starving person’s need for food is not entirely unwarranted. Those who insist that their political positions are determined by gender, race, or ethnicity and that our various group identities result in unbridgeably different political positions are indeed refusing the debate and the sharing of differences that make public life possible. But this extreme position is a caricature of the intention of most who espouse “identity politics” in order to protect the fullness of cultural and racial differences, so that members of these groups do not have to deracinate themselves when they appear in public life but can emerge with the fullness and complexity of their particular identities intact. Must we fear that public life will break down, if our differences are treated as publicly relevant rather than as private matters with no bearing on public life? We might also wonder whether, despite her manifest intentions, Elshtain’s argument against a politics of displacement does not undermine the public theology project of including religious beliefs in public life. This would be especially odd, to be sure, given Elshtain’s prominence as a defender of the public value of conservative religious views and her efforts to ensure that such views are in no way disadvantaged in the public


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sphere. Yet does not her assertion that introducing issues of identity into politics will make politics too conflictual (because those who are one’s political opponents are then enemies of one’s identity) apply a fortiori to religion? Surely it is as disruptive of a civil politics of compromise to make one’s opponent the enemy of one’s religion, as it is to see him/her as the enemy of one’s identity. Elshtain’s basic point, if more carefully nuanced, need not lead to this conclusion. She has valid insights into the importance of avoiding that irrational conflict that both the refusal of political argumentation and the habit of seeking political solutions for all of our troubles can lead to. Yet if (as she allows) religious positions may concern political projects and be subject to public debate, so might positions rooted in the particular experiences of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. Especially given Elshtain’s insistence that the defense of marriage and family is a properly political purpose, fairness demands that those who disagree with traditional forms of marriage and family, or who seek political support for alternative arrangements, also be allowed to make their cases publicly. Elshtain is, of course, right to remind us that we are not guaranteed approval of our personal projects and, I would add, we are not guaranteed approval of our religion. To be sure, no one enters public life guaranteed approval, whether for themselves or for their projects. While it is a serious (if unfortunately common) mistake to equate disagreement or lack of approval with intolerance or refusal of diversity, so also would it be a serious mistake to presume the opposite: that no guarantee of approval means no right to appear in public. It is, as Arendt knew very well, a risky thing to expose one’s unique identity in public, because one’s identity might not be confirmed; instead, the search for public approval might end in public humiliation. Still, even though we have no right to public approval, we should all have the right to appear as who we are without dissimulating to appease the dominant culture. Again, as important as the distinction between public and private is to the development of both spheres, the determination of what is proper to each must itself be open to public debate lest we arbitrarily diminish the very plurality of our public life that Arendt sought to defend.

Conclusion I have tried to show here that Arendt’s defense of a pluralistic public life is especially important today for its suggestion of an option other than

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classic liberalism and communitarianism. Even if we agree with Milbank’s rejection of a liberalism that refuses to consider a common purpose, we need not join in his Christian communitarianism that denies the very pluralism and diversity that public activity contributes to our lives. As Arendt has argued, humans are social animals whose lives are enriched (and perspectives changed) through encountering other views; it is a pluralistic public life that allows us to meet in our diversity and debate our different opinions, thus providing an alternative to both the liberal and the communitarian refusals of public debate over common goals. Arendt’s work further suggests that public life extends that diversity through the memory and continuity made possible by its preservation of a human world, one in which we receive from the past and contribute to the future of our community. As Pitkin clarifies, for Arendt public life is the arena in which we come to adult knowledge of and responsibility for our connectedness to other people (a knowledge achieved fully only in public). Yet, even if we insist on maintaining a public life with the widest possible inclusiveness, once we begin to act together on the basis of some view or other, have we not then lost that inclusiveness? Especially when our actions involve the enactment of laws on the basis of a particular religious position, how can we avoid oppressing those of other religions and thus curtailing diversity through an implicit establishment of religion? Will not religious perspectives disrupt the civil discourse of a pluralistic society by highlighting our irresolvable differences? While Arendt’s argument enables us to grasp more firmly the value of a pluralistic public life, it also raises further questions for us about how religion can be included in public life without risk to the plurality we seek to maintain. More specifically, we must determine whether religious involvement in public life can be reconciled with the robust religious freedom that in the United States defends plurality through the disestablishment of religion. To resolve these issues, we will need to look more carefully at the meaning of religious freedom and especially at the contributions Franklin I. Gamwell has made to our understanding of this topic.

Public Theology without Establishment of Religion The Complex Meaning of Religious Freedom Though few deny outright the value and importance of religious freedom, there is considerable disagreement and much confusion on what


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this freedom entails, especially when the inclusion of religion in public life extends to legislative action. Many argue that the First Amendment to the Constitution precludes legislation inspired by religious beliefs, while others insist that religious freedom protects their right to act politically (including drafting and supporting legislation) that is consistent with their religion. The argument between these camps is at times so formulated that the First Amendment’s two clauses on religion are pitted against each other, with the “no establishment” clause cited against religious influence on government actions and the “free exercise” clause invoked to defend such influence. Given this tension, it may seem that religious freedom is a chimera: either public life is predicated on the religious beliefs of some and violates the rights of others, or religion is banned from legislative and policy decisions, thus violating the rights of all who hold religious beliefs relevant to the organization of society. Little progress beyond this impasse in public life has been made in the nearly twenty years since Franklin I. Gamwell aptly summarized the situation in the following description: Some fear a secularized state, that is, a state which is independent of all religious convictions, and insist that disestablishment does not preclude a foundation of religious values in the Republic. Others fear a state that is religiously partial and insist that the “wall of separation” prescribes civil neutrality toward religion as such. . . . Contemporary religionists typically fail to show how their affirmation of a positive relation between religion and American politics is consistent with their denial of establishment, and contemporary separationists typically fail to show how their affirmation of disestablishment is consistent with their denial of secularism. Each side, then, has good reason to fear what it fears, and the public has good reason to be confused.38 John Courtney Murray is especially significant here in that his classic defense of religious freedom steered between the extremes of establishment of religion and secularism, and so made possible Dignitatis Humanae (the Catholic Church’s nonsecularist affirmation of religious freedom). In Murray’s refusal of secularism, religious disestablishment is predicated not on the public irrelevance of Christian faith (which Catholicism could not and did not accept) but on a separation of competence and authority. The concern of the church qua church is its responsibility for the deposit of faith and the means of salvation (matters over which the state has no

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competence to judge). The responsibility of the state is limited to matters of temporal governance for the good of society (which, though it must be consistent with the truths upheld by the church, is accessible to human reason and so not dependent on faith). Good government for Murray is not a matter of whatever the majority agrees to but is in accordance with and based on basic truths about human life and morality, including acknowledgment of God, which Murray held belongs to the order of reason.39 Gamwell’s more recent work takes up Murray’s commitment to a nonsecularist defense of religious freedom. Indeed, Gamwell shows that not only Catholics but all religious believers should reject a secularist insistence on the political irrelevance of religious beliefs, and thus it is with good reason that most Christians today reject Arendt’s assessment of Christianity as inherently antipublic and unconcerned with politics. Insofar as religion can be defined as, at minimum, an account of the “comprehensive” or all-inclusive purpose of human life, then religious believers hold that there is a “purpose to which all others are properly subservient, an ideal by virtue of which the worth of all possible purposes is properly evaluated,” as Gamwell clarifies. Since political activity, like all human behavior, pursues purposes and embodies values, then our political actions ought also to be evaluated according to our understanding of the comprehensive purpose of human life. Indeed, it would be a self-contradiction for a religious believer not to ensure that his or her political projects are consistent with his or her religious beliefs. In Gamwell’s simple yet clear example, “those who hold that all life should be lived in love of God and neighbor necessarily believe that the activities of the state should conform to that ideal.”40 To be sure, there is a decidedly teleological emphasis in Gamwell’s description of religion, though the argument does not in my judgment depend on acceptance of a teleological ethic. One could as well define religion as teaching commitment to a supreme value, a fundamental attitude, a privileged command or set of laws, or even a defining narrative that tells us who we are and how we should live. It would still remain the case that what religions (including nontheistic religions) provide is an allencompassing orientation, an understanding of what is most real and important about human life; they are not simply a guide for a part of one’s life or for what one does with one’s solitude.41 Those who seek consistency between their political behavior and their religious beliefs are not, then, exceptionally scrupulous or intolerant in demanding such religious integrity, since to do otherwise would be inconsistent with and, indeed, implicitly to deny one’s religious beliefs.


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A privatized religion that is irrelevant to decisions about governmental legislation could only be coherent, then, if that religion maintains that all forms of political activity are inconsistent with the ultimate purpose we ought to serve, or if it simply does not fit Gamwell’s definition of religion as providing an account of that goal or value to which all human actions ought to be directed (as is the case with A. N. Whitehead’s view of religion as “what the individual does with his own solitariness”). We may doubt whether either of these options accurately articulates a mainstream interpretation of any of the major world religions, but certainly neither view is commonly and explicitly defended in the Christian tradition. To be sure, one finds some Christian accounts of politics as being, though valid and even necessary, of such minor significance in the overall hierarchy of values that it warrants little attention. Others judge that a particular form of government or the activity of a specific state is inherently in conflict with some religious belief (usually absolute pacifism), such that Christians cannot in good conscience participate in any activities of that government. Nevertheless, in both of these approaches, political activity as such remains subject to religious evaluation, so they serve as examples of rather than exceptions to Gamwell’s definition of the relation of religion and politics. If, as Gamwell has thus argued, some position on the ultimate purpose of human life is implicitly affirmed or denied in all human activity (since all that we do implies a hierarchy of values such that the act is worth doing), it is not difficult to see how religious freedom becomes problematic, even more so than Murray’s work indicates. If all of our laws and public policies must serve a particular account of the comprehensive purpose, it would seem that we have an establishment of religion that conflicts with the First Amendment, whether or not we have privileged a particular denomination. Even the determination that we are and must remain officially a “Judeo-Christian” nation (or, as Murray argued, a country founded on an official acknowledgment of God’s existence and authority) is an establishment of a theistic answer to the religious question of the purpose of human life. Belief in God would then be the basis for all political activity so that the right to religious freedom and full citizenship of those who do not accept a theistic form of religion is violated, whether they are members of traditional nontheistic religions, atheists, or agnostics. Nor should it matter that the majority of Americans accept some version of theism: if the rights to full participation as a citizen in public life can be denied to even the presumably small minority who do not accept the theistic beliefs of the majority, then religious freedom is no longer protected.

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Interestingly, Murray correctly noted that if a secularist or even a Protestant interpretation of the First Amendment is the only official option, then the First Amendment is internally incoherent. That is, the amendment prohibiting a religious test for government would itself constitute such a test, and one that Catholics could not pass. However, what Gamwell’s work makes clear (and Murray’s does not) is that to insist that the First Amendment be interpreted as predicated on an acknowledgment of theism would also constitute a religious test that nontheists cannot pass and so it would be no less incoherent. (If the recently popular aphorism that we have freedom of religion but not freedom from religion is to be consistent with religious disestablishment, then, it can only mean that we have no right to a public sphere stripped of any religious references or arguments. It cannot mean that we have only the right to choose between Christian denominations or perhaps between forms of theism, but not to reject theism, though I suspect this is often what is intended.) What may be even less commonly understood but is no less true, as both Murray and Gamwell show, is that prohibiting religiously informed political activity also conflicts with the First Amendment, since any such prohibition would officially commit the state and all political actors to an implicit denial not only of Catholicism, as Murray clearly argued, but of all religion, as Gamwell clarifies. Religious believers’ freedom would be infringed because they could not then exercise their citizenship without violating their belief that all activity should be consistent with the comprehensive purpose they affirm. Further, as Gamwell argues, the refusal to consider a comprehensive purpose is consistent only if there is no such comprehensive purpose (or, in other words, if all religions are false), since a comprehensive purpose is by definition the purpose that should guide all of our activities. To determine that one should not consider what comprehensive purpose our political activity ought to pursue is in effect to deny that there is any valid comprehensive purpose. Thus, any requirement that our governmental decisions be free of religious motivations would technically be an establishment of atheism, which can itself be seen as a form of establishment of religion, in that it would implicitly yet officially endorse an answer (albeit a negative one) to the religious question of the purpose of human life. It is, then, with good reason that some today argue that a liberalism that bans religion from the public sphere is not neutral and is not consistent with the freedom of religion of those who hold religious beliefs. Fortunately, we are not limited to these two extremes of, on the one hand, officially endorsing a religious account of the comprehensive purpose (however generic) as the basis of our polity or, on the other hand,


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prohibiting all religious considerations in politics. Gamwell points out that religious freedom and official disestablishment can instead be coherently maintained (indeed, can only be coherently maintained) by allowing for public debate over the comprehensive purpose, such that “public purposes should be implicitly informed by that answer to the comprehensive question which the public debate reveals to be most convincing.”42 Insofar as disagreements over our ultimate goals and values result in differing positions on public policy, political debate then appropriately includes arguments about the nature of this comprehensive purpose. This politico-religious debate entails neither establishment of religion nor an infringement on religious freedom, as Gamwell contends, so long as no particular answer to the question of a comprehensive purpose is officially required or prohibited (including the answer that there is a comprehensive purpose). Citizens must remain free to support the policies in accord with the comprehensive purpose they find most persuasive or to determine that the most persuasive position is that there is no valid comprehensive purpose (in which case public policies would have to be evaluated according to whatever common grounds remain). To be sure, the resulting legislation would ideally reflect this religious debate, as it should be consistent with the most persuasive account of the comprehensive purpose (and not with others). However, it is important to note that the role of government is to enact laws and public policies, but not officially to mandate or to uphold any particular answer to the comprehensive purpose of human life. Neither the rejection of a comprehensive purpose nor any particular account of the comprehensive purpose can be required as the basis for participating in public debate or be invoked to limit the policies or laws debated, if we are committed to that robust religious freedom in which no one, on account of religious beliefs, is a “second-class citizen”—in principle denied the rights to full participation in political debate or to hold public office.

Case #1: The Ten Commandments Recent and well-publicized legal cases have challenged the setting up of monuments of the Decalogue (more commonly known as the Ten Commandments) as official government displays on government property. The appropriateness of the displays has been defended on the grounds that this moral code is the basis of our society and of our laws, and hence it is fitting that we be reminded of this cornerstone of our government. The challengers argue to the contrary that such a display of a particular reli-

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gious text by the government constitutes an illegitimate government endorsement of a particular religious perspective. Public debate has been heated, with people categorized as for or against the Ten Commandments, for or against religious freedom, and as being either historically responsible or “revisionists” who distort our cultural past. Thus far, the courts have ruled that such displays exclusively privileging the Ten Commandments are unconstitutional and must be removed.43 The political battle over using governmental funds, property, and authority to erect an official display of the Ten Commandments (unsurprisingly in the Protestant rather than Roman Catholic or Jewish version) is likely to continue. This debate, analyzed from the perspective Gamwell provides on the meaning of religious freedom, may help to make more concrete the parameters Gamwell sets for religious argumentation in public life. It may also provide greater clarity on what is and is not truly at stake in these cases, so that we might at least achieve disagreement rather than mere confusion.44 Insofar as we are concerned with religious freedom, the constitutional consideration should not be whether the majority of U.S. citizens do or do not accept the Ten Commandments. Nor is the issue whether our own law codes are rooted in a Western culture deeply formed by the religions of the biblical tradition in general or by the moral code of the Ten Commandments in particular. The constitutional question, as Gamwell’s analysis helps us to see, is not even whether we may continue to seek and to support legislation in accord with these religious beliefs (which we can of course do with or without the posting of these commandments). Insofar as we follow Gamwell and hold that religious freedom allows public actions to be informed by religious beliefs but prohibits the state from explicitly teaching or supporting an answer to the religious question of the comprehensive purpose or ultimate value of life, the question at stake here is the more circumscribed one of whether such governmental displays give official privilege or support to a particular religious answer. In terms of Gamwell’s account of the meaning of religious freedom, we should conclude that the courts were right to reject these displays, insofar as they involve the government in officially teaching and privileging a particular religious position. The claim that the monuments merely represent a historical connection between this religious document and our English-American legal tradition is rendered incredible in light of the absence of other historical factors in the displays, as well as the statements by supporters proclaiming that their purpose is indeed to clarify that we are a Christian (or Judeo-Christian) nation committed to these Com-


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mandments. The court rulings against the displays do not, of course, prevent anyone from acting in his or her capacity as a citizen publicly to proclaim the Ten Commandments and/or to defend the importance of legislation that is in accord with this religious view of how we ought to live, but it does preclude invoking the authority of the state to uphold this position and implicitly de-legitimizing those who would argue for legislation consistent with some other answer to the religious question. The problem with these displays ought not then be seen as merely that they involve government with religion (as I have argued that all laws implicitly do) or that they are at times unnecessarily large and clear examples of this interrelationship. The difficulty is rather that the monuments differ in kind from legislation that implicitly reflects religious beliefs, since they constitute explicit government support for a particular answer to the comprehensive purpose. Interestingly, the courts have consistently upheld the appropriateness of including the Ten Commandments in governmental displays along with other historic and influential Western law codes. This too can be shown to be consistent with the First Amendment according to Gamwell’s position; indeed, his understanding of religious freedom would require the inclusion of explicitly religious moral codes in any official display of secular ones, since the government has no more business privileging nontheistic answers than it does theistic ones. While it is likely that arguments over the public role of the Ten Commandments, as well as the culture wars of which this debate is a part, will continue, Gamwell’s analysis does enable us to avoid the confusion caused by unnuanced arguments over whether religion should or should not be removed from public life. Those who rightly seek a public life consistent with their religious beliefs can and should continue to do so without the symbolic victory of explicit governmental proclamation of those religious beliefs. Indeed, in the Elkhart, Indiana, case, the Ten Commandments monument was in no way banished from public life, as it was moved to a local church lawn where some of its supporters acknowledge it is more publicly visible than it had been on government property. The public square, in Richard John Neuhaus’s terms, should not be stripped of religion, but I would argue that neither should it be clothed in a religious or a secular garb mandated by the government (which, as Murray argued, does not have the competence or authority to decide what is the correct religion).45 Public theology, our concern here, is thoroughly consistent with religious freedom provided that we are willing to proffer our arguments in public debate without demanding that the government provide official support or privilege for our theistic or religious views.

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Does this mean that we are not “a nation under God?” Can we trust that the valuing of human rights that our Constitution is based on will continue if newcomers (whether immigrants or new generations) are not required to privilege the Jewish and Christian roots of our commitment to human rights? Concern over the loss of our common culture and the shared presuppositions necessary to further civil discourse inspired Murray’s insistence on a foundational consensus including belief in God, and this concern is undoubtedly an important part of the struggle for official, governmental recognition of at least a generic form of Christianity. Thus, as James Davison Hunter notes, the culture wars heat up over incidents in which the symbolic social predominance of a traditional and biblicist form of Christianity is either advanced or retarded.46 Those who refuse a thorough disestablishment of religion, preferring instead that religious tolerance that allows but officially designates dissenters, are not without reason. Still, as Gamwell’s analysis shows, the refusal of religious establishment as the basis for holding the republic together is a radical experiment that cannot coherently be interpreted as consistent with an official national commitment to theism. The First Amendment allows us to be a “nation under God” only insofar as we put forth sufficiently persuasive arguments in the public sphere and thus garner support for those public policies and legislative actions that are consistent with what we understand to be the will of God. We must be willing to trust the defense of our values to the public debate, if religious freedom is a right that we are committed to protecting. (One might also add that there are biblical grounds for maintaining that actions in accord with God’s will are more valuable than ceremonial affirmations of a commitment to God without corresponding actions.) In any case, those who no longer trust in public debate, and are instead convinced that we need at least a minimal religious cohesion symbolically supported by the government, ought to acknowledge that they reject the First Amendment and its guarantee not of mere religious tolerance but of a robust religious freedom in which no one must contradict his or her religious beliefs to exercise full citizenship.47

Religious Morality and the Limits of Legislation If religionists are not all ready to accept the disestablishment of theism, neither are all secularists ready to allow religious beliefs a role in forming


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our political policies (even when we agree to maintain an open debate on which answer to the religious question ought to guide our political activity). While the religionists fear the loss of our moral bearings and common culture, secularists argue that disestablishment is nonetheless violated in this arrangement, since the religious view reflected in policy decisions is being implicitly supported by the government. If laws are passed that are in accord with certain religious beliefs and not with others, have we not then promoted a particular religion? Gamwell notes that a legal objection along these lines was raised in the case of MacRae v. Califano, with the plaintiffs arguing that the Hyde Amendment (banning the use of federal funds for abortion) is based on a religious belief about abortion, such that it constitutes establishment of religion. A similar (if more extreme) argument has been made by Peter Singer and Helga Kuhse, who claim that any governmental policy based on the belief that “all human lives are of equal worth” violates the basic tenets of our pluralistic democracy; the equality of human lives is, after all, a belief particular to certain religions and not one held by all. This latter example is particularly elucidating, since it pushes the logic of the MacRae v. Califano debate to the absurd conclusion that our laws cannot even uphold human equality, since it is a value based on an answer to the religious question.48 In responding to this possible objection to his account of religious freedom, Gamwell argues that the disestablishment of religion requires that the government not explicitly teach, or ensure that laws conform to, any particular account of the comprehensive purpose (or even that there is a comprehensive purpose), but it does not require that governmental activity be uninformed by religious beliefs. Indeed, it cannot require thus banning of religious considerations, since some value or other will always be implicit in our laws, and this value will be consistent with some answer(s) to the religious question and not with others. This does not constitute establishment of religion insofar as the state is not committed to maintaining, teaching, or otherwise fostering commitment to that implicit purpose, Gamwell insists. While we generally agree to abide by the laws resulting from the democratic process, no one is forced to agree to the comprehensive purpose implied in those laws, nor is anyone prohibited from arguing against the implicit religious answer as well as the actual policy in question. The role of the state is to enforce the law, and the religious question must remain officially open to debate (and our laws and public policies to revision, accordingly). If we accept Gamwell’s conclusion, it follows that a liberal democracy that allows religious claims to be publicly debated and their political

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implications to be pursued can indeed be neutral (in that it refuses officially to establish any answer to the religious question) without being hostile to the public role of religion. This religious freedom is not only a negative freedom, a freedom from coercion in religious beliefs, but also a positive freedom to defend publicly any religious position and the political policies that cohere with it. Thus it is wrong to maintain (as many do) that liberalism imposes a disadvantage on religion because religion is forced to enter the public debate in the position of trying to add something “extra” to public discourse.49 As Gamwell has shown, all political goals imply some answer to the religious question of the comprehensive purpose and hence, in any debate where our purposes are at stake, religion is in no way an “addition” to an otherwise religion-free discussion. One might rather conclude that religious parties have the advantage in public debate of being aware and explicit about their religious grounding, whereas other parties may be unaware of their implicit answer to the religious question. Yet surely we cannot conclude that religious freedom is protected, so long as we merely refrain from obtaining explicit governmental support for religious beliefs, while we proceed to enact legislation on the basis of those beliefs. The secularists too are not without reason in their fear of religiously based legislation, since if those whose religious beliefs oppose birth control, divorce, alcoholic beverages, or activity on the Sabbath pass legislation against these behaviors, those whose religious beliefs hold otherwise will scarcely feel free, even if they retain the right to argue against and to attempt to persuade the majority to change these laws. Insofar as religion is a matter of behavior at least as much as belief, it would be an extraordinarily truncated religious freedom that allows one to believe as one likes yet mandates that one’s behavior cohere with the teachings of the religion of the majority. Too seldom in our current debates over the role of religion in public life are we reminded not only that all legislation implicitly agrees with some religious position, but also that not all religious beliefs are appropriately subject to governmental legislation. While all activities of the state should be consistent with the comprehensive purpose, in other words, not all activities consistent with (or even required by) the comprehensive purpose should be pursued by the state. More simply put, to believe that something is wrong does not necessarily mean that one holds that it should also be illegal. Indeed, the reason the government can remain explicitly silent on the proper answer to the religious question, and the reason we can maintain a distinction of the authorities of church and


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state, is because politics is not concerned with the comprehensive purpose as such, but only with those purposes appropriately pursued by the state. Thus while religion and politics cannot be totally separated, there is a proper distinction between them that must not be elided if religious freedom is to be maintained. It is, then, quite possible for a citizen, in good conscience and with total consistency, to oppose laws making birth control, divorce, uncovered hair, or homosexual activity illegal, even while maintaining that these behaviors are contrary to the comprehensive purpose. This is possible not, as is often proclaimed, because religion is “private,” but because governmental legislation is not the sole, the best, or even always the appropriate means through which aspects of the comprehensive purpose are to be pursued. It is important to determine not only whether the value implicit in some proposed legislation is consistent with our account of the comprehensive purpose, then, but also whether governmental action is appropriate to the matter at hand and, if so, whether the legislation in question is well-designed to effect the goal intended. As John Courtney Murray has clarified, the following three questions help to determine whether a form of behavior is properly subjected to legislation: 1) does the behavior concern the public order or basic human rights? 2) does the proposed law have sufficient popular support, so that it is enforceable and will not decrease respect for the law? and 3) is the law enforceable without the likely violation of values even greater than what it seeks to protect?50 Since the determination of what is appropriate to legislation involves judgments about the conditional aspects of the specific situation, there can be no universally valid demarcation of what should be legislated and what should not (just as there is no permanent division between public and private). Nevertheless, this clarity about the inherent limitations of governmental purposes is an important (and sorely needed) contribution to public debate. It challenges the often rhetorically powerful but specious argument that accuses people of acting as though they do not agree that something is wrong merely because they refuse to support legislation outlawing the behavior. Nor will it allow us to justify legislation on the grounds that a form of behavior is both inconsistent with the comprehensive purpose and has a deleterious effect on public life, as George Weigel has recently attempted.51 I would argue that all immoral behavior has to some degree a negative impact on society but, as John Courtney Murray has noted, “when you have made your case against these influences as socially corruptive, you have only

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reached the threshold of the problem of social freedom. Many questions remain.”52 Religious freedom will have no meaning if we legally require all behavior demanded by our account of the comprehensive purpose and prohibit all behavior opposed to it, since people have the right insofar as practicable to act in accord with their various religious beliefs. We should, then, seek to legislate only those purposes consistent with the comprehensive purpose that are appropriate to public life, with a presumption in favor of freedom in cases of doubt.

Case #2: Lawrence v. Texas and the Legislation of Morality The arguments proffered in a recent Supreme Court decision allow us to explore further and more specifically what this limitation of legislation entails. In Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court determined that a Texas statute against sodomy between adults of the same sex is unconstitutional, with a majority opinion contending that the Texas law “furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the individual’s personal and private life.” The Court also quoted approvingly an earlier opinion of Justice Stevens, which declared that “the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice.”53 Writing in dissent, Justice Scalia argued that supporting the moral beliefs of the majority is in itself a legitimate state interest, and the acceptance of Stevens’s view “effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation.” Homosexuals have every right to argue publicly to persuade the majority to change their moral views, he acknowledges, but failing to persuade the majority, they have no right to seek protection for their minority views on sexual morality. Justice Thomas joined Scalia and Rehnquist in dissenting, but added his own opinion that though the law against sodomy is constitutional, it is “uncommonly silly” and “does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources.”54 To be sure, freedom of religion is not cited in any of these opinions, yet they grapple with precisely that issue of the limits of legally proscribing behavior that cannot be ignored in our pursuit of religious freedom. As we saw above, John Courtney Murray argued that the fact that a behavior is wrong is not sufficient to determine that it should be illegal, a point he made in part to defend morality (because when people are forced to do what is right in order to avoid punishment, they have ceased to act


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morally and are merely acting prudentially). I have further argued that this distinction between morality and law is not solely a practical and spiritual matter but also is essential to maintaining religious freedom, which depends on the state having a circumscribed purpose such that some but not all purposes consistent with the comprehensive purpose are pursuits proper to the state. (If the state’s purposes are not limited, then the distinctions between church and state, and between religion and politics, cannot be sustained.) Nor can we avoid engaging the issue of religious freedom here by distinguishing between ‘moral’ and ‘religious’ since, as Gamwell has shown, all positions on what ought and ought not to be done necessarily reflect some answer(s) to the religious question of the all-inclusive purpose of human life. Issues involving the legislation of moral beliefs cannot then be separated from the problems of religious disestablishment. Our concern here is of course not with the quality of the jurisprudential interpretations, but only with the implications for religious freedom of the justices’ arguments. The majority opinion is easily seen to be consistent with Murray’s distinction since it argues, not that morality cannot be legislated, but that this should be done only where there is some interest proper to the state. However, Scalia too works with Murray’s terms in that he acknowledges an in-principle limit to the purposes of the state. Yet the challenge he poses is acute: is not defending public morality itself an appropriate and even necessary purpose of the government? Can a body politic survive that does not ensure that its moral consensus is not undermined? This may be a particularly compelling question in the United States, where we often seem to depend on the legal system for unity in our diversity. Perhaps too this dependence on the law is why the culture wars take an especially virulent and legalistic form in this country. (Interestingly, Justice Thomas’s independent contribution seems to concur with Scalia’s, but it merits mention here because Thomas in fact undermines the basis of Scalia’s position. After all, it follows that a law that is “uncommonly silly” and a waste of law enforcement resources is precisely not fulfilling a legitimate state interest and thus is depriving people of liberty for no good reason but rather a “silly” one.) Scalia is undoubtedly overhasty in concluding that the majority opinion threatens all morals legislation. It did not in fact declare that no legislation can be concerned with morality, but merely that the immorality of an act is not sufficient in itself to justify legislation against it. Our laws are inevitably concerned with morality, and yet we do not presume

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to legislate all points of morality. The perennial challenge for all sides is rather to determine which immoral acts ought to be legally proscribed. Gamwell’s analysis shows that religious freedom is meaningless if it is acceptable to legislate the moral consensus of the majority for no other reason than that it is the moral consensus (or, as Scalia holds, that it is appropriate to use the power of the state for the sole purpose of furthering the moral beliefs of the majority). As Gamwell has demonstrated, religion and morality are so deeply intertwined that, if the purpose of the state is to further the majority’s moral beliefs as such, then it is in fact the purpose of the state to support the majority’s religious beliefs. When behavior is a threat to society merely because it is contrary to the beliefs of the majority, outlawing that behavior surely cannot be consistent with religious freedom. To be sure, there is a legitimate state interest in promoting that morality necessary to the public order. The crucial point here is that one would have to demonstrate that the immoral behavior one seeks to make or to keep illegal has serious effects on the quality of public life, and that the enforcement of the law will not infringe greater values than the one it maintains. (Hence, Murray’s argument that the liberty of individuals requires a degree of privacy that is more important than whatever negative impact the use of contraceptives may have on society.) The difficulty in Scalia’s argument is that he neglects to proffer such an argument or even to acknowledge the need for such further reasoning; instead, he declares that upholding the moral (and, I would add, therefore religious) beliefs of the majority is itself directly a state purpose, and thus the existence of a moral consensus is sufficient grounds for depriving those who violate it of their liberty. Whatever other considerations may be significant in evaluating these arguments from social, historical, or jurisprudential perspectives, we must conclude that the reasoning of the majority opinion, with its insistence not on an absolute secularity or disregard of morality and religion but on a legitimate state purpose, is consistent with the understanding of religious freedom developed here. As it stands, Justice Scalia’s reasoning conflicts with religious disestablishment, though were he to proffer reasons why this type of morals legislation or this particular law is necessary for the quality of our public life and its order (rather than asserting a broad state interest in upholding the moral consensus), our judgment would have to be reconsidered. It is not Scalia’s conclusion itself but his equation of support for moral beliefs (or the comprehensive purpose) with the pursuits proper to the state that is problematic according to the analysis developed here.


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Religious Freedom and Public Debate Religious freedom, as Gamwell defines it, does not prohibit but rather requires public debate over our different answers to the quintessentially religious question of the ultimate purpose or value of human activity. If we cannot or will not debate this question, then religious freedom makes no sense, he has argued: insofar as some account of the comprehensive purpose will be implicit in our governing activity, the question of religion cannot be ignored and must either be settled by the fiat of established religion or by leaving the matter to be continually resolved in favor of the comprehensive purpose that people find most persuasive.55 In Gamwell’s view, then, those who insist that public debate over religion is either impossible or undesirable must sacrifice instead the right to religious freedom. This should at least give pause to those who reject public religious debate, as religious freedom is a not inconsiderable value, whether judged from the perspective of its place in our national history or from the perspective of a Christian faith that cannot and must not be coerced.56 Still, major objections to this kind of religious argumentation in public persist. Has Gamwell safeguarded religious freedom at the cost of public civility (as some liberal theorists argue) or by compromising the essential distinctness of religious perspectives (as some theologians and religious philosophers insist)? Are the conditions of religious freedom such that the whole enterprise is untenable after all, demanding a price we cannot or should not pay? Robert Audi has articulated one especially thoughtful version of the liberal argument against the inclusion of religion in public arguments, a version that is particularly significant here, since he shares our commitment to civil discourse. In defending a “liberalism of reasoned respect,” Audi argues against the introduction of specifically religious perspectives into public debate, not because he ascribes to an individualistic philosophy in which politics is merely the contestation of personal preferences, but because he believes religious arguments are uncivil and disruptive of discourse in a religiously diverse society. Respect for those whose behavior will be coerced, he insists, requires that proposed legislation be defended or critiqued on grounds that all could in principle accept; to base laws on religious presuppositions that are not shared by all defeats the purpose of public discussion and denies to our laws the legitimation that comes from a publicly reasoned defense, he further argues.57 While Audi thus opposes political argumentation and action based on explicitly religious beliefs, he does allow religiously motivated political

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behavior when it can be supported by nonreligious, or secular, reasons as well.58 A Christian, motivated by the command to “love thy neighbor as thyself,” could proceed to act politically in accord with this principle provided that she or he defend that political behavior also on the basis of something like a humanistic valuation of all human life. Audi’s view would thus disallow a public theology that addresses public life solely with the resources of a specific religious tradition and/or examines the religious character of our political disagreements, but he would support the work of those Christian theologians who follow Murray’s approach and publicly defend their positions on the basis of reason alone. Public theology is, however, similarly challenged by those Christians who go even further than Audi in their insistence that theologians ought not to engage in the public discourse of a pluralistic society. This is not usually because they think that Christianity has no public or specifically political implications, but rather because they believe that any public defense of a Christian perspective inherently entails precisely the kind of translation or secular support that Audi and others demand. In assuming non-Christian principles as the basis for explaining and defending Christian beliefs, they insist, those Christian beliefs are distorted. Since no language is neutral, Christian faith can only be properly defended in terms of its own (Christian) language; or, as George Lindbeck argues, we can only learn the meaning of Christianity through initiation into the Christian cultural-linguistic framework that enables us to see the world in a Christian way.59 Thus, where Audi is concerned to protect the public sphere from the irrationality and hence incivility of religion, these Christians are concerned to preserve the distinctness of Christianity from being colonized by a non-Christian discourse. Given these challenges to the inclusion of religious debates in public life, one might be tempted to search for some other alternative. Why not allow religiously motivated political behavior, but refrain from public discussion of the religious motivation? While religious integrity may require that we act politically in a manner consistent with our beliefs about the comprehensive purpose, we might yet abstain from attempting to persuade others to believe and to act similarly. Or, in a variation on this approach, perhaps we could engage in religiously motivated political behavior, along with public proclamation of that religious motivation, but refuse further to explain, defend, or discuss that proclaimed witness. Either way, might we not thus avoid at the same time the Scylla of privatized religion (since religiously based political behavior is allowed) and the Charybdis of a public divided over religious differences?


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This prohibition of religious discourse could of course only be voluntary since any such legal proscription would violate our constitutional right to freedom of speech as well as to religious disestablishment. (As follows from our earlier discussion, if explicitly religious arguments are banned, the government would be actively privileging negative answers to the comprehensive purpose over positive ones.) But should religious people perhaps voluntarily refrain from public defense of the religious bases of their political activity, as a contribution to the civility of public life and/or to preserve the distinctiveness and integrity of their religious faith? I believe that to do so would be a mistake that would contribute neither to public civility nor to the quality of religious witness but only to the further deterioration of that public life for which it is prescribed as a remedy. After all, while it may be debatable whether incivility follows from giving explicitly religious arguments, the refusal to explain or to discuss one’s rationale altogether is decidedly uncivil. The “liberalism of reasoned respect” advocated by Audi, Rawls, and others demands publicly acceptable reasons not only (or even primarily) to prevent religious contention but rather to increase trust and cooperation. To refuse to defend one’s position does nothing to alleviate the environment of mistrust and suspicion of the unjustified power of political coalitions, nor does it provide the basis for cooperation in a pluralistic society that liberalism seeks. When differences over which political purposes to pursue are rooted in religious disagreements about the comprehensive purpose of human life, it is surely more civilly respectfully to discuss these differences than to ignore them. To be sure, not all political disagreements entail disputes over what purpose is ultimately worthwhile. Probably more often our disagreements are about the better means to attain our ends or about which of the various particular ends are appropriate to and ought to have priority in the activities of the state. As Gamwell too has observed, many political debates are primarily disagreements either of fact or of means. It is also the case that we can often achieve agreement on the purposes to be pursued politically by appealing to shared but less-than-ultimate values. Though I insist that at times we may need to debate our religious differences, I do not presume that all (or even most) political disputes are necessarily religious ones. However, insofar as real differences over the comprehensive purpose exist among the citizenry, these differences will require debates about the purposes the state ought to pursue and cannot, then, be addressed as anything other than the religious disagreements that they are.

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Requiring disengagement from politics to protect the integrity of a Christian perspective is, I judge, equally untenable. If one can only evaluate Christian beliefs from within some Christian cultural-linguistic framework that alone allows these beliefs to be comprehended (and, it seems to follow, would make us unable to consider them to be anything other than true), it is rather difficult to account for the not uncommon experiences of conversion to or from Christianity. How do we persuade people to be initiated into this cultural-linguistic framework, if there are no publicly accessible ways to suggest to outsiders that this perspective is likely to be good, true, or beautiful? How can we explain our activities of preaching and witnessing, if these cannot be rendered comprehensible to those who have not already adopted the “grammar” of our faith? Surely we believe that to some extent the truth and goodness of Christianity can be apprehended by non-Christians, even if only when presented in terms of its own distinct grammar and practices. Yet to accept this is to admit that the claims of Christianity are indeed publicly accessible; the further dispute over the form of this publicly accessible discourse is a debate properly within public theology rather than over the possibility of a public theology.60 Gamwell’s position, I believe, is correct: those who would uphold religious freedom have no other choice than to allow for an ongoing public debate over our different answers to the religious question. Yet academic theorists (whether liberal philosophers or sectarian theologians) are far from the only ones who question the possibility of such religious debate. Is there not, after all, a basic distinction between faith and reason? Insofar as faith is a graced recognition of a freely given divine revelation, the Christian tradition has long maintained that it is not achieved as the conclusion of rational proofs. Is it either practically plausible or theologically coherent to depend on reasonable arguments to overcome religious differences?61 To be sure, faith as understood in the Christian tradition is never achieved solely through reason, and the extent of our religious diversity despite considerable proselytization and argumentation on most sides indicates that in any case religious disagreements are seldom settled by definitive arguments. Still, the irrationality of religion is overstated. As Gamwell has noted, the fact of believing something to be true implies a logical distinction between what we believe and that we believe it to be true, and the latter is a state we can thoughtfully evaluate (provided that we understand ourselves to be fallible).62 This is not to say that one can prove those beliefs to be true or even that one will necessarily persuade others, yet religious beliefs can and should be evaluated in terms of their


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internal coherence and their consistency with what we otherwise know to be true. As David Tracy has further argued, the disclosive power of a classic religious belief, text, or practice can be the subject of a public conversation and evaluation of that claim to disclosiveness. Just as we cannot irrefutably prove the beauty of a work of art, so we cannot prove beyond dispute that a religious belief, text, or practice has a disclosive power we should attend to. Yet religion, like art, is too publicly significant to be treated as a “purely private option,” and theologians, like art critics, are engaged in publicly accessible discourse that attempts to persuade others of this disclosive power in particular texts.63 We might further note that religious disagreements are far from the only aspects of public life that are seldom definitively resolved. Indeed, little in politics is subject to such certainty or finality. The likelihood of a deeply convinced Democrat persuading an equally convinced Republican is also slim, yet those who have determined that religious beliefs are publicly irresolvable have not similarly rejected political argumentation altogether, fraught as it surely is with irrationality, emotional attachments, and a history of failure to persuade the opposition. Since my task in this book is to defend the role of narratives in a public theology, my examination of the public accessibility of religious language will be limited in what follows to determining the manner in which narratives, both historical and religious, can be publicly evaluated. Insofar as this narrative approach focuses on rendering our various experiences and particular histories in their interrelation and as a complex whole, I hope also to suggest that a narrative public theology may contribute to clarifying the common ground necessary for productive debate among people with real and at times fundamental differences. I will not, then, attempt to provide here an adequate and detailed defense of the public character of religious beliefs, a task I believe others have fulfilled.64

Public Theology Amid Diversity On the grounds that Gamwell has developed, we can see that the appropriate role for public theologians is not to insist that a religious consensus be established as the basis of our public policies, but rather to participate in public debate, to identify the comprehensive purposes implicit in the political purposes under discussion, and to contribute our best arguments to any debate over which purposes should be pursued. Gamwell has further demonstrated that public debate concerning our different answers to

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the religious question of the ultimate purpose of human life is not inconsistent with, but rather the basis of, religious freedom, provided that the government does not officially endorse an explicit answer to this question or foreclose debate. Further, if one does not accept the dubious though common assumption that religious beliefs are indisputable and not subject to reasonable assessment (an assumption that in this extreme form is not shared by much of the Christian tradition), there is no necessary trade-off between political civility and religious freedom; the debate over the religious implications of our public policies can be pursued with the same respectful reasoning that is called for in any debate over deeply rooted differences of opinion. Public theology as thus understood is consistent with and benefits from Arendt’s insight that humans are social animals whose lives are enriched through encountering a diversity of perspectives, and that it is public life, which, in its (at least in principle) nonexclusivity, provides the opportunity for exposure to the greatest diversity. Those excluded from the public are not inhuman, of course, but they are deprived of the opportunity to experience the diversity possible in public. Indeed, the public realm itself is diminished insofar as power is used to exclude difference and so to reduce the diversity appearing in public; since this exclusion threatens to become a tyranny in which the possibility of truly public action is lost for all, it must be resisted by public theologians, as by all concerned with human flourishing. It is my intention in what follows to argue further that the development of a public theology should include attention to the narratives through which we construe our historical identity and possibilities. This public theology would seek to clarify the comprehensive purpose evident in the way people construe national and religious histories, and would compare and critique these construals. At this level, I am not directly concerned with specific public policies, then, but rather with the need for theological engagement and critique of the narrative imagination through which we construe our lives together as a common project with unique possibilities and failures. If Gamwell’s argument is persuasive, at least a minimal defense of the necessity for this public theology has been provided. Reflection on the meaning and truth of religious beliefs properly includes reflection on the particular implications of those beliefs for our governing activities, since all actions should be consistent with the correct account of what is ultimately worthwhile. Gamwell’s teleological approach also suggests the importance of temporal considerations, in that our purposes are pursued through time and in a manner specific to our historical location. Hence, I


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advocate greater attention to the narratives through which the comprehensive purpose is temporally specified. Insofar as this narrative public theology intends to clarify what is at stake in our stories in order to foster public debate, and does not propose a univocal, uncriticizable narrative as the foundation for further discussion, I believe we may hope that public theology will contribute to, rather than curtail, a full and free public debate.

CHAPTER THREE

E Pluribus Unum? National Narratives and the Recovery of Public Life

Introduction: Why Nations and Why Narratives? A vital and pluralistic public life, I have argued, is important not only to the preservation of participatory democracy and the establishment of justice, but also to the full development of human capacities to establish personal identity, to understand the world, and to engage in responsible action. In short, a flourishing public life is an aspect of the good life for human beings, and as such it is a religious as well as a political concern. However, public life cannot be fostered in the abstract but only through attention to specific contexts of human interaction and organization. We must ask, then: which public should be the focus of our attention? Or, at what level of governmental organization should public life be developed? William Dean, one of the public theologians concerned with our national context, has vigorously defended the importance of theological attention to our national public life. His work is of further relevance here since he also shares our concern with the role of narratives in a national public theology. In The Religious Critic in American Culture, Dean argues that public life depends upon some mythic narrative that conveys the sense of the sacred as experienced through the events of that people’s history.1 This argument for a national myth merits a brief examination here not only for its attention to the nation-state as the locus of public life, but also for its claim of the indispensability of a national myth. Indeed, Dean’s work raises the question that is the focus of this chapter: what role should narratives of national history play in the development of a political theology for the United States? 71

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Given the ambiguity of the word “nation,” it may be helpful to clarify Dean’s use of the term before proceeding further into his argument. “Nation” is, of course, often used in the United States to refer to the highest level of governmental authority (the “state”) in order to avoid confusion with the fifty member states; it does not, then, denote a people who share a common ethnic or cultural heritage. Following American usage, Dean intends “nation” to refer to the people who are united under the U.S. federal government and thus need to create a shared culture. Dean is especially concerned with myths as an element in this evolving common culture and defends the name “America” rather than “the United States” on the grounds that the latter term evokes the governing structures of the state and lacks the emotional and cultural content conveyed by “America.”2 Despite his concern for the cultural dimension of nationality, however, it is important to underscore that Dean does not appeal to the unifying powers of race, ethnicity, or even language. The “nation” Dean supports is not an ethnic nation, a people united by ancestry and/or an inherited culture, but rather a civic nation comprised of diverse peoples with a soverign government and developing a common culture. (Since I agree that we are not an ethnically united people, the term “nation” will be used here in the sense Dean intends, unless otherwise indicated.)3 Dean shares with other notable critics such as Robert Bellah, William Sullivan, and Christopher Lasch the belief that public life in the United States currently lacks a commitment to a common good and that, lacking this commitment, people are unlikely to overcome their divisive and selfish interests to make political decisions in the interest of the nation as a whole. In Dean’s view, this is because there is a “spiritual emptiness” in our public life, an emptiness due largely to the loss of any clear sense of the relationship between our ultimate values and our nation’s role in history. This relationship had been construed according to the terms provided by the myth of American “exceptionalism,” but this myth was undermined by our experiences of national ambiguity and finally discredited (largely by America’s involvement in the Vietnam War). As Dean explains, the exceptionalist myth: once claimed that this nation lived within history but was guided from beyond history. America . . . had received a promise that made her God’s New Israel, an exception among nations. This promise gave her a sacred purpose—one that first emanated from the God of the Puritans and then from the secular gods of Democracy or Capitalism or Liberty.4

E Pluribus Unum?

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Since this myth is no longer credible, we are bereft of a sense of national purpose and its powerful motivation for engaging in public life for reasons other than the pursuit of our own self (or a specific group’s) interests. To be sure, there has been some revival of exceptionalist descriptions of America in the public discussions of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Dean can be excused for not having foreseen nine years earlier. Nevertheless, I believe Dean’s basic thesis stands, insofar as even these claims for our country’s unique nobility and virtue are largely free-floating assertions without basis in any evident myth or supporting historical understanding that would provide a lasting sense of purpose and a willingness to sacrifice for this ongoing project.5 Public claims of our unusual selflessness notwithstanding, neither the myth of exceptionalism nor any other national myth is widely accepted. In order to counter the current vacuity of the public realm, Dean argues that we need a new national myth to fill the gap left by the discrediting of the myth of exceptionalism. This new myth, like the myth of exceptionalism, must be a narrative in which the major events of national history are related to the sacred, so that the narrative can express the ultimate significance of the nation and its actions. As Dean explains, “the sacred . . . is analogous to the point that ties together the loose ends of a very subtle story, giving to the parts of the story a sense and purpose otherwise absent”; it is, then, not unlike Franklin I. Gamwell’s comprehensive purpose that is the source of meaning for all of our particular purposes (though Dean’s approach is historicist in a way that Gamwell’s is not).6 The mythic narrative Dean envisions would thus enable us to conceive of a meaning and purpose for the nation, ensuring that the rightly discredited and triumphalist myth of exceptionalism is not simply replaced by a “myth of America as a meaningless plurality of voices—a veritable myth of cacophony” that renders us unable to act together to achieve common purposes or to sustain our common world for the good of all who might share in it.7 The new myth Dean calls for must also, of course, be more open to the ambiguity of American history than the myth of exceptionalism was. The sacred, as understood by Dean, is not a supernatural guarantee of righteousness or even an ahistorical or predetermined truth, but rather a sense of the whole, “a living and evolving convention about what is ultimately important.” Approaching the development of a national myth from this perspective, Dean argues, makes possible a myth of America consistent with his thoroughly historicized approach to knowledge: we have no essential historical purpose established from outside of history,

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but rather a process of human “purpose-making,” in which our concept of the sacred is always open to further correction and revision.8 This mythic articulation of a national purpose ought to avoid any self-righteous glorification of America, to be sure, but, Dean insists, it must also resist the temptation to fall into the debilitatingly self-critical pessimism about our historical potential that prevents us from envisioning any national purpose as good and worthwhile.9 Although I resist Dean’s thorough historicism, I find persuasive his argument that we must narrate our history in such a way that a common project emerges as a worthy endeavor that (at least some of the time) will take precedence over our personal projects and individual interests. Without this sense of purpose rooted in a larger history, I do not see how our political life can be anything other than a competitive effort to maximize our individual interests. I also argue that a historically rooted sense of identity and purpose gives us a perspective from which to criticize our public projects and the motivation to fulfill our obligations to past generations. Without such an historically grounded identity, the natural desire to feel oneself a part of a larger group is, I believe, likely to be expressed in shallow and uncritical assertions of a nationalist pride. Yet will not this focus on a national myth stifle the public diversity affirmed in the previous chapter? Dean insists that such an outcome is not inevitable. A shared narrative, he argues, is necessary to provide a public sense of direction and to overcome the fragmentation of public life, but it need not lead to cultural hegemony or enforced commonality. George Lindbeck’s ecumenical approach to doctrine, he notes, has shown that a religious text can be held in common and yet give rise to the various interpretations of different denominations; analogously, a common national narrative would, in Dean’s view, be open to a plurality of interpretations. Diversity could then be preserved, he believes, without sacrificing the sense of a common national purpose necessary to a vital public life.10 I largely agree with Dean on this point as well, though my project differs from his in two key respects. First, while he seeks a common narrative variously interpreted, I am interested in a common life variously narrated. That is, whereas Dean proposes to counter the “myth of cacophony” with a shared national myth, I would encourage a diversity of accounts of our national history, so that the limitations of any one perspective will be continually challenged. As I will argue below, this diversity of narratives will enrich our pluralistic public life, provided that we seek to narrate the life of the national as a whole from our different perspectives and that we continue to submit our narratives to that public

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debate through which we search together for a more adequate account. We must not remain satisfied with narratives focusing only on the experiences of particular groups within this whole, nor should we refrain from the mutual correction of public debate. This leads to a second major difference between Dean’s project and my own. Dean is committed to a religious cultural criticism that makes explicit (in order to support and to critique) the common presumptions and cultural attitudes we already share, while I am pursuing a public theology that strives to contribute to the public debate a particular Christian perspective on our common national life. Although distinct, these projects are not mutually exclusive; indeed, I believe they are both necessary, since any public debate about the values and purposes we ought to seek as a nation must acknowledge our differences but seek further understanding and public cooperation based on some common ground. Notwithstanding these distinct emphases and interests, I intend to defend Dean’s project, insofar as it combines concern for our national public life, desire for a shared narrative, and insistence on the importance of a religious dimension to public decision-making. Yet each of these three points is controversial, to say the least. First, is it really the case that the public life we seek to revitalize occurs on the national level? As mentioned above, many argue today that, given our increasingly international economy, the more important task is to develop a public life on the global level. At the other extreme, arguments are also made in favor of local communities and personal negotiations. Might not the attention to the nation that Dean advocates result in a nationalistic chauvinism that distorts our relationships both internationally (so that we seek the good of our own country at the expense of others) and domestically (causing us to enforce a hegemonic culture rather than pluralistic debate within the nation)? The concern for national public life that I share with Dean cannot be taken for granted, but must be defended in the face of these challenging criticisms. Secondly, is it not counterproductive to attempt to develop a common public life through the use of narratives, which are significant precisely because they are particular? It is certainly arguable that the lack of a common narrative is not only a temporary reality but an inevitability in the United States, given that we are not one ethnic people but many peoples with multiple stories. In a country this diverse, whose story and which version of it gets told? At what point does an emphasis on a unifying narrative occlude important differences and, conversely, how far can we encourage narrative diversity without forfeiting the common life we seek to foster? As a strategy for defining our unity-in-plurality, the

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contributions and limits of a narrative approach to public life warrant closer examination. Finally, there are considerable difficulties entailed in incorporating a religious perspective into a narrative of American identity and purpose. Given our discussion of religion and politics in chapter two above, it follows that Dean has good reasons for insisting on relating national history to the sacred: insofar as national myths provide a sense of direction for our public policies, some position on what is ultimately valuable (or, in Franklin I. Gamwell’s terms, “the comprehensive purpose of human life”) will be implied in any such myth. Having defended above the legitimacy and the necessity of including religious perspectives in a public life dedicated to religious freedom, I need not repeat that argument here.11 However, further questions arise when one seeks to investigate the religious dimensions of national narratives. Can the sacred be incorporated into a narrative of national history in a way that is truly public and also allows for the distinction between the sacred and the nation-state necessary to counteract the idolatrous tendencies of the latter? Will not a religiously diverse people narrate the sacred in our nation’s history in various ways, thus defeating our search for a shared identity and purpose? Indeed, given the interest here in defending an explicitly Christian public theology, the question of whether any national narrative can incorporate religious insights in a manner appropriate both to the Christian tradition and to our national public life is a pressing one. The difficulties in such a project have already been suggested in Arendt’s interpretation of Augustinian Christianity as holding that the truly significant occurs only in sacred and not in secular history. Is it really possible, then, to bring the sacred and the secular together in a mutually enriching rather than distorting way? Leaving aside questions about the specifically religious dimension of national narratives for discussion in chapter four, this present chapter will be concerned with the challenges to the viability and desirability of increasing the role of narratives in a national public life. Our discussion here will first defend attention to public life on the national level and, through engaging major arguments against extreme nationalism and patriotism, will issue in a qualified defense of national public life as worthy of our concern. The remainder of this chapter will then examine the public role of narrative in rendering historical purpose and identity, focusing on Paul Ricoeur’s theory of narrative as the form in which human temporality is expressed. Narratives of national history, I will argue, are not only significant to public life but can also be defended against the criticism that they are inherently hegemonic and totalizing forms of thought that suppress diversity and alterity. This chapter will

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thus support Dean’s argument that national narratives are indispensable for revitalizing public life, while defending a public debate over the adequacy of proposed national narratives, a debate that I believe could lead to ever more complex and adequate narratives of the whole able to counteract our fragmented political discourse without enforcing homogeneity.

A Defense of Public Life on the National Level Arguments Against the Nation-State The decision to focus our public theology on the national level is neither obviously warranted nor unchallenged, with many today arguing either for more global or more local forms of political action. A cogent version of the argument for a global approach to political identity is provided by Martha Nussbaum who, in her article “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism,” condemns as arbitrary and parochial the preference for the good of one’s own country over the good of others.12 Membership in a nation is a morally irrelevant accident (usually of birth) she argues; there is no valid ethical justification for confining our interest in the well-being of others to those with whom we happen to share national citizenship. Instead, we must “recognize humanity wherever it occurs, and give its fundamental ingredients, reason and moral capacity, our first allegiance and respect,” she argues.13 William Cavanaugh has similarly argued that, from the perspective of Christian theology, the celebration of the Eucharist unites us into a transnational body in which our country of origin is irrelevant.14 In addition to the universality of our moral obligations, we must also contend with the fact that many of today’s serious problems are worldwide and require international cooperation for their resolution. According to Nussbaum, our task is then to “work to make all human beings part of our community of dialogue and concern,” rather than to expend undue energy and attention on the exclusive bonds of nationality. Nussbaum does acknowledge that there are instances in which it is appropriate to assume greater responsibility for those nearest to us, but she insists that this selectivity is acceptable only when it is justifiable on a universal basis, as for example when children are better cared for throughout the world because parents everywhere exercise a particular responsibility for their own children.15 On the whole, what is most needed in her view is a cosmopolitan approach that eschews particularity in favor of universal care and cooperation.

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Even while Nussbaum argues for a cosmopolitanism on the grounds that contemporary problems require global cooperation for their solution and that our moral obligations extend to all of humanity, many others emphasize the importance of political action on a scale not larger but smaller than the nation. Hannah Arendt’s theory of public life, as we have seen, is based on the model of the Greek city-state and thus envisions a more local form of political activity and responsibility than it would seem that either national or global politics could provide. Arendt explicitly argued that a true public life is not possible on the current scale of national politics because the field is too large to allow involvement by many or personal distinction for more than the very few. Surely we are not likely to develop a sense of responsibility when the effects of individual contributions cannot be discerned, and the challenge of diverse viewpoints will at the very least be seriously attenuated in a political arena wherein most participants must remain anonymous. If we draw (as I have) on Arendt’s arguments for the value of public life, we have grounds for defending a political life conducted in small communities, but we do not have a clear rationale for concern with politics on the national (or even the global) level.16 From yet another perspective, we need to turn to local politics because cosmopolitanism fails precisely at the task it takes most seriously: developing moral identity and respect for other cultures. Michael McConnell, for example, insists that Nussbaum’s universal concern is too “thin” to produce moral agents, since it is in concrete communities and face-to-face interactions (rather than through universal abstractions) that moral identity is developed. He does not deny that ethical obligations have a universal dimension, but he does intend to underscore the fact that the development of moral character, including the understanding, commitment, and discipline necessary to pursue the good, depends upon one’s particular and formative human bonds. He further argues that people who have not been taught to value their own culture’s accomplishments are less likely to value those of other cultures; after all, a general assent to the value of all achievements finally accords specific value to none. “Solutions are not to be found in abstractions like cosmopolitanism,” McConnell declares, “but in renewal of our various intact moral communities.”17 Given the importance of concrete communities and the greater possibilities for participation in local politics, on the one hand, and the universality of moral obligations and the global scope of contemporary problems on the other hand, is not our focus on national politics misguided? The nation-state appears to be “too small for some functions and

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too large for others”; should it not be abandoned as an ineffective if not pernicious level of organization?18 Our emphasis here on a national public theology is also likely to meet resistance in theological circles today not because politics is an improper topic for theology but rather because the form of politics appropriate to the church is thought for various reasons to oppose the politics of the nation or the state. John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas warn that we are likely to inflate the importance of our own country, even sacralizing it to the point of idolatry, while Cavanaugh, Hauerwas’s former student, embraces a Christian anarchy and argues that the very sovereignty of the state disrupts the organic relations between communities on which true political bonds are build. Yet another former Hauerwas student, Daniel M. Bell Jr., insists that any involvement in the organized politics of nation-states, even the recent attention of liberation theologians to fostering civic discourse, is bound to fail to achieve a more just society, since he understands the state to be the political form through which rapacious capitalism is spread. If we would resist economic oppression, we must also resist rather than cooperate with the state, he maintains. According to these views, it follows that developing a national political theology is a grave theological mistake.19

A Qualified Defense of the Nation-State Nevertheless, a case can also be make for national life as defensible precisely because of this in-betweenness, so that national politics is appropriate just where a global structure would be too large and a local one too small. On the one hand, forms of participatory decision-making are possible in national political life that are scarcely imaginable on a global scale; on the other hand, the insularity of homogeneous communities can be resisted through responsible participation in a larger and more diverse society. National life allows for political responsibility and action that we lack global structures for, and yet it calls us to envision relationships and accountability on a scale much broader than face-to-face community interactions allow. As Amy Gutmann has argued, national public life is not, as Nussbaum suggests, a denial of global responsibility but is instead a means of effectively exercising that responsibility. We are not world citizens, but rather citizens of particular nations, Gutmann points out, and it is primarily through our particular citizenships that we have the means for organized and concerted action, even with regard to international situations.

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“Our capacity to act effectively to further justice increases when we are empowered as citizens, and so therefore does our responsibility to act to further justice,” she argues.20 Moreover, she astutely judges that world citizenship, even were it feasible, would not under current circumstances be an advancement, since it is unlikely that there would be less tyranny or more citizen participation if a world government or international confederation were to become the primary decision-making body.21 While I do not think this bleak view should dissuade us from exploring the possibility for international structures of decision-making and accountability, it does seem clear that Reinhold Niebuhr’s judgment that a world community is our “final necessity and possibility, but also [our] final impossibility” remains accurate.22 Surely anything like a world government in the near future would be highly problematic, and in any case it is likely that the nation-state will remain the primary forum for the exercise of our global responsibilities for some time to come. Christopher Lasch lends further support to our defense of the nation with his argument that a sense of national identity contributes to rather than detracts from the development of moral responsibility. Although Nussbaum proposes cosmopolitanism as an antidote to the arbitrary restriction of concern to those closest to us or most like us (she considers nationalism to be akin to ethnocentrism), Lasch argues that those who have developed a cosmopolitan identity (generally the best educated and most affluent) in the United States in fact tend to be socially and politically irresponsible, denying their obligations to their less-advantaged fellow citizens without showing any greater concern for people elsewhere. This is no accident, Lasch insists: unlike cosmopolitanism, identifying with others in the nation provides the sense of shared history and fate necessary to envision the bonds of responsibility and care extending beyond one’s immediate relationships.23 As Alisdair MacIntyre has similarly argued, rootless people are less rather than more likely to possess a strong sense of moral obligation to people beyond their immediate relationships.24 Just as this focus on national politics can and should be pursued as an exercise of international cooperation and global concern, so also it should support rather than undermine local community involvement. Neighborhood groups, city councils, and county organizations provide genuine opportunities for political engagement and for fostering civic-mindedness on the local level, where decisions do make a real difference in people’s lives. Yet even Hannah Arendt, whose work raised important questions about the extent to which national public life can be truly participatory, did not suggest that all governing and decision-making should occur at

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the level of local communities. She did not call for a return to city-states, but rather envisioned a system of councils in which larger regions are governed by representatives sent from local councils. While consideration of the structural changes that would be necessary to make our national politics more truly participatory and representative is beyond the scope of this book, it is nevertheless important to note here that Arendt too acknowledged the importance of various levels of governmental decisionmaking. Insofar as the public realm she defended is an ideal type, which can be more or less closely approximated but never fully achieved, the important question is how we can so organize all levels of government that they are more participatory and public rather than less so. Julia Kristeva’s apt perception of the ambiguity, the dangers as well as the good, inherent in nations and national identity, along with her defense of the nation-state as a “transitional value” constitutes a particularly nuanced approach to national public life. On the one hand, she understands that defining identity in terms of national origins may be a “hate reaction” and an attempt to reinforce a threatened sense of identity through an appeal to a “massive and regressive common denominator.”25 She thus opposes this dangerous assertion of the centrality of a common national identity and warns that unless and until the dream of a univocal identity is relinquished and the otherness within accepted, we will reject the otherness of the stranger as well. On the other hand, Kristeva recognizes that, notwithstanding the increasing importance of international confederations, the nation is still the primary form of political organization. As she observes History imposes, for a long while, the necessity to think of the nation in terms of new, flexible concepts because it is within and through the nation that the economic, political, and cultural future of the coming century will be played out.26 Rather than ignoring or opposing the nation and its importance, then, Kristeva advocates the development of nonethnic forms of national identity. In opposition to a “volksgeist” concept of the nation as “mystically rooted in the soil, the blood, and the genius of language,” Kristeva upholds the model of a contractual, civic nationality, which she believes is exemplified in the French nation. In this approach, the nation is “achieved in a legal and political pact between free and equal individuals . . . toward accomplishing the rights of man.”27 This statement of opposition to ethnic nationality may suggest that Kristeva reduces national identity to the legal rights of citizenship and

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considers commitment to political ideals (e.g., democracy, or the rights of humanity) to be the only factor unifying citizens. Such purely political approaches to nationality, however, have been frequently critiqued for their neglect of the shared culture that even a civic approach to the nation surely requires. It is at least arguable that civic nations depend upon a cultural identity in addition to legally determined citizenship, as Charles Taylor has observed: the societies we are striving to create—free, democratic, willing to some degree to share equally—require strong identification on the part of their citizens. It has always been noted in the civic humanist tradition that free societies, relying as they must on the spontaneous support of their members, need the strong sense of allegiance that Montesquieu called vertu.28 Or, as Ernest Renan argued in the late nineteenth century, interests form trade agreements, but a state requires commitment to a common good. Despite Kristeva’s insistence on a contractual basis for national identity, she does not in fact deny the importance of developing the cultural component of this identity as well. Although she is deeply critical of the elitism that comes with defining the nation in terms of a common culture, she nevertheless recognizes that culture is an important force shaping “identification instincts”: the French nation, in her view, is “a highly symbolic body” in which culture plays an important and unifying role. (In Benedict Anderson’s terms, nations are “imagined communities.”)29 Even language, though rejected as a determining factor, can be reappropriated as a significant aspect of national culture: “To write a fiction in French,” Kristeva argues, “is at the same time an acknowledgment of the fact that a nation is a language act and an attempt to inscribe on it other sensitivities.”30 While Kristeva thus acknowledges that nations and national identity are important (if ambiguous) forces and will remain so at least in the near future, she nevertheless agrees with Nussbaum that moral obligations are not limited to those with whom we share nationality. Kristeva considers the nation to be not only “contractual” and “cultural,” but also “transitional,” meaning that commitment to the good of the nation is one level among the many levels of obligations that ought to be considered. She finds this transitional approach to nationhood also in Montesquieu and quotes approvingly from him a sentiment that Nussbaum would surely also accept:

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If I knew something useful to myself and detrimental to my family, I would reject it from my mind. If I knew something useful to my family, but not to my homeland, I would try to forget it. If I knew something useful to my homeland and detrimental to Europe, or else useful to Europe and detrimental to Mankind, I would consider it a crime.31 Kristeva’s and Nussbaum’s positions are not as far apart as it might seem, then, since both agree that one ought not put the good of the nation before the good of all others. Though Kristeva supports a limited allegiance to the nation, neither she nor I condone a patriotism that seeks the good of one’s own country to the detriment of others. At the same time, Nussbaum too acknowledges that identities are formed within a series of “concentric circles” of affiliation and association and, as we have seen, she allows for the in principle justifiability of a preferential concern extended to those closer at hand, provided that all are better served through this arrangement of priorities (a criteria that I believe some forms of privileging responsibility to one’s own nation-state can meet.)32 Kristeva’s argument for civic nationalism as contractual, cultural, and transitional lends support to the conclusion that one need not deny the perversions of nationalism in order to agree with Dean that national public life is to be fostered. Given that the nation-state continues to be a significant political, economic, and cultural force, it is, in my judgment, irresponsible to ignore the implications of political action and public life on the national level. The nation will continue for some time to be the locus of decisions on significant policies affecting the international situation as well as local communities: as Gutmann argued, public life at the national level is important precisely to the extent that so much is at stake here or, in the terms Hanna Pitkin has provided, this is an arena for the exercise of adult responsibility for the conditions of our lives.33 It may not be so for all time, but such is our present reality. Further, there need be no inherent contradiction between attention to the nation and commitment to our local communities and global responsibilities. To the contrary, as Kristeva demonstrates, the good of the nation should be held to be a “transitional good,” one among many levels of concern, but one which, given its power and significance, a political theology ought not to ignore. We cannot, of course, ignore the ease with which the nation assumes an aura of the sacred (perhaps especially in the United States), even to the point where it is virtually inseparable from the highest good or the source

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of all value. For Christians, this sacralizing of the nation is not merely a failure to maintain its “transitional” value, but must be condemned as idolatry. Indeed, to invoke Christian concepts in a manner that contributes to this idolizing of the nation is a deep betrayal of the essence of Christian faith. Yet a reasonable and prudent concern to avoid the snares of idolatry ought not cause us to refuse to evaluate our national policies from a theological perspective, especially since our silence would allow the perhaps unconscious idolatry to grow unchecked. Besides, a stance of unrelenting condemnation regardless of the circumstances does not provide, and is not likely to be accepted as, a serious contribution to a fruitful public conversation. Unflinching and detailed critiques of our deeply flawed, sinful, and at times idolatrous national attitudes and policies are desperately needed, but a theology that sees nothing other than a dark night wherein all possible political actions are evil will not suffice. Nor can Christians simply oppose the politics of the ecclesial community to the politics of “statecraft,” if we are to live up to our commitment to welcome the stranger and our hope in the possibility of harmonious unity amid diversity. To be sure, no government ought to have unlimited sovereignty, and we need communities, organizations, and institutional authorities able to criticize the state and its use of power. But this is simply an acknowledgment that, as John Courtney Murray noted, a plurality of authorities better protects our freedom than a monism (whether that monism is a state that assumes the functions and authority of the church or a church that seeks to be a countermonism, repudiating the state and assuming all functions and authorities within itself).34 We must indeed work towards limitations on the sovereignty of the state, but this does not require and is not furthered by a rejection of the state altogether. Nor do we have grounds for presuming that the removal of the governing structures that protect individuals and organize relations between groups would result in a natural harmony (as though the state is the original sin causing all violence). Indeed a close reading of Cavanaugh’s work indicates that his objection to an organized national government involves a repudiation of any institutionalization of the procedures that organize the relations between groups and protect the rights of the weaker.35 Even though we can change the structures of the political arrangement, both Cavanaugh and Bell refuse to argue for this, preferring a vague and generalized stance of ‘resistance’ to any actual change. They are, of course, right to remind us not to be naïve about the distortions of our political processes, especially through the influence of money, which is surely increasing with the growing role of media in our culture. Still, if it is con-

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ceivable that our ecclesial communities could generate serious resistance (as Cavanaugh and Bell proclaim), then we can do more than merely resist. We can instead exercise the power that Arendt argued comes when people work together to effect change in society and in the structures of political organizations. National Identity Simply to address the nation and to make judgments on national policies does not, of course, require that we share the allegiance to national identity that Taylor, Dean, and so many others have argued for. Indeed, in my view, even wholesale theological condemnations of the nation-state may be forms of public theology, their rather thorough opposition to any Christian appreciation for the value of the nation notwithstanding. I do not, however, share this estimation of liberal democracies as so inherently perverse as to be unacceptable to Christians. As I argued above, I believe that a public life more truly open and diverse than that possible within the confines of the Christian community is a human good and ought to be valued by Christians; I see no in principle reason why a democratic republic is an unacceptable form of this public life. If our stance toward the nation is not entirely condemning, then further theological concern with the conditions necessary to sustain a public life that is healthy and open to critical engagement is not unwarranted. It is important to note that the “civic” form of nation defended here does not require a common race or ethnicity as the basis of unity, but neither does such a nation survive as a purely legal or contractual entity. Dean and Kristeva both maintain that a minimal degree of shared values (that is, shared at least by a majority of the citizens) is necessary for a functional public life. Further, without a legacy of memories that provide a sense of identification with and allegiance to the state, it is doubtful that the will to live together, to share a government, and to make decisions in common can be sustained.36 Charles Taylor has further clarified the indispensability of a sense of group identity and commitment to democratic polities. Looking for the source of public resistance to the abuse of political institutions, he notes that self-interest will not always be immediately infringed by such corruption, nor is commitment to universal principles likely to be widespread and powerful enough to motivate active resistance. What is necessary, he determines, is an emotional bond of identification with the polity and its governing structures, because only such patriotic identification is likely to generate sufficient outrage to inspire resistance to

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political abuses and thus to protect the integrity of the polity. As Taylor explains, “the bond of solidarity with my compatriots in a functioning republic is based on a sense of shared fate, where the sharing itself is of value. This is what gives this bond its special importance . . . what animates my ‘virtu,’ or patriotism.”37 It is then with good reason that William Dean is concerned with the legacy of memories and “sense of shared fate” on which are based our identification with and allegiance to the nation. As we have seen, he further argues that commitment to a national “common good” can be derived from relating the narrated details of our national history and identity to the sacred that enables us to organize that narrative (and provides a basis for evaluating proposed policies). National “mythic” narratives are, then, a necessary cultural supplement to a legally defined citizenship. These narratives are properly called mythic by Dean, not because he is unconcerned about historical accuracy, but rather because he emphasizes their suprarational role in fostering identification with the body politic and in relating national history to a religious “sense of the whole” and to the historical purposes that follow from it. Having thus far sustained Dean’s concern for nations and for allegiance to a national common good, the remainder of this chapter will seek a deeper understanding of the nature of narrative in order to defend the role of narrative in our understanding and commitment to national public life.

Historical Narratives and the Nation-State National Narratives and the Repression of the Other The idea that narratives can establish and inculcate allegiance to national identity is hardly new; indeed, it has been argued that history as an academic discipline arose to fulfill this purpose.38 This recognition that the study and writing of history at least tacitly serves identity-formation is also central to recent debates in historiography, wherein the repressive implications of the development or imposition of an historical identity are evaluated. We cannot pursue the value of national narratives without considering this critique of narrative-formed identities, although I intend to show that the structure of narrative in fact provides resistance to the repression of otherness. Central to this debate over historical narration is the claim that identity is constituted through defining outsiders who do not share this identity. To establish an identity is also then to exclude and even to devalue

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those not participating in that identity, a devaluation that reinforces domination in international relations. Geoffrey Bennington succinctly expresses this argument that insofar as narratives provide national identity, they are inherently linked to domination: “The idea of a nation is inseparable from its narration: that narration attempts interminably to constitute identity against difference, inside against outside, and in the presumed superiority of inside over outside prepares against invasion and for ‘enlightened colonialism,’” he argues.39 This critique of the tendencies toward domination and oppression thought to be inescapably involved in narratively formed national identities can be taken further: not only do such narratives constitute identity by excluding and devaluing others, it is argued, they also set the terms in which those others are understood. The implications for non-Western cultures of such (putatively Hegelian) totalizing structures of historiography have been developed most notably in the works of Edward Said and Homi Bhabha, who argue that historical and cultural studies of nonWestern cultures have subsumed the otherness of those cultures into the structures of Western thought. This line of argument suggests that a narratively formed national identity will inevitably reduce other peoples, cultures, and histories to terms consonant with its own story, and thus will have an inherent tendency to dominate and oppress these others when possible. If narratives are indeed indispensable to the good of the nation, then is there not an inherent conflict between the good of one nation and the good of all others?40 A similar, and for our purposes more detailed, criticism of the manner in which national historical narratives (such as Dean advocates) suppress alterity not only without but also within the nation has been developed by Prasenjit Duara. Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas’s work, Duara argues in Rescuing History From the Nation that national narratives that present the nation-state as the “self-same subject” of a linear history elide the plural constructions of identity within the nation and privilege certain groups and identities at the expense of others: The multiplicity of nation-views and the idea that political identity is not fixed but shifts between different loci introduces the idea that nationalism is best seen as a relational identity. . . . a historical configuration designed to include certain groups and exclude or marginalize others—often violently.41 In place, then, of a linear historical narrative of the nation as a selfsame subject, a subject with a consistent and evident identity, Duara advocates an approach he calls “bifurcated histories.” This form of

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historiography would attend to the plurality of identities and to the principles of constructing identity as these contradict, oppose, and negotiate with one another. Duara demonstrates this method through analyses of India and China, wherein he demonstrates not only the multiplicity of identities but also the role of interests in the construction of historical identity: “historical actors mobilize particular representations of nation or community against other representations and, while doing so, appropriate dispersed meanings and pasts as their own,” he argues.42 Duara’s bifurcated histories would also resist historical narration that privileges the Western concept of linear time over other forms of experiencing time and space, thus denying intelligibility to people who construe their experiences otherwise than in terms of a linear history. The implications of these arguments not only for academic historiography but also for the national mythic narratives Dean advocates are readily apparent. In Duara’s view, a narrative of the nation necessarily construct a privileged identity in a manner that excludes alternative versions and thus serves as a rhetorical strategy for subordinating those excluded from or marginalized by this narrative. The choice of particular events as central to national identity (or, even worse, as revelatory of the sacred) supports certain groups’ interests at the expense of others within the nation and determines the terms in which those others both inside and outside of the nation are construed. Even when, as Dean advocates, a plurality of interpretations of the narrative is encouraged, it seems that true otherness is precluded, insofar as the narrative sets parameters that privilege certain events and versions of those events and exclude others. Following Arendt, I have argued above for a pluralistic public life that encourages dialogue between a multiplicity of perspectives; if Duara is correct, then it follows that I should not advocate a public role for national narratives since, as he contends, the development of national narratives undermines such a heterogeneous public and, as a tactic of silencing and excluding, is in fact an instrument of oppression. While it is the particularity of narrative that makes it so interesting to many today (especially those seeking an alternative to “totalizing” claims to universal truth), Duara’s criticisms of narrative historiography indicate that this particularity results in hegemonic tendencies such that narrative is an unacceptable basis for a pluralistic public life. Though Duara raises many good points, I will argue to the contrary that national narratives do have an indispensable and at least potentially nonhegemonic role to play in a vital and pluralistic public life. My argument will be developed on the basis of a close examination of Paul Ricoeur’s theory of narrative, especially his understanding of the relations between narrative,

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historical identity, and hopes for the future. Through this discussion of Ricoeur’s work, I hope to establish more clearly the importance of national narratives while also providing a more adequate account of narrative’s resources for counteracting hegemonic or totalizing thought.

Ricoeur’s Theory of Narrative Our focus here will be primarily on Ricoeur’s Time and Narrative, in which he argues that narrative is the response to the aporias left unresolved by the phenomenology of time, such that temporality can only be articulated through narrative.43 The central aporia Ricoeur grapples with is the irreducible tension between phenomenological time (that is, the time of human experience, in which the past is a present memory, the present a moment of attention, and the future a present expectation) and cosmological time (“objective,” measurable time, or time as the movement of the planets). This aporia is also seen in the tension between lived or mortal time (the time between one’s birth and death) and the cosmic time in terms of which individual lives seem to fade into insignificance. Ricoeur argues that no speculative theory is able to unite these two fundamentally different approaches to time, since “the distension of the soul alone cannot produce the extension of time, the dynamism of movement alone cannot generate the dialectic of the three-fold present.”44 His project is to demonstrate that this aporia is made productive (though not resolved) through narrative, the form in which time comes to expression. Our present interest, however, is not in the phenomenology of time as such, but rather in the understanding Ricoeur provides of narrative and its role in the figuration of human action. I will thus attend primarily to the implications of Ricoeur’s theory of narrative for the manner in which we understand ourselves in history and for the importance to public life of this narrative approach. While Ricoeur argues that narrative makes productive the aporias of time, it also, and more importantly for our purposes, enables us to understand ourselves as temporal beings with particular historical identities and purposes.

THE STRUCTURE OF NARRATIVE Following the approach of Aristotle’s Poetics, Ricoeur minimizes the distinction between enacted stories and those recited by a narrator, focusing

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instead on emplotment as the defining feature of narrative. The construction of a plot, in this view, is a creative and dynamic process of configuration through which disparate characters, events, actions, circumstances, and chance are drawn together into a whole that presents a mimesis (or representation) of action. The plot, then, is a synthesis of the heterogeneous or “discordant concordance,” since the distinctness of the elements, the discordance, is preserved in the resulting configuration, the concordance supplied by the plot.45 In addition to this synthesis of disparate and conflicting events, persons, and actions into one story, the plot also gives meaning to the events by mediating between or synthesizing two ways of narrating time, the chronological (the time of the succession of events) and the configurational (in which meaning takes precedence over linear order). The representation (or mimesis) of action resulting from these creative syntheses is thus an act of the productive imagination rather than a slavish reproduction, a simple copying, of human action. In Ricoeur’s view, as we will see in more detail below, it is through such strategies of emplotment that phenomenological and cosmological time are brought together in ways that make possible new modes of acting in the world. Ricoeur also attends to two distinct forms of narrative, historical narratives and fictional narratives, as forms of emplotment that contribute to this articulation of “human time” (that is, the time of meaningful action in the world). Given the considerable differences between historical and fictional narratives, we will follow Ricoeur’s approach here and discuss them separately, even though a full understanding of the relation of narrative to the time of human action will require our further attention to the interweaving references of history and fiction. Ricoeur’s analysis of the role of narratives in understanding history is here discussed first and at greater length, since it is directly related to our concern with narratives of national history; a discussion of fictional narratives and of the interweaving of fictional and historical narratives will follow. Through this exploration of Ricoeur’s work on narrative, we will gain the resources to provide a more detailed support for Dean’s contention that national narratives are not only central to the establishment of a communal identity but also are important resources for political action in a pluralistic society.

THE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE OF HISTORICAL UNDERSTANDING Ricoeur insists that history can never fully repudiate the structures of emplotment without ceasing to be history, even while he acknowledges

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that history may be only indirectly narratival. We must not confuse the writing of history with straightforward storytelling: developing an historical account, after all, involves explanation and argument and need not be concerned with the discrete actions of individuals. Nevertheless, in Ricoeur’s analysis, even histories of social change over a long time span fail entirely to sever their connection to narrative insofar as groups of people act to bring about change and hence function as quasi-characters within a quasi-plot. Social histories emplot events that are constituted as events not because of their brevity or because they involve the actions of individuals, but because of their role in the unfolding, the change of fortunes, of the plot. An historical account, in Ricoeur’s view, “remains history as long as it deals with concrete agents’ participatory belonging to the sphere of praxis,” and he concludes that there is at least an implied plot in any account in which change over time is considered to be the result of humans acting intentionality in response to circumstances (whether these are the actions of individuals or of social groups). To avoid narrative altogether, the study of human social groups would have to bracket the temporal dimension, the consideration of change over time, and thus become sociological rather than historical studies.46 The significance of plots in the writing of history has, of course, been explored by others. Hayden White’s important work in developing the thesis that historiography is inextricably involved with strategies of emplotment ought not be left unmentioned here, especially as Ricoeur acknowledges White’s influence on his own work. As White has demonstrated, it is due to lack of a narrative plot that chronicle is considered to be a deficient form of historical record: “chronicle” falls short of providing a proper history, not because it lacks a subject (as do annals), but rather because the events recorded simply terminate without having achieved the unity of a plot.47 Indeed, White argues that historical explanation does not consist solely in formal explanation and political application, because on a more basic level the historical explanation is provided through the plot itself. When a history is recognized as conforming to one of the various forms of conventional plots (romance, comedy, tragedy, satire), those events are in a sense explained. Ricoeur, agreeing with White on this point, notes that “emplotment is much more than one level among many. It is what brings about the transition between narrating and explaining.”48 There is, nevertheless, more to history than narration, as Ricoeur makes clear with his argument that history must also include formal explanation and argument. Historians, after all, undertake to demonstrate that certain factors rather than others caused the events in question, and

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they must defend their positions. Thus agreeing with those who insist that narrative alone is not sufficiently scientific for academic history, Ricoeur nonetheless rejects the position of the “positivist” historians who subscribe to the theory that historical accounts must subsume the causal occurrence under a general law covering all such situations in order to be “scientific.” Ricoeur argues that such “covering” laws are unsuited to the subject matter of history because historical explanations are concerned with particular events: a law accounting for all of the specific details that make an event what it is would necessarily be so specific as to be meaningless as a general law. Ricoeur argues instead that historical accounts are sufficiently scientific when an explanation adequate to support the proposed cause(s) as more likely than other possible causes is proffered; further, since narration always includes an explanatory dimension, historical accounts need not sever their connections to narrative in order to provide these explanations.49 Ricoeur’s position is thus in accord with Peter Gay’s insistence that “historical narration without analysis is trivial; historical analysis without narration is incomplete.”50 Ricoeur further notes that history aspires to be scientific in that, despite the considerable creativity involved in the historian’s selection of events and construction of a plot, the historian is constrained to be faithful to the traces (historical documents, monuments, etc.) of the past. The task of the historian, Ricoeur insists, is to be faithful to the past “as it actually happened (wie es eigentlich gewesen)”; that is, the historian strives to render an account as close to the actuality of the past events as possible, even while recognizing that history is not a perfect reproduction but is rather an analogical process of understanding as, or seeing from a particular perspective. The phrase “as it actually happened” captures this analogical dimension: the evidence provided in the traces enables historians to approximate the actuality of the past, even though historical explanations cannot and should not attempt to reproduce the actual past experiences of the participants in the original events. The past as experienced was like all of our experiences, confused and multiform, whereas historians seek to provide explanations. Historical accounts, in Ricoeur’s view, are thus best understood to be forms of analogical thinking that strive through close examination of the traces and through the narrative imagination to do justice to what happened, but they do not simply replicate the past in any objective manner.51 Ricoeur’s argument that the narrative imagination is an indispensable aspect of writing history should not be misunderstood as a claim that all historical works should be in the form of a story. “This connection [to narration] cannot be so direct that history can simply be considered a

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species of the genus story,” Ricoeur observes.52 As White has also acknowledged, many histories are not written in the form of narratives, as is evident, for example, in the classic works by Tocqueville, Burkhardt, and Braudel, yet these works remain histories nonetheless.53 Rather than a direct relation between history and narrative, Ricoeur describes the relation as an “indirect filiation”: histories configure events from a critical, outsider’s (rather than from the participants’) perspective, provide arguments, and may deal with social groups instead of individual actors, but insofar as history attempts to understand specific events in which humans act to bring about change, a plot is at least implied. Historical narratives are thus a major resource for the expression of temporality, in Ricoeur’s view, especially insofar as they provide a synthesis of phenomenological and cosmological time. Dependent on calendars, on historical documents and monuments as “traces” of the past, and on the concept of a succession of generations, history “reinscribes lived time onto cosmic time” and in doing so creates “historical time.” The calendar, for example, demonstrates this connection between lived and cosmic time in that the time measured by the movement of the planets is joined to a meaningful human event from which days are counted, and time is reckoned forwards and backwards: “the calendar thus cosmologizes lived time and humanizes cosmic time.” Similarly, the concept of an historical trace as something existing in the present that gives evidence of what happened in the past also involves the linking of human events and meanings with an objective passage of time. “The trace indicates here and now the past passage of living beings,” as Ricoeur observes.54 Finally, the succession of generations brings together the impersonal time into which we are born and the possibility of sharing generational memories, so that the time that preceded us can yet become ours. Even though we may not have a satisfactory theory of the unity of lived time and cosmic time, these two perspectives on time can be brought together through narrative in a way that enables us to make sense of history and of historical time. As Ricoeur argues: “What these practical connectors of lived and universal time have in common is that they refer back to the universe the narrative structure [of historical accounts]. . . . This is how they contribute to the refiguration of historical time.”55 Ricoeur further maintains that the use of a common calendar, the marks left by past living beings, and the succession of generations all indicate that historical time is not primarily the time of one’s personal fate (as a being-towards-death) but is rather public time, a time with others. This is suggested by the fact that to inherit from the past is to inherit from another than oneself and, moreover, to narrate time is to point to the

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continuation of time beyond the death of individual characters. Borrowing Heidegger’s concept of repetition in order to explain how narratives establish time in human memory, Ricoeur argues that through the mimesis of action in stories that can be read both forwards and backwards, ways of acting or being in the world are remembered and can be retrieved as possibilities for our common life together. Since the writing of history, as Ricoeur reminds us, involves the transmission of a common destiny, the possibilities discovered there are more essentially concerned with public rather than private life.

IDENTITY AND PURPOSE AS CONCEPTUALIZED THROUGH HISTORICAL AND FICTIONAL NARRATIVES Our attention cannot be limited to history, however, because fictional narratives also contribute to our experience of temporality. While historical narratives retrieve past possibilities, fictional narratives are freed from the constraints of the traces and are able to unfold as thought experiments about time and its possibilities. By envisioning new modes of inscribing lived time onto cosmic time, fictional narratives thus present possibilities that have not yet been. Again echoing Aristotle’s Poetics, Ricoeur argues that by exposing us to other ways of acting, history presents us with what is possible (because it has been or might have been done), while fiction, which experiments with time, is able to uncover essential realities (universal possibilities that might yet be).56 To explain more fully the manner in which narratives (whether fictional or historical) influence our understandings of action, Ricoeur develops his theory of the reception of narratives as a threefold mimesis of action. The initial stage is mimesis (1), in which we have a “prefiguration” of action, or a symbolic preunderstanding of action, such that action can be comprehended narratively. The specific narrative itself provides mimesis (2), a configuration of action through a particular strategy of emplotment. The encounter between our prefiguration of action and the plot’s configuration of action then produces mimesis (3), the refigured understanding of action that comes from the confrontation between the world of the reader and the world of the narrative. Thus attending to a narrative (whether historical or fictional), we pass from a prefiguration of action to the configuration of action in the narrative to a refigured understanding of the modes of action possible for us.57 This theory of a threefold mimesis of action is more fully grasped if we understand that it is a further specification with regard to narrative of

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Ricoeur’s general theory of hermeneutics, which emphasizes that one reads a text in light of one’s own experience in a way that broadens that experience. That is, for Ricoeur, we are not limited to confronting an unbridgeable otherness or to simply projecting our already formed views onto the text, but instead can achieve a new understanding through a fusion of our current horizons with that of the text. Texts are always understood in light of our own concepts and previous experiences, to be sure, but through careful attention and the construction of a common ground with the text, our presuppositions can be challenged and a new mode of being in the world envisioned.58 Since plots represent actions and their effects, new ways of acting in the world (or a refigured temporality) may result from engaging a narrative text, whether that text be an historical narrative reminding us of past possibilities or a fictional presentation of imagined alternatives. As mimeses of action, therefore, history and fiction both provide refigurations of temporality, so that together these two forms of narrative make possible “human” time. Despite their different references (with history seeking to render the past as it was, while fictional narratives explore essential possibilities through imaginative variations), Ricoeur further explains that history and fiction borrow from each other, make references to one another, and together enable us to develop our sense of temporality and its possibilities. History, as we have seen, borrows formal emplotment and imaginative strategies from fiction in order to configure historical events as a meaningful whole: “the role of the imaginary is clearly evident in the non-observable character of the past,” Ricoeur notes. At the same time, fiction borrows the historical past tense, describing imaginary events as if they were events in the narrator’s past. “It is because of its quasi-historical character,” Ricoeur argues, “that fiction can exercise its liberating function with respect to possible hidden elements in the actual past.”59 History and fiction are thus interwoven in form as well as in their effects on the human experience of temporality; together they produce a human time based on the narrated relation between lived time and cosmic time. In Ricoeur’s own words, “time becomes human to the extent that it is articulated through a narrative mode, and narrative attains its full meaning when it becomes a creation of temporal experience.”60 We may seem here to have traveled far afield of William Dean’s call for national myths, yet I am convinced that Ricoeur’s work provides the necessary theoretical basis from which to understand the importance of national narratives in the articulation of public identity and purpose that Dean is concerned with. As we have seen, both historical and fictional plots present us with what we might recognize as possibilities that we

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want to claim as our own, while historical narratives in particular render public time (time lived with and for others), such that the world opened up through an historical narrative may be chosen as a common destiny that informs our political actions. Although all narratives present us with a possible world and mode of acting that we might chose, the narration of a specific people’s history is particularly significant in that it makes possible the envisioning of a shared destiny appropriate to that people’s unique circumstances. While this contribution of narrative to the determination of our purposes is explicated in Ricoeur’s Time and Narrative and related articles, further support for Dean’s appeal to narrative as instrumental to the construction of identity can be found in Ricoeur’s more recent Oneself as Another. Here Ricoeur specifies two aspects of identity, both of which bear the marks of narrative. At the most encompassing level, identity is determined as “the one who performs the actions in the narrative.”61 As Hannah Arendt has also argued, identity is best described through a narrative of what one has done, of one’s actions. It is only through a narrative that a character’s various and sometimes conflicting actions, intentions, and sufferings can be united into a whole; thus narrative identity (of an individual no less than of a community) shares in the discordant concordance of plots. At a second level, however, identity also refers more specifically to character or disposition, which is determined through practices and inclinations such that the “identifications with values, norms, ideals, models, and heroes in which the person or the community recognizes itself” are instrumental in the development of character. In other words, as individuals and as people, the stories we cherish influence who we become. Fictional and historical narratives each have a role to play in constructing a narrative identity in this twofold approach. A community (or a nation) may be identified through historical narratives that recount the events through which the community originated and has developed up to the present, but the community forms its identity also through the historical and fictional stories that reinforce established patterns of behavior and enable the community to envision new possibilities. Indeed, fiction and history are not always sharply delineated in narratives of identity, as Ricoeur explains: the historical component of a narrative about oneself draws this narrative toward the side of a chronicle submitted to the same documentary verifications as any other historical narration,

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while the fictional component draws it toward those imaginative variations that de-stabilize identity.62 While the narrative of a life may in some respects resemble fiction and not only history, then, it is nevertheless important to recognize the significant ways in which life stories differ from literary ones. Where a literary story can encompass the beginning and end of a life told as a complete whole, the story of a living person’s (or a community’s) life must be told without such certain knowledge of the end. Further, not only can the events of this story be subjected to historical verification, but also many of the events of one’s life are events in others’ stories as well: “the life history of each of us is caught up in the history of others,” Ricoeur reminds us.63 A real life is thus lived in public time, so that the unfolding of its story as necessarily interrelated with others’ stories has an ethical dimension not only in the living but also in the telling: because a narration of a life is highly selective, both of the events and of the configuration, an ethical choice is made in the construction of the narrative to reveal one among the possible meanings. (This is especially clear in debates over how to construe a national identity and perhaps is not unrelated to the politics that has derailed attempts at formulating adequate standards for the teaching of history in the United States.) This discussion of the ethical dimension inherently involved in narrative identities provides an opportunity for Ricoeur to remind us of one of the limits of narrative: at this point nonnarrative ethical principles that provide a basis for choosing between possible narrative identities are necessary, he contends.64 Given that a narrative identity is a practical and ethical achievement, then, it becomes even clearer that the development of identity and of a sense of purpose are not separable. Between our imaginative hopes for the future and our interpretations of identity as established through past actions and events, there is a “complex interplay of significations.”65 As Ricoeur explains, “the ruling symbols of our identity derive not only from our present and our past but also from our expectations for the future. . . . Thus, the utopian element is ultimately a component of identity. What we call ourselves is also what we expect and yet what we are not.”66 Any story we tell of our past thus implies a direction for the future; at the same time, the stories through which we envision future possibilities become a part of who we are and influence the manner in which we interpret the past. As Frank Kermode similarly argues, a “sense of an ending” unfolds throughout the course of any narrative. The

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narratives that establish a community’s identity also and necessarily provide some indication of the future actions that would most adequately fulfill that community’s potential.67 Further, since “the present is wholly a crisis when expectation takes refuge in utopia and when tradition becomes only a dead deposit of the past,” Ricoeur determines that what we most need are narratives that enlarge our “space of experience” (through the retrieval of forgotten, unfulfilled, and vanquished possibilities) and at the same time provide definite plans for action that enable us to concretize our hopes for the future. As Ricoeur insists, “the utopian imagination [must] always be converted into specific expectations, and . . . received heritages be freed of their scleroses” through a critical retrieval of past traditions. (He also rejects the attempt to contrast a hermeneutics of retrieval and a hermeneutics of suspicion as mutually exclusive options, arguing instead that retrieval and suspicion must be undertaken together.)68 Those who would support narratives insofar as they provide interruptive, alternative, and even utopian possibilities for the future, but resist narratives insofar as they confirm an established identity, can thus be seen as neglecting the fact that these two functions are both important and in any case are inseparable. To be sure, national narratives can be dangerously ideological in that they often celebrate an identity that masks the injustice it is founded on. However, in Ricoeur’s view, ideology is also at its best the symbolic expression of a society’s identity, necessary because a political society cannot rely on power alone. As Ricoeur thus acknowledges the positive and negative functions of ideology and utopia in their interrelation: First, where ideology is distortion, utopia is fancy, the completely unrealizable. Second, where ideology is legitimation, utopia is an alternative to the present power. Third, just as the best function of ideology is to preserve the identity of a person or group, the best function of utopia is the exploration of the possible.69 Instead of simply rejecting the ideological or identity-forming aspects of narratives, then, we should open them up to the correction of utopian alternatives that help to uncover the distortions of current power relations and suggest alternative possibilities. At the same time, we should avoid utopias that are so radically other that they are politically ineffective: to enrich political life, the utopian dimension of our narratives must be related concretely to the current social situation and its identity-ideology.

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There is considerable support in this philosophy of narrative for Dean’s emphasis on national narratives as a means of revitalizing public life. In particular, Ricoeur’s analysis of the manner in which expectations for the future are intertwined with reception of the past and experience in the present indicates that the stories through which the past is appropriated affect also the way we envision the future. Insofar as we are concerned not with the indiscriminate imagining of alternatives but rather with discerning goals for the future that are appropriate to the particular historical context and circumstances of our public life, we need to attend to the national historical narratives that inform our understandings of who we are and of what is possible for us in the proximate future. We are thus well advised by Dean to attend both critically and constructively to national narratives and to the utopian (or distopian) implications they bear. This emphasis on history ought not, of course, lead to a devaluation of fictional narratives, which provide models for action (heroes) as well as explorations of new alternatives. As Kristeva has argued, the writing of a fictional work is an attempt to inscribe new sensibilities on the nation. We must also be careful not to misread Ricoeur’s defense of narrative as an argument for reducing everything to the telling of stories or for interpreting all thought as narrative in structure. Just as Ricoeur acknowledges that not all historical accounts are narrative in form, so also all utopian expectations need not be expressed through narrative. In any case, it is finally in action, in taking up history as a project to be fulfilled, that past, present, and future are brought into relation. Specifically, the past that partly determines who we are and the future that we are able partly to determine are concretely connected in the present of responsible decisions, Ricoeur argues.70 A narrative identity is finally a practical and ethical project to be realized. Ricoeur also cautions us that even though we speak of time as singular, thus suggesting the “limit idea” of one time and one history for all of humanity, a single narrative synthesis of past, present, and future is not possible. We must resist this Hegelian temptation to develop such a total mediation, realizing instead that we can think about the time of history only “through an open-ended, incomplete, imperfect mediation, namely, the network of interweaving perspectives of the expectation of the future, the reception of the past, and the experience of the present”; these are partial perspectives that cannot encompass the whole.71 Although we cannot adequately narrate the unity of all history, nevertheless, as Ricoeur argues, our hope for history must include a hope for all of humanity. The importance of maintaining this universal dimension

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(despite its dangers) is evident in that the injustices of a state can only be criticized from a concept of rights beyond those granted by the state; that is, Ricoeur argues, from the perspective of the dignity and the rights of all. Ricoeur thus agrees with Nussbaum that we must be concerned for all human beings: “Every expectation must be a hope for humanity as a whole,” even while our historical projects are rooted in our particular narratives.72

BIFURCATED HISTORIES OR A COMMON NARRATIVE? The practical implications of national narratives open Ricoeur’s work to some of its most interesting and challenging criticisms, while also clarifying the importance of its contribution to a narrative public theology. Duara, among others, has argued that the narrative constitution of identity is oppressive insofar as it posits an excluded other and, at the same time, establishes the terms on which that other is understood. A national narrative is, then, a form of theoretical imperialism to be considered the intellectual equivalent and, at times, enabler of military imperialism. Duara has further argued that this exclusion inherent in a national narrative sets the terms for national inclusion in a manner that reflects the interests of those powerful enough to make their version of national identity authoritative, thus creating an “other” within the nation as well. The choice of events and the synthesis provided by a narrative will, after all, support certain understandings of national identity and purpose rather than others. Is not Duara right to maintain that national histories intend to silence difference through the imposition on the whole nation of a particular narrative synthesis? In a country as heterogeneous as the United States, such an attempt to develop a narrative identity would seem to be especially problematic, limiting the perspectives admitted into public discussion and defining some as truly belonging and central to the story, while others are seen as not belonging or as marginal (a determination with implications for public policy and thus potentially oppressive legally as well as psychologically). Would it not be better to maintain a fragmented public life with a multiplicity of sites for resistance than to subsume this plurality into a unifying perspective, thus apparently narrowing the very space of experience that Ricoeur has argued must be broadened? These criticisms must be taken seriously, yet I am convinced that Ricoeur’s theory of narrative, properly understood, shows that national narratives remain valuable and defensible even in a pluralistic public life.

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It is worth noting that emplotment does not replace heterogeneity with an artificial homogeneity, but rather establishes a discordant concordance in which the discordance remains, even while it is subsumed into a unifying synthesis. The concordance of narrative ought not to be overemphasized, then, since the synthesis provided by the emplotment is best understood not as a denial of difference but rather as an effort to make that heterogeneity productive, even while difference, the internal discordance, remains within the narrative as a potential basis for interrupting the synthesis. This discordant concordance of a narrative is not of course sufficient to answer Duara’s challenge. It still remains the case that the synthesis of a narrative is achieved through the selection of certain events and emplotment strategies and the rejection of others, and that the various chosen elements become productive in a narrative synthesis that fosters certain concepts of identity and purpose and not others. Any one national narrative will define the nation’s identity and purposes differently from other possible narratives, privileging some people and their experiences. To this extent, we must admit that narrative identity is always constructed through the marginalization of difference within the nation, as well as through defining some as outside of the nation (or community). In Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, however, the necessarily perspectival and limited character of all narratives does not inherently result either in a clash of narratives or in capitulation to a hegemonic narrative. Ricoeur maintains that we do not face a forced option between the imperialistic imposition of our own terms of understanding or silence in the face of an unknowable other; instead, we can pursue greater mutual understanding through the determination of common ground, a fusion of horizons in which differing views can be heard and can challenge each other. Alternative viewpoints (including narratives) need not be encountered simply as different or as the same, but rather as analogous, as similar-yet-different and thus able to challenge our current presuppositions and expand our horizons.73 Applying this to the difficulty of understanding history, Ricoeur argues that between the absolute knowledge that would abolish every horizon and the idea of a multitude of incommensurable horizons we have to put the idea of a ‘fusion of horizons’ which occurs every time we test our prejudgments in setting out to conquer some historical horizon, imposing upon ourselves the task of overcoming our tendency to assimilate the past too quickly to our own expected meanings.74

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Competing narratives are not, then, so mutually exclusive that we cannot enter into dialogue with the various different stories that may challenge us to reformulate our own version of the story. In fact, Ricoeur has argued that we must resist the temptation to hold to a single story of history and instead be ready to engage in dialogue that corrects our stories, since narrative mediations are always limited and flawed. Distinction from others is a necessary part of the construction of narrative identity, but exclusion need not be the last word, if openness to and dialogue with those others remain not only possibilities but also moral imperatives. To be sure, one’s own narratival perspective influences the initial encounter with the other narratives; no one engages in dialogue from an entirely neutral position. Yet if a fusion of horizons is indeed possible, then a clash of narratives need not be an agonistic struggle for hegemony but can rather be a dialogic encounter through which each is transformed and enriched. Ricoeur’s work thus provides us with an approach different from, and more conducive to, public life than the not uncommon presumption that narratives are so incommensurable that it is not possible to have a truly dialogical and mutually critical encounter between those who adhere to different formative narratives. This belief in the absolute incommensurability of narratives, whether invoked as support for sectarian withdrawal or for a pluralistic proliferation of equally valid alternatives, is both unhelpful and implausible, insofar as it fails adequately to account for our ability to engage in mutually enriching and transforming dialogue across cultures and with the past (an ability that I take to be a rather evident fact in human life).75 That we begin dialogue from our particular perspectives is inevitable, but this cannot be the final word; after all, new understandings do develop through dialogue and conversation, at least some of the time. A presumption of incommensurability is also quite inadequate for the kind of public life I want to defend, since it gives us only the two options of either an enforced homogeneity (which, if it is possible at all, would require considerable repression and denial of diversity) or a mutual antagonism in which finally there is no way to resolve differences other than through a will to power. William Dean, as we have seen, suggests as an alternative that we pursue a common story with a multiplicity of interpretations. This pursuit itself is, I believe, a very good thing, drawing our attention to what we do hold in common (as Dean does in recent work) and challenging us to remain open to the dialogue through which the inadequacies of our stories can be corrected.76 Yet it is unlikely that we will ever achieve a common story since there are many different ways to emplot events, even when there is agreement on which events and characters are chosen as

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significant. Nor is it clear that the actual achievement of a common story would be a good thing, as it would surely diminish the debate on what our country is and should be about. We ought rather to approach this pursuit of a common story as we do all efforts to achieve agreement: no final and total consensus is expected or even desired, but the conversation contributes to that growth in understanding in which some differences are resolved and new ones arise. Ricoeur’s work supports such a dialogue, insofar as it enables us to recognize the multiplicity of national narratives and to bring these various narratival accounts of our common life and identity into debate. Our differences need not be denied or suppressed as we converse (and argue) about the adequacy of proposed national narratives in the hope that more adequate ones will emerge.77 I advocate “common” national narratives, then, not in the sense of a single definitive narrative, but rather as attempts to develop narratives as inclusive as possible of the whole body politic, even though each story of the whole is narrated from a particular perspective. The development of such national narratives is important, because through them we are able to articulate our part in the whole and our relation to the others who participate in our public life; thus might we envision a good of the whole to be pursued together rather than simply competing with one another for the benefit of ourselves and our particular groups. Such “common” narratives make possible the retrieval of unfulfilled potentialities from the national past and the projection of a common destiny that is rooted in the life we share, a common good that is a project to be created rather than one merely recognized as already existing. Duara’s attention to bifurcated histories is valid to the extent that it reminds us to keep open for contestation the various versions (narrative as well as nonnarrative) of national identity and purpose. As Ricoeur has argued, processes of historical verification that evaluate faithfulness to the traces of the past can and should be employed to test the accuracy of our histories. Notwithstanding the creativity and imagination necessary for the construction of any satisfactory historical account, there is a real difference between history and fiction that ought not to be ignored: history strives to be plausible and adequate to the evidence of the past in ways that fictional narratives do not.78 Further, since historical narratives are always creative emplotments that imply a direction for the future, the ethico-political implications of these narratives must also be examined. Duara’s vision of bifurcated histories is inadequate, however, insofar as it is understood to mean that our various perspectives on national identity are inherently incommensurable and function best as strategies of resistance in continual antagonism to one another. This approach is

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sufficient only if the greatest good for all will be achieved through the commitment of each group to achieving its own particular good (without concern for others), a position I believe is neither plausible nor conducive to developing truly human relationships in a vital public life. Before ending this discussion, there is yet another criticism of Ricoeur’s position that merits brief consideration. Sheila Briggs acknowledges that Ricoeur’s hermeneutics “allows for positive articulation of difference,” and is thus an advancement beyond Gadamer’s hermeneutics in which the search for common ground is so valued that a refusal of the prescribed identity is seen as a threat.79 However, she nonetheless finds Ricoeur to be in support of a cultural hegemony, in that he envisions history as a hope for all of humanity and calls us to take up the unfulfilled possibilities of the past. She insists instead that “there is no totality of history in which we might finish their tasks. This fragile knowledge of the oppressed of the past calls us [instead] to reverence for the dead. It also summons us to commitment to the living, to those oppressed by race, class, and gender.”80 If Ricoeur’s call for us to assume the unfulfilled possibilities of the past is indeed intended as a solution to past suffering, then Briggs is surely right: our achievements today cannot recompense those who suffered in the past. However, I believe that Ricoeur’s position is best understood not as a way to redeem past suffering, but rather as a challenge to us to resist the continuation of the repression that Briggs too opposes.81 There is indeed a single history implied in Ricoeur’s approach: just as our various lives and groups’ stories are so intertwined that a national narrative of their unity is conceivable, so also our national stories are interrelated in a manner that suggests a single narrative, a Hegelian story of the totality of human history. Ricoeur, of course, insists that no such story is possible through our incomplete mediations, but he still allows that the idea of a single history and hope for humanity remains valuable. This hope, in my understanding, is not promoted as a this-worldly redemption of past suffering through present successes, but rather as a reminder that any valid historical project must finally be committed to the value of all human lives.

Conclusion I hope to have shown through this discussion that Ricoeur provides the resources with which further to understand and to defend Dean’s idea that national narratives are important to the revitalization of public life. As argued above, national public life is the level at which important deci-

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sions are made and thus is an important arena for the articulation of narratives that enable us to identify a common good and a purpose to be pursued in public life. National narratives enable us to envision our connections to those who share this public space with us and to recover a sense of common purpose and identity; thus, they function as both ideologies and utopias and are liable to the same distortions as are other forms of ideology and utopia. My argument here is not intended to discourage criticisms of these distortions; to the contrary, I believe that strategies of dominance and exclusion will inevitably be involved in formulations of national narratives, and that therefore analyses that reveal and critique these strategies are of utmost importance, especially given their tendency to contribute to an idolatrous nationalism. Notwithstanding the dangers inherent in national narratives, I nevertheless hold that they fulfill a function too important to abandon; specifically, through national narratives we are able to envision a shared purpose, a common good that is related to our particular historical circumstances, resources, and possibilities.82 Such stories can also contribute to the sense of identity necessary for the development of public virtue, especially the willingness to sacrifice for the good of the whole. To be sure, moral principles may provide a basis for public action directed to the common good, but abstract principles need to be related to the specific historical context in which decisions are being made and, as Ricoeur has argued, an understanding of history is at least implicitly narratival. Further, as Charles Taylor has argued, a strong sense of national identity is necessary because a commitment to moral principles is not likely to be widespread or powerful enough to motivate sufficient concern for the good of the polity. Rather than abandoning such an important endeavor on the grounds that it is imperfect and liable to abuse, I maintain that we should engage in debate over the quality of our national narratives in the hope of constructing more relatively adequate ones. We have not yet given sufficient attention to the religious dimensions of narratives, however. As we have seen, an ethical and finally religious judgment about the purposes of history is inevitable in the strategies we choose to emplot our national public life and historical goals; indeed, this religious dimension is apparent in Dean’s discussion of the “sacred” element in national myths. The purpose of the following chapter is to explore the role national narratives might have in a public theology that is attentive both to the religious dimension of national narratives and to the narrative dimension of Christianity. I will argue specifically for a public theology in which theological commitments qualify, judge, and reshape national narratives which, at the same time, provide the basis for more historically specific understandings of Christianity.

CHAPTER FOUR

Toward a Narrative Public Theology

The burden of my argument thus far has been to demonstrate that narratives of national history are a vital (though largely neglected) resource for the construction of a truly contextualized public theology. As we have seen with the help of Ricoeur’s analysis, narratives convey historical location by interweaving the reception of the past and a sense of direction for the future with a description of the present. Thus, as we concluded in the previous chapter, national historical narratives enable us to envision a future direction for the nation as a whole; that is, a shared project informed by unrealized possibilities from the nation’s past and appropriate to our present national identity and circumstances. This common project also involves religious judgments, as we argued above, since the good to be pursued in any time or place implicitly reflects a concept of the sacred, of what is ultimately of value. However, we have not yet considered the complexities involved in developing a theological evaluation of this common project, an important and difficult task given that we have not only to consider the national narratives in terms of which this project is envisioned, but also the fact that Christianity has narratives of its own. The task remaining to this book is, then, to explore the issues involved in a theological engagement with national narratives and to clarify the form this public theology might take. Our discussion of Ricoeur’s work has shown that the evaluation of narratives is multifaceted; on first consideration, therefore, it might appear that this theological task is similarly multifaceted but nevertheless relatively straightforward. Ricoeur’s analysis indicates that in critiquing historical narratives we ought to consider their historical accuracy, the choices of events and strategies of emplotment, and (I would especially emphasize) the future direction implied in these narratives. Given that

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the public theology advocated here requires an honest account of ourselves and of our past (and not simply a compelling national myth), the expertise of professional historians in evaluating the historical accuracy and adequacy of such narratives will be invaluable to theological discussions of these narratives. Yet, following Ricoeur’s insights into the structure and function of narratives, we must also undertake to discover and to critique the values guiding the choice of events, the emplotment, and especially the projected ending, and these are tasks that benefit from the special expertise of theologians. The implicit perspective provided by any national narrative on that nation’s role and purpose in history, and its relation to God’s will for history, deserves to be a major focus of theological critique. To be sure, the work of the public theologian need not be solely critical. Theological discernment of the values that ought to guide strategies of emplotment and concepts of the nation’s role in history can and should contribute as well to the construction of new narratives that are more theologically and historically adequate. Nevertheless, if narrative is considered solely as a genre to which theological analysis is applied and not as itself integral to Christian faith, the task appears to require nothing further than theological engagement with this multifaceted task of evaluating and guiding national narratives. However, as is perhaps to be expected given the current attention to the role of narratives in conveying historical identity, narrative has also become an important topic in contemporary Christian theology. Many theologians argue today that Christian faith is not primarily doctrinal or propositional but narratival, and that theology must attend to the narratives of the Christian tradition lest it distort the faith of the church.1 Yet if there is also a narrative dimension to Christian faith, the task of theologizing with and about national narratives becomes much more complex (but also, I will argue, richer). For public theology will then have to attend to at least two distinct kinds of narratives: in addition to the secular narratives of national history, there are the narratives specific to Christian communities and on which Christian identity, practices, and beliefs are based. The relationship between these two types of narratives must then be clarified: how does a Christian theology with its own stories and especially with its own narratival perspective on the purpose of history engage national historical narratives? Is it possible to have this engagement without distorting either narrative (or both)? Of course, Christians are not alone in participating in a plurality of (possibly conflicting) narrative identities. We noted above that the United States, like many modern states, is comprised of multiple racial, ethnic,


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and religious groups, each (at least potentially) with its own narratives. While the focus of this chapter will be on the methodological issues specific to a public theology dedicated to negotiating the relationship between the narratives of Christianity and those of the United States, implicit in this discussion is the more general question of how the perspectives of the various religious communities within a nation can or ought to be related to a narrative of that nation as a whole. This larger question of the possibility of a particular religious group’s involvement in the public life of our pluralistic society is thus being addressed here from the specific perspective of Christian theology. The burden of this chapter, then, is to determine whether there is an irreducibly narrative component to Christian theology and, if so, to explore how a theology attentive to Christian narratives might also engage our national narratives. My argument here will proceed through a critical examination of the role of narrative in Christian theology as developed in the work of contemporary theologians Johann Baptist Metz, Stanley Hauerwas, and Ronald Thiemann. These three theologians are particularly important for the purposes of our study in public theology because, despite their differences, each makes the uncommon (but I believe correct and necessary) move explicitly to relate narrative theology to politics and public life. Further, each emphasizes that a Christian narrative must be open to the “other” or the “stranger”; this is especially helpful since, in our pluralistic society, it is imperative that the introduction of religious narratives into public life not be a tactic for enforcing a homogenized and exclusive American identity. These theologians have also been chosen from among the many contemporary theologians emphasizing narrative because they represent major alternative perspectives on the role of narrative in theology. Metz is a German political theologian from the Catholic tradition, which has long defended the viability and even necessity of Christian involvement in public life, while Hauerwas and Thiemann are Protestant theologians in the United States and share (with many other North American “narrative” theologians) in a school of thought influenced by Hans Frei and decidedly less sanguine about theology’s public role. Whereas Hauerwas develops a theology in which the Christian narrative inspires a primarily oppositional stance toward the politics of the nation, Thiemann attempts to bridge the divide and to reinsert a narratival Christianity into public life. Through a critical examination of the work of these three thinkers, I will defend their claim that narrative is central to Christian theology, while drawing on their insights to move toward a more adequate understanding of the relation of Christian narratives to public life than any

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provides alone. Though there is much to be gained from each thinker, their considerable differences (especially on the grounds for Christian involvement in public life) provide for a richer perspective in which the contributions of each is nuanced by those of the other two, as well as by the arguments previously considered in this study. In particular, Metz’s argument for the importance of narrating interruptive memories of suffering, Hauerwas’s emphasis on being formed by a Christian narrative of history, and Thiemann’s attention to engagement with public life all contribute to my defense of a public theology in which the interweaving of Christian narratives with national narratives will result in a constructively critical contribution to public life.

Narrative in a Practical Fundamental Theology: J. B. Metz A Narrative, Practical Approach to Fundamental Theology Johann Baptist Metz, one of the founders of German political theology, emphasizes the role of narrative in his practical approach to fundamental theology. A student of Karl Rahner’s, Metz became convinced early in his career that the “turn to the subject” advocated by Rahner requires more explicit attention to politics and to narrative than Rahner provided.2 Especially troubled by the fact that theology remained essentially unchanged by the historical catastrophe of Auschwitz, even while theologians theorized at length about the historicity of the human subject, Metz determined that a new method was necessary, one that would allow real subjects and their historical experiences to appear in theology.3 Thus, in the 1960s, Metz began to argue that the turn to the subject must concern itself with human beings not as abstractions but as located in particular sociopolitical contexts, and this led him to explore a more clearly political and narratival approach to theology. Metz develops his method for this political theology in essays written throughout the 1960s and the 1970s, many of which have been collected in his important works, Theology of the World and Faith in History and Society. The earlier book, Theology of the World, presents Metz’s argument for a theology of secularization, affirming the value of the world and its freedom on the basis of God’s definitive acceptance and setting free of the world as manifest in the event of the Incarnation.4 In the later essays in this book, however, an eschatological perspective more sharply critical of prevailing institutions and cultural attitudes emerges, as Metz becomes more immediately concerned with the historical suppression of human


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freedom. To be sure, Metz never backs away from his commitment to human freedom in history or to a proper secularization: just as his affirmation of secularization, in which the world develops according to its proper principles, is in no sense the secularist claim that religion has no place in public life, so also his deep criticisms of modernity (which continue throughout his corpus) never become an anti-Enlightenment stance or a call to return to premodern forms of political authority. His attention to threatened subjects and his call for a practical and political theology remain consistent with the commitment to Christianity as a religion of freedom set forth in his early articles. In the later Faith in History and Society, Metz further specifies his method for a political theology that is a “practical fundamental theology” based on his understanding that Christianity is a hope in the “God of the living and the dead who calls all men (sic) to be subjects in his presence,” and thus requires a practical rather than a theoretical defense.5 As presented in the Bible, Metz argues, Christian faith is a practice grounded in this hope for a universal subjectivity realized in union with God, so that the idea of God is a practical idea that “irritates and encroaches on the immediate interests of the person who is trying to think of it.”6 The primacy of praxis in theology is not, then, merely a concept borrowed from Marxist-inspired philosophical fads, but is instead required by Christianity itself, properly understood. Critical thought, of course, still has a valid role to play here: Metz is not advocating an unreflective practice but rather a praxis informed by and informative of our thought. Nevertheless, in Metz’s view, Christian faith is better understood as a hope for the future rather than as an intellectual assent to propositions; as such, it cannot be justified theoretically (which he argues leads to an infinite regress of theories) but only through a praxis in defense especially of those whose freedom has been denied, who are not yet or never were able to be subjects.7 Our hope is credible only to the extent that it informs a credible praxis, Metz repeatedly insists. Insofar as Christian faith is more essentially a shared and active hope to be defended in practice than it is a theoretical assent to propositions that must be defended against intellectual doubts, it follows for Metz that theology should be less preoccupied with the systematization of ideas and more integrally involved with categories appropriate to a practical hope. Metz draws our attention especially to the theological importance of memory, narrative, and solidarity as three categories that allow the character of our hope for the oppressed and suffering of the world to emerge. As he explains, these categories are mutually dependent because “memory and narrative only have a practical character when they are considered

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together with solidarity and solidarity has no specifically cognitive status without memory and narrative.”8 Since Christianity is based on a revelation received in history, the memory of these revelatory events is especially important in Metz’s account of the theological task. Christian praxis involves a resistance to suffering inspired by the memory of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ: because of this memoria passionis, Christians should remember others denied the capacity to be subjects of history, for whom we must suffer and struggle as did Jesus. Indeed, Metz describes Christianity in brief as a memoria passionis Jesu Christi, and insists that it is through remembering Jesus Christ that we remember “promises that have been made and hopes that are experienced as a result of those promises.”9 Based on this memory of Jesus Christ’s suffering, a memory that includes the joy of the resurrection, Christians see “the Lord looking at us in the eyes of all suffering” and are inspired to act in accord with this hope that meaning will be restored even to “the vanquished and forgotten” victims of history, although how this will be remains as mysterious as Christ’s resurrection.10 Memory has a further theological and practical significance for Metz, since it is through remembering unrealized possibilities that we gain the capacity to imagine an alternative to the status quo and are inspired to resist on behalf of this alternative. Throughout history, oppressors have sought to suppress the memory of subjugated peoples because of the dangerous role of memory in generating identity and resistance; at the same time, the persistence or recovery of memory has grounded claims to identity and the capacity to resist. As Metz argues, “every utopian concept of liberation which questions and breaks through what is currently held to be plausible is ultimately rooted in this [subversive] kind of memory.”11 Thus, rather than considering the authority of the past to be conservative and antithetical to change, Metz, like Ricoeur, would have us value the past as a resource of unfulfilled possibilities and promises that enable us to hope for a future that is not a continuation of the success of the victors at the expense of the vanquished. The memoria Jesu Christi, Metz argues, anticipates the future as a future of those who are oppressed, without hope and doomed to fail. It is therefore a dangerous and at the same time liberating memory that oppresses and questions the present because it reminds us not of some open future, but precisely this future and because it compels Christians constantly to change themselves so that they are able to take this future into account.12


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This emphasis on memory does not, however, lead Metz to reject dogma and doctrine, even though these are formulated as propositions. Doctrines protect those aspects of the tradition that do not find resonance within the limitations of our current experiences and hence risk being forgotten. Metz therefore suggests that doctrine should be read as “formulations of the collective memory,” such that propositional creeds are not replacements for narrated memories but correctives that prevent the loss of important memories.13 After all, we have not originated this hope ourselves but have received it from the church that has kept alive and passed down to our times the memory of the events on which our hope is founded. Notwithstanding his defense of doctrine, Metz rightly insists that the particular and contingent character of memories requires expression in narrative form. Along with stories of such revelatory events as God’s covenant with Israel and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we need to continue to tell the stories of the sufferings and hopes of the vanquished of history, so that our narration of the history of salvation includes these particular histories, and our faith does not become a hope abstracted from concrete sufferings and the praxis this suffering demands of us.14 We also need narratives that enable us to relate past revelation to our own lives and allow us to bring to expression the religious experiences through which we grow in understanding of the meaning of revelation. In learning to narrate their own religious experiences, ordinary people will become subjects of the church, such that the church “ceases to be a protectionist ‘Church for the people’ and becomes a real ‘Church of the people.’”15 As suggested above, this memorative hope in a universal God who wills that all be subjects calls forth a solidarity that must be universal (extending to past as well as to future generations) and that demands embodiment in specific actions in defense of those whose subjectivity is currently threatened. Thus, for Metz, this solidarity must be not only universal and mystical, but also particular and political. There is no contradiction here but rather a mutual correction, since “this double structure [mystical and political] protects the universal aspect of solidarity from apathy and its partisan nature from hatred or forgetfulness,” Metz declares.16 In addition to an option for the poor who suffer much from oppression and injustice, this solidarity with those whose subjectivity is threatened or denied must also take the particular form today of an option for others in their otherness (including other religions and other cultures), so that we oppose the denial of subjectivity to those who are different from us. As Metz reminds us, “In Christianity’s biblical origins, the encounter with strangers and the acknowledgement of others in their otherness was central.”17

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Metz calls us as well to solidarity with the dead as a form of resistance to a triumphalist history of victors and as a means through which particular hopes are kept alive. “The imagination of future freedom is nourished from the memory of suffering, and freedom degenerates whenever those who suffer are treated more or less as a cliché and degraded to a faceless mass,” he argues.18 We must hope in a restoration of meaning to the dead because, he further warns, when the dead no longer matter to us, meaning for the living (who must some day join the dead) cannot be sustained.19 This does not mean that the sufferings of the victims of history are simply to be incorporated into our preestablished systems of meaning, however; rather, we must allow their memory to disrupt our projects as we strive to make our hope a continuation of theirs. Metz insists, for example, that we can hope and pray after Auschwitz only by continuing the hope and prayer that were possible in Auschwitz. Prayer with and for the dead is thus neither superstition nor escapism, in his view, but rather an authentic and important aspect of the Christian praxis of solidarity.20 The importance of memory in this praxis of solidarity is due not only to the fact that our Christian hope for freedom is founded on a memoria passionis Jesu Christi, but also because solidarity with those whose subjectivity is being or has been denied is developed in large part through our remembering them and their sufferings. Further, memory and the retelling of suffering is, Metz insists, more conducive to a polycentrism that allows for a positive exchange with those different from ourselves than is Western rational discourse. Not unlike Hannah Arendt, then, Metz considers narrative to be an expression of particularity and sees the sharing of stories as a way to preserve diversity while building common bonds.21 A theology thus attentive to memories of and hopes for the vanquished of history would interrupt our modern triumphalism with a defense of all subjects, including the dead who have unfulfilled claims that cannot be absorbed into the triumph of history’s winners. This theology would not rest secure in its claim to know the already determined outcome of history, Metz argues, but rather would attend to the narration of our experiences of history as interruptive and as dependent on a praxis that makes a real difference. Then Christian theology might recover its genuine critique of modern society and promote a hope for the future that overcomes our apathetic forgetfulness of past suffering and of the dead.22 Narrative, in Metz’s view, is thus inextricably interwoven with solidarity and memory: solidarity is inspired, nourished, and given its direc-


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tion through the memories of Jesus Christ and of others who suffer in history, and, as historical memories, these are narrative in form.

Human Freedom in History This concern for the role of narrated memories and the defense of the subject in Christianity thus leads Metz not only to reject established theological methods but also to articulate a Christian alternative to cultural ideas and attitudes that undermine the exercise of freedom in history. Metz is particularly critical of the dominant role in Western society given to an instrumental rationality that focuses on efficiency to the point of displacing public consideration of what our goals ought to be, and that encourages us to judge the worth of all things according to their exchange value. Hence, those things with little or no exchange value, such as suffering, failure, the handicapped who cannot succeed in competition, and especially the dead (who can do nothing for us) no longer have public significance, and our human needs for friendship, fidelity, and mourning of the dead are publicly unsupported and socially devalued.23 Metz further warns that the social predominance of instrumental rationality and the principle of exchange so preclude a role for values and traditions in guiding public action that a distopia in which anonymous systems of power dominate and determine the direction of society (even while the illusion of human freedom persists) is a real and dangerous possibility.24 Metz is certainly not advocating a liberal theology that achieves relevance through accommodating itself to our current culture, then, since what we need to counteract this distopia in his view is not merely to introduce “the Christian memory of suffering into the existing forms of political life,” but rather to develop a new culture in which tradition and memory have public value and express an authoritative hope for humanity.25 Not only cultural practices and values, but also some prevalent philosophical assumptions are sharply criticized by Metz as detrimental to responsible human action. Though deeply influenced by Marxism, especially that of the Frankfurt School, he rejects dialectical materialism as an instance of the endlessly evolving view of history that he opposes, not in order to advocate creation-science, of course, but to challenge the presumption of an infinite future of continual change. This evolutionary logic, he argues, leads to an apathetic timelessness in which particular actions do not matter, because “everything can be made” and “everything can be replaced”; if history is unending, there will always be time later to

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do and to undo what we might otherwise commit ourselves to today. Nothing we accomplish can then have lasting value. In addition, this everlasting time can only be a history of victors without vindication for history’s victims who have been left behind in the march of this unending time.26 In more recent works, Metz has critiqued as well the “everyday postmodernism” that challenges the very possibility of subjects; he argues that this denial of human freedom and responsibility results in an apoliticism in which “the move from knowledge to action . . . was never . . . so unlikely as it is today.”27 Human freedom and guilt are concomitant with the ability to make a difference in history and must be affirmed if we are to act responsibly and meaningfully in history.28 Metz’s concern to defend human freedom grounds also his critique of common theologies of history. Claiming to know too much about the end of history can be as devastating to praxis as an endless future, he maintains, because if that end is certain, then what we do here and now is devalued; our action makes no historical difference if God’s promised future cannot not be achieved in its proper time. For this reason, Metz rejects the “idealistic” theologies of Pannenberg and Moltmann along with the transcendental theology of Karl Rahner; they “always-already” know the outcome of history and so are unable to account for the real risk involved in historical praxis. Metz argues instead that the freedom of the subject requires both that history is open to human action (so that the telos of history is not unaffected by our praxis), and that there is a God who is the source of a radically new future in which the dead participate.29 As Rebecca Chopp notes, in Metz’s view, “freedom is no longer opposed to the tradition of Christianity but is now dependent upon it,” because without an eschatological hope in God’s promises for the future, we cannot coherently affirm our freedom to act meaningfully in history.30 Consistent with his commitment to the victims of history who have little stake in the present, Metz further specifies this eschatological hope as an apocalyptic one, arguing that only an apocalyptic vision can withstand the apathetic timelessness of the evolutionary mentality.31 Somewhat paradoxically, Metz bases his argument for apocalypticism on the grounds that the importance of time depends on time having an end, for only then is it imperative that we act without delay and do now what we may not have time to do later. Further, Christian discipleship as the radical imitation of Jesus is not possible, Metz says, “if the time is not shortened.” Apocalyptic consciousness, he maintains, “does not deprive responsibility of its power but rather provides it with motivation,” especially as it keeps us open to the possibility of unforeseen interruptions in history.32


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Metz can thus be read as striving to reconcile in his theology the insights from what John Courtney Murray described shortly before Vatican II as the two predominant and conflicting orientations in Catholic thought about the ultimate goal of history. The version Murray calls “eschatological humanism” awaits God’s intervention and establishment of a paradise so far beyond what humans could achieve that our work here is largely irrelevant to it, while the “incarnational humanists” hope for a Kingdom that is a completion and fulfillment of what we accomplish in history.33 Despite their contradictory attitudes toward human historical achievement, Murray notes that both are rooted in the Gospel: it is not without reason, then, that Metz seeks to do justice to the truth of each position, proclaiming (with the eschatologists) that only God can provide the final fulfillment of history and restore meaning to the dead, while also insisting (with the incarnationalists) that our historical acts and failures to act make a real difference to the Kingdom. Metz’s espousal of apocalypticism in his Faith in History and Society, however, strains and (depending on how it is understood) may undermine his attempt to maintain a partnership between God and humanity in which human historical action has real significance. To be sure, apocalypticism is not without value in inspiring a sense of urgency, an openness to the interruption of unforeseen possibilities, and a willingness to risk a radical following of Jesus Christ without concern for one’s security in this world, all of which Metz argues.34 He is also right to remind us that time has an unknown limit: we do not know the day or the hour of our individual deaths nor of that of the human race. Although fears of nuclear annihilation have receded (perhaps only temporarily) with the end of the Cold War, an imminent end to history due to human acts or to natural forces is still a possibility and, in any case, our individual lives may end at any moment. Our praxis in history would be well served by a recovery of some of Metz’s apocalyptic urgency: we cannot count on having time later to do what we neglect to do now. While apocalypticism is a valuable corrective to the comfortable belief that things will continue as they are, there is more danger in it than Metz acknowledges, especially if it is not carefully nuanced. Metz has argued quite persuasively that the significance of human action is seriously diminished if that action does not contribute to the outcome of history, yet if his apocalypticism is to be understood as a hope for an immediate end (and not simply an acknowledgment that time has an unknown limit), I believe that this apocalypticism (contrary to Metz’s intentions) finally renders human action irrelevant or at least unnecessary, because all can then be accomplished by God. To hope that the Kingdom

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will come tomorrow implies that nothing of real value would be lost in what remains undone; much like the transcendental theology of history that Metz criticizes for its confidence in the outcome of history, this apocalypticism too would contradict the hope that what we might yet accomplish will make a real difference to the outcome of history. We should also bear in mind that much work for greater justice entails (like child rearing) a commitment to the long haul. The contradiction implied in hoping for an imminent eschaton while also devoting oneself in hope to a praxis that can only make a difference in the distant future cannot, in my judgment, easily be sustained. To be sure, Metz’s call for an apocalyptic vision and an imminent expectation remains more than a little ambiguous (perhaps in recognition of these tensions). His emphasis is not on the desire for a sudden end of time but rather on the importance of recovering the limits of time in the face of a debilitating evolutionary infinity; the question he (and I) would ask is, “How much time do we (still) have?”35 This advocacy of imminent expectation should perhaps be read not, then, as an imminent expectation of our being freed from the mess of history altogether, but rather as the hope that remains open to new possibilities within history and so, like Arendt’s natality, makes possible a praxis that interrupts the status quo in unforeseen ways. Still, the point is of sufficient importance to Metz’s theology that it warrants more attention and clarity on his part, especially when his ideas are presented to a North American audience that has a well-established tradition of apocalypticism that evades the challenge of responsible historical praxis. These problems with apocalypticism ought not to overshadow the very real contributions of Metz’s advocacy of an eschatological hope in God’s action, however. As Metz contends, a praxis of justice receives important support from belief in God as the final source of redemption and hope. Redemption from guilt is necessary to protect emancipatory praxis from being overwhelmed by the need to locate blame for injustice; as Hannah Arendt also understood, action becomes paralyzed without the possibility of forgiveness. Further, an eschatological proviso, such that no political project is synonymous with the final purpose of history, counteracts the dangerous and idolatrous temptation to invest a particular cause with ultimacy.36 Yet another essential contribution of Christian eschatology, Metz notes, is that a hope for God’s restoration of meaning to the dead makes it possible for us to retain a hope for the meaning of our own lives and struggles (since we too will one day be among the dead). As Metz himself persuasively argues, our historical praxis is


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undermined if either God or humans are thought to be irrelevant to the unfolding of history.

Theology and the Critique of Narratives Given Metz’s interpretation of Christian faith as primarily an historical praxis informed by memories of suffering, it is not surprising that he rejects attempts to construe the task of theology in ways inattentive to the narratives and praxis of Christian faith. To be sure, theology is not an exercise in the telling of stories, but rather, as Metz acknowledges, proceeds through speculative thought and argumentation. Nevertheless, theology must attend closely to narratives and to the processes of narration, lest the cognitive function of narrative be denied (with narratives mistakenly seen as purely illustrative) and theology become irrelevant to the praxis of Christians (a praxis that Metz repeatedly insists is grounded in narratives). Rather than either a complete separation or a complete identification of theology and storytelling, then, Metz argues that the task of theology is properly construed as one of restoring, guiding, and correcting the processes of narration in the Christian community, particularly as that narrative tradition is threatened by our “scientific” culture. The hegemony of instrumental rationality must be opposed with an intellectual defense of the genuinely cognitive status of narratival memories and their formative role, and it is to this task that Metz devotes much of his own theological work. Further, theology must interrupt and critique our narratives insofar as they fail to do justice to the full import of the canonical narratives, especially when they do not adequately withstand the bourgeois mentality that dominates so many churches. As Metz succinctly summarizes the task of theology: it must work “to protect the narrative memory of salvation in a scientific world, to allow it to be at stake, and to prepare the way for a renewal of this narrative, without which the experience of salvation is silenced.”37 Appropriateness to the Christian tradition and to its canonical narratives is a standard Metz at least implicitly upholds for theology, then, since in his view theology strives to foster praxis and processes of narration that are faithful to the authoritative memory of the church.38 Given our concern here for a public theology that participates in conversations with non-Christians as well as with Christians, however, we have a further interest in the grounds that Metz provides for evaluating the general

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credibility of the Christian tradition itself. Is it, as Schubert Ogden would have us also ask, adequate to human experience?39 Why do we think these narrative memories ought to be preserved and that it is good to be formed by this rather than by some other tradition? Certainly Metz’s defense of narrative against the dominance of scientific and instrumental forms of rationality can be seen as an argument for adequacy to experience, insofar as he opposes the devaluation of narratival knowledge and its consequent truncation of human experience. He also, as we have seen, presents arguments intended to demonstrate that Christian faith is more adequate than secular modernity or postmodernity to the human desire for freedom and for meaningful action. Nevertheless, it is the role of praxis in defending the validity of the Christian narrative that Metz emphasizes: he consistently maintains that Christian faith, as a hope in the future, is justified primarily through the praxis of Christians rather than through abstractions or theoretical arguments. Calling for a praxis that makes our beliefs credible, Metz argues that the hope for a time when all are subjects before God must inspire a defense here and now of threatened subjects: through the establishment of a more just society, the Christian hope in a future realization of complete justice and full subjectivity is defended.40 There is, of course, still a gap between even the greatest possible justice a human praxis could construct and the hoped for state in which all (including the dead) will participate as subjects. Metz has no intention of narrowing this gap; rather, he widens it with his imminent expectation, his hope in God’s ultimate restoration of meaning even to the dead, and his eschatological proviso that no particular human struggle is identical to the Christian hope for history. In addition to questioning whether this properly excessive hope can be adequately defended through any human praxis, we might also ask whether the failure of Christian praxis has not already undermined such a practical defense of Christian faith. Metz himself acknowledges “a crisis of subjects and institutions that do not measure up to the demands made by faith,” and so he devotes considerable energy to clarifying the liberating intent of Christian narratives.41 He affirms his abiding hope in the ability of these Christian narratives to inspire liberating praxis, even while acknowledging that such praxis, occasionally exemplified in the lives of the saints, has not always been the rule. Is there not a degree of circularity here, then, if Christian narratives must be reinterpreted in order to elicit the praxis that justifies them? How can we know in advance of that praxis that the reinterpretation is worth our time and effort?42


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These questions indicate the significance for Metz’s theology of his articulation of a concept of truth as “universalizable interest.” Accepting that interests are deeply involved in and influence our knowledge of the world does not, he argues, further entail that we must abandon the search for truth and accept a radical relativism. Rather than seeking an unbiased perspective, we ought to consider that position to be true that represents generalizable interests, that is, interests that “relate without exception to all human beings or could be so related.” This concept of truth maintains a connection to praxis while providing grounds for the possibility of theoretical analysis and debate; as Metz argues, justice for all is a truly universalizable interest that “belongs to the premises of the search for truth.”43 The validity of Christian narratives does not then depend solely on the praxis they have thus far inspired. Insofar as they embody a hope for universal justice (extended even to the dead), they can be judged worthy of our efforts to protect and to restore them. We can now see how Metz might respond to the challenge articulated by Josef Meyer zu Schlochtern, who argues that, because stories can be narrated in a variety of ways and with a variety of intentions (and effects), we cannot so easily presume that stories themselves (abstracted from context) are inherently liberating.44 The political effects of the memory of suffering are not always salutary, of course: such memories may (and often do) lead to hatred, fanaticism, and further oppression rather than to a praxis of freedom, even when the memory is of Jesus’ suffering. Metz is not unaware of this ambiguity, however, as is evident in his emphasis on redemption from guilt and his advocacy of a politics of remembering not only the sufferings of our own people but also and especially the sufferings of our present or past opponents.45 Indeed, his perspective indicates that the ambiguity of narrative is such that it is an important theological task to attend to the context and the processes of narration, so that the hope for universal justice in our Christian narratives is made explicit, and a truly liberating praxis results. We can also see how Metz’s position avoids the MacIntyrean nightmare of a public sphere riven with incommensurable narratives and therefore without the capacity for shared moral discourse.46 Conversation between members of different narratival communities does not require the acceptance of a common metaphysics, which Metz argues would reinforce the hegemony of Western thought (and, in any case should be rejected as not open to a radically new future because it proceeds from an analysis of what exists). Instead, his standard for evaluating truth (that is, does the position seek undivided justice, a state in which all will be

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subjects of their own histories?) is found within and developed from the perspective of the Christian narrative, yet is nevertheless a standard applicable to all positions and able to be used in internal as well as external criticism of narratives. In Metz’s view, narratival traditions, though formative and authoritative, are not, then, unquestionable and closed to debate; narratives should rather be seen as allowing for the exchange of experiences and cross-cultural dialogue in which others’ views can be presented in their particularity. Attention to narrative, Metz argues, is thus intrinsic to an option for others in their otherness since, unlike Western rational discourse, narrative allows difference to be expressed on its own terms.47

Metz’s Contributions to Public Theology Metz’s work on narrative is an important contribution to public theology, not least because it demonstrates that Christianity is inherently concerned with the political processes through which we realize our proper role as subjects who organize our common life and seek a greater justice in history. In this view, Christian faith lives by its narratival memories, especially its stories of God calling the people of Israel to be subjects of history and its stories of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; according to Metz, these memories inspire resistance to suffering on the basis of a hope in a future universal subjectivity and justice for all. Dogma has a role in protecting this memory, in that it calls us to remember a tradition broader than our own limited experiences, yet Christian faith ought not to be understood primarily as a system of propositions. It is rather a memorative hope demanding a political praxis. To be sure, Christian concern is not limited to the suffering caused by political oppression: it extends to all suffering, including the suffering caused by guilt and the fact of death. Nevertheless, Metz demonstrates that Christian hope for a redemption of all forms of suffering is integrally related to the hope in God’s future that demands an historical praxis of justice on the basis of a memoria Christi. In articulating these political implications of Christianity, Metz also provides a compelling critique of the loss of a public role for the traditions and memories through which a better future is envisioned, as we have seen. Instrumental rationality and exchange relations unfortunately so dominate society that the capacity to direct the future of our polity is deteriorating. “Man, as the subject who plans and controls technology and science, is becoming controlled by them,” Metz warns. If the ques-


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tion of the meaning of history, and the traditions that address that question, are allowed to be thoroughly suppressed, we will inevitably “subject political life to a purely instrumental form of thinking and in the long run abandon it to technocracy.”48 Metz thus shares the concern with the hegemony of instrumental rationality held by public theologians in the United States. Indeed, he develops an extensive and thoroughly Christian critique of contemporary Western culture and the obstacles it poses to the meaningful exercise of human freedom.49 His analysis is more radical than that of most U.S. public theologians, since he insists that a liberating political praxis depends not only on the inclusion of religious values in public debates but also requires a specifically religious hope in a God who redeems guilt and restores meaning to the dead in a future beyond human history. A public theology ought not, then, proceed simply by deriving values from Christian faith and then applying those values to political issues, but rather, for Metz, must address political issues with the content of Christian faith. Metz’s understanding of narrative is especially helpful to public theology in the United States, where religion and formative narratives are widely held to be undebatable because irrational. Metz counters this common presumption by developing grounds for the evaluation of these narratives without suggesting that we can stand in some neutral position in order to judge. The transformative standard of truth that Metz proffers, especially when applied not only to the praxis a narrative has already elicited but also to its capacity to elicit and sustain a praxis of universal justice, provides a profound and publicly comprehensible basis for evaluating religious (and other) narratives. It is certainly the case that the transformative power of a religion, as evident in the lives of its adherents and/or in the difference it is hoped that that religion will make in one’s life, is not an uncommon reason for that religion to be held as true. Demonstrating that a religious tradition bears a universal hope is an important service that contributes to the defense of its truth, while the opposite also holds: showing that a religious or philosophical view inspires attitudes and behaviors opposed to justice for all is a critique that cannot be easily dismissed. Nevertheless, we might yet ask whether this transformative criterion of truth is sufficient for public debate. It begs the question of what true justice is, since the standard of universalizable interests may not be specific enough to guide decisions between competing interests, as for example in the allocation of scarce resources. After all, we have very different ideas about what each is due, and my account of what leads to universal human flourishing may not be accepted by others, and vice versa.

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One can further surmise that questions would arise in public debate not only about the usefulness of belief in God but also about whether this belief can be formulated as logically consistent or credible in light of what we otherwise know to be true. There is, to be sure, much of value in Metz’s narratival and nonmetaphysical argument for Christian faith, an approach that is perhaps especially helpful given the antimetaphysical biases of our time. Yet I do not find entirely persuasive Metz’s rejection of metaphysical thought on the grounds that it is constrained by what exists, and I am convinced that attention to logical consistency, adequacy to experience, and even transcendental analyses remain necessary and intellectually productive (as we see in Metz’s own transcendental analysis of the conditions necessary for the possibility of sustaining a meaningful praxis). As Matthew Lamb has persuasively argued, “transcendental orientations need not issue in idealist abstractions but can be an expression of those constitutive elements of practical reason as reason not yet realized in history and society.”50 Further argumentation along such lines may be helpful to the public debate and ought not to be rejected out of hand, even while we must acknowledge that these arguments are neither ahistorical nor infallible. For the purpose of this study in public theology, there is also a difficulty posed by the fact that Metz argues for an international rather than a national focus of political action. He justifies this international focus by citing (correctly) both the universal demands of Christian solidarity and the fact that many pressing political issues involve global problems that can only be solved through international cooperation. Our hope, as Metz articulates it, is in a God who calls all to be subjects; this hope is, then, the properly universal hope of a universal (not national) church. Metz’s theological project may thus seem to be in some tension with my focus on the United States, even though Metz’s argument for particular historical memories as the source of alternative possibilities shares much with the defense of national narratives that I developed in chapter 3 above. Metz’s argument for international concern is valid and important, but (as I argued above) I am not persuaded that it cancels out the need for attention to national politics, since the nation-state remains an important level on which political life and action are organized. Indeed, Metz himself warns us that structures for political participation are deteriorating, and his commitment to enabling people to become subjects of history requires him to take this deterioration seriously. Effective efforts in developing and strengthening structures of political participation would, I judge, require attention to the various levels of political organization and, as Amy Gutmann has argued, it is in national politics that we are cur-


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rently most able to respond to global issues. An interest in reinvigorating national political life need not, then, be understood as contradicting Metz’s basic insights, given that national political action and an international concern are not necessarily in conflict. I would further argue that Metz’s discussions of Auschwitz provide an example of reflecting on Christian hope in light of the specific events of a nation’s history, and thus are similar to the project I would like to encourage (though my focus is on the United States and its history rather than on Germany or Western Europe). Metz’s argument for engaging history in its concreteness rather than as an abstraction should then, in my judgment, be understood as calling for rather than negating attention to our particular national histories, lest our international concern become an abstraction removed from specific historical events and praxis. We might yet ask whether Metz’s retrieval of “dangerous narratives” provides an adequate basis for a truly liberating Christian theology, however helpful we may find it to be in counteracting an abstract focus on ‘historicity’ or in recovering the particular memories that enable us to be subjects in history. Rebecca Chopp has pointed out the limitations of Metz’s narrative approach in that a transformation of consciousness does not in itself transform structures.51 To become a truly liberating and political theology, Metz’s emphasis on narrative (and the project I am pursuing here as well) must be supplemented with analyses of social structures and articulation of the concrete structural changes necessary to increase human freedom. That his project is incomplete as a political theology does not, however, invalidate what Metz has accomplished, especially insofar as his work is devoted to restoring the conditions for the possibility of our engaging in the concrete praxis that Chopp reminds us is necessary for real liberation. Indeed, he has made no small contribution to a more effective political praxis merely by showing that the differences between liberal and conservative versions of Christianity in the West mask their greater similarity as strategies for overcoming middle-class anxiety and for easing the insecurities of our market-dominated culture without proposing any real challenge to that culture. Metz’s work is especially important for the purposes of this study, then, in that it provides a persuasive account of the role of narrative in theology as the bases of a political praxis integral to Christian faith. Metz also develops compelling criticisms of contemporary attitudes and theories that (at least implicitly) deny human freedom and must be countered with the content of Christian faith. Nevertheless, his approach lacks the extended engagement with the nation and the wide-ranging debate necessary to an American public theology. For a more specific discussion of

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Christianity in relation to the nation, we must turn to two American theologians who have more explicitly addressed the relation between the Christian narrative and our national political life.

North American Narrative Theologians: Stanley Hauerwas and Ronald Thiemann A considerably different approach to the role of narrative in Christian theology has been developed by North American theologians following the groundbreaking work of Hans Frei. Among these “narrative theologians,” the perspectives of Stanley Hauerwas and of Ronald Thiemann are of special interest for our purposes, since these two theologians are concerned not only with the recovery of narrative in Christian theology but also with relating that narrative to public life in the United States. Hauerwas and Thiemann both insist on the priority of the biblical narratives in determining Christian identity, yet this common emphasis on narrative results in very different views of the role of the church (and of the Christian theologian) in public life. As we will see in more detail below, Hauerwas proposes that the Christian church serve as a witness to an alternative and true political community, while Thiemann argues for Christian involvement in reforming our national politics from within.

A Narrative Theological Ethics: Stanley Hauerwas NARRATIVE AS THE BASIS OF COMMUNAL IDENTITY Like Metz, Stanley Hauerwas develops his argument for the narratival basis of Christianity in order to do justice to the practical dimensions of Christian faith. Indeed, Hauerwas’s work is primarily in Christian ethics and is largely comprised of essays devoted to exploring the practices proper to Christianity and the challenges of these practices to contemporary society. However, Hauerwas correctly insists that Christian ethics and systematic theology are inseparable, since the meaning of Christian faith can be known only through discovering the implications of that faith for how Christians live their lives, and so he argues at length for the importance of Christian narratives as the basis of both systematic and moral theology.52 For our purposes here, it is not his discussions of specific ethical issues that are of primary interest but rather his methodological position on this narratival basis of Christianity and his understanding


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of the public role of a narrative-formed Christian community in a secular society. Hauerwas’s argument for the centrality of narrative to the Christian faith and to theological reflection on that faith is developed, on the one hand, through his analysis of the role of narrative in forming society and the self, and, on the other, through attention to the ways in which the knowledge of God in the Christian tradition is attained from the stories of Jesus Christ and of God’s relation to Israel. We will begin with a brief discussion of Hauerwas’s understanding of narrative as foundational to society and self, since this broader argument provides much of his rationale for the importance of narratives in the Christian church and in its theology. Consistent with the positions developed by Arendt and Ricoeur on the topic of narratival identity, Hauerwas too argues that, because narrative is the form through which historical identity and purpose are rendered, an aggregate of persons becomes a community only to the extent that they develop a shared story about their history, their identity, and their purpose in coming together. He insists that remembering and retelling this formative narrative of the community is a political task (although here Hauerwas is primarily concerned with the community of the church rather than the polis), because this story provides the common grounds on which the members of the community make decisions together and determine the kind of governing institutions necessary for the community to be faithful to its historical identity and purpose. “A community,” Hauerwas maintains, “is a group of persons who share a history and whose common set of interpretations about that history provide the basis for common actions.”53 His point is not, then, merely that a shared tradition is the necessary basis for a common moral language and for the meaning and legitimacy of political institutions, but more specifically that this shared tradition is rooted in a narrative expression of a community’s identity and purpose for being together.54 Although he insists that this narrative must be authoritative in that it is formative of the self-understanding of the community and its members, Hauerwas appreciates the point (supported by our earlier discussion) that developing a narrative identity is not necessarily a conservative process. Rather, this narratival “authority is . . . the means through which a community is able to journey from where it is to where it ought to be,” because the authority of the foundational narrative makes possible the pursuit of a common goal.55 A story-formed tradition thus engenders resistance to the limitations of the present, as it encourages greater fidelity to the community’s historical purpose as rendered in its formative

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narrative. Further, this tradition is not monolithic, but is rather a source of unity-in-diversity, admitting a variety of interpretations (as William Dean also argues), for only through such interpretations and reinterpretations can the story be applied to changing circumstances.56 Not only the existence of the community but also the development of its individual members depends upon this narratival tradition, in Hauerwas’s view. People learn to understand themselves and their world through the narratives of a community and the languages, habits, and descriptions those narratives make possible. It is especially important, Hauerwas observes, that a community’s tradition provide a sense of an adventure worth participating in as well as stories of heroes and heroines who demonstrate the kind of people we must be to live up to this adventure. Otherwise, the community will fail to produce individuals with the depth of character or the motivation necessary to continue the community’s project. Because the self is thus socially formed, freedom for Hauerwas does not consist in an open and undetermined ability to choose or to construct one’s own story but rather in the capacity gained through adequate communal narratives to take responsibility for one’s history and actions and to successfully negotiate life’s challenges.57 This account of the role of narrative provides the grounding for Hauerwas’s well-known argument that ethics is an issue of character and virtue before it is a problem of deciding what to do in specific circumstances. Communal narratives are central to this virtue-based approach to ethics, since these narratives form the moral characters of the members of the community by teaching them how to perceive the world, what is of value in it, and what directions for the future are worthwhile; they also provide heroes who model the virtues that members should cultivate. Hauerwas therefore rejects foundationalist and rule-based approaches to ethics on the grounds that the narratives in terms of which ethical quandaries appear and are evaluated can only be developed and learned within particular historical communities and on the basis of the stories that teach us to see certain circumstances (and not others) as ethically problematic.58 While Hauerwas is on solid ground in maintaining that the self is socially constructed and that we depend upon the cultural and linguistic presuppositions of our society in order to understand ourselves, the world, and ethics, one might yet question whether these presuppositions are always or even primarily narratives.59 Even if we presume that a shared tradition uniting a community and providing its common moral language is necessary, why must this common tradition be in the form of a narrative, rather than, say, a commitment to a proposition or even to a common philosophy (as advocated by John Courtney Murray)?60


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At least some of the difficulty in engaging Hauerwas’s position on the importance of narrative is due to his rather broad and unspecific use of the terms “narrative” and “story.” What he describes as a “story” at times lacks any discernible plot, character, or even action, and would be more accurately identified as a common belief or a cultural presupposition. For example, Hauerwas asserts that “the story that liberalism teaches us is that we have no story.”61 This, of course, is not a story but a statement, better described as the presupposition on which (he believes) liberal political institutions are founded. Setting aside questions of accuracy and plausibility, one certainly could construct a narrative of the origins and development of liberalism, with a plot centered on the rejection of the authority of a common narrative; indeed, John Milbank has arguably done this.62 However, Hauerwas neither develops this story nor provides evidence that such a story is commonly subscribed to as the shared basis of American public life. In my judgment, nothing but confusion is gained by describing such statements as “we have no common story” as being themselves stories. We should also note that much of the rationale Hauerwas proffers to support his emphasis on the narratival basis of self and community indicates merely that thought proceeds from culturally learned presuppositions; it does not show that these presuppositions are narratival in form. Thus he argues that nonnarrative versions of ethical theory are “the ideology of a dominant culture that no longer has the confidence to acknowledge the contingent nature of their (sic) understanding of duties and virtues.” In opposition to this ideology, Hauerwas insists on the authority of particular traditions and cultural prejudices as the necessary resources for ethical thinking. This line of argument, common in Hauerwas’s many essays, unfortunately does not clarify the role that narratives do or ought to have.63 It is the historical embeddedness of ethical thought (indeed of all thought) that is supported here, but not its narratival basis, unless “narrative” loses its specificity as involving emplotment of actions over time and is taken to mean something like ‘any historically particular worldview.’ In The Peaceable Kingdom, however, Hauerwas does provide a more nuanced argument for the importance of narrative rooted in its unique ability to render contingency and historicity. In this work, he argues that narrative, which “formally displays our existence and that of the world . . . as contingent,” is necessary because we are “historical beings who must give an account of the purposive relation between temporally discrete realities.”64 The valid insight behind Hauerwas’s somewhat inflated claims for narrative is here revealed: it is in their temporality that human experience,

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communal identity, and historical projects require narration. Without narratives, we not only lack imaginative models for what we should be and how we should act but are also unable to articulate the temporal uniqueness of a community’s identity and project. It is our particular histories, after all, that determine the circumstances and much of the resources available for achieving our goals. The strength and the weakness of Hauerwas’s argument for narrative in Christian theology and ethics can be seen especially clearly in his article “From System to Story,” written with David Burrell. Perhaps his most nuanced defense of narrative as the basis of ethical thinking, this article attends with more care than Hauerwas usually provides to the specific attributes of narrative and their role in forming moral judgments. Since character is depicted through the unfolding of a plot, Hauerwas argues here, it is this narratival portrayal of character that enables us to understand the human condition more deeply and provides the “context necessary to pose the terms of a [moral] decision.”65 This grounds Hauerwas’s emphasis on a narrative approach to virtue ethics and his insistence that what we believe we ought to do is dependent on the kind of character and the virtues we seek to develop. Narratives are foundational for ethics, Hauerwas concludes, because they allow us to envision patterns of behavior over time and because ethical decisions are inherently contingent, rooted in particular identities, sets of relationships, and life projects. While Hauerwas is certainly right to remind us of the practical implications of narrative, especially insofar as narratives portray contingent characters and projects, in my judgment he too quickly concludes that a virtue-based ethics is the only way to do ethics (and, in general, reacts against the neglect of narrative by exaggerating its role). In this article, Hauerwas moves directly from the premise that one learns to understand one’s life through stories to his conclusion that “experiences always come in the form of narratives.”66 This conclusion does not, however, follow from his premise: the fact that we make sense of temporal experiences through narratives does not entail that all such experiences are originally narratival. As Daniel Beaumont has argued, our direct experience does not come preformed as a narrative; instead, the process of narrating is a level of reflection that involves the organization of experiences. J. Wesley Robbins also takes exception to Hauerwas’s argument that narrative is the only manner in which to give coherence and continuity to life decisions. Robbins points out that systematic reflection based on an ethical precept (or set of precepts) will provide this coherence as well.67 If Beaumont and Robbins are right (and I am persuaded they are), then narrative discourse is by no means the only way in which we can or should reflect on moral


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experience. As Paul Ricoeur has further clarified, we need deontological and teleological principles with which to judge how to emplot a story and whether a story ought to maintain its formative role in our lives.68 In sum, narratives can and should be evaluated by ethical principles, even if these ethical principles are grasped in light of the particular historical experiences that are best comprehended through narratives. It should also be noted that Hauerwas’s argument that standards for judging narratives can only be supplied by a story of how one came to judge certain narratives as adequate or inadequate elides the distinction between the particular experiences through which we come to judgments and the reasons we have for holding those judgments to be valid. The temporal process of achieving an insight may be best rendered as a narrative, but it does not follow that the insight itself has no other possible justification than the description of this process. Hauerwas, after all, does not defend his narrative-based ethics by telling the story of how he came to perceive the importance of such an approach, but by arguing for its cogency. I believe he is here again mistakenly concluding, from the fact that all thought is rooted in particular historical contexts, that all thought is therefore narratival. Despite this tendency rather broadly to invoke the category of narrative to the point where it seems that everything is a story, Hauerwas has a valid insight into the importance of narrative in depicting character and rendering historically particular identities and circumstances. It is with good reason that Hauerwas would not be satisfied with a unity established solely on the basis of a nonnarratival philosophy or a commonly held proposition, since these alone cannot do justice to the temporally specific circumstances, identity, and resources of a community and the goals it pursues. We may further support Hauerwas’s insight here by noting that John Courtney Murray’s argument for the socially unifying role of a common proposition entails a twofold claim derived from the duality of meaning he sees in the word “proposition.” Because a proposition can be both a statement and a project, Murray holds that a common proposition provides the grounds for reasoning together as well as a common goal to pursue.69 Yet that goal is pursued through time, and we need narrative to express the temporality of our actions and our achievements.

THE CHRISTIAN TASK IN HISTORY What is specific to the Christian church, Hauerwas argues, is not that it is a narrative-formed community, but that its identity is constituted by

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the particular narratives of God’s relation to Israel, of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and of the beginnings of the Christian church. Hauerwas is not unaware of the many nonnarrative biblical texts that, as canonical, have a valid claim to a role in the formation of Christian identity. Still, he insists that knowledge of God is primarily narratival because it is received through the historical experiences of the Christian community; therefore, the nonnarrative texts are understood through the lens of the texts that narrate this historical experience. This emphasis on narrative thus creates a canon-within-the-canon that privileges the narrative texts in the Bible. Hauerwas also maintains that Christian beliefs about God are only truly comprehended when we take our part in that story (a point that Metz too emphasizes); that is, to understand the Christian God we must make the story of God’s presence in Israel and in Jesus Christ the story out of which we live. “We are ‘storied people,’” Hauerwas argues, “because the God that sustains us is a ‘storied God,’ whom we come to know only by having our character formed appropriate to God’s character.”70 There are, of course, not only nonnarrative texts, but also a variety of narratives within the Bible, as Hauerwas acknowledges. He considers this multiplicity of narratives to be a richness we should treasure because, through this variety, we learn that there are many ways of living in fidelity to this story. We need not only the four Gospels and other biblical stories but also the stories of the saints (the heroes of the Christian church) in order to expand our understanding of the possible ways that we might live that story. We best learn to interpret a narrative, Hauerwas maintains, through another narrative.71 Despite admitting this multiplicity of narratives, Hauerwas often speaks of the Christian story. Indeed, he argues that the Christian canon includes many texts because, taken together, they form “a perfect story.”72 Though he does not narrate this story for us, Hauerwas claims that it can be summarized as “history is the will of a just God who knows us”; from this ‘story’ we discover that our task is to live in recognition that God is in control of history (and we are not).73 Hauerwas’s analyses of the practical implications of this Christian story focus on witnessing to our trust in God’s dominion through pacifism (violence and domination are not the last word, however successful they may be as human options) and in such daily commitments to the inherent value of love and life as marriage and family require. Welcoming the stranger is also revealed to be important to and made possible by placing our trust in God rather than in ourselves, since in a world where God is in charge, we need not defend ourselves from the challenge outsiders pose to our stories, Hauerwas points out.74


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Here again we find Hauerwas invoking a proposition in place of an unspecified narrative, a move that his own theory of the irreducibility of narrative renders problematic. Yet even more problematic is his claim that the biblical canon forms a coherent (even perfect!) story; to the contrary, it seems instead to comprise a multifaceted and at times contradictory set of texts that continue to challenge us and to provoke further thought precisely because they cannot be completely incorporated into any single account. A careful reader of the Bible may very well also be troubled by Hauerwas’s assertion that the Bible supports a pacifist acceptance of all historical events as the unfolding of God’s will. Many biblical books are decidedly nonpacifistic, and various conclusions as to how thoroughly God determines the events of history find support in these texts. (The Book of Job in particular poses considerable challenge to any simple reading of history as God’s will.) To be sure, Christian orthodoxy maintains that God’s ultimate purpose will not be defeated, however much history may depart from the divine will. But at the same time, the Christian doctrine of sin (original and otherwise) indicates that much in history is not the will of God and in fact is opposed to the divine will. Are we to accept Auschwitz as the will of a just and loving God? Yet if we, and not God, are responsible for the horrors of history, more nuance is needed not only in Hauerwas’s summation of the story, but also in the account of Christian discipleship he draws from it. While it is certainly important to affirm the limits of human control, especially in a culture that so prizes results and efficiency, it is not at all evident that Hauerwas’s position is an adequate or even acceptable interpretation of the Christian tradition. Hauerwas, however, evinces no lack of confidence in his account of God’s control over history, from which he concludes that the task of the Christian community in history is not to bring about God’s kingdom on earth but to live as members of that kingdom, witnessing to the freedom and love possible when God’s dominion is acknowledged and our human attempts at control are relinquished. Because our God is the Lord of history, he argues, we are freed from concern with effectiveness and with the debilitating responsibility of establishing God’s justice on earth, and can instead “take the time to do the one thing that might help lead . . . to God’s peace.”75 This explication of the Christian task in history reveals the eschatological implications of Hauerwas’s theology. All narratives convey a “sense of an ending,” as Kermode has noted, and religious narratives about the purpose of human history are at least implicitly eschatological, since they too must suggest (even if they do not specify) a fitting end of

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the story. Indeed, Hauerwas acknowledges this connection between a narratival and an eschatological perspective, explaining that “to view the world eschatologically is to see it in terms of a story, with a beginning, a continuing drama, and an end.” There is, then, an eschatological purpose to the Christian witness in imitation of Christ, insofar as this witness serves “to put one in the position of being part of a kingdom” that God is establishing.76 Much, however, remains vague and even problematic in Hauerwas’s eschatology, especially regarding the purpose and value of Christian witness in relation to the coming of God’s kingdom (a topic of much significance to our present concern with public life). Despite his insistence that God is in control of history and that it is God who will establish the kingdom, Hauerwas also acknowledges that there is a contribution made by our faithful witness and that one helpful thing we might do. While arguing that “the Church must learn time and time again that its task is not to make the world the kingdom, but to be faithful to the kingdom,” he also maintains that we should “hope in the God who has promised that faithfulness to the kingdom will be of use in God’s care of the world.”77 Hauerwas’s concern here is not to specify what (if any) difference to the outcome of history Christian faithfulness makes, but rather to encourage trust both in God’s dominion and in the value of Christian fidelity. Yet one cannot help but suspect that Hauerwas wants to have it both ways. On the one hand, the value of our witness is significantly undermined by his insistence that God is in control of history: is this not the confidence in historical inevitability that Metz warns leads to apathy rather than to the witness of committed Christian discipleship? On the other hand, Hauerwas denounces a result-oriented praxis on the grounds (at least in part) that it fails to be truly effective, thus proffering a teleological rationale for refusing a teleological approach. To be sure, we cannot guarantee the results of our actions (and thus need forgiveness, as Arendt noted), yet to refuse the responsibility of weighing the likely consequences of our actions is too extreme of a response to our lack of certainty and control. I would also warn that consistently to maintain that God so controls history that our praxis need not be concerned with effectiveness but only with witness may lead to a very odd form of witness. Surely a Christian praxis of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and raising children is distorted (and probably not a very compelling witness) if undertaken without a concern that this action result in the hungry being fed, the naked clothed, and children well raised.78 A proper concern with avoiding the dangers of narrow concepts of effectiveness must not be allowed to justify the counter-witness of a


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self-centered and even self-righteous focus on the purity of one’s witness rather than on the harm done to others and neglect of the help that might have been given. At issue here is finally whether the Christian narrative memory calls us, as Metz argues, actually to strive to mitigate human suffering, or merely to witness to an attitude of opposition to gratuitous suffering that can somehow be divorced from the considerations of how to diminish that suffering. The answer to this question makes a considerable difference in how Christians’ social responsibility is understood and especially whether we seek a publicly engaged church or one of oppositional (and in this sense sectarian) witness. Hauerwas, like Metz, is right to challenge the dominance of an instrumental rationality in which nothing is valued for its own sake, but in doing so he places more weight on a faithful witness stripped of its goals than it can bear, as even he seems to suggest when he insists that this fidelity will indeed make a difference. Though we must affirm our fidelity to God and the limits of human control, especially in a culture that so prizes efficiency and results, it is not at all clear that Hauerwas’s position is an adequate or even acceptable interpretation of Christian faith.

THE PUBLIC MISSION OF THE CHURCH: OPPOSITION OR ENGAGEMENT? Since he thus argues that the Christian task in history is to live a faithful witness to God’s dominion, it is not surprising that Hauerwas considers that witness (and not the establishment of greater justice) to be the major Christian contribution to the political sphere. To be sure, Hauerwas occasionally acknowledges that the Christian narrative has political implications that inspire us to join with others in attempting to bring about greater justice in society.79 Nevertheless, the most significant contribution to the world that the church can make, Hauerwas repeatedly insists, is to be a contrast model to the world and to its politics that “know not God.”80 In this view, the central political question facing the church should not be whether it supports (or opposes) this or that public policy or even form of government, but rather “what kind of community the church must be to be faithful to the narratives central to Christian convictions.”81 While this emphasis on Christian witness as a political act derives from and is consistent with Hauerwas’s interpretation of God’s control of history, it is supported as well by his analysis of the obstacles a liberal polity poses to the pursuit of true justice. Hauerwas agrees with Alisdair

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MacIntyre’s contention in After Virtue that the lack of a shared narrative in liberal societies renders our ethical reasoning incoherent; as we have seen, Hauerwas believes that the attempt to develop ethical arguments on the basis of universal principles acceptable to a diverse public will necessarily fail, because this approach abstracts ethical positions from the narrative context without which they can make no sense. The result is that liberal politics proceeds on the basis of self-interest rather than ethical reasoning (and consequently tends to produce selfish people). For Christians to enter this public conversation with a social ethic divorced from the Christian narrative not only distorts Christian ethics but also fosters the illusion that proceduralism provides an adequate basis for ethical reasoning. “As Christians,” Hauerwas argues, “we will speak more truthfully to our society and be of greater service by refusing to continue the illusion that the larger social order knows what it is talking about when it calls for justice.”82 Also significant, and especially challenging to my defense of a national political theology, is Hauerwas’s criticism of attention to the nation and to democracy.83 Division into national political communities is a form of organization found effective in this world, but ought not be considered an intrinsic or Christian value, he correctly maintains; the allegiance of Christians is, after all, to God’s power and not to the power of this world. Perhaps more surprising to American Christians, Hauerwas further insists that democracy remains government by an elite, such that it is not “different in kind from states of another form” (thus eliding the very different experiences of people who have institutional means of placing leverage on the governing elites and those who do not). While Christians may at times use the democratic rhetoric of self-government to call rulers to greater justice, Hauerwas agrees with John Howard Yoder that a Christian theory of democracy inflates the importance of democracy and risks polluting Christianity “by making of it a civil religion.” Any theologizing about democracy (or in general about what forms of government we ought to pursue) is dismissed by Hauerwas as resting on an unquestioned (but I would argue quite defensible) assumption that Christians might have some power to effect the structures of our society.84 Hauerwas thus argues against the project in public theology that I am here defending, since my approach supports Christian theological involvement in public conversation and intends to provide a theological basis for Christian commitment to a public life that is as open and democratic as possible. Nevertheless, we must admit that Hauerwas’s argument, though tending to rhetorical excess, is not entirely wrong. Christian faith, to be sure, demands that ultimate allegiance be to God;


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forms of political organization are at most of relative value. To assign our political institutions and public life only a relative value does not, of course, mean that they are of no value. Indeed, for Christians, everything other than God is a relative value, and this holds for those institutions such as marriage and the church that Hauerwas supports no less than it does for the political institutions he denigrates. Hauerwas is also right to remind us that even the best forms of democratic government involve inequalities and corruptions that we should struggle to resist and to rectify. Nevertheless, the fact that all governments in this world fail to achieve perfect justice does not mean that all are equally unjust or even that all forms are equally liable to achieve justice or injustice. Hauerwas dismisses much too quickly the task of determining the potential of specific democratic institutions relative to other current or conceivable forms of government in approximating the freedom and justice that is consistent with a Christian commitment to the dignity of the human person.85 Hauerwas himself admits that justice in society is to be sought and celebrated by Christians; it should follow, then, that Christians have an interest in defining and supporting those institutions that provide the greatest possibilities for the realization of justice under the circumstances.86 Given that as citizens Christians do have some considerable responsibility for the direction of our polity in the United States, reflecting on the nature of political justice and the value of democracy from a Christian perspective is scarcely an irrelevant task. It need not lead to uncritical support for, or (worse) an absolutization of, our nation, but rather provides grounds for exercising our care for the neighbor in the manner that is most appropriate to our particular context and in accordance with our allegiance to God as the ultimate source of value.87 (In any case I would argue that a minority witness in opposition to the status quo ought to provide some clear alternative vision that is appropriate not only to the perfection of heaven but also to the complications of a pluralistic society under the conditions of history.) If the problem is merely that theological attention to matters of political theory and governmental ethics might inspire and has at times involved a retreat from the radical demands of Christian discipleship, then a theology of public life should proceed with great caution (never a bad idea!), but it does not warrant utter repudiation. However, Hauerwas has another and deeper reason for promoting a theology and discipleship in opposition to rather than engagement with American political institutions: in his view, our secular liberalism requires an agnostic politics and rejects religiously based reasoning. If he is right on this, then it does indeed follow that the stance of Christians must be primarily oppositional, and we

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must witness against rather than participate in a form of government that cannot be rendered consistent with Christian commitment to God’s universal rule and with the belief that all that we do must be motivated by love of God and neighbor. Yet, as I have sought to demonstrate in chapter 2 above, our distinction of church and state does not in fact require the denial or suppression of religious beliefs in political action and argument. Hauerwas’s negative assessment of liberal democracy is thus unwarranted (and has rather frightening implications for religious freedom). He mistakenly concludes from the fact that “our polity and politics gives no special status to any recognizably religious group” that therefore “such a policy requires that public policies be justified on grounds that are not explicitly religious.”88 As Franklin I. Gamwell has shown to the contrary, to refuse special status to a religious group or belief entails only that no religious belief can be required as the basis for political participation. It does not prohibit public debate over policies supported for religious reasons; it does not regulate the type of reasoning or language to be used in debate; and it does not ban public debate over religious beliefs (or narratives) themselves.89 Instead of leading to a rejection of these “liberal” protections of the rights of all, believers and unbelievers alike, Hauerwas’s commitment to a Christian discipleship that welcomes the stranger and risks powerlessness on behalf of and in solidarity with the poor and powerless ought to cause him to embrace the disestablishment of religion in our Bill of Rights. Also at stake in our discussion of narrative and public theology is Hauerwas’s claim that the only common ground in American liberal democracy is the belief that we need no shared story. Hauerwas’s own work on the role of narrative in forming a community would seem to question this assertion, since it has led him to insist that every polity requires some story of its history and purposes to hold it together and, all its faults and failings notwithstanding, the United States is still (at least for now) holding together. Nation-states are imagined communities with stories of their history and purpose no less than is the church, and the liberal refusal of an established religion does not prohibit, and has not prevented, the development of stories of the nation’s identity. It may be that the issue for Hauerwas is not so much that a narrative identity is impossible for a liberal nation-state, but rather that he considers national narratives and Christian narratives to be conflicting ones vying for our allegiance. He frequently suggests that Christian identity is in opposition to the identity provided by the nation-state, and indeed we are well advised to beware the insidious capacity of nation or state to assume a sacred and idolatrous authority. However, this oppositional


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stance is nuanced (if not contradicted) by Hauerwas’s acknowledgment that Christians today are members of more than one community and thus are formed by multiple stories that can and should be reinterpreted by the Christian narrative, which has our primary allegiance. These multiple narratives need not, on this view, lead to a bifurcated identity or to the watering down of one’s Christianity. One of Hauerwas’s more subtle treatments of this reality of multiple affiliation is found in his essay “A Tale of Two Stories,” where he argues that the Christian narrative provides the resources for affirming a more honest story of what it means to be a Texan, including admission of the injustices that are part of Texas history.90 If it is thus possible to adhere to the Christian narrative and to use that story to reinterpret the story of Texan identity, then it would seem that we have another option besides a clash of competing narratives: Christians (and members of other religious communities) could affirm a narratively formed national identity as interpreted by their religious narratives. If such a double-narrative is possible for Christians in Texas grappling with their local identity, then it should be possible for the rest of us on a national level: in my judgment, Hauerwas has provided no conclusive argument against the possibility or even the desirability of such stories of our nation’s history and purpose being shared among and interpreted differently by citizens according to their various religious and nonreligious commitments.91 If I am right that a pluralistic society with a secular government and a robust religious freedom can be consistent with (and perhaps at times even demanded by) Christian beliefs and values, then Hauerwas’s oppositional approach is by no means the necessary or preferred public stance for Christians. Nevertheless, we must take seriously Hauerwas’s warnings against a civil religion that invokes Christianity for the purposes of reinforcing a sense of the righteousness and even sacral character of our national community and its institutions—neither as Americans nor as Christians have we outgrown the attractions of this temptation. Yet I do not agree that our form of government is essentially corrupt, nor do I accept Hauerwas’s strategy of refusing to acknowledge the good, lest his critique be blunted. I contend instead that a nuanced criticism, recognizing our successes and our failures, is not only more responsible but also more effective than is a stance of unrelenting critique and total rejection. If we are to provide a true alternative to the adolescent tendency in American politics to identify our own group with all that is good and the opposition with all that is evil, we will be better served by more careful nuancing on all sides than by reacting against the sacralizing of American democratic institutions by demonizing them.

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THE CHRISTIAN NARRATIVE AND PUBLIC DISCOURSE: SECTARIAN OR PUBLIC CHRISTIANITY? Because of Hauerwas’s negative view of Christian involvement in public life, this oppositional stance has been termed sectarian, perhaps most famously by James Gustafson.92 In response, Hauerwas has decidedly rejected this description of his work, insisting that his position is not sectarian, because the witness of the Christian community as an alternative polity is not an expression of a lack of concern for that world but rather an indispensable political contribution to society. It is a political task and a public service, he maintains, for the church to serve the world by being faithful to its own story, welcoming the stranger, and living peaceably. Further, he argues, his rejection of universalist ethics does not rule out the possibility of evaluating the validity of the narratives on which ethical thought is based.93 While the self does not develop apart from particular communities and their narratives, Hauerwas nevertheless insists that he opposes the relativism that judges that “there is no means for deciding that one story can be preferred to another.”94 Whether one considers the term “sectarian” to be appropriate to Hauerwas’s theological ethics may finally be a matter of semantics. Gustafson’s point (and that of others who refer to a Hauerwasian approach as sectarian) is not primarily directed to whether a strategy of counter-cultural witness in opposition to public life has any effect on that public life; rather, it is the refusal of public engagement itself that is considered “sectarian” and inappropriate to the Christian tradition. Though Hauerwas’s critics do in fact question the ultimate effectiveness of a sectarian approach (as do I), most like Gustafson would consider it ‘sectarian’ even if they were persuaded that it is effective. Gustafson of course is particularly adamant that it is the very refusal to engage in public adjudication of Christian beliefs that he considers a disservice to society and to the pursuit of truth, whatever other effects it may have. What is at issue, then, is the extent to which Hauerwas’s position does or does not allow for Christian involvement in public debate (including debate about the truth of Christian beliefs). We will prescind here from further discussion of whether those alternative communities called sectarian for their refusal of involvement in public action and debate are or are not providing a valuable witness to the wider society through this withdrawal.95 To be fair to Hauerwas, he does not entirely reject Christian involvement in either public action or debate, though he is highly suspicious of any extensive engagement with either. Consistent with his emphasis on


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God’s control of history, he maintains that the priority for Christians must never be to “make America work,” presumably even when this means to make America more just, but rather to provide an alternative witness to a truly just (because theocentric) polity. Although his essays place a decided emphasis on the politics internal to the Christian community and on resisting the temptation of confusing this true politics with working for justice in the larger society, Hauerwas does acknowledge that Christians must not give up hope (even for America), and allows that we might join with non-Christians to work for greater justice as understood in Christian terms.96 We must conclude that Hauerwas favors a predominantly sectarian church that at most occasionally becomes involved in work to change a particular governmental policy, and does so only to the extent that this activism does not detract from the church’s primary witness against the legitimacy of a secular government. We find a similar ambiguity in Hauerwas’s approach to Christian involvement in public debates. Most of his work details his suspicion of public argumentation and his rejection of any attempt to defend Christian beliefs on universal principles that separate those beliefs from the narratives and practices in which they are grounded. As we saw above, he claims at times that narratives can only be interpreted through other narratives. However, in his later work Hauerwas does proffer nonnarrative criteria by which the narratives themselves can be evaluated: since narratives are practical in intention, we ought to evaluate the quality of characters a story produces and the resources it provides for living honestly, without fear of the challenges others bring or of acknowledging the shameful parts of our histories, he contends. Not unlike Metz, then, Hauerwas proposes that a narrative can be judged in terms of its capacity to transform us. This approach to the evaluation of narratives has a certain neutrality, in that it is applicable to all narratives, yet Hauerwas’s theory of the role of narrative in forming the way one perceives the world entails that neither the criteria themselves nor the understanding and application of these criteria could be narrative independent, in his view. Surely the type of character one considers desirable would be influenced by one’s “narratival” worldview, and the importance of honest acceptance of a shameful past is quite clearly rooted in the Christian emphasis on acknowledging one’s sinfulness (though a similar idea might be found in other religions and philosophies). It is difficult to deny that our stories ought to enable us to live well, but it must be borne in mind that Hauerwas has consistently maintained that any concept of what it means to live well is narrative-dependent.

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To what extent then does Hauerwas’s position genuinely allow for the possibility of debate without begging the question of the validity of the narrative at stake? There is certainly a degree of circularity here, especially evident in Hauerwas’s insistence that one must be transformed by living in accord with a truthful narrative if one is to see the truth. Nevertheless, while Hauerwas does not attempt to provide any criteria as neutral as Metz’s universalizable interest, his position need not result in a vicious or insular circularity; after all, we do not live by the resources of only one story but rather participate in multiple communities with their various, and sometimes conflicting, narratives (and, I would add, we have experiences that are not already in the form of a narrative and so can challenge the adequacy of any narrative). We thus have a wealth of resources to draw upon in determining whether any one particular narrative enables us to live well. Surprisingly, Hauerwas also acknowledges the possibility of appealing to the general human experience we are likely to share with adherents of different narratives. “Our common historical nature means it is very likely that we will find we share something in common,” he admits.97 Thus, while he consistently rejects an objective foundationalism “that has answered all questions in advance,” Hauerwas occasionally acknowledges the possibility of reflecting critically on our own and others’ narratives and arguing on behalf of narrativally based beliefs, even, if necessary, drawing on a shared human nature that is remarkably similar to the common human experience that he usually positions as the antithesis of his view! It appears that Hauerwas’s position finally allows for something very like the “bricoleur” approach developed by Jeffrey Stout, wherein the bases for discussion and defense of one’s claims are developed through finding whatever common ground is possible with one’s dialogue partner, though Hauerwas would of course warn us to be especially careful not to reduce our position to nor proceed only on the basis of these common grounds.98 Why then is Hauerwas so sharply critical of Christian involvement in the public debate of ethical and political issues? Primarily, his resistance to such public debate proceeds from his argument that Christian ethical stances cannot be fully comprehended except in relation to the totality of Christian beliefs about God, humanity, and the universe. Specific ethical positions are distorted and appear arbitrary when they are divorced from the narrative context that gives them meaning, and Hauerwas presumes that a liberal society will not admit these religious narratives into the discussion. The problem for Hauerwas is not that


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productive discourse between Christians and non-Christians, or between any adherents of different narratives, is impossible, but that he believes our public life will not allow it (a point we have responded to above).99 Like Metz, then, Hauerwas (rightly) wants to call into question some of the presuppositions of contemporary society and to do so with the content of Christian beliefs. They differ, though, in that Metz opts to introduce religious beliefs along with their ethical implications into public debate in order to challenge the limitations and distortions of modern discourse from within. Hauerwas, convinced as he is that Christian beliefs in their rich, narratival particularity cannot be included in public debate, argues instead for criticizing this inherently distorted politics from a position outside the debate. In my judgment, Hauerwas misreads what the disestablishment of religion requires. Further, his argument that a liberal society not explicitly formed by the Christian story cannot know what justice means is especially problematic; it neglects the fact that Christians too need the challenge that comes from other views and from the process of working out with others the practical implications of their beliefs in order to know what that justice is that Christianity calls us to. I submit that the freedom and diversity that are protected in our liberal society are genuinely Christian values making possible a more fully developed human life and the achievement of greater truth (even for Christians). Christians should, then, contribute to building up and correcting from within the public processes that protect this plurality, and those who hold substantive beliefs and are willing to defend them ought not to abandon the public conversation to those who lack such beliefs (even if that withdrawal might have its own sort of impact on public life).

HAUERWAS’S CONTRIBUTIONS AND CHALLENGES TO A NARRATIVE PUBLIC THEOLOGY As noted above, Hauerwas often overstates his claims for narrative, but nevertheless he is largely correct to note the importance of narrative in providing models for the development of character and in expressing historical identity and direction for the future. He reminds us especially of the importance of narratives of history and purpose for every community, a reminder that I believe (counter to his intentions) can be understood to support not withdrawal from public debate but the reconstruction of national narratives.100 Also, as T. Peter Kemp has argued as well, purposive action has a narrative structure that ought not to be ignored in

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ethical analyses.101 We do indeed decide what is worth doing on the basis (at least in part) of our ideas about the kind of people we want to be and the form of life that is worthwhile. The formative stories we receive from our communities are especially important, but our characters are not merely the passive result of the stories we are given. We play an active role in accepting, critiquing, and reshaping these narratives, as Ricoeur reminds us with his discussion of the role of fictional narratives in enabling us to experiment imaginatively with patterns of temporal behavior that we might then choose to make our own. Interestingly, despite his emphasis on narrative as the source of purposes and historical guidance, Hauerwas’s account of the Christian narrative is exceedingly vague about both our purposes and God’s in history, to the point that teleological analyses are excluded from his virtue approach to ethics. Indeed, Hauerwas’s account of our “purpose” in history is decidedly antiteleological, since Christians are to exemplify virtues rather than strive to achieve a goal in history. There is some tension, though, between this rejection of teleological ethics and his retrieval of narrative in ethics, since as Hauerwas admits, narrative reveals the “purposive relation between temporally discrete realities.”102 The importance of witness ought not be slighted, of course, and Hauerwas offers valuable insight into the attitudes that Christians should embody in community life. Nevertheless, this refusal to consider the goals we ought to pursue and this distrust of public debate are in conflict with the public theology I advocate. It should also be noted that, while Hauerwas’s argument for the necessity of narrative as the basis of communal identity and purpose is insightful, his presumption of the importance of a single, agreed-upon narrative is unpersuasive. Certainly there is no single Christian narrative, and attempts at constructing a unifying narrative out of the various biblical texts will surely result in no fewer narratives than the number of systematic theologies that result from attempts at unifying systems of doctrine. (In other words, we can expect about as many different accounts as there are theologians). This is not to say that these will be entirely contradictory versions of Christian faith or that we cannot judge between them; it should, however, remind us that talk of the Christian narrative refers to an unrealized and unrealizable ideal. Whether we are concerned with the public realm or with the church, the important question in my judgment is not whether there is a single common narrative, but rather whether there is enough commonality among the various narratives of our shared life to contribute to a sense of a shared tradition and to facilitate productive debates.


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A Public Narrative Theology: Ronald Thiemann THIEMANN’S ARGUMENT FOR A PUBLIC THEOLOGY Ronald Thiemann shares much of Stanley Hauerwas’s intellectual heritage and narrative approach to theology, yet Thiemann develops a considerably more positive view of the potential for Christian involvement in U.S. public life. Indeed, Thiemann calls explicitly for a public theology in which Christians are actively involved in discussions of public policy and in discernment of the common good of our society while remaining rooted in the specific narratives of the Christian tradition. Like Hauerwas, Thiemann rejects a liberal theology that sacrifices the distinctiveness of the Christian perspective, but like Metz he refuses to support a withdrawal from public debate. Thiemann’s work is thus of special interest to us, insofar as it seeks an alternative to the usual strategies of either accommodation or withdrawal and does so on the basis of a theological approach similar to that of Hauerwas in its attention to narrative (yet without Hauerwas’s suspicion of public discourse). Thiemann’s argument for the necessity of a public theology is in part based on his understanding of Christian faith as a practice with sociopolitical implications, from which he concludes that theologians ought to assist Christians in discerning the demands of faith in their particular sociopolitical contexts. Christian praxis cannot be limited to the witness lived within the church and the home, because in Thiemann’s view it includes a responsibility to assist in the transformation of all of society as well (and not only to witness against our failures as a society).103 He raises an important point here: if our witness is not merely a judgment against the nation but is intended (and in some way able) to influence our polity for the better, as Hauerwas maintains, then should we not also be involved in specifying the changes that would be appropriate responses to this witness and that would result in greater justice? To be sure, Hauerwas recognizes the sociopolitical implications of Christian faith, but, as we have seen, he fears that the further project of finding common ground for public discourse about our political positions will compromise the specificity of the Christian perspective. Thiemann, on the other hand, seeks to contribute a Christian voice that maintains its specificity even when entering the public conversation. Thiemann argues that strategies of withdrawal into the (relatively) homogeneous community of the church, however tempting, “fail to do justice to the complexity of the Christian gospel [and] . . . fail to recognize the enduring presence of God’s creative hand in the public realm.”104 For Thiemann, God’s

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active presence outside of the church, as well as the inherently political demands of a faith that calls us to seek God’s will in all things, provide warrants for a Christian public theology.105 Thiemann’s argument for public theology is further developed through his analyses of the difficulties facing U.S. public life today. He agrees (to a point) with Hauerwas’s assessment that contemporary liberal political theory leads to a public life of self-interested groups in continuous battle, insofar as questions about the good are not admitted into public discourse.106 The communitarian alternative has a more accurate view of the importance of communal traditions in forming the self and in providing concepts of the good, in Thiemann’s view, but communitarianism fails adequately to appreciate the value of pluralism and the importance of liberty, equality, and toleration in the liberal tradition. Indeed, Thiemann argues, the communitarian recovery of communal traditions supports a homogeneous society, which he rejects. “As long as contemporary communitarians fail to address the exclusionary and bellicose qualities of the republican tradition, their position will appear unacceptable for a pluralist society such as ours,” he insists.107 Common to both political liberalism and to communitarianism, in Thiemann’s insightful critique, is the mistaken assumption that divergent concepts of morality are incommensurable and thus cannot be resolved through public debate. In the liberal privatization of concepts of the good, as well as in the communitarian strategy of withdrawal into likeminded communities, Thiemann sees a despair of the possibility of moral persuasion, a despair that leaves us with only manipulation and coercion as means to achieve our political goals.108 Further, since the traditions and practices of particular communities are the necessary resources for training in virtue, there must be a place in public life for such communal traditions; otherwise, the public realm will be devoid of virtuous people, and virtues will have no public role. What is needed, Thiemann concludes, is a “revised liberalism” that recognizes the values of liberty, equality, and toleration in a pluralist society, while also acknowledging the public importance of communal traditions in providing concepts of the good and in producing people of virtue. This revised liberalism must encourage the development of communities of moral vision (without officially supporting the dominance of any one such community or morality), and it must articulate the grounds on which public debate among the various concepts of the good life can occur.109 In Thiemann’s view, then, public theology is consistent with and furthers this project of revised liberalism, insofar as public theology seeks to participate in a pluralistic public conversation to which it adds its distinct


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voice, engaging in a debate that it neither establishes the parameters of nor withdraws from. More specifically, Thiemann argues, a public Christian theology must speak out of the resources of the Christian tradition (especially its narratives), provide analyses of public policies from a Christian perspective, and make the structure and logic of its reasoning available for public inspection.110

WHY NARRATIVE IN THIS PUBLIC THEOLOGY? Thiemann’s emphasis on narrative follows from his understanding of theology as a descriptive practice that “displays the logic inherent in Christian beliefs and practices.” This descriptive theology, he believes, should replace the no longer credible attempts to provide a “theoretical” or foundationalist account of the meaning and truth of Christian beliefs.111 Like Karl Barth, he rejects a Schleiermacherian “eternal covenant,” whether that eternal covenant is a peace accord between Christian faith and independent scientific inquiry (as Schleiermacher advocated) or between Christian faith and some other form of culture, politics, or philosophy in terms of which Christianity is thought to be best comprehended. It is not the case, Thiemann insists, that either he or Barth affirms a disjunction between Christianity and “the world” (such a position would scarcely further the project of public theology), but rather that the relation between church and world is understood to be so “endlessly fascinating and complex” that “no single systematic scheme could possibly encompass the variety of relations.”112 What is needed, then, is not an eternal covenant but “ad hoc alliances” between theology and the various forms of human thought and imagination through which we strive to understand the gospel; these alliances must remain ad hoc, in Thiemann’s view, so that the priority of God’s gracious act of revelation and the complexity of its relation to human constructs are preserved. While Thiemann rejects a Hauerwasian withdrawal from public conversation, he thus agrees with Hauerwas in taking issue with those theologians who attempt to establish common ground for public debate on the basis of some ‘neutral’ conceptual system and in doing so lose the “distinctive substance and prophetic ‘bite’ of the Christian witness.”113 Any cultural resources or philosophical theories employed by theology “must always be used in a way that allows the distinctive logic of the Christian gospel to guide and shape that use,” he insists.114 Thiemann is particularly critical of apologetic theologies that defend Christian faith through foundationalist arguments, since (again in agreement with Hauerwas) he

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understands foundationalism to be the inherently flawed project of deriving the justification of a system of beliefs from some certain, universally valid premise. No such certain premise is humanly available, Thiemann maintains. Thus, rather than seeking to ground a defense of Christian faith in a premise that all ought to accept, we should recognize the historical embeddedness of all human thought and acknowledge that our beliefs make sense only as part of “a textured web of beliefs.” If we take this approach, he argues, we can participate in truly pluralistic conversations, contributing our specific insights without dismissing in advance those positions that do not cohere with our foundational premises.115 Narrative plays a significant role in Thiemann’s descriptive approach to theology, since he holds that an emphasis on narrative allows theology to remain engaged with the formative texts, beliefs, and practices of the Christian community (and especially with belief in God’s prevenience) rather than seeking an illusory, universal basis for Christianity. Like Hauerwas, Thiemann maintains that narrative deserves primacy in theology because it is “a predominant literary category within the Bible,” and one that allows us to construct an account of the unity of canon.116 To be sure, nonnarrative systematic theologies have also provided construals of the unity of Christian beliefs and practices, but in Thiemann’s view only a narrative approach is able to avoid basing that unity on some version of the Schleiermacherian eternal covenant that, as we have seen, Thiemann believes risks an unacceptably accommodationist distortion of our theology and even the loss of God’s prevenience. He also defends the importance of narrative in enabling theology to contribute to the development of Christian identity and practice on the grounds that narrative organizes the historical experiences of the Christian community and provides models of Christian character and behavior. As Thiemann argues, “narrative becomes the key category, because its structure incorporates temporality in the element of plot and assists the formation of selves in the element of character.”117 Given his insistence that the task of theology is primarily to clarify the identity and practices of the Christian community, Thiemann’s argument for the theological centrality of narrative rather than a philosophical system makes good sense. It is true that the questions “Who am I?” and “Who am I to become?” can be answered through narratives in a manner directly relevant to the development of Christian praxis, whereas in Thiemann’s view the questions of foundationalist theologies (including the transcendental one, “How is this possible?”) do not affect action or behavior.118 Indeed, Thiemann argues that a foundationalist attempt to construct a universally valid basis for Christian praxis is so far removed


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from the specific contexts of action that it is finally unhelpful to it, while a narrative approach remains closely tied to Christian praxis and to its biblical basis. He is certainly right that questions of character development are directly related to praxis and that narrative plays an important role here, even if his claim that transcendental reflection is irrelevant to praxis is unpersuasive. (Metz’s fundamental practical theology, as we have seen, includes a transcendental reflection on the conditions for the possibility of meaningful historical action that in my view is not at all irrelevant to the formation of a more faithful Christian praxis.) We should further note that Thiemann is arguing not only for analyses of biblical narratives, but also for the narratival construal of the canon as a whole and, even broader, of the history and experience of the Christian community.119 “If Christianity is a community with a discernible identity, then there must be a story that depicts that identity,” Thiemann argues. This narrative of Christian identity is not identical to a narrative unifying the canon because, as he observes, the church’s history and experiences beyond the time of the Bible are part of this narrative identity. Nevertheless, “the grand narrative configuration of scripture is a key part of the overarching Christian story,” Thiemann maintains.120 Thiemann is not naïve about the difficulties inherent in discerning and developing such unifying narratives, whether of the biblical canon (with its various texts) or of the church (with its ongoing complex history and identity). The discordance among the biblical texts and in Christian experience cannot be easily reconciled, Thiemann admits, and, in any case, the story of the Christian community cannot be known completely until it reaches its telos. Still, he argues that unifying narratives are possible because narrative allows and even requires discordance within the concordance; as Ricoeur also contends, a narrative is properly a discordant concordance that brings the disparate events into a unity that gives meaning and order to the whole. No overarching narrative will be the final word, of course: “no single interpretation can ever claim to have discerned the Christian narrative, but all strive to be faithful expressions of it,” telling in part what can only be told in full when we reach the awaited end.121 Thiemann does not offer us a version of this unifying narrative, though he provides insightful analyses of particular narratives within the Bible. Nevertheless, he does give us some clues as to how he might construe this plot: in his work on revelation, he identifies “narrated promise” as the primary concept for interpreting the biblical texts. Promise, he argues, allows for an affirmation of God’s agency and prevenience and thus provides the basis for a coherent account of revelation (as initiated

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by God yet received by the faithful).122 This concept of narrated promise certainly has a teleological dimension (a promise, after all, implies a future fulfillment), and involves a restoration to sinners of their proper relationship to God. Those who truly receive this promise, Thiemann further argues, must manifest “a life of discipleship which reflects God’s sacrificial and self-giving love” in “mission and ministry to the world.”123 Perhaps because this theme of Christian faith as an historical praxis of justice is even more prominent in his later work, Thiemann there uses the (I believe) more fertile and helpful concept of “covenant,” which allows for an active human response to this freely bestowed relationship, in place of his earlier focus on a promise that binds God but (counter to Thiemann’s intentions) might suggest a passive role for humans in history.124

THIEMANN’S PROPOSAL FOR A THEOLOGICAL METHOD Continuing his insistence on the priority of God’s initiatory activity, Thiemann argues for a theological method in which the standard hermeneutical procedures are “reversed” when we deal with the Bible (which presents that divine initiative). Whereas context usually governs the interpretation of a text, he explains, the content of the Bible is such that, if its claim that God is here offering salvation is accepted, then that content determines the response: the reader thus interprets his or her life in terms of the Bible, rather than the reverse. “Indeed,” he argues, “the Christian can claim that God in his grace creates the responding faith and thus creates the interlocutionary situation.”125 In a manner similar to Hauerwas’s view that we are formed by the story of the Bible, Thiemann is here insisting that the Bible should interpret us more than we interpret the Bible. Nevertheless, human imagination and creativity play an important role in this process, since the “content” cannot be merely given by the Bible if we must construct the unifying narrative (which we do in what Thiemann describes as an act of interpretation risked to provide guidance to Christian belief and action).126 Thiemann also acknowledges the necessity of the creative use of philosophy and other cultural resources in understanding the meaning of Biblical texts, but as we have seen, he argues that such explanatory theories must be used in an “ad hoc” rather than systematic manner, precisely to avoid the situation wherein these theories so govern the interpretation of the Bible that we fit the Bible into our way of seeing the world rather than allowing the Bible to form our perspective. His point is not that human creativity in interpreting the Bible is inappropriate or unnecessary, then,


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but rather that such interpretations must be undertaken in submission to the specific logic of the biblical texts and the challenges these texts pose to our usual estimation of ourselves and our world.127 I am not persuaded by this claim that the hermeneutical process appropriate to the Bible is a reversal of the hermeneutical procedures articulated by Hans-Georg Gadamer. The reader’s context is, to be sure, an important element in the process of interpretation as described by Gadamer, but any successful interpretation involves a “fusion of horizons,” such that the reader’s context (or horizon) is expanded by encountering the point of view of the text. Interpretation is thus a dialectical process in which one both interprets the text and submits to its interpretation of oneself; while either side of the dialectic might take precedence in a particular instance, in no case is interpretation properly understood as a unilateral process of subsuming the text into the constraints of one’s prior context.128 Both Gadamer and Thiemann, then, acknowledge the power of the text to provide a new context as well as the necessity for a creative contribution from the reader in order to render a sensible interpretation. Since interpretation is never a one-way process, Thiemann is not, in my judgment, reversing the standard hermeneutical procedures but rather granting priority to one side (the biblical texts) in providing a new world for the reader, on the reasonable grounds that the Bible properly claims precedence in forming our understanding of ourselves and the world. This is a change of emphasis, perhaps, but not a reversal of hermeneutics as understood by Gadamer (or by Ricoeur, for that matter).129 I also find unpersuasive Thiemann’s appeal to the priority of the Bible and to the distinctiveness of Christianity as grounds for rejecting systematic engagement with the explanatory theories of contemporary philosophy and culture. To be sure, Thiemann is right to insist that any use of philosophical, literary, or other cultural theories must not reduce Christian faith to the terms of the theory being used, but I am not persuaded that systematic argumentation is necessarily so reductive. There is no logically necessary reason that a systematic account, if used, must be adopted as an “eternal covenant” to be followed in every detail, even when it shows itself unable to account adequately for aspects of Christian texts, traditions, or experiences. Rather, a systematic inquiry (as with ad hoc explanations) can and should be evaluated and revised, supplemented, or rejected, insofar as its limitations distort rather than deepen our understanding of Christianity. Similarly, in my judgment Thiemann makes the same mistake in rejecting transcendental analyses as “foundationalist” that Hauerwas makes in his argument against universalist ethics. In neither case must the

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initial premise claim the self-evident certainty that Hauerwas and Thiemann believe it does. To the contrary, it need only be a premise that we currently have good reasons for accepting or (at least) have no good reason for doubting, and one that grounds an analysis illuminating our situation. (Alternatively, the premise might be shown to have implications such that we determine that the cost of rejecting that premise is too high to be undertaken lightly.) In my judgment, arguments based on such premises invite dispute and revision on every point and can be developed with as much awareness of their historical particularity as can “ad hoc” arguments.130 We must ask then to what extent Thiemann’s argument for the role of narrative in theology is successful. Much of his rationale for narrative depends on his defense of a descriptive theology in place of the theoretical explanations of Christian belief that he argues are neither appropriate to Christian faith nor intellectually credible. Narrative plays a significant role in this descriptive theology not only because of the importance of the biblical narratives, then, but also because attention to narrative allows theologians to explore Christianity in a manner that is appropriate to the historical and particular nature of Christian identity and practice. If, as I have argued, Thiemann’s rejection of systematic arguments cannot be sustained, then certainly such a descriptive and narrative-based theology, though important, is not the only option. Nor must a theology focusing on issues of praxis dismiss other theoretical questions, such as transcendental ones about the conditions for the possibility of that faith and practice (as Metz’s work demonstrates). Close attention to narrative can nevertheless be maintained as a valuable resource for theology (though not the only theological method) for many of the reasons Thiemann provides. Narrative deserves attention as the genre of some (though by no means all) important biblical texts, and as the genre particularly useful for expressing temporal hopes and actions. Further, a unified account of the temporal dimensions of the faith and identity of the Christian church does seem to require some more encompassing narrative of the church’s historical experience and hope. It is no accident, I suspect, that each of our three narrative theologians at some point tends toward a single Christian narrative of the direction of history, since the ultimate unity of humanity and history is implied in our concept of God, however much that unity finally exceeds any narrative construals. Especially insofar as public theologians intend to address the practical demands of Christian faith for action in history, we would do well to attend to the narratives (explicit and implicit) in Christian Scriptures, worship, and tradition, as Thiemann has argued.


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THICK DESCRIPTIONS AND PUBLIC DEBATE If a public theologian ought then to attend to the narratives that are integral to the faith-practices of the Christian community, he or she must also relate these narratives to the specific and publicly accessible political judgments necessary to a public theology. As Thiemann rightly insists, a general affirmation of the Christian commitment to justice, or vague condemnations of social injustice, are not enough: noting that “we have enough prophets who fire their moral broadsides against the evils of our society,” he argues that theological judgments must include positions on specific policies developed through careful analyses of the social and political situation.131 Thiemann therefore proposes a method for this narrative public theology that involves the development of thick descriptions both of Christian faith and of the social and cultural contexts of the public policies.132 On the basis of such thick descriptions, he maintains, we will be able to develop specific policy judgments and to seek points of connection between Christianity and the broader public culture as the basis for arguments rooted in Christian faith and yet persuasive to a wider public. Thus, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Thiemann finds “the bold assertion that the neighbor is the stranger who is in need of care.” This then provides a point of connection with the values of fairness and concern for the vulnerable that he believes underlies the democratic tradition of equality and mutual respect.133 Thiemann further contends that such common ground between Christianity and our public culture of democracy could be appealed to in public debates, as for example, that involving universal medical insurance: a Christian could argue publicly for ensuring that those most vulnerable have access to the medical treatment they need, and this argument need not be defended in specifically Christian terms but could also proceed through invoking (without undue accommodation!) the commonly shared values of equality and mutual respect. That there is a narrative dimension to the thick description of Christianity follows from Thiemann’s argument for the importance of narrative in rendering Christian faith and practice as historical realities; any description of Christianity, it would seem, must then attend to these narratives. However, if (as I have argued) a narratival analysis is also required for the thick descriptions of the American cultural context as well, Thiemann does not adequately explore this, even though he does at one point mention the existence of an American narrative that has been found lacking and is being continually rewritten.134 As Thiemann describes his

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method for public theology, the thick descriptions of American culture that we must engage involve a broad range of sociological and cultural analyses, but not specifically narratival accounts. While I agree that a variety of strategies and approaches will be necessary to describe American culture, I would insist that more attention be given to the temporality of American identity and hopes as well as to the narratives that might express these. One might also question Thiemann’s confidence in the existence of commonality between church and public culture, as Hauerwas surely would. I would argue to the contrary that Thiemann strikes just the right note here: though one cannot know in advance where or to what extent this commonality will be found, Thiemann rightly reminds us that the ability to recognize differences requires that there be some point of connection. His project of discerning an overlapping value consensus serves to strengthen any common grounds that do exist between Christians and others in our society, as well as to provide a basis for political judgments that are intrinsically Christian yet defensible in terms acceptable to nonChristians in the public sphere. Nevertheless, Christian political judgments need not proceed only from those values common to Christianity and to the rest of society: we might at times find it necessary to critique society on the basis of Christian values that are in conflict with contemporary values, as Thiemann acknowledges.135 Although persuasion finally depends on finding some common ground from which to argue, we must attend also to those points of conflict, so that the resources of the Christian tradition are allowed to challenge the values of our society (and vice versa!).136 Still, where the common ground is sufficient, our theological judgments on public policy may be formulated either in traditionally Christian or in secular terminology; this decision of which language to use must be a pragmatic and situation-specific one, Thiemann argues, provided of course that any secular formulations proffered as public theology have genuinely Christian warrants as well.137 The difference between Thiemann’s theological position and that of Stanley Hauerwas is perhaps nowhere clearer than here, in Thiemann’s allowance of the use of commonly held values as the basis for theological argument in the public realm. Hauerwas, as we have seen, emphasizes the danger of such an approach, in that it divorces our ethical positions from the Christian narratives in which they are grounded and thus can provide only a distorted account of those practices. The narrative basis of our ethical judgments is not a merely accidental context to be discarded once the ethics are comprehended, Hauerwas insists, but is instead integral to the understanding of Christian ethics.


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Hauerwas is, of course, right to remind us that the language we use makes a considerable difference in the meaning of the ideas expressed, and we ought indeed to take care not lightly to discard aspects of Christianity that do not fit within the parameters of the current wisdom of the world. Nevertheless, in my judgment Thiemann does not unduly jeopardize the authenticity of Christianity by remaining open to the use of a variety of terms, images, and concepts in the defense of Christian positions in public debate, especially as these positions are to be developed on the basis of a careful study of the web of Christian beliefs and practices. This variety is not only helpful for finding common grounds in public debate, but also for internal Christian conversations about the meaning of Christian faith. There is, after all, no single Christian ‘language,’ and while the different languages, theories, and traditions used in the exploration and articulation of Christian beliefs and practices do indeed influence the resulting interpretation of Christian faith, they also make it possible for us to grasp different aspects of this complex faith.138 Thiemann is also right, I believe, to allow other experiences and understandings, even ones developed outside of the Christian community, to challenge our Christian perspective. This openness to true dialogue more accurately reflects the real development of understanding that occurs in Christian thought and practice over time than does the refusal to submit to external critique. Regardless of whether secular or specifically Christian terms and images are used to express our judgments on public policy, however, Thiemann’s understanding of public life requires that these political judgments on public policy be publicly accessible and debatable. When a judgment is defended in terms of values Christians share with the broader community, then the Christian warrants for that judgment need not enter public debate (and may remain of interest primarily to the Christian community as a clarification of its own beliefs and practices). Yet, if we are to engage in public conversation from the perspective of our particular traditions, as Thiemann has argued we must, then at times our fundamental religious beliefs may be involved and at stake in public conversations. If religion is truly relevant to public policy (as I argued in chapter 2 above), then it follows that our religious differences will occasionally lead to political differences that cannot be resolved (or even elucidated) without attending to the underlying religious disagreement. This of course is the point at which it is often presumed that the inclusion of religious beliefs in public life results in the breakdown of public debate. After all, religious beliefs are generally presumed to be impervious to rational adjudication, a position that some narrative

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theologians lend support to with their insistence that religions are narratival frameworks that can be evaluated only from a standpoint within the framework.139 Thiemann parts company with this strand of public theology, however, since he argues to the contrary that religious beliefs are neither publicly inaccessible nor logically incorrigible. To be sure, he rejects foundationalist or “objective” grounds for such public adjudication, supporting instead a holistic evaluation of beliefs in relation to the web of supporting beliefs and practices in which they make sense. Even though particular religious beliefs are not, then, defended on the basis of universally accepted (and presumably neutral) premises, he argues nonetheless that a public form of adjudication is possible, insofar as the web of beliefs and practices that comprise a religious tradition is publicly accessible and is sufficiently similar to other perspectives that it can be recognized in its differences.140 Because Christian narrative, ritual, and tradition are available for public inspection, Christian beliefs are not “private,” then, but can be evaluated by anyone inclined to explore the texts and practices central to Christianity. Thiemann further develops his account of the public character of religious beliefs through an exploration of the “norms of plausibility” that he believes all public arguments ought to follow. Insofar as public life depends on commitment to the common good and the willingness to engage in public debate, it follows in his view that those arguments that would claim the right to serious public scrutiny must satisfy the following three norms: 1) the norm of public accessibility (they must be open to evaluation by all); 2) the norm of mutual respect (they must embody respect for opposing parties and their positions); and 3) the norm of moral integrity (they must show consistency of principles). Arguments that meet these norms may not be persuasive to all, but they do foster greater mutual understanding and contribute to a general culture of working together to find reasoned solutions to disagreements; thus, they provide an alternative to the suspicion and manipulation that will rule the public interactions of people who have given up on trying to understand their differences. Since religious arguments can meet these norms of plausibility, Thiemann concludes, they need not be feared as irrational or disrespectful disruptions of public life.141 (One might also argue that these norms are themselves an example of the overlapping consensus between Christianity and public life, since the importance of public accessibility, mutual respect, and moral integrity can also be defended on Christian grounds. We could then accept these norms of debate for fully Christian reasons as well as in order to comply with the demands of the public sphere.)


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In his work on the doctrine of revelation, Thiemann provides further clarification of the grounds on which religious beliefs can be publicly evaluated. He proffers three specific criteria: 1) the intelligibility of a religious belief (or theological claim), 2) its aptness to the Christian tradition, and 3) its warranted assertability.142 These first two criteria are concerned with the belief’s relation to Christian faith as a whole and are not unlike the implicit criteria in many of Hauerwas’s essays. To meet the criterion of “intelligible,” Thiemann argues, a belief must be conceptually coherent and consistent with the other beliefs in “the conviction set,” whereas to be apt to the Christian tradition it must be derived from a plausible interpretation of Scripture. Although Thiemann understands theology to be a form of reflection undertaken by committed believers, discerning whether these first two criteria are met is surely also a public endeavor: since, as he argues, Christian texts and traditions are open to public inspection, one need not be Christian (though one must be well versed in the Christian tradition) to evaluate whether a particular theological claim can be intelligibly stated, does not contradict other important Christian beliefs, and is a plausible interpretation of the Christian Scriptures. While these first two criteria primarily address a claim’s “appropriateness to the Christian tradition,” the third criterion (warranted assertability) has interesting similarities to and differences from Schubert Ogden’s other requirement that theological interpretation be adequate to human experience. Like Ogden, Thiemann holds that one is warranted in asserting the truth of a belief if one is able to give plausible reasons for it based on the full range of one’s experiences. Thiemann demonstrates the application of this criteria in his argument that we are warranted in trusting in God’s promises because God is portrayed in Scripture as trustworthy (which, of course, begs the question of the validity of Scripture and is of limited use in public debate), but also because there is evidence in the world that God is trustworthy (a more plausibly public ground of argument, even if agreement will not easily be reached).143 There is, of course, no neutral or objective stance from which to evaluate such arguments; as Thiemann insists, how one interprets the evidence is already influenced by one’s beliefs about God. This is where he intends to separate himself from Ogden and from “foundationalist” appeals to common human experience. Thiemann considers it important to emphasize that we think always from within our web of beliefs, so a belief cannot be evaluated independently of other beliefs one holds, even when one appeals to external evidence (since that evidence is interpreted in light of one’s beliefs). No final and definitive argument is possible, here; there is instead the ongoing process of evaluating one’s own (and

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others’) system of beliefs as a credible (though not the only justifiable) interpretation of human experience, a process that might nevertheless result in a change of position despite the impossibility of a neutral starting point. These standards of evaluation could be described as logically “weak,” insofar as they do not compel assent, yet they serve Thiemann’s purpose of demonstrating that public debate is nonetheless possible without our requiring perfect neutrality in the participants or presuming that beliefs are comprehensible apart from a larger context.

Oppositional or Publicly Engaged Narrative Theology? A Comparison of Hauerwas and Thiemann Despite their common understandings of the theological importance of narrative, Thiemann and Hauerwas thus proffer very different theologies of public life. They agree in attending to narrative as the genre of major biblical texts and also as the genre that orients us historically; for this reason they both support some kind of overarching narrative of Christian identity in and hope for history. However, as we have seen, their positions diverge greatly with regard to the nature of Christians’ public responsibility and the possibility of public argumentation. Hauerwas would have our participation in public life be at best “ad hoc” because he holds that Christians’ greatest contribution is to be a witnessing community in opposition to the presuppositions of public life, and he fears that public terms of argument will distort Christian faith. Though he affirms the importance of welcoming the stranger, and claims that Christians are able to do so because our confidence is in God, the force of his argument resists an openness to the other that would allow that other to challenge our own narrative account of ourselves and our world. Thiemann, on the other hand, argues that public responsibility is integral to Christian faith (since those whom God freely justifies are called to do justice). He suggests then that our welcome of the stranger includes being vulnerable to alternative perspectives that might challenge and even change our views.144 Another perspective on the differences between Hauerwas and Thiemann can be gained from considering how each would respond to the dilemma that either Christians have nothing distinct to add to the public conversation or their distinct viewpoint is only comprehensible to the Christian community. Hauerwas takes the side of protecting Christianity’s distinct contribution, even to the point of embracing its inability to be heard in public life, as this provides a witness against our public secularity.


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Thiemann’s approach, on the other hand, rightly suggests that this is a false dilemma since the capacity to recognize differences indicates that some grounds of similarity do exist such that distinct alternatives can be understood (even if not readily accepted). Thiemann’s approach seeks then to identify the similarity-in-difference, so that the discussion moves forward with the consideration of new ideas, provided that Christian strategies of argumentation remain ad hoc and secular concepts are not given precedence in explaining Christian faith.145 Public debate, in this view, can proceed through appeal to commonly held values where these exist, but can also include highly particular (and even religious) beliefs, as long as those beliefs are open to public scrutiny. Conversation partners may be persuaded by the power of a whole web of beliefs, may find they share enough common ground to establish a basis for agreement on policies, or may simply come to understand each other better, but in no case is it necessary in Thiemann’s view either to presume the public inadmissibility of one’s deepest commitments or to proffer ethical judgments divorced from the set of beliefs that ground their plausibility.

Conclusion: Towards a Narrative Public Theology The Importance of Narrative in Christian Theology Our exploration of theories of narrative in chapter 3 above sought to demonstrate that narrative is indeed a privileged mode of discourse for understanding history, for rendering historically particular identities, and for providing models for the development of character and habits. It follows, then, that Metz, Hauerwas, and Thiemann are on solid ground and are doing valuable work in reminding us that attention to the narratives of Christian communities is an important theological task. As each of the three theologians discussed in this chapter in one way or another affirms, narrative is the genre of significant biblical texts as well as the form through which the historically particular dimensions of identity and praxis are conveyed, and as such ought to be given considerable theological attention. An emphasis on narrative in theology ought not, however, lead to a disregard for the non-narrative biblical texts nor elide the differences among the narratives in the Bible. The too easy claim that narrative is the form of the “major” biblical texts unjustifiably dismisses the claim to our attention of other biblical genres. There is also a tendency in North

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American narrative-oriented theologies to pass too quickly from attention to narrative as a biblical genre to the presumption of a (usually implicit) single, unifying Christian narrative. While it is certainly consistent with the Christian tradition to hold that Christian faith provides a coherent account of human existence in history, the articulation of any unifying narrative is no simple matter, as Thiemann warns us. Further, such an overarching narrative resembles the salvation history approach that is arguably no longer tenable. There is, after all, no single, stable, grand plot “in or above or below the text,” of the Bible, nor is the idea of a linear progressive history easily defensible in the twentieth century (and, as Metz would argue, a progressive history is not consistent with our hope for history’s victims and for all the dead).146 It would be ironic indeed if these narrative theologians reject philosophical foundationalism as incredible to the postmodern consciousness only to turn instead to a grand historical narrative that many would consider equally untenable. Narrative theologies (and indeed all theologies concerned with the temporal dimensions of Christian faith) cannot in my judgment avoid grappling with this inherent tension between our hope in God and the messiness of human history. On the one hand, a single narrative is a necessary ideal (at least implicitly) for theists, as is suggested in Karl Rahner’s insight that the word “God” in itself raises the question of the unity of being, or in Metz’s argument that our hope is a hope for all of humanity.147 Certainly the tendency towards a unifying narrative evinces the Christian belief that God’s purpose for history includes all of humanity and, as Joseph Colombo has pointed out, “a theology of (universal) history is the implied horizon of political theology.”148 On the other hand, a linear and progressive narrative of history is no longer credible, as Peter Hodgson (among others) argues. History must always be interpreted, so any account of it will be partial and context-dependent, and, in any case, no clear and stable advances toward a final culmination of history can be identified. “All historical shapes are dissolved and replaced in the flux of time, and someday both human and cosmic history as we know it will come to an end,” Hodgson further observes.149 Of course, we must also beware the relativization of all historical projects to the point at which “nothing is known, believed, or acted upon”; the declaration of the “end of history” entails an end to serious political commitment as well, since political action is not easily sustained without worthwhile historical purposes.150 Rather than surrender concern with God’s purposes for and presence in history, then, Hodgson rightly suggests that what we need is a theology of history that discerns “shapes of freedom”; although we cannot narrate a linear progress toward our goal of fully realized freedom,


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the project of increasing human freedom is for Christians a nonarbitrary historical purpose. We need not give up our hope for history, even if we must acknowledge, as Hodgson aptly notes, “the plot of God’s saving presence in history is more complex than once we thought. The story is labyrinthine and unfinished: we are in the midst of it, all of our constructions are fragmentary and ambiguous.”151 To what extent, we might then ask, do Metz, Hauerwas, and Thiemann succeed in developing a narrative approach to God’s purposes that steers between the Scylla of too much confidence and the Charybdis of too little confidence in the direction of history, both of which extremes undermine a responsible historical praxis? Metz is probably closest of the three to Hodgson’s position of attending to the many shapes of history, since Metz argues that our hope for history must be specified through the multiple stories of our lives and sufferings and, as a hope especially for the victims of history, it can never be narrated as a progressive history of victors. If not carefully nuanced, however, Metz’s emphasis on interruption and imminent expectation may counteract the very meaning for our actions in history that he intends to secure, since a kingdom that may come at any moment is not, in the final analysis, dependent upon human praxis. We need to hope for more than humans can achieve or even imagine, while also affirming that our praxis makes a real and valuable contribution to the achievement of that hope. Where Metz stresses an interruptive hope for history despite history, Hauerwas, on the other hand, is rather too certain that there is a coherent Christian story of God’s control of history, a story that releases us from concerns with the effects of our actions. This refusal of responsibility may be based on the hope that things will not get worse or perhaps on despair of any real improvement; however, in either case I do not find it consistent with Christian doctrines of sin and grace or with our experiences of real change (for the better and for the worse) in history. Thiemann, though his position on this lacks detail, manages to balance his hope for a single narrative (at least of the Christian community if not of history itself) with an awareness that this unifying narrative can only be constructed through risking what will inevitably be partial and distorted interpretations of God’s actions in and purposes for history. Thiemann also maintains that any such narrative must be open to the challenges of public debate, which might correct some of its limitations and distortions. While I agree with Thiemann that we need to risk constructing and publicly debating a narrative of our hope for history, I would argue that we must also attend to the potential for conflict between Christianity and the secular culture (as Hauerwas does) and to

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the suffering that yearns for an interruption of history (as Metz does), lest our narrative become the complacent story of history’s winners rather than an inspiration to secure justice for the weak and vulnerable. Awareness of problems of overly simplistic “salvation histories” ought not prevent us from attempting to comprehend a purpose for history as a whole, but it should inspire more nuanced narratives developed with an awareness of their contextuality and their inability to represent in full the nonlinear historical movements toward that goal. In giving narrative its due, we must also, of course, avoid overstating the case for narrative. Narrative is important in some theological sources and deserves serious attention, but not all of our sources (or even Christian faith as a whole) is narrative in form. If we intend to work closely with the Gospels (and other biblical narratives), develop a theology of history, or address the development of models of character and historical praxis, we would do well to attend to the specific characteristics of the genre of narrative and to its resources for understanding temporality and imaginatively exploring possible actions and modes of being. Nevertheless, the arguments for narrative theologies considered here fail to demonstrate that there are no other concerns proper to theology, or that all human thought is inherently narratival. There are indeed other questions theologians ought to pursue, and these may well require forms of analysis that are not directly concerned with narrative. This defense of narrative as only one among many ways of doing theology departs from the approach of North American narrative theologians, not only because it leaves open the possibility of systematic approaches that pursue theological inquiry through “borrowed” theories, but also and especially because my defense of narrative is predicated upon just such a borrowed form of analysis. Indeed, I began with a discussion of philosophical theories of narrative in chapters 2 and 3 before turning to theological arguments for narrative in this fourth chapter, and (worse) I use the former to defend the latter. Thiemann in particular explicitly rejects approaching narrative as a general category of human experience rather than as a genre of the Bible that happens also to be especially suited to unifying the canon on its own terms.152 Yet even Thiemann attends to narrative’s ability to render certain aspects of human experience (especially temporality, agency, and identity) as part of his explanation of the theological significance of narrative. Insofar as narrative is a genre able to construe human experience in distinct ways, I see no reason why it should not be discussed as such in our narrative theologies, which I believe will be enriched by this attention to our best human insights into how narratives function. To my mind, the important question is not the order in which an


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argument is presented or how systematically (rather than ad hoc) it is developed, but what precisely it reveals and what it distorts in our understanding of Christianity. In my judgment, analyses of narrative that demonstrate narrative’s role in forming our experiences of temporality contribute much to clarifying the issues involved in a theological address of our experiences and our hopes in and for history.

A Double Narrative Construction for Public Theology Given the argument above that a narrative rendition of God’s intentions for history provides a telos that ought to guide our actions, my focus on the United States as the context of public theology raises the question of the relation between that narrated telos and the historical identity and purposes of our national public life. National politics is, after all, an important level on which political action is organized and enacted, as I argued above. Further, we have seen that narrative is the mode of discourse that enables people to envision their future as a common future appropriate to their particular circumstances. We must then answer not only the general question of how the Christian narrative is related to public life but also the more specific question of its relation to a narrative of the nation’s historical identity and project. Although they say little about national narratives, Metz, Hauerwas, and Thiemann each address the sociopolitical implications of Christian narratives. As we have seen, they are concerned in different ways with clarifying the resources in Christianity for imagining a greater justice and for motivating Christians to seek that justice. According to Metz, whose focus is on the properly universal extension of our responsibility, the narrated memory of Jesus’ suffering demands that we honor the narrated memories of others’ sufferings, and these stories enable us to resist the causes of suffering and to work for greater justice. Hauerwas, who wants to preserve the radicality of Christian discipleship, would have us witness to a narrative of God’s control of history by living peacefully and justly ourselves, accepting our own lack of control over the course of history and challenging the illusion of political power rather than participating in it. Thiemann finds in the Christian narratives the message that we must pursue justice because we have been freely justified, a pursuit he and I both believe requires involvement with the structures and institutions of public life. Though they construe the political implications of Christian narratives quite differently, all three thus understand Christian narratives as contributing to a praxis of seeking justice in the world.

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While they have distinct views on the importance of public life, then, each of these theologians’ methodology also points to some interrelation of Christian narratives with other stories of our experiences, and this warrants further examination. Hauerwas and Thiemann both support what Thiemann calls a “reverse hermeneutic,” whereby the Christian story provides the framework in which we understand our lives. Hauerwas argues further that the adequacy of the Christian story is evident in that it enables us more honestly to tell our other stories (such as the story of being a Texan). Metz, of course, is even more specific about the need for a narratival mediation of our own stories with a universal story of God’s intention for history, lest our lives seem irrelevant to that history. Thus each argues that Christian narratives take precedence in forming our beliefs and values, but those beliefs and values must also be related to the specific historical contexts for which they provide meaning and direction. Insofar as national life is an aspect of historical experience, it would not seem inappropriate, then, to consider the integration of Christian narratives with stories of national history, even though none of these three theologians does so explicitly. In order to preserve the priority of the Christian narrative in forming our understanding of God’s ultimate intentions for history, while allowing our particular national stories to participate in that ultimate purpose so that they might concretize (and be judged by) the goal of history, I suggest that these stories need to be related as a story within a story, with the mutual reinterpretations made possible by such a confluence as described by Paul Ricoeur.153 Working with the example of the parables within the Gospels, Ricoeur demonstrates that when a story is incorporated within another story, the interpretation of each is influenced by the other. Hence the meaning of a parable is affected by the larger Gospel story that provides it with a context, while the meaning of the Gospel story is also focused by the parable within it.154 Similarly, I argue that narrating the story of the United States as a moment within a larger story of the divine intention for history ought to enrich both stories, providing a concrete situation in which to understand the Christian task in history and making national politics a “worthwhile adventure” related to the purposes of the divine. There is, of course, considerable danger in suggesting any connection between the goals of the state and those of God. Metz is quite right to insist upon an eschatological proviso such that no nation, no political project, indeed no temporal success, can be identified with the final goal of history. Our hope is in God, who alone for Christians is to be granted ultimacy, yet we must acknowledge that the temptation to make an idol of


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the nation, granting it the ultimacy that belongs to God, can be very strong indeed. Nevertheless, we ought not to let this justifiable fear of idolatry lead to such a separation of our political purposes from religious values that political action cannot be understood as worthwhile or as making a relevant difference in history. If we build such a wall of separation between God’s intentions and our political actions in history, we might avoid sacralizing the state, but we do so at the rather significant cost of removing political policies and actions from the realm of religious judgment. Instead of refusing any religious value to the goals pursued in public life, we would do better to construe the relation between the nation and the universality of God’s purposes in such a manner that national projects might be seen as of limited (but real) value in the pursuit of greater justice, and as projects to be critiqued when they violate or fall short of the justice they should provide. I believe that setting the story of the nation within a larger story of God’s purposes provides a context that limits and judges the nation while also giving it its due (as one of the many loci wherein the drama of human sin and divine grace is enacted). The Christian tradition is not lacking in resources with which to critique the sins committed on behalf of the nation (including the idolization of that nation), and these resources must be explicitly related to our national public life. That God demands an undivided loyalty (including that we be faithful to what God is faithful to), for example, ought to be part of any Christian story, as should the experiences of Israel as a chosen yet chastised nation. There is, to be sure, no finally adequate narrative either of the Christian hope for history or of any nation’s history, and thus any particular version must be submitted to the critical evaluation possible in public debate. As Thiemann acknowledges, no authoritative narrative exists that harmonizes all of the biblical texts for us. Nevertheless, if we are to develop a concrete theology of history, an overarching narrative must be constructed, “risked” as part of the task of interpreting Christian faith, as Thiemann also argues. Similarly, no one historical narrative can adequately depict our complex national history, yet we must also risk the construction of a national narrative that renders a collective identity and purpose rooted in the nation’s history. The construction of any such national story will, of course, be influenced by one’s concept of the ultimate purpose of history, a purpose that should be clearly evident in the double narrative I advocate. The dialectic of interpretation does not then begin only once the story-within-a-story has been articulated, since interpretation is involved in the very development of these stories. While

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these narratival interpretations are thus subject to the limitations and ambiguities that David Tracy has shown are inherent in all interpretations, this ought not be cause for despair: the relativizing of our interpretations can help mitigate our tendency to absolutize the political projects grounded in these narratival interpretations and can remind us of the importance of remaining open to the corrections provided by others’ perspectives.155 While a Hauerwasian view would suggest that any double narrative of Christian hopes and national public life gives too much positive value to the nation, a Metzian perspective might find it insufficiently interruptive. However much the double narrative is relativized by acknowledgments of its inherent limitations, will it not provide a history of the victors after all, when we ought instead to interrupt that history with the memory of suffering and a demand for meaning for the dead and for history’s victims, those who have no part in the continual unfolding of history? Yet, if the interruptive aspects are overemphasized, the possibility of meaningful action in history will be undermined, contrary to Metz’s own intentions; an adequate reappropriation of Metz must include both this interruptive hope and the ensuing praxis to establish whatever greater freedom and justice is possible here and now. To be faithful to Metz’s insights, the double narrative I propose must then allow the Christian narrative to provide a context that subverts any triumphalist or evolutionary reading of the story of the nation (especially through hope in God for the victims of history and for possibilities not yet foreseen both within and beyond history), while also suggesting that historical actions in public life may have real value. Surely a praxis like that of Harriet Tubman, whose memory of the suffering of slavery inspired her to quite improbable and heroic acts of resistance is not incompatible with the interruption Metz envisions, even though the story of her amazing accomplishments must be narrated as a positive contribution opening up new possibilities within history and not only as an interruptive hope.156

Narrative and Public Debate However we approach the task of narrating our history, widespread public acceptance for any particular national narrative will not easily be achieved, and even less likely is consensus (even among Christians) on a double narrative incorporating both religious and national histories. Fortunately, consensus on these stories is not necessary. Hauerwas overstates the case when he insists that a shared narrative is the basis for argument;


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Jeffrey Stout has more persuasively maintained that reasoning together requires only the ability to find a common ground, one which the parties involved have no good reason to doubt at the time. I contend that narratives are necessary, however, as resources for generating visions of a collective historical identity and a future appropriate to a people’s particular circumstances and past. Because public life ought to involve reasoning together not only about the steps to take but also about the goals to strive for, we need, then, to present our particular proposals for a narrative of our shared identity and goals, and to debate the adequacy of these narratives and the value of these goals. Without this critique of our narratives, we risk either the absolutism that idolizes one particular and only relatively adequate story, or the relativism in which we are unable to distinguish between the “good, bad, and downright awful” versions of our different national (or religious) narratives.157 Public decision-making does not, of course, always require that the nation’s purposes be at stake. Where there is general agreement about the goals to pursue, analyzing the efficiency of the proposed policies and the values to be respected in the process will be more helpful than debates about narratives. Unfortunately, quite often there is not agreement about our goals and priorities, and at such times we will indeed need not only debate about the goal to be pursued, but also perhaps attention to the narratives through which we imagine goals appropriate to the specific historical resources, opportunities, and obligations of our nation. Further, determining what “we” ought to do may involve discerning who “we” are: the inclusion of national narratives in the public conversation enables individuals to comprehend their participation in the nation and to envision a good for the whole, counteracting our fragmentation into a polity of competing groups with separate interests. Although, as Metz reminds us, we have obligations to all of humanity, the public life of the nation remains a transitional value worthy of attention for its own sake as well as for its global implications. Given the importance of the narratives through which we express who we are as a people, where we have come from, and where we are heading, these narratives ought to be engaged, challenged, corrected, and enlarged as matters of public importance and debate. The “story-within-a-story” approach I advocate here complicates but does not preclude debate of the national story. Indeed, I believe this double narrative approach to public theology would make an important contribution in focusing attention on the need to narrate our national history and on the ultimate goals and values implicit in any such narrative. The proposed national narrative will certainly not be accepted by all,

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but those who disagree with this account of the story, it is hoped, will specify where it fails (whether in the accuracy of events, in the values guiding the choice of events, or in the strategies of emplotment) and thus contribute to the development of a more adequate narrative. Like all historical narratives, national narratives can and should be evaluated according to their fidelity to the traces the past has left behind—as Ricoeur has shown, historical narratives differ from fictional narratives in their attempt to approximate the past as it happened. Yet an historical account differs from lived experience because it selects and orders that experience in order to make it comprehensible, and its choice of events and strategy of emplotment involve judgments that move this historical narration beyond simple fidelity to the past. Intelligibility, explanatory power, implicit values, and perhaps even ability to project a feasible and desirable future are further standards for evaluating historical narratives. Given the politico-ethical concerns of the public theology project, we will want also to attend to the manner in which identity is formulated, whose experiences are highlighted (and whose left out), and what is the implied telos (or “sense of an ending”). In the double construction advocated here, however, the national story would be oriented and interpreted by the Christian understanding of God’s purposes in history. It would seem reasonable to presume that debate over the manner of construing the nation’s story may at times lead to debate over that larger Christian story, particularly insofar as it bears on the ethics and the goals implicit in the national narrative. After all, if a Christian narrative makes a difference in the way we approach or participate in public life, then it ought to be of concern to the public conversation. To be sure, we already have considerable difficulty conceiving how religious beliefs might be publicly adjudicated; this difficulty is surely compounded when these beliefs take the form of religious narratives that do not precisely fit the categories of either fiction or history, but might better be described as having both mythic and history-like characteristics.158 If we are to sustain our claim that a narrative theology can be a genuinely public theology that participates in the public conversation, then this Christian narrative must also be shown to be open to public evaluation. While a full discussion of the processes of judging a Christian narrative of history is beyond the scope of this project, the works of the three narrative theologians discussed here provide some basic criteria for this public debate. They thus show that there are indeed viable options other than the extremes of reducing religion to a rational system of what we


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otherwise know to be true or proclaiming that religious beliefs are an irrational and unexaminable miracle of faith. Metz and Hauerwas, as we have seen, both appeal to the transformative ability of narratives. Metz’s argument for truth as an interest in universal justice suggests that a Christian narrative should be judged in terms of its ability to foster a concern with justice for all. On the basis of this approach, one might argue that a Christian double narrative makes an important public contribution by placing the nation’s purpose within a context in which the telos is a universal justice, a hope for humanity that relativizes the purposes and claims of the nation even while recognizing their significance. Hauerwas’s use of the “transformative” standard focuses more explicitly on the characters a narrative produces as well as that narrative’s capacity to enable us to live honestly and peaceably, acknowledging our sins and limitations without defensiveness. One might then defend the Christian narrative (at least in part) on the grounds that it enables us to acknowledge the sins of our national history without requiring that the moments of grace be denied or hope for a greater justice disallowed. Determining the transformative power of a narrative is clearly not a neutral project, as these examples show; one must be careful not to beg the question of what constitutes a positive transformation. Nevertheless, Metz and Hauerwas have laid the foundation for a discussion of whether Christian narratives do in fact encourage greater honesty and justice, and this is a discussion that can certainly be pursued publicly. A Christian narrative not only seeks to transform us, however, but also to express the truth about reality. If the claims made or presumed in this narrative are not credible, the story’s acceptability is undermined. Thiemann’s standards of intelligibility and warranted assertability are thus also important for public evaluation of the claims about God and about humanity that are entailed in the narrative. Beliefs about the nature of God’s actions in history cannot, of course, be adjudicated by usual historical methods (since God is not properly understood by Christians to be an agent alongside of other agents), but such beliefs are open to evaluation nonetheless. Minimally, one should be prepared to demonstrate that the concept of God is coherent and consistent with the involvement in history that is predicated of God; one should also be willing to defend the claim that the narratival rendition of God’s nature, purposes, and actions is not contradicted by what we otherwise have good reasons to accept as true (or that what we otherwise know is mistaken). As I have argued above, Thiemann unnecessarily limits the types of arguments allowed since, to give just one example, the conditions for the possibility of God

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so acting in history might be an important part of such a conversation; nevertheless, on the whole his criteria of intelligibility, aptness to tradition, and warranted assertability can be helpfully applied to the claims explicit or implicit in any Christian narrative presented for public debate. Just as historical narratives are judged in terms of the accuracy of the events portrayed as well as the adequacy of the whole, a narrative of God’s actions in history must also be open to evaluation not only of its overall adequacy but also of the credibility of the claims about the events, the characters portrayed, and the ultimate values implicit in the narrative. While Metz, Hauerwas, and Thiemann would each have disagreements with the approach to public theology that I am defending here, I hope to have shown that something like the double narrative I advocate is consistent with and even called for by Metz’s commitment to the possibility of meaningful action in history and by Hauerwas’s and Thiemann’s hermeneutic of interpreting our lives in terms of the Christian narrative. I further maintain that an insistence on the limitedness of any particular version of this double narrative, and a willingness to allow it to be corrected through the processes of public debate, are in no way an attenuation of Christian faith, but rather are necessitated by it. As Metz argues, our Christian hope requires an option for others in their otherness, and this involves opening ourselves to the criticism of these others, as well as making sure that they are not excluded from meaningful participation in public life. Similarly, Hauerwas has contended that the Christian story is centrally concerned with welcoming the stranger and is a story that enables us to live peacefully and honestly, acknowledging our sin and fallibility. It would seem then that no version of the Christian story could be coherently maintained as irreformable by those “strangers” who reveal our sinful distortions and limitations to us. Metz and Hauerwas, of course, both caution us emphatically against inflating the importance of the nation or developing an accommodationist theology that distorts Christian faith or blunts its prophetic edge. A public theology that would be of service either to the Christian community or to public life must remain alert to these dangers, but it does not follow that an engagement with national history and with the variety of languages available for public debate will necessarily distort the Christian faith. I insist that these might instead enable us better to explore the endlessly complex experiences of living and reflecting on that faith. The actual articulation of a double narrative in which the story of the nation is told as a moment within a Christian story of God’s intention is a complex undertaking beyond the scope of this book. However, we do have examples of at least implicit interweavings of Christian and national


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narratives, as is to be expected if Ricoeur is right in claiming that an understanding of historical location always involves at least an implicit narrative, and if Christian resources do indeed provide practical guidance for our historical projects. In order to demonstrate more concretely what this double narrative approach might involve, the next and final chapter will explore examples of similar narrative interweavings in Abraham Lincoln’s theological reflections on America, Virgil Elizondo’s mestizo theology, and Delores Williams’ womanist theology. Through an investigation of the explicit and implicit narratives interwoven in these theologies, we will be able to see more clearly how a narrative public theology might proceed, and what are the contributions and the limits of narrative in such an endeavor.

CHAPTER FIVE

Lincoln, Elizondo, and Williams as Narrative Public Theologians

The Argument for a Narrative Public Theology Summarized I have here defined public theology as an endeavor to produce a contextualized theology for the United States, one that interprets Christian faith from a perspective of concern for our national public life and for the issues and interests at stake therein. A public theology ought therefore to address not only specific policy proposals, but also the power relations and structural injustices evident within contemporary American society as well as in our relations to the rest of the world; we must also challenge the attitudes that undermine serious public consideration of such matters. As discussed above, public theologians have for this reason focused largely on the loss of interest in a common good, the dominance of instrumental rationality, and the commercialization/privatization of American society, factors that mitigate against thoughtful consideration of the purposes to be pursued in political life. I argue that we need also to begin to address more specifically the lack of public attention to the direction of our society and to contribute the resources of the Christian faith to this conversation, which will, at the same time, clarify the meaning of that faith through determining its public implications. In their concern for national purposes, public theologians must also attend to the development of the public virtue of citizenship and to the role of a sense of national identity in supporting that virtue. As we have seen, purpose and identity are not unrelated, since both are rooted in history and in the narratives through which we grasp that history. A nation’s purpose in history can neither be chosen nor articulated apart from an understanding of that nation’s specific historical context and identity; 173

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conversely, the purposes we choose and pursue become part of our identity. Because the specific and temporal aspects of purpose and identity have a narrative structure, I have argued here that public theology would gain much by attending to narrative and to its resources for envisioning temporal purposes and possibilities. The project of historicizing theology has in my judgment paid too little attention to the narratives through which specific histories are understood. The uniqueness of a social context is due, after all, not only to its particular structures and institutions (which social scientific analyses clarify), but also to the particular history that has formed it. If, as Ricoeur argues, our hopes for the future are intertwined with our reception of the past and experiences in the present, then our discussions of goals for the future will be enriched and made more concrete by considering the stories through which past experiences are received and a future direction specific to our polity is projected. Our discussion of Ricoeur in chapter 3 also reminded us that historical time is public time, a time with others. Historical narratives thus play an important role in depicting our relations to one another and to a common destiny. Such stories not only make it possible to relate Christian faith to a particular historical location but should also provide resources that inspire public virtue, the willingness to sacrifice our individual interests for a common project and for the good of our shared future. I have further argued specifically for a double narrative construction in public theology, since we must be concerned not only with stories of national history and identity but also with the narratives through which the Christian memory of God’s actions and purposes in history are rendered. To be sure, a Christian view of God’s intentions for history can be (and has not infrequently been) expressed as a theological proposition; one would then develop a public theology in which this theological proposition interprets a narrative of the nation and judges its purposes. This method is not without merit; indeed, it may be preferred at times for its clarity in debates. Nevertheless, the complexity of God’s historical intentions unfolding through time, along with a more nuanced sense of our ambiguous experience of God’s presence in and concern for history, are more fully rendered through narratives, and these cannot be reduced without remainder to propositions. We must, as so many theologians have recently argued, continually return to the biblical narratives (as well as the other biblical texts) from which our doctrines are derived. In order thus to relate a Christian narrative of the historical purposes of the divine to a narrative of national history, I have proposed that a story of the

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nation be told as a moment within the larger story of God’s purposes in a manner that allows each to interpret the other. There is, of course, no single adequate narrative of the history of either God’s purposes or of the United States; the public theologian must “risk” a version of both, with awareness of the inherent limitations and distortions of any such account and with openness to critique and revision of all aspects of this double narrative. There is, however, a widespread presumption against the possibility or appropriateness of submitting such a religiously based double narrative to public evaluation, whether because narratives are held to be foundational and incommensurable in a manner that renders them impervious to external criticism, or because religion is thought to be inherently irrational. Public theologians cannot then neglect the task of clarifying the grounds for the possibility of that debate. Each of the advocates of narrative theology discussed here, we noted, does provide standards by which the adequacy of such a narrative can be evaluated: as we have seen, in addition to the criterion of fidelity to the traces of the past that is particularly appropriate for historical narratives, all narratives (including religious ones) can and ought to be evaluated according to their coherence, the warranted assertability of their explicit and implicit claims about reality, the ethical values evident in their strategies of emplotment, and the manner in which they would transform us. Narratives, I argue, are public not only in their availability but also in their openness to evaluation by all. This double narrative approach to public theology can thus meet all four of the criteria defended above as constitutive of a public theology. In addition to being (1) publicly accessible and criticizable, it should (2) engage the issues of public life with the resources of a particular religious tradition (here primarily in the form of a narrative of God’s purposes in history). In thus relating public life to the divine purposes for history, this theology would ensure that (3) the religious perspective enables evaluation and critique of the nation’s purposes and actions, while (4) allowing the demands of public life to provide a further specification of the meaning of the religious narrative. Finally, it is crucial that this double narrative approach to public theology be appropriate to the kind of public life defended by Arendt as inherently valuable; that is, a pluralistic public wherein a diversity of perspectives is encountered. Many argue (not without some justification) that historical narratives construct national identity in an exclusivist and oppressive manner. Without intending to deny the limitations of national narratives nor the importance of contesting them, I have argued instead

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that such narratives do not set the terms for admission to the debate about our common public life but ought rather themselves to be proffered as particular perspectives within the public conversation. I have also noted that there are sound reasons within the Christian tradition to be especially careful to avoid the silencing of non-Christian perspectives, given our call to respect the religious freedom granted by God, to welcome the stranger that challenges us, and to defend the subject through an option for others in their otherness. Further, since the standards of narrative evaluation are not specifically Christian, they can be applied to secular narratives or to narratives originating in other religious traditions, and the standards themselves are neither exhaustive nor irreformable. Offered as serious additions to the debate about the direction of our polity, national narratives (including religiously informed ones) should then contribute to the plurality of perspectives encountered in public life in a manner fully appropriate to a pluralistic public life. My argument for a double narrative construction as the basis of a public theology has thus far lacked concrete examples, as none of the theologians discussed above (public or otherwise) uses narrative to articulate both God’s purposes in history and the nation’s historical identity and purpose. Dean, as we have seen, emphasizes narratives of the nation but considers the sacred to be a dimension discerned within the national story; Metz, Hauerwas, and Thiemann, on the other hand, consider narratives to be important to the formulation of Christian faith, but not of national public life. In order further to specify my proposed model of a double narrative theology, to suggest (in other words) what this kind of public theology might look like, this final chapter will briefly examine three quite distinct examples in which theological interpretations are based on interweaving Christian narratives with narratives involving U.S. history. Abraham Lincoln’s approach is closest to the double narrative I have proposed, in that Lincoln deals with a narrative account of American history as judged by the temporal purposes of Divine Providence. Virgil Elizondo and Delores Williams also provide practical guidance for the future of this American experiment, but can be read as more clearly interruptive reminders of the ongoing unjust suffering in our nation. They also further reveal the complexity of a narrative approach to public theology in their constructions of multilayered narrative interweavings with no single narrative either of Christian hope or of the United States. Rather than a simple reiteration of narrative-formed identities, they challenge us to develop a narrative public theology that is as complex, creative, and open as are the narrative resources it draws upon.


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Abraham Lincoln: Narrating Judgment While the religious aspects of Lincoln’s account of the issues the nation faced in the Civil War are well known, insufficient attention has been paid to the narrative structure through which he connected God’s purposes to the political problems of his day.1 Of course, the coherence of Lincoln’s position will be missed altogether, if we fail to grasp that it is based on his belief that the Union itself was a moral good only insofar as it upheld the values of freedom and self-government on which it was founded. The nation thus has a nobility of purpose that, in Lincoln’s judgment, was not cancelled by the offense of enslaving Africans and African-Americans only as long as slavery was contained, so that it would eventually die out and all would be free. Were slavery to spread and become entrenched, the nation would lose this moral purpose and could no longer rightfully claim the allegiance of its citizens in service of “the last best hope of earth.”2 This purpose of pursuing and defending freedom can certainly be expressed, then, as a moral principle that guides political choices, but I will argue here that Lincoln articulated this purpose in some of his most memorable speeches not simply as an abstract moral principle but in the terms of an inchoate narrative of the nation, and this narrative structure has more than rhetorical significance in the development of Lincoln’s position.3

The Narrative Structure in the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address Perhaps the clearest example of the implicitly narrative structure of Lincoln’s thought is his Gettysburg Address. Delivered in the fall of 1863, when the outcome of the Civil War was still uncertain, Lincoln had good reason not only to proffer an interpretation of the nation’s identity and purpose, but also to frame it as a morally significant purpose in order to inspire greater allegiance to the Union’s cause and to justify the sacrifices that had been and were being demanded. The Address was, of course, so successful that it has become part of the national canon of defining texts, at one time memorized by school children, and it has contributed in no small measure to the importance attached to legal equality in this country.4 Much of the success of this Address may well be due to its rhetorical use of authoritative images. Lincoln invoked the authority of the nation’s founders (the fathers who “brought forth” this nation) as well as the

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Declaration of Independence (“that all men are created equal”). Also, as Garry Wills argues in detail, the Address is structured around biblically resonant themes of life and death, and of birth and rebirth. The nation, for example, is called to a new birth through devotion to liberty and equality in a manner similar to the Christian experience of spiritual rebirth through devotion to Christ. Further, this national rebirth was made possible through the sacrifice of those who died at Gettysburg, just as new life for Christians is made possible through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.5 These biblical allusions, combined with the authority of the founders and the Declaration of Independence, would certainly have increased the rhetorical power of the Address for its original audience. A closer look, however, reveals also a definite narrative structure to the Gettysburg Address, especially if we recognize that, since the events are the actions of groups rather than of individuals, this narrative fits best into that category of narrative that Ricoeur describes as having quasicharacters and a quasi-plot. The Address begins with an event in the past (eighty-seven years earlier the founders had created a nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”); this beginning is then related to later events (particularly the Civil War and the Battle at Gettysburg) that produced the circumstances of the speech, the gathering at Gettysburg to dedicate the cemetery in the midst of the war. More significantly for our purposes, these temporal events are construed as contributing to the unfolding of a plot centered on the testing of whether a nation dedicated to self-government (“government of the people, by the people, for the people”) can endure. It is essentially the story of peril to a nation and to the ideal of freedom it embodies, and is presented as an unfinished story whose ending (the survival or defeat of self-government) is yet undetermined and depends upon the actions of those listening to the story. It is thus intended as a practical and transformative story: the living are encouraged to take up “the unfinished work [of defending democracy and preserving the Union] which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”6 This plot may be best described as tragicomic, in that the unfinished story is riven with tragic divisions and reversals while retaining hope for a successful resolution: events of the past and present are narrated in order to reveal the present task.7 This use of narrative allows Lincoln not only to relate a moral principle to his specific circumstances in a manner understandable to a non-philosophical audience, but also to draw on the authority of aspects of the nation’s past that commanded the people’s respect and allegiance, and so to engage people’s emotions and sense of identity. Lincoln’s intention is not merely to defend an ethical argument


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(e.g., “self-government is a good, it is here imperiled, we must defend it”) but rather to embed this ethical position in the historical identity and purpose of the nation. The goal demanding such sacrifice is not simply the defense of one among many moral principles; after all, the mere existence of a moral wrong does not and cannot always call forth our efforts to make it right. Given the finitude of human time, energy, and resources, whether and when we act must be partially determined by our particular roles, responsibilities, and commitments.8 Hence, this principle of freedom is presented as central to our existence and identity as a people and, further, as an historic project and debt we inherit and will be judged by. (As Lincoln contends in his 1862 Annual Message to Congress, “we cannot escape history. . . . The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.”9) The Gettysburg Address thus draws on a rhetorically powerful narrative structure as the basis for ascertaining the moral purpose to be pursued at that point in history. As such, it is an example of a public exercise in narrative ethics and an alternative to instrumental rationality in public debate (since it concerns goals and not merely means), but it is not a public theology (at least not explicitly). To be sure, the nation’s moral purpose cannot be unrelated to some version or other of the authentic purpose for human beings (as we saw in our discussion of the work of Franklin I. Gamwell above), and Lincoln certainly implies that liberty and freedom are very high in the hierarchy of authentic values. He also signals throughout this brief Address that he understands this purpose to be related to religious beliefs, since he includes images that reflect biblical themes and asserts that this nation (and its task of establishing “a new birth of freedom”) is “under God.” Further, in proclaiming that the men who had fought at Gettysburg on behalf of this purpose had made the battlefield a holy place, having “consecrated it, far beyond our poor power to add or detract,” Lincoln suggests that the purpose they served is a holy one. Still, the religious warrants for this purpose remain implicit, so to describe the Address as an exercise in public theology would be stretching the point. However, his Second Inaugural Address provides an explicit statement of the religious vision that supports the moral purpose proclaimed in the Gettysburg Address. In this later speech, Lincoln clarifies his belief that the Union’s defense of freedom is valid not simply because it was the purpose of the founders and expressed in a significant founding document, but because it is related to God’s purposes, even while he acknowledges that no human action or aim can be identified completely with that of the Divine. This speech thus exemplifies what Reinhold Niebuhr

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described as Lincoln’s rare achievement of maintaining both “the affirmation of a meaningful history and the religious reservation about the partiality and bias which the human actors and agents betray in the definition of meaning.”10 It reminds us that a public theology should avoid a total identification of God’s purposes with those of the nation. While it cannot be said that the whole of the Second Inaugural follows a narrative structure (as does the Gettysburg Address), the Second Inaugural does suggest a narrative relation between God’s purposes in history and the American experience of slavery and of the Civil War. Here again we have temporal events united in a plot; this time, the story is one in which God is a principal actor, and the plot involves God’s intention to end slavery. Revealing his sense of Divine Providence, Lincoln contends that God temporarily permitted the offense of slavery (perhaps to allow the principle of self-government to be established?), but the nation continued the practice past its appointed time, thus posing an obstacle to God’s plan and inciting God to send the Civil War both as a punishment for the offense and to fulfill the divine intention to end slavery. Lincoln’s suggestion of a punitive divine purpose evident in the Civil War interestingly presumes both that God is in control of events and that God’s judgments are not the same as ours, as we see in his stark assertion: if God wills that [the war] continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”11 Lincoln’s profound sense of Divine Providence is thus tempered by his refusal of a dogmatically certain understanding of God’s purposes and by his insistence on differentiating human intentions and those of God. Although Lincoln proffers his implicitly narrative account as a credible interpretation of God’s acts in American history, it is important that he prefaces this interpretation with “if we shall suppose.” There can be little doubt that Lincoln intends his audience to understand that he does so suppose, but nonetheless he presents his interpretation as a human and fallible view. He also indicates that, even though God’s purposes are closer to those of the North in that God aims to end slavery, both North and South are being punished by God.12 The nation that sinned collectively is being collectively chastised, as is appropriate for a people who cannot be divided. (“He gives to both North and South, this terrible war,


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as the woe due to those by whom the offense came.”) Thus, Lincoln interprets history with a nondogmatic faith: while we must choose either to cooperate with or to resist God’s purposes, we have to recognize that God’s purposes finally transcend our own. Lincoln’s religious humility is also evident in his acknowledgment that “the Almighty has His own purposes,” and his call for the nation to go forward “with malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.”13 This religious humility, envisioning God’s judgment evident in a divine will that transcends but should direct our political purposes, enabled Lincoln to achieve the reconciling tone at the close of his speech. The response this story seeks to elicit is no longer simply the renewed dedication to the defense and preservation of liberty called for at Gettysburg. Now that the end of the war is in sight, the task at hand is expanded to include the healing and restoration that are needed. Not only “to finish the work we are in” of militarily defending the Union and the principle of self-government, but also “to bind up the nation’s wounds” and to construct “a just and lasting peace” were the challenges they faced. As Niebuhr has argued, among all the statements of ancient and modern periods, Lincoln alone had a sense of historical meaning so high as to cast doubt on the intention of both sides and to place the enemy into the same category of ambiguity as the nation to which his life was committed. The practical importance of this ambiguity, Niebuhr further observes, can be seen in the historical events that followed our national loss of Lincoln’s guidance in tempering justice with mercy: “the North proved that, without humility, idealism can be easily transmitted into a cruel vindictiveness,” a lesson Americans continue to struggle with domestically and internationally.14 The Second Inaugural Address suggests a more explicitly theological narrative than that of the Gettysburg Address, then, since we have here an account of God acting through the events of the Civil War to free the slaves and to punish the offense of slavery. God is thus understood to be concerned with (and acting to increase) human freedom in history, a view that provides theological support for the national drama articulated in the Gettysburg Address. To be sure, Lincoln does not develop the explicit double narrative that I advocate: Lincoln limits himself to a story of God acting through the events in the life of the nation and does not attempt to

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provide a larger story specifying how these events fit into a narrative of God’s plan for all of history. Yet insofar as God is not thought to be arbitrary, it would seem that a larger story is implied here, or at least could be constructed on the basis of Lincoln’s assumptions. If God is acting in American history to increase freedom, then the story of the furthering of freedom (and of its betrayal) in American history would be a moment within a narrative theology of history in which at least one of God’s intentions is human freedom. As we have seen, Metz suggests a similar theology of history, in that he finds in the stories of the Bible a pattern (discernible in our circumstances as well) of God calling people to be subjects of history.

Public Theology or Civil Religion? We might yet ask whether Lincoln provides a public theology, as I have defined it, rather than the civil religion with which he is often associated. To be sure, much of Lincoln’s influence in American history is now included in our civil religion. The celebration of a national Thanksgiving, the motto “In God We Trust,” the addition of “under God” to the pledge of allegiance, and the inclusion of the Gettysburg Address in the national canon are all aspects of our national civil religion to which Lincoln has contributed.15 Although it may be the fate of successful public theology to be assumed into the consensus that is civil religion, I contend that in his time Lincoln’s thought functioned less as civil religion than as public theology, according to the four criteria of public theology that were developed in chapter one above: it is open to public debate, draws on the beliefs of a particular (biblical, if not obviously Christian) tradition, reinterprets those beliefs, and criticizes as well as affirms national policies. First, Lincoln certainly presented a publicly accessible and debatable interpretation of the nation’s identity and purpose as well as of God’s purposes. That it was presented in publicly accessible language is obvious from the response it received then and since—this was not a message people were unable to comprehend and engage. The passage of time, however, along with the authority Lincoln commands as an historical figure, may obscure how controversial Lincoln’s positions were in his day. This is not to say that a significant number of people did not agree with him, but these were nonetheless live issues (politically and religiously) at the time, issues on which people could and did hold different opinions in the North as well as in the South. Lincoln was, to be sure, far from origi-


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nal in his interpretation of the purpose of the United States as a nation committed to equality and to the eventual end of slavery. Nevertheless, others claimed to be equally committed to the Union while interpreting its purposes differently. The Chicago Times, for example, printed an editorial rebutting the interpretation of the nation proffered by Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address.16 Similarly, it was certainly not the case that there was an established consensus interpreting God’s providential direction of history in the same manner (or with the same subtlety) as Lincoln provided. The Bible may have been a more widely recognized authority at that time and, as J. David Greenstone has argued, Lincoln’s thought shows considerable affinity with the religious beliefs of the Great Awakening.17 Nevertheless, Lincoln himself acknowledges in his Second Inaugural that others read the Bible differently than he; his view of God as intending human liberty and as punishing the nation through the Civil War was no simple restatement of universally agreed upon religious beliefs. While neither the Gettysburg Address nor the Second Inaugural were presented in a context open to the immediate give and take of debate, they were proffered as contributions to a larger national debate (that could and did take place in the newspapers and elsewhere) and were statements of a position that Lincoln had shown himself willing to defend in public debate.18 Given that Lincoln’s interpretation of the working of Divine Providence represents a particular position on a controversial topic, I argue that this is not civil religion but rather public theology, in that it addresses issues of public life not in the terms of an already established religious consensus but with the resources of a particular religious perspective. To be sure, Lincoln did not intend his position to reflect the beliefs of a specific denomination; it is even debatable whether he would have identified himself as a “Christian.” Nevertheless, however unwilling Lincoln may have been to confine himself to a particular religious category, I believe that in his day his thought was closer to public theology than to civil religion, insofar as he attempted to persuade the public to accept a specific theological position on issues of national life. In my judgment, Lincoln’s thought is also genuinely theological, in that it results in a reinterpretation of the biblical God. In struggling to comprehend the moral issues he faced, Lincoln developed an understanding of God’s providential direction of American history that results in a deeper appreciation of God’s desire for an increase in human liberty in history. This is no mere invocation of divine support for our form of republican democracy but rather a theological insight that has yet to be

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developed into the theology of freedom that Karl Barth later hoped might develop as the specifically American contribution to Christian theology.19 Finally, and most significantly, Lincoln’s thought qualifies as public theology because it invokes religious beliefs not only in support of the nation’s goals but also in judgment on the nation. As Niebuhr has clarified, Lincoln achieved an admirable balance between religious valuation of political purposes and a recognition of the limitations and bias in human interpretations, such that our purposes can never simply be equated with God’s (however much we may hope to cooperate with God’s plan). Although much of Lincoln’s work may have since become civil religion (at least in the lip service given to it), in his day Lincoln’s thought exhibited the characteristics appropriate to a public theology.

Lincoln’s Contributions to a Narrative Public Theology I have argued here that Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural exemplify a narratively based public theology. Unlike many today who consider religious beliefs to be irrelevant to or even pernicious in the public realm, Lincoln found it necessary to discuss the moral purpose of the nation in relation to God’s purposes. By employing a narrative structure, Lincoln sought to establish that a moral purpose (namely, increasing liberty) is embedded in but transcends the life of the nation: he defined the United States as an experiment in self-government and one that he further related to God’s purposes through a narrative interpretation of the Civil War as God’s act to punish and to end slavery. In this perspective, politics cannot adequately be conceived as no more than the adjudication of personal preferences; rather, we have inherited an historic project and are judged according to our fidelity to it. It is worth commenting also on Lincoln’s concern for the nation’s identity and purpose as a whole. Prasenjit Duara’s argument for bifurcated histories is certainly correct to point to the plurality of groups within a state and to the power issues at stake in contestations over that state’s identity. While analyses of the danger of exclusionary rhetoric about national identity are at times extremely important, I believe that Lincoln’s work reminds us that arguments in favor of difference without unity can be dangerous too. It ought at least to give pause to those who seek to pluralize identities and multiply differences to the point of rejecting any unifying identity that such an approach at the time of the Civil War would have provided support for the South and its continuation of slavery (and


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even, as Lincoln further argued, its undermining of democratic processes of government). Some 130 years later, we have seen the affirmation of distinct identities also used to horrendous effect in the former Yugoslavia; ought we not to conclude that at times the assertion of a sheer difference that will accept no mediation is also oppressive? To cite Niebuhr again, one of the greatest problems of democratic civilization is how to integrate the life of its various subordinate, ethnic, religious, and economic groups in the community in such a way that the richness and harmony of the whole community will be enhanced and not destroyed by them.20 There is, I believe, considerable merit in Lincoln’s example of finding unity in an historic national purpose, one that he related to a biblical concept of God’s purposes for human history but that could be articulated in nonreligious language as well. It is not only Lincoln’s method and approach, but also at least some of the substance of his public theology (especially his emphasis on selfgovernment and equality before the law) that continue to be important to our public life. Of course, to many it may well seem that democracy has been so vindicated that it needs no further defense, since Soviet-style communism is fortunately not much of an option now, and countries around the world have been democratizing their political institutions. Our issues, many presume, ought to be those involved in establishing communities of racial, gender, and economic justice (along with care of the environment) rather than defending a well-established political system. Others will question whether democracy is still a meaningful political concept at all, given the size and complexity of our polity and the reality of anonymous power systems that determine much of our social and political reality.21 Democracy appears at times to be paradoxically both a presupposition (at a minimal level) and an impossibility in modern life. I would argue that democracy is neither secure nor peripheral to racial, gender, or economic justice, as the work of Cornel West has emphasized. A strong proponent of the importance of honest and thoughtful responses to both racism and economic injustice in our society, West also contends that a concern for particular oppressions and injustices need not preclude a commitment to the good of the whole and to the fragile experiment of democracy.22 Benjamin Valentin has similarly argued that the defense of Latino culture requires political coalitions working together to further an inclusive vision of American public life

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based on a greater democratization of power.23 To be sure, the complexity of modern society presents us with the task of adapting our political institutions and socioeconomic structures to our changing reality in order to ensure that democracy remains a viable option. This is especially important if, as Hannah Arendt insists, a democratic, participatory public life is an intrinsic good, a part of a fully developed and responsible human life. Lincoln’s stirring rhetoric and deep commitment to the ideals of equality and freedom have not then lost their public relevance since, as John Dos Passos argued over thirty years ago: The continuing process that faces the generations alive today is the adjustment of the methods of self-government and of the aspirations of individual men (sic) for a full life to the changing shape of mass-production society. There is nothing easy about such an assignment. . . . Even partial success will call for the rebirth of some sort of central faith as strong as Lincoln’s was.24 I would further argue that a democratic focus on human equality and care of the environment are not mutually exclusive areas of concern. As Metz argues, attitudes of domination over nature are part of human history and must be critiqued as such. “If we want to achieve new ways of relating to nature and to practice ecological wisdom, we cannot simply begin in pretended innocence with ‘nature’ alone,” Metz argues. Instead, “we have to begin with the history human beings have with nature. But this is a history of domination, a history of subjugation.”25 Freedom need not be understood as a freedom to abuse the environment, nor does valuing the development of humanity necessarily result in a denigration of nature as static and thus without intrinsic value. To the contrary, our story must become one of increasing acceptance of our natural limitations and of the value of nonhuman nature as part of God’s creation. Lincoln’s emphases on human history and on defending democracy need to be expanded, then, but this does not mean that they must be rejected. Along with Lincoln’s approach to a narrative public theology and his defense of self-government and equality before the law, we should mention again the contribution of Lincoln’s example of religious humility. His commitment to tempering justice with mercy still stands as a reminder that the articulation of a religious meaning for the nation’s actions and goals need not and should not lead to the idolizing the nation or to a vindictive self-righteousness. As Niebuhr, who has spoken especially eloquently of Lincoln’s achievement in this respect, argued,


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The real point of contact between democracy and profound religion is in the spirit of humility which democracy requires and which must be one of the fruits of religion. Democratic life requires a spirit of tolerant cooperation between individuals and groups which can be achieved neither by moral cynics, who know no law beyond their own interest, nor by moral idealists, who acknowledge such a law but are unconscious of the corruption which insinuates itself into the statement of it by even the most disinterested idealists.26 This is not to deny, of course, that ascribing religious value to political purposes is dangerous: it can indeed lead to the fanaticism that Lincoln and Niebuhr condemned. However, what we need to counter such fanaticism, as Niebuhr argued, is not the refusal of moral purposes but the religious humility that “springs only from the depth of a religion that confronts the individual with a more ultimate majesty and purity than all human majesties and values.”27 This defense of religious humility and of a spirit of cooperation suggests further that a public theology ought not seek to vanquish all other views but rather to contribute to a broader conversation involving a variety of perspectives. To be sure, we seek to persuade others, but we also need to learn from them, since, as Lincoln realized, none of us knows completely God’s purposes. Insofar as Lincoln’s humility is consistent with the Christian recognition that God’s ways surpass our understanding (as well as requiring the welcome of the stranger and the option for the other defended in chapter 4 above), then even in those cases where a Christian perspective is adopted by the majority of citizens, it should inspire attention to, rather than the suppression of, alternative views and arguments. Of course, the degree of pluralism in our society (and, some might add, the breakdown in public discourse) raises a more basic question about whether in our diverse society anyone can hope to proffer a theological argument that persuades others and influences public policy. To be sure, Lincoln could assume a degree of familiarity with and general acceptance of the Bible that can no longer be taken for granted. Public theologians now will have to be prepared in many contexts to argue for some of the basic commitments that Lincoln presupposed (and, as I have noted above, we must be ready even to defend the grounds for the possibility of such an argument). However, many theologians have already competently defended the possibility of the public debate of religious

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beliefs in a pluralistic society, and thus I contend that the task ahead of us is not so much to develop further theoretical defenses of the public nature of religious claims, but rather to engage in the practice of public discussion with those with whom we disagree.28 I would further argue that the “success” of such public engagement should not be measured solely in terms of whether we win all, most, or any of the debates, but (as trite as it may sound) whether we contribute to a vigorous public conversation and come to understand one another better. As Arendt has shown, participating in public life has its own value apart from whether we attain our purposes there (and, since we have no divine guarantee that our arguments will always prevail, we should refrain from assuming that a debate that we do not win is one that is somehow structured with an unfair prejudice against our position). As useful as I find the model of Lincoln as a narrative public theologian, however, we might wonder whether U.S. presidents today can or should occupy the role of public theologian and quote the Bible as an established authority. If they do, are they not more likely to act as the priests of civil religion rather than as the prophets of public theology, especially given their interest in using religion to reinforce allegiance to their own administration and its policies? They are also more likely (and probably better advised) to invoke a socially established consensus and a “least common denominator” religiosity than to engage in the particular and constructive task of public theology, which in any case they probably lack competence in. To be sure, presidents ought to articulate a moral purpose for the country, and that moral purpose will inevitably reflect religious convictions, but they will want to be especially careful to avoid implying that they only represent those citizens who share their particular religious beliefs. On the basis of the argument I have developed above, especially in chapter 2’s discussion of the inseparability of religious and political purposes, presidential involvement in public theology certainly cannot be ruled out. Indeed, anyone who is able to enter the public debate must be allowed (and at times encouraged) to proffer a public theology, that is, an interpretation of our political purposes in relation to an account of the comprehensive purpose for human existence. It would also seem that there is no reason why those who can develop such a moral argument could not also use narrative resources in making their case. The task as I have defined it is thus a rather broad and inclusive one: in addition to professional theologians (who could certainly contribute more than they generally do), there are ministers with political acumen, politicians with religious insights (occasionally), and, perhaps most importantly, thought-


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ful citizens who can participate in the development of a public theology insofar as they endeavor to understand the connection between the demands of their faith and the political issues of the day. The more difficult question may rather be how most of us who are not radio commentators or famous public figures might offer our interpretations to the public. This is an issue that calls for serious thought about (and possibly reform of) the structures of our public life and is thus a much larger problem than I can do justice to at this time. Still, it should be noted that at present we do have various forums through which all of us might participate in and influence public debate, including newspaper editorial pages, community organizations, political activist groups, and churches.29 Further, when people come together for the sake of public action, the new structures they might together create cannot be foreseen, as Arendt argued; the means of public life are, then, developed by people who engage in public action. In concluding this discussion of Lincoln, I want to stress that neither Abraham Lincoln nor the double narrative model proposed here are our only options for a public theology, or even for a Christian public theology. There are many ways to bring the insights and aspirations of Christianity into our public life, as will be suggested by the alternative approaches of Virgil Elizondo and of Delores Williams, to which we now turn. What is most important is that, however radical our criticisms of one another, of our institutions, and of the oppressiveness implicit even in the structures of our best thought and culture must be, that criticism should not be our last word. Rather, it must contribute to the development of a more just public life, without which our hopes for justice cannot be realized. “Though passions strain, they must not break our bonds of affection,” as Lincoln maintained in much more violently contentious circumstances than our own.30

Virgil Elizondo: Narrating Mestizaje Three Levels of Narrative While a double narrative can be discerned in the structure of Lincoln’s thought, Virgil Elizondo provides an even more complex model that suggests three levels of narration in his Guadalupe: Mother of the New Creation. In this work, Elizondo recounts and interprets the story of the appearance of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, to an indigenous peasant on Mount Tepeyac (in what is now Mexico City) in the early sixteenth

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century. Elizondo retells this popular story of Juan Diego’s vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe as the basis for his theological response to the challenges and possibilities of the Americas. In Elizondo’s approach, the story is narrated with a manifestly practical intention; it is a story that intends to change us in the telling of it and to elicit a new praxis as well as a new attitude. I will argue that Elizondo provides here a narrative practical theology with significant implications for public life, and that his work is especially important as a demonstration of the fertile complexity of a narrative approach to theology. As we will see, Elizondo constructs a narrative interweaving that demonstrates the potential for mutual interpretation on not two but three levels (the story of Guadalupe, the European conquest of the Americas, and God’s overall purpose for history), and in so doing he interrupts and redirects our understanding of the history and the future of the United States. Elizondo signals early in his book that he will attend to the larger story of the European colonization of the Americas as the context in which the story of Guadalupe is to be interpreted. “The story of Our Lady of Guadalupe really begins in 1492,” he contends, since the radical power and meaning of the appearance of the Mother of God to an indigenous Christian convert can, in Elizondo’s view, only be understood in light of the experience of the conquest by Europeans that the Native Americans were suffering.31 The conquering Europeans, as Elizondo reminds us, often considered the natives to be “underdeveloped children”; they were a people to be controlled and reeducated by Europeans, who saw them as practitioners of a demonic religion that must be obliterated.32 Even in the church, where they found some defense against the worst forms of enslavement, they were not welcomed into full membership but were frequently treated as second-class citizens, to be baptized but not to be ordained, for example. If the experience of the Europeans was predominantly of their superiority and power in taking over the resources of this new land and its people, the experience of the conquered indigenous peoples was one of humiliation, degradation, and psychological disruption. After all, their way of life was destroyed, their religion suppressed, and their people enslaved. This history is recounted by Elizondo in order to draw the full implications of the story of Juan Diego’s visions on Tepeyac. In stark contrast to the European attitudes toward the native people, the Lady appeared to Juan Diego as a dark-skinned woman who addressed him with terms affirming his dignity and worth (calling him “dignified Juan”); she revealed herself to be the Mother of the Aztec deity, Teotl, and sent Juan Diego to the bishop with the request that he build a church for her


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on that site.33 By reminding us that this story presumes a context of European oppression and ecclesial marginalization, Elizondo prevents us from reading it as a simple pious tale of the miraculous manifestation of the truth of Christianity to ignorant natives. Instead, attention to the historical situation enables us to see the radical challenge this story of Guadalupe poses to the dehumanization of indigenous and oppressed peoples in church and society. Where the Europeans sought to destroy the indigenous culture, the Mother of God affirmed the dignity of the native culture and of the native people, appearing as one of them and declaring herself the mother of all. A native peasant was addressed with terms of respect as well as affection and was chosen to bring the message of the Mother of God to the bishop, an unfolding of events exactly contrary to the European presumption that it was their role to bring the truth about God to an ignorant indigenous population. Indeed, the “ultimate point of the narrative,” in Elizondo’s interpretation, is “the conversion of the bishop and his household—theologians, catechists, liturgists, canonists, and others” through the mediation of a man who described himself as “the excrement of people” and was afraid to enter the bishop’s palace.34 Without attention to the larger story of imperial conquest, the liberating and empowering message of Guadalupe for the poor and despised is easily overlooked (especially by those of us who do not have the daily experience of being dark-skinned in a racist church and society and who, like the bishop in the story, are called to conversion from our arrogance and power). Moreover, just as Ricoeur argues with regard to the parables within the Gospel narratives, this placing of one story within another story effects a mutual reinterpretation. Not only does the story of conflict and colonization, of perceived superiority and inferiority, underscore Guadalupe’s affirmation of the worth of the indigenous people and culture, but also that larger story is interrupted with a new hope for harmony and mutual respect, a home where all will be welcomed without discrimination. Instead of emplotting the history of the Americas as a victorious conquest or as a final defeat and subjugation, then, an alternative plot emerges in which this encounter between peoples challenges us to build a new future together. Thus, as Elizondo contends, in the “little stories” of Juan Diego as known and transmitted by ordinary people one can find the “big story” of the struggles for identity, recognition, belonging, and dignity of the new and emerging humanity of the Americas, of the truly new creation taking place within the American continent.35

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Elizondo sees here a hope for the future of the Americas that is also the goal for humanity: a mixing, or mestizaje, that is not merely a melting pot but an affirmation of the enriching possibilities of mutual encounter on the basis of accepting and respecting differences. This is, in Elizondo’s view, the same hope as that brought by Jesus, “a new paradigm for universalizing humanity not by making it all the same—eliminating differences and making it all uniform—but by relativizing all human differences in terms of the one absolute that is truly absolute: the unlimited love of God.”36 As we have thus far analyzed his approach, Elizondo seems to have developed something very like the reverse of the double narrative I advocate for public theology. Instead of focusing on a particular people’s historical experiences as a moment within the larger story of Christian history, he places a particular Christian story within a more general account of a people’s history. This does not, however, negate my argument for a larger Christian story or theology of history; indeed, Elizondo himself presumes such a larger story. Still, Elizondo further complexifies and enriches a narrative approach to theology through his attention to levels of narrative. His work thus suggests that a narrative approach to theology ought not be reduced to any simplistic format (especially one that juxtaposes “the Christian story” to other stories). It should also be noted that Elizondo’s double narrative of Guadalupe in the Americas is clearly an unfinished story, as was Lincoln’s. That Guadalupe’s hopeful vision of respectful harmony between peoples has not been achieved should be obvious in any case, but our place in the story is so central to Elizondo’s theology that he repeatedly connects the story of Guadalupe to our ongoing struggle for justice and dignity by including descriptions of contemporary experiences of discrimination and oppression along with his analysis of Juan Diego’s story. We are left with no doubt that church and society today still construct barriers that are not unlike those Guadalupe confronted in the sixteenth century. Elizondo’s theology of history also should not be overlooked. Though he does not provide a narrative of the divine purposes in all of human history, Elizondo does address this broader historical perspective. That the particular story of the Americas and the Christian story of Guadalupe fit into a larger Christian story of salvation is suggested in Elizondo’s frequent references to biblical themes and images in order to clarify that the story of Guadalupe is consistent with basic Christian beliefs. For example, he notes similarities between the powerless infant in Bethlehem and the Mexican peasant, Juan Diego, and between what happened at Mount Tepeyac and what happened at Mount Sinai, the Mount


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of the Beatitudes, and the Mount of the Transfiguration.37 The appeal to a larger Christian perspective is even more clearly seen, however, in Elizondo’s contention that the story of Guadalupe conveys God’s goal for all of humanity, and as such is a specification of the message of Jesus Christ: “Guadalupe is thus a good Nahuatl translation of the New Testament reality of the reign of God as revealed by Jesus,” he contends.38 We receive here no new task, then, but a clarification of and invitation to the task we have had as Christians all along: “the very mission [of the church] is to constantly challenge into new life until the final consummation of time.”39 Just as Lincoln specifies divine purposes in history that I have described as an implicit story, an account that has narrative traits that remain undeveloped, so too does Elizondo suggest a narrative theology of history without explicitly narrating it. He depicts God as one who desires life and invites us to participate in the building up of human relations of dignity and inclusiveness rather than of oppression, injustice, degradation, and violence. This eschatological hope has begun to be realized in history, and so it is not only comprehended as the ultimately worthwhile moral purpose that (as Gamwell argues) ought to direct all of our other purposes but also, then, as the telos that properly governs the emplotment of events in a Christian theology of history.40 This implicit narrative of salvation history also influences (and is influenced by) Elizondo’s explicit interpretation of the double narrative of Juan Diego amid the American conquest. As Elizondo explains, Guadalupe’s “full impact can be appreciated only in the context of salvation history itself. For Guadalupe is not just a Mexican happening—it is a major moment in God’s saving plan for humanity.”41 Without the testimony and teachings of the Christian tradition about God’s plan for our salvation, we could not know, for example, that this invitation to a new humanity is not a new development but is a particular presentation of God’s consistent offer of salvation. Attention to the broader Christian tradition also reaffirms the depiction in the Guadalupe story of God’s predilection for the powerless and God’s desire to restore harmony to humanity, beginning with the empowerment of “the crushed of the world.”42 At the same time, Elizondo shows that the Guadalupe story clarifies our understanding of God’s universal intention for humanity by drawing our attention to the implications of the reign of God for the encounter between people of different cultures and religions: we are to seek unity and harmony amid (and not despite) our differences. Thus we can see the complexity of Elizondo’s theological attention to narrative in that the mutual reinterpretations of the story-within-a-story of Guadalupe in the Americans is set

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within a broader account of the divine purpose in history. This purpose, though it can be rendered as a proposition, is at least potentially a narrative in which historical events are understood as advancing or impeding the goal of unity in difference.

Elizondo’s Contributions to a Narrative Public Theology In addition to his complex integration of three levels of possible narration, Elizondo’s specification of the goal of a new humanity is an important contribution to public theology. In this view, the salvation offered by God is not intended only for an afterlife in heaven but is part of God’s will for this world: what will be accomplished beyond history begins and grows within history. God calls us to convert here and now to a life of harmony with others in appreciation of our differences. This is a goal that is clearly relevant to public life, a challenging ideal that we should strive to realize in our interactions with one another as well as in our public policies. How different from Lincoln’s ideal of democratic freedom, though, is this goal of a new humanity celebrating life together without segregation or discrimination? While an adequate articulation of the eschatological hope of Christianity is beyond the scope of our largely methodological argument here, we cannot avoid the question of whether Elizondo’s hope for humanity is consistent with the hope for participatory democracy and greater human freedom in history, the hope has been defended not only in our discussion of Lincoln but throughout this book. I would argue that Elizondo’s vision of a joyful celebration of our relations with one another together in our differences requires, but is broader than, a public life in which all are responsible subjects. Insofar as Elizondo wishes to critique the exclusion of some from full participation in church and society, surely at least a part of realizing his vision and hope depends upon the participatory and egalitarian processes and structures through which we can work together to determine the political conditions conducive to the full flourishing of all members of society. At the same time, Elizondo’s vision of harmony provides the necessary motivation for involvement in and concern for our public life and institutions. This account of the telos of human history is also helpful in that this vision of a harmonious life with others challenges any narrow concept of freedom as a freedom from constraint. He thus reminds us that the public life we seek is one in which the quality of interaction is itself of value; this is not an understanding of liberty as a mere freedom from interference.


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Elizondo’s narrative interpretation of Guadalupe is also significant for public theology in that its focus on the colonization of the Americans interrupts any Eurocentric history of the United States, reminding us instead of the inhumane and unjust treatment of indigenous peoples from the very beginning of the story (preceding even the founding of the United States). Our national story cannot simply be told as a story of new birth achieved through the conflict between European and EuropeanAmericans, but must be expanded to include the many others whose lives and territories have come to comprise the United States. (Indeed, ours was from the beginning and remains a story of global relationships.) Lincoln’s call for a “new birth of freedom” suggests to the attentive audience that the first birth was flawed, while Elizondo pushes us to realize that even the horror of slavery in the United States was not the original sin on this continent. The European conquest had distorted human relationships here long before the British settlers arrived to found the American colonies and to plant the seeds of a nation that would be half-slave and half-free. We must narrate these broader memories of suffering as a challenge to overcome the structures and attitudes of racism and exclusion that continue to oppress those descended from the indigenous peoples as well as from the enslaved Africans. Interestingly, for Elizondo an acknowledgment of this sin and suffering does not require an unrelentingly negative critique of our polity and its institutions. Though he does not go as far as Lincoln and proclaim democratic self-governance to be the “last best hope on earth,” he does celebrate the new possibilities opened up in the Americas, including in the United States, through this encounter between peoples and cultures. In Elizondo’s view, this coming together makes possible the mutual enrichment, the “truly new humanity recognizing the legitimacy, beauty, and dignity of each and every human group” that is part of God’s plan.43 It is not the contact between or mixing of European and indigenous that is the tragedy, but that it was accompanied by violence, humiliation, and subjugation. Elizondo is not content then with narrating memories that interrupt this oppressive history; his narrative points beyond this tragic history to the resolution he finds symbolized in the story of Guadalupe. Thus, where Metz emphasizes a narrative of the memoria Christi to inspire a praxis of resistance to suffering, Elizondo narrates the story of Guadaupe appearing to (and as) one of the despised and oppressed indigenous people to initiate in the Americas the historical process of restoring dignity to the oppressed and a just harmony among all people. Elizondo thus enables us to envision a Christianity that avoids the false dilemma of either accommodation or sectarian withdrawal: in the

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story of Guadalupe, we learn that a Christianity inculturated in indigenous symbols may be more faithful to God’s intentions for Christianity than the Eurocentric repudiation of this new popular culture and its “alien” and “demonic” religious insights. A Christianity that is open to, and allows itself to be transformed by, other perspectives need not, then, result in an accommodation in which some “pure” form of Christianity is distorted or at least loses its prophetic edge; to the contrary, it is this encounter that allows a prophetic Christianity to emerge. In the story of Guadalupe, as interpreted by Elizondo, God makes use of non-Christian culture to call the Christians to a more faithful Christianity; this vision thus provides the basis for a spirituality of public life centered on Guadalupe’s embodiment of God’s desire for a home where people can come together and be welcomed and respected in their distinctness. Another contribution that ought not to go unmentioned is Elizondo’s expansion of public theology through his aesthetic approach to truth. In the Nahuatl text that he analyzes, the apparition of Mary is accompanied by “flor y canto” (flower and song), because these manifest the beauty that is truth for the Nahuatl culture. (According to this ancient wisdom, as quoted by Elizondo, “it may be that no one on earth can tell the truth, except through flower and song.”44) This Nahuatl insight is also shown to be consistent with the divine pedagogy since, as the story of Guadalupe exemplifies, God invites us to experience beauty (in contrast to the Christian missionaries’ threats of hell and damnation). Elizondo argues that we too miss the mark when our evangelization and catechesis emphasize rules, regulations, and conceptual distinctions rather than the celebration of our common humanity, the “fiesta, compassion, and love” that entice people to share and to develop this beautiful vision with us.45 Though Elizondo does not reject rigorous argument and conceptual clarity, their place for him is decidedly secondary. We need not only the clarity that focuses—but also and primarily the beauty that expands—our vision. This suggests a very different approach to public theology than is presumed in the many intricate discussions of whether and how religious claims can be defended through publicly accessible arguments. While Elizondo allows for the value and even necessity of reasoned disputation, he shifts our focus from presenting convincing public arguments to creating public celebrations and other public gatherings that invite people to experience this new humanity with us. Elizondo is not far, then, from Metz’s idea of a practical fundamental theology: like Metz, Elizondo would have us defend our hope by living so as to make it true and, Elizondo would add, to allow the beauty of this salvific and life-giving hope to be experi-


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enced by others. If our positions fail to persuade the public, this failure may be due not so much to the weakness of our logic or to the invincible ignorance of our conversation partners, but rather to the joylessness of our lives. From Elizondo’s perspective, it would seem that Hauerwas is right that living our faith is our most essential public service as Christians, but this faith for Elizondo must be lived in joyful welcome of those whose differences will challenge and may transform our own certainties. Elizondo’s recognition of the limits of reasoned debate further underscores the significance of narrative in public theology. As Elizondo’s own work shows, through stories our experiences can be presented to others in a form that invites them to share our hope with us, to understand, and perhaps even to make the story their own. At the risk of oversimplification, it could be said that arguments intend to persuade others to accept our ideas, whereas narratives invite others to share imaginatively in our experiences. Both of these are public offers and both have their proper place; without denying the more common Western approaches to truth through reasoning and investigation of facts, Elizondo emphatically reminds us not to neglect the more important and no less public truth communicated through the beautiful as well as through the good.

Delores Williams: Narrating Resistance Narrating a Womanist Theology An even more interruptive model of narrative theology is developed by Delores Williams in her Sisters in the Wilderness. In this work, Williams draws on an account of African-American history, on the individual stories of ordinary African-American women, and on the story of Hagar in the Book of Genesis as sources for her womanist theology.46 Her use of narrative is particularly instructive for our purposes in that, like Metz, Williams is less concerned with proffering comprehensive narratives (either of Christianity or of the American nation) than she is with interrupting those grand narratives with the memories of suffering that inspire struggle against injustice. Her work especially challenges the idea of the Bible as a coherent unified narrative: attending to the biblical story of Hagar, Williams argues that the Bible cannot be reduced to the single Exodus theme of God’s liberation of the oppressed.47 This emphasis on liberation, as she argues, is not only inconsistent with many biblical texts but also neglects the experiences of those who find God in their struggles

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even when liberation is not achieved. Instead of focusing attention primarily on the great moments of historical transformation and liberation for African Americans, then, Williams retrieves the stories of the ordinary black women whose contributions did not obviously change history but whose extraordinary efforts to care for their children and their communities made possible the survival of African Americans despite enormous obstacles. With her interruptive and pluralistic focus on the multiple stories of individual women’s lives of resistance, Williams provides yet another example of the practical implications of a narrative theology, while also demonstrating that the double narrative advocated above comes at too high of a price if it must provide a uniform account either of God’s historical purposes or of the United States. Williams begins with a discussion of the biblical story of Hagar as an alternative to the emphasis on liberation evident in the Exodus from Egypt.48 As Williams observes, the Genesis account of Hagar is among those biblical texts where the liberation theme simply does not fit: God does not liberate Hagar but rather, in Genesis 16, sends her back to submit to her mistress, Sarah, after she has liberated herself from slavery. One might expect that Williams would then argue that this story is not helpful today, especially for oppressed women, but she instead affirms that it is an alternative and rich resource for a womanist theology, if read with attention to Hagar’s interests rather than those of the slave owners (Sarah and Abraham). Were the pregnant Hagar to remain in the wilderness, Williams points out, it is likely that neither she nor her child would survive the impending childbirth. In sending her back to her mistress with a promise that her descendants would flourish, God is thus opting for life for Hagar and her child. Later, after Ishmael is born, and Hagar and Ishmael are turned out into the wilderness in Genesis 21 (a passage that clearly presents the wilderness as inhospitable to human life), God again evinces a divine concern with their survival and intervenes to show Hagar (or to give her the vision to see) the water she needs for her and her child’s survival. In this second wilderness incident, we find Hagar now able, with the help of God, to survive and to make a home for herself and her son under the harsh conditions of a freedom bereft of resources. Where the Exodus story focuses on liberation, then, the story of Hagar provides an alternative theme of concern for the survival of the oppressed. This insightful interpretation of Hagar’s story is made possible by Williams’s intentional use of the experiences and interests of black women in the United States as a lens for reading the Bible.49 She challenges us to focus on the point of view of Hagar, the slave, rather than of Sarah, the slave owner, and so to find here a divine concern not primarily


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for the rights and interests of the slave owner but rather for Hagar’s survival and the survival of her child. Williams also recounts the history of African Americans’ enslavement in the United States and their freedom into the harsh conditions of a racist society that continually denies them the resources necessary for flourishing; the implications of this history are specified for us through the particular stories Williams provides of real African-American women who struggled for themselves, their children, and their community under these conditions.50 Reading Hagar’s story in light of African-American women’s experience draws our attention to the importance of God’s care for Hagar in these two experiences of surviving, first under the conditions of slavery and then under the conditions of a resourceless freedom wherein God enabled Hagar (as God continues to enable African-American women) to “make a way out of no way.” This important theme of God’s concern for “survival/quality of life,” as Williams describes it, resonates with African-American women who experience God’s assistance as did Hagar—often not in freeing them from structures of oppression and leading them to a new situation so much as in helping them to survive and to ensure their children’s survival in the conditions they are in.51 While the stories of ordinary black women’s struggle for survival in the United States influence Williams’ interpretation of the story of Hagar, it is also the case that the story of Hagar is a source of insight into the experiences of African-American women. The biblical Hagar provides a theological validation of ordinary, non-elite women’s strategies of survival and of their experience of God: not only those who make a lasting difference in the shared structures of our lives through their public action, but also those who enable the community to survive and even at times to flourish against the odds are of concern to God and make necessary contributions to human history (as is suggested by Hagar’s descendents becoming a great nation). Where the liberation-Exodus paradigm focuses on God’s involvement with the men (and women) who change the conditions of history, the Hagar story thus affirms God’s involvement with and concern for the women (and men) whose struggles to survive and to nurture their communities make that history possible. The story of Hagar being helped and cared for by the God who is with her in her struggle continues to speak to African-American women, as Williams notes, perhaps because the example of Hagar vindicates their daily acts of defiance, initiative, and risk-taking on behalf of themselves and their community.52 Although the stories of individual African-American women are properly moments within a larger story of African-American and U.S.

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history, the relation between the Hagar story and the African-American stories involves, not placing one story within another, but rather a mutual interpretation and interweaving of insights in order to gain practical and theological insights. The central theme that Williams discerns from this mutual interpretation concerns the experience of oppression in the form of a nonvoluntary surrogacy in which the socially privileged and powerful escape their responsibilities by forcing the powerless to take over their roles and to work in their place. Hagar is quite obviously forced to be a surrogate for Sarah and to provide the heir that Sarah is not able to produce (though the story as narrated in the Bible focuses on Sarah and Abraham and does not indicate how Hagar felt about being required to assume this role). This theme of oppression as forced surrogacy, so evident in Hagar’s story, draws our attention to the surrogacy that has been an important aspect of African-American women’s oppression and continues to influence the racist treatment of African-American women in the United States today. Slave women in the role of “mammies” were surrogates for their white mistresses in caring for the white children and household, slave women were surrogates for men (black and white) when they were forced to do the field work and hard manual labor then socially defined as men’s work, and slave women were treated as surrogates to satisfy the sexual appetites of white men.53 This analysis of oppression as forced surrogacy reveals the extent to which the oppression and exploitation of African-American women has involved their being forced in slavery and coerced in a resourceless freedom to do the work that others do not wish to do. At the same time, this forced surrogacy distorts others’ perception of the surrogate (as Sarah’s perception of Hagar was distorted). Inasmuch as this oppression is viewed not as the brutal exploitation of African-American women that it was and is, but as somehow proper and fitting to their nature, African-American women are seen as inherently mammies (sexless fonts of maternal love), masculinized superwomen (able to work and suffer much more than delicate white women), and as wanton Jezebels, and these caricatures continue to distort the perception of African-American women in the United States.54 A forced surrogacy thus destroys the mutuality of healthy human relationships in which each works for his/her own benefit as well as to contribute to the common good; in addition to being a situation of hard, unpleasant, and unchosen labor without adequate remuneration, surrogacy involves the distortion of the basis for human interaction in a just community. Reading together the story of Hagar and the stories of AfricanAmerican women also reminds us that relative power and powerlessness


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poison relationships even between people with common interests, as is evident in the conflict between white and black women and between black men and black women.55 Williams see this divisiveness in Sarah’s misuse of Hagar: “the struggle between power and powerlessness in human relationships disrupts peace in a family unity, breeds enmity between women, and sends a poverty-stricken female slave (Hagar) scurrying into the wilderness,” as Williams observes.56 Similarly, the common oppression of women by men often leads not to solidarity and mutual understanding but rather to further oppression of more vulnerable (and usually darker-skinned) women by relatively privileged (usually white) women. Black women must also challenge the sexism within the black community and not be persuaded to wait for greater equality until the full liberation of black men has been achieved, Williams contends. Work to ensure the survival of the oppressed and to build just relations in society must confront the conflicting interests and increased tensions that oppression creates among the relatively powerful and powerless among the oppressed. These insights, gained through Williams’s strategy of reading together the story of Hagar and the stories of ordinary African-American women’s efforts to survive, challenge the usual and even the liberationist approaches to the Bible and to U.S. history. As we have seen, Williams interrupts the overly facile assertion of a unifying biblical plot in order to recover the importance of God’s assistance to efforts to survive and flourish when the conditions of oppression remain. She also interrupts a history of African Americans told as a story of public achievements (and/or public reversals) in order to remind us of the heroic struggles of ordinary women in difficult conditions made even worse by the denial of relationships of mutuality across race, class, and gender lines. These interruptions underscore the importance of the often overlooked but essential (and ongoing) work of nurturing the survival of the most vulnerable among us. Yet Williams’s contributions are not merely interruptive, as there is a constructive, integrating intention in this work that is evident especially in her approach to the history of African Americans. Williams creates a mutually interpretive (and not only interruptive) relation between the individual stories and the narration of the larger historical context necessary to make sense of the individual stories. The horror of the oppression of African Americans cannot be fully grasped apart from the stories of the brutality that individuals have suffered and, at the same time, these particular stories of suffering and of heroic resistance cannot be comprehended apart from the history of slavery and the subsequent liberation into a

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harsh freedom. To be sure, Williams resists the tendency to submerge the hopes, struggles, sufferings, and resistance of these women into the march of history that (as Metz clarifies for us) cannot gain justice for its past victims. Yet these particular individuals’ stories are proffered as an irreducible part of the larger history that they comprise and that continues in the ongoing campaign for racial justice and the full flourishing of African Americans in the United States. The stories of individual AfricanAmerican women need the context provided by the larger narrative of the African-American community’s historic experiences, while at the same time they deepen our understanding of what these historical developments mean for people’s lives. We see a similar integrative concern at work in Williams’s interruption of a liberationist reading of the Bible. Though she argues that both the liberation paradigm and the survival/quality of life paradigm are important to the African-American community and to its theology, Williams affirms the primacy of the liberation motif as ultimate, even while insisting that God’s concern for the survival and flourishing of the community where liberation has not been achieved must be given its due.57 It would seem then that she is not denying the value of a comprehensive account able to do justice to the various experiences of God in their relation to one another. Williams’s insights suggest that if she were to narrate such a story, it would be told so that the movement toward human liberation includes discordant moments when the goal of liberation gives way to the more immediate needs of survival and quality of life, which are, after all, essential to the true liberation that is the ultimate goal.

Williams’s Contributions to a Narrative Public Theology Williams’s emphasis on interruptive stories provides valuable corrections to the narrative public theology I have outlined above. She rightly insists (as does Metz) on the need for ongoing interruptions of our synthesizing narratives from the perspective of the experiences of those who are left out of these attempts to narrate the whole. Williams provides specific examples of the hope, suffering, and resistance of African-American women, the memories of whom inspire continued hope and resistance. If their stories are forgotten (or are replaced by a general historical pattern), the hope for a meaningful life for all of us in the United States will be diminished. While these interruptive stories must not, then, be replaced by an abstract historical pattern, they also need not lead to a total rejec-


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tion of narrative unity, since, as I have argued, in Williams’s work they contribute to and depend upon larger historical narratives. Williams also provides support for a point defended in our discussion of Hannah Arendt, which is that public and private are properly distinguished but not entirely separable. As Williams’s work reminds us, an overemphasis on public life to the neglect of concern for the struggles of women to support and nurture their families and relationships risks missing the important “private” work and struggle without which the public struggle cannot take place (much less succeed). Williams thus challenges the hegemony of a focus on public history, especially insofar as it devalues the hopes and struggles of ordinary women in favor of the domain of extraordinary actions of (usually) men. Similarly, however, the public struggle is an important extension of the struggles of women in their private lives and against oppressions that are not merely individual problems but are socially structured realities. Indeed, Williams reminds us of the role of black women (such as Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks) in the historic fights against slavery and for civil rights, struggles that were extensions of the “private” work black women have done to resist the destruction of their families and community.58 Public and private are here evidently interrelated and, while they must be distinguished, can no more be separated than can liberation and survival. Perhaps most importantly, Williams provides a compelling argument against any attempt to narrate others’ experiences for them or to subsume their stories into our own. Womanist theologians, as she notes, struggle to speak with their own voices “when some white female and some black male scholars work together to crowd out our voices or to take control of our work.”59 Any double narrative such as I have defended will contribute to oppression rather than justice if it fails to allow for interruption and redirection by others’ stories, or if, acknowledging these other stories, it seeks to subsume them into an already established or alien narration. However, I would also argue that this acknowledgment that others must narrate their own experiences ought not be an excuse for evading the challenge they pose to us since, as Williams work shows, our stories as white and black, male and female, slave and free, and powerful and disempowered cannot be separated any more than can the stories of Sarah and Hagar. We must continually strive to narrate more honestly the history of our relatedness in response to the interruption of others’ perspectives, even while guarding against appropriating others’ stories and crowding out their voices. This effort to respond without appropriation is, I believe, consistent with my argument above for a plurality of narratives of

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our common national life told from different perspectives and challenging one another’s adequacy. It should also be noted that the narratives that form the basis of Williams’s womanist theology are, and are presented as, fully public stories open to public standards of evaluation. To be sure, whatever historical basis (if any) there may have been for the story of Hagar is probably not recoverable, yet the story is publicly presented and has a meaning that can be publicly disputed, especially in terms of the practical implications Williams derives from it. No participant in public debate is in principle unqualified to evaluate the relation of this story to efforts to ensure survival and to increase the quality of life by and for people whose full liberation and access to a society’s resources are impeded. On the other hand, the story of the African-American community’s oppression in the United States and the particular stories of ordinary women’s resistance are properly historical narratives that can be publicly evaluated on the basis of their adequacy to the traces of history and the challenge they pose to the adequacy of other historical accounts; further, as practical stories, they also present a task and a way of being in the world that can and must be publicly evaluated. Williams’s (rightful) insistence that people must be allowed to narrate their own history and experiences does not entail that these stories be treated as private or as closed to public debate, especially since she includes them in her own public argument. While Williams’s narrative approach to theology interrupts an overemphasis on narrating the whole, her project is not, I argue, inconsistent with the narrative public theology I have defended here. Her interruptions are not finally rejections of a holistic perspective on history, but can be seen as contributions to the development of revised narratives of God’s purposes and of our history (as long as these do not preclude or replace the particular stories of individual struggles). Does she further allow for or suggest the possibility of a double narrative that places American history within a story of God’s intentions for human history as a whole? It should be noted that at some points she works with something like a double narrative in her arguments when she places particular women’s stories within the U.S. history of slavery, racism, and the struggle for civil rights; at other times she reads the story of Hagar as an interruptive moment within a biblical unfolding of God’s desire for human liberation. These narrative interweavings do, I believe, suggest that American history might be narrated as a moment within a larger narrative theology of history, provided that the ultimate goal of liberation is nuanced by attention to God’s interest in life and survival. Indeed, I would argue that if we take seriously the implications of Williams’s analy-


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sis of surrogacy, we must narrate the history of the United States (and the African-American experiences within that history) as part of the ongoing divine concern for the (not yet secured) survival and liberation of the oppressed.60 As Metz would describe this theological story, its plot is determined by God’s invitation to all to be subjects in God’s presence, but the concordance of this plot must be interrupted by the discordant stories of particular sufferings and unrealized hopes, as it is in Williams’s emphasis on stories of African-American women’s struggle to survive.

Conclusion Public theology as I have here defended it is a way of doing theology in which the many theological tasks (fundamental, systematic, and practical) are engaged with a concern to address the wider society and with conscious attention to the issues raised by and in our public life.61 It intends, then, to be a political theology specific to the United States, providing new insights into the meaning and truth of Christianity in light of its practical implications for our context. The investigation of the meaning and truth of Christian beliefs and practices thus becomes public theology, as I understand it, when this investigation is undertaken with attention to the difference participating in the national life of the United States makes for the questions and answers one brings to one’s theological reflection. I have also and more specifically defended here the importance of narratives as a resource for this public theology, particularly since narratives enable us to grasp the temporal dimensions of our experiences as formed by the past and expressive of a hope for the future. As our discussions in chapter 4 made clear, and as the examples explored in this chapter demonstrate, this double narrative must strive for the coherence of a unified hope for history while allowing for the interruptions and the discordance appropriate to our nonlinear and interruptive experience of history. Our examination here of the narrative aspects of the thought of Abraham Lincoln, Virgil Elizondo, and Delores Williams further indicates that narrative is not only a practical category but a highly pluralistic one—the variety of possible narratives and ways of narrating that can be resources for our theology deserve more careful attention than the simplistic claim to “a Christian story” allows. These three thinkers’ narratives and narrative-based perspectives also support my contention that narratives are both contextually generated and yet inherently open to public investigation and debate, since particularity and public accessibility are evident in each of their

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approaches. While Lincoln, Elizondo, and Williams clearly develop their narratives in accordance with the problems they are focusing on, their stories can and must be evaluated in terms of the values conveyed in them along with their overall intelligibility and warranted assertability (including fidelity to the traces of the past as a history of sin and of grace). As exercises in public theology, these narratives must also be appropriate to the Christian tradition and (I would emphasize) to its welcome of the stranger, a welcome that prohibits the stifling of alternative perspectives. Only thus might we more closely approximate that unity in diversity that is our ultimate goal. Lincoln, Elizondo, and Williams are especially important to our conversation, then, not only because they remind us of specific parts of the American story that we must not forget, but also because they exemplify the rich variety of ways a public theology might engage narrative, as it strives to respond adequately to the challenge of the interruptive as well as the integrative aspects of narrating a public theology. While not all public theology needs to engage narratives explicitly, much can be gained for Christian theology and for American public life, if Christian theologians attend closely to the temporality and specificity of Christian hope, and participate in the protection, interruption, and redirection of the processes of narration through which the temporal dimensions of our religious faith and our political visions are expressed.62

Notes

Chapter 1. Introduction: The Need for a Narrative Public Theology 1. See for example, Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society, trans. David Smith (New York: Seabury Press, 1980); Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Grounds and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology, trans. James Leitch (New York: Harper and Row, 1967) and his later The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); Dorothee Sölle, Political Theology, trans. John Shelley (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974); Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, trans. Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1973); Leonardo Boff, Liberating Grace, trans. by John Drury (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1979); and Juan Luis Segundo, S.J., The Liberation of Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1976). 2. Linell Elizabeth Cady, Religion, Theology, and American Public Life (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 154–155. 3. See for example the focus on sociology in Segundo, Liberation, esp. 39–68, and on socio-analytic mediations in Clodovis Boff, “Epistemology and Method of the Theology of Liberation” in Ignacio Ellacuría and Jon Sobrino, eds., Mysterium Liberationis: Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993), 57–85. While both of these thinkers discuss the importance of history, neither attends to the temporal forms of analysis necessary to engage history adequately. 4. Metz, Faith in History, 114. 5. Paul Ricoeur, Temps et Recit, 3 vols. (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1983–1985). As translated in Time and Narrative, 3 vols., translated by Kathleen McLauglin and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984–1988), III 216. 207

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6. Abraham Lincoln, “A House Divided: Speech Delivered at Springfield, Illinois, at the Close of the Republican State Convention, June 16, 1858” in Abraham Lincoln: Great Speeches, with Historical Notes by John Grafton (New York: Dover Publications, 1991), 25. 7. Parker Palmer, The Company of Strangers (New York: Crossroads, 1983); Cady’s Religion; Max Stackhouse, Public Theology and Political Economy (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman’s, 1987); Ronald F. Thiemann, Constructing a Public Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster, 1991); Robert Benne, The Paradoxical Vision: A Public Theology for the 21st Century (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995); and Michael J. Himes and Kenneth R. Himes, Fullness of Faith (New York: Paulist Press, 1993). This list is not intended to be exhaustive; nonetheless, I should mention also that David Tracy, William Dean, Richard John Neuhaus, and Richard McBrien have also written important methodological works that have notably influenced the conversation about public theology. 8. See especially James Cone, “Looking Back and Going Forward: Black Theology as Public Theology” in Dwight N. Hopkins, ed., Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone’s Black Theology and Black Power (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1999) and Victor Anderson, Pragmatic Theology: Negotiating the Intersections of an American Philosophy of Religion and Public Theology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998). 9. Martin E. Marty, “Two Kinds of Two Kinds of Civil Religion” in Russell E. Richey and Donald G. Jones, eds., American Civil Religion (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), 139–157. 10. Robert N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” in Richleyy and Jones, eds., American Civil Religion, 33. 11. Robert W. McElroy, The Search for an American Theology: The Contribution of John Courtney Murray (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 145. See also the helpful discussion of this point in Cady, Religion, 21–25. 12. See Cady’s distinction between civil religion and public theology in her Religion, 21–29, as well as Marty’s “Two Kinds.” 13. See, for example, George Weigel, Building the Free Society: Democracy, Capitalism and Catholic Social Teaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman’s, 1993) and Michael Novak, The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Free Press, 1993), as well as the regular columns of Richard John Neuhaus in the journal First Things. 14. While Cone might seem to fit more appropriately in the category of liberationist theologies addressing the concerns of particular groups rather than the whole nation, his recent affirmation that black

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theology is public theology reminds us that his theology has always challenged us to address racism as a problem for the whole nation. Many other liberationist theologies (who may not have made the argument as explicitly) also pursue their agendas as problems of national public life, a fact that I take as providing further confirmation of my argument that explicitly public theologies may contribute to the fulfillment of the agendas of various liberation theologies. 15. Though Cady, Dean, Cone, and Tracy, to name just a few who have taken up the project of public theology, differ politically and theologically, none are properly described as pursuing a conservative agenda. 16. Eisenbach stressed the liberal inconsistencies in his presentation “Narrative Power and Liberal Truth in Building a New Consensus,” given at the First Annual Res Publica Conference in Aspen, CO, November 16, 2001. For a more nuanced presentation of his position, see his The Next Religious Establishment: National Identity and Political Theology in a Post-Protestant America (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000). See also Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America (Grand Rapids, MI: W. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 1984), 9–10 for a brief description of recent shifts in attitudes towards politically active religiosity. 17. See Michael Lind, “To Have and to Have Not,” in Harper’s Magazine, vol. 240, no. 1741 (June 1995), 35–47, along with his The Next American Nation (New York: Free Press, 1995), and Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (New York: Norton, 1995). See also Moltmann’s “The Liberation of the Future and Its Anticipations in History” in Richard Bauckham, ed., God Will Be All In All: The Eschatology of Jürgen Moltmann (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 276. 18. Bellah makes this argument in his 1996 introduction to Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), vii–xxxix. 19. See the works of Novak, Stackhouse, and Weigel cited above. 20. For a clear summary of the major agreements among “liberal” political philosophers, see David Hollenbach, “Liberalism, Communitarianism, and the Bishops’ Pastoral Letter on the Economy” in The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1987, especially 21. A particularly nuanced interpretation of the liberal-communitarian debate is provided by Charles Taylor in his “Cross-Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,” in Nancy L. Rosenblum, ed., Liberalism and the Moral Life (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 159–182.

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21. I further agree with Sullivan that “what makes life worth living is not simple pleasure but the peculiarly human satisfaction of feeling oneself to be a significant member of an ongoing way of life that appeals because of its deep resonances of beauty and meaning.” However, I would caution that this very real need for a meaningful purpose can lead to a patriotism that asserts the good of the country in a demonic way. See William Sullivan, Reconstructing Public Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), especially xii, 164, and (for his defense of civic republicanism), 14–22. 22. Shailer Mathews, The Spiritual Interpretation of History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916), 206. 23. Tracy, who has articulated one of the most influential defenses of the public role of theology, observes that “if our society applied only ‘intuitions’ to the technoeconomic realm, society would wreck the technoeconomic structure itself with more than deliberate speed. The application of instrumental reason alone to ethical questions . . . is similarly destructive.” See David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 10. See also Ronald Thiemann, Religion in Public Life: A Dilemma for Democracy (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1996), especially chapter 5. 24. Himes and Himes, Fullness, 19. 25. Robert Wuthnow, Christianity in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Oxford, 1993), 170–171. 26. David Tracy has especially defended the project of publicly adjudicating religious beliefs without denying the historical and cultural particularity of human thought. See his Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, and Hope (New York: Harper and Row, 1987). See also Cady, Religion, 1–64, and William Dean, The Religious Critic in American Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 19–39. 27. This point is emphasized especially in Cady’s Religion and Dean’s Religious Critic. 28. For Valentin’s categorization, see his Mapping Public Theology: Beyond Culture, Identity, and Difference (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002), especially 85–87. 29. See especially Martin E. Marty, The Public Church: Mainline, Evangelical, Catholic (New York: Crossroad, 1981); Palmer, Company, and Robert Wuthnow, Producing the Sacred: An Essay on Public Religion (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1994). 30. See John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford, UK; Cambridge, MA: B. Blackwell, 1990), and Oliver

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O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 31. The dilemma of theology’s public voice is similarly stated by Jeffrey Stout in his Ethics After Babel: The Languages of Morals and their Discontents (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988), esp. 163. This dilemma is also explored insightfully by Victor Anderson in his Pragmatic Theology, especially 13–28. 32. See John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (Kansas City, MO: Sheed and Ward, 1960), especially 97–123, and David Hollenbach, S.J., ed., “Theology and Philosophy in Public: A Symposium on John Courtney Murray’s Unfinished Agenda” in Theological Studies 40, 700–715, along with Cady’s Religion, Valentin’s Mapping, Dean’s Religious Critic, and Anderson’s Pragmatic. 33. See Tracy’s Analogical, along with his earlier “Particular Classics, Public Religion, and the American Tradition” in Robin W. Lovin, ed., Religion and Public Life: Interpretations and Explorations (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), 115–131. See also the discussion of Tracy’s point in Himes and Himes, Fullness, especially 16–17. 34. Himes and Himes, Fullness. 35. William Dean, The American Spiritual Culture: And the Invention of Jazz, Football, and the Movies (New York: Continuum, 2002) , and Dean, Religious Critic. 36. Victor Anderson, Pragmatic Theology. 37. See especially Cornel West, The Cornel West Reader (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999), 486–487; Dwight Hopkins, ed., Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone’s “Black Theology and Black Power” (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1999); and Anderson, Pragmatic. 38. Valentin, Mapping, especially 107–116. 39. Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974); George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), especially 30–45. 40. Dean, Religious Critic, 18, 13. 41. Dean, American Spiritual, esp. 44–61. 42. See for example Jean-François Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), and Charles H. Long, “Civil Rights—Civil Religion: Visible People and Invisible Religion” in Richey, ed., American Civil Religion, 211–221. 43. As West argues, “any entry of black people in a public dialogue often means that they—we—are on the defensive.” See West, 487. 44. Dean, Religious Critic, 63–67.

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Notes to Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Public Theology in a Pluralistic Society

1. The lack of concern about the undermining of religious freedom at this time in the United States is surely one of history’s ironies: with the official acceptance of religious freedom by the Roman Catholic Church in 1965, it must have seemed that we would now have Christians united in a shared commitment to religious freedom. Instead, the beginning of the twenty-first century finds Christians in the United States rather more commonly challenging the disestablishment of religion (at least implicitly), despite the ample resources in the various Christian denominations for defending religious freedom on Christian grounds. 2. Two major exceptions, both to be discussed in chapter 4 below, are U.S. Lutheran theologian Ronald Thiemann and the German Catholic theologian Johann Baptist Metz. 3. See John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford, UK; Cambridge, MA: B. Blackwell, 1990). Hauerwas’s influential position condemning liberalism and defending an alternative Christian narrative will be discussed in detail in chapter 4 below. 4. Milbank, Theology, 408. See also Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 5. See, for example, the dedication of Milbank’s Theology and Hauerwas’s acknowledgment of his “lingering longing for Christendom” in Stanley Hauerwas, A Better Hope: Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy, and Postmodernity (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2000), 227 (n. 39). 6. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.), 1951. 7. Gerald Loughlin, Telling God’s Story: Bible, Church, and Narrative Theology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 24. 8. Milbank, Theology, 418. 9. Hauerwas often argues against this kind of reasoning on the grounds that we ought not to ask what would happen if all acted like Christians but rather what would happen if no one acted like Christians but Christians. Where his position is attractive is in reminding us not to dumb down our beliefs to make Christianity practicable at low cost for the barely converted masses, but it does not suffice to answer the problem of whether this behavior is in fact likely to lead to a positive outcome. 10. Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Viking Press, 1965), 114.

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11. Ibid., 94. 12. Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, “Justice: On Relating Public and Private” in Lewis P. Hinchman and Sandra K. Hinchman, eds., Hannah Arendt: Critical Essays (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 338. 13. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 46. 14. Ibid., 40. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid., 188. 17. Andrea Nye, Philosophia: The Thought of Rosa Luxemburg, Simone Weil, and Hannah Arendt (New York: Routledge, 1994), 185. 18. Ibid., 8–9. 19. Ibid., 50, 57. For an insightful discussion of Arendt’s relationship to the major philosophical answers to the problem of objectivity, see especially Nye, Philosophia, 136–143. A similar point on the importance of plurality as a way of expanding and correcting the finally inescapable limitations due to our location in history and use of language has been made by David Tracy, especially in his Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, and Hope (New York: Harper and Row, 1987). 20. Arendt, Human, 58. 21. See especially Rowan Williams’ influential article, “Politics and the Soul,” Milltown Studies, No. 19 & 20 (Spring & Autumn, 1987), 55–72. 22. Arendt, Human, 74. 23. For a defense of witness, see Paul Ricoeur, “The Hermeneutics of Testimony” in his Essays on Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 119–154. 24. John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflection on the American Proposition (Kansas City, MO: Sheed and Ward, 1960), 195. 25. Milbank, Theology, esp. 5–6. 26. Tracy develops this view in his The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981). I have elsewhere provided a detailed account of this aspect of Tracy’s argument. See my “Feminism, Pragmatism, and Utopia: A Catholic Theological Response” in The American Journal of Theology and Philosophy Vol. 24, no. 1 (January 2003), 22–39. 27. Pitkin, “Justice,” 340. 28. Arendt, On Revolution, 273. 29. Adrienne Rich as quoted in Mary G. Dietz, “Feminist Receptions of Hannah Arendt” in Bonnie Honig, ed., Feminist Interpretations of

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Hannah Arendt (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 24. 30. Jean Bethke Elshtain, Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), esp. 337. 31. Elshtain, Democracy on Trial (New York: Basic Books, 1995), 38–62. 32. Benjamin Valentin, Mapping Public Theology: Beyond Culture, Identity, and Difference (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002), esp. xvi. 33. Bonnie Honig, “Towards an Agonistic Feminism: Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Identity” in Honig, ed., Feminist Interpretations of Hannah Arendt (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 135–166. 34. See Hanna Pitkin, “Conformism, Housekeeping, and the Attack of the Blob: The Origins of Hannah Arendt’s Concept of the Social” in Honig, Feminist, 51–81; Disch, “On Friendship in ‘Dark Times’” in Honig, Feminist, 285–311; and Benhabib, “The Pariah and Her Shadow: Hannah Arendt’s Biography of Rahel Varnhagen” in Honig, Feminist, 83–104. 35. Bonnie Honig, “Agonistic Feminism,” 156. 36. Ibid., 159. 37. Ibid., 147. 38. Franklin I. Gamwell, “Religion and Reason in American Politics” in Robin W. Lovin, ed., Religion and American Public Life: Interpretations and Explorations (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), 88–89. This argument is developed in more detail in his The Meaning of Religious Freedom (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995). 39. Murray, We Hold, especially 79–98 and 197–217. 40. Franklin I. Gamwell, “Religion and Reason,” 90, 92. We need not pursue here the question of whether this definition is adequate and appropriate to all of the phenomena comprising that notoriously difficult to define category of “religion.” Since my concern is with a defense of a Christian public theology, it suffices to note that this definition is applicable to Christianity, as Gamwell’s example of the love commandment indicates. As we will see, Gamwell’s definition of religion as that which provides a comprehensive or all-inclusive purpose not only reveals an important factor in what we commonly designate as religions but also broadens the category to include not only nontheistic religions (as most would want to do) but also any position on what is ultimately worthwhile.

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41. Alfred North Whitehead provides an articulation of the at times widely held and highly privatized definition of religion as “what the individual does with his own solitariness” in his Religion in the Making (New York: Macmillan Company, 1926), 16. 42. Gamwell, “Religion and Reason,” 105. Since Murray too maintained that the existence of God is accessible to human reason as well as necessary to good government, the differences between Gamwell and Murray may not be irresolvable. Gamwell would allow Murray’s insistence on legislation consistent with belief in God, provided that Murray accept that this must be continually established through public debate and not through official governmental declarations or promotions of that belief. 43. See especially Glassroth v. Moore 335 F.3d 1282 (11th Cir. 2003) and Books v. City of Elkhart, Indiana 235 F.3d 292 (7th Cir. 2000). 44. As John Courtney Murray once noted, “disagreement is not an easy thing to reach.” See Murray, We Hold, 15. 45. Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America (Grand Rapids, MI: W. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 1984). For a particularly acute explanation of the separation of competencies, see Richard P. McBrien, Caesar’s Coin: Religion and Politics in America (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1987). 46. James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York: Basic Books, 1991). 47. I am convinced that religious freedom continues to have wide support in our society, so that few people will support the repeal of the First Amendment or in fact believe that their arguments infringe religious freedom. If I am right, Gamwell’s analysis could indeed move our debate forward by clarifying that the public role of religion does not depend on official governmental support for a particular religious position, and that the refusal to give this governmental affirmation does not remove religion from public life or favor a “secular” refusal of the religious question. However, there are some few who are willing to argue against this robust religious freedom, most commonly by insisting that disestablishment applies only to the federal government and not to the states, who retain the right to establish a religion. However accurate this may be to the original arrangement, this position nevertheless results in a denial of religious freedom, though by the state rather than the federal government. 48. See Gamwell, “Religion and Reason,” 98–99, and the discussion of Singer and Kuhse in Ronald F. Thiemann, Religion in Public Life: A

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Dilemma for Democracy (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1996), 10–11. 49. See for example, David L. Schindler, Heart of the World, Center of the Church: Communio Ecclesiology, Liberalism, and Liberation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman’s T&T Clark, 1996), esp. 43–88. 50. Murray, We Hold, 160–165. 51. George Weigel, Soul of the World: Notes on the Future of Public Catholicism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman’s, 1996), esp. 75. 52. John Courtney Murray, We Hold, 161. 53. Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. at 216. 54. Lawrence v. Texas 123 S. Ct. 2472 (2003). 55. The defense of this argument is the burden of Gamwell’s The Meaning of Religious Freedom. 56. While I judge that it is not necessary here to repeat the many political and theological arguments for the importance of religious freedom, the 2nd Vatican Council’s “Declaration on Human Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae)” is an excellent argument for the centrality of this value to the Christian tradition (especially among those who uphold a publicly involved church). 57. Robert Audi, “The State, the Church, and the Citizen,” in Paul J. Weithman, ed., Religion and Contemporary Liberalism (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 38–75. 58. Ibid., especially 42–47. 59. George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984), especially 32–41. 60. See David Hollenbach, S.J., ed., “Theology and Philosophy in Public: A Symposium on John Courtney Murray’s Unfinished Agenda” in Theological Studies 40, 700–715, for just such a debate over language among theologians committed to a public project. 61. We might also ask whether civil life under the conditions of religious freedom and pluralism as described here is unfairly prejudiced against those who hold rational assessment to be inappropriate to their faith. Are people free to believe that their faith is irrational in this public life? I would argue that just as laws passed are necessarily consistent with some religious answer but not with all, so it also follows that a constitutional commitment to religious freedom cannot be consistent with all possible religious positions either. 62. Gamwell, “Religion and Reason,” 107. 63. Tracy, Analogical, especially 100–178. 64. Ibid.

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Chapter 3. E Pluribus Unum? National Narratives and the Recovery of Public Life 1. William Dean, The Religious Critic in American Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994). 2. Ibid., xviii. 3. For informative discussions of ethnic and civic nations, see especially Kai Nielsen, “Cultural Nationalism, Neither Ethnic nor Civic” and Judith Lichtenberg, “How Liberal Can Nationalism Be?” both in The Philosophical Forum: A Quarterly, vol. xxviii, no. 1–2 (Fall–Winter 1996–1997), 42–52 and 53–72. 4. Dean, Religious Critic, xix–xx. 5. See, for example, Max Boot’s article, “A War for Oil? Not This Time” in the New York Times, Feb 13, 2003. 6. Dean, Religious Critic, 132. 7. Ibid., 13. Dean’s engagement with Hans Frei and the narrative theologians Frei inspired is especially evident on pages 55–67. Dean acknowledges there his agreement with narrative theologians that “the religious sense of the whole is developed in communities, and that communities are created—virtually developed—by narratives,” but criticizes narrative theologians for focusing on human history to the exclusion of natural history. 8. Ibid., 133, 176. 9. Dean thus argues that Reinhold Niebuhr’s insistence on national contrition has been taken too far, for which Niebuhr is at least partially responsible. Ibid., 15–18. 10. Ibid., 60–63. 11. See the discussion of Franklin I. Gamwell’s understanding of religious freedom in chapter 2 above. 12. Martha Nussbaum, “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism” in For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism, ed. Joshua Cohen (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996), 2–17. 13. Ibid., 7. 14. William T. Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998). 15. Nussbaum, “Patriotism,” 9, 13. 16. See the discussion of Arendt’s argument in chapter 2 of this work. Her advocacy of local political structures is especially developed in her On Revolution (New York: Viking Press, 1965), 215–281. 17. Michael W. McConnell, “Don’t Neglect the Little Platoons” in For Love of Country, 84.

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18. Daniel Bell as quoted by Nathan Glazer in Glazer’s “Limits of Loyalty,” For Love of Country, 64. 19. See especially John Howard Yoder, For the Nations: Essays Public and Evangelical (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997); Stanley Hauerwas, A Better Hope: Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy, and Postmodernity (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2000); Cavanaugh’s Torture; and Daniel M. Bell Jr., Liberation Theology After the End of History: The Refusal to Cease Suffering (London and New York: Routledge, 2001). 20. Amy Gutmann, “Democratic Citizenship,” in For Love of Country, 71. 21. “Given what we now know,” Gutmann contends, “a world polity could only exist in tyrannical form.” (ibid., 71). 22. See Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of its Traditional Defense (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1960), 187. 23. Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995). Stanley Hauerwas would undoubtedly object that the church provides the true form of such shared bonds of concern, but this objection only confirms Lasch’s point that we need some particular basis for the imagining of our interrelatedness and responsibility to and for one another. One cannot get to this level of regard for others by abstracting from all particularity. 24. Alisdair MacIntyre, Is Patriotism a Virtue? (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1984). 25. Julia Kristeva, Nations Without Nationalism, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 2, 22. 26. Kristeva, Nations, 50. 27. Ibid., 39–40. 28. Charles Taylor, “Why Democracy Needs Patriotism,” in For Love of Country, 119. This point is also clearly defended by Kai Nielsen. See his “Cultural Nationalism,” esp. 47. 29. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991). 30. Kristeva, Nations, 44. 31. Ibid., 28. 32. Nussbaum, “Patriotism,” 9. 33. Pitkin, “Conformism, Housekeeping, and the Attack of the Blob: The Origins of Hannah Arendt’s Concept of the Social” in Bonnie Honig, Feminist Interpretations of Hannah Arendt (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 51–81.

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34. John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflection on the American Proposition (Kansas City, MO: Sheed and Ward, 1960), especially 197–217. 35. I have developed this argument in more detail in my “Religious Freedom and Catholic Ecclesiology: In Conflict Again?” in The Annual Proceedings of Res Publica (Vol. 1, Fall, 2002). 36. Ernest Renan made this point in his “What is a Nation?” reprinted in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi Bhabha (New York: Routledge, 1990), 8–22. 37. Charles Taylor, “Cross-Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,” in Nancy L. Rosenblum, ed., Liberalism and the Moral Life (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 159–182. 38. For a concise, insightful discussion of the role of history in providing the myths necessary for public life from the perspective of an academic historian, see William H. McNeill, Mythistory and Other Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). 39. Geoffrey Bennington, “Postal Politics and the Institution of the Nation” in Nation and Narration, 132. 40. I am of course eliding here the differences between these positions. See Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978) and Homi K. Bhabha, “Difference, Discrimination, and the Discourse of Colonialism” in The Politics of Theory, ed. Francis Barker et al. (Colchester: University of Essex, 1983). For an in-depth discussion of these two thinkers as well as the theoretical debate in poststructuralist historiography of which they are a part, see Robert Young, White Mythologies: Writing History and the West (New York: Routledge, 1990). 41. Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History From the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 15. 42. Ibid., 16. 43. Paul Ricoeur, Temps et recit, 3 vols. (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1983–1985). Quotations will be taken from the English translation: Time and Narrative, 3 vols., trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984–1988). 44. Ricoeur, Time, III, 21. 45. “I am calling narrative exactly what Aristotle calls mythos, the organization of events,” Ricoeur explains (Time, I, 36). See also Ricoeur, Time, III, 127–141. Scholes and Kellogg, however, hold the distinction between recitation and enactment to be central to the definition of narrative. See Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), 4.

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46. “To be historical, an event must be more than a singular occurrence, a unique happening. It receives its definition from its contribution to the development of a plot,” Ricoeur argues in his “Narrative Time” in W. J. T. Mitchell, ed., On Narrative (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 167. Ricoeur is especially concerned to argue here against the Annales school of historiography. See Time, I, 138–159. 47. This point is made succinctly in White’s “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality,” in On Narrative. See also White’s Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973). 48. Ricoeur, Time, I, 168. 49. Ibid., I, 159–172. 50. As quoted by White, “Value,” 6. 51. See Time, I, 142; III, 203–227. 52. Ibid., I, 177. 53. White, “Value,” especially 1–6. 54. Ricoeur, Time, III, 109, 120. 55. Ibid., 104. 56. Paul Ricoeur, “The Narrative Function,” in Semeia, 13 (1978), 177–202, especially 198. 57. Ricoeur, Time I, 85–129. 58. See Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian University Press, 1976). 59. Paul Ricoeur, “Narrated Time,” in Philosophy Today, 29 (1985) 270, 271. 60. Ricoeur, Time, I, 52. 61. Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) 121, 143. 62. Ricoeur, Time, III, 248. 63. Ricoeur, Oneself, 161. 64. For an elucidating debate about the ethical limits of narrative, see the essays by T. Peter Kemp and Paul Ricoeur in The Narrative Path: The Later Works of Paul Ricoeur, ed. T. Peter Kemp and David Rasmussen (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989). 65. Ricoeur, Time, III, 208. 66. Paul Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 310. 67. Frank Kermode, The Sense of An Ending (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967). 68. Ricoeur, Time, III, esp. 235, 258. 69. Ricoeur, Lectures, 310. 70. See Ricoeur, Time, III, 300–346.

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71. Ibid., III, 207. 72. Ibid., 215. 73. See especially Ricoeur’s “Narrated Time” for a clear discussion of this point, as well as his Interpretation Theory. 74. Ricoeur, Time, III, 220. 75. Alisdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue has been read as supporting a sectarian withdrawal, while Jean Francois Lyotard’s rejection of grand narratives can be taken as support for a relativist encouragement of a variety of mutually incommensurable narrative. See Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984) and Jean Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984). 76. William Dean, The American Spiritual Culture: And the Invention of Jazz, Football, and the Movies (New York: Continuum, 2002). 77. As Ricoeur insightfully argues, “It is principally the founding events of a historical community which should be submitted to this critical reading in order to release the burden of expectation that the subsequent course of its history carried and then betrayed. The past is a cemetery of promises which have not been kept” (Ricoeur, “Reflections on s New Ethos for Europe” in Richard Kearney, ed., The Hermeneutics of Action [London, UK: Sage, 1996], 8–9. 78. Hans Kellner has argued that Ricoeur’s attempt to distinguish between historical narratives and fictional narratives on the grounds that history speaks of the “reality of the past” does not work because no such “reality” is experienced by the witnesses. I believe he misunderstands the analogical character of “as it actually happened”: an historical account, though striving for fidelity to the traces, cannot in Ricoeur’s view mirror what happened. See Kellner, “‘As Real As It Gets’: Ricoeur and Narrativity” in David E. Klemm and William Schweicker, eds., Meanings in Texts and Actions: Questioning Paul Ricoeur (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993), 49–66. 79. Sheila Briggs, “‘Buried with Christ’: The Politics of Identity and the Poverty of Interpretation” in Regina Schwartz, ed., The Book and the Text (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwood, 1990), 290. 80. Ibid., 300. 81. This concern for a proper attitude towards the suffering of the past will be considered again at greater length in the discussion of Johann B. Metz in chapter 4 below. 82. As Reinhold Niebuhr has argued, “it is impossible to become conscious of a large social group without adequate symbolism” (Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics [New York: Scribner’s, 1932], 92).

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1. For major works developing this argument, see especially Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Biblical Hermeneutics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974) and George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984). A good variety of positions on the importance of narrative in theology is provided by Stanley Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones, ed., Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989). 2. I am in agreement with James Matthew Ashley’s thesis that Metz’s theological corpus can be understood as centrally concerned with the defense of the subject. See his The Defense of the Subject: Johannes Baptist Metz and the Problem of Anthropology (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1993) and his Interruptions: Mysticism, Politics, and Theology in the Work of Johann Baptist Metz (Notre Dame, IN: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1998). 3. See Metz’s article, “An Identity Crisis in Christianity? Transcendental and Political Responses” in William J. Kelly, S.J., ed., Theology and Discovery: Essays in Honor of Karl Rahner (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1980), 167–178. See also his “In Place of a Foreword: On the Biographical Itinerary of My Theology” in Johann Baptist Metz, A Passion for God: The Mystical-Political Dimension of Christianity, ed. and trans. by J. Matthew Ashley (New York: Paulist Press, 1998), 1–5. 4. Johannes B. Metz, Zur Theologie der Welt (Mainz: MatthiasGrünewald-Verlag, 1968). Quotations will be taken from the English translation Theology of the World, trans. William Glen-Doepel (New York: Seabury Press, 1973). 5. Johann Baptist Metz, Glaube in Geschichte und Geselleschaft: Studien zu Einer Praktischen Fundamentaltheologie (Mainz: MatthiasGrünewald-Verlag, 1977). Quotations taken from the English translation, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology, trans. David Smith (New York: Seabury Press, 1980), 73. 6. Ibid., 51. 7. Ibid., 3–11, 50–60. 8. Ibid., 183. 9. Ibid., 200. 10. “Resurrection mediated by way of the memory of suffering means: The dead, those already vanquished and forgotten, have a meaning as yet unrealized” (ibid., 113).

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11. Ibid., 56. See also ibid., 66–67, 109. 12. Ibid., 90. This challenging and dangerous memory of suffering is posited by Metz as an alternative to either the “purely affirmative attitude toward the past” or the “wholly critical attitude toward the past” associated with Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jürgen Habermas, respectively. See Johann Baptist Metz and Jürgen Moltmann, Faith and the Future: Essays on Theology, Solidarity, and Modernity (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1995), 8. 13. Metz, Faith in History, 202. 14. “The individual histories do not take place without regard to the previously narrated history of salvation and the history of salvation is able to assimilate the individual histories. The narrated (and remembered) universality and definitiveness of the meaning of history mean that the historical praxis of opposition to meaninglessness and the absence of salvation is not superfluous, because it is transcendental or universally historical, but indispensable” (ibid., 165). 15. Ibid., 231. 16. Ibid., 232. The centrality here of the memoria Jesu Christi evinces the continued christocentric focus of Metz’s theology. See his Theology as well as his Followers of Christ (New York: Paulist Press, 1978). 17. Metz and Moltmann, Faith and the Future, 61. 18. Metz, Faith in History, 112–113. 19. Johann B. Metz, “Unsere Hoffnung,” published by the German Synod of Bishops, as quoted in Karl Rahner and Johann B. Metz, The Courage to Pray, trans. Sarah O’Brien Twohig, (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 43. 20. See especially Johann Baptist Metz, The Emergent Church: The Future of Christianity in a Postbourgeois World, trans. Peter Mann (New York: Crossroad, 1981) and his “Redemption and Emancipation” in Faith in History, 119–133. 21. Metz and Moltmann, Faith and the Future, 57–65. 22. Metz, Faith in History, especially 163–166. 23. Ibid., 34–39. 24. Metz, Faith and the Future, 4. 25. Metz, Faith in History, 115. 26. Ibid., 170. See also ibid., 3–11. 27. Metz, Faith and the Future, 68. The “subject” Metz defends is not the individualist mastering consciousness criticized by so many, since Metz (correctly) understands the ability to act in history to be an ability exercised collectively rather than individually and, as we have seen, he also argues for the restoration of meaning to human suffering as well as to human action.

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28. Metz also grounds his argument for a practical fundamental theology on the inability of contemporary theories and philosophies to provide the grounds on which to justify Christian hope. In Theology of the World, Metz had already argued that hope in God’s promises for a radically new future cannot be comprehended through metaphysics, since metaphysical analyses are abstractions of the present and thus bound to what currently exists. See especially his Theology, 98–100. In Faith in History he further argues that all available theories are predicated on an evolutionary logic that is hostile to Christian hope. See Faith in History, 3–11. 29. Ibid., 154–168. 30. Rebecca S. Chopp, The Praxis of Suffering: An Interpretation of Liberation and Political Theologies (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1986), 76. 31. Reinhold Niebuhr also noted this connection between societal privilege and a tendency toward an evolutionary or gradual rather than apocalyptic eschatology. See especially his Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Scribners, 1932), 62. 32. Metz, Faith in History, 176, 177. 33. John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (Kansas City, MO: Sheed and Ward, 1960), 175–196. 34. Metz, Faith in History, 176. 35. Ibid., 177. 36. Ibid., 119–133. 37. Ibid., 213. For a clarification of Metz’s view of theology as a three-fold task, see Ashley’s Defense, 186–187. 38. Hence dogma serves to remind us of how to tell the story of Jesus in fidelity to the traditional memory, Metz argues. See his Faith in History, 200–204. 39. See Ogden’s The Reality of God (New York: Harper and Row, 1963) for his definition of the two criteria of theology as being appropriateness to the tradition and adequacy to experience. 40. Metz, Theology, 153. 41. Metz, Faith in History, 76. 42. Metz admits that there can be “no a priori proof of the critical and liberating effect of such stories, which have to be encountered, listened to and told again” (ibid., 210). 43. Johann Baptist Metz, “Theology in the Struggle for History and Society” in Marc H. Ellis and Otto Maduro, ed. The Future of Liberation Theology: Essays in Honor of Gustavo Gutierrez (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1989), 167. 44. Josef Meyer zu Schlochtern, Glaube-Sprache-Erfahrung (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1978) as cited by Steven T. Ostovich, Reason in History:

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Theology and Science as Community Activities (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1990), 66. 45. Johann Baptist Metz, A Passion for God, 143. 46. See Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). 47. Metz in Ellis, ed., Future, 3. 48. Metz, Faith in History, 101, 116. 49. There is, then, a transcendental element in Metz’s thinking, insofar as his argument against evolutionary logic and against “transcendental and idealist” theologies of history can be read as an argument about the conditions for the possibility of meaningful human praxis. 50. See Matthew Lamb, Solidarity with Victims: Toward a Theology of Social Transformation (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 116. 51. Chopp, Praxis, esp. 79–80. 52. Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 1. Indeed, the inseparability of ethics and theology for Hauerwas follows from his claim that “religious convictions are most appropriately expressed in narrative and that narrative is the form of rationality especially appropriate to morality,” as J. Wesley Robbins notes in his insightful criticism of Hauerwas’s presumption that moral judgments are inherently narratival. See Robbins “Narrative, Morality, and Religion” in the Journal of Religious Ethics 8/1 (1980), 162. 53. Hauerwas, Community, 60. 54. See especially ibid., 9–35. 55. Ibid., 63. 56. “The diversity of accounts and interpretations of a community’s experiences is exactly the basis of authority. For authority is that power of a community that allows for reasoned interpretations of the community’s past and future goals” (ibid., 60). See also Stanley Hauerwas and David Burrell, “From System to Story: An Alternative Pattern for Rationality in Ethics” in Hauerwas, Why Narrative?, 164. 57. Hauerwas, Community, 113–115. See also Stanley Hauerwas, Christian Existence Today: Essays on Church, World, and Living in Between (Durham, NC: Labyrinth Press, 1988), 29. 58. This argument is developed throughout Hauerwas’s writings, but see especially Community, 111–128. 59. In addition to Robbin’s critique of Hauerwas’s claim that ethical thought is inherently narratival in his “Narrative, Morality, and Religion,” see Daniel Beaumont, “The Modality of Narrative: A Critique of Some Recent Views of Narrative in Theology,” in The Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LXV/1, 125–139.

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60. See Murray, We Hold, esp. 5–24. 61. Hauerwas, Community, 84. 62. See especially John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory:Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford, UK; Cambridge, MA: B. Blackwell, 1990). 63. Ibid., 98. 64. Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 28. 65. Hauerwas, “From System,” 167. 66. Ibid., 168. 67. See Robbins, “Narrative, Morality, and Religion” and Beaumont’s “The Modality of Narrative.” 68. See Paul Ricoeur, Oneself As Another, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). 69. See Murray, We Hold, vii. 70. Hauerwas, Community, 92. See also ibid., 66–71. 71. Hauerwas borrows this insight into the interpretation of narratives through narratives from Frank Kermode. See ibid., 92. For his discussion of the importance of multiple Christian stories, see ibid., 52. 72. An emphasis on a single, unifying narrative of God’s relation to the Christian community is consistent with Hauerwas’s argument that a common narrative is the basis of communal identity. Further, that God is one and universal surely inclines toward a unified narrative of God’s purposes and actions in creating the world, as will be argued below. 73. Hauerwas credits Reynolds Price with this summary. See Community, 66. It should be noted that as thus formulated this too is not a story. 74. Ibid., 49–52, 155–174. 75. Hauerwas, Peaceable, 150. 76. Ibid., 82. 77. Ibid., 103–4. 78. I mention raising children because this is an example that Hauerwas himself proffers as a form of Christian witness. To be sure, raising children may be an important witness to the value of human life, and without a doubt we are not guaranteed results in this endeavor. Nevertheless, I find it difficult to imagine a conscientious parent who is satisfied with providing a witness and is not extremely concerned with being as effective a parent as possible. See Hauerwas’s articles “The Moral Value of the Family” and “The Family: Theological Reflections” in his Community, 155–166 and 167–174. 79. Ibid., 105; see also Hauerwas, Christian, 185. 80. Hauerwas, Community, 84.

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81. Ibid., 2. 82. Stanley Hauerwas, After Christendom? How the Church is to Behave if Freedom, Justice, and a Christian Nation are Bad Ideas (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1991), 68. For an insightful discussion (and critique) of Hauerwas’s sociological and epistemological evaluations of liberalism, see Christopher Beem, “American Liberalism and the Christian Church: Stanley Hauerwas vs. Martin Luther King Jr.” in the Journal of Religious Ethics 23 (Spring 1995), 119–133. 83. Hauerwas, Community, 110. 84. Hauerwas, Christian, 183–184. See also Hauerwas’s “The Democratic Policing of Christianity” in Pro-Ecclesia 3 (Spring 1994), 215–231. Hauerwas successfully challenges the presumption that committed Christians will necessarily be the majority in a society, but he does not defend his counter-presumption that Christians will or ought to be a politically insignificant minority. While I may not like or agree with the beliefs and practices of the majority of my fellow citizens who proclaim allegiance to Jesus Christ and to his church, I have no reason to question the sincerity of that allegiance, however flawed and sinful all of our lives as Christians are. 85. See especially Hauerwas, “Democratic Policing.” 86. Hauerwas quotes with approval from John Howard Yoder: “If . . . we protect ourselves from the Constantinianism of that view of democracy, we may find the realistic liberty to foster and celebrate relative democratization as one of the prophetic ministries of a servant people in a world we do not control” (Hauerwas, ibid., 184, citing John Howard Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel [Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984], 165–166). 87. One could, of course, argue that Christians ought not participate in secular government and ought not even vote, but Hauerwas nowhere to my knowledge develops such an argument. To the contrary, he argues that “what is required for Christians is not withdrawal but a sense of selective service and the ability to set priorities” and insists that his position does not require that he withdraw from being a U.S. citizen (Christian, 15). Jean Bethke Elshtain provides a thoughtful discussion of Hauerwas’s position on the relation between Christianity and political life. See her “Review Essay: Theology and Political Life” in Modern Theology 12:3 July 1996, 367–375. I agree with her assessment that “Hauerwas’s current thinking leads Christianity to be just another version of identity politics. We are left with militant reaffirmation of identity, but the Christian can no longer be leaven and the salt has lost its savor” (375). 88. Hauerwas, Community, 72.

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89. See Franklin I. Gamwell, The Meaning of Religious Freedom: Modern Politics and the Democratic Resolution (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995) and the discussion of his argument in chapter 2 above. 90. Hauerwas, Christian, 25–45. See also his essay “On Being a Christian and an American” in his A Better Hope: Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy, and Postmodernity (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2000), 23–34. 91. Hauerwas notes that “Christians rightly find themselves members of many communities. Thus I am not only a Christian but a university teacher, a Texan, a United States citizen, and a devoted fan of the Durham Bulls. Neither the general position I have developed nor my stance as a pacifist requires a general withdrawal from these communities” (ibid., 15). The problem for Hauerwas, then, would seem to be the presumption in our society that no common national story is necessary or desirable, rather than the impossibility of such a story in a religiously diverse society. 92. James Gustafson, “The Sectarian Temptation: Reflections on Theology, the Church, and the University,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society, 40 (1985), 83–94. 93. Hauerwas, Christian, 1–24, see also his Peaceable, 1–35. 94. Hauerwas, Community, 94. 95. Hauerwas is, I believe, justified in claiming that pacifism does not inherently require a withdrawal from politics. He further argues that “politics only begins with such a disavowal, for only then are we forced to genuinely listen to the other” (Christian, 15). While a commitment to conversation and persuasion is certainly central to political life, as I have argued in this study, Hauerwas is probably claiming too much for pacifism here. For an alternative view of violence as a political option, see Elshtain, “Review Essay.” 96. See especially Hauerwas, A Better Hope, 23–34. 97. Hauerwas, Community, 103. 98. Jeffrey Stout, Ethics After Babel: The Languages of Morals and Their Discontents (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988). 99. Another factor in Hauerwas’s reluctance to advocate public debate is that he holds the common but inaccurate idea that arguing from a rational principle involves a foundationalism that begins with an indubitable premise from which it attempts to deduce an irrefutable conclusion. I contend to the contrary that argument from a premise does not, in fact, require absolute certainty about the truth of that premise; it merely

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seeks to persuade those who do accept that premise to accept also the conclusions that are warranted by it. 100. Ronald Thiemann makes this point as well. See the discussion below. 101. See T. Peter Kemp, “Toward a Narrative Ethics: A Bridge Between Ethics and the Narrative Reflection of Ricoeur” in T. Peter Kemp and David Rasmussen, eds., The Narrative Path: The Later Works of Paul Ricoeur (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), 65–87. 102. Hauerwas, Peaceable, 28. 103. “If moral decision-making has an inevitable political dimension, then moral and theological reflection must seek to assist Christians in dealing with the public aspects of their lives,” Thiemann contends in his Constructing a Public Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), 19. 104. Ibid., 119. 105. Hauerwas also recognizes the presence of God outside of the church and gives this as a reason Christian dialogue with non-Christians is possible. See Hauerwas, Christian, 17. The crucial differences between Hauerwas and Thiemann reside not in the openness of God’s kingdom, but rather in their understanding of the Christian responsibility for society and in their estimation of the possibility of involvement in public discourse without losing a specifically Christian voice, issues that will be discussed below. 106. Ronald F. Thiemann, Religion in Public Life: A Dilemma for Democracy (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1996), 96–97. Thiemann considers John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin to be especially representative of this position. See ibid., 74. 107. Ibid., 104. 108. Ibid., 107. For Thiemann’s assessment of the implications of MacIntyre’s position, see ibid., 36. 109. See especially ibid., 95–114. 110. See especially Thiemann, Constructing, 15–43. 111. Thiemann, Religion, 72. 112. Thiemann, Constructing, 82. 113. Ibid., 19. 114. Ibid., 88. 115. See especially Ronald F. Thiemann, Revelation and Theology: The Gospel as Narrated Promise (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), 71–78 and 155. 116. Ibid., 83.

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117. Thiemann, Constructing, 136–139. Given this move beyond narrative as a mode of biblical discourse to narrative as a way of organizing historical experience, I find unpersuasive Thiemann’s claim that he differs from these narrative theologians who consider narrative to be important as a “universal form of consciousness” rather than primarily as a biblical genre. See Thiemann, Revelation, especially 82–84. 118. Thiemann, Constructing, 134. 119. In his work on revelation, Thiemann argues that a return to the biblical narratives makes possible a defense of God’s prevenience in a nonfoundational account of revelation, since these narratives describe a God whose character is trustworthy, who is fulfilling his promises, and who is extending those promises to us. See Thiemann, Revelation. 120. Thiemann, Constructing, 138. 121. Ibid., 139. See also ibid., 136–137. 122. For a carefully argued critique of the limitations of promise and covenant as metaphors unifying the canon, see Mark I. Wallace, “Can God be Named Without Being Known: The Problem of Revelation in Thiemann, Ogden, and Ricoeur” in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LIX/2, 281–301. 123. Thiemann, Revelation, 148. 124. Thiemann, Constructing, 101–111. 125. Thiemann, Revelation, 147. 126. Thiemann, Constructing, 139. 127. Ibid., 79–89. 128. See Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd ed. trans. rev. by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1989) as well as the discussion of Ricoeur’s hermeneutics in chapter 3 above. 129. See Wallace, “Can God” for a similar analysis of Thiemann’s hermeneutic as more like than unlike that proposed by Gadamer. 130. See especially David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1986) for a discussion of the development of systematic argumentation without denying its historical particularity. 131. Thiemann, Constructing, 42. 132. Ibid., 21–23. 133. Thiemann, Religion, 157–159. 134. “While we are surely not bereft of common memory, history, and culture, the narrative that tells the tale of our common experience as Americans is currently being rewritten. The new story will no doubt be

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recognizable as a version of previous stories, but we must also expect changes, perhaps substantial ones, as our national saga is enlarged to include those who have long been excluded” (ibid., 172). 135. See ibid., 104. 136. Though he rejects the term “mutually critical correlation,” Thiemann does affirm that public theology engages in a true dialogue that involves openness to the criticisms and challenges of other perspectives. See his Constructing, especially 23. 137. Thiemann, Religion, 168–173. 138. Origen, Thomas Aquinas, and Gustavo Gutierrez, for example, use different languages, cultural presuppositions, and philosophical theories in articulating their visions of Christianity. While each might be said to “distort” Christianity to some extent, in that they cannot account equally well for all aspects of Christian faith, each also clarifies aspects that others do not, and the loss of any would surely make us poorer in our understanding of Christianity. In my judgment, there is not and has never been a single, purely Christian ‘language’ or philosophy. 139. I do not mean to elide the nuanced differences among the postliberal or narrative theologians on the issue of public argumentation. For another postliberal alternative to George Lindbeck’s approach (besides that of Thiemann), see for example William Placher, Unapologetic Theology: A Christian Voice in a Pluralistic Conversation (Louisville, KY:Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989). 140. Thiemann, Religion, 107. 141. Ibid., 135–141. Although he would undoubtedly reject as “foundationalist” the kind of arguments Gamwell pursues, Thiemann is here in general agreement with Gamwell that our public conversation depends on religious beliefs being publicly defended. See the discussion of Gamwell in chapter 2 above. 142. Thiemann, Revelation, 92–96. 143. Ibid., 154–156. Unfortunately, Thiemann does not indicate what this evidence of God’s trustworthiness might be. 144. For an insightful account of the theological importance of being open to the critical challenge of the other, see Michael Barnes, S.J., Theology and the Dialogue of Religions (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 145. I would further argue that theologians should beware a selfserving and exaggerated concern with their uniqueness. The challenge of being a Christian is to discern and to cooperate with the actions of God’s grace in the world, not to maintain our own value as unique. In any case,

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fidelity to our Christian tradition will inevitably result in points of difference from non-Christians—at least in the ways we prioritize our values— even without our being overly zealous in defense of these differences. 146. Bradford E. Hinze, “The End of Salvation History” in Horizons, 18/2 (1991), 241. David Tracy has also argued that “Western history is, through and through, an interruptive narrative with no single theme and no controlling plot.” See his Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope (Cambridge, MA: Harper and Row, 1987), 68. 147. See Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), 44–51. 148. J. A. Colombo, An Essay on Theology and History: Studies in Pannenberg, Metz, and the Frankfurt School (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1990), x. 149. Hodgson, God in History: Shapes of Freedom (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1989), 48. 150. Hodgson makes this point especially as a critique of the pragmatism of Richard Rorty as well as the poststructuralism of Jacques Derrida and Mark C. Taylor. See ibid., especially 31–39. 151. Ibid., 161. 152. Thiemann, Revelation, 82–91. 153. See especially Paul Ricoeur, “The Bible and the Imagination,” in Hans Dieter Betz, ed., The Bible as a Document of the University (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1981), 49–75. 154. “The effect of this embedding is twofold: on the one hand, the embedded narrative borrows from the encompassing narrative the structure of interpretation that allows the metaphorization of meaning; in return, the interpretant . . . is also reinterpreted due to the feedback (par choc en retour) from the metaphorized narrative. Metaphorization, therefore, is a process at work between the encompassing and the embedded narrative” (ibid., 55). 155. See Tracy, Plurality, esp. chapter 5. 156. The model of discipleship that Hauerwas envisions cannot, in my judgment, be rendered consistent with Tubman’s praxis of liberation, insofar as she was indeed concerned not only with her witness but also with her success on behalf of others and was willing to engage in violence to defend them against the greater violence of slavery. 157. Tracy, Plurality, 95. 158. For an interesting but brief discussion of myths as bearers of possibility and identity, see Richard Kearney’s discussion with Paul Ricoeur in Richard Kearney, Dialogues with Contemporary Phenomenological Thinkers: The Phenomenological Heritage: Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Herbert Marcuse, Stanislas Breton, Jacques Derrida (Dover, NH: Manchester University Press, 1984), especially 36–45.

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Chapter 5. Lincoln, Elizondo, and Williams as Narrative Public Theologians 1. For discussions of the theological dimensions of Lincoln’s thought, see especially Reinhold Niebuhr, “The Religion of Abraham Lincoln” in Allen Nevins, ed., Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address: Commemorative Papers (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1964), 72–87, and Elton Trueblood, Abraham Lincoln: Theologian of American Anguish (New York: Harper and Row, 1973). I am indebted to Professor Martin E. Marty for the suggestion that I include an analysis of Lincoln’s public theology in this study. 2. Abraham Lincoln, “Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862,” in Abraham Lincoln: Great Speeches, with historical notes by John Grafton (New York: Dover Publications, 1991), 97. 3. For in-depth analyses of Lincoln’s position as grappling with the importance of ending slavery and preserving the nation as a good in itself, see especially, J. David Greenstone, The Lincoln Persuasion: Remaking American Liberalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), especially 222–285. Garry Wills and Stephen Oates also develop analyses consistent with Greenstone’s on this point. See Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 123–137, and Stephen B. Oates, Abraham Lincoln: The Man Behind the Myth (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), 57–65. 4. As Garry Wills has argued, Lincoln’s remarks at Gettysburg remade America into a nation dedicated to equality for all, such that slavery is incompatible with our nation’s historical task. See Wills, Lincoln, especially 39–40 and 145–147. 5. See especially Wills, Lincoln, 41–89, for his insightful discussion of the similarities between the Gettysburg Address and scriptural themes, Greek burial speeches, and romantic nature imagery. 6. The story’s open-endedness could be read as including the audience today in the unfinished story as well. John Dos Passos so interprets it in his “Lincoln and His Almost Chosen People” in Nevins, Lincoln, 115–137. For a similar reading of the ending of the Gospel of Matthew, see Ronald F. Thiemann, Revelation and Theology (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), especially 112–156. 7. For an argument that a Christian theology of history is most appropriately emplotted as tragicomic, see Peter C. Hodgson, God in History: Shapes of Freedom (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1989), especially 158–159. See the discussion of Ricoeur in chapter 3 above for an analysis of interweaving references to past and present as the basis for future projects.

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8. In his speech, “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions: Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838,” Lincoln emphasizes that reason is the resource that will preserve our political institutions (“Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense”), yet he also argues that children must be taught reverence for the laws (“let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children’s liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother”). See this speech in Great Speeches, 1–8. 9. Abraham Lincoln, “Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862” in Great Speeches, 97. 10. Reinhold Niebuhr, “Religion,” in Nevins, Lincoln, 77. 11. Lincoln, Great Speeches, 107. While I hope to show that we can learn much from the manner in which Lincoln constructed his public theology, I do not intend to imply that we must follow him in all respects. As my comments in chapter 4 on the concept of God’s control over history in Stanley Hauerwas’s theology indicate, I do not find such a “controlling” sense of God’s power persuasive or helpful for a public theology. 12. To be sure, the immediate end of slavery was the purpose of neither Lincoln nor of the Union at the beginning of the Civil War. See especially Lincoln’s First and Second Inaugural Addresses for clear presentations of Lincoln’s aims in his own words (Great Speeches, 53–61, and 106–108). 13. Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, in Great Speeches, 107–108. See also Niebuhr’s analysis in his “Religion.” 14. Niebuhr, “Religion,” 75, 87. 15. See Trueblood, Abraham Lincoln, 6–7. 16. See Wills, Lincoln, 38. Although he disagrees with Wills on the novelty of Lincoln’s interpretation in the Gettysburg Address, Harry Jaffa also acknowledges the disagreement with Lincoln in his article “Inventing the Gettysburg Address,” in The Intercollegiate Review Vol. 28, No. 1 (Fall 1992), 51–56. 17. See Greenstone, Lincoln, 13–14. 18. To be sure, Lincoln does not (at least to my knowledge) indicate the grounds for reasoned debate of his interpretation of Providence. It may be the case that he did not hold that all religious beliefs can be ascertained through reason, nor do I. Nevertheless, that Lincoln evinces a strong tendency toward a rational approach to religion is evident, as for example in an incident recounted by Trueblood in which Lincoln, in speaking to a friend about the Bible, is reported to have said, “Take all of

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this Book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man.” See Trueblood, Abraham Lincoln, 59. 19. Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1963), xii. 20. Ibid., 124. 21. For an analysis of the role of power systems and their challenge to our rhetoric of democracy, see Jürgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, trans. by Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973). 22. See Cornel West, Race Matters (New York: Vintage Books, 1993) and Beyond Eurocentrism and Multiculturalism, 2 vols., (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1993). 23. Benjamin Valentino, Mapping Public Theology: Beyond Culture, Identity, and Difference (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002). 24. John Dos Passos, “Lincoln and His Almost Chosen People” in Nevins, Lincoln, 36–37. 25. Johann Baptist Metz, The Emergent Church: The Future of Christianity in a Bourgeois World, trans. by Peter Mann (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 34–35. 26. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of Its Traditional Defense (New York: Scribner’s, 1944), 151–152. 27. Ibid., 151. 28. In addition to the theologians discussed in this study, see also David Tracy’s The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism, (New York: Crossroad, 1986) for a thorough discussion of the publicity of religious claims. 29. For an insightful discussion of the various ways that churches can influence the public sphere, see Robert Wuthnow, Producing the Sacred: An Essay on Public Religion (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1994). 30. Great Speeches, 61. 31. Virgil Elizondo, Guadalupe: Mother of the New Creation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997), xiii. 32. Ibid., 52. 33. Elizondo presents the story of Guadalupe through a translation of the Nahuatl account, the Nican Mopohua. In this version, Our Lady identifies herself as “the Ever-Virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the God of Great Truth, Téotl, of the One through Whom We Live, the Creator of Persons, the Owner of What is Near and Together, of the Lord of Heaven and Earth.” Elizondo further notes the importance of this selfdescription, in that the Virgin identifies herself here with “the same names that were mentioned by the Nahuatl theologians in their dialogues

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with the Spanish theologians and that were discredited by the Spanish evangelizers.” Ibid., 7–8 (especially n.7 on page 8). 34. Ibid., 10. 35. Ibid., 100. 36. Ibid., 101. 37. See Elizondo’s discussion of the similarities of these biblical mountains with the appearances at Tepeyac in ibid., especially 47. 38. Ibid., 129. 39. Ibid., 59. 40. See the discussion of Gamwell’s argument in chapter 2 above. 41. Elizondo, Guadalupe, x–xi. 42. Ibid., 59. 43. Ibid., 104. 44. Ibid., 34–35. 45. As Elizondo observes, “We wanted battles, forced labor, and the whip, but God wanted fiesta, compassion, and love” (ibid., 132). 46. Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993). My reading of Delores Williams is indebted to a semester of conversations with Sr. Lareine Mosely and Ms. Monica Frazier at the University of Notre Dame in the spring of 2002. 47. According to Williams, “slavery in the Bible is a natural and unprotested institution in the social and economic life of ancient society—except on occasion when the Jews themselves are enslaved” (ibid., 146). 48. See especially ibid., 15–33, for Williams’s exegesis of the Hagar story. 49. Ibid., 12. 50. While this interweaving of the community’s history and particular women’s experiences occurs throughout the book, it is most evident in ibid., 34–83. 51. Ibid., 6, 108. 52. Ibid., 122. 53. The analysis of these three major forms of surrogacy under slavery is developed in ibid., 60–83. 54. Ibid., 70–71. 55. Williams discusses these conflicts in chapters 6 and 7 of her Sisters. 56. Ibid., 17. 57. “The womanist survival/quality of live hermeneutic means to communicate this to black Christians: Liberation is an ultimate, but in

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the meantime survival and prosperity must be the experience of our people,” Williams argues. Ibid., 196. 58. Ibid., 57–58. 59. Ibid. 60. As Williams prophetically warns, “white America’s present disregard for the life and well-being of black people, male and female, may continue long into the future.” Ibid., 107. 61. I am indebted to David Tracy for this formulation of the threefold task of theology. See his Analogical, especially 54–58. 62. As J. B. Metz argues, “narrative processes have to be protected, interrupted in order to justify them critically, and even guided in the direction of a competent narrative without which the experiences of faith, like every original experience, would be silenced.” See his Faith in History and Society: Toward a Fundamental Practical Theology (New York: Seabury, 1980), 205.

Index

America: v. United States, 72 American history. See U.S. history Anderson, Benedict, 82 Anderson, Victor, 5, 15, 18 apocalypticism. See eschatology Arendt, Hannah: and action, 35–37, 40; agonal v. associative politics, 44–45; and Augustine, 38, 76; Christianity, 50; identity, 96; Jesus Christ, 39; and labor, 35–36; natality, 42, 118; public life, 29, 31–35, 36–38, 42–43, 68, 78, 80–81, 84, 186, 188; separation of public and private life, 42–47, 203; the social, 34–35; totalitarianism, 31–32, 42; violence, 33; and work, 35–36 Aristotle, 94 atheism, 52 Audi, Robert, 63–67 Augustine, Saint, 38 Barth, Karl, 147, 184–85 Beaumont, Daniel, 130–31 beauty, 196–97 Bell, Daniel M., Jr., 79, 84–85 Bellah, Robert, 9–10 Benne, Robert, 5, 17 Bennington, Geoffrey, 87 Bhabha, Homi, 87

Bible: interpretation of, 132–33, 150–51, 157, 160, 197–98; and narrative, 174 bifurcated histories, 87–88, 103–4, 184–85. See also Hermeneutics Bill of Rights. See First Amendment black theology, 5, 18. See also liberation theology; womanist theology body, experiences of the, 44–45 Briggs, Sheila, 104 Burrell, David, 130 Cady, Linell, 2, 5, 6, 15, 17 capitalism, 79 Cavanaugh, William, 77, 79, 84–85 Chopp, Rebecca, 116, 125 Christendom, 13–14, 28 Christian beliefs. See Christian faith Christian faith: coherence, 157; defense of, 148; evaluation of, 66–67; and freedom, 63–64; and narrative, 108, 120, 122, 153; political implications of, 21, 136–37, 145; practice of, 111; in public debate, 155, 168–71. See also faith Christianity: and inculturation, 196; and liberal pluralism, 39–40; linguistic framework for, 66–67; and narrative, 30; in public life, 23, 38–42, 122–26, 147; and the state, 84

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Index

church: and narrative, 113, 131–32; as polis, 38; in public debate, 154; role of, 38, 135–39; v. state, 49–50, 58–59 citizenship, 77, 80–82, 173 civic nationalism, 81–83, 85 civic republicanism, 10 civil liberties, 42 civil religion: and Bellah, 9–10; and Christianity, 139; v. public theology, 5–6, 182–84, 188 civil rights, 32 Civil War, the, 177, 180, 184–85, 234n12 classic liberalism, 47–48, 52, 58, 136–38, 146 Colombo, Joseph, 160 colonialism, 190–91, 195 common good, 10, 82, 86, 105, 145, 173 communism, 185. See also totalitarianism communitarianism, 47–48, 146 community, 127–28 Cone, James, 5, 7, 18, 208n14 cosmopolitanism, 77–80 Dean, William: American spirituality, 17–18; and civic nationalism, 85–86; and national myth, 95–96; and national narrative, 20–21, 22–23, 73–74,102–3, 176; and public life, 71–77, 99 and religious criticism, 15 Decalogue. See Ten Commandments democracy, 42, 136–38, 153, 185–86 Dignitatis Humanae, 49, 216n56. See also Vatican Council II discipleship, 116, 137–38, 232n156. See also praxis; witness Disestablishment Clause: defined, 49, 143; in political and public action, 8, 11, 27, 138; and religious freedom, 16, 52–53, 65, 212n1

divine providence. See God: providence Dos Passos, John, 186 double narrative: criteria for, 175; and Hauerwas, 139; and interruption, 205; and justice, 203; and public debate, 166–71; and public theology, 163–66; reverse, 192. See also narrative Duara, Prasenjit: 87–88, 100, 103–4, 184–85. See also bifurcated histories ecclesiology. See church ecumenism, 13 Eisenbach, Eldon, 8 Elizondo, Virgil: and beauty (aesthetics), 196–97; and history, 193–94; and Our Lady of Guadalupe, 190–93, 195–96, 235n33; and public theology, 194–97, 205–06; reverse double narrative, 192; use of narrative, 189–94 Elshtain, Jean Bethke, 43–47 emplotment. See plot eschatology, 116, 133–34. See also hope ethics: and narrative, 126, 128, 130, 168, 179, 225n52; in public debate, 142–43 eucharist, 77 exceptionalism: American, 72–73 exchange relations, 115, 122–23, 173 experience: theological locus, 130, 142 faith, virtue of, 66 Falwell, Jerry, 8 feminism, 43 feminist theory: agonal v. associative politics, 44–45 fiction. See narrative: fictional First Amendment: and legislation, 49, 51–52; and religious freedom, 8, 16–17, 56; separation of church and state, 27; and Ten Commandments, 55. See also Disestablishment Clause

Index foundationalism, 147–48, 157, 228n99 France: civic nationality, 81–82 Frankfurt School, 115–16 freedom: defined, 34, 128, 186, 194; divine, 199; human, 110–11, 115–19, 123, 125, 161, 181–82; as a moral principle, 177, 179; from religion, 58. See also religious freedom Frei, Hans, 19, 109, 126, 217n7 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 104, 151 Gamwell, Franklin: and legislation, 57–58, 215n42; and liberal pluralism, 28; and political debate, 65–66, 138; and public theology, 67–69; and religion, 50, 214n40; and religious freedom, 2, 8, 12, 16–17, 63, 215n47; and public life, 17, 23, 30, 49–53; and Ten Commandments, 54–56 Gay, Peter, 92 Gettysburg Address, the, 177–81, 183. See also Lincoln God: belief in, 51; and divine freedom, 181–82; idea of, 111; and providence, 133–34, 165, 180, 183; in scripture, 157; and divine sovereignty, 28–30, 38 government: role of, 53, 62 grace, 161, 163, 169 “grand narratives,” 20–21, 31, 21n75 Greek polis, 36, 78 Greenstone, David, 183 Guadalupe, Our Lady of, 190–93, 195–96, 235n33 Gustafson, James, 140 Gutman, Amy, 79–80, 83, 124–25 Hagar, 198–201 Hauerwas, Stanley: and Christian witness, 131–35, 218n23, 221n78, 232n156; and Christianity, 212n9;

241

and democracy, 136–37; and eschatology, 133–34; and ethics, 126, 128, 225n52; and memory, 127; and narrative in theology, 109–10, 126–31, 141–42, 159–63, 169, 176, 226n7; and pacifism, 32, 228n95; and pluralism, 28; and public life, 135–39, 158, 163–66, 227n87, 228n99; and public theology, 11–12, 79, 137, 143–45, 170; and sectarianism, 140–43; and theological method, 126–128; and Thiemann, 154–55, 158–59, 229n105 Heidegger, Martin, 94 hermeneutics: and Gadamer, 104, 151; and Hauerwas, 132–33, 164; and Metz, 160; and Ricoeur, 95, 98, 101; and Thiemann, 150–51, 164; and Williams, 197–98, 202. See also Bible Himes, Kenneth, 5, 11, 17 Himes, Michael, 5, 11, 17 history: and action, 163; African American, 199–202; category for theology, 1; and fiction, 94–100; narrative structure of, 3, 21–22, 90–94, 104, 205, 207n3; national and Christian, 21, 68, 86–87; national v. universal, 124–25; and positivism, 92; and time, 93–94, 174; unified view of, 99. See also Salvation History Hodgson, Peter, 160–61 Honig, Bonnie, 44–46 hope: eschatological, 116, 118, 120, 122–24, 161, 194; historical, 1, 160, 164–66; and justice, 169; and theological method, 111, 224n8 Hopkins, Dwight, 18 human rights, 56 Hunter, James Davidson, 56 identity politics, 45–46 individualism, 9, 28, 31

242

Index

instrumental rationality, 115, 122–23, 135, 173, 179 interruption. See Metz: interruption; narrative: interruption; Williams: interruption Jesus Christ: death, 178; and discipleship, 39, 117; and lordship, 28 Juan Diego, Saint, 190–93 justice: Christian, 141, 143, 169; and praxis, 118, 120–23, 163; and public life, 33–34, 135, 137; racial, 202; and witness, 145 Kellner, Hans, 221n78 Kermode, Frank, 97–98 Kristeva, Julia, 81–83, 85, 99 Kuhse, Helga, 57 labor, 35–36 Lamb, Matthew, 124 Lasch, Christopher, 9, 80, 218n23 Latino/Latina theology, 5, 7, 19, 44 Lawrence v. Texas, 30, 60–62 laws. See legislation legislation: and morality, 61–62; and religious belief, 57–58, 63. See also public policy liberal pluralism, 28–31, 39–40, 65 liberalism. See Classic Liberalism liberation theology, 1, 2, 7, 79, 209n14 Lincoln, Abraham: and civil religion, 182–84; view of providence, 234n18; and public theology; 184–89, 205–06; use of reason, 234n8; use of narrative, 177–82 Lind, Michael, 9 Lindbeck, George, 15, 19, 64, 74 Loughlin, George, 32 Lyotard, Jean Francois, 221n75 MacIntyre, Alisdair, 80, 121, 135–36, 221n75

Marty, Martin, 5, 13–14 Mathews, Shailer, 10 McConnell, Michael, 78 McElroy, Robert, 6 memory: communal, 127; of Jesus, 163, 195, 223n16; and suffering, 166, 195, 223n12; as theological locus, 111, 112–13. See also mimesis metaphysics, 121, 124, 224n28 Metz, Johann Baptist: and environment, 186; and eschatology, 116–18; and human freedom, 115–19; and interruption, 161; use of memory, 111–13, 163, 195; and narrative in theology, 3, 109–10, 114–15, 119–22, 159–63, 169, 176, 205; and public debate, 143; and public theology, 122–26, 163–66, 170; and solidarity, 113–14; and theological method, 110–15, 148, 135, 223n27 Milbank, John: and liberal pluralism, 28–30; and narrative, 29; and political liberalism, 37, 48; and political violence, 31–32; and Radical Orthodoxy, 13–14; and religious pluralism, 40–41 mimesis, 90, 94–95 Moltmann, Jürgen, 9 Montesquieu, 82–83 moral integrity: norm for public debate, 156–57, 175 moral obligations, 77–78, 80, 82–83 moral theology. See ethics morality, 61–62 Murray, John Courtney: and public philosophy, 128, 131; and religion, 40; and religious freedom, 17, 49–52, 60–62, 84; and theology, 2, 117; and warrants for legislation, 59–61, 215n42 mutual integrity: norm for public debate, 156–57, 175

Index myth: narrative, 20; national, 71–73, 76, 86, 88, 95–96, 102 narrative: and bifurcated histories, 100–4; and Christian faith, 127, 144; community specific, 19; as conservative, 3; and ethics, 136; evaluation of, 123, 131, 141–42, 175; fictional, 94–100, 221n78; and history, 90–94, 160, 164; and identity, 3, 22, 96–98, 101, 114; and interruption, 161, 166, 195, 197–98, 201–4; multiple, 74–75, 102, 138, 165–66, 205; and promise, 149–150; and public theology, 12, 68; and scripture, 132, 149, 160, 174; v. storytelling, 92–93; structure of, 89–90; as theological method, 18, 111, 148, 162–63; and theology, 119–22; and truth, 121–22; as unifying, 160–61. See also double narrative; national narrative nation-state: defined, 72–73, 138; and law-enforcement, 57; and membership, 77; and narrative, 86–89; political activity in, 124; problems of, 136; and public interest, 60; purpose of, 62, 65, 73–74,177; relevance of, 2, 78–79, 83; sovereignty of, 84 national identity, 80–82, 85–86. See also national narratives national narratives: American, 153–54, 195, 204–5; evaluation of, 107–10, 168; and God, 165; multiple, 103; and myth, 73, 102; problems with, 88, 99–100; and public life, 22, 104–5; religious dimension of, 76, 170–71. See also narrative national sovereignty, 84 neoconservatism, 6–7 Neuhaus, Richard John, 55 Niebuhr, H. Richard, 2

243

Niebuhr, Reinhold, 2, 80, 224n31; on Lincoln, 179–80, 181, 184–85, 186–87 Nussbaum, Martha, 77–78, 80, 82–83, 100 Nye, Andrea, 36 O’Donovan, Oliver, 13, 28 Ogden, Schubert, 120, 157–58 Palmer, Parker, 5, 6, 13, 17 patriotism, 10, 83, 85–86 Pitkin, Hanna: and justice, 42; and public life, 33, 48, 83 Pledge of Allegiance, 2 plot, 89–91, 95, 101, 130 pluralism: in public life, 68, 143, 175–76, 187–88; and narrative identity, 100–1, 108–9 political activity, 50–52, 124, 163 political leaders, 188–89 politics: defined, 11; of displacement, 46; global, 77–80; instrumental view of, 33, 37; issues of identity, 43–44, 47; and liberalism, 13; national, 79; and physical needs, 45; purpose of, 29; and violence, 31 pragmatic naturalism, 18 praxis: and Christian belief, 120–21; in history, 91, 116–17, 161, 166; in narrative, 148; and theology, 111–12, 114, as witness, 134–35. See also discipleship; witness prayer, 114 principle of exchange. See exchange relations privatization, 9 proceduralism, 136 promise. See narrative: promise public: defined, 11–12 public accessibility: norm for public debate, 156–57, 168, 175, 182–83 public action. See public life

244

Index

public debate: Christian involvement in, 63–67, 141–43, 147, 189, 228n99; criteria for, 156–57, 159, 168–71, 182–83, 206; and ethics, 145–46 public life: and Augustinianism, 38; becoming fully human, 40; celebration of, 196; and dialogue, 102–3; and diversity, 68, 100–1; and economics, 43; and government, 71; as Greek polis, 36; and humility, 186–87; and instrumentality, 34–35, 42–43; and Metz, 122–26; and narrative, 75–76, 99, 104–5, 158, 205; and national identity, 163; opposition to, 136–37, 140; and personal approval, 47; and physical needs, 46; scope of, 77–83; summarized, 173–77; and teleology, 41, 74 public policy: and Christian involvement, 137, 153; and the common good, 145; liberal rationalist approach, 14; and narrative theology, 16; warrants for, 154–55 public theology: as American political theology, 11; and civil religion, 5–6, 182–84; contributions of, 12–13; dangers of, 170–71; defining questions of, 12; differing perspectives, 5; dilemma of, 14; evaluation of, 182–83; opposition to, 136–37; and political leaders, 188–89; and religious freedom 16, 55, 139 public virtue: defined, 9; importance of, 173; lack of, 10 Rahner, Karl, 110, 160 Rawls, John, 65 religion: and cultural criticism, 15, 75; defined, 50, 214n40; privatized, 51; and public debate, 63–67 religious criticism, 15 religious discourse, 65 religious disestablishment. See Disestablishment Clause

religious freedom: definition of, 2, 48–49, and disestablishment clause, 53, 212n1, 215n47; and legislation, 60–63; and narrative, 23; negative freedom, 58; and pluralism, 12, 29, 30; and public life, 8–9, 16–17, 27; and public policy, 51; violation of, 52. See also freedom Renan, Ernest, 82 “revised liberalism,” 11, 146–47. See also classic liberalism Rich, Adrienne, 43 Ricoeur, Paul: and common narrative, 100–6, 107, 149; and evaluating narrative, 131; and fictional narrative, 94–100, 144, 168; and history, 2, 90–94, 164, 170, 174; and reading narrative, 191; theory of narrative, 76, 89–90. See also hermeneutics; narrative Robbins, J. Wesley, 130–31 Ryan, John K., 2 sacred, the, 83–84 Said, Edward, 87 salvation history: God’s purpose in, 168–69, 176, 180–82, 185; limitations of, 31–32, 162; and narrative, 160, 193–94; teleological structure of, 144 Scalia, Justice Antonin, 60–62 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 147 Schlochtern, Josef Meyer zu, 121 scripture. See Bible sectarianism, 140–43 secularization, 58, 110 separation of church and state. See Disestablishment Clause; First Amendment September 11 2001, 10 sin, 161, 165, 169, 195 Singer, Peter, 57 slavery, 180, 184–85, 199–200, 204–5, 234n12, 236n46

Index social history, 91. See also history solidarity: as theological locus: 111, 113–14, Stackhouse, Max, 5, 6, 17 state. See nation-state; statecraft statecraft, 84 Stevens, Justice John Paul, 60 storytelling, 91, 92–93, 97, 99, 119, 121, 161. See also narrative Stout, Jeffrey, 142 suffering. See memory Sullivan, William, 10, 210n21 surrogacy, 200–201 systematic theology. See theology Taylor, Charles, 82, 85–86, 105 teleology: in history, 194; and public life, 41 temporality. See history; time Ten Commandments: as public monuments, 30, 53–56; and religious freedom, 2, 54 terrorism, 10 theological method: and Metz, 110–15, 149; and narrative,14, 148, 164 theology: as descriptive, 147, 152; of history, 7, 182, 192–93; systematic, 126, 151, 162, 205; use of narrative, 108, 119–22 148 Thiemann, Ronald: and Hauerwas, 154–55, 158–59, 221n105; and narrative in theology, 109–10, 126, 147–50, 159–63, 176; and national theology, 5; and public life, 158–59, 169; and public theology, 145–47, 153–57, 163–66, 170, 231n136; and revelation, 157; and revised liberalism, 11, 146–47; and theological method, 145–46, 150–52, 230n119 Thomas, Justice Clarence, 60–61 time: cosmic & phenomenological, 89, 99; public, 174 totalitarianism, 31, 37, 42

245

Tracy, David: and Christian knowledge, 41; and interpreting narrative, 165–66; and religious belief, 67; and religious discourse, 10–11, 15–16, 210n23, 207n26 truth, 121, 123, 196–97 Tubman, Harriet, 166, 203, 232n156 “under God.” See Pledge of Allegiance U.S. history: role in public theology, 21–22, 164, 180, 204–5. See also history U.S. Supreme Court, 30, 60–62 unity: Christian, 40; as goal of narrative, 206 Valentin, Benjamin: and Latino public theology, 5, 12–13, 15, 19, 185–86; and public v. private life, 44 Vatican Council II: Lumen Gentium, 40–41; Dignitatis humanae, 49, 216n56 Weigel, George, 7, 59 West, Cornel, 18, 22, 185, 211n43 White, Hayden, 91, 93 Whitehead, A.N., 51, 215n41 Williams, Delores: and divine concern, 198–99; and interruption, 197–98, 201–4; and public debate, 204; and public theology, 202–6; use of narrative, 197–202 Wills, Gary, 178 witness: Christian, 131–35, 226n78; v. effectiveness, 134–35; political action, 135–36, 144–45, 227n87. See also discipleship; praxis Womanist Theology, 5, 7, 198–99, 203. See also Liberation Theology work. See labor Wuthnow, Robert, 11, 13 Yoder, John Howard, 79, 136

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