Monday, May 17, 2010

Fowl on Theological Interpretation

Came across this quote from Stephen Fowl in an Interpretation article students in our seminary leadership class read this Spring:

"Theological interpretation of the Bible is not determined by any particular method but by the goal of growing into ever deeper communion with the triune God and with others" ("Know Your Context: Giving and Receiving Money in Philippians," Int. [2002]: 45).

This statement confirms my feeling (and those of others I've talked to) that theological interpretation is really more about a goal than a method. This also potentially signs its death warrant as a movement because all it amounts to is to try to find a way to connect the biblical text to Christian faith and practice today. For example, the new Brazos commentary series will simply be Christians reflecting on the biblical text theologically with no clear commonality except for that end goal.

That reduces these sorts of series to the novelty of buying a Matthew commentary written by Stanley Hauerwas.

P.S. A very small installment of the Great Time for the Wesleyan Tradition is up on the Dean's blog (Wesleyanism in the 1900s).

2 comments:

John C. Poirier said...

Buying a commentary written by a non-biblical scholar is like buying a music CD recorded by non-musicians.

Logan Hoffman said...

But it's HAUERWAS!!!