We suppose someone could raise the question as to what makes this a theological expression distinctive to the context of North America, as it would seem from all that has been stated thus far, this same proposal could have been drafted on almost any continent and in almost any country in the world. And we would respond that what makes this proposal unique is that it derives from the context of the local church/Church in the United States, and not merely as a theological exploration of some cultural issue endemic to North America; it is a proposal for a critically constructive way in which theology can be done—from a pastoral perspective—and in relation to the current crises facing the church/Church in the United States. We have attempted, in this introduction, to address (even if only in a tentative fashion) one aspect of the crises, by making reference to the numerous ways in which a particular and limited understanding of liberty has adversely affected the identity, worship life, concept of discipleship, overall discernment, and theological self-understanding of the local church/Church.
If we could make an educated guess as to why Dr. Barth expressed the hope for an evangelical theology of freedom for humanity to arise from the native theological soils of the United States, we would suggest that, as was so often true of his insights, subsequent to his visit to the US, Barth saw with clarity that one of the more important issues facing the church/Church in the US is a tendency to confuse socio-political and cultural realities with the gospel as the purpose for the existence of the church/Church in North America. This has become abundantly clear in the current race for the presidency of the United States (2012), and the misappropriation and misuse of Christian language and technical theological terminology by politicians who have had little or no training in the complexities of theological explication, and yet are considered to express positions that are legitimate to both the theology of the Christian faith and, at the same time, demonstrate a knowledge of theological realities.
It is also possible that Karl Barth perceived, what is often and mistakenly referenced as the Constitutional separation of church and state, as fundamentally problematic to the degree that such separation could imply a disallowance or rejection of the legitimacy of a theological voice in the public square; therefore a theology of freedom taking its substance and direction from the evangelical testimony of evangelists, prophets, and apostles, could then enable the ekklēsia to speak with a more distinctive voice, a more concisely framed theological message, to those residents of the public square. Of course, we can only surmise that these (and no doubt other) reasons were behind the expressed hope of Dr. Barth; perhaps our Lord will grant the grace to ask Dr. Barth when we meet with him at Table in the coming kingdom of God!
Finally, without any equivocation we reassert that this essay is Christologically centered, and is so primarily because the resurrected and reigning Lord Christ stands at the horizon of human history casting a long and evident shadow of grace over all reality, the reality of human freedom being no exception. We cannot, at least from within the context of a pastoral theology, speak meaningfully of an evangelical freedom that is not grounded in Christological verities; Jesus Christ himself being the embodiment of the “Good News,” the gospel, in essence, offering testimony to the Truth, and in Truth there is graced freedom (see John 8:32). It is in Jesus Christ we witness the fullness of that graced freedom revealed in human flesh and from the human side as freedom for obedience, worship, and service to the one true God; it is in Jesus Christ we witness graced freedom as the consummation of love (as agapē) for God and neighbor, which is essential to enrichment of communal harmony and therefore revelatory of the coming kingdom of God; it is through Jesus Christ that freedom is proclaimed and conferred in the form of God’s Truth (i.e., the evangel); and it is in Jesus Christ that his body—the ekklēsia—proclaims that same evangel which, through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit is Word of God, continuing to spread the promise of graced freedom, as reality, in the lives of those who hear, acknowledge, and confess the Truth of God.
The Chapters Ahead
In this section of the introduction we provide an outline of the chapters to follow, by merely touching on the subject of each chapter. In this way we hope to provide a vehicle through which the reader can select to read particular chapters. The proposal does necessitate and involve a continuity of argument, which is best appreciated by reading each chapter in order; nevertheless, the chapters have also been written in such a fashion that they can stand on their own merit, should you desire to read at random. It should be stated at this juncture that throughout all that follows we make use of the phrase evangelical freedom when referencing the wider context of biblical-theological witness to graced freedom, and the phrase graced freedom when referencing that form of freedom which is established, sustained, and ultimately fulfilled by God and God alone, in and through the power of the Holy Spirit.
We make use of the word essay for this text only because we envision a book as having greater depth and a more thorough investigation of all of the related issues relevant to the subject at hand. An essay (at least to our understanding) is offered as a prelude to what could become a book, should there be significant dialogue to warrant such an expansion of the topic; for now, we are quite content to provide an essay!
Remaining consistent to our proposal of an evangelical freedom we must avoid the temptation to limit ourselves to a select number of biblical passages that speak directly to the issue at hand, as if proof-texting were an honored method for theological explication as an evangelical modus operandi! There are paradigmatic passages that we will consider applicable to the proposal; but on the whole we will consider the continuous thread of revelation running throughout the Old and New Testament witness to God and the plan of redemption as far more reliable in supporting the proposal. The affirmation of evangelical freedom cannot be restricted to the witness of the New Testament alone, for the simple reason that it is also evidenced (if only as proleptic reality) in the Old Testament witness, and in particular in the word of the prophets.
Chapter one will explore the biblical basis for a diagnosis of the fundamental problem for anthropos, which is not external to human being (ontological reality), but is an internal reality and as a direct result of a tragedy that has corrupted—no, has completely disfigured!—anthropos as God created him/her/them to be (i.e., the imago Dei). The fact that this horrific tragedy could neither be remedied nor repaired by virtue of any single human endeavor will be annunciated as well, together with the first hints of the proposed graced freedom as promise (and proleptic reality), which are evidenced in select narratives of the Old Testament that are paradigmatic in character.
Chapter two will explore those ways in which Israel, as a covenant partner, demonstrated the dialectic of obedience-disobedience to God and to the Torah (as the external manifestation of what is required of those who are genuinely free) and restoration (i.e., the redemptive actions of God) as renewal and reaffirmation of graced freedom by way of repentance, covenant renewal, and a return to obedience to God through confirmation of and conformation to the Torah. This will be considered under the rubric of a proleptic recapitulation of graced freedom for humanity, which is the purpose behind the call of God to and establishment of Israel as a people—an ekklēsia. In this chapter we will take a close and careful look at some of the prophetic literature as the word disclosing the intention of God for the ekklēsia as a communion whose purpose is fulfilled only and insofar as she declares the gospel of God and demonstrates the graced freedom bestowed by God as a freedom for humanity.
Chapter three will open an exploration of the New Testament, beginning with a discussion of the central importance of the characters of John the Baptist and Mary the mother of Christ as primary witnesses to that form of graced freedom which is the essential mark of anthropos as God created it to be, and as lives demonstrating the essential characteristics of graced freedom in their life-transformed testimony to what is to be revealed in Christ. Both John and Mary offer clear evidence of, again, a proleptic manifestation of that form of graced freedom to which one bears definitive and prophetic witness, and the other unequivocal ontological witness. As an added benefit, we are hopeful that the discussion of Mary, as theotokos, will once again provide her with the place she is, regrettably, too often denied in much of Protestant