Radical Obedience

In a 1964 study of the ethical thought of Rudolf Bultmann--filled with unintended pathos--Thomas Oden tried to articulate an antidote to what he called the "malaise of current Protestant ethics." He looked to Bultmann for clues to his longed for antidote with, as he was candid enough to acknowledge, mixed results. Along the way, however, Oden made a case for the Tolstoyan ethic of vocation--without knowing he had done so (hence the unintentional pathos of the book).

It is difficult to read a book like this and not feel sympathy for its author and, in addition, a pang of remorse: the sort of remorse one might also feel for a frog at the bottom of a well that looks up through the mouth of the well and believes that the heavens extend only as far as his vantage point allows. In 1964, Protestant ethics were stuck at the bottom of the well of antinomianism that Protestantism had dug for itself in the Reformation. In 2012, the situation has hardly changed at all. Oden's analysis of the immediate problem faced by Protestant ethics was quite insightful; but his prior Protestant commitments made it impossible for him to imagine that the underlying cause of the immediate problem is attributable to the very nature of the late medieval protest that split the Western church. Even so, he appears to have sensed this possibility; moreover, one might suggest that he tacitly acknowledged it:

The persistent antinomian inclinations of current Protestantism toward an ethic of self-affirmation without self-denial, gospel without law, freedom without obedience, and grace without obligation constitutes perhaps the most urgent problem of Protestant ethics, which, if we fail to clarify in the next decades, may make it necessary for us to unlearn much that we have learned about "Christian liberty." Perhaps the emerging conversation with Roman Catholicism, long steeped in an ethic of law and virtue, will provide some clues for the overcoming of these antinomian temptations without debilitating the accomplishments achieved in the last two generations in freeing us from a legalistic perception of the demand of God [Thomas C. Oden, Radical Obedience, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press (1964), 133].

I think it significant that Oden gave himself and his co-religionists "decades" to reach "clarity" on the issue; it is also telling that he cast an interested glance in the direction of Roman Catholicism--with its ethical tradition "steeped in ... law and virtue." The problem, however, is that Protestants just don't know what to do with law--or how to do it--and this is because, since Luther, they have read Paul as a Protestant Christian instead of reading him as the proud Jew and Pharisee he proclaimed himself to be (Philippians 3:5). And it will take more than decades for Protestants to begin to read Paul without an anti-Semitic bias; it will take utter desperation. The sort of desperation that only massive defections from the church will cure--massive defections that could eventually force a rapprochement with the Vatican in order for Protestant churches to survive in some attenuated fashion.

Of course, this is not what is happening to Protestantism--except, to some extent, in the mainline denominations. Consequently, the problems that sent Rev. Oden to Rudolf Bultmann will continue, unabated, for the foreseeable future.

But what of Bultmann? What was he recommending? We find his recommendation in the title of Oden's book: radical obedience. But what does this phrase mean to Bultmann?

Radical obedience means to listen for and respond to the Word of God speaking through the situation in which one exists. The demand of the moment must be taken with all seriousness as God's own demand. Such is the core idea with which Bultmann finds the eschatological ethic of the New Testament saturated. The New Testament presupposes that the reign of God is at hand! This immediate expectation of God's immanent coming is the presupposition of the call to obedience in the New Testament. A radical claim is laid upon man because of the emerging reality of God's presently impinging Kingdom [Oden, 25].

Again, it is difficult to read these words without experiencing a strong mixture of sympathy and remorse. The frog is gazing heavenward and sees the sky, but sees only that portion of the sky to which his position has predisposed him. Tragically, he might as well be blind.

Oden seems to suspect that there is something significant looming just beyond his view; but he cannot shift his position far enough to gain the necessary perspective. Instinctively, he seizes upon Bultmann's "essential proposal" that, in the New Testament's eschatological ethic, "indicative and imperative are not two things, but one" [Oden, 95]. What does this mean?

Predictably, it does not mean for Bultmann or Oden what it meant to Tolstoy. This is because Bultmann and Oden, as members in good-standing of the Christian church, could not possibly conceive of the Sermon on the Mount as the central ethic of Rabbi Jesus' indicative/imperative eschatological teaching. Oden states Bultmann's position as follows: "Bultmann strongly resists the notion of the Christian life as a striving toward an ideal condition, as if the Christ event might be regarded as an ideal type of humanity that men [and women] are called to try to achieve" [ibid]. And with this quite accurate rendering of Bultmann's argument, any possibility of escaping the bottom of the well is lost.

How so?

Statements constructed in the "indicative" mood tell us what is, i.e., how things stand at present. Statements constructed in the "imperative" mood tell us how things ought to be. In what Bultmann termed the "Christ event," is and ought are two sides of the same coin [ibid].

Tolstoy would have heartily agreed. He would have said, "Thank you, Rudolf, for making my case so eloquently. As the Christ (the Jewish Messiah), Jesus has inaugurated the Messianic Age. This is the indicative mood of his advent. It is now imperative for human beings to begin to live the Kingdom come, i.e., how they ought to live."

Bultmann would then reply, "Yes, Leo. We are in agreement. That is why I regard the 'Johannine sources as those providing the clearest formulation of the paradoxical relation of indicative and imperative. The essential formula is this: that "out of the love we have received arises the obligation to love"'"[Oden, 95-96].

"You are a clever one," Tolstoy would say. "But then, so is the devil. And like the devil, you know how to quote Scripture for your own purposes. But I am not deceived. Indeed, we are called to love--just as the Johannine sources admonish us. But the Johannine sources do not contain the Sermon on the Mount. Therefore, they offer us the commandment to love one another only as a general principle. The specific injunctions as to how we must put the general principle into common practice--and thereby demonstrate the essential unity of 'ought' and 'is'--are contained in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke."

What could Bultmann say in response? I imagine he could only obfuscate--in the time-honored tradition of Christian evasion of the Messianic teaching of Rabbi Jesus.

Oden's intuitive grasp of the inadequacy of Christian ethics left him dissatisfied with Bultmann's invocation of love in lieu of offering any specific form of genuine moral guidance. He knew as well as Bultmann--as well as anyone--that love is the answer. But what does that mean when someone strikes you in the face?

Leo Tolstoy held that the teaching of Rabbi Jesus about such painful circumstances was this: offer the other cheek as well. By and large, the Christian church has chosen to marginalize this teaching and those who profess the Sermon on the Mount's Messianic indicative/imperative. Consistent with the church's avoidance of Rabbi Jesus' Messianic teaching, Thomas Oden, a Methodist minister and professor at a Protestant theological seminary, took the extraordinary step of suggesting that Roman Catholicism might provide some escape from this ethical impasse!

It is truly remarkable to observe the lengths to which Christians will go to evade "radical obedience" to the Christ they profess to follow. Indeed, the desire to avoid radical obedience to the teachings of Christ is so powerful that it has the potential to reunite Protestants and Catholics after centuries of schism--for they are united in a common struggle to escape the strictures of the Sermon on the Mount.

The Tolstoyan ethic of vocation is to listen to the call of conscience and to heed that call. For Tolstoy, the conscience is the voice of God. But human consciousness is polyphonic. How does one decide which voice to obey? Tolstoy's unequivocal answer: the voice that is consistent with the admonitions of the Axial Age prophets and their spiritual progeny. And among the latter, most particularly, the admonitions contained in the Jewish Messiah's Sermon on the Mount.