The author argues that a narrative-historical reading of the New Testament requires rethinking core beliefs while preserving continuity. Modern shifts in cosmology, science, and social understanding demand fresh theological imagination, yet the belief in one creator God and the church’s priestly vocation endures. With Christendom gone, the church must reinterpret its mission for a post-Christian, unstable age. Baptism and “gospel” remain essential but must be understood contextually as participation in a renewed, resilient priestly people facing an uncertain future. The Spirit’s covenant persists, though its expression may change, equipping the church to endure the challenges of the Anthropocene.
Elliot has raised some pertinent questions about the continuing relevance of some basic Christian beliefs, given a narrative-historical understanding of the New Testament. They deserve a more substantial answer than I can provide right now, but here’s an outline of how I think we may manage the tension between continuity and change. A recent post on “A revised missional theology” covers some of the ground. You could also have a look at this three part series, though it may be a bit dated now: “The narrative-historical reading of the New Testament: what’s in it for me?”
Does the historical view of the bible able to teach us how God and Christ will carry on…
There has to be some rethinking of the theological basics. Our view of the world (cosmology, science, evolution, etc.) and of humanity (human rights, sexuality, etc.) has changed profoundly since the biblical period. But I see no reason to abandon the seminal belief that one God created all things.
The biblical story holds that this God appointed a people to serve as a priesthood on his behalf in the midst of nations and civilisations. Climactically, the heirs to the promises made to Abraham became a new priesthood for the nations of the Greek-Roman world, and we may perhaps extend that function to the colonial era.
But we are now in a post-Christendom, post-colonial era and in that respect beyond the reach of the biblical story, bar a final judgment and remaking of heaven and earth. So the church is having to work out again how best to serve the interests of the creator God in a rapidly changing and mostly uncongenial civilisational environment. That will be a constructive, prophetic re-imagining of how the biblical story must continue.
Western Christendom embodied in real historical terms the confession of Jesus as Lord by the nations of the apostolic mission. That confession has been abandoned by the nations, but the relation of the risen Christ to the church as his body remains the same.
As far as I can tell, the new covenant in the Spirit remains viable, though how life in the Spirit is experienced and expressed may change considerably. I’m not sure how useful the modern Pentecostal-charismatic religious paradigm will be, but the Spirit of prophecy must be factored in somehow.
…interacting with creation?
It is part of the responsibility of a priesthood to interpret how the God whom we serve is interacting with his creation, or more precisely with human societies living on the surface of the earth. That’s pretty obvious in the Bible (prophecy, the wisdom traditions), but the modern church is very uncomfortable talking about the “wrath” of God, which is what it comes down to at critical moments like the present—and perhaps for good reasons.
And what might yet still come?
On this general basis, the church is equipped to deal with the uncertainties to come as the world passes through the pains that attend the birth of the Anthropocene.
But we should not be naïve or complacent about the extent and depth of the reformation needed (repentance, rethinking, re-imagining, re-orientation), which brings us to baptism….
Do people today still need to be baptized?
Baptism can be taken to mean different things in different historical contexts. I would stress the “missional” dynamic into which a person is baptised. John and Jesus’ disciples baptised first century Jews into a movement of repentance in hope of escaping the wrath to come upon national Israel. Paul baptised people into the dying and living of Jesus because he knew that the early churches would face severe persecution.
In the modern era, baptism became a mark of personal resistance to the erosion of public faith. Now I think it must be a baptism into the far-reaching renewal of God’s priestly people in the face of a very uncertain future.
And believe in the gospel?
I would say that “gospel” must similarly be contextualised. At the start of his ministry, Jesus proclaimed the good news of a coming judgment against unrighteous Israel. In Revelation 14:6-11 three angels proclaim the good news of judgment against corrupt, decadent, pagan Rome, which becomes the ground for “a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus” (14:12). And there is much more good news in between, of course.
The church now has to work out what good news about the presence and action of the living God may legitimately be proclaimed under the present historical conditions, which will become (in the first place) the ground for a call for the endurance of the post-Christendom, post-colonial, post-modern, etc., church.
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