Three preliminary thoughts:
First, I never thought that there would be a text that would pick up the mantel left by Christine Helmer at the end of her “Theology and the End of Doctrine.” But there is. It’s Hanna Reichel’s text, “After Method.” And much like Helmer’s text, the title is both misleading and spot on: doctrine and method are not bad, but calcified doctrines and methods can be—to summarize bluntly. If I had the opportunity to build an “Introduction to Theology” course, I’m quite certain I’d frame that course around these two texts. I’ve yet to encounter any text that could rival the clarity and depth provided by Helmer and Reichel.
Second, if you have ever read a theologian who seemed to be “straying from the pack” and “doing her own thing,” Reichel’s text gives you the reason why. I want to place this text *before* all Dorothee Sölle’s texts because I see deep kinship in what Reichel proposes and what a Lutheran theologian outlier–like Sölle–did. I read Reichel’s book and felt a wave of vindication for someone like Sölle. “See!” I wanted to holler at all the historical nay-sayers, “THIS! This is what she was doing.”
Third, I was so burnt out on Althaus-Reid from the way cis-het, white, men had treated the material that I was turned off by the idea of diving in as deep as Reichel wanted me, too. However, here Reichel demonstrates that they themself are trying to be the theologian demanded of in this text. They represented the material to me, recast the lighting, pointed out different aspects I was unfamiliar with, critiqued and praised the work, and in the end gave me something new. Like restoring something to original form what was disfigured due to abuse, Reichel demonstrates their God-given theological and professorial talent and skill. (They do the same for Barth, too! I felt a refreshing invigoration urging me to take up, once again, some of those big Barth tomes!)
Now, “After Method”…
Reichel brings together two unlikely dialogue partners and demonstrates their compatibility without destroying their distinctions and differences. Never once did I think that Reformed Theology following Barth ever eclipsed Queer Theology following Althaus-Reid. In the process, Reichel demonstrates her thesis to the reader that “Better Theology” is not a retreat into archaic dogma, standing on the shore of “safe” and “traditionalism” nor is it a complete jettisoning of all that has come before and diving headfirst into the deep waters of the “just not that!” Rather, it’s a willingness and maturity to step into the void caused by the collision of the history and tradition of Systematic Theology and creativity and curiosity of Constructive Theology. It’s an exhortation to hear backwards and forwards because in hearing backwards and forwards we have something to say in the present and that then guarantees our mutual future together with bits of the past and bits of what is to come. Reichel’s book demands theologians to grow up! and get to the good and hard work of their hands to do theology and method for the wellbeing of others (ref Ephesians 4)
Throughout the text, the demand to do “Better” theology takes on pastoral and professional implications. To be/do better in this theological space will have tremendous impact for the world; better theology is not static but dynamic, it is not solid but fluid, it is not stuck but liberated and moving toward others–whoever those others are. In all of it I couldn’t shake an image from my moments of being a stay-at-home parent with my littles. I’ll share that image because I think it does better to some up what this text asks of us for the sake of the world:
When my eldest (now threatening to turn 18) was little, he would spend his waking hours playing and exploring (as toddlers do) by dragging everything out: toys, shoes, pots and pans, cans from the pantry, bottles form the fridge, essentially whatever he could get his hands on. At some point, I wearied from picking up everything after him all the time. I decided to just let the chaos reign! What I didn’t know then—which was only an action of desperate surrender rather a stroke of brilliant parenting—was that by letting him get *everything* and *whatever* out, he would blend into one many different things. Legos, train tracks, and a chutes and ladder’s game; pots, lids, and many DC figurines; finger paints, markers, and whatever was inside that sandwich. He learned that *a* toy or *a* pot didn’t have *a* use only to be put back in a box and tucked away again and never retrieved until that *use* was necessary. He learned that many different things worked together, even if it meant that I was on my hands and knees at 9pm hunting down that last puzzle piece or figurine from under the couch. The mess was absolutely necessary for him to play *better* and *bigger* and to give his little world something new…
I think Reichel is encouraging us to play with all of our toys! And, having read Barth’s “Ethics,” I assume that idea isn’t far from their mind. This book dares its reader to find joy again in the task of doing theology—joy *and* fun! It’s an exhortation for us to get all our toys out and to see what new things can be made—the good ones we push forward and the bad ones, well, we should take them down. There’s creativity and flexibility that can define the theologian that has been held hostage by fear and anger; Reichel does well to recover this creativity and flexibility and give it back to their reader. Thus, the text very much does what it sets out do.
The only question I have is of the structure of the book, I wonder if using the reformed, three uses of the law-works to further the thesis of the text or does it end up subverting all of it to the reformed, systematic order. Does the structure do what the text does so well? I may have decided on a daring two uses while allowing the end to be that “new” terrain undefined by a this or that use of a law or defined by both given the demand and the situation. Even with that question, the point is taken well. Under the goodness of method conceived so creatively holding on loosely to what was and what will be, I can return to method in a new way with a new relationship without fear and condemnation, using it as a well decorated teacher.
https://laurenrelarkin.com/2024/08/16/hanna-reichels-after-method/
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