David W. Congdon > Quotes

“Dialectical theology thinks within historical consciousness without reducing faith to history, that is, without reducing kerygma to culture. Similarly, demythologizing does not reductively accommodate or conform the gospel to modernity, as many of its critics allege. As Bultmann states in his response to Karl Jaspers, “the goal of demythologizing is not . . . to make the faith acceptable to modern people, but rather to make it clear what the Christian faith is.”[19] Clarifying the faith for people in a particular cultural situation is the very definition of the missionary enterprise. In carrying out his hermeneutical program, Bultmann is nothing less than a missionary to modernity.”
― David W. Congdon, The Mission of Demythologizing: Rudolf Bultmann's Dialectical Theology

“Barth’s rejection of liberal theology can be understood, I suggest, as a rejection of a constantinian conception of mission, one that conflates the norm of the gospel with the given norms of culture.”
― David W. Congdon, The Mission of Demythologizing: Rudolf Bultmann's Dialectical Theology