My introduction to Rudolf Bultmann came in a systematic theology class that functioned as an overview of what to believe and what not to believe. Predictably, Bultmann was the enemy—the heretic of all heretics. “Demythologizing the gospel” was the phrase, and it meant draining the Christian faith of everything Christian. Only later, after reading Jesus Christ and Mythology, did I come to realize this caricature was not only unfair, it was blatantly false. This helped me understand why, in one of his letters, Bonhoeffer praises Bultmann as “opening the windows” in a church that had become stuffy and noxious.
Just before Christmas as colleague gave me an old copy of James Kay’s Christus Praesens: A Reconsideration of Rudolf Bultmann's Christology. I met Professor Kay at Princeton Seminary a while back, before I better understood Bultmann’s theological project. He listened to my questions and assertions with patience, even responding to further questions via email. While I wasn’t convinced at the time, this encounter stuck with me. I kept returning to Bultmann’s emphasis on demythologization, in part because I loved ancient mythology, but mainly because I wanted to understand how this applied to the New Testament.
According to Kay, Bultmann was dissatisfied with the way the New Testament message was characterized. He believed the New Testament, at its core, is eschatological—it is the message of the Kingdom of God breaking into this world. Much of liberal protestantism had turned the message of God’s Kingdom into morality—draining it of all eschatological power. On the other hand, fundamentalists insisted on retaining the mythological features of the New Testament, assuming one had to ascribe to the language, culture, and cosmology of the bible in order to fully believe it to be God’s word. Here we see how Bultmann’s project of demythologizing isn’t about privileging the modern world over the ancient, it’s the recognition that the cultural packaging (cosmology) is not the message. For Bultmann, the kerygma, the kernel message of the gospel, disrupts every cultural construct.
Bultmann was concerned that God and God’s kingdom not become objectified either in mythology (story) or history. Conservative Christians tend toward objectification of the myth (story) in the way the bible is read and interpreted. Liberal Christians tend to emphasize the historical, focusing on morality and affirming religious beliefs that align with a modern scientific worldview. For Bultmann, the New Testament revealed the living Christ who is not objectively present (meaning objectified in myth or history), but existentially present. This means Jesus Christ is the “living” Christ who is encountered through the proclamation of the word. Here we discover the eschatological nature of Christian faith—the in-breaking of Gods kingdom through an encounter with the resurrected Christ. This encounter brings transformation as our lives become a response to God’s grace revealed in Jesus Christ. We also become responsible to live in accordance with this new reality, loving God and loving our neighbor. For Bultmann, demythologizing the gospels was not about draining their divine power, it was about freeing them to speak to a modern world. Demythologization, in this context, is a hermeneutical task that proclaims the word to contemporary humanity so they might encounter the living Christ.
Given this understanding of Bultmann, what are the implications of his theological work for the Christian community today?
Bultmann provides an alternative to liberalism and fundamentalism that takes the gospel seriously while not clinging to an ancient cosmology. The current culture war has created artificial conditions that calls for the Christian community to reclaim “true faith”. Unfortunately, this often confuses faith for cosmology, clinging to the ancient worldview while rejecting anyone who objects. Ancient spiritual powers, levels, and practices increasingly function as a litmus test of faith. This is reinforced by a hyper-literal approach to the bible that rejects hermeneutical principles grounded in the reformation. What Bultmann (along with Barth, Bonhoeffer, and others) provide is a theological perspective that focuses on an existential encounter with the risen Christ that transcends cultural packaging. The point is not to cling to ancient cosmology, the point is personal transformation and the possibility of a new humanity revealed in Jesus Christ.
Bultmann, like Bonhoeffer, offers a theological perspective that emphasizes responsibility. The existential nature of Bultmann’s theology is similar to Heideggar’s philosophy and its emphasis on authenticity. For Bultmann, authentic human being is revealed in the crucified and resurrected Christ, which is the in-breaking of a new way of being human in the world. Through this encounter with Jesus Christ, the Christian is responsible to live and authentic life in relation to God and our neighbor. This encounter calls us to a maturity of faith that is not co-dependent upon God for every minute detail of our lives, but empowers us to make decisions—to act attuned to God’s grace. While those who cling to the mythology of religion will find this heretical, it is, for Bultmann, the outworking of the gospel. We live as the new humanity of Jesus Christ, embracing the eternal life that has broken into this world.
Finally, Bultmann’s emphasis on demythologization and eschatology challenges the moralism of both conservatives and liberals, shattering every ideology that masquerades as “reality”. Politically this means truth is not found in a mythological past, nor is it found in progress; instead, every ideology, every ruler, every attempt to make a certain way of life into the eternalized kingdom of God, is undone through the existential presence of the crucified and risen Christ.
I’m thankful for Prof. Kay’s book, and for Bultmann’s theological project. They remind us that Christian faith is not fundamentally about cosmology or morality, true Christian faith means trusting in the living Christ.