Foreword, by Amos Yong
As coeditors of the Pentecostal Manifestos series published by William B. Eerdmans, James K.A. Smith and I have from the beginning been in conversation with Craig Keener and anticipating that someday he would make a contribution in the area of scriptural and biblical-theological hermeneutics. The series description suggests that volumes in the series “would include two different kinds of books: (a) shorter, crisply argued volumes of 128–200 pages that articulate a bold vision within a field; and (b) longer scholarly monographs . . . (250–300 pages)” that would be “bold statements of a distinctly Pentecostal interjection into contemporary discussions and debates, undergirded by rigorous scholarship.” No doubt Keener is the right person to write a Pentecostal manifesto on hermeneutic “undergirded by rigorous scholarship,” although even putting it that way is an understatement for those who know of his work; yet, we somehow underestimated that a Keener manifesto would be anything less than a multivolume undertaking—or did not anticipate that his habit of generating multivolume or dual-column-per-page commentaries would carry over into his other writing projects—and incredulously presumed that he would send us a book within the lengthier parameters outlined in (b) above. Well, duh! To put it mildly, once Keener finally produced the manuscript, it was twice the size of anything else in the Manifestos series, and Eerdmans has decided that it would be better to publish it as a stand-alone volume.
As I have already implicated myself in precipitating this project, let me now present nine reasons why readers who have gotten this far ought to press through the rest of these pages. I organize my rationale under three general headings: about how Spirit Hermeneutics makes a contribution to the ongoing discussion in biblical-theological hermeneutics; about its capacity to impact wider hermeneutical conversations; and about why this book holds the key to understanding Keener the biblical scholar and Christian, and to the Keenerian corpus as a whole (of which we have only a fragment so far, compared to the legacy that will eventually be left behind, God willing).
First, while this is not the first book on pentecostal hermeneutics (as the footnotes to this work will show), it is by far the most comprehensively articulated and registers authoritatively why it is essential to attend to pentecostal perspectives in the wider arena of biblical and theological hermeneutics. If world Christianity is exploding at least in part because of the growth of pentecostal and charismatic churches in the majority world, then pentecostal readings of scripture in particular and pentecostal hermeneutical orientations and approaches in general cannot be neglected in biblical interpretation and in the wider field of theological scholarship. In contrast to prior contributions to pentecostal hermeneutics, Keener’s is the most global, more attentive to global cultures and transcultural dynamics than the others. For those concerned with the theological dimensions of the shift of the center of gravity of Christianity to the global South, this book provides as good a springboard as any for tracing the hermeneutical implications both for scriptural interpretation and for its theological consequences.
Second, Spirit Hermeneutics boosts pentecostal voices into the center of the present ferment in theological interpretation of scripture (TIS). Scholars—biblical theologians and systematicians—engaged in this discussion are presently contending about the role confessional traditions play in TIS. Pentecostalism is not quite a “confessional” form of Christianity so much as it is a spirituality, ethos, and set of sensibilities, but this combination could be potent in sparking conversation, even intensifying the contentiousness that has already germinated in TIS circles. The point is that pentecostal hermeneutics is no less theological in reading scripture with the expectation that the Holy Spirit works through the text, but such reading has the potential to scramble the established categories of disputation in TIS precisely because what is foregrounded is not just received theological (or creedal) traditions but existential experiences under the dynamic impact of the Spirit’s ongoing work in the world.
Third, pentecostal Christianity emerged at least in part as did Reformation traditions in general and Lutheranism more specifically: as Luther never intended to found a new church (or denomination), so also pentecostal believers always only believed that they were retrieving and reappropriating the apostolic message in a more vital and comprehensive manner than they had heretofore experienced, so that such restorationism was understood from the beginning as living more fully into the apostolic path and tradition. In that sense, pentecostal spirituality or pentecostal Christianity is not another kind or way of Christ-following, but simply living fully into Christ’s gift of the Spirit from the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:33). In that sense, then, pentecostal hermeneutics is nothing less than Christian hermeneutics, devoted to understanding and then living out life in Christ through the Spirit. Craig Keener is here a gentle and effective teacher: alert to the triumphalism that all too often pervades (and plagues) pentecostal spheres but yet inviting of all who trust in Jesus—those who go by the label of pentecostal and otherwise—to live more fully into the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work in the world. In short, Spirit Hermeneutics is about biblical fidelity, not just for those who find themselves in pentecostal communities of faith, but for all who wish to follow Jesus as the man who was himself anointed by the Spirit and who is now the resurrected Christ precisely through the power of the Spirit.
If the above three reasons undergird more specifically how Keener’s book impacts the field of biblical interpretation, the next three focus on how it makes a difference for those thinking about hermeneutics in general and hermeneutical philosophy in a broader sense. If hermeneutics after Friedrich Schleiermacher, the putative “father” of modern theology, continues to seek to understand (to “divine,” as he put it) the mind of the author, and if hermeneutics after Karl Barth and Hans Frei intends to enter more fully into the so-called “strange new world of the Bible,” then (fourth) Keener shows us how Christian hermeneutics is even more radical than the former’s liberalism and the latter’s postliberalism by explicating hermeneutical sensibilities that are attentive both to the otherness of ancient text and to such texts’ affective dimensions. Yet the radicality of Keener’s proposals consists precisely in opening up that the how of such attentiveness involves, not precludes, the affectivity and the horizons of contemporary readers and their reading communities. The latter does not eliminate the text’s otherness but enables more effective engagement with these aspects of such distant horizons.
Further, and fifth, Keener shows that the understanding of ancient texts has contemporary implications. Christians call this discipleship, and Keener’s biblical-theological commitments lead him to frame such in terms of the Bible’s eschatological horizons. But from the standpoint of general hermeneutics, this forward-looking and anticipating momentum involves what is identified in such domains as the pragmatic or even teleological dimension of reading: How does our understanding and reception of the past lead to liberative activity in the present toward ends that anticipate a better future? If Marxist hermeneutics prioritizes the latter trajectory, Spirit Hermeneutics insists that such liberative dynamics are unleashed through the pentecostal realities of the Spirit’s work in the world as scripted—which is distinct from being predetermined— and even funded by the ancient text of Scripture.
Sixth, then, if Keener shows us how to live squarely into the Gadamerian hermeneutical dialectic that does not minimize the horizon of the Spirit-inspired text or subjugate such under the horizon of the reader, he then also enables Christian engagement with the Habermasian emancipatory hermeneutics in ways that highlight how communicative rationality can be deeply religious on the one hand and yet also truly public on the other. Keener is more alert than most Christian hermeneutical theorists to the character of world Christianity, particularly as manifest in its pentecostal and charismatic forms, and is therefore able to indicate how such global horizons can shape public discourse, both in terms of interfacing with such and in terms of effecting certain forms of liberative praxis. Christian thinkers seeking to make contributions into general hermeneutical theory cannot do much better than to pay attention to how Keener navigates a via media between the ancient text and the contemporary global and public contexts.
Many readers of this book, however, will be drawn to it because of the established and renowned stature of Keener as a biblical exegete and commentarian. For those in this group, these final three reasons will be anti-climatic since they will already be primed to enjoy long books in their exquisite details. However, let me venture these recommendations anyway, lifting up the obvious fact (seventh) that this book lays bare Keener’s hermeneutical instincts and commitments that are only implicit in much of his earlier work. There is a sense in which any exegete’s hermeneutical presuppositions can only be teased out from their body of writings (even as a systematician’s theological method can only be traced out from their oeuvre ), and that surely applies here also. But the beauty of this book is that Keener himself has now articulated clearly—and extensively—what his readership might otherwise have to guess at while working endlessly on his voluminous publications (no reader can ever catch up with what Keener writes!), but he does it in his own characteristic way that engages, rather than simply talks about, scripture. This means we have here insight into Keener the scholar and the person, and also into scripture.
Further (eighth), Spirit Hermeneutics gives us a window into how a pentecostal Christian—which can be left just at Christian, without the qualifier, given my earlier remarks—exemplifies the convergence of the life of the mind and life in the Spirit. Many Christians err on one or the other side, embracing one while rejecting the other, or thinking that one is incompatible with the other. In Craig Keener we finally have an exemplar that unveils how rigorous use of the intellect and prodigiousness in scholarly output are spiritual activities, compelled by life in the Spirit of Jesus, in anticipation of the coming reign of God. More pointedly, it may even be said that in a certain sense there is no life of the mind in his case without a spiritual life that sustains and impels intellectual pursuits.
Last (ninth) but not least, Spirit Hermeneutics does not simply model a Spirit-filled academic life but charts a way beyond the polarities that have hampered theological education even in the present generation. Intellectual versus pietistic; academic versus spiritual; cognitive versus affective; self-formational versus world-changing; rationalistic versus charismatic; speculative/theoretical versus pragmatic/practical; sectarian/parochial versus ecumenical/catholic; ecclesial versus public, etc.—in each case, Keener points to a way beyond the binaries and dualisms that some would prefer to exaggerate. How this plays out in this book means not that we have overcome the two sides, but that they are retained in ways that make us capable of a more robust spectrum of reading and living than if the edges were lost. Seminarians, not to mention those who teach in their schools, are urged to pay attention not just to the details of Keener’s hermeneutical arguments but to the way in which he models discursive engagement with hugely contested issues, and how he attempts to carry the conversation forward by bringing disputants with him rather than leaving them behind.
No doubt readers will not agree with Keener in every case or on every point he makes. Yet such differences can be discerned and clarified only through engagement with this work of a master teacher. I am thankful that Keener took seriously the original invitation to write a Pentecostal Manifesto, and somehow, I think that its appearance outside that series not only facilitated the much larger book but will engage an even wider readership. May the breath of the Spirit be palpably felt and even transformative for those who find their attention focused on the following pages.
AMOS YONG
Professor of Theology and Mission
Fuller Theological Seminary
Pasadena, California