RESPONSE NUMBER FIVE To Galatians Re-imagined: Reading with the Eyes of the Vanquished (Fortress 2010) by Brigitte Kahl

KAHL’S INTRODUCTION

Kahl associates (p. 5) herself with the “empire-critical” research of Richard Horsley and also mentions Dieter Georgi, Robert Jewett, Neil Elliott, Adolf Deissmann and Klaus Wengst as predecessors in the project of drawing attention to “the Roman context and the Rome-critical implications of Paul’s theology and practice.”

These predecessors, Kahl points out, have worked more with the text of Paul’s Romans. Kahl also mentions the work of Bruce Winter (civic obligations) and Mark Nanos (on Galatians) as providing helpful insights. In a footnote, Kahl indicates that Nanos’ comments in his commentary, pp. 257-71, are particularly pertinent.

Kahl introduces the idea that she intends to draw attention to Paul’s “words” and not merely his “world” so as to examine “the doctrine of Justification” in the light of “concrete historical realities” rather than leaving this doctrine, as it “predominantly” understood, as “abstract” and “timeless.”

This Lutheran emphasis strikes me as an unfortunate thematic narrowing of the project that is proposed. The idea, now, is that Paul’s historical Galatians context, stressing the import of Roman rule, is actually to be focused on a principle of Luther and of Lutheran orthodoxy.

Paul’s Galatians certainly does not belong under the category, Justification by Faith. 

Unless I am misreading Kahl, she sees her book (primarily?) as “necessary groundwork for the larger critical task of reinterpreting justification by faith.”

But then, there is introduced a different rationale for the project. Kahl writes that her “task” is “driven as much by contemporary urgency as by historical interest.”

She continues: “We live in a precarious time, when imperial globalization extends its grip ever more rigidly and destructively upon the planet, imposing a de facto martial law on whole populations, often under the aggressive auspices of nominal Christianity.”

Neither in this statement or in those that follow, does Kahl name names. Perhaps in the text, we will get to specifics.

This paragraph concludes with a return to the challenge of orthodox Lutheranism, which so greatly preoccupies this writer. Kahl states that what is required is, “first and foremost a reexamination of the core concept at the center of everything Paul says and does: justification by faith rather than by works of the law.”

Why is the project so narrowly focused on Luther and the traditional (and very questionable) formula, which has been applied to his system?