No man of wisdom
can demonstrate his knowledge save by means of words. This showeth the
significance of the Word as is affirmed in all the Scriptures, whether of
former times or more recently.
(Baha'u'llah,
Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 172)
One
of the major themes of these posts, and of the book of which these posts form
the draft, has been that with the advent of every Revelation creation is both
made new and renewed to demonstrate the interrelated principles of: “in truth there is
a return and resurrection for every created thing” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 186-187); “that which hath been in
existence had existed before, but not in the form thou seest today” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 140); and: “The
highest essence and most perfect expression of whatsoever the peoples of old
have either said or written hath, through this most potent Revelation, been
sent down from the heaven of the Will of the All-Possessing, the Ever-Abiding
God.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 87)
There
are two other associated principles to remember: first, because of progressive
Revelation, which is the power driving the unfolding of life in the universe,
there is not just a simple return for every created thing, but a progress
toward maturity and complexity in its form; and, second, the essential
spiritual form of anything, what all manifest stages of growth come forth from,
itself appears in manifest form as the “highest essence and most perfect
expression” of that creation at the end of every universal cycle, for the
transformation of any thing comes from reshaping itself from its own depths. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá supports this last notion,
writing in regard to the relation between the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh and all
previous Revelations: “(T)he rising of the Greatest Luminary was the condition
of the perfection of the essence and of the qualities.” (Some Answered Questions: 124) And: (T)he words of Bahá’u’lláh are
the essences of the words of the Prophets of the past.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 314)
Now
all these principles can be brought out in regards to kerygma and catechesis,
which is and has been the chief method of spreading the Good News of the coming
of a new Message and Messenger from God and consolidating His community of
faith. We continue, then our exploration
of the kerygmatic mode of language, perhaps the “different discourse” required
today. But the kerygmatic may also be
the first discourse of humanity now appearing in its highest essence.
Kerygma is a Greek word used in the New
Testament for "preaching" of a certain kind. It is related to
the Greek other verbs keryssein, to proclaim, and keryx, herald. Thus it means literally "to cry or
proclaim as a herald".
Kerygma was the initial proclamation of
the gospel message by the Apostles as recorded in the New
Testament. Kerygma was considered the very heart of the gospel, the core
message of the Christian faith, the irreducible essence of Christian apostolic
preaching, that all believers are called to proclaim. More generally it is the
mode of preaching, which we will get to in a bit. The core message was that Jesus Christ, in fulfillment of the
prophecies of the Old Testament, was sent by God, preached
the coming of the Kingdom of God, died, was buried, rose
from the dead, and was raised to the right hand of God in heaven. The kerygma, or preaching, was followed by the
didache, or catechesis, the oral
instruction of doctrine and moral teaching given before baptism to those who accepted the message.
The proclamation (kerygma) of the Gospel message is addressed not to the reason,
but to the hearer as a self. It was to proclaim Christ
to the individual heart and to appeal for conversion and its promise of
redemption. The catechesis was addressed to the mind, and sought
understanding of
the Scripture in the light of what is taught. For the early Christians,
the full kerygma was to appear in the Age of Fulfillment, the “latter days”,
which Christians associate with the second coming of Christ. For some the latter days actually started
with the resurrection of Jesus and would reach a consummation with His
return.
Early last century the term kerygma was reintroduced as
kerygma theology and the movement is usually associated with the theologian
Rudolph Bultmann who suggested that the gospels were of an oral and literary genre
unique in the ancient world. However much it resembled the mythology
contemporary with it, he asserted, this mythological cloak was a mere
shroud—one that brings sneers from modern day minds which think to be the real
message and thus on a par with similar mythologies of that time. But the Gospels were actually another kind of
message.
Bultmann explains,
“This then is the mythical view of the world which the New Testament
presupposes when it presents the event of redemption which is the subject of
its preaching. It proclaims in the language of mythology that the last time has
now come… All this is that language of mythology, and the origin of the various
themes can be easily traced in the contemporary mythology of Jewish Apocalyptic
and in the redemption myths of Gnosticism. To this extent the kerygma
[preaching, proclamation] is incredible to modern man, for he is convinced that
that mythical view of the world is obsolete. We are therefore bound to ask
whether, when we preach the Gospel today, we expect our converts to accept not
only the Gospel message, but also the mythical view of the world in which it is
set. If not, does the New Testament embody a truth which is quite independent
of its mythical setting? If it does, theology must undertake the task of
stripping the Kerygma from its mythical framework, of demythologizing’ it.”(See
Bultmann’s essay "New Testament and Mythology": 2-3)
Whatever one thinks of the theology of
this, there can be no doubt that kerygma is highly-charged message addressed primarily
to the heart not the reason. The kerygma was mythical in design, poetic in shape
and oracular in delivery. It is addressed
to the heart to bring it to recognize and accept the Manifestation of God. It is a testimony or declaration of faith, a
witnessing and observing, like the two shahada of Sunni Islam: “There is no God
but God and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.”
The didactic, catechistic was more intellectually disciplined, rational
and discursive. But, following the
insight of Bultmann, but broadening it beyond the Christian Gospels, any Revelation
of the Word of God is a different sort of message from myth, poetry, or moral
philosophy, however much of these they may use, contain or are presented in.
I mean that, for me the kerygma and
catechesis, which Baha’is know as teaching and deepening, are indicative of the
principle that all Revelation is, first, an event
to be experienced, (See in this regard Kenneth Cragg’s The Event of the Qur’an) and, second, a set of laws, principles and
truths to be studied. But the different
discourse of today combines these into one.
That is, the kerygmatic is no longer just an unique genre of literary or
oral creation, but the essential one for all others, the one they come out
from.
The alert reader familiar with the Bahá’i Texts will
no doubt see the parallel of the purpose of kerygma and catechesis with Baha’u’llah’s
admonition/warning written in the opening paragraph of His Most Holy Book (Kitab-i-Aqdas): “The first duty
prescribed by God for His servants is the recognition of Him Who is the
Dayspring of His Revelation and the Fountain of His laws, Who representeth the
Godhead in both the Kingdom of His Cause and the world of creation. Whoso
achieveth this duty hath attained unto all good; and whoso is deprived thereof
hath gone astray, though he be the author of every righteous deed. It behoveth
every one who reacheth this most sublime station, this summit of transcendent
glory, to observe every ordinance of Him Who is the Desire of the world. These
twin duties are inseparable. Neither is acceptable without the other. Thus hath
it been decreed by Him Who is the Source of Divine inspiration.” (The Kitab-i-Aqdas: 19)
A modern-day faith with a divine Herald and no
clergy, where all believers are called upon to “teach” their faith at any moment to a
spiritually starving humanity in desperate need of guidance and moral direction,
it seems to me possible to expand the kerygma into the kerygmatic, from the special proclamation of the Word into a general form or mode of language: a language not only spiritually transformative of the human soul, but also unique in its capacity to reveal universal spiritual reality.
What makes it unique’?
For
one, the kerygmatic mode of speech, as I perceive it, sees all words as spiritually
creative. “Every word is endowed with a spirit, therefore the speaker or
expounder should carefully deliver his words at the appropriate time and place,
for the impression which each word maketh is clearly evident and perceptible.
The Great Being saith: One word may be likened unto fire, another unto light,
and the influence which both exert is manifest in the world. Therefore an
enlightened man of wisdom should primarily speak with words as mild as milk,
that the children of men may be nurtured and edified thereby and may attain the
ultimate goal of human existence which is the station of true understanding and
nobility. And likewise He saith: One word is like unto springtime causing the
tender saplings of the rose-garden of knowledge to become verdant and
flourishing, while another word is even as a deadly poison. It behoveth a
prudent man of wisdom to speak with utmost leniency and forbearance so that the
sweetness of his words may induce everyone to attain that which befitteth man's
station.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 172-173)
That is, He sees words as
more than mere signs signifying something, or conveyor belts shuffling information
from mind to mind, or builders of imaginative images poetically describing,
however exquisitely, the beauties of nature or human beings. Words are, of course, all of these things,
performing all these various functions.
But to know where words get their spirit we must know what the Word is
and its relation to this idea of kerygma, or proclamation of the Word. That is the subject of the next post.
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