Toward a Generous Orthodoxy: Prospects for Hans Frei's Postliberal Theology

In this work, Jason A. Springs argues that Hans Frei's theology cannot be fully understood apart from its complex equilibrium of theological and philosophical interests and influences. With meticulous attention to this equilibrium, Springs provides a refined exposition of the intricacy and breadth of resources upon which Frei drew for his theological purposes.

Spring's argument vindicates Frei's Christologically motivated engagement with Ludwig Wittgenstein, Clifford Geertz, and Erich Auerbach, as well as Frei's use of ordinary language philosophy and non-foundational philosophical insights, while illuminating and expanding his orientational indebtedness to Karl Barth's theology. Moreover, by placing Frei's work into further critical conversation with developments in pragmatist thought and cultural theory since his death, the re-reading of Frei offered here aims to correct and resolve many of the complaints and misunderstandings that vex his theological legacy.

The results are multiple: a clarification of the unity and coherence of Frei's work over the course of his career; a reframing of the complex relationship of his work to that of his Yale colleague George Lindbeck and to successive ''postliberal'' theological trends more broadly; a demonstration that Frei's uses of Barth, Wittgenstein, Auerbach, and Geertz do not relegate his theological approach to critical quietism, methodological separatism, fideism, or a so-called ''theological ghetto''; the explication and development of Frei's account of the ''plain sense'' of scripture, which evades charges of narrative foundationalism and essentialism on the one hand, and on the other, avoids criticisms that any account so emphasizing culture, language, and practice will reduce scriptural meaning to the ways the text is used in Christian practice and community.

What emerges from Toward a Generous Orthodoxy is a sharpened account of the Christologically anchored, interdisciplinary, and conversational character of Frei's theology, which he came to describe as a ''generous orthodoxy'' that modeled a way for academic theological voices to take seriously both their vocation to the Christian Church and their roles as interlocutors in the academic discourse.