Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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anxieties, your efforts to control, and yield your
unknown future to the will of God? Will you allow
yourself, past, future, and, most importantly, present,
to be crucified with Christ in order to realize his
resurrection power and freedom?'
In this constant note of urgency lies Bultmann's
preaching strength. He sensed that preaching which
depends on doctrine, emotion, or history, apart from a
call to present, personal commitment to Christ, lulls
hearers into self—sufficient complacency. Thus,
Bultmannian preaching never strays far from the Pauline
text, "Now is the accepted time; now is the day of
salvation."
Yet this very strength lies close to weakness.
While Bultmann recognized the need for the historical
death of Jesus, all else historical faded away, for him,
into an indefinable and unimportant mist."
This apathy toward the past affects several
historical levels.
First, the history of Jesus Christ. "That" he
existed is all—important. What Jesus did, how he lived,
Bultmann considered inconsequential.
Second, the history of the church. Two thousand
years of Christian tradition seem to evaporate before the
'now'.
Third, the individual history of the hearer.
Previous faith experience depreciates before the
all—important present.