Missional Hermeneutics as Theological Interpretation

ABSTRACT Recently, scholars suggest that the emerging practice of missional hermeneutics is a form of theological interpretation. This essay develops that notion by arguing that (1) the church's participation in God's mission is constitutive of Christian theology and (2) theological interpretation should be reoriented accordingly. The readerly formation of the church and the interpretive function of the Rule of Faith serve as examples of what this reorientation might entail. When the embodied faith commitments of theological interpretation are understood as the church's practices of participation in the missio Dei, mission becomes the locus theologicus from which a theological reading emerges. If theological interpretation embraces the ancient way of faith seeking understanding, missional hermeneutics clarifies this as works seeking understanding—a praxeological hermeneutic in which participation in God's mission is an epistemological precondition of faithful interpretation.