Review: “Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism” Pt1
October 20, 2009
***My special thanks to Caitlin at Baker Academic for the review copy!***
- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Baker Academic & Brazos Press; 2nd edition (April 1, 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 080102918X
- ISBN-13: 978-0801029189
- Baker
- Amazon
If a pastor or educated layman or undergraduate were to ask me where to start with getting a grip on “Postmodernism” and Christianity I would without question point them in the direction of the series put out by Baker Academic – now spanning an impressive 5 volumes – entitled “The Church and Postmodern Culture.” We will be examining several of the volumes and I think that they shall prove quite valuable to the task at hand.
The first volume is authored by the Series editor James K. A. Smith. What separates this book from say, Stanley Grenz’s intro is that Smith is a professional philosopher trained in Phenomenology. Smith was an AG elder for some time but has since moved on and now teaches at Calvin College. Unlike Grenz’s intro which looks into the various cultural manifestations of postmodernism, this book makes no attempt at comprehension. There is an introductory chapter, a chapter on Derrida, a chapter on Lyotard, one on Foucault and a final chapter which points to “Radical Orthodoxy” as faithful way for the Church to incorporate postmodern insights to be more fully itself.
Each chapter begins with an illustration from a film, then moves into an examination of a particularly famous phrase from one of the three thinkers and attempts to move us past “bumper sticker” interpretations of these phrases. Concluding each chapter is a section on “Taking X to Church” that moves us into praxis.
Smith sees himself as doing what Francis Schaeffer did for a previous generation. Rather than thinking that “culture” gives birth to “ideas” both Smith and Schaeffer see “ideas” and academic ideas in particular as having the primary place of influence. And so Smith intends to look at the issues with a critical depth and one never gets the feeling that they are reading a shallow critique of the issues.
After the introductory chapter Smith begins with an examination of Derrida. More specifically the famous Derrida quote that “There is nothing outside the text.” This phrase is often taken to mean that Derrida believes that there is nothing “real” or that there are just “ideas.” This position would make it difficult to reconcile with Christian witness that there is a transcendent God prior to the world on whom the world is dependent for existence.
Smith rejects this interpretation and points to later Derrida to help fill in some gaps. Derrida explained later that the phrase should be taken to mean that there is nothing outside context. Smith points out that “On Grammatology” is in large part an extended dialogue with Jean-Jauques Rousseau’s essay “On the Origin of Language.” Rousseau posits that language is a sort of lens or film clouding our understanding of what objects are. That is, language distorts reality and the objectively real is something that must be known in ways that do not use language. To this Derrida says “NEIN!” – Well actually he says something in French but you get the idea.
Against this Derrida says that there is no reality that is experienced without interpretation; without mediation. Even seeing a cup “in the flesh” requires interpretation. It is just that our extensive cultural conditioning does not allow for an easy look into our a priori understandings of how things are.
To illustrate this Smith uses the cartoon “The Little Mermaid.” As a whole he takes the story as an evil that promotes consumerism and greed, but he makes swell use of the pericope of “The Dinglehopper.” Not having any knowledge of how humans act apart from her information received from Scuttle the Seagull. It is Scuttle who informs Ariel that a Fork is actually a Dinglehopper and is used to comb ones hair. In an amusing scene once Ariel is finally ‘human,’ at a dinner she grabs a fork (or is it really a Dinglehopper?) and confidently begins to comb her hair. Obviously this is “not” what a fork is for.
At this point one may not actually feel that Smith has made a convincing case for Christian appropriation of a Derridean insight because if “everything is an interpretation” then Holy Scripture and the Gospel is “merely” an interpretation. Smith proposes that this is not as bad a thing as it initially seems to be and challenges readers to think about the implications.
Instantly the Scriptures become a public and communal document thereby in a certain way legitimizing historical readings of Scripture against individualism and a spirit of non-accountability. Which, at the same time does not shut off new readings in Community.
What then…? Some might ask. Isn’t there any way to “truly” and “objectively” “know” the truth of the Gospel? In a word, no. But, Smith points out, one can reduce the message of Salvation to “The Romans Road” or a series of logically symbolic propositions and teach them to a goat but that doesn’t produce saving faith. Similarly, we should never have been expected to “know” the Gospel in such a fashion.
He finishes on a brief note supporting a “deconstructive” Church that refuses to close the text off from new readings. He could have quoted the ole’ saying: “God hath yet more light to break forth from Holy Scripture.”
From Derrida Smith then examines Lyotard and his famous quote “Postmodernity is incredulity toward Meta-Narratives.” Aptly using the film “O Brother Where Art Thou?” to begin the chapter Smith says: “Postmodernism can be understood as the erosion of confidence in the rational as sole guarantor and deliverer of truth, coupled with a deep suspicion of science – particularly modern science’s pretensious claims to an ultimate theory of everything.”
It is plain to see that we have not broken into a new “postmodern” world, rather postmodern suspicion is evinced by the landscape of LA with the curvaceous non-linear architechture of Frank Gehry next to the crumbling and pathetic modern glass boxes and projects from the likes of Le Corbusier. A few posts into the future I will examine Architecture as a key to understanding Modern and Postmoder.
It is right here though that the scared Christian (or scientist!) might wonder how we can possibly support such a claim. Is not the Bible a “meta-narrative” of epic proportions covering everything from Creation to Apocalypse?
This is precisely where Smith insists that the bumper sticker reading of “meta-narrative’ is simply not correct in its diagnosis. Smith believes that Lyotard’s “Metanarrative” is not concerned with the size of the narrative but the nature of the claims they make. Modernity is the original “meta-narrative” because it tells a story and appeals to authority in “Universal Reason:” Science, like any story, when pushed must give reasons of legitimization which it claims to find in “Reason,” an a-historical, trans-cultural, pre-linguistic, universally excessible “thing” called “Reason” to which any rational creature anywhere at anytime has direct and near infallible access provided they use objective means to search out their answers.
Another way of putting this is that modernity (because to the “modern” scientific, “real” science began post Enlightenments) appeals to authority outside of it’s own story. Lyotard says it thus: “I will use the term modern to designate any science that legitimates itself with reference to a metadiscourse of this kind making an explicit appeal to some grand narrative, such as the dialectics of Spirit [Hegel], the hermeneutics of meaning [Schleiermacher?], the emancipation of the rational [Kant] or working subject [Marx], or the creation of wealth [Adam Smith]…”
Against this Lyotard says that narratives are and should be auto-legitimizing needing no justification outside of their own story. Calvin comes almost precisely near this by speaking about the self-authentication of Scripture.
This allows for the Church to be faith-full to its witness and need not sacrifice its story the many competing stories.
Note, that this is not a call for modernity or “science” to give up its narrative. Rather it needs to recognize the narrative as such and seek to put some freakin’ clothes on.
Practically speaking this Christian giving-up of a meta-discourse should entail that we become a story-telling-Church again. The/a Lectionary is a must to allow the Church to be governed by the whole Scriptures and not the whim and favorites of a lone pastor. And in the final two chapters we will discuss in more depth the discipleship practices that these thinkers open up.
What The Hell Is A Post Evangelical Tea Party?
July 31, 2009
A simple google search for “post evangelical” will return a plethora of commentary on the term (some of my favorites: the very straight forward wikipedia entry, the standby internetmonk, an open source theology thread from 2003, and our fellow ccblogger notes from off center).
It would be very silly of me to launch into a comprehensive series of posts on the idea when so much has already been explained by those more capable (and internet savvy). However, the term displays prominently at the top of our blog right next to ‘tea party’ as if we all sit around counting doilies and discussing Mr. Darcy all day long and as far as I can tell, we’ve never actually sussed out just what that means.
I am especially guilty since it would seem I consistently use this slippery word as an adjective for my position on various issues right now and just smile coyly to myself as people sitting across from me as they scramble to figure out if that’s a postmodern, emergent, postdenomentational missional thing or whether I just made it up on the spot. (In truth, it gives me an inherent sense of superiority to be “post” whatever the person is whom I’m discussing things with. Post-girlfriend anyone?)
For some odd reason probably having something to do with either Shawn Wamsley or my slick redo of our sidebar, our traffic has increased in recent weeks and I’m delighted that many of our new readers and commenters come from worldviews outside the Christian sphere. If you’re new and reading this, I hope this post is useful for you.
Everyone who contributes to this blog came to Christianity in an Evangelical movement in the United States. None of us have remained.
This is the simplest use of the term on this blog and if nothing I say after makes any sense, I suggest we just stick to it. Some of us have found new movements to join, some have left conventional Christianity altogether and others are lost somewhere in the clouds.
Our reasons for leaving are as variable as our tastes in beer, which is to say, surprisingly not quite so varied—however, full of tiny quirks unique to our own persons. Shamelessly borrowing formatting from the wikipedia article because I’m on vacation and too tired to be creative on my own, I’d like to list some of these frustrations to which many of us can attest (I’ve also decided to add Exclamation points because most of us live in Minnesota where people really don’t show enough emotion):
1. Politicization of Faith!
The G Dub years were hard for me. I was a loyal supporter before I could even vote but by the end of his eight year reign, I couldn’t figure out why people kept telling me he was Christian, and why that necessarily meant I had to vote for him. An astute reader of the blog might observe that we still discuss our political convictions using Christian rationale, just often from the other pole. I would counter that such explanations are often more complicated than simple blind “good vs. evil” comparisons and that likely a particular politician we might support involves our reasoning of “shared goals” rather than “shared convictions.”
2. Unreasonable view of Scripture!
One of the two issues on this blog that will never quite go away. I don’t have much to add here. Look around, you’ll find it.
3. Inadequate Response to Homosexual Christians!
The other of the two issues that is never far from our recent comments list. There are a variety of stances on this issue on our blog—which is something, I’m proud of.
4. Militant Exclusivism and Preoccupation with Eschatology!
For those of us who grew up in a church or movement with a vibrant missions or Evangelistic focus, this issue remains difficult. Just what does it mean to share the good news? Am I accountable if I don’t “witness” to every single person I meet? Does hell exist? Are Christians the only people who go to “heaven.” And just what is heaven? And hey, what about my Muslim friends, I like them and I think that their faith is pretty cool and I’d rather they don’t change to be completely honest. Can God make a rock so big he can’t lift it?
5. Emphasis on Personal Piety over Social Responsibility!
Disgusted by mega church opulence and prosperity nonsense, post evangelicals are afflicted by the tension between holiness and justice. Maybe those hippies who joined the Peace Corps instead of the missions trip were on to something. And seriously, just how does my memorizing another scripture verse help people dying from Malaria in Africa?
6. Disconnect From Church History!
I’ve discussed this elsewhere. Old stuff matters and Evangelicals seemed determined to separate themselves from it.
7. Separatism and Alternative Culture!
More a personal pet peeve of mine. I can’t stand alternative Christian culture, music, movies, books etc… I find it to be a cheesy and crude attempt at unnecessary and harmful separation from “the world.” Seriously, why are Christians so weird?
8. Other Stuff!
Which I’m sure you guys will add in the comments.
Finally adding “tea party” to our blog tag line was really a throwaway thing I did when first designing the site. I suppose you could say its lighthearted or a reference to our mutual friendships and enjoyment of imbibing things but really, I just threw it in there on a whim.
Wallace and the Hypostatic Union – Part III
July 29, 2009
The Hypostatic Union of Christ
The Hypostatic Union of Christ taught in the Chalcedonian Creed has a fine line to traverse, indeed. It must avoid the two major errors in contention up to 451AD: Apollinarianism and Nestorianism. Additionally, the Chalcedonian Creed must deal with the communicatio idiomatum. It is clear that the creed does not aim to solve any mysteries regarding the metaphysical co-subsistence of the two natures. In fact, a common argument leveled against the creed is that it does more to say what the union of Christ’s two natures is not than what it is. This problem is then left to philosophers and theologians who are faced with biblical facts that seem to contradict the orthodox position. One such situation is the position asserted by Wallace.
A more modern solution to the difficulties of what Chalcedon does not affirm is the Kenosis theory. Berkhof, especially, looks upon this theory with distaste, calling it “a pantheistic conception.”[1] While the kenotic theory is not preferred and most likely based on poor exegesis,[2] it articulates the metaphysical need for interaction between the two natures of Christ without blurring the lines into a single nature. Ronald Carson explains the difficulty of the biblical material thusly:
“The natures are not to be conceived of as being in any way mixed or blended; and yet there is a real exchange, a real communication of properties, in the case of the genus majesticum, the communication of divine attributes to Jesus Christ according to his human nature.”[3]
The stage is set for a stand off not unlike the one between the two camps on either side of the predestination and free will argument. Orthodoxy exclaims, accurately, what can be said positively and negatively about the direct statements in Scripture regarding Christ and the two natures. However, it does not speak directly to the metaphysical difficulties the likes of which Wallace has presented in his article. Rather than reject Chalcedon or prematurely accept kenosis, it may be helpful to review an article by Stephen W. Need.
Need wants us to examine the use of language in forming theological principles, especially as they relate to Chalcedon and Christology. He finds elucidating information in the examination of language. Specifically, he wants readers to accept the limitations of what our language is capable. Need offers the concept of an understanding on the basis of “double vision” in conceptualizing our theological notions, saying, “Human language relates to the divine in a way that is neither merely expressive nor permanently true.”[4] As much as our words are concrete, they should be given the freedom to express in their limited scope the larger infinite impossibility of our understanding the metaphysical postulations surrounding the hypostasis of Christ.
Need solidifies this claim by citing the use of metaphor, not only in theological propositions, but also in the biblical record as well. There is no shortage of people willing to acquiesce to the claim that our language is incapable of explaining the nature of God. There must also be no shortage of people willing to concede that even Christ, in dealing with the shortcomings of language, resorted to the use of metaphor in theological proposition.
“Metaphor constitutes an important element of human speech about God; its double element yields a tensive interaction. While articulating truth at one level, metaphors are usually literally false. They contain an “is and is not” structure, a simultaneous affirmation and denial. This gives them specific power and richness.”[5]
Need proposes, then, that this use and understanding of metaphor should also, and especially, be extended to Chalcedon. While the Chalcedonian creed would certainly not be labeled a metaphor by most, one wonders how helpful such an analysis would be in healing the disparity between the natures of Christ and the shortcoming of the adverbs ”inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly and inseparably” used in the creed. He proposes that the etymology of these adverbs leads the reader to the conclusion that Chalcedonian Christology, “affirms unity between the defining characteristics of two things: a common derivation, continuity, or unity between the logos and the Father, on the one hand, and between Jesus’ humanity and that of humans, on the other.”[6]
Based on Need’s proposition of metaphor, the Chalcedonian Creed does not avoid speaking to the metaphysical. Instead, it offers a dynamic and fluid relationship between the two natures of Christ. Chalcedon in the true fashion of theological language is a set of guidelines or restrictions. If, then, Wallace does not violate what is implicitly stated as the positive or negative qualities of the hypostatic union, there seems to be some metaphysical ‘wiggle room’ afforded in orthodoxy.
Conclusion – Wallace’s Use of Attributes and Orthodoxy
How, then, does Wallace’s proposition for moral and amoral attributes coincide with orthodoxy? If we consider the premise of Need’s work to be sound, which we should, then Wallace has a good chance of conformity to orthodox teaching. The greatest challenge that Wallace’s proposition faces is the potential for his teaching to be misconstrued as dividing the attributes of God. However, he is in the company of Erickson who prefers to use a modification of the natural and moral division of God’s attributes.[7] Certainly, Wallace’s designation is similar in effect. The strength of Wallace’s proposition is that it derives basic information from sound biblical exegesis. There is a point in our theological posturing where even the orthodox creeds must bow to the supremacy of Scripture (yes, you heard me say that – quit gasping fellow Episcopalians).
Philosophically, Wallace’s designation of God’s attributes is preferable. Citing the biblical material, it offers the strength of speaking to the metaphysical interaction between the natures of Christ. In comparison to the work of Need, Wallace’s distribution has the strength of utilizing the metaphorical nature within the confines of Chalcedonian Christology. He does not purport that Christ grew into his divinity, but rather elements of that divinity were mitigated by the work of the Spirit in His life. Wallace thus makes a way for Christ’s humanity to be more significant than even Chalcedon allows, while also affording Christ the fullness of deity. We see in his understanding of the attributes of God, a careful estimation of how to reconcile the biblical material to orthodox teaching. It is an effort that has helped us to understand better the interaction of the dual natures of Christ. Ultimately, it may take modern theology time to round the corner, but efforts on behalf of thinkers like Wallace may smooth the path to an increasingly perfect theology.
[1] Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 328.
[2] See John G. Gibbs, “The Relation between Creation and Redemption According to Phil. II 5-11.” Novum Testamentum 12 (July 1970): 270-283. Specifically, he points to the focus of the passage being the work Christ came to the earth to do, “That Paul’s purpose was more to describe the work of Christ than present a metaphysic of the person of Christ is evident, also, in the fact that he does not elucidate the relation between “the form of God” and the ‘the form of a slave.”
[3] Ronald A. Carson, “The Motifs of ‘Kenosis’ and ‘Imitatio’ in the Work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, with an Excursus on the ‘Communicato Idiomatum.’” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 43 (September 1975): 546.
[4] Stephen W. Need, “Language, Metaphor and Chalcedon: A Case of Theological Double Vision.” The Harvard Theological Review 88 (April 1995): 238.
[5] Ibid., 243.
[6] Ibid., 248.
[7] Erickson, Christian Theology, 293.
Wallace and the Hypostatic Union – Part II
July 27, 2009
Can God’s Attributes Be Divided?
While an exhaustive discourse on the attributes of God is quite out of scope presently, it is terribly pertinent to the present discussion to breach the topic. Any discussion about the hypostasis is ultimately going to reduce to a discussion about being and attribute. Specifically, and without encroaching too far into the hypostatic union just yet, if Christ is to be completely God and completely man in one being, then it will be necessary to define what it means to be ‘completely God.’ By necessity, this discussion will have to be preceded by an explanation of what it means to have attributes in being, and how those attributes should be viewed in light of the incarnation. For the sake of conciseness, then, the discussion will be limited to the relationship between attribute and being with brief introductory comments on classification of those attributes.
Historically, theologians have distinguished between elements of God’s personal being that are shared in some regard with humanity based on its creation in his image and those that are only experienced by God himself.[1] Though some, such as Haserot, have argued that the philosophical possibility of God possessing ‘individual attributes’ to be distinguished in substance and character is more a contribution of the intellect observing the attributes than indicative of separate qualities within the being,[2] it is important to acknowledge that, at least in perspective, there are some elements of God’s being that we cannot experience. Whether these distinctions represent some real kind of fissure or dissection in the being of God in comparison to attributes we do experience is the important relative issue. Can God be God without the function or experience of any of his attributes? Importantly, are God’s attributes the essence of his being, or merely an expression of his interaction with creation? Do attributes that can be ‘shared’ or imitated by humanity genuinely constitute the reality of God’s being? While these questions cannot all be probed presently, they at least point to the difficult task of classifying the nature of God’s being.
Something that aids our understanding of the classification of God’s attributes, but hinders our understanding of humanity’s interaction and experience of them is the notion of God’s unity.[3] The doctrine of God’s unity asserts that God is, in essence, all of his attributes fully and completely all the time. There is not an attribute that takes precedence over another, nor does one exist to a greater degree than another does. This helps us to understand that the attributes of God as expressed in Scripture are a type of ‘reader’ on who God is in reality. Our finite minds are not capable of understanding the infinitude of God’s being all at once, so he has compartmentalized the revelation into expressions of individual and necessary attributes. According to Grudem, it would be incorrect to say that at one time God functions in perfect love and at another time in perfect justice. He always functions perfectly in both love and justice. However, in our localized and temporal interaction with God we may only see one of those attributes at work.[4] This may tempt some to equate the being of God with his work.
Should we consider allowing God’s attributes, then, to become a function of a role or interaction with creation instead of essential to his nature and being? This is precisely how some see the attributes of God, not as an essential quality or the identity of God, but as creations of expression going out from God. Puccetti writes, “All of God’s necessary attributes, then, really describe God’s relation to the world, rather than God himself.”[5] The nuance here is that in God’s relation to the world you see indications of his character or attributes, and so indirectly through God’s behavior humanity experiences the being of God The problem with this view is that one cannot ‘experience’ the attributes of God in this regard without subjectively qualifying them. “Still those attributes have to be qualitatively symmetrical with our ordinary notions of such qualities if His attributes are to have any meaning for us.”[6]
These conjectures lead Puccetti, and rightly so, to the conclusion that God cannot exist. It is his reformulation of the classic ‘problem of evil’ argument. It is important to the present argument, however, because it shows the danger of not association God’s attributes with his person. The flaw in Puccetti’s presentation is that he refuses to see the attributes of God as descriptions of God’s person; rather he wants to presuppose that they are descriptions of God’s interaction with creation. While one certainly cannot argue that God’s behavior is apart from who he is, it is important to note that a being’s essence or attributes can certainly be withheld from its own interaction with objects outside of its being. Is the withholding of God’s essential attributes or being really a notion so foreign to biblical material? Puccetti has completely ignored the historical fall of humanity in his estimation of God’s interaction with the world. In addition, consideration of such an important part of our theological framework, the doctrine of original sin, places God’s interaction with creation into proper context. The limit is not God’s will; rather it is certainly his ability. God by essence cannot interact fully with the fallen world. It is, in fact, the very motivation behind the incarnation; the incarnation was the only way for God to reveal himself to humanity in a way that was meaningful to them.
Therefore, it is the attributes of God that must predicate our experience of God. The notion of unity or simplicity becomes a strong foundational notion for our understanding of God’s nature. God’s attributes are God. Leftow argues that this does not objectify God, nor does it violate Scriptural conceptions of theism. To the contrary, denial of this “Identity Thesis” is to assume that God must have created his own attributes, or that they are in some regard apart from his true essence.[7] Leftow explains that the claim of the unity of God in theology, “is shorthand for the claim that He exemplifies no metaphysical distinctions whatsoever, including that between subject and essential attribute.”[8] Therefore, to delineate distinction in the attributes of God is to delineate distinction within the being of God. This would be in direct violation of the ‘unity of simplicity.’
[1] These have received a multitude of treatments (i.e. communicable and incommunicable, immanent and intransitive, absolute and relative, natural and moral, as well as moral and amoral from Wallace). cf. Louis Berkhof. Systematic Theology, New Combined ed. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), 54-57. Wayne Grudem. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994), 156-160. Millard J. Erickson. Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998), 291-293.
[2] Francis S. Haserot, “Spinoza’s Definition of Attribute.” The Philosophical Review, 62 (October 1953): 510.
[3] Grudem makes good argument for preferring the term unity to the archaic sense utilized in the medieval doctrine of ‘simplicity.’ The complete term should be “unity of simplicity.” cf. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 177.
[4]Ibid., 180.
[5] Roland Puccetti, “The Concept of God,” The Philosophical Quarterly 14 (July 1964): 241.
[6] Ibid., 243.
[7] Brian Leftow, “Is God an Abstract Object?” Nous 24 (September 1990): 583.
[8] Ibid., 581.
Are We Reading The Same Book?
March 30, 2009
Sunday mornings have become a sort of ritual for my baby daughter and I.
Most other days of the week, she wakes up between 4:30 and 5:00 in the morning. My wife will feed her then try to coax her back to sleep as I roll over and over in an effort to convince myself I’m not really awake. Lately, Adelaide will fall back to sleep, at least most of the time, which is good for Julia, too. But eventually, I will glance over at the clock some five or ten minutes before the alarm should sound, 5:45, then shut it off, roll out of bed and get ready for work.
But Sundays are different.
On Sunday, after Adelaide eats in the morning I’ll often take her into the living room with me and let Julia get another hour or two of sleep while the baby and I sit in the living room watching televangelists. The greatest part is that she is the happiest thing in the world when she first wakes up, so the morning is full of her cooing and giggling noises, which makes the early hour seem less of a challenge. Plus, nothing beats baby giggles as contrast to a good, old fashioned fire and brimstone sermon on the tube. A good time is had by all.
Now, let’s go back a few years, really lay the foundation for this comparison today.
I remember in my parent’s house, growing up, if the TV was on Sunday morning, it was probably on Charles Stanley. And I like the guy, for the most part. I never paid a ton of attention to him back then, but the snippets I did tune in to never struck me as anything weird or out of whack. He seemed like a normal guy. He was never yelling, never trying to scare people or pass judgement. I saw him as a wisened philosoph, though I probably wouldn’t have phrased it like that at ten to twelve years old.
But then we’d go to church, and it was anybody’s guess how the sermon would go.
Depending on what time of life I go back to, what city we were in, what kind of church we were at, I might hear a message that seemed to fly in the face of common sense, or I might hear a message that seemed too watered down for me to make heads or tails of. And of course, anything and everything in between; good, bad or ugly.
Creepy pastors, smiley pastors, quiet pastors, beady-eyed pastors whole looked like caricatures of themselves; we ran the gamut over the years. And their sermons complimented or contrasted their personality differences. I noticed those contrasts, the differences in how each person came across, how they read the Bible, but again, at that age, it was my understanding and my vocabulary that lacked the depth necessary to explain those observations.
But this morning ritual with Adelaide has brought these contrasts to a very interesting head.
The main four televangelists we end up channel surfing around any given Sunday are Joel Olsteen, John Hagee, Kenneth Copeland and good old Charles Stanley. I’ve seen it happen many times, these guys will be discussing very similar topics and purveying drastically different messages, and all of it based on the same Bible. One morning sticks out in my mind in particular.
First, Copeland was talking about money. No surprise there, he has sort of a prosperity bent to most of his career. I’m not making a judgement call here, just stating a fact. But, this time he was talking about financial adversity, so I stayed tuned in. It was probably only a couple months ago now, right after the first round of government bailouts are getting talked about, banks are going under, and this was his good, Biblical advice in tough financial times.
He went back to a time in his career (well, ministry, whatever) when he was preaching every day, working really hard to become established as a speaker, but then he felt prompted to make the move to radio as well. However, he was unsure he could afford it. My mind pictures him living in hotels, driving a crappy car that someone gave him, wearing the same suit gig after gig. Basically the same deal as a lot of my college friends who went into evangelism right after school.
So he essentially says no to God, he just doesn’t have that much faith, unless God can convince him it’s the right move. Long story short, Jimmy Swaggart calls up and offers to set him up, out of the blue, of course, on some radio shows. God told him to call, he says, so Copeland agrees. And here is where it got … weird for me.
He retells how he went from making $300,000 a year to $400,000 a month during this transition, thanks to finally obeying God’s command to go into radio.
Wait, what? He’s telling me about financial adversity? About a time in his life when he only scraped by on $300,000 a year? And then he was “finally” blessed when he “finally” obeyed God and went on the radio as well?
I had to click away. I mean, I make less than 10% of that a year and I’m pretty darn happy where I am. More money would be okay, but I’m not hurting, either.
Anyway, as I clicked around, the other guys were hitting the topic as well. Hagee was talking about Financial Armageddon in a multi-part series (isn’t the world always ending for him?), Stanley was talking about God’s provision and blessing in hard times (very down to earth and pragmatic), and Olsteen is smiling and blinking an awful lot about… well, about something to do with finances, anyway.
I just can’t wrap my head around it some days, and with Adelaide giggling in my lap, I flip from one guy to the next, wondering what their Bibles have in common.
I’ll be honest, I have a sort of bias toward Stanley. Of the four, he seems to be the most sensible guy, the most in tune with the central theme of the Bible the way I tend to read it, and the least emotional, flamboyant or inflammatory. Plus, he’s sort of part of my childhood, so I’m used to him. But this is only in my opinion, so while I would love to just toss the other guys, the outliers, out of the mix completely, I can’t help but think back to many of the church experiences I had when I was a kid. I know where these guys come from, each of them, I’ve been to the sort of churches that turn these guys out en mass. I also realize that Stanley probably seems watered down to a person who expects a fire and brimstone sort of urgency in a message.
* * *
And there’s the rub. This is all just my perception. My take. My perspective based on my personal experiences, tastes, and dozens of influences, many of which I may not even be aware of. I go to a church where I feel comfortable, a church that has drastic differences with many of the churches I grew up in. And the pastors of all those churches from my past, I guarantee if they were all in the same room they would disagree on many of these topics and how to Biblically interpret and respond to them. And I would disagree with many of them, too.
That one Sunday morning, with Adelaide on my lap I was being told to expect the end of the world, or to trust God and obey his commands in quiet confidence, or to tell God what I need him to do for me and know that he’s promised to bless every last Christian abundantly above and beyond our wildest expectations. And sorry, but those ideas are not mutually compatible. Someone’s got to be right, but more someones, then, have got to be wrong, at least on some level.
So where does this leave me? I like how Tony (adhunt) recently characterized his place in Christendom, the Whatever-I-am-now category. Trouble is, this feels so subjective, so dependent on my mood, feelings and experiences. I want something authoritative and genuine and stable and constant, but as my life changes and my family grows and I get older, my ‘taste’ in church and my ‘understanding’ of the Bible invariably dictates what sort of church environment I’m comfortable in, which invariably changes how the Bible is taught to me, which invariably changes how I read the Bible. It’s a vicious cycle. And even if I find a place where I fit, what happens when life takes you somewhere else? Try moving to a different state and duplicating your church environment (if you’re not Catholic, that is, they’re pretty consistent, right?). Even if you stick with the same denomination, like we did growing up, the different varieties are numerous.
I always believed these differences were like personal tastes, so that people, who are all different, can find environments where they are each comfortable and worship the same God. And I still see that as valid, to a degree. But I also see that those differences often boil down to personal taste, to pastoral leanings and how each pastor, church or denomination interprets the same Bible.
If it feels like I’m floundering, it’s because I am.
I wonder if it’s even possible to establish a consistent way to read the Bible these days, when life will be constantly changing and through it our circumstances and, often as a result, church affiliation.
And if this is possible, what’s the standard? The typical ‘Use God’s word as a measure’ rule doesn’t seem to apply here, because it’s not a question of morals or judgement, it’s a question of how to interpret God’s word in the first place. You can’t measure a ruler with a ruler, it is itself. So what is the measure?
And I wonder because I have a daughter who will be learning all of this the same way I did. When my place in life changes, how consistent can (or should) my wife and I try to be when it comes to church environment? On the one hand, I’d love to think my daughter might have a chance to be more grounded in one tradition and style of church than I was, but on the other hand I think my diverse experiences have been invaluable in shaping me into who I am today. As conflicted as I often feel, I also feel like I can see more of ‘the box’ than some people who’ve done it one way their entire life.
So I’m stuck. It’s like I can see the problems with all the various ways to read scripture and apply it to one’s life, since there are eventually conflicts with these interpretations, but I can’t seem to establish a way outside of my own subjective and changing tastes to establish the best possible route.
Go ahead, quote a scripture, tell me how your way is the way to go. Then someone else can quote a different scripture to say you’re wrong, or misinformed, or a little off target. Then someone else can grab another passage or two, and say the two of you are close, but over here or there is the right path. And it goes on and on and on…
And I wonder, after a while, are we even reading the same book?
Religious Pluralism & The Social Sciences
January 30, 2009
Rublev: Rowan Williams
“One day, God walked in, pale from the grey steppe,
slit-eyed against the wind, and stopped,
said, Colour me, breathe your blood into my mouth.I said, Here is the blood of all our people,
these are their bruises, blue and purple,
gold, brown, and pale green wash of death.These (god) are the chromatic pains of flesh,
I said, I trust, I make you blush,
O I shall stain you with the scars of birthFor ever. I shall root you in the wood,
under the sun shall bake you bread
of beechmast, never let you forthto the white desert, to the starving sand.
But we shall sit and speak around
one table, share one food, one earth.”
My mom recently commented that I do not post as much as I used to. That is because I’m back in school and have substantially more homework than I did last semester and over Christmas break. But I wanted to throw in my initial two cents in on Jeremy’s posts so far on religious pluralism.
Unfortunately it will not be quite as thorough as I should like it to be, but I will still attempt to (very) briefly demonstrate why I believe the foundations for his pluralist position is in fact the “out-of-date” or “not-relevant” system.
It is not insignificant that Jeremy has thus far begun and ended his system not at all based on any religion, or even his own personal religious experience; but rather on the backs of social scientists. He gives us a grand and sweeping account of the “history of religions” and then turns to religious scientists to determine the definition(s?!) of religion.
“The problem of Meta-narrative in the “history of religions”
The large and sweeping problem off the bat is that the account of the history of religions is itself a meta-narrative of history. It says, in essense that religious history is going somewhere - “First there was primitive religion, then the axial age, then Islam emphasised compassion, now pluralism, etc…” – and that is not where it is now nor is it where it has been.
Part of deconstructing is attempting, insofar as it is possible and aparently truthful, to deconstruct even ones own presuppositions, and it is this tendency which has led me, though appreciating insights which have come of thinking in terms of the words “pre-, modern, and post-modern (even post-post-modern!)” to ultimately come to reject the notion that history is neatly divideable up into epochs where thought was broadly uniform and the presuppositions the same; whereby we are able to box people and ideas up for critique en masse. I have learned in reading some of the classic western philosophy lately, is that it is a myth to posit that it was only in the “Enlightenment” where “reason” became the base authority. A look at Socrates, Plato, and the many skeptics in our “history of thought” reveals that the same motivation for Socrates to reject the many gods of his native Athens is the same reason that led to “Enlightenment” thinkers to reject the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Plato was just as convinced as Rousseau that reason as opposed to revelation could be counted on to give an objective, ontologically-true account of the (uni)versal reality apart from intervening spiritualities and deities to explain the unexplainable.
Which is why I think that it is simply inaccurate to speak in terms of what religions were doing or saying during specific “eras.” The very idea of “eras” is so frustrating since it is nothing but an interpretive tool on the page. The closest we might get to an accurate account of thought over time might be to speak of “schools” but not “eras.” Especially when said “eras” become a tool of oppressive violence to another’s belief system.
“The problem of the secular in the “history of religions”
As Shawn Wamsley just asserted commenting on Jeremy’s second post, narratives cannot be universalized to be demonstrably true outside of their own meta-narratives. The bare fact of the matter is that the assertions of accouts of the history of religions are done amongst the intellectual elite in the houses of learning still living under the mistaken assumption that they can give an objective account both of history and of “religions”; of what it is, of where it is going, what it means, and what we should do about it. It defines religion, (which it cannot do succinctly enough so it must resort to multiple definitions of religion), it defines the distinguishing marks of religion, it defines the “eternal core” of those religions, and it decides what we as a society must do about it. If there is one thing I learned in Cultural Anthropology and Environmental Science, it is not a lot about other cultures or about anthropogenic global warming, but about the idealogical core of the social sciences and their own meta-narratives.
(I hope this does not to sound too nasty)
At the end of the day, I believe modern-western religious pluralism is nothing but the bastard child of secularism and its exultation of “reason” over the rest of the world.
(Lest that seem to make me a fundamentalist, consider that Walter Brueggemann himself, no conservative by any estimation, consistently says that it is secularism which is at the heart of the decline in the Mainline.) What it is is an account of the history and truthfulness of religions as critiqued by its own presumption. Though some social scientists might recognize the reality of “the trancendent (as defined by them),” ultimately it says to the great faiths “Thanks for getting us this far, we’ll take it from here. Moreover, we will personally decide what it is which actually counts for something from your religion, and in time, if you attend enough of our Universities, you will come to see it our way.” It says what “god(s)” (as we define or don’t define the term) really wants. But, religious pluralism bases this not on a belief in the revealing work of “god” but its own “objective” accounts of the faiths.
“The irrelevency of the social sciences, broadly conceived”
Jeremy posited that given the nature of our knowing about the world and about religions; and given that we are in an unavoidable pluralistic context, “exclusivist” religion is “no longer relevant” This seems to be an important phrase for Jeremy since he will not assert that “exclusivist” faith is itself “wrong.” This allows him a greater shield against the critique often leveled against religious monists and pluralists alike that their own system is “exclusive in its own way.” Yet, the foundations for his pluralism is based on the violent exlusivism of the western social sciences.
Oddly enough, given the post-modern critique, and especially the “radical orthodox” critique continually developing in post-liberal anglo-catholicism (with which I continually find myself agreeing), it is Jeremy’s intellectual foundations which are “irrelevant” as they have been crumbling since at least the time of Derrida, Focoult, Rory and Gadamer among others.
Now all of this is not to say anything negative about Jeremy. Jeremy is actually one of the most compassionate and generous people I know (that is not an exageration); but as long as his reasoning for religious pluralism is dependent on the social sciences and not on the revealing love and activity of the Holy Trinity, then I am going to have to remain unconvinced.
I Am, Therefore, I Think
January 9, 2009
Funny and British? Who’dve thunk it? All I can say Decartes is: Existence preceeds essence!
ht: Will Deuel
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
