(don’t) stop making sense
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
In case anyone is tempted to mis-interpret my recent posts (1, 2, 3), here is a helpful quote from Dan Kimball (from They Like Jesus, but not the Church):
Some people think that apologetics isn’t useful today; but I think it still is, though only after trust has been built and we have been asked questions … people want to know there’s validity to what I believe, and apologetics has been helpful to me in showing that to them. I believe we need apologetics more than ever today, but we need to know what the current questons are. Sometimes in apologetics we develop detailed answers to questions people in emerging generations aren’t asking.
There seems to be a tendency to interpret post-modernism as a flight from reason. But people still want to know that their beliefs are reasonable; we can’t really live irrationally. But the first barrier is trust, not logical consistency. Going back to the response Curtis Chang received:
“Yeah, well, so what? … Who’s to say that your logic isn’t all made up?”
The fear seems to be that of being conned through logic; once the distrust is overcome there is still a need to show that what we believe makes sense.
It seems to me that this is where Peter is coming from when he says, ‘always be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is within you’ — not trying to argue people to God, but showing that what we believe is well-founded.
Tags: apologetics, Engaging Unbelief (Chang), postmodernism
I never met a narrative I trusted
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Following the previous posts, we have the question, if reduction to logical contradiction isn’t a way to engage post-modernism, what is?
Let’s try for Curtis Chang’s approach of entering the story and seeing where the plot tension lies (see Engaging Unbelief).
We’ve suggested that post-modernism is at heart distrust of meta-narratives. But, perhaps a first tension is that it’s not at all clear that we can live without some big story. But more than that, going back to the place we started, we have, at the very least, to accept that post-modernism itself acts as a meta-narrative.
Perhaps the real longing in post-modernism is to find a meta-narrative we can trust. Perhaps, the underlying theme of the ‘distrust all meta-narratives’ advice is really ‘here, at last, is a trustworthy story’. In effect, it says ‘by allowing all the little stories to co-exist under my wings, everyone will be accepted and not oppressed’. So, the question becomes — is post-modernism a trustworthy story?
Obviously, the proponents will say ‘yes’. But, isn’t that what proponents always do? You have to ask those who don’t fit — and despite the claims, there are those who don’t fit. Because, you are only safe if your story is sufficiently small. If you attempt for an overarching narrative, then you are suspect and the famed tolerance begins to wain. It seems like the postmodern narrative doesn’t live up to its promise. At the very least, it has to beat down all other stories until they submit to its overarching aim. It can’t function in the co-exist mode that it requires.
So, how is the tension resolved? We need to find a meta-narrative that is trustworthy, the does not operate via injustice. This is where Middleton and Walsh are aiming in ‘Truth is Stranger than it used to be’. They put forward the idea that the Christian story includes in it the mechanisms to curb injustice and value those who are different, marginalised and oppressed. That despite being meta it can be trusted. (The ideas are recapped in Walsh and Keesmat’s ‘Colossians Remixed’.)
I’ll try to summarise their ideas in the near future, but in the mean time Scot McKnight discusses that part of the Colossians book in a recent Jesus Creed post.
Tags: apologetics, Engaging Unbelief (Chang), postmodernism, story
a word about the last word
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
A few additional thoughts to add to the last post.
First, a clarification: although I’m quoting ‘professionals’, I’m really putting forward ideas about post-modernism of the street.
Next, another quote that I re-found. This is from Walsh & Keesmat’s Colossians Remixed (on which there is an interesting on-going discussion on Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed Blog). Like Curtis Chang they quote from discussions to show the perspective of many on the other end of the apologetic conversation. In examplining the view of a conversation partner ‘William’, they conclude:
Of course truth is relative, replies Wiliam. Just consider the alternative! The modernist pretense to have objectively grasped a total reality invariably results in a totalitarian social practice.
…
William has renounced the quest for a total scheme of things because it is both unattainable and inherently violent. In this important respect william is postmodern.
Which I think starts to link my comments on postmodernism being about justice (i.e. non-violent in the widest sense) to the view of postmodernism as asserting truth-is-relative.
Finally, an random connection came to mind. It’s interesting to consider Brian McLaren’s book ‘The Last Word and the Word after That’ in the context of the last post. The book is essentially a conversation about Hell. And at the start functions (I think in MacLaren’s words) as a deconstruction of our ideas and expression of our discomfort with the traditional pictures. But then the second half of the book moves on to God’s justice. The key conclusion being that, whatever our view of ‘Hell’, there must be some judgment for justice to prevail. So, it seems that, indeed, justice cannot be deconstructed, as Derrida claimed. And because it is at heart a search for justice, postmodernising has to face up to that justice and take it seriously.
Tags: apologetics, postmodernism
apologetics, logic and justice
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I was reminded recently about the classic logical fallacy of post-modernism — the refusal of all meta-narratives functions itself as meta-narrative and before you know it PoMo will eat itself. Now, I have no argument with that — the logic works. But somehow the latent post-modernist in me doesn’t find it a very satisfying line. We can also consider the description by Curtis Chang of a conversation he had (discussed in Engaging Unbelief):
After an hour of lengthy debate, I thought I had maneuvered him into admitting a critical inconsistency in his logic. All my apologetics textbooks assured me that this represented a decisive accomplishment. Surely I had “won” a significant battle![My conversation partner] contemplated his inconsistency for a moment, shrugged and replied, “Yeah, well, so what? … Who’s to say that your logic isn’t all made up? Who’s to say that everything isn’t just made up?”
It seems like the logic isn’t the key issue. Perhaps we get a clue as to what is from the classic definition of post-modernism from Lyotard:
Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives.
and the comment by Derrida that
De-construction is justice.
Postmodernism isn’t formed as a logical alternative, but is essentially a distrust of the big stories. At heart it is a justice thing. (Yeah, ‘Whose justice?’, thank you Prof.MacIntyre , but we’ll press on.) As has been pointed out often, it’s a distrust based on seeing the injustice that the meta-narratives bring — oppression of minority views etc.
Look at the current attacks on religion. Some might have a pop at issues of rationality and belief, but most of the issues are the apparent controlling nature and forcing of views, etc.
If you read Dan Kimball’s excellent ‘They like Jesus, but not the church”. The complaints against the church are primarily in this kind of category — it’s judgmental and negative, etc., etc.
So, while the logical problem is important, maybe it is not the correct point of contact. More on that anon…
Tags: apologetics, Engaging Unbelief (Chang), justice, postmodernism
music, culture, theology, the kitchen sink…
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I was going to resist recommending another mp3 so soon after the last one, but as there is an intersection with my last post I have point out A Sense of an Ending by Jeremy Begbie. This is a great talk that wanders from looking at culture through music to the lessons from music for culture and theology.
Where it interacts with the previous post is the reference to improvisation. In this case, Begbie puts forward the idea of improvisation as a description of identity and self. Where modernism had the lone hero as the ideal and post-modernism has transient identities that change from one day to the next, Begbie suggests something that he terms ‘the musical self’. As a ‘musical self’, we become more who we are supposed to be through improvising the ‘music’ alongside others and playing off others. All the time we know that God has the ending sorted, so there is safety in the improvisation. (Seems like an interesting model for church.)
He says all these things far better than I can explain… And you really need the musical examples to appreciate it all.
He also has an interesting lesson from musical meter. You really have to listen to the talk to get this one, but the gist is that one down-beat/resolution in a piece of music is often an up-beat in a large plan. The lesson/analogy being that, through the small rhythms of our lives, God may well be working with a higher level meter that we can’t quite see as we go along. Or, the example of prophesy in the Bible, where fulfillment often sets up a larger expectation of things to come.
I had some random thoughts based on the last point, but they are a bit specific so you may want to leave before I get started. Here goes: One of Tom Wright’s big themes for NT studies is that Second Temple Jews did not believe the true return from exile had happened, even though they were strictly back in their own land. Somehow not all that was promised had worked out. (Wright’s idea being that Jesus was bringing about the true return from exile.) There is constant disagreement over whether this is true — whether Jews believed the exile had ended or not. I think Begbie’s multiple-layers-of-meter helps here: Yes there was a return from exile on one level and presumably many were happy with that. But that resolution also set up a bigger longing for a more complete release and some felt that more intensely than others. Just a thought…
Anyway, the main message is the 1.5 hrs needed to listen to the mp3 are well worth it…
Tags: art, culture, mp3s, music, theology
Jazz can make you a better Christian … Nice.
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I’ve listened to two excellent mp3s on Jazz recently.
The first is by William Edgar — Heaven in a Nightclub. He gives an whirlwind tour through the history of Jazz pointing out the influence of Christianity. He also gives live examples which, since he is a very good Jazz pianist, are great.
One thing that stuck out from his talk is the comment that much of today’s praise music expresses happiness not joy, because it doesn’t face up to the dark and despair of life. Because of its history jazz (and other African-American music) is in contrast to this.
The title of this post comes from the second mp3 — Learning to Glorify God through the Enjoyment of Jazz by Kevin Twit (of indelible grace). More into the relationship of Jazz and Christianity — how Jazz can correct our theological shortcomings.
An interesting point from this one is the importance of learning to improvise. White middle-class evangelicalism can be very much into rules and doing things the right way (implicitly if not spoken). This is a lot like the performance of Classical music. On the other hand, Jazz is about exploring the limits via improvisation. One low-level example given is apologetics — there is a tendency to approach apologetics with an implicit script ‘if they say this, then you come back with…’; instead it should be more of a real conversation where we truly listen to the other people and respond from what they are saying, knowing that we are building on and interacting with a whole tradition. More risky, but more exciting…
The idea of improvisation is one that Tom Wright considers on a bigger scale in the famous How Can The Bible Be Authoritative? He puts forward an analogy for the Bible of a play for which the penultimate act is lost — we are called to improvise the act, ensuring that our playing is in the consistent with the existing record.
It’s useful to think about how our approach to life/theology might be affected by our cultural need to have everything spelt out with only a small scope for the player’s interpretation, compared with other views where there is room for improvisation (with of course the restriction that we are true to the underlying tune/play). How much do we miss that we should be doing?
Another interesting point from Kevin Twit’s talk is the difficulty of teaching Jazz. In the end you have to learn by example, listening, following previous great players. Which ties in with a previous post and the ever-important theme of disciple verses book-learning.
Oh, and I can’t leave a post on Jazz without a link to Reflections of a Jazz Theologian.
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...