influencing culture
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I’ve been thinking more about Stanley Hauerwas’ criticisms of how the church engages the world (see, e.g., Resident Aliens). Simon Chan picks up on this in ‘Spiritual Theology’ with the following summary:
…the real problem is that for much of Christian history, the church operated on a monolithic understanding of engagement with the world that was based on the Constantinian model. The church has to take out citizenship in the world in order to exercise influence in it. Then, as a respectable world citizen, the church has to play by the rules set by the world. Stanley Hauerwas put this model of Christian engagement under deep probing and found it wanting. He offered an alternative model for Christian engagement based on the Anabaptist concept of the church as an alternative polis, the church as a colony of “resident aliens” on earth whose real citizenship is in heaven. Hauerwas believes that such a church, far from being irrelevant to the world, can actually challenge the world by offering a “real option” to the world through its own disciplined life (a “community of character”)
My thoughts on this were provoked by reading a letter to a newspaper implying that the church had lost its moral authority. This got me thinking where we get our moral authority from. In the past it was an accepted part of western culture, but it seems that the accepted-ness is now passing.
So, we have a choice. One possibility is to become another pressure group — one slightly out-of-step with the culture. Hauerwas’ problem with this is that we are forced to play by the rules laid down for us. At that point we lose something significant. If nothing else, the rules do not assume a post-resurrection world. It seems to me that the message of new creation gets distorted — lost in translation. It seems like the distorted message often comes out sounding negative and reactionary, rather than positive and new-creation-like.
Another option is to act as an alternative community. To model new creation; to ‘practice resurrection’ (W. Berry). If we really believe that what we have is the true way to live, is really ‘new life’, then should we expect that a community living that way will attract and will find its own moral authority from its fruit. Then, when people come to us, we have a position from which to speak. If you think this is fanciful, then take it up with Isaiah — it seems to me that this is something like what he is describing when he says
In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.”
It’s not about trying to put our agenda on others, but having fruit sufficiently attractive that others come and ask how it works.
I shouldn’t leave before pointing another sub-option. Discussing Can Church transform the culture?, Graham Tomlin talks about the church being a place where people are formed who can positively influence society. Again, he has Hauerwas and associated observations in mind.
to be continued (probably)…
Tags: church, culture, Resident Aliens
eschatology and art
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I discovered a paper by Richard Middleton recently: A New Heaven and A New Earth: The Case for a Holistic Reading of the Biblical Story of Redemption which reminded me of something I had intended to write a while ago. A question that I have been pondering is how our eschatology affects what we do now and what we hold to be important. Here is one place which I suggest may show such a connection.
I think it is relatively uncontroversial that music is the art form that is regarded most highly by evangelicals. There is a whole industry for contemporary Christian music, which it seems dwarfs all other cultural products (e.g. Christian novels, etc.) If you want to be a Christian musician that it is highly likely that you will get support from you church (depending on musical genre). On the other hand, if you are considering moving into conceptual art, the probability of active support is probably lower.
Possible reasons for this emphasis are the high place of music in the wider culture, the focus on word rather than image in the church, the example of the Psalms, etc. But I want to try out an eschatological possibility.
It seems to me that the most common way we picture life-after-death is as a giant worship service. That is, as a principally music-based eternity. If that is really what we think, is it surprising that music is given promenance? Whether or not we think our current songs will make it into eternity, they certainly have a close connection. On the other hand, if that is what we are picturing, is it any wonder that painting, etc. don’t really seem quite so important?
Which brings us to Richard Middleton’s article. He takes a clear look at what a lot of people have been emphasising recently — that God’s long term plan is redeeming the whole of creation, not just getting people into heaven. If that guided our imagination, I wonder where it would take us? (Of course, we’re now connecting back to The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work.)
Tags: art, eschatology, imagination
adventure
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
In honour of the new addition to our family, an appropriate quote from Resident Aliens (Hawerwas and Willimon)
It is our privilege to invite our children … to be part of this great adventure called church.
Tags: church, Resident Aliens
safety in numbers (2)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
In early Christian art, the Trinity was often depicted by three identical people. An interesting way to try and depict the un-depictable. But, perhaps, it also points to a possible shortcoming when we try to think Trinitarianly.
As I said in my previous post, the Trinity is the basis for the value of diversity. It acts this way because diversity is intrinsic to the being of God. But it seems to me that it is easy to almost-but-not-quite get to this point.
The almost-but-not quite start is to think of the Trinity as three identical beings in one. I think I see that, for me at least, this is in my underlying assumptions. My worry then is that this reduced view of the Trinity takes us from thinking in terms of diversity to thinking in terms of uniformity: We believe in people joined in unity, but we assume they must be identical, with the differences ironed out so that they are indistinguishable.
I don’t think that uniformity is the goal, or what God is like. Of course, we know very little about the personalities of God, but I think we can say that the doctrine of the Trinity is about three different (i.e. non-identical) personalities in one. How can we make this step? At the every least, we know this: that post-pentecost God is a single being who has lived three different stories: that of Father, Son and Spirit. And surely identity is related to some degree or another to personal story. (Ricoeur: ‘Characters … are themselves plots’.) Kevin Vanhoozer discusses this idea of narrative identity: “Who God is, and what God is like, is a function of the entangled life histories of Father, Son and Spirit related in the gospels.” So, for instance, the incarnation immediately shows that God is not a community of uniformity but one of diversity, of three (non-identical) persons with different stories.
The result: we have a basis for celebrating true diversity-and-unity not just a uniform crowd.
Tags: church, postmodernism, theology
safety in numbers
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
In a recent post, I referred to the Christian story as being a metanarrative that has safeguards that act to ‘curb injustice and value those who are different, marginalised and oppressed’. This is a big theme of ‘Truth is Stranger than it used to be’ by Middleton and Walsh. Before I get on to their ideas lets try one that they don’t major on as much — the significance of the Trinity for this context.
Francis Schaeffer often talked about the significance of the Trinity to the philosophical question of unity and diversity: If the universe has a unity as origin, where does diversity come from? If it has a diverse origin, how come it all fits together? Maybe in a post-modern context, we can turn this on its head: because diversity is integral in the origin of the universe then diversity should be a highly valued attribute. (And because the origin is an all-powerful personal being, then we might expect diversity to be guarded.)
[I should say that, if I remember correctly, Kevin Vanhoozer and Brian McLaren have touched on this sort of thing in First Theology and A Generous Orthodoxy.]
Of course, the church has not always held diversity in high regard, by any means. But we have to admit that a value of diversity lies at the heart of its belief structure. And should be something that the church exhibits. I wonder if the times when unity (or even uniformity) is held above diversity are the times when the church loses a clear grasp on Trinity?
At this point we can bring in some comments from Jeremy Begbie (taken from the article Music in God’s World)
In polyphony, more than one melody is played or sung simultaneously, each moving to some extent independently of the others. A central cantus firmus gives coherence and enables the other parts to flourish in relation to one another. …Christ lives in the polyphony of the Trinity, and by the Spirit we are granted, through him, a share in this trinitarian “enchantment.”
Christians are thus polyphonic people. At Pentecost, in opening the disciples and crowds to Jesus Christ and his Father, the Spirit opens people out to one another. Those otherwise closed in on themselves—because of language, culture, race, religion—now find themselves resonating with one another, communicating, and living together in radically new ways. … People become responsive to one another, tuned in to one another (the reversal of Babel, where confusion and dissonance reigned). But uniqueness is not erased; the crowds in Jerusalem were not given one language. They heard each other in their “own tongues” … More than this, as the New Testament makes abundantly clear, the Spirit not only allows difference but also promotes it…
In the church’s founding moment diversity-in-unity was a key component. And it should continue to be. In acting faithfully to that moment, and coherently with our belief in Trinity, we begin to show the wisdom — and trustworthiness — of God and his story.
Tags: apologetics, postmodernism
the other tension…
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
After discussing the tensions in postmodernism, I wonder if there is another tension in our postmodern make-up…
In the world it is called tolerance but in hell it is called dispair. The sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, enjoys nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing but remains alive because there is nothing which it would die for.Dorothy L Sayers
A Princeton student being interviewed by a reporter was questioned about the prospect of American troops going to Afghanistan when the Soviet Union invaded there. “There’s nothing worth dying for” was her response. Which means of course that one day she shall have the unpleasant task of dying for nothing.Stanley Hawerwas and William H. Willimon
(The first is quoted in ‘Finding God at Harvard’; the second is from ‘Resident Aliens’.)
Tags: culture, postmodernism, worldview
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...