Everyday Theology
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I’ve been meaning to write something about Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends (edited by Kevin Vanhoozer, Charles Anderson and Michael Sleasman) for a while. Having mentioned Andy Crouch’s book Culture Making, I’m encouraged to get around to doing this.
I thought this book was superb. The basic idea is to present a method for interpreting culture texts and then exemplify the method through a number of ‘cultural text’ readings. Apparently, it came out of Kevin Vanhoozer’s Cultural Hermeneutics course and the essays are the best examples of ‘cultural exegesis’ that were produced in response.
I guess the background explains the amazing variety of subjects covered. Certainly it is one of the strengths of the book that the subjects addressed are not limited to a particular area of culture, but give examples of how to view many different aspects of life from a Christian perspective. It is a premise of Vanhoozer’s method that all parts of our cultural life constitute texts that can be ‘read’. Consequently the book includes essays on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Mega-church Architecture and Supermarket checkouts, as well as more obvious cultural product like Eminem’s music and the Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. Although some essays caught my imagination more than others, they are are all of a very high quality and manage to avoid simplistic analyses or cliché responses. I guess that is a tribute to Vanhoozer’s method.
The book is top and tailed with chapters that help understand the exegetical method. The first is an essay by Vanhoozer discussing ‘how and why Christians should read culture’; the last is an essay by Anderson and Sleasman leading the reader through a test case (American wedding ceremonies), showing the steps to using the method in practice.
The final chapter is important — it’s not unusual for this type of book to present the theory and leave you unclear how to start for yourself. However, it is really Vanhoozer’s opening essay that makes this book so good. I guess it is a summary of the essential parts of the course. Certainly it covers an immense amount of ground in not-too-many-pages. It starts with a discussion of what culture is and what it does, leading to answers as to why we should learn to interpret. As well as needing to understand our neighbours to love them, it is important for a faithful life:
In order to be competent proclaimers and performers of the gospel … Christians must learn to read the Bible and culture alike. Christians cannot afford to continue sleepwalking their way through contemporary culture, letting their lives, and especially imaginations, become conformed to culturally devised myths, each of which promises more than it can deliver: “Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom 12:2)
The essay then moves on to methods of reading and interpretation. A key component of Vanhoozer’s view is that ‘understanding cultural discourse demands a thick description of what has been wrought…’ and consequently his method takes a number of approaches to understanding the ‘texts’. He borrows ‘speech act’ categories from linguistic philosophy and ideas from Mortimer Adler’s ‘How to read a book’. The idea is that by coming at the subject from different angles and asking a number of different questions we can build up a good picture of what the ‘text’ is assuming, saying, doing, proposing, etc.
I started by making a connection Crouch’s up-coming Culture Making. Although Vanhoozer is primarily interested in analysis, he is very clear on the need to be cultural agents (and for this reason, I am hopeful that the two books will be complementary).
Faith’s search for understanding of our everyday word is not merely theoretical. Everyday theologians must demonstrate their understanding in practice by becoming cultural agents. Indeed, if the church is a community of interpreters — of Scripture and of culture — it is for the sake of becoming an effective community of cultural agents. This involves, first, interpreting culture in light of a biblical-theological framework and, second, interpreting Scripture by embodying gopel values and truths in concrete forms. The mission of the church is to witness to the truth of the gospel by participating in God’s building project, realizing the well-wrought world redeemed in Christ.
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Christian cultural agency is the art of being “in between” Christ and everyday culture.
Tags: books, culture, Everyday Theology (Vanhoozer)
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...