Instamatic Theology » hermeneutics

reading culture: what’s the point?

Paul — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 22:44:00 +0000

I was planning to write this post before reading the recently posted extract from Culture Making. Having looked at that, it’s even clearer that we must not miss this step out.

Both Andy Crouch and Kevin Vanhoozer don’t want us to read culture purely for the sake of reading. The reading has to be a springboard to being cultural agents in our own right.

I’ve quoted this from Vanhoozer before, but it’s worth repeating

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.

…

The church is to be a glimpse of the new world in the midst of the old, a reminder that the old order is passing away and a standing witness to the new. Accordingly, it is charged with the task of being a permanent revolution to prevailing plausibility structures.

Crouch is even clearer on the need to make culture as well as analyse. A key point for him is that

The only way to change culture is to create more of it.

His contention is that the church tends to try to change culture one of four ways: either by condemning, critiquing, copying (forming a sub-culture) or consuming. None of these work in practice, the only way to change culture is

to create something new, something that will persuade our neighbours to set aside some existing set of cultural goods for our new proposal.

For the sake of this post, I’ll focus specifically on critique/analysis. Crouch points to the example that film reviewers are rarely able to influence the general trend of film production. In fact, they rarely affect the success of an individual film. Consequently,

[w]e may produce very sophisticated analyses of the cultural goods around us. … But the depressing truth is that critique and analysis rarely change culture at all. … The academic fallacy is that once you have understood something — analysed and critiqued it — you have changed it. But academic libraries are full of brilliant analyses of every facet of human culture that have made no difference at all in the world beyond the stacks.

Although both agree on this, it is notable that Vanhoozer’s book gets very close to the problem Crouch notes (as discussed in the last post):

you would think that the solution to disembodiment would be embodiment—the living out in the flesh of the transforming vision. … But the emphasis always somehow stays on perception and vision, on thinking, on analysis.

While holding a clear view of the need for performance, it is not clear from Everyday Theology what comes next. But that is probably unfair, since the book is not focussed in that direction and Vanhoozer does discuss performance elsewhere. On the other hand, embodiment is the focus of Culture Making, so it will be interesting to see how practical Crouch can be…

reading culture: consequences

Paul — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:47:00 +0000

Finally, in our comparison of cultural interpretation in Culture Making and Everyday Theology, we have consequences. Whereas Vanhoozer’s ‘cultural texts’ approach gave more depth to the content question, Crouch’s ‘cultural artefacts’ view gives more in the consequences question.

Consequences can roughly be aligned to Vanhoozer’s ‘perlocation’ — the outcome of the cultural activity. However, I wonder if the Culture Making questions are more productive, simply because they point to specific ways of thinking about this area: What is made possible by this artefact?, What is made impossible?, What new forms of culture are made in response to the artefact?

(I guess we should note that because Vanhoozer is less specific he potentially allows more consequences to be considered. For instance, he makes an interesting points around ‘culture as spiritual formation’, which doesn’t easily fit with Crouch’s questions, but I think guidelines such as those in Culture Making are a helpful start…)

The important point being that culture shapes the world around it. It isn’t just a description or picture, but is a key way that we affect the world. Andy Crouch, quoting Ken Myers:

Culture is what we make of the world.

So, we mustn’t just think of culture as simply some optional decoration that is attached to life. Culture changes and shapes our surroundings and us. And a complete reading of culture asks what the consequences are.

For instance, lets go back to cars. Possibilities opened up include rapid travel and connections to places that may have been almost cut off in the past. On the other hand, it is almost impossible to think of a slower pace to life, at least in part due to this ‘artefact’. And, of course, the cultural response includes an immense road system, petrol stations, road taxes, motor sport, etc., etc., etc.

It’s also important to realise that what the consequences of a cultural item are not necessarily related to the content or the intention of its maker. We discussed the ‘content’ of cars but at no point did we bring in the impact on the environment (nor, of course, most of the cultural responses we just listed). I guess a big part of culture making is that opens up unseen paths.

It’s worth remembering also that one of the consequences is a shaping of our imagination. Again, this may not be directly linked to the intentions of the maker. Think about westerns. Movies in this genre may not have any intention of proposing anything about fire-arms, they are simply a component of the genre. But, it may be that, unintentionally, the viewers imagination is shaped to view them as a viable are a solution to problem, etc. Something to bear in mind both when reading and creating. (See also a recent post on how we communicate what we believe).

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reading culture: content

Paul — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:48:00 +0000

Still comparing cultural interpretation in Culture Making and Everyday Theology. We’re now on content…

Content is what the cultural item is trying to communicate and/or do. Roughly we could think of this as making a proposal about how the world should be (Crouch’s third question) or about what it all means. Very likely this won’t be through propositional statements, but by showing or implying. Vanhoozer puts it this way:

cultural texts convey their propositions — their proposals about what it means to be human — not by offering explicit arguments but rather by displaying them in concrete forms.

I think Everyday Theology is the stronger of the two on this point. Remember it is concerned with interpretation, which obviously has a big content focus. Following Vanhoozer then we can say that to get a rounded view of the content we need to look at both what it is trying to do (in Vanhoozers terms I think this is roughly the illocution) and how it is doing it (the locution?).

The ‘how’ is the surface content or the medium, etc. It’s not really covered directly by Crouch’s questions; but perhaps it comes out in the questions that ask what a ‘cultural artefact’ makes possible/impossible/etc. — the ‘how’ comes out in the way that the ‘artefact’ alters the world around us. Perhaps the medium is (in some ways) the change that results.

When you are thinking in terms of ‘cultural texts’ there is room to think more widely (although, I think change-as-medium is a good thing to keep in mind). Here we can bring in narrative points, visual aspects, genre-conventions, as well as the details of the story, etc.. Again, considering the ‘how’ is an important part of listening, to ensure we truly hear what is being said. This reminds me of a quote from Bart Gavigan: “The problem with Christians is that they love theme more than story.” We must be careful not to jump too soon to the ‘message’ before hearing the story.

The ‘what’ is (eventually) the point that we might naturally run to first. What is this item trying to say? We can link this in with a number of our proposed questions/considerations. Within this we can think Vanhoozer’s questions: what is the world of the text? — what is being displayed — and what is the world in front of the text? — what is being proposed about/for your world. As we said, this is related to Crouch’s question asking what is the artefact’s assumption about how the world should be? Or alternatively, What new sense does
it seek to add to a world that often seems chaotic and senseless?

Let’s try an example to avoid getting bogged down. What is the ‘content’ of cars (to take an example off the top of my head)?

The ‘how’? Well, it’s an artefact, so it is proposes/displays/does by being a functional object, by being something that can be used in a particular way. More specifically by being a technological object. And by changing what we can do, our abilities, the parameters of our world.

The ‘what’? I guess we could start by saying it displays a world where constraints can be overcome by technology. From a specifically Christian point of view, it displays a world where we are given the ability and flexibility to alter things; a world where resources are placed at our disposal. It proposes a world where rapid travel is a virtue, where distances should not be constraining, where people should not be tied to a particular locality, and (in comparison with public transport) where individuals have only a limited reliance on others in society or societal structures, etc., etc.

Well, that’s a start. By no means a full view, but I guess that gives the idea…

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reading culture: context

Paul — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:30:00 +0000

OK, so we’re trying to synthesise Culture Making and Everyday Theology by thinking of cultural items in terms of Context, Content and Consequences; the question is where do we put the different questions/considerations of each book?

Context is really what Vanhoozer calls ‘the world behind the text’. It consists of the assumptions and worldviews of the author(s), as well as things that are happening around at the time, the characteristics of the medium and the personal experiences of the author. It is what shapes the reason and character of the item/work/artefact.

Of course, we can also pull in Crouch’s first question here, which helpfully focusses us on one particular aspect of this — What is assumed about the way the world is? Perhaps, we can also see half of the second question: What is assumed about the way the world should be? or as Crouch develops this: What vision of the future animated its creators? As a background to creating it is likely that a ‘culture agent’ will have some assumption of how things should be and this will filter through to what they create and say.

I guess it is easy to jump straight to analysing the message, but in many cases we don’t understand correctly unless we listen to the context first. We need to slow down and understand what is going on around before we decide what is being proposed.

As a really simple example, think of genre films (and, as Mark Kermode reminds us, there is nothing wrong with genre films): If you don’t understand the conventions of a genre, how are you going to understand the message? The message of a science fiction film may not be that we should expect life from other worlds to visit soon, even if that is what appears on the surface. The message comes in how the key components of the genre are handled or used.

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reading culture

Paul — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:30:00 +0000

Two current books, Everyday Theology (Kevin Vanhoozer et al) and the up-coming Culture Making (Andy Crouch) both start with approaches to understanding or reading culture. I thought it would be interesting to attempt a synthesis of the two. Foolhardy, perhaps, but let’s try.

While trying this, it’s important to keep in mind that these two books have different models in mind. Vanhoozer is thinking ‘interpretation’, Crouch is thinking ‘making’. Both have similary goals: understanding as an aid to being a faithful ‘cultural agent’ and I think the two approachescan be complementary in many ways.

Before we try for full-on synthesis, here is a brief overview of the approach to understanding that each take…

Everyday Theology brings in two basic grids for thinking about culture. The first is looks at culture items as ‘texts’. With this in mind, we can consider the world behind the text (what is the context), the world of the text (what is displayed by the text) and the world in front of the text (what is the proposal for your world).

The second brings in speech-act ideas. In this case we can think of the locution (roughly, what is the content? For example, ‘a story about a wolf & a girl who likes wearing red’), the illocution (what are the speakers doing in speaking?, e.g. ‘suggesting that talking to strangers may lead to unfortunate consequences’), and the perlocution (what is the result of the speech?, e.g. ‘children become more wary of talking to strangers’)

Culture Making has a more straight-forward set of questions. It is focussed on culture as artefacts and the questions reflect this. So, Crouch asks ‘What is assumed about the way the world is?’, ‘What is assumed (or proposed) about the way the world should be?’, ‘What is made possible by this artefact?’, ‘What is made impossible?’, ‘What new forms of culture are made in response to the artefact?’

I wonder if we can synthesise these by thinking along three lines: Context, Content and Consequences (you see what I did there? It should be noted that in doing this, we’re almost certain to lose something in translation (especially for Vanhoozer’s ideas), but I think it helps as a framework to start with. At least, for me to collect my thoughts. Maybe for others too.

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Considering Culture (10)

Paul — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:43:00 +0000

We’re looking at the consequences of the Biblical story on our interaction with culture. We’ve looked at how our lives should reflect new creation — including the healing of culture. However, we can’t escape from the after effects of the fall — we have to keep in mind that not everything matches up with God’s intentions for our cultural activities. As a result there is lots that needs to be challenged and renewed. Similarly, we have to take care in what we give ourselves to; we can’t simply accept everything without question.

What are the consequences? The first is that we have to listen to what is being said by the culture around us and work to interpret what we hear. By this, I mean active listening — trying to understand what is under the surface and its implications. We also need to relate this understanding to the Biblical story itself.

Kevin Vanhoozer talks about how we need to be ‘bilingual’.

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 their 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”

(from ‘Everyday Theology’)

John Stott says something similar, describing our task as ‘double listening’

We listen to the Word with humble reverence, anxious to understand it, and resolve to believe and obey what we come to understand. We listen to the world with critical alertness, anxious to understand too, and resolved not necessarily to believe and obey it, but to sympathize with it an to seek grace to discover how the gospel relates to it.

(from The Contemporary Christian, quoted by Opitz ad Melleby in The Outrageous Idea…)

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(By the way, I’m currently reading ‘Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends’ by Kevin Vanhoozer et al. This is a great book on precisely the topic of reading culture. I hope to get around to blogging about in more detail at some point. Briefly: The book starts with an extended essay by Vanhoozer on the theory followed by a number of eclectic examples of interpretation in practice. Highly recommeded.)

debating performance

Paul — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 15:22:00 +0000

Apologies for being overly obvious and repetitive, but I wanted to link together two previous posts: not to interpret the text, but to perform it and hermeneutics and, umm, hermeneutics (and probably also interpretation and living and living proof — see what I mean about repetitive?)

The on-going thought is how we display the truth through the way we act when disagreeing. We noted that the modern view point focussed primarily on knowledge. If you take that as the key to everything, then there are limited constraints in the way you treat those who disagree with you. You primary goal is to ensure that they, and your listeners, end up with the correct knowledge in the heads at the end of the debate. So, the approach is not as important as the end result and there is no inherent need to take care and be respectful along the way. (I know, this is exaggerating and there are other constraints, but you get the point.)

On the other hand, if performance of the truth also matters, then the way we argue is as important as getting the information across. I guess we’re saying ‘the medium is the message’ in a conversational way as well as in a purely media sense. We need to be sure that our performance in the face of disagreement is honouring the the truth we follow.

An obliquely related point that has intrigued me for a long time: both Francis Schaeffer and Richard Dawkins(*) abandoned debates as a vehicle for their respective apologetics. For both, it seems that the problem with debates is the possibility of winning the argument, while losing, or having no impact on, the person…

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(*) I realised after writing this that Dawkins has done debating of some sort recently. I was thinking of the story — I think in the introduction to ‘The Blink Watchmaker’ — where he debated someone on creationism, then found out that they didn’t believe in the position that they were defending. This apparently made him disillusioned with the whole debating process. My understanding is that he found he wasn’t really in a position to persuade others of his position, but was simply taking part in a sophisticated game. Possibly now that he is debating genuine opponents in a way that spreads his message, his view has altered.

Justification and football

Paul — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 14:58:00 +0000

A sort of informational post:

John Piper’s book ‘The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright’ is available free on-line as a pdf. I’ve only skimmed bits of it and I guess your view will depend on where you start out, but at the very least it is good to see that Piper & Wright had discussions before publication.

In the interests of keeping both sides in mind, remember that some of Tom Wright’s stuff on justification can be found on the ntwrightpage.

In between the two, Michael Bird has some useful perspectives (I was going to say ‘is a voice of reason’, but that would cast aspersions on the others!). He has an interesting paper on Incorporated Righteousness, which attempts for a middle way between new and old perspectives and makes a lot of sense. He also points out how these sort of debates arise in part from the difference between systematic theologians and New Testament scholars.

I also like this quote from Eugene Peterson, which seems appropriate to these exchanges:

Among those for whom scripture is a passion, reading commentaries has always seemed to me analogous to the gathering of football fans in the local bar after the game, replaying in endless detail the game they have just watched, arguing (maybe even fighting) over observations and opinion, and lacing the discourse with gossip about the players. The level of knowledge evident in these boozy colloquies is impressive. These fans have watched the game for years; the players are household names to them; they know the fine print in the rulebook and pick up every nuance on the field. And they care immensely about what happens in the game. Their seemingly endless commentry is evidence of how much they care.

creeds and crampons

Paul — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 20:24:00 +0000

This quote from Alistair McGrath (in ‘A Passion for Truth’) has set me thinking this week:

Narratives need to be interpreted correctly; Christian doctrine provides the conceptual framework by which the scriptural narrative is interpreted. …
It is not an arbitrary framework, but one which is suggested by that narrative, and intimated (however provisionally) by scripture itself. It is to be discerned within, rather than imposed upon, that narrative. The narrative is primary, and the interpretive framework secondary.

It seems that, in our post-enlightenment view, we tend treat the biblical story as the source material for us to develop our doctrines and theologies from. Instead, we need to realise that the story is the most important thing — God’s working in history; our theologies are really the guidebooks or frameworks for us to find our way around the story.

Perhaps we can think of it in climbing terms: while a climber may be proud of his equipment, he should never make the mistake that the mountain is there as a suitable support for his ropes; in fact, his ropes are there as a way for him to navigate the mountain.

Interestingly, this makes me more sympathetic to systematic theologies. At one extreme they can be an attempt to construct an neat abstract system, but at their best they could provide a comprehensive guidebook to the story.

I wonder if thinking this way should alter how we assess our theological statements?

Schaeffer quote

Paul — Fri, 25 May 2007 22:00:00 +0000

I came across this quote from Francis Schaeffer’s letters. I thought it fitted well with a number of things I’ve posted recently, so…

Doctrinal rightness and rightness of ecclesiastical position are important, but only as a starting-point to go into a living relationship — and not as ends in themselves.