in defence of sad songs (2)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
What this blog has been lacking for a long time is a good quote from The Princess Bride. So let’s go with this one…
Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
It seems to me that this sums up the cynicism that comes from commericialism identified by Dick Keyes (see last post) and some of the distrust of postmodernism (see another previous post).
And what do we take from this? Perhaps that people want honesty. We know that the world is broken and, if we are going to trust, we need people to acknowledge this. We don’t want a glossing over that implies ‘try my option and everything will go smoothly’.
As Christians, we might try to ignore the brokenness of life in the mistaken belief that this makes what we have more attractive. Perhaps the example of commercialism points us this way — ensure life looks rosy with your product and everyone will want it. But we need to be careful not to fall into step with the wider culture and we need to be honest.
One reason, the Biblical story can be trusted is that is faces up to the pain and brokenness and doesn’t look away. To quote Colossians Remixed
The biblical embrace of pain refuses to cover up or deny suffering. … the biblical trajectory … highlights ‘absence’ — the absence of justice and shalom, and in the lament tradition even the absence of God.
If we want to produce art that reflects the biblical tradition and connects with those cynical from commercialism and untrusting from exploitation of the big stories then we have to face up to the absence and brokenness.
Of course, as we have to continually keep in mind, this is done in the context of the existence of God, the God who is ‘intimately involved with the suffering’, who is the true hope. We cannot feel the absence if the presence is not hoped for.
Tags: art, culture, imagination, lament, postmodernism, worldview
(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
Powerpoint theology
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
While on holiday recently, my thoughts turned to propositional truth. As they do…
It’s not always clear to me what people mean by this term — it seems to expand and contract depending on the individual’s views. I’m going to take it roughly to mean things that could be expressed in a Powerpoint bullet.
The existence, importance, etc. of propositional truth seems to be lurking a lot in post-modern/emergent discussions. I think you have to start by saying that of course propositional truth has value. Even the oft-quoted Uncertainty Principle and Godel’s incompleteness theorems are expressed propositionally and in a very precise way. So, we have to take propositions seriously.
On the other had, I wonder if, in many cases, propositions just doesn’t get us as far as we think they do. Let’s take an example: the statement ‘God exists’. Seems like a simple proposition, either true or not. But immediately we are lead to the question ‘What do you mean by God?’ OK, that’s not the end of the world — we could start to flesh things out with other propositions, like ‘God is love’. But, then I have to ask how good a grasp I, as a less-than-perfect human, have on love. And so on. And so on. Before you know it, I think I’m going to end up at ‘In the beginning …’ and find myself having to tell the whole story.
I think we have to be careful thinking that we can abstract propositions out of the Bible, without retaining the whole of the story. Otherwise, you have the danger of ending up with something that doesn’t match the source any longer, if not in our minds, then in the minds of those listening. And we have to realise that you can’t pick up a phrase or two on their own without the entire text coming with them. Like a bowl of spaghetti — you might try to pick out one piece, but you soon find that you have no choice but to go for the entire tangled mass.
I guess it was easier when we lived in a society that had an essentially common background. When you said ‘God exists’, etc. you could be reasonably sure that the people listen had something approximately similar in mind. But when the culture starts to fracture, it becomes less easy. Suddenly, you can’t rely on the assumed common ground and the propositions have to give way to other expressions, like re-telling stories.
You also have to be sure you listen carefully to make sure you have the common ground right. But that is a post for another day…
Tags: apologetics, postmodernism, provocations, story, theology
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...