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
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
Girlfriend in an (eschatological) coma
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
For some reason Douglas Coupland’s ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ came to mind the other day…
(Umm, warning, there may be spoilers ahead. But then it’s not a thriller 
…and it struck me that this is really an interesting example of how eschatology should influence life. In the book some friends live to see the end of the world. They then have the opportunity to go back and live in the light of what they have seen. For them it was a world that ends in a whimper — with all slowing going to sleep. So, their ‘living in the light of’ was to live against this.
It seems to me that, for Christians, there should be a similar ‘living in the light of’ the future. We should allow the prophetic imagination to shape ours. Then we live in this context and allow it to shape how we act. Of course, for us the future vision is different – we live with the hope that God will put the world to rights and re-creatre all things. Consequently, we live for rather than against our vision. But the parallels are interesting.
Tags: eschatology, imagination, story
On joining the dots…
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
An interesting quote from Tom Wright’s recent article on atonement
It is all too possible to take elements from the biblical witness and present them within a controlling narrative gleaned from somewhere else, like a child doing a follow-the-dots puzzle without paying attention to the numbers and producing a dog instead of a rabbit.
This has been buzzing around my head since I read it.
It seems to me that this is an important thing to keep in mind. We might have all our doctrines right, but if we haven’t connected them up in the right order (or, worse, failed to connect them) then we may still miss the point in places.
Story is a key way that the dots are connected. The post-enlightenment world acts as if it is all just dots. So, we feel like it is OK just to have a number of well defined bullet points. But we need to connect things up. (And, of course, there is always a story — it just may be hidden and may not be the one we think we are working with.)
I guess this is the problem with not getting our story straight. If we just have a set of ‘dots’ then there is the possibility of connecting them up in a way that fits with the prevailing culture, but isn’t really true to the biblical story. (I’ve read something else like this recently and frustratingly can’t remember where.) Of course, this allows us to live happily without disturbing the status quo…
Tags: culture, story, worldview
creeds and crampons
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
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?
Tags: hermeneutics, story, theology
Playstation-Claiborne mash-up
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Bored? God forgive us for all those we have lost because we made the gospel boring. I am convinced that is why we lose kids to the culture of drugs and materialism, of violence and war, it’s because we don’t dare them, not because we don’t entertain them. It’s because we make the gospel to easy, not because we make it too difficult. Kids want to do something heroic with their lives, which is why they play video games and join the army. But what are they to do with a church that teaches them to tiptoe through life so they can arrive safely at death?
Shane Claiborne
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bqq38WZctA]
Jesus invited ordinary people to come out and be part of an adventure, a journey that kept surprising them at every turn in the road.
… The church exists as resident aliens, an adventurous colony in a society of unbelief.
Stanley Hauerwas and William M. Willimon
Tags: church, culture, imagination, Irresistible Revolution, story
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...