not to interpret the text, but perform it
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
OK, this is by no means news to anyone, I’m sure, but… I was in a discussion of the modern worldview recently and it struck me just how much modernism is all about having and aquiring knowledge. And so, if we are not careful and give in too much to this perspective, the Bible becomes simply a source for correct knowledge and very little else. And becoming a Christian gets reduced to assenting to a set of propositions (I think I got that one from Todd Hunter).
It’s interesting therefore to notice the trend for connecting potentially abstract knowledge to living-it-out that is coming up in different areas — in particular, in the context of theology and worldviews. Perhaps, this is one of the things that the post-modernism atmosphere has given us — it’s kicked us out of our heads and reminded us that we have to think seriously about how this all gets lived out. Not that it hasn’t been lived out, but it’s been easy to have the theory and practice partitioned in our minds.
Some examples: First, in books on worldviews, we have David Naugle relating the worldview idea to the Biblical concept of the ‘heart’ For this see his ‘Worldview: The History of a Concept’; though I got it indirectly from James Sire’s ‘Naming the Elephant’, which is another good example of the trend.
There is also J. Mark Bertrand’s (Re)Thinking Worldview, which relates worldviews to wisdom (again, I’ve not got this directly, but see Steve Bishop’s trip through the book at An Accidental Blog).
All these are trying to remind us that worldviews affect the way we act, not just the way we think about the world. And so, it’s not just about analysis or intellectual arguments, but we also think about our view of the world in order to act appropriately.
Of course, Steven Garber’s Fabric of Faithfulness also makes this connection in a much stronger way, but coming from the other direction. He starts from the question, how do we act well; the first step in the answer: have a worldview that is up to the job. With our comments above in mind, it is interesting that the critiques he uses as a basis are frequently by writers who have modernism in mind (e.g. McIntyre).
In theology there is Tom Wright’s famous ‘How can the Bible be Authoritative?‘ which puts forward the analogy of the Bible as an play which we come to as actors who must take our roles in directions faithful to what has gone before. So, the Bible is not just a source of knowledge but a starting point for action. As with the worldview examples, we aim to think well in order to determine how to act well.
Kevin Vanhoozer pushes this idea on further. His essay ‘The World Well-staged?’ (in First Theology) writes about the church as a community that interprets the Biblical text by performing it. He develops the dramatic analogy in these talks: The Stage, the Story and the Script and Doing Church: the Theater of the Gospel. I guess that the source vor these talks is his book ‘The Drama of Doctrine’.
Finally, The Mission of God by Christopher Wright comes to mind. This approaches the Bible with a Missional Hermeneutic — the Bible as description of God’s Mission and the basis for our missional action.
In all these, thinking (or interpretation, or doctrine, etc.) isn’t an end in itself, but is the motivation for acting appropriately; for letting our story filter through and shape what we do.
Theology … transcends proposition in performance. And only in its performance is theology fully in view. … proper theology transforms proposition into performance so that the performance is the proper proposition.
Scot McKnight in A Community called Atonement
Tags: praxis, The Mission of God (Wright), theology, worldview
Considering Culture (3/footnote)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
On the idea that a properly functioning creation is what brings glory to the Creator, it is interesting to refer to Chris Wright’s ‘The Mission of God’. He has a substantial section on God’s glory as the goal of creation. His emphasis is on the fulness of the earth giving God glory, but it seems to me that proper functioning has to be a part too, if only implicitly.
The following quote from Wright is also interesting. It comes from a slightly different angle, but ends up in a similar place as the last post:
The creation exists for the praise and glory of its Creator God and for mutual enjoyment. We humans, being creatures ourselves, share in that reason for existece — our ‘chief end’ is to bring glory to God, and in doing so to enjoy ourselves because we enjoy God. So that God-focussed goal of human life (to glorify an enjoy him) is not somthing that sets us apart from the rest of creation. Rather it is something that we share with the rest of creation. That is the chief end of all creation. the only difference is that of course we human beings must glorify our Creator in uniquely human ways, as befits our unique status as the one creature who has been made in the image of God. So, as humans we praise God with our hearts and hands and voices, with rationality as well as emotion, with language, art, music and craft — with all that reflects the God in whose image we were made.
This also has connections back to the quote from Steve Turner which considered renewal of cultures as giving God pleasure.
Tags: culture, Culture Seminar, The Mission of God (Wright), theology
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...