(Ir)religiosity

Recently I tweeted a truncated version of one of my biggest frustrations about the use of the word “deconstruction” in the emergent church. I got some responses suggesting that I clarify and elaborate. So here we go.

First, blame shouldn’t fall solely on emergent church folk. Philosophers and cultural theorists (who should know better!) have  also misused the word since it gained popularity in discourse. The fact that Jacques Derrida‘s (in)famous hermeneutic (if i can call it that) translates to a very common word in the English language doesn’t help much either. The word is already operative in our common vocabulary and it carries with it certain connotations that run completely counter to its theoretical function. So the inertia is against us before we get to the emergent church. I think Jack Caputo’s Deconstruction in Nutshell should be mandatory reading for anyone who uses or hopes to use the word deconstruction as a key concept (in the emergent church or otherwise).

Popular use notwithstanding, I do think that emergent church folk are particularly and especially culpable for their use and misuse of the word theoretically and theologically in large part because of their affinity toward postmodern philosophy and their use of key thinkers like Derrida. This makes things complicated and, if dissected closely, I think it shows that the emergent church — or at least some subgroup(s) within it — aren’t all that different from mainstream Christianity and certainly not as subversive as some had initially hoped.

My frustration stems from the tweets, Facebook statuses, and blog posts (and books) that I see from time to time where someone will in effect suggest that having a “deconstructive stage” was important for a while but now its time to “get serious” and start reconstructing things (faith, theology, etc.) toward some sort of “new” end. In essence, deconstruction is given a negative and overly critical connotation and is understood to be the initial step in a larger process. Doubt was good and cool for a time, criticizing and rejecting conventional religiosity was fun while it lasted, but the real work starts when you decided to start affirming and arguing core theological tenets anchored by a foundation. When I read and hear things like this I realize how unfortunate it is that the mystics and the via negativa don’t get more play in emergent church circles. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been reading more reviews of McLaren’s newest book and assessments of emergent, both positive and negative.  And still, I find myself a little disappointed with the tone, the rhetoric and the posturing coming from both sides.  For all its emphasis on “the postmodern” and getting beyond all the old binaries, it seems that, in some ways, the conversation is still beholden to modernist forms of thinking and theologizing.  Or maybe that’s just part of the human condition.

A I lecture attended last night at BUSTh sent me to some of John Wesley‘s sermons (something I’m sorry to say I haven’t done in a while).  I guess I still had these latest developments on my mind because I found myself drawn to “The Catholic Spirit.” I almost feel like Wesley is commenting on the blogosphere. Here are a few choice quotes.

[A]lthough a difference in opinions or modes of worship may prevent an entire external union, yet need it prevent our union in affection? Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences. These remaining as they are, they may forward one another in love and in good works. [...] Every wise man, therefore, will allow others the same liberty of thinking which he desires they should allow him; and will no more insist on their embracing his opinions, than he would have them to insist on his embracing theirs. He bears with those who differ from him, and only asks him with whom he desires to unite in love that single question, “Is thy heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?”[...] And how shall we choose among so much variety [of opinion]? No man can choose for, or prescribe to, another. But every one must follow the dictates of his own conscience, in simplicity and godly sincerity. He must be fully persuaded in his own mind and then act according to the best light he has. Nor has any creature power to constrain another to walk by his own rule. God has given no right to any of the children of men thus to lord it over the conscience of his brethren; but every man must judge for himself, as every man must give an account of himself to God. [...] I dare not, therefore, presume to impose my mode of worship on any other.  I believe it is truly primitive and apostolical: but my belief is no rule for another.

[A] man of a catholic spirit is one who, in the manner above-mentioned, gives his hand to all whose hearts are right with his heart…one who, retaining [God's] blessings with the strictest care, keeping them as the apple of his eye, at the same time loves–as friends, as brethren in the Lord, as members of Christ and children of God, as joint partakers now of the present kingdom of God, and fellow heirs of his eternal kingdom–all, of whatever opinion or worship, or congregation, who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; who love God and man; who, rejoicing to please, and fearing to offend God, are careful to abstain from evil, and zealous of good works. He is the man of a truly catholic spirit, who bears all these continually upon his heart; who having an unspeakable tenderness for their persons, and longing for their welfare, does not cease to commend them to God in prayer, as well as to plead their cause before men; who speaks comfortably to them, and labours, by all his words, to strengthen their hands in God. He assists them to the uttermost of his power in all things, spiritual and temporal. He is ready “to spend and be spent for them;” yea, to lay down his life for their sake.

If you have had your finger to the pulse of the emergent conversation lately I would encourage you to read the whole sermon (it’s not too long) and I would submit it as a modest plea for more charitable and constructive dialogue.  As Wesley makes clear, this does not mean indifference of opinion nor does it require us to gloss over theological difference.  Critical theological engagement is a requirement — but it should be done with a catholic spirit.  And I find that lacking.  In many ways, social media and disembodied online communication only exacerbate the problem but I am confident that a more generous and mutually beneficial dialogue can take place.  And I hope it does.

The best example I have seen of this so far is Nathan Glimour’s review over at The Christian Humanist (also home of a podcast worth checking out).  Glimour raises so of the same issues I have wondered about in ANKOC, namely McLaren’s use of sources and his reading of history and the tradition.¹  But the point is he writes an critical evenhanded review that doesn’t fall into the various forms of rhetorical drama that seem to be popping up.

Emergent has always imbibed a catholic spirit.  I just hope it is not forsaken in favor of various dogmatisms.

1. For instance, I find McLaren’s description of Greco-Roman as a cultural monolith and his casting of Aristotle as some sort of Platonic heir rather than a supplanter a bit dubious.  I’m also beginning to wonder how useful it really is to place a narrative overlay on Scripture, whether it is the six-line Greco-Roman narrative McLaren castigates or his alternative.  What is lost when we circumscribe the entire canon to a singular arc?  Perhaps I’ll post on this soon. [↩]

“Emergent is dead” and emergent “break-up” posts seem to be in vogue lately.  The latest round have to do with the release of Brian McLaren’s new book, A New Kind of Christianity.  In the eyes of some he’s gone way too far; for others he is finally clarifying his own positions.  I tend to fall in the latter category.  I am still a few chapters shy of finishing, but it seems to me that this book is the next logical step in the evolution of Brian’s work over time.  In other words, ten years later he is putting more substance to the wild ride he started with A New Kind of Christian.  And the result is the most cohesive and the “best ordered presentation to date of emergent theology.” That last statement has, quite frankly, pissed some people off because Brian hasn’t conformed to their expectations or notions of “orthodoxy”¹ (although I think the subtext to some of the more vitriolic reactions has to do with some built up disdain over the trajectory of the conversation for the past several years) .  Hence the eulogies and dear John letters. The problem, though, is that people had fixed expectations.  This isn’t that type of conversation.  I’m of the opinion that emergence isn’t dead, rather it is evolving and maturing.

Among the more charitable critiques are those offered by Jeremy Bouma who, along with bidding emergent goodbye, is submitting some of the thought to some much needed, though perhaps misguided, thoroughgoing theological critique.  I raised some issues on a few threads that I think are worth exploring here a bit more.

Bouma’s main issue that is that the trajectory of emergent in the past several years (he cites Doug Pagitt, Peter Rollins, and McLaren among others) has departed from “historic orthodox Christianity,” a monolith to be determined by “the rule of the faith.”  In other words, emergent fails the litmus test.  The real question, though, is what is this rule of the faith and who gets to be the arbiter of orthodoxy?  Here Bouma cites both the Nicene and Apostle’s Creed (which, for the purposes of this post, I have no qualms with) alongside his own constructive theological interpretation of them.  This is where we run into problems. Read the rest of this entry »

1. I’m not one to suggest issuing moratoriums on buzzwords, but if I were this word (along with maybe “biblical,” “scriptural” and “heretical”) would be one of them.  It has lost virtually all of its meaning and is only used as a rhetorical trump-card [↩]

If I had to pick one point where Jürgen Moltmann has made the most significant impact on my own theology it would be his social doctrine of the Trinity.¹  In fact, it wasn’t until I read The Trinity and the Kingdom of God that I was actually excited about being Trinitarian!  Moltmann is not interested in the old heresies and old debates surrounding substance, or essence, or autonomous personhood.  Instead he is interested debunking monarchical monotheism, which inscribes domination and hierarchy into the very nature of God (not to mention humanity!) where God the Father — and here nobody would have a problem with the masculine, phallocentric language — sits at the top of the order, below him sits the Son, and last (and more often than not least!) sits the Spirit — because by this logic it only makes sense that the more feminine of the persons be at the bottom of the hierarchy!  Moltmann claims that all Trinitarian formulations at least since Augustine and surely since the insertion of the filioque into the Nicene Creed by the West are captive to this type of monarchical monotheism.

Obviously this creates all sorts of problems, especially if you believe that the human order should, more or less, mirror the divine order.  Then you have domination and subjugation writ large.  Enter Moltmann who, as we can already see, is more interested in the social and political implications — in other words, what all this means for the Imago dei — of the Trinity than modalism, Arianism, or any other ancient -ism that really has no bearing on contemporary theology.

Over against the hierarchical models, Moltmann imagines² a more egalitarian approach (I don’t know that he uses that word himself and I don’t know if he would take issue with it; I certainly don’t) which emphasizes the “community of God” that is comprised of the three persons and the perichoresis, the mutual indwelling, that binds them together as one.  For Moltmann, kenosis is not limited to the second person and the incarnation alone, indeed it is such kenotic love that holds the Trinity together, each person giving and emptying itself for the sake of the other.  In this relationship the identity of each person is inextricably linked to each of the other persons and through that bond each person sees the other as part of the Other and in the process sees itself as (an)other.³

In Moltmann’s larger theology this has deep political and social implications.  If the divine hierarchy is deconstructed then the human hierarchy must be too, and a radically new community — an order steeped with kenotic love and perichoretic unity that jettisons any form of domination — replaces it.  To be created in the image of God is to be a relational being, a mirror image of members of the the divine community.

You probably already see where this is going.  My question is what might happen if we not only took Moltmann’s social doctrine of the Trinity seriously but let it infiltrate our eccelsiology as well. What would happen if our ecclesial structures and our relationships with one another in the community we call the church were guided not by hierarchy and power but self-emptying, kenotic love and perchoretic egalitarianism?  What if we reversed the polarities of the order of power in the church and not only upheld our responsibility to the other but saw ourselves as (an)other too and deeply dependent upon the embodied connection between our subjectivity and the other’s subjectivity?  Is that not what Moltmann was getting at in his book title — “The Trinity and the Kingdom” — where the church doesn’t mirror the power structures and regimes of domination that rule this world but the very community of God in which persons are persons only in self-emptying relationship with other persons?  Is it just me or is it hard, if not impossible, to do that when the church is beholden to uneven power dynamics?

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• The relational Image of God: embracing the other (blakehuggins.com)

1. His argument in The Crucified God apropos to God’s suffering is a very close second, but I’m not sure Moltmann goes far enough.  The suffering, abandoned God in Christ on the Cross would be much more salient and radical if Moltmann let go of omnipotence, but he wants to hold on to it.  I think we have to let go of that idea.  Not to mention the residual theodicy issues that are still very much at work under the surface.  I may take this up later at some point. [↩]
2. This is really is nothing new.  Eastern Orthodoxy has always held this view and it dates back to at least the Cappadocian Fathers.  I think it is fair to say, though, that Moltmann certainly popularized it, especially in the Western tradition, and extrapolated its political and social effects a bit further. [↩]
3. Ok, Moltmann doesn’t exactly use this sort of postmodern accent, but I can’t help it.  I hear when I read him — especially on the Trinity. [↩]

I think the best way for me to reflect on the Moltmann Conversation will be in a series of posts on a few key thoughts that were brought up over the course of the conference and have stuck with me.  Before going I figured I would just post my notes but I can’t do that because, well, I don’t really have any “normal” notes.  I wasn’t really able to take notes like I normally do because the conference was, more or less, a sound byte conference, which would be interesting to talk about in itself.  Free wifi was provided so just about everyone was either tweeting or liveblogging.  A screen was up behind the stage displaying some of the #moltmann tweets.  Then there wast the twub.  So the whole time I was trying to listen to the questions, listen to Moltmann’s answers (many of which were gems and very tweet-able), watch the Twub, watch the screen and tweet.  So in a sense my tweets ended up being my notes.  Weird, I know.  But that’s how it worked out.

During the first session Moltmann spoke to his own life experience (something he develops on a large scale in his autobiography, a book you should really read if you get a chance) and I was immediately struck by the notion of theology as biography.  His personal experiences as a POW and instances of deep tragedy and suffering led him to questions similar to those of Christ on cross:  where is God in the face of death and suffering?  In many ways, these experiences send Moltmann on theological trajectories that determine the bulk of his life’s work.  A Theology of Hope and The Crucified God are two of the most prominent examples.  The former views the whole of theology from an eschatological perpsective in which the church looks with hope to the future while standing firmly in the confidence of the resurrection and eagerly anticipating the incoming of God’s promise of a new heaven and a new earth; the latter is, of course, the other side of this hope: the cross of Christ through which God enters into the suffering of the world and identifies with the victim not as the stoic deity of Greek philosophy who is disaffected by the cries of the oppressed, but the God of the Hebrew scriptures, the God of pathos who is capable of deep suffering and likewise capable of deep love.  It is in this way that Moltmann re-frames the theodicy question, not as something to be answered — because as he stated at the conference “no answer will satisfy us” — but something to be wrestled with; indeed as something to be wrestled with together with God.¹

The theological particulars of each of these are interesting in their own right, but for me, after hearing Moltmann tell his story, the fact that both emerged from his personal experiences and his desire to develop a theology “after Auschwitz” cannot be overstated.  His is a perfect example of theology as biography and biography as the working out of theology.  Of course this happens both individually and collectively.  In that vein I appreciated Tripp Fuller (who I was finally able to meet in person!) raising the question in the panel of how 9/11 has effected the biography of younger (and even older) Americans in the same way WWII did for Moltmann’s.  At this point I think it may be too early to tell exactly how theology in the 21st century will take shape in the aftermath of that event.  But I think Moltmann provides us with a good model. I think we will be and are presently asking some of the same questions he did in response to suffering and tragedy.  And I think the way in which he poses those questions and attempts to re-frame them may be helpful too.

But the larger point for me is still theology as biography and biography as the incarnational outworking of theology.  And the more I think about the more I realize that is always our “background music” whether we realize it or not.  Perhaps our becoming conscious of it will make us better theologians.

1. Here I will resist the temptation to put Moltmann in conversation with John Caputo’s “weak God.” [↩]

I’ll be honest, I was a little disappointed with the book.  That’s not to say it is not without merit, it does several things very well and I’ll get to those in a minute.  But as an avowed Howard Zinn fan I thought the book failed to deliver.  That’s probably the fault of my own expectation combined with the way the book was marketed; however,  Diana Butler Bass points out in the introduction that she hopes to do with Christian history what Zinn did with American history.  Given the size of the book she all but sets herself up for failure.  Again, that is not to say the book itself is not noteworthy.  I just think it might be better served with the Zinn comparisons and with a different title.

But what it is about anyway?

For DBB there are basically two kinds of Christianity:  there is “Big-C Christianity,” which is the story we are all familiar with.  It’s trajectory runs thus: Christ, Constantine, Christendom, Calvin, Christian America.  If you’ve ever taken a church history class, odds are that is the way the story has run.  It’s a story of power, militant coercion and victory.  Counter to that is another type of Christianity, what DBB calls “generative Christianity” or “Great Command Christianity.”  This version of the story is one that is always guided by Jesus’s axiom of loving God and neighbor — contrary to the other story, this is the true essence of Christianity.   While the Big-C story may be dominant and pervasive in church history textbooks, DBB makes the convincing case that the story of generative Christianity has always been around carrying forward the true Christian legacy.  Her intention in the book is to tell that version of the story and eschew the Big-C story. Read the rest of this entry »

Tony Jones hits the nail on the head in this video.

If you follow his blog then you’re aware that Tony has been blogging about homosexuality lately and called for an open and honest discussion without reference to the six clobber verses that are all too often taken out of context.

The problem, of course, isn’t that Tony wants to abandon scripture and rigorous exegesis as he and others are accused of suggesting. The problem is that too many of us are limiting our hermeneutic to a handful of verses, the immediate context of which is either replete with other off the wall stipulations that we have long since abandoned, as in the Hebrew bible, or uses vocabulary which is ambiguous at best and more than likely refers to sexual behavior that is hardly analogous to those in long-term monogamous homosexual relationships in today’s context, as in the case of Paul’s letters. The problem is that we are guilty of a dangerous selective literalism that not only creates a highly myopic and repressive ‘canon-within-the-canon,’ (we are all guilty of our varying emphases) but that it blatantly ignores, as Tony points out, the overall trajectory of scripture — a trajectory of liberation, redemption, and restoration in which God’s interaction within humankind and all of creation is steeped with grace tempered with justice.

There is a meaningful, constructive debate to be had here. But until we find a way to mend this gap it seems that communication is at a standstill. We’ll just keep going around in circles rehashing the same old points and probably yelling louder and getting more emotional in the process. Most of the comments on Tony’s blog are a case point.

So, as far as I can tell (and I’ve read most of the comments) Tony’s question is still an open and unanswered one:

If you are one who thinks that homosexual sex is sinful, can you please explain to me WHY a gay or lesbian person who is in a long-term, monogamous relationship would not be able to wholeheartedly follow Christ?

My only stipulation is this: You may not quote one of the six verses in scripture that mentions homosexuality. Instead, you must use theological and/or philosophical arguments to attempt to convince me that when you have genital contact with someone of your own gender, it somehow inhibits your relationship with Christ.

While I was away last week I received a copy of Diana Butler Bass’s new book, A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story. I about a third of the way of the way through it now and I’m enjoying it so far. This is my first Butler Bass book and without going into a lot of detail (I’m hoping to write several posts pertaining to the content) I’ll just say that I really like that fact that this book is written for a popular audience. Unfortunately, many church history books just aren’t written at that level and probably aren’t enticing to anyone outside the academy. So I applaud that. I’m also really interested in the idea of writing a church history in the style of Howard Zinn (one of my favorite historians and activists), which is what she aims to do given the title.

About her Zinnian method Butler Bass writes:

Eschewing historical orthodoxy, [Zinn] confessed, “I had no illusions about ‘objectivity,’ if that meant avoiding a point of view. I knew that a historian was forced to choose, out of an infinite number of facts, what to present, what to omit.” This book has much the same purpose from a Christian point of view. [...] Like Zinn, I sidestep issues of orthodoxy and instead focus on moments when Christian people really acted like Christians, when they took seriously the call of Jesus to love God and love their neighbors as themselves. (page 14)

I like it. Because all history, like all reading, is always an interpretation. There is no objective, neutral, unbiased or untainted account of “the way things really were.” There just isn’t. Too many histories are written in such a way. I’m glad that Butler Bass admits that up front and I’m excited that she is attempting to tell a side of the story that jettisons the hegemony of historical “orthodoxy” and opts for the story of those on the underbelly of power.

Over the next week or so I will post more of my thoughts on the book. In the meantime, below is a video interview with Diana and Spencer Burke from TheOoze.tv.

The first Emerget Outliers meeting happened yesterday evening.  We met for around two hours and discussed everything from Caputo, Derrida, and deconstruction to secularization, evangelism, and the sinner’s prayer.  It was great.  The group is wonderful and I’m looking forward to more meetings in the future.

We plan to meet again in two weeks.  Updates will be posted regular on the main site and we hope to utilize the forum as a means to set up the next group conversation.  Hope you will join us.

Jeremy Bouma liveblogged the Poets, Prophets, and Preachers conference that took place in Grand Rapids over the last several days.

I was reading over his coverage of Tuesday’s events was immediately struck by this line from the Pete Rollins session (I don’t know if he is paraphrasing or if it is a direct quote):

The question is not is Christianity true, but what does it mean when it claims to be true.

The traditional assumption, of course, is that Christianity claims to be true in the same way that biology might claim to be true (at least that is what seems to have been discussed at the conference).  This is part of my beef with calling theology a “science.” It reduces meaning to the realm of empiricism and rationalism.  Theology is reduced to a fleeting pursuit of objectivity, which often claims to posses The Univocal Understanding of how the world works.  But what if it’s not so much about the world itself and how it works but rather how one should be in the world and how the community should embody an alternative to the world’s dominant narrative (of violence, domination, etc)?

That’s one way of approaching it.  But of course it’s not the only one.

However we might choose to answer it, I think framing the question in this way gets us a little closer to where we need to be.

How might you answer that question?  What does Christianity, or any religion for that matter, mean when it claims to be true?