(Ir)religiosity

I’m planning to spend a good chunk of the summer researching the critique advanced by both Fredric Jameson and David Harvey of whether postmodernism, in the final instance, simply serves as the “cultural logic” of late capitalism.  In other words, is the preservation of difference and the celebration of alterity implicitly acquiescent to the ambivalent force of the global market?

Hardt and Negri, in Empire, put it this way:

We suspect that postmodernist and postcolonialist theories may end up in a dead end because they fail to recognize adequately the contemporary object of critique, that is, they mistake today’s real enemy. What if the modern form of power these critics (and we ourselves) have taken such pains to describe and contest no longer holds sway in our society? What if these theorists are so intent on combating the remnants of a past form of domination that they fail to recognize the new form that is looming over them in the present? [...] In this case, modern forms of sovereignty would no longer be at issue, and the postmodernist and postcolonialist strategies that appear to be liberatory would not challenge but in fact coincide with and even unwittingly reinforce the new strategies of rule! When we begin to consider the ideologies of corporate capital and the world market, it certainly appears that the postmodernist and postcolonialist theorists who advocate a politics of difference, fluidity, and hybridity in order to challenge the binaries and essentialism of modern sovereignty have been outflanked by the strategies of power. Power has evacuated the bastion they are attacking and has circled around to their rear to join them in the assault in the name of difference. These theorists thus find themselves pushing against an open door. (137-38)

And again, even more boldly:

The affirmation of hybridities and the free play of differences across boundaries, however, is liberatory only in a context where power poses hierarchy exclusively though essential identities, binary divisions, and stable oppositions. The structures and logics of power in the contemporary world are entirely immune to the ‘‘liberatory’’ weapons of the postmodernist politics of difference. In fact, Empire too is bent on doing away with those modern forms of sovereignty and on setting differences to play across boundaries. Despite the best intentions, then, the postmodernist politics of difference not only is ineffective against but can even coincide with and support the functions and practices of imperial rule. The danger is that postmodernist theories focus their attention so resolutely on the old forms of power they are running from, with their heads turned backwards, that they tumble unwittingly into the welcoming  arms of the new power. From this perspective the celebratory affirmations of postmodernists can easily appear naive, when not purely mystificatory. (142-43)

I think this critique, perhaps more than others, deserves to be taken seriously.  However, I am reticent to agree with Hardt and Negri (and their forebears, Jameson and Harvey) that returning to some form of (neo/post)marxism is the best answer.  I hear their worry about new forms of domination and sovereignty but I think they ultimately concede to the same type of essentialism they claim to be beyond in arguing that our situation of (postmodern) Empire is wholly pure — history, as they say, never comes with clean edges.  In other words, I do not believe that postmodern and postcolonial discourses are dead in their tracks.  These binaries and “old” versions of domination are still at work as technologies of production, it seems to me, even within more invisible forms of imperialism.

The question I have — which has led me to pursue the research — is whether there are any substantial responses to this criticism in defense of postmodern/postcolonial discourses.

Anyone know?

I’m beginning preliminary research for an upcoming project exploring a poststructuralist pneumatology. Surprisingly, I have not found much out there dealing with the two. I’m hoping that someone might know of few articles or books dealing with that nexus.

I’d be especially keen on works that deal with the Spirit and Derrida’s notion of différance. Thanks in advance.

I recieved some more Transforming Theology material the other day.  Three pamphlets:  two on the bible and one on process theology by John Cobb, entitled “Process Theology:  An Introductory Introduction,” which, because of the subtitle, immediately caught my eye.

As I understand it, the aim of  Transforming Theology project is bring the church and the academy back into dialogue with one another in order to participate in individual and collective transformation.  If that is true, then this process theology booklet makes a good contribution.

It is very short.  A mere 30 pages containing the manuscript of a lecture Dr. Cobb gave at Claremont School of Theology back in 2004.  The subtitle is spot on; it is about as introductory as introductory can be, but that is its strength.  Because of its philosophical nature (Whitehead, Hartshorne, etc.), process theology is often dismiss by many non-academicians who lack such a background.  However, process thought is in a unique position to provide a lasting contribution to practical theology in my opinion because of its answer to theodicy and its suggestions as to the nature of God.

Because process theology’s answer to both those questions (why evil? and who is God?) tends to diverge from the traditional views many Christians hold (at least in my experience) an account of process theology that relies on scripture more than philosophy is needed in order to adequately bring it into dialogue with the average person in the pew.

Cobb does exactly that in this short essay.  I found it to be surprisingly accessible and I almost wished it were longer.  That may be another strength.  It just enough to whet the appetite of one who has no prior exposure to process theology or a background in philosophy.  Just enough to spark a conversation.

The pamphlets are published by the Center for Process Studies.  I think they would make excellent brochecure box stuffers!

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Dr. Philip Clayton thinks we have:

“It’s not that hard. If you go [to scripture] with new eyes, it’s a living and vibrant text about a living and vibrant God. [...] We have fallen into the heresy of orthodoxy.”

His larger point is of course that we have allowed our tacit theological assumptions determine how we approach the text and how we think about God. I don’t think we can ever completely free ourselves from our interpretive biases, try as we might. But we can free ourselves from the old, tired theologies of the past (which were really important and revolutionary in their time) and allow the text to marinate in our culture and our context. Then we can better understand what it might mean to be Christian here and now.

I think he may be on to something.

Thoughts?

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So I’m participating in the new Transforming Theology Project as member of the blogger consortium.  Dr. Philip Clayton explains what the project is all about in a short video here.  Next month, theologians and church leaders will be meeting to discuss how theology can be transformed, or better yet,  freed, from the ivory towers of the academy and placed back in the trenches of the church where it belongs.

Part of the project, since it is aimed at tranforming theology for the people, is to involve bloggers, who will read and critically engage books from various theologians and church leaders, hopefully coming up with some pressing questions that will stimulate the larger conversation.

First up is John Cobb‘s Reclaiming the Church sent to me last week by Tripp Fuller, of Homebrewed Christianity fame.

The book itself is really short, only 110 pages.  I almost wish it were longer.  I say that because Cobb spends a lot of time diagnosing the problem, which is good and he does so well.  But I think want is really needed are tangible, practical ways in which this gap between the academy and the church can be bridged.    We need people to cast a vision and offer a plan of action.

Part of this may have to do with when the book was published — it is now 12 years old.  Not that old, but when you consider what has taken place in the church over that period time it makes sense.  Let me explain.

As Cobb sees it, the problem in part — though he nuances it a bit more — rests on what he calls the “professionalization of theology.”  He argues that just over the last 50 years or so theology has been moved outside of the church and isolated in the university.  He states in the preface:

The church has come to identify theology with what professionals do. Since what professionals do has been increasingly determined by the norms of the university rather than by the needs of the church, the church has lost interest in what it understands to be “theology.” Too often the result has been that the church has ceased to think about its own life in terms of its faith, a faith that has itself become vague and unconvincing.

The abandonment and failure to have a more holistic faith with an informed and critically thought out theology has lead to two things in Cobb’s estimation:  a loss of passion and subsequent lukewarmness.  The church has simply ceased to be relevant because it has ceased to engage its culture, its context and its world by continually developing and re-developing a practical theology.

Cobb argues that this “professionalization” was brought on by Enlightenment rationalism and modernity in general.  The American church borrowed theological method and pedagogy from the German school and as theology became professionalized it also became a detached, scientific enterprise that offered little, if anything, to the church itself.  Disciplines themselves were fractured as theology was needless parsed into various sub-categories: ethics, systematic theology, church history and so on.

In the meantime the cultural and philosophical ground upon which the church stood literally shifted underneath its feet.  Cobb ends the book suggesting that if theology is to be reclaimed by the church, both the church and the academy as instiutions must appropriately accommodate and respond to the new emerging, postmodern worldview.  He argues that the shift from modernity to postmodernity opens up new possibilities for a transformative theology.

I would argue that much of what Emergent has done in the last ten or so years has greatly helped in making sense of the cultural and philosophical shifts that are occurring.  Many emergent/ing churches are now taking theological education very seriously and many pastors are in conversation with academicians and vice versa.  For some, the differences between the tradition roles of each office are becoming less clear. I wonder how Cobb might write the book differently today in light of that.

To be sure, I am not suggesting that any of this is enough.  Our seminaries and schools of theology are still very much entrenched in a very modern, Enlightenment-based pedagogy.  From that we need to be freed.  Furthermore, many churches still frown upon “theology” as a collective, ecclesial enterprise.  Many pastors and lay persons still don’t consider themselves theologians because there is a certain stigma surrounding the term.  This has to change.

We need some serious, creative pastors and academicians who are willing to step up and dialogue with one another about theological education.  Somewhere between the lectern in the classroom and the pulpit in the church theology is getting lost.  We need to find out where.  In the meantime professors need to understand that it’s okay to be pastoral and pastors that it’s not snobbish to be intellectual.  More people need to challenge those traditional roles.

I think the implications of such a conversation might suggest that we need to both rethink our pedagogy in the academy and our preaching/worship in the church.  I have to wonder if both institutions are willing not only to hear that but also modify their approaches in order to allow actual, tangible transformation of theology to take place.

I have hope, but bulky institutions don’t usually take to those things easily.  We shall see.

Thoughts?