10.31.2004
A Theory of Everything
From Ken Wilber's A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality
From his chapter on "Boomeritis" he discusses Growth Hierarchies versus Dominator Hierarchies...
Pluralism, egalitarianism, and multiculturalism, at their best, all stem from a very high developmental stance - the green meme (pluralistic worldview) - and from the stance of pluralistic fairness and concern, the green meme attempts to treat all other memes with equal care and compassion, a truly noble intent. But because it embraces an intense egalitarianism it fails to see that its own stance - which is the first stance that is even capable of egalitarianism - is a fairly rare, elite stance (somewhat around 10 percent of the world's population, as we saw). Worse, the green meme then aggressively denies the stages that produced the green meme in the first place, because it wishes to view all memes equally and not make any ranking judgments. But green egalitarianism is the product, we have seen, of at least six major stages of development, stages that it then turns around and aggressively denies in the name of egalitarianism!
…An aggressive antihierarchy stance is usually an unmistakable hallmark of the green meme.
But with the emergence of second tier, hierarchies again return, this time in a softer, nested fashion. These nested hierarchies are often called growth hierarchies, such as the hierarchy atoms to molecules to cells to organisms to ecosystems to biosphere to universe. Each of those units, no matter how “lowly,” is absolutely crucial for the entire sequence: destroy all atoms and you simultaneously destroy all molecules, cells, ecosystems and so on. At the same time, each senior wave enfolds or envelops its predecessors…And thus each wave becomes more inclusive, more embracing, more integral – and less marginalizing, less exclusionary, less oppressive. (Each successive wave “transcends and includes” – transcends its own narrowness to include others.)
…Thus, if we react negatively to all hierarchies, not only will we honorably fight the injustices of dominator hierarchies, we will very probably prevent ourselves from developing to the integral second tier.
…(The same thing happens with both “universals” and “metanarratives.” They are absent in the preconventional waves; exist in rigid and oppressive ways at blue; are attacked and deconstructed at green; then return in a softer, nested fashion at all second-tier integral waves. Whenever you hear an attack on metanarratives and universals, you are almost always in the presence of a green meme.)
and here’s my take, fwiw.
Without going into a big long explanation of his organizing framework, suffice to say that Wilber paints a nice picture of post-pomo that makes a lot of good sense. Instead of saying, “We’ve outgrown modernism” pomoxianity should say, “we’ve absorbed modernism, and we’ve also absorbed pomo and we’ve integrated them.” Both/and really does mean both/and to Wilber and, imo, to us.
It isn’t about reinventing the church or replacing an old model with a new one. It is about putting another ring of growth on the outside of the tree, embracing and encircling the trunk and the heart, without which our very existence wouldn’t be possible. Does new bark fault old bark for wearing out on a tree? Not that I know of. So why should those of us coming to the surface feel the need to remonstrate against the wood upon which we are built? Sort of biting the hand that feeds us.
I see the pomo-mo conflict one of unnecessary tension. And we can’t blame it all on the mo’s for not getting it. If we really got it, then we would know where they’re coming from, who they are, what they need and how to minister to them effectively. Let’s drop the us/them, stop complaining about how “they” do church, keep what works, leave what doesn’t behind, build a bridge and get over it.
From his chapter on "Boomeritis" he discusses Growth Hierarchies versus Dominator Hierarchies...
Pluralism, egalitarianism, and multiculturalism, at their best, all stem from a very high developmental stance - the green meme (pluralistic worldview) - and from the stance of pluralistic fairness and concern, the green meme attempts to treat all other memes with equal care and compassion, a truly noble intent. But because it embraces an intense egalitarianism it fails to see that its own stance - which is the first stance that is even capable of egalitarianism - is a fairly rare, elite stance (somewhat around 10 percent of the world's population, as we saw). Worse, the green meme then aggressively denies the stages that produced the green meme in the first place, because it wishes to view all memes equally and not make any ranking judgments. But green egalitarianism is the product, we have seen, of at least six major stages of development, stages that it then turns around and aggressively denies in the name of egalitarianism!
…An aggressive antihierarchy stance is usually an unmistakable hallmark of the green meme.
But with the emergence of second tier, hierarchies again return, this time in a softer, nested fashion. These nested hierarchies are often called growth hierarchies, such as the hierarchy atoms to molecules to cells to organisms to ecosystems to biosphere to universe. Each of those units, no matter how “lowly,” is absolutely crucial for the entire sequence: destroy all atoms and you simultaneously destroy all molecules, cells, ecosystems and so on. At the same time, each senior wave enfolds or envelops its predecessors…And thus each wave becomes more inclusive, more embracing, more integral – and less marginalizing, less exclusionary, less oppressive. (Each successive wave “transcends and includes” – transcends its own narrowness to include others.)
…Thus, if we react negatively to all hierarchies, not only will we honorably fight the injustices of dominator hierarchies, we will very probably prevent ourselves from developing to the integral second tier.
…(The same thing happens with both “universals” and “metanarratives.” They are absent in the preconventional waves; exist in rigid and oppressive ways at blue; are attacked and deconstructed at green; then return in a softer, nested fashion at all second-tier integral waves. Whenever you hear an attack on metanarratives and universals, you are almost always in the presence of a green meme.)
and here’s my take, fwiw.
Without going into a big long explanation of his organizing framework, suffice to say that Wilber paints a nice picture of post-pomo that makes a lot of good sense. Instead of saying, “We’ve outgrown modernism” pomoxianity should say, “we’ve absorbed modernism, and we’ve also absorbed pomo and we’ve integrated them.” Both/and really does mean both/and to Wilber and, imo, to us.
It isn’t about reinventing the church or replacing an old model with a new one. It is about putting another ring of growth on the outside of the tree, embracing and encircling the trunk and the heart, without which our very existence wouldn’t be possible. Does new bark fault old bark for wearing out on a tree? Not that I know of. So why should those of us coming to the surface feel the need to remonstrate against the wood upon which we are built? Sort of biting the hand that feeds us.
I see the pomo-mo conflict one of unnecessary tension. And we can’t blame it all on the mo’s for not getting it. If we really got it, then we would know where they’re coming from, who they are, what they need and how to minister to them effectively. Let’s drop the us/them, stop complaining about how “they” do church, keep what works, leave what doesn’t behind, build a bridge and get over it.
10.30.2004
Life of Pi
I've been readin Yann Martel's book and had the following thoughts which I posted to the Postliberal Theology group.
In the first part of the book we have an almost prosaic biography of Piscene Molitor Patel who names himself Pi Patel while in school to keep from being called “Pissing Patel” by his fellow school boys. The fact that pi is an irrational number (by mathematical definition) is prescient with regard to the young Indian boy. It doesn’t’ mean is his non-rational but that he defies limits. I could wax poetic on this concept for a while but for the sake of brevity (as if I’ve ever been guilty of THAT) we’ll move on. He tells us how he was raised Hindu by agnostic parents who run a zoo, converts to Christianity and Islam over time and sees no contradiction in holding all three faiths simultaneously. Once again, irrational in the sense that he is unbounded, not unreasonable.
In the second part of the book he ends up a castaway on a lifeboat and tells a story that is amazing and heroic and while one listens to it (I had the book on CD so I got to hear the Indian accent in the telling of the story. I would recommend books on CD for many tales that are better told in the oral tradition than in print but that’s just me.) sounds very plausible in spite of pushing the boundaries of credibility. This is an agonizing tale of harrowing survival among the most awful of settings – a life boat floating in the midst of the pacific ocean in the company of a Bengal tiger.
In the third part of the book the shipping company sends two representatives to get Pi’s testimony as part of the investigation on why the ship went down. He tells them the story related above. However, they refuse to accept it because it sounds so incredible. They can’t believe that a teen-age boy can survive that long in the company of a Bengal tiger with no other help. He tries vainly to convince them of the story but they remain skeptical. So he tells them alternate story that to their thinking is more plausible and easier to understand but is actually more horrifying in its implications. This they seem to accept with mixed portions of equanimity and disgust.
Pi engages them in a discussion at this point that for the purposes of ascertaining the cause of the ship sinking, what difference did it make which story they were going to believe, the first or the last. They admitted that the stories had no bearing on their investigation. Then Pi asked them why they believed one and not the other since it made no difference in their final disposition or outcome? Why choose to believe one story over another since the both account for all the facts, to the degree that they could, and both were unprovable by the available evidence? Yet choose they did. The next challenge is to ask which story is more satisfying to the heart and they admitted that the first story is more satisfying. So why not choose that one in the absence of evidence to the contrary, Pi wonders. In fact, why choose at all? Why can’t, in a Schrödinger reality, both be true simultaneously and without contradiction? Like two melodies superimposed upon each other, each individually distinguishable but each contributing to the piece so that the whole is greater than the easily discernible sum of its parts.
OK, there’s the dots. Would anyone like to connect them?
This to me is so rich that I am just in awe of its implications. I’m not about to jump to the universalist conclusion that all religions are valued and the only thing that matters is the story we choose or even that we choose to hold multiple, seemingly contradictory stories simultaneously. But since I just read Brian McLaren’s chapter on the seven Jesuses that he has met along his journey, it seemed to resonate between the two. Moderns draw dichotomies, Post-pomos look for integration. (There are two kinds of people in the world – those who put everything into two categories and those who don’t.) This book provides a launching point for discussions on a variety of topics.
1. Why do people, with no real evidence for making their decision, choose to dis-believe in Jesus? (Or six day creation, or miracles, or….etc.)
2. Why do people choose a story that is more plausible (to their way of thinking) but in its implications is more horrible than the one they reject?
3. What is the virtue in refusing to believe the “nicer” story and accepting the more horrible one? What is gained? Who is helped?
This is so closely related to the tree of knowledge of good and evil temptation I’m nearly overwhelmed by its power. Skepticism, incredulity, agnosticism, dis-belief all offer the promise of Knowledge but at what cost? The loss of innocence, purity, openness, and yes, love and communion with God. Have any of you read the stories of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson. These are some of the most powerful books in existence about the dangerous effects to the heart and mind of living the life of a dis-believer and enjoying the selfish rapture of being one’s own answer to all the great questions of the universe.
I took the kids to see Spiderman 2 at the cheapie theater last night and was astounded to see this played out on the big screen in a parable about the Christian life. I told the kids I found this Spiderman movie to be too sappy but that is because it does more preaching than comic book action. Peter Parker finds his life complicated in unfortunate ways because he is Spiderman so he quits and goes into being just Peter Parker. He enjoys some short-term ease to his problems but finds his conscience too harsh a task master to live with. In other words, the idyllic life he hoped for was easier in some ways but tougher in others – and for him the ways that mattered the most. So he goes back to being Spiderman at great personal cost, only to find that the price is easier to pay this time because now he realizes he has a choice among alternatives and he is making it with his eyes open. Just like the Christian life which is really no easier than the non-Christian one, and in some ways is tougher, but is ultimately more satisfying in part because we have made the choice rather than having it thrust upon us. This life comes at great cost but one we are willing to pay because the benefits in this life outstrip the pain and make it worth it.
In the first part of the book we have an almost prosaic biography of Piscene Molitor Patel who names himself Pi Patel while in school to keep from being called “Pissing Patel” by his fellow school boys. The fact that pi is an irrational number (by mathematical definition) is prescient with regard to the young Indian boy. It doesn’t’ mean is his non-rational but that he defies limits. I could wax poetic on this concept for a while but for the sake of brevity (as if I’ve ever been guilty of THAT) we’ll move on. He tells us how he was raised Hindu by agnostic parents who run a zoo, converts to Christianity and Islam over time and sees no contradiction in holding all three faiths simultaneously. Once again, irrational in the sense that he is unbounded, not unreasonable.
In the second part of the book he ends up a castaway on a lifeboat and tells a story that is amazing and heroic and while one listens to it (I had the book on CD so I got to hear the Indian accent in the telling of the story. I would recommend books on CD for many tales that are better told in the oral tradition than in print but that’s just me.) sounds very plausible in spite of pushing the boundaries of credibility. This is an agonizing tale of harrowing survival among the most awful of settings – a life boat floating in the midst of the pacific ocean in the company of a Bengal tiger.
In the third part of the book the shipping company sends two representatives to get Pi’s testimony as part of the investigation on why the ship went down. He tells them the story related above. However, they refuse to accept it because it sounds so incredible. They can’t believe that a teen-age boy can survive that long in the company of a Bengal tiger with no other help. He tries vainly to convince them of the story but they remain skeptical. So he tells them alternate story that to their thinking is more plausible and easier to understand but is actually more horrifying in its implications. This they seem to accept with mixed portions of equanimity and disgust.
Pi engages them in a discussion at this point that for the purposes of ascertaining the cause of the ship sinking, what difference did it make which story they were going to believe, the first or the last. They admitted that the stories had no bearing on their investigation. Then Pi asked them why they believed one and not the other since it made no difference in their final disposition or outcome? Why choose to believe one story over another since the both account for all the facts, to the degree that they could, and both were unprovable by the available evidence? Yet choose they did. The next challenge is to ask which story is more satisfying to the heart and they admitted that the first story is more satisfying. So why not choose that one in the absence of evidence to the contrary, Pi wonders. In fact, why choose at all? Why can’t, in a Schrödinger reality, both be true simultaneously and without contradiction? Like two melodies superimposed upon each other, each individually distinguishable but each contributing to the piece so that the whole is greater than the easily discernible sum of its parts.
OK, there’s the dots. Would anyone like to connect them?
This to me is so rich that I am just in awe of its implications. I’m not about to jump to the universalist conclusion that all religions are valued and the only thing that matters is the story we choose or even that we choose to hold multiple, seemingly contradictory stories simultaneously. But since I just read Brian McLaren’s chapter on the seven Jesuses that he has met along his journey, it seemed to resonate between the two. Moderns draw dichotomies, Post-pomos look for integration. (There are two kinds of people in the world – those who put everything into two categories and those who don’t.) This book provides a launching point for discussions on a variety of topics.
1. Why do people, with no real evidence for making their decision, choose to dis-believe in Jesus? (Or six day creation, or miracles, or….etc.)
2. Why do people choose a story that is more plausible (to their way of thinking) but in its implications is more horrible than the one they reject?
3. What is the virtue in refusing to believe the “nicer” story and accepting the more horrible one? What is gained? Who is helped?
This is so closely related to the tree of knowledge of good and evil temptation I’m nearly overwhelmed by its power. Skepticism, incredulity, agnosticism, dis-belief all offer the promise of Knowledge but at what cost? The loss of innocence, purity, openness, and yes, love and communion with God. Have any of you read the stories of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson. These are some of the most powerful books in existence about the dangerous effects to the heart and mind of living the life of a dis-believer and enjoying the selfish rapture of being one’s own answer to all the great questions of the universe.
I took the kids to see Spiderman 2 at the cheapie theater last night and was astounded to see this played out on the big screen in a parable about the Christian life. I told the kids I found this Spiderman movie to be too sappy but that is because it does more preaching than comic book action. Peter Parker finds his life complicated in unfortunate ways because he is Spiderman so he quits and goes into being just Peter Parker. He enjoys some short-term ease to his problems but finds his conscience too harsh a task master to live with. In other words, the idyllic life he hoped for was easier in some ways but tougher in others – and for him the ways that mattered the most. So he goes back to being Spiderman at great personal cost, only to find that the price is easier to pay this time because now he realizes he has a choice among alternatives and he is making it with his eyes open. Just like the Christian life which is really no easier than the non-Christian one, and in some ways is tougher, but is ultimately more satisfying in part because we have made the choice rather than having it thrust upon us. This life comes at great cost but one we are willing to pay because the benefits in this life outstrip the pain and make it worth it.
10.28.2004
A Pomo Conversation
Don said:
Thank you for that clarification. One of the reasons why I joined this list is because I am curious about what a Christian post-modernist looks like. My understanding of post-modernism seems incompatible with the Christian world-view. So, I thought it would be interesting to see how
those ideas are hammered out.
rp: It's interesting that you would say this. I find it very curious that Moderns say the same kinds of things as your "seems incompatible with the Christian world-view." This is such a presupposition-loaded statement that we need to look at them.
First: Because you are swimming in the water of Modernism you are presupposing that it is compatible with the Christian worldview. I believe a healthy exercise would be to look at the parameters of the Modern paradigm. Most Christian apologists never think to examine the underpinnings of the Modern thought-system and the presuppositions under which it operates. I would recommend that you compare modern, pre-modern and post-modern thought systems to get a good grasp of this.
Second: The notion that there is a clearly delineated postmodern system is premature at this point. We've beaten this dead horse thoroughly into submission.
Third: You used the term "Christian world-view" as if there was such a thing. Or just one. This is a common error of evangelicals. If you read any Barna research you see this approach all the time. He takes it as a given that Christian Worldview = Evangelical Worldview along with his cronies like James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, Chuck Colson, Cal Thomas et al. I think we should recognize at least two distinct Christian worldviews - Catholic and Protestant. These can be subdivided into the various Catholic systems (Eastern, Roman, Anglican) and Protestant systems (Reformed, Evangelical, Mainstream, etc.). As a quickie example, I would guess that a UMC worldview is going to be a different beast than a Church of Christ worldview.
Do you get the impression that there are no such things as "simple statements" Don? I don't mean this to shoot down your assertion but I do it to point out how loaded some of our seemingly innocuous comments are. And, as you know me from other lists, I'm all about asking lots of questions that everyone assumes are already answered or fail to even think are questions.
DE:
Most of my exposure to post-modernism comes from the field of literary criticism i.e. deconstruction, reader response, etc; where the authorial intent of a text becomes immaterial. IMHO, if we relinquish our quest for the authorial intent of scripture, we set ourselves adrift in a sea of irrelevance and head toward the Bizarro World of absurdity - which is precisely were many post-modernists want to end up.
rp:
And here's the real irony of the situation, Don. In actual practice, evangelicals routinely ignore authorial intent when studying scripture. Does anyone ever ask (I mean seriously - not just in a cursory Bible study way) what the authorial intent of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah is? You have two men who are operating in a highly charged political environment with huge personal agendas and a fascinating number and kind of cultural, social and historical cross currents that are barely investigated and so rarely as to almost NEVER be mentioned during "expository" sermons from these books. This is just one example. I could go into thousands of cases where preachers, pastors, Sunday School teachers, professors, etc. routinely ignore, dismiss, minimize or in some other way eliminate the personality of the author from the text. I have seen literary criticism applied to the Bible so seldom as to not even enter the discussion. So there is no danger of relinquishing the quest for authorial intent since I know of almost no evangelical who is embarked on such a quest. In fact, whenever I set out on this path, I get smacked pretty hard because I am told that these are dangerous area that (somehow mysteriously) threaten to undermine a high view of scripture and a belief in verbal inspiration.
I agree with you that some pomos (and this isn't limited to the secular arena - need I say JS?) can become unmoored and set adrift on a sea of trackless relativism. By the same token, my above paragraph highlights the dangers of remaining where we are. Some things need to be deconstructed and this sort of interpretive tyranny is a case in point. I believe many expositors have agendas for their interpretations which center on securing power to themselves as the arbiters of truth and this needs to be exposed. If pomoxianity provides us a means to expose this, then why not use it as a pragmatic tool from our helpful toolbox of methods?
DE:
I assume there are some differences between Christian post-modernism and
mainstream post-modernism. I do not know if the goal is to change
Christianity to fit post-modernism or to change post-modernism to fit
Christianity. I guess the answer will be "both" and "neither." :)
rp:
This is a very good question (even though you phrased it as a declarative statement) Don. Yes, there are differences. And yes we are headed for both/and/neither but you have to understand where this list (as opposed to some other pomo lists) is coming from.
Let me paint a landscape for you, Don. People our age are straddling a shift that defies description. C. S. Lewis gave a talk called "The Great Divide" which is available for purchase from Bowling Green State U. and I would highly recommend it which covers this shift. Francis Schaeffer discussed the shift as well in his works. We represent the brightly colored sunset gradually fading in the distance. The Moderns were the sun. We are the afterglow. The kids following us functioning with the assumption that the sky is illuminated by the moon and stars, not the sunshine of rationalism. I think it is Robert Webber who describes these differences between those of us who straddle and those who are already pomo as immigrants and natives. The hills and valleys, rocks and trees aren't changing but the means of illuminating them is changing.
With that shift as a given, Culture Warriors are in a tough spot. Most of the evangelical CWs are going to be on a quixotic quest to save the culture from itself. They will fail. They will also give themselves and many of us by association a bad name as part of their legacy. For example: Generally the Puritan Revolution in the English- and Dutch-speaking world from the 1500's through the 1600's was overall a good thing (long discussion truncated at this point, just accept it, OK, folks) but they have left us with a bitter taste in our mouth and even those of us that are fans of the Puritans/Separatists still consider the terms Puritanical and Puritanism to be epithets of disrepute. They failed to win their culture war just like Dobson, Colson, etc. will fail to with theirs. They gave themselves a shot in the foot and black eyes just like our latter day Puritans. So Fukuyama is right when he says that those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
Which brings us to where we are today. We can stand boldly at the sea shore with arm outstretched and say to the rising tide, "You shall not pass. Here and no further. This is where we draw the line." And we can drown gloriously with the smug satisfaction that we put up a good fight. Or we can climb in our boats and ride out the approaching storm, above the fray, rising higher with each passing wave of cultural transition in the Good Old Gospel Ship which transcends culture and offers salvation to all men of all times in all places.
Don said:
Thank you for that clarification. One of the reasons why I joined this list is because I am curious about what a Christian post-modernist looks like. My understanding of post-modernism seems incompatible with the Christian world-view. So, I thought it would be interesting to see how
those ideas are hammered out.
rp: It's interesting that you would say this. I find it very curious that Moderns say the same kinds of things as your "seems incompatible with the Christian world-view." This is such a presupposition-loaded statement that we need to look at them.
First: Because you are swimming in the water of Modernism you are presupposing that it is compatible with the Christian worldview. I believe a healthy exercise would be to look at the parameters of the Modern paradigm. Most Christian apologists never think to examine the underpinnings of the Modern thought-system and the presuppositions under which it operates. I would recommend that you compare modern, pre-modern and post-modern thought systems to get a good grasp of this.
Second: The notion that there is a clearly delineated postmodern system is premature at this point. We've beaten this dead horse thoroughly into submission.
Third: You used the term "Christian world-view" as if there was such a thing. Or just one. This is a common error of evangelicals. If you read any Barna research you see this approach all the time. He takes it as a given that Christian Worldview = Evangelical Worldview along with his cronies like James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, Chuck Colson, Cal Thomas et al. I think we should recognize at least two distinct Christian worldviews - Catholic and Protestant. These can be subdivided into the various Catholic systems (Eastern, Roman, Anglican) and Protestant systems (Reformed, Evangelical, Mainstream, etc.). As a quickie example, I would guess that a UMC worldview is going to be a different beast than a Church of Christ worldview.
Do you get the impression that there are no such things as "simple statements" Don? I don't mean this to shoot down your assertion but I do it to point out how loaded some of our seemingly innocuous comments are. And, as you know me from other lists, I'm all about asking lots of questions that everyone assumes are already answered or fail to even think are questions.
DE:
Most of my exposure to post-modernism comes from the field of literary criticism i.e. deconstruction, reader response, etc; where the authorial intent of a text becomes immaterial. IMHO, if we relinquish our quest for the authorial intent of scripture, we set ourselves adrift in a sea of irrelevance and head toward the Bizarro World of absurdity - which is precisely were many post-modernists want to end up.
rp:
And here's the real irony of the situation, Don. In actual practice, evangelicals routinely ignore authorial intent when studying scripture. Does anyone ever ask (I mean seriously - not just in a cursory Bible study way) what the authorial intent of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah is? You have two men who are operating in a highly charged political environment with huge personal agendas and a fascinating number and kind of cultural, social and historical cross currents that are barely investigated and so rarely as to almost NEVER be mentioned during "expository" sermons from these books. This is just one example. I could go into thousands of cases where preachers, pastors, Sunday School teachers, professors, etc. routinely ignore, dismiss, minimize or in some other way eliminate the personality of the author from the text. I have seen literary criticism applied to the Bible so seldom as to not even enter the discussion. So there is no danger of relinquishing the quest for authorial intent since I know of almost no evangelical who is embarked on such a quest. In fact, whenever I set out on this path, I get smacked pretty hard because I am told that these are dangerous area that (somehow mysteriously) threaten to undermine a high view of scripture and a belief in verbal inspiration.
I agree with you that some pomos (and this isn't limited to the secular arena - need I say JS?) can become unmoored and set adrift on a sea of trackless relativism. By the same token, my above paragraph highlights the dangers of remaining where we are. Some things need to be deconstructed and this sort of interpretive tyranny is a case in point. I believe many expositors have agendas for their interpretations which center on securing power to themselves as the arbiters of truth and this needs to be exposed. If pomoxianity provides us a means to expose this, then why not use it as a pragmatic tool from our helpful toolbox of methods?
DE:
I assume there are some differences between Christian post-modernism and
mainstream post-modernism. I do not know if the goal is to change
Christianity to fit post-modernism or to change post-modernism to fit
Christianity. I guess the answer will be "both" and "neither." :)
rp:
This is a very good question (even though you phrased it as a declarative statement) Don. Yes, there are differences. And yes we are headed for both/and/neither but you have to understand where this list (as opposed to some other pomo lists) is coming from.
Let me paint a landscape for you, Don. People our age are straddling a shift that defies description. C. S. Lewis gave a talk called "The Great Divide" which is available for purchase from Bowling Green State U. and I would highly recommend it which covers this shift. Francis Schaeffer discussed the shift as well in his works. We represent the brightly colored sunset gradually fading in the distance. The Moderns were the sun. We are the afterglow. The kids following us functioning with the assumption that the sky is illuminated by the moon and stars, not the sunshine of rationalism. I think it is Robert Webber who describes these differences between those of us who straddle and those who are already pomo as immigrants and natives. The hills and valleys, rocks and trees aren't changing but the means of illuminating them is changing.
With that shift as a given, Culture Warriors are in a tough spot. Most of the evangelical CWs are going to be on a quixotic quest to save the culture from itself. They will fail. They will also give themselves and many of us by association a bad name as part of their legacy. For example: Generally the Puritan Revolution in the English- and Dutch-speaking world from the 1500's through the 1600's was overall a good thing (long discussion truncated at this point, just accept it, OK, folks) but they have left us with a bitter taste in our mouth and even those of us that are fans of the Puritans/Separatists still consider the terms Puritanical and Puritanism to be epithets of disrepute. They failed to win their culture war just like Dobson, Colson, etc. will fail to with theirs. They gave themselves a shot in the foot and black eyes just like our latter day Puritans. So Fukuyama is right when he says that those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
Which brings us to where we are today. We can stand boldly at the sea shore with arm outstretched and say to the rising tide, "You shall not pass. Here and no further. This is where we draw the line." And we can drown gloriously with the smug satisfaction that we put up a good fight. Or we can climb in our boats and ride out the approaching storm, above the fray, rising higher with each passing wave of cultural transition in the Good Old Gospel Ship which transcends culture and offers salvation to all men of all times in all places.
10.27.2004
The Life of Pi
I just finished The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. The Amazon.com reviews give an accurate depiction of the ambivalence and apparent disconnect between the first part of the book and the last. However, on reflection, Martel provides the dots and expects us to make the connections.
Without giving away the ending, I found it to be a helpful fable about the nature of Story, Truth and the contextualization of reality. The utter disbelief and incredulousness at his fantastic tale paralleled the approach that many have to the Christ story. There is nothing historically provable about Jesus but the subsequent events of history lend great credence to the claims of the gospel. The fact that we are here is proof of a journey of some sort. And no matter what story we choose, it is still rooted in faith.
More importantly, the book places the responsibility squarely on our shoulders for our response to the Story that God gives us. Our natural tendency is to doubt what we don’t believe and to not believe what we doubt. The trouble is that we have a Story like creation that sounds incredulous to some but the Story of evolution is its replacement. And its not necessarily a better story or more attractive. So now the question becomes, do we accept truth because it is pretty and attractive or because it’s believable or other characteristics.
Without giving away the ending, I found it to be a helpful fable about the nature of Story, Truth and the contextualization of reality. The utter disbelief and incredulousness at his fantastic tale paralleled the approach that many have to the Christ story. There is nothing historically provable about Jesus but the subsequent events of history lend great credence to the claims of the gospel. The fact that we are here is proof of a journey of some sort. And no matter what story we choose, it is still rooted in faith.
More importantly, the book places the responsibility squarely on our shoulders for our response to the Story that God gives us. Our natural tendency is to doubt what we don’t believe and to not believe what we doubt. The trouble is that we have a Story like creation that sounds incredulous to some but the Story of evolution is its replacement. And its not necessarily a better story or more attractive. So now the question becomes, do we accept truth because it is pretty and attractive or because it’s believable or other characteristics.
