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.
