dangerous practices
Well, someone has tipped my attention toward this review of Emergent Manifesto, which is described as the emerging church’s “coming out of the closet tribute”:
There is another underlying theme that is permeating the pages of this book and many of the other emerging church books in print, including Dan Kimball’s. There is a continual hammering away and chiseling down of the image of Christians (the kind who take the Bible literally and stand by its authority). This effort to villainize Christians is reminiscent of Germany in the 30s when artists would draw distorted pictures of Jews with certain facial features making them look weird, and when rumors and stories would run amuck even suggesting that Jews would rape your daughters, so don’t trust them. This all out effort to get society to hate and mistrust the Jews worked. It was a campaign, not based on fact, but based on a demonic kingdom that hates anything that has to do with Jesus Christ. In the Manifesto, Brian McLaren boils down the world’s evils to the fault of Western Christians and suggests that these resisting Christians might even become militant against people one day. (Hitler was able to persuade people that the Jews were a threat so they better take them out before the Jews got them.)
There you go. Brian McLaren as Hitler. QED. To be fair, the publishers of this book have a bit of a stated position:
In the year 2000, we learned that a mantra-style meditation coupled with a mystical spirituality had been introduced to the evangelical church and was infiltrating youth groups, churches, seminaries, and Bible studies at an alarming rate.
Thus, in the spring of 2001, we began Lighthouse Trails Publishing with the hope of exposing this dangerous and pervasive paradigm?six months later we published our first release, A Time of Departing by Ray Yungen.
As we learned more about contemplative spirituality (also known as the spiritual formation movement), we came to realize it had infected the church in a wide variety of aspects. Models like Willow Creek, Purpose Driven, and the emerging church had become avenues through which contemplative was entering Christendom.
I am reminded of my dear father who, upon hearing about “this postmodernism thing” decided he ought to research it, and later told me that he knew all about it because he had purchased and read a book from a prominent Melbourne Christian bookstore entitled something like “Why postmodernism is the divisive work of the devil”.
Anyway, I must admit that I am easily tired of the “the emerging church/liberal theology/alt worship/monastic thinking is the beginning of a slippery slope to a place where people wail and gnash their teeth in outer darkness” debate. I know plenty of people who I disagree with about a whole range of things but I am perfectly proud to call my brothers and sisters in Christ. But I know plenty of Christian people that I would like to put on the other side of a large brick wall labelled with a sign saying “These people don’t speak for the rest of us”.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Toddy - I actually haven’t really studied it in a huge amount of depth - just the same depth that anyone with a BA dated around the 1990s or 2000s would have!! My sister was studying a BA at around the same time, and our mother (who did a BA in the 70s) was quite bewildered with what we were studying, because it was so new to her - made for some interesting conversations and cultural clashes!! I’ve also got an LLB, and am currently doing my PhD in law, and most of the theoretical approaches I use would be “postmodern” in the sense that they all have a postcolonial agenda.
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve written above, and I definitely like the analogy with SP, as well as the suggestion that postmodernism is about a “journey” rather than “arrival” - theories are constantly evolving, theorists bounce off each other, critique each other, and are constantly proposing new ideas. This is yet another reason why approaches such as Roger’s frustrate me - it suggests that theory is somehow static, an end point, rather than fluid and interactive.
I’m intrigued by the paper you wrote!!
May 25th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Theologically & culturally very suspect, but just getting my tutors to recognise that Jesus has more in common with most PM practices, such as relationship over program, time not a big deal, cross-cultural, defying cultural normatives, redefining truth (Jesus IS truth) than He has in a lot of modern practices and thoughts.
I got an ok mark for it, too! Just as well - it was my final paper, so there was a bit riding on it!
Oh - for someone who ‘hasn’t really studied it’, you’ve done a lot more than me!!
May 25th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
bec, yeah I read the Wikipedia entry, but I still cant figure out what they are talking about. The criticism from Noam Chomsky I can understand - but the rest ..?
I have the same problem with the idea of the Dialectic in Marxism.
May 25th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
What specifically don’t you understand, Warren? Basically it identifies a whole bunch of things that might fall under the broad heading of “postmodernism”.
May 25th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Bec and toddy, you’re both right as far as I know PM. It is a set of tools with which to critique, and Toddy you are right in that its primary purpose was to critique modernism without setting anything other construct up in its place. That is important, beacuse every other brand of “ism” (for want of a better description) deconstructed what went before it and then purported another “truth”, whereas PM doesn’t do that. It’s the self-reflexive picture, always critiquing itself as well.
warren? you said “Emma, beliefs such as that the world was not literally created in 7 days - and that slavery is not OK despite being condoned in the Bible - I see as being modernist in a Christian sense” yes I agree. Sorry if i wasn’t clear. I meant that a lot of real fundamentalists (and maybe the slavery eg wasn’t great because most of us would agree slavery is bad!) rejected modernity because to a great extent it proved false many literal Biblical beliefs. Like many still believe in a literal seven-day creation, because for them if this is false then the whole Bible’s false and everything falls apart for them. But PM Christians would accept that one doesn’t cancel out the othe. My point to Riger was that not only people who identify themselves as PM Christians would think this - most of us do, even though we don’t realise it is PM thinking. Thus what Roger is thinking of as the “big bad” (forgive give the buffy-speak there) is actually something that most of us employ in our faith anyway.
May 25th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
bec, I dont really understand what those whole bunch of things have in common that could be labelled “post-modern”. I dont see what the underlying reality is that the term is pointing to.
But maybe that is the whole problem, because post-modernism denies the existence or at least the validity of any underlying reality.
From http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/pomo.html
“Another aspect of Enlightenment thought–the final of my 9 points–is the idea that language is transparent, that words serve only as representations of thoughts or things, and don’t have any function beyond that. Modern societies depend on the idea that signifiers always point to signifieds, and that reality resides in signifieds. In postmodernism, however, there are only signifiers. The idea of any stable or permanent reality disappears, and with it the idea of signifieds that signifiers point to. Rather, for postmodern societies, there are only surfaces, without depth; only signifiers, with no signifieds.”
May 25th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Yes warren that to me seems absolutely right, there is no underlying reality, or one at least that we can take hold of in any significant way. Like this…a horse is not a horse beacuse it’s a horse, it’s a horse beacuse it is NOT an apple and NOT and orange.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
warren, I dispute that PM denies the existence or validity of any underlying reality.
PM is, as that paper and the name suggests, perhaps best defined as POST-modernism. I don’t actually find it a hugely helpful term, and I think it’s much better to think about the various schools of thought that come within postmodernism (or a bit before it). I suppose it can be characterised as a question of everything that modernism held dear - it questions (not QUESTIONS, does not THROW OUT) notions of objectivity, reason, certainty, and rationalism, and emphasises scepticism, subjectivity, relativity, universality and generality.
Of course there are extremes of this, and I agree that the extremes of PM are probably incompatible with Christianity. However there are also extremes of modernity, and I’d argue that these are just as incompatible with Christianity, since faith and spirituality are, by their very nature, beyond reason, rationality, empiricism, objectivity etc.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Sorry I should clarify that - obviously a horse is a horse (of course, of course!) but I meant the word horse doesn’t have any signifiance of its own. The word horse is simply a word (signifier), and only means horse because it is NOT the word apple and NOT the word orange.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
it may look as though bec and I disagree there, but I think bec we do agree…the fact that PM does not set up an alternate underlying reality does not mean that non exists, it just means that that wasn;t the point of PM, would you agree?
Maybe the fanatical PMers would say there is no truth at all, we only havd constructs, but not all PMers do this.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
I’d also point out that in the quote you provide, the author is talking about postmodern literature, and is again talking about an extreme.
To give you an example that is perhaps more helpful: postmodern theories of geography might look at, for example, meanings of “Nature”. I can deconstruct the meaning of “Nature” and see why it’s probably a bit silly that I would prefer to walk along a beach than battle peak-hour crowds in a shopping mall, but that doesn’t mean that the fact that I enjoy one more than the other remains. Or we can take identity - I remember students getting very upset because we’d deconstructed identity, and they weren’t sure whether they could call themselves “Italian” or “Greek” anymore. Our teacher pointed out that they were missing the point - the point is not to say that there is NO truth, NO identity, and that they aren’t “Italian” or “Greek” - the point is to tease apart what that means, and see how it’s socially constructed. Stating that something is a social construct doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist - it just means that we deny that it is pre-determined, pre-ordained, it means that we deny that it is beyond questioning. To me, that is the very valuable bit of PM approaches…they allow us to question everything, to constantly asking questions, and not ever taking “because God says so” or “because I can’t see it” as an answer.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Emma…I’m confused!!!
May 25th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
sorry did i make it worse? I didn’t think that what we were saying was incompatible.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
No, I don’t think so…only I got confused with the horses and apples and oranges bit!! Probably because I haven’t ever done any literary theory - it’s mainly geography (space and place) for me, and I tend to think in very material, physical ways.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Let me clariry…what warren posted was pretty much my experience of PM, and that’s what my whole horse-apple-orange thing was about. That PM points out, critiques, looks to, but never divulges a “truth” or underlying reality. And I think the real gung-ho PM may say that means there is no “absolute truth”. However I would reject that. Just because PM doesn’t point to one particular truth doesn’t mean that one doesn’t exist, it just means that PM is in itself a tool to deconstruct language, ways of thinking, other constructs. It’s useful and effective, like you say, teaches us very important skills like critical thinking etc. Real honest-to-God fundamentalists would say that it’s dangerous, especially when it comes to examining Scripture, if you’re saying language isn’t a transparent medium thorugh which thought is communicatied. BUt I found something Brian McLaren said which resonated with me, it went something like this, “the way we interpret scripture says more about us than it does about God” and that’s where I think PM thinking comes in really handy. That deconstructing scripture and how language is used and constructed isn’t necessarily about denying the truth of scripture but maybe exposing our own prejudices and constructs.
now I’ve probably confused you all more. sorry.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
No - great post, and great quote from Brian McLaren.
And THAT is exactly why I think that PM is not only compatible with, but in fact IMPORTANT for Christianity. PM gives us tools to deconstruct, to do our best to escape our limited minds, cultural baggage, agendas etc, and delve deeper. It enables us to see that there are layers to the Biblical texts. It also encourages us to critique what our leaders say (rather than assume they have it all sorted). It can also provide a form of protection against abuses of power. I can see why fundamentalists find this frightening, but quite frankly, I think my God is far to big and powerful to simply vaporise into thin air just because I am…shock!…horror!…THINKING.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Well from what I have read, what you both have said for PM could also be said for Modernism too. Modernism is not Postivism or Fundamentalism - it rejects tradition and is respectful of subjectivity. Wikipedia links it to Liberal Theology - Martin Luther King et al..
From the article given above :
” From a literary perspective, the main characteristics of modernism include:
1. an emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity in writing (and in visual arts as well); an emphasis on HOW seeing (or reading or perception itself) takes place, rather than on WHAT is perceived. An example of this would be stream-of-consciousness writing.
2. a movement away from the apparent objectivity provided by omniscient third-person narrators, fixed narrative points of view, and clear-cut moral positions. Faulkner’s multiply-narrated stories are an example of this aspect of modernism.”
So what we would think of as relatively cool, socially-progressive, free-thinking etc. is generally embraced by modernism.
Post-modernism seems to be something else - a reaction to Modernism.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
warren…yeah, you’re right about modernism, but this just reveals the difficulty of identify schools of thought, and when and how they began, and where they came from. That’s one of the reasons I’d rather talk about specific schools of thought than “postmodernism” or “modernism”.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I don’t know enough about modernism to have an opinion on that, ut you’re right that PM was a reaction, but I think not only to modernism but any other kind of construct or world view. I think though modernism still embraced the idea of meaning, whereas PM gets away from that. And PM is clear that it only deconstructs, it doesn’t put anything up in its place.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
thanks bec btw I completely agree. Let’s embrace THINKING!
You know in a lot of ways I see parrallels with the olden times when the priests etc had all the knowledge and the power and the lowly peasants just had to do what they were told with some modern day church structures…at least AOG I guess. Any Uni student learning about PM and other stuff is told, oh it’s bad, it’s sinful when actually it’s just trying to get us to think and come to conclusions for ourselves, that there are other ways of thinking than we have been taught. It is a useful tool.
May 25th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
I couldnt agree more about thinking, criticizing and looking for layers of meaning in texts. Where I have a problem is in getting away from the idea of meaning at all. I dont see how you can build a Christian movement around that.
When Jesus read the scripture :
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
He didnt say, “now lets deconstruct this, what could it have signified in a pre-colonial era? What does it say about us now that we are in a colonial situation?” No - he said “Today this scripture is fulfilled”
May 25th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Without having read the posts above - scanned a couple - I have a friend who has done quite a bit of reading on post modern philosophy. He makes the comment that what actually passes for post modernism in the broad conversations that takes place isn’t and the key post modern philosophers would be very scathing indeed of what gets shopped around as “post modern” thought. My mate ties in very much to post modern and at the same time holds very heavily to a number of values as being absolute and does not shy away from that.
I realise this is a bit like my cousin’s friend’s aunty, but I’m just wondering whether people are talking around genuine post modern philosophy or the cheap popularist impostor. Others may know more about this.
Cheers
MN
May 25th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Historically speaking… Christianity grew like mad in the multi-faith, multi-ethnic, multi-language, multi-cultural world of the Roman Empire…. and has grown like mad in Africa in the past 50 years in a multi-faith, multi-ethnic, multi-language, multi-cultural world… and in PNG… and in South America…
The Christian church has declined in the Western world under the recent era of “modern” thought… but in England at least, the church has just started to turn around numerically… switching from 80 years of decline to a recent slight increase… and that’s not counting the “under the radar” emergent movements.
20 years ago I studied at L’Abri and could have spouted off all the arguments for Christians winning the apologetic high ground, and the threats of the New Age movement, etc. (Post Modernism was not yet on the radar as a term). I’m no longer convinced that Postmodernism… or any isms for that matter… are the critical issue for the church.
I think the real enemy of Christianity is lukewarm spirituality by those who profess faith in Christ…. there’s always been something compelling about those who obey Jesus and are empowered by God’s Spirit…
May 25th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
check the posts mn, I think I agree with your friend. yes warren I see what you mean but I I think it’s a matter of degrees too. Do we accept that the text is the text is the text and any divergence from that means a loss of meaning? Or do we look at scripture at least partially constructed by our own interpretations and constructs? Maybe some PMers, the ones mn’s talking about say there’s no meaning at all, but I think more generally it’s saying language isn’t a transparent medium for meaning, which I would agree with.
May 25th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Janet
you studied at L’Abri!!! now that is cool
did you meet the big F or was that after his time had come?
emma
We should realise that there is AN interpretation that is correct. Not meaning that I have it but there is only one and that we should try to get past the temptation to impose our own interpretation on the text (including endevouring to eliminate if possible our cultual bias on certain issues). Authorial intent not readers interpretation is our prime aim.
orthodox PM would say there is no meaning beyond the one we construct ourselves .. which is fundamentally opposed to Christianity.
As Christians we are given meaning from God and are unable to construct it for oureslves. Any attempt at constructing meaning for ourselves is tantamount to going back to the Garden of Eden (metaphor or not) and rejecting Gods plan and constructing one of our own.
I’m not telling you guys anything you don’t already know in that i think that Roger was actually spot on.
PM is logically incoherent at its fundamental basics. I know you will probably want to have a go at me about that but thats probably because you have all been so indoctrinated by PM and have trouble seeing outside of PM catagories….
(don’t want to sound so harsh but diplomatic wording here could just take me way too long and its the end of the day!)
i am not trying to put myself up here as the font of all wisdom.. but it takes years (took me years at least) to gradually see your own glasses that you are looking through and to learn how to take them off and try someone elses… it was only about 8-9 years ago that i really saw that i was looking at everything through modernist ‘glasses’ and wasn’t looking at things through Christian glasses at all…
having said that being able to look at the world doesnt make me a better person or a better Christian but i do see other worldviews like PM and Modernism for what they are… attempts to make sense of the world around us and give the answers to the big questions of life seperate from God…
May 25th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
That was 3 years after the big F had gone to meet his maker. Edith’s quite ill at the moment… I don’t think she’ll be too far behind.
For me, Abtruth, the horse has bolted…. most people think in PM terms now. I actually think all the Schaeffer style… and the C.S. Lewis style… and the Josh McDowell style (etc.) of apologetics only “work” with a limited section of the population now… I’m very rarely in that mode… and usually with men, rather than women, if I think about it.
My view is we just have to get our heads around doing mission differently… and fight the battle over “Jesus is the only Lord” more after people open their lives to Christ than before. On the plus side, I find people much more open to talking about Jesus and spiritual experience than when I was younger… but a different approach is needed.
Like it or not… that’s the “spiritual climate” as I read it.
May 25th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Janet, as I am the curious type, and had no idea what L’Abri was I just found their website and had a bit of a look. I am very interested in what made you decide to travel so far to study at L’Abri. How did you find it?
Also Bec, just to let you know I had a look at the Waiters Union as suggested and was actually pretty blown away…Dave Andrews is an amazing character. I had no idea that something like Waiters Union existed.
The things you find out on Signposts…
May 25th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
I decided to go off backpacking around Europe (and a few other places)surviving on bread and cheese for 6 months… as lots of Aussie young adults did back in the old days before society became obsessed with financial security (oh, that’s not fair… lots of people still do I suppose). I always had lots of questions about God and the bible and truth and all that jazz, and I’d heard about L’Abri from… Mmm… my family I think… as a place you could go and just ask questions. So I stayed there for a month… it was a great experience… stunningly beautiful spot, people from all over the world coming to stay… mealtimes were always an occasion to discuss issues about art, or ecomonics, or politics, or music, or philosophy, or history, or… etc. etc. as people raised issues. You’d spend a half day doing study about whatever area raised a burning questions (or at least interest) for you, and half a day just helping in the community. There’d be community lectures some nights on different topics.
Although it’s conservative theologically, it’s an environment that’s very open to deep questions, and it has a “big” view of life (God is interested in everything) not a small view of life (God is interested in the church and in spiritual activities). So it was a blessed experience… as was travel in general.
May 26th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Janet
i know exactly what your are saying and totally agree
when we try to evangelise to a modernist world we use a different paradigm of thinking to what we do a postmodern world or any other world.
I find if i am talking to a modernist we are talking about whether the Bible is true or whether God exists.
but if it is a PMist then the conversation goes futher back to ‘does truth exist at all and can we know truth if it does’.
I don’t know how much Francis Schaeffer you have read but i would say that he would be able to cope with PM apologetics quite well (he called it Modern Modernism)
and although CS Lewis’s apologetics were for a different world have you read ‘the abolition of man’ which is a devestating critique of PM thinking just as it was raising its ugly head… small small book that takes more time than what you think to digest what he is on about.
as for Josh McDowell - yep different generation… but his son is the one to watch bring his fathers power of reason and logic to bare on the new situation
May 26th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
It is just me or has signposts been given the tower of babel treatment. The new format makes it more than a little difficult to communicate.