Happy New Year to all. Yes, both of you :)
Back in 2008, I had a series of blog posts on formative influences and formative moments. I think it's time to share some more, not least because they've been on my mind a lot lately.
This nugget comes from a meeting of the College Christian Union while I was a graduate student. The CU wasn't really set up for graduates, so I don't really recall whether I was there very much. It was a staunchly evangelical set-up, evangelistic, too. I remember well a particular evening when various people were sharing words of "testimony" or faith stories. Another couple of graduate students were there, one of them from an Eastern Orthodox tradition. He was going to speak, but perhaps reticent in getting going. I remember Ruth saying something along the lines of "go on, Tim, tell it like an evangelical".
That put into sharp relief something I knew subconsciously already: that we can tell our story in a number of different ways. Indeed, that even within the Christian sub-culture there are many very diverse strands that don't really communicate. But with exposure to the right groups, you can learn to tell a tale in a different genre: the Orthodox believer can tell it like an evangelical - and, I presume, vice versa.
Some who use the postmodern label would throw in the word metanarrative at this point: my point, though, is the rather simple one that there are many ways of seeing the same thing. We adapt our discourse to suit our surroundings, and that affects not just the vocabulary and syntax: it also means that different aspects get emphasised, different perspectives described, different conclusions reached.
Which of those stories is true? Well, that all depends on what truth is all about. And there lies deep water. What if those stories become mutually contradictory? Well, that depends on the framework of reasoning to which you expose them. And there lies some more deep water.
Too readily such discussions disappear into abstruse philosophy. But they matter very much, because I for one know that I inhabit several stories, and I doubt it's possible to reconcile them into a single coherent whole. I don't want to be a liar, a two (or multi)-faced individual who makes out he is one thing to one group, and something else to another, and yet I certainly don't know of a way to sum up all that I think/feel/believe in a single narrative any more.
Am I allowed to be plural?
