excessively postmodern?

I'm in Australia on holidays again, and as with last year, confronted by some of the presentations surrounding Aboriginal culture.

In Kakadu National park, Official notices on signs side-by-side (or, in some cases, even on a single sign) report both details of the billion-year-old rocks, and the news that the land was created in the dream time by the rainbow serpent.  Not 'Aboriginal people believe that...', but 'it was'.  These narratives are not entirely compatible. Well, that is to say, they are not compatible within our dominant system of epistemology. To ditch that system for this reason is something of a bold move, because it is rather a successful one. (We'll return to success in a moment).

To select those two narratives, and omit, say, 'creation science'  or 'flood geology' seems a little arbitrary - not that I am uncomfortable with their omission, since they do not strike me as useful descriptions. One's own perspective is of course subjective: how is the National Parks Authority to select narratives, stories, and explanations? Do you privilege the Aboriginal perspective due to its longevity? Due to the sensibilities of the 'traditional owners' (a phrase itself laden with competing meanings)? Due to the expectations of the readers? Due to the long standing oppression and disadvantage of the Aboriginal people - to allow a voice that was for a long time denied?

Privileging the voices of the marginalized sounds like a good thing to do. But I can't help wondering if, applied naively, doing so is eventually self-defeating: you'd want to ask how those people became marginalized in the first place.  The more successful voice/culture tends to overwhelm the less successful one, it was ever thus.  In many walks of life, we would be in a parlous state if not.    Perhaps that is an equally naive appeal to a kind of cultural survival of the fittest.

Success tends to be measured in terms of money, sex, and power.  Perhaps it would be better if it were not.  Instead, we might appeal to justice for the poor, living in harmony with the environment, self-giving, and a heap of other values that we tend to recognize as good humanistic qualities.  Indeed, we might see those as biblical values, as Christ-like characteristics.

But does that really work?  Would justice for the poor be best served by giving equal balance to the voices of the homeopath as to the voice of the scientific medical community?  Will our emissions of CO2 be reduced by giving weight both to those who don't understand physics and chemistry, as well as to those who do?   For the way that we understand the last 500 years of science, with all its very tangible benefits to the quality of life for all (all? most? some?) is very deeply rooted in a privileged narrative, with a value system of very definite 'right' and 'wrong', and based upon a culture which very often promotes those with sharpest elbows.   Can we truly turn our backs on that - or embrace an epistemic humility - without losing its benefits?  I guess it's a matter of scale.

I want to inhabit a world - and a system of knowing - where we give proportionate weight to every voice.   But who decides what's proportionate?

review: Church in the present tense

Church in the present tense: A candid look at what is emerging
Scot McKnight, Peter Rollins, Kevin Corcoran, Jason Clark

My rule these days is that I buy hard copy books if I expect to enjoy them and lend them to others, and Kindle books if no lending is anticipated. I bought Church in the Present Tense in hard copy.  But I'm not sure I will be lending it to many others.

In terms of disappointment, this book most puts me in mind of D A Carson's book on the Emerging Church, but the comparison is hardly fair.  Carson seemingly spoke from a position of little real engagement: these authors are clearly active participants in what is emerging. And yet, because each really only speaks from a narrow personal perspective, the picture is still patchy, and didn't seem to me to amount to a candid look at all.  Perhaps I just expected the wrong thing,

The book consists of eight chapters, with each author contributing two. Corcoran is the editor and writes first, about philosophical realism. This is a curious wander through Postmodernism, epistemic humility, and a heap of related topics: I felt as if I was receiving lots of polemic from Corcoran and understanding his own belief system - but it did little to persuade me to adopt it for myself.  The second essay in the 'philosophy' section is by Rollins: surely he is writing about his favourote topic.  I'm not sure that excuses a line discussing "Heidegger's somewhat Kierkegaardian reading of Nietzsche ...", but over-all the is Rollins at his more readable.

The successive parts take us through Theology, Worship, and Bible and Doctrine.  Each takes us on a tour of the author's perspective, which is interesting,but doesn't really pretend to be representative or typical of the emerging churches they invoke (patchily). McKnight's chapter on scripture in the emerging movement put me very much in mind of McLaren's distinction of bible as constitution versus bible as library. But I fear the latter made the point more clearly. Under worship, Rollins writes on Transformance Art, reprising some of the parable-based stuff from his recent Orthodox Heretic.  He also offers the helpful observation "It is not difficult to avoid hipocrisy when you believe in nothing."

The book comes with a DVD - another reason to but the hard copy - but no reference is made to it in the pages of the book, and as I write this I haven't had opportunity ot view it.

Overall, this must be said to be a book at the 'academic' end of the 'popular' spectrum.  It's well constructed, but I cannot really describe it as instructive. It's a bit disappointing; it feels like a lost opportunity .

the tension

Recent posts by Ross McKenzie and Philip Jensen (h/t to Ross, again; I wouldn't have gone seeking out that particular blogger) remind me to try to sum up the tension that's really bothering me.  Here goes.

My Christian friends are not nearly scientific enough.  And my scientist friends are not nearly spiritual enough.  It's a rather longstanding tension, of course, but that doesn't make it any easier to handle.

On the one hand, Christians (and especially Evangelical Christians) really are prone to lapse into a rather mediaeval understanding of the world around us.  They are not alone in this, of course: woeful ignorance of, say, Newton's laws of motion is quite common in the general population. But as I've said previously, the theology of prayer really needs a radical overhaul.  Many of the things which are said to arise through spiritual means are much, much better explained by chance or by psychology, or a raft of other sciences.  Just tolerating the young earth creationists (even without agreeing with them) is a shocking piece of intellectual sloppiness.  Failing to follow through and accept that archaeology casts doubt on the historicity of big bits of the rest of the Old Testament is equally a careless piece of head-in-the-sand thinking.    Denying the results of good textual criticism of the biblical texts - and holding instead to vague myths about origin and authorship - is just setting yourself up for a fall.

And so it goes on.  None of these things is essential or central to the Christian gospel, and pretending that the metaphysics of the dark ages is better than today's scholarship is just a distraction, and liable to make thinking people reject the whole package out of hand.  Then there's issues of morality ... but those are best left to a different discussion.

On the other hand entirely, many scientists seem equally stuck - albeit in the nineteenth century instead of the fourteenth.  There is an optimistic hubris which assumes every problem will be solved eventually.  There is an appeal to a kind of reductionism which 20th century mathematics and physics showed to be fundamentally untenable.  Some will point out that in the middle ages, the thinkers of the day were kept from certain topics whereas today everything is open for research: conveniently ignoring that there is a long list of areas in which you would truly struggle to get taken seriously, or even allowed to proceed at all.  (I refer not to the periodic nutter who invents a perpetual motion machine, but to a range of questions whose answers are not incontrovertibly settled but are nevertheless entirely un-researchable.  There are subjects for which we do not want to know the answer, or are unwilling due to concerns of ethics, to ask the question).  Equally, epistemology has moved on immeasurably, even to the point of asking whether there are truths about the universe which human minds will never comprehend.

The language we use to describe those truths is of course instructive.  If pressed, most will admit that they are dealing with models of reality, models which must be mutable to take account of new observations.  Frequently that language is suppressed in favour of a discussion of "how it is" - deficient as such wording is, along with its cousin "existence".  A fixation upon whether or not things "exist" seems awfully dated, and not terribly helpful - whether one is dealing with quantum theory or theology.  Insofar as we can understand the cosmos from our position inside it, taking account of the role of the observer seems to matter greatly - and therein is spirituality.

So I find myself reluctantly living in that tension.  I find a lot of people who want glibly to resolve it one way or the other, or who want to inhabit "faith with science-lite" or "science, with personal faith if you must" but both seem really quite unsatisfactory to me.  Perhaps this is partly due to that unhealthy parting of the ways in the mid-to-late 19th century, wherein real rigorous dialogue dried up in favour of is/isn't debates which often miss the point.  In many ways, I envy those priest-scholar-scientists who lived before that divide, for theirs was a more holistic existence.  But we cannot go back there. The Universe is much more wonderful than they could possibly have imagined; life more incredible than they might have dared to think.

schism

Insofar as I understand Anglican ecclesiology, this seems significant news:

A NEW conservative Evangelical group, the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE), already has three newly ordained clergy waiting to minister in the UK.The Society, launched at the end of last week, offers alternative episcopal oversight when diocesan bishops “are failing in their canonical duty to uphold sound teaching”.The three unnamed clerics were ordained in Kenya on 11 June by the Archbishop of Kenya, Dr Eliud Wabukala [...]The AMiE has appointed its own “panel” of five bishops “to pro­­vide effective oversight in collaboration with senior clergy”. The panel consists of one serving bishop, the Bishop of Lewes, the Rt Revd Wallace Benn, and four retired bishops [...]

To this outsider, flying people off on a rather hush-hush basis, on a long-haul flight, so that someone can lay on hands, and pray for them and their future ministry, seems a most peculiar way to pursue "biblical Christianity".  But what do I know?

My impression is that this may mark the beginning of the end for conservative Evangelicals in the Church of England.  I imagine that quite a few will be wondering now whether they want to be counted in the AMiE or in a gay-clergy-affirming women-bishop-consecrating Church of England.  The whole thing has been played out in slow motion, and it's easy to be impatient for a resolution - but I have a grudging respect for the tortuous processes involved, which may yet lead to a compromise which keeps everyone in the fold.  I used to despise such Anglican fudge, but am coming round to the view that it is preferable to open schism.  That said, the polemic on both sides appears irreconcilable: if a parting of fellowship is inevitable, it would be best done quickly, for delay will simply inflame passions and raise the temperature to no good benefit.

Evangelicals surveyed

[Where did June go?  Blogs have been getting infrequent.  Oh dear.]


A couple of weeks ago, the Pew Forum published the results of a substantial Global Survey of Evangelical Protestant Leaders.

It makes interesting reading for two reasons:  first, because I think that many of its questions are quite insightful and go to the heart of quite a few matters.  Second, because the answers are enlightening, and often scary.

Take, for example, these snippets:
 

More than half say that consuming alcohol is enough to stop you being a good evangelical.  Ooops; that's 'Good Evangelical'.  Oh dear.  Then again, if 97% see it as essential to follow the teachings of Christ, but 27% don't see that as extending to helping the poor and needy, which bible did they read, actually?

It's interesting in the light of my blog from a couple of months ago that 76% have experienced or witnessed divine healing.  I'm also a little blown away by the fact that 61% confidently assert that "the rapture of the Church will take place before the Great Tribulation".  Perhaps it's more positive to learn that 13% think that homosexuality should be accepted by society (51% of those in Latin America; 23% of those in Europe), even if 55% think a wife must always obey her husband, and 33% think women should stay home and raise children.

I think the thing that struck me most was this question:



Firstly, missing is any kind of self-doubt.  Perhaps that's the survey's fault, but if you fear a decline in Evangelicalism (and a small majority in the global North anticipate one), surely you have to ask yourself whether that decline is due to an inherent flaw - a mistaken theology, philosophy, or pattern of thinking or behaviour. But, more generally, what can "influence of secularism" possibly mean here?  That there's a battle of ideas - and you're losing?  Likewise, "influence of Islam": if you believe that the gospel of Christ is the truth, and that the teaching of the Koran is not, well, why fear the latter?  And so on.  Many of the other things are fears about the gospel or the work of the Holy Spirit being insufficiently strong to protect the faithful: that seems at odds with the rhetoric about the power of the gospel.

Over all, the survey gives me the sense of evangelicalism - at least, northern hemisphere evangelical protestantism - being a spent force, far more concerned with the maintenance of its own way of being than with an essential spark of a movement of the Holy Spirit of God.  But perhaps I'm unduly cynical.

Review: The Outsider Interviews

The Outsider Interviews
Jim Henderson, Tom Hunter, and Craig Spinks

Christians often spend time trying to understand the perspective of those outside the church.  Or, rather, they should.  Too often, we simply assume. Our unchurched neighbours might as well belong to a distant tribe on the far side of the planet, for all we really know of their lives.  The Outsider Interviews  sets out to ask a mix of churched and unchurched people - mainly from the so-called Buster generation - about how they perceive Christians and the church.  An early discourse explains why "Outsider": Evangelicals tend to talk of "the lost" to describe those outside the church - but not to their faces.  The authors want a more useful descriptive term with less of  a pejorative overtone.

The perspective is entirely a USA-centric view.  The authors visited Kansas City, Phoenix, Denver, and Seattle. In each place, they interviewed two Christians and two outsiders, in front of a live audience, and also filmed additional backstage material.   There is nothing earth-shattering in the answers (depending on your starting point) but there is much to learn, much to be reinforced by the way that these articulate young people express themselves.  Very often they have missed the point of what the gospel message is all about - without apportioning blame, we may readily say that evangelism has failed!

This is a DVB - a DVD/Book.  The DVD and the book have distinct content.  You're supposed to consume both.  I first bought it as a Kindle book, saving 50p: but it didn't come with the DVD content - so I sent it back for a refund! [the Kindle edition no longer seems to be available.] The DVD contains the actual interviews; the book gives the back-story and some commentary.  The DVD has high production values and is well-produced.  You could use its segments in many contexts - as discussion-starters or jumping-off points for talks.  The book is more self-indulgent, in a way.  It tells us the interviewers' perspective on the topics, and their reaction to the Outsiders' comments.  Several chapters are reconstructions of their discussion over dinner, after the interviews - with perhaps more contextual information than is really needed.  The background is useful, but doesn't really add as much to the videos as I might have hoped.

The book has a good website, where you can see excerpts of the text and video content, as well as extras.  For example, there is a small group study guide, and suggestions on how to run interviews in your own church - an interesting fresh spin on approaches to evangelism.

I said that there is nothing too surprising in the answers: that is not to say that they are pedestrian.  Complex situations arise: one story is told of a Christian whose friend contemplates an abortion.  She tells her that she dislikes that option, but will stick by her - even going to the clinic with her - no matter what her decision.  This turned out to be a powerful witness to the love of Christ.  Other hot button issues for the American church - such as the gay rights agenda - also get a good airing.  It is always salutary to see ourselves as others see us.

That, I think, is the value here.  If we don't listen, we don't really have the right to speak. The topics that come up in conversation should help to define how we describe the love of God.  Craig Spinks' rather wonderful Recycle your Faith site explores them further.

Not raptured

The media have been full of amused comments about the rapture occurring today, many perhaps understandably confusing it with judgement day or the end of the world.  Evidently some Christian broadcaster has decreed that his infallible calculations point to 6pm today: predictions that even now seem to be unravelling - to a lack of surprise from most of the population of the planet.  [Though the link above seems to be non-functional at present: either its administrator has left the planet, or maybe its attracted an uncommon level of demand today.]

I grew up with this kind of belief system - though I was firmly drilled with the confidence that Matthew 24:36 (etc.) means that prediction of or speculation about the date was a waste of time.  Happily, I encountered relatively few who took strong positions on matters of eschatology, but premillenial dispensationalism tended to go unchallenged - to the extent of showing unchallenged "A Thief in the Night" to the church's teens.  I know that film gave many some sleepless nights (gosh, it has five stars on IMBb) - but I guess I had confidence that I would be in the rapture when it came, and so it held no fears for me.  There was a kind-of double-think going on there already, because there would also be discussion of the second coming when Christ would be seen, and worshipped, by all - with no mention of there having been a preceding rapture.  As I say, there was a lack of dogmatism.

That didn't stop us in the 1970s having a Sunday School chorus, inspired rather transparently by the space race, with bad poetry and worse theology:

Somewhere in outer space
God has prepared a place
For those who trust him and obey.
Jesus will come again
Although we don't know when
The count-down's getting lower every day.
Ten and nine, eight and seven,
Six and five and four:
Call upon the Saviour while you may
Three and two, coming through the clouds in bright array
The countdown's getting lower every day.

[yes, I typed that from memory.  I do that.]

And now?  I don't think I live in expectation of rapture, nor even if I'm honest, the bodily visible second coming of Christ.  All that end times theology is at best sketchy and at worst, downright absurdly made-up.  It's difficult to argue that the biblical authors had a single coherent view of what to expect: and harder, I think, to reach the conclusion that they present a water-tight prophetic picture of the future.  That's not a very satisfactory statement: and that's perhaps why this isn't the latest instalment in my "Here I stand?" series.  I'm not sure where I stand.

I can't help thinking that I have that in common with most Christian people.  There are lots of possible things we might believe about end times - from reading the scripture dispensationally as a "literal" (if perhaps contradictory) account of what is to come, through to a more alleogrical reading: and somehow we tend to manage to hold onto them all from time to time.  I think I tend toward the allegorical hermaneutic, which puts me out of line with most evangelicals.

Why? Well, others (such as McLaren, or Ehrman) put it more eloquently than I, and with greater theological sophistication.  I don't think the scripture invites us to read it 'literally' (mainly because I think that word meaningless in this context), and it is very clear that the primary events referred to in many passages are principally about contemporary problems (such as the Fall of Jerusalem) rather than predictions for hundreds and thousands of years hence.  Does that downplay Christian hope?  I don't think so - today's persecuted church can draw much strength from the church of bygone days.  Looking to the resurrection of the dead - to rise with Christ - is the Christian hope for all ages.

The apparent confident expectation of some that today they would be raptured (to the point of paying to make provision for non-Christians to look after their pets)  is touching if whacky.  Since that's not me, and not most Christians I think, I do think that we need to find a new way to talk about these things that makes sense in the 21st century, and I know I'm not sure how that will work.