Theology for the Masses

If you wanna join in a conversation on theological loan words and equating the will of the Lord with the Bible, come on over!

This is the most amazing and biting sentence I have ever read.

I appreciate that for so many people in late Western modernity the idea of people “living within a controlling narrative” seems foreign (though we all do it cheerfully: every time people say “in this day and age” they are appealing to an assumed idea of modernity, or progress, or enlightenment); that for many Christians within the Protestant traditions the idea of continuing history as having importance in itself, and of expecting deliverance within history, is not on the radar screen, perhaps for implicit religious reasons; and that for many, perhaps most, contemporary Western readers of the New Testament (John Piper’s “ordinary folk” perhaps), the effort required to think into a worldview where people were thinking to themselves, When is God going to do what he’s promised? is all too much, and they shake their heads and settle back into the comfort of a non-historical soteriology the long and short of which is “my relationship with God” rather than “what God is doing to sort out the world and his people.”

Wright, Justification, p. 61

That is one sentence; Paul would be proud.  Also – where is the evidence of the Lucado personal relationship theology?

Total Pages: 3834

Total Pages Read: 3047

Total Reading Percentage: 79%

I actually did most of my reading this semester.  My TRP is hindered mostly by two source books which contain a great many more pages than were assigned.  The only book that I really skimped on was Redeeming the Routines.  I just did not have the time/gumption quotient high enough.

The majority of the books were excellent.  There were a some with whom I disagreed (looking at you, Moreland).  Sourcebooks will be sourcebooks.  Some were even from the Reformed side of things.

I’ll try, in the coming week, to give feedback on most of the works shown above and listed below.

1. Redeeming the Routines: Bringing Theology to Life by Robert Banks
2. Documents of the Christian Church by Henry Bettenson
3. To Know and Love God: Method for Theology (Foundations of Evangelical Theology) by David K. Clark
4. Character of Theology, The: An Introduction to Its Nature, Task, and Purpose by John Franke
5. The Story of Christianity, Volume 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (Story of Christianity) by Justo L. Gonzalez
6. Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context by Stanley J. Grenz
7. Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony by Stanley Hauerwas
8. History of the World Christian Movement: Earliest Christianity to 1453 by Dale T. Irvin
9. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity by Philip Jenkins
10. Readings in Christian Thought by Hugh T. Kerr
11. Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian Mind, Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit’s Power by J. P. Moreland
12. Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible by M. Daniel Carroll R.
13. Naming the Elephant: Worldview As a Concept by James W. Sire
14. Kingdom, Church, and World: Biblical Themes for Today by Howard A. Snyder
15. Models of the Kingdom by Howard A. Snyder
16. Kingdom Come: How Jesus Wants to Change the World by Allen Mitsuo Wakabayashi

Many Christian movements have sought to cut ties with perverted and corruptible human traditions and return to that glorious (and Godly) pristine primitive Christianity described in the New Testament.  However, we don’t live in first century Rome and we aren’t powerless and poor.  The questions we bring to the text are our own and not those of the first believing communities.  If we only reply on the “naked text” we will get only naked answers.  Lints suggests that

Having rejected the aid of the community of interpreters throughout the history of Christendom, we have not succeeded in returning to the primitive gospel; we have simply managed to plunge ourselves back to the biases of our own individual situations.

Lints, Fabric of Theology, 93

So, in essence, by rejecting the wisdom of our elders, we swim in a sea of theological subjectivism  Oh, the irony!

Perhaps we too are scared of what we might find find in the box!

In this wildly ambitious work, Moreland seeks to cure Christianity from the malaise that plagues – the death of drama; he is mostly successful, though not for the reasons he would give. Written for a popular audience, the Kingdom Triangle is divided into two sections; the first attempts to show us the “crisis of our age,” attacking Naturalism and Postmodernism as the destroyers of drama. The second part is more hopeful, and is Moreland’s attempt to construct a solution to the problem by means of three foci: knowledge, the soul and supernaturalism. With his insistence upon objectivity and reluctance to engage the best of Christian postmodern thought, readers risk being more entrenched against any other approach to knowledge and theology. However, the other parts of the work shine in comparison. When Moreland is attacking naturalism and working to instill drama he is much more effective. This combination of strengths and weaknesses make this book a minefield for the lay reader. There is much good to be had, but one can easily get the impression that all postmodern and emerging Christians are to just as feared and protected against as the Catholic Church.[1]

Drama for your mamma (and the rest of the Body of Christ)

The chief contribution of this work is Moreland’s drive to instill drama in our lives. Moreland’s use of drama is interesting and is the most important theme in the book. Moreland sets it up as the life full of meaning and purpose contrasting it with the drabness of everyday life. His awareness of the hunger for drama is startling and speaks to a need which likely resonates with much of his readership. Wise are the ways Moreland suggests Christians resurrect drama and acute are the causes he identifies for its crucifixion. He identifies the narcissism, individualism, passivity, and immaturity of the self that our popular culture produces;[2] and advocates the flourishing of the self, which includes the development of self-denial, character, and the spiritual disciplines.

Don’t, Stop, Manifesting the Spirit…

Perhaps the most controversial part of the book for the target audience is Moreland’s insistence that we recover the activity of the Spirit in our daily lives. He calls this “being naturally supernatural”[3] and attacks Cessationists. In great contrast to his dealings with Postmodernist Christians and Catholics, he advocates love and charity towards people on different places on the continuum of the Spirit’s activities.[4] This advice is much needed in the North American Church today. He primarily challenges Cessationists by appealing to personal stories and the numbers of Charismatics in the world. Oddly enough, Moreland does not use Scripture to challenge Cessationists. Given his high view of and condemnations by means of Scripture, one would have expected the same here. Ultimately, his wisdom, gentleness, and honesty are instructive in this section.

I refute him thus!

“I refute him thus!” was Samuel Johnson’s exclamation as he broke his foot upon a rock in an attempt to refute Berkley’s idealism.[5] It is also method of attack Moreland employs in his critiques of Naturalism and Postmodernity.[6] Moreland’s treatment of Postmodernism is the chief disappointment Kingdom Triangle. Moreland, the unapologetic modernist, [7] constructs the frailest version of postmodernism possible for the purposes of rendering asunder with the mighty blows of the three-sentence-proof. Moreland goes so far as to dismiss and critique of his characterization of postmodernism by saying: “For one thing, my description of postmodernism is an accurate account that fairly captures and understanding of postmodernism … [so] I can hardly be accused of offering a caricature of the movement.”[8] This rather grumpy, defensive, and dismissive tone is found throughout his discussion of Naturalism, Postmodernism, and Knowledge. Moreland unfortunately, for one of Evangelical Christianity’s most highly regarded philosophers, reduces all of postmodernity into a “synonym for deconstructive relativism.”[9] Too often Moreland attacks his constructed postmodernism[10] with simplistic proofs which bypass the real issues at hand. An excellent example of this is his discussion of objectivity and language.[11]

This seems like a rhetorical strategy to appeal to the value of common sense and anti-intellectualism of his intended audience. This, combined with a lack of real engagement of the best of Christina postmodern theory will hinder the intellectual development of his readers in the wake of Modernity’s decline. It reeks of entrenchment rather than engagement.

The Gentle Curmudgeon

One final criticism of Kingdom Triangle is the bipolar writing style that Moreland employs. When attacking Naturalism and Postmodernism and constructing a theory of knowledge, Moreland writes in a grouchy, dismissive, and immature tone. He repeatedly deems things “sad” and uses brute force to argue his claims (see his listing to all the verse in the Bible that contain the word knowledge).[12] This is contrasted with the genuine love and concern from which he writes his other chapters.

Conclusion

Ultimately this book is a mix of the best and worst from Moreland. Moreland argues for the best possible modernist/foundationalist Christianity, and attacks the worst postmodern secularism, which he ties to all Christian postmodern thought. However, With the exception of the chapter on Knowledge, Christians would be wise to heed his words concerning the resurrection of drama. I would modify Moreland’s argument (that Naturalism and Postmodernism have caused the death of drama) to the Church’s acceptance of Modernism and lack of a response to its death have caused and sustained the death of drama. It is a shame this was not a two-volume work.

Notes:

[1] Moreland is deeply skeptical in this work about the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church , warning evangelical Christians to steer clear of their spiritual development classes (p.159).

[2] Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, 142-145.

[3] Ibid., 182.

[4] Ibid., 178-179.

[5] For more on this, see Dinesh D’Souza, What’s so great about Christianity (Regnery Publishing, 2007), 171.

[6] While Moreland and I agree on the perils of Naturalism, Moreland has a too narrow of a definition of postmodernism, see notes 12 and 13.

[7] See his infatuation with the self and objectivity, and unquestionable support of the correspondence theory of truth in Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, 78-88. and dismissal of critiques of modernity, such as the role of language creating worlds rather than nakedly describing them in Ibid., 85, 87.

[8] Ibid., 87.

[9] Franke, Character of Theology, The, 21.

[10] It is difficult to construct a positive definition of the varied modes of postmodernist theory. I follow Franke in maintaining that Postmodernism is best defined minimally as the critique of Modernity which requires “radical surgery.” See Ibid.

[11] Compare Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, 86. with Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), sec. The Problem of Language.

[12] Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, 114-120. Moreland opts for the brute-force technique for arguing that our knowledge must be certain (by his criteria and his criteria only, which happens to be foundationalist in nature).

In one of my classes, we were asked to write a letter to a congregation that was largely white and middle class concerning the influx of a large group of Hispanic immigrants in the community due to the opening of a meat packing plant.  Here is my response; it is largely devoid of references to secondary literature due to the nature of letters.

I’d love to entertain your thoughts and critiques. :: We serve the Kingdom, not the Republic

From Julia Esquivel in Threatened with Resurrection: Prayers and Poems from an Exiled Guatemalan (Elgin: The Brethern Press, 1982), 79-91.  I love how it uses Biblical language and themes to remind us at what price our comfort comes.  I’m thinking hard this holiday season about the intersection between religion, politics, exploitation, and thankfulness.  I pray that we can slow our lives down to the point that we loose our lusts of luxury.

In the third year of the massacres
by Lucas and the other coyotes
against the poor of Guatemala
I was lead by the Spirit into the desert

And on that eve
of Thanksgiving Day
I had a vision of Babylon:

The City sprang forth arrogantly
from an enormous platform
of dirty smoke produced
by motor vehicles, machinery
and contamination from smokestacks.

It was as it all the petroleum
from a violated earth
was being consumed
by the Lords of capital
and was slowly rising
obscuring the face
of the Sun of Justice
and the Ancient of Days

Each day false prophets
invited the inhabitants
of the Unchaste City
to kneel before the idols
of gluttony
money
and death
Idolaters from all nations
were being converted to the American Way of Life

The Spirit told me
in the River of death
flows the blood of many peoples
sacrificed without mercy
and removed a thousand times from their lands
the blood of Kekchis, of Panzos
of blacks from Hati of Guaranis from Paraguay
of the peoples sacrificed for “development”
in the Trans-Amazonic strip
the blood of the Indians’ ancestors
who lived on these lands, of those who
even now are kept hostage in the Great Mountain
and on the Black Hills of Dakota
by the guardians of the beast…

My soul was tortured like this
for three and a half days
and a great weariness weighted upon my breast
I felt the suffering of my people very deeply!

In tears I prostrated myself
and cried out: “Lord, what can i do?
Come to me Lord, I wish to die among my people!
Without strength, I waited for an answer.
After a long silence
and heavy obscurity
The One who sits on the throne
to JUDGE THE NATIONS
spoke in a soft whisper
in the secret recesses of my heart:

You have to denounce their idolatry
in good times and in bad
Force them to hear the truth
for what is impossible to humans
is possible for God.

Christians have historically had problems figuring out how they should relate to the political establishments in which they resided. As seen in an earlier post, Christians have been too eager to align themselves with Liberal Democracies, especially the United States.  In Resident Aliens, Hauerwas and Willimon critique this notion, saying that instead of being Christianity Lite™, Liberal Democracies need war to justify and solidify identity:

“States, particularly liberal democracies are dependent upon war for moral coherence.” [1]

Damn, I think that’s true.  I had previously viewed governments as sometimes morally good, often morally evil, but most of all, morally neutral. And here was an explanation that the best of these governments have a vested interest in unjust violence [2] . [3] Their warning from history is particularly poignant:

“if Caesar can get Christians [in 30’s Germany] to swallow the ‘Ultimate Solution’ and Christians here to embrace the bomb, there is no limit to what we will not do for the modern world.” [4]

A Church that was nuked in Nagasaki.  Where do our allegiances lie?  With the USA, or with God Almighty?

1. Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, 1st ed. (Abingdon Press, 1989), 35. [↩]
2. if violence is ever justified [↩]
3. Though, we should expect states to act selfishly. [↩]
4. Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens, 27. [↩]

A while back, after reading Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, some friends and I decided to stop dumping and start investing the in poor.  We (well, I) had (ve) always bemoaned the idea of dumping aid.  I really felt like giving a man a fish every day kept him dependant upon me for the fishes. 

He’d become my slave.

My slave to my generosity.

It was almost as though my guilt was fueling my giving so that my conscious could be satisfied.

Oh my, “My” showed up a lot in those sentences, didn’t it? That’s just the problem.  While we have the most abundant educational and monetary resources on earth, we want to free people, both from poverty and aid.  (We don’t want a newer, nicer, colonialism, right?)

What Christian have done in the past is turn to education.  If we empower people with knowledge, they can build a better lives for themselves and  their communities. What we found was that people, once educated, left their impoverished homes and went West.  There was no credit, no opportunity in their homelands. Our education was actually a brain drain on the poor!

You can teach a man to fish, but if there is no pond and no fish in that pond, he’ll go find such a pond.

Opportunity International builds ponds and stocks them with fish.:

Opportunity offers a mix of loan products, including individual loans, group loans, and loans tailored to clients in areas such as education and agriculture. A typical first point of entry, the Trust Group brings together 10 to 30 entrepreneurs who elect leaders, receive training and pledge to guarantee each other’s loans. Because the group guarantee replaces the need for collateral, credit becomes available to those previously locked out from formal financial services.

Libier Flores Lopez opened a sewing buisiness near Guadalajara, Mexico, with no White Savior ^TM in sight.

Because they lend to a group of people, they become accountable to one another and to the group itself.  This, in my opinion, is the genius here.  Not only are the opening credit to people who can’t get it through other means, they are creating trust and accountability in these communities.  Furthermore, because the individuals have to pay back the group, and the group, Opportunity International, the gift of 1,000 to the organization is given time and time again.

While other aid organizations do good work, I encourage you to take a look at microfinance institutions such as Kiva and Opportunity International.  They don’t dump, and they don’t exploit.  The teach people how to fish and give them the tools to succeed.

Note: This is my first crack at this and it is rough and incomplete.  Also, I whipped this up at 1am after a long, long day.  So be gentle.  I am limited to 1000-1200 words of commentary.  I’m taking some chances with gender and scripture, so think of those areas as an exploration rather than… something else.

Section I – Preamble

We hold the below to be our best understanding of the reality of God, God’s relation to creation, actions within history, and our relation to both the rest of creation and to God. We draw upon the following for our formulations: the Spirit of God speaking through the Scriptures, the wisdom of our fore-parents, the best thinkers of our day, and our communal experience. We recognize that this statement is contextual and need not be universal and may even be wrong. If so, we welcome and humbly scrutinize any criticism as we pursue God and God’s will. This statement of faith will consist of statements which are commented upon in the footnotes.

Section II – The Nature and Relation of God.

We believe in one God who is love[1] and therefore internally and externally communal.[2]

And that this God transcends gender but relates in culturally engendered ways.[3] This God relates to itself and others

1. through the person of the Father, Almighty, judge, and maker of heaven and earth,
2. and through the Logos, [4] the only begotten Son, fully incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth,[5]
3. and through the Paraclete,[6] the Holy Mother,[7] which dwells within the members of Christ’s body and guides them through the Bible.[8]

Section III – Creation

We believe in the material and spiritual creation of all that is by God.[9]

And that there is a plan, purpose, and order to creation and that this plan, purpose, and order were disrupted by sin, rendering the whole of creation alienated from God, introducing chaos, decay, and death.[10]

Section IV – Humanity

We believe that humanity was created by God and imbued with the image of God and charged by God to care for creation in God’s stead.[11]

And that we sinned and continue to sin against God, creation, and one another, marring Shalom and separating ourselves from God, creation, one another, and from spiritual life.

And that humanity was created not to live alone, but as flourishing members of a community.[12]

And that those who accept the grace of God are crafted into the Body of Christ, made citizens of the Kingdom of God, and receive spiritual life anew.[13]

Section V – Scripture

We believe that Scripture consists of the Protestant canon.[14]

And we consider it to be human compositions[15] which were co-opted by God and breathed through by God so that it is “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2Ti 3:16 NRS)[16]

And that it is the sole record of God’s revelation in literary form. [17] This message will always need to be translated by the help of the Paraclete into each culture it encounters.[18] In that way, it is subjective.[19] It is objective in that it describes the world as God wills it to be.[20]

Section VI – Redemption

In line with sections III and IV, we loudly proclaim a cosmic no! to the present state of ourselves and the universe. Accordingly, we believe that Jesus’ work on the cross is the means through which he will redeem all of creation.[21] This is happening in part now, but will only be finished at the Parousia. We look to the past for the pristine state, to the original Shalom as that which will be restored.[22] Yet, we also look forward to when heaven and earth will be created anew and heaven will descend upon earth.[23]

And that his begun with the victory of the Resurrection, continues through the present time, and will only be completed at the Parousia. Empowered by the Paraclete, we are agents of the reclamation of both sinful creatures and sin-smashed creation, as image bearers, until Christ finishes the work at the end of this age.

[1] “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1Jo 4:8 NRS)

[2] As love, God must have an object and subject of his loving and since it is dependent upon nothing, there must be plurality within the Godhead. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 195)

[3] God has no sex, save for the humanity of Jesus. God does relate to us in ways that are culturally gendered. He contains both genders, “for male and female he created them, (Gen 1:27 NET)” and so we speak of God as genderful, rather than genderless. God the Father relates to us as in traditionally constructed masculine ways. He creates us, protects us, rebukes us, and loves us. God the Son is sexually male, but genderly neutral. He carries both masculine and feminine attributes as commonly seen in cultures. He is Lord, but also Wonderful Counselor. It is noteworthy that Jesus was sometimes depicted with feminine features in Antique and Late Antique art precisely because of his traditionally feminine traits. (Jensen 2000, 124-128) The Paraclete relates to us as a mother, less as Lord, ruler, and protector, but more as a comforter, and intimate guide. See note 7 for my drawing from Christian traditions on this matter. Furthermore, to emphasize the relational aspect of the trinity, I will use he and she to refer to actions as persons and it to describe unified actions. This is more to underscore the relational nature of the members of the Trinity than anything else.

[4] “In [the] beginning was the Logos and the Logos was beside the God and God was the Logos.” Εν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. (Joh 1:1 NA27)

[5] "And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us…” (Joh 1:14a YLT)

[6] Just as we take Logos from the Greek in John 1:1, we take Paraclete from it as well later on in John. We are reminded most often of John 14, which is as near as you can get to a Trinitarian statement: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you.” (Joh 14:16 NLT)

[7] I follow both Origen of Alexandria and early Syriac Christians which sometimes described or approvingly quoted works which described the Paraclete as the Divine Mother. (Rogers 2009, 119)

[8] (Grenz and Franke 2001, 64-68)

[9] In [the] beginning God created heaven and earth. “in principio creavit Deus caelum et terram” (Gen 1:1 VUO)

[10] Where there was Shalom, there is now decay, death, violence. The climax of Genesis’ opening creation poem ends with God creating rest on the 7^th day. This rest can be seen as all of history bundled up in this day (see Hebrews 4 for the Future Rest) or as the completion and establishment of harmony in creation and with God, the pristine state which sin marred in the next few chapters of Genesis, the return to which history aspires. (Wirzba 2006, chap. 1-2)

[11] “God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.” (Gen 1:27 NET) As image bearers, we rule and cultivate creation in God’s place. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 199) See Gen 1:28 and 2:15 for a scriptural basis.

[12] We were not created as individuals plucked from the void and twisting in the wind. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 203). Instead, we are social animals, who construct, find meaning, and live in community. By community, I refer to Toennies’ idea of Gemeinshaft instead of Gesellshaft. Gemeinshaft refers to “relationships encompassing human beings as full personalities rather than single aspects or roles of human beings,” to which Gesellshaft refers. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 211) This is a by-product of living within God’s design, not an end in and of itself.

[13] Called out of the rebelling masses of humanity are those who respond to the call of God to accept the gift of grace which is offered by Jesus and made possible through his work on the cross, which is the apex of history. Those that respond to the seed of faith are grafted into the body of Christ which is his bride. This body extends temporally from the past, through the present, and into the future, and geographically throughout the whole world. For the seed metaphor, see Luke 8:11-15; for the basis of grace and the cross, see John 3:16 and Col 2:14.

[14] We have no scriptural basis, no manuscript basis, and no scientific basis for this claim. It rests solely upon our faith in the Spirit guiding our historical spiritual community. It was not delivered to us on plates of gold; it came into being through much struggle, trepidation, and time. We listen to other Christian works such as the Catholic Apocrypha, popular Christian devotional and academic works, and even ancient Christian non-canonical texts (such as the Acts of Mar Andrew and Mar Matthias) for human and divine wisdom, but hold the Canon over and above all these as the only set of works co-opted by God as his instrument of communication.

[15] We rebel against the notion that God is the initial crafter of these texts.

[16] We cling onto usefulness and deny the practice of using it as the fourth member of the trinity, as God incarnate.

[17] As such, we elevate it above all other texts and base our construction of the world upon our readings of it. Insofar as worlds are constructed by the language and categories as socio-cultural worlds, the Paraclete creates the Christian world through the melding of the revealed biblical stage and the present and local cultural stage.(Grenz and Franke 2001, 75)

[18]Additionally, it was produced within a specific geo/cultural-historical context and must be translated into each successive and adjacent context by aid of the Paraclete. The Paraclete enhances our ability to read the Bible and understand its overarching narrative and to craft and translate it into our interpretive frameworks. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 81)

[19] Though subjectivity in this sense is not of the same sort that plagues Christian apologists in their nightmares and writings; it is truth in context.

[20] (Grenz and Franke 2001, 272)

[21] “[A]nd through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.” (Col 1:20 NLT)

[22] See Hebrews 4, especially Hebrews 4:9: ‘So then, a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God;” (Heb 4:9 NRS)

[23] Consider “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” (Rev 21:1-2 NLT) This will fulfill Jesus’ prayer to God that “May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. (Mat 6:10 NLT)

What are interested when it comes to theology?  Are those the things you do well or have a passion to do well? 

Well, what about your theological disinterests?  What do they say about you?  Are they areas of growth, are they areas of sin? 

What about the communities of which you are apart?

In one possible scenario of the world to come, an incredibly wealthy although numerically shrinking Northern population expouses the values of humanizm, ornamented with the vestiges of liberal Christianity and Judaism.  Meanwhile, this future North confronts the poorer and vastly more numerous global masses who wave the flags not of red revolution, but of ascendant Christianity and Islam. 

Although this sounds not unlike the racial nightmares of the Cold War years, one crucial difference is that the have-nots will be inspired by the scriptures and the language of apocalyptic, rather than by the texts of Marx and Mao.  In this world, we, the West, will be the final Babylon.

——————————

From The Next Christendom by Jenkins.

A few days ago, I posted a picture which I thought demonstrated the relationship between Modernism, Foundationalism, Fundamentalism, and Christianity.  I’d like to clarify what I am talking about there, here.

By Modernism, I mean the paradigm(s) of thought which owe their intellectual roots in the Enlightenment.  Essential traits of Modernism are as follows:

1. The elevation of reason as the ultimate standard.
2. The elevation of science as the ultimate measure truth.
3. The elevation of the observable as the only source of evidence.

A lot more could be said here, but those are the features I want to highlight.

Foundationalism is a modernistic epistemological framework which attempts to build a solid foundation of undeniable and fully provable (often by the criteria listed above) truth propositions upon which all other forms of knowledge are built.

Many, if not most, evangelical groups subscribe to a Foundationalist framework for building knowledge.  They all assert the absolute truth of the Bible, but, because of their unnoticed acceptance of the modernist and foundationalist framework, they  feel as though they must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the foundation that is the Bible.  Once this is proved, then and only then can they proceed to demonstrate how the next piece of theology can be added upon the firm foundation that is the Bible.  Once added, then they can logically and rationally add the next brick. 

And so on.

And so on. 

After a while, you can build a nice systematic theology which is rigid and impenetrable.

…

Unless one of the bricks falls out.

Now you have a hole in your wall.  The bricks above now come a tumbling.  Suddenly, most of your wall has fallen down and you are standing there looking a fool holding a bunch of spiritual propositions (or laws).

You are very invested in making sure not a single brick ever moves.

After all, you have constructed theology.  Nay, you have constructed The Theology.  The truth.  It has set you free (to play within its walls, of course). 

…

Unless one of your scientific premises about the Bible, its accuracy (as you conceive it) and historicity (as you want it to be) is proven wrong by science, history, or any other endeavor.  Once you have proven the Bible, it and everything you build upon it suffers the same fear as one of the above bricks.

You see, the Bible is not prime in your endeavor, the scientific demonstration of the Bible’s authenticity is prime.

Because Foundationalists have capitulated to Modernism’s demands of knowledge and truth, we find ourselves arguing that the world is really a few thousand years old. 

We need to move beyond Foundationalism, beyond Modernism.

We need to grasp the edges of the scientific/historical/literary/modernist/foundationalist tablecloth and yank it out from under the Bible.

When we do, we will find that the Spirit of the Living God does just fine on his own.  Instead of needing justified, he justifies.  Instead of being an objective (i.e. scientific) description of reality/history/science, we find that the Spirit speaking through the Bible is the most objective thing in the universe because it describes the world as God wills it to be.

The scary thing is that we have to leave modernism behind.  Any such task is fought with fear because this necessarily means that we have to be postmodern.

This is not as scary as it seems on the surface or in Christian chain-emails.  In fact, though the road is dangerous, steep, and rocky, it allows us so much more.

… and Postmodernism did not give us relativism.  Modernism did.

But I’ll get to that in the next post.

Upcoming: How a post-modern framework might help us in our construction of Theology.  How Foundationalists often mistake the bricks for the foundation.

I present to you McNaughton Fine Art’s One Nation Under God.   Yes, some people still think we were and are the new israel a shining city upon a hill.  If you click though, be sure to read the artist’s interpretations.  (They’ll make you curse.)  For an interpretation of the interpretation, see Greg Boyd’s commentary on the painting.

Thanks to JR via Tom.

P.S. I am totally not reading Resident Aliens this week or anything.

Yes.  Some people still think we were and are the new israel a shining city upon a hill.

DeConnick, over at the Forbidden Gospels Blog, laments the propensity for immediate “misreading, mischaracterizations and negative assessments” by her “biblioblogging” peers.  Yesterday, DeConnick put up an excellent (and I mean excellent) list of 10 principles for the historical-critical interpretation of ancient texts.  It seems that there was a swift and negative reaction to the principles she outlined.

The real gem of her post is found in her discussion concerning the need for a recovery of dominated voices in our histories.  DeConnick says:

… So the kind of history that has been recovered and written has been the history of the dominant group, and it is the history that justifies and sustains that group. […] But we haven’t rewritten our histories to reflect what we are learning about the hidden histories and the marginalized past nor have we commemorated it as a society […]. Why not add a paper dollar to those we use already, and put Anthony on it? Why not make a government holiday commemorating the Suffrage movement? Why not rename important boulevards with the names of women we wish to commemorate? …

She ends her post saying that the challenge of our generation is

to understand our past more fully and appreciate the variety and complexity of it. We need to give proper credit to the marginalized histories for their own sake, but also with the recognition that the dominant stories would not be what they are if those it marginalized had not lived.

I am going to spend the rest of the day thinking how that can come to pass with my scholarship and lived life.

Bibliography:
Deconick, April. “What is it about biblioblogging…?.” The Forbidden Gospels, September 22, 2009. http://forbiddengospels.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-is-it-about-biblioblogging.html.