Theology for the Masses

One of the themes in my Sunday school class is justice. We have looked at God’s desire for material justice [1] in the world. We have looked at such verses as Isaiah 61:8, Zech 7:8-10, and James 1:27; all of which make it crystal clear that one of our functions in this world is to work towards material justice as well as the spiritual redemption of humankind.

I get the small scale application of this issue. Well, I am lying, I kinda get it. I know how to act justly towards the individual people in my life. I might not be overly good at it, but it is something I am working towards.

I μέν see individual Christians working towards peace and material justice in individual lives as the answer to Ivan’s moral problem with God in “Rebellion,” what δέ I can’t see is how this works on a large scale. I am of the firm understanding that throwing money at the problem (and here I am most specifically thinking about aid to Africa here) only at best perpetuates the problem and quite possibly makes things worse.

Also, I am not a big fan of certain statistics used in showing the gap in material possessions between our world and the developing world. Statistics such as “X people only make $1 a day” assume that the base model for human life is a capitalistic, consumeristic model, as if to say the problem won’t be fixed until They make as much money as Us. Now, at the same time, I see the usefulness of these stats, they help shatter certain conceptions about the material conditions in which these peoples find themselves and help to highlight the need for justice in their lives. What I don’t want to do is bring the God of materialism along with the God of Christianity to the Other.

Whenever I go a thinking about a widespread, “big picture” plan of action, I keep coming the conclusion that a political solution is needed. Given the nature of certain countries’ leaders, a political solution must be predicated by a military solution. Yet, all of this seems to go against my “Kingdom of God” theology. As such, I am at a loss. I know how I would go about trying to fix the problem apart from Christian values, but when I factor those in, I am left with a myriad of contradictions.

And yet, God still demands that we help those in need, and I am to do what God demands. What I need here in an infusion of creativity and ideas. How can we help those in need in the concrete?

I get the need, I need a plan.

1. By material justice, I don’t mean equal possessions. I am talking about real and tangible justice in this world, as contrasted with waiting around for the just situation we will find in the next. [↩]

In order to continue this post series, I find that it is necessary to stop for a moment to talk about what I mean by Postmodernity. It is a slippery concept, one that is often misunderstood and vilified to the point that most people do not know what in the world it really is. [1] I can say this for certain, because I have and do both. After years of trying to first vilify and then trying to understand what exactly this postmodernity stuff is all about, this is what I have come to and how I have come to use the term in my writing.

In the most basic sense of the term, postmodernity is the system of thought, the way of constructing the world, that succeeds modernism. Remember, modernism demanded from its adherents that there be one final and comprehensive way of viewing and constructing the world to which everyone must adhere. When this cracks, multiple ways of viewing and constructing the world emerge from its ashes, thus Postmodernism is the sum of the systems of viewing the world that emerge after the cracking of modernisms hegemony. Not only is postmodernism the sum of the systems, it is also the collection of the ways in which people deal with the emergence of a plethora of acknowledged (after all, there have been these competing systems forever, postmodernism merely gives them a voice, rather than dismissing them after the first discrepancy) of systems as they interact with one another.

A Series of Cities, each with a Hill to Shine From

Think about a set of cities that all are controlled by a central capital. The central city administers and controls all functions of daily life not only for the cities, but for the people within the cities. This is modernism. Now imagine that all of the cities throw off the rule of the central city and rule themselves. This is postmodernism.

No longer does one ask what the central authority says must be done, must be followed, must be thought and impose it on the lives of Others. Instead there is an acknowledgment of a basic fact of existence – that each city sees the world in a different way. To force [2] [3] them to be like Us is an act of tyranny of the central authority on the lives of Others. Remember, there are some things in this world that are not verifiable. I know math, I know how many apples are in my fridge. However, I can’t show that God exists objectively, I can’t demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that my version of Jesus existed in history without making leaps of faith.

Replacing the above are questions about competing narratives. [4] You are now free to choose the city you live in. Will I move to the Mormon city or the Baptist city? I dunno, what is their narrative like? Does it make sense? These are the sorts of questions that are asked. The cities’ narratives compete with one another for the membership of the citizens of the state.

The Denial of Truth?

Is there a denial of truth here? Not at all! That is the central conservative critique of postmodernism, is it not? Isn’t there one way that things actually are? Is there not one and only one reality? I think that there is. I don’t think that there is a necessary denial of truth in postmodernism, at least the way I use the term. [5] Instead, there is a shifting of the questions that are being asked.

This is where the idea that all postmoderns deny truth comes from. When you are talking about the collection of cities and are wanting to talk about their truth claims, you can only talk semi-objectively about what each city thinks the truth is, not about if each city actually has the truth. Once you start doing that, then you are really speaking about the set of truth claims that the city that you are in proposes. Note that all of this is independent of the actual “truth” that is out there. [6] Any time that someone says anything, they are saying it from their position in time, space, culture, and community. Objectivity, as a concept, is dead.

The Payoff

I see postmodernity, not as a vile beast that threatens the Kingdom of God (or the Realm of the Child of True Humanity lol), but as a better way of viewing the world and its communities, [7] something that allows me to disagree with these other communities without writing them off as useless. Postmodernity allows me to love them as fellow images of God, the whole while without abandoning the tenets of my religion as it has been revealed to me by God.

Now, a great many people have defined and used postmodernism in a great many ways. It is a malleable concept, one constructed by people for their uses. I am sure some of you consider yourself postmodernist and would describe it in different terms; others might point to other postmoderns and their absolute denial of truth to refute the above – just remember that not all elements of this set are the same.

Finally, the way I am using this term, there is no “Philosophy of Despair,” as Travis so polemically put it, to call it such is to demonstrate one’s misunderstanding of it.

I’ll try to address the what narratives are and why they are so important in my next post.

1. to think of something similar, consider the idea of America. Now think of the nastiest thing that America’s opponents say about it, that we are violent, that we only care about material possessions, etc. Now, these things are true of America and not true of America at the same time, that is, they are true for segments of the population and not true for other segments of the population. Thus, postmodernity, like America is an accurate, but imprecise term [↩]
2. i.e. write them off as useless, invaluable on the sole basis of their not sharing our worldview [↩]
3. through active or passive cohesion [↩]
4. By narrative, I mean their story of life – a collection of their worldview, their sacred texts, their stories that give their lives meaning, their practices and pastimes [↩]
5. which is not to say that other people configure postmodernism and construct a narrative that denies absolute truth I am saying that I can use the category of postmodernism in a way that is consistent with what is revealed to us in the Bible [↩]
6. By this, I mean how existence actually is [↩]
7. from a descriptive, not a prescriptive standpoint [↩]