. I have read the first chapter. You can too right here. I like Josh and respect the work he does with youth. He does have a way of connecting that is powerful. So, I write this critique as a fan, not an enemy.I think that he does have his finger on the pulse of the emerging culture, but I wonder if he is maybe a little too dramatic with his assessment of it. I don't think he is really trying to use scare tactics, but with the numbers he uses and the way he uses them, I kind of wince every now and again. De facto, he is using scare tactics. The way he portrays the emerging culture in no way, shape, or form leads his readers to find much good in it, nor does it motivate engaging the culture. And if he does at all, it is counteracted by his critique.
My concern is that his lens is so evangelical that the depth of spirituality inthe emering culture is of no value to him. A mistake, in my opinion.
No, the emerging culture is not evalgelical Christianity. I think we call all agree on that. However, does the fact that the emerging culture's divergence from evangelical Christianity necessitate all of the alarm? One would have to assume that all is well and good with evangelical Christianity to have alarm for that reason. And, my friends, all is not well with evangelical Chrstianity.
Despite some of the things McDowell addresses (which need to be addressed), the emerging culture has some significant advantages as well. The emerging (postmodern) culture is willing to self-critique and willing to be wrong. OK, they have their sacred cows as well, but they are fewer, I believe, and certainly different. There is openness, willingness to talk, technological savvy, a love for story, a love for mystery and question, a skepticism of certainty (this is an asset and a detriment), and lots opf the other things that the evangelical world has much, much less of to offer.
I wonder if McDowell might do better in engaging with the culture AS WELL AS critiquing it.
There is at least as much good to be found in a postmodern world as there is in a modern world. That is not to exalt a philosophy to a religious or spiritual level, but let's be pragmatic - if there is good it is worth engaging. No philosophy is going to be the Kingdom of God in this world. Philosophy is too small to contain the Divine.
I do not believe that this is the last Christian generation. In fact, I wonder if there ever was a Christian generation - in America or anywhere. To speak of a generation being of one religion or sliver of religion is just too overstated. I think to equate evangelicalism and Christianity, too, is to make a significant mistake.
Fainlly, every person has the chance to be a Christian person, unique to their God-given creative senses and limitations - even if they are not so evangelically inclined.
15 comments:
Good post. I heard Josh when he gave a talk to U. of Va. students back in the 74-75 school year. Several things I remember. He let us know that his wife was on the front row and said to us, "guys, eat your hearts out!" That was pretty cool for those days when ministers generally stayed away from the hint of anything about attractiveness and sexuality. Another thing. At that point in my life, three years out of Harding, I had about given up on the idea of inerrancy. Josh sealed the deal. He related how that he new of a fine man and eminent Greek scholar who had studied the gospels and the synoptic problem. He emphasized especially that he was an excellent Greek scholar and that this man carefully and painstakingly studied and worked on the project of harmonizing all the "supposed" contradictions in the gospels. And, after having spent twenty five years on the effort, he finally achieved his goal. When Josh said that, I remember thinking to myself that if it was that difficult for a careful and assiduous Greek scholar and it required twenty five years for him to accomplish the task, then they must really be contradictions in the first place.
Emergent writers are showing us how to move beyond such issues to what is really important.
The last Christian generation? Ole Josh, your just like a lot of us aging boomers. Now that were getting older we long for the good ole days. Things just ain't like they used to be. I say it's time to move on and make some new, more interesting mistakes instead of the same old ones.
Glad to read this review. I had the same since from the brief overview I did of the book. Thanks!
Peace,
Jamie
First of all, your statement about postmoderns being willing to be wrong is...well...I'm not sure what to call it. Postmoderns are not willing to be wrong; they deny that there is such a thing as "wrong".
Second, how exactly are you defining "evangelical"? You accuse some of equating the terms "evangelical" and "Christianity", but it seems like you've equated the terms "evangelical" and "modernist".
And I write this critique as a fan! :)
I don't enough John Alan Turners in my life. What I mean by that is someone who will confront my ides (or simply me) in such a way that I don't feel like that person is a jerk. He does it well, and he does it in the above comment.
I might have been a little overstated on postmoderns being willing to be wrong. They are more likely to admit to being wrong in areas that are not sacred to them. Furthermore, fewer areas necessitate a right/wrong call. "I could be wrong on that," is a statement under the influence of postmodernity. It is also, I will admit, a rhetorical tool used to ease conversation and avoid conflict.
Moderns are less willing to do that - they know right and wrong about everything and everything requires and right/wrong verdict. Postmoderns do have a sense of wrong because look at how they respond to Moderns. They say they "disagree" with "it," but if they were to do "it" themselves, it would be wrong - which is why they don't do "it." Postmodern morality is based upon a different moral epistimology than is modern morality.
And about those evangelical cats. Most are modern and cannot see any difference whatsoever between modernity and Christianity. Even those who are up on the whole philosophical lingo choose modernity over postmodernity as the most Christian philosophy. I'm ready and willing to be proven wrong (I believe in wrong, by the way), but it will have to be compelling proof.
I think Art Lindsley has been as eloquent as can be when it comes to promoting a humble belief in absolute truth -- he refers to it as absolutes without absolutism. And he says, "Some truth can still be real truth as long as we don't take it to be the complete truth."
He's pretty staunchly evangelical.
Dallas Willard considers himself evangelical. So does Os Guinness. So does Len Sweet. Shoot, Len has come close to calling himself a theological fundamentalist. I'm pretty sure Scot McKnight still calls himself evangelical. In fact, if I'm reading the cover of Brian's book correctly, McLaren calls himself an evangelical (among other things).
"I could be wrong" may be a statement under the influence of postmodernity, but it is not a postmodern statement. A postmodern statement would be: "Neither of us is wrong because there is no such thing as wrong. I am simply more right than you are."
Well...a true postmodernist probably wouldn't say that last sentence out loud. But that's likely what they mean.
As far as postmodern morality goes, well, this conversation must again borrow from modern categories of moral and immoral. Modernists had to deal with the tricky thing that is the non-verifiability of "ought" in any kind of scientific way. Postmodernists have to deal with the tricky thing that is the universality of "ought" in every society.
I suppose what I'm really getting at in all this is that we might be better served if we allow words to mean what they actually mean -- rather than importing meaning into them or allowing the way they are used to define them entirely. We should also be careful about making broad, sweeping statements about entire categories of people like emergents or evangelicals (or Roman Catholics for that matter!).
Thanks for your kind words and your willingness to discuss weight ideas here.
JAT said,
"I suppose what I'm really getting at in all this is that we might be better served if we allow words to mean what they actually mean."
OK, I'll bite. What do you mean by this? Which words mean what?
And, those people you mentioned as claiming to evangelicals - I don't disagree with you about their claims about themselves. However, I had a prof at Harding University tell me he was a Catholic Priest, but the Catholics wouldn't claim him no matter what he said.
I'm sure what your prof meant by "catholic" was far from Roman Catholicism. He was probably trying to be provacative by being imprecise with his terminology.
But when the guys I mention say "evangelical" they mean "evangelical". And I don't know many evangelicals who would want to disown Lindsley, Willard and Guinness. Sweet, McKnight and McLaren maybe.
The two words I'm most concerned with here are "evangelical" and "postmodern".
Evangelical simply means a branch of Protestant Christianity that emphasizes the authority of the Bible, the need for personal conversion and the availability of salvation through faith in the atoning death of Jesus.
Evangelical does not mean absolutism -- that is a distortion of evangelicalism. Neither does evangelical mean modernist -- that also is a distortion that may have been imported but is not inherent.
Postmodernism -- while it may be self-consciously impossible to define -- is a complete denial of metanarratives, absolutes and categories (such as right or wrong).
If anyone else is reading this exchange between myself and JAT, then please notice that he is engaging in conflict with me, not against me. I am engaging in conflcit with him as well. People on the same team conflict with each other while people on opposite teams conflict against each other. And now, the fact that I mentioned teams puts me in a modernist cateogry, but I can handle that false label any time.
Now, to engage in some more conflcit.
JAT said: "Evangelical simply means a branch of Protestant Christianity that emphasizes the authority of the Bible, the need for personal conversion and the availability of salvation through faith in the atoning death of Jesus."
I can accept this definition to a point. "Authority" of the Bible is a really tough one to swallow becuase if you ask 10 different kind of evangelicals what that means specifically and you'll get 10 different answers that exclude the other 9, or at least exclude 5 of the other 9.
"The need for personal conversion" sounds good as well, and for the most part I agree. But conversion from what to what? And then to what ultimate end?
"...salvation through faith in the atoning death of Jesus." Again, I agree, but then there is some fuzzy stuff here too. Can someone receieve salvation through the atoning death of Jesus in ways that look weird or different or culturally influenced? And if yes, says who?
Finally, JAT said: "Postmodernism -- while it may be self-consciously impossible to define -- is a complete denial of metanarratives, absolutes and categories (such as right or wrong)."
We're just going to have to part way son this one. Militant, absolute postmodernism, the kind that eats itself, is what JAT has put out here. I don't think too many people really go there - and even many people who claim to go there in rhetoric don't really live that way.
What about the people who are skeptical of meta-narratives, but have not jettisoned them? What about people who distrust authority, but realize anarchy is just another kind of cruel authority? What about the people who are hurt and limping because the tidy modern packages didn't cure them? These people seem more postmodern than modern.
Here is where I am going: I think JAT's postmodern definition is too easy a strawman to take down. I could be critiqued (wait, I am critiqued) in the same way for my use of evangelical.
OK, the mics open - anyone?
You beat me to it! I was reading your critique of my definition of postmodernism thinking, "But that's what he's doing with evangelicalism -- building a straw man argument."
I would say that what you're describing could be called soft-postmodernism.
And I would say that the straw man was first built by you around your narrow definition of evangelicalism. And your definition -- while it may be close to what the folks in the blue states think -- is farther away from the actual definition of evangelical than my definition of postmodernism is from the actual definition (if one even exists).
Since I dropped out of my D.Phil program, I don't get to have these kinds of conversations much anymore! I'm having a great time and am so glad we can do this without calling each other names or having it deteriorate into the kind of rock throwing our non-denomination is known for!
I will jump in late here. Fajita's "post-a-matic" machine that he bought just cranks out too much for me to keep up with.
Sorry, was that rock throwing?
Fajita's use of postmodern or as JAT says "soft-postmodern" Is to me a difference between the philosophy of postmodernism and it as a place in time. I think Fajita is using it more in the place in time way. a time after Modern.
I usually think of it in terms of architecture (because that's what I know). Modern architecture was all form follows function, building as machine stuff. When I was in school postmodern was all that was talked about. Both in the English department and in the Architecture department. The first "postmodern" architecture was a bit extreme. It was the Michael Graves of the world saying that since there are no rules that sure you can put a column upside down or in the middle of a bed or take something that has always been masonry or stone and make it chrome. In the architecture world that is postmodernism. But these guys came along and started doing things that were deconstrution, but still post-modern and now things seem to be still changing but they still are affected by modernism but less anti-modernism but have higher goals.
That may make no sense. But it seems that you are both using the word in different ways.
JAT what ways would you seperate fundamentalism from evangelical? I am realizing I probably lump it all together.
TCS,
You've hit on something I wanted to say earlier but forgot about. Evangelicalism was started as a reaction against the rigidity that fundamentalism had become in the 1930s and 40s.
Fundamentalism was originally a reaction to true theological liberalism among mainline denominations. In fact, if most of us went back and read the original four-volume set of THE FUNDAMENTALS as it was published way back in 1917, we'd probably find more to agree with than disagree with.
However, fundamentalism became more and more narrowly defined (don't most movements?) and eventually a group of conservative but compassionate theologians chose to create a more moderate group known as evangelicals.
Now, there are fundamentalists who are attempting to co-opt the term evangelical for their own purposes. The NEW YORK TIMES article that Fajita linked to shows some of that. But notice that McLaren was interviewed and did not say, "No, you've got it wrong. I'm no evangelical."
He basically said he (and others like him) are trying to keep the evangelical tent as large as possible without compromising on some essential truths. I read an essay a few years ago by Joe Stowell -- who was then the President of Moody Bible Institute. He suggested that in the New Testament, there are only two reasons to withdraw fellowship from someone:
1. If they deny either the full deity or the full humanity of Jesus.
2. If they add works to grace for salvation.
That was the perspective of the President of one of the largest and most well-respected evangelical schools in the world. I think it's a good perspective for us as well -- even if it is (or perhaps especially because it is) so "evangelical".
JAT, I probably need to read that again tommorrow when my brain is not so tired. But that is interesting history there.
As for the withdrawl of fellowship I can certainly see the first one and I am sure the three of us have experienced the other one. I am not sure it is a grounds to withdrawl. Maybe. Gal.1 Paul makes a very strong statement about anyone that would make it Grace + anything else. It has to be grace alone. Interesting to think about though.
So you are saying that orginally Fundementalism was a reaction to liberalism, by that you mean liberalism in the sense of denying Jesus' diety?
And as it got narrower and narrower. (why do those people always seem to weild the influence?) Fundamentalism was a way to moderate that closing in?
Well got to get some boys to bed. maybe more later.
I dont really care about the difference between conflict with or conflict against folks. All I care about is conflict with ideas. We fight with ideas, period.
I think I am more in agreement with JAT than with Fajitha or TCS.
JAT termed your usage of postmodernism as soft-postmodernism, but I think that it is agnosticism repackaged as postmodernism. I dont think there is ever a 'true' soft-postmodernism once one espouses postmodernism, its fundemental tenets lead them to its only conclusion 'everything can be true'. I think because this position is intellectually less tenable folks tend to make themselves comfortable with bascially false categories like 'soft-postmodernism' when in fact it is some form of modernism repackaged as post-modernsim.
Now about the place/time concept that TCS talks about... well I agree that what Fajitha refers to loosely put is about the disillusioned folks in the post modern ear.
But historically speaking post-modernism is not really post modern in fact, it is pre pre-modern, it is pre-socratic from what I know of history the sophists who were as prevalent as the post-moderns today where post-modern in their philosophy.
It was the reasoning of 'thinker' like Socrates and Plato that blew their footprints off human intellectual history. They have made a come back and now they are again loosing their ground and espousing false categories like 'soft-postmodernism' just so that they can somehow appear progressive by retaining the word 'post-modernism'.
I guess I have kind of digressed a little from the topic, neverthless that is my take. :)
I think Art Lindsley has been as eloquent as can be when it comes to promoting a humble belief in absolute truth -- he refers to it as absolutes without absolutism. And he says, "Some truth can still be real truth as long as we don't take it to be the complete truth."
He's pretty staunchly evangelical.
Dallas Willard considers himself evangelical. So does Os Guinness. So does Len Sweet. Shoot, Len has come close to calling himself a theological fundamentalist. I'm pretty sure Scot McKnight still calls himself evangelical. In fact, if I'm reading the cover of Brian's book correctly, McLaren calls himself an evangelical (among other things).
"I could be wrong" may be a statement under the influence of postmodernity, but it is not a postmodern statement. A postmodern statement would be: "Neither of us is wrong because there is no such thing as wrong. I am simply more right than you are."
Well...a true postmodernist probably wouldn't say that last sentence out loud. But that's likely what they mean.
As far as postmodern morality goes, well, this conversation must again borrow from modern categories of moral and immoral. Modernists had to deal with the tricky thing that is the non-verifiability of "ought" in any kind of scientific way. Postmodernists have to deal with the tricky thing that is the universality of "ought" in every society.
I suppose what I'm really getting at in all this is that we might be better served if we allow words to mean what they actually mean -- rather than importing meaning into them or allowing the way they are used to define them entirely. We should also be careful about making broad, sweeping statements about entire categories of people like emergents or evangelicals (or Roman Catholics for that matter!).
Thanks for your kind words and your willingness to discuss weight ideas here.
I don't enough John Alan Turners in my life. What I mean by that is someone who will confront my ides (or simply me) in such a way that I don't feel like that person is a jerk. He does it well, and he does it in the above comment.
I might have been a little overstated on postmoderns being willing to be wrong. They are more likely to admit to being wrong in areas that are not sacred to them. Furthermore, fewer areas necessitate a right/wrong call. "I could be wrong on that," is a statement under the influence of postmodernity. It is also, I will admit, a rhetorical tool used to ease conversation and avoid conflict.
Moderns are less willing to do that - they know right and wrong about everything and everything requires and right/wrong verdict. Postmoderns do have a sense of wrong because look at how they respond to Moderns. They say they "disagree" with "it," but if they were to do "it" themselves, it would be wrong - which is why they don't do "it." Postmodern morality is based upon a different moral epistimology than is modern morality.
And about those evangelical cats. Most are modern and cannot see any difference whatsoever between modernity and Christianity. Even those who are up on the whole philosophical lingo choose modernity over postmodernity as the most Christian philosophy. I'm ready and willing to be proven wrong (I believe in wrong, by the way), but it will have to be compelling proof.
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