One critique to emerge from the voice of “Post-modernity” is the destruction of the meta-narrative. I like the ecclesiology, the theology and the Scripture reading that comes from its end. Which is why I must voice my frustration over the fact that the intellectual and organizational force for the ‘Conversation’ in America continues down a road obsessed with its own self-importance. I am speaking here of Emergent Village.
Now on my blog I even have one of those picture thingy’s that say “Friend of Emergent Village,” and I am going to keep it up, but with the release of “The Great Emergence” by Phylis Tickle I must speak out. (This is not an attack on her, or Tony Jones, or whomever; it is an attack on a growing trend I have sensed leading up to and now after the release of this book amongst the Emergent crowd) This book to me is the ultimate insult to a post-modern worldview that one can imagine. It takes the scattered fragments of Church History, places them together in a subjective order and scheme (an attentive reader will notice that the chronology is off sometimes by centuries in her INTERPRETATION of history) and then turns that scheme into an authoritative interpretation of what is going on, to which we must sign up, because if we don’t we are missing out on the inevitable “Emergence.”
Let me say that I do feel that the Church in the West is changing, in 50 years I think we will have a relatively new Church around here. Nonetheless, I am not about to start stringing together a supposed pattern and argue that this is part of the trajectory of the sum total of Church History! What balls! And the most frustrating part is that many in the Emergent crowd, again amongst whom I count myself, is this rallying around our own self importance. It is as if we are saying…”See, WE are the focal point of what God has been doing in history, and what He is doing now. Here is our historical interpretation to prove it!” For God’s sake it’s the exact thing which we have protested against! So what, now we are going to create our own grand Narrative of History to bolster our message?
I say no. “Give me the local story of God’s interacting with the Community, or give me modernity!”
Re: Get Rid of the Meta-Narrative!....and pick up ours instead?
Rejecting the meta-narrative is a concept I still don’t appreciate. Broadly speaking, I think I understand it to mean a single over-arching narrative is not acceptable in a post-modern, pluralistic culture (or cultures). One size doesn’t fit all, one language isn’t enough, we cannot truly know whether any of it is true, etc.
Would someone please tell me concisely if and why we should reject the Biblical worldview narrative, “Creation, fall, redemption and restoration”? If we should, then surely it can be concisely explained. And if you are patient enough to do so, can you explain what you mean by, “I like the ecclesiology, the theology and the Scripture reading that comes from its end”?
Thanks.
Leroy
Re: Get Rid of the Meta-Narrative!....and pick up ours instead?
Why reject metanarratives? Because the espousing of a metanarrative entails an imperialistic stance toward those little sub-narratives that trouble your Big Overarching Story. Metanarratives leave little space for narratives that see things differently—in effect, metanarratives pushed to their extreme erase the possibility of those surprising and troubling little sub-narratives that are inside and around the metanarrative. Metanarratives smooth all the bumps and potholes out into a nice and neat Big Story.
A sub-narrative that has been developed very little and is almost completely squeezed out of the Big Story is that Jesus was not a Christian. We know that the name “Christian” was bestowed on followers after Jesus’ death and resurrection. But we don’t ever talk about what that possibility might mean to us because our metanarrative don’t allow that possibility to even be a matter of discussion.
You can see this imperialistic action in concrete terms if you go to most any church and point out that Jesus was not a “Christian.” That possibility just simply does not make sense to anyone operating inside the traditional Christian metanarrative. And since it doesn’t make sense, that subnarrative is quickly disposed of.
Re: Get Rid of the Meta-Narrative!....and pick up ours instead?
We all live in a storied world. As Christians we have local stories (family, school, church) but also make claims that these local stories are part of a larger story, a story which is linear (not cyclic) and is going somewhere. Even to adopt this view (linear and going somewhere) is to bring a meta-narrative into being.
I think that anyone who doesn’t understand that Jesus is Jewish has not fully appreciated the Christian Meta-Narrative. Obviosuly there is no one full Christian Meta-Narrative but to affirm God as creator and to look for the new creation are the meta-narrative booke ends to Christian Orthodoxy in these increasingly post-modern world. www.ordinand.wordpress.com
Re: Get Rid of the Meta-Narrative!....and pick up ours instead?
You say that Christians combine local stories and make “claims” to be part of a larger story. I can agree with that as long as we can say that “claims” are not “certain,” but acts of faith.
That you can say “there is no one full Christian Meta-Narrative” shows me that we are in agreement, again. Others, whom I disagree with, are rather certain that there is One Full Christian Meta-Narrative.
My concern centers on those that are certain in their One Full Christian Meta-Narrative—it is Rationally explicable and open to empirical verification, e.g. Evidence That Demands a Verdict.
Re: Get Rid of the Meta-Narrative!....and pick up ours instead?
I was not here speaking of the overall biblical narrative. That has been addressed here before.
As far as why I have found the destruction of said "meta-narratives" appealing? For one the philosophy behind it is compelling. Ecclesiologically it helps to deconstruct the exertion of power. For instance the Roman Catholic claim to have the authority of Jesus Christ himself, or even the Reformed idea that they are the ones who really know what the Bible means. Narratives themselves are generally foundational to the establishment of the identity of a community, but it is the interpretation of history giving that community legitimacy or power which is suspect. They are provisional and not unassaliable.
Theologically and Scripturally it lets the Bible be the multi-faceted book that it is, it does not allow one interpretation to be the end-all.
I was primarily refering here to the new book "The Great Emergence" by Phylis Tickle. Her basic premise is that the Church goes through a major transition every five hundred years, and we are going through one of those now. Her numbers are a little fuzzy, as are the significance of some of her examples. She ties the whole of Christian history together into a narrative Which then gives legitimacy to some theological and moral developments going on now. That is she creates a narrative and makes it a legitimizing narrative. Because of it’s close ties to the Emergent Village community it also ties them into this Great Emergence, which, in her defense, she does claim is only a part of what is going on now.
As someone who identifies with the Emerging Community I have problems with this and feel that it’s continued assertion may create a whole new Emergent Village identity to which I am not sold.
Re: Get Rid of the Meta-Narrative!....and pick up ours instead?
I appreciate the thoughtful explanations. I am also a novice at this emergent church phenomenon, so bear with me as I try to sort it out. I am undoubtedly missing things, so please correct me where needed.
I agree with the idea that there are numberless “sub-narratives”, just as there are numberless people and situations inside the big picture or meta-narrative.
It seems intuitive to me that the number of sub-narratives cannot be appreciably greater or less than ever before. So it cannot be some sudden emergence of sub-narratives that gives rise to this idea that the meta-narrative is no longer useful or appropriate.
The meta-narrative falling out of favor must, then, be attributable to something other than the existence of sub-narratives. I suppose it has to do with the fact that some of those who might have accepted the meta-narrative in the past, placing their own stories inside of it, are no longer willing to do so, but want their story to be THE story, unchallenged and unbullied by any meta-narrative.
Now, I am a person who deeply appreciates and loves stories, cultures, ballads, tales and the like. So I “get it” that individual and cultural stories are important. However, I do not see why it follows that the meta-narrative is without value, or is any less valuable than before.
The real question, if I am not mistaken, is “what is True?” If the proposed answer is “nothing”, that is unacceptably illogical, a self-defeating absurdity. If the proposed answer is “there is truth but we cannot know it”, that is easily and demonstrably refutable by a child.
If the answer is, “truth is different for each person”, that seems definitionally absurd. I can handle “perceptions are different for different people” or “opinions are different”, or “arguments.” But truth, defined as that which is consistent with reality, cannot be differentiated. And the idea that one person’s understanding or argument is as “true” as another’s is ridiculous, unless truth is redefined to mean opinion, whether valid or invalid.
If the proposal is that there is no objective reality, then I wish to see the proof or demonstration of that. Of course, we perceive things differently. I, for example, am color blind. That does not mean the sky is always gray, not even “for me”. It does mean that I have to have a different understanding of color, and simply accept the fact that my color perception is impaired. I have ample evidence for this, such that there is no logical need to question it.
To suggest that my black and white sub-narrative cannot handle the technicolor meta-narrative is a long stretch.
If the meta-narrative is true, then the meta-narrative is correct and appropriate, AND it accomodates all sub-narratives, as long as they also are true. That is, it doesn’t seem to me that a false sub-narrative can justify scrapping a true meta-narrative.
Are we after truth, in the end, or are we after whatever-it-is-I-prefer-whether-or-not-it-is-true? Because if it is the latter, then we should agree to abandon all references to truth and objectivity. If that is what “emergent” is about, I am absolutely amazed.
What am I missing?
Leroy
Re: Get Rid of the Meta-Narrative!....and pick up ours instead?
The emergence of sub-narratives is not the source of the trouble for meta-narratives. Rather, the legitimacy of meta-narratives have come into question in the present condition. Consequently, many subnarratives have given voice to complaints that have historically been active, but silenced.
Anthropologists, like Clifford Geertz, say the legitimacy of western invented meta-narratives have come into question especially since decolonization. Brown people were no longer subject to whites, but had a national voices of their own that were distinct from their white masters imported stories.
Philosophers like Francise Lyotard tie the decline of western metanarratives to the technological conditions that support them. Computers and the Internet not only give voice to individuals from around the world, but bring transnational communities of people together in ways never before possible.
Meta-narratives are having trouble in the present because conditions in which they once thrived have changed. Changed conditions give rise to new social, political, economic and theological arrangements. Big stories that dominated over little stories are now giving way to many struggling small stories that trying so desperately to define the situation.
In many ways, we agree that sub-narratives are "no longer willing" to be bullied. They very much "want their story to be THE story, unchallenged and unbullied by any meta-narrative." And they have the technological capacity to do it, too.
One key difference between us, however, centers on this claim. You say that "truth" is "defined as that which is consistent with reality." How would you know that truth is consistent with reality? Couldn’t ultimate truth be in a story, in the word made flesh?
Either way, I don’t think that we can know the answer to those questions in any sort of empirical, testable way, which we might believe to be "objective." We walk by faith and know God through revelation, I would say.
In short, the words "meta-narrative" and "narrative" are best seen as analytical tools that help us make sense of the blur of life before us. Don’t confuse them for some objective reality that you can firmly, certainly, and securely grasp.