The explicit purpose of this website is "to assist the development of a transparent, community-driven theology for the ‘emerging church’". There is a brief introduction to the concept and a ‘rules of engagement’ page; my article ‘How will postmodern evangelicals read the bible?’ may also be relevant. These were written some time ago, however, and it may be that the way the site actually functions, or is perceived to function, is rather different from the original stated intention. Do readers and contributors have any views on this? Could the site be organized better? Is it made clear enough to people how it is meant to work or what the overall objective is? Is it genuinely a ‘collaborative project’ or simply a place to air disagreements in a more civilized manner than is often the case?
My own view has been that the renewal of theological understanding that can be encouraged through a site such as this is bound to be both interactive and to a large extent implicit. It comes about through conversations and whatever consensus may emerge never really escapes from the dialogical process: we are learning by talking with each not by formulating explicit, agreed perspectives or beliefs. But it can be very difficult to find one’s way around a large body of implicit knowledge and enter into the conversation constructively. Are we just stuck here with the limitations of a website? Or are there things that we can do to make the process work better?
Journeyings in the emergent
I don’t know whether the site can be organised any differently - that’s beyond my technical know-how. I do think that the project which Andrew has reminded us of is proving far more complex than was perhaps originally envisaged. I suspect that Andrew’s perception of the task was to take N.T.Wright as a spring-board, and to pursue some of his thinking to a kind of logical conclusion - or at any rate in the directions which his (Wright’s) arguments seemed logically to imply.
I have to confess, I am harbouring a suspicion (maybe no more than that, but it is becoming ever stronger) that there is something flawed about the nature of the task - and also in the proposition that an emergent church needs an emergent theology, which by its nature, would be very different from the kind of theology which has preceded it.
In essence, I don’t think evangelical theology has got it wrong - at least, in the basic perceptions about the nature of man, the problem of ‘the fall’, the task of redemption, the provision of Christ - in the crucifixion - resurrection - pentecost nexus.
Attempts to shift the focus away from the things which evangelical theology holds to be central have created, for me, huge contradictions and raised questions which, on this site at least, have yet to be answered.
I think there are problems in evangelical tendencies which I perceive to be secondary to the central evangelical certainties: such as attempts to provide all-embracing answers to everything, an erring to propositonal statements of truth rather than truth which is a personally lived quality; a way of doing church which can tend to run counter to qualities which are more highly valued by the emerging culture: such as community, relationships, informality, non-hierarchical ways of functioning, a democracy of giftedness, etc. etc. But many of these things are less ‘theological’ than the packaging in which theology and church are presented. Evangelical theology, in what I would argue are its secodary tendencies, has also fostered an unhealthy ‘dualism’ between the fallen aspects of creation (which it emphasises) and its residual goodness, albeit of a broken and incomplete kind (which it underestimates). In this sense, it has created too great a division between the worlds of the ‘redeemed’ and the ‘unsaved’ - the sacred and the secular. The various subcultures that ‘evangelicalism’ tends to encourage can unnecessarily separate us from healthy relationship with and attitude to the world outside the subculture. But I don’t think this points to a particular fault in the theology itself - rather an over-emphasis in the theology, which perhaps is being healthily addressed by the developments such as our contemporary re-interpretation of ‘Celtic’ theology.
And it could be argued that not much in the concerns of the post modern is particularly new: there has always been a central narrative dimension to the presentation of God’s dealings with the world; God’s dealings with mankind as presented by the scriptures have always been through the processes of culture and history; history has always been reinterpreted mythically by scripturally redactors; there has always been heterogeneity of texts in the scriptures; there has always been in the scriptures an emphasis on the small, the intimate, the communal, the relational rather than the large, the institutional, the hierarchical - or at least, it could be argued that there has always been both. It’s arguable that post modern ‘repackaging’ of theology (and hermeneutics) is simply drawing attention to what was already there - but ignored or overlooked - in the scriptures.
This isn’t very well through through - I’m just scrabbling towards something that I’ve been thinking for some time. Maybe in the process, I’m disqualifying myself from the terms of reference which are intended to govern the website.
In essence, I’m raising the question of whether there are issues which are of primary importance in theology, which don’t really change whatever the cultural era we happen to be in, and whether there are secondary issues, which are to do with the repackaging of theology to meet the needs of a given culture or era and its habits of thinking and living, and whether we need to distinguish between the two. This goes right back to my early attempt on the website to critique Andrew’s post-N.T.Wright theology, which as yet has not been replied to. (Nor have other more recent offerings!)
Or maybe this is so obvious to people that it doesn’t need saying. But then, someone once defined prophecy as ‘stating the obvious’. But without this kind of ‘lens’ (the viewpoint I have been sketching above) with which to view scriptures, I have yet to be convinced that other ‘lenses’ make a lot of sense - if any at all. Especially as a ‘theological lens’ has constantly been provided by the very authors of scriptures themselves (be they individuals, groups of people, traditions or whatever). The biblical Jesus does not exist outside of the theological interpretations which the bible itself gives of him. (Which may be because that’s precisely who he is.)
Over a period of time, I have become somewhat more fascinated by the characters who frequent the site, for whom it has become something of a home, than in the ‘project’ the site has encouraged us to engage in. I am leaning to the view that what changes people is leadership, amongst other things, which is why I recently submitted an article on the subject which seemed to me to be pregnant with insights which could change the way we do leadership, and hence change the way we do church. But Andrew has reminded me - that isn’t actually the primary stated purpose of the site.
Emerging theology and evangelicalism
Peter, this takes us some way beyond the practical issues that I raised in the post, but your comments are important and worth responding to.
Complexity
Yes, the site has become more complex than I originally envisaged - or perhaps I imagined that it would be easier to find one’s way around the material than is actually the case. At one point I had ambitions to produce (collaboratively of course!) a well-structured and I guess systematic set of beliefs. That plan soon went by the board. The process feels much more like a bunch of people wandering randomly across a landscape, sending back reports, postcards, recounting what they have found; and when someone finds something really interesting we all come running to have a look. But no one’s really mapping the terrain, no one’s really trying to connect the bits and pieces of a new perspective together. That is probably a good thing for now.
Evangelical and emerging theologies
I am still broadly convinced that an emerging church needs an emerging theology, but this does not mean, in my view, that this will be ‘by its nature… very different from the kind of theology which has preceded it’. Why ‘very different’? I suspect this remark has been coloured by recent discussion of the atonement. There will no doubt be some rethinking of the sort of components of a theology that you list: the nature of humankind, fall, redemption, the cross, resurrection, Pentecost, etc. But I think the issue here is not so much how we understand the parts as how we understand the framework in which they are set, which brings into play not just isolated doctrines but much broader issues of epistemology, narrative and history.
Although this is going to sound rather condescending to many, I think the difference between traditional evangelical theology and an emerging theology will be more like the difference between an adolescent and an adult than that between two different people. The adolescent and the adult are the same person - same DNA, same family, same personality - but the adult understands both herself and her environment better. I would like to say that this still shapeless emerging theology is really, for many of us at least, simply evangelicalism understanding itself a bit better. Others, of course, may be coming at this from a different direction and may be less interested in the evangelical lineage.
I would also dispute the suggestion that an emerging theology seeks to ‘shift the focus away from the things which evangelical theology holds to be central’. What have you got in mind? I can’t speak for everyone, but I would expect such themes as sin, judgment, mission, righteousness, faith, grace, redemption, community, charismata, holiness, to have continuing prominence. I just think we will understand them - and how they fit together - a little differently.
N.T. Wright
N.T. Wright wasn’t the starting point. For me it began with a rather crude analysis of what evangelicalism had become - at least as I saw it. N.T. Wright came along a bit later and helped to clarify and extend a growing realization that any current renewal of theology needed to take the historical shape of the biblical narrative very seriously.
Primary and secondary beliefs
This may be wishful thinking, but I would much rather avoid having to make distinctions between primary and secondary elements in a theology. I realize in practice this has to be done, but if we make narrative central to how we construct our theology, I think that we will find these distinctions somewhat artificial. Why does the content of Christian faith have to be broken down into discrete measurable beliefs? If you watch a film, you don’t at the end rush to list the primary and secondary moments, the essential and the disposable, the unambiguous and the debatable: a film is a continuous piece of material, an integrated whole. Naturally certain moments stand out, but if you simply run a sequence of highlights, favourite clips, dramatic moments, you destroy the film. Film criticism offers us ways of reflecting on the narrative, but you always have to ask how any incident or effect works within the film as a whole. What I would argue is that evangelicalism has taken a selection of clips and inadvertently created a rather different story out of them.
Postmoderns
I’m sure you’re right when you say that not much in the concerns of postmoderns is particularly new. But then they / we are post-moderns, not post-ancients. Postmodernism (as we are using the term here) is to a large degree an attempt to recover insights and attitudes that the agenda of modernism had marginalized or obscured.
Lost critique
I’m sorry not to have responded adequately to your earlier critique. I’ll try to put that right. If I can find it. Which brings us back to my original concern!
Evangelicalism, post modernism - it's a jungle out there
Andrew - some comments on your points about evangelicalism and emerging theology.
The process feels much more like a bunch of people wandering randomly across a landscape, sending back reports, postcards, recounting what they have found; and when someone finds something really interesting we all come running to have a look.
That’s an appealing way of putting it - provided we don’t pretend that nobody ever discovered anything of value before the ‘post modern’ search began.
I am still broadly convinced that an emerging church needs an emerging theology, but this does not mean, in my view, that this will be ‘by its nature… very different from the kind of theology which has preceded it’. Why ‘very different’? I suspect this remark has been coloured by recent discussion of the atonement.
Yes - in my mind, discussion of the atonement has coloured my view on the search for a post modern theology. But this has been coming a long time - and dates back to earlier discussions - actually, particularly your own interpretation of the atonement - placed in the immediate history of 1st century Israel. My comment at the time on that was that there were other, broader narratives into which the ‘atonement’ was being woven - especially the passover narrative (last supper - which might relate more narrowly to your own view of the atonement), and the Eden narrative - which is much more the narrative overshadowing the long history of Israel, and which is picked out by Paul in particular. (I’ll not get drawn by Lathos’s provocative comment on Paul and substitutionary atonment at the moment!).
This broader narrative takes us back to the ‘sin’ theme of the O.T. sciptures - and the dual theme of a covenant-keeping God (who would not abandon his people) dealing with sin in his people (which constantly undermined the whole basis of the covenant).
I mention this because I have noticed what I suspect is an aversion on the site to discussing sin, and some evidence of a weak theological grasp or ability to conceptualise it. Once sin comes into the frame of discussion, it is very difficult to evade the theological issues which underpin not only evangelical theology (of all shades), but also theology from the time of the Fathers onwards. We are a very unique generation indeed if we have found that sin has become redundant to our theology. All round Guildford at the moment posters are appearing which promote the film ‘Sin City’ - so it’s certainly not a term that has gone out of usage in the world at large. Maybe we need to engage with the views of popular culture by putting forward a serious and thought-through version of the meaning of the word ourselves.
Although this is going to sound rather condescending to many, I think the difference between traditional evangelical theology and an emerging theology will be more like the difference between an adolescent and an adult than that between two different people.
It certainly does sound condescending - but highlights for me the need to distinguish between ‘evangelical’ and ‘evangelicalism’. It is a sweeping and bold statement indeed if all the insights of ‘evangelical’ theology over the past 500 years are to be viewed as ‘adolescent’ thinking, in comparison with the ‘adult’ thinking of post modern theology. Surely you don’t mean this?
I would much rather avoid having to make distinctions between primary and secondary elements in a theology. I realize in practice this has to be done, but if we make narrative central to how we construct our theology, I think that we will find these distinctions somewhat artificial.
Even narrative in the scriptures is not ‘flat’; that’s to say, it is narrative which has some key themes. The broader narrative takes us back to some central themes of biblical theology - the narrative of the journey from Eden to the New Jerusalem, via a cross on a hill. Again Andrew, and here I wait to be corrected if I’m wrong, I suspect that the focus of your narrative interpretation of the people of God in the first century changes the story considerably. If the focus is the destruction of Jerusalem/Rome, and God’s guarantee of the continuing survival of the people of God through these events (and events like them still to come), I suspect we emerge with quite a different story from that in which the focus is the cross/resurrection/pentecost - forming the heart of a ‘kingdom of God’ theology.
Your analogy of the film works on one level - in that it can encourage us to explore the effects of the whole picture, rather than assemble a collage of edited highlights. But even films tend to focus on questions of meaning, in which we re-arrange in our minds the purely narrative sequence of events into ‘explanations’ which highlight certain key events, or interpret the detail through our appreciation of the whole. In the process, we will naturally tend to underline certain episodes. That’s somewhat similar to the way film criticism or literary criticism works. At least, that’s how it used to work (and still does by my readings of the film review sections in newspapers or hearing reviews on the radio). I do realise there is a current in post modern thinking which implies that this is precisely how not to review films, literature etc - and that it’s the things an author does not say or emphasise which need to be highlighted. But even this, as a valid component of biblical criticism, cannot, to my mind, avoid some main themes and key episodes.
I do seriously question whether ‘evangelical theology’ (let’s call it ‘pre-post modern’) has ‘taken a selection of clips and inadvertently created a rather different story out of them.’ I would rather say that ‘evangelical theology’ has tended to focus on some aspects of the biblical story, whilst perhaps failing to integrate certain other key aspects of the story. But I certainly don’t see conflict here on the level of meaning - though there may be rather large differences in approach.
I wonder if the contrast between the supposedly evangelical approach and the supposedly post modern approach illustrates an unfortunate tendency to promote one position by negating another. To illustrate this would require some detailed discussion on the work of biblical theologians like E.P.Sanders, who have pioneered radical new directions, but whose strengths need to be critiqued against their weaknesses. I would say the same for N.T.Wright - who tends to sweep the board because of the depth and breadth and sheer monumental weight of his learning and insights. But even Wright is not, in my view, wholly consistent.
Post moderns are supposedly noted for their veneration of ancient wisdom - the ‘bones’ of our forefathers. If this is so, why pick our way past the bones of our evangelical forebears?
Going back to your opening comments referred to above - there is plenty on the site to keep me nourished; I’d like to propose that we take a look at where ‘sin’ fits into post modern theological thinking - as a theme which is somewhat central to the biblical narrative.
Emerging theology and modern evangelicalism
Surely we are faced here simply with a need to merge these two stories together. When you separate them out like that, they sound like two different narratives. Modern evangelicalism has been strong on the universal story that runs from Adam’s tresspass through the redemption of sinners to heaven - though it has generally not been told as a real story, more as a diagnosis and remedy. (Incidentally, the fact that your ‘broader narrative’ culminates in the ‘New Jerusalem’ rather than in ‘heaven’ already points to the need to explain the Israel theme, and highlights the argument about the renewal of creation.) The story about first century Israel certainly casts the cross in a new light and adds a level of complexity - somehow we have to take account of the fact that Jesus came to save ‘his people’ from their sins, which is a fundamentally political issue - but it certainly does not contradict or marginalize the universal implications of the story about God and the world.
No, of course, not - and I realize that there are huge spiritual and intellectual dangers in imagining that one is beginning to understand things better than our forefathers. Nevertheless, the fact remains that we do advance in understanding - or perhaps more to the point, the church is perfectly capable from time to time of regressing in understanding, and when that happens, we would hope that sooner or later the situation will be corrected. We can sometimes overdo the intellectual humility thing - and medieval theology sometimes gets overrated.
I would also point out that I did not say that ‘post modern theology’ is more adult than ‘evangelical theology’. i) Although any theology that develops now is likely to be postmodern in some way or another, I do not regard that ‘postmodern’ element as a settled, reliable or even very coherent position. I used the term ‘emerging theology’, which certainly reflects the impact of postmodernism, but which suggests something more tentative, open to development beyond postmodernism, and, to my mind at least, in close conversation with what has gone before (precisely the point of the adolescent-adult metaphor). ii) I used the expression ‘traditional evangelical theology’. Something like ‘modern evangelicalism’ might have been better. In any case, it was meant to reflect the perception that any system of thought can get stuck in the ruts that its own wheels make as it does the circuit of routine intellectual life.
To be honest, Peter, I think you’ve rather exaggerated my argument, which was only that this ‘emerging theology’ relates to what has gone before more like (a relative argument: I’m not saying at all that ‘all the insights’ of evangelical theology are immature or irrelevant) the adult to the adolescent than one person to another entirely different person. Perhaps it would be better, though, to speak of a family relationship here: in the extended family of Christian theologies, Mr and Mrs Modern Evangelicalism’s child Emerging Theology is growing up to think rather differently from her parents. Part of this is natural teenage rebellion (OK, now emerging theology is the adolescent!), but the reality is that this child is having to deal with a different world, she thinks differently, she is shaped by different influences, she is struggling to construct a worldview that makes sense for her, while at the same time recognizing that she has inherited (socially and genetically) certain traits from her parents that must somehow be incorporated constructively into her emerging identity.
Perhaps I need to take the earlier point about integrating the story about the world and the story about Israel a bit further. There is a significant difference between a story that goes from sin to heaven through the cross and story that goes from Israel’s sin to the renewal of the people of God through the cross. One has its sights set beyond this world, the other leaves us asking why God chose a people for his own possession in the midst of the nations. There is likely to be a substantial difference when it comes to mission, if nothing else, between a theology that takes personal sin as its starting-point and a theology that takes election as its starting-point. To my mind, the big question is not ‘What do we mean by "sin"?’ but ‘Why on earth is there a church?’
These are difficult issues, and discussion is not helped by the fact that we are dealing with relative differences. You make the point that we tend to promote one position by negating another. We also have a tendency to convert relative distinctions into absolute distinctions, and then it becomes much harder to reintegrate the various threads that run through scripture, the different perspectives that we adopt, and so on. Part of the problem is that we are conducting this conversation is rather abstract terms - it really needs to be underpinned by the more finnicky and time-consuming task of biblical reading / exegesis.
Rumble in the jungle
Andrew, thank you for your response to my comments. Actually, I felt you qualified (if not modified) your position a lot - in a way that I found quite helpful. Behind all of this are your posts, ages ago, in a series headed ‘Core Narrative’, which in a way I’m wanting to tease out more into the open.
In your response, you picked out some things that I didn’t say, like an ‘evangelical’ interpretation of the gospel as a device for getting people into heaven, which, although it is a caricature, is nevertheless a useful jumping off point for a different view - that of being new creation people in the world now.
I wasn’t contrasting the Eden or Exodus narrative with the post exile/2nd temple narrative - I was suggesting that the narrative/historical approach to interpretation doesn’t necessarily lead away from rather more ‘universal’ issues (and taking on board your comment about evangelicalism’s tendency to view the broader ‘narrative’ simply as a diagnosis in need of a solution). That Matthew described Jesus as coming to ‘save his people from their sins’ doesn’t contradict John saying ‘behold the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world’, if ‘world’ here suggests a more universalised context than simply the Israel of ‘his people’.
I’m also very keen not to make absolute types of distinctions between one approach and another - that’s why, perhaps, I was reacting to what I perceived to be that tendency (not my own) - in setting a ‘post modern’ approach against a ‘modern’ approach (and an ‘emergent’ versus ‘evangelical’ theology). The post modern is a critique of the modern, so the two go hand in hand, but more than that - I do recognise that we need new ways of viewing the world as it is experienced today, and therefore accompanying it a new, maybe emergent theology.
But from my (perhaps myopic) perspective, ‘emergent’ theology provides lenses, not a completely different set of constructs. I don’t think there is anything more ‘grown up’ about new ways/methodologies of interpretation than those that have gone before - unless we are making a distinction between what I suggest might be called ‘evangelical’ and ‘evangelicalism’ - to describe the difference between theology and a narrowly prescriptive mind-set and set of practices which extend beyond the confines of theological thinking.
To my mind, the comment in your penultimate paragraph is the most potent:
There is a significant difference between a story that goes from sin to heaven through the cross and story that goes from Israel’s sin to the renewal of the people of God through the cross. One has its sights set beyond this world, the other leaves us asking why God chose a people for his own possession in the midst of the nations. There is likely to be a substantial difference when it comes to mission, if nothing else, between a theology that takes personal sin as its starting-point and a theology that takes election as its starting-point.
This comment would need to take account of eschatologies which still give us some future orientation - resurrection, new earth, new heavens etc, and eschatologies which locate everything in the past - the fall of Jerusalem (and Rome, if you like). For the moment, I assume that issue has been set to one side.
Within your comment, the sentence contrasting ‘personal sin’ with ‘election’ as starting points opens up very fertile ground, provided we don’t underestimate the dark powers at work in the world, given admission by our sins, the sins of the world and the sins of our forefathers.
I would value therefore a discussion of what ‘sin’ actually means - especially as contextualised in an ‘emergent’ landscape, and how ‘new creation’ people are mandated to bring ‘new creation’ realities into the world which take account of ‘sin’ at the heart of the fallenness of the world - both in its structural and personal dimensions, its direct and indirect consequences in our lives.
Emergent conversations
I suspect that the lack of concerted effort in trying to "systematize" or "confessionalize" the theological issues discussed on this board stem largely from a widespread conviction that such a thing is neither possible nor profitable.
OK, it might be possible, but only through the standard watering-down, vagarizing (my word) process that all confessions must endure before they can pass inspection by a large number of theologians. And I don’t sense much interest in developing that sort of document here. For one, who outside this group would care? For two, this would probably have a silencing effect on discussion. Once it has been formulated, the need for debate all but ceases.
Although this will probably sound like postmodern mush, I think the undeniable point is that the CONVERSATION is what is valuable, and not the CONCLUSION. A confession, perhaps, can be regarded as a historical snapshot of the theological conversation of the day. In that sense it is a valuable record for the church historians. But to subscribe to a creed is to declare an end to the conversation. Open source theology is by necessity also open-ended theology. The conversation will not end, nor should it.
This does not solve, but indeed complicates, the need you feel for an organizational system. Because, in effect, this site itself becomes the confession, the historical record of the conversation. Not to prescribe a static system of beliefs, but to describe a dynamic, evolving system of beliefs amongst a dynamic population of authors, some who will oversee the entire project, some who just freelance from time to time, some who make one-time contributions. And let’s not forget the vast majority who never speak out, but engage in the conversation nevertheless simply by reading the dialogue of others (which, of course, is how we "converse with God" through the Scriptures, we eavesdrop on His conversations with other people).
The problem with this model, of course, is that it quickly suffocates under its own weight. We need only look to the Talmudic tradition to see how cumbersome such ongoing conversation and commentary inevitably becomes. Perhaps someday someone will have to publish the "greatest hits" of OST, enough to follow the main lines of conversation without having to read tomes of text. Or we could just wait for Google to figure it all out.
What will inevitably happen (if anything happens, that is) is that some contributors will make a name for themselves amond certain groups, or win the trust of certain people, and it will be their particular comments that are given special attention. But when those comments are given in a back and forth such as this, they are both sharpened and tempered by the entire group. All in all, not a bad way to do theology, if you have a good search algorithm. Still, I feel it is all a bit too ivory tower around here. I’d love to hear stories about how everyone has seen these ideas work themselves out in churches or communities or cultures.
Conversations
Although this will probably sound like postmodern mush, I think the undeniable point is that the CONVERSATION is what is valuable, and not the CONCLUSION. A confession, perhaps, can be regarded as a historical snapshot of the theological conversation of the day. In that sense it is a valuable record for the church historians. But to subscribe to a creed is to declare an end to the conversation. Open source theology is by necessity also open-ended theology. The conversation will not end, nor should it.
I think the creed/confession issue is important.
Both have, in my opinion, the effect of saying, "believe or be out."
Still, I feel it is all a bit too ivory tower around here.
Too much explanation and not enough experience? I’d agree with that.
I think the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25 is one of the more overlooked scriptures in the Bible. Logic without love isn’t worth much.
But how do we tell others what we have been doing without being boastful? That’s hard.
And until we have been there and done that, showing that we love God by doing the gospel and being the church, how much is our conversation worth?
Thoughts from a newbie
As someone new to posting on the site (I read for a few weeks before joining), I’m interested in finding the "unwritten rules of engagement". I love the idea of collaborative, open and self-selected discussion. As a young person with an academic bent and a love of truth, I’m interested in asking questions of the established order. This site seems to be doing that in a language that I understand and in a way I can connect with.
Peter Wilkinson (above) said:
My suspicions, on the other hand, are moving towards certainty. Certainty that the post-modern generations will need a very different language in which to understand the message of Christ. And the medium changes the message.
I believe that there are elements in theology that will/should not change, although I don’t know exactly what they are yet. That’s an important part of this journey: asking which doctrines are simply modern thought and which are eternal truths. I think we’re in an exciting time on the borders between two different worlds. I believe these shifts are greater than ‘how we do church’. If we (the Western church) don’t develop a new theology I think we are missing a great opportunity.
Andrew said:
At the moment, it seems to me less of the former and more of the later. Although I agree that we develop our ideas through conversation and debate, this doesn’t seem to be reaching towards a community end-goal. There are some great debates occuring around important theological strands.
The rules of engagement (here) state:
Perhaps, we could develop some way of re-evaluating or re-stating original comments in a way which takes into account all the comments made by various authors. This could make the work more collaborative and we could find our common ground. These re-statements would function as catalysts to begin a new series of comments that are open for revision; gradually we will begin to form some building blocks. Do people like this idea? How might it work?
An important attempt at an impossible task
I have to admit that I am beginning to believe that a postmodern theology is either impossible to achieve, or would look so vastly different from traditional theologies that it would not be recognised as a theology at all.
The reason I think this is that surely the distinctive of the postmodern worldview is that generalizations only have limited applicability, and surely the distinctive of a theology is that it tends towards generalization. A postmodern theology must be relational and situational rather than dogmatic or systematic, and, to be honest, I don’t know what that would look like.
To take the example of everyone’s favourite current bugbear, atonement, we’ve seen a progression in theology from the entirely general, (if substitionary atonement was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it should be good enough for you!) to the need for contextualized theologies (honour-shame, chronic-shame, and so on, as Alan Mann has so helpfully pointed out) to suit particular situations (that in the 21st Century West, or in Japan, and so on) and as we drill down towards theologies of particular cultures and subcultures, I wonder if we will not end up seeking out interpretations which are entirely personal: that no generalization can be made, but one must choose whichever theological interpretation is personally meaningful and helpful. If postmodernity is about the end of the one-size-fits-all philosophy, it must also be the end of the one-size-fits-all theology.
And therefore the idea that we can collaboratively come up with a theology for the "emerging church" worries me, unless the "emerging church" is purely the subculture of 21st Century English and North American post-evangelical Christians. Which it might be, and as someone who identifies more strongly with non-Christian Japanese in order to bring some kind of theology to them, I must count myself out of that. But even within a particular Western context, postmodernity focuses on the situations, not generalizations - your theology will need to change from day to day and situation to situation. Theology needs to change continually, not because God changes, but because we do.
But I am not merely being gloomy; even if a collaborative postmodern theology is impossible, it must be attempted. We must value the process of discovery, because that is, if anything, the relational element of theology. It is having the conversation about God that is the important thing, not any purported Christian Constitution that we all sign off on at the end. So I’m not worried about coming out with a product, because any such product won’t have the kind of application we’d like it have.
As Martyn Joseph sang:
on implicit knowledge, etc.
Andrew said,
Exactly. It’s not impossible, but it’s difficult. I’ve been browsing this site for a few months and I always have the feeling that I’m missing something, that it’s impossible to say anything unless one has exhaustively read every tidbit of background information.
Perhaps if there were an easier way, someone would have thought of it, but I want a more satisfying way of introducing oneself to the site and its conversations—not simply to its purpose and rules of engagement, but to it’s history. (I’m reminded of these little sections in the front of Stephen Donaldson’s novels labeled "What Has Gone Before" or something to that effect.)
There’s more going on here than polite disagreement; it does seem "collaborative" to me because it is conversation and I have the impression that people are actually changed by it, or at least they want to be changed by it. However, the collaboration lacks direction, or at least it seems to change from post-to-post. Should an emergent theology concern only those things we happen to talk about? How can we prevent it from being flighty, subject to novelty?
After all, what is theology? Have we figured that out yet? I think we need to be able to tell a better story about what theology is, why we need it, and how emergent theology is different, or, more appropriately, how it is related to other theologies.
Andrew asks, "Are we just stuck here with the limitations of a website?" Well, yes. One of the big points of emergent church seems to be an emphasis on totality, on breaking down divisions between the material/immaterial, sacred/secular, body/soul. And right now (perhaps ever) the web reinforces these divisions. It brings us into communities, but these are communities abstracted from bodies, abstracted from historical localities, abstracted, even, from most of our senses. I suggest that we remain very aware of these limitations.
Forgive me if this comment sounds overly critical, especially from a newbie. This is still an incredible place for working out the nuances in our knowledge of God.
towards better collaboration
Like some of the other commenters here, I am fairly new to the site, and I feel somewhat like sam, in that I often feel like I’ve walked in on a conversation that has been going on for some time (which of course is the case). I was immediately drawn to the site, though, because even if I felt like an outsider (and still do, actually), I felt like the concept of doing theology in community was vital to the life of the church in the "post-whatever" age. So I think the site is a fabulous idea. But to respond to the question asked in andrew’s post, I can think of two small things that might be helpful, especially for newbies to get better acclimated with what’s going on.
- A list of "important discussions" or something (bad title, but it’s late and I can’t think of anything better). Some place where people can read some of the weightier discussions that have taken place (the recent postings on the atonement, for example). That would make it easier for newbies to see what kinds of conversations have happened in the past, and would allow them to get to "know" some of the regular posters, and would also serve to sort-of-organize some of the material so that the really good discussions are easier to find. Of course, that implies some kind of value judgment by the "man in charge," and we’re good postmoderns, so we don’t like that kind of thing. Maybe a "most viewed" list instead? That’s kind of how it works with open-source software. The good plugins and add-ons get downloaded, used, talked about. Maybe something like that will help people get acclimated more quickly to the site. I guess there is already something akin to this in that not every story is on the front page. But it would help to be able to go back in time to some pivotal past conversations that are still coloring everyone’s current comments.
- Perhaps there could be some kind of function that lists everything that has been posted since the last time you were here. My RSS reader tells me when a new story has made it to the front page, but doesn’t tell me when other stories are written, when people comment, etc. There are, of course, the "latest comments" and "latest posts" sections along the right, but many times comments have the same name, and I forget which ones I have read and which I haven’t.
One other thing I have found myself desiring is to hear stories from the trenches, so to speak. The reason I am passionate about theology is that I love Christ and I love the church, and I am keenly interested in seeing her learn to proclaim the gospel in word and deed, and I believe that much of current evangelical theology either deflates the church from her mission, or encourages her to “preach the gospel” in such a way that the people she is speaking to don’t understand a word she’s saying. So I think part of the promise of an “emergent theology” is that if the church really grabs hold of it, she’ll be propelled into mission in new ways. So I would love to hear more stories (if there are any, at this point) about how this might actually get worked out in culture, in the church. I don’t know how many people work with/in churches, but that’s something I would love to hear more of… someone who has taken some of these things, run with them, and can tell us what is happening as they do that.Navigation
Thanks for the very useful suggestions. I fully appreciate the problems with navigation - here we are up against both the constraints of the content management systems and the volume of material. However, there are somethings that I can do now, and hopefully over time as the CMS evolves new ways of organizing and navigating the content will become available.
1. There is a recent posts page that lists pages that have either been recently posted or have had comments added to them. If you are logged in, there is also a link to ‘my recent posts’, which makes it easier to see if anyone has responded to something you have posted.
2. I have enabled a ‘Most visited pages’ block. It shows today’s most popular pages and the all time favourites with ‘Sex before marriage’ at the top of the list. The problem here is that the list does not necessarily reflect what regular visitors to the site are interested in. It’s just that for some reason a lot of people type ‘sex before marriage’ into their search engines. I’m also a bit worried about overloading the front page. Any feedback on that matter would be helpful.
3. The idea of an ’ important discussions list’ had occurred to me. I just hadn’t figured out the best way to do it. At the moment there is an ‘OST book’ which is really just a structured set of links to a few of the major discussions. It’s a bit arbitrary but may prove a useful way to keep the key material visible to newcomers.
Post Modern?
Perhaps a clear, concise definition - not a thesis - of just what "Post-Modern" means is in order. Would Andrew or someone else take a stab at this? No more than three sentences?
Jay
What is postmodernism?
Jay, good question. This is my working definition. I’m sure others will see things differently.
Postmodernism consists essentially in i) a loss of confidence in our capacity to know things with any degree of certainty; ii) a suspicion of accounts of reality (scientific, political, historical, religious, philosophical, etc.) that expressly preclude competing accounts of reality (Lyotard’s ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’); and iii) an acute awareness of how knowledge is rarely neutral or objective but in most case implicated in relationships of power.
For many Christians postmodernism has brought into question the confidence of modern evangelicalism in its understanding of reality and formulation of the gospel. Websites like this one are an attempt to respond constructively and not retrogressively to this challenge.
Critical of objectivity more than knowledge per se
I would take issue with your characterizing postmodernism as "a loss of confidence in our capacity to know things with any degree of certainty," though we may just differ semantically. I would say that postmoderns outright deny the ability of human to know anything objectively, but that many (at least the critical realists) would claim great certainty in many types of subjective knowledge. We may not know things absolutely, but we know many things well enough. Even what we "know" more or less certainly, however, is not beyond suspicion as per your other two points.
Seeing human knowledge as socially determined, it follows that theological dogma is also socially determined. In criticizing evangelical theology and forming a new society, emergents are creating the opportunity for new knowledge to emerge. Both evangelicals and moderns, however, are concerned about the relationship between their knowledge and objective reality.
will the emergents please stand up
i can sympathise with andrew’s concerns. having hung around reading, but not posting, on this site for a while, i have seen that it is not always the ‘collaborative project’ originally conceived, but rather a sometimes combative project. the reality appears to be that there just aren’t that many postmodern/emerging church ‘theologizers’ around. it was supposed to be a party for postmoderns, but has been gatecrashed by (un)apologetic modern evangelicals testing out their critiques :) there’s nothing wrong with that type of interaction per se, but i think the intention at OST is for a more constructive theology.. so two brief words. (andrew, please feel free to disagree with these points if you think they are unrepresentative and misleading)
1. having concerns about various aspects of modern evangelicalism, those in the emerging church are seeking each other, to try and ‘do’ christianity in a more honest (dare i say authentic?) way. this is a place for them to talk with each other, so if you’re not yet of the same persuasion, don’t go jumping straight into every conversation with a hold load of ‘yes but no buts’. take time. read. listen first, ask questions later.
2. those who are scratching their postmodern heads, and are trying to do theology from within the inevitability of that perspective, please stand up! make things a little more personal. as lathos and a few others have said, things need to be more contextualized. how and why do we want the conversations to shape us? if its speculation for the sake of being impressed with our ability to be uncertain, then its a waste of time.
anyway, easy to say, not easy to do.
god, please help us.
robert
standing up and disagreeing
I suspect that we all need people who disagree with us in order to establish us and help us qualify our thinking. Having said that I have been thoroughly frustrated when I have read so many emerging authors do nothing but defend themselves (especially in the light of Don Carson’s recent offering). OST is great because people have the opportunity to contribute to the conversation. One of the things I have noticed when reading Acts is that the church was born into and out of conflict. Perhaps when we are criticised we would be wise to heed the warning of Proverbs: "A gentle answer turns away wrath".
Graham Doel
OST navigation -- "see also" box
Kia-ora,
Regarding issues of navagation, I wonder what people think of a “see also” box with links to other posts that deal with similar subject matter or are mentioned in the thread.
It’s probably a near-impossible administrative nightmare, but if any member can add/edit the box it might come in handy. This would keep it organic and (after setup) hopefully not too time consuming for Andrew and anyone else on the backend of the site. It would also be great if some smart bit of code recognised any internal links in posts and automatically added them.
Once again it’s an administrative risk to spend time creating it if no-one would be interested, so what do people think?
'See also' box
The ‘see also’ box related to each thread is a brilliant idea - especially if anyone could add to it. But I don’t think I have the means of implementing it. If anyone knows of a way to do this with drupal, I’d love to hear about it.