You can't live on laxatives

Postmodernity can be good news the way laxatives can be good news. Lyotard, Derrida and Foucault are powerful laxatives! But you can't live on laxatives...There is more to the gospel than deconstruction. There is more to Christian life than protest. Jesus Christ is not a laxative...the Church cannot live on a diet of postmodernist thought...

The other day, Brad mentioned David Fitch's "Postmodernity as Good News for the Church" was worth a look, and I was immediately intrigued. http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/2007/05/postmodernity-as-good-news-for-church.html.

Fitch lists three broad shifts in our culture:

"THE SHIFT in how we know: From 'we know through universal processes of reason' to 'we know through participating in a community and its stories.' I go into Lyotard here.

THE SHIFT in the way language works: From language represents reality to language being reality. I go into Derrida here.

THE SHIFT in the way I understand my-self in the world. From radical individualism to relational selfhood. I go into Foucault here."

Beth: Certainly these are apt and accurate assessments. But what is most interesting is what Fitch doesn't mention: the shift from metaphysics as first philosophy (premodernism) to epistemology as first philosophy (modernism) to aesthetics as first philosophy (postmodernism).

Every journey begins with the first step, and from what I can tell from this blog post Fitch starts in the middle of the journey, assuming epistemology to be the starting point, whereas historically it began with metaphysics. That is, the philosophical journey began with wonder, not d0ubt: its first question was, "what is reality?" not "how can I know what is real?"

Sometimes when you are telling a story, you can start in the middle, and then do flashbacks, or you can start with the ending, and then work from the middle back to the beginning. Nothing says that every story must be told in perfect chronological order! But at some point, if your story is to be a narrative, (and not simply a collection of unrelated phenomenal sensations--aka "the triumph of nominalism") you have to have a point of origin, a trailhead, a start. Premodern realism is that starting point, not modernist anti-realism. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism ) . Fitch ignores it.

Fitch continues:

In the session :

I describe why there are no credible metanarratives (Lyotard). I then show why this means we must then more faithfully live our story. The expression of that is a more Missional church, a church driven by participating daily in God's Story. Matt 6:33. 2 Cor 5:14-21.

I describe why truth is textual, communal. In a sense reality is created via community and language (Derrida). I then show why this means we must more intentionally reject violence for hospitality as our way of life in the world. The expression of that is a more Communal church. Acts 2: 41-47

I describe why our "selves" are always being technologized by the culture industries and multi national corporations (Foucault). I then show why this means we must reject consumerism in all its hideous forms for monastic practices of resistance in spiritual formation. The expression of that is a (more intentionally) Transformational church. Rom 12:1-2.

Beth:

"I describe why there are no credible metanarratives (Lyotard). I then show why this means we must then more faithfully live our story."

This is where I get lost. If there are no credible metanarratives that means that no narrative is any better than another. As C.S, Lewis would say, my choice of narrative is then "just a matter of digestion." Or as Skinner would put it, "a matter of environment." Or as Wilson would put it, "a matter of DNA."

At any rate, why must I "faithfully live my story?" What compels me, unless it is nature or nurture? Is that all the gospel amounts to? Unless one is a Calvinist that hasn't been the way the Great Tradition would speak of the faith. For the life of me, I cannot understand why anyone would want to faithfully live out a story, muchless die for it, unless it was true, AND good AND beautiful AND in some way connected me with what is ultimately real. Ah, but I've laid my cards on the table: I am a benighted premodernist.

Fitch:

"I describe why truth is textual, communal. In a sense reality is created via community and language (Derrida)."

Beth:

Well, again, this is part of the story, but not the whole thing. Truth is communal insofar as the Trinity is the ur-community, and yes, reality is created via that community of Father Son and Holy Spirit, and God's word, "Let there be..." But where things get off track is when, in good modernist fashion, we start at the middle (with ourselves) and not at the Beginning (with God), and so fancy ourselves gods able to create reality for ourselves. This is the sin of Descartes. Rather than discover and enter into the Reality which pre-exists us, we either ignore it or rebel against it, fashioning our own fig-leaf words and stories and worlds to cover our nakedness.

BOTTOM LINE:

yes, postmodernity can be good news the way laxatives can be good news. Lyotard, Derrida and Foucault are powerful laxatives! But you can't live on laxatives. Only anorexics do that, and they wind up killing themselves. Neither can the church live on a diet of postmodernist thought.

I agree wholeheartedly with Fitch:

"Let us as a church understand our own allegiances and cultural formation first. Then, with who we are and what God has given us (historically) let us take up (incarnational) residence in a different culture and allow God to build relationships in mutual submission out of which God works through hospitality, humility and love."

Protestantism's allegiances and cultural formation has roots in modernism. Fitch is absolutely right, we do need to understand those roots. No wonder protestants are so fascinated with postmodernism, because it is the last chapter of our story; our trail's end. (As Rodney Clapp has pointed out, we really should call it hyper-modernism, rather than postmodernism.) And what we are discovering is that, having binged and purged, we are now hungry, so very, very hungry...

There is more to the gospel than deconstruction. There is more to Christian life than protest. Christ is not a laxative. He is the Bread of Heaven. Take, eat. This is His body broken for us.

JOHN 6:

35Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. 36But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
41At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." 42They said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"
43"Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. 44"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 45It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.'Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
52Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
53Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." 59He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.