Credo Ut Intellegam

2007-07-14T17:24:00.000-06:00

A Tale of a Tub

I was talking to a friend recently about what I thought I would post next on my blog, and I said that I would try to grapple with a partial definition of what Christian poetry might look like, but that I did not, of course, want to say anything too definitive, lest I should fail to be nuanced. In jest, he pointed out that this contracted my previous post, in which I had promised to be more straightforward, and to stop hiding behind sophistic complexity. Even though he was just joking, he had a very good point; my natural proclivity is to hide behind nuance, and I need people and God to keep reminding me to develop integrity. So, with many thanks to my friend (who usually posts under the name of Cramsey), I will, in this post, undertake an analysis of this proclivity in the hope that it will serve as a reminder of integrity for myself, and an encouragement to those who find themselves faced with similar temptations.

Let us begin with the concept of integrity, which is the virtue that stands opposite to this vice, and which must therefore be the rod by which we measure its aberrations. I think the best definition of integrity is that it involves ensuring that there is a correlation between one external, public life, and one's internal, private life. It means that both parts of one's life are integrated with each other. Time and again, Scripture urges us to such integration. Internal faith complements, and is complemented by, external works. Those led (internally) by the Spirit of God bear His (external) fruit. When someone says something to you privately, you are to shout it from the rooftops. We are to avoid spiritual pride, which is characterised by all the religious fervour of whitewashed tombs. We are to emulate Christ, who told his persecutors that he was doing the same thing privately, in Gethsemane, as he did publically, in the temple courts.

In opposition to integrity stands hypocrisy; along with Shakespeare's Iago, and contra the God who appeared to Moses, the hypocrite says, "I am not what I am." In hypocrisy, one seeks to depict oneself to others as increasingly attractive, even while one is internally corroding. Permanent hypocrisy is the state of hell - the devil considers himself to be an angel of light - he thinks he is something when he is nothing - and those who follow him claim to be wise, even as they become fools. It is no wonder that Paul wished earnestly to be released from this state when he lamented that he did those things that he would not do, and did not do those things that he would do.

Having established this definition, I will now talk about my own particular form of hypocrisy, which involves diverting others from my corrupt, frail, and broken inward state by deploying complex and sophisticated ideas and arguments that serve to distract them. I do not, of course, believe that all such nuance emerges from this source - indeed some complexity is necessary because God, and his universe, are gloriously complex - but, for now, I will confine myself to the sort of complexity that is sophistic rather than necessary, since I am more tempted towards that than toward simplisticism (which is also sinful, in its way).

We encounter this form of hypocrisy often in the Bible. The teacher of the law asks Jesus who his neighbor is, not because he is inwardly concerned about his neighbor, but rather because he want to make himself look good in the eyes of others - thus, his awareness of the "complexities" of Jewish law turns into a foil designed to distract others from his lack of compassion. When Jesus strikes at the very heart of the Samaritan woman's impoverished spiritual condition, she attempts to divert his gaze from it by introducing doctrinal complexities: "Should we worship on the mountain or in the temple?" Pilate, the patron saint of postmoderns, is, perhaps, the best example of such hypocrisy; seeking to evade his legitimate unease concerning Christ's mistreatment, he ask Jesus, "What is truth?" Obviously, he is not actually curious, but is trying to cover up his inwardly guilty conscience by explaining his inactivity as the result of his "sensitive humility in the face of an infinitely complex, plural reality" (does this sound like any postmoderns you know?). Once again, complex philosophical arguments work as a mask for a corrupted heart.

So, as unwilling disciples of Pilate, what can we do to correct our addiction, especially when it is a parasite that deploys our most seemingly noble forays into theology, docrine, and philosophy, just as it converted (as Paul writes) the law into a vehicle of sin? The conclusion that I have come to is that we can find salvation from this state through repentance. "Of course!" you are no doubt thinking, "Can one think of a more cliched truism?" But give me a moment to explain. It is in repentance that we begin to assert publically, before God and men, the extent of our internal corruption - we break down the barrier between what we are, and what we want people to think we are. Like the tax collecter, we stand a long distance away from the temple, and beat our breasts, and, in doing so, we conform our outward state to our inward state. Whether in the presence of a priest or an accountability partner, whether generally or particularly, we tell God and others, "We can't pretend any more. We are fakes, shams. Our arguments are superfluous and hollow, and we only made them to avoid getting caught, to avoid being shamed publically. But now we wish to tell the truth - now, publically, we declare that there is no health in us. We admit that we are shamed, cursed, and unworthy to be called your son." And then something amazing happens; we stop saying that we have no sin, and thereby stop being hypocritical liars. We are freed from an iron maiden of our own making, the twisted, contorted body consisting in our puffed up, sophistic arguments, and we step into light, a light that illuminates both the inward and outward person. God's will is done, and His kingdom comes, publically and privately, externally and internally, on earth as it is in heaven. Until we once again forget, and once again re-turn to Him - 490 times, if necessary - and once again step into the unity and coherence of His presence, knowing fully that we probably will stray from our repentance, but resting in the knowledge that God will call his sheep back to Him, and that we need not worry about the sins of tomorrow; this is the time of repentance - this is the day, the hour, the moment that God has made - let us rejoice, and be glad in it!

2007-07-09T16:23:00.000-06:00

Deep Calls to Deep: An Apology for Liturgy

For many of my friends, my decision to leave the Evangelical Church (in the denominational rather than literal sense of the term) in favour of the Anglican Communion has been somewhat puzzling. Usually, they are willing enough to allow that God can, probably begrudgingly, work through the High Church in spite of the "impersonal," "deadening" effect of liturgical prayer and praise, and that a liturgical church is better than no church; however, many of my Christian friends, whom I highly respect, have trouble understanding why I would leave a democratised and populist church for the sake of "wooden forms," allegedly sleepy congregations and the empty pews that accompany them. I cannot, of course, answer all such concerns, but, today, in this post, I will talk about one of the major reasons for my liturgical turn.

The best way to explain this is to explain the need that drove me to it. As a good evangelical, I was taught to believe that the centre of Christian faith is a privatised, individualised encounter with God; at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what your pastor, or your church, or your friends think about God - what counts is a personal engagement with, and application of, scripture. Most Evangelical Church services are theoretically designed to facilitate such an engagement - the community is only necessary inasmuch as it supports our personal relationship with Christ, and the only guideline for interpreting the Bible is that one should strip it of any cultural, historical, or liturgical baggage that keeps one from encountering the text in its barest possible terms.

As I was shaped in the context of these beliefs, I usually tried to avoid any sort of biblical commentaries or external reading patterns during my devotional time - after all, if the Bible itself is God's word, why clutter it with the opinions of mere humans? But as I followed this pattern, I began to feel more and more alienated from God and his word. When I knelt to pray, my thoughts would wander, with no boundaries to curb them. More significantly, as I read selections of scripture, I began to wonder precisely what an authentic personal engagement with scripture meant. As an English Major shaped and trained in the fragmented battlefield of postmodernity, I could, almost unconsciously, identify numerous potential interpretations of a single text. As I read, the spectre of Derrida hovered over my shoulder, always seeking to disrupt the interpretations suggested by that unholy trinity, Marxism, Feminism, and Post-Colonialism. Foucault and Freud loomed large, along with Nietzsche and whoever is responsible for performance theory (Judith Butler?). I did not, of course, think that any of these interpretive paradigms would allow me to read the Bible in a way that would bring me closer to God, but, in order to counter these voices impressed on me by my English training, I required a strong interpretive counter-paradigm.

This created a problem because my Evangelical training had not taught me a method of encountering the Babel of voices that seemed to haunt me when I read the Bible. It could assert that I should go with the "plain," or "common sense" reading, but this simply left me wondering about the nature of common sense. A feminist's common sense (common sense being the ideas that are considered obvious, or self evident) would be very different from the common sense of a Marxist; for the former, a common sense reading would highlight the "obvious" assumptions about gender and sex encoded in the Bible, while a Marxist would highlight its "obvious" message for an oppressed working class. As it turned out, there were as many "common sense," "plain" readings of any given Biblical text as there were theories that approached it. So I could not simply still the wind and the waves by appealing to the "plain" sense of Scripture.

With little more success, I looked to historicism. Basically, a historicist reading of the Bible seeks to discover the ways that a Biblical text interacts with the historical setting in which it was written. I thought that, if I could simply bypass the interpretive frames, and read God's word from the perspective of its first audience, I could get at what he was saying to humans, and thereby get at what he is saying to humans. However, I soon became disenfranchised from this approach for two reasons. The first is that history does not really manage to evade the postmodern culture wars that I sought so earnestly to escape. It became clear to me that one could historically contextualize the Bible in a variety of ways, and that these ways suspiciously reflected the biases of interpreters. For example, one cannot simply talk about the single historical context of, say, the Gospel of Luke - one could construct, out of primary source materials, a variety of histories (historical contexts) that are written from different perspectives. To follow our earlier theme, we could, using the same primary texts, construct both a historical context that is organized around the concept of class, and another that is organized around the concept of performative gender; these are only two examples, but I could come up with many more. In which of these contexts should we view Luke? Once again, we are overwhelmed by a multiplicity of potential histories unveiled by a variety of theories, and are faced with the daunting question: Of this wearisome infinity of contexts, which will unlock the meaning of the text so that we can get to God? Again, I was confused.

The other problem I had with the historicist method was that it placed a great deal of distance between myself and the Biblical text. I could pretend to escape both secular postmodern theorizing and facile Evangelical moralizing by limiting my engagement with the Bible to an understanding of its historical context, in the dryest and most uninteresting sense of the term (interest, after all, implies dangerous bias). But I had no strategy for applying historicist fragments of the Bible to my own life. My safety consisted in the barest assertion of what was said in the text, and I feared personal application, lest I should once again enter the realm of subjectivity, and, once again, be mercilessly assaulted by the plurality of postmodernity. But this shelter from postmodernity came at a high cost; I traded a bible vexed with subjectivity for a bible whose certainty lay safely entombed in graveclothes woven from endless layers of history. It seemed as if I would have to choose between a personal interpretation of the Bible that had no access to truth, and a truthful preservation of the Bible that kept it from effecting any change, whether personal or cultural.

In these plights, I found (and still find) the Anglican Book of Common Prayer to be an efficacious means of reading the Bible. To begin, the prayer book prefaces and follows the scriptural readings with prayers that are themselves extracted out of, and synthesised from, the bible. Rather than confining me, these prayers guide my wandering thoughts so that they can be directed toward God. It is freeing to know that I can rest in the prayer-forms of scripture instead of undertaking the Herculean task of personally overcoming my own strong-willed, individualistic tendency to mentally stray during prayer.

These prayers, which have been used time and again by Christians for 2000 years (they are therefore not arbitrary, as are many devotional manuals/programmes), basically work to re-create in me an interpretive paradigm extracted from Scripture itself, and they also draw me much nearer to the Biblical text (and thereby to God); there is a world of difference between talking about moral, historical, political etc. points that we can take from the Bible, and actually using the very words of Scripture as the instruments of our prayers. As I use these words and forms, inspired by God himself, my heart and mind becomes tuned to the heart and mind of God; scripture no longer points toward me, and my own personal affairs, but, rather, it re-forms me so that the direction of my life points toward God. And as the Word begins to teach me to have the mind of Christ, through Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, I am exposed to other portions of scripture, so that I can use my biblically tuned ears to hear what they have to say. In many ways, liturgy is circular, for we are invited to use the Bible as both the instrument of our interpretive reform, and the object of the reformed interpretive capacity, and this cycle is itself set in motion by that model of holy cyclicality, the Trinity, who has predestined us to interpret his Word according to his Word. Thus, the Babel of voices postmodern, historical, and otherwise, is stilled as God's word communes with itself, and as we are caught up in this glorious communion. All the rivers of God's Word flow into the sea of his Word, and the sea is never filled, and we cry with the Psalmist, "Deep calls unto deep at the noise of your waterfalls; all your waves and billows have gone over me."

2007-07-03T16:32:00.000-06:00

A Theodicy in Jello

In some of my prior posts, I have attempted, with little success, to treat the topic of depression. I say that I have done so with little success because it seems that every time I talk about something like that - something that involves very personal and human suffering - I bury it underneath a pile of philosophical dithering that often resembles that of Job's comforters. Of course, I think that, given the difficulty of depression, it is understandable that I should seek to avoid speaking about the thing itself - it is painful, and in the face of a painful subject, it is natural that we should almost unconsciously seek to avoid it. But I have become tired of trying to answer emotional pain with philosophical discourse, and therefore this post will not, in any sense, provide an "answer" to the problem of evil or the problem of depression. I merely want to paint a picture of my own experience with depression; too many people are ready to "fix" depression without giving any thought to what the state of depression actually looks like, so I hope that this post can add a descriptive corrective to the often prescriptive answers that people are ready to offer to a depressed person.

To begin, I wish to relate the medical specifics behind my depression, so that readers, if indeed there are any out there, do not have false ideas of my position. I have been on antidepressants (Effexor, and now Bupropion) for the past three years or so, and have remained on them due to my tendency to get high scores on the Beck's inventory (perhaps the only time I have been disappointed to get high scores on a test). However, I have not seen a professional psychiatrist (only a general practitioner) about the matter, and therefore have not been officially diagnosed with clinical depression proper. Official stats, however, do not keep me from becoming depressed.

As I have experienced it, depression is a state in which normal negative emotional reactions to things are amplified. So, today, for example, I became worried and stressed because of four causes

1) I was worried that I was not making enough progress in Latin (I need strong Latin skills for the next degree that I am taking)

2) I was worried that I was disappointing the professor who hired me by not doing enough/the right kind of research for her

3) I was worried that we will not find affordable housing near UBC for September

4) I was worried about making a decision concerning storage for our stuff when we move out

5) I was worried about our house, which is less than clean.

Okay, maybe there are more than four things in this list, but, in reality, a lot of them should not be a big deal. Housing and storage are not terribly difficult to find; I made more Latin progress this past week than I was making earlier this summer, and I am in contact with a fabulous Latin prof, who is willing to help me; by her own admission, my supervisor/boss was having difficulty communicating her expectations to me, and I can't expect myself to read her mind - moreover, she cares about human matters, and would not want me to do endless research at the cost of everything else; and, if I work at cleaning the house/packing in bits, I will eventually be able to manage the messiness. So, technically, I had nothing to worry about.

However, due to my depressive tendencies, each of these matters became a big deal. I know it will sound quite silly to someone who has not experienced depression, but I saw each as concrete proof of my failure at life in general, and as a token of the many disappointments that I can expect in the future. I am barely able to comprehend hope and joy, and when I am just barely able to do so, it feels like I am just waiting for the next mishap, however minor, to plunge me into a chaos of self doubt and loathing. Right now, the clearly rational part of me is protesting fiercely against my vocalisation of such an attitude - indeed, it causes me to be ashamed of such irrational, hyper-dramatic thoughts, and makes me wonder if I do not simply cherish them out of a theatrical love affair with heightened and worthless melodrama. Even as I write, I have to reassure myself that these are real emotions that I have to deal with, and not just performative attempts to "out-Herod Herod."

So, what do I do about them? Once again, I am ashamed, and want to answer that I stoically entomb them in an intellect of steel - that, by trying hard enough and coming up with the right philosophical/theological formula, I successfully suppress the rebellion that my soul undertakes against me. However, trying to argue oneself out of depression is kind of like trying to argue oneself out of having a broken leg. In reality, I cling to what I can. On a less noble note, this means that when I am shopping, I sometimes buy stupid little things, like Jello, to make myself happy. It may seem trite, absurd, and juvenile that such things as Jello can somehow help depression and answer the problem of evil, but, even as I was worrying about this, I remembered how my mentor, the Ecclesiast, embeds in his philosophically depressive texts instructions to eat, drink, and make merry. Perhaps he, too, was so weary of his dungeon of philosophical inquisition that he was glad to participate in something simple, normal, and somewhat delightfully trite. Perhaps he was talking about the Near Eastern equivalent of Jello. But, if this argument does not convince you, you really need to see "Stranger Than Fiction," because it perfectly embodies what I mean: In the face of death and darkness, it is not grand, overarching philosophising that teaches us the meaning of life, but rather things simple and mundane that we nonetheless love because they are embarassingly, painfully, and beautifully human.

But all Jello aside, my relationships with my wife, my friends, and my family have done much to help me survive. I do not, of course, pretend that these people have fixed me, or even that they are always perfect or faithful comforters -indeed, who is? - but they are there, and that is often enough. Even when I am most evasive around them, and they fail to press me to share the things in my heart that I simultaneously need most to share and want most to hide, they are there, much like the God whose name, I AM, indicates simple presence. Throughout all my exaggerated trials, throughout the silliness of my trite sorrows and sufferings, they are there; they are there as God is there, and I am blessed.

2007-06-30T16:33:00.000-06:00

Our Mouth Shall Show Forth Thy Praise

Hello, everyone,

I apologise for the too-long absence from this blog, and especially to those whose unmoderated comments were not published because I was not taking care of the blog - I finally moderated them, so Ky, Clint (welcome to the blog, if you have not given up on it due to my negligence), and Lee, your responses are now posted.

In this post, I hope to explain why I have not posted lately, why I find it difficult to post, and why (hopefully) I will be posting more in the future.

To begin, I have realised that, the further one gets into the world of academia (or maybe just the study of English), the more difficult it is to speak. What I mean by this is that one becomes increasingly aware that the things one is saying could be misinterpreted, and so one becomes very silent, lest both Christians and seculars put words into one's mouth, or one writes in the annoyingly unencryptable prose that you can find in many of my prior posts. For example, I once thought that it was enough to simply assert one's Christianity on a university campus - to say that one was a Christian was tantamount to preaching the gospel. But I soon realized that the term Christian has numerous different meanings - when I use the word Christian, for example, I am talking about someone seeking to follow Christ, as revealed in the Bible and interpreted in a community (the church) which has hung together for the past two thousand years. However, when other people hear the word Christian, they often associate it with certain (right wing) political stances, modes of reading that contain no nuance whatsoever, and, in general, a person unreflectively clinging to fragments of a childhood myth. Thus, in preaching the gospel, I not only had to state my position as a Christian, but, in some way, convey the context and definition of my usage of the word, lest others take my message for something that it is not. But it became difficult because, the farther I went, the more I discovered the difficulty of such a task, and the more I opted for silence rather than a word of hope lobbed into a field of linguistic chaos that would inevitably misdefine it and tear it to bits.

I had not really realised my position, however, until a conversation I had with my good friend, the Queen of West Procrastination. She happened to be in town on the day of my MA thesis defence, and therefore came to witness it. From an academic perspective, the defence went well, but, I was rather happier with what QWP said she saw in my defence. Apparently, I was not only defending my thesis, but was also having a positive spiritual influence on my committee, and was proposing things that challenged academia to conform to a higher standard of discourse. I do not say this because I wish to brag about it, but rather because I want to talk about how relieved I felt when I got the chance to say what I actually wanted to say, about God, academics, and the Bible, without feeling like I needed to hide my position behind a bushel of guarded linguistic and philosophical nuance. It was even more encouraging that everyone (including the adamant atheist on my committee) liked what I had to say, even if they didn't wholly agree with me.

After my defence, QWP and I parsed what had happened, and why I suddenly felt the freedom of a blocked stream when the dam that has been maintaining its stagnance (is that a word?) suddenly bursts. During this conversation, I realised that what made me feel so free was not so much the fact that my defence was successful (although it helped), but rather the sense that I was doing precisely what God designed me to do. I realised that I need to be more vocal about things God has shown me, not because I am superior to anyone else, but because God has given me a vocation, and has designed me to take joy in that vocation.

After this conversation, I was thinking of my profound fear of vocalising things, and I realised that, in the bible, time and again, God's servants are always afraid to speak, and God always has to convince them otherwise. Both Jeremiah and Moses feel inadequate to bear God's message, and Christ anticipates the fear of his disciples when he tells them that he will give them words to say when they are accused by others. In fact, this is what we see at Pentecost - Christ's disciples, focussed inward in a relatively small prayer group, suddenly become eloquent about Christ. But I think that I have found the passage about Zecheriah, John the Baptist's father, to be most meaningful. Intriguingly enough, Z is unable to speak as a result of his skepticism regarding the angel's message - typologically, we can see the same principle working in our own society - we are skeptical about everything, and we are unable to speak (postmoderns might call this the "fear of the text"). Intriguingly enough, Z's lack of speech is cured when he opens his mouth to praise God at the birth of his son. Perhaps we can see in this that the cure for a contemporary, skepticism-induced dumbness is praise and thanks directed toward God. As the Anglican Book of Common Prayer would say in its marvellous liturgical synthesis of scripture, "Oh, Lord open thou our lips/And our mouth shall show forth thy praise."

2007-01-18T03:36:00.000-06:00

Why Relevance is Irrelevant

As a TA this semester, I had the rather interesting, if sometimes interminable, experience of glimpsing a sector of contemporary culture through the English 100 essays which I had to mark. In particular, I found these essays’ emphasis on relevance intriguing. Even though the essays’ topics had little to do with relevance, students often felt the need to state, usually at the beginning or end of their essays, that the piece they were working on, usually a classical work of English literature, was still relevant in contemporary society. On a superficial level, one might suggest that this emphasis on relevance is something that they are taught both directly and indirectly; because English majors like to know that their work is still important, one might magically get extra marks for employing a “relevance formula” that demonstrates a work’s contemporary importance. On a deeper level, however, the formulae that entry level students often unskilfully employ reflect, in a simple form, the hegemonies that govern academic circles. In this post, I will analyse – perhaps deconstruct – the idea of relevance as it is espoused in both the academy and the church, and will then attempt to articulate a Christian response to the question that the concept of relevance purports to answer.

Defined succinctly, relevance involves a demonstration that one thing is somehow defined in the context of another thing. If I state that a certain legislation is relevant to farmers, I mean that that legislation can (and probably should) be interpreted within the sphere and context of farming. If I state that a certain book is relevant to my life, I mean that this book touches on issues that I have experienced; thus, my life (my experience) becomes the locus from which that book derives its importance. The fact that such examples are relevant in one sphere does not necessarily exclude them from being relevant in another sphere; the legislation that is relevant to farming may also (somehow) be relevant to small businesses, and the book that is relevant to my life may also be relevant to yours. What is important is that, in each sphere of relevance, only the parts of the relevant item that affect the subjects of these spheres are retained. The remainder of the item is discarded as irrelevant.

In contemporary society, the “relevant” parts of a subject are usually determined in terms of the unchallenged exaltation of the individual. In literary fields (and presumably in other fields), the search for relevance involves simultaneous modernity driven arrogance and postmodern hermeneutics of suspicion; those theories that empower the individual are conveniently adopted, while those that pose an external (essential) threat to the omnipotent self are deconstructed as mere societal constructions – a modernity driven faith in something human (idolatry) is thus protected against intrusion leading to humility by a deconstruction that seeks to level everything that raises itself against this human idol. While contemporary deconstructors seek to offset this selfishness by deconstructing the ego itself, they simply displace the discussion, as they merely imply a different definition of the self – the self that is performing the act of deconstruction - to which the deconstructed version must bow. Thus, when a contemporary person asserts that something is relevant, they mean that that thing reinforces a selfhood developed in a secular, late capitalist context.

In literary criticism, the quest for relevance simply involves making the past look as much as possible like our own society by selectively retrieving certain portions of it, and selectively ignoring others. Thus, Shakespeare (and, increasingly, the Bible) becomes a proof text for fads and trends that change every 5-10 years, and Milton’s relatively minor heresies, rather than his much more influential orthodoxy, become legitimation for the neo-heresies that have become popular in contemporary society. When the contemporary reader picks up a book, she looks for those elements which resonate with her experiences, which are usually shaped by the greed of a consumer culture that promotes immediate gratification; only those works that can provide instantaneous McPleasure with little work become relevant, and those texts which require one to actually step outside of oneself into another language, culture, or worldview, become irrelevant. While postmodernity claims to seek an encounter with “the other,” it actually subjugates “the other” inasmuch as the very term, as used in literary criticism and cultural studies, is foreign to (and therefore imposed upon) the subjects that these disciplines purport to study.

This quest for relevance, which seeks to indiscriminately reduce all things past and present to the image of the contemporary individual, allows no room for the individual to encounter anything that can properly check or challenge his pride. Whereas those in past societies sought to learn humility by exposing their lives to the critiques of past and present authorities, the contemporary individual cannot access authority induced humility, as the authority becomes an “authority,” a bubble figure who will burst at the slightest whim of the self that purportedly constructed her. As authentic experience begins when one runs up against something larger than oneself – the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom –contemporary individuals cannot gain authentic experience because they deconstruct all things and persons larger than themselves.

To move from literary criticism to evangelical subculture, contemporary evangelical Christians have often syncretised Christianity with the contemporary, self-oriented search for relevance. Thus, the gospel merely becomes another product that can satiate the capitalist consumer – people skip from church to church as they might skip from shop to shop in a mall – and the name of Christ, emblazoned on Protestant neo-relics (T shirts and bracelets) sold at your local Christian marketplace, is indistinguishable from the name of Coca Cola; both fulfil the desire of a paying customer. However, when the gospel is promoted as relevant – that is, as something that satiates the contemporary consumer – it can no longer challenge the hollowness of self-centred relevance. By defining the gospel in terms that placate the individual’s desire to place himself in the centre of the sphere of relevance, one precludes its ability to challenge the self that must die and be displaced by the lordship of Christ. This alliance between evangelical subculture and selfishness masked as a search for relevance explains the increasing inability of evangelical churches to produce true self-sacrifice; because selfishness has been smuggled into the very heart of evangelical subculture, it has no word that it can speak to the greed and lust not only of a culture that is ever self-seeking and never fulfilled, but also to the members of the congregation who are given no weapons with which to resist their cultural milieu. Consequently, evangelical syncretism between Christianity and the contemporary quest for relevance results in what Ron Sider has recently termed “the scandal of the evangelical conscience.”

I realise, of course, that the first question that readers will have is “How can we attract our peers to Christianity if we are not to appeal to those issues, ideas, and art forms which are relevant to them.” A preliminary response to this question is that it is not our job, but rather the holy spirit’s job, to attract people to Christianity; we are called, not to contort the gospel so that it fits our historical milieu, but rather to proclaim it with integrity. Beyond this, however, I would suggest that preaching the gospel is not a matter of wholeheartedly adopting or eschewing contextualisation, but rather a matter of witnessing to God’s truth using whatever means, relevant or irrelevant, that God has given us. As Lesslie Newbigin points out in his “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society,” Christ sometimes sought to appeal to the needs and desires of the people that surrounded him – he fed the five thousand, and turned water into wine – but, other times, he absolutely refused to become “relevant” – as when he refused to become a political ruler, or when he refused to sidestep the difficult issue of telling people that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood to be saved.

I would also suggest that we should not look at the evangelical church’s syncretism as a fatal flaw, but rather as a site of God’s grace. Throughout church history we see God taking a flawed church, and working his grace through her – telling church history is not a matter of covering up those portions that are most embarrassing, but rather a matter of praising God for the miracles that he has worked in despite of ecclesiastical situations that seem beyond hope. Somewhere in Romans, Paul states that God has handed all over to sin that he may have mercy on them all. We should be excited by this discovery of syncretism, not because it is itself good, but because we look forward to the ways that God’s grace can overcome it, and make it into something beautiful in spite of its folly.

2006-07-15T23:01:00.000-06:00

A Modest Proposal

I had a rather sobering experience the other day, and it kind of highlights the tensions that we often face as Christian academics. I was writing a proposal for a general English graduate conference that our university participates in every year. I usually find paper proposals particularly difficult, since they involves a seemingly egocentric promotion of one's own subject; I am much more comfortable treating my work in an impersonal, demi-objective manner. However, this proposal was giving me an excessive amount of trouble, and I wasn't able to understand why until I reflected on it afterwards. My problem with the proposal was that, in it, I promoted my work on grounds that did not reflect what I consider my primary interest in the proposal's topic.

My proposal basically urges academics to pursue further study of early modern biblical commentaries. Such a proposal is, academically speaking, a tough sell. Most English scholars would prefer to study something "interesting" and "relevant;" something that once again rehashes issues pertaining to gender, class, race, or postmodernity in relation to a marginal text that was oppressed by white, colonial, aristocratic, modernity driven males. Most historians possess the work ethic necessary to undertake the painstaking and often thankless task of analysing old commentaries, but they often focus on texts that have a more direct relation to "important" historical events and trends. Since Religious Studies emerged from the Enlightenment rebellion against medieval and early modern biblical interpretation in favour of "natural" religion, members of this field would probably enter such a study with a skeptical, modernity driven bias that would cloud a historically sensitive study of the commentaries. Thus, my work lies in a middengeard (middle earth) between three fields, which explains why there is so little secondary literature on it.

In any case, I promoted the study of these commentaries on a somewhat old fashioned historicist basis; we need to study these texts because they will aid us in interpreting biblical quotations in other texts. Because of the prevalent usage of the bible in the early modern period, a sensitive reading of biblical references, solidly grounded in early modern commentaries, will be useful for early modern scholars in any field. However, after I finished writing this proposal, I felt somewhat unhappy with it. It was not that I disagreed with my grounds for the promotion of these commentaries; I think that historical reconstruction is an immensely noble and useful task. Rather, I felt that, in this proposal, I was only able to skirt my real reasons for interest in these texts.

In actuality, I am interested in early modern biblical commentaries because they are written by brothers (I do not use this term in a sexist fashion; I simply have not yet found a commentary by a woman) in Christ about the revealed word of God. Our contemporary churches often act as though our generation is the only one to which Christ has been revealed, and preach with a disturbing ignorance of the vast riches of Christian history. In many ways, I consider my study of these commentaries as one way of partaking in the communion of saints; just as I can attend a bible study and discuss, argue, and pray over the scriptures as I learn to interpret and apply them through the encouragement and fellowship of other Christians, so I find that my dialogue with early modern commentaries written by fellow believers can humble me, challenge me, and sharpen both my analysis and application of scripture. I do not, of course, believe everything asserted by these commentaries, just as I do not believe everything contained in contemporary Christian subculture; the early modern period was no less impervious to fallen biblical misinterpretation and appropriation than is our contemporary society. However, as I read the bible and interpret it through humble and spirit led dialogue with both ancient and contemporary Christians, I trust that God will lead both myself and others to glorify Him in our lives. Obviously, I am much more excited by what I wrote in this paragraph than by the purely academic historical reconstruction of biblical interpretation. Tragically, however, I feel (probably accurately) that I will rarely, if ever, be able to confess in a secular academic forum, these deepest roots of my interest in medieval and early modern Christianity.

Of course, I don't mind being an "undercover" Christian in the academy. In order to remain healthy, however, I would like to find forums in which I can treat topics like the Trinity and Incarnation as basic facts rather than tenuous propositions. I have been recently inspired by the sort of books which I found at Regent College on our recent honeymoon, and wish that I could write essays like those found in these books. Somewhere in Proberbs Solomon says that "hope deferred maketh the heart sick." This is how I feel about my passion for writing and talking simultaneously about Christ and the issues and stories in the world that surrounds; keeping this passion bottled up inside of me makes me cynical and bitter, and makes my "heart sick." I do not mind doing menial academic tasks (St. Paul urges us to do them well) such as historical reconstruction - I think they are, in a secondary academic sense, very important - but alongside this work, I need a space where I can safely speak of the more important issue of my work in relation to Christ and the world that he came to save.

2006-05-27T00:46:00.000-06:00

The Da Vinci Code: Christian and Secular Responses

I feel particularly bad posting on this topic, since such a post seems only to add to the reputation of a notoriously vapid work, which is infinitely unworthy of both the popularity that it merits in secular culture and the protests which it evokes in Christian culture. To be fair, I will state at the beginning of this post that I have not been inclined to waste my time on reading the novel, and I thus do not know it first hand; in my defense, I have seen the movie, know its content through various friends who have read it, and have also read large portions of Baigent's pseudo-history of the Holy Grail, on which it was based. In any case, I am not interested in discussing or refuting specific arguments made in the novel, but rather in analysing both the Christian and secular reaction to this cultural artefact.

I have been largely frustrated by the Christian uproar over the novel. To begin, Christians seem to have the idea that this book has caused many Christians to doubt their faith, and armed non-Christians against Christianity and the church. To be blunt, I'm not sure how true this is. There are probably Christians who were already doubting their faith, and who turned to the Da Vinci code as a convenient excuse for abandoning Christianity. Likewise, there are probably non-Christians who turn to the Da Vinci code because it affirms something that they already believe. However, in both of these cases, this work acts as a convenient catalyst for pre-existing doubt. My point is that Christians should be far more concerned about this pre-existent doubt and its causes than they are about the Da Vinci code, which is popular as the effect rather than the cause of cultural doubt.

In many ways, the Da Vinci code seems to draw its power from a combination of intellectual vacuity and non-dogmatic spirituality. Because North Americans (I have heard that the novel is far less popular in Europe) like to pretend to be intelligent, but do not really possess a capacity for critical thinking, they turn to novels like the Da Vinci code as form of Intellect Lite; they like the way that the novel provides a comfortable facade of critical thinking without engaging them in the rigorous, uncertain, and often "boring" academic process of sifting through historical fact and fiction, a process which always produces results far less definitive and overarching than those "discovered" by Dan Brown's main character. They also like the way that the work toys with spiritual themes; by presenting religion with very little dogma (I use this word in the technical, not derogatory, sense), Dan Brown taps into the postmodern love of "spirituality" that offers everything to its adherents and requires nothing in return. Thus, the Da Vinci code appeals to problems that already exist in our culture, but it is not the primary cause of these problems.

Thus, I see the Christian uproar about the Da Vinci code as largely an overblown attack on a straw man. As is usual in evangelical circles, we prefer to attack the immediate, tangible effects of human corruption rather than grapple with the principalities and powers that lie behind these effects. There were a number of alternatives that non-Christians turned to before the Da Vinci Code, and there will be more after the Da Vinci Code. Simply destroying the Da Vinci Code will do little good; other heresies and falsehoods will arise to take its place as an outlet for disbelief. Rather, we need to seek to destroy the very roots of disbelief in society; identifying these roots will take much more prayer, reflection, and meditation than is comfortable for activistic Christians seeking immediate and tangible results, but the ultimate effect will not only be much more potent, but also more Christian.

Moreover, we need to repent of our own role in helping to construct an intellectual and spiritual environment that prepares society to receive such works. After all, we are little better when it comes to promoting true intellectual endeavors; in many ways, much contemporary Christian literature is little better than the Da Vinci code in its appeal to the North American lust for Intellect Lite. We also encourage non-commital spirituality by presenting God as yet another benevolent and unthreatening product in a consumer centred society; we love to talk vaguely about his "wonderful plan for our lives" (which sounds strangely like a sales pitch for life insurance), but speak little of His right (not option) to be Lord of our lives, and the crosses that we must painfully take up daily. If we are so willing to represent God as a tame, unthreatening figure (and until we have been purged of the last ounce of our pride, God will always seem somewhat threatening to us), why are we so upset that Dan Brown has merely extended our own representation by rendering Him less threatening to sexuality and feminity?

If we are truly concerned about the impact of the Da Vinci Code, we must begin, not with militant protests, but with quiet repentance on our knees. We must pray that God will give us another chance to impact - not our society's reading material - but their hearts, minds and souls. We must pray that he will help us to identify the spiritual battles that are really worth fighting (and there are battles worth fighting), and to avoid those, such as the Da Vinci Code fiasco, that merely drain the energy that could be employed much more usefully elsewhere in our engagement with the world and its culture. Otherwise, we will continue to undertake our irrelevant skirmishes while the real battle is taking place elsewhere.

2006-04-12T22:06:00.000-06:00

Mere Truth is Loosed Upon the World

To answer the questions on my last post, I do believe that all cynics live a painful life, simply because God did not design us to live without hope; however, I do not believe that cynicism is the only recourse for those in pain. Of course I write largely from my own experience of myself and other people, but I'm not sure that that necessarily discounts what I have to say; I can't exactly write from someone else's point of view.

Before exploring the topic of Christianity and cynicism, I would like to note that cynical attitudes spring from one of two causes, and that answering a cynical person depends largely upon identifying these causes. These two causes correspond to the intellect and the emotion; some people are cynical because they are emotionally wounded, while others are cynical because of intellectual filters through which they view the world. In dealing with intellectual and emotional cynicism, we must remember the Proverb that tells us to "answer a fool according to his folly;" that is, we must answer emotional cynicism with emotion, and rational cynicism with rationality. One of the major problems with contemporary society is that it has witnessed modernity's unfortunate propensity to give coldly intellectual answers to emotional cynicism, and has therefore decided that postmoderns must return the favour by impotently flinging emotion at cynicism that demands an intellectually rigorous challenge.

From a Christian perspective, intellectual cynicism is conquered by realism. Through Christ, God has revealed to us the nature of reality; as we allow this revelation of reality to mold our perspectives, "intellectual" cynicism will be unmasked as a lie that is not grounded in reality. I stress the truth of Christian realism and the unrealistic nature of cynicism because the struggle between Christianity and intellectuall cynicism is largely a battle over the definition of reality. In contemporary society, cynicism has gained much ground by pointing out the fact that secular optimism - whether openly secular optimism, or secular optimism thinly veiled as Christianity - has no grounding in reality. Historically, we have witnessed the erosion of anthropocentric Enlightenment optimism as an increasingly Nietzschian pessimism reveals the unrealistic nature of this optimism. The destruction of this hollow optimism is just; however, Nietzschian pessimism has no more grounding in reality than does Enlightenment optimism. If we settle only for this dualism between pessimism and optimism, we are left with a bleak choice; either we must choose to groundlessly trust ourselves, or to groundlessly mistrust ourselves. Either way our decisions are arbitrary; we can excercise the tyrannical Enlightenment pursuit of power, which lacks the demonstrable ethical grounding necessary to keep it in check, or we can surrender to postmodern pseudo-pacifism, which is the Enlightenment pursuit of power masquerading as a rejection of that same power. Contemporary postmodernity gives us a wide variety of career choices - we can either be wolves, or wolves masqerading as lambs.

Christianity provides a fitting answer to this miserable postmodern crux. Instead of presenting another worldview that depends upon external verification (that is, a worldview that seeks its ultimate justification in fallible human constructs such as science, "nature," or history), Christ presents himself as the revealed standard by which all things must be measured. For instance, before asking whether Christ is a demonstrably historical person, we must first ask whether our construct of history is demonstrably Christian (I do not here mean to denigrate the study of history, but rather to critique the improper usage of it in Christian - and "Christian" - circles); I do not, of course, mean to question the fact that Jesus lived on earth in full physicality, as recorded infallibly in the gospels, but rather to question the methods of both conservative and liberal Christians, who insist on measuring Him according to narrow and fragile 21st Century constructs of history. God, I am sure, does not mind being measured by our highly limited measuring rods - after all, he allowed the first century Jews and Romans to fully judge Him by their contorted standards - but I think I had rather imitate his disciples in knowing and following Him than imitate the High Priest in judging Him.

If Christ is the ultimate grounds of reality, then cynicism must necessarily be exploded by the former's sheer inexorability as ultimate reality. Put in practical terms, hope is not a tame, sentimental idea which we weakly deploy because we like it a bit better than misery; rather, it is an incontrovertible fact, based in Christ, which overwhelms us and shatters our cynicism as effectively as the cliff shatters the storm tossed ship. Faith is not deliberate blindness to the cynicism that surrounds us, but, rather, it is the ability to see ultimate reality, which is the glory of God, and thereby to see that, in the light of eternity, cynicism is a nasty but impotent joke. Love is not a sentimental ideal that is sappy at best, and implausible at worst; rather it is embodied in an alarmingly persistent God, who will hunt us down even if make our beds in the very depths of Sheol. Thus, cynicism is shattered, not by the ungrounded benefits of socially useful virtues, but rather by the non-negotiable truth revealed through Christ and His Word.

In the next post, I will discuss the Christian response to emotional cynicism.

2006-03-25T01:02:00.000-06:00

Christian Academic Coping Mechanisms, Part 2: Cynicism

While compartmentalisation is bad, it is, perhaps, not as bad as cynicism, the topic to which I devote this post. Cynicism develops in the following manner: Because we live in a fallen world, we necessarily encounter evil, pain, and suffering; for us humans, the question is not "Will we suffer?" but rather "How do we deal with the suffering that will be a part of our lives?" People answer the latter question in a variety of ways. Some attempt to mask suffering by hiding behind wealth or pleasure. Others hide behind popularity. Still others hide behind the intellect (I often fall into this category). Some isolate themselves, and simply hide.

These attempts to mask suffering work up to a point; however, if someone is hurt one too many times, their defense mechanisms begin to erode. In the face of such an erosion, the victim cannot mend his/her broken cover by sheer willpower, for suffering often evokes in us animal responses that are beyond our control (note: I do not, however, believe that these responses are beyond God's control). In this plight, the sufferer usually feels compelled to make suffering a part of his/her identity; because the victim cannot hide the suffering, they assume that it is an integral part of themselves, and often actually seeks to inflict further pain on themselves in order to enhance their identity (consider the opening lyrics of Johnny Cash's remake of NIN's "Hurt"). Moreover, they (correctly) perceive the suffering that lies behind other people's masks, but (incorrectly) seek to render their own broken state in others. Put another way, sufferers who can no longer hide their suffering not only seek to reveal it in others, but to cause it in others. Cynicism is the act of simultaneously tearing apart not only oneself, but everything else around oneself.

The connection between cynicism and Christian academics should, at this point, be relatively obvious. Christian academics very often find themselves hurt, misunderstood, rejected, and lonely. Moreover, the academy seems to have a tendency to attract people with a propensity for melancholy, and, given this propensity, the aforementioned emotional states become intensified for many academics. To a certain point (depending on one's threshhold of endurance), Christian academics can patiently endure their the tension created by their vocation. However, this tension often builds up until it is too much to bear, and then the Christian academic is broken by the slightest anti-Christian comment on campus, or by the most insignificant comment about the dangers that the intellect poses to the life of faith. At this point, cynicism sets in, and the academic Christian begins to tear apart both his/her church (or, more unfortunately, his faith) and his/her academy. Of course, such cynicsm may very cleverly mask itself under the titles "Christian critique," or "academic criticism," but, at its very core, it stems from the tragic story of a human, beaten senseless by suffering, stabbing blindly at whatever lies closest to him/her.

My next post will explore the Christian response to cynicism.

2006-03-09T21:52:00.000-06:00

Christian Academic Coping Mechanisms, Part 1

Recently, I have been thinking about the two adverse reactions that I have observed in Christian academics; either they compartmentalise their two worlds in order to keep both from ravaging the other, or they become extremely cynical about both Christianity and academics. I will begin this blog by confessing that I have been guilty of both responses.

Compartmentalisation, as defined by myself, is an unhealthy method of navigating the differences between two social spheres which we inhabit. The compartmentalised person ensures that certain elements of him/herself are only evident around people who appreciate these elements, and that other elements are hidden when they could potentially disrupt a given social sphere. To a certain degree all people are compartmentalised, and balanced compartmentalisation is a necessary ingredient for properly functioning society; for example, it would be ludicrous to treat our spouses, children, colleagues, and friends with the same sort of affection, and thus we properly compartmentalise these affections, keeping marital, parental, collegial, and companional affection in their proper spheres. However, compartmentalisation becomes distorted when it forces us to sacrifice integral truths in order to preserve the "peace" of any given sphere.

I will begin with the academy. In many ways, the academy feels (perhaps correctly, in some cases) threatened by the gospel, for its claim to explain the purpose of the universe and human life appears to directly compete with that of the academy. Academics are often uneasy about the gospel, not because the disbelieve in absolute truth (as they speciously claim), but rather because it challenges the absolute truths that they base their lives on; asserting that truth is fully revealed in Christ means that one must scrutinise one's area of study through the scathing light of the gospel, and academics fear that such intense scrutiny would utterly incinerate and overwhelm their areas of study. In response to this fear, I have two things to say. When we follow Christ, we must follow him unconditionally, otherwise we are not following him at all; thus, in following Christ, we are always risking the loss of our acadmic status, just as we risk the loss of wives, children, parents, dead fathers, and unplowed fields. The second point is that, for Christians, academics is always a secondary concern, because Christ must always be their first concern. Basically, I am saying that the academic fears are legitimate; Christ will alter our lives, and this alteration is not predictable - there are any number of things that he could do with our academic careers. The recompense for such uncertainty is the knowledge that God will always change our lives for the better; even when God seems to be tearing up all the things that we hold most dear, we may still behold his goodness and say, with Job, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him."

But I return to compartmentalisation. In the face of the academic fear of Christianity, many Christians simply "shut off" their Christianity when they approach academic issues; since progress in one's field often appears to require full submission to the System (I say "appears," because in reality it is often the "rebels" who are both most original and most successful), such Christians supress their Christianity, assuming that suppression is necessary for advancement in a university setting. While this situation does avoid the naive response of Christians who simplistically articulate a wholesale condemnation of the university (more about this later), it produces an equally tragic scenario, for a failure to bring Christianity to one's area of study is a failure to proclaim Christ as lord of that area.

Conversely, evangelical churches do not often allow the academic's God-given inquisitiveness into their midst. They accept all people, provided those people are sportsy, television oriented men, and emotionally oriented women; when someone attempts to scrutinise and examine the world that God made, and the theological complexities that he has revealed to us, they are told that God deals in simple truths and a gnostic hatred of the world, and that they should therefore humble themselves and submit to this simple, gnostic gospel.

Academics are thus afraid to use their God given spiritual gifts (yes, I consider the academic mind a spiritual gift), and they therefore hide them, just as they hide their Christianity at the university. Not only does this situation rob the church of an integral part of Christ's mystical body - the mind of Christ - but it produces Christians who are aliens among their own people. These Christians are usually very guarded, and difficult to get to know, but if you do take the time (and it will take time) to actually care about their pain and loneliness, you will be showing showing them the Christian compassion that they rarely receive.

I believe that the integration of the academy and the church begins in the church. Christians often blame Christian scholars for compromising or abandoning their faith, but I think that the church needs to recognise its own immense role in such compromise. When a country refuses to train its soldiers in combat and provide them with proper equipment, we blame the country, and not the soldiers, when they surrender to the enemy; similarly, I submit that it is not fair for a church to discourage its academics from developing Christian scholarship, and then to blame its scholars when they abandon the church. Academic Christians begin the integration of faith and academics when they find a Christian community that will allow them to be open and honest about all things Christian and academic (even if these Christians do not understand the academic niceties involved, they can still help by exercising compassionate listening skills). Christian scholars need such a community for support, otherwise they will never have the immense stamina needed to exist as a Christian "going against the grain" of a secular university.

Watch for part 2 of this post, which will discuss the second coping device of academic Christians, cynicism.

2006-03-02T13:53:00.001-06:00

An Alien in the Church

I have considered the topic of Christians in an academic setting; as promised, I will now attempt to analyse the experience of academics in a Christian setting. Since I have experienced both evangelical and Anglo-Catholic approaches to academics, I will attempt to write about both.

Growing up in an Evangelical church, I often felt isolated by my propensity for asking questions. Theological questions were considered a threat to "simple faith," and were therefore discouraged. Other sorts of questions (usually complex academic questions) were usually discouraged because they did not fulfil the allegedly utilitarian purpose of the gospel; if our primary purpose consists of compelling people to pray the so-called prayer of salvation, why should we ask questions about, and read books about, topics that are irrelevant to this purpose? This ecclesiastical discouragement of question was, of course, never overtly stated (the governing principalities and powers never openly reveal their natures and names), and I was unaware of its influence during the time that I was under its power; I simply assumed that most people felt lonely and isolated because it is part of the human condition.

Because of the influence of this unspoken antiquerianism (my own name for this particular heresy), I could not justify a "frivolous" degree when I entered university, and therefore sought the most "practical" degree I could think of, pre-Medicine. However, I gradually began to discover that human "practicality" and God's plan are not always synonymous, and that God often uses human "impracticality" in unpredictable ways; as the Ecclesiast puts it, "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all" (Eccl. 9:11). During this time, I was especially nourished by the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship group on my university campus. After seeing God use people through their supposedly "useless" degress, I realised that I needed to study what God designed me to study, rather than that which was most "practical." I therefore converted to a Bachelor of Arts program, with a focus on English.

When my fiance and I began dating, we decided to find an Anglican church together. I cannot speak for her, but my motivations were fairly clear; I was looking for an escape from the anti-intellectualism of the mainstream evangelical church, and the Anglican church, with its rich history of thinkers ranging from John Donne to C. S. Lewis, seemed like an attractive alternative. Interestingly enough, however, I have found that, while anti-intellectualism is not the particular bane of the Canadian Anglican church, it has other intellect related problems.

Perhaps the most pressing intellectual problem in the Canadian Anglican Church is its promotion of "reason" over biblical revelation and tradition. Typically, liberal Anglicans argue that the bible and tradition are difficult to interpret, and they thereby render these sources of God's voice mute. They then unquestioningly espouse the most trendy forms of secular thought (usually a sentimentalised version of multicultural and gender studies), and claim that God endorses this espousal because such espousals are "reasonable." I am frustrated by this syncretistic adoption of values fostered and incubated in a secular hothouse that is itself already imploding, as most secular proponents of these values would admit (the feminist course I took basically treated the collapse and current impasse of feminism).

The other problem involves the lack of dynamic zeal on the part of many Anglicans; whereas Anglicans are "allowed" to be academic in a way that evangelicals are not, they lack the evangelical zeal that is necessary for establishing the dynamic, thriving life of the Christian academic. Put another way, Anglicans have all the necessary ingredients for making Christian academics - they have all the riches of the bible and a biblically informed dialogue with the past - but no one exhorts and urges them to combine these ingredients. As an Anglican, I glean truth from the rich Anglican liturgy, but usually rely on extra-Anglican sources to enhance my zeal.

Currently, my pseudonym reflects my occupation; Koheleth, the author of Ecclesiastes, means "the gatherer." Acting out of a biblically informed worldview, I seek to salvage fragments of truth from the ruins of the world. Sometimes I find these fragments in the medieval and early modern period. Sometimes I find them in Romantic poems and Victorian novels. Sometimes I find them in contemporary videos and songs. Sometimes I find them in highly institutionalised churches. Sometimes I find them in informal gatherings "where two or three are gathered together" in Christ's name. As I search, I seek to bring what I find under the judgement of Christ; when he condemns, I condemn, but, when he praises, I am thrilled by an Edenic moment in which God, perceiving the prelapsarian world buried deep beneath the crimes of this groaning world, says, "It is good."

2006-02-14T23:57:00.000-06:00

Further Up, and Further In!

Judging by the discussion generated by my last post, it would appear that both academics and Christianity can be (and are being) interpreted in a variety of ways. Therefore, I will devote this second post to clarifying my definition of these two spheres. I figure that the best way to do this is to describe the process that led me to my current stance, or, in some cases, my lack thereof.

When I decided to attend university, my decision was largely influenced by my parents' great respect for learning, as well as my propensity for reading academically oriented Christian authors such as C. S. Lewis and George MacDonald. However, in despite of these influences, I still had the lurking feeling (which often haunts even the most seasoned evangelical Christian) that the university was a dangerous place which specialised in corrupting faithful Christians. I later discovered that I was, in many ways, both right and wrong in my assessment.

As I attempted to tackle my studies "as working for the Lord, not for men," I began to realise that much of what passed as Christian persecution at the university was actually (if I may put it candidly) the persecution of ignorance. Often, members of the academic community did not have problems with the Christian faith per se. Rather, they had problems with an embarrasingly simplistic construction of Christianity, a construction that was kept permanently infantile in Sunday school, fed on a diet of theological milk, and constrained through an unfortunate conflation of childishness and childlikeness. Of course professors are going to react adversely to the sentiments expressed in "Jesus Loves Me" and "The Four Spiritual Laws;" they do so because such texts fail to sufficiently "unpack" their meaning, not because they are Christian. They would (I naively presumed) react the same way toward any simplistic text that they encountered. Thus, for most of my undergraduate career, I assumed that Christian students' complaints of persecution were largely overstated.

As I progressed towards my Masters, however, I began to realise that subtle powers were controlling the university, and that, while the university does not persecute Christians in the way that most Christians assume, it poses difficulties in a very different, nearly imperceptible, way. I realised that the very questions we ask (and are taught to ask) and the ways we are taught to think spring from a particular worldview, and that the worldview encouraged in a university setting is certainly not Christian. For example, my Feminist Literary Theory course last semester helped me to realise that almost all of the courses that I have taken are shot through with deconstruction, a theoretical paradigm that is largely based on the denial of the logos of John 1. Professors who are influenced by this paradigm do not usually stand up and rail against Christianity; however, their unacknowledged usage of deconstruction often guarantees that their lectures have a subtle, if not subconscious, anti-Christian bias. Often, however, Christians are not even aware of such subtle philosophical biases. Many Christians follow the Pharisees in attempting to strain out a gnat while simultaneously swallowing a camel; they balk at reading books that contain explicit sexuality, violence, and swearing (I would here pause to ask if such Christians have read the book of Judges, if I did not fear the response, due to the tragic decrease of Biblical literacy among Christians), but blindly swallow entire courses, programs, and degrees that are based on anti-Christian premises.

I also began to realise that those with academic power do not treat all "ignorance" equally. For example, it is not uncommon to find a professor who would scorn simplistically represented Christianity, but then turn around and accept equally simplistic cliches from Freudian, Marxian, Darwinian, and Derridian quarters (note: I do not believe that these men were themselves simplistic, but contemporary incarnations of their theories has reached a level of absurdity that even outstrips that of contemporary Christianity. At least Christianity includes in its creedal equation modes of dealing with its sin, shame, and ignorance - these theories do not).) Moreover, as one approaches higher levels of academia, one begins to feel that one is being slightly penalised for one's beliefs. This penalisation does not occur in the form of marks or courses, but rather in the unmonitored behaviour and attitude of certain powerful persons, and it is something we sense rather than something that is explicitly stated. Such penalisation is never overtly stated; rather, it is subtly communicated by cool responses to our extracurricular activities, by the failure to promote forums that treat the issue of Christian faith and the university, and by the bypassing of Christians when it comes to forming committees. Such penalisation is difficult to guage, measure, and assess, and, as we seek to do so, we must beware lest we turn Christian/academic concerns into a means of simply achieving our own personal ends, as have some of the contemporary "human rights" activists.

2006-02-10T01:09:00.000-06:00

Business and Pleasure?

This blog was born out of a peculiar necessity. In academic circles, one is never allowed to fully declare one's Christian beliefs; thus, I usually keep my Christian presuppositions "undercover" when I undertake my work, and must allude to, rather than assert, the Christian principles that inform, guide, and inspire my academic career. Likewise, I find that many Christians are frightened by my academic curiosity, and it is difficult (although not impossible) to find Christians who are willing to help me to develop informed theological perspectives on contemporary academic issues. I therefore often find myself caught somewhere between the academy and contemporary Christian culture (not be confused with the holy Catholic Church, as defined by the Apostles' Creed), and this blog was born out of my desire for a forum that acknowledges, firstly, the sovereignty of God, and, secondly, the benefits of academic inquiry. It is my hope and prayer that it can provide a safe space for others who find themselves in a dilemma not dissimilar to my own.