Showing posts with label postmodernism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label postmodernism. Show all posts

February 10, 2010

He doesn't like it...

So, I'm almost done with Brian McLaren's newest book and will have my thoughts on it up soon. But I thought I'd post this guy's review, because it is very different from what mine will be. I mean, I do not agree with McLaren 100% and think "A New Kind of Christianity" leads to a dangerous place at times, but I'm generally sympathetic to the project. Also, I like a lot of what he says thus far. So, before I get my thoughts up here's a tidbit from someone who wouldn't agree with my take on McLaren:
Finally – and most importantly – this is not a minor tweak of Christianity. It is a repudiation of the church’s understanding of God and the gospel. It really is tearing up the contract and starting all over again. McLaren says we’ve got the whole Biblical storyline, as well as our ideas of God and Scripture, all wrong. He’d rather be an atheist, he says, than believe in the God that many of us think is found in the Bible. You don’t get any more basic. We are talking about two fundamentally different versions of Christianity and the gospel.
and you can read the rest here.

September 28, 2009

Pirates, Orthodox Heretics, & the Betrayal of Betrayal

Probably the most interesting conversation on the emerging church/theology blogosphere right now: Pirates, Orthodox Heretics, and the Betrayal of Betrayal (thanks Kester for rounding up all the links).

June 1, 2009

Rollins' Interview with CC


If you haven't heard of Pete Rollins, you should get acquainted soon. He's a writer, thinker, and story teller from Ireland wrestling with ideas from apophaticism, Lacan, Zizek, and postmodern philosophy/Christianity. He's one of the key ingredients to IKON in Belfast, the inspiration for VOID in Waco created by my friend Adam Moore.

Here's an interview in Christian Century. Beyond that I recommend his books (1st & 2nd), especially his newest one, Orthodox Heretic, which I think will become a very valuable teaching tool for myself and Christians in the West. Paraclete is providing the first story in the book at their site. Check it out.

March 23, 2009

A Society Controlled By Google?

In some wonderfully illuminating writing, Katie McGowan reflects on Google's ability to reshape or (re)Make the human ability to think. We use our technology, then our technology uses us. Using Foucault and Lyotard, she wades through the value claimsto get to the internet's ability to supposedly offer up unlimited (and correct) information at our finger tips. The article is worth reading in its entirety, but I've collected some quotes I thought were interesting:
In the instance of the Internet and Google’s search engines, it is our minds that are up for grabs on the auction block.

...‘we are not only what we read…we are how we read’, and is concerned about the Internet’s preference for quick and efficient information gathering at the cost of deep textual analysis and attention spans.

Such shifts in the way we think are not new phenomenon, says Carr. When humans began using the clock on a wide-scale basis, we began to change our internal habits of eating and sleeping based around the times of the clock.

Do these systems of knowledge transmission reflect systems of power and control, or is the Internet as we know it truly a semiotic democracy?

Carr points to this tension between the economics of the mind and that of the Internet. He argues, “The faster we surf across the Web — the more links we click and pages we view — the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements

The relationship between knowledge and power then is “indispensable” in their relationship to systems of production. Google’s ability to increase production of knowledge through scientific and mathematic experimentation and algorithms creates a system of power, control, and knowledge in the image of its creators.

According to Lyotard, such “administrative procedures should make individuals ‘want’ what the system needs in order to perform well” (62). By giving us what we “want” through individualization via isolated and controlled environments, we are supporting the performance and economies of the Internet.

September 5, 2008

Authority in the Church

Following conversation sparked from some thoughts on Bonhoeffer and Adam's thoughts, I've been thinking about authority and pastoral identity. As a postmodern, I'm inclined to distrust and critique the modern creation known as the "pastor." Why? There are many reasons, but here's only a few.

Many pastors hold so much authority that they are held to higher standards than normal people. Catch that, we're even comfortable dislocating the pastor from the congregation, the lay people and the pastor, there again arises the sacred/secular divide. It seems that pastors, because they are given the spotlight can represent all that is bad or wrong with the church or must hold all that is good and right with it. This is simply too much responsibility for an individual, but rather authority must be carried in community.

Here's where I take issue with theologians like Moltmann who over emphasize the democratic nature of the church so much that any semblance of an authoritarian figure is bad. In reality our churches are full of busy people, thus there must be room for the church to appoint certain people to take care of ministerial and administrative duties.

Good Reformationists would say that authority lies in the Scripture, but the question is still who has the authority to interpret the Scripture: the pastor or people? I see a need for a healthy interplay between both. All communities will have leaders that hold more authority in the congregation, and it is healthy only when that person or group of persons is given that authority by the community. Authority ultimately lies in Christ working though the Holy Spirit represented by the whole of the church. Thus, not only must there be interplay between leaders and the community, but there must be interplay between communities of different theological, geographical, political, and socio-economic difference.

What are your thoughts on authority in the church, especially in light of "pastoral" identity?

August 20, 2008

Rizone Communities, Theological Education for Postmoderns

I really enjoyed this article by Carl Raschke (author of the forthcoming book GloboChrist and The Next Reformation), where he unpacks what theological education means in our "post-churched" culture. Here's a few quotes, but go and read the article in its entirety.

The crisis of theological education ultimately stems from Christians who aim to become professional leaders in a world where Christianity itself is increasingly deinstitutionalized, and its leaders are rapidly becoming deprofessionalized.

A postmodern theological education is both relevant and irrelevant in the same breath. Or to put the matter more mischievously, it has to steep itself in its own irrelevant classical particularities in such a strategic manner that it is able to engage, critique, and transform the culture in a way that is genuinely relevant.

Theological education is comparable to what in the computer business is known as network engineering. A network engineer needs to understand how the guts of a computer work, but even more importantly, she or he is required to design and implement novel, creative architectures for sharing and processing complex configurations of information with different spatial distributions and topographies. Similarly, someone with a seminary degree needs to know how to read and interpret the Bible (even in its original languages), to be familiar with the history of Christianity, and to have facility in the kind of faith-based intellectual reflection we know as theology. But more importantly, they should understand how to begin to deploy those base competencies in a multitude of interpenetrable contexts.
Jesus said “go and make disciples of all nations,” not “go find a good location to start churches.” The difference is not all that subtle. As disciple-making disciples we need to be gearing our theological studies toward becoming makeover artists in redesigning our Father’s house, not plodding toward one day becoming junior partners in the management of his firm.