It snowed today here in my southern town--a rarity in any event made even rarer by the fact that it was the second or third time this winter that we've gotten such precipitation. All over campus this morning, students trudged to class holding their camera phones out in front of them to capture the scene of big, wet gobs of snow raining down.
I passed by my campus's free speech alley, where tables set up for the day's speakers and activities sat unattended, gathering slush as the snow-drops melted almost instantly. No evangelists today, I thought.
I wrote last time about the "free speech alley fundamentalists"--a group of highly conservative, turn-or-burn evangelists whose outreach techniques seems mainly to consist of telling passersby how wicked and wretched they are. I assume they follow some slightly less polished version of truth-proclamation (kerygma) practiced by evangelists such as Ray Comfort. That is: start with the hard truth of the law (i.e., for all have sinned...the wages of sin is death/hell) and let the spirit convict so that repentance and salvation may follow.
That may be their rationale. The impression they convey, however, has less to do with the awesomeness of God's righteousness and grace and more to do with the irritation and insults Christians cause to others. If the goal is to win disciples for Christ, I can't imagine the free-speech-alley fundamentalists get anywhere close.
But I'm writing in circles. I've ruminated before--many times in this blog--about how evangelism of the "law-then-conviction-then-repentance" variety typically doesn't bother to justify itself in terms of how effective it is. Rather, people like Comfort insist that leading with sinner's guilt is the best evangelical technique because it's what the Bible commands.
The Way of the Master (Comfort's technique) features as its emblem the letters WDJD--What Did Jesus Do? In Comfort's reading, Jesus consistently produced converts by leading sinners to a realization of their own guilt and need for repentance. In the story of Jesus's conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, for example (John 4: 1-26), Jesus turns a conversation about material thirst into a discussion of spiritual thirst. He confronts the woman with the fact that she's had many different husbands and is now with a man not her husband. She tells her neighbors, many of whom then meet Jesus and become believers.
Comfort strongly believes that without authentic conviction, the honest and deeply-felt realization of one's total depravity and helplessness in the fact of God's righteousness, true repentance and salvation cannot occur. His whole technique nets people into formulaic question-and-answer sessions about the ten commandments that terminate in the conclusion that the person is sinful and worthy of hell. Without the keenly felt threat of hell, argues Comfort, unbelievers have no reason to receive Christ as lord.
I've written at length about my disagreements with this theology. But let me say here that, compared to the evangelists who visit my campus with their "REPENT OR PERISH" signs and "You're headed for hell!" accusations, Comfort is positively charming. At least he recommends engaging a person in a Socratic (if narrow and teleological) exploration and discovery of their own guilt. The Alley Fundamentalists simply bray forth blanket accusations and tsk tsk when "pride" closes the ears of their audience.
We have a saying in performance analysis that "the medium is the message"-that how a message gets delivered conveys as much meaning as the literal content of the message itself. If this notion is even half true, the alley fundamentalists communicate a kind of contempt for those they claim to want to reach. Noisy accusations at strangers, shouting matches with hecklers, and garish shock-show REPENT! signs--no matter what the words used--tend to say, "I couldn't care less what you think of what I'm saying. This whole performance is about my saying things at you. My responsibility as a communicator stops when I stop speaking."
I've been meaning to spend some time watching them on free speech alley, cataloguing what constitutes a day's work for them, perhaps even speaking to one or more of them about their techniques. I doubt, alas, that such a conversation would get very far. They, like most turn-or-burn street evangelists, are likely well-insulated against having long conversations about why they choose to evangelize as they do. They're on the clock, doing work, not looking to chat with some long-haired hippie professor.
I suspect I'd have better luck with a wholly different kind of evangelist who regularly patronizes our free speech alley. This older gentleman simply sits in the shade on a folding chair. Across from him sits another chair just like it. The only sign he displays is a white long-sleeved shirt he wears reading "Jesus Talk." He sits quietly, not accosting anyone, not selling or yelling, but his invitation sounds loud and clear: sit and chat for a bit. Sometimes when I pass I see someone in his chair, usually in earnest conversation as he listens.
I have no idea what kind of theology he professes or what kind of gospel (if any) he preaches. But his evangelical performance stands in sharp contrast to that of the turn-or-burn crowd further up the sidewalk. It may be he believes in the law/conviction/repentance model just as strongly as they do. But if so, he's clearly made the decision that blaring it out with voice or signs just isn't the way to go. Instead, the message he's stating, the truth he's telling, has more to do--again--with the medium in which he says it. That is, just the semiotics of his setup--an open-ended, non-coercive invitation to talk about whatever--suggests a powerful impression about what faith is and how it ought to act in the world. "Come talk," he implies, "Talk about anything Jesus-related. I'll listen. I'm here."
I like that so much. It resonates so much more strongly with my reading of what Jesus actually did. A reading of the woman at the well, for instance, misses the point if it stops at Jesus's pointing out the woman's lifestyle. She fires back with conversation about the well itself and about history. Jesus responds not by returning to the topic of her sin or by lecturing her about her hellish fate but by listening to what she says and building off of that. I see him doing this again and again in scripture: listening, asking, responding. Never does he warp the conversation into a formula of guilt. Sometimes he doesn't talk about sin at all.
But he's there. He's listening.
Surely there's a kerygma--a truth-proclamation--that consists of open presence and attentive conversation. Surely that's closer to the way of the master than street signs and yelling.
More later,
JF
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Free Speech Alley Fundamentalists
"Well, I'm going to hell anyway," she sighed affably, "what's a few more sins?"
I had been joking today with a student of mine about a recent bout of illness she'd been having trouble kicking. After informing me of the name of her latest med (which seemed to be working), I shook my head. "You mean, you're murdering all those poor bacteria with that third-gen antibiotic?"
I didn't expect that bit of irony to prompt a comment about eternal damnation. I must have looked confused, for she followed up with an explanation. "Well, that's what they told me." She gestured in the direction of our student union. "I'm bound for hell."
Sadly, I knew exactly what she was talking about. The front of our student union boasts a "free speech alley"--a common fixture on university campuses--on which just about any group may (after securing a permit) discourse on whatever topic they please. Typically, our free speech alley blossoms with informational tables about student group activities or corporate-sponsored givaways of some soft drink or another.
About once a week, though, the Christians descend. These would be a small group of evangelists of the kerygma variety I discussed in my last post. They generally feature a few women (dressed in full-length, home-made dresses that signal "very conservative") handing out some tracts or fliers, a few other people with sandwich-board signs reading "REPENT" and the like, and a middle-aged man yelling hoarsely at passersby about how sinful they are. In my experience he's particularly fond of labeling sins based on his lightning-quick assessment of individual students and faculty on their way to lunch. I believe I got dinged once for my long hair ("Immodesty!").
Occasionally (even inevitably) someone will engage him in a shouting match, gathering a crowd of amused (or angry) gawkers. The yelling contest unfolds predictably (i.e., the heckler gets fed up and stomps off) as the women make their way through the crowd, seeding it with tracts informing everyone of their impending doom.
Most people who have been at my university for a while roll their eyes and move along, accepting the weekly visitations as an annoying if colorful distraction. I often use the group as an example in classes when I talk about activist performance.
But, looking at my student today--this young woman whom I know to be full of energy, intelligence, and talent; this woman whom I know endures a difficult home life few people could guess at; this young woman who is getting over a bad illness--hearing her submit, even humorously, to some stranger's telling her she deserves hell, I just got mad.
What a jerk thing to do--to yell at some random person about how bad they are. I get the evangelists' context. I get that they're following a theology that insists that salvation occurs only after conviction, which requires condemnation. I even get that they see their acts as necessary, even loving ("it's like yelling at someone that they're about to walk off of a cliff," I often hear). After all--better to realize one's total depravity now than to wake up surprised in hell.
I get all of that. And I still think that yelling guy is doing a chump deed, a low-down, mean thing.
How depressing is it that this is her experience of Christianity? That encounter--a random kick when she's already down--is the witness of Christ she got that day. I appreciate the evangelists' theology, but I can't for the life of me see how they expect anyone to receive that message and think that Christianity is anything but a mass of caustic dysfunction. "You're worthless! You're evil! Come to Christ!" Who thinks this is an effective message? Who cares about your intentions if your audience never understands them?
Jonah, of course, springs to mind as a counter-example. Did he not go through Nineveh doing basically the same thing? "You're all doomed. You're all evil. God will destroy you. Better repent." And it worked then, didn't it? Through his telling the rough, unadorned truth, a city was saved, no?
Maybe, but it strikes me that the point of the Jonah story isn't Nineveh but Jonah--Jonah who, after (finally) preaching his truth, high-tailed it out of the city to secure a comfy seat to watch the Nineveh Gets Destroyed By God show. Well, Nineveh repented, God relented, and Jonah sulked. And God says (I paraphrase--may God forgive me): "What the heck are you so angry about? So I spared a city of thousands! That's what I do--I'm God. I care. If you don't--tough!"
That's the danger of "truth-telling" evangelism of the turn-or-burn variety: it leads to smugness, to a lack of care about the people you're supposed to be helping to save.
Did the evangelists care about my student? I have no idea, but the message they sent to her was certainly clear enough: drop dead, sinner.
I stammered out a "Well, I don't believe that," but the damage had been done. Another unChristian, successfully taught to avoid those Christians whose only outreach seems to be insults.
Lord, help you-know-who.
JF
I had been joking today with a student of mine about a recent bout of illness she'd been having trouble kicking. After informing me of the name of her latest med (which seemed to be working), I shook my head. "You mean, you're murdering all those poor bacteria with that third-gen antibiotic?"
I didn't expect that bit of irony to prompt a comment about eternal damnation. I must have looked confused, for she followed up with an explanation. "Well, that's what they told me." She gestured in the direction of our student union. "I'm bound for hell."
Sadly, I knew exactly what she was talking about. The front of our student union boasts a "free speech alley"--a common fixture on university campuses--on which just about any group may (after securing a permit) discourse on whatever topic they please. Typically, our free speech alley blossoms with informational tables about student group activities or corporate-sponsored givaways of some soft drink or another.
About once a week, though, the Christians descend. These would be a small group of evangelists of the kerygma variety I discussed in my last post. They generally feature a few women (dressed in full-length, home-made dresses that signal "very conservative") handing out some tracts or fliers, a few other people with sandwich-board signs reading "REPENT" and the like, and a middle-aged man yelling hoarsely at passersby about how sinful they are. In my experience he's particularly fond of labeling sins based on his lightning-quick assessment of individual students and faculty on their way to lunch. I believe I got dinged once for my long hair ("Immodesty!").
Occasionally (even inevitably) someone will engage him in a shouting match, gathering a crowd of amused (or angry) gawkers. The yelling contest unfolds predictably (i.e., the heckler gets fed up and stomps off) as the women make their way through the crowd, seeding it with tracts informing everyone of their impending doom.
Most people who have been at my university for a while roll their eyes and move along, accepting the weekly visitations as an annoying if colorful distraction. I often use the group as an example in classes when I talk about activist performance.
But, looking at my student today--this young woman whom I know to be full of energy, intelligence, and talent; this woman whom I know endures a difficult home life few people could guess at; this young woman who is getting over a bad illness--hearing her submit, even humorously, to some stranger's telling her she deserves hell, I just got mad.
What a jerk thing to do--to yell at some random person about how bad they are. I get the evangelists' context. I get that they're following a theology that insists that salvation occurs only after conviction, which requires condemnation. I even get that they see their acts as necessary, even loving ("it's like yelling at someone that they're about to walk off of a cliff," I often hear). After all--better to realize one's total depravity now than to wake up surprised in hell.
I get all of that. And I still think that yelling guy is doing a chump deed, a low-down, mean thing.
How depressing is it that this is her experience of Christianity? That encounter--a random kick when she's already down--is the witness of Christ she got that day. I appreciate the evangelists' theology, but I can't for the life of me see how they expect anyone to receive that message and think that Christianity is anything but a mass of caustic dysfunction. "You're worthless! You're evil! Come to Christ!" Who thinks this is an effective message? Who cares about your intentions if your audience never understands them?
Jonah, of course, springs to mind as a counter-example. Did he not go through Nineveh doing basically the same thing? "You're all doomed. You're all evil. God will destroy you. Better repent." And it worked then, didn't it? Through his telling the rough, unadorned truth, a city was saved, no?
Maybe, but it strikes me that the point of the Jonah story isn't Nineveh but Jonah--Jonah who, after (finally) preaching his truth, high-tailed it out of the city to secure a comfy seat to watch the Nineveh Gets Destroyed By God show. Well, Nineveh repented, God relented, and Jonah sulked. And God says (I paraphrase--may God forgive me): "What the heck are you so angry about? So I spared a city of thousands! That's what I do--I'm God. I care. If you don't--tough!"
That's the danger of "truth-telling" evangelism of the turn-or-burn variety: it leads to smugness, to a lack of care about the people you're supposed to be helping to save.
Did the evangelists care about my student? I have no idea, but the message they sent to her was certainly clear enough: drop dead, sinner.
I stammered out a "Well, I don't believe that," but the damage had been done. Another unChristian, successfully taught to avoid those Christians whose only outreach seems to be insults.
Lord, help you-know-who.
JF
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The Kerygma of Reality TV
Up late watching trashy Bravo TV. I've written before on here how I'm oddly, shamefully caught by those reality TV series like Tabitha's Salon Makeover, Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, or even Millionaire Matchmaker. Beyond showcasing a particular skill set (hairstyling/salon magement, cooking/restauranteering, dating/marriage), each of these programs tends to run on moments of Professional Truth-Telling, where Expert X (i.e., the star of the show) tells Wannabe Y what's what about their salon, entree, or romance skills.
To be sure, the experts Bravo and other such networks choose to focus on aren't merely experts; they're personalities--typically flamboyant, eccentric-bordering-on-unpleasant personalities. They are the harsh, drill sergeants of their particular profession, grinding their subjects down into nothing so that (ideally) they may be rebuilt, rehabilitated, made stronger and better. And episodes do end with the Wannabe eventually submitting to the Expert, overcoming bad habits, and improving. The shows' punch, however, comes from those "come to Jesus" scenes of prideful singles, salon owners, or chefs being told these Harsh Truths in no uncertain terms.
Inevitably, show producers/editors (even writers in some cases) follow these scenes with breakaway reaction interviews with those who have just been taken down a few notches. Reactions range from rage ("I can't believe that #&%@ said that! What does he/she know?") to chastened acceptance ("It was really hard to hear what so-and-so said, but I know it's true"). Sometimes--rarely--the reaction is so extreme that the person simply stalks off, never to be seen again. But the Expert is fine with that! "He/She couldn't take the truth," sighs the Expert, "and now s/he'll be a failure."
I wrote originally that my attraction to such scenes of putting-people-in-their-place stemmed from my own lack of self-assertiveness. These personalities seem simultaneously off-putting and admirable to me, I reasoned, largely because they are unafraid of presenting their opinions and experience as the textbook truth of their particular profession, and they brook no suggestion to the contrary. They know the truth, they know their skills, and--this is a biggie--they all prioritize presenting that truth bluntly over maintaining a relationship with the Wannabe to whom they present it. They establish truth as a standard to which the Wannabe must rise--or else--and they do so with unapologetic forcefulness.
To a degree, I recognize that I myself do something similar from time to time as a teacher. Indeed, I wonder if my fascination with these scenes has to do with how they play out a kind of pedagogical power-trip fantasy. Many's the time when I've felt the need to have a "come-to-Jesus" meeting with my students. "Here is standard X," I'd say, "and you are failing to meet it." Sometimes I want to--I have to--shock my students into a realization of their own ignorance or inexperience, forcing them to see the gap between where they are and where they need to be.
But in practice, I've rarely found that such moments play out like the truth-telling sessions on TV. Harsh truth-telling, in my experience, doesn't work as well as patience and persistence, meeting students half-way and helping them gradually gain more knowledge/expertise. Beyond a few specific instances, those times where I've attempted harsh conversations, tended to generate more problems than they solved.
Why? The difference is this: I am obliged as a teacher to be in relationship with my students in a way that TV Experts aren't with their Wannabes. My investment in my students transcends the space of a single episode. I can't afford do subsume maintaining the student-teacher relationship to the presentation of X or Y Truth about the subject I'm teaching. I have to balance the need for students to learn the skills/knowledge I teach with the fact that they will learn at different paces and in different ways than I did.
It strikes me that the distinction between TV Truth-Tellers and real-world pedagogues provides a way of thinking about a divergence of evangelicalism over the philosophy of Christian witness to the world. Evangelism, after all, involves a degree of truth-telling to an audience of people in need of that truth; it isn't coincidental that hard truth-telling sessions are known as "come to Jesus" meetings.
For some evangelists, the imperative of evangelism is simple proclamation--kerygma (Greek for "proclamation, teaching"). In this view, the evangelist is charged with proclaiming the truth of the Gospel without accommodation or compromise. Anything beyond that (e.g., winning converts) is God's work, not humans'. If the hearers receive and (through God's grace) submit themselves to the saving Gospel--great! If they don't, then all the evangelist can do is pray for them, shake the dust off their sandals (so to speak), and move on. Truth trumps relationships, for (within this understanding) no healthy relationship can obtain between those who know the Truth and those who will not accept the truth.
Other evangelists, while not discounting kerygma, focus more specifically on proselytism--making converts. Proclaiming the word, in this view, is necessary but not sufficient. One must speak the truth, yes, but speak it in ways that listeners hear and may be inspired by or attracted to it. For some within this view, kerygma can only occur effectively within the context of an established relationship of trust between believer and non-believer, a kind of prevangelism that prepares the soil of non-believer's heart to receive the seed of the Gospel. Here a relationship must precede and provide the support for Truth-telling.
While the TV fan in me finds the smackdown kerygma of "nothing but the truth" fascinating, the pedagogue in me causes me to prefer the relationship-first form of truth-telling. It's less dramatic, to be sure, and it often lacks the spectacle of ultimatum. But it seems, in the long run, more effective, more loving.
More later,
JF
To be sure, the experts Bravo and other such networks choose to focus on aren't merely experts; they're personalities--typically flamboyant, eccentric-bordering-on-unpleasant personalities. They are the harsh, drill sergeants of their particular profession, grinding their subjects down into nothing so that (ideally) they may be rebuilt, rehabilitated, made stronger and better. And episodes do end with the Wannabe eventually submitting to the Expert, overcoming bad habits, and improving. The shows' punch, however, comes from those "come to Jesus" scenes of prideful singles, salon owners, or chefs being told these Harsh Truths in no uncertain terms.
Inevitably, show producers/editors (even writers in some cases) follow these scenes with breakaway reaction interviews with those who have just been taken down a few notches. Reactions range from rage ("I can't believe that #&%@ said that! What does he/she know?") to chastened acceptance ("It was really hard to hear what so-and-so said, but I know it's true"). Sometimes--rarely--the reaction is so extreme that the person simply stalks off, never to be seen again. But the Expert is fine with that! "He/She couldn't take the truth," sighs the Expert, "and now s/he'll be a failure."
I wrote originally that my attraction to such scenes of putting-people-in-their-place stemmed from my own lack of self-assertiveness. These personalities seem simultaneously off-putting and admirable to me, I reasoned, largely because they are unafraid of presenting their opinions and experience as the textbook truth of their particular profession, and they brook no suggestion to the contrary. They know the truth, they know their skills, and--this is a biggie--they all prioritize presenting that truth bluntly over maintaining a relationship with the Wannabe to whom they present it. They establish truth as a standard to which the Wannabe must rise--or else--and they do so with unapologetic forcefulness.
To a degree, I recognize that I myself do something similar from time to time as a teacher. Indeed, I wonder if my fascination with these scenes has to do with how they play out a kind of pedagogical power-trip fantasy. Many's the time when I've felt the need to have a "come-to-Jesus" meeting with my students. "Here is standard X," I'd say, "and you are failing to meet it." Sometimes I want to--I have to--shock my students into a realization of their own ignorance or inexperience, forcing them to see the gap between where they are and where they need to be.
But in practice, I've rarely found that such moments play out like the truth-telling sessions on TV. Harsh truth-telling, in my experience, doesn't work as well as patience and persistence, meeting students half-way and helping them gradually gain more knowledge/expertise. Beyond a few specific instances, those times where I've attempted harsh conversations, tended to generate more problems than they solved.
Why? The difference is this: I am obliged as a teacher to be in relationship with my students in a way that TV Experts aren't with their Wannabes. My investment in my students transcends the space of a single episode. I can't afford do subsume maintaining the student-teacher relationship to the presentation of X or Y Truth about the subject I'm teaching. I have to balance the need for students to learn the skills/knowledge I teach with the fact that they will learn at different paces and in different ways than I did.
It strikes me that the distinction between TV Truth-Tellers and real-world pedagogues provides a way of thinking about a divergence of evangelicalism over the philosophy of Christian witness to the world. Evangelism, after all, involves a degree of truth-telling to an audience of people in need of that truth; it isn't coincidental that hard truth-telling sessions are known as "come to Jesus" meetings.
For some evangelists, the imperative of evangelism is simple proclamation--kerygma (Greek for "proclamation, teaching"). In this view, the evangelist is charged with proclaiming the truth of the Gospel without accommodation or compromise. Anything beyond that (e.g., winning converts) is God's work, not humans'. If the hearers receive and (through God's grace) submit themselves to the saving Gospel--great! If they don't, then all the evangelist can do is pray for them, shake the dust off their sandals (so to speak), and move on. Truth trumps relationships, for (within this understanding) no healthy relationship can obtain between those who know the Truth and those who will not accept the truth.
Other evangelists, while not discounting kerygma, focus more specifically on proselytism--making converts. Proclaiming the word, in this view, is necessary but not sufficient. One must speak the truth, yes, but speak it in ways that listeners hear and may be inspired by or attracted to it. For some within this view, kerygma can only occur effectively within the context of an established relationship of trust between believer and non-believer, a kind of prevangelism that prepares the soil of non-believer's heart to receive the seed of the Gospel. Here a relationship must precede and provide the support for Truth-telling.
While the TV fan in me finds the smackdown kerygma of "nothing but the truth" fascinating, the pedagogue in me causes me to prefer the relationship-first form of truth-telling. It's less dramatic, to be sure, and it often lacks the spectacle of ultimatum. But it seems, in the long run, more effective, more loving.
More later,
JF
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Ray Comfort's Atheism Site
Back to posting after some time off.
What's there to post about, evangelical-culture-wise? Whenever I feel stymied about something to blog about for this site, I visit one of several handy-dandy conservative-evangelical blogs. One of my favorite, as I've mentioned, is Ray Comfort's "Atheist Central" blog, where the "Way of the Master" evangelist posts a daily bit of atheist-bait for his flock (herd? gaggle?) of commentators to squabble over.
I've written about Comfort's evangelical technique at some length. His atheist site, however, seems at first more of a side-project, a distraction from his main work of educating neophyte evangelists to spread the faith as Jesus did (i.e., via open-air preaching).
Unlike the random pedestrians Comfort generally focuses on, those who read and comment every day on "Atheist Central" generally have their minds made up about Comfort's views. He has ardent defenders and persistent (almost to the point of fixation) critics. Comfort's postings range from simple scriptural exegesis to announcements about his ministry's actions (e.g., the Origin of the Species giveaway) to occasional commentary on a culture war issue or to. Hardly a post goes by, however, without Comfort's inserting some jab at the foolishness and pride associated with willful unbelief.
Such jabs in turn prompt each day's comments, which feature an almost ritual re-enactment of the same jeers-and-cheers discussion between those who find Comfort mendacious or vapid and those who find him praiseworthy. "There you go again, Ray," write the critics. "There you go again, atheists," write his defenders. And so on. Comfort occasionally responds to this or that poster and will delete any comment that uses offensive language or in which the words God or Jesus are not capitalized.
I have to admit, I've been puzzled in the past about Comfort's attention to this site. His usual ministry, which he patterns after his take on Christ's ministerial example, focuses on street preaching and improvisational Q&A encounters with passersby. His atheist page, however, boasts a "congregation" of regulars seemingly addicted to the flame wars about the provocation du jour. In a sense, he's preaching to the converted, which isn't all that unusual for a pastor. The converted to whom he preaches on that site, though, are those converted utterly against him. His is a site dedicated (ostensibly) to ministry to atheists and atheism. It's preaching to the heretics.
Now, I have a longstanding interest in how activists--which I'll define as people ardently dedicated to changing attitudes and/or material conditions of or for others--interact with those who oppose them. Confronted with someone dead-set against your values, what do you do? (I imagine one of those Windows pop-up choice boxes: "Political Opponent Detected: Ignore, Delete, Retry?") Most political and ideological oppositions play out indirectly, as activists teach insider/outsider distinctions to their own political communities. You learn how to be a Tea Party activist, for example, as much by recognizing common foes as by identifying fellow travelers. It's rare for activists actually to address each other to try to persuade or reconcile. One of the fascinating features of evangelicalism for me is the fact that evangelists regularly reach out honestly and hopefully to those most opposed to them.
Is Comfort's atheism site an example, then, of just such a trans-ideological outreach?
I don't think so--at least not primarily. Moreover, I think that, at least in Comfort's mind (which of course I don't claim to know--this is educated guess sort of stuff), the atheism site does embody an online version of his street ministry. In his evangelism training curricula, Comfort and his proteges discuss the complexities of open-air street preaching. One particular obstacle they mention is the heckler--someone who "answers back" combatively, arguing with the street evangelist's points. Handling such a heckler is a tricky situation, cautions Comfort, especially if they become violent or too disruptive. But often, he says, hecklers are good because they attract a crowd.
As a response tactic, then, Comfort suggests dealing with the heckler directly, addressing him or her respectfully and repeating your key points--but without the expectation that you'll suddenly convince the dedicated atheist (or critic) to accept the message. You aren't there to win an intellectual argument; you just want to get your message across clearly. The real audience, of course, isn't the heckler but the crowd that gathers to hear the squabble. It's at that point, argues Comfort, that a Christian witness can play out effectively, as the audience (ideally) sees how loving, calm, and well-reasoned your arguments are in comparison to the hateful (i.e., intolerant) performance of the heckler.
Atheist Central functions much like the on-the-street encounter between Comfort and an angry heckler. Comfort engages (and enrages) atheists, in other words, not to convince them--his arguments (like theirs) tend toward the repetitive--but to attract net traffic, gawkers who might will get a dose of law/gospel from Comfort's postings no matter when they come.
It works. I encountered the site from a news report, which seemed amused that a dedicated evangelist like him would so spit into the atheist wind by seemingly inviting reams of vitriol from his atheist detractors. I would imagine that similar net passersby drop in, see the debate, and move on. Comfort's self-deprecating style, which his regular critics cite as infuriatingly twee, works well to a first-timer. Comfort seems sincere and calm, just posting his thoughts about topic X or scripture Z. His critics, by comparison, resemble the bitter atheist stereotypes he so often recycles in his posts.
Now, one can argue whether such drive-by (click-by?) evangelism works in terms of creating converts (particularly the "true" converts Comfort seeks), but Comfort's tactic, I find, remains at least consistent.
More later,
JF
What's there to post about, evangelical-culture-wise? Whenever I feel stymied about something to blog about for this site, I visit one of several handy-dandy conservative-evangelical blogs. One of my favorite, as I've mentioned, is Ray Comfort's "Atheist Central" blog, where the "Way of the Master" evangelist posts a daily bit of atheist-bait for his flock (herd? gaggle?) of commentators to squabble over.
I've written about Comfort's evangelical technique at some length. His atheist site, however, seems at first more of a side-project, a distraction from his main work of educating neophyte evangelists to spread the faith as Jesus did (i.e., via open-air preaching).
Unlike the random pedestrians Comfort generally focuses on, those who read and comment every day on "Atheist Central" generally have their minds made up about Comfort's views. He has ardent defenders and persistent (almost to the point of fixation) critics. Comfort's postings range from simple scriptural exegesis to announcements about his ministry's actions (e.g., the Origin of the Species giveaway) to occasional commentary on a culture war issue or to. Hardly a post goes by, however, without Comfort's inserting some jab at the foolishness and pride associated with willful unbelief.
Such jabs in turn prompt each day's comments, which feature an almost ritual re-enactment of the same jeers-and-cheers discussion between those who find Comfort mendacious or vapid and those who find him praiseworthy. "There you go again, Ray," write the critics. "There you go again, atheists," write his defenders. And so on. Comfort occasionally responds to this or that poster and will delete any comment that uses offensive language or in which the words God or Jesus are not capitalized.
I have to admit, I've been puzzled in the past about Comfort's attention to this site. His usual ministry, which he patterns after his take on Christ's ministerial example, focuses on street preaching and improvisational Q&A encounters with passersby. His atheist page, however, boasts a "congregation" of regulars seemingly addicted to the flame wars about the provocation du jour. In a sense, he's preaching to the converted, which isn't all that unusual for a pastor. The converted to whom he preaches on that site, though, are those converted utterly against him. His is a site dedicated (ostensibly) to ministry to atheists and atheism. It's preaching to the heretics.
Now, I have a longstanding interest in how activists--which I'll define as people ardently dedicated to changing attitudes and/or material conditions of or for others--interact with those who oppose them. Confronted with someone dead-set against your values, what do you do? (I imagine one of those Windows pop-up choice boxes: "Political Opponent Detected: Ignore, Delete, Retry?") Most political and ideological oppositions play out indirectly, as activists teach insider/outsider distinctions to their own political communities. You learn how to be a Tea Party activist, for example, as much by recognizing common foes as by identifying fellow travelers. It's rare for activists actually to address each other to try to persuade or reconcile. One of the fascinating features of evangelicalism for me is the fact that evangelists regularly reach out honestly and hopefully to those most opposed to them.
Is Comfort's atheism site an example, then, of just such a trans-ideological outreach?
I don't think so--at least not primarily. Moreover, I think that, at least in Comfort's mind (which of course I don't claim to know--this is educated guess sort of stuff), the atheism site does embody an online version of his street ministry. In his evangelism training curricula, Comfort and his proteges discuss the complexities of open-air street preaching. One particular obstacle they mention is the heckler--someone who "answers back" combatively, arguing with the street evangelist's points. Handling such a heckler is a tricky situation, cautions Comfort, especially if they become violent or too disruptive. But often, he says, hecklers are good because they attract a crowd.
As a response tactic, then, Comfort suggests dealing with the heckler directly, addressing him or her respectfully and repeating your key points--but without the expectation that you'll suddenly convince the dedicated atheist (or critic) to accept the message. You aren't there to win an intellectual argument; you just want to get your message across clearly. The real audience, of course, isn't the heckler but the crowd that gathers to hear the squabble. It's at that point, argues Comfort, that a Christian witness can play out effectively, as the audience (ideally) sees how loving, calm, and well-reasoned your arguments are in comparison to the hateful (i.e., intolerant) performance of the heckler.
Atheist Central functions much like the on-the-street encounter between Comfort and an angry heckler. Comfort engages (and enrages) atheists, in other words, not to convince them--his arguments (like theirs) tend toward the repetitive--but to attract net traffic, gawkers who might will get a dose of law/gospel from Comfort's postings no matter when they come.
It works. I encountered the site from a news report, which seemed amused that a dedicated evangelist like him would so spit into the atheist wind by seemingly inviting reams of vitriol from his atheist detractors. I would imagine that similar net passersby drop in, see the debate, and move on. Comfort's self-deprecating style, which his regular critics cite as infuriatingly twee, works well to a first-timer. Comfort seems sincere and calm, just posting his thoughts about topic X or scripture Z. His critics, by comparison, resemble the bitter atheist stereotypes he so often recycles in his posts.
Now, one can argue whether such drive-by (click-by?) evangelism works in terms of creating converts (particularly the "true" converts Comfort seeks), but Comfort's tactic, I find, remains at least consistent.
More later,
JF
Monday, February 1, 2010
Mister Rogers
Back after a few days away. I think I'll be dropping down to 3-4 posts a week so as not to feel bad when I don't post every single day.
For today: One of the odder things I've been doing with my DVR of late is recording re-runs of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. PBS no longer officially broadcasts that show, but individual stations may show it in syndication. Lucky for me, my local PBS station shows one episode twice a weekend at 6:00 AM.
What can I say? Watching that show is like enjoying a cool cup of distilled water after a week of drinking nothing but lukewarm, off-brand soda pop. It's pure and unpretentious at once. Every episode is the same familiar formula--the "Won't You Be My Neighbor" entrance, the changeover from business to sweaters-and-sneakers, some fairly aimless activities, songs, and reflective talk; a trip to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe; and then back with Mr. Rogers for more talk, a song, and then the final changeover and goodbye set to "It's Such a Good Feeling."
And every activity, every song, every reflection unfolds guided Fred Rogers's unhurried, sincere, gentle attention focused right at the camera, i.e., at you, his "television neighbors." He peppers the show with reminders--all delivered naturally, like an old lesson he's just rediscovered--"You know, there's only one person like you in all the whole wide world. You're special and fine because you're you."
Only now, watching it armed with my Professional Dramaturgical Eye do I see how excellent it is on the level of pure craft. Take Fred Rogers as an actor, presenting himself as a character in every show. I mean, Rogers delivered practically the same basic message every day ("you're a special person") and never does it come off as anything but utterly honest, utterly motivated and appropriate to the moment. He has a talent for tapping into some reservoir of joyful fascination with anything--any object, any process, any person--he happens to meet. I know actors who work years and never achieve anything like that level of conviction.
Watching those 6 AM reruns, I realize that part of what makes the show so refreshing, so unusual, stems from its avoidance of any irony, camp, tongue-in-cheekness, or innuendo. We are used to children's programming that operates on at least two levels, one pitched toward the youngsters and one signaling to the adults. There's a winking awareness of grittier or more sexual aspects of life even in shows like Sesame Street or Dora the Explorer (I won't even get into the hyper-sexualized preteen fare of the Disney Channel et al.).
In Mister Rogers, though, what you see is what you get. What people say is purely and literally what they mean. Even the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, a land of fantasy costumes and characters ruled by a puppet king, remains firmly framed as make-believe. On several occasions Rogers shows his audience exactly how the puppets work, reinforcing a realistic substrate to all of the imagination and disguise play going on.
Of course, such unironic sincerity makes the show an easy target for parodies in which a cynical or sexualized subtext gets laced into the show's format. So pervasive are such parodies that I sometimes find myself thinking of the show through the lens of the parodist, i.e., as a doofy, moralizing, high-handed exercise in naivete.
Watching the show, though, erases such misconceptions. Rogers does a surprisingly minimal amount of moral instruction. Most of his reflections and monologues deal not with what you should do or shouldn't do but how things are. "Sometimes we get angry, don't we?" he says with absolute conviction, "Or sometimes we get lonely." And then he pauses to let that sink in. He's surprisingly frank about the reality of unpleasant events, scary things, and sad feelings. There's no theodicy here; the show scrupulously avoids any overtly religious subtext. Things simply aren't always as we would have them.
And what does Mister Rogers do with such darker realities? He encourages us to express them as such, explores our reaction to them, and reassures us that nothing that happens affects the fact of our worth as special people.
Case in point: from an episode I recorded recently and which by some miracle was uploaded to Youtube:
Aside from noting the truly clever songwriting and the talented performers (Rogers as Daniel and Betty Aberlin as Lady Aberlin), I'm blown away by the simple, powerful ethic of valuing the other that's expressed here.
I mean, isn't this precisely what agape is? How different would Christianity be if we imagined God (not always, but sometimes) as the one who sings to us when we feel like mistakes? This would be the God who doesn't merely tolerate us, who doesn't have to hold God's nose to deal with us, who isn't defined by wrathful-with-a-touch-of-grace. This would be the God (and we would be the Church) who sees everyone as a neighbor. This would be the God/Church that sings to everyone they meet that "it's such a good feeling/to know you're alive."
Be well,
JF
For today: One of the odder things I've been doing with my DVR of late is recording re-runs of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. PBS no longer officially broadcasts that show, but individual stations may show it in syndication. Lucky for me, my local PBS station shows one episode twice a weekend at 6:00 AM.
What can I say? Watching that show is like enjoying a cool cup of distilled water after a week of drinking nothing but lukewarm, off-brand soda pop. It's pure and unpretentious at once. Every episode is the same familiar formula--the "Won't You Be My Neighbor" entrance, the changeover from business to sweaters-and-sneakers, some fairly aimless activities, songs, and reflective talk; a trip to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe; and then back with Mr. Rogers for more talk, a song, and then the final changeover and goodbye set to "It's Such a Good Feeling."
And every activity, every song, every reflection unfolds guided Fred Rogers's unhurried, sincere, gentle attention focused right at the camera, i.e., at you, his "television neighbors." He peppers the show with reminders--all delivered naturally, like an old lesson he's just rediscovered--"You know, there's only one person like you in all the whole wide world. You're special and fine because you're you."
Only now, watching it armed with my Professional Dramaturgical Eye do I see how excellent it is on the level of pure craft. Take Fred Rogers as an actor, presenting himself as a character in every show. I mean, Rogers delivered practically the same basic message every day ("you're a special person") and never does it come off as anything but utterly honest, utterly motivated and appropriate to the moment. He has a talent for tapping into some reservoir of joyful fascination with anything--any object, any process, any person--he happens to meet. I know actors who work years and never achieve anything like that level of conviction.
Watching those 6 AM reruns, I realize that part of what makes the show so refreshing, so unusual, stems from its avoidance of any irony, camp, tongue-in-cheekness, or innuendo. We are used to children's programming that operates on at least two levels, one pitched toward the youngsters and one signaling to the adults. There's a winking awareness of grittier or more sexual aspects of life even in shows like Sesame Street or Dora the Explorer (I won't even get into the hyper-sexualized preteen fare of the Disney Channel et al.).
In Mister Rogers, though, what you see is what you get. What people say is purely and literally what they mean. Even the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, a land of fantasy costumes and characters ruled by a puppet king, remains firmly framed as make-believe. On several occasions Rogers shows his audience exactly how the puppets work, reinforcing a realistic substrate to all of the imagination and disguise play going on.
Of course, such unironic sincerity makes the show an easy target for parodies in which a cynical or sexualized subtext gets laced into the show's format. So pervasive are such parodies that I sometimes find myself thinking of the show through the lens of the parodist, i.e., as a doofy, moralizing, high-handed exercise in naivete.
Watching the show, though, erases such misconceptions. Rogers does a surprisingly minimal amount of moral instruction. Most of his reflections and monologues deal not with what you should do or shouldn't do but how things are. "Sometimes we get angry, don't we?" he says with absolute conviction, "Or sometimes we get lonely." And then he pauses to let that sink in. He's surprisingly frank about the reality of unpleasant events, scary things, and sad feelings. There's no theodicy here; the show scrupulously avoids any overtly religious subtext. Things simply aren't always as we would have them.
And what does Mister Rogers do with such darker realities? He encourages us to express them as such, explores our reaction to them, and reassures us that nothing that happens affects the fact of our worth as special people.
Case in point: from an episode I recorded recently and which by some miracle was uploaded to Youtube:
Aside from noting the truly clever songwriting and the talented performers (Rogers as Daniel and Betty Aberlin as Lady Aberlin), I'm blown away by the simple, powerful ethic of valuing the other that's expressed here.
I mean, isn't this precisely what agape is? How different would Christianity be if we imagined God (not always, but sometimes) as the one who sings to us when we feel like mistakes? This would be the God who doesn't merely tolerate us, who doesn't have to hold God's nose to deal with us, who isn't defined by wrathful-with-a-touch-of-grace. This would be the God (and we would be the Church) who sees everyone as a neighbor. This would be the God/Church that sings to everyone they meet that "it's such a good feeling/to know you're alive."
Be well,
JF
Friday, January 29, 2010
Embarrassing Christianity, or Evangelism at Any Cost
I pause from my tedious tromps through postmodernism to bring you yet another edition of "This Week in Embarrassing Christianity."
I'm late to this party, I realize. Certainly by now you've likely heard of Trijicon, Inc. They make rifle scopes, specifically the kind used by the US military in overseas operations. So far, so good--the military needs rifle scopes; Trijicon provides them. It came to light recently, however, that the company provided just a bit more than quality rifle scopes that shine a light to pinpoint targets.
Etched into the Trijicon scopes were a series of letters and numbers, such as 2COR4:6 or JN8:12, which (for those in the know) refer to biblical scriptures. Respectively the verses are as follows: "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" and "When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'"
Cute, no? Except that, as we wage two wars in Muslim countries, we're doing our best to dispel the notion that our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan are Christian Crusades against Islam. What better way to undermine that attempt than to inscribe christocentric verse references onto our weapons?
Now, I can perhaps understand soldiers who are Christians wishing to keep a reminder of their faith close to them--a crucifix, a cross, even a reference to some scripture. Let's be clear, though: these aren't comfort scriptures (e.g., "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet" or "When I am afraid I will trust in thee"). These are evangelism scriptures--turn to Jesus, the light of the world. But here's the creepy thing: the references look basically like hidden code, etched right next to other series of numbers and codes. You almost wouldn't know what they mean if you don't know what you're looking for.
I'm not privy to the rationale behind the little easter eggs from Trijicon. I can only guess that someone in the company imagined a scenario in which a backslider or atheist happened to see the reference, recognize it as scripture, and look it up, thereby opening the door to the Holy Spirit's saving influence. Crazy as it may sound, such a narrative resonates exactly with many of the "how-I-got-saved" testimonials of my Baptist childhood.
Instead of converting, however, some soldiers who noticed and recognized the codes notified a group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). Now, at first glance I assumed this group (like many other organizations mobilizing religious freedom rhetoric) supported the Trijicon inscriptions. Quite the opposite turns out to be the case. The MRFF defines religious freedom within the military very strictly, watching for any indication that one religion (i.e., Christianity) be seen as the "official" or "establishment" faith. The MRFF proceeded to contact media groups, who spotlighted the inscriptions. Public outcry (mostly against) followed, followed by military embarrassment (how could they not know this was going on, now?), followed by a declaration by Trijicon that they would cease and desist inscriptions as well as providing "kits" to remove the inscriptions from the 300,000+existing scopes.
Hopefully the foolishness of stamping US gun sights with Christian proselytics goes without saying, and if it doesn't, this first person editorial by Iraqi War veteran Benjamin Busch says it very well. Particularly quotable from Mr. Busch:
Meanwhile, segments the political religious right predictably interprets criticism of Trijicon as yet another attack on Christianity itself. Missing from this article is any inquiry about whether gun scopes are the best place for messages about Jesus. Also missing: if this is supposed to be evangelism (as is now claimed), why hide it? I know that evangelicals seek new ways to get their message out in a world they consider increasingly hostile to conservative Christianity. But at what point does the imperative to witness override considerations about tactics? Nothing about this situation makes Christianity look good. It's slimy proselytics, faith passive-aggressively sneaking a coded sales pitch into a mechanism functionally at odds with the task of spreading a gospel of peace and love.
Oh, Christianity...
More tomorrow,
JF
I'm late to this party, I realize. Certainly by now you've likely heard of Trijicon, Inc. They make rifle scopes, specifically the kind used by the US military in overseas operations. So far, so good--the military needs rifle scopes; Trijicon provides them. It came to light recently, however, that the company provided just a bit more than quality rifle scopes that shine a light to pinpoint targets.
Etched into the Trijicon scopes were a series of letters and numbers, such as 2COR4:6 or JN8:12, which (for those in the know) refer to biblical scriptures. Respectively the verses are as follows: "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" and "When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'"
Cute, no? Except that, as we wage two wars in Muslim countries, we're doing our best to dispel the notion that our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan are Christian Crusades against Islam. What better way to undermine that attempt than to inscribe christocentric verse references onto our weapons?
Now, I can perhaps understand soldiers who are Christians wishing to keep a reminder of their faith close to them--a crucifix, a cross, even a reference to some scripture. Let's be clear, though: these aren't comfort scriptures (e.g., "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet" or "When I am afraid I will trust in thee"). These are evangelism scriptures--turn to Jesus, the light of the world. But here's the creepy thing: the references look basically like hidden code, etched right next to other series of numbers and codes. You almost wouldn't know what they mean if you don't know what you're looking for.
I'm not privy to the rationale behind the little easter eggs from Trijicon. I can only guess that someone in the company imagined a scenario in which a backslider or atheist happened to see the reference, recognize it as scripture, and look it up, thereby opening the door to the Holy Spirit's saving influence. Crazy as it may sound, such a narrative resonates exactly with many of the "how-I-got-saved" testimonials of my Baptist childhood.
Instead of converting, however, some soldiers who noticed and recognized the codes notified a group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). Now, at first glance I assumed this group (like many other organizations mobilizing religious freedom rhetoric) supported the Trijicon inscriptions. Quite the opposite turns out to be the case. The MRFF defines religious freedom within the military very strictly, watching for any indication that one religion (i.e., Christianity) be seen as the "official" or "establishment" faith. The MRFF proceeded to contact media groups, who spotlighted the inscriptions. Public outcry (mostly against) followed, followed by military embarrassment (how could they not know this was going on, now?), followed by a declaration by Trijicon that they would cease and desist inscriptions as well as providing "kits" to remove the inscriptions from the 300,000+existing scopes.
Hopefully the foolishness of stamping US gun sights with Christian proselytics goes without saying, and if it doesn't, this first person editorial by Iraqi War veteran Benjamin Busch says it very well. Particularly quotable from Mr. Busch:
"I did not go onward as a Christian soldier. I went forth as an American, a Marine. I was sent by my country to fight a threat, and thereafter with the best intentions of democracy, not theocracy."Stamping military weapons with Christian scriptures sends a chilling message, twisting a mission intended (ostensibly) to prevent attacks into the opening moves of a Christian holy war. Busch ends with a quote from Matthew, Jesus's command to love our enemies, noting that this quote was not inscribed on the rifles.
Meanwhile, segments the political religious right predictably interprets criticism of Trijicon as yet another attack on Christianity itself. Missing from this article is any inquiry about whether gun scopes are the best place for messages about Jesus. Also missing: if this is supposed to be evangelism (as is now claimed), why hide it? I know that evangelicals seek new ways to get their message out in a world they consider increasingly hostile to conservative Christianity. But at what point does the imperative to witness override considerations about tactics? Nothing about this situation makes Christianity look good. It's slimy proselytics, faith passive-aggressively sneaking a coded sales pitch into a mechanism functionally at odds with the task of spreading a gospel of peace and love.
Oh, Christianity...
More tomorrow,
JF
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Truth About Truth, and Some Secular History as Well
By "I'll address it tomorrow," I apparently meant "the day after tomorrow."
Quick recap: postmodernism (that fiendish enemy of worldview-apologist evangelicals) posits that "truth" changes over time, that it's contingent upon factors like culture and era. Any one human in a particular time and place certainly experiences various "truths" as solid and binding, but none of those truths are consistent enough, universal enough, to qualify as trans-historical or trans-cultural. Humans lack any unambiguous access to Ultimate Truth since the only tools they have to conceive of, identify, investigate, and communicate that Truth are culture-dependent variables like language.
I reiterate that this characterization of postmodern belief is actually agnostic regarding the question of Ultimate, Capital-T "Truth" except to say that such Truths aren't available as such for human consideration. All we have are small-t truths that may be (in the long run) changeable and multiple. A worldview-analysis evangelical would take issue with that on a couple of points, insisting that 1) singular, unchanging Truth does exist and 2) humans can in fact know that Truth. I'm dealing here only with the first criticism.
The criticism, then: what about the postmodern truth about the contingency/multiplicity of truths? Does postmodernism apply its position about truth to itself? In other words truth only flexible or multiple within a postmodern context? Worldview analysis teaches to its evangelists-in-training an ace-in-the-hole comeback to postmodern views that runs along these lines, albeit in a more simplistic form: If you don't believe in Singular, Universal Truth, what about the truth-status of your belief about human's inability to know Truth?
As I see it, I have two obvious answers at my disposal. First, I could deny that postmodern arguments about truth apply to postmodernism itself. I could claim that postmodernism's only Certain Truth is the ever-changing nature of truth as humans experience it. In other words, the only thing certain is nothing's certain (except for this statement about nothing being certain, 'cause that's certain). That's a bit too blatantly circular for me.
I prefer option two: postmodernism does accept the contingency of its own truths about Truths. Paradoxical as it seems, truth at some other point in history/geography isn't (wasn't) contingent and multiple but eternal and singular. Contingency and multiplicity are recent epistemological events (at least in the west).
Traveling back in time past 500 years or so would plop you into a world in which many of the truths we now see as culture-contingent or variable existed only as a Singular Way Things Are. Truth back then was not contingent, not postmodern, but singular and eternal. It isn't that the 500 years ago folk were simply incorrect, not seeing the flexing/changing/multiple truths that must have existed; it's that those other, different/competing truths didn't exist as possible Things To Believe.
I'm reading a book by Charles Taylor called A Secular Age that echoes this line of thought. On its face, Taylor's work is a history of the rise of skepticism (i.e., disbelief in religion, especially in Christianity). Taylor refuses, however, to write either a simple replacement story where Science (or Reason) comes to displace Christianity or a "subtraction story" about how Christianity simply got cut out of culture. Rather, his is a narrative of multiplication. He wants to know how western culture went from a point in c. 1500, when belief in God was a given, to c. 2000, when belief in any religion is seen as but one option among an ever-expanding variety of possible belief/non-belief options.
In other words, in 1500, it was virtually impossible to be an atheist in the same way (and certainly with the same ease) with which it is possible to be an atheist today. Crucially, the lack of widespread atheism wasn't due to churches' waging some widespread campaign of repression against the atheist ancestors of Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins. Certainly there were many repressive campaigns and inquisitions, but these were mainly about heretics--people who were seen as faking orthodox faith in favor of some heterodox faith--not atheists in the modern sense. We have tons of records from such heretics, their heresy trials, their horrendous (and to our eyes unjust) punishments. Repression of that sort produces a lot of historical records, a lot of martyrs whose ghosts (and writings, and followers) cry out.
But none of the ghosts of inquisitions past wail a dirge about how "God is not great." None of them died arguing that scientific reason was a superior alternative to religious faith. In other words, it's not the case that there were tons of atheists back then being held down by church power. The church didn't repress Dawkins-esque atheists on any kind of grand scale because the option to be atheist (or agnostic, or "spiritual" instead of "religious," or anything of that sort) simply did not exist as it does today.
Taylor demonstrates that the situation of Christian faith as one truth among many conceivable options is a relatively new development in western culture. This situation relies upon--developed from--a number of cultural and historical and geographic factors that did not obtain in times past. Religious truth, then, was at one point relatively singular in the West. Now it is multiple, postmodern.
It's tempting to say that past generations were just plain wrong. I could argue, perhaps, that the present range of religious/non-religious options did indeed exist in the past--even if only as theoretical possibilities. Past generations just failed to be aware of them as such, much like past generations failed to apprehend the heliocentric solar system. I suppose that's true, but only in the most abstract, hypothetical sense. It's possible, for example, to imagine that someone back in 1300 imagined a whole profession in which people would be hurtled into orbit so as to explore space. But functionally, really, the option to be an astronaut--the truth of astronautics--only emerged in recent times. Only through an act of anachronistic imagination could we even conceive of astronauts sitting around in 1300s France waiting impatiently for rockets et al. to be invented.
It may be odd to consider secularity (or the notion of multiple/contingent truths) as a recent innovation/invention in the same sense as astronautics. But all of these are, I argue, dependent upon technologies, sciences, ways of thinking, tools, and discourses that are utterly of the here and now. In the past they were not merely as-yet-undiscovered but wholly unimagined.
So, in that sense, yes--the postmodern fact of truth's contingent, multiple status is itself contingent and multiple, dependent upon features unique to this time and place. Truth has been different--not postmodern--in the past, and it likely will be different--not postmodern--in the future. Indeed, you don't have to travel far to find places in the present where a postmodern understanding of truth as multiple/contingent simply isn't a viable possibility except perhaps as crazy philosophical science fiction.
More tomorrow,
JF
Quick recap: postmodernism (that fiendish enemy of worldview-apologist evangelicals) posits that "truth" changes over time, that it's contingent upon factors like culture and era. Any one human in a particular time and place certainly experiences various "truths" as solid and binding, but none of those truths are consistent enough, universal enough, to qualify as trans-historical or trans-cultural. Humans lack any unambiguous access to Ultimate Truth since the only tools they have to conceive of, identify, investigate, and communicate that Truth are culture-dependent variables like language.
I reiterate that this characterization of postmodern belief is actually agnostic regarding the question of Ultimate, Capital-T "Truth" except to say that such Truths aren't available as such for human consideration. All we have are small-t truths that may be (in the long run) changeable and multiple. A worldview-analysis evangelical would take issue with that on a couple of points, insisting that 1) singular, unchanging Truth does exist and 2) humans can in fact know that Truth. I'm dealing here only with the first criticism.
The criticism, then: what about the postmodern truth about the contingency/multiplicity of truths? Does postmodernism apply its position about truth to itself? In other words truth only flexible or multiple within a postmodern context? Worldview analysis teaches to its evangelists-in-training an ace-in-the-hole comeback to postmodern views that runs along these lines, albeit in a more simplistic form: If you don't believe in Singular, Universal Truth, what about the truth-status of your belief about human's inability to know Truth?
As I see it, I have two obvious answers at my disposal. First, I could deny that postmodern arguments about truth apply to postmodernism itself. I could claim that postmodernism's only Certain Truth is the ever-changing nature of truth as humans experience it. In other words, the only thing certain is nothing's certain (except for this statement about nothing being certain, 'cause that's certain). That's a bit too blatantly circular for me.
I prefer option two: postmodernism does accept the contingency of its own truths about Truths. Paradoxical as it seems, truth at some other point in history/geography isn't (wasn't) contingent and multiple but eternal and singular. Contingency and multiplicity are recent epistemological events (at least in the west).
Traveling back in time past 500 years or so would plop you into a world in which many of the truths we now see as culture-contingent or variable existed only as a Singular Way Things Are. Truth back then was not contingent, not postmodern, but singular and eternal. It isn't that the 500 years ago folk were simply incorrect, not seeing the flexing/changing/multiple truths that must have existed; it's that those other, different/competing truths didn't exist as possible Things To Believe.
I'm reading a book by Charles Taylor called A Secular Age that echoes this line of thought. On its face, Taylor's work is a history of the rise of skepticism (i.e., disbelief in religion, especially in Christianity). Taylor refuses, however, to write either a simple replacement story where Science (or Reason) comes to displace Christianity or a "subtraction story" about how Christianity simply got cut out of culture. Rather, his is a narrative of multiplication. He wants to know how western culture went from a point in c. 1500, when belief in God was a given, to c. 2000, when belief in any religion is seen as but one option among an ever-expanding variety of possible belief/non-belief options.
In other words, in 1500, it was virtually impossible to be an atheist in the same way (and certainly with the same ease) with which it is possible to be an atheist today. Crucially, the lack of widespread atheism wasn't due to churches' waging some widespread campaign of repression against the atheist ancestors of Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins. Certainly there were many repressive campaigns and inquisitions, but these were mainly about heretics--people who were seen as faking orthodox faith in favor of some heterodox faith--not atheists in the modern sense. We have tons of records from such heretics, their heresy trials, their horrendous (and to our eyes unjust) punishments. Repression of that sort produces a lot of historical records, a lot of martyrs whose ghosts (and writings, and followers) cry out.
But none of the ghosts of inquisitions past wail a dirge about how "God is not great." None of them died arguing that scientific reason was a superior alternative to religious faith. In other words, it's not the case that there were tons of atheists back then being held down by church power. The church didn't repress Dawkins-esque atheists on any kind of grand scale because the option to be atheist (or agnostic, or "spiritual" instead of "religious," or anything of that sort) simply did not exist as it does today.
Taylor demonstrates that the situation of Christian faith as one truth among many conceivable options is a relatively new development in western culture. This situation relies upon--developed from--a number of cultural and historical and geographic factors that did not obtain in times past. Religious truth, then, was at one point relatively singular in the West. Now it is multiple, postmodern.
It's tempting to say that past generations were just plain wrong. I could argue, perhaps, that the present range of religious/non-religious options did indeed exist in the past--even if only as theoretical possibilities. Past generations just failed to be aware of them as such, much like past generations failed to apprehend the heliocentric solar system. I suppose that's true, but only in the most abstract, hypothetical sense. It's possible, for example, to imagine that someone back in 1300 imagined a whole profession in which people would be hurtled into orbit so as to explore space. But functionally, really, the option to be an astronaut--the truth of astronautics--only emerged in recent times. Only through an act of anachronistic imagination could we even conceive of astronauts sitting around in 1300s France waiting impatiently for rockets et al. to be invented.
It may be odd to consider secularity (or the notion of multiple/contingent truths) as a recent innovation/invention in the same sense as astronautics. But all of these are, I argue, dependent upon technologies, sciences, ways of thinking, tools, and discourses that are utterly of the here and now. In the past they were not merely as-yet-undiscovered but wholly unimagined.
So, in that sense, yes--the postmodern fact of truth's contingent, multiple status is itself contingent and multiple, dependent upon features unique to this time and place. Truth has been different--not postmodern--in the past, and it likely will be different--not postmodern--in the future. Indeed, you don't have to travel far to find places in the present where a postmodern understanding of truth as multiple/contingent simply isn't a viable possibility except perhaps as crazy philosophical science fiction.
More tomorrow,
JF
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)