David Crowder concert

For me, Emergent is and has always been about mystery. Even when I was young--my sarcastic teen-aged years (which I don't seem to have outgrown, even at 41), for example--I distrusted easy, glib answers.

Conversations would go something like this: "God is good."

"What do you mean, 'God is good'? My best friend's parents just died in a plane crash. How is that a sign that God is good?" (When I was in the eighth grade, my best friend's parents DID die in a plane crash, btw.)

"Well, God is good. He never gives us more than we can handle." Etc., etc.

The problem that I had wasn't so much with the idea that God is good. He IS good--I've always been convinced of that. What infuriated me was the simple, shallow definition of good that people always attached to the idea of "God being good." They meant something like, "God is good in the same way that Mr. Rogers is good." And that--frankly--pissed me off.

Fast forward to 1989 or so, when I first hear Rich Mullins singing about "the reckless, raging fury that they call the love of God." Man, just typing that line gives me goosebumps!

Or to the many times I've reread Lion, Witch, & Wardrobe and positively CHEERED when Mr. Beaver, voice dripping with incredulity, asks Susan: "A tame lion? A TAME LION? Of COURSE he's not tame! But he's good."

That's the kind of God I wanted to believe in. That's the kind of God I saw in the cross, in the stories of Elijah and Elisha and Abraham and Jacob and Joseph. A God who allowed terrible, awful things to happen, and then wove them into the fabric of his plan and purpose.

Anyway: last night, the David Crowder Band played a 75-minute concert here at Kentucky Christian University. Every summer, we have a series of Sr. High youth conferences known as "Summer in the Son," where Christian kids, almost all of them from Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, get together on a college campus, stay up way too late, etc.

Anyway, DCB played a concert for us last night. And it was awesome. I danced a little--which probably frightened some people, I look like Tony Soprano with glasses. I sang along with most of the songs. I closed my eyes and just let the thing wash over me. It was beautiful and loud and electric.

Top ten reasons to like David Crowder:

1. He looks like the love child of Abraham Lincoln and Blood on the Tracks-era Bob Dylan.
2. He rocks.
3. He's a Texan.
4. He's from WACO, TEXAS, home of the NCAA Women's Basketball champion Baylor Lady Bears. (I got my Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Baylor.)
5. He regularly eats at the greatest cafe in Texas, George's. What will heaven be like? Heaven will be like a great meal at George's, an ice-cold Shiner Bock, Chips and Salsa, and a Southside Grilled Chicken sandwich with extra guacamole and pico.
6. He rocks.
7. He plays an incredibly cool guitar that Tom Anderson custom-designed for him, the "Crowdster." It's a solidbody acoustic, and they run about $3,000 or I'd have one. (I'll never part with my Paul Reed Smith, but I'd REALLY like a Crowdster.)
8. His wife is really nice and really quite normal. She sold us a CD at his table before the concert.
9. He wrote my favorite praise song, "All This for a King." And, of course . . . (drumroll),
10. He rocks.

A prayer to pray

This prayer, usually known as St Patrick's Breastplate, is a beautiful expression of devotion to which I find myself returning in times of dryness or doubt.

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this day to me forever
By power of faith, Christ's Incarnation;
His baptism in the Jordan river;
His death on the Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spiced tomb;
His riding up the heavenly way;
His coming at the day of doom;
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the star-lit heaven,
The glorious sun's life-giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in the hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself today,
The strong Name of the Trinity;
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One, and One in Three.
Of Whom all nature hath creation:
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

The New Book HAS ARRIVED!

Today I went to my mailbox and what did I find? A box containing the first copy of my new book, and the promise of five more free copies to follow. IT'S HERE! And it's beautiful.

The cover of my new book

Above is the cover of my new book, Leadership Succession in the World of the Pauline Circle. It's a highly revised version of my doctoral dissertation, written at Baylor University under the direction of Charles H. Talbert. You can see the publisher's blurb, sans cover photo, at www.sheffieldphoenix.com.

The jacket copy reads:

Leadership Succession in the World of the Pauline Circle

Since New Testament times, the discussion of leadership succession in the church has always been polemical. But what the New Testament, especially in the Pastoral Epistles, means in speaking of succession deserves a more sober investigation in the light of the literary tradition about succession in the ancient Mediterranean world. How is succession actually depicted in Graeco-Roman texts and in Jewish and early Christian texts of that world?

This book undertakes, for the first time, a thoroughgoing analysis of the evidence, deftly laying out the data from a wide range of Greek and Roman writers. The question then becomes how the early readers of the New Testament, conditioned by prior knowledge of such epistolary and other literary conventions, would have interpreted Paul’s relationship with his delegates like Timothy and Titus, and how they would have conceived the ministry portrayed in the Pastorals as passing from a leader to a successor.Stepp's study has important implications both for our understanding of the ancient Mediterranean world and for our conceptions of ordination and ministry in the New Testament.

Perry L. Stepp is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies, Kentucky Christian University, Grayson, Kentucky.

Series: New Testament Monographs, 5

To quote the great theologian Garth Brooks

To quote the great theologian Garth Brooks, "Damn this wasted day."

I'm going to get SOMETHING productive done today if I have to kill myself to do it.

Maybe. Or maybe I'll just keep surfing ebay for used Excursions and listening to old Kings X.

Another attempt

Still stumbling around in the dark, trying to find a light switch (or a doorknob).

Here's another attempt to describe postmodern evangelicalism, in terms of the convictions I hold that lead me to believe it is necessary.

Regarding the Bible, I believe . . .

1. . . . that the Bible is inspired by God in a way no other work of piece of communication can claim. Therefore, the Bible has a unique authority over our beliefs and practices.
2. . . . that the Bible is frequently difficult to understand at anything deeper than a shallow, surface level.
3. . . . that the Bible is even MORE difficult to apply than it is to understand.
4. . . . that popular attempts to define "the inspiration of Scripture" are very much about politics and very little about properly understanding and applying the Bible's truth to life.

Regarding pragmatics and human nature, I believe . . .

1. . . . that human observations are inevitably biased and subjective.
2. . . . that reality is more complex than any single perspective or approach can capture, ERGO . . .
3. . . . that scientific knowledge (the objective factual description of phenomena) is not the only legitimate type of knowledge.
4. . . . that our interpretations of everything--the Bible, other texts, events, phenomena--are inevitably shaped by the perspectives and points of view that we want to advocate.

Regarding Christian faith, I believe . . .

1. . . . that moral absolutes do exist, but (since human nature makes us quick to absolutize our preferences and likes/dislikes) they need to be defined carefully and critically.
2. . . . that hundreds of millions of people have, over the centuries, been devoted followers of Jesus Christ, even though they didn't agree with what I believe about any number of topics--baptism, spiritual gifts, the authority of scripture vs. the authority of the mysterium, drinking alcohol, miracles and the supernatural, inspiration of scripture, politics, the role of government, taxes, purgatory, pluralism, the trinity, etc., etc., ad infinitum.
3. When discussing God's dealings with humanity, particularly when the terrain is unclear, we should err on the side of humility, grace, and openness.

More later.

A Different Description of Postmodernism

A different description of postmodernism: postmodernism--

• accepts the inevitability of subjectivity in human observations--what we see depends a great deal on where we sit;
• seeks to regard all viewpoints as equally valid
• recognizes the multivalence of texts (i.e., that texts can be interpreted in a number of valid ways; most texts do not have only ONE correct interpretation)
• understands that our interpretations are inevitably shaped by the perspectives we want to advocate
• rejects foundationalism, the idea that a universally valid set of assumptions exists, and that all people--if they'll just look at things objectively (i.e., if they'll just look at things the way we do)--will agree with us about what those assumptions are

Again, these categories are slippery. I'm still not happy with my description of postmodernism. In the next post, let me see if I can restate this description in a more cogent form.

More about Modernity

In What Is New Testament Theology? (Guides to Biblical Scholarship: Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 95, Dan Via describes modernity as the "rejection of tradition and the authority of the past."

"The dominating thrust of modernism was to employ reason in order to gain a truly objective knowledge of the real order of the things of the world."

Against the backdrop of the last few posts, hear again Cornell West's description of postmodernism:

• Postmodernism is antifoundational "in that it resolutely refuses to posit any one premise as the privileged and unassailable starting point for establishing claims to truth."
• Postmodernism is antitotalizing in that it "suspects that any theory that claims to account for everything is suppressing counterexamples, or is applying warped criteria so that it can include recalcitrant cases."
• Postmodernism is demystifying in that it "attends to claims that certain assumptions are 'natural' and tries to show that these are in fact ideological projections."

Have we gotten it yet?

Another Starting Point

Another way of starting the discussion would be to describe what modernity is, and then draw contrasts between modernity and postmodernity.

As I see it, modernity is the culmination of a way of observing the world. This perspective begins with the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, who sought to apply mathematics to logic and metaphysics. It comes down to us through Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, etc., then particularly through Descartes:

"Descartes was a mathematician above everything else; a geometrician with a taste for metaphysics rather than a philosopher with a leaning for geometry and algebra. Indeed, his philosophy simply aims to be a generalization of mathematics; it is his ambition to apply the geometric method to universal science, to make it the method of metaphysics" (Weber, from preceding post).

"Those long chains of reasoning, quite simple and easy, which geometers are wont to employ in the accomplishment of their most difficult demonstrations, led me to think that everything which might fall under the cognizance of the human mind might be connected together in the same manner" (Descartes, from preceding post).

This way of looking at the world--as if all of reality was a mathematical equation, as if the totality of reality could be reduced and described objectively--characterizes modernity. It also serves as the foundation of most Evangelical approaches to Scripture.

This approach to Scripture no longer meets the needs of the world the Church must confront.

Modernity and Descartes

From Alfred Webber's History of Philosophy (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1908) (http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/texts/Weber%20-%20History/Descartes.htm), my emphasis added:

In order to understand Descartes the philosopher, we must remember that he was an emulator of Gassendi, Galileo, Pascal, and Newton, the successor of Viète, and one of the founders of analytical geometry. Descartes was a mathematician above everything else; a geometrician with a taste for metaphysics rather than a philosopher with a leaning for geometry and algebra. Indeed, his philosophy simply aims to be a generalization of mathematics; it is his ambition to apply the geometric method to universal science, to make it the method of metaphysics. The Discourse on Method does not leave us in doubt on this point: "Above all," he says, "I was delighted with the mathematics on account of the certainty and evidence of their demonstrations, but I had not as yet found out their true use, and although I supposed that they were of service only in the mechanic arts, I was surprised that upon foundations so solid and stable no loftier structure had been raised." And again: "Those long chains of reasoning, quite simple and easy, which geometers are wont to employ in the accomplishment of their most difficult demonstrations, led me to think that everything which might fall under the cognizance of the human mind might be connected together in the same manner, and that, provided only one should take care not to receive anything as true which was not so, and if one were always careful to preserve the order necessary for deducing one truth from another, there would be none so remote at which he might not at last arrive, nor so concealed which he might not discover."

Postmodern theology

As I've already indicated, finding a starting point when discussing postmodernism and theology is a slippery proposition. So where to begin?

AKM Adam, in What Is Postmodern Biblical Criticism? (Guides to Biblical Scholarship: Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 5, uses Cornell West's description of postmodernism. Adam writes:

• Postmodernism is antifoundational "in that it resolutely refuses to posit any one premise as the privileged and unassailable starting point for establishing claims to truth."
• Postmodernism is antitotalizing in that it "suspects that any theory that claims to account for everything is suppressing counterexamples, or is applying warped criteria so that it can include recalcitrant cases."
• Postmodernism is demystifying in that it "attends to claims that certain assumptions are 'natural' and tries to show that these are in fact ideological projections."

What to make of this? Adam's description is functional and potentially fruitful. Can I find a better description of postmodernism?

Ok, ok, ok

Alright, so yesterday I complained about my posts not appearing immediately. And--of course--that post immediately appeared.

But the post that I wrote yesterday afternoon did NOT immediately appear--it wouldn't show up until this morning. And now it's got a huge white space at the top: what's up with that?

Why do we need a postmodern evangelicalism?

OK, I HATE the term "postmodern." As something separate from modernism, I don't think postmodernism exists--it's the logical conclusion of modernity, not something big and new and different and revolutionary.

That being said, some of the basic tenets of postmodernism--

(There's a phrase to choke over, "basic tenets of postmodernism." Does anything as diverse and nebulous as postmodernism even HAVE basic tenets?)

--make a great deal of sense to me. I think that, properly understood and applied, a biblical theology informed by postmodernism can provide orthodox Christianity with a unique and potentially very fruitful platform for self-critique and course-correction.

And so, I plan to discuss and apply some of the "basic tenets of postmodernism" (to quote the great theologian Bill the Cat, "ACKK!!") over the next few days (Note: I am not advocating an uncritical acceptance of these tenets, but rather asking if there is not in them some truth that "Bible-believing Christians" need to consider):

• be suspicious of absolutes
• be suspicious of foundationalism
• be suspicious of claims to exclusive truth
• it is impossible to view the Bible or any other text without subjectivity

Of course, . . .

Of course, now that I've complained about my new posts not showing up, the post in which I wrote that complaint appeared immediately!

Ah, well.

Why do new posts not show up?

Is there a reason why new posts to this blog don't show up for several days?

It's kind of strange. I'll write a new post (believe it or not, I DO write new posts from time to time) and save it. I'll click on the "publish" button or whatever, etc. But when I go back to the blog--theophiluspunk.blogspot.com--the new post doesn't show up for several days.

Was gibt?

What? Is this thing still here?

What? Is this thing still here?

February 22? Man, I haven't been around here in a while, have I?

Lessee, what's been happening?

Survived a semester, bought a house.

Survived a family reunion.

Finished the proofs on my book--it'll come out later this summer, here's the link: http://www.sheffieldphoenix.com/showbook.asp?bkid=16. The website STILL does not show the beautiful cover that Sheffield Phoenix's artists drew up for the book.

Currently (as in right now, as in "I'm on a break and my break time is up NOW"), I'm teaching a graduate seminar in 1-2 Corinthians. More on that later--this evening, perhaps. As for now, I must go play "informed, learned intellectual professor man."