Re: Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Bill Ekhardt at 07:56AM (PST) on Mar 12, 2005
IF you want the core of emergent, though, its best to go to the people at the center of the blogrolls like Doug Paggit, http://pagitt.typepad.com/pagittblog/ or Andrew Jones, http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/

Re: Re: Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Amy at 11:05PM (PST) on Mar 12, 2005
Let me know if you think this is unfair to say, but don't you think the seeds of this kind of thinking are present even in the center of emergent? Can we ever understand the Bible according to pomo/emergent thought? If not, then why make it the source of our knowledge about God? They've already begun to lower it's level of importance–why not lower it to the level of this blogger? I don't mean that rhetorically. What would Paggit and Jones say about this blog do you think? How would they differ from this guy? I'm just trying to get a handle on this.

Re: Re: Re: Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Bill Ekhardt at 02:39PM (PST) on Mar 14, 2005
Unfortunately I can't speak authoritatively about either blogger, but I can tell you what I expect. I expect that these two would say your blogger is misguided. There is a great deal of emphasis on scripture throughout emergent. Dan Kimball, for instance takes great pains to show how much scripture is valued and used within emerging worship. I expect that Paggit and Jones could apprecaite interacting with a work of art like Godot but I think they would be very disturbed by such a work completely replacing scripture in worship or within the commuinty as a whole.

Amy, I don't think it follows that our lack of certainty regarding interpretation of scripture leads us to dismiss the value of scripture. It is true that some within emergent have gone back to scripture, tradition, revelation triangle rather than a sola scriptura. I think we might be concerned about this, but I don't think it would lead us to conclude that they were unorthodox, or that they had abandoned the normative nature of scripture.
That is my perspective. I don't consider myself to be very centrally placed within the emergent conversation. John sloas would be better at responding to this than I would.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Bill Ekhardt at 02:53PM (PST) on Mar 14, 2005
I see now that your blogger has responded in far more depth than any comment I might make . I believe he has made a good case for his use of scripture, and his method for using it.

Personally, I am interested in what he has found as he has sought to deconstruct our American assumptions in his approach to scripture.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Amy at 09:01PM (PST) on Mar 14, 2005
Bill, I've read one of Dan Kimball's books, and I agree with your assessment of him. I thought he had a high view of Scripture and theology, so no problem there!

I guess whether or not you dismiss the value of Scripture is mainly dependent on how much of a lack of certainty you think we have. I don't know anyone who thinks we know everything about the Bible with 100% certainty. But the deeper a person is into the idea that we are so trapped by the language of our culture that we can't see reality, the more likely he is to not trust any interpretation of the text. If we create our reality with our language, then texts (and the author's original meaning) are dead. Then why try to discover the original meaning? Why not just find what it means to us today (or rather, what we'd like it to mean). All of this I think leads down the road to abandoning the authority of Scripture.

The Emergent movement is so broad that I think there are people all along this spectrum. That's why I'm trying to get a handle on where all the big players are.

Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Micah at 05:25AM (PST) on Mar 12, 2005
Ah . . . another Princeton University phd student . . . lovely . . .. At least he puts to rest the canard about (this version of) emergence being judgmental . . .

If you look at his influences, Cornell West, Jeff Stout, Hauerwas, Walter Wink, but also N.T. Wright, etc., and mix them in a blender, that's pretty much what you'll get (and he'd likely say the same of me and my influences if I were to put a blog out)

Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Roger at 05:16PM (PST) on Mar 12, 2005
The problem for me is there are simply too many emergent blogs to keep a pulse on. It's difficult enough to find time to read the stuff I enjoy, let alone the whole other world of emergent. And the blogrolls will only get longer…

Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Anonymous at 08:00AM (PST) on Mar 13, 2005
Amy, I am the author of the post referred to. I appreciate your attention, but I feel you have seriously misrepresented my position.

In my post, I explicitly deny this: “The Bible has no particular importance in the forming of his worldview.”

I also make it clear that I depart from Beckett on “answers to ultimate questions” and I advocate the cross as the ultimate interpretive paradigm. That's not derived from Godot! It might not fit well with your particular version of Christianity, esp. if I can infer from your reading list that you are a favorable reader of John Piper, but surely you can distinguish conceptually between the Bible and your interpretation of it?

I would not at all disagree with you that the Bible renders the identity of Jesus Christ and tells us who he is and what he is like. But my claim is that it is Christ, not the Bible, that is the locus of authority. My further claim is that the value-system and perspectives of the interpretive community exercise determinative influence on how we interpret scripture. The president of Princeton Theological Seminary makes precisely the same point in his inaugural address (available on ptsem.edu.) You didn't deal with that at all, which was the primary point I was trying to get at in the discussion of scripture.

Also, what do you mean by “postmodern logic”? Postmodernism is a worn out term, and you shouldn't use it unless you are prepared to specify what particular postmodern theorist or theorist of postmodernity you have in mind, and what specific aspect of my post is related to that individual's thought. Otherwise, you're just using vaguely defined term of disapprobation that only functions by remaining vague. You owe your readers more than that.

Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Amy at 05:34PM (PST) on Mar 13, 2005
Steve, thanks for stopping by! I hope you'll continue to interact with us so we can sharpen each other's thinking.

I was referring to your comments: “So while my own community has no opposition to using the Bible in worship, and we do do so, we attach no particular preeminence to the Bible as an artifact considered in and of itself,” and “the Bible has played little explicit role in our times of worship together.” I took this to mean that, because our culture has so distorted the meaning of the Bible, you no longer use it as the central source informing the worldview you're developing with your community. In context, this seemed to be what you were saying, since you went on to tell how you agreed more with Beckett than with the Bible when it came to such things as “God will work everything out for good” (your rejection of this does seem to be in direct opposition to Romans 8:28, among other passages). I'm not saying you never use the Bible, I'm only pointing out that you have some philosophy other than the text of the Bible that determines when you will agree with the Bible, and when you will agree with another, completely opposite idea from a different source. By “particular importance” I meant you didn't give the Bible preeminence in the creation of your worldview. I think you can agree with that.

I agree with you that our culture affects the way we view the Bible, but I disagree with your claim that we can never get past this to get at the meaning intended by the author. I realize this was the point you were making, and that is actually the “postmodern thinking” (“thinking,” not “logic”) I was referring to. It seems that it's because you don't trust that we can know or communicate what the Bible truly says that now the Bible plays “little explicit role” in your worship and understanding of the world. As a result, you have accepted ideas from Beckett that are antithetical to the Bible.

I certainly don't know of any Christian who would say Jesus is not his locus of authority. The Bible is only a tool to serve our worship of Him. But if your understanding of Jesus is not informed by the Bible preeminently, what does this idea that “Jesus is the locus of authority” mean for you? Doesn't “Jesus” then just become a creation of your own, taking a bit from the Bible and a bit from Beckett? Doesn't that, then, make you the ultimate locus of authority?

Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Anonymous at 08:19PM (PST) on Mar 13, 2005
Well, the Bible can play a lot of roles in shaping a community besides explicit use in worship gathering, and the point I was making was that the Bible was playing a role in shaping us through the manner in which Beckett's play confronts many Christian appropriations of the Bible which I believe are flat mistaken (i.e., the American supremacist reading).

There's a problem with your claim that my reading of Beckett contradicts Rom 8:28. I clearly specified that my appropriation of Beckett applied to extra-eschatological existence, whereas Rom 8 is thoroughly eschatological. But the manner in which Rom 8:28 is utilized in contemporary christian discourse often pays no regard to the politics of eschatology, but instead is employed for the sake of escapism or apathy towards human suffering. That is precisely what I am trying to confront and when people can't distinguish between the Bible and their appropriation of the Bible, sometimes you need a little Beckett to shake things up.

Again, what specific postmodern theorist or theorist of postmodernity are you referring to? There is no such thing as “postmodernism” as a unified, consistent body of thought, so we should stop speaking as if there were. That will make it harder to plop people into simplistic categories, but that's a good thing.

And where do I say that we are so trapped by culture that we can't communicate what the Bible says? I was using Beckett to counteract the cultural blinders I find most distorting of the Bible's message, at this current moment. I say we have to attend to the quality, nature, and virtues of the interpretive community, and that in absence of attending to that, our use of the Bible involves self-deception. But I don't say that it is impossible to use scripture well. My point is that the sort of communities that wrestle seriously with Beckett and can hear the power of what he is saying will do a better job of communicating the message of the Bible than those who use it to support an agenda of American supremacy or those who fit the Bible comfortably into their agenda of wealth acquisition and narcissistic self-fulfillment.

Finally, my idea of Jesus is formed by the Bible pre-eminently, but I distinguish between the role of the Bible in rendering the identity of Jesus and the many other things that the Bible does and that people do with the Bible. A flat reading of the Bible as the “Word of God” (an unbiblical identification, by the way) means that people give as much weight to, for example, particular instructions from Paul to a particular 1st century community as they do the gospels' rendering of the identity of Jesus Christ. But the functioning of authority in the latter case is of an entirely different nature than the former.

Re: Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Amy at 09:36PM (PST) on Mar 14, 2005
I agree with you that it's good to have all types of Christians give their input on interpretations of Scripture. That does help us to avoid blinders. I also agree that American Christians often have individualistic, narcissistic interpretations of Scripture, and that people could definitely misuse Romans 8:28 if they don't have a bigger picture of what God means by “good”–misinterpreting it as wealth, power, etc.

You said, “That is precisely what I am trying to confront and when people can't distinguish between the Bible and their appropriation of the Bible, sometimes you need a little Beckett to shake things up.” So let me give a friendly challenge of your appropriation of the Bible. You claimed, “This is a world that has careened outside the loving intent of God's will, and in God's freedom, God has permitted it to do so. God is not working good through suffering, but stands opposed to it.” You also said “We must stare nihilism in the face,” accepting the fact that our suffering has no point and is not under God's control. But what is your reason for thinking this? The Bible is clear (see Joseph for one example) that our suffering does have purpose. It is also clear that we are to alleviate the suffering of others. No one with a clear understanding of the Bible as a whole would say, “To heck with those who are suffering–they're *supposed* to suffer.” This is why Christians historically have started hospitals and schools through missions, alleviating suffering all over the world.

But what in the Bible makes your view clear?

You have also decided to reject the idea that the writings of Paul are inspired by God (contra 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 3:16), or even that the Bible is the “Word of God” (even though even Jesus talks about the source of the Old Testament as being the Holy Spirit speaking through human beings). Why decide that Paul's writings have less authority than other parts of the Bible? Do you get this view from the Bible? Or could this be an appropriation of the Bible based on your immersion in the ideas of Marxism, nihilism, naturalism, etc.?

I'm seeing in general that postmodernism (which would tend to give up on finding an original meaning) leads to much more misappropriation of the text than the idea that there is a reality and we can know it with reasonable certainty if we take care to understand things in historical and grammatical context. The second group can recognize their limitations and try to correct them, but the first has no reason to think they *can* correct them, so why try?

I realize that my original blog did not go into details about all these things. My main purpose in writing it was not to lay out an explicit case, but only to point the readers to you so they could read for themselves someone with whom they disagree. I think this is important for the very reasons you mentioned! We have to always test our own ideas and the ideas of others.

Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Roger at 01:03AM (PST) on Mar 14, 2005
“Again, what specific postmodern theorist or theorist of postmodernity are you referring to? There is no such thing as “postmodernism” as a unified, consistent body of thought, so we should stop speaking as if there were.”

Perhaps not everyone engaged in postmodern thought agrees on every detail of it, but there are general unifying identifiers (as has been the case in every other system of thought in all of history). If this were not the case then Dr. Grenz could not have written A Primer on Postmodernism. John Franke could not have written that “this failure has prompted the emergence of postmodern theory with its critique of certain, objective, universal knowledge…” (A Generous Orthodoxy, p 10)

Dr. Moreland stated in his most recent ETS paper, “Postmodernism is a loose coalition of diverse thinkers from several different academic disciplines, so it is difficult to characterize postmodernism in a way that would be fair to this diversity. Still, it is possible to provide a fairly accurate characterization of postmodernism in general, since its friends and foes understand it well enough to debate its strengths and weaknesses.” Simply put, the fact that people are debating the pros and cons of postmodernism (as we are oft to do here), is evidence that there is such a thing. The only way out is if you're a non-realist.

Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Anonymous at 01:08PM (PST) on Mar 14, 2005
you people are ridiculous. i love that you can clarify who a person is and where there heart lies based on a blog post.

Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Anonymous at 01:09PM (PST) on Mar 14, 2005
that was myles. sorry for the anonymity.

mwerntz.excogito.org

frankly, it's ridiculous how many conclusions, baseless or random, can be drawn on the basis of one quote or text. thank you for dismissing an entire movement, for dismissing entire portions of the church who are trying to follow God faithfully, without giving them any credence. silly.

Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Roger at 02:25PM (PST) on Mar 14, 2005
You are welcome to call us names, but for the record we will only dialogue with people who are interested in meaningful discussion (exchanging insults in not meaningful discussion, or glorifying to Christ). Anyone can see by reading our blog that we've interacted with a variety of texts to come to our conclusions.

Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Micah at 05:15PM (PST) on Mar 14, 2005
I'd have written my rather sarcastic post differently if I'd thought about it, I don't know the Beckett author personally and his posts indicate to me that he seems a reasonable interlocuter (as any Stout student would be).

That said, about the previous complaint from Myles, come on . . . the entire emergent movement arose out of a critique of the church that it emerged from, at times a very strong critique (some aspects of which I think are valid, others less so). That people who hold to a more traditional/rationalist/put-in-your-qualifier position have reacted by critique as well is fair game.

Reminds me of the Mormons who complained when the Southern Baptists sent out missionaries in Salt Lake City . . .

Many good things can come out of the discussion, including a better understanding of what's held in common and what's not.

Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Anonymous at 08:58AM (PST) on Mar 15, 2005
my complaint less stems from anyone having a rationalist standpoint of Christianity than for the loss of mystery that stems from such a standpoint. i'll not argue the use of Beckett over the Bible, but in all fairness to the post you reference, they're not arguing for community formation by Samuel Beckett; they're arguing for community formation by the Spirit of God, who works through Scriptures, but is not contained by them. ultimately, the Wesleyan model works well, combining the reason, tradition, and experience into one's interaction with Scripture–i would argue, much better than a Solo Scriptura approach which is a far cry from what it was a) meant to be or b) should be. it's not an either/or in terms of being aware of how God might move outside our expected modus operandi; I reference a story about a talking ass and another one about a vision on the roof in Jerusalem–in both cases, the perciever's range of interpretation of Scripture was enlarged by an outside source than Scripture.

Re: Re: The Bible Vs. Beckett
by Amy at 11:05AM (PST) on Mar 15, 2005
I can appreciate your fear that a “rational perspective” would lead to a dry view of God. A lot of people have that fear. Maybe I'm just a freak (I don't deny that possibility!), but that truly has not been my experience at all. Some of the closest moments I've had with God have been when I'm reading systematic theology. At times, as I contemplate the greatness of God and the truths of His character, I am literally forced to my knees in awe, wonder, and worship.

Can we see truths about God illustrated in the world? Of course. But there is a real problem when “truths” from other sources are believed over what is explicit in the Bible. This is what I think Steve has done. Even if he disagrees with the conclusion that he has done this, I think he would still agree with the principle that this should not be done. (I'm just guessing this is what you would say, Steve. Feel free to correct me if you think otherwise.)