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H is for Hermeneutics

We humans are gifted at interpreting. We are constantly interpreting signs and symbols everywhere we go and in everything that we do. We are so comfortable interpreting that we may not even know that we are doing it.

Interpreting comes to most of us almost as second nature. We pick it up as child in the same way that we learn language and so many other things from imitating adults and our peers. We are conditioned in powerful ways that influence our opinions, convictions, prejudices, and even our desires.

We are constantly interpreting.

We almost instinctively know how to read different facial expressions, body language, gestures, moods, words, tone of voice, intensity, sincerity, pace, volume, etc. We even interpret things like gender, body style, and clothing. We interpret everything from human interactions, to sacred texts – from the clouds in the sky to the road signs as we drive.

We are always interpreting. 

What if you were told that the way you interpret something may be more important than the thing itself?

Would you be comfortable with the idea that your interpretive lens doesn’t just help you process your experiences – but actually helps create those experiences at some level?

Thinking about the way that we interpret things is called hermeneutics. It is a fancy word that would seem completely unnecessary if humans were not constantly interpreting nearly everything. The ‘Herme’ in hermeneutics comes from Greek mythology where Hermes was the messenger of the gods. Hermes was “considered to be the inventor of language and speech, an interpreter, a liar, a thief and a trickster. These multiple roles made Hermes an ideal representative figure for hermeneutics.”[1]

Words and ideas need interpreting because they can be tricky, double-coded, multilayered, and highly situational (contextual).

You may know that I come from an evangelical-charismatic background.  What you may not know is that I am continually contested in conversations with people from that background about the need to interpret our experiences and texts. I am often told that our religious experiences do not need to be interpreted, that they are actually a validation or a sign of faith. That, of course, is in itself an interpretation.[2]

We don’t just have experiences (like we don’t just read and believe the Bible), we interpret. We do it as second nature because to be human – and thus social – is to be thoroughly saturated in language and symbols. We speak, and indeed think, in language. It permeates everything we do and are. It is part of what being human means.

Hermeneutics is quite concerned with the complex set of relationships between an author, the text itself and the original or subsequent audience. The reader, according to hermeneutics, has a lot of power in that relationship.

Hermeneutics is a massive and complex field. Since this an ABC’s series, there are two basic things that are important to know:

  • The word has been in use since the 17th century even though the idea is an ancient one that can be traced all the way back to the Greek philosophers.
  • Everything changed in past 90 years. With the publication of Heidegger’s “Being and Time” in 1927, philosophy, and then subsequently the human sciences, took a hermeneutical turn.

This trickle-down effect has made its way through nearly every aspect of society and culture. The impact of this turn has been so thorough that we are now to the point where everything is analyzed, dissected, and questioned. No area of life gets a free pass and no activity is safe from interrogation. Social media is the perfect venue to exam how absolutely everything is now amplified (first) and then scrutinized.

If you are attracted to someone or not attracted to them, if you comb your hair a certain way or you don’t comb your hair, if you go to church or don’t go to church, if you stand for the national anthem at a sporting event or you don’t … everything means something.

This is true for individuals, families, congregations, people groups, and nations. It is the reality of the world that we live in for the 21st century.

One of Heidegger’s most famous students was Hans-Georg Gadamer. His 1975 book “Truth and Method” was about the world of interpretation and it expanded what is called the hermeneutical circle.

The five elements are characterized as:

  • pre-understanding
  • the experience of being brought up short
  • dialogical interplay
  • fusion of horizons
  • application.

This five-part cycle is really helpful and I often paraphrase it this way:

  1. We all come in with something to contribute. We have different perspectives, experiences, insights, histories, and assumptions. We might be familiar with topic or we might be new to the information. Both perspectives are needed.
  2. When we compare notes we come to realize that none of us have the whole picture and we might not even looking at our part of the picture in the most helpful or healthiest way. We admit our limitations or the flaws in what we were given.
  3. We begin to put our individual parts of the picture next to each other and may need to go outside to find some more or different parts of the picture in order to have a fuller or more wholistic understanding of what we are looking at.
  4. We begin to piece the whole picture together. We might overlap some areas, glue some down, we may choose to expand some elements or minimize others into order to make the project work together as a whole.
  5. We commit to actually do something with what we have made. We have each been impacted by the process and we acknowledge that we leave this phase of the cycle different than we came in.

In conclusion:

We all interpret. We think, experience, and speak through a lens. None of us are a blank slate and we never start from scratch. None of us come to a text, an event, or to an encounter value-free or judgement-free. We are rich tapestries full of values and laden with judgements.

These interpretations impact our beliefs, convictions, behaviors, practices, decisions, and feelings. Accounting for and attending to our interpretive lens in any situation will allow us to prosper in the complex, complicated, and multi-sensory world of the 21st century.

Bonus Section For Church Leaders:

A helpful example of the hermeneutical circle is employed in my field of Practical Theology. I tend toward utilizing the work of Paul Ricoeur and his ‘second naivety’ myself, but the example I want share is from Richard Osmer who utilizes Gadamer as his framework to talk about a community of interpretation.[3]

Let’s looks at what it takes to be someone who facilitates this for their community.  This understanding engages in different forms of communication because it is a collaborative effort. The following elements factor in significantly for the spirituality required to carry out the leadership that Osmer envisions.

  • The Descriptive–Empirical Task is called Priestley Listening and finds great importance in the power of presence.

The spirituality of presence addresses several levels of what is called attending to the congregation as a community of interpretation. Being present with and being attentive to the diverse perspectives, insights, experiences, and histories of those who make up the community.

  • The second task is the Interpretive Task called Sagely Wisdom.

The interpretive task draws off of thoughtfulness, theory, and wise judgment. Osmer appeals to Israel’s wisdom tradition and to Jesus being the hidden wisdom of God revealed. Facilitating this kind of communal discernment requires a unique set of skills and tools. There is a place for someone with specialized education (like seminary) in a community of interpretation.

  • The third task is the Normative Task, which is called Prophetic Discernment.

This task weaves together narrative, theory, and scriptural illustration. This is the art of this kind of leadership. Like a quilter stitching together the various pieces of fabric into a coherent whole, or a knitter diligently alternating between the required and various patterns required to bring out the texture for the desired finished product.

  • The final task is the Pragmatic Task, classified as Servant Leadership.

Osmer identifies the three forms of leadership as task competence, transactional leadership, and transforming leadership. Playing this role in your community requires three overlapping and interrelated convictions: you want to do this well, you want to do it with people, and you want the community to empowered and liberated for their work in the world. 

A priest mediates between God and God’s people, a sage has unique knowledge, a prophet tells the truth in interesting and creative ways, and servant works on their hands and knees.

The motif of “deep change” is introduced through the writing of Robert Quinn and is woven together with Old Testament imagery in order to illustrate the type of leadership that is required in this task. Quinn’s Four-stage model of organizational change (called the transformational cycle) involves: Initiation, Uncertainty, Transformation, and Routinization.

I share all of these different examples to point out two themes that you find in almost every hermeneutical project:

  1. They form a cycle, a circle, or a spiral – signifying an ongoing (continual) process.
  2. The second stage or step is one of negativity, negation, or something negative (like uncertainty). This is important because it is only after was pass through the unknowing that we come to see-know-engage-understand-assimilate-fuse in a new way.

In summary, interpreting is always and ongoing process and we must address the negative second step in order to move forward.

[1] This is from the Wikipedia entry on hermeneutics.

[2] Like we talked about in F is Fideism, divine revelation or religious experience cannot be privileged to the point that it is exempt from the attention that pay to other ‘ways of knowing’ and other areas of refelction.

[3] He first examines the idea of guiding the congregation as a community of interpretation. Secondly, he addresses the need to guide interpretation evoked by the experience of being brought up short. Lastly, guiding the dialogue between theology and other fields of knowledge. Leadership of this kind is defined as “the exercise of influence.”

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F if for Fideism (modified)

How do we know what we know about god?

There was a medieval theory about this which said that every word represented a concept which represented the reality it was trying to talk about. This triangle theory of knowledge was very popular and deeply formative to the way that we think about and talk about matters of faith.

So the triangle is: words – concepts – reality

Then, as always happens, somebody tried to simplify it and flattened it to be more of a straight line. Words represent the realities that they talk about. It was a case of over-simplifying to the point that the theory fell apart. Then a battle broke out: some became really aggressive in their critique and criticism while others became really defensive in their attempt to preserve The Faith.

Some groups tried to rescue the idea by being more nuanced and elaborate. Other continued to double-down in simplistic and literalists understandings. Some alternative schools of thought sprung up to try and get out of the either-or all-or-nothing game altogether.

Fideism is one of those alternative approaches and it is both tempting, and thus, a potentially dangerous development on the religious landscape for our lifetime.

Fideism: The view that matters of religious and theological truth must be accepted by faith apart from the exercise of reason. In its extreme, fideism suggests that the use of reason is misleading. Less extreme fideists suggest that reason is not so much misleading as it is simply unable to lead to truths about the nature of God and salvation.

  • Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Kindle Locations 552-554).

Fideism has been around for a long time but it has taken on a new tenacity recently. There are several new schools of thought that we will cover in a moment, each of them has an element of ‘you won’t fully understand until you believe’ or ‘what we have (or have been given) is a self-contained unit and really only works if you play the game by its rules”. 

The 19th Century was a tough one for ‘reasoned faith’. Those bastions that survived into the 20th Century were not left unaltered. In fact, since WWII the effect of those descended from who Paul Ricoeur dubbed ‘The Master of Suspicion’ – Freud, Nietzsche, and Marx (some add Darwin) –  has grown and intensified.

Another way of saying this is that the fields of psychology, philosophy, sociology, and science have deeply impacted the way that faith and religion was understood in the latter half of the 20th century. It is almost as if the pressure created by the work of these Masters of Suspicion was building up in the 19th century and was unleashed with the events of the early part of the 20th century. 

The two merged into a storm of doubt and decline that has yet to end in our current situation. 

Think about how much changed from just 1900 to now .

From Pentecostal revival that started in 1906, to the great depression, the World Wars, the Civil Rights movement, television, Watergate, Vietnam, the Cold War, cable TV, Monica Lewiski, Y2K, September 11th, the internet, and the first iPhone in 2007. In that 101 years from the Azusa Street revival to the iPhone … think about how much psychology, sociology, philosophy, and science changed and changed how we think about things – how we conceive of them, interpret them, and participate in them.

Understandably, part of ‘reasoned faith’ is that it had to adjust and modify. It had to account for new data (scientific and sociological) and, more importantly, it had to stop playing by its own rules.

The rules of engagement changed. Faith no longer got a free pass. The ‘church’ was no longer running the uni-versity. Fields like science had grown up since the Copernican revolution were no longer afraid of the church – and began to act like they were running the show now.

Psychology asked why we did things. Sociology questioned the venue in which we did them. Philosophy examined what was behind those things in the first place. Science explored the means by which we did them and expanded our ability to do them.

Not only had the rules of the game changed, the game itself was changing.

Modern Christianity had to choose between:

  • Fight
  • Flight
  • Concede
  • or Adjust-Adapt-Evolve

A subtle form of this impulse toward fideism is simply to speak of ‘Non-Overlapping Magisterium”. Science and reason take care of their areas and faith takes care of its area.

Those who take this impulse further retreat into what Wittgenstein would call ‘private language games’. They take on a formal defense of the given-ness of faith say that faith doesn’t have to be reasonable. Those two things are just speaking different languages and that science of reason doesn’t even have the ability to understand what faith is doing. That is why neither can even provide a critique let alone a correction. Religion is thus except from an investigation-integration from outside.

I would argue that what we believe in private has massive implication for how we participate in the public arena. In our present societal unrest what folks believe in private really does impact how that participate in public.

I have found it very useful to multiply the categories from 2 to 4 so that we talk about the:

  1. Private
  2. Personal
  3. Public
  4. Political

It is helpful to expand the existing categories to reflect more of how actually think about and engage in matters of faith and politics.

This is why we have to care about fideism. I understand the desire to preserve the past and stake out ones territory for the given-ness of the tradition. It is a way of protecting what is deeply valued and – let’s be honest – in grave danger.

Those who are attracted to fideism look at the evolution of their religion and the disappearance of treasured practices and think “I don’t even recognize this contemporary mutation as the same thing that we inherited from those who came before!”

… and that might be true. But we live in a world come of age and The Faith both needs to and is bound to change.

Here are what seem to be the 3 biggest temptations for modern Christianity:

  • to concede
  • to attack
  • to retreat

Concede

Faith as a public matter has never been more challenging. The easiest response is to both personalize ones faith and then make it private. This is a two-step dance but either is dangerous on its own.

Personalizing faith is a natural response for an Enlightenment Individual. We major in ‘self’. We have cultivated the ability to think in ‘me’. This is a novel development in religion and some argue that it is against the very nature of religion! The purpose of religion is to bind us together in practice (re-ligio) or reconnect us as a belief-community.

The second step is to internalize one’s personal faith. In liberal democracy, no one cares if you believe something – just keep it to yourself. Don’t put it on someone else. Your personal practice in there or over there is one thing … just don’t make too big of a deal about out here. Out here we have a civil expectation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If your religion helps as a means to those ends, fine. If not, it might become an issue of you infringe on someone else right. Go ahead and practice your ‘tradition’ on your own time but just keep it down when you’re out here in public.

The modern expression of Christianity has responded to this two-step dance in many little ways – my favorite of which is consumeristic-accessorization. The bumper sticker on my interal-combustion automobile and the fashionable yet ironic message T that imitates a popular ad campaign are just two examples. It allows me to allude to a Bible verse (I am not of the world after all) while participating in a capitalist system that goes unquestioned.

Attack

To counter the personal-and-internal compromise noted above, an aggressive and external coup has been attempted. The memory of Christendom has fueled a political response to take back power and ‘return to our roots’. The rise of the Religious Right (and Moral Majority) of the past four decades is perhaps the most high-profile example. It is, however, just the latest incarnation of this impulse.

 

The fond (and white-washed) memories of days gone by and yesteryear fuel an anger at what is seen as a disintegrating culture and a slouching toward Gomorrah. The resulting Culture Wars and political animosity have a fundamental problem however:

Ever since the Constantinian compromise in the 4th century is has been difficult (if not impossible) to get the Bible to say what one needs it to say in order to justify a claim to power.

A religion founded on the teaching of a marginalized prophet and incubated in persecuted minority communities does not lend itself to being in charge. An incredible amount of selective editing, creative hermeneutics and mental gymnastics are required to make it fit. At some point a voice comes along and points out that ‘this is untenable’.

Retreat

The above two responses are both simpler and more obvious (and thus more popular) than our last response. The retreat is more subtle and sophisticated. There is great concern about a school of thought that seeks to move the Christian tradition toward an “autonomous and protected location”.

A seductive temptation is found in an attempt to preserve former (historic) expressions of the faith behind linguistic fences (insulated language games) and communities that become isolated silos. These “are really retreats into forms of fideism or ‘protective strategies’ that seek ways of interpreting theological discourse so as to preserve its unique status.” [1]

Those who follow this line of reasoning contend that theology is not properly about ascertaining indubitable truth claims about God or reality, nor about fathoming the depths of human subjectivity; rather, the task is to analyze and explicate the fundamental claims about reality and human life that have emerged within a specific tradition, so that believers might more fully appropriate and live out of their tradition’s vision of reality.

It becomes a:

“self-enclosed historical community; its method is interpretive, not critical; and its goal is to aid in the internalization of central claim, not the critique or reconstruction of that which we have inherited.”

You can see the attraction of the retreat! By privileging “revelation” or the “given-ness” of the tradition, one is afforded the space to preserve and defend an inherited system which immune for outside critique and thus preserved in its ‘as is’ status.

This romantic preservation and reclamation mistakenly – and perhaps intentionally – defends and protects manifestations and consequences that we not only need to move on from but that it is impossible to return to.

[1] The Post-Liberal work of Lindbeck and the Radical Orthodoxy camp of Milbank and MacIntyre are in danger of this.

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E is for Empire (modified)

E is for Empire in the ABC’s of (modified) Theology.

Em·pire.      /ˈemˌpī(ə)r/

noun

an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress.

Christian thought, belief, and practice, “suffers from an imperial condition” according to Catherine Keller in her chapter in PostColonial Theology. That is eye-opening news to many people who claim to be ‘Bible-believing’.

We live in an odd time in N. America where those who love, quote, and believe in the Bible most deeply happen to be the least aware of the Bible’s concern with and critique of Empire. What is fascinating to me is that those who are most unaware of the nature of the American Empire (imperial policies and practices) are also those who claim to take the Bible the most seriously.

Whenever this subject comes up, without exception someone will question, ‘how can this be so?”, and others will say, “what are you making such a big deal about?”

Here is how it works: The biblical narrative details many empires – all of whom have a devastating effect on the people of God.

The Exodus narrative, the Babylonian captivity, and the Roman occupation are all examples of Empire. The Bible is through-and-through saturated with imperialism and the disastrous effects that it has on the people of God. This includes enslavement, genocide, military occupation, oppressive taxation burdens, displacement, tyranny, and limitations on religion to name a few.

This is where it gets tough: Moses, Daniel, and Jesus all suffered (and subsequently overcame) imperial regimes. The Bible is saturated with themes of ‘empire’ and resistance. The problem is that those who are most embedded in the Empire are the most unaware of this theme and may have no idea that the Bible that they value so much has anything to say about the issue what so ever!

If you do not take into account the themes of ‘empire / imperialism’ then the Bible reads a certain way which allows you to be complicit in the current American imperial impulse and actually believe that you are serving the Kingdom of God by participating in those structures. The shocker is when you find out that Moses, Daniel, and Jesus were on the underbelly of the beast and were figures of resistance seeking to undermine the established order – the systems, structures, and institutions of repression and containment.

This information can be eye-opening!

There is not a single part of the New Testament that is not haunted by the shadow of empire and imperial domination. One might as well not even read the Gospels or the Book of Revelation outside of this lens! In fact, it is impossible to talk about the cross of Christ or Paul’s letter to the Romans without a thorough understanding of empire.

Take a minute and think about what a cross was – an instrument of intimidation and public terror reserved for those who threatened that stability of the empire (like sedition). It was tool of spectacle meant to scare the masses into compliance and submission. To paraphrase Philip Yancey in The Jesus I Never Knew : Jesus didn’t get crucified because he told people to be nice to each other.  No, he was a threat to the delicate balance of power that Rome and the Jewish viceroys were attempting to hold together by a thin thread.

I might go as far as to say that empire and imperial pressures dominate and dictate every facet of the Bible and especially the New Testament.

It is concerning then that those who claim to take the Bible the most seriously (or least read it the most) may know the least about this aspect of its original context … and this blind spot may lead those same people to be most complicit and supportive to the current role that their nationalistic government plays in the world.

Even a cursory glance at the history of empire reveals that empires have often been justified and supported by theological means. Already at the time of Jesus the Romans could rely on a well-organized theology of empire that was able to assimilate other theologies to varying degrees – even those that would appear rather incompatible, such as traditional Jewish theologies of places like Palestine. 

  • Joerg Rieger  in “Christ & Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Time”

Think about the difficulty you would have if you do not see the role that Egypt, Babylon, and Rome played in the Biblical narrative. By what lens would be able to see the role that post-Cold War foreign policy played in global affairs or that America plays in the global ‘War on Terror’?

It would be difficult if not impossible.

Let’s come at this a different way.

The people of God have frequently been oppressed and dominated.

Scripture tells us of their resistance and deliverance.

Empire is coercive, violent, controlling of nearly everything it its radius. Domination is actually the modus operandi of imperial regimes. The methods are predictable:

  • Road blocks
  • Security checks
  • Boarders
  • Prisons
  • War
  • Surveillance
  • Control

The Bible testifies to this and provides tools for resistance. Read the stories in the book of Daniel, the parables of Jesus, or the apocalyptic rhetoric in the book of Revelation and you have a manual to interrogate, undermine, and subvert the coercive and dominating powers of empire. 

The great irony of history is that so many Bible believing people both don’t know this and ,then, subsequently participate (even complicity) in the continuation of this oppressive system.

The Bible tells us that Moses, Daniel, and Jesus all suffered under imperial oppression. We need to make sure that we don’t use the Bible to defend or extend any Nationalistic/ Empire ambitions in the world that we live in via the systems that we participate in and support.

One possible starting point is found in our translation of ‘Basileia tou Theou’ (Βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ) into English. This phrase is almost always brought in as The Kingdom of God. This translation is problematic at many levels.

The primary problem is that it in no way carries the counter-imperial element of Jesus’ life and teaching. It would be more accurate to translate it as:

  • The Un-kingdom
  • The Counter-kingdom
  • The Anti-kingdom
  • The Upside-down government

Perhaps the most profound alternative in to speak of a Kin-dom. This kin-dom conveys that we are all god’s children and that we relate to each other as related-ones. We are connected in profound and meaningful ways. Kin-dom language also gets rid of the problematic masculine language of ‘king’ and the hierarchy embedded in kingdom imagery. It is much needed upgrade for the alternate translation of Greek word βασιλεία, (‘basileia’) instead of the classic (and

problematic) ‘kingdom’.

Some thinkers have toyed with the idea of leaving such certain rich and nuanced words/concepts untranslated into English like we do with agape in Greek or Selah in the Hebrew psalms. It provides a novel element and may loan it an air of mystery or exotic foreignness.

There is much work being done with translations such as:

  • Economy of God
  • Reign and rule
  • Commonwealth
  • Government, etc.

Some of these mayprovide a helpful way forward. Though it may be argued that some convey many of the same associations with the intrinsic hierarchy, coercion, and domination that it incongruent with the love of God revealed in Christ.

In the end, I have circled around again and again to the kin-dom of God. It signifies that we are all interrelated (kin) and that as family, we are relationally constituted. Our related-ness is our prominent characteristic. What defines us? Our connection to the divine/transcendent/reality “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

A helpful advocate is found in the work of Ada Maria Isasi­Diaz’s “Solidarity: Love of Neighbor in the 21s t Century” in Lift Every Voice: Constructing Christian Theologies

from the Underside. It resonates with so many scriptural themes, including Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6 when that talk about the inner witness of God’s spirit in our spirit that we have been adopted and are children of God. [1]

There are many reasons to be concerned/critical of ‘the kingdom’ translation. There are so many objectionable aspects to it, including when Americans seem to romanticize foreign monarchy and the imperial ideal of domination. What role or function is being accomplished in this romanticized obsession.

The past couple of years there has been an resurgent theme in Christian books and materials which are centered around King or Kingdom themes. Tim Keller, NT Wright, Scott McKnight,  and Rob Reimer have all produced bestseller that doubled down on this phenomenon.  While its appeal may be understandable at one level – a return the imagined or romanticized past – one has to be careful that Christianity’s future is not found in Europe’s past.

Jesus didn’t speak English, so there is nothing sacred about the translation ‘kingdom’. In fact, the more one examines the merit of the kin-dom translation, the clearer it communicates the virtue and the loving relational characteristic that Jesus modeled and taught. 

Regardless of how these words and concepts get translated into English, the greater concern is that people of faith are aware of how the systems and structures of power continue to employ mechanism of control and violence that oppress and dominate. As people of faith, and especially those who claim to follow Christ, it is important that utilize the resources provided us in the Bible to interrogate, undermine, and subvert the unjust systems of power in our world. We have been given this precedent and this permission by Jesus.

For further examination:

Beyond the Spirit of Empire – Rieger, Sung, Miguez

Colonialism, Han, and the Transformative Spirit – Grace Ji Sun Kim

Arrogance of Nations: Paul and Empire – Neil Elliott

God and Empire – John Dominic Crossan  

Jesus and Empire – Richard Horsley

New Testament and Empire – Warren Carter  

[1] David Harstkoetter tells us that: “She skillfully argued that the gracious, salvific work of God, through love of the neighbor, entails solidarity characterized by interconnectivity—namely commonality and mutuality. … Yet, rather than describe solidarity as God’s ‘kingdom,’ a term that Isasi­Díaz names as sexist and is in the contemporary context “hierarchical and elitist,” she instead uses the term “kin­dom” to emphasize that the eschatological community will be a family: “kin to each other.” p. 89 in Getting Back to Idolatry Critique: Kingdom, Kin­dom, and the Triune Economy.

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When Liberal Is The Only Alternative

I am intrigued when someone accuses me of being a liberal. What that tells me is that they only have two options in their mind, and I am clearly not conservative. They have no larger framework to understand that what I am actually outside of their spectrum all together (social constructivist).

What is helpful to understand is that our contemporary political ‘spectrum’ is actually a very small slice of a much bigger historical spectrum.

We live in the shadow of the Enlightenment which prioritized the individual. We are all, basically, at this point individualist – unless we come from a culture that is more communal or familial in its orientation.

What we call ‘conservative’ is a actually conservative individualists (which is a type of liberalism) and what we call ‘liberal’ is just a slightly more liberal individualist. We speak in a sort of shorthand: ‘conservatives’ are really conservative liberals and ‘liberals’ are liberal-liberals.

I always encourage people, when given an either/or binary of options, to find a third alternative to help clarify the skewed picture. In this case you might think of Libertarians. Libertarians, however, are actually extreme individualists and in sense are just radical liberals.

What I would want people to see is that a better alternative is more of a Communitarian approach that understands both the interdependent nature of our social fabric and the way that we are all enscripted (or conscripted) into a society with its expectations, behaviors, language, practices, beliefs, and narratives.

Now to be clear, I am very concerned about the embedded hierarchies, and specifically, patriarchy, built into communitarianism but I still think that it is a better option than the atomized individual that is plaguing every aspect of our culture right now.

What I am interested in is a radical democracy – not this thing we have now of representative democracy where our law-makers are beholden to special interest lobbies and big money. No, I actually want people to have equity (if not equality) in the system and for then to have actual say in their communities, workplaces, and institutions.

What may surprise you is that this politic actually comes from my theology – specifically my ecclesiology. I view Pentecost as the decentering and democratization of God’s presence in the world. My view of the church is an empowerment model of mutuality, participation, and accountability.

For me this is the power of the liturgical calendar from Christmas to Easter and on to Pentecost which leads to ‘normal time’. Normal time is the result of that narrative. In the incarnation God identifies with humanity. In the crucifixion the scapegoat is sacrificed and then God vindicates the victim. In Pentecost you have the dissemination of God’s spirit which is no longer contained with man-made temples since the curtain between heaven and earth was torn in two.

Side note:  the silly either/or binary of a physical resurrection and a ‘spiritual’ one is the result of imposing our Enlightenment rationality back onto a premodern narrative (anachronistic) which is the most liberal thing I have seen. Jesus’ was neither a ghost nor a zombie – but had a glorified body. Read the story. Enter in to the narrative. He could both walk through walls and disappear but also bore the scars of his suffering and execution, and could be touched. He looked enough like himself the disciples could recognize something about him but was different enough that the mistook him for a gardener or fellow traveler. His glorified body was not the reanimation of a corpse but a glorified body that teaches us about new creation. The round and round debate about resurrection in an Enlightenment problem that will never go away because it is debating a set of expectations that the gospel itself has no interest in mediating.

Anyway, back the subject at hand. When we don’t know that all of our political options and arguments are actually centered on an individualism that foreign to the world of our sacred scriptures and then we try to import and impose our liberal (be they conservative, liberal, or radical) expectations on them, we will always be unsatisfied and impotent. We are trying to manipulate the variables in a equation that does not have any of the givens we are looking for and have learned to count on. It is just not there.

This anachronism (from the Bible) and amnesia (from the Enlightenment) leaves us in wasteland of polarization and arguments that are irreconcilable because  they are inherently incompatible. This is why no election result this fall will fix what ails us – the cancer that plagues us in individualism which is baked into the bread of our system whether you fall on the conservative, liberal, centrist, or radical wings of that spectrum.

Moving toward a communal understanding, or communitarian approach, which prioritizes cooperation, compromise, mutuality, collaboration, and gifting (grace) is the only hope we have of getting out of this cultural morass.

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The Upside of Critical Theory for Christians

The Upside of Critical Theory

An interesting question came out of last week’s video in response to ‘why evangelicals can’t do critical theory’. when someone asked “what is the upside?”

This is a fantastic question. I would like to submit that there are 3 major benefits of CT

  • It breathes new life into a root bound plant.
  • It levels the playing field.
  • It reflects the methods and the model of Jesus.

It breathes new life into a root-bound plant.

Not everyone has been a part of a community, congregation, organization, or institutions that they really loved. If you have been a part of a collective endeavor that meant a lot to you, you will probably know that over time things can become a little too insular or set in their ways or self-referential or internally focused. Unfortunately, this is all to common.

Even significant movements can stagnate, codify, and begin to fall into the rut of maintenance mode. It happens to the best of them. Some (or most) of the energy that once went toward out toward the ‘mission’ or the ‘out-reach’ slowly shifts and becomes about preserving what we already have (or once were) and maintained the administrative or bureaucratic apparatus.

When structures begin to become too limited in their scope, or they leave behind their original passion or vision, it can be like a plant – to use an analogy – that has been left in the same pot for too long. The roots can not expand and begin to grow around upon themselves and the unhealth known as being ‘root-bound’ can happen over time.

Loving the institution, at that point, is being daring enough to undergo the arduous process of pulling the plant out of its pot and pressing your fingers or an instrument into the roots to break them apart and create some space of new life and growth.

This is why the ‘tool-box’or critical theory can actually be a good thing for organizations, C(niche) or too self-referential, exposing ideas that have become taken for granted, challenging systems, bylaws, protocols, regulations, committees and boards that insulated from review or accountability – critical examination can help loosen that which is bound by tradition, set in its ways, or insulated by power and influence.

Loving something means not giving up on it and just walking away sometimes. Doing the hard work critical analysis (or decolonizing perhaps) is a labor of love.

It levels the playing field.

Critical theory (and specifically critical race theory) can be great ways of examining issues related to access, recruitment, training, funding, and empowerment (to name a few). Critical theory is an approach that that brings many tools to a project. The goals are to examine, expose, and advocate – to change, not just explain, an area of need.

Those who practice critical theory have a loose collection of commitments and general set of approaches that roughly configure them as an ‘approach’. Critical theory isn’t so much a ‘thing’ as it is a specific commitment to address a ‘thing’. It has a asymmetrical relationship to power: It wants the power to investigate the power – and will shout, claw, and demonstrate in order to do so.

We all see the disparity and inequality that manifests in our culture historically  and currently threatens to pull apart our society. Critical theory starts will the realization (or conviction) that something is wrong with that level of disparity and inequality. Critical theory is concerned about the marginalized, the oppressed, and the left-behinds – the unheard, the under-represented, and the taken-for-granted.

Critical theory wants know the rules of the game, ask who wrote the rule book, interview those that uphold and reinforce the rules, examine the bank statements of those that profit from the game, explore possible bias (or preference) by those who facilitate the game, interrogate those who seeks to exploit the game, expose unjust practices and policies within the game, and advocate for change to benefit those who actually play the game.

One of the ways that CT does this is to expose ideology – that is: mental frameworks that are so entrenched and assumed that someone who holds them and acts on them may not even know that they are there or be able to articulate or explain them. Ideologies can manifest as beliefs, values, convictions, ideas, opinions, attitudes, rhetoric, prejudices, priorities, rules, laws, standards, regulations, moral codes (spoken or unspoken), motivations, practices, disciplines, rituals, ceremonies, polls, surveys, censuses, political activity, economic policies, legal matters, hiring practices, advertisements, financial investments, beauty standards, sexual permissions and so many other manifestations and expressions.

Ask yourself: What I am not allowed to question? What would I get in trouble of asking?  What would my community get angry about if I told our critics?

This will tease out the first thread of ideology. Is the fear that if you pull too hard on this thread that the whole thing unravel?

It reflects the methods and the model of Jesus.

Jesus both modeled and employed methods that would be very familiar to those who employ critical theory. As Randy and I say in our recent book [Decolonizing Evangelicalism]Jesus could be seen as doing a proto version of deconstruction. In both his teachings and his use of parables, Jesus models ‘asking the question behind the question’. Where did you hear that? What is their authority? Why do you think things are the way they are? Do you think that is the way that God wants them? Why do you think that person is your enemy? Can the ring of inclusion be expanded? What really ails you?

Jesus challenged the status quo. He interrogated the ‘as is’ nature of society and its institutions. He advocated for those were disadvantaged, neglected, marginalized, and discriminated against. Jesus exposed performative religion, calling out the motivations behind the posturing and practices of the temple system. He even demonstrated against injustice with violent force.

Admittedly, Reading the Gospels through a capitalist lens neutralizes much of this emphasis and gives us a much more sanitized and sterilized version of Jesus. That is why it is important to read decolonial perspectives because the gospels read very differently on the underside of history then they do when one is high in the hog– as they say. The Jesus of empire lacks most of this prophetic witness and critical impulse. That version of Jesus is much more therapeutic then messianic. A postcolonial or anti-imperial reading however highlights the proto critical theory modeled in the life, teaching, in ministry of Jesus.

Those are three of the benefits that a critical theory approach can bring to Christianity: it breathes new life into a root bound plant, it levels the playing field, it reflects the methods and the model of Jesus.

If you are interested in this topic, please check out my other posts:

The Beauty of Critical Theory

Critical Theory Will Be Our Salvation

Why Evangelicals Can’t Do Critical Race Theory

Follow Up to Evangelicals and Race

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B is for Baptism (modified)

Baptism is up next in the ABC’s of (modified) Theology.

You can see the whole A-Z lineup and join the learning cohort that is forming this week [here].

Enjoy this 10 min overview video below. Read the PDF: B is for Baptism (modified)

Let me know your thoughts and your experience about the practice of baptism.

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The Shape of Race

Race is a construct that configures us as humans.

This short sermon talks about how we are knit together as a society.

You can also download the free ‘Whiteness Workshop’ if you are interested.

Let me know if this was helpful or how I can make it better.

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The Beauty of Critical Theory

I want to tell you about the beautiful side of critical theory– And specifically critical race theory (CRT) for me–as it relates to whiteness work and my religious faith.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) seeks to:

  • Examine
  • Explicate
  • Advocate

Another ways to say it might be that Critical Theory seeks to Interrogate, Expose, and Change – not just explain – culture and society.

Before I get into the beauty of all of that, some back ground. A couple of weeks ago I talked about Critical Theory being our salvation from bad religion, then why Evangelicals can’t do critical theory. I got so much feedback and am now getting some really interesting articles sent to me. It is a conversation that I love and am delighted to be a part of.

One pushback I got was about my calling Critical Theory a ‘toolbox’ and not a worldview. One insightful person pointed out that while I was technically correct, that Critical Theory does have an agenda and is not simply a set of tools.

So let’s be clear. Critical Theory – and Critical Race Theory – does have an agenda. I have summarized it in these three movements or motivations.

Examine or Interrogate

This ties into parables and prophets. Check out “Lessons from Luke”

Expose or Un-Mask

Both Walter Wink’s the Powers That Be and Girard’s Scapegoat theory of atonement tie in here. Ideology is another way of talking about the impulse.

Advocate or Change

It is significant to understand that critical theories are not just theories. Most are concerned with changing the phenomenon being examined not just writing it up as a case-study or deconstructing it. Deconstruction is fine (and essential)but not enough in the end.

The funny thing is that I know Critical Theory is not for everyone. I am not asking everyone to do it – but I am shocked and the number of religious people speaking against it!  So I need to say be careful of anyone who wants to preserve or conserve a notion of the past rooted in the 3 C’s :

  1. Constantine
  2. Christendom
  3. Colonialism

Please let me know your thoughts or questions.

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Cultural Marxism?

Cultural Marxism

Imagine that one group of people wanted to look at the layered and overlapping nature of racism in our country with issues of policing and economic realities, and another group of people used their platforms to warn their followers against this examination because of an obscure ancestor who’s nearly 200 year old political and economic theories were horribly misapplied a century ago to devastating consequences that enveloped the globe.

That is an actual scenario that is happening right now. There is a reckoning going on N. America about the legacy of racism and the ways that institutions and structures of power have been employed like overlapping gears in a machine to systemically (re)create and (re)enforce the layered injustice and inequality that has resulted from the legacy of settler colonialism and slavery. One node of this societal web is called Critical Race Theory (CRT) which examines interrelated issues, exposes hidden mechanisms of power, and advocates for change.[1]

Many evangelical leaders, however, are warning their people against CRT for the most obscure reason: Marxism.

I want to be clear that cynical slur is being used as a dog-whistle. It is being employed to scare people because of the guilty by association nature of fear: communism, Soviet Russia, enemy during the cold war, Lenin & Stalin, secret police & the gulag =  millions dead.

But you can read lots and lots of CRT (and Critical Whiteness Study) without ever encountering any Marx. It is such an odd objection and if it were sincere, and being brought up in good faith, I would want to be generous and irenic in addressing why it is such a big concern right now. It is, however, not sincere or being employed in good faith and I will not be addressing it as a legitimate concern.

So what is this claim of ‘Cultural Marxism’ why does it work?

First I want to tell you why it is ridiculous and then I want to tell you why there might be some utility in it.

Why it is silly to keep bringing up Marxism: an analogy

It is the equivalent of me wanting to use a cell phones and you constantly referencing Alexander Bell. First, a lot has changed since the early days of telephones. Secondly, I don’t care about Bell, I want to USE a cell phone.

You keep taking it back to history and want to focus on the early design of the rotary phone with its receiver, and land line, and how the cord used to tangle about itself, and the operator … Now all of that might be really interesting but I am not wanting to talk about the history of the phone – I want to use a cell phone.

It would be like if wanted to get a burger at McDonald’s and you got upset because in 1954 Ray Kroc started a hamburger stand in San Bernadino California and ‘you know about California!’ I could say:

  • A lot has happened since then and McDonald’s is global now. Why do you keep bringing up California in the 50’s ?
  • There are a lot of concerns about McDonald’s like how they get their beef and how they treat their workers … why do you keep bringing up Ray Kroc?
  • I just want to eat a hamburger, I don’t have to know the history of hamburgers or the founder of the restaurant.

That is the equivalent of what is happening right now where those who want to employ (utilize) Critical Theory and specifically CRT and the evangelicals who are talking about Marxism and the Cold War. One group want to use a toolkit called CRT to address a real live situation presently happening in our moment and other group want to talk about origins and historic side effects of a remote influence on the field.

Like  I have said before, this charge of Marxism is a cynical distraction technique that is not being employed in good faith. It is a scare tactic and a boogeyman.

Now having said that, “Is there any merit to addressing this?” and I think that there is.

So Marx influenced the Frankfurt School who popularized Critical Theory in the wake of WWII and this migrated and evolved over the next 40 years into Critical Race Theory which has in turn adapted and evolved greatly over the last 40 years including the integration of Foucault in the 80’s & 90’s and then eventually the insights related to intersectionality the multiple layers of overlapping and inter-acting levels of oppression and prejudice.

Here we have two important points to consider:

On one hand you have massive lineage of an entire field that has evolved and adapted over the past 80 years and so one might say ‘who cares about a guy who’s writing was influential on a bunch of guys who were influential in getting the ball rolling for a concept that eventually became this entirely different thing we are doing today?

BUT on the other hand – that language of oppression and alienation has a genealogy and legacy so maybe the origin is important  because the DNA carries through the generations and influences and historical transformations, mutations, adjustments and counter-corrections. Maybe it is important how something gets started because your ancestors’ legacy lives through you today.  Like it or not, you are product and a result of those who came before you. You have inherited their legacy and are a result of their actions and ideas, beliefs and decisions.

Let’s give this a little merit and see what aspects of Marx’s thoughts continue to influence or bear fruit in today’s Critical Race Theory.

If we can decouple the boogeyman of Marxism then we can see something that is really important. Cultural Marxism is a growing influence in N. America. (I would point you to several popular podcasts in Canada and the US) And

So I will openly say that Marx’s solutions were wrong. Their application was disastrous in totalitarian states. But that doesn’t mean that his diagnosis with the problems of industrialized capitalism were faulty. His critique still has teeth.

But that is, again, not the point. Because that is not the part of Marx that CRT is utilizing. Critical Race Theory employs the legacy of his concern about alienation, oppression, and disparity. It continues his concern for emancipation and liberation for working class people but has broadened that scope of concern advocate for the marginalized by exposing the mechanism and structures within the system that keep them the levers of power.

This, for me, is why it is so important to decouple CRT from the dog-whistle of Marxism because those who want to examine the structurated nature of race-relations in N. America and the intersectional aspects of race, gender, class, sexuality (and religion) are not utilizing the same part of Marx that led to communism, Soviet Russia, enemy during the cold war, Lenin & Stalin, secret police & the gulag =  millions dead.

Now, admittedly, there are those who are currently employing Marx politically. No doubt. But that is why it is so important not let the specter of Marx be used as a scare tactic, dog-whistle, and boogeyman by evangelical leaders to scare people away from examining very real concerns about the structurated nature of race in this country.

Why are the evangelical leaders so concerned. Well I think that there is a lot of confusion within evangelicalism right now. There is a generational crisis with the loss of people like Billy Graham and the new attrition of their adult children.[2] There is a political crisis with white evangelicals supporting Trump at oddly disproportionate rates. There is a economic crisis with many of their colleges and seminaries unable to sustain financial viability. There is a cultural crisis where their century old created sub-cultured has siloed so profoundly that it has become insular and fearful. There is an eschatological crisis where the much anticipated 2nd Coming of Christ appears to be waning in popularity and is compounded by the rapid loss of that generation that saw the founding of the nation of Israel as a major cornerstone in Biblical prophecy.

With all of that going on: generational, political, economic, cultural, and doctrinal – you don’t also want to be dealing with issues of race and racial disparity. Critical Race Theory and Postcolonial Theologies are an unwelcomed intrusion into your already unstable house.

That is my theory anyway. I could be wrong – maybe they are genuinely intimidated and a little naïve about CRT and are thus justified in their concern and sincerely confused.

[1] I often call Critical Race Theory a ‘toolkit’ that does 3 things: examines (or interrogates), exposes, and advocates. Admittedly, it is not neutral – it has an agenda: emancipation, liberation, and empowerment.

[2] It used to be a mark of pride that evangelical youth groups held onto a higher percentage of its kids, as compared to Liberal or Mainline congregations) as the teens graduated into their college & career phases. In the past 15 years however, the same attrition rate has plagued the evangelicals as their Mainline counterparts so that over 80% of young people either leave the faith or just stop participating in church.

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