I promised a few days ago that I’d follow up on my critique of hipness with a post that’s more affirmative, and although I’m still going to be asking questions as I go, I’m nonetheless going to shoot for an overall stance of appreciation.? So here it goes.
One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic
As I mentioned in the previous post, I maintain relationships with folks both in New Calvinist and Emergent circles precisely because I think they’re doing the good work of reminding the rest of us that, at the heart of some of our most authoritative texts (the creeds and the New Testament among others), we Christians hear a call to a very difficult and complex relationship with other Christians.? At the same time we are to live as one Body and stand ready and open to hear and to speak words of correction from and to other members of that body.? We stand dedicated to the teachings of the apostles and their particular, first-century-Mediterranean-basin texts, and we claim to be a tradition broad enough to call ourselves universal.? We’re supposed to live in the world without being of the world, for pity’s sake.
I realize that I’m in no position to stand aloft and pronounce on all of the “movements” below.? Anyone familiar with my body of writing and my attempts to embody what is written know that I’m easy enough to pigeonhole, even as much as I object to folks who try to do so.? That said, standing where and when I stand, reading what I read, I can see in both of these movements a fierceness of dedication (whether it’s being lived out or whether there’s a disconnect between strident Cyberspace and reserved paycheck-space I couldn’t say, so I won’t) to genuine goods of those relationships to which the creeds call us.? Both groups of folks (and there are men and women in both camps, despite common caricatures) are well educated and connect their educational opportunities with a sense of vocation, a call to teach fellow-Christians, that I can’t help but admire. On one side there’s a dedication to getting things right (and an openness to education that leads me away from such straw-men as “the unthinking fundamentalist” or “the power-crazed dogmatist”), and on the other there’s a gracious refusal to define someone who might be a sister or brother out of the Body (and an acumen of investigation that leads me away from such straw-men as “the liberal whose mind is so open his brain’s fallen out” and “the one who’s tolerant of everything but TRUTH”).? Perhaps I protest too much, but I do want to note that I don’t think myself the superior of these camps by any means; they represent in my imagination ideals towards which I should strive.
That said, I think of my own relationship therein as bringing the best of each camp into contact with the best of the other.? I’m certain that’s why I’ve gravitated to Emergent-types like Andrew Rens, whose fierce opposition to “IC” (he’s still gracious enough to think that I’m just Quixotic rather than wicked for keeping my local-congregation diakonate) is balanced by a commitment to the content of Christian confession, and to New-Calvinist-types like Jeff Wright, who as I mentioned earlier invited me, a non-Calvinist and non-Conservative, to be a part of the Conservative Reformed Mafia, and who actively welcomed my input when I wanted to present an Erasmean challenge to some of the central doctrines of the Reformed tradition on the same site.? I know full well that the same guy should be able to appreciate both but probably shouldn’t call himself both at the same time, but in matters of theology, I suppose I have Walt Whitman tendencies.? Do I contradict myself?? Very well then I contradict myself.
Conversations that Don’t Reify Themselves
I do wonder about (admittedly) a (throwaway) line from early in the textual accompaniment to Callid’s vlog, namely when he refers to the Christian Humanist hosts as “outside the conversation.” (Just in case it wasn’t clear before, I realize that was a throwaway line, but it’s helpful for my rhetorical purposes.)? My first (predictable?) response was personal offense: doesn’t this fellow know that I was an Ephod Wearer on theooze.com, that I’m a contributing writer at iwonderasiwander, that I’ve got an essay published in a volume edited by Spencer Burke?? But I got over myself quickly enough: I’m not even all that interested in becoming a recognized name among Milton scholars or theorists of Christian education, much less among Emergent Churchers.? It’s better sometimes to be mostly unknown.
That said, I do continue to wonder about the obsession with self-definition that we discussed in the podcasts.? Once again, I’m not going to throw the first stone here–I am one of the hosts, after all, of The Christian Humanist, a podcast whose title is itself an exercise in self-definition.? But I’m more and more convinced that both New Calvinists and Emergents are victims to some extent of their own projects, doomed in almost a purgatorial sentence to spend too much of their time talking about who’s “in” and who’s “out.”? I say this is the curse of their projects because, in their quests to do things differently from more popular evangelical movements, both camps have become best known (wrongly, I realize) for their incessant talk about why this or that figure is not part of “the movement.”? Instead of being recognized for being different, both Neo-Cals and Emergents get characterized as bullies (of the macho or the hipster type) obsessed with keeping their social circles pure.
Just to repeat myself one more time, I neither blame these good folks for these impressions nor think the impressions in any way adequate to the good work that these folks are doing.? That said, I do wonder whether anyone other than my ego would object to our being relegated to “outside the conversation” or whether any self-identified Reformed folks would think of our show and our projects as being a reforming project in the way that, say, they’d call the Christ the Center podcast or the Mark Driscoll Power Hour reforming projects.? Harking back to Michial’s comments in episode 5 about history, I wonder whether our relationship to Christian history, neither one that attempts a direct mimetic repetition of the Puritans nor holds onto things as loosely as do the erudite among the Emergents, even shows up on the radar in these circles.
Then again, that might be my ego talking again.
I’ll close by saying one more time that I wish more of my Christian friends would correct me as fiercely as the New Calvinists and cling to me as a brother as fiercely as the Emergents.? You are all still my heroes, and I thank you once again for reading.
Good stuff as always Nate.
Nate, I wander what you make of my claim that in some senses the Emerging Conversation (capitalised to indicate its reification) is over. In other words while there remain symptoms of a need for reform that the open ended conversation that a wide recognition of this need provoked has, as a matter of history, ended. I make this claim in part because of a perception that many leaders in the conversation have become trapped by the liberal dilemma; the self undercutting tolerance of intolerance, while at the same time other leaders have concluded questioning by begining experimentation with missional approaches. I tend to view these as two path leading away from the cross roads at which the emerging conversation took place.
As you can imagine I find these developments disappointing. In my opinion neither has engaged the philosophical questions raised in the secular academy in a meaningful way, nor does either provide much intellectual resource to enable Evangelicals and their kin to engage in the kind of intellectual work that has been so shamefully neglected. The particular failure of both these groups to pursue a post materialist epistemology is proof if any is needed. One consequence is that American evangelical churches, blessed with greater material resources than any churches in history, are able only to export either the prosperity gospel or an untenable denial of the supernatural, to under-resourced but rapidly growing churches in the developing world.
Where could resource be found for the continuing analysis required by the patent failure of Evangelical institutions? I’d suggest that protestant Thomism is able to draw on the resources of a revolutionary Aristotelianism.
Is protestant Thomism simply a contradiction in terms, yet there is one outstanding historical example; Hugo De Groot. De Groot’s example is a particularly compelling one since his work includes a focus on social justice which appeals to one path, and theological reflection. However since he was exiled by Calvinists for a penning a compelling defence of the Arminian perspective its unlikely that the new Calvinists will regard this approach as any more acceptable than the Emerging Conversation.
I have to think that you’re poking a bit of fun at me, Andrew, given how many times I’ve self-identified online as a postmodernist Thomist of sorts.
I’m probably going to write a few paragraphs in response to linda’s post over at iwaiw, so I’ll direct you there for the response I’ll write in a few days. Thanks again for reading and responding.
There are stranger tales to tell, I think that I mentioned to you that I picked up After Virtue in second hand book shop. Strangely it was in Franshoek….the Sonoma of the Western Cape. It was only afterward that I discovered that you read and valued the book, and its successors. I now also own Whose Justice? Which Rationality? and was given God, Philosophy and Universities for Christmas by my loving wife.
If you read my responses to Linda’s comment on my post, Paths Taken and not taken in the emerging conversation you will likely see how this has influenced me, although you may be horrified with what I have done with it. Still only halfway through Part 2 of Volume of Coplestone though.
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