quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Are there many gospels since there is no one universal meta-narrative?

---

Which I guess begs the question about whether the Post-Modern Position™ is that there is no one universal meta-narrative. Personally I think there is absolute truth and thus there is a meta-narrative out there that must be the one true one...

...however, I am not sure that anyone down here can possess such a perfect truth.

Do I think the Christian meta-narrative is truer than the alternatives? Yep, but I also accept that this is very much:

#1 on the back of my culture and upbringing
#2 a matter of faith, based on my experiences

Am I then right to claim that my meta-narrative is any more truer than my neighbour's?

But, to return to the original question. Are there many gospels because there are many meta-narratives? My answer would be no. The world needs the saving grace of Jesus -- in my eyes it is the solution the world needs.

I long for the day that my friends would share my worldview - but I do think there is a more honest way of that happening than me claiming truth when I don't explicitly know it to be truth and with me helping to guide my friends to truth rather than insist I'm right and they are wrong.

Let the systematic distruction of post-modern thought begin!

AB

[ 01. February 2004, 17:35: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear AB

Gong! I'm sorry but you're not a postmodernist. Your'e a non-judgemental Christian. There is a difference.
 

---

Posted by AB (# 4060) on :
 
Well, I'm not sure that the post-modern club is strictly defined, but to be fair, it's all just labels anyway. Not every post-modernist thinker aschews all absolute truth and sees all truths as equally valid (Polanyi)

That said, moving from modernity (we can understand, we possess truth) to post-modernity (we can't necessarily understand, we don't necessarily possess truth) is a journey I have made, and so find the term post-modern to be helpful).

I would also agree with you that being post-modern and non-judgemental are different: one may be a concious decision to be tolerant inspite of an explicit difference in truth claims (non-judgmental), whilst the other asserts that there is some validity in alternative approaches and that one does not necessarily possess a truth any 'truer' (if that makes sense). I'm most certainly in the latter.

Thus my approach to the gospel would be much more presenting and sharing my worldview with someone, rather than explicitly telling them that there is truth, I possess it, the truth they think they have is wrong and that they must convert.

A much deeper issue would be, do we need to convince someone of absolute (and knowable) truth to be able to convince someone of the gospel of Jesus...

AB
 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 

quote:

---

A much deeper issue would be, do we need to convince someone of absolute (and knowable) truth to be able to convince someone of the gospel of Jesus...

---

No, they simply have to be loved.
 

---

Posted by AB (# 4060) on :
 


Indeed

AB
 

---

Posted by Ophelia's Opera Therapist (# 4081) on :
 
I agree that loving someone is far more important than convincing them of the truth of a meta-narrative.

I'm not sure about someone having their own meta-narrative. I'd rather say that society and the powers that be have dictated meta-narratives over the years which a more post-modern attitude is now rejecting. We don't just believe the history books any more. We question what the media are telling us and we look for the truth behind the news stories. And people are rejecting religion that they might have believed 'because the church or the state told them to', and looking for something that seems 'real to them'.

The fact that there are four gospels actually works with post-modern ideas in a way, because they are presented a four different people's takes on the events in the life of Jesus and are actually more convincing as historical documents for the different emphases and slight differences. It's not like 'The Church' is saying - 'this is the truth you must believe it', instead different people's accounts have been recorded and preserved. Not that 'The Church' hasn't tried that line, historically, but the mix of stories and histories that make up church tradition allow a multiplicity of approaches to Christianity, as this site shows.

I said on some other thread that effective evangelism involves sharing your story about how your faith is important to you. If you are excited about it that will make it interesting and attractive. But there needs to be some respect for other people's stories too.

OOT
 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Forgive me but I didn't think that postmodernism was simply a matter of questioning authority and non-conformity. If that is the case then I am certainly postmodern. I don't believe because someone or something tells me to and I certainly treat much of what goes for news reporting as social manipulation. No, I thought postmodernism was saying that there is no story we can all believe ... in other words, ONE that is universally believable; not that one MUST believe it but that believing it is a credible position.
 

---

Posted by AB (# 4060) on :
 
(apologies for the long post, but I thought it'd be good to try and explain post-modernism a bit!)

Postmodernism is a slippery fish to describe. In it's essence it is a reaction against modernism and it has it roots in the existentialism of the early 20th century (Satre, Nietzsche)

A good way to understand it is to consider the changes from the 'medieval' worldview (roughly~ circa 700 - 1400) to the 'modern' worldview (roughly~ circa 1600-1950). Several things drove the change (which probably happened over a few hundred years):

#1 the feudal system of goverment with divinely appointed monarchs was challenged with revolution after revolution, as corrupt rulers were exposed and the masses rebelled.
#2 the printing press gave everyone access to literature and important scientific journals. Truth was no longer a sole possession of the institution, but now of the individual.
#3 as understanding in science and theology grew, the birth of rationalism with the prospect of understanding everything was birthed by the enlightenment. Truth could be reasoned and understood by all.
#4 The industrial revolution created a culture which needed to be localised and synchronised to be affected. Thus cities grew and public 'services' grew up to support it.
#5 The reformation and counter-reformation put truth on the agenda in Christianity. Each side possessed the Truth, which they 'knew' to be True. One must be right, and it was they.

Thus we ended up with modernism, with it's individualistic, rationalistic philosophy (Descartes, Spinoza, Kant etc.), it's literate communication and it's localised and syncronised culture.

However, the last 50 years has heralded many changes in such a short space of time that the recent generations are facing a massive change to their worldviews. The change from mediavalism to modernity happened over centuries - post modernism is happening in about 50. The changes accelerating these things cover the same points above:

#1 Globalisation is replacing the old order of political empires, colonies and mono-cultural rule - were are becoming fragmented, plurarlistic and market driven.
#2 Communication is changing, we are mobile, we are 'connected' via the internet. Communication is now interactive rather than static. With a multitude of truth claims available, truth is now found within the community rather than the individual.
#3 developments in science and philosophy have led us away from rationalism. Quantum mechanics mean truth we previously took for granted (Newton's laws, for example) no longer hold true. More and more scientists are asking why, rather than how - an answer science can't provide.
#4 As communication changes, we are becoming a post-industrial culture. No longer do we need to be localised to work effectively. A global market means synchronisation is also no-longer a priority - shifts, telecommunication, service industries are changing the way culture reacts to the workforce. Hence 24 hour supermarkets, automated banking and internet shopping.
#5 As pluralism becomes king in our culture Truth is once again in the spotlight with religion. With faith viewed as a choice, faith needs to have virtue and authenticity rather than a better propositional foundation. With an underlying cultural of modernity imbedded into Christianity now, propostionalism is still seen as key to authentic belief, causing a philosophical clash.

Thus, our culture is spiralling into an alternative world-view. Not better, not worse, just different. And because it is happening so fast, the change between a few generations is noticeable. Thus the young struggle to understand the old, and the old the young, thus the spiral becomes bigger as both cultures retreat into the safety of their own worldviews.

But, post-modernism is here to stay, and it is just as much an intruder to Christianity as modernism was to the medieval Christianity.

The last one heralded a reformation. Will this one do the same? We'll have to wait and see.

AB
 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear AB

I am aware of that historical background and all too acutely in the context of a post-Catholic, post-Protestant, but not post-Orthodox western culture.

I still don't know whether you have shown or refuted my claim that postmodernism denies the possibility of one knowable universal metanarrative. If it doesn't, then it cannot accommodate the gospel.
 

---

Posted by AB (# 4060) on :
 
Dear Fr Gregory,

Post-modernism doesn't have a set outlook on absolute truth. There are thinkers within the post-modern framework who would follow a more Neitzschian philosophy into nihilism and deny all absolute truth.

Others such as Polanyi, Foucault, etc. do not follow that through, but instead set up a framework for doubt and criticism.

True nihilism will reject any truth claim, postmodernism will try to deconstruct the claim of any controlling factors.

Therefore I would say that nihilism is likely to reject a propositional gospel, yes. But post-modernism not necessarily so.

[digression]Some would argue that it is impossible to live a truly nihilistic life, so the arguement is rather too hypothetical to be of practical use[/digression]

Hope that helps,

AB
 

---

Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on :
 
Dear AB, Fr Gregory

Perhaps I can intervene here...

Have you read Truth Decay by Douglas Groothuis? It deconstructs postmodernism quite nicely - although from an evangelical Protestant point of view (it is published by IVP, afetr all), but there isn't a great deal to object to from TheOrthodoxPosition™

Isaac David
 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Isaac David

I am only going onm hearsay and quotable quotes to be honest. I haven't gone into postmodernism in any depth so I need to attend to that.
 

---

Posted by Timothy (# 292) on :
 
I'd suggest that a minimalist definition of postmodernism is that it asserts that everything that is apprehended is apprehended from some perspective and conditioned by that (historical, cultural, psychological) perspective. Therefore the modernist quest for the "objective" view--the perspective so transcendent that it ceases to be a perspective at all but is simply the direct apprehension of "Truth"--is futile, and the attempt to assert such an absolute perspective is an exercise of power rather than anything else.

That absolute perspective is sometimes called (generally by non-theistic postmodernists) the "God's-Eye View." Which raises interesting questions from a theistic perspective.

Timothy
 

---

Posted by AB (# 4060) on :
 
Dear Isaac David,

As a postmodern, I'm naturally sceptical of things written 'with an agenda' But I will try and hunt it out.

There is a lot of resistance to postmodernism within evangelical circles because of the highly modernistic approach of many strands of evo faith, which renders it incompatible with postmodern thought.

Whether that need be the case is another discussion, though perhaps an interesting direction for this conversation?

AB
 

---

Posted by psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
Charles Lemert offers a very interesting threefold classification of post-modern and postmodern thought in his book Postmodernism is Not What You Think which is briefly covered here. Lemert's book is very accessible, and possesses a certain extra interest inasmuch as Lemert is ordained - as an Episcopalian if I remember rightly. He's very sensible and humane.

Another somewhat different classification of postmodernisms is offered by Pauline Rosenau - it's briefly covered here where there's a lot of other stuff on PoMo. Her book is called Post-modernism and the Social Sciences. She divides postmodern approaches into affirmatives and skeptics: skeptics

quote:

---

argue that the post-modern age is one of fragmentation, disintegration, malaise, meaninglessness, a vagueness or even absence of moral parameters and societal chaos… In this period no social or political 'project' is worthy of commitment.

---

quote:

---

The "affirmatives" are a still more nebulous category. More indigenous to Anglo-North American culture than to the Continent, the generally optimistic affirmatives are oriented toward process. They are either open to positive political action, struggle and resistance) or content with the recognition of visionary, celebratory personal nondogmatic projects that range from New Age religion to New Wave life-styles and include a whole spectrum of post-modern social movements. (Rosenau, pp. 15-16*)

---

There's a fair old difference, eh no?

And there's always the point to be made that post-modernity, if not postmodernity, is where we are whether we like it or not. Maybe we should be clear that some of us are approaching our Christianity from a postmodern direction and others vice-versa.
 

---

Posted by Singleton (# 3256) on :
 
There's also a difference between 'postmodernism' and 'postmodernity'. The former is the worldview and the latter is the cultural expression of those values the worldview brings.

I think the reason evangelical Christianity is so hostile to postmodernism is because: a) most people can't be bothered to understand it, b) individuals believe and fear that seeing it as helpful (there is defnitely an open-ness to religion within postmodernity, if not postmodernism) would negate their own position and c) they fear that it might actually be a lot more helpful to care about people from a human, subjective stance rather than an objective, "THIS IS THE TRUTH AND I WON'T BUDGE!" standpoint.

I personally think there are definitely elements of postmodernism that Christians should reject, but much of what it says about freedom and choice (and some other parts) should be affirmed by influential Christians, particularly evangelicals...
 

---

Posted by AB (# 4060) on :
 
I think the hostility to postmodernism is largely to do with notion that within postmodernism absolute truth is no-longer valid. If an evo faith is founded on the concept of absolute truth that many need to realise before they are 'saved' - and indeed, an absolute moral code to be followed, than anything that attacks this assumption is thus attacking their faith.

I know this, because I've had to sit through a few sermons attacking post-modern thought by people who haven't read more than the back of a cereal packet about what postmodernism is.

But hey, more and more people are realising that this isn't going to go away, and my church, in particular is starting to investigate methods of evangelism towards postmoderns. Mind you, they are coming from the point of view of us (moderns) reaching out to them (postmoderns) - which I feel is rather neglecting the postmoderns within the church already. But whacanyado?

AB
 

---

Posted by psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
AB:

quote:

---

Mind you, they are coming from the point of view of us (moderns) reaching out to them (postmoderns) - which I feel is rather neglecting the postmoderns within the church already.

---

Worse than that, it's a stance which would (will?) doom their church to death in 7 years. I agree with you completely. The postmodern is a wave. You can build defences and watch as the tsunami pulverizes them - or you can ride up and surf.
 

---

Posted by TheGreenT (# 3571) on :
 
indeed
 

---

Posted by Singleton (# 3256) on :
 
What does a postmodern Christmas look like then?
 

---

Posted by AB (# 4060) on :
 
psyduck,

quote:

---

Worse than that, it's a stance which would (will?) doom their church to death in 7 years.

---

quote:

---

What does a postmodern Christmas look like then?

---

This one!

AB:

quote:

---

I agree entirely, but I simply don't know what to do about it. Their whole faith structure is woven deep with modernity and they can't see it for the imposter it is. For them, faith and practise has to be justified rationally and they are therefore unable to be flexible in areas that many post-moderns might need (be them in the church or out). To them it is softening the gospel for the sake of culture, and thus something to be faught against.

---

Sounds just like the dear old C of S!!! My own position is that, if you like, metanarrative and trust are diametrically opposed. Metanarratives are the stories we tell to convince ourselves that we possess the truth. If we believe that faith is accepting a particular metanarrative - if we model our Christian faith on the kind of faith that scientistic, positivistic people have in science - then we're in deep trouble because the only way to maintain that sort of faith now is to be in deep denial about the relationship between that faith and what life's like. Oddly enough, though, it seems to me that faith-as-trust is more available to people in the last ten years tan it has been for several centuries (even though devout people have never stopped believing this way). I think that trust involves riding the wave while believing that God is bigger than the wave. Much bigger. But that it's this particular wave that we have to cope with at the moment. Local and global, man! Way to go!

And don't worry about the 'leadership', and their power-neuroses. Jesus didn't.
 

---

Posted by Glenn Oldham (# 47) on :
 
I believe that it was Lyotard who defined postmodernism as 'incredulity towards metanarratives.'

But it seems to me that the appropriate response to metanarratives is not incredulity but critical understanding.
Glenn
 

---

Posted by Amos (# 44) on :
 
A good Ricoeurian answer.
 

---

Posted by Jeff Featherstone (# 4811) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by AB:
psyduck,

quote:

---

Worse than that, it's a stance which would (will?) doom their church to death in 7 years.

---

I agree entirely, but I simply don't know what to do about it. Their whole faith structure is woven deep with modernity and they can't see it for the imposter it is. For them, faith and practise has to be justified rationally and they are therefore unable to be flexible in areas that many post-moderns might need (be them in the church or out). AB

---

quote:

---

However where Christianity and postmodernism part company is in the concept of truth. God and all the truths about Him and the way He made the world and mankind to operate are true even if no one believed them.

---

quote:

---

I wouldn't know where to put C. S. Peirce, for example, and his view of truth as the "limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief" in this dichotomy.

---

quote:

---

My point was that what is truth cannot change according to what I and anyone else believes or feels.

---

quote:

---

God and all the truths about Him and the way He made the world and mankind to operate are true even if no one believed them.

---

- and I just can't agree with that.

Anyway, it'll be Christmas day before I get back to this PC - so have a blessed Christmas, and everone else out there likewise.
 

---

Posted by AB (# 4060) on :
 
Jeff,

Echoing psyduck above earlier, I think you are coming from the modernist mindset, where faith and conduct is about propositional truths. "The truths of God" would prompt the postmodern to say, I accept that there are truths about God, but I dispute your claim to have them all. They will deconstruct the 'simple undisputable truths of God" and ask:

#1 Since much of our understanding is influenced by our culture, why must that understanding then be fixed for another culture? (metanarrative)
#2 How do you know your version of truth is correct? How is your 'flavour' of faith more 'true' than anothers?
#3 Where is your authority placed, and what corrupting influences are there on that authority? Has that authority been earnt or been assumed?
#4 What are the fruits of such truths? Is it virtous to accept them too?

To give you an example of this conflict, let me give you some hypothetical discussions between a modernist Christian and a postmodern.

Christian: You must accept the truths about God even if you don't understand them because God is God and you are His creation.
Postmodern: How do you know the truths about God?
C: From the Word of God, the Bible.
P: How do you know that it can be trusted?
C: Because it is the Word of God, divinely given to us by God
P: But how do we know that?
C: Because it tells us so, and communities of believers have believed as we believe
P: But what if the Bible is wrong, wouldn't that invalidate it's claim to be trusted, since you could no longer believe its claim to authority?
C: But it is God's Word
P: How do you know?
C: etc...

P: How do you know your understanding of truth is correct, when other flavours of faith in Christianity disagree about this or that point?
C: It's simple, it says here....
P: But group X believes this and group Y believes that from the same subject matter - how are you sure you are right and they are wrong?
C: We have reasoned and understand it.
P: But haven't group X and Y reasoned also?
C: Yes but their reasoning was wrong and ours is right
P: How do you know?
C: Because we have reasoned and understand it.
P: But haven't group X and Y reasoned also?
C: etc...

P: But hasn't believing what you have believed caused people to justify horrendous actions in the past?
C: Yes, but they weren't true Christians, we now know that these things were wrong.
P: But don't you still justify certain controversial stands now, just as they did then?
C: Yes, but have reasoned and understand the truths of God.
P: But didn't they think that back then?
C: Yes, but they were incorrect in their assumptions and understanding.
P: But how do you know that your are not incorrect in your assumptions and understanding now?
C: Because we have reasoned and understand the truths of God.
P: But didn't they think that back then?
C: etc...

What this is trying to illustrate is fighting postmodernism with modernism simply won't work, every discussion will end up in a circular argument. What is important to realise is that this is honest questioning, very often our modernist claims to truth are based on faith, which is no bad thing, but if we accept that, then we can no longer peddle our truth as the Truth. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that boldly claiming truth when we do not explicitly know it to be so, is bearing false witness to our neighbours. The only trouble being that the modernist is liable to think that his truth claim is Truth while the postmodern has deconstructed it and knows it to not be the case.

I guess a follow up question will be about how we can verify any truth within Christianity, though this question is still, again, born of the modernist framework, but I would suggest that the answer to this has to do with the embodiment of truth rather that the proposition of truth, but I'll save that for another post!



AB
 

---

Posted by Amos (# 44) on :
 
C.S. Peirce, as I recall, regarded himself as a species of Scotian Realist.
 

---

Posted by Singleton (# 3256) on :
 

quote:

---

Its an "Oooh! Shiny!" hermeneutics.

---

Thanks Psyduck. Sums up our age and how we have to make the Christian faith look to those on the outside.

If you're sceptical of what I just said, you really ARE a modernist.

AB: I'll check out some more McLaren...was very impressed with "Finding Faith".

[ 25. December 2003, 02:35: Message edited by: Singleton ]
 

---

Posted by Glenn Oldham (# 47) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by AB:
Jeff,
Echoing psyduck above earlier, I think you are coming from the modernist mindset, where faith and conduct is about propositional truths.
...
To give you an example of this conflict, let me give you some hypothetical discussions between a modernist Christian and a postmodern. ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:

quote:

---

Originally posted by AB:
Jeff,
Echoing psyduck above earlier, I think you are coming from the modernist mindset, where faith and conduct is about propositional truths.
...
To give you an example of this conflict, let me give you some hypothetical discussions between a modernist Christian and a postmodern. ...

---

And now for a bireif note on the issue of truth.
It seems to me that Jeff is simply saying that {what the universe is actually like} is in a great part independent of {what we think the universe is like}. And that {what the universe is actually like} is the truth that we seek to discover and articulate in our theories (in {what we think the universe is like}).

This seems entirely sane and sensible to me, unlike the grandiosity of some postmodernist views whereby you really do 'create your own reality' in an unashamedly cosmic way. In contrast with this postmoderny view it seems clear to me that there are things about the universe which we are subject to and which we cannot create or change ourselves.

Such a view of truth does not commit Jeff to the view that Christianity is purely or even primarily a matter of belief i.e. intellectual assent to propositions.

G

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by AB:
As a postmodern, I'm naturally sceptical of things written 'with an agenda' But I will try and hunt it out.

---

But postmodernists realise that nothing is ever written without an agenda (conscious or otherwise)! Of course, this does not mean that "anything goes" on a practical level. But one cannot just read the things one agrees with and call them "unbiased".
 

---

Posted by Singleton (# 3256) on :
 
Postmoderns also see each "text" as having many readings. There could be very many different meanings in a text that the original author didn't even intend. Now how does THAT change concepts of biblical interpretation?!
 

---

Posted by psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
Singleton: I think it helps us get beyond the impasse of "The Bible says..." versus "Linguistic evidence renders it improbable that Colossians was written by Paul, but much of his thought..." I think it turns Biblical scholarship into fascinating strands of commentary on a text, to which we can attend, but without absolutizing it into a metanarrative of "what the Bible is" - which provokes the conservative metanarrative of "what the Bible really is". It helps us to attend to the text in lived encounter - and to be happy with the fact that "in the providence of God" - and I mean that most sincerely (though non-metanarratively!) folks! - the central things of our faith are mediated to us by these texts. I find that my sermons are littered with things like "The Jesus of John says..." or "The Paul of I Corinthians says..." and it doesn't sound at all unnatural to me - or mny congregation, I think.

It also allows us to see the way in which truth works in Scripture. Truth on a particular issue, for instance, isn't wholly contained in a particular proposition in Leviticus. Truth is what we encounter as we read. What we're led into all of, by the Holy Spirit.
 

---

Posted by AB (# 4060) on :
 
psyduck,



AB
 

---

Posted by Glenn Oldham (# 47) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by AB:
The illusion of modernity was that everything could be understood and described, the illusion of post-modernity will almost certainly be that nothing can. Both are I'm sure quite wrong, so I think both of us are arguing for the right things.

However I stick to my point that if someone says fact X is True for everyone, that they had better illustrate with something demanding [providing? G.O.] authority that this is so. This simply doesn't happen with many classical propositions within Christianity, which start from a base assumption accepted acritically that is left unexamined but allowed to drive all further arguments. If a good feature of post-modernism is that it stops that kind of lazy thinking, than that is unequivocally a GoodThing™

Glenn, if I have been guilty of over generalising the modern mindset, then I feel you do a similar injustice with post-modern thinking. Many post-moderns I know are intellectually hungry for the truth, often searching much harder and longer than equivelents I know who see the world differently.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by psyduck:
If you want to confuse yourself stll further, in a sumptuous way, about this dichotomy, spend a Christmas book token on a book called The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand. Peirce (and his formidable dad!!!) ... I came away from it ... with a far better understanding of the American philosophical mind-set. But I also came away with the feeling that the roots of philosophical postmodernism are more widespread, and go back further, than I had thought

---

quote:

---

What makes Christianity a Metanarrative?

---

The Reformation? The Magisterium? The sixteenth century generally? Or maybe the seventeenth?

Modernity?

Hmmm...
 

---

Posted by psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
ALPHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

---

Posted by psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
And why not disparate truths?
 

---

Posted by Amos (# 44) on :
 
That triple post was so postmodern and disparate, psyduck. Showy, I call it.
 

---

Posted by psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
It's just a text. A postmodern text. There's no author to be showy...
 

---

Posted by J. J. Ramsey (# 1174) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:

But the less extreme version says things like 'our current views of gender are not necessarily how the world really is or has to be, our views are culturally and socially developed (or socially constructed, as they say) and need to be examined and changed or abolished so as to remove oppression. This kind of enterprise is vitally important and liberating, but is only liberating if it keeps a concept of truth.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
That looks less like postmodernism and more like critical realism,

---

Oh no! Wrong a second time!

You are quite possibly correct, J. J.! The reason that I suggested that some postmodernists might hold such views came from AB's criticism of my earlier characterisation of postmodernism and from a perusal of the excellent and very readable book on social constructionism by Ian Hacking called The Social Construction of What? (Harvard UP, 1999). From the latter I had gathered that there are those who like the social constructionist approach who do have that kind of critical approach. Others are as barmy and extreme as my earlier description.
 

---

Posted by J. J. Ramsey (# 1174) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:

quote:

---

Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
That looks less like postmodernism and more like critical realism,

---

Oh no! Wrong a second time!

---

Not so sure if you are really wrong per se. At least as expounded by N.T. Wright in The New Testament and the People of God, critical realism seems to be a response and a correction to the postmoderns' excessive reaction (rebellion?) against the naïve realism of modernists. So, AFAICT, postmodernism is part of critical realism's pedigree.

Of course, I could be wrong about that. Wouldn't be the first time.
 

---

Posted by Magnum Mysterium (# 3418) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
Yes, I have over-generalised about postmodernism, taking the more objectionable and extreme parts of it as representative of the whole. I was thinking in particular of those who, for example, deny that language can refer to reality.

---

Why should language refer to something in reality? I think you have misunderstood the point here - and also have confused postmodernism with poststructuralism.

Poststructuralism says that a sign cannot refer to a real thing or truth. Signs operate by difference - the meaning of "cat" and "bat" is made by the difference of the sound of one letter, not because there is any inherent "batness" or "catness" about the words "cat" and "bat". I hardly find that "objectionable" or "extreme".
 

---

Posted by Singleton (# 3256) on :
 
I think Christianity has a meta-narrative. There seems to be a body of literature (the Bible and doctrinal studies by non-biblical authors), a tradition and a reasoned ethic that props up every person's version of Christianity (they may overlap profusely [i.e. most evangelicals ], or they may share BUT ONE THING in common [i.e. most Anglicans ]). Call me naive, but I think there is a base of Truth, although I think it is scandalous to suggest that we can fully know ALL of the truth at every moment, never mind know ALL of the truth by the end of our lives. I also think Truth abstracted is a very, very dangerous thing and that is why postmodernism is so powerful because it asks Christians to take their abstractions and make them concrete not only in the way they lead their lives, but also in the way they explain, defend and analyse their faith to postmoderns and/or non-Christians...

I don't think we should forget that postmodernism IS a challenge to Christian faith. Which is what we are recognising here.
 

---

Posted by AB (# 4060) on :
 
But is Postmodernism/ity a threat to Christianity? I personally see the chance of breaking Jesus free of a propositional, rational, "we've got his licked" religion a really exciting prospect.

That postmodernism/ity will mean changes for our faith is not really in doubt, but surely it's only a threat if we insist that Chrisitianity is all about propositions and absolute truth - an assumption we should do well to consider carefully.

AB
 

---

Posted by psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
AB:

quote:

---

But is Postmodernism/ity a threat to Christianity?

---

quote:

---

That postmodernism/ity will mean changes for our faith is not really in doubt, but surely it's only a threat if we insist that Chrisitianity is all about propositions and absolute truth - an assumption we should do well to consider carefully.

---

Agree with all that, except for the word 'only'. I think we also need a power-analysis in terms of institutions, and the way in which, in modernity, they have exerted power, which has often been through things not unrelated to metanarratives, viz. discourses, which have constructed subjectivity in certain ways. (I think that's where "respectability" fits in.)

And for many people, the survival of Christianity is all about the survival of its institutions and power-structures. That's to say, it's precisely survival that's their model of life, not - to quote Sir Edwin Hoskyns - Crucifixion-Resurrection. (That's what he had put on his gravestone! Just that, his name and dates, if I remember... )

Singleton:

quote:

---

I don't think we should forget that postmodernism IS a challenge to Christian faith.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Magnum Mysterium:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
Yes, I have over-generalised about postmodernism, taking the more objectionable and extreme parts of it as representative of the whole. I was thinking in particular of those who, for example, deny that language can refer to reality.

---

Why should language refer to something in reality? I think you have misunderstood the point here - and also have confused postmodernism with poststructuralism.

Poststructuralism says that a sign cannot refer to a real thing or truth. Signs operate by difference - the meaning of "cat" and "bat" is made by the difference of the sound of one letter, not because there is any inherent "batness" or "catness" about the words "cat" and "bat". I hardly find that "objectionable" or "extreme".

---

Oh no! Wrong a third time!
Sorry, I thought that some of the postmodern gurus were poststructuralists and thought that there was a link there.

The issue of reference is a complicated one and perhaps tangential to this thread. However the fact that it is true that signs 'operate by difference' and that there is no 'inherent "batness" or "catness" about the words "cat" and "bat"' does NOT logically imply that 'a sign cannot refer to a real thing or truth'. Why should it?

Glenn
 

---

Posted by Magnum Mysterium (# 3418) on :
 
Because a sign is a culturally imposed thing. An object or truth doesn't know what its name is. Why should it?
 

---

Posted by psyduck (# 2270) on :
 

quote:

---

An object or truth doesn't know what its name is.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Magnum Mysterium:
Because a sign is a culturally imposed thing. An object or truth doesn't know what its name is. Why should it?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie:
Is it possible so to rule out our culture which is embodied in the very way we see the Universe, that we can truly say we know something objectively?

My personal take is rarely humans do have such truth revealed to them

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
1) When I say to my friend 'pass the salt, please' I could not care less that the salt doesn't know that it is called 'salt' (in English). All I care about is that my friend knows that it is the salt that I wish him to pass to me rather than the butter or the pepper. And generally speaking saying 'pass the salt, please' works! It is hard to see how it can do so if it does not refer to reality in some way!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Magnum Mysterium:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
1) When I say to my friend 'pass the salt, please' I could not care less that the salt doesn't know that it is called 'salt' (in English). All I care about is that my friend knows that it is the salt that I wish him to pass to me rather than the butter or the pepper. And generally speaking saying 'pass the salt, please' works! It is hard to see how it can do so if it does not refer to reality in some way!

---

You are relying on the fact that your friend has experienced the same cultural background and is able to use elements of a common discourse (ie. the English language, and some courtesies known to both the speakers). It really has nothing to do with 'reality' at all, more to do with the fact that you are both conversant in the same discourses. It is not true that "pass the salt, please" works because each word is inherently true and points to something else - 'reality' or whatever. It works because each of those occupy a place and function as part of a mode of understanding operating purely as part of your culture.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
I am utterly baffled again. I just do not see how is this supposed to be a reply. Of course my friend is only going to understand me if he speaks English. Of course his familiarity with that is essential to his being able to pass the salt in response to my request. But that still doesn't explain the question of the interaction with reality that results! I don't have the salt, I speak and ask for it, I get it. Here we have it: language and reality connected! [/QB]

---

Where is language and reality connected? You haven't shown how it is!

You are assuming that "salt" is "salt" no matter what. As Jengie has pointed out, "salt" might be viewed as a cultural construct. Some other culture could easily confuse salt with sugar because their language does not accommodate a distinction between the two. Thus what is "real" to speakers of one language, is not necessarily what is "real" to speakers of another.

[ 30. December 2003, 04:18: Message edited by: Magnum Mysterium ]
 

---

Posted by AB (# 4060) on :
 
I bet their cakes are horrible.



AB
 

---

Posted by psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
"You are the salt of the earth, Sugar..."
 

---

Posted by Jeff Featherstone (# 4811) on :
 
Following this debate reminds me of the story of Arthur Blessitt attending a conference on 'how to win the lost'. Finding himself getting increasingly bored with all the theorising, he walked over the road to a cafe, stuck his head in the door and asked whether anyone wanted to get to know Jesus. A waitress said that she'd been thinking and wondering about God a lot and wanted to know more. After some discussion she chose to become a Christian. Arthur then led her over the road to the conference, took her onto the platform and said 'whilst you've been talking about it, i've been doing it!'

Don't get me wrong. I strongly believe in having a clear understnading for what we as Christians believe and why we do what we do, and debates such as those on this thread are important and healthy. However I think there is a real danger that we get so obsessed with finding the right cultural models and appropriate ways to communicate that we get too scared to open our mouths about our faith at all. Most people are not operating a big filter on who they will talk to, waiting for someone to communicate within their culture-they simply looking for someone to accept them and be their friend. If we are simply willing to be open people who will offer a ready friendship and welcome people into our homes and lives, that will overcome a thousand cultural miscommunications.
 

---

Posted by Magnum Mysterium (# 3418) on :
 
That's one perspective, yes, Jeff.
 

---

Posted by Singleton (# 3256) on :
 
Although, in my own experience, people who have an "objective truth" seem quite hung up on the idea...
 

---

Posted by Glenn Oldham (# 47) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Magnum Mysterium:
Where is language and reality connected? You haven't shown how it is!

---

quote:

---

However I think there is a real danger that we get so obsessed with finding the right cultural models and appropriate ways to communicate that we get too scared to open our mouths about our faith at all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
This is because language exists in the context of practice, i.e. in part in the context of doing things in the world. Things like asking for things, telling others how to do things, making things and so on. There may indeed be cultures that lack the equivalent concepts of salt and sugar, but ours has them. Why? Well, in part because some of us like sweet tea or cakes or whatever. As part of our practice of achieving these practical tasks of getting sweet tea and so forth our language picks out a white crystaline substance and labels it 'sugar' and, to aid our practices we lablel another non-sweet white crystaline substance 'salt'. We print the word 'sugar' on bags of the sweet white crystaline substance for ease of getting it when we want it, and 'salt' on the other non-sweet white crystaline substance so we put the right stuff in our tea. That is part of what language is about: making actions easier.

---

quote:

---

Reality has thus shaped our conventions. Language is not sealed off from the nature of the world.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie:
Now imagine the person you ask the salt for is from a culture that works only on the external appearance. So ice if it is cracked is different from clear ice. However white crystals are white crystals. Then even though he knows English, he might well infer that salt is a different word for sugar and pass you the sugar instead. He has translated what correctly into his language but has falsely identified the item you are asking for because the culture he belongs to does not distinguish sugar from salt.

---

quote:

---

The thesis of conceptual relativity says that how many and what kinds of objects or properties there are is relative to conceptual scheme or vocabulary. But what could it mean to say, “relative to conceptual scheme C1 there are rocks, but relative to conceptual scheme C2 there are not”? It seems to waver unsteadily between the trivial: “you can’t describe the world without describing it” – the momentous tautology of my subtitle – and the manifestly false: “incompatible descriptions of the world can both be true” –the seductive contradiction of my subtitle.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie:
Ah yes Glenn

I said it was a silly example but what about colours.

English has seven, Shona has four and Bassa is minimalist with two.

Of course Bassa has the minimal you need but that does not make the others wrong and will effect very much how we see the world.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Magnum Mysterium:
... - language certainly is not sealed off from the nature of the world. I would go so far as to say that language in fact governs the nature of the world - language has in fact shaped our conventions, which in turn shape that which we consider to be "reality".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie:
No neither metaphor not reality.

The fact is that colour is a half way house between culture and reality. The whole way I think of colours, the colours of the rainbow, the laws of mixing colours are predicated on my understanding of there being seven colours. The laws of mixing colours say blue and yellow make green etc.

I was taught at school that their could only ever be the seven colours of the rainbow and you could show this by passing light through one prism, through a second prism. The English school child in such circumstances would still only see seven colours. This was a science lesson not a cultural one. A Basso child would of course see a spectrum going from blue to red of which there was only one divider in the middle where it changes from blue to red. There is of course no point in talking of primary colours to the child brought up in Basso. Yet their vision is conceptually to the scientist in me much more accurate.

The fact is the way we see colour is not purely an effect of the rays of light entering our eyes but the culture that surrounds us.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by watchergirl:
The current debate over homosexuality (which I think many of us believe is really about interpretation of the Bible) is just one manifestation of the conflict between modernism and postmodernism within the church. I think a postmodern theology is already emerging within the Christian church to deal with this.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by psyduck:
Ihab Hassan produced a famous table of oppositions between modern and postmodern, which is reproduced here.

---

quote:

---

Excellent link, psyduck, many thanks, though I'll have to use my dictionary!
G

---

Or not... Dictionaries are about representation - a possibility denied in postmodernism. You could maybe guess - it's more fun!
 

---

Posted by Magnum Mysterium (# 3418) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Magnum Mysterium:
... - language certainly is not sealed off from the nature of the world. I would go so far as to say that language in fact governs the nature of the world - language has in fact shaped our conventions, which in turn shape that which we consider to be "reality".

---

It is somewhat ambiguous to say that 'language governs the world'.

---

Mr Oldham, you have misquoted me to begin with. I did not ever say that "language governs the world". But that aside, having reread this post, I could have been a little more precise. For instance, when I say "language governs the nature of the world" I should really have written "language governs the way in which each of us perceives the nature of the world".

[ 04. January 2004, 11:00: Message edited by: Magnum Mysterium ]
 

---

Posted by watchergirl (# 5071) on :
 
Glenn Oldham: Not the issue of sexuality itself - I haven't really considered exactly how that would fit into the postmodern debate, although perhaps I should - but interpretation of the Bible. Postmoderns (and I hate categorising, since 'postmodernity' defies categories, but I'm going to anyway) tend to see each individual's view of the world (and thus the Bible) as valid. For me, the debate over how the Bible should be interpreted is a clash between modernity and postmodernity because moderns tend to interpret the Bible one way and believe that that is the only way to interpret it, whether liberally or literally. In contrast, postmoderns allow for different views of the world by different individuals. You said "Those who oppose such a condemnation often do so because they would argue that the condemnation of acts that can deepen a constructive relationship is cruel and thus out of step with Christian morality" - yes, but they have stepped out of their own experience and looked at the experience of others in order to come to that conclusion, and they have questioned the 'this is the only way to understand the world' theme that many of those on the other side of the argument would hold. Evangelicalism seems to me to be very modern in its immovable values. But in other ways, as Brian McLaren points out, so is liberalism. Others would disagree with me on either or both of those statements, and they have the right to see things differently. That's the postmodern approach, after all. I see the whole Biblical inerrancy (and homosexuality) debate as extremely modern: two groups with very fixed views fighting with each other to be recognised as the group with the monopoly on truth, while the rest of the world is sitting back and going 'huh?' at an argument that most of them got past a while ago by accepting that, in today's postmodern society, people just have different world views.

Brian McLaren says the following about postmodernism (I'll try and keep it short in the hope that I'm not breaking any copyrights here): "In a way, you cross the threshold into postmodernity the moment you turn your critical scrutiny from others to yourself, when you relativize your own modern viewpoint... You begin to see that what seemed like pure, objective certainty really depends heavily on a subjective preference for your personal viewpoint" ['A New Kind of Christian', McLaren]. Postmodern Christianity, if it exists or will exist, will in part be about letting go of the 'objective certainties' that both evangelicals (in doctrine) and liberals (often in tradition) find so appealing.

I'm sure that was appallingly written, as I'm only just starting to consider a lot of these ideas - and because I often don't have the theories to support them. But I think it's hard to deny the cultural clash that is going on between the modern Church (and other modern institutions or religions) and postmodern society. I think it's a big part of why so many Christians here feel out-of-step with the Church, as though we don't fit into Christian culture particularly well. I think there will be more of that before we develop a Christian culture that, while still being completely Christian, is able to engage with the world around us in the way that Paul did in the Athenian marketplace.
 

---

Posted by Glenn Oldham (# 47) on :
 
Thanks for your illuminating reply, watchergirl. I seem to be gradually getting the picture. A quick comment on the McLaren quote.

quote:

---

Originally posted by watchergirl:
Brian McLaren says ... : "In a way, you cross the threshold into postmodernity the moment you turn your critical scrutiny from others to yourself, when you relativize your own modern viewpoint... You begin to see that what seemed like pure, objective certainty really depends heavily on a subjective preference for your personal viewpoint" ['A New Kind of Christian', McLaren]. Postmodern Christianity, if it exists or will exist, will in part be about letting go of the 'objective certainties' that both evangelicals (in doctrine) and liberals (often in tradition) find so appealing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by watchergirl:
I see the whole Biblical inerrancy (and homosexuality) debate as extremely modern: two groups with very fixed views fighting with each other to be recognised as the group with the monopoly on truth, while the rest of the world is sitting back and going 'huh?' at an argument that most of them got past a while ago by accepting that, in today's postmodern society, people just have different world views.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by AB:
Glenn (and probably Isaac David who was looking for a description of post-modern Christian faith),

The postmodern take on (say) inerrancy, is not that an objective truth does exist, but that we can't be 100% sure that our take on the subject is objective.

Thus if one person looks at the evidence and declares that the Bible is inerrant, and another looks on the same evidence and decides the opposite - who are we to arbiter between them? In the end our take on it will be based on loads of factors to do with our culture, upbringing, and yes, eventually personal taste (though I doubt ever explicitly declared as such).

Thus the post-modern can say, "if it helps you to be a better Christian, then the Bible can be inerrant for you, I read it the other way, but I am no more necessarily right than you are"

It's not just tolerance, it's a wholehearted acceptance of our own lack of truth, rather than being prepared to tolerate someone you 'know' to be incorrect.

AB

---

I have to be honest and say that I have a real difficulty in thinking of anyone in the Bible or in the heroes of faith over the past twenty centuries who adopted this approach. Throughout we see people who are no only personally convinced of their position but also passionately argue for it. This does not seem to me to require one to dismiss differing views out of hand but neither does it mean passively saying 'your truth might be right for you'. It does mean not just knowing what you believe but why you believe it and be prepared to debate that, and to be preapred to change your views if oyur position can be demonstrated to be wrong. That seems to me to be a fundamentally more honest and intelligent approach to take which does not passively accept anything as possible truth but also does not leave one immune to argument and to a change of position. It stands half a chance of together genuinely discovering truth.
 

---

Posted by AB (# 4060) on :
 
Indeed Jeff, I'm in no way advocating a namby-pamby-we-can't-know-truth style of Christian living where we just don't bother trying to figure out stuff - it's amusing to me especially as I have a reputation as the Church trouble maker when it comes to theology! (in a good way)

Proper dialogue is crucial to living faith, but should that dialogue result in an impasse (which it often will) with both camps entrenched with their own personal views - what right do I have to arbiter about who is right and who is wrong?

In any case, arguing the toss over a theological topic is a fairly modern form of 'growing' - I'd prefer to embody my viewpoints and show that they can provide a valid and passionate christian life. By their fruits will you know them, and all that.

AB
 

---

Posted by Glenn Oldham (# 47) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by AB:
Thus the post-modern can say, "if it helps you to be a better Christian, then the Bible can be inerrant for you, I read it the other way, but I am no more necessarily right than you are"

It's not just tolerance, it's a wholehearted acceptance of our own lack of truth, rather than being prepared to tolerate someone you 'know' to be incorrect.

---

I am not happy with the way you have put this, since "I am no more necessarily right than you are" is an extremely unclear way of putting it.

You would not, I take it, be prepared to say: "if it helps you to be a better Christian, then the holocaust is a fiction for you, but I read the evidence the other way, but I am no more necessarily right than you are"
Glenn
 

---

Posted by AB (# 4060) on :
 
//sigh//

Glenn,

It's not a case of denying all truth. Of course the holocaust happened, of course it could never be considered edifying to the Christian to declare otherwise, and that should always be challenged. There is an overwhelming background of evidence that simply cannot and should not be ignored. We should, by all means, reason to the best of our knowledge.

However that is in a completely different league to contemporary theological issues - where the reasoning stacks up on either side and both are just as convinced that they are right. In such a case, I cannot ignore the outside factors that can be influencing a view, and I cannot, in all honesty, declare myself free of such influencing factors. So isn't it prudent to move away from facts and see whether such a view has an edifying effect?

Unless you believe that all truth can be reasoned by all, objectively; then you must surely see that reasoning and propisitions can only go so far?

AB
 

---

Posted by watchergirl (# 5071) on :
 
Glenn Oldham: Any answers I could give to your questions would be my own conclusions on these things. I think the point is that we are in the process of discovering what a postmodern Christian will be - or, to use McLaren's phrase, 'what postmodern Christianity will look like'. Do I think that there's no such thing as objective truth? No, I don't think that. Do I think that truth may be too big for us to understand and/or handle? Yes. That's why we need to listen to each others' stories about their interpretation of the same truth. In terms of inerrancy, I don't think that the Bible is inerrant for you while not being inerrant for me. I do think that we may need new categories, signs, symbols and terminology by which to understand a change in such concepts as 'inerrancy', which may be modern and which we may move on from entirely (I'm not saying that they are and we will, just that it's a possiblity that other ways of looking at the world and the Bible could be considered).

In terms of sexuality, it seems to be that each side in the argument claims to have a monopoly on truth over this issue. Whether or not they do, the fact is that this belief is stopping each side from hearing the stories of the other side. (Don't believe me? Ask me how many people have literally stopped talking to me since my views on this particular argument changed.) We've stopped listening to each other in very real ways. This is often the case in very heated debates, Christian or otherwise, in which one side or other feels that they have some kind of vested interest in maintaining the status quo. But in a postmodern culture we need to listen to the stories of others before they will be willing to listen to ours. I think some branches of Christianity have been rather bad at listening to others, a fact I started to notice at my university Christian Union when it was regularly suggested to me that my only reason for having non-Christian friends should be to evangelise them. In postmodern Christianty, perhaps we will learn to listen to the 'little stories' of others and to hear about why these interpretations of the same truth are so important to them. I think that can only be a good thing.

And that's where I run out of things to say and so end with 'shut up and go and read McLaren's book.'
 

---

Posted by Glenn Oldham (# 47) on :
 
AB, sorry to make you sigh (I sympathise with that reaction – it is one that I have at times here on the boards).

OK. Let me try and get to the nub of your comments. (Apologies in advance for any misunderstandings of what you have been seeking to say - I may have got the emphosis wrong).

Firstly your description of the kind of dilemma that postmodernism is supposed to help with:

The dilemma(s)

quote:

---

Originally posted by AB: … if one person looks at the evidence and declares that the Bible is inerrant, and another looks on the same evidence and decides the opposite - who are we to arbiter between them? In the end our take on it will be based on loads of factors to do with our culture, upbringing, and yes, eventually personal taste …
--
where the reasoning stacks up on either side and both are just as convinced that they are right. In such a case, I cannot ignore the outside factors that can be influencing a view, and I cannot, in all honesty, declare myself free of such influencing factors.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by AB: where the reasoning stacks up on either side and both are just as convinced that they are right. In such a case, I cannot ignore the outside factors that can be influencing a view, and I cannot, in all honesty, declare myself free of such influencing factors. So isn't it prudent to move away from facts and see whether such a view has an edifying effect?
…
The postmodern take on (say) inerrancy, is … that we can't be 100% sure that our take on the subject is objective. … the post-modern can say, "if it helps you to be a better Christian, then the Bible can be inerrant for you, I read it the other way, but I am no more necessarily right than you are"

- I'd prefer to embody my viewpoints and show that they can provide a valid and passionate christian life. By their fruits will you know them, and all that. (my use of bold typeG.O.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by watchergirl:
Do I think that there's no such thing as objective truth? No, I don't think that. Do I think that truth may be too big for us to understand and/or handle? Yes. That's why we need to listen to each others' stories ...

---

quote:

---

In terms of inerrancy, ... I do think that we may need new categories, signs, symbols and terminology by which to understand a change in such concepts as 'inerrancy', which may be modern and which we may move on from entirely (I'm not saying that they are and we will, just that it's a possiblity that other ways of looking at the world and the Bible could be considered).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by watchergirl:
In terms of sexuality, it seems to be that each side in the argument claims to have a monopoly on truth over this issue. ... Whether or not they do, the fact is that this belief is stopping each side from hearing the stories of the other side. ... we need to listen to the stories of others before they will be willing to listen to ours.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by watchergirl:
In postmodern Christianty, perhaps we will learn to listen to the 'little stories' of others and to hear about why these interpretations of the same truth are so important to them. I think that can only be a good thing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:

quote:

---

Originally posted by watchergirl:
Do I think that there's no such thing as objective truth? No, I don't think that. Do I think that truth may be too big for us to understand and/or handle? Yes. That's why we need to listen to each others' stories ...

---

I would agree. Popper said something like 'tell me what you think and I'll tell you what I think and together we may be able to arrive at a better view of the truth.'

---

Now that sounds interesting. That's close to what I imagine postmodern Christianity will be about. Getting better views of the truth by sharing our own views of it with each other in ways that we haven't done in the recent past.

quote:

---

quote:

---

In terms of inerrancy, ... I do think that we may need new categories, signs, symbols and terminology by which to understand a change in such concepts as 'inerrancy', which may be modern and which we may move on from entirely (I'm not saying that they are and we will, just that it's a possiblity that other ways of looking at the world and the Bible could be considered).

---

I would agree, but constructive alternatives to inerrancy have been around as long as inerrancy has and predate postmodernism and are part of what people argue about.

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

In terms of sexuality, it seems to be that each side in the argument claims to have a monopoly on truth over this issue. ... Whether or not they do, the fact is that this belief is stopping each side from hearing the stories of the other side. ... we need to listen to the stories of others before they will be willing to listen to ours.

---

I have a view on this issue and it came as the result of intensive listening to both sides of the debate and coming to what seemed to me to be the view that is most consistent with the evidence and with my wider beliefs. I therefore disagree with the alternative view, but I can understand why they hold it. It would be great to just leave it at that, but real people and their lives and welfare are dependant on what people think about this issue and so we can't treat it as a matter of indifference. We can't stop saying what we think and why, but yes we can keep listening even if we still end up saying, 'well, I understand why you think that but I can't agree'

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

In postmodern Christianty, perhaps we will learn to listen to the 'little stories' of others and to hear about why these interpretations of the same truth are so important to them. I think that can only be a good thing.

---

Once again, this has been going on for centuries. Why is it I wonder that postmodernists portray the history of Christianity as only ever being about dogmatic groups and as if the discovery of and respect for other views is somehow new?

---

quote:

---

Some of what I read about postmodern Christianity makes me think that it may be helpful for those Christians who are disenchanted with Fundamentalism to think of themselves as postmodern. That is fine by me (as long as they manage to avoid the know-nothingism of much postmodern theory) but the alternatives to Fundamentalism have been around for as long as Christianity has.

---

quote:

---

Just ask your average non-Christian to describe Christianity - most people will not tell you about the full range of beliefs within it, but about fundamentalism.

---

quote:

---

If postmodernism Christianity will be partly about moving beyond that, I'll be very happy to see its arrival.

---

quote:

---

I think it will also go beyond that into something new, though.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gracia:
from watchergirl:

quote:

---

Just ask your average non-Christian to describe Christianity - most people will not tell you about the full range of beliefs within it, but about fundamentalism.

---

So true, & so,so frustrating!!!

---

© Ship of Fools 2016


UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0