Week 8--Wednesday Class Reflection

If we decide to assume a process of deconstruction that’s constrained by love, or we maintain love as the guiding principle along the way, then aren’t we compromising a thorough deconstruction of it? After all, to ask a question like, "What kind of love are we talking about?" is a kind of deconstruction, right? I guess I'm still unclear about what should and what shouldn't be deconstructed.

Week 8--Monday Class Reflection

Our myths hold together our versions of reality. They are essential to the integrity of our worldviews. Deconstructing our myths doesn’t just lead to a dry academic treatment of the elements of what we hold to be true; it also deprives us of our inspiration. In the deconstruction process, we need to be careful not to totally dismantle the mythical framework of our collective subconscious so as to rob us of our inspiration to continue the search for truth.

Week 7--Response to Simon

Simon had interesting thoughts about how to apply cultural studies to our world. I don’t know the answers to some of his questions, but I think we can at least begin to apply some of the theories by unmasking many of our assumptions about what motivates us in our daily lives. I think by realizing, and helping others to realize, just how interconnected and contingent our cultural values are, we are better able to communicate with one another on the cultural and cross-cultural level.
There’s also an apologetic value to cultural studies for the Church. It seems to me cultural studies is similar to Bible criticism of the last few hundred years. Just as they applied modern critical techniques to better understand the Bible and how it came about, today these critics of culture reveal latent assumptions that we have about the “texts” of our lives, and they parse them out for us. But, just like Bible criticism, it is tool that can be used for good or bad.

Week 7--Bevans Chapter 7: The Synthetic Model

Thinking of theology in terms of “uniqueness and complementarity” is what makes this model stand out from the rest as to be preferred for Christian missions today. In this model we see proper consideration of the kind of contingent and reflexive nature of human culture, and this includes religious culture. If what we’ve learned from Barker is true—that everything is contingent and interdependent—then we should expect a fair amount of complementation. But if, as we Christians would argue, there is also a uniqueness to what we preach, then we should also expect something that speaks to all cultures and truly changes them.

Week 7--Cobb Chapter 7: Sin

The root of evil is our craving for earthly security. What does this say then about criticisms of religion that say religion is not concerned enough with earthly security? There is a lot of disapproval of religious beliefs that are accused of diverting attention too often to otherworldly concerns. The concerns of worldly and otherworldly security are actually two sides of the same coin. This is because we cast our earthly worries with an eternal light that transfigures the world. A heavenly focus recasts the world as hopeful, rather than a preoccupation with earthly concerns that engenders hopelessness. Exclusively earthly concerns cause hopelessness because they reduce everything to an unredeemable chaos. A heavenly focus reorients everything and makes sense out of it.

Week 7--Barker Chapter 14: Cultural Politics and Cultural Policy

Is there a materialistic, anti-supernatural, nihilistic ideological hegemony that is now in place in late modernity, against which Christianity is “nonsensical or unthinkable”? Is this especially so in the post-Enlightenment west where more is expected from those of us to whom much has been given? In other words, are we as Christians under special scrutiny because our civilization has been thoroughly demythologized? I think so, and I think we are more “lenient” or accepting of the superstitions and non-rational aspects of other cultures. We tend to see the importance of religion and faith in everyone else except ourselves, because we no longer need the clumsy and outmoded apparatus of religion, we now have science!

Week 7--Barker Chapter 13: Youth, Style and Resistance

I think some of the discomfort many Christians have in worship settings (public participation in praise music) comes from struggling with the idea of authenticity. If postmodernism is both an atmosphere for questioning and doubting authenticity, then all expressions of genuine love and hope is suspect. The worshipper him/herself brings this very attitude into the Christian public setting, and it creates a tension in the worship experience. I think today’s youth (those who are seeking authenticity but severely doubt it) are more comfortable in an environment of cynicism and irony than one of pure, unquestioning faith and exultant praise.

Week 7--Wednesday Class Reflection

Evangelicals traditionally don’t want to be partnered with people of different beliefs because of the fear of the slippery-slope or a confused message. But I like what Ryan said today about this no longer being an issue when we live out a common mission, and live out an embodied theology. I think when theology is embodied it’s harder to fall apart. Embodied theology is substantial, easier to point to, and stands firm. It’s the overly theoretical, light-as-air theology that’s more in danger of blowing away in the wind.

Week 7--Monday Class Reflection

If Saussure is right about things deriving meaning from their difference from other things, do we as Christians understand ourselves by certain things we are not? It’s interesting that our whole understanding of holiness is defined in terms of what it is not. It is being free from impurities. Similarly, since he is transcendent, much of understanding of who God is depends on understanding what he is not.

Week 6--Cobb Chapter 6: Human Nature

I liked Cobb’s use of Augustine to deal with memory and its relationship to identity. There is an interesting comparison with Barker’s chapter about space and place. Some consider Augustine’s ideas about the space of the soul to be foundational to modern epistemology. This raises the question, are we what we are because of what we know about ourselves and what we remember? Or are we something essential in spite of what we know?

Week 6--Barker Chapter 11: Television, Texts and Audiences

What does the field of hermeneutics, the encoding/decoding model, and active audience theories mean for authorial intent? What implications are there for how we are to understand the Bible? If we can derive any number of meanings (decode) from the Bible, regardless of the specific intent of the author, what does this say about biblical inspiration? Maybe considering authorial intent more ambiguously is more reflective of reality anyway. After all, people often say or do things without perfectly clear reasoning. I love watching a movie or something where the writer or director’s use of symbolism or metaphor is obviously beyond what they intended. Indeed, isn’t this at the heart of biblical inspiration? Doesn’t God continue to creatively bring out new meanings, in spite of the authors’ intent, from the Bible, through our involvement in daily life?

Week 6--Barker Chapter 12: Cultural Space and Urban Place

The fact that LA is “the location of the most culturally heterogeneous population ever agglomerated in any city in the world” is an important reality for Christians to grasp as we think of traditional attitudes towards missions. The reason I’m so interested in religious studies in general is because of this reality of religious diversity in LA, where I live and encounter so many radically different worldviews. I think it is important to invest in studying these different cultures, not only as a dry and academic pursuit, but by understanding the artistry of their faith with the aim to understand what moves them, not just what “determines” them or how they are “coded.” I see a particularly missional importance in spending time with people who are different from us and really engage them personally. And if LA is shaping up to be a model postmodern city, let’s not just “experiment” with our interaction with people from different cultures, let’s work out spiritual issues with them by living them out.

Week 6--Bevans Chapter 6: The Praxis Model

Since the praxis model relies on an inductive theology where an understanding of God is generated from real life struggles and human actions, it seems quite compatible with the anthropological model. The anthropological model likewise takes seriously the mode of human experience as revelatory about God. Similarly, both models presuppose a “theological structure to throw light on and examine” issues that emerge from human experience, whether it be termed as culture (anthropological model) or actions/struggles (praxis model). I think both of these approaches, each with their unique emphases, should be followed by the Church in its engagement with culture.

Week 6--Response to Brett's Blog on Space and Hegemony

I agree with Brett that the concept of hegemony is closely associated with our ideas of space. This is especially true in the West, where our notions of space and place are rooted in distorted biblical mandates about having “dominion” over the creation and “possessing” land. It’s because of this hegemonic character that prevents us from thinking of space in terms of freedom. Instead, I think we often think of space as restricting and limiting.

I especially agree with Brett about the Church’s responsibility to heal the wounds that it has caused with respect to occupying space wrongly. I assume Brett is referring to the Church’s wrongful hegemonic practices of its past, whether they be physical, emotional or psychological.

Week 6--Monday Class Reflection

In considering how we might apply the anthropological model to witness, worship, and formation, it was interesting to hear the different perspectives in the group. For some in our group, it was evident that they were experiencing God working outside of the “normal parameters” of church. What was interesting was that they could also return worship to God outside of the “normal parameters.” This is an acknowledgement, whether it is in church terms or not, that “every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).

Week 5--Bevans Chapter 5: The Anthropological Model

When we approach another religion we have to do so as if we are approaching holy ground, and humbly take off our shoes. We don’t want to tread on people’s dreams. But what if from our perspective their dream seems like a nightmare? This is an important caution, but I think most often our perspective is not well informed. We too often wrongly assume things about other peoples’ relationship with God. It’s absolutely crucial, in our pluralistic age, whether we subscribe to the anthropological model or not, to learn about other religions in order to improve our perspective. We also owe it to ourselves to better inform our perspective of own faith.

Week 5--Barker Chapter 9: Ethnicity, Race and Nation

The new prominence given to metaphors of travel, rather than place, in cultural studies is a positive development for Christianity. This is because Christianity already has the built-in metaphors about “following Jesus” and “spiritual journeying.” These metaphors suggest an identity in process, like Barker argues to be a preferred conception of identity. The difference with Christianity is that there is an aspect of the fixed and “essential” in Christian identity (“positional righteousness” or justification), where we already essentially share the righteousness of Christ. But there is also an aspect of Christian identity that makes use of the traveling metaphors to show how we are “on our way” (sanctification and spiritual growth). Another difference is that in Christianity, the identity process we undergo is teleological. We are going somewhere.

Week 5--Barker Chapter 10: Sex, Subjectivity and Representation

I think poststructuralism on the whole is a good thing for feminism because it helps prevent some of the clumsy and inexact stereotypes made about feminists, as well as those made by feminists about men. There are no perfect, sweeping generalizations that can be made about the issue of sexuality. For instance, it’s interesting to see how certain generalizations about voting patterns in this election process have proven too simplistic. With the diverse pool of candidates for president this year, it seems the old predictors of how people vote no longer hold true. A half-black/half-white man, a white woman, and a Mormon man defy all old predictors that should dictate where allegiances along identity lines are placed. The voting patterns of the current election year indicate the increasing difficulty of polling. Stereotypes are becoming less and less accurate as identities become more bricolage and syncretized.

Week 5--Cobb Chapter 5: Images of God

Ferrucci says we have virtually stopped creating and are now feeding on the past, which confirms “God putting out the lights.” God is removing himself from the scene of his creation fiasco. Maybe we feel we can no longer create because God can no longer create. There is a sort of divine apathy with God that’s now rubbed off on us. I think this sentiment is reflected in recent music and films. There is a kind of majestic cast to the existential hell of the late modern world. A trace of it can be found in the title of the Eve 6 song, “Beautiful Oblivion.” There is a sort of ironic beauty to it all. This suggests a sober awareness of both the decadence and hopelessness (hell) as well as God being an absent witness to it all (majesty). In any case, our awareness of God is all the more profound against the backdrop of such chaos and pain. This is kind of like the notion of God being present in his absence, similar to certain types of Buddhism.

Week 5--Response to Annie M's Wednesday Reflection

Annie asks an interesting question about whether or not the Church contributes to creating wants, needs and desires in people in a similar way that advertising does. I definitely think so, in both good and bad ways. Negatively, I think the Church often either downplays important issues or blows unimportant issues out of proportion. For instance, some churches downplay the centrality of grace in a Christian’s life, and advertise a kind of spirituality that creates fear and anxiety in people. On the positive side, many churches advocate a kind of freeing grace that enables people to think beyond themselves and their own fears. In each case, the church is selling a particular message that cultivates certain desires or needs in its audience. As culturally and spiritually imbued subjects, we are vulnerable to the messages of the world of the here-and-now and of the world beyond.

Week 5--Wednesday Class Reflection

Since Marx’s anthropology sees what humans eat as the most defining aspect of what it means to be human, there is an interesting parallel with the centrality of the Lord’s Supper and this idea of Marx. I would be interested to find out if Marx viewed people eating together in terms of how it builds relationships, or if he only viewed it as the most primal urge for humans.

Week 4--Barker, Chapter 7 (Enter Postmodernism)

Kuhn, Popper and Foucault are key figures for understanding a postmodern switch in the philosophy of science. They point out the fragile and contingent basis of scientific endeavors (Popper talks about science being not based on certainty, but on falsification and experimentation; and Kuhn talks about how science periodically overthrows its own paradigms). This is an important ally to help Christians stand in an era where atheistic critiques are being leveled afresh by such authors as Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins.

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Sam Harris bases most of his argument against faith (as being epistemologically unsound) on the idea that reason is a better grounds for morality and spirituality, and faith is a mode of understanding the world that is hopelessly entangled in false metaphysical notions rooted in superstitions that are often immoral (i.e. fickle and violent representations of God in the Bible and the Koran). While many of Harris’ criticisms are warranted and helpful, a postmodern understanding of science can help us level the playing field, in a sense. Instead of trying to wiggle out from under the enormous weight of such atheistic claims, we can concentrate our efforts on unmasking the peculiar “superstitions” of rationalism and bad metaphysics associated with it.

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If knowledge is “not a question of true discovery but of the construction of interpretations about the world that are taken to be true,” as Nietzsche suggests, then the logic of rationalism is the most intrusive and oppressive mode of gaining knowledge. It seems to me faith, although maybe not as precise, is a gentler and more thorough way of gaining knowledge. Faith, when circumspectly exercised, gently pursues and attains knowledge. This is because faith is not based on absolute certainty, and it's not dependent on the harsh, cut-and-dry dictates of logical certainty. Faith may eventually achieve a degree of certainty (clearer boundaries), but its very essence is characterized by ambiguity, and it is more reflective than analytical overall. It is therefore freer and more creative, engaging the human intellect, imagination, emotions—all of the human elements we use to relate to the human condition. These are mixed and juxtaposed together in a more comprehensive endeavor for truth, yet not as precise. Faith is deemed to be ambiguous as a result, but faith is willing to sacrifice certainty for the sake of a more comprehensive handling of reality.

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Faith is comfortable with mystery and uncertainty being involved in the whole process of understanding reality (which is actually an important part of the scientific method, suspending what’s purported to be known for the sake of discovery). Faith is deemed to be creative, not only in its pursuit of knowledge, but also in the way it makes sense of that knowledge. Faith creatively takes in knowledge from various sources, and then it employs creativity to assemble it meaningfully.

Week 4--Barker, Chapter 8 (Subjectivity and Identity)

Determination and free will are questions that usually take on a metaphysical cast. But these ideas are really just parts that fit into socially constructed narratives that we plug in whenever it suits our narrative. This is why I think the Christian debate about free will and determinism can be supported on both sides, depending on how it’s being used in the narrative. The Bible attests to both because in the unfolding of the human drama, both ideas relate to our human condition. Instead of thinking in terms of contradiction, we need to think of them being held in tension.

Week 4--Cobb, Chapter 4 (Theological Tools)

This is a good discussion of the importance of having both the aesthetic and moral aspects of the holy. I like how he says, “For moral faith to endure it must be sustained by ontological faith, by symbols with transcendent power that testify to the goodness of being.” This quote perfectly expresses the importance of faith, and the whole apparatus of a faith-system, as opposed to a mere humanist, hyper-rational and insipid equation for reality, like most expressions of atheism are. Here is a great point of argument against the humanist core of atheism that overemphasizes reason: morality must not simply be utilitarian, it must be inspired. As Michelle Obama said today in her rally speech for her husband, “It begins with inspiration.”

Week 4--Bevans, Chapter 4 (Translational Model)

I don’t think everybody is really just like me underneath their cultural garb. Sure, there is an inner human essence that we all share, but culture runs much deeper than most people think. Culture is not like the clothing one wears, it is like the skin on one’s back. The clothing we put on is Christ (Gal 3:27). And as we don the apparel of Christ, we don’t try to completely hide our naked cultural selves, but rather we accentuate certain parts and hide others. We should highlight the positive aspects of our cultural image, while deemphasizing the negative aspects.