[Newtown, now my hometown - ML]Justin's comment on my previous post effectively posed that awful question - 'but what do you think?' So I thought I'd have a go at explaining...
From where I stand, Jesus is Lord and Saviour, the one in whom God makes himself known and acts to establish his kingdom. But what it means to be true to him, and to live faithfully under him, is a question I ask every day. Especially since moving from the outer suburbs to Newtown (about two and a half years ago) I've really wondered about what the teachings of Jesus mean for people in this place and time. Jesus' message - and indeed the Bible's - is so historically situated that it's hard work sometimes to make the step to today. It work worth doing - but there is an important place for care and humility in doing it.
I began my PhD research by reading Manning Clark's History of Australia - in which his ideas about Christianity generally and Protestantism in particular are developed at great length. This was important not only for my studies but for me as a Christian - not least because Clark alerted me to the ease with which Christianity can be used for ungodly purposes. I think Clark's caricatures of Christianity are far too strong but that his take on Protestantism has enough in it to make it worth the time of day. Even at my young age, I've seen enough people hurt by the church (one is too many) to make me slow down and consider our (my) need to repent and take seriously Jesus' command to 'judge not'. Perhaps there are more important things than being right. Without love, after all, even the wisest words are like resounding gongs or a clanging symbol.
So, to get back to my 'perhaps' of yesterday, I don't think Clark's reading of Jesus is adequate - though at times I've found it attractive. At these times, though, I've gone back to the Jesus of the gospels and been shocked afresh at both his talk about hell and his radical, self-sacrificing offer of forgiveness. I think Clark gets the message of Jesus wrong - though I continue to wonder if, on a pastoral level especially, we always get it right ourselves.
14 comments:
Great post, Meredith. And well done for nailing a few flags to the virtual mast. Isn't it easy to hide behind suggestions and questions? Perhaps it's too scary to come out and say what we really think sometimes. :-)
One indeed is too many.
Thanks Meredith.
I'll try to reply tomorrow. It's late in the city that never sleeps.
But adding to Bryon's comment -- its interesting that we also hide behind our symbol: :)
:)
Or are we actually not hiding, but actually revealing?
I now take a :) and think to myself -- while it is meant to suggest "Don't you take me seriously" -- I, in fact, assume the exact opposite.
:)
But back to your brilliant post, Meredith [and zzzzzzz for me].
Hey Jsutin, that's twice now. Watch it!
Here, Meredith, i think you have raised the incredibly important and essentially practical question of how we respond to 'outsider's' portayals of Christianity - their analyses of our beliefs, and, their perspectives on our living out of that faith. Whether its a contemporary media personality commentating on current debates in the church, an Australian historian describing the manifestations of Protestanism and Catholicism here, a biblical studies theorist offering new interpretations of passages from a different perspective, a philosopher analysing Christian beliefs, a sociologist their cultural enactment and so on...
Often these can feel like 'attacks' to us - we feel incredibly frustrated... "the portrayal is inadequate/distorted/even unfair!" we (may) want to scream.
As we read these things, we respond. One mode of response is defense, but always being on the defense can seem self-righteous. Is no criticism of our beliefs or church made by anyone accurate? Or even if there is some truth in it that we can maybe acknowledge, usually we consider defending ourselves against the bits that are wrong the first task.
Meredith's response shows another option. Which includes:
1) being attentive & even sympathetic to the portrayal (hearing what the other says very carefully and feeling what drives it)
2) being critical (considering it against one's own understanding, is it adequate, fair etc.)
3)allowing criticism and challenge to drive us back to Jesus and the gospels
4)allowing it to lead us to self-examination (perhaps we're not always right...), repentance, & love
mmm... that's all. its not that clear, but i promised i'd post a comment so there.
Great point Annette. Promise kept. Can you suggest a good book on this kind of response? Something by Merold Westphal perhaps? ;-)
Well i was going to acknowledge that influence on my thinking here, but i thought i'd represented it so badly i'd better not drag his name into it. But yes, Merold shows us very well how to engage in this kind of response to supposedly antagonist philosophers (e.g. marx, nietzsche, freud, and then po-mo ones too - rorty, focault, derrida,etc.)
But i don't think i'd heard it done with history as meredith did, which led me to think that really the examples proliferate everywhere (& i tried to give a few). What this also means is that defensiveness and antagonism could also proliferate, as can often happen with young christians at uni who get sick of the barrage - hence the withdrawal response: pretend not to be listening to anatgonistic lecturer, make jokes with fellow chritsians about how dumb it all is, then when safely amongst the herd tear the stuff to shreads, however still write what lecturer wants you to say in essay (who cares, its just for the marks i dont really think it) or alternatively respond in full antagonism quoting bible verses and fail the course as a martyr.
Meanwhile, we have this other response of 'engaging' (or whatever u want to call it). This is a very hard skill to learn though, very hard. I wish there had been classes on it for me as an undergrad, or maybe you just have to learn the hard way along the way...
Thanks for really interesting comments people. I had not thought about Clark's criticisms or my response in a theoretical way (those Westphal books you linked look really interesting though!) - for me the issue has been a very personal one.
For me, studying history has been a bit like travelling overseas (cf 'the past is another country') - both experiences require me to consider what faith looks like in a different context and to reflect upon the situatedness - in time, place, culture and society - of Christian belief.
Its shown me that many different interpretations of what it means to be a Christ-follower have enjoyed dominance and the status of 'orthodoxy' - such that I've begun to suspect the transience of some of our values and attitudes as christians in sydney today. For example, I suspect most Anglicans of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries would think our 'low church' habits and our often casual approach to communion appaling.
I know all this sounds rather obvious, but for me it has been a long-running process of coming to actually, deeply believe that I (we) might not be right or have the best understanding of things - and therefore to seek an attitude of loving humilty towards people I disagree with (especially within the body of Christ). Finally, says Byron, she gets the thing about epistemic humility. I guess this is what i have been learning.
Yeah, that whole epistemic humility thing is overrated...
:-)
Just kidding.
Hey Annette, I thought you really hit the nail on the head for much of my experience of university - including the one attempt at doing the whole martyr thing!
And Meredith, I don't think it's just historical Anglicans who would find our attitudes shocking, but the vast majority of Anglicanism (Christianity?) worldwide. Even the very conservative (and numerous!) African Anglicans with whom Sydney suddenly find itself in agreement (over e.g. women's ordination and attitudes towards homosexuals) would have a thing or two to say about Sydney incredulity towards sacraments (and perhaps also understanding of 'church').
hey i think i might have found hobby horse here!
Here's a kite i'd like to see fly (anyone else??):
A bunch of usyd postgrad students (or others) running an "inservice" 1/2 day thing for undergrad arts students on this kind of thing (advertised thru eu arts). It could include all kinds of fantastic things like starting off with skits role-playing the commmon responses outlined earlier, a booklet thing, talks of course outlining frame-works, principles, u know..., interactive group work, discussion time in diff discipline groups...
Could be run like a proper mini-day conf. A friday maybe early in 2nd semester (next yr) 9am-1pm (followed by thai in newtown of course). Would take a lot of thinking and work... I think you'd have a lot of interested takers tho. Every (well at least most) arts student are dying to work out and talk to others about how to connect what they're being taught in class with their faith. How to engage christanly with their studies/academia (ECA) or how to study in God's world (SGW). More broadly its not just about how to study arts as a christian, but how to engage christianly with ideas and issues (relevant even to engineers!).
Anyone feel they have the time, energy, skills, ideas, to fly such a kite? We could always just organise it and call in outside speakers... tho then you lose the local flavour.
Byron, can we book you in for the session on "epistemic humility"?
Sign me up! (I think) (I could be wrong) (This is open to correction and the opinions of others)
i had writtn a similar comment to yours annette, and then decided it was stupid to post it here as we only sit two desks away from each other most, of the time - !! - but yes, i think that kind of thing would work really well. i wuld be very interested to have a coffee with interested people / potential contributors to talk it through.
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