Back In The Saddle

Ah…a week away on a mission trip and another of vacation and I’m finally back in the office. This week our church is having VBS, but I ended up withdrawing from the class I was planning to take at Northern Seminary. My intent was to audit the class. One, it was much cheaper to audit, and two, there was a lot of weekly work to do, plus I was only taking it because of an interest in the subject, not the grade.

Nevertheless, I got the required reading and have actually finished one of the books - The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, edited by Kevin Vanhoozer. Reading that one got me interested all over again in a book I’ve had on my reading list for a while, but have never gotten around to: Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context, by John Franke and Stanley Grenz, so I’m one chapter into that one now. I suspect what I’ve read so far will generate a few posts over the summer. In addition, I have The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader which is edited by Graham Ward and I’ve gotten through one chapter of Stanley Hauerwas’ book A Better Hope: Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy, and Postmodernity.

While all of that should provide some food for fodder, I’ll try not to get too technical in the discussion of them. It’s pretty heavy philosophy/theology and while I enjoy that sort of thing, I’m aware that many don’t. Hopefully there will be some practical things that come to the front that can be discussed here without us all feeling like we’re in a college class room.

Here are some things that are on my mind right now, some related to my current reading and some not: Read more

The Myth of Objectivity

Posting has been a little sparse because I’ve been preoccupied - several funerals in the past two weeks, kids in soccer, cross country and basketball and, of course, the priority of taking in a few OU football games.

Thinking out loud: I believe there is such a thing as "objective" reality - or that there are things as they really are, not just as they are perceived.  I’ve even had friends tell me that they believe I’m one of the most objective people they know (don’t laugh!).  But the moment I say "I know…" doesn’t my knowing become subjective?  After all, I am a subject, not an object.  Thus, my knowing is the knowing of a subject - and thus subjective (by definition, it would seem).  I always have a context and my context will forever be shaped by certain contextual realities - my place of birth, my ethnic origin, my social/economic status, the particular family into which I was born, my educational background and a whole lot more.  My understanding of the world, how it works, who I am, what life is meant to be, are all heavily influenced by that context.

It should seem obvious that a white, middle-class, college educated, 21st Century American, son of a Baptist deacon and loving parents would think differently about the world and how it works than a poor, black, uneducated African, son of an abusive shaman father.  I think it is safe to say that even if the parents were Christian - say a middle-class Chinese laborer who’s mother works in a sweat shop making toys for Mattel.  Would we view the teachings of Scripture differently because of our context?  What makes the American context superior to all others when it comes to understanding something like Scripture?  Or am I wrong that we view it that way?  Because it sure seems to me, especially for Baptists in the south (and I’m broadly including Oklahoma here because of the strong Southern Baptist presence) that we view it that way.

These thoughts generated by a post from David Phillips.

Can You Hear Me Now?

I had a computer meltdown at the office this week.  It wasn’t a total meltdown.  I didn’t lose my data, but the fan on my processor went kerplunk and Dell, who is the only company to make a replacement, no longer makes a replacement.  I could get a used one from them for around $140 or I could get a new, faster PC with more bells and whistles for $400.  I got the new PC.

But I needed Colby to help me get all of my stuff from the old computer to the new one, get it set up so that it runs ok and is properly networked into our system.  Thanks, Colby!

As I was sitting in my office this morning reading commentaries on Hebrews Colby was sitting at my desk working on the new computer.  We started talking about matters of spiritual formation.  He has a background in the medical field and got to talking about brain mapping as it relates to our spiritual formation as well as our intellectual formation and how that relates to issues such as coping, character and values.

KABOOM!  [Yes, that sound you heard was my brain exploding.]

It is interesting to Colby how I can preach a sermon on Sunday and that many of the people will hear something different than what I intend and will even hear it differently than others present.  What was even more interesting to me is that postmodernism says much the same thing, but Colby wasn’t expressing that as a philosophical perspective.  He was expressing it as an observable reality.  It’s just what really does happen.

As one who has been preaching for 26 years I can confirm that it really does happen.  There is a lot that goes into those differences: upbringing, worldview, values, culture, education, life circumstances and much more.  In that context effective communication can be challenging.  Screaming "OBJECTIVE TRUTH" at the tops of our lungs won’t solve the problem, either.  Communication is a matter of both speaking and listening/hearing.

Christians in other parts of the world often hear the Biblical stories differently than those of us in America.  The text doesn’t change, but what gets emphasized often does.  The gospel of Creflo Dollar won’t preach in Chad.  At least not with any long-term credibility (long term, in this case, being about an hour).  Christians in Chad would hardly even think to preach such a message.  Hundreds of ministries across America would.  And for the same reason a gospel of liberation sounds Marxist and repulsive here in America, but sounds like just what the doctor ordered in repressive regimes in places of abject poverty in South America.

All of this makes me wonder what the church in America might have to learn from our brothers and sisters in Christ in other parts of the world.  Can we hear them?  Would we listen if we could?