Tag Archives: ideology

Not as different as we seem…?

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Recently I interacted with Christian author Frank Viola,where he blogged about a hypothetical conversation between two Christians (Chris & Bill) who both value the Bible but disagree on how to arrive at its meaning.

Frank focuses on their differing “communication styles.”  The one, Chris, uses what Frank calls the Charismatic Spiritual Conversation style (or CSC) and understands a biblical passage because “God showed me” or “the Spirit revealed to me” what it means.  The other, Bill (no “style” is actually associated with Bill’s approach), understands the Bible exegetically and hermeneutically.

Viola believes that their communication is frustrated because they use different communication styles (CSC vs. not CSC).

I don’t think so.

Specifically, the issue is not different “styles” / approaches but two sides of the same, disjointed ideology: an ideology that I believe fails properly to integrate our humanity with our Christian faith.  Let’s take a closer look.

What Frank refers to as “CSC” I would describe as the belief that we directly access biblical meaning through personal experience of God—knowing the Bible by knowing God.  What Frank refers to as the “exegetical, hermeneutical” style means believing that we reliably access biblical meaning through exegesis—knowing the Bible (and so God) through proper reading method.

The one touts experience, the other touts method.

Yet despite their different starting points both have much in common.  Further, rather than “running to excess,” both actually need to carry their emphases further.  Let me suggest four ways that this is so.

First, both are hermeneutically oriented.  So those who prize experience do actually maintain a hermeneutic (i.e., a lens, through which they read the Bible) that negates the necessity of exegesis because it denies that there is any distance between the text and the reader.  It does so because the Bible’s ultimate ‘author’ is giving readers the “inside scoop” on what it means.

Second, both are experientially oriented.  So those who prize proper reading method do actually emphasize their experience of God, particularly during discussions with non-Christians where they often use it as a ‘response of last resort’ against the claims of atheists / agnostics (“You just need to believe to understand”) or to curtail discussion (“We can only talk so far because we don’t have Christ in common”).

Third, however, rather than less emphasis on personal experience we need more.  Specifically, humans understand experience by drawing conclusions on the existential events that we undergo and testing these conclusions over time.  So reflecting on my experiences in my family of origin, marriage, etc., (i.e., how much and why I esteem them, and the outcome of doing so) can inform—and possibly correct—how much I esteem my experiences of God in understanding the Bible.

Fourth, and by extension, rather than less focus on exegesis we need more.  Specifically, the “greatest commandment” (to love God entirely, in response to God’s deep love for us) is an invitation to a love relationship that is not only core to Christian experience, but the basis of Christian understanding.  As such, being Christian involves not only applying proper method to Bible reading but also to ourselves: becoming skilled readers of our motives, intentions, etc.

These four points show how Chris & Bill’s approaches are not incompatibly different but are complimentary, yet incomplete because they are unintegrated.

In all areas of life, humans rely on explanations of how things work and then put these understandings in motion (such as understanding the Bible in order to know God).  Likewise, we experience things working and then are able to explain—to ourselves and others—how this is so (such as experiencing God and, thereby, understanding the Bible).

And the relationship between these two opposite approaches is reciprocal and productive: sometimes experience generates understanding, sometimes understanding prompts (or recontextualizes) experience.  And new experiences (and new understandings) prompt us to rework our understandings, or reconsider our interpretations of experience.

We need experience; we also need exegesis.  And we do not need to choose between them but properly to understand them, and so, integrate them.

Didacticism and Christianity (or, Why not pornography too?)

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Pornography substitutes objectification for relationship—someone’s sexuality becomes a means to another’s arousal and pleasure rather than an aspect of selfhood that is mutually shared and fostered.  And as sexuality becomes a consumable this interaction objectifies both the purveyor and the consumer: porn ultimately debases both parties to “it” status.  By using other human beings, we become objects ourselves.

Q: So what is didacticism, and what has it got to do with Christianity (and pornography)?

A: It is an ideology that Christianity should embrace about as readily as it embraces pornography.

Describing something as didactic means that it is about teaching, or that teaching is its ulterior (or less visible) motive.  Further, calling a teaching method “didactic” can imply that the method is overly basic—more instructive than explanatory.

Didacticism, on the other hand, is an ideological position that essentially turns on the following assumptions:

a)      The learner may not be particularly competent and / or trustworthy;
b)      The material in question has very few right answers (or more typically, one right answer) and it is crucial to get that answer right.

Strange assumptions?  Well, some would insist that Christianity teaches that people are sinful and non-Christians won’t make wise choices about God, and also that making the wrong choice about God means going to hell.  So we need didacticism, right?

I disagree, and I think you should too.  Let’s look a little deeper.

Didacticism maintains that acquiring knowledge is not a matter of learning how to think (or even the result of thoughtful investigation) but of being directed to the right answer.  Didacticism puts no faith in the learner and instead relies solely on the instructor, valuing only the learner’s assent to the answer’s validity.

So on the one hand, didacticism is concerned solely with getting the right answer.  Yet on the other hand a didactic ideology functions to inculcate a certain self understanding and way of being: it ensures that people embrace certain beliefs so that they act and think in certain ways (and not others).

Didacticism = control of outcomes at the cost of respecting people and ideas.

In fact, didactic ideology can even be seen in teaching material written by Christians for Christians.  In such cases it seems that even spirit-filled Christians cannot be counted on competently to work through the Bible and understand God well.

But here again, by keeping the learner’s motives or (in)abilities “out of the way” the truth can be more easily presented and accepted, and its implications better lived out, right?  What’s the problem?

The problem is that instead of disdaining human motives or abilities the Bible, while being cautious and even critical of how people use them, urges readers to employ both in order to find out who God is!  Further, we are held responsible for our choices in this regard because God created us with the capacity to know God through these very abilities and motives!

Indeed, didactic ideologies view our journey to know God more like an unfortunate obstacle than a process crucial to the success of the very Christian formation that they seek to guarantee!  Moreover, they ignore the pivotal importance of the skills and virtues developed when, during this journey, we work through for ourselves:

i)                   what the questions are,
ii)                  why they matter,
iii)                 how we should go about considering them,
iv)                 what might represent possible answers,
v)                  why some answers might be better than others,
vi)                 and what we do once we’ve decided how we will best answer the question(s).

Didactic ideologies misunderstand what it is to be human because they disregard both the need for ownership of key decisions in one’s own life and for integration of one’s whole self therein.  Yet Didactic ideologies also misunderstand both Christianity and the Christian God, because they reduce Christianity to a formula to be memorized rather than entities (father, son, and spirit) to be known, loved, and engaged with in right relationship.

Like pornography, didacticism debases relationship and objectifies the parties involved (people, the Bible and, by extension, God).

And like pornography, didacticism has no place in Christianity.

Truths about Truth: being pragmatic, subjective, and relative

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Christians are quite concerned about truth.

For example, Os Guiness argues that Christian truth is opposed to pragmatism, subjectivism, and relativism.  Yet as I discussed last week, we must be careful to distinguish between pragmatism and being pragmatic; between subjectivism and being subjective; between relativism and being relative.

Why?

The issue is that while certain ideologies are destructive their underlying orientations may be helpful (and even necessary).  For example, the ‘ism’ in pragmatism specifies an ideology—it means that a pragmatic orientation is not simply accepted but is one’s “guiding principle.”  So when someone embraces pragmatism ‘functionality‘ becomes more important to that person than anything, even truthfulness.

Now I agree that truthfulness should be a guiding principle for everyone, Christian or not.[1. As the overall content of this blog will show, however, I do not think that truth and truthfulness “stand alone” as the sole guiding principle.  Instead, I continue to argue that love and truth, truth and love are co-central within both human existence and Christian faith.]  But we must be very careful not to confuse destructive ideologies with proper, human orientations, especially when such orientations are necessary to assessing the Bible’s truth claims correctly (orientations such as being pragmatic, subjective, and relative).  Why necessary?

Here’s why: Christianity concerns not simply intellectual assent but relational content.

In other words, Christianity is not only thinking rightly about God but being rightly disposed to God, and these two things are reciprocal.  So to be in right relationship with God I must know some true things about God (i.e., that this God alone is God, that the Bible especially reveals this God, that I communicate with God by prayer, etc.).  Yet I can only understand and believe the Bible’s relational claims about God (i.e., that God knows me and loves me) through personal experience.

Further, while right disposition begins with right understanding, their reciprocal relation means that right disposition also creates right belief and understanding!  So Christians generally understand that one cannot rightly relate to God if this God is conceived of (and so is pursued) as Allah, the Hindu Gods, etc.  Yet they often misunderstand that the Bible’s undeniably personal and relational claims (i.e., that God knows me better than I know myself and loves more deeply than I love myself) can only be validated through personal experience.

And validating these relational truth claims—recognizing their truth value—requires being pragmatic, relativistic, and subjective.

This is so because these truth claims are both intellectual and relational, in keeping with a) my human nature as situated and finite and b) God’s nature, who is love, and so seeks to be in relationship with me.  Intellectually, I assess any truth claim from my subjective viewpoint and relative to my finite experience.  Yet relationally I am always seeking my own good (I’m pragmatic because it matters to me how things turn out in my own life), and so claims about being known and loved must turn out to be just that![2. More on how we assess this sort of claim later.]

Now having personal experience of God does not necessitate that everyone experiences God in dramatic and undeniable ways.  But my hunch is that it does mean that within current communities of Christians there will be personal experiences of relating with God that validate the truth claim that “God knows and loves us” in deep—and deeply healing and satisfying—ways.

What do I mean?

By “current communities” I mean that it is not enough to read how God delivered Israel, supported David, or even how Jesus healed and fed many.  I believe these accounts.  However, my argument is that the Bible’s claims that God is real and good are validated by experiencing God delivering, restoring and healing now, in the lives of real people.  Literally.[3. More on what constitutes such restoration and healing, upcoming.]

By “personal experiences” I do not mean that God will appear to everyone similarly or with the same intensity.  Instead, Christianity endorses testimony—understandable accounts from credible people—as a valid way to know and understand God.  Through testimony I understand and am mentored in the relational component of Christian faith.  In this respect I would say that God engages with humanity personally but not individually.

Considering these questions may help:
a) If you are Christian, what relational experiences of God are important within your Christian community?
b) If you are not Christian, what relational experiences have been important in your life?

Taunts abut Truth: pragmatism, subjectivism, and relativism

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Why should you believe in the Christian God?

“Whereas the Bible and the best thinkers of Christian history invite seekers to put their faith in God because the message conveying that invitation is true, countless Christians today believe for various other reasons.  For instance they believe faith is true ‘because it works’ (pragmatism), because they ‘feel it is true in their experience’ (subjectivism), because they sincerely believe it is ‘true for them’ (relativism), and so on.”[1. Os Guiness, Time for Truth, page 78.]

Os Guiness penned this in his Time for Truth.  But if Dr. Guiness believes that Christian truth is contrary to what he calls pragmatism, subjectivism and relativism, what happens if we re-frame his sentence to reflect that?  If we do, it would look like this:

“Countless Christians today believe . . . faith is true ‘because it doesn’t work’, because they ‘do not feel it is true in their experience’, and because they sincerely do not believe it is ‘true for them’.” (Emphasis added).

Does this make Christianity sound truthful?

Or even vaguely appealing?

I hope not.

Instead, this reframing detaches it from human experience and makes it sound completely false and untrue.  So what’s going on?  If it is reasonable (and true!) that Christian truth is unrelated to pragmatism, subjectivism or relativism, then why does it sound so wrong when we plainly express it that way?

Let me suggest two reasons.

First, we need to distinguish between pragmatism and ‘being pragmatic’, where pragmatism indicates an ideology versus a ‘pragmatic’ orientation or interest.  So where being pragmatic means that it’s important that things function as they should, adopting pragmatism means that “functionality” is your guiding principal (over and above, say, truthfulness).[2. In this way I find the quotation from Mr. Guiness to be ambiguous: he employs the terms of ideology but his description does not clearly distinguish between an ideology and an interest / orientation.]

So is being pragmatic (instead of embracing pragmatism) compatible with believing Christianity to be true?  I think so.  And more than that, it’s the same with being subjective and relative.  Here’s why:

As human beings we should value our own lives (we naturally care how things “work out”—we are pragmatic).  We are indeed finite (we see things from our limited, subjective viewpoint).  We understand contextually (we make sense of things relative to our background and experiences).

As I’ve argued before, these characteristics are not limitations but are the very basis for knowing and experiencing anything at all.  But valuing our existence, embracing our finitude, and acknowledging that human understanding is contextual (i.e., being pragmatic, subjective, and relative) are also the necessary ingredients for developing and maintaining a thriving relationship with God!

Second, Os Guiness also writes that “the Christian faith is not true because it works; it works because it is true.”[2. Os Guiness, Time for Truth, page 79.]  Yet considering what we have discussed above I believe that this is incorrect.  Or rather, insufficient.  In other words, not only do people experience that Christianity “works,” I believe that Christianity must work in order for belief to be credible.

I would put it like this:

“Christianity is true because it works (as truth-for-me), and it works because it is true (as ultimate Truth).”

Now I maintain that it works (for me or anyone) because it is true (and ultimately so), but in order for me to perceive it as true it must—on some real and tangible level—work for me.  It is the alignment of my fullest / best-reasoned truth (call it ‘truth-for-me’) and the Bible’s truth claims (as ultimate Truth) that convinces me of the truth value of these truth claims.

Back to pragmatics, relativity, and subjectivity.

Aligning Truth and truth-for-me is necessary because humans are finite: bereft of unmediated access to God’s ultimate truth we instead evaluate such truth claims from our subjective, relative position.  Yet valuing my life and how things ‘work out’ for me—being pragmatic—means that it is also necessary for me to substantiate the claim that this God is good (and not abusive) and that God’s love for me is real (and not fictional).

Thus being subjective, relative, and pragmatic are not obstacles to embracing Christian truth but are our very means of doing so.  Next week I examine how.