The little writing that I've been doing has been mostly on my essay that the application to seminary requires. Beyond that, I've been mixing it up on Westy's blog and ignoring HIFI. That will change.
What follows is my response to the quotation below.
"...church doctrine has been established by people who tend to be white, male, and rich"
Come on, now. The reality is that God blessed mankind through different cultures all along. The Asian and African continents were prominent for thousands of years, then came Europe, and also North America of late, historically speaking.
The "white, male, and rich" label is a sign of the times, a vacuous and misleading slur. Rich? Permit to point out the abounding irony here. Because of the Reformation, led by the white men Martin Luther and John Calvin, the skill of literacy was transformed from the aristocrat's luxury to every man's right. Why? So every family could study the Bible.
When Calvin studied Aquinas and Augustine, he didn't flagellate himself due to these authors' wealth. Why? Because for most of history, wealth and education were inextricably linked.
Fast forward to modernity, where we find out generation's ungrateful response. We find the Chairman echoing the current university logic, assailing the wealth of these scholars, the same men whose labor smashed the bond between wealth and education!
It is a fantastic spectacle: A young man today, enjoying the fruits of a society where literacy is normal, turns and lambasts theologians of days past, with the very criteria that THEY BROUGHT ABOUT.
What else to say? We bite the hand that feed us.
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17 comments:
I enjoyed this. Glad to see a new post from you.
I looked through most of the dialogue via the links you posted. It's a little discouraging to hear ancestors in the faith disqualified (or at least ignored) because God saw it fit to form them as men with white skin. I think your response was really good.
as the originator of this discussion with my comment that i am trying to read theology by non-white males, i find the direction this conversation has gone discouraging.
my point clearly was not that we should ignore the opinions of white males (i really respect teeftastic's and he is a white male). my point was simply that. . . for me, it was a tad disturbing that much of my personal theology had been based upon only a reading of white male experience, biblical interpretation and theology.
we are all deeply effected by our personal histories and environments. . . and i am in the painful process of deprogramming many of my assumptions. by diversifying (apparently that is cooler to do with stocks than it is with theologies) my reading i have discovered deeper meaning once hidden to me by prejudice, naivete, fear, elitism, classism and arrogance.
For the record, my comment here was not directed at you Pepper.
I found little offense in your comment about getting away from "theology written by white men." I was more struck by the thoughts from the guy that Oneway responded to in this post.
Thanks, Chase, you are very encouraging.
Pep, I want to respect your views, but I can't understand where you're coming from. Diversifying both stock and theology must be done with care, more so with theology because the road to Jesus is so narrow. Let's also face the facts: Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin were four of the most important theologians outside of the Bible. Who cares what color they were?
i think you missed the point of the stocks/theology comparison. you diversify a portfolio because you don't want to have all your eggs in one basket. i think we have to be mindful of the same concern with theology. if you read all reformed theologians, for instance, you have all your eggs in one basket and miss God's work and truth in other areas. its the same problem with folk that read eph. 5:22 over and over again, and never think to look at v. 21 or the rest of the bible. its called tunnel vision.
i don't think i have ever implied that it is not important to read calvin, luther, etc. my point is a much more modern one. . . that we should be careful not to read only white male modern theologies (we don't have a lot of choice historically because the only people who were published were white males). there is a wealth of non-white or non-male theologians like gustavo gutierrez, james cone, alice walker, brahmabandhab upadhyay and others that have many valuable insights that are overlooked by those who have formed theologies out of the white experience and western culture.
so the point. . . i am learning that i must diversify my reading. . . widen my horizons. . . believe in a God bigger than my experience and big enough to teach me something i would not have agreed with yesterday.
the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.
Whoa, I just checked out some of those names, and there is certainly much food for thought there. I have read a bit about Liberation Theology because I really enjoyed something I read by Oscar Romero. However, the Marxism that seeps in is folly.
Pep, I would say that you didn't really explain your point at all initially. In that vacuum, I took you at your word. But now I have a better idea of your view.
Since it seems you are comfortable using race and culture to characterize certain theologies (white, Western, Reformed), I assume you do the same for all theologies you encounter. If Reformed Theology is linked to the merits and faults of the West, then Liberation Theology will be correlated to the successes and failures of its Hispanic origins, right?
I agree it is beneficial to be exposed to other points of view, but this needs to be done with great care and wisdom. It must also be stated that there are ideas that are not worth being exposed to. The Bible gives general rules for avoiding foolishness, but leaves the specifics to individuals.
So, how do you draw that line?
"Oscar Romero"
cool guy. there is a great movie about him too. "Romero." i show it to the high school students.
"then Liberation Theology will be correlated to the successes and failures of its Hispanic origins, right?"
i am not sure what you mean by successes and failures of its hispanic origins. i am not sure what your measure of success and failure is. could you articulate this?
if liberation theology has led to negative outcomes. . . like the tendency to be particular as opposed to universal. . . then those tendencies should be criticized. every human attempt at theology comes from a particular experience and is thus at least partiallly biased. we must recognize those biases and seek to reconcile them.
"how do you draw that line"
prayer, study, contemplation (too much according to the wife)
i error on the side of information. i very much enjoy reading a diverse range of views. that is why i check drudgereport and then aljazeera every day. or read john howard yoder and then listen to george w. the great care and wisdom comes in the discerning of what information to believe and which to discard.
part of legal training is learning to view every issue from every possible side. . . understanding why the other side sincerely believes what they do. then you use that information to get at truth. it is complex and sometimes you turn out to be wrong, but i have not found a better way yet.
It would be wrong to leave out a particular author because of the color of his/her skin. But when I consider theological diversity, I think of Faith vs. Works, and Free Will vs. Election, I don't think of black authors vs. white authors. Skin color has no bearing on whether an author has made a contribution to theological thought. If an African author has made some profound or unique contribution, then that is why they should be read, not because the author is African. Similarly, if an author has made some profound or unique contribution to Christian thought, they should not be discounted because of their origin or the color of their skin.
To Pep's point, what good is it if I read Hispanic, Asian, and African authors if they are all Calvinists.
The pages are white, the letters are black: those are the only two colors I care about.
Good to see a post from you, Oneway.
The "white, male, and rich" label is a sign of the times, a vacuous and misleading slur.
I think this is true. Without having read through the previous discussion fully, it seems pretty obvious that theologians ought to be judged by their faithfulness to the Bible and their skill in expositing its truths - not by their skin color.
"i am not sure what your measure of success and failure is."
This will have to wait, but I am learning some wonderful and terrifying things about the Western world that is changing my views a bit. I hope to post on it soon. But, I was hoping that you would affirm some consistency regarding your judgements on theology and the culture they come from.
General and Ariel,
Your reactions are usually my first instinct as well. However, one's race does have an effect on worldview, and thusly, on theology. The truth is that race is a minute factor compared to economic status, ethnic history, family parameters, etc. and, as you both stated, most of the time it is good enough to judge any work in a color blind fashion. The race hustlers of the day will be out of a job if this gets out, though, so don't tell anyone.
I think the key point here is that we must be very careful when considering alternate theology. We are proponents (as Christians) of a particular worldview, and it rests on Truth.
Certainly, gathering information, trying to understand alternate viewpoints, and continuing to learn are not bad. But we must be careful not to cede truthfulness. Not everything under the sun is worthwhile, and much of it is false and must be marked clearly as such.
We are certain that Truth exists. Now sometimes we may not yet be able to articulate it, but it is there. Alternate conflicting ideas are not all truth. Only one is right.
As Colson so appropriately writes (in a discussion of the naturalistic worldview that clashes with our own theistic one), "Darwinism is even a key source of postmodernism, which dismisses the idea of universal truth as a tool of oppression wielded by 'Dead White Males.' Because Darwinism eliminates the transcendent, postmodernism draws the inevitable conclusion that there is no transcendent truth. Each of us is locked in the limited perspective of our race, gender, and ethnic group. The 'search for truth' that supposedly motivates education is a sham; there is only the black perspective, the feminist perspective, the Hispanic perspective, and so on. Any claim to universal truth is considered an attempt to impose the perspective of one group on all the others.
Despite its flamboyant skepticism toward objective truth, ironically, postmodernism rests on an assumption that something is objectively true -- namely Darwinism."
Bottom line, we must not lose sight of the universal Truth that we know.
Well, being the "guy that Oneway responded to" in the discussion who has been away from the Internet for a while, I'm curious as to how exactly I've disqualified and ignored our ancestors in faith.
I think that my definition of doctrine is different than how it's used. My original comments were intended to be my observations of how Christian churches operate in the U.S., what and how it teaches, rather than the tenets that have been established in days gone by. So, it could be that what's resulted here is a different argument than what I intended to present.
But even still, my question was more or less whether or not existing doctrine fits the non-European world. I haven't disqualified them based on their skin color. My question doesn't disqualify their contributions to where the church stands today. It certainly does put into question whether it is the best work to reach this non-Eurocentric world.
But here's the basic point, though I suppose that it is up for debate - if what you learn and what is overwhelmingly pervasive in the current mainstream stems from the rich, white, male perpsective, then wouldn't is make a lot of sense to read from the perspectives of non-rich, non-white, non-males? Doesn't it make sense that to reach a non-rich, non-white, non-male world, you would at least consult the scholars in that group?
I don't assert than any one man will have a comprehensive Truth. And I don't tend accept any man's work without at least a grain of salt. However, that does mean that there is no Truth in what this man says? Certainly not. I'm not espousing the view that we should simply accept everything that is said by some leftist theologist. But there is much to be learned by reading them, some of which may be Truth.
Basically, without straying from the fundamentals of truth, to not question what and how churches teach is the height of hubris. If you examine the rise and fall of civilizations throughout time, a common thread is complacency and the lack of innovation.
-Chairman
"without straying from the fundamentals of truth"
We can skip right to the heart if you state these fundamentals, Chairman.
Oneway. In my mind, the fundamentals of truth are simple, though execution of these fundamentals are up for debate. Whenever I try to visualize my faith, it falls back to Matthew 22 - love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as you would love yourself. Maybe this is oversimplification, but in my mind this is where things fall back to, and after this, things are up for debate.
To me, my statement of the support of reading non-rich, non-white, non-male based thought does not in the least take away from the wisdom that's established. But it does invoke the question of how you best love your neighbor.
Of course, this is more at the applied level. I think that at the "meta" level (my label, though others may choose something like "structural" or "theoretical"), the question of how you decide how to decide is of importance as well. I worry about the potential for a closure of the mind to ideas that may be useful, if alternate views on the world are ignored.
Toss-up question (with an assumption embedded in the question): Why is it that the gap between the "mainstream Christian right" and the ethnic poor is growing?
Obviously, to answer this legitimately, you'd have to tease out the different effects of "ethnic" and "poor," as well as see to any potential interaction. And you'd have to define "mainstream Christian right." And you'd have to define "gap." And probably "growing." But if the question is reasonable, then could it be that it's the attitude with which scripture is presented? Which ties back in to the original question of what is the best way to reach people.
-Chairman
Chairman, I really do appreciate your intentions. "(H)ow you best love your neighbor" is an admirable, God-pleasing issue that Christians must constantly wrestle with.
But "love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as you would love yourself" is far from the fundamentals of truth. Someone beginning with this premise and diving into liberal theology is like a kite into a hurricane. The Bible warns against being exposed to foolishness.
The fundamentals of truth begin with God, who He is, what He is like, and what is He doing. Making a mistake at this "meta" level leads to wrong views, such as all aborted babies go to heaven, which derails a true understanding of loving your neighbor.
Oneway. I don't for a second think anything other than that you are behind everyone here as another brother in Christ. And I hope that my thoughts, which are admittedly random at times, are taken to be in the same spirit.
I have always had a difficulty with using the nature of God as a starting point for faith at the personal level. I have always had a difficulty in reconciling the entire picture (particularly things like the existence of evil and the presence of original sin) when trying to start from the nature of God. Maybe this makes sense, given the scope of God and the scope of Man. Inevitably, there will be things that we simply can't understand.
Which, is why I choose to use relationships that we're called to as the building blocks of my personal faith. My relationship with God and my relationship with the world that I'm called to serve are the things that seem to be the most pertinent for me.
And naturally, this has a component of understanding God's nature. I'd suggest that much of what we know about God is inferred from the Scriptures. We're given relatively little (when compared to what we're left to infer) in direct form about the nature of God in the Bible, aren't we?
I suppose that if I had to further explain what I meant for my interpretation of loving God, I'd say something along the lines of how our expected behavior is to do that which would most glorifies God. But glorifiying God is can be done a many ways, in which we are not given a hierarchy of value.
How much worse (if at all) is killing than coveting than failing to observe the sabbath? I don't know. Does it matter who you kill? Does it matter what you covet? I don't know. The discussion originated with thoughts on how we should vote. For that issue, and with many others, we're trying to figure how we can best honor God. I've always considered abortion to be just another issue and not THE issue.
Out of curiosity - where do the souls of aborted babies go? I know that my answer is relatively unsatisfying. However, the other end of the argument would be that all souls are burdened with original sin, and until a conscious choice is made for Christ, they are destined for Hell. Of course, that makes for an interesting question of what the equivalent "age of consent would be for accepting Christ. And, I think, a similarly interesting question about the nature of God. I suppose that a middle ground answer of God sorting out the souls on how they would have lived could be made, though that seems unsatisfying, as well. Are there other options?
-Chairman
Chairman, thank you for stating that we are all united in Jesus. That is the whole point.
"We're given relatively little (when compared to what we're left to infer) in direct form about the nature of God in the Bible, aren't we?"
I would emphatically disagree, my man. We know from the Bible that God exists in a Trinity, is eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, present everywhere, is the Creator, faithful, true, wrathful, merciful, just, good, beautiful, strong, kind, active, holy, angry, pleased, conquering, he suffered, interceding, promising, fulfilling, guiding, etc. The Word is not silent regarding evil, either, it's just not an area that we get sermons from usually. But, let's be clear: God is in total control.
But, you are right in that Paul himself, in Romans, after several deep theological insights, eventually reaches that point where he says "Ok, you're the clay, He's the potter..." And Paul was talking about how our will interacts with God's control. So there are mysteries left.
"I'd say something along the lines of how our expected behavior is to do that which would most glorifies God."
This is an excellent thought. I would add that one of the benefits of beginning with the nature of God is that we can view how God glorifies Himself. God is the only object that is worthy of God, and He is pleased in His work. The whole of reality revolves around the Father exalting the Son, and the Son obeying the Father. Man's salvation is not the ultimate goal of God, it is just a huge part of the Father's plan to glorify Jesus. By grace we are partakers. This view changes much at the level of man's response.
So, in short, I think the crushing truth is that we don't know what happens to aborted babies' souls. We know that God is always good, we know that we all are born into sin, and we know that Jesus is our only hope of rescue.
One thing that is sure, is that our wicked society sheds these babies' blood. We are all responsible. If I may, "send not to learn for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
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