In the last fifty years, North American society has seen a
drastic shift in philosophical thought. From the ideals of the modern age of
empirical facts and propositions to the desire of finding something more meaningful
and inspiring about our world and the way we communicate with each other
emphasized in postmodern streams of thought. In his book Who's Afraid of Post
Modernism, James K. A. Smith attempts to draw out the conclusions and
approaches of three key thinkers in the post-modern movement in order to help
participants in the body of Christ to understand these movements more
thoroughly. Smith takes a close look at what philosophers Jacques Derrida,
Jean-Francois Lyotard, and Michel Foucault are all about by exploring their
famous statements in a way that helps those in the church understand what they
really meant, instead of allowing a misconstruing of their ideas to go on. In
the following paper, we will attempt to underline the contributions of these
philosophers and understand how their thoughts are not a plight or attack on
the church, but how they actually provide a language set for the church to
express its direction and ethos.
The general
understanding of postmodernism from a wide array of evangelical Christian
perspectives is that it is something that we as the church should fear. It is a
subversion of all that is Christian, it will destroy the foundations upon which
the church has been built and so on and so forth. The problem of course is that
people say these things without truly understanding what they think will
destroy the foundations of the church, or even what the foundations of the
church have come to be. While it is true that in the last fifty years there has
been a drastic change in philosophical understanding, it is not a shift from
Christianity to post modernism, rather it is from modernity to postmodernity.
The reality is, that the church has become subverted by the ruling tenets of
modernity rather than the recognized foundations of Scripture, tradition,
experience and reason. Reason has taken place of the former three in such a way
that it has destroyed the church's understanding of what faith really means. In
a very real way, James Smith is attempting to provide a way of direction for how
the church can counter this tyrannical nature of modern thought by providing us
with examples of how the postmodern culture has responded to modernity.
The first
of three postmodern thinkers to be understood is a man named Jacques Derrida.
his contribution to the postmodern movement is highlighted with the phrase,
“There is nothing outside the text.” This phrase is challenging to Christians
because it is often misunderstood, and because many Christian presuppositions
are rooted in modernist concepts, which is exactly what postmodernism is
reacting to. Postmodernism is the rejection of modernism, at least in its
ideals. What it tends to create in those who misunderstand these various
postmodern thinkers is really just a type of hypermodernism. Derrida’s contribution
to this rejection of modern values is his statement, “There is nothing outside
the text.” or put in other terms, everything is subject to interpretation.
This, Smith notes, is suspect for Christians for three reasons, “First, if
there is nothing outside the text, then a transcendent Creator who is distinct
from and prior to the world could not exist... Second, if there is nothing
outside the text, then it would seem that what the Bible talks about is not
real.”[1]
Third and finally, “If everything is interpretation, then even the gospel is
only an interpretation and not objectively true.”[2]
In reality, Derrida is not saying anything different than what Paul is saying
in Romans 1:18-31. When we understand what Derrida is saying about
interpretation, we must also then come to understand the importance he lays
upon interpretation as an exercise for a community, not for an individual.
The second figure that is looked at by Smith is Francois
Lyotard and his assessment of postmodernity being the “Incredulity toward
metanarratives.” Unfortunately, this second claim made by Francois Lyotard has
been subject to as much suspicion as Derrida. For Christians, to be incredulous
towards metanarrative is to be incredulous or untrusting of the Bible. “[I]f
postmodernism is incredulity toward metanarratives, and Christian faith as
informed by the Scriptures is just such a metanarrative, then postmodernism and
Christian faith must be antithetical.”[3]
However, this is mainly due again, to a misunderstanding of the word
metanarrative, both in how Christian understand the Bible, and in how many
understand Lyotard is employing the term. We are faced with here two questions.
First, why is the Bible not a metanarrative? Second, what does Lyotard mean
when referring to metanarrative? Ultimately, Smith argues that the
metanarrative that Lyotard refers to here is not any metanarrative, but the
metanarrative that has been developed by modernity in the scientific mindset.
Modernity claims that science is a reality that does not depend on any
legitimation. Lyotard is suggesting that postmodernism’s revealing of
modernity’s reliance on faith, that is faith in the ability of humanity to
understand realities objectively, is not in the end a rejecting of the faith
that modernism depends upon, but rather, an owning of the dependence upon that
faith. “Thus we might consider the postmodern critique as a revaluing of myth,
of orienting faith, providing new spaces for religious discourse.”[4]
Smith continues his discourse by interacting with Michelle
Foucault and his statement, “Knowledge
is Power.” Infused with very enlightenment notations, Foucault’s statement that
knowledge is power seeks to identify that which is prevalent in society. He is
merely identifying the source of which the knowledge that those who participate
in society need to know and employ in order to function as good citizens within
the society that is shaped by those who are in power. While Foucault’s
commentary on society has been employed by liberals who emphatically stress the
liberty of the individual within society and rejected by those who are in
favour of the regulative institution, Smith implores the church to recognize
the truth in what Foucault is addressing in recognizing the fallaciousness of
resisting all formative entities and also recognizing the destructive, counter
biblical attempts of those who employ the institution for their own ends.
Foucault ultimately reveals to those who do not have eyes to see, that through
discipline, one can achieve a type of desired person, who operates in such a
way that achieves the desired result. For Christians, Smith reminds us, that
which we as Christians should be disciplined into is the image of God, that we
would be conforming, in our actions, thoughts and words to the way in which
Christ lived.
In his last chapter, Smith presents to us what he thinks is
a positive response to the postmodern critique of modernity and the modern
church in The Radical Orthodoxy Movement. While these postmodern speakers do
present Christianity with an opportunity to shirk the chains and shackles that
have enslaved the church in a bow to modern theory and presuppositions, there
is a possibility for the postmodern criticism of modernity to turn itself into
a form of hypermodernism. Smith explains it this way, "[F[or derrida, and
others, the rejection of modernist religion takes the form of critique that
might be said to still accept the rules of the game laid down by Descartes. In
particular, a common move in postmodern theology is to reject the Cartesian
equation of knowledge with quasi-omniscient certainty, instead asserting a kind
of radical skepticism that opposes faith to knowledge."[5]
Smith goes on to say, "In other words,... postmodern faith sees any
particular, determinate religious confession as still tainted by knowledge;
instead, the postmodernist advocates a 'religion without religion' that is not
linked to any particular creed or denomination - a more transcendent commitment
to justice or love."[6]
The proper response to the modern predicament of certainty in knowledge is an
appeal to Christian dogma by way of the catalyst of postmodernism. In this
sense, postmodernism has done nothing but provide the church with language to
see what the writers of the Bible were saying long ago, through a radically
orthodox interpretation of Scripture, we can come to understand the gospel through
a narrative that is not enslaved to science, and is seeking to conform us to
the image of the invisible God set out for us by Christ.
I found
that Smith’s commentary on these postmodern writers to be a well formulated
articulation of how the church can recover from the oppressive grip of
modernity. Much of what I see in arguments between ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’
Christians is really addressing epistemological derivations. The church that
has adopted the notion of absolute certainty is the church that is still
enthralled by modern values. Likewise, the church that has rejected any
authority over the life of the individual other than the authority of the individual
has simply jumped out of the pan and into the fire. Only when we understand
that the source of any type of truth is God, can we begin relinquish our
obsession with authority whether it be our authority or science’s authority,
can we begin to exercise the faith that has been given to us by God and place
it solely in the authority of the resurrection. This issue of authority over
truth is an important one for me, least of all because I have lost countless
friends over the concern. However, this issue is dear to me, mostly because as
someone who is headed towards the pastorate I find myself more and more
doubting my own ability to exercise this pseudo-authority over what is true or
what is good. My own acceptance of what Smith is saying is perhaps due to
reading other authors of similar mind, people like Roger Olson and Peter Enns,
who address major themes of modernity that have influenced and affected the
church.
Smith, James K.A. Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church . Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.
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