Curtis A. Bronzan

In this post, I continue arguing for the deconstruction of the church (previously here and here).

In a public debate with anthropologist René Girard, Gianni Vattimo summed up his philosophical project, stating, “[e]verything depends on an effort to be faithful to the basic purpose of Heidegger’s philosophy, even against Heidegger himself.” (Christianity, Truth and Weakening Faith, 83) Indeed, Vattimo has sought to extend Heidegger’s writing by elucidating the dissolution of metaphysical pensiero forte in favor of what he terms weak thought.

This necessarily includes Heidegger’s Verwindung, explicated well by Thomas Guarino: “[t]he task is one of healing, which is also a kind of twisting and even deformation, because modernity must be disciplined and rethought in our own epoch and culture.” (Vattimo and Theology, 7) In his public debate, Vattimo likewise asserts, “The overcoming of metaphysics – which in Heidegger’s view, as readers probably know, can only be Verwindung, and acceptance-distortion – will prepare a new way of conceiving Being that might also reopen the possibility for religious experience…” (CTWF, 82)

Such an ‘acceptance-distortion’ adopted by Vattimo functions as a corollary to our project here, namely how to appropriate Jesus’ first-century temple action to twenty-first century ecclesiology. As we will see, such healing, twisting, and deforming truly ‘depends on an effort to be faithful to the basic purpose’ of Jesus’ countercultural, counter-temple mission.

As aforementioned, Vattimo’s project continues the thought of Heidegger and Nietzsche, the latter of whom marked the demise of modernity with his famous – and largely misunderstood – phrase “God is dead.”  Guarino notes, “it is Nietzsche’s manifesto “God is dead” that marks the real passage from modernity.” (VT, 6) Metaphysics, it has been argued, sought to enforce an extrinsic, final norm, restricting human freedom, putting an end to the discussion of humanity’s becoming in history, jeopardizing the liberty of human self-creation and ending the continuing conversation of historical consciousness. (VT, 39)

While the majority of Christian history has rejoiced in such strong foundational principles, Vattimo argues it is rather the demise of metaphysics that is the true fulfillment of the Christian message. In After the Death of God, Vattimo asserts, “Christianity is a stimulus, a message that sets in motion a tradition of thought that will eventually realize its freedom from metaphysics.” (After the Death of God, 35) Thus, instead of mourning this loss of truth, all Christians should rejoice in this fulfillment of the Christian message, which seeks to demolish and replace strong constructs. From the outset, then, we can see an apt comparison with Jesus’ temple proclamation, if we simply substitute the metaphysical structures for the first-century physical structure: “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” (John 2.19)

This postmodern mindset has elsewhere been explicated as “incredulity toward metanarratives.” (Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, xxiv) Indeed, as Guarino asserts, “[i]n the postmodern age, we must live with endless contingencies rather than with secure and available foundations.” (VT, 7) While this sentiment may trouble many in the Christian West, Vattimo asserts that this is a positive development, as it keeps us from using God as a first principle, as if the Divine Being can be asserted as an uninterpreted reality. (See, in particular, Vattimo and Theology, 11)  Is this not, then, congruent with Jesus’ quotation of Isaiah 56.7 immediately following His prophetic temple action, wherein the structure points to the Divine rather than defining it? Indeed, the temple structure was meant to be “a house of prayer for all nations.” We are now in a position to further explicate the contribution of Vattimo’s “weak thought.”

The shift from metaphysics to weak thought is explicated well by a dialogue between Richard Rorty, Gianni Vattimo, and Santiago Zabala, in The Future of Religion. At the outset, Zabala identifies the metaphysical tradition as “dominated by the thought that there is something nonhuman that human beings should try to live up to – a thought that today finds its most plausible expression in the scientific conception of culture.” (The Future of Religion, 55-56) In response, Rorty summarizes weak thought in a highly Vattimian vein:

Cutting oneself of from the metaphysical Logos is pretty much the same thing as ceasing to look for power and instead being content with charity. The gradual movement within Christianity in recent centuries in the direction of the social ideals of the Enlightenment is a sign of the gradual weakening of the worship of God as power and its gradual replacement with the worship of God as love. (FR, 55-56)

In this way – even in the words of Rorty – we see Vattimo’s primary philosophical insight and its connection with Christian faith. Vattimo goes so far as to state “postmodern nihilism (the end of metanarratives) is the truth of Christianity. Which is to say that Christianity’s truth appears to be the dissolution of the (metaphysical) truth concept itself.” (51) Though his detractors have questioned whether the Torinese is more influenced by Nietzsche and Heidegger than by the Christian Scriptures here, Vattimo would argue that the weakening of metaphysical thought is entirely congruent with the incarnation.  Vattimo defends himself thusly:

Lyotard and other theoreticians of postmodernism have neither noticed nor stated… that Nietzsche and Heidegger speak not only from within the modern process of dissolution of metanarratives but above all from within the biblical tradition. It is not so very absurd to assert that the death of God announced by Nietzsche is, in many ways, the death of Christ on the cross told by the Gospels.” (FR, 46)

He notes especially the kenotic hymn in Philippians 2.6-8, which asserts that in taking on human flesh, Jesus

being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death –
even death on a cross!

For the purposes of our project, then, we can extend this theory to include not only the event of the incarnation itself but, more precisely, the incarnation as it relates to Jesus’ death. While the Apostle Paul is quick to note the sacrificial death of Jesus, his writings never engage the historical reason behind his death, namely, the temple act. Therefore, we must ‘deconstruct’ Paul, recognizing that Jesus’ ‘obedient… death on a cross’ was the result of His justified judgment of the temple’s sacrificial system. In so doing, we are better prepared to accept the fullness of Vattimo’s insight, that “kenosis serves as a cipher or symbol of the essential message of the Gospel which is ‘love’ and ‘charity’ toward the other, especially charitable tolerance toward other interpretive ‘styles.’” (VT, 116)

Indeed, the kenosis of Jesus, especially regarding the love and charity He sought to extend through Israel’s central institution, is the essential message of the Gospel. See also Eugenio Trias:

In the course of all this, a symbolizing form or figure emerges that is conditioned in its turn by a determinate foundation: the matrix of the entire symbolic process. This matrix or matter provides physical support for the symbol. To present itself as a symbolic form or figure it must, of course, be formed or transformed. (Religion, 104)

This weakening of metaphysical structures in postmodern culture reveals that “[w]e live… in a world without a center, a Babel-like plurality, with an irreducible number of different Weltanschauungen.” (VT, 26) Again, while many Christians would mourn this as a loss, Vattimo rejoices in such pluralism, as he asserts in After Christianity: “our task is to build consensus in dialogue, without making any claims for absolute truth.” (After Christianity, 5) Again, we simply ask, is this not similar to the perspective offered by Jesus, following the destruction of the temple? Instead of a ‘den of robbers’, Jesus asserts that the temple is to be ‘a house of prayer for all nations’. Would this not be the center of ‘Babel-like plurality’?

Instead of asserting the preeminence of doctrinal truth claims, then, Vattimo sees the mission of the church as one that exercises caritas in the midst of pluralism. Guarino argues that for Vattimo, “secularization is the legitimate fruit of religious charity because it opens society to every point of view, thereby rejecting an aggressive religiosity that degenerates into fundamentalist ideology, seeking to exclude those viewpoints not conforming to the ‘prevailing wisdom.’” (VT, 20)

Instead of a violent ecclesiology then – which he might define as “an act of imposition on the other and her liberty”, (CTWF, 45) we are invited to see the fulfillment of Christian faith in and through the charity offered to our ‘other.’ Thus, such metaphysical claims were never meant to be characteristic of Christianity, since it “has its own form of rationality and justification; its truth warrants and criteria are to be found in the Christian community itself, not in universal standards that are imported and imposed from elsewhere.” (VT, 81) Though outside of our central text, the Gospels hold similar equations between exercising faith and the other, with Jesus even equating Himself with those in need: “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25.40)

As we have seen, Vattimo’s twenty-first century philosophical insights regarding the dissolution of metaphysics are applicable to Jesus’ first-century symbolic temple action. His insights regarding the need to perform a Verwindung could be compared to Derrida’s deconstructive efforts, each of which can lead us as we seek to reform the church. We further have seen the need for ecclesiology to renounce the strong structures of modernity, instead accepting the fluidity of postmetaphysical thought. If so, we can reaffirm our commitment to caritas, living into our divine calling, which could profoundly effect our postmodern culture. As Vattimo asserts, “our only chance for human survival rests in the Christian commandment of charity.” (FR, 54)

We are now prepared to address a significant theological issue in the life of the postmodern church. As we have previously seen, postmodern culture is largely characterized by an “incredulity toward metanarratives.” (Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, xxiv) Another postmodern thinker – perhaps the postmodern thinker – Jacques Derrida, put it another way: “There is nothing outside the text” (in French Il n’y a pas de hors-texte). (Derrida, Of Grammatology, 158)

While many Christians have understood Derrida to be a linguistic idealist – meaning there are only words, not actual things – this is not his point at all. Of course, if that were the case, if he truly were a linguistic idealist, that would signal a significant problem for a postmodern Christian faith, as Smith notes:

First, if there is nothing outside the text, then a transcendent Creator who is distinct from and prior to the world could not exist [which] would have to entail atheism. If Derrida is a linguistic idealist, then deconstruction and Christian faith are mutually exclusive. Second, if there is nothing outside the text, then it would seem that what the Bible (admittedly a text) talks about – what it refers to – is not real. (Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 35)

These two issues may point to what Hiebert had in mind when he questioned the deconstructive character of postmodernity, though, this is not what Derrida has in mind.

Indeed, this would signal a significant – and problematic – shift for a postmodern Christian understand of Scripture.

What Derrida is seeking to assert, as opposed to linguistic idealism, is the inherent problem within the Cartesian cogito ergo sum, following on the heels of Nietzsche. Derrida’s deconstruction instead builds upon Husserl and Heidegger, and ultimately seeks to “invite us to notice that we are always already in the middle of secondariness, interpretation and flux.” (Shakespeare, Derrida and Theology, 27)

In other words,

“when Derrida claims that there is nothing outside the text, he means there is no reality that is not always already interpreted through the mediating lens of language. Texutality, for Derrida, is linked to interpretation. To claim that there is nothing outside the text is to say… that everything must be interpreted in order to be experienced.” (Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 39)

While this can seem disconcerting at first, it need not signal the end of a postmodern Christian reliance upon the Scriptures, as some have asserted. Instead, we should first recognize the truth in Derrida’s claim, that truly, we are “like fish swimming in cultural water,” into which we have been born. Furthermore, far from limiting Christian faith in the inspiration of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, this recognition allows us to more fully embrace the Narrative into which we have been grafted. (Romans 11.17)

James K.A. Smith offers an insightful extrapolation, telling the story of Jesus’ crucifixion from the different perspectives of two Roman guards who were present that day. One states, “[a]fter lunch, things did get a little strange,” but concludes “[a]nother cross, another Nazarene, another criminal – one less to worry about.” (Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 45) The other, of course, exclaims, “[t]ruly this was the Son of God!” (Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 47) He goes on to question whether Derrida’s claim could resonate with the Reformers cry sola Scriptura! – indeed, there is nothing outside the text! He concludes,

[w]hile the church is governed by the Scriptures, the Scriptures are only properly opened and active within the believing community. To say that there is nothing outside the Text also entails that there is no proper understanding of the Text – and hence the world – apart from the Spirit-governed community of the church. The same Spirit is both author of the text and illuminator of the reading community.” (Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 56-57)

Indeed, as with Lyotard, we can recognize the possibility that, instead of being impossible in a postmodern context, Christian discipleship can be truly rejuvenated through our interaction with it. Furthermore, the demise of the cogito ergo sum can reminds us of our genuine need not to be an island (with our iPods, iPhones, and iPads!), but that we need community – specifically the Community through which we can grow to know Jesus more fully. It is into this community that we were called, when Jesus died for us “while we were yet sinners,” (Romans 5.8) the ultimate Il n’y a pas de hors-texte!

Due in a part to the aforementioned cultural pluralism, many Western, postmodern followers of Jesus are embroiled in a split-level, or two-tiered, faith. In explicating the role of missionaries in cross-cultural settings, Hiebert, Shaw, and Tiénou, argue that a modernist, Enlightenment worldview, which asserted the reality of two worlds, originally created this dilemma.Thus, while Jesus is the answer to

ultimate and eternal questions of life… science based on reason [is] the answer to the problems of this world.” (Understanding Folk Religion, 19)

If this is the case it reveals why split-level belief systems are an extremely difficult issue to engage, since they were developed in a modernist mindset, but have shifted into a postmodern perspective. Again, not uncritically, we can thank Lyotard for explicating the demise of such problematic modernist dilemmas, while we seek to instead uphold Jesus the Lord of Life.

What are needed, therefore, in addressing these issues of faith are emic and etic views of reality that are not divorced from, but rather supplement one another. As W.A. Visser ’t Hooft recognized in the work of Hendrik Kraemer: “the real missionary is one who is completely bound to the Gospel, but who, precisely for the sake of the Gospel, seeks to enter as fully as possible into the spiritual life of the people to whom he is sent.” (Kraemer, From Mission Field to Independent Church, 8)

Thus, precisely because of my being called to the postmodern people, I must seek to not only understand the Scriptures and yearn after a holisitic spiritual life, I must also seek to understand those whom I have been called to serve, that I might lead them into an allegiance to Jesus alone. This dynamic is explicated well by Hiebert:

[p]ast missionaries often understood the Scriptures well, but not the people they served… Missionaries brought with them, not only the gospel, but also Western cultures, and often they failed to differentiate between the two… In missions we just study the Scriptures and also the sociocultural context of the people we serve, so that we can communicate the gospel to them in ways they understand.” (Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues, 10)

A further dynamic of this split-level faith is similar to the cross-cultural setting envisioned by Hiebert, Shaw, and Tiénou in that postmodern followers of Jesus are often victim to the flaw of the excluded middle, which in the West, continues to envision faith “on the basis of rational arguments, not by evidences of his power in the lives of people who [are] sick, possessed, and destitute.” (Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections, 189) In this way, the church, like Western Christian missions have been “one of the greatest secularizing forces in history.” (Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections, 197)

This is especially true in the Presbyterian Church (USA), with its reliance on Reformed theology that has emphasized the sovereignty of God so much that it can often seem to veer into a kind of deism. Indeed, as Pablo A. Deiros notes, “[m]ost of the problems in the church, including bad theology, result from a defective Christian spiritual theology that derives from a defective spirituality and the neglect of the spiritual dynamics in ministry.” (Deiros, Evangelical, Ecumenical, and Anabaptist Missiologies in Conversation, 141.)

Instead of fearing becoming “overly spiritual,” as to seem like some kind of blessed-out, self-discovery movement, postmodern Christians need to enthusiastically rely upon their indwelling of the Holy Spirit, yearning and praying for guidance in middle-level issues of faith. In so doing, we can be better prepared to minister to the “spiritual” people around us, who John Drane asserts, is “an unreached people group, to use missiological jargon.” (Drane, Do Christians Know How to Be Spiritual?, 105) He goes on, quoting a traditional Chinese proverb:

Go to the people,
Live among them,
Learn from them,
Love them.
Start with what they know,
Build on what they have.

A final insight from the field of anthropology has been adapted from the field of mathematics, where it was popularized by Georg Cantor. Set theory in Christian anthropological study is similar to the sociological implications of Emile Durkheim’s mechanical solidarity, wherein things – or in this case, people – are defined by their relationship to a particular category. In the modern, Western, Constantinian era, Christians, Churches, and Mission agencies were often defined in terms of well-formed bounded sets, wherein one was either in or out. In our postmodern, postcolonial age, however, a more appropriate understanding has come to the fore: a centered-set approach, where “[c]ommunion with Christ [is] the central focus in the life of the church. Instruction in doctrine and behavior follow.” (Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections, 127)

Hiebert later argues, “[t]he worldview of Scripture… is based primarily on a centered-set approach to reality. Relationships are at the heart of its message, our relationship to God and our relationships, therefore, to one another.” (134)

This word-picture has become a key component of our community, as we seek to be a place where all can “belong before they believe,” whatever their present trajectory. Due in part to the pluralism of contemporary culture, however, we must be careful not to become a fuzzy set, which can so easily lead to relativism, since “things move in many directions. Even things moving in the direction of the center may move independently from that center and pass by it on their own trajectory to some higher goal.” (Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections, 131) While, in one sense, of course, it is impossible to surpass Jesus, is this not the danger Paul alludes to when he tells the Corinthian community “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up”? (1st Corinthians 8.1) Therefore, even our intellectual yearning for Biblical knowledge must continue to be used for others instead of our own gain.

The aforementioned post engaged issues related to the rise of postmodernity which prepare us to engage the issue of pluralism, a significant contemporary cultural development. It should be noted at the outset, however, that pluralism is not an invention of postmodern culture, but has existed throughout the centuries.

A helpful biblical example can be found in Acts 2, where Luke tells us that God’s Spirit fell on

Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs.” (Acts 2.9-11)

Andrew F. Walls, in his essay Evangelical and Ecumenical: The Rise and Fall of the Early Church Model, argues that diversity was the norm in the first-century church:

Cultural diversity was built into the Christian faith. Two diverse systems of Christian living – one might almost say two parallel Christianities – existed side by side in a single church.” (Evangelical, Ecumenical, and Anabaptist Missiologies in Conversation, 33)

Thus, pluralism as such should not be condemned outright, since both Jews and Gentiles shared faith in Jesus, but expressed that faith in divergent ways.

In his book The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Lesslie Newbigin offers a helpful distinction between cultural and religious pluralism, the latter of which he defines as

the belief that the differences between the religions are not a matter of truth and falsehood, but of different perceptions of the one truth; that to speak of religious beliefs as true or false is admissible.

(In an attempt to simplify the concepts presented here, I have opted to retain use of the word pluralism instead of relativism, though the latter would, at times, be preferable. This is largely due to it’s use – and definition – by Lesslie Newbigin.)

He concludes, in pluralistic societies, “[r]eligious belief is a private matter.” (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 14) The effect of modern pluralism is, of course, a result of similar thinking to what was previously addressed in postmodernism, coupled with a highly individualized Western society. Even more troubling is how postmodern, atheistic cultural theorists use biblical revelation to argue for an increased secularism, including Alain Badiou, who after quoting Galatians 3.28, goes on to state “how appropriate, for we who will unproblematically replace God by this or that truth.” (Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, 9) Badiou’s rendering reads, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female”, purposely leaving out any reference to ‘in Christ.’” (9)

Similar to our previous venture into the idols of modernity, there are idols of postmodern secularism as well. Lesslie Newbigin, in his essay Evangelism in the Context of Secularization, puts it bluntly:

In the end, the society we have is not a secular society but a pagan society, a society in which men and women are giving their allegiance to no-gods… The “secular” society is not a neutral area into which we can project the Christian message. It is an area already occupied by other gods. (Mission Legacies, 48)

Of course, it would be entirely naïve or plainly ignorant to assert that such “no-gods” of money, power, and sex are not, in some sense, worshiped by those a part of Christian community. At the same time, however, we should recognize their response to the call of God on their lives is, at least in part, a commitment to kill off these idols as much as possible, as they seek to follow Jesus – whether or not they are entirely successful in doing so.

All followers of Jesus are called not only to do so personally, but also to seek to encourage others toward this end as well. As John H. Westerhoff asserts,

Christianity is a way of life. Therefore, from the beginning it has been the responsibility of all baptized Christians to proclaim the gospel in word and deed.” (The Study of Evangelism, 239)

This way of life requires a continual reorientation toward the person of Christ, instead of baptizing Christian truth for atheistic, politically correct rhetoric, as seen by Badiou above.

In his article on W.A. Visser ’t Hooft, Newbigin asserts,

[e]vangelism needs a measure of religious freedom and therefore religious pluralism, or at least religious plurality, while the Christian missionary must proclaim the total lordship of Jesus over all of life. Its raison d’être is to being all men and women to Christ. (Mission Legacies, 120)

In is necessary, then, for Christians to be those who scatter into the world, proclaiming Jesus as the Lord of Life, and yet, a word should also be said regarding the role of such people also to gather in worship. The pluralist society, of course, is known for its multiplicity of options, which affects everything we do, even down to how we order a cup of coffee. And yet, for those who have scattered, it is integral to their discipleship that they also gather, that they might see:

This way of life is a consequence of faith, best understood as perception. Christian faith is a particular way of perceiving life and our lives. It manifests itself in believing and thinking, in trusting and loving, in worshiping and obeying, but fundamentally it is a way of “seeing.” (The Study of Evangelism, 239)

Note also, Lesslie Newbigin: “[t]he first evangelism in the New Testament… is, strictly speaking, news, and it requires an immediate response in action. There is immediate excitement. People flock to hear.” (The Study of Evangelism, )

Thus, in a highly individualized, pluralistic culture, our role is to not only scatter, but to gather, to see the world through a missiological lens, by which we can recognize the presence of the God who is at work in a plurality of places. Though previously alluded to, we must, at this point, say it plainly: though God is at work in a plurality of places, the call of Christ is to accept Him as Lord and Savior, wherever we find ourselves – and to wherever He takes us.

For the church newsletter:

On March 21^st, at 11:12pm – a mere five hours after the conclusion of my ordination service – I updated my Facebook status. It read, “Curtis A. Bronzan is not now, nor will he ever be, a reverend. ‘Curtis’ is just fine.” Amidst the myriad responses was a friend from my seminary days who wrote, “hmm…not just a river in Egypt?”

In one sense, I suppose, he’s right. I now am a Reverend. Which is fantastic. Serving the Church of Jesus Christ is all I’ve ever dreamt of doing with my life. But, in another sense – as many of you know – I bristle at the thought of being “Pastor.” Notice Jesus’ strong words for the religious leaders of His day:

The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer.

Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called ‘Doctor’ and ‘Reverend.’

Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, and he’s in heaven. And don’t let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them – Christ. (Matthew 23.2-10, The Message)

In “Jesus’ day” – as we might say in Sunday School – the religious folks put themselves up on pedestals because of their knowledge, prestige, and power – and they didn’t live how they taught others to live. I fear that things haven’t changed all that much in 2000 years. And as I recognize the sinfulness of my own heart, I fear that being called Reverend might just go to my head and keep me from trying to, as Paul says, “work out my salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2.12) Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful to have received a profoundly transformative education and am honored to serve at Good Shepherd, amongst some of the most wonderful people God ever created. But I never want my office to become who I am. Instead, I want to follow the one true “Life-Leader” for you and me – Christ.

That brings me to a second reason I’m uncomfortable with my new title: in short, where’s yours!? The Christian Scriptures repeatedly affirm that the Church of Jesus is a Body where everyone has a part, and I fear that seeing pastors “up there on a pedestal” negatively influences the inherent worth of the other parts of the Body. One of the foundational doctrines of our faith is the priesthood of all believers, which reminds us that each and every one of us is a priest in Jesus’ Church. In sports terminology, everyone gets to play! Or, better yet, in the Apostle Paul’s words,

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be?” (1^st Corinthians 12.14-19)

In short, if I’m “Reverend Curtis,” then among us are also “Teacher Joanne” and “Pray-er Michelle” and “Administrator Jack.” Yes, administration is a spiritual gift! (see 1^st Corinthians 12.27-31)

Another Facebook response that night asserted that my wife’s grandmother would be proud. It went on to explain “She thinks it’s ‘irreverent’ to call any person, but Christ, Reverend.” In short, I’m with her. But, I suppose you can call me anything you like – as long as it’s not late for dinner. But know this: if you call me “Reverend” or “Pastor,” be prepared for me to grimace – and then call you by your spiritual gift as well.

Some great thoughts (if repeated from other talks) engaging Jesus, Chesterton, Kierkegaard, the Apostle Paul, Bonhoeffer, and Žižek (if unmentioned), from Peter Rollins at Revolution NYC.

One of the first speakers just reminded me of John Caputo’s Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event and the passage his brilliant theological treatise is built on (1st Corinthians 1.18-31):

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where are the wise? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let those who boast boast in the Lord.”

Synecdoche, New York was written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, who also wrote and produced Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, and Being John Malkovich, each of which examines the meaning of life in a rather existential fashion. In some ways, his films function like postmodern reappropriations of Albert Camus or Jean-Paul Sartre novels (or filmed David Bazan’s records):

I will be dying and so will you, and so will everyone here. That’s what I want to explore. We’re all hurtling towards death, yet here we are for the moment, alive. Each of us knowing we’re going to die, each of us secretly believing we won’t.

Synecdoche, however – Kaufman’s directorial debut – functions as much more than a surrealist/existentialist musing on the meaning of life, and could be seen as an extended metaphor based upon the Apostle Paul’s metaphor for the church and the importance of narrative – metanarrative even. This emphasis upon Story may be paralled by Donald Miller’s new book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life, especially considering the role of Robert McKee in the work of Kaufman and Miller.

Throughout Synecdoche, Caden Cotard (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) struggles to come to grips with his mortality, and all that entails, as seen in the aforementioned quote. His character is based upon Cotard’s syndrome, which is a nihilistic, neuropsychiatric disorder wherein a person holds the delusional belief that they are dead, do not exist, or have lost their blood or internal organs. In one scene, another character is seen reading Proust’s novel Search of Lost Time which features the charater Dr. Cottard, said to be based upon Proust’s father.

After directing Death of a Salesman, Cotard is awarded a MacArthur grant which allows him to build another body, in a sense, even as his own body fails him. After purchasing a huge dilapidated warehouse, Cotard begins recreating Schenectady, New York with a synecdoche (where a part is used to designate the whole). The recreation of Schenectady, however, begins to overlap with “real” life – and the viewer can become quite confused, at times, knowing which is which.

The actors, then, reenact their own lives, as themselves, based upon the events which take place inside the synecdoche of Schenectady. Caden is “God” inside the synecdoche, handing each actor their part to play, for each day. In hopes of opening the play (after around 40 years of rehearsals), he states

I know how to do it now. There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They’re all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due.

Near the film’s conclusion, a priest in “Schenectady” muses on the meaning of life whilst officiating a funeral (which almost perfectly parallels Pedro the Lion’s song Priests and Paramedics):

Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won’t know for twenty years. And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it’s what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn’t really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so [very] sad, and the truth is I’ve felt so [very] hurt for so [very] long and for just as long I’ve been pretending I’m OK, just to get along, just for, I don’t know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well, [forget] everybody. Amen.

These lines recall some of Žižek’s thoughts, of course, about how the train never arrives, though I’m thinking also of his explanation that for the Christian believer the Event has already taken place. And, in light of Paul’s concept of the Body of Christ (written to the Corinthians, no less!), the Event has taken place but also continues to take place through the community of those seeking to follow Jesus, seeking to live faithfully in spite of the bodies and Body that can fail us, knowing ultimately that the Head of the Body – the Author of the Story – never will.

In the midst of the trial before the Sanhedrin, testimony is brought against Jesus, asserting that He declared, “I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days will build another, not made by man” (Mark 14.58, see also Matthew 27.40, Mark 15.29, and John 2.20) though Mark is sure to assert that the testimony of these witnesses did not agree. Despite conflicting testimony, of course, Jesus is crucified as a political dissident.

To understand just how radically political Jesus actually was, we only have to ask why he was crucified. Clearly he was seen as such a major threat to the political powers who governed his land (both the Romans and the ruling Jewish establishment) that they saw only one way to deal with the challenged he presented – to remove that challenge by removing him through political execution. (The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative, 307)

In light of His crucifixion, of course, Jesus’ previously triumphant disciples quickly disperse. Commenting upon the section in the Apostle’s Creed which addresses this event, Karl Barth notes that at this point in the Credo, “the word of the believer completely coincides with the word of the unbeliever.” (Credo, 385) While it goes without saying that the three days in which Jesus remained in sheol were not experienced by His disciples as the high point of Christian community, His resurrection from the dead powerfully reinvigorates God’s initial purposes in Creation.

There is a great irony in John 20, where Mary’s assumes Jesus is the gardener, because in one sense, he is! (see Wright, The Challenge of Jesus) Jesus’ pronouncement of judgment on the Temple system, the destruction of His bodily Temple and its resurrection from the dead renews the Creator’s original purpose. It is in this light that Kirk rightly notes

[t]he Church is a ‘fellowship of the resurrection’, an event of the past which anticipates the transformation of all decay and corruption into new life. The Church is like a pin attracted to the magnet of the coming restoration of God’s rule over the whole of life. (What is Mission?, 218)

Following Jesus’ resurrection, of course, Jesus renews the call to “go” and “bless” through The Great Commission. After his ascension, God sends the third person of the Trinity, His Spirit “upon the whole community and upon each one of the members of that community. The Spirit creates koinonia, community with a purpose, to call all things to conversion and reconciliation in Jesus Christ.” (The Good News of the Kingdom, 135) This Spirit of koinonia is evident especially throughout the book of Acts, where it empowers Jesus’ disciples to continue His healing ministry.

Most notably for our study, of course, are episodes that involve the Temple, like the one found in Acts 3, where Luke sets the stage thusly: “One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer – at three in the afternoon.” (Acts 3.1) We should note, therefore, that even in light of Jesus’ proclamation of the destruction of the Temple, His disciples were drawn to it centripetally to continue their religious activity. This activity, however, did not preclude them from both healing in the Temple and proclaiming the good news of Jesus, even when it resulted in their immediate arrest. Furthermore, Peter’s message interestingly connects their interaction as well as Jesus crucifixion and resurrection to the story of Abram.

In his message following this healing, Peter not only connects what the people have just witnessed to the story of Jesus but to Abraham. He does this at the beginning of his word (‘The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus’ [v.13]), and then again at the end (‘You are the heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.’… [Acts 3.25]). (The Mission of God, 246)

In Acts 8, conversely, the Temple is presented as a precursor, when an Ethiopian eunuch fulfills Isaiah 56.7 being introduced to Jesus not in the holy place but on his journey home through an encounter with Philip. Another interesting text is found in Acts 15, where James brings together two seemingly opposing ideas, namely the eschatological restoration of God’s “fallen tent” alongside the inclusion of Gentile nations. It is due to the implications of passages like these that we begin to find fault with Karl Barth’s assertion that the ecclesia is both the people of God as well as “the place where an assembly has been held, and is to be held again and again.” (Credo, 137)

These texts from Acts reach their highpoint, however, in Paul’s speech at the Areopagus, found in chapter 17. He asserts, rather boldly,

[t]he God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. (Acts 17.24-25)

Harvie Conn helpfully explicates the implications of Paul’s statement when he notes

Jehovah was no local urban deity; his territorial claims were bounded not by one ethnic city but by “the heavens and the earth”. (sic) In the eschatological shadow of the urban heavens and earth soon to come, the church proclaimed itself as the true city and its “city-zenship” in Christ, the cosmic beneficient “tyrant”/kurios of the city. (The Good News of the Kingdom, 99)

This, of course, reminds us of Solomon’s assertion, that God could not be held captive even in the highest heavens. Furthermore, though speaking to a thoroughly “pagan” (though “quite religious”) audience Paul’s statement questions the role of the Temple itself, a question many are asking regarding church attendance still today. Before addressing this question – and its missiological implications for postmodern ministry – we must first briefly address two passages that powerfully reorient our understanding of the Temple.

We could cautiously assume that Paul’s further deliberation regarding the nature of the Temple revealed even deeper theological and missiological implications. Though the terminology dates back at least to Jesus – and possibly even to the Creation narratives – Paul’s letter to the Ephesians most powerfully states how we are now to understand the Temple. Indeed, in light of the revelation and indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit, Paul can powerfully assert

you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2.19-22)

Note also the implications of 1st Peter 2.4-10:

As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame.”
Now to you who believe, this stone is precious.
But to those who do not believe,
“The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone,” and,
“A stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message – which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Even Gentiles have become

“nothing less than… part of the very temple of God. They may have been physically excluded from the inner parts of the temple in Jerusalem, as Gentiles, but spiritually they now constitute the dwelling place of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit.” (The Mission of God, 340)

In postmodern engagement with Christian tradition, texts like these provide the foundation by which philosophers argue that the Judeo-Christian tradition is to be credited for the demise of the sacred into secular. (see, for instance, After the Death of God, After Christianity and Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism) This dangerous type of thinking, in turn, has encouraged contemporary culture to increasingly withdraw from church involvement. This need not be the case. Indeed, what we see in these texts is not so much the dissolution of sacred into secular as much as the sacred being known in and through the secular, or more specifically, through those who have been called according to the purposes of God.

In fact, such postmodern Christian thinkers are not radical enough, for in joining together the sacred and secular, they have distanced themselves from the revelation of God through His Living Word, Jesus Christ, and the Written Word, the Holy Scriptures. If we view these passages in light of God’s whole revelation then, the result is not a nihilistic estrangement, but rather a missiological calling.

So the centrifugal mission of the New Testament church had its centripetal theology also: the nations were indeed being gather in – not to Jerusalem or to the physical temple or to national Israel – but to Christ as the center and to the new temple of God that he was building through Christ as a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (The Mission of God, 524)

Or, put more clearly, “All of us have been drawn into the church catholic so that the church may become increasingly universal. Then we are sent out to make disciples of others.” (Mission on the Way, 113)

I’ve catching up on some Nada Surf of late, whose album Lucky I had completely missed, until recently, after hearing it at a wedding of some dear friends (with great musical taste).

The second track, Whose Authority, reminds me of the title of Alasdair MacIntyre’s book Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, as well as Merold Westphal’s recent Whose Community? Which Interpretation?, which is staring up at me from my office bookshelf like a lost puppy wanting someone to play with it. Whose Authority declares

I walk like you guide me, my eyes are shut like I’m blind
Turn to you and listening and tryin’ to be in your mind
There’s a feeling that I get when I look to the west
‘Bout having all the answers, still failing the test
Wolf packs and convoys and captains and men
Surprised in translation world without end
Welcome back to real life, the picture is gone
Put a contract out on things that go on and on
How do you stay where you most want to be?
Where’d you get the patience, did it come easily?
On whose authority? I have none over me
On whose authority? There’s none that I can see
On whose authority? I have none over me
On whose authority? No one speaks to me
On whose authority? I have none over me
All the tales with paper heroes, the ones who dyed the sun
And called it yellow, the ones who made you run

In the very next song, “Beautiful Beat,” Nada Surf lead singer Matthew Caws yearns for a song to save him:

Sometimes all I want is another drink or another pill
If I could get anything done maybe I’d hold still
I’m trying to levitate I’m trying to leave the ground
Tryin’ to remember when I could fix anything with sound
Beautiful beat get me out of this mess
Beautiful beat lift me up from distress
I believe our love can save me, have to believe that it can
I want to redirect myself with you, do you understand?

Are not these songs – and their proximity on Lucky – a near perfect explication of the human condition, simultaneously shunning authority and crying out for deliverance? And, further, do we not see in Paul wrestling with these realities in quoting the first century hymn in Philippians 2, as he reminds us of the One who did not use his authority to his advantage, but came to give his life?:

In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing,
 by taking the very natureof a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself 
by becoming obedient to death
-
 even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
 and gave him the name that is above every name
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

In the philosophical terminology used by Gianni Vattimo (building upon Nietzsche), it could be argued that in this One who comes from heaven to earth, the metaphysical God is shown to give up his “metaphysical essence.” But that’s a rabbit trail for another hike.