Curtis A. Bronzan

In this post, I argue for the deconstruction of the church by addressing the father of deconstruction, Jacques Derrida. I do so primarily through engaging Derrida and Theology, a recent book by Steven Shakespeare. In the coming days, I will do the same by looking at the work of Gianni Vattimo and René Girard.

At the outset of Derrida and Theology, Steven Shakespeare relates the work of Jacques Derrida to Woody Allen’s 1997 movie Deconstructing Harry. He writes

Allen’s film plays on the caricature of the dissolute writer. [The main character] objects to religious fanaticism, indeed to all religion as arbitrary and exclusive, undermining our universal obligations to all people regardless of creed and race. However, his own life is fragmented, shallow and bitter. He cannot help confusing real life and fiction, with disastrous consequences for the former. He seems incapable of sustaining any lasting relationship. In the end, it is only his fiction that offers him any redemption, any way of gathering the shards of his life together. (DT, 1)

This comparison, though limited, holds keen insights for another comparison at the heart of this essay: the work of Derrida with Jesus’ first-century temple action. Just as Block, the main character in Allen’s film, objects to fanatical expressions of faith, so Jesus’ deconstructive temple action pronounces judgment upon exclusivist religious practices in his day.

Indeed, as we will see, Jesus’ pronouncement immediately following his action, seeks to reorient the first-century Temple toward its original purpose for the ‘other’: to be “a house of prayer for all nations.” (Mark 11.17) While we may not be willing to go as far as to assert that His personal life is not divided, the Gospels do present Jesus as the fulfillment of Israel’s history, whose communal life could be characterized as “fragmented, shallow and bitter.” Further, Jesus cannot help integrating the Hebrew Scriptures with his own life, indeed with “disastrous consequences,” and yet it is this text that guides His mission toward redemptive meaning. A final similarity is found in Jesus’ relationship with the religious authorities, His twelve disciples, and even His own family, each of who have been entirely incapable of sustaining any pronounced commitment to His Kingdom movement. This post, then, will seek to explore the culmination of Jesus’ counter-Temple movement with regard not to Harry Block, but Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction.

There are those, of course, who would question engaging Christian theology or ecclesiology with one who openly declares he could “rightly pass for an atheist.” At the same time, we ought to recognize that this perspective “ignores the difficult and contested history of theology itself, which, even confining ourselves to the Christian tradition, is one of dialogues, appropriations of other languages, debates and disputes.” (DT, 3) Indeed, in faith “we are invited into the space of an open-ended conversation.” (DT, 7)

At the outset, we note the limits of comparing Jesus’ action with Derrida’s concept:

Deconstruction is not so much a technique that an individual can master and employ. It is more an inherent dynamic of language and meaning. It is something that happens, and that reading and writing and acting engages with, without us ever fully grasping it. Reading deconstructively means something like being attentive to an event, an unexpected arrival, that interrupts, contradicts and dislocates what appeared to be settled and fixed. (DT, 25)

Indeed, deconstruction – which builds upon Heidegger’s destruktion – is not something to be employed in order to bring about a desired result. At the outset, then, it seems there is an inherent problem in our comparison, namely that we are arguing for Jesus’ action as the employment of this technique. On the contrary, our thesis here is much simpler: that Jesus’ temple action functions as the culmination of His mission, which, as a result of our reading here, can be characterized as opening a space for the Event. This must taken place, then, “in the middle of secondariness, interpretation and flux.” (DT, 27) In this sense, then, we are seeking to view Jesus’ mission as a reading of first-century Jewish faith, which ‘interrupts, contradicts and dislocates’ the seemingly ‘settled and fixed’ system of power. Notice, for instance, Matthew 11.16-17:

To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
We played the flute for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge
and you did not mourn.

Indeed, here we see Jesus deconstructively “reading” the faith of those within His own first-century context. As Steven Shakespeare notes, “Human religion produces only idols. Only the free self-revelation of a wholly other God can create in us the capacity to receive God’s word.” (DT, 210)

As aforementioned, the mission of Jesus took place secondarily, within the history of interpretation. While a Christian understanding regarding the role of the temple is often projected onto the gospels, we must seek to pull back these layers to reveal a Jewish understanding. As Derrida asserts in Glas, “The risk, then, is the Jewish reading.” (DT, 124) Jesus’ particular reading regarding the role of the temple could have been influenced by Solomon’s prayer of dedication in 1st Kings 8.41-43, which includes an emphasis similar to what some proponents of “missional” thinking would assert today:

As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name – for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm – when he comes and prays toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.

Structurally, then, the temple was meant to be “associated with the reality of the object”, (DT, 35) in this case, YHWH – for ‘all the peoples of the earth.’ And yet, as Derrida would assert, “[s]ense can be lost along the way. Meaning can wander from its source.” (DT, 32) Jesus’ temple action, viewed from this perspective, seeks to reorient Israel’s central institution back to its original purpose. Thus, it functions as both the continuation and fulfillment of His counter-temple movement that has previously included subversive teaching, table fellowship, healing, forgiveness, and symbolic actions (such as baptism and the Passover meal) all of which were tied unambiguously to the Temple cult.

Jesus’ temple action, then, reveals that the institution is a function of what Derrida would call différance, a term crafted by Derrida himself. This neologism plays on the French word différer, which can mean both “to defer” and “to differ.” Thus, Jesus is seeking to remind the Jews that the temple was originally built in order that all people would know YHWH, who is both different from the institution and to whom the institution is meant to defer. As Derrida himself asserts in Writing and Difference, “[l]ife negates itself in literature only so that it may survive better. So that it may be better. It does not negate itself any more than it affirms itself: it differs from itself, defers itself and writes itself as difference.” (DT, 98)

Commenting on this, Shakespeare notes, “In this sense, life and God are close to one another.” In the same way, Jesus’ temple action negates the institution in order to save it. Note also: “The trace is always crossing itself out, always deferred, never at one, never home. The trace is therefore not only a condition of meaning of unmeaning too.” (DT, 41)

With many allusions to what seems like a negative Christian theology, Derrida seeks to distance himself by utilizing the term khôra, found in Plato, and more recently Heidegger, which is defined not as “a receptacle, not a giver or gift… [though] in its passivity… allows the world to take place.” (DT, 154) If we can briefly set aside the idea of a receptacle as a physical area, we must ask, is not such an ‘interval’ or ‘space’ congruent with Jesus’ declaration regarding the purpose of the temple? Indeed, by overturning tables and benches, as well as keeping anyone from using the temple court as a shortcut through town, Jesus seeks to provide a passive openness to the other. It can become, then, “not a barren desert (a very patriarchal image of lonely aridity) but a fecund matrix, a womb of possibilities and new life.” (DT, 202)

Notice a similar theme in Derrida’s assertion in Writing and Difference, that

God separated himself from himself in order to let us speak, in order to astonish and interrogate us. He did so not by speaking but by keeping still, by letting silence interrupt his voice and his signs, by letting the Tables be broken… God no longer speaks to us, he has interrupted himself: we must take words upon ourselves.” (DT, 67; 68)

If our thesis, so far, is correct, we can find a corollary between Jesus’ temple action and the demise of Western metaphysics. Shakespeare notes that Derrida’s project uncovered how

the very openness and incompleteness that we find in the most purified structures of truth shows that such distinctions are unstable at best. At worst, they lead us back into dogmatism. We might even suggest that they result in a form of idolatry: taking as timeless and absolute what is secondary and contingent. (DT, 49)

In the same way, the structure of the first-century Temple cult reveals an incomplete system of truth, namely because of its exclusion of the other. Its dogmatism can be as clearly perceived as its idolatry. We need no further evidence than to note that, historically speaking, Jesus temple action leads directly to his execution. Note especially Mark 11.18, which immediately follows Jesus’ action and proclamation: “The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.”

We have been seeking to elucidate how the first-century temple functioned similarly to how Socrates viewed writing; as a pharmakon, “a Greek word that means both cure and poison.” (DT, 57) As such, we are now at a place to recognize the primary reason Derrida’s project is so central to Jesus’ symbolic action. This is due to its functioning as a heterology, a project focused on radical otherness, as Rodolphe Gasché has asserted. Indeed,

Derrida does not claim that deconstruction must be purely secular, this-worldly, renouncing all ideas of transcendence. We should not forget that it is in the name of the other, in response to the other, that deconstruction seeks to expose the limits of any system. (DT, 75)

In the same way, as aforementioned, Jesus’ entire countercultural, counter-Temple mission and temple action is centered on the ‘other.’ Note, again, Jesus’ proclamation:

Is it not written:
‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’ (Mark 11.17)

For the temple cult to remain faithful to its “missional” calling, it was to be a place where all people could come to pray. And yet, it had betrayed its purpose. Just as Derrida asserted that “[w]riting exposes us to the other, not just the other person but to the wholly other that subverts our mastery and divides our human essence”, (DT, 83) so the function of the temple was meant to be a place that exposed God’s holy people to other people and to Himself, the tout autre.

It has been written that “[f]or Derrida, philosophy is always obsessed with its ‘other’” (DT, 57), and yet, this is much more than ethereal philosophical speculation. Indeed, “Derrida’s thought invites the coming of the other, the address of the other, and this is an irreducibly religious motif.” (DT, 197) Jesus’ symbolic action, then, seeks to reopen the structural understanding of the first-temple so that it can be available to the other: “In other words, signs can only be available to others if they are not tied to a present meaning immediately contained within my own mind.” (DT, 79)

The temple had, of course, become irreplaceably tied to a function of what Emile Durkheim would call mechanical solidarity, namely that there are insiders and outsiders, with obvious distinctions between them. Missiologically speaking, the temple had become a bounded set, when it was meant to be centered. By engaging with Foucault’s History of Madness, we see the injustice of the temple was, in some sense, necessary:

This inhuman madness is necessary for thought to get going. If it is not acknowledged, even by those wishing to stand up for the victims of history’s exclusions, then we risk erecting a totalitarian structure, with all the potential for violence that entails (and we should not this early ethical concern of Derrida’s). (DT, 84)

Here one thinks of Žižek’s dictum that those who rob banks are often those who set up others – and it could be argued that throughout history Christian ecclesial institutions have done just that. Steven Shakespeare notes that at the American Academy of Religion conference, John Caputo once asked Jacques Derrida “To whom did Derrida pray and what answer did he expect?” (DT, 11) In his reply, Derrida noted that “his skepticism is part of the prayer, part of an openness to the approach of the other that no secular or religious system [could] stifle.” (DT, 13)

In conclusion, we again ask, can we not find in this response a similarity to the prayer that Jesus believes should be characteristic in the khôra of the temple? Is this not why he seeks to deconstruct the entire temple cult? Shakepeare concludes with a statement about Derrida, that could be easily applied to Jesus’ symbolic temple action: “It is as if he is saying, or showing us, that one way in which to disrupt systems of thought that have totalitarian pretensions is to pray.” (DT, 15)

As we have seen, Derrida’s thought lends itself quite well to aspects of Christian theology and ecclesiology. His emphasis on deconstruction helps us imagine – in a postmodern setting – what ministry in Jesus’ name among systems of power could look like. His emphasis on différance reminds us that, to employ Nietzsche’s assertion, our institutions are not facts, but are merely interpretations. And his khôra helps us recognize what such institutions could be. It has been noted, “[p]erhaps we can find in Derrida, if not a new theology, at least a thinker who provokes us to consider the possibility of doing theology otherwise.” (DT, 47) Could we not, in the same way, find in Derrida, if not a new ecclesiology, at least a thinker who provokes us to consider the possibility of doing ecclesiology otherwise?

Throughout recent decades of declining church attendance, a curious dynamic has been uncovered, most emphatically pronounced by the title of a 2007 book: They Like Jesus But Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations. In it, pastor Dan Kimball asserts that those outside of the institution of faith see the church as

an organized religion with a political agenda, judgmental and negative, dominated by males and oppress[ing] to females, homophobic, arrogantly claim[ing] that all other religions are wrong, and full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally. (Kimball, They Like Jesus But Not the Church, 9)

Interestingly, throughout its pages, Kimball never asks the central question necessary for ecclesiological insight: what is the church? If he did so, he might uncover an interesting dynamic, namely that the church is not – and was never intended to be – preeminently an institution, but instead was, is, and will forever be, a people.

After recognizing that dynamic, however, Kimball might then realize that those who hate the church are also those who are a part of it; who are seeking to renew it by their very presence in it.

In his book What Would Jesus Deconstruct?, philosopher John Caputo, brings these two streams together. After emphatically pronouncing that the church is “Plan B” (to the Kingdom of God, of course), he asserts:

if we ask, “What would Jesus deconstruct?” the answer is first and foremost the church! For the idea behind the church is to give way to the kingdom, to proclaim and enact and finally disappear into the kingdom that Jesus called for, all the while resisting the temptation of confusing itself with the kingdom. (Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct?, 35)

Alongside the demise of metaphysics, then, does not our current postmodern culture allow us – even demand of us? – that we question the role of institutions in and for our lives? Is this not what Jesus proclaimed, that tearing down the temple would result in it being raised in three days (John 2.13) and proclaimed “‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” (Mark 11.17)

Instead of, like Kimball, fearing the distrust of emerging generations, we are in a perfect place in history to remember God’s initial plan for institutions of faith, as Solomon prayed so long ago:

[a]s for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name – for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm – when he comes and prays toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name. (1st Kings 8.41-43)

Here we see both the centripetal and centrifugal aspects of mission. Indeed, this brings us back to our original section on postmodernism and deconstruction. James K.A. Smith, again, clarifies:

God does not call for the deconstruction and dismantling of the deconstructible on the basis of or with a view to some undeconstructible and impossible kingdom; rather, God condescends to inhabit the deconstructible.” (Smith, What Jesus Did: The Incarnation as the More Radical Hermeneutics)

In other words, the mission of those who like Jesus – or, better yet, seek to follow Him – in postmodern cultures is not to tear down the existing institution, but to echo Derrida’s veins! to the coming of God’s Kingdom into a new time and place, by the power of His Spirit, transforming within their sphere of influence.

As we have seen, postmodern philosophy and culture do not necessarily preclude Christian faith. On the contrary, they can lead to a renewed appreciation for the incarnation of God’s Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, who willingly took on human flesh to “swim in cultural water” like each of us. When recognized in light of God’s saving work throughout history, postmodernity can indeed lead to a robust faith that seeks to grow through Scripture and in community, that it might go out into the world to proclaim God’s narrative: the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

[Photo credit: Dave Walker]

As with any societal shift, the definitive beginning of postmodern culture is difficult to define, though of course, that has not stopped some from trying. The late Stanley J. Grenz, asserted “[p]ostmodernism was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 15, 1972, at 3:32pm,” (Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism, 11) when the Pruitt-Igoe housing project was razed with dynamite.

Note also Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, who state

[s]ometime between 1960 and 1980, an old, inadequately conceived world ended, and a fresh, dynamic new world began… Although it may sound trivial, one of us is tempted to date the shift sometime on a Sunday evening in 1963. Then, in Greenville, South Carolina, in defiance of the state’s time-honored blue laws, the Fox Theatre opened on Sunday. (Resident Aliens, 15)

James K.A. Smith notes others: “student riots in 1968, the abandonment of the gold standard, the fall of the Berlin Wall.” (Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 19)

As “a landmark of modern architecture,” the housing project was “the epitome of modernity itself in its goal of employing technology to create a utopian society for the benefit of all.” (Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism, 11) This metaphor rightly envisions postmodernity as the pessimistic successor to modernity, a period largely characterized by unparalleled optimism in the progress of humanity. Near the height of modernity, such optimism was present even in evangelical mission, as seen in the statement heralded by John R. Mott, who sought “the evangelization of the world in this generation.” (Hopkins, John R. Mott, in Mission Legacies, 82) Hopkins is careful to note, however, that Mott “did not invent [this] motto… but he made it his own.”

What is somewhat easier to address than the date of this shift is its significance for our contemporary culture. While the modern world was characterized by the optimistic belief that universal reason could “demystify and illuminate the world over and against religion, myth and superstition,” (Barker, Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, 188) postmodern thought has criticized the very structure of knowledge itself. Jean-Franois Lyotard provided the benchmark definition when he branded postmodernity as characterized by “incredulity toward metanarratives,” (Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, xxiv)

This statement, alongside many other postmodernists’ work builds upon the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, who similarly wrote, “there are no facts, only interpretations.” (Notebooks, Summer 1886 – Fall 1887) which, in French, is grand reçits, or big stories, thus revealing the extent to which postmodernity turns the tables on its predecessor, modernity. Later Lyotard builds upon his definition when he questions, “[w]here, after the metanarratives, can legitimacy reside?”, (Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, xxv) signaling the importance of grappling with this cultural shift missiologically.

Taken at his word, Lyotard seems to be advocating a shift that set us afloat in the ocean like Kevin Costner’s character “Mariner” in the 1995 film, Waterworld. (noted by Barry Taylor, Entertainment Theology, 89) He notes that

its story line exemplifies some key elements of the postmodern situation, particularly as they relate to spiritual expression… The old world remains intact but lies submerged under the new, much as the structures of modernity lie rusting under the new postmodern world.

In one sense, this is very much the case for those who have grown up in a media saturated world, including both MTV and the internet. We must recognize, however, that this seemingly ivory tower-based, philosophical turn has impacted – and continues to impact – the daily lives of Westerners, including how they understand the role of the truth. This greatly influences postmoderns’ ability to accept the veracity and inspiration of the Scriptures, a topic to which will return in a later post.

While many indeed feel afloat in the ocean, it need not be viewed in an entirely negative sense as if we are yearning for dry ground upon which we can place our authority, but rather we can recognize that, as Charles H. Kraft observes, God has created all people “like fish swimming in cultural water.” (Kraft, Anthropology for Christian Witness, 8) While our current philosophical and cultural setting may seem liquid, this may not be an impediment to faith, but rather a possibility to rely upon the strength of the One who is greater.

We must recall that while other seemingly “postmodern” thinkers have been reticent to use the term, Lyotard enthusiastically endorses “postmodernism”:

Lyotard [has] embraced the perspectival conception of knowledge and the term ‘postmodern’… which involves a loss of faith in the foundational schemes that have justified the rational, scientific, technological and political projects of the modern world. (Barker, Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, 195)

Note especially the phrase “loss of faith,” in the quote above, which reveals a significant dynamic for our understanding of the modern postmodern split. While it is common to question the role of postmodern philosophy and culture in light of a Christian worldview, some similar charges – if not many of the same – could also be leveled against modernist perceptions, which also required “faith.”

We should note, then, the specific faith Lyotard seeks to question is an entirely reason-based scientific knowledge, which “when called on (by itself) to legitimate itself, cannot help but appeal to narrative.” (Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 67) Smith goes on to argue, “[w]henever science attempts to legitimate itself, it is no longer scientific but narrative, appealing to an orienting myth that is not susceptible to scientific legitimation.”

Thus, Lyotard’s critique of universal reason and the metanarratives that explicate it’s “findings” are specifically those which are indebted to an Enlightenment philosophy, and thus have sought to undermine Christian faith by requiring “proof.” Thus, James K.A. Smith concludes,

Christian thinkers should find in Lyotard’s critique of metanarratives and autonomous reason an ally that opens up the space for a radically Christian witness in the postmodern world – both in thought and practice… In this way the playing field is leveled, and new opportunities to voice a Christian philosophy are created. (Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 73)

At the same time, some necessary cautions must be offered to Lyotard’s postmodernism. Paul H. Hiebert asserts that an instrumentalist epistemology led to postmodernity’s deconstructionism, which he defines as “giving up the search for one grand unifying theory of knowledge, and celebrating pluralism and diversity despite their incongruity and lack of coherence.” (Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues, 62) It should be noted, however briefly, that most contemporary philosophers would reject Hiebert’s definition as overly negative, which was not the intention of Jacques Derrida in adapting the word from Husserl and Heidegger for literary usage.

Indeed, John Caputo notes that far from being a destruction, Derrida’s constant refrain viens! is like “the precursor John whose Baptist voice cries out in the desert of the same for the other who is to come. Viens precedes the event structurally; it always precedes and calls for the event because in messianic time, the event is always yet to come.” (Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, 89)

Thus, while we may recognize in Lyotard and other postmodernists allies who also question the gods of modernity, we cannot go so far as to adopt their worldview as our own. We must instead, seek to hold fast to the revealed and incarnate truth of the One who is “the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14.6)

There’s a blog here somewhere, engaging Derrida and Caputo – maybe even Žižek (who argues that love is the end) – but for now I’m just revelling in the lyrics – and melody – of this great song. Reminds me of some Pedro the Lion tracks.

Everything alive must die
every building built to the sky will fall
Don’t try to tell me my
everlasting love is a lie

Everlasting everything
oh nothing could mean anything at all

Every wave that hits the shore
every book that I adore
Gone like a circus, gone like a troubadour
everlasting love for ever more

Oh I know this might sound sad
but everything goes both good and the bad
It all adds up and you should be glad
everlasting love is all you have

I ran across an article this morning by James K.A. Smith in response to John Caputo’s What Would Jesus Deconstruct?: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church. What would be better? Not much, except maybe Caputo responding to Smith’s response!

The Calvin college professor and prolific author starts out by asserting that he is “already clearly on record as a friend and fan,” but seeks “to push the conversation further, taking the spirit of Jack’s book seriously enough to disagree with it.”

After affirming that the church is deconstructible, Smith goes so far as to affirm that the Kingdom itself is deconstructible as well, since Jesus characterizes the Kingdom “to come,”  revealing it’s “contingency, particularity and finitude.” As such, he asserts that “Catholic orthodoxy actually makes a more radical affirmation of deconstructibility than Caputo’s Derridean Jesus.” Here’s his conclusion:

And here’s the crucial difference: the Trinitarian God of Catholic faith is not scared off by contingency, particularity or deconstructibility. Unlike the Wholly Other of the Derridean Gospel, the Incarnate God exhibits no allergy to the deconstructible. Indeed, this is the very distinctive logic of incarnation: God does not call for the deconstruction and dismantling of the deconstructible on the basis of or with a view to some undeconstructible and impossible kingdom; rather, God condescends to inhabit the deconstructible. If we want to ask ourselves what Jesus would do, we might consider what Jesus did. The Incarnation is the mad story of the undeconstructible God who did not consider undeconstructibility as something to be grasped, nor did he despise deconstructibility, but rather taking the “human, all too human form” of a servant, he humbled himself to the point of inhabiting the very deconstructible structures of human law and culture—even to the point of suffering death at the hands of these institutions. But he did so not with a view to eviscerating the deconstructible, but rather to rightly ordering it such that the contingent, particularity of this deconstructible creation might reach its proper telos (a loose paraphrase of Philippians 2:5-11). It’s not “deconstructibility” that’s the problem; it is the particular, wrongly-ordered configurations of the deconstructible that are at issue.

The scandal of Catholic ecclesiology is that this logic of incarnation then extends to an institution, the church Catholic, which is now configured as the body of which Christ is the head. The same Spirit that inhabited and empowered the incarnate Jesus (e.g., Luke 4:1, 14, 18) is given to the ecclesial community (Acts 1:8). This continues the logic of incarnation: the undeconstructible God continues to condescend and inhabit the very deconstructible institution that is the Church. Far from being infallible or perfect, nonetheless the institution is an extension of this logic and bears within it all the resources it needs to make sense of its own failures. Indeed, two of its most significant seasons (Advent and Lent) are seasons of penitence; it gathers as a community weekly to confess its failures (when was the last time the Democrats got together to do that?!). But in contrast to the logic of purity that seems to motivate the Derridean critique of deconstructibility as itself a problem, the logic of incarnation testifies to a God who inhabits, affirms, and takes up all the messiness of a deconstructible institution. The Catholic affirmation of the institutional church is rooted in this logic of incarnation which is a continuing testimony of what Jesus did.

Some thoughts to ponder. It makes me wonder why Smith questioned David E. Fitch’s use of Žižek’s “lack” for the reformation of the church at the SBL conference last year. Maybe I don’t understand his criticism fully.

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.”

Tonight, for the first time, I had the opportunity to impose ashes upon the foreheads of some friends who gathered for the church’s Ash Wednesday service.

Simply put, I wasn’t quite prepared how it would affect me to say over and over “You are dust, and to dust you will return. But in Jesus Christ, you have eternal life.”

You are dust, and to dust you will return. But in Jesus Christ, you have eternal life.

It’s a beautiful paradox. Like Peter Rollins’ How (Not) to Speak of God. Or John Caputo’s The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida.

Or the Gospel.

This commercial always reminds me of the writing of Peter Rollins, especially his book How (Not) to Speak of God (which, of course, builds upon John Caputo’s brilliant examination The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion, in which a chapter is entitled Affirmation at the Limits: How Not to Speak).

All that said, how brilliant that it’s for an Irish whiskey!

The Monsters of Folk self-titled CD has been spinning in repeatedly since it came out in late September. It’s a great record, but I’m starting to mourn the reality that projects like this end up detracting from the others that its members front(ed). For instance, My Morning Jacket, the brainchild of Jim James is done, it seems, due to his departure.

Supergroups, I’ve decided, are kind of like local businesses that go out of business when the multinational conglomeration comes into town. The big business is great and all, but the possibilities that the smaller businesses could have achieved – metaphorically speaking – will be missed.

The record’s first track, entitled “Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.)”, veers into some rather thoughtful theological territory, unlikely for some of the members of the group.

The first two verses (sung by Jim James and M. Ward, respectively) address the Divine in light of a sort of three-tiered universe as well as numerous passages from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures which refer to a faith that moves mountains (most well known, probably Mark 11.22-25):

Dear God, I’m trying hard to reach you,
dear God, I see your face in all I do.
Sometimes it’s so hard to believe in you,
but God, I know you have your reasons.

Dear God, I see you moving mountains,
dear God, I see you moving trees.
Sometimes, it’s nothing to believe in,
no, no, sometimes, it’s everything I see.

And then the chorus, which reminds me of a number of recent posts (including this one) regarding suffering:

But I’ve been thinking about it,
and I’ve been breaking it down without an answer.
I know I’m thinking out loud,
but if your love’s still around, why do we suffer?

Then, Conor Oberst, of Bright Eyes and Mystic Valley Band fame, refers obliquely to 1st Corinthians 13.12 (famous for it’s inclusion in wedding vows – as well as Peter Rollins and, of course, John Caputo books):

Dear God, I wish that I could touch you,
how strange, sometimes I feel I almost do.
And then I’m back behind the glass again,
oh God, what keeps you out, it keeps me in.

By the end, we’re all singing along:

But I’ve been thinking about it,
and I’ve been breaking it down without an answer.
I know I’m thinking out loud,
but if your love’s still around, why do we suffer?

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)