Been listening to the latest Mars Hill audio, which you ought to do from time to time yourself. Anyway, on this latest one, Ken Myers interviews James K.A. Smith, whose book on postmodernism I reviewed in detail in my postmodernism thread. Their discussion on Derrida’s infamous “there is nothing outside the text” made me think …
Apply What They Are Saying to What They Are Saying
After a hiatus of sorts, I picked up Merold Wesphal’s Overcoming Onto-theology again. I had been halfway through his essay on capitulating to the “Copernican Revolution, although he didn’t call it that. Upon finishing the essay, the thing that I find most striking about pomos and pomo-friendlies is a pervasive faux-intello-humility coupled with sheer inability …
The Poetic Case Against Postmodernism
Human language is a gift of God. When God created Adam, He gave him many gifts. He gave the Garden, and all that it contained. He gave him the woman, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. And God also gave Adam the gift of speech, which enabled him to talk about all …
Postmodernism Is Triumphalism
James K.A. Smith recently made a good start in reviewing Greg Boyd’s book on Christians in politics. Justin Taylor had linked to it, and here it is. The book reviewed was The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church. The review seemed promising, and Smith scored some good …
Just So Many Millions of Ghosts
First, a recap of a basic argument against postmodernity. For all the talk about being in a postmodern era, the basic infrastructure of modernity (liberal democracy with its neutral public square) is retained. In the seminar room called modernity, some who call themselves postmodernists have come to believe that they can change the room they …
High Zwinglianism
In his chapter “Against Sacraments,” Peter Leithart quotes Mike Featherstone, who pointed out that postmodernism “moved beyond individualism with a communal feeling being generated,” which is good, but did so in a way in which people “come together in temporary emotional communities” (AC, p. 74), which is entirely inadequate. To this Leithart observes, “The postmodern …
Tone Check
One of the more telling points that Peter Leithart makes against desiccated theology is this one: “Theology is a ‘Victorian’ enterprise, neoclassically bright and neat and clean, nothing out of place. Whereas the Bible talks about hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation and genital emissions . . . Ponder these questions: Do theologians talk about the …
Postdrunkenness
The second chapter of Leithart’s Against Christianity is “Against Theology.” There are three aspects of this chapter that I would like to comment on. The first is the troublesome matter of timeless truths. When many conservative Christians hear any kind of critique of timeless truths, the automatic assumption is that some form of relativism is …
With the Look of Real Wood
I don’t often read a book twice because time is short and there are so many others to get to. Of course such a sweeping statement would not include the Narnia stories and The Lord of the Rings, or Code of the Woosters, which will always repay multiple readings. In theology, I read Luther’s Bondage …
Not By Epistemic Works, Lest Any Should Boast
In his essay on “Nietzsche As a Theological Resource,” Westphal says some things about particular and finite knowledge that reveal the heart of confusion in much pomo-friendly writing. He makes the point that knowledge of the Absolute does not bestow absoluteness on that knowledge. In this, he is quite right, as far as it goes. …