Emergent Philosophical Conversation

UPDATE: Sept 18, 2007 - An Emergent Cohort has opened a conversation on this topic, so I'm re-opening the "comments"... looking forward to new input!

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As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Emergent is sponsoring a conference soon on deconstructivism and the postmodern church. 

They asked me to make some comments on the topic to help get the conversation going before the conference.  You can check out the official site here: the church and postmodern culture. 

I thought I would try to host a conversation on it here too.  Here are my comments:

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"Why is the Emerging Church drawn to Deconstructive Theology?"

I see at least three emphases within “deconstruction” – understood broadly in the sense proposed by Caputo – that would naturally be attractive to Emergent Types (hereafter ET).

First, deconstruction not only accepts but embraces the category of difference. In part this is attractive to ET because they (we) are embedded within a late modern generation that is open to difference in ways that (so it appears to us) our evangelical “parent” churches were not. Many of these traditional churches focused on sameness: we must all behave according to the same rules, sing the same songs, look at the world the same way, and affirm precisely the same propositions. The deconstructive embrace of the significance of differentiation (differance, deference, etc.) gives ET a language for what they have already experienced: liberation from a constricting obsession with sameness.

Second, deconstructive epistemology (or hermeneutics) calls for humility within the search for knowledge. Now, my point is not that all deconstructive philosophers are humble and (say) analytic philosophers are not. My point is that the “method” of deconstruction is self-reflective in a way that promotes an ongoing interrogation of the way in which one is holding on to one’s knowledge. It challenges arrogant claims to have grasped final, neutral, universal truth. Many ET were raised in churches within the American evangelical sub-culture, wherein theological reflection was anything but humble. In fact, it wasn’t even reflection; it was declaration. Insofar as Derrida (and others) share epistemic qualities such as humility with the Christian apophatic tradition, the former can inspire ET to retrieve the latter. As we continue longing to know and be known by God, deconstruction can alleviate some of our modernist anxiety by helping us accept our finitude; we are not God, but this is OK and we can all take a deep breath and humbly follow in the way of Jesus without pretending like we know everything. After all, even he didn’t know everything! ;)

Finally, deconstruction is surprising. We do not know ahead of time exactly what will emerge when we begin the process of interrogating our beliefs and the practices that shape our interpretations. Constantinian churches don’t like being surprised. They like being in control, and so their engagements with the “other” and the “unknown” tend to look more like colonization than open exploration. ET are willing to give up the need to predict the outcome of every encounter with absolute certainty. In fact, they kind of get a kick out of the shocking discoveries that emerge during the journey itself. Allowing for deconstructive moments within philosophy and theology is one way to open oneself to such surprises, and even to delight in them as they facilitate real transformation.

I’m sure there are many other more concrete reasons that deconstruction is appealing to ET, but it seems to me that these three general characteristics of the approach are a significant part of the mutual attraction. But, hey, maybe you think differently. I could be wrong. Surprise me.

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Conversation is already starting to heat up on the official site, but I'd love to hear more from all of you, whose voices have become such a regular part of my life!

Let's try this.  Post one of your favorite quotes from Derrida, Levinas, Marion, Deleuze, Caputo, or others in this general vein, and say briefly why you like it or why you hate it.  (Note I am not tying you to philosophers who would embrace the term "deconstruction" in a narrow sense here).

Personally, I like Levinas the best.  I will start.

Comments

[LeRon]

Levinas writes:

"A relation whose terms do not form a totality can hence be produced within the general economy of being only as proceeding from the I to the other, as a face to face, as delineating a distance in depth - that of conversation, of goodness, of Desire - irreducible to the distance the synthetic activity of the understanding establishes beween the diverse terms, other with respect to one another, that lend themselves to this synoptic operation. The I is not a contingent formation by which the same and the other, as logical determinations of being, can in addition be reflected with in a thought. It is in order that alterity be produced in being that a 'thought' is needed and that an I is needed. The irreversibility of the relation can be produced only if the relation is effected by one of the terms as the very movement of transcendence, as the traversing of this distance, and not as a recording of, or the psychological invention of this movement." (Totality and Infinity, p. 39).

I like this quote because it emphasizes the dynamic movement between, in and around our desiring relations to, with and for one another. It stresses that reason, thought, imagination are always in motion - driven or led or embraced or saturated by desire.

This way of thinking about theological "rationality" does not end with propositions, as many traditional evangelical communities used to do.

Rather, it sees proposing as something we do on the move, and something that happens to us, which we cannot completely control, but which arouses our desire for the other and the Other.

I this is one of the many reasons ET are attracted to this kind of philosophical reflection.

LeRon

[Daniel Eller]

LeRon,

Here is quote from Derrida that effected profound change in the way that I viewed living and dying, or, as Alan Ball puts it, the way I learned “better living through dying:”

“The command requests, like a prayer from God, a declaration of love that implores: tell me that you love me, tell me that you turn towards me, towards the unique one, towards the other as unique and, above all, over everything else, unconditionally, and in order to do that, make a gift of death, give death to your only son and give me the death I ask for, that I give to you by asking you for it.” --Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death

It wasn’t until I read Derrida that I began to understand and take death into myself as an ontological necessity whereby faith, hope, and love are allowed to flourish in the “giveness” of our experience of time. It’s this “turn towards the unique one” that make us tremble before death, an experience that is at once deeply individuating and uniquely unifying. For me, this statement by Derrida is as close a true definition of religious transcendence as I have ever seen.

dan

[knsheppard]

LeRon,

Thanks for your post. I'm too late to get involved in the discussion on the actual site, so I thought I'd ask my question here. What if you're like me, and you take the view of Charles Taylor, who thinks someone like Derrida hasn't got language right or deconstruction quit right? That he has fallen back into the epistemological trap he thinks he's overcoming? I find much to appreciate in deconstruction, and Derrida, for theology, but I'm becoming more and more convinced that another approach conveys a more robust sense of meaning, experience, identity, etc. Obviously you're involved in something like Taylor's 'philosophical anthropology', so I simply wanted to ask where you stand in relation to him, and what kind of engagement there is to be had. Perhaps this is already in one of your books, which means I should be adding it to my reading list! Best,

Kenny.

[LeRon]

Hi Kenny,

Thanks for your comments!

First, the question of interpreting Derrida (and Caputo, etc.) is a very difficult one. I think I would say that I find most of their way of critiquing helpful for reminding us of the limits of modernity, etc., and much of their way of stressing the absence and presence of the infinite (trace, etc.) as useful for reminding us that we cannot (and ought not) to try to control God with our language.

In other words, their way of using language is evocative existentially, and this is what I appreciate most.

I think the quote that Dan gave, and responded to, in the previous comment is a great example of this.

But there are many times that these authors say things less than felicitously. Overstating the case, or over-emphasizing the failure of this or that aspect of modernity, for the sake of making the point. And this is problematic, not only because it is hard to understand, but because it provokes people (rather than evoking).

About Taylor, yes, I like his work very much. I think I mentioned Levinas is one of my favorites, and I think these two have more in common than is often recognized.

I deal with Taylor briefly in "Reforming Theological Anthropology" and with the some of the issues raised by him in The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology.

LeRon

[mike mcleod]

LeRon:

Your evocative post links me with reading Caputo's, The Weakness of God. I must confess it is difficult at times to follow his word-stringing. I so enjoyed his quote "The kingdom of God.., is an anarchized field, produced by exposing being to the prococative name of God...like forces that get scrambled under the influence of some electronic disturbance or interference....Weak forces play themselves out in paradoxical effects that confound the powers that be, displaying the unsettling shock delivered to the reigning powers...."

Caputo cites 1Corithians 1:25-29. God deconstructs the world! This 'called' me to review the scriptural reversals--the first will be last; the last will be first. What is saved is lost; what is lost is saved. The high and strong are displaced with the lowly and weak. "In" gets outed; "Out" gets in! The one is given preference over the ninety-nine. Love one's enemies; hate one's parents. The world wants our children to act as adults; God opts for adults to trust as children. On, and on, and on... Don't control God!

[Thomas Jay Oord]

LeRon,

Like you, I find some aspects of deconstructive philosophy helpful. However, I don't call myself a deconstructionist. I prefer "reconstructionist."

As I read your list of important aspects of deconstructive postmodernism, I noticed that these same aspects are part of the reconstructive postmodernism of say a David Griffin or Catherine Keller. Of course, reconstructionists like myself take the step to offer something to replace that which deconstructionists rightly criticize. Perhaps I'm drawn more toward making a humble contribution than I am to "settling merely" for the work of deconstruction.

For what it's worth...

Tom

[LeRon]

Hi Tom,

Yes, I completely agree... I like the term reconstructive better too.

Actually, over on the other web site I mentioned above this came up and here is what I said there in response to another commenter:

"In fact, I prefer to emphasize re-construction, but I believe that a key moment within the process of reconstruction is to recognize the need for deconstruction, and then of course to leave one's reconstruction open for additional deconstruction.

What worries me more than deconstruction is what I have elsewhere called "paleo-construction." By this, I mean an approach that unearths a particular formulation, or doctrinal set of propositions, dusts them off and places them in a museum that must be protected. Safe, but not useful in the real world.

So, if I have to be pushy, it would be in the direction of deconstruction in order to unsettle those in "evangelicalism" who are happily gazing at their fossilized beliefs.

Once people start to move, then of course, we also need to find a balance that reconstructs the biblical tradition, which includes a movement of retrieval (paleo), but not to dust it off (repeat the propositions) but to refigure the intuitions for transformative dialogue.

This part of the ongoing practice of reforming theology, which is part of being the church, reformed and always being reformed."

Tom, does that sound better to you? Deconstruction as one moment within a broader reconstructive postmodernism?

LeRon

[Thomas Jay Oord]

Yes, sounds good to me, LeRon!

Tom

[James K.A. Smith]

Just for the record, Derrida is clear in a number of different places that deconstruction is NOT de-struction; that is, it is not simply "negative" or critical. It is also "positive" and constructive. A ready reference that comes to mind is his roundtable conversation at Villanova, published in Caputo's book, "Deconstruction in a Nutshell." I also discuss this in my book, "Jacques Derrida: Live Theory."

I point this out just to say that there might be more overlap between what you guys are calling "reconstructive" and deconstructive theologies (though I have reservations about whether, and to what extent, the 'reconstructive' theologies of Cobb & Griffin have undergone a de-modernization--but will save that for our AAR session, right Tom? :-)

[Thomas Jay Oord]

Jamie,

Sounds interesting! I would like to know more about deconstruction as positive or constructive. On what basis does Derrida make this claim?

By the way, I've read pieces of Derrida, but I don't consider myself an authority. I really like Caputo's "Prayers and Tears for Jacques Derrida," and I require my grad students to read it. Yet I come away even from reading Caputo's generous interpretation of Derrida doubting if there remain the kind of ground or basis for positive or constructive theology. So, I'm interested in your thoughts, Jamie.

With regard to demodernization in Griffin/Cobb thought, you are right if you are pointing to their embrace of some aspects of modernity. Griffin especially likes to talk about affirming some aspects of modernism and rejecting others. And he likes to call Derrida most-modern rather than postmodern. It would be fun to identify what if anything about modernity we might want to retain. I would think that even Radical Orthodoxy folk appreciate at least some things modern. Thoughts on that, Jamie or LeRon (or anyone else)?

Tom

[Jvan]

Although I agree that deconstruction does not necessarily imply destruction I think part of what postmodernism is about is presenting a strong challenge to the power structures of knowledge. To quote Foucault: "Writing interests me only insofar as it enlists itself into the realiy of a contest, as an instrument of tactics, of illumination. I would like my books to be, as it were, lancets, or Molotov cokctails, or minefields; I would like them to self-destruct after use, like fireworks."
I think one of the draws to postmodernism for the emergent church is to call into question in a radical way the way certain doctrines and interpretations act as power structures and confine the church to certain modes of thinking and doing. So although the ultimate project may be reconstructive, part of the project is "destructive" as in tearing down certain parts of theology that have been life draining, not life enhancing.

[LeRon]

Jvan,

I agree. There is no getting around that fact that SOME destruction is involved.

This should not surprise us. I'm reminded of Jeremiah's sense of call, in which he is told he will build up and tear down.

I'm also reminded of the natural and gracious psycho-spiritual dynamics of transformative religious experience.... purgation is a part of real growth.

So often we just want the illumination and not the purgation... we'll take a bit of re-construction as long as it isn't painless... just tack on another room or awning onto a building or delapidated room. Sometimes the best thing to do is tear down in order to make a conceptual dwelling more sound.

You got me going... this really is at the heart of the "delightful terror of reforming theology." We want delight but not terror. We want to love God but we do not want any trembling.

LeRon