A Metanarrative for Life, Then and Now

This is a quote from N.T Wright's The New Testament and the People of God. Having been in formal Biblical Studies circles in my past, I certainly know what Tom Wright is getting at here. First of all, you have those who assume that the second you speak of Jesus as an actual person, one whom followers believed to be an actual messiah figure, you’ve moved from the realm of history into dogma. This is just nonsense – in the truest sense of the word; such assumptions are non-sensical. That is not to say that such beliefs (about Jesus as Messiah for instance) are not dogma. But the point is that this doesn’t necessarily presuppose that they cannot also be accurate reflections of history.

Secondly, you have those who think that the safest way to stick to “straight history” is to avoid the question of Jesus as Messiah, son of God, and all that, altogether. Again, the presupposition here is that such topics belong in theological studies, not in the realm of “objective” history. But of course this is a false dichotomy born of Enlightenment assumptions that have been found to be seriously wanting. How can one discuss the history of a theological movement without investigating its theological history?

A third mistake made when it comes to the reconstructing of historical events is touched on by Wright in this section of the quote: “They feel sure that questions must be being begged, that unwarranted harmonization must be going on somewhere.” Now, to be fair, there is plenty on the opposite end of this scale that needs to acknowledged. In other words, there are plenty of so-called historians who harmonize things in a way that seems more like wishful, opportunistic thinking than real historically-critical endeavor. But, that said, as Wright points out here, we have to be careful not to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Just because something has been done badly in the past, doesn’t mean that it can never be done well.

The truth is that there are plenty of people who almost seem to make the a priori assumption that the second you harmonize historical events into some overarching metanarrative, you must be reading into events with a biased, wish-it-were-so, kind of mentality. But, as Wright argues, this doesn’t have to be so. And in fact, for the enquiry to be about real history, one has to at least attempt such harmonization. To do otherwise is either poor academic rigor, actions born of Enlightenment superstition, or perhaps some combination of the two.

I still remember one particular professor of mine: she was a nordic woman from some Scandinavian nation, though which one I can't remember right now. She was a nice enough person, and very intelligent and thoughtful. However, when it came to her biblical studies, one couldn't help but sense that she had lost sight of the forest for the trees. I remember the year I had her for one of my classes. She had just come from a season of field-work, investigating recent discoveries from Qumran. And I don't mean reading up on the subject from some library in Helsinki. She spent that year in and around the actual caves of Qumran.

Still, as exciting as that sounded, I was amazed how she could spend so much time and effort on the minutest textual detail, and yet never seem to get around to forming some sort of metanarrative that tied the whole thing together in some coherent whole. And I got the feeling that this was not just because she didn't want to unduly influence her students, but rather because she had given up doing such things altogether. Her northern European, secularist tendencies were tattooed on her sleeve, so to speak. But I couldn't help but wonder where that put her with Jesus. And where that put her in terms of a metanarrative for her own life.

Following Jesus in Subverting the Empire of Consumption

It's interesting that in the midst of the current economic crisis we don't here much talk of what went wrong in terms of the human factor. Sure, we hear plenty about subprime mortgages and unwise fiscal management, but not much about the factors that underly these concerns. Where does the American dream - or for some, nightmare - fit into the picture? To what extent is it not just greedy CEO's, but also a consumeristic public, that led to our current conundrum? To what extent is growth, versus sustainability, to blame?

Andrew Bacevich has written a book that touches on many of these issues. In the Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism , Bacevich demonstrates how American consumerism plays not only into the growing and bursting of - by their very nature - unsustainable bubbles, but also into American foreign policy. At the end of the day, argues Bacevich, politicians in America are not much different than CEO's - in the sense that all they're concerned with is their approval ratings with their constituents. Keep them pacified and you keep your job.

The excellent movie Syriana (I wrote about it here) raises this same issue: When the American public demands nothing much more than the continuing economic prosperity of the nation, and the unwavering delivery of energy and goods, then politicians become not much more than service providers. We develop foreign policy not based on the good of all, nor even in terms of real national security, but based on the continuing delivery of those goods. Without getting into whether or not we went into Iraq for oil or not, I don't think many people would argue that oil makes American interest in the entire Middle East much more paramount than it would otherwise be.

To Bacevich, the issue we must address is: what is it that we truly value about America? If it is our role in the world as bastions of freedom and democracy then we seriously need to reconsider our unquenchable desire for goods such as oil. After all, again, as Syrianna suggests, when you - whether implicitly or explicitly - tell your elected leaders that, above all, all you expect of them is continued growth and cheap, plentiful "stuff", then we should not be surprised when they're inspired to make compromises and dealings with some less than honorable regimes and powers in order to meet those demands. In fact, when we make those demands for goods paramount, we really lose our ability to, in good conscience, criticize some of the ways elected leaders go about making those provisions possible.

In a recent interview with Bill Moyer Bacevich recalled a speech from Jimmy Carter, whom he considers to be one of America's most underrated presidents, in which Carter outlined some of these issues. In the speech Carter talked about freedom, asking what kind of freedom we want. Is it freedom of consumption? Freedom of indulgence? How exactly do we define freedom? What kind of freedom do we hold most dear? And, just as importantly, what kind of "freedom" are we willing to forgo, in order to protect and preserve the values we most cherish in America.

At present, we are a nation of consumers. In fact, a recent Discover card commercial I keep seeing not only doesn't apologize for this, but actually brags of this fact, saying something like "We are a nation of consumers. And there's nothing wrong with that... there's so much cool stuff to have!" Yikes, excuse me while I vomit! Getting back to Carter: Sure, he lost the election in 1980, but who's fault was that? His? Or a nation that - above all else - demands growth and more "stuff"? Do we want a president who represents our values, or, to be frank, a dealer who makes "arrangements" to get us our fix?

Before you assume this is all rhetoric from the Left, you'd do well to note that Bacevich is a conservative - fiscally and socially. He's making these points because its so painfully clear to him that our elected officials, whether they be Democracts or Republicans, only pay lip service to the idea of living within our means. How about a stat to back up this statement? According to Bacevich, we currently spend about 800 billion more in bringing stuff into this country, than we do in selling to others. That's one massive trade imbalance. And surely, beyond policy, it says something very telling about our collective values.

While we could sit back and say, yeah, those pagans, they're so materialistic and shallow, we would do well to remember recent polling that suggests Christians in America really don't live, or spend, or consume, any differently than the general population. That's right, we are a part of the problem. If we are to speak out prophetically against "Empire", then surely we have to begin by being honest about the Empire of Consumption to which we so regularly pay homage.

Food for Thought Living: The Path that Jesus Walked

There are many aspects of criticism towards the Emerging Church that I find less than compelling, and very often, less than accurate. Often one can almost smell the fear behind such rebukes. It is fear of change. Fear of the unknown. Fear of something new; even if, ironically, this "new" thing is actually a rediscovery of an ancient Christian practice or perspective.

That said, if there is one criticism that, to me, does hit home, is worth heeding, etc., it is this sense that whatever theology we end up with, it must be embodied. It must prove incarnational to be of much value. And, to be clear, by this I mean it must not just be a theology that presupposes a "living out", but it must be a lived out theology. Including an incarnational perspective, without actually doing it, is almost worse than missing the emphasis altogether.

Now, let me also be clear that, in my own life, I am very much aware that this is still a work in progress. Moving my theology off the page, off the screen, off my cerebral cortex, and into my daily living, is still something I am working on. And on many days, probably my most self-aware days, I am cogniscent of just how freshly cut my feet are on this rocky - yet liberating - path that Christ walked.

Thankfully, I am not the only one in Emerging Church circles taking this seriously. I've recently been reading through Mark Scandrette's Soul Graffiti, and very much enjoying its practical, feet-on-the-ground approach to our 21st century Christ-imaging. The subtitle of the book, Making a Life in the Way of Jesus, very much gets at the crux of the book's subject matter. In his critique of western Christianity, Mark has the following to say:


These are words to take seriously. It has been noted that various religious traditions often stop the living out when future generations seek to legislate earlier sayings and doings in the creation of faith institutions. What was organic and present in one moment is cemented into a "holy" image by later generations, in their attempt to honor what God did through a group of people at a specfic point in time. Hence a movement becomes a monument.

Perhaps, as Mark suggest, we have done the same with Jesus. By focusing on what he has already done, perhaps we have missed the point that we are to carry on in that same way of life. That we are to continue on the path that he walked, rather than merely throwing up a heritage marker that celebrates what happened two thousand years ago.

Please don't misunderstand my point here. I am not denying the fact that a major aspect of Jesus' ministry was what he did in reconciling us to God. But this is not an either/or kind of equation. It is very much a both/and. Yes, Jesus reconciled us to God. But we must also affirm, and go about actually doing, the things that Jesus did, realizing that even in these steps we are being reconciled to the heart of God. Salvation, in its fullness, is a journey taken.

Don't Critique or Condemn Culture, Make It

One of the books I've been reading lately is Andy Crouch's Culture Making: Rediscovering Our Creative Calling. It's definitely a little different than anything I've read this year. The book is a fairly easy read, while being impressively comprehensive in its description of what exactly constitutes "culture". And thankfully, this book is much more than a purely academic read. Crouch, as the editorial director of the Christian Vision Project at Christianity Today, has been intimately involved in this field for some time now. Crouch is all for active participation in the creation of cultural alternatives, and he has helped to gather and champion Christians who are doing just that.

When it comes to the culture critics on te other hand, Crouch is critical. Or more specifically, he argues that cultural critique is simply not that productive. As Crouch argues, Hollywood, for instance, doesn't change its mind on the subject matter of its screenplays, merely because some moralistic academic tries to demonstrate, however effectively so, that typical Hollywood fare tends to take the low road. The bottom line is the bottom line. The greenback speaks, via box office receipts. End of story. "The academic fallacy", writes Crouch, "is that once you have understood something - analyzed and critiqued it - you have changed it. But academic libraries are full of brilliant analyses of every facet of human culture that have made no difference at all in the world beyond the stacks."

And when it comes to those who condemn culture, Crouch is even less encouraged, or encouraging. The James Dobson's of the world will no doubt find this perspective disappointing, or worse, condemnable. But SHOUTING, it seems, gets us nowhere; whether that be in a "discussion" with our spouse, or in civic discourse.  Most often, the only ones listening to the shouting are the choir, already concvinced that banging a gong is somehow pleasing to God. Shaming might work in fundamentalist circles, but outside of that sphere, no one's really listening, because the entire milieu of shame and fear is incomprehensible as a paradigm for truth and living.

So what's the alternative? Well, the alternative is the alternative. Which is just an artsy way of saying that the way you combat less than edifying, less than dignified culture, is to create cultural expressions that are. Don't critique. Don't condemn. Create. Hence the title of the book. Crouch writes,

One of Crouch's most interesting, and, I would argue, most compelling arguments, is that culture creation is infinitely more difficult - and more time and energy intensive - than mere revolution. Crouch writes,


Speaking of critiques and all that, perhaps this is a healthy one, when directed towards us in the Emerging movement. It should at least serve as a warning. Many a critic has been critical of our tendency to do nothing much more than condemn, or critique (read: deconstruct) what has come before; especially in terms of the tenets of Modernism. I don' think we should shy away from offering such critique. But we're seriously fooling ourselves if we think our work stops there. It's in the practical alternatives we offer that this movement will ultimately be judged. And I'm not speaking merely of alternate theological and ecclesial  "conceptions", but actual, on-the-ground, flesh and blood communities of faith living out the way of Jesus in the 21st century.

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