Week 10 – Outline Rewrite

In progress…

Week 9 – Cobb Chapter 9

The discussion on ghosts in this chaper seems particularly worthy of further reflection. Beavsn summarizes Fei Xiatong’s conclusion that

…ghosts symbolize beleif in and reverence for the accumulated past….when tradition is concrete, when it is part of life, sacred, something to be feared and loved, then it takes the form of ghosts.

I wonder if the critique is entirely valid. What comes to mind in particular is our own religious roots in the Hebrew Old Testament. The Hebrew Bible as a whole seems to say very little about “the afterlife,” and certainly shows very little thought with regard to “ghosts.” And yet, central to the Jewish community is a sense of tradition and connectedness with the past. Perhaps the function served by ghosts in other contexts is fulfilled in the Jewish context through identification with YHWH and the promised land.

Week 8 – Response to Joe’s blog

Joe wrote:

Although the argument is logical in its construction, the critique doesn’t hold much weight when you consider that overall every theory is just that, a theory, until put in action. As a wise Jedi once said: “No! Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try!”

I’m all for the Yoda quote, but I have to take issue with your general premise.  While there is some validity to the assertion that theory doesn’t really take form until put into practice, I’d also assert that any theory that remains entirely abstract fails to serve the basic purpose of a theory.  That is, the theory must at some level guide or modify our approach to contextual theology in order for it to be useful.  I wonder if the transcendental model meets that criteria; it seems likely that, given this model, one could justify almost any approach (or lack thereof) on the grounds that one is simply seeking an authentic expression/understanding of one’s faith.

Week 8 – Bevans Chapter 8

I find this approach difficult in terms of understanding how one ultimately comes to faith. Theology itself, we are told,

is possible only for the converted subject, only for the person who in full openness has allowed God to touch and transform his or her life.

The very act of revelation, in this model, seems to be dependent on both experience of God and adherence to transcendental principles. Given this model, one wonders how a person becomes aware of God in the first place. The approach seems both human centered (in that it demands a certain attitude of seeking) and insufficient (in that it doesn’t really explain how that first experience of God occurs).

The author suggests that:

God’s love floods a person’s heart where he or she is, and theology is understood as the search for understanding one’s recognition of such gracious action.

And yet, the suggestion is unhelpful; the actual process still remains very abstract and vague.

Week 7 – Barker Chapter 14

Note: this post was written last week but, due to a technical glitch, was not posted until today

The concept of a “fictional closing” to meaning is significant. On a broader scheme, Hall essentially suggests that words fail to serve their function (communication) unless at some point we arbitrarily (and temporarily) close their meaning. Recent discussions regarding the “essentials” of the gospel (in reference to the translation model) lead me to ask a similar question of our understanding of the Christ event.

That is, if one were to describe the “meaning” of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, an infinite number of nuanced concepts come to mind (i.e. triumph over sin, triumph over death, fulfillment of the Law, victory over powers and principalities, justification, substitution, restoration of human-God relationship, etc.). However, if we are ever to express the gospel (which indeed is central to its purpose), we must on some level temporarily close its meaning. We simply cannot explain “gospel” without choosing to temporary limit its range of meaning.

Week 7 – Response to Randy’s post

Randy commented:

Paradise is lost and through our consumerism, materialism and trying to satisfy all our wants and needs, we try to bring back that paradise.  Funny thing is no matter how hard we try, we fail and end up spiritually broken.  The reason being the original “paradise” was about a relationship with God; not the garden itself.  We all need that relationship to experience the paradise lost. 

Well put.  It’s somewhat ironic isn’t it?  Hungry for God, we devote ourselves to consuming everything but him, and then somehow are surprised to find ourselves unsatisfied.  The irony of the jermiad appraoch is that when the search for Eden comes up short, we don’t reconsider the search.  Rather, we give up the quest all together and choose to become content with paradise hoped-for in the midst of lived brokennes. 

Week 7 – Bevans Chapter 7

I affirm how the synthetic model seeks to recognize God’s truth in all contexts, not just our own.  I think it worhtwhile to assert that the soverign God can speak in and through circumstances and voices beyond our own.  Yet, I also strongly agree with the criticism that this approach is likely to become “wsihy-washy” if not grounded in something.  I think it dangerous for the authors to include “Hebrew and Christian Scriptures” among the many relevant contexts, without distinction. 

 Utlimately, we must appeal to some source as more central than the others (and I would argue that Scripture is that source).  Otherwise, our various truth sources are likely to simply “cancel out” one another and leave us with very little left to grasp. 

Response to Harmony’s blog

Harmony commented:

Cobbs wrote, “our highest aspiration is a happiness defined by amusement, engineered along the lines of Disney World or the ubiquitous themed sites of pleasure…” This quote annoys me because of its truth. I am annoyed that the media has completely formed my view of happiness. Due to media, I have high expectations for what a good relationship with a friend, spouse, and family member must be like. It is easy to be unsatisfied.

I appreciate the sentiment, but I also disagree on some level.  I recognize that media plays a role, but I also assert (as did Barker) that people are not merely passive audiences. We are shaped by media, but we also shape media; what we receive from Disney and gang cannot be merely contrived for us, but must somehow reflect what we as a society deem valuable. I think we fail to appreciate the nuance of the situation when we assume that the influence goes in only one direction.

As a case in point, I might note the significant number of dramas on television.  TV series often seem to exploit the morbid and the bizarre. Clearly we don’t receive input like this and somehow see them as reflections of what life ought to look like. But at the same time, we as a society have somehow given these elements a validity that allows them to be exploited in commercial media.

Week 6 – Bevans Chapter 6

Like the two models we’ve seen already, the praxis model offers both valuable insights and potential challenges. Boff’s description suggests well some of the strengths of this approach:

It does not start with words…or end in words…. , but stems from actions and struggles and works out of a theoretical structure to throw light on and examine these actions.

This model is effective (as we’ve seen in liberation theology approaches) because it has the power to change things and to speak to people within the midst of their struggles. The challenge, however, stems from similar roots: one must be very cautious that the gospel message does not change in order to accomodate circumstances or justify actions which ultimately stem from another source.

Week 5 – Barker Chapter 9

I was struck in reading this chapter by the emphasis placed on media as a defining source of understandings of race/ethnicity/nationality. Without negating the role of media in “constructing” these various identities, I would venture to suggest that an overemphasis on media in critiquing this issue points to deeper flaws within our societal structure (perhaps the result of the postmodern attraction to the “hyper-real”): we are unlikely to understand one another properly if our primary source of “diversity” comes through media rather than lived experience.