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There is a VERY false pretense that the super-educated highly intellectual and theologically sophisticated Christians are the REALLY EFFECTIVE Christians.…those same people who need to be empowered to TRUST the leading of God and share their testimony need to know…that THAT is the REAL power!

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I chose the name "pia†desideria" because it refers to a book written by Jakob Spener in response to the bitter religious wars and spiritually dead scholasticism after the Reformation. His book Pia Desideria started the pietist movement which emphasized orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy. But I don’t want to say either orthopraxis or orthodoxy, I want it all and I don’t want to settle for less. Having it all means working a whole lot harder. For what it’s worth, I consider Mephi, Modes, and Doc to be examples of theologians who make it happen. We should continue encouraging and challenging one another to better integrate our "orthos."

How do we build "Keepin’ it real" into our theological systems? (Hey, let’s start a school of praxidoxical theology… ) I agree with Modes’ suggestion that we ought to consider encounters like Mephi and his friend's obedience to the Spirit’s leading to help the woman and her family at Dennys to be "data" for our theological systems. Many of us feel convicted about "tearing down walls" of division in our culture such as race, class, and gender. God gave us this conviction (we received it as revelation via the Scriptures and prayer), so we ought to consider it appropriate data for our systems rather than trying to realize it in spite of our systems.

Personal Note: In my seven and a half years in and out of college, I avoided "hardcore rationality" because frankly I found it boring. Does that mean that I am less able to think rigorously or that my brain is mush? Or does that mean I operate just as rigorously out of another system of meaning? Rather than dismissing the legitimacy of one system or the other, their importance needs to be relativized—they just need to be "put it in their place," as Meph suggested. (I want to highlight an important area of agreement here: Mephi, Modes, and Doc agree that systems of meaning are culturally conditioned, but that does not thereby entail incommensurability.)

Anyway, now that I've actually started pursuing my calling, I have realized in a hurry that if I want to be taken seriously I have to learn to play the game. Unlike people who naturally operate out of the dominant meaning system, I don't have the luxury of dismissing certain systems of meaning because I don't find them compelling. So I am setting aside my love for stories and learning to speak in syllogisms (speech that has always seemed ridiculous to me—"sillygisms"?—sorry, couldn’t resist) in order to be taken seriously.

One thing is for sure, as Mephi says, "I gotta be me!" Many of my theology professors have encouraged me to pursue theology because they have convictions about being more inclusive, but at the same time they assume that I am the one who will do all the conforming—I work my butt off to do what comes naturally to them rather than developing the natural strengths I have to offer, which are ignored and dismissed. Inclusiveness has to be more than just code for convincing people who aren't like us to conform so we can feel better about ourselves. Unless we are also willing to do some bending and stretching, we should keep convictions about inclusiveness to ourselves because otherwise it just leads to resentment and disillusionment from people who actually take us up on our offer.

Uh, I guess I caught Meph and Modes' rantin’ and ravin’ bug. Careful folks, it's going around.… pia

And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. — Micah 6:8

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My point exactly. I didn't express myself well in making this point, which is undoubtedly why Modes thought I dissed his posting. But I don't share Mephi and Mode's apparent conviction that the realization of this is something NEW. Post-Modernism, so far as I can see, has given us nothing really new -- except in so far as it has degenerated into nonsense. And even THIS isn't radically new, for you find some of the same self-refuting ideas in ancient skeptics. (My antipathy towards post-modernism is a bit evident, isn't it).

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I may be wrong, but I don't think that Modes and I were saying that the ideas were new. From what I gathered, we were indicating that we believe that the ideas have either been largely forgotten or merely left unapplied as much as they could be by a significant number of contemporary apologists and theologians. And this neglect impacts certain areas of theology and praxis. I think THIS is what we are saying, right, Modes? See, that's the interesting thing about ideas that have been around a long time. Sometimes they get "lost" only to be "rediscovered"...when the idea was THERE all the time! Isn't that what Reformation was essentially about?

Thanks for the compliment, Pia. 'Preciate ya.



Love God. Love People. Love Truth. Dedicate your all to that which you love.

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Modes: First, you are exceedingly odd. You refer to yourself sometimes in the third person. And are you the same as Pseudo-intellectual? Sometimes PI writes as you, though sometimes he/she/it writes about you in the third person -- but you do that to yourself, so what does it prove.

Need some medication there ol'buddy?

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No, I don’t need medication. Sometimes thinking is hard and some questions are particularly vexing for me. I may need to find another outlet for processing if this is not a good one. Perhaps I am odd, but I would have thought that you of all people would appreciate the irony of using PI as a puppet on an Open Theism website. It is quite illustrative of one of our key philophical convictions. I understand you were being playful, but I didn’t appreciate these jabs in the context of my being logically dissected anyway. This would have been fine if I didn't sense so much antagonism in the rest of the exchange.
Greg's and other's words are in quote lines below:

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I have no problem with anything you just said above, except two things: a) I am not convinced the "post-modern skeptic" is all that different from the "modern" or "pre-modern" skeptic. They are more relativistic, more inconsistent, more self-centered, less able to think rigorously (in short, the western brain is turning to mush). But, though they deny it, they end up asking "why believe x" despite themselves, and when you can give logic and evidence it has force to them -- again, despite their claims to relativism.

Second, I think your acquaintance with evangelica apologetics has been limited to the Josh McDowell variety. Try reading some NT Wright, Ben Witherington, Alvin Plantinga... The problem, I think, is not rational apologetics, but apologetics that has not been rational enough.

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I heard this to mean "I agree with everything you said, but you are an idiot for worrying about these relativistic, inconsistent, self-centered, less than rigorous mush brained ideas." How am I to disassociate myself from this list of attributes while I engage the things which you find it adequate to classify in such a way? Is this what you have grown to expect of me? Additionally, do you, as one who is at least in some sense my mentor, really think that I have only been exposed to the likes of McDowell? Did you forget that I not only took your apologetics class but TA’d for it as well (among MANY other classes with and without you)? Not only that, do you classify yourself as McDowell-esque? Am I not aquainted with your thinking? What you did NOT do is accurately articulate the particular questions and issues that I am currently wrestling with, but yet you dismissed them vehemently.

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I'm sorry if you and Mephi just aren't engaging me right now. I must be missing something, but frankly, the points you two are making seem rather banal to me. Maybe I've been over-exposed to this way of thinking.

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Is "banal" really a good word choice if you are interested to find out what we are talking about? But you don’t really have a question about that do you? After all you are clearly not only aware of the issues but "overexposed" to them. The problem though, is that immediately after that cut about us being banal, you go off on a dismissive tirade about your own experiences at Yale, which don’t seem directly related to what is at issue in this conversation. Though your dismissals may be thorough enough in themselves, what they miss are the relevant issues WE have been talking about:

As Meph just pointed out, evangelicals are not attending to some important questions. Much of what we are spending time on is suspiciously self-serving. These are primary claims of post-modernists and liberationists but they are not copywritten. We are still obligated to deal with them though we are not obligated to subscribe to the solutions Yale post-liberals or others dictate. THAT is what I am doing, wrestling with these issues in MY head, not simply repeating stuff you have read elsewhere. These are MY concerns for my own ministries and theologizing.

You keep acting like you agree with us, but you continue to, at every turn, elevate Reason to the supreme court of appeal AS THOUGH your way of doing reason self-evidently serves as a sound foundation. This is central to my question, note my QUESTION! I do not have answers yet, I have questions and concerns, mostly because of what God is convicting me of in local ministry contexts. Back to the point--you seem to me to be thoroughly modern in your attitude toward Reason as the Supreme criteria by which to measure all things. Perhaps you formally acknowledge the limitations of reason, but I don’t see that limitation in your active theologizing. (I DO, however, see it active in your ministering. I am wondering if we can’t be more integrated.):

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4) I do not see how any of this, or anything else, exposes that"foundationalism is as dead as a do-do" -- unless you mean by "foundationalism" the appeal to self=evident a priori truths that are obvious to all who are reasonable. The appeal to the need you believe to exist in every human heart is an appeal to foundational knowledge. So is the appeal to a RATIONALITY you believe to exist in the human mind. I think both are correct. And I don't see where we disagree.

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Since your supreme category seems to be Reason, it stands to "reason" that you would say this. But that is not my supreme category. My supreme category is still fuzzy to me at present, but it will reflect more the relational nature of reality. You say that my appeal is to a foundational knowledge, no. Rather it is an appeal to a foundational relationality, or in the case of our universal state of sin, a foundational misrelation. A sickness, a brokenness, not merely an error in our rationality. My point is that where you seem to find rationality to be fully adequate, while formally conceding its finitude, I am growing more and more suspicious of rationality itself as the supreme category. Rather it would be recognized as a tool, not a telos.

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Now, if your saying something more radical than this -- something along the lines of "all truth claims are power moves" (not just possibly influenced by claims to power) -- then I have a very different critique to make. But I didn't hear you as saying anything like this.

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All truth claims ARE power moves. And Jesus is well within his right to make his "power move." We are not so blameless. So I guess I’ll be hearing your other critique that you have up your sleeve. Obedience is about power. Who is our master? This is a question of power.

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I agree that these observations, IF TRUE (note the truth claims!), expose some popular apologetics approaches as niave. (Though many popular apologists, such as Shaeffer and Lewis, were very much in line with the kind of apologetics YOU are advocating). But beyond this, I don't see what the big deal is with all of this.
Tell me what I'm missing.

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I am not denying that truth claims are needed, I am just questioning whether we can make Absolute ones on our own authority, and those are the ones that really matter. It is different with Christ. Christ is entitled to make such claims, and we are required to obey and HUMBLY discern the new applications of such truth claims. The "big deal" is that I suspect that just as unity in the body of Christ depends upon our willingness to release power to others so that justice can be served, our theological strongholds will have to be modified in the same way. Just as a conference held by white folks, organized by white folks, spoken at by white folks, and paid for by white folks is not likely to attract African Americans, Hispanics or Asians, our theoligizing has the same problem. If we don’t hear those voices as they offer their takes on various issues of theology, ecclesiology, etc. we should not expect anything more than a superficial coexistence with each other. As a wise black woman I know has said, "If we are not invited to join in setting the table, don’t expect us for dinner." This means theology too. We may say we want a diverse church, but do we really? Can we handle a diversified theology? What would that even look like? These are some of my concerns. NOW tell me that who does the thinking and who controls the key texts doesn’t matter! Is this a new problem? Not really. Is it a massively overlooked problem? Absolutely. And it is both for me personally; new and overlooked. Greg you should know me well enough by now that things get under my skin and it takes me some serious thinking AND doing to get them out. That’s what this thread was about from the get go. Remember our baptism debates throughout the years? From my being baptized by emmersion to our debates for church policy…and WHO just taught the straight up water baptism class last month? Give me some credit…

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Pia: I don’t want to say either orthopraxis or orthodoxy, I want it all and I don’t want to settle for less.

Doc. Amen. Because I believe we are wired for congruity, I would go one step further and suggest that a rigorous thought ought orthodoxy encourages a passionate orthopraxy. Hence the CVM slogan about addressing the head and the heart. The more congruity there is in the head, the easier it is for theheart to get behind it.

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Again your prioritizing of Reason as supreme seems clear here. What of discernment? What of simple obedience to the Spirit’s leading? MY MOST passionate obedience comes out of clearly SPOKEN words from God to me, not convictions that I build by making a persuasive case for my argument. Perhaps I am strange in this, but I actually PRAY that God would not make it a matter for me to struggle with but rather to make things a simple matter of obedience for me. THEN I can passionately obey in confidence and faith.

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Pia: we ought to consider it appropriate data for our systems rather than trying to realize it in spite of our systems.

Doc: Amen... expect, of course, one has to realize that experience is not self-interpretive. One has to be a bit careful, for some people "experience" God as the devil. Hence the tradition has always said that experience must be interpreted in the light of Scripture, not the other way around. (BUT, of cousre, this doesn't mean that we can interprete Scripture "in a vacume." Its a dialectical relationship.)

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YES, and AS a dialectical relationship between Scripture and experience, it is subject to many relative influences. WHICH of these gains the upper hand and why is the question I am wrestling with. Reason can either be used as a tool to encourage as much consistency as possible, or it can be used to insure that a preferred system, or way of reading always comes out on top. Particularly when we have the luxury of marginalizing competing systems of meaning simply by omission. This too was a point of Pia’s. At the very least, Reason is often illigitimately used to insure that certain sacred beliefs are preserved.

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Pia: Rather than dismissing the legitimacy of one system or the other, their importance needs to be relativized—they just need to be "put it in their place," as Meph suggested. (I want to highlight an important area of agreement here: Mephi, Modes, and Doc agree that systems of meaning are culturally conditioned, but that does not thereby entail incommensurability.)

Doc: My point exactly. I didn't express myself well in making this point, which is undoubtedly why Modes thought I dissed his posting. But I don't share Mephi and Mode's apparent conviction that the realization of this is something NEW. Post-Modernism, so far as I can see, has given us nothing really new -- except in so far as it has degenerated into nonsense. And even THIS isn't radically new, for you find some of the same self-refuting ideas in ancient skeptics. (My antipathy towards post-modernism is a bit evident, isn't it).

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Each response here to Pia starts with appearant agreement (here it is appearantly EXACT agreement…) but then modifies her meaning. How confident are you that she would appreciate your "clarifications" on each point? As Meph said, we are not claiming or even concerned about novelty, just raw honesty with our thinking. You assume that to take up these ideas remains obviously self-refuting as you repeat just above. You seem very quick to lump all these ideas together, label them post-modernism and then dismiss them out of hand. That pattern continues to trouble me This is why I am not feeling very well understood by you Greg. Meph and Pia do seem to be resonating with what is being said, and you do to a very limited extent, but then you turn to reject it all in one sweeping generalization along the lines of, "oh yes, THAT drivel again!"

To sum up the personal stuff…Frankly, the overall lack of sympathy you showed for my going through these difficult issues with as much integrity as I can muster is disappointing.

To sum up the other stuff…While this started as strictly an internal struggle FOR ME, the character of your engagement with me causes me to conclude that we are currently thinking quite differently about these issues, at least in terms of their importance and relevance if not formally. This surprises me because of how much we typically tend to agree on things, even politically. Since you chose to defend your position with regard to my questions and issues, I will respond to it by saying that right now you seem to me to be largely guilty of the overconfidence that post-enlightment Western thinkers place upon Reason. This is evidenced in your argumentation itself, but even moreso in what counts as important for you to consider (FORMALLY I mean. Practically, meaning in hands on ministry stuff I see more balance. This is a huge qualification!). This seems natural enough really. As one constructs a system and has more and more development within it, certain questions are no longer entertained with the same rigor and seriousness. We are all finite. Closure is eventually necessary for us to some degree, at least as individuals. It would happen to anyone who is building a system. Honestly, I expect that this should count as a complement to you, you do what you do very well. I am just struggling personally about whether I want to do things any differently. I would have imagined that you’d encourage this.

Greg, should you choose to respond, please do not simply repeat what you have already argued forcefully here. My mind may be going to mush but my memory is fine. I have honestly tried to sort through what I saw as the confusion and how I felt misunderstood. Please address THAT, rather than focussing on the simple logic of my concerns. Perhaps you feel that you have been doing this all along, in which case nothing more need be said except perhaps an acknowledgement that you have read this as well.

Meph, with regard to your question above. Yes, we are still tracking as far as I can tell.



"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

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From a personal/gut level, I have to say I wrestle with these issues pretty much all the time. Most of the time the wrestling is one sided. And it gives me SO MUCH HOPE to see two people in dialouge about the very issues I could kill someone over, for being overlooked.

Tremendously appreciative,
(Sniff, sniff)
Cibertus

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Hey Ciber-buddy, don't kill anybody over this okay? I might feel implicated. I KNOW (truth claim/power move) Wislawa would feel implicated

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

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If you want to press on with the discussion, one place to begin might be this question: Do you feel that anything you said in your last post supports or requires the [truth] claim "All truth claims are power moves"?

I'l play my hand first (like it would be a surprise to anyone). I would argue that accepting this maxim, which I believe is self-refuting in any case, would be disadvantageous to the very critique of power you rightly believe we should engage in. (This is the paradox I find in the more radical post-modern movement. The most one can do if one holds that "All truth claims are power moves" is complain that one isn't in power, and express it by charging the dominant power with being "wrong" (viz. untruth = wish you weren't the ones in power).

Where do you stand vis-a-vis this maxim?

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Okay, I DO think (right now anyway) that all truth claims (at least all important or relevant) are power moves. Presummably, ANY relevant claim made is being made for some reason and to that extent is intended to have some effect (and this is facilitated with reference to some telos served by various abductions of personal interest to someone). I do think that words are performative, not merely informative. Words, claims, assertions, etc.-- do something. Even if the words only cause another person to pause a moment and acknowledge that something has been said, something has happened. Power is involved. On the other end of the spectrum (this end representing relative insignificance) the ultimate power move is represented by Christ who is the ultimate WORD. This WORD is Absolute and becomes the true criterion for testing all other claims to truth (first as a person, but also as a teacher--thinking integration here--toward praxidoxical theology). And this Word is the ultimate in power moves. In this Word is all hope and all power for reconciliation and so on...

Greg, I suspect you may claim a category error here, but I am not so sure yet. Here's a sketchy breakdown of what I am suggesting (Meph can probably clean this up better than I can.) is AT LEAST useful to live by and I think is also useful to think by:
1. All truth claims are power moves. All truth claims other than Christ's, because they are rooted in finite sources and circumstances are inherently relative and should be recognized as such.
2. However, Christ's very existence represents a Word of God to us which is not merely relative. It is absolute because of WHO is speaking--that is, God of course. THIS is what makes Christ's claims and teachings so offensive! Not so much his compassion or his ethical standards, but the authority Christ claimed and assumed when he spoke and acted!
3. Post-modernists are often RIGHTLY offended by various claims to power because of the misapplication of this logic. Some group has power and makes claims and does so in a way that outruns their respective authority. Clever post-modernists easily deconstruct such arrogance and show that they are in no position to make such sweeping claims and do not rightly have the power they are using or abusing. Perhaps there is a legit amount of authority that a group or person has, but very often that institution or person seeks to further that claim to and/or possession of power (sinful orientation). Of course, the fundamental problem eventually emerges that there is no human person or institution which DOES warrant absolute authority so chaos insues. However it is different for Christians! We have our absolute in Jesus Christ. This was Kierkegaard's brilliance, to recognize the necessity of our relating relatively to all things relative and absolutely to the one Absolute.

This may give some indication of what direction I want to head in...

BTW: this makes it very clear how important the distinciton between 1st and 2nd order discourse must become!

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

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I think Pia's got the hots for Modes.

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After all those nasty names he called me? I’m just happy Modes is finally behaving himself.

pia

“And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” — Micah 6:8

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Modes: "Presumably, ANY relevant claim made is being made for some reason and to that extent is intended to have some effect (and this is facilitated with reference to some telos served by various abductions of personal interest to someone)."

Doc: True, but why think the telos behind a claim to truth is a power move? Why can’t the telos simply be to express a conviction one believes is true? Why can’t one’s purpose be to submit it to others for their consideration? If the truth one affirms is deemed helpful, why can’t a person express it to help others?

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