The Podcast - Episode 4: ‘Evangelicalism’?
May 29, 2008
In this episode of Queer Messages - the Podcast, we chat about the meaning of the term evangelical. We also talk about our views of the bible, Jesus, revelation and culture, conversion, and sanctification, etc.
A few citations:
Phillip R. Thorne, Evangelicalism and Karl Barth: His reception and influence in North American Evangelical Theology (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1995).
As a theological designation, Evangelicals are those who hold a high view of Scripture and a generally conservative theology, often profess a conversion experience and usually place high priority on evangelism and personal sanctification (ibid, 1).
Matt cites David Bebbington’s understanding of the term evangelical - found in Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 2-17. Bebbington focuses on four characteristics: biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, activism.
Thanks for listening, and enjoy the podcast:
Posted by Tony 
Posted in Podcasts, Posts by Matt, Posts by Tony, Queer / Theology, The Church
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Hi guys - I’m an old friend of Adam WC from PTS days, and I really have to commend you on a nice presentation. It’s not easy to find thoughtful discourse on the internet! Thank you.
I have one question for Matt: in the podcast, you pressed Tony to answer whether he is prepared to reconsider his commitment to Jesus Christ. He honestly responded that he isn’t prepared to do so. Are you prepared to reconsider your own commitment to being indefinitely “open to the Other”? It seems to me you’ve caught yourself in a dilemma in pressing Tony to admit his own faith-commitment. Your own faith-commitment consigns you to the fate of being open to the Other, but if the Other (i.e., in this case, an evangelical named Tony) tells you to reconsider being open to the Other, you’re bound to close your mind to said revelation, and henceforth not to take cues from “the Other.” It seems to me that “being open to the Other” is a poor foundation for consistent theological discourse, mainly because the content of “the Other’s” revelation is necessarily left undetermined at any given point in time. I would like to think that orthodox Christian doctrine teaches us to be open to other people, but that THE Other has come and made himself known to us once and for all in the man Jesus. In other words, like Tony, I’d rather go with something much more particular and concrete, like Jesus Christ, than the amorphous “Other” of Continental philosophy. “Being open to the Other” is a “particular kind of thought-form,” which very likely would not find much purchase as the supreme object of faith in, say, Nairobi. The person Jesus Christ clearly has and does find such purchase in such places, as, again, Tony points out.
Incidentally, you gentlemen may find some very interesting lines of thought, if you haven’t already, in Lesslie Newbigin’s Proper Confidence. It seems to me that Tony may be riffing on his argument, wittingly or not, and I have to admit I think it’s a strong argument. We are all committed to certain uncriticized beliefs at any given point in time. The sooner we realize that all intelligence is predicated upon faith of some sort, the better. Tony believes in Jesus Christ, and it appears that Matt believes in “being open to the Other,” whatever that means, and whoever that is.
Also incidentally, I live in Chicago, too. Here’s to the Windy City!
Cheers,
kp
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:25 pm
KP, thanks for your thoughtful question/response. I would initially say that my intention in raising that point to Tony was not to deny that I have my own preordained commitments. My concern–shared by Levinas, Derrida, and others–is that certain kinds of irreducible commitments (which we all inevitably possess, as you point out) are more amenable to openness than others. I am concerned with how we negotiate disagreements and discuss conflicting normative claims and this is why I am concerned about methodologies of adjudication. The problem is that certain material claims—Jesus Christ is the only way to God—if they are taken seriously, require a trumping of methodological considerations. If you really believe that the failure to embrace Jesus Christ calls into question a person’s salvation, then why would openness necessarily be a virtue? Why not try enforced enculturation that would assuredly lead to more conversions?
In my mind, an awareness of human fallibility—which for me is not trumped by suggesting that “revelation” overtakes said fallibility and imposes itself on us as a kind of certitude of which we are normally incapable—leads to openness about competing claims. But if one is so certain about the exclusive divinity of Jesus Christ then what logically prevents this from overtaking any methodological considerations? My basic point here is that my commitment to the other is a methodological claim whereas Tony’s is a material claim. As a material claim, I am open to the fact that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. My method requires that openness but if Tony’s material claim forces me to rethink my methodological claim then I am not open to it.
After a few thousands years of violent forced conversions (not to mention a Holocaust), I am not prepared to elevate any material claim above methodology. In this respect, my argument is heavily indebted to Habermas. I see a tension between the material statement that Jesus is the only way to God and the behavioral openness that would supposedly result from that commitment. I don’t see openness as being of the highest priority in a methodological sense, if one takes Tony’s commitment seriously. I also think it too easily glosses over colonial history and the tendency of westerners to always seemingly possess certain ontological certitudes that somehow evade the influence of language, history, and culture. The Barthian commandeering of language in revelation is for me—another manifestation of this dogmatism—rather than a way around it. Again thanks for your comment, I would love to talk in person with you sometime seeing as we are both Chicagoans. Blessings, Matt
June 26th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Hi Matt:
Thanks for your wonderfully thoughtful response. I appreciate your nuanced position on this, and I’d like some time to think about it. And then, perhaps sometime soon, coffee.
Until then, I cannot resist one parting shot, to which you may feel free to reply - or not. You mention a “tendency of westerners to always seemingly possess certain ontological certitudes that somehow evade the influence of language, history, and culture,” but I have to say, that does a grave injustice to that other cohort of Christians, the Eastern Orthodox, and their equally radical claim to a possession of “certain ontological certitudes,” also known as the Nicene Creed. It seems that if you’re going to pick a fight with the West on this matter, you might not want to stop at Rome, but you should press on to Constantinople and Alexandria as the proverbial General Sherman of creed-fighting.
Cheers,
kp
July 13th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
[...] (conversation begins @ 10.58) Podcast 7: Obama and gay marriage (conversation begins @ 16.59) Podcast 4: making exclusive claims about Jesus (conversation begins @ 35.53) Podcast 7: homophobic discourse [...]