The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion

I blogged a few months back about the 4th conference in the Postmodernism, Culture and Religion series at Syracuse, "The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion." Over the last few days, churchandpomo have posted the contributions to a symposium on continental philosophy of religion that were first published in Faith and Philosophy vol.6, no.9 (Oct 2009).

First, James K.A. Smith (Calvin College) wrote, "Continental Philosophy of Religion: Prescriptions for a Healthy Subdiscipline." Abstract: Over the past decade there has been a burgeoning of work in philosophy of religion that has drawn upon and been oriented by "continental" sources in philosophy—associated with figures such as Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, Gilles Deleuze, and others. This is a significant development and one that should be welcomed by the community of Christian philosophers. However, in this dialogue piece I take stock of the field of "continental philosophy of religion" and suggest that the field is developing some un-healthy patterns and habits. The burden of the paper is to suggest a prescription for the future health of this important field by articulating six key practices that should characterize further scholarship in continental philosophy of religion.

Then Bruce Ellis Benson (Wheaton College) replied with, "A Response to Smith's 'Continental Philosophy of Religion'." Abstract: All of us working in continental philosophy of religion can be grateful to James K. A. Smith for his call to consider which practices will best further the "health" of the burgeoning subdiscipline of continental philosophy of religion. Given that he offers his suggestions "in the spirit of 'conversation starters,'" my response is designed to continue what I hope will be an ongoing conversation. With that goal in mind, I respond to Smith by considering not only the practicality of each suggestion but also whether adopting practices he suggests would actually improve the health of the subdiscipline.

And then Jamie responded with, "The End of Enclaves: A Reply to Benson." Abstract: In reply to Benson’s response, I agree that we should be seeking the dissolution of all enclaves in philosophy of religion—whether continental or analytic. But I continue to suggest that continental philosophy of religion bears special burdens in this respect.

The Liturgical Turn

I'm going to try and apply for a three week seminar series next summer with James K.A. Smith at Calvin College. It's called "From Worldview to Worship: The Liturgical Turn in Cultural Theory" and stems from Smith's interest in "arguing for the importance of practices, and particularly liturgical practices, as the "site" or "topic" of philosophy of religion," with which I completely agree. Not only do I also want to be working at the intersection of theo-philosophy and the empirical study of religion, but it would be great to meet Jamie, whose work I used in my PhD thesis, as well as to experience American postgraduate culture.

Here's the seminar description:

""Religion" has received increased attention from both social scientists and journalists over the past decade. But the phenomenon of religion has also been reconceived: rather than focusing simply on beliefs and doctrines, sociologists, anthropologists, and philosophers of religion are increasingly attentive to the role of practice and ritual as fundamental to religious identity. So rather than merely distilling the "worldview" of religious communities, scholars exegete the understanding implicit in worship practices. Thus one could speak of something like a "liturgical turn" in "cultural theory" –an appreciation for the formative role of cultural practices in constituting communities of meaning. This can be seen in the philosophical work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Charles Taylor; the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu and Christian Smith; research in social psychology as seen in the work of Timothy D. Wilson and John A. Bargh; and the theological developments in the work of Stanley Hauerwas, Graham Ward, and Craig Dykstra. This has important implications both for the study of religion, including Christianity, as well as for critical reflection on faithful religious practice."

Christianity and Contemporary Politics

Over at the churchandpomo blog, there is a micro review by James K.A. Smith of Luke Bretherton's Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness.

I'm hoping to take my own research in the direction of political theology, drawing out the socio-political implications of my thesis on "truth" in emerging Christianity and post-secular theologies (Radical Orthodoxy and deconstructive theology). This will, I hope, speak to the debates around "new traditionalist" critiques of liberalism and democracy (Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, John Milbank, John Rawls, Jeffrey Stout), so I'll be putting Luke Bretherton's book - which explores the positive contributions of the over-polarised field of political theology; a field that, as Jamie Smith writes in his micro review, is often divided between "Stoutian liberals vs. ecclesiocentric ROers" - on my to do list. In particular, I'm looking forward to the conclusion: "Towards a Politics of Hospitality and a Theology of Politics."

Related is a a King's College Faith and Public Policy Forum seminar on Monday 18th October 2010 that Jason Clark drew my attention to: "Stanley Hauerwas in Conversation with John Milbank and Luke Bretherton," also marking the publication of Hauerwas' Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir. The event will run from 5.30-7.00pm at the Great Hall on Strand Campus.

Thesis to Book

Currently engaged in transforming my doctoral thesis into a book, I have now finished drafts of Chapters One and Two, which basically set the scene for the book's central argument by introducing Radical Orthodoxy (particularly James K.A. Smith's "postmodern catholicism"), deconstructive theology (especially Jack Caputo's "weak theology"), and the emerging church (as a milieu organised around several diversely understood discrusive and practical commitments).


There are, of course, several publications on the market aimed at helping academics at this stage in their career, including William Germano's From Dissertation to Book and Getting It Published; Eleanor Harman's The Thesis and The Book; and Revising Your Dissertation: Advice from Leading Editors, edited by Beth Luey. I haven't read any of them, but I have been tracking down advice for PhD students from publishers such as Ashgate (here) and researching formats for book proposals.

There are several questions that I'm asking myself at the moment, particularly:

• "is my thesis best suited to publication as a book, or as a journal article or series of journal articles?"

and,

• "to what audience would my book be addressed?"

Postmodernism, Difference and the Logic of Late Capitalism

Today's "what I'm reading" comes from Blake Higgins' blog, "(Ir)religiosity." In a post on the now "classic" critique of postmodernism as the logic of late capitalism (see especially the work of Frederic Jameson and David Harvey), Blake quotes from Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire, pp.137-138 and 142-143.



In my doctoral thesis, I explored how emerging church discourse often positions the narratives and liturgies of consumerist capitalism as cultural forces that form subjectivities and socialities that are antithetical to the subjectivities and socialities formed by the narratives and liturgies of the Christian tradition. See, for example, the work of James K.A. Smith in Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation, and the doctoral research of Jason Clark, for example this blog on the relationship between dieting and discpleship (desire). While many would argue that Hardt and Negri's critique is narrativally positioned not by the Christian tradition but by the Marxist tradition, this part of emerging church discourse nonetheless has much in common with the post-Marxist critique of postmodern culture.

"We suspect that postmodernist and postcolonialist theories may end up in a dead end because they fail to recognize adequately the contemporary object of critique, that is, they mistake today’s real enemy. What if the modern form of power these critics (and we ourselves) have taken such pains to describe and contest no longer holds sway in our society? What if these theorists are so intent on combating the remnants of a past form of domination that they fail to recognize the new form that is looming over them in the present? [...] In this case, modern forms of sovereignty would no longer be at issue, and the postmodernist and postcolonialist strategies that appear to be liberatory would not challenge but in fact coincide with and even unwittingly reinforce the new strategies of rule! When we begin to consider the ideologies of corporate capital and the world market, it certainly appears that the postmodernist and postcolonialist theorists who advocate a politics of difference, fluidity, and hybridity in order to challenge the binaries and essentialism of modern sovereignty have been outflanked by the strategies of power. Power has evacuated the bastion they are attacking and has circled around to their rear to join them in the assault in the name of difference. These theorists thus find themselves pushing against an open door." (137-38)

"The affirmation of hybridities and the free play of differences across boundaries, however, is liberatory only in a context where power poses hierarchy exclusively though essential identities, binary divisions, and stable oppositions. The structures and logics of power in the contemporary world are entirely immune to the 'liberatory' weapons of the postmodernist politics of difference. In fact, Empire too is bent on doing away with those modern forms of sovereignty and on setting differences to play across boundaries. Despite the best intentions, then, the postmodernist politics of difference not only is ineffective against but can even coincide with and support the functions and practices of imperial rule. The danger is that postmodernist theories focus their attention so resolutely on the old forms of power they are running from, with their heads turned backwards, that they tumble unwittingly into the welcoming arms of the new power. From this perspective the celebratory affirmations of postmodernists can easily appear naive, when not purely mystificatory." (142-43)

What I'm Reading

One of the key figures in my doctoral thesis is James K.A. Smith, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. As well as blog Fors Clavigera (see here for an explanation of its title), he writes a What I'm Reading blog, which is actually the older of the two. Jamie describes What I'm Reading as "something between an annotated bibliography and a collection of book reviews." This is something that I'm going to try out with this blog.

Having completed my PhD, I now spend my days hunting for academic jobs, writing conference papers, and turning my thesis into a book and a couple of articles, and I'll still post about these things. However, I'm also still reading new things. So I thought I might try out posting snippits of what I'm reading which will give insight into where I am hoping to go next with my work.

Since my postdoctoral aspirations converge on exploring the possibility of Derridean radical sociality, I thought starting with this from Slavoj Zizek's The Puppet and The Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity, pp.43-44 -

"When today's Left bombards the capitalist system with demands that it obviously cannot fulfill (Full employment! Retain the welfare state! Full rights for immigrants!), it is basically playing a game of hysterical provocation, of addressing the Master with a demand that will be impossible for him to meet, and will thus expose his impotence.

"The problem with this strategy, however, is not only that the system cannot meet these demands, but that those who voice them do not really want them to be satisfied.

"When, for example, 'radical' academics demand full rights for immigrants and the opening of borders to them, are they aware that the direct implementation of this demand would, for obvious reasons, inundate the developed Western countries with millions of newcomers, thus provoking a violent racist working-class backlash that would then endanger the privileged position of these very academics?

"Of course they are, but they count on the fact that their demand will not be met - in this way, they can hypocritically retain their clear radical conscience while continuing to enjoy their privileged position."

Refuting the Allergy to Determinacy

My paper at the "Towards a Philosophy of Life" conference, "Making Good on the "Good" of Life: Emerging Logics and Poetics of the Kingdom" (see here for my abstract) was well received. A few people who hadn't been there had heard from others who were that it was good, which was really nice to hear. Jack Caputo called it 'sizzling,' but I don't really know what that means! He said he completely agreed with my analysis of James K.A. Smith's work, particularly the logic of incarnation (see blog post here about Jack's paper, "Bodies Without Flesh: The Soft Gnosticism of Incarnational Theology"), and said again that I read him very well (he had positive things to say about my Boston paper too, see here for an overview of what I said). But I guess it's easy to get those kinds of reactions when the person whose work you are reflecting on is a lovely guy and when you're saving favourable things! I'd love to get Jamie Smith's take on what I'm doing. Maybe I could email him? He's working on a trilogy (first part to be published this September, entitled Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation) on a theology of culture, but I'm particularly intrigued by his methodological work arguing for the importance of liturgical practices as the site for philosophical reflection on religion.

Anyway, this paper forms parts of my doctoral thesis, particularly chapter Six, "Truth and Fictionality." But, as slightly tangential to my main argument, it is something that could easily be turned into a journal article with some more padding out and the like. As you can see from the paper's abstract (here), my main concern is to refute the criticisms Jamie Smith levels at Jack Caputo's Derridean deconstructive theology. Jamie's criticisms can be found most accessibly in his "The Logic of Incarnation: Towards a Catholic Postmodernism" in Neal DeRoo and Brian Lightbody's The Logic of Incarnation: James K.A. Smith's Critique of Postmodern Religion, pp.3-37. Smith identifies in both Caputo and Derrida what he terms a 'logic of determination.' (See here for more details on all this). My paper argues that the operative logic at work in Caputo's theology is that of the call or the promise which, far from being allergic to particularity, as Smith contends, seeks to release the promise in particular determinate religious (and "non-religious") traditions.

My argument runs basically thus:

• A presentation of Smith's characterization of the 'logic of determination.'

For Smith, the Derridean/Caputian logic of determination results in an interpretation of particularity that assumes, first, the finite nature of human life to be structurally (that is, necessarily) regrettable and, second, the interpretive visions of life and hopes for life of humanity’s determinate religious traditions to be exclusionary, violent and unjust. Thirdly, for Smith, the consequences of such a logic include the translation of Derrida’s undeconstructible justice into an indeterminate, not specifically Christian, kingdom of God that is similarly structurally always to-come, never present.

• A defense of Caputo's theological project against these criticisms (in an alternative order).

Firstly, Caputo’s reflections on the name of God are associated with several particular determinate traditions, including the creation narratives and the kingdom parables of the Christian scriptures. Secondly, an exploration of these creation and kingdom themes reveals that finitude is affirmed as part of the "goodness" of creation, no matter what, by God's "good," his "yes," at the moment of creation, and that the kingdom of God is our second "yes," our affirmation of the task of "making good" on the goodness of creation, no matter what. Thirdly, then, a (mis)interpretation of the kingdom of God as a concept that corresponds to a literal reality that will either arrive (Smith) or never arrive (Smith's reading of Caputo) (mis)characterizes it as a concept that aims to be representational rather than as a concept that aims to be transformational.

• An argument that Caputo's theology is preferable to Smith's.
  

In reflecting phenomenologically on the general structure of religious experience, both Caputo and Smith emphasise the undecidability of life, the contingency of our interpretations of it, and the fictive nature of all hermeneutics. However, Caputo more successfully retains these phenomenologcal insights in his particular, determinate Christian theology than Smith.

You can view my powerpoint presentation below, and email me if you'd like a copy of the paper I gave; but I'm thinking seriously about turning it into a journal article. Over the next year (once I've finally submitted my thesis) I will be attempting to get a publishing contract to turn it into a book, but this little nugget of the argument could easily be slotted out and published in article form. At the moment, I'd entitle it: "Refuting the Allergy to Determinacy: Determining the Theo-Logic of the Call in Weak Theology."

Making Good on the "Good" of Life: Emerging Logics and Poetics of the Kingdom

View more documents from Katharine Moody.

Philosophy of Life Conference Round-Up

I got back last night from Liverpool Hope's "Towards a Philosophy of Life: Reflections on the Concept of Life in Continental Philosophy of Religion" conference, having had a thoroughly enjoyable (if not totally follow-able) weekend. My own learning style is not comfortable with listening to people read written papers. I'm much more at home with people presenting, rather than reading, work. But philosophers tend to go for the practice of writing a journal paper or book chapter or whatever, and then just reading it out - rather than thinking about their audience's learning styles and altering the piece in order to facilitate rather than alienate others! Only very few of the papers this weekend were easy to follow (even if you knew the material they were talking about) which was disappointing. But I have always felt that sociologists of religion are much better presenters, thereby actually helping their audience follow their argument. Didn't mean to start this post off with a bit of a moan, but philosophers' styles of presentation do tend to detract from the enjoyment of philosophy conferences.

I met a cool bunch of people, including Simon Scott (PhD student at Warwick), Shahida Bari (How To Live blog), Aaron Landau (University of Hong Kong), Todd Mei (University of Kent) and Chad Lackies (Concordia Seminary, here's his blog). It was particularly great to meet Colby Dickinson (KU Leuven) whose paper on Agamben, the messianic and canonicity was really stimulating because of a resonance with my own work. Canonicity, Colby writes, is "the 'desire' for the canonical over and beyond any canon," clearly mirroring the hope against hope for the messianic given voice in but not restricted to determinate concrete messianisms. My paper also charted this dual movement, but in relation to Jack Caputo's historical association with Christianity (I was looking particularly at creation and kingdom in order to refute Jamie Smith's characterization of Caputo's work as allergic to determinate particularities, more of which in a later post) and messianic disassociation. Colby made some intriguing connections with identity formation, and Jack, Colby and I had a useful discussion after his paper about how communities that adopt deconstructive theologies actually do (ir)religious community. It's what I'm hoping to work on next, getting together a proposal for a research fellowship after I've finished my thesis.

Anyway, Jack's paper on "Bodies Without Flesh: The Soft Gnosticism of Incarnational Theology" was very thought provoking, though I know there were a lot of people that were very disppointed that John Milbank only came for his own paper, rather than engaging with Caputo's criticisms of Radical Orthodoxy's incarnational theology. His excuse was that he had, apparently, been stuck on one of the amphibious vehicles (duck) that take you on tours round Liverpool and brokedown (lame). Well, Jack's paper draws from his work towards a sequel to The Weakness of God, currently entitled The Weakness of Flesh. He argued that incarnational theology's incarnation is not radical enough. It is a theology of in-carnation, rather than a theology of carnality. It places "the life of flesh within an economy of bodies without flesh." Like contemporary robotologists, incarnational theology attempts to transform bodies of flesh into bodies without flesh, in the process "betraying" flesh, harbouring a secret "horror of flesh." Instead, he asked, "What would a theology of carnality itself, before or without In-carnation, look like?" "Instead of a transaction between fleshly and fleshless being, I propose a more radical conception of incarnation as an event of flesh itself, of becoming-flesh," of taking, therefore, Christianity seriously, at its word, as the Word made flesh. Caputo is, as I intimated above, not removing himself from the Christian tradition but trying to make the tradition "make good" on its promises. Looking forward to The Weakness of Flesh already!

Paris

Sim and I are taking a few days off and heading to Paris for a few days.

We're going to see Antony and the Johnsons tonight at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, staying in a hotel on Brindley Place and then Eurostar-ing it tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to some mellow time wandering around and looking at pretty things... Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Sainte Chapelle, the Louvre, Musee Rodin... Very excited!

While we're away I'm going to be (re)reading Jamie Smith's Speech and Theology Language and the Logic of Incarnation. Just in case you were thinking I was going to be able to leave work behind for a bit. Oh no. No time, missy!

"Making Good" on a Paper Submission

So my abstract for the "Towards a Philosophy of Life" conference at Liverpool in June (conference details here, abstract here) was accepted. My paper will be entitled, "Making Good on the "Good" of Life: Emerging Logics and Poetics of the Kingdom," and is basically the last chapter of my thesis, "Poetics." This chapter demonstrates how the preceding findings regarding the notion of truth in the UK emerging church milieu informs the debate between Radical Orthodoxy (particularly James K.A. Smith's 'postmodern catholicism') and deconstructive theology (especially Jack Caputo's 'weak theology'). So I now have to fit writing this paper into my thesis writing schedule (see here). But it'll be worth it, as both Caputo and John Milbank will be presenting at the conference too, so it'll be a great room of people to present this stuff too. I'll also have a bit of time after the conference for any revisions from the paper to feed into the chapter itself.

Thesis Abstract - April 2009

For our annual Panel Reviews (here and here for posts on last year's panel review process and here for this year's comments!) we have to submit a number of documents for the panel to read and evaluate prior to the review itself. One of the things they ask for is a one page summary of your thesis, the title of which is (at the moment) going to be Emerging Truth/Justice: Towards a Poetic Understanding of (Christian) Truth, focusing on central arguments and main findings. I thought I'd post my one page summary here, so you can see what I'm hoping to argue and also compare it to another thesis abstract I wrote only a few months ago (here) to see how it is changing as I continue to write up. So it's a little longer than an abstract would be but it's been really helpful for me to write - I now know that not only do I know what I want to say in my head, I can actually get it out onto a piece of paper for other people to see!!! Along with the central argument, I decided to try to hone my keywords:

This thesis explores how the notion of truth is conceptualized within the UK emerging church milieu, a diverse network of individuals and communities connected by the Internet and often particularly interested in the relationship between Christianity and the postmodern turn. Participants’ post- or late modern context of religious pluralism and individualism has impacted the ways in which the truth claims of the Christian religion are understood. Further, the theological turn of contemporary philosophy has also brought participants in contact with thinkers like Nietzsche, Derrida, Marion, Lévinas and Žižek, whose work in relation to religion raises questions of the nature of truth. This project therefore sought to discover not only what the philosophical, theological and ethical implications of participants’ conceptualizations of truth might be for Christian belief and practice, but what these notions of truth reveal about the viability of academic theologies like Radical Orthodoxy and deconstructive theology for the UK emerging church milieu.

Qualitative data was gathered from emerging church literature, emerging church blogs and interviews with a variety of UK milieu participants. This data displayed a conceptual pluralism about truth: truth is not only a concept that could be manifest differently in particular propositional domains, but is also understood non-propositionally as an event of truth itself. Participants identified both this truth-event and the truth of religious and spiritual propositions with the transformation of subjectivity and behaviour.

The author distinguishes between two strands which arise within the UK emerging church milieu regarding the truism that truth is transformative.

For the first, religious/spiritual propositions are true just when the transformation they evoke conforms to the norm of justice, a norm that itself coheres with a durably coherent framework of moral judgements towards which human beings aim in community and dialogue with each other. This conclusion has implications for collaboration across religious/secular boundaries. Those participants within this strand often, but need not, assume a theologically realist ontology. It is, however, difficult to overcome the objection that transformation here is merely a response to truth and not inherent to the concept itself.

In relation to religious/spiritual propositions, the second detectable strand within the data connects transformative truth not to propositional content but to the way in which propositions are believed. This is a consequence of their emphasis upon transformative truth as the non-propositional event of truth itself. Here, participants endeavour to keep religious/spiritual propositions open to the auto-deconstructive event at the heart of all language. Deconstruction is therefore intrinsic to religious propositions, traditions and institutions, to all the ways in which humanity names the event. For these participants, the language of truth is often supplanted by that of the other words used for the undeconstructible event, including justice and kingdom of God, which are understood as transformational rather than representational notions. Conceiving truth in this way places transformation within the concept itself, rather than as a response distinguishable from the truth that caused it.

These findings regarding truth in the UK emerging church milieu enable the author to assess theologies that have been suggested as apt for the milieu, James K.A. Smith's Radically Orthodox 'postmodern catholicism' and John D. Caputo's deconstructive 'weak theology.' It is argued that Radical Orthodoxy needs to become more generous towards other religions if it is to be welcomed by participants, and that weak theology becomes more practically viable when communities also emphasize how beliefs are held above what beliefs are held. The author assesses Smith’s criticisms of Caputo, arguing that he overlooks the latter’s differentiation between representational logics and transformational poetics. I use this distinction to argue that an interpretation of the kingdom of God as a concept that corresponds to a reality that will either arrive (Smith) or never arrive (Smith’s reading of Caputo) mischaracterizes it as representational rather than transformational.

Key words:

• John D. Caputo,
• Christianity,
• deconstructive theology,
• emerging church,
• justice,
• kingdom of God,
• poetics,
• Radical Orthodoxy,
• realism,
• James K.A. Smith,
• truth,
• transformation.

Philosophy of Life Abstract

So I submitted my abstract for the Towards a Philosophy of Life conference today: "Making Good on the "Good" of Life: Emerging Logics and Poetics of the Kingdom." The gist of it is basically the argument of my last three chapters (having now rearranged the order of my chapters - "Justice," "Generosity" and "Weakness" - which I'll blog more about tomorrow). Hopefully it'll get accepted, but even if it doesn't the words will go straight into my thesis so no real harm done... but it would be great to present this stuff to Jack Caputo and John Milbank as it directly relates to the rebate between elements of their work (see particularly my posts on James K.A. Smith's Radically Orthodox 'Postmodern Catholicism' here, here, here and here). Here's the abstract then:

This paper begins by illustrating how the deconstructive theology of John D. Caputo is embodied in the life of the UK emerging church milieu. Caputo’s theological project, articulated more recently as a Weak Theology, proposes both an ‘historical association’ with the determinate religious traditions’ visions of and hopes for life, and a ‘messianic disassociation,’ in order to refuse such traditions’ exclusionary, violent and unjust closure towards the other. Using interview and ethnographic data, I suggest ways in which this difficult tension between particularity and alterity might be lived out. I show why Caputo’s notion of the kingdom of God as a repetition or recreation of God’s generative proclamation that life is “good” is helpful as participants seek to live their lives as a form of “making good” on this original “good.”

In the process of exploring his notions of creation and kingdom, I defend Caputo’s theology against recent criticism by James K.A. Smith. In contrasting his Radically Orthodox ‘Postmodern Catholicism’ with Caputo’s work, Smith distinguishes between his own logic of incarnation and Caputo’s logic of determination. According to Smith, the consequences of the Derridean/Caputian logic include the translation of Derrida’s impossible, undeconstructible, un-present-able justice into an indeterminate, not specifically Christian, kingdom that is similarly structurally always to-come. However, I believe this is to overlook Caputo’s differentiation between representational logics and transformational poetics. I use this distinction to argue that an interpretation of the kingdom of God as a concept that corresponds to a reality that will either arrive (Smith) or never arrive (Smith’s reading of Caputo) mischaracterizes it as representational rather than transformational. These divergent notions of the kingdom are also present within contemporary Christian belief and practice. This paper therefore further unpacks the differences between these two understandings of the kingdom, as I see them emerge both in the work of Smith and Caputo, and in the UK emerging church milieu.

Two Cheers for Postmodernism; Three for the Logic of Incarnation?

Jamie Smith's chapter, "The Logic of Incarnation: Towards a Catholic Postmodernism," in Neal DeRoo and Brian Lightbody's The Logic of Incarnation: James K.A. Smith's Critique of Postmodern Religion, begins with a clarification of the "post-" in "postmodern" and of a distinction between postmodernism and postmodernity (pp.3-4). The subtitle of the book is a little misleading as Jamie Smith has contributed lucid and entertaining expositions of philosophical postmodernism and postmodern Christianity to (evangelical) audiences who have often misunderstood and/or misrepresented both (see, for example, his chapters in Christianity and the Postmodern Turn and his monographs Jacques Derrida: Live Theory and Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault to Church). So to describe his work as a "critique of postmodern religion" is more than a little confusing, given his engagement with postmodern thought. However, Smith helpfully summarises his position in relation to philosophical postmodernism:

"Insofar as the church (and mutatis mutandis, Christian theology and philosophy) has bought into key assumptions of modernity; And insofar as these assumptions (for instance, regarding the nature of freedom, the model of the human person, the requirements for what counts as “rational” or “true,” or what can be admitted to the “public” sphere of political or academic discourse) represent a rejection of biblical wisdom and the Christian theological heritage; And insofar as postmodernism articulates a critique of just these assumptions; Then the postmodern critique of modernity is something to be affirmed by Christians, not because it is postmodern, but because the postmodern critique of modernity can be a wake-up call for Christians to see their complicity with modernity, the inconsistency of this with a more integral understanding of discipleship, and thus actually be an occasion to creatively retrieve ancient and pre-modern theological sources and liturgical practices with new eyes, as it were." (pp.4-5)

So with his position clarified in such a manner, Smith gives "two cheers" for postmodernism - but stops short of the full three. Three cheers for postmodernism, Smith claims, is to "enthusiastically and wholeheartedly embrace all that is 'postmodern,' without critique and without reservation" (p.6). Acknowledging that the metaphor will eventually break down, Smith suggests that Christian thinkers like Merold Westphal (Postmodern Philosophy and Christian Thought and Overcoming Onto-theology: Towards a Postmodern Christian Faith) might also give postmodernism two cheers (or maybe two and a half), but that Jack Caputo (start with On Religion and What Would Jesus Deconstruct?) and Pete Rollins (How [Not] To Speak of God and The Fidelity of Betrayal) give postmodernism three cheers, and do so, according to Smith, "without critique and without reservation" (p.6).

In contrast to Smith's reading of Caputo and Rollins, his own work "is meant to be a critical appropriation of postmodernism and deconstruction that walks a long way with Derrida, but parts ways at a critical juncture—not out of a timidity or an unwillingness to 'go all the way,' but because of a principled critique of what I think are problems internal to Derrida’s thought." (pp.6/7)

So, with Smith's position with regards to postmodern thought clarified for the reader, he moves on to detail the "logic of incarnation" which was first articulated in Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation and developed as an "incarnational ontology" in Introducing Radical Orthodoxy. I blogged briefly about Smith's logic of incarnation yesterday, here. He contrasts his "two cheers" logic of incarnation with the "three cheers" logic of determination that he sees in the work of Jacques Derrida and the deconstructive theology of Jack Caputo. Though he acknowledges that there might be other strains, here's how Smith characterises these two:

The logic of determination recognises particularity, uniqueness and difference as inescapably part of human finitude but deems this existence "regrettable, lamentable and problematic" and remains "haunted by the Enlightenment dream of universality and purity" (pp.8-9). As these dreams are understood to be constitutive of knowledge, knowledge is therefore impossible (p.9). Similarly, as particular entities, determinative religions are considered to be tribal and violent, unable to live up to the (undeconstructible) dream of pure religion (p.11; see Hent de Vries Religion and Violence). Visions of justice, for example, are determinate, and therefore exclusionary and violent, which enables Derrida to construct the notion of undeconstrucible, pure justice as necessarily always to-come. Smith views the result as "a political rhetoric with grand claims regarding justice but which is systematically unable to articulate concrete policies" (p.12). However, this logic of determination is assumed. As Smith suggests in The Fall of Interpretation, the particular and determinate is constructed as violent only on the assumption of finitude as "failure" (p.13).

Smith argues that the logic of incarnation can outnarrate that of determination. This logic does not lament particularity but rather, as a "more 'persistent' postmodernism," refuses to desire universality and purity as (modernist) requirements of knowledge (p.10). This, Smith writes, "makes it possible to conceive difference differently" (p.11). Rather than being violent, then, particularity and determination - "drawing boundaries, demarcating doctrine (as the 'grammar' of the community) and specifying it's confession" - are central to finite communities (p.18). Unlike the logic of determination's positioning of justice (or a kingdom of the kingdomless reading of the kingdom of God) beyond possibility, "the logic of incarnation, which flows from and re-affirms the goodness of creation, finds its completion in the doctrine of the resurrection and an eschatology of the new heavens and the new earth—which is not any kind of escape from finitude as if finite particularity were inherently evil; rather, it is the hope of well-ordered particularity." (18)

Smith frames these two logics as a debate between a the "religion without Religion" of Caputian Weak Theology (see Caputo's Weakness of God) and Smith's "reformed Radical Orthodoxy" (see Introducing Radical Orthodoxy) or what he is now articulating as a "Catholic postmodernism" (p.21). He argues that "religion without Religion" is not undecidable all the way down (i.e. "things have been decided with respect to the abyss" [p.24]), does not leave the question of revelation "open" enough (p.29), "makes religion a (still) largely private, individual affair" (p.32), and fails to affirm a catholic eschatology in which "a particular instantiation of the kingdom is coming and will arrive" (footnote 65, p.34).

I've skipped through Smith's critique of "religion without Religion" because there is a lot more work I want to do on his distinction between the logics of incarnation and determination. I think that the debate between Weak Theology and "catholic postmodernism" [surely it should be a lower-case "c"?] will be a very useful way to frame my thesis as I already have two theological strands which emerge from my data on the notion of truth: a modified Radical Orthodoxy (in conversation with Generous Orthodoxy) and Weak Theology. When I've done more work on this I'll let you know whether I have three cheers for Smith's logic of incarnation!

Introducing Jamie Smith

I've finally started reading Neal DeRoo and Brian Lightbody's The Logic of Incarnation: James K.A. Smith's Critique of Postmodern Religion. Neal's introductory piece clearly presents Jamie's logic of incarnation, detailing the ways in which an emphasis on God's indwelling in the world re-affirms the value of particularity. Such a doctrine, Neal explains, means that the proclamation of specifically Christian beliefs does not entail a disservice to those who do not agree with these beliefs. Rather, it forms the basis of a belief that difference qua difference is "blessed by God" and "part of God's plan" (xviii). This is in contrast, however, to the common endeavour of seeking peace in politics and religion through emphasis on commonality and a drive towards unity. Neal writes:

"Like chefs, we should be able to stand up, as religious people, and proudly declare what makes our religion unique and special without fear of starting a fight. We should be able to add to the religious palette of the world by holding to what we believe, rather than by emphasizing how we are like others. We are not all the same… The logic of incarnation is an attempt to come up with an underlying theory of the world that makes sense of this, and enables us to see the varieties of life as a glorious spice cabinet that seasons us all differently, rather than as a battleground for war and discord." (xxi)

I'll write more about this "logic of incarnation" when I've read Jamie's chapter: "The Logic of Incarnation: Toward a Catholic Postmodernism." I'm particularly interested in this at the moment because I'm starting to think about the sections of my thesis in which I am going to address the concepts of religious pluralism and Christian uniqueness. Neal's introduction to Jamie's work will add an interesting voice to a conversation which at the moment includes John Hick (see my posts here and here) and Radical Orthodoxy (the imperialism of which troubles me, see post here).

My introduction to James K.A. Smith came through his accessible, helpful and interesting "reforming" of Radical Orthodoxy (Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-Secular Theology) in the first year of my PhD when I was doing a lot of work on RO. The "reformed" Radical Orthodoxy of this book is expanded and augmented in a companion edited collection (with James H. Olthuis) called Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition: Creation, Covenant and Participation which I haven't yet looked into deeply - but I blogged about the former volume's "reformed" Radical Orthodoxy here. Smith's Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault to Church is an accessible introduction to some key mantras in postmodern thought (and rejoinder to their frequent misinterpretation), although I questioned Smith's depiction of the emerging church here.

I'm particularly interested in the trajectory of Jamie Smith's work in relation to methodology in philosophy of religion. He writes on his webpage: "I am pursuing work in philosophy of religion which seeks to effect a methodological shift in the field, arguing for the importance of practices, and particularly liturgical practices, as the "site" or "topic" of philosophy of religion." This is the kind of thing that I am interested in doing in future projects. In this thesis I combine the sociology of religion with the disciplines of theology, philosophy and ethics. Though the data I am working with consists of interview transcripts, blog posts and other online texts, there are aspects of participant observation of gatherings and events which relate to ritual theory. In future projects, I hope to further explore religious practice in conversation with contemporary philosophical thought.

Postmodern Universalization and the Logic of Incarnation

Neal DeRoo, a guy I met in April at the Society for Continental Philosophy and Theology conference in Boston, has co-edited with Brian Lightbody a book called The Logic of Incarnation: James K.A. Smith's Critique of Postmodern Religion. Jamie Smith also contributes and responds.

Here's some blurb and endorsements:


"With his Logic of Incarnation, James K. A. Smith has provided a compelling critique of the universalizing tendencies in some strands of postmodern philosophy of religion. A truly postmodern account of religion must take seriously the preference for particularity first evidenced in the Christian account of the incarnation of God. Moving beyond the urge to universalize, which characterizes modern thought, Smith argues that it is only by taking seriously particular differences—historical, religious, and doctrinal—that we can be authentically religious and authentically postmodern.

"Smith remains hugely influential in both academic discourse and church movements. This book is the first organized attempt to bring both of these aspects of Smith’s work into conversation with each other and with him. With articles from an internationally respected group of philosophers, theologians, pastors, and laypeople, the entire range of Smith’s considerable influence is represented here. Discussing questions of embodiment, eschatology, inter-religious dialogue, dogma, and difference, this book opens all the most relevant issues in postmodern religious life to a unique and penetrating critique."

"This volume brilliantly highlights the importance of Smith's logic of incarnation. It amplifies a new and indispensable voice in the postmodern debate." —Richard Kearney, author of The God Who May Be and Strangers, Gods and Monsters

"The Logic of Incarnation offers the reader a helpful overview and critical discussion of James K. A. Smith's engagement with postmodern thought based on Christianity's central mystery: God's becoming human. In critically engaging Deconstruction, the emergent church, and the role of tradition, The Logic of Incarnation introduces the reader to central themes of current thinking on religion that have especially dominated North American discussions, but it also points, particularly in Smith's concluding response to his critics, toward recovering an ancient incarnational thinking whose radical quality—reaching far beyond modernity and postmodernity—lies precisely in recovering the ecclesial and eschatological nature of Christianity."—Jens Zimmermann, author of Recovering Theological Hermeneutics: An Incarnational-Trinitarian Theory of Interpretation

"It is as testament to James K. A. Smith's career that, even at a relatively young age (academically speaking), his work merits an interaction as robust as this book. The Logic of Incarnation will not only introduce many to Smith's important writings, but it will also spur on conversation about these very significant ideas where, indeed, theology, philosophy, and church meet."—Tony Jones, author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier

Reformed Radical Orthodoxy: Towards Theological Philosophy

Wikiklesia editor John La Grou was very kind about yesterday's introduction to Radical Orthodoxy, reflecting on the "secular" as 'the language of defeat - an admission of blindness to the unseen realities constantly at work in and around us.' But not only this - the "secular" is an idol, a constructed sphere outside, beyond, above, God.

Now, onto Reformed Radical Orthodoxy...

Alongside this presentation of the key issues and themes within Radical Orthodoxy, James K.A. Smith (2004) introduces the Reformed Tradition in both support and critique of RO. At times, he suggests areas in which RO is in need of being Reformed; at others, Radical Orthodoxy is used to push the Reformed Tradition further. This ‘reformed rendition’ of Radical Orthodoxy (80) is the product of bringing RO claims into ‘critical dialogue’ with Herman Dooyeweerd in particular (155), in whose work Smith recognises possibilities for both the confirmation and development of Radical Orthodoxy. Here, RO, specifically John Milbank, is seen to be reductionist in its analysis and rejection of disciplines such as philosophy. Smith argues that Dooyeweerd can be utilised to clarify the RO critique of philosophy.

Smith argues that Milbank’s critique of the autonomy of philosophy which entails a rejection of this discipline and the formulation of ‘a theological account of what it is to be and know in general’ (Milbank, 1999:22), reduces philosophy as an activity in itself to the particularly autonomous form that philosophy has taken and continues to take.

Milbank can be said to thus create a false dichotomy: ‘It is indeed for radical orthodoxy an either/or: philosophy (Western or Eastern) as a purely autonomous discipline, or theology: Herod or the magi, Pilate or the God-man’ (Milbank, 1999:32).

But, as Smith questions, ‘does not such a conclusion and program confuse a contingent mode of philosophical orientation with the possibilities of an alternative mode of philosophical research? In other words, isn’t Milbank confusing the particular direction (Western) philosophy has taken with the structure of philosophical investigation as such? Could we not entertain the possibility of “a Christian philosophy, ruled and reformed by the central biblical motive” (ITWT, 107) – and as “ruled” obviously not autonomous?’ (155, citing Dooyeweerd, 1999:107).

Smith argues that this conflation of philosophy-as-such with autonomous philosophy, and the subsequent antithesis between philosophy-as-such and theology and the resulting rejection of the former, is a consequence of the ambiguous treatment of the Fall within Radical Orthodoxy (165). Smith uses Leibniz to construct a 'creational ontology' to augment the 'participatory ontology' of Radical Orthodoxy (204-229). Drawing attention to Leibniz's understanding of the 'creational structures' which inhere every created thing to enable self-sufficiency and dependence, and his recognition of the referential nature of these structures - 'a structure of "referring and expressing" that points to an origin' (220). Thus, creation has its telos in God. For Smith, the Fall is understood as the occasion for the distortion and misdirection of these creational structures. Postlapsarian creation retains the referential structures of its “good” creation (Genesis 1:31), but now these structures can be either directed towards God or away from God. Redemption, then, is understood as the redirection of these structures towards the Creator, ‘to the creational telos of humanity: the Triune God’ (253).

Smith’s reformed rendition of RO’s participatory ontology towards a creational ontology, can now be related to his analysis of Milbank’s rejection of philosophy (and other disciplines) as reductionist. He writes, ‘it is important to distinguish between the creational structure and the postlapsarian direction that structure can take and has taken’ (255). Further, it is important to recognise the possibility of Redemption, of constituting the direction of Fallen realities such as autonomous philosophy as otherwise than they are currently. Redemption is the redirection of the creational structures to their ‘creational aim by the Word, who came to heal’ (245). Thus, autonomous philosophy is not rejected and replaced with theology (for this would be to make an idol of one of the created disciplines over the others), but rather its creational structures, which are inherently good, are redirected towards their Creator, forming what RO might call theological philosophy.

Smith, following Dooyeweerd, prefers to talk of confessional philosophy. Smith presents Dooyeweerd's 'unique ontology' (171), wherein creation is structured by ‘multiple aspects or modes that inhere in every created thing’ (171). Each aspect has a corresponding theoretical discipline, for example, mathematics is the discipline which theorizes the numeric aspect, economics is the discipline which theorizes the economic aspect, ethics is the discipline which theorizes the moral aspect, and so on. Philosophy, however, is somewhat different to the other disciplines, as its object of study is not one particular aspect of reality but rather the relational interactions of the aspects, as well as reflecting on epistemology and ontology (Dooyeweerd, 1999:9). However, this does not licence the autonomy of philosophy, because, for Dooyeweerd, each discipline is rooted in particular religious commitments or ground-motivations, ‘either the radical biblical ground-motive or one of any number of “apostate” ground-motives’ (172). For a Christian, then, each of these disciplines must be grounded in Christianity’s ‘central spiritual motive power,’ the ‘radical and central biblical theme of creation, fall into sin and redemption by Jesus Christ as the incarnate Word of God, in the communion of the Holy Spirit’ (Dooyeweerd, 1999:30).

And this includes philosophy. Rather than crown the discipline of theology queen, as Milbank seems to when calling for 'theology alone' (Milbank 1990:6) - which would amount to the idolatrous elevation of one created aspect and its discipline above all the others - ‘Dooyeweerd and the Reformed tradition, therefore, would call for, not a theological resituating of the disciplines but rather a confessional framework for all the disciplines’ (173). This reforming of RO results in a clarification of the call for theological philosophy, or sociology, or whatever discipline, by articulating it as a call for disciplines rooted in the Christian confession. ‘In the end, this is perhaps what RO is really after: an account of the multiple aspects of being-in-the-world that is rooted in God’s self-revelation in Christ’ (174).

[update 27/11/07 10.34am: just found this mp3 from a CBC broadcast. Thanks to sacra doctrina for the link]

Radical Orthodoxy: a 'symphony in five movements'

In conversation with an 'EC skeptic' in the comments on an earlier post, I've decided to post a few more of my reflections on Radical Orthodoxy in the next few days - perhaps along with some other possibilities for postmodern theology - in order to start to think about why I'm more attracted to Caputo's particular 'theology without theology' than these other works. It's my partner's birthday this week, so forgive me if these reflections aren't rapidly forthcoming, though!



To start with, however, I thought I'd present James K.A. Smith's (2004) useful introduction to Radical Orthodoxy, entitled Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-Secular Theology. This book is both an introduction to the political, epistemological, and ontological claims of Radical Orthodoxy as a ‘theological sensibility and spirit’ (67)[1] and a sustained conversation of critique and support between this emerging theology and the articulation of similar (and different) notions among the Reformed Tradition, particularly in the works of Herman Dooyeweerd. Throughout his work, Smith identifies such thinkers as John Milbank, Graham Ward, Catherine Pickstock, Daniel Bell, D. Stephen Long, and William T. Cavanaugh with the ‘loose tendency’ (Pickstock, 2001:405) or ‘theological sensibility’ (Ward, 2003a:117) labelled “Radical Orthodoxy”[2].



Radical Orthodoxy is a 'post-secular theology' in the sense that 'there is no secular, if by “secular” we mean “neutral” or “uncommitted”; instead, the supposedly neutral public spaces that we inhabit – in the academy or politics – are temples of other gods that cannot be served alongside Christ' (42). Thus Radical Orthodoxy's post-secular theology needs to be clearly identified as a Christian post-secular theology, a theology based on the unapologetically confessional narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation.



Recognising that Radical Orthodoxy is not ‘a defined agenda or a school with established doctrines’ (66), Smith presents this ‘certain spirit of theologically driven cultural engagement’ (67) through the metaphor of a ‘symphony in five movements… themes that characterize the “sensibility” of RO’ (70). These themes are:



(i) a concern to form a critique of modernity, liberalism, dualisms, universal reason, immanentism, and “the ontology of violence” (Milbank, 1990:278-325) in which ‘being reduces to war’ (195). In its place, Radical Orthodoxy seeks to provide an alternative ontology, an “ontology of peace” (Milbank, 1990:380-438), in which human intersubjectivity is construed as grounded in harmony rather than opposition, power and war. These critiques of modernity similarly apply to so-called postmodernity, which Radical Orthodoxy understands as ‘hyper-modernity’ (139), where (supposedly) postmodern theorists such as Derrida and Foucault ‘replay and play out the ontology of modernity’ (92). Proponents of RO, then, seek to show that ‘only RO is truly postmodern because it is precisely other than modern’ (71) because of its alternative ontology of peace. [Proving this last point is also precisely what Smith does not do in his (2006) Whose Afraid of Postmodernism? - a criticism which I mention in an earlier post].



(ii) a promotion of the aforementioned post-secular nature of the contemporary (Western) situation. The secular/sacred dualism of modernity is transcended through the recognition that even supposedly secular realms hide fundamental commitments to certain beliefs, ways of thinking, and practices. In short, they are ‘theologies or anti-theologies in disguise’ (Milbank, 1990:3). ‘The secular is not areligious, just differently religious – a religion of immanence and autonomy’ (Smith 2004:131) and hence also of violence and contest, and therefore pagan to the Christian religion of participation (iii) and peace (i). However, ‘[o]nce, there was no “secular”’ (Milbank, 1990:9), for before the myth of secular, neutral, autonomous reason, it was acknowledged that no realm stood outside the realm of creation and its Creator, and therefore nothing stood outside the “jurisdiction” of theological discourse. Faith, banished from science due to its contaminating influence on “facts,” is now (re)admitted. This theme of Radical Orthodoxy is in large part the reasoning behind the retrieval of pre-modern (and therefore pre-secular) sources.



(iii) an ontology of participation and materiality. Reality is understood as a creation gifted by the Creator, wherein the material is suspended from the transcendent. Thus, while ‘every created reality is absolutely nothing in itself’ (Pickstock, 2001:416), insofar as ‘it participates in the gift of existence granted by God’ this ontology of participation is the only ontology which can grant creation meaning (75). This participation of creation in the transcendent is supplemented by the participation of the transcendent in creation not only during Creation itself but also at the Incarnation, simultaneously investing it with value and ultimately redeeming it. ‘[O]nly transcendence, which “suspends” these things in the sense of interrupting them, “suspends” them also in the other sense of upholding their relative worth over-against the void’ (Milbank, et al, 1999:3). This participatory ontology stands in marked contrast to the “flattened” ontology of modernity, which, following Duns Scotus, predicates being univocally, attributing being to the Creator and the created in the same sense. The promotion of an alternative, theo-ontology (121) is another instance of RO’s recovery and reinterpretation of pre-secular sources (ii).


(iv) a commitment to the central role of sacramentality, liturgy, and aesthetics in leading humanity towards the divine, based on the double participation of the transcendent in creation and creation in the transcendent(iii), which reaffirms the status of the material and human activities, including poesis (77).


(v) again leading on from the principle of God’s participation, revelation, and concern for the created world in (iii) and (iv), there is an emphasis on ‘the redemption and transformation of this world (socially, politically, and economically)’ (79). Radical Orthodoxy 'looks at “sites” that we have invested much cultural capital in – the body, sexuality, relationships, desire, painting, music, the city, the natural, the political – and it reads them in terms of the grammar of the Christian faith' (Ward, 2000b:103). Radical Orthodoxy is concerned to show that modernity has created a “logic of parody” by which Christian “sites” such as God, the ecclesia, and the Kingdom are parodied by competing (supposedly secular but ultimately religious and therefore pagan) renditions of these sites as the monarch (Ward, 2003b:43), the state (Bell, 2001:72), and the city (Ward, 2000a), respectively. However, these alternatives are fundamentally at odds with the Christian “sites” that they mimic, for they utilize a ‘dis/placement strategy whereby immanent sites are invested with the task of fulfilling transcendent desires’ (139) and will thus always frustrate rather than fulfil this desire for God. Therefore Radical Orthodoxy advocates a ‘critical distance’ from secular modernity (139), and the development of a distinctly Christian post-secular, post-modernity.



Having introduced Radical Orthodoxy thematically, Smith then undertakes a conversation between this post-secular theology and the Reformed Tradition, a conversation which facilitates the creation of a reformed Radical Orthodoxy or Radical Orthodoxy in its reformed rendition. But more on this tomorrow!


[1] References are from Smith, 2004, unless otherwise stated

[2] In regarding Radical Orthodoxy as a ‘sensibility shared to a greater or lesser degree with several other contemporary theologians’ (Ward, 2003a:117), Ward includes Rowan Williams, Fergus Kerr, Nicholas Lash, Stanley Hauerwas, David Burrell, and Peter Ochs (Ward, 2003a, p.115)

"What Would Jesus Deconstruct?" Reviewed and "Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?" Revisited

John D. Caputo’s What Would Jesus Deconstruct? The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (2007) is the second in Baker Academic’s The Church and Postmodern Culture series.

The first (James K.A. Smith’s [2006] Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?) was a good introduction to three postmodern “bumper stickers” (“there is nothing outside the text,” “incredulity towards metanarratives,” and “power is knowledge”) – and I used a few of his filmic vehicles to explain postmodernism to undergraduates in a lecture on postmodern christologies – but it failed in its attempt to convince me that ‘a “radical orthodoxy” is the only proper outcome of the postmodern critique’ (2006:25; my emphases) and that, in the last chapter especially, applied Radical Orthodoxy is the only appropriate outcome for the “emerging church.”

To begin with, Smith never addresses other possible theological and ecclesiological outcomes of the postmodern critique in order to argue for the supremacy of Radical Orthodoxy (or perhaps, rather the “out-narration” of other possibilities by Radical Orthodoxy). Secondly, when we reach the last chapter, we’re left with the thought: this is the emerging church???!!!???

While I agree that ‘what the emerging church is reacting against is a deep, hurtful experience of sectarianism [and] the antidote to this is a generous orthodoxy and healthy catholicity’ (2006:132), when this is translated into a ‘radically orthodox church’ experience in the last few pages, I’m not sure this looks much like the emerging Christian communities that I’ve been exploring for the last few years.

Much more relevant to the experiences of those I’ve been interviewing and observing, Caputo’s What Would Jesus Deconstruct? gives more voice to doubt than to orthodoxy. At heart, this book is a call (kletos) to deconstruction through an exposition of the above phrase. Caputo argues that there is a deeply deconstructive event that ‘stirs within the figure of Jesus’ (2007:26), and that deconstruction is the hermeneutics of the kingdom of God, a kingdom which he has described elsewhere as a ‘kingdom without kingdom’ (The Weakness of God).

“What Would Jesus Do?” ‘…what Jesus does, is deconstruct’ (2007:30), and with this presentation of deconstruction comes a plethora of correlatives: hyperrealism, undecidability, destinerrancy (possibly my favourite Derridean neologism at the moment!), vocation, theo-poetics, weakness, justice, the impossible, gift, forgiveness, hospitality, and love. This book is a call to deconstruct the name of God / Jesus / Church / Kingdom in order to release the event that stirs within these names.

Caputo’s work has lots of resonances with my study. Not least, his understanding of truth as a name which needs to be similarly deconstructed in order to release the event of truth: ‘“truth” means what is trying to come true, which points to our responsibility to make it actually come true’ (2007:61). For Augustine and Derrida truth means ‘facere veritatem, doing or making the truth’ happen (2007:134).

Similar to the format of Smith’s first volume, What Would Jesus Deconstruct?’s last chapter considers the future of the church, through John McNamee’s (1993) Diary of a City Priest and Pete Rollins’ (2006) How (Not) to Speak of God – the title of which you’ll understand a lot more after Caputo’s previous explanation of the step/not (pas) (2007:42ff). Two very different texts, both with a lot to say about the place of doubt, of uncertainty, of the impossible. As Caputo writes, ‘faith is impossible, the impossible; one is called on to have faith in a world in which it is impossible to believe anything… Doubt as the condition of faith, not its opposite, making faith possible as (the) im/possible’ (2007:121).

Maybe my reading of this book in a day and my reviewing of it only a few more later mean that I’m currently too close to the text to treat it as I have Smith’s Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, but I can at least ask the same question of Caputo’s final chapter: Is this the emerging church???!!!???

From my memory, and from the book’s index, Caputo only uses the term “emergent” once, and “emerging” never. So maybe this question isn’t a fair one. The two communities described by Caputo are very different – McNamee’s St Malachy’s is ‘an institution that struggles against institutionality; Ikon is hardly an institution at all’ (2007:129) – as are the texts and their authors, though postmodernism’s ‘tropes and movements are everywhere at work’ in both (2007:129). And I am growing in my conviction that Ikon is not an “emerging church,” as that term is communally defined, used, and understood – despite the clear resistance involved here.

Nevertheless, the book’s forward is written by Brian McLaren. ’Nough said?... or is it?

However, I haven’t found the number of instant reviews of What Would Jesus Deconstruct? among “emerging church” bloggers that I was expecting . Maybe you can point me in that direction if I’m not looking in the right places? Or, maybe, this (positive) text is going to take a while to seep into the collective “emerging church” conscious, in contrast to the (negative) texts which seem to be read by everyone as soon as humanly possible and debated hotly (for example, John MacArthur's recent critical contribution).

Finally, I love Caputo’s (Eckhartian) emphasis on Jesus’ prayer, Eloi Eloi, lama sabachthani as the ‘perfectly auto-deconstructing prayer: it is addressed to God – which presupposes our faith that we are not abandoned – and asks why God has abandoned us’ (2007:127). I love that.