Pluralism about Truth and Thesis Structure

Michael Lynch’s recently published Truth as One and Many (2009) has helped me crystallize my thoughts on pluralism about truth, and so will be particularly useful in helping me structure my third chapter (“Truth(s)”). As a result, I’ve also reordered my last three chapters (now “Justice,” “Generosity” and “Weakness” – instead of “Generosity,” “Weakness,” and “Justice”), the contents of which I blogged about a bit the other day. In this post, I’ll summarize Lynch’s argument, and then show how it has affected my thesis structure.

Following Lynch (but also some stuff I’ve read by Ralph Walker), I’m going to argue that most theorists of truth are monists about truth; that is, they assume that the notion of truth has one nature that is unchanged when the concept is applied to diverse phenomena, and seek to encapsulate that singular essence in a global theory of truth. However, the scope problem throws up numerous counterexamples across diverse domains of phenomena – the truth of which one theory of truth has difficulty explaining. For example, a correspondence theory of truth cannot account for propositions that are non-representational but are intuitively true (such as, murder is wrong). Hence, the move from global theories of truth (such as correspondence, coherence, or deflationism) towards a pluralism about truth that might include such conventional theories of truth but will apply them locally rather than globally.

Lynch’s thesis begins with what he calls the ‘folk’ concept of truth, which ‘embodies our preconceptions [about truth], the way we tacitly think about it in our ordinary life – even if, normally, we don’t even recognize ourselves as doing so’ (Lynch 2009:7). According to Lynch’s presentation of our folk concept of truth, it includes a number of truisms about truth:

• Truth is objective (the belief "p" is true if, and only if, with respect to the belief that "p", things are as they are believed to be);
• Truth is the norm of belief (it is prima facie correct to believe that "p" if and only if the proposition that "p" is true; or ‘truth is belief’s basic norm of correctness,’ Lynch 2009:11); and
• Truth is the goal of inquiry (true beliefs are a worthy goal of inquiry; truth is pursued indirectly through the direct pursuit of reasons and evidence; the processes of questioning have truth as their aim).
  
  

Lynch maintains that truth itself is a singular concept, identified with these three core truisms (there are other, intimately related concepts that I won’t go into here). A theory of truth is only a theory of truth if it incorporates these core truisms (or else it is changing the subject) and is only a theory of truth if it explains them (or explains away those it does not hold). According to Lynch, the correspondence and coherence theories of truth are only viable under certain additional conditions. Only in a propositional domain in which mental states “respond” to external environments, such that propositions either represent or misrepresent reality, the correspondence theory of truth is viable. Similarly, the coherence theory of truth is only viable in a propositional domain that imposes epistemic constraints on the truths of the domain (it must be in principle possible for someone at some time to have warrant for believing any given proposition), and these propositions must be non-representational in character. This problem of scope leads Lynch to advocate pluralism about truth, according to which neither correspondence nor coherence are global theories of truth but are instead theories of how truth is manifest locally in particular domains.

Truth remains singular, but is manifest pluralistically. Truth is one concept (exhibiting core truisms about truth essentially, or, as Lynch also phrases it, playing the truth-role as such), but truth is multiply realizable (in propositions that have a property accidentally that manifests truth). The concept “truth” remains singular but there are multiple properties of propositions that might manifest that singular concept in different ways. The property that manifests truth or plays the truth-role in a particular domain is dependent on the nature of that particular propositional domain. In other words, Lynch’s thesis is not that “truth” correctly applies to correspondence here or coherence there (suggesting two concepts of truth) but rather that truth is one concept that is manifest in correspondence in one domain and coherence in another.

Lynch applies his theory of truth as one and many to the domain of morality. He holds that ‘a property constructed of our epistemic norms for morality could serve to manifest truth for our moral judgements’ (2009:185). He demonstrates that the epistemological norms for the domain of moral judgements demand that propositions within this domain are non-representational, i.e. do not correspond to externally existing entities (‘It is difficult to know how to “locate” something like moral wrongness amongst the furniture of the physical world,’ Lynch 2009:1). Therefore, he argues, the correspondence theory of truth cannot act as a global theory of the manifestation of truth in this domain. Instead, Lynch supplies a theory of the manifestation of truth for the moral domain based upon coherence and concordance. Our folk concept of truth in the moral domain suggests that ‘we see our moral inquires as aiming at constructing frameworks of concordant judgements. Such systems, were there every to be any, would be durably improving coherent frameworks of judgements, some of which – the non-moral judgements – are true in virtue of corresponding t the facts, but others of which – the moral judgements – are true by supercohering to that very framework, that is, by durably belonging to the framework itself’ (2009:175-176).

What I think it is important to grasp here is Lynch’s methodology: we move from our folk concept of truth for a particular domain towards identifying the property that manifests these truisms for this domain. By the same logic, then, a property constructed out of the UK emerging church milieu’s epistemic norms for religion might serve to manifest truth for religious propositions in the religious or spiritual domain (or, at least, for the UK emerging church milieu's religious/spiritual domain). If truth is manifested by a property of propositions because that property plays the truth-role in that particular domain, then my own work needs to answer the following questions:

• What is the truth-role or truism about truth for the religious/spiritual domain? and
• What property of propositions plays this role (thereby making propositions true, for this particular domain)?

In Chapter Three (“Truth(s)”), then, I’m going to argue that:

• Lynch’s initial discussion of what constitutes our everyday folk concept of truth neglects the spiritual and religious dimensions to everyday life;
• my empirical data from the UK emerging church milieu suggests that the truth-role in the spiritual/religious domain is transformation and call;
• the property of propositions that enables transformation, call and response therefore manifests truth (for this particular domain), true propositions in this domain do not necessarily therefore have to be representational, and the truth of propositions are judged not by their ability to represent, but by their ability to transform; and
• the property of propositions that manifests truth in the religious/spiritual domain is the norm of justice.

My previous thesis structure (see post here for details) had closely followed my research questions:

• How is the notion of truth understood in the UK emerging church milieu? (chapter 3, “Truth(s)”) [Therefore, also, What is the UK emerging church milieu? (chapter 2, “Emergence”)] and
• What are the philosophical (chapters 4, “Inaccessibility” and 5, “Undecidability”), theological (chapters 6, “Generosity” and 7, “Weakness”), and ethical (chapter 8, “Justice”) implications of these notions of truth?
  

Now, however, I have decided to reorder things a little.

Chapter 2 morphed into “Contexts” a while a go, so that it more closely answered the question of not only what the UK emerging church milieu is but also why it is important to study it academically.

Chapters 3, 4 and 5 stay in the order they were but are more clearly focused on 3) arguing why pluralism about truth is a useful notion, suggesting that Lynch’s work needs to be supplemented through a study of the notion of truth as it operates in the domain of religion or spirituality, and arguing that the truism that truth is an event that transforms and calls is key here; and 4) and 5) documenting what the diverse philosophical structures of this domain are in order to demonstrate what property manifests truth in the spiritual/religious domain. This therefore leads on to Chapter 6, which is now “Justice,” having been moved from the end of the thesis. Here, I hope to be able to argue that the property that displays the truism of transformation (and therefore manifests truth) in the spiritual domain is the norm of justice.

This argument then informs the debate between Radically Orthodox ‘Catholic Postmodernism’ (James K.A. Smith, see posts here and here) and ‘religion without Religion’ (Jack Caputo, posts on Weak Theology here, here, here, here and here), thus shifting the “Generosity” and “Weakness” chapters to the end of the thesis. The gist of these last three chapters is contained in the paper I hope to give at the Towards a Philosophy of Life conference in Liverpool in June (see post the other day). I’m trying to write this chapter at the moment (in time for the deadline for Panel Review documents, April 27th) so more on this in the next little while as I bang out my argument in more detail. In the meantime, I hope the post here has given a few ideas of how chapters 3, 4 and 5 might go!

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.

Annual Panel Reviews

So, it's that time of year again.

Philosophy of Life

Conference gallore at the moment. Here's another one. It looks fantastic. Steven Shakespeare is one of the co-organisers (I blogged here about his introduction to Radical Orthodoxy, but he's publishing Derrida and Theology soon - can't wait! - and has cool taste in music). Anyway, this conference (Towards a Philosophy of Life: Reflections on the Concept of Life in Continental Philosophy of Religion) has some great speakers lined up (including

• Dr. Pamela Sue Anderson (The University of Oxford)
• Professor John D. Caputo (Syracuse University)
• Professor Don Cupitt (The University of Cambridge)
• Professor Jean-Yves Lacoste (Institut Catholique, Paris) [couldn't find a uni page!]
• Professor John Milbank (The University of Nottingham)

It's hosted by Liverpool Hope University, runs from Friday 26th - Sunday 28th June 2009, and the conference organisers expect to edit a book of a selection of papers from the proceedings. Here's the blurb and call for submission details:

"The question whether it is still possible to live is the form in which metaphysics impinges on us urgently today," Adorno, Metaphysics: Concepts and Problems, p.112.

"Traditionally, a common conception of philosophy has been as a melete thanatou or 'meditation upon death'. However, in recent years it is the significance of the concept of 'life' which has begun to receive increasing attention in contemporary European philosophy. Indeed, writing in the wake of the brutalization of life in the death camps of Auschwitz, Adorno poses a central question for current philosophical debate on life, namely, 'How might life live?'

"The aim of this conference is to address this question and in doing so assess recent philosophies of life. In particular, the conference seesk to explore metaphysical, phenomenological, ethical and religious underpinnings of philosophies of life, especially in light of the emergence of 'continental philosophy of religion.' By enquiring into conceptions of life in contemporary philosophical and religious thought, this conference also aims to reconsider the key project of ancient philosophy: the teaching of the good life."

The call for abstracts (400 words) suggests a broad range of themes, including

• The concept of life in vitalism and philosophies of immanence (Spinoza, Nietzsche, Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Henry, Alain Badiou, etc)
• Life, power and politics (esp. Foucault and Giorgio Agamben)
• Alterity, gift and life: deconstruction and phenomenology
• Rethinking life in light of the body, natality and sexual difference: feminist philosophy of religion and feminist theology
• Psychoanalysis (life, death and desire)
• Theologies of life (creation, incarnation, sacrament and grace)

The deadline for submitting abstracts (400 words) is Friday 17 April 2009. To submit abstracts (or for further details) email Dr. Patrice Haynes - haynesp@hope.ac.uk

My thinking on this so far is to try to solidify some of my thoughts regarding Jamie Smith's criqitue of Derridean deconstruction and Caputian deconstructive theology as assuming a logic of determinism (I've blogged about it a few times here and here). Smith characterizes Radical Orthodoxy, or what he is increasingly referring to as a 'catholic postmodernism,' as a logic of incarnation but then doesn't extend the same clear connection to the Christian tradition to deconstructive theolology (by naming it as a logic of determinism). I think I could argue that it can be seen as a logic of creation instead. Yes, deconstruction emphasises finitude, particularity, singularity, determinancy, etc, but it simultaneously emphasises alterity and responsibility. As Caputo has said, we have to "make good" on God's "good" in Genesis. So I think I'm going to write something around these themes, possibly titled something like, "'Making good' on the 'Good' of Life: The Pragmatic Translation of Truth into Justice."

Mark Mason (Chichester University) is one of the guys who has joined the conference group on Facebook. He's written some very interesting things, including a chapter in Evaluating Fresh Expressions. A conference paper he emailed me, entitled "Impossible Ecclesiology? John D. Caputo and the Emerging Church (Movement?)", was great.

Have we ever been 'Post'?

The British Sociological Association's Theory Study Group are holding a conference in collaboration with the University of Warick's Department of Sociology, called "Have we ever been 'Post'? The Critiques of Sociological Knowledge." The call for submissions has closed now, and I felt that to have tried to write something for this would again distract me from the rest of the thesis, but I hope to be able to go. It's in September (17th-18th 2009) and here's some more details about it.

The keynote speakers will be Steven Seidman (State University of New York at Albany) and Liz Stanley (University of Edinburgh). Confirmed speakers include Les Back (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Gurminder Bhambra (University of Warwick), Steve Fuller (University of Warwick), John Holmwood (University of Birmingham), Stevi Jackson (University of York) and Gregor McLennan (University of Bristol).

And some blurb:

"2009 is an important year for sociology and social theory. It is 50 years after the publication of C. Wright Mills’ ‘The Sociological Imagination’ (1959), 40 years since Michel Foucault’s ‘The Archaeology of Knowledge’ (1969), and 30 years since Jean-Francois Lyotard’s ‘The Postmodern Condition’ (1979). Although coming from distinctive positions, and with different aims, these books share the quality of bringing about strong critiques of knowledge production in the social sciences and, fundamentally, challenging major principles of Western social theory and sociology.

"These books came to light in a period of increasing self-doubt concerning the sustainability of the project of Western modernity and capitalism. This was translated into substantive epistemological and conceptual reformulations across the social sciences and humanities, often taking the shape of a crisis and provoking the expectation of the coming of a new age. In this context, the pictures drawn by Mills, Foucault and Lyotard generated as much seduction as resistance, but never indifference, within social thought.

"These critiques of the canonical imagination, knowledge and practice in the social sciences disclosed problems that still occupy us today regarding the ways in which we “understand”, “explain” and “represent” the social world: the validity of the categories of knowledge, claims of universalism, meta-narratives and grand-theory, disciplinary boundaries, the link between theory and practice, the public and critical role of knowledge, power discourses, the production of otherness and difference, and the redefinition of the relationship of social theory with modernity, amongst many others.

"By now much of this debate has been framed under the rubric of a ‘post’ sociological imagination. Nevertheless, the times in which we raise these inquiries have become rapidly distant from the times of Mills, Foucault and Lyotard. Wider developments in society, such as a more radical process of technological and economic globalization, the post-ideological consensus, the war on terror, new geopolitical powers and global warming have left their traces in the academic world. The University has become a place of marketisation and assessment, which has challenged the ways in which sociologists and academics more generally practice their disciplines. The university is no longer simply a place of political discourse and contestation. It rather seems that an atmosphere of “post”-orientation has taken over, making the aim to act as a social scientist and as a person – as Mills phrased it – appear anachronistic.

"Against this background, the coinciding anniversary of Mills’, Foucault’s, and Lyotard’s books provides an opportune moment for revisiting and perhaps updating the legacy of these “critiques of knowledge”. Accordingly, the conference welcomes papers from across disciplines and countries, and from different theoretical and empirical backgrounds addressing some of the following issues:

• The coming of a “post” sociological imagination: When? Where? How? Why?
• Becoming canonical: the place, function and implications of Mills, Foucault and Lyotard in the (re)definition of sociology’s discourse, identity and practice.
• Global north and global south, encounters and varieties of the “post” sociological imagination: the reception, contestation and influence of the critique of sociological knowledge.
• Researching the social world after Mills, Foucault and Lyotard (and others): the challenges and status of the theoretical, empirical and epistemological in social inquiry.
• Making things public: possibilities, forms, times and places of sociological knowledge in the age of post-critique."

I've blogged a bit (here) about why I'm interested in the intersections between sociology and postmodern thought. So, while I hope to be able to make it to the conference in September, I didn't want to revist these things right now - not while I'm trying to make headway in LOADS of other areas of my thesis!

Scepticism Conference

On June 6th 2009, a one-day conference on Scepticism is being hosted by the University of Southampton's Philosophy Department. Their blurb reads: "This includes scepticism as it appears in epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics, philosophy of language and other areas. Contributions concerning contemporary continental or analytic philosophy are equally welcome, as are those addressing topics from the history of philosophy. Papers are invited from graduate students and we are hoping to attract a wide external audience."

The keynotes will be:
Quassim Cassm (Univeristy of Warwick) "Knowing, Seeing and Stroud's Dilemma"
Duncan Pritchard (University of Edinburgh) "Radical Scepticism, Epistemic Luck and Epistemic Value."

The deadline for submission of papers is Monday 4th May 2009, should be not more than 3,000 words in length (suitable for 20 mins presentation, followed by discussion), and submitted to Dr Denis McManus - D.Mcmanus@soton.ac.uk. The call asks for papers to be accompanied by a covering letter/e-mail, but to not contain any self-identifying references in the text itself. Contact Adam Dunn (agd205@soton.ac.uk) or Dan Clifford (djc302@soton.ac.uk) for other inquires.

Registration for the Scepticism day is free so I'm going to go, but I'm going to try and submit a paper too. I need to launch myself into the relatively unfamiliar world of the study of scepticism, sort through my data in relation to the two philosophical chapters of my thesis, and come up with something - by May 4th. As I'm hoping to get something resembling a nearly finished first draft by the end of May, this isn't out of the realms of possibility, so I'll give it a go. It might have a title something like: "Forms of Scepticism in Contemporary Christianity: Accepting Finitude and Celebrating Undecidability." But I need to know A LOT more about scepticism before I can even begin to position my data in this kind of academic context!!!

"Researching Theo(b)logy" Published

My copy of Exploring Religion and the Sacred in a Media Age came in the post this morning! Look out for Ellen Moore's really interesting chapter on American evangelical churches' responses to The Da Vinci Code. My chapter is called, "Researching Theo(b)logy: A Participatory Research Methodology for the Blogosphere."



I write about the use the emerging church milieu make of two Internet-based technological innovations (blogs and wikis). After documenting the difficulties in using these texts (see my chapter in Reading Spiritualities in relation to the nature of online text) as sources of data, I suggest the benefits for researchers of having a research-specific blog (particularly for researchers looking at the Internet) and reflect on the practical and ethical issues involved in such a participatory methodology.

By chance, there's an interesting article in this quarter's Network (the newsletter of the British Sociological Association) on "Blogology," by Rebecca Leach (Keele University). She writes, 'The blog is hugely underused by sociologists as a means of communication... This is a real shame because blogs can give the public a real flavour of our research and writing much quicker than any other published output... A rich stream of new and interesting thinking can be found in the blogs of the many PhD students who creatively link together their academic ideas with their personal, political and cultural lives' (p.18). Rebecca's article includes links to A (Budding) Sociologist's Commonplace Book, Global Sociologist and a Very Public Sociologist - all with cooler names than my blog. Hey ho.

Maybe Fieldwork in Religion (see post here) would be a good place to further reflect on how my research blog is going? Obviously, the posts here at OpenSourceResearch form a cumulative reflection on this methodology but (as I originally wrote the chapter that appears in Exploring Religion and the Sacred in a Media Age in April 2007 - with some revisions over the year) it is now much more common for academics (particularly PhD students) to have research-related blogs. It would be interesting to explore if and how these blogs have encouraged participation from their research subjects.

Religious Mediation among LGBT Christians

After blogging twice (here, and here) about trying to write up my MA research into an article, and in response to the call for papers from late last year, I've finally submitted my entry to the journal Sexualities' special edition on religion and spirituality. It's entitled "Queerying The Spiritual Revolution: Religious Mediation among LGBT Christians." It has morphed significantly both from my MA dissertation (now also including data from my other MA studies, including a congregational study of the spirituality of an MCC in the North of England, and an exploration of LGB identity as portrayed in the LGCM archives) and from my previous attempts to get the 25,000 words down to under 6,000! It's become much less about LGBT Christians and much more about how sociologists of religion and spirituality approach their phenomena, particularly how the methodological categories used by Heelas and Woodhead in their (2005) The Spiritual Revolution are problematized in my small scale studies. This might mean that it isn't "sexual" enough for Sexualities, but we'll see. If it doesn't get accepted, at least I've (finally) got it to say what I want it to say and to do it in under 6,000 words.

Here's the final version of the abstract:

This article uses small-scale studies among LGBT Christians to “queery” the dualistic framework of Heelas and Woodhead’s The Spiritual Revolution. Theories of mediation are required to explain the practices and beliefs of those negotiating both subjective-life and life-as modes of living. Identity integration strategies among LGBT Christians suggest ways in which individuals and communities might navigate these categories of religious significance and authority. Data confirms that different forms of life-as religions-cum-spiritualities are making the subjective turn; that participants nevertheless alternate between rather than ‘fuse’ internal and (albeit reconstructed) external authorities; and that Heelas’ more recent God without/“god” within distinction is a clearer marker of whether practitioners are already affiliated to either transcendent theism or inner-life spirituality and of when a transition from one to the other has been or is being undertaken.

Key words:

• Christianity;
• Heelas and Woodhead;
• LGBT;
• inner-life spirituality;
• spiritual revolution.

Not Yet In The Now

Neal DeRoo and John Panteleimon Manoussakis have co-edited a book called Phenomenology and Eschatology: Not Yet In The Now (Ashgate). If I get a PDF copy or find £50 down the back of my sofa, I'll review it at some point in the (near) future. But, for now, here's some blurb from Ashgate's website and the contents:

This book brings together a world-renowned collection of philosophers and theologians to explore the ways in which the resurgence of eschatological thought in contemporary theology and the continued relevance of phenomenology in philosophy can illuminate each other. Through a series of phenomenological analyses of key eschatological concepts and detailed readings in some of the key figures of both disciplines, this text reveals that phenomenology and eschatology cannot be fully understood without each other: without eschatology, phenomenology would not have developed the ethical and futural aspects that characterize it today; without phenomenology, eschatology would remain relegated to the sidelines of serious theological discourse. Along the way, such diverse themes as time, death, parousia, and the call are re-examined and redefined. Containing new contributions from Jean-Yves Lacoste, Claude Romano, Richard Kearney, Kevin Hart and others, this book is necessary reading for anyone interested in the intersection of contemporary philosophy and theology.

Contents:

Introduction - PDF download here;

Part I Phenomenology of Eschatology:

1. The phenomenality of anticipation, Jean-Yves Lacoste;

2. Awaiting, Claude Romano.

Part II Phenomenological Eschatology:

3. Sacramental imagination and eschatology, Richard Kearney;

4. The promise of the new and the tyranny of the same, John Panteleimon Manoussakis;

5. John Zizioulas on eschatology and persons, Douglas H. Knight.

Part III Eschatological Phenomenology:

6. The eschatology of the self and the birth of the being-with; or, on tragedy, Ilias Papagiannopoulos;

7. Being and the promise, Jeffrey Bloechl.

Part IV Phenomenology and Eschatology: Historical Confluences:

8. 'Hineingehalten in die Nacht': Heidegger's early appropriation of Christian eschatology, Judith E. Tonning;

9. Phenomenology and eschatology in Michel Henry, Jeffrey Hanson;

10. 'Without world': eschatology in Michel Henry, Kevin Hart;

Appendix: The present and the gift, Jean-Luc Marion.

A PDF of the Introduction is available for download from Ashgate here.

Online Dissemination of Research Findings

So I recently applied for a job as a Research Associate on the ESRC/AHRC funded Religion and Society Programme, based at Lancaster (Linda is the Director). There were 61 applicants shortlisted and 5 of us that were interviewed, so I was chuffed to get to the interview stage. It was a great experience - a real confidence boost - and its good to know that when I have submitted my thesis I'll be a good candidate for other RA positions / lectureships / research funding.

Part of the interview day involves giving a presentation on how I would disseminate the findings from the large number of diverse projects funded by the Programme. I thought I'd blog about it a bit here, as it was a very interesting exercise. Here you can view the PowerPoint presentation I did.

Online Dissemination of Research Findings

View more presentations from Katharine Moody.

I used research about online reading behaviour to suggest tips for successful online dissemination that informed my suggestion for how the Programme could thematically present project findings. Important factors included the use of subject headings and subheadings, and reports summarising and synthesising findings for different website audiences.

Much of the knowledge about how users read online comes from studies by Jakob Nielsen (of useit.com), an expert in web usability. Of particular interest are his conclusions that users seek immediate gratification, scan pages rather than read them, don't scroll down to read longer pages, and want to exercise agency in navigation.

These findings suggest that successful online dissemination of research

• scans easily (meaning paragraphs are short, key words are highlighted, and further information is bullet-pointed),
• is concise (online text should be half the word count of print text),
• and is journalistic (written in an inverted pyramid starting with conclusions, then key information, and finally background information so the user can determine how much detail to go into).

Successful online dissemination also

• helps users determine the value of a page immediately (i.e. whether or not the contents will be of use to them)
• is user-driven (so that users exercise agency in how the site is navigated and information is approached and accessed)
• and breaks down information by subject (so that there are no excessively long pages). [I obviously haven't mastered this last point in my blog!!!]

All these devices are geared towards attracting users and convincing them of the value of printing off longer documents.

Based on these insights, I developed a strategy for the thematic disseminations of findings from the projects commissioned by the Programme.

I suggested that, firstly, there should be an easily scan-able list of hyperlinked primary headings which enable users to choose how to approach the data. For this particular brief I chose 12 primary headings, which were:

• the 7 Programme research themes (meaning, defining, being; identity, community, welfare and prosperity; religion, violence and conflict resolution; religion, media and the arts; texts, spaces, rituals and objects; education and socialisation; and law, politics and the state),
• religious traditions (so users could go straight to findings related to particular religions),
• social factors (so users could access data on factors such as age, ethnicity, or class),
• policy impact (so users could go to those findings with implications for public policy),
• methodological concerns (because the Programme aims included not only advancing knowledge about religion and society but also promoting interdisciplinarity, developing productive working relationships between researchers and research subjects, and encouraging reflexivity within the study of religion and society),
• and individual research projects (so users could go straught to a summary of a particular project - written by the Research Associate).

Under each of these headings I wrote a brief summary to enable users to determinate the value of following the link further into the data. After following a particular link, the user moves through to a new page where the cluster of themes is broken down further into a table of contents that is also hyperlinked.

I drew up some prospective thematic divisions (for this particular brief) using the suggestions made in the descriptions of the Programme's research themes as well as the available titles and proposals of projects commisioned to date. Clicking on, for example, "law, politics and the state" would take the user through to a contents page where the primary heading is split into subheadings (in this case, religion and law; religion and politics; religion and state; and contested concepts) which then divided again into further categories and subcategories.

Each (sub)title in the contents list takes the user to a report (written by the Research Assistant), which synthesises findings from commissioned projects according to subject, under such titles as "Freedom of speech and blasphemy," "Religion and British identity," "Religious visions of society," or "Tolerance."

Each report synthesising findings is structured using

• the cross-cutting theme heading,
• a summary statement to enable users to determine page-value
• a thematic "non-specialist" presentation of findings (with quick links to sections of the report, again to indicate page-value to users)
• and hyperlinks within the text to more specialist content so users can choose to access more information.

I suggested that these links might enable users to

• read individual project summaries
• download project documents (e.g. tables of data, graphs, questionnaires, bibliographies, or the full text research findings provided by principal investigators)
• visit project / research partner websites
• buy Programme / individual project publications
• read journal abstracts and online articles
• read other online output
• locate other output and related bodies (including newspaper and magazine articles; policy documents; organisations; communities; similar regional, national and transnational research programmes and projects, e.g. Disasporas, Migration and Identities or NORFACE).

Clearly, both the contents pages and the reports drawn up from Phase 1 research findings would be further refined and augmented as and when findings come in from the other two phases of projects. Also, this is a strategy for dissemination via the Internet, where findings are broken down into accessible and manageable "chunks"; other forms of dissemination would require other (probably much broader) subject headings.

I argued that this strategy simplifies the dissemination of research to different website audiences. While the ESRC website, for example, asks readers what type of user they are (general public, academic, public sector, third sector) and then provides differentiated content for different sets of users, this approach multiplies the work load and ends up repeating information.

The strategy I suggested, however, provides a) user-driven "links in" to the data thereby catering to any and all audiences,and b) "links out" to more specialist content for especially interested users. For example, an academic interested in theories of sacralization can follow links to that thematic report, or, if already aware of and interested in a particular project within the Programme, can go straight to the project summary and download full text documents from the PI. Someone from the public sector who is interested in the research that bears on particular polices can access that information through the "Policy Impact" pathway, and someone from the third sector who wants to know about the interrelations between religion and social deprivation or strategies for successful faith organisations, for example, can like choose their own user-specific path into the data. Finally, a member of the general public interested in Islam can access all the findings whihc relate to that religious tradition.

So, my presentation used insights from research on web usability to reflect on successful online dissemination strategies and to suggest that the Religion and Society Programme website should

• allow users to navigate through 12 primary headings
• provide brief summaries of findings clusters to enable users to determine page value
• display easily scan-able contents pages under each primary heading
• enable users to choose "links in" to concise, non-specialist, thematic reports (by RA)
• include links within the reports to allow specialist users to access further content
• make it easy for users to confirm the value of findings
• convince users to print off full text documents (from PI) or buy publications.
  

I made it clear that this was not to preclude other methods of dissemination via the website (e.g. page listing all Programme or project-specific output) but rather to present the strategy I would implement to disseminate findings thematically.

I didn't get the job because I haven't yet finished or submitted my thesis (the other four candidates had) and because the successful candidate already had a wider knowledge of religion and society through working on previous projects, so it wasn't because my strategy for online dissemination sucked - therefore I thought it would be of interest to other researchers who are thinking about setting up websites to disseminate their findings to a broader audience.

Theologically Speaking

Here in Lichfield, I go to a local parish church called St. Michael's. It has a great vicar who takes the piss out of everyone, and a stained glass window that I love which has Mary Magdalene in it and the jewels in her hair make her look like she's got pixie ears. (I'll try to remember to take a picture to put here soon.) St. Michael's runs a monthly theological discussion group that I've been part of since we moved here called "Theologically Speaking." The speed with which the group normally moves to issues of doubt and unknowing is always exhilarating - totally blowing away any preconceptions I had held about what this little group of Anglicans would be like. St. Michael's has a few characters that revel in referring to themselves as faithful heretics and it has been fantastic to chat to these guys.

Anyway, Theologically Speaking asked me to do a session on my research. It was titled "A/theism and the Future of the Church," and you can download a copy of the handout I did here.

I started by framing my project in terms of my research questions: How is truth conceptualized in the emerging church milieu? and What are the philosophical, theological and ethical implications of such notions of truth? I (incredibly briefly and necessarily unsatisfactorily) introduced the emerging church milieu as a global network of individuals and communities, connected by the Internet, concerned to live Christ-like lives today.

I began by showing how philosophy has begun to level the playing field for religious belief in the public sphere and introduced notions like post-foundationalism and post-secularism. Here are some of the quotations from participants that I used to give them a flavour of how these notions are held by those involved in the emerging church milieu:

"Everyone has a faith commitment... I'm not saying [everyone's] got a religious commitment, but [they've] got certain assumptis which are not based on reason."

"We're all fundamentalists of one sense or another."

"[Faith] is a foundation of sorts, but it's a post-foundational foundationalism, it's a foundation in the sky, because as soon as you try to analyse it, it disappears."

Here, I've written up the notes I was talking from:

While exposing the myth of the secular levels the playing field for religion to reassert itself in the public sphere (for example, Radical Orthodoxy's unapologetical declaring of secular models of structuring society to be heretical parodies of Christian models), we can go further than this: towards a/theism.

The limitations of human knowledge lead many participants towards an affinity with Derridean deconstruction and Capution deconstructive theology. For example,

"we don't know the number of hairs on God's head, God knows the number of hairs on our head... [The nature of human knowledge] actually creates doubt not just about who or what God is, it creates doubt about if God is. But in the same way that we can celebrate we're not sure exactly who God is, I think we can actually celebrate going, 'and sometimes I don't know even if God is'."

"God changed me, but I'm not sure he exists."

Because we can't know whether we are theists or atheists (in the final analysis) or whether God exists or not, many participants believe that we have to learn to live on the slash of uncertainty between these states. This uncertainty leads to conceiving God differently, other than a being or entity, and instead as an event:

"God spoke to me, repeating four simple words, 'I do not exist.' 'I do not exist'? What could this possibly mean? One thing for sure was that this was not a simply atheism, for it was God who was claiming God's non-existence. In that wasteland I was confronted with something different, I was confronted with the erasure of God by none other than God. I was confronted with the idea that, while God may not be something, that did not imply that God was nothing... And so I began to wonder if it was possible to think of God otherwise than being and nothing, to think of God as speaking, as happening, as an event, as life but not as an object." ('I do not exist,' The God Delusion, ikon, Belfast)

But this uncertainty about whether or not God exists (as an entity) does not lead to a lack of meaning, a lack of ethical principles and apolitical paralysis (as so many criticisms of postmodern thought have contested). Instead, "God" names something (we don't know what) that calls to us, promises a different reality "to come," transforms us and inspires us to make that reality happen. Therefore, it is closely linked to political and social action, particularly notions of justice, hospitality, forgiveness and love.

To explain a bit further, Derrida distingshes between the "messianic" (the inexplicable hope of something "to come" built into us all) and "messianisms" (the concrete systems built around a particular Messiah, e.g. Christianity). What is "to come" is a future we cannot prepare for, because no horizon of expectation (e.g. "kingdom of God") will dull the shocking impact of its arrival. Its coming might even destablise our notions of "kingdom of God." For Derrida, the "messianic structure" (the hope of something "to come") is more important than the particular "messianisms." In fact, "messianisms" need to be kept open to the in-coming of the event, the call, in order to prevent them from being closed over to the work of responding to that call (this is where deconstruction "comes in"!).

"Tearing apart what I love is evidence that I love it" ("Unravelling," The God Delusion, ikon, Belfast)

Jack Caputo talks of both "historical association" (within particular determinate traditions) and "messianic disassociation" (acts of Christians and of Christianity itself which keep them/it open to the incoming of the other, and able - hopefully, because we can't know! - to responding to the other). The Christian tradition is auto-deconstructive. There are fissures and cracks that keep it open to its true calling, that stop it from closing over and shutting down to its vocation to respond to the call (of God? of justice? of love? of peace? Again, we don't know; but we can believe).

There is an element of uncertainty built into creation such that the call can go unheeded, the promise unfulfilled. But we can also be transformed by the call, turned around (metanoia), reversed, convrted, changed. As Caputo has written, we have to "make good" on God's "good" in the Creation narrative, which means acting to bring about what we believe is "to come," even though our idea of it (e.g. kingdom of God, love, justice, peace) might be radically revised in the event of its coming, which might never be.

So even though we don't know the end of the story (does God exist? will the kingdom come? are theists or atheists ultimately right?) we have to step out in faith and respond to what has called us (even though we don't know what it is, even though we name it differently, and disagree about what it is and even that it is).

To recap, the origin of the call is ultimately unknown and unknowable. We all name it differently (God, love, justice, the good, peace...). But we are called by it to help bring it about, not to squabble over what to call it, whether it exists, or who is/isn't included in its call. Caputo writes, “It is not what we call God that is at issue, but what God calls. Then again, it is not what God calls that is at issue, but the response.” (John D. Caputo, The Weakness of God, p.97).

In my thesis, however, I'm particularly interested in how we get from this a/theology to something with practical viability for communities. More quotations from participants signals how they are trying to create communal spaces in which divisions between types of belief are being resisted and blurred.

"dividing people between sheep and goats, that's not what we're about. We're not trying to divide people, we're trying to bring people together."

"Can we hold both views? Can we create a space where both views can be held?"

I'm using the notion of A/theistic Orthodoxy to look at how such spaces might be created. Important here is a different notion of orthodoxy:

"Instead of following the Greek-influenced idea of orthodoxy as right belief,... the emerging community is helping us to rediscover the more Hebraic and mystical notion of the orthodox Christian as one who believes in the right way - that is, believing in a loving, sacrificial and Christ-like manner... Thus orthodoxy is no longer (mis)understood as the opposite of heresy but rather is understood as a term that signals a way of being in the world rather than a means of believing things about the world" (Pete Rollins, How (Not) To Speak of God, pp.2-3).

Here, "church" or community is a space in which divergent beliefs can be held, e.g. whether or not the virgin birth was a historical event, whether Jesus is the Son of God, whether or not God exists as an entity external to us. Many participants talk about beliefs being held "lightly" so that they remain open to the incoming of an event that may radically revise them. Instead of rigid dogmatism, beliefs are held in a "loving, sacrificial, Christ-like manner."

"I think we need to hold our beliefs lightly."

"I tend to draw the line if somebody wants to hold their religion to the point of brow beating or condemning others because they don't do it their way."

"I don't particularly have a problem with people who sort of feel certain, you know. As long as their certainty doesn't then exclude others."

I ended with some questions for discussion:

• What do you think the implications of a/theism might be for the future?
• Do you think that suspending final conclusions about the origin(s) of this call and the name(s) which we give it will facilitate a collaborative response to it?
• Do you think that the notion of "a/theistic orthodoxy" will enable collaboration between denominations, across religons, and with people of "no religoin" for a better future?

It was a really useful exercise to try and introduce some of these ideas to people unfamiliar with either the emerging church conversation or deconstructive theology, and helped me to solidify my thinking in some of these areas. It was great to see everyone interested and engaging with these ideas, and fantastic to see some people so energized about it. The discussion questions ellicited the view that dogmatism will remain a barrier but that collaboration between "progressive" elements (within denominations, across religions and with "atheists") has been possible and will continue to be. The group found the notion of a/theistic orthodoxy to be an exciting way of articulating these developments towards collaboration regardless of differences.

I was asked to do a follow-up session focusing more on a/theism and Derrida's confession that 'I quite rightly pass for an atheist,' which I'll blog about some time next month.

Exploring New Challenges and Methods in the Study of Religion

Details about the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies' postgraduate workshop, "Exploring New Challenges and Methods in the Study of Religion" are now available here. Hosted by Birkbeck's Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society on May 16th 2009, the day runs from 10.15 to 4.30pm and includes a plenary from Linda Woodhead, workshops and postgraduate papers. Andy Dawson, who is an editor of Fieldwork in Religion, told me to let him know if I thought of anything arising from the event to turn into an article. Here's the preliminary programme:



10.15am Registration


10.30am Welcome and plenary talk:

Prof. Linda Woodhead, "Current and future directions in the study of religion"

Lancaster University and Director of the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme.


11.30am Plenary workshops:

Katharine Moody, Lancaster Universty, "Studying religion and the Internet"

Serena Hussain, University of Oxford, "Accessing and using census data for research on religion"



12.50pm Lunch


1.30pm Panel sessions:

Doctoral student presentations on work in progress and methodological issues.

Papers will include:

Jane Cameron, University of Edinburgh: "Visualising Buddhism in India: contesting categories in the field"

Saleem Khan, London Metropolitan University: "Accommodation, competition, and conflict: sectarian identity in Pakistan, 1977-2002"

Lois Lee, Cambridge University: "How religious is non-religion? Non-believing and belonging in modernity"

Helen Purcell, Open University: "Balancing the narratives – a methodological approach to the emic and etic issues of being a Pagan academic"

Denise Ross, University of Birmingham: "A study of the impact of missionaries among the Chin tribe in Myanmar"

Anna Rose Stewart, University of Sussex: "Fieldwork and the network: Contextualising online religion"

Ingrid Storm, University of Manchester: "Using survey data to identify and construct scalar indices of religiosity"



3.00pm Tea and coffee


3.30pm Final plenary panel discussion


4.30pm End

Workshop for Aspiring Academics

I'm going to a Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies workshop for "Aspiring Academics" in London in May (19th). It's aimed at people relatively new to teaching or planning a career in academia.

Contributors include:

Professor Jonathan Wolff
(Department of Philosophy, University College London)
Dr Joe Cain (Department of Science and
Technology Studies, University College London)
Dr Mathew
Guest (Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University)
Dr David Mossley
(Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies) and
Dr Rebecca O’Loughlin
(Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies)

Some blurb: "This workshop offers an opportunity for aspiring academics to gather and share information and advice, and to develop the skills necessary for a successful academic career. The event will be useful both for those already teaching and researching in departments, and those hoping to start their academic careers soon. It will also provide a chance to meet fellow academics from all over the country."

Topics covered will include:

Views of the 21st century research landscape
Subject specific approaches to curriculum design
Career planning

The event, including lunch and refreshments, is provided at no charge, and runs from 11:00 to 16:00. Places are allocated on a first come first served basis and the deadline for registration is April 30th 2009; for online booking go here.

Academic Facebook

I've finally gotten around to joining academia.edu - a networking site for academics that connects with Facebook. Here's my profile picture (in a pub in Amsterdam a couple of years ago).

Academia.edu is basically a tree displaying university departments and research areas to which you can attach your profile, add specialist research interests and find others working in similar areas. One of the founder's profiles is public as an example (Richard Price). You can also upload pieces of work.

Thesis Abstract - January 2009

Here's the most recent version of my thesis abstract. It will most definitely change as I continue to write up my arguments - particularly as my arguments continue to shift as I write. The most glaring omission from this abstract concerns my findings, as I haven't quite decided what they are or how to frame them best!!! However, as it stands, this abstract is a good indication of what I intend to write about at the moment! I've also never been particularly good at writing abstracts, so hopefully the I'll get better at that too. As a result I'll keep posting versions as they emerge from my brain.

The religious landscape of the United Kingdom has undergone considerable changes in the last half-century. The ‘death of God theology’ of the nineteen sixties began an exploration of the possibilities for Christianity ‘after metaphysics’ within a variety of academic disciplines. Recent contributions to the debate have included Radical Orthodoxy’s ‘catholic postmodernism,’ Weak Theology’s notion of non-dogmatic a/theistic ‘religion without Religion,’ a Lévinasian ‘religion of responsibility’ and Slavoj Žižek’s ‘atheistic Christianity.’



At the same time, the questionable evidence for the secularisation of contemporary society envisaged by many sociologists of religion and the growing indications of sacralisation now beginning to be documented throughout the West are being felt outside academia. The spectrum of possible expressions of Christian religiosity and “church” has further diversified. An increasing number of individuals and communities are engaging with the work of Nietzsche, Derrida, and Marion, among others, using these thinkers to inform their practice, and articulating their religious identity in the language of emergence. They are suggesting that something new is happening.


This thesis maps the contours of what it identifies as the UK emerging church milieu, framed by an investigation into the notion of truth. It follows participants’ understandings of truth as the concept traverses the disciplines of philosophy and theology, morphs into ethics, and encompasses politics. Its multi-methodological approach discerns the theories of truth that function within the UK emerging church milieu, placing them in conversation with classical theories.



These emerging understandings of truth are used as a springboard to explore their philosophical implications for Christianity after metaphysics, to evaluate the suitability of Radical Orthodoxy as a theological option for the milieu, and to argue for the ability of Weak Theology to act as a viable premise for ir/religious community. While two strands emerge regarding truth, suggesting philosophical and theological divergence, the thesis argues that there is convergence in practice as participants unite in a prioritisation of ethical justice over theoretical truth. The thesis forms a sustained argument for the undecidability of truth and its translation into justice as a useful means of “doing” Christianity after the death of God.

The Emerging Church, Deconstruction and Jamie Smith's "catholic Postmodernism"

Peter Schuurman's chapter in DeRoo and Lightbody's The Logic of Incarnation: James K.A. Smith's Critique of Postmodern Religion, "Deconstructing Institutions: Derrida and the 'Emerging Church'," identifies the 'shared values' between the emerging church and deconstruction, before using Smith's critique (basically, postmodern religion is not postmodern enough, i.e. still bound to the modern trend of autonomous individualization) to propose a three-fold division in the emerging church milieu.

Describing Jacques Derrida as a 'rock star' for the emerging church (p.112), but noting that some within this milieu use the language of deconstruction without reference to it as an academic thesis or misunderstand the 'radical nature of the Derridean project' (p.113), Schuurman presents what he see as four 'significant shared values' between the emerging church and deconstruction:

1. INTERPRETATION. Multiple readings 'challenge the idea that faith is certainty, without doubts or misreadings,' therefore also opening up 'room for questioning the church and theology' (p.114). This leads to playful and experimental reinterpretations of texts and doctrines, and friendly relationships between denominations and with other religions.

2. LOVE AND JUSTICE. Readings and performances of texts, doctrines and practices with an eye for the other are acts of love and justice, which facilitates a shift which Schuurman characterizes thus: 'now it is not important (or even possible) to "get the right reading" as it is to "read in a just and loving way",' which lays the ground for co-existence and collaboration (pp.114-115).

3. MESSIANISM. Schuurman writes that, 'no reading does justice to all, and no reading ever will. The perfect interpretation, the "right reading", the truly hospitable cultural construction is always "to come" – just like the Hebrew messiah' (p.115). However, rather conservatively, he links this notion of the "to-come" to the choice of the language of emergence: the 'emergent crowd' are 'emerging - a work in process - a church that is not a church but is rather a church "to come".' (p.115). In my thesis I'm exploring several more interesting, more radical examples of "messianic structures" within the emerging church milieu. (More on that to come as I write up over the next few months, I'm sure).

4. LIBERATION FROM THE DETERMINATE. Smith's chapter in DeRoo and Lightbody's collection, which I blogged about here, distinguished between the logics of determination and incarnation. Schuurman follows Smith's characterization of Derridean deconstruction (and Caputian deconstructive theology) as seeking to 'live in the dynamic between the readings rather than in any determinate reading' (p.115). I'll blog more about why I am dubious about Smith's portrayal of deconstructive theology as following a logic of determination as I continue to write up my thoughts, but for now my gut reaction to it is that it reads Caputo as more indeterminate than I believe he is being. Caputo speaks of the tension of BOTH existing IN (rather than moving over or passing through as Mark C. Taylor might write) historical associations (i.e. particular DETERMINATE religious traditions) AND engaging in messianic disassociations. This tension affirms singularity and particularity whilst at the same time trying to resist the temptation to privilege Christian particularity.

Schuurman's acceptance of Smith's characterization of deconstructive theology as fearful of determinancy leads him to construct a three-fold typology of emerging churches based on their relationship to the particularity of the Christian religious tradition.

Firstly, Schuurman identifies the 'discontinuous emergent church.' Here, participants 'shy away from creeds and confessions, and posit a radical discontinuity between themselves and the church that has gone on before' (pp115-116). Here, there is 'freedom from restraint, particularity, tradition,' or 'freedom as autonomy' (p.116), thus sharing with Derrida a flight from the determinate towards the indeterminate. However, my thesis is going to demonstrate that even those most closely aligned with Derridean and Caputian thought are not as discontinuous (or, in the language of sociologists of religion, post-traditionalized) as Schuurman makes out here. They are, after all, as I have mentioned above, engaged in both a historical association with the Christian tradition and a messianic disassociation from it in order to keep it open to the incoming of the other.

Secondly, those within the emerging church milieu that seek a 'return to the ancient Christian tradition' are classified as the 'ancient-future emergent church.' However, Schuurman warns against this grouping's tendency to privilege eclecticism thereby baptizing another form of autonomy in relation to tradition, one based upon postmodern consumerism (pp.116-117).

Therefore, Schuurman reiterates Smith's advocacy of a 'more persistent or proper postmodernism that takes us beyond the desire for autonomy and into a community of thought and practice that stretches through time and space, in other words, a particular embodied tradition and its institutions' (p.117). Those within the emerging church milieu that exhibit this submission to 'the “catholic” Christian faith of creeds and confessional Trinitarian dogma, the sacraments, and even hierarchy' are referred to as the 'catholic emergent churches (small "c").' In contrast to the freedom-from-restraint type of autonomy extant in the other types of emerging church, here there is 'a freedom that comes when one is empowered by deep commitments and covenants, by submission to authority and mutual accountability' (p.118).

Schuurman ends by asking, 'How can we nurture a commitment and authenticity that is neither an extension of the rule of taste nor a retrenchment in embattled fundamentalist certainty?' (p.118). But the underlying assumption of this question (and of Schuurman's critique of the deconstructive elements within the emerging church milieu) is that the entire milieu operates with an understanding of truth that is an accommodation to 'the rule of taste.' Part of my thesis contends that, far from being "whatever works for me," truth in the emerging church milieu more often takes the form of "what transforms," what turns me from myself to others.

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!