Foregone Conclusions

Adam Kotsko and others at AUFS have continued to put up engaging posts around religious dialogue and maintenance.  In the most recent post Adam proposes an attempt at ‘baggage-less Christianity’ in which conversation partners can be freed to talk about various aspects of their faith without assuming an intimate dependence on a whole other matrix of issues that the other conversation partner is likely not assuming.  As with the analogy the image is of the relationship in which one partner uses the other for projecting all their prior relationships which have nothing to do with the present.

I have some issues with this post most pointedly with Adam’s claim that his position can enable conversation with actual human beings.  I have no idea what this means other than an assumption that the people Adam is criticizing have no actual interest in real conversation.  Who are these actual human beings?  In any event the post points at a significant experience for many people.  When the topic of religion arises at least one of the conversation partners tends to have a clear goal in mind as to how things should end up.

What is at stake for me in this issue is the notion of whether or not Christians (myself most definitely included) will allow themselves to be surprised by God.  One of my own greatest revelations in reflecting on the Bible is how consistently those who are designated to receive God’s revelation misunderstand it, distort it, or pervert it.  If there is a guiding thread in biblical theology I would suggest it is humanity’s general inability to respond appropriately to God.  If this position can be accepted it would seem strange that the Christian religion would continue to maintain a choke-hold on its truth claims.  Well I suppose it is no surprise as it is the best attested biblical position.  In any event this preamble was mostly put in place to set up a song that Adam’s post reminded me of; David Bazan’s Foregone Conclusions.

I don’t want to believe that all of the above is true
But I could be persuaded if you were to give me proof
So why don’t you come over Thursday?
Maybe we can talk it through
As if some new information were possible
To comprehend or introduce

And after all
You and I are nothing more than
Foregone conclusions

You were too busy steering the conversation toward the Lord
To hear the voice of the Spirit begging you to shut the fuck up
You thought it must be the devil trying to make you go astray
And besides, it could not have been the Lord
Because you don’t believe He talks that way

And after all
You and I are nothing more than
Foregone conclusions
Too close to call
Yet we’re still so tightly wound
Around our foregone conclusions

Naaman and the Parable of Academic Theology

In a couple of weeks I will be preaching on 2 Kings 5:1-19.  This is the story of Naaman a great commander of the army of Aram.  Naaman, however, is a leper.  In one of his conquests Naaman captures a ‘small girl’ who ends up as a servant for Naaman’s wife.  As the small girl sees Naaman’s affliction she says that Naaman should send word to the prophet in Samaria and he would heal him.  This is Naaman’s initial posture.  By almost all accounts he is a man of status and power and yet he is afflicted in such a way that everything is tainted.  In that position he is able to hear from the ‘small girl’ who in every way is his contrast.

Once Naaman hears of this possibility he does not send word to the prophet but immediately reverts to the ‘appropriate’ channels.  He sends word to the king.  He brings a large sum of money.  He travels with horses and chariots.  And the king of Israel upon hearing word tears his clothes.  What can he do for this powerful man?  Surely Naaman is trying gain some advantage through this encounter.  Naaman must a shrewd and clever dialogue partner looking for advantage in this relationship.  But Elisha the prophet simply asks that Naaman come and see him.  So Naaman arrives at the entrance of the prophet’s home with all his pomp and procession.  But Elisha does not even greet Naaman.  Instead he sends his messenger to tell Naaman to wash in the Jordan River seven times and he would be healed.  Naaman is infuriated by this action.  He goes on to describe what he imagined should have happened.  Elisha should have come out to greet him and standing their he would call on the name of his God and wave his hand and heal him.  The scene again is one in which the grandness of the result should be accomplished by a grand action.  There should be a proportional relationship.

This story reminded me of my academic development.  I began post-secondary education as though listening to a ‘small girl’.  I had a felt need and desire that this process could be a work of healing or restoration (it was all of course more convoluted than that but for the sake of contrast it is not entirely inaccurate).  Perhaps it did not happen as quickly as with Naaman but I began veering off course away from the prophet and towards the king.  This path called for a demonstration, a pageantry displaying the validity of my presence and purposes.  I saw around me that small and simple acts were inadequate.  One needed to call on the name of rigorous thinkers and wave the hand dense and nuanced argumentation.

Of course this parable falls apart on any number of levels.  Any Naaman could come across this post and demonstrate its inadequacies.  But it is only an attempt to begin writing in the spirit of a ‘small girl’.    There are many important things going on among important people who are able to sustain important discourses.  And these things are important as they affect many people.  I, however, suspect I have plugged the ears that once heard small things. I no longer know where the Jordan River is and I may not even have the patience to wash seven times in it.  And to what end would that accomplish in any event?  Naaman was convinced and he washed himself.  What happened?  His flesh became like that of a ‘small boy’.  This is no cult of beauty.  This is a reversion or a return to a way discounted by our culture.  It is a path not noticed.  A path not seen.

An Introduction

While I have been active in online forums and blogging for almost a decade it has only recently become clear to me that a shift occurred (that I was not a part of!).  When I began blogging and interacting there were very few grad students and fewer professors blogging and so (in my circles) there was a relatively equal playing field for interaction.

Over time those undergrad students continued their academic careers and others joined in.  This has resulted in some truly high level and consequently specialized online spaces for critical and confessional theology.  I did not continue along the same path and it took me some time to realize I was no longer ‘one of the gang’.  To the extent that I continued trying to fit into these modes I found myself frustrated (and frustrating) while my intellectual pursuits became increasingly divorced from my professional role as a pastor.

This blog is my attempt at opening a space for what, at this point, I can only call descriptive pastoral theology.  I hope to not abandon my interests in critical theology and theory but I do hope to work from a clear ‘place’ which is as a pastor.  I call this work descriptive for personal reasons.  Some of the most formative works of fiction, theology and philosophy have been those which are simple and profound acts of description.  I realize that this term and idea needs much more unpacking . . . but that is the whole point.

And what haunts this all is Jesus’ relentless call to all those with eyes to see.  And so I am hoping de-scribe in the double movement away from the scribal task of securing discourse towards the eternal posture of seeing and therefore enacting the biblical vision of heaven.