Wednesday, October 11, 2006

(Relentlessly) Linking Wednesday

1. Old-school McSweeney's: Ikea Product or Lord of the Rings Character? The author even included answers. I got them all right, because I'm a junkie for BOTH those things.

2. An article from Entertainment Weekly online entitled "Six Ways for Hollywood to Stop Alienating Women." Some good ideas in there. This point was interesting:

Keep counting after the opening weekend.
Women, unlike men, generally don't feel the need to be first in line on opening night. Quite the contrary, a lot of female filmgoers prefer to be coaxed into the multiplex by good reviews, an intriguing subject, and strong word of mouth; that's also true for all moviegoers over 40, another demographic group that the major studios bizarrely insist on treating as some sort of obscure minority even though they make up 43 percent of the total audience.

But that sort of foreplay isn't exactly Hollywood's forte these days — studio marketers are more slam-bam-sorry-that-was-over-so-fast types. However, shrugging off that audience by assuming they'll catch up with your movie on DVD is getting an entire generation of moviegoers out of the habit of going to movies — and that's bad business. . . . And by the way, it wouldn't hurt to make the kinds of movies that generate good word of mouth, which means less money spent on digital effects and more spent on script development and rehearsal time (yes, it actually helps).

3. I'm bad at keeping up with my friend's blogs sometimes. I freely admit I don't hit most of them everyday, but then again, most of you go quite a while before updating, so checking once or twice a week is just about right. I just found this post by neil about going back to Grove City two weeks ago, and it was a great post. The parts about feeling a disconnect from the alma mater really hit home. See, Hubster and I have guests this weekend, so Homecoming back at the Grove is right out for the second year in a row. I know I'll be missing lots of peeps, but I also know that going back is bittersweet in a way that surprises me. How can it be that hard when college itself was awful for large sections? I don't even think I feel that way about high school, but then again, my high school's building someone else's church, and I still see the people, so I guess that's different even if this sentence is a run-on. Whatever, his post was good and also adorable, and I wish him the best at sorting through it all.

4. This post by sbp is also quality. She also has some lovely poetry up right now. I miss having first crack at her drafts on our freshman hall. Sigh.

5. Another template site for ya. It's all in Italian and English, but his designs are nice, so wade through it and you might find a gem. Also, I haven't seen any of them before, so you won't have a unique site, but it'll be almost as rare a design.

6. I'm been giving ABC's episode player a workout lately. I arrive home from choir too late for the start of Grey's Anatomy, so I just watch the episodes when they go live on their free online player in the next couple of days. The screen size/streaming quality is quite decent if you're got fast broadband, and you only have four 30-second commercials to endure. Until Hubster gets the FauxVo(tm) up and running, this'll do quite nicely. NBC has a similar player(you'll never quess which show I'm watching on it) and Fox is supposed to have one soon on MySpace (ewwy), so hurray for networks getting with the program! And HURRAY FOR THE INTERWEB!

7. This is a wee bit antique by net standards, but here's TIME magazine's feature article entitled "Does God Want You To Be Rich?". It focuses on the Prosperity Theology folks, and it's fairly well done. Honestly, when I try to boil down my emotions on the subject, it's mostly just revulsion hanging out at the bottom of the pot. Mind you, that's revulsion at the leaders and the elites in those churches, not the common man who just wants to be free of hand-to-mouth living, but yeah, yuck. I wish I had something more enlightening to say, but you can add your brilliant analysis in the comments.

Okay, no more sharing. EAP OUT!

13 comments:

Mair said...

A good friend of mine studies Prosperity Theology among Latino immigrants. I'll have to pass this along to him (after I have time to read it myself, that is!) Thanks for always scouting the web!

Justin said...

I read the article in the actual magazine (I'm such a luddite!), but it seemed to me like the article said, "These people believe this, and these people believe this, and they both think the other is wrong" and then it just ended. Take a side it didn't.

I'm of the opinion that Joel Osteen is an ass-clown, and being poor is something to be avoided if possible. By the way, I saw a couple of lesbians watching Joel Osteen's tv show in the gym the other morning... what does that mean?

Graceful Peaceful German Fischer said...

Desperation and utter sadness that we will not see you at Homecoming.

JMC said...

For the sake of efficiency, I am going to have to respond with corresponding numbers to your list:

2) I am not sure why this is alientating to “women.” It seems to me that the article could have just as easily been titled “Six Ways for Hollywood to Stop Alienating People Who Like Film,” kept the exact same content in the article, and then moved on. Why, precisely, is there a gender dynamic at play in any of the 6 specific claims?

3) It’s funny, because I can totally relate to the bittersweet feeling , but, for me, it’s because college was so wonderful. I can’t actually think of any long sections that were awful for me, so I have a hard time relating to the cognitive dissonance that so many others feel.

6) Very nice, thanks for the tip.

7) It’s funny, because, to me, Joel Osteen is the endgame of Evangelicalism, yet the harsh critic they bring in is Rick Warren. In fact, the whole argument, in Time’s account, is situated within Evangelicalism, completely without reference to Christianity outside of it. I just find that crushingly ironic. Evangelicalism’s completely flawed eschatology along with a complete disregard for the authority of the Church and Her traditions is what fosters Osteen, and there just aren’t any tools inside that tradition to counter him. If Evangelicals are right about the big questions, the Osteen is right about the application thereof.

Anonymous said...

HAHA...EAP out SLAYED me.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to thank jackscolon for using the term "ass-clown." It's incredibly under used and it makes me smile. Bravo!

JMC said...

Don Quixote:

The fact that prosperity theology only represents a “TINY, TINY minority within the Evangelical church” just indicates that Evangelicals aren’t very thoughtful about the implications of their beliefs. Curiously, rather than refuting my claim, you took an ad hominem (and slightly bizzare) anti-Catholic turn. Now, as someone who isn’t a Roman Catholic, I am not sure that I am qualified to address the issue you brought up, but I can venture a guess.

By introducing the True Catholic organization, you demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for conflating error with logical conclusion. The True Catholic organization is plain wrong; the theology that they claim to be defending precludes categorically the possibility that they could be right.

Prosperity gospel, on the other hand, is the fulfillment of Evangelical theology in contemporary America. By denying the authority of the Church and Her traditions, Christianity becomes necessarily a disembedded, culturally contingent set of beliefs. So, for instance, in contemporary America – a culture that is almost exclusively therapeutic and consumerist – Evangelicalism, if consistent with its own teachings, should probably look a lot like prosperity theology. To the extent that it doesn’t, Evangelicals either 1) haven’t followed through the logic of their beliefs or 2) are committed to Christian forms, values, and practices that the tenets of their beliefs cannot justify or support.

Now, you may object with a pithy line about “the authority of the Holy Scriptures” as a safeguard against such cultural relativism, but you would be wrong. The content of the Scriptures only transcends the culture in which it is read if the interpreter is not bound by that culture. You see, nobody disagrees that the Scriptures are authoritative; the objection that everyone has to Evangelicalism’s simplistic claim to submission to “the authority of the Holy Scriptures” is who should be interpreting what that authoritative content is/means and how does that interpretive work happen with any sort of reliability.

Roman Catholics (and the rest of the Christian world) don’t deny the authority of Scripture, Don Quixote: they deny the authority of an Evangelical’s interpretation. As authoritative as the Scriptures might be, your reading of them, when not bound by tradition, is culturally determined. As an Evangelical, you cannot read the Scriptures as anything but a 21st century American, because you cannot acknowledge the authority of the Tradition that birthed and cradled those Scriptures. The alternative to tradition is opinion, which by definition is culturally bound, infinitely plastic, and entirely contingent.

Which brings us full circle to prosperity theology: Evangelicalism – internal to itself – does not have any tools, other than individual preference and mores, to hold any position other than that of Joel Osteen.

Now, Don Quixote, if you wish to disagree with me, please refrain from ad hominem arguments and actually engage the one I set forth. Otherwise, we will consider this conversation finished and decided.

Justin said...

First- I'm not taking sides. I'm picking nits.

"To suggest that prosperity theology is the endgame of Evangelicalism is equivalent to the statement that the folks at truecatholic.com are the endgame of Roman Catholicism."

No, it isn't. To suggest that something is the endgame would require that there is some logical, unavoidable progression that causes the original movement to degenerate into the said movement.

J. Morgan places prosperity theology as the end game of evangelicism as a result of these factors:

1) Evangelicalism places the focus on individual interpretation of scripture, and ignores tradition.
2) Individuals are unable to situate themselves outside of culture without being able to appeal to tradition (i.e. things that predate and hence are formed outside of immediate culture)
3) Americans are situated inside a culture that is consumerist/materialist.

Therefore:

Evangelicals are bound to interpret scripture in a manner that is consumerist/materialist, since they have no outside source (tradition) to counter this. Hence- Joel Osteen and Prosperity Theology.

Without making judgements to the accuracy of his claims, I will state that J. Morgan's example would be an appropriate endgame unless the assumptions stated in his progression are wrong.

Introducing a random schismatic group and labeling them the "endgame" without any explanation as to why they would necessarily be the culmination of any movement doesn't fit the criteria. Furthermore, saying you "could" bring something up is the same as bringing it up. You're attempting to make the point without making it, I don't buy it.

Lastly, if you want to argue against J. Morgan (and I want you to, I want to see how this plays out) you're going to have to deal with the building blocks of his argument (which I attempted to number above) before you re-attack with statements like this:

"In fact, by following a fallible organization of men and women, you are necessarily making your beliefs MORE culturally contingent."

I think you're trying to make the point that appealing directly/individually to scripture is more viable/accurate than appealing to a combination of scripture/tradition, and I could buy this, PROVIDED you deal with and refute J. Morgan's assumption that we as individuals are situated within late-modernism/sweet comfortable consumerist America. You're going to have a difficult time proving to me that an organization historically at odds with mainstream science, and currently against the use of contraception, is overly concerned with "cultural viability".

You say, "Evangelicals use history, hermeneutics, the meanings of the original languages, the thoughts of past commentators, etc. to help them disentangle current culture from doctrine." Excuse my ignorance, but isn't that basically what the Catholic Church tries to do- only with the evaluation of "past commentators" on their terms, not modern ones?

That said- I'm fully against the Catholic Church and its ridiculousness, and against Joel Osteen and his...

JMC said...

To begin, Don Quixote, I never claimed that Evangelicals are not very thoughtful; I said, “Evangelicals aren’t very thoughtful about the implications of their beliefs.” That is a substantially different claim, and it seems worth noting.

Secondly, you continue to be confused about the nature of the term “endgame.” It is not that the end of a logical progression makes sense to the claim maker (or, as you said, “They think they have a very logical progression.”), it is that the end of a logical progression makes sense objectively and follows necessarily from the premises, that is, it is unavoidably. It is demonstrably false that the True Catholic organization is correct, therefore, despite what they think, their beliefs are not the endgame of Roman Catholicism. My claim was that Evangelicalism, necessarily and unavoidably ends in Prosperity Theology if logically followed. And that is why I have been claiming apples and oranges.

Now, your argument hinges on this belief that, “People certainly CAN situate themselves outside of their culture. In fact, it happens all of the time, especially in Evangelical circles.” As an example of how individuals can transcend culture while institutions are bound by it, you give the somewhat puzzling example of biological evolution.

Reading between the lines a bit, you seem to think that one’s views on biological evolution is a big, perhaps the biggest, indicator of whether one is culturally bound. I notice, for instance, that you didn’t address jackscolon’s claim concerning contraception at all. So because an institution – the Roman Catholic Church – accepts biological evolution as an account of creation that complements the biblical record (never mind that they oppose contraception, don’t let their all male clergy to marry, refuse the mass to non-Catholics, don’t allow divorce, and have basically stuck to the same liturgy for 1600 years), they are unambiguous capitulators to the sway of culture? That could not be less convincing, dear Quixote.

Regardless, we aren’t debating evolution nor are we debating Roman Catholicism: we are debating Evangelicalism. So, in the future, let’s try to keep our claims tightly pertinent to that issue.

Now, let’s also be clear about culture. I am using the term to denote the basic, constitutive assumptions of existence (basic ontological and epistemological assumptions, how language functions, the meaning of words, notions of the good life, notions of the self, etc.). I am not using culture to denote ethos: political views, fashion, opinions, ideals, etc. I am concerned with the unquestioned/unquestionable assumptions that constitute human interactions.

By definition, then, individuals – whose “career” can only last about 100 years - are fairly limited. Everything they know, believe, or can know and believe, is mediated through the culture in which they exist. It is determinate; they are bound to and by it without exception by their own finitude. While individuals have access to history, their interpretive capacity is mediated by their culture. Their understanding of history is both radically contingent and un-universal.

Institutions – whose “career” can last thousands of years, are fairly stable. Institutions represent the knowledge and beliefs of several cultures; the older they are, the more textured their knowledge and belief becomes. As such, they are less affected by any one culture in which they exist. Institutions have access to history in an entirely different way; not least of which is that they are literally enacting the implications of history simply by existing. As such, they have some authoritative claim on the interpretation of history; they are far less contingent and far more universal.

As an example, I would point to the Unite States Constitution. We have a fairly stable government because we have a document that provides for institutional governance and clear rules for the perpetuation of that governing body. This was by design; a cult of personality (like Bonaparte’s France) was always an option, but, for the sake of stability and consistency, our founding fathers rightly opted for an institutional rather than individual government.

But, you don’t seem to agree with that. In opposition to institutional authority, you propose Scripture. You say, “Scripture is the only source of truth that does not change, so it is the only reasonable basis for the doctrines of Christianity.”

I want to contest this on two points.

First, when you are proposing Scripture as an alternative to the Church, you are really proposing an individual reading of Scripture to the Church’s reading of Scripture. Let’s be clear and honest about that. See, books don’t say or mean anything on their own; language is an intersubjective activity where meaning is created between no fewer than two language users. So, the words of Scripture are, on their own, meaningless and free of content. It is only when they are read and interpreted that meaning and content is created. The nature of that meaning and content is contingent both on the speaker (in this case, the text) and the hearer (in this case the reader); the reader brings as much meaning to the text and the text brings to the reader. That is why context is vitally important. That is why, as I have said above, individuals are far less equipped to read Scripture, because they lack most of the tools necessary to do so in any way other than the way conditioned by their cultural context.

Second, and related, Scripture does change. While the words on the page do not and the intent of the authors and the God to which those Scriptures attest do not, the reader does. As such, they meaning – which is presumably what we are talking about in the first place – changes. Remember: language is an intersubjective act. The best case study I can think of is the word “faith.” It means nothing like what we think it means in the 1st century Levant, it means nothing like what we think it means during the Reformation, etc. The literal meaning of the word changes with the culture in which it is read and interpreted. That is why, early, I referred to “Evangelicalism’s simplistic claim to submission to ‘the authority of the Holy Scriptures.’” Evangelicalism does not take into account the nature of language when making claims about the centrality of the Scriptures. They don’t see any need for an authoritative interpreter because they don’t acknowledge that the Scriptures need interpretation.

So, Evangelicalism resides wholly in the realm of contingent, culturally bound opinion. Hence, Joel Osteen. Q.E.D.

JMC said...

I realized that there are quite a few typos in my previous post. If anyone is unclear on anything I was getting at, let me now: jmcaler@gmail.com.

CharlesPeirce said...

Wow, killer discussion.

I just wanted to make the point that I submitted a couple of lists that I thought were freaking hilarious to McSweeney's, but they politely refused them (even sending me a personal e-mail.) My best list was Dashboard Confessional songs that could double as mocking John Kerry campaign slogans. (Like, "Rapid Hope Loss.")

eap, you ever submitted a list?

JMC said...

Don Quixote,

If I am understanding you correctly, there are (at least) five problems with my argument:

1) I don’t have much (or any) knowledge of Evangelical theology,
2) I refuse to acknowledge that institutions “change with culture,”
3) I am confusing “meaning” with “interpretation,”
4) I am not giving Evangelicals their due with regard to their consideration of language,
5) and, I am a postmodernist.

I would like to take a minute to address each of those points in hopes that we can move our conversation forward a bit.

1) I must confess, I am guilty as charged. If you could, give me a few Evangelical theologians that I might have read (or at least heard of) that would help orient me. Evangelicalism is a slippery term, so I just want to be clear that we are talking about the same thing. Evangelicalism, in my mind, is, a relational soteriology, a democratized aesthetic, a fairly low view of the authority of history, and a disposition towards text that privileges the individual.

2) I fully acknowledge that institutions and the ideology that they represent change over time, usually in response to changes in culture. Now whether we think that change is good or not should be bracketed because that is contingent on whether we believe the changer has the authority to do so. What I am denying is that this change has anything to do with what I am talking about. Culture, in the way I am using it, is not denotative of “sensibilities,” but of grounding assumptions, what Charles Taylor calls “strong evaluations.” Changes in sensibilities (the sort of cultural change that you have been talking about and that we all are accustomed to thinking about) are fairly insignificant and don’t actually tell us much about the subject in question; changes in strong evaluations are more significant and extremely unlikely to happen (maybe even impossible). The implication is significant: Institutions, like individuals, cannot escape the strong evaluations into which they are born. Institutions, then, aren’t bound by the culture in which they are presently located precisely because their strong evaluations were formed outside of that culture. Individuals are different: their strong evaluations are formulated within the culture that they spend the entirety of their lives; their sensibilities may shift and transcend their present (as you have amply pointed out), but their constitutive assumptions about being, knowing, and, most importantly, themselves cannot change. It is those constitutive assumptions that mediate everything else. That is the nature of my argument, just so we are clear. Where we stand on issues or our self-conscious beliefs are not in the purview of my claim, and so your endless examples thereof just confuse the issue.

3) I think you are conflating “text” with “author/subject.” I am not denying that St. Paul had a particular intent and meaning that he put into the text and that the subject, the Triune God, is objectively one way or another. I am also not denying that it should be our goal to “uncover” authorial intent and the true nature of the subject. I am, however, denying that the text has some 1-to-1 correspondence with the author or subject. The text is not bound to the author or the subject. That is the issue. The text stands free from those who create it and those who read it because it is conveyed in language, which is a medium not controlled by the author or reader. It exists, to a great degree, sui generis. Hence my claims about meaning being created between the players – author, reader, and text; subject and context are also players. So I think the biblical authors did have a clear intent, I just deny that anyone can get “behind” interpretation to get at that intent. Any account of that intent is just that; a constructed account by an interpretively limited third party who creates meaning from texts and contexts. So, if you deny that there is space between authorial intent and text, then I am guilty as charged of confusing interpretation with meaning. If, on the other hand, you acknowledge that space, then you are guilty of confusing text with author.

4) With regard to language, I do not deny that Evangelicals are amazingly attuned to the internal function of language (your two examples are perfect illustrators of that fact). In terms of contextualizing writings, faithfully rendering Hebrew and Greek into English, etc., Evangelicals are far out in front of many of their liberal Protestant and Catholic peers. My claim, however, was not related to the internal function of language but the nature of language as such. It was more of a meta-claim. I don’t think that is something to which Evangelicals typically attend (and your examples that were meant to serve as a rebuttal seem to bear that out), but I am willing to be proved wrong. My sense is that Evangelicals don’t account for the nature of language in the way that I have above, only the mechanics of it.

5) I wouldn’t even know where to begin. If, by postmodern, you mean something akin to your closing paragraph of your last lengthy post, then I strongly deny your claim:

“However, all of this discussion turns out to be irrelevant. Following your postmodern lead, I will now claim that I interpret your writing as indicating that I have convinced you of my position. Of course, you might write some reply in which the words appear to disagree with this assertion, but as long as I read it as meaning that you are capitulating, you have no say in the matter, since texts are ‘meaningless and free of content.’ I have enjoyed our discussion and am glad that you now agree with me!”

If, on the other hand, you mean postmodern in that I am skeptical that things are as simple as they seem, then yes, I am.

Well, there you have it. Kindly respond to each of my above contentions, rebut what you think is wrongly argued, and point out other pivotal disagreements I may have overlooked.

JMC said...

1) As I suspected, Evangelicalism as a concept lies behind much of our disagreement. It is worth noting that there is a distinction between Evangelical as an adjective and Evangelical as a noun. The former refers to Protestants and Catholics who basically meet Bebbington’s definition; they emphasize certain ASPECTS OF PRE-EXISTING TRADITIONS to a greater degree than others in their tradition. The latter refers to a loosely-defined group of non-Protestant, non-Catholic Christians who basically meet my definition; they emphasize certain doctrines AGAINST PRE-EXISTING TRADITIONS to create this nebulous third way. Now, hopefully parsing contests will go the way of pissing contests, but I think it is worth clarifying (I hate solving disagreements by defining away any objections, so hopefully that isn’t what I have managed to do here). Certainly, the Time Magazine article was dealing with Evangelical as a noun, which is where my comments were directed. The point, though, is that Evangelical Protestants and Catholics operate within some tradition that has some authority over them whereas Evangelicalism operates outside of (recognized) tradition. So, your submissions of Evangelicals are a bit of red herring. Henry is a great and obvious choice. I submit that all of my criticisms apply directly to his work (although I admire him a great deal). Stott is also an obvious choice in that Evangelicals think of him very highly and he very openly accepts the title Evangelical. Yet, he is an Anglican, so that complicates things a bit. Gordon Clark was a Reformed Presbyterian and Berkhof was about as Reformed as you can get, so I think they are out. I confess, I have never heard of Millard Erickson, so I have no opinion on him. As for Pinnock, I wouldn’t even know what to say. While I think he is an Evangelical, he is incredibly controversial and is not representative of the views held by Evangelicals in the least. He is perhaps the classic red herring on any number of levels, don’t you think?

2) So you have asked me to explain how changes in sensibilities don’t necessarily reflect changes in strong evaluations. All I would say is that, given different cultural conditions, similar or identical sets of constitutive commitments can create very different expressions. Again, the United States come to mind: given a commitment to a set of clearly-defined “hyper-goods” (that is, the Constitution), cultural conditions create very different understandings of the implications and forms of expression of those commitments. So, the American government in 2006 enacts a very different understanding of the good than the American government in 1956 or in 1906 or in 1826, but, in each case, it was deeply committed to the same “hyper-goods.” It would be a mistake to think that changes in the expression and understanding of those goods meant a change in those goods themselves or a change in the commitment to them. The shift in expression is significant and important, but it does not constitute a shift in strong evaluation. Individuals function very much the same way, although the sources of their strong evaluations are almost inevitably within their contemporary culture, making their situation much more limited: namely, that their views largely or only represent their historical present, not some long tradition. Without reference to and operation out of a tradition, the only access they have to the past is actually only an access to their present.

3) You have misquoted me. I said that “the words of Scripture are, ON THEIR OWN, meaningless and free of content” (emphasis added) not that “the text is ‘meaningless and free of content.’” I deny entirely that I have said anything divergent from my initial claim that texts “are, on their own, meaningless and free of content.” Apart from their situation among language users – both author and reader - texts are meaningless and free of content. The point is that the situation of text TOGETHER WITH THE TEXT creates meaning; when the situation shifts, the meaning shifts.

4) To clarify, “the USAGE of the language in the CULTURE” falls under what I was calling “mechanics.” That was perhaps the wrong word choice. I wasn’t making a claim about the function of language but about the nature of language. Evangelicals, in mind, aren’t in the habit of asking “What is language?”. Unless you understand what language is (particular in relation to and distinct from language-users), then you are likely to oversimplify the operation of language.

5) I disagree in the strongest terms that anything I may have said indicates that I “don’t really believe what [I] wrote.” Texts DO have meaning when situated, but not on their own. The meaning of Scripture (which I am intent on finding) is not found internal to the text ON ITS OWN. I am not saying that we need to reference commentaries and history “to get it right,” I am saying that there is literally no meaning internal to text by itself. Meaning is actually created when the text “interacts” with the author and the reader. Now, if you think that this is a position that renders my argument hopelessly postmodern and futile, then you are free to do so. I cannot think of a single self-described postmodernist who would deny that text has no meaning, so it might benefit you to read a bit more closely and be a bit more charitable in doing so.

Finally, I have ignored your overarching argument because I consider it ancillary to my main claim. My argument has nothing to do with which church is the Church, it just has to do with the inability of an individual operating outside of tradition to transcend cultural conditions. I would wholly admit that our choice to be such and such a Christian is culturally mediated and contingent, but that isn’t what I was arguing. I was simply arguing that traditions (and, more precisely, the institutions behind those traditions) aren’t as culturally contingent because of their particular character, never mind those who inhabit those traditions. Of course that makes the traditions susceptible to the sway of culture, but, from generation to generation, not as much as non-institutional actors. That is because history has authority over institutions in a way that it does not for individuals and multi-personality is a stabilizing force in institutions in a way that it cannot be for individuals.