Comments on: The naivety of the biblical witness http://recollections.blogsome.com/2006/08/14/the-naivety-of-the-biblical-witness/ Just another WordPress weblog Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:58:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.1-alpha by: Recollector http://recollections.blogsome.com/2006/08/14/the-naivety-of-the-biblical-witness/#comment-11 Sun, 20 Aug 2006 16:05:40 +0100 http://recollections.blogsome.com/2006/08/14/the-naivety-of-the-biblical-witness/#comment-11 Thanks for these comments. Both of them, in different ways, have made me realize that perhaps I'm coming at this the wrong way. Perhaps I'm wrong to have seen my "moving beyond" the parishes of Debatedom and academia as mature steps; in fact, my dismissal of Debatedom as a world that once meant a great deal to me might be immature, even cynical. The most mature thing may be to embrace the "parish" in which you find yourself, and work out from it towards an embrace of the world--to move from the particular to the universal (as the biblical story itself seems to) instead of from abstract, universal categories to the particular. Thanks for these comments. Both of them, in different ways, have made me realize that perhaps I’m coming at this the wrong way. Perhaps I’m wrong to have seen my “moving beyond” the parishes of Debatedom and academia as mature steps; in fact, my dismissal of Debatedom as a world that once meant a great deal to me might be immature, even cynical. The most mature thing may be to embrace the “parish” in which you find yourself, and work out from it towards an embrace of the world–to move from the particular to the universal (as the biblical story itself seems to) instead of from abstract, universal categories to the particular.

]]> by: Camassia http://recollections.blogsome.com/2006/08/14/the-naivety-of-the-biblical-witness/#comment-10 Wed, 16 Aug 2006 15:33:16 +0100 http://recollections.blogsome.com/2006/08/14/the-naivety-of-the-biblical-witness/#comment-10 Good post, and something I've been struggling with as well. It's interesting to think, though, that for most of human history most people never did get outside their little clan or village or whatever. Even large cities, before the technological age, tended to develop little neighborhoods where families would live for generations (as they still do in a lot of the world). It raises the possibility that "mature" at least partly means "adapted to the environment," and so what is mature in one culture isn't necessarily mature in another one. Recently I startled my lifelong-Christian boyfriend, for instance, by telling him that when I was growing up the "mature" thing was to accept the transcience of everything, and so the hope of eternal life seemed childish. By the same token, I think our tendency to regard the abstract as more mature than the personal is partly a function of the fact that our overcrowded society obliges us to think of people in categories and systems rather than as persons. I think this accounts for much of the trend in liberal theology toward turning God into an abstraction ("the ground of all being" and suchlike) and regarding Jesus as an ambassador for abstract principles of justice and love rather than important as a *person.* Good post, and something I’ve been struggling with as well. It’s interesting to think, though, that for most of human history most people never did get outside their little clan or village or whatever. Even large cities, before the technological age, tended to develop little neighborhoods where families would live for generations (as they still do in a lot of the world). It raises the possibility that “mature” at least partly means “adapted to the environment,” and so what is mature in one culture isn’t necessarily mature in another one. Recently I startled my lifelong-Christian boyfriend, for instance, by telling him that when I was growing up the “mature” thing was to accept the transcience of everything, and so the hope of eternal life seemed childish. By the same token, I think our tendency to regard the abstract as more mature than the personal is partly a function of the fact that our overcrowded society obliges us to think of people in categories and systems rather than as persons. I think this accounts for much of the trend in liberal theology toward turning God into an abstraction (”the ground of all being” and suchlike) and regarding Jesus as an ambassador for abstract principles of justice and love rather than important as a *person.*

]]> by: Jason http://recollections.blogsome.com/2006/08/14/the-naivety-of-the-biblical-witness/#comment-9 Mon, 14 Aug 2006 22:50:41 +0100 http://recollections.blogsome.com/2006/08/14/the-naivety-of-the-biblical-witness/#comment-9 Recollector: I appreciate this, not least the use of Barth to illuminate this dilemma. This can be a powerful point of meditation -- what Paul calls the wisdom of God which seems like foolishness to the 'wise'. Another point worth noting, though, is that we are always resident in a 'parish' of some sort, even when it is the parochialism of Western Modernity, with its pretensions to universalism (in that sense, more of a rival to the church than a context for the church). To take it a step further, then, the universalism of the church (and Israel) is an alternative to the unversalism of the West, even though they have been too often confused. But the claim to universalism by a parish is not unique to the church. I suspect that the universalism of the Modern West is a parody of the church's, with quite negative consequences (e.g. the church, at its best, has remembered that it is a parish, and only truly universal eschatologically.). The greatest task for us -- you and me in particular -- is how to live as members of all three parishes: the church, the academy, and the Modern West, without either losing our souls or being crushed by the task. Recollector:
I appreciate this, not least the use of Barth to illuminate this dilemma. This can be a powerful point of meditation — what Paul calls the wisdom of God which seems like foolishness to the ‘wise’.

Another point worth noting, though, is that we are always resident in a ‘parish’ of some sort, even when it is the parochialism of Western Modernity, with its pretensions to universalism (in that sense, more of a rival to the church than a context for the church). To take it a step further, then, the universalism of the church (and Israel) is an alternative to the unversalism of the West, even though they have been too often confused. But the claim to universalism by a parish is not unique to the church. I suspect that the universalism of the Modern West is a parody of the church’s, with quite negative consequences (e.g. the church, at its best, has remembered that it is a parish, and only truly universal eschatologically.). The greatest task for us — you and me in particular — is how to live as members of all three parishes: the church, the academy, and the Modern West, without either losing our souls or being crushed by the task.

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