• April 2005
• February 2005
• December 2004
• August 2004
• July 2004
• June 2004
• April 2004

April 2005

On the Emergent Church

Dear Ken,

I am the founding and senior pastor of [a church]. I was asked by a large association of Churches to do a seminar on [the] Emergent Church and Postmodern Theology…. Have you done any work with this? Could you point me to some good resources?

[Name withheld]
Pennsylvania

Response:

Dear ________,

I have not written anything on the so-called "Emergent Church." My concern with the things I have read is that while the movement corrects some of the mistakes of the "seeker-friendly" model of a generation ago, it still seems to approach the question of the structure(s) of the Church guided more by sociology than ecclesiology. I believe that, for example, our understanding of the place of the sacraments in the life of the Church should not be too heavily influenced by what people whose hearts and minds have been shaped by contemporary American culture feel comfortable with. Church leaders should always ask whether the fact that most people find what the Church does to be "irrelevant" or "meaningless" may be a judgment on most people, not on the Church. A truly missionary encounter of the Gospel with any culture is always prophetic.

Then there is the question of what constitutes the "postmodern." I tend to agree with Craig Gay (see his The Way of the (Modern) World), who (following Anthony Giddens and others) sees the postmodern as hypermodern, as many central aspects of modernity have not been renounced or abandoned by our cultural moment: they have been intensified. Before we retool the Church's life to be more in keeping with "the postmodern," we ought to have a better understanding of what that elusive condition means than I think most pastors have. I understand that pastors are desperate: they are up against more than they even realize. But I think we will not serve the Church nor its members by careless and superficial tinkering. I have nothing against radical changes, except when they are ill-informed or foolish.

I hope to address these and other questions in a book I've started to write. I hope I can finish it. For your research at present, you may want to look at www.stevekmccoy.com/reformissionary/2005/03/reformation_or_.html.

I hope this helps,
Ken Myers

February 2005

On Blogging

Dear Friends,

I subscribe to Touchstone, Credenda/Agenda, First Things, and Mars Hill Audio (I wonder what percentage of your readership shares this in common). I think all of them are first rate, obviously. More importantly, though, each of these publications helps my walk with Christ. One of the overlapping features of the other three—aside from Dr. Peter Leithart, whom you really ought to find an excuse to interview (perhaps on literary subjects)—is online interaction. MHAJ has introduced "New on Our Desk," which is a nice feature. But it seems to me that more online material would greatly help your site. I have been thinking that a Ken Myers blog would be a great treat, and would certainly attract more folks to the website. At the very least I'd like to hear a MHAJ treatment of blogs as a cultural phenomenon.

Cordially,
Name withheld
Lambertville, MI

Response:

Dear _______,

Thanks for your recent note in which you suggest that I launch a blog.

This is an idea with which I have toyed for some time, and I agree with you that it would attract some traffic to our web page. However, I am not convinced that the blog is a reliable means to fulfill our mission, which is to encourage wise obedience concerning the cultural consequences of the duty to love God and neighbor. My question is whether the habit of wisdom is actually encouraged by the temporal character of blogs.

I admit that the punditry of blogs, like the punditry of newspaper columnists and broadcast commentators, can ignite interest in issues or commence a trajectory of reflection. But we already enjoy a plethora of such ignitions and commencements. One of the great crises of our time is the hollowness that characterizes the lives of many, a hollowness encouraged by the pace and superficiality of much of our communications technologies and institutions. C. John Sommerville's How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Society makes this point quite well, and the main problem he identifies is the frequency with which we expect new ideas, new insights, and new commentary to be available (that's why they call it "news"). He argues that reading monthly or quarterly magazines would be a much better way to be wise about the world than reading, watching, hearing, or surfing on daily (or hourly) fare.

As I was thinking about Sommerville, a passage from a devotional book by the Catholic theologian, Romano Guardini, came to mind. the book is called Meditations before Mass; Writing in 1955, Guardini was very insightful about the danger of what Todd Gitlin has lately called "media unlimited." Guardini insists that worship and wisdom grow from inner composure, and that the restless pursuit of some novelty or other is a great danger.

So for now, despite the possible benefits, I don't think my starting a blog is the path I should take. A good blog has to have new content regularly, at least every day, and that pace for producer and consumer is something that makes me a little nervous. We will continue to try to add more material to our Resources pages online.

Thanks for your interest and encouragement.

Ken Myers

Music and Language

Dear Mars Hill Audio,

Worship wars have been with the church for a long, long time. It is evident that Mars Hill and others close to your orbit find contemporary Christian music as a detriment to the worship of the church. My question is at what point does music cease to be related to a "language" or an indigenous cultural form of a specific people? We would never refer to the Spanish language, for example, on a graded scale, better or poorer than English. What places music into a moral category where rightness and wrongness can be applied?

Appreciate any feedback. Again, a huge thank you for your ministry!

Name withheld
Newport Beach, CA

Response:

Dear ________,

Thanks for your kind words about our work. As to the questions you raise, I probably should write a whole book to answer them, but lacking the time to do so this afternoon, let me get some general ideas out on table very quickly.

First, as to the opinion that CCM is a "detriment to the worship of the Church." That's a little blunt and narrowly focused. What I believe hurts the ministry of the Church is its uncritical embrace of dominant cultural attitudes toward history, tradition, formality, ritual, beauty, language, and (ultimately) authority. What I continue to find dismaying is the number of pastors and church leaders who are adapting the ministry of the Church (including liturgical and musical styles) to fit new cultural conditions without asking why the cultural conditions have occurred. What larger cultural dynamics are expressed in these formal changes, and are they dynamics we believe the Church should encourage? The people who have been at the forefront of making these adjustments seem more utilitarian than I think they should be. The decisions about music are a case in point of a larger problem of unwise cultural accommodation or assimilation.

So I am not worried about any given piece of music just because it's new; what I am worried about is the insistence on the part of congregations and pastors that there always has to be something new or worship isn't "interesting" or "fun." The assumption on the part of many people I meet that old things are inherently boring is a faulty and destructive assumption. If the changes that have been made in worship are a simple response to that assumption, an important pastoral work of the Church has been neglected.

So I am just as concerned about WHY people want certain things as about WHAT it is that they want. I am concerned about the relationship between desire and cultural momentum. People obviously want music with different musical and textual qualities than the worship music that dominated the Church for generations. One way of summarizing the difference is that people prefer worship to be dominated by a more informal mood, in every aspect. In this, Christians are no different from non-believers. So what in the culture at large has resulted in this insistence (often quite vehemently) on informality? What configuration of deep desires and affections has convinced so many people that formal modes of expression are inherently inauthentic (a conviction that no doubt dismays countless poets)? (Note that this preference is expressed culture-wide: in patterns of dress, of speech, of dance, of language, and of relationships, including sexual relationships. The turn toward the casual is not just a superficial and passing fashion, but a deep cultural shift concerning an understanding about the self, society, and structures of moral meaning.)

Now, about music as a language. I would say that the analogy with spoken language is helpful, but it should be applied carefully. The difference between the music of, say, Isaac Watts and Steve Green is not like the difference between two different languages (e.g., Spanish and English) but like the difference between English as used by, say, Walker Percy and Tim LaHaye, both Christian novelists. It is true that the prose style of Tim LaHaye is more immediately accessible to more people than that of Percy. But if the Church were to tell me that LaHaye's prose style was thus in some way normative, and appropriately displaced Percy, I would not be happy. A verbal language can be used eloquently or carelessly. It can be used in a way that rewards deeper meaning and/or significance with repeated readings (e.g., John Donne's sonnets), or it can be used in a way in which all of its meaning is immediately accessible (e.g., newspaper headline, advertising slogans, etc.). It can be used in a way that takes seriously the effects of rhythms, assonance, puns, double meanings, and homage to writers and their texts who have gone before (see T. S. Eliot's essay, "Tradition and the Individual Talent") in ways that enhance the experience of the writing, that demonstrate that language is not a gift merely for the communication of information.

So rather than saying that jazz is one language and baroque music is another and hip-hop is another, I would say instead that all music is a single language; some uses of the language, that is, some musical idioms, are more beautiful than others, some are more adequate to certain purposes than others, some are more banal than others, some are more superficially attractive yet ultimately vapid than others, some are more enduring than others, some are vehicles merely of enthusiasm, others of a deep realignment of the affections.

Another angle on this analogy would be to look at linguistic forms. Is a sonnet a form more capable of expressing the mystery of romantic love than is the limerick? Some poetic forms are playful, some are grave. So with musical forms. Some forms are apt for solo performance, others for intimate groups, still others for large groups. Some are casual, others are formal. Some encourage a more contemplative orientation, others work to instigate action. Some are suitable vehicles of mystery, others are as straightforward as a slap. Some a childish and some are very mature. So in selecting music (or verbal linguistic forms) for any human activity or setting, including worship, one should obviously ask more than "Do people really like this?" and "Is it fast and exciting or slow and boring?" (I know people, well-educated people, for whom this is their entire range of musical criteria.)

Finally, one other way of teasing out the analogy with verbal language, and that is to introduce the idea of musical vocabularies. A Christian friend of mine, a prominent scholar who teaches at the University of Virginia, once told the head of his department that he wanted to organize an interdisciplinary conference on the question of evil. "You mean the question of deviance," his department head responded with post-Christian coolness. These men were both speaking the same language, but what we might call the moral vocabulary and the sociological or therapeutic vocabulary are very different. They don't just use different words; they are operating from a very different framework of conceptual presupposition. The vocabulary the department head wanted to use did not have room for the moral category of good and evil. I would argue that the musical vocabulary of contemporary P&W music is actually much more limited and in certain areas extremely inadequate for essential aspects of worship.

Likewise, Alan Jacobs, an English professor at Wheaton College, tells the story of a student writing an essay exam about Paradise Lost. "After Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden," the student observed, "they had a change in lifestyle." Alan argues that this is a breathtakingly inadequate verbal formulation to summarize the effects of the Fall and the Curse. "Lifestyle" is part of the popular vernacular, its "the way people talk today," so shouldn't a professor make allowances for the shift in the vernacular? Well, no, not if the vernacular is missing really important components, is incapable of certain insights. Here's how Jacobs concluded his comments:

Jacobs is calling attention to a verbal (and conceptual) legacy that should be protected. Likewise, the Church has an incredible legacy of musical forms that have the capacity to do much more in the way of musical expression than what one hears in most churches on most Sundays. Just as really good poetry or prose can evoke nuances of feeling and recognition that flashy but ephemeral speech cannot, so carefully constructed musical expression can convey extra-propositional aspects of spiritual insight that catchy music jingles cannot. But both verbal and musical richness take time to appreciate. Until my generation, Christians generally assumed that such time was well worth spending. None of my grandparents had any education beyond high school, yet they could all recite from memory 3 or 4 or 5 verses of dozens of hymns containing eloquently phrased theology, theology that I'm certain was a comfort to them in various times of suffering. This is a blessing that is being denied to most Christians in my or my children's generation.

And this is where the moral categories of rightness and wrongness enter in most prominently. It is wrong to be irresponsible. It is wrong to be shortsighted and careless. As I suggested above, I think that the general cultural preference for louder, faster, simpler, more repetitive music with more informal, less complex, and more shallow lyrics is itself an instance of cultural decline and also a symptom of deeper cultural disorders. Even if worship wasn't involved, I would argue that these cultural patterns were lamentable. That's why I wanted to expand your question: it's not just that CCM or contemporary P&W choruses are "detrimental to worship." It is that certain cultural tendencies are detrimental to human well-being and flourishing, certain mental habits and emotional appetites (encouraged by contemporary institutions of entertainment and advertising) are unbalanced and disordering. The Church, commissioned by her Lord to minister to every dimension of human existence, should testify and model well-lived cultural lives in every dimension. Instead, the Church has hitched the wagon of its worship and discipleship to a very wayward horse. She has failed to speak prophetically concerning the mechanisms that promote restlessness and trivialization and ugliness, and her ministers glibly and often proudly defend these choices in the name of "freedom in Christ" or "a new work of the Spirit." That, I believe, is morally irresponsible.

In closing, let me reiterate that for me, the way the Church directs people to worship isn't just about worship: it's about encouraging or resisting larger cultural trends that affect all of life. Ironically, in the effort to be more "contemporary," that is "with the times," many people have ignored questions about the meaning and momentum of the cultural forms our times are encouraging.

If you're really serious about these questions, I urge you to look at a few recent books that help explain some of the deeper cultural forces that have shaped the musical expectations of most Americans now living:

• James Johnson, Who Needs Classical Music? Cultural Choice and Musical Value (Oxford, 2002) [Johnson looks at reasons why we insist, more than ever before, on music that is upbeat and immediately accessible]
• John McWhorter, Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care (Gotham Books, 2003) [McWhorter is a linguist, so the relationship between formal speech and formal music is addressed in his book.)
• Todd Gitlin, Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives (Metropolitan Books, 2001)

Let me also mention (humbly) my own 1989 book, All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture (Crossway). Many of these larger context-issues are treated in there.

I hope this helps. I would be glad to correspond with you further, but I can do so only if I am sure that you are really open to the conclusions I'm drawing, and that you're willing to spend some time working through some of these arguments (e.g., by reading some of the books I mentioned).

Thanks for your interest in our work,

Ken Myers

December 2004

Sabbath and Self-Identity

Good morning Ken—

I've been enjoying volume 70 recently, and a few thoughts occur to me as I listen.

First, in a lighter vein, I'm bemused by the offhand comment you make at one point about the pastor in a church with a high view of the sabbath--in context, clearly referring to Sunday. As a catholic, this bemuses me because I think of evangelicals as having a particular devotion to the very words of scripture, and you personally refer frequently to clarity of thought and precision in speech.

Yet as far as I know, scripture nowhere uses the word "sabbath" to refer to anything other than the seventh day. The temptation to confuse the sabbath with Sunday may be stronger among English speakers than among speakers of other European languages, because the Greek, Slavic, and Romance names for the first and seventh days of the week are much more clearly related to "the Lord's day" for Sunday and "sabbath" for Saturday. I suppose it's not that huge an issue--but it does strike me as ironic that evangelicals would so blithely misuse the words of scripture.

The second thought is a bit more significant. It has to do the Carl Elliott interview on the ethical implications of the malleability of American identity, and specifically with two of the examples you and he discuss.

He cites the relatively low use of antidepressants in Japan, their apparent preference for tranquilizers, and comments almost as an aside that that may bespeak something significant about Japanese culture. To that, you respond "hm", pause a moment, and move on to the next point. But that's actually a crucial point, and it vitiates Elliott's argument as a comment about American culture. Japanese society stigmatizes mental illness much more than American society does, with the result that depression is seriously under-diagnosed and consequently under-treated in Japan. The tragic result is Japan's conspicuously high suicide rate.

The example Elliott cites (and that you slide past) compares Japanese non-use of antidepressants with American overuse of them, but epidemiological data suggests that two separate problems are identified here: under-prescribing to a population where they are needed (Japanese people with major depression) and over-prescribing to a population where they may not be (Americans who seek to improve their performance). There are a number of interesting points that could be made about the relationships among national cultures, mental illness (or mental health), and self-improvement, based on a comparison of Japan and the U.S., but as your interview with Elliott stands, it says more about Japan than about the U.S.

The second example is that of Samuel Fussell. Yet even as you introduce his story you undercut the theme of your interview with Elliott. You describe Fussell as shifting from being obsessed with fear of big city life to being obsessed with body-building. The point I take from this is Fussell's obsession rather than any comment about American society.

Between the two examples (Japan and Fussell), it seems to me that much of the point of Elliott's book is lost, at least as a comment about American culture--which is a shame, because I think there's something worth commenting on here! We do have a notion of perfectibility that is curious, and it'd be interesting to examine its roots and consequences some more.

In any event, I continue to be an enthusiastic listener. Thanks for bringing this enterprise into existence!

Steve Petrica
Bethesda, MD

Response:

Dear Dr. Petrica,

Thanks for your note, and for your interest in our work.

Two quick responses. As to the use of the term "Sabbath," the minister I was talking about is a Presbyterian, and in Presbyterian (as opposed to generic evangelical) theology, there is a long tradition (with a huge body of dense literature behind it) which regularly speaks of Sunday as the Christian Sabbath. In emphasizing the Church as the New Israel, and in stressing the continuity of God's work in redemptive history, Presbyterians (and other Reformed Communities like the Puritans and the Dutch Reformed) have stressed the continuing significance of the Old Testament order of things more than most Christians. In fact, Presbyterian theology (expressed in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms) insists that the Sabbath is built into the order of Creation, and that one of the effects of the Resurrection of Christ was to shift the day of the Sabbath. Here is a Q & A from the Westminster Shorter Catechism:

Q. 59. Which day of the seven hath God appointed to be the weekly sabbath?

A. From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be the weekly sabbath; and the first day of the week ever since, to continue to the end of the world, which is the Christian sabbath.

As another example, here's a link to a sermon by Calvin on the Sabbath: http://www.reformed.com/pub/jc_sab_1.htm

Presbyterian use of "Sabbath" to talk about Sunday may be mistaken on theological grounds, but it is anything but blithe. Try typing "Sabbath" and "Presbyterian" (or "Reformed") in a Google search and you will see what I mean!

As to your more serious observations about my interview with Carl Elliot, I agree entirely that the issues he raised in our interview were not explored as fully as they might have been. My interviews are more like conversations than well-scripted documentaries, and I always hope that they are just intriguing enough to encourage people to read my guests' books. Even the full-length versions of the interviews (about an hour) only scratch the surface of the subject at hand. The interviews are not meant to summarize in a fully representational way the arguments made by my guests. I guess that could be done, but such interviews are usually a lot drier and feel less scripted. It's part of the disadvantage of a form in which 6 or 7 60-minute interviews get condensed into 90 minutes of material. But I hope you have a chance to read his book, and perhaps you may wish to correspond with him about these matters.

Thanks again for your interest,

Ken

August 2004

Please Drop the Subject(s)

Dear Mars Hill Audio:

Why, out of all our incredibly rich heritage of ideas and tradition, do you have to promote the most divisive and controversial opinions in Christianity, i.e., anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality ideas? Please drop it so that I and other liberal Christians can enjoy your better offerings!

[name withheld]
Austin, Texas

Response:

Dear _____,

Thanks for your question and comments. I guess we could stop dealing with controversial topics; but then we might feel obligated to change our name to the Dullsville Audio Journal.

But seriously, to answer your question as to why we take on homosexuality, abortion, and other divisive issues, it is because that's precisely where the action is, so to speak; we judge these (and other) issues to be ones in which there is a strong temptation to unfaithfulness, or to what St. John refers to as worldliness. We seek to bring to bear on such issues a distinctively Christian witness that is grounded in historic orthodoxy, and thereby oppose what we discern to be disordered and destructive tendencies within our culture. It is possible that we are incorrect in our judgments, but we think we'd be wasting our time if we left controversial ideas and practices unchallenged.

I am curious though, as to whether you really dislike controversy, or whether you object to us being on what you consider to be the wrong side of certain controversies.

Despite your reservations, I hope you'll decide to subscribe or purchase some of the things we've produced over the years. I believe you'll find much to stimulate your thinking, and you might find that we don't fit quite so easily into the usual conservative/liberal dichotomy.

Sincerely,
Jim Heetderks

Hebrew Roots Movement

Dear Ken,

I have been intending to write to you since I received your May 2004 Mars Hill letter: "As long as we believe that we can focus on making converts, and let discipleship work itself out, we are probably not making converts who truly turn away from the world's way of explaining itself and the world's way of living. One doesn't have to look very closely to realize that the Great Commission is not a message about evangelism and conversions, but about discipleship and the continuity of obedience in all things."

I believe that this desire for authentic discipleship is central to the Jewish Roots Movement, sometimes described as the Hebrew Roots Movement. I am praying that you will interview some of the Godly men and women who are ministering to the body of Messiah to bring a Hebraic understanding to the study of God's Word and His Son Yeshua, and what discipleship, lived out, looks like!

At the end of your letter you asked us to share conversations that are taking place in the Body of Messiah, that demonstrate how our lives as disciples are counter-cultural. The Jewishness of our faith is a vibrant and growing conversation! I would so much love to have our family of listeners to Mars Hill Audio introduced to the Jewish roots movement! There is a vibrancy in discovering that "all things biblical are Hebraic." This understanding impacts our assumptions about God, history, truth. A Hebraic mindset is certainly antithetical to a dualistic world view!

Have you worshipped with any messianic congregations? Do you know who the prominent teachers are in the Hebrew Roots Movement? Will you please bring awareness of this growing movement of the Spirit of God to your listeners?

Sincerely,
[Name withheld]
Phoenix, Arizona

Response:

Dear Madam,

Thanks for your recent note commending various resources in the Hebrew Roots Movement. I very much appreciated your comment about the antidote to dualism to be found in a Hebraic consciousness.

I doubt that we will feature interviews about this movement in the future work of MARS HILL AUDIO, for the simple reason that we have never focused on the concerns of any specific Christian movement, denomination, or parachurch group. If you are familiar with the topics we've treated over the years, you'll know that we talk about all sorts of cultural issues from within a body of theological concerns, but we rarely analyze those concerns themselves or report on groups that protect and advance those concerns. There are a number of worthy movements and organizations whose understanding of the consequences of the Gospel is helpful for our time. But our editorial focus has been and probably will continue to be on the ideas rather than the organizations, not because ideas are more important than organizations, but because they are more portable and adaptable.

Thanks for your interest and enthusiasm,

Ken Myers

July 2004

Hi Ken

Why not Leslie Newbigin?

Dear Mars Hill Audio,

I greatly appreciate your journal.

I greatly respect Rusty Reno and appreciated his book In the Ruins of the Church. But when is Ken Myers going to explore the thought of the late Leslie Newbigin? Here is the theologian for the 21st Century.

God bless you,
[name withheld]

Response:

Dear Sir,

You are so right to exhort me to do something on Bishop Newbigin.

As you may have gathered from listening to the Journal, almost all of my guests are people who have written new books. This serves at least two purposes: 1) it makes it easy to persuade guests to participate without asking for remuneration (since our budget wouldn't allow it); and 2) it justifies spending only 10 minutes (or less) on important subjects (the assumption being that listeners will be enticed into further reflection by reading the book in question).

Since new books from Bishop Newbigin are not forthcoming, I will have to wait for a good book about him, or perhaps an anthology of shorter works edited by some knowledgeable redactor who would talk with me.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Ken Myers

Scripture & Tradition

Hi Ken,

I am a minister who just recently ordered vol.67 (Mar/Apr2004) in regards specifically to R. R. Reno and [David] Bentley Hart's contributions. I am a pastor-scholar and try to read as much as I can theologically and have gone from Evangelical to post-conservative to postmodern Christian to more recently looking at Tom Oden's and Christopher Hall's "Paleo-Orthodoxy." What I find frustrating as a minister is (1) Doing theology often in private (without spiritual fathers and mothers and not in community, which is contra to the early church fathers); (2) Protestants seem to almost pick and choose what they want from church history and the Great Tradition (Eastern Orthodox and Catholics seems to have a higher respect for church tradition and the "Fathers" than Protestants). As a minister in the independent Christian Church that is fiercely anti-traditional and anti-reformational (at times), [it] can be difficult for one who is concerned about biblical faithfulness and the future of ecumenical Christianity.

I am starting to see a little more light by conservative Anglicans and Episcopalians like Reinhard Hutter, Ephraim Radner, and Russell Reno. I have not been a listener to Mars Hill Audio but after talking to Gretchen, it sounds like you may be working through similar issues. I am trying to understand both the Jewish roots of the Christian faith, how to do theology that is faithful to scripture and tradition, while at the same time build somehow a brighter future ecumenically than what seems like continual fragmentation and a spiritualized invisible ecclesiology that seems theologically bankrupt to me.

I am currently reading Ephraim Radner's new book "Hope Among the Fragments" which I just started and looks promising. As a minister and Christian who is trying to understand ecclesiology and the history of the church better, do you have any suggestions or recommendations in helping this struggling minister theologically cross the bridge between Scripture and Tradition and how to do build consensus with other Christians (I am thinking specifically of Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Protestants here)?

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

[name withheld]
Ohio

Response:

Dear Sir,

You are right in sensing that I have been wrestling with many of the same issues, although the trajectory of my experience is a little different. Let me mention several books that may help you as you continue to sort these matters out.

D. H. Williams's book, Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism: A Primer for Suspicious Protestants (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999) develops a biblical theology of theological tradition as well as explains why suspicion about religious tradition is the default position of many American Evangelicals. A chapter from his book is contained in an audio Anthology that we produced called "Sources of Ancient Wisdom." An excerpt from a book by Christopher Hall is also included. (Information on this tape at http://www.marshillaudio.org/catalog/antholog.asp.) Williams is also the editor of an anthology called The Free Church and the Early Church: Bridging the Historical and Theological Divide (Eerdmans, 2002)

Stephen R. Holmes reflects on these issues in his book, Listening to the Past: The Place of Tradition in Theology (Baker Academic, 2000). Early in the book, Holmes suggests that suspicion toward tradition is a form of gnosticism, and, contrary to the common Evangelical view, “because of the doctrine of creation, historical locatedness is something good. The tradition we inherit is part of our location in history, and so in doing theology it is necessary to relate to the tradition.” [p. 17]

Historian Michael Kammen studies the American attitude toward tradition in Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991). Church historian Nathan O. Hatch, in The Democratization of American Christianity (Yale University Press, 1989), demonstrates that suspicion about ecclesiastical tradition and authority is more American than Christian.

A number of essays by sociologist Edward Shils are contained in the collection Tradition (University of Chicago Press, 1981). Shils shows why human community and human moral formation require commitment to or rather membership within a tradition. Shils insists that:

"Tradition is not the dead hand of the past but rather the hand of the gardener, which nourishes and elicits tendencies of judgment which would otherwise not be strong enough to emerge on their own. In this respect tradition is an encouragement to incipient individuality rather than its enemy. It is a stimulant to moral judgment and self-discipline rather than an opiate. It establishes contact between the recipient and the sacred values of his life in society."

See also James Davison Hunter's The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil (Basic Books, 2000). Early in that book, Hunter makes these observations:

“The first task is to rescue the concept of character—indeed the entire lexicon of moral understanding—from the psychologists who presently frame popular discussion of the topic and whose guild jealously guards it.

“Character is not, as the psychologist would have it, solitary, autonomous, unconstrained; merely a set of traits within a unique and unencumbered personality. Character is very much social in its constitution. It is inseparable from the culture within which it is found and formed. In significant ways, character reflects, even incarnates, the moral culture. This is not to deny a psychological dimension to character and its formation, of course, but one must go further. Character is at least as much a function of the social order as it is a manifestation of the individual person. For this reason, it is impossible to speak of character—or its death—without also speaking of the larger moral culture in which it is found.

“The same is true for morality. Here again we tend to think of morality today in individualistic terms as, for example, the kinds of ethical judgments a person makes or the particular mental and emotional processes engaged in formulating decisions about right and wrong. Either way, we have the psychologist to thank. Whatever psychological dimensions it may have, morality, like character, is also very much social in its constitution. Whatever else it may be, it is, at the least, a complex body of prohibitions and warrants through which social life is ordered and sustained. But it is much more than this. Most of what constitutes morality refers to basic attitudes toward life and an underlying and implicit vision of reality. These not only provide a foundation for our moral life, they also frame the horizon of our moral imagination. Ritualized in habit, routinized in institutions, these codes of interdiction and permission—and more fundamentally, these attitudes, ideals, sensibilities, and dispositions—provide the terms by which individual life is made predictable and social life is made stable.

“But morality does not just exist outside of us as an impersonal set of rules and regulations or abstract ideals. It is received by the individual, internalized into subjective consciousness, and thus experienced as the basic ordering categories of life. This is to say that morality is not typically experienced as an abstruse set of shoulds and shouldn’ts, nor a list of ‘values’ codified in cheerful axioms. Rather, morality is a nomos, a normative universe that constrains us within the boundaries of what is permissible. It is the doxa of social life—unalterable, nonnegotiable; commanding, demanding in its very constitution. At the same time, morality includes the explanations that give these codes coherence and authority for the individual and the community. It is in this way that culture becomes authoritative. Morality demands, requires, expects of people, but in a way that makes sense. It prompts, prods, and encourages people, but in a way that seems natural and logical to them.” [pp. 15-16]

You may want to look at Jaroslav Pelikan's little book, The Vindication of Tradition (Yale University Press, 1984).

Finally, you note that you are frustrated in trying to do theology apart from community. You are right to feel that way; it is an abnormal practice in Church history, although it is the Standard Operating Procedure for most American Evangelicals. I would be glad to try to get you in touch with some like-minded pastors from other denominations in your area if that would help. We may have one or two among our subscribers. Let me know if I can help.

Ken Myers

June 2004

Sliding Into Ideology

I was somewhat surprised in the current issue to have a discussion get into politics, which I think is very valuable, but then decline into ideology or maybe partisanship, I'm not sure which. Just War is certainly an important topic for Christians to think about, and I'm really puzzled by the omissions from the discussion.

The discussions of just war that I've heard seem to be cover for partisanship. One man at my church said he thought the attack on Iraq fell into the just war category, but when I asked him about the specific criteria, he had no idea what they were. It turned out he was just being loyal to his party.

I was hoping that your discussion would rise above that, but when it only covered one side, I was disappointed. The most striking omission, in my view, was [that] after a discussion of the American Catholic Bishops' view (which I thought well done) no mention of the Pope's view was made. That would of course have undermined the thesis being presented.

Analyzing culture from a Christian perspective without confusing that with one's ideology is a tricky thing. You've done it pretty well on the whole. I'll be interested to follow your conversations and see whether this is the beginning of a slide into ideology or an isolated event. And I'll be interested in your comments.

In Christ,

[Name withheld]
Ohio

Response:

I'm perplexed by your charge that James Turner Johnson's observations about the just war tradition are simply "ideology" or "partisanship." Both terms suggest that he is advocating a position that pretends to be based on principle, but is really (as you later suggest) simply about obtaining or protecting power. I hope you realize that this is a very serious charge, and I would appreciate some evidence to back it up.

I could say a great deal more, but to do that I would require some specific evidence for your claim that I am "sliding into ideology." Perhaps part of the problem is that we mean different things by the term "ideology." Would you say that about anyone who defends (as I wish to do) the just war tradition as being a coherent and biblically justifiable Christian response to the challenges of political order in a fallen world? Or is it something about the way I or Johnson presented our position?

Finally, as an editor and as a Christian, I feel under no obligation to cover every side of every issue. As it happens, James Turner Johnson has written at length about other sides in this issue, so I would encourage you to read some of his books for a fuller treatment. I believe that many of his conclusions are right, and while I think it exceedingly important to understand the reasoning of pacifists, I don't feel obliged to give equal time to them, since I believe their position is faulty. This is not ideology, but conviction.

Ken Myers

You’re Being Too Intellectual

My concern comes from friends and colleagues whom I have recommended your program. Most of your programs discuss a good bit of philosophical ideas. Many theological institutes today offer philosophy and sociology as secondhand classes. There is exposure but not enough to grasp many of your concepts. In my friends' opinion the program isn't worth their time. This is sad because you offer some great ideas. I’d love to be a mediator [and] try to find programming that would bring [along] those that normally wouldn't listen.

[Name withheld]
Washington

Response:

Your concern seems to boil down to the content of the Journal being too intellectually challenging for a number of people. That is something that I have wrestled with since I started. I have always tried to render the ideas presented as simply as they can be. When I pick up a copy of the Wall Street Journal, and try to read an article about interest rates or bond markets, my eyes glaze over. But I assume that the Wall Street Journal is writing at the simplest possible level given the kinds of issues they are dealing with. When I read articles in the New York Times Sunday Arts and Leisure section about a new trend in the visual arts or in theater, the articles presuppose some background knowledge about the area in question.

Now, if I really want to know about painting or interest rates, I would probably persevere in reading the WSJ or the NYT every day, and in a few weeks, the articles would start making sense, and in a year, I would probably not stumble much at all. Based on my experience, I think the people you've talked to who say the MARS HILL AUDIO Journal isn't worth their time are probably just not interested in the kinds of questions we're dealing with. Most of our avid listeners have no formal training in theology, philosophy, or the social sciences. The most enthusiastic listeners are those who believe that there are some deep disorders in our culture, and they are eager to try to figure out why and how we got here. And for some reason they have an intuitive sense that our work will help them figure that out.

I appreciate your enthusiasm in mediating our work somehow. I am reminded of the remark by Eric Voegelin that "The answer is useless to the man who has forgotten the question."

Thanks for your kind note,

Ken Myers

April 2004

True Dialogue Needed

First, let me say that I've been a faithful subscriber over the past few years and absolutely love the programs. It is because of that love that I wish to dialogue with you over your current program content.

Your program has recently taken only one Christian viewpoint without adequate dialogue with other Christian viewpoints. Of course the two hot topics you've lately been on are the just war theory and homosexuality; however, there are many others. Your homepage states that you exist to assist Christians from a thoughtful engagement; however, that engagement considers only one side without due dialogue with the other. In my opinion, this cheapens the dialogue. If you are discussing the issue of homosexuality or gay marriage why not bring in top theologians from that vantage point (e.g Luke Timothy Johnson, Emory University). Good dialogue between opposing viewpoints is rarely entertained within your journal, and because of that I believe it contributes to our country’s inability to fully engage any subject.

Thanks and God bless,

[Name withheld]
Washington

Response:

First, I should explain why I launched the MARS HILL AUDIO project. After many years working at National Public Radio and for various religious periodicals, I became convinced of two things. The first is that American Christians, under the pressures of modern and postmodern cultural dynamics, were increasingly accommodating the assumptions of the surrounding culture, and that historic Christian beliefs and practices on many issues were being abandoned because of this accommodation. This struck me as a classic case of what the Bible calls "worldliness."

The second was that a huge number of Christians were only interested in cultural matters insofar as some measure of cultural literacy would assist them in the task of evangelism. They were not interested in the arts, in history, in philosophy or science as a way of fulfilling their redeemed humanity and loving their Maker; their interest was utilitarian, for the sake of making a living and for the sake of doing evangelism.

I eventually realized that these two problems were related. Christians who don't care about culture are in large measure separating creation from redemption. And Christians who are not alert to the meaning behind changing patterns in cultural form retain their indifference because they assume that Christianity is essentially therapeutic rather than cosmological. The idea that some cultural forms are intrinsically superior to others because they are more faithful to the shape of creation is not on the radar of many Christian people.

What I have tried to do for the past eleven years is select interviews that will help illumine the kinds of deep cultural shifts that have occurred in the West over the last two or three centuries as a result of the de-Christening of the West. I have hoped to help Christians identify the patterns behind those shifts, in the hopes of developing habits of mind and heart as well as individual and communal practices that will counter those shifts, and thereby encourage believers to be less worldly.

Now, to the two issues you mentioned. For most of its history, most of the Church has held to the viewpoint about justice and the use of force that is summarized under the phrase "just-war tradition." Likewise, for all of its history, all of the Church has believed that homosexuality is a sin, a perversion of God's design of human sexuality and of marriage.

In our time, a number of Christian voices have rejected those historic positions. As I have read their arguments, it seems to me that the assumptions they are working with as well as many of their explicit statements are rooted in post-Enlightenment beliefs that are at odds with Christian metaphysics and ethics. I believe they come to the conclusions they do about war and sexuality because they have adopted prior assumptions about the nature of violence, or about the nature of the self, or about the nature of ethical action, or (more importantly) about the nature of God and his character (specifically about what is discussed in Scripture under the terms "wrath" and "judgment"). And those prior assumptions are, to be blunt, thoroughly incompatible with a Biblical account of creation and redemption.

So on these two issues, I do not believe that there are, as your note suggests, "other Christian viewpoints." Not only do I believe those who have rejected the Church's historic teaching on these matters are wrong, I believe they have arrived at their erroneous position precisely because they have accepted the very modern and postmodern assumptions that I set out to explicate and critique.

In other words, I have been trying since I set out to encourage people to renounce certain viewpoints, renounce not just the conclusions they come to, but the deeper assumptions about the nature of things that undergirds those conclusions. I am not trying to present multiple positions on such matters; I have never set out to represent the existing range of opinion on any issue. I am well aware that there are godly and well-meaning Christians who disagree on these matters, but I believe they are wrong and furthermore I believe that it is extremely important to try to be right about these (and other) issues.

You used the phrase "good dialogue between opposing viewpoints." Dialogue is kind of a mushy word here, isn't it? Dialogue often obscures the stakes in moral disagreement. If people have opposing viewpoints, and the issue at stake really matters, shouldn't they be having an argument? I decided early on that I would not invite guests into the studio simply to argue with them. But since I want to encourage people to distinguish between wisdom and folly, between truth and falsehood, between faithfulness and worldliness, it would be a disservice to be too even handed.

You also suggest that our work "considers only one side without due dialogue with the other." I have examined the arguments on the other side of this issue; I have personally talked with many people on the other side and take quite seriously their claims. I strive to be scrupulously fair with those positions with which I disagree. If you believe that I have done an injustice to my opponents, I would be glad to hear about it. As I read your note, however, I have the sense that you might be more interested in the quality of the dialogue itself than in arriving at conclusions that are sound and solid.

So in conclusion: I want our listeners to be better equipped to reject false ideas by virtue of recognizing how apparently plausible ideas have dubious credentials. I will interview anyone I can to achieve that goal. I am not convinced that that goal would be served by the strategy you suggest.

Thanks for your kind note,

Ken Myers

Islamist Extremism

I appreciated your interview with Stephen Schwartz regarding his book, The Two Faces of Islam and his pointing the finger at Wahhabism as the chief source of extremism in Islam. So I went to Amazon to buy the book, however the reviews all seemed to agree that Schwartz, himself a convert to mystical Sufi Islam, was extremely prejudiced against Wahhabism, and that his book was simply "a vigorous polemic against Wahhabism" where "he goes out of his way to absolve Shi'a Islam of any responsibility for Islamic radicalism." The reviews all seemed to agree that Schwartz just wants to put a pretty face on his branch of Islam, calling it the "real" Islam and shifting all the blame to Wahhabism, while ignoring what many reviewers said, that the "principle source of extremism and terrorism, comes from the Qutbist groups out of Egypt."

When I read your recent letter dealing with Qutb's influence on modern Islam, I wasn't sure what your opinion was of Qutb's role in inciting terrorism. Another author on this subject Haneef James Oliver has written The Wahhabi Myth which is a refutation of Schwartz's book. He apparently makes the case that Qutbism, not Wahhabism, is the principle ideological source of terrorist groups in Islam.

Is there one book that offers a fair assessment of all these factions or do I just need to read Schwartz then Oliver to get the various sides?

Thanks,

[Name withheld]
Texas

Response:

In answer to your query about Stephen Schwartz's bias, I have to confess up front that almost anyone who has written a book on Islam knows more about the subject than I do. From what I do know, I don't think Schwartz says anything about Wahhabism that isn't true. And I have no proof that his claims about the ethical patterns of behavior among Bosnian Muslims are exaggerated. However, some people I know who have studied Islam in depth think that (as some of the critics of the book you cite indicate) he is guilty of suggesting that the only source of extremism in Islam is Wahhibism.

Again, based on my limited knowledge, I believe that Islam will always generate movements like Qutbism and Wahhabism. It is a religion of law, not of grace, and a religion that calls people to total obedience to God. Since (as Christianity teaches) we are incapable of pleasing God unless he performs a work of grace in us to overcome our sin, Muslims (like all those who seek reconciliation with God without grace) will inevitably be frustrated, and that frustration is bound to take the form of radical movements on one kind or another.

I agree with you that there seems to be a flaw in Schwartz's effort to find the flavor of Islam he likes, and then pronounce that that is "true Islam." But he is not alone in doing that. The President has been doing that since September 12, 2001. I think the very idea of "true Islam" is a problem. This is a religion with numerous factions and sects but no magisterial authority. Obviously the Koran is a baseline from which to make such a judgment, but the Koran seems more amorphous than the Bible. There does not seem to be within Islam a vibrant catholic or ecumenical imperative; I don’t know of anything like the Nicene Creed that establishes for all believers everywhere a fundamental set of beliefs. There are the five pillars, which prescribe certain obligations or religious works. But while there are some uniform religious practices, there are few uniform beliefs.

So should one assume that there is a true Islam and where might one find it? We could ask the same question of Christianity. I believe that Christianity is a revealed religion, while Islam simply claims to be a revealed religion. True Christianity is that which most faithfully honors the divine Word. But Islam is a religion of human traditions. It has no divinely established fixity the way Christianity does. Orthodox Christians believe that the Scriptures have an established coherence because they are God-breathed. But should we assume that the Koran has a similar perfection?

So the concept of “true Islam” is problematic, and when President Bush or Secretary Powell invoked the idea, one was easily tempted to discern more utilitarian motives. Are they willing to entertain the idea that true Islam looks a lot more like the practices of militant groups than like the affable professors from Oxford or George Washington University? It seems that there is no legitimate a priori reason to assume that “true Islam” will certainly fit nicely into an international order defined by liberal political and economic institutions. One might find scholars who can squeeze Islam into that size container, but that does not mean such scholars are truer Muslims than the suicide bombers in Gaza or the holy warriors hiding in Afghan caves. Their kinder, gentler Islam is indeed a useful Islam, but George Bush has no standing to say it is truer than the less hospitable religious passions that motivate millions.

I suggested that there was no legitimate a priori reason to assume that “true Islam” will be friendly. The illegitimate reason is the common assumption that all religions are basically accomplishing the same sorts of things, that the varied systems of religious belief are all evolving in the same basic direction, toward the embodiment of principles that look a lot like the underpinnings of liberalism. This view comports very badly with the persistent biblical theme of idolatry. The Bible clearly does not regard religion per se as a good thing. Much of the prophetic invective in the Old Testament is reserved for people who have selected their own ways of worshipping God, and much of the New Testament was written to correct faulty understandings of the new chapter in redemptive history opened by the coming of Messiah and the subsequent Pentecostal blessing on God’s people. The Old Testament examples are manifestly obvious. In the New Testament, take for example Paul’s advice to the young pastor Titus, who is suffering from divisive false teachers in his congregation in Crete. After telling Titus to rebuke these false teachers sharply, Paul characterizes them as people who “profess to know God, but they deny him by their deeds; they are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good deed.” And these people, mind you, were church members, not outsiders.

So religion as such is not in principle pleasing to God, though God clearly uses even false religions as mechanisms of common grace to establish civic order and to advance civic righteousness. But we should not presuppose that all religions will always serve such beneficent purposes. Horrible things are done in the name of religion; Jesus warned that a time would come when people would believe that they were serving God by killing his disciples (John 16:2).

I hope these thoughts are helpful.

Ken Myers