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The Church and Postmodern Culture #1
Quem tem medo do pós-modernismo?: Levando Derrida, Lyotard e Focault à Igreja
The philosophies of French thinkers Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault form the basis for postmodern thought and are seemingly at odds with the Christian faith. However, James K. A. Smith claims that their ideas have been misinterpreted and actually have a deep affinity with central Christian claims. Each chapter opens with an illustration from a recent movie and concludes with a case study considering recent developments in the church that have attempted to respond to the postmodern condition, such as the ''emerging church'' movement. These case studies provide a concrete picture of how postmodern ideas can influence the way Christians think and worship. This significant book avoids philosophical jargon and offers fuller explanation where needed. It is the first book in the Church and Postmodern Culture series, which provides practical applications for Christians engaged in ministry in a postmodern world.
198 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 2006
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September 4, 2022
I am inherently skeptical of theologians who are friendly toward postmodernism.
I wanted to see how Smith would tackle this enormous subject. Here, his voice is accessible, straightforward, and even... chatty? I know he says he wrote this for laymen. But really? So many overgeneralizations and lack of citations. Too much time spent on analogies and illustrations. Having read him in other contexts, it's strange seeing him write like this. Perhaps I'm simply used to more academic texts, but Smith's claims here are a little too breezy and quick for me. I think he could have been much more thorough. As much as I found myself agreeing with him, as I read I couldn't help but feel there was some slight of hand going on. And there was.
But let's get to a summary first.
Smith spends the first chapter setting groundwork, defining his terms, and presenting the three main postmodern premises he'll be working with:
--"There is nothing outside the text" (Derrida)
--Postmodernity is "incredulity toward metanarratives" (Lyotard)
--"Power is knowledge" (Foucault)
In the second chapter, Smith tackles Derrida. He strives to show us that Derrida really means "everything is interpretation." If everything is interpretation, then nothing is objective. (Then does the "objective" really exist? Don't know, because Smith doesn't seem to define it. But he criticizes Carson for not defining it. The irony.) Just because everything is interpretation doesn't mean that some interpretations aren't more good or true than others. (Then does Smith subscribe to varying degrees of goodness or truth? Doesn't that land us back in the "all truth is relative" camp? He doesn't chase that rabbit.) To find the "right" interpretation, we need the right conditions: "the right horizons of expectation and the right presuppositions." This comes as gift from the Holy Spirit. Then he gets into pluralism. Then he gets distracted by liberation theology, hierarchies of power, and social justice. Then he gets back on track and talks about how we need communities to help establish good rules of interpretation. Eventually he gets to a place where he equates Derrida's claim with Sola Scriptura. (I'm wincing.) But I get what he means. Scripture is our interpretation, our lens with which we see all the world. Nothing in our lives should stand outside "the text" that is scripture. He ends by saying the challenge of the church today is to help believers recognize the vs. interpretation (lens) that the Bible gives us vs. what our current culture is feeding us ("Wall Street's construal of happiness").
The third chapter tackles Lyotard. After a four-page long recounting of Oh Brother Where Art Though, Smith finally gets to the philosophy. Postmodernism is erosion of confidence in the rational as guarantor of truth. If postmodernism doubts metanarratives, then surely it can't get along with Christianity, the true metanarrative, right? Smith then says Foucault really defines modernism as the prioritization of science (reason) as better than metanarratives (untruths, fables). But postmodernism exposes science as a metanarrative in itself. The homogeneity and authority in metanarratives produces a kind of auto-legitimation. Smith says some argue the Christian faith is grounded in and legitimated by reason, and is thus a metanarrative. Smith claims it's actually legitimate by an appeal to faith (I take issue with this, but let's move on). Postmodernism reveals that all knowledge is grounded in narrative, or myth (in the Lewisian sense of the term). He somehow gets to the conclusion that Christianity is not a metanarrative (I don't see how he got there). Later in the chapter Smith claims that, because postmodernism demands that we own up to everything being metanarrative (faith systems), this opens up new space for religious discourse. The playing field is leveled. (The problem I have with this, is that if we equate all metanarratives or belief systems, then Christianity is simply one choice among many equal ones. Who is to say it's the right one? the truthful one? And while belief systems may not be grounded in total reason (I also reject this Enlightenment claim), that doesn't mean they don't contain reason and we don't still use reason to evaluate them. Smith conflates reason with truth. In this system, I don't see how you can actually claim Christianity is true--the true metanarrative.)
Chapter four assesses Foucault's "knowledge is power" maxim. He writes that "...modernity's claims to scientific objectivity or moral truth are fruits of a poisoned tree of power relations" (87). Even values only reduce to power. Smith says Christians should reject the notion of living as an autonomous agent who rejects any form of control. Instead, everyone is under some kind of power structure, or discipline; it matters more to what end, telos, that discipline is working toward. Then he talks about how much American society is focused on consumerism. Ultimately the chapter fizzles out into encouragement to discipline ourselves to be like Christ, instead of MTV. He seems to agree with the Marxist power structure assumption, but stops short of assuming that all power structures are bad like Marx does -- and instead he thinks some power structures are good? But with no two kingdoms doctrine to keep Smith focused, it's almost as if he's advocating for a heaven-on-earth kind of goal.
Chapter five is called "Applied Radical Orthodoxy: A Proposal for the Emerging Church." After another unnecessarily long plot description of another film, we finally get to it. Here, sometimes it seems Smith is advocating for a church that practices postmodernism (or pieces of postmodernism). In other times he seems to want “a postmodern catalyst for the church to be the church” (117). He says that a Cartesian certainty doesn’t exist (or that it’s bad?). And that fundamentalism rests on “a mythical epistemology of immediate access and cognitive certainty” (118). Some in the extreme camp say we can’t actually know anything. The best we can do is to believe. People who thought they knew what God wanted inflicted injustices upon other people. Therefore we shouldn’t pretend to know anything. Smith agrees with this, but stops one step short: he says we can know things, but knowledge “rests on the gift of revelation” (121) -- from the Holy Spirit. It’s still all about perspective. Smith says explicitly he wants knowledge without certainty. Truth without objectivity. (I have major problems with this, see below). Later in this last chapter, he urges the church to embrace little-c catholicism and focus on the incarnation: "In other words, an incarnation affirmation of liturgy and the aesthetics of worship is the fruit of an incarnation ontology (an account of the nature of reality) and a holistic anthropology (an account of what it means to be human)" (136). By the end he talks about his liturgical ideas (see Smith's Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation), and he gives a description of what his "ideal" church service would look like.
-----
While I can agree with Smith on many points, I think the fundamentals of this theories are flawed. He needs to better define his terms and work out the implications. He needs to better explain the categories of knowledge and certainty that exist. In The Case for Christ, Strobel discusses how historians or lawyers can’t really know, with certainty, anything that happened in the past. You look at the evidence and put your faith in the best explanations and predictions. There are degrees of certainty and doubt. If you want to argue we can’t know anything with 100% certainty, I’m with you. This is the kind of thing fundamentalism and scientism run into. But we can make reasonable guesses. We can feel reasonably confident that many things are true, and we proceed to live our lives as if those things were certain/true. I don’t know with 100% certainty that my car will start in the morning, but I still plan to use it to get to work. I don’t know with 100% certainty that the sun will rise or gravity will work tomorrow, but I still live my life as if they will. And there’s other things like historical events which are even farther away from a 100% certainty level. But we can still assume some things based on evidence, and debate the things we aren't as sure about. At the end of the day, regardless of revelation, we must choose to put our faith in something. Smith doesn’t take into account degrees of certainty and doubt. He seems to assume nothing is ever certain, so we must solely rely on revelation.
The conversation about scripture as revelation is another matter. But set that aside. Smith’s sole focus on revelation more generally just turns Christianity into another private religion based on faith, not fact: “How do I know it's true? God told me." In this system, there’s no room left for historic truth within Christianity. Either Jesus died and came back to life, or he didn’t. It’s true or not, regardless of whether or not it was revealed to anyone. In the end, I don't think Smith makes a convincing case here. He dodges the questions of natural law, historic truth, and degrees of certainty.
From this book, I found many others to investigate:
--Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation
--Hermeneutics at the Crossroads: Interpretation in Christian Perspective
--Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World
--Pluralisms And Horizons: An Essay In Christian Public Philosophy
--The Myth of Religious Neutrality: An Essay on the Hidden Role of Religious Belief in Theories, Revised Edition
--Knowing with the Heart: Religious Experience & Belief in God
--Covenant and Eschatology: The Divine Drama
--A Confessing Theology for Postmodern Times
--Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications
--The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology
--Alister E. McGrath and Evangelical Theology: A Dynamic Engagement
--Letters to a Young Catholic
I wanted to see how Smith would tackle this enormous subject. Here, his voice is accessible, straightforward, and even... chatty? I know he says he wrote this for laymen. But really? So many overgeneralizations and lack of citations. Too much time spent on analogies and illustrations. Having read him in other contexts, it's strange seeing him write like this. Perhaps I'm simply used to more academic texts, but Smith's claims here are a little too breezy and quick for me. I think he could have been much more thorough. As much as I found myself agreeing with him, as I read I couldn't help but feel there was some slight of hand going on. And there was.
But let's get to a summary first.
Smith spends the first chapter setting groundwork, defining his terms, and presenting the three main postmodern premises he'll be working with:
--"There is nothing outside the text" (Derrida)
--Postmodernity is "incredulity toward metanarratives" (Lyotard)
--"Power is knowledge" (Foucault)
In the second chapter, Smith tackles Derrida. He strives to show us that Derrida really means "everything is interpretation." If everything is interpretation, then nothing is objective. (Then does the "objective" really exist? Don't know, because Smith doesn't seem to define it. But he criticizes Carson for not defining it. The irony.) Just because everything is interpretation doesn't mean that some interpretations aren't more good or true than others. (Then does Smith subscribe to varying degrees of goodness or truth? Doesn't that land us back in the "all truth is relative" camp? He doesn't chase that rabbit.) To find the "right" interpretation, we need the right conditions: "the right horizons of expectation and the right presuppositions." This comes as gift from the Holy Spirit. Then he gets into pluralism. Then he gets distracted by liberation theology, hierarchies of power, and social justice. Then he gets back on track and talks about how we need communities to help establish good rules of interpretation. Eventually he gets to a place where he equates Derrida's claim with Sola Scriptura. (I'm wincing.) But I get what he means. Scripture is our interpretation, our lens with which we see all the world. Nothing in our lives should stand outside "the text" that is scripture. He ends by saying the challenge of the church today is to help believers recognize the vs. interpretation (lens) that the Bible gives us vs. what our current culture is feeding us ("Wall Street's construal of happiness").
The third chapter tackles Lyotard. After a four-page long recounting of Oh Brother Where Art Though, Smith finally gets to the philosophy. Postmodernism is erosion of confidence in the rational as guarantor of truth. If postmodernism doubts metanarratives, then surely it can't get along with Christianity, the true metanarrative, right? Smith then says Foucault really defines modernism as the prioritization of science (reason) as better than metanarratives (untruths, fables). But postmodernism exposes science as a metanarrative in itself. The homogeneity and authority in metanarratives produces a kind of auto-legitimation. Smith says some argue the Christian faith is grounded in and legitimated by reason, and is thus a metanarrative. Smith claims it's actually legitimate by an appeal to faith (I take issue with this, but let's move on). Postmodernism reveals that all knowledge is grounded in narrative, or myth (in the Lewisian sense of the term). He somehow gets to the conclusion that Christianity is not a metanarrative (I don't see how he got there). Later in the chapter Smith claims that, because postmodernism demands that we own up to everything being metanarrative (faith systems), this opens up new space for religious discourse. The playing field is leveled. (The problem I have with this, is that if we equate all metanarratives or belief systems, then Christianity is simply one choice among many equal ones. Who is to say it's the right one? the truthful one? And while belief systems may not be grounded in total reason (I also reject this Enlightenment claim), that doesn't mean they don't contain reason and we don't still use reason to evaluate them. Smith conflates reason with truth. In this system, I don't see how you can actually claim Christianity is true--the true metanarrative.)
Chapter four assesses Foucault's "knowledge is power" maxim. He writes that "...modernity's claims to scientific objectivity or moral truth are fruits of a poisoned tree of power relations" (87). Even values only reduce to power. Smith says Christians should reject the notion of living as an autonomous agent who rejects any form of control. Instead, everyone is under some kind of power structure, or discipline; it matters more to what end, telos, that discipline is working toward. Then he talks about how much American society is focused on consumerism. Ultimately the chapter fizzles out into encouragement to discipline ourselves to be like Christ, instead of MTV. He seems to agree with the Marxist power structure assumption, but stops short of assuming that all power structures are bad like Marx does -- and instead he thinks some power structures are good? But with no two kingdoms doctrine to keep Smith focused, it's almost as if he's advocating for a heaven-on-earth kind of goal.
Chapter five is called "Applied Radical Orthodoxy: A Proposal for the Emerging Church." After another unnecessarily long plot description of another film, we finally get to it. Here, sometimes it seems Smith is advocating for a church that practices postmodernism (or pieces of postmodernism). In other times he seems to want “a postmodern catalyst for the church to be the church” (117). He says that a Cartesian certainty doesn’t exist (or that it’s bad?). And that fundamentalism rests on “a mythical epistemology of immediate access and cognitive certainty” (118). Some in the extreme camp say we can’t actually know anything. The best we can do is to believe. People who thought they knew what God wanted inflicted injustices upon other people. Therefore we shouldn’t pretend to know anything. Smith agrees with this, but stops one step short: he says we can know things, but knowledge “rests on the gift of revelation” (121) -- from the Holy Spirit. It’s still all about perspective. Smith says explicitly he wants knowledge without certainty. Truth without objectivity. (I have major problems with this, see below). Later in this last chapter, he urges the church to embrace little-c catholicism and focus on the incarnation: "In other words, an incarnation affirmation of liturgy and the aesthetics of worship is the fruit of an incarnation ontology (an account of the nature of reality) and a holistic anthropology (an account of what it means to be human)" (136). By the end he talks about his liturgical ideas (see Smith's Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation), and he gives a description of what his "ideal" church service would look like.
-----
While I can agree with Smith on many points, I think the fundamentals of this theories are flawed. He needs to better define his terms and work out the implications. He needs to better explain the categories of knowledge and certainty that exist. In The Case for Christ, Strobel discusses how historians or lawyers can’t really know, with certainty, anything that happened in the past. You look at the evidence and put your faith in the best explanations and predictions. There are degrees of certainty and doubt. If you want to argue we can’t know anything with 100% certainty, I’m with you. This is the kind of thing fundamentalism and scientism run into. But we can make reasonable guesses. We can feel reasonably confident that many things are true, and we proceed to live our lives as if those things were certain/true. I don’t know with 100% certainty that my car will start in the morning, but I still plan to use it to get to work. I don’t know with 100% certainty that the sun will rise or gravity will work tomorrow, but I still live my life as if they will. And there’s other things like historical events which are even farther away from a 100% certainty level. But we can still assume some things based on evidence, and debate the things we aren't as sure about. At the end of the day, regardless of revelation, we must choose to put our faith in something. Smith doesn’t take into account degrees of certainty and doubt. He seems to assume nothing is ever certain, so we must solely rely on revelation.
The conversation about scripture as revelation is another matter. But set that aside. Smith’s sole focus on revelation more generally just turns Christianity into another private religion based on faith, not fact: “How do I know it's true? God told me." In this system, there’s no room left for historic truth within Christianity. Either Jesus died and came back to life, or he didn’t. It’s true or not, regardless of whether or not it was revealed to anyone. In the end, I don't think Smith makes a convincing case here. He dodges the questions of natural law, historic truth, and degrees of certainty.
From this book, I found many others to investigate:
--Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation
--Hermeneutics at the Crossroads: Interpretation in Christian Perspective
--Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World
--Pluralisms And Horizons: An Essay In Christian Public Philosophy
--The Myth of Religious Neutrality: An Essay on the Hidden Role of Religious Belief in Theories, Revised Edition
--Knowing with the Heart: Religious Experience & Belief in God
--Covenant and Eschatology: The Divine Drama
--A Confessing Theology for Postmodern Times
--Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications
--The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology
--Alister E. McGrath and Evangelical Theology: A Dynamic Engagement
--Letters to a Young Catholic
August 21, 2014
This book corrected a lot of my misunderstandings about postmodernism. In it Smith examines three of the most crucial claims by postmodernists and shows how, given a proper deconstruction, they support a most radical Christianity. postmodernity has suffered from naive supporters and savage critics. I had my own misunderstandings. I thought postmodernists were those people with dark eye-liner, low-brow culture, readers of Nietzsche and those who sit around all day watching *Fight Club.*
Claim 1: Derrida: "There is nothing outside the text."
Response: This appears to say that the bible's claims to metaphysical truth are false. While Derrida is an atheist, and would probably beleive that, that wasn't the point he was getting at in the statement. He meant that nothing escapes interpretation. Interpretation of the text and of all events is inevitable. In other words, see Van Til.
Claim 2: Lyotard: "The end of all metanarratives."
Response: This would suggest that the Christian story, with its claim to all truth, is false. Again, Lyotard being an atheist would agree with that. BUt that wasn't his point. He was saying that Enlightenment claims to an "absolute standard of universal truth" are merely just powerplays. Lyotard was rebutting the notion of an autonomous, equally accessible "reason." The Enlightenment claimed to transcend other narratives by its definitionally superior reason. Lyotard shows that the Enlightenment's project is simply another narrative, not a metanarrative.
A Radical Orthodoxy?
If the Enlightenment project is dead (praise be to thee, O Christ), what remains for Christians? Nihilism is not an option. Smith shows how many postmoderns are turning to the ancient church and drawing upon Patristic and Medieval sources. The result, while flawed at times, is quite stunning.
Claim 1: Derrida: "There is nothing outside the text."
Response: This appears to say that the bible's claims to metaphysical truth are false. While Derrida is an atheist, and would probably beleive that, that wasn't the point he was getting at in the statement. He meant that nothing escapes interpretation. Interpretation of the text and of all events is inevitable. In other words, see Van Til.
Claim 2: Lyotard: "The end of all metanarratives."
Response: This would suggest that the Christian story, with its claim to all truth, is false. Again, Lyotard being an atheist would agree with that. BUt that wasn't his point. He was saying that Enlightenment claims to an "absolute standard of universal truth" are merely just powerplays. Lyotard was rebutting the notion of an autonomous, equally accessible "reason." The Enlightenment claimed to transcend other narratives by its definitionally superior reason. Lyotard shows that the Enlightenment's project is simply another narrative, not a metanarrative.
A Radical Orthodoxy?
If the Enlightenment project is dead (praise be to thee, O Christ), what remains for Christians? Nihilism is not an option. Smith shows how many postmoderns are turning to the ancient church and drawing upon Patristic and Medieval sources. The result, while flawed at times, is quite stunning.
May 13, 2020
Long ago, when I had yet to read anything "postmodern" beyond Donald Miller, and McLaren's New Kind of Christian, I picked up Smith's little book and didn't know what to think of it. Since then, my faith has crumbled, I've question nearly everything, dove head first into the bottle, been taken sea-sick by the flux (see above review), re-picked up Smith's little book only to put it down after 10-15 pages, gotten sober, re-built some faith-ness, re-read the "flux literature" in the context of that faith-ness, and re-re-picked up Smith's little book. I have to say its one of the best books on postmodern faith that I have read. My first reading was plagued by a closed mind to anything not 7 point fundamentalist Calvinism, my second reading plagued by anything that reeked of anything like faith. This reading I was able to appreciate Smith's brilliant treatment of complex thinkers and elucidating communication. Smith takes these thinkers to church, critiques the church with their thoughts and then turns around and critiques their thoughts with the newly critiqued church. Very good read.
(A Five star reating system is not specific enough. I give this one a 4.5)
(A Five star reating system is not specific enough. I give this one a 4.5)
February 26, 2022
The Radically Orthodox Thought Police
Author James Smith wrote this book to honor the legacy of Francis Schaeffer, the compassionate Christian apologist and evangelist. Smith adds the caveat that he "might take that legacy in directions that Schaeffer would not." (12.) Indeed he does. Smith repudiates every substantive aspect of Schaeffer's apologetic. He does this in order to put a happy-face on postmodernism, which Schaeffer saw as the logical extension of modernism and inherently skeptical, pessimistic and nihilistic. Smith promotes a postmodern theology under the misnomer of Radical Orthodoxy, which is a radical departure from Schaeffer's orthodox, biblical Christianity.
In Schaeffer's view, the failure of both modernism and postmodern lies in language and authority: man, beginning with just himself and the world, could not speak with authority regarding objective truth or universal meaning. Modernism once held out the hope that man could discover and declare such truths. Postmodernism abandoned that hope. Because modernism could find no universals in either man's mind or the world around him, postmodernism concluded that universals did not exist and no knowledge was certain.
Radical Orthodoxy has a modernist core at odds with its postmodern pretensions. It first asserts its own authority to speak to man of meaning. Smith begins the book declaring that the radically orthodox church "speaks meaning in and to a postmodern world." (11.) He then proceeds to embrace three postmodern precepts that deny man's ability to meaningfully speak of meaning.
Derrida's "there is nothing outside the text" means there is no outside authority to endow any communication with objective truth or universal meaning. Objective reality is not denied, there is just no one around who truly knows what it is or what it means.
Lyotard's "incredulity towards metanarratives" means there are no credible story tellers. You can have a grand unified theory of everything, but there is no rational basis upon which to adjudge one version of reality as better than another. They are all suspect.
Foucault's "power is knowledge" means that truth and meaning are up for grabs, and might makes right. If you have a story to tell and the wherewithal to impose it on others, you can be the declarer of truth and meaning within your limited realm of temporal influence.
Derrida and Lyotard allow for the warm fuzzies of Radical Orthodoxy: a happy, comforting narrative that makes us all feel good about ourselves. Smith proclaims that man is inherently good by merely being made of matter. Radical Orthodoxy "honors our fleshiness" and affirms the goodness of "stuff." (136.) It is Christian Materialism and, boasts Smith, "only Christians can be proper materialists!" (138.)
Why are man and stuff so good? Because that's where Spirit/God manifests itself. As the story goes: "Radical Orthodoxy asserts an affirmation of time as the incarnate arena for the Spirit's unfolding and thus takes seriously the fruits of time as it becomes embodied in tradition. This is ... to recognize that time is a medium for God's continued revelation and to concede a certain authority and normativity to what precedes us." (131-132.) This progressive manifestation of Spirit in the material world occurs in a continuous "historical unfolding." (122.) (Sounds like Hegel is the patron saint of Radical Orthodoxy.) It also accounts for Smith's use, and overuse, of the term "incarnational."
If you want to sound in-the-know, just make everything incarnational as Smith does. He's got incarnational theology, incarnational anthropology, incarnational geography, incarnational language, incarnational logic, incarnational medium, incarnational ministry, etc. etc. etc. Radical Orthodoxy is always "incarnational" and never "crucifixional" or "resurrectional." The Incarnation ennobles the flesh, and that's good for Christian materialists. The Crucifixion denotes an infirmity in the flesh and slays it, while the Resurrection redeems the mortal, corruptible flesh with an immortal, incorruptible spiritual body. They are not flesh honoring so Radical Orthodoxy won't touch them with a ten-foot pole.
Derrida and Lyotard let Radical Orthodoxy write its own story. Foucault shows how to sell it. Power is knowledge and if Radical Orthodoxy wants to turn its narrative into knowledge, its got to apply some muscle.
Because it recognizes no ultimate authority, postmodernism suffers a "legitimation crisis." (69.) When you have a crisis you call the cops, and postmodernism has its "interpretive police." (53.) These are the guys who maintain and enforce a given narrative. They are euphemistically referred to as the "interpretive community" and they turn your local institutions into "disciplinary societies." (107.) Think of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Smith's own analogy): you are Randle Patrick McMurphy and the radically orthodox church is the state mental institution; the local clergy is Nurse Ratched. The goal is group-think and elimination of the free-thinking individual.
Individualism is a plague borne by modernity (30), and Radical Orthodoxy has the cure. The disciplinary society employs "mechanisms of power" to transform the individual into a desired end-product. (90.) It is "aimed at formation for a specific end, and that end is determined by our founding narrative." (103.) The procedure requires inscribing new truth and value claims into the individual's mind while excising the old. The more covertly done the better. "This covertness of the operation is also what makes it so powerful: the truths are inscribed in us through the powerful instruments of imagination and ritual." (105.) This incarnational lobotomy conforms one to the founding narrative of the radically orthodox church and is the method by which it "speaks meaning in and to" postmodern man.
So that's what happens when you take Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault to church. Nothing to be afraid of. Right?
Author James Smith wrote this book to honor the legacy of Francis Schaeffer, the compassionate Christian apologist and evangelist. Smith adds the caveat that he "might take that legacy in directions that Schaeffer would not." (12.) Indeed he does. Smith repudiates every substantive aspect of Schaeffer's apologetic. He does this in order to put a happy-face on postmodernism, which Schaeffer saw as the logical extension of modernism and inherently skeptical, pessimistic and nihilistic. Smith promotes a postmodern theology under the misnomer of Radical Orthodoxy, which is a radical departure from Schaeffer's orthodox, biblical Christianity.
In Schaeffer's view, the failure of both modernism and postmodern lies in language and authority: man, beginning with just himself and the world, could not speak with authority regarding objective truth or universal meaning. Modernism once held out the hope that man could discover and declare such truths. Postmodernism abandoned that hope. Because modernism could find no universals in either man's mind or the world around him, postmodernism concluded that universals did not exist and no knowledge was certain.
Radical Orthodoxy has a modernist core at odds with its postmodern pretensions. It first asserts its own authority to speak to man of meaning. Smith begins the book declaring that the radically orthodox church "speaks meaning in and to a postmodern world." (11.) He then proceeds to embrace three postmodern precepts that deny man's ability to meaningfully speak of meaning.
Derrida's "there is nothing outside the text" means there is no outside authority to endow any communication with objective truth or universal meaning. Objective reality is not denied, there is just no one around who truly knows what it is or what it means.
Lyotard's "incredulity towards metanarratives" means there are no credible story tellers. You can have a grand unified theory of everything, but there is no rational basis upon which to adjudge one version of reality as better than another. They are all suspect.
Foucault's "power is knowledge" means that truth and meaning are up for grabs, and might makes right. If you have a story to tell and the wherewithal to impose it on others, you can be the declarer of truth and meaning within your limited realm of temporal influence.
Derrida and Lyotard allow for the warm fuzzies of Radical Orthodoxy: a happy, comforting narrative that makes us all feel good about ourselves. Smith proclaims that man is inherently good by merely being made of matter. Radical Orthodoxy "honors our fleshiness" and affirms the goodness of "stuff." (136.) It is Christian Materialism and, boasts Smith, "only Christians can be proper materialists!" (138.)
Why are man and stuff so good? Because that's where Spirit/God manifests itself. As the story goes: "Radical Orthodoxy asserts an affirmation of time as the incarnate arena for the Spirit's unfolding and thus takes seriously the fruits of time as it becomes embodied in tradition. This is ... to recognize that time is a medium for God's continued revelation and to concede a certain authority and normativity to what precedes us." (131-132.) This progressive manifestation of Spirit in the material world occurs in a continuous "historical unfolding." (122.) (Sounds like Hegel is the patron saint of Radical Orthodoxy.) It also accounts for Smith's use, and overuse, of the term "incarnational."
If you want to sound in-the-know, just make everything incarnational as Smith does. He's got incarnational theology, incarnational anthropology, incarnational geography, incarnational language, incarnational logic, incarnational medium, incarnational ministry, etc. etc. etc. Radical Orthodoxy is always "incarnational" and never "crucifixional" or "resurrectional." The Incarnation ennobles the flesh, and that's good for Christian materialists. The Crucifixion denotes an infirmity in the flesh and slays it, while the Resurrection redeems the mortal, corruptible flesh with an immortal, incorruptible spiritual body. They are not flesh honoring so Radical Orthodoxy won't touch them with a ten-foot pole.
Derrida and Lyotard let Radical Orthodoxy write its own story. Foucault shows how to sell it. Power is knowledge and if Radical Orthodoxy wants to turn its narrative into knowledge, its got to apply some muscle.
Because it recognizes no ultimate authority, postmodernism suffers a "legitimation crisis." (69.) When you have a crisis you call the cops, and postmodernism has its "interpretive police." (53.) These are the guys who maintain and enforce a given narrative. They are euphemistically referred to as the "interpretive community" and they turn your local institutions into "disciplinary societies." (107.) Think of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Smith's own analogy): you are Randle Patrick McMurphy and the radically orthodox church is the state mental institution; the local clergy is Nurse Ratched. The goal is group-think and elimination of the free-thinking individual.
Individualism is a plague borne by modernity (30), and Radical Orthodoxy has the cure. The disciplinary society employs "mechanisms of power" to transform the individual into a desired end-product. (90.) It is "aimed at formation for a specific end, and that end is determined by our founding narrative." (103.) The procedure requires inscribing new truth and value claims into the individual's mind while excising the old. The more covertly done the better. "This covertness of the operation is also what makes it so powerful: the truths are inscribed in us through the powerful instruments of imagination and ritual." (105.) This incarnational lobotomy conforms one to the founding narrative of the radically orthodox church and is the method by which it "speaks meaning in and to" postmodern man.
So that's what happens when you take Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault to church. Nothing to be afraid of. Right?
September 7, 2023
Full of gold and fools gold. The trick is to pay enough attention to notice the difference.
Some very insightful stuff mixed with some stuff that is of poorer quality. There is much helpful critique of modernism here but also a lack of ability to see the dangers of postmodern pluralism and the explicit denial of objective truth taught in postmodern philosophy.
Some of the insights contained here were worth 4 stars. I love Smith’s emphasis on historical catholicity, embodiment, the good of material things, spiritual formation, and sacramental theology. But Smith’s penchant for throwing the baby out with the bath water is also incredibly frustrating. Some parts of modernism are correct just as some parts of the postmodern worldview are correct. They can be helpful correctives for one another if taken together and used to sharpen one’s own opinion.
One could hypothetically study both and proceed with a worldview that draws on the strengths of both without the weaknesses of either, but smith does not do this. Instead, Smith decries all things modern and applauds all things postmodern (slight hyperbole here but he is seriously very one sided).
It is in fact (counter to Smith’s seeming assumption) possible to not have a Cartesian epistemology and still believe in Truth that isn’t merely subjective. Capital T truth. Christianity is of no validity or worth whatsoever unless Jesus, the Son of God, actually did walk out of the tomb. The Christian claim is that it happened in history completely regardless of whether you believe that it did or not! It is an objectively True historical fact. True Christianity does not claim that Jesus walking out of the tomb is merely true “for us.” It is actually a historical reality. It did in fact happen. Without this reality of the objective Truth of the resurrection Christians would be “most to be pitied.” In this sense Smith’s rejection of Truth leaves him in a pitiable place with a pitifully impoverished form of the gospel to proclaim.
For someone who talks so much about the necessary emphasis that Christians should place on history it is shocking and frustrating that Smith really does not seem to think it matters if the resurrection is an objectively true event. This slippery treatment of Truth lost one star and nearly caused the loss of another one but I eventually decided not to give the book a mere 2 stars even though it was a very frustrating read.
After all there are great insights here and the book made me think… hard. I can see why people like this book and I think Smith’s belief in objective truth in practice is ahead of his postmodern epistemology. I just wish he believed in Truth explicitly instead of denying it explicitly.
P.S.
If you like James K A Smith I apologize for the harshness of my review. I can see why you like him. He has much to teach us I think. It is also important to me that I read people whose opinions frustrate me as it is usually these people who know the things I don’t. So even though I disagreed with him strongly in some ways his thought has definitely influenced me. Opposition leads to growth. The impeded stream is the one that sings.
Some very insightful stuff mixed with some stuff that is of poorer quality. There is much helpful critique of modernism here but also a lack of ability to see the dangers of postmodern pluralism and the explicit denial of objective truth taught in postmodern philosophy.
Some of the insights contained here were worth 4 stars. I love Smith’s emphasis on historical catholicity, embodiment, the good of material things, spiritual formation, and sacramental theology. But Smith’s penchant for throwing the baby out with the bath water is also incredibly frustrating. Some parts of modernism are correct just as some parts of the postmodern worldview are correct. They can be helpful correctives for one another if taken together and used to sharpen one’s own opinion.
One could hypothetically study both and proceed with a worldview that draws on the strengths of both without the weaknesses of either, but smith does not do this. Instead, Smith decries all things modern and applauds all things postmodern (slight hyperbole here but he is seriously very one sided).
It is in fact (counter to Smith’s seeming assumption) possible to not have a Cartesian epistemology and still believe in Truth that isn’t merely subjective. Capital T truth. Christianity is of no validity or worth whatsoever unless Jesus, the Son of God, actually did walk out of the tomb. The Christian claim is that it happened in history completely regardless of whether you believe that it did or not! It is an objectively True historical fact. True Christianity does not claim that Jesus walking out of the tomb is merely true “for us.” It is actually a historical reality. It did in fact happen. Without this reality of the objective Truth of the resurrection Christians would be “most to be pitied.” In this sense Smith’s rejection of Truth leaves him in a pitiable place with a pitifully impoverished form of the gospel to proclaim.
For someone who talks so much about the necessary emphasis that Christians should place on history it is shocking and frustrating that Smith really does not seem to think it matters if the resurrection is an objectively true event. This slippery treatment of Truth lost one star and nearly caused the loss of another one but I eventually decided not to give the book a mere 2 stars even though it was a very frustrating read.
After all there are great insights here and the book made me think… hard. I can see why people like this book and I think Smith’s belief in objective truth in practice is ahead of his postmodern epistemology. I just wish he believed in Truth explicitly instead of denying it explicitly.
P.S.
If you like James K A Smith I apologize for the harshness of my review. I can see why you like him. He has much to teach us I think. It is also important to me that I read people whose opinions frustrate me as it is usually these people who know the things I don’t. So even though I disagreed with him strongly in some ways his thought has definitely influenced me. Opposition leads to growth. The impeded stream is the one that sings.
December 13, 2013
I realized two chapters into this book that Smith had not yet given any rational-based arguments for rejected modernism. Then it hit me: Smith, with Lyotard, insists on an incredulity toward meta-narratives. I cannot expect him to appeal to reason in defense of his view since he rejects universal access to autonomous, neutral reasoning. I suppose Smith would explain my realization as being rooted in my deeply modernistic (Western) roots. He would be right. I have been heavily influenced by the Cartesian project without even knowing it.
I am an evangelical Christian with a conservative background. When I was first introduced to Christian apologetics, I simply assumed that men like William Lane Craig, Norman Geisler, and Lee Strobel used the "standard" approach to this biblically-commanded discipline. It never occurred to me--not one time--that there could be various "schools" of Christian apologetics. Upon picking up the standard evidential-based books on defending the Christian faith, I became rejuvenated with confidence, assurance, and passion for my Lord who presented me with a "reasonable faith."
A couple years later, I began studying philosophy (specifically epistemology). After studying the history of Western philosophy (from the Pre-Socratic thinkers in ancient Greece to the modern Enlightenment), I experienced a perspective change. Before, postmodernism was something that the evidential books made me laugh at. "They believe that there is no truth," I thought to myself. "What morons! That's self-contradictory!" Postmodernism was simply dismissed a priori because it was nonsensical. However, I believe that Smith has provided a very intriguing introduction into this most difficult topic.
I give it 5 stars, not because I have adopted everything in the book--there is still much that I am concerned about--but because it was well-written, enjoyable, engaging, and perspective-shattering. Smith has piqued my interest enough to inspire me to buy some more books on "Radical Orthodoxy."
I am an evangelical Christian with a conservative background. When I was first introduced to Christian apologetics, I simply assumed that men like William Lane Craig, Norman Geisler, and Lee Strobel used the "standard" approach to this biblically-commanded discipline. It never occurred to me--not one time--that there could be various "schools" of Christian apologetics. Upon picking up the standard evidential-based books on defending the Christian faith, I became rejuvenated with confidence, assurance, and passion for my Lord who presented me with a "reasonable faith."
A couple years later, I began studying philosophy (specifically epistemology). After studying the history of Western philosophy (from the Pre-Socratic thinkers in ancient Greece to the modern Enlightenment), I experienced a perspective change. Before, postmodernism was something that the evidential books made me laugh at. "They believe that there is no truth," I thought to myself. "What morons! That's self-contradictory!" Postmodernism was simply dismissed a priori because it was nonsensical. However, I believe that Smith has provided a very intriguing introduction into this most difficult topic.
I give it 5 stars, not because I have adopted everything in the book--there is still much that I am concerned about--but because it was well-written, enjoyable, engaging, and perspective-shattering. Smith has piqued my interest enough to inspire me to buy some more books on "Radical Orthodoxy."
Read
January 13, 2012Smith attempts to clarify some of the major themes of postmodernism and argues that these themes are not entirely problematic for Christianity. In fact, according to Smith, postmodernism provides some very positive opportunities for the contemporary Church. Focusing on the three icons of postmodern theory, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Francouis Lyotard, and Michel Foucault, he explains how each is caricatured by one of their own quotes (which have become "bumper-stickers") Many people know of them but they fail to understand them because they are unaware of the context. He begins each chapter with a short synopsis of a film which serves to illustrate a particular theme of postmodern thought. While these are helpful as illustrations, they are not essential to understanding each chapter and I suggest could be skipped over for sake of brevity.
He begins with Derrida whose bumper sticker quote is: "There is nothing outside of the text." This is misconstrued to mean that there is no reality outside of the text. There are only words on the page, but they do not describe anything that actually exists. This he calls linguistic idealism. This is not what Derrida meant however. Rather, while there is a reality beyond the text, we are helplessly enslaved to text. Our languages, our words, are the only means we have to know the world around us. But our words are always interpretations of the external reality. Therefore, there is nothing we can do to get to the reality. The problem for Christians, Smith says, is that they fear that this enslavement to interpretation undermines the Scriptures. Smith attempts to ease this problem by pointing out that the New Testament itself is an "interpretation" of the events of the life of Jesus. Smith goes on to point out that Derrida did not intend for everything to be deconstructed. Rather, he wished for us to merely recognize that it is within communities and contexts that words and texts receive their meaning. With communities the project of construction takes place. This is where Smith is able to find an opportunity for Christians. He argues that Derrida's emphasis on interpretation in communities opens Christians from an individualistic, low-ecclesiological background to the importance of understanding that they must live and interpret the scriptures within an ecclesial community. This is something that should come more naturally to Catholics, but may not for less traditional Protestants and Evangelicals.
Taking on Lyotard's bumper sticker that postmodernism is "incredulity toward metanarratives," Smith argues that this phrase should not be construed as incredulity towards grand stories or epics. If this were the case, as many suppose it to be, then the grand narrative of Salvation History contained within Scripture should be held with "incredulity." But, as Smith points out, Postmoderns like Lyotard do not have a problem with epic stories or grand narratives. Rather, they recognize that claims to objectivity and pure reason made by science in the modern era were themselves wrapped up within a broader narrative. They emphasize that what modernity considered knowledge and truth was rooted in indemonstrable presuppositions about reality. Smith sees this as an opportunity for Christians to rediscover and re-present the narrative of God's plan of salvation. Since postmodernism has demonstrated that "the emperor of modernity has no clothes,"(66) Christians should no longer stress demonstrative apologetics. Rather, Christian apologetics should be "unapologetics," presenting the Christian story and offering it as the best of those to choose from. With that in mind, Smith argues that in order to present a story to postmodernity, Christians must rediscover the uniqueness and otherness of their story, resisting the temptation to build churches that look like shopping centers or convention halls, and witnessing to the world rather than chasing after it.
Finally, Smith analyzes the false understandings of Foucault's bumper-sticker: "power is knowledge." For Foucault, the world is a system of power relations, which chaotically collide to bring about the institutions and ideals that generations live with and often cherish. Modernity's claims to objectivity, reason, and truth, argues Foucault, are not the result of pure logic and scientific inquiry. Rather, they rest on a disconnected set of power relations. Smith identifies two later understandings of Foucault. The first, the Nietzschean Foucault, simply seeks to reveal the power relations at work in our lives. He does not recommend any particular course of action because he does not make any moral judgments (this would be too modern for him). The second, the Liberal or Enlightenment Foucault, sees these power relations as corruptions, and therefore, he implicitly recommends the overthrow of those in power. This latter Foucault is the one who is most frequently used, and Smith recommends this as the best way to understand him. Smith argues that for the Christian, this does not have to be as problematic as it may sound. Rather, he draws on the Christian call to be disciples of Christ. To be a disciple is explicitly to put one’s self under the power of another. For Christians power is not always corrupt or evil. Furthermore, Smith points out that if Foucault is correct, then whether we intentionally put ourselves under someone else's authority or not, we are being worked on and affected by someone else's power. The point is that the Christian should choose to be under the power of Christ for only Christ has his best intention in mind. If he does not, then it is the power forces of contemporary society and culture which the individual is placed under.
In the last chapter, Smith applies a movement within Protestant Theology called, "Radical Orthodoxy" which, "seeks to articulate a robust confessional theology in postmodernism."(117) Radical Orthodoxy attempts to make a clean break from the "Cartesian anxiety" of modernism, which was insistent upon "quasi-omniscient certainty."(118) Postmodernism, argues Smith, has demonstrated that our knowledge about the world is founded, more or less, upon beliefs. Radical Orthodoxy does not say, "I know that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself." Rather, it says, "I believe that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself." The difference between "I know," and "I believe" in modern theology caused great anxiety but in postmodern theology the difference is not so stark. Smith argues that theologians who insist upon a Cartesian-modern view of knowing, "effect the worst sort of violence on those who don't know," and tend to subject anyone who does not know, "to all kinds of legalistic rules."(119) Radical Orthodoxy makes another break with modern techniques of theology which end up being merely apologetic. Specifically, Smith has in mind "correlational methods" which look in more secular fields of study like philosophy, sociology, or psychology, for 'correlations" with theological claims. The assumption being that these other forms of knowledge are in some way neutral, or scientific, and provide proof of theological claims. Smith argues, however, that the correlation method forfeits theology's autonomy and allows secular sciences to determine its boundaries, methods, and discourse. Postmodernism has shown, however, that even secular sciences are not neutral or free from indemonstrable presuppositions. Therefore, Smith goes on, postmodern theology is capable of reasserting itself into the broader intellectual discourse as its own, legitimate, autonomous field of knowledge.
In these two aspects of Radical Orthodoxy, Smith draws on themes that can quite easily be located in the thought of Blessed John Henry Newman. In his "Grammar of Assent," Newman brilliantly argues against Lockean rationalism. He demonstrates that almost all of our daily life is lived by making "assents" to things that cannot be logically or scientifically demonstrated. In reality, we make our decisions and hold beliefs based on the convergence of many evidences and the "illative sense." In Newman's, "Idea of a University," he defends the place of theology within the university curriculum as a legitimate piece of the "circle of knowledge." Smith is merely restating Newman's argument that theology is, first, legitimate knowledge, and second, that if you remove theology from the "circle" then some other field will inevitably attempt to takes its place.
Smith also draws upon another Catholic source, this time more explicitly, in George Weigel's "Letters to a Young Catholic." Smith cites Weigel's work as a model for postmodern Christians because it takes tradition seriously, it presents a "catholic" (Smith is thinking universal, not Roman Catholic) view of Christianity that draws on theology, history, philosophy, as well as time and space(s). Smith says that Weigel's "Letters to a Young Catholic" has the correct postmodern approach in two ways. First, it presents a living, incarnational tradition instead of "traditionalism." Second, it demonstrates a reappropriation of the importance of time, space, and the body (incarnationalism).
In closing, Smith seeks to take all that he has been arguing about a postmodern church and illustrate what it would be like. He describes a Church which is not Roman, yet catholic. The postmodern Church involves, "the centrality of the Word, the use of the lectionary, the engagement with the arts, practices as ritual discipline."(144) While his principles seem to coincide well with Roman Catholic (really all Catholic and Orthodox Christians) his proposed application is not original if one were to walk into many Catholic Churches built from 1965-2000. He describes the worship space as ergonomically oriented with the congregation seated in a circle all facing each other with the sacraments placed in the middle. Forced to look at one another, the congregation would be reminded, "of the iconic gaze of God, who confronts us in the other."(144) There would be surrealist stained glass, candles, jazz ensemble for ambience, and large screens displaying slideshows of Christian symbols and art. We would be called to worship by an "a-capella call to worship in the form of a chant from Afghanistan," there would be a rendition of U2's "40" based on Psalm 40, the Old Testament reading would be performed as a liturgical dance. There is a baptism and communion, the congregation is reminded of all the great events and community outreach activities of the week, told not to participate in the "economic cycle" on the Sabbath, and everyone walks home because they live nearby.
From the experience of a Catholic who has been experiencing similar re-orientation of Catholic liturgy since the Second Vatican Council, I would have many reservations about Smith's recommendations. Primarily, Smith's earlier calls for Christian theology and worship to be autonomous and true to itself seem to be missing in his ideal Church. It seems many of the practices and sources of ambience are taken from the contemporary culture and not from a Christian tradition of any sort. Why a chant from Afghanistan? I don't think the church he is describing is located in Afghanistan. My experience of attempts to be multicultural in mono-cultural churches is awkwardness and confusion. Furthermore, how does a Jazz ensemble add a sense of other-worldliness to worship and where is it found in the tradition? Again, it depends on the local tradition and culture. But again, if this is the recommendation for all, then it is not an authentic tradition, but a manufactured one. Smith is definitely correct that all of our senses should be engaged, that the community should be equipped, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, to live their faith powerfully in their communities. He rightly asserts the need for a community, for a church, and for a proper understanding of our beliefs as unashamedly legitimate. Postmodernism, as Smith shows, does provide some positive areas for Christianity to assert itself in the public square and academic world. It is not something that should be feared or rejected in total. Smith provides some good principles and his book is starting point for deeper reflection and conversation among Christians.
He begins with Derrida whose bumper sticker quote is: "There is nothing outside of the text." This is misconstrued to mean that there is no reality outside of the text. There are only words on the page, but they do not describe anything that actually exists. This he calls linguistic idealism. This is not what Derrida meant however. Rather, while there is a reality beyond the text, we are helplessly enslaved to text. Our languages, our words, are the only means we have to know the world around us. But our words are always interpretations of the external reality. Therefore, there is nothing we can do to get to the reality. The problem for Christians, Smith says, is that they fear that this enslavement to interpretation undermines the Scriptures. Smith attempts to ease this problem by pointing out that the New Testament itself is an "interpretation" of the events of the life of Jesus. Smith goes on to point out that Derrida did not intend for everything to be deconstructed. Rather, he wished for us to merely recognize that it is within communities and contexts that words and texts receive their meaning. With communities the project of construction takes place. This is where Smith is able to find an opportunity for Christians. He argues that Derrida's emphasis on interpretation in communities opens Christians from an individualistic, low-ecclesiological background to the importance of understanding that they must live and interpret the scriptures within an ecclesial community. This is something that should come more naturally to Catholics, but may not for less traditional Protestants and Evangelicals.
Taking on Lyotard's bumper sticker that postmodernism is "incredulity toward metanarratives," Smith argues that this phrase should not be construed as incredulity towards grand stories or epics. If this were the case, as many suppose it to be, then the grand narrative of Salvation History contained within Scripture should be held with "incredulity." But, as Smith points out, Postmoderns like Lyotard do not have a problem with epic stories or grand narratives. Rather, they recognize that claims to objectivity and pure reason made by science in the modern era were themselves wrapped up within a broader narrative. They emphasize that what modernity considered knowledge and truth was rooted in indemonstrable presuppositions about reality. Smith sees this as an opportunity for Christians to rediscover and re-present the narrative of God's plan of salvation. Since postmodernism has demonstrated that "the emperor of modernity has no clothes,"(66) Christians should no longer stress demonstrative apologetics. Rather, Christian apologetics should be "unapologetics," presenting the Christian story and offering it as the best of those to choose from. With that in mind, Smith argues that in order to present a story to postmodernity, Christians must rediscover the uniqueness and otherness of their story, resisting the temptation to build churches that look like shopping centers or convention halls, and witnessing to the world rather than chasing after it.
Finally, Smith analyzes the false understandings of Foucault's bumper-sticker: "power is knowledge." For Foucault, the world is a system of power relations, which chaotically collide to bring about the institutions and ideals that generations live with and often cherish. Modernity's claims to objectivity, reason, and truth, argues Foucault, are not the result of pure logic and scientific inquiry. Rather, they rest on a disconnected set of power relations. Smith identifies two later understandings of Foucault. The first, the Nietzschean Foucault, simply seeks to reveal the power relations at work in our lives. He does not recommend any particular course of action because he does not make any moral judgments (this would be too modern for him). The second, the Liberal or Enlightenment Foucault, sees these power relations as corruptions, and therefore, he implicitly recommends the overthrow of those in power. This latter Foucault is the one who is most frequently used, and Smith recommends this as the best way to understand him. Smith argues that for the Christian, this does not have to be as problematic as it may sound. Rather, he draws on the Christian call to be disciples of Christ. To be a disciple is explicitly to put one’s self under the power of another. For Christians power is not always corrupt or evil. Furthermore, Smith points out that if Foucault is correct, then whether we intentionally put ourselves under someone else's authority or not, we are being worked on and affected by someone else's power. The point is that the Christian should choose to be under the power of Christ for only Christ has his best intention in mind. If he does not, then it is the power forces of contemporary society and culture which the individual is placed under.
In the last chapter, Smith applies a movement within Protestant Theology called, "Radical Orthodoxy" which, "seeks to articulate a robust confessional theology in postmodernism."(117) Radical Orthodoxy attempts to make a clean break from the "Cartesian anxiety" of modernism, which was insistent upon "quasi-omniscient certainty."(118) Postmodernism, argues Smith, has demonstrated that our knowledge about the world is founded, more or less, upon beliefs. Radical Orthodoxy does not say, "I know that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself." Rather, it says, "I believe that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself." The difference between "I know," and "I believe" in modern theology caused great anxiety but in postmodern theology the difference is not so stark. Smith argues that theologians who insist upon a Cartesian-modern view of knowing, "effect the worst sort of violence on those who don't know," and tend to subject anyone who does not know, "to all kinds of legalistic rules."(119) Radical Orthodoxy makes another break with modern techniques of theology which end up being merely apologetic. Specifically, Smith has in mind "correlational methods" which look in more secular fields of study like philosophy, sociology, or psychology, for 'correlations" with theological claims. The assumption being that these other forms of knowledge are in some way neutral, or scientific, and provide proof of theological claims. Smith argues, however, that the correlation method forfeits theology's autonomy and allows secular sciences to determine its boundaries, methods, and discourse. Postmodernism has shown, however, that even secular sciences are not neutral or free from indemonstrable presuppositions. Therefore, Smith goes on, postmodern theology is capable of reasserting itself into the broader intellectual discourse as its own, legitimate, autonomous field of knowledge.
In these two aspects of Radical Orthodoxy, Smith draws on themes that can quite easily be located in the thought of Blessed John Henry Newman. In his "Grammar of Assent," Newman brilliantly argues against Lockean rationalism. He demonstrates that almost all of our daily life is lived by making "assents" to things that cannot be logically or scientifically demonstrated. In reality, we make our decisions and hold beliefs based on the convergence of many evidences and the "illative sense." In Newman's, "Idea of a University," he defends the place of theology within the university curriculum as a legitimate piece of the "circle of knowledge." Smith is merely restating Newman's argument that theology is, first, legitimate knowledge, and second, that if you remove theology from the "circle" then some other field will inevitably attempt to takes its place.
Smith also draws upon another Catholic source, this time more explicitly, in George Weigel's "Letters to a Young Catholic." Smith cites Weigel's work as a model for postmodern Christians because it takes tradition seriously, it presents a "catholic" (Smith is thinking universal, not Roman Catholic) view of Christianity that draws on theology, history, philosophy, as well as time and space(s). Smith says that Weigel's "Letters to a Young Catholic" has the correct postmodern approach in two ways. First, it presents a living, incarnational tradition instead of "traditionalism." Second, it demonstrates a reappropriation of the importance of time, space, and the body (incarnationalism).
In closing, Smith seeks to take all that he has been arguing about a postmodern church and illustrate what it would be like. He describes a Church which is not Roman, yet catholic. The postmodern Church involves, "the centrality of the Word, the use of the lectionary, the engagement with the arts, practices as ritual discipline."(144) While his principles seem to coincide well with Roman Catholic (really all Catholic and Orthodox Christians) his proposed application is not original if one were to walk into many Catholic Churches built from 1965-2000. He describes the worship space as ergonomically oriented with the congregation seated in a circle all facing each other with the sacraments placed in the middle. Forced to look at one another, the congregation would be reminded, "of the iconic gaze of God, who confronts us in the other."(144) There would be surrealist stained glass, candles, jazz ensemble for ambience, and large screens displaying slideshows of Christian symbols and art. We would be called to worship by an "a-capella call to worship in the form of a chant from Afghanistan," there would be a rendition of U2's "40" based on Psalm 40, the Old Testament reading would be performed as a liturgical dance. There is a baptism and communion, the congregation is reminded of all the great events and community outreach activities of the week, told not to participate in the "economic cycle" on the Sabbath, and everyone walks home because they live nearby.
From the experience of a Catholic who has been experiencing similar re-orientation of Catholic liturgy since the Second Vatican Council, I would have many reservations about Smith's recommendations. Primarily, Smith's earlier calls for Christian theology and worship to be autonomous and true to itself seem to be missing in his ideal Church. It seems many of the practices and sources of ambience are taken from the contemporary culture and not from a Christian tradition of any sort. Why a chant from Afghanistan? I don't think the church he is describing is located in Afghanistan. My experience of attempts to be multicultural in mono-cultural churches is awkwardness and confusion. Furthermore, how does a Jazz ensemble add a sense of other-worldliness to worship and where is it found in the tradition? Again, it depends on the local tradition and culture. But again, if this is the recommendation for all, then it is not an authentic tradition, but a manufactured one. Smith is definitely correct that all of our senses should be engaged, that the community should be equipped, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, to live their faith powerfully in their communities. He rightly asserts the need for a community, for a church, and for a proper understanding of our beliefs as unashamedly legitimate. Postmodernism, as Smith shows, does provide some positive areas for Christianity to assert itself in the public square and academic world. It is not something that should be feared or rejected in total. Smith provides some good principles and his book is starting point for deeper reflection and conversation among Christians.
May 26, 2020
“Postmodernism” is lauded or excoriated these days without careful or nuanced definition. Like it or not, we find ourselves, with the collapse of the modernist project, in the cultural condition of Postmodernity. However, there are many different intellectual, spiritual, and practical responses to this condition, hence many different kinds of “postmodernism”.
Many Christian authors, when addressing postmodernism, posit a form or expression of postmodernism and attack it as unbiblical. The Postmodernisms they articulate and decry are usually deserving of the treatment they receive. But these authors – usually apologists and always well meaning – rarely acknowledge they are addressing only one articulation of Postmodernism, instead implying postmodernist thought is monolithic. It isn’t, and not all such responses to Postmodernity are as unbiblical as these Christian authors assert. James K. A. Smith’s Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism is helpful corrective.
Smith’s book examines the thought of three French postmodern thinkers who had a profound impact on Postmodernism. Each of the first three chapters examines one of these thinkers and a “bumper sticker” slogan associated with that thinker: Derrida (“there is nothing outside the text”), Lyotard (“incredulity toward metanarrative”), and Foucault (“power is knowledge”). The greatest value of the book is his explanation of these phrases and what they do and do not mean. He then “takes them to church,” explaining how these thoughts are not (necessarily) inimical to biblical Christianity. There are times, especially with Foucault, where he seems to be stretching long and hard to make this work, but overall, he makes plausible arguments and raises some very important issues for Christians to contemplate.
The last chapter is his attempt to show that the Radical Orthodoxy movement is adapting to postmodernity in a manner best in line with biblical practice. While he makes some good and intriguing points here, I am still not convinced. Based on his description – I admittedly have no experience with the movement – it would seem that Radical Orthodoxy itself is not a monolithic movement. Perhaps his endorsement of it suffers from the same problem that postmodernism does in the hands of others, forcing a diverse movement with diverse ideas and agendas into one mold.
Many Christian authors, when addressing postmodernism, posit a form or expression of postmodernism and attack it as unbiblical. The Postmodernisms they articulate and decry are usually deserving of the treatment they receive. But these authors – usually apologists and always well meaning – rarely acknowledge they are addressing only one articulation of Postmodernism, instead implying postmodernist thought is monolithic. It isn’t, and not all such responses to Postmodernity are as unbiblical as these Christian authors assert. James K. A. Smith’s Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism is helpful corrective.
Smith’s book examines the thought of three French postmodern thinkers who had a profound impact on Postmodernism. Each of the first three chapters examines one of these thinkers and a “bumper sticker” slogan associated with that thinker: Derrida (“there is nothing outside the text”), Lyotard (“incredulity toward metanarrative”), and Foucault (“power is knowledge”). The greatest value of the book is his explanation of these phrases and what they do and do not mean. He then “takes them to church,” explaining how these thoughts are not (necessarily) inimical to biblical Christianity. There are times, especially with Foucault, where he seems to be stretching long and hard to make this work, but overall, he makes plausible arguments and raises some very important issues for Christians to contemplate.
The last chapter is his attempt to show that the Radical Orthodoxy movement is adapting to postmodernity in a manner best in line with biblical practice. While he makes some good and intriguing points here, I am still not convinced. Based on his description – I admittedly have no experience with the movement – it would seem that Radical Orthodoxy itself is not a monolithic movement. Perhaps his endorsement of it suffers from the same problem that postmodernism does in the hands of others, forcing a diverse movement with diverse ideas and agendas into one mold.
October 7, 2022
I think Smith does a great job of introducing some of postmodernism's founders, especially Derrida. However, it seems to me that an understanding of postmodernism should naturally lead to a posture of humility, which is the opposite of what Smith emulates. Even while acknowledging the contextual nature of truth, he insists on doubling down on his own convictions instead of an openness to differing views. Further, there seems to be an ignorance of the corespondence theory of truth, which results in a continual conflation of the scientific method with modernism itself. The leads to the repeated strawmanning of what is a remarkably accurate means of explaing the material world.
December 10, 2018
Lately I’ve been hearing a lot about how postmodernism is a major challenge to Christianity, but denunciations of postmodernism often sound unconvincing to me, if only because it often sounded to me like too many people use “postmodern” as a descriptor with little indication that they understand the underlying philosophy. This book by James K.A. Smith (who is both a Christian and a philosophy professor) argues that postmodernist philosophy is highly misunderstood by theologians, and that if you read the works of postmodernist philosophers Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault closely, you’ll see that contrary to postmodernism being anti-Christian (i.e. anti-religion), it actually strengthens Christianity’s position in a postmodern world by bringing it back to its traditional apostolic roots.
For the most part, Smith makes a lot of very good points, and does a really good job of explaining what the core tenets of Derrida (“Nothing exists outside the text”), Lyotard (postmodernity is “the incredulity of metanarratives”) and Foucault (“power is knowledge”) actually mean, and how they aren’t as anti-Christian as they seem if you just take them at face value. His use of films as an illustration of each point is also engaging. Where it falls apart for me is the end, where Smith ties all of this into his view of how the church should evolve by adopting “radical orthodoxy” (a topic he’s written about extensively elsewhere) – which may be a valid point of view, but in terms of practical application it seems unconvincing and unrealistic to me, not least because Smith’s views are rooted in catholic orthodoxy, so his points are going to be lost on denominations that aren’t.
So as a call to action in regards to church reform, I don’t think the book really works. But it will definitely get a discussion started, and that’s a good thing. If nothing else, I think it’s a good primer on understanding postmodernist philosophy, and makes a good case why it’s not the boogey man some Christian leaders make it out to be. But obviously, an open mind is a prerequisite.
For the most part, Smith makes a lot of very good points, and does a really good job of explaining what the core tenets of Derrida (“Nothing exists outside the text”), Lyotard (postmodernity is “the incredulity of metanarratives”) and Foucault (“power is knowledge”) actually mean, and how they aren’t as anti-Christian as they seem if you just take them at face value. His use of films as an illustration of each point is also engaging. Where it falls apart for me is the end, where Smith ties all of this into his view of how the church should evolve by adopting “radical orthodoxy” (a topic he’s written about extensively elsewhere) – which may be a valid point of view, but in terms of practical application it seems unconvincing and unrealistic to me, not least because Smith’s views are rooted in catholic orthodoxy, so his points are going to be lost on denominations that aren’t.
So as a call to action in regards to church reform, I don’t think the book really works. But it will definitely get a discussion started, and that’s a good thing. If nothing else, I think it’s a good primer on understanding postmodernist philosophy, and makes a good case why it’s not the boogey man some Christian leaders make it out to be. But obviously, an open mind is a prerequisite.
September 11, 2013
I'm not afraid of postmodernism, but I am afraid of James K.A. Smith's legalism. While reading the last section of this book, I wanted to pack my family up, move them out of the city we live in, and move into a cookie-cutter house located on a cul-de-sac in the blandest suburb I can find. Why does Smith (and other emergent/postmodern theologians) get to define abstract concepts like "community" for everyone else? Well, worse, he didn't define it; he assumed a/his definition and then condemned any and all who don't live according to his propositional truth claims. Apparently, based on this book, the gospel is only for the broken ones in the city, not for those who have bought into the modernist conception of Cartesianism as fleshed out in cul-de-sac "living" (of course, those of you who "live" on a cul-de-sac aren't living the way God intended. Shame on you! You hate Jesus, don't you?). That and his love of straw men in regards to the evangelical church is why I rated this book with only one star.
April 15, 2014
A fine little volume by James Smith. He is at his best whenever he is helping to bring high argument down to a more approachable level for those of us who are less trained in philosophy. With a chapter each on Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault, this was a quick and very informative book on how postmodernism can actually help Christians think and worship better. It will have me thinking for a while.
However, some of the applications were a little clunky and awkward. For being a book written in 2006 and the emergent church all but dead, alot of the "on the ground" work was very dated -- and in only 8 years! The last chapter had some nice nuggets, but also got humorously weird. After arguing for such a rich catholic Christianity, it was like the wheels spun out of control.
All in all, a great book even if the application for churches to consider is near impossible. The chapters looking at some of the thought of the three thinkers was worth the read.
However, some of the applications were a little clunky and awkward. For being a book written in 2006 and the emergent church all but dead, alot of the "on the ground" work was very dated -- and in only 8 years! The last chapter had some nice nuggets, but also got humorously weird. After arguing for such a rich catholic Christianity, it was like the wheels spun out of control.
All in all, a great book even if the application for churches to consider is near impossible. The chapters looking at some of the thought of the three thinkers was worth the read.
February 7, 2022
As someone who studied sociology in undergrad, I really wish I had read this at the start of my program and not, as I did, in the final semester. My experience of undergrad sociology was largely dominated by non-Christians, some of whom were skeptical or even hostile to Christianity (Marx, Foucault) so I had a very defensive mentality during in my sociology courses. During my undergrad I was also very steeped in apologetics that was sharply critical of postmodernism. James K.A. Smith's book didn't make me a postmodern acolyte of Foucault but it did help me understand the merits of postmodernism.
October 3, 2015
The author attempts to make the assertion that if you look at postmodernism from a certain angle that it actually makes sense, and even supports Christianity. Of course, from a certain angle, the Holocaust was a novel way to control overpopulation. Then reality sets in, and you realize that no matter which way you look at it, both assertions are wrong.
June 24, 2009
Absolutely must-read if you feel that the church's response to postmodernism is a bit reductionist. This is not quite in layman's terms, but if you can comprehend the New York Times, you can understand this book.
March 11, 2023
“Any statements by those who are called philosophers…which happen to be true and consistent with our faith should not cause alarm, but be claimed for our own use, as it were from owners who have no right to them” - Augustine On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Ch. 40
This book follows in the Augustinian practice of “plundering the Egyptians,” taking non-Christian truths and appropriating them for the Faith. James K A Smith does this for postmodernism. Using introductory slogans of the three foundational postmodern thinkers: Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault; James K A Smith gives us an outstanding guide for introducing postmodernism and how to appropriate their ideas for the church.
1. Derrida: “nothing is outside the text” (page 34)
Meaning: Everything is interpretation; or “all experience is always already an interpretation.” (39) We cannot get behind/past a text and beyond the realm of interpretation (38).
How the church can use this: “knowledge” (as modernity defines it) should be viewed with suspicion vs. how we understand faith-knowledge.
Quoting John Owen: “That Jesus Christ was crucified, is a proposition that any unregenerate man may understand…but it is denied that he can receive the things themselves. For there is a wide difference between… receiving doctrines notionally, and receiving the things taught in them.” (49)
A type of presuppositional apologetics (50)
Interpretive communities needed to “police” or govern the authoritative interpretation i.e. the church (53)
2. Lyotard: “Incredulity toward metanarratives”
Meaning: Postmodernism is suspicious of “big stories” of the Enlightenment and autonomous reason. (63 & 72)
How the church can use this: We Christians do not need to acquiesce to the enlightenment and Kantian agnosticism. No knowledge is untainted by bias or faith commitments. (73)
It’s not a fight between autonomous rational objectivity vs. personal faith. Everyone is operating on some sorts of faith commitments.
3. Foucault: “Power is Knowledge”
Meaning: claims of knowledge are power moves (86).
Society isn't progressing into a more peaceful community due to Enlightenment progress, it just changes the type of domination (87).
How the church can use this: Discipline (Discipleship) is “good insofar as they are directed to good ends” (101).
Disciplinary mechanisms of society make human beings into certain people aimed at certain goals (104). The church needs communities that create disciplines that create disciples.
The final section of the book is a way to introduce Smith’s theological school/tradition; Radical Orthodoxy.
Radical Orthodoxy rejects a Cartesian anthropology to bring us back to an Augustinian anthropology and to redirect us back to “incarnational” Church practices. It rejects modernity's reduction of human experience to materialism and recognizes the human being as "affective, embodied being-in-the-world." (136)
If you are looking for an introduction to postmodernism, start here
If you are looking for an explanation of Radical Orthodoxy, start here.
If you want an example of how to practice an Augustinian appropriation of philosophy, start here.
5/5 Outstanding book on postmodernism and introducing Radical Orthodoxy
This book follows in the Augustinian practice of “plundering the Egyptians,” taking non-Christian truths and appropriating them for the Faith. James K A Smith does this for postmodernism. Using introductory slogans of the three foundational postmodern thinkers: Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault; James K A Smith gives us an outstanding guide for introducing postmodernism and how to appropriate their ideas for the church.
1. Derrida: “nothing is outside the text” (page 34)
Meaning: Everything is interpretation; or “all experience is always already an interpretation.” (39) We cannot get behind/past a text and beyond the realm of interpretation (38).
How the church can use this: “knowledge” (as modernity defines it) should be viewed with suspicion vs. how we understand faith-knowledge.
Quoting John Owen: “That Jesus Christ was crucified, is a proposition that any unregenerate man may understand…but it is denied that he can receive the things themselves. For there is a wide difference between… receiving doctrines notionally, and receiving the things taught in them.” (49)
A type of presuppositional apologetics (50)
Interpretive communities needed to “police” or govern the authoritative interpretation i.e. the church (53)
2. Lyotard: “Incredulity toward metanarratives”
Meaning: Postmodernism is suspicious of “big stories” of the Enlightenment and autonomous reason. (63 & 72)
How the church can use this: We Christians do not need to acquiesce to the enlightenment and Kantian agnosticism. No knowledge is untainted by bias or faith commitments. (73)
It’s not a fight between autonomous rational objectivity vs. personal faith. Everyone is operating on some sorts of faith commitments.
3. Foucault: “Power is Knowledge”
Meaning: claims of knowledge are power moves (86).
Society isn't progressing into a more peaceful community due to Enlightenment progress, it just changes the type of domination (87).
How the church can use this: Discipline (Discipleship) is “good insofar as they are directed to good ends” (101).
Disciplinary mechanisms of society make human beings into certain people aimed at certain goals (104). The church needs communities that create disciplines that create disciples.
The final section of the book is a way to introduce Smith’s theological school/tradition; Radical Orthodoxy.
Radical Orthodoxy rejects a Cartesian anthropology to bring us back to an Augustinian anthropology and to redirect us back to “incarnational” Church practices. It rejects modernity's reduction of human experience to materialism and recognizes the human being as "affective, embodied being-in-the-world." (136)
If you are looking for an introduction to postmodernism, start here
If you are looking for an explanation of Radical Orthodoxy, start here.
If you want an example of how to practice an Augustinian appropriation of philosophy, start here.
5/5 Outstanding book on postmodernism and introducing Radical Orthodoxy
February 24, 2018
This is probably Smith at his worst. In an attempt to do too many things at once in 160 pages (covering the basics of postmodernism, telling the church how postmodernism works for discipleship, introducing radical orthodoxy, arguing for a presuppositional apologetic, bashing low-church evangelicals, using pop-culture references to illustrate postmodernism, arguing against evidential apologetics, etc etc), Smith ended up failing because he didn't cover his bases.
We don't get a thorough definition of "modernism," a huge and complicated term in itself. We don't get a thorough explanation of why he puts evidential apologetics and scientism in the same category (ok, I understand that both these camps claim a metanarrative, but that's not sufficient to put them in the same category). Smith simply draws caricatures by painting broad brushes on terms like "evangelicalism" or "rationalism" and then draws up a Middle/Third way by offering up Radical Orthodoxy as the final solution.
Except it's never that simple. I have huge problems with his high-church only agenda since I'm a house church guy. His solution for discipleship doesn't even look ancient; it just looks like Western, high-medieval version of a Catholic Mass. What about the churches around the world that are doing fine without beautiful cathedrals and candles and stained-glass windows? I wonder if Christ Himself would get lost in some of these services.
Ok, so I might be guilty of creating a straw-man of Smith here myself, but the point is that there are many other alternatives besides Radical Orthodoxy or of Smith's vision of discipleship, and I wish he was more generous in his words by hedging his claims a little bit more.
We don't get a thorough definition of "modernism," a huge and complicated term in itself. We don't get a thorough explanation of why he puts evidential apologetics and scientism in the same category (ok, I understand that both these camps claim a metanarrative, but that's not sufficient to put them in the same category). Smith simply draws caricatures by painting broad brushes on terms like "evangelicalism" or "rationalism" and then draws up a Middle/Third way by offering up Radical Orthodoxy as the final solution.
Except it's never that simple. I have huge problems with his high-church only agenda since I'm a house church guy. His solution for discipleship doesn't even look ancient; it just looks like Western, high-medieval version of a Catholic Mass. What about the churches around the world that are doing fine without beautiful cathedrals and candles and stained-glass windows? I wonder if Christ Himself would get lost in some of these services.
Ok, so I might be guilty of creating a straw-man of Smith here myself, but the point is that there are many other alternatives besides Radical Orthodoxy or of Smith's vision of discipleship, and I wish he was more generous in his words by hedging his claims a little bit more.
April 5, 2023
Je crois que toute personne œuvrant parmi les jeunes adultes dans une culture postmoderne devraient lire ce livre puisqu’on y trouve de belles nuances et une orthodoxie persistante et hospitalière.
Note à mes amis chrétiens :
Malgré le titre provocateur, l’auteur critique le postmodernisme (ou du moins n’accepte vraiment pas tout… il est plus clair là-dessus dans Radical Orthodoxy) mais voit aussi avec le besoin de dégager la foi du modernisme. Il propose rien de moins qu’une façon d’atteindre les gens issus d’une culture postmoderne tout en restant fidèle à la tradition chrétienne (et plus précisément, réformée).
Note à moi-même :
Je ne sais pourquoi mais je m’attendais à tout de ce livre sauf le fait qu’il me fasse retomber en amour avec l’histoire de l’Évangile ; tout sauf le fait d’éclater en chant envers Dieu pour la grâce de sa Parole vivante et de sa Communauté sanctifiée et de lui demander pardon pour les négliger trop souvent par ma façon de les voir/comprendre.
Note à mes amis chrétiens :
Malgré le titre provocateur, l’auteur critique le postmodernisme (ou du moins n’accepte vraiment pas tout… il est plus clair là-dessus dans Radical Orthodoxy) mais voit aussi avec le besoin de dégager la foi du modernisme. Il propose rien de moins qu’une façon d’atteindre les gens issus d’une culture postmoderne tout en restant fidèle à la tradition chrétienne (et plus précisément, réformée).
Note à moi-même :
Je ne sais pourquoi mais je m’attendais à tout de ce livre sauf le fait qu’il me fasse retomber en amour avec l’histoire de l’Évangile ; tout sauf le fait d’éclater en chant envers Dieu pour la grâce de sa Parole vivante et de sa Communauté sanctifiée et de lui demander pardon pour les négliger trop souvent par ma façon de les voir/comprendre.
December 2, 2017
I'm giving this five starts not because I agree with everything the author says, but because there is an underlying attitude in his whole endeavor that is worth the highest possible praise. He doesn't just provide a well-written and fair summary of the 3 post-modern philosophers (although that's part of it). He does something which I rarely see even in philosophy, much less in theology--he actually engages with the ideas of others and makes them his own. He makes an effort to truly understand what these guys are saying, without self-serving distortion, nitpicking, or straw-manning. And then he analyzes the ideas, learns from them, internalizes the parts that he finds irrefutable, or convincing, or even just helpful, and then provides a reason for why he rejected the rest. And this type of engagement with ideas should really be a no-brainer, and yet... somehow it never seems to happen. Everyone always has an axe to grind and would rather choke than admit that someone they disagree with has at least something interesting or worthy to say. Sadly. So this book was a very refreshing exception. It's only fault was that it was too short.
December 17, 2019
I'm largely on the fence about this book. There is plenty of good food for thought, and it's worth reading for that. There are also a lot of ideas that challenge my own convictions (especially the description of a Radical Orthodox church service at the end, which I found almost offensive). There is also quite a lot of good analysis of the current situation in evangelicalism, and some helpful clarifications about postmodern thought. My verdict on many of Smith's conclusions will probably await further reflection, reading, and conversation. This books seems like one that, years down the line, I may come to greatly appreciate, or may dismiss as garbage. I really don't know.
November 21, 2024
Don’t let the title fool you. This book is not a whole-sale acceptance of postmodern doctrine, but rather 1) a clarification of what the primary French thinkers believed as they critiqued modernism and 2) what the church can learn and appreciate from this critique 3) while advocating for a more pre-modern expression of Christian worship.
September 22, 2025
3 stars because it is a really well written book. BUT super hard to understand if you’re not already familiar with some of these philosophers (like me). Also he gets a bit meandering halfway through. Tbh I only truly understood like every few sentences so…yeah. Again, grad school reading that I would normally never pick up so that’s cool.
September 3, 2020
Very thankful for Smith’s astute summarization and analysis of Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault, as well as recognizing a dramatic sanctified significance that their work has to the Church.
March 6, 2021
Not light reading, but accessible in a way I found pleasantly surprising, and I think just reading these 140 pages made me more educated. James K. A. Smith is brilliant.
April 12, 2023
Much like its subject matter, some good things and some not so great, but overall an interesting read.
April 6, 2022
This book was big on ethos but light on real-life application. I appreciated the intentions of this book, namely to clarify/correct popular postmodern philosophical "bumper-stickers" such as Derrida's "There is nothing outside of the text", Lyotard's "[Postmodernism is] incredulity toward metanarratives", and Foucault's "Power is knowledge". The fault lies both with the postmodernists themselves for not writing as clearly as they easily could, as well as with sloppy interpretation of their claims by their opponents (such as Jordan Peterson, who got the entirety of his knowledge on the topic from the discredited book by Stephen Hicks). Even this brief primer on the most popular statements from each of these men was enough to revolutionize my view on the men and solidify my respect for the movement more (at least the philosophical strain, not the artistic one, postmodern art can die in the trash, where it belongs).
Each chapter starts off in a Zizekian strain, elaborating on the plot of a movie to aid the later points. The first chapter relates the original Matrix movie (in a nod to Baudrillard) to the Platonic Cave (which Baudrillard himself rejected as too simplistic and optimistic, and I would similarly reject as too conspiratorial or gnostic for my taste). The author more uses the movie reference to point out the disorientation we feel in today's world, and how we must strive (along with Plato's cave-dweller) toward truth. The author tantalizingly claims these three slogans not only don't necessarily contradict with Christian dogmatics, and they can actually be appropriated by Christians to help revitalize the Church in this Postmodern age. He mostly does this by correcting the commonly misunderstood view of what the slogans mean, by pointing out the many places that Postmodernism and Premodernism wrap around, and by showing the places that Modernist heresy has snuck into our religion. As Smith puts it, "Christianity becomes intellectualized rather than incarnate, commodified rather than the site of genuine community". Smith rightfully argues that by returning to tradition and the early Church, Christianity can retain its soul in a soulless, consumption-driven world.
The second chapter begins with an explanation of the movie Memento (which I found somewhat gimmicky), but the explanation works very well when interwoven with his discussions of Derrida. The central theme of the movie involves a character with intense memory loss who must write down his fleeting thoughts before they disappear, and ultimately who is a slave to the written word. (I empathize too closely with the idea of something not being stored being entirely lost, it's a terrifying mindset to get into, one that we're increasingly prone to with our schizophrenic technology that records our every typed thought; I mention all this because Smith doesn't.) Before getting into Derrida's quote and other related ideas, Smith warns "If we are going to do justice to postmodernism, our engagement with it needs to be characterized by charity--and charity requires time."
Thus we don't even start with the quote, but a quick rundown of Rousseau's notion of language being a lens that distorts our view of the world, and that there is some simple, natural way to experience things without the distortion. Derrida, however, comes in to argue that everything is interpreted (through language), and this is a better way to word his "nothing outside the text" quote; basically, there is no way we can just "read" something for what it is, we must always interpret the context, the meaning, the intention, adding our biases, seeking out the biases of others, etc. This becomes troubling in the context of the Bible, because people often assume that it is also implying that there are no better interpretations, or that there can't be a "right" interpretation. Smith brings in another movie to help clarify this: the Little Mermaid. First, though we instantly recognize a fork is at a glance, that doesn't mean there isn't interpretation going on, it's just instantaneous. Ariel was wrongly taught that it was a comb, for example. Secondly, this doesn't mean her interpretation is as good as ours, as the object functions much better and is more socially acceptable as a utensil.
The sticky point we arrive at is that most conservative-minded people were indoctrinated into the modernist seeking after of objectivity, of grounding truth in something rational and indisputable, even though this was (at root) a modernist ploy to do away with God (!). Thus we (myself included) feel squeamish when Smith admits that we don't have objective truth or objective interpretations; he is comfortable with interpreting things well and leaving the rest up to faith. This interestingly brings up one of my main issues with overly-rational apologetics: at its heart, it lies to those it tries to convince, telling them you can entirely rationally come to faith in God. The problem is, you can't; the bible isn't wholly rational, the resurrection certainly is not rational, and if we could arrive at the conclusion entirely rationally, it wouldn't be theology, but philosophy (I've argued this many times before).
Smith argues that this lack of objectivity isn't a crutch, but actually helps us remain humble when discussing these issues with others, as well as leveling the playing field, as the next chapter does more explicitly. Before we head there, I do have to admit that some of the examples that Smith gives way outlive their utility, and he is a woefully non-concise writer (perhaps partially because he wants to drive home points to a popular audience, but it drags a bit and took at least a star off of my rating). Additionally, I still have residual modernist goop clinging to me that feels quite uncomfortable with how calmly he dispenses with objectivity. I have not read or thought enough about truth per se, about epistemology, so my knowledge is somewhat lackluster in this arena. I'll let that chapter slide because it seems to be written honestly and with a lot of charity toward Derrida, a man who many people like Jordan Peterson hate (despite never reading him themselves).
One last thing before heading into the Lyotard chapter, Smith (like most Christian writers I've read) correctly points out how all interpretive frameworks (worldviews) people use are religious in nature (whether they be supernatural or not), and they're all made of unprovable presuppositions, including the supposedly airtight sciences. Once we take into account those starting assumptions, the playing field gets much more level. This is precisely what Smith gets from his reading of Lyotard's disdain for Metanarratives. The funny thing is, you're probably scratching your head right now, but no, that's not what a Metanarrative is. Smith helpfully clears up the misunderstanding around that word. It doesn't just mean a large narrative, otherwise it would be called a "supernarrative" or somesuch; instead, what Lyotard is attacking is the modernist notion that we can have a worldview (such as the scientific worldview) without any narrative underpinning it. You'll hear philosophically superficial scientists (Dawkins, Sam Harris, cough cough) proudly proclaiming that only science figures out what's really true, which of course implies that all other worldviews are false or don't care about truth. What they don't admit is that their own scientism is underpinned by tons of assumptions, and is kept afloat by tons of myths, stories, and, you guessed it, metanarratives. Science essentially uses the Platonic Cave allegory as its foundation myth, that proverbial movement from ignorance to knowledge, a-gnosis to gnosis (ironic, innit?).
Smith used the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou" to explain this chapter, and I haven't seen that one so it didn't hit me as hard, but it did feature a similarly pretentious scientific-minded main character. Smith didn't argue this explicitly, but a Christian could easily take Lyotard's attack on modernism and reformulate it in a theological rather than literary light, namely "metareligions", i.e. religious frameworks which both moderns and sometimes postmoderns pretend they've escaped.
Since religious stories and founding myths "aren't subject to rational legitimization" as Smith says, we Christians are essentially on even starting ground with everyone else. Such a starting place is distinctly Augustinian, where we must Believe in order to Understand (crede ut intellegas); in this we are admitting that we must believe many unprovable things in order to interpret and thus make the world intelligible. We cannot even act in the world without faith, faith in the constancy of the laws of nature, faith in our common man, faith in our own bodies, etc. This of course means that those who attack supernaturally religious people for bringing their religion into politics can shut up, as the only difference between their religion and my religion is that they have a more petty, earthly god to worship.
Of the three authors discussed in this book, Lyotard was the most amenable to Christian religion, and it was almost annoying how much Smith repeated in this chapter, but it was helpful to purge out the horribly incorrect interpretation of Metanarratives that Jordan Peterson drilled into me. This chapter made me want to somehow give this book to Jordan, so he could better understand the movement he so badly misrepresents. In the words of Augustine, there is much "Egyptian Gold" we can plunder from such philosophers, even ones we vehemently oppose. I, for example, take delight in Nietzsche, especially at his most anti-Christian. It is precisely there that he shows the superficiality and folly of "secular Christians" (by that I mean humanists and "liberals" more generally) who without justification or reason want to defend the weak and powerless (slave morality, etc.). I'm thankful that these people do, but they don't have a sufficient reason to do that; it's residue baked into their starchy worldview from the Judeo-Christian oven.
The fourth chapter discussed Foucault's "power is knowledge" quote vis a vis the movie "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest", a fever dream I barely remember watching. The start of this section I admit was confusing, and I didn't get as much out of it as I did the other sections. I've read two of Foucault's books and I can still barely tell you what they were about. I remain uncertain if that's due to my stupidity, his lack of clarity, or both. With enough patience, I now understand Zizek's points much better (in other words, after ingesting a heaping spoonful of his porridge and allowing it to fester). Hopefully the same will come out of Foucault.
Foucault's slogan "power is knowledge" is just as misleading as the others, because he explicitly states that this isn't a 1:1 equation of the two, but an emphasis of the "inextricable" relationship between the two (in essence a flipping of Francis Bacon's classic "knowledge is power" that we were told in school). Basically, Foucault says that knowledge, justice, ideals, etc. all reduce down to power relations, which are upheld with what he calls "discipline". In the title "Discipline and Punish", it's easy to get the wrong connotation from the first word, when in reality he means it in the wider sense, that of being trained, not just of being, well, punished. Keeping that in mind will help understanding him immensely.
As Smith writes: "postmodernism is characterized by a deep hermeneutic of suspicion." Foucault, along with Nietzsche and myself, wants to trace the "archeology" or "genealogy" (Nietzsche) or "root" (me) of ideas and uncover the reasons underneath the "reasons" given, so to speak. In Foucault's Discipline and Punish, he is skeptical of the common interpretation of justice becoming more humane over time, instead noting that its evils have become perhaps even worse because less explicit. Put another way, the old ideas of power "corrupting," "censoring," "excluding," etc. are somewhat outdated; Foucault argues that power produces reality, i.e. that it comprises the water that we swim in, instead of being a strongman who clubs us back into the the water.
I'm still trying to figure out if Foucault does this, but I've always been put off by those who attribute excessive agency to systems and societies, as if all of their effects are intentional (such as capitalism and exploitation, the US justice system and racism, etc.). It's always felt a bit too conspiratorial to claim that, in essence, there are no side effects, that if x does y, x is meant to do y. Speaking of assigning moral value to power, the author lays out two main ways people see Foucualt: as the power-as-neutral Nietzschian or the power-as-negative enlightenment thinker. The author argued that he was on the enlightenment side because of his libertarian tendencies, but I think he, along with today's progressives, have an undercurrent of belief in power being good which counteracts that, as why would he and others fight so hard to give power to those who don't have it? I think it's naive the way people assume that giving certain groups more "power" will fix everything. Power can act quite negatively as well as quite positively. So can discipline. The author (Smith) for the sake of juxtaposition puts Foucault into the enlightenment/libertarian camp so he can point out the good aspects of discipline, such as Christian morality and Christian hierarchy. Smith rightfully points out how "freedom" is an idol of the contemporary church (and contemporary "western" nations more broadly). In a Christian context, it leads to atomization (antidenominationalism and anti-community).
The thing is that discipline's justness depends on the telos it aims toward. Some aim toward God and godliness, others toward forming a dependable consumer, some towards creating even worse things. Bringing it back to Lyotard, Smith writes: "discipline is aimed at formation for a specific end, and that end is determined by our founding narrative." Smith rightfully points out that, like Nietzsche, "we have to stand him [Foucault] on his head a bit: we need to see what he describes but reject what he thinks about disciplinary society as such. After this, we get a nice anti-consumerist rant that was mostly confirmation bias for me, but one part stuck out: "Marketing, then, is driven by investing products with social, sexual, and even religious value." What pathetic gods we carve for ourselves.
In the last chapter, the author gets bogged down in a long exposition of a movie I've never heard of, as well as a not-well-explained theological movement called "radical orthodoxy", which really doesn't do much for me. I'm pleased that the author staunchly remains within orthodox Christianity, and is willing to critique both liberal and fundamentalist strains of Christianity, but he does not explain well what is meant by this phrase of his (one footnote points me to another book of his, but I don't want to read that right now haha). In this chapter, the author also returns to a criticism of Cartesian knowledge, and the coolest part is when he points out the medieval distinction between "comprehending" and "knowing", which helps to dispel the absolutist notions of truth that modernism has so convincingly because covertly embedded in us and our discourses:
First, this quasi-postmodern religion without religion does not upset the modern Cartesian formulation of the problem. Instead, it proceeds by accepting the Cartesian equation of knowledge with certainty; then, because such certainty is impossible, it must conclude that knowledge is impossible. But we need not accept this all-or-nothing logic. Indeed, before Descartes this would have seemed simply mistaken. From Augustine through Aquinas, medieval theologians were very attentive to the difference between "comprehending" God (which was impossible) and "knowing" God (which was possible, because God had given himself to us in terms that could be received). Why should we think that the criterion for knowledge is godlike certainty or omniscience? Why should we accept the clearly mistaken modern equation of the two? ... On the ancient-medieval-properly-postmodern model, we rightly give up pretensions to absolute knowledge or certainty, but we do not thereby give up on knowledge altogether. Rather, we can properly confess that we know God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, but such knowledge rests on the gift of (particular, special) revelation... We confess knowledge without [absolute] certainty, truth without objectivity.
This was somewhat shocking to me, but also refreshing to run across someone so bold and yet so orthodox. Essentially, Smith errs on the side of (narrative) faith and revelation instead of (absolute) logic and reasoning, and that's where I'd fall as well. By the end of the book, Smith thinks he's being groundbreaking, but he ends up where Lutherans already have been for 500 years, namely respecting tradition by worshiping using tradition, instead of worshiping tradition itself. Things would be a lot easier if some people just became Lutheran lol.
Each chapter starts off in a Zizekian strain, elaborating on the plot of a movie to aid the later points. The first chapter relates the original Matrix movie (in a nod to Baudrillard) to the Platonic Cave (which Baudrillard himself rejected as too simplistic and optimistic, and I would similarly reject as too conspiratorial or gnostic for my taste). The author more uses the movie reference to point out the disorientation we feel in today's world, and how we must strive (along with Plato's cave-dweller) toward truth. The author tantalizingly claims these three slogans not only don't necessarily contradict with Christian dogmatics, and they can actually be appropriated by Christians to help revitalize the Church in this Postmodern age. He mostly does this by correcting the commonly misunderstood view of what the slogans mean, by pointing out the many places that Postmodernism and Premodernism wrap around, and by showing the places that Modernist heresy has snuck into our religion. As Smith puts it, "Christianity becomes intellectualized rather than incarnate, commodified rather than the site of genuine community". Smith rightfully argues that by returning to tradition and the early Church, Christianity can retain its soul in a soulless, consumption-driven world.
The second chapter begins with an explanation of the movie Memento (which I found somewhat gimmicky), but the explanation works very well when interwoven with his discussions of Derrida. The central theme of the movie involves a character with intense memory loss who must write down his fleeting thoughts before they disappear, and ultimately who is a slave to the written word. (I empathize too closely with the idea of something not being stored being entirely lost, it's a terrifying mindset to get into, one that we're increasingly prone to with our schizophrenic technology that records our every typed thought; I mention all this because Smith doesn't.) Before getting into Derrida's quote and other related ideas, Smith warns "If we are going to do justice to postmodernism, our engagement with it needs to be characterized by charity--and charity requires time."
Thus we don't even start with the quote, but a quick rundown of Rousseau's notion of language being a lens that distorts our view of the world, and that there is some simple, natural way to experience things without the distortion. Derrida, however, comes in to argue that everything is interpreted (through language), and this is a better way to word his "nothing outside the text" quote; basically, there is no way we can just "read" something for what it is, we must always interpret the context, the meaning, the intention, adding our biases, seeking out the biases of others, etc. This becomes troubling in the context of the Bible, because people often assume that it is also implying that there are no better interpretations, or that there can't be a "right" interpretation. Smith brings in another movie to help clarify this: the Little Mermaid. First, though we instantly recognize a fork is at a glance, that doesn't mean there isn't interpretation going on, it's just instantaneous. Ariel was wrongly taught that it was a comb, for example. Secondly, this doesn't mean her interpretation is as good as ours, as the object functions much better and is more socially acceptable as a utensil.
The sticky point we arrive at is that most conservative-minded people were indoctrinated into the modernist seeking after of objectivity, of grounding truth in something rational and indisputable, even though this was (at root) a modernist ploy to do away with God (!). Thus we (myself included) feel squeamish when Smith admits that we don't have objective truth or objective interpretations; he is comfortable with interpreting things well and leaving the rest up to faith. This interestingly brings up one of my main issues with overly-rational apologetics: at its heart, it lies to those it tries to convince, telling them you can entirely rationally come to faith in God. The problem is, you can't; the bible isn't wholly rational, the resurrection certainly is not rational, and if we could arrive at the conclusion entirely rationally, it wouldn't be theology, but philosophy (I've argued this many times before).
Smith argues that this lack of objectivity isn't a crutch, but actually helps us remain humble when discussing these issues with others, as well as leveling the playing field, as the next chapter does more explicitly. Before we head there, I do have to admit that some of the examples that Smith gives way outlive their utility, and he is a woefully non-concise writer (perhaps partially because he wants to drive home points to a popular audience, but it drags a bit and took at least a star off of my rating). Additionally, I still have residual modernist goop clinging to me that feels quite uncomfortable with how calmly he dispenses with objectivity. I have not read or thought enough about truth per se, about epistemology, so my knowledge is somewhat lackluster in this arena. I'll let that chapter slide because it seems to be written honestly and with a lot of charity toward Derrida, a man who many people like Jordan Peterson hate (despite never reading him themselves).
One last thing before heading into the Lyotard chapter, Smith (like most Christian writers I've read) correctly points out how all interpretive frameworks (worldviews) people use are religious in nature (whether they be supernatural or not), and they're all made of unprovable presuppositions, including the supposedly airtight sciences. Once we take into account those starting assumptions, the playing field gets much more level. This is precisely what Smith gets from his reading of Lyotard's disdain for Metanarratives. The funny thing is, you're probably scratching your head right now, but no, that's not what a Metanarrative is. Smith helpfully clears up the misunderstanding around that word. It doesn't just mean a large narrative, otherwise it would be called a "supernarrative" or somesuch; instead, what Lyotard is attacking is the modernist notion that we can have a worldview (such as the scientific worldview) without any narrative underpinning it. You'll hear philosophically superficial scientists (Dawkins, Sam Harris, cough cough) proudly proclaiming that only science figures out what's really true, which of course implies that all other worldviews are false or don't care about truth. What they don't admit is that their own scientism is underpinned by tons of assumptions, and is kept afloat by tons of myths, stories, and, you guessed it, metanarratives. Science essentially uses the Platonic Cave allegory as its foundation myth, that proverbial movement from ignorance to knowledge, a-gnosis to gnosis (ironic, innit?).
Smith used the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou" to explain this chapter, and I haven't seen that one so it didn't hit me as hard, but it did feature a similarly pretentious scientific-minded main character. Smith didn't argue this explicitly, but a Christian could easily take Lyotard's attack on modernism and reformulate it in a theological rather than literary light, namely "metareligions", i.e. religious frameworks which both moderns and sometimes postmoderns pretend they've escaped.
Since religious stories and founding myths "aren't subject to rational legitimization" as Smith says, we Christians are essentially on even starting ground with everyone else. Such a starting place is distinctly Augustinian, where we must Believe in order to Understand (crede ut intellegas); in this we are admitting that we must believe many unprovable things in order to interpret and thus make the world intelligible. We cannot even act in the world without faith, faith in the constancy of the laws of nature, faith in our common man, faith in our own bodies, etc. This of course means that those who attack supernaturally religious people for bringing their religion into politics can shut up, as the only difference between their religion and my religion is that they have a more petty, earthly god to worship.
Of the three authors discussed in this book, Lyotard was the most amenable to Christian religion, and it was almost annoying how much Smith repeated in this chapter, but it was helpful to purge out the horribly incorrect interpretation of Metanarratives that Jordan Peterson drilled into me. This chapter made me want to somehow give this book to Jordan, so he could better understand the movement he so badly misrepresents. In the words of Augustine, there is much "Egyptian Gold" we can plunder from such philosophers, even ones we vehemently oppose. I, for example, take delight in Nietzsche, especially at his most anti-Christian. It is precisely there that he shows the superficiality and folly of "secular Christians" (by that I mean humanists and "liberals" more generally) who without justification or reason want to defend the weak and powerless (slave morality, etc.). I'm thankful that these people do, but they don't have a sufficient reason to do that; it's residue baked into their starchy worldview from the Judeo-Christian oven.
The fourth chapter discussed Foucault's "power is knowledge" quote vis a vis the movie "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest", a fever dream I barely remember watching. The start of this section I admit was confusing, and I didn't get as much out of it as I did the other sections. I've read two of Foucault's books and I can still barely tell you what they were about. I remain uncertain if that's due to my stupidity, his lack of clarity, or both. With enough patience, I now understand Zizek's points much better (in other words, after ingesting a heaping spoonful of his porridge and allowing it to fester). Hopefully the same will come out of Foucault.
Foucault's slogan "power is knowledge" is just as misleading as the others, because he explicitly states that this isn't a 1:1 equation of the two, but an emphasis of the "inextricable" relationship between the two (in essence a flipping of Francis Bacon's classic "knowledge is power" that we were told in school). Basically, Foucault says that knowledge, justice, ideals, etc. all reduce down to power relations, which are upheld with what he calls "discipline". In the title "Discipline and Punish", it's easy to get the wrong connotation from the first word, when in reality he means it in the wider sense, that of being trained, not just of being, well, punished. Keeping that in mind will help understanding him immensely.
As Smith writes: "postmodernism is characterized by a deep hermeneutic of suspicion." Foucault, along with Nietzsche and myself, wants to trace the "archeology" or "genealogy" (Nietzsche) or "root" (me) of ideas and uncover the reasons underneath the "reasons" given, so to speak. In Foucault's Discipline and Punish, he is skeptical of the common interpretation of justice becoming more humane over time, instead noting that its evils have become perhaps even worse because less explicit. Put another way, the old ideas of power "corrupting," "censoring," "excluding," etc. are somewhat outdated; Foucault argues that power produces reality, i.e. that it comprises the water that we swim in, instead of being a strongman who clubs us back into the the water.
I'm still trying to figure out if Foucault does this, but I've always been put off by those who attribute excessive agency to systems and societies, as if all of their effects are intentional (such as capitalism and exploitation, the US justice system and racism, etc.). It's always felt a bit too conspiratorial to claim that, in essence, there are no side effects, that if x does y, x is meant to do y. Speaking of assigning moral value to power, the author lays out two main ways people see Foucualt: as the power-as-neutral Nietzschian or the power-as-negative enlightenment thinker. The author argued that he was on the enlightenment side because of his libertarian tendencies, but I think he, along with today's progressives, have an undercurrent of belief in power being good which counteracts that, as why would he and others fight so hard to give power to those who don't have it? I think it's naive the way people assume that giving certain groups more "power" will fix everything. Power can act quite negatively as well as quite positively. So can discipline. The author (Smith) for the sake of juxtaposition puts Foucault into the enlightenment/libertarian camp so he can point out the good aspects of discipline, such as Christian morality and Christian hierarchy. Smith rightfully points out how "freedom" is an idol of the contemporary church (and contemporary "western" nations more broadly). In a Christian context, it leads to atomization (antidenominationalism and anti-community).
The thing is that discipline's justness depends on the telos it aims toward. Some aim toward God and godliness, others toward forming a dependable consumer, some towards creating even worse things. Bringing it back to Lyotard, Smith writes: "discipline is aimed at formation for a specific end, and that end is determined by our founding narrative." Smith rightfully points out that, like Nietzsche, "we have to stand him [Foucault] on his head a bit: we need to see what he describes but reject what he thinks about disciplinary society as such. After this, we get a nice anti-consumerist rant that was mostly confirmation bias for me, but one part stuck out: "Marketing, then, is driven by investing products with social, sexual, and even religious value." What pathetic gods we carve for ourselves.
In the last chapter, the author gets bogged down in a long exposition of a movie I've never heard of, as well as a not-well-explained theological movement called "radical orthodoxy", which really doesn't do much for me. I'm pleased that the author staunchly remains within orthodox Christianity, and is willing to critique both liberal and fundamentalist strains of Christianity, but he does not explain well what is meant by this phrase of his (one footnote points me to another book of his, but I don't want to read that right now haha). In this chapter, the author also returns to a criticism of Cartesian knowledge, and the coolest part is when he points out the medieval distinction between "comprehending" and "knowing", which helps to dispel the absolutist notions of truth that modernism has so convincingly because covertly embedded in us and our discourses:
First, this quasi-postmodern religion without religion does not upset the modern Cartesian formulation of the problem. Instead, it proceeds by accepting the Cartesian equation of knowledge with certainty; then, because such certainty is impossible, it must conclude that knowledge is impossible. But we need not accept this all-or-nothing logic. Indeed, before Descartes this would have seemed simply mistaken. From Augustine through Aquinas, medieval theologians were very attentive to the difference between "comprehending" God (which was impossible) and "knowing" God (which was possible, because God had given himself to us in terms that could be received). Why should we think that the criterion for knowledge is godlike certainty or omniscience? Why should we accept the clearly mistaken modern equation of the two? ... On the ancient-medieval-properly-postmodern model, we rightly give up pretensions to absolute knowledge or certainty, but we do not thereby give up on knowledge altogether. Rather, we can properly confess that we know God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, but such knowledge rests on the gift of (particular, special) revelation... We confess knowledge without [absolute] certainty, truth without objectivity.
This was somewhat shocking to me, but also refreshing to run across someone so bold and yet so orthodox. Essentially, Smith errs on the side of (narrative) faith and revelation instead of (absolute) logic and reasoning, and that's where I'd fall as well. By the end of the book, Smith thinks he's being groundbreaking, but he ends up where Lutherans already have been for 500 years, namely respecting tradition by worshiping using tradition, instead of worshiping tradition itself. Things would be a lot easier if some people just became Lutheran lol.
June 24, 2024
Smith does an excellent job showing us that postmodernism’s critiques of modernity can actually bolster the church and challenge it to return to an embodied and traditioned expression of God’s story. This book gave me much hope.
January 18, 2021
I came to this book from Smith's most recent work, On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts. Occasionally in that book, Smith mentions Derrida and while he never lingers long on him, I got the impression that Smith was quite fond of the postmodern philosopher. So I decided to read this book, which deals with the subject head-on.
Originally published in 1998, the book feels a bit dated. This can be most clearly seen in how Smith gushes about the Emergent Church, a movement that has almost completely disappeared. This fall also be seen in his final chapter that argues for a postmodern catholic Christianity. Anyone who has read Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation will recognize his arguments and they are no better formulated here than they are in the later book.
However, the meat of the book, a Christian analysis of Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault is still relevant today. Smith spends a chapter on each of the three philosophers, focused on some of their most well-known, and misunderstood, teachings:
1) "There is nothing outside the text" (Derrida)
2) "I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives" (Lyotard)
3) "Power is knowledge" (Foucault)
With each of these philosophers and their ideas, Smith sets out to highlight common Christian misconceptions of what they mean, explain what the philosopher means, and then describe how best to interpret and respond to this from a Christian perspective. I found it quite refreshing. As a Christian, I've generally been taught a strawman version of post-modernism that is both silly and evil at the same time. Smith effectively dispels this myth and shows that postmodernism may even have some ideas that are beneficial to Christianity.
Unfortunately the volume is quite slim and doesn't go into as much detail as I would like. This was particularly the case with the section on Foucault, which I left with more questions than answers.
Originally published in 1998, the book feels a bit dated. This can be most clearly seen in how Smith gushes about the Emergent Church, a movement that has almost completely disappeared. This fall also be seen in his final chapter that argues for a postmodern catholic Christianity. Anyone who has read Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation will recognize his arguments and they are no better formulated here than they are in the later book.
However, the meat of the book, a Christian analysis of Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault is still relevant today. Smith spends a chapter on each of the three philosophers, focused on some of their most well-known, and misunderstood, teachings:
1) "There is nothing outside the text" (Derrida)
2) "I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives" (Lyotard)
3) "Power is knowledge" (Foucault)
With each of these philosophers and their ideas, Smith sets out to highlight common Christian misconceptions of what they mean, explain what the philosopher means, and then describe how best to interpret and respond to this from a Christian perspective. I found it quite refreshing. As a Christian, I've generally been taught a strawman version of post-modernism that is both silly and evil at the same time. Smith effectively dispels this myth and shows that postmodernism may even have some ideas that are beneficial to Christianity.
Unfortunately the volume is quite slim and doesn't go into as much detail as I would like. This was particularly the case with the section on Foucault, which I left with more questions than answers.
March 31, 2011
Fighting angst-filled insomnia, I picked up "Who's Afraid of Postmodernism" thinking to myself, 'reading philosophy may just put me to sleep.' At 3am I finished the book. I requested that my library purchase the book for their shelves so that I could acquaint myself with it after a fellow church member made some disparaging remark about how postmodernism will be the undoing of the church.
Jamie Smith does a great job of contextualizing postmodern philosophical concepts from well known Parisian philosophers with themes from contemporary movies (every one of which I subsequently ordered from the library). He commits early on to avoiding jargon, but its evident that this is a challenge for him...which makes it sometimes a challenge for me to read. But it is a very rewarding for anyone who thinks, 'there should be something more to my church experience.'
The final wrap-up chapter does a great job of tying the themes together, and also pulls in some related themes, ending with a description of a thoroughly modern church (a giant suburban stadium surrounded by a metal moat of SUVs) and a postmodern church (diverse parishioners experiencing worship with all senses and then walking home). This last piece, especially his affirmation of geography as an important piece of a worship community, was incredibly affirming to me in a time of discouragement. If only more people would latch onto this sort of a vision, our worship communities could be so enriching, nurturing, and compelling!
I think I'll pick up my own copy at the bookstore to focus on these passages about bringing the philosophers to church and applying their principles to worship and congregational life.
Jamie Smith does a great job of contextualizing postmodern philosophical concepts from well known Parisian philosophers with themes from contemporary movies (every one of which I subsequently ordered from the library). He commits early on to avoiding jargon, but its evident that this is a challenge for him...which makes it sometimes a challenge for me to read. But it is a very rewarding for anyone who thinks, 'there should be something more to my church experience.'
The final wrap-up chapter does a great job of tying the themes together, and also pulls in some related themes, ending with a description of a thoroughly modern church (a giant suburban stadium surrounded by a metal moat of SUVs) and a postmodern church (diverse parishioners experiencing worship with all senses and then walking home). This last piece, especially his affirmation of geography as an important piece of a worship community, was incredibly affirming to me in a time of discouragement. If only more people would latch onto this sort of a vision, our worship communities could be so enriching, nurturing, and compelling!
I think I'll pick up my own copy at the bookstore to focus on these passages about bringing the philosophers to church and applying their principles to worship and congregational life.
June 22, 2017
After four (of the five) chapters of this book, I thought I might be generous and give it 3 stars. A few interesting points were made about the trio of postmodern thinkers analyzed, although the author made no mention of some of the core tenets of their work that are incompatible with Christianity. In fact, it is somewhat ironic that postmodern Christians lament apologist attempts to reconcile scripture and the natural world, because this author is guilty of much the same thing - trying to reconcile scripture with postmodernism.
Attempting to co-opt some ideas from postmodern thinkers and apply them to the church gave way to something entirely different in the final chapter. I went from a generous three stars, to two, and in the last pages I knew this was really a one-star book. In the fifth chapter you discover that this book is not about postmodernism at all; it is in fact a thinly veiled attempt to support the author's particular brand of denominational worship. With no sense of irony at all, the author at once lambastes denominational worship and seemingly all non-denominational churches, while holding up his own version of tradition as the gold standard. The end of the book is truly a "My worship is better than your worship" rant.
I feel like I could write several more paragraphs on the lengthy final chapter of this book, but suffice it to say that if you want a Biblical look at postmodernism this is not the book to pick up. If you want anything other than a Calvinist cherry-picking ideas to support his specific version of church, this is not the book for you.
Attempting to co-opt some ideas from postmodern thinkers and apply them to the church gave way to something entirely different in the final chapter. I went from a generous three stars, to two, and in the last pages I knew this was really a one-star book. In the fifth chapter you discover that this book is not about postmodernism at all; it is in fact a thinly veiled attempt to support the author's particular brand of denominational worship. With no sense of irony at all, the author at once lambastes denominational worship and seemingly all non-denominational churches, while holding up his own version of tradition as the gold standard. The end of the book is truly a "My worship is better than your worship" rant.
I feel like I could write several more paragraphs on the lengthy final chapter of this book, but suffice it to say that if you want a Biblical look at postmodernism this is not the book to pick up. If you want anything other than a Calvinist cherry-picking ideas to support his specific version of church, this is not the book for you.
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