A Post-Modern God?

I've been dipping into The Practice of Pastoral Care: A Postmodern Approach by Carrie Doehring. This is a book mainly about pastoral care but, in the book, Doehring defines three theological stances: pre-modern, modern, and post-modern. These are but illustrations to understand the different stances.

A pre-modern pastor would try to help a grieving Christian over the death of a loved one by defining the deceased's life in terms of an 'objective' soteriology and prescribing the mourner's response. If the deceased meets the criteria for 'being saved', the instruction is to rejoice in their salvation. If the deceased does not meet those criteria, the mourner is instructed to look forward to their own salvation.

A modern pastor would use the tools of biblical critical methods and systematic theology as well as the tools of counselling and psychology. This is a reason-based approach.

A post-modern pastor would try to understand how the mourner's perspective is unique because of a myriad of factors, including life experience, gender, race, class, age, etc. The pastor will help the mourner to find his or her own religous meaning in the context of this particular death.

Putting the idea of 'postmodern theology' in the context of pastoral response was something of a revelation to me. One of those 'D'oh!' sorts of moments when what seemed complicated seems a bit clearer. A lot of Christians like to criticise postmodernism, but if you look at the three-pronged approach to pastoral care (using all of the above tools) that Doehring recommends, it seems like a very appropriate and logical tool-kit.

So, my question is: if postmodernism is so threatening to Christian theology, is the claim therefore that God can only be found in 'the objective' (ISTM the premodern and modern contexts) and that there is no such thing as the presence of God in the subjective? It seems to me that to make such a claim would be ridiculous. It also seems to me that 'the presence of God in the subjective' is, to some extend, the old idea of having a personal relationship with God.

I continue to suspect that the postmodern challenge to Christianity is a challenge to the institution of the Church and not a challenge to theology per se. We have to be willing, to a certain extent, to allow people to find individual meaning within Christianity. On the other hand, I continue to believe that because Christianity is about relationships, that it's not desireable to be a solitary practitioner of Christianity if one can help it.

I'm trying to work this out in my own mind, so pardon me if this is too much of an incoherent ramble.

Heart Knowledge is Better than Head Knowledge?

Although it's an amalgam of several different sources, the post on Anti-Intellectualism in Christianity over at Beyond Rivalry really spoke to me on a number of levels.

Not that I consider myself an 'intellectual', but I sometimes feel that we in the Methodist Church particularly value the question: 'How can I use this idea within the next twenty four hours to achieve some kind of concrete result?' There is certainly nothing wrong with this kind of pragmatic focus, but I do sometimes wonder whether we have also devalued the exercise of stepping back and actually thinking or praying about whether our actions are oriented toward God, our Christian values or our identity.

I also do worry that we (I'm speaking of the British Methodist Church here) by and large think that faithful academic theology is useless. We seem to think that unless immediate theological reflection can be done which results in a thought I can use in the next twenty-four hours, that studying theology is a waste of time. I don't think most of us are in the camp of thinking that theology ruins one's faith, but I'm not sure that collectively as a church we value theological study.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not an academic but I've found that the theology I've read just for pleasure has served me well over the long term. I don't always have immediate 'use' for it, but I do feel that it's given me a good foundation both for preaching and for my own faith. John Stott seems to think so too and he can hardly be accused of being a liberal.

Contemporary Theology Book Meme

Chris at Sandalstraps’ Sanctuary has tagged me with a book meme which, truth be told, I don't really feel qualified to answer. At best, I'm an amateur theologian. At worst, a minister who knows too much theology for her own good. (joke!)

I don't really feel qualified to answer the first question at all:

THREE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL WORKS ON CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGY

My sense is that the most important theological thing that has happened in the last 20 to 30 years is the "post-liberal" movement. This movement has rescued Protestants (particularly in the US) from having to choose between being a fundamentalist or a classic liberal. My sense is that this "movement" in some way "just happened" and I'm not convinced that those who have deliberately taken the label of "post liberal" were actually the engines of that movement. So, choosing from three theologians who I consider to be part of this Christian Zeitgeist and picking books pretty much at random:

1) The New Testament and the People of God by N.T. Wright
2) Naming the Powers by Walter Wink
3) A Community of Character by Stanley Hauerwas

THREE LESSER KNOWN BOOKS ALMOST EVERYONE SHOULD READ

The first two books probably aren't "lesser known" to anyone who has attended theology college in Britain in the last ten years, but they are probably "lesser known" in the US. I think the last book is still "lesser known" in both contexts.

1) Love's Endeavour, Love's Expense by W.H. Vanstone. Having made the remark about post-liberalism, this book is in a bit more of liberal paradigm, but I think that questions of God's love in a liberal world-view are still relevent to many and this book was written before the theological world knew anything of post-liberalism.

2) Participating in God by Paul S. Fiddes. Takes up where Vanstone's book leaves off. Speaks into a post-liberal Christian context and also speaks of many relevent things like "How does prayer work?" and the concept of community.

3) The Joy of Being Wrong by James Alison. You had to know I'd say this. It's a tough read. This is Alison's doctoral thesis in book form. It's not an exaggeration to say that this book turned my faith upside down. As a friend put it, "You are acting like you met Jesus".

I'm tagging: Michael, Stephen and John. I'm going to give it a flying try and tag Rachel at Velveteen Rabbi to see if she bites and gives us a perspective from a different faith.