postmodern rigour - a quiz

To put the matter baldly, a person of religious conviction should not want to enter the marketplace of ideas but to shut it down, at least insofar as it presumes to determine matters that he believes have been determined by God and faith.  The religious person should not seek an accommodation with liberalism, he should seek to rout it from the field.

So who is author behind this?  A] Jerry Falwell;  B]  Pat Robertson; C] The Pope

None of the above.  It is from Stanley Fish, postmodern theorist, in his work "The Trouble with Principle" (Camb: Harv, 1999, p 250). 

One of the marvelous things about the embrace of postmodernism by the church is our selective reading and understanding of the various strains of postmodern theory.  I dare say that there are at least a few who would think that the position put forward by Fish in this piece is the opposite of postmodern thinking.  But postmodern thought is like Protestantism in this regard:  there is such an endless variety that you don't know what you're getting until you've already consumed it.

There are two ends of the spectrum:  those whose modernity is stubbornly exclusive, where faith ideas are thrown out kicking and screaming,  and those whose postmodernity is stubbornly inclusive, where faith ideas are dragged in and "baptized" automatically.  I posit that because they share the same absolutist method, they are in fact brothers.

Which brings me to the radical conclusion that it is a valid form of postmodern church to say that "No man comes to the Father but by me".  Or, to put it another way, if you think that postmodernism does away with the rigour of specific faith claims, you are not familiar with the wide variety.

And this variety of specific faith claims leads me to my last point.  In the various interfaith meetings I attend, there are a number of faith groups represented.  It is not "interfaith" to offer up a general wish when asked for a prayer.  When I pray, I pray in Jesus' name.  If you can pray along with me, please do.  If you cannot pray along with me, then take the interfaith movement seriously and listen and learn as you hear me pray.  I will afford you the same dignity.  But please don't tell me to pray in a way that "everyone can join in".  I simply cannot take every faith position and baptize it into Christian prayer.  It does not do justice to your faith.  Nor can I simply pretend that my prayer is some sort of "lowest common denominator" spirituality.  That does not do justice to one I call Lord, and whose name is Jesus.

Which brings this meandering discourse again to the quote from Fish.  Is there any wisdom in what he has to say?  It is the nature of a faith position, conviction, belief, that its holder should actually hold those positions.  The all inclusive is not post modern;  it is, as Fish rightly notes, merely the old end of modernity: liberalism. 

Be postmodern.  Like Jesus.

"To whom should we go?  You alone have the words of eternal life."

Next week:  the other side of Fish's argument.

Comments

[Matt]

Four years ago the Canadian Forces Chaplain branch issued direction to the effect that chaplains could neither invoke the Trinity nor use the name of Jesus in public prayer. The intent of the policy was to avoid offending anyone who was compelled to be at a function.

When we adopt the lowest common denominator everybody loses.