Search for the Meaning in Westphal's "Whose Community? Which Interpretation?"

If you are interested in the postmodern critique of modernist Christianity, then I recommend (based on my limited reading) starting with the first 5 chapters of Peter Rollins’ How (Not) to Speak of God followed by the first 9 chapters of this book, Merold Westphal’s Whose Community? Which Interpretation? In Whose Community?, Westphal applies Hans-Georg Gadamer’s thoughts to the church and biblical interpretation.

Coproduced meaning. It is common for people to believe that most texts (the Bible, for our conversation) contain one specific, clear, obvious meaning determined by the author. In that sense, the reader merely shows up, decodes the message, and understands fully the intended meaning of the author. However, Westphal, following the philosopher Gadamer, argues that the meaning of a text is “coproduced” (54) and “codetermined” (81) by the author and the reader. The text’s meaning is derived “at the site of conversation between author and reader” (61). Most importantly, “since there are different readers in different contexts, there will be different meanings, not the meaning of the text” (65). The meaning of a text (Romans 3 or Matthew 5, for example) is not singularly embedded (or set in stone) in the written words or in the intention of the author. When the text is read, the reader (with his own experiences, assumptions, and context) engages the written words (with its cultural/historical context and the author’s intention); it is in this interaction that meaning is determined. Each time the text is read new meaning may be produced.

The meaning of the text. Because people often assume a text contains one true meaning, they typically believe their interpretation is the meaning of the text. What I read in Romans 3 is obviously the meaning of Romans 3. In fact, many people do not even think they are interpreting: “I just read what it says.” Westphal repeatedly uses 4 groups--the desert fathers, the Geneva Calvinists, the American slaves, and today’s Amish--to point to the pluralism of legitimate interpretations. Even a scant knowledge of these 4 faith communities gives an awareness that they interpret various Scriptural passages in different ways. Which group is right? Which group possesses the meaning of the text? If there is only the meaning of a passage, and they disagree, then they cannot all be right. A typical response might be that they are all wrong and that my group possesses the meaning. To this, Westphal responds, “Must we assume that our interpretation is the only right one and that all believers throughout Christian history who depart from our party line are simply wrong?” (55).

Anything goes? Even if you are open to the thoughts above, you may still raise a concern that this could lead to an “anything goes” market of ideas, an interpretive anarchy, in which every individual and group has their say and every opinion is equal. However, this is not what Westphal, Gadamer, or even Nietzsche (dare I say his name in the presence of Christians?!) mean. Pluralism does not mean all ideas are equal. Think of a group of people looking at Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream. Those people, because of their different opinions, experiences, and tendencies, will interpret and respond to the painting differently. One might have an emotional response to the despair it invokes. Another, based on a recent article she read, may make connections to other paintings of the time period. A third ventures to put words in the mouth or thoughts in the mind of the figure. This is a pluralism of interpretation. All appear legitimate, though none is complete; in fact, these 3 might gain a good deal from listening to each other and engaging in dialogue. However, a fourth person declares, “This is the best painting of a duck wearing a bowl of fruit that I have ever seen!” This leads us to Westphal’s check on the “anything goes” anarchy that is so feared. He presents 3 levels of interpretation. First, some people get it completely wrong, like the guy who sees a duck in The Scream or someone who interprets John 3:16 as an invitation to invade Poland. Second, some interpretations succeed in capturing the basic meaning (“That Scream guy looks scared”) but lack depth or quality or genius. Third, the “best” interpretations get it right, not in a once-and-for-all sense, but in a way that speaks to us in our depths and compels us to wake up and listen. Even so, there is not one “best” interpretation, not one the meaning. Thus, Westphal advises that we consult a variety of “best” interpretations, theologies, thinkers, Bible translations, and doctrinal statements, and that we do this in community. This may not please someone determined to hold tight to his claim on having the corner on the God market, but it does adequately refute the “anything goes” threat. To think of it positively, maybe the Scriptures have so much meaning and depth in them that to even begin to grasp all that they have to offer we have to open ourselves to multiple voices and multiple meanings.

Caputo's "What Would Jesus Deconstruct?"

Most Christians are well aware of the question “What Would Jesus Do?” In fact, familiarity with the question has led us to believe that we know the answer. We know how Jesus would vote, what sins he would condemn most severely (theirs) and which ones he would overlook (ours), how he would spend his money, which TV shows he would DVR, and even where he would vacation (Ark Encounter, anyone?). In What Would Jesus Deconstruct?, John D. Caputo challenges our complacency and confidence vis-a-vis this familiar question and calls us to deconstruct our theological constructs in order to rediscover the truth and revelation that lie buried beneath.

Deconstruction. Deconstruction sounds scary, doesn’t it? And in one sense, it is terrifying. But deconstruction is not destruction. The goal of deconstruction (as applied to Christianity) is to strategically remove the layers and coatings of man-made religion that have been built up over the core of Truth. Imagine stripping the coats of paint and stain off a table to get to the original wood or delicately removing the layers of sediment and rock to free a fossil or archeological artifact. On numerous occasions, Jesus declared to the people, ‘You have heard it said...but I say unto you...’. In these moments, Jesus was deconstructing the human-created structures and forms that had developed over God-given revelation. He set about freeing the Sabbath from restrictive rules, holiness from appearance and public opinion, and interaction with God from an established hierarchy. “In a deconstruction,” writes Caputo, “our lives, our beliefs, and our practices are not destroyed but forced to reform and reconfigure--which is risky business...in deconstruction the truth is dangerous” (27). The terrifying part of deconstruction is that it removes all our layers of insulation between us and the Truth and leaves us with little defense or control in God’s presence. The beauty of deconstruction is that it allows us to move closer to the true essence of God, love, and justice.

Heresy. ‘Heretic’ is a favorite label that religious groups like to assign to people who are enough like them to avoid the ‘pagan’ label but weird enough to make the group uncomfortable. Caputo states that a heretic is “anyone who interferes with the work of the church, including Jesus” (32). He points to Dostoyevsky’s story of the Grand Inquisitor who arrests a returned Jesus so that Jesus will not interfere with the purposes and plans of the church. “Having gotten used to the idea that the church defines and determines what Jesus stands for, and what Jesus would do, the church is not going to see its authority threatened by anyone, not even by Jesus himself” (32). Jesus was a heretic 2000 years ago, and he would be labeled one again today by most of our religious institutions if he walked through their doors on a Sunday morning.

Idolatry and the Bible. It wouldn’t be a postmodern Christian book if idolatry was not addressed. Caputo argues against an idolatrous view of the Bible. The Bible is an archive of stories, experiences, and interpretations. It is not God. The Bible is not the object of our worship. “To hear what the Bible says, set it carefully on your desk and listen quietly. After a long enough silence has passed it may hit you that it does not talk; you have to read and interpret it” (94). By this, he simply means that we need to step back from our unyielding declarations of ‘God says’ or ‘the Bible says’ toward a more humble position of ‘this is what I think God is saying’ or ‘this is what I got out of that passage’. Be careful to avoid attributing qualities to the Bible that belong only to God.

What Would Jesus Deconstruct? by John D. Caputo (at Amazon)

Doubt and Idolatry in Peter Rollins' "How (Not) to Speak of God"

I cannot overemphasize the importance of Peter Rollins’ How (Not) to Speak of God in my spiritual journey. After nearly three decades of orthodoxy, I went through several years of dark nights of the soul. Though reluctant to leave behind a faith and relationship that had been the centerpiece of my life, I could no longer wave off doctrinal inconsistencies with the wand of faith nor accept the unbending certainty and dogmatism of what I knew to be Christianity. I could see only a binary, mutually exclusive decision before me: turn off my brain and return to a lobotomized Christianity or accept, sadly, the reason and logic that were leading me toward agnosticism. Rollins showed me that there is a way of embracing my faith while maintaining personal and intellectual integrity. Though this book contains many, many ideas that could challenge the reader, below are the two key themes for which I am most grateful. If you are going to start the journey of a postmodern rethinking of our modern Christianity, I suggest you start here with this book.

Doubt. Faith is widely understood to be an unwavering confidence in the factual accuracy of a doctrinal system. By this definition, a person of faith is one who possesses a clearly defined set of beliefs to which they cling tenaciously. From this perspective, doubt and questions are enemies of faith that must be resisted at every turn. Against this view, Rollins suggests that “only a genuine faith can embrace doubt” (36). Instead of being an enemy of faith, doubt is actually an essential ingredient of true faith. When we ‘know’ our religious doctrines with ‘certainty’, then faith is unnecessary. But faith is truly faith when there are no guarantees, when we see but dim shadows and blurry visions, when life and God shift in ways unexpected and unexplained...and yet we still stumble forward in love and trust, hope and courage. Because of our need to be in control of everything in our lives, an honest look at the raw uncertainty of life and religion can be unsettling, even terrifying. But embracing this uncertainty allows us to more authentically follow in the steps of the fishermen who left their nets, the disciples who sat in devastated silence through the long Sabbath following ‘Good’ Friday, and the Son of God who cried out in pain and betrayal from the cross. Embrace your uncertainty, celebrate your doubts, ask your questions, and live the adventure of faith.

Idolatry. We normally reserve the label ‘idol’ for Hindu statues or maybe other people's sins (or their houses and toys that we cannot afford). However, Rollins (and many other postmodern Christians) very cleverly throws the sin of idolatry right back in the Church’s lap. In the traditional view, an idol is a physical representation of God, that by its very createdness, is inadequate and inaccurate. Though most of us do not worship a physical representation of God, if we hold too tightly to our doctrines and intellectual ‘images’ of God, then we also commit idolatry. If we do not make the distinction between God-as-He-really-is and God-as-we-understand-Him, then we are probably worshipping a god of our own creation. Rollins suggests, “describe your God and you will discover yourself” (42). Now, the point here is not to despair that our doctrines are inaccurate, but to “embrace the idea that we all get God wrong” (70). This does not mean that we reject our doctrines and traditions and sadly turn away from theology as a hopeless endeavor, but simply that we value our belief systems as human (and therefore limited) responses and interpretations of God-experiences rather than ultimate, complete, perfected Truth. “Speaking of God is never speaking of God but only ever speaking about our understanding of God” (34). Or, put another way, “the relationship we have with God cannot be reduced to our understanding of that relationship” (21). Our beliefs are important, but they are not ultimate. Viewing our doctrines as provisional and temporary opens up opportunities to learn from other people, unfamiliar traditions, and unexpected God-experiences.

How (Not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins (at Amazon)

3 Key Ideas from "Overcoming Onto-Theology"

Ever since I was introduced to Peter Rollins' How (Not) to Speak of God a couple of years ago, I have found great freedom and joy in postmodernism's reflection and critique of (modernist) Christianity. It has been suggested that, as I read various books on this theme, I post a few simplified summary points.

Merold Westphal's Overcoming Onto-Theology is not for the faint-hearted. I have no significant philosophical training, so I had to have an enormous amount of determination to wade through this. I read the entire book with 3 tabs open on my web browser: Google translator for the German, Wikipedia for the Latin and philosophy jargon, and dictionary.com for the "normal" words that exceeded my vocabulary. The book is brilliant, but I would recommend that you start with Peter Rollins and several books from the Church and Postmodern Culture series. Below are 3 key ideas I gleaned from this particular book. Only the portion in quotes is directly from the book; the rest is my ruminations and formulations.

*Religious folks are usually “idolatrous, worshipping a god created in their own image and in conformity with their own interests.” Idolatry does not occur when we have false understandings of God (all of our ideas are limited, inaccurate, and incomplete), but when we insist that our understandings of God are the Truth. Idolatry is finding God exactly as we expect him to be.

*As humans, we are limited in our attainment of Truth (notice the capital T) because of our ‘createdness’ and ‘sinfulness’. We cannot know the Truth (fully, completely, with certainty) because we cannot transcend our interpretations that are tied to our human experience. This is called the “hermeneutics of finitude” (createdness). And even if we could surpass this first limit and get to the Truth, in our selfishness, we would revise and edit it so that it suits our purposes. This is called the “hermeneutics of suspicion” (sinfulness). There may very well be Truth (with a capital T), but none of us possesses it.

*We come to each event in life with prior experience, knowledge, and assumptions. These guide our interpretation (understanding) of the new event. But the new event may also cause us to revise and adjust our previous assumptions and beliefs. There is a cycle of assumption, interpretation, and revision that never ends and never reaches a final absolute certainty (‘totality’). We are always in process in the pursuit of Truth. This is called the “hermeneutical circle”.

Overcoming Onto-Theology by Merold Westphal (at Amazon)