postmodernbible

Dunn's 'Jesus Remembered' - some initial comments on an initial reading

Just returned to Cliff after a few days in Cornwall - half term with the kids – great time relaxing, walking on the beach, driving home through the storm! But now overwhelmed by all the work!

While in Cornwall, I (belatedly) ploughed through the first section of Dunn’s 'Jesus Remembered' (Thanks! You know who I mean!). It strikes me that the work is magisterial in its breadth although I notice an over indulgent use of secondary sources - for example Thistleton and Mueller whatshisname...and as for the stuff on Postmodernity...well, let's just not go there.

Dunn, in this first section, seems to be exploring the Running from History/Running from Faith debate and has been startled/struck/captivated by Kahler’s contribution to the Quest which he thinks that Gadamer (via Thistleton) backs up through 'wirkungsgeschichte bewusstsein' (history making knowledge???). The rather thin methodological crust on which Dunn is walking is rather apparent, although that crust is backed up by all the stuff he does beforehand on the Jesus Quests. To me this is a kind of Christology from above.

I am in conversation with a PhD candidate at Sheffield, Rafael Rodriguez, who is exploring the concept of social memory from a different perspective to Dunn's and an email to him about this sparked off this post. I suggested that what Raf is trying to do, as I understand it, is to explore Gadamer’s principle of history-making knowledge – i.e. that knowledge of certain events or people actually creates a social memory which lies behind the Gospel accounts of Jesus. To me this is a kind of Christology from below.

If this process happens in other situations/histories/cultures, it could also have happened with Jesus. What is history – it is the outworking of 'history-making knowledge' - well, then, that is the history of Jesus???

Scarily, what Dunn does not do, in this extended discussion of methodology (139 pages +) at the beginning of a book on Jesus, is to consider the whole importance of social memory, socialisation, or anything. This has been picked up by Byrskog et al. in JSNT but I don't think it has been explored fully yet. Come on, Raf, write the thesis, get the article done!

In a parallel vein, Loveday Alexander has done some good work on classic texts in Curtis and Marguerat’s book on Intertextuality. In it, and in the supporting literature, they discuss the importance of the role of classic texts in providing/cultivating/creating the assumed reading responses for those involved in Hellenistic society. In other words, the use of these classic texts in Hellenistic education and culture are themselves part of this 'wirkungsgeschichte bewusstsein' - they effect the making of history. If the classic texts change, then the reading responses change and history changes - if history is the narrative recollection of the past. It strikes me that this is similar to what Gadamer is saying – this is wirkungsgeschichte bewusstsein in operation.

As an aside, does that mean that we can bring John back into the arguments about the historical Jesus – because his whole Gospel is based on a response to the history-making knowledge of Jesus?

Just some idle thoughts…I think I need to read more Gadamer…

Pete

Bugger!

Someone has suggested that I sound put out by the comments Mike has made about my comments that he made. Irony doesn't work...or was it even ironic. Dunno.

Didn't mean it to come across this way. I meant it to be conciliatory. Proves my point doesn't it - human beings were never meant to be part of the Borg that is internet conversation. Human beings were meant to have conversations in the flesh over a pint of beer or a glass of the finest red!

Sorry if I have hurt people by the crass comments I have made. I want to seek the truth together - not wind everyone up!

Sorry to the guys in the Wirral too whose Purpose Driven work has been trashed by what I've said. I really want to celebrate what God is doing all over the place NOT suggest that I or any one person has all the answers. The answers will always be pluriform. Missional DNA is working so bloody well in so many places. Emergent is working in so many places so well. Purpose driven processes are working so well. I want to celebrate the diversity of God's mission not make every one where the same uniform and always do it THIS way.

Sometimes I end up saying 'a plague on all your houses' where really the gospel demands that I say 'a blessing on a thousand hills'. Grace...more please, Lord.

Pete

More Shaping - Misrepresentation and all that

Well, now Mike has popped up and suggested a few things about my feedback. Here is his comment from yesterday:

Mike says:

I'll have to add my two cents worth because I fear you've misrepresented me also. When I talk about an orgasmic life I certainly do encourage us to eat well , laugh loudly and love intensely, BUT... I also say that we ought to give away as much of our time, energy and money in the cause of others, including the poor!! Don't eat shit, watch crap TV and sit around whining about life. Live it loud, wonderfully and generously. Eat good food and share as much food with others as we can. The word 'companion' means 'with bread'. True companionship means sharing bread with others. Throw great parties, give great gifts and always defer to the needs of the poor and the oppressed.

Also, on the matter of dosh, I make it my business not to profit in any way from the wealthy Christians God has directed across my path. I'm like a clearing house for mission and the poor.

You've been too harsh on us, you bugger.

Mike

Now, I will avoid getting upset over the expletive. I am assured that the comment has nothing to do with the Windsor Report at all.

I am glad that Mike has made such a good rejoinder about the importance of a justice-based orgasmic lifestyle. And I always said that I didn't have too much gripe about what he had to say anyway. He made it clear that he gave away as much as he can and that his lifestyle was not part of the properity agenda which is so anti-gospel. No problem, Mike. Thanks for clearing this up.

However, I do think that both Alan and Mike have to get off the 'you've misunderstood me' agenda. My comments resonate with other people's comments from different events. There is a bit of widespread misunderstanding going on here. How do we work this one out. A few possibilities:

1. There may be a problem of cultural translation - that we Brits are misunderstanding you guys because you are speaking in a different cultural code. Perhaps its about an anti-institutional bias that simply goes against the grain in the UK setup. But I am not so sure of this - after all we are all victims of the Pax Americana and we are all part of the globalisation agenda - there is actually quite a bit of similarity between the cultures by now...and we are also all part of the subculture of Christianity and par tof the Christian subculture discussing mission and emerging church - so there isn't much mileage here, I don't think.

2. There may be a problem of miscommunication - Alan said in his comment that his communication could be read as being anti-institutional but that is not how he felt of himself. Well, that's a bit hard on us listeners, Alan. I mean how are we supposed to know what you think other than what you say or what you write? Mike, how do I know your justice credentials unless you tell me about them. Readers can only base their understanding on the limited bit of the author they have contact with...if you want me to understand you better, give me more of you...until you do, ignorance may reign.

3. There may be a problem of misrepresentation - it may be that the reader understands where the author is coming from exactly. It may be that they are mind-readers and so can work out what the author actually meant to say although he didn't actually say it. It may be that the reader can fill in all the cultural gaps required. At that point, if the reader decides to make a comment which he knows consciously goes against the author, then it is misrepresentation.

4. There may be a factual disagreement - it may be that whether I understand what you say or not, I basically disagree with what you are saying - like the Early Church debate. If I think you are wrong, tough. I can say it!

I reckon that the various levels of misrepresentation here are the kind of things that occur in literary gaps - where I haven't heard or you haven't said something clearly enough. With the various comments, like those Maggi has made, it is not that we have gone out of our way to misrepresent...it is that we have a different point of view. I thought that the emergent church would be more open to debate and dialogue...perhaps we need to look again at the cut and thrust of the early Church.

Just cos someone says something you don't agree with it does not mean that you hate them, that you do not value them, or that you diminish their work. In fact it is a massive complement - it means that they have actually taken you seriously enough to think about what you have said.

No, Mike, I am not a bugger. I'm your brother.

Pete

Shaping of Things to Come…the Conversation Continues

After putting some comments onto my blog about the session in Sheffield with Alan Hirsch and Mike Frost, I have had a number of comments – you can read them below…Alan Hirsch has made a couple of responses and in the spirit of communitas, I wondered whether it would be good to enter into dialogue a little more with what Alan is saying. I feel very privileged that Alan has taken the time to read my comments although it is clear that we don’t agree. So, here it is set out in the form of a conversation. I definitely agree that this would be better done in person…but, hey Alan, Australia is a fair distance away!

I hope as well this provides anyone daft enough to read my musings with some understanding of where I am coming from in this debate…

Alan says:

Ouch! You know how to counterpunch. You make some good points bro, but can I please clarify what I meant to say, at least a little.

Pete says:

No Fight Club imagery allowed! Doug Gay suggested my input offered a corrective rather than a counter-punch – a non-violent attempt to wrestle with the issues that need debating here. I think that the proposals about missional incarnational processes provide some good insight into some possibilities for emergent church. However, I think there are some foundational issues which are wrong. My view. Alan has had his say – in four widely publicised events around the UK and a two day session with some leading educators in the field. Anyone can also, and should, read the book. Those of us who don’t get that much exposure perhaps have a voice through our reflections on what is said?

Alan says:

I have consistently been read as being 'anti-institutional' and perhaps with some justification re my communication. I don't necessarily think of myself that way. What I am most curious about is when in times of persecution, when the all the normal 'institutional' referents of church are removed, how is it that the church seems in some context to grow exponentially??

Pete says:

The problem with this is that you are putting together too much into the basic hypothesis. You suggest persecution + non-institution is accompanied by exponential growth. You therefore conclude that exponential growth is caused by persecution + lack of institution – or rather persecution + apostolic leadership + disciple making…and so on. OK. But the basic problem is that I don’t accept your first premise. I can’t see that the early Church fits the bill. There was little state-wide persecution until the time of Diocletian and post-Constantine when some of his successors tried to undo his accord. Up to then, persecution was a pretty localised affair. Moreover, the early Church can hardly be called non-institutional. How about the Church Fathers – going right back to Paul and James and so on? Where does your early Church history allow you to make this glib comparison between pre-Constantinian Christianity and contemporary China? Moreover, phenomenal growth actually happened post-Constantine. If you read Kreider’s analysis of Conversion in the early Church (or Nock), you see that the Church institutions coped pretty well with the influx of newcomers until Constantine. Until then there was a proper system of catechesis and so on. Suddenly with all the Med getting in on the act, the Church authorities were flooded with incomers and the whole concept of disciple-making, in such a period of phenomenal growth, was completely overwhelmed. And how about modern China – are you sure it is your reading of apostolic leadership? Perhaps you are right there. I don’t know. But it is your attempt then to turn this into some general strategy for a future missional church agenda. You are not right about the early Church, you may be right about China – but is that proof enough that this is the way forward?

Alan says:

THAT is what I am interested in. Its not so much about knocking the institution, it’s about trying to find out the latent potencies that seem to lie coiled and often unused, at the heart of the Gospel ecclesia. The potency (DNA?) can, it seems to me, be obscured by what we mean by institutions. Does the institution blind us to something far more powerful and primal? That's what grabs me mate. I'm sorry if it comes out at anti-institution. I rather think of it as pro-grassroots/organic.

Pete says:

How about a different reading of the early Church and also a possible reading of what is happening in the UK at present, in what is increasingly becoming an excitingly vibrant situation? First, the early Church. Have you considered that actually what happened with the Church was that the Church hierarchy, beginning with Paul (and even Jesus?), realised that the most effective way to reach Roman society was to present Christianity as moral, upright, dignified and anti-Imperial in opposition to an increasingly dissolute Roman cultural edifice. In other words, they realised what actually pushed the right buttons for Mr and Ms Jo (Roman) Average and hence people flocked to the churches. In fact, it wasn’t grassroots. It wasn’t dynamic. If you read the stuff it was pretty organised, ruthless and well-documented. How about for the present situation in the UK – is it that Alpha provides certainty in a world of uncertainty and community in a world of fraction, while emergent church provides a link/outlet for creativity and imagination which has been repressed in the mainstream churches ever since the days of Victorian/Edwardian repression? I don’t think either of these growth patterns in the UK have much at all to do with grass-roots dynamism. Both tend to be heavily institutionalized and centre-led. Although the emergent church movement won’t like me for saying that!

But do you see what I mean. There are other ways of explaining phenomenal church growth without going to grassroots dynamism or virus replication analogies. I quite prefer the old Areopagan idea – find the key to introduce God to the recipient culture and use it to let his ideas loose within that culture. See Vincent Donovan, Roland Allen, Lesslie Newbigin and so on…

Alan says:

RE the Fivefold ministries of Eph. I think I remember explicitly saying "at least fivefold'. I am not saying that this is the only way of configuring ministry, but that as far as I can discern, one of the elements of missional DNA is at least fivefold. And is based primarily on that Apostolic environment.

Pete says:

Yep, and you were pretty hesitant about all this on the day in Sheffield. I just don’t think it is valid to put so much emphasis on apostolic environments. I get rather scared about the more hard-line fivefold ministry patterns – too many of these might end up with a lack of accountability and heavy shepherding situations which might be abusive. There are alternatives and you chose not to voice those.

By the way, what does it matter if one of the elements is fivefold – are we hooked on fives now? Why this thing about DNA being a kind of super-complex diagram – I thought DNA was a simple double helix which repeated itself throughout its structure. A good structure for the Church – simple, replicating the same thing over and over again – the grace of God in all contexts in all cultures.

Alan then sends another comment in…

Alan says:

I have to add one more corrective actually, and this I believe I am being deliberately misquoted in order to make a point. You say "Well, the talks started with the basic premise – Christianity grew in the time before Constantine and in China without any form of leadership – therefore leadership/institutional church causes decline, lack of formal leadership causes growth. Institutions are bad." Pete this is just caricaturing and making a straw man you can knock down. I said again and again that there is definitely a form of leadership present in phenomenal movements of God. It’s just not necessarily the type or mode of leadership that we have become accustomed to. Clearly apostolic leadership is leadership!! It just exercises its influence differently through moral and spiritual authority.

Pete says:

Well, see what I say above about leadership. Of course, setting up straw men is a regular pastime in theological discourse. As someone involved in the reconstruction of the early Church, I could level a similar charge against your own suggestions about that period. However, I don’t think I am caricaturing you that much. Yes, you did talk about some form of leadership and you did make some great points about disciple making and so on. People should read your book and see what there is there…but I think my criticisms stand whether you think I have misrepresented you or not. This is what I heard you saying…sorry if I wasn’t listening hard enough – it was a long day!

Alan says:

If you want to debate the ideas in this forum, then please in the name of integrity, can you please quote me correctly. You might not agree, or even like what I am saying, but at least represent me fairly Pete.

Pete says:

Oops. Sorry, mate. I would suggest that this is my blog and can write what I like here! I am not forcing anyone to read! But that sounds petty! I am not sure I have questioned your integrity or falsely represented your views. Forgive me if I have.

Alan ends:

I hope to take you up on that beer sometime. I find the web an inadequate forum for a meaningful dialogue. Let’s try meet each other sometime. Blessings. Alan

Pete says: AMEN!

The Shaping of Things to Come

Last week the College decamped to St Thoms Philadelphia Centre in Sheffield to hear Alan Hirsch and Mike Frost. It was part of the tour which CMS had organised to raise the profile of Emergent Church and Mission based on the Ozzies’ book on missional incarnational impulse. The tour has raised a few emails...and a few interesting comments on the blogs. I thought I would try and give a few brief comments...

First of all, I thought that both guys did an amazing amount of hard work while they were over here. Jonny and the guys at CMS need a big slap on the back for raising the issue of mission and emerging church into a much brighter spotlight than they have been for a while. Mike Frost was inspirational – a gifted storyteller – although I am not sure he is as marginal and on the edge as he makes out...I mean...all that dosh, Mike! What a lifestyle! What would Jesus do, mate?

I loved the stories Mike told and thought his early presentation on proximity, presence, proclamation and power was a good four pointer that provided a great intro to missio dei thinking without using the theological and technical jargon sometimes associated with this kind of stuff. Of course, none of it was new. If you have read Vincent Donovan or Roland Allen or David Bosch then it is all actually a bit old hat. In fact, if you’ve read the Gospels it is a bit old hat. After all, isn’t it what Jesus did?

I have to say that the stories made it – the Bikers in Elizabeth, the Shoeshop Man in San Francisco...these remain with me...and Mike’s love for Jesus. Go for it.

The next two talks were by Alan Hirsch and based more closely on the missional theory that the guys propound in the book. Well, the talks started with the basic premise – Christianity grew in the time before Constantine and in China without any form of leadership – therefore leadership/institutional church causes decline, lack of formal leadership causes growth. Institutions are bad.

Now we are playing to the galleries. On the one hand this is the same kind of postmodern stuff about organisations being bad and institutions being negative and so on. I thought Kester Brewin was hiding in the wings ready to come out and blast us with a bit of Complexity Theory. However, it is also just about completely wrong. First of all, the comparison between what happened pre-Constantine with what is happening in China is a little myopic. Come on...there are plenty of differences as well! Secondly, it is simply wrong to say that the church before Constantine was non-institutional – read your church history again Alan. The church was as institutional then as it ever has been – haven’t you heard of the Church Fathers or of the ascendancy of Rome, of the Eastern Councils, of Alexandria and Caesarea? Church growth in this period was aided by the fact that Christians formed a new empire – a community stretching across and around the Mediterranean basin which simply would not be quelled by Diocletian’s persecution. In the end, Constantine made a political decision to accept Christianity because he had no other choice...as proved by those after Constantine who tried to push Christianity back into the closet! Thirdly, there have clearly been huge periods of Church growth which have been heavily dominated by institutions. The whole Korean experience? The Eighteenth Century UK revivals? You cannot say that Wesley was non-institutional – and Whitfield?

So, the basic issue here is that Alan’s opening gambit is seriously flawed. Basically Alan says that if situation x and situation y result in massive growth, then we need to look at what is similar between x and y. Get that condition right and massive growth will come. Nope. It is just another pull the rabbit out of the hat church growth scheme as flawed as any purpose driven church agenda.

Having said, then, that Alan’s basic premise was wrong, I could then move on to say that everything else was OK...well, perhaps. I like the emphasis on disciple-making. I liked the discussion of the role of the apostle-type leadership (though without apostles) although the exploration of the five fold ministry based on Ephesians 4 was a little moment of madness! Surely anyone reading the NT realises that there are many different patterns of leadership in the NT – and it is simply not right to say that this model or that model are God’s model. Read the pastorals for a different leadership structure entirely. I like the emphasis on lifestyle and on community – although clearly Alan didn’t get onto communitas as he had elsewhere.

But then there was the sneezing thing. I am afraid that I cannot cope with the idea of the Gospel spreading like a virus that has been sneezed out of God. Get a life. Jesus has a much better image which Richard Bauckham explores much better in his little book on mission – the parable of the sower. There we have the sheer wastefulness of grace; there we have the randomness; there we have the dependency on the soils; there we have the idea of the seed and the fruit. And all this without any need to reference virus replication science, complexity theory or any attempt to make the Gospel into a bogey...anyway aren’t most viruses self-limiting organisms? Great – we grow the church to a certain size and it dies!

Having said all that I had a great time...and some great chats with Mike and with Alan. In fact, I’d love to get them to come to the College to explore the issues a bit more. Our missiologists and Biblical scholars would have a few things to share and a roundtable discussion giving some depth would be interesting...but then, we are probably as wrong as Alan was. In the end, revival or church growth is a God thing not a human thing. I do not think that you can do anything about making the conditions right for massive church growth – well you can – humble yourself, pray, seek the face of the Lord...anything on top of that is, in my understanding, simply doing things in your own strength.

Hmmm...and not one mention of Fight Club – thank God.

Mike ended with a session which I missed cause me and Alan went outside for a chat about some of this stuff (cruel git that I am pestering the poor bloke when he had just come off the platform...). I came back in to his promotion of an orgasmic lifestyle. This has caused some intense amusement at College. A few people, me included, really loved the imagery and the proposal. I believe emphatically that Jesus came to give us life in all its fullness. So, being told to celebrate life is great news. See the sermon I preached in Cambridge this Sunday for more on my views on this...But what Mike’s talk did not have was the emphasis on justice which I wanted hear. Drink the finest wine. Eat the finest food. We were told. But what of the poor, Mike? What of those who cannot afford to do that? What of Christian Aid’s slogan to live simply so that others might simply live. I noticed in Nehemiah 8 on Sunday that the people are told to go and eat and drink but to make sure that those who did not have anything prepared should share what you have. In other words, celebrate but with justice. Perhaps we might hear a bit more on the justice issues sometime, Mike?

So, a mixed day. Future church, the whole pattern of ecclesiology in the 21st Century is going to be an interesting issue. Having wrestled with where we go to church, having seen Robinson College’s idea of church, having shared in a small, but thriving Methodist Church worship, having explored community in so many ways recently, I am not so sure I have heard the answers yet. With everyone else, I keep on the journey of discovery. Please, Lord, let me travel with you on your path.

We are having our own conference at the College in early January...The Shapes of Future Church 2 (follow up to last year’s) – if you want some details...tell me...

Pete

p.s. Alan and Mike, the drinks are on me if we meet again...Jonny, you still owe me a pint!

The Weekend

An amazing weekend...too busy but great fun...

On Saturday I was with the good people of Sheffield Brunswick Methodist Circuit in a small Derbyshire town called Dronfield. It was a Local Preachers Training Day - I was asked to do some talks on 'The Historical Jesus'. I had a really interesting time with them. I kept finding my self going back to Breueggeman's suggestion that all the church is here for is to tell God's story...Jesus as the Revealer. So many of the pictures of Jesus that we ended up with by the end of the day were about Jesus as the bridge between different things - between us and God, between us and salvation, between whatever. Made me think...and sometime soon I need to get hold of Jimmy Dunn's 'Jesus Remembered' - but why is it so flipping expensive?

Of course, I made them think as well! The first part of the day was a trip back through the Jesus Quest and a discussion of what we mean by absolutes and certainty - of what Jesus must have looked like and indeed what Palestine must have looked like in his day. All of this unpeeling was a little uncomfortable for some people. A friend of our College Principal was there and they met up in the evening. When I saw Martyn at worship on Sunday, he said they had been talking about what I had said and had decided that the implications of what I said meant that Jesus never existed and so he was starting a heresy trial! Ha! At last! Much humour...I think!

On Sunday I travelled down to Cambridge to preach in Robinson College with Maggi Dawn. If you're really bored, here's the text of the sermon. It was great to meet Maggi in real life (IRL apparently!). She is a great person who has a fine mind and a good outlook on life. I hope to make some more excuses to come down to Cambridge to continue the conversation we started after the service...

The service...well, it was different. Robed choir and a row of robed fellows including one of Methodism's greatest New Testament scholars Morna Hooker - Lady Margaret Professor of New Testament. Scary fo her to be sat there listening to my ruminations on Nehemiah. But I did have fun! The choir sang beautiful, the hymns were sung with passion and the John Piper windows are amazing. No incense. No bells. No video projector. No choruses or drums. No multi-sensory experiences. Just good honeast worship. It was a breath of fresh air. I enjoyed my preach and raised a few grunts of approval!

Afterwards, coffee and a chat at Maggi's about epistolarity, Steve Chalke's heresy trial, salvation and just about everything else...it is so great to sit and talk and be...rejoice.

Back to the grindstone today. But I look back on a busy weekend and smile...I love teaching, I love preaching, I love meeting really interesting people. A recipe for celebrating life in all its fulness.

Pete

ALLELON

Seems like you still need an account even with the RSS Feed - as my daughter would say "How slack is that?" or "Go figure" or "That is just so random!" - you need to imagine a Derbyshire accent covered by a fake American Lizzy Macguire twang!!!

Pete

ALLELON Ministries - Syndicate The Site using RSS

ALLELON Ministries - Syndicate The Site using RSS

You can now get a feed from Allelon to give you all those lovely articles without going through the rather laborious membership and registration process...

Pete