Enuma Okoro’s memoir can be read as the story of a woman haunted by her baptism. She admits her struggles to like church and the people in church, but maintains an unswerving conviction that she is part of distinct and storied community whether she likes it or not! And it hasn’t been easy. She candidly recounts great losses in her life and the ‘dark night of the soul’ interspersed throughout. But a quiet and confident hope emerges as her life becomes enmeshed in the rhythms and practices of the church.

Born in Queens, raised in Nigeria and Ivory Coast, schooled in England, and ending up in Durham, North Carolina (with many stops in between), Okoro is never completely at home. In many ways, I think this trajectory is what gives Okoro sharp ecclesiological insight. Her ‘pilgrim status’ seems to latch on to certain grooves of our Christian identity; namely, the fact that our baptisms unite us as a people to a Kingdom that never allows us to completely ’fit in’. This part of her story inevitably resonates with me. I wonder if that’s something peculiar about us, us people born “in between” cultures. In the landscape of modernity we were born on the underside, strangers, who found something terrifyingly attractive about the community that Jesus called into pentecost and catholicity.

But the church often falls short, horribly short, of its calling. Okoro sees that and is not afraid to put it on display. We often fall short of of our calling. But that never fully erases the gifts of grace that mark us. We can reject them or we can live into them (as Okoro recalls in a fateful classroom experience).

Okoro’s story has something to teach all of us wannabe-pilgrims. We can only hope that our baptisms haunt us. We can only pray that they catch up to us.

This film reminds me of something that Alasdair MacIntyre once wrote (in many ways, the film can be seen as a parable validating his diagnosis/prescription):

“A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead…was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our moral condition is correct, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. . . . This time, however, the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another — doubtless quite different — St. Benedict.”

Here’s a trailer for the movie:

As Peter Leithart has remarked, “The first and chief defense of the gospel, the first ‘letter of commendation’ not only for Paul but for Jesus, is not an argument but the life of the church conformed to Christ by the Spirit in service and suffering”. The Church doesn’t have an apologetic; it is an apologetic. 

-p. 29

I think Lupe Fiasco’s “Words I never said” (including the music video) is wonderfully provocative. Even the harshest critics of his new album Lasers, tend to agree. It’s ripe for analysis along many lines, but here I’d simply like to make a few comments.

This song strongly resists many silence(s) that exist in the mainstream hip-hop industry. As a “conscious” rapper who has made it mainstream (for better or worse), Lupe is very familiar with the Market’s power to manipulate and induce silence. Silence on injustice. Silence on faith. Even more specifically, silence on the political realities of a post-9/11 America. Silence on torture. And for Lupe, who is a Muslim American, all this silence clearly hits close to home.

In the video, the atmosphere is a haunting one. Very Big Brother/1984ish. A dreadful presence of surveillance is embodied by guards who capture dissenters and brainwash, interrogate, and torture?(overtones of it for sure) them. Interestingly enough, one of the victims captured is identified as a “spiritual leader abducted at her rally”. In a later scene, she appears in a dark room with some sort of contraption strapped to her face that forces her to watch replaying “consumerist” images of medication, suburban life, and french fries! 

When watching this music video, I couldn’t resist seeing how it resembled some of the things said in Smith’s chapter on Foucault. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault talks about the “stricter methods of surveillance” in 19th/20th century societies of “discipline”. The goal of a “disciplinary society” is to produce certain kinds of individuals through mechanisms of power (which are often covert). Smith cashes this out in Desiring the Kingdom, where he talks about secular liturgies. These liturgies appear to be non-religious on the surface level (e.g. the mall, patriotism), but they actually try to inscribe particular visions of the “good life” through practices that shape our affections and produce habits within us. 

Quick Confession: I’ve been strongly influenced by this movement. It was one of the biggest reasons I got into theology in the first place. But over the last few years, my relationship to it has drastically changed.

I guess my first response is: it’s about time somebody decided to cover this! For the past 5,6 years I’ve been looking on at this development, frustrated by the fact that whenever I brought it up to many Evangelicals-they had no idea what I was talking about. I think it’s interesting to notice how much ink has been spilled covering the Emergent movement in comparison to something like this (young urban entrepreneurs coming out of places like Philly and St. Louis who have started record labels and ministries in addition to making music!), which has hardly received any “mainstream” coverage”. But that’s another issue.

I think this development is an important one that should be on the radar for all Christians. For one, it probably represents one of the most substantial Christian engagements/uses of this genre (Sorry, Toby Mac doesn’t count. And if you know of any underground rappers who are Christian/heavily influenced by the Christian tradition, please let me know. I’m desperately searching).

No doubt, there are many positive things arising from this movement. Nevertheless, I’ve become increasingly concerned with its theological trajectory. Although it’s very different from most CCM out there, it has still boxed itself into the CCM sub-culture. Additionally, it pushes a very Macho Christianity a la Mark Driscoll (which plays out in interesting ways for young men of color). But more importantly, these talented rappers seem to be indigenous apologists for a brand of Christianity that looks very, hmm..how else can I put it, very White and European. In their music, tons of references to the Puritans and Reformed theologians can be found, but hardly any references to non-White, non-European/American sources. This is a direct reflection of the theology they are inheriting. The fact that it is presented under the guise of “ethnic music” simply makes it more dangerous.

I’ve often wondered why the Christian tradition’s engagement with hip-hop/rap has been so poor, especially in comparison to the Islamic tradition (which can easily lay claim to some of the most imaginative and critical rappers underground, and even in the industry). Inevitably, this has lead me to think about Christianity’s social imagination, race, and this particular movement as a case study. 

The Church needs a Talib Kweli.

]]> http://ecclesiasticalgraffiti.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/reformed-raphip-hop/feed/ 4 dcamacho91 Lecrae in concert pic http://ecclesiasticalgraffiti.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/is-sola-scriptura-possible/ http://ecclesiasticalgraffiti.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/is-sola-scriptura-possible/#comments Wed, 06 Jul 2011 20:26:30 +0000 Daniel Camacho http://ecclesiasticalgraffiti.wordpress.com/?p=356 ]]> Scot McKnight recently wrote a post about Prima Scriptura that has made me reflect about issues surrounding Sola Scriptura (as it is defined by some Protestants: The belief that Scripture is the final and only infallible authority for the Christian in all matters of faith and practice. While there are other authorities, they are always fallible and they must always be tested by and submit to the Scriptures.)

I’ve come to see Sola Scriptura as being something very close to heresy (I’m following Hauerwas on this). Despite of how it’s usually defined, it has often functioned as a great catalyst for rampant individualism and “chronological snobbery”. It has often separated Scripture from the life of the Church and convinced us that we can properly interpret the Bible without needing access to and formation from the community that the Holy Spirit has shaped (the same community that gave us the canon!). This is not to say that Sola Scriptura played no positive role in response to some of the corruptions in the Catholic Church. But it’s certainly not the antidote that American Evangelicals need today. Here, I’m simply joining a growing number of Protestants who are starting to realize that this principle may have gone too far and erred on the other end. But whether or not Sola Scriptura is a desirable principle/method is not the main point I want to address in this post.

One of the great ironies of Sola Scriptura is that it is based on the authority of the Protestant Reformers and their interpretive legacy (i.e. Tradition). This makes me wonder whether any such thing as Sola Scriptura is actually possible on the ground.

Appeals to Sola Scriptura often seem to harbor certain anthropological/hermeneutical assumptions that are very questionable. Namely, the notion that we (as humans) are capable of having an immediacy with the text, one in which we can approach Scripture ‘straight-up’ without any presuppositional baggage. In other words, we can stand outside “Tradition” and judge it while standing on a supposedly pure reading of Scripture.

But many “Sola Scriptura” readings of Scripture seem to fall short of what they set out to do. More often than not, de facto authority is given to something, whether it’s the Puritans, the historical-critical method, or a political party.

Scripture may be infallible (and I believe it is), but our interpretations of it certainly are not. We do not have a God’s-eye-view of anything, even the Bible. Our interpretations are always marked by finitude and falleness. Consequently, we need illumination from the Holy Spirit and the “communion of the saints” to help us interpret the Bible.

Merold Westphal, drawing upon the philosophical hermeneutics of Gadamer, has done a great job showing that our interpretations always consist of an interplay between Scripture and Tradition. Our hermeneutic situation (which includes the way in which the Church’s Traditions[s] have shaped us) always informs our reading of Scripture. But in return, our reading of Scripture also always impacts and changes our hermeneutic situation.

Scripture should still be our primary authority, but we must recognize that it is always mediated to us through Tradition (this is a lot closer to something like Prima Scriptura). 

Perhaps what we should be asking is not whether Sola Scriptura, as it is often construed, is right or desirable. But rather, given our hermeneutic reality/human nature etc., is it even possible?

Your thoughts?

In the Intro, Smith recounts an old strategy that he is employing as a Christian philosopher engaging postmodernism:

Something good can come out of Paris. In this way, I’m simply replaying a Hebrew strategy, later adopted by Augustine and utilized by the likes of John Calvin and Abraham Kuyper: making off with Egyptian loot. As Augustine put it in his Teaching Christianity (De doctrina christiana), just as the Hebrews left Egypt with Egyptian gold to be put to use in the worship of Yahweh (even if they misdirected its use at times), so Christians can find resources in non-Christian thought—whether that of Plato or of Derrida—that can be put to work for the glory of God and the furtherance of the kingdom.

I think this is a helpful metaphor for Christians who are hesitant to engage non-Christian thought (often because it appears hostile to the Christian faith). 

“They live in their own countries, but only as nonresidents; they participate in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign country is their fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign.”

St. Augustine, Epistle to Diognetus 

Hat tip: Desiring the Kingdom. 

Back in the day, I remember hearing things about Postmodernism. They were not-so-nice things. About how it undermined absolute truth and promoted relativism. About how it originated with Satan in the Garden of Eden. I became convinced that Postmodernism was completely antithetical to the Christian faith. I also became suspicious of all Christians who appeared to encourage any degree of syncretism with it. This was part of a much larger battle that was taking place in American Evangelicalism. Postmodernism had become a dividing issue between two, specific camps of Christians: Emergent (with leaders such as Rob Bell, Brian McLaren) vs. New Calvinists (with leaders such as John Piper, D.A. Carson). 

As someone who has come to feel somewhat alienated from both the Emergent and New Calvinist camps, I really have no stake in how postmodernism plays itself out in some “battle” between both groups. I’ve come to see that Postmodernism should be taken neither as a Savior nor as a Trojan horse for the Church. Like any philosophical development, it needs to be critically engaged by Christians. But critical engagement must be actual engagement. Christian leaders should not paint nasty caricatures for laypeople that cause them to react mostly out of fear. St. Augustine has helped me a lot on this. While reading his Confessions in a philosophy class last year, I was struck by how Augustine wrestled with Neo-Platonism throughout his life. 

With all that said, I think Smith’s book is a solid, Christian engagement with postmodern philosophy at a level that is accessible to non-specialists. It is especially relevant for theology students. The direction he takes Postmodernism is not one that will please all Christians. But it will certainly surprise many. For Smith, postmodernism provides opportunities for the Church to recover its dogma, tradition, and liturgy; it provides opportunities for the Church to be Radically Orthodox. 

Through a series of short posts, I hope to explore some of the points made in the book, provide commentary, and perhaps take some detours inspired by issues raised.