Over at Giraffepen we have been discussing the place of offensive (I don't mean swearing!) and aggressive language in Christian debates.
This is something that has concerned me for a while: I recognise my own love of a fight and try not to indulge in it (not being a particularly good arguer helps!) and also the apologetic disaster such speaking is. In Australia, some of our politicians are quite brutal and colourful in their speech on the floor of parliament almost by convention. However, these men are those who have most spectacularly crashed and burned: Paul Keating and Mark Latham spring to mind. They were popular, but also deeply unpopular. I guess they could say Jesus was too...
It concerns me that Christians will speak in a rude and offensive manner and then claim to be martyrs when people respond in kind - when in reality, they have just brought in on their own heads by being rude. That is not to say of course that flattery or obsequious speech is any better - this if anything is a more English vice!
46 comments:
Michael, I don't know where to respond to you now! I might even start this discussion on my blog as well to confuse things even further ;-)
It concerns me that Christians will speak in a rude and offensive manner and then claim to be martyrs when people respond in kind - when in reality, they have just brought in on their own heads by being rude.
This I mostly agree with too. In fact, I am finding it harder and harder to see where our position differs, at the level of principle.
Ah, it is a great debating tactic: hold the debate in TWO different places!
Well, I hope we don't differ too much in principle, but if we do I'd like to know where. I remember you saying something about a hermeneutics of suspicion once: I think on the whole reading with charity, parity and clarity is imperative before a putting of the boot in. This was in reference to NT Wright in particular. BTW, were you aware that NTW has read what is on the SydAng forums?
Yes, I think our starting point for discussion ought to be that we trust that the other person means what they say, until we are confronted with evidence of either their confusion or duplicity. Together with being prepared to admit our propensity for the same, and apologize when it is pointed out to us.
I am not surprised that NT Wright has read Syd Ang forums. If I were a complex prolix obfuscator, I would have an interest in collecting opinions about what I'd said from those who thought I was being complex, prolix or obfuscatory.
But then, I suspect you didn't want me to say that.
Oh and hey, can you turn off word verification? My typing skills are already great.
Just saying he is complex etc is obscurantist, though...it actually doesn't deal with the issue. And, as a debating tactic it backfires, because for intelligent young men that I know of it just makes him more appealing.
If I turn off Word V, won't I get bombarded with adds for viagra?
I would add this too: the use of hyperbole in preaching has in my experience caused all sorts of problems. Preachers are prone to hyperbole: nothing wrong with it per se. But it can so easily become completely deceptive and dishonest. And audiences have a tendency to take one literally unless you give them cues that you are using hyperbole. I don't think we ought to resort to hyperbole expect with extreme caution, and with a view to our honesty...
Hmm, yes, possibly. Craig S will be able to tell you if that happens. I don't think it does.
NT Wright is another discussion. I would just as soon not pay attention to him as I personally find him a wearisome distraction. But I do think it is a fault in a Christian teacher if they are consistently unable to make their meaning clear even to professionals in the same field whose likely IQ is 145+ (and no, I certainly don't mean me).
So it is not as good as a point by point critique of his arguments, I'll grant that; and I hope the Lig Duncans or Mark Whatsits of the world will keep working on that. But clarity of communication to simple people is one not illegitimate test to apply to a message, especially when that message is the gospel.
I don't think we ought to resort to hyperbole expect with extreme caution, and with a view to our honesty...
Again, we agree!
I may just have a more rash and out of control personality than yours. That is neither boast nor justification, really, and will mean that I end up apologizing for things I say quite a lot more than you would. However, the answer surely doesn't lie in pulling either of our personalities in the direction of Jewel's 'leaden mediocrity'.
People who shoot their mouths off need to be quick to offer apology when convicted of their wrongdoing—and yes, I do mean me. People who shoot their mouths of also tend to make better bloggers for the Daily Tele, for better or for worse.
True. The academy has different rules. But, careful now: my teacher Oliver O is one tough writer. His gift is not simplicity of popular expression... But I would say he is a great gift to the churches because he thinks so hard about really really difficult questions and gives very good answers to them that are hard to understand sometimes.
{you know, if you collected some of these comments together, you could have a neat dialogue style Briefing article...on an issue of some interest, I think.}
So why is Oliver Obfuscatory?
[Maybe he is a 'doctor' in Calvin's classification. ('Elder' = 'doctor' or 'pastor')]
He is probably a tongues speaker who needs an interpreter.
If he doesn't have an interpreter, he will need to sit quietly.
Besides which, I think he means to be clear. Some Complex Prolix Obfuscators appear to want to be seen to be clear, if you take my meaning.
Nope. You lost me. Oliver is just hard to read because his ideas are big.
Perhaps it is because you claim to have evidence of the motives of the chief CPO. Are peering through that window into men's souls again?
Just a guess.
"Let there be light" is a big idea. But it is not hard to understand.
Paul of course wrote letters that were hard to understand. Even Peter says so.
Did he mean to be obscure? If so, he should have repented.
why is obscurity the crime of the century anyhow?
Like you've never been obscure!
You miss my point Grasshopper! When you can snatch it from my hand, it will be time for you to leave.
The intention to be obscure is what I'm talking about. It is Satanic in origin. If I'm obscure because I can't talk real good, then I need to learn to talk better. If I'm obscure because of Satan, then something more ontologically skew-iff has got to be fixed. New creation is necessary.
Jesus means his parables to be obscure. At least for some.
You are mistaking clarity for simplicity.
Satan may be a liar, but obscure? where does it say that?
And: you have no proof of NTW being deliberately obscure, only a hunch.
If Paul was unintentionally obscure, then you seem to chipping away at the doctrine of scripture quite a bit. Perhaps you could allow that other errors have slipped in too.
If PAul was intentionally 'hard to understand' [and I think this is too simplistic a way to put it: he had big and subtle ideas that took a lot of thinking to get right] then your argument is shown to be hollow.
Possibly! You will have to tell me what the difference is.
But if I've followed you correctly, then I think that everything Jesus says is clear, and intended to be clear, for those who are his sheep. (Even if it is not simple).
Likewise it is obscure for those who are not his, but the fault is in the hearer.
Olly O'Ds ideas, as far as I understand them (and I interpret him through people like Mike Hill and Christopher Ash, as well as Tony Payne), are clear enough, even though not simply expressed.
NT Wright's ideas, as far as I understand them, are not clear, although he doesn't do a bad job at expressing them simply, which is confusing.
However if I've misunderstood your clear/simple distinction, ignore what I just posted and correct me.
Oops! Cross posting here.
Paul's argument is only fundamentally obscure if someone is, in the words of 2 Pet 3:16, an ignorant and unstable hearer.
And: you have no proof of NTW being deliberately obscure, only a hunch.
I don't know if the deliberateness is in NTW or in Satan, who is the 'father of lies' and will therefore be using obscurity as one of his weapons. NTW may turn out to be a dopey fellow with a big vocabulary.
Paul is still hard to understand, which I take to be a cognitive description rather than a spiritual one.
I am happy with your description of clarity vs simplicity: but then, clarity is a spiritual notion. I don't think i have fully understood Jesus yet, or at least every time I read his words I discover more. And it is hard intellectual and spiritual work. Yes, clear in that sense. Not simple.
If I turn off Word V, won't I get bombarded with adds for viagra?
No. I haven't had it for ages, and I hardly ever get spam.
No. I haven't had it for ages
Word V I meant, not viagra...
hah - you beat me to the punch!
Hi guys, I was following this thread on the Giraffe Pen blog - is there a reason why it was moved here?
No reason. Sorry.
Actually, I think the conversation was more on track on the other thread. What it is really about is Gordon defending his love of ginger language.
I seem to have missed something here. Can someone explain how on earth NTW comes to be seen as "obfuscatory" and/or "obscure"? I'm simply baffled that anyone would find his writings such. I think I can safely say that every single person I've spoken to about his work - sympathisers or otherwise - have agreed that he writes in a lively and lucid way, and in fact that he has a gift for communicating rather complex material.
But then I suppose this in itself is reason for alarm if you are convinced from the outset that he is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
This kind of "heads you lose, tails I win" logic makes my heart sink. I can see why it makes people either bail out of the debate entirely (since they see it is irredemably compromised) or forces them to want to sabotage the discussion (since it needs to have a bomb put under it).
Now, perhaps there are some lines of thinking that need this kind of treatment. But NT Wright??!? Are we being serious? I can't see how he is trying to do anything other than faithful Christian scholarship. That doesn't mean he's right about everything. Not at all. But surely a hermeneutic of charity applies?
Well I think so. I think Gordon is convinced he is a wolf in shepherd's clothing, rather!
And yes, I think it is terrible too. It gives you no credibility when you actually want to critique him.
But what's motivating the "suspicion", i.e. the thought that there is deceit involved and not just mistaken beliefs?
Perhaps it is not a claim about motivation after all("he wants to undermine the church and/or orthodox belief") but a claim about consequences ("his theology will undermine the church and/or orthodox belief").
But, if so - and presuming for a moment that this analysis of his theology is correct - then surely NTW would be concerned about this, since if he is not being deceitful then he too is concerned about the church and orthodox belief. And then we have both the grounds and the motivation to enter into dialogue - i.e. since we all want the same thing.
I wonder whether the dismissal of NTW actual needs the "suspicion" in order to avoid the hard work of dealing with the points of disagreement.
(Obviously there has also been genuine and robust critique of NTW from some quarters, including Sydney. Not everyone avoids the real disagreements by trading on suspicion. Let's see more of this!)
I wonder whether the dismissal of NTW actual needs the "suspicion" in order to avoid the hard work of dealing with the points of disagreement.
It is true that the detail of NTW needs to be dealt with point by point. There's quite a lot of it too. It is also true that there are others better equipped to do this in the public domain, who have been doing it. I don't really want to get sidetracked onto this debate, which whilst important, is not what Mike called me here about.
Thanks Gordon. Bbut the question I want to press is: are you genuinely suspicious of NTW in the way I defined it, or not? Would you agree that he is actually genuine in his pursuit of biblical Christian faith and his concern for the church?
I think I can safely say that every single person I've spoken to about his work - sympathisers or otherwise - have agreed that he writes in a lively and lucid way
See our discussion above on clarity vs simplicity. So when NTW claims to be speaking as a Lutheran and a Calvinist (as he did at a Rutherford house lecture in 2003), it is a sparkling piece of communication that arrests the attention and stakes out a certain theological ground as that which he occupies—until you realize that he doesn't. Perhaps there's an irony that was present in his tone of voice that doesn't come across in the notes. But it is one of too many examples of what seems to be a simple statement which, on closer examination in context, is not clear at all. It also has to be compared with NTW's many other words about Luther and Calvin, thus making the task of deciphering clarity that much more of a challenge.
But there is an NT Wright thread languishing somewhere in the Sydney Anglicans forum, and this particular discussion is probably best left for there.
PS Yes, let's keep the original discussion going over at Giraffepen, rather than expanding this one.
Oh, and Matheson, without meaning to be evasive, I'd rather not get into NTW much further. I'd be repeating stuff I'd said over at the Sydney Anglicans forum; a discussion in which I acknowledged that I needed to go and do lots of reading—a project that then got put on indefinite hold for reasons not entirely to do with me.
Paul's argument is only fundamentally obscure if someone is, in the words of 2 Pet 3:16, an ignorant and unstable hearer.
I don't think so. 2 Peter says There are some things in them that are hard to understand. This is already true, and I take it was the author's own experience of reading Paul, even if he goes on to warn of what the ignorant and unstable do with this difficulty.
By 'fundamentally obscure' I mean totally opaque, even when explained by someone like Pete the Fisherman. Otherwise I would of just said 'obscure'. Sorry to be obscure.
Actually I consider Roman Catholic soteriology to be fundamentally obscure. I thought it was just Rob Doyle's fault for explaining it badly, so I blamed him. Then after a while I blamed myself for being a dumbhead. Then Ashley Null explained it last year, and I was on the verge of blaming him when I thought, hang on, maybe the problem lies somewhere else.
So I checked the Roman Catholic catechism in some detail, couldn't understand it either, and now I blame them.
Whenever I read NT Wright, I'm reminded of my experiences reading the Vatican website.
Well you have undermined your own case by admitting that you haven't done enough thinking/reading here. So I don't think you can really sustain the charge you are making.
I haven't done enough reading to keep pursuing a detailed critique of NT Wright publicly, I acknowledge that. But to paraphrase Irenaeus on the gnostics, it's not necessary to drink the whole ocean to know that the sea is salt.
Well that's a nice proverb, but you are flying blind on mere prejudice!
Fascinating discussion. Gordon it seems to me that so long as your goal is to 'pursue a detailed critique of X (this could be any teacher)' rather than to engage thoughtfully and generously with X then you will not be able to say anything substantially meaningful, either for or against, since your end is predetermined (to critique) rather than remaining open to the possibility that X might just critique you.
Of course i'm taking your use of the word 'critique' to mean 'prove wrong' rather than 'weigh up thoughtfully, reserving judgement'... my apologies if the latter was what you had in mind.
Well, everyone just hang on a minute. Can we really expect preachers to limit their damning pontifications (i.e. "critiques") to topics they know something about!?
If this were the rule, who would be left to teach us how wrong-headed postmodern theory is? Who would be able to tell us that the charismatic movement is a sham? Who would be left who had the authority to warn us that all modern theology is dangerous and unbiblical? And yet we know that all of these propositions are true and that our congregations urgently need to hear it.
All this humility and intellectual honesty stuff just seems like it will get in the way of business. Won't it?
Ah you guys. You're just beating up on the fat kid with glasses now. I'm outta here.
Well Matheson WAS a just a little sarcastic, granted: but aren't these fair questions to ask? I have seen you stand up to far worse on Ship of Fools!
AND I don't think you are fat.
Sorry - yes, I went a little too far in the last comment! An example of rhetoric detracting from the point being made? making the interlocutor less likely to hear it? ...
Post a Comment