Liveblogging: Question and Answers


My liveblog of the Question and Answer session of the conference

Question: Define Postmodern, since there are so many ways people use that term.

Veith: Postmodern could really mean two things. The first is just an era - we are living in times after the modern era so these are postmodern times. The other meaning is the ideas talked about earlier - i.e. that Truth, Beauty and Morality are all constructions.

R.C.: People always ask that question regarding Postmodernism, because in postmodernism language is so fluid you can almost use them to mean anything. So there are so many ways to unpack that term. It is almost too modernist to describe postmodernism as an epistemology. On of the things that Ken Myers talks about in All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes is that postmodernism is more described by moods.

Myers: There is a sense in terms of the sociology of this which gets to that sensibility of mood. What we describe as postmodern in some ways is actually hyper-modern. It is the intensification and universalization of various features of the modern. For instance, in the modern view, the focus on the self makes the individual almost sovereign - looking for truth out there. Whereas, the postmoderns take that even further and that individual is so sovereign he's not looking for truth out there, but creating truth in here.

R.C.: Some have even called postmodernism the illegitimate child of modernism.

Myers: There is a book called Liquid Life. It used to be a virtue to be a solid guy, to be dependable. But now it is actually a vice to be solid, and fluidity is seen as a virtue. In part, this is a result of the changes in society - things change so much more rapidly in our society. This makes relativism ring truer to people in our times.


Question: Since Wendell Berry emphasizes both love of nature and community, would he have joined the Nazi party if he had been in Germany in the 30's?

Veith: There is a Christian way of approaching and loving nature and building community, and there is the fascist version. They are not the same and Berry has often struck the right balance of approaching these things from a Christian point of view. At the same time, we do need to be careful that we don't slip into the fascist tendencies present in our culture. When people strive to set up a Christian nation, we can be tempted to turn to fascism to make people Christians. The way that Berry stresses local community would be antithetical to the large state socialism that the Nazis supported.

Myers: A lot of the struggles in culture are the struggle between people who are overemphasizing the unity and others who are overemphasizing diversity. The trinity is the ultimate example of these two things in balance.

Veith: This is like what we talked about in art - unity and diversity. This is why Christian art has this as its aesthetic.

Myers: Berry does a good job of loving nature without getting into any pagan worship. Someone once said "he's shoveled too much manure to think we ought to worship it."


Question: Should Christians be concerned about environmental issues and should Christians be concerned about community?

Myers: It all goes back to how we understand our identity as humans . If we understand that our humanity includes community, rather than something that was tacked on, we understand that this is part of what Christ has redeemed. We were created to find our blessedness not just internally, but in community and in relation to each other.

Veith: Chesterton said that nature is not our mother, she is out sister. Christians love nature not because it is divine, but because it was made by the Divine. For instance, if God created a species, then it was His will that it should exist. This is a good reason for supporting an endangered species, as opposed to any worship of that species.

R.C.: From the leftist angle, it is the job of the state to protect the environment. The libertarians believe that the government shouldn't be in that job, and therefore it doesn't matter. We defy both in saying that nature does not get its value nor belong to the state - it belongs to God.


Question: What traditions should be passed down, since we and our forefathers are products of their culture as well? And are you sure that popular culture didn't exist before the 1940's?

Myers: A lot of people use the term popular culture differently, so in some definitions it could have existed. But if you look at the argument in his book, he is talking about the dominance of mass media in our lives and its cultural implications. Mass media simply did not have the strong sway and compelling sovereignty that it has in modern American life. When Anna Nicole Smith died, it was constantly on CNN all day long. 50 years ago, would someone of her level of accomplishment had anywhere near that amount of attention?

On the first question, in some ways we are very much neo-conservatives. We have somewhat been cut off from the living tradition, and in some ways we are making our own traditions. The question is, can you actually graft yourself into a tradition? He doesn't think that we are stuck with the "fromlessness" that we have been given, but that it will require a good historical perspective if we are to determine the correct traditions to pass on to our children.


Question: Dr. Veith, you stressed evangelizing postmoderns based on mystery. Should we throw out reason then in reaching out to them?

Veith: There are some church growth manuals that say you should downplay your doctrines to reach out - but it ends up with who is evangelizing whom? We cannot leave the postmodernist as a postmodernist, we need to bring them into faith and into Christianity. But if they are already interested in mystery, then that is a better place to start than to throw them a bunch of propositions which they will see as inauthentic and hyper-rational. We are not to make up mysteries, but to reach out and make known our doctrines, rather than hide the "weird" stuff. Most people already think that Christianity is a set of moral codes or about a set of principles. If we approach them with authentic faith that tells the story of God made man, they will actually respond with interest.

R.C.: Our objection (Reformed people) to postmodernism is not so much that we don't like its attacks on Christianity, its that we really don't like its attacks on modernism. We don't forego celebrating Christmas because we are so concerned about keeping the incarnation pure, but because Santa Claus is superstitious. In this regard, postmodernism has shown us our own faults and our own love of modernity.

Recovering a biblical approach means in some ways being open to this postmodernist criticism. We don't negotiate truth, but at the same time, we do believe in a book of stories, not a book of propositions.


Question: As we move from a modern to a postmodern culture, it appears the seeker church has limited itself by its marketing style. Is the emergent church doing the same?

Myers: The emergent church has a lot of good things, but in some ways it has only moved the church from the shopping mall to the Starbucks. In many ways, its still stuck in a commodity and is based on fashion. Emergents are very interested in history, but yet they seem to be unable to realize the church emerged 2000 years ago.


Question: What advice would you give a Christian novelist who wants to write well?

Veith: What a lot of Christian artists try to do is to see whats going on in the current scene and then emulate that, but make it Christian. We really need to be original and find our own voice. Look and learn from other great Christian novelists - Doystoyevsky, Flannery O'Connor (I would add Tolkein, as I'm reading him now, and he's phenomenal - Brant). A Christian novel will emerge naturally from your own vision, it doesn't mean you have to stick a conversion scene in the novel.

Myers: Flannery O'Connor is a good one to read because she also had some essays about writing and was very careful about not letting the message overwhelm the story. You don't find a message and then look for a story to fit it, but in many ways the story is the message.

R.C.: Sit down and read G.K. Chesterton until you can't wait to start writing yourself. You need to be in contact with the beauty of the language and appreciate it before you can use it well.


Question: What about video games and educational software, etc?

R.C.: I think if you read Amusing Ourselves to Death and think about the level of imagery in both of those concepts, you'll have the answer that you already know.

Myers: There is a kind of hopeful gimmickry about using software and stuff in education. For instance, a while back, we spent millions of dollars on closed circuit TV because it was going to turn us all into renaissance men. Video games and computer based learning has a similar silver bullet problem in that people think it will solve a ton of problems that it will never be able to solve.

Veith: I'd recommend Teaching is a conserving activity, by Postman. He explains why reading is unsurpassed in learning, as opposed to simply images. I'm not ready to dismiss them completely, but reading will always be a part of a good education.

R.C.: The Bible says that we teach our children when we lie down and when we rise up. That is the model that we follow, and if your kid is playing video games, you aren't teaching them. That, more than Postman, is our concern.

Myers: The Bible says faith comes through hearing, and we can't rule out the power of speaking in teaching. There is something powerful in the spoken word.

Posted: Sat - May 5, 2007 at 03:00 PM | | | | | | |

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