A Curious Gospel
Speaking the Sacred in a Secular Time
How do you speak about the sacred in today's increasingly secular world? What words do you use to imagine the divine or the "something more" that people seem to yearn for? In what manner are oracles of grace unique from a world awash in self-help/development, the primacy of authentic self-expression, the rejection of authority such as tradition, and other communities of value (i.e., exercise groups, multi-level marketing plans, fraternal orders, support groups, sports fandoms)? The latter appears to be little more than a simulacrum of the purpose of the historical community called "the church."
Further, this world awash with other concepts of meaning and other communities of value is also one that is not unfamiliar with words and ideas of the gospel! Indeed, whether people have a good handle on Christian thought is not an issue. The real problem is that people (in general) assume they get Christianity because they are familiar with many of its ideas, phrases, and one or more presentations of its values. Suppose semantic satiation is the phenomenon where ordinary words lose meaning and become sound to a hearer of the words (because of repetition, for example). In that case, the Christian Gospel and its tradition have gone through a sort of cultural satiation. Words and phrases like the following forgiveness of sins, salvation, baptism, repentance, and the Kingdom of God have some familiarity within our broader society, so upon hearing them one may assume they already understand their meaning or block out all meaning because they become simply--sounds. Sort of like when I hear banal statements like, "I want more Jesus," frankly, I hear it so often, yet when I think about it, it means nothing to me...it becomes noise!
Let's put it more simply--our culture is familiar with Christian messages so much that it sometimes cannot hear them with fresh ears. This is why Søren Kierkegaard, the 19th-century Danish philosopher, writer, and Christian, used "indirect communication." Everyone in SK's society was Christian by birth (baptismal certificates were present as birth certificates), yet by looking at the morality of society or even at the philosophical writings of his contemporaries, SK asserted that his world was not thoroughly Christian at all. And if he wished to speak Christian metaphysics or ethics into the world through his authorship, he could not offer a straightforward explication of the great tradition. If he had, readers would think, "Been there done that," or at least they would provide a begrudging agreement of accepted orthodoxy. That is why he wrote indirectly; stylistically, this meant coming in the back door of the mind. SK used stories, parables, riddles, and jokes for his message's fresh hearing. If SK wanted you to take a position, he might argue against it for several hundred pages. His arguments might even enrage the reader so much that they not only adopt the position he intended, but they would do so with a sense of ardent vigor.
SK's legacy of communication is vital for our times and for those who speak the sacred in them. The scholar and preacher Fred Craddock picked up on his approach in another century. For Craddock, given the epistemology of modernity and late modern hermeneutics, the preacher could not assume authority for their message to be accepted. He, too, took the back door into the brain by telling stories, learning with the listener, and leaving the listener to draw conclusions or applications of the message. And in another theological voice, though decidedly not homiletical, are the theological reflections of John Milbank. Indeed, he wrote a series of essays called Word Made Strange. It is a challenging text to read, and it is meant to assert that historical orthodox teaching proposed today (given modern assumptions) would appear radical and sometimes strange. By oversimplification, Milbank's theological approach begins with contemporary/postmodern questions, retrieving answers and frameworks from the great tradition, showing how the Christian tradition is alive and can reframe one's view of the world. It is heavily contested, and his work is hardly a quick read. But for this reflection, I value his impulse to make the "word," the gospel, or divine oracles strange in our language through resistance to comforting theological language derived from familiarity and repetition. If "the word" is to be declared to a cultural milieu that thinks it is old and unnecessary, its presentation requires its original strangeness, and to experience that initial strangeness, it needs to state it in ways that are curious, unique, and unfamiliar to today's ears.
Milbank chooses theology and metaphysics to do this. Craddock used stories and the stance of a fellow traveler in presenting the message. SK used indirect methods that included stories but went much further and much stranger as he often wrote in symbolic pseudonyms and utilized irony and sarcasm at an expert level. I know this is a mouthful. And each one of these thinkers should be explored in great detail. But their spirit represented here is helpful for my weekly reflections. When I must stand before a group with a message of meaning, I must ask:
-How am I getting into this message from a place of commonality, and how do I separate so as it makes the content as strange to us as it was to its original audience?
-Am I using stories to teach challenging metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics?
-How can I take the back door so the message can be heard differently?
-What real questions can I learn as I present this information--can I learn with the audience?
-Is my point of view old and well-tread? Should I read more widely so that other points of view can illuminate what has become expected?