I usually consider if I get to read one very good book a month ('good' = anything I'd rate more than 4-stars in my Amazon reviews). But these past 2-3 weeks I've had four excellent reading experiences (much needed, given the slight career-related whirlwind in my life right now). Here's two of them:
1. Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross (ed. Mark Baker)
The sequel (of sorts) to Rediscovering the Scandal of the Cross, this book offers contemporary metaphors, stories and ideas on how to understand what Jesus did on Calvary. There's a beach parable, there's an across-the-table conversations in coffee-shops (understanding the Cross as a napkin soaking up spilled coffee - wow), there's a prophetic action-oriented ideas (this one was from none other than Brian McLaren), there's a shame-removal story, there's even a short poem using surgical imagery.
Our churches today so badly need to hear these stories, IMO. We're still 'stuck' in the penal-sub model which, for all its explanatory power and (supposedly) Biblical anchoring, leaves at least me dry. There's just so much more to learn about Christ's most important single work and there's so a great need to communicate this in a way which easily and powerful resonates with today's generation.
2. What Would Jesus Deconstruct? The Good News of Post-Modernity for the Church (John Caputo)
My pomo hero. This book pulls together almost everything Caputo's written on deconstruction related to Christianity. I loved it especially after having ploughed through Caputo's Prayers & Tears of Jacques Derrida and his More Radical Hermeneutics, and aching for more clarity.
Caputo writes like his mentor and model, Derrida. Full of -isms, weird sentences, twists and turns, aphorisms, puns, etc. WWJD follows suit but in much less intensive manner. And, yes, even a newbie to postmodernism would enjoy the book, if one gives it a fair presentation.
Caputo puts forth deconstruction at the method/approach of the hermeneutics of the kingdom of God, a tool of God's theo-poetic reign. This is a way of treating the interpretation of Scripture as a fresh/new kind of 'poetry', where language takes on a life of its own and resists our rigid categories, presuppositions and the overall human desire to draw absolute conclusions. Deconstruction is God's way of hermeneutically breaking-in into our world and its prejudices, fossilisation and comfort zones. This shakes the faith, laughs at our certainties and mocks our pride - and in so doing seeks to return faith back to faith.
Caputo then takes nice humourous shots at the Bush administration and many not-so-nice ones at the 'Christian Right' of USA. He then gives his take on abortion, homosexuality, poverty and some other politically hot (American)issues. The central thrust of Caputo's form of deconstruction (which is a much more fun and vibrant kind, much more than, say, the deconstruction of Mark C. Taylor whose works usually stem from the 'death of God') is the event, the advent, of the Other. The Other is the voices we want to silence, the powerless we want to keep in their place, the cries we ignore, the (always emerging) future horizon of possibilites. It's almost like the heavenly utopia of perfect justice and forgiveness we will never attain but which keeps us striving.
The book is a good introduction to deconstruction (if one is unfamiliar with the term used in a Christian context) and an essential part of an on-going conversation which (curious, interested, hooked) readers would do well to continue in their own faith-communities.
And there you have it. Two scandalous books to give you a mind-trip and tick off the 'Christian Right' (except Caputo makes sure the Christian Left doesn't quite get off the hook either, *grin*).
Posted at 12:24 am by alwynlau
