Lecture last night from Roger Lundin of Wheaton College on "Nimble Belief - Modern Literature and the Conflict of Interpretations". Won't archive all the lecture - because this has become the regular topic in his lectures over the last 18 months leading us to believe it will find publication in one form or another. No link yet.. So simple thoughts and targets for my future thinking.
Go to Baktihn - and Dostoyevsky for a model of Poliphony - rather than monologic belief. These expressions of post cartesian thought are powerful...
The opposition of Monologic thought and relativism is one of the more unfortunate dualistic oppositions currently being expressed. There is a third way.
A remaining issue in a poliphonic environment is authority. But if God created an environment in which his creations had the power to twart his intentions - doesn't that give us less willingness to seek final authority? The conflict of interpretations over six words: Jesus statement "take, eat - for this is my body" has led to blows for centuries. In my thinking - the focus of the gospel is redemption - not authority. When approached from that angle - the interpretive issues are very different.
The focus of Lundin's project is pastoral - it seeks to give aid to the doubters - and state that in poliphony - such doubt must always be reckoned with - it really does exist as a viable voice and it must not be summarily dismissed as a false statement. I connected this pastoral project with Andy Crouch's recent excellent editorial in CT (Christian Esperanto) where he expresses concern that generations raised in the monologic expression of christian faith do not have the resources to interact in meaningful dialogue with the world around them. These two pastoral projects are bookends - one is a challenge, and one a safety net.
Oh yes - go back and read the brothers Karamatzov
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