Tuesday, June 15, 2004
(12:06 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Christianity as a Success
A clarion call: To the practices! To the liturgies! To the disciplines! Enough of the obscurantism of "belief in God" -- we must practice, even to the exclusion of preaching! This is the call of much of contemporary theology -- getting down to the distinctive practices, away from the inner dispositions. But what if we have already done that?
A quote from Nietzsche:
Unconditional honest atheism (and its is the only air we breathe, we more spiritual men of this age!) is therefore not the antithesis of that ideal [i.e., the ascetic ideal], as it appears to be; it is rather only one of the latest phases of its evolution, one of its terminal forms and inner consequences--, it is the awe-inspiring catastrophe of two thousand years of training in truthfulness that finally forbids itself the lie involved in belief in God.
Perhaps Christianity really is more of a moral code than a matter of systematic theology -- and perhaps the Enlightenment is what you get when you push Christianity far enough (thus ironically vindicating those evangelical pseudo-intellectuals who think that modern science relies on "a Christian idea of God"). In conversation with Mike Schaefer last night, I shared my desire to perform a thought-experiment: what if Christianity was a success? What if it worked?
I think here of Bonhoeffer and his desire for a religionless Christianity -- what if he didn't so much call for it as announce its coming? In his Ethics, a very puzzling text, he gives significantly more credit to Nietzsche than to Luther and Calvin. If he had lived, would he have turned the corner? Would he have stopped blaming the church for failing to "be the church"?
I don't know. Anthony Smith is back, so hopefully he'll have some insight, being our resident Nietzschean. He's also read Zupancic's book all the way through, and even written a paper! Man, when he starts posting lengthy stuff again, it's going to be great.
HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: I plan on inviting three or four more people to post, and I figure at least one will accept. I think that The Weblog would be qualitatively better if we had a "movie person" to match our once and future "music person" (the lovely and talented Robb). Darren from Long Pauses is the only blogger I know who fits that description, and I doubt he wants to whore himself out for us. In short, if you know of anyone, let them know I'm looking.
Here's the current faculty breakdown:
- Adam Kotsko: Psychoanalysis, contemporary continental thought, Christianity, meta-blogging
- Robb Schuneman: Music, Christian pop culture, Vonnegut
- Michael Schaefer: Geo-politics, political economy, Japanese popular culture
- Anthony Smith: Contemporary continental thought, Nietzsche, ecclesiology
- Michael Hancock: Classical music (composition), creative writing, prog rock
- Monica Bennett: Emancipatory studies, Carl Jung
