Philosophy, Preaching, Perhaps…: Notes on Language, Conviction and Public Thinking
More notes about the way I think and write. A reference point for other posts, and a placeholder for this subject. This time it's about ways of talking, especially in public.
In some circles, you choose your words carefully I suppose.
Twenty-five years ago in philosophy class God was not a thing. I mean, not on the table.
((So I would write my essays drawing on Christian principles but without saying so. Ssh. Same mechanisms and trains of thought, but using labels and descriptions that covered my tracks.))
More than once I read in the professor's comments that my approach was extremely unusual but very effective.
Hmm. Mental note.
In other circles, you tone down the philosophy instead. Even the hint of that word
shudder!
makes you sound like one of those heathen intellectuals the Apostle Paul encountered — especially in that story about the altar to an unknown god.
As if philosophy is a word that automatically means something bad.
Like Science.
According to philosophers…
Scientists think…
The world says…
The world.
Ugh.
In our world…
In a world where…
That's what the world wants you to think…
I end up thinking
— either it's the SAME world, through time and space and you're in it too, or
— if you mean it in a different way, we are all in our own unique worlds…
I know. In the world, but not of it.
Except, that's not actually a phrase from the Bible.
And I know, Jesus prayed in ways that talked about 'the world'.
Fair enough. But let's just not load everything we don't like in that direction.
So the temptation is to tone it down a bit. Better to sound slightly 'hedgy' and non-committal than filled with conviction.
Conviction is a bit too 70s.
(1970s, as well as 70sAD).
After all. Start quoting scripture and so on, and you know what kind of box they'll put you in! Not great if you want to be taken seriously.
But here's the thing.
Except for that kind of peer pressure, I haven't found a reason to tone it down.
What's more, I know the instinct to tone it down is peer pressure.
(What about you?)
What I tend to do instead is to package it as a potential thought experiment. After all, if an awful lot of people over the years have seriously wondered about the Bible and found something uniquely significant about Jesus, it would make a great thought experiment to say, just for the sake of argument, that there was some kind of truth in all that.
Just for the sake of argument.
After all. It's not just the world.
I remember hearing —
Potentially, Christians don't take things far enough.
Still treating it like a thought experiment themselves.
Are we?
Quote any promise in the Bible.
Any truth.
Is it nice-sounding, or ground-breaking?
Some notes:
John Caputo (philosopher) — weak and strong theology, and the perhaps.
Along the lines of perhaps, rather than professing certainty that goes beyond what anyone can be certain about.
Gets me thinking: I write like a postmodern writer, but I sound more evangelical than most. What if evangelical language is shorthand for truth that would be said differently these days, but no less true. And what if for some it's a placeholder for something they never grasped but continue to speak like they do. And what if for others it's a placeholder for something they know intimately and it doesn't actually seem on the inside like it sounds from the outside.
Add in Edward Bullough — psychical distance.
Too far from the stage you're not involved at all. Too close to the stage you can't experience the play because you're right there among the actors. There's a tipping point. A sweet spot.
And in the same way — distances in God. And intimacy. You can wield the words like a salesperson looking to rack up commissions and notches on your Bible. Or you can allow it to continue to impact you by remaining vulnerable to the message, and not controlling others toward an encounter.
Add in Peter Brook (theatre director) - The Empty Space
Any space can be a stage.
How you pay attention matters. A pantomime? Bad acting? Playing for laughs and ticket profits only?
Or threshold.
