This summer has been a great time to read some books that I had on my list of possible good reads during the year. The problem arises when I try to read too many books at one time and begin to lose focus on the content of my reading. However, I just picked up a book this past week that I have wanted to read for many months. The book that I checked out from the library was Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends. It is a work in the Cultural Exegesis series (Baker Academic) edited by Kevin Vanhoozer, Charles A. Anderson, and Michael Sleasman. The purpose of the book is "to teach Christians to get the theological lay of the cultural land" (7). Vanhoozer begins the book by building a foundation for how and why Christians should understand culture. Too many times, Christians have either been swallowed up in the morass of culture, leaving little left that resembles vibrant faith in Christianity or have militantly made a retreat out of culture which leads to isolation with their fellow believers who belong to their same understanding. By seeking to be relevant to the culture as a continual goal, many people have a veneer of Christian terminology and practice but look very much like the cultural trends that are taking root in our world. In the other extreme, those who have retreated in isolation in fear that the culture is going to dirty the pristine identity and values of the faith have offered scathing remarks for the liberal left but nothing constructive upon which to build on. Is there a way forward that recognizes the good, the beautiful, and the true, and which posits them in connection with the adverse affects of a world that is often torn by greed, hate, immorality, and lust?
At the end of this book, Vanhoozer proposes some guidelines for Everyday Theological Interpretation of Culture that are worth delving into (1, 2, and 4 for now).
1. "Try to comprehend a cultural text on its own terms (communicative intent), before you interpret it (explore its broader social, political, sexual, or religious significance)" (252).
2. "Attend to what a cultural text is doing as well as saying by clarifying its illocutionary act (stating a belief, displaying a world)"
4. "Determine what "powers" are served by particular cultural texts or trends by discovering whose material interests are served (e.g., follow the money!)."
A few thoughts on these 3 proposals:
1. Wake up and pay attention to what is said. Too often, we are looking for the grand themes of redemption, love through trials, etc., instead of grasping the full intent of a cultural text. Not only this, but we are called to recognize the situation in which communicative intent is given (plot details of a story, geography, historical setting). These situation details provide us contextual clues for rightly comprehending cultural texts. Even more, every author, director, painter, theologian, poet (etc.) has an intent he is trying to convey in their work, this is all the more important that we pay attention and not jump to conclusions.
2. If perlocutions are just the words themselves, then illocutionary acts are words and phrases that are given by the author in order to do something (promise, propose, belief, dispalying a world). Cultural texts like movies and blogs are not generally written for the purpose of sole entertainment, although we would like to think so. What beliefs or belief systems are on offering in the cultural text. What kinds of actions ar embedded in the storylines of the cultural texts we come across.
3. Cultural texts often identify with various groups for the advancement of power. Whose material interests are served by the cultural text? Not only who is this/that cultural text written for, but whom does the cultural text serve for their own interests. What messages are being given to aid certain groups (capitalism is the devil, the poor can help themselves, government should back off).
At the end of this book, Vanhoozer proposes some guidelines for Everyday Theological Interpretation of Culture that are worth delving into (1, 2, and 4 for now).
1. "Try to comprehend a cultural text on its own terms (communicative intent), before you interpret it (explore its broader social, political, sexual, or religious significance)" (252).
2. "Attend to what a cultural text is doing as well as saying by clarifying its illocutionary act (stating a belief, displaying a world)"
4. "Determine what "powers" are served by particular cultural texts or trends by discovering whose material interests are served (e.g., follow the money!)."
A few thoughts on these 3 proposals:
1. Wake up and pay attention to what is said. Too often, we are looking for the grand themes of redemption, love through trials, etc., instead of grasping the full intent of a cultural text. Not only this, but we are called to recognize the situation in which communicative intent is given (plot details of a story, geography, historical setting). These situation details provide us contextual clues for rightly comprehending cultural texts. Even more, every author, director, painter, theologian, poet (etc.) has an intent he is trying to convey in their work, this is all the more important that we pay attention and not jump to conclusions.
2. If perlocutions are just the words themselves, then illocutionary acts are words and phrases that are given by the author in order to do something (promise, propose, belief, dispalying a world). Cultural texts like movies and blogs are not generally written for the purpose of sole entertainment, although we would like to think so. What beliefs or belief systems are on offering in the cultural text. What kinds of actions ar embedded in the storylines of the cultural texts we come across.
3. Cultural texts often identify with various groups for the advancement of power. Whose material interests are served by the cultural text? Not only who is this/that cultural text written for, but whom does the cultural text serve for their own interests. What messages are being given to aid certain groups (capitalism is the devil, the poor can help themselves, government should back off).
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