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Biblical Critical Theory – Christopher Watkin

In Cambridge today for the Forming a Christian Mind conference celebrating the launch of Christopher Watkin’s ‘Biblical Critical Theory‘. The day began with Watkin outlining his thesis followed by responses from Jennifer George (Computing, Goldsmith’s), Tom Simpson (Political Philosophy, Oxford) and Richard Winter (Psychiatrist, Former director of L’Abri and professor emeritus at Covenant Theological Seminary) as well as discipline-focussed breakout sessions. Here are some reflections in the form of an ‘auto-interview’

Prof. Em. Richard Winter, Dr. Christopher Watkin, Dr. Jennifer George, Dr. Tom Simpson

How did Watkin define his project? He pointed to the common denominator of well-known examples of modern Critical Theory in the way that they ‘filter’ the world, calling attention to an issue, often an injustice, depicting its centrality and calling for action on that basis.

What is Watkin seeking to do? I was reminded of Tim Keller’s call in ‘How to Reach the West Again‘ for a ‘Christian High Theory’ (he doesn’t use Critical Theory but sees this as answering to that challenge) which articulates a positive, non-defensive account Christianity suitable for a missionary encounter with a post-Christendom ‘Rome 2.0’ culture. Keller knows that the evangelisation of a post-Christian culture has not been done yet, but ends his short book by pointing out that everything is new once. Watkin takes up the gauntlet with the best part of three decades of professional academic work in Continental Philosophy, impressively matched by diligent personal theological study.

What was new? Watkin’s term ‘Diagonalisation’ meaning cutting across an established divide – for example between the view of humans as machines or as animals – discerning with a Biblical eye the validity of portions of both position. (Tom Simpson helpfully pushed Christopher on how this related to actual decision making in public life).

Any ideas that were worth the price of entry on their own? Watkin’s differentiation of metanarrative and mesonarrative. He asserts that Christianity is the latter because, rather than being an encompassing explanatory story which sits above, beyond, outside and legitimates actions in our reality, it runs through the middle of our reality whilst still acting as the grand narrative. I can see a lot of value in this differentiation (as opposed to attempting to convince post-moderns that they are really hankering after the metanarrative that they have already eschewed).

Christopher Watkin

Watkin says we need deliverance from forms of Christian cultural engagement which champion ‘antithesis’ (no point of contact between redeemed and unredeemed thought) and also those which champion ‘fulfilment’ (pursuing a direction progressively until God is apprehended – i.e. by wisdom). He cites 1 Corinthians 1 as a repeated motif embodying this – by turning away from your wisdom, you are confronted by the seeming foolishness of God which in turn proves to be higher than the wisdom of man.

“21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles“

Many other provocative gems from today and I am really looking forward to reading the book.

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Some Worldview Resources

On Friday, I had the pleasure of delivering a Worldview and Culture training day for Regions Beyond at Westminster Chapel. During the course of the day I recommended many resources so I thought it might be helpful to share some of those here:
Books
Podcasts
General
Individual episodes
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Recommend: Theos think tank and The Sacred podcast

The overall theme of this blog is ‘Light in Public Life‘ (see about) – seeking to bring Christianity into meaningful contact with contemporary public life – and in a sense, I follow in the recent wake of people like the Theos think tank which was launched out of the Bible Society in November 2006 in Westminster. One of the catalysts for the birth of Theos was the need to combat the idea that it was no longer possible to ‘Do God’ in the UK public square, a response borne out in the title of their inaugural publication.

The Sacred PodcastIn the ensuing decade, many things have moved on in the cultural conversation surrounding public faith in the UK, and Theos have moved with the times admirably. One of their most intriguing and accessible recent developments has been The Sacred podcast which, although only several episodes old at the time of writing, seems to have tapped into a very contemporary mood of cultural re-enchantment. Interviewees from a variety of backgrounds are drawn out on issues of meaning and transcendence in a way that few others are attempting and this makes for compulsive and provocative listening.

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Recommended: The Partially Examined Life

I first came across the Partially Examined Life podcast when I was beginning my Masters in Systematic Theology at King’s College London. The core module on the Masters course was called ‘Revelation and Reason’ and the material chronicled the twists and turns that academic theology had taken from the dawn of modernity to the present day. A lot of the figures we studied were either new to me or at best peripherally known from my training in evangelical church settings. Partially Examined Life (or PEL) was a really helpful resource in gaining an understanding of the philosophers and theologians that I was reading. I listened to helpful episodes on figures such as Schleiermacher and Heidegger, and from there delved into dozens of others.

The premise and format of the PEL podcast is a lot of fun; a group of old university friends interact enthusiastically with a set text and argue vigourously – and very homourously too – in a way that old friends are able to. In their tagline they state that they ‘once considered doing philosophy professionally but thought better of it’, and this is reflected in both the intellectual level and the joviality of their conversations. Their core team is often augmented by other guests and experts and although the subject matter can sometimes feel quite abstract or demanding, I don’t think that I’ve heard a boring episode.

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Recommended: Michael Heiser

In these posts I will offer brief introductions to some resources that I recommend for theology, church and public life.

A friend drew my attention to Dr. Michael Heiser about 18 months ago and I’m very glad he did. Heiser is a Biblical Studies scholar with broad interests and a very fresh, vigorous and faithful approach. His central concern is reading the Bible with the spiritual worldview of its original writers and recipients in mind – what he terms ‘recovering the supernatural worldview of the Bible’. Central to this is the concept of the ‘Divine Council’ mentioned in Psalm 82:1 (“God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.”) about which Heiser writes “The term divine council is used by Hebrew and Semitics scholars to refer to the heavenly host, the pantheon of divine beings who administer the affairs of the cosmos. All ancient Mediterranean cultures had some conception of a divine council. The divine council of Israelite religion, known primarily through the psalms, was distinct in important ways.” (Dictionary of the Old Testament : 2008) If you are interested in this basis he has written an academic monograph on the subject called The Unseen Realm and a popular level reduction of the material called Supernatural.

If this describes his general approach, then his overall passion might be described as stripping back layers of accepted or assumed Biblical exegesis that doesn’t take the supernatural / divine council worldview into account. This is front and centre in the titles of Heiser’s excellent podcast The Naked Bible and his recent book The Bible Unfiltered: Approaching Scripture on its own Terms. He also writes / podcasts on more (to me) peripherally interesting subjects, such as the academic analysis of the paranormal, and also writes fiction which incorporates some of his theoretical ideas.

My recommendation is glowing but not unqualified: I’m sure I’d disagree with Heiser on several things, most significantly the contemporary church and its potentialities (but that might be a UK vs US thing to some extent).

His material is so interesting and plentiful it can be hard to know where to start but I recommend just browsing the aforementioned The Naked Bible podcast and diving in where you see something interesting. No doubt it will take you down a rabbit warren of related episodes.

REFERENCES

Michael S. Heiser, “Divine Council,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings (ed. Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns; Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; Inter-Varsity Press, 2008), 112.