Pontius Pilate and the (Post) Modern


Abstract:
In the Gospel stories, I can only find one instance where epistemological questions are mentioned. It is when Jesus of Nazareth stands before Pontius Pilate, and the good governor, who represents all the power and might of Rome, who has legions of soldiers armed with the best military technology to do his bidding, looks into the face of a bound and beaten prisoner, and asks, "what is truth?" People in power have the luxury to ask such questions.

Body:


(Pic from the Vatican)

Can we please stop talking about epistemology and the evils of postmodernism with reference to how we do church? It is so completely irrelevant that it hurts. There is little further from the purposes of an incarnational, missiological, disciple-making church than discussions about the philosophies of this or that thinker or how we apprehend truth. Rorty, Austin, Wittgenstein, Derrida, Foucault, Barthes, all are very interesting, and I enjoyed discussing them in graduate school. They might even be great topics for a church set in university culture. But they have little to do with disciple-making. Reading Tall Skinny Kiwi today pushed my buttons on this topic (in a good way). Andrew Jones has a series of excellent posts on the Church emerging. Today's is on postmodernism, and he is right on target.

I do think these are important topics. But most of the time, they are mere intellectual acrobatics; red herrings dancing with straw men. It is so much easier to launch into a multisyllabic monologue on the nature of "truth" than to deal with a call to repentance.

In the Gospel stories, I can only find one instance where epistemological questions are mentioned. It is when Jesus of Nazareth stands before Pontius Pilate, and the good governor, who represents all the power and might of Rome, who has legions of soldiers armed with the best military technology to do his bidding, looks into the face of a bound and beaten prisoner, and asks, "what is truth?" People in power have the luxury to ask such questions.

What excites me about the Spirit moving through the Church today is that we're beginning to see the absurdity of Pilate's position. The Empire of This World believes it has a monopoly on Reason, Logic, Truth, Religion, Power, Life, and Death. Jesus is its undoing. He represents the alternative Kingdom - the Kingdom of God. Every statement about Jesus that we make: Lord, Savior, Messiah, Shepherd, Word, Way - is a threat to the power of church, academy, and state. Edward Said pointed out that Kant talked about Pure Reason even as slave ships traveled from Africa to the New World. Our church leaders talk about Absolute Truth even as entire continents are decimated by AIDS and as our country pursues disastrous economic and environmental policies. The Church is beginning to see that the Emperor of This World has no clothes, and that its true allegiance belongs to a different Kingdom. At least, that is what I hope is happening.

You can lay discussions of "metanarrative" or "social discourses" over the top of this confrontation, and they will connect or overlap at points. I think that is why discussions about new church movements and postmodernism are so interesting. But to get caught up in them, or to mistake their grammar for the divine conversation actually going on here is a mistake. What you've got is a story, pushing you to a point of crisis. And although we might wonder out loud, with our mouths, about the nature of truth, the real question that bugs us and and that we are afraid to ask is: Am I going to wash my hands of his blood? Are we as the church going to attempt self-absolution and self-justification, allying ourselves with Pilate and the Empire - or are we going to 'fess up and start living radically different lives?

Edit: Another good post on the subject over at Bridget Jones Goes to Seminary. (12-3-2005)

Posted: Fri - December 2, 2005 at 02:03 PM           |

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