≡ PDF Confessing Jesus Christ Preaching in a Postmodern World David J Lose 9780802849830 Books

Confessing Jesus Christ Preaching in a Postmodern World David J Lose 9780802849830 Books

Download As PDF : Confessing Jesus Christ Preaching in a Postmodern World David J Lose 9780802849830 Books

Confessing Jesus Christ Preaching in a Postmodern World David J Lose 9780802849830 Books

First, try to imagine a sermon styled after the philosophical writings of Jacques Derrida. If that doesn't work, try imagining a sermon the prose of which sounds like Finnegan's Wake. Well, you can abandon all these notions, because Professor David Lose is not teaching us how to write postmodern sermons; rather, in spare and helpful prose he proposes a postfoundational response to the current homiletical challenges (and opportunities) presented to us by postmodernism. For Lose, the public practice of confessing faith in Jesus Christ is the necessary homiletical turn in a postmodern world.

Chapter one is a brisk and helpful primer in modern and postmodern thought. For Lose, the postmodern critique of modernity is epistemological and grammatalogical. Modernist thought looks to rationality or empiricism for its firm foundations. "One might characterize the intellectual breach initiated by the Enlightenment, in fact, as primarily a shift from understanding knowledge as logical and consistent belief to positing it as verifiable fact" (20). Although Lose is not that one breed of cat, namely radically orthodox, his sympathies are not dissimilar. Both think of postmodernity as a return to some of the sensibilities of the premodern. For example, Lose sidesteps the philosophical deadlock of recent postmodernism by looking at practices, particularly critical conversation, the ability of language to refer beyond itself, and then of speaking of the real and the true. All of these contestable positions clear the way for Lose's primary task, to define confession and tell us how it is an adequate response to the postmodern crisis.

Chapter two continues this audacious project of transcending both modernism and postmodernism, and just so is equally innovative and problematic. Having concluded in chapter one that modernity and postmodernity exact significant tolls that amount to a "zero-sum difference"- modernity works to secure certainty at any price, and postmodernity's "plurivocity of local narratives" results in a cacophony that virtually silences claims to truth- Lose argues that confession, properly understood, can avoid both modernist totalizing tendencies and postmodern relativizing realities.

An extended quote from Lose's second chapter is most helpful in understanding his project. Lose surveys (dissertation style) a number of conversations between postmodern thinkers in order to then make his confessional proposal. He says, "What I advocate in response to the maximal fideism of Rorty and others is a critical fideism that, while it cannot prove the truth of its ultimate claims, nevertheless seeks to make a case in the public arena for their utility and soundness" (40). This is the post-modern "modest proposal" par excellance. He makes the same apparently utilitarian move regarding translation and description of the real as well. Translation, "if pursued diligently... yields, if neither perfect translation nor translation into some supposedly neutral and common tongue, at least an `adequate' translation that makes critical reflection, comparison, and conversation possible" (52). And again, "having abandoned our pursuit for (or, conversely, campaign against) the `real,' we discover that from the `power-charged social relations of conversation' emerges, if not ultimate reality, at least a useful semblance we might describe as postfoundational `realism'" (56). Anyone who reads literature on the postmodern condition knows this is regular fare- I take the middle way, I make my modest proposal, it is sufficient.


Tags : Confessing Jesus Christ: Preaching in a Postmodern World [David J. Lose] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV>With its relentless insistence that there is no reality beyond that which we construct, postmodern thought questions the presuppositions of many disciplines,David J. Lose,Confessing Jesus Christ: Preaching in a Postmodern World,Eerdmans,0802849830,Christian Ministry - Preaching,Postmodernism - Religious aspects - Christianity,Postmodernism;Religious aspects;Christianity.,Preaching,Preaching.,Christian ministry & pastoral activity,Christianity,Postmodernism,Religion,Religion - Worship - Preaching,Religion Christian Ministry Preaching,Religious aspects

Confessing Jesus Christ Preaching in a Postmodern World David J Lose 9780802849830 Books Reviews

First, try to imagine a sermon styled after the philosophical writings of Jacques Derrida. If that doesn't work, try imagining a sermon the prose of which sounds like Finnegan's Wake. Well, you can abandon all these notions, because Professor David Lose is not teaching us how to write postmodern sermons; rather, in spare and helpful prose he proposes a postfoundational response to the current homiletical challenges (and opportunities) presented to us by postmodernism. For Lose, the public practice of confessing faith in Jesus Christ is the necessary homiletical turn in a postmodern world.

Chapter one is a brisk and helpful primer in modern and postmodern thought. For Lose, the postmodern critique of modernity is epistemological and grammatalogical. Modernist thought looks to rationality or empiricism for its firm foundations. "One might characterize the intellectual breach initiated by the Enlightenment, in fact, as primarily a shift from understanding knowledge as logical and consistent belief to positing it as verifiable fact" (20). Although Lose is not that one breed of cat, namely radically orthodox, his sympathies are not dissimilar. Both think of postmodernity as a return to some of the sensibilities of the premodern. For example, Lose sidesteps the philosophical deadlock of recent postmodernism by looking at practices, particularly critical conversation, the ability of language to refer beyond itself, and then of speaking of the real and the true. All of these contestable positions clear the way for Lose's primary task, to define confession and tell us how it is an adequate response to the postmodern crisis.

Chapter two continues this audacious project of transcending both modernism and postmodernism, and just so is equally innovative and problematic. Having concluded in chapter one that modernity and postmodernity exact significant tolls that amount to a "zero-sum difference"- modernity works to secure certainty at any price, and postmodernity's "plurivocity of local narratives" results in a cacophony that virtually silences claims to truth- Lose argues that confession, properly understood, can avoid both modernist totalizing tendencies and postmodern relativizing realities.

An extended quote from Lose's second chapter is most helpful in understanding his project. Lose surveys (dissertation style) a number of conversations between postmodern thinkers in order to then make his confessional proposal. He says, "What I advocate in response to the maximal fideism of Rorty and others is a critical fideism that, while it cannot prove the truth of its ultimate claims, nevertheless seeks to make a case in the public arena for their utility and soundness" (40). This is the post-modern "modest proposal" par excellance. He makes the same apparently utilitarian move regarding translation and description of the real as well. Translation, "if pursued diligently... yields, if neither perfect translation nor translation into some supposedly neutral and common tongue, at least an `adequate' translation that makes critical reflection, comparison, and conversation possible" (52). And again, "having abandoned our pursuit for (or, conversely, campaign against) the `real,' we discover that from the `power-charged social relations of conversation' emerges, if not ultimate reality, at least a useful semblance we might describe as postfoundational `realism'" (56). Anyone who reads literature on the postmodern condition knows this is regular fare- I take the middle way, I make my modest proposal, it is sufficient.