![]()
1
Between the Postliberal and the Postmodern
“True Discipleship” as Cultural Style
Throughout this chapter and the next two, I show that contemporary accounts of Christian identity need to be supplemented by accounts of Christian formation. Thinking about Christianity in cultural-linguistic terms fits nicely into theological reflection after the “linguistic turn” and in conversation with moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. The Nature of Doctrine is a landmark in this theological landscape. George Lindbeck began a fruitful conversation about what makes Christianity Christian, and how doctrine in particular functions in the process of evaluating and reproducing Christian beliefs and practices. But in this chapter I will call attention to a lacuna that Lindbeck himself observed: that his description of Christianity immediately raises a question about formation. Learning a new “language” to the level of adequacy Lindbeck imagined would require a thoroughgoing catechesis.1 I will show that lack of attention to this problem neglects the problem of sin and opens the door to a misreading of the function of doctrine in the lives of individual Christians. Christian identity, as the cultural-linguistic model describes it, involves speaking and living according to a different set of cultural rules. I argue in this chapter that accounts of Christian identity that take Lindbeck’s as a starting place need to address the reality of Christians’ failure to speak and live by the “rules” that comprise Christian doctrine. I take Kathryn Tanner’s account of Christian identity as paradigmatic and examine the cultural-linguistic model as she renders it.
Following the logic of that model, Tanner begins from the assumption that Christianity does function like a culture; she simply chooses different conversation partners with whom to explore the contours of that culture. The description of Christianity that emerges from her engagement with postmodern cultural anthropology draws porous boundaries around a set of materials whose identification as “Christian” depends more on arrangement than essence. Tanner insists that – in keeping with the postmodern flavor of her argument – that the continuity of Christian identity requires an “empty” center, which allows God the freedom to act in new ways in each successive generation of Christians. Thus she describes the performance of Christian identity as consisting at least partly in participation in the conversation about how to construe beliefs and practices as Christian.
Tanner’s “new agenda for theology” also employs postmodern culture theory in an attempt to liberate our understanding of Christian identity from the taint of injustice she perceives in churches’ hierarchical structures. I will show that, in so doing, she inadvertently links discipleship to a certain sort of moral and intellectual agency that is ultimately accountable solely to God. Moreover, I will show that Tanner’s undue emphasis on the intellectual aspect of discipleship leads to a failure to account for the need for Christian formation or the corruption of both intellectual and moral agency by sin. Our failure consistently to practice “true discipleship” suggests that there is more to Christian identity than the honing of our intellectual and moral skills.
Postliberal or Postmodern? George Lindbeck’s The Nature of Doctrine
I discuss George Lindbeck’s The Nature of Doctrine here as a point of comparison, suggesting that, while Tanner does not identify herself as postliberal, she shares with Lindbeck (and others) certain postliberal theological instincts. Discussing Lindbeck here will also provide a point of departure for the next two chapters, as Williams and Milbank also criticize Lindbeck in the course of making their constructive proposals. Their respective criticisms of Lindbeck reflect similarities and differences in the three accounts of Christian identity. While each is critical of the way Lindbeck uses culture theory, both Williams’ and Milbank’s critiques focus on the problems with Lindbeck’s understanding of the history of Christian doctrine, whereas Tanner criticizes Lindbeck’s choice of sources of culture theory. Milbank in particular goes on to criticize Lindbeck for failing to articulate a properly postmodern theology. My discussion of Lindbeck thus locates Theories of Culture in the context of theology in the United States, and helps to sketch the common ground the three share, without conflating their accounts.
Although Tanner draws upon both Pierre Bourdieu and Michel de Certeau, I suggest that the kind of agent implied in her account of Christian action is at odds with postmodern theories of culture. Tanner sees the Christian as a kind of bricoleur who works with the materials she has to hand, but portrays the bricoleur with the perspective of the architect rather than the builder. The difference in perspective is significant for Tanner’s implicit account of agency, of which I am critical in this chapter. Drawing on aspects of Bourdieu’s theory that Tanner does not discuss, I raise questions about her conception of Christian action, especially the activity that constitutes the task she identifies as the core of Christian identity. Tanner’s implied account of agency is inseparable from her understanding of tradition.2 There is an implied objectivity to the relationship between the Christian (especially the theologian) and Christian tradition, which at times seems to give the individual priority over tradition. I bring Tanner into conversation with the work of Alasdair MacIntyre to reveal the difficulties with her account of tradition. With respect to agency and tradition, I suggest that Tanner has not examined postliberalism – especially Lindbeck’s – carefully enough, nor learned all she might have from the postmodern theorists whose work she esteems so highly.
In Tanner’s case, attending to the question regarding agency and tradition would press her to pay closer attention to the process of Christian formation. I suggest that the lack of an account of formation is especially noticeable in Theories of Culture because the postmodern theorists to whom Tanner appeals thematize the construction of subjectivities and attest to the importance of the formation of desire. One has only to read Bourdieu’s account of formation in education to realize (even if we do not grant Bourdieu every point he wishes to make) that the construction of Christian identity involves far more than learning the catechism (or equivalent) and reading some Bible. And this more is a crucial consideration in the articulation of Christian identity. Asking questions about the role of desire in the articulation and reproduction of Christian identity points directly to the need for an account of formation. Christians are not shaped only by the church, but are socialized by the broader culture – as Tanner herself points out. We can take it that the desires inscribed by social formations and the power relations in which the Christian subject is implicated are constitutive elements of the self.3
In what follows, I do not intend to show that Tanner is a postliberal. Such a claim would raise a number of questions I cannot consider here.4 My aim is rather to argue that although Tanner criticizes postliberal theology and distances herself from what she sees as its basic ideas, she does not move beyond Lindbeck’s turn to culture theory, even though she replaces the modern culture theory Lindbeck uses with a variety of postmodern resources.5 Tanner sees engagement with the broader (non-Christian) culture as central to Christian identity and its development, and her account of this engagement is grounded in a sustained discussion of culture theory, which she regards as an essential tool for constructive theology. Tanner’s methodological similarities with Lindbeck are central to the difference between her reading of Lindbeck and that of Rowan Williams or John Milbank.
Before beginning my discussion of Lindbeck, I should note that Lindbeck’s goal was to foster ecumenical dialogue. Its focal point is thus his theory of religion, and his account of Christian identity is implicit in that theory.6 Lindbeck believed that some common ways of thinking about doctrines misconstrued the function of doctrine in relation to Christian faith and practice. Thus Lindbeck saw what he called the cognitivist approach – which invested propositions with the power to determine the meaning of Christian doctrines – as mistaken. In his view, such an approach created a too-rigid system in which varieties in practice and belief, or in the explanation of what doctrines meant, could not be accommodated. Nor did Lindbeck accept what he presented as an opposing view: an experiential-expressivist model, in which doctrines (as symbols) “are not crucial for religious agreement or disagreement.”7 Lindbeck’s main objection to this approach was that it abolished any necessary connection between a doctrine and its meaning. For Lindbeck, this is a type of foundationalism whose base is experience rather than reason or proposition.8
Lindbeck therefore attempted to create an alternative model for understanding and expressing differences without forsaking fundamental Christian unity or the doctrines themselves. Drawing on the work of Clifford Geertz and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lindbeck devised a cultural-linguistic model for understanding Christian doctrine and its relation to belief and practice. This model, Lindbeck suggested, could account for diversity in practice without compromising the meaning of doctrine. Lindbeck’s model of the structure of religions is based on the notion that
a religion can be viewed as a kind of cultural and/or linguistic framework or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought … it is similar to an idiom that makes possible the description of realities, the formulation of beliefs, and the experiencing of inner attitudes, feelings or sentiments.9
On Lindbeck’s view, moreover,
To become religious involves becoming skilled in the language, the symbol system of a given religion. To become a Christian involves learning the story of Israel and of Jesus well enough to interpret and experience oneself and one’s world in its terms … to become religious – no less than to become culturally or linguistically competent – is to interiorize a set of skills by practice and training. One learns how to feel, act, and think in conformity with a religious tradition that is, in its inner structure, far richer and more subtle than can be explicitly articulated. The primary knowledge is not about the religion, nor that the religion teaches such and such, but rather how to be religious in such and such ways.10
Lindbeck suggests that his model makes space for the cognitive and expressive aspects of religion while granting priority to neither of them. His insistence on the importance of practices in Christian life emphasizes the experiential dimension but without giving experience primacy over the language of the story.
Lindbeck himself realized that the model he was proposing required some account of Christian formation (although he did not refer to it in those exact terms). Because he saw Christian practice as skill- and language-based, the process of learning to practice meant acquiring the skills and vocabulary (not to mention the grammar!) of Christian culture. Lindbeck’s reading of the cultural context in which he was writing, however, was that the requisite instruction would be difficult, if not impossible, to implement. It would, he suggests, resemble “ancient catechesis.”
Instead of redescribing the faith in new concepts, it seeks to teach the language and practices of the religion to potential adherents … [catechumens in late antiquity] submitted themselves to prolonged catechetical instruction in which they practiced new modes of behavior and learned the stories of Israel and their fulfillment in Christ. Only after they had acquired proficiency in the alien Christian language and form of life were they deemed able intelligently and responsibly to profess the faith, to be baptized.11
Although Lindbeck saw this as impractical in the contemporary church, he nevertheless viewed...
