But Is He a Christian?
Sam Alvord’s article “But Is He a Christian?” [September/October] caught my attention from at least three directions: one, its provocative title; two, from my interest in novelists who are attempting to write, at least, “Christianly”; and, finally, the fact that I have a daughter studying humanities at Houghton College.
My question, as I read the article, was similar to that of Alvord’s students. Not, however, having read any of David James Duncan’s novels or short stories, I found that my argument rests, at least for the moment, not with Duncan but with several statements or assumptions made in the article.
One paragraph, in particular, arrested me:
Still, I honor the question, because my students come from homes or churches or colleges where the evangelistic imperative has lofty status. I demean them and their history insofar as I scorn it. Where else for them to start to gain their bearings as independent seekers? For most of them, I realize, an answer to this question is tantamount to establishing true north as they strike out as adults into a culture that offers passage to many diverse spiritual and philosophical compass points. I must not confuse my personal resistance with their essential right to begin their journey from their home.
Of course, these students, my daughter included, must become “independent seekers.” But Alvord seems to call into question whether there is, indeed, a “true north.” Since Houghton College, in its doctrinal statement, affirms the Scriptures as “fully inspired of God and inerrant,” as well as “of supreme and final authority for faith and practice,” I have felt it safe to assume that there is a true north to be sought—and found. Are there really “many diverse spiritual and philosophical compass points”? Are we free to choose from any of them? How will an “independent seeker” know when he or she has found the right one?
I seem to recall that Jesus made the statement, “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matt. 7:20, emphasis mine). And it seems to me that the rest of the New Testament spends an awful lot of time and words telling us how that should look and be acted out in our personal lives, with our neighbors, our mates and our children, in the rest of society, and, begging everyone’s pardon, in the church.
I find, too, at least a hint of an implication in the little phrase “from their home,” that a child must necessarily make this journey philosophically as well as physically and emotionally. If my husband and I are attempting—no, struggling—to teach and model truth as we see it based on the Scriptures, must our children depart from our teachings? (Whatever happened to the “faith of our fathers”?) And, if they do depart, what “truth” will they find? Why are we sweating so much blood and tears building up “the Christian home” if it is a given that our children are going to depart anyway?
I have heard two Christian college presidents say, in their charges to incoming freshmen, that this moment signals a departure from their parents. Is it beneath our intellectual pride, even our Christian intellectual pride, to suggest that just perhaps they may also return?
Lest you suspect otherwise, I am not against reading such novels; quite the contrary. Yet, I think we have a distinctly clear compass point against which to measure whether our boat has wandered off course or, indeed, foundered. How can Alvord’s students go out into the world with a confused identity and expect to make followers of Christ?
Vivian Hyatt Budapest, Hungary
Language About God
I am sure the motivation for Kelly James Clark’s recommendation for a “modest transcendence” [September/October] was a positive one. I am sure he intended to “summon us to a quiet confidence” in God and remind us of the partial character of all knowledge. However, Clark’s proposal of a modest transcendence makes a number of important theological mistakes.
To suggest that language about God is similar to language about rocks and persons violates a key principle of a proper creation doctrine. God is not in the same class as created objects. God is not part of any set or subset of things. Language about rocks and persons may have its own limitations, but they are not the same limitations that bear on language about God. I have only partial knowledge of a rock, but this is not the same limitation as my partial knowledge of God. The rock, even in its mystery, is a “creature,” even as I am a creature. My efforts to understand the rock do not in any sense impinge on the rock’s freedom or sovereignty. These efforts are on a horizontal plane, one creature seeking to understand another.
God is not a creature, but the Creator. My efforts to understand God are not horizontal, but vertical. Any effort to understand God and then find language for God must be in full awareness of God’s primacy, freedom, and mysterious love, which is both ontologically and epistemologically beyond creaturely limits.
Perhaps another way of putting this is to raise the old distinction between analogia entis and analogia fidei. It seems to me that there is an implicit analogia entis in Clark’s argument: Because we can have partial knowledge of concrete objects and other human persons, therefore, we can also have partial knowledge of God. God, on this line of approach, is on the same spectrum of reality as the created universe, and the same epistemological principles apply. Far from preserving the greatness of God and the confidence of the believer, this approach reduces both God’s splendor and thus human confidence and trust. An approach of analogia fidei is a better way to go: God is beyond all human comprehension, yet in freedom and love, God has willed to be God-for-us in Jesus Christ. We know who God is through Jesus Christ as witnessed in the Scriptures. Our knowledge of God is a gift of God; at no time is it our own epistemological achievement.
Clark finds support for his position in the great thinkers of the faith. Yet, I believe Augustine and Aquinas, as well as others like Calvin and Luther, were convinced that all our language about God is inadequate—not just some language about God is inadequate. It’s not merely that language about God has limits, it has no inherent ability at all to convey God. Augustine’s rule that “if we have understood, then what we have understood is not God” includes, I think, a possible corollary, namely, that “if we have understood partially, modestly, then what we have understood is still not God.” All human language must come under the radical critique of God’s transcendence.
But this does not entail a remote and distant God. Quite the contrary. Such a God has from all eternity willed to be a God for humanity, a God who in freedom and love is for us. To find provisional and faulty human words to express this reality encourages the kind of confidence and faith in God’s benevolence towards us that goes well beyond the proposal of a modest transcendence.
Leanne Van Dyk San Francisco Theological Seminary San Anselmo, Calif.
Kelly Clark replies:
Leanne Van Dyk accuses me of an odious and obvious theological error, treating God like a rock. Although this might be OK for psalmists and Fanny Crosby, it’s not OK for me.
I am baffled, however, by her criticisms. I don’t claim that God-language is similar to rock-language except that both are woefully limited in capturing the full reality of their proper subject matter. Rocks and gods vastly exceed human language and comprehension. I neither said nor implied that God is a creature. I do claim that some person-language may apply to God if we were created in God’s image; if not, then not. So there is something of a conditional analogia entis in my argument; mea culpa. Of course, even if we were created in God’s image, God will have many properties that are not like any properties possessed by humans, so God may need to reveal those to us either through nature, reason, personal experience, or revelation. And God will surely have properties that could not be revealed to humans—we could neither experience nor comprehend many divine attributes. All of this is consistent with my modest claim that we can, God willing, have sufficient knowledge of God. If God wished to reveal such truths to his creatures, our knowledge of them would be, to quote myself, “piddly.”
I am puzzled by Van Dyk’s claim that religious knowledge and language “must be in full awareness of God’s primacy, freedom, and mysterious love which is both ontologically and epistemologically beyond creaturely limits.” How can we possibly be in full awareness of anything that is beyond our linguistic and cognitive limits?
If “God is beyond all human comprehension,” then we could not comprehend God even were God to reveal Godself in Jesus. Van Dyk can’t have it both ways: Either God is not beyond all human comprehension, or God could not possibly reveal Godself in Jesus. Her proposal that we use “provisional and faulty human words to express” divine reality (as revealed in Jesus) is not, as she claims, contrary to modest transcendence; it is precisely how a Christian might express modest transcendence.
If language has no inherent ability to convey God, as Van Dyk asserts, then we can know nothing, even piddly, about God. Such a claim smacks more of agnosticism than theism. We are left to worship what Locke fetchingly calls the “something we know not what.” We could not know anything at all of the truth that Van Dyk proclaims, that God “in freedom and love is for us.”
Christian Publishing
In his article “Christian Journalism on Trial” [September/October 1997], John Wilson takes me to task for an article that I wrote for World magazine on the state of Christian publishing, as represented in the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA). He agrees with my assessment of the “spiritual junk food” that takes up so much of the shelves in Christian bookstores. He wishes I would have stopped there.
But what I continued to do was probe the reasons why the CBA turns out so many bad books. I argued that there is so much money at stake in the bookselling industry that commercial considerations are trumping theology. Since the largest publishers are now owned by secular corporations and stockholders, the overriding concern has to be turning profits, effacing what used to be the “ministry” concerns of their founders.
Now there is nothing particularly conspiratorial, paranoid, or even conservative about this line of criticism—railing against big corporations and uncovering the underlying economic interests usually characterizes scholarship from the Left. This is a concern, however, for conservative Christians because it has resulted in a religious commercialism that replaces the Word of God with what people want to hear, a theological consumerism that has created a pop Christianity increasingly removed from the real thing.
Wilson completely misreads key sections of my argument. My evidence for Rupert Murdoch’s influence on Zondervan is not the cancellation of an academic line but the memo sent from the Murdoch-owned parent company HarperCollins telling Zondervan to publish only titles that would sell above a certain quota, thus requiring them to be governed by the mass market. My account of Frank Peretti’s career by no means implies that I think he was a great evangelical writer corrupted by the world; rather, it shows the struggles of small publishers when the big players buy away their most successful writers.
The main complaint about my article is that it is unbalanced, and Wilson lists scores of worthy titles coming out from Christian publishers. But I did say, at several points, that many good books are being published, that there are many fine writers and devoted editors working in evangelical presses. My emphasis, however, was on religious commercialism, which is the problem I believe needs to be highlighted. The fine books mentioned by Wilson, however, are scarcely to be found on the shelves of most Christian bookstores, which tend to promote instead the pop theology, self-help books, celebrity mongering, and formula fiction that I am complaining about.
My problems with InterVarsity Press and Eerdmans are those of a frustrated admirer. These publishers, to their credit, are resisting the temptation to crass commercialism and still put out serious and challenging theological works. But, while they are putting out some good material, as I say in my article, they are also flirting with what could only be described as theological liberalism. This is disappointing to us theological conservatives.
I think that the main complaint about my article is evident in the subtitle of Wilson’s critique, with its arch little quotation marks around “biblical” journalism. The Christian subculture is not used to criticism, much less self-criticism. World is trying to take a prophetic stance against the evils both of society and the church. Though some might think we are wrong or perhaps too conservative in our theology, our critics have been attacking our alleged lack of politeness rather than dealing with the substance of the issues we are trying to raise. Like Jeremiah, our words may sting, but our lamentations over those we criticize and yet love are heartfelt and sincere.
Gene Edward Veith Culture Editor, World
John Wilson replies:
Rather than reiterate the important points of agreement and the substantive differences between Gene Edward Veith’s account of Christian publishing and my own, I would urge the interested reader to take a look at his cover story in World (July 12-19) and my response. One point in his letter, however, needs clarifying here. Veith concludes that the “main complaint” I bring against his article is World’s “alleged lack of politeness rather than dealing with the substance of the issues we are trying to raise.” This is emphatically not the case. Indeed, I commended World for the magazine’s “robust engagement with critical issues.” Our differences have to do with truth, not with style. Veith claims, for example, that at Zondervan, the “overriding concern” is “turning profits, effacing what used to be the ‘ministry’ concerns” of such Christian publishers. In contrast, I have argued that ministry concerns are still vital at Zondervan.
Nor is World at all alone in offering sharp criticism of fellow Christians. The self-flattering notion that the “Christian subculture is not used to criticism, much less self-criticism”—where World is cast as the lonely, courageous, prophetic voice—will not stand up to even 30 seconds of historical examination. I would suggest for starters that Veith read Joel Carpenter’s Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (reviewed in the November/December issue of B&C) for a reminder of the withering controversies that have characterized evangelicalism throughout its history and continue to do so today. Unfortunately, all too many of these controversies have been marked by the conspiratorial thinking and the misleading treatment of evidence that mar Veith’s account of Christian publishing.
Copyright © 1997 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or e-mail bceditor@BooksAndCulture.com.
