Dan J. Brennan

Post-Ministry and Emerging Churches

In A Matrix of Meanings, Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor talk about finding God in pop culture.  They point out by looking at pop culture, we can find "a matrix of meanings"  They say pop culture invites Christians to do serious theology.  They believe we are living in a post-national, post-literal, post-scientific, post-rational, post-technological, post-racial, post-human, post-traumatic, post-therapeutic, post-sexual, post-institutional and post-Christian era.  I know some experts feel we are already post-post, or even beyond the post.  Detweiler and Taylor explain they don't mean science or technology are going to disappear, but "our assumptions and meanings of these concepts are being radically defined." 

Here's my list of 10 "post" points on what ministry (pastoral care, spiritual formation, bearing one another's burdens) looks like in postmodernity.  This post is for those in the emerging movement or for those who don't want labels but are engaged in ministry, in small churches, house churches, etc.   I've attempted to follow a certain progression with this list.  I don't believe there is a rigid boundary between  psychology  and spirituality.  I believe, as a matter of fact, that psychological theories, in and of themselves have their own spiritualities, their own narratives. 

Relational Spirituality: Eros, Agape, and Power-With

For a postmodern thinker like Olthuis, with is a powerful relational word.  "With talks of space-between (identities are maintained) and of connection-in-space(mutuality between the identities).  With the relational nature of life, it indicates connection between things, beings, creatures (identities) without fusion and without isolation.  With has the force of a healthy (that is, loving) connection.  To be-with is to be in-love-with  or in-care-with. To be without love is to be in a poor, painful, unhealthy state of broken disconnection...With connotes vulnerability, mutuality, respect, and honor rather than domination or shame.  It is the opposite of under, above, and against, all of which speak of control, mastery, and independence."  "Community" writes Olthuis, "is not the same as fusion, but the coming-into-connection of diverse identities...In genuine mutuality it is not that the other fills up or augments myself; nor do I lose myself in the other....In genuine mutuality both manipulation with its premium on control and reciprocity with its premium on balanced exchange are replaced with an ethics of being-with." 

I have a love/hate relationship with psychoanalytic theory and practice.  In that world, that would be called ambivalent and I would be analyzed for that ambivalence!  Perhaps I did not have a "good enough" mother!  I recognize my limitations as an amateur in being critical of certain aspects of psychotherapy.  On the other hand, I agree with David Fitch and other postmodern critics that "Psychiatry was forming different 'selves' for different purposes (power interests) than the church."  Fitch believes Christians need to come to grips with the way in which "evangelical churches 'give away' the formation of our selves to secular forces of therapy under the legitimating discourse of modern science."   

Relational Spirituality: The Spirituality of Modern Psychotherapy and Power-Over

"Psychotherapy is modernism's therapeutic arm, the method designed to extend our mastery of the external world into the mastery of the internal one.  To this day, psychotherapy still largely buys into this focus on fixing and curing."  James Olthuis

If you read Out of Ur, they do a thing on taking a quote "out of context."  My above quote from James Olthuis is a bit out of context, especially if you are unfamiliar with Olthuis.  He's a respected psychotherapist himself.  He's not an outsider looking in or an amateur.  Understand the above quote like Brian McLaren taking on ecclesiology. To some extent, what McLaren did with postmodernism and ecclesiology, Olthuis, a postmodern thinker, does with psychotherapy.  Even though he's a critic of psychotherapy, at the heart of his criticism, as you will see, is modern psychotherapy, and the spirituality of a power-over in many modern therapies.  Olthuis sees, along with other postmodernists and feminists that "relationships do not exist as atomized units--separate and distinct from the larger culture.  Indeed, relationships may both represent and reproduce the cultures in which they are embedded" (Judith Jordan).  Jordan sees "The ethic of individuality and self-sufficiency still takes precedence over the ethic of mutuality" (Ibid) in our culture.  Maureen Walker and Wendy Rosen in How Connections Heal observe "The theoretical models of Western psychology represent variations on a culture-bound story: a story marked by efforts to appear scientifically objective or 'neutral."  They suggest that "When autonomy, separation, and independence are the prevailing standards for mature psychological functioning, women by most measures are judged deficient."

 

Relational Spirituality: Mutuality as Power-With Part 3

Any Christian relational spirituality will be seen as a kind of radical spirituality in light of modern spiritualties and modern popular wisdom.  Individualism, independence, autonomy,  separation, control,  fix, detachment, technique one-directional, solution, answers, methods, protect,  power-over, reason,  objective, these are all embedded in modern spiritualities.  Indeed, the spiritual formation of modern psychotherapy (if you haven't considered this yet, David Fitch writes succinctly on how modern psychotherapy "is a powerful form of spiritual formation") has impacted Christian spiritualities, men and women, pastors and psychotherapists. 

Relational Spirituality: Mutuality as Power-With 2

I believe I first came across James Olthuis when I was in my tracer mode(tracer in this context is someone who loves to trace the footnotes at the bottom of the page or back of the books and go find those sources).   It was a couple of years back and for the first time I was coming across written resources for cross gender friendship when an article referred me to some positive comments Olthuis made on intergender intimacy outside of marriage in his book, I Pledge You My Troth: A Christian View of Marriage, Family, and Friendship.   It was only a couple of days after that, when I unintentionally discovered  his Journal of Psychology and Christianity article: "Dancing Together in the Wild Spaces of Love: Postmodernism, Psychotherapy, and the Spirit of God" ( I was tracing some other subject and behold, there was Olthuis!).  This article was scratching where I had a serious case of itching.  I was moving out of a foundationalist evangelical/fundamentalist spirituality where there was such stress on intellectual knowledge coupled with a philosophical clinging to inerrancy.  I was fumbling my way through the maze of Christianity and postmodernism.  Olthuis was a breath of fresh air for me.  I sensed the wind of the Spirit present when I started reading his articles.  Plus, I had a passion for theology, psychology, some philosophy and hermeneutics, similar to issues Olthuis addressed as I read his article.  I warmed up to him.  It didn't hurt that he was fond of the dance metaphor;  I had already been using that metaphor to describe connecting with God and with others.    When I began this blog two years ago, Olthuis was not too far away from my thinking. 

Relational Spirituality: Mutuality as Power-With

This weekend, I want begin a series on "relational spirituality: mutuality as power-with."  During this series, I will be discussing relational spirituality mostly from the perspective of theologian/philosopher/therapist James Olthuis.  It's rare to come across a thinker who has pursued formal education and training in theology, philosophy, and psychology.  The Hermeneutics of Charity is a collection of essays  to honor Olthuis.

I want to gleam insights from his work:
The Beautiful Risk: A New Psychology of Loving and Being Loved.
Olthuis has written several scholarly essays (other books, as well) on his vision for relational spirituality. 

Who's Afraid of Postmodernism

I see a fellow blogger, Eric, is also interested in Smith's new book.  I visited your blog Eric, and I thoroughly enjoyed what you are currently reading.

Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? 2

Smith's first chapter, "Is the Devil in Paris?" is an accessible introduction attempting to avoid simplistic dichotomies of postmodernism.  Each chapter in the book begins with a short overview of a contemporary film, engaging postmodernity with postmodernism, with an unapologetic but nevertheless a critical Christian embrace of postmodernism.   

Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?

James K. A. Smith's new book, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? is now out.  I intend to review his book here, shortly.   

Christianity and the Postmodern Turn

This book is a must read for those interested in the dialogue among Christian scholars concerning the postmodern turn.  Merold Wetsphal from Fordam, James K.A. Smith from Calvin College, Kevin J. Vanhoozer from Trinity, John Franke from Biblical Theological Seminary, R. Douglas Geivett from Biola, and R. Scott Smith from Biola have essays and interact with the other essays.

Hopefully, I will blog some on the essays in the near future.