I just read Jamie Smith’s Thinking in Tongues. I’m still not quite sure who his primary audience was, unless, perhaps it was people like myself. Intellectuals who still have some sort of pentecostal/charismatic identification, even if, perhaps they don’t currently worship at places that would share that identification. Smith identifies several core marks of a pentecostal social imaginary. But the work is much less about what it’s subtitle claims, pentecostal contributions to christian philosophy. But rather, its more about the pentecostals contributing to christian philosophy, calling them (us?) to use the gifts we have been given. But at the same time it call us to radically question the reigning rationalism that characterizes Christian philosophy, to articulate that which even our neighbors in the church would recognize as their faith. I wish I had seen this kind of thing a long time ago. I wish more people would be articulating philosphical investigations into the nature of belief, faith and lived Christian experience. Why has it taken so long?
True, there are probably others articulating the same things. So its not fair to pretend like he’s the first one to begin grappling with postmodernism and christianity from a perspective that I feel like I can really assent to.
At the same time, I feel perhaps more than a little bit of a calling for myself being articulated here. I sense that something of this project is important to who I am. I have started studying seriously over the past few months things that I really never looked at before. And often now I feel that sensation that I used to only feel when writing. I start to feel that sensation that feels like God. That burning in my heart like this is something that I have to do. It’s like harmony harmony with something deep inside me that just feels right. So I think I’ll end of writing to him to get some input on a few things. I still vacillate a bit on doing a PhD, but it’s starting to seem more and more like an option I ought to take, though I still have some lingering doubts.
I highly recommend the book, no matter where you fall on pentecostal/charismatic christianity.
I’m also saddened to see the decay of religious discussion in the news lately. I’m saddened to see how much time we waste asking questions about politics in guise of questions about faith. How do we as Christians bring peace and reconciliation to these discussions. Community Center at Ground Zero, the president’s religion? Where does the political tooling end? Why do I feel like the whole discussion is just a stage to try to polarize people, to divide them and conquer them? Why do I feel like there is almost something demonic at play in the way religion is being tossed and turned into some kind of cleaver to cut people down, to get ahead? How can Christians respond to such utterly devilish dialog? How do we speak “peace?”
Or, even more pertinent, perhaps, how do we take up our cross in this dialog. How do we follow Christ’s example, taking on the persecution, taking it in our very flesh as he did?
I keep thinking that there is something in what Jamie Smith was arguing that’s applicable here.