What I Was Thinking

Of late, I’ve been suppressing awareness of my obligation to write an article with an uncomfortably close deadline. I was invited to write an article about “living as a Christian in a postmodern world,” and I have 3500 words to expound my response. As usual, I have a small mountain of partial ideas, but have not yet discerned the connecting principle that will transform my random thoughts into an orderly argument.

Among the notions with which I’m likely to play will be the rhetoric of compulsion relative to cultural interpretations of Christianity (the ways people tend to say, “Well, you can’t X Y Z in a postmodern world,” or “In a postmodern world, one must J K L. . . ”); the question of possibility, in conjunction with Michel de Certeau’s marvelous article “How is Christianity Thinkable Today?”; the question of Christianity and power, in conjunction with Jean-François Lyotard’s “The Strength of the Weak”; or something else. A catchy title might transform the whole project, if such a thing occurs to me.

Expect updates.


Steve “Used To Be ‘One Piot Meal’ Now Is ‘tawny grammar’ Himmer says:

Wasn’t “You Can’t XYZ In A Postmodern World” the title of a Tom Lehrer song?

I could be wrong about that, but good luck proving it in a postmodern world.

-Steve

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