10/26/2006

response to Mark Noll's "Where We Are and How We Got Here"

I finally got around to reading Mark Noll's article "Where We Are and How We Got Here." Responding point by point would take far too long but I want to critique two evangelical distinctives in the last fifty years.

1. The propagation of the gospel as a repository of Truth. Evangelicals have made Jesus accessible and relevant but in effect they've also made him an American concept. (Please somebody, prove that statement wrong! Assure me that evangelicals haven't and aren't doing it.)
Jesus is not a concept, he is a person. In his Christology lectures Bonhoeffer explains the difference framed as the "who" vs. the "how".

"In our daily language the question, "Who are you?" is very common. Nevertheless it is easily changed into the how question. Tell me how you are. Tell me how you are thinking. Then I can determine who you are. The question about the who is the most basic religious question. It is a question about another person, another being, another authority. It is a question about the love of one's neighbor. The question about transcendence and the question about existence is a question about the neighbor. It is a question about a person. That we are always asking how demonstrates our captivity to our own authority. If we were to ask, "Who are you?" we would be speaking the language of the obedient Adam. Instead we think according to the fallen Adam, asking how." (DBW 12:282-284)

2. The willingness and then eagerness to spread the gospel through every available new medium of communication. Noll uses the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Kenneth Taylor (author of the paraphrased Living Bible translation) as prime examples of this. My question is an old one. Just because we can use every new medium should we? Now before you roll your eyes I'd like you to consider the points raised by Marshall McLuhan, Jacques Ellul, and Father Walter J. Ong in this regard. These men were hardly hateful of technology, but they were deeply aware of its' effects. In other words they cared about the tools. Alongside Billy Graham and Kenneth Taylor should be names of folks who studied the mediums themselves with an eye toward what might be compromised in the gospel presentation. I don't know that such evangelicals even exist. They must be somewhere. But who are they? Right along with that point comes a question about the Communicator and the medium. Why are big names the emphasis in Evangelicalism? Yes, you may remark that more people identify with personalities--that that's just the way of things. But when do the Big names become an ill intended effect themselves?

A case in point would be the big deal made over Bono's cussing some years ago. He made a point of saying "I'm no role model." The issue addressed the fact that Bono's actions communicated something other than his message. When Billy Graham got caught on tape in Nixon's office openly worrying about Jews there again the Communicator was critiqued. My point is that just like the medium communicates on its' own so the Communicator issues other messages than Jesus as well.

So here we're stuck with some realities about life and faith. We communicate as people through mediums. When people get popular their image becomes iconic and confused within the medium. Other unintended messages are sent than the gospel. The desire to follow Jesus and speak rightly of him are compromised. I'm not going to offer a simple solution here because there isn't one. Technique should be questioned. That's it.

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