Easter – The End of Deconstruction

The 2007 Emergent Theological Conversation has come and gone.  I am writing this as I wait to get on a plane to Chicago, more tried than I usually am, but less than I could have been having spent a couple of days swimming in deep thoughts with some of my most favorite people. 

From Derrida and Deconstruction to the undeconstructible Event; from the passion of the Impossible to the poetics of the Possible; from onto-theo-logy to theological poetics; from Lent to Easter…the ground we covered, and much more. 

There are many turns these days in continental philosophy, but I will spend time on a most significant turn (dare I say revelation) that happened here in Philadelphia in the exchange between Richard Kearney and John Caputo, arguably the two most influential English speaking continental philosophers. 

During a panel session half way through the conference, I asked the simple question, “What does deconstruction have to do with Easter?  It is easy to recognize the 'Jesus' of deconstruction who lives in Lent, in the wilderness, as an anchorite monk.  But how does this deconstructive 'Jesus' live in Easter, after the Resurrection?” (I’m sure I didn’t ask it near as eloquently, but that's how I wanted to phrase it.)

In reply Richard Kearney launched into a moving account of how indeed Derrida, personally and philosophically, persisted in a self-imposed Holy Saturday, forbidden/held from the Resurrection, but that in spite of this, Derrida’s work was pregnant with the possibility of Easter and that people like himself (Kearney), Jack Caputo, Jamie Smith and others were faithfully drawing out those secret dimensions of deconstruction which would indeed rise again on Easter Sunday.  Kearney suggested that while Derrida refused to make the step from Holy Saturday to Easter Sunday, that deconstruction in no way barred that step and indeed almost asks for it.  Admittedly, Kearney acknowledges a slightly different take on deconstruction (influenced via Ricoeur), but Caputo was also receptive to this reading of deconstruction. 

For myself, and I believe for others, this was an extremely helpful distinction between the work of Derrida and, in a sense, the necessary overcoming (or deconstructing) of Derrida, moving from the wilderness of Lent and Good Friday into the surprise of Easter Sunday.

Kearney said that over the recent years he has, in friendship, gentle nudged Jack to find his own voice and speak of the Easter Sunday of Caputo’s own religious tradition instead of merely commenting on the Holy Saturday of Derrida’s desert wanderings.  And indeed, Jack was very responsive to this suggestion, and claims that even in his most recent work he is attempting to do this very thing (I think he was referring to his forthcoming What Would Jesus Deconstruct? [fall 2007]).  From the written work of Caputo that I have read, and from the concerns of many readers/commentors here, I had not envisioned such openness to constructive (dare we even say, Resurrected) theology.

Of course it remains to be seen if Caputo’s deconstructive 'Jesus' can indeed live well after Easter Sunday, but we will have to wait and see.  In either case, the conversation was immensely helpful and eye opening, if at times jarring and frustrating (but was good conversation isn’t?). 

Much more was discussed and questioned, and if you are writing your own reflections, please leave a note in the comments so I can compile a list.

---

Deconstructing Derrida
2007 Theological Conversation- Sam Andress
comments from the emergent philosophical conversation- Marko
What would Jesus Deconstruct? - Mike King
emergent theologica conversation with Kearney and Caputo- Michael Toy
Thoughts from the Emergent Philosophical Conversation - Mark Vans

And of course, thanks to Tony Jones for organizing the event, and for being a capable moderator. 

Comments

[James K.A. Smith]

Thanks for these post-conversation reflections, Geoff. I'll look forward to hearing from others who were able to be there. I think Kearney is an interesting figure for emergent folks to get acquainted with. His affinity with Derrida has always been tempered by a fairly robust Catholic sensibility (cp. also Kevin Hart on this score) as well as a significant commitment to Ricoeur, who tends to be a lost voice in these conversations.

What remains to be seen is whether the "resurrected" Derrida--or rather, the 'resurrected' Jesus of a post-Derridean faith--actually has flesh and blood...or whether this turns out to be a kind of Bultmannian Easter, where Jesus "rises in our hearts" (gag!).

Perhaps one could push this further and ask whether a deconstructive faith can affirm not just resurrection, but Ascension.

In any case, I'm jealous of those who were there and appreciate reports from the front.

[Geoff Holsclaw]

Jamie,

yes, I had heard of Kearney but had never read him, and I found his writings to be very intriguing and I hope that others in the EC will read him. You are right his the influence of Ricoeur has tempered his appropriation of Derrida. Kearney made constant reference to this slight, yet important difference, between his own reading of deconstruction and that of Caputo. The difference is between a passion for the impossible (Caputo) and the poetics of the possible (Kearney).

But your question is a good one: who (what) is this Jesus Deconstructor after the Resurrection?

[Derek Flood]

Hey Geoff,

Great thoughts. One hammer that Kearney and Caputo dropped on us was the idea that, in Caputo's words: "Jesus is unique but he is not THE way". I was able to dialog with Kearney after one of the sessions and suggested to him that there is a distinction between Christianity which is a limited cultural expression of our attempt to find truth and the Gospel where God self-reveals to us. He was quite receptive to the idea and I recommended the writings of E Stanley Jones on this to him. it basically takes Kearney's ideas that we cannot ourselves lay claim to the absolute since we are fallible and adds to it the idea of the Incarnation : that rather than us scraping away at the crust to get to the absolute beneath, in Christ the Absolute has broken through the crust to us from the other side.

I've blogged about this "différance" between Christianity and the Gospel here:
http://sharktacos.com/God/2007/04/deconstructing-derrida.html

[Jaosn Hesiak]

Oh...I see that with my question in response to the previous post, I was asking a complex question that doesn't exactly have an easy answer...

[Derek Flood]

"But your question is a good one: who (what) is this Jesus Deconstructor after the Resurrection?"

I think this question has been addressed with some considerable depth in the "theology of the cross" of Jürgen Moltmann. With out the future hope of the Resurrection, the cross is about abuse, injustice, and despair. Through the Incarnation we can see that God is present with us in our crucifixion, in our darkness, sickness, suffering, helplessness, and forsakenness. And with the Resurrection we see that the cross is not about the glorification of this suffering, but the picture of the protesting God.

[Sam Andress]

Geoff,
Thanks for these good summary comments. I really enjoyed the three day conversation. It was rich and was a bit of an intellectual rollercoaster. I have posted my post-conversation reflections at my blog:

www.samandress.blogspot.com

By the way thanks to Jamie Smith for the most helpful book Who's Afraid of Postmodernism! This series will be, I think, and answer to many prayers. It's much needed for a wider group to be able to hear these philsophical ideas in understandable language. Though I can sift through some primary sources, these will be very helpful when I dialogue with pastors about possible implications of postmodernity.

[Geoff Holsclaw]

derek,

thanks for your reference to Moltmann. I haven't read much of him, but he is a touchstone for many concerning this.

My general question concerning the Death, but more importantly the Resurrection of Jesus is this: Did something happen? Did the world/cosmos change in some way?

Did Jesus conquer Sin and Death, or did he merely give us a picture of solidarity with the oppressed?

Did Jesus rise to give us New Life, or just signify the possibility of a new life if we all follow his example (moral atonement theory)?

Is the Resurrection the actual/present vindication of God in Jesus against the oppressors, or just the promise of such freedom in the future?

I raise these questions not b/c I want to sneak some penal-substitutionary atonement theory back in, but because I think the Atonement is something we need to keep our sights on. I don't know exactly what HAPPENED in the Atonement, or how to explain it b/c I think there are multiple understanding/pictures in Scripture to describe it. But I want to say that something HAPPENED, something CHANGED, and we commonly unpack that HAPPENING by talking about the atonement.

My fear is that the deconstructive Jesus doesn't really want anything to do with the Atonement, and that nothing really CHANGED in the world or in us, but rather that Jesus' death/resurrection are illustrative of some fundamental structure of reality (the reality we forget or suppress).

So to end with, I know deconstruction (kearney and caputo) talk about an Event, but I fear this is merely an epistemological Event which helps us to know reality as it has always been, but the Event that I believe the Resurrection speaks of is more ontological, changing reality into what it should have been.

[tony jones]

Marko's post:

http://www.ysmarko.com/?p=1500

[tony jones]

Mike King's thoughts:

http://king.typepad.com/mike_king/2007/04/what_would_jesu.html

[Tim McGee]

I like the question about Easter, and want to ask a similar one: what does deconstruction have to do with Ecclesiology?

In his book, On Religion, Caputo quite blatantly reawakens modernity's concern over Jewish identity: in short, Caputo takes it as an act of violence (fundamentalism) to claim to be God's elect people. But the claim that Israel is God's chosen people is fundamental to our ecclesiology: our identity, as Gentile Christians, comes from our being grafted into God's elect people, Israel (Rom 11). The mystery of the Gospel, Paul says in Ephesians, is that Gentiles are brought into Israel, and are therefore heirs to Israel's promises (which means they are heirs to the gift of Jesus Christ).

Therefore, atonement, reconcilation, revelation, the resurrection--Christ himself--only make sense within the story and space of Israel, the concrete body of God's chosen people. But Israel's identity as God's people is excluded by Caputo. Thus, any attempt to reconcile orthodox Christology to deconstruction must start with what is Jewish about Jesus.

So, does deconstruction offer us anything besides a confrontation with and eventual dissolution of Jewish identity as God's chosen people? This question is the concrete core of my initial question, about deconstruction and the church.

Tim McGee

[Michael Toy]

excellent collection of thoughts -- brought to mind many things i had already forgotten,

i am going to be writing about the thoughts spurred by the event for a while.

my first post wonders if maybe the things deconstruction reveals are conditioned by our idea of who god might be, so while maybe deconstruction itself doesn't point to resurrection, deconstructive gestures by a christian would be doomed to speak of easter.

http://toyblog.typepad.com/lemon/

[Derek Flood]

"raise these questions not b/c I want to sneak some penal-substitutionary atonement theory back in, but because I think the Atonement is something we need to keep our sights on. I don't know exactly what HAPPENED in the Atonement, or how to explain it b/c I think there are multiple understanding/pictures in Scripture to describe it. But I want to say that something HAPPENED, something CHANGED, and we commonly unpack that HAPPENING by talking about the atonement."

Geoff,

I completely agree. Moral Influence theory only makes sense as a part of an objective theory, otherwise it becomes a pretty sick way to say "I love you". Similarly God suffering with us when that is all there is becomes pretty hopeless. Finally penal substitution does not change anything because it amounts to a legal acquittal. What we need is to be, as you say released from the bondage of evil in our hearts and in our world.

I'd suggest that there is no need to bring back penal substitution, but what I would want to bring back in an understanding of substitutionary atonement understood within the context of Christ Victor. If you're interested, I've written an essay on this and how it would fit into a postmodern perspective.

Penal Substitution vs. Christus Victor

[Mark Van Steenwyk]

I've added some of my reflections to my blog: (www.jesusmanifesto.com). I don't offer much profundity, but I do try to share some implications for how we do ministry.

[michael o'neill]

Does anyone know if audio from this event will available?

[tony jones]

Michael,

The audio will be on the Emergent Village podcast in coming months.

[Kim]

I believe that the hope of post-modern man is that we would move past the detachedness, the subfusion. Away from arrogance and towards humility. Valuing understanding others more than being understood. Being less judgmental and extending more grace.

The problem is that post-modern man is really in no better position to implement these values than was modern man. I am in no better position to implement these values because of my (limited) understanding of what it means to be "modern" or "post-modern." I'm still involved in that age-old conflict between the flesh and the spirit. Will I always feel this way? So empty, so estranged?

I scream with all the intensity that Paul did in his letter to the Romans, "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?"

And without denying the gut-wrenching circumstances that are cropped up in my life, without denying the feelings of inadequacy, without denying the process that I must go through to get there...I end up acknowledging the same salvation that Paul did....Jesus Christ our Lord. He is the pattern that I will strive to mold myself to. His compassion, His grace, His empathy, His understanding, His strength, His humility, His sacrifice are my goals.

God help me (and you too!).

Your ally in the pursuit of Christlikeness, Kim

[Malcolm]

Hi there

I've given you the Thinking Bloggers Award for all the inspiration I've gained from your site. see http://malcolmchamberlain.blogspot.com/2007/04/thinking-blogger-award.html

Now you're in the (not so) elite group of thinkers, it's up to you to pass it on!!

Thanks and keep on thinking and inspiring!!!

[Marvia]

["Through the Incarnation we can see that God is present with us in our crucifixion, in our darkness, sickness, suffering, helplessness, and forsakenness. And with the Resurrection we see that the cross is not about the glorification of this suffering, but the picture of the protesting God"]

I understand and share Moltmann's position on the hope of the Resurrection. However, I feel that in certain contexts of widespread poverty and oppression - persons are looking for God to appear less "im-potent". They want the visible signs of God's power to deliver them from their conditions. [yes, a foolish and perverse generation...]

How does the "deconstructed" Jesus offer such a hope? Does this 'deconstructed' Jesus fit into the "deliverance" offered by present day Pentecostalists?

Looking forward to a response.

[daniel anderson]

Hello all,

wonderful thoughts. It gives me inspiration to see that we're all mulling over these issues here, and that even Kearney and Caputo are still progressing in the possibilities of thinking/reading. I feel like the conference was cut short on the last day, but perhaps we can continue this thinking/conversation in the blogosphere and elsewhere.

On that note, I made an effort to blog and unpack my thoughts for each day of the conference (although day 1 and day 2 got squished into one entry). This might be interesting for those who want to read from the perspective of a young, undergrad art student who is in extremely postmodern environment (I live and study in a campus that Caputo described as "bad postmodernity," both in the conference and in a discussion I had with him during the lunch).

http://blog.secondseraph.com

Thanks to all again for such a wonderful time. Here's to many more possibilities in the future!

-DAA