This is an excellent post by James KA Smith* (found via The Phaith of St.Phransus) who chose not to participate in the format of the group protest. Really good points.
And here I must confess that I don’t see many of my progressive sisters and brothers eager or willing to take up this hard, long work of discipleship and formation in the churches. Many of my colleagues who so loudly and publicly protested the Bush visit with their armbands and other declarations tend to inhabit ecclesial spaces where they’ll find many sympathetic to their political stance—and from there articulate their prophetic critique. But as Richard Mouw wisely counseled me several months ago, we need fewer prophets, and more teachers.
* interesting note: I had a mistaken impression that the writer of this blog was a student (but was noticing that they seemed extremely articulate for a college student — not that college students couldn’t be—- but Eric’s comment pointed out to me that it was actually James K.A. Smith’s blog. I was comin’ out with pistols drawn in defense of Wallis, but had already decided that this James KA Smith guy is impressive. And so now, I have bought Smith’s book (just before Eric’s comment correcting my mixup) and so this will be an interesting read.
Eric,
This was a weird kind of mix-up for me. I saw the link you had to Jonathan’s interview with JKA Smith. I also saw Jonathan’s link to the story on the forsclavigera blog, which I had somehow gotten the impression was a student at Calvin, not Smith himself.
I actually have bought Introducing Radical Orthodoxy , just today, about 5 hours ago, so impressed was I with the interview, and also by your recommnedation of his book before Milbank’s (the latter which I have heard from you and other sources is a bit dense).
At this point, I have no idea now how I would have recieved that article’s criticism if I had realized it was Smith’s, but I think I will remain skeptical, since it is Sojo and Wallis that has been so formative for me over the past 20 years—- but inevitable , some of the “links” that lead me from one theologian to another, like Hauerwas — whom I had seen quoted in many sources within and referred by Sojourners pieces, and who has also written things that I now, via Hauerwas’ promptings and insights, could make me more “cautious” or “less likely to go all-out in defending.
I’m not so sure that Yoder would see it (the Wallis/Contantine thing as Smith describes it) the same way as either Hauerwas OR Smith, but the conversation and the exploration of those very issues is fascinating (and thus is a potential source of further “formation” for me).
I know that Yoder was a formative influence and kind of mentor for all three of them.
Regardless, I was sufficiently impressed with JKA Smith in that short interview to add him to my stack (and probably move it to the top, since it has grabbed my interest). So I’m sure I will have other things to say about all of this and how that affects my level of comfort/satisfaction with the “God’s Politics” approach. One of the reasons why , of course, I would allow for such a “conversation” to take place in my “theological sparring ground” between Wallis and Smith would be due , in no small measure, to the conversations you and I have had through our blogs and comments. Otherwsie, I may have been apt to dismiss Smith without the level of “history of where he’s coming from” as you said, and been the lesser for it. So thanks for that “constructive disagreement”.
Did you check out that video of Wallis and West? That was better I thought, than Wallis alone at Nashville when I saw him. I was impressed with West again (I’d listened /read to a few things of his in the past 6 months)
Dale
Actually, the “Fors Clavigera” blog is James K. A. Smith’s blog, and he isn’t a student. He’s “Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Director of the Seminars in Christian Scholarship Program at Calvin College.” He’s also the author of that excellent Introducing Radical Orthodoxy book.