As much as I’ve been a little miffed lately by James K.A. Smith’s approach to critiquing Jim Wallis, I am also firmly convinced that the gist of his projects are engaging, intriguing, and extremely valuable to us in the church. I also intend to continue reading all the Hauerwas I can get my hands on and point my browser toward, as well as Bonhoeffer (still in the Bethge Biography of Bonhoeffer) The following is some of the stuff I’m looking forward to upcoming from Smith, as described on his Calvin College page.
The next phase of my research will pull together these philosophical and theological trajectories as I begin work in the area of Christian public philosophy and political theology with a special interest in international relations in a post-9/11 world.
Specific projects include the following:
* A book directed toward students, pastors, church leaders, and the community of believers, tentatively titled Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church. Growing out of my 2003 lectures at L’abri Fellowship in Switzerland, my goal in this book is to critically engage and explain the culture of postmodernity, particularly with a view to the implications of postmodernity for the life of the Church. In the process I’ll critically engage the work of figures such as Brian McLaren and Leonard Sweet, offering a ‘friendly critique’ of their picture of the postmodern church.
* My sabbatical project for 2004/2005 is entitled Holy Wars and Democratic Crusades: Deconstructing Myths of Religious Violence and Secular Peace. Building on the work on democratic peace theory, this project engages the postmodern critique of religion (especially as articulated by Derrida) as inherently violent. This will represent the culmination of my critique of Derrida that has been sketched in previous articles.
* Beginning summer 2005 and through 2005/2006, I will be at work on a book project currently titled Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Learning, and the Formation of Radical Disciples. This project is funded by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and the Lilly Vocation Project. Aimed at students, but also of interest to scholars and other readers, the book will make the philosophical case for the role of worship and liturgical practices in the formation of a “worldview” (and will also critique the mis-appropriation of worldview language by the “Biola school”). It will include an analysis of the formative practices of “secular” liturgies and argue for a recovery of the centrality of worship as a crucial, necessary aspect of eduction and formation. I hope the book will be complete by September 2006.
* In the summer of 2004 I was engaged in research with my McGregor Research Fellow (and fellow Canadian!), Nathan Sytsma. The project was entitled “The Violence of Belief: Democratic Peace Theory’s Commitment to Secularization.” The theory of “democratic peace” is often cited as “the closest thing we have to an empirical law in the study of international relations.” Informing American foreign policy for the past two administrations, one aspect of this program has been under-theorized: the relationship of democratic peace theory to the project of secularization. This project will investigate the ways in which the theory is predicated on a confidence in secularity as securing peace and therefore parallels “postmodern” critiques of religious violence. Both feed into the increased secularization of the public sphere based on assumptions about the “violence” of particular, determinate religious confessions. I hope to publish some of the fruits of this research in venues such as the Wilson Quarterly or Harper’s.
* Beginning in fall 2006, I hope to undertake a project in political theology on the topic of freedom: a word bandied about in much American political discourse, particularly with respect to foreign policy and the “export” of American democracy–and regularly freighted with theological assumption and even overt claims. I hope to write a small, accessible book that will interrogate the “theology of freedom” that informs the current administration. My goal is to have the book done in time to appear for the fall 2008 presidential elections.
All of this stuff sounds absolutely terrific, and I look forward to exploring that.
“Worship, Learning, and the Formation of Radical Disciples” is the most intriguing of all. My latest burst of energy to “re-engage” in a more serious and disciplined way the life of the Church of the Saviour’s eccesial living (and when I use that term re: that community, it really is “living”, for never have I seen a church more thoroughly occupied with being God’s people and announcing the arrival of God’s Kingdom as this group has).
