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A La Carte (03/17)
- 03/17/06
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Friday March 17, 2006
Humor: The Thirsty Theologian laments finding out that one of his heroes is flawed. “It happens to all of us at some point at least once. Depending upon your degree of admiration for the fallen one, it can be quite devastating.”
Theology: J.D. Wetterling’s weekly blog is, as usual, well worth reading. “March came into the southern slopes of the Blue Ridge like the meekest lamb in memory, and suddenly crocus purple is everywhere, accented by daffodil yellow. Hallelujah!”
Blogging: Tim Sweetman is involved in a new project, Regenerate Our Culture, “a new organization dedicated to changing the worldview of 15 to 25 year-olds from unbiblical to biblical.”
Emergent: Carla has a good post on (surprise!) the Emerging Church. “According to the critics, we’re all wrong. According to the critics, we’re not nice enough, tolerant enough, ecumenical enough, and haven’t been ‘engaging’ in dialog with the ‘right’ representatives of the ECM.”
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Comments (3)
Tim,Thanks for the A La Carte round up. I read Carla’s post with interest and thought about what is appropriate in academic circles.
The way I’ve been trained academically, Part I of any evaluation is this: one should seek first to understand another’s position very well and be able to represent the other’s view in such a way that the other says, “Yes, you’ve got it right. You’ve represented my position well.”
Then, after accurately representing the other’s view, comes Part II. In Part II one begins to write one’s criticisms (technically meaning positive and/or negative assesstments, though “critical” has come to have a negative-only connotation for some). It may be that the other never appreciates Part II.
Of course, it’s possible that one may be scrutinizing a particular person or group that will never say, “You’ve represented me fairly.” However, in my experience, good faith efforts to represent another fairly receive high marks from the other, regardless of what transpires in Part II.
My question about Carla’s post is this: do folks who identify themselves with the Emergent world believe that Carla has done Part I? Do they think she has fairly represented them?
If so, then they simply differ with her on her criticisms of Emergent. But if few or none of the self-identified Emergent people believe she has accurately represented them before assessing them, then it would call into question her intellectual abilities or heart or both.
As an example, Tim, I would take your book reviews. I’ve not read all of them (I have work to do), but I’ve read a good number of them, and I think you do the Part I-Part II scrutiny. I don’t know if authors have written you about your review, but I would assume they would say, “Yes, Tim ‘gets it’. ”
So again, my question about Carla’s post is whether self-identified Emergent foks, particularly those who are most influential, believe that Carla has accurately represented what they say, believe and do. If so, kudos to her. If not…..
GL wrote: “So again, my question about Carla’s post is whether self-identified Emergent foks, particularly those who are most influential, believe that Carla has accurately represented what they say, believe and do. If so, kudos to her. If not…..”
It is unreasonable to expect unreasonable people to think you’re being reasonable when you point out that they’re being unreasonable.
I’ll call you Ishmael if you want, Ishmael. :)
I agree that it’s unreasonable to expect unreasonable people to play ball. Sometimes that happens and it is frustrating.
But your phrase, “when you point out that they’re being unreasonable” is about Part II. I fully expect writers/speakers to have objections and counter-arguments regarding Part II of a critique.
But it’s Part I that was the main point of my comment. Sometimes people will be unreasonable about Part I; it does happen on occasion.
But mostly what I’ve seen is that when a critic determines to understand well what a speaker/writer has communicated, the effort to understand is appreciated by the one being critiqued.
In critique situations these scenarios are possible with respect to Part I (representing the other accurately).
1. The critic does represent the speaker/writer accurately and the critiqued person says, “Yes, this is accurate.”
2. The critic does represent the speaker/writer accurately and the critiqued person unreasonably says, “No, he/she doesn’t ‘get it.’”
3. The critic does not represent the speaker/writer accurately.
Intellectual honesty requires the critic to represent the one being critiqued accurately and fairly first.
If a critic does not have the mental ability to do this, the critic has no business criticizing and his/her criticisms should not be given weight.
If a critic has the mental ability to represent another accurately but willfully chooses not to do so, his/her criticisms should not be given weight and he/she merits criticism.
None of this is to imply that Carla does not accurately represent the ones she critiques. I honestly don’t know if she is described by scenario 1, 2 or 3, or some mix of these in her various posts.
I do know this: there have been some critics of Emergent that Emergent people have replied to with: he is fair, he represents us accurately, and we have to reckon with his criticisms.
The fact that *some* critics have earned the “you get us” validation from Emergent people says that *at least* some of the time some of them are not unreasonable. That’s a modest argument, I realize.