Another exploration of the fundamentalist psyche

 Ken Ham says: "If you can’t trust the Bible when it talks about geology, biology, and astronomy, then how can you trust the Bible when it talks about salvation?".  But can we trust Ken Ham's judgement on this matter?

The slogan Sola scriptura (Scripture alone!) was important to reformation Protestants because it succinctly summed up the revolt against the authoritarian leadership of the Roman Catholic Church of the day, a leadership which insisted on its exclusive authority to interpret the Bible to its flock. But the slogan is also important today as a rallying cry against those Christians who wish to impose their proprietary interpretations of scripture on other Christians, often by means of some form of spiritual intimidation. However, although Sola Scriptura used as a slogan is excellent at keeping at bay those who see themselves in the role of didactic authorities, it is not, nevertheless, literally true.

Natural language is essentially a string of symbols with the purpose of “delivering” meaning; but these symbols do not literally contain meaning. Rather, meaning is generated by the context upon which the symbol string impinges. But to do this the context must be set up in such a way as to handle the incoming string and derive relevant information from it. In the case of human beings the interpreting context includes a vast information system which consists of both mental resources and cultural knowledge (the latter includes knowledge of history); in effect a huge hinterland of texts and narrative to which our minds largely unconsciously refer when we interpret incoming text. Bible text is no exception to this rule (See here). But to a God who is sovereign over both the incoming stream of symbols and its interpreting context this is no necessary barrier to the generation of right meaning. 

But fundamentalists are loathe to admit the Bible’s semantic debt to its host context, opting instead for a closeted insularity from what they perceive as a profane worldly context. Fundamentalists much prefer to portray the Bible as a self-contained universe of meaning where “contamination” from worldly science, philosophy and what they despise as “man’s thoughts” is minimized. They crave an epistemic that delivers certain knowledge and the thought that they themselves and their context are highly proactive active agents in the interpretation of scripture is to them a dangerous thought. For them the Bible has plain meanings that are intrinsic rather extrinsic to scripture.  That the “extraction” of Biblical meaning comes via the lens of our world view embedded in the receiving context is far too insecure as an epistemic for the fundamentalist; the hardened fundamentalist craves certainty and turns the actual model of translation on its head. For (s)he believes that somehow the Bible is the lens through which (s)he sees the world and it thereby delivers unambiguous truth and absolute certainty to its readers.

To illustrate the way the fundamentalist mind handles the Bible there can be few better examples than Jason Lisle. With a genuine PhD in Astrophysics you might expect that he would have an inkling about how natural language actually works and would understand the context dependence of scripture translation. In fact I think Lisle does understand how it works, but he is so gripped by fundamentalist tropes which make the translation role of context invisible that in the final analysis Lisle is forced to affirm scripture as a self-contained universe of meaning. As evidence of this I reproduce the following comment by Lisle. In this comment Lisle is responding to a query about Biblical meaning from one of his following. Lisle seems to start OK but because thinking is more analogue than it is digital, the fundamentalist stress on certain terms seems to overwhelm Lisle and so eventually he comes round to more or less affirming that scriptural meaning is self-contained. Anyway here we have it (my emphases):  

Zach, the answers to your questions involve the concept of the “hermeneutical circle” or “hermeneutical spiral.” I have a book coming out in the summer that addresses these issues in rich detail (in chapter 9). For now, I’ll have to give a shorter answer. God’s Word would have to be true because of the nature of God; He is truth. God has “hardwired” us to know that He exists, and to recognize His Word when we hear it or read it (John 10:27). How we respond to God’s Word will determine what happens next. If we receive His Word with humility then we participate in the hermeneutical circle. Basically, this means that God’s Word is sufficiently clear that we can understand and correctly interpret much of it upon reading it. After all, God designed our minds and knows how to write a book such that our minds can understand it.

My Comment: I would not want to say that the foregoing is especially wrong for it shows at least some inkling of the role of a sovereign God in contextual translation. However, given that the above comes from the mind of a fundamentalist it is quite likely that Lisle will have a very strong interpretation of the words I’ve highlighted: e.g Lisle emphasizes that we are hardwired, but he should also be taking into account our culturally programmed software/firmware, a huge body of knowledge which includes knowledge of the history out of which the text emanates; clearly that knowledge isn’t going to be infallible. And of course when Lisle says God’s Word is sufficiently clear that we can understand and correctly interpret much of it a hardcore fundamentalist like Lisle will likely include his “plain” readings of Genesis. For example, compare the fundamentalist Andrew Holland, whose comment made in the context of a Genesis discussion I have often quoted as an example of fundamentalist thinking. Viz:

....the historical parts of the Bible, such as Genesis, should be taken at face value, otherwise it is tantamount to calling God a liar! Thus the account of creation, Noah's flood and Jonah's adventures are accurate and can be completely trusted. They are all verified in the New Testament…

However, Lisle’s commentary continues as follows:

Because of sin, we don’t instantly correctly interpret all of God’s Word on the first reading. But the portions we do understand rightly will help us to understand the more difficult portions. In the process of time, our understanding improves as the Scriptures systematically sanctify our thinking. The Bible is therefore self-interpreting. It teaches us how to interpret it.

My Comment: Like a good paranoiac fundamentalist Lisle’s reflex is to attribute misinterpretation first and foremost to malign sinful motives.  No doubt sin does skew interpretation, but notice that Lisle gives no space to admitting that it’s not just sin that allows us to err; the huge machinery of contextual interpretation involves narrative that is not infallible and will also be implicated in error. Fundies are reluctant to admit genuine error in others when those others persistently contradict fundamentalist doctrines; fundies are more likely to opt for the explanation of willful error. In this sense the above quote from Lisle is all too typical in that it homes in on the fancied hidden malign motives of those who disagree with him; as I’ve so often said these habitual suspicions sets fundamentalism up as fertile ground for the growth of conspiracy theorism.  I don’t disagree with Lisle when he says that scripture is in involved in the interpretation of scripture; after all scripture itself is part of the context of any verse of scripture. But notice once again he tends to overstate his case in way that is likely to strike a chord with fellow fundamentalists: For he does not acknowledge that scriptural meaning cannot in an absolute sense bootstrap itself, but can only bootstrap if it taps into huge external information resources. (No problem for a sovereign God to manage, or course). So it is no surprise that in the end Lisle consummates with a phrase thoroughly consistent with insular fundamentalism, namely that scripture is self-contained:

"The Bible is therefore self-interpreting"

My Comment: Yes, scripture is a resource in the interpretation of scripture; but this bland statement by Lisle is not qualified with the acknowledgement that scripture isn’t the only impinging resource of interpretation.  This concluding statement is music to the ear of the fundamentalist who dearly wants to believe and hear something which provides a pretext for writing off “man’s thoughts” in favour of the thinking of his or her fundamentalist sect, a sect which regards itself as tapping directly into Divine opinions via an uncritical “plain” reading of scripture. As Lisle’s followers will regard him as an admirable guru, he is in effect misleading them by (over) stressing only certain aspects of the biblical translation process. 

And yet in the same comment Lisle says something which effectively admits that scripture is not a standalone revelation: it depends on the exploitation of cultural resources: Viz:

Regarding Bible-versions, my upcoming book will also cover this issue in chapter 6. The short answer is that you can be confident that the major conservative English translations (ASV, KJV, NASB, NKJV) are accurate by comparing verses in multiple versions. In over 99% of cases, these versions give the same meaning for each verse, and there is simply no translational problem at all. In only a very few instances is there any disagreement at all, and even in these it is usually minor and involves no doctrinal issue. For these rare cases you’ll have to do further study. But there can be no doubt that the main doctrinal passages of Scripture have been correctly translated.

My Comment: There is the admission here that getting to grips with the Bible may involve access to information about translation statistics; but this data about the reliability of Bible translations is not contained in the Bible itself, of course. Research external to the Bible is needed to check up on translation fidelity: Nothing wrong with this though: I once used four or five translations  to refute an argument from someone of the Witness Lee Brotherhood who challenged the usual rendition of Romans 8:15 using the Brotherhood’s “Recovery” version of the Bible. I’ve also used a similar approach with a Jehovah’s witness I was corresponding with over the “New World” translation of John 1:1

But the bible itself doesn’t tell us which translation to use since it knows nothing of translations.  The question of translation is a meta-question that is only answered with reference to cultural resources and I largely agree with Lisle that multiple versions indicate reliability (but not necessarily infallibility) in translation.

However, once again Lisle overstates his conclusion. Once you think you have a reliably rendered translation there is still a very long way to go. For in translation it is wrong to think that a word is a word is a word. Even if one-to-one translation were actually possible (and it seldom is) that is a mere starting point: As I have remarked before meaning is far more than notational correctness. Probably more important is connotational correctness. For example, we can perhaps correctly translate the Biblical word for “water” with a fair probability of being right. But the connotations of the word “water” in the parched lands of the Middle East means that  “water” probably carried very different connotation in its originating context when compared to those of us who live in wet cool climates. And of course, there is no reason why one-to-one translation should be universally applicable anyway. Cross cultural translation will also likely include one-to-many translations and also many-to-many translations. With many-to-many mappings the central idea is to attempt to capture the original thought behind the text; that is, their connotation. Connotational content will loom large, particularly in the realm of religion, myth, and metaphor where we are trying to convey humanities deepest fleeting thoughts; a superficial notational paradigm of natural language fails to do justice to the truth of the matter.  This opens up a very big area of psychological and sociological study, one I myself have only just touched on in these writings:

http://www.vulnerablemission.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/OB_Spring_2014.pdf

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzLwnl6qE_yeNXFGZDQwcWs2WVk/view?pref=2&pli=1

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/thinknet-project-articles.html

Fundamentalism is attractive because it is a great simplifier of meanings and epistemology. It is especially attractive for those who want a notational Bible which provides mechanically unambiguous meanings facilitating the separating out of the sheep from the goats, thus helping to secure convictions of compromise, heresy, apostasy and blasphemy. Highly sectarian fundamentalists look for a rationale to explain to themselves why their perception of the holy catholic Christian realm is such a small remnant (i.e. themselves). A notational paradigm of scripture is used as a basis to write off the wider Christian community (and other fundamentalist sects) as spiritually inferior if not apostate.

Finally, let me actually put in a good word for Lisle. True, he can display typical fundamentalist nastiness in imputing malign motives to those Christians (if indeed he accepts them as Christians) he disagrees with (for example to Lisle President Obama is a “wicked ruler” and those who believe in an old Earth he accuses of idolizing time). But let’s be clear there are a lot worse out there than Lisle. Lisle has some respect for logic and science and that is something to be grateful  for in these days of encroaching Christian gnosticism and fideism. Moreover, I agree with Lisle that the rational readability of our world is an inexplicable brute fact, easily lost to nihilism, unless we can see beyond it to an immanent yet eminent personal God who is the underwriter of our knowledge. You can get a lot worse than Lisle. See for example the appendix below where I reproduce the results of a random probe of Ken Ham’s Facebook page …. and that’s before I mention John Mackay and the flat Earthers!

Appendix.

As if the foregoing isn’t bad enough there is, in fact, a lot worse out there. At least Lisle does try to bring some nuance into the subject of Bible interpretation before abdicating his better judgment in favour of a fundamentalist epistemic. Not so with Answers in Genesis supremo Ken Ham: I quickly found the texts below when I randomly sampled Ham’s Facebook page for examples of fundamentalist thinking. I would paraphrase the contents in terms as follows: Obeying Christ means obeying the fundamentalist message about literalism. To trust the Bible means trusting in Genesis literalism.  The Bible is to be considered a scientific text book about geology, biology and astronomy; if you don’t believe this your salvation is called into question. The Bible doesn’t need interpreting, you just believe it. The resurrection proves YEC and you can’t be a consistent Christian if you don’t believe in YEC. There is a reason vs revelation dichotomy. Particularly interesting below is the comment which raises a very American paradox. Viz: The founding fathers of America were great enlightenment thinkers and yet this grates with right wing fundamentalists whose freedom to practice their version of religious fanaticism was assured by these despised liberal whiggish thinkers who wrote the very declaration of independence that gives them freedom to follow their sectarian version of Christianity. 

hxxps://www.facebook.com/aigkenham/posts/1145449605485394

Ken Ham: We want people to trust God’s Word so that, ultimately, they will trust in Jesus Christ and receive salvation and forgiveness from their sin.

Biblical Authority and the Book of Genesis: If you can’t trust the Bible when it talks about geology, biology, and astronomy, then how can you trust the Bible when it talks about salvation?

(see also this link:

hxxps://answersingenesis.org/the-word-of-god/biblical-authority-and-book-genesis/?utm_source=khfb&utm_medium=linkpreview&utm_campaign=trust)

Charlie Wolcott THIS is what separates group like AiG from every other OEC group. It's not a matter of interpretation. It's a matter of "Do you believe the Record?". I do not always agree with everything Ken Ham and AiG says, but I know they are pointed the right direction. Believing the Word of God as the Word of God and knowing that YEC alone does not cut it. YEC by itself does not make sense. YEC with the CROSS makes it all work. If someone asked for a single piece of evidence that convinces me of a young earth: my response is the Resurrection of Jesus. Why? Because the Resurrection validates every word of the Bible as written to be the authority over ALL authorities in the world. You cannot be a Christian and believe in an Old Earth and be consistent in your thinking. (My guess is that this guy is so fanatical that he finds Ken Ham too moderate!)

Steve Tyler Ken Ham, yes we've been evolutionized, but evolution is a subset of the larger issue: The Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers hold that "Reason" trumps revelation, and therefore everything in the Bible that is "unreasonable," such as the virgin birth of Christ and His resurrection are discarded. This is so ingrained in our American culture because the main Founding Fathers were all Enlightenment thinkers... it's the American religion

Clobber of Truth

Jones: Sorting out the Sheep from the Goats

In response to the above picture, which was  published on Facebook, I replied:

I think we are starting to move into the false dichotomy zone here.

Jones severe puritanical tones and his anti-CofE, anti-Catholic stance is, to my mind, culturally hypocritical. It's not, of course, that the CofE and RC churches are without fault, far from it; they've often desperately needed the challenge of opposition as befits a religion whose spiritual health depends on it being in a restless state of self critical flux and review. Jones identified himself with so-called "reformation" Christianity, but the reformation has been idealized and sanitized by some Protestants. It was by no means an unambiguous and unified move from darkness into light. In fact Protestant and neo-puritan Christianity is hardly a base from which stones can be thrown with a guiltless conscience. As I have so often said; turn over any bolder and a new fundamentalist restorationist version of Protestantism creeps out.

Jones' statement is all too typical of the smug self satisfied tones of a purist Protestantism which deals with the difficulties raised by splintered Christian sectarianism by identifying the Truth with just one of its fractious splinter groups (themselves, of course!). There are two ways of making sense of Christian sectarianism: Either it means both truth and falsehood are spread in degrees over numerous sects or one sect can claim it, and it alone, has cornered the Truth. I think we can guess which is the preferred option and yet at the same time, given human spiritual conceits and aptitude for division, which option is the least plausible of the two. 

But now to the point of this post. If one challenges sectarian Christianity, particularly one of its gurus, one is likely to find one's faith questioned and doubted. This has happened to me on more than one occasion. (See here and here for example). So in this Facebook case I  thought I'd better clarify my one-liner with a second comment: Viz: 

This is typical "Clobber of Truth" fare that just fails to live up to the fuzzy epistemic realities of our world.

Roman 8:15: Adoption is an act of God of which the subject has (private) first person experience. But none of this is directly observable from the (external) third person perspective and hence the third person is left with the interpretation of evidences and not certainties. It is over these third person evidences that the inter-Christian theological battles are fought and from my observations fought with great bitterness. It is here, given the kind of Christian cultures Jones’ name is associated with, that Jones comments naturally get picked up. Let’s be frank; the force of Jones’ statement is readily exploited as a pretext for satisfying the very human need to sort out the sheep from the goats.

However, standing back and surveying Christian realities on the ground such as post and pre reformation Christianity, Charismatic Christianity, the many, many manifestations of fundo-evangelicalism and even Jones’ life one soon learns that beyond the privacy of the first person perspective the sea of faith is a very fuzzy complex culture. But even from the first person perspective Jones’ dichotomies don’t work very well in my view; I see none of the paradoxes of pilgrim’s progress here. Jones’ dichotomies fail to do justice to my experience of Christianity.

The Existential Drift

There are as many definitions of existentialism as there are philosophers, but to be noted here is the negative view on reason and science. Existentialism is first and foremost about addressing a cognitive and emotional crisis in Western thought.

It was around 1990 when I became aware of the similarities between certain practices of the contemporary evangelical church and traditional Gnosticism. Gnosticism majors on the dualist belief that in a superior spirituality God is known through an initiation into the inner light of an inexpressible intuitive knowledge, or "gnosis". With the coming of the 1994 Toronto Blessing the similarities between traditional Gnosticism and the new big experience of God became all the more clear. When I look back today I marvel at how slow I was on the uptake; I'd been a Christian for over 15 years before I made this connection! One of the essays where I documented some of my thinking can be picked up from this post. Another essay on the subject can be downloaded from this post. 

I'm glad to see, however, that I'm not the only one who has made the gnostic connection of some modern manifestations of Christianity. After an all too favorable article in the January edition of Premier Christianity magazine on the excesses of a church specialising in bizarre manifestations such as trance states, angel feathers and gold dust clouds I was pleased to see that the March edition of the magazine carried three negative responses on the letters page (with no other responses on the subject). One letter in particular piqued my interest and I reproduce it below:

Andy Peck finds only one aspect of Bethel's theology troubling. But Bill Johnson does not believe that Jesus was both human and divine. He therefore denies the basic Christian message of the cross.

Examples of his typically gnostic search for esoteric knowledge to gain redemption proliferate.

Johnson misquotes scripture and texts taken out of context in a manner that denies the foundations of the Christian faith; Jesus is subordinated  to God, and the gross heresy  of  'experience' , whatever the source, is elevated over truth.

Cynthia Walker.

Now, I haven't studied Johnson's theology, but I find the reference to gnosticism very interesting. Also of interest to me is that the letter is an example of the tendency of Christians (understandably enough) to use the crucial doctrine of the God-head as a faith testing shibboleth. However, I myself I'm inclined to be generous with people's attempt to over-clarify the doctrine of the Trinity in terms that fit in with their perceptions but which so often end in grief; after all the doctrine is notoriously vague and the temptation to clarify it is immense. But the real trouble comes when the new "clarification" (if such it is!) is pushed as yet another literalist shibboleth, rather than its true status as a limited human metaphor which to a greater or lesser extent assists in an understanding of the Godhead. In any case it seems the wisest course is to leave the doctrine as a cluster of contrasting metaphors, else someone is bound to shout "heresy" at the hapless clarifiers! So lets be generous about the weakness of the human mind and its need for sometimes crass metaphors that are often taken too literally. But in the case of Bethel I suspect its gnosto-spiritual elite are unlikely to return generosity for generosity so Cynthia Walker's condemnation is probably well deserved!

 A generalised form of gnosticism seems to be a Christain way of attempting to get an existential fix for an existential crisis and that crisis traces back to a crisis in Western thought.  Hence, I have framed this post with references to existentialism. Recently I have found myself corresponding on the existentialist drift in churches and the creeping existential "fix" of gnosticism found in many contemporary Christian circles. For the record I reproduce that correspondence below:

***

Like many other evangelical churches [our church] is skewed toward the existential belief that authenticity and truth are found in experience rather than in narrative. Hence, there is a spiritual premium placed upon intimate, sublime and deeply intuitive encounters with God.  There is nothing wrong with these things in and of themselves, but it’s all a question of right balance.  At its most extreme this malady can turn into fully blown Gnosticism. Gnosticism seems to be an extreme religious response whereby the heart turns in on its self as it fails to come to terms with or make sense of the puzzling and alienating narratives that explain, or fail to explain, the world beyond. It thus seeks solace and escape in its inner life and that’s where it believes revelation will largely be found. For the extreme existentialist only experiential truth is relevant.

There is an existential drift in many Western churches today that probably has come about, I guess,  because strong existentially satisfying narratives no longer exist for many Westerners. Hence there has been a retreat into a more esoteric experience based faith among Christians because this seems to address the existential crises that  many Western minds face, post  Copernican revolution. Conceivably it is this existential drift that is helping to drive Western dualism, the bugbear of mission in Africa.

Many mainstream Christians are completely unable to detect the "Gnostic" drift of many Western charismatically orientated churches because for them it's just normalcy. But evidence that it has a strong perspective element perhaps could be gained from a probing to contact with the Strict Baptist Chapel just over the road from us. They are part of the ultra-traditional evangelical reaction against existentialism and as a church they are as culture specific as any African indigenous Church! They eschew the experience based existentialism of many mainstream churches. and have reacted strongly against it by resort to very authoritarian narratives and doctrinal formulae.

The above really outlines the existential crises in Western thought. Unless the existential crises is fixed the outcome may be nihilism and extreme postmodernism in the secular case. For the religionist an escape is sought in gnosticism and fideism; basically an escape into the inner life, with the promise of a sublime inner life intimacy with God.

Relevant Links

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/mythos-versus-logos.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/here-we-go-round-again-hearthead.html

http://noumenacognitaanddreams.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/james-camerons-avatar.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/generous-orthodoxy-part-1.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/planet-narnia-part-1.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/planet-narnia-part-2.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/planet-narnia-part-3-consciousness.html

Evangelicalism and language as magic.

"Dr Harries I presume?".  Jim Harries has a way of isolating himself from outside perturbations!

The underlying  assumption in the forgoing is that the language, epistemology, and ontology of Western science is universal enough to illuminate cross-cultural issues

I have been telling the story of my Thinknet project in this series of articles. What I’ll be doing here is using this project as the basis for comment on some of the thinking behind a blog post by Eddie Arthur, an evangelical Christian missionary who specialises in language. The post by Arthur is a review of two books by missionary Jim Harries. Jim Harries promotes a particular model of mission which he calls “Vulnerable Mission” (VM). I have written sympathetically on this subject here and here. One of the reasons I got involved (amongst others) in mission studies is because my Thinknet project seemed to throw light on the nature of language and its relation to culture; two topics that are of great relevance to mission. But more crucially perhaps, it was my eventual outlook on the nature of language and mission which in part created tensions with evangelicalism and helped move me away from some of its harsh over engineered doctrines to a softer broad brush approach to Christianity. Evangelicalism and its ugly sister fundamentalism are both very much bound up with the way they read and interpolate meaning into the biblical texts. In this post I would like to comment on the linguistic aspects of what is in fact a strong contention between Harries and Arthur.  

***

Natural languages don’t literally carry meanings; rather they trigger meanings in the mind of listener whose wealth of experience, memorised in the form of a network of conceptual associations, is stimulated by the incoming signals of language. In my attempt to try and reduce the theory behind this idea into a pithy non-technical conceptualisation I have contrasted the objective mechanical logic of mathematical languages with the subjective fuzzy associative logic of natural languages. (Further informal account of this contrast can be found in the VM papers I’ve already linked to above). The meaning of mathematical symbols is found in the algorithmic manipulation of symbols in a process external to human thought, whereas with natural language meaning is assigned by the connotational effects of symbols on human thinking, thereby leading to very fluid meanings. For example, whilst the foreground meaning of statements about dark rain clouds on the horizon is likely to be fairly standardised, the background connotational meanings will be different for the gardener, the cricketer and the rain dancer. The notational languages of the physical sciences are suited for the modelling of well defined physical systems, but the highly connotative logic of natural languages are adapted to the world of fuzzy human affairs where information slowly emerges out of a fog of complexity

In the light of these brief considerations let’s have a look at the following statement which can found in the comment thread of the blog post under consideration:

Ruedi Giezendanner

replied:2 months ago

When we started working for an Indian BT organization, we asked our Indian boss which Indian language we should learn. He looked at us and said, “English IS an Indian language.”

So, English is spoken as a local language in India? Yes and no: The use of a common pool of linguistic symbols is not itself a sufficient condition for transparent communication. This is because meanings aren’t endogenous to natural languages. The symbolic signals of a language act as a series of triggers to the human conceptual network inside our skulls; that mental network is constructed by long years of exposure to a particular cultural context; this learning doesn’t come packaged together with the linguistic symbols themselves.

Natural language meanings are extrinsic rather than intrinsic to a language in as much as meaning is actually delivered by the mental conceptual network upon which linguistic signals impinge. This is in fact a trivially obvious conclusion once one realises that the linguistic symbols of a language aren’t like little containers which can be opened and their meaning inspected (a point that Jim Harries himself has made); rather linguistic signals act as stimulants which release meanings implicit in the mind. Natural language is not a set of incantations and spells by which some special magic provides instant access to meaning: The illusion that meaning is actually being delivered by language from without rather than from within may be because our interpretative neural make up delivers meaning to consciousness so smoothly, efficiently and silently that we get the false impression meaning is coming from beyond us. The semantic force of natural language is sourced internally and to think otherwise is as bad as the fundamentalist creationist error that somehow “God spoke the world into existence” by sheer word power, just like that. That’s magical thinking from more primitive times. (However, the syntactical content of language which effectively constructs new semantic configurations does come from without)

In the light of the foregoing understanding of natural language let me now consider the following comment by Arthur in regard to one of the books written by Jim Harries about daily life in Africa (my emphasis):

However, it is important to remember that this book is written by a foreigner. It is an Englishman’s interpretation of Kenyan village life, not a Kenyan one. If you are really interested in getting under the skin of another culture, far better to read material written by the people themselves and not by their Western interpreters.

That latter sentence is attractively patronising about natives, but given that meaning is an extrinsic property of natural language the statement is profoundly problematical. Think about it in terms of connotation: The level of mutual understanding between two interlocutors depends on the level of similarity of both their ostensive pool of available language tokens and their hidden mental networks. Therefore necessary (but perhaps not sufficient) conditions of successful communication are:

a)    A pool of common terms that can be strung together in order to stimulate meanings in one another’s minds. 

b)      Similar concept networks.

Given a and b it follows that reading material written by a Kenyan is not a sufficient condition to communicate meaning even though he might be using English symbols; we must also share similar concept networks.  So, how then do we “get under the skin of another culture”? There seems to be more than one possibility here, but all of them rightly require sufficient time to build a common concept network. One possibility is for me to go to Kenya and spend a lot of time imbibing their culture and language. I could then read or listen to what they say thereby availing myself of a chance of “getting under the skin of their culture”. An alternative is for a Kenyan to come to the West and imbibe a Western concept network and try to make translations from the Kenyan network to the Western network. This latter strategy may work, but conceivably there could be incommensurability between the two networks and so the translation process could remain incomplete.

So, assuming the human mind to be a sufficiently flexible universal neural learning machine, then of the two foregoing strategies the more effective would likely be for me to go and imbibe Kenyan culture and language; that would cut out any incommensurability issues in translation.  However, if after a long term visit to Kenya I eventually successfully learnt Kenyan conceptual networks any attempt by me to translate from Kenyan to Western terms may hit the same incommensurability issues faced by a Kenyan trying to explain to the uninitiated Westerner how Kenyan thinking works.

But what if I’m not able to spend any time in Kenya imbibing their culture and language? Who would I best listen to in order to “get under the skin of their culture”?; a Westerner who is acclimatised to Kenyan culture or a Kenyan who is acclimatised to Western culture? Both emissaries might face issues of incommensurability and gaps in their knowledge of their respective foreign cultures when trying to translate. There is also the asymmetry of overwhelming Western power, wealth and influence to contend with, a wild card which might skew the output of this experiment in some unforeseen way; perhaps by the benefactor-beneficiary effect. (See here)

All in all, then, it is difficult to either affirm or contradict from a theoretical stand point Arthur’s patronising assertion. Someone like Jim Harries who lives and breathes rural African culture is in a position to actually understand African culture. But whether a Kenyan acclimatised Westerner like Harries would render a better translation of Kenyan conceptual networks than a Western acclimatised Kenyan is difficult to judge.  In the absence of reasons to believe why one case should be favoured over the other a possible strategy would be to get accounts from both kinds of sources and then make comparisons. It would probably be wise to repeat the experiment several times to spot any systematic differences between the two kinds of account.

Here are some further extracts from Arthur’s blog where he picks up the matter raised by Harries of what language to use when communicating with Africans.

There are an increasing number of Africans for whom English or French is actually their mother tongue, not to mention the growth of urban patois such as Nouchi in Abidjan or Sheng in Nairobi. These cannot be ignored when talking about communicating the Gospel in Africa, especially the burgeoning cities across the continent.

This leads into my biggest problem with the whole thing and that is that according to this model it is the missionary who decides which language the Gospel should be transmitted in. I’m all in favour of working in African languages (that’s what I’ve spent my adult life doing and advocating for), but the choice for the medium should lie in Africa, not with the expat. Some Africans prefer using European languages in some contexts, and they should be allowed to do so, if that’s what they want.

I have similar concerns about some of the other sections, but the language issue is the one I know best and about which I feel most qualified to comment.

I think this shows that Keith’s point about language choice not being straightforward stands. It also illustrates the issue of rural versus urban language use. French is a first language for Many Abidjanais and to insist that they be addressed in ‘African’ languages is nonsensical. This does not devalue the need for Bible translation, but it does show that we need to think seriously about what languages are used where and not to allow our own biases to determine what should be done.

I am not going to contradict of any of that, but it’s what Arthur has left unsaid which constitutes a serious omission.  For the only variable he has focused on here is what he refers to as a “language” and by that most people think in terms of the ostensive medium of signalling; as I have already said the mind is such an efficient and unconscious translator that it leaves us with an illusory impression of meaning immerging out of the signals themselves. Hence, it is easy to fall for the idea that once one has the signalling medium in one’s possession one also has its meaning.

But look at points a and b above: Strictly a “language” is far more than the pool of tokens and syntactical constructions it employs as a medium of communication. If the ostensive signalling of natural language is to work it must be bundled together with the huge background hinterland of its interpretative concept network. Ergo, use of a recognisably similar signalling medium is therefore not a sufficient condition to conclude that mutual understanding can be taken for granted. A natural language is far more than its signalling medium. It follows from this that multilingual situations may be evidence of different (incommensurable?) domains of meaning. Therefore you chose the language to use according to the conceptual domain you wish to access.

***

Finally I’ll say a little bit about the interpersonal aspects that stand behind this contention between Harries and Arthur. What I consider to be a heavy hint about this matter is found in the following quote from Arthur (my emphasis):

However, as was the case previously, there are some serious flaws with this book. The first and most serious problem is the “I’ve got it right and everyone else is wrong” attitude which pervades the book. Even when I agree with the author, I find myself wanting to disagree because of the strident tone.

Nonetheless, Jim feels “written off”. Apparently you have to accept every jot and tittle of his ideas or you are opposing them. Please look at Jim’s response to my comments. From where I am sitting, he has simply side slipped my comments, while likening himself to the prophet Jeremiah. So my genuine and honest questioning of his work is transformed into persecution of the Lord’s prophet; a classic way to shut down conversation.

It is true that Dr. Jim Harries is very convinced about the exclusiveness of his own approach to mission. As I’m all for British compromise I have found his insistence on VM’s ideological purity just a little uncomfortable. But no question about it, he very strictly follows the model I have referred to above of the person who realises that the best way for the Westerner to get to grips with African (rural) culture is to go and immerse you self in it for years. Moreover, to further insulate the “experiment” against the perturbing and biasing effects of the overwhelming firepower of Western cultural influences and wealth he insists on keeping Western resources/culture out of mission as far as possible. I’ve met few people of such single minded dedication. I’ve seen him cross swords with other missionaries over his work but he remains cool in circumstances when I would have gone for my gun; ditto when I myself have raised questions about his rather uncompromising stance. He’s the last person I’d call strident. I’m not an evangelical myself but Harries has won my trust in his abilities and authenticity. Compare that with Eddy Arthur: It soon became apparent from the signals I was receiving that here was not the most easy going of guys, a guy who finds himself wanting to disagree with whomever his human instincts clash.  In a future post I’ll talk about the time Arthur responded to me in an all too typically paranoid evangelical way and I consequently gave him a sample of just what being strident really looks like.

Stop Press:
I was interested to note the following Tweet in relation to Arthur's post:

1. @DrMarkPickett

   2 months ago

   @kouya Surely both emic AND etic perspectives are necessary to really get “under the skin of another culture”, are they not?
2. Eddie

Donald Trump and the politics of paranoia.

The BBC Magazine on paranoiac fantasies: “Trump promises to make America Great Again - as if the US somehow was no longer the most powerful country in the world”

The title of this post is taken from a BBC magazine web article which can be read here. The article is of great interest to VNP because it adds further weight to the VNP theme which links fundamentalism, collective paranoia and right wing politics into an integrated socio-psychological complex. Although I’m not talking here about clinical paranoia, the term is singularly appropriate in this context because there is a close social analogy to clinical paranoia – in particular, the way the fearful imagination invents baroque conspiratorial narratives about malign wills working behind the scenes to persecute, corrupt, subvert and control.  

 Below is a quote from the article:

The phrase "paranoid style in American politics" was coined by the late historian Richard Hofstadter. He defined the Paranoid Style, "an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent."

In a country that at its best radiates an infectious optimism, it is interesting how often fear has stalked the American landscape.

Richard Parker, who lectures on religion in the early days of America at Harvard's John F Kennedy School of Government, traces paranoia in American public life back to the Salem Witch Trials in the late 17th Century and even before that, to the religious politics of the Mother Country.

It's easy to forget how closely tied the first colonies were to England, particularly in Massachusetts. The Pilgrims were dissenting Protestants who sided closely with Cromwell in the English Civil War. When the Commonwealth was overthrown and the Stuarts restored to the British throne, there was renewed struggle with Catholicism - and the religious suspicions surrounding the court of James II were magnified out of all proportion on the other side of the Atlantic.

Add in the daily struggles with nature, fighting with native Americans, and millennial religious practice that thought the end times were approaching and you have, Parker points out, "a community primed to be fearful".

And so in the town of Salem, people turned on their more free-thinking neighbours, and accused them of being witches. At this time, the idea of witchcraft was not something from fiction. People really did believe, in Parker's words, "dark spirits could inhabit souls and bodies. It was the basis for primitive psychology and physiology."

This is not just a US phenomenon, although it might be more prevalent there; I’ve seen similar fears among extremist Protestants in the UK. As the quote above suggests the US may have inherited its complex of easily aroused fear from the mother country: The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries set a paranoiac backdrop; the religious apocalyptic mind-set of those times is implicated as the origin of a recurring socio-psychological malaise. English government went through a time of trepidation about Roman Catholic conspiracies. In the seventeenth century this was compounded by national infighting as dissenting Protestants found themselves at odds with the English government, the state church and one another.  It was a time of mutual suspicion and fear. Many nonconforming Protestants decided to start a new life on the American continent free from the interference of government and all those other heretics. The American Revolution was founded on anti-taxation grievances as the English war-machine demanded taxes to finance its battles against a competing French empire. The parliamentary opposition to Royal taxation and absolute monarchy precipitated the English civil war and this opposition migrated, along with the colonists, to the middle classes of America.

The article lists examples of the historical recrudescence of paranoia in the US about the machinations of hidden malign parties. I’ll high light just one recent and well known case:

Following World War Two the fear shifted to the Soviet Union. Leaders of the far-right vied with each other to see who could turn up the most Communists. This led Robert Welch, the founder of the ultra-right John Birch Society, to claim that President Dwight D Eisenhower was "a tool of the communists".

That latter claim reminds me of some of the things which have been said about President Obama. Given VNP’s critique of religious extremism, VNP’s interest was particularly piqued when the BBC article quoted Harvard history professor Lisa McGirr as saying the following about the US tendency toward collective paranoia:

"I think it is linked to religiosity: evangelicalism and fundamentalism which have deep strands in American life,"

And needless to say Trump knows how to tug those strands:

Writing off Donald Trump was the default setting of most pundits and political professionals in the first months of the campaign. It isn't any more. Trump understood more than they did that a significant chunk of American society is fearful. He plays to those fears - whether they are rational or not. He doesn't speak in what he calls "politically correct" terms.

And finally:

In South Carolina, recently, I met a gentleman named Robert Sandifer. In his 70s, well-educated and well-off, he had retired to a lovely island just south of Charleston, one of the nicest cities in America.

"Trump has instilled hope in people," Sandifer told me.

"Hope? Sounds to me like desperation," I told him.

Sandifer politely disagreed. "If he does what he says he's gonna do, we would be less fearful." He added, for emphasis: "We fear the federal government very much."

From the intelligent design web site Uncommon Descent, through the Fundamentalist ministry of Answers in Genesis, to  religious crackpots like William Tapley, the American right wing is suffused with fear, a sense of impending doom and a deep hatred of the liberal views of  government funded academics.

 Relevant Links.

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/right-wing-cranks.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/banning-creationism-vs-science-dichotomy.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/public-vs-private-polarisation.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-ultimate-conspiracy-theory.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-first-conspiracy-theory-kennedy.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/catalogue-of-woo.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/fundies-cultists-conspiracy-theorists.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/conspiracy-and-apocalypse.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/conspiracy-theorists-corner.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/witchs-brew-from-townhallcom.html

More on Trump

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35388292

Generalized Fundamentalism II

Spot the fundamentalist: 

Generalised Fundamentalism

Wrong way round; The question is: "Explain the Similarities". They are there if you look

A news item in the January Premier Christianity magazine asks the question  "Who are Islamic State and what do they want?".  The article remarks on Islamic State brutality and then says:

This shocking barbarism has led some to term the group a mindless death cult. But scholar and Anglican priest Mark Durie says this view is a 'triumph of religious illiteracy'.

As Views, News and Pews is in the religion industry it has a professional interest in trying not to be religiously illiterate. To this end VNP has used up many web column inches on the subject of religious eccentricity and crankiness, albeit mostly of the Christian fundamentalist kind. But that Daesh (aka IS) are also often referred to as Fundamentalists may carry a strong hint; for perhaps general aspects of VNP's experience with Christian Fundamentalism readily port to other brands of fundamentalism. To be frank it has long since occurred to VNP that Daesh's behavior starts to make sense if one has in one's head a generalised model of fundamentalism. So let's see.....

Premier Christianity quotes journalist Graeme Wood:

Much of what the group (Daesh) does looks nonsensical except in the light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventeenth century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about apocalypse. 

SNAP! Straightaway that's very recognizable. Christian fundamentalist's anti-science, anti-modern antics look at first sight to be nonsensical. But never underestimate the Christian fundamentalist's utterly sincerely held certainty and uncompromising conviction and commitment to winding back the clock to the fancied practices of first century Christianity or to pre-nineteenth century science and beyond; in its most extreme manifestation this can take the form of geocentrism and flat earth conspiracy theorism. The common ground of all fundamentalists is that they have huge self-belief because they are quite convinced they have a very direct line to God either through traditional readings of scripture or gnostic revelation, sometimes both.  Although Christian fundamentalists are not usually as proactive as Daesh in wanting to bring about apocalypse many of them mark time as they watch for the violent and terrible end times with the joy of vindication and anticipation. 

Premier Christianity also quotes Mark Durie on Daesh:

ISIS believes that killing disbelievers is moral act, in accordance, for example, with Sura 9:5 of the Qur'an, which states: "Fight and kill idolaters wherever you find them".

Once again VNP feels no sense of surprise here whatever: Whilst New Testament Christians are hard put to it to find divine sanction for killing the unfaithful one can nevertheless see reflected in Daesh the same unwillingness to re-interpret a verse that is open to interpretation - after all, it's arguable that neither Western atheists or Christians are technically idolatrous. But of course nuanced reinterpretation is not part of the fundamentalist mental complex. They are utterly convinced they know God's mind from scripture (and/or gnostic revelation). For them ambiguities that allow reinterpretation are considered as heretical compromise. Let me be frank: I have met Christian fundamentalists who, if the NT contained verses like Sura 9:5 providing an arguable case for killing infidels, would do just that.

Christian fundamentalists don't kill but under the threat of being branded an excommunicated heretic they are prone to some very weird practices and beliefs. In the same issue of Premier Christianity we can read an article sympathetic to a church in American that specializes in bizarre behaviors that have a lineal descent from the ministries of Benny Hinn, Rodney Howard-Browne and John Arnott e.g, collapsing into trances, fits of "uncontrollable laughter, convulsed by shrieks and groans" - and there I quote Premier Christianity. On top of this there are claims of "angel feathers" falling from the ceiling and gold dust appearing on people's skins during services. Claims of golden teeth fillings is another one that has appeared from time to time The writer of the article justifies these ludicrous goings on by telling us that although this church "messes with my theology." and is puzzled by it.....

 .... that sounds rather like the kind of things that Jesus would be doing doesn't it?

That's not a very robust argument in favor of this particular Christian sub-culture! Just about every Christian subculture between here and Salt Lake city want to mess with our theology and will claim that our sense of offense at their irrational antics is a sign that God is challenging us! This is the fideist gambit whereby it is claimed that God effectively deceives the rational person into disbelief. Further examples of this gambit can be seen here and here. It is a gambit which is frequently used by churches with gnostic leanings.

Christian sects are past masters in the art of messing with theology and insinuating and beguiling their belief systems into the life of the believer, usually backed up by spiritual intimidation: They invariably have a very strong leadership (usually patriarchs) who make claim to divine authority (e.g prophets and apostles). The communities they preside over have ways of conveying that to go against their status quo of praxis is to set you self against God, In fact we have a fine example of a subtle spiritually intimidating innuendo above (albeit unintended):  "Sounds rather like the kind of things that Jesus would be doing doesn't it?" . Translation: You're against Christ and therefore in danger of being a heretic!

Premier Christianity says the following of Daesh's patriarch-in-chief Abu Bakr al Baghdadi:

Baghdadi believes Muslims have sinned over the past 1000 years by abandoning their duty to establish a caliphate. In reestablishing this ancient system of governance, ISIS view themselves as following in the footsteps of the original caliph - the prophet Mohammed.

This is also a very recognizable pattern found in Christian fundamentalism; namely, a nostalgia for the past that seeks restoration and recovery of what is believed to have been lost by a heretic and/or apostate church. Because most Christian sects and cults are a relatively recent or historically patchy phenomenon they invent narratives to explain why they are the one true recovered and restored church and why other churches are at best compromised and at worse apostate. This entails writing off for the burning huge swaths of the faithful as do Daesh. 

Finally Premier Christianity's  news items makes what I consider to be a really serious sociological faux pas.  They give space to Jeremiah J Johnston author of Jesus and the Jihadis: Confronting the Rage of ISIS:

Speaking on Premier Christian Radio's Unbelievable? programme Mr. Johnson said Westerners don't realise how theologically driven Islamic State is. The Church has been quiet for years, not wanting to offend Muslims in general,

Anyone who has observed Christian fundamentalism ought to be quite capable of spotting the patterns and putting 2 and 2 together and realising just how theologically driven Islamic State is! But the following statement from Johnson which is bound to offend (moderate) Muslims (which it seems he is prepared to do) is as bad as it gets:

If you want to see a case study of exactly how Mohammed desired Islam to be implemented, look at the Islamic state...Mohammed would not only join the Islamic state, he would lead it.

Nice one! What's this guy want us to do? Enrage and alienate otherwise moderate Muslims? We need to bring Muslim moderates on board, not tell them that their exemplar wants them behave like Daesh! In fact According to the Christianity article:

Inayat Bunglawala, founder and chair of Muslims4UK such statements sound 'utterly outrageous' for 'normal sane Muslims'

Too right! Johnson's statement is a bit like someone saying that Jesus would join the Christian Young Earthers, geocentrists,  flat earthers or the Westboro baptist church! I suspect that Johnson has at least subliminal fundamentalist tendencies himself and so he just can't abide with the fuzzy world of interpretative ambiguity which provides space for review and reinterpretation - for fundies the latter always smacks of at best relativistic compromise and at worse blaspheming heresy. Johnson, like Daesh, is very comfortable with clear cut fault lines of division and difference, thus helping to reinforce and stoke up tensions between Muslims and Christians. Idiot!

Fundamentalist religion of all brands comes over as an all too human complex of weaknesses, foibles, idiosyncrasies, self-deceits and conceits: Viz: the desire for absolute epistemic security, black vs white oppositions and dualities, God's literal Wordism, nostalgic restoration of the one true church, overbearing patriarchal leaders with unchallenged authority, gnostic and fideist enlightenment etc. etc. - VNP has seen all these very human religious sectarian excesses the world over whether they be of Islamic or Christian gloss. Under fundamentalism Christianity loses its uniqueness. It is also a denial that humans are epistemically challenged and beset by uncertainties. The Christian walks by faith and trust. All that I have seen teaches my to trust the Creator for all that I haven't seen. (Emerson)

As a finale below I publish a YouTube I picked up from P Z Myers blog. It's a classic example of fundamentalist logic; Namely, that one has the duty to enforce one's religion on others on the basis that one is utterly convinced it is true, as convinced as one is of 2+2 = 4! No wonder these people eschew the controlled row of democracy in favour of war, fear and famine; you only need two sets of blockheaded protagonists like this who are as equally convinced about different religions and you've got a world class scrap on your hands; everlasting warfare in fact; ruined cities, refugee crisis, starvation etc - remind you or anywhere? - probably quite a few places in fact. PZ Myers remarks that this Islamic fundamentalist is indistinguishable from Ken Ham, and at the generalized level he is completely right!

Democracy and argument should be removed by force according this fundie.