This is great - thanks for drawing these connections bt Lindbeck and Keller, and how the consequence of "disembodiment" in CP-esque approaches fuels the increasing "dis-embodied" corporate Body. Fascinating. Looking forward to the CP/EE discussion in a future post.
Laura, I also just realized why I recognize your name and it's because I've enjoyed (and shared in my newsletter) your Comment essays on friendship and the Beguines!!
Same, looking forward to more. Much of this was, admittedly, over my head -- but I’m here for the ride.
It’s also putting some fancy and more specific terminology to what I thought was Protestantism more broadly? Vs. Catholicism/Orthodoxy in the bigger emphasis on embodied practices and disciplines. I spent junior and senior high attending the church John Piper was pastor of at the time, so you could say my life since then has involved a lot of learning how the Christian life is not just intellectual consent to an argument or a truth claim. Ha
Really enjoyed the essay and your engagement with Keller, Dr. Sanders. I think your connection between how people enter the faith and the sort of church culture they enter is significant. If I understand you correctly, your concern is that apologetic approaches that emphasize “getting your doctrinal ducks in a row” as part of conversion will ultimately create a church culture that is “doctrinal duck conscious,” and perhaps overly so! I resonate with that, and I am looking forward to your insights on other approaches.
I am curious about this statement. You noted, “Once they arrive there is nothing left to do- or if there is, it must be described separately from the means by which they were converted. Individuals go to church because they are Christians, but it is not clear why they must.”
I agree with your critique in isolation from Keller’s broader project. However, if the question is posed from with the fuller context of his work (books, preaching, essays, and church practice/approach to liturgy, see Redeemer’s Worship leader manual from the early 00s), then I don’t believe your approach will hold up.
I’m fairly familiar with Keller’s work, and I think the response to your statement would be something along the lines of: The connection between conversion and community (that is gathered worship) is that the conversion is not merely an intellectual one but wholehearted conversion. The way in and the way forward is grace.
As to persuasion, somewhere in the shorter catechism (Q89 maybe?) it notes that the Spirit convicts and convinces sinners of the gospel, and then comforts and builds people up to grow in grace. Keller held this in relation to the role of persuasion in preaching/apologetics.
So if I am understanding your project correctly, then my “push back” or invitation to conversation (as I tell my students) is that I don’t love reading works in isolation of the corpus, but I think your exploration could succeed if it frames Keller within his broader project by finding a way to acknowledge the way church practice / liturgy at Redeemer in some ways ran counter to the framework you’ve described within Reason for God.
I hope that makes sense! Looking forward to continuing the conversation!
Thanks for this gracious response, Micah. I think you are right, that Keller's ministry was not merely "cognitive". However, I do think the characteristics of a cognitive-propositional approach, where a) conversion is individual, b) occurs after an appeal to Truth that is external to the mind, but c) requires assent of the mind to this truth. "Becoming Christian", under such a view, is more like adopting a set of practices and beliefs than it is like learning a language. To use Lindbeck's language, what would it mean for a person to "become a native speaker"?
Ah, I see! I will need to dig more into Lindbeck's language a little more before commenting further (I'm not sure I've ever done a deep dive), but I appreciate the distinction that is being made between cognitive-propositional v. becoming a native speaker. A mentor has described this as the difference between informational/transactional v. transformational/relational. I'll keep reading along. Thanks!
I think Jake Meador’s essay might be worth interacting with. He connects both the difference between early/later Keller ("Reason" is not his best work) and the difference between ideas/on ground practices. He’s a better writer than me and communicates some of the ideas I was hoping to express (I also appreciate his wrestling with his own missteps. I’m slowly doing the same). https://mereorthodoxy.com/ten-years-evangelical-fracturing
I am very interested in this conversation as it relates to “the privatization of faith” (I think Os Guinness may have coined the term forty years ago), and the independent church phenomena which is both a symptom and a cause. Molly Worthen highlighted Evangelicalism’s authority crisis (Apostles of Reason), but it is time for a serious revisit to ecclesiology. Please keep talking!
This is great - thanks for drawing these connections bt Lindbeck and Keller, and how the consequence of "disembodiment" in CP-esque approaches fuels the increasing "dis-embodied" corporate Body. Fascinating. Looking forward to the CP/EE discussion in a future post.
Laura, I also just realized why I recognize your name and it's because I've enjoyed (and shared in my newsletter) your Comment essays on friendship and the Beguines!!
Oh yes, and thank you! I just subscribed to your newsletter -- I've seen your name enough now to recognize so off I go to explore! Thanks Haley!
Same, looking forward to more. Much of this was, admittedly, over my head -- but I’m here for the ride.
It’s also putting some fancy and more specific terminology to what I thought was Protestantism more broadly? Vs. Catholicism/Orthodoxy in the bigger emphasis on embodied practices and disciplines. I spent junior and senior high attending the church John Piper was pastor of at the time, so you could say my life since then has involved a lot of learning how the Christian life is not just intellectual consent to an argument or a truth claim. Ha
I think Lindbeck helps us to name that "Protestantism" is not identical with the experience of American Christianity that many (most?) have had.
Ah, that sounds about right.
Really enjoyed the essay and your engagement with Keller, Dr. Sanders. I think your connection between how people enter the faith and the sort of church culture they enter is significant. If I understand you correctly, your concern is that apologetic approaches that emphasize “getting your doctrinal ducks in a row” as part of conversion will ultimately create a church culture that is “doctrinal duck conscious,” and perhaps overly so! I resonate with that, and I am looking forward to your insights on other approaches.
I am curious about this statement. You noted, “Once they arrive there is nothing left to do- or if there is, it must be described separately from the means by which they were converted. Individuals go to church because they are Christians, but it is not clear why they must.”
I agree with your critique in isolation from Keller’s broader project. However, if the question is posed from with the fuller context of his work (books, preaching, essays, and church practice/approach to liturgy, see Redeemer’s Worship leader manual from the early 00s), then I don’t believe your approach will hold up.
I’m fairly familiar with Keller’s work, and I think the response to your statement would be something along the lines of: The connection between conversion and community (that is gathered worship) is that the conversion is not merely an intellectual one but wholehearted conversion. The way in and the way forward is grace.
As to persuasion, somewhere in the shorter catechism (Q89 maybe?) it notes that the Spirit convicts and convinces sinners of the gospel, and then comforts and builds people up to grow in grace. Keller held this in relation to the role of persuasion in preaching/apologetics.
So if I am understanding your project correctly, then my “push back” or invitation to conversation (as I tell my students) is that I don’t love reading works in isolation of the corpus, but I think your exploration could succeed if it frames Keller within his broader project by finding a way to acknowledge the way church practice / liturgy at Redeemer in some ways ran counter to the framework you’ve described within Reason for God.
I hope that makes sense! Looking forward to continuing the conversation!
Thanks for this gracious response, Micah. I think you are right, that Keller's ministry was not merely "cognitive". However, I do think the characteristics of a cognitive-propositional approach, where a) conversion is individual, b) occurs after an appeal to Truth that is external to the mind, but c) requires assent of the mind to this truth. "Becoming Christian", under such a view, is more like adopting a set of practices and beliefs than it is like learning a language. To use Lindbeck's language, what would it mean for a person to "become a native speaker"?
Ah, I see! I will need to dig more into Lindbeck's language a little more before commenting further (I'm not sure I've ever done a deep dive), but I appreciate the distinction that is being made between cognitive-propositional v. becoming a native speaker. A mentor has described this as the difference between informational/transactional v. transformational/relational. I'll keep reading along. Thanks!
I'm going to follow up on these comments in a future post. Let me know if you want to add to them; I'll check back.
I think Jake Meador’s essay might be worth interacting with. He connects both the difference between early/later Keller ("Reason" is not his best work) and the difference between ideas/on ground practices. He’s a better writer than me and communicates some of the ideas I was hoping to express (I also appreciate his wrestling with his own missteps. I’m slowly doing the same). https://mereorthodoxy.com/ten-years-evangelical-fracturing
I am very interested in this conversation as it relates to “the privatization of faith” (I think Os Guinness may have coined the term forty years ago), and the independent church phenomena which is both a symptom and a cause. Molly Worthen highlighted Evangelicalism’s authority crisis (Apostles of Reason), but it is time for a serious revisit to ecclesiology. Please keep talking!
I've been trying to trace propositionalism on the opposite end, in secular progressivism--which might be called "propositional polymaltruism":
https://jurassiclocke.substack.com/p/propositional-polymaltruism
But I'll think more now about propositionalism as a dividing point *within* the Christian church! Thanks.