Towards Developing a Christ-ic Critical Lens

What would a Christ-centered Critical Theory even look like? Would it be redundant (i.e., is there something else out there already doing what it would do)? What would is be used for?

What about models? Is the medieval period the place to look for a model of such a thing (I am only glancingly familiar with this period)? Do I look to the different writers of the different Testaments (very, very familiar with these)? To the early Church Fathers (I am mostly familiar with random quotes--excepting Augustine: I've read the Confessions and City of God)? To Puritans such as William Bradford (I've read Of Plymouth Plantation)? To modernists such as C. S. Lewis (I've read some of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, a discourse he gave entitled "The Inner Ring," and various quotes)? All of these together? None of them at all?

If I am to employ a Christ-ic critical lens (so to speak), I suppose that I will have to come to terms with all of these, just as a Marxist scholar must come to terms with, and be familiar with, Stalinism and Leninism. However, that does not mean that I must accept any of them. 

And with that statement, we begin a framework for a Christ-ic critical lens.  

For a scholar who's ideas are founded upon the teachings of Jesus, Jesus's ideas must be the principle source and model of ideas, the origin of all other assumptions.[1] Indeed, each of the previously mentioned interpreters of Jesus's words must, themselves, be evaluated and critiqued according to the teachings of Jesus, and not the other way around (even the teachings that purport to be the teachings of of Jesus must be evaluated in terms of the teachings of Jesus); regardless of what other interpretations of his teachings have been passed around, I cannot accept those interpretations on their own merits, any more than a Marxist scholar should confuse Marxism with its Stalinist and Leninist (or even Lennon-ist) interpretations.

Since we are working out definitions, perhaps it would be best to start with some definitions. 

I know I'll get some flack for using Wikipedia (although it is increasingly acceptable in academic circles), but their definition of "Critical Theory" will suffice. Critical theory is defined there as "an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities." From this very broad definition, we get that critical theory is simply criticism, or close evaluation, of anything--art, culture, politics--that is founded upon some theoretical framework. This definition gels quite well with the illustrious M. H. Abrams definition of critical theory as it is applied specifically to literature, where "literary criticism" is an "overall term for [. . .] defining, classifying, analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating" literature and "theoretical criticism proposes an explicit theory of literature, in the sense of general principles" that direct both the production and evaluation of literature (A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th ed., 49-50).


Any critical theory, then—whether it is applied merely to literature or to something broader—is based upon some "theory" [2] or another about how social systems should be structured, how they should function, and whether or not they are accomplishing those goals.  That theory, in turn, is itself based upon a set of assumptions about the world--how it should work, how people should act, etc. . 


So, for example: feminism (I could have used any theoretical framework--if you want to explore others, look here). Despite all the bad press it gets, feminism at its simplest is a social theory claiming that women, historically and/or actually, have been unequal to men in their "political, economic, and social rights and [. . .] opportunities" (Wikipedia), and thinks or feels that this is not a good thing. Ostensibly, then, the efforts of "feminists" are designed to rectify that perceived wrong. 

Feminist critical theory is a framework (or a group of frameworks) based on this initial (and, I would argue, not irrational) assumption. So, when feminists look at art, or politics, or culture, with an eye to analyze and evaluate, they look through that particular theoretical "lens;" they seek expose (and often vilify) with the intent to rectify, perceived injustices between the sexes. That these inequalities are realities is a given assumption for a feminist. That these inequalities are bad is an equally given assumption.

Marxist critical theory does roughly the same thing as feminist critical theory, except it's primary concern is with class (one could argue that these are two sides of the same coin). Marxist theorists seek to expose the inequalities they claim exist between the classes, a situation they blame on Capitalism. That Capitalism is bad is, from a Marxist perspective, a given assumption; it is the very idea that creates and perpetuates all inequality. 


Moreover, Marxist critical theory assumes that Karl Marx was right when he proposed his ideas about culture and the causes of inequality. Marxists assume that Capitalism is to blame for inequality; they assume inequality of opportunity is a reality and that it is bad and that it is a wrong that need to be rectified. 


I could go on and on with other examples but hopefully this suffices.  


So, from this basic template, I can begin to get a sense of what would need to happen in order to develop a Christ-centered critical theory, and what that theory would entail, something I'll get into in the next entry.

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[1] I am well aware that NONE of the writings that we have are Jesus’s writings; however, this poses only minimal problems for examining the world critically from a Christian perspective. While there are assumptions that must be made—the charitable assumption, for example, that the Gospel writers are genuine and that they were genuinely attempting to present Jesus’s teachings as sincerely and authentically as possible, rather than merely presenting a self-serving interpretation of his teachings—and while I can see how such assumptions could be problematic to some, but I do not think that they are any more problematic than the accepting a Marx or a Burke or a Derrida as one’s primary critical perspective. In fact, such assumptions would only make Christianity one more critical voice in what Gerald Graff has characterized as the “conflicts” in academic discourse.

[2] The word “theory” has an interesting and, I think, pertinent etymology, what Samuel Weber refers to as a “well-known an often-discussed fact” that was neither well known nor often discussed for me until I read his book Theatricality as Medium, that is the fact that the terms “theory” and “theatre” come from the same place: “the Greek word thea, designating a place fro which to observe or see” (2-3). It is reasonable, then, that a “theory”—itself a metaphoric construct—is now explicated by an appeal to the another sight-centric metaphor: the “lens.” Theories figuratively focus and define our intellectual vision, our way of seeing, helping us know not only what to look at, but determining how we what we are looking at. A theory is, itself, a medium, and could be defined as a cognitive framework from which one "looks at," or intellectually understands and interprets, the world. 

I'm Mormon.

I should get this out there early on: I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I'm not trying to hide this fact, I just didn't think to say it. Now that I think about it, however, I know that if I don't say it, when it's finally revealed--and it will be, I'm not embarrassed or ashamed of the fact--it may come as a shock, since my project is the development of a "Christian," or Christ-centered, critical theory. I know that there are people out there who don't consider Mormons to be real Christians; for them, my religious affiliation will have immense bearing on anything I say.

For me personally that opinion is irrelevant. I consider myself a Christian.

However, I've met with enough prejudice and misconception about Mormons in my lifetime to know that, if I don't say this now, inevitable someone will say "see how sneaky those Mormons are! They pretend to be Christian to reel you in! You can't trust them!" I don't want to come across as disingenuous or manipulative, so I'll just get this out of the way up front.

Now you know. People interested in the kinds of fights that my religious affiliation unavoidably engenders will just go elsewhere, I guess.

If anyone ever comes here at all. . .

(cue sound of crickets chirping)

Is this thing on?

Others I have found. . .

Doing some web searching, I have found the following:

Carl P. E. Springer, Professor of Classics and Chair in the Department of Foreign Languages at Illinois State University, published a paper called "The Hermeneutics of Innocence:Literary Criticism from a Christian Perspective." I haven't read the whole thing, but Springer seems to suggest that a Christ-centered criticism would be more affirmative than the negativity that permeates contemporary critical theory. In the essay, Springer claims that current critical theories are based on a "hermeneutics of suspicion" which is, essentially, "distrustful in its methodology." A Christ-centered methodology, on the other hand, would be a methodology "of innocence" that would take writers at their word; it would be a charitable reading of everything. 

While interesting, at this point all I can say is that this comes across as overly narrow for a Christ-centered critical theory. After all, Jesus did tell his disciples to be "wise as serpents" because he was sending his disciples out as "sheep in the midst of wolves" (Matt. 10:16), and something tells me sheep don't walk in the midst of wolves with any kind of wide eyed innocence or naivete.


There is also a book, Towards a Christian Literary Theory, by Luke Ferreter, published by in 2003 by Palgrave Macmillan. I haven't read it (it's pretty darn expensive on Amazon), but there is a really good review of the book by Susan E. Hill here.

Here, Dennis Taylor, a professor from Boston College, writes about "The Need for a Religious Literary Criticism." He argues that the lack of a religious voice in academic discourse has created "a great vacuum in discussions of spirituality in literature [. . .]" and provides some examples of what that might look like--or, at least, some examples of what the"vacuum" looks like, the questions that remain unanswered in literary criticism because there is no investigation of spirituality from the perspective of spirituality.

Also, I found a podcast on "Literary Criticism" at a site called The Christian Humanist. I haven't listened to or read any of it because--well, because I just started this and, at some point, I do have to get back to work! But I plan to.

Beyond these few, specific examples that I found (today), I also know that there are MANY academic journals on religion, but my question for them is: do they use religion as a critical lens, or do they use other critical lenses to investigate religion (or both)?

I really don't know that much about the religious journals, however--or religious studies, for that matter. I am not a scholar of religion. I am not a religious educator (except to my children and the occasional stint in Sunday School). I do not use religion overtly in my art.

Quite frankly, I never wanted to be a religious scholar, either. I don't speak any ancient languages, I have no special training in that field. 

I do, however, believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and the Son of God, and I am comfortable with my faith as a bedrock for behavior and morality. What is new to me is this idea that there might be some room for me, as a scholar and an artist and an educator, for Christ's teachings to no longer be a kind of appendage, but the foundation, of my work--making the stone that builders rejected become the head of the corner, so to speak.

I think that's should be an adequate place to start.

I know what I am doing is nothing new. . .well, not exactly new. . .

So, I'm not the first to have thought that this would be important (imagine that! There really is nothing new under the sun!). In fact, even before I started this I could go way back to the beginning of the common era (St. Augustine pops immediately to mind) and find people who used the teachings of Christ as a foundation for their "critical theory," a tradition that would take us through some of the greatest poets and thinkers in history, right up through modern times--Peter Abelard, Dante Alighieri, Thomas More, John Milton, Nathaniel Hawthorne--with the he most obvious respected modern critical voice being C. S. Lewis (perhaps the preeminent model to imitate in this regard?).

But my chief concern was finding a contemporary place for a Christ-centered critical perspective, a place for Christ within the contemporary academic landscape that sees Jesus not as a mythic concept, or a political flash-point, or as a knee-jerk ideological rallying cry, but as a teacher whose insights into the human condition have at least as much to value as the insights of a Freud or a Marx or a Derrida, and so are equally valid as a foundation for a critical theory.

Truth be told, knowing I'm not alone really relieves a lot of anxiety. If I'm not alone in this, then that means
1.) I don't have to start from scratch (whew!)
2.) there are others who think this is an thing to be talking about (so I have a potential audience, potentially receptive audience). 

Basically, there's already a conversation here, I'm just coming into the parlor to add my voice to the conversation.

What do I have to add? Ah, there's the rub.

I guess I'm looking for cross-over appeal. While the majority of religious people in the world are Christian, and the majority of people in the world are religious, the academic world still seems to view a religious critical perspective as overly biased and unscientific. Nevermind that feminism is unscientific and biased. Nevermind that Marxism is biased and unscientific. Nevermind that historicism and performance studies and semiotics are all biased and unscientific. Nevermind that most secular humanists are not "scientists" in the strict sense of the word (and,one could argue, neither are most "scientists") but they are biased, agenda-driven human beings whose prosaic stylistics are merely structured to convey the illusion of detached objectivism. 

So can Christ's teachings be utilized in the same way? The same way that a scholar or an educator or an artist might use Marx, or Freud, or Hegel, or Derrida, or Butler, or any other secular-humanist prophet? Just because a person doesn't name their belief system or their philosophical perspective a "religion" doesn't mean it isn't one--I mean, we're much too rhetorically sophisticated by this point to fall for that, aren't we?

Degenerate Moderns

So, I didn't think I could be alone in this endeavor. I've found some other people who are doing the same thing that I am--or, similar, at least.

Some time ago, I read a book called Degenerate Moderns: Modernity as Rationalized Sexual Misbehavior by a scholar named E. Michael Jones, a former professor at Saint Mary's College in Indiana and currently the editor of Culture Wars magazine. He is clearly Catholic (the book was put out by Ignatius Press) and his ideas are obviously--and this is KEY, that the fact IS so obvious--informed by his Catholicism.

Of course, he was also a tenured professor at the time of his publication.

I never looked into anything else he published, and at the time I read the book, I read it simply as an interesting perspective on Modernism, not as anything I would use in, say, a dissertation, since, when I read, I was attempting to integrate myself into the academic world (a choice I increasingly question), and so thought that the ideas expressed therein were only interesting to me as a Christian, not as a potential scholar.

Now, however. . .now that I am approaching my dissertation, as, perhaps, all PhDs do, with some trepidation, with a sense of uncertainty about my ideas; now that I am in a place where I am questioning the futility of what I have decided will be my life's work; now that I am beginning to see, in profound ways, the emptiness of academic life; now my religion, which I have, up until this time, separated from my academics by a high wall, I am beginning to recognize, is the missing something in everything that I have been doing.

And so I began this blog.

And then I remembered Dr. Jones and his "Degenerate Moderns."

Now, my own perspective will not be a "Catholic" one. Indeed, the whole purpose of this is to try and transcend the sectarianism of contemporary Christianity and develop a theoretical lens that is useful across Christian demoninations.

That being said, Dr. Jones's work seems like a good place to start.

Jesus's Teachings as Critical Lens

I am a Christian.

I am not a Marxist or a feminist or a deconstructionist. I am not a liberal or a neo-liberal or a conservative. I am not a monarchist or an oligarchist or an anarchist or any other political “ist.”

I am a Christian.

While this is all well and good in my personal-private life, I feel there is no room for Christ in my "public" life as an educator, scholar, and artist. As "secular" enterprises in a secularized Western world, academics and the arts resist religious critical perspectives. What is unfortunate about this is that I have been forced to adopt an academic and artistic "mask" of sorts, to look through secularized spectacles instead of being allowed to describe the world as I see it, through my own, more authentic, Christ-colored glasses. Academics and artists who ascribe to these other ideological perspectives find outlets for their critical theorizing--consider bell hooks, the acclaimed Black feminist; or Theodor Adorno, the Marxist critic. Indeed, in critical theory, we are taught how one might use any number of secular-humanist perspectives as a “lens” through which to do scholarship, to see and analyze the world. These critical theories are meant to empower one's educational practice, to direct one's scholarship, to inform one's art. In most cases, the perspective are acceptable, publishable, teachable, and (depending on my audience) laudable one.
But not so, I sense, with my Christianity. Not to fall into the all-too-familiar Christian persecution complex, but I sense if I attempted to teach and embody a Christ-informed critical perspective, I would encounter significantly more resistance in the public sphere--NOT to my ideas, which would encounter resistance no matter what they were, but to my choice of critical perspective. 
Perhaps I am wrong, but I sense if I were to use Christianity as the lens through which I did my research (I unavoidably read everything through this ideological lens, anyway, whether it makes it into my actual writing or not), I would not be publishable or hireable.[1] I would be outcast.

Well, that last comment may be a little harsh. In truth, everyone I work with knows my religious affiliation—I make sure of it—and I have yet to receive any real feelings of exclusion or prejudice because of it. Indeed, one of my favorite colleagues is a woman whose lifestyle and politics are completely opposed to my own. . .granted, I’m not certain how much she knows I disagree with her in specifics, but she must have an idea.

No, the truth, I think, is simply this: if I was to attempt to publish as a “Christ-ist critic,” the secular-humanist academic world just wouldn’t know what to do with me. 

So, since I don't feel a place for me there,  I've come here. I'll write, and I'll attempt to develop myself as a "Christ-centered" scholar on my own time, in my own space, under an assumed name, and.  . . I don't know. I'll see what happens.

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[1] A work on rhetoric that came out recently—Rhetoric, Science, and Magic in Seventeenth Century England by Ryan J. Stark—seems to be written from a Christian-informed rhetorical theoretical perspective. Are there more writings like this?