Unfortunately I haven't read the book I am about to quote from, but fortunately I'm friends with J. Mark Bertrand and read his blog and find that he reads books so I don't have to. The following is a quote from James K. A. Smith's Who's Afraid of Postmodernism, pp. 116-117
A more persistent postmodernism -- one that really follows through on the implications of claims made by Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucalt (or better, the meshing of their central claims with insights from the Christian theological tradition) -- will issue not in a thinned-out, sanctified version of religious skepticism (a "religion without religion") offered in the name of humility and compassion but rather should be the ground for the proclamation and adoption of "thick" confessional identities . . . In this respect much of the dominant discussion in postmodern philosophy of religion actually shrinks back from the more radical implications of postmodern critique.
As I said I haven't read the book so don't know the larger context in which Smith is making this statement and I know it's always dangerous to interact with snippets minus context. Furthermore I haven't read Derrida, Lyotard or Foucalt so I don't want to claim to be able to argue the finer points of their philosophies. But I will say that, from what little I know of postmodernism and from what I have seen from the popular postmodernizers in the church, Smith's quote surprises me. I'd be curious to see how he demonstrates that the postmodern critique can lead to the adoption and proclamation of "thick" confessional identities.
Having said that I applaud his applause for "thick confessional identities." One needn't look to postmodernism as the cause of the thinning of confessional identities, good ol' run of the mill evangelicalism has been thinning out confessional identity long before postmodernism became cool. Smith's instruction here could go a long way toward saving evangelicalism from evangelicals.



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