- The students start hacking away at the text until they can grasp a piece of it to hold up while announcing, "Let me tell you what this passage means; it means that everything will be fine if we only have faith.'"

- There is another, more sinister side to the "hunt for Meaning" ... : studnets so dead set on finding out what a poem means that they will tie it to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.  Preachers, too, can take up rope and victimize a text ... We preachers cannot hope to nurture an intimate relationship with our sacred text in all its beauty and mystery, as long as our need to solve it overrides our desire to listen to it, and look at it. 

- Their [the students] initial forays into preaching look more like the Spanish Inquisition than the proclamation of the Word of God.

Here's another good one by Mike Graves, "God of Grace and Glory" in the same book.

- "Why is the preacher always so mad, Mommy?" Somehow Paul's statement about preaching Christ crucified becomes in the mouths of some preachers a license to crucify the listeners.

Funny, sad, but true.

As I was finishing a book on preaching and modern media, a tragedy happened to some tourists of Hong Kong.  On Aug. 23, 2010, a disgruntle police officer who was fired from his job held a tour bus full of Hong Kongers hostage in Manila, Philippines.  The siege lasted some eleven hours, with eight hostages killed in the ensuing firefight.  In those agonizing hours, the TV reported live all the ineptness of the Filipino police force (or the so-called commandos) which failed to negotiate but instead escalated the situation so much that the gun man opened fire on hostages.  At the end, the gum man was killed by a sniper bullet.  This tragedy immediately caused extreme reactions from Hong Kong government calling for travel advisory against going to the Philippines for holiday.  Many Hong Kongers created such an outcry against Philippines that drastic actions such as firing their Filipino domestic helpers became rampant, even though those workers did not represent their country’s corrupt and incompetent politics. http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20100825/876/twl-filipino-maids-in-hong-kong-sacked.html

A less known fact is, during that same day, another report of a greater scale atrocity had taken place in Congo where two hundred women and children were systematically raped by Rwandan and Congolese rebels.  The victims included infants and little boys.  There was hardly any outrage by Hong Kongers.  Now, the simple-minded would say that Hong Kongers are generally more concerned about their own than the wellbeing of the globe.  This may be partly true, but imagine another scenario where the raping and ravaging of these women were played out like a pornographic horror movie right in our living rooms. What would be the impact?  I can almost see the internet chat rooms lighting up.  I’m suggesting that TV has done a lot to shape our perception by the way it is used by media (sometimes even wrongly).  The medium tells a story that cannot otherwise be told with greater effect.  May the memory of all these victims become a warning to our media-saturated age.

The Experienced

During my short stint with competitive lifting, I realize some people are just gifted.  I’ve seen lifters who do not sleep much, eat junk and still lift a lot and look great.  I’m secretly jealous.  Many have won multiple titles.  They are the experienced … and gifted.  They look the part, while I look like ... someone who can shock you into how much I can ACTUALLY lift.

In the gym, it is hard for me to go listen to some guy who is not a great lifter and who looks horrible to give me advice on lifting.  I think it is equally hard for students to listen to someone who does not appear to be great in the field.  The most attractive person would be the one who can practice what he preaches, so to speak.  Is this all there is?

The Educated

I recall watching Freddie Roach train Manny Pacquiao, a multiple world title holder in boxing.  Manny is the best pound for pound fighter in boxing.  He is exciting, fast and strong.  Freddie, on the other hand, used to box also but never even comes close to Manny’s prowess.  I bet if they get into the ring to spar, Manny would kill Freddie.  Yet, Manny submits under Freddie’s training regimen, day after agonizing day.  What is the key?

I think there is hardly anyone who knows how to break down a fight better than Freddie. He has trained some of the world top boxers AND MMA fighters (e.g. Anderson Silva).  His record speaks for itself.  The key is his ability to read the game and understand intellectually how things work.  Freddie is the brain and Manny is the show horse.

Ask the Experienced Or Educated?

This brings us to our topic.  Should we ask those who look like they have walked the talk or should we ask those who can break stuff down?  Having been in martial arts for a number of years, I have realized that the best teachers are not always the best fighters.  Sometimes, people move well because they’re just athletic.  The same gifted folks can only train other equally gifted folks.  The less gifted remain lost.  My own preference is to find out how people got to where they are.  Some have done so through hard work and intelligence.  Others are just gifted.  For the less gifted, they have to break down their own art or craft in order to improve.  Some just got to the mediocre stage, like Freddie Roach, but they can break it down for someone else more gifted to arrive at excellence.  Sometimes, mediocrity is enough to train someone else to excellence. So, should we ask the experienced or the educated?  It depends.  I think the best measurement of an educator is how his least gifted student is made better through instruction. 



Whenever I see requests on Facebook for prayer, I always respond, “I’ll pray for you.”  Then, soon enough, the busyness of life gets in the way.  I did pray, but sometimes, just sometimes, I fail to check back on what happened to that prayer.  How often we use that response, “I’ll pray for you” as Christians?  How can we fix it?

Sometimes, I wonder if we really need to pray because God truly knows everything and He already has some kind of answer.  I suppose we pray because that’s the way we experience God.  Equally important is that prayer is the best way we care for one another.  Thus, the follow-up to prayer is almost as important as the act itself.  I often have people telling me that they’ll pray for me, but they’d never check back on the request.  I'm trying not to be cynical, but sometimes, I wonder whether they prayed or not. 

I honestly think that sometimes when Christians say “I’ll pray for you,” they really mean well, but they often forget to pray.  I like what my pastor did.  He stopped for the moment, listened and prayed right there.  I think immediate prayer is a great way to remedy our forgetfulness.

Another way Christians can better pray for one other is to keep a written log of requests. This keeps things in perspective.  The best way to stop the vicious cycle of saying, “I’ll pray for you” is to stop saying it.  If we’re not really going to pray for someone, then leave it.  We do not sound more spiritual when we use this kind of cliché.  Our best intention remains intentions until action accompanies it.



On a more pleasant day in church, I finally got to meet someone whose work I’ve devoured for years.  “Hello, Dr. Fung,” I chirped, being well pleased with meeting one of my all time favorite biblical scholars.  “Please call me Ron,” he replied, shaking my hand warmly.  I’ve had the great privilege of meeting one of the most important, if not most important, Chinese Pauline scholar, Dr. Ronald Y. K. Fung.  He happens to go to my church. For my English-speaking friends, if you don't know who Ron Fung is, look up Galatians commentary in the New International Commentary of the New Testament Series or the late academic legend Prof. F. F. Bruce's autobiography In Retrospect.  Just look at Bruce's list of his most brilliant students, Ron ranks top.  In my conversation with him over lunch, he really does act like “Ron.”  He was so kind and gracious in keeping my little boy Ian entertained while saving the topic of biblical scholarship only for the lecture hall. I was impressed, not merely with the degree, but with the “man.”  He and his wife Amy are two of the classiest people I’ve met in my life.

Truly knowledgeable people do not need titles.  This is a life lesson confirmed by this meeting.  When I lecture, I always tell my students, “Do not call me Sam, unless you’re my former classmate.”  There lies the tension between professional courtesy and personal relationship.  I sure love to find a middle ground somewhere. 

I suppose context is everything.  When preaching, I’m often introduced as “Dr. Sam” or “Dr. Tsang” because the degree is associated with my office as a preacher of the church.  I suppose it’s okay.  The same goes for my professional persona in the lecture hall.  Away from the pulpit and lecture hall, however (unless you're my students), I like to be like “Ron.”  Just call me “Sam.”  However, I notice that is not the way in other church settings where people in ordinary (non-professional) EMAILS would sign their names with their titles and degrees.  I mean, who really cares you’re a professor or doctor or whatever unless you’re educating or medicating me?  Please!!!  Leave your degrees off your personal correspondences when you’re talking and writing about church matters.  Obsession with titles and degrees only conveys superior attitude with full knowledge that we’re all God’s children. So, when in doubt, leave your titles at the church door steps.  It’s better for all involved.

First, how should we label the Reformers?  Hmmmm ... let's see, to the Pope at the time, Luther and Calvin must have looked like a few liberals whose only purpose was to disturb status quo.  Yet, today, in my discipline of Pauline studies, those who like to stick to the interpretations of Luther and Calvin (which are different at many fine points) are called conservatives, while those who advocate some changes in reading Paul some other ways are called "new" and even liberal. 

Second, how should we label William Wilberforce the social reformer?  To his opponents, he was a social liberal whose purpose was to disrupt law and order of his own society, especially within aristocratic ranks.  Today, no decent person would disagree that Wilberforce had done a good thing. Today, no one who is not racist would negatively call him liberal.

The above two examples show that labels are very real but very situational.  They represent reality incompletely.  They make the complex simplistic.  The resulting rhetoric does nothing to improve intellectual integrity.  I suppose I have been called both sides of the label. Some may consider me conservative while others consider me liberal. Neither label represents me.  Neither should they represent you or your opponents.  Labels are just anti-intellectual and empty rhetoric.  They are used by enemies of the intellect who want to bypass honest complex thinking so that they can appear "right" and gain power.  Only those with intellectual handicap still use such labels.  It is a game no Christian should participate in, but I'm afraid, too many Christians have participated in too long.  If I had my way, I would banish these two labels from my classroom and pulpit FOREVER. Amen!

Post-structuralism

Post-structuralism is also popularly (often mistakenly) known as postmodernism in biblical studies.  However, postmodernism is actually a caricature, or better yet, a misnomer for this movement.  It would be more accurate to define the movement as post-structuralism because postmodernism in the arts in the neo-classical Art Deco movement (following the ornate Art Nouveau movement at the beginning of 20^th century) has already existed as early as the 1920’s to 1930’s and its architectural form has existed as early as the 1950s, if not before.  Neo-classicism and cubism have been part of this movement.  Its artistic and architectural expression has nothing to do with a relativistic (or pluralistic) reaction towards absolute religious or moral truth. Rather, it was an experimentation of mixing classical elements with modern expressions.  I would know because I studied architecture in my undergrad days.  The reason why so many biblical scholars use the misnomer “postmodernism” to describe post-structuralism is because they have not studied in other disciplines that have long mixed styles in interpretations of the arts.  As any art critic or artist knows, art is not always absolute.  It is however quite difficult to define what post-structuralism really is. 

A common theme among post-structuralists is the rejection of a meta-narrative and deconstruction of single meaning in history and text.  Structuralism, in whatever form it takes, hypothesizes that there is a common structure governing the interpretation of the text.  Post-structuralists reject such an understanding of the text. Instead, they see the interpreter as being autonomous in assigning meanings to the text.  This movement does not necessarily start with the study of the text by linguists. Instead, it has a strong philosophical underpinning, led by Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Michel Founcault, Jacques Lacan, and Julia Kristeva.   Since this movement is often associated (sometimes rightly and other times wrongly) with postmodernist hermeneutics, I think we are better off seeing post-structuralism as part of a reaction towards structuralism instead of it being a mere reaction to modernism.  What the post-structuralists have found is indeed true to practical human experience.  Human epistemology does not start from above, not even if one is Christian.  The human experience often dictates what certain things mean to certain person.  The post-structuralist powerfully points this experience out.  It was the elephant in the room no one wanted to talk about.  It was the emperor’s missing cloak no one wanted to point out. 

The reaction among evangelicals against post-structuralists by accusing them as postmodernists is because many evangelicals are really modernists instead of Biblicists.  The post-structuralist just points out the flaw in their modernist worldview which is positivistic and rationalistic.  By asking question, “By whose rationale? By whose truth?” the post-structuralist has poked a big hole in the balloon that was ready to burst.  What modernism has failed to take seriously is the human inability to decipher the whole truth.  Furthermore, it fails to understand the total depravity of the human mind to comprehend God’s truth.  I’m not saying that the post-structuralist is altogether correct.  At the very least, it has brought human depravity back to the forefront for the Christian to deal with.  Thus, I think what Christians label as postmodern is really a movement against structuralist movement as well as rationalism of historical criticism.  What offends the Christian at the end is not necessarily the direct attack about single biblical meaning as much as a direct attack at the philosophical underpinning of popular evangelicalism.  Philosophy plays a larger part in most people’s lives than they realize.  People are more passionate about their philosophy than they realize.

Conclusion

Why then do evangelicals first scapegoat historical criticism and then postmodernism?  I credit either ignorance or integrity.  I think mostly it is due to a lack of creative thinking, thus needing a straw man to attack in order to occupy one’s leisure.  Ignorance of terminology and how they’re used betrays a shallow and incomplete education of many evangelicals (even among so-called scholars among my Chinese circle).  Integrity may be a factor.  It is easier to call someone a name, either “historical critic”, “liberal”, or “postmodernist”, than to deal with a person or an issue fairly.  Either ignorance or problem of integrity is inexcusable among those in the teaching profession.  I suspect it is a bit of both or large dose of either.  For those (who will remain graciously unnamed here) with either or both deficiencies, I suggest they get out of the teaching profession so that they can propagate no more misinformation in writing or lecture format. If someone does not even have an undergrad’s knowledge of history, can he or she indeed teach at a graduate level?  Like my son would say, after one evening Bible devotion in my home, “Some things just aren’t what they seem.” Well yes, the earth is not flat. 

Now, we come to the big question.  What am I?  Am I a historical critic?  Not really, not even close, because my academic training is not primarily in that area (positively or negatively).  Am I a structuralist?  Perhaps, I’m a little bit of one, but there are some parts of structuralism that does not provide answer for me.  Am I a postmodernist?  What do you mean by “postmodernist”?  Can YOU even properly define postmodernist? Artistically and architecturally, postmodernism has a certain charm. Am I a post-structuralist?  Well, I think I’m post-“label.” (not post-it labels, mind you)  I hate labels because they’re for the brainless and ignorant.  What’s in a label?  Is it not restrictive?  Is the obsession with labels not an indicator of neurosis?  I’m post-restrictive, but definitely not psychotic (though my students tell me otherwise) and most definitely not psychic.  How we label people may tell more about who we are than who these people are.

Structuralism

As historical criticism has shown its limitations in middle to late 20^th century, other movements of interpretation are born.  At the end of the source critical and related discipline, people realize that the field has become increasingly theoretical with less and less respect for the text with full-fledged skepticism. Hardly any part of the message from the text is recoverable.  Interpreters begin looking for new categories that will deal with the material.  As early as the beginning of 20^th century, the scholarly response has been far from the extremely skeptical that period seems to indicate.  H. J. Cadbury shows in the early 20^th century that the author’s writing is to be taken quite seriously not so much in terms of historical identity of who the author is, but in terms of his literary art in writing certain books.

In parallel with such development in biblical studies, the French structuralist school starts in the early 20^th century as well.  The earliest champion is Ferdinand de Saussure the Swiss linguist who sees a word as signifier and the signified.  The signifier is the sign that points towards the signified.  The meaning is imported by the paradigm of the interpreter as it fuses with the syntactical structure of the text.  This kind of separation begins showing text as something autonomous with its own signals and rules.  The root of this movement is linguistically based.  The semiotic studies of A. J. Greimas and structuralist anthropology of Claude Levi-Strauss begin to provide a foundation for scholarship to move to quite a different direction.  Most of the works have a linguistic base, some of which result in New Criticism and other text-based disciplines while others result in a new kind of anthropology and sociology. 

By nature, the structuralist who interprets literature seems purely text-based, but in practice, it is much more complicated which is a topic that will be addressed below.  The usage of the structuralist approach is not entirely devoid of history.  In fact, its usages vary from a remodeling of the historical approach to a purely text-based approach.  While the structuralist purist often seeks meaning independent of the historical context of the text (but only within the coding of the text), the sociological criticism borrows the idea of coding in explaining the historical background to the text.  Some in biblical scholarship thus borrows ideas from structuralist in response to radical historical criticism that has yielded little meaningful fruits. 

History has not been usurped by the structuralist movement, but has been reformulated to make interpretation more meaningful.  The structuralist movement has reshaped how history is done.  The way of meaning is by modeling society via anthropology or sociology (or both).  Thus, societies are read like a text with its own rules and regulations.  The Structuralist influence has infiltrated the rank of not only literature interpreters, but has been used creatively by other disciplines that impact historical study of the text such as anthropology.  Levi-Strauss’ anthropology is a prime example.  Levi-Strauss hypothesizes that the human society seeks to explain the unexplainable through stories and myths which are binary in nature (e.g. dark versus light, evil versus good etc.).  This myth-making gives society structure and world view paradigm to cope.  When applied to the Bible, structuralists have recognized that both Jesus and Paul (along with all the first-century NT characters) exist within the common environment characteristic of both Greco-Roman and Jewish societies.  This new historical approach moves away from the less fruitful obsession with sources among historical critics.  History then is recognized not so much for the historical sources behind it.  Nor is it recognized by the historical event recorded in it, but is recognized for the truth contained in the text. 

Among the NT scholars, credit goes to Gerd Theissen for making a first attempt of interpreting the NT sociologically.  His understanding of Christian beginning as a social movement created by a charismatic Jesus has received many criticisms.  The first two quests for historical Jesus, Paul and Palestine have increasingly distanced Jesus and Paul in asking the questions, “Which Jesus?  Which Paul?”  At this point, we are no longer talking about the historical Jesus, but addressing the question, “What kind of historical Jesus?” 

The most popular and influential group in recent two decades is the Context Group which has become a permanent fixture in the Society of Biblical Literature, the largest academic society of biblical study in the world.  Honor and shame create the paradigm for their interpretation of first-century, not only in the historical Jesus, but in the overall NT background.  The theory on which the group name is based comes from Malina’s influence.  For this group, the first century society is a low context society.  The Context Group tries to recreate the context via its investigation.  The context of shared rules they create is sometimes called the “symbolic universe” which Gadamer calls common understanding, expressed by the German word Verständigungsgeschehen.

From this big picture of social structuralist approach come varying specialized aspects that different interpreters bring to the discussion.  Moreover, the shift has been from the authorial historical source to readerly concerns.  The paradigm of focus on the world behind the text slowly gives way to the world within and before the text.  When dealing with the social environment of sociological criticism that is historically based, the shared milieu, whether Greco-Roman context of NT writings in general or Jewish context of NT characters (e.g. Jesus, Paul) in particular, there is a large degree of overlap that the first and second quest have either ignored or denied.  The social world created by structuralism that results in sociological criticism no longer allows for the radical discontinuity between Jesus and Paul assumed by the first two quests.  In using sociological criticism, many who participate in the third quest begin to derive benefits from having categories to deal with data.  Social structures created by the modern interpreter has essentially stitched together the seam created by negative historical criticism (or better yet, historical skepticism) of previous generations of scholars. (to be continued)

In light of controversies a few years back at my former seminary, I want to re-examine the idea of postmodernism.  This installment is also my celebration of the publication of my book on NT Criticism (as pictured).  What in fact is postmodernism?  It is a term that has been thrown around so loosely that one colleague remarked, “Postmodernism is in the air we breath.”  What?  In order to appreciate what postmodernism is, I’m going to backtrack into the dungeons of 20^th century in order to see the meaning of postmodernism.  We can answer the question about postmodernism by looking at the development of religion and biblical interpretation.  I’m not going to belabor my point with a thorough survey other than highlighting the development of biblical interpretation.  Those who are interested can either read my book on NT Criticism  or on my later publication through Worldwide Bible Society on Luke-Acts narrative interpretation (or ignore my blog).  In order to understand postmodernism, we need to understand modernism in biblical studies.  Let us review modernism in the clothing of historical criticism.  I shall review structuralism in the next installment and postmodernism in the installment after.  These blogs will hopefully help understand the perspective of the book I've written on NT Criticism.

Historical Criticism

Modernism and its kinsman rationalism give birth to historical criticism which developed in two separate strands.  In Germany, scholars such as D. F. Strauss and F. C. Baur have forever changed NT studies in their skeptical understanding of Jesus and Paul.  Even though historical study has always been part of the work of NT studies, people have always assumed that Jesus and Paul had great continuity.  In their historical quests, these scholars had begun to see the seams where various books did not quite fit their rationalistic thinking, thus casting doubts against the historical records of the NT.  Jesus is separated between the Historical Jesus and the Christ of the Church, with the former being a historical figure and the latter being an ecclesiastical ideal.  Everything and everything thereafter, for decades to come, has been a response to the work of such men.  These men, like the German scholars of their time, had strong philosophical training.  Therefore, their philosophical underpinning had been particularly strong in their interpretation of the Jesus and Paul of history. 

Although the Brits came on to the scene quite late, they rushed in with the vigor and enthusiams of a rugby player in a scrum.  They represent the second wave and geographical location where historical criticism is affected.  Works by J. B. Lightfoot had been responsive to the attacks coming from the original continent not by changing the rule of the game, but by being better at historical criticism than the negative historical critic of the continent.  Others besides Lightfoot are less positive, but never to the degree of many of their German counterparts.  In other words, the terms “historical criticism” in England is used not merely in the negative sense of the Germans, but also in the positive sense of historical inquiry. 

After looking closely at the development of the historical method from its negative use out of Germany to the varied use in Britain to the positive use by many modern day evangelicals, we must draw some conclusions as to why these results are so varied.  While some may think that I’m oversimplifying the issues, I think the general tendency of scholarly background has something to do with it.  The first factor has to do with differences of languages when the 19^th century liberal movement started.  The English speaking world at the time did not have much translated German work and anyone beyond the academy did not bother learning much academic German to read the quest material.  The second factor seems more important because it has something to do with the academic training system of Germany and the rest of the world.  In Germany, the philosophical commitment in interpretive task is especially intentional.  This is not to say that the UK or the other parts of the world do not have philosophical commitment in terms of philosophy.  In fact, some are committed quite dogmatically to certain philosophy without even realizing their commitment (e.g. the fundamentalists’ commitment to Scottish Common Sense philosophy).  Although historical criticism has uniformly been recognized by the scholarly community, reactions still vary widely.  In order for it to survive, a greatly modified form is used now in both evangelical and non-evangelical camps.  Not all historical critical methods are equal. Definitely, not all historical critics are evil, and most certainly, non-evangelicals are no longer having all the fun. (to be continued)

When I went to get my Hong Kong id, I ran into a problem.  The officer was not able to pass my name simply because my birth name was Samuel and my US passport-citizenship name is now "Sam."  The fact is, "Sam" and "Samuel" are the same thing, much like "Bill" and "William" or "Maggie" and "Margaret."  They just didn't get it.  This is when I realize that even though they knew some English, they had no clue of English culture.  I checked with a few local English teachers, all of whom did not understand abbreviations of English names.  This is when I realize that local language learning completely lacks a cultural dimension.  Thus, even if students by chance go overseas for their graduate studies, they would be ill-prepared for the cutlural challenges ahead of them.  The present way of English education locally is doing no student any favor.  The most valuable part of language learning is not the mechanics of grammar or lexicography; the most valuable part is the cultural learning.

In my teaching experience, I find many students quite uncomfortable in studying biblical languages to the degree of having mental block and nuerotic fear.  As a result, in order to attract students, many seminaries in the US have cut out large blocks of biblical languages and replacing them with more "practical" classes.  I think this is a suicidal move.  The most valuable part about language learning is the culture.

I recall my first Greek teacher who was also a classicist and archaeologist.  We learned Greek, but we also learnd the culture behind the Greek language.  Behind every language is the huge and evolving web of socio-political symbolic universe.  I find him to be my academic inspiration even today.  We learned about why Greeks viewed time differently than we do today.  Do you know that Greeks also abbreviate their names.  Epaphras, Paul's coworker, was also known as Epaphroditus.  Priscilla, the wife of Aquila, was also called Prisca.  I wish those people in HK id office knew that abbreviation of names had been a long-running tradition in the West since ... forever.  We further learn about why the aorist is often abused because we have no grasp of Aktionsart and so on.  Was the process painful?  Yes, it was quite painful.  Is it rewarding now whenever I write something exegetical or preach a biblical sermon?  Yes, even more so.  You see, the pain is worth the reward.  It's either "pay now" or "pay later." 

Whether we learn Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, German, French, English or Chinese, the most valuable part of the process is not merely the mechanics of pronunciation or syntax but the whole way of thinking behind the language.  However, we do have to get through the mechanics to get to the culture.  For those who dare to walk the path, the reward will be every Sunday whenever we need to mount the pulpit to exposit the Word. 

Language is culture; culture is language.  The two are inseparable.  Blessed is the student who learns this sooner rather than later (or never).