Category Archives: Mikhail Bakhtin

What do I mean when I say that the gospel is dialogical, that no one single voice has priority, & that it’s shaped as we dialogue with one another?

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I get inspired sitting in church listening to sermons, and yesterday I got this idea about the gospel. I guess my mind has been reflecting on it of late since a recent SEATS class with Dr. Jason Hallig about how our gospel is often too small. An idea came to me of the gospel as being dialogic.

So I posted, “The gospel is dialogical. No one single voice has priority. It is shaped as we dialogue with one another. Note we aren’t seeking some kind of uniformity but rather unity through diversity.” Not all understood this very short paragraph so I thought I’d write a longer explanation of what was behind my thoughts in this brief statement.

Mikhail Bakhtin developed the idea of dialogic and heteroglossia. Bakhtin observed is that truth is formed through a multiplicity of voices. One aspect to remember about heteroglossia is that it never arrives at a universal definition. Rather these multiple voices are more a unity in diversity rather than a uniformity.

We all have our own Favourite Theologies, don’t we?

Rei Lemuel Crizaldo posted something a few days ago that referred to universalisation in the context of theology. A good example of one of these universalisations is in the debate between human agency and determinism. These are commonly connected to theologians such as Augustine, Pelagius, Calvin and Arminius, whose theologies are named after them (or at least the theologies we identify with them are named after them even if they themselves wouldn’t recognise them). They basically approach the relationship of God’s sovereignty with human free will, when it comes to salvation.

Crizaldo’s point was that adhering uncritically to these universalisms is an identity issue, given that universalisms suppress individual identity. Others have pointed this out, particularly Lila Abu Lughod, who wrote against culture saying that generalising something into a “culture” erodes the particularity of individual cultures and sub cultures.

Both Rei and Abu Lughod are correct in their rejection of generalizations or universalisms. That’s not to say that there is no truth associated with these generalizations or universalisms, but rather these very truths are themselves particular, contextual, local, and not indeed, universal! If I am, for example, saved by grace through faith, I also have choices to make in my life as to whether to follow God or not. On the other hand, repentance is real, but that doesn’t mean that God is not sovereign in the world.

What contribution does this voice make to the gospel? It shows me that each person, tribe, nation, and language, has their own particularities that allow the gospel to be understood in particular ways. Awareness of these particularities makes the gospel richer.

The Voice of the Question of WWJD?

A number of years ago an idea was revisited that used the initials WWJD? This stands for What Would Jesus Do? and relates to how Jesus-followers can shape their lives with a simple question of “how can I imitate Jesus in what I am doing today?” There was push back against this largely from people who have set aside an idea of good works and focused on salvation through God alone. They said the proper question should be “What did Jesus do?” implying that he’s already saved us, and that’s all that there is to the story. The problem is that while it’s true we aren’t saved through good works, we are still supposed to do good works as Christians. We have to both except that Jesus saves us not through our works, but continue to do good works for him.

What contribution does this voice make to the gospel? It shows us that Jesus is not only our Saviour, he is also our Lord. That means that we should work at imitating him in our lives and not merely anticipating his presence once we die.

The Voice of Honour-Shame

Another idea that has taken root lately is commonly referred to as honour-shame. It tries to approach the gospel from the framework of different cultures. One idea that it pushes against it the idea that the guilt-righteousness motif is universal. While often present in gospel presentations it works best in some cultures but not so well in others. At least two other motifs are presented: Shame-Honour and Fear-Power. What’s the difference? Here’s something I have written elsewhere:

Guilt to Innocence is the most common understanding of personal evil, largely due to the predominance of western Bible interpretations. It uses a courtroom as its motif. This understanding has led to popular gospel presentations such as the Four Spiritual Laws, Evangelism Explosion, and the Roman Road to salvation. The emphasis to this approach is that all are guilty of sin and are thus in need of righteousness. This perspective is common among individualistic societies.
Shame to Honour is another perspective on personal evil. In recent years, students of culture have seen that many peoples on the earth do not see things in light of guilt and innocence. Some people better understand a proper relationship with God through concepts of honour and shame. Shame to Honour emphasises relationships and how they can be restored. This perspective is common in communal societies.
A third approach to understanding personal evil is Fear to Power. In recent years, students of culture have seen that many peoples on the earth do not see things in light of guilt and innocence. Some people better understand a proper relationship with God through concepts of Power and Fear. Jesus overcame the power of Satan and death on the cross and gives power to those who are afraid.

What contribution does this voice make to the gospel? It allows us to see beyond the gospel as a mere courtroom transaction and expand into the realm of relationships and power. God didn’t merely remove our guilt, he also restored our relationship with him, and freed us from the power of sin and death.

I could go on with Frost and Hirsch’s shift from Church as Worship toward the Church as Mission, or Joash Thomas’ shift from championing slaveholders’ theologies toward identification of slaveholders’ theologies as suspect and seeking voices that are more balanced, or hearing the voices of indigenous peoples and First Nations who didn’t find a whole lot of good in the way the Good News was presented (event though many found good in the Good News itself) towards working on reconciliation, or shifting from “David and Bathsheba committed adultery” toward “David raped Bathsheba,” and so on.

How does all of this relate to the title of this post?

Thus, the truth of the gospel can only be understood in community. Truth doesn’t emerge in any practical form in isolation. It’s only through engaging with others with their own backgrounds, languages, cultures, ideas, genders, roles, values, etc. that I can begin to understand truth in its fullest form. But even though what I continually discover may approach the truth, it is by no means the only way that truth may be approached.

Jesus-followers are uniform in their relationship with Jesus — the main test of orthodoxy after all is believing that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead. That’s it. There is no more to it. Knowing that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead allows me to reflect on what that means for me — how I can treat him as Lord of my life — and shape a life that gives glory to him. It is unity not uniformity.

Dialoging about the good news of Jesus Christ gives me a richer understanding of the gospel. Recognising that I don’t always agree with my siblings in the Lord gives me a greater understanding of the power of God’s grace in the world.

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Remember sharing is what friends do.

Image by Akson on Unsplash.

What does it take to be a man, Part 3: How many masculinities is too many?

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In a previous post, I discussed the idea of masculinities. In it I mentioned that masculinity should really be masculinities because there is not one standardized way to be a man. A followup post focussed on masculinities in the Philippines, an area of significance in my own life. In the comments, Mike Swalm and I chatted about the extent of these masculinities looking at the question of how many masculinities is too many? Mike pointed out a key issue with an infinite amount of masculinities and wisely says, “we move toward negation of corporate meaning. Why even talk about masculinity if it has such malleable and infinite meaning? Doesn’t that remove the very nature of the concept as something that is definable as a category, giving us no real ability to say it is “this” and not “that”?”

I thought I would take the opportunity of Mike’s question to discuss where masculinity studies is in this seemingly infinite continuum. As usual I will take a Bakhtinian approach.

Monologue. Revisiting Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity, we realise that even though there may be any number of variations on the masculinity theme within a given context, there is one that predominates the discussion so much that it drowns out the others. Interestingly enough the predominant theme doesn’t necessarily have the most supporters — it just predominates. Bakhtin called this “monologue.” Even though Connell’s insights have opened the door to other masculinities as being acceptable, masculinities more closely associated with patriarchy continue to predominate.

Dialogue. Obviously dialogue is better than monologue because it allows another voice to provide balance. We actually prefer a dialogic point of view because we enjoy dividing things up into to opposing parties. It is this recognition that leads from singular masculinity to plural mascuinities. In reality, however, things are rarely as black and white as we might like. In fact, they are often greyscale.

Heteroglossia. But there aren’t just two voices in dialogue — there are a multitude of voices, each seemingly clamouring for attention, each contributing to what it means to be a man. This moves us beyond greyscale into millions of colours. It’s actually this final idea that creates the question Mike asks because it seems to leave open the possibility of an infinite number of potential masculinities.

At the risk of oversimplification, on a practical level, there aren’t an infinite number of men in the world; the world is at least divided into males and females. That means that give or take 50% of the worlds population isn’t male. That means that the first line of demarcation is the male-female.[1]

A second line of demarcation is society itself. Society creates a framework for the conversations surrounding masculinity. Sometimes these societies are monologic in nature but quite often they provide limitations on the range of acceptable meanings within that society. For example, in a study I did in my community, where men had a variety of religious experiences and influences, I was surprised to discover that the conversation centred around only a couple of common themes. There is no limit to the horizons of epistemology in Bakhtin but the conversations still revolved around a few key clusters, including the importance of the wants, needs, and input of wives and families and seeing Christianity as central to their faith. Perhaps this means that cultures as a whole exert influence on the boundaries of dialogue that make it difficult for conversation to move beyond those points.

A final aspect of Bakhtin’s idea provides another level of demarcation. Bakhtin wasn’t really looking for that one unifying, universal answer to life. His purposes in developing his framework were not so that we could necessarily make sense of this crazy world we live in. Rather he seems to be giving us a way to recognise and embrace the messiness of this world we live in.

How does all of this work? Let me try an illustration from sports. For me, there is only one hockey team. When I refer to this team I will use the word “dynasty.” I will refer to their preponderance of Stanley Cup wins. I will refer to their aggressive style of play. Yup, you guessed it. My team is the Montreal Canadiens (How ’bout them Habs?). In many ways my allegiance to the Montreal Canadians is monologic. When we were kids we would argue about who we liked best. But through thick and thin it was Montreal for me. I know that other teams exist but what’s interesting is that I am not sure what you could do to convince me to cheer for another team.

But I do have to admit that Montreal is not the only team that exists. After all, they do need teams to beat 😉 The National Hockey League provides the fodder for the Montreal machine. It started with the Original Six (who some believe are the only real teams), then expanded to twelve in 1968, then to eighteen in 1974, twenty-two in 1992, and finally to the current thirty-two teams that take to the ice each week.

What also happened during these years is that hockey expanded internationally. What begun as an almost exclusively Canadian sport now has teams and players from all around the world. I remember watching a recreational team playing in the Philippines’ only ice rink a number of years ago. A friend was a part of a team in the United Arab Emirates around that time as well. Hockey has indeed become a heteroglossia.

What is interesting is that regardless of the level of the sport — from the NHL all the way down to shinny on the street in front of your house — the sport is still hockey. The nuance hasn’t changed that. What this has done for the sport is to make hockey better. I recall as a child reading about how Team Canada defeated some hapless international opponent 50-0. That wouldn’t happen today. In fact, international hockey is incredibly competitive, at both professional and amateur levels. The result is the reality that a team like the Montreal Canadiens cannot dominate the sport any more because other teams are able to join the conversation. Rather than a single dominant team, what we see is an entire sport that is played on an almost infinite number of levels. And the sport is better for it.

In a similar way, a deeper understanding of masculinities can only make those masculinities better. We need to move beyond the idea of a singular approved masculinity into a better set of masculinities.

What contribution are you making to the masculinity conversation? How are you making your voice heard? Please feel free to leave a note in the comments below to let us know.

Remember sharing is what friends do.

Missed the previous posts on this subject? You can read them here: Part 1 and Part 2.

Notes:

[1] The 2SLGBTQ+ conversation is still going strong, and is still undergoing development. What started out as simply “straight” or “gay” has exploded into a seemingly infinite number of options as heteroglossia in that area develops. The male-female demarcation that I use here is not intended as a rejection of those voices but merely a recognition of the fact that, one, the voices are still sorting themselves out and, two, that I don’t understand them enough to place them into an easily-explained framework.

Image by Andrew Wulf on Unsplash.