Agnology - a study in human ignorance

Most of the postmodern voices within the political theology movement seem to be running together at full speed away from the liberalized Gomorrah. But even while they share the same fear of getting caught in a downpour of brimstone, it also appears that some are headed in slightly different directions. I’d like to briefly contrast two sub-movements within the broader group of post-liberal refugees. For no reason other than personal caprice, I’ll call them the Reformed and the Missional movements. The former label is a bit unfairly associated with the work of Oliver O’Donovan, formerly of Oxford University, now of Edinburgh. O’Donovan is actually an Anglican, but shares enough in common with the Reformed tradition that I’m going to ignore that minor moral failing. The Missional movement I’ve associated with the work of Stanley Hauerwas (of Duke) and William Cavanaugh, who studied under Hauerwas and now teaches at St. Thomas in the barren tundra of Minnesota. Since our group has already been introduced to the work of Cavanaugh (and Hauerwas, by extension), I’m going to look at two Reformed critiques leveled by O’Donovan at the Missional view: the eschatological critique and the incarnational critique.

I stood on the edge, my outsized five-year-old head staring down at a pair of skinny white legs. My toes were wrinkled, shriveled up like used sponges sopping-wet, clinging to the floor. They wouldn’t move. No matter how much I willed them to. They were stuck to the ceramic floor. Like peanut butter to the roof of your mouth or superglue between your fingers after the art experiment you did when your mom wasn’t looking. My feet wouldn’t move, so I glared at them. Fiercely. Angrily. Move, just move, I thought. If I hadn’t been five years old and a Baptist I would have sworn. But I was both, so I only stared.

Then I looked out and saw the water. It was so deep I knew that it didn’t have a bottom. My dad was the tallest man I knew apart from Michael Jordan and he couldn’t touch the bottom. He just floated there waving his arms and quietly telling me to jump. But I knew I wouldn’t float. I’d sink straight down through his arms to the very bottom and stare up angrily at the world and die prematurely. At five years old. What a horrible way to go.