Christian Dilemmas

I am not so much of a post modernist. To begin with, I do not know what it means. To the best of my knowledge, post modernity simply means:

"A refutation of grand meta narratives" (Jimmy, 2005)

In other words, it means that all the world's philosophies (meta narratives), that are concerned with seeking some form of truth, or in reaching a final utopian state, is a false conjecture.

So Marx is wrong, because Man doesn't necessary have to progress to a state-less world; Hitler is wrong, because Aryans are not superior to begin with; Gramsci is wrong, because you cannot overthrow capitalism with hegemony; Fukuyama is wrong, because capitalism doesn't guarantee progress in society; Aristotle is wrong, because not everything is in flux; Aristotle's disciple, Plato is wrong, because Forms cannot reveal a greater reality; Habermas is wrong, because his theories of communication will not establish a better understanding in state-society relationships.

So all philosophies are wrong. And post modernity becomes an anti-theory theory, and the reasons why it is post modern and not neo theory is because it wants to get out of the whole theory paradigm.

And if a good theory is suppose to be parsimonious, have a predicitive accuracy, testable with other observations, then post moderniy suggests that the world is complex (as opposed to simple linear theories such as Hegel's History), doesn't guarantee any prophecy of the future, let alone allow us to come to a greater understanding of the present since every observation holds a subjective value to everyone.

So post modernists think that we cannot make sense of this world. But neither does post modernity in itself. But I think a strand of post modernity that make sense to me is that we are limited by the language that we used. We are unable to have enough 'language' to understand the world, and we are subjected to some sort of 'dichotomy' in our everyday language. So if I say that I am "blessed", it means that I have been "unblessed", if I am joyful, it means that there were times when I have been "sad", if I want to be "thankful", there were times that I have been "unthankful" etc. No adjectives exist by itself, and that is why we learn antonym in primary school. And some post modernists say that it is the lack of language that nails grand meta narratives.

I think sometimes, I'm stuck within this dichotomy in my everyday language with God. All the words that are used in prayer have a "silence" other half. It is almost as if my desire for some "hope", "joy","peace" with God is counter balanced with the supression of "hope-lessness", "joy-lessness", and "strife" in life. And so quiet time becomes a balancing act between the revealed lightness of biblical language and the other silenced darkness. The more you pray and express your faith, the more the devil plays into your mind regarding the things that you fear will arise.

And so the more that I hope in a person, the more hopeless I feel about that person. The more I want to be blessed by God, the more I fear that I'll be disappointed by God. The more I want to be moral, the more I am reminded of my moral-less.

So sometimes, I try to avoid the whole dichotomy by adding an 'a' to my language with God. I try not to put too much hope in a person, so that I am neither hopeful nor hopeless. I try not to focus too much about blessings, so that I am neither uplifted by blessings, nor angry with a lack of blessings. I try to be stoned in my emotions, so that I am neither joyful nor sad. So maybe one becomes amoral, "a-religious", a-symmetrical etc.

Gosh, how wrong can that be. Does anyone share the same dilemma? I need enlightenment!

Forging a New Identity

Due to a lack of entries, the tagline box in smoothcriminalneutron will be shut down. And I guess it is timely to start posting in The Pseudo Philosopher blog. Does it make a difference to blog with a new identity? I think it does for two reasons.

Firstly, it means lesser readership traffic in this obscure blog, which means that I can write about more real stuff. Not that I was a fake, but I tend to hide; behind nonsense wordings and irrelevant photos.

Secondly, I think for a large part, smoothcriminalneutron represents a 3 year period of exceedingly bad writing to express my thoughts and feelings about people, situations, God and life's ironies. So starting on a new blog is like giving oneself a new chance; a new shot to set some perspectives right; with the old (but nonetheless familiar) fade away in one corner of cyberland.

So to smoothcriminalneutron faithfuls (which I reckoned is less than 5), do update your link to this page.

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I've been giving some thoughts about the new cluster, and I suppose God has been impinging upon me to give a sense of identity to the cluster; an identity not just pertaining to their youth, but an identity to arrest their youthful nature.

For instance, there are some cells that are serious about biblical apologetics, while others are bonded with a common passion for music, or computer games. Some identities are Christ-centred, others are perhaps more self-directed; nonetheless, an identity gives a platform for the cell members to meet and fellowship. To some extent, I think my tiertiary cell suffers from a lack of identity, and this explains why we aren't relating to one another beyond the formal necessities.

But it is hard to impose an identity on a group of people who come from all walks of life. No doubt my cell group is supposed to have the identity of a "tiertary" group of people; but a lot of us come from different institutions and working environments.

How I would want to work out an identity for the new cluster would be challenging. Firstly, I'm not quite sure if He is really stressing in my heart on the need for an identity in the cluster. Secondly, there are going to be 4 to 6 cells in the new cluster. It might be difficult to put in place an overarching identity upon the whole cluster.

Nevertheless, during last Thursday's Leadership Summit, Pastor Ian address the importance of a vision for Heartbeat, and how it differs from a mission statement. So maybe, I'm not too far off from here; in that God's stress on my heart for an "identity" is really to come up with a "vision statement" for the cluster.

That leaves me with the last problem. I cannot decipher if any identity on the new cluster will be my identity or God's identity. Something that is close to my heart would be the importance of doing-teaching or service-learning; to help the youths discover Christ by engaging them in missionary or community works. In fact, I was thinking that maybe twice a year, one or two cell leaders can rally the youths across the cluster to go on short term mission trips ala Sri lanka style, which I sincerely thought was a good model to challenge one's perspective on Christ after Pastor Ian and myself modified the SIF model with a Christian dimension.

It would be good that I bring this issue to the new cell leaders soon.