Metamodern Christianity | 3. Metamodern Christianity is Transhistorical

To get beyond the enduring impasse of the "science vs. religion" debate, let's give science its due—and then leave it in the dust! There's no need to affirm the historical basis of the Christian story to relate to the Christ of faith. If we can accept that the Gospels are prehistorical materials, we can get beyond the classic hangups and begin to see how "it's all made up" AND "it's all real!" are both true simultaneously. Here I frame the current debates around history and religion in light of the "pre/trans fallacy" so well described by integral theory. This framing, I think, helps position us to appreciate what a truly metamodern Christianity can look like. By accepting the historical Jesus account, we are freed to embrace the Christ of faith and tradition—not in spite of the facts, but because we have transcended them.

0:00 Introduction
2:01 Moving Beyond History
4:20 The Pre/Trans Fallacy
8:31 "Trans-" Demonstrates Capacity and Transformation
13:56 The Gospels and the History of History
21:05 Christianity and the Fallacy of Origins
24:38 Transcending the Claims History Makes on Us
39:11 Cultural Metamodernism and the Transhistorical
46:41 Owning Deconstruction without Equivocation
54:41 The Growth Edge of Christianity
56:31 Conclusion

[DoubtfireClubWGPowers]

History may have a final shape... But you can't take the analogy to the end and say "I have seen the final shape and it's a parallelogram!!!!" You have rightness but you are taking the analogy too far and wide. With your broad brush someone else could also say anything history before 1841 is purely made up to serve a narrative purpose. Shouldn't turn a scalpel into a broadsword.

[ShireTasker]

Don't stop. You are on the right track. You still probably can't say some of what needs to be said and if the dissonant knew how kind and gentle you are being they would appreciate more of what you have to say.

[LucasFuckingLauridsen]

Is this a rare message? It's what I've been growing to feel and intuit but I have never heard it so perfectly fleshed in accordance with my thoughts out as what you did here

[williambranch]

History is an art form, as are myth, biography and hagiography. But modern history was attempted as early as Herodotus and Thucydides in Greece, and Sima Qian in China, The Gospels are hagiographies with the Gospel of John closer to theology. The genuine epistles of Paul are primary sources for history. The "historical" clams of Christianity are part of apologetics.

[StevenPetermann]

I think the question is why the need to cling to the label 'Christian'? What work does that do? If Christianity is framed as a metaphorical narrative, what is the essence of that metaphor that is particularly unique to Christianity? The moral sentiment is not unique. The apocalyptic vision is not unique. An incarnation is not unique. In one of the oldest extant metaphysical texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh (circa 2100 BCE), Gilgamesh was 2/3 god and 1/3 man. If we are thinking about history, almost all of Christian seminal sentiment can be found in non-Christian thinking dating back millennia.

As to why cling to the label, my guess is that it tries to avoid plunging into a scary void of vague spiritual grounding that a label seems to avoid. Does that work? For a discriminating mind, in the long run, I don't think so.

[artpinsof]

I have never seen a video before with a 1 in 9 comment ratio!? (585 views / 66 comments currently!) Unbelievable! It looks like you have hit an algorithmic GOLDMINE!!! Love the concept of letting go of magical thinking to rediscover a "metamodern" approach to magic... I would conjecture this this the essence of Esoteric Christianity or philosophy X or religion Y and woo/mysticism Z as well... ❤❤🙏🙏

[mostlynotworking]

At this point, I’ve probably listened to more of your interviews than your channel. Thank you for your work. It’s important for casual observers to realize the depths of both your personal and academic journey, one example that embodies is that epic that you wrote. And so your channel and online space of trying to talk that out and Share with others that experience without them having to go through that same exact experience in life, history,

[RlsIII-uzkl]

Gods the same yesterday today and forever. We've lived through the postmodern secular era. Christ is King.

[RubiConobi-lgkg]

Pre/Post I guess maps to the 1. and the 2. Naivitée of Bishop Baron.

[mostlynotworking]

The notion of history and space and time reminds me of Jonathan and Matheiu Pageau, discussion of space and time, as relating to Matthew work in the language of creation book

[williambranch]

The mythos of Christianity is transhistorical. As Christianity developed, it is deeply atavistic ... sacred cannibalism of communion and the morbidity of saintly relics. As a transethnic movement like Buddhism, it incorporated many elements of host cultures.

[mostlynotworking]

“Did Caesar really cross the rubicon”. As pvk cites rest is history often

[mostlynotworking]

Getting a black belt in mixed metaphor meta martial arts

[autismfromtheInside]

Hey Brendan, great discussion. Your Irish heritage example was on point and I love the propositional/participatory distinction.

I think I see a potential problem with your thought tho. I'm terms of what is necessary for a truly metamodern approach. It's a tiny subtle distinction, but I think it's important.

If I'm understanding correctly. You seem to say two things regarding recorded instances supernatural phenomena.
1. It didn't really happen
2. Ultimately it doesn't really matter (that it didn't really happen)
You seem to imply that belief in supernatural phenomena ignores the modern insights. Have I got that right? (It's something I've noticed in some of your previous videos too)

I disagree and propose the slightly altered version below.
1. We cannot be 100% sure if it really happened or not
2. Ultimately it doesn't really matter (if it really happened or not)
A subtle but important difference I think.

The former claims that we know 100% that supernatural phenomena don't occur. The latter let's go of certainty and allows for a plurality of opinions (based on the evidence).
I sent you an email with further thoughts on this if you're interested.

[peterg]

The video helped, and this like a quasi-Kierkegaardian move. As in, I know my wife is not objectively the most beautiful or best, etc., but my commitment is such that I cannot see otherwise. I suppose we’ve all heard someone say their spouse/partner is attractive, and then we look and say, what are you talking about? Maybe that’s the atheist perspective.

[vngelicath]

Since you sent to Yale Div School, are you familiar/trained in postliberalism?

One of my professors at seminary had a similar approach to this issue. He said, "yeah all that historical critical stuff surrounding the historical Jesus is probably but nonetheless I believe that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified and was buried, and that he bodily rose from the grave and that my salvation depends upon it. No, I'm not going to try to reconcile the problem here, it's a paradox I'm going to have to live with."

He had a similar approach to not trying to reconcile Genesis with science but accepting them both paradoxically. Rather than trying to explain them away into their own compartments of reality. Apparently anything is possible once you reject the law of noncontradiction lol.

[metamormonism]

Does a metamodern Christianity *require* each new generation to both experience traditional Christianity and suffer the death of it? Do metamodern Christians need the Billy Grahams of the world to do the introductory work?

I have a hunch that metamodernism won’t land the same without fertile new crops of post-nihilistic youth. Folks can’t just enter Christianity with nietzche, they need to enter into it with people like Billy graham

[SuperRobotRambo]

I think the big challenge is the number of affordances available to people when the historical is taken away. We don’t really have a way of holding those together in our current culture. Actually raising from the dead provides an affordance to a parent that loses their child that the metaphorical just doesn’t. I don’t know that most people have the capacity to just sit in the silence of such an event until they find spiritual significance in something like that. I wonder if a better way of holding these ideas in tension would be to say we have our current understanding of how the human body works but we don’t know exactly what happened. Leave some room for doubting the historical account of events as God may have and continue to move through history in ways we do not expect. This leaves some space for the fundamentalists but also provides a way for the doubts not to be such a big deal.

[intos]

In my local rural church in Germany quite some people seem to be on a metamodern, truly trans rational level. But in the end the community is there to integrate all developmental levels, and to offer a ladder, where people can begin at the lowest level and discover the depths and dynamics of beliefs and stories level by level. And some get further than others, some to the transrational level, some only to a rational, others remain on a prerational level. And the issue I think is you need to find stories and tools that work on every level, and at the prerational level certain things might only work if you state them as literal historical or epistemological truths, and this be the only way to guide people on their path. ... and on a local scale that actually works fine, since everyone at the higher levels is aware of this instrumental character of the stories, and when speaking with someone you notice immediately which level he is on and switch to the fitting language. And some of the trans rational folks have quite sophisticated ways to communicate on multiple layers at the same time, often with the use of a bit of humor, a kind of half serious irony, themselves exploring the belief space in the process.

[mostlynotworking]

49:00 I think one of Pageaus big things is that not only it happened but it is the pattern and way in which reality lays itself out. Seeing it in our own life