Equivocating on the term ‘deconstruction’ is the latest gatekeeping tactic.
Months ago the big joke was: “How many of these millennial evangelicals have even heard of Derrida, amirite? lolz. 🙄”
Now those *exact same dudes* are wringing their hands about how all these kids embracing Derrida need to understand that the path they’re on leads straight to utter nihilism.
Well which is it?
Does so-called “deconstruction” have nothing to do with Derrida, or do we actually need to be concerned about the alleged implications of Derrida’s theories?
Or is it that the gatekeepers decided to change the subject to Derrida because that’s a fight they think they can win, even though it has nothing to do with evangelicals interrogating their presuppositions?
Yeah, it’s that.
I gotta say, the thought of these dudes *struggling* through Derrida’s prose to mine for incriminating quotes is pretty satisfying.
But no, the concern is fabricated. Derrida is yet another shiny object.
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Here’s the thing about all the reviews of all the books interrogating evangelicalism (Barr, Du Mez, Tisby, Gregoire, Byrd, et al.):
The basic facts aren’t even in question.
Defenders of the evangelical status quo don’t even bother denying the factual predicate that prominent evangelicals and evangelical institutions have perpetuated marginalization and abuse.
(They might take issue with some characterization of some marginal claim; but in general, no one seriously suggests that any of these authors are misrepresenting the basic factual data.)
You don't need to tell me that you think there's a genetic fallacy here.
I'm the guy who told you that you think that--four days ago: it's right there in the picture you posted, in the text that you colored in with your blue highlighter.
It took about 72 hours and several hundred tweets for you to come to this realization.
This confirms that you're not really reflecting on any of my responses.
It appears as though you just tweet out replies, rapid-fire, based on whatever occurs to you in the moment.
You then circle back and screenshot isolated responses to your own disjointed stream of consciousness, place them side-by-side, and allege some sort of tension.
There are SBC seminary faculty who sincerely believe that the recent review of J&JW offered “important” or “perceptive” commentary about postmodernism.
These men are currently training future pastors, and no one should be okay with that.
*This* is the SBC brain trust.
*This* is the quality of scholarship on the SBC’s horizon.
Before you say, “Scott, that’s mean,” I remind you: no one asked them.
They could’ve said nothing—like academics are trained to do when they don’t know enough to offer official comment.
Instead, they read that book report and thought, “This is great. I’m competent to judge quality work in this field, and this is good—so good, in fact, that I’ll disseminate it with my stamp of approval.”
I keep seeing the following line of reasoning from evangelical gatekeepers (et al.):
"All that matters is truth. Bias may be bad, but it's a secondary concern. Figure out the truth. Then ask how bias may affect those who are wrong (i.e. those disagree with you)."
(Aside: *of course* the truth is what matters. That's why we're all here, having this conversation. The moment I realize that my interlocutor has made a conscious decision not to care about truth, the conversation is over: it would be pointless to continue.)
The problem with the gatekeepers' way of thinking, obviously, is this:
How do *you* know, dear gatekeeper, that *you* don't suffer from some bias that prevents *you* from clearly perceiving truth in the first place?
I've noticed a lot of excitement (from the usual suspects) about Michael Young's critical review of @kkdumez 's J&JW.
I happen to think that Young's review is particularly unimpressive, due to basic confusions about epistemic justification and human cognition.
The thrust of Young's critique is as follows.
Even if Du Mez demonstrates that various evangelical commitments are self-serving, she doesn't even consider the *truth* of those commitments.
Young contends that this is a problem for Du Mez's account because, "...whether or not our sociological situation inclines us toward one belief or another is not relevant to whether or not those beliefs are actually *true*."