Presbymergence, Postmodernism, and Perl
I met Chris (an ordained elder in the PCUSA) through presbymergent.org, and we’ve been emailing back and forth for a few months now about the emerging church and its place in Presbyterianism.
One of the topics we keep circling around is “postmodernism.” It’s a word we in the church toss around quite often, and it has been alternately praised, villanized, abandoned, and embraced hesitantly (see McLaren’s chapter in EMOH). Personally, I tend to have an instinctual understanding of the concept — it’s permeated the culture and air I’ve breathed since my childhood.
Unfortunately, “instinct” doesn’t always make for clear conversation, so I dusted off the Derrida and other texts from my college literature classes in search of a more precise (ha! — that’s irony) language to use. That didn’t help too much. Pete Rollins is a bit more accesible, but in the end, the voice that resonated with me most was (go figure) a hacker.
Larry Wall is the guy who wrote the Perl computer language, and also happens to be a quite committed Christian — something rare among top-tier geeks. In 1999, Wall gave a talk titled, “Perl: the first postmodern computer language.” It’s about Perl, but his understanding (and conveyance) of postmodernism is quickly becoming my favorite on the subject. Over on my personal Wiki, I’ve shortened it a little (taken out some of the computer lingo) and interspersed my own comments on how it relates to the emerging church. If you’re interested in a unique angle to the postmodern question, you are welcomed to read it and comment on the discussion page:
For a teaser, though here are some experpts (Larry Wall’s text in bold italics, my comments in small font):
It used to be that we evaluated everything and everyone based on reputation or position. And the basic underlying assumption was that we all had to agree whether something (or someone) was good or bad…. We could argue all day long about whether postmodernism came about because Modernism succeeded or because it failed. As a postmodern myself, I take both sides. To some extent.
This would bother a Modernist, because a Modernist has to decide whether this is true OR that is true. The Modernist believes in OR more than AND. Postmodernists believe in AND more than OR…. We can use Perl as an example. In Perl, AND has higher precedence than OR does. There you have it. That proves Perl is a postmodern language.
Wow. This plays out hugely in church -- Exclusivity (OR) vs. Inclusivity (AND), for example. Also in scripture debates: Multiple possible interpretations (AND) vs. "one true interpretation" (OR). Actually, even the word "debate" is an "OR" kind of concept, where "conversation" seems to imply "AND." Is this why modernists are so bent on the idea of "only one way to God" (OR) vs. postmodern popularity of the "many paths" idea?
Perhaps this is also why Evangelicals keep pressing those in the Emerging Church to clearly define where they stand on issues (one has to believe EITHER this OR that).
I do not view deconstructionism as a form of postmodernism so much as I view deconstructionism as the bridge between Modernism and postmodernism. Modernism, as a form of Classicalism, was always striving for simplicity, and was therefore essentially reductionistic. That is, it tended to take things to pieces. That actually hasn’t changed much. It’s just that Modernism tended to take one of the pieces in isolation and glorify it, while postmodernism tries to show you all the pieces at once, and how they relate to each other.
Yes! One might say that the whole "Emerging" church thing is simply another form of deconstructionism, whose ultimate purpose will have been to build a bridge between modern churches and post-modern ones.
Beautiful comparison/contrast. The reductionism of modernistic churches: emphasis on "core values," "fundamentals," and "non-negotiables" -- even the three reformed "solas" come to mind). Postmodernist churches often try to emphasize the "mosaic" approach, emphasizing holistic integration of beliefs, practices, and living instead of simply focusing "right belief." I realize that some modern churches are good at integration, too, just as some post-modern churches have "core values." Still, it's a matter of perceived emphasis.
I’d go so far as to call myself a strong postmodernist. Strong postmodernism says that all truth is created. But this really isn’t a problem for anyone who believes in a Creator. All truths are created relative, but some are more relative than others. A universal truth only has to be true about our particular universe, so to speak. It doesn’t much matter whether the universe itself is true or false, just as long as it makes a good story. And I think our universe does make a good story. I happen to like the Author.
And this, more than anything else, is what the church needs to hear. This is the crux of where we can BE Christian AND postmodern. Like Wall, there may be things about postmodernism that we decide suck. We are not bound to postmodern culture any more than we were bound to modern culture, but we have the freedom in Christ to shape culture (and our understanding of it) according to our faith. We live in an AND world, where we don't have to choose between Christ OR Culture.
Pingback by Sarx » Emergent Geekery on 3 July 2007:
[...] Comparing Emerging Church ideas with Programming Language: The Modernist believes in OR more than AND. Postmodernists believe in AND more than OR…. We can use Perl as an example. In Perl, AND has higher precedence than OR does. There you have it. That proves Perl is a postmodern language. You can skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging is currently not allowed. RSS 2.0 [...]
Comment by Paul Dubuc on 5 July 2007:
Hmm. I guess C and C++ are postmodern languages too. Is there one where AND doesn’t have presidence over OR? BTW, EXCLUSIVE OR is different than OR: It means one or the other, but not BOTH. OR can also mean BOTH. I hope that doesn’t mess up the analogy too much ;-).
Comment by Neal Locke on 5 July 2007:
Paul — Actually, I think Wall was just citing the AND/OR precedence as one example — if you’re into computer languages, you’ll probably want to check out the entirety of his argument over at http://www.perl.com/pub/a/1999/03/pm.html, rather than my heavily abridged excerpts here.
I’m pretty sure Wall would place C and C++ solidly in the “modernist” camp of computer languages, but for entirely different reasons. He does give props to C++ insofar as the things he liked from it he incorporated into Perl, but the things he disliked he left out.
Interestingly, this is an accusation that gets leveled against Christian postmoderns, too — that we “pick and choose” what we like/dislike from the Bible. Of course, I’d counter that modernists do that too, but post-modernists (and emergents) are more likely just to own up to it, while modernists go to great lengths to rationalize how they’re doing it but not really doing it.
Oh, and I like your point about OR vs. XOR. It does weaken the analogy a bit, but it also kind of opens up a whole new slew of possibilities. I think XOR is probably the “or” most common in evangelical theology, so wonder what plain old “OR” would be like in theological terms. Or is there even a corollary?
Comment by Paul Dubuc on 5 July 2007:
Thanks, Neal. I’ll look at the whole article when I get a chance.
C++ is my language of choice for most things. It’s not the same language it was 10 years ago. It’s gotten quite better with age. As for Perl, I see a lot of it where I work and I’m able to “grok” it well enough to do minor maintenance. But, in that niche, I would prefer to use Python for anything significant and new. Deserved or not, Perl has gotten the reputation of being a “write only” language. There are so many different ways to do the same thing that quite often the code written by any 2 experienced Perl programmers can look quite different and unreadable by the other. This is no fault of Mr. Wall’s. Perl has been around a long time and has a great legacy. But all else being equal and given the choice of which would be better to learn and use now, I’d say Python has a big advantage. I’m not sure yet where it fits in the modern/postmodern scheme of things though ;-).