<!--quoteo(post=193969:date=Feb 24 2009, 01:43 AM:name=Peter T Chattaway)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Peter T Chattaway @ Feb 24 2009, 01:43 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=193969"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I probably shouldn't invite criticism of my colleagues, but I'm a details man, and I'm just dying to know WHY C.F.H. would not be amused. (Related question: would C.F.H. have had any interest in film at all, or would it have been "mere entertainment" to him?)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have been meaning to write something more extensive on that, and will try to soon. But the essence of the joke is this:
Even though I am glad that evangelical theology has moved a bit past Henry at this point in its sensitivity to the formative influences of modernism, I still value his approach to church and culture. Due to his position in the recent history of conservative Christian thought, he has been one of the most common whipping boys in emergent/ing church literature. This is completely unwarranted. I worked for several years in the archives that contain the remainder of his papers and correspondence (about four full-sized file cabinets worth) and was consistently amazed at the depth of his learning and the creative intelligence of his theological responses to people and events. This was all at the same time I was also being introduced to critical theory and continental thought, and I still consider it a bit providential that I could sit and rifle through Henry's brain for a while after a long class on Ricoeur or Derrida. Even though I disagreed with Henry on a number of issues, it was a nice balance.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Uneasy-Conscience-Modern-Fundamentalism/dp/080282661X" target="_blank">The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism</a> is <i>the</i> great unread Evangelical work (one of the few documents that can actually be described as "Evangelical" in any meaningful way). The brand of cultural reasoning you find in this book is the same one that gave birth to Christianity Today. It was pretty provocative at the time, and in some ways still is. But it was marked by erudition. He was known for teaching to the top 1% of his class, wanting Christians to do the tough work of thinking deeply about texts and ideas rather than having their hands held by the fundamentalist status quo. His definition of "evangelicalism," the critical spirit behind CT, had the proclamation of the gospel at its center, intellectual excellence as its form, and the public square as its venue. Unfortunately, he was eventually fired from his slot as CT editor by the financial backer of the magazine for - oddly enough - not being political enough.
All this is to say that I dig what Henry was all about. I was excited at the prospect of CT Movies, but now wish that it had enough Henrian gumption to give its best critics more latitude to do what they do best and resist the temptation to address the lowest common denominator of culture with things like live-blogging the Oscars. He didn't really seem that into film, which is fine, but he certainly didn't care for this kind of journalism.
Edited by MLeary, 24 February 2010 - 01:50 PM.
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