Defining Deconstruction 

The true deconstruction is having to deconstruct the endless layers of materialism, reductionism, and nominalism that were shoved down my throat for 12 years of primary school.

Literature grad here. I really appreciate how the pastor tackled all these issues and in so little time. It's a very solid presentation. It's ironic that Derrida says words make reality and therefore there is no reality, but Genesis says God used words to make reality.

I deconstructed from bad charismatic theology and now I'm in a Lutheran seminary, and now through Lutheran doctrine I feel more whole. Instead of accepting all different types of theology dressed under the banner of "spirit." I can now see Christ more clear.

Deconstruct the deconstructionists. (Seriously though, their problem is that they don't go far enough and fail to doubt their own materialist, hyper-rationalist, logical positivist presuppositions)

im at a half hour in. at my girlfriends church on Sunday which is very charismatic, the preacher spoke on the word "teleos" in Eph 4, Where apostles and prophets are given to the church so that we might become perfect. by that we mean, we might completely fulfill our God given purpose. I take issue with the charismatic view of God given purpose because I dont believe everyone is designed to fulfill some grand narrative. I reject any pressure to be part of the "next great awakening" or "changing this entire city". those visions are visions created by a church leadership for the purpose of growing a church and for the purpose of making lots of money. Mike Winger spoke in his Bethel video from a few years ago about "these movements always being on the cusp, and a year later they're right on the cusp, and 5 years later and ten years later, but nothing changed." he calls it the "dangling carrot metaphor". I would certainly agree with him. and revival doesn't happen by will, but it happens by growing in faith in Christ through prayer, fasting, and study. but that isn't very exciting at all and it doesn't get butts in seats. so looking at what I just hear around 30 minutes in, Jordan, my question is, "is there room at all for a deconstructed Christian faith?" teleologically, am I allowed to sit and grow myself up by means of a liturgical life, and can I dismiss any grand Abrahamic metanarrative that is calling me out into the great unknown? I think we can. I think the work is already finished, by the grace of God. I dont think there is any work left to do. (caveat perhaps being the Great Commission, but that involves bringing others into the same sanctified life I am describing.)

I am thankful God sent me to your channel. Truth Unites talked about similar things about deconstruction. We as Christians are taught to test every idea and judge with righteous judgement after searching our own hearts on the matter. God bless u guys love u all!

This is such a great discussion. Thank God for Dr. Jordan Cooper!

This is fantastic, Dr. Cooper. You go way beyond the issue of "deconstruction" in contemporary Christianity and really offer one of the most thoughtful and elegant critiques/diagnoses of our current moment I have heard. As a suggestion for a future video, I'd love for you to tackle the divisions and vitriol *within* evangelical/"orthodox" Christianity (thinking of recent flame wars around Davod French, etc.). Thank you.

When you were discussing Krauth’s use of the term traditionalism, it reminded me of the Jaroslav Pelikan quote: “tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living”. This was an excellent summation of important 20th century ideas that are still not as well known as they should be.

Conservative reformation is also consistent with the doctrine of progressive revelation. Thank you for this video. From a mental health perspective, I needed to hear this.

I think this is good information for this time that we’ve found ourselves in. Thank you, pastor!

Scratching author intent and focusing entirely on the text is also New Criticism, which is now very old criticism.

As an engineer, I have to deal with reality. If I say a "stainless-steel, hex-head, 1/4-20 bolt" I mean precisely one thing and one thing only. If I say "red", it ultimately refers to light wavelengths and the reflectivity of materials. The dictionary may define things in terms of other words, but ultimately the words refer to an underlying reality and I need to be sure that you mean the same things that I do for a given word.

Thank you for this! It was really helpful. Greetings from Brazil

I would like to hear you speak on the occult. Many who have deconstructed have gone into the occult and witchcraft. Also, when I say occult I mean hidden or ancient secret knowledge.

"Conservative Reformation!" T.S. Elliot had something like this in mind in " Tradition and the Individual Talent.". The serious poet he said needs to immerse himself in the classic poets of the past and make that interconnected herritage a part of himself in order to compete with it to create something new and authentic that nevertheless remains rooted in the tradition. I've always thought this is the right approach to culture.

The postmodernists havent gotten rid of metaphysics though. Deleuze's Difference and Repition is a postmodern treatise on metaphysics.

Great episode. Piecing together all the thorny threads of Post-Modernism is tough, almost as if those behind it want it that way. I really appreciate your overview and insights!

Just seeing the name Derrida gives me a headache- but I'll listen anyway

left charismaticism behind 3 or 4 years ago after reading about deconstruction from Søren Kierkegaard. found Orthodoxy. found Lutheranism via this channel. still not committing to anything but I hope this video is enlightening.

No expert on Post Modernism here, but it seems like the initial French theorists were just engaging in intellectual speculation for its own sake and not necessarily advocating for specific social change. It might also be safe to say that the vast majority of the general public, and even many academics, are now simply engaging in post-modern cliches without having immersed themselves in the actual post-modern texts very deeply. There might be value in studying these theories just as a form intellectual gymnastics. On a daily basis I live as a pragmatist. I say the sky is blue and that has worked for countless generations and it works for me.

this video had so much potential to be an unbiased critique of the deconstruction movement and the emergent church movement that brought on the deconstruction movement. but somehow it devolved into a video about gender theory. Lets spend 20 or 30 minutes talking critically about why people are leaving the church? what philosophical or theological grounds do they have to do so? are those grounds valid? how can the church do better? this video isn't helping

Deconstruction should be rigorous. Sadly, most people misunderstood Deconstruction to the extent that even some scholars misappropriate Deconstruction.

Two recommendations: The Fall of Interpretation by James K.A. Smith, & chapter 4 of Deep Comedy by Peter Leithart. You know, in your spare time :)

Take as given that deconstruction is a concept whose traits are sufficiently recognizable as the set of those traits that allow an instance of deconstruction to be recognized as deconstruction (just as one could recognize an instance of a table as a table or a zebra as a zebra). For there to be anything that is in fact deconstruction, this is a necessary precondition. But does deconstruction pass this test of being an actual concept of which there are instances? Whether the answer is "yes" or "no", this is a big problem for deconstruction. If the answer is yes, then deconstruction can't deconstruct because it is itself embedded in phallogocentrism (it persists across a reiterated insistence on its own transcendental essence). If the answer is no, then the only way we could recognize instances of deconstruction as deconstruction would be merely through identification of something with the proper name "deconstruction" by means of deictic reference ("I will use deconstruction in this essay...", "The author of that essay is practicing deconstruction"). Deconstruction thus only "is" if it is "not" (to put this in less mystical terminology, it only succeeds as a practice by being a "fraud", a spurious practice of itself). Likewise, to define it is always to define something else.

I started thinking of the Reformation as a conservative movement after reading Russell Kirk's "The Conservative Mind"--in spite of Kirk's position that Roman Catholicism is the only truly conservative religion. First, I follow Christ first--not conservatism. Kirk ALSO made the argument that the American Revolution was a conservative revolution against the crown's political innovations. So you can totally say it was a conservative revolution--you'd be in good company. Kirk just couldn't apply that reasoning to the Reformation, as you (and I) have.

you and Jonathan Pageau need to talk about how this coming reformation within the western church is significant to the church as a whole. and maybe we can fantasize a little about restoring greater ecumenicism so that there is one church again

My educational background is math. (I have a Bachelor's in Pure Mathematics and a Master's in Applied Mathematics.) It sounds to me like Derrida didn't understand the underlying philosophy of math, or maybe he took Poincaré's Conventionalism to a strange extreme. (I don't know which of those two came first. For that matter, maybe those two would be two peas in a pod. Poincaré was a strange guy.) If Derrida were consistent with his philosophy, then he would never have trusted any bridge enough to walk on it.

In formal logic, a system containing a contradiction is unsatisfiable (clearly). But interestingly (and I mention this because it goes right along with the comments right prior to 31:00) if you have a system which introduces or assumes a contradiction with a derivation, you can derive literally any logical statement you can imagine. So when contradictions are accepted, the result is that everything is true and truth loses its meaning.

Since becoming Lutheran, i feel like i say the word “balance” more than a Buddhist 😭 im not balanced on my view of philosophy however. I must not philosophize. Philosophy is the mind killer. Philosophy is the little death that brings total reprobation. I will face my intellection. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will repent in faith to see its path. Where the philosophy has gone there will be nothing. Only faith will remain.

Isn't what Derrida says basically an application of the radical scepticism of Hume?

One core error of the whole structuralist school and their successors is that they try to make do with sign and signified when we need (as known since Plato although the best elaboration might be by the (Platonist) Frege, THREE levels, namely signs/names, meanings (intensions, "Sinn", the logos in the sense of definition for the Ancients) and referents (extensions, "Bedeutung"). One classic Fregean example is "The morning star is the evening star". The names differ obviously in languages, e.g. Hesperus or Abendstern for Evening star. The meanings of the two terms are different, roughly the first/brightest celestial body early in the evening and late in the morning, respectively. But the statement of identity is correct because the referent of both terms is actually the same celestial body, namels the planet Venus.

This was so far over my head I need a ladder.

One major complaint in this is your (mis)use of the word "metanarrative". The way lyotard uses it is not to mean merely a "grand narrative", but specifically the (anti-christian, humanistic) enlightenment, scientism, and other hyper-rational approaches which claim to eschew narrative (while implicitly relying on narratives and unprovable assumptions). Lyotard is actually critiquing modernism run amok, not narratives per se

Surely there is some middle ground between Derrida & Plato? I would argue both go too far. Take the word #unicorn. Surely we have a sense of what that is from the contexts in which it is used (faery tales mainly, though it does appear in the #KJV eg Job 39:9 "wild ox" in other translations) Platonic idealists would argue for real unicorns, which would be nice, but do we need to go that far? Surely the problem with Derrida is not root & branch but more an overemphasis on subjectivity? 3: Butler to me is the most problematic. But even there, she seems to derive her thought more from Lacan than Derrida per se?

I think you provided a good distinction between Revolution and Reformation, but I missed how that related to the use of the word “deconstruction”. Do you mean that we shouldn’t use deconstruction when we really mean a conservative reformation? I think using the term deconstruction to describe a subjective, revolutionary approach to one’s faith is honest in the historical postmodern use of the term. As in, if it’s actually what someone is doing, isn’t using that term good?

Can you talk about the philosophy of simulacra and the hegalian impact of our post modern society?

This is a bit off-topic, but since you mentioned Star Wars...what I thought was interesting about The Last Jedi was that it seemed to support the idea of "conservative revolution:" Kylo Ren, the villain, explicitly has the radical "burn it down" mentality, Luke is shown to have been wrong to give up on the ways of the Jedi, and at the end we discover that Rey took the sacred Jedi texts from the sanctuary, giving new meaning to Yoda's "she has everything she needs with her" line. What's always perplexed me is that very few people seem to have understood this. Did the movie just not communicate clearly, or is "conservative revolution" so far removed from the categories modern people think in that few can readily understand it?

You alwaysdo a great job!

Excellent topic.

Thank you.

This is one of your most helpful videos!

You are an asset to The Lutheran perspective. There is certainly a risk to this kind of interplay and exposure to the perils of cynicism. Obviously with the subject matter of denominational distinctives (that I would call synoptic), contentions can easily arise out of arrogant ignorance -especially in this day of innovative laity-ruled spirituality. This would be one of the greatest concerns for you as a brother. James White (as an example) is a great guy (this is readily apparent during the eras when he had hair and was close to your age! *_[I'm even 50 years old]_ ), but half-learned clumsily opinionated people over the years have been brutal and deadly in a similar way as getting pecked to death by carnivorous chickens... and everybody wants to take a shot. Leighton's original appeal is starting to show the signs of wear (*which was the one of the disappointing aspects when he came after you on his campaign against election)... But his constituent subscribership has got enough hootin' and hollerin' going on which shows the ultimate collective arrogance of a lack of the fear of God. As a 7-point Reformed Baptist (lol!)... I have some dear Methodist friends-and what is readily apparent about this modern consumeristic Christianity... is that some people need to think they can lose their salvation-indeed- that's a form of eternal security... for it is the dynamic of the P in TULIP. As a Baptist, it's tragic and a bit misleading to underemphasize the value of baptism (as not necessary) because anyone who is yet to be baptized and calls themselves a Christian is in serious peril of the willfully disobedient delusion of reprobation. So All the fussing about baptism could be argued as satanic (how do they like that!?). However, the flamboyant liberals dressed in Halloween costumes in your denomination would be concerning though I must admit... I don't know how one can stomach it and think that it's pleasing to God. As I'm sure we can agree, you're either pleasing God -or you're not... and that's the ultimate binary. God bless & Soli Deo Gloria!

Jacques Derrida misread some philosophical systems. You cannot deconstruct something that you don't know its authoritative meaning.

Would you consider doing a dialogue video with thenewevangelicals? Or with some other figure in the deconstructing movement?

Even this lecture is a misreading of Derrida's Deconstruction. Sorry, but it's true.

There's already a word for deconstruction. It's called apostasy.

That was all very interesting. But at a practical level, here on the ground, it was pretty much meaningless. It's all clearly prescriptive, rather than descriptive, and doesn't apply to much of what I'm seeing today. Ultimately all of this comes across as a huge bowl of word salad that's just designed to explain us, and our issues, out of existence, simply on the basis of the historical meaning of the word "deconstruction." Especially when you cast the entire issue in terms of hurt and trauma, and unilaterally assign our motives to anger, bitterness and destruction. Because here's the reality: We all have different issues, and they are often NOT due to the kind of hurt and trauma you so carefully wrapped this up with. My issues, for example, revolve around the historicity and reliability of the Bible itself: How and when it came into existence, cultural contexts within specific historical milieus, genres and how that impacts both historicity and meaning, etc. Standard objections to my issues, such as "y'all just wanna sin," or "y'all were never a true Christian," or your "y'all have just need to get past your hurt," are totally meaningless to me. They literally don't apply to my issues, and are like water off of a duck's back. Yes, for some, deconstruction can lead to a reformation of beliefs. For others it can result in a total rejection of Christianity, leading to Judaism, Buddhism, paganism, or even atheism. That being the case, deconstruction is a perfectly valid word for the process, even given its historical context.

sadly a lot of evangelical churches don't even preach Jesus or the Bible

I think the paradox here is that Christianity doesn't require a metanarrative to function. we could have no metanarrative and Jesus would still be God. even the rocks cry out.

trust a gaylord to set the discussion off the wrong way, a quick flog would have set them straight.

All this stuff is both crazy and sad.