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As I worked through this interesting and engaging – but dense and challenging work,\u00a0Contemporary Social \u00a0Theory: An Introduction\u00a0<\/em>by Anthony Elliot, my mind was racing with many questions (quite possibly to try and distract me from the hard work of processing all that I was reading).<\/p>\n One of the questions that kept coming back to me was this: So what – or to put another way – what difference does recognizing that social theory exists, and becoming conversant in it make in my life and in my work as a pastor? \u00a0To be clear – this question isn’t meant as a slight towards the book or the subject matter, I was a sociology minor in undergrad so I am predisposed to this type of thought, rather as a means of highlighting its importance.<\/p>\n It is definitely true that one could live and die, having never become aware of the concept of social theory and it could be argued that they would not have missed it – and this person certainly wouldn’t have known they were missing anything. \u00a0But in some ways that is the point of social theory: When properly understood and applied, it can help us understand the why and the how of our culture and society and our social structures.<\/p>\n I believe this is a critically important counterweight to our individualistic culture and ethos, in which we tend to see everything (for good and bad) from a personal perspective – if we succed it is because we ‘earned’ it, if we don’t it is because we are lacking in some way. \u00a0 There is an element of personal responsibility to our lives, of course, but knowingly or not, all of us participate in and are influenced by the soical structures in which we find ourselves.<\/p>\n When we endavor to understand those structures it allows us to both have a much clearer picture of the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of our own situations as well as larger societal issues that we might want to address. \u00a0Undoubtedly, an understanding of the social structures and norms of a given community will also increase effectiveness in clearly communicating the message of the gospel to which we have been entrusted.<\/p>\n Karl Barth suggested that the pastor should prepare their sermon with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other….the point being that we can’t effectively preach the Word of God disconnected from the world and the people to which we are preaching (to whom this Word is the Good News!). \u00a0In some ways, an understanding of social theory in another step in that direction.<\/p>\n So, the answer to the question of ‘why’ this book matters is simple: understanding social theory helps us understand the world ‘works’, and more specifcially how those of us in it relate to and interact with each other.<\/p>\n One note of caution here, born out of personal experience: as Elliot walks us through each of the different periods and major schools of (primarily continental European) thought on social theory, some will inevitably appeal to you more than others. \u00a0You may be enamored of the Frankfort school and how it helps to explain or wrestle with the ‘dark side’ of our current culture (elliot, Kindle Location 1418) or you may really appreciate, and find engaging – as I did – Derrida’s deconstruction or perhaps Chodorow and her call for shared parenting as the only way forward from gender asymmetries (which Traci and I have been trying to model without even knowing it :)). \u00a0This is good and important, but as you dive into these thinkers and their their theories are not complete by themselves…. each one either builds on the previous or is, at least in some way a critique of what has come before it, and to my understanding none of these theories can completely stand on its own as a complete conceptualization of our social structures and interactions. \u00a0These theories can help us understand ourselves, our world and our interactions, but none of them can tie these things up in a neat little bow for us, packaged and easily digestible.<\/p>\n The other question that stuck with me as I read this book, was the question born out of the ‘story’ about Natalie that Elliot tells in the introduction. \u00a0The question he asks is, ‘to what society does Natalie belong?’ \u00a0He uses this story to illustrate the value and purpose of social theory and if he told the story slightly differently could also highlight Jameson’s postmodern theory that we can no longer discern or ‘map our place’ with our social systems because of the compounding effects of capitalism. \u00a0(Elliot, Kindle Location 5729)<\/p>\n But his question about where Natalie belonged led me to another thought entirely, which I don’t think he intended. \u00a0Could we see our faith, and the system of belief we have built around our faith in God as a social theory of it’s own. \u00a0This thought occurred to me because asking about where Natalie belonged my mind immediately went to the familiar question Jesus asks, ‘Who is your neighbor?’<\/p>\n These questions of who we have to care for, what is expected of us and where we belong are at the heart of what social theory is trying to capture and they also happen to be central to our faithful response to God’s love and action in our lives. \u00a0It is interesting, for me at least, to consider how we might think critically about our faith and our application of that faith through the lens of social theory.<\/p>\n As I worked through this interesting and engaging – but dense and challenging work,\u00a0Contemporary Social \u00a0Theory: An Introduction\u00a0by Anthony Elliot, my mind was racing with many questions (quite possibly to try and distract me from the hard work of processing all that I was reading). One of the questions that kept coming back to me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[196],"class_list":["post-10076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-elliot","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/churchplantmedia-cms\/hutto_bible_church\/neighbor-message.jpg\")
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