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(More customer reviews)Keeping God's Silence: Towards A Theological Ethics of Communication by Rachel Muers (Challenges in Contemporary Theology: Blackwell Publishers) (Paperback) This ground-breaking hook provides a new perspective on Christian practices of silence.
Rachel Muffs, a significant Quaker theologian, develops a theological understanding of communication to which a "responsible silence" is central. In doing so, she engages with the key issues raised for Christian theology by feminist thought, and develops an original reading of significant aspects of the theology and ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. She also presents a challenge, from the perspective of Christian theology and practice, to a communicative environment dominated by wars of words. The central theological claim explored in the book is that God listens, and that God's listening is integral to who God is.
Excerpt: The first chapter concentrates on listening to feminist thinkers - includ?ing feminist theologians - as they put forward analyses and critiques of the many ways in which women have been silenced in theology and in other areas of discourse; and to an analysis and critique from within Christian theology of the many ways in which God has been silenced in the modern world. Both of these accounts of silencing, as I read them, tend to make the assumption that agency in communication rests wholly or mainly with the speaker - in other words, that silence cannot be rightly or usefully thought of as communicative activity. In feminist thought, however, this assumption is problematized, with the recognition of women's complicity in their own "silencing," and of the acts of silencing of which feminist discourse has itself been guilty. There is a recognition
that, if this kind of oppressive silencing is to end, the communicative sit?uation must be fundamentally transformed; and some attempts to imagine that transformation involve the rethinking of what silence means.
The feminist theologian Nelle Morton is well known for her concept of "hearing into speech," which she develops theologically with the counter-intuitive claim that the "first cause is hearing," and the questions that pervade her writing: "Who hears? Who is heard?". In the second chapter, I look at Morton's thought alongside the philosophy of Gemma Corradi Fiumara, whose approach to the ethics of communication gives priority to listening, and analyze the questions "Who hears? Who is heard?" as they denote two forms of silence - the silence of the listener, and the "silence of unknowability" signifying the freedom of the one who is listened to. Questions then arise about the theological development of such readings of silence. How can God be affirmed as the source and aim of a changed ethics of communication, without re-imposing powerful divine speech in a way that negates the aims of feminist thought?
Reading Morton's questions as theological - as questions about God as the one "who hears" and "who is heard" - the third chapter outlines the basic framework of my response to these problems, through a discussion of Bonhoeffer's theology of the resurrection. The key categories of Bonhoeffer's thought on which my reading is based are set out: the resur?rection as that which determines the asking and answering of the "Who?" question in relation to Christ; closely linked with this, the resurrection as the "place to stand," the hidden basis for action and reflection from which a response to the world is possible; and the interpretation of ethical life in terms of the "relation between reality and realization." I argue that this set of categories enables us to speak about God's silence of unknowability - the resurrection as a "hidden" reality - and God's silence as a listener's silence - the resurrection as reality being "realized," as God hears God's own Word and thereby hears the world into new possibilities.
In each of the subsequent chapters, further reflection on the naming of God as one who hears - and hence on the "reality" of the resurrec?tion for God and for the world in relation to God - is closely bound up with the analysis of particular practices of communication, thinking through an ethics of communication alongside the development of the theology. In the fourth chapter, I begin my consideration of what it would mean for a communicative situation to be transformed in the light of the resurrection as God's hearing of God's own Word. The resurrection does not mean that the powerful Word of God reduces all other words to silence, but rather that the whole situation of speaking, silence, and lis?tening must be reconfigured Christologically.
Feminist critiques of Christian theology's acts of "silencing" have focused on the characterization of humanity as silent or passive vis-à-vis the powerful Word of God. The fifth chapter suggests how a theology of divine hearing - of the world together with the divine Word - can respond to this critique, and can shift the focus of an ethic of communi?cation toward an emphasis on the capacity for listening. Analyzing spe?cific texts of Bonhoeffer's theology, I argue that his work points to a deep concern for a contemporary communicative situation in which there is "too much talk" and not enough silence, in which the capacity for lis?tening and discernment has been lost, and in which the recognition of the resurrection as "place to stand" and as divine act of hearing provides the possible basis for a recovery of that capacity.
The sixth chapter examines practices of communication - to which silence is fundamental - in which this "reconfiguration" might be seen. I consider Bonhoeffer's lectures on "spiritual care," in which the media?tion of communication in Christ - the resurrection as common "place to stand" - is a central idea. This Christological mediation of communica?tion establishes, first, the "unknowability" of the other - the impossibil?ity either of exercising control over her or of subjecting oneself entirely to her words. Practices of silence, described in the lectures on spiritual care, signify and enact this unknowability.
Responsible silence as Christians practice it - in relationships of "spir?itual care" and elsewhere - does not, however, merely signify and enact unknowability. More importantly, people can learn to "hear with God's ears," and hence to be drawn into God's act of hearing with love. The keeping of silence can make any given practice of communication open to transformations, which are not anticipated in advance but which can reflect the innerworldly realization of divine reality. Two aspects of such transformation in and through practices of communication are the learn?ing of ethical discernment and the emergence of friendship. Taking these seriously in the context of thinking about "hearing with God's ears," I suggest, both relies on and enriches an understanding of the resurrection as reality for God - God's self-determination as love.
Both the idea of the "unknowability" of the other and the question of what it means to "hear with God's ears" are developed further in the seventh chapter. Here, I use the idea of "knowing by hearing" as part of a response to contemporary debates on the question of privacy. The aspect of personal "unknowability" - which prevents the person from being "silenced" by reduction to a fully comprehensible object of knowledge - is a point of contact with the modern concern for privacy. However, the terms in which the concern for privacy is couched - which require
knowledge to be understood as controllable and defensible property, and which even affect some recent accounts of divine omniscience - are called into question by the Christological understanding of God's "hearing knowledge" developed in this thesis. "Hearing knowledge" is inseparable from relationships of responsibility and love, and from the formation of persons over time in relation to others. I am not rejecting the importance of privacy and reserve for the ethics of communication; in fact, the concern for privacy is linked ultimately to the concern, voiced repeatedly throughout my discussion, to say something about the reality of God in Godself.
The concluding chapter suggests further possible implications of this account of "God's responsible silence." Some of these relate to theology's own ethics of communication - for responses to acts of silencing, for bib?lical interpretation and for the reading of theological texts. Beyond this, however, I attempt to open up consideration of the wider consequences of an ethics of communication that takes "responsible silence" seriously.
Openings are, not accidentally, a theme of the conclusion. One of my key claims about practices of communication is that both writers and readers, speakers and hearers, should seek to hold utterances and texts open for further acts of hearing - an openness that does not preclude, but rather relies on, present commitment to specific claims and contexts, in the universal but also specific context of God's act of hearing. I have sought to do justice to, and to maintain, the openness of the texts I read. For the future openness of my own text, I am dependent on others.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Keeping God's Silence: Towards a Theological Ethics of Communication (Challenges in Contemporary Theology)
This ground-breaking book provides a new perspective on Christian practices of silence.
An original, theologically informed work, written by a significant Quaker theologian
Provides a new perspective on Christian practices of silence
Considers the theological and ethical significance of these practices
Relates silence, listening and communication to major contemporary issues
Takes forward theological engagement with feminist thought
Contributes to ongoing research into the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
