Who’s Afraid of Relativism? by James K. A. Smith

James K. A. Smith is a philosophical theologian concerned about truth. In this simply structured and transparently argued book, he suggests that the work of Richard Rorty can be a source of renewal even though it makes many conservative Christians shrink in horror. Hating Rorty, on the other hand, reveals the shortcomings of people’s theological assumptions.

Smith perceives the preponderance of American Christians as people bent on security, comfort, and autonomy—functional deists and practical atheists whose vision is shaped by ideals of independence. Such ideals trigger a Promethean project of making themselves direct, rational, individual knowers whose status and knowledge cannot be subverted by unpredictable changes in circumstances. For such Christians, truth is equated with terms like absolute and objective, words that turn Christianity into a mechanism for achieving all-seeing impregnability. In order to preserve the power and privilege such a perspective is designed to secure, it’s necessary—at all costs—to hold on to representational notions of truth by which one’s interior impressions precisely mirror external reality.

But once it’s acknowledged that Ludwig Wittgenstein was right and that language is a game that explains how rather than an arrow that identifies what, the whole edifice of solitary, independent knowing is in danger. If knowledge is control, then saying “it depends” is more or less the same as saying “it’s not true.” Hence the fusillade directed from conservative quarters at Rorty and his pragmatic companions.