Rescuing myself from cynicism

This update cannot bear the burden of summarizing all of the recent developments in my life since I have last updated. I can confidently say that they have been many and they have been vast, but to that end, I will stop myself from carrying on with the subject.

What I really want to adress is partly vary personal and individual and the same time something I percieve to be very pertinent to the community of people that I would call the Christian community but maybe even on a less parochial scale that of religious communities in general. The article that has encouranged this endeavor is "Studying My Movement: Social Science Without Cynicism" in the Internation Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 40 (2008) by Abdelwahab El-Affindi.

This article, written by a Muslim, is about the ventures of social science into the realm of Middle Eastern studies and the metaphysical/historical/discourse-oriented ramifications of this endeavor with all of its problems and illuminations.

"Having lost their original faith, but not attained a new one, they advocate an agnostic pluralism: let us all drop our claim to the Turth and accept the multiplicity of "truths": let us camp here, over these multiple "planes of activity and praxis," which are "not one topography commanded by a geographical and historical vision."" Here I find myself recalling the work done by Talal Asad and William Connelly, calling into question the underlying themes of modernity and secularism, and hence advocating a paradigmatic pluralism that gives credence to multiple truths. Although, I think that religion was largely the victim of such claims, I am not sure that I disagree, essentially, with this claim. "We are all for pluralism and the self-critical attittude underlying it. I certainly took great careto present my study in such a self-critical mode," says the author of this article. I feel that within the Christian tradition, many have claimed to have a monoply on the truth, a hegemony over interpretation, but few have been willing to be as self-critical as the author has claimed of himself and his own endeavors into the intellectual sphere. While one could attribute this to a feeling of anti-intellectualism current within modern and populist understandings of Christianity and the Christian tradition (and I admit this is largely only applicable to my own understanding in the Western world).

I feel the same pressures in my own faith as the author outlines here. The intellectual/spiritual balance between self-criticism and "rational" logocentric western enlightment ideals as well as that of differring values and systematic approached to understanding life, metaphysics and the like. To be apart of this critical shift is important, but to view this as the author says, "to be apart of this as Muslims."

I agrue the same. To be apart of this world, or as the cliche goes, in this world, we must articulate outselves in a way relevant to recent intellectual endeavours while simultaneously not giving into the hegemony of interpretation, leaving roomn for us to do this as whatever it is that we may be, or ascribe to.