I've lamented recently about how academics (like me!) tend to rely so heavily on theorists to get our message out -- about how Lacan, Derrida, Wittgenstein, Hegel, and Nietzsche are great for theorists, but lousy for the pastoral need to get folks to read and understand the Bible. If you're aiming for folks to follow Jesus, it's better to talk Jesus than to talk Lyotard.
I've been watching Pope Francis since his installation, and I have a confession to make: I like what I see. I hope he continues on the course he seems to be charting for his papacy. (Not, of course, that it's a departure from previous Popes, but that he's far more radical -- in the deepest and best sense of that word.)
For example, over the weekend in Brazil Francis was sharing some words of wisdom with the bishops. Specifically, he was lamenting the decline in church membership. One particular comment stood out to me: That the church had become too intellectualized:
At times we lose people because they don't understand what we are saying, because we have forgotten the language of simplicity and import an intellectualism foreign to our people. Without the grammar of simplicity, the church loses the very conditions which make it possible to 'fish for' God in the deep waters of his mystery (emphasis added).Amen.
I, too, find myself speaking of simple things -- things, again, like sin, brokenness and the mercy of God.