Writing God's Obituary: Anthony Pinn Interview, Part 1
Today begins a 2-part interview with Dr. Anthony Pinn about his newest book Writing God's Obituary: How a Good Methodist Became a Better Atheist (Prometheus, 2014). Currently the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities with an appointment in the religious studies department at Rice University, Pinn's important work in religious studies and humanist studies is well-known and compellingly contextualized in his memoir. The second installment of my interview with Dr. Pinn will post on May 4.
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Phillip Luke
Sinitiere (PLS):
You’ve reflected autobiographically
before about your journey towards and commitment to humanism—in Norm Allen’s The Black
Humanist Experience for
example—what is the larger argument in Writing God’s Obituary?
Anthony Pinn
(AP):
Those other, shorter pieces provide a bit of information concerning my background
and humanist stance. They are often apologetic in tone, meant to provide an
argument for the value and historical presence of humanism within African
American communities. They, as I reflect back, were part of the theory of
humanism and accompanying mode of humanist reflection (what I call a humanist “theology”)
that I’ve developed recently. This book, however, is simply my personal story, my
intellectual life narrative. My aim, as Du Bois reflected on the nature of
autobiography, is to say something about African American humanists by talking
about the African American humanist I know best.
PLS: One of the
interesting dimensions of Writing God’s Obituary in my mind is your
chapter about attending a Christian high school in New York, West Seneca
Christian School. A 2-part question. First, in your estimation, how did your
experiences in a Christian (largely evangelical) secondary school mirror larger
trends within some quarters of modern Christianity that tend to bifurcate
spiritual and intellectual pursuits? Second, what does this trend say about how
modern Christian educational institutions approach intellectual work, such as
West Seneca Christian School, that began specifically in the post-Civil Rights
era?
AP: It seems to me
that my experience at that particular school speaks to a larger dilemma—an ongoing
negative tension in some theistic circles between mind and body, combined with
a type of anti-intellectualism that filters academic queries through a
truncated sense of scriptural/spiritual obligation. It isn’t that we didn’t
study most (if not all) of the academic topics addressed within public schools
in Buffalo, NY, we did. But, they were filtered through a particular
metaphysics and in light of a prioritizing of personal salvation. The
challenge posed by what you point out in terms of “modern Christianity,” if I
fully understand what you have in mind, and my particular training, is a
devaluing of critical reflection and critical engagement—both rendered
secondary to faith. Upon leaving high school and starting college at
Columbia University, I had to unlearn those poor thinking habits—and give
greater attention to the value of critical engagement.
PLS: One of the
themes you take up in Writing God’s Obituary (and in your other work
such as Embodiment and the New Shape of Black Theological Thought), is Christianity’s
and Christian theology’s body problem—the challenge of living a robust human
wholeness between, we might say, rational, materialist inquiry, and a the
maintenance of spiritual sensibility. I wonder if you might discuss this in
relation to your journey to humanism?
AP: Yes, I think
there are ways in which theisms devalue embodiment and bodies, to the extent
they hold to a metaphysics that involves a troubled relationship with human
history. The body is suspect—and Christians I was reading such as greats
like St. Augustine expressed this kind of suspicion. It is understood as a sign
and source of trouble on a variety of levels, and that proper religious life
requires a taming of the body, rendering it docile. In moving toward
humanism—particularly to the extent my theism was challenged by the historical
conditions of humans, human bodies, and larger modes of material life—I had to
gain great appreciation for embodiment and the importance, integrity and
significance of embodied life. Whereas my early Christianity looked
beyond the body, my humanism understands that bodies matter; and, we must learn
to appreciate and also challenge how bodies occupy time and space.
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