by Justin Lee

Hello, and welcome to the 2nd installment of Justin’s view on diverse issues within postmodernism. Today, I would like to discuss the Book of Daniel, Bruce Lee, and Adventism. I’m sure many of you are wondering how I’m going to relate these three, well, I guess Daniel and Adventism go hand-in-hand, so there goes that. Anyway, these are some of the things that I’ve been contemplating since my last issue on this blog. Here goes.

As mentioned somewhere on this blog, I attend Fuller Theological Seminary and am in the process of getting that darn doctorate in Clinical Psychology, and loving every minute of it. Yeah, I’m a dork. One of my classes this quarter is Old Testament Writings. Currently, we’re working our way through the book of Daniel. An interesting fact that the professor mentioned is that Fuller doesn’t have a course on this book because it is so divisive in Christendom. I found that to be quite weird. Growing up in the Adventist church all I can remember is the stories about the little horn. Fuller, being more on the liberal side, definitely doesn’t prescribe to this interpretation of Daniel 7, for that matter, they don’t really have a consensus. This is truly refreshing. Whether the little horn is the papacy (which I think is wrong) or Antiochus IV (which I think is right), it doesn’t matter. Everyone has a theory, but we can all continue to struggle with the reading, together, as a community of believers. I hope you can see that I am typing this with my tongue on my cheek. I wonder what would happen to Adventism without their strict interpretation of Daniel 7. Why can’t there be differing views about anything within Adventism?

There is a section in Walter Brueggemann’s The Psalms: the Life of Faith entitled “The Costly Loss of Lament” that he talks about how modern Christianity has lost the ability to grieve and lament collectively to God. He writes, “covenant minus lament is finally a practice of denial, cover-up, and pretense, which sanctions social control” (p. 102). This still moves me as I read it now. As Christians, without the ability to lament and doubt and be different, we’re all forced to be this grey, benign mold of a Christian. Why can’t we hold diverse views on any number of social and theological issues and still function as a loving community of believers?

Bruce Lee is one of the most famous martial arts masters and kung fu movie actors of all time. He studied martial arts religiously. And yet, he found the strict form of fighting to be impractical in real-life situations. Although “the-coffin-broken-into-pieces” or the “the-claws-of-the-black-tiger-grasping-the-face” were deadly moves (sorry for the inaccuracy, these are actually Shaolin moves), he found that no one fights following a manual. Thus, he began his own style of fighting. If any of you have seen Bruce Lee movies, you’ll know that this is one of the themes that come up throughout. The infamous foot shuffling of Bruce Lee was strictly different than any martial arts “move.” He studied and finally created what is now called Jeet Kune Do. I don’t actually know any moves of JKD nor have I studied JKD, but it does seem kind of ironic that Bruce Lee created a martial arts style because he hated the rigidity of other styles. Irony aside, this does relate very well to Adventism in postmodernity. I think it’s about time we took a firm look at the “styles” of Adventism and begin lopping off the excess. As to what constitutes “Adventism” and what doesn’t, that’s probably something we need to figure out as a community as we continue on our journey through postmodernity.

Now, how does this all fit together? There was a brief moment in my spiritual journey where postmodernism scared the living daylights out of me. What is Truth? What happens to Adventism? Does this mean everything’s relativistic? I was full of doubts and skepticism about everything, especially God. I’ve come to realize however that doubt is crucial in one’s spiritual journey. As my classes become even more critical about Biblical literature, I find a nugget of truth becoming refined within me. I was on the brink of throwing Christianity out the door, but for right now, I’m holding off on that. Bruce Lee writes that early on in his journey in martial arts, he thought a punch was just a punch. So, he began studying martial arts more and more. Finally, when he learned everything he could, he realized a punch was just a punch. Brueggemann writes about this kind of second naïveté, the realization that God is God that after the trials and struggles, a renewed faith can take root. I’ve experienced my second naïveté.

Running away from Christianity isn’t the answer, nor is it blindly following it like a fool, but it is constantly striving.

Justin Lee, a graduate of Glendale Academy and Pacific Union College, is a first-year student in the Ph.D. in clinical psychology program at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.

For those who wish to discuss this article, click HERE.