The View from the Cab

Given the apathy of our regular bloggers for the question of the month (Rodney now being in hiding after the Friends of the Humorless put out a contract on him, I've taken the liberty of putting the question to Keith Moon (no, not The Who's late drummer, but Driver 67751 with Cosmic Cabs, Bethnal Green).  Keith, thanks for giving us your time.  Do you think the contemporary church has embraced relativism at the expense of truth? Well, mate, it's funny you should ask that co I had that Charo in the back of my cab the other week, and she was going on and on about 'ow Reformed theology 'ad come unstuck and all that through the naive appropriation of certain aspects of Wittgensteinian linguistics into a postmodern framework of aesthetic discourse, and'ow only through movin' towards a revisioning of appropriating a truly anti-foundationalist approach to theology could the church avoid shipwreck on the rocks of postmodern jouissance.  Blimey, you get 'er on the subject of Jacques Derrida and 'is mates and she can't 'arf talk.  On and on she went about 'ow the evangelicals need to 'ear 'the deconstructionaist voice and all that until finally I said, `Come off it, Charo.  The problem is that the current generation of theologians is failin' to realise the underlying crisis precipitated by the development of the ethic of advanced capitalism.  Yet instinctively their commitment to revelation will allow them to  overcome the dialectic of 'iddenness and revealing wot is implicit in the immediate theological crisis.'  Well, that shut 'er up, good and proper. She may know Wittgenstein but she can't compete wiv the like o' me on critical feory and all that.  Now, I reckon the evangelical church still 'as a good grasp of truth and flasehood, of good and bad, dunnit? And some things, like our cultural engagement is gettin better and better.   Now, I'm not a radical Kuyperian or nothin', but I 'ad that Leonardo da Vinci in the back of my cab the other week.  Wot a load of old pony his pictures are, eh?  That nude geezer wiv the four arms and four legs?  Wot is that, eh? That's sick, that is -- mockin' some poor guy for an unfortunate birf defect.  And that 'elicopter fingy?  It'll never fly, you mark my words.  'E shoulda stuck to writing them codes and actin' in them movies -- I mean, he woz truly great as Huey Lewis in The Aviator, wasn't e?  But if you want great art and literature, then Christianity aces 'em all.  I mean, look at Thomas Kinkade.  Truly one of the all time really great artists of all time.  And them end time novels of that LaHaye geezer -- masterful.  I don't like the films, mind you -- completely fail to pick up on the careful plot development, subtle characterisations and Joycean word-play of the original books.  But then, James Joyce never got 'is books sold by Walmart or mentioned on the John 'Agee show, did 'e, so he can't of been as good as Tim La Haye, know wot I mean?  Anyway, Charo woz tellin' me 'ow moved she woz by that autobiography by Del Boy Thomas, Childhood in the Valleys (Glyndwr Press, 2003 -- copies still available from the author -- Derek Thomas)and 'ow she cried and cried when she got to the bit when he was converted when he responded to an altar call at the end of that Stryper concert in Pwllhelli.  You know, I never realised he went through an hair-rock phase, but if I 'ad a quid for every....  (Better call it a day there, I think -- Derek Thomas)