the church and postmodern culture: conversation

"The Devil Reads Derrida"

I thought some of you might like to know that James K.A. Smith has just come out with a small collection of essays aimed at a more general audience called The Devil Reads Derrida: and Other Essays on the University, the Church, Politics, and the Arts. 

It brings together some of Smith's most significant forays into the public arena, focusing especially on discipleship, the university, and politics and the church. It also provides a selection of his criticism, including essays on Harry Potter, A History of Violence, the poetry of Franz Wright.  So check it out for a little summer reading.

Report from CIVA

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by Dan Siedell

For most of us who participate in this blog we share a commitment that art plays or should play some role in the church and postmodern culture conversation.  Yet I am sure that for most art remains a vague generality.  However, art does not exist in general; it is neither a philosophical nor a theological construct.  It exists only in concrete manifestations, specific embodiments in practice. 

One such concrete manifestation and specific embodiment is Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA). An international organization founded in 1979 and consisting of 1,300 members, it exists, according to its website (www.civa.org) "to explore and nurture the relationship between the visual arts and the Christian faith."  And since 2002 it has been located on the campus of Gordon College, Wenham, Mass.  CIVA celebrated its thirty-year anniversary just last week (18-21 June) at Bethel University, in St. Paul, Minnesota, which is one of the stronger and more innovative art departments among Christian colleges and universities.

The conference theme was "culture?" and it offered a means to reflect on art's participation in and responsibility to contemporary culture and, by implication, the church.  The keynote speaker was theologian Miroslav Volf, whose 1994 essay, "Soft Difference:  Theological Reflections on the Relation Between Church and Culture in 1 Peter," was distributed to a number of pre-conference seminar participants for discussion and which also served as the basis for his keynote address.  Volf's focus on developing a strong center from which to move toward the fuzzy and porous edges encouraged artists to celebrate and push toward those edges, confident in a Christological center and the artist's prophetic role in culture. 

The conference also included a handful of plenary speakers, such as artists Makoto Fujimura (New York), Kris Larson (St. Paul) and Kevin Hamilton (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign); art historians Linda Stratford (Asbury College), Wayne Roosa and James Romaine (Bethel), and Rachel Smith (Taylor); aesthetician Adrienne Chaplin (Adjunct, Institute for Christian Studies and Toronto School of Theology) and Charles Taliaferro (St. Olaf); and Debbie Blue, author of Sensual Orthodoxy (Cathedral Hill Press, 2003) and founding pastor of House of Mercy in St. Paul, among several others, including me. In addition to these plenary sessions, the conference also featured a number of subject tracks, including Art and Design; Art and Worship; Art Educators; Gallery and Museum Professionals; Scholars and Critics; and the Spiritual Formation of the Artist. 

My remarks, which you can read here, addressed the sacrifice of producing great culture as part of living a self-sacrificial Christian:  it is the pursuit of great art and a great Christian life, I argue, that is truly counter-cultural.  I also participated in the Art and Design track, led by Kevin Hamilton, who approached ethical responsibilities of the artist through Walter Brueggman's categories of "orientation," "disorientation," and "reorientation" that he utilized in his book, The Spirituality of the Psalms (Augsburg, 2001).  Hamilton forced us to reflect on how we orient, disorient, and reorient ourselves to culture through our work as artists, critics, and art historians.  Hamilton's sessions modeled aggressive theological reflection as a means to work through the most pressing issues in the contemporary artworld.

In addition to my plenary remarks, participation in the Art and Design track, and an hour-long Q & A about my book, God in the Gallery:  A Christian Embrace of Modern Art (Baker Academic, 2008), I also served as the juror for the conference exhibition.  (Read my curatorial statement here.)  This was not an insignificant activity because I have been suspicious of the idea of the "Christian artist" or, as it is often rephrased, "artist of faith," which to my mind allows artists either to rely on their spiritual stories to do the heavy lifting that their art should do or merely use or illustrate "Christian" subject matter and themes.  Both approaches are a recipe for mediocre art, at best.  And I feared I would get a heavy dose of both.  I was pleasantly surprised.  The exhibition I presented featured fourteen artists whose work represented the best of what contemporary artistic practice can look like with Christ as the engine that drives it.  There are a number of artists that you should pay close attention to, such as Kevin Hamilton (see his blog, complexfields.org), Dayton Castleman (Trinity Christian College), Amanda Hamilton (Northwest Nazarene University), Jonathan Anderson (Biola), Duncan Simcoe (California Baptist), Jim Bockelman (Concordia University Nebraska), Joe Cory (Judson University), Karen Brummund, and Wayne Adams (New York).

Despite the many signs of Christians playing important roles in contemporary artistic practice, the conference revealed that there is still much work to be done to help artists (and art writers) understand the importance of developing more nuanced and sophisticated theological and philosophical frameworks.  Usually referred to merely as "theory," there remains the assumption that artists make objects and it is the job of the critics and art historians to talk about them, using "theory" (i.e., philosophy and theology) and other "abstractions" to assign value or market the work.  Artists (and critics) need to be reminded that, at their best, philosophy and theology are no more "abstract" than paintings.  They are merely different embodiments of the mystery of being and that that the insights provided by theological and philosophical reflection can be helpful in artistic and critical practice.

An important part of my work is to show how and in what ways philosophy and theology can inform and shape studio practice from the inside, as it were.  An artist who can develop a theological and philosophical mindfulness will make stronger, richer, deeper works of art.

Yet I would encourage theologians and philosophers who read and participate in this blog to engage in artistic practice more deeply, not to be content to refer to art in its broadest and most general way, but to engage it in specific, concrete ways with particular artists.  In order to participate more actively and productively in the conversation around the church and postmodern culture, it is imperative that theologians and philosophers develop an aesthetic mindfulness hewn not by reading aesthetics but from experiencing works of art.  Join CIVA, follow one or several of the artists mentioned in this blog, or pay closer attention to what is going on in the art departments of the institutions in which you work or study.  Looking at the art produced by artists involved in this organization and participating in discussions with them will nourish and strengthen the aesthetic dimension of your work as philosophers and theologians.  And the artists and art writers associated with CIVA need your conversations to strengthen our own work. 

Illustrations:

Installation photograph of CIVA exhibition, Bethel University.  Artists represented in photograph are Jim Bockelman and Duncan Simcoe.

Speculative Grace: A Local Plurality

In previous posts, I've set the stage for the following question: if we were to port grace into the context of a non-theistic ontology, what modifications would the concept need to undergo? 

In the first post, I attempted to lay out in broad terms the nature of the experiment. In the second post, I tried to articulate at least one reason why we might want to conduct such an experiment. With this post, I'd like to turn my attention to offering an initial (though admittedly abstract) formulation of a non-theistic conception of grace.

First issue: what would be required for a non-theistic ontology?

A non-theistic ontology would depend minimally on the axiom that reality is fundamentally multiple.

As an axiom, this claim – like, I think, its counterpart that reality is fundamentally One – must be assumed rather than proven. But this does not prevent us from investigating and comparing the relative merits of the consequences of these axioms or their consonance with the facts at our disposal.

Back, though, to the axiom itself. If an ontology holds that God, as the Creator, is the original, single unifying source of reality, then it is theistic. Further, I want to claim that any ontology founded on the axiom that reality is ultimately “One” (whether this basic unity shows up as a governing principle, a macro-totality, a micro-uniformity, a transcendental horizon, an eschatological unification, etc.) remains essentially theistic. Such ontologies have simply substituted a philosophical avatar of original unity for “God.”

To be clearly and decisively non-theistic, our proposed ontology will need to break fundamentally with this traditional assumption of basic, original unity. Rather than accounting for how localized multiplicity comes from an original unity, it would have to account for how various localized unities emerge from an original multiplicity.

An important consequence immediately follows from this axiom of multiplicity for our conception of “transcendence” and, thus, for our conception of grace.

Traditionally, grace is defined in relation to God’s supernatural transcendence and, traditionally, this transcendence itself depends on God’s being an unconditioned and absolute One. Transcendence names that supernatural, ontological gap between an unconditioned and original One and the created, contingent multiplicity of everything else. 

Here, grace is understood as a manifestation of God’s being an excessive, enabling, and unconditioned exception to the rest of reality. 

However, if there is no such original One, if reality is fundamentally multiple, then God cannot be described as an ontologically and supernaturally transcendent exception and, in turn, grace cannot be defined in terms of such a transcendence or confined to what originates from that single point of origin.

In the absence of a single, transcendent anchor point for all of reality, a generalized immanence is the rule. However, in order to avoid being Spinozists, it is essential to characterize this immanence in terms of multiplicity. I will say more about the nature of this immanence in next week's post, but for now the following point will suffice.

In order to be immanent and fundamentally multiple, reality must be characterized by a multiplicity of differences that are fundamental and irreducible. These differences in turn necessarily entail a multiplicity of diffuse, localized, non-supernatural “transcendences” that mark the ontological discontinuities that are constitutive of reality. This diffusion of a single, universal transcendence into plural, local transcendences functions as a confirmation of the ubiquity of immanence.

It is this dislocation — a dislocation of transcendence from its status as a founding and singular ontological exception to its immanent dispersal as what characterizes the multiplicity of reality — that simultaneously marks the dislocation and distribution of grace. Grace, rather than stemming from a distant, founding exception, is embedded in the localized plurality of an immanent multiplicity. Or, to paraphrase Stephen Gould on the subject of Darwin's insight about natural selection: rather than being an unavailable, “unknowable, large-scale cosmic force,” grace would instead be given as a ubiquitous, “testable, small-scale force.” 

In a non-theistic ontology, grace would be operationalized as the immanently given multiplicity of what is actually at hand.

AND SO IT GOES: CONFESSION AND REGULAR TIME

Like some reverse Billy Pilgrim, I find myself re-stuck in time.

Once again, we have entered regular liturgical time. There is green on the altar and the rite of absolution has been restored to its usual place in the service after its Easter and Pentecost hiatus. While it would be an exaggeration to say that I find confession enjoyable, I do find it comforting.

To begin with, I like that we perform confession as a congregation: in whole and in unison. In practicing confession as a congregation, I am reminded of the plural pronouns present in the Lord’s Prayer. We recite “forgive us our trespasses” just as we ask for “our bread.” In this way, confession mirrors Eucharist and is performed with the same assurance: if we ask in one voice, we will indeed receive together. 

I especially love that contrition, practiced as a congregation, finds a place in regular time. Confession is not just performed during times of solemn preparation like Advent or Lent, but is a regular part of the life of the church. Confession is a normal part of the Christian life. Its regular practice assigns confession to the same category as housekeeping, puts it on the same order as laundry.

Recently, I have found myself again in need of the laundromat. I had not engaged in this weekly ritual since college. There is something a little vulnerable about doing your laundry in public. There is a reason people use the phrase “airing of dirty laundry” to indicate an indiscretion. Apart from the actual washing and drying, one of the main components of doing laundry is the preliminary sorting.

In sorting through my dirty laundry it occurred to me that, while I was doing the laundry because my clothes were unarguably soiled,  I sorted them according to the manufacture’s requirements, according to fabric color and type. The purpose of going through the laundry was not so much to get it cleaner as much as to ensure that the garments were well cared for. Darks in cold to protect their color, whites are washed hot to restore their brightness. Delicates need a gentle cycle. I don’t usually sort by soil level. I sort primarily to care, not to clean.

Performing confession in public in regular time encourages us to think about contrition as a duty performed primarily to care, as opposed to clean. It is certainly not unconnected from the idea of dirt and the necessity to wash, but practiced regularly, the emphasis falls on the care of the soul as opposed to the offensiveness of the soil. We identify those places where our souls need special care, to be cleaned certainly, but primarily to be restored. Wrongs we have done. Good we have left undone. Trespasses forgiven others and trespasses we need to be forgiven. There is the sense that this is a matter of regular housekeeping, not a crisis event. There is no lapse or failure in having to regularly wash ourselves clean. Dirt and wear are a part of living in the world.

Julian of Norwich had this view of the human condition. In contrast to the dualism of many of her contemporaries, she had a vision of the human being as a whole person: body and soul. In her Showings she writes, “A man walks upright, and the food in his body is shut as if in a well-made purse. When the time of his necessity comes, the purse is opened and then shut again, in the most seemly fashion. And it is God who does this… For [God] does not despise what he has made.” (Long Text, 6)[1] 

Julian’s attitude toward human fallenness is similar. According to Julian, sin is a normal part of spiritual progress. Furthermore, human stumblings are an opportunity for God’s grace to become apparent. She writes, “For our courteous Lord does not want his servants to despair because they fall often and grievously; for our falling does not hinder him in loving us.” (LT, 39) God has extended his love toward humanity because God created humanity in God’s own image. This love assures us of God’s grace toward our failings as demonstrated through Christ’s joining our human suffering. Therefore, we sort through our spiritual dirty laundry in order to experience God’s grace more fully. We identify our failings in order to provide the best care for a soul created in the image of a loving God. In this way, God’s founding love makes the trials of the human condition endurable. We can fail without fear, falling back on God’s founding love. 

When we regularly join together to air our dirty laundry, we acknowledge that confession is a part of the normal care of our human souls. The same gracious God who meets us in Eucharist also restores and cares for our falls. As Julian writes, “For [God] regards sin as sorrow and pains for his lovers, to whom for love he assigns no blame. The reward which we shall receive will not be small, but it will be great, glorious and honorable, and so all shame will be turned into honor and joy.” (LT, 39) In this way, we can regularly enjoy the graciousness of God’s table and God’s forgiveness until the time when our journey through this human life comes to an end.  Until then, our spiritual progress through life is marked by regular ups and downs, falls and restorations, wear, care and repair.

As Billy Pilgrim might remark, And so it goes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Julian of Norwich, Showings, translated by Edmund Colledge and James Walsh, (NY: Paulist Press, 1978).  All quotes from Julian’s Showings are taken from this volume.

Is Slavoj Žižek a Theologian?

Perhaps even asking the question renders meaningless the idea of a post-secular age.  Now it is no longer the theologians versus the secular liberals, nor is it merely a question of secularist making room for religion.  We can't merely designate current theory as post-secular without farther distinguishing how and to way purpose religion has made a return.  But I degress...

Now, of course it goes without saying that Slavoj Žižek has much to say about theology, and even uses theological concepts and codes.  But does that make him a theologian?

My question springs from something Pete Rollins said while describing a reading group he is pulling together which would be "dedicated to introducing and exploring the work of key theorists who are contributing important insights into Christianity."  Now, framed this way, of course I would recommend reading Žižek.  But Rollins introduces Žižek as "a dialectical materialist theologian."  Really?  For me, riffing on the title of this installation piece, I would have to say, "Slavoj Žižek (the theologian) Does not Exist".  

Now I'm sure that many will jump on my intolerant exclusion, my hubristic tendency to police borders and draw lines, my pitiable need for creating Others, Monsters, and Enemies, all of which, they will say, Žižek help us to recognize and overcome.  Well, perhaps. 

But I would counter that by calling Žižek a theologian is to make a huge mistake in either one or two ways.  The first  would be to misunderstand Žižek's project, the other would be to misunderstand theology.  Žižek has been, and it seems always will be, a "fighting atheist" who really does believe that religion in its actual forms, its lived realities (which I hope this site would be about, even if tangentially) is fundamentalist and violent (see he his "Defenders of the Faith" where argues that atheists are the only true practitioners of religion).  For me, Žižek is at his best as a political theorist of ideology practicing a critique of capitalism, and for the most part I choose to walk a great distance with him. But in this way he is functioning as a provocative philosopher (and I'm not saying that while looking down my snobby theological nose).

But the only way to understand Žižek as a theologian is to serious downgrade theology itself, which is the second mistake. If theology is merely the sociology or anthropology of religion run through the Lacanian registers of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real, then I might as well become a stock broker.  If theology is merely explication of the immanent infinitude of human subjectivity, the void of the cosmos, the height and depth of reality, then let's own up to that (which I believe Žižek has). But if theology is truly about something, someone, transcending reality as we know/perceive/construct it, something, someone, that, yes, stands beyond/above/outside what we can conceive, then it is plain that Žižek is not a theologian, and clearly states as much.  Some version of the latter is what I hope theology is, even in all its apophatic, kataphaic relations, even in all its discursive permutations through the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real.

For these reasons, for me, Žižek is not a theologian.

What have I missed?  What do you think?

Speculative Grace: The Weakness of Theism?

I. Overture

What if the theological concept of grace were ported into a non-theistic context? What would it look it? What modifications would it need to undergo?

In a previous post, I outlined the nature of this experiment and suggested that there are at least two reasons for taking an interest in it:

First, that in light of contemporary science, we have good reason to take seriously the claim that non-directed self-organization is fundamental (rather than incidental) to the nature of reality.

But, second, I also suggested that we may have good reason to be suspicious about the spiritual viability of some of the theoretical, ontological, and political baggage that is woven deep into the fabric of theistic ontologies. This post will explore an issue directly related to this second point.

II. Epictetus

I often teach Epictetus' Handbook in my Introduction to Philosophy classes and I think that he's on to something (setting aside for a moment the question of a Stoic metaphysics).

Why does this interest me here? Because Epictetus understands happiness in a way that tends to undermine many theistic conceptions of grace.

Epictetus' core claim is that human beings are unhappy because they do not correctly distinguish what is in their control from what is not in their control. We treat things that we can't control (like our bodies, our reputations, our possessions, etc.) as if we can control them and then, when we fail to control them, we're miserable. Or we act as if things we can control (like our desires, aversions, opinions, etc.) are not in our control and then throw up our hands in disgust when they push us around.

Unhappiness results (1) from failing to control what is in our power, and (2) from trying to control what is not in our power.

(An important note here: Epictetus' core claim depends on a drawing a strict distinction between [complete] control and [partial] influence. For example, we can influence our bodies and reputations, but we can't control them. Though, in one respect, it's precisely this limited degree of influence that often supports the painful delusion of control: “I seem to be able to influence some things some of the time, why can’t I control all things all of the time?!” )

In this vein, allow me to propose a Stoic definition of sin.

Sin: failing to control what is in our power + trying to control what is not in our power.

I think that this definition has broad applicability.

From an alternate angle, we might describe the Stoic project in the following way. Happiness results when desire equals reality (D = R). The difficulty is that desire, as such, exceeds reality (D > R).

III. Happiness as Satisfaction

Given this problematic, there are two ways of pursuing happiness - though as (sinful) human beings we almost universally pursue only the first.

1. First approach to happiness: you can try to get reality to be what you desire it to be.

There are two problems with this. First, reality is not in your control. Good luck getting things to turn out the way you want. Second, even if you were able, with spectacular luck, to get reality to be the way you wanted, you'd shortly (immediately?) want something else.

This first approach to happiness is a classic example of trying to control what is not in your control. Happiness, on this model, is (as Epictetus argues) demonstrably impossible . . . unless you claim, as theism does, that there is one person, one exception, for whom this is possible.

In a theistic ontology, God is defined by this exceptionality. God is God because that which he desires immediately comes to be. In fact, in this model, everything that exists exists precisely because (and only because) God wished it to be so. Creation ex nihilo is the key theistic claim: God is the single, original source from which all things come.

Further, we might describe this understanding of God  - and its correlative understanding of happiness - as a "gospel of the gaps."

In a “gospel of the gaps,” happiness can only be achieved when we transcend the way things presently (and deficiently) are and then definitively close the gap between desire and reality by finally getting reality to measure up.

In this model, grace is precisely that which closes the gap: "I cannot do it, I am unable to get what I want, but grace will make a gift of precisely this to me." 

Grace: a kind of transcendent supplement to the deficiency of the way things are.

Typically, the debate about whether this supplement comes as a result of “grace” or “works” (or some combination of the two) plays out on this theistic field: both positions understand the key to happiness to be finding that one perfect object (i.e., God) that can fill the gap between desire and reality and thus allow us to experience that same infinite satisfaction that God enjoys. In this way, God’s own (theistic?) satisfaction models the satisfaction that his grace in turn makes possible for us.

Let’s call this model in which happiness is achieved by getting reality to measure up to desire: the satisfaction model of happiness.

IV. Happiness as Givenness

The other option in pursuing happiness is the following:

2. The second approach to happiness: you can get your desires to fit the way things actually are.

For Epictetus, this approach is much more promising. Rather than getting reality to fit our desires (impossible!), we instead get our desires to fit reality.

The good news is that our desires are (at least potentially) in our power.

(Note: Epictetus’ claim that our desires are in fact in our control is likely a bit too strong. I’ll return to this in a later post, but for the moment we might simply gloss his claim as being consonant with the Christian axiom that human beings do, in fact, possess something like free will.)

For Epictetus, happiness is available at any given moment because what is is always enough.

This second approach accomplishes the same thing that the first approach aims at (it gets D = R) but it avoids sin by abandoning any attempt to transcend reality and control what it cannot control. Further, this approach also abandons any attempt to get God, via some supernatural supplement of grace, to control for us what we cannot control.

But what, then, of grace? Does it disappear in a non-theistic ontology? Is grace a mirage unless God is an exception to the rule that reality is, in some important respects, not in our control?

I don’t think that grace disappears without theism. But I do think that it ceases to appear as a supplement or gap-filler.

In this second model of happiness, life abandons itself to the immanence of the way things are. In short, life abandons itself to what is given. The key, here, is to hear in the word “given” both “gift” and “grace.”  

What is given? Grace.

(There is in all of this more than an allusion to the work of Jean-Luc Marion. I will return explicitly to Marion in the near future.)

Let's call this model of happiness: the givenness model of happiness.

Happiness results from affirmatively receiving whatever is given (good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant) as whatever kind of grace it is.

Misery results from: (1) the consistency of our selective rejection of what is real, and (2) the dependence of desire on the hope for a miraculous supplementation.

For Epictetus, the gap between desire and reality is closed only by abandoning the idea that there is (or was) any gap in the first place. For Epictetus, the very notion that there is a gap is the product of a sinful orientation.

In this sense, the satisfaction model of happiness - a model that is deeply intertwined with theistic claims - is problematic because it sublates (in the image of God himself) rather than reverses the “Stoic” logic of sin. If sin is trying to get reality to measure up to desire, then I believe that Epictetus' point may have some bite.

In the givenness model of happiness, happiness is achieved not because God finally gives me what I want, but because I finally choose to want whatever has been given. Thus, the conditions for happiness are always already present, always already immanent, always already given, and this without precondition or expectation. We're free to refuse it, but that doesn't retract its givenness. 

And our refusal certainly cannot affect its graciousness as an unconditional gift.

A nontheistic conception of grace – if such a thing is possible or desirable – will, I think, have to tread a humble, immanent path such as this.

The Liturgical Turn

One of the most exciting things, to me, about the postmodern and emergent conversations is the turn towards worship.  Not that the Church hasn’t always thought about its worship, but these days, worship is all the rage. Even the word ‘worship’ has become a buzzword. It seems that every time I open some Christian magazine there’s another ad for a newly opened school of worship studies and new resources for reinventing or recreating your church’s worship.  To me this turn towards worship is exciting because it opens up space for creative evaluation and rethinking of the theory and practice of Christian worship.

It also creates space for tradition. And for a tradition-starved evangelical like myself, this conversation has been like a feast fit for a glutton. Particularly because of the main course – this really cool thing called Liturgy!  I’m convinced that that the reason for the turn towards liturgy (or at least the incorporation of liturgical elements within the Sunday morning gatherings) is the renewed sense of community and that our worship really is a “work of the people” standing together before our God. But more on that later.

In the days ahead, I will offer up a series of posts that discuss the interaction of liturgy with postmodernity.   I’m a philosopher / theologian by degree and a church musician (some people prefer the term worship-leader) by trade who serves in a missional Anglican church in North Carolina. As such, I’m continually evaluating whether our worship is, first and foremost, creating space for people to encounter God while also being faithful to our inherited liturgical traditions, yet adapting them to the context in which we find ourselves.  Not that there’s a dichotomy there.  If it is to be incarnational and even pentecostal then liturgy will adapt in order to embrace and speak to various cultural contexts.  If it doesn’t then it erects barriers to encountering God. 

If God is not encountered then worship is mute.  Everything that a worshipping community is, does, thinks, etc. flows from its continued encounter with the living, Trinitarian God.  This is why liturgical theologians such as Aiden Kavanagh understand worship to be “primary theology”.  Theological discourse is then “secondary theology”, which is discourse on the experience of God and everything else that flows from out of that encounter. In a sense, worship must be prior to prolegomena. 

Perhaps this is why liturgy and postmodernism make great conversation partners.  Many of the issues that are raised within continental philosophy of religion such as language, alterity, hermeneutics, human subjectivity and aesthetics can all begin to be answered by a consideration of Christian worship.  

Take for example the father of liturgical theology, Alexander Schmemann who once clamed that in contrast to modernity’s understanding of the human subject as an autonomous interior entity, the human person actually exists as “homo adorans” – a worshipping subject whose humanity is both constituted and fulfilled in the act of worship.  In the language of Catherine Pickstock, the subject participates in the object of its praise and is defined by it.  The subject, therefore, is always defined by its relation to the Other, in this case God who is wholly Other.  It is an identity which is always received from the outside and cannot lay claim to self-possession. Worship teaches us that subjectivity is received and we are “defined by doxology”. 

Anyway, these are some of the topics that I hope to discuss with you all in the days ahead. I also want to create conversations around concrete liturgical practices that involve music, art, dance, symbolism as well as liturgical rites from within various contexts.   

God, Geert and the Kingdom (part II)

Yesterday I shared a bit about the conflicting developments in the Dutch society, today I will introduce the missional/emerging churchplanting context. This post will be mainly about the churchplantingcontext (I ignore the church revitalisation for the moment) I will give my own reading of it and spend some thoughts on its engagement with continental philosophy as a requirement for the future.

The missional/emerging context is as diverse as the Dutch society. Some community builders create safe places for existential doubt while others preach a straightforward message of grace by Jesus. Some intend te build big attractional churches while others work towards local networks of organic churches. Some know very well the meaning of Gods message of salvation and others keep wondering what the good news means for their specific context. Some buy buildings while others build virtual communities. Theologicaly almost every preference is present; baptist, reformed, (very)charismatic, pentacostal, evangelical and liberal.

The missional/emerging context in the Netherlands is small, just a few hunderd people are involved in any form of churchplanting or community formation, it is quite possible to know all leaders personally. This missional/emerging context is just a fraction of the christian subculture with its own dreams, dialoque and dynamics on missionality.  The missional/emerging context is not only small it is also rhizomic, since Carl Raschke gave a seminar earlier this year we have a fancy word for something that just happend. It just happend probably because there are bothe very few of us and we are all very diverse and because of Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad and Twitter.

There is a theme that unites all things missional and emerging in the Netherlands: The focus on both Jesus and the Kingdom of God. This theme is like the centered set of all churchplanting in NL. The focus on the Kingdom of God is fairly strong, for a growing number of projects the term “churchplanting” is not relevant anymore. Much better is “ building communities of the Kingdom”. Although orthodox evangelical churchplanters give Jesus a very different meaning than their more liberal counterparts, they still unite in a desire ‘to be as He was/is´. Conversations on Jesus and the Kingdom are not easy in this setting yet they are highly productive.

Only recently Dutch missional/emerging stories were written down and published. So far all we could read were the usual suspects from the Englisch speaking world. During the last twelve months two handbooks on churchplanting were published (one practical and one more academic), two pioniers wrote down their own story and learning process.  Together with Martijn Vellekoop I wrote down five different pioniering stories together with some theological thoughts that are not afraid of postmodernism and acknowledge the marginalisation of the church. These books are crucial to tell encouraging stories beyond the limits of blogophere. 

The Dutch missional/emerging context is overall not very innovative. Last year Martijn Vellekoop wrote his MA thesis on churchplanting in the Netherlands. He found around 150 churchplants since the turn of the century and estimated that the real number would be at least twice as much. He also found that few churchplants were rural and most were located in the biblebelt with limited or no contextual awareness. If there was a contextual awareness is was most clear in the churchplants with a reformed theological background. 

The missional/emerging context in NL has, I believe,  just one real foe; A beast that hides in all of us: The christian subculture. It haunts us in several way’s. The obvious way is via (financial)support. Many projects are not sustainable, for the long run they need financial support (this is one of the problems of limited innovation in churchplanting) by more conservative organisations and churches. The less visible but more important way the christian subculture haunts us is within ourselves: Most churchplanting pioneers come out of a very subcultural conservative evangelical context and constantly have to (un)learn and recontextualise in their new context. Churchplanting is being a ‘overseas’ missionary in your own backyard. Part of the diversity in churchplanting I mentioned earlier is because people differ in their dealing with this re-contextualisation (the other part is the diversity in local contexts that each require their own reading). The majority of churchplanters is only partialy aware of this and resort to the “change the format but not the message” approach.

For the last two years or so, their has been a debate in the press on how to read the “return of the religious”, these last weeks opinionpages are filled on how to read the rise of the new xenofobic attitudes and the high precentage of christians supporting Geert Wilders. So far the debate has not been very productive for missionality.  I feel this is partialy because most Dutch evangelical christians do have a rather simplistic reading of ‘the times’ where all things postmodern are kept at save distance instead of engaged.  This engagement that may not always be easy but it will push the conversation “off the charts”:  beyond the (orthodox/liberal) confinements of christian subculture into new religious territory.  Today’s missional/emerging community may actually be a good starting point for such a journey of engagement: It’s small and based on personal IRL relationships. It is diverse yet has a strong spirit of cooperation. It has a, often forgotten, robust theological an philosophical history that both needs and allows for a postmodern turn for the Kingdom.

God, Geert and the Kingdom (part I)

While I am writing this text my commuter train travels through Delftland; a tiny patch of green grass and cows compressed by surrounding cities of Den Hague, Rotterdam and 3 highways. Around me I hear at least five different languages and see seven different ethnicities. Headscarves  and cleavage discuss both math tests and the latest boyfriends while my train passes a beautifull mosque next to a huge soccerstadion: Welcome to my home; The Netherlands.

Since I am a bit of an anomaly in the contributers list of this blog, I would like to introduce you, in  this first post, to my reading of the Dutch missional/emerging context. My future contributions won’t be very academic although you will find lots of traces of the usual suspects around this blog. I intend to throw in some real-live experiences by churchplanting/communityforming pioniers from the Dutch/EU context and offer some reflection on them. It will be up to us all to generate a more theoretical reflection.

In this contribution I will start today by highlighting two developments in de Dutch society, then tomorrow I will introduce the missional/emerging community and close with some concluding thoughts.

Geert is coming

The consensus of recent sociological research on the Dutch society presents a very mixed picture of a pleasant and wealthy country (although 8% cannot eat and live properly) with unhappy people. The economical situation did not improve this picture; it just added more fear and stress: There is an overall feeling that the fabric of society is dissolving. It is vital to understand that this feeling produces above all a blaming of  “the other”. Recent polls and voting for the EU parlement suggest that the public opinion is shifting in two directions, one pragmatic/individualist and one nationalist/xenofobic. Two directions that point away from the socialist/christian government that puts an emphasis on “playing your part”.

I believe the Dutch society is now experiencing the absence of its controling narrative: The narratives of the second half of the twentieth century were wounded by the turn of the century and finally died with the rise and murder on Pim Fortuyn (high profile politcian murdered by an animal rights terrorist) and the murder of Theo van Gogh (filmmaker murdered by a muslim terrorist). The recent economical crisis completes the picture by exposing our own greed behind consumerism. This may provide a explanation of the recent rise of the nationalist/populist politician Geert Wilders, who is unhappy with anybody exept himself: I feel he functions as an embodiement of a seizable part of the Dutch population.

God is back

The presentday hype over the economical situation and rise of Geert Wilders hides another phenomenon from the spotlights: The return of the religious. Again a consensus in sociological research shows that the majority of the Dutch are almost more religious then ever: They never go to church, pray quite a bit, believe in miracles, have no basic knowlegde of the major faith systems but they believe in “something”. They construct a fluid patchwork of rituals, experiences, believes and practices taylormade for their own religious consumption. It is almost funny to see how atheists and conservative christians unite in frustration over this development.  Simultaniously the evangelical subculture  (maybe 5-10% of the population) is publicly more visible than ever with the Chistian Union(CU)  as coalitionpartner in government. And despite the fact that statistically one church is closed every week still a a few dozen are planted annually as well.  Additionally, the annual charismatic conference had a record of 50.000 participants this pentacost and the annual youth gathering by the evangelical broadcasting company (EO) had 35.000+ visitors last saturday.

Today I celebrate my birthday in this constantly shifting society....and I love it: I can’t make much sense out of it and I believe that is precisely the point.

Tomorrow: God, Geert and the Kingdom: Thy Kingdom come.

Speculative Grace: An Experimental Port

I. Overture

Over the next few months, I want to conduct an experiment. 

In outline, this experiment - and I do want to emphasize its speculative, hypothetical character as an experiment - is straightforward: I want to port the theological concept of “grace” into a non-theistic framework in order to see if the concept survives and, if so, what modifications it would need to undergo.  My hypothesis is that grace can survive such a port and that, in fact, outside of a theistic ontology, grace may continue to thrive and abound.

Why attempt such an experiment? 

Two reasons in particular. 

First, in light of contemporary science, we have good reason to take seriously the claim that complex, dynamic, material systems are capable of producing extremely rich patterns of self-organization without the superaddition of any higher, designing, goal-oriented intelligence. Note, though, I am not interested, here, in debating the merits of the science. Rather, my aim is to see what happens to our conception of grace if we experimentally adopt a non-theistic ontology that takes seriously such non-directed self-organization as fundamental (rather than incidental) to the way things are.

Second, and more importantly, it seems to me that a great deal of valuable work has been done in Continental thought (from Nietzsche to Heidegger to Derrida to Marion) to show that we may have good reason to be suspicious about the spiritual viability of much of the theoretical, ontological, and political baggage woven deep into the fabric of theistic ontologies. I won't address this issue in more detail now, but I plan to dedicate next Friday's post to fleshing out some of the associated problems.

II. Definitions

Some preliminary definitions will get us started.

When I say that I want to “port” grace into a different metaphysical framework, I’m using the word in a way that is analogous to its use in computer programming. For a programmer, to “port” means to modify a program or application for use on a different platform or with a different operating system. 
 To port an application, you need to rewrite the sections of code that are system specific and then recompile the program on the new platform. 

Analogously, to philosophically port a concept means to modify it for use on a different ontological or metaphysical platform. Porting grace onto a non-theistic platform will require us to map its core architecture and the viability of different kinds of modifications. In this way, even if the port fails, we may learn valuable things about the nature of grace along the way.

Second, by “theism” I mean any ontology that understands God, as the Creator, to be the single unifying source of reality. In this sense, a belief in God is not necessarily incompatible with a non-theistic ontology. Only a belief that God is the single unifying source of reality is incompatible with a non-theistic ontology.

But, further, I want to claim that any ontology founded on the axiom that reality is ultimately “One” (whether this basic unity shows up as a governing principle, a macro-totality, a micro-uniformity, a transcendental horizon, etc.) remains essentially theistic. Such ontologies have simply substituted a philosophical avatar of original unity for “God.” To be clearly and decisively non-theistic, an ontology would need to break fundamentally with this traditional assumption of basic, original unity. Rather than accounting for how localized multiplicity comes from an original unity, it would have to account for how various localized unities emerge from an original multiplicity.

Third, my working concept of grace is minimally defined by four features. Grace is (1) prodigal: it is necessarily in excess of what is deserved or expected, (2) enabling: it opens avenues for action or ways of being that would otherwise remain closed, (3) absolute: it is, as least in some substantial respect, free or unconditioned, and (4) unmasterable: though it may be influenced, grace cannot be captured or controlled.

III. An Anticipatory Image

A final, anticipatory thought to set the stage for the coming months. In The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Stephen Jay Gould characterizes the difference between pre-Darwinian and Darwinian accounts of life in the following way:

Pre-Darwinian concepts of evolution remained speculative and essentially non-operational, largely because they fell into the disabling paradox of contrasting an effectively unknowable large-scale force of cosmic progress against an orthogonal, palpable and testable small-scale force that could generate local adaptation and diversity, but that couldn't, in principle, explain the macroevolutionary pattern of life. Then Darwin . . . brilliantly argued that the putative large-scale force did not exist, and that all evolution could be explained by upward extrapolation from the small-scale force, now properly understood as natural selection. (23)

Prior to Darwin’s work on natural selection, the only way to account for the intricately patterned organization of life was through the invocation of an unavailable but presumably original divine force.  There must be, the story went, some additional force, hidden from view, operating from behind the scenes, that is organizing, with purpose and direction, the complex processes that are unfolding around us. There must be some original unity from which the vast complex of perceptible unities is derived.

The Darwinian revolution, on the other hand, takes shape at precisely the moment that Darwin breaks with this assumption and hypothesizes instead that what is given and available — here and now and in plain sight — is sufficient to account for its own intricate complexity.

What if, Darwin hypothesized, the given world were sufficient to account for its own organization? If so, what modifications would we need to make to our conception of life in order for life to be understood as capable of self-organization?

What kinds of evidence would we expect to find? And if we dispensed with the invocation of an unavailable but original macro-force, then what available conditions (like natural selection) would, for the first time, appear as fundamental rather than as secondary or derivative?

What is most striking about Darwin’s hypothesis is that, with one move, it suddenly animated the whole of the world’s historical and material complexity as something intelligibly at work. Rather than being a mute and static screen hiding from view the real but unavailable arena of divine action, the given world began to show up as itself dynamic and alive. The power of this Darwinian shift in perspective lay in the fact that it effectively operationalized the whole world as capable of producing and explaining itself. What was inert, opaque, and secondary now came to life as the potentially intelligible sum of its own life and being.

My own experiment aims to follow much the same trajectory. I want to see if it is possible to operationalize grace. I want to port it out of a traditional theistic frame-work and into the immanent domain of a non-theistic ontology. Doing so will involve an experimental shift from thinking about grace in terms of unavailable and transcendent “large-scale forces of cosmic progress" to treating it as a palpable, ubiquitous, and available “small-scale force.” Rather than being a unknowable force operating behind the scenes, might grace instead be what characterizes — here and now and in plain sight — the whole of this world’s self-organizing complexity?

Is grace such a thing that it's real power could only come via a supernatural investment of divine, theistic intent? Or is grace such that, in its small-scale, localized, and temporally distended operation is hidden, in plain sight (as with natural selection), a world-shaping strength?

My hypothesis means to test the latter.