the church and postmodern culture: conversation

Rethinking the Familiar

Here is the fourth of five engagements around Pete Rollins' How (Not) to Speak of God.  It is by Will Samson, the co-author of the upcoming book, Justice in the Burbs, published by Baker Publishing. He is a PhD student in sociology at the University of Kentucky, a founder of the Emerging Theologians project and a member of an intentional Christian community in Lexington, KY.

Review of How (Not) To Speak About God
by Will Samson

I am not a philosopher. I am an emerging theologian and an aspiring sociologist and, on my better days, an organic intellectual, to use Gramsci’s  description. In reviewing Peter Rollins’ book, How (Not) To Speak About God, these are the perspectives I bring. In this way, I see this book raising important questions about how we speak about God, how we live as people of God and what impact those concerns will have on the organized church.

First, allow me to address the book from a theological perspective. One of the most important contributions of the postmodern turn has been to cause those of us who think of God to be more critical of the words we use in our reflection. While Richard Rorty and his text, The Linguistic Turn, were influencing a generation of philosophers, George Lindbeck was appropriating the works of Wittgenstein to create a post–liberal linguistic framework for our understanding of God. Nancey Murphy was arguably doing similar work in post–conservative scholarship.

Rollins appropriates well both the theological and philosophical traditions of linguistic evaluation. In Rollins’ hands, or perhaps keyboard, doubt becomes a virtue, Christianity is viewed through an a/theistic lens and orthodoxy is allowed to be “heretical.” This linguistic play allows Rollins to finish the first chapter by quoting Meister Eckhart’s famous phrase, “God rid me of God,” and acknowledge that “the God we are in relationship with is bigger, better and different than our understanding.”

Throughout the book the author reflects on the difference between the language we have used to construct an understanding of God and the ways that language may differ from God. This is particularly seen in his notion of God as other. Consider, for example, his discussion of “YHWH,” a name that, through its absence of vowels, “preserves the mystery of God.”

This is an important corrective for the Western Church. Rollins’ observations come from, at least in part, his work in philosophy. It also could flow from his context, which is a missional community named Ikon in the heart of Belfast. Ireland has been torn apart over generations by theological differences, each side battling to be right. In this setting, it is no surprise that Rollin’s is suspicious of what Plantinga calls the “creeping certitude”  of modernity and wants to mess with the language that has brought about a false sense of certainty in Western Christianity.

This brings me to my second point, which is the social implication of this book. It is difficult to imagine that many in the Western Church would be willing to trust God boldly enough that they might, for example, spend time with people from faith traditions outside of Christianity and expect to be “evangelized” through those traditions, hoping to find a more faithful understanding of God as revealed in Christ. Yet this is precisely what Rollins both advocates in the book and inhabits as a spiritual discipline within the Ikon community.

And this perhaps forms both my greatest critique and my strongest love for the book. This is a book written for the emerging church, those who, at the least, have entered into a liminal space between how they have historically understood God and the place to where God might be taking them as they deconstruct from the Church that modernity built. Make no mistake: this will be perceived as a dangerous book to a mind seeking certainty within the Christian faith. Rollins’ steady theme is that the revelation of God displays a being that is not wholly knowable.

As I mentioned, however, this is also what I loved the most about the book, because it addresses where I find myself and where a large segment of the contemporary Church is also. We have left a foundationalist understanding of God, namely that God can be understood through a syllogistic formula or that we can form an argument for God through our experience. We are anxious to find new language for the God who exists above the level of scientific validation.

Yet, the implications for the kind of questioning Rollins is willing to pursue are vast. Years ago McLuhan spoke of the “moral panic”  that comes from questioning our use of language. Imagine if we were to question a basic ontological plank of the Western view of God, the notion that continued searching reveals answers about God. What if the answer waiting at the end of our struggle is a mystery, something undiscoverable?

This is an important philosophical question for the Church. As I read this book, though, I wondered if Rollins acts more in the role of an organic intellectual than a philosopher. Have no doubt – he is messing with our categories and quoting philosophers to do so. But a read through the second half of the book, the part that contains the liturgies, seems to demonstrate Rollin’s desire to shake up our religious understandings. It seems to advance an agenda of deconstruction.

I have participated in two of these liturgies (Prodigal and Sins of the Father). These are powerful services that force a rethinking of the familiar. And that is precisely what How (Not) To Speak About God does. Through an analysis of the way in which we speak about God and through a peek into the kinds of liturgies that come from that thinking, Rollins has invited the reader on a journey to discover a God who is most certainly beyond the certain.

[i] Said, Edward W. Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures. (New York, NY: First Vintage Books, 1996), 67.
[ii] Plantinga, Alvin.
[iii] McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. (New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1966), 85.

If the Lord is Risen, why can't we see Him?

Here is the third of five engagements around Pete Rollins' How (Not) to Speak of God. It is by Geoff Holsclaw, co-pastor of Life on the Vine, who is preparing for a Ph.D in theology and ethics, investigating the intersection of liturgical theology and far left political theory.  Geoff can also be found at for the time being.

Download If_the_Lord_is_Risen,_why_can't_we_see_Him

“If the Lord is Risen, why can’t we see Him?”
…From Post-Metaphysical to Sacramental Theology

by Geoffrey J.D Holsclaw

I don’t know about you, but I like it when people just tell me where we are going.  So here it is.  After an appreciative summary of Pete argument in Part One of How (Not) to Speak of God, I will offer an immanent critique (a critique internal to his presuppositions) of his project.  After this I will outline what I see as a continuation of his project be other means, via sacramental theology, attempting to answer the question implicit in the story of the Road to Emmaus, “If the Lord is Risen, why can’t we see Him?” 

So read in the order you desire:  if you haven’t read the book, start at the beginning; if you just want the critique, go to the middle; if you just want my augmentation of Pete’s project, go to the end.

Appreciative Summary

beyond the conceptual idol
At the very beginning, Pete offers this summary of the contours and trajectory of his book, making a distinction between “right believing” and “believing in the right way.”

“Instead of following the Greek-influence idea of orthodoxy as right belief, these chapters show that the emerging community is helping us to rediscover the more Hebraic and mystical notion of the orthodox Christian as one who believes in the right way—that is, believing in a loving, sacrificial and Christlike manner…Thus orthodoxy is no longer (mis)understood as the opposite of heresy but rather is understood as a term that signals a way of being in the world rather than a means of believing things about the world.” (2-3).

Pete makes this distinction because he is concerned not only with what we believe, but also how we believe it, taking sides with what he construes as the more Hebraic ‘how’ of belief against the more Greek ‘what’ of belief. 

He makes this distinction as way of acknowledging the important postmodern critique of knowledge supplied by the hermeneutics of suspicion and the ‘critique of ideology’ (spurred on by the works of Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud).  With this critique of knowledge we have come to better see that all our reasoning is culturally situated/mediated rather than objectively neutral, and this includes our conceptions of God.  In the wake of this critique emerge two side of the same coin: there is either the conservative reaction denying the mediated status of knowledge/belief, asserting the objective nature of truth, or the liberal reaction of giving up on all God-talk as merely the echoes of the human voice.  Pete hopes to offer a third alternative.

Pete hooks up this ideology critique to the biblical critique of idolatry, which includes both the visible fashioning of God in an image and the invisible representation of God in a concept.  By this Pete reminds us that this type of critique is internal to our own biblical narrative, and ought to be taken seriously not only as a check against theological speculation, but also as a resource of faith, spurring us beyond our cognitive complacency into a vital relationship with God, because “the God we are in relationship with is bigger, better and different than our understanding of that God” (19).  . 

beyond metaphysics
With the dual blades of Ideology and Idolatry, Pete hopes to cut through the thicket of metaphysical speculation, opening a space from a true encounter with God.  As Pete says, theological discourse comes on the scene in the aftermath of God.  Theology comes into the clearing after God has been there, attempting to speak about that which speech cannot contain, because God can never become a mere object for language or comprehension, but rather is always excessive of language and thought.  Because the encounter of God is always excessive, theology is properly a/theological as the site of speaking of God while recognizing that speech fails to define God (21).   

Pete outlines several ways our God-talk is a/theological.  1) God is always Subject, never Object:  Our theological discourse can make God into an object.  But because God can never be a mere object of reflection, but rather is a subject of interaction with whom we relate, our discourse is inevitable atheological, a misspeaking of God.  Because God is always a Subject, our object based discourse must therefore be a/theological.  2) God as hyper-present:  Against the theological discourse that attempts to make God present in concepts and representations, and against the atheological discourse postulating the absolute absence/death of God, a/theology speaks of the hyper-presence of God.  God is not absent, but excessively present, for “God not only overflows and overwhelms our understanding but also overflows and overwhelms our experience” (23), exploding the opposition between a fundamentalist reduction to conceptual presence and a liberal resignation to absence.  3) God as hypernymous:  We do not lack information concerning God’s identity, making God anonymous.  Rather we are overflowing with information and sensation of the God who is both utterly transcendent yet immanent in all we do/have/are. God as the hyper-present, hypernymous, and always Subject, is therefore the God beyond metaphysics, exceeding the comprehension, articulations, and definitions of human intellect. 

a/theist
In this a/theological discourse affirm we “our view of God while at the same time realizing that that view is inadequate.”  So consequently,

“we act as both theist and atheist.  This a/theist is not some agnostic middle point hovering hesitantly between theism and atheism but, rather, actively embraces both out of profound faith…” (25).  “This a/theism is thus a deeply religious and faith-filled form of cynical discourse, one which captures how faith operates in an oscillation between understanding and unknowing” (26).  “The point is not that our beliefs are inherently problematic but only that they become problematic when held in a manner that would claim more than some provisional, pragmatic response to that which transcends conceptualization.” (26) 

This a/theistic approach does not exclude or undermine faith, but rather allows us to maintain an unflinching belief in God (as one believes in a person one trusts) while maintaining humility when attempting to describe what exactly God is” (26).

transformation of truth
All of this leads back to Pete’s central concern regarding the need for a transformative relationship through “believing in the right way” over merely “believing the right thing.”  This “believing in the right way” leads Pete to reformulate the typical understanding of truth as “descriptive claims concerning the Real or reality” with the more “Judeo-Christian view of truth is concerned with having a relationship with the Real (God) that results in us transforming reality.  The emphasis is thus not on description but on transformation… To know the Truth is thus to be known and transformed by the Truth” (56). 

Immanent Critique: all too metaphysical? top

Now it is quite fashionable these days that when you are attempting to refute someone, you point out how they are really participating in the discourse they are attempting to escape.  This is the typical deconstructive moment.  And I confess I am going to continue this gesture, but not to simply refute, but to move through and farther.  I am sincerely grateful for Pete’s articulation of this position (which I think has been rightfully helpful to many people) and I hope that the space he has cleared for a new theological discussion will be fruitfully filled by many voices who not only speak of God, but through whom God speaks. 

Critique #1:  As Heidegger said of Sartre, and Derrida said of Levinas, to negate a metaphysical statement is still to make a metaphysical statement.  Or, to speak against the Greeks is still to be speaking Greek.  I raise this critique not because I think it is overwhelming, but to highlight the difficulty and awkwardness of attempting to overcome metaphysics through the use of superlatives (hyper-, excessive, overwhelming, overflowing).  And setting up a polemic between Greek (what to believe) and Hebrew (how to believe) mentalities does not really help the situation.  “What” to believe and “how” to believe it are inescapably related.  But more importantly…

Critique #2:  Through his book Pete opts for the Hebrew side of the Greek/Hebrew polemic, yet I would suggest that he reads his Hebrew mentality through Greek conceptions.  We can see this in his coupling of ‘ideology’ and ‘idolatry’.  Pete does this by linking the Greek usage of ideology as the (conceptual) speaking/logos of the essence/eidos, with idolatry as the (aesthetic) showing of the essence of God (12).  But in this Pete reads the Hebrew thru the Greek, making everything about concepts and representation, which seems to be against his project of returning from the Babylonian captivity of Greek metaphysics to a Hebraic relationality.    Pete puts the emphasis of idolatry on speaking/showing rather than relating/worshipping.  Emphasizing the latter instead of the former would be the more adequate reading of Hebrew idolatry.  Idolatry happens in two ways: worshipping a false god, or worshipping the true God falsely.  The issue is that of praise/worship, not merely of thinking/seeing.   The ‘essential’ issue from the Hebraic perspective is not merely that one cannot (ought not) conceptualize God, but rather that one ought not worship God wrongly, which puts us squarely on the inter-subjective (recognition) plane rather than the merely informational (cognition) plane.  Of course, I think this is the very point that Pete hopes to make, but his post-metaphysic polemic obscures it.

This emphasis on worship leads me to my last concern. 

Critique #3:  The opposition that Pete sets up between the Greek “right belief” and the Hebraic “believing in the right way” is centered on his rendering of ‘orthodox’ according to the Greek etymology of ortho- as ‘right’, and –doxa as ‘opinion’ or ‘belief’.  Therefore, ‘orthodoxy’ is about “right belief.”  Seems simple enough, right?

But the problem is this excludes any kind of Hebraic appropriation of the word ‘orthodoxy’, and instead reads the Greek etymology into the Hebrew usage.  Instead, we need to read the Greek through the Hebrew.  If we do this, then we look at the Greek translations of the Old Testament (the Septuagint), and notice that doxa is consistently used to translate the Hebrew word kabod, which means “glory”, typically in reference to YHWH’s glorious, and Theophanous, presence (see passages such as “the kabod/glory of God was on Mt. Sinai” or the “kabod/glory of God passed by Moses in the cleft of the rock”, Ex. 24:16, 33:22).    Doxa in this Hebrew usage, is always about the terrible, overwhelming, Event of God’s nearest, manifested here on Earth.  Or, to continue, we could look at the more common word doxology which in Christian liturgy signals the saying of high praise at the end of a service (“Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”) and which literally means “glorious (doxa) words (logos).”

The real problem that I see (as expressed in both critiques #2 & #3) is that Pete makes the problem of theology principally about “belief” coupled with a concern for knowledge and definitions, instead of flowing from a more inter-subjective perspective of prayer and worship (…and I think Pete’s goal is really to get us back to prayer).  Pete argues from a rejection of “right belief” toward a “belief in the right way”, but both of these take “belief” as their normative components rather than being conditioned by ‘right worship/praise/prayer.’

Now, I offer these critiques not because I want to show that the “emperor has no clothes” and go my merrily way, congratulating myself on how smart I am.  I offer them because I generally like Pete’s theological wardrobe, but, being the conscientious consumer that I am, I’m concerned that some items might have been made in sweatshops rather than in fair trade factories, and that we need to be discerning about how we dress ourselves. 

But moving on…

From Post-Metaphysical to Sacramental Theology top

Now what I want to briefly suggest below is not a refutation by any means, but a pushing farther into what I believe are implicit trajectories in Pete’s thought, especially the concern to move from a informational/descriptive perspective to a personal/transformational perspective concerning theology.  Concisely put:  Instead of making the transition from informational descriptions to interpersonal encounter culminate in an apophatic, mystical theology, we should attend to the resources already found in Christian liturgies and sacramental theology.  To do this I will rely on the sacramental theology of Louis-Marie Chauvet, in Symbol and Sacrament.

Symbolic Order
Briefly stated, Chauvet fully embraced the critique of ontotheology as expressed in the works of Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida.  Part One of his book outlines the shift he hopes to accomplish from a metaphysical sacramental theology to a symbolic understanding of sacramental theology.   His book is over 500 pages long, so I will just hit the highlights.

Along with Rollins, Chauvet accepts 1) the critique of ontotheology, 2) the view that reality is always already mediated through language and culture, 3) and that language both builds a ‘reality’ to live into and also alienates us from the ‘Real.’  All of this Chauvet calls the ‘symbolic order’: 

This symbolic order designates the system of connections between the different elements and levels of a culture (economic, social, political, ideological—ethics, philosophy, religion…), a system forming a coherent whole that allows the social group and individuals to orients themselves in space, find their place in time, and in general situate themselves in the world in a significant way. (84) 

But lest you think this is all so rosy, Chauvet also pulls on board the typically post-structuralist move that the ‘symbolic order’ simultaneously generates the ‘person/subject’ (as in give her a place to talk about reality, articulate relationships and events, narrate histories and so forth), all the while being the place of utter alienation from oneself.   This alienation is constitutive because we can never escape mediation, there is always a gap between who “I” say I am, and who I really am; I can never become myself.  Because of this essential mediation, the “person” is never completed or finished, but is always in a state of becoming.  The human “subject” is always in a process of becoming itself, consenting to the presence of the absence, and persisting in a mode of perpetual mourning. 

But, “the condition of being always on the way, which is the fate of the human subject, is not an aimless wondering in a desert waste without landmarks” (99).  The emergence of human subjectivity (the ability to inhabit a world and relate to other subjects) is essentially an inter-subjective process, which has a type of logic to it. 

Symbolic Exchange
To elucidate this process we must make a distinction within language between cognition and recognition.  On the level of cognition, language is used to refer to objects, assigning them traits and definition, always moving toward a certain level exactitude.  This use of language is exemplified by scientific discourse.  However, on the level of recognition, the “function of language is not to designate an object or to transmit information—which all language also does—but first to assign a place to the subject in its relation to others” (119).  Or again, “every discourse can be read on two different levels: either on the level of the symbol, as a language of “recognition,” foundation of the identity of the group and individual, and agent of cohesion…between subjects within their cultural world, or on the level of sign, as a language of “cognition,” aiming at delivering information and at passing judgments.”  So the language at the level of cognition concern “things,” while at the level of recognition concerns “persons.” 

The emergence of the ‘subject’ is within this level of ‘recognition,’ which is that of the ‘symbolic order.’  This emergence happens through a process of ‘symbolic exchange.’  Against an understanding of ‘market exchanges’ based on the value of things and objects traded to meet needs and desires (which exists on the level of cognition), there is the place of ‘symbolic exchange’ where “the true objects being exchanged are the subjects themselves…[In this exchange] subjects weave or reweave alliances, they recognize themselves as full members of the tribe, where they find their identity in showing themselves in their proper place, and in putting others in their ‘proper place’” (106). 

the symbol made flesh
Now all of this might sound extremely abstract, but Chauvet wants to emphasize that it is not, but in fact the ‘symbolic order’ (and the ‘symbolic exchange’ which constitutes us as human persons) is as close to us as our very own skin, our own bodies.  Again, drawing on cultural anthropology as well as Heidegger and Derrida, Chaubet outlines that there is an essential corporality of the ‘symbolic order’ which unites our very bodies with cultural and cosmic existence.  Each person’s body exists only as woven, inhabited, or spoken by the triple body of culture/society, tradition/ancestral, and natural/cosmic.  Our daily existence with our own bodies is an intersection of these three bodies (cultural/traditional/cosmic) integrating and situating the whole person within a network or relationship with their own selves, other people, the tradition of their parent/ancestors, and with the gods.  (And, men, if you don’t think any of this is applicable, then just ask a woman about the issues she or her friends have with their own bodies.)

From Symbol to Sacrament
Everything I have laid out so far is in a sense merely prolegomena for Chauvet.  But it is a theoretical approach, which when augmenting Pete’s project, help clarify issues and moves forward, issues which I will outline in a second.  From this anthropological perspective Chauvet begins his theological reflection concerning the sacraments which I will only briefly outline using his reflections on the stories called The Road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) and the “Necrotic” temptation (the temptation find the dead body of Christ). 

The basic question of this story is, “If the Lord is Risen, why can’t we see Him?”  The answer of the text is that Jesus is found in the stories and gestures of the community he began.  At the beginning of the story the disciples cannot see Jesus, something is preventing them.  Yet Jesus opens up the scriptures to them and explains how the Christ must suffer before entering into his glory.  But it was not merely with scripture that Christ revealed himself to them, but around the table, the Eucharistic table.  Only when they entered into his gestures and practices (his ministry of table fellowship) that he had invested with his own body (“This is my Body), did they SEE him.  But then he vanishes.  Christ is no longer present with them.  But he is not exactly absent either. 

As we saw above, just as the human subject is always in a process of becoming because of the essential mediation of language/culture (the Symbolic Order), so too the Christian is always in a process of becoming, of coming into faith.  And this process is not accomplished without mediation, but through the symbolic saturation of sacramental practices, which is principally in the Church, the primal sacrament, which is the symbolic body of Christ. 

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I could go on and on (as we all could I suppose), but I will end it here.  My basic suggestion is that while we certainly must be suspicious of language that seeks to make God into and object, merely on the level of cognition, but must embrace that language functions not merely as a medium of relation between “things,” but more importantly is a medium of recognition between persons.  This medium in which we persisting in the perpetual process of coming into belief through participation in the symbolic exchange of recognition principally within the Eucharist, and generally in the sacraments, where the presence of the Absent One nourishes us. 

De-scribing Theology

Here is the second of four engagements around Pete Rollins' How (Not) to Speak of God.  It is by Christopher Roussel, who currently lives in Denver, CO and is pursuing a Master's degree in Religious Studies at the University of Denver.  Christopher can also be found at impleri.

Download rollins_hntsog.pdf

The disaster, unexperienced.  It is what escapes the very possibility of experience—it is the limit of writing.  This must be repeated: the disaster de-scribes.  Which does not mean that the disaster, as the force of writing, is excluded from it, is beyond the pale of writing or extratextual.
Maurice Blanchot, The Writing of the Disaster

In the introduction to his book, Pete Rollins mentions that "the only people who seemed to be taking this subject [the mystical approach] seriously were the supposedly nihilistic postmodern philosophers" (p xiii).  In many ways, this is exactly the current situation in theological discourses.  Is it even possible to find a seminary/divinity school/school of theology/whatever it is that produces theologians that espouses a "traditional," "orthodox" theology while also engaging with either the mystical approach or the postmodern philosophers?  I know that I haven't been able to find one that actively claims such a position.  With that in mind, I thought it would be worthwhile to highlight/point out/draw connections between Rollins and some of the postmodern philosophers.  I am not sure how accurate these connections truly are (i.e. I'm not sure Rollins will agree with me), but I see similarities in How (Not) to Speak of God and two philosophers in particular Jack Caputo and Mark C. Taylor.  So, I think we have here some good groups of thought that will be painted together to give a more robust picture of what Rollins throws into the term of "heretical orthodoxy."

A/theology isn't something new.  Mark C. Taylor seems to have first used the word in 1982 and subsequently used in his title for his 1984 book Erring: A Postmodern A/theology.  The term combines the words "theology" and "atheism" to get a definition that floats around "we must still speak of God (theology, as traditionally understood) while also recognizing that this speech fails to define God (a/theology)" (p 21). Ultimately, this leads to a separation between what some (many?) now call onto-theology and this "new" discourse (cf Merold Westphal, John Caputo, & James Marsh in Modernity and its Discontents, Westphal's Overcoming Onto-theology, and Stan Grenz's The Named God and the Question of Being, to name a few).  I use "new" rather loosely because the proponents of a/theology suggest that they are returning to the pre-Enlightenment, pre-Medieval theology that had been distorted through those two ages.  Through this rejection of a "view from nowhere," Rollins and others (re)paints theology/revelation as concealment in which God reveals God through a mystical/experiential way.

One of the primary foci in this a/theology movement is that of the event.  The main point of this foci is that to conceive of God as some Be-ing1--as some ontological entity.  Caputo writes in his Weakness of God (WoG for short) that by rejecting this depiction of God as a being, he "disconnects the energy source that supplies power to the debate about whether there is or is not an entity called God somewhere, up above or here below, inside or outside, here and now or up ahead" (p 10).  By this dis-connection, we are able to appreciate more fully Zizek's theory in The Puppet and the Dwarf that"what we should learn from his [Jesus'] death on the cross is that there is no Big Other to save us" (WoG, 43) because there is no thing to be a Big Other.  There is no ontological entity beyond what we already experience because God is not a being.  To put this in highly radical terms, "there is no God"--because there is no God to be.  This idea may also paint another interpretation of Jesus' crucifixion: it was an end to onto-theology.  Jesus, as the only ontological instantiation of God, dies and removes the possibility of an ontological God.  This may not be something Rollins is actively pursuing, but his statement that "speaking of God is never speaking of God but only ever speaking about our understanding of God" (p 32) has this in its trajectory.  This redefining of God as an event cleans up many dilemmas currently facing theology (e.g. the problem of evil, omniscience and future actions, self-certainty in orthodoxy), but also creates new problems.

Easter an important part of theology and one of these problems.  "Classical" theologians seemed to have tossed aside half of it (that God dies) for the other (that Jesus rose again).  Mark C. Taylor notes in Erring that at the cross, "not only God dies; the self also disappears" (p 33).  This comes as a conclusion to a brief look at Nietzsche's "death of God" and project of nihilism in which Taylor draws heavily on Derrida.  Taylor uses Derrida (in Writing and Difference) to interpret Heidegger by saying: "God is this the proper name of that which deprives us of our nature, of our own birth; consequently he will always have spoken before us, on the sly.  He is the difference which insinuates itself between myself and myself as death" (p 23).  By experiencing God through the cross, one experiences not only the death of God but also the death of one's self.  That is, this experience leads one face to face with one's own "extraneousness to himself" (Lacan, Language of the Self, 136).  Here, we can begin to see theology as an "interplay of presence/absence and identity/difference" (Erring 15).  It is through this interplay that one can affirm Rollins when he writes "[i]f one loses one's life only because one believes that this is the way to find it, then one gives up nothing; to truly lose one's life, one must lay down that life without regard to whether or not one finds it" (p 34).  This trajectory through Rollins, Derrida, and Taylor give us a twist on Heidegger: it is through this acknowledgment of the death of God and self that authenticity is revealed and we find genuine Christianity.  Here, we can acknowledge, in Zizek's words, the "dark underbelly of Christianity" because we are able to look at the crucifixion for what it is in it's moments: the death of God and the subsequent death of the self.  Hence we can find in Vattimo, "salvation is an event in which kenosis, the abasement of God, is realized more and more fully and so undermines the wisdom of the world, the metaphysical dreams of natural reason which conceive God as absolute, omnipotent and transcendent, as ipsum esse (metaphysicum) subsistens (Belief, 49-50).  In other words, a/theology is a soteriological event that "understands that God is testified to in the transformed lives of believers rather than in some abstract doctrinal system" (Rollins, 40).

It is through this trajectory of stringing together theology and postmodern philosophy that we find the trajectory towards a "new" theology.

1 Here, I want to allude to Heidegger in his Besinnung (Band 66 of Heidegger's Complete Works, H11-H12) in which he relates the clearing of Be-ing with the Being of insanity.  While there is a hot-off-the-press English translation (Mindfulness), this  particular translation was done by me in 2004.

How (Not) to Speak of God

Here is the first of four engagements around Pete Rollins' How (Not) to Speak of God.  It is by Adele Sakler, who lives in Richmond, VA, and is pursuing Doctoral work in Theology & Philosophy at George Fox Seminary.  Adele can also be found at existential punk.

Download how_not_to_speak_of_god-sakler.pdf

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Adele Sakler
5 October 2006

"How (Not) To Speak Of God" by Peter Rollins, SPCK, London, England, 2006.  The purpose of this piece is to enlighten readers to my interaction with this book. I am offering a summary, my observations, what I believe the author is attempting to communicate, my doubts and objections, and finally, an assessment of the book. My hope is that this will whet the reader's appetite and
that they will then read the book for themselves with an open mind.

On the back cover Jonny Bakers states "This book brings together Christian mysticism, postmodern philosophy, and the practices and liturgies of an alternative worship community trying to make sense of Christianity in a postmodern environment. The results are stunning - original, provocative, and creative." Rollins' book is divided between two parts: Part One is a philosophical and theological treatise of Rollins' thoughts and contributions to the emerging conversation from his academic days at Queens University in Belfast. Part Two contains this learned knowledge in praxis and experimentation in an emerging project Rollins found in Belfast called Ikon. As people read Rollins book for themselves, they need to remember Rollins' conclusion as "…the territory I thought I was helping to chart was actually discovered a long time ago by my ancestors. It is both frustrating and comforting that no matter how fast I run, those who have long since died have already arrived at where I am attempting to go." (Rollins, xv) This humility, in my opinion, helps the reader to more ably roll with the punches of some uncomfortable and "scary" ideas that will definitely push buttons and quite possibly cause some readers to be pushed to the edge.

Today more than ever, especially in the United States, there is a great polarization, whether in politics or religion, that is fighting tooth and nail to push an agenda. Especially in matters of faith for the Christian right there is a fight to keep absolutes at the forefront and a plot to squelch relativism. Chapter 1, God rid me of God, explores this theme. Rollins sees the emerging church moving beyond these polarities of absolutism and relativism as he views both of these extremes as idolatrous. (p. 2) The idea is to move away from our western way of seeing, viewing and being Christian and recapture our eastern, Hebraic roots.  Rollins, through his work in this book wants us to see "…the orthodox Christian as one who believes in the right way - that is, believing in a loving, sacrificial and Christlike [sic] manner." (Pp. 2-3) In other words, by believing in the right way versus having right beliefs, we can move beyond meaninglessness and relativism. For Rollins, relativism is "self-contradictory because to say there is no meaning in the universe is itself a meaningful statement." (p. 11)

In Chapter 2, The Aftermath of theology, Rollins discusses two different ways in which we approach religious tradition. One way is admitting God exists and acknowledging that we can be in a loving relationship with God yet recognizing our ability to fully grasp God is limited. In other words, "God cannot be reduced to our understanding of that relationship." (p.20) The second way in which we approach this religious tradition is by squeezing tightly onto our dogmatic belief systems and therefore, thinking we have God figured out. This form of boxing God in is a violent handling of God and brings about violence to God's children. This is "…a type of idolatrous relation in which we believe that our ideas actually represent the way that God and the world really operate." (p. 20-21) This is nothing more than Pharisaical pride that Jesus always spoke against. Instead of white knuckling the laws, we need to let go and allow God to overtake us and free us to be who God wants us to be. As people of God we "…must speak and yet we must maintain our silence, we must maintain distance amidst proximity of God, and we must worship while being careful not to make God into the object of our worship." (p. 30) God is not an object to be grasped but rather seduces and transforms us as evidenced in real living examples of transformed lives that have encountered God in authentic relationship insteadof lofty ideals.

Within Chapter 3, A/theology as icon and Chapter 4, Inhabiting the God-shaped hole, I see real arguments arising from USAmerican evangelical right wing Christians who view Christianity through modern lenses. There is much they would pick apart with their seasoned answers throughout the entire book, but my focus will remain within these two chapters. Rollins states that "This emerging a/theology can thus be described as a genuinely ecumenical device, for by unsettling and decentring [sic] any idea of a one true interpretation held by one group over and against all the others, a network of bridges is formed between different interpretative communities who acknowledge that we are all engaged in an interpretive process which can never do justice to the revelation itself." (p. 31) By reading this, these modern thinking Christians feel they have their point proven that postmodern thought is relativistic and that it is this kind of thinking that enables theology to accommodate culture in the wrong ways.

Another place in Chapter 3 where I see Rollins ruffling feathers is his idea of evangelism. Most evangelical Christians view evangelism as a persuasive means of communicating Biblical truth in order to give someone an answer. For Rollins, evangelism means "…we must have faith to believe that those who seek will find for themselves…If this is true, then the job of the Church is not to provide an answer - for the answer is not a phrase or doctrine - but rather to help encourage the religious question to arise." (Pp. 40-41) In other words, we are to be an aroma of God to people. This is a really radical paradigm shift in thinking and, once the dust settles, can either offer an epiphany or burning anger and heartburn. For those who have all their ducks in a row, all their answers neatly packaged, this will seem absurd and ungodly. For those open to rethinking these things, then it will take what Kierkegaard calls a "leap of faith" into the absurd as when Abraham obeyed God to sacrifice Isaac. God commanded that we shall not commit murder but then asks Abraham to do the unthinkable - kill his son. Why didn't Abraham question God about this because it certainly was absurd? Yet, Abraham took a leap of faith into the absurd to befaithful to God.

A place in Chapter 4 where I believe Rollins will find some critique is the idea of death bringing us into more authentic beings. Philosopher Martin Heidegger believed "it is only in realizing that we are moving towards death that we can become authentic human beings, for once we realize that we are going to die, we take more responsibility for our life." (p. 47) Many Christians believe they are already authentic by being true to God and the Bible. People who are not followers of Christ I believe are searching for authenticity but I would beg to differ that people are thinking about death. They are in love with the here and now of their lives and thus, are already taking responsibility for their lives. Thinking about death is a spiritual issue and many people are not spiritual in the
sense that Christians define spiritual.

I really enjoyed this book and found it to be well thought out, researched, and scholarly. My belief is that Rollins genuinely knows the pulse of this emerging generation and offers valid and comprehensible thought and praxis. He understands the difference between religion and faith, where religion is a human attempt to define God and faith is a place of holding our ideas of God loosely.
"A true seeking after God results from an experience of God which one falls in love with for no other reason other than finding God irresistibly lovable." (p. 50)  This is my prayer for myself and brings to mind a parable I once found on Ikon's web site:

Whoever shall lose their life

There is an ancient story, passed down through the generations that tells of a group ofunknown disciples who witnessed the bloody crucifixion of Christ.

Not able to stay another moment in the place were their Messiah had just been crucified they packed their few belongings and left for a distant shore. With great sorrow they turned their back on the place of their birth, never to return. Instead they founded an isolated community far away from Jerusalem. On the first night that they set up camp each disciple vowed to keep the ground holy, they promised that as long as they were permitted to live they would keep the memory of Christ alive and endeavour to follow the way that he had once taught.

The community lived in great solitude for over a hundred years, spending their days reflecting upon the life of Jesus and attempting to remain faithful to his ways. All this despite the overwhelming sorrow in their hearts and the harrowing sacrifices that such a dedicated life required.

Endless days passed until at dawn one morning, a small band of missionaries stumbled upon the isolated settlement. These preachers of the Word where amazed by the community that they found, they were startled by the fact that these dedicated disciple’s of Christ had no knowledge of his resurrection and ascension. Without hesitation the missionaries gathered together the entire community and taught them about the events that had transpired after the horrific crucifixion of their Lord, telling them of His victory over sin and death and the subsequent rewards we can partake of because of this.

That evening there was a great celebration in the camp. Yet, as the night grew dark, one of the younger missionaries noticed that the leader of the community was absent. This bothered the young man and so he set out to look for the elder. After some time he eventually found the leader kneeling in the corner of a small hut, on the fringe of the village, praying and weeping.

”Why are you in such sorrow”, asked the missionary in amazement “for now is the hour for great celebration”.

”Indeed” replied the elder, who was all the while crouched on the floor, ‘this is an hour
for rejoicing, but it is also a time for great sorrow”.

“For over a hundred years we have followed the ways taught to us by Christ. We
emulated his teachings faithfully even though it cost us deeply, and we remained
resolute despite the belief that death had defeated Him and would one day defeat us
also”.

The elder slowly got to his feet and looked the missionary compassionately in the face.

”Each day we have forsaken our very lives for Him. Why? Because we judge Him wholly worthy of the sacrifice, wholly worthy of our being. You find me now, praying for myself and for my future generations, for I am fearful that we may one day follow him not because we love Him and believe him to be worthy of that love, but rather because we love ourselves and want the treasures of eternal life that he offers”.  After offering these thoughts to the young missionary, the elder left the hut and made his way to the celebration, leaving the teacher on his knees in quiet contemplation." (Adapted from an Islamic story)

May we all continually become aware of God and our need for God indwelling every fiber of our being. Amen!

'Belief and Metaphysics' conference, a diary

Geoff and Jamie have kindly asked me to provide an account of my time at the 'Belief and Metaphysics' conference which took place last month in Granada, Spain.  Below is a slightly altered cross-post of what originally appeared here.

See also Jamie Smith's pictures from last year's conference, as well as his "Dispatches from Spain" - part 1, part 2, & part 3. 

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Back in March or so of this year, Conor Cunningham invited me to attend a conference in Granada, Spain called 'Belief and Metaphysics'.  A short time after, he invited me to present a paper there.  After a little deliberation (i.e. "I am no where near being close to the same league as them"), I accepted.

[Photo credit: Peter Candler]

After some rather horrible travel incidents (lost passport, lost luggage, but found both), my wife Tiana and I arrived around 6:30pm, Granada time.  Due to our luggage being lost, retrieving it made me late for my own presentation at 3:45, but Guillermo Peris, a professor at the seminary where the conference is hosted, was rather kind and took care of rescheduling me with Conor to a later time.  At 7:30, I presented my paper called "From Copenhagen to Cambrai: Paradoxes of Faith in Kierkegaard and de Lubac."  John Milbank chaired it, and he was very gracious and complimentary towards me about it, saying it was "very good" (I will be posting my paper on my own blog later with more comments from Milbank, for those who are interested).

Concerning the conference itself, the people attending, the papers presented, the fellowship, and the food, the whole event was, in my opinion, wonderful.  Conor Cunningham and Peter Candler, Tony Baker, Robert Miner, Oliva Blanchette, among others,  were very welcoming of me-- me being perhaps the most uneducated person attending the conference.

[Photo credit: Peter Candler]

The topic of the conference was, as the title suggests, 'Belief and Metaphysics.'  And, the quotation used to also set the topical stage was one by Paul Churchland: 'Could it turn out that nobody has ever believed anything?'  On the second day of the conference, John Milbank's paper on 'Ontology, Religion and Terror', prefixed by a very long 'prolegomena' the evening before, offered a guiding contour to the proceedings.  Before him, Louis Dupré's paper was excellent as well.  Also, quite importantly, Conor Cunningham's paper called 'Trying my Very Best to Believe Darwin: The Supernaturalistic Fallacy: From Is to Nought' spoke to the above Churchland quotation.

While it would be ridiculous to provide summaries of all the presentations I attended (just see the program to get a feel of the breadth and diversity of the crowd), I would like to offer snapshots of part of John Milbank's talk, Conor Cunningham's paper, as well as the last section of Merold Westphal's presentation.  John Milbank's paper was quite good, but I would have to hear (or read it) again to do any justice to providing any kind of summary (I remember he dealt a lot with Scotus).  But, a comment he provided in the question and answer session would be a good place to start.

After Milbank had read his paper, somebody in the crowd stood up and posed a question that expressed a nagging confusion about what the whole 'Radical Orthodoxy' thing is all about.  By his own admission, he had come to the conference largely in part to figure out what Radical Orthodoxy is, and after a day and a half of presentations, and after listening to Milbank -- Dr. Radical Orthodoxy himself -- said commenter was still confused (I apologize for I never caught his name).  He also asked a question about Aquinas I'm far to ill-informed about to repeat or remember, but Milbank's response contained something like this: "[Henri] de Lubac is my hero in this regard.  I never want to have a theology without metaphysics, nor a metaphysics without transcendence" (rough paraphrase).  His implication is that he would much rather not be either a 'revelational positivist' on the one hand or a philosopher of pure immanence on the other; thus, a kind of 'suspended' theology and philosophy.  [During Milbank's lecture, he made a good handful of wry comments: see the picture below of Oliva and Louis smirking.]

Conor Cunningham's paper on Darwin was extremely well-done.  In sum, he believes that it is perfectly fine--even good!--for Christians to agree with many of Darwin's observations and some of his conclusions, but he wants to stay clear away from many of Darwin's followers who have taken his logic and twisted Darwin's descriptive work into an acidic prescription for all reality.

Also, against Darwin's disciples who have taken his ideas to an extreme, consider the following: One may observe a scene of a woman pouring tea into a cup on a table, and one may proceed to analyze the table and cup by breaking it up into its molecular and atomic parts, but one must not apply the same investigation to the woman for the purpose of explaining why she is pouring the coffee, who she really is, or if she has any beliefs about anything and why she believes them to be so.  Hence, Churchland's question, 'Could it turn out that nobody has every believed anything' reflects that the methods of the science lab have overflowed into the halls of the whole building of reality, like an acid consuming every bit of life so that all is reducible to its natural, accidental parts.  In this view, no one really has believed anything, for beliefs are mere theoretic constructs produced by brainwaves, etc. [See below, a picture of Conor 'trying his very best to believe Darwin']

Merold Westphal also gave an excellent paper called 'The Use and Abuse of Metaphysics for the Life of Faith.'  In it he discussed Marion and refuted parts of a critique of him by Milbank, but the main part that I remembered (it was the part I retold to Tiana, anyway!), was an example of 'overcoming metaphysics' (in the sense, I imagine, of pure metaphysics, or perhaps along the lines of his Overcoming Onto-Theology).  Westphal's example begins by talking about when he was in college, and he met this girl who he found quite attractive.  They took a class together, and he would often position himself across the classroom from her so that he could 'observe' her while also appearing to pay attention to the professor.  They dated a little bit during the fall, and he wondered if he would ever fall for her.  In the spring, he did-- and he fell, hard.  They started seriously dating, thus entering into a real relationship, and she was no longer that observed, objectified person from across the room; now, after 44 years of marriage, of participating in a sacramental union with one another, he had, in a sense, 'overcome metaphysics.'  I thought this was a wonderful example, and Westphal --of course-- narrated his own story much better than I ever could (like many of the papers at the conference, I would love to get a copy of his!).

Craig Keen

I also had the pleasure of meeting Craig and Elesha Keen.  Craig used to teach at Olivet Nazarene, but now teaches at Azuza.  I had briefly met him before at a Wesleyan conference at my school, so it was good to hear him present another paper and to share a few meals with him.  He used to teach at PLNU in the late 70's, filling in for Dr. Herb Prince at one point (I think this is right).  He moved on to other schools, and now his daughter Heather Ross is teaching in the fulltime position at PLNU now that Dr. Prince has retired.  It was also fun to hear about Tony Baker's connection with him as a student of Dr. Keen's at Olivet.  They were reading through Milbank's The Word Made Strange (it had just come out), and then Tony went on to study under Milbank at the University of Virginia (Milbank has since moved on).

The second night of the conference, there was a very nice banquet held in one of the courtyards of the seminary.  We were treated to multiple courses as well as a wonderful flamenco show.  We were told by the Archbishop that this was more authentic than what tourists usually see on the streets.  What a great show!  We didn't want it to end.

Beyond the content of the papers, as the Archbishop Javier Martínez pointed out in his concluding remarks, Conor Cunningham did an excellent job of organizing a conference of great theological, philosophical, and even denominational variety.  Continental, analytic philosophers; Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, and a Nazarene (me!); evolutionary biologists, critical theorists/psychoanalysts, political theorists, and perhaps a nihilist or two (although Conor, in his ever confessional mode, would say, "we're all nihilists!").  The discussions after the papers and into the evenings were a wealth of fun and intellectual rigor. When he gave his paper during the latter half of the conference, one brilliant Derridian/Kierkegaardian scholar even altered the shape of his paper after engaging in discussions sparked by the work of others during the first half of the conference.

Archbishop Javier Martínez

When our stay in Granada came to an end, we spent a couple days in Málaga to check out the Picasso museums and see the attractions there before heading home and recovering from jetlag and illnesses we contracted about halfway through the trip.  The actual travelling part of the trip contained some of the most annoying and difficult things we have ever had to deal with, but during our actual stay in Granada and Málaga, we had a wonderful time.  The people were extremely hospitable, and for that, we were both thankful.

The 'Belief and Metaphysics' conference provided a wonderful place for dialogue, intellectual sharpening, and perhaps most of all, friendship.  I consider myself very blessed to have been a part of the proceedings.  I would like to extend a special thanks to Conor Cunningham for the invite; to Point Loma Nazarene University for the warm encouragement and financial help to make the flight over there; and most of all, to Tiana for all of her support and patience through all the craziness of the travels.  The rumor is that next year is in Venice!

How (Not) to Speak of God- with Pete Rollins

Starting next week, C&P will begin another series of engagements, this time around Pete Rollins' "How (Not) to Speak of God.  Pete has a B.A. in Scholastic philosophy, an M.A. in political theory and criticism, and a Ph.D. in postmodern theory. He is the founder of the Ikon community in Northern Ireland (a group which describes itself as iconic, apocalyptic, heretical, emerging and failing) and a working philosopher who has come to believe that the emerging church presents a singular, unprecedented opportunity to transform the theological and moral architecture of the Christian community.

If you have not had the chance to read Pete's book, then you can check out this interview.  Also, for those with the time and interest to track down some of the background to Pete's work, check out a helpful essay by Adam Cleaveland, go read up on Dionysius the Areopagite and his Mystical Theology, as well as dip into some Jean-Luc Marion and his relation to Derrida. Of course Pete has created his own potent use of all these authors according to his own special alchemy, but these will help prepare the conversation.

And lastly, we would love to collect all the links referring/review Pete's book.  So if you have written a review (blog or paper) or know of someone who has, please drop off a comment with a link.

peace be with you,

Zizek @ Wheaton College

Along with being at Calvin College in Grand Rapids on Friday, Nov. 10th, Slavoj Zizek will also be at Wheaton College the day before, Thursday, Nov. 9th, at 7:30-9:00 in the Coray  Alumni Gym.  The title of his lecture will be "Why Only an Atheist Can Believe: Politics between Fear and Trembling."  This event is being organized by the Wheaton Philosophy department. 

A Postmodern Bible?

"Postmodern" theologies are notoriously slim on biblical engagement, or hopelessly eclectic in their engagements with biblical sources (I find much of the "postmodern" engagement with Paul a symptom of the latter).  Those in the former camp tend to begin with more speculative philosophical investigations and then go looking for "Bible passages" after the fact (I know some pastors who write sermons this way, too!); those in the latter camp are bent on "freeing" Scripture from the constraints of "orthodoxy" and thus seek to open the text to all sorts of untethered "play."  In these cases the Bible just becomes a text for yet more pomo "riffs" on the Other or the Gift or the Unsayable, etc., etc. 

On the other hand, biblical studies--as a discipline--has been going through some internal ranglings, and one of the exciting developments to emerge has been a rebirth of "biblical theology"--that is, a tradition of unapologetically confessional and theological engagements with Scripture which refuse to be dragged down by the supposedly "scientific" fetishes that dominated the past century of historical-critical biblical studies. 

I would argue that this renewal of the "theological interpretation of Scripture" in an unapologetic, confessional mode is, in fact, a more "persistently" postmodern mode of approaching Scripture.  (The project of "Scriptural Reasoning" would be an analogue.)

So I was very excited when, this past week, A.K.M. Adam's new book, Faithful Interpretation: Reading the Bible in a Postmodern World, landed on my desk.  Adam, known to many simply as "AKMA," has for a decade been a careful, thoughtful voice at the intersection of postmodern hermeneutical discussions and New Testament studies, with a primary interest in what this means for the life of the church (AKMA is also an Anglican priest).  In this excellent new book, he makes the case that the critique of modernity opens the space not for abandoning Scripture as mere fables, nor to be dismissed as simply  master-narratives of power and domination, but rather to be received by the community of faith as canon.  AKMA's account winsomely argues that "postmodern" interpretation will be faithful, Catholic interpretation.  [I think it could be very illuminating to read AKMA's book alongside another exciting new book in biblical theology, Markus Bockmuehl's Seeing the Word: Refocusing New Testament Study.]

Kudos to AKMA for an excellent, accessible introduction to the issues of biblical interpretation (and proclamation) in our contemporary context.  It deserves a wide readership.