Monthly Archives: October 2006

Increasing voter turnout

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I have an idea that I think would go a long way toward increasing voter turnout in elections. It seems so simple …

We have the V Chip in televisions which can block out inappropriate content. What if we set up a system so that, when you vote, you get a “proof of vote” code that you can put into your TV to block political ads? Especially in places like Texas that allow early voting, that’s a huge benefit to voting, don’t you think?

Now it’s just a matter of how to implement it. But that’s just a matter of technology.

Anybody else with me?

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Ch 2: The aftermath of theology – How (Not) to Speak of God

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(Link to introductory post)

How (Not) to Speak of GodRollins builds on the idea of the idolatry of doctrine in the second chapter, indicating that doggedly holding onto established interpretations is akin to the actions of the Pharisees of Jesus time.

Indeed, this can be seen as one of the central problems with the Pharisees as represented in the New Testament, for they held so closely to their interpretation of the Messiah that when the Messiah finally appeared in a form that was different to what they expected, they rejected the Messiah in order to retain the integrity of their interpretation.

Rollins doesn’t reject theology as a fundamentally bad thing. He just wants to shift the focus. He claims that, in the past, theology was an attempt to define God, whereas he sees the proper role of theology as a response to God. I’m not sure I completely agree with his premise, but I can certainly agree with him about what theology should be. He also introduces another of his “both/and” words: a/theology, by which he means that

they acknowledge that we must still speak of God (theology, as traditionally understood) while also recognizing that this speech fails to define God (a/theology)

In the next few sections, he goes on to introduce several more such words: hyper-presence (God is so close and present that God overwhelms our understanding and experiences), un/known (God’s very hyper-presence blinds us to being able to really know God), hypernymity (based on anonymous – unknown because of a lack of information. hypernymous – unknown because of an overwhelming overabundance of information). While I think all of these words can help to convey the points he’s trying to make, my head was spinning the first time I read it, trying to sort out all of these terms. I would recommend reading through this section slowly and carefully, probably several times, to let things sink in.

The last section of the chapter, “Christianity as a/theistic,” spends a lot of time contrasting the emergent conversation with fundamentalism, which Rollins defines as

… a particular way of believing one’s beliefs rather than referring to the actual content of one’s beliefs. It can be described as holding a belief system in such a way that it mutually excludes all other systems, rejecting other views in direct proportion to how much they differ from one’s own.

He doesn’t claim that we shouldn’t hold onto our beliefs. Only that there should always be a tension between those beliefs and other ideas that bring those beliefs into question. Bringing it back to the idea of idolatry:

This a/theism is not then some temporary place of uncertainty on the way to spiritual maturity, but rather is something that operates within faith as a type of heat-inducing friction that prevents our liquid images of the divine from cooling and solidifying into idolatrous form.

I really like that idea of the tension being important in and of itself, and not just an uncomfortable period between static belief states. It’s in line with some of the things I’ve been saying on the political front, about both sides of various debates needed to listen to and respect the views of the “other side.”

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Ch 1: God rid me of God – How (Not) to Speak of God

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(Link to introductory post, which I’ll update with links to each chapter’s posts)

How (Not) to Speak of GodRollins starts out his book with an introduction to the emerging conversation as he sees it, and what it brings to the table that is different that the modern church. His core point seems to be that it isn’t a difference of theology or dogma. Rather, it is a difference of focus. For instance:

… Christianity involves a process of journeying and becoming. There is a shared understanding that being a Christian always involves becoming a Christian.

followed with:

This is not to say that those involved in the emerging conversation choose the idea of journeying over and above the idea of destination; rather, there is a sense in which such binary thinking is rejected in favour of a view that faith embraces journey as a type of destination.

This introduces an important theme which carries throughout the book. That is, the rejection of “binary thinking” (either/or) in favor of what I guess you’d call transcendent thinking (both/and). He works hard at stepping out of the various “boxes” that people tend to see, and tries to look at how both perspectives offer insight into the nature of God. I think this is a very important point. It’s not a rejection of what has come before, but a synthesis with what has followed.
He then moves very quickly from the Enlightenment, when reason was king, and it was assumed that it was possible to know objective truth about anything and everything, to more contemporary philosophers who argued that true objective knowledge was impossible because we always filter everything through the various lenses of our experience, biology, etc.

Indeed Nietzsche, Marx and Freud have often been (mis)used in order to justify a form of nihilism which claims that the universe arose from nothing, is going nowhere and possesses no meaning. This has lead to two dominant reactions by the Western Church. First, the predominant response has been by those who would close their ears to such critiques and run back to the naïveté that existed before these great iconoclasts came onto the scene. Second, there has been the less popular but deeply influential response of those who claim that we must bite the bullet and forge a new Christianity from the carcass of the old, a Christianity that is concerned with developing an ethical way of life based on the teachings of Jesus while rejecting the question of God as an irrelevant abstraction belonging to the past.

… The idea of an objective world was not rejected by these great ‘masters of suspicion’ (a title bestowed upon Nietzsche, Freud and Marx), only the idea that human beings could grasp this objective world in an objective manner.

Building on this, Rollins then goes on to call attempts to hold objective knowledge of God to be nothing less that idolatry. He refers to it as a “conceptual” idol rather than a physical idol.

Like an aesthetic idol (such as the Golden Calf in the book of Exodus), the conceptual idol lies in the fact that the former reduces God to a physical object while the latter reduces God to an intellectual object.

I have no doubt that Mr. Rollins will take a lot of heat for that particular section, but I think it holds a lot of truth. I’m reminded of a blog post by Alan Hartung entitled “The Idolatry of Truth” which spoke of similar issues. As I recall, he also took a lot of heat.

The core point of the chapter is that there should not be a division between the ideas of God as revealed and God as hidden an unknowable. That God does in fact reveal God’s self to us through scripture, but that God is still hidden within that revelation.

What is important about revelation is not that we seek to interpret it in the same way but rather that we all love it and are transformed by it. To fail to recognize this would be similar to an art critic saying that what is important when considering a piece of art is that we interpret it correctly rather than loving it and being challenged by it.

Oh, and if you want a different (and probably more scholarly) take on this book, head over to the church and postmodern culture where they’re hosting discussions on this book (HT: TallSkinnyKiwi)

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How (Not) to Speak of God

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How (Not) to Speak of God How (Not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins, is a great book to read for those of us “old folks” who don’t quite “get” this whole “postmodern” thing, specifically as it relates to the emerging movement. Wendy has tried for a while to beat it into my head, but it never quite “sunk in.” This book helped with some of that.

The book is divided up into two sections. The first is something of a theorerical primer on some theological concepts that are key to understanding emergent, at least as far as Peter is concerned. His primary attitude seems to be what Wendy is always classifying as “both/and” rather than “either/or.” That is, points of view that we would tend to think of as mutually exlusive (conservative/liberal, orthodox/heretical, concealed/revealed, present/absent) he views as parts of a greater whole. Sometimes I think he had to take some pretty convoluted twists to achieve his goal, but, in general, I found a lot of good in what he had to say. Even in the more convoluted sections, I found it to be very readable.

The second section is more practical than theoretical. He is part of a group in Ireland called “Ikon,” and part two of the book is a description of ten different Ikon services. These are presented in an attempt to illustrate how the concepts of the first part have been implemented in one specific setting/context, and not as a “cookbook” on how others should do so. I personally found this section less valuable than the first, but I’m sure others would have the exact opposite reaction.

Now that I’ve made it through the entire book, my plan is to read back through part one again, a little slower. I also plan to post thoughts on each chapter as I go. I would welcome anyone else who has read the book (or even if you haven’t) to follow along we me, posting your comments, but my primary reason for doing this is to force myself to analyze and internalize what I’m reading, rather than act as a guide for people reading along. Of course, that may change if enough people start following along, posting comments. We’ll see.

Links to posts on the chapters (I’ll update as I write them. ;) )

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Started my lessons today!

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Today I had my first bass guitar lesson. I think the instructor didn’t know quite what to do with me at first, since it appears I don’t fit the usual pattern of somebody coming in for instruction. He seemed to expect that I had been playing around on my own with the instrument, and that he’d be focusing initially on theory. Instead, I know enough music theory to get by as a beginning player, but I’ve not actually used the instrument.

He seemed to recover quickly enough, however. I’m just starting out on some simple patterns at this point, mostly to get used to the proper fingering. He’s promised that we’ll be doing some work on training me to play “by ear,” which I’m excited about. That’s a skill that I’m sorely lacking in right now. I rely far too heavily on the written notes. So I think this will be really good for me.

One thing does concern me, though: he said that the bass player, even more than the drummer, is usually responsible for setting and holding tempo. That is something that I’ll really need to work on – my internal “clock” isn’t very good.

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