Yearly Archives: 2006

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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Cover your ears!

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Well, I’ve taken the plunge. I’ve signed up at Lee College for 12 weeks of lessons in playing the bass guitar. I even had a friend offer me the indefinite loan of his spare instrument until I’m ready to buy my own (thanks, Steve.) Now it’s just a matter of waiting until an instructor calls me to schedule the actual lessons.

So if you hear strange rumblings coming from our house, it’s probably not an attack by a herd of moose. It will just be me practicing, either on the bass or the bagpipes ;)

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Cursillo

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Peace signWell, I’m back from staffing another Cursillo weekend. As usual, I’m completely exhausted, but it was a wonderful time. You can get some sense of that from the picture at the link on the right. I leave it to you to figure out which one is me. ;)

On a somewhat related note: I felt somewhat inadequate as a music leader. I could contribute vocally, but very little instrumentaly. Oh, I played my tinwhistles on a few songs, but even that wasn’t very good. So I’m giving serious consideration to taking guitar and/or bass lessons. Does anybody have any recommendations for me? Lee College is certainly one possibility that I’ll be persuing (any recommendations, Anne?) But I’m also looking for people’s comments on other options for me to pursue.

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Another BlogWatcher?

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Well, this is sort of cool. I’ve been lead to an article about writing an RSS reading using Ajax and PHP, which is exactly what BlogWatcher is. I’ve only skimmed it so far, but it looks similar to what I’ve done, at least on a basic level. Maybe I’ll be able to get some pointers to improve my code.

James, you were asking me about things you might be able to do to be more “marketable.” Read through the tutorials and see how well you understand them. That might be a good first step to helping me out.

Oh, and watch this space for updates. Shae is working on some new layout for it, so hopefully you won’t have to suffer through my abysmal page layouts for much longer.

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NextReformation » becoming

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NextReformation » becoming

“…We need not look far to find that our religious communities , influenced as they are by the movement known as modernity, have tended to emphasise the idea of ‘being’ and ‘destination’: one becomes a Christian, joins a church and is saved. From this idea of destination flows our understanding of evangelism as a means of sharing our faith and encouraging others to embrace it for themselves. For those involved in the emerging conversation, this view distorts the deeper meaning of evangelism, for once we acknowledge that we are becoming Christian, becoming Church and being saved, then the other can be seen as a possible instrument of our further conversion. Even a brief reflection upon the darkness in our own lives bears testimony to the fact that we need to be evangelized as much, if not more, than those around us…” (How NOT To Speak for God, p6)

I hear a lot thrown around about “modern” vs “postmodern” I think I understand the basic idea of it, but my reaction has always been, to one degree or another, “so what?” But the above paragraph really spoke to me. I found it extremely liberating. “Modern” apologetics comes at faith as a debater might, from a position of strength, looking for weaknesses in the oppoent. The paragraph above speaks instead to a sense of mutuality. A recognition that I don’t have “the answers.” We can learn from each other.
I’ve already ordered a copy of the book the quote is from.

I’m reminded of the comparative religions class I took back in college, when we learned about Taoism. Specifically (remember, this is from a class I took over 20 year ago, so my terminology may be fuzzy) the “wheel of being.” If I remember correctly, the basic idea was that everything existed along a wheel that was rotating between the states of “being” and “becoming.” Actual and potential. And that everything existed somewhere along that continuum, in an endless cycle. And once the state of fully “being” was reached, progression began immediately away from that state, toward “becoming.”

Taoism may not be Christianity, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t possess wisdom of use to Christians.

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Respecting others

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Anyone who reads both my blog and Aaron at two or three . net will know that we’re pretty much at opposite ends of the political spectrum. I’m very much a liberal, and he’s a self-described conservative. But his post today entitled “What is compassion?” echos a lot of what I’ve been saying and thinking. Now, I’m not calling Aaron a liberal. I’m sure we disagree on a great many things.

Rather, his post asks that those who hold views different than his respect the fact that his positions are the result of an honest sense of compassion.

Many (most?) sites that I read with a political slant take a very adversarial stance when it comes to political opponents. But I think it’s important to realize that, regardless of political affiliation, the vast majority of people hold their positions because they truly believe in them, or, at worst, that they haven’t thought them through. Attacks against such people only result in digging in their heels, not “conversion.” I happen to think that many conservative priorities are misguided, and I’m sure most conservatives would return the favor. ;) In all probability, we’re both right. It’s in dialog, not in fighting, that we’ll solve problems.

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