tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-254740422011-10-04T19:10:43.503+01:00a research blog about the UK emerging churchKatharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.comBlogger2401100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-12716975267686496202011-04-22T17:05:00.001+01:002011-05-02T20:41:46.651+01:00

This afternoon, Journey's "Atheism for Lent" Course created a "Forsaken by God" service for Good Friday, to reflect on the content of the Course (see here) and to encourage others to think about doubt, disbelief, and God's own atheism on the Cross. I began with a Welcome and Introduction that explained a little about what we'd been doing over the past few weeks: On the Cross, God experienced

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-5402791162473047072011-04-21T17:19:00.004+01:002011-04-28T16:19:27.721+01:00

Here's some of the material that we're using for the "Forsaken by God" Good Friday service that the "Atheism for Lent" are putting together at Journey, Birmingham, UK, tomorrow, 3pm. Sydney Carter's "Friday Morning" will sound awesome when played by Dave, our very talented musician. It was on a Friday morning That they took me from the cell, And I saw they had a carpenter To crucify as well

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-25980123012872082892011-04-20T14:11:00.003+01:002011-04-28T16:19:17.079+01:00

To mark the end of the “Atheism for Lent” Course, the group is going to create a worship service for Good Friday to reflect on the content of the Course. "Forsaken by God." Remembering Jesus’ words on the Cross and God’s own atheism, this service will also help us to feel something of what God felt at the Crucifixion when God experienced the absence of God. How might a worship service enable us

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-11718369289165213922011-04-18T10:15:00.017+01:002011-05-02T14:24:08.098+01:00

Jack Caputo's keynote from last week's Postmodernism, Culture and Religion 4 conference, "The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion," is now available online here as an audio file. You can listen to the keynote address, entitled, "Is Continental Philosophy of Religion as We Know It Dead?", as well as B. Keith Putt's introduction.

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-12125208481666796182011-04-17T21:50:00.044+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.610+01:00

Tonight at the "Atheism for Lent" discussion group, we talked about the atheist critiques of religion that we have been looking at in the context of the Lenten narrative wherein God confesses God's own atheism and in the context of the Journey's own story. The discussion focused less on Rollins' notion of a/theism (see the below posts for the material I produced) and more on the wider

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-20787791092324134742011-04-15T08:13:00.052+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.613+01:00

While the (more traditional) strands of negative theology in Pete Rollins’ first publication, How (Not) to Speak of God, form a type of ‘believing in God while remaining dubious about what one believes about God’ (p.26), more radical implications can be drawn, since there can be not just doubt about ‘who or what God is’ but, further, ‘doubt about if God is’ (interview with Pete for my PhD thesis)

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-11441303535220728682011-04-14T11:02:00.031+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.618+01:00

There are both more radical and more traditional elements within Pete Rollins’ work. The latter can be placed squarely within the tradition of negative theology, according to which ‘we ought to affirm our view of God while at the same time realizing that that view is inadequate.’ The result is both a theism and an atheism, an “a/theism” that is ‘not some agnostic middle point hovering

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-65310989257484981252011-04-13T09:26:00.000+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.622+01:00

Examining their theories of religion in the "Atheism for Lent" Course at Journey, we have seen that for Freud religion is primarily ‘ontological weakness seeking consolation;’ for Marx it is primarily ‘sociological power seeking legitimation;’ and for Nietzsche it is primarily ‘sociological weakness seeking revenge’ (Merold Westphal, Suspicion and Faith, p.229). But perhaps it is also possible

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-66510641132409502232011-04-12T12:40:00.003+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.625+01:00

For the final week of the "Atheism for Lent" Course I've been running at Journey, we're looking at the atheist critiques of religion (from Freud, Marx and Neitzsche) in the context of the Lent narrative in which God confesses God's own atheism. I used some of Pete Rollins' stuff to create some reading material for the group. Pete uses a lot of Slavoj Zizek's work, who in turn likes to quote

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-48976847105943562372011-04-10T19:14:00.014+01:002011-04-28T16:19:45.940+01:00

I wasn't able to get back to the UK in time for "Atheism for Lent" at Journey tonight, where the group is watching and discussing Ricky Gervais' "The Invention of Lying." Here's the material I prepared on Gervais: Religion as Lie: Gervais (1) Religion as Lie: Gervais (2) Religion as Lie: Gervais (3) Religion as Lie: Gervais (4)

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-72793268892462427802011-04-07T09:35:00.041+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.632+01:00

The supposition at the heart of Ricky Gervais' (2009) The Invention of Lying is that religion is so closely linked to story-telling and historical embellishment that it is understood as lying. Here, the distinctions made by Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche in their critiques of religion (see here, here and here for "Atheism for Lent" Course material) between appearance and reality, or manifest and

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-75520276385123617902011-04-06T12:11:00.001+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.636+01:00

Ricky Gervais’ (2009) film The Invention of Lying is set in a world where human beings have not evolved the fictional gene that allows them to lie. Not only can’t they lie – which precludes the possibility of story-telling, mythology and, therefore, religion – but it seems that they have to actively tell the truth, which means that characters air their thoughts without regard for how these

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-77108827845940422011-04-05T11:16:00.022+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.639+01:00

The preparatory material for the Ricky Gervais session in our "Atheism for Lent" Course at Journey included this article, written by Gervais last December, from the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy - "Why I'm an Atheist." There's also a Q and A with Gervais as a follow-up here, including questions like, "do you plan on celebrating Christmas?" "have you had any moments of doubt about your atheism

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-5120318823235552272011-04-04T08:52:00.057+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.643+01:00

Next Sunday at "Atheism for Lent," we'll be watching and then discussing Ricky Gervais' (2009) film, The Invention of Lying (entry at Internet Movie Database here). Over the next few days, I'll post some of the introductory material on Ricky Gervais that I pulled together as preparatory reading for the group. It’s better to know the truth… My Mum only lied to me about one thing. She said

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-30758458716936793232011-04-03T22:20:00.001+01:002011-04-28T16:19:45.944+01:00

Tonight at "Atheism for Lent," we split into two groups (there were about 14 of us total) to watch Derren Brown's "Messiah." We spent a bit of time marvelling at how good he is at reading and predicting human behaviour, and wondering how the programme is edited to best showcase his talents. Bracketing his atheistic scepticism about whether or not God exists and whether or not psychics are

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-26753883325873618162011-04-02T09:17:00.081+01:002011-04-02T09:17:01.066+01:00

After what seems like a really, really long wait (I downloaded drafts of the chapters from the web in February 2009), I finally got my copy of Church in the Present Tense: A Candid Look at What's Emerging through the post this week. Edited by Kevin Corcoran (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Calvin College), it includes chapters from Corcoran himself, Jason Clark, Pete Rollins, and Scot McKnight

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-8612103647098166832011-04-01T10:12:00.001+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.650+01:00

On Sunday night at "Atheism for Lent," we'll be watching and then discussing "Messiah," a documentary made by Derren Brown in 2005. Its Channel4 blurb reads, Derren Brown takes his debunking mission to America. In a country where his mind control skills are unknown, he sets out once again to demonstrate just how easy it is to dupe people in believing five impossible things (almost) before

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-91640704745621644542011-03-31T09:33:00.023+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.653+01:00

Here are a couple of the interviews with Derren Brown that I used to write the material on Religion as Trickery for our "Atheism for Lent" Course at Journey: "Magic and Being Human" (Derren Brown interview with Nigel Warburton) "Appearance and Reality" (Derren Brown interview with Nigel Warburton) I'll post Derren Brown's Channel4 documentary, "Messiah," that we're going to watch and then

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-27532746384058048482011-03-30T11:01:00.047+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.656+01:00

Knowledge about what Derren Brown calls the ‘false logic’ involved in religious, spiritual, magical, psychical and other paranormal practices can help in this process of questioning. Thus Brown’s work often hinges on exhibitions and explanations of the human ability to anticipate and manipulate the actions of others, demonstrating powers that condition and convince, transform and convert, as

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-89928693320956607212011-03-29T09:12:00.050+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.660+01:00

Derren Brown is a performer who ‘combines magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship in order to seemingly predict and control human behaviour’ (website). Behind his performances lie both an atheistic scepticism and a form of suspicion which ask questions about ‘why we believe things’ (Brown, "Messiah"). His study of religion, psychology, magic, hypnosis, psychic ability,

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-50122008993229490372011-03-28T10:53:00.000+01:002011-04-28T16:17:38.664+01:00

Derren Brown, interview with Richard Dawkins for Dawkins' Channel4 programme, "The Enemies of Reason." Richard Dawkins: Where does your scepticism come from? Derren Brown: Well, in terms of my history, I used to be a very devout Christian when I was younger, but didn’t have a Christian family, didn’t have Christian friends… but it came from a Bible reading class when I was young; it was an

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-37476803853181678942011-03-27T20:13:00.010+01:002011-04-28T16:19:45.948+01:00

At "Atheism for Lent" tonight, we had the most heated discussion so far on the Course. Nietzsche's critique of religion, which is strongly connected to his genealogy of morality, furnished us with the material for such a great debate that it was hard to get the group to think not only about his atheistic scepticism (see this post for the difference between scepticism and suspicion) and "

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-90464817143455656972011-03-25T11:23:00.003Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.672+01:00

By further examining some specific moral virtues, it becomes clearer why Nietzsche’s hermeneutics of suspicion interpret Christian morality as slave morality and therefore why he disdains it as a ‘great curse’ and an ‘immortal blemish’ of humanity (The Gay Science, Book 5, S343).For Nietzsche, justice and love (including, compassion, charity or pity) are ‘parallel expressions of the revenge of

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-37292369945667041102011-03-24T09:06:00.005Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.675+01:00

It is not hard to see, therefore, that Nietzsche’s critique of biblical religion (both Judaism and Christianity) is that it operates within slave morality. When he writes that the Jews ‘mark the beginning of the slave rebellion in morals’ (Beyond Good and Evil, S195) and that ‘[o]ne knows who inherited this Jewish revaluation’ of morality (On the Genealogy of Morals, Essay 1 S7), Nietzsche is

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-3939281248533237902011-03-23T11:19:00.004Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.679+01:00

Returning to his genealogy of moral pluralism, Nietzsche identifies ‘two basic types’ of morality – “master morality” and “slave morality” – within ‘the many subtler and coarser moralities’ (Beyond Good and Evil, S260). The difference between these two moralities illustrates how Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity centres on the charge that it is a religion born ‘out of the spirit of

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-84595867361603565082011-03-22T09:57:00.003Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.683+01:00

That there is no one morality, no one perspective from which to judge or to guarantee what is right and wrong, is part of what Nietzsche is referring to when he writes that ‘God is dead.’Briefly examining his “death of God” thesis will enable us to begin to recognise the relationship between his genealogy of morals and his critique of religion. The parable that most clearly expresses this thesis

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-24676378264900812092011-03-21T10:08:00.004Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.686+01:00

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, from Lee Spinks, Friedrich Neitzsche, p.118: The greatest recent event – that “God is dead,” that the belief in the Christian god has become unbelievable –is already beginning to cast its first shadows over Europe. For the few at least, whose eyes – the suspicion in whose eyes is strong and subtle enough for this spectacle – some sun seems to have set and

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-81948949238318113842011-03-20T20:48:00.006Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.690+01:00

Tonight there were sixteen of us exploring "Atheism for Lent" at Journey and we looked at Marx's critique of religion.I started the discussion off by giving a brief overview of the reading material that I put together (see below for links to the relevant posts): how Marx's historical materialism differs from Freud's essentialisation of psychological conflict and common unhappiness (last week)

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-77600552126157105022011-03-19T10:07:00.005Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.694+01:00

Because Marx gives to religion ‘an enormous responsibility for the political and economic shape of human life’ (Merold Westphal, Suspicion and Faith, p.165), it is possible, however, to also read in his critique of religion the prospect of religion as a form of social protest. But having introduced early on in his career the possibility of religion as ‘at the same time an expression of real

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-31410842772854884272011-03-18T11:20:00.001Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.697+01:00

Marx has a materialist conception of history, which came to be referred to as his “historical materialism.” Just as suspicion is directed at the historical question of the extent to which beliefs self-deceptively hide our own operative motives and not the metaphysical question of the “truth” of those beliefs, so Marx’s materialism is not an answer to the metaphysical question of ‘whether mind or

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-11671235169219503742011-03-17T09:01:00.004Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.700+01:00

Religion attempts to overcome evil and sin with ‘high-sounding stories’ of love, justice and forgiveness (Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rainbow, Michel Foucault, p.108), just as the state’s narrative of common good will attempts to overcome individual self-interest. And since religion is the archetype of politics’ (Westphal, Suspicion and Faith, p.151), the critique of religion is the presupposition

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-20220922839354793562011-03-16T14:03:00.004Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.704+01:00

In the opening paragraphs of one of his earliest philosophical essays, Marx writes that ‘[a]s far as Germany is concerned, the criticism of religion is essentially complete, and the criticism of religion is the presupposition of all criticism’ ("Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right"). Westphal explains that, here, Marx asserts that the critique of religion offered by philosophers

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-78313098406470778922011-03-15T21:38:00.005Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.707+01:00

Marx can be said to radicalise Ludwig Feuerbach’s critique of religion.Feuerbach’s theory of religion involves the central assertion that religion is a projection – not, as Freud suggests, of humanity’s shameful desires and needs, but of humanity’s own best attributes, ‘that which is worthy of adoration’ (Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, p.12).What man praises and approves, that is God to

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-242338555505701482011-03-14T09:31:00.005Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.710+01:00

Abridged from Karl Marx, "Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction," cited in Merold Westphal, Suspicion and Faith, pp.134-140:Man has found in the imaginary reality of heaven where he looked for a superman only the reflection of his own self. He will therefore no longer be inclined to find only the appearance of himself, the non-man, where he seeks and must seek his true

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-36864599118282974232011-03-13T20:14:00.004Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.714+01:00

Just got back from first session of "Atheism for Lent" in which we looked at Freud's critique of religion. I was bold over by the attendance (Journey's pastor, Chris, found it somewhat telling that there were 9 that morning for the morning worship service at church and 18 in the evening for atheism!)I started off by asking (prompted by Chris!) why each person was interested in the course, which

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-38098397121741421262011-03-12T16:49:00.003Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.717+01:00

Freud writes that, ‘filial rebelliousness also emerges, in the later products of religion, often in the strangest of disguises and transformations’ (Freud, The Complete Psychological Works, vol.13, p.145).Do we, in our own contemporary contexts, as well as in these tribal societies, attempt to “bargain” with a god we have created in our own image, “purchasing” ‘the right to guilt-free rebellion’

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-87785238085062557552011-03-12T07:02:00.003Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.721+01:00

Freud further highlights the connection between neurotic ceremonials and religious practices in his study of the totemic cultures of tribal societies, Totem and Taboo. He suggests that cultural taboos against touching or harming the totem (the tribe’s sacred animal) are so strong since they correspond to a repressed desire to do precisely what is prohibited. This ambiguity results because, for

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-79283659808765516922011-03-11T18:26:00.003Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.724+01:00

For Freud, religious practices are akin to neurotic symptoms. He writes, I am certainly not the first person to have been struck by the resemblance between what are called obsessive actions in suffers from nervous affections and the observances by means of which believers give expression to their piety. The term “ceremonial,” which has been applied to some of these obsessive actions, is evidence

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-47952704177292332632011-03-10T13:20:00.005Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.727+01:00

As wish-fulfilments, religious beliefs are ‘illusions,’ a technical term which has a specific meaning for Freud: ‘we call a belief an illusion when a wish-fulfilment is a prominent factor in its motivation, and in doing so we disregard its relations to reality’ (Freud, The Complete Psychological Works, vol.21, p.31). Therefore, the ‘psychological nature’ of religious beliefs as illusory (vol.21,

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-78266491071822970822011-03-09T16:17:00.003Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.731+01:00

Part of Freud’s hostility towards religion stems from its tendency to impose ‘on everyone its own path to the acquisition of happiness and protection from suffering’ (Freud, The Complete Psychological Works, vol.21, p.84), but his critique of religion consists of both scepticism and suspicion. As ‘foreign to reality,’ religion is an error, whilst as ‘so patently infantile,’ religion is an

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-84798074214513814422011-03-07T08:05:00.005Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.734+01:00

Philip Rieff, Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, p.292:The permanence of conflict is Freud’s leading theme, and part of his hostility to religion stems from an awareness that religion somewhere assumes a fixed point… at which conflict is resolved. In contrast, Freud maintains an intractable dualism; self and world remain antagonists, and every form of reconciliation must fail. Sigmund Freud, The

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-9246567786302039732011-03-06T09:53:00.009Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.738+01:00

In the run-up to the start of Journey's "Atheism for Lent" Course in Birmingham next Sunday (March 13th), I'm going to post sections of the Course Booklet that I wrote as preparatory material. This means that you don't have to be in Birmingham to read what we're looking at each week.NOTE: This Course relies heavily upon Merold Westphal’s Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism (

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-23440799357326417022011-03-01T10:59:00.004Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.742+01:00

I've been busy writing the Course Booklet for our "Atheism for Lent" Course starting at Journey on March 13th at 5pm and hopefully it'll be ready to go out to people by Sunday so there's a week to read the first week's material: an introduction and something I wrote about Freud's critique of religion.Anyway, I've created a Facebook Event Page for the course: "Atheism for Lent Course - Giving up

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-57356763412717515992011-02-20T13:16:00.004Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.746+01:00

I've created a poster to advertise our "Atheism for Lent" Course at Journey, Birmingham, starting on March 13th. Googledocs has stripped it of all its amazing poster-ness but the essential information is still there: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1mJeX_08-hRsyLAjKCcxVEzVk6EzOCum8luqz6WlSDQw

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-25852974959248708632011-02-19T12:00:00.001Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.750+01:00

So I've come up with a provisional programme for Journey's "Atheism for Lent" Course, which will start running on March 13th.For the first three weeks, I'm going to write a few thousand words (probably between 3,000 and 5,000) on the work of three great atheist critics of religion: Freud (March 13th), Marx (March 20th) and Nietzsche (March 27th).For the fourth and fifth weeks, we'll host a film

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-83242886522321695462011-02-13T18:52:00.003Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.754+01:00

So having taken part in Pete's Dis-course seminars, I suggested running an "Atheism for Lent" Course at Journey, my church in Birmingham, to the pastor who was very keen. We've decided on a slightly altered format to 40 readings in 40 days, since that's a lot to ask the congregation. We're going to run 6 discussions based around 6 weekly readings (perhaps one or two film showings), which will be

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-67049600710340995392011-02-05T10:26:00.002Z2011-03-23T13:51:23.727Z

There are so far no videos for the Omega Course session of Pete's Dis-course webinars, but I'll post them as soon as they're available.

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-24939722754781013112011-01-20T19:16:00.009Z2011-04-28T16:17:38.758+01:00

Last night I stayed up again for the third in Pete's webinar series, "Atheism for Lent." This is the Dis-course that I'm most interested in and I'm hoping to create an Atheism for Lent Course for Journey, my church here in Birmingham. Pete's already put up the videos for this session, so enjoy.5. Discourses Theory 3 from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.6. Atheism for Lent from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.I'll

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-44937779921505522322011-01-19T15:18:00.004Z2011-03-23T13:48:32.176Z

Here's Pete's videos for the second Dis-course Seminar, The Evangelism Project, which was a few weeks back (Jan 05 2011 for the US, Jan 06 2011 for me!).3. Dis-courses Theory 2 from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.4. The Evangelism Project from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-90529736764165028512011-01-18T12:12:00.001Z2011-03-23T13:48:02.542Z

Pete now has a Vimeo video channel, with albums for his Dis-Course seminars, the Insurrection tour, and "work of the people" interviews from 2008 and 2010. Enjoy.

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-40055935635484833812011-01-06T15:38:00.005Z2011-03-23T13:47:41.810Z

Although I was too drunk at my graduation ceremony last month to attend the first in Pete Rollins' series of live web seminars, "Dis-courses," last night I slept in the living room (to avoid waking my partner) and set my alarm for 1am GMT to watch the second one, which kicked off at 8pm EST. Thankfully, I could catch up, as Pete put up a slideshow and audio from "Dis-course 1: The Last Supper -

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-32804648062352389052010-12-18T20:29:00.000Z2011-03-23T11:45:07.914Z

The International Journal of Zizek Studies has a special issue, guest edited by Marcus Pound, on Zizek's Theology. Vol. 4, no.4 (2010) contains the following articles (download them by clicking on titles):Marcus Pound, "Zizek, Milbank and the Broken Middle"Mads Peter Karlsen, "From a Perverse to a Suffering God - On Slavoj Zizek's Materialist Reading of G.K. Chesterton"Jayne Svenungsson, "

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-54948411599485834192010-11-11T10:22:00.005Z2011-03-23T11:28:55.347Z

Villanova's Expositions vol.4 2010 (no2.1-2) contains an academic roundtable on the philosophical and theological issues being debated by John Milbank and Slavoj Zizek in their The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? You can view the table of contents here or download the articles below by clicking on the relevant PDF:Academic RoundtableIntroduction to the Academic RoundtablePDFGregory

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-80968160064385719552010-11-04T13:20:00.002Z2011-03-23T11:18:07.218Z

I couldn't make it to this event since it was too close to my trip back from Missouri, so I was really glad to learn that there is a recording available to download from here: "Stanley Hauerwas, John Milbank and Luke Bretherton in Conversation," marking the launch of Hauerwas' autobiography Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir (recorded Oct 18 2010, Faith and Public Policy Forum, King's College,

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-77463676385126801232010-10-31T12:02:00.006Z2011-03-23T11:11:28.722Z

I've just finished the book review of The Gift of Difference: Radical Orthodoxy, Radical Reformation edited by Chris Huebner and Tripp York (foreword by John Milbank) that I was invited to do for the journal Political Theology. I'm really glad that Luke Bretherton asked me to review this book as my post-doctoral work is moving more and more in the direction of political theology and it'll be

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-29190307089648237512010-10-12T09:46:00.004+01:002011-03-23T15:51:15.841Z

It's a hell of a town, the schoolyard's up and the shopping mall's down!I'm off to Springfield (Missouri) tomorrow where I'll be presenting at Drury University's "Subverting the Norm: The Emerging Church, Postmodernism and the Future of Christianity." Their website has an impressive-sounding blurb for me, so hopefully delegates won't be disappointed. I'll be speaking on, "An Emerging A/Theistic

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-8093529349391768252010-10-01T11:10:00.010+01:002010-10-01T12:31:18.651+01:00

Continuing with my round-up of the ISRLC conference "Attending to the Other: Critical Theory and Spiritual Practice," which I started here, I'm up to Saturday afternoon's Modern Theology panel, at which I presented my paper, "How to 'Eat' Well in Church: Saying 'Yes' to the Other and Becoming Nothing in Derrida, Paul and Emerging Christian Discourse." As I said here, I was hoping that all the

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-22079312662632631742010-09-29T13:16:00.008+01:002010-09-29T15:23:41.707+01:00

I got back yesterday from the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture conference, "Attending to the Other: Critical Theory and Spiritual Practice," hosted by the Faculty of Theology at St. Catherine's College, Oxford. Here's a (very long) round-up of the event:After drinks in a splendid room in the Bodleian Library, the first night consisted of a dinner and a keynote address by

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-8480275116722422182010-09-22T09:55:00.007+01:002010-09-22T10:12:06.211+01:00

The 2010 International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture conference, "Attending to the Other: Critical Theory and Spiritual Practice," starts at St. Catherine's College, Oxford, tomorrow, hosted by the Faculty of Theology, so I'm off to stay some (relatively) local family tonight. I'm particularly looking forward to Graham Ward's keynote, "Critical Theory and Spirituality: Restless

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-82643337624493715812010-09-21T09:22:00.008+01:002010-09-21T09:40:47.258+01:00

Yesterday, Pete Rollins posted two photographs, inspired by the subtitle to his blog, "to believe is human; to doubt divine," by photographer Art Summers. The first, "to believe is human," shows a little girl (Art's daughter) approaching the altar of a church, intimating that belief is a structure of human experience. The second, "to doubt is divine," shows the little girl leaving the church. I

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-5557104585798255962010-09-20T10:56:00.004+01:002010-09-20T11:00:57.902+01:00

My review of Bruce Sanguin's The Emerging Church: A Model for Change and a Map for Renewal, entitled "Making an Emergent Future Present," is now available from The Expository Times (vol.122, no.1, p.48, [Oct 2010]) here.

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-68884804263150098172010-09-18T10:51:00.006+01:002010-09-18T11:07:02.671+01:00

I'm really excited about being added to the programme of speakers for Subverting the Norm: The Emerging Church, Postmodernism and the Future of Christianity, Oct 15 - 16 2010, Drury University, Springfield, Missouri, USA. My presentation, "An Emerging A/Theistic Fighting Collective? A Caputian Introduction to Žižek’s Pneumatology," is currently scheduled straight after Pete Rollins' introduction

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-2333583613164623272010-09-17T11:05:00.008+01:002010-09-17T16:12:22.305+01:00

So I've had an interesting and exciting few days. I managed to get down to London for Apple 7, "Is the Institutional Church an Out-Moded Organisational Technology?" (which was recorded and is available for free download here). I had to buy (and, obviously, consume) a bottle of wine because of a £10 lower limit on cards and that, along with the mango vodka shots, lemon and mint warm vodka "tea"

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-33919644243698974372010-09-10T10:37:00.004+01:002010-09-17T15:46:57.130+01:00

Over the last few days, the Big Tent team (Philip Clayton, Justin Heinzekehr, and Tripp Fuller) has been hosting the first Big Tent Christianity event, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Here's the blurb:"Who’s coming to the conference?"We have invited three dozen leaders on the cutting edge of “Big Tent” style ministry and theology to talk with you about issues close to their hearts: justice, theology,

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-85273895929313655762010-09-09T18:35:00.005+01:002010-09-17T15:31:38.877+01:00

I blogged a few months back about the 4th conference in the Postmodernism, Culture and Religion series at Syracuse, "The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion." Over the last few days, churchandpomo have posted the contributions to a symposium on continental philosophy of religion that were first published in Faith and Philosophy vol.6, no.9 (Oct 2009).First, James K.A. Smith (Calvin

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-37703310964095310902010-09-07T12:41:00.004+01:002010-09-17T15:04:59.509+01:00

Apple's next meeting is timely. Following on from the recent online debates regarding the institutional church and Kester Brewin's use of Hakim Bey's notion of "Temporary Automous Zones" (TAZ) in his book Other (I posted a list of links to these discussions in an earlier post, here), Apple 7 will ask, "Is the institutional Church an out-moded organisational technology?" The evening will revolve

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-7194098816337651182010-09-05T16:41:00.006+01:002010-09-17T15:17:39.300+01:00

I'm going to try and apply for a three week seminar series next summer with James K.A. Smith at Calvin College. It's called "From Worldview to Worship: The Liturgical Turn in Cultural Theory" and stems from Smith's interest in "arguing for the importance of practices, and particularly liturgical practices, as the "site" or "topic" of philosophy of religion," with which I completely agree. Not

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-66826274205690973032010-07-13T18:31:00.003+01:002010-07-13T18:57:24.569+01:00

Having posted yesterday about Theo Hobson's recent Guardian articles on Pete Rollins and Kester Brewin, and begun an interesting conversation on the question of institutionalism, I found (via Jonny Baker) another in The Spectator which reviews a Grace event from a view months back: "In Search of Disorganised Religion." And here's another one on alternative worship from Ship of Fools,"Anyone for

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-5369956061156677592010-07-12T13:36:00.003+01:002010-09-17T14:49:10.509+01:00

My Expository Times article, "'I Hate Your Church; What I Want is My Kingdom': Emerging Spiritualities in the UK Emerging Church Milieu" gets a mention over at The Immanent Frame, a communal interdisciplinary blog that posts about secularism, religion and the public sphere.

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-25420034589074209202010-07-12T12:34:00.007+01:002010-07-13T18:57:54.439+01:00

Two recent articles have appeared in The Guardian reflecting on the "new recipe/model" for Christianity "frustrated" with institutional and establishment Christianity. Theo Hobson's first piece, "A New Recipe for Christiainty," is on Pete Rollins and his second, "A New Model Christianity," is on Kester Brewin's use of Hakim Bey's notion of "temporary autonomous zones" in his book, Other: Loving

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-41577201680946781232010-06-30T11:44:00.004+01:002010-09-17T14:32:59.174+01:00

I need to buy this: Paul, Philosophy, and the Theopolitical Vision: Critical Engagements with Agamben, Badiou, Zizek and Others, edited by Dougals Harink (in Wipf and Stock's Theopolitical Visions series). Here's the back cover blurb:"The apostle Paul was a man of many journeys. We are usually familiar with the geographical ones he made in his own time. This volume traces others—Paul's journeys

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-14698671465235353772010-06-27T14:56:00.001+01:002010-09-17T14:41:22.564+01:00

Today's Observer online has an interview with Slavoj Zizek, here. It also features a Zizek portion of Astra Taylor's film, Examined Life: Excursion with Contemporary Thinkers.

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-846650209285921812010-06-27T09:41:00.009+01:002010-06-27T10:54:09.578+01:00

Over at the churchandpomo blog, there is a micro review by James K.A. Smith of Luke Bretherton's Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness. I'm hoping to take my own research in the direction of political theology, drawing out the socio-political implications of my thesis on "truth" in emerging Christianity and post-secular theologies (Radical

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-63147606246058990232010-06-25T10:29:00.015+01:002010-09-17T14:47:55.992+01:00

Currently engaged in transforming my doctoral thesis into a book, I have now finished drafts of Chapters One and Two, which basically set the scene for the book's central argument by introducing Radical Orthodoxy (particularly James K.A. Smith's "postmodern catholicism"), deconstructive theology (especially Jack Caputo's "weak theology"), and the emerging church (as a milieu organised around

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-53119984667516447442010-06-18T12:04:00.008+01:002010-06-25T10:15:19.448+01:00

Today's "what I'm reading" comes from Blake Higgins' blog, "(Ir)religiosity." In a post on the now "classic" critique of postmodernism as the logic of late capitalism (see especially the work of Frederic Jameson and David Harvey), Blake quotes from Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire, pp.137-138 and 142-143.In my doctoral thesis, I explored how emerging church discourse often positions the

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-1727366618374649992010-06-17T19:46:00.010+01:002010-06-18T12:59:26.498+01:00

I'm going to try administering the Official John D Caputo Facebook page (here) and to try to make it a place where fans (we haven't come up with a good name yet - Caputians? Caputo-ettes?) can discuss his work and swap resources. It'll also be a great opportunity for me to network with a wide variety of people who find Jack's work personally and/or professionally inspiring, as I know that my own

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-59700223882470695012010-06-17T19:46:00.008+01:002010-06-18T12:45:29.914+01:00

In April next year, Syracuse University will be hosting the fourth Postmodernism, Culture and Religion conference, convened by Jack Caputo. The conference will explore the theme of "The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion," a topic which I'm sure will, by examining the possibilities of new intellectual directions in continental philosophy of religion, impact both directly and indirectly

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-27219147942924869612010-06-17T16:10:00.005+01:002010-06-24T21:05:20.756+01:00

One of the key figures in my doctoral thesis is James K.A. Smith, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. As well as blog Fors Clavigera (see here for an explanation of its title), he writes a What I'm Reading blog, which is actually the older of the two. Jamie describes What I'm Reading as "something between an annotated bibliography and a collection of book

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-13193503071036460962010-06-16T10:39:00.003+01:002010-06-16T10:45:16.441+01:00

I just heard from the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture that they are going to give me a bursary to help towards the cost (£385) of going to their "Attending to the Other: Critical Theory and Spiritual Practice" conference at St Catherine's College, Oxford, in September. All I can say is, "thank you" and "phew!"

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-38089139136155662772010-06-13T11:28:00.009+01:002010-06-13T12:44:40.755+01:00

My Expository Times article on the emerging church ("'I Hate Your Church; What I Want is My Kingdom': Emerging Spiritualities in the UK Emerging Church Milieu") is now available online. You can access the abstract for free here, but you'll have to subscribe to The Expository Times, purchase short-term access, or log-in using an Athens account or university homepage.I'm not allowed to distribute

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-68149243376155227232010-06-11T14:06:00.005+01:002010-06-13T12:41:25.486+01:00

The provisional conference programme for "Attending to the Other: Critical Theory and Spiritual Practice" is now available from here. My paper, "How to Eat Well in Church: Saying 'Yes' to the Other and Becoming Nothing in Derrida, Paul and Emerging Christian Discourse," is on one of the Theology Panels and will be (provisionally) at 3.30pm on Saturday 25th September 2010.The conference, which

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-32026490597829856322010-05-06T12:07:00.007+01:002010-05-21T10:28:22.792+01:00

After completing my article for The Expository Times, "'I Hate Your Church; What I Want is My Kingdom': Emerging Spiritualities in the UK Emerging Church Milieu," I was asked to write a book review of Bruce Sanguin's (2008) The Emerging Church: A Model for Change and a Map for Renewal. My review, entitled "Making an Emergent Future Present," will appear in about six months. This is not really a

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-69865343221556088932010-04-26T12:06:00.004+01:002010-05-21T10:10:33.629+01:00

My abstract for the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture's "Attending to the Other: Critical Theory and Spiritual Practice" was accepted by the theology panel. The paper is called "How to Eat Well in Church: Saying 'Yes' to the Other and Becoming Nothing in Derrida, Paul, and Emerging Christian Discourse," and will detail the ways in which emerging church literature

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-13416958751372637202010-03-29T13:31:00.008+01:002010-03-29T14:31:51.867+01:00

As I begin to emerge from a just-passed-my-viva-(phew!) lull (I always tend to get a bit depressed after the excitement of finishing a piece of work, presenting a piece of work, or handing something in), I am doing my corrections (done!), writing my paper for the Edinburgh BSA SocRel conference on the Changing Face of Christianity (not done yet!), and submitting abstracts for a couple of

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-33576674960619581252010-03-24T10:09:00.004Z2010-03-24T10:46:25.387Z

On Monday, I had my viva voce (oral defense of my thesis). Because I felt that I was most likely to get either a pass with minor corrections (usually typos), for which they give you 3 months or a pass with more major amendments (6-12 months), I went in having written sections on the things that I thought they might ask me to add (a list of typos, some more contextual information for my

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-42909922940106895802010-02-27T10:21:00.005Z2010-02-27T10:28:32.583Z

I submitted my thesis yesterday. That fact is still sinking in. It feels like something that happened to me, rather than something I did. So after I've had a bit of time to reflect, I'll post more about it. My viva is already "arranged" (we're waiting for the paperwork to catch up with what we've sorted out) for March 22nd and my examiners will be Gerard Loughlin and Chris Partridge. I'm sure

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-89509480342493263792010-01-27T18:34:00.005Z2010-03-24T10:57:48.041Z

Way back during the last few months of 2009, I was asked to write a piece for The Expository Times on religion and the Internet for a volume they are producing on the future of Christianity. I was pleased about being asked but felt a little bit that it would be revisiting tangential interests rather than moving me forward, so when the person they had lined up to write a piece on the emerging

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-23009806655220385332010-01-24T21:29:00.003Z2010-03-29T14:25:09.176+01:00

On June 14-15th 2010, the University of Glasgow's Centre for the Study of Literature, Theology and the Arts will be hosting a symposium on "Re-Writing the Bible: Devotion, Diatribe and Dialogue." Keynote panellists include Michael Schmidt, Michael Symmons-Roberts, Kei Miller, Sara Maitland and Michele Wandor. Here's some blurb:“…there is no reading of a work which is not also a ‘re-writing’.”-

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-31737234564626519162010-01-21T11:34:00.008Z2010-01-21T14:07:27.057Z

I spied this conference a while ago but it took ages for more details to be forthcoming. In April (12-14th) the Society for the Study of Theology's annual conference will be hosted at Manchester University on the theme of "Theology and the Arts." The conference calls for short papers on the conference theme and seminar sessions on other topics (both 20 mins, 20 mins Q&A). The only details I can

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-53185381971008360592010-01-21T11:34:00.004Z2010-01-21T13:53:23.802Z

Just a quick post to say that some of the proceedings from the "Interface: Being a Young Theologian in the World" conference (see my blog posts here, here, here, here, and here) are going to be published. We've been asked to submit our papers for consideration, so fingers crossed for another book chapter. It was a great conference and from my perspective many of the papers linked really neatly,

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-21940778055209603742010-01-21T11:31:00.003Z2010-01-21T13:34:53.136Z

As with most things in most places of work, we had rather a lot more rumours than hard facts about the departmental merger being "suggested" by university management. I find Lancaster to be a very interdisciplinary university anyway, but I think there was a little friction that this merger wasn't allowed to evolve organically but was a rather top-down affair. Some people see this as a good move,

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-22709658227485607232010-01-20T14:50:00.003Z2010-01-21T12:50:16.342Z

In September, the Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society at Birkbeck College (where I did a workshop on studying religion and the internet last year, see here and here), and the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society programme (where I failed to get a job, see here) are running a residential training event for UK PhD students involved in the empirical study of contemporary religion. The residential

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-43680859007633184972010-01-15T11:20:00.005Z2010-01-21T12:27:23.405Z

I'm toying with the idea of including an explicit supplement in my thesis which would be a sort of other to the thesis. For Derrida, argumentation always involves implicit supplementation: in order to argue X, that which is other-than-X is required in an 'infinite chain' that is yet concealed in order to give the 'mirage' that the argument is self-sufficient (OG 157). The supplement both adds to

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-77370435200010159992010-01-07T18:52:00.003Z2010-01-15T18:11:58.358Z

From March 16-18 2010, the Irish School of Ecumenics, Belfast, will host "Re-emergence: Christianity and the Event of God." This is something that Pete Rollins has been involved in organising and will (very sadly) be the only UK date for his Insurrection tour.The keynotes include Phyllis Tickle (The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why), which I blogged about here, and Dave

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-26758518216613641582010-01-06T14:26:00.005Z2010-01-15T12:17:03.674Z

The Faculty of Theology at Oxford University are hosting the 2010 biennial International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture from 23rd - 26th September, at St. Catherine's College (where I went in 2007), on the topic of "Attending to the Other: Critical Theory and Spiritual Practice."The full registration fee is a hefty £385 (+ compulsory ISRLC membership, £10)! But the keynote speakers

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-61932642833332655742010-01-02T17:11:00.005Z2010-01-15T11:19:40.937Z

So as you can probably tell from the paucity of blog posts in December, I spent the month trying to get as much as possible of my thesis written before the Christmas holidays. During that time, I managed to make a significant dent in chapters four (3 out of 4 sections completed), six (2 out of 4) and seven (2 out of 3). Chapters one and two are in a similar sort of state (half to three-quarters

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-62485359046493721402009-12-08T18:33:00.004Z2010-01-15T11:06:38.088Z

Jack Caputo gave me a heads up about an edited collection about his work, Cross and Khora: Deconstruction and Christianity in the Work of John D. Caputo. It's out in January 2010, edited by Marko Zlomislic and Neal DeRoo (Neal edited a collection on phenomenology and eschatology, of which I've read a few chapters but haven't yet had time to fully review, as well as one on James K.A. Smith, which

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-56025009749611160142009-12-03T10:18:00.008Z2010-01-15T10:42:08.111Z

This summer, the Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, is hosting a conference entitled "Truth Matters." The conference, which is co-sponsored by Calvin College (Grand Rapids, Michigan), Drodt College (Sioux Center, Iowa), and Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam), will run from August 18-20 2010. It appears as though it will act as a platform for the discussion of a new interdisciplinary

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-14700140250766848972009-11-18T17:49:00.006Z2009-11-18T17:55:26.076Z

Despite the protestations to the contrary in my On-Not-Wanting-to-Be-A-Theologian theology conference paper (actual title, "On the Question of (Rightly?) Passing for A/Theologian," there appears to be more evidence that I "am" a theologian here. Dang.

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25474042.post-48053837092862498292009-11-18T17:32:00.004Z2009-11-18T17:45:42.479Z

Who heard of getting international public press for presenting a paper at a theology conference?Above: The Catholic Newspaper The Universe's coverage of Maynooth's Young Theologians conference.I'm the one in the middle. With me are Oliver Crisp and Kevin Hargaden.

Katharine Sarah Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02146412227842579047noreply@blogger.com1