Is Continental Philosophy of Religion Dead?

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.

Springfield, Springfield!

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 Fighting Collective? A Caputian Introduction to Zizek's Pneumatology." Now that it's (almost) edited down to 6,000 words, it's a little more theory-laden then I had anticipated, but I'll be introducing Zizek's pneumatology, his deployment of the term "Holy Spirit" as a community of truth-subjects, a "fighting collective," and staging a conversation between Zizek and Caputo on atheism and theism, metaphysics and materialism. But it will cover:

• Zizek, Caputo, Badiou, Milbank, Lacan (argh!), Saint Paul, and a bit of Hegel and Kant - oh, and Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and Augustine and Barth;
• the big Other, the vanishing mediator, the formulae of sexuation, constitutive exception, and non-all;
• contingency and necessity;
• the truth-event, the truth-subject, and truth-procedure(s);
• universalism;
• hermeneutics, narrativity, metanarrativity and meta-metanarrativity;
• determination, indeterminacy, and relative determinacy;
• atheism, theism, and a/theism;
• materialist materialism, theological materialism and true materialism;
• call, cause and responsibility;
• crucifixion and resurrection;
• the death of God and the death of the death of God;
• spectral materialism and spectral messianism; and
• incarnation and carnality.

So far, the schedule is as follows:

FRIDAY, OCT. 15: RADICAL THEOLOGY IN EMERGING CHRISTIANITY

9 am: Registration

10 am: "Beating God to Death: Radical Theology & the New Atheism," Roundtable conversation with Jeffrey Robbins, Christopher Rodkey and professors from Drury University's department of philosophy and religion

11 am: "An Emerging Radical Theology: On Politics and Ecclesiology," Jeffrey Robbins and Christopher Rodkey

12 pm: Lunch (on your own)

1 pm: "The Emerging Church 101: An introduction for those new to the conversation," Gary Black

2 pm: "To Believe Is Human, to Doubt Divine: Introducing Zizek’s Christology," Peter Rollins

3 pm: "An Emerging A/Theistic Fighting Collective? A Caputian Introduction to Žižek’s Pneumatology," Katharine Moody

4 pm: "Just Us: The undeconstructible Christ community in the age that is passing away," Carl Raschke

7 pm: Keynote presentation I: "Radical Theology—or What’s the Emerging in Emergent?" John Caputo

8:15 pm: Keynote presentation II, Peter Rollins

9:15 – 10 pm: After Session Conversation with John Caputo, Peter Rollins, Carl Raschke, Katharine Moody, Jeffrey Robbins & Christopher Rodkey

10:30 pm: Revival! Transformance Art with Peter Rollins and VOID, a collective from Waco, Texas, at the Creamery Arts Center in Downtown Springfield

SATURDAY, OCT. 16: EMERGING CHRISTIANITY AND THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH

8 am: Coffee & Bagels

8:30 am: Keynote Presentation III, Karen Ward

10 am: Church practitioners workshop, Peter Rollins & John Caputo

11:30 am: Lunch, on your own unless you registered for the Saturday lunch option (see registration packet for local options)

1 pm: Keynote presentation IV, Karen Ward

2:15 – 3:15 pm & 3:30 – 4:30 pm: Breakout Sessions for Church Practitioners

2:15 – 3:15:
Emily Bowen: "Megachurch or Megasubversion? Transformative Ritual in the Emerging Church"
Chris Rodkey: "Satanism in the Suburbs: Ordination as Insubordination"
Julie Kennedy: "The Open Invitation: Tearing Down Labels at the Door"
Phil Snider: "Preaching After the Death of God: With A Little Help From Derrida & Caputo"

3:30 – 4:30:
Laura Fregin: "Art and Justice in Emergent Communities"
David Weiss: "Putting the ‘Queer’ back in Christianity: How extending a full welcome to LGBT persons reclaims the work of Jesus for today"
Lindsey Arnold: "Messiahs, Monsters & Others: The Search for Christ Figures in the TV Show Lost"
Travis Cooper: "Postmodernism, Pentecostalism & the Emergent Church: The Persistence of Azusa-Oriented Praxis"
Matt Gallion, Chris Rodkey & Phil Snider: "Why We're Not Emergent: By Three Guys Who Used to Be"

7 pm: [D]mergent meet-up, Venue TBA

Attending to the Other Round-Up: Part Two

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 papers in this session would overlap with my interest in the "ecclesial" performance of contemporary theo-philosophies, with Mark Godin's paper exploring liturgy and Michele le Doeuff and Ben Kautzer's connecting Louis-Marie Chauvet and Maurice Blondel to sacramentality and charity. Here are the abstracts (they're long):

Mark Godin, "Situated Liturgies: A Theology of Worship meets the Philosophy of Michele le Doeuff."

"Liturgical theology seeks to negotiate meaning and understanding via attentiveness to specific practices of devotion, where liturgy is the worship discourse of a faith community. This discourse both reveals and furthers relationships between participants and others (including God). The problem for liturgical theologians is that devotional practices are extremely diffuse, composed of a vast web of contents and contexts, knitted together around a notion of serving God. Because liturgies are concrete sets of words and actions tied to particular communities, many narratives and purposes inform worship, just as there are many faith communities. To address this plurality, Christian liturgical theologians often attempt to identify core principles which define Christian liturgy and are universally true for all who adhere to the faith. Unfortunately, such endeavours tend to obscure real differences, erase otherness, and ignore actual embodied practice in favour of an ideal. Some other strategy is needed to take account of diversity.

"In her book Hipparchia's Choice, Michele Le Doeuff ascribes to philosophy projects of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. Presenting this locative concern in terms of where you are and where you want to go, Le Doeuff notes that philosophy cannot really be disinterested; in practice, the discipline is always situated, meaning that philosophers ask questions from, and marked by, particular places and their own relationship with others. A corollary of this situatedness is that knowledge is also incomplete. Le Doeuff argues for a philosophical practice which accepts this incompleteness by acknowledging the presence of oers who might have different opinions; she points towards a philosophy which is a collaborative effort, with a multiplicity of sources, influences, and practitioners asking similar questions from different vantage points. Indeed, Le Doeuff realises that a philosophical rigour that discounts speculation, whispers and mystery is not really rigorous at all. She maintains that it is better to venture a partially-formed word, learning what it means as you go, than to remain silent.

"In this paper, I will argue that liturgical theology could learn much from Le Doeuff's construal of philosophy. Instead of minimising the concretely local nature of liturgical practice by presenting it as a manifestation of some deeper, more universal meaning, liturgical theology could seek meaning precisely at the point of particularity, investigating the relationships illuminated and engendered along the trajectories of worship.

"The heart of this approach derives from the correspondence between the liturgical need for community and Le Doeuff's notion of collaborative philosophy. Just as this philosophy relies on attending to and making room for others, a liturgical theology relies on a complex constellation of relationships within which one values the presence and participation of others. Similarly, Le Doeuff's acceptance of the incompleteness of the philosophical endeavour can carry over to liturgical theology, generating a notion of the worshipping community as an open and creative collaboration, with possibilities for forging ties with those outside of its bounds. In return, liturgical theology can offer to philosophy an example of language and practice which speaks something vital from and within the unruliness of embodiment."

Ben Kautzer, "When Faith Gets a Body: Sacramentality and the Order of Charity."

"At the heart of prophetic witness in Scripture is a deep concern for the poor and the oppressed, the lowly dwellers huddled at the margins of our collective perception (i.e. Am. 5.21-27; Hos. 6.6; Isa. 1.10-17; Jer. 7.1-28; Mic. 6.6-8). This concern carries with it an unsettling critique of those who would audibly declare God’s praises and yet deny with their hands the plight of the needy. This resounding cry for justice does not point to some abstract or juridical moral edifice, but rather calls forth the people of God to an embodied life of charity and faithful worship of the One who is both "a refuge for the poor" (Isa. 25.4) and radically identified in Christ Jesus with "the very least of these" (Matt. 25.31-46).

"Such prophetic discourse fundamentally concerns the intersection of liturgy and ethics. Within this context, the ancient and complex practices traditionally named “works of mercy” (i.e. gifts of food and drink, prayer and compassion, shelter and hospitality) confound neat and divisible categorization. Irreducibly personal yet intrinsically communal, such deeds of loving-kindness represent the evental fusion of word and deed, an intensification of liturgical devotion, extending its purview into the mundane spaces of the everyday. These practices demands that like Israel, the church must "live its liturgy".

"Unfortunately, the church’s ministry of charity is currently being called into question from all sides as governments increasingly enjoin faith-based communities and charities to shed their religious particularity, enter the "public sphere," and tackle our more pervasive social problems. These invitations often require adherence to a wide array of ideological presuppositions regarding the nature of religion, the definition of charity, and the proper ends such actions are ultimately meant to serve. These subjugating cross-pressures impact the church's own self-understanding. For it seems that mundane acts like visiting the sick or offering hospitality to strangers are rarely perceived as constitutive of the church's liturgical—let alone political—life. Couched within the language of volunteerism, such expressions of benevolence tend to be seen as "valuable" yet clearly subsidiary.

"I contend that faithfully navigating these challenges involves recovering a theopolitical vision of Christian charity beyond the languid horizon of individualistic philanthropy or social welfarism. Specifically, this paper will seek to explore – through a critical engagement with Louis-Marie Chauvet’s sacramental theology of Christian identity, Maurice Blondel’s philosophical theory of action, and Thomas Aquinas’ virtue ethics – how the works of mercy constitute a liturgically-shaped politics of the everyday—a religious social ethic capable of resisting the bureaucratic institutionalization (and elimination) of human compassion. As Pope Benedict XVI has recently observed, works of charity constitute not merely what the church does, but what the church is; not its relevant usefulness, but its vulnerable faithfulness. Perhaps heeding afresh the prophetic imagination will help us struggle on in our vocation as a church – offered to God as a sacrifice of mercy – broken, consecrated, and distributed for the life of the world."

Since I've already posted the abstract for my contribution to this panel (here - although there ended up being much more Zizek in the final paper than I had envisioned when I wrote the abstract), I thought I'd just post some introductory sections today.

"Introduction: Truth as an Event"

An examination of the notion of "truth" within the discourse (published materials, online media, and interview transcripts) of the emerging church milieu - which can be characterised as a conversation that is interested, among other things, in the implications of philosophical theology for contemporary Christianity - reveals the influence of several "thinkers of the event." For Derrida, there is 'something demanding' about thinking about truth as an event that 'fall[s] on me, or visit[s] me,' that is done to me and makes me ("Composing Circumfession," p.23). As for Badiou, then, truth as an event is constitutive of the subject, since a 'wager,' a 'groundless decision' that an event even occured, constitutes the one who makes the decision as the truth-subject, after which a 'chance-driven course' is attempted, a truth-prodcedure, that is the working out of the consequences of 'fidelity' to the event (Infinite Thought, pp.46-47). Fidelity to the (Christ) event constitutes a community of truth-subjects, the truth-community - a community of believers which Zizek uses the language of the Holy Spirit to designate (The Fragile Absolute, p.127). Any theology of the event, such as Caputo's deconstructive a/theology (The Weakness of God) must, then, be translated into a community of the event.

In this paper, I interpret elements of emerging Christian discourse as an atempt to imagine and perform spiritual practices that form community in fidelity to this notion of truth as an event. I first introduce the philosophical engagements with Saint Paul that frame the discussion, before raising the question of how this Pauline theo-philosophy of the event might be enacted by religious collectives. I then present emerging Christian spiritual practice in the writings of Pete Rollins, founder of ikon, Belfast, through the framework of saying "yes" to the other and becoming nothing. I end by probing whether these practices might constitute a radical religious sociality of the event.

Saint Paul and the Philosophers

In 1997, Badiou published Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism (English translation 2003). From Zizek, came, in 2000, The Fragile Absolute and, three years later, The Puppet and The Dwarf. In 2005, Caputo co-convened "St. Paul among the Philosophers," at which both Badiou and Zizek were keynote speakers (published in 2009). And in 2006, Theodore Jennings published Reading Derrida / Thinking Paul: On Justice. These philosophical engagements with Saint Paul seek to demonstrate his import for the critique of ideology, society and culture, for questions of justice, and for critical theory more generally. But can this work on Paul not also be used to change the Church? My exploration of this possibility begins with Derrida on hospitality and "eating well"...

Dot, dot, dot...

This piece acts as a kind of bridge, since it comes post-PhD thesis and pre-postdoctoral research and uses previous research to start to formulate new questions, questions which build on the more theo-philosophical emphasis of my doctoral thesis to move in a more socio-political direction. It builds on the discursive approach I took in my thesis to incorporate more ethnographic approaches that will seek to determine the extent to which the radical sociality that I see as implicit in emerging Christian discourse is successfully enacted by concrete collectives. We'll have to wait and see if I manage to secure some research funding to carry out this work!

Several conference delegates during the Q&A after my paper asked about the social realities of this discourse on hospitality. One person noted that the language of hospitality is often used by men, whereas the work of hospitality is often done by women. Another delegate (Natalie Wigg, whom I mentioned in an early post on the conference and has been to ikon events in Belfast) noted that ikon can often be incredibly inhospitable. This concern has also been raised by a commenter on this blog, in reaction to my abstract for this conference, who noted what he called a "gulf" between "idealistic theory" and "the more prosaic on the ground reality." This concern about the relationship between theory and practice, however, is precisely what I hope to explore further. I just need the money!

Subverting the Norm Provisional Schedule

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 to Žižek’s Christology, so hopefully they'll be good companion pieces. One of the organisers, Phil Snider, has updated the conference website to include:

A short blurb he wrote to advertise my talk (here)

"On Friday afternoon, U.K. scholar Katharine Moody will present "An Emerging A/Theistic Fighting Collective? A Caputian Introduction to Žižek’s Pneumatology." Her expertise on the highly influential theo-philosophical discourses offered by Slavoj Žižek and John Caputo will help participants get a feel for what religious collectives might look like when informed by the respective thought of these pre-eminent postmodern theorists."

And a bio and photo (here)

"Katharine Sarah Moody is currently in that period of an early academic career that one of Slavoj Žižek's biographers refers to as 'the professional wilderness.' She gained her PhD in Religious Studies in April 2010 from Lancaster University, UK, which used an examination of how the notion of truth is conceptualised in emerging Christian discourse to assess the viability of Radical Orthodoxy and deconstructive theology as theoretical frameworks for the emerging church milieu. She is now working on her first book, and seeking funding to further investigate how theological engagements with European philosophy might supply insights for a radical ethico-political sociality. She is particularly interested in working at the intersection of philosophical thought and the empirical study of religion to explore how contemporary theo-philosophies might be enacted in practice by religious collectives. Katharine is engaged to her partner, Sim, and together they are trying to work out how to have an "a/theistic" wedding ceremony!"

Apple 7, Subverting the Norm, Žižek, and the Holy Spirit

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" and wine I had with my meal earlier in the evening, meant that I was probably a bit embarrassing. Never mind. It was only recorded for posterity, right?

Then I got back yesterday to news that, due to incredibly generous donations from local churches in the States, I'm now able to present a paper at Subverting the Norm: The Emerging Church, Postmodernism, and the Future of Christianity conference in Missouri next month (Oct 15-16, Drury University, Springfield, Missouri), which features Jack Caputo, Pete Rollins, and Karen Ward, among others.

I'll post more details of my presentation as it gets written (!) but it'll be entitled "An Emerging A/Theistic Fighting Collective? A Caputian Introduction to Žižek’s Pneumatology." Hopefully it'll get scheduled near to Pete's "To Believe is Human, To Doubt Divine: Introducing Žižek’s Christology."

Thesis to Book

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 several diversely understood discrusive and practical commitments).


There are, of course, several publications on the market aimed at helping academics at this stage in their career, including William Germano's From Dissertation to Book and Getting It Published; Eleanor Harman's The Thesis and The Book; and Revising Your Dissertation: Advice from Leading Editors, edited by Beth Luey. I haven't read any of them, but I have been tracking down advice for PhD students from publishers such as Ashgate (here) and researching formats for book proposals.

There are several questions that I'm asking myself at the moment, particularly:

• "is my thesis best suited to publication as a book, or as a journal article or series of journal articles?"

and,

• "to what audience would my book be addressed?"

John D Caputo official Facebook fan page

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 research career is going to be marked by it. I'll keep it updated with Jack's speaking engagements and send out announcements of new publications as they come out, etc. It's also useful to remind folks of the lecture downloads that Jack has on his Syracuse website.

In the bar to the left, you can see the "like box" (it's down to the left under the title: John D Caputo Discussion and Resource Page on Facebook).

PCR4 - The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion

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 upon current debates about the social value of philosophy and other humanities disciplines (as well as the social sciences and arts) in the face of growing pressure to demonstrate the immediate economic value of higher education (basically restricted to the sciences and business studies). See in particular the high-profile short-sighted closure of the philosophy department at Middlesex University (including the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy) here, here and (partially saved by Kingston University) here and here.

Anyway, here's some information and blurb from for PCR4, which will run from April 7 - 9 2011.

Plenary speakers will include Jack Caputo, Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Humanities (Syracuse University), Philip Goodchild, Professor of Theology and Religous Studies (University of Nottingham), and Catherine Malabou, Professor of Philosophy (Universite Paris Quest Nanterre La Defense).

The call for papers blurb is as follows:

"Paper submissions are invited on the topic "The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion," its past and present, its history and its prospects, in the widest possible terms, addressing the whole range of its implications—politics, feminism, constructive theology, philosophy, history, literature, interfaith dialogue, and the hermeneutics of sacred texts.

"In the past, these conferences, which have provided a forum for the most influential philosophers, theologians, and cultural theorists to interact, have consisted solely of several keynote speakers. This conference will be different. It will feature three plenary speakers and offer multiple concurrent sessions devoted to papers submitted on a diversity of issues relating to the primary theme. This call for papers is deliberately open, befitting the conference's animating concern with the future."

The call for papers then lists some very interesting questions which papers could address:

• What now, or what comes next—specifically, after the death, if not of God, at least of the generation consisting of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Levinas, etc.? This question concerns not only the future after those significant theorists, but also the future after-life of these eminent minds who have left such a deep impact on continental philosophy of religion.
• What is the future of Kant and German Idealism, of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche in continental philosophy of religion?
• What remains for the future of phenomenology?
• Of the "theological turn" in the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion and others?
• Of Gadamer, Ricoeur and philosophical hermeneutics?
• Of apophatic or mystical theology?
• What is the future of feminism and continental philosophy of religion?
• What are the status and future of the new trinity of Agamben, Badiou and Zizek?
• What relevance do the political interpretations of Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt, and the more recent continental philosophers such as François Laruelle and Catherine Malabou have to philosophy of religion and political theology?
• What about the future of sovereignty, of money and capitalism, as in the work of Philip Goodchild?
• What is the future of the movements of Radical Orthodoxy and of radical death of God theology, whether in their original or contemporary manifestations?
• What about the new sciences of information and complexity in thinkers like Mark C. Taylor and Michel Serres?
• What about Continental philosophy of religion and our “companion species” in Donna Haraway?
• What about “Post-Humanism”?
• What is the future of continental Philosophy of religion and Judaism?
• And Islam?
• Or world religions generally?
• What is the relationship between postmodernism, religion and postcolonialism?
• What role can continental philosophy play in the future of religion?
• In the professional study of religion?
• How does continental philosophical theology relate to the ethnological and empirical-scientific study of religion?
• How does continental philosophy of religion differ from traditional philosophy of religion?
• Or from analytic philosophy of religion?
• What is continental philosophy of religion anyway?
  

Hmmm.... cogs turning... ideas developing...

...wonder if I'll have a job by April 2011 in order to afford to go???

The call for papers asks for electronic copies of completed papers (previously unpublished and up to 3,000 words) to be subject to a double blind review by a selection committee, so include your name, paper title and contact information on a separate page. and put the paper title (but not name) on header or footer of each numbered page of the paper itself. These submissions are due by December 15, 2010 and should be sent to pcrconf@syr.edu. Acceptances will be made by February 15, 2011.

This information is also available on a (very hard on the eyes) website here.

How to Eat Well in Church

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 conferences later in the year - 500 words for the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture's "Attending to the Other" (done!) and 200 words for the "Re-Writing the Bible: Devotion, Diatribe and Dialogue" symposium, held by the University of Glasgow's Centre for the Study of Literature, Theology and the Arts (not yet done!).

My submission for the Attending to the Other conference is called, "How to Eat Well in Church: Saying 'Yes' to the Other and Becoming Nothing in Derrida, Paul and Emerging Christian Discourse." Hopefully it'll get accepted by either the Continental Philosophy of Religion or the Theology panels, but I'm also keen to work this paper into a journal article so it won't be too bad if it doesn't get accepted. Here's the abstract:

‘Let us say yes to who or what turns up, before any determination... before any identification’ (Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality, 77).

‘Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you’ (St Paul, Romans 15:7).

‘...we can freely enter into a theatrical space in which we act as though there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female... Here we do not lay down our identity only to pick up our new identity in Christ. Rather it is in laying down all our identities that we directly identify with Christ’ (Peter Rollins, The Fidelity of Betrayal, 178-179 and peterrollins.net/blog/?p=889)

‘If a community is too welcoming, it loses its identity; if it keeps its identity, it becomes unwelcoming’ (John D. Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, 113)

For Derrida, hospitality, friendship and love are responsibilities that are excessive to the complacent fulfilment of duty. While hospitality by rights and justice under the law protect the self-same, unconditional hospitality is to attend to (to pay attention to and to serve) alterity. Similarly, for (Badiou’s) Paul, the Christian community is to welcome the other, without quarrelling about or arguing over determinations of truth. Co-implicated in this is that, in order to welcome those with different truths, that which makes the host distinctive is to be sacrificed or performatively suspended, which is why there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female (Gal. 3:28). Paul’s injunction to hospitality is occasioned by questions regarding whether or not to eat meat and what Paul calls for is the creation of communities that attend not to the question of what to eat but to the question of how to eat, which is a ‘learning-to-give-the-other-to-eat’ (Derrida, “Eating Well,” 282). The event of Jesus’ excess in relation to all law is to be translated into hospitable ecclesial spaces that attempt to let the other be other, to privilege hospitality over the temptation to conversion or consensus, to refuse to subsume the other to the self-same, and to create a space that places unconditional welcome above conditions of entrance.

The “emerging church conversation” is one contemporary discourse about Christianity that is attempting to imagine and enact such spaces. This paper introduces the discursive motifs in which this Derridean-Pauline desire to attend to the other is expressed and through which it is being performed liturgically, particularly in the work of Peter Rollins and the Belfast-based ‘transformance art’ collective, ikon. I examine the ways in which alterity is welcomed, by which a place for the other is prepared, and through which Christian community negotiates unity and difference. I raise questions of openness and the possibility of radical sociality, of kenosis and the problems of self-identity, and of how deconstructive theologies (such as John D. Caputo’s weak theology) might be ecclesiologically, ethically and politically viable for concrete collectives.

If deconstructive theology interprets the church and the world, how might deconstructive religious collectives be changing them?

Cross and Khora

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 I looked at a bit here, here and here). I'm hoping Jack'll be able to get me a copy to review here and use in my thesis.

Here's a list of other books about Caputo's work:

• Roy Martinez, ed. 1997. The Very Idea of Radical Hermeneutics.
• James Olthuis, ed. 2002. Religion with/out Religion: The Prayers and Tears of John D. Caputo.
• Mark Dooley, ed. 2003. A Passion for the Impossible: John D. Caputo in Focus.
• Christopher Simpson. 2009. Religion, Metaphysics and the Postmodern: William Desmond and John D. Caputo.

Young Theologians: On Readiness

Thanks to the generous support of some Bishops (or, more accurately, I guess, a kind bunch of people working for the Bish'es) I've just come back from a (very) quick trip to Ireland. Sadly, I both arrived and left in the dark, so I didn't get to see a whole heap of either Dublin or Maynooth.


The conference ("Interface: Being a Young Theologian in the World") was hosted by the beautiful St. Patrick's College, Maynooth. Here's a photo of the impressive Pugin Hall where we had a wine reception on the first night. Sadly, I was not able to indulge too much as I had to go finish my paper!

I'm going to post several reflections on this conference (not sure how many yet), but this is the first one on the keynote address given by Professor Michael Paul Gallagher, "Mediators of God's Meaning: A Challenging but Consoling Call."

In his paper, Professor Gallagher he suggested that the role of the theologian is a translator of God's meaning to culture. He argued for the importance of imagination, the faculty of possibility that (as for Newman) makes God real, and quoted Paul Ricoeur on imagination: "we can experience redemption only through imagination." He called for theologians to be instruments of the imagination, communicating in parables and poems that are "provocations to wonder," provocations to transformation.

With this aspect of his paper, I couldn't agree more. Theology has to be poetic. It's point is to inspire, to transform, to turn around (metanoia). I find Jack Caputo writes of poetics in contrast to logics. For him, poetics is "a certain constellation of idioms, strategies, stories, arguments, tropes, paradigms, and metaphors - a style and a tone, as well as a grammar and a vocabulary, all of which, collectively, like a great army on the move, is aimed at gaining some ground and making a point" (The Weakness of God, p.104). While logic is tied to the literal discourses of the world, and try to instantiate their propositions through representation, poetics attempts to bring to mind the event of being addressed and transformed.


However, I have a problem both with Ricoeurian hermeneutics (in which we read to determine the meaning to a text) and with Professor Gallagher's own implied assumption of the existence of a single, eternal, unchanging, unified message that is in need of contextual translation into multiple media. For Gallagher, however, unlike for Marshall McLuhan, the medium is not the message; the medium in which we "tell about it" does not impact the message.

He spoke about humanity's having a "receptive imagination," receptive to God's meaning, which means we should, as Mary Oliver writes in "Instructions for living a life" (and as Gallagher quoted) "pay attention, be astonished, tell about it." I have a problem with Gallagher's assumption that there is one message, one meaning of God, for the theologian to translate into a medium in which culture would understand it. "How might God's meaning be discerned?" "How is it determined to be unitary or unified?" "Is the theologian's meaning God's meaning?"

And, while we might be able to pay attention to and be on the look out for an eternal, unchanging message in the midst of different translations of it, of different tellings about it, of different performances of it, how are we ever to be truly astonished by it, if in some sense we already know the message, if the message is not going to change? We can only be truly astonished by that which we cannot be prepared for, that which we cannot look out for, that which we do not know to pay attention to. On the other hand, however, as both Derrida and Caputo argue, we would not be truly astonished by something completely other, because such a wholly other would completely pass us by, we would not pay it heed.

Therefore, we have to pay attention, but remember that we know not to what such attention must be paid. We have to be prepared for something for which we cannot be prepared, on the look-out for something but we know not what! If, as Gallaher also quoted, "the readiness is all" (Hamlet, Act V scene ii), then this means we cannot restrict what Derrida calls our "horizons of expectation," that to which we "pay attention," to the cultural translation of an eternal message.

We have to pay attention both with and without expectation. We who wait wait with expectation, how could we not? But this should also be a readiness, a paying attention, a looking-out for, without expectation. It should be a readiness that does not know what it is to be ready for, that does not know what the message might be.

Getting Out of Being a Young Theologian Today

I posted earlier about the call for papers for a conference in Ireland on "Being a Young Theologian in the World Today." I reflected there about my reasons for submitting an abstract that was basically about not wanting to be a young theologian in the world today. I was concerned that it wouldn't get accepted. Here's what I sent in:

On the Question of (Rightly?) Passing for A/Theologian

By nature, religious studies departments nurture young students of religion. These students might draw their markers of self-identity from any of the disciplines such departments incorporate. They might be(come) sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, textual scholars, scholars of culture, politics, sexuality, or gender. Perhaps, theologians. In my interdisciplinary doctoral studies, I felt at home in such a diverse academic environment, but I balked whenever my supervisor either described my work as theology or suggested that I might even "be" a theologian.

This paper stems from an interrogation of my own reactions to such designations, as well as undergraduate students' perceptions of the nature and role of theology in western society. While a contemporary context of de-traditionalisation and individualisation might seem at odds with the public religiosity of theologians, the societal trends of pluralisation and sacralisation suggest a simultaneous post-secularism that seemingly levels the playing field for religious confession within and beyond academia.

I introduce the work of (reluctant?) deconstructive theologian John D. Caputo as an appropriately nondogmatic and "weak," even hypothetical, yet robustly confessional theology, negotiating both historical association with the Christian tradition and messianic dissociation from it. In conversation with Caputo's "a/theological" project, I reflect upon Jacques Derrida's confession that he "rightly passes for" an atheist, in the face of his reluctance to say "I am" an atheist, and suggest the aptness of these sentiments for thinking about disciplinary affiliation today. In contemplating the question of rightly passing for an "a/theologian," I re-consider my relationship to both theology and religious studies.

Although my abstract got accepted, I am having to pull out of the conference because it costs too much to get there. "Budget" airlines (naming no names) have stuck so many extras on to a ticket from Birmingham to Dublin that I can't afford to go. I'm going to write the paper anyway, as it is basically a section of my methodology chapter reflecting on interdisciplinary. At least my partner Sim won't now be jealous that I'm going to Ireland without him!

[Update: October 21 2009 - Eoin O'Mahony, a PhD student, blogger, and researcher with the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference, has organised for my travel expenses to be funded, so I'm off to Ireland after all! This is really exciting... Sorry, Sim!]

Refuting the Allergy to Determinacy

My paper at the "Towards a Philosophy of Life" conference, "Making Good on the "Good" of Life: Emerging Logics and Poetics of the Kingdom" (see here for my abstract) was well received. A few people who hadn't been there had heard from others who were that it was good, which was really nice to hear. Jack Caputo called it 'sizzling,' but I don't really know what that means! He said he completely agreed with my analysis of James K.A. Smith's work, particularly the logic of incarnation (see blog post here about Jack's paper, "Bodies Without Flesh: The Soft Gnosticism of Incarnational Theology"), and said again that I read him very well (he had positive things to say about my Boston paper too, see here for an overview of what I said). But I guess it's easy to get those kinds of reactions when the person whose work you are reflecting on is a lovely guy and when you're saving favourable things! I'd love to get Jamie Smith's take on what I'm doing. Maybe I could email him? He's working on a trilogy (first part to be published this September, entitled Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation) on a theology of culture, but I'm particularly intrigued by his methodological work arguing for the importance of liturgical practices as the site for philosophical reflection on religion.

Anyway, this paper forms parts of my doctoral thesis, particularly chapter Six, "Truth and Fictionality." But, as slightly tangential to my main argument, it is something that could easily be turned into a journal article with some more padding out and the like. As you can see from the paper's abstract (here), my main concern is to refute the criticisms Jamie Smith levels at Jack Caputo's Derridean deconstructive theology. Jamie's criticisms can be found most accessibly in his "The Logic of Incarnation: Towards a Catholic Postmodernism" in Neal DeRoo and Brian Lightbody's The Logic of Incarnation: James K.A. Smith's Critique of Postmodern Religion, pp.3-37. Smith identifies in both Caputo and Derrida what he terms a 'logic of determination.' (See here for more details on all this). My paper argues that the operative logic at work in Caputo's theology is that of the call or the promise which, far from being allergic to particularity, as Smith contends, seeks to release the promise in particular determinate religious (and "non-religious") traditions.

My argument runs basically thus:

• A presentation of Smith's characterization of the 'logic of determination.'

For Smith, the Derridean/Caputian logic of determination results in an interpretation of particularity that assumes, first, the finite nature of human life to be structurally (that is, necessarily) regrettable and, second, the interpretive visions of life and hopes for life of humanity’s determinate religious traditions to be exclusionary, violent and unjust. Thirdly, for Smith, the consequences of such a logic include the translation of Derrida’s undeconstructible justice into an indeterminate, not specifically Christian, kingdom of God that is similarly structurally always to-come, never present.

• A defense of Caputo's theological project against these criticisms (in an alternative order).

Firstly, Caputo’s reflections on the name of God are associated with several particular determinate traditions, including the creation narratives and the kingdom parables of the Christian scriptures. Secondly, an exploration of these creation and kingdom themes reveals that finitude is affirmed as part of the "goodness" of creation, no matter what, by God's "good," his "yes," at the moment of creation, and that the kingdom of God is our second "yes," our affirmation of the task of "making good" on the goodness of creation, no matter what. Thirdly, then, a (mis)interpretation of the kingdom of God as a concept that corresponds to a literal reality that will either arrive (Smith) or never arrive (Smith's reading of Caputo) (mis)characterizes it as a concept that aims to be representational rather than as a concept that aims to be transformational.

• An argument that Caputo's theology is preferable to Smith's.
  

In reflecting phenomenologically on the general structure of religious experience, both Caputo and Smith emphasise the undecidability of life, the contingency of our interpretations of it, and the fictive nature of all hermeneutics. However, Caputo more successfully retains these phenomenologcal insights in his particular, determinate Christian theology than Smith.

You can view my powerpoint presentation below, and email me if you'd like a copy of the paper I gave; but I'm thinking seriously about turning it into a journal article. Over the next year (once I've finally submitted my thesis) I will be attempting to get a publishing contract to turn it into a book, but this little nugget of the argument could easily be slotted out and published in article form. At the moment, I'd entitle it: "Refuting the Allergy to Determinacy: Determining the Theo-Logic of the Call in Weak Theology."

Making Good on the "Good" of Life: Emerging Logics and Poetics of the Kingdom

View more documents from Katharine Moody.

Philosophy of Life Conference Round-Up

I got back last night from Liverpool Hope's "Towards a Philosophy of Life: Reflections on the Concept of Life in Continental Philosophy of Religion" conference, having had a thoroughly enjoyable (if not totally follow-able) weekend. My own learning style is not comfortable with listening to people read written papers. I'm much more at home with people presenting, rather than reading, work. But philosophers tend to go for the practice of writing a journal paper or book chapter or whatever, and then just reading it out - rather than thinking about their audience's learning styles and altering the piece in order to facilitate rather than alienate others! Only very few of the papers this weekend were easy to follow (even if you knew the material they were talking about) which was disappointing. But I have always felt that sociologists of religion are much better presenters, thereby actually helping their audience follow their argument. Didn't mean to start this post off with a bit of a moan, but philosophers' styles of presentation do tend to detract from the enjoyment of philosophy conferences.

I met a cool bunch of people, including Simon Scott (PhD student at Warwick), Shahida Bari (How To Live blog), Aaron Landau (University of Hong Kong), Todd Mei (University of Kent) and Chad Lackies (Concordia Seminary, here's his blog). It was particularly great to meet Colby Dickinson (KU Leuven) whose paper on Agamben, the messianic and canonicity was really stimulating because of a resonance with my own work. Canonicity, Colby writes, is "the 'desire' for the canonical over and beyond any canon," clearly mirroring the hope against hope for the messianic given voice in but not restricted to determinate concrete messianisms. My paper also charted this dual movement, but in relation to Jack Caputo's historical association with Christianity (I was looking particularly at creation and kingdom in order to refute Jamie Smith's characterization of Caputo's work as allergic to determinate particularities, more of which in a later post) and messianic disassociation. Colby made some intriguing connections with identity formation, and Jack, Colby and I had a useful discussion after his paper about how communities that adopt deconstructive theologies actually do (ir)religious community. It's what I'm hoping to work on next, getting together a proposal for a research fellowship after I've finished my thesis.

Anyway, Jack's paper on "Bodies Without Flesh: The Soft Gnosticism of Incarnational Theology" was very thought provoking, though I know there were a lot of people that were very disppointed that John Milbank only came for his own paper, rather than engaging with Caputo's criticisms of Radical Orthodoxy's incarnational theology. His excuse was that he had, apparently, been stuck on one of the amphibious vehicles (duck) that take you on tours round Liverpool and brokedown (lame). Well, Jack's paper draws from his work towards a sequel to The Weakness of God, currently entitled The Weakness of Flesh. He argued that incarnational theology's incarnation is not radical enough. It is a theology of in-carnation, rather than a theology of carnality. It places "the life of flesh within an economy of bodies without flesh." Like contemporary robotologists, incarnational theology attempts to transform bodies of flesh into bodies without flesh, in the process "betraying" flesh, harbouring a secret "horror of flesh." Instead, he asked, "What would a theology of carnality itself, before or without In-carnation, look like?" "Instead of a transaction between fleshly and fleshless being, I propose a more radical conception of incarnation as an event of flesh itself, of becoming-flesh," of taking, therefore, Christianity seriously, at its word, as the Word made flesh. Caputo is, as I intimated above, not removing himself from the Christian tradition but trying to make the tradition "make good" on its promises. Looking forward to The Weakness of Flesh already!

Being a Young Theologian Today

In November, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Ireland, are hosting a conference called "Interface: Being a Young Theologian in the World," from the 6 - 7th. Here's a bit of blurb: "The conference is aimed at young theologians and has two objectives - to explore the role of the young theologian and to explore the role of theology in contemporary society." That really is a bit of blurb. The only other information I can find about this conference is that abstracts (of no more than 25o words) are to be submitted to interfacemaynooth@gmail.com (along with applicant's educational status: Institution, course, year, etc.) by September 7th, and papers should be 20 minutes in length.

I'm thinking of submitting an abstract but, due to its subject matter, it may well not get accepted. It stems from my supervisors persistence that she thinks what I am doing is theology. Maybe it is. But I don't want it to be. And I don't want to be a theologian... Why is that? I thought I'd interrogate my thoughts about theology and being a theologian today a bit more and see where they got me. The reason that such a discussion may not get accepted is because its more about not wanting to be a young theologian in the world than being one! But maybe this perspective would be of use to others... Maybe not.

But how does one "be" a theologian? Am I one? Do I even know what I am, in order to say I am, or I am not, a theologian? There are clear parallels here with Jacques Derrida's thoughts on "being" an atheist. He tells us he "rightly passes" for one. But "is" he one? Does he know whether or not he is "one"? Is he "one" of anything? Are we not radically plural in our selves? Is there both atheist and theist (and more besides) within him? Is there both a theologian in me and another self, or even other selves, that are not, that do not want to be, and that hate the theologian in me? Maybe I "pass" for a theologian? But that is up to other people, not me!

Maybe the problem I have with being a theologian has to do with the status, or nature, or interpretation of theology itself? Jack Caputo used to refuse the label of theology and of being a theologian, because (in his Derrideanicity) he equated it with "onto-theology" (The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, pp.288-289), with a project that "takes God as an object of conceptual analysis - rather than the addressee of a prayer - and is awash in institutional power" (The Weakness of God, p.301, footnote 1). Now, however, Caputo equates such dreams of a "calm and objectifying" discipline with Religious Studies, whereas Theology is a "disturbing passiong for God" which he loves madly (The Weakness of God, p.301, footnote 2). So maybe I do want to be a theologian? Afterall, Jack Caputo is my kind of theologian.

But, then again, the kind of theologian that Jack Caputo is, is an a/theologian. His theology exists on the slash of undecidability between atheism and theism; his is a theology, for sure. It names God within a determinate tradition - Christianity. But it never forgets that names are subject to endless translatability and substitutability (differance, Derrida would say) such that his theology remembers that it can be determined otherwise. Caputo does not say that he has named God once and for all; damn those who disagree to hell. Instead, he recognizes that what goes under the name of God also goes under other names. So maybe I want to be a/Theologian? (I reflect further on the nature of theology itself in my thesis, particularly on theology as fiction; its also something I cover in my paper for the Towards a Philosophy of Life Conference, which I haven't finished yet!)

Maybe I assume theology lacks humility about itself, about its status as theology, and maybe my presumption of theology as dogmatic is what makes me nervous about it, and about being one. In the West's pluralistic context, is this not how theology is viewed in the world today? Is this not how young theologians are viewed in the world today? As having "the truth" all sown up; damn everyone else's truth?

I don't know. But I thought it would be interesting to interrogate this presumptions a bit further, and to try and get a paper on it accepted to a conference on being a young theologian today. I think I'll call it "On (Not) Wanting to be a/Theologian."

I thought about doing an informal survey of undergrads starting theology and religious studies courses next year, asking about their preconceptions about the disciplines, the boundaries between them, and how they are/how they think they are perceived by "the public." Some useful resources on these topics from the Higher Education Academy's Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies includes Angela Quartermaine's "Theology and/or Religious Studies? A Response from Graduate Students."

"Making Good" on a Paper Submission

So my abstract for the "Towards a Philosophy of Life" conference at Liverpool in June (conference details here, abstract here) was accepted. My paper will be entitled, "Making Good on the "Good" of Life: Emerging Logics and Poetics of the Kingdom," and is basically the last chapter of my thesis, "Poetics." This chapter demonstrates how the preceding findings regarding the notion of truth in the UK emerging church milieu informs the debate between Radical Orthodoxy (particularly James K.A. Smith's 'postmodern catholicism') and deconstructive theology (especially Jack Caputo's 'weak theology'). So I now have to fit writing this paper into my thesis writing schedule (see here). But it'll be worth it, as both Caputo and John Milbank will be presenting at the conference too, so it'll be a great room of people to present this stuff too. I'll also have a bit of time after the conference for any revisions from the paper to feed into the chapter itself.

Thesis Abstract - April 2009

For our annual Panel Reviews (here and here for posts on last year's panel review process and here for this year's comments!) we have to submit a number of documents for the panel to read and evaluate prior to the review itself. One of the things they ask for is a one page summary of your thesis, the title of which is (at the moment) going to be Emerging Truth/Justice: Towards a Poetic Understanding of (Christian) Truth, focusing on central arguments and main findings. I thought I'd post my one page summary here, so you can see what I'm hoping to argue and also compare it to another thesis abstract I wrote only a few months ago (here) to see how it is changing as I continue to write up. So it's a little longer than an abstract would be but it's been really helpful for me to write - I now know that not only do I know what I want to say in my head, I can actually get it out onto a piece of paper for other people to see!!! Along with the central argument, I decided to try to hone my keywords:

This thesis explores how the notion of truth is conceptualized within the UK emerging church milieu, a diverse network of individuals and communities connected by the Internet and often particularly interested in the relationship between Christianity and the postmodern turn. Participants’ post- or late modern context of religious pluralism and individualism has impacted the ways in which the truth claims of the Christian religion are understood. Further, the theological turn of contemporary philosophy has also brought participants in contact with thinkers like Nietzsche, Derrida, Marion, Lévinas and Žižek, whose work in relation to religion raises questions of the nature of truth. This project therefore sought to discover not only what the philosophical, theological and ethical implications of participants’ conceptualizations of truth might be for Christian belief and practice, but what these notions of truth reveal about the viability of academic theologies like Radical Orthodoxy and deconstructive theology for the UK emerging church milieu.

Qualitative data was gathered from emerging church literature, emerging church blogs and interviews with a variety of UK milieu participants. This data displayed a conceptual pluralism about truth: truth is not only a concept that could be manifest differently in particular propositional domains, but is also understood non-propositionally as an event of truth itself. Participants identified both this truth-event and the truth of religious and spiritual propositions with the transformation of subjectivity and behaviour.

The author distinguishes between two strands which arise within the UK emerging church milieu regarding the truism that truth is transformative.

For the first, religious/spiritual propositions are true just when the transformation they evoke conforms to the norm of justice, a norm that itself coheres with a durably coherent framework of moral judgements towards which human beings aim in community and dialogue with each other. This conclusion has implications for collaboration across religious/secular boundaries. Those participants within this strand often, but need not, assume a theologically realist ontology. It is, however, difficult to overcome the objection that transformation here is merely a response to truth and not inherent to the concept itself.

In relation to religious/spiritual propositions, the second detectable strand within the data connects transformative truth not to propositional content but to the way in which propositions are believed. This is a consequence of their emphasis upon transformative truth as the non-propositional event of truth itself. Here, participants endeavour to keep religious/spiritual propositions open to the auto-deconstructive event at the heart of all language. Deconstruction is therefore intrinsic to religious propositions, traditions and institutions, to all the ways in which humanity names the event. For these participants, the language of truth is often supplanted by that of the other words used for the undeconstructible event, including justice and kingdom of God, which are understood as transformational rather than representational notions. Conceiving truth in this way places transformation within the concept itself, rather than as a response distinguishable from the truth that caused it.

These findings regarding truth in the UK emerging church milieu enable the author to assess theologies that have been suggested as apt for the milieu, James K.A. Smith's Radically Orthodox 'postmodern catholicism' and John D. Caputo's deconstructive 'weak theology.' It is argued that Radical Orthodoxy needs to become more generous towards other religions if it is to be welcomed by participants, and that weak theology becomes more practically viable when communities also emphasize how beliefs are held above what beliefs are held. The author assesses Smith’s criticisms of Caputo, arguing that he overlooks the latter’s differentiation between representational logics and transformational poetics. I use this distinction to argue that an interpretation of the kingdom of God as a concept that corresponds to a reality that will either arrive (Smith) or never arrive (Smith’s reading of Caputo) mischaracterizes it as representational rather than transformational.

Key words:

• John D. Caputo,
• Christianity,
• deconstructive theology,
• emerging church,
• justice,
• kingdom of God,
• poetics,
• Radical Orthodoxy,
• realism,
• James K.A. Smith,
• truth,
• transformation.

Philosophy of Life Abstract

So I submitted my abstract for the Towards a Philosophy of Life conference today: "Making Good on the "Good" of Life: Emerging Logics and Poetics of the Kingdom." The gist of it is basically the argument of my last three chapters (having now rearranged the order of my chapters - "Justice," "Generosity" and "Weakness" - which I'll blog more about tomorrow). Hopefully it'll get accepted, but even if it doesn't the words will go straight into my thesis so no real harm done... but it would be great to present this stuff to Jack Caputo and John Milbank as it directly relates to the rebate between elements of their work (see particularly my posts on James K.A. Smith's Radically Orthodox 'Postmodern Catholicism' here, here, here and here). Here's the abstract then:

This paper begins by illustrating how the deconstructive theology of John D. Caputo is embodied in the life of the UK emerging church milieu. Caputo’s theological project, articulated more recently as a Weak Theology, proposes both an ‘historical association’ with the determinate religious traditions’ visions of and hopes for life, and a ‘messianic disassociation,’ in order to refuse such traditions’ exclusionary, violent and unjust closure towards the other. Using interview and ethnographic data, I suggest ways in which this difficult tension between particularity and alterity might be lived out. I show why Caputo’s notion of the kingdom of God as a repetition or recreation of God’s generative proclamation that life is “good” is helpful as participants seek to live their lives as a form of “making good” on this original “good.”

In the process of exploring his notions of creation and kingdom, I defend Caputo’s theology against recent criticism by James K.A. Smith. In contrasting his Radically Orthodox ‘Postmodern Catholicism’ with Caputo’s work, Smith distinguishes between his own logic of incarnation and Caputo’s logic of determination. According to Smith, the consequences of the Derridean/Caputian logic include the translation of Derrida’s impossible, undeconstructible, un-present-able justice into an indeterminate, not specifically Christian, kingdom that is similarly structurally always to-come. However, I believe this is to overlook Caputo’s differentiation between representational logics and transformational poetics. I use this distinction to argue that an interpretation of the kingdom of God as a concept that corresponds to a reality that will either arrive (Smith) or never arrive (Smith’s reading of Caputo) mischaracterizes it as representational rather than transformational. These divergent notions of the kingdom are also present within contemporary Christian belief and practice. This paper therefore further unpacks the differences between these two understandings of the kingdom, as I see them emerge both in the work of Smith and Caputo, and in the UK emerging church milieu.