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.

Hauerwas and Milbank

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, London).

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!

Attending to the Other Round-Up: Part One

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 Amy Hollywood (Harvard University), "A for Antigone: Reading Derrida's 'Differance' Again" - which was hard to follow not only due to the content, but also because of the aforementioned drinking and because she spoke very quickly and often too quietly, and, ultimately, wasn't particularly "audience friendly" in her presentation style, which was disappointing. Pamela Sue Anderson (University of Oxford) chaired the session, and it was nice to catch up after meeting her at the inaugural conference for the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion (Liverpool Hope University) last year.

I stayed at my uncle and aunt's house "near" (40 min train ride, 30 min walk) Oxford to try to keep the cost of the conference down, but on Saturday morning someone had stolen copper off the railway line or something, so my uncle very kindly drove me in so I wasn't late for the start of the day. After a quick cup of coffee from the refectory, I went to Modern Theology panel of the first parallel sessions of the conference, chaired by Trevor Hart (Universiy of St. Andrews). I particularly enjoyed Natalie Wigg's paper, "Christology as Crucible: Practising Wisdom at the Intersection of Church and Academy," which framed theology as a component of ecclesial practice, but was primarily a methodological reflection on her positioning within the church community she is studying.

She began with an introduction to Pierre Bordieu's notion of "habitus" and by characterising the ethnographer's task as that of identifying the objective structures and governing forces that shape participants. The ethnographer has to also, however, develop the subjective experience of possessing the habitus him/herself. However, unlike researchers such as Loic Wacquant, who himself became a student of boxing in order to study the habitus of prizefighting in American black ghettos, Natalie is already a part of the community she is studying. Thus she already inhabits the habitus. Her research methodology therefore involves teaching classes at her church, wherein the group explore together their shared habitus, to bring their habitus to light, to reflect upon why they think what they think, why they do what they do, why they say what they say, why they desire what they desire, etc.

After a coffee break, we all reconvened together for the second keynote address, "Critical Theory and Spirituality: Restless Bedfellows," from Graham Ward (University of Manchester). In this address, Graham not only addressed the relationship of critical theory to spirituality, but of "critique" to "theory," since critique is necessarily parasitical on the theory it criticises. He began by recounting Descartes' experience during the 30 years' war of being in a dense forest. Imagining being lost, Descartes reasoned that the decision/choice/wager of the direction in which to walk could be a moment of conviction only. From this, therefore, the forging of a method, tool or theory could likewise only be based upon conviction. Graham enumerated the differences, however, between critical theory - which he defined as a practice - and spirituality - a discipline, since it aims to form particular types of persons, i.e. disciples - as:

1. The telos of Christian spirituality is worship. Therefore it's orientation is liturgical, soteriological and doxological. In contrast, critique is orientated around the immanent structures of the world and not, therefore, towards a transcendent redemption that will necessarily ever arrive.
2. Christian spirituality is not the enemy of, neither does it withdraw from, materiality. Spirituality begins with an entrance into the material more profoundly, and - following the central narrative of Radical Orthodoxy - only metaphysics of transcendence can grant meaning to the immanent. Critical theory, in its refusal of the transcendent, makes the immanent nihilistic.
3. Rather than the attainment of mystical feelings or knowledge, Christian spirituality is a discipline and not just an emotional or intellectual practice. It is a submission to being governed and formed by an authority, a disciplining and discipleship.
4. Spirituality is not an end in itself, but a means to conformity to Christ, the resurrection of the body and the redemption of the soul.
5. While spirituality concerns immanence, it arises from transcendence, and therefore moves across boundaries of immanence and transcendence, secularity and sacrality. In contrast, critique (parasitic on theory, which it exposes as contradictory) is itself generative of contradictions, tensions and dualism - e.g. individual versus social, natural versus ideological, the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie.

Graham's paper, therefore, exhibits the central structuring motif of many arguments by those associated with Radical Orthodoxy - only Christianity! Only Christian spiritual practice (understood properly as a discipline that forms disciples) can perform the kinds of critiques that critical theory itself attempts and fails. Victor Seidler (Goldsmiths, University of London), who's own keynote later took up the image of walking, asked why exactly Graham rejects "walking" or the practices of theorising - philosophy, as well as theology - as spiritual. To my mind, this question was never really answered.

At lunch, I had a good catch up with Steve Shakespeare. Chatting with various people at lunch, meant I was late for the first ("Theological Materialism") of the panels organised by the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion (Liverpool Hope), which Steve was chairing. I missed the gist of - and had to stand up for! - Jeff Kauss' paper, "Slavoj Zizek and Dynamic Incarnationalism: Towards a Lived Material Theology of Personhood," and then wasn't familiar enough with Meillassoux or Bataille to get much out of the other papers. Hopefully I can get Jeff to email me a copy of his paper, though. After lunch, I went to two panels on "Theological Humanism," but I was too tired to concentrate and decided to go back to my uncle and aunt's early to have a rest and go over my paper for the next day. It did mean, though, that I missed Toril Moi's keynote, which others said was much more "audience friendly" than Amy Hollywood's.

On Saturday morning, I went to the second Continental Philosophy of Religion panel ("Phenomenology and Deconstruction") where I was keen to hear Dan Miller - a student of Jack's from Syracuse who finished his dissertation, on radical democracy as religious affirmation, earlier this year too - give a paper on Milbank, and to catch up with Neal DeRoo (Dordt College, Iowa) whom I met at the Society for Continental Philosophy and Theology's "Postmodernism, Truth and Religious Pluralism" conference in April 2008.

Dan's paper, "Synchronicity and the Flattening of Materiality: Evaluating the Phenomenological Turn in John Milbank's Theology," framed Milbank's work in terms of a shift from a non-realist narrative philosophy to a phenomenological and materialist realist philosophy, arguing that the philosophy thus produced is open to a deconstructive criticism since it requires a metaphysical supplement to preserve the integrity of the material. While Milbank asserts that when we attend to the world (the phenomenological shift Dan identifies in Milbank's theological method) we see a "harmonious synchronicity" of the transcendent in the material. However, this must be a harmony that is eschatlogically given, since, if we attend to the world as it is given to us now, harmony is not synchronically present but diachronous with traumatic disruption, fragmentation and brokenness.

While I enjoyed Dan's paper and largely agree with his assessment of Milbank's project, I disagreed with how he presented what he regarded as Milbank's earlier work of "suspending the material," since this suspension is explicitly not one of "putting the material aside" (as Dan suggested) but of demonstrating that only participation in the transcendent can "suspend the material" over and against the void (as in a suspension bridge). Further, I wanted to know whether he had engaged with Gavin Hyman's book on Radical Orthodoxy - The Predicament of Postmodern Theology: Radical Orthodoxy or Textualist Nihilism? which argues that Don Cupitt's (non-realist) critique of Radical Orthodoxy distorts it into a realist framework when Radical Orthodoxy attempts to overcome such dualisms as non-realist/realist. I felt that the shift Dan identified in Milbank's theological method (from non-realist narrativity to realist materialist phenomenology) risked the same distortion.

Dan took these points constructively, acknowledging that he possibly hadn't fairly represented the meaning of the phrase "suspending the material" and that the language of realism and non-realism is problematic in relation to Radical Orthodoxy. However, he maintained that, even at points where Milbank stresses that the Christian narrative is not grounded in anything other than itself (hence, Dan's characterisation of this position as non-realist), he is left - as a reader - unconvinced that Milbank doesn't "actually believe" the narrative is a realist one. As a project, Radical Orthodoxy depends upon the persuasive powers of its story... I guess it has a way to go to convince Dan, then... or me.

Neal's paper, "Phemoneology as Eschatological Materialism," reflected upon broader questions of the nature of phenomenology. How can phenomenology - the study of "things themselves" - talk of God without turning God into a thing? Neal suggested that phenomenology's recent so-called "turn" to eschatology enables us to see that, rather than eschatology adding to phenomenology "from without," we might say, phenomenology is revealed as inherently eschatological. Specifically, not only does phenomenological reflection on intentionality reveal a two-fold notion of time as horizontal and diachronic, but that this two-fold notion of time is what phenomenology is. It is, therefore, inherently eschatological. This means, further, that the eschatological turn in phenomenology is, rather, a making explicit of what is already central to phenomenology. One of Neal's edited collection adds to these suggestions: Phenomenology and Eschatology: Not Yet in the Now.

After Paul Fiddes' keynote, "The Sublime, the Conflicted Self, and Attention to the Other: Neglected Contributions from Iris Murdoch and Julia Kristeva," I took myself off to read through my paper before presenting in the late afternoon. This has already been a rather long post, so I'll leave my reflections on the rest of Saturday's events, as well as on the panel I was most looking forward to - Sunday morning's "Political Theology" panel from the Association of Continental Philosophy of Religion - for another day.

Religion, Literature and Culture conference

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 Bedfellows," and panels on Theological Materialism and Political Theology that will both include papers on Zizek.

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 Saturday afternoon, on a Modern Theology panel with some other papers that promise to explore questions that overlap with my interest in the "ecclesial" performance of contemporary theo-philosophies:

Mark Godin (Glasgow) "Situated Liturgies: A Theology of Worship Meets the Philosophy of Michele Le Doeuff."
Ben Kautzer (Durham) "When Faith Gets a Body: Sacramentality and the Order of Charity."

But I'm also looking forward to the end of the conference, when I get to see my Mum!

Divine Doubt

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 particularly like this second image, especially when it is placed in conversation with theo-philosophical reflections by Slavoj Zizek that link human doubt, abandonment, and atheism to God's own self-emptying (in the Incarnation) and self-abandonment (on the cross).

One of Pete's talks at the Subverting the Norm event in Missouri next month repeats this motif of human belief and divine doubt: "To believe is human; to doubt divine: Introducing Zizek's Christology." I'm really looking forward to this presentation and hope he uses Summers' artwork - it would be a powerful backdrop!

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."

The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion

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 College) wrote, "Continental Philosophy of Religion: Prescriptions for a Healthy Subdiscipline." Abstract: Over the past decade there has been a burgeoning of work in philosophy of religion that has drawn upon and been oriented by "continental" sources in philosophy—associated with figures such as Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, Gilles Deleuze, and others. This is a significant development and one that should be welcomed by the community of Christian philosophers. However, in this dialogue piece I take stock of the field of "continental philosophy of religion" and suggest that the field is developing some un-healthy patterns and habits. The burden of the paper is to suggest a prescription for the future health of this important field by articulating six key practices that should characterize further scholarship in continental philosophy of religion.

Then Bruce Ellis Benson (Wheaton College) replied with, "A Response to Smith's 'Continental Philosophy of Religion'." Abstract: All of us working in continental philosophy of religion can be grateful to James K. A. Smith for his call to consider which practices will best further the "health" of the burgeoning subdiscipline of continental philosophy of religion. Given that he offers his suggestions "in the spirit of 'conversation starters,'" my response is designed to continue what I hope will be an ongoing conversation. With that goal in mind, I respond to Smith by considering not only the practicality of each suggestion but also whether adopting practices he suggests would actually improve the health of the subdiscipline.

And then Jamie responded with, "The End of Enclaves: A Reply to Benson." Abstract: In reply to Benson’s response, I agree that we should be seeking the dissolution of all enclaves in philosophy of religion—whether continental or analytic. But I continue to suggest that continental philosophy of religion bears special burdens in this respect.

The Liturgical Turn

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 only do I also want to be working at the intersection of theo-philosophy and the empirical study of religion, but it would be great to meet Jamie, whose work I used in my PhD thesis, as well as to experience American postgraduate culture.

Here's the seminar description:

""Religion" has received increased attention from both social scientists and journalists over the past decade. But the phenomenon of religion has also been reconceived: rather than focusing simply on beliefs and doctrines, sociologists, anthropologists, and philosophers of religion are increasingly attentive to the role of practice and ritual as fundamental to religious identity. So rather than merely distilling the "worldview" of religious communities, scholars exegete the understanding implicit in worship practices. Thus one could speak of something like a "liturgical turn" in "cultural theory" –an appreciation for the formative role of cultural practices in constituting communities of meaning. This can be seen in the philosophical work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Charles Taylor; the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu and Christian Smith; research in social psychology as seen in the work of Timothy D. Wilson and John A. Bargh; and the theological developments in the work of Stanley Hauerwas, Graham Ward, and Craig Dykstra. This has important implications both for the study of religion, including Christianity, as well as for critical reflection on faithful religious practice."

Christianity and Contemporary Politics

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 Orthodoxy and deconstructive theology). This will, I hope, speak to the debates around "new traditionalist" critiques of liberalism and democracy (Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, John Milbank, John Rawls, Jeffrey Stout), so I'll be putting Luke Bretherton's book - which explores the positive contributions of the over-polarised field of political theology; a field that, as Jamie Smith writes in his micro review, is often divided between "Stoutian liberals vs. ecclesiocentric ROers" - on my to do list. In particular, I'm looking forward to the conclusion: "Towards a Politics of Hospitality and a Theology of Politics."

Related is a a King's College Faith and Public Policy Forum seminar on Monday 18th October 2010 that Jason Clark drew my attention to: "Stanley Hauerwas in Conversation with John Milbank and Luke Bretherton," also marking the publication of Hauerwas' Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir. The event will run from 5.30-7.00pm at the Great Hall on Strand Campus.

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.

Attending to the Other bursary

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!"

Attending to the Other - conference programme

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 runs from Thursday 23rd until Sunday 26th with Amy Hollywood speaking on the 23rd, Graham Ward and Toril Moi on the 24th, Paul Fiddes on the 25th, and Victor Seidler on the 26th, has several Zizek papers (thanks to the Continental Philosophy of Religion Panel conveners) that I'm looking forward to. And they don't clash with my panel, yay!

• Jeff Keuss "Slavoj Zizek and Dynamic Incarnationalism: Towards a Lived Material Theology of Personhood"
• Thomas Lynch "Zizek and Liberation Theology: A Lacano-Marxist Revival"
• Ian Pattenden "Beyond the Death of God: The Open Eschaton in Bloch and Zizek"

Anyone interested should take a look at Adam Kotsko's Zizek and Theology.

Now, I just need to find nearly £400 to afford to go. Hmmm.... maybe I should sell some books?

Abstract accepted for Attending to the Other

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 advocates "attending to the other" and mirrors approaches to "the other" in Paul (particularly in Romans) and in Derrida.

A timely publication from within the UK emerging church milieu which I can't wait to get my hands on is Kester Brewin's Other: Loving Self, God and Neighbour in a World of Fractures.

Another book of interest, which comes out too late for me to include it in my September paper, is Graham Adam's Christ and the Other: In Dialogue with Hick and Newbigin. Here's the blurb: "How should we relate to "others" - those within a particular tradition, those of different traditions, and those who are oppressed? In the light of these anxieties, this book offers a vision of Christ as "the Shaken One," rooted in commuinty with others and building upon the work of Andrew Shanks. Shaped through dialogue with the theologies of John Hick and Lesslie Newbigin, Adams urges Christian communities to attend more deeply to the demands of ecumenical, dialogical and political theologies, to build an ever greater "solidarity of others" - a quality of community better demonstrating Christlike "other-regard."

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?

Re-Writing the Bible Symposium

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’.”- Terry Eagleton

A recent exhibition at the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art consisted of a bible, laid open alongside a supply of pens, with the invitation, “If you feel you’ve been excluded from the Bible, please feel free to find a way to write yourself back in.” The comments scribbled in the margins—and the very notion of ‘writing in the Bible’—became the subject of a widespread controversy, resulting in the gallery’s decision to place this bible inside a perspex cube, effectively sealing it off and protecting it from what might be deemed ‘undesirable’ commentary. Visitors were still invited to write comments, but now they were written on sheets of paper that were then selected by gallery staff and inserted between the bible’s pages.

In light of this very present debate, Re-Writing the Bible: Devotion, Diatribe and Dialogue invites poets, writers, and scholars to engage with interdisciplinary questions surrounding the phenomena of retellings or revisions of Bible in creative writing. These retellings have a heritage that, arguably, starts within the books of the Bible itself and stretches across many literatures and traditions; poets and writers in every age filter biblical themes and images through thefocus of their own period and practice. Dante, Milton, Bunyan, Blake, Yeats, Owen, H.D, Plath, Kinsella, Hill; the list is long, diverse, and continues to grow.

This symposium asks why contemporary writers have chosen to rework this particular source text, and what stances they have taken towards it: faithful, using creative writing as a means of prayerful reflection or theological exegesis? Or furious, a railing against the Bible’s injustices and absences? Or a mixture of both, a sometimes difficult, sometimes delightful kind of dialogue? If every reading is also a re-writing, then it follows that every re-writing is also a reading, and for this reason many biblical scholars are fascinated by the literary ‘afterlives’ of the scriptures, the ways in which the Bible is sustained by creative imaginations in cultural settings and times very distant from its own writing and compilation.

We are seeking 20-minute papers from a variety of disciplines and perspectives, including but not limited to: literature, theology, biblical studies, critical and cultural theory, history, politics, and so on. We will consider papers on all forms of ‘creative writing’: poetry, novel, short story, sermon, liturgy, prayers, songs, political writing, theatre, and so on. Our emphasis is on twentieth and twenty-first century works, but we will also consider abstracts on rewritings from other periods. We would be particularly interested in papers looking at spaces that often go unexplored by research in retelling and revisioning, such as biblical romance novels, evangelical speculative fiction, biblical archetypes in autobiography, contemporary liturgy, or popular music. There is the possibility that proceedings will be published.

Please send abstracts (approx. 200 words) to rewritingbible2010@gmail.com, by no later than 19th April 2010.

My fellow doctoral candidate at Lancaster, Dawn Llewellyn, whose thesis explores women's (religious) uses of (religious) text, and I have been searching for a while for a topic of possible collaboration and this could be it! I'm very keen to write something on the ways in which creative writing (particularly the [re-]writing of biblical parables) functions within the emerging church milieu. So I'll have the data and Dawn'll have the theory and we shall make a lovely baby together!!! Although, I haven't actually run any of this by her yet!

Theology and the Arts Conference

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 find online is this small amount of blurb:

"What is the relationship between different art forms and other modes of theological interpretation? Is art true, or subjecive, or both? What are the limitations of artistic representation? How may art be employed in teaching, whether in church or academy? What are the places of art in prayer and liturgy?"

Abstracts of about 200 words should be emailed to Oliver Crisp, who I met in Ireland last Nov, by Feb 18. There is a bursary fund, which you should also apply to via Oliver.

The cost of registration is £90, and then there are several accommodation and meal options to choose from when you log-on to the site here. Full residential is £170, with one night B&B £30. Early registration ends March 4 and the registration deadline is March 23.

I'm thinking that if I submit an abstract it will be on the "a/theology of the event" and the notion of "transformance art" in the UK emerging church milieu.

Young Theologians publication

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, particularly in relation to asking important questions about who we are and where we're going as young theologians. My paper was about not knowing who we are and whether we are theologians, so everything sparked off a lot of interesting thoughts. So we'll see what happens with that.