Atheism for Lent: Nietzsche

At "Atheism for Lent" tonight, we had the most heated discussion so far on the Course. Nietzsche's critique of religion, which is strongly connected to his genealogy of morality, furnished us with the material for such a great debate that it was hard to get the group to think not only about his atheistic scepticism (see this post for the difference between scepticism and suspicion) and "immorality" (see here) but also about what questions his hermeneutic of suspicion might raise about our own faith (whether atheistic, theistic or neither).

I began with a summary of the material I prepared about Nietzsche (which you can access using the links below), for whom the story of how belief in God arose is the only argument against belief in God that atheists need to employ. To explain the emergence of belief in God, Nietzsche puts forward two interlinking theses, an ontological one about the "will to power" and a more historical or sociological one about the "morality of mores," which taken together suggest that every morality is an expression of that community's will to power.

Nietzsche's "death of God" thesis, which is prophetic even to the atheists for whom God is already dead, highlights that the implications of this death have yet to be properly understood by humanity, since it entails the collapse of western morality. For Nietzsche, the atheists are still acting like theists; the atheists are still acting as if there is an eternally stable point of reference to guarantee the meaning and purpose of life.

It was hard to get some people in the group to really agree with Nietzsche that not even secular human Reason can attain a fixed reference point for morality. Many people felt very strongly that universal values had to exist for ethical and pragmatic reasons, but it was great trying to get them to grapple with Nietzsche's hypothesis that the will to power is what is operative even amongst action for equality, justice and peace - that self-interest, self-preservation, envy, aggression and resentment might be latent in manifestly humanitarian motivations and activism. I would've liked to have explored in a bit more detail about Nietzsche's identification of Pharisaism and moral superiority (see here) within Christian morality.

We talked quite a lot about master and slave moralities, and tried to help each other work through the differences between the two and about what the possibilities of hope might be in Nietzsche's work. But it was hard to do justice to Nietzsche's contention that master morality, with its open and honest revenge, hatred and anger (which are all-pervasive, given the will to power), is preferable to slave morality. Even if equality, justice and peace are functions of the "will to power," many within the group wondered, why isn't striving after these ideals at least a bit better than the "justice" of master morality in which the continued oppression of the powerless is justified as "just the way the world is" (see here).

Walking home, my partner Sim mentioned a Blake poem that would've been useful to illustrate the differences between an open and honest resentment (master morality) which exercises revenge and a festering, poisonous resentment (slave morality) which has no outlet for vengeance.

A Poison Tree, by William Blake

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.

Religion as Revenge: Nietzsche (1)
Religion as Revenge: Nietzsche (2)
Religion as Revenge: Nietzsche (3)
Religion as Revenge: Nietzsche (4)
Religion as Revenge: Nietzsche (5)

Next week we're going to watch a documentary by Derren Brown, but I've written a bit of material to go with it, so I'll post that here too as this week unfolds.

Atheism for Lent: Marx

Tonight there were sixteen of us exploring "Atheism for Lent" at Journey and we looked at Marx's critique of religion.

I started the discussion off by giving a brief overview of the reading material that I put together (see below for links to the relevant posts): how Marx's historical materialism differs from Freud's essentialisation of psychological conflict and common unhappiness (last week) such that there remains the possibility of struggle and revolution in the face of contingent social hopelessness; how Marx can be understood to radicalise Feuerbach's atheist theory of religion as projection (see this post) such that the critique of religion presupposes the critique of current material socio-economic relations; and how both religion and the state function as ideologies, serving as imaginary relationships between theology and politics (on the one hand) and people's real existence in sin and self-interest (on the other) (see here and here).

We then discussed a range of topics, from the cult of capitalism, consumerist desire, and materialism in this sense to historical materialism, immanence, and responsibility. Commenting that we need to get rid of this idea of a "good God" that will solve our problems, one group member argued for the notion that a transcendent God absolves us of our social, economic and political responsibilities, and that instead of looking "up to heaven" or "after life" for answers we should act together in community in the here and now of material relationships.

The notion that church can sometimes function as a social club arose, and we talked a little about the dangers (coccooning or ghettoisation, for example) and opportunities (identity, belonging, etc) of that understanding of church. This discussion really peaked my interest, thinking in particular about Tony Jones' thesis that emerging Christianity can be likened to a new social movement. I wondered about the possibility of thinking about church as a co-operative, or union, or Party. In other words, as another Course participant said, as operating in a non-commercial environment. The possibility or impossibility of functioning outside western capitalism aside, it proved food for thought. Particularlity since Journey is in the process of transitioning away from being a "church" (albeit one they built themselves under a railway arch) to a "vegetarian cafe."

Anyway, here's a collection of links to the material I wrote introducing Marx's critique of religion:

Religion as Ideology: Marx (1)

Religion as Ideology: Marx (2)

Religion as Ideology: Marx (3)

Religion as Ideology: Marx (4)

Religion as Ideology: Marx (5)

Religion as Ideology: Marx (6)

Nietzsche starts tomorrow!

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

Big Tent Christianity and Subverting the Norm

Over the last few days, the Big Tent team (Philip Clayton, Justin Heinzekehr, and Tripp Fuller) has been hosting the first Big Tent Christianity event, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Here's the blurb:

"Who’s coming to the conference?

"We have invited three dozen leaders on the cutting edge of “Big Tent” style ministry and theology to talk with you about issues close to their hearts: justice, theology, sexuality, the Bible, and the future of denominations. Among the speakers are:

"Philip Clayton, Brian McLaren, Shane Claibourne, Phyllis Tickle, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Bill Leonard, Keith Ward, Tripp Fuller, Gareth Higgins, Hugh Hollowell, Anthony Smith, Tim Conder, Terence Fretheim, Jo-Ann Badley, Jay Bakker, Brian Ammons, Tim King, Spencer Burke, Tom Oord, Christopher Copeland, Frank Green, Peter Rollins, Greg Boyd, Stephanie Spellers, and Ian Cron.

"Why "Big Tent Christianity"?

"Numerous battles in the past produced the large number of denominations and separate churches within American Christianity today. Some of these battles were important. But many of the old battlelines no longer speak to Christians today, especially to the youth. Indeed, our divisions are driving some folks away from the church altogether.
"In the old days revival tents were set up outside towns and cities across the South. The people of God would join together for celebration, community, and revival. The revival tent was a sign of Christian unity and Christian renewal — the ongoing and active work of the Holy Spirit in our midst.

"What would happen if Christians came together from across the South to proclaim what unites us as followers of Jesus Christ and as His disciples in this modern world? Some two dozen leading Christian speakers from around the country will be assembling in Raleigh for this event. They will share with you new and innovative forms of church-based ministry and renewal — new ways of being and becoming the church. And they will inspire you with their vision for how we can speak even more powerfully in and to the world of the 21st century."

I'm hoping to be able to speak at the Subverting the Norm: The Emerging Church, Postmodernism and the Future of Christianity conference in Springfield, Missouri, next month, and will probably mention this event, so I'll be scouring the Internet for responses over the next little while. Here's a piece by Philip Clayton in The Huffington Post, "Seeking Common Ground in 'Big Tent' Christianity." I'll hopefully be talking precisely about this notion of seeking common ground.

Apple 7 - Institutional Church as Out-Moded Technology

Apple's next meeting is timely. Following on from the recent online debates regarding the institutional church and Kester Brewin's use of Hakim Bey's notion of "Temporary Automous Zones" (TAZ) in his book Other (I posted a list of links to these discussions in an earlier post, here), Apple 7 will ask, "Is the institutional Church an out-moded organisational technology?" The evening will revolve around a panel discussion by Jonny Baker, Maggi Dawn, Ian Mobsby and Kester, at The Betsey Trotswood, Farringdon Road, London on Wednesday Sep 15 at 7.30pm. Here's some blurb:

"In the light of the scandals surrounding the Catholic church, and the decline in church attendance over the past decades, has the classic model of the institution had its day?

"Is institutional Christianity an outmoded organisational technology – slow, heavy-weight and rigid – and are there new, more light-weight and adaptable ‘skins’ that provide a more flexible and adaptable service… or is the move towards a more fluid, ‘TAZ’ Christianity no more than a flash(mob) in the pan, lacking substance or ground for genuine action?"

Disorganised Christianity?

Having posted yesterday about Theo Hobson's recent Guardian articles on Pete Rollins and Kester Brewin, and begun an interesting conversation on the question of institutionalism, I found (via Jonny Baker) another in The Spectator which reviews a Grace event from a view months back: "In Search of Disorganised Religion." And here's another one on alternative worship from Ship of Fools,"Anyone for Really Alternative Worship," where Hobson raises the question of radically re-thinking ritual to detach it from institutionalism and explains a personal park ritual that he engages in with his family. At the end of the Ship of Fools feature, he writes:

Some will say that my rejection of institutionalism is naive: if this ritual in the park were to catch on, then surely it too would become a sort of institution, with a tacit orthodoxy.

And this is the danger that Kester has been warning about in his recent posts on retreating into institutionalism. How do we avoid the fetishisation of permanence? But I've also asked Kester what his thoughts are on the intimately connected question of: How do we avoid the fetishisation of the temporary?

Exploring this question might forestall the concerns of many that a valid criticism of the structural violence of institutions is being translated into a critique of the personal choice some have made to become ordained.

Emerging Church Article

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

Emerging Beyond Institutional Christianity?

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

The mentions in the UK press come at a time when Kester has been debating with others in the emerging church blogosphere the question of the possibilities for relationship between emerging and established forms of church and theology. Here are the posts that I've been reading recently:

• Kester, "Has What Has Emerged Retreated? Returning to the Institutions" (Jun 21 2010)
• Andrew Jones, "Emerging Church Retreat?" (Jun 22 2010)
• Kester, "Has What Has Emerged Retreated? Part 2" (Jun 22 2010)
• Jonny Baker, "Romantic Tosh" (Jun 22 2010)
• Kester, "Has What Has Emerged Retreated? Part 3" (Jun 23 2010)
• Kester, "Has What Has Emerged Retreated? Part 4" (Jun 24 2010)
• Kester, "Movements or Institutions? A New Kind of Christianity" (Jun 28 2010)
• Kester, "Dumping the Ghastly Old Baggage of Bishops and Buildings" - Hobson's words, not Kester's! (Jul 10 2010)
• And Kester's response to Ben Edson's review of Other, "Some Responses to a Review" (July 11 2010)

Having also read Other, I've been slow to write my own response. But I'll post about it as soon as I can.

What these posts and responses also show is how hard it is to articulate a critique of the structural move back into institutional roles without offending the people's life choices.

Anyway, some choice quotations from the posts by Kester:

"I sense that because things have been hard, people have retreated back to the safety and security of the institutions. The leaders that emerged in the previous decade have ‘gone higher’ and tended more towards liturgical forms, and typically found some kind of route into ordination – even if that be some ‘new’ form of ordained leadership." (from here)

"it is the incredible hard work that movements have to do (not being ignored, opposed or co-opted is a big battle against large institutional momentum!) that is the problem. So many movements with so much going for them simply don’t make it. And while it is good that institutions do have some inertia to stop them being swayed by every little current, I do think that the balance is currently wrong – and this is why I would look for the TAZ influence in institutional processes: taking things down every once in a while and rebuilding" (here)

"An alternative reading could be that the institutions have ‘caught up’ and are now offering styles of training and inclusion into formal leadership that were previously unavailable. My concern is that this could be a political move on the part of the powerful: they can’t afford for a generation to up sticks and leave, so they find new ways to hold on to them, offering certain compromises in the knowledge that once they’re ‘in’ they can be ‘in-stitutionalised’ – made part of the firm." (here)

"this is not about the prodigal son going away and coming back to his good home. Here are prodigals with genuine issues about a dysfunctional family life, and what should be done in response to that." (here)

"We are communal people. We like to gather, to have community. And institutions – incorporations of our values and shared goals – are an inevitable part of life. I am not arguing here – contrary to Jonny’s interpretation – for a life beyond institutions, as we both know this is not possible. I am arguing for a new approach to corporate life though, at whatever zoom level you might take: small local groups and beyond." (here)

"In other words, I’m not arguing that relationships should be short-lived, nor that institutions – some formalising of these relationships around a shared goal or project – should not exist. Rather, I sincerely believe that while relationships are maintained in the informal work of eating and sharing lives together, the structures that form around them should be regularly deconstructed, and this will probably require the move away from full-time professionalised clergy." (here)

"TAZ does connect with the permanent [narrative of Christianity], but by emphasising the temporary, it avoids the violence that inevitably comes with attempting to build and defend permanent structures" (here)

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?"

"I Hate Your Church..." Published

My Expository Times article on the emerging church ("'I Hate Your Church; What I Want is My Kingdom': Emerging Spiritualities in the UK Emerging Church Milieu") is now available online. You can access the abstract for free here, but you'll have to subscribe to The Expository Times, purchase short-term access, or log-in using an Athens account or university homepage.

I'm not allowed to distribute the article either.


The article briefly assesses current ways of defining "the emerging church" and suggests the value of the notion of a "milieu." Borrowing from Gordon Lynch's work on progressive spirituality, the concept of a global "emerging church milieu" (with regional milieus within it, e.g. "US emerging church milieu" or "UK emerging church milieu" etc) allows the emerging church to be portrayed as a coherent religious phenomenon without ignoring local differences and divergences.


I then enumerate what I see as the six commitments of emerging church discourse. These are commitments to:

1. "glocal" contextualisation,
2. "ancient-future" traditions,
3. organisational experimentation,
4. exploring postmodern thought,
5. (re)thinking theology, and
6. socially, politically and environmentally just living.

Not having much space in which to present these commitments in this article, I go into much more detail in my doctoral thesis, but these commitments (which obviously overlap with other Christian and non-Christian milieus beyond the emerging church milieu) are variously understood and put into practice multifariously.


Then I identify two spiritualities which emerge from this milieu: Deep Church spirituality and A/Theistic spirituality. These two spiritualities were primarily presented as hermeneutics in my thesis, but they can also be thought of as spiritualities. In my postdoctoral research, I hope to explore them as social imaginaries. Again, I didn't have the room to go into much detail in this article, but I hope to publish a few academic journal articles and a monograph that will bring my library basement destined thesis to the masses!

My Expository Times article then concludes by reflecting upon the missional orientation of these two emerging church spiritualities. Following a question that John Hull asked of fresh expressions of church in Mission-Shaped Church and Mission-Shaped Questions, I wonder whether Deep Church and A/Theistic spiritualities are kingdom-shaped or church-shaped in their missiologies.

An "Emerging Church" Book Review

After completing my article for The Expository Times, "'I Hate Your Church; What I Want is My Kingdom': Emerging Spiritualities in the UK Emerging Church Milieu," I was asked to write a book review of Bruce Sanguin's (2008) The Emerging Church: A Model for Change and a Map for Renewal. My review, entitled "Making an Emergent Future Present," will appear in about six months.

This is not really a book written about or for what I consider to be the "emerging church" - and the reviews from within what I call the "emerging church milieu" agree (here's one by Jonathon Brink on Emergent Village). This is about progressive Christianity (see Gordon Lynch's great overview and analysis of the broader "progressive milieu"), or, as Sanguin's website describes it, "evolutionary Christian spirituality." It is a book about progressive Christianity and modern science, rather than about emerging Christianity and postmodern thought or theology. The science he appropriates in this book (spiral dynamics) will be deeply troubling to many within the emerging church milieu. However, his work is nonetheless theologically and politically interesting.

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?

Expository Times article on the Emerging Church

Way back during the last few months of 2009, I was asked to write a piece for The Expository Times on religion and the Internet for a volume they are producing on the future of Christianity. I was pleased about being asked but felt a little bit that it would be revisiting tangential interests rather than moving me forward, so when the person they had lined up to write a piece on the emerging church was unable to, I was really pleased to write that instead! It will feature in vol.121, no.10 (July) and is entitled, " 'I Hate Your Church, What I Want is My Kingdom': Emerging Spiritualities in the UK Emerging Church Milieu." It's basically an overview of what I describe as the emerging church "milieu" and the two spiritualities (they are characterised as two hermeneutics in my thesis) that I see arising from such a milieu. The basic argument of the piece (relating to where the missional focus of the emerging church should be located - church or kingdom) should, however, ignite a few sparks.

Re-emergence conference

From March 16-18 2010, the Irish School of Ecumenics, Belfast, will host "Re-emergence: Christianity and the Event of God." This is something that Pete Rollins has been involved in organising and will (very sadly) be the only UK date for his Insurrection tour.

The keynotes include Phyllis Tickle (The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why), which I blogged about here, and Dave Tomlinson (The Post-Evangelical, Re-enchanting Christianity), vicar at my partner's Sim's brother's church, St. Luke's. Those involved in the Insurrection tour with Pete are Padraig O Tauma (Hymns to Swear By, not yet released, but also on Dubh) and Jonny McEwen (Fractured, broken, and Beautiful). Other participants includ Beki Bateson (executive director of London International Festival of Theatre, chair of Amos Trust, and co-founder of Vaux), Ian Mitchell, Kerry Anthony (Depaul Ireland), Kester Brewin (Vaux, Apple, The Complex Christ, Other: Loving Self, God and Neighbour in a World of Fractures), and Alistair Duncan (the garden, the Whitehawk Inn). There'll also be music from a "mystery musician, who we have to keep under wraps for now." Duke Special or Bono?!?

Here's some more info:

"Each new epoch in the life of the Church is born from the white-hot fires of a fundamental question, a question with the power to scorch the very ground that has previously sustained us.

"When they arise, these fundamental questions invite us to rethink what it means to be part of the body of Christ. They have nothing to do with the myriad of disagreements that exist within the shared theological horizon, but rather challenge the very horizon itself. They do not revolve around differences within and between established Christian groups but rather place into question what these groups all take for granted. They cut across what is assumed, short-circuit what is hallowed and, in doing so, appear to threaten the very essence of Christianity itself.

"Is it possible that we stand once more at the threshold of such a question; a question that holds the power to spark a rupturing and re-imagining of the present configuration of Christianity? Are there signs that some of the assumptions we have taken for granted concerning faith need to be interrogated once again?

"We hope that you can join us as we wrestle with these difficult ideas together."

Sadly, the timing of this event isn't great for me. I'm hoping to submit my thesis before the end of February and I need to have my viva before April 1 for some other reasons, so right about mid March I think I'll be biting my nails. I also can't justify the expense of getting over there what with the two of us living on my partner's teaching salary. Ho hum. I'll have to wait for an industrious American to make a dvd of the Insurrection tour... please?!?!?

Overview and Review of Evangelicalism and the Emerging Church

As the first academic study of a UK Vineyard congregation, Cory Labanow's Evangelicalism and the Emerging Church focuses on the very interesting case of a Vineyard church with a historical connection to and continuing relationship with the emerging church conversation. In order to be what the author calls 'sociologically rigorous' whilst retaining a 'decisively theological orientation,' an ethnographic methodology is combined with a practical theology to construct a description and interpretation of the congregational situation of this church community. Labanow therefore provides in Chapter 1 useful accounts of the developments of practical theology and congregational studies, and the relationship between theology and the social sciences that should be of interest to anyone exploring lived religiosity, whatever particular community is being explored. His work also closes with some recommendations for such an approach to the study of contemporary religious communities.

The thick description of this Vineyard congregation (Jacobsfield Vineyard, or JV, a pseudonym) is given in Chapter 2, through a narrative of its recent history before Labaow's arrival, his initial entry into the community and the participant-observations through which he familiarised himself with the church (followed later by thematic analysis of interview data). Of central importance to this narrative is the religious journey of JV's pastor, Mark Lawton (also a pseudonym). Labanow provides illustrations of the Sunday service, as well as the church's home groups and local community projects. As a study of an ostensibly evangelical church's relationship with both the evangelical tradition and the emerging church conversation, Labanow employs Alan Jamieson's (2002) A Churchless Faith and Robert Webber's (2002) The Younger Evangelicals as what he calls 'analytical aids' (along with Lawton's own claims regarding community identity, pp.60-65) to map the dual aspect of this congregation's situational landscape.

The changes arising from the deeper engagement of an evangelical congregation with the emerging church observed by Labanow include JV's reading and theological discussion groups, Lawton's teaching techniques, and the increased attention given to practices from historical Christian traditions. A quotation from a JV leader in September 2003 expresses the nature of these changes:

'This is now a key moment in [JV] history because what is happening... is that we are transitioning from just talking about the emergent theological conversation to actually embodying the emergent theological conversation in our everyday faith and life and the forms of our church. And you're going to see a transitioning of forms, an evolving and a deepening' (p.49)

However, Labanow makes interesting observations regarding the maintenance of experimental religious identities. Towards the end of his fieldwork, although an emphasis on an ancient-future orientation (see Webber's Ancient-Future series of titles) was sustained, its value was not made explicit through explanation of the reasons for such an approach to worship. Without a regular promotion of alternative communal identity (as a "church for people who wouldn't normally go to church"), Labanow believes a reversion back to the evangelical forms and styles of worship most familiar to the congregation occurred. This period provides the lesson that 'without a continual emphasis on cultivating a new identity, people will tend to retreat into that pattern of being which they know best, and in a church of people reared in evangelical churches, that will likely be in the direction of an evangelical brand of faith' (p.52).

This example hints at Labanow's observation that congregational attitudes were often dissimilar from Lawton's claims regarding community identity, especially in relation to their relationship with the emerging church conversation - a difference that Labanow explains with recourse to Lawton's privileged access to formal training both within the church structures and within academic institutions (p.73). In this respect, therefore, no clear congregational consensus arose regarding JV's relationship to the emerging church. Labanow's data does suggest, however, that an understanding of JV's relationship to the evangelical tradition is more commonly held. He identifies it as one of 'unease,' and characterises it as a process of sifting and discerning (not only with regards evangelicalism but also secular popular culture). As a result, JV can be neither wholly identified with nor wholly differentiated from evangelical/pentecostal/charismatic, or EPC, churches.

Particularly interesting , and worth mentioning in brief, are the questions raised about Lawton's leadership role, the structures of authority in place at JV, and the particular events or crises in the history of these organisational patterns. On this theme, Labanow's research suggests that:

1. 'Lawton uses power more responsibly than many other leaders whom the interviewees' (sic) encounter in other circles'
2. 'JVers are not very democratic due to the large amout of power Lawton holds' and
3. 'JVers are relieved that the elders and trustees are in place to (theoretically) balance his power if he tried to use it improperly' (p.80)

In order to make sense of the themes arising from his fieldwork, Labanow's approach to the exploration of this congregation also involved the identification of what he calls its 'central theological question.' Throughout the period of investigation, the theme of relevance was particularly observable. The central issue, for Labanow (though obviously in conversation with his data and the issues identified by participants as central), was the 'dual emergence' of this congregation, dissatisfied with elements of both evangelical Christianity and post-Christian culture and hopeful of the discovery of new ways of being and doing church.

However, an especially interesting but odd disparity is noted between this desire (expressed in interviews and by Lawton's claims regarding congregational identity) to address both of these sources of discontent and the congregational practices recorded by Labanow in his participant-observations. A disjunct between discourse and practice was noted:

'Though much of JV's teaching was spawned from, or at least evolving into, an "emerging church" school of thought (if such a thing can be said to exist), their practice of worship was still thoroughly Vineyard; while experimentation with different sounds and interludes of Scripture readings and/or prayers may have been occurring on an occasional basis, even that genre of experimentation itself is very characteristic of the Vineyard movement and EPC churches in general' (p.97)

From this observation, Labanow suggests that

'until JV generate an ethic by which to reconstruct their worship on a basis of renewed identity (pertaining to who they are and what worship is) instead of changing aesthetics, their transition may be incomplete and counterproductive' (p.98)

This broader central question of the relevance of both discourse and practice to a religious context of dual emergence raises wider questions that Labanow's final chapter enumerates as questions of religious parentage, the creation of safe space, resources for Christian growth and maturity, strategies for communicating with conteporary culture, and the reconstruction and future shape of Christianity.

Labanow's Evangelicalism and the Emerging Church is therefore an intriguing study of a UK congregation exploring its self-identity in relation to the evangelical tradition and elements of the emerging church conversation (despite incongruences between the more explicitly emergent discourse of Lawton and the emergent themes only implicit in interview data). It is one of only a few academic explorations of congregations connected to the emerging church, but its ethnographic approach to data collection is a very welcome departure from an over-reliance on either published emerging church literature or interviews with ec authors/leaders/bloggers. It refreshingly engages the voices and activities of "ordinary" people. The disparities between Lawton's views and the perspectives of members of the congregation highlight the problems inherent in other studies; namely, the methodological reductionism that assumes the views of emerging church authors/leaders/bloggers are held in an unmodified form by other participants. Labanow's approach means he does not fall into this trap. Consequently, this book holds value not only in its presentation and thematic analysis of a particular evangelical/emerging congregation but in its highly advantageous methodology for the study of such religiosity in general.

Evangelicalism and the Emerging Church is published in Ashgate's Explorations in Practical, Pastoral and Empirical Theology series at the end of this month (August 28 2009). The hardback copy is expensive (£50 rrp) so awaiting the paperback edition (as I have with other texts in this useful series) might be more manageable. But it is well worth the price for anyone interested in contemporary Christianity. Buy it here at amazon.co.uk or here from Ashgate.

New Book on Evangelicalism and the Emerging Church

At the end of August, a new book in Ashgate's Explorations in Practical, Pastoral and Empirical Theology series will be published in hardback: Evangelicalism and the Emerging Church, by Cory Labanow. Cory's very kindly emailed me a PDF copy to review as soon as I'm able. I've had a very quick read through it and it looks very interesting.

Focusing on an ethnographic study of a Vineyard Church connected to the global emerging church milieu, Cory explores the congregational life and culture of a community working through issues of religious identity. Here's a bit of blurb from Ashgate to get you interested. I'll post a review as soon as I can.

"With the Christian church in the west in decline, some churches are undergoing difficult transitions as they seek to become relevant, to both themselves and their surrounding cultures. Evangelicalism and the Emerging Church details an ethnographic study of a Vineyard congregation making sense of their Vineyard roots and their growing relationship with the self-proclaimed "emerging church" network. Through a rich account of congregational life and tensions, universal issues are raised such as relating to religious parentage, creating safe places for spirituality, Christian growth and maturity, communication with contemporary culture, and the challenges of identity reconstruction. This book is the first to conduct an academic study of a Vineyard congregation in the United Kingdom."

Pete Rollins on US TV show

Explaining Emergent Churches - Inner Compass from Calvin College on Vimeo.

The Emerging Church, Deconstruction and Jamie Smith's "catholic Postmodernism"

Peter Schuurman's chapter in DeRoo and Lightbody's The Logic of Incarnation: James K.A. Smith's Critique of Postmodern Religion, "Deconstructing Institutions: Derrida and the 'Emerging Church'," identifies the 'shared values' between the emerging church and deconstruction, before using Smith's critique (basically, postmodern religion is not postmodern enough, i.e. still bound to the modern trend of autonomous individualization) to propose a three-fold division in the emerging church milieu.

Describing Jacques Derrida as a 'rock star' for the emerging church (p.112), but noting that some within this milieu use the language of deconstruction without reference to it as an academic thesis or misunderstand the 'radical nature of the Derridean project' (p.113), Schuurman presents what he see as four 'significant shared values' between the emerging church and deconstruction:

1. INTERPRETATION. Multiple readings 'challenge the idea that faith is certainty, without doubts or misreadings,' therefore also opening up 'room for questioning the church and theology' (p.114). This leads to playful and experimental reinterpretations of texts and doctrines, and friendly relationships between denominations and with other religions.

2. LOVE AND JUSTICE. Readings and performances of texts, doctrines and practices with an eye for the other are acts of love and justice, which facilitates a shift which Schuurman characterizes thus: 'now it is not important (or even possible) to "get the right reading" as it is to "read in a just and loving way",' which lays the ground for co-existence and collaboration (pp.114-115).

3. MESSIANISM. Schuurman writes that, 'no reading does justice to all, and no reading ever will. The perfect interpretation, the "right reading", the truly hospitable cultural construction is always "to come" – just like the Hebrew messiah' (p.115). However, rather conservatively, he links this notion of the "to-come" to the choice of the language of emergence: the 'emergent crowd' are 'emerging - a work in process - a church that is not a church but is rather a church "to come".' (p.115). In my thesis I'm exploring several more interesting, more radical examples of "messianic structures" within the emerging church milieu. (More on that to come as I write up over the next few months, I'm sure).

4. LIBERATION FROM THE DETERMINATE. Smith's chapter in DeRoo and Lightbody's collection, which I blogged about here, distinguished between the logics of determination and incarnation. Schuurman follows Smith's characterization of Derridean deconstruction (and Caputian deconstructive theology) as seeking to 'live in the dynamic between the readings rather than in any determinate reading' (p.115). I'll blog more about why I am dubious about Smith's portrayal of deconstructive theology as following a logic of determination as I continue to write up my thoughts, but for now my gut reaction to it is that it reads Caputo as more indeterminate than I believe he is being. Caputo speaks of the tension of BOTH existing IN (rather than moving over or passing through as Mark C. Taylor might write) historical associations (i.e. particular DETERMINATE religious traditions) AND engaging in messianic disassociations. This tension affirms singularity and particularity whilst at the same time trying to resist the temptation to privilege Christian particularity.

Schuurman's acceptance of Smith's characterization of deconstructive theology as fearful of determinancy leads him to construct a three-fold typology of emerging churches based on their relationship to the particularity of the Christian religious tradition.

Firstly, Schuurman identifies the 'discontinuous emergent church.' Here, participants 'shy away from creeds and confessions, and posit a radical discontinuity between themselves and the church that has gone on before' (pp115-116). Here, there is 'freedom from restraint, particularity, tradition,' or 'freedom as autonomy' (p.116), thus sharing with Derrida a flight from the determinate towards the indeterminate. However, my thesis is going to demonstrate that even those most closely aligned with Derridean and Caputian thought are not as discontinuous (or, in the language of sociologists of religion, post-traditionalized) as Schuurman makes out here. They are, after all, as I have mentioned above, engaged in both a historical association with the Christian tradition and a messianic disassociation from it in order to keep it open to the incoming of the other.

Secondly, those within the emerging church milieu that seek a 'return to the ancient Christian tradition' are classified as the 'ancient-future emergent church.' However, Schuurman warns against this grouping's tendency to privilege eclecticism thereby baptizing another form of autonomy in relation to tradition, one based upon postmodern consumerism (pp.116-117).

Therefore, Schuurman reiterates Smith's advocacy of a 'more persistent or proper postmodernism that takes us beyond the desire for autonomy and into a community of thought and practice that stretches through time and space, in other words, a particular embodied tradition and its institutions' (p.117). Those within the emerging church milieu that exhibit this submission to 'the “catholic” Christian faith of creeds and confessional Trinitarian dogma, the sacraments, and even hierarchy' are referred to as the 'catholic emergent churches (small "c").' In contrast to the freedom-from-restraint type of autonomy extant in the other types of emerging church, here there is 'a freedom that comes when one is empowered by deep commitments and covenants, by submission to authority and mutual accountability' (p.118).

Schuurman ends by asking, 'How can we nurture a commitment and authenticity that is neither an extension of the rule of taste nor a retrenchment in embattled fundamentalist certainty?' (p.118). But the underlying assumption of this question (and of Schuurman's critique of the deconstructive elements within the emerging church milieu) is that the entire milieu operates with an understanding of truth that is an accommodation to 'the rule of taste.' Part of my thesis contends that, far from being "whatever works for me," truth in the emerging church milieu more often takes the form of "what transforms," what turns me from myself to others.

Paul T.

I went to London for the day yesterday to meet up with Paul Teusner from the School of Applied Communications at RMIT University, Melbourne, whose research into Australian emerging church blogs I've been following for the last couple of years. It was great to meet him in person and to spend a good number of hours chatting about our work and lives. Paul had a camera handy to "pap" me outside Buckingham Palace but I didn't - so I had to steal this one from his online CV. If you want to see me displaying my transcribing injuries follow this link.

Paul's research explores how emerging church bloggers in Australia are constructing individual religious identities, how the Australian blogosphere networks to collectively determine emerging church identity online, and how these online constructions impact the offline identity of the Australian emerging church. His research site is here.

Paul has just been to the Association of Internet Researchers' conference in Copenhagen, "Rethinking Community, Rethinking Place," and for the first time there were a good number of researchers working on religion. Among them a few people I met at the "Religion, Media and Culture: Exploring Religion and the Sacred in a Media Age" conference in Oxford last April: Heidi Campbell, Mia Lovheim, and Tim Hutchings. Heidi recently launched a research wiki called Studying Religion and New Media. You can find the PowerPoints for Paul's papers ("Web 2.0 Rhetoric and Realities: Authority, Technorati and Religious Bloggers" and "Religious Podcasting: In Between Religious Audiences and Podcasting Communities") here and here. The paper I wrote for the Oxford conference is scheduled to be published in a book Exploring Religion and the Sacred in a Media Age mid-January.

It was great to talk with Paul about the differences between the Australian emerging church and the UK emerging church milieu, and interesting to hear more about the conservative emphases of Christianity (and politics) in Australia. It seems like the OZ emerging church milieu is more theologically conservative and often prefers to articulate its identity in the language of mission and missional to distinguish it from the US emerging church milieu and particularly Emergent Village. Paul met Pete Rollins a while back in Melbourne and it was great to hear a bit about reactions to what Pete and ikon are about. Once we got bored of our theses and moaning about the inner workings of postgrad life, we chatted about Neighbours (of course), horror movies and zombies, Simon Pegg, Brighton, and the pains of not really knowing where we're going to fit when we've submitted. We'll see, eh?

"Emerging Church" as a Barrier to Participation in (Resistant) Social Movement?

Fellow PhD student Tony Jones has blogged about the emerging church in relation to new social movement theories, which connects with some of the things I've been thinking about recently. (There's a bit of preamble to wade through before I get to the good stuff).



Having done a first draft of my Introduction (should be 6,000 words - it's about 9,000), I'm onto Chapter One, "Emergence," which asks 'what is the emerging church?' Forget that a whole thesis could be done on that subject, and remember that I'm just trying to introduce my readers to the milieu so they know the context in which I'm asking my research questions. I do this by arguing against the tendency to define such a thing as an "emerging church" and for the usefulness of the concept of a "milieu." This enables one to talk about the diversity within such a milieu without suggesting that a particular expression (ecclesiologically, philosophically, theologically, politically, aesthetically, structurally) is more prevalent or more preferable or more "emerging" than others.


So, I then move on to argue that, despite the observable diversity, there are certain ideological commitments discernable within this milieu. These ideological commitments are not all made by every individual, community, organization or network involved in the milieu. That said, commitment to one or more of these ideologies allows them to be positioned within the milieu, remembering that one can be part of the emerging church milieu and part of any number of other Christian and non-Christian-specific milieux simultaneously and that one is not judged to be more "emerging" than others if you exhibit more ideological commitments than them - you are just more deeply involved in the emerging church milieu (in other words, a value judgement is - hopefully - not implied).


I'm going to chicken-out from posting about these ideological commitments in detail until I've at least written a first draft of Chapter One so that I've got them a bit more fleshed out, but here they are, in brief:

• "Glocal" contextualization in contemporary culture


• Rediscovery of "ancient-future" traditions


• Organization experimentation


• Engagement with postmodern theory


• Radicalization of Christian theology


• Social and political activism

As you can see, these ideological commitments come together to form a very broad picture of the emerging church milieu. This is intentional. Many of the "emerging church typologies" out there (esp. Stezter, Driscoll, Patton, Patrick) require the not unproblematic identification of a community's primary concern (usually supposed to be EITHER theological, methodological OR structural revision). Viewing these ideological commitments as familial resemblances (of which an individual, community, organization or network within the milieu may have one or more) resists such a reductionist task. Further, within each familial resemblance is a lot of room for maneouvere. For example, two communities that both engage win social and political activism may do so in diverse ways; similarly, two networks interested in radical Christian theology may go in diverse directions; individuals participating in the rediscovery of Christian tradition may go apply their findings in diverse manners; and so on.


Anyway, in reading for the subsection of the chapter that explores organizational experimentation, I recently found this PhD dissertation from the States by Josh Packard entitled "Organizational Structure, Religious Belief and Resistance: The Emerging Church," which uses the emerging church as a case study for exploring the ways in which organizations might consciously resist institutionalization. It was fascinating.


Of particular interest to me where his conclusions that an organization seeking to resist institutionalization does not create its own organizational patterns but seeks to allow multiple patterns and to keep their existence visible in order to make these patterns 'subject to constant criticism and interrogation' (p.24). Packard suggests that resistant organizations need to create permanent 'unsettled periods' (Ann Swidler) in which ideologies and their connections to actions are clear and therefore open to be contested.


Robert Wuthnow writes, 'greater self-consciousness about religious symbolism is accompanied by a greater emphasis on personal interpretation and a decline in tacit acceptance of official creeds' (1988:299). Packard writes that 'lowering barriers to participation fosters a high degree of symbolic consciousness which compels people to examine the sets of ideas which support articulated ideologies in the form of statements or rituals' (p.267). He concludes that these processes allows those within resistant organizations to sift out the dominant ideologies which are the forces of institutionalization.


In relation to recent debates concerning the utility of the phrase "emerging church," it made me wonder:

• Does the phrase and the assumed meaning (crafted mostly by its critics) serve as a barrier to participation?
  
• Would the emerging church be better served as a resistant social movement if it dropped the name?