Moving Forward

I had a good supervision session yesterday, my last one for a while as my supervisor is going on sabbatical next term [single tear rolls down cheek] I gave her an(other) overall structure for the thesis, which I feel comfortable working towards while she's away in Italy - although I imagine it will morph as I go along! It's already, like, the seventeenth structure I've had! My research questions (how do members and friends of emerging Christian communities understand the concept of truth, and what might the philosophical, theological and political implications of such concept(s) look like?) form the backbone of the thesis structure.

The Introduction contextualises my research questions by briefly framing them in the criticisms levelled at the "emerging church." I explain how the structure of the thesis relates to the main contentions I wish to make, and introduce themes which are peppered throughout.

Chapter One introduces the reader to emerging Christian communities through a thematic exploration of my (at the moment!) chosen terminology ("emerging Christian communities"). It consists of a sociological reflection on the position of these communities in the Christian landscape, an historical tracing of the emergence of these communities in the UK context, and a review of possible future trajectories. The last section of this chapter details the criticisms laid against the "emerging church" by evangelical detractors with particular emphasis on the ways in which these communities are imagined the undermine the truth claims of Christianity.

Chapter Two is a methodological chapter which details the multi-method through which I conducted this research. It introduces the reader to the participants and their communities, and reflects on theoretical, ethical and practice concerns generated by this project. I argue against the reductionist methodologies of other "emerging church" research which privileges the voices of certain individuals over others, thereby justifying my decision to conduct research on several levels in order to hear the voices of a spectrum of individuals. I also present my use of the Internet as both a research tool (e-questionnaires, Facebook) and as a research site (blogs, and other related spaces). I take the reader through the process of moving from an online context to an offline one, and back again, reflecting on the implications of these moves for research relationships.

Chapters Three and Four begin to unpick the philosophical implications of participants' understandings of truth. With regards to philosophy, there are two strands which emerge. An individual participant might stand firmly within one strand rather than the other, but several participants hold both strands in creative tension, and the communities from which participants come cannot be understood to fully exhibit one strand to the full exclusion of the other.

Chapter Three draws out the first strand. Here there is ontological realism and epistemological fallibility. Either there is or there isn't a God (the principle of bivalence) but human knowledge cannot fully grasp the nature of this reality. In this strand, deconstruction is understood as a phase which is a necessary response to modernist (evangelical) Christianity, but which must at some point give way to the process of reconstruction. Some elements within postmodern philosophy are understood to be relativistic or nihilistic, and Christianity cannot go the same way. This ontologically realist, epistemologically humble, and reconstructive strand has implication for evangelism, tending to emphasise cultural postmodernity, as well as a chastened (i.e. not nihilistic!) philosophical postmodernism, in order to contextualise mission in shifting paradigms.

Chapter Four details the second strand. Here there is a reluctance to answer (or even ask) questions of ontology. Rather than making judgements regarding the realist or non-realist nature of the Christian narrative, participants prefer to talk about hyperrealism. Also in contrast to the first strand, participants' epistemologies are not so much chastened as a/epistemologies, or epistemologies of active unknowing. Uncertainty and doubt is accompanied by the de-nomination of every naming of God. Deconstruction is understood as an inherent part of the Christian narrative, of Jesus' example, and of the Christian life. Christianity is understood as auto-deconstructive. Deconstruction, questioning, unravelling, are central to Christian faith, not as a necessary phase before the rebuilding, but as coexistent with faith. Truth is understood as an event which occurs to us and transforms us through a call, following the work of Jack Caputo. This understanding of truth as a call has implications for the type of community which develops around such a concept. A final section here explores the a/theism of participants and their understandings of orthodoxy as believing in the right way (i.e. lightly) rather than right belief.

A brief pause before I move on to explain the other chapters. I know what you are going to say, but it is not the case that Ikon can be neatly fitted into the second strand, with the other communities in the first! My differentiation between these strands doesn't work that way. There are participants within Ikon who, while holding to some of the tenets in strand two, identify more closely with strand one. And there are participants in other communities who have more affinity for the second strand than for the first. These two strands are not mutually exclusive, and can be (and often are) held in tension by participants.

Chapter Five meditates on the theological implications of participants' notions of truth and the philosophical strands drawn out in the preceding chapters. It examines Radical Orthodoxy in the light of participants' understandings of truth and argues that this theology is only useful for some of them. It also reformulates Radical Orthodoxy into what can be referred to as a "Generous Radical Orthodoxy." [titter, titter] I argue that Radical Orthodoxy's tone of certainty and preoccupation with being are the reasons that other participants can be said to exhibit a closer affinity with Weak Theology.

Chapter Six is the final chapter of the thesis (as it stands at the moment!) and explores the implications for politics of emerging understandings of truth. Here the two philosophical strands, which have continued to diverge theologically, re-converge politically. However truth is philosophically understood and in whichever theology these understandings feel at home, participants' responses to truth dovetail with each other. Here I explore notions of responding to the call and Caputo's kingdom without kingdom. I was tempted to also tackle a critique of Neo-Pragmatism from the perspective Generous Radical Orthodoxy and Weak Theology, though I think this was a little ambitious of me. Maybe. Maybe not. We'll see. Maybe a journal article, eh?

The conclusion will obviously do all standards things conclusion tend to do. I'll draw together all the threads of the thesis, breaking them down to show the various philosophical theories of truth at work among Christian communities. I reflect on the cultural contexts from which these understandings of truth emerge, and identify fruitful areas for further enquiry. Blah, blah, blah!

That's where my thinking is concerning my research questions and the structure of my thesis. I haven't yet finished transcribing the 30 interviews I conducted (in fact, I'm no way near), but I've been reflecting on the emerging themes [titter, God, I need a holiday!] and with this structure I feel more confident that I move forward with reading, etc., while I simultaneously try to finish the transcriptions. So... apologies to all participants who were looking forward to sitting down and having a good mull over their transcripts whilst sipping mulled wine - and I know that was, like, all of you!

As I transcribe, further themes are coming up which I will not be able to develop far in this thesis. For example, participants' views on Jesus, the historicity of the Bible, the nature of revelation, etc. I hope to be able to incorporate these themes into blog posts, however, so that everyone can continue those conversations even though they will not feature heavily in the thesis (whenever that gets done!).

As part of an open sourced approach to research, please let me know what you think of these preliminary thoughts.

Voices of the Virtual World wins Award

The first volume of the Wikiklesia Project, Voices of the Virtual World: Participative Technology and the Ecclesial Revolution, has won an award of merit from the Society for New Communications Research. From the press release:



"The Society for New Communications Research is a nonprofit global think tank dedicated to the advanced study of new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business and society."



A post revealing the other 2007 winners can be accessed here.

Radical Orthodoxy: Too Strong for My Taste!

This is a long one. Apologies.

On something of a Radical Orthodoxy roll, I’ve started reading Steven Shakespeare’s (2007) Radical Orthodoxy: A Critical Introduction.[1] He addresses several criticisms of Radical Orthodoxy which concern me (particularly the imperialism and dualism of the position) and explores themes which RO under examine (dialogue, compassion, and agnosticism). These reflections dovetail nicely with the emerging themes of my fieldwork, particularly emphases on doubt, unknowing, and a/theism. It’s here where I leave RO in search of weaker theologies! (I’m not sure this is where Shakespeare himself is willing to go, though!!!).

This introduction to Radical Orthodoxy is more accessible than James K.A. Smith’s (2004) introduction which I blogged about at the beginning of the week (here and here). At the end of his introductory chapter, Shakespeare helpfully summarises the ‘bold claims’ of Radical Orthodoxy (40) thus:

• No part of the world can be understood apart from God.
• The idea of an independent secular realm is something we have invented.
• Secular philosophies claim to be based on pure reason. However, they are really Christian theology gone bad, religions of power promoting violence.
• Liberal and other progressive theologies [he introduces RO’s critiques of liberal theology, liberation theology, feminist theology, and eco-theology] play into the hands of secularism, accepting that the world can be known independent of its relationship to God [through reason, the social sciences, or nature, for example]. Conservative theologies try to reintroduce God into the world from the outside. Both fail to overcome the problems created by the creation of a secular world.
• The cure for this secular disease is a recovery of Christian tradition and community.
• The key elements of Christianity are participation, a dynamic sharing in the nature of God; and the belief that death and violence are secondary to God’s gift of peace in creation, renewed in Christ.
• Christian faith saves the world from becoming the plaything of impersonal forces [such as the “free” market]. It treats creation as a gift, not as a given. (40)

Shakespeare then moves on to further introduce Radical Orthodoxy through a framework of three interlinking themes: language, community, and desire. These three themes form the basis of the next chapters, each with summaries attached. I’ve largely skim-read these chapters with an eye to my research topics (truth, realism, knowledge, doubt, being, event) and moved straight on Shakespeare’s ‘looking ahead’ chapter, reflecting on criticisms of Radical Orthodoxy, and suggestions for the future of theology. I’ll present these criticisms and suggestions, before focusing in on where Shakespeare’s presentation of Radical Orthodoxy intersects with my research topics.

Shakespeare draws attention to four interlinking criticisms of Radical Orthodoxy: dualism, imperialism, rootlessness, and monism. Firstly, the dichotomy between Church and world, Christian theology and all other approaches to truth, Christianity and secularism, can be seen to result in a ghettoisation of the religion which is ultimately akin to the modern (secular) banishing of religion to a corner which RO seeks to avoid. Secondly, RO is engaging in an exercise of power when it asserts the domination of the Christian story over all others, drowning out differences between Christianity and other theologies and differences among Christians. Christian theology, the Church, and Christian life is idealized and homogenized in relation to an Anglo-American context and addressing only the issues raised in this western locality. Thirdly, the idealization and abstraction of the Church threatens to leave RO without any real church. Finally, following on from the criticism of dualism, Radical Orthodoxy is also charged with monism (the view that there is only one reality), because in dividing Christianity and secularism, only Christianity is given essential reality, because the secular doesn’t recognise its fundamental dependence upon God.

With these criticisms in mind, Shakespeare moves on to consider where Radical Orthodoxy might go from here. His three suggestions for the future of theology mirror the pattern of language, community, and desire found earlier in the book: language in dialogue (175-176), community in compassion (177-178), and desire and unknowing (178-180). I’m going to focus on the last of these brief suggestions (which deserved to be given more than a few pages each) because it intersects with my research questions.

To temper the confidence (arrogance?) in many RO texts, Shakespeare reminds readers that knowing and speaking are contextual activities in which interpretation is unavoidable and absolute certainty never available. He introduces Christian agnosticism, the agnosticism that runs through much of the Christian and Jewish tradition, in which St Augustine says, ‘What do I love, when I love my God?’ (178). The via negativa exposes the limitedness of our language about God, our God-talk, our theology. He recognises the ambiguity, anxiety and uncertainty of belief: ‘the sense of being called to follow, without knowing the end of the road, is palpable. It reaches its most intense pitch in Jesus’ own cry of desolation from the cross’ (180).

Shakespeare’s call for desire, agnosticism, and unknowing begins to connect one suggestion for a theology of emerging Christian communities with another: Radical Orthodoxy and weak theology. Though he briefly mentions John Caputo’s (2001) On Religion, and Pete Rollins’ (2006) How (Not) To Speak of God in a footnote (where he also mentions I text I might look at further: George Pattison’s (1996) Agnosis: Theology in the Void), Shakespeare doesn’t engage at depth with the concept of weak theology and its related emphasis on a/theism in connection with Radical Orthodoxy’s failings. I suppose I should be glad of this, however, otherwise there would be little for me to attempt in my PhD thesis! For now, I’m going to draw out two elements from Shakespeare’s presentation of RO for later contemplation: truth and ontology.

Shakespeare wonders whether Radical Orthodoxy places greater importance upon aesthetics than on truth (31). For RO, truth is ‘story-shaped’ (80). The Church is the community which tells the right story about God and the world, as only it recognises the created nature of the world and its participatory role in God’s redeeming of that creation. And this story is justified through aesthetics rather than reason: it is the attractiveness of the story (not its truth - correspondence to reality) which persuades. John Milbank writes that truth ‘first of all abides in the body of the faithful’ (Being Reconciled 2003:122). It is a creation, and in creating, the faithful participate in the creative nature of God. So, ‘truth, for Christianity, is not correspondence, but rather participation of the beautiful in the beauty of God’ (Milbank, Theology and Social Theory 1990:427). Truth is therefore a relationship to participate in, rather than a knowledge to be grasped. John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock argue that, following Aquinas, this participation in truth enables us to share in the divine nature (32), though this interpretation of Aquinas has been questioned by John Marenbom (Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy 2005:49-64). In my thesis I will be examining RO's concept of truth in more detail, and exploring it’s appropriateness for emerging Christian communities.

Within Radical Orthodoxy, there is a marked emphasis upon ontology, possibly in reaction to the observable postmodern emphasis on epistemology. I may not have been astute enough to pick up this emphasis if I wasn’t also reading John Caputo’s (2006) The Weakness of God at the moment – I’ll explain soon...

Radical Orthodoxy lays much of the blame for the myth of secularism at the feet of Christianity itself, and in particular, Duns Scotus, who predicated being univocally, i.e. attributing existence to God the Creator and God’s creations in the same sense. Aquinas, on the other hand, advocated an analogical worldview. Being can be attributed to both God and God’s creations but not in precisely the same sense, only analogically (10). Following Aquinas, RO speak analogically in order to posit that God’s creations only have being because they share in the being of God, though not in precisely the same way. Creation ‘is of itself nothing, and only exists by participation’ (Milbank BR 2003:114). God’s creations ‘can only be understood if we see them in relation to what has given them being, keeps them in being, and brings them to their perfect end’ (24). In rejecting Duns Scotus’ worldview and advocating Aquinas’, however, RO overemphasise ontology, particularly the being and existence of God. This translates into the confidence which Shakespeare rightly recognises as a key criticism and source of contention and infuriation (4).

This certainty in the being, existence, and experience of God would lead John Caputo to categorise Radical Orthodoxy as a ‘strong theology,’ something which I intend to explore a lot further.

In reading Caputo's TWOG, which is in clear conversation with Catherine Keller’s (2003) The Face of the Deep, I have started to reflect on how Radical Orthodoxy treats the second century doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Shakespeare summarises: ‘The doctrine of creation says that God makes the world out of nothing, simply as a free expression of love. There is no pre-existing force, chaos or evil which God has to fight with to bring the world into being’ (26). This peaceful bringing into being contrasts with secularism, in which being competes with being for survival, in which ‘being reduces to war’ (Smith 2004:195). However, as Keller and Caputo show, this doctrine is itself violent, suppressing and excluding the elements (the deep, tehom; the empty earth, tohu wa-bohu; and the wind, ruach) that are clearly present before God’s creative act in the biblical narrative (Gen.1:2). God does not create the world out of nothing, not out of a void, but out of substances already present, like any artist.

This brings us back to the discussion of ontology, and Radical Orthodoxy’s ‘strong theology’ of being and participation. On reading Gen.1:2 more closely (Caputo mischievously talks about the literalism of a close literary reading in order to prickle the hairs of biblical literalists, TWOG 2006:56), ‘God is not responsible for the fact that the elements are there, but for making them stir, making them live by staking out great expanses that God fills up with living things. Creation is not a movement from non-being to being – which is what makes the hearts of metaphysicians everywhere skip a beat – but from being to beyond being, from a mute expanse of being to the bustle of living things, from barrenness to the bloom of life, from silence to the word that makes the empty full and the barren buzz with life’ (TWOG 2006:58-59). Creation is a bringing of life to being rather than a bringing of being itself, a call for being to be beyond being. Radical Orthodoxy’s ‘strong theology’ of being is in sharp contrast to Caputo’s ‘weak theology’ of event. This is something I’m definitely going to look into more. This post is already long enough!

[1] References are to this volume, unless otherwise stated.

Review of WWJD? on Amazon.co.uk

I've posted my review of Caputo's What Would Jesus Deconstruct? here on Amazon.co.uk.

Reformed Radical Orthodoxy: Towards Theological Philosophy

Wikiklesia editor John La Grou was very kind about yesterday's introduction to Radical Orthodoxy, reflecting on the "secular" as 'the language of defeat - an admission of blindness to the unseen realities constantly at work in and around us.' But not only this - the "secular" is an idol, a constructed sphere outside, beyond, above, God.

Now, onto Reformed Radical Orthodoxy...

Alongside this presentation of the key issues and themes within Radical Orthodoxy, James K.A. Smith (2004) introduces the Reformed Tradition in both support and critique of RO. At times, he suggests areas in which RO is in need of being Reformed; at others, Radical Orthodoxy is used to push the Reformed Tradition further. This ‘reformed rendition’ of Radical Orthodoxy (80) is the product of bringing RO claims into ‘critical dialogue’ with Herman Dooyeweerd in particular (155), in whose work Smith recognises possibilities for both the confirmation and development of Radical Orthodoxy. Here, RO, specifically John Milbank, is seen to be reductionist in its analysis and rejection of disciplines such as philosophy. Smith argues that Dooyeweerd can be utilised to clarify the RO critique of philosophy.

Smith argues that Milbank’s critique of the autonomy of philosophy which entails a rejection of this discipline and the formulation of ‘a theological account of what it is to be and know in general’ (Milbank, 1999:22), reduces philosophy as an activity in itself to the particularly autonomous form that philosophy has taken and continues to take.

Milbank can be said to thus create a false dichotomy: ‘It is indeed for radical orthodoxy an either/or: philosophy (Western or Eastern) as a purely autonomous discipline, or theology: Herod or the magi, Pilate or the God-man’ (Milbank, 1999:32).

But, as Smith questions, ‘does not such a conclusion and program confuse a contingent mode of philosophical orientation with the possibilities of an alternative mode of philosophical research? In other words, isn’t Milbank confusing the particular direction (Western) philosophy has taken with the structure of philosophical investigation as such? Could we not entertain the possibility of “a Christian philosophy, ruled and reformed by the central biblical motive” (ITWT, 107) – and as “ruled” obviously not autonomous?’ (155, citing Dooyeweerd, 1999:107).

Smith argues that this conflation of philosophy-as-such with autonomous philosophy, and the subsequent antithesis between philosophy-as-such and theology and the resulting rejection of the former, is a consequence of the ambiguous treatment of the Fall within Radical Orthodoxy (165). Smith uses Leibniz to construct a 'creational ontology' to augment the 'participatory ontology' of Radical Orthodoxy (204-229). Drawing attention to Leibniz's understanding of the 'creational structures' which inhere every created thing to enable self-sufficiency and dependence, and his recognition of the referential nature of these structures - 'a structure of "referring and expressing" that points to an origin' (220). Thus, creation has its telos in God. For Smith, the Fall is understood as the occasion for the distortion and misdirection of these creational structures. Postlapsarian creation retains the referential structures of its “good” creation (Genesis 1:31), but now these structures can be either directed towards God or away from God. Redemption, then, is understood as the redirection of these structures towards the Creator, ‘to the creational telos of humanity: the Triune God’ (253).

Smith’s reformed rendition of RO’s participatory ontology towards a creational ontology, can now be related to his analysis of Milbank’s rejection of philosophy (and other disciplines) as reductionist. He writes, ‘it is important to distinguish between the creational structure and the postlapsarian direction that structure can take and has taken’ (255). Further, it is important to recognise the possibility of Redemption, of constituting the direction of Fallen realities such as autonomous philosophy as otherwise than they are currently. Redemption is the redirection of the creational structures to their ‘creational aim by the Word, who came to heal’ (245). Thus, autonomous philosophy is not rejected and replaced with theology (for this would be to make an idol of one of the created disciplines over the others), but rather its creational structures, which are inherently good, are redirected towards their Creator, forming what RO might call theological philosophy.

Smith, following Dooyeweerd, prefers to talk of confessional philosophy. Smith presents Dooyeweerd's 'unique ontology' (171), wherein creation is structured by ‘multiple aspects or modes that inhere in every created thing’ (171). Each aspect has a corresponding theoretical discipline, for example, mathematics is the discipline which theorizes the numeric aspect, economics is the discipline which theorizes the economic aspect, ethics is the discipline which theorizes the moral aspect, and so on. Philosophy, however, is somewhat different to the other disciplines, as its object of study is not one particular aspect of reality but rather the relational interactions of the aspects, as well as reflecting on epistemology and ontology (Dooyeweerd, 1999:9). However, this does not licence the autonomy of philosophy, because, for Dooyeweerd, each discipline is rooted in particular religious commitments or ground-motivations, ‘either the radical biblical ground-motive or one of any number of “apostate” ground-motives’ (172). For a Christian, then, each of these disciplines must be grounded in Christianity’s ‘central spiritual motive power,’ the ‘radical and central biblical theme of creation, fall into sin and redemption by Jesus Christ as the incarnate Word of God, in the communion of the Holy Spirit’ (Dooyeweerd, 1999:30).

And this includes philosophy. Rather than crown the discipline of theology queen, as Milbank seems to when calling for 'theology alone' (Milbank 1990:6) - which would amount to the idolatrous elevation of one created aspect and its discipline above all the others - ‘Dooyeweerd and the Reformed tradition, therefore, would call for, not a theological resituating of the disciplines but rather a confessional framework for all the disciplines’ (173). This reforming of RO results in a clarification of the call for theological philosophy, or sociology, or whatever discipline, by articulating it as a call for disciplines rooted in the Christian confession. ‘In the end, this is perhaps what RO is really after: an account of the multiple aspects of being-in-the-world that is rooted in God’s self-revelation in Christ’ (174).

[update 27/11/07 10.34am: just found this mp3 from a CBC broadcast. Thanks to sacra doctrina for the link]

Radical Orthodoxy: a 'symphony in five movements'

In conversation with an 'EC skeptic' in the comments on an earlier post, I've decided to post a few more of my reflections on Radical Orthodoxy in the next few days - perhaps along with some other possibilities for postmodern theology - in order to start to think about why I'm more attracted to Caputo's particular 'theology without theology' than these other works. It's my partner's birthday this week, so forgive me if these reflections aren't rapidly forthcoming, though!



To start with, however, I thought I'd present James K.A. Smith's (2004) useful introduction to Radical Orthodoxy, entitled Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-Secular Theology. This book is both an introduction to the political, epistemological, and ontological claims of Radical Orthodoxy as a ‘theological sensibility and spirit’ (67)[1] and a sustained conversation of critique and support between this emerging theology and the articulation of similar (and different) notions among the Reformed Tradition, particularly in the works of Herman Dooyeweerd. Throughout his work, Smith identifies such thinkers as John Milbank, Graham Ward, Catherine Pickstock, Daniel Bell, D. Stephen Long, and William T. Cavanaugh with the ‘loose tendency’ (Pickstock, 2001:405) or ‘theological sensibility’ (Ward, 2003a:117) labelled “Radical Orthodoxy”[2].



Radical Orthodoxy is a 'post-secular theology' in the sense that 'there is no secular, if by “secular” we mean “neutral” or “uncommitted”; instead, the supposedly neutral public spaces that we inhabit – in the academy or politics – are temples of other gods that cannot be served alongside Christ' (42). Thus Radical Orthodoxy's post-secular theology needs to be clearly identified as a Christian post-secular theology, a theology based on the unapologetically confessional narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation.



Recognising that Radical Orthodoxy is not ‘a defined agenda or a school with established doctrines’ (66), Smith presents this ‘certain spirit of theologically driven cultural engagement’ (67) through the metaphor of a ‘symphony in five movements… themes that characterize the “sensibility” of RO’ (70). These themes are:



(i) a concern to form a critique of modernity, liberalism, dualisms, universal reason, immanentism, and “the ontology of violence” (Milbank, 1990:278-325) in which ‘being reduces to war’ (195). In its place, Radical Orthodoxy seeks to provide an alternative ontology, an “ontology of peace” (Milbank, 1990:380-438), in which human intersubjectivity is construed as grounded in harmony rather than opposition, power and war. These critiques of modernity similarly apply to so-called postmodernity, which Radical Orthodoxy understands as ‘hyper-modernity’ (139), where (supposedly) postmodern theorists such as Derrida and Foucault ‘replay and play out the ontology of modernity’ (92). Proponents of RO, then, seek to show that ‘only RO is truly postmodern because it is precisely other than modern’ (71) because of its alternative ontology of peace. [Proving this last point is also precisely what Smith does not do in his (2006) Whose Afraid of Postmodernism? - a criticism which I mention in an earlier post].



(ii) a promotion of the aforementioned post-secular nature of the contemporary (Western) situation. The secular/sacred dualism of modernity is transcended through the recognition that even supposedly secular realms hide fundamental commitments to certain beliefs, ways of thinking, and practices. In short, they are ‘theologies or anti-theologies in disguise’ (Milbank, 1990:3). ‘The secular is not areligious, just differently religious – a religion of immanence and autonomy’ (Smith 2004:131) and hence also of violence and contest, and therefore pagan to the Christian religion of participation (iii) and peace (i). However, ‘[o]nce, there was no “secular”’ (Milbank, 1990:9), for before the myth of secular, neutral, autonomous reason, it was acknowledged that no realm stood outside the realm of creation and its Creator, and therefore nothing stood outside the “jurisdiction” of theological discourse. Faith, banished from science due to its contaminating influence on “facts,” is now (re)admitted. This theme of Radical Orthodoxy is in large part the reasoning behind the retrieval of pre-modern (and therefore pre-secular) sources.



(iii) an ontology of participation and materiality. Reality is understood as a creation gifted by the Creator, wherein the material is suspended from the transcendent. Thus, while ‘every created reality is absolutely nothing in itself’ (Pickstock, 2001:416), insofar as ‘it participates in the gift of existence granted by God’ this ontology of participation is the only ontology which can grant creation meaning (75). This participation of creation in the transcendent is supplemented by the participation of the transcendent in creation not only during Creation itself but also at the Incarnation, simultaneously investing it with value and ultimately redeeming it. ‘[O]nly transcendence, which “suspends” these things in the sense of interrupting them, “suspends” them also in the other sense of upholding their relative worth over-against the void’ (Milbank, et al, 1999:3). This participatory ontology stands in marked contrast to the “flattened” ontology of modernity, which, following Duns Scotus, predicates being univocally, attributing being to the Creator and the created in the same sense. The promotion of an alternative, theo-ontology (121) is another instance of RO’s recovery and reinterpretation of pre-secular sources (ii).


(iv) a commitment to the central role of sacramentality, liturgy, and aesthetics in leading humanity towards the divine, based on the double participation of the transcendent in creation and creation in the transcendent(iii), which reaffirms the status of the material and human activities, including poesis (77).


(v) again leading on from the principle of God’s participation, revelation, and concern for the created world in (iii) and (iv), there is an emphasis on ‘the redemption and transformation of this world (socially, politically, and economically)’ (79). Radical Orthodoxy 'looks at “sites” that we have invested much cultural capital in – the body, sexuality, relationships, desire, painting, music, the city, the natural, the political – and it reads them in terms of the grammar of the Christian faith' (Ward, 2000b:103). Radical Orthodoxy is concerned to show that modernity has created a “logic of parody” by which Christian “sites” such as God, the ecclesia, and the Kingdom are parodied by competing (supposedly secular but ultimately religious and therefore pagan) renditions of these sites as the monarch (Ward, 2003b:43), the state (Bell, 2001:72), and the city (Ward, 2000a), respectively. However, these alternatives are fundamentally at odds with the Christian “sites” that they mimic, for they utilize a ‘dis/placement strategy whereby immanent sites are invested with the task of fulfilling transcendent desires’ (139) and will thus always frustrate rather than fulfil this desire for God. Therefore Radical Orthodoxy advocates a ‘critical distance’ from secular modernity (139), and the development of a distinctly Christian post-secular, post-modernity.



Having introduced Radical Orthodoxy thematically, Smith then undertakes a conversation between this post-secular theology and the Reformed Tradition, a conversation which facilitates the creation of a reformed Radical Orthodoxy or Radical Orthodoxy in its reformed rendition. But more on this tomorrow!


[1] References are from Smith, 2004, unless otherwise stated

[2] In regarding Radical Orthodoxy as a ‘sensibility shared to a greater or lesser degree with several other contemporary theologians’ (Ward, 2003a:117), Ward includes Rowan Williams, Fergus Kerr, Nicholas Lash, Stanley Hauerwas, David Burrell, and Peter Ochs (Ward, 2003a, p.115)

Emerging Metaphors

I'm collecting metaphors.

Despite their (un)popularity among "emerging church" discussions in the blogosphere, Carson and Smith articulate their criticisms with far fewer conflict metaphors, than do other authors. For example, the titles of these evangelical publications, unambiguously calling for a biblical consideration of truth:

Douglas Groothuis’ (2000) Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism

Art Lindsley’s (2004) True Truth: Defending Absolute Truth in a Relativistic World

John MacArthur’s (2007) The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception

Defense and defending, war and fighting... And this is even before an analysis of the language used inside the covers!

Anyway, I just received the next installment: Roger Oakland (2007) Faith Undone. So far, so good - the title, at least, passes the conflict metaphor test. Although, there are obviously quite a lot of loaded phrases in use here! And I've yet to start turning the pages, of course.

It's published by Lighthouse Trails so I guess I already know the answer to the question posed in their subtitle: the emerging church... a new reformation or an end-time deception

Tellingly, they don't even include a questionmark at the end!!! A grammatical hint at a foregone conclusion, perhaps?

"What Would Jesus Deconstruct?" Reviewed and "Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?" Revisited

John D. Caputo’s What Would Jesus Deconstruct? The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (2007) is the second in Baker Academic’s The Church and Postmodern Culture series.

The first (James K.A. Smith’s [2006] Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?) was a good introduction to three postmodern “bumper stickers” (“there is nothing outside the text,” “incredulity towards metanarratives,” and “power is knowledge”) – and I used a few of his filmic vehicles to explain postmodernism to undergraduates in a lecture on postmodern christologies – but it failed in its attempt to convince me that ‘a “radical orthodoxy” is the only proper outcome of the postmodern critique’ (2006:25; my emphases) and that, in the last chapter especially, applied Radical Orthodoxy is the only appropriate outcome for the “emerging church.”

To begin with, Smith never addresses other possible theological and ecclesiological outcomes of the postmodern critique in order to argue for the supremacy of Radical Orthodoxy (or perhaps, rather the “out-narration” of other possibilities by Radical Orthodoxy). Secondly, when we reach the last chapter, we’re left with the thought: this is the emerging church???!!!???

While I agree that ‘what the emerging church is reacting against is a deep, hurtful experience of sectarianism [and] the antidote to this is a generous orthodoxy and healthy catholicity’ (2006:132), when this is translated into a ‘radically orthodox church’ experience in the last few pages, I’m not sure this looks much like the emerging Christian communities that I’ve been exploring for the last few years.

Much more relevant to the experiences of those I’ve been interviewing and observing, Caputo’s What Would Jesus Deconstruct? gives more voice to doubt than to orthodoxy. At heart, this book is a call (kletos) to deconstruction through an exposition of the above phrase. Caputo argues that there is a deeply deconstructive event that ‘stirs within the figure of Jesus’ (2007:26), and that deconstruction is the hermeneutics of the kingdom of God, a kingdom which he has described elsewhere as a ‘kingdom without kingdom’ (The Weakness of God).

“What Would Jesus Do?” ‘…what Jesus does, is deconstruct’ (2007:30), and with this presentation of deconstruction comes a plethora of correlatives: hyperrealism, undecidability, destinerrancy (possibly my favourite Derridean neologism at the moment!), vocation, theo-poetics, weakness, justice, the impossible, gift, forgiveness, hospitality, and love. This book is a call to deconstruct the name of God / Jesus / Church / Kingdom in order to release the event that stirs within these names.

Caputo’s work has lots of resonances with my study. Not least, his understanding of truth as a name which needs to be similarly deconstructed in order to release the event of truth: ‘“truth” means what is trying to come true, which points to our responsibility to make it actually come true’ (2007:61). For Augustine and Derrida truth means ‘facere veritatem, doing or making the truth’ happen (2007:134).

Similar to the format of Smith’s first volume, What Would Jesus Deconstruct?’s last chapter considers the future of the church, through John McNamee’s (1993) Diary of a City Priest and Pete Rollins’ (2006) How (Not) to Speak of God – the title of which you’ll understand a lot more after Caputo’s previous explanation of the step/not (pas) (2007:42ff). Two very different texts, both with a lot to say about the place of doubt, of uncertainty, of the impossible. As Caputo writes, ‘faith is impossible, the impossible; one is called on to have faith in a world in which it is impossible to believe anything… Doubt as the condition of faith, not its opposite, making faith possible as (the) im/possible’ (2007:121).

Maybe my reading of this book in a day and my reviewing of it only a few more later mean that I’m currently too close to the text to treat it as I have Smith’s Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, but I can at least ask the same question of Caputo’s final chapter: Is this the emerging church???!!!???

From my memory, and from the book’s index, Caputo only uses the term “emergent” once, and “emerging” never. So maybe this question isn’t a fair one. The two communities described by Caputo are very different – McNamee’s St Malachy’s is ‘an institution that struggles against institutionality; Ikon is hardly an institution at all’ (2007:129) – as are the texts and their authors, though postmodernism’s ‘tropes and movements are everywhere at work’ in both (2007:129). And I am growing in my conviction that Ikon is not an “emerging church,” as that term is communally defined, used, and understood – despite the clear resistance involved here.

Nevertheless, the book’s forward is written by Brian McLaren. ’Nough said?... or is it?

However, I haven’t found the number of instant reviews of What Would Jesus Deconstruct? among “emerging church” bloggers that I was expecting . Maybe you can point me in that direction if I’m not looking in the right places? Or, maybe, this (positive) text is going to take a while to seep into the collective “emerging church” conscious, in contrast to the (negative) texts which seem to be read by everyone as soon as humanly possible and debated hotly (for example, John MacArthur's recent critical contribution).

Finally, I love Caputo’s (Eckhartian) emphasis on Jesus’ prayer, Eloi Eloi, lama sabachthani as the ‘perfectly auto-deconstructing prayer: it is addressed to God – which presupposes our faith that we are not abandoned – and asks why God has abandoned us’ (2007:127). I love that.

Postmodernism, Truth and Religious Pluralism

Egged on by David, I thought I'd better post again! That push coincides with having just found this call for papers on 'the church and postmodern culture' blog here. A little slow of me, I know, but I've been trying to finish book chapters and articles left, right and centre - and still haven't quite done them!

The Fourth Biennial Conference of
The Society for Continental Philosophy & Theology.

Postmodernism, Truth, and Religious Pluralism.

April 11-12, 2008Gordon College (Wenham, MA).

Keynote Speakers:
Roger Haight (Union Theological Seminary)
and Richard Kearney (Boston College).

The blurb runs: With the so-called “return of religion,” it is almost impossible not to address the issue of religious pluralism, which acutely raises the question of truth. What kind of positive sense of religious truth is possible in a postmodern era? What is religious truth—is it representational, propositional, orthopractical, symbolic, aletheiological, or something else altogether? How does the notion of “truth” square with a multiplicity of religious traditions? Is the very term “religion” appropriate in a pluralistic society, since the term is distinctly western? How might the earnest faith of a Christian, say, be compatible with the equally earnest faith of other believers or even non-believers? With the varieties of religions (not to mention the varieties of expressions of religions), how can their respective differences be respected? Are there forms of religious expression that simply cannot find a place in the public square?

And: We encourage papers that draw on continental figures; philosophical traditions such as deconstruction, feminist philosophy, hermeneutics, and phenomenology; and religious traditions such as Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

I can't very well NOT go, can I?!?

Emerging Christian Communities

To help myself think through that sticky aspect of the sociology of religion known as typologising the life out of your research subjects, I thought I'd post about the various communities from which participants come.

So far, interview participants have come from a range of communities. Here are the links to the web presences of some of them, along with their own self-descriptions:

fEAST, Hackney
"We seek to be a Christian community that provides the opportunity to learn, be inspired and nourished in an atmosphere of intimacy and vulnerability. We also seek to be a space for creative worship, where everyone can talk freely and a place where people receive support for their daily lives. We want to be encouraged to be active in our community and beyond, being committed to the principles of justice and peace. We don't want to forget the need to be made uncomfortable by the gospel of Jesus."

Vineyard, Sutton
"Our mission is to help people live life to the full. We seek to be a truly welcoming and dynamic Christian community where people can connect with God, with others, and with opportunities to make a difference in our world.You can think of Vineyard Church as a group of people "doing life together"."

The Garden, Brighton
"We think of ourselves as a project, an ermerging community based in Brighton, Sussex, who are seeking to work out how to live passionately in response to 'the other' in a way that embraces the artistic, the intellectual and the practical and which challenges us to take seriously matters of justice, compassion and the planet. At the moment most (not all) of us have some sort of Christian history but we aspire to create space, beyond propositional statements of belief, for those with any faith or none who feel this may work for them."

Industrial Mission Association, UK
"The Industrial Mission Association is an organisation for lay and ordained people who want to be involved in, or to deepen their understanding of, the relationship between the Christian faith and the economic order. Membership is open to all men and women who, on the basis of the Christian faith, are committed to instituting economic change and helping the Church to respond to the needs of urban industrial society."

Visions, York
"It's hard to describe Visions in one sentence! A church for people who don't like church. A place that feels like home where we can talk about and experience the love of Jesus Christ. A place where you can be yourself, with all your doubts, fears and messiness and people will accept you anyway. But we're also a bunch of Christians interested in deepening our faith journey through discovering and using our talents in the visual arts, dance music, and technology."

Dream Network, North West England
"DREAM is a network of groups who are on a spiritual journey towards Jesus. We welcome anyone who wants to travel with us."

Foundation, Bristol
"Foundation is a Bristol emerging church / alternative worship group. We are a registered Anglican “Fresh Expression”. Our goal is to bring the experience of Christian community into a healthy relationship with contemporary culture."

Search, Basinstoke
"Search is a place for those who want to encounter worship in a different way - a way that engages the senses and the mind. It is also a place where we will hopefully encounter God and build a sense of community with other searchers."

MayBe, Oxford
"a community following in the way of Jesus for a better world now. Grace, space, wonder, grit, resistance, laughter, presence. Community, exploration, creativity, simplicity, engagement, play, Christ."

Vaux, Vauxhall
"Vaux was a community of artists and city-lovers who sought to explore the Christian faith through the media that came naturally to their hands. Using collages of film, dance, sound, installation, liturgy and image, Vaux formatted monthly 'services' at 310 Kennington Lane, Vauxhall. After a break of about a year we're meeting again. Just to gather, re-juvinate and re-ignite, with no pressure or pre-conceptions. We'll see what happens..."

Ikon, Belfast
"iconic, apocalyptic, heretical, emerging, failing. Inhabiting a space on the outer edges of religious life, we are a Belfast-based collective who offer anarchic experiments in transformance art. Challenging the distinction between theist and atheist, faith and no faith our main gathering employs a cocktail of live music, visual imagery, soundscapes, theatre, ritual and reflection in an attempt to open up the possibility of a theodramatic event."

BarNone, Cardiff
"For the last few years Bar None has been a safe space for people to explore what they believe and what the bible says, a place for people to test the validity of the Christian faith. Pubs are often the most relaxed environments – literally public space – around that we are starting to build a regular crowd of people interested in discussing faith and life. For us it’s just about doing the important stuff of church but in a pub. Some of us are Christians who struggle with doubts and the diversity of opinion within the church what’s ‘truth’. Some of us aren’t sure what we believe and are trying to work it out as we go along."

24/7 Prayer Movement, UK
"24-7 Prayer exists to transform the world through movements and communities of Christ-centred, Mission-minded Prayer."

Spirited Exchanges, UK
"Is your spiritual or faith journey leading you into uncharted territory? Spirited Exchanges is a network offering support and encouragement to people who are experiencing faith and its struggles at the edges of or beyond Church."

Sanctuary, Birmingham
"Sanctuary a safe place for British Asians or anyone interested in exploring eastern and western spiritualities in Christ. It is a place of space, peace, meditation, food, and friendship. Everyone is accepted as they are, just as God loves and accepts them, and Sanctuary is a place where they can experience that love and grace in community."

Journey MCC, Birmingham
"spirituality without religion. Journey is made up of many different people; our only common goal is to create a space where we are able to explore, discuss, experience, worship and listen. We recognise that we are all pilgrims on a search for meaning and need to find ways to share our thoughts and our experiences-if not always our agreement. We’re not interested in orthodoxy….. we’re interested in authenticity."

I originally contacted communities which I had identified as "emerging churches" through internet searches and empirical research by other researchers, but a call for participants was (very kindly) placed on Jason Clark's blog (along with a sexy picture!) and this generated a more diverse response from those involved in engaging with contemporary culture. The rich group of people who are now involved in this project is wonderful, but it's tough to start thinking about typologies for the communities from which they come. You can see, for example from Foundation's description of themselves as an 'emerging church / altnerative worship group' and 'Anglican fresh expression', that I've got some work to do - and that these distinctions don't seem to be problematic in practice! I've got several types to choose from / several boxes to force things into, including:

emerging church
fresh expression of church
alternative worship
neo-monasticism
inherited/traditional church
post-church
not-church

I need to work on how I'm defining these labels, in order to work out which communities to put where, and whether I can create a spectrum which reflects the diversity going on rather than reinforcing any existing binaries. Helen Cameron, for example, differentiates between emerging church and fresh expressions by classifying the former as mission to the de-churched and the later as mission to the un-churched. But Ian Mobsby classifies emerging church as a sub-group of fresh expressions, alongside inherited church fresh expressions. So, I'm working on my own thoughts about these different types of Christian community.

In the meantime... some thoughts on the recent direction that self-definition among the emerging church took. While definition and classification remain dirty words among emerging Christian communities, there have always been attempts to do just that. There was a flurry of definitions around 2005, produced by both those involved and those not - and I need only to point you to a few posts by TSK for you to find some others. However, over the summer this year a method of definition emerged through the textual and visual definition of buzz words in response to criticism from the Pyromaniacs team - see here, here, here, here, and here! The more I think about it, this deserves it's own post. I'll be back.

Religion, Spirituality and Gay Sexuality

Spurred on by a supervision session yesterday, I'm still trying to turn my Masters thesis into a journal article, possibly for Theology & Sexuality, or maybe something more sociology of religion focused. So far, however, cutting the 27,000 word dissertation down to something manageable between 6,000-8,000 is proving hard. At the moment, it's 11,700 and - as usual when you're trying to cut down on words - it's got everything I want in it! It's entitled, "Queering the Subjectivization Thesis: Self and Selflessness among Lesbian Christans" and here's the abstract:

This article explores Heelas and Woodhead’s subjectivization thesis in the context of non-heterosexual religiosity. Heelas and Woodhead (2005) contend that a current sociological trend in the UK religious landscape, which places individual subjectivities and spiritualities above anonymization and conformity within traditional religious institutions, is a sign of changing notions of selfhood. This is a shift from a ‘life-as’ subordinated self to a ‘subjective-life’ ‘self-in-relation.’ This article questions the notion that these forms of selfhood are necessarily mutually exclusive, and uses the self-understandings of a small, localised group of British lesbian Christians to argue that it is possible to achieve integration, rather than continually oscillating between the two poles without mediation. These women simultaneously retain their sense of self and remain within a religion which encourages selflessness. This existence is supported by their choice of worshipping community, the Metropolitan Community Church, and their constructions of the Christian religion.

The research for my MA in Women and Religion, specialising in LGBT Theology, was conducted in 2005, so I'm going to go to the British Sociological Association's Study of Religion Group's study day in November to get involved with the more recent research in the field. Hosted by UWE's Unit for the Study of Religion and Spirituality, the Religion, Spirituality and Gay Sexuality study day has a good line-up, though Andrew Yip (Nottingham Trent), whose research featured heavily in my dissertation, sadly isn't on the provisional programme. I've met Kristen Aune (Derby University) and Marta Trzebiatowska (Exeter University > Aberdeen University) several times and love both their work. Also of interest to me will be Alex Toft (Nottingham Trent)'s paper, "Bisexual Christians: The Lived Experiences of a Marginalised Community." Aside from Andrew Yip, most of the work among LGBT Christians several years ago was US-based, so I'm looking forward to hearing about what's going on now.

The themes I explored in my MA dissertation, particularly the grey areas between Heelas and Woodhead's supposedly mutually exclusive poles of 'life-as' and 'subjective-life,' have relevance for many emerging Christian communities, who also exist in the ground between religion and spirituality, traditionalism and individualism. I'll bring out these themes more in the course of starting to draw my PhD thesis together. At the moment, though, I just have several interesting spider diagrams (!) and a stack of tapes to transcribe.

Blogs and New Text Values

I've just finished (what I hope will be!) the final draft of a chapter that will be published in a book entitled, Reading Spiritualities and, having just regained Internet access after moving house, I thought I'd try to whet some appetites! I blogged briefly about this before here.

The book is being edited by my PhD supervisor, Dr Deborah F. Sawyer, and another PhD student of hers, Dawn Llewellyn, and came out of a conference they organised in 2006, Women Reading Spiritualities. Although I gave a paper based on my Masters research among LGBT Christians, I've written something more directly related to my PhD thesis for inclusion in this volume.

My chapter is called, "The Desire for Interactivity and the Emerging Texts of the Blogosphere" and looks at blogging among emerging Christian communities in order to reflect on the nature of blogs as texts. The chapter argues that the desire for interactivity, identified by feminist literary theorist Lynn Pearce in all reading practices, can be most clearly seen in the reading practices surrounding blogging, as this often results in textual interactions which are articulated in the comments section or in a reader's own blog. There are several values associated with text by postmodern literary theorists which can also be seen in the blogosphere. However, I reflect on the nature of authorship and authority in the blogosphere, and make some arguments regarding a disparity between these "new text values" and text in the blogosphere. I hope someone will find it an interesting read!

Where does your faith LIE?

At Greenbelt Festival this year, Ikon's theo-drama, entitled 'The God Delusion,' (conveniently) posed one of the central research questions of my PhD thesis:
'Before we ask "Is Christianity true?" we must ask "What does it mean to claim that it is true?"'



This performance resonated with so many of my own questions (both personal and academic, though the two can never be anything other than intertwined) that it's hard to know where to start. But Jon's "Where does your faith LIE?" got me thinking about an interrelated question which I don't think I've explored nearly enough yet. Here's the text:



Where does your faith lie?
Does your faith lie in the belief that the universe was created in six 24-hour days?
Does your faith lie in there being an ark on Mount Ararat?
Does your faith lie in the account that God once made a donkey talk?
Does your faith lie in the belief that miracles don’t happen?
Does your faith lie in God once wiping out a city of thousands because it had homosexuals living in it?
Does your faith lie in the belief that everything the Bible says about ancient Israel is directly applicable to the modern state of Israel?
Does your faith lie in the belief that you will beat the odds and your smoking will not lead to a long and very painful death due to emphysema?
Does your faith lie in the research of the Royal College of Physicians or in the research funded by the tobacco industry?
Does your faith lie in the notion that the next politician you vote for will not support the next war?
Does your faith lie in Jesus having brothers and sisters?
Does your faith lie in the hope that heaven is full of people like you?
Does your faith lie in the free market?
Does your faith lie in the postcards that Christian Aid has you sent to the Prime Minister?
Does your faith lie in making poverty history?
Does your faith lie in the next president of the United States?
Does your faith lie in the United Nations?
Does your faith lie in scientific rationalism?
Does your faith lie in Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK?
Does your faith lie in the belief that there must be a good reason for why your government is detaining people indefinitely without trial?
Does your faith lie in your own ability to discern the mind of God?
Does your faith lie in the physical resurrection of Jesus?
Does your faith lie in the belief that civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are unavoidable?
Does your faith lie in the hope that a nineteen year-old Iraqi man whose sister and mother were killed by an errant allied cruise missile will not hold you responsible because you once carried a sign that read ‘Not in My Name’?
Does your faith lie in the belief that God does not punish sin?
Does your faith lie in the belief that there was nothing more that you could have done?
Does your faith lie in your tradition being closer to the truth than another?
Does your faith lie in the virgin birth?
Does your faith lie in a balanced diet and exercising?
Does your faith lie in your own body image?
Does your faith lie in the belief that anyone who shoots back is a terrorist?
Does your faith lie in maintenance of the status quo?
Does your faith lie in he (or she) eventually coming to their senses and taking you back?
Does your faith lie in a hell beyond this life for those who didn’t accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and saviour?
Does your faith lie in an endless supply of cheap energy?
Does your faith lie in the Stormont Assembly?
Does your faith lie in the words ‘peacemaker’ and ‘peace supporter’ being synonymous?
Does your faith lie in the belief that ‘follower of Jesus’ and ‘member of a church’ being synonymous?
Does your faith lie in your job?
Does your faith lie in financial savings?
Does your faith lie in the belief that sectarianism has nothing to do with you?
Does your faith lie in liberalism?
Does your faith lie in your own good intentions?
Does your faith lie in the belief that the investment and development coming into Belfast City Centre is significantly improving the lives of those living in the estates in Shankill, Ballymurphy, New Lodge, Ballysillan, Glencairn, Dundonald, Ballymacarrat, the Village, Finaghy, and the Markets?
Does your faith lie in Loving God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and loving your neighbor as yourself?
Does your faith lie in God loving the world so much that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have eternal life?
Where does you faith… Where does your faith… lie?
(Written and performed by Jon Hatch)


I know in the conversations I've had we've been concentrating on the nature of 'truth,' and Jon's performance started me thinking about the nature of 'untruth.' So I wondered what you thought?

If 'truth' is a correspondence between language and reality (i.e. 'God exists' is true because the statement accurately refers to an external reality that would still be true even if we didn't believe it), what is 'untruth'? Is it a lack of full correspondence between language and reality? In this sense, is all human language a lie?

If 'truth' is what we decide it is (i.e. 'God exists' is true because as part of a Christian community we have agreed to use this language, and this language determines or constructs the reality of our world), what is 'untruth'? Is 'untruth' the 'truth's of other communities, their languages, their worldviews, their realities?

If 'truth' cannot be determined with regards to its correspondence to or construction of reality, and can only be understood in terms of it's transformative effect, what is 'untruth'? Is 'untruth' a transformative effect which we termed 'bad'? Or is 'untruth' that which has no effect at all?


I'm reminded of a parable from Pete's How (Not) To Speak of God: A person, hiding Jews in their house from the Nazis, is asked whether there are Jews hiding in the house. The person says, "no." Are they lying or are they telling the truth?

And at last year's Greenbelt, Ikon handed out pieces of rice paper with the words 'I beLIEve' written on them, and we gave them to someone sitting near us with the thought that, if our beliefs don't nourish others then are they lies rather than truths?





(photo of Jon by Moyra Blayney, available from Ikon website).

The Experiment Launches

Way, way back in April, I blogged about the possibility of open sourcing the research process. I have been privileged to so far interview and/or survey about 40 people around the UK, and will have the chance to reflect on those conversations and attempt a thesis. I would love this blog to be a space where those taking part in the research (and any other interested online others) can also discuss and explore these issues. This experiment may not work (technologically and/or methodologically) but I’m game to try it.

I’m aware of other PhD students working on “emerging church” research who keep their own blogs (Im a particular fan of Paul Teusner’s research on Australian “ec” blogs) but I’d like this to be more than a place where I post “updates” on what I’m doing for you guys to read and that’s it.

Hopefully this participatory methodology for the blogosphere will encourage everyone (myself included) to “outgrow” the research-based roles with which we entered our relationship together. Some of you may want the relationship to end when I send you a transcript of the interview, and that is fine too. Others may be interested in taking things further.

Whereas in the interviews some topics could not be developed as perhaps we might have wished (given that I have specific research questions to explore), those topics might be able to flourish here. This blog does not have a specific purpose, beyond being a place where we can converse further. I might have a particular point to make in a particular post, but I won’t push an agenda of answering research questions to the exclusion of the other places you might wish to take our conversation.

Of course, I’m not kidding myself that this is going to become the next hot spot of interactivity in the blogosphere, either. But maybe a little conversation will take place here, and that’d be great.

Voices of the Virtual World PAPERBACK

The paperback version of Voices of the Virtual World (available as a download from here) was released yesterday. The volume costs £10.99 and can be ordered from Lulu.com here. As before, proceeds go to the Not For Sale Campaign.

Part of a new press release reads:

"Wikiklesia values sustainability with minimal structure. We long to see a church saturated with decentralized cooperation. The improbable notion of books that effectively publish themselves is one of many ways that can help move us closer to this."

The Theology of Trash

Paul Walker is an Anglican minister from Bradford. In his own words, he's struggling to 'emerge from an inherited model Anglican priest to being a missionary in my 21st Century, late-modernity-going-into-postmodernity context.' He's currently studying for an MA in Emerging Church at Cliff College and his dissertation explores the missional implications of Web 2.0 technologies. I'm particularly keen to hear his thoughts on what models of Christian community might emerge from Internet cultures.

On his blog, Out of the Cocoon, Paul has been reviewing Voices of the Virtual World chapter by chapter, one a day, and yesterday he got to me. He writes,

"...although it is obvious that many blogs fall into disuse, there are some amazing 'theological spaces' on the Web. Ideas can be set forth, comments can be made, and ideas can be refined and honed - all in a friendly and generally encouraging climate of co-operation and mutual support. In effect, it has ripped theology from out of 'the ivory tower', where it was the preserve of the learned and the erudite, into the hands of anyone who wants to 'have a go'. Some may sniff at this deluge of material - some of which might well be thought ill-considered, even 'trashy' - but the reality is that this is now a feature of the wired world that we live in and the culture we inhabit - and the academics and 'ivory tower' theologians are simply going to have to take cognisance of it."

Reflection upon any aspect of our existence, whether it's football, tv and film, or fashion, is theology. Sure, these things aren't understood as within the conventional boundaries of theology as they might have been understood by systematic theologians, but these things are the stuff of life. And if life somehow participates in the being of God, all talk about life is God-talk, theology.

My thoughts are that life itself is pretty 'trashy' (at least, mine is) and theology needs to emerge from the midst of life. I'd be happy if this resulted in a theology of trash. After all, one person's trash is another person's treasure. Maybe even God's treasure!

The rest of Paul's post can be found here.

Voices of the Virtual World released today!

Described as 'a far reaching exploration of spiritual journey within a culture of increasingly immersive technology,' the PDF version of Voices of the Virtual World: Participative Technology and the Ecclesial Revolution is available for download today. This collaborative project exploring how technology is transforming the church goes on sale today from Lulu.com and can be downloaded from here for $14.95. A tentative publication date for the paperback edition is being set for late August 2007, with all proceeds being donated to the Not For Sale campaign.

Participative Technology and the Ecclesial Revolution - PRESS RELEASE

A few months ago I blogged about the Wikiklesia Project, an online collaborative publication of short works from a range of contributors exploring the ways in which technology is transforming the church. The volume has developed over the last month, with a new title - Voices of the Virtual World: Participative Technology and the Ecclesial Revolution. The e-book will be released on July 23, and downloadable from Lulu.com for $15. Audio files will be available to download for a donation. ALL proceeds are going to the Not For Sale Campaign.

A current list of chapter titles can be found at the Wikiklesia Project's Wikidot site here. All the chapters sound fantastic, but from a research perspective I'm particularly looking forward to reading:

Kester Brewin, Text/Audio/Video: Probing the Dark Glass
Greg Glatz, The Perfect Mix? The Missio Dei in a Free Market Economy
Len Hjalmarson, Text, Sacrament, Leadership and Conversation: Blogging and Communal Formation
Brother Maynard, Hyperlinks Subvert Hierarchy: The Internet, Non-Hierarchical Organizations, and the Structure of the Church
Andrew Perriman, Open Source Theology
Joe Suh, Social Networking and the Long Tail Church
And Len's Afterword, The Myths of Technos and God's Kingdom.

My chapter is entitled Theo(b)logy: The Technological Transformation of Theology, and reflects on the impact of technology on understandings of what theology is, and who does theology. I trace the development from conventional notions of theology as the systematic study of Christian revelation by trained professionals, to Radical Orthodoxy's notion of 'the theological' as the confessional standpoints held by everyone and 'theology' as the critical reflection on these belief systems, regardless of their explicitly religious nature. I argue that technological innovation, particularly blogging and open source software, is facilitating the opening of the theological endeavour to any 'net user, effecting this radical shift towards "theo(b)logy," the Web2.0-assisted, Christianly theological, reflection on any number of subjects. Theology can be and is being done by anyone, and theology has as its subject matter not only the conventional source code of the Christian religion, but subjects as varied as football, beer, environment, Middle East, labyrinth, family, and shopping. I've also recorded an MP3 audio file for download, but I'm worried about it, as I think I've got a boring voice! Our brief said that we could employ a celebrity impersonator, but I don't know any.

The official Press Release is as follows:

Voices of the Virtual World:
Participative Technology and the Ecclesial Revolution

PRESS RELEASE (Download PDF HERE)
Publication Date: 23 July 2007
Distributed by: Lulu.com
Wikiklesia Press, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-9796856-0-6

Voices of the Virtual World explores the growing influence of technology on the global Christian church. In this premier volume, we hear from more than forty voices, including technologists and theologians, entrepreneurs and pastors… from a progressive Episcopalian techno-monk to a leading Mennonite professor… from a tech-savvy mobile missionary to a corporate anthropologist whom Worth Magazine calls "one of Wall Street's 25 Smartest Players." Voices is a far reaching exploration of spiritual journey contextualized within a culture of increasingly immersive technology.

ABOUT WIKIKLESIA: Conceived and established in May 2007, the Wikiklesia Project is an experiment in on-line collaborative publishing. The format is virtual, self-organizing, participatory - from purpose to publication in just a few weeks. All proceeds from the Wikiklesia Project will be contributed to the Not For Sale campaign.

Wikiklesia values sustainability with minimal structure. We long to see a church saturated with decentralized cooperation. The improbable notion of books that effectively publish themselves is one of many ways that can help move us closer to this global-ecclesial connectedness. Can a publishing organization thrive without centralized leadership? Is perpetual, self-organizing book publishing possible? Can literary quality be maintained in a distributed publishing paradigm? Wikiklesia was created to answer these kinds of questions.

Wikiklesia may be the world’s first self-perpetuating nomadic business model - raising money for charities - giving voice to emerging writers and artists - generating a continuous stream of new books covering all manner of relevant topics. Nobody remains in control. There is no board of directors. The franchise changes hands as quickly as new projects are created.

Media Enquiries: Len Hjalmarson, lenhjal@telus.net. John La Grou, jl@jps.net