Introducing Jamie Smith

I've finally started reading Neal DeRoo and Brian Lightbody's The Logic of Incarnation: James K.A. Smith's Critique of Postmodern Religion. Neal's introductory piece clearly presents Jamie's logic of incarnation, detailing the ways in which an emphasis on God's indwelling in the world re-affirms the value of particularity. Such a doctrine, Neal explains, means that the proclamation of specifically Christian beliefs does not entail a disservice to those who do not agree with these beliefs. Rather, it forms the basis of a belief that difference qua difference is "blessed by God" and "part of God's plan" (xviii). This is in contrast, however, to the common endeavour of seeking peace in politics and religion through emphasis on commonality and a drive towards unity. Neal writes:

"Like chefs, we should be able to stand up, as religious people, and proudly declare what makes our religion unique and special without fear of starting a fight. We should be able to add to the religious palette of the world by holding to what we believe, rather than by emphasizing how we are like others. We are not all the same… The logic of incarnation is an attempt to come up with an underlying theory of the world that makes sense of this, and enables us to see the varieties of life as a glorious spice cabinet that seasons us all differently, rather than as a battleground for war and discord." (xxi)

I'll write more about this "logic of incarnation" when I've read Jamie's chapter: "The Logic of Incarnation: Toward a Catholic Postmodernism." I'm particularly interested in this at the moment because I'm starting to think about the sections of my thesis in which I am going to address the concepts of religious pluralism and Christian uniqueness. Neal's introduction to Jamie's work will add an interesting voice to a conversation which at the moment includes John Hick (see my posts here and here) and Radical Orthodoxy (the imperialism of which troubles me, see post here).

My introduction to James K.A. Smith came through his accessible, helpful and interesting "reforming" of Radical Orthodoxy (Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-Secular Theology) in the first year of my PhD when I was doing a lot of work on RO. The "reformed" Radical Orthodoxy of this book is expanded and augmented in a companion edited collection (with James H. Olthuis) called Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition: Creation, Covenant and Participation which I haven't yet looked into deeply - but I blogged about the former volume's "reformed" Radical Orthodoxy here. Smith's Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault to Church is an accessible introduction to some key mantras in postmodern thought (and rejoinder to their frequent misinterpretation), although I questioned Smith's depiction of the emerging church here.

I'm particularly interested in the trajectory of Jamie Smith's work in relation to methodology in philosophy of religion. He writes on his webpage: "I am pursuing work in philosophy of religion which seeks to effect a methodological shift in the field, arguing for the importance of practices, and particularly liturgical practices, as the "site" or "topic" of philosophy of religion." This is the kind of thing that I am interested in doing in future projects. In this thesis I combine the sociology of religion with the disciplines of theology, philosophy and ethics. Though the data I am working with consists of interview transcripts, blog posts and other online texts, there are aspects of participant observation of gatherings and events which relate to ritual theory. In future projects, I hope to further explore religious practice in conversation with contemporary philosophical thought.

The Transcategorial

Prof. John Hick's public lecture last week on Christianity and Other Religions (December 3rd, School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham) began with a series of slides briefly detailing orthodox Christian doctrine, particularly claims to unique revelation by God and therefore access to salvation, truth, etc.

Following the logic of these claims, Hick then asked the room the rhetorical question of whether it then follows that these claims "must show in the lives of Christians generally in distinction from non-Christians." If salvation, truth, God is to have a difference in believers lives (in contrast to non-believers) then Christians must therefore be "better human beings, morally and spiritually" than others. The truth of these claims to unique revelation and special election must therefore be judged by the fruit of believer's lives. Love. Joy. Peace. Patience... However, Hick doubts the superiority of the Christian religion because these fruits are shown in other religions. He concludes that all the world religions are "more or less equally effective and more or less equally ineffective" in changing human beings for the better.

Hick presented three options as philosophical responses to the problem of Christianity and other religions: exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. However, exclusivism (truth and salvation are for Christians only) leaves the problem of reconciling this with a loving God, and inclusivism (salvation for all, in principle, through Jesus' atoning death on cross but the Holy Spirit's special presence in the Church of Christ) still leaves the problem that Christians ought to be but are frequently not better than those outside the Church: "saints and sinners seem to be pretty evenly sprinkled among the religions of the world." Hick therefore concludes that both exclusivism and inclusivism cannot be the answer.

Pluralism, on the other hand, which emphaises the ineffability of God or, in Hick's language, the "transcategorial" nature of God. He uses critical realism, which posists that "awareness of reality is mediated through our cognitive capacities and conceptual resources," to argue that God is experienced through our context specific categories but that God as Godself is also obscured by them. We can experience God, and even improve in our knowledge about God, but we can never know God fully or even well. Hick quoted Rumi, a medieval Muslim philosopher, theologian and poet to illustrate pluralism: "the lamps are different, but the Light is the same: it comes from Beyond."

As I wrote in another post, I'm going to use a bit of Hick to flesh out the philosophical implications of the first strand within my data. There is a God, but human finitude prevents us from full knowledge of God, though we have faith in both special and general revelation and might progress towards truth through interaction with others in community, both Christians and non-Christians, without ever knowing God as God knows Godself.

Although the lecture was rather basic, it's given me a bit of an idea as to where to go to explore further the Hickean aspects of this strand:

• God and the Universe of Faiths ([1973]1993) - which launched the contemporary pluralist understanding of world religions and sees God, or the Ultimate, at the centre of the universe of faiths with Christianity as one of the religions revolving around it.



• God Has Many Names ([1982]2000) - offers a global theory of religious knowledge and offers a philosophy of religious pluralism.



• The Rainbow of Faiths: A Christian Theology of Religions (1995) - a collection of lectures which uses the metaphor of a rainbow to argue that our awareness of the divine Presence is refracted by our human religious cultures.



• Who or What is God? (2007) - a collection of essays centering on the themes of the search for truth (the ultimate reality to which all world religions point) and the search for justice and peace.

The main argument of my thesis attempts to connect the two themes of Hick's Who or What is God?: the search for truth and the search for justice. I'm in the middle of writing my abstract, so more of this anon!!!

Postmodern Universalization and the Logic of Incarnation

Neal DeRoo, a guy I met in April at the Society for Continental Philosophy and Theology conference in Boston, has co-edited with Brian Lightbody a book called The Logic of Incarnation: James K.A. Smith's Critique of Postmodern Religion. Jamie Smith also contributes and responds.

Here's some blurb and endorsements:


"With his Logic of Incarnation, James K. A. Smith has provided a compelling critique of the universalizing tendencies in some strands of postmodern philosophy of religion. A truly postmodern account of religion must take seriously the preference for particularity first evidenced in the Christian account of the incarnation of God. Moving beyond the urge to universalize, which characterizes modern thought, Smith argues that it is only by taking seriously particular differences—historical, religious, and doctrinal—that we can be authentically religious and authentically postmodern.

"Smith remains hugely influential in both academic discourse and church movements. This book is the first organized attempt to bring both of these aspects of Smith’s work into conversation with each other and with him. With articles from an internationally respected group of philosophers, theologians, pastors, and laypeople, the entire range of Smith’s considerable influence is represented here. Discussing questions of embodiment, eschatology, inter-religious dialogue, dogma, and difference, this book opens all the most relevant issues in postmodern religious life to a unique and penetrating critique."

"This volume brilliantly highlights the importance of Smith's logic of incarnation. It amplifies a new and indispensable voice in the postmodern debate." —Richard Kearney, author of The God Who May Be and Strangers, Gods and Monsters

"The Logic of Incarnation offers the reader a helpful overview and critical discussion of James K. A. Smith's engagement with postmodern thought based on Christianity's central mystery: God's becoming human. In critically engaging Deconstruction, the emergent church, and the role of tradition, The Logic of Incarnation introduces the reader to central themes of current thinking on religion that have especially dominated North American discussions, but it also points, particularly in Smith's concluding response to his critics, toward recovering an ancient incarnational thinking whose radical quality—reaching far beyond modernity and postmodernity—lies precisely in recovering the ecclesial and eschatological nature of Christianity."—Jens Zimmermann, author of Recovering Theological Hermeneutics: An Incarnational-Trinitarian Theory of Interpretation

"It is as testament to James K. A. Smith's career that, even at a relatively young age (academically speaking), his work merits an interaction as robust as this book. The Logic of Incarnation will not only introduce many to Smith's important writings, but it will also spur on conversation about these very significant ideas where, indeed, theology, philosophy, and church meet."—Tony Jones, author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier

Workshop on Internet and Study of Religion

Dr. Abby Day (University of Sussex), who did her PhD at Lancaster University on belief in belonging, and Prof. Gordon Lynch (Birkbeck College, University of London) who I met at last year's Religion, Media and Culture conference and whose recent publication, The New Spirituality, has been central to my thesis methodology, have asked me to run a workshop on the Internet and the Study of Religion at Birkbeck next year. The workshop will be part of a study day for students of religion on May 16, run by a postgraduate training network for London and the South-East which was funded by The Higher Education Academy's Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies.

The day will consist of a Plenary by Prof. Linda Woodhead (Lancaster University), who is the director of the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme, on current and future directions in the study of religion. Then there will be two one-hour sessions, the first run by me and the second focusing on how to access and use census data in the study of religion, by Dr. Serena Hussain (University of Leeds). After lunch, there will be a small number of papers presented by other students (presumably following a call for papers which will go out next year). The day closes with a panel discussion by Linda, me, and Serena.

Pretty excited to be asked to be a part of this. But I'm also glad that it's not until May, when (hope against hope) I may have already submitted by thesis. It also means that I won't have to think about it now and risk getting sidetracked back into Internet methodology stuff when I should be firmly ensconced in philosophy!!!

Researching Theo(b)logy

Exploring Religion and the Sacred in a Media Age is now available for pre-order at Amazon.co.uk. It will be published at the end of February 2009, and contains chapters on a range of case studies from interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks. Edited by Dr. Chris Deacy (University of Kent) and Dr. Elizabeth Arweck (University of Warwick), it collects essays that were presented at the 2007 conference on Religion, Media and Culture. My contribution is methodological, mainly due to the point at which I was at with my thesis, reflecting on the use the global emerging church milieu make of blogs and wikis and suggesting a participatory research methodology for research into the blogosphere. Here's the blurb from Amazon.co.uk:

"In recent years, there has been growing awareness across a range of academic disciplines of the value of exploring issues of religion and the sacred in relation to cultures of everyday life. Exploring Religion and the Sacred in a Media Age offers inter-disciplinary perspectives drawing from theology, religious studies, media studies, cultural studies, film studies, sociology and anthropology. Combining theoretical frameworks for the analysis of religion, media and popular culture, with focused international case studies of particular texts, practices, communities and audiences, the authors examine topics such as media rituals, marketing strategies, empirical investigations of audience testimony, and the influence of religion on music, reality television and the internet. Both academically rigorous and of interest to a wider readership, this book offers a wide range of fascinating explorations at the cutting edge of many contemporary debates in sociology, religion and media, including chapters on the way evangelical groups in America have made use of The Da Vinci Code and on the influences of religion on British club culture and electronic dance music."

Pete in the States

Here's a video of Pete Rollins during his US tour, taken from his blog, talking about the irony of hearing revelation without heeding it, without it "transforming your radical subjectivity."

It would be incredibly interesting to find out more about how Pete's tour and the recent Minnekon gatherings have been received in the States... I sense a possible international research proposal coming on! Here are the few reflections I've been able to find in the blogosphere regarding Minnekon (from Adam Moore here, here, here, here, here, here and here; from Rachel Swan here, here, and here)

Hick on Christianity and Other Religions

Professor John Hick will be giving a public lecture, entitled "Christianity and Other Religions," at the University of Birmingham at the beginning of next month. The event, which is part of the University's postgraduate open day on December 3rd, is hosted by the School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion.

I'm particularly interested in Hick's work on the philosophy of religion because it relates to the first philosophical strand that I am drawing from my research data. (For an overview of the two strands, see my post on my thesis structure - particularly chapters four and five). This first strand, whose chapter I am currently giving the title "Inaccessibility," acknowledge human finitude, revere subjectivity of experience, and therefore encourage humility in religious knowledge. An example of this strand's Hickean approach is the story of Indian origin in which blind men have access to different parts of an elephant, each believing they know what they have (a tree, a snake, a rope, etc.) without being able to access the entirety of the elephant to know it to be such, told to me by several participants. The story suggests that, while there is absolute truth (it is an elephant; God exists), that truth is inaccessible to us in its totality; we have, instead, subjective or relative truths.

Hick's work on pluralism, universalism, and interreligious dialogue is (or rather, will be, once I've read some more of it!!!) pertinant here. Hick describes God as 'transcategorial,' and argues that beliefs about God are shaped by available categories in our culture(s). There is therefore a plurality of ways of understanding and experiencing God, none of which (like our blind men) have a monopoly on religious truth.

Along with Hick, participants in this first strand conceptualise truth within a paradigm which one participant describes as 'inaccessible Absolutism,' wherein truth exists on 'a kind of universal level,' independently of our stumblings after it, but no 'one person or group can access it' fully.

'Nother Conference

St Chad's College, Durham University, are hosting the 2009 British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion study group conference, "Religion and Knowledge." Maybe I'll be sleeping on my cousin's floor a lot in the coming months?

The call for papers makes these suggestions for themes:

• The sociology of Religious Education
• Clandestine knowledge and religious identity
• The legitimation & de-legitimation of religious knowledge
• Guardianship and control of religious knowledge
• The legacy of the sociology of knowledge
• Epistemological challenges facing the sociology of religion
• Resurgent secularism and the 'New Atheism'
  

Confirmed speakers include Professor Steve Fuller, University of Warwick (the sociology of the intelligent design movement), Professor Elizabeth Cooksey, Ohio State University (the Amish), and Professor David Chalcraft, University of Derby (sociological approaches to Biblical texts). The conference organiser is Dr. Matthew Guest, a Lancaster grad and alternative worship kinda guy - see also his 2006 emerging church article written with Steve Taylor in the International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church. The deadline for abstracts is January 12... Hmm, mulling it over...

Reading Spiritualities Published

Stemming from a Lancaster University conference a couple of years back, my supervisor Dr. Deborah F. Sawyer and fellow PhD student Dawn Llewellyn have collected several papers together to form a publication entitled Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred.


Here's some blurb: "The phenomenon of 'sacred text' has undergone radical deconstruction in recent times, reflecting how religion has broken out of its traditional definitions and practices, and how current literary theories have influenced texts inside the religious domain and beyond. "Reading Spiritualities" presents both commentary and vivid examples of this evolution, engaging with a variety of reading practices that work with traditional texts and those that extend the notion of 'text' itself. The contributors... open up understandings of where and how 'sacred texts' are emerging and being reassessed within contemporary religious and spiritual contexts; and make room for readings where the spiritual resides not only in the textual, but in other unexpected places... [The book] offers a unique and well-focussed 'snapshot' of the textual constructions and representations of the sacred within the contemporary religious climate - accessible to the general reader, as well as more specialist interests of students and researchers working in the crossover fields of religious, theological, cultural and literary studies."


And the table of contents:

• "Introduction," Deborah F. Sawyer and Dawn Llewellyn
• "Getting a/cross god: An Interview with Michèle Roberts," Michèle Roberts, Dawn Llewellyn and Deborah F. Sawyer
• "The Sacred in Caribbean Literature: A Theological Conversation," Michael N. Jagessar
• "Dramatic Improvisation: A Jazz Inspired Approach to Undertaking Theology with the Marginalized," Anthony G. Reddie
• "‘Gendering the Spirit’: Reading Women’s Spiritualities with a Comparative Mirror," Ursula King
• "Our Sacred Texts: Literature, Theology and Feminism," Heather Walton
• "The Desire for Interactivity and the Emerging Texts of the Blogosphere," Katharine Sarah Moody
• "Spiritual Themes and Identities in Chicana Texts: The Virgin of Guadalupe as a Role Model for Womanhood," María Antonia Álvarez
• "Bihishti Zewar: A Text for Respectable Women?" Raana Bokhari
• "Forming Community in the Third Wave: Literary Texts and Women’s Spiritualities," Dawn Llewellyn
• "Solomon’s Narrative: Architecture, Text and the Sacred," Ozayr Saloojee
• "Reading Texts, Watching Texts: Mythopoesis on Neopagan Websites," Maria Beatrice Bittarello
• "Word and Image: Burgess, Zeffirelli, and Jesus the Man of Nazareth," Graham Holderness
• "Do Not Hide Your Face From Me: The Sacred and Profane Body in Art and Modern Literature," David Jasper

My chapter, "The Desire for Interactivity and the Emerging Texts of the Blogosphere," focuses upon the ways in which the UK emerging church milieu (when I wrote the paper I was using the language of "emerging Christian communities") use online texts, particularly blogs, from the perspective of recent literary theory. I've blogged about it before - here - but wanted to draw attention to it again now we've gone to print!

I/conic Interdisciplinarity

In January, Durham's Department of Theology and Religion is hosting a postgrad conference themed around issues of interdisciplinarity. My cousin is currently an MA student at Durham (studying the portrayal of victims of sexual assault in Athenian law and literature) so I might well borrow a bit of her floor for this one!

Entitled, "Interdisciplinarity in Theology and Religion: How to Tie Knots that Will Hold," the conference will look at "what interdisciplinarity has entailed, what it means in current research, and what directions it may take in the future." It will be "of particular relevance and interest to postgraduates working on the cutting edge of theology and religious studies." Cutting edge? Why, that's me! Rev. Prof. Sarah Coakley, Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, will give a keynote entitled "Knots and Nots: Interdisciplinarity, Good and Bad"; there will be one workshop on "Collaborative Interdisciplinarity" by Prof. Douglas Davies, Durham University, and one by a representative of Intute: Arts and Humanities at Oxford, on the electronic dimensions of research; there will be papers presented on current interdisciplinary research by postgrad students; and an informal poster competition which aims to "hone skills in alternative presentation methods."



The call for postgrad research papers suggests some broad themes which "seem to generally benefit from, if not absolutely require, an interdisciplinary approach":

• "Truth & Interpretation


• "Community/Relationship/Conflict


• "East/West/South(?)


• "Church/Academy/World


• "Ancient/Contemporary


• "Tradition and the Future


• "History and Eternity


• "Ecology


• "Death


• "Identity."

My research questions (how is truth conceptualised in the UK emerging church milieu and what are the implications of such understandings of truth?) require me to float around in the sociology of religion, philosophy, theology, ethics, and politics; and I've blogged before about the difficulties I've had traversing a dialogue between sociology of religion and post-Enlightenment philosophical thought, particularly regarding sociology after the death of sociology and the problems of representational writing. In my Introduction I have a section where I muse on the possibility of understanding my thesis as an i/con, so I might work that up into a paper.

On the one hand, my thesis may be something of an icon: perhaps not in the sense of pointing outside of itself to an external reality that is the UK emerging church milieu (although this may be the case, we cannot know; such is the nature of undecidability), but in the sense in which Paul Ricoeur notes that the meaning of a text always points beyond itself – "not behind the text [to a reality beneath it] but in front of it" to a different mode of living, to a "possible world" of existing otherwise (Ricoeur 1976:87), of having been transformed.

Simultaneously, however, my research may be something of a con: due to the inherent difficulties in representing phenomenon after the critique of representationalism, it may not represent the social, philosophical, theological, or political realities of the milieu at all.

Further than this, the undecidable nature of my research’s location leads me to articulate it as an "i/con," existing on the Derridean slash of undecidability that is a recurring theme throughout the thesis. My depictions of the UK emerging church milieu should not be taken too seriously; after all, this thesis might just be a con.

But what does the troublesome interdisciplinary relationship between the sociology of religion and contemporary philosophy's critique of the ideology of representationalism mean for research? For starters, the criteria for the validity of a doctoral thesis are destabilized, not least the requirement that the research undertaken and presented be an accurate reflection of the subjects under study. What does "research as i/con" do to the research process? I might steal from the conference title to argue that, the "knots" do not hold.

Day Conference on Belief

Next year the Religion Graduate Students Association of Columbia University, New York, will host a day conference entitled "Belief Matters: Reconceptualising Belief and Its Use." Here's the blurb and why I'm sorely tempted - even though its only a day!

"In recent decades, sociologically- and anthropologically-minded scholars of religion have attempted to shift scholarly attention away from belief and doctrine to rituals, practices, identities, and institutions. This turn away from belief-as-doctrine has helped scholars see religion as a dynamic phenomenon that exists beyond the confines of peoples' heads. At the same time, however, has this shift kept scholars from examining other ways in which belief and believing remain central to how people conceptualize what religion is and how it operates in the world? By re-examining what it means to "believe," this conference explores if and how belief matters.

"We invite paper submissions (400-500 words) related to any of the following themes:

"Belief vs. Practice
"Papers on this theme might sharpen the critique of belief-centered paradigms, or defend their importance. Are ritual and practice better ways of conceiving religion and identity? Should belief play a role in studies of religious practice? Papers might address the ambiguous (and sometimes seemingly inconsistent) relationship between belief and behavior.

"Belief in People and Places
"Papers on this theme might focus on the notion of believing in something--as opposed to believing that something is true. Objects of belief may include charismatic leaders, saints (hagiography), and sacred places (e.g., pilgrimage sites).

"Ways of Believing
"Papers on this theme might focus on cultural, historical, and sectarian differences or developments in what it means to believe. Papers may examine, for example, post-enlightenment developments in western notions of belief and believing, the role of law in structuring acceptable ways of believing and belonging, or issues relating to how groups and individuals conceive and present their "beliefs"--including varying uses of such terms as "spiritual" and "religious." Papers might address atheism, science, or nationalism as alternative modes ofbelief.

"Conflict, Cosmopolitanism, and Social Reform
"Papers might address the rhetoric about belief and believing that governments and political and humanitarian groups use to justify or engender support for their policies or actions. How have groups in various cultural contexts situated their own beliefs or those of others in relation to "universal" human rights? How have social reformers in various historical contexts used language about beliefs in tactical ways?

"Counting Believers
"Papers on this theme might discuss questions about the role of belief in determining community membership--both from the perspective of practitioners and scholars. Papers might focus not just on modern communities (who, for example, count as "evangelical Christians"?) but also on communities from the distant past (who, for example, count as "early Christians"?).

"Belief and Science
"Scientific critiques of "religion" often frame their critiques in general terms but in fact focus their criticism on certain beliefs or modes of belief. How do alternate ways of thinking about belief unsettle conventional oppositions between religious belief and science?

"Belief and Ethics
"How does belief and believing inform decisions regarding right and wrong conduct in the world?"

Submission deadline: Monday, December 1st.

This conference has piqued my interest because recently I've been thinking about the aspects of my doctoral thesis which I would like to develop into my next research project. One of these possibilities is the way in which the nature of "belief" is shifting. Paul Heelas has been chatting to me recently about this, thinking about how belief in something inarticulated or inarticulatable is emerging - in contrast to determinable belief in some doctrine, person, place or thing. This dovetails quite interestingly with some of my research findings, partcularly how "belief" functions within communities which emphasise either "holding beliefs lightly" or "belief in the undecidability of belief." I'd like to do my next project on the ways in which the new nature of belief makes academic a/theology possible to practice "on the ground," and how this changes the ways in which ritual and particularly prayer are conceptualised and function. So this conference on belief might be a good starting point. Gonna REALLY be in trouble for money by April next year so we'll have to see!!!

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?
  

"Emerging Church" R.I.P. (more links)

I missed a few important parts of the recent conversation about the demise of the term "emerging church." Thanks for the Out of Ur heads-up, Rodney. Here they are:

Out of Ur, "Emerging Church R.I.P."

Dan Kimball, on the shift in definition of "emerging church."

Bob Hyatt, "Look Who's Done with Words like Emergent."

Jason Clark starting a 'new chapter' "Beyond Emergent and Emerging Church." P.S. It'll be here, at Deep Church.

Tallskinnykiwi's thoughts on the poll results, "You Say Dump It."

Emergence, Emerging, and Emergent

In response to the imminent publication of Phyllis Tickle's The Great Emergence which I blogged about here after I read the corrected galleys, to recent reflections in the blogosphere about the value of the term "emerging church," to tallskinnykiwi's poll on whether to dump it, and to Doug Pagitt's video post on the distinction between Emergent and emerging church, I've decided to write a bit more about my decision to characterise the subject of my PhD research as "the emerging church milieu." (I've blogged about the term "milieu" before, here).

Much of the published literature uses "emerging" and "emergent" interchangeably. Others are definite in declaring a distinction between the terms, but still differ on which is preferable. Although there may have been enough general consensus regarding the term several years ago for one evangelical critic to state that "emerging" is 'the defining adjective for their movement' (Carson 2005:12), an increasing ambivalence can be observed towards the "emerging church" marker, particularly within the blogosphere.

In my thesis, I argue against the tendency to define such a thing as an "emerging church," for several reasons. Firstly, this endeavour is difficult, given the diversity of communities self-identifying as emerging churches. Secondly, it is reductionistic; typologies of emerging churches divide communities based on their primary concerns to the exclusion of other concerns. Thirdly, it is agenda-driven. It is often clear where the affinities of the people doing the classifying lie.

These difficulties and failings can be shown in relation to Ed Stetzer's typology of emerging churches, which has been re-worked by Mark Driscoll and, in my opinion, re-worded by Darrin Patrick.

Stetzer's three-fold typology divides those communities that self-identify as "emerging churches" thus: 1) relevants try to ‘make their worship, music and outreach more contextual to emerging culture.’ 2) reconstructionists hold that ‘the current form of church is frequently irrelevant and the structure is unhelpful,’ and therefore embrace ‘“incarnational” or “house” models’ of church. 3) revisionists recieve the least explanation but the most condemnation and are defined negatively – as differing from Baptist theology on issues concerning ‘the nature of the substitutionary atonement, the reality of hell… [and] the complementarian nature of gender.’

In the Criswell Theological Review and this interview, Driscoll rearticulates Stetzer’s categories, adding a fourth (reformed relevants) in which he places himself. It is clear that Stetzer and Driscoll’s concerns lie with liberal theology and the reinvention rather than innovation of church forms.

Patrick’s recent Francis A. Schaeffer lectures can be read as translating Stetzer’s typology into an alternative language: relevants become ‘attractional,’ seeking ‘methodological revision’; reconstructionists become ‘incarnational,’ seeking ‘structural revision’; and revisionists become ‘conversational,’ seeking ‘theological revision.’

However, participants’ communities often consciously use more than one descriptor to articulate their identity, emphasise holism over compartmentalism, or tacitly exhibit characteristics of multiple categories. In particular, theological revisionism (revisionist/conversational) also manifests itself in alternative liturgies (relevant/attractional) and contextualised ecclesiologies (reconstructionist/incarnational). Likewise, organisational and aesthetic changes employed by many communities in an attempt to be relevant to contemporary culture often result in reconfigurations of ecclesiology and theology. It is therefore neither possible nor desirable to neatly divide communities and to define them according to their primary concerns (revising theology, cultural contextualisation, or structural organization).



In my thesis, as I have blogged before, I am going to follow the approach which Gordon Lynch takes in his 2006 exploration of 'the progressive milieu,' and argue for the usefulnes of the concept of a "milieu" in approaching the emerging church and its spiritualities. The decision to describe the emerging church as a milieu allows me to avoid implying through a definition of an "emerging church" that one type of community is either prevalent within the conversation or preferable in my opinion.

In his video blog, Pagitt says,




"...emerging church is the implication, the playout, the ramifications, of emergence happening inside the church... emergence is the larger category of what’s going on... Emergent Village is the network inside of that larger movement, and the emerging church is one of the enterprises that some of the people inside that network have been a part of."

In contrast to this position, however, I would argue that the emerging church milieu is the larger entitiy, a milieu (which has overlap with several other milieux within, on the fringes of, and outside the Christian religion) of which Emergent is but a part. To elevate the developments occuring within and through the organization and network Emergent Village above those occuring within and through the other individuals and communities within the emerging church milieu doesn't seem quite right to me. It's prescribing what emerges rather than allowing emergence to happen as an event with the ability to surprise us with its shape.

And I have misgivings about Pagitt's insistence on emergence as a 'larger category of what's going on.' While Phyllis Tickle's characterization of our current era as that of 'the great emergence' is an interesting way of framing the simultaneous emergence of new forms of Christianity as reactions to the dominant forms and the reconstitution of dominant forms of Christianity as a response, I think Pagitt places too much emphasis here on it as more than just a theory about what is occurring in today's religious landscape. For Pagitt, it is as if Tickle's articulation of this current era in the language of emergence (and she could have appropriated any number of different terms to describe it) represents an affirmation of both Emergent and emerging churches (but, apparently, of Emergent over emerging churches). It seems rather circular that Tickle's decision to refer to this era as 'the great emergence,' which was not made independently of there already being a milieu within contemporary Christianity that uses this language to describe itself, is now being used as a legitimation of that diverse collective's existence.

I will be interested to hear more reactions to Tickle's work when it is published.

Faith and Globalization Update

Tony Blair's recent appearance on The Daily Show. I love Jon Stewart. I don't really think Blair got the full on treatment, but it was interesting nonetheless.





Here's my favourite Jon Stewart appearance (Crossfire 2004) which, in part, led to the show's demise. He describes the show, the format of which was to pit two sides of a debate against each other but in the process often polarised the issues in questions, as "theatre" and "partisan hackery" that is "hurting America."

Blair and Volf on Religion and Reconciliation

I turned in to the end of the Today Programme to hear a brief interview with Yale President, Richard Leven, about a course on "Faith and Globalization" being run by the Yale Divinity and Management Schools in conjunction with the Tony Blair Foundation, which begins today. The course will be taught by Tony Blair and Miroslav Volf. As Leven explained it, the course will address questions regarding the role of religion in politics and the impact of politics, particularly globalization, on religion. Using historical and contemporary case studies (Leven mentioned Northern Ireland and Kosovo), students will consider whether and how religion can be "a force for reconciliation in the world as opposed to a force for division."

The website for Yale's three year Faith and Globalzation Initiative provides introductory videos from Volf concerning the course content, and points to other useful resources and reading lists for each section of the course.

Of particular interest to me are the sessions on "Faith and Violence," and "Faith and Reconciliation." The website observes that,

"The destructive potential of faiths and their capacity to divide communities is more acutely felt in our closely interconnected world."

But also that,

"Faiths can provide rich resources for promoting reconciliation between persons and cultures."

The course enables students to both "[a]nalyze in detail the conditions under which faiths contribute to conflict, and explore the possibilities for preventing these negative outcomes... [e]xamine the specific contributions that faith can play in healing divides and nurturing the common good."

The Today programme already flagged up the obvious tensions involved in exploring the ways in which religion can be used to good with an ex-Prime Minister who acknowledges that his decisions, including those concerning the Iraq war, are driven by prayer, so I won't dwell on this further here.

I am interested, however, in this piece of news because I've been thinking about the implications of my thesis - I need to have a section in the Introduction which spells out to readers the ways in which my thesis contributes to the (academic) field. As part of this I've been thinking in particular about my last chapter, "Justice," and some aspects of my conclusion, in relation to what my thesis might contribute to the Church. Here's a couple of paragraphs from something I wrote mapping out the structure of my thesis.

A second “Interlude: Convergence” argues that the two discernable philosophical and theological strands within the milieu converge in practice through an emphasis upon justice which overrides any divergences with regard to truth.

Chapter Eight, “Justice,” reflects upon the ethical and political implications of participants’ notions of truth. I argue that a Lévinasian primacy of ethical action over the settling of theoretical differences is an appropriate framework in which to understand the ethical and political implications of the status and function participants give to truth. I demonstrate in particular that participants believe that the goal of the pragmatic translation of truth into action is to participate in the missio Dei of the holistic redemption of the world, the present-future actualization of the Kingdom of God. For some participants, however, to use the language of Derrida, the ‘to-come’ of the Kingdom is more important than its articulation or actualization as the Kingdom (as it has been understood by Christians).

I think participants' translation of truth into justice, and particularly the prioritizing of ethical action over the settlement of disputes about truth, might help to close remaining barriers between activists of different philosophical and theological hues. In relation to the Church, it might enable freer collaboration in social and politicla activism - ecumenically, but also beyond the boundaries of conventionally understood "religions" to other groups working with other fundamental assumptions about truth. Notions of truth which can act, as Blair and Volf's course will show, divisively might be replaced with some of the notions of truth which my participants employ; namley, truth as an event of transformation (which is then given many names) which calls individuals and groups to respond in acts of justice, hospitality, love, and forgiveness.

Sexualities Special Issue

The journal Sexualities: Studies in Culture and Society is planning a "Sexuality and Religion/Spirituality" Special Issue for next year. I'm going to (finally) try and finish translating my MA thesis (25,000 words) into an article (6,000 words) and submit it. The call for papers from Andrew Yip reads:

Sex and religion are often considered incompatible. Western culture is often perceived as being increasingly secular and sexualised; and religions, sex-constraining (if not sex-negative), normalising heterosexual marriage. Thus, social scientific study of religion/spirituality which for a long time focuses on macro and meso issues such as secularisation and religious authority structures tends to marginalise the study of religiosity/spirituality on a micro level. Thus, ‘lived’ sexuality – particularly non-heterosexualities – is grossly under-researched within this approach.

On the other hand, the proliferation of social scientific literature on sexuality, including non-heterosexualities, has been encouraging in past decades. Yet, this literature often does not engage with the issue of religion/spirituality. This is particularly evident in literature on lesbian, gay, and bisexual – or more generally queer – sexualities. Indeed, queer identity is often constructed as anti-religion and anti-family (of origin), as religion and family are considered the last bastions of institutionalised heteronormativity and heterosexism.

This Special Issue aims to generate exciting insights into how religion/spirituality informs the ‘doing’ of sexuality, and vice versa, in diverse ways. With the return of religion to the social and geopolitical agenda, it is important that the study of sexuality – its diverse forms, meanings, practices, and significance – should seriously consider the role of institutionalised religion and non-institutionalised spirituality in this process. This will offer us a more nuanced way of understanding contemporary
sexual as well as social identities and lives.

Thus, this Special Issue seeks high-quality theoretical and empirical articles of between 5,500 and 6,000 words. Deadline: Monday 2 March 2009

So the deadline's a way aways, but I'm thinking about this now (procrastination!!!). Here's my (revised) abstract for the piece (you can read the original here) -

Working Title:
'Life-as’ and ‘Subjective-life’ Being and Believing among Lesbian Christians

Abstract:
This article examines Heelas and Woodhead’s (2005) The Spiritual Revolution in the context of non-heterosexual religiosity. It argues that the essentially dualistic nature of the theoretical framework used in the Kendal Project, whilst necessary for testing the subjectivization thesis, rests on the problematic anthropology of ‘life-as’ conformity and ‘subjective-life’ authenticity. I use the voices of a small, localised group of lesbian Christians to queer The Spiritual Revolution’s polarised construction of Western spiritual and religious practitioners’ modes of being and believing. Countering the mutual exclusivity presented in that volume, the women who participated in this study undertake one of several moves available to those in-between Heelas and Woodhead’s poles of internal (‘subjective-life’) and external (‘life-as’) sources of significance and authority. I argue that Heelas’ recent (2008) translation of these classificatory categories into those of transcendent theism (God without) and monistic spirituality (“god” within) is more useful for an analysis of the contemporary religious landscape. This research begins the process of spectrum analysis, suggesting that exploration of LGBT Christian identity integration and reflection upon the work of cognitive dissonance theorists can illuminate ways in which individuals and communities might move even between the dualism of God without and “god” within.

Summer Hiatus Finally Over (Hopefully!)

Okay, so I've been a bit quiet over the past few months and I'm going to make up for that here. Since I last blogged about my thesis, I've been wrestling with transcribing (yes, I'm still transcribing!) after injuring my wrist (so, no, I haven't finished it yet!), finding and moving into a new house, buying kitchen appliances (Comet suck, but, when you complain, they give you stuff), and trying to get used to a new routine in a new place, whilst anxiously worrying about how my partner is getting on in his new job.

I've now transcribed 15 interviews (about 30 hours worth of data) with about 10 more interviews to go. Because I've been working from my fieldnotes about the content of the interviews, I've drawn up a very detailed thesis structure which I'm using to conduct thematic analysis of the transcripts, assigning participant quotations to their respective chapters. Of course, this is also further shaping my thesis structure as I do it.

Roughly, here are the main arguements of each chapter of the thesis, and some of the key words which I'm using to allocate interview data to particular chapters:

Chapter One argues for the concept of a "milieu" in approaching the emerging church and presents my understanding of the UK emerging church milieu.

Key words for (all) empirical data (not just interviews): alternative worship, "ancient-future," church, contextualization, culture, emergence, emergent, emerging church, experimentation, fresh expressions, "glocal," incarnation, leadership, mysticism, organization, post-evangelical, tradition.

Chapter Two presents the rationale for framing a study of the UK emerging church milieu and its spiritualities within an exploration of truth; namely, the criticisms of evangelical detractors, who wish to retain the "biblical" concept of truth as correspondence.

Key words: access, anti-intellectualism, correspondence, cultural postmodernity, emerging church critics, elitism, foundationalism, idolatry, intellectualism, modernity, "moral panic," nihilism, philosophical postmodernism, realism, relativism, representationalism, self-refutation.

Chapter Three provides the reader with an historical introduction to classical theories of truth, using a presentation of Nietzsche's critique of the will to truth and subsequent critiques of representationalism to introduce the ways in which participants understand the concept of truth.

Key words: Aquinas, Caputo, coherence, correspondence, Derrida, existentialism, event, Foucault, Heidegger, justification, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, metanoia, objectivity, personal, perspectivism, pragmatism, propositional, Radical Orthodoxy, realism, relativism, representationalism, subectivity, transcendence.

An Interlude: Mystics and Prophets explains that two sets or strands of philosophical implications can be drawn from the data about participants’ understandings of truth, and relates these two strands to the apophatic and prophetic strands which Jack Caputo identifies in the work of Jacques Derrida (and to Merold Westphal’s distinction between a hermeneutics of finitude and a hermeneutics of suspicion).

Chapters Four and Five highlight the epistemological and ontological implications of participants' understandings of truth, detailing the two strands which are in evidence.

Chapter Four agues that some participants are ontologically realist in relation to absolute truth, whilst acknowledging the epistemological limits that fallibility places on human knowledge of absolutes. These participants demonstrate a fear of what is constructed as postmodern relativism and postmodern nihilism, in their understanding of deconstruction as a necessary methodological phase through which they must go on their way to the reconstruction of Christianity.

Key words: absolutism, bivalence, certainty, deconstruction, doubt, faith, fallibility, finitude, foundationalism, humility, (in)accessibility, "moral panic," nihilism, relativism, subjectivity, universalism.

Chapter Five argues that, ontologically, other participants extend the themes of doubt and uncertainty to the reality of God's being and that, epistemologically, participants understand decosntruction to be inherent to language, as displayed throughout Christian history, and as a calling.

Key words: aporia, a/theism, auto-deconstruction, confession, deconstruction, doubt, event, faithful betrayal, metanoia, the other, ritual, slash, to-come, transformation, transformance art, uncertainty, undecidability, unravelling.

Chapters Six and Seven reflect on the theological implications of participants' understandings of truth.

Chapter Six assesses Jamie Smith’s suggestion that Radical Orthodoxy is an appropriate theological frame for the emerging church, arguing that, while RO connects with many of the theological implications of participants’ understandings of truth (especially within the first philosophical strand identified above), it needs to be revised in order to accord with these participants’ views on truth and religious pluralism.

Key words: aesthetics, arrogance, certainty, creativity, exclusivism, the "gathering center," Generous Orthodoxy, heresy, Hick, hierarchy, inclusivism, language, liturgy, meaning, narrative, "ontology of peace," "ontology of violence," "onto-theology," paganism, participation, pluralism, Radical Orthodoxy, sacramentality, "theo-ontology," transcendence, universalism.

Chapter Seven argues that the other strand within the data holds more affinity for Jack Caputo's weak theology, and that participants exhibit what I refer to as an “a/theistic orthodoxy,” which I show to be a practical expression of Caputo’s project.

Key words: activism, agnosticism, atheism, a/theism, deliteralization, language, the messianic, orthodoxy, postfoundationalism, pragmatic orthodoxy, theism, translatability, transformation, undecidability, undeconstructible, weak theology.

The second Interlude: Convergence argues that, while it is possible to discern differences between the philosophical and theological implications of participants’ understandings of truth, a convergence occurs in practice as participants unite in an emphasis on justice.

Chapter Eight argues that a Levinasian primacy of ethical action over settling theoretical differences is an appropriate framework in which to understand the political implications of the participants' notions of truth.

Key words: absolute future, activism, Augustine, call, Caputo, Derrida, ecumenism, ethics, event, facere veritatem, gift, hospitality, hyper-realism, justice, kingdom of God, law, Levinas, love, missio-Dei, orthopraxis, the other, per(ver)formative, politics, pragmatism, prayer, response, to-come, undeconstructible, Zizek.

The Conclusions re-cap my main findings, but also explore the importance of the context from which participants' understandings of truth arise (particularly post-conflict Belfast), and highlights two spiritualities which emerge from the emerging church milieu: Deep Church and A/theistic Spirituality.

So, any thoughts on the thesis structure as it is emerging? Admittedly, some of the key words and where I've chosen to place them within the overall strcuture only make sense to me, but hopefully the brief summary of each chapter's main arguments will give you at least an idea of where the data is taking me at the moment.