"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.

Tribute to Paul

From the Lancaster Guardian,

"A Lancaster University lecturer has died suddenly during an academic trip to Australia. Religious Studies lecturer Dr Paul Fletcher, 43, died in Sydney and leaves a partner, Deborah, and a baby daughter, May.

Paul had led a very active and committed life. As a young man he served with The Irish Christian Brothers, working in the most deprived inner city areas of Liverpool and in war-torn Liberia. He then trained as a theologian at Durham University before being appointed as lecturer in Christian theology at Lancaster in 1997.

An enquiring and demanding scholar, Paul was also a very popular teacher and supervisor of research students. Director of Undergraduate Studies for Religious Studies, and one-time convenor of its research seminars, Paul also served as a board member of the university's Institute for Advanced Studies.

Steeped in the tradition and theology of the Christian church, he was especially interested in the relationship between religion and politics in modern times. Pursuing that interest in the most collaborative and engaging of ways, Paul rapidly formed a wide alliance of intellectual friends and collaborators across the university from the Faculties of Arts and Social Science to the Management School. Paul's work was inter-disciplinary, and his research took him into many different areas of academic life from modern theology and continental philosophy to popular culture and global politics.

His openness, lively conversation and quick wit earned him many friends among staff and faculty on the campus. Generous with his time and his learning, among his closest collaborators Paul was cherished with the deepest respect and affection.

In addition to his work on Christian theology, he published in political theology, international politics and cultural research. His first publication at Lancaster typically arose out of a collaborative conference on violence and the sacred. He currently has a book, Disciplining the Divine, in press and another, The Messianic, Now, in preparation."

I think about him at least once a day. All of the philosophy that I'm reading and writing about at the moment reminds me of him. We've been told that there will be a memorial service for Paul when the new university term starts in October.

More Sad News

I've also just found out that Rick Arrandale died last month. He had been in a hospice for a while, and when I tried to write to him to tell him what he means to me and how much he inspired me, I found that I couldn't... so I sent him a dvd of Stewart Lee instead - not in a "look old chap, cheer up, here's something to make you smile," kind of way but just because I think Stewart Lee is Rick's cup of tea and because comedy is important to me and Sim and Stewart Lee is our favourite and I think I was trying to say, "here's something important to me," as a way of saying, "you're important to me too." Dumb, huh? But what else can you say?!?

Anyway, Rick was one of my lecturers at Canterbury Christ Church University (used to be Canterbury Christ Church University College - it's gone up in the world since I left!). He was a great pastoral help, navigating a lot of us through the turbulent times of early independence - you know, coming out, depression, drugs, screwing up, all kinds of things (not ALL of those were me!). He was incredible at supporting me academically as well, telling me that, actually, I was pretty good at this academia thing when I hadn't really "found myself" at school! He had a great laugh (more of a giggle, I guess you could say) and a lovely smile. He hardly ever shaved properly, and we loved that he really didn't seem to care what he looked like. I thought he was pretty hot, actually. Look at his lovely face... go on, look at that photo! Awww.

I remember during one lecture he made a reference to Royston Vasey. I was the only person who laughed and he said, "that's how you find the sickos in a crowd." Love it. (Follow this link if you don't know what Royston Vasey is - don't worry, it just means you aren't a sicko).

He introduced me to feminist theology, and goddess religions. He taught me about female genital mutilation on my twentieth birthday - nice. He made me a feminist (although the roots of that, involving a predilection to Wide Sargasso Sea over Jane Eyre - reclamation of silenced history and all that - can be traced back). His general accepting/indifferent outlook also helped me accept other aspects of myself (those roots go back to watching Mrs Potiphah through binoculars at the theatre and wondering whether anyone else was watching her instead of Phillip Schofield!). He also introduced me to mythology, mysticism, the New Age, and Jungian psychoanalysis, and humoured me through a jumbled dissertation that magically transformed itself under his tutelage into a feminist interpretation of the Perceval myth.

He was incredibly important to a lot of us at university... Janine, Ellie, Rachel, Pamela, me... You know, the ones with the problems!!!

He was all the more cooler for leaving uni after we graduated and moving to Glastonbury where he ran academic tours round... well, the tor - and other stuff, I'm sure but that was an obvious joke to make. At the Isle of Avalon Foundation, Rick introduced university students to the history, mythology and sacred sites of Glastonbury. The Isle's homepage reads:

The Directors and Staff of the Isle of Avalon Foundation regret to inform you that our Chairman, Rick Arrandale, passed over peacefully on 27th June 2008 after a long illness. We will remember him for his passion and enthusiasm for the Foundation and its students. We will all miss him. The Isle of Avalon Foundation would lke to extend our deepest sympathies to Rick's family and friends for their tragic loss.

Very Sad News

On Friday, as Sim and I were driving down to Lichfield to pick up the keys to our new house, we got a phone call from our friend Patrick – another PhD student in the department – to tell us that our lecturer Dr. Paul Fletcher had died suddenly, whilst attending a conference in Australia. It was such a shock. He had recently had a baby, May, with his partner Debs and so we’re especially thinking of both of them at the moment.

Paul was on all three of my annual panel reviews and was always incredibly supportive of me and my research. I was honoured that he spoke so highly and very fondly of me to Sim when they were both smoking out the back door of Paul’s newly acquired house, which he regularly opened up to students in order to feed them fantastic curries. He introduced Sim and me to Arvo Part, so we loved him for that. He always called Sim “Simeon,” and always asked after him. Undergraduates loved him, and there is (quite rightly) a Facebook group devoted to him. We thought he was always very well dressed.

He would begin his questions to conference speakers with an impressive oration, which the speaker would have to follow if they were to have any hope of understanding the question! He was incredibly intelligent and marvellously highbrow – no matter what the topic of conversation. I never really managed to have a “proper” conversation with him; the nearest I came was about two minutes of “baby stuff” before Debs gave birth – but then it rapidly turned into a one-to-one philosophical lecture about the nature of the necessary silence between “baby noises” and a baby’s first words! Classic.

He put a postcard of Homer J. Simpson on his door that shows a cross-section of his brain and the amount given over to thinking about donuts, which someone changed to read “Dr. Paul Fletcher.” He never looked like he ate many donuts, but then again maybe there was a secret passion we didn’t know about?

I was very shy of him, which he noticed, and he told me not to be – which didn’t really help!

During their recent house-move, Paul and Debs gave us their old vacuum cleaner – it is bright yellow, wonderfully retro, and still working okay. We said we’d send them photos and updates of how he was doing in his new surroundings, but we never did.

I looked forward to hearing Paul’s thoughts on my thesis as it began to take shape over the next few months – I’m sure it will be worse off for not having had his input.

Here's what our department put on our website:

In Memoriam

It is with great sadness and regret that the Department announces the sudden death of Dr Paul Fletcher. Paul was in Sydney, Australia participating in a conference when he had a heart attack.

A much loved colleague and friend, Paul was appointed to the Department in 1997. His research interests ranged across several fields, including Continental Philosophy, Modern Theology, and Religion and Political Theory. His teaching spanned many areas, including Christian thought, religion and film, political theology, and ethics and religion. He supervised several PhDs in areas related to such interests. Immensely popular with and highly committed to our students, his teaching regularly received high evaluations.

He made an immense contribution to the life of the Department including serving as Director of Undergraduate Studies and organising for several years the regular department research seminar series. Beyond the Department Paul's wide range of interests and engaging style brought him into contact with people across the Faculty and University.

We will miss him

I can't believe it.

Thinking about this...

Just got back from a glorious holiday in the Ardeche with Sim's family. Beautiful scenery and wonderful weather. Back now to the realities of moving house this month whilst trying to continue transcribing!

I'm thinking about submitting an abstract for a postgraduate conference happening in September at Oxford Uni, "Religion, Atheism, and the Community of Reason in Modernity." The call for papers includes both contemporary issues and historical topics. Of partiuclar interest to me would be to present and/or hear a paper on the following:

• The persistence of theological tropes in contemporary philosophy

• The relation between religious and secular ethics

• The theological turn in recent phenomenology

• The critique of religion in Nietzsche, Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis etc

• Polemics against (onto-)theology in French thought in the sixties and seventies (Deleuze, Kristeva and the early Derrida)

Transcribing

Type, type... type, type, type.

The Great Emergence

I've been lucky enough to receive corrected galleys for Phyllis Tickle's The Great Emergence so I can review it for my PhD. Here's Tall Skinny Kiwi's blurb for the back cover. NB: My brief review contains no spoilers that aren't already available for public consumption elsewhere in cyberspace. While I'm going to keep my analysis for my thesis (and/or until the book has been published), the main argument of TGE is that Christian history reveals that the church feels compelled to undergo a 'rummage sale' every 500 years.

Elsewhere, Phyllis says: "The Reformation was about five hundred years ago. Five hundred before that you hit the Great Schism. Five hundred more was the fall of Rome and the beginning of monasticism. Five hundred before that you hit the Babylonian captivity of the Jews, and five hundred before that was the end of the age of judges and the beginning of the dynasty."

She argues that three things happen during these times of change:

i. new Christainity emerges as reaction to the dominant form of Christianity
ii. dominant Christianity is reconstituted as a response
iii. both forms lead to the spread and growth of Christianity

Her presentation and analysis of the current era of change, labelled The Great Emergence, is largely historical, reflecting on an analogous period of change (The Reformation) in order to understand the possible trajectory of the contemporary climate within Christianity. Her projections for the future are, as Tall Skinny Kiwi also notes, hopefully more predictive than prescriptive. Here, however, her thoughts on the development of Christianity within The Great Emergence fit neatly with Brian McLaren's notion of a Generous Orthodoxy.

Phyllis talks about "the gathering center" in which the old quadrillaterals of church historians and theologians (divided into Charismatic Pentecostalism, Evangelicalism, Mainline or Social Justice Christians, and Liturgicals) are going through a transformation through the centripetal force of which: 1) a new center is forming in which old distinctions between denominations become blurred through interaction and conversation; and 2) the reconstitution of the four quadrants reacting against the pull of the center, which she refers to as the "backlash."

From the perspective of my research in the UK emerging church milieu, I'm interested that, while Phyllis explores orthodoxy (correct belief) and orthopraxy (correct action) in relation to those that remain within the framework of the old quadrillaterals, she does not address orthodoxy and orthopraxy as they relate to the emerging center. Of course, this is good for me as I explore Brian McLaren's Generous Orthodoxy and my own A/theistic Orthodoxy.

Also good for me is this quote, which I can leak without worrying I'll get in trouble, cos Tall Skinny Kiwi already quoted it(!):

"...emergence in the UK was clearly active, discernible and describable at least twenty years before it was nearly so visible and coherent in this country, making observation of what is happening in Britain, Ireland and Wales (sic) a very useful and sometimes predictive exercise for North American observers."

Moving South

My partner Sim got a job teaching religion at King Edward VI School in Lichfield recently, so we'll be moving towards Birmingham at the end of the summer. It will be a long-awaited move further south nearer our families.

Inner-Life Spirituality Workshop - Colin's Paper

After heading off to Ambleside for fish and chips, we returned for a paper by Colin Campbell, 'Inner-Life Spirituality: World-Affirming or World-Rejecting? Ascetic or Mystic?'

• Colin hoped to address a possibile criticism of his recent publication The Easternization of the West, in which he advances his easternization thesis - though I have not read it yet! He began by characterizing Western civilization as having an active value orientation and Eastern civilization as having a contemplative value orientation. The West seeks to change the world through activism, whilst the East accepts the world as it is and seeks to discover the 'real' nature of the world through contemplation. Colin then posed the possible criticism of TEOFW: if easternization is taking place, then asceticism should be more prominent than is suggested by data about the religious landscape of the West.

Colin used Roy Wallis' distinction between world-affirming and world-rejecting, noting that Wallis' categorisation of the New Age Movement as world-affirming depends upon an analysis of how the movement advertises itself. Colin argued that a world-affirming orientation is used by Western new religious movements to advertise themselves because this is the way in which all religious movements recruit followers. Very few religious movements appeal to the benefits it brings in the after life (i.e. very few are world-rejecting in their self-presentation), and those that do have to simultaneously convince people that this world is about to end (e.g. various forms of millenarianism).

There is within new religious movements a strand of world-rejecting, despite their self-presentation as world-affirming, but there is also a difference here between Western and Eastern reasons for rejecting the world: Western world-rejection is based upon the world being constructed as evil; Eastern world-rejection is based upon the world being constructed as material. In the latter, there is not exactly an opposition between materiality and spirituality (the 'true' nature of existence needs to be understood). Here, experience of the world is rejected (rather than the world itself). Experience of the world is rejected because it is not what an enlightened people should be experiencing. It is illusion, maya. Only by rejecting the world as it is experienced can enlightenment be achieved through which the 'proper' experience of reality is gained.

So, back to the possible criticism of Colin's book. If the easternization thesis is correct, there should be an increase in the rejection of the world as it is experienced and a decrease in the Western value orientation of 'instrumental activism' (Talcott Parsons). An active mastery of the world, of doing, of getting things done, of what Cora du Bois calls 'effort optimism,' should be on the decrease... but is there evidence of this?

Colin notes the growing disatisfaction with the production ethic, a movement away from maximizing production capacity, a drawing back from the aggressive intervention in nature, and a greater stress upon non-intervention. He notes that an interesting linguistic movement has occured in which if you are an activist today you are more likely to be acting in the interests of non-action, of human non-intervention - for example, acting for the preservation of rainforests and other natural habitats.

Colin therefore adds to the activism and contemplation modes of action a third: being in becoming, in which there is activity coupled with the development of the self as an integrated whole. Success isn't measured by changes made to the world, but by changes made to the self. Activism is still observable in the West, and humans are understood as agents of change, but due to easternization a shift has occured through which humans are no longer agents changing an external world but agents changing themselves. It is a mentalized or psychologized activism. I thought Colin would add (but he didn't at this particular point) that it is an easternized activism.

The ascetic response to the tension between your hopes of experiencing the world and your actual experienc of the world is to change the world, but the mystic response is to change the self. A shift has occured from 1) activism > 2) having the right attitude helps achieve activist goals > 3) attitude is sufficient to effect the change sought. So the West has become easternized in this sense: there is still an activist value orientation (classic West), it is still about the self and what the self achieves (modernism), but it is an internal change rather than an external change that will achieve it (classic East).

Inner-Life Spirituality Publication Workshop - Eileen's Paper

Professors Paul Heelas (Lancaster University) and Dick Houtman (Erasmus University, Rotterdam) are editing a collection of work surrounding inner-life spirituality, and are this week holding an invitation-only publication workshop in the Lake District. As the Research Student representative at Lancaster, Paul asked me to organise a convoy of interested students who would like to attend the opening evening. So off we went to the beautiful setting of the Langdale Chase Hotel (a choice which Prof. Eileen Barker (LSE) later commented on as a 'spiritual' site for a conference, in contrast to something like a 'religious' Methodist Central Hall).

The workshop was also in honour of Ninian Smart, who established the first department of Religious Studies (at Lancaster University, of course!), and his widow Lubushka attended. Dr. Deborah F. Sawyer welcomed everyone, and handed over to Marion McClintock, who worked as Lancaster University's academic registrar (and honorary historian and archivist) from 1968 to 2006 and who reflected warmly on Ninian Smart.

The title of Eileen Barker's presentation "The God Within" was a little misleading, as we had been hoping she would shed more light on this common distinction between religion (the God without) and spirituality (the God within), but instead she gave an interesting overview of what she referred to as the 'diversification' of the religious and secular spheres. She had this diagram on a flipchart:

Apathetic secularism: where religion and/or spirituality is a matter of indifference. People just don't feel the need to think about it; they are disinterested in religion. In the discussion after the paper, a few other phrases were used: 'don't give a damn,' 'can't be arsed.' Soft secularism: where religions are turned to in times of personal or national crisis, and are used to mark rites of passage without evidence of sustained committment. Hard secularism: really a religion in itself, e.g. Richard Dawkins. Conservative fundamentalist religions and Traditional religions were not really touched upon as areas of Eileen's research interest, but there influence on other forms of religiosity and secularism are important. New Religious Movements: there are several definitions 'out there' in the sociology of religion, and Eileen didn't spend much time here either, because her focus is on Spiritualities.

Negative spiritualists: Those who are spiritual primarily because of an anti-religion (i.e. institutionalised religion) stance. Here there are a range of beliefs which Eileen characterised as primarily superstitious (in technical sense). She noted negative views not only towards members of established or traditional religions, but also of ethnic minorities and minority faiths.

Postive spiritualists: Those that are characteristically ecologically aware, liberal in their general outlook, and have a more systematic world view (according to whichever form of spirituality) rather than the particular superstitions of the negative spiritualists.

Further, a hand out charted the ideal-typical distinctions Eileen sees between Scriptural religiosity (religions [primarily of The Book]) and spirituality:

Religiosity (of The Book)
The Divine: Transcendent and Particular
Source: Without
Origins: Creation
Source of Knowledge: Scripture / Revelation
Authority: Dogma / Priest / Tradition
Theodicy: Evil / Sin / Satan
Life after death: Salvation / Resurrection / Damnation
Time: Temporal / Historical
Change: Lineal: past / present / future
Perspective: Analytical
Anthropology: Man in God’s image
Distinctions: Dichotomous: Them / Us
Sex/gender: Male / (female)
Relations: Controlling
Social Identity: Group (membership of tradition)
Control: External authority
Organisational unit: Institution / Family
Place of worship: Synagogue; church; mosque
Communication: Vertical hierarchy

Spirituality
The Divine: Immanent and cosmic
Source: Within
Origins: Creating
Source of Knowledge: Experience / mysticism
Authority: Personal experience
Theodicy: Lack of attunement, balance and / or awareness
Life after death: Reincarnation / Transmigration / Moksa
Time: Eternal / a-historical
Change: Cyclical: then / now / then
Perspective: Holistic / syncretistic
Anthropology: Humans as part of Nature
Distinctions: Complementarity: Us (them = them/us)
Sex/gender: Feminine-(masculine)
Relations: Relating (‘sharing’)
Social Identity: The inner ‘me’ / the ‘true self’
Control: Internal responsibility
Organisational unit: Individual (in relation)
Place of worship: Informal building; temple; shrine; open air
Communication: Horizontal networking

Eileen was clear that her ideal-types are dichotomies from which to begin, knowing that you will never find 'pure' examples of them, where a concrete example fits exactly with your model. She said that 'I don't believe what I've done... I'm denying that they exist in the pure form.'

I think that this is the problem with Paul and Linda's distinction between 'life-as' religion and 'subjective-life' spirituality. Rather than beginning with a dichotomy that is modified as you conduct fieldwork, I think that their fieldwork was made to fit a mould which doesn't exist in reality. I don't there are many (if any) concrete examples of purely 'life-as' religion - nor many concrete examples of purely 'subjective-life' spirituality... because as soon as you start talking to real people clean, neat dichotomies become blurred. I haven't blogged much about the Kendal Project and Paul and Linda's The Spiritual Revolution (here, a little), but I hope to publish my Masters thesis which uses non-heterosexual religiosity to queer their thesis, particularly their dichotomy of 'life-as' and 'subjective-life.'

I think that Eileen is right to reflect on the nature of ideal-types and their function within the sociology of religion.

Panel Review UPDATE

So the panel review (middle of May) went okay. I had my supervisor (Dr. Deborah F. Sawyer - religion and gender, biblical studies and contemporary culture), Dr. Paul Fletcher (continental philosophy, modern theology, political theology) and Professor Chris Partridge (new religions, alternative spiritualities, occulture) - so a useful mixture of points of view.

I had hoped that it would be useful for my dilemma researching truth and representing research as truth. But it was unclear the extent to which the panel agreed that this is a question which will come up in my viva or is a problem of my own creation! We'll see. At least I can say that I have thought about the potential disjuncture between the theories of truth I am reflecting on and the theory of truth I am using in that very reflection!

I was grilled by Paul (rightly) about whether or not I am approaching the emerging church milieu and the work of Jack Caputo with the same level of critical judgment as I am approaching emerging church critics, critics of postmodernism, and some of the other theologies and philosophies I am using (Radical Orthodoxy, for example). I think a lot of my critical distance is going to come out as I start writing up (at which I am WAY behind schedule - not having completed transcribing yet!), framing the UK emerging church milieu within contemporary sociological theory and theorising a bit more on it as a social phenomenon.

And Chris asked to what extent I was taking ecclesiology into consideration in my discussion of emerging church epistemology, as there is a complex interrelationship between the two (which I agree). I'm not particularly interested in ecclesiology (sorry - leave that to the majority of the other postgraduates researching the emerging church) but where I do draw connections between ecclesiology and epistemology will be in the first chapter where I introduce the reader to the UK emerging church milieu.

Annual Review Panel Today

Each year the lucky research students of the Religious Studies department undergo a 'review by panel,' to make sure that our thesis actually is a thesis, to keep us on track with writing up, and to act as some kind of a practice for the viva. Mine's today at 3pm. Bit nerve-y.

I usually spend the Easter holidays madly writing stuff to hand in for it. In addition to a self-assessment form, a list of training modules we've taken, a detailed thesis plan, and a timetable for completion, we have to submit a writing sample of at least 5,000 words. I've kind of been going about it the wrong way round; in my first year I handed in about 30,000 (four papers - one on Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition, on one Critical Realism and Radical Orthodoxy, one on the postmodernism of the Emerging Church, and a methodological one on the Emerging Church and Critical Realism), in my second year about 20,000 (a paper I gave at a conference on Theo(b)logy and the construction of identity, theology and society, and a chapter on the postmodern turn of Christianity which contextualises my research questions), and in this, my third and (hopefully) finally year, I'm handing in, at most, 7,000 words:

• The "Truth and A/theistic Orthodoxy" paper from Boston (3,000 words), and


• A hashing out of ideas concerning a persistent problem with my thesis (about 4,000 words): "Truth, Representationalism, and Research."

This latter piece of writing I hope will stimulate some useful discussion in my panel review, regarding what I see as a BIG HOLE in my project that relates to the underlying philosophical assumptions of the sociology of religion.

My research explores a social phenomenon (the emerging church milieu) through a philosophical question (how is truth conceptualised?). But this always brings me back to this problem:

• Can my research be said to present “the truth,” i.e. the external reality, about how the emerging church milieu conceive of the notion of truth, if many of them (and I) are sceptical about


• a) the extent to which reality can be represented in language (representationalism) and


• b) the extent to which truth is a correspondence between language and reality (correspondence theory of truth)?

See my persistent problem?

So I'm trying to think through the ways in which I can acknowledge this problem and address the difficulties in combining sociology of religion with post-strucutralist philosophies concerning truth, representation, and research. And I'm circling around several literary devices which might help me in this endeavour. I could...

• "Translate" the rather dry, concise, representationalist, and (of course, given it's history) scientific sociological discourse into Derridean vocabulary and syntax - a both daunting and exciting proposition; OR

• Write the different chapters (sociological, philosophical, etc.) in the language of their respective disciplines and allow the resultant jolt when reading from chapter to chapter to occur as an event in the reading experience which might highlight that the different disciplines are operating within different language games; OR

• Attempt to produce different introductions for readers with different understandings of truth (a little like Brian McLaren writes introductory paragraphs for different readers of his Generous Orthodoxy) - for example, readers who hold a correspondence theory of truth, which can be said to be the majority of conservative emerging church critics, might assume that my writings relate fully to the reality that is the emerging church milieu. If such readers do not like what they read, they can either question my academic credentials and research abilities (i.e. the methods I used to discover reality), or they can use my research for further evidence of the dangers of post-modernism. Either way, for them, there is a “truth” of the emerging church out there, waiting to (certainly) be discovered by (perhaps) more astute or discerning (or “biblical”) researchers than me.

What I've decided to do is to write a sociological chapter enumerating what I see as six ideological commitments open to those involved in the emerging church milieu - a classical sociological approach to a social fact.

But, simultaneously, I am going to problematise a number of the assumptions just made in such an approach to the emerging church milieu. There are, however, still a number of ways in which to present this "undercut."

• I could include what could be called an Interlude between this sociological chapter and the rest of the thesis chapters - considering the other alternatives, this option is a bit tame (!) and Derrida's work suggests a further two possibilities.

• In Derrida's (1986) Glas, the pages are divided into two columns, each column taking a different subject matter, so that the reader has to decide whether or not to read all of one first and then return to the beginning of the book and read all of the other.

• Writing alongside (or, rather, below!) Geoffrey Bennington's "Derridabase," intended to systematize Derrida's work, Derrida has constructed another piece of writing, "Circumfession," intended to slip out of such an endeavour. "Derridabase" occupies the top of the pages, whilst "Circumfession" is positioned on the bottom of each.

• Taking into consideration the format of the doctoral thesis, however, a fourth possibility presents itself:

Doctoral theses are printed only on one side of the page, on the right, with a blank page (the back of the preceding page) opposite it on the left. Pagination ignores these blank pages, with readers only paying attention to the pages with words on them as they turn and read. I have decided, therefore, to write a piece which delivers a post-structuralist blow to the sociology of religion and to print it on the pages opposite to the sociological Chapter One, Emergence. The reader will, first (foremost?), be shocked to find print on this side of the bound thesis, and will then have to decide which way to read it: sociology, then critique?; or critique first?

Conference Paper taken out of the Blogosphere

I've decided not to post in too much detail about the "Truth and A/theistic Orthodoxy" paper I gave recently, as I'm concerned about putting my ideas out there when I hope to publish in academic journals and monograph form later this year / next year. So I've decided to delete the earlier posts I wrote in which I detailed what I argued. I hope readers understand.

I'm going to blog very briefly back at the original post (here) about what I argued and about the responses I got to the paper.

Please email me at k.moody1@lancaster.ac.uk if you would like to read the paper, and I'll happily send you a copy.

A New Kind of Christian is a New Kind of Atheist: Truth and A/theistic Orthodoxy in the Emerging Church Milieu - part two

This post has been deleted. I feel that it went into too much detail concerning what I argued in my recent conference paper, and therefore threatened the publication of the paper in journal or monograph form later this year / next year. I hope readers understand.

Back at the original post (here), I blog very briefly about what I argued and about the responses I got from other conference delegates.

Please feel free to email me at k.moody1@lancaster.ac.uk if you would like to read the paper in its entirety.