Religion as Trickery: Brown (1)

Derren Brown, interview with Richard Dawkins for Dawkins' Channel4 programme, "The Enemies of Reason."



Richard Dawkins: Where does your scepticism come from?

Derren Brown: Well, in terms of my history, I used to be a very devout Christian when I was younger, but didn’t have a Christian family, didn’t have Christian friends… but it came from a Bible reading class when I was young; it was an unpleasant childhood indoctrination. But because I grew up without a Christian peer group, when I got to university it was relatively easy for me to kind of think my way out of it, to start to challenge it and not feel too much guilt…

At the same time I was getting into magic and, through magic, realising how things like tarot cards and psychics really work and that there’s nothing mystical about it that could therefore be seen as dangerous, but it’s just simply sort of rubbish and charlatanism and psychology at work…

I’d talked to psychics and I’d listened to their sort of circular beliefs and I remembering thinking, “I am doing exactly the same thing, but as a Christian.” The only difference is that it’s easier to laugh at them because it’s a fringe belief, whereas my belief is so much more endorsed institutionally, it’s more respectable, that I thought, “I’m just being a hypocrite.”

So I started to read some theology texts and books about how the Bible really came together and a kind of mixture of books that I hoped would at least challenge my easy, pat answers that I had as a young Christian. And I felt that if I could just undo all the easy answers, if I just had a bunch of questions, that I might actually be able to build a much stronger, more defensible faith from it.

And then that sort of just didn’t happen. It just all seemed silly and I realised that there was no going back, and once you realise that the Bible isn’t an historical account of things that have happened, then, you’re sort of left with no basis for it at all.

From that, then, I wanted to defend my non-belief as strongly as I felt that I should’ve been able to defend it as a believer, so that’s something that’s been left with me.

Atheism for Lent: Nietzsche

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Poison Tree, by William Blake

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

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

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

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

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

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

Atheism for Lent: Marx

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

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

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

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

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

Religion as Ideology: Marx (1)

Religion as Ideology: Marx (2)

Religion as Ideology: Marx (3)

Religion as Ideology: Marx (4)

Religion as Ideology: Marx (5)

Religion as Ideology: Marx (6)

Nietzsche starts tomorrow!

Atheism for Lent: Freud

Just got back from first session of "Atheism for Lent" in which we looked at Freud's critique of religion. I was bold over by the attendance (Journey's pastor, Chris, found it somewhat telling that there were 9 that morning for the morning worship service at church and 18 in the evening for atheism!)

I started off by asking (prompted by Chris!) why each person was interested in the course, which evoked some really good responses to do with neo-atheism, doubt, disbelief, defensiveness, openness, and self-examination. Whilst Journey is very broadly a liberal and leftist congregation (it's an eco-congregation that is part of the pro-LGBT MCC association of churches), there remained some diversity within the group theologically, with many really embracing the challenge to challenge themselves and each other.

Our discussion of Freud began by remarking how "miserable" he appears, a symptom (!) of his emphasis on external (self/nature/culture) and internal (self/id/super-ego) conflict and essentialisation of "common unhappiness." Merold Westphal's distinction between suspicion and scepticism (see this post here) was really helpful in moving everyone from discussing Freud's atheism and the critiques of his theory of the psyche, of dreams and of religion towards reflecting upon what his critique might mean for the different (broadly Christian but also interested in Buddhism, paganism and humanism) faith of the people in the room.

One really great comment was that, in congregations like Journey, it can be easy to read critiques and just completely agree (as a badge of being liberal) without really challenging ourselves... to identify fundamentalism, for example, as the Christianity that Freud is critiquing and thereby to miss the opportunity to use Freud to purge our own faith of its more instrumental (see this post) aspects. We can say, "oh, our God is better than the God of the Christianity Freud is exposing, because we sometimes refer to God as a Goddess or as a tree or rock or river."

So it was great to see the group trying to relate Freud's critique of religion to their own faith, and not just to the easier target of "other people's faiths."

To read the material I prepared (using Merold Westphal's Suspicion and Faith: Religious Uses of Modern Atheism) see the following posts:

Religion as Wish-Fulfilment: Freud (1)

Religion as Wish-Fulfilment: Freud (2)

Religion as Wish-Fulfilment: Freud (3)

Religion as Wish-Fulfilment: Freud (4)

Religion as Wish-Fulfilment: Freud (5)

Religion as Wish-Fulfilment: Freud (6)

And then join us tomorrow for the start of Religion as Ideology: Marx!

Atheism for Lent in Birmingham: Introduction

In the run-up to the start of Journey's "Atheism for Lent" Course in Birmingham next Sunday (March 13th), I'm going to post sections of the Course Booklet that I wrote as preparatory material. This means that you don't have to be in Birmingham to read what we're looking at each week.

NOTE: This Course relies heavily upon Merold Westphal’s Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007[1998]), as well as print publications and online media by Pete Rollins. A very good book which introduces various theories of religion (including Freud and Marx) is Daniel L. Pal’s Eight Theories of Religion (Oxford University Press, 2006).

We start with an Introduction to the Course in general and some Commitments:

Giving up God for Lent means that we will...

contribute to a supportive group environment in which we can experience together the trauma of wrestling with perceptive criticisms of religion and God; read the often demanding preparatory material before the group meets; let these critics judge us (as well as critically judging them), allowing our faith to be put into question; reflect on our experiences of the absence of the presence of God; and commit fully to this Lenten process of purging and to see the Course through to the end.

The Role of the Facilitator(s) IS NOT to refute atheist criticisms of religion and God; and NOT to reassure the group that faith can withstand these criticisms.

The Role of the Facilitator(s) IS to enable the group to get the most out of the events; to join the group in the process of questioning and self-reflection; to facilitate understanding and discussion; and to experience with the group the possibility that "the atheist other" can be an instrument of our own transformation.

Introduction: Atheism for Lent

From Peter Rollins, The Orthodox Heretic, pp.104-106:

There was once a world-renowned philosopher who, from an early age, set himself the task of proving once and for all the nonexistence of God. Of course, such a task was immense, for the various arguments for and against the existence of God had done battle over the ages without either being able to claim victory.

He was, however, a genius without equal, and he possessed a singular vision that drove him to work each day and long into every night in order to understand the intricacies of every debate, every discussion, and every significant work on the subject.

The philosopher’s project began to earn him respect among his fellow professor when, as a young man, he published the first volume of what would turn out to be a finely honed, painstakingly researched, encyclopaedic masterpiece on the subject of God. The first volume of this work argued persuasively that the various ideas of god that had been expressed throughout antiquity were philosophically incoherent and logically flawed. As each new volume appeared, he offered, time and again, devastating critiques of the theological ideas that had been propagated through different periods of history. In his early forties, he completed the last volume, which brought him up to the present day.

However, the completion of this work did not satisfy him. He still had not found a convincing argument that would demonstrate once and for all the nonexistence of God. For all he had shown was that all the notions of God up to that time had been problematic.

So he spent another sixteen years researching arguments and interrogating them with a highly nuanced, logical analysis. But by now he was in his late fifties and had slowly begun to despair of ever completing his life project.

Then, late one evening while he was locked away in his study, bent wearily over his old oak desk, surrounded by a vast sea of books, he felt a deep stillness descend upon the room. As he sat there motionless, everything around him seemed to radiate an inexpressible light and warmth. Then, deep in his heart he heard the voice of God address him:

“Dear friend, the task you have set yourself is a futile one. I have watched all these years as you poured your being into this endless task. Yet, you fail to understand that your project can be brought to completion only with my help. Your dedication and single-mindedness have not gone unnoticed, and they have won my respect. As a result, I will tell you a sacred secret meant only for a few… Dear friend, I do not exist.”

Then, all of a sudden, everything appeared as it was before, and the philosopher was left sitting at his desk with a deep smile breaking across his face. He put his pen away and left his study, never to return. Instead, in gratitude to God for helping him complete his lifelong project, he dedicated his remaining years to serving the poor.

From Ikon, "The God Delusion," Greenbelt Arts Festival, Aug 26 2007:

My first encounter with this secret occurred a number of years ago while I was walking home, late one evening. As I weaved my way through the half-dead trees that inhabited a piece of wasteland connecting my origin to my destination, I heard an inner voice calling my name. I stood still and listened intently to what I took to be nothing less than the solemn, silent voice of God. As I stood there, rooted to the ground, God spoke to me, repeating four simple words, “I do not exist.”

“I do not exist”? What could this possibly mean?

One thing for sure was that this was not a simple atheism, for it was God who was claiming God’s nonexistence. In that wasteland, I was confronted with something different. I was confronted with the erasure of God by none other than God. I was confronted with the idea that, while God may not be something, that did not imply that God was nothing.

Up until then I had considered God to be just one more thing in the world, albeit the greatest. But after this event, I wondered whether this was an inappropriate way of approaching God. Perhaps God ought not to be thought of as an object in the world, but rather as that which transforms my interaction with all objects in the world.

What if I was being taught that every time I affirm God I simultaneously affirm something less than God? What if this God I affirm is always a delusion formed from the materials of my imagination and desires?

Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche are three of the great atheist critics of religion and ‘we stand accused by their critique of being Pharisees, of practicing a self-serving religion that is idolatrous by our own standards’ (Westphal, Suspicion and Faith, p.59). These same criticisms of religion can be found within Christianity itself, issued by prophets like Amos and Isaiah – who have God say, “I hate your church; what I want is justice” – the Apostle James, Saint Paul, and Jesus himself. These biblical and philosophical figures share, then, a protest against what can be called ‘instrumental religion, the piety that reduces God to a means or instrument for achieving our own human purposes with professedly divine power and sanction’ (Suspicion and Faith, p.6).

This means that engaging with the work of Freud, Marx and Nietzsche as critics of instrumental religion can form part of a Lenten practice of purging ourselves of a faith in which God and religion are used as masks for self-interested desire and aggression, as crutches to cope with the uncertainties and hardships of life, and as legitimation for the oppression and persecution of others.

Key to this process is thinking about the differences between our ‘apparent motives’ and our ‘operative motives,’ between the rationalisations or reasons we give for our beliefs and actions (to ourselves as well as to others) and the motives that are revealed when we direct attention to the functions or operations of those beliefs and actions (Suspicion and Faith, p.29). How do our religious beliefs and actions function? Do these functions reveal ‘the anxious concern for happiness, the dread of future misery, the terror of death, the thirst for revenge, and appetite for food and other necessaries’ (David Hume, The Natural History of Religion, p.31)? Do they reveal, in other words, a mature faith, or a faith ‘formed from the materials of [our] imagination and desires?’

Since ‘religion can hide from us as nothing else can the face of God’ (Martin Buber, Between Man and Man, p.18), we attempt through this “Atheism for Lent” Course a careful self-examination, to perhaps discover a richer faith beyond an instrumental religion of immediate self-interest.

Further, we hope to experience something of the Crucifixion story that is too often neglected. Jesus’ cry from the cross – “Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?” “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – is a moment of divine abandonment, a moment when even God experiences the absence of God, feeling deserted and alone. At this Easter time, we can recall our own experiences of the absence of the presence of God, knowing that Christianity is a religion which recognises and remembers these very real experiences.

Doubt and disbelief are not only for the atheists.

Atheism for Lent in Birmingham: Facebook Event Page

I've been busy writing the Course Booklet for our "Atheism for Lent" Course starting at Journey on March 13th at 5pm and hopefully it'll be ready to go out to people by Sunday so there's a week to read the first week's material: an introduction and something I wrote about Freud's critique of religion.

Anyway, I've created a Facebook Event Page for the course: "Atheism for Lent Course - Giving up God for Lent" to serve as a site of further discussion, but also as a platform for distributing other media, such as Pete's videos.

So far I've posted some videos that form an introduction to the Course as a whole. Here they are:

Atheism for Lent in Birmingham: Poster

I've created a poster to advertise our "Atheism for Lent" Course at Journey, Birmingham, starting on March 13th. Googledocs has stripped it of all its amazing poster-ness but the essential information is still there: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1mJeX_08-hRsyLAjKCcxVEzVk6EzOCum8luqz6WlSDQw

Atheism for Lent in Birmingham: Provisional Programme

So I've come up with a provisional programme for Journey's "Atheism for Lent" Course, which will start running on March 13th.

For the first three weeks, I'm going to write a few thousand words (probably between 3,000 and 5,000) on the work of three great atheist critics of religion: Freud (March 13th), Marx (March 20th) and Nietzsche (March 27th).

For the fourth and fifth weeks, we'll host a film viewing and discussion using Derren Brown's "Messiah" (April 3rd) and (when I'm away in Syracuse) Ricky Gervais' "The Invention of Lying" (April 10th) I'll write a little blurb for each of these sessions too.

Then we'll end with a session in the sixth week (April 17th) on Pete Rollins' notion of "a/theism" (slightly different to what I mean by "a/theism" but I'll post about that nearer the time). This final session will be something of an overview and conclusion to the Course, putting everything that we've looked at in the context of thinking about the absence of God, about the type(s) of atheism at the core of Christian theism, and especially placing this in the biblical context of God's experience on the Cross, when Jesus' "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" marks a moment in which God seems forsaken by God, when God confesses a kind of atheism and experiences the absence of the presence of God.

Hopefully we'll also end the Course with a Good Friday transformance art service - possibly entitled "Forsaken by God" - which will help us reflect on the content of the Course and on our own experiences of doubt, disbelief and the absence of the presence of God.

Atheism for Lent in Birmingham

So having taken part in Pete's Dis-course seminars, I suggested running an "Atheism for Lent" Course at Journey, my church in Birmingham, to the pastor who was very keen. We've decided on a slightly altered format to 40 readings in 40 days, since that's a lot to ask the congregation. We're going to run 6 discussions based around 6 weekly readings (perhaps one or two film showings), which will be held on Sunday evenings at 5pm, which is the normal time for the discussion group that runs at church. Hopefully it'll attract a wide group of people from within the congregation, as well as the folks who normally come to the discussion group. I'm excited. I'll emailed Pete. Perhaps we'll win him.

Dis-course 3: Atheism for Lent

Last night I stayed up again for the third in Pete's webinar series, "Atheism for Lent." This is the Dis-course that I'm most interested in and I'm hoping to create an Atheism for Lent Course for Journey, my church here in Birmingham. Pete's already put up the videos for this session, so enjoy.

5. Discourses Theory 3 from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.

6. Atheism for Lent from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.

I'll post more about my attempts to run this kind of a (dis)Course as the next few weeks go by - Lent isn't THAT far away! I ordered Merold Westphal's Suspicion and Faith: Religious Uses of Modern Atheism, which ikon used in their Atheism for Lent courses, but I suspect that a reading a day will be too much. Perhaps I'll end up distilling Freud, Marx and Nietzsche (the critics of religion introduced in Westphal's book) into weekly rather than daily readings. It'll also be a good chance to disseminate some of my own research, particularly as I can shape the course to build towards a/theism.

Pete also mentioned in this seminar the idea of running a competition to win him. Here's some info about this from his blog:

My hope in running these free on-line seminars is that they might encourage a few brave souls to take the ideas and turn them into flesh. But it is not right for me to sit in the comfort of my home and speak from the safety of my computer. I need to stop being lazy and get on the road. So for starters I would like to run a competition,

Are you willing to run a Last Supper, Evangelism Project, Atheism for Lent, Omega Course or something else based upon the ideas that feed these groups?

Do you have a group of people who want to be involved (ten or more)?

Are you willing to run at least two events between now and 31st March?

Do you live in the US, Canada, UK or Ireland?

If your answer to these questions is ‘yes’ then you get the chance to win me for a day. I will fly out and spend the day with you to consult with your group and help you work out how to develop your project. I will cover the expenses so it won’t cost you a cent (unless you want to buy me a Guinness).

Once you have run two events message me via facebook with details of what you did, how it went and how many showed up. Then, on the 31st March I will put all the entries into a hat and pick a winner.

Hmmm...

Dis-course 2: The Evangelism Project

Here's Pete's videos for the second Dis-course Seminar, The Evangelism Project, which was a few weeks back (Jan 05 2011 for the US, Jan 06 2011 for me!).

3. Dis-courses Theory 2 from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.

4. The Evangelism Project from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.

Dis-course 1: The Last Supper - Let us Prey

Although I was too drunk at my graduation ceremony last month to attend the first in Pete Rollins' series of live web seminars, "Dis-courses," last night I slept in the living room (to avoid waking my partner) and set my alarm for 1am GMT to watch the second one, which kicked off at 8pm EST. Thankfully, I could catch up, as Pete put up a slideshow and audio from "Dis-course 1: The Last Supper - Let us Prey" on his blog yesterday. Here it is. I'll put up "Dis-course 2: The Evangelism Project" when Pete does.

The Last Supper from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.

How to Eat Well in Church

As I begin to emerge from a just-passed-my-viva-(phew!) lull (I always tend to get a bit depressed after the excitement of finishing a piece of work, presenting a piece of work, or handing something in), I am doing my corrections (done!), writing my paper for the Edinburgh BSA SocRel conference on the Changing Face of Christianity (not done yet!), and submitting abstracts for a couple of conferences later in the year - 500 words for the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture's "Attending to the Other" (done!) and 200 words for the "Re-Writing the Bible: Devotion, Diatribe and Dialogue" symposium, held by the University of Glasgow's Centre for the Study of Literature, Theology and the Arts (not yet done!).

My submission for the Attending to the Other conference is called, "How to Eat Well in Church: Saying 'Yes' to the Other and Becoming Nothing in Derrida, Paul and Emerging Christian Discourse." Hopefully it'll get accepted by either the Continental Philosophy of Religion or the Theology panels, but I'm also keen to work this paper into a journal article so it won't be too bad if it doesn't get accepted. Here's the abstract:

‘Let us say yes to who or what turns up, before any determination... before any identification’ (Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality, 77).

‘Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you’ (St Paul, Romans 15:7).

‘...we can freely enter into a theatrical space in which we act as though there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female... Here we do not lay down our identity only to pick up our new identity in Christ. Rather it is in laying down all our identities that we directly identify with Christ’ (Peter Rollins, The Fidelity of Betrayal, 178-179 and peterrollins.net/blog/?p=889)

‘If a community is too welcoming, it loses its identity; if it keeps its identity, it becomes unwelcoming’ (John D. Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, 113)

For Derrida, hospitality, friendship and love are responsibilities that are excessive to the complacent fulfilment of duty. While hospitality by rights and justice under the law protect the self-same, unconditional hospitality is to attend to (to pay attention to and to serve) alterity. Similarly, for (Badiou’s) Paul, the Christian community is to welcome the other, without quarrelling about or arguing over determinations of truth. Co-implicated in this is that, in order to welcome those with different truths, that which makes the host distinctive is to be sacrificed or performatively suspended, which is why there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female (Gal. 3:28). Paul’s injunction to hospitality is occasioned by questions regarding whether or not to eat meat and what Paul calls for is the creation of communities that attend not to the question of what to eat but to the question of how to eat, which is a ‘learning-to-give-the-other-to-eat’ (Derrida, “Eating Well,” 282). The event of Jesus’ excess in relation to all law is to be translated into hospitable ecclesial spaces that attempt to let the other be other, to privilege hospitality over the temptation to conversion or consensus, to refuse to subsume the other to the self-same, and to create a space that places unconditional welcome above conditions of entrance.

The “emerging church conversation” is one contemporary discourse about Christianity that is attempting to imagine and enact such spaces. This paper introduces the discursive motifs in which this Derridean-Pauline desire to attend to the other is expressed and through which it is being performed liturgically, particularly in the work of Peter Rollins and the Belfast-based ‘transformance art’ collective, ikon. I examine the ways in which alterity is welcomed, by which a place for the other is prepared, and through which Christian community negotiates unity and difference. I raise questions of openness and the possibility of radical sociality, of kenosis and the problems of self-identity, and of how deconstructive theologies (such as John D. Caputo’s weak theology) might be ecclesiologically, ethically and politically viable for concrete collectives.

If deconstructive theology interprets the church and the world, how might deconstructive religious collectives be changing them?

Pete Rollins on US TV show

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

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)

Moving Forward

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emerging Christian Communities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where does your faith LIE?

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



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



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


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

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

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

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


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

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





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