Springfield, Springfield!

It's a hell of a town, the schoolyard's up and the shopping mall's down!

I'm off to Springfield (Missouri) tomorrow where I'll be presenting at Drury University's "Subverting the Norm: The Emerging Church, Postmodernism and the Future of Christianity." Their website has an impressive-sounding blurb for me, so hopefully delegates won't be disappointed. I'll be speaking on, "An Emerging A/Theistic Fighting Collective? A Caputian Introduction to Zizek's Pneumatology." Now that it's (almost) edited down to 6,000 words, it's a little more theory-laden then I had anticipated, but I'll be introducing Zizek's pneumatology, his deployment of the term "Holy Spirit" as a community of truth-subjects, a "fighting collective," and staging a conversation between Zizek and Caputo on atheism and theism, metaphysics and materialism. But it will cover:

• Zizek, Caputo, Badiou, Milbank, Lacan (argh!), Saint Paul, and a bit of Hegel and Kant - oh, and Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and Augustine and Barth;
• the big Other, the vanishing mediator, the formulae of sexuation, constitutive exception, and non-all;
• contingency and necessity;
• the truth-event, the truth-subject, and truth-procedure(s);
• universalism;
• hermeneutics, narrativity, metanarrativity and meta-metanarrativity;
• determination, indeterminacy, and relative determinacy;
• atheism, theism, and a/theism;
• materialist materialism, theological materialism and true materialism;
• call, cause and responsibility;
• crucifixion and resurrection;
• the death of God and the death of the death of God;
• spectral materialism and spectral messianism; and
• incarnation and carnality.

So far, the schedule is as follows:

FRIDAY, OCT. 15: RADICAL THEOLOGY IN EMERGING CHRISTIANITY

9 am: Registration

10 am: "Beating God to Death: Radical Theology & the New Atheism," Roundtable conversation with Jeffrey Robbins, Christopher Rodkey and professors from Drury University's department of philosophy and religion

11 am: "An Emerging Radical Theology: On Politics and Ecclesiology," Jeffrey Robbins and Christopher Rodkey

12 pm: Lunch (on your own)

1 pm: "The Emerging Church 101: An introduction for those new to the conversation," Gary Black

2 pm: "To Believe Is Human, to Doubt Divine: Introducing Zizek’s Christology," Peter Rollins

3 pm: "An Emerging A/Theistic Fighting Collective? A Caputian Introduction to Žižek’s Pneumatology," Katharine Moody

4 pm: "Just Us: The undeconstructible Christ community in the age that is passing away," Carl Raschke

7 pm: Keynote presentation I: "Radical Theology—or What’s the Emerging in Emergent?" John Caputo

8:15 pm: Keynote presentation II, Peter Rollins

9:15 – 10 pm: After Session Conversation with John Caputo, Peter Rollins, Carl Raschke, Katharine Moody, Jeffrey Robbins & Christopher Rodkey

10:30 pm: Revival! Transformance Art with Peter Rollins and VOID, a collective from Waco, Texas, at the Creamery Arts Center in Downtown Springfield

SATURDAY, OCT. 16: EMERGING CHRISTIANITY AND THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH

8 am: Coffee & Bagels

8:30 am: Keynote Presentation III, Karen Ward

10 am: Church practitioners workshop, Peter Rollins & John Caputo

11:30 am: Lunch, on your own unless you registered for the Saturday lunch option (see registration packet for local options)

1 pm: Keynote presentation IV, Karen Ward

2:15 – 3:15 pm & 3:30 – 4:30 pm: Breakout Sessions for Church Practitioners

2:15 – 3:15:
Emily Bowen: "Megachurch or Megasubversion? Transformative Ritual in the Emerging Church"
Chris Rodkey: "Satanism in the Suburbs: Ordination as Insubordination"
Julie Kennedy: "The Open Invitation: Tearing Down Labels at the Door"
Phil Snider: "Preaching After the Death of God: With A Little Help From Derrida & Caputo"

3:30 – 4:30:
Laura Fregin: "Art and Justice in Emergent Communities"
David Weiss: "Putting the ‘Queer’ back in Christianity: How extending a full welcome to LGBT persons reclaims the work of Jesus for today"
Lindsey Arnold: "Messiahs, Monsters & Others: The Search for Christ Figures in the TV Show Lost"
Travis Cooper: "Postmodernism, Pentecostalism & the Emergent Church: The Persistence of Azusa-Oriented Praxis"
Matt Gallion, Chris Rodkey & Phil Snider: "Why We're Not Emergent: By Three Guys Who Used to Be"

7 pm: [D]mergent meet-up, Venue TBA

Apple 7, Subverting the Norm, Žižek, and the Holy Spirit

So I've had an interesting and exciting few days. I managed to get down to London for Apple 7, "Is the Institutional Church an Out-Moded Organisational Technology?" (which was recorded and is available for free download here). I had to buy (and, obviously, consume) a bottle of wine because of a £10 lower limit on cards and that, along with the mango vodka shots, lemon and mint warm vodka "tea" and wine I had with my meal earlier in the evening, meant that I was probably a bit embarrassing. Never mind. It was only recorded for posterity, right?

Then I got back yesterday to news that, due to incredibly generous donations from local churches in the States, I'm now able to present a paper at Subverting the Norm: The Emerging Church, Postmodernism, and the Future of Christianity conference in Missouri next month (Oct 15-16, Drury University, Springfield, Missouri), which features Jack Caputo, Pete Rollins, and Karen Ward, among others.

I'll post more details of my presentation as it gets written (!) but it'll be entitled "An Emerging A/Theistic Fighting Collective? A Caputian Introduction to Žižek’s Pneumatology." Hopefully it'll get scheduled near to Pete's "To Believe is Human, To Doubt Divine: Introducing Žižek’s Christology."

Postmodernism, Difference and the Logic of Late Capitalism

Today's "what I'm reading" comes from Blake Higgins' blog, "(Ir)religiosity." In a post on the now "classic" critique of postmodernism as the logic of late capitalism (see especially the work of Frederic Jameson and David Harvey), Blake quotes from Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire, pp.137-138 and 142-143.



In my doctoral thesis, I explored how emerging church discourse often positions the narratives and liturgies of consumerist capitalism as cultural forces that form subjectivities and socialities that are antithetical to the subjectivities and socialities formed by the narratives and liturgies of the Christian tradition. See, for example, the work of James K.A. Smith in Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation, and the doctoral research of Jason Clark, for example this blog on the relationship between dieting and discpleship (desire). While many would argue that Hardt and Negri's critique is narrativally positioned not by the Christian tradition but by the Marxist tradition, this part of emerging church discourse nonetheless has much in common with the post-Marxist critique of postmodern culture.

"We suspect that postmodernist and postcolonialist theories may end up in a dead end because they fail to recognize adequately the contemporary object of critique, that is, they mistake today’s real enemy. What if the modern form of power these critics (and we ourselves) have taken such pains to describe and contest no longer holds sway in our society? What if these theorists are so intent on combating the remnants of a past form of domination that they fail to recognize the new form that is looming over them in the present? [...] In this case, modern forms of sovereignty would no longer be at issue, and the postmodernist and postcolonialist strategies that appear to be liberatory would not challenge but in fact coincide with and even unwittingly reinforce the new strategies of rule! When we begin to consider the ideologies of corporate capital and the world market, it certainly appears that the postmodernist and postcolonialist theorists who advocate a politics of difference, fluidity, and hybridity in order to challenge the binaries and essentialism of modern sovereignty have been outflanked by the strategies of power. Power has evacuated the bastion they are attacking and has circled around to their rear to join them in the assault in the name of difference. These theorists thus find themselves pushing against an open door." (137-38)

"The affirmation of hybridities and the free play of differences across boundaries, however, is liberatory only in a context where power poses hierarchy exclusively though essential identities, binary divisions, and stable oppositions. The structures and logics of power in the contemporary world are entirely immune to the 'liberatory' weapons of the postmodernist politics of difference. In fact, Empire too is bent on doing away with those modern forms of sovereignty and on setting differences to play across boundaries. Despite the best intentions, then, the postmodernist politics of difference not only is ineffective against but can even coincide with and support the functions and practices of imperial rule. The danger is that postmodernist theories focus their attention so resolutely on the old forms of power they are running from, with their heads turned backwards, that they tumble unwittingly into the welcoming arms of the new power. From this perspective the celebratory affirmations of postmodernists can easily appear naive, when not purely mystificatory." (142-43)

PCR4 - The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion

In April next year, Syracuse University will be hosting the fourth Postmodernism, Culture and Religion conference, convened by Jack Caputo. The conference will explore the theme of "The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion," a topic which I'm sure will, by examining the possibilities of new intellectual directions in continental philosophy of religion, impact both directly and indirectly upon current debates about the social value of philosophy and other humanities disciplines (as well as the social sciences and arts) in the face of growing pressure to demonstrate the immediate economic value of higher education (basically restricted to the sciences and business studies). See in particular the high-profile short-sighted closure of the philosophy department at Middlesex University (including the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy) here, here and (partially saved by Kingston University) here and here.

Anyway, here's some information and blurb from for PCR4, which will run from April 7 - 9 2011.

Plenary speakers will include Jack Caputo, Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Humanities (Syracuse University), Philip Goodchild, Professor of Theology and Religous Studies (University of Nottingham), and Catherine Malabou, Professor of Philosophy (Universite Paris Quest Nanterre La Defense).

The call for papers blurb is as follows:

"Paper submissions are invited on the topic "The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion," its past and present, its history and its prospects, in the widest possible terms, addressing the whole range of its implications—politics, feminism, constructive theology, philosophy, history, literature, interfaith dialogue, and the hermeneutics of sacred texts.

"In the past, these conferences, which have provided a forum for the most influential philosophers, theologians, and cultural theorists to interact, have consisted solely of several keynote speakers. This conference will be different. It will feature three plenary speakers and offer multiple concurrent sessions devoted to papers submitted on a diversity of issues relating to the primary theme. This call for papers is deliberately open, befitting the conference's animating concern with the future."

The call for papers then lists some very interesting questions which papers could address:

• What now, or what comes next—specifically, after the death, if not of God, at least of the generation consisting of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Levinas, etc.? This question concerns not only the future after those significant theorists, but also the future after-life of these eminent minds who have left such a deep impact on continental philosophy of religion.
• What is the future of Kant and German Idealism, of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche in continental philosophy of religion?
• What remains for the future of phenomenology?
• Of the "theological turn" in the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion and others?
• Of Gadamer, Ricoeur and philosophical hermeneutics?
• Of apophatic or mystical theology?
• What is the future of feminism and continental philosophy of religion?
• What are the status and future of the new trinity of Agamben, Badiou and Zizek?
• What relevance do the political interpretations of Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt, and the more recent continental philosophers such as François Laruelle and Catherine Malabou have to philosophy of religion and political theology?
• What about the future of sovereignty, of money and capitalism, as in the work of Philip Goodchild?
• What is the future of the movements of Radical Orthodoxy and of radical death of God theology, whether in their original or contemporary manifestations?
• What about the new sciences of information and complexity in thinkers like Mark C. Taylor and Michel Serres?
• What about Continental philosophy of religion and our “companion species” in Donna Haraway?
• What about “Post-Humanism”?
• What is the future of continental Philosophy of religion and Judaism?
• And Islam?
• Or world religions generally?
• What is the relationship between postmodernism, religion and postcolonialism?
• What role can continental philosophy play in the future of religion?
• In the professional study of religion?
• How does continental philosophical theology relate to the ethnological and empirical-scientific study of religion?
• How does continental philosophy of religion differ from traditional philosophy of religion?
• Or from analytic philosophy of religion?
• What is continental philosophy of religion anyway?
  

Hmmm.... cogs turning... ideas developing...

...wonder if I'll have a job by April 2011 in order to afford to go???

The call for papers asks for electronic copies of completed papers (previously unpublished and up to 3,000 words) to be subject to a double blind review by a selection committee, so include your name, paper title and contact information on a separate page. and put the paper title (but not name) on header or footer of each numbered page of the paper itself. These submissions are due by December 15, 2010 and should be sent to pcrconf@syr.edu. Acceptances will be made by February 15, 2011.

This information is also available on a (very hard on the eyes) website here.

Have we ever been 'Post'?

The British Sociological Association's Theory Study Group are holding a conference in collaboration with the University of Warick's Department of Sociology, called "Have we ever been 'Post'? The Critiques of Sociological Knowledge." The call for submissions has closed now, and I felt that to have tried to write something for this would again distract me from the rest of the thesis, but I hope to be able to go. It's in September (17th-18th 2009) and here's some more details about it.

The keynote speakers will be Steven Seidman (State University of New York at Albany) and Liz Stanley (University of Edinburgh). Confirmed speakers include Les Back (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Gurminder Bhambra (University of Warwick), Steve Fuller (University of Warwick), John Holmwood (University of Birmingham), Stevi Jackson (University of York) and Gregor McLennan (University of Bristol).

And some blurb:

"2009 is an important year for sociology and social theory. It is 50 years after the publication of C. Wright Mills’ ‘The Sociological Imagination’ (1959), 40 years since Michel Foucault’s ‘The Archaeology of Knowledge’ (1969), and 30 years since Jean-Francois Lyotard’s ‘The Postmodern Condition’ (1979). Although coming from distinctive positions, and with different aims, these books share the quality of bringing about strong critiques of knowledge production in the social sciences and, fundamentally, challenging major principles of Western social theory and sociology.

"These books came to light in a period of increasing self-doubt concerning the sustainability of the project of Western modernity and capitalism. This was translated into substantive epistemological and conceptual reformulations across the social sciences and humanities, often taking the shape of a crisis and provoking the expectation of the coming of a new age. In this context, the pictures drawn by Mills, Foucault and Lyotard generated as much seduction as resistance, but never indifference, within social thought.

"These critiques of the canonical imagination, knowledge and practice in the social sciences disclosed problems that still occupy us today regarding the ways in which we “understand”, “explain” and “represent” the social world: the validity of the categories of knowledge, claims of universalism, meta-narratives and grand-theory, disciplinary boundaries, the link between theory and practice, the public and critical role of knowledge, power discourses, the production of otherness and difference, and the redefinition of the relationship of social theory with modernity, amongst many others.

"By now much of this debate has been framed under the rubric of a ‘post’ sociological imagination. Nevertheless, the times in which we raise these inquiries have become rapidly distant from the times of Mills, Foucault and Lyotard. Wider developments in society, such as a more radical process of technological and economic globalization, the post-ideological consensus, the war on terror, new geopolitical powers and global warming have left their traces in the academic world. The University has become a place of marketisation and assessment, which has challenged the ways in which sociologists and academics more generally practice their disciplines. The university is no longer simply a place of political discourse and contestation. It rather seems that an atmosphere of “post”-orientation has taken over, making the aim to act as a social scientist and as a person – as Mills phrased it – appear anachronistic.

"Against this background, the coinciding anniversary of Mills’, Foucault’s, and Lyotard’s books provides an opportune moment for revisiting and perhaps updating the legacy of these “critiques of knowledge”. Accordingly, the conference welcomes papers from across disciplines and countries, and from different theoretical and empirical backgrounds addressing some of the following issues:

• The coming of a “post” sociological imagination: When? Where? How? Why?
• Becoming canonical: the place, function and implications of Mills, Foucault and Lyotard in the (re)definition of sociology’s discourse, identity and practice.
• Global north and global south, encounters and varieties of the “post” sociological imagination: the reception, contestation and influence of the critique of sociological knowledge.
• Researching the social world after Mills, Foucault and Lyotard (and others): the challenges and status of the theoretical, empirical and epistemological in social inquiry.
• Making things public: possibilities, forms, times and places of sociological knowledge in the age of post-critique."

I've blogged a bit (here) about why I'm interested in the intersections between sociology and postmodern thought. So, while I hope to be able to make it to the conference in September, I didn't want to revist these things right now - not while I'm trying to make headway in LOADS of other areas of my thesis!

Two Cheers for Postmodernism; Three for the Logic of Incarnation?

Jamie Smith's chapter, "The Logic of Incarnation: Towards a Catholic Postmodernism," in Neal DeRoo and Brian Lightbody's The Logic of Incarnation: James K.A. Smith's Critique of Postmodern Religion, begins with a clarification of the "post-" in "postmodern" and of a distinction between postmodernism and postmodernity (pp.3-4). The subtitle of the book is a little misleading as Jamie Smith has contributed lucid and entertaining expositions of philosophical postmodernism and postmodern Christianity to (evangelical) audiences who have often misunderstood and/or misrepresented both (see, for example, his chapters in Christianity and the Postmodern Turn and his monographs Jacques Derrida: Live Theory and Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault to Church). So to describe his work as a "critique of postmodern religion" is more than a little confusing, given his engagement with postmodern thought. However, Smith helpfully summarises his position in relation to philosophical postmodernism:

"Insofar as the church (and mutatis mutandis, Christian theology and philosophy) has bought into key assumptions of modernity; And insofar as these assumptions (for instance, regarding the nature of freedom, the model of the human person, the requirements for what counts as “rational” or “true,” or what can be admitted to the “public” sphere of political or academic discourse) represent a rejection of biblical wisdom and the Christian theological heritage; And insofar as postmodernism articulates a critique of just these assumptions; Then the postmodern critique of modernity is something to be affirmed by Christians, not because it is postmodern, but because the postmodern critique of modernity can be a wake-up call for Christians to see their complicity with modernity, the inconsistency of this with a more integral understanding of discipleship, and thus actually be an occasion to creatively retrieve ancient and pre-modern theological sources and liturgical practices with new eyes, as it were." (pp.4-5)

So with his position clarified in such a manner, Smith gives "two cheers" for postmodernism - but stops short of the full three. Three cheers for postmodernism, Smith claims, is to "enthusiastically and wholeheartedly embrace all that is 'postmodern,' without critique and without reservation" (p.6). Acknowledging that the metaphor will eventually break down, Smith suggests that Christian thinkers like Merold Westphal (Postmodern Philosophy and Christian Thought and Overcoming Onto-theology: Towards a Postmodern Christian Faith) might also give postmodernism two cheers (or maybe two and a half), but that Jack Caputo (start with On Religion and What Would Jesus Deconstruct?) and Pete Rollins (How [Not] To Speak of God and The Fidelity of Betrayal) give postmodernism three cheers, and do so, according to Smith, "without critique and without reservation" (p.6).

In contrast to Smith's reading of Caputo and Rollins, his own work "is meant to be a critical appropriation of postmodernism and deconstruction that walks a long way with Derrida, but parts ways at a critical juncture—not out of a timidity or an unwillingness to 'go all the way,' but because of a principled critique of what I think are problems internal to Derrida’s thought." (pp.6/7)

So, with Smith's position with regards to postmodern thought clarified for the reader, he moves on to detail the "logic of incarnation" which was first articulated in Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation and developed as an "incarnational ontology" in Introducing Radical Orthodoxy. I blogged briefly about Smith's logic of incarnation yesterday, here. He contrasts his "two cheers" logic of incarnation with the "three cheers" logic of determination that he sees in the work of Jacques Derrida and the deconstructive theology of Jack Caputo. Though he acknowledges that there might be other strains, here's how Smith characterises these two:

The logic of determination recognises particularity, uniqueness and difference as inescapably part of human finitude but deems this existence "regrettable, lamentable and problematic" and remains "haunted by the Enlightenment dream of universality and purity" (pp.8-9). As these dreams are understood to be constitutive of knowledge, knowledge is therefore impossible (p.9). Similarly, as particular entities, determinative religions are considered to be tribal and violent, unable to live up to the (undeconstructible) dream of pure religion (p.11; see Hent de Vries Religion and Violence). Visions of justice, for example, are determinate, and therefore exclusionary and violent, which enables Derrida to construct the notion of undeconstrucible, pure justice as necessarily always to-come. Smith views the result as "a political rhetoric with grand claims regarding justice but which is systematically unable to articulate concrete policies" (p.12). However, this logic of determination is assumed. As Smith suggests in The Fall of Interpretation, the particular and determinate is constructed as violent only on the assumption of finitude as "failure" (p.13).

Smith argues that the logic of incarnation can outnarrate that of determination. This logic does not lament particularity but rather, as a "more 'persistent' postmodernism," refuses to desire universality and purity as (modernist) requirements of knowledge (p.10). This, Smith writes, "makes it possible to conceive difference differently" (p.11). Rather than being violent, then, particularity and determination - "drawing boundaries, demarcating doctrine (as the 'grammar' of the community) and specifying it's confession" - are central to finite communities (p.18). Unlike the logic of determination's positioning of justice (or a kingdom of the kingdomless reading of the kingdom of God) beyond possibility, "the logic of incarnation, which flows from and re-affirms the goodness of creation, finds its completion in the doctrine of the resurrection and an eschatology of the new heavens and the new earth—which is not any kind of escape from finitude as if finite particularity were inherently evil; rather, it is the hope of well-ordered particularity." (18)

Smith frames these two logics as a debate between a the "religion without Religion" of Caputian Weak Theology (see Caputo's Weakness of God) and Smith's "reformed Radical Orthodoxy" (see Introducing Radical Orthodoxy) or what he is now articulating as a "Catholic postmodernism" (p.21). He argues that "religion without Religion" is not undecidable all the way down (i.e. "things have been decided with respect to the abyss" [p.24]), does not leave the question of revelation "open" enough (p.29), "makes religion a (still) largely private, individual affair" (p.32), and fails to affirm a catholic eschatology in which "a particular instantiation of the kingdom is coming and will arrive" (footnote 65, p.34).

I've skipped through Smith's critique of "religion without Religion" because there is a lot more work I want to do on his distinction between the logics of incarnation and determination. I think that the debate between Weak Theology and "catholic postmodernism" [surely it should be a lower-case "c"?] will be a very useful way to frame my thesis as I already have two theological strands which emerge from my data on the notion of truth: a modified Radical Orthodoxy (in conversation with Generous Orthodoxy) and Weak Theology. When I've done more work on this I'll let you know whether I have three cheers for Smith's logic of incarnation!

Introducing Jamie Smith

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

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

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

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

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

Postmodern Universalization and the Logic of Incarnation

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

Here's some blurb and endorsements:


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

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

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

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

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

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

[update: this post has been edited, to remove too much detail about my paper - which threatened the paper's later publication in journal and/or monograph form. If you would like to read the paper, please email me at k.moody1@lancaster.ac.uk and I would be happy to send you a copy]

My paper at the "Postmodernism, Truth, and Religious Pluralism" conference went well.

I was nervous. I'd been imagining large the large auditoriums you see in films set on American university campuses, but the room wasn't too big and was all on one level - although I did have to stand up to deliver the paper, which I've never done before. I've also never really READ a paper. I usually do papers based on PowerPoint presentations and just talk. Then I sort of write the paper after I've presented it, so it was a bit odd for me to have to read something out. I hope my presentation skills were up to it! Early on, I decided to play the (always useful) postgraduate student card - conference delegates tend to be easier on us PGs. I decided to emphasise my cute Britishness too. It seemed to work.

First off, I introduced my project, exploring the UK emerging church milieu through the question of how truth is conceptualised. And explained the impetus of this focus in relation to critics' claims that the emerging church is departing from the biblical notion of truth as correspondence.

Then I read the paper. I posted my introduction in an early post, so here I'll just briefly make my main arguments and blog about the responses I got from other conference delegates:

Primarily, my paper argued that there is slippage in the work of Jack Caputo between the ways in which he conceptualises the notion of truth. However, I demonstrated that this slippage is a functional necessity of his weak theology. Although he slides away from a wholly performative notion of truth (as event, as confession, as weeping, as praying) towards truth justice - as a telos and as an adequatio (regardless of whether this telos can ever be known or whether it's equation to reality can ever come about) - this slide mirrors a key feature of Caputo's theology of the event: the slippery distinction between wholly other, undeconstructible messianic structures (truth as event and circumfession) and determinate messianisms (justice, hospitality, gift, forgiveness and the kingdom of the kingdomless).

Secondly, my paper situated this argument in the context of ethnographic data from the UK emerging church milieu, in which may participants are increasingly drawn to continental philosophy and deconstructive theology. I demonstrated that the understandings of truth discernable in Caputo's work can also be observed in the conversations I have had with a wide range of people within the emerging church milieu. In particular, I link the a/theism advocated by Caputo to an understanding of pragmatic orthodoxy which arises from within the UK emerging church milieu. This reformulation of orthodoxy moves away from right belief and towards believing in the right way, i.e. lovingly, and holding your beliefs lightly. I argue that what I call the "a/theistic orthodoxy" observable within the emerging church milieu is a practical expression of Caputo's project, particularly as it relates to the concept of truth. Hence my title: A New Kind of Christian is a New Kind of Atheist... i.e., an a/theist.

Update: The States

So March, April and May are pretty busy times in my department as all the research students madly rush to complete pieces to hand in at the end of April for the Panel Reviews that are held at the end of May. The Easter holidays usually pass in a panicked blur of reading and writing and editing. At least they usually do for me. It's the time of year when I realise I haven't done as much work as I should have done, and desperately try to rectify that situation. That was a long winded way of apologising for the scarcity of recent posts!

I recently got back from Boston. I stocked up on American goodness (Reese's peanut butter cups and Hershey's peanut butter kisses); I ate eggs over easy, a bagel with lite cream cheese, and a Boston kreme donut from Dunkin Donuts; I bought a large coke from Wendy's which lasted me two days; I found out what a Tootsie Roll is; and I got maple syrup candies for a UK-bound US mate. I went on a Duck Tour of Boston (my World War Two amphibious landing vehicle was either Beacon Hilda or Back Bay Bertha - can't remember exactly), taking in the Christian Science Headquarters, Boston Public Library, Copely Square, Trinity Church, Boston Public Gardens, the Make Way for Ducklings statue, Boston Common, Cheers, Beacon Hill, the State House, the Charles River, Bunker Hill, the USS Constitution, Old North Church, and the Holocaust Memorial. I went up to the SkyWalk observatory at the Prudential centre for a 360 of the city; shopped at Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market, Macy's and Filene's Basement; and watched the Boston Bruins kick Montreal Canadien butt 2-1 in overtime Sunday night (only on tv, but it was still very exciting!).

I also did some work. I went to Boston for a conference at Gordon College in Wenham, MA, a Christian liberal arts college that was hosting the "Postmodernism, Truth, and Religious Pluralism" conference of the Society for Continental Philosophy and Theology. I meant to post the programme before I went but things got a little on top of me! I'm going to blog about the conference in general on Jason Clark's site some time in the near future, but here's the programme to whet your appetite. I'll blog more in relation to my paper ("A New Kind of Christian is a New Kind of Atheist: Truth, A/theistic Orthodoxy, and the Emerging Church Milieu") soon too.

Friday, April 11

Roger Haight, Union Theological Seminary: "The Impact of Pluralism on Ecclesiology."

Ed Mooney, Syracuse University: "Tactile Truth: A View from the Trenches."

Katharine Sarah Moody, Lancaster University: "A New Kind of Christian is a New Kind of Atheist."

Saturday, April 12

Thomas Clarke, Stonehill College: "Truth and Castration."

Marion Larson and Sarah Shady, Bethel University: "Interfaith Dialogue in a Pluralistic World: Insights from Martin Buber and Miroslav Volf."

Wilson Dickinson, Syracuse University: "The Other of the Heading: The Deconstruction of Religion and Doing the Truth."

Lovisa Bergdahl, Stockholm University: "'Lost in Translation': On the Untranslatable and its Ethical Implications for Religious Pluralism."

Neal DeRoo, Boston College: "Toward a Testimonial Understanding of Reason and Religion in the Public Sphere."

Richard Kearney, Boston College: "Anatheism: Welcoming Strange Gods."

"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.