But, a little postmodern thought isn't too bad. It's like salt: good with other stuff, but horrible by itself.
I'll start with some of my favorite quotes from the book:
“Yet this does not mean that our definitions of God are somehow unimportant—indeed, they remain vital—it is only that we must recognize the extent to which these reflections fall short of that which they attempt to define and always reflect something of the one who makes the claims.”(18-19)
“This a/theism is not then some temporary place of uncertainty on the way to spiritual maturity, but rather is something that operates within faith as a type of heat-inducing friction that prevents our liquid images of the divine from cooling and solidifying into idolatrous form.” (28)
“For instance, if someone is convinced that there is a place where they will be tormented after death, and that the only way to avoid this terror is by affirming that Jesus Christ is Lord, then they will no doubt make that affirmation, regardless of whether they are genuinely moved by Christ or not…Like a lover of nuts who is offered thousands of shells with no centre, so we offer God thousands of ‘converts’ with no heart.” (38)
“To affirm the approach that I am advocating means that we must accept that to be a Christian is to be born of love, transformed by love and committed to transforming the world with love…In so doing, we will not merely sit around describing God to the world, but rather, we will become the iconic spaces in which God is made manifest in the world.” (75)
If you like these quotes, read the book.
My issues with the book are these: 1) Deconstruction is not a livable scheme, only thought-therapy 2) The biblical hermeneutic he employs is insufficient to connect us to our spiritual story as Christians
1) Peter Rollins is a very smart guy with a PhD in postmodern theory. From his book, though, I get the idea that he has mastered Derrida but not mastered Biblical interpretation and theology. From studying Biblical interpretation and Christian theology, one learns not only the content but the limits of interpretation, i.e. how far can you actually stretch the text and tradition before it becomes unrecognizable. So, Rollins puts his deconstruction to work on our spiritual tradition (surely a useful task) with his prodigious postmodern toolkit, but hasn't studied the subject enough to respect it's wishes. He's like a therapist who sits down with a client, works hard to get the client comfortable with the therapeutic process, and then forgets that the point of therapy is not to streamline the therapy process but to help the client with their outside-therapy commitments. Rollins is OK with deconstruction-as-faith because he holds firmly to the guidance of the Spirit and the transforming power of love. Awesome. I'm Wesleyan, I believe the Holy Spirit works too! But the radical subjectivity he proposes necessitates a foundation of essentials. He wants that to be love. I do too, but think there has to be more (God exists, Jesus died and was raised from the dead, there will be a bodily resurrection, etc.)
2) Christians are unable to ex nihilo create our own worldview. We just can't do it. Our believe in God, the people of God, the incarnation, redemption, and end of history tie our hands. And a big part of our Christian identity is living and reliving these shared beliefs. And they are BELIEFS, i.e. things that we believe will really happen. If there's one thing I've learned from life and books, it's that beliefs do matter. Alasdair MacIntyre argues forcefully for this in After Virtue, and we see it played out in the New Testament in numerous epistles and with Jesus, where the people are warned against false teachings which lead believers astray. The interaction between our beliefs and actions are not straightforward, but that doesn't make it any less important. I'm not sure he would agree, but I think a possible dangerous outcome of this line of reasoning is there is no difference between metanarratives (or grand stories that we use to give our life meaning)--they're all the same in that they all try to force to do things from a position of power. That leads to the fallacious assertion that Islam is the same as Christianity is the same as Buddhism. While they share similarities, Muslims behave in unique ways because of their book, as we believe in unique ways because of our book. These differences are not reducible to context, history, social class, etc. The differences in beliefs contained in the doctrines are reified (thank you Adrianne) as they are worked out in the lives of individual believers.
Hmm. I really appreciate your posts. These are books I will probably never pick up on my own, and your brief quotes from them show me why. I have trouble wrapping my head around the larger concepts and the theology they dissect. But your explanations are much more accessible to me, and I really appreciate them.
ReplyDeleteIn this post, I especially appreciate your analogy to therapy and the dangers of focusing on the process as a whole rather than the mechanics of what the process is supposed to do.
Also, I appreciate your colorful highlighting of the quotes. Reminds me of those tropical Skittles. Yummmm.
-A
@Audra - Haha, yeah, I also enjoyed the colors. It's a color tetrad that you can pick out at Color Scheme Designer 3, based on any color. That way I make sure they all work together.
ReplyDeleteYou're not the only one who has trouble understanding theological concepts - lots of times in the book I got pretty tired wading through some of his arguments, some because they were complicated and others because his "actually it's the opposite of what you thought" method grated on me toward the end.
Glad you liked the therapy analogy. Jacques Derrida (father of deconstruction, sort of) who Rollins leans on, is a pretty controversial figure in academia still, especially the farther you get away from the lit-crit folks. Numerous smart people accused him during his lifetime of obscurantism and sophistry. My lack of having read any of his books means I don't have the right to agree or disagree, but it's important enough to point out that sometimes people who are smart can actually write stuff that doesn't make sense. Or it makes sense in a world of assumptions of their own creation.
In response to both comments, my best guess is that Pete is not opposite-of-what-you-thought on purpose, but rather he is thankfully able to open his eyes and see the tension that defines humanity right where we live (I'm trying to reach a higher state of awareness myself). Probably the real question is whether something is true. And what he's suggesting is that perhaps what is true is the opposite of what we think, that it's both-and instead of either-or.
ReplyDeleteRollins is definitely not best described as Derrida. Rollins is very much concerned with orthopraxy and how you live out this faith expressed in love. He goes through the theory only to set up the practice. In other words, the best place to understand what his community promotes is in their practice, their service. Another way to put it, is that the message he's concerned with speaking is beyond words. So he uses means beyond words--music, poetry, stories, etc. to help in their services.
So if you really want to simply understand what he's saying (though the simplicity is still complex for me mostly because I come from a different worldview) check out "Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales." It's a bit clearer and provides an entryway point to delve deeper into the stories and gain interpretations that God may have for you.
Hi, everyone. West, thanks for posting this review. I appreciate your thoughts and comments. I'm going to respond to your thoughts on the book and add traffic to your site which I hope you like (ha ha!). Traffic is good only on web pages. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'll post a reply for each comment, but the main gist of my reply is that Rollins agrees with you.
1) Rollins would agree with you. Deconstruction is not a livable scheme. In fact, perhaps the better word is a livable "foundation." Deconstruction is not the way or the livable foundation for Rollins. Deconstruction is a means to an end. People often use it negatively, but he sees deconstruction as neutral, and really (as evidenced by some who have used it in philosophy) as a way to really look at a thought or concept and become aware of it. In other words, we deconstruct something so that we can then construct it again. And in our case, it allows us to construct it in a better way. Deconstruction is not the livable scheme or foundation at all. He agrees with you. Yes, he agrees we should engage in deconstruction (just as Jesus did) but he practices and writes of a faith expressed in love. To Rollins, love is the scheme, the way, the journey, and destination (journey is destination). So the point of the "therapy" was never forgotten at all, but comes right out in the end. If we don't reach there, then we've missed his point and flow of the book.
I would also not worry too much about his degrees (not that you do). His BA in scholastic philosophy and MA in political theory and criticism have a great effect on his thought and writing as well. I think I would still engage with his thoughts even without his degrees.
Again, Rollins would AGREE with you. He has NOT mastered Biblical interpretation, and neither have I (thank goodness). Instead I wrestle with it each day, it's inconsistencies, strands, incompletions. . . and yet, it still seems to communicate through an over-arching story a narrative that bends toward love.
It's very nice to want and desire essentials, but I'm not sure I'm in a position to explain to God what is or is not necessitated. I think Rollins watches the example of Jesus who seemed to meet people where they were especially in belief. Jesus's practice was love and to be the entryway point for the event of God in the lives of people. They experienced God though they had doubts about the source or didn't have clear essential beliefs about Jesus. It's quite amazing, time and time again, to see that and to experience it myself in life, that I can be transformed and be missing essentials (i.e. doubting God's existence at times like Mother Teresa or not believing in the resurrection like the Saducees).
I would say, again, that Rollins AGREES with you. Beliefs do matter (and he says this). Beliefs are the way in which we navigate the world and help provide a sense of sense (if you'll allow that phrase).
ReplyDeleteBecause he employs a biblical hermeneutic of love, and this prejudice of love is what I see exactly in the narratives of Jesus (even some extra-Biblical), an alternative understanding is that it is possible to connect us to a larger story as God-followers in the way of Christ.
Part of the reason you feel a disconnect between what he wrote and what you're commenting is that you're using the word Christianity or Christian differently than Rollins at times. Rollins is a bit similar to me in that at the same time that I describe my religion, I'm also pushing it to be that very description fully aware that not all are caught up in the incarnated description. It's the story of the American people whose country hasn't lived up to the ideals of its founding documents. So you can talk about the America of the documents or America as it actually is or America as it will be. All are valid.
My best guess is that Jesus wasn't too concerned about connecting anything to our story as Christians (members of a new religion). He seemed only concerned with connecting us to God. And I appreciate Rollins for that, allowing us to rise above religion to the Christ-led path.
So, are there differences between religions? Of course. But to say there are differences between a group of objects doesn't preclude similarities between the group. So there are also similarities.
The traditional understanding is that the Christ-way is a set of beliefs (I don't really see this at all in Christ's interactions with people and all his lessons and sermons; yes there are beliefs, but he didn't seem to teach a system of beliefs with he beliefs as paramount). However, according to Jesus, the Christ-led path is a way of life. It's probably the same reason why I see so many more people flock to and read books about Buddhism than Christianity (which is waning in the West as Europe already exemplifes post-church era). Buddhism is presented as a way of life. Christianity is presented to people (usually) as a system of beliefs. This system of belief model is failing in my experience (maybe not everyone's). You're not in until you believe. Belief, Behavior, Belonging. But Jesus did the opposite: Belonging, Behavior, Belief.
And as bizarre as it seems, I've seen Hindu people who follow in the way of Jesus (Gandhi is a good example). Just 7 weeks ago, someone asked me if I was Buddhist (I'm Christian).
I could go on, but there have always been groups in the fringes of all religious structures that have learned to transcend a system of beliefs to live a way of life that Jesus taught and in doing that, even with a messed-up theology (that we constantly trade up for better images of God), we are reminded that Jesus considered this ultimate: a type of practica-narrative, an incarnated story, a practice of love.
C. S. Lewis mentions that someone in another religion can be led by God to focus on parts of the religion more like Jesus or how someone can be more of God's than they realize or know (Mere Christianity). Food for thought for me. And I'm still chewing.
Last thing I would add is that Rollins disagrees with himself (I love this honesty and vulnerability). So he sees value in the engagement and discussion. In other words he agrees with disagreement. I've found in my experience the same. I want to teach a lesson or say something and have people disagree not just nod their heads "yes." That way I know somebody has something to learn or unlearn--either me or the people I'm talking to or (could it be?) both. :-)
ReplyDeleteSo he agrees with you.
I guess, the essential belief isn't something that is believed in the traditional sense at all. The essential belief isn't something that uses a set of propositions to describe reality aspiring to truth. More simply, the essential belief is a truth that's experienced in the liberating and transforming power of love. The mystery of this is expressed beautifully in the writings of John who has experienced that this love is not something greater than the knowledge of God or wider than the knowledge of God; it's not even equal to or alongside knowledge of God. No, this love IS the knowledge of God, and thereby access is open to all to begin to know God. (I John 4:7-16)
ReplyDeleteUgh, this is take two on long response that I crafted with such care, only to have it wiped clean by an accidental 'click' on a shortcut button. Aghhhhh!!!! (imagine my cries of anguish)
ReplyDeleteVictor, I'll try to erase my annoyance at having 45 minutes of thought washed down the fiber optic drain and respond. Your comments were beautiful and thorough, and I enjoyed reading them.
I'm constantly testing the water around to see how it is appropraite for me to express my beliefs. My church (the Nazarenes) have a particular way of expressing faith, and I - unlike many of them - hold to it with a certain amount of irony. I've lived in Egypt, I've worshipped with Catholics, I've been to a pentecostal church where the pastor fell down and had a vision (crazy), and of course I've experienced the spiritual apathy or agnosticism of many of my friends. Instead of condemning them all as apostates or deluded by the devil, I prefer to take a more nuanced and individual-case approach to the faith lives of the "other." I try to hold in tandem the twin beliefs that 1) What we confess is important 2) People's spiritual experiences are valid even if they don't confess the same thing as me. Thank God that He sees to the heart, because we do that so little.
Doctrines are always - to a certain extent - methods for defining the "other" and reinforcing power structures. If you don't see the natural play-out of the "us" and "them" in the conversations and worship practices of the Christian faithful, you are completely blind (not you Victor, I'm speaking generally, and agreeing with you, I believe). So, as the institutional embodiment of our faith grows -- more councils, more layers of administration, more money and buildings and organization -- we have to be acutely aware of the differences between belief for the sake of God and belief for the sake of our leaders. The structure of the Nazarene church was created to serve the mission of God, I believe that, but it is so easy for the mission of God to start serving the structure of the church, for those two to become confusedly intertwined, and for people to justify very nasty, un-Gospel things in the name of a Church that "must survive at all costs!"
I work in the Church of the Nazarene and believe in the value of institutions. For every argument against "the Church" there is a better Biblical argument for it. As a member of the people of God, we need to be sure we disciple our holiness Church with the same rigor that we discipline ourselves. The church is not a club, it's not doctrine, it's not buildings or global outreach - it's the people of God grouped together to form a new social context based on kingdom values, inspired by the Holy Spirit to do the good work of Gospel. We should realize that many things that happen in the Church that we don't like are not the product of people's bad intentions, but are products of the natural momentum that develops whenever hierarchy develops, careers develop, and lots of social recognition and money are at stake. The poor and humble Jesus tells us to lay down our cross, but church leaders have to make a respectable living and wear suits, right? Hence the inevitable tension. So I'm not ironical about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, only how I have been taught to express it. And I share that irony with Rollins.
ReplyDeleteI hear your admonition to love, and more importantly I feel it and can't escape it. Churches have always been afraid of mystics and prophets because their powerful connection to God often spills over into dangerously a-Creedal territory. People don't often have spiritual visions where Jesus asks them, "Do you affirm the bodily resurrection of the dead?" or "Do you think that hell has actual fire in it?" or "What are your views of biblical inspiration?" People filled with the Holy Spirit don't talk about those things, people filled with the law do. You would be hard-pressed to convince me otherwise. Peter Rollins is a mystic, and I respect him for that. I just also, as one who cares about the Church and it's ability to harness people to a common cause and promote community, afraid of the full implications of what he writes.
One of the issues I'd like you to ponder is the connection between what we think (i.e. what we believe it true) and how we live (i.e. the Way of Life that you're talking about with Buddhism). Orthopraxy and orthodoxy are important, but they cannot be divorced. For instance, people who don't think gravity exists would behave quite differently than those who are assured that it does. The same (to a lesser extent, because the consequences aren't as obvious) occurs with our religious beliefs. I'm not sure that love has the ability to sever that fundamental fact of human psychology. Nor do I think it's supposed to. Love envelops us and defines our relationships as Christian, but it just can't turn us into self-contradictory blobs.
I guess I could end with an analogy. If our faith were a ship and Peter Rollins were taking it apart on the high seas, there are certain hull timbers he can't remove. The ship will sink, and we'll all go down. He can rearrange the poop deck and redecorate the eagle's nest. He can even paint the hole thing green! But for a ship to do what it has to do (stay afloat), there are certain things he can't rip apart. I'm not certain Peter Rollins is fully aware which boards are off-limits.