Peter Rollins 2nd book (I'm currently reading his first-a little out of order, I know) has the subtitle "Towards a Church Beyond Belief." Rollins is smart, with a gift for language. His book is interesting and speckled with humorous and enlightening parables, and manages to revolve in an orbit around a cluster of emphases without becoming repetitive. These can be summarized by (and this list isn't exhaustive):
- The Bible should not be read primarily (or maybe not at all?) for factual information about God, humanity, or the world, but rather as a text whose Word should be allowed to transform us.
- The Bible contradicts itself numerous times, and basing the "truth of faith" upon objective truth or (and he never uses this word) reason is an unsure foundation for the life-altering commitment to which Jesus calls us.
- There is NO disuniting belief from action. Rollins rejects a Christianity that claims propositional statements about God, Jesus, the Resurrection, etc. capture the "truth of faith." That truth is transformation.
The book is called The Fidelity of Betrayal because Rollins opens with a story questioning if Judas was really the villain in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' death. Since God (and presumably Jesus) knew what was going to happen, perhaps God/Jesus somehow told Judas that he was to be an essential part in the divine plan to reconcile humanity to Him. Judas' sacrifice was then to betray Jesus even knowing that Christians would vilify him for millennia to come, and literally equate his name with evil (Dante put Judas in the lowest level of Hell in The Inferno, in the mouth of Satan himself, eternally chomped on.) So, Judas betrayed Jesus--in our eyes--in order to fulfill the ultimate plan and will of God. Interesting, no?
In the same way, Christianity as a religious system has reduced the "truth of faith" to forms, rituals, and propositional (i.e. God is love, Jesus died, etc.) statements of truth, and in order to fulfill God's purposes in the world we're going to have to betray it, i.e. give Christendom in all of its power and doctrinal authority a holy kiss goodbye.
Rollins' is writing to galvanize a church that's lost it's way. That, really, is the mission the emergent church takes for itself. Emergent Christians balk at the idea that we could somehow conceptually grasp God enough to say that right belief is the most important signpost of the presence of living faith. Faith is fundamentally not like science, a realm where a professor of physics could make a great discovery while embezzling money from the foundation funding her. In science, the professor's findings still stand regardless of her "mode of existence" or "mode of relation." Not so with Christianity. What a Christian affirms with their lips is only smoke, i.e. a signal or clue that we should look for something radical happening in a life that is being transformed by encounters with the living God. The transformation is the fire, the verbal affirmation/doctrinal adherence/right belief is only the smoke. Show me your fruit!, Rollins says. Show me the evidence of the Spirit of God residing in you!
Rollins comes from a Pentecostal/Evangelical background, and you can feel that mystical Presence and Source flowing through his writing. It infuses his writing with a spirit that other emergent church thinkers lack. Because really, the emergent church is a a very postmodern movement. Postmodernism is about deconstruction, and therefore, if not careful, can have no CORE, no substance or cornerstone. The emergent church is in danger of the same error. Throw out the importance of right belief and doctrine, challenge the authority of the Scriptures, attack exclusivity, and what do you have? Some emergent church writers would say, "Jesus!", but then what is Jesus to many of them but more grist for the deconstruction meat grinder? Peter Rollin's says, "A transforming encounter with God." And really, he's right. For if you cannot speak to God and he cannot speak to you, then what's the point?
The danger of Peter Rollin's "transformance art" is whether the transformation will be anything identifiably Christian or Biblical at all. Emergent Pentecostalism is tempted by the same enthusiasm as regular Pentecostalism. It's just done by cooler, younger people. Amidst the rapture there must be clarity, there must be mission. How do we know our love is not only lust? And if we reject two thousand years of tradition (the great cathedral of thought) and downplay right belief, are we so certain the Spirit will lead us all the same way? I, for one, don't think so. But I affirm with James that faith without deeds is dead, and know that a car with no fuel isn't going to carry anyone anywhere.
Hey Wes...tophanes. Told you I'd put you in my Google Reader. :)
ReplyDeleteI find your paragraph on Judas thought provoking. I read something on this somewhere else the other day. Someone made a statement about the part of Scripture where it says Jesus knew Judas would betray him - so, he knew this and intentionally put him in charge of the money purse anyway. This person postulates that that says something about Jesus's philosophy on money. I am not sure I entirely agree, but I find that to be an interesting parallel with what you've described (as per the book) about Judas here.
Also . . . we maybe ought to have a lesson on apostrophes. It's clear from this post that they confuse you. This lesson will be free. Next one - 50 bucks. :)
-A
Congrats on your inaugural blog post! I love the background you picked.
ReplyDeleteYour summary reminds me of a book we read in Systematic Theology: The Nature of Doctrine by George Lindbeck. As we read and discussed this book, our prof stressed (along w/ Lindbeck, if my memory serves me well) the need to shift away from cognitive-propositional doctrine, shy away from experiential-expressive and move toward a cultural-linguistic paradigm. Hearing that Rollins' has a Pentecostal background, I am not surprised that some of what he says reflects the experiential-expressive paradigm. Here's a link to a blog with a brief review of Lindbeck's book, and an even briefer summary of the cultural-linguistic paradigm:
http://mpjensen.blogspot.com/2007/01/lindbecks-nature-of-doctrine.html
@Audra - Yea the money purse commentary is similar to the Judas-was-a-hero commentary in that they both interpret the text based upon an interesting kink in the story: that Jesus knew pretty much what was going to happen to him. Judas was going to betray him and Jesus knew it, that much is stated clearly in Mark. So why didn't Jesus stop him? One interpretation was that Judas was a sacrificial victim in the divine plan of God, sort of an unfortunate but necessary by-product. The other (Peter Rollins argument) is that Jesus and Judas were in collusion for the ultimate plan of God, and Judas is a hero. The third, I suppose, is that Jesus's omniscience was limited during his earthly residence, and he knew some of what was going on but not all of it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm not sure how else I screwed up the apostrophes, but I looked it up and apparently even singular possessive subjects that end in "s" get an apostrophe + "s". See my wonderful use of "Jesus's" above.
@Adrianne Showalter Matlock - Yep, that sounds very similar. I wonder what PR would think of creedal statements being "permanently authoritative paradigms" that govern how we think and speak, and giving up on the idea that they actually have ontological reference (i.e. when we say "God", we're using a word to help each other out as opposed to naming God like we would name a cup.) I think he'd probably like it. He never mentioned Lindbeck in the book, though. Personally, I think PR is like salt for our religious stew at the moment. We're pretty propositional/right-belief heavy, and although I wouldn't like the taste of what PR is proposing by itself, in the big mixture of the faith it's just right. I mean, he's a mystic, and mystics write great books but might have a hard time running churches.
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