40 Days of Water

This Lent I am going to be both giving up and putting some things into action. On the personal side of things, I am going to be reading through Peter Rollins newest book The Orthodox Heretic, which is a collection of parables exploring themes of justice, love, the nature of God, and much more. If you buy the book during Lent, Paraclete Press will email you an additional 7 parables so that you can read one parable per day for 40 days. I probably won't blog about it every day, but I am really excited to read the new book and to be shaped by the power of story.

Something I am really excited about is the 40 Days of Water with Blood Water Mission. Over the next 40 days I am going to be drinking water and donate the money I would have spent on other beverages to Blood Water Mission. This amazing organization provides access to clean drinking water to people in Africa who are in need. They are amazing with their donations and are great people.

As I look at the picture of Rowan (my son) above, it is hard for me to think that there are millions of kids, many his age or younger who lack the basic access to clean water. I simply can't imagine what must be like for those children and those parents who watch their children suffer.

I imagine there will be a few times that I have to break the fast for work, but for my personal time I will definitely be trying to consume nothing other than water. My friends over at Wordswell designed this awesome new site and helped shape the campaign for Blood Water Mission. It looks amazing. If you decide to join me and many of my friends for 40 Days of Water, you can sign up and get your own personal website to help you track the drinks you are giving up and the amount you'd like to donate. You can follow me here: http://40days.bloodwatermission.com/joshhayden.

Take a moment and think about joining me on the 40 Days of Water campaign to support Blood Water Mission!

Review: The Fidelity of Betrayal

I like Peter Rollins' work a lot as many of you might have guessed, even while I don't agree with everything, I find his books extremely helpful. So I thought I'd review Peter Rollins' book The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief. A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to hear Rollins speak at a lecture series from my seminary, and it was a fascinating and great experience to hear Rollins come alive as he sparked imaginations, told stories, and laughed a lot...the way philosophy should be discussed in my opinion. He was humble, generous, and thoughtful in the way he engaged with responses from the crowd and faculty. It was great to have a couple of minutes to talk with him after his lecture, and while he rocked the boat a little bit, I don't think that he did it with a spirit of arrogance or attack.

Anyways, I read his latest book that was out at the time (he had a new book The Orthodox Heretic come out about a week ago) The Fidelity of Betrayal and found it to be a helpful read, especially in his discussion of reading the Bible with a second naivete (HT: Paul Ricoeur), which is an informed reading of the text, that is devotional and transformational in its aims, informed of course by the knowledge and previous experience one brings to the text yet with a second naivete that inspires new readings and understandings.

I also appreciated his discussion of the mystery of God brought near in Jesus. Rollins writes, "The mystery of God is not dissipated in Christ but brought near. Is this not the key to understanding the idea of transcendence within Christianity, a term that describes a way of breaking the here/elsewhere dichotomy of near and far through the idea of an immanence so deep and impenetrable that it cannot be approached? The myster of God now dwells among us rather than standing above us (pp. 53-54)." The point Rollins was making in describing the Incarnation was a bigger point in his discussion of truth, the biblical text, and the Word of God, namely that we will never be able to learn everything there is to learn or understand all that there is to understand about Jesus, the Bible, God, the mystery of God, theology, etc. not because God is unknowable, but because God's immanence ruptures into time and space, into real history in such a way that it shatters the ability to speak in any way about God, or an interpretation of the text that is final or the last word.

So the larger picture is that the church must be willing to deny its own beliefs in order to faithfully follow God. It must resist the tempation to name God in some final or all-encompassing manner. Rollins' writes further, "the deep truth of Christianity is not found in the acceptance of some particular historical claim. Rather, it refers to a happening testified to within the Bible that cannot be reduced to words, confined in concepts, or divulged by definitions (113)."

I enjoyed this book a lot, not as much as his first book, How (Not) to Speak of God which is in my top 10 of all time books at this point in my short life, but still worth a read if you are interested in postmodern theology and philosophy. Here's a pic from the evening when I heard him speak...a great night to hear someone whose work has meant a lot to me over the last couple of years.

can't wait

I'm going to see The National in May, with a couple of high school folks, including the one and only Ben Owsley. It should be a lot of fun. Actually, it is going to be way more than fun, it might be one of the best concerts since I saw Sufjan a couple years back. I can't wait.

On a completely different note, but still something I am really looking forward to, one of my favorite philosophers/theologians is speaking as a part of The Leland Distinguished Speakers Series (previously N.T Wright) on Thursday night. His name is Peter Rollins. He's talking about his most recent book The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief, and the tour is called Lessons in Evandelism. It will be a provocative, fun, and thoughtful evening. Starts at 7:30 up in Arlington. If anyone is interested in coming with me, just let me know.

life outside the church and fundamentalism

There are two posts from two of my favorite writers, thinkers, theologians and philosophers that I thought were important to point out.

First is part two of Brian Walsh's ongoing discussion how folks who are thinking in some progressive categories are frustrated with those who are "not getting it." In this post, he talks a lot about ways that the kingdom of God is being created outside of the walls of churches (and I'm not talking about buildings here). The hope is for an inspired and liberated imagination in contrast to an imperial imagination. Good stuff.

Second is a post from Peter Rollins. Rollins is one of my favorite current philosophers who is helping to explode the current paradigms of theology, philosophy, and the idolatry of conceptions of God. This post is titled: Fundamentalism isn't too violent, it isn't violent enough. Rollins points out that Dr. King and Mother Theresa are the true models of violence through pacifism ( I know, sounds crazy), by their willingness to follow to his most radical form of violence, that of pacifist subversion. Again good stuff.

If you like Rollins and live in the DC area, or simply want to be a part of a great conversationon February 26, 2009, he will be lecturing for the evening at Memorial Baptist Church in Arlington, VA as part of a distinguished speaker series for The John Leland Center for Theological Studies where I received my M.Div. The event is free, and from Leland they write:

The Leland Distinguished Speakers Series will present "Lessons in Evandelism: The Fidelity of Betrayal," a lecture by Peter Rollins on Thursday, on February 26, at 7:00 p.m. hosted by Memorial Baptist Church in Arlington.

Through a mix of parables, philosophy and discussion, Rollins will explore the current religious landscape of contemporary expressions of faith that claim to rethink Christianity for a new cultural epoch. He contends that what is needed are groups who offer a new way of thinking that not only challenges the way we express our faith but fundamentally ruptures the way we understand it. He will argue that these pockets of resistance represent a growing, organic movement that are proclaiming the death of God, church and religion as we know them in prepraration for their resurrection in a radically different form.

The author of How (Not) to Speak of God, The Fidelity of Betrayal, and an upcoming book of parables entitled, The Orthodox Heretic, Rollins is also the founder of ikon, a non-doctrinal, pub-based community in Ireland that offers a cocktail of live music, visual imagery, soundscapes, theater, ritual and reflection in its exploration of contemporary faith and life. Rollins holds a Ph.D. in Post-Structural Theory from Queens University of Belfast and has taught various aspects of continental philosophy, phenomenology and emerging church theology at such venues as Cambridge University, Princeton Theological Seminary and Yale Theological Seminary.

If you are interested in attending, let me know we can carpool.

The un/known God

Continuing in Rollins' book How (Not) to Speak of God...

This is a subsection of Chapter two, and in this section of "The un/known God" Rollins' first paragraph helps immensely in our discussion of God's location and relationship to us in the midst of life, creation, the world, suffering, joy, etc.:

"What is beginning to arise from the discussion so far is the idea that God ought to be understood as radically transcendent, not because God is somehow distant and remote from us, but precisely because God is immanent. In the same way that the sun blinds the one who looks directly at the light, so God's incoming blinds our intellect. In this way the God who is testified to in the Judeo-Christian tradition saturates our understanding with a blinding presence. This type of transcendent-immanence can be described as 'hypernymity'. While anonymity offers too little information for our understanding to grasp (like a figure on television who has been veiled in darkness so as to protect their identity), hypernymity gives us far too much information. Instead of being limited by the poverty of absence we are short-circuited by the excess of presence. The anonymous and the hypernonymous both resist reduction to complete understanding, but for very different reasons."

...We've been having a discussion the last few weeks in the adult small group I'm in about the problem of God and the problem of evil, and how to talk about God and evil and the suffering people go through. Which has ultimately led us back to the notion and idea of prayer, and how God "answers" or "hears" or "responds" to our prayers.

I have mostly come to rest in this mystery of prayer as an act of posturing before God, "as the object before the ultimate Subject" or as the human at the feet of God. Prayer helps me to be aware of God's hypernymity in ways that I have been too busy or too selfish, or simply unaware of before. I have a hard time with God being outside of time or space because I believe God to not be distant because God is striking the hiesman pose and keeping us at arms length, but rather God is radically transcendent through being such a blinding light, that I cannot possibly capture God in the fullness of God's being, and totality of the reality of God's movement in the world with my senses. There is this sense that God is at work all around us and in us as a community in the midst of suffering and evil and is beautifully blinding to our senses because we cannot comprehend the abounding goodness and grace of God.

hyper-present

Remember Peter Rollins? Well, let's see if we can't work through a bit more of How (Not) to Speak of God. If you remember, I was working through some of this fantastic book. Let's see if we can't work through the rest of it in the next couple of weeks. If you want to read from the beginning, go here, here, here, and here.

Continuing in Chapter 2, Rollins proposes this notion of God as hyper-present, super-present. "It means that God not only overflows and overwhelms our understanding but also overflows and overwhelms our experience (pg. 23)." So often, people talk about this notion of God being close, yet distant. This has to do with the realization that while we try to talk about God and know God, we come to realize that we can't capture God, and that even our best attempts to talk about God are limited. So in one sense there seems to be distance. Yet, in this distance, followers of Jesus also try to talk about God's immanence, the notion that God is not far away, and that God is intimately involved in the events of today. Yet it is hard to reconcile these notions of God being both distant and yet close at the same time.

So as Rollins describes God as hyper-present, the distance we feel or sense in our understanding of God is not because God is actually far away, but in reality, it is because our understanding of God is saturate with "a blinding presence (24.)." God is super-present, or "hypernonymous" in that God is so close, the presence of God in our midst overwhelms our senses and reality and we can only take in so much (24). This acknowledgment of God as hyper-present rests in the belief that God is the "absolute subject before whom we are the object (23)." In this sense, we are the object before God to be known, and rather than the other way around.

Rollins again clarifies saying that, "In this reading, Christ, as the image of the invisible God, both reveals and conceals God: rendering God known while simultaneously maintaining divine mystery. Here the God testified to in Christianity is affirmed as an un/known God (25)." If you sense a tinge of Eastern Orthodox and apophatic theology coming through...it is beautifully mysterious isn't it? I had written a paper on Pseudo-Dionysius in the spring about the notion of knowing God in our unknowing, and Rollins articulates both the point of view of PD and the aftermath of theology in writing: " Pseudo-Dionysius argues that this knowing unknowing acknowledges its profound finitude and inability to grasp that to which the religious individual intends. This divine darkness represents a type of supra-darkness that stands in sharp contradistinction to the sub-darkness of desolate nihilism. While one is brought about by an absolute excess of light, the other results from a total absence; while one represents a higher form of unknowing that subverts reasoning, the other signals mere ignorance (28)." An absolute excess of light...that is a beautiful vision.

So to wrap up this monster post, and Chapter 2, we have talked before about our need to both speak about God, yet realize the limitations in out talk about God, and the need to realize that when we speak about God we are not capturing God with our thoughts, as though God is the object of whom we can capture. Instead, we recognize our need for an "epistemological silence" and as Rollins writes, "We must speak and yet we must maintain our silence, we maintain distance amidst the proximity of God, and we must worship while being careful not to make God into the object of our worship: for God is the subject before whom we worship (30)." Amen.

Theology

Well, I'd like to come back to Rollins finally, in an exploration of his second chapter of How (Not) to Speak of God. As I write I'm listening to Ryan Adam's Easy Tiger and on the advice of Jonny Baker I've also picked up Sinead O'Connor's newest titled Theology. Both are tremendous albums and I highly recommend them! I've never owned or really listened to Sinead O'Connor much, but I'm really blown away by the content of this double album.

So Rollins' second chapter is titled "The Aftermath of Theology" and in this chapter he seems to be describing the role and view of theology in light of previous chapter's critique of ideology and the notion that we can somehow capture or colonize God through our ideas of God. He proposes that we see ourselves as the object of theology where theology is created through our lives as God speaks into them. Theology is less a human discourse about God where we debate ideas and notions of God; instead, theology is the place where God speaks into human life and discourse. Rollins goes on to write of theology:

"It is no longer thought of as a human discourse that speaks of God but rather as the place where God speaks into human discourse. In other words, theology is understood as the site in which revelation makes its appearance in the world, the place in which theos (God) impacts, and overwhelms, the human realm of logos (reason). Consequently we do not do theology but are rather overcome and transformed by it: we do not master it but are mastered by it (pg. 21)."

So in this view of theology, the traditional modes of the relationship are subverted and redefined. God is now the subject unto which all of creation and humanity are object to. This helps us immensely to be free from the temptation and task from trying to reduce God into an object for our consideration. "God is not a theoretical problem to somehow resolve but rather a mystery to be participated in." (pg. 22) This is such a freeing notion to me that I need not worry or think that it is somehow of my ability to comprehend God as God really is...as though if i just read the Bible enough or studied enough, or could just "get it right" then I would be able to reach a new level or plane in knowing God. Instead, in this journey of faith, theology becomes the mystical union and exploration of the revelation of God in my own life and the life of my community as God works among us.

I'm going to stop here in Chapter 2 and start next where Rollins talks about God as "hyper-present" because I think that this is one of the most important concepts in the book that discusses how God is present with us in revelation.

God rid me of God

Chapter One of Rollins' work How (Not) to Speak of God is titled "God rid me of God" and is a rumination and exploration of idolatry. What is idolatry in light of postmodernism? How can our concepts of God become idolatrous?

As I start to write, I'm listening to The Arcade Fire's newest album Neon Bible, specifically the song "Intervention." If churches had organists who could blow up the organ like this in church, then by all means, bring back traditional instruments into the service as fast as possible! Sorry for the aside, but this album is awesome.

Back to Rollins. There is a lot to think about in this chapter, with a lot of the content dealing with epistemology (the study of how we know things). What do we mean when we say we know God? Do we believe that we know God as God really is? Is that even possible? One of the great insights that postmodernism has helped to develop, and Rollins clearly calls for this, is a high level of epistemological humility. What we know about God must be girded by a deep-rooted humility that acknowledges our limits in understanding God as God really is. This does not mean that we don't need to try to know God, but rather come to the place where we can realize that our understanding and knowledge of God is good, but always limited and wrapped in mystery. Rollins writes at the end of the chapter:

"In short, the emerging conversation is in a unique place to acknowledge the long-forgotten insight that God hides in God's visibility, realizing that revelation embraces concealment at one and the same time as it embraces manifestation and that our various interpretations of revelation will always be provisional, fragile, and fragmentary. While all of the Church has maintained that there is a revealed and hidden side of God, the difference here is that we are rediscovering the Barthian insight that even the revealed side of God is mysterious (pg. 18)."

Rollins points out that it is necessary for us as Christians to realize that "God hides in God's visibility," that is, that even the parts of God God shows us, we see in part, never in full. This should raise some questions about whether God is far away, or able to be known at all, and this will be discussed in further chapters, but I'll end with an illuminating comment by Rollins:

"Hence revelation ought not to be thought of either as that which makes God known or as that which leaves God unknown, but rather as the overpowering light that renders God known as unknown (pg. 17)."

Introduction to Part 1 of How (Not) to Speak of God

The introduction's title helps introduce us to the deep thread that ties the book together:

Heretical Orthodoxy: From Right Belief to Believing in the Right Way

This book is written in two parts. Part One is a collection of theological and philosophical reflections, riddled with parables, stories, quotes from other authors, mystics, philosophers, theologians, and Rollins' himself. Similar in how Brian McLaren makes the point that theological and philosophical ideas can be perhaps more subversive in parables and stories in The Secret Message of Jesus, Rollins employs this tactic throughout Part One of the book. The parables don't stop there however. Part Two of the book is a collection of 10 services that Rollins' has participated in and probably helped create with his community called Ikon in Ireland, that bring out the themes, theologies, and philosophies in the first part of the book, while stirring up our imagination with more stories and parables to illuminate, however darkly, the ideas from the first section of the book.

Today, I'd like to just begin conversing about the introduction to Part One...perhaps this will help others like me, I feel like I need to keep the ideas and notions in manageable chunks, both to be able to have conversation about them, and also to digest the rich thought in the book. So I thought I'd throw out another quote, that sticks out to me from the introduction to Part One (in which Rollins' is setting up his aims for this section of the book):


"Here I picture the emerging community as a significant part of a wider religious movement which rejects both absolutism and relativism as idolatrous positions which hide their human origins in the modern myth of pure reason. Instead of following the Greek-influenced idea of orthodoxy as right belief, these chapters show that the emerging community is helping us to rediscover the more Hebraic and mystical notion of the orthodox Christian as the one who believes in the right way--that is, believing in a loving, sacrificial and Christlike manner. The reversal from 'right belief' to 'believing in the right way' is in no way a move to some binary opposite of the first (for the opposite of right belief is simply wrong belief); rather, it is a way transcending the binary altogether. Thus orthodoxy is no longer (mis) understood as the opposite of heresy but rather is understood as a term that signals a way of being in the world rather than a means of believing things about the world (Rollins, pgs. 2-3, italics and bold mine)."


I think that this notion of orthodoxy, as right way of living and believing hits at the heart of what I've thought for some time now. I have struggled a lot with Reformed theology and the whole predestination/free will thing for a long time, though it has become much easier in the last few years, largely because of this nagging suspicion that orthodoxy was never about having all the right beliefs lined up in a row to show God (or others). Rather, orthodoxy was the way in which we are called to live and love in the likeness of Christ. This helps to free us from the fear that if we don't believe all the right things, or are "led astray" on a certain doctrine, that we can find hope in that orthodoxy is rooted in the way we live and believe, rather than in what we believe, which bypasses the whole, "say the sinner's prayer" or before you can be saved you must believe 1, 2, and 3.

How does this sound to you? Orthodoxy as right living and believing rather than having a fixed or proper set of beliefs that are all "correct" (if we can even be perfect or correct in our doctrines about God)?

Bright Sadness

Lent is well on its way, and thus far it has been a great experience. Soda hasn't been nearly as hard not to drink as I anticipated, although not buying any new music has been harder than I thought...I forgot that Arcade Fire's Neon Bible was coming out...anybody gotten their new album? It's gotten great reviews thus far...

As I mentioned before, Lent is traditionally called "Bright Sadness" in the Orthodox tradition, and after a few weeks of exploration into apophaticism, this notion of Bright Sadness has come to more adequately explain this time of Lent during this season of the church year for me. It has marked a period of my life rampant with dramatic change during the last few years and last few months. The Bright Sadness of this time of advent (or Lent), this time of waiting and participating in joining Christ in his sufferings, has brought great illumination, and yet sadness too. There have been moments of recognition and brightness that have reminded me of the importance of spiritual disciplines and obedience, rooted in humility, and a deep reverential silence that have shaped my life since childhood. Yet there have been periods of sadness and grief over the changes from where I've come from, and the loss of former perspectives. There has also been sadness in the changed relationships that have stemmed from deep theological shifts in the last five years, that have made it difficult to continue to perpetuate perspectives that no longer urge me along the journey of faith. And while I grieve in a way the loss and change of certain relationships in that they don't remain the same or rooted within a particular time and place, I also rejoice, for the journey of faith is also bright and illuminating. There is truly a sense of Bright Sadness right now--i.e. I am seeing life in new ways, yet there is a sense of loss, and I am changing and finding God in new ways, yet the relationships around me are also changing.

I've realized that it is important for me to wrestle with some more of these thoughts, and so I've decided to start blogging through Peter Rollins' book How (Not) to Speak of God. This book has been a breath of fresh air, and has helped put into words many of my thoughts that I had yet to find words for, and also stretched me in new ways. Combine this book with some of the best lectures and discussions of my seminary experience on Apophatic Theology from the last few weeks, especially as seen expressed in Pseudo-Dionysius, and bright sadness takes shape in powerful ways.

This should be fun and challenging, and for my friends and family reading this, if there are words that don't make sense, let me know. I know that I have yet to "define" apophatic theology (or for a Wiki definition, click here), and I will come to that, but for now, I'd like to quote a bit of the introduction of Rollins' book, that I won't even comment on tonight, but would simply like for it to ruminate and give shape to the coming discussion. This is found in Rollins' introduction, and explains his reasons for being drawn to mystical theology, which shapes a large part of the book and which illuminates much of my own perspective of how this dialogue about faith, church, the kingdom of God and so much more should take shape. This quote is in reference to Rollins trying to explain why how we (don't) talk about God is important:

"Each time I returned to the horns of this dilemma, I found myself drawn to the Christian mystics (such as Meister Eckhart), for while they did not embrace total silence, they balked at the presumption of those who would seek to colonize the name 'God' with concepts. Instead of viewing the unspeakable as that which brings all language to a halt, they realized that the unspeakable was precisely the place where the most inspiring language began. This God whose name was above every name gave birth, not to a poverty of words, but to an excess of them. And so they wrote elegantly concerning the limits of writing and spoke eloquently about the brutality of words. By speaking with wounded words of their wounded Christ, these mystics helped to develop, not a distinct religious tradition, but rather a way of engaging with and understanding already existing religious traditions: seeing them as a loving response to God rather than a way of defining God (Rollins, xii)."




amen.