Taken from: http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=1217

I am currently preparing for a four day intensive course in theology for Wesley Seminary in Washington DC starting this Monday. For those of you attending the course outline looks something like this (I have placed the primary thinkers for each lecture in brackets),

—

Monday

An “Ontological” argument for the existence of God (Anselm)

Cosmological arguments for the existence of God (Aquinas)

A Teleological argument for the existence of God (Aquinas)

—

Tuesday

The Critique of Onto-theology (Heidegger and Barth)

Existential faith (Kierkegaard and Pascal)

The death of God (Nietzsche)

—

Wednesday

Theology as Anthropology (Feuerbach)

Religion as an Opiate (Marx)

Religion as Wish-Fulfilment (Frued)

—

Thursday

Radical Theology (Tillich, Bonhoeffer, Altizer)

Mystical Theology (Henry, Marion)

Weakness Theology (Caputo, Vattimo)

Taken from: http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=1205

While spending some time in LA I was asked by someone what the goal of my work was. Or rather, what I was wanting to offer people through the collectives I was helping to establish. This is a question that I have been reflecting on a lot recently.

Some of these reflections have been fed by Freud’s potent comment that he sought to transform human misery into general unhappiness. This goal can seem quite depressing at first glance. However I think that there is also something profoundly powerful nestled in this modest aim. Freud never offered people the usual snake oil. He never claimed that if we just follow a certain dogma, engage in a prescribed set of practices, buy a particular product etc. we would banish depression and find happiness and fulfilment. Rather he merely held out the possibility that we might be able to face up to life in all of its beauty and horror. Embracing it by saying “yes” when it would be so easy to say “no”. He helped people face up to their trauma’s and bear their weight. Indeed he pointed to ways in which we might be able to turn them to our own benefit.

Occasionally churches offer potential converts a life of fulfilment and happiness in exchange for answering an altar call and engaging in some spiritual practices. And indeed often ecstasy of some kind accompanies the initial response to an altar call. An ecstasy however that tends to dissipate quickly, leaving the new convert to attempt ever more bizarre practices to return to the initial high.

In the collectives that I am part of such promises are avoided. Rather the good news comes down to offering people the possibility of facing up to their suffering and darkness and sharing them with others in some (often ritualistic) way. The good news is found in offering those present the space to face their anxieties (rather than repressing them or falling into dispair) and develop the courage to embrace them. This of course is not something that brings in the masses. Stadiums are more often filled by smiling men in good suits offering a lot more (in exchange for a little cash).

This is a subject that I shall be exploring more in the coming years. But for now I will leave you with this parable from The Orthodox Heretic which hints at what I think the good news might look like (click here for another parables, not my own, which also touches on this issue).

There was once an old man named Benoni who had known great misfortune through life, having lost his wife and children to poverty, disease, and war. The many lines on his face betrayed his pain, and his heart was filled with sorrow and regret. Indeed he barely had the strength to carry on.

But there was one who had drawn alongside him in his sorrow. His comforter was the village blacksmith, a strong but caring man who exhibited a gentle, humble, and charitable way of life. People knew very little about this blacksmith, as he was a quiet man who had moved into the town only a few years before. Yet he was well liked by the community and would often be found sitting on the porch of his workshop, enjoying the midday sun and passing the time by engaging strangers in conversation. His face was strong and full of character, betraying both a depth of spirit and a breadth of experience. But it was also a kindly face that was set alight by his compassionate smile.

When Benoni lost his first child, the blacksmith called round to his home, put his hand on Benoni’s shoulder and with great affection said, “I am so sorry that you have suffered this grave misfortune. If you will allow me, I would like to stand with you at this time of hardship.”

Ever since this first encounter the blacksmith had called round to Benoni’s house most evenings, sometimes to sit and chat, sometimes to listen, and sometimes simply to leave food and other provisions. As each new calamity befell Benoni, the blacksmith would be there to speak and cry with.

One day when Benoni was particularly depressed he went to visit a pastor who lived in the heart of the city, so as to talk through what had taken place over the traumatic years and try to make sense of it. The pastor listened to what Benoni had to say and then, after a little thought, replied, “Well my son, in order for great fortune to take place one must first suffer great misfortune. The suffering you have faced is the price that has had to be extracted for strength of character, and a spirit forged in the fires of hell.”

So Benoni returned to his home alone, lit a fire in an attempt to take away the evening’s chill, and contemplated the words of the minister. Perhaps he is right, thought Benoni, maybe I should take some comfort from these words. But it is cold, I am alone, and words can offer no shoulder to rest on.”

Just then the blacksmith knocked on the door and Benoni, as always, welcomed him in. As they sat together they drank whiskey and talked long into the night. That evening Benoni shared the words of the pastor with his friend, adding, “Perhaps now that I have been given these words to comfort me, you no longer need to visit as you have done this last year.”

The blacksmith simply looked at the floor for a few moments and then replied, “My dear friend, if what the elder has said is true then I am needed all the more, for if you had to suffer such great misfortune in order to find strength of character and wealth of spirit, then this is in itself a great misfortune.”

And so they sat late into the night bringing comfort and warmth to each other through the sharing of their lives.

Taken from: http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=1193

The hymn entitled ‘The Sweet By and By‘ was originally inspired by a comment made by Joseph Webster (who composed the music) to S. Fillmore Bennett in 1868. It was well known that Webster was a sensitive man who was prone to bouts of depression. Bennett writes that Webster had come to his place of business in a melancholy mood one day. When asked what the matter was Webster responded by saying, ‘It’s no matter, it will be all right by and by’.

Immediately Bennett was inspired and penned the words to the hymn. There and then Webster created a melody and within thirty minutes they were singing it together. The famous refrain from the hymn is,

—

In the sweet by and by

We shall meet on that beautiful shore;

In the sweet by and by

We shall meet on that beautiful shore.

—

For a man like Webster this song was able to help him turn away from his current problems by enabling him to imagine a heavenly realm where everything would be fixed. He was able to console himself in this life with thoughts of another.

It was left to the labour activist and songwriter Joe Hill (pictured above) to expose the problem with this hymn in his parody entitled ‘The Preacher and the Slave‘, written in 1911. He composed this song in resonse to the fact that migrant workers would often be greeted by this song (sung by the Salvation Army) as they returned to the city each evening, after having worked all day in dire conditions.

Songs like ‘The Sweet By and By’ communicated to these oppressed people that their life would begin after death and consoled them with the notion that one day, in the sweet by and by, they would be happy and content. The song did reflect the peoples suffering and it was a response to it, but it was a response that prevented action which would address the suffering (this is one of the points Marx makes in the introduction to his A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right).

In ‘The Preacher and the Slave’ Hill parodied the idea that we just needed to wait for another life after this one (this song is were the now famous phrase, ‘pie in the sky when you die’ derives from). For Hill life is possible before death, but only as we put our shoulder to the plough of historical struggle and fight for equality here and now.  And so he wrote this,

—

Long-haired preachers come out every night,

Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right;

But when asked how ’bout something to eat

They will answer in voices so sweet

Chorus (sung as a call and response)

You will eat [You will eat] bye and bye [bye and bye]

In that glorious land above the sky [Way up high]

Work and pray [Work and pray] live on hay [live on hay]

You’ll get pie in the sky when you die [That's a lie!]

And the Starvation Army, they play,

And they sing and they clap and they pray,

Till they get all your coin on the drum,

Then they tell you when you’re on the bum

(Chorus)

Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out

And they holler, they jump and they shout

Give your money to Jesus, they say,

He will cure all diseases today

(Chorus)

If you fight hard for children and wife-

Try to get something good in this life-

You’re a sinner and bad man, they tell,

When you die you will sure go to hell.

(Chorus)

Workingmen of all countries, unite

Side by side we for freedom will fight

When the world and its wealth we have gained

To the grafters we’ll sing this refrain

Chorus (modified)

You will eat [You will eat] bye and bye [bye and bye]

When you’ve learned how to cook and how to fry [How to fry]

Chop some wood [Chop some wood], ’twill do you good [do you good]

Then you’ll eat in the sweet bye and bye [That's no lie]

—

Thanks to David Dark from pointing me in the direction of Joe Hill.

Taken from: http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=1188

‘It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this’ Bertrand Russell

It was Aristotle who first defined human beings as rational animals. Without getting too deep into what Aristotle meant when he wrote this we can see how the idea informs the popular understanding of how education can help people undergo change.

For instance, when it comes to issues like environmental crisis, animal abuse, persecution of minorities etc. it is often said that what we need to do is get the truth out to as many people as possible. There will, of course, always be some who don’t care. But those who seek to be kind and loving individuals will be challenged by what they hear and endeavor to change. In this way documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth, Food Inc, and The Lottery help to positively impact society.

There are two basic reasons why this view is held. Firstly, such documentaries do generally tell us something that we don’t already know. Secondly, to a greater or lesser degree they seem to make a positive impact. However I would like to argue that this explanation misses something vital and, as such, fails to explain the phenomenon of resistance. Namely the situation in which people refuse to watch such documentaries (or engage in conversation about the issues they raise) by offering lame excuses, a host of unformulated arguments and/or visible bodily discomfort at the mere suggestion.

Of course there are many situations that we are genuinely ignorant of. But by the time a major film or book is released on some ethical subject it is generally the case that there is some knowledge about the issues among the general population. So, while such documentaries do indeed offer us information that we may not have known before, perhaps understanding their real power requires a more nuanced reading.

It is difficult to deny that offering information to people concerning ethically disgusting practices can facilitate change. But rather than this being connected with the idea that we now know something that we were previously ignorant of we must ask whether it might actually be because we can no longer pretend that we don’t know.

Hard as it might be for us to accept, what if we already know that our desire for cheap food and clothes feeds gross cruelty and suffering? What if we already know that the way we live is excessive and that there are ways to consume that minimise our damage on this earth? What if we already know that some of the things we desire are not worthy of our admiration?

At a basic level we might wish to pretend to those around us that we don’t know about something that would require us to change because we don’t want them to witness our more callous nature. However, at a more fundamental level, we are often attempting to pull the wool over our own eyes. Pretending to ourselves that we don’t know what we already know. In this situation we want to maintain a certain self-image and thus seek to surpress anything that would challenge it. The difference between not knowing and not wanting to know that we know is evidenced in the psychological phenomenon called Resistance.

Resistance is seen when, as mentioned above, people emotionally react to something that does not, in itself, need to be responded to in an emotional way. For instance there is a huge difference between someone not seeing a film on some challenging issue because they are genuinely busy and one who offers up a range of ridiculous excuses and half-baked arguments for why they are not attending.

To take an example of resistance I recently witnessed a conversation about hybrid cars in which one of the people took visible pleasure in pointing out that the enviromental impact of driving a new hybrid was much greater than that of driving a large, previously built, SUV. What was interesting was not the information itself but the way that the individual delivered it. The information was not given as a means of seriously forwarding the discussion concerning how we minimise our negative impact on the environment, but rather as a means of shutting down a conversation that was making that person feel uncomfortable about their own desires and lifestyle.

We witness a similar logic happening when, after the Second World War many civilians in Germany said that they did not know what was happening to their Jewish neigbours. This is no doubt true in the sense that they would not have known the full facts. However there were enough hints around to point to the reality that people actively tried to avoid finding out what was happening for fear that they would then need to act. Something most of us would have done if we had been there (because it is what most of us do today concerning all kinds of injustice).

So the issue here is not that we fail to know something, but rather that we don’t want to know that we know. For when we know that we know then we are forced to change our behaviour, offer embarrassing counter-arguments that make it obvious we don’t really care or simply admit our lack of concern (which is at least to be respected more than pretending that we do care).

This also has its corollary in religious issues. Many people avoid reading books that question their ideas on scripture, sexuality, the afterlife etc. because there is a part of them that already knows that their views are wishful thinking or unfounded. While resistance, with a little training, can be easy to spot in other people, it is more difficult when it comes to ourselves. However, when confronted with something that challenges us we must be sensitive to our own reactions, working out whether we experience emotional resistance and, if so, what it is we are hiding from ourselves.

Taken from: http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=1183

I have recently been reading Jean-Michel Oughourlian’s beautifully crafted book The Genesis of Desire. A work that carefully blends the authors extensive psychiatric expertise, the theoretical depth of René Girard’s philosophical anthropology and recent developments in neuroscience to explore the interrelated themes of love, violence, and rivalry.

If one wishes to delve into the murky waters of our most intimate relationships to discover why they are often beset by the most intense obsession, conflicts, love triangles, compulsion, revulsion and jealousy (sometimes all at the same time) then you will enjoy this book.

Of course when it comes to such things as romantic love we can be wary of books that expose the inner workings of our most sublime feelings. But such knowledge does not have to rob love of its beauty. Something Oughourlian points out when he writes,

When we go to the theatre we certainly have no wish to see the gears hidden behind the scenery; we prefer to surrender ourselves to the pretence of the representation and not let ourselves be distracted from the pleasant illusion in which we are immersed. And yet, we know that it is an illusion, and that knowledge does not prevent us from experiencing each time a renewed pleasure, becoming once again an enchanted spectator

At its core this book offers a clear description of mimetic desire (the mechanism by which humans learn what to desire). By showing how our desire is always another’s desire (i.e. always connected with, constructed by and modified in light of other peoples desire) Oughourlian provides a way of understanding the origin of all human conflict and the birth of the concepts good and evil. An explanation that is supplemented by a subtle and interesting psychological commentary on the creation story found in Genesis.

Taken from: http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=1177

I would like to offer a brief and partial reflection on the following quote from the theologian/philosopher Paul Tillich,

The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt

In order to approach this let us begin with the rather benign claim that things exist. More than this, some of these things are conscious, i.e. there are some beings in the universe that sense the universe. And then there are self-conscious things. These are beings that are aware of their consciousness. Perhaps a way to understand the difference between mere consciousness and self-consciousness is through the phenomenon of ‘blind sight’. In blind sight a person who thinks they are blind can actually see. While the individual in question believes that she is blind, when asked to make guesses about her environment, she will be able to describe it with a degree of accuracy well above what could be considered chance. Here the individual can see while not actually perceiving themselves as seeing. In short, ‘sight’ is taking place without there being any awareness of it.

With the awareness of our existence comes the awareness of our own potential non-existence. In other words, self-conscious beings are aware, to different degrees, of their own potential fall into nonbeing. Tillich writes about how this awareness is manifest in different types of anxiety. Anxieties that, in their most acute state, are felt as despair.

He writes that anxiety is distinct from the phenomenon of fear. For while fear is always directed toward an object (enemies, spiders, enclosed spaces etc.) anxiety has no object (it arises in response to the foreboding shadow of nothingness itself).

Tillich writes of three anxieties (that are simply different ways in which nonbeing makes its absence felt). There is the anxiety of fate which, at its most extreme, is encountered in a despair that we face death. Then there is the anxiety of emptiness (where we experience our various projects as unfulfilling) that can degenerate into the despair of total meaninglessness. And finally there is the anxiety of guilt (where we feel that we fall short of our own being). An anxiety that, at its most all encompassing, is felt in the despair of condemnation.

In response to these sometimes crushing anxieties there are a host of religious answers, i.e. answers that attempt to address the questions cast up by our awareness of nonbeing. These answers come in many forms, and yet even if they were intellectually persuasive (which, Tillich would argue, they are not) they would never fully banish these deep anxieties. We can of course repress them, but then they make themselves felt in different ways (in bursts of aggression, self-loathing, over-eating, phobias, substance abuse etc. etc.)

In response to this Tillich questions the idea that the way of Christ provides religious answers to our existential questions. Rather he attempts to show that Christ invites us to participate in a way of being that enables us to live beneath the shadow of these questions. Joyously embracing life while fully acknowledging their presence. Living in such a way that they are deprived of their weight and sting. In doing this he points to the possibility of a God arising from the ashes of the death of the religious God. A God that can be described as the source of our ability to live fully in the midst of our existential doubts.

This possibility of fully living in the midst of these anxieties will be something I explore in my forthcoming book, The Uprising of Christ.

Taken from: http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=1172

I have just finished rereading Paul Tillich’s book The Courage to Be. It is a rich work that is both intellectually satisfying and personally challenging.

Taken from: http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=1165

This evening I watched Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island. The film itself was a powerful cinematic expression of some of the ideas that Jay Bakker and myself where exploring in Revolution last week. Be warned that this post contains spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the film you might want to watch it before reading the remainder of this post.

Just as the Hebrew scriptures speak of being unable to stare into the face God, in Shutter Island we confront the idea that we are unable to stare into the face of our trauma. To avoid such a confrontation with our own darkness we create fictions that insulate us from the truth of our deepest scars. These fictions are then taken as the truth of who we are. Fictions that may be deeply elaborate and obscure (involving conspiracies etc.) or rather mundane (that we are happy in our present relationship, job, etc.). But regardless of what they entail these fantasies protect us in some way from ourselves. Such fantasies are not a problem but rather the solution to a problem. Yet it is a solution that fails to deal with the fundamental issue.

What is more, the darkness that we refuse to acknowledge in ourselves is made manifest in disavowed ways. We all like to think of the communities we are part of (friends, family, political movement etc.) as some kind of reflection of Eden. Others are unforgiving, distrustful, ungracious, greedy, arrogant etc., not us. And yet so often we place these judgements upon others as a way of avoiding a confrontation with them in ourselves. And all the better if the accused is really guilty of these transgressions, as this can make it even easier for us to avoid confronting them in ourselves. For the simple reason that we feel justified.

The path to healing and transformation involves the painful process of glimpsing the Real of our own darkness. Glimpsing our wounds, and giving language to them. Wounds that are hinted at in such things as our dreams and our drunken conversations. More than this, it involves being able to do this in an environment of love.

So what would it look like to have a community in which we allowed our darkness to be seen? A community where we would be confronted with the truth of who we are? A community that was therapeutic, not despite the fact that it gives space for this horrific self-disclosure, but precisely because of it?

At Revolution I got a chance to share a little about these ideas. Jay then led the way by showing the type of strength needed to become vulnerable. After this people were invited to reflect upon their own wounds. During a song Jay ripped out pages from the back of a Bible and passed them around the room. Those present were invited to write something that reflected their own darkness. Then we gathered up the paper, read these glimpses into the Real of our hurts and placed them back into the text. We finished by binding the book and reflecting upon how our present suffering binds us to the suffering of those who went before us.

This sacred gathering was not about providing some glib answers for our suffering, but rather about providing a place for them to be shared. In this way shining a little bit of light upon our darkness. You can listen to the talk below. I will finish this with a quote from Henry Nouwen,

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of offering advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand”

Facing the Darkness

Taken from: http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=1160

On Sunday I took part in a discussion with the Rev. Vince Anderson at Revolution NYC concerning questions to do with love, violence and inclusion.

One of the issues that I was touching related to the idea of a community where everyone would be provoked to examine their actions and challenged to be transformed. In short a community in which each individual embraces the idea that they are there to be evangelised, to be transformed and renewed. This talk explores in slightly more depth some of the issues that I raised in my last post. Click below to give it a listen,

Violence of Love

Taken from: http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=1152

In January 2010 the infamous New York mobster John “Junior” Gotti claimed to have finished a children’s book while in prison entitled Children of Shaolin Forest. This contrast between his public acts and the writing of a children’s book can strike us peculiar. Here we are confronted with the image of someone accused of murder, conspiracy to murder and armed robbery sitting in a cell writing a touching and sentimental story for children. This is not dissimilar to a situation that was well noted back in my homeland of Northern Ireland. There it was common knowledge that many of the Loyalist paramilitary leaders had a great sense of humour. In contrast to their more serious and sombre counterparts the Loyalist groups where known to make biting jokes at their own expense and, over a drink, exchange an unending litany of funny, self-depreciating anecdotes. This was also true of many of the Protestant fundamentalist leaders and was something that I got to witness directly a couple of times.

A question that these observations raise concerns the profound limitation of the idea that listening to another person’s story will turn a stranger, or even enemy, into a friend. In light of the above there seems to be a problem with this statement, not in terms of its actual claim but rather in its desirability.

For what if this statement is largely correct? What if, with the exception of people with serious personality disorders, individuals like Gotti are likable once you have had a chance to really chat with them? What if, under the right circumstances, I really could enjoy the company of most people and even come to consider them a friend? Is it possible that, at a subjective level, others are really not that dissimilar to me? They too love children, care for their friends, give quietly to charity, buy drinks on a night out, tell jokes, share their sufferings etc. etc.

If this is the case then we must ask whether we should put ourselves in a place where we can become friends with certain people. People who actively participate in and affirm systems that lead to the oppression or outright destruction of others. Or perhaps, while being their friend at a subjective level, whether we must maintain enough distance to be able to attack them viciously in public.

Take, for instance, the phenomenon of those slave owners who were known to be kind to their slaves (calling them by their real name, showing generosity etc.). The radical move is not to try to expose how this subjective attitude is inauthentic, but rather how it acts as a veil that covers over the objective violence at work in the material nature of the relationship itself. In many respects the first act of defiance involves the dangerous act of the slave refusing the friendship and acting like the oppressed person they are (i.e. not allowing the true violence to be hidden in subjective relations). In this way the slave-owner is unable to hide behind a subjective friendship but is confronted by his or her fundamental violence.

One of the things we witness with the rise of social networking media is the emphasis on the subjective (not to mention the TV programmes and films that concentrate on the subjective story of criminals, e.g. The Sopranos). Now we can know public figures at an intimate level through their twitter updates and facebook profiles. We can see that they shop in the same places we do, listen to the same bands, also have embarrassing photographs of themselves and get into funny predicaments when they have had too much to drink. This focus upon the subjective is often celebrated as a step towards a type of global community of acceptance: something that fundamentalists have stood firmly against.

Within Christian fundamentalist circles there is a fear of a one-world government bringing worldwide peace and harmony. Initially this fundamentalist fear can seem absurd, for why would they stand against global peace. However, nestled within their irrational diatribe is an obscured insight. For what if such a unity (in which we encounter each other as all part of the same family) can actually obfuscate the need to stand against injustice and speak up for those who have no voice? In short, what if the concentration on bringing about subjective peace (a deep ecumenism) can actually stand in the way of opposing violent structures?

To concentrate on subjective peace (a more liberal stand) is thus perhaps only a little better than standing against it (a more conservative temptation). And that instead we need to reclaim the Pauline insight that our battle is not against flesh and blood but rather principalities and powers. In short, that our interest in subjective relations (by which I include myself and the movement I am a part of) should not get in the way of the fact that we need to fight tooth and nail against unjust systems. There is a complex relationship between flesh and blood and principalities and powers that needs to be unpacked here. For the later exists only as they are expressed in the former, yet cannot be reduced to them. This is not dissimilar to the relationship between the ‘sinner’ and ‘sin’ obfuscated in the evangelical phrase ‘love the sinner hate the sin’.  I may take this up at a later time.

So, in conclusion, what if we must be wary of the popular claim that church should provide a space where we listen to each others stories and rather attempt to foster a place in which we come face to face with the role we play in society as material beings (i.e. whether we are instruments of love or hate in the world)? Admittedly the two spaces can have a lot of similarities and so we need to do some work drawing out the subtle differences.

These are some issues that I explore in more depth in my upcoming book.