Posed in the subjunctive, what would Jesus do or deconstruct, the question turns on the structure of the archive, of memory and repetition. How does the New Testament preserve the memory of Jesus? I prescind from all historical-critical questions here, which open up another abyss (about the arche itself). One abyss at a time! I treat the New Testament as an “archive,” a depository of memories, which presents a certain way to be, a certain “poetics” — not a politics or an ethics or a church dogmatics — that I like to call a “poetics of the kingdom,” which lays claim to us and which calls for a transformation into existence.
How are we to translate this soaring poetics into reality? Were this figure of Jesus, who is the centerpiece of this poetics, or theo-poetics, to return today, what would he look like? An illegal immigrant? A child dying of AIDS? A Vatican bureaucrat? And what do we imagine he would expect of us here and now? The question calls for a work of application, interpretation, interpolation, imagination, and self-interrogation, and all that is risky business. To interpret is always a high-wire act, balancing oneself on a line stretched across an abyss and in constant danger of constructing idols of its own imagining. The name of “Jesus” is too often a mirror in which we behold our own image, and it has always been easy to spot the sliver in the eye of the other and miss the two-by-four in our own. The question presupposes the inescapable reality of history and of historical distance, and it asks how that distance can be crossed. Or better, conceding that this distance cannot be crossed, the question resorts to the subjunctive and asks how that irreducible distance could be made creative.
How does our distance from Jesus illuminate what he said and did in a different time and place and under different historical circumstances? And how does Jesus’ distance from us illuminate what we must say and do in the importantly different situation in which we find ourselves today? The task of the church is to submit itself to this question, rather than using it like a club to punish others.
The church, the archive of Jesus, in a very real sense is this question.
It has no other duty and no other privilege than to bear this memory of Jesus and ask itself this question. The church is not the answer. The church is the question, this question, the gathering of people who are called together by the memory of Jesus and who ask this question, who are called together and are put into question by this question, who stand accused, under the call, interrogated and unable to recuse themselves from this question, and who come to understand that there are no easy, ready-made, prepackaged answers.
The early church is a lot like the characters in the hit TV series Lost —the title is appropriate!-– waiting to be “saved,” which is the soteriological significance of that show where everyone is given a new being, a fresh start. At first, the survivors hang around on the beach waiting to get “picked up” (in a cloud, St. Paul said). After a while, they conclude that the rescue is not going to happen anytime soon and so they reluctantly decide to dig in and prepare for the long haul. Hence the existence of the church is provisional – like a long-term substitute teacher – praying for the kingdom, whose coming Jesus announced and which everyone was expecting would come sometime soon.
But this coming was deferred, and the church occupies the space of the “deferral,” of the distance or “difference,” between two comings. (I just said, in case you missed it, the church is a function of différance!) In the meantime, and it is always the meantime for the church, the church is supposed to do the best it can to bring that kingdom about itself, here on earth, in a process of incessant self-renewal or auto-deconstruction, while not setting itself up as a bunch of kings or princes. The church is by definition a call (kletos) for renewal.
That is why the church is “deconstructable,” but the kingdom of God, if there is such a thing, is not. The church is a provisional construction, and whatever is constructed is deconstructible, while the kingdom of God is that in virtue of which the church is deconstructible.
So, if we ask, “What would Jesus deconstruct?” the answer is first and foremost: the church!
For the idea behind the church is to give way to the kingdom, to proclaim and enact and finally disappear into the kingdom that Jesus called for, all the while resisting the temptation of confusing itself with the kingdom. That requires us to clear away the rhetoric and get a clear picture of what “deconstruction” means, of just who “Jesus” is, and of the hermeneutic force of this “would,” and to do so with this aim: to sketch a portrait of an alternative Christianity, one that is as ancient as it is new, one in which the “dangerous memory of Jesus” is still alive – deconstruction being, as I conceive it, a work of memory and imagination, of dangerous memories as well as daring ways to imagine the future, and as such good news for the church.
Just recently returned from the fourth Postmodernism, Culture and Religion Conference entitled: The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion. The conference was at Syracuse University and included some of the best thinkers in Continental Philosophy. What follows will be a very poor, non-academic attempt to make some sense of the whole thing.
“What is continental philosophy?”, some of you might ask. Good question. When you find out – drop me a line. Actually, it often refers to philosophy that developed in the 19th and 20th centuries in mainland Europe, in opposition to much of the analytic philosophy happening in Britain. Important names paving the way for this include Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger, among others.
Here are some common themes, borrowed from wikipedia:
First, continental philosophers generally reject scientism, the view that the natural sciences are the only or most accurate way of understanding phenomena.
Second, continental philosophy usually considers these conditions of possible experience as variable: determined at least partly by factors such as context, space and time, language, culture, or history. Thus continental philosophy tends toward historicism. Where analytic philosophy tends to treat philosophy in terms of discrete problems, capable of being analyzed apart from their historical origins (much as scientists consider the history of science inessential to scientific inquiry), continental philosophy typically suggests that “philosophical argument cannot be divorced from the textual and contextual conditions of its historical emergence”.
Third, continental philosophy typically holds that conscious human agency can change these conditions of possible experience: “if human experience is a contingent creation, then it can be recreated in other ways”.Thus continental philosophers tend to take a strong interest in the unity of theory and practice, and tend to see their philosophical inquiries as closely related to personal, moral, or political transformation.
A final characteristic trait of continental philosophy is an emphasis on metaphilosophy. In the wake of the development and success of the natural sciences, continental philosophers have often sought to redefine the method and nature of philosophy. In some cases (such as German idealism or phenomenology), this manifests as a renovation of the traditional view that philosophy is the first, foundational, a priori science. In other cases (such as hermeneutics, critical theory, or structuralism), it is held that philosophy investigates a domain that is irreducibly cultural or practical.
If any of that made sense, you’re in good shape. If not, read it again a time or two. Here’s a final thought: “Ultimately, the foregoing distinctive traits derive from a broadly Kantian thesis that the nature of knowledge and experience is bound by conditions that are not directly accessible to empirical inquiry.” In other words, there’s more than meets the eye. Sensory experience and the material world can only get us so far. If you’ve ever been to an evening of Pub Theology, you know these kinds of ideas come up again and again.
It is this line of thinking that makes continental philosophy more open to questions of God, theology and religion than its analytical counterpart. In this conference comprised primarily of philosophy and religion professors of secular universities, the themes of God and religion were ever present.
A few important names present included Catherine Malabou, Professor of Philosophy, University of Paris, John Caputo, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Syracuse University, Philip Goodchild, Professor of Philosophy, Nottingham University, Merold Westphal, Professor of Philosophy and Theology, Fordham University, B. Keith Putt, Samford University, Harvey Cox, Professor of Divinity, Harvard University, and Thomas Altizer, who was not formally involved in the conference, but did not fail to make his presence known through insightful and always lively comments and questions. Also there was Jim Olthuis from the Institute for Christian Studies. It was especially meaningful to have Caputo and Westphal there, as they are retiring from their academic posts (though probably not from writing and speaking!).
Paper topics that made complete sense to me: “Plasticity in the Contemporary Islamic Subject“; “Future Blindness“; “Postmodern Apocalypse: Placing Levinas & Derrida in Line with Transcendental Methodology“; “Non-Philosophy and Meaning-use Analysis: Explicating Laruelle with Brandom“, and finally “Dying to be Free: Extinction and the Liberation of Praxis in Ray Brassier’s Nihil Unbound.”
But for all the tough paper topics, there were also ones that made more immediate sense to me: “Does the Religious Intellectual Have a Future? Harvey Cox, Post-Secular Spirituality, and Living Religiously in Public“; “The Broken Binary & Interstitial God: Finding Faith in the Margin of the Text“; “Radical Theology and the Dangerous Memory of Jesus“; “‘Eating Well’ in Church: In-carnating an A/Theological Materialism”; and the very clear: “Philosophy is What it Eats.”
So what was I doing there, as a pastor?
Great question. Mostly I needed an excuse to put a ton of miles on my new van. Actually – as soon as the first session started, Christy was wondering the same thing. The first presenter in the panel we chose started reading her paper and, while a very profound paper, almost never looked up and had very little voice inflection. In other words, she could have been reading an obituary or grocery list. I worried we had picked the wrong panel (there were often 4-5 panels on various topics going on at once). But then we remembered that this was an *academic* conference, not a *church* conference, and that at these things you read your paper, you don’t preach it. So once we were able to focus, and the big words and unfamiliar names began to become more familiar, we began to realize this was about stuff we care about. Stuff we all care about: issues of faith and reason; God and theology; knowing and unknowing; certainty and uncertainty; life and death. The very same things I deal with as a pastor, and we all deal with as human beings. Issues of vital importance for the Christian who is seeking to engage our world today. And not incidentally, a recurring topic that continually came up was, how do we connect some of this stuff to real life? How do we engage the culture in thinking seriously about important topics? It was cool to meet student after student (as well as professors) who thought it was excellent Christy and I were there. They wanted to know what we were doing, what our community is like, and how we apply of this kind of thinking to our work. (The irony is many in academia long for such ‘real-world’ activism, and how people like me, in the so-called ‘real-world’, long for the high-level thinking of academia. The grass is always greener).
A great example of how philosophy and life in the church connect is found in the book by John Caputo: What Would Jesus Deconstruct? In this book Caputo draws on the deconstruction tradition of Jacques Derrida to tear down some of the ossified walls that have built up in the church over the years – and allows the light of day to penetrate. This book is a delightful read and I would recommend it to anyone. From the backcover: “Many in the church who are wrestling with ministry in a postmodern era view deconstruction as a negative aspect of the postmodern movement. But John Caputo, one of the leading philosophers of religion in America and a leading voice on religion and postmodernism, sees it differently. In this lively and provocative analysis, he argues that in his own way Jesus himself was a deconstructionist and that applying deconstruction to the church can be a positive move toward renewal.”
John Franke, professor of theology at Biblical Seminary, notes: “This is a marvelous little book. It enables readers to understand deconstruction as the hermeneutics of the kingdom of God and provides a glimpse of what this concept might look like in the hands of Jesus as applied to the church. This will be difficult therapy, and many of us will be inclined to resist. However, let us remember that while discipline is painful in the moment, it produces a harvest of peace and righteousness in the long run. May the church learn from the wisdom found in these pages.”
Another person who has gained a lot of traction in making some of these connections is Peter Rollins, an increasingly popular writer and speaker. Pete has a PhD in philosophy from Queens University in Northern Ireland, and has made his readings of philosophy become incarnate in both his work at Ikon, a faith collective in Belfast, and in his books and speaking events. He recently spoke at Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, and his work is so intriguing in making real, tangible connecting points that he was the subject of one of the panel discussions at this conference. An excellent paper looking at his work theologically and philosophically was delivered by religion professor Creston Davis: “The Cosmic Double-Cross: The Psycho-Christ Event”, and another paper was delivered by sociologist Gerardo Marti entitled: “Peter Rollins and the Deconstructed Church: How Pub Churches, Continental Philosophy, and Provocative Preaching is Shaping the Future of Emerging Christianity.”
If you’ve read Pete’s book of parables: The Orthodox Heretic, and Other Impossible Tales, you’ll appreciate the power this kind of thinking can have to push us into rediscovering the kingdom of God in our thinking and acting.
Another very intriguing paper was delivered by Daniel Peterson of Seattle University and G. Michael Zbaraschuk of Pacific Lutheran University entitled: “Giving up God for Lent: Resurrecting the Death of God.” It gave a lot to chew on regarding whether in evangelicalism we are worshiping the God who is, or a God we have invented; if the latter, then perhaps that God needs to die.
One of things I took from the conference is that we may have very different ideas about what different parts of faith are – doctrines, teachings, etc., but the bottom line on many levels is – how am I living it out? What is the material reality present because of my theological convictions? How does this play out in real life?
In any case, it was an excellent time and will surely continue to push my own thinking, living and commitment to living out a life of following Jesus. Made some new friends, including our host Wendy DeBoer, PhD student at Syracuse, and Dan Wood, theology student at Loyola in Chicago (fellow crasher of Wendy’s pad), and other students from the Syracuse Religion Department and elsewhere, including a crew from Cornerstone University (fellow Michiganders!), Harvard Divinity School and UC-Berkley. Also hung out with some old friends, including Pete Rollins, ate some good food, and hit a post-conference party with most of the folks involved – where a bit of alcohol cleared up everything. Also met a professor from Dordt College at the conference – showing that this stuff infiltrates even the corn-fields of Calvinist conservatism! (OK, that was unfair).
So if we ask, along with Caputo, “What would Jesus deconstruct?” what would we find? The answer is, first and foremost, the church! See my next post for a deconstruction of that deconstruction.
A Prayer from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals
Prayer for Communion
Celebrant: The table of bread is now to be made ready.
It is the table of company with Jesus,
and all who love him.
It is the table of sharing with the poor of the world,
with whom Jesus identified himself.
It is the table of communion with the earth,
in which Christ became incarnate.
So come to this table,
you who have much faith
and you who would like to have more;
you who have been here often
and you who have not been for a long time;
you who have tried to follow Jesus,
and you who have failed;
come.
It is Christ who invites us to meet him here.
All: Loving God, through your goodness we have this bread and juice to offer, which has come forth from the earth and human hands have made. May we know your presence in the sharing, so that we may know your touch and presence in all things. We celebrate the life that Jesus has shared among his community through the centuries, and shares with us now. Made one in Christ
and one with each other, we offer these gifts and with them ourselves, a single, living, act of praise.
Well, I am a reader. You could say an avid reader. It is, no doubt about it, one of my favorite activities in the world. A good book, a reference book, a history book, and a cup of coffee and I am in my own world. Diving into the knowledge, the stories, the history within two covers, printed on paper – a piece of life, captured in words – is a magical experience. I love books. But is it the book itself that I love, or the content for which the book is a vehicle? In ancient times, before the printing press, knowledge and stories were shared orally, then initially printed in the form of cave drawings, early alphabetic attempts, etchings on stone, writing on skins and scrolls…
For the last several hundred years we’ve had books. A big step forward. Well now we have not just books, but devices that can contain thousands of ‘e-books’, and the ability to read them in a fashion somewhat similar to an actual book, thanks to e-readers, such as Amazon’s Kindle. Will it catch on?
It seems at some level is already has. Thousands of Kindles, Nooks, Sony and other e-readers have been selling.
Yet I resisted this digital phenomenon, citing my love for the book itself and the experience that came with it – it’s own history, former owners, dusty look, leather-bound cover, or crinkled paperback existence. How could you replace the beauty of a worn-out spine or the smell of a printed page?
But after my recent move, and carry box after box after box of heavy books, and knowing that I would continue to add to this collection – I decided I had to at least give the e-book thing a try.
So about two months ago I broke down and bought a Kindle. I was worried for the most part about the reading experience. I knew it would be great to have access to so many books at once, and be able to carry them with me, and be able to highlight, take notes, find definitions of words in a second – but would I actually like to sit down with a digital device and read? Could this experience really emulate reading an actual book?
The answer is decidedly yes. The Kindle arrived, and I had bought the corresponding cover for it – which makes the whole thing look much like a book, and you have to open it like the cover of a book, so there are some nods to the traditional printed counterparts. After charging it up, and loading a few free books, and buying a couple others, I started to use it. And I found that not only is it acceptable – I love it! It is actually easier to read than an actual book, because there are no pages turn. This means I can read with one hand, or with no hands, I can read while eating and use the side of my hand to ‘turn a page’. The digital ink technology mimics printed ink, and is no worse for the eyes than reading an actual book. It turns out that I am more interested in the content of a book than I am in the book itself. But don’t worry – I am not turning turning my back on my printed pieces. In fact, I just had some built-in bookshelves put in at my house to house the collection my wife and I have, but the fact is that I can only take so many books with me at a time, and the Kindle ups that amount incredibly.
And of course the fact that there are millions of free e-books in the public domain, including tons of theological and historical texts – not to mention thousands of literary classics – and you really can’t go wrong. At $139, my Kindle paid for itself an hour after I had it out of the box, downloading plenty of free material, as well as newer books at discounted prices. I find myself reading more and more these days – and when I’m reading a real book, I actually get nostalgic for my Kindle.
So if you’re also a serious reader, you may want to give an e-reader a second look. And for my part, the latest incarnation of the Kindle, the Kindle 3 – graphite with 6″ pearl e-ink display, a battery that lasts a month, the ability to hold 3,500 books – is the best of the bunch.
And now, of course, you can subscribe to Pub Theologian on your Kindle and read it anywhere, anytime!
August is a crazy month! We’ve had a family reunion, friends moving, friends visiting, and next week — in a span of less than seven days — we will close on a house, move into it, and then depart for the Mediterranean for two weeks. Israel and Turkey are our destination. My sister, who is coming north to watch the kids, will spend a full weekend in our new house before my wife and I will! So this month has been a hive of preparing to move (again), as well as preparing for a terrific two week study trip.
How are we preparing?Reading books on the Apostle Paul, Revelation, and the early church. I recently finished “The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary from the Church’s Conservative Icon”, and am working on “Paul” by NT Wright. I am midway through “Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now” – highly recommended.
Also doing some exercising, as we will be hiking four to six miles a day as we visit some incredible archaeological ruins. Further, doing some memorizing of biblical texts, as well as learning things about these cities we will be visiting such as key temples and social factors, as well as geographical details such as significant rivers, mountains, and other realities.
We are also packing – trying to pack light but also be prepared for possible scenarios — such as no toilet paper in the bathrooms (a common occurrence in Turkey – I’ve been in that situation, no toilet paper, no toilet, just a hole in the ground, and if you’re lucky, a bucket of water. Enough details.).
We will be traveling to many of the early church sites on our trip. After a few days in Galilee, we will go where the disciples went from their early rural roots into the more cosmopolitan and Hellenistic territory of Asia Minor. As they encounter cities like Ephesus, Laodicea, Hierapolis, Philadelphia and Smyrna, how did they deal with the reality of the Roman Empire and pagan religions which everywhere promoted “peace, prosperity, freedom and salvation”? What did it mean to call Jesus “Lord” in a culture that was convinced Caesar was Lord? What in the world is really going on in the crazy apocalyptic book of Revelation? Was it about some future cataclysmic clash of good and evil? These are some of the exciting things we will be learning as we travel from Bethsaida, Capernaum and Tiberius in Galilee to Cappadocia, Galatia, Lycia and Phrygia in Asia Minor.
Check back for updates, and check out our trip blog!
I am married,
and single
and in a covenant relationship.
We are the people of God.
Together we are family.
I was married,
and never married,
and married twice,
and widowed.
We are the people of God.
Together we are family.
I am older
and younger,
and in-between,
facing my first serious relationship,
knowing the joy of love,
enduring betrayal,
tasting the grief of a dying partner.
We are the people of God.
Together we are family.
I am an only child,
and have ten siblings
and have raised two children
and no children.
We are the people of God.
Together we are family.
I am part of a family,
the human family
the family of faith
my family of origin
the family of my choosing.
O God,
we entered the world,
and our first instinct was to cry.
To cry for help,
for air,
for love.
We have forgotten, but you have remembered.
You have heard our cries:
Through our mothers, our fathers,
our step-mothers, and step-fathers,
through aunts, uncles and grandparents.
Through foster parents, adoptive parents, guardians
and friends we’ve made along the way.
We have forgotten, but you have remembered.
We turn aside and fall
into the hands of our culture
Turning our attention to the latest technological wonder
or the latest philosophical fad.
We twitter and talk and update our status
Too rarely pausing
to take stock of our status with you.
We have forgotten, but you have remembered.
But you deliver us from the hands of these distractions
You come to us in the whisper of a friend
The encouragement of a stranger
A warm meal on a cold night
A conversation over coffee
A nudge from your Spirit
We have forgotten, but you have remembered.
You point us to the One
Who came among us
With empty hands
Who sought justice
Who loved mercy
Who walked humbly before you
We have forgotten, but you have remembered.
His hands were empty
Because they were always giving
always loving
Always healing.
Empty, because they were spread wide on a cross
We have forgotten, but you have remembered.
God, we entered this world crying,
and we cry still today.
May we open our hands to receive this love,
to share this love,
to respond to the cries around us,
to worship you, our true King.
We have forgotten, but you have remembered.
Amen.
-=-=-=-=-
This morning in our worship gathering, we had a time of reflection, remembering, and giving thanks as a way of “considering the great things the LORD (YHWH) has done.” (1 Sam 12:24)
People voiced things out to God that they were grateful for: simple things like the rain that was falling outside nourishing the dry earth, things like the deep and constant love of a spouse, or the innocent joy and trust of a child, as well as times where we were faithless, but God was faithful… After each spoken reflection, we responded as a community: we have forgotten, but you have remembered.
Our time of praying, reflecting and sharing culminated with the above litany. The rhythm of single voice followed by a communal response created a powerful and meaningful space of worship. If you find this of use, feel free to borrow it for your own personal reflections or in a worship gathering.
The great theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel would often quote a Hassidic master: “The Jew’s greatest sin is to forget that he is the son of a King.” There is power in remembering.