Sunday, May 30, 2010
Peter Rollins and Orthodoxy
At the same time as I picked up and began reading How (not) to Speak of God: Marks of the Emerging Church, I also picked up two recent anthologies of essays by Orthodox theologians: Thinking through Faith: New perspectives from Orthodox Christian scholars and Orthodoxy and Western Culture:A Collection of Essays Honoring Jaroslav Pelikan on His Eightieth Birthday. I am finding that Peter Rollins and some of these Orthodox scholars are saying very similar things but with a difference. Rollins seeks to affirm the tradition. However from my reading Rollins can't quite see that Revelation isn't merely human language about God but God reaching us in human language. So, Rollins tends towards the not speaking of (not) speaking, tends towards doubt that puts holes in affirmation, tends towards the experience of the cross without Resurrection. In this he mirrors much of Derrida who at moments will seek to not prioritize absence over presence recognizing that his philosophy would itself deconstruct such a priortizing but can not find a way to encounter presence/absence. What these Orthodox theologians are doing for me as I read them in parallel to Rollins is showing how to hold presence and absence together: how in absence we have presence and in presence we have absence and this is the holding always together Crucifixion and Resurrection, Jesus' divinity and humanity, God's hiddeness and God's unveiling in revelation. I believe this is what Rollins seeks to do but at lest in How (not) to Speak of God, at best he vacillates between the two but the weight is always on the "not to speak of God" that sometimes allows affirmation. But affirmation is always held in suspicion as the easy way out, that which undermines faith. Rollins is so afraid of false claims of absolute presence that at best he seems to touch it only to withdraw, as if Thomas the Twin touched Jesus' wombs without exclaiming "My Lord and my God" and withdrew again into the shadow of Holy Saturday. As if Thomas only whispered that affirmation and only ever after could whisper "My Lord and my God." As if such an affirmation erased the crucifixion and uncertainty, rather than compounding it. This is what the Orthodox scholars are saying is that in affirming the incredible that God is revealed in the Passion (Jesus Christ Crucifixion and Resurrection, is to be left in the unutterable reality of God.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Warm Leatherette - Trent Reznor, Jeordie White, Peter Murphy
And here's another video for your enjoyment. Keeping the "goth" in Priestly Goth Blog: Trent Reznor, Jeordie White and Peter Murphy performing a cover of Warm Leatherette originally by the Normal
"William Howard Taft": Two Man Gentlemen Band
For your Wednesday afternoon or evening enjoyment. This is delightful and cool. Found this thanks to Benjamin and Ectoplasmosis
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Preaching at Reconciler
I have posted my sermon for this evenings Ascension of Christ, observed worship service at 5 p.m. It isn't a children's sermon but a sermon seeking to be mindful that children are among those who make up the congregation. You can find it here at Reconciler's blog.
This sermon it is part of the result of my reflections I posted here on children in worship.
This sermon it is part of the result of my reflections I posted here on children in worship.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Children in Worship and the nature of the Liturgy
Reconciler has decided that it wants to have on some schedule some services that are intentionally inclusive of children, but not having a children's service as such. The materials I have found on this are quite varied. Quite a few are centered on services created for children next are services that are oriented towards creating a "family" oriented service as an additional service provided in the parish, and few materials oriented towards how to simply attend to the fact that the worshiping community includes children. All these approaches say that philosophically they are committed to the inclusion of Children in the worshiping life of hte church, not simply accommodating children in a worship service. All say that worship is something to be taught through doing. All are claim that the approach to children and worship is the means to obey Christ in his command "Do not hinder the littel ones from coming to me."
What all these approaches don't contemplate or simply reject outright is that children aren't simply children: while children aren't just little adults they are on a process of quite rapid development to being adult persons. It seems to me that the corporate worship of the church is one place where the telos of a child should be emphasized and the passing temporary world of the child is attended to but not emphasized. That is if in worship we are addressing the whole person of the child then in some sense we need to be addressing who this person as child is becoming and is to become. In fact I would say the liturgy so addresses the child we simply need to guide the child in attending this address. In fact this is what we all find in the liturgy: what is addressed is someone who we currently are not but to whom we are called. The liturgy of the church isn't an adult world as such but the world of the coming kingdom of God. In the liturgy we are brought into contact with what is not us. If we are truly including children we will teach them that their world is passing away, that they are not who they are to be, that in fact none of us are who we are to be, all things are passing away we are all together moving into and being formed into something other than we currently are.
The most helpful in this regard as it turns out are those resources that believe in more or less major transformations of the liturgy (I didn't find free church resources helpful here as they all assume that each instance of worship is constructed more or less from scratch from various elements, and was about how to construct these elements each week with children in mind). I found this helpful because of what these resources felt they needed to retain, that remained outside the "world of the child". In reviewing what these resources retained it occurred to me that they weren't simply retaining things that adults could relate to but that in fact the Gospel, Christian faith is something beyond the full grasp of a child. The child needs to learn to be comfortable with being asked to attend to that which they don't understand. But then again it occurred to me this is what the liturgy should do in the first place for all. In the liturgy, in worship, we encounter the one whom is beyond our grasp. We encounter the Gospel that is something other than we are, we are invited into the Kingdom of God, which is beyond our comprehension.
What I have concluded we need to be doing is what we should always be doing and which should be a reminder to ourselves about what we do as we submit to the liturgy of the church. What I am guiding Reconciler in doing in its services inclusive of children is inviting them to attend and participate in something that is not of their world as children, that is beyond their ability to understand,but in so doing I am also reminding myself and their parents and the whole congregation that this invitation to attend and wait upon that which is beyond oneself is what we all are doing. This is why the liturgy doesn't change radically from week to week or necessarily even age to age, we are being brought into contact with that which overflows the acts we do, and yet it is through these acts that we encounter what we do not know. It is in fact the way we do so. Invention and creation of variations in fact distracts us from that what we do in worship is not ours.
Granted we can become so familiar with the forms that we assume that the liturgy is our possession, but that is simply a sinful response to the liturgy, not its true meaning. The hope of the true inclusion of children in the liturgy is that we are all reminded that in the liturgy we are called beyond ourselves and encounter what we do not know and cannot fully comprehend. In the liturgy we encounter who we are to be.
What all these approaches don't contemplate or simply reject outright is that children aren't simply children: while children aren't just little adults they are on a process of quite rapid development to being adult persons. It seems to me that the corporate worship of the church is one place where the telos of a child should be emphasized and the passing temporary world of the child is attended to but not emphasized. That is if in worship we are addressing the whole person of the child then in some sense we need to be addressing who this person as child is becoming and is to become. In fact I would say the liturgy so addresses the child we simply need to guide the child in attending this address. In fact this is what we all find in the liturgy: what is addressed is someone who we currently are not but to whom we are called. The liturgy of the church isn't an adult world as such but the world of the coming kingdom of God. In the liturgy we are brought into contact with what is not us. If we are truly including children we will teach them that their world is passing away, that they are not who they are to be, that in fact none of us are who we are to be, all things are passing away we are all together moving into and being formed into something other than we currently are.
The most helpful in this regard as it turns out are those resources that believe in more or less major transformations of the liturgy (I didn't find free church resources helpful here as they all assume that each instance of worship is constructed more or less from scratch from various elements, and was about how to construct these elements each week with children in mind). I found this helpful because of what these resources felt they needed to retain, that remained outside the "world of the child". In reviewing what these resources retained it occurred to me that they weren't simply retaining things that adults could relate to but that in fact the Gospel, Christian faith is something beyond the full grasp of a child. The child needs to learn to be comfortable with being asked to attend to that which they don't understand. But then again it occurred to me this is what the liturgy should do in the first place for all. In the liturgy, in worship, we encounter the one whom is beyond our grasp. We encounter the Gospel that is something other than we are, we are invited into the Kingdom of God, which is beyond our comprehension.
What I have concluded we need to be doing is what we should always be doing and which should be a reminder to ourselves about what we do as we submit to the liturgy of the church. What I am guiding Reconciler in doing in its services inclusive of children is inviting them to attend and participate in something that is not of their world as children, that is beyond their ability to understand,but in so doing I am also reminding myself and their parents and the whole congregation that this invitation to attend and wait upon that which is beyond oneself is what we all are doing. This is why the liturgy doesn't change radically from week to week or necessarily even age to age, we are being brought into contact with that which overflows the acts we do, and yet it is through these acts that we encounter what we do not know. It is in fact the way we do so. Invention and creation of variations in fact distracts us from that what we do in worship is not ours.
Granted we can become so familiar with the forms that we assume that the liturgy is our possession, but that is simply a sinful response to the liturgy, not its true meaning. The hope of the true inclusion of children in the liturgy is that we are all reminded that in the liturgy we are called beyond ourselves and encounter what we do not know and cannot fully comprehend. In the liturgy we encounter who we are to be.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
On the apophatic and the kataphatic, in Peter Rollins
Recently, I Picked up from the library Peter Rollins book How (not) to Speak of God. The introduction pretty much sums up why I like the guy and why I find in the end am dissatisfied with his thought.
He begins quoting Ludwig Wittgenstien from the final sentence of the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." This for Rollins is contrasted with an other assertion he found in the evangelical charismatic movement "God is the one subject of whom we must never stop speaking." Rollins sees these two attitudes as two extremes that he found himself swinging between these two extremes that he says manifested in himself either as mystical humanism or religious fundamentalism. However, he came to the conclusion which the book is about that " these positions need not be enemies. The more I reflected upon the dept of these perspectives, the more I began to suspect that far from being utterly foreign to each other, there was away for them to inform and enrich each other."
In this discussion Rollins avoids the terms apophatic (away from the voice, ie not speaking of God) and the kataphatic (with voice/towards voice, speaking of God) and I think that is fair since I knew of these two ways before I was introduced to these Greek terms. But here is where I find Rollins both congenial and irritating at the same time: My faith has never been absent of these two positions (though they have been more approaches to God) and yet I have never really swung between these two positions. For me when he sums union of these two approaches as "That which we cannot speak of is the one thing about whom and to whom we must never stop speaking." this is my faith and it seems tom e that the best of the Evangelical Covenant Church, or its version of Lutheran Pietism, raised me within this place of holding both approaches to (not)speaking of God. The revelation for me wasn't that these two approaches are supposed to be together; rather the revelation for me was that pretty much this has been the orthodox way, and opinion. Granted people within orthodoxy may want to emphasize or may have a tendency towards one or the other, but the overall trajectory is towards the union of the approaches.
Rollins admits that this discover is something like Chesterton’s outline of the story yachtsman who gets lost and attempts to claim Britain for Britain. I appreciate this being said in the introduction since it seems that many in the Emergent movement don’t always take the time to admit that much of what they are talking about is a discovery for themselves and their communities but not the church as a whole through time. I feel towards the emergent church like the people who would watch the Chesterton yachtsman claiming Britain for Britain. Even so Rollins posture is towards explaining this discovery somehow revitalizes rather than a space that one has to inhabit abandoning previous habitations. Even I who was raised upon a Christian faith that more or less worked with some union of these approaches, has had to inhabit another space where that union is built in without skepticism of either silence or words in the face of God. Still it was skeptical of too much silence in the face of the divine. In the end I have had to embrace a concept of tradition as part of revelation as I have embraced ever more the union of these two approaches, and live in orthodoxy, for it is after all the saints fo the church who have lived this theology that Rollins has discovered that the Evangelical covenant Church taught me poorly.
But I hear Rollins: for those who thought they had to choose, for those who were never taught otherwise, this is a discovery. And perhaps a quite radical one, that seems heretical. Even so it is perhaps key to remember that the defenders of Nicene orthodoxy against the Arian heresy were also the ones who spoke of the union of the kataphatic and apophatic approaches to speech of God. So this is not only a very old understanding of theology but one that was not afraid to speak of those who in their speaking spoke not of the true God at all. This also needs to be recovered if this approach is to have Rollins hope for revitalization of Christianity in the West.
He begins quoting Ludwig Wittgenstien from the final sentence of the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." This for Rollins is contrasted with an other assertion he found in the evangelical charismatic movement "God is the one subject of whom we must never stop speaking." Rollins sees these two attitudes as two extremes that he found himself swinging between these two extremes that he says manifested in himself either as mystical humanism or religious fundamentalism. However, he came to the conclusion which the book is about that " these positions need not be enemies. The more I reflected upon the dept of these perspectives, the more I began to suspect that far from being utterly foreign to each other, there was away for them to inform and enrich each other."
In this discussion Rollins avoids the terms apophatic (away from the voice, ie not speaking of God) and the kataphatic (with voice/towards voice, speaking of God) and I think that is fair since I knew of these two ways before I was introduced to these Greek terms. But here is where I find Rollins both congenial and irritating at the same time: My faith has never been absent of these two positions (though they have been more approaches to God) and yet I have never really swung between these two positions. For me when he sums union of these two approaches as "That which we cannot speak of is the one thing about whom and to whom we must never stop speaking." this is my faith and it seems tom e that the best of the Evangelical Covenant Church, or its version of Lutheran Pietism, raised me within this place of holding both approaches to (not)speaking of God. The revelation for me wasn't that these two approaches are supposed to be together; rather the revelation for me was that pretty much this has been the orthodox way, and opinion. Granted people within orthodoxy may want to emphasize or may have a tendency towards one or the other, but the overall trajectory is towards the union of the approaches.
Rollins admits that this discover is something like Chesterton’s outline of the story yachtsman who gets lost and attempts to claim Britain for Britain. I appreciate this being said in the introduction since it seems that many in the Emergent movement don’t always take the time to admit that much of what they are talking about is a discovery for themselves and their communities but not the church as a whole through time. I feel towards the emergent church like the people who would watch the Chesterton yachtsman claiming Britain for Britain. Even so Rollins posture is towards explaining this discovery somehow revitalizes rather than a space that one has to inhabit abandoning previous habitations. Even I who was raised upon a Christian faith that more or less worked with some union of these approaches, has had to inhabit another space where that union is built in without skepticism of either silence or words in the face of God. Still it was skeptical of too much silence in the face of the divine. In the end I have had to embrace a concept of tradition as part of revelation as I have embraced ever more the union of these two approaches, and live in orthodoxy, for it is after all the saints fo the church who have lived this theology that Rollins has discovered that the Evangelical covenant Church taught me poorly.
But I hear Rollins: for those who thought they had to choose, for those who were never taught otherwise, this is a discovery. And perhaps a quite radical one, that seems heretical. Even so it is perhaps key to remember that the defenders of Nicene orthodoxy against the Arian heresy were also the ones who spoke of the union of the kataphatic and apophatic approaches to speech of God. So this is not only a very old understanding of theology but one that was not afraid to speak of those who in their speaking spoke not of the true God at all. This also needs to be recovered if this approach is to have Rollins hope for revitalization of Christianity in the West.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
The Next Exhbition at Artropolis
Artropolis was this past weekend, and a friend of ours got us complimentary tickets. So, Kate and I arranged our Saturday Schedules and headed down to the Merchandise Mart for a couple of hours.
We only had time and energy to wander around the Next Exhibition of Emerging Art. A great deal of what was there was of passing interest, which might be expected. a good bit of what we saw in various ways had a whimsical feel or playing with expectation of the viewer based on a shared understanding of art history. Also, there was the stuff that was based in the perfection or use of a particular technique, that while I find interesting always leaves me disappointed because technique itself rarely says anything.
There was one Chicago based artist who used a great deal of color and a complex technique of painting that included layers of resin and paint. the milling about of people and that this was a trade show after all, kept me from quite being able to enter into his work. I think I would have liked to spend time simply standing and sitting in front of his paintings, to be able to encounter the painting in a museum setting. His work was fairly dominated by his technique but his work was also saying something, and it was really beautiful.
There were also several artists who either are Japanese and Chinese or Japanese American and Chinese American who had some striking and beautiful work that worked in what I could recognize as traditional styles, not simply references but also had them in conversation with other traditions, techniques and styles.
We only had time and energy to wander around the Next Exhibition of Emerging Art. A great deal of what was there was of passing interest, which might be expected. a good bit of what we saw in various ways had a whimsical feel or playing with expectation of the viewer based on a shared understanding of art history. Also, there was the stuff that was based in the perfection or use of a particular technique, that while I find interesting always leaves me disappointed because technique itself rarely says anything.
There was one Chicago based artist who used a great deal of color and a complex technique of painting that included layers of resin and paint. the milling about of people and that this was a trade show after all, kept me from quite being able to enter into his work. I think I would have liked to spend time simply standing and sitting in front of his paintings, to be able to encounter the painting in a museum setting. His work was fairly dominated by his technique but his work was also saying something, and it was really beautiful.
There were also several artists who either are Japanese and Chinese or Japanese American and Chinese American who had some striking and beautiful work that worked in what I could recognize as traditional styles, not simply references but also had them in conversation with other traditions, techniques and styles.
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Sermon Musings on a Saturday
This Sunday once again we find ourselves in familiar territory if one has spent any amount of time in church and youth camp, at least in the 1970's and 1980's. The Gospel text for this Sunday is paraphrased in that song with the refrain "... and they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our Love. Yes they'll know we are Christians by our love." It is also familiar territory to grumble and remonstrate how unfortunate it is that this is not the case in actuality. Whenever I encounter such a very familiar text, one that is almost over used and seemingly at the same time also misunderstood in that familiarity, I at first want to charge ahead and beat down all the misconceptions and misuse of the text. And it is not only the Gospel text of John 13 in our lectionary this week that has this problem but also the story of Peter and Cornelius and the Spirit's first descent upon Gentiles. This is perhaps less familiar but is popularly used in both by proponents of multi-ethnic/racial congregations and acceptance of homosexuality and other sexual identities within the church. Love and God's acceptance of the Gentiles. This really should be easy, and yet...
Peter concludes his defense of his actions with going to Cornelius and baptizing gentiles who had not been circumcised saying "If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?" (Acts 11:17) and the church in Jerusalem responded "When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life." (Acts 11:18)
Suddenly this looks less like acceptance of difference as that no matter who you are God gives you the gift of repentance. How did Jesus love us? Jesus walked around Judea and Galilee preaching repentance and through repentance entrance to the Kingdom of God to all, and ultimately died so that said gift and repentance could be settled and guaranteed.
What the first Christians thought initially that only the people of Israel were offered this repentance. The good news and the love God offers is this opportunity to repent. This means that whoever we are whatever our identity, we need to repent, and the ability and the chance to do so is God's gift to the entire cosmos, and all humanity. Love one another as I have loved you remind one another about the gift of repentance and the world will know you are my disciples, and offer that repentance to everyone no matter what they do or how they identify. But this means all still need to repent.
Hmm... I think that's my sermon, more or less.
Peter concludes his defense of his actions with going to Cornelius and baptizing gentiles who had not been circumcised saying "If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?" (Acts 11:17) and the church in Jerusalem responded "When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life." (Acts 11:18)
Suddenly this looks less like acceptance of difference as that no matter who you are God gives you the gift of repentance. How did Jesus love us? Jesus walked around Judea and Galilee preaching repentance and through repentance entrance to the Kingdom of God to all, and ultimately died so that said gift and repentance could be settled and guaranteed.
What the first Christians thought initially that only the people of Israel were offered this repentance. The good news and the love God offers is this opportunity to repent. This means that whoever we are whatever our identity, we need to repent, and the ability and the chance to do so is God's gift to the entire cosmos, and all humanity. Love one another as I have loved you remind one another about the gift of repentance and the world will know you are my disciples, and offer that repentance to everyone no matter what they do or how they identify. But this means all still need to repent.
Hmm... I think that's my sermon, more or less.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)