Peter Rollins did a twitter chat interview with Third Way Magazine yesterday. I put together a transcript for those who would be interested. It was fun to see Peter limited to short answers (twitter only allows messages to be 140 characters long), as he usually has long, detailed responses which bunny-trail in several different directions (and you wonder why I like him!). I cleaned it up a little to get rid of text-speak and possible confusion from the letter limit.
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Third Way: We should get this one in first. Someone asked: 'If I've never heard of you, can you sum yourself up in 140 characters?'
Peter Rollins: Orthodox heretic, a/theist, Christian in the non-Christian sense of the term, bluffer and lover of Columbo
We'll get to some of that but, first, 'Orthodox heretic' sounds like an oxymoron, or is that a false opposition?
Orthodox is often thought to mean 'right belief', but perhaps it is better thought of as 'right praise'... in this way one can be orthodox while being a heretic... i.e. living in praise while acknowledging that we get God wrong
So to be orthodox, or to be heretic, or to be an orthodox heretic – are these things we should have as ambitions?
Being a heretic is not enough. There are good and bad heretics. One must try to be an orthodox one. A heretic who tries to live in love.
Also, being orthodox is not enough... without acknowledging you are a heretic pride can enter
How can you authentically praise something if you know you might be wrong about what you're praising?
If I fall in love I may not know what would please the person, but I act with the best knowledge I have, & in fear and trembling. certainty is not needed in order to act... love is!
@rhull56 asks 'What convinces Peter that the idea of God is worth taking seriously?'
Philosophers take the question seriously. Not so sure Christians should... Christians should b more interested in Christ-living
Wow... its hard getting big concepts shoe-horned into twitter (good question BTW)
Then perhaps he'd add 'Why Christ?' In the book you adapt Buddhist tales, for example.
Because the life (of Christ) that we read of is a radical one that, if followed, could lead to the continued transformation of society... Christianity, I believe is a radical faith based upon a radical idea. But I think that much of the actually existing churches misses this...
Perhaps only Marxists are as guilty as Christians of misrepresenting their founder
The shoe-horn point: The Orthodox Heretic reminds us that Jesus spoke to uneducated 1st Century peasants. Should all theology be that digestible?
We need to distinguish between theology & the truth of faith. The former is intellectually demanding the later is life demanding. Jesus was mostly about the truth rather than theology.
Not that theology is wrong at all! Its just not true :)
When Jesus spoke of the Father, was that true?
Yes & No. God as a Father 'yes', but as any kind of Father we experience 'no'. This 'yes/no' operates in all theology. It reveals something which remains all the time concealed. Belief should not be read as empirical certainty. Belief is more than this, it involves doubt, commitment, hope, faith and desire
Where does that leave the creeds? The 'We believe'?
The creeds attempt to help re-orient our lives, so that those 'beliefs' become modes of being. We come to live the death and resurrection. When we say, 'I believe in the resurrection' we primarily commit ourselves to becoming the site of new life to those around us. It is not primarily a mere intellectual assent.
There's nothing simple about a fable, but this book is more accessible than the others. What was the thinking behind that?
Buddhism has koans to draw out Enlightenment, we have parables... I wanted to explore this. I think attempting to change how people think is limited. I want to transform who we are. Parables are a mode of doing this.
these fables will get used by preachers. If each reader is the writer, how do we build one united body of believers?
We are unified not by shared belief but by a love and commitment to the same source. Unity in difference. We are often not good at this.
How might that work in practice? Between, say, Bishops Robinson & Akinola?
The creation of suspended space in which liberal & conservative lay down their positions in the liturgical hour2encounter each other. This is the place of 'neither/nor'... neither Jew nor Greek, Gay nor Straight, liberal nor conservative.
It is a participation in the divine Kenosis (see Philippians 2:7: "Jesus made himself nothing...") in which God is emptied of all identity. We do this and take on the identity of Christ.
you suggest that Jesus' teaching was often audience-specific, changing according to context. So was he a moral relativist?
No, he was driven by love. The issue however is that love is not possible to pin down. When we make love concrete we distort love... but we must do this anyway. Love is what drives us, but when we put it in to action it will look different in different contexts
in some tales you, the writer, imagine new words into his (Jesus) mouth. But yet you also warn against personal conceptions of God?
Both under-describing and over-describing are strategies for making sure we do not reduce God to our understanding. The Bible does both. God is given various personalities (warrior, peacemaker, unchanging, changing) & also we are told God is un-nameable.
The point of these parables is not to describe something but to perform something... Parables are a performative discourse
Thanks very much Pete. One final question from @sch3lp: 'What's the dynamic between story, its teller and its hearer?'
hmmm Story is like the child, teller is like the mother and the hearer is like one who adopts the child
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Let me know your thoughts! I especially enjoyed the distinction he made between, theology and the life of faith, as well as the thoughts on belief and certainty.
Showing posts with label postmodern. Show all posts
Showing posts with label postmodern. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
questions from "The Orthodox Heretic"
Here are some of the questions that I draw from the story of "The Orthodox Heretic".
The first point the town leaders bring up is that they need to return the man to the government he escaped from so that the rest of the town is not endangered. They know that this man will be punished by the authorities, but they believe that it has to be done or the entire town will suffer. In their view, the good of many outweighs the good of one. The caretaker, however, is more concerned with the needs of this man he has rescued. His view is not a selfish one of "my good is higher than the good of all", but is completely unselfish in that he is willing to suffer to protect this criminal. He believes that as a community, the needs of the most vulnerable should be the concern of the entire town, and that nobody in the town is okay if even one member is not okay.
"The good of the many outweighs the good of the few" is a very dominant philosophy in the US, especially when it comes to the systems our country is built on. But these assumptions are currently under heavy discussion, from government to business to military to foreign aid. How does the circumstance of the few affect the many? What are alternative understandings of the relationship between the many and the few? As Christians, how do we find our position impacted by the Bible, both specific instances but also the larger story arcs of Scripture?
Another question that I find in this parable has to do with "truth" and "love". The town leaders seem to have political truth, Scriptural truth, and even God's audible voice on their side, but the caretaker appears to be completely motivated by love for this stranger, even at the cost of his own life. Now I'm not trying to create an artificial division between truth and love, but I can sure think of times where I've been stuck in a position similar to this. Is it better to have truth or love? Is there ever a time they can or should put placed "against" each other? Is it possible that both positions in this story (and in some of our daily stories) are "right"?
Finally, I think it asks the question of how to respond to people with completely different world views, especially when those world views can be backed up with the Bible. I am increasingly aware that anybody can make the Bible say anything they want, and I'm sure most of us have seen plenty of evidence for that too. Many people leave behind Scripture at this point, because they think it doesn't have anything solid or true to say and can too easily be abused or manipulated, or they cling to one interpretation of Scripture at the exclusion of any differing understanding. Take a look at the 20th century phenomenon known as "liberalism vs. fundamentalism" to prove my point. Both of these ideologies tend to be reactionary, angry, and violent (not physically (at least in the USA), but emotionally and verbally). I don't think either approach is sufficient or helpful for moving forward, and this parable forces us to address this roadblock head on.
The parable gives value to, and even supports, BOTH viewpoints, while leaving us with the awkward feeling that both parties are simultaneously right AND wrong. We can see the reason behind why each group acts the way they do, while not being completely satisfied with either group's choices. And this dis-satisfaction leaves us humble, looking for another way, open to new ideas from God, because we realize that even with the best theology and best actions, we desperately need God's help to understand and obey him.
The first point the town leaders bring up is that they need to return the man to the government he escaped from so that the rest of the town is not endangered. They know that this man will be punished by the authorities, but they believe that it has to be done or the entire town will suffer. In their view, the good of many outweighs the good of one. The caretaker, however, is more concerned with the needs of this man he has rescued. His view is not a selfish one of "my good is higher than the good of all", but is completely unselfish in that he is willing to suffer to protect this criminal. He believes that as a community, the needs of the most vulnerable should be the concern of the entire town, and that nobody in the town is okay if even one member is not okay.
"The good of the many outweighs the good of the few" is a very dominant philosophy in the US, especially when it comes to the systems our country is built on. But these assumptions are currently under heavy discussion, from government to business to military to foreign aid. How does the circumstance of the few affect the many? What are alternative understandings of the relationship between the many and the few? As Christians, how do we find our position impacted by the Bible, both specific instances but also the larger story arcs of Scripture?
Another question that I find in this parable has to do with "truth" and "love". The town leaders seem to have political truth, Scriptural truth, and even God's audible voice on their side, but the caretaker appears to be completely motivated by love for this stranger, even at the cost of his own life. Now I'm not trying to create an artificial division between truth and love, but I can sure think of times where I've been stuck in a position similar to this. Is it better to have truth or love? Is there ever a time they can or should put placed "against" each other? Is it possible that both positions in this story (and in some of our daily stories) are "right"?
Finally, I think it asks the question of how to respond to people with completely different world views, especially when those world views can be backed up with the Bible. I am increasingly aware that anybody can make the Bible say anything they want, and I'm sure most of us have seen plenty of evidence for that too. Many people leave behind Scripture at this point, because they think it doesn't have anything solid or true to say and can too easily be abused or manipulated, or they cling to one interpretation of Scripture at the exclusion of any differing understanding. Take a look at the 20th century phenomenon known as "liberalism vs. fundamentalism" to prove my point. Both of these ideologies tend to be reactionary, angry, and violent (not physically (at least in the USA), but emotionally and verbally). I don't think either approach is sufficient or helpful for moving forward, and this parable forces us to address this roadblock head on.
The parable gives value to, and even supports, BOTH viewpoints, while leaving us with the awkward feeling that both parties are simultaneously right AND wrong. We can see the reason behind why each group acts the way they do, while not being completely satisfied with either group's choices. And this dis-satisfaction leaves us humble, looking for another way, open to new ideas from God, because we realize that even with the best theology and best actions, we desperately need God's help to understand and obey him.
some thoughts about "The Orthodox Heretic"
A couple weeks ago I posted the video clip of a parable from Peter Rollins new book "The Orthodox Heretic". One of my friends, Matt, commented on the post and asked me to post some of my thoughts about the story. I didn't want to right away, for a few reasons. I didn't really know what I thought about it. That's kind of why I posted it.
I think the intention of the parable is not to declare some truth about God or people or religion, but to force us to think about something we otherwise probably wouldn't think about (or maybe even ignore because we don't WANT to think about it). I think the temptation is to dissect the story and try to place it into a category that gives us some form of stand-alone truth, or make it fit the mold we expect it to fit. But that's not what the story is about, and if we do that, then the story loses it's power.
I've listened to it a few times and I'm never comfortable with it. It doesn't resolve nicely. It doesn't offer a clear division between the "good guys" and the "bad guys". It doesn't try to give simple answers to complex questions. Instead, it asks questions that are difficult and frustrating. But at the same time, they are questions that align pretty closely with paradoxes I keep running into in my own walk with God.
Here's a couple observations:
He doesn't set the town leaders/religious people against the care-taker. Both disagree completely on how to handle the situation, but they treat each other with respect, civility, and love throughout. Both groups are shown to be people who honor God and take obedience very seriously (yes, even in the very last scene).
Notice that the "criminal" is charged with being critical of both the state and the church, and yet a God-follower takes him in and cares for him.
Peter has said in other places that the main question behind this parable (and his entire book) is (and I'm paraphrasing) "What do you do when in order to obey God, you have to disobey God? What do you do when in order to keep your beliefs, you have to betray your beliefs? What do you do when in order to remain "orthodox", you have to take a "heretical" position?"
The idea is that Christianity is constantly at odds with itself, because it is an institution that is against all institution and a religion that is against all religion. That Christianity draws a circle around who is in and who is out, and then immediately demands it's followers to leave the inside and go to the ones who are out, so in a sense those who remain "in" the safety of the circle become the ones who are now "out". It is full of what seems to be contradictions, and we Christians have caused immense amounts of pain and confusion because we try to ignore the contradictions and build a nice safe theology that tries to make everything okay. Now that in and of itself is worthy of a whole series of blog posts, but I don't want to get side tracked by spending any more time on that now.
I've got some of my own questions that were raised from this parable, and I'll post them next time in order to make this shorter and (hopefully) slightly more readable. The good news is that I've already written it all, so I'm not going to bail on you half way through like I did with the Great Emergence series...
I think the intention of the parable is not to declare some truth about God or people or religion, but to force us to think about something we otherwise probably wouldn't think about (or maybe even ignore because we don't WANT to think about it). I think the temptation is to dissect the story and try to place it into a category that gives us some form of stand-alone truth, or make it fit the mold we expect it to fit. But that's not what the story is about, and if we do that, then the story loses it's power.
I've listened to it a few times and I'm never comfortable with it. It doesn't resolve nicely. It doesn't offer a clear division between the "good guys" and the "bad guys". It doesn't try to give simple answers to complex questions. Instead, it asks questions that are difficult and frustrating. But at the same time, they are questions that align pretty closely with paradoxes I keep running into in my own walk with God.
Here's a couple observations:
He doesn't set the town leaders/religious people against the care-taker. Both disagree completely on how to handle the situation, but they treat each other with respect, civility, and love throughout. Both groups are shown to be people who honor God and take obedience very seriously (yes, even in the very last scene).
Notice that the "criminal" is charged with being critical of both the state and the church, and yet a God-follower takes him in and cares for him.
Peter has said in other places that the main question behind this parable (and his entire book) is (and I'm paraphrasing) "What do you do when in order to obey God, you have to disobey God? What do you do when in order to keep your beliefs, you have to betray your beliefs? What do you do when in order to remain "orthodox", you have to take a "heretical" position?"
The idea is that Christianity is constantly at odds with itself, because it is an institution that is against all institution and a religion that is against all religion. That Christianity draws a circle around who is in and who is out, and then immediately demands it's followers to leave the inside and go to the ones who are out, so in a sense those who remain "in" the safety of the circle become the ones who are now "out". It is full of what seems to be contradictions, and we Christians have caused immense amounts of pain and confusion because we try to ignore the contradictions and build a nice safe theology that tries to make everything okay. Now that in and of itself is worthy of a whole series of blog posts, but I don't want to get side tracked by spending any more time on that now.
I've got some of my own questions that were raised from this parable, and I'll post them next time in order to make this shorter and (hopefully) slightly more readable. The good news is that I've already written it all, so I'm not going to bail on you half way through like I did with the Great Emergence series...
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Orthodox Heretic: A Parable
I want to share a parable from Peter Rollins, a leader of an experimental faith community in Belfast, Ireland called Ikon. He has a new book coming out in a few weeks called "The Orthodox Heretic: and Other Impossible Tales" that is made up entirely of parables. The video below is Peter reading one of the parables from this book. I think it's pretty interesting. Remember, the point of this parable is not to give an answer, but to ask a question. I have a feeling there will be many different responses to this, so I would love to hear your thoughts after watching this video and check out some of his other videos on youtube as well. He has 2 more parables and a couple other short videos with interesting ideas.
***I can't seem to get the video to work when it's embedded into this page, so watch it here. Let me know if you have any problems.***
***I can't seem to get the video to work when it's embedded into this page, so watch it here. Let me know if you have any problems.***
Friday, March 16, 2007
vagueness
So I kinda had a brain dump in ideas this morning as I was sitting on the couch talking to God. It was one of those times where there was a constant stream of "I wonder if..." thoughts started flowing, and before I could really start processing that idea, the next was coming. So I threw em down on a sticky note to remember... and then left the sticky note in the car somewhere. So I'm running off memory now...
Discussing Rob Bell's new book Sex God last night with some friends left the impression that he was too vague on certain key points. Was he watering down truth to appeal to a seeker sensitive crowd? Was he trying to provide a first step to get people thinking about those points that they maybe had never considered before? What was his agenda?
After visiting Mars Hill in January (Isn't She Beautiful conference) I don't doubt his motives are pure. He has a high opinion of the Bible and truly wants to find out what Jesus was trying to say. And then the goal is to wrap your life around those ideas- not wrap the Bible around the ideas we already have.
And I think that is where the vagueness comes in. It's actually a trademark of the whole postmodern/emergent/deconstruction approach. The goal is not so much to instruct. The goal is to ask questions.
So when Rob Bell is discussing an idea or passage, he presents what the ideas might have meant considering who said it, who they said it to, and what was going on in their world (to the best of our knowledge). And then he stops. He purposefully leaves it vague. He wants the tension. He wants you to ask "So what does this mean?". The interpretation is up to you. Is this dangerous? Of course. People are rather creative, and you never know what wacky idea someone could come up with. But is it any more dangerous than telling someone what to think? Is it less?
There is always danger when people start to think. But there is probably more danger when they don't. If you are really serious about this topic, you will wrestle with it, study it, think about it, and let God speak to you. You won't get an easy answer, but some things don't have easy answers. Sometimes you have to work out your faith with fear and trembling.
Discussing Rob Bell's new book Sex God last night with some friends left the impression that he was too vague on certain key points. Was he watering down truth to appeal to a seeker sensitive crowd? Was he trying to provide a first step to get people thinking about those points that they maybe had never considered before? What was his agenda?
After visiting Mars Hill in January (Isn't She Beautiful conference) I don't doubt his motives are pure. He has a high opinion of the Bible and truly wants to find out what Jesus was trying to say. And then the goal is to wrap your life around those ideas- not wrap the Bible around the ideas we already have.
And I think that is where the vagueness comes in. It's actually a trademark of the whole postmodern/emergent/deconstruction approach. The goal is not so much to instruct. The goal is to ask questions.
So when Rob Bell is discussing an idea or passage, he presents what the ideas might have meant considering who said it, who they said it to, and what was going on in their world (to the best of our knowledge). And then he stops. He purposefully leaves it vague. He wants the tension. He wants you to ask "So what does this mean?". The interpretation is up to you. Is this dangerous? Of course. People are rather creative, and you never know what wacky idea someone could come up with. But is it any more dangerous than telling someone what to think? Is it less?
There is always danger when people start to think. But there is probably more danger when they don't. If you are really serious about this topic, you will wrestle with it, study it, think about it, and let God speak to you. You won't get an easy answer, but some things don't have easy answers. Sometimes you have to work out your faith with fear and trembling.
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