(Ir)religiosity

Evernote is hands down my favorite Mac application.  It creates space for all the things I find worth keeping on the web (unless it’s a full page, I use Delicious for that) or noting.  It is my all-purpose capturing tool.  And it does what it does very well.

Now things just got better.

Following David Wierzbicki’s lead I’ve decided to share one of my Evernote notebooks.  This one is my primary repository for good quotes, short thoughts, and other nuggets that don’t really warrant a Delicious save but I’d still like to keep archived for reference. Up until now I’ve only used it intermittently, but I hope to put it too good use now that I’ll be sharing.

So if you have an Evernote account you can link my web clippings notebook to your account, or, if you don’t use Evernote (I don’t know why you wouldn’t!) you can grab the RSS feed.

Also, if you are sharing with Evernote, let me know and I’ll add you.

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There is a really interesting post over at the Church Postmodern Culture blog contesting Peter Rollins’s claim that Slavoj Žižek is a “dialectical materialist theologian.”  Geoffrey Holsclaw suggests that to call Žižek a theologian is to “misunderstand Žižek’s project” as an atheist (albeit a certain type of atheist which should be carefully distinguished from the new atheist fundamentalists a la “Ditchkins“) and to “seriously downgrade theology.”

Interesting. And strong.

Which raises the question: what does it take to be a theologian?  What are the qualifications, prerequisites, and prior philosophical convictions to which one must assent in order to claim the title theologian?

In the case of Žižek, I find it a bit odd to dismiss him as theologian purely on his being an atheist and possibly tainting theology.  First, such a stance supposes an unvarying notion of atheism.  Žižek is not your normal (modern) atheist and would undoubtedly detest the idea of being grouped together with the likes of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens in the same way that progressive Christians dislike being painted with the same brush as Christian fundamentalists.  So I think that charge lacks the proper nuance and care.  Furthermore, aren’t we all atheists of some sort?  Don’t we all reject certain gods?

Second, the accusation that naming Žižek as a theologian does the theological enterprise itself a disservice supposes a very rigid definition of theology and may give Žižek more credit than is due.  As far as I can tell, Žižek rejects any notion of transcendence, a tenet that Holsclaw believes to be central to the aim of theology.  He writes:

If theology is merely the sociology or anthropology of religion run through the Lacanian registers of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real, then I might as well become a stock broker.  If theology is merely explication of the immanent infinitude of human subjectivity, the void of the cosmos, the height and depth of reality, then let’s own up to that (which I believe Žižek has).

Why should these things be off the table?  I for one would like to keep the channels of conversation open here rather than demanding that all theologizing acceptance some idea of transcendence.    Here is a question:  does a theologian need to choose between the two, between transcendence and immanence?  Is one acceptable and the other out of bounds?  Does one need to accept a certain definition of God and ultimate reality before being allowed a place at the table that is theology?

Setting Žižek aside, I’d like to go back to that original question.  What does it take to be a theologian? Who qualifies?  At the superficial level, I’m tempted to say that everyone is a theologian whether he or she realizes it or not.  Our mode of being in the world will always already be emblematic of our belief(s) about God and ultimate reality whether we overtly confess that belief or not.   But I understand the need to zero in on something more precise.  I just wonder if placing superfluous limitations on what it means to be a theologian is more of a reflection on our own notions about God, religion, and divinity than the larger enterprise itself.  I become deeply suspicious once we start taking things off the table for questioning.

I’m interesting in your thoughts on this.  How would you define a theologian?  What does it take to be one?

How will support for same-sex marriage change over time?  Significantly.  The generation gap is huge right now.  Some gurus at Colombia University have broken down the statistics by age and state.  Money quote: “If policy were set by state-by-state majorities of those 65 or older, none would allow same-sex marriage. If policy were set by those under 30, only 12 states would not allow-same-sex marriage.”

So Slavoj Žižek and John Milbank have made several public appearances/debates promoting their book The Monstrosity of Christ:  Paradox of Dialectic.  I missed the Boston date earlier this year and have been looking for some audio/video of the debate since then.  I finally found a good link.  Žižek and Milbank made an appearance at the ICA in London a few days ago (ht Peter Rollins) and someone managed to capture some audio Mariborchan (a wonderful new blog I discovered with some really great audio/video links of Žižek and others) recorded the entire event.   If you haven’t bought the book already and don’t particularly like shelling out cash for brand new hardbacks like me, then you might be interesting in this.

Here’s an interesting quote from the Žižekian perspective from Kester Brewin:

The radical kernel that is left at this death, which Zizek sees as the death of God – Father and Son, is the ‘Holy Ghost community.’ Our separation from God, our abandonment by God – in Job and in Christ’s death – means that we end up actually in the same place as God in Christ: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ And, according to Zizek, those who are thus true Christians are those who have embraced this abandonment by God and gathered as the church, the ‘Holy Ghost community’ to live out the radical implications of that death… it is this human community that is the resurrection of God.

I haven’t been able to listen to much of the audio yet, but Kester’s take on it really makes me want to listen…and then jump into the book.

Marika Rose’s latest post over at Open Table Theology (a fine new community blog you should all subscribe to, by the way) got me to thinking about my love-hate relationship with systematic theology.

It’s not that I reject systematic theology wholesale.  I understand that at its best it is very important for a robust understanding of the Christian tradition and I utilize it myself and often rely on key systematic figures in my own thought.  But still, there’s something about it that doesn’t quite set right with me.

My main objection is that systematic theology is largely a modern enterprise, meaning a couple of things.  First, it is beholden to a rational,  and sometimes positivist, worldview which tends to treat the divine as some sort of scientific object to observed and dissected from a distance rather than a reality to be participated in.  Hence the expression that theology is the “queen of the sciences.”  To suggest that theology is a science at all, let alone the superior one, is already to posit a certain type of form and method that is always chasing objectivity.  Naturally, the need to delineate and taxonomize things into neat little air tight systems comes next.  So theology is fractured into all sorts of sub-genres and compartmentalized into different categories and groupings.  Again, I don’t want to categorically reject the categories.  They aren’t inherently bad.  At their best they help to point us in the right direction, but I think they more often than not tend to serve as conceptual idols, as do our systems.

And I guess that’s my biggest beef.  That systematic theology, as good and as helpful as it may be, is prone to creating conceptual idols and constructing impenetrable systems that resist any contribution from someone not perceived to be an “expert” by an esoteric — and often parochial — community.  And if we agree that all theology is political then I think we will most definitely find that systematic theology is often used to reinforce the status quo at the center rather than identifying with those on the margins; and as Leonard Sweet has said, “a move to the center is a move away from Jesus.”  So at its worst systematic theology serves as a handmaiden to the political status quo.  In that respect I think Walter Brueggmann was really on to something when he wrote that “empires prefer systematic theologians” in the first edition of his The Prophetic Imagination (interestingly, that line was removed in the second edition; I’m in the process of trying to figure out why).  Augustine’s early development of just war theory in the fourth century as the church was beginning to gain rapport with the Roman Empire would be a prime example.

Again, I don’t say any of this to negate the worth and usefulness of systematic theology.  I affirm that.  But I’m still suspicious.  Suspicious that when we create systems and taxonomies we tend to hold them much too tightly as if they themselves are without error.  But all our models are fallible.  Period.  The temptation is to construct an appealing system and then cram God into it.  I think it should be the other way around.  What I see God doing in Jesus is rupturing every human system and every finite construction with an un-tamable type of dynamism and vitality.  Those systems are, I think, only useful insofar as they point us toward the divine, but too often we mistake the systems themselves for the divine.  When it’s all said and done we have to be able to say along with Thomas Aquinas (who was the first systematic theologian and wrote perhaps the most epic systematic theology ever) that our systems, constructions, and taxonomies are “all straw” in comparison to the great mystery and paradox that is this ultimate reality in which we all share.

So I wonder, if systematic theology in its current state is in fact hopelessly beholden to a modern worldview as I suspect it is, what might a postmodern systematic theology look like?  Or is that even possible?  What think you?

In honor of his birthday this past Saturday, here is one of my favorite poems from one of my favorite poets.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven:

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

– William Butler Yeats

It will be tweeted.  Every major US media outlet failed to cover Iran on the brink of revolution yesterday.  I think this picture really encapsulates it.

A lone protester confronts police forces.

Many protesters inside Iran are tweeting.  Here’s a pretty good list.

Ken Wilber‘s A Brief History of Everything was in the middle of my “to read” stack until I saw this video yesterday morning, now it’s at the top.  I’m still not completely sure what to make of this — I thought about it all day yesterday.  The more I think about it the more it really makes sense to me, the idea that “I Am-ness,” or consciousness, is always and has always been ever present as is God. I wonder what the relationship between this and God is.

I’m starting to wonder how this may change my ideas and definitions about God.

I need to read more about integral theory and spiral dynamics.

To finish off my United Methodist History/Doctrine course last semester the entire class particpated in a “semester conference.  As students we were required to offer a few things we would change about the church (theology, polity, etc.) and a few things we’d like to see retained and passed on to the next generation.  I won’t mention my “changes” because frankly those took up too much of my floor time and I feel like a could write a book about them.  And I tend to be deconstructive by nature, which means it is good for me to talk about what I am for from time to time.

I mentioned two things that I felt should be kept in the Methodist tradition, two things I think have been abandoned for the sake of institutionalization and bureaucracy and two things that I believe lie at the heart of John Wesley‘s legacy:  Christian perfection and the General Rules.  Christian perfection seemed to get a lot of airtime that day so I chose to talk primarily about the General Rules which are 1) to do no harm, 2) to do all the good possible, and 3) to attend to all the ordinances of God (prayer, corporate worship, Eucharist, etc.).  Sadly, most Methodists haven’t the faintest idea of what these are and have probably never heard of them.  Which is unfortunate because I think they provide one of the best and most concise guides for following in the Way of Jesus.

So I was thrilled when I saw the title of Kevin Watson’s new book A Blue Print for Discipleship: Wesley’s General Rules as a Guide for Christian Living. Not only does Kevin share my admiration for the General Rules, he is also interested in discipleship, another area in which Wesley was a true innovator, and, unfortunately, an area where the UMC seems to be failing (at least in the US) given its recent decline.

Like any good Wesleyan, Kevin notes the primacy of grace in all stages of ones Christian life, the goal of which is to participate in the divine life for the sake and transformation of the world.  This divine grace permeates Kevin’s appropriation all three of the rules as well as his understanding of Wesley’s strategy for implementing them in practice, in community.  For Kevin, Wesley’s model, which he describes wonderfully in way that is very accessible, is the most effective way to empower persons to transition from “nominal Christians” to “deeply committed Christians” — those who live the radical way of Jesus in their own contexts and communities.  To me, this blueprint for discipleship, as Kevin calls it, is the real genius of Wesley’s legacy.  But unfortunately many Methodists and Wesleyans are unaware of that gift. Kevin’s work is a wonderful contribution toward the endeavor of recovering and reclaiming Wesley’s robust understanding of discipleship.

The real strength of the book is its attention toward Christian practice and affection for the local church.  Like I said, it is very accessible, short (just over 100 pages), complete with discussion questions at the end of each chapter and an appendix guide for small group study.  The book is full of helpful examples and anecdotes that situate the General Rules and Wesley’s ethos within the life of the church as well as Kevin’s own personal journey.  To that end, I think the book is an excellent resource for local churches that are seeking to revitalize or even implement for the first time, a serious discipleship program that takes seriously Wesley’s robust theological legacy.

Much ink has been spilled with the purpose of exploring Wesley’s theology.  And that’s wonderful.  But unfortunately, books like Kevin’s, books that explore the practical ramifications of Wesley’s blueprint for discipleship, are a rarity (in my estimation at least).  Folks tend to forget that that area was Wesley’s speciality.  It is my deep hope that his legacy can be recovered.   I think Kevin’s book represents and important and helpful effort to do so. An effort that indicates a robust understanding of Wesley’s theology at a theoretical level, but is very much rooted in the life of the local church as the most significant arena in which discipleship takes place.

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