Peter Rollins's Blog, page 40
October 6, 2012
The Idolatry of God (UK release)
Sorry that I haven’t been writing much here but I have been on a tour in Australia and New Zealand. However I just found out that my latest book has just been released in the UK. The description on Amazon says,
In contrast to the usual answers concerning what the Good News might be, incendiary philosopher-theologian Peter Rollins suggests an alternative, radical definition: you can’t be satisfied, life is difficult, and you don’t know the secret.
Arguing that God has traditionally been thought of as a type of product that will make you whole, remove your suffering and give you the truth, Rollins contrasts this with an approach to faith that invites us to embrace suffering, face up to our unknowing and fully accept the difficulties of existence.
If you would like to purchase it then click here
September 2, 2012
Love, Loss and the Uncoupling of Our World
I am currently reading Slavjo Zizek’s latest book Less Than Nothing. It is a profound and systematic work (though I must warn that if you don’t have a background in continental philosophy it is difficult). Anyway, the following reflections are directly inspired by his writing on Malebranche, Occasionalism and the Big Other found there.
Descartes famously theorised that the human being was made up of two different substances: a body and spirit/soul/mind. In order to understand how these interacted he postulated the existence of what he called the Pineal Gland. This was, for Descartes, the physical location where the two substances united.
The problem however was that these two substances were so different that the idea of a gland uniting the two made no sense. It simply acted as a type of black box solution. Somehow, something happened in the gland that meant our thoughts could impact our body and visa versa.
As a result of the problems raised by the idea of the Pineal Gland the philosopher Nicolas Malebranche argued that, for the mediation to occur between mind and body, a third (true) substance was required to intervene. For him this was God. The argument was that, at every moment, God was at work ensuring that whenever we went to pick up a glass, scratch our nose or smile the intention would correspond with the act. Without God intervening at every moment in this way our intentions would be revealed as ultimately impotent. Like experiencing anastasia awareness we would find ourselves locked inside an inert body, unable to do anything at all.
This philosophical idea was called “Occasionalism” and worked with the idea that what we take as immediate (the interaction between our intentions and acts) is really mediated by God, who listens tirelessly to what we want and manipulates our body seamlessly so that it would appear the two (intention and act) are one.
Bizarre and outdated as this philosophical idea might seem it can actually help us to make sense of a very human experience. Take the example of things that we might enjoy such as travelling, fine dinning, time with friends or certain sports. The enjoyment of these things is experienced as direct. Biting into a chocolate, for instance, and experiencing the pleasure of the taste is analogous to the connection we feel between intending toward a glass of water and the act of lifting it up. They are not felt to be two separate things, they are experienced as one.
However, if we lose the people we love, we discover the truth that the relationship between the act and its meaning were really coupled via a mediator: the presence of the beloved. Without them we experience a strange uncoupling of what previously seemed whole.
This can be a deeply traumatic event because of the way that we experience our hobbies as pleasurable in an immediate way. However, after the loss of someone who bestows our life with meaning things change. We might still go to a fine restaurant and eat some delicious food like before. But now the act is devoid of the seemingly innate pleasure it once possessed.
No matter how special the food, it has now been reduced to inert matter with no function other than a basic biological one. To experience the uncoupling of our acts from the seemingly implicit meaning they have is not unlike the experience of sleep paralysis, in which a person wakes up to find that their body no longer acts in conformity to their intentionality. The psychological impact of experiencing the uncoupling of such a whole is traumatic.
Is this not what we witness in films such as Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers? Here we are presented with Don Johnston (Bill Murray) a man who undergoes this radial uncoupling in his own life after his girlfriend ends their relationship unexpectedly.
It is for this reason that many end up in psychoanalysis. Not because of some desire to change, but because the individual no longer really desires anything at all. They have entered into a surreal, Daliesque world in which things have become disconnected from themselves. It is as if we have just discovered that we inhabit a virtual reality world that, all of a sudden, is indifferent to our movements.
In Broken Flowers Johnston’s neighbour embodies the role of the analyst by helping Johnston try to find meaning once again (through the attempt to track down a son who he never knew he had).
It is in the loss of our mediators that we learn that what is worse that losing something that we desire is losing those who enable us to desire.
August 30, 2012
Divine Dystopia
Dystopia | Deity Nightclub | Brooklyn | 7pm | 9th September
I remember a good friend calling me many years ago, having just read How (Not) to Speak of God. As the conversation went on he said, “Pete, those gatherings you write about in the second part of the book were so inspiring. I loved them! They were so much better than when I was at them!”
This can help us understand Immanuel Kant’s distinction between the harsh realities of the French Revolution (with its terror and violence) and the inspiration birthed by the French Revolution (inspiring far-reaching political and social upheaval). In short, his insight that a problematic material reality can provide the ground for the birth of an ideal that instigates wide-ranging transformation.
With the creation of ikon (along with The Last Supper, The Evangelism Project, The Omega Course and Atheism for Lent) a group of people in Belfast embarked on a grand and ridiculous project of rethinking the event of Christianity. In the course of setting up and running it, a new and inspiring vision of faith appeared to grow. Yet the on the ground reality was often difficult (lack of resources, equipment that failed, bad ideas, conflicts, misunderstandings etc. etc.) The dirt out of which the idea grew was, well… dirty.
Knowing all of this another friend recently asked me if I would be willing to put myself through it all again. Whether I would want to get my hands dirty with a new project that would no doubt be full of difficulties and conflicts. The answer was a simple one: absolutely!
I’m no gardener, but I guess that one of the best bits is the work of digging into the manure and planting seeds that might grow into something beautiful. The only thing holding me back has been the time it takes to find people to work with and the effort needed to really understand the landscape that will be worked on. But the time of preparing is over.
A small, but growing, band of people have come together. A group who are, in fear and trembling, embarking on a new one-year project with me starting on the 9th September in Brooklyn. I have no illusions that this will be a difficult journey as we strive to present a radically different vision of faith, one that overturns what is taken for granted by so much of the actually existing church. It will no doubt involve conflicts, boredom, confusion and annoyance at different times among different people. Some things will hopefully work beautifully and others will no doubt fall flat on their face. We will risk and we will fail… not once, but time and again.
So do I think that something wonderful will arise out of the dirt? I honestly don’t know, but we’ve got to try.
In truth, if you pack a few things and come along with us on this dissident journey there will be times when you’ll regret it and be disappointed. Because of that, if you want to be involved I would dissuade you from coming, there are other more brightly lit paths to walk. But if you need to come, if you feel that you must throw yourself in to this cauldron and see what happens, then do what you need to in order to be there.
Also sign up to the Pyrotheology facebook page to be kept up to date with future events
August 25, 2012
Confronting Our Beliefs
In this video I explore what it means to confront what we believe. I delve into this subject more in the book Insurrection.
Dystopia, Brooklyn, NY
Please join us for our inaugural gathering at Deity in Brooklyn, NY. The evening will consist of an exploration of faith and doubt, wholeness and brokenness, through music, liturgy and spoken word.
Sunday, September 9th, 7:00 pm
Cost: $15 or pay-what-you-can
Please RSVP on Facebook
This event is 21+
July 27, 2012
I pray the children of my enemies be dashed against the rocks
One of the interesting things that we find within religious institutions is a type of prayer that expresses a deep love for God, the world and even ones enemies. Indeed it can often be the case that a group will pray all the more fervently in this way when confronted by oppression and difficulties, seeking forgiveness and grace for those who would seek to do them harm.
From this perspective statements such as the one found in Psalm 137 can seem inappropriate and without place in the church,
O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us - he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
However, such prayers might have a deeply important place in the life of faith. To understand this let us take the rather mundane example of a young woman who has had a bad day at work and wants to express this to her partner. Let us also imagine that her partner stops her in the midst of her diatribe, informing her that she is being unreasonable and ungracious in her comments, even attempting to get her to see the other people’s perspective.
In such a scenario we can imagine the woman getting frustrated. Such a situation can quickly degenerate because the man is making a fundamental mistake. His mistake is neither in pointing out that his partner is being unreasonable and ungracious. Nor is it in mistaking what she is explicitly saying as unreasonable and ungracious. But rather in seeing the unreasonable and ungracious discourse as unreasonable and ungracious.
The point here is that, while what the woman said may well have the structure of being unreasonable and ungracious, the underlying meaning is “I am frustrated, tired and need to get this off my chest.” By the other person ignoring the real meaning of the words and concentrating purely on the explicit content they fundamentally miss the idea that such communication can actually have nothing to do with a hatred of the other or an inability to see things from their perspective, but can be more about the need to speak out a frustration and work it through.
In light of the man saying that she is being unreasonable and ungracious the woman could thus respond, “Is that the way you see me? Taking my unreasonable and ungracious diatribe as unreasonable and ungracious?”
The woman is not here disagreeing that what was said was unreasonable and ungracious, but rather she is reacting to the way that the unreasonable and ungracious statement was misunderstood as unreasonable and ungracious.
This is what we see play out when someone responds to the demand of their lover “I want you to leave,” by getting up and walking out. For often such a message communicates an opposite demand, namely, “I want you to fight to stay.”
The person who asks their lover to leave can’t communicate the true content of the demand directly for the simple reason that the other is being asked to respond to the true message without directly hearing it. In other words, it is not a demand being directed to the others ego (the image the person has of themselves), but rather to the others desires as such.
Hence it cannot be a message addressed to the ego. If it is directly spoken then it can be obeyed without the others subjective commitment. In short, the message thus reaches the wrong address. The message must rather be communicated in an indirect, ciphered, way for it to have a chance of ending up in the right place. While this might be seen as game playing it is in fact the only way for people to communicate to and expose the desires of the other directly.
The point here is that, when it comes to prayer, we must be free to express the full range of the moans that lie within us. While we might be inclined to think that these moans express directly what we think, more often than not they simply express a cluster of frustrations and fears that will do more damage if not given space; frustrations and fears that can be worked through only as they are expressed.
By praying out what we are holding without reserve we can actually be doing the very opposite of what the express language communicates. This becomes evident in those who, by expressing themselves in this way, work through their feelings and act in more reasonable and gracious ways in the aftermath of the unfettered expression.
There are, of course, groups that seek to oppress minorities (typically based on gender, sexuality or religious identity) and halt the expansion of human rights. Such groups will often pray their hatred of the other out directly. Yet in these groups there is a tendency to express this hatred in terms of love and a genuine desire for the wellbeing of the other; often praying for those who they feel are persecuting the community for staying true to the Divine Will.
So even here the idea of people expressing their feelings devoid of any loving language is progress, because the people might come to know themselves better, be shocked by what they find and begin to work it through. Or they might not. But at least then it will be revealed to all what lies within the doubletalk of love and forgiveness. The hatred will be robbed of its seemingly reasonable and gracious rationalisation and be exposed for the truly unreasonable and ungracious discourse that it is.
July 26, 2012
July 25, 2012
Doubt & Abandonment, Seattle, WA
Over the course of two days I shall be exploring the place of doubt, mystery and the sense of divine abandonment in the life of faith.
Trinity Lutheran Church, Lynnwood
Friday, August 3, 5-8PM
Saturday, August 4, 2-9PM
Student Tickets: full weekend $40, one-day only $20
Adult Tickets: full weekend $50, one-day only $25
For more information click here
July 17, 2012
Homebrewed Christianity, Los Angeles, CA
For more information click here
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