How (Not) to Speak of God: Marks of the Emerging Church

by Peter Rollins

began this introduction with the comment that it is really my conclusion, and my conclusion is this: the territory I thought I was helping to chart was actually discovered a long time ago by my ancestors. It is both frustrating and comforting that no matter how fast I run, those who have long since died have already arrived at where I am attempting to go.

Christian faith, it could be said, is born in the aftermath of God. Our fragile faith is fanned into life in the wake of what we believe to have been the incoming of a life-giving encounter in which we feel connected with, and transformed by, the source of everything that is. This belief may result from an immediate and psychologically penetrating experience or may arise more gently over time, but, regardless of the means, such faith cannot be reduced to the mere affirmation of religious dogma, a regular visit to some religious institution or the reciting of mechanical prayers. For Christians testify to having been caught up in and engulfed by that which utterly transcends them. In short, the experience that gives birth to faith, at its most luminous, is analogous to the experience of an infant feeling the embrace and tender kiss of its mother.

there can be no experience of faith divorced from an interpretation of it. Indeed, Christianity without theology could never really be ‘Christian’, for the term presupposes that one interprets the encounter with God in relation to the Judeo-Christian scriptures.

naming God is never really naming God but only naming our understanding of God.

To love is to know God precisely because God is love.

I recently heard a well-known speaker say that if faith does not cost us something, then it is nothing. Only much later could I respond: if faith does not cost us everything, it is nothing.

There is a shared understanding that being a Christian always involves becoming a Christian.

such a view fundamentally misses the point that, once we give up on the idea that we can make objective, meaningful statements, we must also give up the possibility of making any nihilistic claims concerning the meaninglessness of the world.

the philosophical critique of ideology mirrors the biblical rejection of idolatry.

The only significant difference between the aesthetic idol and the conceptual idol lies in the fact that the former reduces God to a physical object while the latter reduces God to an intellectual object.

The first thing we notice when reading about God in the Bible is that we are confronted, not with a poverty of descriptions concerning God, but rather with an excess of them. We do not find some simple, linear understanding of YHWH developing through the text, and thus we do not find a single, coherent definition of God, as proclaimed by many contemporary churches.

revelation ought not to be thought of either as that which makes God known or as that which leaves God unknown, but rather as the overpowering light that renders God known as unknown.

We are like an infant in the arms of God, unable to grasp but being transformed by the grasp. Revelation can thus be described as bringing to light the secret of God in such a way that it remains secret.

The primary problem with idolatry is not that it falsely claims to have a connection with God but rather that it falsely claims to understand the God that it is connected to.

the reflections of our various denominations do not testify directly of God, via their content, but rather testify to God indirectly, via their very existence. The result is not a change in what we think but rather a change in how we think.

this is the difference between love and lust, for while lust treats the other solely as an object to be devoured, love treats the other as a subject who cannot be reduced wholly to an object.

God is not a theoretical problem to somehow resolve but rather a mystery to be participated in.

God is not the object of our thought but rather the absolute subject before whom we are the object. This is confirmed in baptism when we say that we are ‘baptized into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost’. Here we do not name God but God’s name names us.

God can no more be contained in experience than in language.

This type of transcendent-immanence can be described as ‘hypernymity’. While anonymity offers too little information for our understanding to grasp (like a figure on television who has been veiled in darkness so as to protect their identity), hypernymity gives us far too much information. Instead of being limited by the poverty of absence we are short-circuited by the excess of presence. The anonymous and the hypernymous both resist reduction to complete

the Christian God destroys the idea of immanence and transcendence as opposite points in a diffuse spectrum, replacing this with the idea that immanence and transcendence are one and the same point: God remains transcendent amidst immanence precisely because God remains concealed amidst revelation.

this deconstruction is not destruction, for the questioning it engages in is not designed to undermine God but to affirm God.

This site of uncertainty and unknowing is often a frightening place to dwell, but while the comfort provided by religion is placed into a certain distress by the idea of doubt, this distress, too, is not without a certain comfort. For while we do not grasp God, faith is born amidst the feeling that God grasps us.

the religious participant is addressed, transformed and grasped by that which they cannot contain: they feel themselves to be the subject of an object that cannot be objectified.

In short, an emerging discourse acknowledges that speaking of God is never speaking of God but only ever speaking about our understanding of God.

The vows of marriage are not so much affirmations of what one believes will take place but rather promises that one will work towards ensuring that it will indeed happen.

doubt provides the context out of which real decision occurs and real love is tested, for love will say ‘yes’ regardless of uncertainty. A love that requires contracts and absolute assurance in order to act is no love at all.

A faith that can only exist in the light of victory and certainty is one which really affirms the self while pretending to affirm Christ,

when we can say that we will follow God regardless of the uncertainty involved in such a decision, then real faith is born – for love acts not whenever a certain set of criteria has been met, but rather because it is in the nature of love to act.

Because God, as hypernonymous, can never be made utterly present, desire is never satisfied in God.

As relationships develop the type of desire at work changes. Let us take the example of someone who is simply seeking a relationship because they are lonely. Here they do not desire a specific individual but rather desire a certain type of individual. This type of desire is self-centred insomuch as one has self-interested reasons for seeking the relationship. However, once one is in a loving relationship, this abstract desire for a faceless some-one (who fulfils certain needs) is transformed into a concrete desire for that particular individual (beyond the simple fulfilment of those needs). The abstract, self-interested desire for another that arises from a sense of lack is transcended by a concrete desire that arises from the presence of a particular person. This, however, does not mean that the original desire is by-passed: rather, it is taken up and transformed within the new desire. Instead of our desire being satisfied in the one we love, our desire is both maintained and satisfied by and in our longing. In love we desire our beloved, indeed the presence of our beloved is that which sparks the desire.

‘For certainly nothing can be loved unless it is known.’52

However, with the idea of religion as that which exists as a type of negative affirmation of God, we can say that far from having a God-shaped vacuum in our heart which remains until filled by God, the a/theology of the emerging communities allows us to turn this idea around, pointing out that far from being something that exists until being filled, the God-shaped hole can be understood as precisely that which is left in the aftermath of God.

Truth is the ungraspable Real (objective) that transforms the individual (subjective).

The Truth in Christianity is not described but experienced.

In other words, Truth is God and having knowledge of the Truth is evidenced, not in a doctrinal system, but in allowing that Truth to be incarnated in one’s life.

one does not learn to be a Christian, but rather, one engages in a process of becoming one.

those who would shun academic insights are generally not those who are free from theory but rather the ones who are most in danger of being enslaved by it.

It is generally assumed by religious people today that God’s revelation can be understood via anonymity and adequacy. As an example of the former, the existence and nature of the universe can be said to offer anonymous revelation, for by employing versions of the teleological and cosmological arguments, it is said by some that we can make certain basic claims about the source of the universe. The believer will generally point out that this general revelation, while important, is ultimately insufficient and must be superseded by the latter type of revelation whereby God is manifest more substantially through the prophets, Jesus or some kind of personal encounter. In this way God is no longer unknown because of some lack of information, but made known through a sufficient revelation.

Yet there is a third way that something can be made manifest, and it is this third way that represents the highest mode of revelation. Here something appears in such a way that it saturates us and short-circuits our understanding. This third way is a type of super-abundant revelation that renders the thing in question hypernonymous. Hypernymity refers to a type of revelation that cannot be reduced to pure presence precisely because there is too much to grasp: there is an absolute excess of information. In this understanding, God’s revelation is understood not as that which makes God present to understanding or experience, but rather as that which overcomes understanding and experience through God’s superabundant presence.

So many of us begin our faith with an encounter and end with nothing but a doctrine. If we could compare the journey of faith to the growth of an individual, we could say that in the childhood years we struggle to understand the mystery of God just as a child struggles to understand the mystery of the world. In response we turn to the wisdom of our religious tradition as a child turns to the wisdom of his or her parents. In our adolescence we often lose this childlike wonder, failing to realize that the wisdom passed down to us was never meant to do away with the mystery but was meant only to prevent it from being unbearable.

Finally, if we ever enter into maturity, we come to experience once more that mystery for what it is.

As Jesus approached Jericho, a man of great learning sat on the roadside. When he saw the crowd going by he asked what was happening. They told him, ‘Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.’ In response he called out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stopped and ordered that the man approach. When he came near, Jesus touched him and said, ‘Your faith has healed you’, and at that moment he became blind. When all the people saw it they were horrified and scared. But the man left rejoicing, saying, ‘I have been blinded by the most wondrous vision!’

Many of us have lost sight of the fact that a deeply religious form of atheism lies at the heart of Christianity. This atheism is not one that rejects the idea that there is a source to the universe, nor is it simply the rejection of gods different from our own. Rather, this faith-filled atheism is one which understands that the God we worship is bigger than all our imaginings. At the heart of fundamentalism lies a categorical rejection of this atheism, for the fundamentalist within us all resolutely affirms that our belief in God is a true reflection of what God is really like – that God is on our side. By failing to embrace this atheism, our faith becomes arrogant, narrow-minded and proud. To combat this, we must regularly remind ourselves that we are limited, finite individuals who cannot fathom the deep wells of God. We must embrace that atheism which is born, not from a lack or a rejection of faith, but rather from the heart of faith: an atheism that rejects our understanding of God precisely because it recognizes that God is bigger, better and different than we could ever imagine.

Lord, we offer up our images of you, acknowledging that while they are important, you stand over and above all our understanding. In love and faithfulness we offer you these fragments as we recognize the poverty of our understanding before the wealth of your presence. Amen.

Yet, unlike Mary, we have already been impregnated with all manner of things, and there is little room for God. And so we seek to empty ourselves this evening, to become pure again so that we may house Christ in our thoughts and give birth to Christ in our actions.