Addendum...

Was really trying to get my blog entry finished and on my blog last night and forgot to add another quote from Rollins that I particularly like;

"Instead of offering a scientific explanation that would convince, or publicizing the miracles so as to compel his listeners, Jesus engaged in a poetic discourse that spoke to the heart of those who would listen. In a world where people believe they are not hungry, we must not offer food but rather an aroma that helps them desire the food we cannot provide. We are people born from a response to hints of the divine. Not only this but we must embrace the idea that we are called to be hints of the divine...God is not revealed via our words but rather via the life of the transformed individual."

Summer Reading #1

I think what I’ll do is just talk about each of the books and then do a final blog to sum up and look at the big “So What?” question.

First up - "How (Not) to Speak of God" Peter Rollins.

Peter Rollins is a lecturer in philosophy and founder of “Ikon”, a community of spiritual practice in Belfast. The book reflects both of these aspects and is in 2 parts – the first a more philosophical discussion about God and the second outlines 10 Ikon services. Ikon are working to create a space for people to explore issues of faith and encounter God and they employ "Christian narrative" working from the principle that "only God can give God". They seek to deconstruct ideas of God in an effort to "rediscover the place of mystery in faith". They also deal with subjects such as uncertainly, absence and transcendence. The services outlined are interesting. What is also interesting is that all the books I read have an element of dealing with the big philosophical issues of God, but seeking to relate this to actual practice - "what does/would it look like"

The first half of the book deals with how we think and speak about God -

“That which we cannot speak of is the one thing about whom and to whom we must never stop speaking".

Rollins looks at this issue that "God" is unspeakable, that we try to "colonize" the name God with concepts. The tension we deal with is between faith and theology;

"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...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 being caught up in and engulfed by that which utterly transcends them".

"Theology...is that which attempts to come to grips with this life-giving experience...here the source of our desire is rendered into an (intellectual) object that we can reflect upon"

Rollins talks about looking to the Christian Mystics as part of the solution to this dilemma;

"Instead of viewing the unspeakable as that which brings all language to a halt, they realized that the unspeakable was precisely the place where the most inspiring language began".

The book is challenging and thought provoking, using parables and stories to illustrate points. It's the kind of book that I can get very excited about because the book begins to create space for me to engage with what I believe about God but in a way that is not dogmatic. I think part of this journey I'm on is to deconstruct myself as a Christian. I want to be a different kind of Christian, I don't want to be inauthentic. I think some of the attraction of the books I read over the summer is that they give me permission to feel more comfortable in my own skin - it's OK to ask questions and maybe view some things differently from the mainstream. Not the kind of Christian that is completely certain, but someone who can live with uncertainty and ambiguity. Again this is not an intellectual exercise because what I found fascinating is that I had this exact conversation with Matt on the streets one Saturday night along the lines that Rollins outlines

"The argument is made that naming God is never really naming God but only naming our understanding of God"

That's pretty much what Matt said and actually, I agreed with him, how can the finite mind grasp the infinite? All of our talk of God can only be mediated through our limited intellect; we do reduce God to a set of propositions. That’s the way our minds work – we categorise things. which makes it very difficult for us to see things with fresh eyes, but Rollins (like Rahner - I know I keep going on about him!) helps us to do just that. He illustrates it with the rabbit duck illusion - you can either see a rabbit or a duck but we can't just see the lines devoid of the rabbit or duck.

One of the things I'm not comfortable with as a Christian is doctrinaire approach to evangelism - I liked the following quote;

"The dialogue replaces the standard monologue of those who would wish to either clone the other, making them into a reflection of themselves, or exclude the other, making them into a scapegoat who embodies all our fears and insecurities. ...The alternative is not relativistic acceptance of every position but rather a dialogue in which we treat everyone we meet as an individual who we can learn from and perhaps teach..

(We) can engage in a genuine dialogue in which we are prepared to rethink in relation to what the other says (instead of inauthentic dialogue in which one pretends to be open to the insights of another, but in reality one is not prepared to place one's own thinking into question). Rather than being a sign of weakness, this powerless approach is a sign of strength, for one is committed to the idea that if we genuinely seek truth from above, we will not be given a lie, for God will not give scorpions to the one who seeks bread."

A last thought from Rollins

"How many of us have learnt too late that our initial idea, that by serving the world we will help bring God to others, has eclipsed the wisdom that in serving the world we find God there."

That's something I am coming to understand more and more.

Fundamentals (not to be confused in any way shape or form with fundamentalism) and Summer Reading

Just to recap - cos it's good to reflect and restate what you're about sometimes - I talk a lot about this journey I'm on (all-be-it with a few detours along the route to discuss cats, moonwalks, Twilight, David Tennant and other less obviously related issues - although to my mind it's all part of the whole and it's not a linear journey anyway) after all this blog is about being Christian in the culture and time in which I find myself and it's about asking myself the question about what therefore "church" means in this context. It's about trying to work out how being a person of faith intersects with people around me who are not people of faith...

So why does it matter? Because I do believe that there is a God who loves and communicates with us all and that people are not necessarily thinking about God or asking the big questions of life and meaning; that there is a call to live differently to eschew consumerism, superficiality, celebrity obsession and to live justly and righteously; that how we live does have an impact on the world for good or evil; that the Kingdom of God is a reality that we need to live; that the Kingdom was and is and is to come; that God's invitation rather than narrowing our lives and making us petty and unthinking (we just accept everything 'by faith' right - which means we've never had an intellectual thought in our heads - we're actually just people who are still living in the dark ages before the enlightenment and science set us free from all this superstitious mumbo jumbo - OK maybe I'm taking Ian Bell, Ian McWhirter and Alan Taylor in the Herald too seriously - maybe I'm just being defensive) God's love and self communication invites all of us to something better, individuals, communities, nations, all of creation. God's love is transformative and that puts a responsibility on the Christian to live like it's true. Christianity was always a challenge to empire and power, it was always prophetic in the biggest sense, counter cultural and counter intuitive - (see the Sermon on the Mount if you need that confirmed).

The point of this blog is to challenge me, to make me accountable; it's thinking out loud and sharing the journey in case anyone happens across it and is maybe is in the same place, struggling with the same issues. It's not an intellectual journey (cos it's too easy to dismiss it as that) more a thinking journey but with some very clear issues of practice which for me are highlighted by conversations with people like Aaron and Matt and Stephen on the streets.

I'm going to have a look over the next few blogs at my summer reading so I'm getting the stuff about intellectualism out of the way first because it might look like that at first glance.

Here are the books - I'll be back.....

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Christian Ethics

So I have found myself pondering some deep spiritual questions while I've been on holiday and I guess the one which is exercising me most at the moment is - "what is the moral and ethical stance one needs to take as a Christian, when one is in receipt of (what my husband terms) "a free cat"". That is to say, a cat which has adopted you, which hangs out with you all day and evening, a cat which has miaowed conversations with you where you swear you can actually tell what it is saying, which you really like having around but - and this is where the "free" bit comes in - you don't have to feed or pay vets bills for and who actually belongs to someone else.

Cat - cos that is what we call him, not actually knowing his real name, is now a permanent fixture. He's there first thing when you wake up and come down stairs, he likes to sit on the couch beside you and snooze when you're reading, he follows you around, he sits on your lap when you watch telly. Even when he goes outside it's usually to sit on your window sill watching you or on the chairs in your back garden.

The slightly difficult times are when Cat is sitting on your lap or snuggled up next to you and the neighbours, who actually own Cat, walk passed your window. We don't know these neighbours at all - and maybe that's the thing which should be exercising me as a Christian - but what do you do - go to their door and explain that their cat is now hanging out in your house from first thing till - and this is particularly difficult - you pick him up from the couch and put his little furry self out of your back door at 10.30 p.m. into the dark and cold (well it is August in Scotland) in the hope that he'll head home. We still have the back door open a lot because it is still quite muggy so it's difficult to stop Cat coming in. And what if - this is the worst thing - the neighbours object to him coming in our house and ask us to stop - because it's too late now - we are all really attached to him.

Ah well - as always, suggestions and comments welcomed!