As I said last post, I’m currently winding down my book project The End of Evangelicalism? by writing an epilogue probing the possibility what a new faithfulness might look like to emerge “from the rubble” of evangelicalism. I applaud the emerging and/or missional church movements among others. But they must avoid three dangers, three traps if they (we) are to elude the traps that evangelicalism has itself already fallen into. That’s when I came up with these three clumsy terms, de incarnationalize, de-eschatologize and de-ecclesiologize. Here’s some of what I wrote (edited for a blog post with citations etc. deleted) on the first of these 3 traps using Peter Rollins to illustrate what such a danger might look like.
————————————
Emerging church writers have spilt a lot of ink criticizing evangelicalism’s modernist assumptions on Scripture. They have rightly showed the problems inherent to evangelicalism’s excessive propositionalism, hubris in interpretative method (that there is one true interpretation tied to the author’s original intent) and its resulting exclusionary arrogance. Irish philosopher Peter Rollins, a former evangelical Pentecostal, addressed these issues on behalf of the emerging church with his books How (Not) To Speak About God and his follow-up book The Fidelity of Betrayal. His deconstructive approach is popular among the emerging church leaders in N. America.
According to Rollins, the established church, which often means evangelicalism, is too certain about what we know about God and too hyper-cognitive towards Scripture thereby taking the mystery out of our encounter with the living God. We evangelicals, so Rollins suggest, tend to colonize the text, make Scripture our own possession and in effect make the words of Scripture an idolatry. As a result, we have become a controlling, uninviting, judgmental people losing the wherewithal to encounter the living God and inviting others into such an encounter. We know Scripture but we are untouched by it and so we are insulated from God who seeks to reveal Himself in and through it. In short Rollins agrees with everything I have written in my upcoming book The End of Evangelicalism? concerning the evangelical practice of “the Inerrant Bible.” Rollins solution is to move us from “right believing” to “believing in the right way.”
To get us to the right way, Rollins’ provides a diet of pre-Medieval mystics, apophatic theology and some post-structuralist ideas found from the likes of Derrida, Jean Luc Marion and John Caputo. True to his apophatic leanings, Rollins says we must approach revelation with a sense that there is always more of God concealed than is revealed. God can never be fully revealed in words, even the words of Scripture. We therefore always fall short of knowing what we mean by God. The evangelical tendency to concentrate on the known content of Scripture, therefore, misses the point. God is made known in the unknown. We must approach all revelation with a humility and openness appropriate to this reality. In true deconstructionist terms, we must acknowledge “that our various interpretations of revelation will always be provisional, fragile and fragmentary.” Context, culture and language both limit the extent of our understanding of God as well as make it possible. Truth is not so much then about what we can conceptually grasp. It is about the living encounter with God that transforms our selves as a result what Rollins labels a “soteriological event.”
To those of us who have suffered with the modernist habits of the evangelical practice of Scripture, Rollins comes as a breath of fresh air. He helps shape in us a humility towards Scripture that can breed the hospitality and conversation we need for a politic of Mission.
Rollins’ proposal, however, poses a danger. His version of truth risks that the gospel never hits the ground sufficiently to shape a political reality. He certainly intends to foster the incarnation of the gospel in people’s lives. This is a big theme among emerging leaders. Nonetheless, it is questionable whether he has provided for a confidence in what God has revealed sufficient enough to order a politic of truth, justice and reconciliation in the world. He is apophatic after all in his approach to religious language (God can never be contained in language). He is serious about all interpretations of revelation being provisional. As a result, we could end up ever and always postponing judgment as to what God is saying so that indeed we never test it, engage it and allow it to shape our lives together as a people in everyday life. Because God is revealed in what we cannot know, we may get lost in contemplation and/or conversation that never provides the determinacy to actually participate in the Mission God in concrete ways as a people.
This is what I call the danger of de-incarnationizing the Word of God. It is the same critique of deconstructionism that has been voiced by Milbank, Zizek, and others. They suggest that deconstruction glorifies “the never to be reached” and sucks us in to a ‘bad infinity.’ Our life together begins to look like a “pseudo activism indistinguishable from a Bhuddist quietism.” None of this may be true of Rollins but it is the danger that lies close at hand: the danger of a concept of truth that by definition never lands in the concrete circumstances of our every life together.
To be more precise, to de-incarnationalize the Scriptures is to separate them from their source in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son – to remove the language of Scriptures from the logic of incarnation. God has condescended to reveal Himself in Christ via human culture including the language of Scripture itself. God was born in human flesh and lived among us speaking our language. He died, rose and ascended gifting the church with apostles, teachers and the ongoing proclamation of the Word all by the purview of the Holy Spirit. In that His Holy Spirit is among us, His presence continues and inhabits the ongoing language of His people. As we situate ourselves in this language, we are able to encounter God in it and discern Him elsewhere. The Scriptures are the very extension of the incarnate Christ through the Holy Spirit into the world via the preaching, Table and community of His people. In such a place, we are able to discern justice, righteousness, reconciliation and the ways of God in our lives together for the world. This does not deny that the language of His people always points beyond itself to the fuller reality which it cannot contain. This too is part of the incarnation (This is from Jamie Smiths Speech and Theology). And we must always approach the Scriptures with humility and submission in all the ways it is practiced. Yet the Word has condescended into our lives, and God continues that enfleshment in His people. We can discern the truth in the Spirit via the Scriptures, actual truths, what we must do, concretely for our lives together in the world. To separate the Scriptures from their incarnate continuity with the Son is to render them impotent to shape us politically as the reconciliation of God at work in the world. We are in danger of receiving a Truth that can never land in the social realities of our every day lives.
That Rollins is at least vulnerable to this trap is evident in some of the liturgical services of his Ikon community as outlined in the 2nd half of How (Not) to Speak of God. These well-crafted performances are meant to be “soteriological events.” They invite the participant to engage in Scriptural stories in ways that deconstruct the most commonly held interpretations of Scripture. Their operating mode is to turn the received interpretation ‘on its head’ so as to clear some space for a fresh encounter once it has been determined “what God is Not.” The events are inventive and engaging to say the least. There is no doubt they provoke an encounter with God. Yet these liturgies can have the affect of deconstructing the participant pulling him/her apart from our history in Christ. Yet the very purpose and profundity of Christian liturgy, as I understand it, is the opposite: to draw us into the very participation into our history of God in Christ. These Ikon services can have the affect of removing the participants from the very context or language that we need to locate ourselves within the Story. The modus operandi here illustrates some of what happens in the de-incarnationalization of the Word. In an effort to avoid the ‘creedalizing’ of doctrine, we are left devoid of (disconnected from) the history of what God has done, and is doing whereby we can see God in the world and participate in Mission. As a result, these “Ikon services” can come off almost as performance art. They can leave the participant with no place to go and no context from which to move into the world to locate God’s Mission. If this indeed happens, these are not liturgies that can incarnate a people into a life together in Christ for His Mission in the world.
The emerging church therefore has much to offer post-evangelicalism in the forging of new faithfulness for Mission. If there is to be such a politic in our future however, we must avoid the de-incarnationalizing of our belief and practice of Scripture.
What do you think? Does Pete Rollins commit the error of de-incarnationalizing the Word? rendering the Scripture impotent for shaping a politial presense in the world?
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Great stuff. I've had similar questions myself and one thing that has always lingered in my mind when reading Rollins is "what do you do with the Incarnation?"
On a side note, given that Rollins is from Belfast, Northern Ireland he may be horrified to hear you call him Irish (Northern Ireland is an entirely different country and it's inhabitants usually consider themselves British rather than Irish)!
yes, dave, I definitely agree that these dangers are present in his work, and others who are strongly attempting to reform the church. With Rollins and other emergents I believe Christendom has seriously malformed the church and christian, and that a certain extreme therapy is needed to produce health. But long-term these therapies of deconstruction remove not only the initial illness, but also remove the possibility of living into the life of Christ.
I know that Rollins has become increasingly familiar with Lacan and psychoanalysis, which I think is probably good. but the language of deconstruction can sometime replace the revelation of Christ, which is not good.
Dave: Are you able to attend an Ikon service? (not sure logistically if they are close to you) I'd love to know your thoughts on it if you were able to attend one in person.
It seems to me that so much of what these guys are saying is rooted in the awareness that "I" am unable to fully know "your" experience, your interpretation of some concept, since I have not walked in your shoes. Jesus was the only one who was able to look at and into a person and fully know them. So many of us move through the world hiding or protecting our inner selves from others we encounter (consciously or not…). I wonder what it would be like to look in the eyes of a fellow Ikon participant after a service. Until then, I'm not sure I'm qualified with an opinion about it.
Two other thoughts:
First, the Christian liturgy I grew up with was Catholic. That liturgy never drew me into the history of God in Christ. I never met God in it, but rather I experienced a rote parroting (stand up, sit down, intone this prayer when cued…) which held no meaning for me. I've learned, relatively recently in fact, that just because that was my experience doesn't mean that it is necessarily someone else's. God IS present in the mass. Christ IS present. Which underscores my growing belief that I need to be very very careful thinking I know what's what with another human being and his/her relationship with God and scripture. My experience plays a big role in why I find myself resonating to what these guys like Rollins are saying.
Second: Saying I can't fully know what God is saying doesn't have to paralyze me or leave me in the abstract clouds. I think there's a lot of real estate between the two extremes – being lost in contemplation and being certain I know what is right.
I enjoyed your post but I want to push back a little. You critique Rollins and others for de-incarnationalizing the Word of God but I wonder if you are over-incarnationalizing. Jesus only lived thirty some years and only did public ministry for a couple of those years. You refer to the scriptures as the "extension of the incarnate Christ" but I think you are ascribing a certain degree of permanence to what was a very temporary earthly existence. I am not saying that Jesus is no longer "incarnate" in fact I think it is very significant that when Jesus ascended he took his(our) humanity up with him, rather I am trying to make the point that perhaps an incarnational approach does not have the kind of permanence or continuity that you are referring to with your critique of Rollins disconnect from "our history of God in Christ".
Kester Brewin says it much better than I can here: http://www.kesterbrewin.com/2010/06/24/has-what-e…
Chris, might I push back by wondering where you see the Holy Spirit in all of this.
Chris, the continuing presense of Christ is in His body via the Holy Spirit, and from there into the world, via the ministry and presense of Christ in the world, again via the extension of Him by the Holy Spirit. Eucharist, the Word, and the community embodies His presence physically (sacramentally) into he world. Not sure what the point is with the link, and I both agree and see some inadequacies with Kester's understandings on liturgy etc., So let me toss another link at you, since he commented on this post. Holsclaw and I think alike .. check him out on Rollins http://churchandpomo.typepad.com/conversation/200…
peace DF
thanks for the link love, fitchy. (oops, did I write that online).
Bill: I think the Holy Spirit is everywhere in this. The wind blows as it pleases and I was wondering if we have become too rigid to be blown about by the spirit.
Fitchest: Thanks for the link it helped me to understand better where you and Geoff are coming from (althought Chauvet is still a bit over my head). I guess my point with the link to Kester was that there can be an ongoing sacramentally understood presence of Christ and that such a presence should be continually dying and then resurrected because it is in the process of dying and resurrection that we have our hope in Christ. I guess maybe I was trying to push against our understanding of incarnation as merely presence and emphasize that Jesus incarnation also meant death. Therefore you are saying that Rollins "de-incarnationalizes" but I am proposing that what Rollins is doing is "incarnationalizing the Word" but he is focusing on the flip side of incarnation, death.
As I read this I am still not happy with exactly how I have worded this but this is as good as I can put it. I think that is why you and Rollins write books and I do not.
David, helpful as always in pointing to the via media.
hey Chris,
I think I see your point. yes, sacramentally I believe we learn to enter into the dying-rising of Christ. This is essential. While Rollins might not be doing this (but I think he may lean toward it), many emergents feel that to speak of the presence of Christ means a denial of the dying aspect. But for dave and I it is precisely that Christ is present by the HS, in the sacraments, that we can learn to die and then be raised. Some think that referring to the presence of Christ is some sort of capture of Christ, of figuring Him or putting him in a box. But really, it is the presence of Christ (as he promised) that continually undoes us and then remakes us. Apophatic theology should lead to joy, not anxiety.
Maybe I'm not tracking very well tonight but it seems we can de-relationalize the written and living word if we get too caught up in trying to clarify or measure how much we do or do not know of God. It seems Love is less interested in quanitfying itself either way. It simply "trust(s) and rely(s) on the love God has for us" as 1 John says. Jesus is with us and is present to us in Spirit, word, sacrament and community. He is with us because he promises to be with us and live in us. It's becoming less important to me how much of Christ I know vs. how much I don't know. God is infinite, I am learning to live into this reality. I want to trust that he reveals all I need to know of him. Or, that he only reveals as much of himself to me as I am willing to live and obey.
David, thanks for this. This helps me make connections with Rollins's work with other theologians and trends in theology.
Geoff, this is similar to your critiques of Nathan R. Kerr, Ry O. Siggelkow, and Halden Doerge's "Kingdom-World-Church: Some Provisional Theses," right?
One rebuttal which I have heard is that Rollins's ikon was an "artists' collective" rather than a church.
Andy,
yeah I guess you could say I view Rollins and Kerr/Siggelkow/Doerge in a similar way. The similarity between them (and to which I also agree) is that Jesus was a radical who came to change everything, and our ecclesial/political practices should participate in that. They are also similar in down playing the Body of Christ images of scripture in reference to the church, and extent the Body of Christ to the whole world (I know that is simplistic). This is the point that I disagree with, and yeah, I run the Body of Christ through sacramental practices as the initial giving of that Body, and through scripture.
I have heard that rebuttal, but I'm not sure it really gets at the issue b/c he is writing books to people in a more traditional church setting and using Ikon as an example of what the church could/should be. if it is really just an 'collective' working as a type of ecclesial therapy, then great. I love to see people healed and experience the freedom of christ. but that is not how these examples are being used.
David, in answer to your question at the end. I think that if we were to follow Rollins and only Rollins through the deconstruction that yes we would eventually commit that error and render Scripture impotent. However, it is voices like yours that offers a wise an beautiful balance to where he is going. The balance between deconstruction and holding fast to tradition is a tough one. Rollins may not have the complete balance in just his theology, and neither do you, but as the Church moves forward I hope we has a movement can hold that balance. So thanks for this post, it certainly helps me to keep my ears peeled and tread lightly.
Balance–It's what allows us to walk the theological straight and narrow.
Thanks, Dave. "the Word has condescended into our lives" – smiling at that.
I think the question of whether or not Rollins allows for a living politic is a most important question.
David, well said. But perhaps Christendom could use a dose of "quietism" to balance out centuries of power-based triumphalism. And I'm not sure that "never to be reached" equates into a "bad infinity." Incarnation draws unto itself, never arriving, always revealing. Incarnation may indeed by the ultimate apophatic idea – Jesus as an ever-flowing river of life, rather than a stagnate body left hanging on the cross. When Spirit is internalized as an always-new, endless source of existential freedom, it might shift Christendom's power foundations from closed propositional ideas to new waves of human empathy – fully embracing incarnation without turning it into a solidified religious idol.
Anyway, you've touched on something I think many of us are struggling with. I very much appreciate your work.
JOhn .. I'm with you on "the power based triumphalism"… except maybe we should just banish it as being incongruent with the incarnation … I agree there's something to be learned and lived "in" within the apophatic tradition … what I'm pointing out is a danger which may not necessarily be true to Rollins. I find the piece by Jamie k Smith referred to in the post, especiallybthat last summary chapter to be an excellent directive towards the balance you speak about …
to new 11 .. sorry your comment got buried there for a while by wordpress… and of course we know what can happen to any hirtoically driven liturgy .. so thanks for the reminder … I've never been to Ikon service … only going by the descriptions in his book and by others … I see your point however .. and I thin that's an important awareness…
Blessings
Geoff, thanks for your comment back to me.
James K. A. Smith makes the connection today between Rollins and the Provisional Theses too.
http://forsclavigera.blogspot.com/2010/06/emergen…
Andy,
thanks for pointing to Jamie's post. he is probably right, although he says it very tongue in cheek. but I don't wonder, with Jamie, whether they actually have a high Christology or just a high commitment to Jesus in his life (a high Jesusology).
I've always thought Rollins a consummate postmodern in that the critique is necessary and on point but the constructive work disappointing and potentially dangerous. There is also, I believe,a strong aesthetic element in the postmodern-emerging movement that does indeed create the "performance art" feel you referred to. It seems to me that Barth is equally profound, pointed, acute, and "deconstructive" (if not more) and far more helpful on the constructive side. If Pete Rollins did not exist, we'd have to create him – but as always and with everyone discernment is called for. And I think you have rightly focused in on some the places where further scrutiny and conversation are required. Thanks.
Lee Wyatt
Lee,
– But something dangerous, even potentially destructive, is indeed not an arc that shoots outside of the canonical trajectory of Scripture; namely, I am referring to the critiques leveled in the prophetic canon. Does not Jeremiah exegetically fall in line with the rich tradition of Amos and his judgment against the city/temple establishment in Judah, where the temple mount shall be deconstructed and replaced by a "wooded height" if they do not turn and repent from their ways (see Jer. 26 via Amos 3). And of course, as we know, Christ centers himself very much inside the Jeremiahic vein (i.e. Jer. 7).
Cutting ties with a people — even going against them — in which you have kept a faithful covenant with in the past must always remain an option, otherwise impunity and self-righteousness creeps in. But deconstruction is never willy-nilly nihilism; it always implies a later re-construction. This stuff is well within the overall arc of Scripture — not just an anomolous vector — and extends sharply to the Christological point established during his life, ministry, death and resurrection.
David,
I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit more on what you mean by the "logic of incarnation?" As it stands, it is a bit fuzzy to me. Also, I am wondering how a prophetic edge fits into your gospel account? Does not table fellowship via the Spirit call for one to risk a balance a mutual interdependency, where relations are scored by one humbling themselves before the other, and anticipating and hoping the other is genuinely doing the same — even among the closest and most dearest brothers and sisters? I am not seeing this bit in your account. I do not wish to render the table on pins and needles, only encourage a missional edge to a give-and-take. After all, the undomesticated act at Pentecost must have overturned tables in a sort of chaotic order.
thanks for responding, David. I very much appreciate the ongoing dialogue here, and how much care you and others are taking to understand, stand with open heart, and be clear and to listen to each other. The terminology is dense for me at times, but I'm hanging in there.
[...] on the theology of the emerging/missional church. As I said on the three previous posts here, here and here, I’m currently winding down my book project The End of Evangelicalism? by writing an [...]
Pete Rollins' words sometimes ring out like the barking of a dog. A young dog without any evidence of a healthy limp. QED
[...] simple gospel message by making various fruits of the gospel central to their stories. (Thanks to David Fitch for stimulating this [...]
Good critique- respectful but honest and no flattery. There are dangers in his work. He makes doubt, king ( to believe is human to Doubt divine)and negates faith, which from a N.T. perspective is the reverse of what it teaches. Jesus teaches that it is God's work that we believe, 'have faith in God'-'He could do no mighty work there because of their unbelief 'etc. Paul also says 'faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God'. We must make our choice :Jesus or Peter. I think I'll go with Jesus who was much wiser and is more reliable!
Dave..
Thanks for the post. I have been doing research on Rollins for a couple weeks now. I’ve really been challenged by what he was brought to the table. But I also have have similar thought come to mind. I believe it takes all kinds. Meaning, We all need each others perspective in order to grow. I’m a closet Emergent fan. I’ve seen so many positive things from guys like Brian McLaren and Rollins. But I think what they have to say is being more to grow the existing church. I come from the evangelical side of things. The kind that need major help. So coming from that history, I feel like they’ve been used by the Holy Spirit to bring much needed balance to the way I express my journey with the Lord.
My thing is this. I feel that the Holy Spirit is totally essential to everything. As we all would agree. I’ve been very impressed of how in various videos and lectures I’ve read or seen by Rollins is that it always seems to come back to continually being transformed into the Image of Christ. That’s his selling point to me. And there’s most def folks in this emerging movement that lose site of this and really, inviting the Holy Spirit to be apart of all this. I think instead of seeking to rebuke and hate on those involved in the emerging movement, lets join in with them. Not losing who we are individually, but pray that the Spirit will come and bind us all together in love. And in that, no one will be going off the deep end on either extreme.
Peace.
Aaron.