1)
To learn the words to express non-theistic
theism.
2)
To see and participate in a space of
transformance art (IKON) where different opinions are encouraged and respected
3)
Understand the intersection between
Psychoanalysis and Religion
4)
It is hard to find people in the middle ground
between giving up in faith and repressing ones doubt
5)
I feel like I’m the only kid who doesn’t believe
in Santa Clause any more and don’t want to ruin it for the other kids.
Observation #9 Is Radical / Emergent Theology ‘rehab for Christians’
or is it a new view on Christ’s message?
Personally, I have radical doubts about God, but a faith in God that transcends
the theistic idea of God. I don’t
understand how somebody without a theistic God to cast doubt upon moves into
the same space I find myself in. If this
is closer to a Truth (capital T) than mainstream Christianity … does it attract
outsiders?
Question 1: What
fraction of people attracted to Radical Theology are hung-over Christians vs.
people new to faith?
Pete’s explanation on how to read Pete’s stuff…
Observation #10: Denial causes desire
Adam and Eve are walking around. They were given one prohibition (don’t eat of
the tree of the knowledge-of-good-and-evil).
What makes the tree magical? The
prohibition is what makes it powerful (the pleasure is created by denial). The prohibition of saying “you can’t have
this” creates something beautiful.
When you have a drive of desire it will cause you to work
against yourselves. At times we are like
zombies in our pursuits (Zombies have a self-detrimental desire for human
flesh). Superego injunction to enjoy. "Like it or not, enjoy yourself!" (Zizek).
What one sees play out in the book of Genesis is the
excessive drive for the prohibited. It
is not the prohibited that is evil, it is the desire created by the prohibition
that is evil.
Six months after we are born we have our subjective birth of
self (mirror test). This
birth is when we lose our connectedness and grow our isolation. We have an awareness of self and therefore an
awareness of non-self. We spend our
lives trying to re-fill that connectedness.
To bridge the gap we create a theistic God. An Idol.
Observation #11: Magic and Pete are hard to understand
In a community where you say “you don’t have to change, you
are accepted” creates an environment where you can move past the idol and into a
space where you can truly desire to care for somebody else and God. Not out of a legalistic requirement, but
because of a true desire to care.
Legalistic Barrier à
Do whatever you want à
Desire to share grace with others
Everything is permissible, not everything is beneficial.
Pete tried to explain Genesis as kind of like a magic trick.
It has the three main parts of a magic
trick; Pledge, Turn & Prestige. I
didn’t really track him on this.
The idol exists until you get it. Love doesn’t exist until you love. Its characteristics are in many ways opposite
of the idol.
I think Pete is saying Christianity that uses the idol of
God is missing the point and Jesus came
to show that. The big reveal was at his
crucifixion when the curtain in the temple ripped open and nothing was there. Jesus didn’t show us an Idol inside the
temple He said and demonstrated love.
I think he is saying a Christianity with a
idealistic/theistic God is like a magic trick gone wrong.
I think Pete’s view on Christology is an invitation into a
different mode of life. It is not a mode
of belief in an idolistic God. It is an
invitation into the destruction of the idol.
It is an invitation into a life of loving others. God/Jesus came to show that.
The crucifixion is not the good news
that our debt has been paid or satisfied. The crucifixion reveals that the
system of debt is forgotten.
If you start to question the structure you get asked to
leave.
Gap 1 (Don’t accept)
“I am not telling you
depressing things, I’m telling you that you are already depressed”
|
Gap 2 (Acceptance)
Nothing is going to sort it
out. This is the belief in God that
transcends the idea of God.
|
Gap 3 (accept)
This is the peace of finding
the depth in our life by love. Love is
complex & helps embrace the infinite depth of experience.
|
Rather than distancing the other (gay,
race, how/what to believe) Christianity is the calling to embrace the
other. At the core of Christianity is
“Love your neighbor as yourself”
·
To love yourself means to be able to come to
terms with your own internal otherness (antagonisms and doubt) … then that will
mean you will be able to bare the other.
·
To love yourself means accept your gap,
which allows you to embrace the gap in the other.
·
If to 'love yourself' means to embrace
the other in yourself (the disavowed) you become more able to love the other in
other people.
In order to open yourself up to the other you have to be
able to see yourself through their eyes.
Interfaith dialogs can only go so far. We either try to convert, reject or ignore. In all these “I am right.” In an experience where you place yourself
subservient to the other, you can see yourself through their eyes. When this happens you can start to love the
other, rather than try to overcome the other.
It is not about scapegoating the other, fighting the other or overcoming
the other. It is about seeing yourself
through the eyes of the other, so you can love the other.
You can take down the peacewalls (see Observation #5)
however if the people on the sides of the walls are not ready to embrace the
others, it will do no good.
In current Christianity:
God is put up as the object that makes us happy. God is the object that justifies our tribal
identities.
What if Christianity’s purpose should be; we give up the
Idol and the limits to our tribal identities … embrace the nothingness and the
other. The other becomes the instrument
of our further conversion. This seems to
be the core of Christ’s message.
Sadly I became a walking dead after lunch. Seriously despite people around me talking I have no idea what they were saying. I was that tired. I took a nap instead of dinner and then watched the movie http://kumaremovie.com/ with the rest of the crew.
Update: In Observation #1 I came up with two categories of participants (folks who have not come out yet, and folks who don’t want to be branded as “Christian”). Last night I met another one of the participants who is in a third category. She is a pastor who values liturgy of a more mainstream Christianity (“mainstream” at least being a place that support female pastors).
Sadly I became a walking dead after lunch. Seriously despite people around me talking I have no idea what they were saying. I was that tired. I took a nap instead of dinner and then watched the movie http://kumaremovie.com/ with the rest of the crew.
Update: In Observation #1 I came up with two categories of participants (folks who have not come out yet, and folks who don’t want to be branded as “Christian”). Last night I met another one of the participants who is in a third category. She is a pastor who values liturgy of a more mainstream Christianity (“mainstream” at least being a place that support female pastors).
No comments:
Post a Comment