There was once a little bestseller called, Why do Bad things happen to good People. The title captured that sense in which one can be perplexed by a situation that, at first glance, seems so strange that an answer is sought. In many ways this can be the initial experience when reading a Liberal or Progressive critique of the Radical tradition. Something that would almost inspire one to write a short book entitled, Why Do Bad Critiques Come From Good People.
After all those in the Liberal and Progressive traditions also seek societal reconfiguration, equality and emancipatory political activity. So why do their critiques miss the mark? A good example of the problem can be seen in a recent critique from Micah Bales entitled Should we Give up God for Lent? Bales is committed to social action and happens to be part of a denomination that I am personally attracted to (the Quakers).
On the surface the article is critical of a course I developed (after reading the work of Merold Westphal) called, “Atheism for Lent” (AfL). A course in which people read and discuss some of the greatest critiques of Christianity, faith and God, not to judge them but to let them judge us. The course itself is designed to help people interrogate their beliefs and discover how they function. As such it can be described as offering a critical lens through which to discover the extent to which ones beliefs operate in an instrumental manner. In short, whether or not ones beliefs operate as a type of psychological crutch required in order to find meaning in existence. To borrow Tillich’s famous distinction, the AfL course is designed to unearth whether ones religion is an artefact that a person grasps hold of in order to live, or whether it is a contingent means of pointing us toward the depth-dimension in existence itself.
Yet the piece is more a criticism of my wider project (of which AfL is a part) and its relation to societal transformation. So instead of responding directly to the article I wish to draw out and clarify the reason for the underlying misunderstandings that we find there, particularily when it comes to questions of the political. I will mention two that are pertinent before closing with a reflection on the directly religious element of the piece (which is religiously conservative in nature).
The perverse belief in action
Firstly, I wish to draw out how those in the Liberal tradition generally advocate a form of perpetual concrete action when faced with the injustices around them. In the words of Levinas, the face of the other issues a cry for help and the liberal is one who responds directly to that cry. The issue here is the nature of the response, one that can be termed “perverse.” The pervert is, psychoanalytically speaking, unable to say “no” to the desire of the other. The pervert’s desire is to be the object of the others pleasure. They are the one who always says “yes.”
In a similar manner the liberal experiences a cry in the concrete face of the other that always demands a direct response. Hence there is a dislike of critical theory, which involves a form of stepping back from that cry (attending university, reading, writing etc). In Micah’s piece this is classically played out in his use of words such as “intellectualism” and “elitism.” Because the liberal tradition always attempts to say “yes” to the call of the other any form of theoretical activity is viewed as oppositional to (or, at best a distraction from) the emancipatory project. The European tradition of Leftist theory is seen as divorced from the exigencies of actual action to eleviate inequality. Theory is seen as a type of second-order reflection on political activity rather than a form of political (in)activity. We see here, of course, the influence of American pragmatism.
From the Radical perspective however the perverse response needs to be avoided. This means that there are times when we should refuse to respond to the concrete cry of the other for the sake of wider and deeper transformation. This means having to take on a certain guilt while working toward real change.
To take an example, I remember hearing of a church that did a number of fund raising activities for the homeless, including helping out at a local soup kitchen. Over a ten-week course on homelessness they continually challenged those involved to respond to the cry of the homeless in their city. Yet never once did they ask why the homeless actually existed there in the first place. This was structurally similar to the Christian call, during the eightieth century, to be kind to ones slaves and treat them well. It was only as people actually began to attack the structures that enabled slavery (the economic and political systems that kept it in place) that things began to change.
The Liberal political position, as exemplified in Bales piece, rightly sees critical theory as a refusal to act. The difference is that the Radical tradition understands that this refusal is itself a form of political intervention, one that reads the signs and works out both when and where to act in order to find the Archimedean point where oppression can be cut off.
The point here is that the perverse response actually perpetuates the very injustice it seems to attack (helping the homeless live in a less painful way while not working out the base that enables that superstructure to continue unabashed). This is why Marx was critical of what was taking place in 1870. He was worried that the revolution would happen before he had finished Capital. In other words, before the careful work of reading the signs was finished. In this way critical theory is vital to the emancipatory project rather than some mere past-time we might be able to indulge in once the work of raising up the oppressed is completed.
The failure to see inequality as stemming from a primordial antagonism
The second difference to mention between the Liberal and Radical traditions is that the Liberals focus on different concrete modes of oppression, oppressions that they see as betrayals of a deep non-antagonistic reality in being that can, if rediscovered, bring harmony between peoples (as well as between people and nature, etc.). In other words, the fundamental nature of the universe is a balance and harmony that has been disrupted.
To love the other as oneself is thus taken to mean that we ought to respect other people’s (cultural, religious and political) identities as equal to our own (insofar as they don’t themselves have a bias toward hatred and exclusion).
In contrast the Radical tradition asserts that the antagonisms played out in historical life (sexism, racism etc.) are contingent, historical reflections of a basic antagonism inscribed into subjectivity itself (that itself reflects an ontological condition) and that the way to traverse these is to address the basic scapegoat mechanism designed to obscure this antagonism (for the scapegoat mechanism is what reduces antagonism to a negative destructive force rather than a positive destructive one).
To love ones neighbour is not read as loving the others identity as one loves ones own (the ego reading in which we affirm the others concrete identity as we affirm ours), but rather as embracing ones own internal antagonisms in order to love the other in their antagonisms.
Here the point is to affirm the internal conflict which undermines our ego images. To love oneself is thus to cut against oneself as an ego. It is not a selfish call but rather a deeply selfless and painful one. It is an act of radical violence against ones own identity.
This is why the liberal strategy of opening up communities to previously scapegoated others is not, in itself, sufficient. In religious terms we can note how some conservative churches are beginning to open up to the possibility that gays and lesbians can be equal members of their community. Just as they eventually learned to reject explicit racism and sexism now they are gradually learning to overcome heterosexism. But the problem is that the fundamental structure of scapegoating is not broken in the acceptance of the latest “other,” and if the underlying scapegoat mechanism is not decommissioned then new “others” will always arise to protect the group from its own internal conflicts.
There will always be an other as long as we refuse to face ourselves. For example in some of these groups gays and lesbians are now being accepted as long as they embrace the idea of lifelong monogamous marriage. This means that those, gay and straight, who don’t accept that lifestyle for themselves can be excluded as immoral, corrupt and a threat to the institution of marriage.
This is likely why Bales is unable to see my formation of ikon and ikonNYC as political interventions (he critiques me for not being interested in political action).
The formation of these groups are the most important part of my project (of which writing is only a small part) and are dedicated to breaking the scapegoat mechanism and thus undermining the libidinal pleasure received from the act of exclusion itself.
Also, when Bales writes that my work “is most attractive to those who enjoy privileged positions in society,” he not only misses the way that my theory arose from of my upbringing in one of the world’s worst conflict zones (being firmly rooted in reconciliation work in Belfast, N.Ireland) but at a deeper level, how this work is best received in other places of deep oppression. Recently, for instance, I was invited to a prison to talk with long term inmates about the work. It was here that my project made most sense, creating a space for real transformation (indeed the people on death row at that time, who I was not allowed to see, were reading The Orthodox Heretic). In addition to this, it was my work in Belfast with the Simon Community (a homeless organization) and in community development where I learned the power of these ideas. Indeed the irony is that he mentions how badly my work would go down in L’Arche, a community that many ikon people have worked with and whose founder (Vanier) has impacted my own thinking in a profound way.
Why Atheism for Lent
In closing the article moves from the (liberal) political to the (conservative) religious in a brief critique of the Atheism for Lent course. Here he writes, “How can someone ask me to give up God for Lent? I might as well give up breathing! How can we give up God for almost six weeks? How would we sustain our struggle for justice, truth, mercy and genuine love? What could be the possible benefit of denying this healing, life-giving power for forty days? We live in a world desperately in need of God’s presence and intervention. Will we dare to believe?”
In this quote he admits that he needs God in order to gain meaning and work for justice. I do not doubt this and I also do not think that he means to assert that other people also need religious belief. His claim is simply that without God (which we read as his belief that God is at work in his life) he would crash and burn.
I can empathise here in that there was an area in my life where I felt that I needed something in order to live. I thought that if I lost that thing my heart would burst out of my chest and that life would escape my body. However I would say that this is, while romantic, an ultimately destructive place to be.
Atheism for Lent is precisely designed for people like myself and Micah. For people whose belief in God (or other things) is not something that they can question without the sense that destruction would result. For people who approach the sacred as an object of depth rather than as simply the experience of depth in everything. It is for people who think they need some thing more than air because they think that there is no life outside that thing: that their lungs would explode if they lost it. The point of Atheism for Lent is that the loss of the God-object is precisely that which unfolds into Tillich’s experience of God as found in Ultimate Concern.
A healthy faith collective then is there to help people encounter this depth-dimension precisely by breaking the sense that there is some thing that is needed like air (for reducing faith to the affirmation of a thing renders the sacred into an object to be placed alongside other objects).
In Atheism for Lent we encourage people to face their doubts, to consider how the idea of God functions in their life and discover that faith is not connected with affirming some particular thing but rather of being taken up in the depth of life, a commitment that transcends theistic/atheistic distinctions and that results in real, material commitment to political transformation (through the valuation of life itself). As such I would invite Bales, and others like him,to give the course a go. To find out more visit here (new content added everyday at midnight).
And then there are those of us who are just trying to get through life as best we can, however we can. Just hanging on. We’re not Radical or Liberal, we’re just Desperate. We don’t give up God or anything else for Lent, because we only have enough to make it through another day (maybe). We help others when/if we can and hope help is there when we need it, and if it isn’t we carry on with whatever’s left.
I am not sure how desperation can be placed on the same level? Whether or not one is desperate, and most of us are at times, one has beliefs about the world that come out in ones actions. Is this not a little like saying “and then there are people who are not men or woman, but desperate”. In other words, desperation is not something placed alongside distinctions such as Liberal and Radical, it is a feeling that Liberals and Radicals can have. It operates at a different level much like sadness and mathematics are different species that do not oppose each other. In other words, this comment involves a category mistake.
Can’t argue with your critique of Timbo, my pastoral instinct says you missed the emotional and spiritual context of Timbo’s statement. In that sense calling what was said a “category mistake” while true doesn’t address Timbo where this person is at emotionally and spiritually. That is my pastoral and not philosophical response.
I guess I’m trying to say that were I am in life I find that just being Desperate to get through trumps being Liberal or Radical. Desperate people can be Liberal or Radical but it doesn’t matter much which they are because our options are limited. Working full time and raising my three grandsons doesn’t leave me a lot of time or energy to do much more then the bare essentials. Today I took a break from work and read this article, tonight I’m missing sleep to write this reply. I’m glad people can take to time to think and work on their understanding of God and how to interact with the world around them. I no longer have that freedom. I can only hope that God’s grace will get me through the day and my little ministry to my three grandsons will somehow be enough for them. But is what I do Liberal or Radical? No, it’s just life, and I think that’s all most people have.
Hang on brother, what’s important has got your back.
Tried posting earlier but text went weird so here goes again. As much as I understand the call to give up god for lent, I think a far more radical step would be to pursue a deeper pursuit of God . Such a pursuit would un mask many of the pseudo micro activities which allows us to dwell in the fantasy of being active or even more calling ourselves activists.The truth in my life is that so much of my liberal/radical stances allow me to hide from the terror of the incompleteness and contradictions rooted in the lack of my being. My liberal/radical ( I see no difference) fantasies shield me from the terror of love, which calls out inspite of the vortex of turbo capitalism.
Chris why do you need this rephrasing. If you accept Peter’s distinction between God-object and verses experience of depth in everything, what you are saying seems to say you think you can pursue God as object of depth and get at the experience of depth of Everything. Which is precisely what Rollins is saying can’t be done. Granted his Tellichian approach can be critiqued and a good way to do so is from the perspective and theology of Karl Barth especially in Church Dogmatics but that is a post possibly an entire thesis of its own.
Hey Chris
But what you articulate here about internal contradictions is the Radical tradition.
You always find a way of putting words around ideas I can’t explain myself. Thank you.
I think what some people find troubling is that our society is now full of armchair critics. We excel at criticizing the efforts of others to make this world better; yet many of those critics won’t lift a finger to actually bring about change (except if their fingers are at a keyboard).
Folks like myself and perhaps Micah are tired of waiting around for the next new idea. We feel that love for neighbor never involves inaction.
I believe what you said is important, that we should look at the underlying causes of injustice so that we can get at the root. However, we should not let that paralyze us from action.
What if the US had taken 10 years to study Hitler’s rise to power and his crafty use of propaganda to brainwash an entire nation into believing what’s wrong is actually right? Maybe we’d all be speaking German right now.
Are you saying that Rollins is so paralyzed? Peter here I think argues well that he is not so paralyzed. Fear of this paralysis neither means that Peter Rollins is so nor that he encourages others to be so. Though, some may use his ideas to under-gird their apathy, but I don’t think that is Peter Rollins’ fault.
I don’t really know anything about Peter Rollins personally, but here’s what he states above:
“From the Radical perspective however the perverse response needs to be avoided. This means that there are times when we should refuse to respond to the concrete cry of the other for the sake of wider and deeper transformation. This means having to take on a certain guilt while working toward real change.”
I agree that we must work toward “real change” in order to bring an end to evil or injustice. But I know several homeless people in my city. And I’m thinking his words above would not go over really well with them. “Sorry guys, you’re going to have to just go hungry -and possibly die- for however many years it takes us to determine what is causing homelessness.”
All I’m really saying is let’s not have one without the other.
That is how I hear the last sentence of what you quoted from Rollins: “This means having to take on a certain guilt while working toward real change.” Now I may be misreading what he means by “working towards” but this doesn’t strike me as a description of inaction. Critique of and calling for a stepping back from uncritical action and thus a call to reflection and self-critique is not the same as a call to inaction. So, I guess just driving home my thought that you arguing for something with which Rollins’ already agrees and laid out in the section of this post you just quoted from.
First off .. I think it’s worth saying that homeless people are not starving people (in America). Not when Ramen Noodle is 25c and water is free at gas stations. I think there is a very complex answer to the homeless problem in general, but I would not say that feeding someone is going to fix the underlying problem. This is what I got from Peter’s post – that sometimes we need a conflict in order to see the bigger issue. Maybe the answer is to allow the homeless friend to teach us something …
It’s intimidating to engage with you on this subject because I have a lot of respect for your work (I’ve described myself as a fanboy on several occasions) and this is part of a pattern of recent public conversations in which you have suggested that critics of your work are ill-informed about your radical tradition (and even their own since you define liberalism for them as well). I appreciate having this laid out here like this rather than just being referred to a vast body of literature – which is doubtless full of insight, but in the meantime just closes down conversation.
I think your characterization of the “Radical” vs. the “Liberal” schools of thought relies on an overly rigid typology that may be hindering you hearing some valid critiques even as you have strong answers for a lot of them. For example:
#1 I think you’re correct that “identity politics” in itself is insufficient for not cutting against the scapegoating mechanism, and can even function to support inequality just as you describe. But it does not follow that identity is unimportant or irrelevant to our ideas and practice. Even as we cut against our own ego and identity we are foolish not to recognize that we have these various identities, some given, some claimed, that unavoidably shape our thinking and behavior to an extent that there is no such thing as a pure or neutral theory. Who you are, who I am, and who we are respectively speaking to and for significantly shapes the meaning of what we say. Bales and others are not wrong to point out that these portraits are all of european males. I’m not convinced, just because the ideological use of identity for group exclusion/inclusion is problematic that we shouldn’t attend to who is speaking as well as what is said.
#2 You’re right that there is a suspicion of theory and a preference for action among many liberals, but I think it’s odd that you identify the radical side as stemming from Marx since much contemporary liberal activism is heavily influenced by Liberation Theologies which are often explicitly marxist. Furthermore, I think both you and your critics set these things in too stark an opposition. The paradigm of “act then reflect” in liberation theology is not anti-theory. It is a claim (correct I think) that our thinking is unavoidably shaped by our experiences and our circumstances and as such acting justly is a prerequisite for just theory. This is opposed to the traditional idea that right-thinking leads to right-action, an idea that the violence of historical orthodoxy amply disproves. To support this I would hold out your background (cited here) of growing up in a conflict zone, and in developing Ikon as the formative actions from which your theory stems. Bales may have incorrectly assumed that your writing work represented the dominant portion of your project and preceded your political action, but he wouldn’t be wrong in many cases to call those who aren’t engaged in works of corporal mercy away from their laptops and to the streets.
One area where I really disagree with Bales is in the way he presents the poor and oppressed as a discrete set of people for whom doubt and critical reflection are either inaccessible or unhelpful. This seems to me like unintentional condescension.
Hey. Thanks for the comment. Just one quick point here. Liberation theology, as a form of Marxism, is not liberal in the political sense, but leftist. As you know they generally have a high view of theory.
This is something I continually wrestle with! Is God really needed to sink into Ultimate Concern?
I am reminded of something I read by Charles Taylor in his address “A Catholic Modernity” that human beings have “an ineradicable bent to respond to something beyond life. Denying this stifles.” [Whether in the name of humanism or Radical Theology or whatever flavor.] “[W]hen the transcended window is closed, as there were nothing beyond – the more worked a crying need of the human heart to open that window, gaze, and then go beyond; as though feeling this need were the result of a mistake, an erroneous worldview, bad conditioning, or, worse, some pathology.”
I’m Glad that Micah Bales post brought out the need to articulate your sense of the Liberal and Radical approaches. I found that enlightening.
I however don’t read Micah Bales and his critique as situated in Liberalism, nor as one holding on to the God-Object. Rather I argue that Bales misunderstanding of you both stems from a failure to attend to your material and historical particularity as a person, but also that he has achieved an encounter an encounter with the depth-dimension without your techniques of doubt. While i see Atheism for Lent as useful for this, I doubt that your approach is universally needed for all.
I could be mistaken about Micah. I don’t know him personally, nor do I know you personally though we did meet once in Chicago, and conversed briefly.
I also think you aren’t attending to Micah’s historical and material reality as a person, though I can’t tell you his story as I don’t know it other than virtually.
What I conclude from this that this bit of controversy is that you and he are talking past each other, each with valid concerns based in each of your history as persons.
Lastly as I see if as Tillich says God is found in Ultimate Concern that isn’t too far from the metaphor of needing air to breath. In a sense I read Micah as saying he can’t give up God for Lent because God isn’t an object for him. That you can’t see that as a possibility seems to me to possibly be a limit of your own historical and limited perspective, just as Micah’s misunderstanding of you comes from his own limits as a historically and materially limited person.
I find both of you challenging and worthy partners on this journey of life, intellect and spirituality.
Thanks, Larry. Well said.
To flesh out Micah’s position a bit, Micah, as a Quaker, attempts to live and speak plainly, just as the early Quakers did. Therefore, he objects stylistically to Peter’s writing style, but his stylistic objection is actually a deeper Quaker critique of (what was then) Puritan intellectualism. Puritans have their intellectual descendants in fundamentalists. (Conservative) Quakers, by contrast, wait for direct revelation from the Holy Spirit in silence. Micah is an orthodox Quaker, which means he has a trinitarian understanding of God. Quakers are against “dogma,” generally. Micah is almost certainly on the left, and would associate himself, if he had to, with Spirit-led anarchism.
I think Peter summarizes AfL’s audience and end goal well as “For people who approach the sacred as an object of depth rather than as simply the experience of depth in everything.” That answers some questions for me about what you are FOR.
The experience of depth in everything. Actually, there are a series of contemplative practices I do around this topic, based on the book Noisy Contemplation. They’ve been important to me. They don’t really require belief in God as such. Here are a few excerpts.
For me, I work to cultivate this depth in everything alongside a belief in God. I still wonder at the need to crucify the “God-object.” Larry posted an insightful comment on this subject.
For me, as for Micah, we experience a loving presence which we have come to associate with God. This approach to God is phenomenological. Clearly God is not reducible to this experience, but this is the experience by which we came to seek ultimate concern in life and depth in all things. I’ve written directly about this here. I actually did write that post in order to start a dialogue, Peter. I am likewise commenting on this thread for that reason.
I’m an orthodox Christian who (tries to) practice the presence of God and the depth of reality itself. I could give up on this dialogue and move on, as I’m surely not Peter’s audience. I’m marginally interested in blog traffic, but less so on my personal site. Mostly I work to build alternative economies and write spiritually about it to drive people to my work site, quixote.org/cci.
I am, perhaps, a pervert when it come to social justice. MOAR JUSTICE!!! I cry. With Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, Amos, and the rest of them.
If I were God of AfL I’d seek subversive texts from experiences of colonialism, but that would be my project, not Rollins’. Plenty of other people are doing that.
Lastly, but not least. Is pyrotheology flammable? What happens when a pyromaniac like Micah Bales attempts to burn it?
Hey. I understand that he stands against the intellectual tradition. However I think I pointed that out and addressed my concerns with this in the post. As an advocate of the old Enlightenment belief in the importance of the academy and the need to help more have access to it, i stand against the pragmatic stance. The reason for this is connected with the common place philosophical aphorism that those who do not know theory are not free from it, but most enslaved by it. Also, with the Enlightenment, I stand with the idea that the humanities are vital for the development of ideology critique and for forming radical movements. I am simply pointing out the difference between the liberal (predominantly US) and leftist traditions (predominantly European).
Micah does not come across as a leftist, at least this is not expressed in his writing (I have outlined some basic reasons why). His work politically has the structure of liberalism rather than something in the more Hegelian tradition.
Finally he radical and the liberal are not separate in their desire for change, but rather in how it is done (something I also addressed above)
Here’s some of Micah’s political thoughts, for reference.
http://lambswar.blogspot.com/2012/02/time-to-occupy-church.html
http://lambswar.blogspot.com/2012/04/spirit-of-one-percent.html
…and you may have seen this, but this is Brian Merritt calling out Red Letter Christians for removing Micah’s piece. And explaining who Micah is.
http://indefinitedefiniteness.org/2013/02/19/why-i-support-micah-bales/
I did not know that RLC excised the article, and I did not know Jay Bakker complained about it. I say the critique is necessary. I like to read what Pete says, and Micah Bales’s critique prompted him to respond, which made his thought even sharper. I like what both are saying. It’s not just a right/wrong false dichotomy. What is not helpful is to pretend that anyone is above critcism. How dare someone criticize Pete? How dare we not? We owe such critique to each other.
Peter, you believe you have established that Micah is a Liberal (not in thecurrent vernacular meaning of Liberal). Jeremy’s and my response, argues that you have mis-categorized Micah Bales. We may very well be wrong. And I argue that Micah Bales has mis-categorized you. Thus I have said you are talking past each other.
Do you really mean to suggest that if one isn’t Liberal one has to be Hegelian? Are there in your analysis only two options here?
Lastly, while Micah argued that you weren’t interested in social change you have shown that Micah was mistaken in this. I don’t think Jeremy or I are agreeing with Micah in this. And I think I’m at my limit here to say more since I think I partially misunderstood your project back when I saw you on the Insurection tour and dismissed your project as relatively irrelevant to me and thus uninteresting to me. That has now changed.
Hey
Thanks for the message. In terms of the positions I believe there are a number (the other main one I would say, in dialectic fashion) is conservative. I see this as primarily a discussion between liberal and radical though. I appreciate your input (and misread another persons comments as yours when referencing you on twitter – sorry!)
Hey David. Thanks for your warm encouragement of this discussion. I just wanted to make a small point that Jay’s concern was not with the critique as such, but had to do with the tone and with whether RLC was an appropriate place to have it. I should let Jay speak for himself on this matter. But he had some real concerns that RLC agreed with. He is not however against the need for critique and was actually one of the people who encouraged me to publish this piece. Thanks again
Hey Peter,
I think you are talking to me (@glassdimlyfaith) and Larry, (@priestlygoth).
Are you talking about that “unsubscribe” comment?
I did interpret your comment as your desire to end this dialogue.
For me (and I believe for Larry as well), this is an important dialogue, and we wish to continue it, and we invite your participation, but have no wish to harangue or hound you. Who knows, maybe @peterrollins pops up on your phone. We don’t need you to participate.
I was a cognitive science major in college and I read broadly still. I believe I’m coming to understand your project better as I encounter Zizek. That is to say, I am formed by these thoughts and I wish to carry them on, particularly in the company of theists who experience God. So more broadly than your community, perhaps. Or perhaps not.
I was planning to republish my reflection on the Dark Night of the Soul in Huffpo Religion but I changed my mind after that comment and unsubmitted it because I did not want to give you the impression that I was hounding you.
You are welcome to DM me if you would like to talk not-publicly.
Peace,
Jeremy
Initially when I began to follow PR’s work the Lent project/teachings were very helpful in giving words or in forming a way to help explain much of the conviction that I had. As a Native American and living within the systematic/generational struggles I had often found that when attempting cross cultural breakthroughs, whether in church or in community work I would find it difficult to bring explanation for the need for a larger work of transformation to occur when most of the time the very lens by which the systematic oppression occurs and was still maintained was not broken but learned to live better within – made it nearly impossible to give a visual to others. Most attempts at community healing would become ways to help with the seen poverty, but it would not change peoples hearts toward how the entire system works. At some level because there is poverty and the various struggles that occur with it you have to at some level accept help and in this feel the weight and humbling of the us/them mechanism, but the question for me is not whether we should help or not but how can there be transformation while we do find ways to help. What I also know though is that even away from the Native American wounds and in getting to know the various wounds among many I have met along the way I have found that another aspect of work in this healing was within going out among who I saw as “the others” at some level, but even more than just that, moreso than just going out to make friends in the typical sense, forming friendships from various ones that will be able to discuss some of these topics – but it did seem that often what you find within the diverse groups that will talk about this stuff (division, differences, race, politics, etc) that people tend to either have ideas of “everyone just get along and forget it” (with the idea to just follow some sort of already known law that we are all not following) or “let everyone have grace and permission to be where they need to be when they need to be and everything will work out” (or some sort of dismissal of having to face anything). For the most part it seemed that in then seeing the various actions or the tendency to have everyone “just get along and drop it” it hardly ever came without really meaning “do what I think is right” – which tended to be within an idea of a structure which should be complied and did not act or help with much. Then the other perspective of “let people be and do and have grace” seemed to really become a revealing of “if they don’t have to deal with things then I don’t have to deal with myself or wounds” – but would then tend to depend on someone to tell them what to do or to also have areas to create a space for judgment on the side. So on that level I do understand how much of what we do, no matter how we present it does have to do with some sort of off-base idea of structure that is false and protects our own interests, or some sort of self denial – that if I don’t judge anything then I don’t have to judge myself or what it is I obey and bow to (so to speak). It does seem like there are addictions to our own wounds that a sense of structure hides or a sense of “grace” that dismisses our own self judgment, our fear or desire for structure over us . But what I feel is that if there are ways to portray more of how we can have this judgment (benefit from it) and how to gear the wounds then the false structures that run off of that will be more revealed and we can help properly. If you are tending to really speak of restructuring. I simply have stated that although I agree with much of your work, I still feel that it can be gained with other tools too.
There seems to be a difference in getting people to have a break through in seeing outside the lens and then those who do but are working it out. Maybe there really can’t be a clean switch, maybe it occurs together. It is not as though one drops an addict in the desert until they realize they need to change and then forgets them there and “solves” the addiction once they are….passed on. That would seem like a strange “problem solved” mistake. But if an addict is not confronting their need to change then small dosage drips to prevent explosion does not help either. So I don’t mean either view – abandon/drip dosage – I do agree with a need for a powerful self confrontation that seems to need to take place (with people or structures, etc), but what about the process after that?
I also think that the liberal critique is too often mired in an apocalyptic mentality. You look at the red letter christians and their response is a combination of incidental “good works” and political theater because ultimately their only vision of true change is apocalyptic, when Jesus returns then the world is changed. In the meantime they participate in guerilla acts of charity, but cannot envision that anything they do will bring about that change. They even compare themselves to the French underground waiting for the allied D-day force. But of course the appeal to an external supernatural force to bring about structural change is merely to avoid change in the present by projecting it in the future. The radical tradition on the other hand refuses to abdicate its responsiblity through projection and instead recognizes that theory is a necessary precondition of true structural change. We cannot change what we don’t understand.
…depends on what or how you mean drip dosage…(not accompanied by denial, in process, working through, etc)
I’m not sure I get the point of all this. Sometimes our conjectures about God get so out of control that we need to let go of our false god-concept but only so that we might fall into the arms of the Real God, the one that doesn’t need us to play at believing in a god in order to make Himself known.
But that God is the one in whom we live, and move, and have our being. How could we “give him up” without turning our back on Him, and even our selves against our own beings?
It seems to me that Peter argues that any conception of God as a being, or a subject, is necessarily idolatrous, necessarily a false God-concept.
Which is where I continue to be confused with your work a bit, Peter–on the one hand you claim to be transcending theistic/atheistic categories, and that you are not ‘against’ theism any more than you are ‘for’ it. Yet it continues to seem to me that the nature of the project (forsaking any notion of God as ‘Other’) only really makes sense as a way forward if in fact there is no God-as-Other. If there is some kind of real God, then it is not an inherent contradiction to find depth and meaning both in that God and also in everything else that is. Or would Atheism for Lent be just as valuable if a loving, present, ‘other’ God does in fact exist? If such a God does exist, could not relating to this God prove valuable in helping us find depth of meaning in everything, and working toward political change?
Micah Bales is a Quaker, as am I. Coming from a Quaker perspective, while I appreciate your intellectual categories and distinctions between the liberal and the radical approach, I also wonder whether your tools are well suited for the task at hand. One of the hallmarks of Quakerism is its emphasis on religious experience . Inward, unmediated revelation is the highest authority, It seems to me that using the categories of being/doing, theory/action, and liberal/radical to understand experience-driven spirituality is not going to be very successful. Micah’s point, as I understand it, is that experimenting with atheism is fine for a reason-based religious approach. We would probably all do well to play with that thought. But it can only be a thought for someone whose spirituality is experience-based, as it is for many Quakers. Using the tools of rational analysis on spiritual experience is a bit like using a hammer to twist a screw into place. Nothing wrong with either the hammer or the screw per se, they just aren’t effective together.
I should clarify that I am not a religious Christian, so I am not working with (or against) theistic categories. I am happy for people to have personal experiences (whether in church, art or football matches). I am dealing with the political in this post and the differences between the liberal and radical tradition
Interesting. So I am left wondering – why use “lent” as the motif here, if this has nothing to do with Christianity? Lent is a “Christian” season, at least in some denominations (and not in others.) Lent usually isn’t a political concept.
But I am a Christian, just not in the religious or spiritual sense. I argue that Christianity is materialist in my work.
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I found this post very clear and helpful, but as someone who is trained in theology and not philosophy, I have one bone to pick. I see elsewhere that you’ve said you’re not a “religious Christian”, so it might seem irrelevant to you, but I know that there are many “religious Christians” who find your work helpful (myself included, often) so perhaps someone else could help out.
“I can empathise here in that there was an area in my life where I felt that I needed something in order to live. I thought that if I lost that thing my heart would burst out of my chest and that life would escape my body. However I would say that this is, while romantic, an ultimately destructive place to be.”
I have read justifications as to why this is the case before, but it sometimes seems like perspectives like these treat the idea that God is not to be needed as axiomatic rather than something which needs to answer to concepts about God derived from tradition (and if we’re indiscriminately writing off tradition, I don’t see why we don’t give up on Christianity completely). That God is not to be commodified is certainly defensible – but that God is not to be treated as something outside of ourselves in whom we ought to trust and find worth? I’m not so sure that is self-evident, or even required in order to also see the depth and worth in all of existence.
I appreciate critiques of religion that point out that needing God can be a form of escapism (or indeed sedation), and I can recognise that this often invades religious faith. It’s particularly dangerous when it results in the fear of the secular as “worldly” and unclean territory (though that is to misunderstand the incarnation, and there are some excellent catholic critiques of that way of thinking, for example). But these critiques of religion themselves start from the perspective that God is not true and real, and escapism from self-sufficiency to an unreal being is therefore obviously destructive. If we start instead from the perspective that God is the most true and real – and, indeed, exists in a real sense as a being who brought us into existence for the sake of love – then needing God seems to me to follow naturally.
When we consider Christian tradition, we see that the human relationship with God is not analogous to human relationships with each other. Two people cannot need each other to the extent that their existence apart from the other is impossible, and to believe that that is the case is unhealthy and untrue. But human beings could not exist apart from God, because we only exist in the first place because of God’s love and goodness, and because, unless we are deistic, we recognise that the continued existence of all things is dependent upon God’s sustenance. In this context, then, acknowledged reliance upon God (even in times of intense experienced abandonment, as in Jesus’ experience on the cross) is desirable. While God is experienced in the diversity of human experience, attention paid to him in Christ, through religious beliefs and structures, is the most explicit and dependable translation of that experience. If a Christian perspective is going to be predicated upon anything, then, surely it has to be that, rather than atheistic critiques? And if it isn’t, then what makes this a perspective that coheres with Christianity (and, specifically, Christian tradition)?
“I appreciate critiques of religion that point out that needing God can be a form of escapism (or indeed sedation), and I can recognise that this often invades religious faith.”(VM)- It is probably in that sense that the Lent teachings of PR were helpful for me – one can become trapped within certain stages and in a sense the “permission” to break out of that occurred with influence from Pete’s teachings, in that sense, a good breaking or -restarting point – but I am not quick to say that I am not still influenced by spirituality. In the sense that most of my experience ties along the lines of spirituality, I think some of his teachings along the lines of Christ as the story of breaking-off of us is helpful in regards to an idea along the lines of spirituality.
If you are setting aside the image, cool. Nifty exercise. But Tillich is all about teleology and intentionality, the radical orientation of the entire being towards the Ultimate Concern. If you cease to have an ontological orientation towards your Ground, one that is both relational and fundamentally existential, then I’m not sure where this goes. Nice and provocative, though!
You make several excellent distinctions in this post, Peter. Particularly important is your discussion of scapegoating. However, regardless of his sometimes hyperbolic critique, Micah is absolutely correct about your audience. If it matters to you that your theoretical posture generally comes across as “cold” and anti-relational (i.e. – elite and intellectual) then it is a critique worth entertaining on your part, depending on how you pay your bills I suppose.
As you state in your comment above, you do indeed argue that Christianity is material. Since incarnation is so essential to that argument, it is frustrating for some of your audience that Jesus is a mere side note while Zizek (speaking of perverts) is glorified. Maybe Jesus is just another liberal…?
This pervert metaphor for action-based chicken-head-cut-off liberalism is good. Reminds me of evil as Buber’s inability to choose.
You mention the pervert. The Christian metaphor which would replace the pervert, of course, is the father (mother as the Holy Spirit). The father cannot deny the (good) needs of the child, as in the prodigal son story. The father MUST love, but the father does not need to act, as the pervert does. The father can have boundaries, unlike the pervert.
I would like to suggest a few books that would be good mediating conversational partners to this dialogue..
The Dynamics of Faith by Paul Tillich
Awareness by Anthony de Mello
Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton
After Virtue by Alistair Macantyre
From Brokenness to Community by Jean Vanier
The meaning of life a short introduction by Terry Eagleton
and anything by Slavoj Zizek
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One thing I found enriching about Fidelity of Betrayal was how it countered with joy and confidence the deep-seated evangelical fear that a loss of certainty –- in our ideas of God, in an authoritative canon –- would leave us paralysed and adrift. I’m traveling away from my bookshelf, so can’t revisit the section I have in mind. Perhaps I took away what I wanted to hear, rather than what you actually said, Pete.
But the gist I recall is that love and action are inextricably linked; to the extent that we follow Jesus’ call to love, we pour ourselves out for the beloved and the neighbor as a matter of course. And love need not, can not, wait for certainty before it acts. If we fear that not-knowing will paralyse us, it just confirms that love isn’t what has been driving our actions. Love moves us to act for the good of the beloved even when we’re unsure that we’re doing the right thing.
Now, doubtless that doesn’t commit us to the “perpetual concrete action” that you see and criticize in “the” liberal tradition. Nor am I endorsing Micah’s suggestion that AfL and similar provocations are irrelevant to social action. But there is nonetheless something in the above post that feels dissonant with my reading of FoB-era Rollins – and I think it’s the implicit confidence that critical theory will reveal the Archimedean points that allow transformative action.
To me, this recalls too closely the confidence of conservative evangelicals that a sufficiently thorough Bible study or systematic theology will reveal God’s will in any given situation. (Which confidence is, of course, the flip side of the disabling fear I mention above).
It seems to readmit the comforting idea that we can know (with at least a fair degree of certainty) What Is To Be Done… and thus that it’s best to defer more concrete action until we have that knowledge. Which seems to me a false comfort. I’ll stand up for the relevance of both critical theory and Bible study to the emancipatory project, but am too much a skeptic to think that following either canon will reveal to us the right time to down our laptops and pile into concrete attempts at change.
I preferred the loving, risky impetuosity that I (perhaps mistakenly) heard you advocating in an earlier work to this confidence in theory. Misreadings?
‘This is likely why Bales is unable to see my formation of ikon and ikonNYC as political interventions (he critiques me for not being interested in political action).
The formation of these groups are the most important part of my project (of which writing is only a small part) and are dedicated to breaking the scapegoat mechanism and thus undermining the libidinal pleasure received from the act of exclusion itself.’
Please don’t take this as criticism, it is a genuine question as I struggle to understand some of this. How does Ikon break the scapegoat mechanism in a way that, for example, integrated education in NI, or other similar social action initiatives, don’t?
Hey Shirley
Thanks for the question. i appreciate it as you are someone who has been very involved with ikon and thus have an understanding of its scope and limitations. I don’t see this as an either/or situation. I would never think that the only only sites in the world this happens are in ikon. There are multiple places that do this and do it better. Ikon and ikonNYC happen to be small attempts at it. In N.Ireland groups like Corrymella and the places you mention are doing it on a wider and more powerful scale
Thanks Pete. It is still a bit confusing to me though because (to take the only real example that I know anything about) Integrated education here operates very much within the system that it is trying to break down- there’s no other choice- and that is a very frustrating and crazy place to be some times, but we wouldn’t bother if we didn’t think that we were making some kind of difference that the segregated schools here weren’t capable of by virtue of their difference…
I am just wondering if it is possible to believe in the radical solution while also working to relieve real suffering on the ground. I find the idea of there being times when we should refuse to respond to the concrete cry of the other for the sake of wider and deeper transformation really disturbing, but maybe I have misunderstood what you mean by that.
Thanks for your response. It is really appreciated.
Hey
The leftist tradition, as exemplified in Marx, has a high regard for critical theory. This involves taking time out from the cry of the other. This is not about never helping others, but rather avoiding perverse structure. There are a number of reasons for this, but the one I mention above is that the humanities can help us understand how hegemonic ideology functions to self-sustain and thus enable us to build strategies. Think about it like a farmer. If a farmer is always responding directly to what is happening right in front of her then she is more susceptible to problems. There has to be a stepping bak to learn things about how soil works, how to understand weather etc. etc. The concern that leftists generally have with liberals is that their rejection of theory for practice is not only a (unreflective) theory, but places one in more danger of serving the very system one seems to stand against. This, or course, is another aspect of a perverse structure (in which one gains pleasure from standing against a power to evoke that powers response, creating a reciprocal loop. We can think here of how a State (we see this in the former Soviet Union) in crisis often welcomes critique because it helps to legitimate it)
Thanks Pete. I do understand all that. Thinking of it in Political terms- the right to protest being ‘allowed’ by the powerful in order to perpetuate a structure (democracy) which in fact only ever serves an elite.
Yet, if the farmer ignores the farm it will die (and the farmer’s family may also die as a result). Can’t the farmer do their thinking in the tractor? I think most of them have to, until the day comes when they have a better plan.
I suppose I am still waiting for the better plan.
I think my question is- is the choice only between supporting a structure in order to help people live and doing everything we can to blow the structure up? And if we chose the latter, then what becomes of the people that the structure falls on top of? Is there no other way? I think there has to another way.
Pete,
Good response to the Micah Bales article. I read them both and am impressed
You and I spoke about Rene Girard in Columbus, OH. You noted your familiarity with his work, and I see parts of the “scapegoating mechanism” or the “mimetic theology” in this post. I am wondering how much of an influence Girard has on the Radical Movement. I rather enjoy his fresh take on atonement theory.
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I just had lunch with a friend of mine who happens to be a pastor of a very progressive evangelical church. I recently have “SEEEN!!!!!!!!!!” whoooo hoooo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah!” for lack of a better emotional outburst. I AM UNRAVELLING! Anyway, it’s absolutely insane and I was sharing with my friend the sense that I had that there is absolutely NO meaning outside of love. There TRULY is no fear in love. And that means no fear. Really. There is no big guy upstairs watching to make sure we are doing things right. I totally see the point of Atheism for lent. OH YEAH! Let go dudes and dude-ettes. Let go. Ha ha. Or don’t. It doesn’t matter. We are all in this magical place called life that is held together by something even more magical. Oh yeah, this place is magic and we need to help our fellow travelers (aka; EVERYONE we come into contact) out when we can. Even that is false. We don’t NEED to do anything except freaking let go and let ourselves be taken up in this deep mystery of love.
Peter,
This project sounds like you want to get Christians out of perhaps their narrow mindset/worldview and reflect on their life as Christians and the effect of their lives on others. Is that too simplistic?
I am a seminarian and I am a firm believer in God, but sometimes I need to step back and ask, “What am I doing?” As someone who grew up with a disability in the Bible Belt, I know the evil that Christians can do without thinking. It took me a while to see what God was offering me through Christ because often times Christians do not reflect that in our daily lives.
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Peter this makes a lot of sense. The picture of a que of ‘others’ waiting to take the spotlight and deflect its uncomfortable glare from our own internal conflicts is a challenging one, and a vital perspective if we are to cover new ground…. Do you think that when Bales has a knee jerk reaction to giving up God for lent it is because for him the notion of God actually means the experience of depth in everything? it does for me at least. In the same way that when you suggest we give up God for lent you don’t (in this instance) mean we give up being open to finding depth in everything. That is my attempt to understand why a bad critique would come from a good person. I do not think Bales necessarily creates or uses ‘others’ in his life to bolster the intensity of his beliefs or protect himself from despair. Rather, in his language te word for this depth dimension is God, the Quakers accommodate this in a flexible and dynamic way which makes it possible for God to evade capture and not become an idol. Saying that though, Giving up God for lent is a good idea because it has the potential to give us a new or refined language for the depth and resonance in everything. It also opens us up to feeling/searching for emptiness in everything- and to use an idea i recognise as yours, out of those ashes comes something tangible, love as action.
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Pete- I sympathise with a lot of this, but I’m not sure that “embracing ones own internal antagonisms” goes far enough. It seems like it’s a settlement with the ontological condition created by systems of oppression. I’m thinking specifically of James Kameron Carter and Victor Anderson’s critique of James Cone and his use of Tillich in _Beyond Ontological Blackness_. Embracing one’s own internal antagonisms, in the case of the African American experience- “Ontological Blackness,” is a settlement with the condition created by their white oppressors, ergo a settlement with their oppressors and oppression itself. I think a more radical move isn’t satisfied with that resolution and would look to go beyond these contingently created antagonisms. I’m wondering if coming back to God in terms of (non)potentiality instead of actuality (ie Derrida’s God to-come, or Agamben’s freedom to believe in God while knowing God doesn’t exist) would be the next radical move.
Hi Pete-
Can’t find email info for you so I’m leaving a message here. I was listening to your broadcast on Pagitt Radio (used to hang out with Doug at the Zondervan conferences in San Diego and still check in now and again). As you moved from idea to idea, I was struck with how so much of what you have developed in “Idolatry” is to be found in Dionysius the Aeropagite, J. Ziziolas, C. Yannaras (specifically “The Freedom of Morality”) – in other words, the theology/anthropology of EOrthodoxy. The EO Liturgy is more than an re-enactment, it is participation in reality – but even so, there is a connection. I wonder if you have engaged with these authors, or others of the Greeks/Syraics throughout time… Not trying to convert you
but as I said, it was rather uncanny to me.
For good discussions of the kinds of things you’re bringing up, you could check Fr Stephen Freeman’s blog (www.glory2godforallthings.com) – He’s one of the best online, and I’m sure he would engage you by email if you wanted.
Best to you-
Dana Ames
in California
Pete, thanks for taking the time to post this gentle but solid rebuttal. Brilliant stuff. I’m drawn all the more into appreciation for your work and this radical tradition, which still admittedly i know little about. And for taking time to interact with the folks above, sort thru confusion and misunderstandings and all that. Reading your response makes me thankful for Micah’s initial post.
Peter, I wish I had your email address to share this directly with you, which occurred to me today and seemed for you; but I looked at the blog/article (haven’t mastered several puzzling bits) and about two or four things you said or showed or were at, seemed replied to or dealt with anyway. (There was a preliminary or two to the whole thing.) May I write it, following here? Regards and good wishes, Francis (“Frank”)
See the saints! By Jesus’ blood
they’re purchased, washed, and holy made.
A fire has come, by Jesus brought;
do not confuse with false fire formed.
Two horns as lamb; instead of this,
the speech is like a dinosaur
(or dragon, if not confidence is found
in inference from history spread –
a fearful noise was said to come
from dragon cave, one wrote about this
being heard) –
what is this? Is this one’s authority
so gently shown,
and yet his speech so much like this kind of beast?
Back to the saints! What fault remains
(not like this now)
in them when God’s work is complete,
on that great day of Jesus Christ?
They healed the sick, they raised the dead,
they served out food which multiplied,
they walked on water, spoke no storm;
and won the verdict, not condemned;
every mountain will have been
moved out of place;
of such effect is even faith
so very small, a minimum.
Devouring Fire, the one true God –
the Light, the Love, the Spirit, Love –
will deal against all this false fire,
till none remains.
Check all; false prophets will be weeded out,
false prophecy’s to be sorted from the true.
All beings (not just the humans) require Divine Compassion, Love, and Blessing, the thread of Communion with the Living Divine Reality made certain and true and directly experienced.
Sin is the mind created presumption of separation from the Living Divine Reality. And the thus always active dramatization of dissociation from the Living Divine Reality.
There is Real existence until sin is transcended. All actions and all states of knowledge and experience are emoty, painful, problematic, and sinful until the presumption of separation from the Living Divine Reality is utterly transcended.
Ther is to truly human life without Divine Communion, or the submission/surrender of the entire conscious and functional being to the Absolute Divine Reality within which it appears, on which it depends – even for the next breath.
Without that Divine Communion, there is no True humanity, no True responsibility (or even its possibility),no Real freedom. Without Divine Communion the individual is simply a functional entity living a fear based unconscious adventure of pre-patterened functional relations. There is no Sacred or Divine plane to his or her awareness.