If you live nearby you are more than welcome to come and celebrate the official launch of The Fidelity of Betrayal with me on Wednesday July 16th at 19:00 in the Trans Lounge of The Waterfront Hall in Belfast. Music will be provided by DJ Brasilia. Hope to see you there.

A while back I listed some podcasts that I subscribe to, and was told to check out the Nick and Josh Podcast. I did, and now it has become an important companion to me as I journey from A to B. These guys are great and well worth subscribing to. Anyway they did an interview with me last month about some of the themes in my new book and it is now up on their podcast. Their site can be found here.

So there seems to be energy around Bonhoeffer still (even if it is just to say that we should move on from Bonhoeffer). Instead of continuing the ever-growing comment section of the last post I thought I would write some thoughts in a new post. This means that people don’t need to read 40 comments before writing something. Before I make my main point I will however say that I am surprised at myself for returning to Bonhoeffer, for if you asked me a few weeks ago what I thought of his later writings I would have likely said that I thought they were mere fragments of thought done to death in the 60’s and that other thinkers have done the work that Bonhoeffer signaled and hinted at (thus rendering the letters of interest only for their historical value). And while part of me still thinks that might be true another part of me thinks of him in the same way that I think about Feuerbach, i.e. as an important transitional thinker. In particular Bonhoeffer opened up a way of thinking (or at least expressed it) that was not exhausted in the Radical Theology of the 60’s but which is a prophetic utterance concerning a much more virulent strain of theology that is vibrant and historically significant (what I am about to say relates to the great comment by Ian below – BTW I think Moot is a wonderful example of a community exploring this stuff).

Interestingly, Bonhoeffer does not attack religion as such. However he reflects that in the 20th century (though he sees it beginning in the 17th century) religion has become possible for less and less people because it has been problematical. Not because it has changed but because human beings have entered into a different epoch (my words not his, he talks of “man come of age”). In this new historical situation a religious expression of Christianity places God at the edges of human life as the Deus ex machina. Why? Because religion, for Bonhoeffer, is the belief in a metaphysical absolute from which everything hangs (onto-theology), and as human knowledge increases the more things in our existence do not require this metaphysical explanation. Religion is now exposed as advocating a God of the gaps. In addition to this the God of religion is only for those who feel a need to ask the metaphysical question, “Why”, and in a ‘world come of age”, this question is asked by fewer and fewer (a Nietzschian point par exellence). Indeed Bonhoeffer attacks with great passion those believers who would use the idea of death and illness to get people back to that metaphysical question (and even implicates existentialism and psychoanalysis in the same insidious project – which I would, of course, take issue with).

Bonhoeffer’s great insight in LPP as far as I can see, was to dimly perceive that, while religion was a predominant guise for Christianity throughout history this did not need to be the case – that Christianity could affirm all its central tenants without religion as he defined it (God could be affirmed without metaphysics – again he was not saying that this was ontologically better but rather was becoming historically nessesary). He saw religion as having served its time well, but which had finally reached its twilight.

This is interesting to me because I think it allows us to understand Fundamentalism in a different way. Namely, as an impotent reaction to the loss of religion. The attempt to place it back in the centre. Fundamentalism can thus be seen as the very evidence of the growing redundancy of religion. It is the violent kickback against the continual loss of ground that religion has had to concede in recent years. But for Bonhoeffer there is a way beyond an anemic religious Christianity that places God at the edge and a violent fundamentalism which impotently seeks to place religion in the centre and this is what he was hinting at. It has been left to others to explore what this alternative is (but for Bonhoeffer it was deeply Christocentric and exhibited itself in an unwavering concern for the world – just to relate to the important question that Lori asked).

I have recently been re-reading the later Bonhoeffer to help with my current writing and have been staggered by the insight contained in many of his letters from prison. Because he was writing under difficult conditions and only begining to formulate his thoughts on ‘religionless Christianity’ his writing is often fragmented, frustratingly embryonic and wed too tightly with his previous perspectives. However it feels, while reading these letters, that we are witnessing a metamorphosis taking place before our very eyes. It is as if we are glimpsing the very moment when a caterpillar begins to reconstitute itself in the process of becoming a butterfly. Yet, as we know, before the transformation was complete his life was snuffed out.

His letters are clearly marked by a serious reading of Nietzsche and can thus be seen as one of the early theological attempts to reflect on what faith looks like after ‘the death of God’. In these letters he imagines a church radically transformed, one which rethinks, at a core (ontological) level, its purpose and expression.

I am sticking my neck out here, but I believe that we are beginning to witness the development of dynamic faith collectives which Bonheoffer would have recognised as concrete manifestations of his lonely prison thoughts (though there are fewer of these groups than one might imagine - for instance I do not include the vast swarm of neo-evangelical, crypto-evangelistic communities which so often cloud the horizon). While ikon, the group of which I am a part, is not in any way perfect I see it as a key experiment in this new movement (others include Aldea in Tuscon and The Garden in Brighton).

Anyway, here is a quote from Bonhoefer (which I might use as the opening quote in the book I am currently working on),

“And we cannot be honest unless we recognise that we have to live in the world etsi deus non daretur [even if there were no God]. And this is just what we do recognise - before God! God himself compels us to recognise it. So our coming of age leads us to a true recognition of our situation before God. God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34). The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God and with God we live without God. God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8.17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering”.

I would recommend John Caputo’s wonderful book, The Weakness of God to see an example of how this can be fleshed out.

Brecht once famously wrote, “what is the crime of robbing a bank compared to the crime of founding one?” Is this not the very sentiment that we must bare in mind as we watch Batman at work? By day he is Bruce Wayne, a wealthy industrialist, by night he is Batman, combing the streets of Gotham City for criminals to beat up and people to save.

His obsession with street crime arises as a direct result of witnessing his Mother and Father murdered by a thief. His Father was a philanthropist who attempted to help Gotham City by funding social projects and local charity work. Bruce, however takes a different approach and uses his wealth to fund a vigilante war on terror.

One could say that Bruce Wayne is fundamentally different from his Father in so much as the later concentrated on helping victims of crime while the former seeks to punish the perpetrators of crime. However, it would be more accurate to say that Bruce is merely continuing his Fathers business by different, but equally flawed, means.

Both are obsessed with the subjective violent eruptions that take place on the streets of Gotham City and both seek to address them. However, in the midst of all their activities neither pay attention to their own (sublimated) violence. This violence is that which has been objectified in the very economic structures that allow corporations like Wayne Industries to make such vast sums of money in the first place. Batman is unable to see that the subjective crime he fights on a nightly basis is the direct manifestation of the objective crime he perpetrates on a daily basis. The street crime is the explosion of violence that results from greedy, large industries obsessed with the increase of abstract capital at the expense of all else. It is not enough to hate subjective explosions of crime, one must turn ones attention to the ground that feeds these expressions.

Indeed one could say that it is the very philanthropic work of his Father and the crime-fighting of Wayne that actually provide the valve that allows them both to continue in their objective violence. What better way to feel good about yourself than volunteering at a local charity in the evenings (like his Father) or beating up on street criminals in the evenings (like Wayne). Such acts (like a prayer meeting, worship service or bible study) can recharge the batteries and make us feel like our true identity is pure and good when in reality it simply takes away the guilt that would otherwise make it difficult for us to embrace our true (social) self who is expressed in the activities we engage in for the rest of the week. The philosophy here is exposed as “do something so that nothing really changes”.

Perhaps then the next film will not have Batman running around beating up drug dealers and pimps (an impotent project anyway as there is only one Batman for the whole city), but rather dissolving Wayne Industries, setting up free health care and campaigning for radically different socio-political structures.

Mind you, it might not be as fun to watch (and I am very much looking forward to seeing the new Joker in action).

Here is an interview I recently gave for “Emerging Church info”

Just thought I would write to let you know what I am up to. The Fidelity of Betrayal is now out. My third book is complete and will hopefully be hitting the bookshelves near the end of 2008 or early 2009 (title is likely to be The Orthodox Heretic) and, after a couple of very unproductive weeks, I have finally started my fourth book.

It has been my desire to create a theological triptych calling for a radical change in the way we approach faith. The first two parts being How (Not) to Speak of God and The Fidelity of Betrayal. The book that I have just begun is designed to complete it.

In addition to this I continue to be involved with the development of ikon, which has proved to be very exciting of late! I hope to write a little about our journey since How (Not)… in the new book.

This all makes me sound very productive, but in reality I have been spending a lot of time in coffee shops, watching Columbo and The Prisoner or enjoying the sun.

Promise a more interesting post next time!

Is it not the case that amidst all our contemporary liberal celebration of otherness there is a distinct whiff of fear concerning those who are different from us? We may say that we want to live in a society of difference and that we are enriched by this wealth of diversity. Indeed we may even spend our time fighting for such a society. However, so much of this seems to spring from a deep horror and fear of the other. Is it not the case that we can celebrate others only so long as they occupy a public space with us within which they do not air their potentially exclusive, racist and sexist attitudes?

I celebrate the fact that you are not like me, do not think like me, or see the world like me, only to the extent that I never have to encounter that side of you. I can only accept your otherness so long as I never have to be polluted by it, so long as I never have to see or hear it in the workplace, pub or street corner. So we end up showing our ‘respect’ of the otherness of the other by demanding that it remain behind closed doors (where they can engage in their cultural, religious activities in peace). In short, we all must publicly act as modern, liberal, Western Capitalists and leave our ethnic and religious ideas at home.

The reason why I mention this is because I want to apply this logic (which I have admittedly skimmed over) to the issue of how we really show respect to other religious expressions of faith (particularly ones we find dangerous). So often I hear my friends, who have moved out of what they experienced as a constrictive religious setting, saying, ‘this is my journey, I don’t want to impose it on anyone else’. This can often be wrapped up in the idea of respecting difference. However, is it really respectful of the other? For does this position not end up either advocating some kind of crude relativism or treating the other as an infant not worthy of engagement?

In terms of the first we must remember that the celebration of doubt, ambiguity and complexity in life (virtues I have spent a great deal of time defending) do not in any way lead to some kind of ‘all narratives are equally valid’ position. While we may wish to avoid the absolute claims of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ with regards to different expressions of faith, that does not mean that we are unable use the best evidence available to ascertain whether a certain expression of faith is ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’, ‘damaging’ or ‘healing’, ‘beneficial’ or ‘detrimental’. Take the example of the scientific method. By applying this scientists avoid the closed idea of a true description of phenomenon in favour of a theory that provides the best description. These theories can range from fragile (e.g. String theory) to almost irrefutable (e.g. gravity), but they are never totally closed. In the same way we can, for example, argue that the faith expressed in documentaries such as ‘Jesus Camp’ and ‘Audience of One’ are deeply unhealthy, not through reference to religious dogma, but through reference to critical reflection.

Secondly, and much more common, is the claim that not by not critically engaging with different expressions of faith (such as the ones we have left) we show respect for other peoples religious expressions. However what this really means is that we distance ourselves from the activity that we dislike. Ignoring it as best we can. For example, if we meet someone we know in the shopping centre who is part of the church we left we attempt to talk to them about something insignificant (like the weather) or something that unites us (like our families). In other words, we engage in the ‘other’ only in so much as they resemble us (and thus, only to the extent that they are not really other).

We must not then fool ourselves into thinking that this is a sign of respect. To respect them we must be prepared to treat them as one with the ability to think rationally and be able to discuss controversial issues. Of course, a shopping centre is unlikely to be the best place to do this! Instead we often treat them as one would treat a child who believes in Santa. If we want to show respect for another we do it by treating them and their views as worthy of critical reflection: as worthy of disagreement rather than mere dismissal. Of course, when entering the debate I would argue that we must be open to being wrong, be prepared to be self-critical and ready to learn from the one we are in discussion with.

I guess what I am wanting to open up in this post is the idea that, far from being exclusive, arrogant and disrespectful, it is in engaging in rational argument with those we disagree with that we (1) avoid exclusivity (2) mitigate against arrogance and (3) respect the other. It is by encouraging a meaty, passionate discussion with those we disagree with that we can hope to avoid new dogmatisms and, in addition to perhaps helping the other, allow them to aid us in our own further development.

It has been great that there have been so many responses to the last post. I hope that this means there is an energy behind exploring this issue. Sadly most of the comments deserve a proper response and yet that would take a long time to do (with each answer generating more questions). So instead I will pick up on one issue that Jason asked me to expand on. Namely, what I meant by saying that some people within the church ‘know what ought to be done yet don’t do it’. So what do I mean? Do I mean that the people I am speaking of have an idea of what an alternative faith community might look like and yet are refusing to create it? No.

Firstly, before saying what I mean I need to clarify what, to any sensitive reader, is already obvious (I shouldn’t even mention it as getting caught up in these silly matters takes away from the real issues). Namely, that my last post is not speaking of people who wish to betray their church because they find it falling short of its ideals, not to their personal taste, or for any other reason related to some consumerist self-interested desire. We all know the simple fact, hardly worth repeating, that churches will be broken because they are filled with broken people like me. I am of course speaking below of people who betray their church in order to show their fidelity to the message housed there, in order to more fully delve into its radical kernal.

Secondly, I was not referring to all concretely existing communities that call themselves ‘church’. Indeed I am open to the idea that the word ‘church’ can be redeemed to refer to various types of gatherings in which people meet together in the aftermath of a life transforming event, listen to the stories of the past, share their lives and attempt to encourage one another in living the way of Christ. However I am not wed to the word ‘church’ either because of what it has come to mean through the predominance of evangelical Christianity on the religious landscape. For instance I personally like words such as ‘cohorts’, and ‘collectives’. Words that not only have less baggage, but which have arisen in the midst of rethinking the nature and role of faith groups. In short, while I do not mean all churches, if you think I am talking about yours: I probably am.

Anyway, to get back to the point, when I speak of the potential revolutionaries within the structure ‘knowing what ought to be done’ I am not meaning that they have a positive understanding of a viable alternative. Indeed I think that this would be pretty much impossible. Rather they need to leave in order to be able to begin to explore alternatives. It is not that they necessarily have to leave their dogmatic church (although this is likely), rather they must free themselves from the linguistic system that sustains that church.

By this I mean that when one is within a particular linguistic system that is the system within which one will understand the world. Any choice made within that system will be a choice understood by the language of that system and thus will be held under its gravitational pull.

For instance, when people leave an evangelical church or engage in a lifestyle not endorsed by that group they will often be labelled ‘backslider’ (a word that refers to someone who has wilfully and knowingly turned away from the truth). This, in itself, is not my main problem (and, more often than not, this term may be an insightful description of the individual). Rather my concern is when someone in a faith community who makes a positive step forward (psychologically, spiritually, intellectually) is labelled in this way because the community does not posses the words to appreciate it. Indeed, this does not really bother me that much in comparison to such people who label themselves as ‘backsliders’. Here the individual, whether they have left the church or not, are still under the sway of that evangelical worldview and thus any positive step forward is still thought of negatively.

The choice to leave is made within the confines of the evangelical system itself and is thus understood within that system. In this way the explicit rejection of it is implicitly an affirmation of it (I reject it not because it is wrong but because I am wrong). The result is that the majority of people who see themselves as ‘backsliders’ will either return to the group they left or continue to define themselves in opposition to it.

The real choice to be made is thus not between staying or going from a particular church. Rather it is a meta-choice concerning whether I continue to interact with the linguistic system that sustains the church or step into an unknown space outside that linguistic system.

Because one is immersed in the system this meta-choice has no positive alternative. It does not have something currently visible on the other side that one can weigh up against what one is currently immersed in (listing off the pro’s and con’s on a spreadsheet). The wager is that, by stepping into the unknown and having the courage to start something that one does not really have any idea about, something truly emancipatory may take place.

For instance, when I began ikon I only had a name, a pub and three weeks before it started. I couldn’t have legitimated what I was doing at the time because I was engaged in a meta-choice – a choice not between two positive alternatives but rather between one linguistic system and a step into the unknown.

So what am I saying? I am saying that not knowing what ought to be done is to already know what ought to be done. In other words, ‘I do not know what I should do and I must step out and do it’! This is not then some commitment to do ‘church’ better by either improving it or starting a new one. For this reconfiguring will still be taking place in the very waters that sustains it. It is not a saying ‘no’ to one known in favour of another known, rather it involves saying ‘no’ to one known in favour of the unknown.

And when the dust finally settles and the new is reified into a dominant dogmatic system, what then? Well let’s get up, draw breath and start the process again – always privileging the weakness of the outside over the powers of the inside.

I have, over the last few years, had numerous conversations with intelligent, thoughtful individuals who continue to attend dogmatic churches that they no longer feel subjectively connected to. Indeed sometimes I speak to so many people in this position that I wonder if some churches are made up predominately of members who do not subjectively agree with what is being said, how it is being said, and the structures within which it is being said. And what is even more perturbing is that many of these people are not just pew fillers but actively involved in worship, speaking and leading.

One of the problems I have with this is that, whatever a person says to me about not really believing in what their church is saying or doing, their very presence within the structure sustains it and supports it. It was Hegel who wrote about how the State can flourish even if no one really believes in it, simply because the majority continue to act as though they believe in it. People involved at various levels of the State apparatus can say what they like behind closed doors, but if they are engaging in the rituals that sustain the State, then they are sustaining the State.

I must admit to getting increasingly frustrated with these conversations, particularly when I am speaking with confident, aware, independent people who are continuing to attend, not because they could not function without it, but rather because it would be too much hassle to make the break (perhaps because their wage depends on it, or their social networks are too intertwined with it).

This problem has a lot of resonance with Marx’ writings on money as a fetish. It is all too common to chat with someone about how money is not some magical property that brings happiness, that working all the hours God sends to increase capital will damage the most precious relationships we have and that having a better car is not what life is about. Only to realise that, as soon as they turn from the conversation, they act as though they did believe all those things. This is fetishism at it heart, ‘I know this thing before me is not magical but I act as though it is anyway’.

Those who stand in my position have all too often been sympathetic to these people who attend the church while saying, ‘I don’t really believe or endorse what is said’ because they are intellectually closer to us than those who attend such churches ‘naively’ (i.e. those who attend without questioning). However, we must resist such a seductive temptation and avoid getting drawn into sympathy for our friends in this position (and many of these people are my friends). For these people are the ones we should be critiquing most rigorously: for knowing what ought to be done and yet refusing to do it.