I am excited to be taking part in the lastest Leviathan debate on 1st July in Dublin. Leviathan is a ‘political cabaret’ that involves a lively mix of comedy, music and debate in an informal environment. Each month they take a big issue and gather a panel of experts to fight it out on stage.

This month the debate will take place in the Science Gallery and is entitled ‘Is Religion Infectious: The Spread and Future of Religion’.

Stand up comedian Abie Philbin Bowman will be getting the show started. This will be followed by a discussion with two of Ireland’s leading scientists, Dr William Reville and David McConnell, on how religion spreads.

Finally there will be a live debate with Michael Kelly, Deputy Editor of the Irish Catholic, Gerard Rory, Scientologist, Mick Nugent, Chair of Atheists Ireland and myself.

The host for the evening will be BBC presenter William Crawley.

Not long to go before I will be speaking with Rob Bell and Shane Hipps at the Poets, Prophets and Preachers conference. This promises to be an explosive time. I am confident that this conference will be an important contribution to the ongoing conversation concerning how Christianity will look in the 21st century.

If you can get here I would really recommend you make a last minute booking and join us.

Here is an outline of what will be happening,

Sunday July 5

4pm Registration check-in begins – DeVos Performance Hall lobby

7 pm

Rob Bell – The Original Guerilla Theatre

throwing ourselves into this ancient, sacred art form with the absurd, naive, antiquated belief that the world needs inspiring, provocative, comforting, dangerous, healing, great sermons now more than ever

Monday July 6

9 am

Rob Bell – The Story We’re Telling

sin, salvation, business, art, justice and the importance of beginning in the beginning

11 am

Peter Rollins – Returning to the New: An Introduction to Transformance Art

what do flash mobs, performance artists, and pirates have to do with Christianity? exploring how the church can act as an aroma of the coming kingdom

noon

break for lunch

2 pm

Shane Hipps – How Technology Shapes the Sermon

the art of preaching evolves with every new technological innovation in a culture. do you know what is being done and undone by our technologies?

5 pm

break for dinner

7 pm

Rob Bell – The Fig Tree and the Failure of Language

moment, movement, mystery, and the science of homiletical architecture (alternate title: why some sermons work and others don’t)

Tuesday July 7

9 am

Rob Bell – Fumbling Around with Your Radar

tools, questions, approaches, and everyday 5 minute disciplines that have helped me understand where sermons come from

11 am

Peter Rollins – For Those With Ears to Hear: Parables and the Lost Art of Provocation

an exploration of that theological dis-course that holds the power to send us hurtling off course and onto a new one

noon

break for lunch

2 pm

Shane Hipps – You Are the Medium

an exploration of the human being as God’s ultimate medium for his message. if the medium is the message, and you as a person are the medium, then what does that say about the message?

4 – 5 pm

Rob Bell – The One Thing I’ve Never Heard Someone Talk About That Has Changed Everything for Me

Its going to be fun!

In the midst of the interesting debate sparked off by Geoffrey Holsclaw concerning who qualifies as a theologian a sentiment has been expressed by some. It can be summed up in the phrase, ‘we all think theologically, therefore we are all theologians’. Or, in a slightly weaker guise, ‘if one thinks theologically, one is a theologian’. Of course the debate itself is attempting to work out what it means to think theologically. Is theology necessarily connected with thinking about God? Is it something one can only do from within a confessional community? Is theology a specifically Christian mode of reflection etc.

But lets bracket out these questions for a moment as the Church and Pomo site has a good discussion on these issues already. Instead lets assume that everyone does think theologically from time to time so that we can interrogate whether that means everyone is a theologian. This of course does not mean that everyone is a good theologian. The claim is that we should really talk about different degrees of theological reflection (from sustained and coherent to fleeting and incoherent).

The interesting thing about this statement is that it both seems eminently reasonable and unreasonable at one and the same time. In a way it seems to be both obviously true and obviously false. What I would like to do is attempt to clarify why this is the case by arguing that the confusion comes from a misunderstanding of the idea of ‘degrees’.

I remember in the early days of my philosophy training the lecturers, in a vain attempt to make philosophy appeal to the first year students, would start their classes with mind experiments. One of these mind experiments involved asking when a pile of sand could be called a beach. We know that a single grain of sand is not a beach and we know that the place where we sunbathed last year is. So how many grains of sand does it take?

By thinking in this way we are confronted with the idea that quantitive change leads to qualitative change. While 100 grains of sand is not a beach, nor 101 grains, the minor quantitive changes gradually build to the point when we acknowledge a qualitative change (the point when the majority of us would say that the pile of sand was a beach). The move from the mere quantitative changes to the qualitative (or substantial) change happens in peoples perception. We can, for simplicity, identify three different moments,

1. The point when the vast majority would simply see a pile of sand
2. The point where the majority would be divided
3. The point where the vast majority would see a beach

In a similar way is this not how we should approach the question of who is a theologian? While it seems obvious that Karl Barth, for example, is a theologian it seems equally obvious that my three year old nephew is not. The majority of people would easily be able to tell the difference, just as it is obvious that my local GP is a doctor while the mechanic who puts a plaster on the grazed knee of their child is not.

There is however a grey zone where the serious debates take place. This is how we ought to approach the question that Geoffrey has raised. It is taking place in the grey zone where the perception of quantitative change begins to blur into qualitative change. And this can go two ways, as the conversations take place some whom we previously thought where theologians may, for the majority in the debate, begin to look more like, say, sociologists of religion.

So instead of saying that we are all theologians and that it is just a matter of degree, perhaps we should rather say that it is precisely because it is all just a matter of degree that we are not all theologians.

An interesting discussion is taking place on the Church and Postmodern Culture site sparked off by my previous post. In it Geoffrey Holsclaw interrogates whether Žižek could be called a theologian at all. He agrees that Žižek has much to say about theology and notes that he, ‘even uses theological concepts and codes’, but wants to point out that this alone would not justify the title.

Geoffrey questions Žižek as a theologian for two reasons. Firstly, because he thinks that it obscures Žižek’s own project. Secondly, because it misunderstands the nature of theology itself. Both of these dovetail together in the fact that Žižek is a ‘fighting atheist’ (Žižek’s term) who not only believes that ‘religion in its actual forms… is fundamentalist and violent’, but advocates a void at the core of the cosmos. In contrast Geoffrey is interested in thinking about theology as a transcendent enterprise, writing,

‘But if theology is truly about something, someone, transcending reality as we know/perceive/construct it, something, someone, that, yes, stands beyond/above/outside what we can conceive, then it is plain that Žižek is not a theologian, and clearly states as much’

This gets us to what I see as the fundamental problem with Geoffrey’s post. Namely, whether theology should be (loosely) demarcated in terms of the belief in and reflection upon some supreme being transcending our reality (the conceptual realm). Adam Kotsko brilliantly draws this out when he comments,

Okay, so let’s assume you’re talking about “theology” primarily in terms of “Christian theology” (which most people do, as is understandable given that arguably no other religion has pushed theological speculation to the insanely baroque levels you see in Christianity). If that is the case, I find it odd that you are defining “theology” in terms of the strictly formal question of “transcendence” rather than in terms of a meditation on the meaning and implications of Christ’s work.

If we define “theology” in terms of Christ, then it seems that we’re forced to say that yes, Zizek is engaging in Christian theology — albeit in a heterodox way. And in many cases, I think we’d have to say that Radox types like Milbank are *not* doing theology in any meaningful sense, but rather advancing a philosophical ontology of transcendence with occasional token gestures toward Christ.

Now I should be clear that I ultimately don’t think that these labels are very important, and I don’t think there’s anything insidious about your attempt to apply them (despite your kind of weird preemptive strike on the bleeding-heart liberals who would find your labels oppressive or something). What I do find important is that very bizarre thing that seems to have happened in Christ and in his wake. People who help me, directly or indirectly, to think about that wierd happening in new or more rigorous ways inspire gratitude in me. People who do not inspire boredom and frustration in me — or in the case of Milbank, both. I think that’s probably a more helpful way of divvying things up, if we must so divvy.

You can find the original post, along with the subsequent debate here. Also, Blake Huggins has started a related discussion on his (Ir)religiosity site entitled, ‘What does it take to be a theologian’.

I am keen to lead some reading groups dedicated to introducing and exploring the work of key theorists who are contributing important insights into Christianity. These courses would involve reading both secondary and primary material. I would introduce the evening and guide the discussion to ensure that we get the most out of what we are reading. Each course would come with the tag ‘beginner’, ‘intermediary’ and ‘advanced’.

While the advanced classes will be very difficult for people not familiar with theology this does not mean they would be of no use. Often we learn most by placing ourselves in an educational context that is currently beyond us. When I started studying theology and philosophy I was twenty-two and had no proper educational background. But I attended all the philosophy conferences and theology symposiums I could. For a couple of years I understood virtually none of what I heard. But eventually, like one of those Magic Eye pictures, it all began to become clear.

To kick things off I am wanting to run an advance reading group in Belfast over the summer exploring the work of dialectic materialist theologian Slavoj Žižek. Žižek blends a provocative mix of Lacan, Hegel and Marx in his theological project and comes to some fascinating insights. This will be a five week course in which we shall read two secondary sources and two primary sources.

If you would be interested in attending this reading group please email me here.

In the future I am keen to run courses on (to name but a few),

John Caputo
Terry Eagleton
John Milbank
Dietrich Bonheoffer

People have been asking if I am thinking of doing an audio version of The Orthodox Heretic. The answer is that, while I would like to, I have to wait to see how well the book does first.

However I am working on an exciting DIY project at the moment with the musician Dubh provisonally entitled The Cimmeria Chronicles: An Anthology of Half-Forgotten Fables. This album will offer twelve parables (some new ones I have written that are not in my books and some that I have collected over the years) with ambient dub overlayed. Each track will be ideal for personal or collective relfection.I am tempted to use the subtitle Bedtime Stories for the Soul, as the restful tone of the work will be ideal to listen to late at night as you prepare to sleep.

There will be more information on this little underground project in the coming weeks. However, for now I thought I would gather together the readings I did on this blog in the run-up to the release of The Orthodox Heretic, so that they could all be accessed from the one place.

Dialogue from the opening credits:

Number six “Where am I?”
Number two “In the Village.”
Number six “What do you want?”
Number two “Information.”
Number six “Whose side are you on?”
Number two “That would be telling…. We want information. Information! INFORMATION!”
Number six “You won’t get it.”
Number two “By hook or by crook, we will.”
Number six “Who are you?”
Number two “The new Number Two.”
Number six “Who is Number One?”
Number two “You are Number Six.”

The 1960’s seminal TV series The Prisoner is one of my all time favorites. A surrealist, Orwellian allegory that was co-created by the brilliant Patrick McGoohan (who is also the star). The premise, as many will know, concerns a British secret agent (Patrick McGoohan ) who has handed in his resignation under mysterious circumstances and is about to leave the country. However, before he can do so, he is drugged and brought to a bizarre prison where his captors set about finding out why he resigned.

The episodes revolve around the escalating conflict between the British agent (who is given the name ‘Number six’ as all inhabitants, guards and prisoners alike, are assigned a number) and his captors. Number six constantly attempts to escape, undermine those in power and find out who ultimately runs the prison (he has no idea whether it is run by his own Government or by some foreign power). In contrast his captors devise ever more elaborate schemes to break Number six and extract the information they desire. The result is a tense psychological drama that explores the nature of power and resistance in contemporary society.

The prison itself offers us an insightful allegory of contemporary Western Society. On the surface there is freedom and contentment, all ones needs are provided for and those in control seem benign. Yet the calm and free nature of the village has a deeply uncanny texture. There is constant indoctrination, escape seems impossible and social experiments are taking place all the time to keep people docile and obedient. More than this, it is never clear who are the prisoners and who are the guards, or even whether the guards themselves are prisoners. Indeed one of the few authority figures we do see (Number two), changes constantly and seems just as trapped in the village as everyone else.

Throughout the series Number six is constantly striving to find out who runs the Village, who the power behind Number two really is. In short, he is attempting to unmask the elusive Number one.

*Spoiler*

And this is where the show really gets interesting. The answer to who runs the Village goes far beyond the usual tired idea of ‘them’. Whoever they happen to be (Russians, Vietnamese, Islamic terrorists, big business, Government etc. etc.). What the series suggests is that the oppressive power behind the Village is Number six himself. He is responsible for this oppressive regime, he enables it to function, he has built this prison in which he languishes. What is amazing is the way that this information is hidden in plain sight. Every episode tells us that Number six is the one who is really running the Village, and yet no-one ever sees it (indeed, even now, almost forty years later, this does not seem to be addressed in web sites dedicated to the series). In the last line of the dialogue quoted above we hear the words, “You are number six”, in response to the question, “who is number one”. Here it is as if Number two is changing the subject, refusing to answer the question. However, is number two not really answering the question, saying, “YOU ARE, number 6”?

In The Prisoner we are thus brought face to face with the idea that it is we who create the Big Other that controls us. That while we experience this Big Other as separate from us, existing independently of us, and baring over us, it is nonetheless our own creation. We are oppressed by a foreign power that is our own. We are both number six and number one, oppressor and the one being oppressed. We are a divided subject who creates a fiction that imprisons us and demands our loyalty

Art by Todd Greene

This evening I went to the QFT to see Werner Herzog’s documentary entitled Encounters at the End of the World. A documentary that, on the surface, explores the life and work of people who live in the Antarctic.

Without sentimentality the film captures the otherworldly beauty of Antarctica and the mesmerizing stories of some of those who work there. Like David Lynch’s Interview project, Herzog has presented the human story with a depth and sensitivity that is rarely glimpsed today. The stories he has edited together are full of humor, insight and humanity.

However, at a much deeper level, this documentary weaves together the human story and scenes from the natural environment in such a way as to expose the dialectic at work within nature itself. This is a deeply philosophical (Hegelian) exploration of how nature is not at one with itself, but rather is riven by a dynamic antagonism that drives it forward.

Herzog masterfully draws out humanities complex relationship to the environment, both as a part of the universe and also as irreducible to it. This is done by bringing us to the place where we are presented with human beings as a site in which the universe becomes aware of itself as itself. Our ears being the ears through which the universe hears itself and our eyes being the eyes through which the universe sees itself.

As the documentary progresses we bare witness, not only to how special our particular type of being is (as a being that is aware of being), but also of how insignificant and transitory we are in the larger scheme of things (the film presents the inevitability of our demise – particularly in a poignant scene in which a penguin embarks on a doomed journey – again without sentimentality). Like Pascal, Herzog is able to simultaneously express both the majestic and pathetic nature of human being.

Herzog is one of the few directors who is able expose us to the inner dynamic of nature. Something that makes this documentary more than merely enjoyable. Encounters is ultimately thought provoking, perceptive and intellectually satisfying.

Rothko, ikon’s resident DJ, has just finished recording a new album entitled Fractured, Broken and Beautiful.

Track list

1. hello
2. without pain
3. you will find
4. the white box
5. reality at any point
6. geography and chronology
7. small things
8. fractured broken & beautiful
9. and we do not know
10. the truth becomes
11. inside ourselves
12. musette
13. angeltech
14. mild method
15. i’m a cyborg
16. unbecome
17. silence is full of music
18. cimmeria

The album will be available for download soon.

While the logistics of my pub tour are still being worked out, the plan is for Rothko to join me.