The Apocalypse Isn't Coming,
It's Already Happened
by Peter Rollins
posted August 23, 2011
MONDAY 5TH SEPTEMBER | BLACK BOX CAFE | 7:30PM
I have just arranged to give a seminar in my home city of Belfast. The venue is quite small so please come a little early if you want to guarantee getting a spot. If you plan to attend let me know via the comment box, or on facebook, so that I have an idea of how many people to expect! Also, there will be a request for donations. Thanks.
Here is a brief description of what I will be exploring:
Fundamentalist Christianity has long expressed a view of apocalypse as some future event that will consume the present world and replace it with a new one. Yet while this is a bloody and destructive vision I will argue that it is inherently conservative in nature and nowhere near violent enough to warrant the name “apocalypse”. For those who hold to such a vision are willing to imagine absolutely everything around them changing so that their present values and beliefs can remain utterly unchanged. In contrast I will argue that a Christian apocalypse describes something much more radical, namely an event that fundamentally ruptures and re-configures our longings, hopes and desires rather than simply positing a future world where they will be fulfilled.
Fundamentalist Christianity has long expressed a view of apocalypse as some future event that will consume the present world and replace it with a new one. Yet while this is a bloody and destructive vision I will argue that it is inherently conservative in nature and nowhere near violent enough to warrant the name “apocalypse”. For those who hold to such a vision are willing to imagine absolutely everything around them changing so that their present values and beliefs can remain utterly unchanged. In contrast I will argue that a Christian apocalypse describes something much more radical, namely an event that fundamentally ruptures and re-configures our longings, hopes and desires rather than simply positing a future world where they will be fulfilled.
This talk will outline an alternative theological vision that transcends the usual distinctions between theist and atheist, sacred and secular, belief and doubt. A vision that turns away from the actually existing church and outlines a faith that is not concerned with the question of life after death but rather with the possibility of life before death.
John Caputo on the Event in Christianity
Posted Jul 12, 2015. In April 2015 fifty people from all over the world join Peter Rollins in the cultural heart of Belfast for four days full of talks, music, art, drinking, conversation and conspiring. This is a short talk from one of the afternoon sessions in which John Caputo reflects on Radical Theology and asks the question, "can it preach?" This boutique festival is curated by Peter Rollins and runs every year.
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