Peter Rollins Belfast Series on Radical Theology, Part 1 - John Caputo on Event

From Peter Rollin: John Caputo on Event

Over the next few weeks I'm going to offer you (my email subscribers) some advance access to videos from my yearly festival in Belfast. The actual event involves a blend of music, art, workshops and whiskey tastings as well as talks from some of the sharpest minds in the world of Radical Theology.

The videos I'll be linking to are in an unlisted area of Youtube and will include short talks from myself, Barry Taylor, Gladys Ganiel and Kester Brewin.

The one I'm offering you today is from the world renowned philosopher John Caputo. Dr. Caputo is a hybrid philosopher/theologian intent on producing impure thoughts which deny fixed and rigorous boundaries between philosophy and theology. Caputo treats "sacred" texts as a poetics of the human condition, or as a "theo-poetics." [That is,] as a poetics of the event harbored in the name of God.

In this talk Caputo explores the Event housed in Religion, asking if Radical Theology can preach.

or, click here to view

- Pete

Over the last twenty years I’ve been developing a project that has been described as “Pyrotheology.” Born and bred in Belfast, Pyrotheology has now grown into a vibrant movement with a world-wide impact.

In this intimate event, I’ll be presenting a clear and compressive introduction to the theory and technology of pyrotheology in the city where it all began.

This event will involve a mix of talks and discussions, and should be of interest to students of religion, academics, religious leaders and laypeople alike. We’re going to limit the tickets to 60. To register click on the Ticket link.

Cost £50

Price includes light refreshments, lunch provided by Flour Power, beer from Boundary Brewery and a free copy of “The Divine Magician” (or other book)

To secure your ticket, click here

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Who is John Caputo?

Reference #1 - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Caputo

Reference #2 - Syracuse University (below)

John D. Caputo
Thomas J. Watson Professor, Religion and Humanities

Research and Teaching Interests

John D. Caputo is a hybrid philosopher/theologian intent on producing impure thoughts, thoughts which circulate between philosophy and theology, short-circuits which deny fixed and rigorous boundaries between philosophy and theology. Caputo treats "sacred" texts as a poetics of the human condition, or as a "theo-poetics," a poetics of the event harbored in the name of God. His past books have attempted to persuade us that hermeneutics goes all the way down (Radical Hermeneutics), that Derrida is a thinker to be reckoned with by theology (The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida), and that theology is best served by getting over its love affair with power and authority and embracing what Caputo calls, following St. Paul, The Weakness of God. He has also addressed wider-than-academic audiences in On Religion and What Would Jesus Deconstruct? and has an interest in interacting with the working church groups like ikon and the “Emergent” Church. He is currently working in a book on our frail and mortal flesh, probably to be entitled The Fate of All Flesh: A Theology of the Event, II.

Professor Caputo specializes in continental philosophy of religion, working on approaches to religion and theology in the light of contemporary phenomenology, hermeneutics and deconstruction, and also the presence in continental philosophy of radical religious and theological motifs. He has special interests in the "religion without religion" of Jacques Derrida; the "theological turn" taken in recent French phenomenology (Jean-Luc Marion and others); the critique of onto-theology; the question of post-modernism as "post-secularism;" the dialogue of contemporary philosophy with St. Augustine; the recent interest shown by philosophers in St. Paul; the link between Kierkegaard and deconstruction; Heidegger's early theological writings on Paul and Augustine; "secular" and "death of God" theology (Altizer, Vattimo, Zizek); medieval metaphysics and mysticism.

He conducts a series of biennial conferences on these themes: April, 2005, "St. Paul Among the Philosophers" (now available from Indiana University Press); April, 2007: "Feminism, Sexuality, and the Return of Religion" (in press with Indiana University Press); April, 2009: "The Politics of Love" (in preparation. This year’s conference, “The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion,” will be held April 7-9, 2011. For details visit: http://pcr.syr.edu.

Recently, three books have appeared about his work: Cross and Khora: Deconstruction and Christianity in the Work of John D. Caputo, Eds. Neal Deroo and Marko Zlomsic (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2010); A Passion for the Impossible: John D. Caputo in Focus, ed. Mark Dooley (SUNY Press, 2002) and Religion With/Out Religion: The Prayers and Tears of John D. Caputo, ed. Ed. James Olthius (Routledge, 2002). Prof. Caputo joined the department in Fall, 2004 after retiring from Villanova University where he taught from 1968 to 2004.

Professor Caputo's The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event (Indiana, 2006) received the 2007 AAR Book Award for "Constructive-Reflective Studies in Religion." What would Jesus Deconstruct? was the winner of the ForeWord Magazine Best Philosophy Book of 2007 award.

Prof. Caputo will retire at the end of the 2010-11 academic year.

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In Defense of Total Depravity

by R.E. Slater

June 24, 2015

As an introduction to the article below, I would like to note that the more classical Christian view of total depravity is one that recognizes the imprint, or image, of God upon man as one that has been marred or subjugated in every way possible by that metaphysical reality of sin. Now a philosopher may decry total depravity as a "lack" of something missing (or affecting) the human spirit, but for the Christian we would acknowledge that what God hath made good-and-holy has now been marred in some way (and in every way) by sin.

And so, the way back is through a healing provided by God by way of a relationship with Himself rather than to be left isolated within ourselves to find that healing to our identity in relationship with all things. Ultimately, the answer to sin is in relationship with God who reforms our identity. And it is not in the denial of our sin (or sinfulness) but in the acceptance of this condition "of lackness" (as Pete terms it) that brings us to the Lord both before and after our renewed relationship to Him through Christ Jesus. 

For myself, sin is the other side (or perhaps, the opposite end) to the freedom granted humanity by God. To say we are free (or, free-willed) creatures must at the same time allow for its opposite declaration of bondage from freedom, from holiness, from goodness, which in Christian terminology is known as "sin". And thus, some will argue that we are really not free at all because of sin's affect upon us (Tony Jones tends towards this viewpoint of conditionalism), though for myself, I would argue we do have freedom given to us through God's image and by His Holy Spirit working in our lives either directly or indirectly (most usually through people, but also by circumstance, event, and even nature itself). Even so, it is always-and-ever the sovereign God who brings us to Himself, and not we ourselves to Him by our own means. For if we are left to ourselves this would never happen (according to the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans). But this holy work does only occur in-and-through the work of God's own (Holy) Spirit who bring us to Himself in some way, manner, means, or method. To which we humbly give thanks with bowed knees and hearts.

For a philosopher/theologian like Peter, he rather comes to the ideas of God, freedom, and sin as from the study of the human spirit through social/psychological contexts in what may be described as our "humanness." But, on the other hand, though he is interested in the religious aspect of our humanness - a subject he deals with constantly as you can tell by his writings - he feels much more comfortable examining our humanity in psychoanalytic terms rather than in classical theological terms. Especially as from within a philosophical context to the church's religious contexts.

Hence, the following article may feel foreign to the more conservative Christian. However, in pyschoanalytic terms, Pete's explanation is the more commonly accepted "starting point" amongst academics. He does not pretend to interpret Scripture so much as to interpret the human spirit from practical discussions that are being held within the field of scientific endeavor while leaving his discoveries to the Christian theologian to expand into whatever insight might be discovered as helpful and good and missional.

And so, rather than feel threatened by this approach it may be an approach than might lend some help to the contemporary theologian struggling to contextualize the Scripture's teachings of redemption, God, sin, and worship, in ways that might more readily appeal to the work-a-day world we live within. While clinging to past traditional church doctrines and dogmas today's theologians may wish to examine these newer insights to discover some value in these presentations if only to understand the mindset of the non-Christian world. One of which is how do we utilize the newer insights of psychoanalytics, philosophy, and even radical theology, in manners that might be helpful in explaining Christian theology's very own difficult subjects.... Perhaps no longer in classical terms of yesteryear built upon Greek and medieval philosophies and pseudo-sciences but in postmodern terms acknowledged by this 21st century generation. If so, we must then continue forward into these newer areas of thought if only to be better witnesses to the gospel of Christ as modern day apostles and prophets of the Lord speaking the oracles of God.

- R.E. Slater

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In Defense of Total Depravity

http://peterrollins.net/2015/06/in-defense-of-total-depravity/

by Peter Rollins

June 6, 2015

As some of you will know, every year I run a small festival in my home town of Belfast. This year one of our guests was the ever brilliant philosopher John “Jack” Caputo. During a discussion in the talks part of the festival someone asked him what the main difference was between the two of us. The question was asked partly because we share so much in common and I’ve been so influenced by his writing. Yet, there still seems a slight difference in our approaches. 

In response Jack said, “I think in listening to Pete this week I’ve finally worked it out, he’s a philosophical Calvinist!” For Jack, the Lacanian influence in my work manifests itself in the proclamation of a lack that touches every part of our being. Something he felt is a philosophical version of Total Depravity. The difference between us then lies in the way that Jack (as a heretical catholic) is much more positive about human subjectivity than myself.

Far from wanting to reject this claim, I think that he put his finger on something very important. The only thing I’d want to push back on is the idea that my position is depressing.

To understand the claim it will be good to briefly reflect on what Total Depravity actually means. To begin with, it shouldn’t be thought of as the idea that humans are utterly and completely sinful, but rather that every part of the human subject is touched by sin. If we take sin as an ontological category rather than an ethical one (something that is actually a conservative theological move, even if it is not one reflected in the contemporary church) then we can define Total Depravity as describing a lack that is infused into being itself.

Theologically speaking this means that Total Depravity defines the idea that human subjectivity is something other than a form of “pure life.” It is rather a form of impure life. It is a life infused with death. In philosophical terms this can be said in the following way: a human being is constituted by a lack at the heart of its subjectivity.

This recognition can actually be seen as the fundamental insight of religion. Namely, the religious impulse is born out of the sense of a lack experienced in the very heart of subjectivity. Rather than explaining religion as the result of some need for tribal identity, as the means by which we come to see the human essence, as a will to power, or as the result of postulating agency in a hostile world, Lacan saw the religious impulse as arising fundamentally from a recognition of the incompleteness hard-baked into the very nature of human subjectivity (a lack formed in and by language). The religious individual experiences this lack and then attempts to stop it up via some signifier such as “God,” “Historical Necessity,” “The scientific method,” or “Evolution.”

By directly affirming the ground out of which religion is born (in its sacred and secular forms), Pyrotheology affirms a form of Total Depravity in that it recognizes the constitutive lack at the core of being, and the various ways this lack is made manifest (the Real). The point however is not to offer up a way of closing down this lack (which is ontological in nature and thus cannot be filled). This strategy of corking up the lack is the way of fundamentalism, and secular philosophies such as positivism. Rather the theory and technology of Pyrotheology is concerned with directly assuming the lack and enjoying the desire that it creates, rather than seeking our pleasure in the closure of the gap.

It is this religion of the gap that I explore in my most recent trilogy of books: Insurrection, Idolatry of God and The Divine Magician.

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One Response to In Defense of Total Depravity

joe calandrino says:

June 22, 2015 at 9:15 am

Well here it is, Pete, in 7 paragraphs, the nexus of some of most stunning ideas about religion, all poised for some kind of synthesis (the elusive project of my own blogging efforts). Lack, desire, the Real, subjectivity, being. And, far from being depressing, it’s all good news.

I am coming to see this important contribution of yours this way: “lack” is constitutive of the subject/being(ens&esse) as the subject confronts the “loss” of immediacy: the loss of experiencing itself (as itself) and the world without mediation. Such is inherent in the growth of consciousness, and therefore constitutive of it. In the play of the Real and the Symbolic, all metaphysics enacts, in the Symbolic order, something actually going on in the ineffable Real.

If we take as axiomatic that the locus of the divine is the Real (Lacan), then all movements in the Symbolic (and Imaginary) order are analogical enactments that substitute for “lack” as they engage moments in the Real. These enactments in the Symbolic order of something occurring in the Real is “the ground…of…religion.”

It is this idea of “manifest[ing]” that fascinates me. Far from foreclosing on lack, pyrotheology opens onto the very givenness of the Real itself, In this sense, Jean-Luc Marion’s 3rd phenomenological reduction to ‘givenness’ brushes up against your pyrotheological opening, and instead of foreclosing on lack, discloses the formation of the subjectivity of self (a relation of metonymy, not identity).

Depravity, then, can be understood as a ‘deprivation’ of immediacy, that, unexpectedly, opens upon the horizon that situates givenness, presenting it to the intuition. When the intuition is ‘saturated,’ the ‘religious impulse’ becomes the response to Caputo’s ‘unheard call’, which commands the aim of intentionality. The religious subject is thereby called into itself, “constituted” as you say, by “lack” which is the _distance_ between the Real, and, well, everything else.

If we suspend Caputo’s notion that his ‘call’ is reduced to one’s “mommy” in psychoanalysis, then it’s really not Calvinism vs Catholicism that separates your pyrotheology from Caputo’s theopoetics/insistence theology, but rather entangles them in the play in his ‘chiasm’ where Marion’s new phenomenology holds “lack” in tension between givenness and the emerging self. For Marion’s system, the relation between what is given and subjectivity precedes the individuation of the self. Hence, lack, givenness, the Real are all anterior to the self coming into being.

The pyrotheological, phenomenological and theopoetical gestures share in the notion that relationality precedes being, and constitutes it as that which is anterior to it.

- John Calandrino

The Politics of Jesus' Death Both Then and Now

Jesus’ radical politics

source link

by Brandon Ambrosino

April 1, 2015

In his kingdom, enemies are loved, the marginalized prioritized,

and wealth inequality exposed for the sham it is.

TWO THOUSAND years have sanitized Easter for most people. Jesus is alive, we sing each spring, and now let’s get on with lilies and chocolates and bunnies and think about what his resurrection means for us — namely, that we get to go to heaven when we die, and perhaps more important, a lot of other people don’t.

A more careful look at the Gospels, however, might offer a much less sentimental, much more startling picture of the original Easter message, which was decidedly not, “Jesus is alive, and here’s what that means for the next world.” Rather, the true lesson was: “Jesus is alive, and here’s what that means for this one.”

The central claim of Easter — and indeed, of Christianity — has always been that the rejected, tortured, crucified, dead, and then resurrected Jesus is somehow Lord of the entire earth. If that doesn’t sound particularly scandalous today, imagine you’re hearing it for the first time while living in the Roman Empire. As many New Testament scholars argue, hearing “Jesus is Lord” in the first century might sound suspiciously like a bold rejection of the standard Roman creed at the time: “Caesar is Lord.” (There is a lot of discussion about this, but even a quick glance of the Gospels and Acts shows that the texts contain instances of anti-imperial rhetoric.)

'Remember the Stranger in Your Midst"

What’s radical about Easter, then, is not that Christians claim a dead man rose from the dead. What’s radical is what that means — specifically, what it meant for Rome, and, by implication, what it means for all kingdoms everywhere, including the ones we live in. Jesus’ resurrection marked the end of Caesar’s way of doing things. It established a new kingdom in which enemies are loved, the marginalized are given primacy of place, and the poor are blessed. In this kingdom, hierarchies are subverted, concentrated power is decentralized, and prodigal children are welcomed home. Black lives matter here, as do queer lives and the lives of undocumented aliens within our borders — “Remember the stranger in your midst” is a common refrain in this kingdom.

Of course, speaking about Jesus in such a political way is not without its dangers. Many with political agendas are guilty of branding their particular ideologies with the name of Jesus, both on the right and left. But there’s no denying that, at least in recent US history, conservatives have been ready to marry God and government. As a result, Christianity has come to be associated less with policies aimed at helping the poor — and more with those that often serve to keep them down. The tragic irony, of course, is that, as the Gospel of Luke teaches, Jesus’ ministry is inaugurated with the announcement that the Spirit of the Lord compels him to preach good news to the poor.

Though the name of God is sometimes invoked to justify war and greed and the oppression of already marginalized persons, the broken body of Jesus seems rather like a prophetic protest against those values. Philosopher John Caputo discusses this irony in his 2007 book, “What Would Jesus Deconstruct?” — a play on the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” that many conservatives have plastered onto their cars, T-shirts, bracelets, etc.

The gospels, Caputo writes, invite us to imagine a new way of life where the poetics of Jesus’ kingdom are transformed into political structures:

“What would it be like if there really were a politics of the bodies of flesh that proliferate in the New Testament, a politics of mercy and compassion, of lifting up the weakest and most defenseless people at home, a politics of welcoming the stranger and of loving one’s enemies abroad?

What would it be like if there were a politics of and for the children, who are the future; a politics not of sovereignty, of top-down power, but a politics that builds from the bottom up, where "ta me onta "[lit. “the nothings”] enjoy pride of place and a special privilege?”

Caputo then asks this frightening question: “Would [this politics] not be in almost every respect the opposite of the politics that presently passes itself off under the name of Jesus?”

"Love Your Enemies, Bless Those Who Curse You"

ONE LOOK at current events across the globe today, and Caputo’s imaginings may be easily dismissed. How can Americans simply turn the other cheek to our warring enemies? How can anyone expect the government to make sure each child is looked after? And working to eliminate poverty? Wasn’t Jesus talking about spiritual poverty? That’s a private matter, not a public one. Those kinds of policies just aren’t practical in 2015.

Of course they aren’t. They weren’t practical in Jesus’ day, either. That’s one of the reasons Jesus was killed. He was, to use Caputo’s word, mad. How else do you explain his teachings? Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to them who use you. Do not retaliate. Look after your neighbor. The meek will inherit the earth.

But the madness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man, as Paul reminds us, just like God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. And it’s the kingdom of this God — who, contrary to what anyone expected, is weak, mad, and disruptive — that Jesus is both announcing and installing.

“If I, with the finger of God, cast out demons among you, then the Kingdom of God has come near to you,” says Jesus, and his Jewish hearers might have understood the scandalous reference. Scandalous because in this brief line, Jesus seems to be identifying himself with the same God who heard the cry of oppressed Israel and took it upon himself to liberate them from Egypt. As the Book of Exodus recounts, when Pharaoh refuses Moses’ request to let the Hebrews go, a battle of miracles quickly ensues. Though Pharaoh’s magicians try to imitate the wonders that Moses ascribes to God, they don’t succeed. “This is the finger of God,” they explain to Pharaoh, which creates wonders, which liberates God’s people from the empires that enslave them. The finger of God, they reluctantly acknowledge, is mightier than the strongest arm of any world leader.

In reinterpreting this passage around his life and ministry, Jesus is giving us a glimpse into what he thought of himself (who but God alone works wonders by the finger of God?) as well as into what he thought about his kingdom: that, though it’s ultimate fulfillment will be in the future, look around you — it’s already here. As New Testament scholar N.T. Wright explains, for Jesus, God’s kingdom “wasn’t just an aspiration; it was an accomplishment.” Jesus was convinced that his life and preaching and miracles were bringing about the kingdom his followers had longed for.

An Unexpected Kingdom

Only, Jesus’ kingdom of peace and love looked much different than the one that Jews at the time hoped the Messiah would establish. One of Jesus’ more cryptic sayings is found in Matthew’s Gospel. After a strange discussion of kingdom, Jesus compares his audience to children sitting in the marketplace singing to each other, “We played the flute for you, but you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” Jesus, he hears them say, you are not the Messiah we expected. To which he responds: I will not dance when you tell me to dance. I will not cry when you tell me to cry. I will not be the Messiah you tell me to be. I am here to show you a different sort of dance, a different way; follow me, and build my father’s kingdom, which looks very different than the ones you cling to.

This is the prophetic memory of Jesus that rushes toward us today. What would Jesus do if he showed up today, say, in Washington, D.C.? Would he turn a blind eye to racial injustices in Ferguson and elsewhere? Would he lobby to ensure that entire swaths of our population continue to feel as if they don’t belong in their cities, in their religious congregations, in their local bakeries? Would he, interested as he is in the physical bodies of all he encounters, enact policies that bar people from the health care they desperately need?

At the same time, can we really be sure that Jesus would protest with Wall Street Occupiers, railing against the one percent? This is the same Jesus who, as Luke recounts, tells his followers that if just one of their sheep wanders away from the fold, they are to leave the 99 and go after the one percent. And can we be equally sure that this Jesus, who has no patience for greed, would spend all of his energy condemning the wealthy? This is the same Jesus, after all, who is rumored to be the friend of tax collectors.

A Kingdom of Disruption

This is why it won’t do merely to begin with a political ideology and brand it with Jesus’ memory. The memory of Jesus is disruptive to all kingdoms, to all earthly powers, without respect to any specific political affiliation or agenda.

What we can imagine that Jesus would probably do — indeed what he definitely did do, is to suddenly, without warning, announce that his new kingdom is breaking in upon all of us, has broken in upon us, and that this kingdom is almost the exact reversal of what any of us thought kingdoms were supposed to be. This new king will not tolerate oppression and systemic poverty, nor he will excuse violence directed at those in power. He has no patience for any dirges or dances. He is here about his father’s business.

"Do This Unto the Lest of These as Unto Me"

THE BELLS of Easter Sunday, comforting though they may be, are actually a call to war, albeit a nonviolent kind of war; a call to rise up, to act up, to announce to the powers and principalities that rule our nations that their power has an expiration date, that their rule is a sham, that their kingdom has been undone by the one who undoes death.

The rebuttal here has always been: Open your eyes. This kingdom you’re talking about — where the last are first, where the outsiders are preferred — is not here. There is war. There is evil. There is death and rape and racism and unemployment and sex trafficking. There is a brutally agonizing world here and now, and to pretend otherwise is either naive or morally bankrupt.

But Easter doesn’t deny these things. After all, even the resurrected body of Jesus contains crucifixion scars, which are Jesus’ eternal reminder that he was murdered by the very people he came to save. What Easter teaches is this: Even in the midst of the kingdom you’re living in, it’s possible to actually pledge loyalty to a different one. By feeding the hungry, forgiving your enemies, and providing shelter for the homeless, you can actually choose to live in the kingdom Jesus established.

Hope, then, is not a spiritual thing, or a reflective exercise; it’s decidedly physical. If you believe Jesus was raised from the dead, the obligation that Jesus puts upon you is to meet people’s physical needs. “Do not abandon yourselves to despair,” said Pope John Paul II. “We are the Easter people, and alleluia is our song.”

This alleluia is both a praise and protest. The world is made new, alleluia, and all lives matter. Creation is transformed, alleluia, and therefore let us embrace the strangers in our midst. The tomb is empty, alleluia, now let us work to heal the hurt of all those who have been discriminated against, made to feel like second-class citizens. In God’s kingdom, after all, there is only one class of citizen, because all have inherited the same birthright from their heavenly father.

Two thousand years later, the promise of Easter has not lost its power. The risen Jesus, then as now, invites us to live in this world as if it is somehow a different world.

Because, alleluia, it is.

*Brandon Ambrosino covers culture and religion for Vox.com.

"This Easter I've really been trying to focus on the one I fell in love with a few years ago,

Jesus, as the man who took on our sins and died. I picture the scene in the Son of God, which

still can barely count the ways he suffered. I literally ache for Jesus in the sufferings knowing

that it was our crap that put him there. It has caused a lot of tears this week as I study him

more and more and it has opened my heart to recognize some things that have been

hindering my growth. To the man that saved my life, who now sits on the throne. My heart

is for you. My help came from you. With that I owe my life." - anon

Matthew 28

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Resurrection

28 Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, andhis clothing white as snow. 4 And for fear of him the guards trembled andbecame like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he[a] lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” 8 So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.9 And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up andtook hold of his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

The Report of the Guard

11 While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. 12 And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers 13 and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 And if this comes to the governor's ears, we willsatisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” 15 So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.

The Great Commission

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,baptizing them in[b] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold,I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Footnotes:

Matthew 28:6 Some manuscripts the Lord

Matthew 28:19 Or into

The Politics of the Bible Both Then and Now

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues (with lyrics)




I was raised up believing

I was somehow unique

Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes

Unique in each way you can see

And now after some thinking

I'd say I'd rather be

A functioning cog in some great machinery

Serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be

I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

What's my name, what's my station

Oh just tell me what I should do

I don't need to be kind to the armies of night

That would do such injustice to you

Or bow down and be grateful

And say "Sure take all that you see"

To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls

And determine my future for me

And I don't, I don't know who to believe

I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

If I know only one thing

It's that every thing that I see

Of the world outside is so inconceivable

Often I barely can speak

Yeah I'm tongue tied and dizzy

And I can't keep it to myself

What good is it to sing helplessness blues?

Why should I wait for anyone else?

And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf

I'll come back to you someday soon myself

If I had an orchard

I'd work till I'm raw

If I had an orchard

I'd work till I'm sore

And you would wait tables

And soon run the store

Gold hair in the sunlight

My light in the dawn

If I had an orchard

I'd work till I'm sore

If I had an orchard

I'd work till I'm sore

Someday I'll be

Like the man on the screen

Introduction to the World of TheoPoetics

Amazon link

Theopoetics is the theory and practice of making God known,

particularly through language.

- Keefe-Perry

I  believe that how we express our experiences of the Divine

may change our experiences of the Divine.

- Keefe-Perry

Book Description

Way to Water has two primary intentions:

(i) to trace the development of the nascent field of theological inquiry known as theopoetics and,

(ii) to make an argument that theopoetics provides both theological and practical resources for contemporary people of faith who seek to maintain a confessional Christian life that is also intellectually critical.

Beginning with the work of Stanley Hopper in the late 1960s, and addressing the early scholarship of key theopoetics authors like Rubem Alves and Amos Wilder, this text explores how theopoetics was originally developed as a response to the American death-of-God movement, and has since grown into a method for engaging in theological thought in a way that more fully honors embodiment and aesthetic dimensions of human experience. Most of the extant literature in the field is addressed to allow for a cumulative and comprehensive articulation of the nature and function of theopoetics. 

The text includes an exploration of how theopoetic insights might aid in the development of tangible church practices, and concludes with a series of theopoetic reflections.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Wikipedia - Theopoetics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theopoetics

Theopoetics suggests that instead of trying to develop a “scientific” theory of God, as Systematic Theology attempts, theologians should instead try to find God through poetic articulations of their lived (“embodied”) experiences.

It asks theologians to accept reality as a legitimate source of divine revelation and suggests that both the divine and the real are mysterious — that is, irreducible to literalist dogmas or scientific proofs.

Theopoetics makes significant use of “radical” and “ontological” metaphor to create a more fluid and less stringent referent for the Divine. One of the functions of theopoetics is to recalibrate theological perspectives, suggesting that theology can be more akin to poetry than physics.

It belies the logical assertion of the Principle of Bivalence and stands in contrast to some rigid Biblical hermeneutics that suggest that each passage of scripture has only one, usually teleological, interpretation.

Whereas those who utilize a strict, historical-grammatical approach believe scripture and theology possess inerrant factual meaning and pay attention to historicity, a theopoetic approach takes an allegorical position on faith statements that can be continuously reinterpreted.

Theopoetics suggest that just as a poem can take on new meaning depending on the context in which the reader interprets it, texts and experiences of the Divine can and should take on new meaning depending on the changing situation of the individual.

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What is Theopoetics? the answer in book form

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2014/10/11/what-is-theopoetics-the-answer-in-book-form/

by Tripp Fuller

October 11, 2014

For years (many more than you might think) this “thing” called theopoetics has been happening, occuring, bubbling-up, in various places, writings, and presentations. Those who have called their work by the title of theopoetics come from diverse backgrounds including Biblical criticism, death of God theology, postmodern thought, and process theology. Such a wealth of fields and interests encourages broad interest but at the the same time can result in students, practicioners, laypeople, and theopoets themselves lacking a connection to the wider body. Callid Keefe-Perry’s book, Way to Water, remedies this by mapping a path through the sundry strands of theopoetics past and present, all the while working to demonstrate just what theopoetics is or aims to be.

Callid skillfully summarizes the positions of early theopoetic thinkers Stanley Hopper, Amos Wilder, and Rubem Alves before moving in subsequent chapters to more contemporary versions of theopoetic thought. He works his way through the contributions of Melanie Duguid-May and Scott Holland, process theologians Roland Faber and Catherine Keller, radical theologians Peter Rollins and John Caputo, and the work of Richard Kearney and Karmen MacKendrick.

As the title suggests, Callid provides a path on the journey toward theopoetics (or a theopoetic) by gathering together some theopoetic events, examining their moments of resonance and pointing out their places of dissonance. He is careful not to coorindate theopoetic “schools” into fixed positions in relation to each other, which would be antithetical to the theopoetic project in general, but rather he treats the various thinkers/writers as bodies that might collid, slip over each other, or dance together, in the on-going effort to name and describe that which we call God.

Additionally, and importantly, the last two chapters of Way to Water indicate practical applications of theopoetics for churches and pastors. I would expect nothing less from a practical theologian, and again Callid proves wonderfully adept at parsing out how an embodied theopoetics might (and does) take shape through preaching, pastoral care, and liturgy.

Since Callid is well aware that there can be no conclusion to the infinite movement of divine rhythms, for me the end of the book unfolded into new beginnings in two significant ways:

First, Callid suggests three definitions for the term theopoetics, each textured by what Callid has gleaned from the theologians he addresses in the book. These definitions struck me as deeply personal and intimately situated in various ways, which I believe only further demonstrates an important point Callid makes in the book: the symbolic, prerational, and sensuous modes of theological discourse are not to be ignored.

Second, and very much related to the definitions he offers, Callid’s epilogue consists of a series of aphorisms intended not just to describe theopoetic work, but to actually be theopoetic writing. Here he shows us through stories and poems that, while not entirely elusive, the divine is not within our grasp, cannot be pinned down. Rather the aphorisms open the reader to the continual progression, the unfolding process of naming God, of articulating our relationship to the divine.

Way to Water provides a helpful text for those teaching or studying theopoetics for the first time, and it is accessible to non-academic readers as well. I highly recommend this book to all my pastor-type friends, as I know it will spark conversation among you and in your churches. I also recommend it my friends who might consider teaching a course on theopoetics and taking up the task of training the next generation of theopoetic thinkers.

My buddy Jeremy wrote this review and I shared it because I love Jeremy and Callid.

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What is Theopoetics?

http://theopoetics.net/

How are we to be intelligent, thinking creatures on the one hand, and faithful, trusting people on the other? One answer to this dilemma is theopoetics. Theopoetic arguments suggest that we are best served when we make room in our worldview for the beauty and mystery of life as an integral part of faith: our intelligent, rational minds certainly have a place in faithful living, but they are not sufficient in of themselves.

Asking powerful, critical questions can help in challenging ill-gotten authority, and yet to ever sink into any sense of deep joy there must be an acceptance of things we cannot understand. As we are reminded in Hebrews, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." And so, we encounter a seeming impasse… from which theopoetics may provide another path.

Theopoetics isn’t just about verse. When a text is acting theopoetically, it functions in opposing directions, simultaneously pulling the reader further into the world of the text and pushing the reader into a reconsideration of, and reconnection to, life in the world beyond it.

Greek Derivation of the word "theo-poetic"

• [Greek] noun poema - "a created thing"
• the verb poiein - “to make”
• Theo is Greek for "God"

The English author Samuel Johnson wrote, “The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, and familiar things new.”

Percy Shelley added, “Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world.”

I work with the word theopoetics from the intersection of these ideas: theopoetics is the theory and practice of making God known, particularly through language. I believe that how we express our experiences of the Divine may change our experiences of the Divine.

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Theopoems

Amos Niven Wilder - A Hard Death

Theopoetic

by Amos Niven Wilder

Many today have difficulty in relating to religious language. This can happen when we reduce religious meaning to a specific kind of spiritual experience or give undue importance to one aspect of human life. The reduction of life to human will or intellect is often accompanied by the turn to mystical practices and cults. Amos Wilder calls for a renewal of our deep religious imagination as we reflect on biblical faith and on the basic needs and longings of contemporary persons. This requires a new appreciation for mystery and for deep-speaking-to-deep.

Wilder assumes that the depths of biblical truth have scarcely begun to be plumbed and have untapped power to renew life even in our technological Western societies. This requires that we go beyond the objective, surface meaning to the deeper orientation: Before the message, the vision; before the sermon, the hymn; before the prose, the poem. --Amos Wilder

Chapter titles

1.Theology and Theopoetic

2.The Recovery of the Sacred

3.Contemporary Mythologies and Theological Renewal

4.Traditional Pieties and the Religious Imagination

5.Ecstasy, Imagination, and Insight

6.Theopoetic and Mythopoetic

Sparks of wit and insight make Theopoetic a notable monument to the ongoing vitality of Wilder's lifelong determination to remain faithful both to the biblical witness and the imperatives of the imagination. - Journal of the American Academy of Religion

This is a wise and unpretentious book... it offers no fancy programs or catchy formulas. Its prescription for our spiritual illness, far from being some esoteric pilgrimage, is the long and unspectacular remedy of developing spiritual health. - The Christian Century

For most of his career, Amos Niven Wilder taught at Harvard Divinity School. A former president of the Society of Biblical Literature, his books remain influential in bringing together the disciplines of biblical studies, theology, literature, and mythical imagination. - Anon

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Theopoetic Folds. Philosophizing Multifariousness

Edited by Roland Faber and Jeremy Fackenthal

A Fordham University Press Publication

Perspectives in Continental Philosophy (FUP)

This volume pursues Whitehead's notion of a "theopoetics," or, a divine becoming and multiplicity held between the conversations of continental philosophy and process theology.

Major contributors: Laurel Schneider, John Caputo, Catherine Keller, Roland Faber, John Thatamanil.

Philosophical Reflections on John Caputo's "Nihilism of Grace" - The Insistence of God

Caputo’s Nihilism of Grace: Eschatology, Event, & Self-Reflexivity

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2013/10/16/caputos-nihilism-of-grace-eschatology-event-self-reflexivity/

 

by Tripp Fuller

October 16, 2013

Comments

 

Here’s a guest post from Blake Huggins that’s part of the Caputo blog tour. Enjoy!

 

Amazon Link

My thanks to Tripp and Indiana University Press for the invitation to participate in this blog tour and for a copy of the book. I’ve been anticipating this work for a while now and I’m glad to see it being critically discussed.

 

What I would like to do here is go through the chapter and discuss what Caputo is trying to do and then conclude with three questions I have about this chapter and Caputo’s larger project.

 

If The Weakness of God was his first explicit foray into theology–his “coming out of the closet as a theologian” as Catherine Keller’s jacket blurb suggests–then The Insistence of God is at the same time both Caputo’s clarification of what he means by theology and a reflection on recent trends in continental philosophy of religion.

 

In The Weakness of God Caputo jumps into the pool of theology with both feet. This newest work is his attempt to further flesh out his version of “radical” theology*1 and the result is incisive, refreshingly humorous in places, and overall a real pleasure to read, which is something I may appreciate about Caputo the most–his writing is both forceful and beautiful, rigorous and poetic (a point many philosophers and theologians could stand to learn from!).

 

In this penultimate chapter “A Nihilism of Grace: Life, Death, and Resurrection,” Caputo continues his critical engagement with “speculative realism” and argues for a “radical resurrection theology” (231) initially focusing on Ray Brassier and his book Nihil Unbound (NU).*2 Brassier’s argument is that since Kant philosophy has been too preoccupied with human subjectivity and has in the process ignored the fact that we are headed for extinction. Nihilism, for Brassier, is the realization “that there is a mind-independent reality which…is indifferent to our existence and oblivious to the ‘values’ and ‘meanings’ which we would drape over it in order to make it more hospitable” (NU, xi). This post isn’t about Brassier, so I hesitate to quote him at length. However, the lines below are stark and powerful. It works well if read in your best Werner Herzog voice.

[O]ne trillion, trillion, trillion years from now, the accelerating expansion of the universe will have disintegrated the fabric of matter itself, terminating the possibility of embodiment. Every star in the universe will have burnt out, plunging the cosmos into a state of absolute darkness and leaving behind nothing but spent husks of collapsed matter. All free matter, whether on planetary surfaces or in interstellar space, will have decayed, eradicating any remnants of life…. [T]he stellar corpses littering the empty universe will evaporate into a brief hailstorm of elementary particles. Atoms themselves will cease to exist. Only the implacable gravitational expansion will continue, driven by the currently inexplicable force called ‘dark energy,’ which will keep pushing the extinguished universe deeper and deeper into an eternal and unfathomable blackness." (NU, 228)

In response, Caputo asks: what are we to do in the meantime while we are still here? Brassier’s analysis may be true, yet here we are, human beings enfleshed in human bodies floating through space on planet that just so happens to sustain life as we know for a short cosmic millisecond (not that we are at all helping!). What are we to do? How are we to spend the time that we have been given?

 

Caputo doesn’t necessarily disagree with Brassier’s description of nihilism as eventual extinction and death. To this he says yes, this is the case. The problem, though, is with the conclusion that because everything is headed for entropic disintegration nothing is worthy of value.

 

In a way, what Brassier offers is an inverted version of Radical Orthodoxy’s primary thesis. Whereas John Milbank and his ilk argue that becoming a classic Thomist metaphysician, participating in God’s Eternal Being (with disastrous political consequences!) is the only alternative to the threat of nihilism, Brassier, in Caputo’s rendering, suggests that nihilism is all there is at the end of the day and because there is nothing Eternal or permanent, because total annihilation is our ultimate horizon and nothing will endure, there is nothing worth our time (226-27).

 

This Caputo roundly and compellingly rejects. For the bulk of this chapter Caputo is in full on Dionysian mode, channeling his inner Nietzsche, the early Nietzsche of The Birth of Tragedy who engages in a full-throated celebration of life in spite of its frailty and manifold imperfections. Nihilism may indeed be all there is but for Caputo this is ultimately an instance of insistent grace. So instead of being-nothing (Brassier), Caputo calls for an embrace of “being-for-nothing,” which accepts nihilism as a gift and values life itself unbound and precious precisely because of its precarity.

 

Life is being-for-nothing other than itself, it is its own because, a pure gift, pure grace, pure contingency, where grace, givenness, and the aleatory vicissitudes of material existence are such that they are because they are without why (244). To paraphrase a comment Samuel Beckett once made with regard to James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, life, for Caputo, is not about something, it is that something itself, which is why it is to be celebrated and enjoyed without why. “Nobody asked anybody for anything,” writes Caputo. “We answer a call we never heard. It’s just a pure gift in which what is given is given without good intentions, without any intentions at all” (230).

 

It is against this backdrop that Caputo reads various resurrection narratives, namely those of Lazarus and Jesus in the gospels. Resurrection is not the negation of death or the attempt to somehow write mortality and temporality out of the cosmic equation. Instead, these stories serve as theopoetic instantiations of a desire for life, of a certain faith in more life, not a particular, individual life, but life itself bounded by materiality and impermanence. Resurrection, for Caputo, is faith in life, a hope (against hope) for more life through the chance of the event, the chance of grace because as long as life persists, as long as we’re still here and haven’t disintegrated into elementary particles, as a long as this planet and this universe sustain us, as long as there is soil beneath our feet and sky above our heads, as long as blood flows through our veins and breath through our nostrils — as long as all this is the case there is the possibility and the chance of more life, not a life or my life, but life itself.

 

But there are no guarantees. In this “radical” theology of the event, in this topsy-turvy theopoetics of the perhaps, even God is a gambler, rolling the dice on the outside chance that maybe, possibly, perhaps, more life might happen, that grace might come, that the impossible may surprise us, that the event could facilitate resurrection. But perhaps not. Hell, for Caputo, is “ruined time” (242) which is one possible outcome of chance. Grace does not automatically heal everything; it may turn out to not heal at all. “Loving life is our best theory for everything,” but this does not mean we are safe, that things are ultimately determined, or that ‘love wins.’ Grace and love are not ultimate metaphysical categories here — there is just as much a chance for horrific atrocity as there is for resurrection and more life. Things could go horribly awry. Or, not. It all turns on “the reduction of the event” (231) and the passion for the impossible which means, simply, that there is no why: being-for-nothing. And as long as this is the case there is a chance for the possibility of more life, of the gift of grace, the grace of the event, perhaps.

 

TL;DR – Rather than allowing nihilism to be paralyzing (being-nothing) Caputo calls for an embrace of nihilism as grace, as a type of gift involving a full-throated celebration of life itself without why (being-for-nothing). Resurrection is the promise, perhaps, that there is a chance for more life, a chance for the event.

 

Now a few questions…

 

1. The first has to do with Caputo’s use of Deleuze. This has increased quite a bit since The Weakness of God and shortly thereafter. In particular, he loves to use a line from Deleuze’s The Logic of Sense in his discussions of the event.*3 This continues in The Insistence of God, especially in this chapter. Caputo borrows from Deleuze quite a bit but is ultimately “disloyal to his metaphysics” (234) wanting “no party in the war between Deleuzeans and Derrideans” (298 n23). But other than employing the word ‘metaphysics’ and assuming it to be a pejorative label–which I normally agree with though here I’m not as clear as to why–Caputo does not fully elucidate his differences with, and from, Deleuze. For instance, Caputo worries about Deleuze’s notion of “the plane of immanence” (again because it is too metaphysical) and instead opts for a more phenomenological description of the event in his discussion of resurrection. Yet later in this same chapter he will describe the event as “an emergent effect on the plane of the world” (239) a phrase he uses more than once and is, to my mind, all too reminiscent of Deleuze. So, what is the actual difference here? How is Caputo’s plane of the world different from Deleuze’s plane immanence? Another way of putting this, would be to ask what the discernible differences are between Derrida and Deleuze. Is the difference as cut and dry as Caputo makes it out to be? What is at stake for Caputo in this distinction? This is some interesting discussion on this over on Clayton Crockett’s post. I tend to agree with the notion that Derrida and Deleuze are perhaps closer than Caputo lets on. This closeness is something Derrida himself suggested.

 

2. In this chapter and throughout the book Caputo tends to conflate telos and eschaton. I wonder if this needs to be the case. What if instead of associating eschaton with ontotheological determinacy and finality we link it with Caputo’s understanding of the event? It seems to me that the event is deeply eschatological — in fact, it could be argued that the entirety of Caputo’s work since The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida is deeply eschatological.  The event harbored within the name of God, the “to-come” that is always structurally beyond anticipation, the absolute future which is distinguished from the future present, the surprise that exceeds and shatters horizons of expectation–all concepts that smack of eschatological consequence. Yet, Caputo himself is reticent to make this connection, rightfully wary of the metaphysical premises of most conventional eschatologies and their penchant to valorize closure and an other-worldy eternity. Again, I wonder if this needs to be the case. What if eschaton were decoupled from telos? There are plenty of resources within theology that can be leveraged to read eschatology against the grain. If eschatology is thought simply as the theological understanding of time and the future rather than the ontotheological discourse of the consummation of all things in some Great Beyond that saves us from the world then I think field is wide open talk about the event in eschatological terms.*4 Can there be a “radical” eschatology of the event or a poeticized eschatological materialism? What would it mean to thematize the event in such terms and to do so without recourse to the discursive strategies of the Kantian “type” of continental philosophy of religion?

 

3. In a certain way this final question extends beyond Caputo’s work but is certainly applicable to it. Quite a bit of ink has been spilt in the last 20 years or so over the “theological” turn in continental philosophy both in the form of support and as a critique of certain triumphalistic configurations (what Caputo calls “postmodernism light”). It seems to me that taken as a whole this “theological” or “religious” turn also places a certain exigence upon a critical re-evaluation of theology itself as a critical discourse and discursive practice. In fact, one could argue that the question of God after the death of God is one particular formulation of this exigency. But it isn’t the only formulation and I’m not so sure it is the best one for our particular cultural moment. So, for instance, I am encouraged to see Caputo deal, however briefly, with the insidious supercessionism that inheres in certain (quasi)theological uses of continental theory which privilege Christianity (152ff). His critique of neo-Kantian, fideistic configurations of “postmodern” thought as a means of protecting or saving (Christian) theology from immanent critique is also helpful here. The question, though, is whether Caputo’s “radical” theology is capable of enacting gestures of critical resistance against itself that facilitate, among other things, the decentering of Christian hegemony in religious thought. Caputo himself is still “doing” theology from a Christian standpoint, in many ways as a Christian, though I’m not sure he would claim the label “Christian theologian.” This isn’t necessarily bad, but it does speak to the sort of double-bind one faces (I include myself here). In this respect, it doesn’t seem off base to ask: what is the aim of a “radical” theology? Is its radicality contingent at least in part upon its ability to perform acts of theological self-reflexivity, to think itself otherwise, to think, perhaps, the demise of its current position? Is this, perhaps, what Caputo means when he refers to “a new species of theologians?” I realize some of this lies outside Caputo’s immediate scope, but I do think these are persistent and even insistent specters haunting any theological project, especially one which claims to be radical. Insofar as Caputo’s theology is thoroughly concerned with futurity–with what is coming–it seems worth considering what the future of theology is to be and whether such a future will sufficiently attend to its more liberative exigences. Or, not. Perhaps.

 

 

* * * * * * * * * *

 

 

1) Regular Homebrewed readers are surely aware that there has been quite a bit of back and forth over the meaning and use of the phrase “radical theology” recently, specifically whether the identifier is appropriately used by Caputo and others. While I understand Caputo’s use and defense of the phrase within this book (and his previous works) I do share some of these concerns. So for this post I am employing the term “radical” in quotations marks–with a certain amount of fear and trembling–to denote this contestation.

 

2) My exposure to Brassier is very limited and Captuo’s textual engagement with him in this chapter is actually pretty sparse. So my use of Brassier here is based on Caputo’s (brief) outline, which may or may not be the best reading. I hope readers more familiar with Brassier and so-called “speculative realism” will weigh in on this.

 

3) “The event is not what occurs (an accident), it is rather inside what occurs, the purely expressed.” The Logic of Sense, 170.

 

4) Part of my own project at the moment is to trace this development in Derrida’s thought, something I think Derrida himself was well aware of but reluctant to thematize as such. In this respect, Caputo is most certainly a true Derridean disciple. But, of course, Derrida never really claimed he was doing theology, while Caputo is basically a late-blooming theologian.