way out west

Deconstruction - dreaming and doing the impossible?

...in deconstruction aporias (impassable obstacles) are made to broken, not to drive us off the road.  They are broken not by a bit of academic cleverness and theoretical adroitness but by a dream, a desire, and a deed.  "Go wherever you cannot go!"  To the aporia of the impossible, where the way of knowledge has been blocked, there corresponds the imperative of doing the truth, facere veritatem...

deconstruction is structured like a religion.  Like a prayer and tear for the coming of the wholly other (tout autre), for something impossible, like a messianic prayer in a messianic religion (viens) like a vast and sweeping amen, viens, oui, oui.  Like a faith in the coming of something we cannot quite make out, a blind faith where knowledge fails and faith is what we have to go on... Religion without Religion! 

Religion was not a possibility for the horizon of classical modernity.  Today religion becomes the possibility of impossibility.  With the two great unveilers [David] Tracy rejects all systems of totality with the claim that fragments are our spiritual tradition, fragments seen theologically as saturated and auratic bearers of infinity and hope for redemption [John Caputo]

Many have said that the core 'principle' of 'Emerging Church' is the deconstruction and reconstruction of Church... The way I understand 'deconstruction' (a la Derrida) is that it is the liberating dimension of the deconstruction itself, not necessarily a mechanistic reconstruction... that defeats the object, replacing one set of axioms and aporias with another imposed framework... Deconstruction in the understanding of Derrida has at its heart 'differance'... "rather than privileging commonality and simplicity and seeking unifying principles (or grand teleological narratives, or overarching concepts, etc.) deconstruction emphasizes difference, complexity, and non-self-identity." [Wikipedia]  Tracy says that Kierkegaard showed that...

Christendom as a triumphant totality system could not and cannot survive any true experiment with authentic Christian living.

...and says himself...

Religion never could be contained by modernity; it could only be conquered or it could be colonised... The most explosive power in many forms of postmodern thought is the return of The Ultimate repressed by the Enlightenment - the return of religion as a phenomenon demanding new attention, new description, and, of course, new critique.

Religion cannot emulate modernity, nor can it be fully expressed (if at all say some) without seeing the beyond... tout autre... or as Emmanuel Levinas said religion is about the possibility of impossibility!  I guess where I am going with this, is that Mission/Church in a post-Christendom/Modern paradigm has to engage with the impossible, to...

Let go of the hope for any totality system whatsoever.  Focus instead on the explosive, auratic fragments of our heritages.  Do this not, in conservative fashion, to shore up against our present ruin... learn to live joyfully, not despairingly, with and in the great fragments we do indeed possess. [Tracy]

... so if deconstruction is about blowing away the aporias of modernity... but not about re-constructing new totalities, then perhaps we should be concerned less with establishing anything and simply value the freedom we have... now I am aware that this causes communication difficulties, but so what?  If "Emerging Church" becomes anything more cohesive than an aggregate, if it stops dreaming of the impossible or begins to build walls... I'm not sure I want to be there... it is the fragments, the irrationality, the vulnerability, the impossibility that grabs me... I want to be one of Caputo's 'Apostles of the Impossible'... I want want to nurture 'desire de l'impossible, desir de Dieu' and welcome 'l'invention de l'autre' [Derrida]... go on call me a relativist if you like, I'm only dreaming!

Technorati Tags: Church: Culture: Emerging Church: Mission: Spirituality

Having fun with the fundys...

"Bush is the AntiChrist" There are loads of sites like this around, but this is so comprehensive, you have to giggle!  Thanks to "The Old Bill" for the link.

He also has this wonderful quote from Rainer Rilke (circa 1900!)

No churches to encircle God as though
he were a fugitive, and then bewail him
as if he were a captured, wounded creature -
all houses will prove friendly, there will be
a sense of boundless sacrifice prevailing
in all actions and in you and me.

Bye Bye Bernie and Phil!

Its been a strange week in my football world... first Telford part company with Bernie McNally (now ex-manager) then tonight Phil Brown (Derby Manager) pulls out of an appearance on Radio 5 for a meeting with the Chairman (also known as the Deputy Coronor for North Yorkshire! ????) only to emerge unemployed!  AFC Telford has a great board and excellent Chairman... Derby on the other hand...!

Technorati Tags: News: Football

Make Poverty History is... History

So it's official... MPH is at an end... now I know things have a natural end point.... and they are encouraging supporters to sign up to support one of the many other organisations... but, I can't help thinking that having a public umbrella body, makes the ident stronger... and many people who would not sign up to the TUC, Christian Aid or War on Want were swept up in MPH... 'United we stand' as they say!... Their own report says...

NO END TO POVERTY AS RICH COUNTRIES REFUSE TO DELIVER TRADE JUSTICE

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong (13-18 December) could have been a turning point in making poverty history. But the potential for justice for the world's poorest people was squandered.
The WTO meeting failed to deliver the trade justice deal needed in 2005 to make poverty history. The responsibility for the WTO failing the world's poor rests with rich countries whose governments, despite all our campaigning, did not show willingness to deliver trade justice. The agreement reached is far from just for the poor of the world.

...so unfortunately the stated aim has failed... poverty continues... is it really time to lift the pressure?  Personally I never believed that Celebs and/or concerts were even a part of the answer... The power we have is through public protest and the ballot box...  although listening to Mariah Carey may make you squirm perhaps it is time to make the politicians squirm in a different way!  There is something much more powerful in a single united shout than in a hub-bub of voices... so why end it if it has not reached the stated aim?  What has a calendar year got to do with anything?  What ever happened to sustained pressure?  Maybe I'm wrong but somehow this feels like resignation!

Technorati Tags: Culture: News

Pioneer Mission Leaders Ordination...

..has been finally approved by the House of Bishops! (according to Jonny)  Now the difficult bit begins... how!? ArchBish Rowan will say in a series of Radio Interviews to be broadcast this March...

...we’ve got to find some new ways of encouraging the sort of ministry that will be prepared to be entrepreneurial, that will take risks, that will step outside the conventional patterns, the conventional boundaries of the way church is done.  Training people for that is difficult because you can’t just train people to be innovative; they have to have their own gifts and so on. But you can at least provide an environment where people don’t feel that they are being put into a sausage machine.

...I am meeting with the Diocesan Director of Ordinands in a fortnight to explore what this might mean for both the Diocese and for me personally.

Technorati Tags: Church: Emerging Church: Mission

Albert Einstein said...

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Technorati Tags: Culture: Spirituality

TV interview... meeting the "Founders" of Religion

I'm doing a TV interview tomorrow for BBC Shropshire, they have asked 3 religious 'leaders' (their words not mine!) Muslim, Buddhist and me... to imagine meeting all three (Muhammad, Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha) and Jesus) and to ask one question (and explain it of course) - obviously we are not supposed to ask questions designed to promote our faith nor have a go at the others.... but, I'm not really sure how you avoid it, the kind of questions I am want to ask are...

• Muhammad - The early days of Islam were days of war and violence how then could the DNA of Islam not then reflect this? (I guess I can't really ask this!)... Muhammad claimed not to be starting a new religion but reviving an old one... that of the One God, that of Abraham, what then would he consider the common ground... or the "core" values in the Torah?... Or possibly, what would he be most proud of the cultural success of the Ottomans, the learning and creativity of the Islamic scholars, or the modern Islamic states?
• Buddha - How did growing up amongst human wealth (and witnessing the poverty and suffering outside the palaces) whilst surrounded by the majesty of the Himalayan landscape impact you views on temporal life?  i.e. How much did the solidity and scale of the land offset against the fragility and weakness of humanity, it's dreams and desires instil a need to see beyond time and desire?  Does he think that Karma and/or the search for enlightenment are ultimately selfish quests... goodness for ones own benefit?
• Jesus - In your day you spent your time with prostitutes and lepers... who now would you choose to live with?  Or... which historical/current action of the Christian Church is he most saddened/ashamed by?  I guess as a believer, I would also want to ask about the act of creation; the design, the process, the experience of bringing life and beauty into being?

... anyone got any other ideas... burning questions?

Technorati Tags: Spirituality: Television

futureboogie live sets

Some great live sets available to stream on futureboogie... Giles Peterson, Quantic, QSO, Jazzanova +++ Thanks to Ben Askew for the link... heaven through the headphones...

Technorati Tags: Blogging: Culture: Music

Caputo, Derrida and the 'post-modern condition'... and a bit of Dawkins!

I am reading "God, the Gift, and Postmodernism" (John D. Caputo) today... I have struggled a bit over the buying into/throwing away of terms and labels... so I quite like Caputo's evaluation of Derrida's use (or not) of the term post-modern...

Derrida would describe himself not as a post-modern, but as a man of the Enlightenment, albeit of a new Enlightenment, one that is enlightened about the Enlightenment and resists letting the spirit of the Enlightenment freeze over into dogma.  Derrida seeks an enlightenment "of our time", here and now, in the sprawling wealth and bottomless poverty, in the uncomfortable plurality and virtual reality of this late-modern, high-tech, televangelist, free-market, multi-media, millennial fin-de-siècle, this time of need and greed, in which the "certainties and axioms" of the old Enlightenment require reconsideration, translation, and transformation.

...maybe he should also get an award for the most uses of the word Enlightenment in a paragraph!  Caputo believes that this enlightening of the Enlightenment reopens the door for discussion about Religion/Spirituality in the context of cultural exegesis... it removes Kant's "conditions of possibility" instead the new Enlightenment would be...

"given over dreaming of the impossible, arising from a deep desire for what, given the constraints and conditions imposed by modernity, is precisely not possible, which for that reason is precisely what we most deeply desire."

...much comment has been made about Richard Dawkins recent (same old) commentary, my issue with Dawkins is that claims to be a scientist... yet he is so bound by "certainties and axioms" that he cannot entertain new possibilities... which is to me what science is all about... dreaming the "what if..." dream and then seeking to explore it... to experiment and observe.... and to draw new conclusions/hypothesis... hence I don't see Dawkins as a scientist, but as a dogmatist... old Enlightenment!  Being post-modern then means having grown through the 'old' but not being constrained by it, challenging the self-installed boundaries of the Enlightenment... maybe deliberately breaking them down just to see what is on the other side.  Perhaps this then is the reason for the "re-enchantment" of culture, a heartfelt deconstruction of the rationalist constraint on the understanding of experience?

Technorati Tags: Books: Culture

The Blind Beggar

A blog I have just added to my new Wizz feed reader is The Blind Beggar...  Rick (from Portland, Oregon)has left a few comments here and I have visited his blog from time to time... he describes himself as...

Just a poor old blind beggar who keeps needing to call out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’”

This may well be true... but Rick is one wise old beggar! ;-) for example...

Do you know that it is impossible to go to church? No place in the Bible do you find Christ followers “going to church.” But all to often we talk of the church as a denomination, building or place where certain religious things happen. We talk about “going to church,” or I’m a member of such and such church, or we attend so and so church. As Dan Kimball says in his book “The Emerging Church,” we see the church “as a dispenser of religious goods and services. People come to church to be fed, to have their needs met through quality programs, and to have the professionals teach their children about God.” This is not the Biblical meaning of church and it often has a profound effect on how we view who and what we are as Christians.

Our word church in the Bible is the Greek word ekklesia which simply means “a called out assembly.” It never describes a building or place. It always describes a people. When everything is stripped away, the buildings, the programs, the activities, the professional leaders, and other identifying markers for the church – the people are the church and church is the people.

Technorati Tags: Blogging: Emerging Church: Mission