Blah last night was excellent... thoughts from Jonny, Lou Davis, Malcolm and Roland... I have to say I find so much resonance in the words of the electric fellow from Belfast... he was unpacking some of the material from his book... I love the idea of 'faithful betrayal' , Pete told a story of a Priest (may have been a cardinal) during the 2nd World war, who went to the Vatican in a cry of mercy/compassion/hurt for the Jewish people. He suggested to the Vatican that they (in the style of Jesus) should give up being Catholic for the duration of the War and become Jews... so as to walk with them and to make a stand against the violence... a kind of 'we are one with them, so if you are going to kill them then you have to kill us too' or in other words 'If they are inhuman then we all are' I guess... anyway of course the suggestion was politely laughed out of Rome. 
The Priest however did what he suggested, moved to the ghetto, wore a star of David and in the end boarded the train to the Death camps. Pete asked the question... how do we lay aside OUR belief system, it's traditions, culture, structure, even the things about it which mean most to us... for the sake of the hurting other? He reminded us that Jesus was both the founder of a new religion and the end of all religions! So much of what Pete said provides a 'theological/philosophical' context for our Brendan Vision... being prepared to abandon safety/orthodoxy parameters and take the greatest risk of faith, to lay aside the 'orthodox' ... not to cease loving/believing all that makes up MY faith, but to be prepared to lay it on the altar as a sacrifice to God's purpose... to give up my notion of God, not because it is wrong but in order to allow the greatness of God to be grasped... so this is not about giving up one notion of God for another... but giving up ALL (human) constructs of God to embrace the vastness of God... 
Pete encourages us to give up on the need to know about God and embrace the God that is so big that we cannot know God... to put it another way do not limit God by what you can say about the Divine, welcome the acknowledgement that there will always be more that you do not know/cannot say... so to hold on to our definitions/understandings is to ignore the greatness of God... as he puts in the book "God rid me of God"! Ok this is a huge thing, with many questions attached... but that is the point! It is not the things we believe about God that are significant it is the seeking that is important. We don't find God by seeking, he says, but in encountering God we begin to seek!
A weird moment happened after Blah, when eating noodles... across the restaurant were two guys, Paul and Dominic who I was at Art School with 15 years ago... they are making a film (Synchronicity) for BBC3 (look out in late summer/early autumn)... they are not from Manchester... Neither am I (obviously) ... what Odds on that eh?
Technorati Tags: Blah: Emerging Church: Spirituality
Mark, is part of knowing God not concerned with knowing 'about' God? In knowing my girlfriend more and more I also know 'about' her and can therefore talk with some confidence about her. Perhaps I am misunderstanding you (and Pete) but it seems like you are saying it is an either/or..."to give up on the need to know about God and embrace the God that is so big that we cannot know God"? I also wonder about the idea of giving up all human constructs...surely no matter what I know, know about, or indeed surmise that I dont know, this is all human construct? Even if God allows me to know, this will only be through my humanity and therefore constructedly humanly?
Posted by: Phil Rankin | 13/06/2006 at 13:19
Phil,
taking your second part first... of course we view everything through Human spectacles... for me (I can't speak for Pete, you'll have to read the book!) it is not that we are able to leave behind human constructs just that we acknowledge them and their provisionallity... Pete tells another story (excuse me if I shorten it)... 3 theologians meet at the Pearly gates, St Peter says before you come in you have to have an interview with Jesus, the three take their turn.. first a Mystic, who spends 20mins in the interview then enters heaven saying "I knew I was wrong", second an evangelical, after several hours he comes out saying "How could I have got it so wrong", then finally a fundamentalist... days later Jesus come out with his head in his hands saying "How could I have been SO wrong?!" ... the point is obvious, it is that we need to recognise that all our constructs are ultimately wrong, so it is that we need to hold lightly to those constructs.
To your first point, I don't know your Girlfriend so can't say how divine she is ;-) But... (more seriously) the point is not to abandon the seeking but to embrace the seeking, i.e. not to say I can't know so why bother, but, to paraphrase 'Mister God this is Anna' to realise that revelation of God does not mean that there is less of God left to discover, but that the more I know about God the more I know there is yet to discover! i.e. the closer I get to God what I come to know is just how impossible it is for me to define God in a mechanistic sense... the box is never big enough! It's a kind of ever expanding horizon.
What Pete is saying, I think and what I am saying is that God is not a destination to be reached but a journey to be explored. i.e. It is the seeking that is significant not the definition.
I know from my own (14year) marriage that the deeper I know Lou the more complex I find she is; the more contradictions I find she has, the impact that her story has had on her psyche & her spirituality. I know full well that I will never ever know all that there is to know about Lou... She continues to surprise me, almost daily... but that does not make me want to give up growing our relationship, quite the opposite... her complexity is far more deeply attractive than my first impressions... though sometimes I wish her feelings were less of a mystery to me! Just as sometimes I wish God were less of a mystery to me!
Posted by: Mark Berry | 13/06/2006 at 16:15
Phil sorry, you refer to the sentence in the post...
giving up ALL (human) constructs of God to embrace the vastness of God
... and I didn't directly address this... I think (just thoughts) that there are two dimensions to this - first, I perhaps should have said to give up FAITH in human constructs - it is not saying I had it wrong and this one is correct, but that they are all wrong if they claim to contain the completeness of God (I often use the Cornish Pastie picture - different parts of a meal contained in one pastry shell... it is impossible to taste all elements at once... but all are contained, so someone else may be tasting another bit which may be completely different to my bit but just as real and valid)... Pete uses a sunken ship... the ship is full of water, but it does not contain ALL the ocean, whereas the ocean contains ALL of the ship. (Me being the ship, God being the ocean of course). SO... yes my bit is a construct based on revelation, it maybe all that God has given me, it may be important to me for a season etc.... but is not GOD!
Secondly, the giving up may well be an act of sacrifice, not because one no longer believes it (or even because it is wrong) but because giving it up is an act of submission to God and to God's kingdom. Just as Abraham was prepared to sacrifice the promise God had made in/for his son.
Posted by: Mark Berry | 13/06/2006 at 16:32
“it is that we need to recognise that all our constructs are ultimately wrong” I don’t think I see it as starkly as this. I agree with all that you explained to this point but is it not too big a jump to go from possibility (provisionality) to absolute (ultimately)? We might be differing over a single word here but personally speaking I think I can only say that my human constructs ‘might’ be wrong. Reading the story of the 3 guys at the gates, I am left with the feeling that one or more of them ‘might’ actually have got it right! This connects to the seeking God too I think. Again I totally agree with most of what you wrote about this but my fear is that if people overemphasis deconstruction a point is reached where nothing can be said (other than maybe Descartes ‘I think therefore I am’ but that’s a whole other long debate!!!!!)
My experience of my girlfriend or God, or indeed of you, allows me to say things about you all that I think are true. They are not the whole pictures but they are some of it. What I then live with is perhaps not uncertainty because I understand my statements to be true, but it certainly is an openness to the possibility that I might be wrong and the certainty that for all I know, I know very little.
To use your analogy, even if the box will always expand because I constantly seek more, there is still a box. Even if what I construct is false, all that happens is that the box changes colour or texture. But there is still an ever-expanding box of knowledge, understanding, experience etc.
Posted by: Phil Rankin | 13/06/2006 at 16:57
Phil, I agree... perhaps what I should have said is 'Ultimatley incomplete and inadequate' rather than the pejorative 'Wrong'... but I would say they are 'Wrong' if they claim to hold THE truth, THE revelation. i.e. the 'wrongness' may not be in the partial beliefs themseves, but in the claims made for them. If we entertain the posibility of narrative revelation then sometimes a particular box has to be thrown out - e.g. Peter and the Food (see Jonny B's post on Blah) it is not saying it was wrong, but it is no longer right - in God's continuing revelation. The problem I have with your version of the 'box' is that is it becomes a 'Russian Doll' yes our seasonal beliefs may still have resonances but we may at times have to put aside a box - see Galatians for example
Posted by: Mark Berry | 13/06/2006 at 17:11