I’m thankful for videos like this one, from Above the Influence by the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. Though I doubt it needs to be said, any attempt at keeping teenagers from trying any kind of drugs is a good thing – and should be supported wholeheartedly.

That said, I fear this ad might actually communicate that by choosing not to “get twisted”, one can expect to be rewarded in some way. I realize this may seem like a kind of backwards, psychoanalytic, deconstructed, Peter Rollins/Slavoj Žižek-like “reading” – but notice how the commercial is shot from the perspective of the man at the counter, instead of the perspective of the students at the table, concluding with the man giving them a free meal.

Again, without seeming to be pessimistic, wouldn’t a truer account be one where the students who choose not to use drugs end up paying for their friends who skip out on the bill? And then, we would be faced with the reality that the true reward isn’t the free meal, it’s not doing drugs.

I’m all for generosity, and encouraging those who don’t “get twisted” in any possible way, but fear that if they “just say no” in hopes of a reward, they’ll miss the reward of being healthy and drug-free. Notice also, right before the man says “we’re straight”, there are straws on the counter that are straight! Coincidence? I think not!

Simply put, I wasn’t quite prepared how it would affect me to say over and over “You are dust, and to dust you will return. But in Jesus Christ, you have eternal life.”

You are dust, and to dust you will return. But in Jesus Christ, you have eternal life.

It’s a beautiful paradox. Like Peter Rollins’ How (Not) to Speak of God. Or John Caputo’s The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida.

Or the Gospel.

I was reminded of these videos created as a final project for a course last fall with Ryan Bolger – Church in Contemporary Culture – when someone made a comment on them via YouTube. Watching them again is like reading an old paper or listening to an old sermon, remembering where I was at and what I was reading back then.

This commercial always reminds me of the writing of Peter Rollins, especially his book How (Not) to Speak of God (which, of course, builds upon John Caputo’s brilliant examination The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion, in which a chapter is entitled Affirmation at the Limits: How Not to Speak).

All that said, how brilliant that it’s for an Irish whiskey!

Supergroups, I’ve decided, are kind of like local businesses that go out of business when the multinational conglomeration comes into town. The big business is great and all, but the possibilities that the smaller businesses could have achieved – metaphorically speaking – will be missed.

The record’s first track, entitled “Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.)”, veers into some rather thoughtful theological territory, unlikely for some of the members of the group.

The first two verses (sung by Jim James and M. Ward, respectively) address the Divine in light of a sort of three-tiered universe as well as numerous passages from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures which refer to a faith that moves mountains (most well known, probably Mark 11.22-25):

Dear God, I’m trying hard to reach you,
dear God, I see your face in all I do.
Sometimes it’s so hard to believe in you,
but God, I know you have your reasons.

Dear God, I see you moving mountains,
dear God, I see you moving trees.
Sometimes, it’s nothing to believe in,
no, no, sometimes, it’s everything I see.

And then the chorus, which reminds me of a number of recent posts (including this one) regarding suffering:

But I’ve been thinking about it,
and I’ve been breaking it down without an answer.
I know I’m thinking out loud,
but if your love’s still around, why do we suffer?

Then, Conor Oberst, of Bright Eyes and Mystic Valley Band fame, refers obliquely to 1st Corinthians 13.12 (famous for it’s inclusion in wedding vows – as well as Peter Rollins and, of course, John Caputo books):

Dear God, I wish that I could touch you,
how strange, sometimes I feel I almost do.
And then I’m back behind the glass again,
oh God, what keeps you out, it keeps me in.

By the end, we’re all singing along:

But I’ve been thinking about it,
and I’ve been breaking it down without an answer.
I know I’m thinking out loud,
but if your love’s still around, why do we suffer?

The parable is a sort of Žižekian parody of the well known Christian poem depicting life as a journey wherein God walks alongside us on the beach. When life was difficult, the author of the poem asks his Maker why during the difficult times of life God left him to walk alone. The response is, of course, that the one set of footprints seen in the sand was when God was carrying the author. Brewin’s reworking of the poem depicts, instead, the man carrying God:

The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when you carried me.

Alongside Rollins’ book title, this theological perspective is certainly heretical. As such, however, it reminds me of a number of things, including when ska band The Mighty Mighty Bosstones once defended themselves against riding the bandwagon, instead asserting that they had been carrying the bandwagon. Or, from a more theological perspective, Tom Waits’ song Road to Peace, which concludes:

And if God is great and God is good why can’t he change the hearts of men?
Well maybe God himself is lost and needs help
Maybe God himself he needs all of our help
Maybe God himself is lost and needs help
He’s out upon the road to peace

Or take John Caputo, who questions at the outset of The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event

Has not the name of God from time out of mind been associated with unlimited power so that “God Almighty” is practically a redundant expression? That I would never deny. I am not saying that power has not been a defining feature of theology right from the start; theology has been strong theology and religion has been strong religion, in love with strength, right from the gate. But I am suggesting that theology is a house divided against itself and that it lacks self-understanding to the point that it is intellectually bipolar, vacillating wildly between the heights of power and the depths of weakness. (The Weakness of God, 7-8)

There is no doubt an interesting conversation going on here between Waits, Brewin, Rollins, Žižek and Caputo (among countless others, including – I think – David Bazan). I certainly struggle with some of the ideas presented – especially when they limit the power of God – though I continue to affirm the centrality that we must start with Genesis 1, recognizing that all of humanity is called to co-creation and co-mission, to work together in remaking the world to what it was originally meant to be.

And, I will affirm the central message of the Last Judgment, that in caring for the created order we ultimately show devotion to the Creator:

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

Which is what Brewin may have been getting at all along.

We also gathered Wednesday afternoons to go out into our surrounding community to engage in acts of service, in hopes that the Kingdom parables we had sought to create would join the ongoing work of the restoration of all things.

Last night, at our End of Summer Pool Party, we concluded both summer-long projects, in a sense, by hearing a parable written by Peter Rollins, entitled “No Conviction.”

One of the students put it best, when, following the story, he simply remarked, “ouch.”

In his book, The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales, Rollins comments on this reflection:

This reflection was written after I happened to see a car speed past with a bumper sticker that read, “If Christianity were illegal would there be enough evidence to convict you?” At the time, I didn’t pay this little saying much thought, but over the course of the day it began to take root in my consciousness and play on my mind. So that evening I took some time to imagine such a world and what would happen to me if I lived in it. I was not interested in imagining a world where Christianity as a mere tradition of belief system was illegal but rather in a place where a life that reflected the acts and teachings of Jesus was prohibited.

Yet, in the process of reflecting I began to wonder whether we actually lived in such a world. Rather than reading, “If Christianity were illegal would there be enough evidence to convict you?” – I wondered wether the bumper sticker I had seen that day should actually have read, Christianity is illegal: is there enough evidence to convict you? For if I were really to take the teachings of jesus seriously, would I not sooner or later, find myself being dragged before the authorities? If I were really to live a life that reflected the subversive and radical message of love that gives a voice to the voiceless and a place to those who are displaced, if I were really to stand up against the systemic oppression perpetrated by those in power, then would I not find myself on the wrong side of the lawmakers?

The above story simple exposes the reality of Christ’s subversive teaching by imagining that those who exist in the place of power today are both aware of the fact that they oppose the way of Christ and willing to openly admit it. The story thus has two primary points. First, I used it to express the idea that authentic faith is expressed, not in the mere acceptance of a belief system, but in sacrificial, loving action. Here I reject the inner/outer distinction in which one can fool oneself into thinking that private beliefs are somehow more important or reflective of one’s essence that public actions. Second, I wished to draw the reader into the reflection that perhaps this larger-than-life scenario, in its imaginary description of an alternative universe, is actually merely a reflection of the universe that we already inhabit. By creating a fictional world, we thus come face-to-face with our own world. (The Orthodox Heretic, 7-9)

Furthermore, reading these thinkers in conversation with René Girard has provided a fascinating parallel between the divine in metaphysical thought and natural religiosity, thus highlighting the importance of the Incarnation. My thesis, then, is that by engaging with Vattimo’s weak thought, we can be further enabled for deconstructing the temples(s) of contemporary Christianity. Vattimo’s engagement with Nietzsche (and Heidegger) provides the foundation by which he is able to assert “there is no ultimate foundation.” (After Christianity, 3) In stark contrast to many fundamentalist theologies wherein Jesus embodies a violent God, Vattimo sees the Incarnation as the necessary precursor to the dissolution of metaphysics, and even the concept of the sacred.

Christianity accomplished the first attack against metaphysics construed exclusively as objectivity… [It] announces the end to the Plantonic ideal of objectivity. It cannot be the eternal word of forms outside ourselves that saves us, but only the eye directed toward the interior and the searching of the deep truth inside us all. (After the Death of God, 31)

Thus, in a view similar to Marcion, Vattimo sees Christian faith – and more precisely, the Incarnation – as the substantiation that the true God is one of mercy instead of justice. Accordingly, any element of a vengeful, taut autre must be discarded as natural religion. In his engagement with the Incarnation, Vattimo relies heavily upon the work of René Girard, adopting his views regarding violence and the sacred. He notes

if a ‘divine’ truth is given in Christianity, it is an unmasking of the violence that has given birth to the sacred of natural religion, that is, the sacred that is characteristic of the metaphysical God. (After Christianity, 38)

It is at this point that we catch the first glimpses of Vattimo’s contribution to our ecclesiological deconstructive project. Second temple Judaism undoubtedly wed the sacred with violence, as is seen in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ temple action. Following this prophetic Event, Mark notes “The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill [Jesus], for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.” (Mark 11.18, NIV)

It is for this reason that Žižek (in The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity) – and Rollins, following him (in The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief) – may give Judas entirely too much credit, or not do enough deconstruction (or “violence” to?!) to the Passion narrative itself.

In this corner, Geoffrey Holsclaw argues that to consider Žižek a theologian is wrong in “either one or two ways,” to misunderstand his project or misunderstand the practice of theology. Holsclaw states,”the only way to understand Žižek as a theologian is to serious (sic) downgrade theology itself.”

In this corner, Peter Rollins asserts that in Žižek and Milbank’s The Monstrosity of Christ, “we get something more than a philosophy, anthropology, sociology or psychology of religion,” namely a theology in the vein of Altizer and the Death of God movement.

While I understand Holsclaw’s perspective, my money is on Rollins in this one. Adam Kotsko, author of the recent Žižek and Theology,explicates my thoughts well in his response to the conversation at The Church and Postmodern Culture:

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.

His book is the first of a new series offered by T&T Clark which (will) examine(s) other “atheists” and their contributions to theology, including Badiou, Derrida, and Nietzsche.

I don’t want to wade into this debate here, but instead offer some recent thoughts from my ongoing research regarding Jesus’ temple action as a way to reform our ecclesiological communities. For, while many in both church ministry and theological education would question the importance – or even argue against the legitimacy – of engaging with an avowed Marxist, materialist atheist (including Holsclaw?), Žižek provides a helpful perspective with which to engage the study of religion in contemporary culture.

Žižek draws heavily upon Hegelian dialectical philosophy, Marxist social theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis, and has, throughout his career, drawn insights from Christian theology. Of late, however, he has become one of many contemporary theorists who have turned to religion, though he would most likely bristle to be included in such a grouping. Kotsko has noted that this “turn” should be viewed instead as

having been occasioned by the tensions within his more strictly philosophical work on subjectivity, ethics and political theory. (Žižek and Theology, 6)

Or, to put this recent engagement in his own words, Žižek asserts:

The subversive kernel of Christianity… is available only to a materialist approach – and… to become a true dialectical materialist, one should go through the Christian experience.” (The Puppet and the Dwarf, 6)

My thesis, then, in engaging with Žižek throughout the posts to follow, is that his reading of Christianity – heretical, sideways, or short circuited though it may be – provides a significant support for de(con)structing the temple(s) of contemporary Christianity.