On Tuesday, I got back from Springfield, Missouri, where I’ve been for a conference organised by Phil Snider and hosted by Drury University - Subverting the Norm II: Can Postmodern Theology Live in the Churches? (Apr 5-6 2013). Having slept all day Tuesday and been away visiting family on Wednesday and Thursday, I’ve finally got a little time (with my husband going away for a stag weekend in Amsterdam!) to start reflecting on this conference.

Having presented a plenary session on Slavoj Zizek’s pneumatology at the first Subverting the Norm conference (Oct 15-16 2010), this time round I presented two breakout sessions: first, ‘Atheism as a Contemplative Practice and Philosophy as a Spiritual Discipline’ in a session with Jim Kast-Keat on Atheism for Lent; and second, ‘A New Kind of Christian is A New Kind of Atheist: Psychoanalysis, A/Theism and the Philosophy and Politics of Identity Suspension’ in a session with Tad DeLay on Psychoanalysis and the Church.

I had a great weekend, making new friends, connecting offline with online friends, and meeting back up with friends from STN1. 

The conference was asking, ‘Can Postmodern Theology Live in the Churches?’ but a lot of other questions were raised over the weekend and the week that followed. I’ll be posting about these things in the coming days as I emerge from the fog of jetlag.

I’ll talk about some of the highlights for me (including the closing roundtables and the session on emerging Christianity) in later posts.

For now, I want to thank Phil for all his hard work, as well as everyone else involved, including Matt Gallion, Emily Bowen and Abigail Smith.

And since I already posted the abstract/blurb for my Psychoanalysis and the Church presentation, here’s the one for my Atheism for Lent presentation:

How can atheism be understood as a contemplative practice? How can philosophy be seen as a spiritual discipline? This presentation takes Atheism for Lent as a case study that suggests ways in which the practice of engaging with philosophical critiques of religion by great modern atheists can encourage subjective transformation among faith communities. It introduces a small-scale research project from the UK that examines how reading philosophical texts can impact individual and collective practices.

Lent starts today, so here’s the link again to my Third Way Magazine article, “Giving up God for Lent”.

Losing my religion. And happy to. REM’s “Losing my religion” in a major rather than minor scale.

One of the illustrations from my “Giving up God for Lent” article in the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of Third Way Magazine. I’m not sure about the metaphor of walking out into the snowstorm of atheism versus returning to The Light of theism. But they definitely are very pretty.

I recently got the new edition (Jan/Feb 2013) of Third Way Magazine, which includes my “Giving up God for Lent” article. I’m pretty pleased with it.

“My atheism gets on in the churches, all the churches, do you understand that?” -- Jacques Derrida

Subverting the Norm — a two-day event that brings together pastors, theologians, philosophers, church practitioners, and researchers in religion — asks a follow-up question:Can postmodern theology live in the churches? As such, we are interested in presentations that explore the relationship between radical theologies and the church.

By Adam Roberts. “Now that Christianity is the dominant religion on the planet, it is unbelievers who have the most in common with Christ”.

In preparation for my interview at Bristol, I’m drafting outlines for undergraduate and postgraduate modules in philosophy of religion and ethics and writing handouts about my impact work (as the “Philosophy and Religious Practices” network was funded after I was shortlisted).

I’ve planned taught units that would enable me to both collaborate with colleagues and supplement existing provision, and I’m really excited about the opportunity to work on them further.

For the undergraduate programmes at Bristol (Religion & Theology, Theology & Philosophy, and Theology & Sociology), I’m going to pitch the following units:

Introduction to Philosophy of Religion (Year 1, 20 credits)

• Enables students to consider some of the key issues in the philosophy of religion, including the relationship between faith and reason; the concept and attributes of God; arguments for the existence of God; the nature of religious knowledge, language and experience; human freedom and the problem of evil; human identity, death and the afterlife; and the possibility of divine action in the world.
• Stretches students’ understanding of philosophy of religion (which students may have studied at A Level) through a deeper exploration of the Greek and medieval philosophical backgrounds to this discipline and encouraging the use of key primary texts. 
• Challenges students’ preconceptions of the philosophy of religion by introducing alternative approaches, including theories of religion; feminist philosophy of religion; continental philosophy of religion; and philosophical issues in world religions.

Texts include Copan, Philosophy of Religion; Classic and Contemporary Issues (Willey-Blackwell, 2007); Meister, Introducing Philosophy of Religion (Routledge, 2009); Meister and Copan, eds, The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion (Routledge, 2012); and Taliaferro and Griffiths, eds, Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology (Willey-Blackwell, 2003).

On the back of my Greenbelt presentation this year, “Giving Up God for Lent: A New Kind of Christian is A New Kind of Atheist”, I’ve been contacted by Third Way Magazine to write a short piece about Atheism for Lent for their Jan/Feb 2013 issue. I’m very excited about this, and more than a little nervous, since I’m more used to academic than journalistic writing styles and I’m not particularly familiar with the magazine’s audience. Still, I’ve had some useful suggestions from the Features editor at Third Way and hopefully the finished piece will inspire readers. 

Also, my husband (Simeon Wallis) and I are hoping to pitch an anthology for Atheism for Lent to some popular Christian publishers in the next little while. It’ll include excerpts from philosophers, theologians and researchers of religion from modern atheists (like Freud, Marx and Nietzsche), new atheists (Dawkins, Hitchens, etc), secular philosophical interpretations of Christianity (from figures like Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek) to what I call the a/theism of people like Jack Caputo. Fingers crossed that we can get the finished manuscript out in time for Lent 2014. 

My bio for Greenbelt 2012, where I’ll be speaking on “Giving Up God for Lent: A New Kind of Christian is A New Kind of Atheist”.

Kester asked me a few weeks back to speak at Greenbelt this year (August 24 - 27), and I’ve decided to introduce and reflect on the Atheism for Lent course that I ran at Journey. I’ve just emailed in my presentation title and blurb:

Giving up God for Lent: A New Kind of Christian is A New Kind of Atheist

What did you give up for Lent? In Atheism for Lent, a six week course exploring great atheist critiques of religion, we tried to discover a richer faith in which our own atheisms, our own experiences of the absence of God, are recognised and remembered. Find out what we did, how it went, and why I think a new kind of Christian is also a new kind of atheist.

Public discussion of religion tends to polarize between two extremes: religious fundamentalism, and the aggressive atheism of such writers as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. But much of what people actually believe falls somewhere in between. It is subtler and more tentative. David Cayley explores the work of five thinkers whose recent books have charted new paths for religion.

This episode features Jack Caputo, but there are also episodes with Richard Kearney, William Cavanaugh, James Carse and Roger Lundin.

I’d be really interested to hear from anyone who undertook some form of Atheism for Lent this year. Maybe you used some of the material I posted here for daily readings. Perhaps you created your own materials for group gatherings. Or you might have decided not to attend church or to try not to pray.

One person who has been giving up God for Lent blogs at Everything is Spiritual.

At the beginning of the Lenten period, he wrote that he was hoping to identify the idol of God that he has created, in order to then ‘find God without the burden of religion… or idolatry’ (Atheism for Lent).

A round-up of posts on church resources for a “Forsaken by God” Good Friday or Holy Saturday service to mark the end of Atheism for Lent. I’d love to hear about any other ideas for resources (readings, prayers, music, liturgy, rituals, etc.):

Atheism for Lent: Forsaken by God (Resources 1)

Atheism for Lent: Forsaken by God (Resources 2)

Atheism for Lent: Forsaken by God (Resources 3)

Interrupting God: Take Jesus Down from the Cross

Atheism for Lent: Forsaken by God (Resources 4)

Ed Harcourt’s “Church of No Religion”

Atheism for Lent: Forsaken by God (Resources 5)

Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumours”

Kester Brewin’s “God is Dead. Good.”

Sydney Carter’s “Friday Morning”

Ann Kim’s “Eloi eloi lama sabachthani”

Pádraig ô Tuama’s “Maranatha”

REM’s Losing my Religion (in a major rather than minor key)

Here’s the link to all Atheism for Lent related posts:

katharinesarahmoody.tumblr.com/tagged/atheism-for-lent 

And no Forsaken by God service would be complete without Maranatha by Pádraig ô Tuama:

You are my strength, but I am weak. Maranatha.

I’ve given up some times when I’ve been tired. Does it move you?

I’ve fucked it up so many times. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

I’ve found my home in Babylon. Here in Exile.

In our Forsaken by God service at Journey last year, we ended the gathering by blowing out candles whilst listening to this song.

I said, 

During our closing song, we invite you to blow out a candle to symbolise your doubt, disbelief and atheism, and to recollect that we all find our home in Bablyon, in exile, forsaken by God, without God and yet with God still.

Leaving the room in the dark, we re-lit the candles during our Easter Sunday service.