In 2010, Drury University (Springfield, Missouri) hosted what many of its participants imagined to be the first conference bringing together theologians, philosophers and church practitioners (themselves problematic categories, I know) to explore the relationships between postmodern philosophy, radical theology, and church practice. Many ‘emerging’ and ‘progressive’ Christian events often try to engage with contemporary academic theory but often fail to do so in a sustained or rigorous manner and philosophers of religion, in particular, have been accused of disregarding lived religion in favour of abstract thought (hence my work with this new research network, Philosophy and Religious Practices).

‘Subverting the Norm: The Emerging Church, Postmodernism and the Future of Christianity’ (Oct 15-16 2010) tried to provide space for a genuine dialogue between scholars and church practitioners. Many participants, myself included, felt that this was such an important endeavour that we asked its principal organiser, Phil Snider, to turn this one-off event into a conference series.

Beginning with Twitter conversations in February 2012, Subverting the Norm II (STN2) took shape over the summer, when we identified that an event on the relationship between ‘radical theology’ (or what Jack Caputo calls ‘unabridged postmodernism’) and ‘actually existing churches’ might be the most helpful theme for both practitioners and academics. Over the winter, after a suggestion from Matt Gallion, Phil and I drafted a call for presentations to send out through various academic and church networks, inviting conference contributions (open format) around a set of questions that all asked, in a nutshell, ‘Can Postmodern Theology Live in the Churches?’

In this first post reflecting on STN2 (Apr 5-6 2013) and looking ahead to STN3 (watch this space!!!), I wanted to think about the conference format in relation to our intended aim of bringing philosophers, theologians and church practitioners together.

In other posts, I’ll look at two other questions: diversity and politics (and in further posts I’ll also address other STN2-related things that interest me, like the emerging church). 

(Links to other STN2 reflections are being collected by Matt Willis-Goode here).

From the Introduction (download PDF for free here) to Political Theology’s special issue (13/2) on speculative philosophies and religious practices, which contains my article, “Retrospective Speculative Philosophy: Looking for Traces of Zizek’s Communist Collective in Emerging Christian Praxis”:

Katharine Moody… [studies] the work of Zizek and his atheistic speculative philosophy as it might relate to emerging religious practice as represented in the practice of Peter Rollins in particular. Zizek talks about a “God who dies” and the surviving Christian community of believers driven by the Holy Spirit as what remains following Christ’s death. He does, however, tend to suggest that it is only outside the boundaries of institutional religion and churches that this residual revolutionary praxis is to be encountered.

Moody questions this and suggests that Rollins’s emerging transformative and creative movements, as found in Ikon (an emerging church project in Belfast, Northern Ireland), offer an example of an heretical and apocalyptic practice which exists, albeit uncomfortably, both within and beyond institutional boundaries. This is a religious collective, but one that exhibits a “faith beyond religion” and is close to Caputo’s deconstructive theology. Perhaps the crucial characteristic of this movement is that beliefs are held lightly, whilst it is the embodied practices of emerging and often doubt-driven collective worship and activity that are the central aspects of what is now developing.

Whether or not this bears much resemblance to Zizek’s new communist collective is a question that Moody suggests requires further research.

If someone would just give me some MONEY!!!

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.

Eloi, Eloi, Lama sabachthani by Ann Kim (South Korea) is a good visual to use for a Forsaken by God service on Good Friday.

This Sydney Carter song, “Friday Morning”, is clearly suited to a Good Friday “Forsaken by God” service to mark the end of an Atheism for Lent Course. When we held such a service at Journey last year, one of our very talented musicians, David Waring, stood up and sang this a cappella, with the rest of us joining in for the choruses:

It was on a Friday morning that they took me from the cell, and I saw they had a carpenter to crucify as well. You can blame it on to Pilate, you can blame it on the Jews, you can blame it on the Devil, but it’s God I accuse.

Chorus: “It’s God they ought to crucify, instead of you and me,” I said to the carpenter a-hanging on the tree.

You can blame it on to Adam, you can blame it on to Eve, you can blame it on the apple, but that I can’t believe. It was God that made the Devil, the woman and the man, and there wouldn’t be an apple, if it wasn’t in the plan.

Now Barabbas was a killer, and they let Barabbas go. But you are being crucified for nothing here below. But God is up in heaven, and he doesn’t do a thing, with a million angels watching, and they never move a wing.

“To hell with Jehovah,” to the carpenter I said. “I wish that a carpenter had made this world instead. Goodbye and good luck to you. Our way will soon divide. Remember me in heaven, the man you hung beside.”

This poem, “God is Dead. Good,” from Kester Brewin makes a great reading for a Good Friday service to mark the end of an Atheism for Lent Course:

Today, there is no hope.

There is no resurrection,

no looking forward to a Sunday

which does not yet exist in even

the wildest imaginations.

There is no prayer

no solace

no point.

God has died.

It’s over.

Finished.

Give up.

Go home.

Return to work.

The best you can do

is carry on the memory;

the only remainder of belief,

now all has been strung up

and screwed up,

is to consider that may be

his life was well lived,

and that helping the poor

and standing up for the oppressed

was worth living

and dying for.

God has died.

We live still

this Friday

to do Good.

This parable, “Finding Faith,” from Peter Rollins’ The Orthodox Heretic would also make a good reading for a Forsaken by God service on either Good Friday or Holy Saturday.

There was once a preacher who possessed an unusual but powerful gift. Far from encouraging people’s religious beliefs, he found that from an early age, when he prayed for people, they would lose their religious beliefs, beliefs about the prophets, about the sacred Scriptures, even about God. Now he rarely prayed for others, instead limiting himself to sermons.

One day, however, whilst travelling across the country, he found himself in conversation with a businessman who happened to be going in the same direction. This businessman was very wealthy, having made his money in the world of international banking. The conversation had begun because the businessman possessed a deep faith and had noticed the preacher reading from the Bible. He introduced himself and they began to talk. As they chatted together, the rich man told the preacher all about his faith in God and his love of Christ. It turned out that although he worked hard in his work he was not really interested in worldly goods.

“The world of business is a cold one,” he confided to the preacher, “and in my line of work there are situations in which I find myself that challenge my Christian convictions. I try to remain true to my faith. Indeed, it is my faith that stops me from getting too caught up in that heartless world of work, reminding me that I am really a man of God.”

The preacher thought for a moment and then asked, “Can I pray for you?”

Another thing that I did for the Forsaken by God service that we held at the end of the Atheism for Lent Course that I ran at Journey last year, was modify some dialogue from Angels in America, adding a sprinkling of Nietzsche’s madman, to make a reading entitled, “Sue the Bastard”:

The prophet, yes. That is what they call me. I am like a madman in a market place.

God abandoned us. He isn’t coming back. And if he ever did come back, if he ever dared to show his face in the garden again, if he ever returned to see how much suffering his abandonment had created, and if all he had to offer was death, we should sue the bastard. That’s my only contribution to all this theology, all this a/theology. Sue the bastard for walking out. How dare he?! He walked out on us, He ought to pay.

We suffer. But we don’t want death, we want life. I want more life. So bless me anyway. I want more life, I can’t help myself, I do, I want more life. I’ve lived through such terrible times and there are people who’ve lived through much, much worse. But we see them living anyway, when they’re more spirit than body, when they’re more sores than skin, when they’re burned and in agony, when flies lay eggs in the corners of the eyes of their children, they live. I don’t know if it’s not braver to die, but I recognise the habit, the addiction of being alive. We don’t want death, we don’t want After Life, we want life, here and now. And if we can find hope anywhere, anyhow, that’s it, that’s the best we can do. So bless us anyway, we want more life.

Thus spake the prophet!

Ed Harcourt’s ‘Church of No Religion’ would be a fantastic song to include in liturgy for a Good Friday or Holy Saturday “Forsaken by God” service to mark the end of Atheism for Lent:

Now it’s time to readdress what is sacred, are you sacred? Are you cursed or are you blessed? Were you created from all this hatred? And I don’t need a devil to change my mind. And I don’t need an angel to keep me in line. I’ve got my head screwed on like a nail in a cross. And I’ll make my own decisions.

And so the cup, it overfloweth into the Read Sea, into the Dead Sea, above the mountain or deep below it. It flows freely as you believe me. And I don’t need a devil to change my mind. And I don’t need an angel to keep me in line. I’ve got my head screwed on like a nail in a cross in the church of no religion.

You would think all of your cardinal sins will stay underground. You have ruined almost everything so step down, down, down, down, down. All your money and all your faith, all your miracles and holy visions, won’t make the world a better place, so take a pew and stop to listen: if World War III comes soon you’ll find me singin’ in a church, singin’ in a church, singin’ in a church of no religion.

Get the scissors, cut the strings. It’s time to move on, it’s time to move on. The puppeteer is out of time. We’ve waited so long, we’ve waited so long. And I don’t need a devil to change my mind. And I don’t need an angel to keep me in line. I’ve got my head screwed on like a nail in a cross. And I’ll make my own decisions.

You will think that all your cardinal sins will stay underground. You’ve ruined almost everything so step down, down, down, down, down. All your money and all your faith, all your miracles and holy visions, won’t make the world a better place, so take a pew and stop to listen: I’m tellin’ you the truth, if World War III comes soon, you’ll find me singin’ in a church, singin’ in a church, singin’ in a church of no religion.

Singing in a church, singing in a church, singing in a church of no religion. Singin’ in a church, singin’ in a church, preachin’ in a church of no religion. Singin’ in a church, livin’ in a church, prayin’ in a church of no religion. Singin’ in a church, singin’ in a church, singin’ in a church of no religion.

From Ikon, “The God Delusion,” Greenbelt Arts Festival, Aug 26 2007:

My first encounter with this secret occurred a number of years ago while I was walking home, late one evening. As I weaved my way through the half-dead trees that inhabited a piece of wasteland connecting my origin to my destination, I heard an inner voice calling my name. I stood still and listened intently to what I took to be nothing less than the solemn, silent voice of God. As I stood there, rooted to the ground, God spoke to me, repeating four simple words, “I do not exist.”

“I do not exist”? What could this possibly mean?

Continuing with resources for a Good Friday or Holy Saturday “Forsaken by God” service to mark the end of Atheism for Lent, here’s a parable from Peter Rollins, The Orthodox Heretic, pp.104-106:

There was once a world-renowned philosopher who, from an early age, set himself the task of proving once and for all the nonexistence of God. Of course, such a task was immense, for the various arguments for and against the existence of God had done battle over the ages without either being able to claim victory.

He was, however, a genius without equal, and he possessed a singular vision that drove him to work each day and long into every night in order to understand the intricacies of every debate, every discussion, and every significant work on the subject.

An Atheism for Lent Course is designed to be used in a group, with the group undertaking daily or weekly readings and gathering together regularly to discuss them. Peter Rollins suggests (here) that participants in an Atheism for Lent Course might wish to finish each gathering with a ritual, such as blowing out a candle or closing an open Bible. 

To mark the end of the entire Course, however, you might also want to create a worship service for Good Friday or Holy Saturday to reflect on the content of the Course and to share it liturgically with others who weren’t part of the Course group. When I ran this course last year with Journey, Birmingham, for example, we created a Good Friday service called, “Forsaken by God.”

Here’s some of the blurb we used to produce and then advertise this service:

Remembering Jesus’ words on the Cross and God’s own atheism, this service will also help us to feel something of what God felt at the Crucifixion when God experienced the absence of God.