Jack Caputo talks to Homebrewed Christianity about advent: “The very idea of Christianity is that it turns on the to-come”.

I hadn’t thought that I’d be able to get to this year’s Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion conference (poster here), since a) it clashed with a conference in London at which I was already due to present on Poetry and Prayer, and b) it was pretty expensive (£195 reduced rate!) and I’m unemployed.

But I had to withdraw from the London conference anyway (because I’m unemployed and couldn’t afford to go to that either - I also withdrew from the Haunting Memories conference).

So the organisers of ACPR 2012 have asked me to attend as a ‘working delegate’, which is great!

‘The contemporary end of metaphysics is an end which, being sceptical, could only be a religious end of metaphysics.’ Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude. An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (London: Continuum, 2008).

Meillassoux identifies the ‘turn to religion’ in contemporary continental philosophy with a failure of thinking. The Kantian refusal to think the absolute leads to scepticism about reality in itself. Ironically, this lends itself to ‘fideism’, the decision to project religious meaning on to the unknowable beyond. According to Meillassoux, a philosophy obsessed with mystery becomes the accomplice of irrational faith. The solution is to find ways of once more thinking the absolute in its reality, severed from its dependence upon a knowing subject, or upon language and social norms. At the same time, new possibilities for thinking religion (exemplified by Meillassoux’s own Divine Inexistence) are emerging.

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 

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?”

I’ve already heard that my paper for The Power of the Word: Poetry and Prayer (June 29-30, London), “‘My God! My God! Why Have You Forsaken Me?’ Poetry, Prayer and Performance in the Absence of God”, has been accepted (abstract here), but I’m waiting to hear back about Haunting Memories: Unsettled Pasts and Disputed Spaces (May 18, London) and The International Society for Literature, Religion and Culture (Oct 19-21, Copenhagen). These papers are all designed to extend my work on emerging Christian practice and philosophical theology into political theology.

Pete Rollins on the role of the church as poet or singer-songwriter:

we need collectives that are more like the professional mourners who cry for us, the stand-up comedians who talk about the pain of being human or the poets singing about life at local pubs.

This post is another formulation of his thoughts in Chapter 4 of Insurrection: To Believe is Human; To Doubt, Divine (Howard Books, 2011), “I Don’t Have to Believe; My Pastor Does That For Me,” which I commented upon in my Church and Pomo post, “Becoming Church Mice: From Refusing to Lead to Refusing to Be Led.” I wondered whether Pete’s “fans” often let him disbelieve on their behalf, focusing on the next book, the next blog post, the next vimeo video, the next speaking engagement on pyro-theology rather than setting fires themselves - a danger that Pete himself recognizes (see his response to my post, “I Don’t Need to Doubt; Peter Does That For Me”).

Anyway, I’m going to be writing about this understanding of church as poets, singer-songwriters, mourners, and comedians in a paper for a conference on poetry and prayer, entitled “‘My God! My God Why Have You Forsaken Me?’ Poetry, Prayer and Performance in the Absence of God.” See the call for papers (here), my abstract (here), and these reflections, ”The Poet and The Critic: Transformation and Information.”

I just heard back from the conference organisers for “Poetry and Prayer: Continuities and Discontinuities” (Heythrop College, and the Institute of English Studies, University of London, June 29-30 2012) that the abstract I submitted was accepted.

My paper (entitled ‘“My God! My God! Why Have You Forsaken Me?” Poetry, Prayer and Performance in the Absence of God’) will mark something of a transition from my doctoral studies on emerging Christian discourse to my (still yet to be funded!) post-doctoral research on emerging Christian practices like transformance art.

I managed to get an abstract in on time for the Poetry and Prayer conference at the University of London (June 29-30 2012). Here it is:

Paper Title: ‘My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?’ Poetry, Prayer and Performance in the Absence of God

Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music…

Peter Rollins, Insurrection

[T]he church should be like the singer-songwriter we might listen to when we are working through a difficult situation…

This paper reflects on the function of prayer and liturgy, poetry and performance art, in the thought of Peter Rollins and the practice of emerging Christianity.

The 2nd Power of the Word conference (organised jointly by the Institute of English Studies and Heythrop College, University of London) will be on the theme of Poetry and Prayer: Continuities and Discontinuities. (Senate House, University of London, 29-30 June 2012).

Here’s the Call for Papers:

Prayer is the little implement
Through which Men reach
Where Presence—is denied them

Emily Dickinson

The second Power of the Word conference focuses on the theme of poetry and prayer. It seeks to promote further the dialogue, begun successfully at Heythrop College in last June’s conference, between theologians, philosophers, literary scholars and creative writers about the following questions:

What do poetry and prayer share?

How do they differ?

In what ways do they relate to each other?

John D. Caputo, The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2006), p.18.

I’ve been thinking about this quotation, about praying and weeping, hoping and sighing, in relation to the criticism that the Occupy Movement lacks concrete demands.