Class with Peter Rollins

This week one of my classes had a guest lecturer, we were privileged to have Peter Rollins come and speak to our class. Peter Rollins is an Emergent Philosopher, co-organizer of an Emerging Church Movement collective called Ikon. He is also the author of several books, How (Not) to Speak of God, The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief, and most recent The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales. Oh yea he is also from Belfast Ireland.

So Peter came to our class this week while he is on tour speaking about his new book. So our class had the privilege to have him as our guest. It was pretty apparent from the beginning of the class that Peter is truly an Emergent Philosopher. He told us his style of speaking was like shooting a machine gun. So here are some thoughts and responses to things I took from this lecture.

Naming God and Un-Naming God...
No matter how great our theology and understanding of what we thinking God is it is limited and reductionist view. Every time we say God's name we must un-name God. This is an idea we are somewhat exploring in some of our readings. Darrell Guder talk about the idea of reductionism in his book The Continuing Conversion of the Church. Reductionism is a reality and a danger. We want to be able to describe God and in that we will inevitably reduce God to something we can grasp. But in our reduction we run the danger of limiting God. So we need to un-name God every time we name God. I see the importance of celebrating the divine mystery of God, while balancing the a human grasp of the concept of God. God is more wondrous then our concepts of God no matter how good our theology.

The Bible as Art
One of the coolest ideas from this lecture was Rollins idea that the Bible should be viewed as art. Not in the since that it lowers its value, but that different people can take different things from it. The Bible offers more than we can take in. The Bible gives us more and more, and it changes as we change and are impacted by the Bible.

Revelation as Trauma
Rollins said there were three stages of response to revelation from God. He compared these stages to that of trauma. Here are the three stages Rollins gave us...

1. Incomprehension - When we experience a revelation from God, our first response is just how can this be we are unable to comprehend what is taking place.
   
2. Bedazzlement follows once we have accepted the revelation. We stand back in aw of what is taking place after accepting the revelation from God.
   
3. Transformation follows once acceptance has taken place and our being in aw is calmed.
   

There is much more from this lecture, but I am still in the process of thinking through it and figuring our how I feel about it.