In Faith We Are Held

How (Not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins continues to challenge me in its investigation of the theory and praxis of the contemporary expression of faith that is the IKON community.

The following is a paraphrase of the introduction to Part 1 of his book. It manages to open our eyes to one of our biggest blind spots - that of thinking we have God all worked out and that therefore we can assuredly lead others in to our right understanding of him as well.

Christian faith, it could be said, is born in the aftermath of God. Our fragile faith is fanned in to life in the wake of what we believe to have been the incoming of a life giving encounter in which we feel connected with, and transformed by, the source of everything that is.

This belief may result from an immediate and psychologically penetrating experience or may arise more gently over time, but regardless of the means, such faith cannot be reduced to the mere affirmation of religious dogma, a regular visit to some religious institution or the reciting of mechanical prayers.

For Christians testify to having been caught up in and engulfed by that which utterly transcends them. In short, the experience that gives birth to faith, at its most luminous, is analogous to the experience of an infant feeling the embrace and tender kiss of its mother.

On the other hand, theology could be provisionally described as that which attempts to come to grips with this life-giving experience, to describe the source from which everything is suspended and from which our faith is born.

In faith God is experienced as the absolute subject who grasps us, while in theology, we set about reflecting on this subject. Here the source of our desire is rendered in to an (intellectual) object that we may reflect upon. In faith we are held, in theology we hold.

Faith and theology in this reading seem inextricably intertwined, as there can be no experience of faith divorced from an interpretation of it. Indeed, Christianity without theology could never really be ‘Christian’, for the term presupposes that one interprets the encounter with God in relation to the Judeo-Christian scriptures. According to this logic, theology in its modern form has been concerned with upholding and defending the notion of orthodoxy as that which articulates a correct understanding of God.

Yet the idea that we may understand the source of faith in this way has been roundly attacked both by those outside the church and by those within it. The argument is made that naming God is never really naming God, but only naming our understanding of God. To take our ideas of the divine and hold them as if they correspond to the reality of God, is thus to construct a conceptual idol built from the materials of our mind.

Instead of following the Greek influenced idea of orthodoxy as right belief, we must try to rediscover the more Hebraic and mystical notion of the orthodox Christian as one who believes in the right way – that is, believing in a loving, sacrificial and Christ-like manner.

The reversal from right belief to ‘believing in the right way’ is in no way some move to a binary opposite of the first (for the opposite of right belief is simply wrong belief); rather, it is a way of transcending the binary altogether. Thus orthodoxy is no longer (mis)understood as the opposite of heresy, but rather is understood as a term that signals a way of being in the world rather than a means of believing things about the world.

This approach opens up a Christian thinking that profoundly challenges some of the most basic ideas found in the contemporary church. It is an approach that emphasises the imperative of love; not as something that stands opposed to knowledge of God, or even simply more important that knowledge of God, but, more radically still, as knowledge of God.

To love is to know God precisely because God is love. Love must be the first word on our lips and also the last and we must seek to incarnate that sacred word in the world. Orthodoxy as right belief will cost us little; in deed it will allow us to sit back with our Pharisaic doctrines, guarding the ‘truth’ with the purity of our interpretations. But orthodoxy as ‘believing in the right way’, as bringing love to the world around us and within us….that will cost us everything. For to live by that sword, as we all know, is to die by it.

I want to be a real boy

The modern age has reduced so much to transaction and measurable outcome that it is no wonder we struggle with the concept of grace and mercy.

I am wondering that whilst we know and can quote all the relevant biblical texts unpacking the idea of God’s unconditional love, we are so conditioned that we still believe somehow we did something deserving of salvation.

This conditioning has also lead many to become confused about the nature of passages that appear to be transactional in nature, such as the famous ‘seek first the kingdom and all these things shall be added to you’ - a passage that has sadly been so misused to support the health and wealth movement.

More subtly, we have allowed this ‘transactional’ approach to cast a shadow over the very way we interact with our fellow human beings.

Exhausted, I am dragging myself away from the well-meaning but (I now believe), misguided evangelistic notions of friendship evangelism and the more recent, intentional living.

I feel that we totally misjudge the very root, the very nature, the very essence of God’s grace and mercy if every time we act in love towards our neighbour we are looking for requitement by proxy.

When will we understand that it is God who transforms us and for most of us that has taken and is taking a lifetime; God so loves the world, not for instant gratification, but because it’s the right thing to do.

Pinocchio wanted to be a real boy and in the heart of every human being is a yearning to respond to a creator God with no strings attached – God’s not going to make them dance, so why should we!

Altogether now:

I’ve got no strings to hold me down
To make me fret, to make me frown
I had strings, but now I’m free
There are no strings on me