<Theofragen>

While on vacation, I read one of the best books yet coming out of the emergent conversation. Pete Rollins’ book, How (Not) to Speak of God, is now being moved to my Jake Recommends list and will from now on be on my list of book recommendations to emergent seekers who contact me. Below, I would like to share a few of my impressions in order to persuade you to read the book for yourself. I’m sure that Pete would appreciate you buying the book rather than me telling you all of the details. So, I would like to share with you what I perceive he is up to in this book.
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Rollins offers us a thoroughgoing postcolonial theology; however, not in the traditional sense of the phrase. Instead, he is trying to move us away from the hegemony of our god-language and the dogmatic ideologies that enslave us (i.e. from the language that colonizes God!). Pete’s eclectic a/theology is a witty blend of postmodern mysticism coupled with an existential pragmatism. Throughout the book, he weaves the suggestion that a hermeneutic of love ought to be the regula fidae of emerging Christianity. I can think of no better rule of faith.

Like Derrida, Rollins is amply aware of the limits of language. Apropos, he is constantly bringing words under erasure (ex. a/theology is a concept connoting both the death of “traditional theology” while at the same time giving life to a new rendering of theological reflection in the aftermath of God). Even his title—How (Not) to Speak of God—is a playful, de/constructive twist that subverts our preconceived ideas about God language.
Like Levinas, he otherwises the hegemony of language. Like both writers, he plays with language as a cat plays with a ball of string

Rollins is trying to move us beyond traditional conceptions of orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right action) to believing and acting in the right way. This is not mere wordplay, but is a crucial distinction. He says more plainly than most, that deconstruction is not something that we do to texts, rituals, institutions, etc. Rather, it is something that they do to themselves. For instance, he writes:

[T]hose involved in the [emergent] conversation are not explicitly attempting to construct or unearth a different set of beliefs that would somehow be more appropriate in today’s context, but rather, they are looking at the way in which we hold the beliefs that we already have. This is not then a revolution that seeks to change what we believe, but rather one that sets about transforming the entire manner in which we hold our beliefs. (7)

One of the best things about Rollins’ book is his advocating for a tertium quid out of the either/or thinking spurred by proponents of modernity. And this third way transcends a mere both/and approach, but dialectically subsumes both terms. To this extent, Rollins takes his rightful place next to the great binary slayers of history: Socrates, Jesus and Kierkegaard.

To name but a few examples, Rollins bridges the Kantian chasm between perception and knowledge. He also presses us to rethink theology as being either a priori or a posteriori and God as the object of our theologizing or theology as the aftermath of God, who is the eternal subject. He slashes the binaries of journey/destination, revelation/concealment and reflection/experience. Check out this quote:

Yet in reality the Christian God destroys the idea of immanence and transcendence as opposite points in a diffuse spectrum, replacing this with the idea that immanence and transcendence are one and the same point: God remains transcendent amidst immanence precisely because God remains concealed amidst revelation. (24-5)

Rollins' a/theistic approach (emergent approach) puts words behind a form of "disbelieving what one believes, or rather, believing in God while remaining dubious concerning what one believes about God" (26). This a/theism makes the point that faith is found in the uncomfortable oscillation between understanding and ignorance, because "our reflections on God never bring us to God” (32).

He wants our a/theology to resist hypostasis or comfortability. Instead, he presses us to live in the unpleasant position of true faith—undecidability. This derridian liminal space forces us to embrace doubt as a necessary component of faith and undecidability as the nexus of authentic decision.

Rollin's book is a helpful guide as we journey on this path we call postmodern Christianity. His book is akin to this statement he makes about Emergent Village worldwide: “the emerging community must endeavor to be a question rather than an answer and an aroma rather than a food” (42). Read this book! It is worth every penny of the $13.57 you would spend on it at Amazon and so much more.

Pete the Binary Slayer

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