Peter Rollins is (not) talking about the emerging church

One of the most powerful insights I gained from Peter Rollins' amazing visit this past weekend at Yale was that he is NOT writing about church, or even doing church, but that what he is doing has profound implications for what churches are and ought to be doing today. We shared pints at Bar (the place he'd recommend we start something like IKON--which means he loved the place). I cooked scrambled eggs and sausage and coffee which we ate with Tony Jones (who flew out to respond to Peter's lecture). We shared a day of presentations and ended with buffalo wings and Guinness at a classic New Haven joint, more than 100 years old, called Archie Moore's. So while we're not deep friends, we did get on well and talked a lot over a couple days. So let me just get this out there for the emerging conversation in the usa. It matters that we not too quickly pigeon hole what Peter is up to instead of thinking about what he's on about and what he's not.

While Peter admits he once was an evangelist, and even did some church planting, he's not up to that now. The fact that his soon-to-be-classic book, How (Not) To Speak Of God is touted as offering "philosophical and theological underpinnings of the emerging church movement" on the back of the book is misleading. It is not about church. If you look at the graffiti spray painted on the outside of The Menagerie, the bar where IKON met in Belfast, you see their theology: God under the erasure of God. A/Theology. The graffiti was done as a taunt to the fact that the bar hosts the monthly IKON meetings but they loved it and planned an IKON event outdoors centering on this icon. It is, Peter said, the first icon for IKON.

And you could say the same about their gathering, sort of. They are doing church under the erasure of church. Peter said many, and almost always a majority, of those who are part of IKON are also more or less regular members of a traditional congregation. They depend on that for a kind of lively tension between IKON and the church, which IKON is not. So what is it? A creative space for what he calls transformance art. (A version of Performance art, get it?) It is a kind of anti-missional space--going into the world to make space for speaking and not speaking about what can and cannot be said about faith and life in, of and for God. IKON, as I understand it, is about emerging christianity. it is about how to find a way to reverse the rationalist heresy of modern theology--the idea that we can box up orthodoxy in our systems of belief, the idea that we might finally "get" god right. and IKON does this work of reversal by a series of brilliant moves led by Peter and other extremely creative leaders. They start with the simple idea that they first act in certain ways, ways that lead them towards understanding something of the ways of God witnessed to in scripture, and perhaps will become believers as a result. they are not, he says, a christian community but --perhaps--a community becoming christian.

anyway, to simply say this is an 'emerging church' in Belfast, or that he's a 'postmodern church planter' misses the real importance of this essential innovator and what he does and what that might mean for churches. Let's have THAT conversation, please.

anon, and peace,

Chris

Comments

[Gail Wiggin]

Chris, loved these reflections about Peter Rollins. Have you checked out the Soliton Network? Peter is participating in their next (and second) Celtic Soliton Session in Ireland, Feb 1-4.
http://www.solitonnetwork.org/pages/3080/

[Stephen]

Chris, I totally get what you are saying. I found Rollins book to be a breath of fresh air and provocative call to any who conisders themselves "emergent". Good to read your thoughts on all the ways his work in a local "church" is going to resonate into the greater Church community. Thanks!

S.

[JTL]

I concur, man. I hosted Pete for his visit here in scenic Syracuse NY right before his Yale visit. (One of the benefits of being in Jack Caputo's little band up here, I guess.) Great guy and one I'm proud to call a friend. Check out his blog when you get a chance, although he hasn't updated it in a while (small wonder, with all his travelling): http://www.ignite.cd/blogs/Pete/index.cfm.