nevermind the bricolage

Politics of Discipleship IV

 

Phew!!! I am finally done with Graham Ward's book, and I have to say that, while there is much to chew on here and there are more than a few moments of what is rightly proclaimed on the back page as "dazzling reading of Scriptures," I am left somewhat underwhelmed. I have to say that Ikept losing what he was trying to get at in the complex ways he went at the material. I am all for acknowledging the necessary elements but every once in a while I felt that he almost undid his own arguments by making them indecipherable. And his end vision is not something I can completely affirm. Toward the end of his book he writes, "If the rejection of theocratic language came with the acceptance of liberal-democratic polity and secularism, then, in a time of postdemocracy and postsecularity, should we not revisit this form of polity?" I am not sure, but Ward is. For him it seems that the end of the Enlightenment brings us back to where we started, which seems to be with a need for theocracy, not moving into new realms of divine understanding. Now I am not saying babies should be thrown out with bathwater, but I don't really see backward as the way forward, at least not in the same way he does.  He thinks that theocracy (of a particualr kind) is the way forward and that this is what being a follower of Jesus essentially acknowledges. Along with this he is also attempting to put the 'meta' back in physics, countering the philosophical shift toward the postmetaphysical, which he doesn't like, whereas, the postmetaphysical is something that I am still working through and with. 

Politics of Disicipleship III

I've been making my way quite slowly through Graham Ward's latest book, The Politics of Discipleship: Becoming Postmaterial Citizens. The slow pace has partly been because I am leading a mid-week discussion on Darwin's Origin of Species, which is no 'quick-read,' and also teaching a class on Art, Cinema and Theology, which also has a pretty heavy reading/research component for me, so I am doing my best to stay consistent with Ward along with these other reads. I must admit I am a little frustrated by the book, not that there isn't some interesting stuff, but it feels as though he is taking way longer than necessary to get to his central points. He also makes some statements that I think are a little naive. For instance, when writing about new forms of labour and the fact that it "encourages the denationalization of global capitalism; it perpetuates and utilizes global communications systems; and it evidences postmodern society, 'characterized by the dissolution of traditional social bodies," I am tracking with him, but then he references New Age spirituality and quotes Naomi Klein's view that the corporate world has a 'profound New Age streak.' What this ultimately means for Ward is the announcing of a 'secular asceticism wrapped in the veils of quasi-religious language uncoupled from the exercise of ritual, the practices of fiath, and a commitment to a tradition and its institutions,' and a link between New Age religious movements and multinational corporations who both have a 'mutual desire to colonize the soul.' Well sure, but I am not sure that what defines as 'new age' is that easily definable anymore, except in the broadest possible sense, and his view fails to take into consideration any shifts or changes in that world, which I would argue has shifted considerably in the past few years. Of course he is in the same territory as Zizek on this--he doesn't have much time for 'new age' spirituality either. Now I am not saying that I do either, but I have spent a fair amount of time thinking and exploring the dynamics of alternative spiritual expression and defining things as 'new age' is too loose of a catchall phrase for me, and not helpful enough to really resonate with me. Am I being too picky? Probably, and it is always dangerous to critique as one reads, because you never now what the next page will bring, but for now this is where I find myself. Essentially he wants to link new age religion to economics (The Secret? etc) and he goes on to outline six ways in which detradtionalized religion accomplishes this--personally I think that a lot of Christian religion achieves the same link and this is what I think he also needs to address-the populist forms of Christian faith, not the academic, champion many of the same values. Now perhaps he will get to that, he does  make reference to a umber of Christian views that are informing the new age perspectives and he is about to dig into the new visibility of religion, so perhaps I'll 'see his light'.

On reflection, I think what I am wrestling with is a bit of dismissal in Ward's tone, for someone as cynical as I can be, I hold a fairly positive view of much that is happening with religion and I sense that Ward doesn't. Perhaps coming from the Radical Orthodoxy world precludes a positivity about this stuff because he wants to get back I think to a re-energized tradition, but I think the future of religion lies in new permutations and new incarnations. But I am wary of forming any conclusions because although I am about halfway through the book, we haven't even made the turn towards remedy or cure yet and I want to get the full picture he is laying out. So I'll keep dropping in thoughts about this--sorry for the slow pace, but I'll get through it because The Death of Bunny Munro is waiting on the table!!

Postmaterialists...

I am working my way through Graham Ward's latest book, The Politics of Discipleship: Becoming Postmaterial Citizens, and am finding it pretty interesting so far. I am midway through Section 1 which is titled, World, and covers three main areas--democracy, globalization and postsecularity. He is referencing some pretty heavy political and economic writing that I have little familiarity with so it is difficult for me to fully comprehend everything he is nudging toward, but I am finding myself increasingly drawn into his ideas. He offers up a definition of a post-materialist that came from the work of Ronald Inglehart. Inglehart argued that as people moved out of economic instability their values change (in this thought he is not alone), and that the contemporary move is towards quality-of-life issues. He names five issues which make up the 'postmaterialist'--human rights, personal liberties, community, aesthetic satisfaction and the environment (this was posited by Inglehart in the 1970s--pretty sharp), with the shift towards these values " it seems a fundamental and profound shift in societal attitudes in process," he wrote. To this postmaterialist position Ward wants to offer a metaphysics and a theology, to deepen the citizenship of the postmaterialist. I'm with him so far, although the metaphysics bit is not a prime aim for me. In fact, I am not sure about metaphysics at all, but this is probably one of the key areas where Ward and I differ.

Tea+Cucumber Sandwiches?

"the overriding concern is to establish a new tradition of theological disputation...Forget tea and cucumber sandwiches with the vicar; there is genuine struggle here." This is a small quote from the introduction of Graham Ward's new book, The Politics of Discipleship: Becoming Postmaterial Citizens. I sometimes find Ward's writing a bit tough going, he reminds me a bit of Zizek-- the both to seem to operate on the 'why say something clearly when you can hobble people with meandering thoughts and weighty ideas' instead of cutting to the core of the issue at hand--but I also find them both their thinking quite compelling and this book, although I am not too far into yet, is shaping up to be a great read. I am not sure that I am on the exact same theological page as Ward, his radical orthodoxy is undoubtedly a viable option,  but it's not my cup of tea, since we are using the tea metaphor, but his take on culture and its intersections with theology is something I spend much of my time thinking about and he has been helpful in shaping a methodology of engagement. I like it that nothing is outside of his theological circle, nothing is off-limits, and everything can be brought into conversation. In an earlier work he speaks of his theology as seeking to "reclaim the world," not in the evangelical sense of the word, but with the idea of bringing things once left outside the domain of theology back into conversation and dialogue. I'll report back later, as I dig deeper, but I really appreciated his developing ideas, and particularly the urging that the time for nicety is past, and there is a need to not be polite and move into the struggle for the soul of the world essentially--I like that.

I Am Damned

Nick Cave reads excerpts from his new novel, The Death of Bunny Munro. He wrote the first chapter on his iPhone!

Book of Space

"You pick up a book, and you open the covers... and a series of rooms begins to pass by, like the frames of a film or sequences in a flipbook, and it's all due to laser-cut gaps and remainders. How amazing to think that we could slice entire works of architecture into all the books around us, so that "reading" a book would actually be a forward-moving optical journey through page-sized rooms and hallways," so declares the post on bldgblog, referencing some amazing work by Johan Hybschmann, a book of laser cuts that transform the pages into 3-dimensional spaces that link to one another as the pages are turned. The book was inspired by a single-shot scene of the Winter Palace in one of Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov's films, and is an attempt to replicate that scene in a book form. It's an interesting experiment in this age of image and text. I think that the piece offers a visual clue perhaps to some of Derrida's thoughts about the 'subjectile.' A subjectile is essentially the material that supports a work of art--paper, canvas etc. the thing that makes the representation possible. Derrida said that the subjectile occupied a liminal space, or a 'becoming of the between,' at once a support and a surface. Hybschmann seems to turn the subjectile into the projectile--it becomes the surface and the source of art, and the surface and source of meaning? Maybe I'm stretching too far, but there is something really captivating about turning what is essentially a surface for text into story without text.

Corporatism

Douglas Rushkoff got mugged, outside of his home in Brooklyn. The mugging, and even more, the rather strange responses he got from some of his neighbours, drove him to reconsider the shape and focus of his life. His view is that life in the 21st century is far from pleasurable, in fact, according to Rushkoff, we have allowed ourselves to live at the mercy of corporatism, and corporate values shape our lives, detrimentally. Life Inc: How The World Became A Corporation And How To Take It Back, is his latest book. It is intensely readable and quite provocative, as Rushkoff tends to be. He explores the disconnection from community that he feels is rampant in our world via the Industrial Age, and rails against a world where corporate values are prized over neighbourliness and community well-being. Working and consuming get plenty of exploration and critique, as does the romanticizing of what neighbourhood living is all about. His over-arching premise is that we need to start investing in one another and in our local communities, rather than falling into a pattern of corporatism and consumption that simply does not lead to good living. There is a video of Rushkoff speaking about the book here. The book is formatted rather like Playing the Future using binary oppositions and shifts as a means of exploring various aspects of corporatism in our lived experience. I like Rushkoff, and find his writing quite accessible, I appreciate his willingness to challenge the status quo and not only challenge, but offer a way forward from present predicaments.

Fulguration

Not exactly an autobiography and not completely a biography, Not Being God is a colloquy, a conversation in the first person really, about Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo. I read consumed this book in a day, and I haven't been able to say that about a book for a while now. It is immensely readable, short essays, somewhat linked chronologically, which cover everything from Vattimo's education, Italian left-wing politics, to his views on peers, and of course, how he came to hs much debated theory of 'weak thought.' Vattimo has been quite an influence on my own thinking, and of course, his weak thinking has shown up most visibly in the more recent writings of John Caputo, whose weak theology, is taken from Vattimo's idea. Zizek, is the philosophical rock-star who seems to get most traction with theologians, but I think Vattimo has some serious stuff to offer theology as well. He is a Catholic, his return to faith aided by the work of Rene Girard, although he essentially takes a polar view from Gerard in the end. Girard was big on the idea of the scapegoat, and to him, Jesus Christ is the scapegoat par excellence. Vattimo feels that Christ comes to renounce the 'sacrality and necessity of the victim,' and Vattimo calls him the first great desacralizer of the natural religions--rather than called to sacrifice we are called to friendship. It's thoughtful stuff, and this leads him to make declarations like this: "postmodern nihilism is the up-to-date form of Christianity," and "I think that Christianity is a religion that self-annuls, in the sense that it annuls all forms of dogmatism. Hence, God willing, a religion and a nonreligion."  

(fulguration: to give off flashes, like lightning)

Sum

I have had a couple of strange experiences lately, all of them related to death. I don't mean to be morose, but it has been a little peculiar. I am not one of those people who worry much about death, and or, the afterlife. But I was driving home the other night and as I was driving I was thinking about what happens physically when one dies, you know, conceiving of non-being, at least on this plane. I couldn't quite get my head around it but I got a little freaked out at the thought of not thinking, not breathing, not being alive. Cut to a couple of nights later and I woke up in a cold sweat after a dream about that very same thing--it actually took my breath away, I got up straight away and didn't go back to sleep. On the heels of all this I came across a book by David Eagleman called, Sum: Forty Tales of the Afterlives. It is a fairly slim collection of stories about what happens when we die, and focuses on the afterlife, on non-being. Eagleman is a neuro-scientist, but this doesn't mean he resists the idea of the divine, in fact, quite the opposite. But these are not regular stories about heaven/hell/white lights etc., they are a series of really thoughtful and often funny accounts of what might happen. My favourite is the opening story, Sum,  which says that the afterlife is reliving all our experiences but with the events reshuffled so that all the moments that share a quality--eating, sleeping, pain etc. are all lived at once. I am not sure what my thoughts/dreams were about, maybe I was just tired, perhaps it is a sign of aging, and I am definitely not saying that Eagleman's book spoke to my existential issues of life and death, but it is a great read, regardless of ones view of what happens after...(It even got a positive review from Brian Eno, not a man to reward spiritual quests lightly!)

The Latest Reads

Have picked up a bunch of books lately from a variety of sources (birthday being one of them, thank you Joe). Quite a wide range of topics.
Punk: The whole Story--an overview of beginnings and present day incarnations--cool pictures from the early offerings.
The World's Wisdom--ideas, words and reflections from the major global faiths, always interesting to note the similarities of thinking as well as the differences.
The Architecture of Happiness--have read this one before, but it is worth a second read--how architecture shapes us etc.
Groovy Old Men--Nick Baker's light, loose, but at time, inspiring 'spotter's guide' about the first wave of men post ww2 who didn't step into their father's footsteps.
Things The Grandchildren Should Know--Mark Everett--Mr. Eels to his music fans, pens a notable autobiography in his usual distinct and pithy tone.
Witness to Dispossession--Tom Beaudoin's reflection on the role of a Catholic theologian in 21st century culture.
Good stuff, all of it. Am excited about the new Kindle, but still love the look and feel of a book. I imagine like everything else, I'll be cumulative and want both options. Of course, the Kindle is almost $400 when it comes out so I doubt I'll be rushing to buy one!!