Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog

How (Not) To Be Secular – James K A Smith on Charles Taylor

Recently, I published a post (3^rd May 2016 / see also the comment attaching, as it has other links to conversations Taylor conducted while in Australia) that featured one of my formational influences, Canadian Philosopher Charles Taylor.

Published online on the 10^th May 2016 was a downloadable audio recording of a conversation between James K. A. Smith and the host of the (Neal A.) Maxwell Institute podcast, Blair Hodges.

Here’s the blurb for the show:

“Why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in, say, 1500 in our Western society, while in 2016 many people find it more difficult to believe than not? This is the question that Charles Taylor tackles in his massive book A Secular Age.

In this episode, James K. A. Smith joins us to talk about Taylor’s work. What was it like to believe in God in the past and what is it like for many believers today—and how did we get from there to here? Whether you find it easy or difficult to believe in God today, you’ll find much food for thought in Smith’s book  How (Not) to be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor…”

James K. A. Smith is professor of philosophy at Calvin College

You’ll find the fascinating conversation here.

And of course, as was alluded to yesterday (and highlighted in January), Smith has a new book out: You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (pub. April 2016) 

Jamie Smith - You Are What You Love

Daniel J. Berrigan, Dies 30th April 2016.

I haven’t engaged with Daniel Berrigan’s work for a few years now, but he’s been valued contributor to my formation as a human being. I first discovered Berrigan when I was reading a lot about / by lay Episcopalian theologian William Stringfellow (d. ). My first book was Ross Labrie’s The Writings of Daniel Berrigan published in 1989 by University Press of America. This was followed by Berrigan’s reflections on the prophet Jeremiah: Jeremiah: The World, The Wound of God.

His autobiography – To Dwell in Peace: An Autobiography was been reprinted in 2007.

A good introduction to Berrigan’s writing is Orbis Books’ 2009 publication Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings.

Interesting too is his published published conversations with Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh titled The Raft is Not the Shore: Conversations Toward a Buddhist-Christian Awareness.

The Rev. Daniel J. Berrigan, was an American Jesuit priest, peace activist and poet whose defiant protests helped shape the tactics of opposition to the Vietnam War and landed him in prison, died on Saturday in the Bronx. Born on May 9^th 1921, he died on the 30^th April 2016, a few days before his 95^th birthday.

His good friend and fellow activist Fr. John Dear reflects on Berrigan’s life and rich contribution to humanity in the Huffington Post, here. America reflects of Berrigan here. New York Times piece can be found here. A column by America Magazine can be found here.

The Need of Smallness, Time, and Depth

“…In the new millennium, many people imagine church as a small, deep, and creative community. They plant churches instead of launching them, acknowledging that we’re initiating a process that takes time. A planter nurtures the soil by developing deep relationships instead of overlaying one formula for success onto a variety of contexts. The church is not usually building-centric but meets in whatever place is comfortable or available—coffeehouses and homes. The gathering is not performance-oriented; instead, worship in­volves everyone in planning liturgy, music, or art…”

~ Carol Howard Merritt (From here).

Ed Catmull on Leadership

Ed Catmull is the President of Pixar and Disney Animation. About leadership Ed Catmull writes:

"I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay attention to and engage with anything that creates fear."

"My job as a manager is to create a fertile environment, keep it healthy, and watch for the things that undermine it."

Via Chris Erdman (Excerpted from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration (pub. 2014)

Forbes review of the book here.

The Churchless: A Force for Renewal…?

Another On Being conversation for you to listen to. This time it’s one from 2014, and features Nathan Schneider (b. 1984) reflecting on “the wisdom of millennials”. What really struck me was Tippett’s wondering about whether it might be those who have, what my good friend Alan Jamieson calls, “a churchless faith” might prove to be a significant force that will renew religion. I’ve often wondered that. Will there come a time when the institution starts to take seriously the experiences, resources, and wisdom of those who have continued to grow and explore and learnt to resource themselves beyond the walls and forms of traditional (and oftentimes slowly dying) church belonging. Or, maybe the “force for renewal” will create and shape well beyond the institutional church. 

Here’s the excerpts I found evocative: 

Ms. Tippett: I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. Today with writer and millennial generation public intellectual, Nathan Schneider. We spoke in a live event in the outdoor Hall of Philosophy at the Chautauqua Institution.

Ms. Tippett: So, sometimes I think about Bonhoeffer’s phrase, religionless Christianity, which he didn’t really live to develop. You know, he wrote in his letters and papers from prison where he died — the Nazi prison where he died. But, he, in his era, and a very different set of circumstances, but in his circumstances, where the church was completely co-opted by an — a corrupt state, he came to believe that the essential truths and the essential impulses of Christianity would survive even in the absence of religion.

And, sometimes, I feel like you know, what you’re describing is, uh, you know, whether you agree with the politics of Occupy or not, that passion for social justice, which has been carried across time in a lot of our religious institutions, alive and vibrant and actually, uh, making a practical difference in the lives of these young people who define themselves outside the walls of these institutions.

Ms. Tippett: It’s not an ending point. Right. And — so what this makes me wonder is if the “None’s” [a term for those who say they have “no religion” in polls and census’] , and again, I just find language so awful in so many ways, are actually, you know, like monastics in the early centuries of Christianity, these forces for spiritual renewal that actually collected outside the institutions. If the “None’s”, in fact, the new non-religious, um, may be the forces that will renew religion in this century, if it is to be renewed.

Mr. Schneider: You know, that’s a really — I think an important connection to draw. You know, the monastic movement formed in Christianity, at least, right about the moment when Christianity became the religion of empire. You know, it formed in response to the institutionalization of the faith of this recognition that there has to be something else, there’s another part here that we’re missing when we’re just doing the institution. Institutions will always fail us. And the institution they felt was failing them. And I think that’s something that every generation has to confront in new ways…”

You’ll find the whole conversation here.

Sarah Coakley and the New Asceticism

I’ve long had a very high regard for the thinking and writing of Sarah Coakley, in particular her more accessible essays and reflections, for example (Prayer as Divine Propulsion, parts 1 and 2.) I have the majority of her books too, but at the stage of life I’m in its always a challenge making the needful time, when not tired, to read them in a focused, thoughtful, and indeed prayerful way.

One book I don’t have is one that I had on order a few years back. Its publication, presumably, was delayed and then the order was cancelled. Its now back in my book basket: The New Asceticism: Sexuality, Gender and the Quest for God (pub. 5^th November 2015)

“Each chapter of The New Asceticism concentrates on a contentious issue in contemporary theology - the role of women in the churches, homosexuality and the priesthood, celibacy and the future of Christian asceticism - in an original thesis about the nature of desire which may start to heal many contemporary wounds. Professor Coakley is as familiar with the Bible and the Early Fathers as she is with the writings of Freud and Jung, and she draws heavily on Gregory of Nyssa's theology of desire in what she proposes. She points the way through the false modern alternatives of repression and libertinism, agape and eros, recovering a way in which desire can be freed from associations with promiscuity and disorder, and forging a new ascetical vision founded in the disciplines of prayer and attention.”

Table Of Contents

Introduction

1. Pleasure Principles: A theology of desire
2. The Woman at the Altar
3. Other Voices Other Worlds: Homosexuality
4. Trinity Prayer and Sexuality
5. Deepening Practices: Ascetical and Mystical Theology

Mark Vernon has a useful review of the book here, excerpts from which follow:

“…It's a journey through the narrow gate, for sure. The shadow of love's dream is a nightmare, because it continually runs the risk of not getting what it wants, and so forcefully taking what it wants. That's why, in Christian terms, the possessiveness of love must be transformed into the pattern of Christ's love…

…Coakley's work is important because it goes to the heart of what we need to address in Christianity today - not just the problems faced by the church, but what might make Christianity attractive in a culture that yearns for the spiritual dimension and yet doesn't consider that the church has anything substantial to offer it. That's because, in many of the church's current manifestations, it doesn't. But the deep wisdom about desire that's in the tradition, and is always longing to be reawakened, can stir us all anew.”

Talking in a Sinless Society: Alan Mann

Easter has come and gone for another year, but yesterday I had a listen to the Nomad conversation with Alan Mann. I first read Alan in 2004 when his book (co-written with Steve Chalke) The Lost Message of Jesus was published. At the time it caused a lot of controversy, but I found it a thoughtful read. At the time I’d been reflecting a lot on how to talk about “sin” in a meaningful way, as the term had lost it’s currency in what was and remains a post-Christian New Zealand (if indeed we could ever have been called a “Christian country”. I was looking for a new language; a new way of talking about what it meant to talk about a wide range of human experiences; feelings such as shame, brokenness, pain, failure etc.

I subsequently read Mann’s first edition (Authentic Media, 2005) of Atonement for a Sinless Society. Mann was trying to reframe the conversation around “atonement”; rather than primarily offering a new theological take on the atonement.

Anyway, back to the focus of today’s post. Nomad hosts Tim Nash and Dave Ward popped “over to Bristol to chat with Alan Mann. Alan asks the question, what could the atonement mean for a society that doesn’t consider itself sinful in any traditional sense. Rather than ‘sin’ Alan believes the issue we now face is shame and it is this that Jesus’ death needs to set us free from…”

You’ll find the (downloadable) podcast here. The conversation starts around the 5 min mark.

For more on the atonement I recommend J. Denny Weaver’s The Non-Violent Atonement (2^nd Edition). Weaver offers critical reflection on Mann’s (and Chalke’s) take on the atonement in the book – pages 300-306. Also published in 2005 was the very accessible Simon Barrow and Jonathan Bartley edited collection essays titled Consuming Passion: Why the Killing of Jesus Really Matters. It features essays by Steve Chalke, J. Denny Weaver, Giles Fraser, Stuart Murray, Ched Myers, Michael Northcott, James Alison and others. Well worth a read is the 2006 Mark D. Baker edited Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross: Contemporary Images of the Atonement. This features some excellent essays by the likes of Brian McLaren, Steve Taylor, Richard B. Hays, and Rowan Williams.

Finally, I also highly recommend one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read on the subject. James Alison’s very accessible and exciting Knowing Jesus (first published in 1993), which has a foreword by Rowan Williams. See also his more academic The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Through Easter Eyes, written from the perspective of the resurrection.

The Prince, Faith, Abuse and George Pell

With Australian Catholic Cardinal George Pell making the news in the last few weeks, and having recently watched the heartbreaking, harrowing, but totally absorbing Oscar winning film Spotlight, I wanted to revisit a conversation about George Pell with journalist David Marr, author of the Quarterly Essay (Issue 51, 2013) – The Prince, Faith, Abuse and George Pell. The conversation was published as an audio file on 6^th October 2013. You'll find it here. 

“The leading Catholic in the nation and spiritual adviser to Tony Abbott, Cardinal George Pell has played a key role in the greatest challenge to face his church for centuries: the scandal of child sex abuse by priests.

In The Prince, David Marr investigates the man and his career: how did he rise through the ranks? What does he stand for? How does he wield his authority? How much has he shaped his church and Australia? How has he handled the scandal?

Marr reveals a cleric at ease with power and aggressive in asserting the prerogatives of the Vatican. His account of Pell’s career focuses on his response as a man, a priest, an archbishop and prince of the church to the scandal that has engulfed the Catholic world in the last thirty years. This is the story of a cleric slow to see what was happening around him; torn by the contest between his church and its victims; and slow to realise that the Catholic Church cannot, in the end, escape secular scrutiny. 

The Prince is an arresting portrait of faith, loyalty and ambition, set against a backdrop of terrible suffering and an ancient institution in turmoil.”

If you get a chance to see Spotlight I highly recommend it.

You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit

Today, the final of the three books I’ve featured this week. (Books 1 and 2, here and here)

You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (Brazos Press / Hardcover / Pub. March 2016

“In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship.

Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes new material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life…”