Eyre Lines

Brian McLaren has a new book “Do I stay Christian“, and the link gives access to an interview with Tripp Fuller as well as to a group and a forthcoming reading group around the book.

Having just got back from Peter Rollins “Wake” festival (which revolves around his Pyrotheology concept, combining Radical Theology, Philosophy and the Arts, generally the more subversive arts), I was reminded of a parable Pete told again this year (here’s a link to a previous telling).

Now, being a Christian is something which I was told I was by a couple of people some time after I started moderating the Christianity section of the then Compuserve Religion Forum (effectively defunct since AoL took over, but there’s still a group of that name). I, of course, denied it at least three times before rather reluctantly accepting that yes, at least by their standards, maybe I was. But if I am, I’m not a very good one. Maya Angelou said “I’m always amazed when people walk up to me and say, ‘I’m a Christian.’ I go, ‘Already?'”, and I can pretty much identify with that. I’m very impressed by Jesus (not so much by the Christ of Pauline and subsequent theology), but I don’t remotely measure up to Jesus’ very high standards. At least, I’ve got this idea in my head that they’re very high standards, despite Jesus also allowing as followers some strikingly imperfect people – but then, I have this immensely irritating perfectionist streak, which I seem to apply only to myself. Perhaps I need to love myself as I love others? Incidentally, Dave Tomlinson has written a book about being a bad Christian (and being a better human being) which I recommend.

I’m definitely not a Christian by the standards of a lot of Christian groupings, including the Catholics and most Evangelicals. Indeed, there’s one of the authors I’ve edited a couple of times who likes to call me his “unsaved friend”. That brings me to the idea on which Brian and Tripp agree, early in their discussion, that Christianity is (per Brian) a “team sport”. Now, as they discuss, there are a lot of reasons not to stay a Christian (all of which have influenced me in the past), and as they say, anyone might find it impossible to stay within a tradition which (for instance) has been a set of complete shits towards those of their mother religion, Judaism. I actually find that individual congregations can be similarly really good reasons not to be a member of them, particularly if they would take major exception to what I said if I were to outline what I actually do think is (at least probably) the case – and in the past, some have done just that, and I’ve followed the Biblical injunction to shake the dust off my sandals as I left. But, in conscience, I’ve never found a congregation in which I feel totally free to talk about my theological ideas, which is one reason why I so much value the Wake festival. Harking back to another discussion which went on this year (in one of the GCAS seminars which accompanied the event this time), I’ve tended to be liminal in any congregation I worship with, just as two of the GCAS doctoral students were as they pursued PhDs in Radical Theology while serving confessional congregations as clergy.

But, not being clergy, nor having any sensible chance of becoming clergy (though one of the two people I mentioned earlier also suggested that I regarded my moderating of the Christianity section as a “pastoral mission”, and again after a LOT of argument, I reluctantly conceded that he was right), I don’t have the same need to stick with a congregation.

Is it reallyt a “team sport”, though? Again, in a conversation at Wake, someone quoted “when two or three are gathered together”, implying that community is foundational. I held my tongue, as I could have quoted back the Gospel of Thomas Oxyrhyncus version as translated by Oresse “Jesus says: “Where there are [two (?) they are] not without God, and where there is one, I say <to you>, I am with him. Raise the stone, and there thou wilt find me; split the wood: I am even there!” “ As long as you’re broad minded about what constitutes scripture, that’s the counterpoint – and, indeed, one translation (Attridge) renders that “Where there are [three], they are without God, and where there is but [a single one], I say that I am with [him].” So no, I don’t think it has to be a team sport. But I’d massively prefer that it was, thus the pilgrimage to Belfast, postponed by Covid from 2020.

And I’m really sad to hear that there won’t be one next year. Being with “your” group only for a few days every two years – well, it just isn’t enough. Thank goodness for Zoom! Although even then, I’m not sure how much it’s community, for me, and how much it’s just getting sparked with new ideas. There will probably be quite a few posts coming based on this year’s Wake!