Tad DeLay Philosophy & Theology

I’ve been looking forward to this book, having followed Peter Rollins‘s work ever since I first read How (Not) to Speak of God four years ago. I had been reading Derrida’s Force of Law when a friend recommended Rollins to me, and I quickly gained an admiration for Rollins as the most philosophically astute writer within the emergent conversation (holding a Master’s in political theory and a Ph.D. in post-structural theory from Queens University, Belfast). Rollins was able to translate my parallel reading of Derrida into something that could deconstruct my beliefs. His upcoming title displays again the gift Rollins has for communicating psychoanalytic and post-structural theory in a way that a reader wholly outside of that world can understand. Insurrection marks a significant turn in his work from Derrida to Zizek, a tour de force appropriation of critical theory and psychoanalytic theology into a radicalized Christology.

As nearly as I can tell, Rollins’s Christianity remains a confessional theology (although with enough of a post-Hegelian heritage to merit the radical label), but regardless, I’m quite sure he would tell you he isn’t really interested in ontological questions of God and metaphysics. This is my position as well- arguing for or against some ontological category of God is a deep pit of impossibility; on the other hand, understanding how belief functions is a wide-open field of possibility. Rollins’s goal is not to engender rational doubt. Instead, radical Christology, which he has taken to call pyro-theology, questions how belief functions for the believer. The term pyro-theology is derived from a quote of Spanish anarchist Buenaventura Durruti (“The only church that illuminates is a burning one”), a quote which has been used by Zizek to explain a purely materialist theology (see: The Puppet and the Dwarf). Again, this is Rollins’s strength- esoteric theory undergirds each page, but in such a way that readers wholly unfamiliar with Lacan will have no trouble following the book’s development. And if you are familiar with the work he references, the book has a richly layered depth to explore further.

“There is a Fire Inside the Building; Please Step Inside”

The critiques of 1) symbolic disavowal and 2) the big Other takes the bulk of the book’s attention. Rollins invokes Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s dues ex machina, the God machine that we weave into a narrative to disavow the meaninglessness we suspect is reality. This Rollins claims is the way the fundamentalist Christian uses crucifixion- while feeling they are revering God, the doctrine that emerges takes the shape of ethereal dogma wholly disconnected from rupturing the fundamentalist’s reality. The use of the symbolic God allows the believer to suspend indefinitely the trauma of reality. The symbolic God allows the believer to know everything will be ok in the end- even if they know this isn’t true.

“Ever Get the Feeling That No One Is Watching You?”

All Christologies end up with their points of emphasis, and Rollins’s radical Christology rests on a highly attenuated Incarnation and kenosis. His claim is that Christianity is the only religion where God doubts God- the famous moment of protest-atheism (Moltmann’s term) on the cross where Jesus feels the depths of forsakenness. The claim of the Incarnation is even more radical: God does not simply doubt God only to then find God- God doubts God, and then God is dead. The properly orthodox Christian claim is that God died, and we are nevertheless compelled to live as if there is resurrection. Rollin’s is forging a sublation between orthodox Christology and the Lacanian “death of the big Other.” For Lacan, psychotherapy was complete when the analysand realized there was no big Other ordaining and judging one’s every move. (Zizek takes a cruder approach, where Christ’s moment of doubt on the cross is essentially the same as saying “Haha, joke’s on you. Nobody is coming to save me from this cross- you are on your own now”). Rollins takes the position that the death of the big Other in crucifixion means that, for the Christian, there is no experience of God without the loss of God (e.g. Mother Teresa’s loss of faith that haunted her work was also the impetus for taking on the role of resurrection). “In the sacrifice for religion, Christ loses everything for God, while in the sacrifice of religion, Christ loses everything including God,” (Insurrection, 27). Insurrection is a book about how we desire the control of the big Other- whether we rationally assent to this belief or not- in the same way that a child can spend her whole life trying to live up to her parents expectations even after her parents have passed on. In psychotherapy, the goal is to move beyond this into freedom; in religion, the broader path is one that encourages this codependence. We appear to be preaching fidelity to a deity when we are actually preaching fate, control, and irresponsibility.

Belief is natural, and in this book, Rollins takes much more direct language (both critical and encouraging) to the pastorate usually (mis)charged with selling certainty:

“Getting people to believe is easy precisely because it is so natural for us. Any persuasive human can do it- and even make some money in the process. But to truly unplug from the God of religion [that reinforces meaning and certainty], with all the anxieties and distress this involves, takes courage. Indeed, one could say it takes God.” (Insurrection, 17)

“On Avoiding the Truth of Who We Are”

After the release of The Fidelity of Betrayal, Rollins spoke of his frusteration at the way in which so many congregations seemed to think he was simply pushing for rational doubt. I understand this because it is my story- I can often trick myself into thinking I doubt something (with doubt being the trendy thing it is), but in reality I probably could not doubt my faith altogether even if I wanted to. Thoughtful religion always exists between the polar ends of suspicion and affirmation. People claim they are open to doubt, but their worship songs and liturgies attested to the opposite. People believe through their pastors and liturgies- the death of the big Other ends up being a repression (or relocation) of the big Other. Repression becomes the security blanket that allows the believer to cope with reality rather than to truly change anything. In theory, the solution is simple- remove the relocated belief mechanisms so that congregants take responsibility for themselves. Easier said than done- most pastors would loose their jobs for admitting something everyone else in the room asks (“Did the resurrection really, literally occur?”) As a seminarian, I witness this up close when I realize how pivotal a choice it is when a student decides what kind of pastor they want to be- I get the feeling that most of us make a decision to suppress 95% of what we learn in seminary in order to have a more stable career. In psychotherapy, the congregation’s desire would be labeled neurosis- the desire for symbolism that remains disengaged from actuality. On the other hand, psychosis creeps in whenever symbol is conflated with actuality (e.g. the believer lashes out as someone who questions whether their belief is a literal represention of- or merely a symbol of- reality). For this reason, Rollins claims:

“What becomes clear as we look at the different ways the dues ex machina operates today is that religiosity is more widespread than most imagine. That religion is not really on the decline, but rather has simply undergone a transformation that makes it harder to identify. Here we also discover something important about the very essence of religion itself- it is not necessarily something we affirm, but rather is a psychological phenomenon.” (Insurrection, 61)

This is the crux of Insurrection’s implications: we are all narcissists who like to think we are radicals. Whether it be a group of hipsters sitting in a Starbucks talking about the evils of global corporations or a group of suburbanites feeling they are radicals because their megachurch tosses a few thousand per year at a homeless shelter- with neither noticing the irony- we are all to often protesting in a way that gives tacit approval to the regime we (supposedly) challenge. If we don’t question the repression and defense mechanisms of the big Other, we end up with pseudo-actions:

“By providing a system of insipid worship services and prayer meetings, they form spaces that enable people to think that they are part of a resistance group (talking about it and singing about it) while simultaneously feeding the system they say they oppose. These pseudotransgressions enable people to attack a structure in ways that are actually sanctioned by the structure… throwing pebbles at the very system that we build with our everyday actions.” (Insurrection, 148-9)

“The Centrality of Abscence… Becoming the Resurrection”

The book ends with suggestions for different liturgies that can encourage the type of questioning we aim at. Rollins includes the lyrics of Padraig O Tuama’s “Maranatha”

I previously posted a “In the Name”, a spoken-word liturgy from Padraig O Tuama.

This is Pete’s most important work to-date. The Lacanian in me wishes he had delved further into the theory behind the death of the big Other, but it would have likely come at the expense of accessibility. In the last decade, the academy has been taking psychoanalytic and radical political theology very seriously, but Rollins stands out as someone working to translate this into something normal people will read. As someone with very similar interests, I’m very grateful for it. More than anything, I appreciated how explicit his language has become apropos of pastoral implications. As someone whose long-term philosophical interests also center on understanding how religion functions for the believer, I very much appreciate what he is trying to do here. I’ve witnessed first-hand how discussing the history of theology with an open-minded individual always ends in a lot of rational doubt. But that’s never the end goal- and neither is the end goal a pseudo-deconstructed-but-fully-reconstructed belief system that is simply better. The pastoral goal in discussing beliefs should have a telos of ethics, epistemology, politics, etc., provoking thought of how religion functions to mend or ruin the world. Getting people to believe is easy. Getting people to doubt is easy. Provoking the type of questioning that deconstructs and suspends belief in such a way that a person’s way of viewing and interacting with the world changes?- this is a divine task.

Pre-order this book! Available October 4^th paperback and kindle. Peter Rollins, Insurrection

PeterRollins.net

Related posts:

1. Peter Rollins, Insurrection pub tour video and audio
2. theooze.tv interviews // Peter Rollins // Brian McLaren
3. “In the name” // Pádraig Ó Tuama
4. Review (part 1): “Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be)”
5. Doubt (video)