There is a fascinating debate currently underway in the blogosphere on the use that Kester Brewin and Peter Rollins make of the metaphor of 'new heretics' in their attempt to shake the Church out of the bind in which it finds itself. Richard Sudworth initiated the debate at Distinctly Welcoming with the post here which led to comments from Kester Brewin and a substantive post from Peter Rollins on his blog. Richard Sudworth has then responded here and Rollins has made a further response here.
What interests me most in this debate is the dialectical basis of Brewin and Rollins' argument i.e. that transgressing the Law or Orthodoxy (as a criminal or heretic) may not simply be an exercise in law breaking for its own ends but may draw out how the Law or Orthodoxy itself is a transgression. Brewin and Rollins argue therefore for the existence of dual or shadow stories and their work on dialectics highlights this as a key but under-appreciated issue for our understanding of the Christian faith and our use of the Bible.
Slavoj Žižek, on whose work Rollins draws significantly, writes in The Monstrosity of Christ of all stories being dual and containing their own counter story whether told or untold. He cites Ernest Hemingway’s Killers as one example of this phenonemon. Killers is a short story which in ten terse pages details the arrival in town of two assassins and the resigned acquiescence of their target – the Swede – to his fate. As Žižek points out this story as told begs the untold tale
behind the enigma of the Swede’s calmness in the face of death. That story is not told by Hemingway, nevertheless we are aware that it must exist and are compelled to imagine what it might be.
When Rollins unpacks Brewin's suggestion that the Somali pirate’s activities may help us to rethink global geopolitics and articulate an alternative vision of where the real problems lie, he is making use of the same argument. He is arguing that there is more than one story at play in the situation surrounding the Somali pirates and that the Western Global Capitalist story:
"in which there is an ‘apolitical’ (conservative politics hidden as such) concentration on subjective violence (the violence done directly by the pirates – kidnapping, beatings, killings etc.) ... masks the political question that these Somali Pirates force us to ask. Yes they are often brutal and violent, but by stealing ships full of Tanks (bound for Kenya) and luxury goods (made often under horrific conditions) we need to go further and make the (non-symmetrical) connection between the subjective violence of the pirates (which should be condemned) and the objective violence of the system that they are directly attacking."
Rollins, through his use of the metaphor of the orthodox heretic, has applied this to the fundamentalist strand of the Church, for example in the post to be found here. Interestingly, it was within conservative Evangelical churches that I first observed this phenomenon, although at the time I would have lacked an explanation for what I was observing.
What I saw however was ministers imposing ethical requirements on members of their congregation in an absolutist fashion i.e. people were told, for example, that their relationships (boyfriend/girlfriend, new relationship following divorce etc.) were opposed to the witness of scripture and that they, therefore, were on the edge of rebelling against God and his word. These warnings were ostensibly given out of love for the individuals; the stated intent was to draw such people back into relationship with God. However, faced with the stark black and white choice between relationship with God and relationship with their chosen partner several of these people left the Church and as far as was known abandoned their faith. The minister's who had issued the warnings then justified their action in terms of the insincerity of the faith of those that had left.
These incidents were not simply about 'heavy shepherding' or hypocrisy on the part of either the ministers or congregation members involved rather they revealed that a dual narrative was in play when these incidents occurred. Actions that were intended to strengthen faith had the effect of undermining it and actions which were intended as loving were perceived by those receiving them as lacking in love. The publicly stated story of loving restoration also had a shadow story which was understood to be conform or leave. It was the shadow story which was understood or felt by those who left to be the real story, in contrast to the story as publicly stated.
The reality of dual narratives in our lives and practices is, it seems to me, something that we are often fearful of admitting within the Church. Instead we often speak and act as though there is only one story, one interpretation of scripture, and one 'pure' motivation for our actions and practices. Brewin and Rollins are among those challenging the naivity and, sometime, hypocrises of this position and, therefore, they receive flak from those with vested interests to defend.
However, there has been for some time an understanding and application of dialectics to biblical criticism and study. For me, the work of Walter Brueggemann stands out in this regard; in particular his suggestion that the Old Testament evidences both a core and counter testimony which are in dialogue with each other which the content and form of scripture. My posts on this and related issues can be found here.
Brueggemann's work is widely appreciated within Evangelicalism as well as elsewhere within the Church, yet it seems that while we can accept a theory of dialectics in relation to our reading of scripture we have yet to fully appreciate or engage with the implications for the way in which we understand ourselves and our ministries. It is on this ground that Brewin and Rollins challenge us and a key part of their challenge, which we often resist, is to acknowledge the existence of dual or shadow stories in our lives and ministries.
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16 Horsepower - Black Soul Choir.
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