The Ways of Affirmation & Rejection

I've been musing on the ways of affirmation and rejection since being at Greenbelt. This has been prompted by the The Garden's installation/performance Possibility of the Impossible and Pete Rollins' discussion of Bonhoeffer's 'religionless Christianity'.

The sense of their being two ways by which we can approach God was clarified for me in the writings of Charles Williams. Williams' views on these two ways have been summarised as follows:

"The Way of Affirmation consists in recognizing the immanence of God in all things, and says that appreciation of whom and what God has made may lead us to appreciation of Himself. The Way of Rejection concentrates on the transcendence of God, the recognition that God is never fully contained in His creation; it says that we must renounce all lesser images if we would apprehend His. These two Ways have been expressed by the paradox "This also is Thou; neither is this Thou," and tend generally to illustrate, respectively, Catholic or Protestant thought in their attitudes toward the use of images.

While Williams insists that a complement of both these Ways is necessary to the life of every Christian, and that none of us can walk the Kingdom's narrow road by only affirming or only rejecting ... yet he contends that Christians are usually called primarily to one Way or the other. Williams himself was a practitioner of the Way of Affirmation. Explains C. S. Lewis:

'[Williams was] a romantic theologian in the technical sense which he himself invented for those words ... The belief that the most serious and ecstatic experiences either of human love or of imaginative literature have such theological implications, and that they can be healthy and fruitful only if the implications are diligently thought out and severely lived, is the root principle of all his work.'"

As an artist and priest, i.e. someone dealing on a daily basis, with signs, images, metaphors and symbols, it seems to me that I cannot do other than primarily follow the Way of Affirmation. My Greenbelt posts finished with the dilemma that, ultimately, both ways seem to exclude the other.

However, Williams holds out some possibility for these two ways been complementary aspects of the life of a Christian but I am unclear, other than shuttling back and forth beteen the two, how this might work in practice. On this front, though, it is interesting that both Rollins and The Garden are making extensive use of the Arts and of imagery in order to discuss what is essentially apophatic theology (the Way of Rejection). In doing so, they are either not fully appropriating apophatic theology or have seen ways of appropriating Williams' suggestion of a complementarity between affirmation and rejection in ways that I have yet to understand.

In thinking about the theology of betrayal, as Rollins' does in this latest book, it would be useful to introduce the ideas of W. H. Vanstone in The Stature of Waiting into the debate. This book is based on a search for a different understanding of the betrayal of Judas from the understanding that has been traditional in the Church and which throws light on the exprience of waiting and dependence as signs and consequences of the image of God in us. Also of relevance would be the theme of betrayal in the plays of Dennis Potter with his masterpiece The Singing Detective being a stunning example both of the effect of betrayal and the way in which re-living and re-shaping the experience of betrayal can lead to recovery.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Train and Peter Case - Two Angels.

Greenbelt diary (3) & Windows on the world (15)

Greenbelt, 2008

Day 3 began at The Hub with Andrew Tate's talk on resurrection narratives in contemporary culture. This was a helpful overview of artists exploring aspects of spirituality and took in Pat Barker, Nick Cave, Douglas Coupland, Dr Who, The Matrix, Superheroes, John Updike and Tim Winton.

Another interesting aspect of Greenbelt is the sense of dialogue occuring between seminars. In this instance, Tate's referencing of The Matrix and dismissal of the two sequels was counterbalanced by Peter Rollins' use of the films in the first of his Day 4 talks where he argued that the death and resurrection imagery of the first film, much loved by Christian commentators such as Tate, was shown in the later films to be a part of the control system exerted over the known universe by machines. Rollins was using this illustration to demonstrate the way in which 'the system' (in his case, the mainstream churches) can use new and revolutionary initiatives to bolster their system and survival.

I stayed on in The Hub for a fascinating talk by Salley Vickers in which she spoke about her novels, style of writing, and inspirations. She quoted the opening paragraph of Miss Garnett's Angel as a template for her over-riding theme; the effect of death on the living. She also spoke interestingly about the way in which her characters develop without there being any initial plotting of the story and of how she interleaves ancient stories with her contemporary stories and the dialogue that then occurs within the novels between them. Finally, she spoke about the way in which particular paintings come to have significance as images for understanding the story that has unfolded within each novel.

After my daughters arrived we went to the Arena for the Communion Service. Apparently the time for the service had been moved this year to the afternoon which meant that it coincided with the rain that blew in. This was rather ironic as the theme for the service, and for Greenbelt as a whole, was the Rising Sun. That's the risk you take when using a weather-related theme for an outdoor festival! Anyway, people persevered despite the rain and enjoyed the community feel of the service sitting picnic style in small groups to share communion and link ribbons.

Following the service, we went to mainstage to hear Beth Rowley, the performer we most wanted to hear over the weekend. Rowley has an exceptionally strong voice, ideal for festivals, and is backed by a very competent band for her mix of blues and gospel infuenced originals and covers. Hers was an excellent, enjoyable (if slightly easy listening) set where the only disappointment was the absence of 'So Sublime.'

From there I caught a few songs in what, I'm told, was a moving tribute concert for Larry Norman. While I was there performers were speaking honestly about his contradictions and not just his virtues. I returned to The Hub to hear the poetry of Mark Halliday, Cole Moreton and Martin Wroe combined with songs from Iain Archer. Knowing Wroe's work rather more than that of his colleagues it was his words that made most impact on me but the overall impression was of wrestling with faith and doubt.

I ended Day 3 with a visit to two installations. Phill Hopkin's Seven Drunken Nights and Possibility of the Impossible by The Garden, an emerging community based in Brighton, living obscurely on the fringes of religious life and seeking to work out how to live passionately in response to 'the other.' Possibility of the Impossible was a well-crafted experience beginning with simultaneous readings from influential books (the Bible, Das Kapital, The Female Eunuch etc.) which were then stored in three centrally located display cabinets. This was accompanied by images of eclipses and the extinguishing of candles. The point of the performance, in line with the ideas of Peter Rollins, was that we live over an abyss of meaninglessness beyond the reach of big stories but that by realising this we might possibly "find significance in what calls to us in 'what is', the wonder of the ordinary, the moment when life touches life."

One issue with the installation/performance and these ideas is in terms of what sustains this response of finding significance. The deconstruction of ideas leading to the recognition of meaninglessness is then followed by the possibility of finding significance again. But on what basis? For most, the recognition of meaninglessness has led either to madness or hedonism, not to significance. The installation/performance didn't seem to answer that question/issue, just to assert that significance might be possible.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Iain Archer - When It Kicks In.