{"id":161,"date":"2009-01-20T12:23:39","date_gmt":"2009-01-20T12:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/comment-of-the-day-2-1.html"},"modified":"2009-01-20T12:23:39","modified_gmt":"2009-01-20T12:23:39","slug":"comment-of-the-day-2-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/comment-of-the-day-2-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Comment of the Day 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Rollins<\/a> and Stephen Shields<\/a> have begun a bit of a back-and-forth under the post, Ten Years of Emergent\/ing<\/a>.  Here’s Pete’s response to Stephen, and here’s hoping they’ll continue the conversation (here or elsewhere):<\/p>\n

\n

Hey there<\/p>\n

Would love to chat, and I am sorry that my tone in the comments sounded so strong! <\/p>\n

I am also aware that my own thoughts here may not be representative
\nof how many people who adopt the term ’emergent’ think. However I guess
\none of my projects is to develop Bonhoeffer’s ‘religionless
\nChristianity’ and show how it is an important source for the most
\nradical form of emergent thinking.<\/p>\n

For me religionless Christianity operates without any metaphysical
\nguarantees. There is doubt, complexity and ambiguity throughout. And so
\nthere can be no final foundational claim to an external source ensuring
\nthat everything will work out well in the end (one can, of course, hope
\nthat there is).<\/p>\n

I do argue however that there is a type of non-foundational
\nfoundation in faith of the type that Pascal hints at in his statement,
\n‘the heart has reason that reason does not know’. This I think can be
\ntermed ‘rebirth’. But that rebirth is such an immanent event that it
\ndoes not give itself over to epistemic justification or other-worldly
\nguarantees. For me the story of the man born blind is a representation
\nof this. He says he can see but refuses to make any absolute claims
\nconcerning the person of Jesus. To put it in another context one could
\nsay,<\/p>\n

‘I have been reborn, transformed, renewed by God, but then again I wonder who, what or even if God is.’<\/p>\n

I guess I was worried that the above statement might do the same as
\nsome types of mystical apophatic theology… namely give with one hand
\n(unknowing) what it takes with the other (an ultimate knowledge). This
\nis why Derrida ultimately found negative theology too positive.<\/p>\n

Instead of saying ‘I am not sure God is there in my day to day life
\nbut I know that God really is there’ (i.e. everything is ultimately
\ngoing to be o.k), I am more prone to say that Christianity allows us to
\nclaim, ‘God is here in our midst, although I am not sure God exists’
\n(i.e. God is what we live here and now without guarantee that God is
\n‘out there’). While the former justifies faith via a metanarrative the
\nlater lives Christianity as a meganarrative (a grounded story)<\/p>\n

Hope that is useful.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Rollins and Stephen Shields have begun a bit of a back-and-forth under the post, Ten Years of Emergent\/ing.  Here’s Pete’s response to Stephen, and here’s hoping they’ll continue the conversation (here or elsewhere): Hey there Would love to chat, and I am sorry that my tone in the comments sounded so strong! I am…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment-of-the-day","category-emergent-church","category-theology"],"yoast_head":"\nComment of the Day 2 - The New Christians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/comment-of-the-day-2-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Comment of the Day 2 - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Peter Rollins and Stephen Shields have begun a bit of a back-and-forth under the post, Ten Years of Emergent\/ing.  Here’s Pete’s response to Stephen, and here’s hoping they’ll continue the conversation (here or elsewhere): Hey there Would love to chat, and I am sorry that my tone in the comments sounded so strong! I am…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/comment-of-the-day-2-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-20T12:23:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tony Jones\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Comment of the Day 2 - The New Christians","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/comment-of-the-day-2-1.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Comment of the Day 2 - The New Christians","og_description":"Peter Rollins and Stephen Shields have begun a bit of a back-and-forth under the post, Ten Years of Emergent\/ing.  Here’s Pete’s response to Stephen, and here’s hoping they’ll continue the conversation (here or elsewhere): Hey there Would love to chat, and I am sorry that my tone in the comments sounded so strong! 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