Theopoetic - Articles - Zimbio

Microtheology: Toward a Theopoetic of the Local

Tue, 5 Dec 2007 19:20:36 GMT

posted by superfly

Microtheology: Toward a Theopoetic of the Local
By Jason H. Derr

Microtheology

It is so easily spoken of these days, in our postmodern world, of micro-ecologies, micro-histories, and even micro-economies. What is often left out of this conversation is the role of the microtheology. If micro-history explores, the micro, the small, the impact of a location or locale, then how does the micro-theological work?

In the micro-theological the concern is not with the sweeping generalities of systematics’ or the politics of constructive theologies. While it can be agreed that the work of feminist theology is vital for today’s world and church it does little to help the women of Vancouver, BCs downtown eastside, the poorest postal code in Canada. According to the wikipedia entry on the topic, micro-history is the study of a ‘small town or village, a person of little import or a single painting’. Larger stories often hinge on the unnamed, on the lost and suppressed traditions. Here is where the micro-theological can exist. It concerns its self with the mysticisms, spiritualities, hungers, wants, and needs of the local.

Amos Niven Wilder states in ‘Theopoetic: Theology and the Religious Imagination’ “We should recognize that human nature and human societies are more deeply motivated by images and fabulations (1) than by ideas. This is where power lies and the future is shaped”. (2)

In other words it is in the seat of our imagination, in our creative impulses and our creative endeavors that the praxis of our spirituality is lived and where new theological texts are spoken. By repositioning Christian faith in our culture as guerilla theater –as an art form that mocks, reverses and subverts the guiding stories of our culture – we are able to create a theology dedicated to not just liberation but reformation.

The gospel as guerrilla theater places the emphasis of the gospel proclamation on our ability to swerve our cultures underlying images and symbol, those myths that give systems of oppression the power to dominate. For instance, Jesus turned over the tables in the temple, thus providing a living image and symbol that embodied the prophets’ vision (3).

The early church did this with its positioning of the terms ‘Jesus is Lord’ and ‘Son of God’. They took popular terms that were used to support the power of the state and its servants and instead used them to refocus attention on a marginalized man in a politically scandalous death.

The theopoetic of those terms were in their ability to serve the popular use. Not only did they question the existing power structures they made a powerful statement about God: God is found in the weak, in the poor, in those that governments stamp on. That is where true power is found.

On the downtown eastside of Vancouver a group of women and men will gather at the local community center. Here they work with a local poet and playwrite to study creative writing. It is doubtful any one of them will achieve fame as a writer and break the chains of poverty and addiction through the written word. Instead they achieve liberation in their being able to claim the rights to their own story, the validity of their own experience and spirituality. By crafting language they are able to address and question the dominating myths that keep them in poverty to begin with.

Theology as Subversion

Theology as a subversive act must exist on the local level, and it must contain local stories. One can talk all one wants about the abuses of the Religious Right but the true story is in the local. One should listen to and hear the spiritualities of our neighborhoods, our streets and our local markets.

To be a subversive theologian is to position the cross from which we find our identity in a position of resistance to culture. We must remember that in the Christian churches early days religious forces were in power. Jurgen Moltman points out that in the churches early days the world they found themselves in created and maintained its power through religious claims and religious ritual (4).

The cross then can be seen as a political scandal. By positioning the revelation of God in a politically scandalous cross a mockery is being made against those cultic powers that would keep the Emperor in power. Ceaser is not Lord, Jesus is Lord! Here we say that the true power is not in the sword but in a body broken and twisted on a instrument of torture. Even today it can be a subversion of dominating structures that surround us. In our own time of war and terror there is an equal opportunity to remind the world that broken-bodies, war-dead bodies, bodies oppressed by systems of dominance are what are meant to bring us the revelation of God. The cross can again become a powerful symbol or revelation of the places God is found in the human condition.

The cross is an example of the theopoetic in this sense. It is a reversal of the underlying cultural assumptions of power and revelation. By the early Christian community recognizing revelation in a death that is politically scandalous, marginal and embarrassing to the powers-that-be they have upset the status quo.

If the early church told us that Christ died on a cross for our sins, then can we imagine how that statement would sound today! We should be willing to say that Jesus died of a Heroin overdose for our sins. We should be willing to say that Jesus died of AIDS for our sins. We should be willing to say that Jesus died in an American invasion into a Iraq village. And we should be equally willing to say that Jesus died it a Iraqi prison. The salvic act is placed in a death, any death, that upsets the safety and security of our world and reminds us of the brutality of violence. It also says that the salvic act is not in propagating this cycle of violence but to be reminded of its futility and to find new and creative solutions.

Our work as Subversive Theologians and Theopoets exists in acts of radical text-making. Theology of this sort is not just texts written for and by ivory tower academics, it can also be the proclamations of communities, of individuals and groups who know that their spirituality is valid in the face of oppressive systems (of both church and government).

When Pastor Brian of LUMS (Lutheran Urban Mission Society) in the eastside speaks with the community he serves his message is rooted in Luther’s theology of Grace. These people, addicted, poor, broken, hungry, have to do no work to achieve Gods love. The person they are is already valid. The ministry of LUMS, Brian will often say, is not to the eastside. It is a ministry of the eastside to the churches! The people of the eastside have incredible faith and know themselves as loved by God. It is the church communities with their bias’s, their predijuices and their invisible power structures that the true ministry is for.

Radical Text-Making

Theology of the microtheology and the theopoetic can be seen in urban street art/graphite that challenges our notion of public space, in adbusting (deconstructing advertisements in order to mock their underlying power assumptions) that questions the power of corporations to control our thought space. It is in poetry and zines, in comic books and short stories, sculpture and video art. It is in the ideas that swerve our understanding of the powers that be.

In the Southern Berkshire region of Massachusetts a group of banks, business men and community minded people have combined to create BerkShares, a local currency designed at getting people to refocus off of national corporations and turn their attention to local business’s, products and commodities.

The BerkShare then acts as a theopoetic! It takes our notions of money and economy and swerves them. We are brought back into the local story, into an economy that places worth on the contributions of our local area. As a theological text the BerkShare invites a conversation around how and what we value as a community.

On the eastside I once saw an incredible act of adbusting. In an area dominated by prostitutes, junkies and a whole range of sex workers and sex industries someone had put an advertisement up at a local bus stop. The poster was of a young girl in makeup, mini-skirt and tiny little high-heeled shoes. To this poster someone had brought a magic marker and written the words ‘too sexy too soon’. Other forms of adbusting include changing a word, adding a phrase or adjusting an image so as to swerve its meaning.

When philosopher Bruno Latour talks about the dingpolitik (5) he is speaking of the ‘parliament of ideas’. In his theory all items are objects (object can be ideas, art forms, poems, histories, news stories etc). Each of these items sit inside of a system of interpretation, a network of ideas and concepts that work into or out of the object. By creating new texts for theological discourse we participate in Latour’s parliament of ideas. We position ideas inside their networks of interpretation and allow for new discourses to become possible. An every day object, in Latour’s meaning of the word, can become a theological text.

Community Involvement as Theological Discourse

Imagine communities who engage in this sort of theological work. A community that chooses an object – the war in Iraq, poverty in the city, sustainable development, gay and lesbian rights – and invited the parliament of ideas to form? Think of a community theological circle made up of theologians, poets, scientists, community workers, volunteers from local social actions groups, school teachers, construction workers and the little blue haired ladies that church communities are so dependent on. The theological task becomes rooted in the experiences of the local community, becomes invested with a multitude of wisdoms.

Groups like this could be involved in subversive theological work dedicated to the microtheological. Local stories could become the focus of our work for Spirit in the community. A statement against the Iraq war is no good if we cannot address the underlying assumptions, stories, myths and languages in our local communities that views this sort of violence as valid. Matt Guynn describes a theopoetic workshop he ran for a church once. Participants went out to an intersection, a group taking up position on each of the four corners.

By the use of poster-boards with questions on them (instead of protests), by asking questions that require new thinking and by engaging in activities that challenge convention the group attempted to not influence thinking but to provided a space for questioning underlying assumptions, myths and images (6).

Emerging Spirit

The postmodern age is upon us but has not yet fully emerged. As new ways of thinking come into being – new cosmologies, new spiritualities, new philosophies and new worldviews – spiritual communities are presented with the challenge of becoming a new way of being.

As culture moves from the quest for the absolute and the mechanistic/hostile universe that the modern world view gave to us the last vestiges of these views will have to be dealt with. The task is to question the underlying stories, myths and images that maintain these old ways of being, but this must be done part and parcel with the creation of new stories, images and mythologies.

Armed with the microtheological we can investigate the emergence of new stories as they impact the communities we live in. While the academic theological discourses are very valuable to us we cannot forget those theologies that emerge from the pew. These are stories of our own spiritual communities as they wrestle with living breathing spiritualities in the face of their day-to-day realities.

It is important to remember that these local theologies have an impact on the larger world. When Rev. Peter Fischer of Christ Lutheran in Vancouver BC blesses the bikes before the Critical Mass bike ride (hundreds of bikes swarm the streets of Vancouver proclaiming ‘we are not a traffic problem, we are the traffic’) a statement is being made that there are spiritual responsibilities to finding methods of transportation that are environmentally responsible.

The philosopher Ken Wilber speaks of Holons. Instead of viewing the universe as being made up of interchangeable machine parts emerging views see the world as being made of Holons. Every part is also a whole and vice versa. I am a whole person, an individual. I am also a part of a larger system and structure, a part of something. The atom is part of a molecule, but it is also a whole atom. Atom to molecule to cell to whole being (7).

In this light let’s not assume that the microtheological has no larger impact. It is a whole – a whole system theologically that attempts to deal with whole realities. But it is also a part of larger concerns, issues and theological questions. To speak of the spiritual realities of women on the downtown eastside does not exist separate of feminist theologies but in conversation with.

If one were to read the work of WISH, a group that gives support, education and advocacy to sex workers on the downtown eastside as a microtheological text then we can see how the local issues and local realities have universal implications. But the rights, protection and advocacy of women trapped on the streets of Vancouver, BC by prostitution are much different than the needs of similar women in Ottawa, or Nevada or in the so-called third world nations.

The work of WISH is a Holon. It is a whole-part. The work it does in the downtown eastside is a whole, a complete work responsive to the cultural realities that surround it but it is also a part of a larger conversation made of multiple voices going on around the world.

The work that the microtheologian engages in is a work that exists in this space as a Holon. Our concern may be local sustainable culture, may be concerned with the local ecosystem and the human rights abuses in a local company or community. But these conversations are also part of the larger global conversations that happen around us.

The danger here is look for a universal solution. Woman’s rights issues in the third world will have to develop out of and speak with-in its own locale. Western assumptions of what this conversation should look like can be put aside. That part will have to work as a whole in its own world. We may say there is a universal ethic but its application and understanding must be read in the local. To address the issue on the local level the whole of a theory must learn to function as a part in the local. The universal – or at least national – drive for civil rights a few decades ago would not have worked if we had tried to force a universal ethic into a local. Instead a town such as Selma was chosen and a local response to civil rights abuses was developed. The work in Selma was a part of a larger system of thought. But it was a whole in its own right, developing out of and in response to the local realities that surrounded it. This is how the microtheological functions in a holism.

The task of the theologian and the theopoet in our day and time is to create new texts and new ways of meaning making. For our work to be subversive and politically relevant – in the truest tradition of the early church – we must create texts that are rooted in the local experience. Here is the opportunity to develop and draw from multiple wisdoms, to create ways of engagement that develop from our local realities.

The church at the end of Christendom has a responsibility to be in the public arena. Not for the task of increasing our numbers but to provided a voice for those marginalized by our nations political and spiritual structures that create areas of marginalization.

When we take up the work of text-making and reading in our local realities we are attempting to listen to the voice of the spirit in our here and now. We are endeavoring to give voice to the overlooked voices and truths that surround us and in which we are selves are embedded. It is to take serious the goal of being a theopoet and subverting and reversing the dominating systems and myths by which we find our selves and our world suppressed. To take up this task is to take up the task of Holy Mischief with our dominating systems and structures.

Notes

1 Wilder does not define what he means by the word ‘Fabulations’. From the rest of the book it can be deduced that by this word he means our fables, our stories and our myth-making ability.
2 Wilder, Amos Niven; Theopoetic: Theology and the Religious Imagination, (Lima: Academic Renewel Press,1976), 1
3 Wilder, 28
4 Jürgen Moltmann,. The Crucified God : The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.)
5 Bruno, Latour, and Peter Weibel. Making Things Public : Atmospheres of Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass. [Karlsruhe, Germany]: MIT Press ; ZKM/Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, 2005.) 22-26
6 Matt Guynn,. "Theopoetics: That the Dead May Become Gardeners Again." Cross Currents 56, no. 1 (2006): 98-109
7 Ken Wilber, ‘A Brief History of Everything’, (Boston: Shambala Press, 1996), 16

JASON DERR is a published poet and short story writer living in Vancouver, BC. He is also a MA student at the Vancouver School of Theology. In addition he has studied creative writing and filmmaking.

The Theopoetic as Way Forward

Tue, 5 Dec 2007 19:50:06 GMT

posted by superfly

Theopoetic As Way Forward

The Theopoetic as Way Forward.

By Jason Derr

Chaplaincy Assistant – LAMM(Lutheran/Anglican Mountaintop Ministry) – SFU

THE CHURCH AS S/HE IS LIVED

The unavoidable truth is that the church as we know it is dying. Wherever I travel in the church I hear grumbling about shrinking attendance, the increasing isolation of the church from the post-modern generation and the lack of relevance of faith to the world. Add to that the arguments, bitter disputes and controversy’s which cut straight to our heart of what it means to be ‘church’ in today’s world and our dilemma starts to become clear.

As a person involved in ministry – Chaplaincy Assistant at Simon Fraser University – I feel like I’m expected to defend the church, and as a theological student and theologian I feel as if I am expected to do border patrols around the church insisting on some sort of ‘true Lutheran’ doctrine. Such a view leaves me feeling as if my only obligation – as a Christian and Lutheran – is toward preserving a certain ideal of church that is located in certain faith contexts.

I cannot in good faith do either of these. If the church is dying – or in my preferred language, transforming – there is little we can do to stop it. Both liberal and conservative members of the church (brothers and sisters all, lest we forget) falsely believe a redirection in theology will bring new members to us in droves. And as a member of the post-modern generation I am also post-Lutheran. My identity is rooted in Lutheran liturgical language, Eucharistic imagery and the life of the church. But I am also a post-modern Christian, with little interest in denomination divides, doctrinal wars and the latest church fads. I am much more interested in a faith that speaks to the human condition as s/he is lived today. To use the words of Intregal Philosopher Ken Wilber, as a post-Lutheran I seek to ‘include and transcend’ my Lutheran roots.

The current controversy of the church – and this one will fade eventually to make room for the next – is the conversation around homosexuality, the bible and the life of the church. Many times in this conversation I hear much complaint around the divide between pulpit and pew. Again and again I hear that the theologically minded of the pulpit and the pew which has had less time to peruse such interests usually have a gap in thinking between the two.

In another phrase; theology has become a task separate from the life-work of the community. The crime of this is that theology is, theoretically, created for the community. That there is a gap in theological literacy between pulpit and pew speaks to a crime of ineffecitude on the part of theology. Can theology be seen as a responsibility of the community?

THE THEOPOETIC

And it is here that the problem lies. My own work focuses on the role of the Theopoetic as theological method. Dr. Scott Holland defines the Theopoetic as:

Good theology is a kind of transgression, a kind of excess, a kind of gift. It is not a smooth systematics, a dogmatics, or a metaphysics; as a theopoetics it is a kind of writing. It is a kind of writing that invites more writing. Its narratives lead to other narratives, its metaphors encourages new metaphors, its confessions more confessions...

-Scott Holland

from Theology Is a Kind of Writing

If we use the Theopoetic to create a conversation bridge between the theological and the poetic then we can come to a very simple but sincere conclusion. Theology shares the same problem of being that poetry does. Poet/Essayist/Philosopher/Farmer Wendell Berry names the failure of poetry as its insistence on specialization. Poetry has become an ‘art for arts sake’ task by people working on an MFA in poetry or who have an MFA in poetry writing for each other. It is a self-generating market. The idea that poetry has an obligation, responsibility and role in the culture has been lost to us.

We can likewise see the implications for theology as it regards the pulpit/pew divide. Those who have or work on an MA, M.div or PhD in theology tend to work and write in a virtual bubble where there work is only consumed by others who have or are working toward similar degrees. Upon graduation from seminary the theologically educated pastor or priest finds his ability to speak from his theological convictions limited due to the preference of the congregation or the fear of being labeled a heretic.

The Theopoetic, as I have defined it above, insists on a sort of post-academic theology. To return to the words of Ken Wilber the post-academic is not an abandonment of the academic – a fool-hearty task if their ever was one – but instead asks that theology work inside the world of the congregation, sitting in position between pulpit and pew and thus enabling the relevance of the church.

When poetry becomes ‘art for arts sake’ and stops insisting that the words, ideas and language by which we name the world have relevance then we have retreated into a sort of artistic abandonment of the world. Likewise if we allow a divide between pulpit and pew, if we insist on ‘theology for theologies sake’ or as a purely academic exercise divorced from the church’s life then we have insisted that the church has no relevance for our age.

If the church grows or shrinks is not the issue before us. The church, as churches always have through time, will change to better minister and speak to its cultural and social location. I am content that new ways of being church and being Lutheran will emerge. The task before us is to envision a church that is relevant so that transformation is a healthy one for the world (and not just the church).

The church – like poetry and theology – has become in many ways a task for and of itself. The longer we insist on church as a separate realm of being from the rest of life – a Sunday morning lifechoice instead of a 24/7 lifestyle – the more it will become segregated from the life of the world.

With that in mind we can say that if the church must turn to a Theopoetic as a way forward, as a way of allowing the theological conversation to exist as a task of the whole community and not as an exclusive few, then we must begin to imagine the church as a Theopoetic in the wider community and culture. The church must envision it’s self as a voice among a multiplicity of voices.

A MULTI-TABLED THEOLOGY

When we speak of theology as being a post-academic pursuit then we by rights are insisting that the community itself function as theologian and has a purpose and voice in the community. To say we include and transcend the academic is to say we work with the insights and revelations of academic fields but add to that our communal insights and artistic endeavors that name our human and spiritual desires that may fall outside of the community .To better clarify what I mean by such a phrase I will turn to the work of Marianne Sawicki.

Sawicki, a Catholic theologian, in her book ‘Seeing the Lord’ makes a passing reference to the idea that theology is a meeting of three tables of theological discourse. Table one would be the academic. Any endeavourer to speak theologically would be amiss if it did not take into consideration the historical and latest conversations of theology, philosophy, sociology and many other fields. The second table would be the voices, concerns, life and reality of the worshipping community. The third table would be the hunger and desires of the poor and the marginalized, those whom the world calls least and Christ calls greatest. We included them as participants in our conversation for we must remember the insights and contributions of those whom are outside the church, who are on occasion trampled by the church and who the church is called to serve.

In this way the community takes on the task of theologian. By applying a multitude of voices from multiple communities we prevent theology from becoming a solitary act. Additionally it recognizes the gifts and contributions of those both inside and outside the community and brings their voices, observations and conversations to bear.

In no way am I trying to indicate that I feel that such a move will rescue the church. As stated previously I have little or no concern about the survival of the church. I am confident that the church will survive, though I also assume that the form it takes will evolve. Nor am I proposing a way in which to negotiate the pulpit-pew divide as it regards the issue of homosexuality.

The multi-tabled theology does not even need to insist on a consensus between the three tables. The works produced in such way can be a joint publication, a midrash, a joint statement, a public forum or a public action. The theopoetic encourages us to view the artistic, the poetic, fiction, vandalism and the internet as primary documentation for theology. In order to avoid the solitary action of the academic theology the task we are discussing here would allow for an multi-platform publication: websites that combine scholarship with video/sound/art/poetry and community discussion, gallery shows and chapbook and zine publishing as well as traditional peer-reviewed academic publishing.

Instead I am proposing a form by which the church can enter into the task of asserting its self as a relevant place of public discourse. A multi-tabled, post-academic, theopoetic theology could provide formats by which the community as theologian can enter into the public conversation. Likewise, theology in such a collaborative model allows for a multiplicity of voices and a flow of conversation between previously segregated disciplines.

Berry’s critique of poetry applies to this as well. When we allow the life of the
church to become specialized – worship over here, justice and service over here, and theology in another corner all together – we neuter the church and its voice. The multi-tabled and theopoetic insist on the role of the voice of Spirit in public consciousness. This does not necessarily mean a purely Christian voice, but insists that the multiple voices of spirit come into consideration.

Stringfellow/Theopoetic

Tue, 5 Dec 2007 05:09:32 GMT

posted by superfly

Apocalypse/Utopia

William Stringfellows North American liberation theology/theology of the cross requires us to read the contemporary world through the apocalypse. In contrast to other popular views of the apocalypse Stringfellow does not view the text as a road map to the end of the world but instead as an imaginative telling of the possibility and future of the world captive to the principalities and powers he names as Babel. If we bring into that conversation the comments of Gustava Guiterrez that the utopia is not a pronouncement of a world that could be but instead a critique of the world that is then we find ourselves entering the land of the theopoetic as it relates to liberation theology and a theology of the cross.

The Utopia for Gutierrez exists less as an idealized future but instead as a great refusal of the present reality. To enter into the task of the utopia and the utopia dream with all of its implications for the human condition is to enter into an imaginative task that seeks to make an announcement and renouncement. The utopia renounces the current way things are and seeks to provide an announcement of the ways they could be.[1]

The utopia, like the apocalypse, moves forward. They project what can be into the future and invite the reader to participate in creating that world. Revelations is less about the way the world would be but more about the way it was and the way it might be with out prayerful action. To speak of utopia and apocalypse is to speak about a world that can only come into existence through the participation of human beings in their creation, through praxis.[2]

We can criticize the utopia for creating an impossible vision of reality just as we can criticize the apocalyptic for creating an unrealitistic vision of the end of time. But to do so negates our responsibility in engaging with these as storytelling devices of theopoetic and prophetic import in our contemporary world. To engage in utopic visioning is to engage with the crisis of our time. This utopic vision is built upon creativity and dynamism in relations to our work in the world.[3]

To participate in the utopic and the apocalyptic here understood, is to participate in the building and creation of a new humanity.[4] By envisioning a new way of telling Gods story as informed by our current context and reality we are also envisioning a new way for the human person to participate in Gods story and Gods world.

The theopoetic asks us to reclaim our religious imagery as a system of images, stories and symbols that overturn the basic assumptions of our culture and faith. In short it asks us to engage in the apocalyptic and utopian task of telling our faith as a living and present tense event in which we are all living participants. The apocalyptic was not a one time experience of poetic theology but is instead a theopoetic task used to critique the ways in which culture and church have become entwined to allow for the dreaming of a better tomorrow. The apocalyptic and the utopic exists as conversation pieces bent on drawing us into a dawning revelation of what could be in the present tense.

The theopoetic task is not another form of theology but is instead, in this instance at the least, a form of doing theology in the world. The apocalyptic imagination is dependent on our being able to envision and enact our creative commentary on the present as a religious and moral duty. A quick look at the contemporary and classic cinema scene provides more than enough evidence of this sort of thinking. Movies like “The Quiet Earth”, “Metropolis” and TV shows like “Jerhico” function not as a prophecy of the future but as an annunciation of and to the present.

To take on this sort of work recognizes that human work and life are shaped more by fables, myths, story and imagination and that it is here that any full engagement with life actually takes place.[5] This is not to say we rely on the apocalyptic in image and story to facilitate liberation as a replacement for Christian action but that we must recognize the role of these things in the shaping of identity for action.[6] The stories we tell of God, when we tell Gods story in other words, is more of a story that contains our desires and hopes for the present tense world and for the future that could be birthed. It’s a way of naming the contradictions in our culture. To name God as a weak force is to recognize in our world the way in which our own world holds on to power and has created ways in which mass scales of violence through war, economics and environment can effect the majority of human life. Likewise the middle-ages, suffering at the whims of disease, feudal powers and petty politics, viewed God as a powerful force in contrast to their own weakness in the light of these events.

The apocalypse then does not sit at odds with what was once called the Age of Aquarius. Instead it sits in conjunction with that age, entering into its imaginative discourses and listening to the voices their that need to be freed and to find freedom. The mythic hungers of our age work together with our apocalyptic impulses towards creating a new and ongoing articulation of our deepest spiritual hungers and longings. The imagination is the birthing ground of liberating apocalyptic impulses.

It is with this apocalyptic and utopic imagination that we are able to envision liberation in the world. Liberation theology tends to take the cross as its articulation of Gods liberating work, but to work with Stringfellow means that we are called to engage with the theopoetic task of speaking truth to power by way of fable, myth and story. This is the goal of the apocalyptic: to create a story that is a truth, that conveys an understanding of God story in our present situation. Stringfellow is dependent on this telling always recognizing that as society we will always be captive to ‘babel’ – to destructive forces that demand our allegiance and worship.

The Word as Event

To engage in this task is to become involved in a form of reading world and text that opens up the present. Stringfellow names this way of reading as seeing the Word as event. To do this does not mean to read the bible as literal, which Stringfellow names as a failure for exegesis. Instead we are to engage with the text as a living testament, to fail at this is to not encounter the dignity of our own participation in the text and the vitality of the very Word that invites and teaches us.[7] To see the word as event is to encounter the text as a force for revelation and conversation in our present realities and contexts. It is an event that is happening now and not just in the past.

This does not mean Stringfellow avoids the exegetical when it comes to reading and interpreting the Apocalypse. But instead he focuses on the Apocalypse as a polemic. On the one hand it functions as a theological conversation and equally as a political document. When we talk about the theopoetic as it relates to the apocalyptic and the utopia dream we are talking about this very function: conversation and political ideal are always pregnant and implied by our images and stories.[8] To tell an apocalypse, to critique the present, warn of the dangers of the future and to hope for Gods reigns, is always to come into conflict with the ruling ideologies and stories.

To read the apocalypse this way is to read it as a liberating text. It is to see the captivity to power and the role of Jerusalem and Babylon as being symbols, stories, metaphors that can be mined in our present tense as a way of creating new stories and myths that critique and free. We must find a freedom to be in both the order of imagination and social dream, between theology and politics.[9]

Hall says that the role of the apocalyptic is toward a visioning of God’s universal reign of justice and mercy. To not view the apocalypse in this sort of theopoetic daydreaming of the ‘kin/gdom come’ is to participate in a shallow dreaming of the world more intent on a lust for power and a perversion of religious institution into an instrument of crude self-centering fantasizing.[10] To envision God’s reign is an ongoing task in which the church is constantly asked to participate. We must learn to shape into story these mythic hunger for a better world. Dry rational is easily explained away. Myth and story can go straight to who we are as people and how we desire the world to be.

Even Luther was even skeptical of viewing the apocalyptic as a way of reading the end of the world. But his work suggests a theopoetic approach as well, that of viewing the text as a way of reading the signs of the times.[11] The danger we encounter here is that we may have a constant need to fit the social world that we live in into the text of our faith. This sort of thing can lead us to the cheap apocalypses of Hal Lindsey and the ‘Left Behind’ books. While Lindesy is focused on reading the times in the light of the apocalypse he is looking for an actual end to the world. He misses the opportunity provided by the apocalyptic impulse to call the world to repentance and to revelation.

This is the same Luther who taught on Genesis for 12 years. Luther always taught and worked as a biblical scholar in the light of the contemporary issues.[12] For Luther the ‘word as event’ had meaning as a living force in our own context. To live with the word was to live with the present tense, was to live at this time where we were alive and to speak of present tense as being a part of biblical revelation. Here the scripture, I would say, becomes alive in the way it is freed from the past for the liberation of the present. If we are able to, as the historical critical method tends to do, keep the scriptures as an event that lives solely in the past then we have declared that the Bible has no gift for a contemporary humanity.

But on the on the other hand if we believe that the scripture is not just an historical event that happened sometime in the past but instead view them as the imaginative and poetic response to their human realities then we can understand the way bible study in the present functions to open us up to the ways in which we tell Gods story for the liberation and empowerment of the present.

The Cross as Theopoetic

The task of liberation from a theopoetic point of view is not to assist in the toppling of the systems that cause oppression to happen.[13] Instead the task is to take on the underlying myths, stories and images that enable such oppression. By working from the apocalyptic we are able to take captive the prevailing images, whether they be freedom by way of war, capitalism or even democracy, and place them in a story structure that reveals their dark sides and oppressive natures. Part of the liberation sought here is to liberate those who participate in oppression so they might see the ways in which they have enabled apocalypse.

Working with Jurgen Moltman we can even see the ways in which the cross itself has a function that is theopoetic. If Moltman is correct in his assumptions that the religious life of the Roman empire helped solidify the power of the emperor then we can begin to see how the cross functions as a theopoetic of resistance. In Moltman’s view to engage in the cross as revelation of God is then to take up a politically scandalous object and brandish it in such a way that its scandal actually mocks the powers that be.

In other words it functions as a theopoetic image that undercuts and damages the assumptions of power that are found in the emporeror and the states cultic religious practices. The early church was able to brandish this image in a way that was able to take the scandal of political power and find in it the revelation of God.

To participate in liberation theology from a theopoetic perspective is to engage in symbol and image making in such a manner that we find ways of telling Gods story as a present tense reality as it pertains to our local realties. As I’ve argued before its important that our poetic and liberation impulses are articulated in the ground realities of our local context. The downtown eastside exists in a network of images, symbols and interpretations that are specific to its context. To create a theopoetic of liberation there requires us to engage in the actual human lives, hungers and spiritual desires of that region.

If we are to believe that the power of the cross is the way it mocks and reverses the way our institutional religions and the powers of death are at work in our culture then it is to this that the cross, and any new images we create to convey the particulars of the cross, must engage with.

In his book on theopoetics Amos Niven Wilder names as cause for liberal, evangelical and secular mystic, the cause of reclaiming a theopoetic of the cross that is able to speak to all.[14] The task of the liberation theologian here then is to speak of a image and story of the cross that is not so indebted to doctrines, theologies and institutions that it cannot also speak of a freedom and liberation for all. The cross must convey a sense of freedom in the theopeotic sense that can have implications for those people at home in the church and for those who do not feel that they can honestly call themselves a Christian.

The cross then, as Moltman points out, is not a religious symbol but is instead a profane symbol. To align ourselves with the profane is to announce that the profane is the home of true holiness, that that which contradicts our assumptions, notions and bias’s of what the holy is more revealed in the profane than in our tightly controlled systems and structures of holiness.

Our apocalyptic and utopic visions are geared towards making and revealing symbols, images and stories that enable the profane to become a reality in our world. The profanity of the cross stands in contrast to our notions of salvation and revelation. The very profanity of the cross leads us to consider the notion of universal salvation that Guiterrez suggests.

Universal Salvation

Is this what Gutierrez means when he says that the liberation theologian must seek a universal salvation? To find in the cross a salvation does not mean to find a cross that takes away our suffering but instead reveals the reality of suffering and mocks the powers who cause suffering. What the world seeks to kill God reveals godself in. Salvation then is not to be saved from a certain experience or reality but saved to it. To seek a salvation then can mean more than just the ending of oppression but can also mean our global, corporate and intention confession of suffering and our deliberate entering into those circumstances and realities and becoming participants in them.

Guiterreze talks about this when he talks about our responsibility to be saved to the neighbor. Here we encounter the idea of the hidden God. On the cross the hidden God is revealed, that what we try to kill, torture and silence revels God to us. Likewise to be saved to the experiences of our neighbor is to be saved to the reality and ways in which they bring God to us. To confess to the realities of suffering and to enter into oppression and otherness on purpose is to live present with the hidden God and to make godself known to the world.

A universal salvation then is to be constantly turning toward the other as a way of discovering the hidden God and of being saved to that persons experience. This hidden God reveals the folly our attempts at controlling salvation and the process by which salvation needs to be saved. Garcia critiques liberation theology as being more interested in saving society than souls. To be saved to the other – to undergo a process of conversion to the realities of the other – is to encounter a type of salvation of the soul, a salvation of spiritual alignment which will enable us to save society.

A universal salvation does not negate the soul but nor does it stop there. The theopoetic seeks to help enable the various forms of salvation by asking us to tell Gods story in such a way that our souls, our personal selves in relation to God and world undergo a transformation, can then work out its revelation in the world.

This search for God in the other then asks that the theopoetic imagination take up the task of telling Gods story as it exists in the manger, among the dirty, the forgotten and the vulnerable. For us to tell Gods story as entering the world in the dirty and with a head that you can crush with the palm of your hand has implications for the church. When we tell this story we must ask of the ways in which the vulnerability of God is welcomed among us as institutions and what to whom our identity as people formed around this vulnerable God are brought to.

The Church as Theopoetic

Too often the church has told Gods story in relation to the power it seeks or has in its own possession. The cross has been used to promote the glory of earthly kingdoms instead of as a way of undermining the symbols of power and power worship that are used to dominate our world. We have tended to turn the scandal of the cross into a scandalizing event, one that imprisons and condemns instead of frees.

Part of the theopoetic task is to reimagine the church as it exists in our world today. The theopoetic seeks to tell a story to the church that reimagines the way the church can be and exist and how it serves the cross. To seek to serve the cross as a place interaction with the world is to seek to find a new story of the church. The reality of the churches confluence with cultural powers and allegiances.

By agreeing with Hall that the church is to be a suffering polis and that the world teems with those who have been oppressed and discriminated against then we are given the option of saying something new about the very nature of the church. The church, the ecclesia or called out, then can be seen as being made evident in the mangers of society. Church then is not we Christians who have responded to the call of God in Christ who constitute the church but instead the whole of humanity in their variety of situations who are a church active in the world, are a suffering polis. Church is anywhere and everywhere the incarnation of God comes to us as the other, the outcast and the foreign.

To engage in a view that encounters the entire world as an event of church then is to move beyond rigid church hierarchies and into a view more akin to Gustavo Gutierreze which asks us to view out neighbor, our surroundings and even our life situation, as a sacrament. If we are saved to the other and are seeking an universal salvation then every moment is a sacrament. Let us move beyond Gutierrezes concept of the neighbor as sacrament and into a new idea: the sacrament of the ordinary.

In this I envision the very work of world and church as being to announce that every ordinary object, event and person – like the elements of the Eucharist – are ordinary things made extraordinary. To be church in this sort of mindset is to be a church beyond institutions and is to participate in the holiness of that which we have announced as profane to the world. If we can view ordinary bread and wine to have extraordinary existence, in whatever theological model we choose to view it, then we are equally called to see average people, situations and institutions as having extraordinary lives. I take this to be the definition of the priesthood of the believer.

But to say this is not to say this and to recognize in the suffering of the other the churches true vocation is not to say that the church must suffer, or that we receive glory and validation by suffering. As Hall points out there has been serious critique of our fixation on suffering, death and violence.[15] But to enter into the sacrament of the ordinary and the suffering is to view the call of Christ as one who knew that a life of compassion, mercy and justice would result in suffering.[16] To save the world from its brokenness is to be subject to the violence of that which you are trying to save it from.

This is the ordinary that we must view as sacred. The ordinary suffering of humanity, the world that teems with the everyday reality of suffering and oppression and loss. It is here that the holy one of God is revealed to us, is incarnate. We as church seek our own destruction so we can better be on the side of those who are marginalized and left outside by our institutions. We say God is revealed here in the manner in which revelation in suffering upsets our safety nets, our security and our self identity.

Conclusion

The apocalyptic and utopic provided us with a theopoetic way of enacting liberation theology in our world and lifestyle. To do so requires us to engage with the hungers and desires that are present our age as being visions of reality that contain the seeds of a new way of being human in the world. In order for us to view this as a gateway to liberation we are asked to tell both the biblical story as having present tense import and our own story as being a form of theopoetic and spiritual insight and resistance to the powers that be.

But to do this we must avoid the pit falls of reading the world as being on a road map to hell/destruction as displayed in the apocalypse. Our apocalyptic vision draws us toward deeper and greater insights into our own way of being in the world. This sort of reading provides for, in Stringfellows words ‘a faulty exegesis’ as well as locks us into a literal mythic structure that does not allow any room for reading the world as its own text that we can explore through biblical imagery.

If we cannot read our own story as an event that takes place in conjunction and in response to the biblical narrative then the biblical event comes to predominate our world. The hungers and voices of the poor are full of their own stories and desires by which they explore the implications of the biblical event. We tell these stories together, in the apocalyptic and the utopic, as a means of becoming church in the world.

To do this, to work for liberation, means that our imaginations must be freed for, from and in our traditions and aligned with the hungers of the world. This freedom allows us to speak a new voice to the churches that calls them towards being church in the world.

[1] Guiterrez, 136

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid, 137

[4] Ibid, 137

[5] Wilder, 2

[6] Ibid, 3

[7] Stringfellow,

[8] Stringfellow, 16

[9] Wilder, 27

[10] Hall, 229

[11] Hall, 228

[12] Altmann, 46

[13] Holland,

[14] Wilder, 12

[15] 151

[16] 153

In Consideration of the Theopoetic

Fri, 8 Dec 2007 22:32:00 GMT

posted by superfly

IN CONSIDERATION OF THE THEOPOETIC

by Jason Derr

originally published on Helium.com

WHY A THEOPOETIC?
    When Plato thinks of theologians he thinks of poets engaged in God-Speak. These poets, though, are radicals deserving of expulsion from his perfect Republic. We should not be surprised by this; didn't George Bush cancel a poetry night after 9/11? Have not the worst of tyrants always sought to control speech and expression?
    The truth is that our poetry and art, our Theopoetics, always cut to the heart of our humanity. Theopoets know that to speak of divinity is to speak of the human condition and to speak of the human condition is to speak of divinity. Our god-speak is always incarnate, always tied up into the dirt and sweat of human life. God speak, like the Eucharist or lords supper, is always the ordinary made extraordinary. Ordinary words or images made extraordinary because they open up that space of divine longing within us. A longing for love, passion, sex, justice, mercy, divinity and incarnation.
    Systematic Theologies are always interested in creating a "scientific" theological system. Its work is built on the premise of creating an air-tight logic that includes every consideration divinity, humanity, free will/predestination, Christology. The criticism is that some parts of the system will be thin and incomplete in order to make other arguments work. Constructive theology responds to this by seeking to create a context specific theology. For example they may envision a Christology with a feminist or womanist perspective, or a queer or ecological outlook.
    The theopoetic understands that the limits of a system or a constructive theology is that the assumption that their will be no new system to respond to and that what we construct for a feminist or womanist view will not be challenged by new perspectives in these fields. The theopoetic seeks to engage an image in its multiplicity of meanings. It understands that an image takes on new meanings in a new context, finds a new life every time it is encountered. A poem, for example, has a new lesson, insight or implication every time we read it.
    The theopoetic can be said to be a post-academic theology. We must say this very carefully. We do not mean by this an abandonment of the academic and its insights. Any one working with the spiritual hungers in hh (her or/and his) era would be wise to listen closely to the critiques coming form the academic world. By post-academic theology we mean to borrow a phrase from Ken Wilber, the great voice of Integral Philosophy, that the theopoetic should 'include and transcend' the academic.

THEOLOGY IN COMMUNITY
    If we are to walk into any given congregation we would find that the great conversations of theology, for the most part, do not reach the pews. Many pastors are unable to pass theological commentary down to the pews for fear of backlash or accusations of heresy. When we insist on a purely academic theology we are then insisting on an theology divorced from the hungers of the community.
    The tragedy of this is that theologies, our God-Speak, is always constructed for communities. Theologies are made to be lived, preached, prayed and implemented in our lives. Theology, by its nature, is bound to the life of a community. By divorcing the construction of theology from the consumption of theology we have reduced the academic sphere to another level of consumerism.     We are able to, as individuals, produce, consume and discard theologies.
In response to this the Theopoetic, I feel, could work very nicely with-in Marianne Sawickis concept of the 3-Tables of theology as she mentions in her work Seeing The Lord'. She suggests that theology should always take place as a conversation between 3 tables of theological reflection. Table One is the table of the academic and is important for the reasons we have mentioned before. Table Two is the needs and realities of the worshipping community and table Three is the hungers and desires of the poor and marginalized. We should add to this a Fourth table as well, the impulses and realities of the poet and artist. We can imagine it as a theological action group.
    The theologian-as-community does not insist on an agreement between all three tables. Instead it insists on theology as a process of dialogue, calling each table to the reasonable and responsible consideration of critiques outside of itself. We can imagine it as a contemporary midrash.
    Amos Niven Wilder, theologian and brother of Our Town' author Thorton Wilder, names the Theopoetic in this manner:
    "We should recognize that human nature and human societies are more
    deeply motivated by images and fabulations than by ideas. That is where
    power lies and the future is shaped." (Theopoetic: Theology and the Religious
    Imagination)
    Our hungers for the Spirit (Holy or Human or both) is best understood and represented in our earthly desires and expressions. It is the symbols, images and metaphors that we surround ourselves with, that best convey how we know ourselves and the divine. The theopoet, as a member of the tabled community, of the theological action group, as a member of multiple communities, puts into expression that deep passion for life.
    What we must insist on in this post-academic theology is a flourishing of theologies and theologians. We must insists on communities taking up a voice across disciplines, in our images and poems, and speaking in the world. We must insist on resistant communities, communities on the edge taking up their voice as not only political rhetoric but as poetry, film and art.

A THEOPOETIC FUTURE
    The Theopoetic as practice places a conversation before the world. The 4 tables come together and proclaim human dignity and then, as a communal event, as a collaboration between all 4 tables, we beg the world to recognize that dignity. We place it in our poems and our films and we shock, seduce, awe and tempt the world.
    If the systematic and the constructive theologian publishes volumes of thought then I dream of a time when the Theopoet publishes volumes of poetry, zines, chapbooks, novels, philosophy and traditional theology, films, posters, public and private art.
    The theopoet is not about the task of doctrinal policing. We do not do tours around the accepted margins of the church. We open up the hungers and longings of our age. We enter into a conversation with the deepest places of our selves and our audience. To engage in the theopoetic is to tempt the radical nature of ourselves, it is to follow in the footsteps of the God-Speakers that could upset the republic, could speak from the margins of our hungers and unspeakable truths.
    I imagine a future where theopoets will publish poetry and essay collections, spiritual wonderings and commentaries about a specific topic in need of reflection. Imagine a future where theological action groups publish the results of a meeting of the four tables. I imagine a future where theology and philosophy students are encouraged to pursue poets, filmmakers and advertisers as thoroughly as they do an academic tome. And I imagine a future where theology is welcomed to the pew as a participant in our coversations.

OF INTEREST
www.theopoetic.net
Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theopoetics
http://www.originsnet.org/theopoietics.html

Outline for Hermeneutical Structures

Tue, 1 Oct 2008 13:35:00 GMT

posted by jasonpayton
Below is an outline for the two major, Christian hermeneutical systems existing after the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment. Being that this excerpt begins the "Systematic Theology" portion of an essay I am composing, I have included a preamble to set up context for the outlines. Note that the Dispensational outline is, as best as I can tell, representative of the sort of Dispensationalism subscribed to by Ryrie, and other "Post-Dallas" dispensationalists. The outline representing Covenant Theology is, like the dispensational one, not exhaustive, but descriptive. So, covenant theologians and dispensationalists alike, will probably look at these outlines and have something to add or subtract, due to the fact that neither of these systems of theology and hermeneutical approaches is monolithic. I am asking for help from both sides to try and make these outlines profitable for as many persons as possible.

Hermeneutical StructuresIt seems most appropriate to begin the section on systematic theology with a description of the different hermeneutical structures under which Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology operate. I understand that these two lists are not exhaustive, neither are they likely to represent everyone in the respective camps. There are two basic assumptions shared by the two major hermeneutical schools of thought, Deism and sola scriptura, these are starting points that shape all forms of what can be considered a Christian interpretation of reality. The assumption of Deism and that God has clearly spoken in time, leads to Christian theism after being confronted by the truths revealed in God’s Word. As a consequence of God having spoken, it is revealed to His creatures that they are accountable to the knowledge of His existence by the testimony of nature alone, thus persons never having been exposed to the special revelation of Himself found in the canon of holy scriptures, are still culpable for their unbelief and under the just penalty of His wrath on them because of Adam’s sin.Dispensational Hermeneutical Presuppositions & Immediate ConsequencesI. Theism—any Christian epistemological system must begin with the assumption that a Creator-god exists.a. Immanence—the Creator-god has spoken; He has revealed a “Word” that His creatures have the capacity of receiving through their physical senses. i. Primo Regnum—as a function of God having spoken, the Christian Theist must also assume that His special Word is revealed in the canonized scriptures alone. Not that the scriptures are the only authority in the life of the believer, but that their right interpretations are the primary and final authority. Not that every physically audible word of God, or vision or dream sent by God has been included in this collection of “Words”, but all of those Words necessary for the life and godliness of believer is therein revealed.II. Literalism—the primary guiding principle in Dispensational Theology is the view that states that, unless otherwise expressly told differently within the immediate context of a passage, the grammatical/historical understanding of a prophesy/promise given, is its only possible fulfillment; the object of promise and the object of fulfillment are always the same. If an Old Testament prophesy is ever “expanded” in the New Testament that expansion can never negate, trump or “explain away” the grammatical/historical understanding of those prophesies.a. Israel/Church Distinction—Spiritual Israel and the Church are now and always viewed as two separate peoples of God. i. The promises God made to Abraham (and subsequently to ethnic Israel) are only ever meant to be fulfilled by ethnic, believing Israel in some future age and can never be applied to believers saved in the "Church Age". ii. Millennial Israel and their future activity are the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophesies.1. Semiti-centric Eschatology—God’s primary purpose in redemptive history is the salvation of His chosen people, Israel. And these people are the ethnic Jewish people He has sustained throughout the history of the world.a. A contrast between the Kingdom of God/Kingdom of Heaven.b. Two eternally distinct peoples of God—His earthly people Israel, and His heavenly people, the Church.c. Jesus will be made King in the Millennium—He has not yet assumed His Kingly office or duties.2. The Church is unknown prior to Pentecost--The concept of "Church" as a people is a mystery not spoken of prophetically at all in the Old Testament.3. The Church Age is parenthetical to God's dealings with ethnic Israel—The "Church Age" is a result of Israel's rejection of Christ's offer of the Kingdom, now.a. Paul's Primary Apostolic Purpose—was to teach the "new age" of believer his distinction in redemptive history from the previous, old age believer, and the future Jewish believer.

Covenantal Hermeneutical PresuppositionsI. Theism—any Christian epistemological system must begin with the assumption that a Creator-god exists.a. Immanence—the Creator-god has spoken; He has revealed a “Word” that His creatures have the capacity of receiving through their physical senses. i. Primo Regnum—as a function of God having spoken, the Christian Theist must also assume that His special Word is revealed in the canonized scriptures alone. Not that the scriptures are the only authority in the life of the believer, but that their right interpretations are the primary and final authority. Not that every physically audible word of God, or vision or dream sent by God has been included in this collection of “Words”, but all of those Words necessary for the life and godliness of believer is therein revealed.II. The Analogy of Faith - Let easily interpreted passages guide our interpretation of difficult passages.a. Let the interpretation of the fulfillment of Old Testament prophesies/promises found in the New Testament amplify/expand the grammatical/historical understanding of a particular prophesy when it was given.b. When a promise is made, the object of promise is always, to some degree, a shadow or type of the object of fulfillment; so if the fulfillment of a promise is limited to its "literal" or grammatical/historical manifestation, then it isn't as illustrative of God's goodness. But if the quality of the object of fulfillment is to be accurately represented by the object of promise, it cannot always be limited to its grammatical/historical manifestation. i. Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of the types and shadows pictured in the Old Testament, so in that way, all the Old Testament points forward to Christ and not to a future manifestation of ethnic Israel, but Christ is the true Israel and those found “in Him” are true Israelites.c. Let our understanding of the immediate context of a passage be interpreted under the larger umbrella of the entire context of Revelation; the "meta-narrative" or "big picture" perspective of redemptive history should be used to tailor our understanding of the immediate contexts of passages, such as the context provided by their human authorship, chronology in respect to other writings of Revelation, and literary genre.d. Let the literary genre of a passage guide our understanding of symbols, types/shadows, parables, numbers, and prophesies (either their giving or fulfillment) i.e., historical narratives such as the gospel accounts of resurrection should be taken at face value, but apocalyptic literature when it presents visions such as dragons, lamp stands, 24 elders, etc, they may be symbols which represent something greater. The objects they represent either, could not have been understood if their future manifestation had been presented, or God has decided that the objects being represented are meant to be kept a mystery in part, until such a time when He sees fit to reveal their identity. Note that the object being symbolized is normally a literal and real object.