Books You May Not Like: Insurrection, by Peter Rollins

I have been trying to gin up a post for this book for a while now, and I never seem to be able to find the words.    Even now, sitting in front of the computer, full of determination, having read the book twice (pretty much) and met the author in person, I still cannot think of how I can summarize this book.

I will say that it is a remarkable book on faith and belief, a blend of philosophy, parable, and pop culture, where Nietzsche and Bonhoeffer are spoken of in the same breath as Batman.

But what is about?  I can't explain.

Or maybe I can.  After seeing him speak, I think Peter Rollins is as much a Christian Beat Poet as a philosopher and theologian (though, clearly, he is well versed in those topics, especially the former).  If we think for a moment that this is less a philosophical argument to work through and more of a work of art that we can engage with; if we also consider that I think what Rollins desperately wants us to do is take what he's said and engage with our own faith in a deeper way; maybe I can best describe the book by the impressions and thoughts that entered into my mind as I read it.

Rollins spent the first part of his book trying to describe the problem of the God of philosophy, the God of  Dues ex Machina.  As I read, I found myself thinking of a math problem I had recently become acquainted with during my masters degree studies.  I could try to kind of ease you into it, but I think its probably best to just get it over with and present it.

You ready?  Take a deep breath.  Here we go....

Lots of squiggly lines, but remember the first rule of hitchhiking the galaxy:  Don't Panic.  All you need to know for the purposes of the discussion at hand is that we have three variables (u bar,v bar, and the u'v' term.  Don't worry about the other terms...they are flow properties or spoken for from the solution of the inviscid flow problem....don't ask).  But we only have two equations.

That's two equations, three unknowns.  From the most basic mathematical studies, we know that this is a set of equations that cannot be solved.

The term that is problematic is the u'v' term, which describes the instantaneous fluctuating turbulent velocity.  There are no equations that we can use to find it.  So, in order to close the system, we have to model the turbulent terms as best we can.  If we can find a decent model, that will leave two equations with two unknowns and the equations can be solved.  This is known as the closure problem.

And I think that is what Rollins thinks we have done with God.  God has become that thing that is going to close the system, that thing that provides the missing little chunk of our lives.  God closes the system by providing meaning, justification, forgiveness, or psychological ease.

Rollins would say (based on how I read him and hear him) that viewing God in this way leads to a faith that is not genuine, for a couple reasons.

First, if you are looking to "close the system" with God, does that mean you are a constructing a God that suits your own worldview, prejudices, and desires?  This would be the same as reading a book that only supports your own opinion.  It supports, but it does not challenge.  Your faith will lack depth and will be self-serving at best.

Second, it doesn't mesh with experience.  To go back to the modeling of the u'v' term in those equations I mentioned, this is only possible because it turns out we can actually model this term in such a way that the results match some experimental data, which is pretty handy.  Rollins would contend that trying to use God to close the system doesn't work because there is a steady drumbeat in the culture, in history, and in our personal lives that suggests that the system cannot be closed.  We seek meaning but can't find any.  We seek justification but have none.  We find that we are not supported as we stare darkly into the abyss.  To borrow a phrase, God is indeed dead to many of us, at least in the originally intended existential sense.

The problem with the Church, as Rollins seems to see it, is that it does not honor this fact of our existence.  He even argues that to feel the absence of God is Christ-like, as Christ endured the absence of God on the cross.  And yet we all continue to buy into a system that does not speak to our experiences of doubt, and when we do that our faith is corrupted, and our beliefs no longer have the power to change our lives.  Our convictions lack merit.

And I think that is really the over arching message of the book.  What we believe is not necessarily important, and at any rate if we are honest with ourselves our beliefs provide little succor.  At the end of the day, no matter what we believe and how fervently we believe it, we all are all broken.  We all suffer.  

What IS important to Rollins is how our beliefs inform our actions.  That is Pete's way out of this little existential dilemma he has set up for us, his way out of the abyss.   He says that once you have lost everything, as Christ did, and tasted the pain of the abyss, you are free to tear yourself away from the structures that are believing in your stead and in your self-interest and live a "Resurrection Life", a life based on one ethic:  Radical love.

And since this has gone so long and since I have an example of what he thinks he means, I will talk about that in a second post on this book.

Oh, and next time there will be no math.  I promise.