Peter Rollins and Thinking About Faith Differently

Peter Rollins is a theologian and philosopher from Ireland. I went to hear him back in November and enjoyed his thought-provoking observations about faith. After hearing about his group Ikon that meets in a bar I got re-interested in an idea that I had let go of a while back. That idea has now become Waco Pub Church. He was back in Texas this week and I had a chance to meet and talk to him a bit. He explained the correct pronunciation of Smithwicks and got him to try a Shiner Bock.

Here's some notes I took from Thursday (with my explanation in parentheses):

Some Ikon topics:
- Getting out of Christianity (a contrasting examination of classes for joining a church)
- Go out & get evangelized (listening, REALLY listening, to the message from other faiths)
- During Lent - Giving Up God (reading atheists Freud, Nietzsche, Marx for some insight into the outside view of faith)

People have needs and we just give them God. (Not in a real sense, but as a platitude)

When you are looking for someone, you may not find them. (God may not show up until you give up)

God enters the world as this whole other thing that changes the whole story.

In talking about how important it is for us to share our lives, he told a joke about a pastor who said that he went to volunteer at a hospice but actually went to play golf. To punish him, God intervened in his game one day, pushing the ball here & there. He ended up with the most perfect game he had ever played, but couldn't tell anyone about it.

Nietzsche, who wrote "God is dead," also said of Christians that "your theology makes no difference."

Don't put flowers on your chains so that you can endure them. Question the chains. Don't treat slaves kindly, ask why they are in bondage and set them free.

Does Satan use the church? Is church the very thing that prevents real change. Prohibition can create desire. Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. Do we embrace God but preserve our wrongness? We know that money, cars, houses won't bring happiness, but we step right out of church and live like they will. Winnie the Pooh, his head bumped down each step of the stairway wondered, "Perhaps there is a better way to go down the stairs, if only the bumps would stop long enough for him to think."

Mother Theresa lived a life of uncompromising service, yet we found after her death that she had major doubts of her faith.

God doesn't want to live about our doubts and struggles, he wants to be in fidelity with us in it all.

The only liturgy of doubt that he has been able to find is, "Lord, if you exist, come among us."