I have just returned from Greenbelt. As always a wonderful experience which involved catching up with and being enriched by old and new friends (Ian Mobsby, Jonny Baker, Kester Brewin, Andrew Jones, Mark Berry, Cherl, Gilo, Rose, Gareth, Erin etc. etc.).
Anyway, Ikon put on another experiment in theodrama, this year it was called Fundamentalism. It was humbling to see so many people come along to experience our gathering (around 1000 people), although it may have helped that a group of protesters had gathered outside the venue shouting things like “Ikon is a con” and holding signs with slogans such as, “intellectual babble”, “not dangerous, just pretentious”, “Jesus wept”, “blasphemy is blasphemy no matter how cool the music is”, “heretics” and “it won’t be so cool when you are burning in hell”. I should perhaps mention that this was all part of the immersion experience we were creating (although the police where almost called and one Baptist Minster did ask if he could join the group).
Some people have asked for me to make a couple of comments on the background of the service as its structure was somewhat unorthodox. While I cannot give an exhaustive commentary on it (and would not wish to), I will make a few observations.
The experience we created was designed to be visceral and overpowering (starting from the moment when people began to queue outside to the closing melancholic melody sung by Padraig at the end) rather than straightforwardly understandable. Indeed the nature of the service was such that any question as to what exactly was happening at any given point would be difficult to answer. Rather we endeavoured to create a saturating experience related to the theme of fundamentalism, one which could not be reduced to a simple message. But why?
.
Very simply we wished the gathering to act as a kind of revelation. To understand this it is important to note that revelation is made manifest in epistemological incomprehension, experiential bedazzlement and existential transformation. In other words revelation is fundamentally experienced as a rupture, as that which enters the world of our experience but which overturns that world.
Firstly, a revelation is epistemologically incomprehensible because it cannot be reduced to understanding but rather places all our understanding into question. Secondly, a revelation is experientially bedazzling because we can’t integrate it into our emotional world, we feel a type of anxiety, which is a way of saying that we experience a radical uncertainty as to how we ought to experience what is happening. Thirdly, a revelation causes existential transformation insomuch as we are changed as a result of its incoming (all this is of course very different to the modern understanding of revelation as unconcealment).
As an example of this let us take the idea of a young conservative Protestant who believes that a Catholic cannot be a true follower of Christ. However, over lunch one day, they discover that someone who they have respected greatly because of their love, faithfulness and spirituality is a practising Catholic. What happens? This is a revelation insomuch as the young man does not have the co-ordinates to know what to make of this new information, or to be able to integrate it into his experience: it comes as incompressible and bedazzling. More than this the experience can be transforming, making him rethink his presuppositions.
This is why Fundamentalism was structured in the way that it was: it did not simply carry a message or revelation but rather endeavoured (successfully or not) to be one.
.
.
It's been a while since I have posted, sorry about that. If you are going to Greenbelt next week I will be giving the following seminar which may be of interest to some of you:
The Fidelity of Betrayal: What Would Judas Do
What if one of the core elements of Christianity lay in a demand that we betray it, while the ultimate act of affirming God required the forsaking of God? And what if fidelity to the Judeo-Christian scriptures demanded their renunciation? In short, what if the only way of finding faith involves betraying it with a kiss?
By employing the insights of apophatic theology and deconstructive theory this seminar seeks to explore the subversive and clandestine nature of a Christianity that dwells within religious institutions while simultaneously undermining them. Here we will explore the Promethean nature of a faith which attempts to live up to the name bestowed upon it by the divine: Israel, one who wrestles with God.
This seminar will be exploring some of the themes which I am developing in my new book The Fidelity of Betrayal (Being Evangelied has been shelved for a while). I will offer some excerpts of the book in the coming weeks for comment and critisism.
