Pete Rollins @ Emergent Baltimore

Spent a delightful evening Nov. 20 with Peter Rollins (in town on a book tour) and 15 or 20 Emergent Baltimore types (including a middle-aged, bald introvert with a small Buddha belly who identified himself as "Brian, Pete's driver"). Pete R. talked a mile a minute in a delightful accent that made "doubt" rhyme with "light." He wove together a number of points from his book, and some additional thoughts and jokes, in what I thought was pure free-association until he paused to check his notes about 20 minutes in.
Here are a few notable themes (if you've read his book these will be familiar):
- Powerlessness. He used this joke to evoke the risk of mixing the Christian message with an apologetic of power and fear and violence. Said we needed to avoid these in our message, but without letting it get anemic.
- Hypernymity (the other extreme from anonymity). He contrasted the Cartesian view, in which God is revealed and present, with Anselm's view of God as "something greater than can be thought," whom we can receive but never conceive.
- Conceptual idolatry. He likened Meister Eckhart's "God rid me of God" with Nietszche's "God is dead," which he suggested could be read as the death of one's concept of God.

Pete also talked about Ikon, the group he leads in Belfast, and showed some pictures. He described their "Last Supper" and "Evangelism" projects, their recent "Fundamentalism" service, and their new Wiki-based website. (all the more powerless to become?)

I had my book with me, so I asked him if he did autographs. He seemed willing but pretty reluctant so I changed the subject. He seemed to enjoy playing with little Timo as we spoke. (Yep, brought a baby to a theo/philosophy lecture...)

Browsing around the Ikon Website this weekend, I enjoyed the playful intro to their principles (iconic, apocalyptic, heretical, emerging, and failing -- which may sound pretty unsafe at first glance but don't let that fool you). I was also tickled to see that they used Michael Knott's Screaming Brittle Siren in last week's service. Maybe my "emerging journey" was already underway back in 1993 (?) when I fell head-over-heels for this CD myself.

One for the scrapbook

Timo (now 4 1/2 mos.) was parked next to the kitchen sink the other day, watching me wash dishes. Predictably, the dishes got boring, esp. after I found the funny glasses in one pile of clutter, and the camera in another. This was the best take of about 10. Still can't decide on a caption.

Better late than never: John Franke @ Emergent Baltimore

I've been meaning to comment on John Franke's Oct. 18 dinner talk in Ellicott City. Surprisingly, it appears no-one else has (?) so maybe this is still of interest. Dr. F. said a lot of good things; but what stood out for me was an interpretation of I Cor. 12 applied to the universal church, not just a local congregation -- e.g., the Presbyterians cannot say to the Baptists, "I don't need you," etc. (As Randy would say, "Some Assemblies of God Required.") But then Dr. F. took a further step, and applied those verses to the "emerging conversation" as well, challenging us to use our peculiar insights &c. to be a blessing to more traditional churches, rather than just going our separate ways. He said it better, of course.
Next speaker: Pete Rollins. I hope to finish reading his dense little book in time.