![Drain boy]( "Drain boy")
- phill.d / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
It strikes me as odd that when I wrote my initial post on this series, I had not read or listened to Peter Rollins, yet he articulates perfectly the existential battle and uncertainty that I feel (and wrote in that post) as a Christian in a postmodern error. Peter calls himself a Christian atheist; that is, he is not describing unbelief, but he is experiencing the absence of God. Faith is fearful and its terrifying because we are finite beings.
In my practice of Christianity, I dealt with this existential fear in two ways. First as a fundamentalist, we just avoided that uncomfortable feeling altogether and put God in a box. We followed God based upon what the Bible said. In this way, God didn’t have to let us down. We didn’t eat pork or shell-fish (why I still hate shell-fish to this day). We wore 100% cotton clothing. We listened and obeyed those in authority even when it was irrational. I wore dresses and learned to be submissive. Obviously no one can keep all the commands, but the humorous part is that we believed we had mastered God. We were empty-handed, but we believed we were full-handed. By the time I had moved into Calvinism, I had become a practical deist.
The second way I handled God was through the charismatic church. I burned of rational discourse and proving God based on propositions; I was done with young earth creationism and Calvinism even before I even stopped believing in those things. I was finally able to face that I didn’t have Christianity figured out after all. So I turned to charismatic faith. I prayed for three hours a day, perhaps more, and went to prayer gatherings at church, not the cheesy American kind, but the Asian kind that involved real mourning. I turned to the Vineyard classics such as Come and Fill me Up and This is the Air I Breathe. Yet our church home never became a house of prayer like we wanted, and God let me down. I began to experience the absence of God. He was not there. I would have experiences of God filling me up on Wednesday and be dry and empty by Friday. At one point I made a costly decision based upon what I believed was God’s will. God had not been there after all.
Peter Rollins writes through the post-structural lens where everything embodies uncertainty, where everything is destabilized, even our understanding of God. He wrote a new book called The Idolatry of God. It resonated with me.
As a child I was taught that money, sex (which we called the “s” word), and prosperity could never make me happy. These things would always leave me void. God could fill us up. But the hypocrisy is that God leaves Christians just as empty-handed as money, or at least this is what Peter Rollins is saying. You can listen to Peter talk about this here.
As I wrote in my post on Bultmann, existential philosophy floods the church through contemporary theology, or I should say, contemporary theology emphasized that it is imperative for the church to acknowledge existentialism. Kierkegaard, perhaps the most famous Christian existentialist, criticized the rationalists for being detached speculators of the world, who sat in their bleachers and speculated about it but tried hard not to get involved in the struggle. But what Bultmann was saying — and what I think Rollins is saying too — is that Christianity shouldn’t be a sidelines observation nor can it be. Faith happens when you throw yourself into the struggle, into the tension-filled moments, and get involved in the fear. As Heidegger (yes, he was an atheist) wrote, this is not a phobia. This is a fear that transcends all fears. It is a nameless fear, a fear without a face. It is an existential fear of non-being (that is of not existing). It’s the fear that life is meaningless, and all talk about God is meaningless, too.
Now this troubles me deeply as I wrote in my initial post. On the one hand, the temptation is to completely disregard Rollins, Bultmann, and Kierkegaard. The temptation is to say that they are wrong, and that meaning is fully derived from God. But yet I have never met a Christian who can say they have looked in the depths of their heart and have no uncertainty and doubt. The only thing funnier than fundamentalism itself is the fundamentalist who actually thinks he’s completely happy and fulfilled. I look at myself and can say I honestly love life. I would choose suspension between being and non-being any day than choose non-being (that is, I’d rather live than die, and I don’t say that because I fear death; I just love adventure and life). But can I say that there is no existential fear inside my heart? Just because I love life does not mean I don’t fear life at the same time; just because I love freedom and responsibility does not mean I don’t fear that freedom and responsibility at the same time.
Yet at the same time, I must confront yet again my problem with postmodern theology. As I discussed on Why I Hope A Genuinely Good God Exists, I spent two years caring for abused children day in and day out. One boy in particular – who also happens to be very philosophical – cries in terror from utter meaningless and pain. What am I to say to this boy? “Oh, kid, just face it. You must find meaning in the moment not in God. You must look into the depths of this moment and find meaning.” Bullcrap, there is no meaning in this moment for him, and he’s not going to find it by looking deep into this moment either. Oh yea, that’s right, Dr. Rollins. None of us will find meaning; we just learn to enjoy life for its pain and beauty. But beauty? There is no beauty for my little friend. He is plagued with severe trauma, and his soul had been fragmented. Even the secular therapist said his life is never going to amount to much. God is this boy’s chance.
I’m not naive and believe a magical wand solves all problems. But I want a God who transcends the existential dilemmas. I want a God who can use our language and still get his truth across to us. I want a God whose truth is not derived from a truth/power struggle or an economic struggle or anything else. As I wrote in my post Problem with Truth, why is it that the postmodern church thinks we can deconstruct God when God was never constructed in the first place? (I am not speaking of Rollins here.) God is a given: he is not created. He is not part of a big lie that we created a long, long time ago and forgot all about. God just is.
Let me rephrase. If God was constructed, then I am done. And if God can’t provide any kind of meaning (I’m not saying take away all doubts, but yes, give meaning, filling up that empty heart), then the atheist has it right. We can find depth in our experiences without God, and I’m sorry for my abused friends, they will sink or swim without Him.
Of course, Dr. Rollins will wish me luck as he rightly points out that faith comes and goes for the Christian anyway.
So where do you guys stand? Please dialogue with me through this. You can also visit Peter Rollins personal page if you haven’t already.