Last week I was at MatterCon '09: A Theological Creativity Event featuring Pete Rollins and presented by Shechem Ministries at Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, TX.  I am recapping the event by publishing my notes for your fondest enjoyment.

Peter Rollins, "From theo-logos to theo-poetics: Re-imagining the language of faith"

-the problem with fundamentalism is not that it is violent but that it is not violent enough.
-the real violence of Christianity is in its objective violence against the system of oppression.
-life is lived forwards and understood backwards.
-if you know what you're doing it's probably rubbish.
-we are told to fulfill our dreams, yet our dreams reflect our present context---the most radical move is not to fulfill your dreams but to put yourself in a place to dream new ones.
-theological revolutions never come at the right time---you can't justify what critiques the whole system
-God can become the object we use to satisfy our own desires---if some want comfort we give them God to make things neat and tidy.
-at the point you don't need God is when you meet God.
-when you meet your beloved it creates the eternal need of the beloved: the need is retroactively constructed.
-our flesh opens to a world of infinite proportions.
-the arrival of our beloved  is still to come (and is always coming).
-we all have doubts---the important point is not to always have total belief but to participate in the tradition andd belong to community
-God rid us of "God"---everytime we think of God we must remind ourselves that God is so much bigger and so much more mysterious.
-the least important part of a gathering is the gathering itself: the pre-gathering and post-gathering are most important.
-a leader cannot take responsibility for belief: believe on the other's behalf makes the church uniform and the congregation passive, with those who believe the pastor staying and those who don't agree leaving.
-the role of the pastor is to offer multiple interpretations.
-symbolically leave yourself at the door and create a liturgical space without individual identities, laying down our identity as Christ emptied himself.
-only in Christianity does God doubt God: "Why have you forsaken me?"
-Christ was unplugged from everything.
-in consumer culture we allow groups/advertisers to hold inappropriate beliefs so we can believe rightly but not act rightly (i.e., we allow ourselves to disagree with the philosphy and operations behind businesses like sweatshops and slavery yet still buy their stuff.).
-Bruce Wayne does not connect how his company Wayne Industries feeds the subjective violence of Gotham City as a behemoth of the military-industrial complex and weapons supplier.  Batman fights the very people he arms with weapons or supplies with poverty and a culture of violence.