MatterCon Recap 5: Peter Rollins, “Being in the world but not of it”

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, "Being in the world but not of it"

-believe, behave, belong needs to change to belong, behave, believe
-the Christian response to suffering is to say, "We can talk about God later—let me provide an end to your suffering first."
-what people need is someone who is listening and sharing in their suffering.
-only Christians have God-shaped holes.
-you only start seeking God after you have found God, and when you stop seeking God you no longer know God.
-forgiveness does not come after you repent with Christ; instead, Christ forgives before people repent.
-God is used to explain what we cannot explain—the problem with that is that as science progresses God’s realm decreases and God is pushed either to the margins of the unknown or becomes obsessed with your personal life.
-we want to enjoy life with other people’s gaze on us.
-our enjoyment is learned through other’s enjoyment (we enjoy what our parents enjoyed).
-our beliefs about God must be tied to our actions.
-Christianity needs to be fundamentally transformative.
-Church attendance can impede Christian transformation.
-Religion can allow us to vent our frustrations and then never do anything to fix them.
-God is not an object that we can use to answer our fears.
-God is the subject before whom we are the object: he knows us but we do not know him.
-Revelation is transformed existence.
-When God shows up everything changes.
-If the believer knows God they know only so far as they have been transformed.
-what’s most important is the event "Christianity"; theology is done in the aftermath of the event.
-Augustine says he doubts what he loves when he loves God, but he is welcoming of the doubt like a close friend of faith because dout does not destroy love.
-Doubt in church and believe absolutely outside of church (since beliefs are tied to actions).
-What does a church look like that allows doubt?
-Create space in liturgy and worship that allows doubt.
-Belief is always operative.
-Christianity is to associate oneself with the historical movement.
-the whole structure of the universe is a miracle, God is communicating all the time, but this communication is not a proposition that can be verifiable but is instead a life that can be verifiable.
-when we affirm a creed we are saying what we want to be true.  When we say we believe in the resurrection we are saying we want to be the resurrection and hope in the second resurrection.
-we are what we surround ourselves by, to challenge us our to affirm us.
-we need both the oasis of knowledge and the desert of unknowing; we are always pilgrims between the oasis and desert.
-the liturgical hour is a suspended space
-the Eucharist is transformative and empties ourselves.
-the whole text should be read Christologically—incarnation, death, and resurrection.
-we need the institution to be the actual agent of change in society.
-Church is a community that is militantly going about changing our lives because of our faith in/of Christ.