To the founder of Theopoetics.net

I am very excited to be included on your website.

The occasion of your website is a cause for celebration. The website its self is an Theopoetic – an event of God-Speak situated within the language by which our ages hopes and dreams are voiced and using technology by which future thinking is shaped. A quick, and not thorough I should add, glance around the internet shows that there is no liberationtheology.com, processtheology.com or constructivetheology.com. While there are innumerable websites that reference, debate or by which articles in this field can be accessed I have found no single site which attempts to rally the movement of that theology to its self. Your website, a rallying point for the Theopoetic community, is a first and a rarity.

This it’s self is interesting and allows us to further understand why the Theopoetic endeavor is important. The crime of much of what is called the ‘academic’ is that what we construct as ‘academic’ is its self a part of the capitalist model that much of our theology seeks to critique. The ideas and theory constructed in the academy are done so by individuals who produce, consume and discard their theories as new fads, trends and theories come into view. I am not criticizing this as such; it is important to be in touch with the latest thinking and theories. I only bring this up to recognize that theology has tended to be a ‘solitary’ act and an act dependent on the consumer moods of the academic world.

What we can come to here is that the Theopoetic is a post-academic theology, or at least allows for it. And you are correct, I have criticized the faddishness of most theology and I have jumped into the trend of putting a ‘post’ before a word. And by calling it a post-academic theology I do not mean to say that is a theology outside or beyond the scope of the academy and the academic theologian. To borrow a phrase from Ken Wilber, the force behind Integral Philosophy – the Theopoetic ‘includes and transcends’ the academic.

To illustrate this I will turn to Marianne Sawickis concept, mentioned in passing in her book ‘Seeing the Lord’, of the three tables of theology. Sawicki says that theology should be constructed from a meeting of the academic, the worshipping community, and the hungers and desires of the poor. Not as three separate forces working in isolation but as a communal event. A theology born in such a manner escapes the consumer market mentality of the academy and returns to its roots as a source for communal life and provocation towards justice. The Theopoet would remind Sawicki of a fourth table as well – the insights, hungers and articulations of the artist.

The danger for both theology and poetry is in its ineffectiveness and its retreat from the world into specialized fields. Poet/essayist/farmer Wendell Berry point out that poetry has become a specialized field of a few with a self-generating audience of MFA students and former MFA students. The danger of this is that poetry then becomes art for arts sake exercise with no responsibility to the world beyond the impulses – an erotic urge so to speak – of the artist who created it. Poetry becomes a sort of self love, an intellectual and emotional masturbation.

The application to theology is obvious. MA and M.div students, theology Phd students etc become consumer-producers for a self generating market. In the meantime the masturbatory nature being as it is, the pews for which theology is generated become increasingly isolated from the thinking of the churches/communities theologians. We become a field of ‘theology for theology’s sake’ with out considering our communal responsibilities. This is why theology – why a Theopoetic working from a 4-table model – is a post-academic theology. The 4-tables is about lovers embracing.

The Theopoetic by its nature – which says our stories and symbols have meaning, our hungers have meaning, our dreams have meaning, the life and death of our communities have meaning, that the God whom we focus on but is never finally definable (thus, poetry) - has an implication. When we resort to a ‘theology for theologies’ sake, if our theological endeavors become a race up an academic career ladder or a career instead of a vocation and divorced from the community’s life, we have just insisted to the world that theology and poetry have no gift or implication for the world.

The Theopoetic challenge before people like ourselves is to insist to the world that theology and poetry (by which we can/may/do mean the mythic and narrative hungers of our age) still have a role to play. Plato’s republic was threatened by God-speakers, theologians, poets who spoke about the Gods. Plato could say this because he knew poetry, and God-Speak, contained the voices of those power trampled on. Likewise he knew a good poem, good God-Speak, could pose a question so powerful that the people would swerve, change their course, lead into a new life and a new way of being.

In the Theopoetic world our primary source documents by which we construct our theologies do not exist primarily in the peer-reviewed journals (include and transcend). Instead the Theopoetic can choose as its primary documentation vandalism, chapbooks, editorials, alternative newspapers, poetry, film, advertising etc. For example the Theopoetic task, I hope, will work like the video art of Diane Derr (this authors sister). Diane Derr presents screens of ordinary objects – three women with lollipops – and allows us to be impacted by the underlying sexual implications of ordinary objects. The publications of the Theopoet, I am hopeful, will move into such work. The web provides an opportunity for us to deliver multi-platform publications integrating scholarly research with artistic delivery, feedback from communities etc. Storytelling nights in public venues, poetry nights etc also function as publications of the Theopoet – though again I insist we avoid any ‘art for arts sake’ and ‘spectacle for spectacles sake’. I’m sure that Theopoets of the future will discover other multi and single platform opportunities for publication.

We are the future of Theology.

Jason Derr

MA in Theological Studies, Vancouver School of Theology (on leave)

Chaplain Assistant, Lutheran/Anglican Campus Ministry – Simon Fraser University (lamm.ca).

Theopoetic As Way Forward

The Theopoetic as Way Forward.

By Jason Derr

Chaplaincy Assistant – LAMM(Lutheran/Anglican Mountaintop Ministry) – SFU

THE CHURCH AS S/HE IS LIVED

The unavoidable truth is that the church as we know it is dying. Wherever I travel in the church I hear grumbling about shrinking attendance, the increasing isolation of the church from the post-modern generation and the lack of relevance of faith to the world. Add to that the arguments, bitter disputes and controversy’s which cut straight to our heart of what it means to be ‘church’ in today’s world and our dilemma starts to become clear.

As a person involved in ministry – Chaplaincy Assistant at Simon Fraser University – I feel like I’m expected to defend the church, and as a theological student and theologian I feel as if I am expected to do border patrols around the church insisting on some sort of ‘true Lutheran’ doctrine. Such a view leaves me feeling as if my only obligation – as a Christian and Lutheran – is toward preserving a certain ideal of church that is located in certain faith contexts.

I cannot in good faith do either of these. If the church is dying – or in my preferred language, transforming – there is little we can do to stop it. Both liberal and conservative members of the church (brothers and sisters all, lest we forget) falsely believe a redirection in theology will bring new members to us in droves. And as a member of the post-modern generation I am also post-Lutheran. My identity is rooted in Lutheran liturgical language, Eucharistic imagery and the life of the church. But I am also a post-modern Christian, with little interest in denomination divides, doctrinal wars and the latest church fads. I am much more interested in a faith that speaks to the human condition as s/he is lived today. To use the words of Intregal Philosopher Ken Wilber, as a post-Lutheran I seek to ‘include and transcend’ my Lutheran roots.

The current controversy of the church – and this one will fade eventually to make room for the next – is the conversation around homosexuality, the bible and the life of the church. Many times in this conversation I hear much complaint around the divide between pulpit and pew. Again and again I hear that the theologically minded of the pulpit and the pew which has had less time to peruse such interests usually have a gap in thinking between the two.

In another phrase; theology has become a task separate from the life-work of the community. The crime of this is that theology is, theoretically, created for the community. That there is a gap in theological literacy between pulpit and pew speaks to a crime of ineffecitude on the part of theology. Can theology be seen as a responsibility of the community?

THE THEOPOETIC

And it is here that the problem lies. My own work focuses on the role of the Theopoetic as theological method. Dr. Scott Holland defines the Theopoetic as:

Good theology is a kind of transgression, a kind of excess, a kind of gift. It is not a smooth systematics, a dogmatics, or a metaphysics; as a theopoetics it is a kind of writing. It is a kind of writing that invites more writing. Its narratives lead to other narratives, its metaphors encourages new metaphors, its confessions more confessions...

-Scott Holland

from Theology Is a Kind of Writing

If we use the Theopoetic to create a conversation bridge between the theological and the poetic then we can come to a very simple but sincere conclusion. Theology shares the same problem of being that poetry does. Poet/Essayist/Philosopher/Farmer Wendell Berry names the failure of poetry as its insistence on specialization. Poetry has become an ‘art for arts sake’ task by people working on an MFA in poetry or who have an MFA in poetry writing for each other. It is a self-generating market. The idea that poetry has an obligation, responsibility and role in the culture has been lost to us.

We can likewise see the implications for theology as it regards the pulpit/pew divide. Those who have or work on an MA, M.div or PhD in theology tend to work and write in a virtual bubble where there work is only consumed by others who have or are working toward similar degrees. Upon graduation from seminary the theologically educated pastor or priest finds his ability to speak from his theological convictions limited due to the preference of the congregation or the fear of being labeled a heretic.

The Theopoetic, as I have defined it above, insists on a sort of post-academic theology. To return to the words of Ken Wilber the post-academic is not an abandonment of the academic – a fool-hearty task if their ever was one – but instead asks that theology work inside the world of the congregation, sitting in position between pulpit and pew and thus enabling the relevance of the church.

When poetry becomes ‘art for arts sake’ and stops insisting that the words, ideas and language by which we name the world have relevance then we have retreated into a sort of artistic abandonment of the world. Likewise if we allow a divide between pulpit and pew, if we insist on ‘theology for theologies sake’ or as a purely academic exercise divorced from the church’s life then we have insisted that the church has no relevance for our age.

If the church grows or shrinks is not the issue before us. The church, as churches always have through time, will change to better minister and speak to its cultural and social location. I am content that new ways of being church and being Lutheran will emerge. The task before us is to envision a church that is relevant so that transformation is a healthy one for the world (and not just the church).

The church – like poetry and theology – has become in many ways a task for and of itself. The longer we insist on church as a separate realm of being from the rest of life – a Sunday morning lifechoice instead of a 24/7 lifestyle – the more it will become segregated from the life of the world.

With that in mind we can say that if the church must turn to a Theopoetic as a way forward, as a way of allowing the theological conversation to exist as a task of the whole community and not as an exclusive few, then we must begin to imagine the church as a Theopoetic in the wider community and culture. The church must envision it’s self as a voice among a multiplicity of voices.

A MULTI-TABLED THEOLOGY

When we speak of theology as being a post-academic pursuit then we by rights are insisting that the community itself function as theologian and has a purpose and voice in the community. To say we include and transcend the academic is to say we work with the insights and revelations of academic fields but add to that our communal insights and artistic endeavors that name our human and spiritual desires that may fall outside of the community .To better clarify what I mean by such a phrase I will turn to the work of Marianne Sawicki.

Sawicki, a Catholic theologian, in her book ‘Seeing the Lord’ makes a passing reference to the idea that theology is a meeting of three tables of theological discourse. Table one would be the academic. Any endeavourer to speak theologically would be amiss if it did not take into consideration the historical and latest conversations of theology, philosophy, sociology and many other fields. The second table would be the voices, concerns, life and reality of the worshipping community. The third table would be the hunger and desires of the poor and the marginalized, those whom the world calls least and Christ calls greatest. We included them as participants in our conversation for we must remember the insights and contributions of those whom are outside the church, who are on occasion trampled by the church and who the church is called to serve.

In this way the community takes on the task of theologian. By applying a multitude of voices from multiple communities we prevent theology from becoming a solitary act. Additionally it recognizes the gifts and contributions of those both inside and outside the community and brings their voices, observations and conversations to bear.

In no way am I trying to indicate that I feel that such a move will rescue the church. As stated previously I have little or no concern about the survival of the church. I am confident that the church will survive, though I also assume that the form it takes will evolve. Nor am I proposing a way in which to negotiate the pulpit-pew divide as it regards the issue of homosexuality.

The multi-tabled theology does not even need to insist on a consensus between the three tables. The works produced in such way can be a joint publication, a midrash, a joint statement, a public forum or a public action. The theopoetic encourages us to view the artistic, the poetic, fiction, vandalism and the internet as primary documentation for theology. In order to avoid the solitary action of the academic theology the task we are discussing here would allow for an multi-platform publication: websites that combine scholarship with video/sound/art/poetry and community discussion, gallery shows and chapbook and zine publishing as well as traditional peer-reviewed academic publishing.

Instead I am proposing a form by which the church can enter into the task of asserting its self as a relevant place of public discourse. A multi-tabled, post-academic, theopoetic theology could provide formats by which the community as theologian can enter into the public conversation. Likewise, theology in such a collaborative model allows for a multiplicity of voices and a flow of conversation between previously segregated disciplines.

Berry’s critique of poetry applies to this as well. When we allow the life of the church to become specialized – worship over here, justice and service over here, and theology in another corner all together – we neuter the church and its voice. The multi-tabled and theopoetic insist on the role of the voice of Spirit in public consciousness. This does not necessarily mean a purely Christian voice, but insists that the multiple voices of spirit come into consideration.

Theopoetic Notes

Inspired by Jan Zwicky, Wittenstein, Rubem Alves etc...all those who blut the line between theology/philosophy/poetry - i give you these fragments.
1) To do theology as theopoetic enables us to do theology as not just an academic endeavourer but also as an exercise of communities on the ground dealing with the realities of their mission and to listen to the voices of the poor and marginalized, those who feel they have no place in our liturgical assemblies’ and who have been cut off from the world of the academy by economic realities, learning styles or life choices.

2) And to the ends that our work allows we want to take seriously this notion that the responsibility of the theologian in the new millennium, in the age after Christendom, is to take up the task of engaging with our ‘unconscious axioms and symbolics[1]’ by bridging the worlds of our imaginations and social drama. All theologies are by nature political, as are our spiritual practices whether in the contemplative movement, or as William Stringfellow has shown, in the experiences and spiritual ecstasies of the charismatic and Pentecostal movements[2].

3) This theopoetic of the cross continues to imagine the cross in a movement towards the edges of our society and culture. A theopoetic of the cross tries to imagine the ways in which crucifixion exists as a reality in our own day and age

4) To construct our theopoetry we will not only be working with and developing Wilders idea of the theopoetic. In addition to this we will be working with the style of writing suggested by Alves and Guynn’s notion, as well of that as Scott Holland[3] that theopoetics – as theology and as social action – are a ‘type of writing’[4]. Marianne Sawickis 3-tables will play a vital role in our attempt to articulate what this may mean and Adi Da Samraj’s book “The Mummery Book” provides an example of a form the theopoetic can take.

5. Our exploration of the theopoetic presents certain specific challenges to us. Very few major works have been written exploring the theopoetic and only one book has actually been written presenting its self as an example of the theopoetic[5].

4. After addressing the early theology of the cross in Luther I will then explore the roll it played in some theological thinking where the pursuit of suffering was prized and the cross was used as an example of obedience even unto suffering and persecution.

5. These insights will be placed next to the work of Bob Eckblad and his ‘The Peoples Seminary’. Eckblad is a Presbyterian theologian/pastor doing liberation theology with immigrant communities. Eckblad has found that the majority of his ministry is with immigrants with Pentecostal backgrounds, and as such developed language, ideas, images and worships inspired by the meeting of liberation theology and Pentecostal worship[6].

6. As Guiterreze states, a new creation of the poor that must happen, assuming that their can be a time in history when all things are made perfect and human nature is somehow removed. It is to a new creation of the church that we must turn.

7. Altmann explores Luther as a man who had to understand himself in his own weakness[7].[8]

---

[1] Cite again?

[2] Stringfellow, William. An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land. (Eugene, Oregean: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1973) 146-151

[3] Holland, Scott. “Theology is a kind of writing: the emergence of theopoetics”…..

[4] Guynn, 100

[5] though I am sure other examples can be found by books and organizations alike who are just ‘doing’ the work with out worrying about our limiting labels.

[6] Eckblad

[7] Altmann, 2

[8] this along with his theology of the cross and Caputo’s ‘The Weakness of God’ will provide us with conversation points in how to address the powerful weakness of God and the Cross.

Priesthood of the Beliver - ROUGH DRAFT

I am often asked by my seminary and church colleagues if I feel limited in my calling by not pursuing the path of ordination. The tragedy of such a question is that it misses an important reality of the life of the laity in the church: they are already ordained by their faith and the identity named as their reality in baptism (if by water or holy spirit is of no concern). Any limitation I may feel in my calling originates in the institution of the church and not with the Holy Spirit. In fact when I turn my attention to the holy gospels and to that radical troublemaker and Holy One of God, Jesus Christ, then I am more than able to recognize that I am, as a believer, a member of the Priesthood of All Believers which is the highest form of ordination the church has to offer.

That last statement may cause some to pause and scratch their heads. The ordained priest is a member of the laity who has been forced into a restricted ministry. The community appoints – ordains – this one person to exercise Word, Sacrament and Mercy ministries in such a way that his/her ministry is restrained from participating in the full life of the Ordained Believer. This person is set aside and restricted in their ministry as a visible example of the true reality of those of us who sit in the pew. The ordained priest takes on the symbolic ministries, the light on the hill so to speak, of the realities that the laity must live.

For example we have set aside the role of the priest to perform the Eucharist in public worship. In seminary we jokingly refer to this as receiving the ‘magic hands’ in ordination, the ability to bless the elements. I must recognize here that I am speaking for my own Anglican/Lutheran tradition and that other traditions have other realties. Please bear with my argument as I feel that in the long run there are trans-denominational implications. The assumption then by many is that the priest and the priest alone has the ability to name the grace of God that is a reality in the Eucharist. This is so far from the truth that it would be funny if it were not a common assumption. The priest is the enactor of the symbol of what the community of Priests lives. What the priest does on a Sunday to the elements is the summation of what we are called to do. This is not to say that the Sunday Eucharist is not the Real Presence, but it is to say that the Real Presence of the Sunday Eucharist functions as a powerful narrative symbol of the reality that the Priesthood of Believer is called to live everyday.

While the priest can preside over this one meal and use it to surmise what all members of the Priesthood are called to do, we the regular Ordained Believers are given the holy task of naming all meals as holy meals. Every time we gather with family, friends, strangers we are called upon to name that meal as ministry and as a place where we can encounter the Real Presence of Christ in the world. This is even more radical as we come to recognize international food crisis’s, poverty and hunger in the world and our own dependence on foods designed to be unhealthy. To share a meal in radical welcome to share that bounty with out regard to persons is to name the real presence of God in Christ in that meal.

The Priesthood of the Believer, unlike the ordinary priest who is limited in his or her task, needs no words of institution to perform this sacrament. The Ordinary Beliver may choose to bless a meal or activity but that is of no regard. It is by participating in a radical welcome and ministry of hospitality that we name the Real Presence. Here again the ordinary priest is limited in their work. They must perform a ritual in order to do what I can do by making a sandwich , lending an ear and advocating for justice.

This is the danger of having and empowered laity. Living into my ordination is to make this danger real, to name all meals that are shared together as Eucharistic events, Agape Meals, in which we proclaim the unconditional welcome and acceptance of God. The early church knew itself as being engaged in the making of families, where women, men, children, slaves and foreigners by their faith belonged to each other in a new type of family.The equality that society could not share the church lived. In our own world where so many must eat alone due to poverty, illness, war, drug abuse, addiction and relationship disconnection, where so many are rendered unequal the task of the Priesthood of Believers is kick doors open and name the overlooked holy spaces of our world. Not only do we make meals holy we also name all places where people gather as holy, we enact Mercy and Pastoral Care with each other and we proclaim the Word-As-Event in bible study and public witness. We are able to engage in what Gustavo Guttierreze calls the ‘sacrament of the neighbor’ and what I call the ‘sacrament of the ordinary’ – we are called to participate in the ordinariness of the world and name it as holy, as places of grace and real presence.

I am grateful for those people who choose to have their ministries restricted by official ordination, but to be honest I do not fully understand it. To be a member of the Priesthood of the Believer is to celebrate sacrament while the priest who is officially ordained can only enact a reminder, a symbol, a summary of what has happened during the week. There is power in that symbol and there is a mighty strength in it but it is nothing compared to what the true Priesthood is able to do.

In the future I hope this Empowered Laity will take up the call of Priesthood wherever they will be. I hope we will always welcome people to our tables, will engage in acts of mercy and justice. We are too dependent on those people whose roles are limited by official ordination. It is not up to Bishops, Congregations and Synods (or what have you) to engage in ministry. It is the task of the Priesthood of The Believer to live into their ordinations and to work as priests in the world. I am hopeful that we will see more small groups, house churches and worship parties as well as Priesthood Teams who will take on the roles of Pastoral Care, Preaching and Ministry. I hope we will see the rise of the Agape Meal in both public worship and private use as a true sacrament that belongs to the Ordained Believer.

If we face with honesty the fact that the church is dying and numbers are shrinking then we must also recognize that the role and function of the church is also changing. I am hopeful that the true ordained, the Ordinary Believer, will recognize this for the incredible possibility it is and the ways in which it contains the future of the church. We cannot let the fears of the Officially Ordained and the institution of the church get in the way of us naming the gift of our faith and acting it out in the world. It is up to the Priesthood of the Believer to not save the church but to find new ways of being church, to recognize that no matter the size of the church or its financial situation the call of Christ and the Holy Spirit must go on even if that means redefining what the gift of the church is in the world. It is up to the priests who sit in the pews to make this happen.

Jason Derr, POTB (Priesthood Of The Believer).

MA student, Vancouver School of Theology

Creed

Tirechan's Credo

Our God is the God of all humans.
The God of heaven and earth.
The God of the sea and the rivers.
The God of the Sun and the Moons.
The God of all the heavenly bodies.
The God of the lofty mountains.
The God of the lowly valleys.
God is above the heavens,
and he is in the heavens;
and he is beneath the heavens.
Heaven and earth and sea,
and everything that is in them,
such he has as his abode.
He inspires all things,
he gives life to all things,
he stands above all things,
and he stands beneath all things.
He enlightens the light of the sun,
he strengthens the light of the night and the stars,
he makes wells in the arid land and dry islands in
the sea,
and he places the stars in the service of the greater lights.
He has a son who is co-eternal with himself,
and similiar in all respects to himself;
and neither is the Son younger than the Father,
nor is the Father older than the Son;
and the Holy Spirit breathes in them.
And the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are
inseparable.

it looks like its going to rain tonight
and i,
with no lover,
will sit by the rain with tea
dream of songs i could sing to the mirror
listen for the voice of God
in the stilling air.

I dont belong here.
I cant be loved.
I cant learn.

Why am i here God?
Why cant she love me?
Whats so wrong with me?