Marx and Freud and Nietzsche changed the way the world thought about itself in the twentieth century. Christianity, at least in its Western form, reacted in two different ways, Peter Rollins says. The majority shut their ears and ran back to primitive under-standings of religion. Others, fewer but deeply influential, decided they must bite the bullet and forge a new Christianity, based simply on the ethical teachings of Jesus and discarding the idea of 'God'. Both ways, in effect, give up on a meaningful faith.
If the Western Church is to prosper in the twenty-first century, Rollins is saying, it needs to re-engage with the ancient language of the mystical approach to God. This lost language is 'among the most stunning, sophisticated and simple ways of approaching faith'. Faith cannot be reduced to a regular visit to a religious building or the mechanical recitation of prayers. The real experience of faith is of being engulfed by a luminous transcendence. In it we move from speaking of God to 'being the place where God speaks'.
Christianity is not to be described but experienced. This path goes beyond individual religious traditions, replacing 'my truth' with a sense of being seduced and transformed by truth. And so it is truly ecumenical. The churches should not be attempting to give people food but the aroma which will draw them to food; not answers but a sacred space for exploration. Religious doubt is not a threatening darkness but an intimate darkness.
Peter Rollins is a lecturer in philosophy and the founder and leader of the Belfast faith community known as Ikon. The second half of this important book contains descriptions of several worship sessions organised by Ikon and usually held in a 'dilapidated, nondescript' Belfast bar.
HilaryWakeman
