How (Not) to Speak of God [Paperback]

"'This book brings together Christian mysticism, postmodern philosophy, and the practices and liturgies of an alternative worship community trying to make sense of Christianity in a postmodern environment. The results are stunning - original, provocative, and creative.' Jonny Baker 'In this calm, quiet, well-reasoned book, Peter Rollins bursts the silence and grinds the 'posts' into the nothing they have become. Here in pregnant bud is the rose, the emerging new configuration, of a Christianity that is neither Roman nor Protestant, neither Eastern nor monastic; but rather is the re-formation of all of them. Here, in pregnant bud, is third millennium Christendom.' Phyllis Tickle"

"Church Times" article on Greenbelt 2005 described Peter Rollins as 'holding a seminar spellbound', and Ikon's 'gentle, symbolic, and creative multimedia act of worship' as 'weird but wondrous'. The emerging church is still an embryonic movement, yet it currently faces a serious challenge. How it responds will reveal whether it is little more than the latest re-imagining of the evangelical tradition, designed to address the decline in church attendance, or a radical re-envisaging of faith. Having been born out of a post-modern sensitivity, Peter Rollins believes the emerging church is in a unique place to acknowledge the long forgotten insight that revelation embraces concealment; that our various interpretations of revelation will always be provisional, fragile and fragmentary; that we speak always with wounded words about a wounded Christ. The emerging church thus has the potential to leave aside the security blanket of certainty and recognize that what is important is that we embrace the beloved rather than somehow agree about how we understand this beloved, acknowledging that the God we follow touches us in deeply personal ways that are singular and which cannot be dissected via some universal understanding. "How (not) to Speak of God's" sustained exploration of the theory and praxis of emerging church is firmly anchored in an analysis of twelve Ikon services, on topics such as: 'The Prodigal Father', 'Risk' and 'Advent'.

PETER ROLLINS has a 1st class honours degree in scholastic philosophy, a Masters (with distinction) in political theory and social criticism, and a PhD for his thesis, 'His colour is our blood: A phenomenology of the prodigal father', all from Queens University Belfast, where he currently lectures in the philosophy of religion and ethics. He is the founder and current director of Ikon, an acclaimed post-secular project, actively exploring philosophy, spirituality and reconciliation, and a regular speaker at conferences, community groups and on BBC radio. He is currently working on a second book entitled, Being Evangelized, which is developing out of the course he teaches to YWAM (Youth with a Mission, an international, inter-denominational Christian movement).