{"id":18216,"date":"2013-09-24T15:20:31","date_gmt":"2013-09-24T19:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=18216"},"modified":"2013-09-27T16:15:57","modified_gmt":"2013-09-27T20:15:57","slug":"irish-theological-writer-sure-to-provoke-thought-maybe-controversy-with-emu-presentations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2013\/irish-theological-writer-sure-to-provoke-thought-maybe-controversy-with-emu-presentations\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish theological writer sure to provoke thought, maybe controversy, with EMU presentations"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Belfast-born writer who has excited many Jesus followers in the emergent church movement and disquieted many others will be sharing his provocative thoughts at four Eastern Mennonite University venues tomorrow (Sept. 24).<\/p>\n

The titles of Peter Rollins\u2019 books offer clues to his stream of thought:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Idolatry of God: Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty and Satisfaction (2013)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Insurrection: To Believe is Human; to Doubt, Divine (2011)<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Orthodox Heretic: And Other Impossible Tales (2009)<\/p>\n

\u2022 How (Not) to Speak of God (2006)<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief (2008)<\/p>\n

In his amazon.com bio<\/a>, Rollins is characterized as \u201ca provocative writer, lecturer, storyteller and public speaker who has gained an international reputation for overturning traditional notions of religion and forming \u2018churches\u2019 that preach the Good News that we can’t be satisfied, that life is difficult, and that we don’t know the secret.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview posted at religiondispatches.org<\/a> last April, Peter Rollins said: \u201cSome of my critics say I\u2019m telling them to doubt, but that\u2019s not it. I\u2019m saying you\u2019re already full of doubts. It acts the same way as alcohol abuse \u2013 the alcohol makes you feel better about yourself, but then you have this hangover where you realize you\u2019re just covering over some sort of brokenness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m saying when you\u2019re in church around people who believe the same thing and you\u2019re reading all those books, it feels great, but then, at night over a drink with a friend in a bar, you feel like that there must be a better way. It [i.e., the usual form of church attendance] prevents us from encountering our own brokenness and working through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This interview sparked 50 online comments, with the readers strongly debating each other.<\/p>\n

Rollins will be the chapel speaker at 10 a.m. in Lehman Auditorium, followed by a \u201ctalk back\u201d at 10:45 a.m. in the student-run coffee house, Common Grounds<\/a> in University Commons. At 4 p.m. Rollins is speaking at the University Colloquium at the MainStage Theater<\/a> on “the idolatry of God.” He wraps up the day with a 7:30 p.m. conversation with members of EMU\u2019s Free-Thought Coalition in Strite Conference room of the Campus Center. All of these events are free and open to the public.<\/p>\n

In his religiondispatches.org interview, Rollins called for people to \u201ccreate a place where there is no Jew or Gentile, no male or female, atheists or theists, gay or straight.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThat\u2019s the good news of Christianity for me. It\u2019s not that you can be happy and whole, but rather that life is crap and you don\u2019t know the answers. It\u2019s good news to be freed from the oppression that there\u2019s something that\u2019s going to make it all better. When you\u2019re free from that and begin to work through your brokenness and suffering with a set of rituals, practices and sacraments that help us encounter our humanity, I think we become more loving, more beautiful, more grace-filled people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Educated at Queens University in Belfast, Rollins holds degrees in scholastic philosophy (BA Hons), political theory (MA) and post-structural thought (PhD). His EMU visit is sponsored by the Bible and religion department<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Belfast-born writer who has excited many Jesus followers in the emergent church movement and disquieted many others will be sharing his provocative thoughts at four Eastern Mennonite University venues ... read more about Irish theological writer sure to provoke thought, maybe controversy, with EMU presentations<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":18218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5583,14184,5185,409],"tags":[15108,11933],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-18216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community","category-campus-guests","category-campus-ministries","category-chapel","tag-peter-rollins","tag-university-chapel"],"yoast_head":"\nIrish theological writer sure to provoke thought, maybe controversy, with EMU presentations - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2013\/irish-theological-writer-sure-to-provoke-thought-maybe-controversy-with-emu-presentations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Irish theological writer sure to provoke thought, maybe controversy, with EMU presentations - 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