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You read Peter Rollins’ blog, right?

Of course you do, because if you didn’t you would miss out on thoughts like this:

In Paul’s definition of the trash-people as the divine collective the crap and the holy are joined together in a type of parallax similar to what we find in the wave-particle duality discovered by physicists.

By employing the logic of Paul we can then claim that the ‘place of no-place’ which the outsider marks is nothing less than the holy site where our world is constantly under threat of being undone.

Theologically speaking the complete outsider, who we treat as dead, thus haunts us as a type of sacred undead. An idea that is beautifully captured in the proclamation of Paul that God chose ‘the things that are not–to nullify the things that are..


21 April 2013
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In olden times before phones were smart we called this a ‘blogroll’

A thing we old people like to do to amuse ourselves is to subscribe to ‘blogs’ via ‘feed readers’. Many of you youngsters won’t understand these things because you haven’t found the secret click combination to get outside of Facebook or else you aren’t sure what to do with writing that is longer than 140 characters. But some of you kids might want to experience the old-fashioned Internet. If that’s you, there is a small chance you may enjoy some of the things on the non-exhaustive list of what I like to read and look at.

Comics, illustration, design

  1. Doodlemum – these are way better than doodles
  2. Dresden Codak – cyborg sci-fi in a weird world
  3. False Positive – webcomic tales of the surreal, fantastic and macabre
  4. Happle Tea – a funny and insightful webcomic about mythology and other things
  5. Hark a Vagrant – Kate Beaton is excellently superly excellent
  6. Doodlemum
  7. Illustration Art – insightful commentary on the world of illustration
  8. Jill Lorraine Turpin has a great take on family life
  9. Marlo Meekins is much funnier and stranger than most people
  10. Nimona – when the sidekick has actual powers and doesn’t follow the supervillain rules
  11. Punching the Clock – surviving the daily fail of big box retail
  12. RUTH AND ANNABEL RUIN EVERYTHING – it’s in all caps for a reason
  13. Ryan Andrews – beautiful engrossing short story comics
  14. Sin Titulo – It’s going to take a while to read, and it will suck you in. Clear your afternoon schedule
  15. The Abominable Charles Christopher – he’s actually not abominable at all
  16. the johnson banks thought for the week is the blog of my favourite UK design studio
  17. Thrillbent’s Insufferable – What happens when you’re a crimefighter and your sidekick grows up to be an arrogant, ungrateful douchebag? What on Earth could draw the two of you back together again?
  18. Willow Wood Starfall – gorgeous comic in a nouveau style
  19. XKCD – a webcomic of romance,
    sarcasm, math, and language.

Lots of words in a row

  1. Doors of Perception – John Thackara’s blog about design, energy and the planet’s future
  2. Heresy Corner – questioning received wisdom on culture, politics and religion
  3. Kester Brewin – Peter Rollins’ mate writes about pirates, theology, education and stuff
  4. Michael Rosen – author and former children’s laureate blogs mostly about education, especially how Michael Gove is ruining everything
  5. Peter Rollins – pyrotheology
  6. What If? – the author of xkcd answers hypothetical questions with physics and funny

Good blogs I’m not reading right now because I’m taking a break from American Christianity and politics

  1. Greg Boyd – with all the shouty Calvinists about it’s nice to be reminded the bible has other salvation metaphors and visions of eternity
  2. Matthew Paul Turner – obvs
  3. John Michael Greer – Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society. Don’t let the ‘druid’ throw you. This guy is a genius
  4. Larry Shallenberger – author, pastor, writer of this blog that I really like even though he sometimes writes about sports
  5. Love is what you do – she’s actually living the gospel in real life
  6. Rachel Held Evans – obvs
  7. The Beautiful Due – I’m not a fan of poetry. I love this guy’s poetry
  8. Two Friars and a Fool – theology and culture with an emergy kind of vibe

What do you like to read and look at?


21 August 2012
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That nasty Old Testament Hate Your Enemies thing

Ever since Marcion was declared a heretic, a lot of smart people have done a lot of work trying to reconcile the violence of the Old Testament with the love of the New Testament. Peter Rollins now offers his take. In typical Rollinsy style he ignores the dilemma that most people have been wrestling with and drops in a clever gem of an idea: the violence is in there because we need it. It helps us acknowledge and defuse our own anger. Click, read and ponder, dear friends.


28 July 2012
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You monster!

Ciaran Duffy:

illustration by Ciaran Duffy: Monstermask

Peter Rollins:

Whenever we encounter a person as “other” (i.e. as having beliefs and engaging in practices that are foreign to us) we can often experience them as monstrous. In other words, their beliefs and practices appear unfounded and can repel us, confuse us and even frighten us (sometimes for good reason). However there is what Slavoj Žižek calls the authentic multicultural experience. This is where, instead of looking at the other, we experience ourselves being looked at. Here we have the earth-shattering experience of glimpsing ourselves through the eyes of the other and encountering our own practices and beliefs as monstrous. (Keep reading; it’s good all the way through!)


21 March 2012
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I tease because I’m a fan

The photo was stolen from Peter Rollins’ Flickr, but the caption is mine, with a little assistance from St Paul.


17 November 2011
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Encounter with Jesus

My church has been doing a sermon series about people’s encounters with Jesus. I have been thinking about the difference between some of the encounters in the Gospels and the stories that church members have been telling about their encounters with Jesus. I’ve also been thinking about John Michael Greer’s recent posts about binary thinking and about Peter Rollins’ retelling of John 9 (Jesus healing the blind man) in his book The Orthodox Heretic. Once I stirred it around enough, this poem came out. I performed it this morning at church.

Listen:

I never knew Jesus when he was a man
with a plan for the planet of a kingdom that would span it.
I didn’t watch him walk on water
or tell Jairus’s daughter,
‘Little girl, I say to you arise.’
She rose,
but not while I was watching.
The blind guy with Jesus Mud in his eye who washed and could see –
That wasn’t me.
I wonder what did happen to me that made my blind eyes see,
even though my eyeballs are 38 and not what they used to be?

You see,
Jesus lived and died and was resurrected 2,000 years before
my folks went to bed unprotected
and theologians detected – are God’s stories
historical
or metaphorical?
I can’t be categorical about what really happens at the moment
when the darkness passes.

When you took off your dark glasses,
whether you were taking classes
or smoking grasses
or making passes at lovely lasses,
in that moment –
whether you were in a cathedral singing,
standing under the cold rain stinging
your face, in a café wringing
your heart out to a dear friend –
in that moment
something changed.
Everything changed.
Everything stayed the same.

BUT SOMETHING CHANGED.

And it is
so real but you cannot see it,
so solid but you can’t grasp it,
so you clasp it to your heart,
these words that sound so absurd
when heard aloud among the madding crowd:
‘I was blind but now I see.
Jesus rescued me.’
This is why we try poetry;
science will never fully explain or contain
the refrain of a heart that has been set free.
You see?


6 November 2011
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You should probably watch this video in which Peter Rollins explains how the thing you think is the resistance is often just a vent that maintains the status quo


Material Faith from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.


23 August 2011
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Faith is not Belief

A really good thing to do right now is to read and think about this post by Peter Rollins. Peter also talks about faith and belief in this Easter conversation with Tony Jones at Revolution NYC.


27 April 2011
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