tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post161055790799649533..comments2024-03-25T13:40:30.747-04:00Comments on Faith and Theology: Rowan Williams and kenotic ecclesiologyBen Myershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-69159035185010484572008-09-08T20:52:00.000-04:002008-09-08T20:52:00.000-04:00Sorry for the slow reply, and sorry to those I'd p...Sorry for the slow reply, and sorry to those I'd planned to talk with on the last two days of the conference -- I wasn't very well last week, and I just wasn't able to make it back to the conference.<BR/><BR/>Anyways, on the question of publication: yes, this paper was based mainly on an essay which is coming out shortly in a collection on Rowan Williams (details <A HREF="http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2006/08/benjamin-myers-publications.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>). Other parts of the paper (including the excerpt here on "kenosis and apocalypse") are from a different essay which I'm currently writing about Williams' theology in relation to the Anglican crisis.Ben Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-70529781784523879112008-09-08T04:21:00.000-04:002008-09-08T04:21:00.000-04:00Yeah, fair enough. I guess my point was: square th...Yeah, fair enough. I guess my point was: square the Erastianism of the C of E with this power-critique. It's hard to do.michael jensenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15379361601019023165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-22956362534417201892008-09-06T17:10:00.000-04:002008-09-06T17:10:00.000-04:00"who lives in a palace,"Actually, Williams lives i..."who lives in a palace,"<BR/><BR/>Actually, Williams lives in a modest apartment with his family.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-19772909486281388522008-09-06T16:23:00.000-04:002008-09-06T16:23:00.000-04:00In what way do you feel Gillian Rose`s work imping...In what way do you feel Gillian Rose`s work impinges on Williams overall work. I am reading Shanks and Fraser`s work on Rose. They feel Rose`s Broken Middle articlulates Williams attempts towards the importance of unity over particularity I particularly would like to read the whole article. I also am going to read Williams DosteovskyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-45600002569740855572008-09-06T13:13:00.000-04:002008-09-06T13:13:00.000-04:00All, The first part of the week, Ben's daughter wa...All, <BR/><BR/>The first part of the week, Ben's daughter was pretty sick, and then Ben caught what his daughter had, and so missed the last couple of days of the conference...he is likely still recovering -- and he is also heading to Princeton right away from what I recall...<BR/><BR/>So, be patient...<BR/><BR/>I'll put up my own report on Rome perhaps tomorrow -- I'm still very jetlagged at the moment, though! <BR/><BR/>Peace,<BR/><BR/>dave belcherDave Belcherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08964414652031988664noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-59992000528253088842008-09-06T03:55:00.000-04:002008-09-06T03:55:00.000-04:00Hello, I'm just a passing visitor.A very interesti...Hello, I'm just a passing visitor.<BR/><BR/>A very interesting post. I think, though, that there should be some distinction made between: <BR/><BR/>A the church renouncing the claim to any authoritative grasp of the truth because the truth comes into the church from outside<BR/><BR/>and<BR/><BR/>B the church using actually renouncing the truth it is supposed to be the signpost for.<BR/><BR/>The church does NOT have to make a choice between doctrinal 'bones' (truth) and social 'flesh' (vulnerability). Modelling church on only one of these is a disaster, whichever one is chosen. The truth, then, is bones from God, not from the church, but they are still bones.<BR/><BR/>Or, to clarify, renouncing an unbiblical authority of the church concerning the truth, should not mean renouncing the authority of the truth itself, which is where Williams does often fail, and why there is such a rift in the Anglican Communion. Saying one is not the final authority on doctrine is no excuse for being deliberately blurry on unpopular doctrines.<BR/><BR/>I am happy to be corrected if I have misunderstood your point.Mike Bullhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00160881512505096044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-65992290700067049482008-09-05T03:02:00.000-04:002008-09-05T03:02:00.000-04:001/ Ben, it is a blessing to meet one who shares th...1/ Ben, it is a blessing to meet one who shares the same messianic vision in that 'e-church', though there is not a real personal contact...<BR/>well done!<BR/><BR/>2/ Kim, let me say (out a personal love for the late Gillian) that since Williams is at the same time a man of authority he occupies a broken-broken middle...<BR/>(i make this pun having in mind a similar case in the face of Archbishop of Greece Ieronimos; a man who struggles to keep his messianic freedom being the head of an institution of power)<BR/><BR/>/vβασίλης ψύλληςhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05018631874518187936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-40281813695312213602008-09-03T15:30:00.000-04:002008-09-03T15:30:00.000-04:00Ben, Warmest congratulations on your presentation-...Ben, <BR/><BR/>Warmest congratulations on your presentation- and envy! How amazing to participate in that conference.<BR/><BR/>An interesting counterpoint might come from Paul's impassioned plea for edification (with its attendent sense of empowerment, cohesion, health, battle-readiness, etc) to serve as the guiding norm and criterion for adjudicating 'doctrinal' discourse within the ecclesial community... I'm thinking of I Cor 14 in particular.MMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14169520137196027425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-5830981120963474922008-09-03T09:35:00.000-04:002008-09-03T09:35:00.000-04:00Kim, if by accurate you mean what we get when a sc...Kim, if by accurate you mean what we get when a scientist examines a jellyfish, then I'd agree.<BR/><BR/>Seriously, though, yes, RW occupies the broken middle, and I don't envy him in the slightest. Only time will tell if his was a paralyzed or persuasive episcopate.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05006685610827238652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-56865912207625430692008-09-03T06:06:00.000-04:002008-09-03T06:06:00.000-04:00Ben, thanks for your comments on Rowan Williams. L...Ben, thanks for your comments on Rowan Williams. Like others, I'd be interested in reading the entire paper. But I have a couple of comments about the small section on the blog. Firstly,I think your combination of apocalyptic and kenosis that you ascribe to RW is very powerful and ideally I think it would be great if it were accurate. Perhaps it once was and perhaps in intent it still is, but I have to say that I see little trace of it in his final address at Lambeth 08. Secondly, I do not know whether he is willing to fail, but given his tenacity in holding fast to the Anglican Communion, that, at least, is one thing where he wills not to fail. I agree that much of the discourse is replete with the imagery of kenosis but then I find myself weighing up just how this comports with his desire for an Anglican covenant. <BR/><BR/>As the polarisation in the Anglican church becomes more entrenched the present RW begins to sound less and less like the RW pre-Canterbury. As unity begins to harden into uniformity (remembering that he is one of the 4 instruments of unity)I find myself wanting to believe your observations, if only because they don't seem to reflect the reality. By the way, I should say that I've not read his latest book but perhaps a literary sojourn to Russia at least removes him from some of his day to day problems.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-19255926878354786732008-09-03T03:55:00.000-04:002008-09-03T03:55:00.000-04:00Hey, hope the paper went well Ben. But: isn't this...Hey, hope the paper went well Ben. <BR/><BR/>But: isn't this all this hand-wringing about power (which isn't actually so different from a certain tendency within liberal culture) a bit hard to swallow coming from the man who sits on the throne of Augustine in Canterbury, who lives in a palace, who is chaplain to the nation, who is the most powerful churchman in England, if not the Anglican Communion? Isn't he still propping up Christendom (not that I share your distaste for it, actually)? Doesn't he still dress in the luxurious robes which signify his power? This man was chosen by a secular liberal government as their champion churchman, let's not forget (and a Labour one at that). Whatever he did was pleasing to them. And this was his second such appointment: the chair at Oxford was another Westminster bestowal.<BR/><BR/>Granted, he stood against the war in Iraq. But the government has already ensured that the church's voice is held in open contempt by the English nation. I don't think any of his social criticism has been particularly effective or prophetic. <BR/><BR/>I am fascinated by Williams as a theologian and a person, and I respect him greatly. But all failure is not evidence of godliness in and of itself, just as all success is not evidence of God's blessing.michael jensenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15379361601019023165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-54966599700278776862008-09-02T12:37:00.001-04:002008-09-02T12:37:00.001-04:00ben, great job today. the paper ruled. it was grea...ben, great job today. the paper ruled. it was great having lunch too.<BR/><BR/>- josh<BR/>www.joshfurnal.comthe donhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12700953672074556736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-71582307439116896412008-09-02T12:37:00.000-04:002008-09-02T12:37:00.000-04:00Very interesting. I explored a similar theme in Ba...Very interesting. I explored a similar theme in Balthasar's theology on the "unkown god". I appreciate what Williams is getting at and what you are drawing out of his theology.Bryce P Wandreyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06790969884859851988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-49550382976492043812008-09-02T11:37:00.000-04:002008-09-02T11:37:00.000-04:00"Generous"? Okay. I mean, who is going to demur ..."Generous"? Okay. I mean, who is going to demur at such an apple-pie adjective? More to the point, however, Ben's assessment of Williams is, quite simply, <I>accurate</I>, demonstrating how Williams' thinking radically and coherently informs his life and work. Williams was a good friend of the late make-it-difficult Gillian Rose, and one might describe both his theological project and his archepiscopal vocation as a struggle to occupy what Rose called the "broken middle".<BR/><BR/>For those who have not yet read Williams' new book <I>Dostoevsky: Language, Faith, and Fiction</I> (2008), here are a few gobbets which supplement Ben's fine paper/post.<BR/><BR/>"To engage in this venture [of dialogue] is to accept at the outset that no speaker has the last word, and that the position taken up in an initial exchange is going to be tested and shifted and renegotiated in the process. It is to accept that at the outset no one possesses the simple truth about their own identity or interest, and to treat with the deepest scepticism any appeal to the sacredness of an inner life that is transparent to the speaker" (p. 132).<BR/><BR/>"It is this fusion of a surrender to the claims of an independent truth and a surrender to the actual risks and uncertainties of asserting this truth in word and action that makes the entire enterprise of spiritual - and specifically Christian - life one that is marked by the decentering and critique of the unexamined self" (p. 242).<BR/><BR/>"Self-emptying need not be a noble and deliberate act of self-sacrifice; how should we know what hidden egotism might be buried in that? It may be the sheer abandonment of oneself to animal terror and childlike wretchedness. What matters is the defenselessness" (p. 232).<BR/><BR/>St. Augustine meets the Desert Fathers!<BR/><BR/>I hope you enjoyed the Eternal City, Ben. Now onto Geneva - oops, I mean Princeton!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-43418688422413760782008-09-02T09:49:00.000-04:002008-09-02T09:49:00.000-04:00Very generous, indeed.Very generous, indeed.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05006685610827238652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-85332500459499267352008-09-02T07:34:00.000-04:002008-09-02T07:34:00.000-04:00Very interesting... and generous assessment of Row...Very interesting... and generous assessment of Rowan Williams role in the current Anglican debacle... certainly one to ponder over in whatever contxt we find ourselves looking at the issue of authority.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-42393688255702951072008-09-02T07:26:00.000-04:002008-09-02T07:26:00.000-04:00Is your lecture going to get published somewhere?"...Is your lecture going to get published somewhere?<BR/><BR/>"Scripture and tradition require to be read in a way that brings out their strangeness, their non-obvious and non-contemporary qualities, in order to that they may be read both freshly and truthfully from one generation to another. They need to be made more difficult before we can accurately grasp their simplicities. Otherwise, we read with eyes not our own and think them through with minds not our own; the 'deposit of faith' does not really come into contact with ourselves. And this 'making difficult', this confession that what gospel says in Scripture and tradition does not instantly and effortlessly make sense, is perhaps one of the most fundamental tasks for theology". (Williams 1987/2001, p 236)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-50905363255542205672008-09-02T07:15:00.000-04:002008-09-02T07:15:00.000-04:00Great. Will this paper be distributed via e-mail?...Great. Will this paper be distributed via e-mail? :)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17045950595392790139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-20401347792212457622008-09-02T05:51:00.000-04:002008-09-02T05:51:00.000-04:00Thanks for this Ben. It was worth reading twice ov...Thanks for this Ben. It was worth reading twice over... Those whose personal identity is bound up in the church failing or succeeding are very conscious of this.<BR/>I guess if we are going to think carefully about kenosis, which we all know is a slippery concept, we have to qualify Williams' willingness to fail, as a determination not to fail at being the church in it's 'proper identity' (as you put it). This kenosis is not so much a loss of the church's being as a mode of being within the world which tends towards martyrdom because of the shape of the world's life.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com