An experiment

Hello friends,
The application of Deleuze to that music video seemed like a fine way to resume this strange little effort, didn't it? Oh well, you can't win them all. As it turns out, Deleuze's Cinema is one of those books that I encounter periodically and have to admit I cannot read. I can't, not now. (Though his claim that watching The Passion of Joan of Arc proves the existence of a "non-psychological spirit" in the human seems to be hinting at something that needs to be said, and said quickly, to me.) So I am going to return to the thousand tiny projects that made this seem like a useful project in the first place. I doubt anyone will mind.

I have recently set out to try a meta-theological, meta-ecclesiastical (meta-heretical would not be entirely unfair) experiment on the new Christian social service "Thyspace." Perhaps it will be worth writing about here:

Critical Mass: A Meeting Place for Christians with Unpopular Questions
“COME, LET US REASON TOGETHER” -Isaiah 1:18-

This is a group for Christians without a sense of their place in The Body because the questions that occupy their thoughts and prayers are not only unanswerable, but even unaskable within their communities.

Here Christians can meet up to discuss all of the intellectual and theological matters not (or not adequately) discussed within the narrow spectrum of our denominations. And can do so without being pressured to accept any answer that does not satisfy their intellect.

The commitment here is to the proposition that just as The Body encompasses Catholics, Congregationalists, and Quakers, just so does it have room for the many creative theologies which are currently adrift without communities. This is a meta-group, one that hopes to serve as a rally-point around which people can meet, and begin conversations that can continue here and elsewhere.

Thus, this group invites all of those who would like to meet to discuss Christian perspecives on (and not merely against) evolution or atomism, pan(en)theism or deism, agnosticism/fideism or monism, anarchism or feminism, radical literalism or radical anti-literalism... or any of the other theological and intellectual visions which are legitimate possibilities within our shared heritage.

That also means that this is not a group for would-be heresy hunters who want to tell others that their Christianities are invalid. Nor is it a group for those who do not consider themselves Christian (may they find their peace). There is a forum for efforts to draw people in to a denomination or push them out of Christianity entirely. That forum can be found (unfortunately) in most churches and nearly everywhere else.

Any Christian who feels alone in their intellectual pursuits, any Christian who thought there was no community in which they could think freely (and who does not want to use such a forum to promote hatred of other people, whether Christian or otherwise) is welcome here.
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Admittedly, this is an effort to repair the past: I was eighteen when I was first traumatized by Darwin and by the presumption that women are men's equals in all senses relevant for politics or theology (that is, this world or any other). I was traumatized, of course, because these ideas struck me as both entirely convincing and absolutely impossible to discuss within the frame of my church. I was sent back, sore with questions, to the Bible. My fissure was then quickly opened into a complete fracture by the fact that the cosmological (and occasionally angelological) questions that seemed necessary parts of the Bible stories at hand were avoided by everyone from whom I sought answers. I spent five years convinced that I could not call myself a Christian, before realizing that every issue that was killing me has been answered in many different (and occasionally satisfying) directions by generations of Christians from whom I was kept. Whether this was through malice or ignorance hardly matters now; if the medium is the message the internet itself may be a balm for either. Maybe a wikilisiology will sustain Christians who thought they had the sin of inventing and the sad burden of sustaining their heresy alone.

Of course, this could fail in a dozen ways: "Thyspace" could never really catch on; I could be thrown off (though I can hardly imagine a clearly worded rebuttal for this sort of group as a whole); No one within the thyspace community could care or want to join. But the visions for success are messy enough that simple failure is hardly a worry.

Maybe there will be nothing to report, but if this becomes beautiful (or otherwise), I will tell you about it.

Love always,
Vincent