Radical Theology Advent (week 1)

First Advent Sunday of Hope

I’ve recently been diving into Christian Atheism with Cadell Last on the Philosophy Portal. A course that explores the contradictions between Christianity and Atheism to perhaps find the immergence of something new. Having grown up Christian, I had in my younger years developed a rather imbedded fantasy to survive my adverse childhood. Life had a way of slowly chipping away at my rigid ideologies until I found myself forsaken by the dogma and toying with atheism. Though I knew of Peter Rollins for a couple decades, I for the first time enrolled in his Atheism for Lent course. The liturgical practice tore down the residue of my ideology to explore new ways of looking at theology. This has inspired me to write liturgies from the lens of radical theology. Liturgies that at one time would have had me burned at the stake, and still just might …

First Advent Sunday of Hope

Introductory rights

In the spirit of reframing the liturgical season, we look to advent from a more radical perspective. In so doing, we transform the season into a time of waiting and preparing ourselves to a renewed commitment to the practice of subjectivity.

Opening prayer

May the network of the Holy Spirit move us, and may we be filled with jouissance while we wait with hope for the decentering to begin. Let The Real be at the center of all we do during this special time of the liturgical year.

Thanks be to The Real

Hope Candle

On this, the first Sunday of advent, we blow out the candle of hope (blow out the candle). We prepare ourselves to commemorate the extraordinary act of birth that brings us into agony. And we hope for the expulsion from the paradise of the womb that brings us into perfect subjectivity.

Thanks be to subjectivity

This Sunday we remain hopeful for life’s destitution through the story of Joseph and Mary. We blow out the first candle to symbolize our hope and create darkness. Bring us into despair, and where there is light, bring us darkness. We look to the promise of destitution, hidden but woven into the passages of the bible. For like us, all those who wrote, and all those written of therein, experienced subjective destitution. Everyone does. While the avoidant commit idolatry with their religion, Mary rode pregnant on a donkey toward the unknown. And Joseph, who could have abandoned her, chose instead to engage in the chaos. Both endured many a side eye as they bore the reality of their choices and the pickle they were in. They rode into the darkness of night, and like them we hope for the same subjective destitution that brought forth life.

Thanks be to subjective destitution

The Collect

Tonight, we come seeking this darkness. We come to darken our understanding. To allow the darkness to reveal something new. To blot out our biased sightedness. Let us go into the darkness, the chaos, and the contradiction to reveal another way. We long to be transformed by the tarrying of this darkness.

Benediction

God is so often the name of something that cannot be conceived. A liminal space of unknowing. Encountering this space and not being able to symbolize it is the true religious experience. In this space of unknowing you are saturated and overwhelmed. Afraid. We all want to feel as if we are one with God, but more often we feel alone, in the dark and full of doubt. In a sense we are all riding on a donkey, forsaken and surrounded by side eyes. So, let us hang up our Santa hats, and tuck away our Christmas trees with all their lights. Let us deconstruct our Big Other’s and instead, let us make advent a time to tarry with this darkness and unknowing. Let us all become pregnant with subjective destitution and ride into the abyss. For when darkness swallows fantasy it prepares the way for the practice of subjectivity.