Christians should abandon Christianity

[DonViejo]

The author of "The Idolatry of God" says religion's become a commodity -- and a distraction

BY CANDACE CHELLEW-HODGE

This article originally appeared on Religion Dispatches.

“The Idolatry of God: Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty and Satisfaction” by Peter Rollins
Howard Books, 2013

For Peter Rollins, Belfast native and leading writer and thinker in the Emergent Christian movement, “God” has fallen prey to our grasping, market-driven existence — just another shiny thing we acquire to make ourselves feel OK.

Alfred Hitchcock called this (in another context entirely) the “MacGuffin,” or as Rollins explains it: “that X for which some or all of the main characters are willing to sacrifice everything, something that people want in some excessive way — the object that seems to promise fulfillment, satisfaction and lasting pleasure.”

And yet when we get our hands on the longed-for MacGuffin, it doesn’t do away with our feelings of emptiness or brokenness, and may well deepen them. Instead, Rollins argues, there is no cure for our brokenness, other than the full and complete acceptance of it.

Rollins talked with RD’s Candace Chellew-Hodge about his new book and his radical ideas of what church looks like when Christians give up Christianity.

The title of this book, “The Idolatry of God,” is immediately provocative. What do you mean by it?

full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/21/idolatry_of_god_author_modern_religion_is_a_macguffin_partner/

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Seems like some sort of internal dispute

among believers about what flavor of gibberish they should believe and how they should go about convincing others to believe the right sort of gibberish.

[LiberalElite]

2. I scanned this review and at the end it reminded me

of a card I saw years ago in a co-worker's cubicle (in a Catholic non-profit office) which read: "I feel much better now that I've given up hope."

[rug]

3. The First Commandment comes to mind.

A god made in one's own image is an idol.

[Phillip McCleod]

4. guess that would be all them then.

[rug]

5. i dunno, my god is named Phillip.

[Humanist_Activist]

7. I have yet to meet a theist whose god didn't match their own image...

gods are simply a reflection of ego, and always have.

[rug]

8. Nor I an atheist of what they were taught of god.

[Humanist_Activist]

10. That seems unlikely, considering most of us were raised religious to a certain extent...

myself in the Catholic Church, others in Protestant Churches, I'm sure we have a few former Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. around somewhere.

[rug]

11. No doubt.

The point I ineptly was making was that it seems to me the denial of belief is often the denial of belief in the parrticular god the person was exposed to.

[Humanist_Activist]

12. Again, not really, now I don't speak for all atheists, but for example...

If I weren't such a questioner or so curious about science, mythology, and history, I would probably still be a happy cafeteria Catholic, but the inherent contradictions in a 3O's God, not to mention the lack of evidence for said God, lead to my atheism, well actually it lead, first to polytheism, but I couldn't sustain that belief either, so atheism it is.

[rug]

13. The more I see of science the less I see of contradiction.

[Humanist_Activist]

14. Well the contradictions are internal, not in science, that simply deals with the universe as is...

religion deals with the universe as believers want it to be.

[Thats my opinion]

6. This is about the fourth book Rollins had written on the subject..

What you headlined is certainly not what Rollins has suggested. He is not for the abandonment of Christianity, but for the emergence of new forms whlch are as fresh and different as anything that has happened since the reformation. He takes on a religious system based on doctrine and forms in favor of a fresh system based on acts. It may be ingenuous for the writer of this article to put words in his mouth which are not what he is saying.

[rug]

9. What's your take on the title of the book?

[trotsky]

15. "THIS time we'll get it right FOR SURE!"

Pardon me if given your track record, I show a little skepticism.

How about we move forward with secular, humanistic values? You know, the ones that have led to some of humanity's greatest concepts like democracy, liberty, and equality?

Seems like the "best" religion is always one step behind where secular thought has cleared the way.