Goodbye, for now | New Book

I think the time is right to drop the curtain on ‘Signs of Emergence’  / ‘The Complex Christ’ / ‘Der Jesus Faktor’ and move on. The idea of this blog has been to give some space to extend the ideas presented in that book, and, personally, I feel that’s been successful.

But you shouldn’t keep flogging a dead horse. There have to be periodic moments of silence / jubilee / death / hidden-ness if the moments of speech / action / life are to have any meaning.

So I’m going to stop this blog, and spend some time working on a follow-up book.

The idea, as it stands in various sketches in my note books, is for an extended meditation on the idea of ‘the other,’ leaning left on the poetry/theology continuum, and hopefully drawing on the stories of some fantastic people I’ve met.

I’ve been pondering Jesus’ summary of the Law to ‘love God, and love your neighbour as yourself,’ and re-phrasing it as ‘love the other, love The Other.’ The other within the Self, the other within our communities, The Other that is immanent and beyond all… It strikes me as the core of everything we are about as people of faith. Indeed, since the birth of consciousness, it’s at the core of everything we are about as people.

And yet, with the continuing rise in anti-social behaviour, teenage stabbings in London, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, theological schism, global terror threats and clinical depression, it seems that in our fluid, multicultural, melting-pot, border-less, easyJet world, we are further from accepting the other than ever before.

Yet, despite all this. I think there are signs of hope. And we need to be those signs of hope. Personally, communally, locally, corporeally, we need to be communities that have this love for God and other at our core.

No, I haven’t got a publishing deal, or even spoken to anyone about one. I’m not sure how much that matters, to be honest. I’m just going to spend some time thinking and writing. And if you have any thoughts you’d like to throw in on the theme, any good books to read, do get in touch, come for a beer, leave a comment, or whatever.

Doubtless I’ll be around online again at some point… No idea when. But you’ll find out ;-)

Fare well, for now. And thanks. It’s been fun.

Comments

[treforW]

hi Kester,
thanks for this blog. i've been a 'silent observer' for a while and have appreciated your candid thoughts on various subjects. you manage to bring everything back to basics somehow. Good luck with the new book, i like the concept and very timely.
treforW

[dave]

Amazing.... the very day I buy your book you shut down the blog...

[David Swanson]

Thanks Kester. I've benefited from your writing (book and online) and I wish you well with this next project. If you ever need a place to stay in Chicago...

[Mike Stavlund]

Thanks for the blog and the book, Kester. I'm looking forward to the next one!

[julie]

i am grateful kester for all your fine thinking, but also for the great questions you pose and help people to ponder - there has been a lot to wonder about on this blog and you are one of only a few people that often raises quite sensitive and controversial issues - i have enjoyed every visit - yes it has been fun hasn't it !?!- i wish you well with words for your new book, peace, julie

[Laura]

Kester, thank you for writing. I've read the book, scanned/read the blog. You make me think and that is a good thing.

[LauraHD]

ditto above. see you around...

[becky]

Kester - email me if you want me to connect you to my agent - he's working with Nadia (and I think Pete) - he gets edgy and can help you when you're ready to go in that direction. Your call bud.

I'd recommend Phyllis Tickle's new book - The Great Emergence (NOT about emergent/emerging church), NT Wright's Surprised by Hope and Miroslav Volf's Remembering Rightly in a Violent World (took this book with me on my first trip to Israel and it had a very powerful impact as I was touring the holy lands).

[Cosmo]

Thanks Kester. All the best for the future!

[Jon Reid]

It's been a good ride, Kester. I look forward to whatever is next…

[jonny]

kester hi... like the idea for the next book - huge issue that will be a gift to us if you wrap your creative head around it. the complex christ is still one of the best and most creative books on all the emerging stuff so thanks. and i was delighted to see you had finally admitted what kind of theologian you are in the comments on pete's post on religionless christianity!!! i'd guessed it all along ;-)

[Robb]

Thanks for your thoughts. You have always given good insight!

[steve lancaster]

Bravo, Brother!

[Dana Ames]

Thanks Kester, much appreciated. Hope for all good things with the new book, new blog, family and produce from your allotment...

Dana

[Paul Fromont]

Thanks Kester. I've been provoked and encouraged by much on your blog over the years.

[Peter Rollins]

Kester, you are the man. Can't wait to see more of your stuff and really glad you haven't moved on from doing theology (something I worried about, we keep losing the best).

[Gary Manders]

Looking forward to tracking the development of your new book. Thanks for the stimulating thoughts up to this moment.

[Steve Lancaster]

If you've not already read it, can I recommend to you "The Feeling of What Happens: body, emotion and the making of consciousness" by Antonio Damasio, Vintage, 2000?

Powerful cutting edge work from a neuroscientist, not to mention a beautiful read, which might give your theological meditation on consciousness good grist to work with.

Not an easy topic, but embedded in this book is the idea that consciousness emerges (at least in part) as a homeostatic function. Church has not been good at homeostasis - too close an idea to being neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm. But the middle way has scriptural precedent - the narrow gate in the middle of the wall, for example.

[suzanna]

Good thinking-

God Bless you with joy and insight. Feel his Love. Know it too.
Peace!

[Andii]

Hi Kester, I'm not sure how best to get hold of you; hope this works and is alright (the topic seemed roughly right for what follows).
I'm trying to get hold of people willing to do seminars on emerging church and pioneering related matters for ordinands. If you would be up for considering this further get back to me, prob better at a.bowsher [at] stjohns-nottm.ac.uk
All the best ...

[PerryLR]

I enjoyed the book. I was intellectually challenged. I think there were only a couple of places where I wrote, "I disagree", in the margins. Hopefully I be able to incorporate much of what you wrote into our alternative faith community.

[Br. Jay]

Thank you for your blog, and God bless you and keep you.

[Alastair McGowan]

Sounds like a great book. Will go and read it. I have long wondered why the church has been so hierarchical, given Jesus' anarchic leanings. Vive the coming ecological age when all will be networked scale-free and controlled by the spirit and authority within.