Other - A Review

Other has been sat on my desk for the past few weeks waiting for a review... I've found it hard to formulate my ideas on the book, partly as I know Kester, but also because I found the book somewhat of a roller coaster ride.  There were parts that I enjoyed, parts I hated, parts I was stunned at the depth and parts I thought naive.  Overwhelmingly I found it a provocative book, at times slightly preachy, but also one that needs a critique as I am unsure about some of the idea within the book.  That critique has not be delivered yet so here goes...


The title of the book opens it to critique from the start, my question throughout was: How is this modelling the love of the other?  For example, how does the book model a love for Israel when it is clearly pro-Palestinian? How does it model a love for conservative evo's when it's clearly coming from a different perspective?  I think that this is a meaty topic and whilst I think that Kester brings come fascinating insights to it, the book does not share any long term experiences that Kester has of engaging with the other and whilst these may be in his experience, his omision of them is seriously problematic.

The book is divided into four sections:

Loving the Other within Self
Loving the Other within God
Loving the Other within Society
Loving the Other in Praxis

Loving the Other within Self is in my opinion the strongest of the four chapters.  I like the movement between philosophy, theology and the social sciences...even if the biblical studies is weak!  (On a side note he draws a lot from the book 'The Spirit Level' which has been seriously challenged in the past few days.) I found the thinking most interesting in the section on technology, 'the liquid self' and the section on the 'fantastic self'.  In the section on the liquid self he highlights how our online identities are essentially fantasy identities, where we project the image that we want others to see of ourselves.  I've commented about this before in a post a while back entitled 'what do our fb status' say about us'  And Kester develops this to look at the whole question of our online self.  I particularly like the metaphor of Manuel de Landa, endo and exoskeletal, does technology give us a new way to move or does it provide a place for us to withdraw into. 

The fantastic self is also a strong section where Kester introduces The Neophiliacs by Booker, I find it a helpful framework for my understanding of church and within this section there is a glimmer of the vulnerability of Kester in his experience of Vaux.  Vaux throughout the book is painted in an extraordinarily positive light and here we get a glimmer that things were hard at moments, and I warm to the humanity of that.  The memory of something can be stronger than the reality, I'm experiencing that with Sanctus and here we get a glimmer that Vaux wasn't perfect...

Loving the Other Within God:  In this chapter Kester plots a part between the immanent and transcendent natures of God.  He moves into an exploration of the separate and bounded trinity and I think that he is starting to develop an interesting line of thought but for me he needs to develop it further, I would at this point have liked to see him engage with Moltmann and Barth and their Trinitarian theologies, rather he moves to Zizek.  I've not read Zizek, and I doubt many others who have read the book have, but I do know that the Trinitarian theology of Moltmann in particular is far more influential in contemporary theology and hence I feel that an engagement with Moltmann at this point would have be interesting.

Kester also touches a little bit on a few gospel and OT stories in this chapter, I like Kester's interpretations, but I do think that they lack the depth of the rest of the book.  Many aspects of the book use some heavy philospohy, but the biblical studies in the book is somewhat the weaker partner in the book.  At times it feels like the biblical stories are being interpreted to support Kester's arguments.

Loving the Other Within Society:  Okay this is where the book really started to wind me up!  The section that did this was the section on Temporality - now don't get me wrong, I think that permanence is problematic, but I think that the swing towards TAZ - Temporary Autonomous Zones - is also problematic.  I've highlighted this with Kester and, fair play to him, he highlights the limitations of TAZ within the book.  I'm amazed that a number of people have been lauding the TAZ concept, Theo Hobson, and Paul in the review.  I think that TAZ is problematic as it's too middle class and arty!  Now I'm a middle class arty person and TAZ works for me, but I work in an area of  social deprivation and TAZ wouldn't hold any weight their.  Esther Baker highlights that in her work in prisons people need both boundaries and permanence - structures of security - if these structures are removed chaos will reign.  To operate with TAZ you need to operate from a position of individual security and I fear that the move towards TAZ will only work for people who have this personal security, and in my book this is not Gospel.

In a blog exchange where I raise this point Kester points to Jesus' feeding of the 5000 as a TAZ.  I disagree.  The feeding of the 5000 points us back to the experience of the people of Israel in the wilderness where God provides for them.  Therefore this meal points toward the permanent faithfulness of God, it injects hope into the people, it says that God's faithfulness is timeless and that Jesus is part of this plan.  The moment is temporary but the narrative that it connects with is permanent.

I also disagree with Kester that Greenbelt is a TAZ.  Greenbelt is an institution, it has paid staff, a hierarchy, the Archbishop is the chair person...so whilst for a consumer coming on the weekend it is a TAZ, for the people who make Greenbelt - me and Kester for example - it is more than that.  It aspires to be a movement and relies on volunteers to make it happen, without the commitment of these volunteers it would not happen.  It is a TAZ for the consumer but a movement/hope for the people involved in the process.   I fear that this is indicative of TAZ - it works for the consumer.

Loving the Other in Praxis:  Okay by this point I was really wound up by the book and nearly quit.   I feel that the Praxis in this book is weak and for a book like this to work it needs to be rooted in Praxis.  Kester gives couple of examples where he is engaged with the other, walking more in a meditative way - a good practice - and playing football, as reminder of his weaknesses - again is helpful to be reminded of our short-comings.  However, this is not enough to give the book the integrity and authenticity that it needs, I want to know how the author is engaging with the other in society, the broken and vulnerable, how his thinking and engagement with the other is bringing about transformation.  Kester points to others who are doing this Street Pastors, Esther Baker and Sara Miles, this may be a noble piece of self-deprication or it may not...

I'm also concerned how Ikon's approach to pastoral care is lauded as a good model.  'We don't care about you' is Ikon's approach to pastoral care.   There hope is that the community will care for people rather than any trained pastoral team.  Unfortunately, this doesn't work.  Many people have be told all their life that they are not cared for, not loved, not valued and for the church to be saying that as well is once again not Gospel.  It is the antithesis of 'you are loved as a child of God'.  It's middle class idealism, it is hoped that the community picks up and cares for people - my experience in Sanctus was that this happend to a degree, but where there are people who are hard work, people who nobody really wants to be with, people who don't add to your sub-cultural capital, then they get excluded, their needs do not get cared for.  Hence, it was important to have some structures which made sure that those who society has told many many times 'we don't care about you' were loved and cared about.  I've often asked people involved with the EC how do you do pastoral care and the usual response is 'we're a bit crap at that'.  That is no way to love the other.

Okay, that's the book!  I would say buy it - it's provocative, you may not agree with it but it will stir you thinking up.  And as Kester says at the start of the book:

[I may be wrong]

 

Comments

[Andrew Wooding]

Ben, I could hug you. I love your inclusiveness and care for the marginalised - seriously. Great stuff!

[KB]

Thanks Ben. Really appreciate your thoughts. I may post some wider responses later, but I just wanted to flag up a couple of lines from the book which I think might provide some balance. In the introduction I talk about a homeless guy who came to the door of my sister's house on Christmas day evening. We fed and housed him, and in the book I admit "I have only had rare experience of this." "This was an uncommon experience and it troubles me that my own private practice falls so far short of the simple instruction Jesus gave (to love the other)."

In that sense, I hope people don't find the book to be inauthentic and lacking integrity. Quite the opposite: I wrote it precisely because I KNOW that my practice is lacking, that I know I need to do better. One line that got cut from the front, which I kind of wish I'd insisted on leaving in now was 'I wrote the last book to challenge others; I've written this to challenge myself.' So no, there is no self-deprication, because there's little I can claim to be doing which deserves any great praise. But I've written the book to try to change that. We'll see how it goes.

Just quickly on TAZ: "The moment is temporary but the narrative that it connects with is permanent." - absolutely! That's the whole point of TAZ. Not that nothing is permanent, but our attempts at permanence now can quickly lead to violence!

[KB]

Sorry - just one more thing. The 'serious challenge' to The Spirit Level that you mention... I'd be very careful with that. The Policy Exchange are a pretty right-leaning bunch. And the report written by Peter Sanders was edited by... oh, yes, Natalie Evans, who has written the Guardian piece. Some very interesting comments in the discussion that follows it...

[matybigfro]

Thanks for the review ben. i'm really wanting to get hold of this book but i'm a bit slow at getting things read but have deffinatly enjoyed your review. I thinks it's been really good to see some to and throw of the idea's that Kester and Pete Rollins have been putting out have been getting recently as it makes for a more rigourous debate. Saying that I have lots of times for allot of what Pete and kester say but having been around the evangelical church for long enough am tired of single party lines and leaders that no-one questions.

Just as a side note, i'm sick of readying book's by saints they just leave me feeling totally inadequate. Emerging church seems to have as many urban monks and saints as evangelical church and as much as love and respect what they do I can't help but feel a total failure as the distance between their achievements and my efforts is so vast.

[KB]

Hi Ben- just to say I posted some further thoughts here: http://www.kesterbrewin.com/2010/07/11/some-responses-to-a-review/

[Laurence Keith]

thansk Ben, you rock. Lovely to have someone stand up to the very clever people and challende their very clever thoughts, and remain friends.

All this arty stuff and anti-Institution feeling does my head in now. Those that feel that way should come to my [local traditional Anglican] church where it is warm and loving, and held together in quite a major way by 3 families who have committed to staying together. all their kids are still around, 16-23 kind of age, whether they really believe or not - they are all par tof the community. In my eyes, that is far more valuable that creating a new style of worship etc - consistent, committed community. nothing beats it.

Laul