How (Not) to Speak of God, 17 of 23

"Early Christians were called atheists because their own affirmation of God involved a rejection of the gods advocated by the Roman Empire. Yet the atheistic spirit within Christianity delves much deeper than this - for we disbelieve not only in other gods but also in the God we believe in. We... affirm our view of God while at the same time realizing that that view is inadequate... believing in God while remaining dubious concerning what one believes about God." p.25-26

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 16 of 23

"In the same way that the sun blinds the one who looks directly at its light, so God's incoming blinds our intellect... While anonymity offers to little information... hypernymity gives us far too much information. Instead of being limited by the poverty or absence we are short-circuited by the excess of presence." p.24

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 15 of 23

"In the aftermath of God, all of our being cries out in response." p.24

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 14 of 23

"The fundamentalist [nature]... refuses to give up its interpretation of God, even in the presence of God." p. 21

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 13 of 23

"The relationship we have with God cannot be reduced to our understanding of that relationship." p. 20

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 11 of 23

"Revelation is often treated as if it can be deciphered into a dogmatic system rather than embraced as the site where the impenetrable secret of God transforms us."
17

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 10 of 23

"Revelation ought not to be thought of as either that which makes God know or as that which leaves God unknown, but rather as the overpowering light that renders God known as unknown. This is not dissimilar to a baby being held by her mother - the baby does not understand the mother but rather experiences being known by the mother."
17
-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 9 of 23

"Unlike those who would seek to offer a different set of answers to theological questions, those with the emerging conversation are offering a different way of understanding the answers that we already possess... This is not then a revolution that seeks to change what we believe, but rather on that sets about transforming the entire manner in which we hold our beliefs."
7
-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 8 of 23

"We are becoming Christian, becoming Church, and being saved... we need to be evangelized as much, if not more, than those around us." p. 6

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 7 of 23

"[This approach] emphasizes the priority of love: not as something which stands opposed to knowledge or God, or even as simply more important than knowledge of God, but, more radically still, as knowledge of God." p. 3

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 6 of 23

"The [shift] from 'right belief' to 'believing in the right way' is in no way a move to some binary opposite of the first (for the opposite of right belief is simply wrong belief)." p.3

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 5 of 23

"Naming God is never really naming God but only naming our understanding of God. To take our ideas of the divine and hold them as if they corresponded to the reality of God is thus to construct a conceptual idol..." p.2

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 4 of 23

"Christian faith, it could be said, is born in the aftermath of God... Christians testify to having been caught up in and engulfed by that which utterly transcends them." p.1

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 3 of 23

"We must embrace an a/theological approach that acknowledges the extent to which our supposed God-talk fails to define who or what God is..." p.xiii

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 2 of 23

"Such thinking critiques the idea of theology as that which speaks of God in favour of the idea that theology is the place where God speaks." p.xiii

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 12 of 23

"The emerging church is thus able to accept the fact that what is important is that we are embraced by the beloved rather than finding agreement concerning how we ought to understand this beloved (as if a baby can only really love her mother if she understands her)."

p.18

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

How (Not) to Speak of God, 1 of 23

"I found myself drawn to the mystics (such as Meister Eckhart), for while they did not embrace total silence, they balked at the presumption of those who would seek to colonize the name 'God' with concepts... they wrote elegantly concerning the limits of writing and spoke eloquently about the brutality of words... a loving response to God rather than a way of defining God." - p. xii

-Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God