in god we mi(s)-trust

“fantasies cannot coexist peacefully” – Zizek

“In his seminar on The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, Lacan is speaking of the role of the Chorus in antique tragedy: we, the spectators, came to the theatre worried, full of everyday problems, unable to accustom ourselves without reserve to the problems of the play, i.e. to feel the required fears and compassions. But no problem; there is the Chorus, which is feeling the sorrow and the compassion instead of us, or, more precisely, we are feeling the required emotions through the medium of the Chorus: “You are then relieved of all worries, even if you don’t feel anything; it is the Chorus who will do it in your place.” Even if we, the spectators, are just drowsily watching the show, objectively – to use this good old Stalinist expression – we are doing our duty of feeling compassion for the heroes.”

much like when you’re watching television and the music stirs you to feel something, this is the moment when the television, the inanimate object is telling you how you should feel. theology is like television. it’s a system of thought or ‘musical cues’ that subconsciously dictate to you how you should feel depending on what system you support. let’s say youre a liberal progressive who believes that heaven isn’t real in the sense of a geographical space, but maybe its a ‘reality’ created by our choices; anytime you meet head on with a paradigm that disagrees with this assertion, the music swells and the theology goads you back into the progressive fold.

the same with the orthodox/conservative/evangelical camps, anytime someone comes in (e.g. rob bell in love wins) and presents something outside the orthodox paradigm they are inherently met with resistance. the progressives speak of multiculturalism and openness yet attack the orthodox for not being just that, but in doing so are being just as exclusive as they blame their counterparts to be. and the orthodox blame the progressives for promoting sin and by making such a judgement end up sinning. ultimately, both are in error, but like paul:we fight not against flesh and blood but against the systems and principalities.

it is theology that is at fault. not one another.

but not just any kind of theology, but the theology of meaning. humans seem to need meaning to make sense of things like struggle or their life. and if they do not have it then they simply do not know how to deal with those things. for example, some might read a book and say they are just relaxing, but even the event of relaxing is meaningful. it is meant to be a time when one separates from some kind of work-based experience or to ‘shut off’ as if to imply they are battery-operated machines. which isn’t that far from the truth sometimes.

rather than simply read a book for the sake of reading a book we almost need to ‘create’ a reason for every moment to have meaning. in this sense, we are chemical junkies who need the chemicals within us to feel for us, to experience for us, in this sense life is lived for us. life is thought for us, believed for us, and actioned for us. this is what happens when we allow theology and meaning dictate to us how to experience life, god, truth, love, belief and more. it is not that we should live without these things, but it is that we should not depend upon them as systems.

if the systems we adhere to present to us a god who looks increasingly human, then we must be willing to distrust those systems and the god that represents them.

take for example america; semiotically speaking, america isn’t merely a country, its a symbol. its become something bigger than itself and depending upon who speaks about it feelings of anger, nationalism, love mistrust or a whole gamut of other emotions might appear. but it is a symbol for more than one thing, and this in and of itself is not a good thing. plurality isnt the enemy here, it is when plurality gets co-opted into a system and that system becomes an ideological tyrant. why? because it presupposes ideological allegiance to a system rather than to nuances with such a system. this is why the direct mistrust of systems is so important, it helps us get to the real heart of the matter and if/why we should share if any allegiance at all.

when these systems impose their meaning upon our relationships to the point that we think we have right or responsibility to either die or kill for a belief, then we are definitively fighting against flesh and blood – sometimes our very own! theology fails us because it is a human creation posing as an objective spectator or Big Other that subjectively allow to frame our reality. This is a fantasy. As Zizek says, fantasies cannot co-exist. One will eventually kill the other. Once we think we know the other, we want to kill it because it stands where we want to be. So ultimately rather than trying to find a way for our fantasies to co-exist and in the end ‘kill’ each other, we must be willing to kill the fantasy itself.

Jacques Alain-Miller says this about the fantasm: “And this, when dealing with the fantasm, is very useful as the fantasm corresponds both to the manifestation of the desire of the Other and to the manifestation of a lack in the signifying field.” Ultimately our belief systems frame our desires, they tell us who we are and who we can be. It is the theology within history that must be undermined for something new to take its place. it is not to be undermined irrespective of those who have contributed to the conversation of any ideological revolution, but just as Marx posited, there is a spectre haunting the church, and it the death of theology.

They (theologies) limit our ability to see beyond what we have willingly become subjectified to. a theologically closed system is a system of death. the way to bring together the constructed gaps within some fractured christian relationships is to allow the imminent death of theology to occur rather than to protect our paradigmatic kingdoms. the most loving act we can all participate in is the dissolution of those systems that keep us from caring for one another.

this is very much like the notion of capitalism that sets itself up to be a system that looks to help those who believe in such things, but in the end become the very prison they are trying to run from. some buy into the philosophy that once we eradicate one system, then another must or will take its place. this philosophy is only true if we believe in it. if we believe that our existence can ony make sense with structures, then we have bought the lie that we were meant to be a people captured by structures. structures give us meaning, so in a world where we don’t need to attempt to construct meaning in a perverse way means we can live in a world where meaning appears rather then something that’s created to give significance to our lives. our lives are already significant because we were created. our significance doesn’t need to be justified through theology or even meaning. our significance exists regardless.