An interview with Kutter Callaway, associate dean of the Center for Advanced Theological Studies, by FULLER magazine Editor in Chief Jerome Blanco.
Jerome Blanco: A key idea you write about is a resistance to viewing theism and atheism as polar opposites and instead understanding them as ends of a spectrum. In your and Barry Taylor’s book, The Aesthetics of Atheism: Theology and Imagination in Contemporary Culture, you use the term “a/theism.” How does this understanding transform the way the church understands today’s cultural landscape?
Kutter Callaway: Actually, I think what I’m after is neither a stark polarity nor a spectrum along which people move but something else altogether: a perspective that stands completely outside the debates that the theism/atheism spectrum fosters. So as people of Christian faith look out at the landscape of contemporary society, what the concept of a/theism offers them is a way of approaching the broader world in which we live, and move, and have our being, not in terms of how certain cultural artifacts, phenomena, and practices might be understood as “more” or “less” theistic or atheistic but in terms of the re-sacralization of the whole of reality. The boundaries between sacred/secular, holy/profane, theism/atheism have become so fully blurred in today’s cultural landscape that they lack any real purchase. And while some may lament this reality—indeed, many have—I see this blurring of boundaries as a unique opportunity for the church to enter into new spaces for reflecting on timeless questions.
JB: How does acknowledging and engaging with theism outside of the church in this way reshape our theology of mission?
KC: The most direct answer to this question is probably the most obvious, but I’ll say it anyway. If people outside the church are engaging in theological practices and asking theological questions (whether they are “theists” or not), then our first instinct should not be, “Are they doing it correctly!?” but rather, “How might we join in?” My work with atheists and atheistic movements has convinced me that God is always already up to something in the world, and this divine activity started long before I arrived on the scene, and will continue long after I’m gone. So the only real missional questions I need to be asking myself are, first, “How do I participate in what God is doing in the world?” and second, “How can I be sure I don’t get in God’s way?
JB: On the flip side of this, what does an inward look at atheism within the church say about how we understand the church’s missional task?
KC: I always like to quote G. K. Chesterton on this point. In his book Orthodoxy, he says, “When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world. . . . They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. . . . They will find only one divinity who uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.”1 I love this quote and this idea because, as I understand him, Chesterton is getting at two key points: First, at the heart of the Christian faith is a moment of atheism—of divine abandonment, doubt, and isolation. Second, it is this atheistic core of Christianity that serves as the most direct and immediate point of connection between the person of Christ crucified and the atheist. So whether we identify as “insiders” or “outsiders” to the Christian community, God knows the depth of our doubt and despair and skepticism because he was there too. And, at least from my perspective, this is the fundamental starting point for our missional task, because it not only admits our own doubts but also embraces all doubt by locating it within the life of God.
JB: With all of this in mind, what might evangelism or the proclamation of the good news mean in this era?
KC: I tend to talk about this not as having a “crisis of faith” but as forging a “faith of crisis.” What I mean is that, first and foremost, we have to acknowledge that things have changed. Actually, change has changed. And one of the changes postsecular society has undergone is that many of the points of reference that Christians used to rely upon in their gospel proclamation have been eliminated. So we not only need to find new language and new methods of communication but an altogether new set of coordinates for helping people make sense of the world that has been handed to them. It’s for this reason that, in my mind, a faith of crisis needs to begin in the catastrophic—in the traumatic real that defines so much of contemporary society. It also needs to imagine a new kind of openness to the world—an openness marked not by dogmatism and exclusion but by a creative embrace of the tragicomedy that is life. Finally, a faith of crisis proclaims the good news by acknowledging that some gods need to die. It is a response to the world that does not replace one powerful god (e.g., religion) with another (e.g., science) but rather takes up the posture of Jesus,
who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death —even death on a cross!
(Phil 2:6–7 NET)
Kutter Callaway is the William K. Brehm Chair of Worship, Theology, and the Arts; associate dean of the Center for Advanced Theological Studies; and associate professor of theology and culture. He is actively engaged in writing and speaking on the interaction between theology and culture—particularly film, television, and online media—in both academic and popular forums. Callaway holds two PhDs, one in theology and the second in psychological science, both from Fuller. He has authored and coauthored a number of books, most recently, Theology for Psychology and Counseling: An Invitation to Holistic Christian Practice.
An interview with Kutter Callaway, associate dean of the Center for Advanced Theological Studies, by FULLER magazine Editor in Chief Jerome Blanco.
Jerome Blanco: A key idea you write about is a resistance to viewing theism and atheism as polar opposites and instead understanding them as ends of a spectrum. In your and Barry Taylor’s book, The Aesthetics of Atheism: Theology and Imagination in Contemporary Culture, you use the term “a/theism.” How does this understanding transform the way the church understands today’s cultural landscape?
Kutter Callaway: Actually, I think what I’m after is neither a stark polarity nor a spectrum along which people move but something else altogether: a perspective that stands completely outside the debates that the theism/atheism spectrum fosters. So as people of Christian faith look out at the landscape of contemporary society, what the concept of a/theism offers them is a way of approaching the broader world in which we live, and move, and have our being, not in terms of how certain cultural artifacts, phenomena, and practices might be understood as “more” or “less” theistic or atheistic but in terms of the re-sacralization of the whole of reality. The boundaries between sacred/secular, holy/profane, theism/atheism have become so fully blurred in today’s cultural landscape that they lack any real purchase. And while some may lament this reality—indeed, many have—I see this blurring of boundaries as a unique opportunity for the church to enter into new spaces for reflecting on timeless questions.
JB: How does acknowledging and engaging with theism outside of the church in this way reshape our theology of mission?
KC: The most direct answer to this question is probably the most obvious, but I’ll say it anyway. If people outside the church are engaging in theological practices and asking theological questions (whether they are “theists” or not), then our first instinct should not be, “Are they doing it correctly!?” but rather, “How might we join in?” My work with atheists and atheistic movements has convinced me that God is always already up to something in the world, and this divine activity started long before I arrived on the scene, and will continue long after I’m gone. So the only real missional questions I need to be asking myself are, first, “How do I participate in what God is doing in the world?” and second, “How can I be sure I don’t get in God’s way?
JB: On the flip side of this, what does an inward look at atheism within the church say about how we understand the church’s missional task?
KC: I always like to quote G. K. Chesterton on this point. In his book Orthodoxy, he says, “When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world. . . . They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. . . . They will find only one divinity who uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.”1 I love this quote and this idea because, as I understand him, Chesterton is getting at two key points: First, at the heart of the Christian faith is a moment of atheism—of divine abandonment, doubt, and isolation. Second, it is this atheistic core of Christianity that serves as the most direct and immediate point of connection between the person of Christ crucified and the atheist. So whether we identify as “insiders” or “outsiders” to the Christian community, God knows the depth of our doubt and despair and skepticism because he was there too. And, at least from my perspective, this is the fundamental starting point for our missional task, because it not only admits our own doubts but also embraces all doubt by locating it within the life of God.
JB: With all of this in mind, what might evangelism or the proclamation of the good news mean in this era?
KC: I tend to talk about this not as having a “crisis of faith” but as forging a “faith of crisis.” What I mean is that, first and foremost, we have to acknowledge that things have changed. Actually, change has changed. And one of the changes postsecular society has undergone is that many of the points of reference that Christians used to rely upon in their gospel proclamation have been eliminated. So we not only need to find new language and new methods of communication but an altogether new set of coordinates for helping people make sense of the world that has been handed to them. It’s for this reason that, in my mind, a faith of crisis needs to begin in the catastrophic—in the traumatic real that defines so much of contemporary society. It also needs to imagine a new kind of openness to the world—an openness marked not by dogmatism and exclusion but by a creative embrace of the tragicomedy that is life. Finally, a faith of crisis proclaims the good news by acknowledging that some gods need to die. It is a response to the world that does not replace one powerful god (e.g., religion) with another (e.g., science) but rather takes up the posture of Jesus,
who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death —even death on a cross!
(Phil 2:6–7 NET)
Kutter Callaway is the William K. Brehm Chair of Worship, Theology, and the Arts; associate dean of the Center for Advanced Theological Studies; and associate professor of theology and culture. He is actively engaged in writing and speaking on the interaction between theology and culture—particularly film, television, and online media—in both academic and popular forums. Callaway holds two PhDs, one in theology and the second in psychological science, both from Fuller. He has authored and coauthored a number of books, most recently, Theology for Psychology and Counseling: An Invitation to Holistic Christian Practice.
Jaclyn Williams, assistant professor of the practice of preaching and chaplaincy, reflects on the power of sharing the good news through embodied witness.
