Idolatry of God by Peter Rollins

Idolatry of God
by Peter Rollins
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

My Review:
I appreciate what Peter Rollins is trying to say here. It was an interesting read. He tries to walk that line between “not conservative” and “not liberal” Christianity. Most of us are told Christianity will fill in that void (“everyone is born with a God-shaped hole”) and when we still feel empty, we're told we're just doing something wrong. I like the honesty behind the questions in this book and the “third way” (instead of conservative or liberal) idea. But I felt thrown (possibly in an intended way), that this book left things really open ended and empty.

Peter Rollins doesn't give “answers” per se, but ideas and possibilities for breaking that reliance on having all the answers, on being filled up and complete. I like that he wasn't trying to brush off the questions or even “fill in the hole”, but the book left me with more discomfort than peace.

It felt like a new take on the emergent church ideas that were popular 10+ years ago. So many of his ways of engaging people and being part of people different than “me” have been raging on social media for a while, that I felt it was almost redundant to read half the book. If you've read Brian McLaren, Frank Viola, even N.T. Wright, you'll probably find a lot of similarities in this book.

I found it difficult to combine the ideas presented that you really can't let go of the questions and certainty on your own, you need to be in community, but there are so few of these types of communities around that you'll probably have to strike out on your own to start something. And not only that, but you'll be untrue to yourself if you just stay where you are. It felt vaguely like another impossible guilt trip from the hottest new church crowd. “If you don't do it our way, you're bound for doom.” I'm a little burned out from that sort of idea.

I was also disturbed at the sense I got that breaking away from certainty is another “experience”. You can't really quantify it or teach someone how, you just present lots of experiences and hope to draw people further along this road. I understand the complexity behind that, but it's just so similar to “if you were a real Christian, you would have felt something” that seems to happen whenever you walk away from something that's not working. Reading the book left me with this discouraged feeling of another person trying to sell me something – and being able to blame me if it doesn't actually work for me. So, if I don't feel free after following this path, it must be something I did or didn't do because otherwise it would have worked. Tried it with this church, and that church, and the emergent church, etc. I think I'll just keep floating here for a while, thanks, where I can just be (which interestingly enough, is one of the ideas inside this book – the ability to just be).

So, did the book give me something interesting to think about? Yes. Will I keep mulling over the ideas behind this book, breaking away from the need to fill the void? Definitely. Will I be looking for a community of other Uncertain-ites or starting my own? Probably not. Will I read more books like this to challenge myself and keep from stagnating? I'm sure I will occasionally.