Pete Rollins [Ikon, Belfast, Northern Ireland] pops in for a drop of the black stuff
[09.03]

Hi, welcome to our virtual coffee shop. Pull up a chair, take the load of your feet. Let's chat.

So who are you, where you from, what do you do in life?
This is my opportunity to look good. OK I am young, single and some would say that I look like a bronzed God (the Buddha). I am also from that little piece of dysfunctional paradise called Belfast and co-ordinate Ikon, a community becoming Church, becoming Christian. I also do some speaking, writing and am finishing a PhD exploring the post-modern return to religion, which I hope to turn into a theology of alternative Church in the near future - any publishers interested?

Can I get you a drink? Cappucino, earl grey, dandelion and burdock, pale ale?
Guinness of course

Would you like a doughnut or pastry to go with that?
How do you expect me to keep my figure with such offers

So, if you had to describe the church/project/experiment/thingy you are currently involved with in one sentence, what would that sentence be?
Iconic, apocalyptic, heretical, emerging, failing - that's our provisional mission statement

Are you an instigator? / new recruit? / have absolutely no recollection of how you got involved?
I guess I'm an instigator, though it is always hard to draw lines in the sand, at what point do you stop looking back? People I've met, books I've read, conversations I've had etc. etc. have all influenced me more than I can say and more than I know.

In the past it got to me when I saw my ideas, talks or writing being used without reference to me, and then I had to remind myself that I stole it all from other people… we are all thieves. All our little projects have a multitude of voices lurking in the shadows. I guess the job of someone like me is to help decide what voices ought to be heard, being a channel for some and a wall to others (although I shudder at such violent talk). That is why I am engaged in the academic side of things, it gives me time to sort through the chorus of voices

What do you value most about being part of it?
Like most in my generation, I start to sweat a little when people ask me what I place at the top of a certain hierarchy, having that sinking feeling that I am always on the move means that what I say today may be different from what I say tomorrow, as it was different than what I said yesterday. Questions about the best film I have seen the greatest book I have read or the most inspiring music I have listened to all bring me to a stuttering silence

But so as not to avoid the question entirely, I guess recently I have valued the space Ikon has given me to learn. Not long ago we started up the Ikon evangelism project - I can hear the gasp - but this project is not about evangelising others but rather about being evangelised! We would visist groups such as the Russian Orthodox, the Quakers, the Muslims, the Jewish community etc. in order to listen, learn and be transformed. We also watched the 'Last Temptation of Christ' together and read Nietzsche's brilliant book The Antichrist.

What excites you most about it?
At the moment what excites me most about Ikon is also strangely my biggest fear - that it works.

Has anyone ever turned up out of the blue not knowing what to expect?
What did they say?
Yeah… all the time. At Ikon we take over a pub, we don't take a room in the back, or a table in the corner, or arrive at a time when the pub is closed to the public… we walk in and do our thing in the midst (although being early on a Sunday it is still mostly people who are there for Ikon). The reactions are very interesting, mostly bemused, sometimes impressed. The biggest part of this is our captive audience - the bar staff. They are our most regular attendees and should be the first in line for eldership. The pub we meet in has a bit of a reputation, if you know what I mean (cant say more than that on line, but I don't mean a Brothel), and it's amazing to see how they have embraced us. At the beginning they treated us with an intrigued distance, which gradually became a radical hospitality (I still remember the first time they cracked a joke with us and the first time they lit a cigarette for one of us - the devil is not in the detail, the divine is). The manager will even use his 'powers of persuasion' on anyone who is heckling. It gives a new slant to the term 'fear of God'.

Three words that describe your attitude to 'being church' in the big wide world: Well, I guess I would say that we are not 'being church' but rather 'becoming church', I know that's only two words so I will add 'lugubrious', I would also use the words 'becoming Christian'

Three words that DON'T:
'Being church' and errr 'excrescence'

You have this weird dream - you meet Jesus face to face.
Where does it happen, what does he say to you?
It happens on the road and he says 'Kill me'… no that's a bit too Buddhist, although I like it… lets see.

I'll tell you one my mate had recently (and like all such things, it is provocative, controversal and thought provoking), he imagined that one night died and found himself at the pearly gates where St Peter (its always St Peter) stood guard. Seeing Phil he smiled and welcomed him in with open arms. But as Phil was approaching the gates he noticed a group of atheists and people from other religions looking dejected and sitting outside. He asked St Peter why they couldn't come in, but Saint Peter said, 'sorry, but you know the rules'. At this point Phil hesitated at the gates and heard a little voice of Jesus saying, 'What do you think I would do'? If you like these kinds of heretical parables then check out our website.

What's the big secret you're itching to share with everyone?
In a slight adaptation of a philosopher who I think is key for anyone pioneering a venture such as this (John Caputo), the secret is that I don't know the secret, the secret is that knowing the secret is not the secret, that knowing the secret gets in the way of knowing the secret - confused… read Caputo or Derrida if you have the energy…

What would your 'emerging church survival kit' contain?
An empty space… really. I think that if you want to survive Christianity, and I am not sure if its possible yet, you need one of those cartoon tunnels, something that can create a womb-like space in the being of your beliefs and religious services, a virgin space where the word of God can impregnate you - the problem is that theo-logy (that's a term that refers to Western Metaphysical theology, the stuff of apologetics and evangelicalism) closes down space, that is why at Ikon we are developing a theology which derives from the mystics, a theology without theology to complement our religion without religion.

Anything else you'd like to share with us before you have to rush off?
Be cynical. The original cynics where a dusty group of people who questioned ethics not because they hated ethics but because they loved ethics so much. They questioned God and religion not because they where sceptical but because they where obsessed with God and religion. Questioning God is not questioning God, but only questioning 'God' - in other words our understanding of God. In the same way that Marxism helped liberation theology to find a voice so deconstruction (which is very cynical) will help revolutionise Western Christianity.

Thanks. Good to see you. Have a good day!