Not Out of the Dark Night

Abstract

This work disrupts and re-envisions normative or traditional theological scenes of instruction anchored around imago Dei, dignity, and hope. These elements comprise “sanitized scenes of instruction” that are unable to adequately and creatively respond to the complex epistemes that have shaped and continue to guide contemporary death-dealing atmospheres of violence as manifested in necropolitics, biopower, and intensified precarity in the Anthropocene. The result is theological reflection, social analysis, and education that is out of touch with the perpetual dark night of the soul that we all experience but that is especially felt by those bodies considered disposable or as fodder for Orwellian visions of societal homeostasis (biopower) on an increasingly precarious Earth. Instead of providing easy chimeras or a quick way out, this work invites readers to rethink imago Dei, dignity, and hope without escaping the dark night (the atmospheres of violence). It does so by juxtaposing scenes, unsanitized ones, with traditional theological accounts on imago Dei, dignity, and hope––challenging them in the process. The hope is that such juxtapositions will jolt imaginations into considering other possible scenes of theological instruction that go beyond, but that do not discard, the normative ones. This work ends by offering some contours for a rhizomatic theological imagination and pedagogy that can perhaps facilitate an “active” sitting in the dark: one that still manages to move in all directions and that envisions infinite possibilities within states of suspension. The penultimate chapter hones in on the centrality of a theological hermeneutics that embraces plurality and ambiguity––crucial to any theological project that seeks to respond to complex contemporary concerns. The final chapter tentatively concludes with some possible fragments of scenes for consideration in developing future theological scenes of instruction. It models the pedagogy that I currently find most useful in my writing and teaching, namely a rhizomatic and pluriversal one. Rather than end the work with yet another system or scene of instruction, I offer the fragments as an exercise for the reader to think through his/her/their own experiences with theology and the precariousness that we all, to different extents, share.