Advent is a season in the liturgical calendar that represents a period of expectation and preparation. It is a period of waiting that culminates in the celebration of the Nativity, an event that represents the absurd heart of the Christian message, namely the coincidence of opposites, expressed in the birth of an infant.

The Incarnation means the fusing together of Eternal and Temporal, Spiritual and Material, Immortal and Mortal in the ultimate expression of Contradiction: the monstrous figure of the God-Child.

In this four-week course, we’ll be exploring the way in which faith is the direct expression of this scandalous contradiction. By employing the work of C.S. Lewis, Simone Weil and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we’ll look at the way in which faith expresses a joy-filled affirmation of life that is fully immersed in a type of Incarnational logic.

PART 1 - THE UN/KNOWABLE LIGHT

Using a short story by C.S. Lewis as the jumping off point, this session will explore the idea of a truth that defies being placed into the realm of knowing or unknowing. A truth that escapes our grasp while simultaneously grasping us.

PART 2 - THE UN/GRASPABLE TREASURE

In this session we will be employing the work of Simone Weil to dissect the idea of joy as a type of meaningful affirmation of existence that defies the categories of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. We will look at how joy is an embrace of life that finds satisfaction in the hart of dissatisfaction,.

PART 3 - THE A/THEIST DISCIPLE

This week we will turn to the final thoughts of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to explore a type of Christianity that rejects theism for atheism, while affirming atheism as theism. We will discover how Bonhoeffer and others open up a form of faith called Religionless Christianity that envelops and reconfigures these positions in a fundamental way.

PART 4 - THE IM/MORTAL GOD

In the final session we will discuss how the various types of contradiction we’ve already explored find their fullest expression in the image of the Christ as represented in the story of the Nativity.

STRUCTURE

The first three sessions will be comprised of three parts,

1. A pre-recorded reading

2. A pre-recorded talk

3. A live interactive zoom discussion

The concluding session will not have a pre-recorded reading or talk. I recommend you watch or listen to the reading and talk just before the live zoom room discussion, although you will have access to the material well in advance.

DATES

The four sessions will be taking place on,

Sunday 29th November

Sunday 6th December

Sunday 13rd December

Sunday 20th December

I recommend that people start watching the pre-recorded material at 11am PT, as the zoom room will open at 11:30am PT.

HOW TO JOIN

This course is being offered to everyone who is signed up to my Patreon at Blaze level. This level also gives you access to over 100 hours of lectures, talks and courses.