A New GOSPEL

Experiments in Metamodern Theology

What if we discovered an original, 1st century AD gospel that offered a radical new vision of Jesus Christ and his message?

In 2021, I published GOSPEL, an experiment in metamodern theology which I’ll be serially posting on Substack over the next couple of weeks. Essentially, GOSPEL purports to be just that: A new take on the “good news” that, while ancient, is somehow incredibly relevant for today. As a meta-text, though, it also comes with layers of critical reflection, supplemented with a collection of contemporary interpretative essays by different voices proposing different readings and ways to understand the supposedly ancient artefact bound within its covers. All of this pushes us to reflect not just on Christ and Christianity, but the very nature of scripture, tradition, creativity, interpretation, and even truth itself. Here’s a short trailer I made for it:

Of course, in moving beyond postmodernism, integrative metamodernism is rather fond of things like levels, multiple perspectives, ambiguity, generative tension, and non-relativistic constructivism. So, for me, metamodern theology is best done dancing through such matters, even up to the edge of comprehension. A metamodern theology should be bold, adventurous, even dangerous. It should risk heresy as it seeks out novel orthodoxies. Indeed, it should psycho-actively perform the sorts of transcendence it seeks. As Kierkegaard saw, advances in theology require breaking the old molds by leaning on creative, genre-bending expressions that transcend precisely by undermining themselves. This is a work like that. Here’s a short video describing the development of the project:

Appropriately, few people seem to know quite what to make of this. Truth Seeker, for instance, finds much truth herein:

Mati G., however, has a different perspective:

Ironically, both are completely accurate reviews (I believe). But maybe Christian (fittingly) has it best:

I’ll be curious to hear what you make of it as I start posting it tomorrow.