I’d never heard of author and philosopher Peter Rollins when I met him at a conference in Memphis, Tennessee several months ago. In fact, we shared a couple of those “turn to your neighbor and discuss…” moments before I learned that he was one of the conference speakers and that he’d written a couple of books that people in attendance were pretty excited about. An Irishman, he is also the founder Ikon, “a Belfast-based collective who offer anarchic experiments in transformance art.“
His books How (Not) To Speak of God and The Fidelity of Betrayal seem to inspire some and incense others. I think his work is brilliant, thought provoking and possibly heretical. That said, I found his newest book, appropriately titled The Orthodox Heretic: And Other Impossible Stories, to be interesting reads.
The Orthodox Heretic is a collection of original parables that encourage the reader to examine familiar and not so familiar stories from unique and sometimes challenging angles. Whether you love or hate these parables (and the accompanying commentary) they will make you think – which, I believe, is much of what Rollins hoped to accomplish when writing them.
Pete gave me the thumbs up to share one of the parables here. I chose number 6. Let me know what you think…
The Pearl of Great Price
Excerpted from The Orthodox Heretic: And Other Impossible Tales by Peter Rollins, due out from Paraclete Press later this month
Read Previous Post