atheism for lent, day two: “knight and squire”
DAY TWO’s reading is the first 12 pages of “Knight and Squire” Issue #1. “Knight and Squire” is a DC Comics Batman & Robin parody by Paul Cornell, Jimmy Broxton, and Yanick Paquette.
In this premise, there’s a bar called Time in a Bottle in which a “truce spell” has been cast: the goodies and the baddies all come there to drink, talk, laugh, cry — and thanks to the magic, apparently cast by a Merlin statue upstairs, nobody is able to fight.
During Lent, Atheism for Lent is our Time in a Bottle: a place of
- meeting
- agreements
- diplomacy
- great tradition
- neither power nor weapon
- no fuss
- talking the way we talk normally.
(All of these phrases are directly quoting the comic.)
Like Time in a Bottle, Atheism for Lent is a place of truce. There aren’t any goodies or baddies here, only people from two “separate” camps coming together for open, honest communication in vulnerability.
As supplemental reading, Rollins shares the chapter “Ikon and Epoche” from philosopher John Caputo’s What Would Jesus Deconstruct? Caputo examines Ikon, a grassroots group Rollins established years ago in Belfast. Ikon was/is Time in a Bottle expressed in the real world, a marginal group of people
- dedicated to peace and reconciliation
- independent, avant-garde
- making it up as they go along
- making a concerted effort to be inclusive (no ethical or theological consensus required)
- caring for the despised and outcast
- activists, not academics
- suspending all “stands” and making everyone welcome at the table (build a longer table, not a higher wall)
(This is what makes a space sacred, makes it a/theist.).
Ikon was/is a space where you can ask your people and yourself this terrifying question:
Would you choose eternal life in heaven with the devil, or eternal death in hell with Jesus?
As for me and my house, how do I feel about it?
I don’t want to let myself feel about it. Because those feelings hurt really bad. Because I am hungry for a group like Ikon, a space like Time in a Bottle.