Peter Rollins

[3] In contrast to the dominant reading of Christianity, this more existential approach argues that faith has nothing to do with upholding a religious identity, affirming a particular set of beliefs or gaining wholeness through conversion.

This anti-religious reading stands against the actual existing church and lays the groundwork for an understanding of faith as a type of life in which one is able to celebrate doubt, ambiguity and complexity while deepening care and concern for the world.

"[9] Because of their rejection of "worldview Christianity" and embrace of suspended space, these groups purposefully attempt to attract people with different political perspectives and opposing views concerning the existence of God and the nature of the world.

He was unemployed for several years before taking a job as a youth worker in Carrickfergus and working in a homeless shelter run by the Simon Community on the Falls Road, Belfast.He then went on to study an access course on the Castlereagh Campus of the Belfast Metropolitan College (an intensive one-year course designed for disadvantaged students who wish to attend university but lack the entry requirements).

The development of groups like the Belfast-based ikon collective was at least partially a response to the pervasive atmosphere of violence, economic hardship, rigid identity markers and deep rooted sectarianism in operation in the province.

It engages directly with Martin Heidegger's critique of onto-theology and explores the religious significance of Jacques Derrida's post-structural theory and Jean-Luc Marion's saturated phenomenology (drawing out the points of connection and conflict between them).

[28] While his early work is marked by themes that continue to play a central role in his later development (such as doubt, complexity and ambiguity), they remain largely within a specifically theistic and mystical register.

[30] With this work we begin to see a critique of purely theistic forms of faith and witness the growing influence of political philosopher Slavoj Žižek and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in his overall project.

He has also written fairytales[33] and a play that became the basis of a short film he produced, called Making Love[34] Rollins' overall project is marked by the themes of doubt, complexity, unknowing and embracing brokenness.

[36] He is interested in showing how the central scandal of Christianity offers us a critique of religion[37] (including the need to believe) and tribal identity,[38] both of which have been lost in the actually existing church; an institution that he argues represents a fundamental betrayal of the insurrectionary power of faith.

Peter Rollins in Belfast, 2007
New Symbolization Project, a critical theory club at Boise State University , held the first sustained, multi-disciplinary academic response to the Jordan Peterson phenomenon in late October 2018; notable Marxist economist Richard D. Wolff and Rollins gave the keynotes .