Bad Man, Good Theologian ?

Following Ben’s commentary on B.B. Warfield being “a good man,” I wondered: what bearing does lifestyle have upon the significance of one’s work?

Do the wandering eyes and groping hands of Barth and Tillich imply anything about the significance of their theological contributions? Contra Tillich (his UTS colleague), Reinhold Niebuhr was a faithful, one-woman man, yet you would be crazy to argue that Niebuhr was a better theologian than Tillich.

Does acting truthfully make a difference to speaking truthfully?

If Paul were a blogger, he may written something like this:

If I speak of ‘cultural-linguistics' and ‘perichoresis’ but do not live lovingly, I am a noisy televangelist.

And if I write voluminous dogmatics and exegete Gospels, and if I have all faith, so as to demythologise mistaken traditions, but do not practice said Gospels, my scholarship is superfluous.

If I am sought out by bright PhD students, and if I procure tenure, but am filled with hubris, I gain nothing.

Gerhard Ebeling’s Obituary

“German theologian Gerhard Ebeling, who was a member of the Confessing Church during the Nazi period, died at age 89 on September 30 in Zurich, Switzerland. The Berlin-born Ebeling was best known as a founder of the "New Hermeneutics," for his research on Martin Luther and for his writings in historical and systematic theology. Word and Faith was probably his best-known book translated into English, said family friend John D. Godsey, professor emeritus at Wesley Theological Seminary. In Nazi Germany, Ebeling attended Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "illegal" seminary at Finkenwalde and served as a pastor in Berlin. At Bonhoeffer's urging, he interrupted his service in the Confessing Church to complete a doctorate in theology at the University of Zurich. After World War II, Ebeling took faculty positions at the University of Tubingen, but returned in 1956 to the University of Zurich. He taught for a while at Drew and Vanderbilt universities also.”

Christian Century, Nov 14, 2001.

Gerhard Ebeling: the illusion of perfection

The other day, I picked up a copy of Gerhard Ebeling’s little book on The Nature of Faith. Good stuff! I keep finding myself saying, "Yes, amen, agreed!” and, "Why haven't I read this sooner?"

Here are some of Ebeling’s comments on the canon:

"To dispute the possibility of a revision of the canon is not a Protestant way of regarding the Bible. On the other hand, to be over-zealous for the necessity of a revision of the canon is also not a Protestant way of regarding the Bible. For quite apart from the fact that there is no single authority in Protestantism competent to make such a decision, and the further fact that the ancient delimitation of the canon must on the whole be described as astonishingly to the point, it betrays a totally misguided and in principle unfulfillable demand for guarantees of security, and indeed a totally misguided view of the nature of Holy Scripture to exclude the qualifications and contingencies of history. Such an effort would produce the illusory perfection of a bible so perfect that it required no more exposition.”

(This quote is actually quite similar to this one in Ebeling's The Study of Theology.)

Gerhard Ebeling (1959), The Nature of Faith.

“a much shorter Dogmatic”

In the Preface to the second edition of The Christian Faith, Schleiermacher sounds apologetic when explaining that the 1830 version will be longer than the 1821 offering. He had wished to make it shorter. He had hoped for what he was confident would indeed occur in the future – the writing of “a much shorter Dogmatic.”

Decades later Schleiermacher’s arch-nemesis, Karl Barth, wrote his own Dogmatics. Fourteen volumes in and the work was still in progress. It seemed a much shorter Dogmatic would have to wait. The trend continues to the present. In the Preface to the mammoth On Being a Christian, Hans Kung comments that “a book like this could and really should be the work of a lifetime.” Evidently it was not; two similarly-sized tomes would follow, finally completing Kung’s trilogy.

Here is my one proposition about theology books:

they are too long.

If you cannot say what you need to say in less than 200 pages then stop writing and start planning volume two. If your book begins to resemble an appropriations bill, start deleting.

In less than 150 lucid pages George Lindbeck was able to pen one of the most influential books of the last 25 years. Kevin Vanhoozer didn’t agree and in over 450 protracted pages told us precisely why. Vanhoozer’s book is good but an Act too long. Lindbeck’s book is outstanding and leaves us wanting more.

Theology has an obesity problem – we’ve said yes to “super-sizing” too many times. Here’s my hope for “a much shorter Dogmatic.”

Brazos Commentaries

Parableman lists a range of forthcoming commentaries. Especially notable are the prominent names contracted by Brazos for their new Theological Commentary on the Bible. Following the attention-getting books by Stanley Hauerwas (Matthew) and Jaroslav Pelikan (Acts) notable forthcoming volumes include:

Ruth, Esther: Stephen Fowl, Samuel Wells
Psalms: Ellen Charry, Anne Astell
Jeremiah: Kevin Vanhoozer
Ezekiel: Robert Jenson
John: Bruce Marshall
Romans: David Yeago
Ephesians: John Webster
Hebrews: David Hart
James: Timothy George
1 & 2 Peter: Doug Harink

This is going to be an outstanding set of volumes!

What a Job!

"It’s a very sensitive job. It’s also a very hard job. Twenty-hour days aren’t uncommon, long trips at the last minute, a lot of wait and hurry up. Moreover there will be times when you’ll have to make yourself invisible in plain sight, as well as an undeniable force in front of those who want more time than we’re willing to give. Sometimes the people I’m talking about will be kings and prime ministers, you understand so far?”

Sounds like my job!

Josh Lyman speaking to Charlie Young about a job as Aide to the President in “A Proportional Response.”

West Wing. Season 1, Episode 3.

Homicidal fantasies

Have you ever thought about killing someone?

Here and There

• The fine writers of Christian Century are now blogging.

• Marcus Borg wears red socks.

• Voting for the best of contemporary theology is taking place here.
  

• Future of Forestry releases an album called “Twilight” this week.

• The annual Lifeline book sale is in town this week. I came home with some great deals and some very sore arms! Included were Thielicke’s dogmatics, von Balthasar’s book on Barth, Barth’s book on Romans, Bruner’s dogmatics, a stack of Kierkegaard, Hans Küng’s theological trilogy, and more!

• Speaking of Küng, we end with this quote:

"If you cannot see that divinity includes male and female characteristics and at the same time transcends them, you have bad consequences. Rome and Cardinal O'Connor base the exclusion of women priests on the idea that God is the father and Jesus is his son, there were only male disciples, etc. They are defending a patriarchal church with a patriarchal God. We must fight the patriarchal misunderstanding of God." (Newsweek interview, July 8, 1991. Quoted here)

Willimon on Leadership

When Will Willimon was Dean at Duke Chapel he offered a refreshing take on what it means to be a “leader” in the Kingdom. Preaching on Jeremiah 1.4-10 Willimon gives three “Principles for Biblical Leadership.” I summarise them here:

1. Call. Leadership is “essentially theological rather than anthropological.” Summons, not skill, is what counts.

2. Incapacity. “[P]eople who are called to lead, they are almost universally, laughably, the wrong people.”

3. Graced. Our qualification is a gift. “When the chips are down, all biblical leaders have for credentials is faith in the promise, ‘Go. I will be with you.’”

“If you think of the call of Jacob, or Moses, or Mary, or the Twelve Disciples, you might conclude that being totally inept, immoral, cowardly, and dumb are the only qualities God looks for in calling potential leaders!”

God is like a Wet Bar of Soap

Tom Wright says talking about God is like staring into the blazing sun – to attempt it is to risk incapacity. God-analogies always fall short. “To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, as though we were alike?” The “God” entry in our lexicons might best be left blank. To finish the sentence, “God is like…” is nearly always to commit oneself to failure and, depending on how strongly you mean ‘like,’ to approach idolatry.

Quaker author-activist Chuck Fager discusses this in his cheerful essay-story, "Why God is like a Wet Bar of Soap.” Like slippery, lathery soap God cannot be held for long -- s/he always slips away. In this sense God is also like a hot potato you can't handle without burning yourself (though I don’t think Fager has written that story yet).

Here is a little excerpt of "Why God is Like a Wet Bar of Soap,"

Father was turning more crinkly pages. “Let's see", he said. "Here it is. The name is: I Am That I Am. Yes, that was it [the secret name of God]."

"I what that I what?" said Guli.

Asa shook his head. "Guli, now I know he's kidding us again," he whispered. "Dad, why are you always kidding us? I Am That I Am is the dumbest name I ever heard. What was God's name really?

Father shook his head. "No, son," he insisted, "I'm not kidding this time. In the Bible, God's mysterious name really was, I Am That I Am. He read some more. "Oh wait a minute, it says here at the bottom of the page that the name might also be some other things. One is: 'I will be what I will be', or 'I cause to happen that which happens', or a bunch of other things."

"Now I don't even know what you're talking about," said Guli, "and I'm in the second grade. That Bible isn't any help."

"Oh yes it is," father replied. "Because this is the part where the wet bar of soap comes in."

"Oh sure," said Asa, "I suppose it also says there that God's name could be 'I Need a Bath When I Need a Bath'?"

(Note: Aside from the adult-sized point it makes about the ultimate insufficiency of god-talk, the story is another good example of how to converse with children about God.)

Vanhoozer on propositional theology

“Cognitive-propositional theology risks deflecting doctrine from its proper role of drawing us into the drama by turning it into an ossified, formulaic knowledge that will either wilt on the vine or, on another plausible scenario, be used a shibbolethic instrument of power."

Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine (2005), page 88.

Death Row Jesus

"Christ as Poor, Black, Death Row Inmate"
A watercolour by Marylyn Felion

Bonhoeffer on Immanence and Redemption

“Lord Jesus, come yourself, and dwell with us, be human as we are, and overcome what overwhelms us. Come into the midst of my evil, come close to my unfaithfulness. Share my sin, which I hate and which I cannot leave. Be my brother, Thou Holy God. Be my brother in the kingdom of evil and suffering and death. Come with me in my death, come with me in my suffering, come with me as I struggle with evil. And make me holy and pure, despite my sin and death.”

-- Advent Sunday, December 2, 1928. Quoted in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons (2005).

Here and There

The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) has reviews of some noteworthy NT studies:

James Dunn (2005), The New Perspective on Paul: Collected Essays

Bart D. Ehrman (2006), Studies in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament

The American Academy of Religion’s 2007 Annual Meeting will be in San Diego. A Call for Papers is here.

Author John Fanestil, a former colleague of mine, is the new Executive Director of the San Diego Foundation for Change. John’s work will focus on immigration, “social equality, economic justice and environmental sustainability in the San Diego/Tijuana border region.”

Tomorrow “Mister Padre” Tony Gwynn will find out if he has made it into baseball's Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

Patrik is blogging on Paul Tillich’s Theology of Indie Rock…interesting!

"Sermon Series"

At Saint Mark’s we focus on biblical preaching – that is, our sermons are mostly driven by the canon rather than by themes, biographies, or the church year. We use a dietary metaphor – “meat and 3 veg” – to describe the way we spiral through NT and OT, between Gospels, Prophets, and Letters.

Here is a general record of what I’ve been preaching on for the last two years:

2005, March – April... Churches of Revelation

2005, May – August… Romans

2005, Sept– Nov… Theological themes of the OT

2005, December… Advent

2006, January… Creation Psalms

2006, February… “God and the Movies”

2006, March – April… Colossians

2006, May-June… Ecclesiological themes from Acts

2006, July – Sept… Luke 3-9

2006, October – 2007, January… Second Isaiah

2007, February… “God and the Movies”

2007, March – April… I – III John

Any suggetions on what to preach next?

Cricket

Last night was another Aussie first for me…the Cricket.

Jodie and I spent a lovely evening at Brisbane’s “Gabba” watching the Queensland Bulls vs. the New South Wales Blues. The game we saw was a Twenty20, which is a very entertaining form of cricket (though I’m told it’s not “real cricket” by my purist friends).

Oh well, it was the most fun I’ve ever had watching a mid-over slip half-extra-keep backwards.

Teen Bibles

James Crossley, an academic at the University of Sheffield has been reading girls magazines. And the Bible. Not that there’s much of a difference. At least there doesn’t seem to be a difference when looking at the popular Bible-zines being sold to teens and pre-teens.

This is an issue I have addressed here and here.

Crossley’s article on the Society for Biblical Liturature Forum (“Oh-my-God – It’s so the Teen Bible!”) claims that these Bibles have been “Brittany Speared” and are “written in a style that only a 45-year-old posing as a teenager can.”

In the piece, Crosseley (who is Biblioblog’s “blogger of the month”) makes these observations:

• Teen Bibles are written not for real teens and but for stereotypical pop-consumer teens. “[D]emands of the market from above” rule the day.

• Girl Bibles (which Crossley is mostly concerned with) are boy-needy. Though attempting to transcend the values of secular girls’ magazines, they ultimately replicate the repressive reliance on males and sex. “[T]he theme of ‘guys’ is relentless…”

• Teen Bibles do not adequately address issues of teenage sex and homosexuality. Implying that these are problems to be “remedied with a bit of good churchin'” is ultimately a disservice to teens. While this is probably true, it would have been helpful to hear Crossley’s suggestions on how to handle the colliding horizons of text and teen.
  

Put down Seventeen, turn off Avril Lavigne, and go read this fun piece.

Samuel Beckett and “What is the Word”

Yesterday I was mesmerised by a stirring reading of Samuel Beckett’s deathbed poem, “What is the Word.”

I don’t “get” most poetry, but Colin Duckworth’s rousing rendition gave real life to Beckett’s poem. It caused me to think about the tip-of-the-tongue search for the right word and the implications this might have for Christian faith which proclaims a decisive, Most Fitting Word. I hope to explore these thoughts further in sermon in late February.

Until then, here is Beckett’s masterful lyric, “What is the Word.”

folly -
folly for to -
for to -
what is the word -
folly from this -
all this -
folly from all this -
given -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this -
this -
what is the word -
this this -
this this here -
all this this here -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this this here -
for to -
what is the word -
see -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse -
what -
what is the word -
and where -

folly for to need to seem to glimpse what where -
where -
what is the word -
there -
over there -
away over there -
afar -
afar away over there -
afaint -
afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -
seeing all this -
all this this -
all this this here -
folly for to see what -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
afaint afar away over there what -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse afaint afar away over there what -
what –

what is the word –

what is the word

(You can heard Duckworth’s reading here, about halfway through Radio National’s 'Book Show'.)

Top Religious Quotes of 2006

The Christian Century notes the top religious quotes of 2006. Here are some of them:

"Jesus was quite serious when he said that God was our father, that we belonged all to one family, because in this family all, not some, are insiders. Bush, bin Laden, all belong, gay, lesbian, so-called straight—all belong and are loved, are precious."

—Retired Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, addressing the Ninth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Brazil

"I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus . . . and believes in the divine promise of the rule of the righteous on Earth. If Prophet Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, Joseph or Jesus Christ . . . were with us today, how would they have judged such behavior?"

—Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a letter to President Bush challenging him to follow Jesus' teachings more closely

"Even though there's been this terrible thing happen, we don't need to think about judgment, we need to think about forgiveness and going on."

—Amishman in response to the schoolhouse shooting of Amish girls in Pennsylvania

"It's a shame that as an African American and a Muslim I have the double whammy of having to worry about driving while black and flying while Muslim."

—Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Washington-based Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, reacting to the removal of six imams from a US Airways flight in November

"Those are decisions only the Lord will make. It would be foolish for me to speculate on who will be there and who won't. . . . I don't want to speculate about all that. I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have."

—Evangelist Billy Graham, when asked by Newsweek magazine if he thinks heaven is closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people

More “Voices of 2006” here