We learned that Elizabeth Gray regretfully will put off EfM for another time, her schedule permitting.
Yr. D theme: Living into the Journey with God Class: Marilyn, Nuno, first year; Pete, second year; Christine, third year; Mariel, Gene, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: none.
The class's responses to their readings (see "comments" below) were essays, edifying in themselves! Scott followed up with some questions from the RRG about how the readings may have related to our personal lives, our current world, our heritage, or our beliefs and values.
One theme that emerged is a continuity of ancient past to present. Christine drew inspiration from a continuity she found from ancient history to art and spirituality of today. Marilyn felt awe at the effort to make sense of an often chaotic world. Gene recognized the EfM program in theologian Ford's introduction, and saw how one can keep the past as a reference without "clinging" to it. "The past has relevance to modern issues." That's one of the main thrusts of Collins's book, said Susan and Pete, in which the author combs the Bible for insights on hot-button moral issues. Mariel was refreshed by the notion that the feeling of being overwhelmed has positive aspects, too, leading us to theology.
Our series of spiritual autobiographies kicked off with 2-3 minute reflections on specific events of our latest 15 years that qualify as "affective" conversions. Those remain private. We ran out of time before we could hear from Pete, Marilyn, and Nuno: we'll hear them next week, along with everyone's stories of their experiences of some kind of "intellectual" conversion, i.e., acceptance of a truth.
5 comments:
This week I enjoyed reading about the different cultures that influenced the ancient world. Some of this I remember from Art History 101, but mostly we focused on ancient Egypt. Having a clearer telling of some of the foundational myths of other cultures is helpful.
I came up in a church that saw the Bible as a complete text, divinely inspired, and unerring. There was little room for scholarly analysis or literary criticism. History and geography were discussed but the Bible itself was somehow untouchable. There was no discussion of other faith traditions, ancient or modern. Also a lot that modern readers take as myth, we were taught to take literally. This made for a very living spirituality but there were places where they focused too heavily on individual verses, more focused on social concerns than spiritual ones. Similarly, while it is interesting to take it apart and discuss authorship, dates, and sources I also worry about taking too academic an approach and missing the forest for the trees. I understand that the ideal may be to hold these approaches in balance, where they are able to inform one another.
I read some Justin Martyr earlier this year, his discussion with Trypho, a Jew. It was striking how much of their dialogue focused on parallels between the Christian stories and the myths of other cultures. Justin had to do a good bit of defending the Gospels as not being derivative or influenced by other myths. Trypho seemed more skeptical that this was just another repackaging and rebranding of the same stories with different names. The parallels in ancient cultures, the way the same stories appear across traditions, the cross-pollination of ideas added validity to his arguments, he'd seen this before. Virgin birth, raising the dead, signs and wonders, etc. Catechists likely faced the same objections over and over. What differentiated the Gospel? Without the Spirit to testify to the truth, to what degree was it the same old story?
Year 4 read Paul Ballard’s 1997 essay, “On Being Theologically Literate,” and David Ford’s introductory chapter in “Theology: A Very Short Introduction," originally published in 1999. Having read Diarmaid MacCulloch’s “Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years” last year, it struck me that much of MacCulloch’s 2009 tome was directed toward issues raised by scholars such as Ballard and Ford.
Ballard argues that theological literacy is foundational to the Christian life, but it only becomes an issue when it’s under threat. He sees the cultural paradigm shift of the last quarter of the 20th century as an unprecedented time of disintegration of classical (western British) religious and ideological traditions. He laments “confrontational attitudes” as endemic to the modern world. [Here’s where I wrote in the margin: “Read MacCulloch!”]
Ballard gives six reasons that theological literacy is important: awareness of one’s roots, feeling a sense of belonging, widening one’s horizons, adding resources to deepen understanding, learning from the past, and reappraising the past in light of new perspectives, such as the hidden thread of women’s spirituality in the Church.
In Ford’s introductory chapter, he lays out the book’s purpose and structure. He defines four elements (DNA) of good theology using “wise and creative” as qualitative criteria: Retrieval of the past; engagement with God, church, and the world; thinking, assessing, making judgments; and regarding the form of expression as inseparable from the message. Ford sees religion as shaping all areas of one’s life, IF one dares to ask the really BIG questions. He writes: “For theology, God is wise, and invites people into seeking wisdom and living wisely.” Here, here!
The RRG (p. 38) asks 4th year students, “What role does theological literacy play in your faith life at this time?” EfM has definitely been worth all the hours of reading, sharing, and listening. The challenge for me will be after graduation, when I have to seek out and engage with ideas, attitudes, and practices that confront my own assumptions, beliefs, and theories about God, our common ground, and my own individual journey. As Paul said, fight the good fight, run until the race is done.
Christine’s Comments
Year three reading from MacCulloch, Acknowledgements, Introduction, and Chapter 1, “Greece and Rome”
In reading the Acknowledgements and introduction to MacCulloch’s “Christianity, The First Three Thousand Years” it became clear Mr MacCulloch has many friends, peers, colleagues, and scholarly resources from which to draw and which accumulated over time. What a wonderful thing! It’s kind of it’s own cool metaphor for the topic of this book, a huge and lengthy topic filled with history and mystery at times seemingly unrelated and then Bam all of a sudden stories and personalities meld together over time revealing brilliance.
The book begins 1000 BCE in early Greece with the rumblings of the early nuggets of how the way was “paved” for Christianity to emerge and grow.
With discussions about Writing systems, pictogrammic and alphabetic, influencing scripture writing, and language. Greek philosophy and it’s “obsession” with questioning, classifying, and speculating also emerged out of their “alphabetic script” which over time Greek philosophers would contribute volumes of thoughts and ideas about humanity and the Universe. With the Greeks, Plato in particular, being the first to think “beyond the immediate and everyday to universal and ultimate.” Plato also contributed to the “Christian discussion” in his concept of what God’s nature was, “oneness and goodness.” This section of reading provided me with an “aha moment.” Because Plato was a student of Sacrates, and whom documented the brilliance of Socrates it was cool to think about the “student” also playing an important role...in life, history, an event that might bring about greater good, for one or for many. Plato was not the only “student” to document or put forth contributions to Greek society, culture, government, or “drama”. While the names of many contributing students are unknown, it is known that they existed and did just that. I found that inspiring!
Reading about Rome, my most interesting factoid was how Augustus and his successors “tore down political frontiers around the Mediterranean, controlled piracy making it safe and easy for travel” creating an opportunity for the Apostle Paul to travel across the Roman Empire from one end to the other spreading the stories of Jesus and building the Christian Church.
There is just so much more! Truly an exciting read, and while I’m generally familiar with much of this “data” I’m not as well versed but this makes me want to be. Truly fascinating to see how all the things mentioned by MacCulloch played a role in the birth and growth of Christianity.......
I've been reading the new Collins book for year 2 and am liking it. He does a good job in framing the question about Biblical values by giving some historical, cultural, and scholarly context. I appreciate his distinction between addressing particular question and addressing the broad values that anchor these questions/debates. Lots of what he says I have read before, but he is thorough and presents the material in a way that is accessible without making the material overly simple. I appreciate his preface and opening chapter that focuses on these contextual issues rather than just leaping into the particular value questions and how he lets us now that if you wanted easy yes/no answers to these questions, you may have picked up the wrong book. I have read a bit already into next weeks assignment and I think he is doing a good job in exploring the particular broad questions he has selected, continuing his analysis of text and context. All in all a good read so far and I am looking forward to the rest of the book.
Year Two Reading, What are Biblical Values? By John J. Collins. Chapters 1-3
In the Introduction, Collins states that he will focus on two commandments to try to clarify the “diversity of biblical values”. The two commandments are what Collins calls the double love commandment:
• You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart…
• You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
This seems to me to be an appropriate benchmark given that Collins' desire is to seek the relevance of ancient biblical texts to modern situations.
In the first chapter, Collins reveals the three predominate frameworks that he will be using in his discussion of biblical values: Creation, Covenant & Eschatology.
In Chapter Two, Collins leaps right into the issue of the Right to Life. Especially in the Hebrew Bible, the death penalty seems to be the penalty of choice for a multitude of offenses (striking your parents, being a rebellious child, and working on the Sabbath, to name just a few). It seems as if Collins’ ultimate take on corporal punishment is that the Bible does not force anyone to comply with the use of the death penalty so it’s ultimately a judgement decision.
With abortion, Collins points out that the Bible does not directly address the subject, and therefore not a central concern of the Bible. Even though the Bible certainly promotes new life (”be fruitful & multiply”), the Bible does not ultimately decide the matter of the sanctity of life for us. Again, a judgement decision and not a litmus test for biblical values.
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