An End & A Beginning

Click the link in the post title above to be taken to the new home of Etcetera Whatever. Hope to see you again very soon. And to hear what you think.

Richard

Men at Work

Hopefully in the next few hours, I will unveil my new blog. I understand the anticipation might make it difficult for people to get any work accomplished today. But that is a chance I am willing to take. Updates soon.

In the Meantime

I am currently working on some changes to the blog, which are taking too much time. So, in the meantime, I offer you this little song, "In the Meantime," written by Terry Scott Taylor of Daniel Amos and performed by Taylor and Mike Roe of the 77s. Occasionally Terry and Mike team up with Derri Daugherty of the Choir. At such times, they masquerade as the Lost Dogs, perhaps the greatest non-band of all time. Enjoy.


"Grace has brought us here
because nothing comes by chance
Believers, friends, companions come
to sing, to laugh to dance

It's a little glimpse of Heaven
A peek and whats to come
Where broken things are mended
Every daughter, every son

In the meantime
Let's drift upon a summer breeze
In the meantime
Hang the stars upon the trees
Catch some sunshine in a jar
Drink a glass of latter rain
Though we still remain
We'll imagine Heaven in the meantime

There will be a wondrous day
When we will all be home
The way is through this darkened glass
We'll know as we are known
So let's eat and drink and celebrate
and thank the Lord for friends
Though it is a shadow of a banquet without end

In the meantime
Let's drift upon a summer breeze
In the meantime
Hang the stars upon the trees
Catch some sunshine in a jar
Drink a glass of latter rain
Though we still remain
We'll imagine Heaven in the meantime

We'll forgive as we're forgiven
and embrace as we're embraced
We'll try to love as we are loved
Seeing Jesus in each face
And though we say goodbye today
I'm sure we'll meet again
Here or there, that perfect place
thats just around the bend

In the meantime
Let's drift upon a summer breeze
In the meantime
Hang the stars upon the trees
Catch some sunshine in a jar
Drink a glass of latter rain
Though we still remain
We'll imagine Heaven in the meantime"

Reviving Rebecca and Her World

Jon F. Sensbach, Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.

In a world dominated by white men, Rebecca Protten transcended many of the boundaries society had fixed around her. In his engaging Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World, Jon Sensbach recovers the nearly erased life of a major figure in the emerging black Protestant Christianity of the eighteenth century, demonstrating how black women and men, like Rebecca, “began to blend Christianity with the religions they had brought with them from Africa, creating a faith to fortify themselves against slavery” (3). In the end, Sensbach not only provides a fascinating story about an equally fascinating woman, but he also illustrates the flexibility of “boundaries between slavery and freedom, whiteness and blackness, male and female activity” (233).

Rebecca Protten, known as Shelly to her biracial parents, was born on the island of Antigua late in the second decade of the eighteenth century. As a young girl, Shelly, like many other non-whites, was forcibly removed from her family and sold into slavery on the nearby island of St. Thomas. Purchased by the prominent van Beverhouts, Shelly, a mulatto, was assigned to the household staff. This assignment provided the young girl with many opportunities that field laborers did not enjoy. Shelly made the most of such opportunities. She learned, for example, to read and write. Perhaps the most significant of these prospects, though, was that Shelly was exposed to the Dutch strain of Reformed Christianity at a relatively early age. By the time she was twelve, in fact, Shelly had been baptized by a visiting Roman Catholic priest and christened with the name Rebecca. Ultimately, this exposure did more than simply give her a new name. Rebecca used her new faith to negotiate a place for herself not only in America, but also in the larger Atlantic world.

When Moravian missionaries arrived in St. Thomas in 1732, it did not take long for them to hear about the piety and ability of Rebecca. They quickly seized the opportunity and put the eager young woman to work in their mission. Rebecca, as Sensbach argues, used the occasion to invent (or re-invent) herself as a teacher and a leader in the Moravian work (65). Her ability, and perhaps the fact she acted “like a white,” prompted the mission’s leader, Friedrich Martin, to arrange Rebecca’s marriage to another of the missionaries, Matthäus Freundlich (89). Already troubled by the Christianization of their human property, St. Thomas’s planters saw this interracial marriage as yet another threat to social order. So, they quickly moved to quell the progress of the Moravians, which lead to the imprisonment of Martin and the Freundlichs in 1738. While Martin was released due to health issues, Rebecca and Matthäus remained in custody until Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, the founder of Moravianism, arrived early the following year and interceded for the couple. Freed from imprisonment, Rebecca continued to teach St. Thomas’s population of enslaved Africans. The white planters, or Blancken, did not make her task any easier, however. In 1741, a respite was needed. Thus, Rebecca, Matthäus, and Friedrich Martin left for Germany. Their trip did not go as planned.

Only Rebecca, in fact, arrived safely to their destination of Marienborn. Following the death of his replacement, Martin returned to St. Thomas. Matthäus became ill and died. Rebecca arrived a widow. Her grief, however, did not keep her from laboring within the Moravian community in Marienborn. Aware of her abilities as a teacher from reports made by Martin, the leaders in Marienborn and nearby Hernnhaag quickly put the gifted woman to work. They also labored to find a suitable husband for the gifted missionary. In the end, they chose Christian Protten, an mulatto preacher from Africa. Following their wedding in 1746, Rebecca and Christian worked in various capacities and with varying approval in Europe until 1763, when the couple decided to return to Africa to establish a Moravian work at Fort Christiansbourg on the Gold Coast. They finally arrived in Africa on May 10, 1765 and established a school for the region’s mulatto children. Their work suffered one of its greatest setbacks when Christian died in 1769. Again alone, Rebecca refused to return to St. Thomas or America, opting instead to remain in Africa until her own death in 1780. “She lived,” as Sensbach so powerfully writes, “as a kind of reverse cultural bridge across the Atlantic during the period of the overwhelming one-way flow of Africans to America” (233).

Aside from the story of Rebecca’s life and the groundwork laid by religious women and men of color for the antislavery movement of the nineteenth century, Rebecca’s Revival reveals much about the flexibility of identities within the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. Rebecca inhabited a tenuous position between freedom and servitude. While she only lived part of her life enslaved, she was never able to escape the stigma of bondage attached to the color of her skin. She “belonged to that small class of free people of color, found in every New World society, dangling between slavery and freedom” (41). This was seen clearly when she was threatened with enslavement during her imprisonment on St. Thomas. She knew “that liberty in a slave society was ephemeral, easily and legally retracted by the authorities” (121). Christianity could not secure the liberty of believers. Rebecca’s story also demonstrates the flexibility of “race” in the eighteenth century. A mulatto, Rebecca lived caught between two very different worlds. She was never truly “black,” but her “whiteness” could never go beyond her actions. Even her migration to the Continent could not remove her difference. As Sensbach shows, Moravians, like Europeans in general, tended to lump together all non-Europeans in categories that stressed the differences in their outward appearances, despite claims to spiritual and social equality (178). Christianity could not erase the “race” of believers. Finally, Rebecca stepped outside the traditional activities assigned to women, illustrating the flexibility of gender roles. While clear expectations for men and women existed, Protestantism, especially in the earlier stages of sect development, afforded many women, both black and white, occasions to serve in ways that were off limits a few years earlier. Such a situation would not last, though. As Moravians, and other Protestant groups, struggled for respectability in ensuing years, they inevitably “scaled back controversial practices such as the prominent leadership role of women” (236). Christianity could not rescue believers from the negative effects of patriarchy. The ministry of Rebecca Protten, recovered by Sensbach in Rebecca’s Revival, delineates the strengths and weaknesses of Christianity in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. Though she could never escape the confinements of her day, Rebecca “had a way of turning up in unexpected places at important times to help conduct social experiments that challenged strictures of race, religion, and gender” (7). Christianity, white and black, remains indebted to the labors of Rebecca Protten. So do the multi-racial societies of the twenty-first century.

Template Trials

Well, I thought I would give it a go at working on my own template design. Let me know what you think. I aim to keep working with it until I find something I really like, but who knows how quickly I'll make those changes. So, let me know what really stinks and I'll at least work on those things.

Semper Reformanda and the “Fiddler on the Roof”

Since Eamon Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c. 1400--c. 1580 recently was released in a second edition, I decided to post a review I wrote several years ago for the first edition of this significant contibution to the literature on early modern England.

Semper Reformanda and the “Fiddler on the Roof:” A Review of Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c. 1400—c. 1580

Along with the solas of the Reformation—sola fide, solo Christo, sola scriptura, sola gratiae, and soli deo Gloria—Protestants adopted another slogan, semper reformanda. By this axiom, they meant that the “one holy catholic church,” to quote the Apostles’ Creed, should constantly evaluate itself and make changes as demanded by their respective authorities. This concept of “always reforming” protected the church from getting trapped by its own traditions. In The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c. 1400—c. 1580, a masterful revision of English religion before and during the Henrician Reformation, Eamon Duffy argues that the Protestant Reformation decimated the vibrant and living Catholicism of late medieval England. Ultimately, while his analysis leads one to think in new and challenging ways regarding the extent of religion in pre-Reformation England and the image of several key English leaders, namely, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, Duffy overstates the dichotomy between traditionalists and religious radicals.

To grasp the significance of Duffy’s revision of late medieval England, a brief survey of the literature is helpful. One of the principal ways scholars treat the Reformation is by focusing on the importance of the ideas and ideological systems of the period, specifically those of the major reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin. Taking a different route, denominational historians interpret the subject in light of their respective denominations, with their personal religious convictions normally providing the impetus for their studies. Additionally, materialist historians following the lead of Karl Marx stress the class conflict evident in the religious battles of the Reformation. Possibly influenced to some extent by each of these methodologies, Duffy writes largely from the perspective of a new social and cultural historian. Due to this social and cultural influence, he concentrates on the ordinary and extraordinary participants of the various reform movements. Combined with his argument regarding the viability of medieval English Catholicism, this focus on the ordinary layperson allows him to revise the standard interpretation of Reformation England.

In light of this scholarship, Duffy paints his portrait of England’s religious landscape, demonstrating the vibrancy of religion in late medieval England. He emphasizes the hold that Catholicism had over all of society, arguing that “late medieval religion was both enormously varied and extremely tightly knit: any thread pulled from the multicouloured pattern will lead us eventually to its centre” (Duffy, 6). The threads he pulls are the medieval understandings of the liturgy, the church’s communal atmosphere, prayers, and death and the afterlife. In each of these areas, Duffy’s approach demands a reevaluation of many common assumptions concerning English religion.

First, he illustrates that the church’s liturgy was more than merely a plan for worship. It was also “the key to the meaning and purpose of their lives” (11). By this he means that laity as well as clergy used the liturgy of the church to make sense of both their religious and regular lives, countering Charles Phythian-Adams’s argument that time was strictly divided between sacred and secular. In his sketch of medieval England’s average men and women, Duffy clearly shows the priority of religion in their lives. In so doing, he begins to dispel the myth that the Roman Catholic faith of the age was on the wane. Instead, he proves that “the rhythms of the liturgy on the eve of the Reformation remained the rhythms of life itself” (47-52).

Second, he explores the ways in which Christians in late medieval England fostered a sense of community. Since the “liturgy lay at the heart of medieval religion, and the Mass lay at the heart of the liturgy,” Duffy initially centers on the communal aspects of participation in the Mass. While he does not claim that every Christian experienced the Mass in the same way, he clearly demonstrates that the laity actively participated in a sacrament characterized by “dynamism and zest,” not dullness and apathy (91, 129). The willing participation in confraternal organizations represented another manner in which ordinary men and women took part, both physically and financially, in medieval religion. In fact, belonging to a confraternity was “more often than not simply one of the conventional ways of being an active parishioner” (154). Moreover, the cult of the saints provided another means of lay participation. Viewing the saints as exemplars, helpers, and healers, the medieval laity constructed a community that extended beyond the limits of earthly life. In short, whether through the sacrament of the Mass, confraternal societies, or the honor paid to the saints, ordinary people lived and moved within the community of believers (178).

Third, in order to stress the vitality of their faith, Duffy analyzes the way the laity of late medieval England prayed. Appealing to valuable primary sources, such as the writings of Margery Kempe and Richard Rolle, he illustrates the ways in which the exercise of prayer pervaded nearly every aspect of life (211). Perhaps the most striking feature of Duffy’s discussion of prayer is the instrument the laity used to teach themselves how to pray—the primer. By revealing the ways “devout, literate, lay people” used primers, he amends the work of many earlier historians, demonstrating the importance of the print culture to the Catholic community (265). Catholics, similar to Protestants, employed printed materials to educate and to further the church’s cause. While this alone is useful, Duffy goes even further, claiming that devotional primers fostered the democratization and social homogeneity of the medieval Catholic world “in which religion was a single but multifaceted and resonant symbolic house, within which rich and poor, simple and sophisticate could kneel side by side, using the same prayers and sharing the same hopes" (298).

The final way Duffy recasts the image of medieval religion in England is his treatment of the cult of death (301). Following the lead of Johan Huzinga, he claims that the people of the late Middle Ages were obsessed with the topic of death. This preoccupation with the danse macabre helped make the doctrine of purgatory the crux of the matter for the laity. The novelty of Duffy’s analysis is how he interprets this fascination with death and purgatory, namely, “as a means of prolonging the presence of the dead within the community of the living, and therefore as the most eloquent of testimonies to the permanent value of life in the world of time and change” (303). In short, death mattered because life mattered.

In addition to his treatment of the various ways ordinary men and women lived in light of their religious convictions, Duffy also strives to correct the way earlier scholars, such as A. G. Dickens, portrayed several of England’s extraordinary leaders, specifically Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth. He prefers to render Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth as revolutionaries rather than reformers. In his estimation, these despotic leaders and their subordinates attacked the dynamic, traditional piety of Catholicism. His revision does not stop there, however, as he suggests that Mary Tudor should not be seen as throwing the English church back into the arms of an unwanted, outdated Catholic faith. Instead, her creative efforts to reconstruct the church met with popular enthusiasm. While he refuses to do away with “Bloody Mary” completely, Duffy contends that Marian Catholicism was a religiously progressive program “at one with the larger Counter-Reformation” (564). The reigns of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, on the contrary, forced a radical, new religion on an unwilling community, eventually contributing to the rise of a generation “which had known nothing else, which believed the Pope to be the Antichrist, the Mass a mummery, which did not look back to the Catholic past as their own, but another country, another world” (593).

As this brief assessment of the strengths of The Stripping of the Altars makes clear, Duffy adds much to the historiography of late medieval England. His brilliant revisions of the pervasive nature of Catholicism and the Tudor rulers lead to a startlingly new image of the world of late medieval England, not to mention the religious milieu of the period. His analysis suffers, however, from his penchant to overstate the dichotomy between religious traditionalists and radicals. The notion of traditional religion, “the shared and inherited character of the religious beliefs and practices of the people,” drives his argument (3). In the end, though, Duffy misunderstands an important quality about tradition. He fails to recognize that tradition often changes over time. His examination of this period, spanning nearly two centuries, assumes that what ordinary people thought and experienced underwent little to no change, despite the fact that this era was characterized by technological, political, economical, and ideological changes. Duffy overlooks the fact that religious convictions could have changed as well. Instead, he consistently argues that religion remained “traditional.” This conviction leads him to stress a drastic and constant distinction between traditional religion and radical religion (and the respective adherents of both). Consequently, this strict dichotomy weakens the overall feasibility of his argument. In short, the vibrant “traditional religion” of The Stripping of the Altars seems more like the author’s creation than the lived religion of late medieval English men and women.

On the whole, Duffy certainly makes important contributions to the study of the Reformation, particularly its development in England. He casts new light on the extent to which society was concerned with the religious world, which he argues was very much a Catholic world. Moreover, he dispenses several myths of the reign of Mary Tudor and of the glorious reforms of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth. His rigorous definition of tradition and “traditional religion,” however, leads to the volume’s major weakness. Duffy refuses to see any evolution in tradition. In his estimation, it appears that tradition is what it is because it does not change. This tendency to overlook the mutability of England’s given tradition causes him to overstate the dichotomy between the period’s religious traditionalists and radicals. Perhaps Duffy could learn a valuable lesson about tradition from Tevye, a fictional Jewish dairyman in 1905 Russia. As implied by the motto semper reformanda, a life without the existence of hard and fast traditions is not necessarily “as shaky as a fiddler on the roof” (Joseph Stein, Fiddler on the Roof , 9).

A Jazz Club in Louisville

This evening, Leanne and I went to the Jazz Factory in Louisville to hear Sarah Stivers, a friend from Heine Brothers, perform. It was really good. About a year ago, I heard about thirty seconds from some of Sarah's studio time for her forthcoming cd. So, when she mentioned she was singing a few sets there tonight, I knew I wanted to go. The Jazz Factory is a pretty cool venue. The funny thing is that no more than a week before Sarah told me about her upcoming gig, I had read about the club in the recent issue of Louisville Magazine. Then, last Sunday as Leanne and I enjoyed our routine post-church coffee time, another friend praised the Jazz Factory. So, we both looked forward to it all week long. We weren't disappointed. In the end, we had a nice evening out in a great environment with some great music.

A New Hope

Though I haven't seen the newest episode in the Star Wars mythology, this seems a timely link. Maybe it will hold me over until I see the real thing next week. Or at least make me hungry.

Louisville's Greatest Institutions

As I sat here this morning working on chapter four of the dissertation, I looked down and noticed that on my little desk sat artifacts from two of Louisville's greatest institutions--cultural, religious, social, historical, or otherwise. Sure, Louisville is home to a great orchestra, a pretty decent racetrack for horses, a rather reputable university with a presentable basketball team and mediocre coach, two celebrated and historic theological seminaries, a boxer who shook up the world, and a big baseball bat. But, arguably, Louisville's most significant offerings for society are on display in the following photo. Whenever Leanne and I leave Louisville, we will likely miss these two institutions most.

As Good a Place as Any

Since I said I was going to post book reviews, I figured I ought to go ahead and start doing so. I decided to post a review essay, recently published in Fides et Historia XXXVI:2 (Summer/Fall 2004): 130-132, that has already garnered several useful comments from friends and colleagues. So, here's my first such review.

"Baptists in the South Battle for America"

Willing to throw caution to the wind, Barry Hankins tackles two subjects that prudence demands be left alone—religion and politics, specifically the intertwining of the two themes in the last twenty years within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The result is Uneasy in Babylon: Southern Baptist Conservatives and American Culture. In this insightful examination of the conservative leadership of SBC, Hankins analyzes “who Southern Baptist conservatives are, how they became evangelical culture warriors, and what they intend to do with their considerable influence” (2). Ultimately Hankins’s careful use of personal interviews elicits a fair evaluation of how the conservative evangelical theology of current SBC leaders prompts their forays into American culture.

In the late 1970s, Hankins argues, these conservatives grew concerned over what they saw as the inability and the unwillingness of a more moderate SBC leadership to engage American society. The only hope to redeem America from this serious moral crisis, in the eyes of these Southern Baptist conservatives, was to wed theology and culture. By emphasizing the ways in which their conservative theology was able to speak to larger issues, this new wave of SBC leaders waged an all-out war on American culture. This war was to be fought in three waves. First, these conservatives were convinced that they must regain a “theological foundation for resistance” (10). Then, they must oust the more moderate SBC leadership, replacing them with conservative men who shared their theological vision. Finally, such SBC conservatives planned to assume the mantle of the Old Testament judges, engaging the Babylonian culture around them.

In his first four chapters, Hankins treats the historical narrative of the first two stages of this theological-culture war. Non-Southern experiences (intellectually, geographically, and culturally) prompted SBC conservatives, such as R. Albert Mohler and Richard Land, to adopt the neoevangelical strategies of Francis Schaeffer and Carl F. H. Henry in their attempts to engage and critique America culture. With the exception of Paige Patterson, “the neoevangelical influence became attractive to Southern Baptist conservatives because of its emphasis on cultural engagement” (39). Once these conservatives grasped the importance of such a version of evangelicalism, they began to work from several different angles, namely, intellectualism, activism, and populism, to reestablish the theological foundations of the denomination and its institutions, such as Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Hankins’s focus on the tumultuous years at Southern Seminary following the 1993 appointment of Mohler as the school’s ninth president illustrates well the conservative insistence to purge what they perceived as theological infidelity within their own ranks. As the seminary moved further to the right theologically under Mohler’s tenure, Southern Baptist conservatives engaged American culture even more strongly. In the process, SBC leaders, according to Hankins, had to revisit a fundamental Baptist doctrine—religious liberty.

The conservative Southern Baptist way to address religious liberty was to espouse a brand of “Baptist accommodationism,” which allowed them expect the government to “take a friendly stance toward religion, accommodating it wherever possible” (140). As Hankins demonstrates in the second half of Uneasy in Babylon, this approach to religious liberty provided the foundation on which conservatives Southern Baptists have built their program of cultural engagement. To demonstrate this engagement, Hankins analyzes the SBC conservatives’ views on church and state, abortion, the role of women in the church and home, and race. In these four chapters, he clearly shows the coherency of the SBC conservatives, despite the different approaches of specific leaders. As a rule, SBC conservatives assume a countercultural stance in their battles with Babylon. The exception, however, is the issue of race. “Race is the one issue where Southern Baptist conservatives want to be progressive,” regardless of the alliances such a progressive position entails (270). In the end, this cultural program, birthed from a concern for theological conservatism, unites SBC conservatives and demands that they live uneasily in the Babylon that is America.

While a conservative Southern Baptist might want to find much in Uneasy in Babylon difficult to swallow, Hankins ultimately convinces due to his outstanding scholarship. Effectively using personal interviews, he allows Southern Baptist conservatives to speak for themselves, weaving their accounts into his narrative. These interviews also reinforce the coherency of the conservative position, demonstrating where theology and culture interacted. Perhaps the greatest strength of Hankins’s study is his evenhanded evaluation of a generally contentious topic. While admitting that he sides with moderate Southern Baptists, he is fair and respectful to both moderates and conservatives in his analysis of their interviews and the facts. Unlike the majority of recent works that have dealt with the SBC controversy, Uneasy in Babylon is not a polemic for one or the other group of Southern Baptists. Rather, it is a book about Southern Baptists conservatives and their attempts to engage American culture.

The one glaring weakness, however, has to do with the treatment of race and race relations. With very few exceptions in the book, race relations only involve white and black Americans. This limitation disappoints for at least two reasons. First, it allows a portrayal of SBC conservatives as decidedly progressive on the question of race. Hankins is certainly correct in his treatment of SBC efforts to foster racial reconciliation between blacks and whites, though it is accurate to wonder what has been done in this area outside the few examples of such efforts that he mentions. Furthermore, these actions alone do not make the SBC leaders progressive. What about their relationships with other racial groups? If one looks at the ways in which Southern Baptist conservatives have related to other groups, such as Asian Americans in the recent controversy over a children’s curriculum program titled “Rickshaw Rally: Racing to the Son,” they do not seem nearly as progressive as their relations with African Americans might suggest. Second, and more importantly, portraying race relations as primarily between blacks and whites ultimately reinforces racial insensitivity to other peoples. Race is not simply a black or white issue. While Hankins does not say it is, his discussions of SBC conservatives and race implies that this is case. A more explicit statement of why he deals specifically with blacks and whites within the SBC to the exclusion of other groups (a logical focus given the legacy of the SBC’s attitudes toward African Americans) would avoid any such tendency to forget about the injustices other peoples might be experiencing at the hands of these “progressives.”

This potential shortcoming, however, does not lessen the importance of Hankins’s fine study. His use of oral interviews demonstrates clearly the ways in which SBC conservatives fuse theology and culture to address what they perceive as problems in American society. Uneasy in Babylon: Southern Baptists Conservatives and American Culture is a must read for students of Southern Baptist history, as well as twentieth-century evangelicalism and fundamentalism.

reviewing my view

in an attempt to answer some criticisms that friends and i have made of some of my previous posts, i decided to consider the format and content of my pages. so, much to heather's delight (and perhaps to the delight of a critic on another site), i am ready to make a slight change to the format of my blog. namely, i am going to stop pulling an e e cummings. in other words, i plan to use proper capitalization in my posts. I do this now for a few reasons. The primary reasons are my own struggles with not typing properly and the difficulty such a style has caused some friends whose readership I appreciate. Also, I plan on using something like a blog format in an upper-lever course I am teaching on Colonial America in the fall. So, I don't want students developing any bad habits. Though I found the discipline of writing sans capitalization somewhat cathartic (as I expressed on another site), I think it gets in the way for some people. So, time for a change (probably a permanent one).

Also, in reviewing the content of previous posts, I realized I have really not posted any substantive book reviews. Well, that's something I would like to do. So, I plan on posting critical book reviews from time to time. Not only will I offer comments on relatively "new reads," but I also plan on making available various published and unpublished reviews I have written over the past few years. Perhaps such postings will generate more interaction by my readers. Perhaps I'll help sell a few books. And maybe even make these pages a bit more useful.

a song for stillness

for some reason this morning, stillness has been a desire. maybe it's my toothache, forcing me to long for a few moments free from any distracting sounds or pains. or maybe it's fatigue from the silliness of life and the routine of writing. or maybe it's something else entirely. regardless, this hymn written by catharina von schlegel has occupied my thoughts, though i know i could have worse songs stuck in my head--like "bust a move" from the recent old navy "bust a tunic" ad. yes, this is better.

"Be still, my soul; the Lord is on your side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to your God to order and provide;
In every change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; your best, your heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul; your God will undertake
To guide the future as he has the past.
Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and wind still know
His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

Be still, my soul; though dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in the vale of tears;
Then you will better know his love, his heart,
Who comes to soothe your sorrows and your fears.
Be still, my soul; your Jesus can repay
From his own fullness all he takes away.

Be still, my soul; the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last."

(lutheran hymnal, 651)

a looming transformation

as leanne and i walked to church recently, she noticed caterpillar after caterpillar. i wonder if we'll notice all the butterflies when they emerge? for some reason, i was thinking of those little caterpillars this morning. then, i remembered this poem by emily dickinson.

"A fuzzy fellow, without feet,
Yet doth exceeding run!
Of velvet, is his Countenance,
And his Complexion, dun!

Sometime, he dwelleth in the grass!
Sometime, upon a bough,
From which he doth descend in plush
Upon the Passer-by!

All this in summer.
But when the winds alarm the Forest Folk,
He taketh Damask Residence--
And struts in sewing silk!

Then, finer than a Lady,
Emerges in the spring!
A Feather of each shoulder!
You'd scarce recognize him!

By Men, yclept Caterpillar!
By me! But who am I,
To tell the pretty secret
Of the Butterfly!

At last, to be identified!
At last the lamps upon thy side
The rest of Life to see!

Past Midnight! Past the Morning Star!
Past Sunrise!
Ah, What leagues there were
Between our feet, and Day!"

(complete poems of emily dickinson, 82-83)

some thoughts (organized and random) from pentecost sunday

yesterday, charles preached a very encouraging sermon about the church, using john 20:19-23. in this text, we see the disciples huddled together behind locked doors. they had watched the crucifixion of their leader only a few days earlier. now, they likely awaited the sounds of soldiers' feet coming to arrest them. in this moment of fear, though, the resurrected jesus made himself known to them. standing among then, he ministered to their fears, saying, "peace by with you. peace be with you. as the father has sent me, even so I am sending you. receive the holy spirit. if you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld." in this room where fear weighed heavily in the air, the church began as christ came and fellowshipped with his disciples. charles's words reminded me vividly of similar words from the writings of d. b. knox. in his essay, "the church, the churches, and the denominations of churches," knox also locates the church within the presence of christ and the fellowship believers share with each other as a result of this presence. "Being in Christ's presence, through his Spirit present in them, naturally draws Christians into each other's company," writes Knox. "They meet together in his name," he continues, "and Christ is there in each. Thus the local church forms spontaneously as an expression, in the sphere of time and space, of the eternal reality of fellowship with God which each has, and who is in each. Christians are never exhorted in the New Testament to become members of the church, for that is synonymous with being Christ's. But they are exhorted to give expression to their membership by being present in the local church, or gathering, of Christ round himself." gathered round the resurrected christ, the disciples, despite their fear, experienced the communion only found in christ's church.

randomness sets in. a few statements charles made yesterday remain with me. a first statement: when explaining the state of the disciples hiding in their little room, he compared them to the church. "Without the presence of God," he remarked, "this [a frightened group of disciples] is all we are." a second comment: "Left to our own devices all of us churches are nothing."

more randomness. from the first of last night's two new episodes of "the simpsons." as the simpson clan (sans maggie) leaves the showing of a foreign film, bart proudly displays the ponytail he snipped from the 30-year-old grad student seated in front of him. correcting her son, marge chides, "bart, don't make fun of grad students, they just made terrible life choices."

a cool little box

having only recently returned from our visit to my parents in columbus, indiana, i must post a brief comment about the mac mini my mom bought my dad for his birthday and father's day (yeah, i know he got it a little early, but i won't be around on his birthday, so he benefits from that). and, well, the title says it all. a cool little box. now, i don't need one. my imac works fine. i have no need to hook a mac mini up to our television and sit at my desk in the living room with a bluetooth mouse and keyboard so that i can finish my dissertation. no need really, but i wouldn't mind experiencing such a thing. at least for a chapter or two.

those of you even remotely considering the jump to a mac should take heart. you can use your current vga monitor (by means of the supplied dvi to vga adapter), as well as any usb mouse or keyboard. with such a setup, you too can experience the stable life of "tiger." so, be daring. switch. you won't regret it. i mean, it's such a cool little box.

a plea for grace

i came upon this prayer this morning and considered it a wonderful way to begin the day. perhaps you will as well.


"BUT, O God, who knowest the weakness and corruption of our nature, and the manifold temptations which we daily meet with; We humbly beseech thee to have compassion on our infirmities, and to give us the constant assistance of thy Holy Spirit; that we may be effectually restrained from sin, and excited to our duty. Imprint upon our hearts such a dread of thy judgments, and such a grateful sense of thy goodness to us, as may make us both afraid and ashamed to offend thee. And, above all, keep in our minds a lively remembrance of that great day, in, which we must give a strict account of our thoughts, words, and actions; and according to the works done in the body, be eternally rewarded or punished, by him whom thou hast appointed the Judge of quick and dead, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
(1789 book of common prayer)

beddome: reprise

a friend let me know that he and his family enjoyed the previous posting of a hymn by benjamin beddome. so, on what has turned into a short day, another set of beddome's verses:

"Great God! my Maker and my King,
Of thee I'll speak, of thee I'll sing;
All thou hast done, and all thou dost,
Declare thee good, proclaim thee just.

Thy ancient thoughts and firm decrees;
Thy threatenings and thy promises;
The joys of heaven, the pains of hell,--
What angels taste, what devils feel;

Thy terrors and thy acts of grace;
Thy threatening rod, and smiling face;
Thy wounding and thy healing word;
A world undone, a world restored;

While these excite my fear and joy,
While these my tuneful lips employ,
Accept, O Lord, the humble song,
The tribute of a trembling tongue."

another child in the kingdom

roughly three and a half years ago, i did something i never really thought i would do. i bought an apple computer. an ibook to be exact. some ten months later, i then replaced my trusty desktop pc with a fancy imac. now, this might not seem like that big of a deal. but, for someone who spent a good bit of time building windows-based machines, including three of his own, it was quite an occasion. since shifting my computing paradigm, i have convinced a few people (and tried with several others) that they ought to make their next computer a mac. the most recent of these converts was my father. now, to be fair, he doesn't know that his new mac mini is sitting in my living room. my mom bought it for his upcoming birthday and father's day. leanne and i will take it to him this weekend, hopefully after his broadband connection is operational at their house. i am actually rather thankful i do not have the necessary adapter to hook it up to our television or i would already have it out of the box and set up for him. i am not saying i will not go purchase said adapter before friday, but i am trying to restrain myself so that i can spend the time setting it up showing him things about the mac os (it shipped with tiger, which after installing on my imac i think rocks).

why do i mention this? two reasons. (1) i want to take this opportunity to point out a link in my sidebar. see it over there? that delightfully attractive mac mini? go ahead, click it. or click here. sign up and complete an offer. help me get a mac mini and work on one for yourself. i have read several articles about this program. it's legitimate. leanne and i chose the blockbuster offer and watched quite a few dvds in the month we paid for the subscription. i haven't bothered friends with this offer yet, but for those of you who read this please feel free to check into it. i have had two people sign up and complete an offer. i need eight more. (2) as any of you begin looking for a new computer (which happens to us all from time to time), lets talk. for most of us, there really is no good reason not to get a mac. prices are comparable. software is compatible. malware is curbed. plus, macs are cooler. 'nuff said.

go: chapter 2: god not of our choosing

after a rather extended hiatus, i want to return this morning to my reflections on brian mclaren's a generous orthodoxy. in his second chapter, bdm tries to answer the question "why do christians emphasize jesus so much?" in the end, i think he fails to do so. now, he suspected as much and already conceded that point. but, i don't think he failed the question for the reason he gave, namely, jesus is "so much more wonderful than i will ever be able to say" (go, 71). while this is true for all of us, bdm failed to answer the question because, in my opinion, he never got to it. he did talk about jesus as the "son of god." and he made some useful and edifying comments in that discussion, though i am not certain he ever really talked about what it means for jesus to be the son of god. in fact, he spent roughly half of his time explaining why masculine pronouns for god are inadequate, which while useful doesn't get at the question he posed to begin the chapter. so, what can we say about this "jesus and god b?"

positively, i think bdm's brief comment regarding the way that many believers invoke the name of christ too loosely and vainly is not far from the mark. we generally do fail to revere christ as we ought. his name is too easily on our lips. perhaps we as believers would be better off if we used the name of christ with more care and attention. such would honor christ more than attaching his name to every t-shirt, cd, book, notepad, or action figure that will sell.

negatively, three things bothered me in this chapter. (1) for all the talk one hears (and bdm makes) about jesus being one "whose life and message resonated with acceptance, welcome, and inclusion" (go, 70), where is the jesus of the gospels? you know that jesus, right? the jesus who pronounced judgment on the unrepentant cities of chorazin, bethsaida, and capernaum for rejecting him, the way, the truth, and the life. the jesus who chastised the pharisees, scribes, and lawyers for searching after a false righteousness rather than the righteous one. sure, the jesus of the gospels was accepting, and welcoming, and inclusive. but only of those people who looked to him as a means of restoring their communion with the father. anyone could experience that restored communion, but only through christ who has the words of eternal life, the holy one of god. (2) bdm seems to build his vision of jesus on his experience and not on scripture alone. "This is why," he writes, "for starters, I am a Christian: the image of God conveyed by Jesus as the Son of God, and the image of the universe that resonates with this image of God best fit my deepest experience, best resonate with my deepest intuition, best inspire my deepest hope, and best challenge me to live with what my friend, the late Mike Yaconelli, called 'dangerous wonder'" (go, 76-77). okay, this sounds nice and pious, but why should bdm's experience (or mine) define the image of god? god doesn't have to fit my idea of him. he has spoken. he has revealed himself. and even if said revelation doesn't resonate with my best experience, god remains the same. (3) building on the previous criticism, bdm's last few paragraphs in this chapter are the most disturbing. in these paragraphs, he imagines two gods, a & b. god a is "a single, solitary, dominant Power, Mind, or Will." god b is "a unified, eternal, mysterious, relational community/family/society/entity of saving Love." he decides he'd rather worship this second picture of god, because his universe would be one "of interdependence, relationship, possibility, responsibility, becoming, novelty, mutuality, freedom" (go, 76). well, isn't that nice? the problem is simple, though. god is god. he has revealed himself in ways that include elements from both of bdm's constructions of deity. god defines godness. not the creature. so, what bdm (or i) want god to be like doesn't matter. god the father, god the son, and god the holy spirit are a god not of our choosing.

dead weight

this morning, while editing chapter 3 of the dissertation and listening (as usual) to over the rhine, their song "dead weight" from the album besides shuffled through the ipod. though i have listened to this song literally hundreds of times previously, a certain phrase really stood out on this occasion. "We know good enough is a thousand miles from grace." once again, in over the rhine's generally subtle way, i am reminded on the futility of goodness and my need for grace.

anyway, here's "dead weight."


"Sometimes I like to stick my fingers
where they don’t belong.
Sometimes I like to fake a fever
and just stay home.

‘Cause we smile in here
we don’t get too close to sadness.
‘Cause what’s holding us
is just about to break.
Ain’t it funny how life can drag behind us
just like so much dead weight.

Sometimes what feels like pretty good music
is just the same old song.
Sometimes we deal with bygone bruises
and find it’s been too long.

But we laugh in here
we don’t get too close to sadness.
We know good enough
is a thousand miles from grace.
Ain’t it funny how life can drag behind us
just like so much dead weight.

And my hometown train
is pulling from the station.
And I know for once
I really will be late.
And I’ll dream that we can leave the past behind us
just like so much dead weight.

Sometimes I like to stick my fingers where they don’t belong.

our few troubled days

yesterday, i came to this poem in wb's a timbered choir. i look forward to spending more time this week thinking about it.

"I go from the woods into the cleared field:
A place to human made, a place unmade
By human greed, and to be made again.
Where centuries of leaves once built by dying
A deathless potency of light and stone
And mold of all that grew and fell, the timeless
Fell into time. The earth fled with the rain,
The growth of fifty thousand years undone
In a few careless seasons, stripped to rock
And clay--a "new land," truly, that no race
Was ever native to, but hungry mice
And sparrows and the circling hawks, dry thorns
And thistles sent by generosity
Of new beginning. No Eden, this was
A garden once, a good and perfect gift;
Its possible abundance stood in it
As it then stood. But now what it might be
Must be foreseen, darkly, through many lives--
Thousands of years to make it what it was,
Beginning now, in our few troubled days."

(wb, a timbered choir, 16)

idiot, part two

about a month ago, some friends from seminary days made a visit to louisville on behalf of their local baptist assocation. while they were in town, i got to catch up with steve and joe (no, they're not the idiots) for pub grub at the irish rover. i mention this now for two reasons. one, since it has been a month, i feel confident they both would like to recall their latest visit to the rover, including its delicious scotch eggs. two, over dinner that evening steve and joe talked about an album they had listened to on their drive south. their comments were overwhelmingly positive, so a few weeks later i followed their recommendation and picked up a copy of the latest green day release, american idiot. after getting the chance to listen to it from start to finish a few times now, i must concur with their assessment. all in all, this is good stuff. perhaps even a bit prophetic in places. at the moment, i'll leave it to my readers to find those places on their own. for those interested, though, you can find some decent reviews of the album here and here and here. political...prophetic...punk...pop...idiotic...perhaps these guys are theologians.

idiot, part one

well, i finally ponied up the money to order a copy of rachel wheeler's dissertation on the congregational and moravian missions efforts in eighteenth-century western massachusetts, "living upon hope: mahicans and missionaries, 1730-1760." i kept hoping that rachel had a contract and i would see the revised book form on the shelf at my local book store. in fact, i am still hoping for that scenario. until then, though, i needed to spend a little time with a few sections of her diss as i am thinking through a few of my own chapters. yesterday, i came across a phrase in her discussion of the history of moravians and count nicholaus ludwig van zinzendorf that i found rather interesting. in her discussion of moravianism's tendency toward anti-rationalism, rachel offered the following: "Zinzendorf believed philosophical reasoning was all well and good, but in order to become theologians, 'they must become children and idiots'" (wheeler, "living upon hope," 81). anyone who has spent any time on most seminary campuses should, i think, appreciate this statement. certainly anyone who has roamed the theological mindfields (wasteland?) of the blogosphere will recognize the truth in this sentence. everywhere one turns, she sees another theologian. and we wonder about the state of american evangelicalism. it's simple--there are too many idiots.

curses to the denomination

several months ago, i posted an entry here that seemed to ruffle a few feathers, though it elicited no responses. despite the facts that (1) the point of the post really had nothing to do with what caused concern to some and that (2) i simply followed the example of "blogging-with-a-hook" set by some of the very people whose feathers ended up mussed, i have to admit my blog has rarely seen as many hits as in the days and weeks following that post. so, given what my religious heritage sadly sees as proof of diligent and faithful service, i am compelled to post yet again with the hope of seeing the numbers rise.

as i pointed out in my post from late february, the weblog and commentary of al mohler, the president of southern seminary, is generally a great read. today is no exception. tackling the tendencies of graduate schools to hire people who have little to no practical experience in their disciplines, mohler sounds a clarion cry to theological seminaries to exercise diligence in their hiring practices.

"It should be unthinkable," writes mohler, "that the faculty in a theological seminary would include professors of such limited experience in church life. And yet, I have interviewed applicants for faculty positions who, when asked about their church involvement and ministry experience, have virtually nothing to offer." i do not doubt this final sentence one bit. and, given the relative inexperience, practically speaking, of more than a few faculty members southern has hired during the time and since i attended the school from 1997 to 2000, such a claim is even more frightening. "The task of seminary leaders," mohler continues, "is to make certain that persons of such minimal church experience and commitment are not offered faculty positions in our schools." from repeated conversations with pastor-friends (graduates from southern as well as other baptist and non-baptist seminaries), it seems that in modeling and teaching the nut-and-bolts of practical ministry, seminary educations in general fail their graduates. such practical areas, it seems, can best (if not only) be taught by men and women who have actually spent time in the trenches and muck of pastoral ministry.

so, i think mohler is absolutely correct in issuing a "wake-up call" to the administrations of theological seminaries, especially those of his own denomination. i find it providential that this commentary arrives when it does--on the heels of hiring and promotion announcements at the sbc's seminaries. a quick glance at baptist press releases from this year and previous years reveals, sadly, that the convention's hiring and promotion practices may need such an alarum. as thrilled as i am that personal friends from sbc, and other evangelical, seminaries are getting tenure-track jobs and promotions within the denomination's theological institutions, i have to admit that, given mohler's commentary, some (by no means all) of them "have virtually nothing to offer." this is a problem that one hopes the various seminary administrations will continuously strive to rectify. "Otherwise," as mohler contends, "the theological seminary will be more of a curse than a blessing to the local church and its denomination."

one caveat: i am still wrestling a bit with a sentence in al's next to last paragraph, namely: "True Christian scholarship, dedicated to the training of Christian ministers, must be devoted to and measured by what actually happens in the local church." what bothers me here? well, is scholarship dedicated to the training of christian ministers the only true christian scholarship? is that even what mohler is saying? or must true christian scholarship primarily be devoted to and only measured by what actually happens in the local church? i suppose the answer depends on one's definition and understanding of "true christian scholarship." i would not say (and i am not absolutely certain mohler is saying) that true christian scholarship is defined and limited by such motivations and effects, so that any scholarship that occurs for different reasons or with different ends is, by default, not true, or authentic, christian scholarship. to say "true christian scholarship" can only look like this, can only come from these motivations, and can only have these effects seems a bit arrogant, which i don't think is mohler's intent. again, just a caveat.

a tribute to a former slave trader

recently i secured a copy of amazing grace: an anthology of poems about slavery, 1660-1810. the poem (or hymn actually) from which the volume receives its name is, of course, included in the collection. so is the following poem written in honor of the eighteenth-century slave trader turned evangelical minister, hymn-writer, and anti-slavery advocate. newton's conversion and subsequent ministry greatly influenced a number of significant anti-slavery men and women, such as william wilberforce, hannah more, and william cowper, in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. newton's life, i think, illustrates the difficulty of appealing to the "man of his times" argument to excuse one's sinfulness. the story is simply more complex. for, in newton's case, god's amazing grace extended well beyond the blind wretch delivered from the sinfulness of the slave trade to other men and women of their times who similarly questioned the morality of the increasingly peculiar institution.

"Like Jonah, on the mighty deep,
He strove to fly from God;
But fled, alas! to sin, and weep
Beneath his chast'ning rod.
A wretch upon a wretched shore,
A slave by slaves confin'd,
A doubly galling yoke he bore,
Of body and of mind.

In deep distress, and bitter woe,
Corruption's rankling smart,
Mysterious Wisdom made him know
His own rebellious heart!
Unconscious of the future sphere
That he was form'd to fill,
With application most severe,
He sought for knowledge still!

Cut off from ev'ry human aid,
On Afric's burning sand
The depths of science he essay'd,
And mystic Euclid scann'd;
While o'er the liquid way he mov'd,
He studied many a tome;
With Tacitus and Livy rov'd,
To scenes of ancient Rome.

Almighty grace the rebel tam'd;
And deep contrition drew
The wand'ring prodigal, reclaimed,
And form'd his heart anew!
No more on grov'ling themes confin'd,
His ardent spirits soar'd,
With ready gifts and soul refin'd,
To glorify his Lord!

(amazing grace, 639-640)

a hymn read during a break

as i take a few minutes from pecking my keyboard through a chapter of the dissertation, i read this hymn by benjamin beddome. reminded me of some things a friend is going through currently as he ministers to his congregation in the wake of an accident that seriously injured a church member.

"God's are just, his counsels wise;
No darkness can prevent his eyes;
No thought can fly, nor thing can move,
Unknown to him that sits above.

He in the thickest darkness dwells;
Performs his works, the cause conceals;
But though his methods are unknown,
Judgment and truth support his throne.

In heaven, and earth, and air, and seas,
He executes his firm decrees;
And by his saints it stands confessed,
That what he does is ever best.

Wait, then, my soul, submissive wait,
Prostrate before his awful seat;
And, 'midst the terrors of his rod,
Trust in a wise and gracious God."

fully updated and a new cousin

well, the computers at our house are fully upgraded and running smoothly. the imac gets to run "tiger," while the ibook can clip along at breakneck speed running "panther." perhaps, as leanne often argues, it is the little things. though, in general, my little things are different (read: bigger and more expensive) than her little things.

also, my cousin, kelly, and her husband, john, recently returned from china. their mission: to bring home their little girl, emma. now, i haven't met emma yet, but she already has more hair than her dad (and almost more than her second cousin) and from the pictures i have seen she looks to be having a wonderful time with mom and dad. if they are smart, they'll keep her away from the rest of the family as long as they can. those people are frightening. below is a photo shortly after they returned home.