Insights: Theological Education for Life Abundant

Theological Education for Life Abundant

Insights The Faculty Journal of Austin Seminary

SPRING 2020

Jensen • Eckerstorfer • Peretz • Burkhalter • Miller Hooks • Forbes • Cornwall • Nishioka • Wiginton

Insights

The Faculty Journal of Austin Seminary

Spring 2020

Volume 135

Number 2

Editor: William Greenway Editorial Board: Carolyn Helsel, David Johnson, and Randal Whittington The Faculty of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary Margaret Aymer Gregory L. Cuéllar Bridgett Green William Greenway Carolyn B. Helsel Phillip Browning Helsel Paul K. Hooker David H. Jensen David W. Johnson Bobbi Kaye Jones

Timothy D. Lincoln Jennifer L. Lord Song-Mi Suzie Park Cynthia L. Rigby Asante U. Todd Eric Wall Theodore J. Wardlaw David F. White Melissa Wiginton

Insights: The Faculty Journal of Austin Seminary

is published two times each year by Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 100 East 27th Street, Austin, TX 78705-5797. e-mail: wgreenway@austinseminary.edu Web site: austinseminary.edu Entered as non-profit class bulk mail at Austin, Texas, under Permit No. 2473. POSTMASTER: Address service requested. Send to Insights, 100 East 27th Street, Austin, TX 78705-5797.

Printing runs are limited. Permission to copy articles from Insights: The Faculty Journal of Austin Seminary for educational purposes may be given by the editor upon receipt of a written request. © Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary The past six issues of Insights: The Faculty Journal of Austin Seminary are available on our website: AustinSeminary.edu/Insights. Some previous issues are available on microfilm through University Microfilms International, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 (16 mm microfilm, 105 mm microfiche, and article copies are available). Insights is indexed in Religion Index One: Periodicals, Index to Book Reviews in Religion, Religion Indexes: RIO/RIT/IBRR 1975- on CD-ROM, Religious & Theological Abstracts, url:www.rtabstracts.org & email:admin@rtabstracts.org, and the ATA Religion Database on CD-ROM, published by the American Theological Library Association, 300 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 2100, Chicago, IL 60606-6701; telephone: 312-454-5100; e-mail: atla@atla.com; web site: www.atla.com; ISSN 10560548.

COVER: “Abundant Harvest” by Joan Metcalf; 36" x 48," oil and metal on canvas ©2018;

used with permission from the artist. Joan Metcalf’s inspiration for her paintings is the abundant natural beauty of Oregon’s gardens, forests, and vineyards. Her oil and composition metal leaf technique was inspired by the ancient Japanese Rimpa tradition of combining plants and trees with shimmering backgrounds. A collection of her current work can be seen on her website, www.joanmetcalf.com.

Contents

2 Introduction

Theodore J. Wardlaw

Theological Education for Life Abundant 3

Something to Teach, Something to Learn Theological Education for World-Mending

by David Hadley Jensen

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Digging Deeper on Theology and Life Abundant

An Interview with David Jensen

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Reflections

Theology in the Cloister and Beyond: A Monk’s Perspective

by Bernhard Eckerstorfer, OSB

Spiritual Disciplines in Theological Education, for Life

by Cheryl Peretz

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Pastors’ Panel Stella Burkhalter, Matthew Miller, Hannah Hooks, Derek Forbes

30 Faculty Books

Preaching About Racism and Anxious to Talk About It, by Carolyn B. Helsel, reviewed by Robert D. Cornwall Holding Faith, by Cynthia L. Rigby, reviewed by Rodger Nishioka

33 Christianity and Culture Leaving Religion, Needing Religion

by Melissa Wiginton

Introduction

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Protestant dean, a Catholic monk, and a Jewish rabbi walk into a theological seminary. You are thinking, of course, that a joke is brewing; but, no, this is essentially the outline of this issue of Insights.

In his lead essay, Austin Seminary Dean David Jensen draws some fascinating conclusions from his recently completed sabbatical, during which he visited several Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish seminaries. After this Reformed Protestant theologian surveys some of the disturbing trends of contemporary American seminaries and of their host denominations with which most of us are familiar, he reflects appreciatively upon the hopeful lessons he learned from his visits. He calls, simply, for a renewed attention to place. “Unlike Catholicism, which regards certain places as holier than others … and unlike Judaism, which attaches special significance to a singular place, the land of Israel … in Protestantism, no place is holier than another, and yet every place is already holy, suffused with God’s blessing.” With respect to Austin Seminary’s location, just a little bit north of our nation’s southern border with Mexico, Jensen calls for “world-mending” with respect to immigration, climate change, and increasing religious diversity. “The story of God’s people is a story of immigration, of people on the move,” he insists; and “the witness of theological education, in this place, is to sense immigration as promise rather than threat.”

Bernard A Eckerstorfer, OSB, rehearses the 1200-year history of the life of Kremsmünster Abbey, a Benedictine monastery, and reflects upon how, in every era, there were both coherences and oppositions between faith and culture. In this post-modern time, we are still searching, he acknowledges, for that which will encourage the coherences and overcome the oppositions. “In sum,” Eckerstorfer asserts, “theology grounded in religious practice is vital for the faith, as is religious practice informed and transformed by theology … Religious practice needs theological reflection with its critical edge and its keen awareness of our time.”

Rabbi Cheryl Peretz, for twenty-plus years the associate dean of the Zeigler School of Rabbinic Studies, laments great demands that come with the modern-day lives of rabbis. Too often, she says, “we hear of clergy experiencing burnout, loneliness, addiction, doubt, and pain so severe that many feel driven away from God.” Even as ministers serve as “vessels for others’ spiritual growth,” she calls for them continuing to cultivate their own spiritual lives. Key to this, she says, is cultivating the lens of the ancient rabbis. “In order for our spirituality, our daily prayer, meditation, reflections, and contemporary teaching to carry the substance of millenia of accumulated wisdom, it must be anchored in learned study of the Talmud.”

Beyond these powerful reflections on the relationship between faith and life, and our seminary’s contribution to it, Professor William Greenway carries on a substantive interview with Dean Jensen; Robert Cornwall reviews Carolyn Helsel’s Preaching About Racism and Anxious to Talk About It and Rodger Nishioka reviews Cynthia Rigby’s Holding Faith; Melissa Wiginton writes an intriguing piece on “Leaving Religion, Needing Religion”; and a team of pastors reflect on the presence of abundant life in their congregational contexts. Read on, and be inspired!

Theodore J. Wardlaw President, Austin Seminary 2

Something to Teach, Something to Learn Theological Education for World-Mending David Hadley Jensen “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

– John 10:10

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ohn’s Gospel teems with contrasts: light and darkness; followers of Jesus and those who refuse to follow; life and death; belief and doubt. In this memorable saying, which occurs in the middle of the gospel, Jesus contrasts those who would destroy life with his own ministry, which is for the life of the world. Jesus comes not for a select few, not to promote a thin slice of life, but to bless all creation. Jesus is Good News because he shows us the way of abundant life.

What might theological education look like if it kept the aim of abundant life in sight? This essay offers one attempt at articulating a Protestant interpretation of theological education for the public good, an attempt that views the flourishing of Christian community as bound up with the flourishing of the world. I approach this interpretation in three movements: 1) by surveying some trends in the United States that obscure flourishing; 2) by offering some examples of theological education in Roman Catholic and Jewish contexts that Protestants might learn from; and, 3) by suggesting a more intentional reflection on place, or geographical loca-

David Hadley Jensen is academic dean and professor in the Clarence N.

and Betty B. Frierson Distinguished Chair in Reformed Theology at Austin Seminary. His most recent of ten books, Christian Understandings of Christ: The Historical Trajectory (Fortress, 2019), offers an analysis of how Jesus’s question, “Who do you say I am?” has been answered. He earned the MAR from Yale Divinity School and the PhD from Vanderbilt University.

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Theological Education for Life Abundant tion, as a way in which Protestants might recover a vision of education for the life of the world. But first, I need to offer a clarification: when I speak about theological education, I am not restricting myself to professional education for ministry. Professional training is one aspect of theological education but not its totality. Theological education occurs not only in seminaries, but in Sunday school classrooms, in living room Bible studies, and over labors of youth mission trips. Theological education is integral to discipleship: intentional reflection, undertaken with others, as one grows (and sometimes atrophies) in Christian faith. Though much of what follows focuses on seminary education, most of what I have to say is equally applicable to education in congregations.1

Theological Education and the Narrowing of Vision Some trends on the American scene—and typical responses to these trends—risk obscuring a vision of theological education for life abundant. The trends are significant and require serious reflection. The first is the changing pattern of Christian seminary enrollment nationwide. During the ten-year period between 2006 and 2015, enrollment at the Association of Theological Schools (ATS)-accredited theological schools declined from 80,400 students to 72,116,2 a decline that cut across all traditions: evangelical, Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, and historically black. Most of this decline was related to master of divinity (MDiv) enrollment, with mainline Protestant seminaries experiencing a 24% decline in that degree program since 2007.3 These declines have stabilized over the past two years, but overall decline has not reversed. Seminaries are now (especially in MDiv programs) significantly smaller than they once were. Perhaps it comes as no surprise that many mainline seminaries have either closed their doors or merged with other seminaries in response to these trends.

Seminaries ignore these trends at their own peril. Nonetheless, an obsessive focus on the decline of traditional enrollment patterns is equally perilous. Linger long enough with the statistics and panic is likely to sink in: I have attended enough ATS meetings and read enough literature about enrollment patterns to know that lament over a lost golden age is powerful mythology.4 Panic over a decline in MDiv enrollment ignores signs of life in other corners: an increasing hunger among laity for substantive Christian reflection, marked growth in non-white student enrollment, certificate programs that emphasize the integration of faith and life.5 And, most destructively, panic over enrollment leads to a myopic inward turn: saving an institution or a degree program at all costs. When panic sets in, theological education loses its focus on life abundant.

A second, and related, trend is analogous unease over the condition of mainline Protestantism. The trends, if not the statistics, that frame this unease have become widely known. Many Americans no longer spend Sunday mornings in sanctuaries, but on soccer fields, in coffee houses, or in pajamas in the living room staring at an iPhone. Almost without exception, membership in the churches that provided a semblance of religious “establishment” in the past has consistently declined over the past two decades.6 Americans have become more suspicious of institutions in 4

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general and more reluctant to affiliate with traditional religious organizations in particular. In response to these trends, denominational resources have also declined, as have the patterns of connection that link congregations within an ecclesial tradition. To be sure, these trends are not uniform: inspiring signs of life are nearly ubiquitous in denominations that are experiencing decline. But even amid thriving congregations, a de facto congregationalism typically emerges. The temptation, given these patterns, is to long for the past and work to recover what has been lost, to shore up the structures and offices of the denomination that remain.

Attention turns to the denomination itself, its survival amid the stormy cultural seas.

I don’t want to dismiss this concern. I am more convinced than ever that denominational traditions, in their uniqueness, offer riches for the church catholic.

Reformed emphases on God’s sovereignty, suspicion of idolatry, and concern with the public good7 are themes that the world desperately needs to hear. So, too, are Methodist emphases on personal holiness and Anabaptist interpretations of pacifism amid the countless wars that scar the planet. Without these distinctive witnesses, the church is invariably poorer. But when denominations focus their attention primarily upon survival, they risk muffling their distinctive gifts. Curving in upon themselves, denominations can lose sight of the abundant life Jesus calls his disciples to embrace. And thus Protestant theological education can become a lastditch attempt to shore up a crumbling institution. What alternatives are there amid these trends?

Theological Education Beyond the Mainline Over the past few months I have spent considerable time learning from faculty, administrators, and students at several theological schools that Protestants often do not consider: Roman Catholic seminaries in Austria and rabbinical schools in the United States. I wanted to look beyond the typical Protestant conversation partners to see how these schools were envisioning theological education amid similar trends. Austria offered one intriguing comparison with the American context: there, trends of secularization and pluralism are more advanced than in the U.S.; there, establishment Catholicism is coming to grips with dramatic declines in religious affiliation. I chose to examine a few Jewish seminaries in the U.S. because, in contrast to Protestants, Jews have rarely understood themselves to be part of the American religious establishment. Their status as a minority religious group in society, which has often been hostile to their very existence, has had an impact on rabbinical formation and what makes the Jewish witness different from the prevailing religious winds. And yet, this impulse to articulate Jewish distinctiveness has rarely resulted in a narrow focus on the community’s own survival. As I spent time at four different institutions, I discovered refreshing signs of theological education focused on life abundant.

In Austria, I encountered much that contrasted with standard approaches to theological education in the United States. Candidates for the priesthood live and share meals at a seminary, which is entrusted with spiritual, personal, and ecclesial 5

Theological Education for Life Abundant formation, while they take academic coursework (in the standard theological disciplines) at a state university. Students study in the context of a large, interdisciplinary public university, which is in some cases hostile to the very study of theology.

This apparent conflicted atmosphere means that candidates for the priesthood are not educated in a bubble (as some would argue American seminaries provide), but experience theological education in conversation with the wider world. Though the seminary offers a refuge, at times, from voices that question its existence, it is also self-consciously engaged with wider societal issues.8 The turn, in short, is not inward, but outward. The questions I heard in these seminaries were not so much, How do we survive? but, How do we proclaim the Gospel in this place, at this time?

Students at these seminaries, almost without exception, are engaged in pastoral residencies from the beginning of their studies. Rather than embarking on onetime field placements that occur after a requisite amount of academic coursework, these seminarians take part in mentored internships throughout their course of study. Pastorates, in a variety of settings (rural and urban), provide laboratories for reflection, informing seminarians’ work in Bible, theology, and philosophy. Congregations thus play a central role in educating the next generation of leaders.

In comparison with the standard Protestant MDiv, however, the course of study in Austria is lengthy, consuming seven to eight years. A full two years in this program is devoted to philosophical studies. Students begin their theological education with broad questions of the good life, foundations for ethics, how persons come to know, and the nature of truth and justice. Theological study begins by turning to the world and what it means to be human within it, a turn that draws on the Christian canon and resources beyond it. The turn, in short, is outward to patterns of flourishing in the world.

At the rabbinic schools, I encountered different emphases still. One of the most riveting practices I witnessed was havruta (reading and interpreting Talmudic texts in pairs or small groups). On the day that I observed this practice at one school, the text focused on thorny branches that extended across property lines into common spaces and the question of responsibility for injuries caused by the branches.

The students delved into legal minutiae and issues of translation. At first glance, it might appear that these discussions were not applicable beyond the arcana of this specific text. But what I witnessed were discussions that took seriously personal responsibility beyond ordinary expectations. Responsibility for others does not end at the property line. In a litigious age such as ours, at a time when “passing the buck” and absolving oneself of responsibility seem the ordinary course, these discussions focused on law and the common good. God’s commandments are for the flourishing of the world. Jews have been engaging this practice of havruta for hundreds of years. The method of reading and translating these texts might have been done in nearly the same way in fifth-century Jerusalem, tenth-century Granada, or twentieth-century Warsaw. Little has changed in the practice of reading, and yet everything has changed in the world in which students read. This classical practice insists that reading is always undertaken in community, as text speaks to the world.

One of the faculty members I visited at another seminary described this as the 6

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perennial Jewish task, of sensing the fresh voice within the ancient tradition. Reading texts, in this sense, is never fully accomplished; drawing on the past, it always begins anew.

Facility in Hebrew and biblical and Talmudic texts—not surprisingly—comprises much of standard rabbinical education. The typical course of study, like that of Catholic priests, is significantly longer than the Protestant MDiv, with five years being the norm for Reform and Conservative rabbis. Much of the curriculum is classical, focused on the transmission of ancient traditions, texts, and practices.

And yet innovation appears within this classical formation. One of the schools that I visited requires rabbinical students to take a course in an affiliated business school, emphasizing that synagogues can learn about organizational dynamics and management from best practices in the for-profit and non-profit worlds. Another school emphasized coursework in community organizing, noting that the synagogue is always embedded in a larger network of persons and communities in the work of mending the world. Both schools that I visited also expend significant time exploring the history of anti-Semitism, a powerful reminder that forces of hate bent on destruction surround the people of God. One class explored the rise of anti-Semitism in social media, how ancient hatreds have gained new megaphones through technologies designed to connect rather than destroy. There is much in the world yet to mend.

Perhaps the most significant thing I learned from my visits to other theological schools was this: ancient practices, texts, and traditions continually speak fresh wisdom to a world in pain. Some of the practices that I witnessed have existed for more than a thousand years. Others were not immediately “practical.” American Protestants often invoke the criterion of “relevance,” that theological education might be cured of its ills if it could only be made more germane: more practical coursework, new pedagogical techniques, more intentional focus on perceived needs in congregations. But what I witnessed in each of the schools I visited is that our chief responsibility isn’t making the text relevant; we don’t need new techniques. The relevance is in the ancient traditions themselves, the deepest cries for healing, the deepest longings for justice, the call to be a part of the healing of the world. The traditions turn us outward, never in on ourselves. The practices are for the sake of life abundant.

Place in Theological Education: A Protestant View As I learned from the traditions I walked alongside (if even for a brief period of time), I knew there were some things that might resonate in a Protestant context (such as an emphasis on communal reading) and other things that would probably fall flat (such as lengthening the MDiv program by two or three years!). I came home wondering about potential Protestant contributions to theological education committed to the mending of the world. One area, potentially, is the Protestant understanding of place. Unlike Catholicism, which regards certain places as holier than others (pilgrimages, shrines, etc.), and unlike Judaism, which attaches special significance to a singular place (the land of Israel), Protestantism has a more indis7

Theological Education for Life Abundant criminate attitude toward place. In Protestantism, no place is holier than another, and yet every place is already holy, suffused with God’s blessing.

On the one hand, (in)attention to place is one of the great weaknesses of the Protestant tradition. The Reformers were leery of describing some places as especially holy. Just as all vocations are blessed by God, so, too, are all places. And because every place is holy, one ought not attribute too much significance to any one place. The strength of this understanding of place is that theological education can occur anywhere. The weakness is a detachment or decontextualization from place that sometimes occurs in Protestant education. When I consider my own theological formation, I barely heard a whisper of the voices from the places that surrounded the two schools where I studied (in New England and Tennessee). For all intents and purposes, the education I received could have happened in North Dakota or Hawaii.

Yet Protestantism also has resources for a renewed attention to place. Because all places are holy, because all persons are called by God uniquely, all persons and places call out for hope. There is no place in the world where God is not already at work for the renewal of all creation. The Lutheran tradition is especially strong in recognizing the existential dimensions of Christian faith: the calling of each Christian, in the encounter with the God revealed in Jesus Christ, to the present moment, wherever one finds oneself. The Good News encounters us in this time, in this place, as we bear witness to Christ’s reconciling work in the world. Metanoia (conversion) is to God and neighbor, right here, right now. I think that a recovery of this dimension might propel theological education in the Protestant tradition to take into greater account the place of their theological schools and the ways in which the particularity of that place emerges in theological study. Taking Austin Seminary’s Central Texas borderlands location into account, this approach highlights at least three issues that call for world-mending: 1) immigration; 2) climate change; 3) increasing religious diversity.

Texas is Exhibit A of the changing demographics of the nation; and, it is also a place with a complicated, rich, and tragic cross-cultural history, of conquest of indigenous populations, of discrimination against people of color. Amid this tragedy is the persistent, cross-cultural mix that forms the culture of Texas, a culture that refuses to be reduced to any one thing: Comanche and Anglo; Tejano and AfricanAmerican; Asian and Ashkenazi. To study theology here is to be immersed in the borderlands, of border-crossings and a border that crosses people. The last several years have brought the issue of immigration to the fore of the national consciousness: from misguided attempts to “close” the border (whatever that would mean), to the plight of children separated from their parents, to the recognition that the well-being of one side of the border is bound up with the well-being of the other side. When we read the Christian scriptures in this place, our eyes are opened again to the migration that permeates the biblical record: of the journey of Israel out of slavery in Egypt into freedom in the promised land; of Israel’s exile at the hand of a powerful empire and its longing for return; of Jesus’s family who must flee into Egypt; of a Savior who has “nowhere to lay his head” (Matt. 8:20) and wanders from 8

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place to place preaching the Good News; of a prophet to the Gentiles who traverses the Mediterranean world. The story of God’s people is a story of immigration, of people on the move. The witness of theological education, in this place, is to sense immigration as promise rather than threat.

To study theology in this place is also to hear the groaning of creation. Texas bears a disproportionate share of the effects of climate change, with a cycle of droughts and hurricanes that have wreaked catastrophic destruction in recent years. A study of economic effects of climate change identifies several counties in Texas among the most negatively affected in the nation.9 To study theology in this place requires us to reckon with the consequences of sin and greed and to consider how our behavior of seeking unlimited gain damages ourselves, others, and the fabric of creation. And yet to study theology here is also to recognize that the glory of God is creation fully alive,10 that our destructive behaviors do not have the last word, and that the way of creaturely flourishing is the way of Jesus Christ.

Finally, as Texas (and Austin in particular) experiences astonishing population growth, from all corners of the globe, its religious diversity increases. Austin, in short, is no longer a town in the Bible Belt (if it ever was); it is Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, and Christian. To study theology in this place is also to come face to face with religious difference. Sometimes in Christian tradition, otherness is perceived as a threat. But the promise of abundant life in Christ is that others are gifts. The people, cultures, and traditions of the world are claimed and blessed by God. Each person has something to offer the other: something to teach, something to learn, and the simple beauty of being with each other. One of the renewed tasks of theological education in this place, at this time, is an increased stress on practices of good neighborliness among religious communities, how we might better share and receive the gifts of each other.

Attention to place in theological education will also require renewed focus on congregations, the places where theology is lived out in the company of others.

Congregations are not the places where seminary learning is “applied;” they are themselves educational incubators. They are the shapers (for good and for ill) of the ancient traditions that call out for fresh readings. They are the places where Christians reflect on their growth (or stagnation) in faith. They are the places where wisdom is passed from one generation to the next. They are the places where the Gospel takes root. Each congregation is unique; each is embedded in distinct communities; each bears unique gifts for the world. By paying attention to place, these congregations are entrusted, by God’s grace, with the work of mending the world, with nothing less than education and practice for life abundant. v NOTES

1. I owe much of this understanding of theological education to the work of Edward Farley. Farley was one of the first to assail the “clerical paradigm” that has affected American theological education, how Protestantism in the twentieth century reduced theological education to preparation in independent skill sets for ministry. Farley argues for a recovery of theologia, or belief-ful formation and growth in understanding, rooted in faith in God. As such, theological education is the work of the people of God. See Farley, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,

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Theological Education for Life Abundant 1983) and The Fragility of Knowledge: Theological Education in the Church and the University (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988).

2. Chris Meinzer and Tom Tanner, “What a Difference a Decade Makes: As Seminaries Reverse a 10-year Enrollment Decline, What Does the Future Hold?” https://www.ats.edu/uploads/resources/ publications-presentations/colloquy-online/what-a-difference.pdf, accessed December 6, 2019.

3. Eliza Smith Brown and Chris Meinzer, “New Data Reveal Stable Enrollment but Shifting Trends at ATS Member Schools,” https://www.ats.edu/uploads/resources/publications-presentations/colloquy-online/new-data-reveal-stable-enrollment.pdf, accessed December 6, 2019.

4. I am referring to the side conversations that often occur at ATS meetings, the laments of some seminary administrators over enrollment stagnation and the collective sense of loss that can emerge on the edges of these meetings. At the same time, ATS is actively countering this mythology by encouraging seminaries to re-examine their approaches to theological education in light of changing student patterns and imagine possibilities for the future.

5. Between 1977 and 2017, the number of racial-ethnic and international students at ATS schools increased from 9% to 41% of the overall student population. Brown and Meinzer, “New Data.”

6. Church membership declined from 70% of the American population in 1998 to 50% in 2018.

Jeffrey M. Jones, “U.S. Church Membership Down Sharply in the Past Two Decades,” https://news.gallup.com/poll/248837/church-membership-down-sharply-past-two-decades.aspx, accessed December 6, 2019. In the relatively short time span of seven years culminating in 2014, mainline Protestant affiliation declined from 18.1% of the population to 14.7%. Pew Research Center, “America’s Changing Religious Landscape,” https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-1-the-changing-religious-composition-of-the-u-s/, accessed December 6, 2019. To be sure, that are still 46 million mainline Protestants in 2014 and 163 million church members in 2018 (10 million more than the total population of the U.S. in 1950), but the trends are significant.

7. The final chapter of Calvin’s Institutes is devoted to civil government, or the ways in which Christian faith spurs us to work for a more just society.

8. One example of this public engagement was a conference I attended on “the divided society,” focused on Christian witness amid intense public debates. The conference included seminarians, professors, laity, clergy, and political representatives. The topics—immigration, increasing income inequality, and political polarization—had obvious parallels in the US.

9. Eileen Drage O’Reilly and Alison Snyder, “Where Climate Change Will Hit the U.S. Hardest,” https://www.axios.com/where-climate-change-will-hit-the-us-hardest-1513303282-6566eea46369-4588-88cc-c2886db20b70.html, accessed December 6, 2019.

10. This is an expansion of Irenaeus’s claim that the glory of God was “humanity fully alive.” See also Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 14-15.

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Interview Insights Editor William Greenway Interviews

David Jensen “Digging Deeper on Theology and Life Abundant” I want to hear more about your vision of abundant life. Is there a difference between the so-called “good life” and “life abundant”?

Often when we talk about abundance we immediately drift toward the material and accumulation. Abundance in Jesus’s vision centers on our relationships: with God, other people, other creatures, and with creation itself. For Jesus, life flourishes when those relationships flourish. And Jesus urges us to make the circle of our concern wider and wider, incorporating even those whom we are prone to dismiss.

You reference Jesus’s crucifixion. Surely this qualifies the understanding of “abundant life”?

The Roman Empire thinks of flourishing as exerting power over other peoples. Jesus sees flourishing when we widen our circle of concern; he sees power not as power over, but power with and for others. Jesus doesn’t seek his own death. The death-dealing powers he confronts force death upon him. The death of Jesus is a result of the clash between a gospel vision of abundant life and a vision that seeks its own benefit at the expense of others. The death of Jesus actually reveals a fate worse than death: life cut off from others and the life-giving world God has given.

Are there theological confusions that obstruct people’s ability to live abundantly?

One great theological confusion is the prosperity gospel. It says, “If you live a faithful life, you will be blessed with things.” Certainly our relationship to material things is part of abundant life—Jesus is concerned about the material needs of the poor. But if abundant life concerns relationship to things, we will never have enough. Things do not satisfy. Someone’s always going to have more. Calvin was right about the dynamic of sin and greed: it cultivates an insatiable appetite, cutting us off from life abundant.

You speak of people spending Sunday mornings at coffee shops, staring at iPhones, watching their kids play club soccer. This morning The Guardian newspaper called the fitness app Strava a religion, saying it provides community, training data, and motivation to millions. Now, I love coffee shops and my 11

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In so much public discourse I see easy answers, caricatures, presumption that God is on our side. What I see in seminaries and congregations is struggle, a refusal to settle for pat answers … I think that is what people desire, and maybe today there’s even more hunger for authentic theological and spiritual reflection and education because there’s so little in public discourse. kids playing soccer. I have nothing against Instagram. I’m all for exercise clubs.

What’s the problem?

Today, many shun communities proven to promote and sustain our relationships with each other and God. My problem is not with anything I list. But does the iPhone ultimately enhance our relationships or cut us off? Moreover, something is lost when we seek communities that reinforce our own world views instead of breaking bread with people who occasionally annoy us. I am trying to identify patterns in modern American life that tend to insulate us from ourselves and from one another.

Today it is cliché that people have never been more connected yet never felt more alone, and in relation to that, you see people moving away from communities of faith precisely when they most desperately need them.

Right.

The exercise or soccer club may be part of an abundant life, but is there something distinctive and significant about faith communities?

Yes. The youth group or adult Sunday school class and a soccer team or a bowling league share many commonalities. Gathering together regularly for a common purpose nourishes bonds that make for abundance. What distinguishes the gathered people of God is that the gathering is not centered around a shared interest, like 12

Interview love for soccer or exercise. It is orientated to God. In faith communities there’s a decentering and re-centering in God’s grace.

So, it’s not an either/or. But problems could arise if engagement in faith communities is cut off by other commitments?

Yes. Parents and youth have to negotiate all these things. What does it mean to live a faithful life this moment, when demands on time are so intense?

The words “theological education” can invoke visions of seminaries and professors. But for most people theological education comes from pastors, youth pastors, Christian educators, and Sunday school teachers in more than 380,000 Christian congregations across the United States. How do you conceive the relation among professors and others engaged in Christian education?

Theological education happens whenever there’s intentional reflection in community on Christian life. There’s a delicate dance between seminaries and congregations. I sometimes hear that seminaries are bubbles. Not so. Our faculty is in constant conversation with congregations. And I am impressed by the hunger in congregations for substantive dialogue about faith. People don’t want a dumbed down set of answers to basic questions. They want to engage and live the questions that sustain life, and my work at the seminary is renewed whenever I teach in congregational settings. So, a delicate and invaluable dance.

You mention a growing hunger for theological education among adults. What are they yearning for?

In so much public discourse I see easy answers, caricatures, presumption that God is on our side. What I see in seminaries and congregations is struggle, a refusal to settle for pat answers. I just attended a remarkable annual retreat, Sharing Our Faith Traditions (SOFT) that gathers Christian, Muslim, and Jewish seminarians for three days of conversation. Our topic this year was prayer. We were all exposed to practices across traditions that deepened our appreciation of one another’s traditions and strengthened our own prayer lives. I think that is what people desire, and maybe today there’s even more hunger for authentic theological and spiritual reflection and education because there’s so little in public discourse.

You note trends have reversed, but you reference a familiar tale of decline.

According to Simon Brauer, in 1998 there were 220,000 Christian congregations in the U.S. That jumps to 401,000 by 2006, and then declines to 358,000 in 2012. Between 2006 and 2012 a lot of congregations shut their doors, but in the longer term there was dramatic movement up and down and a net gain of 130,000 congregations. Or, consider that between 1998 and 2018 church membership declined from 70 to 50 percent of the U.S. population. That sounds like a big drop in numbers of church members, but in absolute numbers that amounts to 163 million church members in 2018—10 million people more than 13

Theological Education for Life Abundant the entire U.S. population in 1950. At the same time, there is a steady decline in mainline churches. What do you make of all of this data?

Well, what I don’t make of it is “The a sky is falling!” I have seen statistics get people excited: “We’re shrinking beyond imagination, and if we don’t blow things up we’re doomed.” I don’t buy that one bit. I am enough of a Reformed Christian to believe in the perseverance of the saints, to believe the church will endure come whatever.

What I do make of these statistics is that the makeup and patterns of religious affiliation are changing as society becomes more diverse. There is also suspicion of traditional authorities stemming from sexual and financial scandals. There are suspicions some are more concerned to preserve particular forms of church than to protect the most vulnerable. Theological education continually asks, How are we to respond to the diverse new visions of and possibilities for church? Our patterns of religious affiliation are changing, the forms of church are changing, and yet the church endures and will endure. I’m not worried. I’m more hopeful about the church now than I was twenty years ago, when all this change wasn’t as much on our consciousness. I see it not as decline, but as constructive adaptation and re-formation.

You used the terms “mainline” and “establishment” interchangeably. But if we think of the Deuteronomic History, post-Constantinian Rome, the Holy Roman Empire, Kierkegaard’s Denmark, or many like periods … it turns out “establishment” is not the healthiest thing for the church. It’s precisely when “abundant life” and “the good life” become confused. That correlates to you being more worried twenty years ago, when we were more solidly part of the establishment?

Precisely. Easy alliances between the church and whatever powers may be have always been a mixed blessing in the Christian community.

According to Brauer, there has been steady growth of nondenominational Protestant congregations in the U.S., from 54,000 congregations in 1998 to 84,000 congregations in 2012. That continual growth outpaces losses in the mainline churches by tens of thousands. Does this relate to spiritual vitality bubbling up everywhere that you refer to? And might this relate to the increase in nondenominational students here at Austin Seminary?

I see this spontaneous emergence of nondenominational traditions (an interesting phrase!) as a sign of the Spirit blowing where it will. We do see more nondenominational students here at Austin. That is a sign God is doing something and we need to pay attention. I do worry about narrowing of vision and about accountability in nondenominational communities. Part of the genius of denominations has to do with formal patterns of relationship among congregations, which widens our areas of focus, concern, and accountability beyond our own congregation.

How should we who value denominations react?

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Interview We pay attention and ask, What do we have to learn from this? The Protestant tradition has always been unbelievably eclectic. Calvin said this is all God’s world, so we should be open to goodness and truth wherever we see it. God is moving throughout the world and we should remain open to divine wisdom wherever it might be found. At the same time, while we are open to what is new and different, we should name what in our churches and in our world is not from God. The drop in percentage of Christians in the U.S. is partly related to growth in people from other faiths. You encourage us to celebrate this shift. What and why are we celebrating? How do you envision relations among those from different faith traditions?

My honest answer is I don’t know what is happening, but I trust God’s purposes

will be accomplished. At a minimum, my Christian commitments call me to be a good neighbor with whoever I’m thrown into community with. That means being open to hearing outsiders, and perhaps even changing because of what they say. It is also our responsibility as Christians to tell the good news as we know it in Jesus Christ—but then we let God do the work that God will do.

You just experienced this at the Sharing Our Faith Traditions retreat …

Definitely. There we honestly grappled with very different perspectives. For instance, the Muslim students asked us, “How can you be trinitarian?”

They thought that made you a polytheist, right?

Right. And those kinds of basic questions help me to think about, own, and live my faith in ways that are not always possible if I’m always in the company of people who take the Trinity as a given. So, I don’t know what all God is doing, but when I am thrown together with these other amazing people I know I have reason to celebrate.

While talking about technical study of ancient texts in a rabbinical school, you have a line that I just loved, which is: “The relevance is in the ancient traditions themselves.” Can you expand upon that?

Sure. When I visited one rabbinical school I observed the ancient practice of paired reading of Talmud, the reading of ancient commentaries on Jewish Law, together with the Torah. They’re reading the same texts that they were reading thousands of years ago. Watching them, it struck me that texts of our traditions already contain deep questions and reflections upon life lived in relationship to God, others, and God’s creation.

I began my sabbatical thinking I would find fresh and new ways of making traditions relevant, and what I found instead were ancient texts and ancient reflections about life-sustaining practices that were already wholly relevant. That said, we should remain open to new forms and resources. At the SOFT retreat there was a Jewish worship service. The liturgy was ancient. Yet in the middle the can15

Theological Education for Life Abundant tor chanted lines from a Destiny’s Child song. The leader of that worship service talked about how this gospel song expressed the ancient tradition of our reliance on God, and it worked. So, ancient traditions sometimes get expressed in new, modern forms, but the faith does not need updating to be relevant.

You say theological education should prioritize attention to climate change.

Obviously, science is essential for understanding and addressing climate change. What distinctive contributions can theology make?

It boils down to this: Christian theology, together with Jewish and Muslim theology, stresses that the world belongs to God. So in theology there is a decentering of the self and an affirmation of all the rest of the world, and that is not an inherent part of science. One of my favorite lines in Cynthia Rigby’s Holding Faith is, “Theology should not be afraid to say something about everything.” Not everything about everything, but something about the fullness of life in relation to God vis-à-vis everything—that includes health and economic policy and how we treat the natural world (so, climate change).

So, I want science to do good science. I expect theology to have enough familiarity with science to talk responsibly about our relations to others and God’s creation.

Finally, you also urge us to attend to place. For us, that means Texas, and in our context you also name migration as a prime issue for theologians. What distinctive contribution might theological education make to our understanding of migration?

Migration is at the core of some of Christianity’s most basic narratives: Abram migrates from Ur, later the children of Israel end up in Egypt, then they migrate out of Egypt and slavery and to freedom in a new land, after that, again, there is exile. So, there’s a story of place and of being displaced over and over again. We also see migration in the life of Jesus—who says he has no place to lay his head. It’s complicated.

It’s not simply a story of migration where one is never finding a home, and it’s never simply a story of “this is my place and I’m here forever.” It’s, “we live in this tension between having a home and not having a home”—and perhaps that’s reality for most people. So, I don’t want to romanticize migration because it’s often a forced hardship. I don’t want to romanticize home because home can be a hostile place.

Maybe what I’m getting at is a restlessness with regards to place until we rest in the living God. Augustine says at the beginning of his Confessions that we are restless until we rest in God.

At the same time, education should not occur in “no place,” for then education becomes disembodied. So it’s important to reflect on the places where we are called to be, the places we end up calling home. I never thought I’d end up in Texas, but now I say that I’m a Texan in ways that would have surprised the self I was twentyfive years ago.

Your response is complex! Definitely not quick and caricatured. So, this is the 16

Interview sort of complicated reflection people hunger for, the sort of reflection which begs for more. At the same time, the biblical theme of welcome for the stranger, and your openness to the other, these would say something quite clear about how we react to immigrants in crisis. Yet isn’t this is a reaction we could understand in terms of what you name as Jesus’s exhortation to widen our circle of concern, to think in terms not of power over but of power for, to think in terms of life abundant flowing from the fullness of our relation to all others, including those we might otherwise be prone to dismiss?

Oh, I think so. Part of what God is calling us to in the witness of Jesus Christ is to understand how all long for a home, even as many are called or forced away from home. We will find ourselves enjoying and sharing abundant life when we widen our concern to include all these others. Theological education at its best helps us to remember that, and it helps us determine how best to act so as to share abundant life with others as we journey through this life. v Editor’s Note: The statistics cited in the questions come from Simon G. Brauer, “How Many Congregations Are There? Updating a Survey-Based Estimate,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (2017) 56(2): 438–448.

Insights: The Podcast To listen to the full interview with David Jensen on theology for life abundant, tune into our new Insights podcast at

AustinSeminary.edu/Insightspodcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Reflections

Theology in the Cloister and Beyond: A Monk’s Perspective Bernhard A. Eckerstorfer, OSB An Abbey through Changing Epochs

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y Benedictine abbey, Kremsmünster Abbey, has existed for 1,200 years in a variety of cultural settings that called the monks to genuinely respond to different cultural challenges. Early on they cultivated the land and Christianized recent settlers. Over time, Benedictine abbeys embodied the heritage of antiquity and implanted it into the Middle Ages, becoming cultural centers and employing many. The Reformation brought a rupture. My monastery shrunk to three monks. The abbot married because he believed monastic life was a medieval remnant. But reforms fueling the Baroque era (deeper than the so-called CounterReformation) led to a surge of Benedictine life. My abbey counted more than 100 monks. Buildings of this epoch—far from what St. Benedict would have envisioned in the 6th century—dominate the perhaps all-too-splendid site and are today a major tourist destination.

Our observatory and the chalice of our founder, Duke Tassilo, is particularly pertinent to the relation of faith and culture. The seven-story observatory was built in the 1750s to house geological findings, animals from far and wide, a sarcophagus from Egypt, and astronomical instruments. Since 1762 we have continually measured the weather (a data-set relevant to climate change). This observatory is an expression of the Enlightenment. Monks became natural scientists and worked with peers across Europe. Even today the confrere in charge of the observatory holds a doctorate in biology and maps regional plant distribution. The building maps a union of faith and reason: on top there is a chapel; the altar picture depicts St. Benedict and his cosmic vision, where he saw the whole world in a single ray of the sun.

Bernhard Eckerstorfer earned graduate degrees in Austria and the

U.S., with post-doctoral studies on patristic and monastic theology in Rome. At Kremsmünster Abbey he was director of vocations, novice master, formation director, and spokesman for the abbey. He is now rector of the Benedictine University Sant’Anselmo in Rome.

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Every era shows coherences and oppositions between faith and culture. In the 1780s Emperor Joseph II suppressed contemplative monasteries in the AustroHungarian Empire. From an Enlightenment perspective, they were useless. My abbey escaped this fate by staffing more parishes in order to be valuable for society.

However, the spirit of the times shaped even the monks. Influenced by the Enlightenment, many gave up common prayer and became skeptical of monastic life.

We are experiencing another time of change. The epoch when church and society were closely interrelated is over. Hardly anyone regrets this, for in Europe we were taught the hard lesson that a major cause of secularization is the union of altar and reign. We must be fair, however, and not underestimate the richness and beauty of a homogeneous Catholic culture. Visitors from America marvel at the faith embedded in European culture for centuries, but we have to acknowledge the price paid. My abbey has been shaped by the centuries of supremacy it shared with ecclesial and political powers. This is visible in the imperial apartments that every Benedictine abbey in Austria still maintains. Bishops and abbots, enthroned and often equipped by the aristocracy, had power over both religious and worldly affairs.

Theology in a Postmodern Setting The dean of a theological faculty at a state university in Austria lamented to me recently: “The public does not recognize anymore what we accomplish as theologians.” This is true with regard to both technical and popular publications. With a few exceptions, theological thinking has lost its formative power in Western Europe.

It might be instructive to reconsider monasteries. An abbey like mine fascinates people seeking a Christian alternative in an increasingly post-Christian world. Yes, the transmission of the faith in its established institutional forms is undergoing a deep crisis, both in traditionally Catholic and Protestant European lands. However, the search for an experience of transcendence (vaguely named “spirituality”) endures. Many people are looking for an authentic Christian existence that can give new meaning to their lives and bring them closer to God.

Monasteries are increasingly visited for precisely this reason. Courses on Benedictine spirituality are popular, as are retreats (even among young people). Times devoted to personal reflection and prayer in a monastic setting are sought after.

Men and women devoting time and money to these desert experiences make clear that the atmosphere of an ancient abbey or the oratory of a faith community can change minds and hearts. They are drawn into a presence that transcends them and gives new significance to their daily routine. They often make an interesting observation: The monks or nuns are there and pray whether guests are present or not. It is not a performance. It is their form of life. Visitors also like that they are not asked about church affiliation at a monastery. This gives them a freedom they want to associate with religion.

To be sure, monastic life is in crisis. It must leave well-trod paths and take up the charism of its formative origin. But it is illuminating that the monks of 19

Theological Education for Life Abundant my abbey can hardly meet the demands for spiritual direction and leading retreats and invitations to conferences. Theology today has significant influence beyond the classroom. Consider, for instance, the writings of the German Benedictine Anselm Grün, who holds a doctorate in systematic theology. He has sold 20 million books.

His books do not contribute to academic theology, but they show how theological concepts are meaningful to multitudes today. On a smaller scale, I was surprised how well radio shows on desert monasticism on Austrian public radio were received.

I was initially invited to deliver reflections for a few minutes for one week. I ended up doing twelve series over several years! The transmissions tied the experiences and teachings of ancient Egyptian monks to everyday life, and I did not hesitate to allude to my own monastic life. The point: the public wanted to hear me reflect as a monk-theologian.

Monasticism has not found the secret to bridge the gap between theology and culture. But I propose there is value in re-capturing the relationship between a religious form of life and a theological form of thought, that a certain Lebensform (“form of life”) needs its Denkform (“form of thought”) and vice versa. If theological understanding is explicitly connected to a form of concrete existence that testifies to the transforming power of the faith, it is of great value to church and world.

Theology as Religious Practice My monastery tried hard to respond to successive epochs, ages that shaped it in turn. In every epoch theological reflection was a decisive factor in faithful adaptation. New members were formed according to established tradition, but there was also serious reflection on the word of God, upon the liturgy, and upon the other rites and rituals that were celebrated and interiorized. This theological reflection was not accidental. St. Benedict demands monks read at least three hours a day.

The Benedictine way was also transmitted through traditional practices. But with every new member, it was also updated. I propose this as a useful model. Even as we surrender to and are formed by a tradition, the given tradition is—or at least should be—adjusted, newly appropriated, embodied by each person according to their unique Gestalt and informed by theological reflection.

The transmission process in a monastery takes many forms, including teaching. My abbey has run various schools. The current Gymnasium was founded in 1549, its degrees ever since recognized by state authorities. Especially in the Baroque era, our monks taught at the universities of Salzburg, Vienna, and Prague.

Our monks still engage in scholarly reading and writing. Study and research are essential as the monastery responds to needs and challenges in diverse epochs.

Let me add that even if a monastery or the church is compromised by historical circumstance or human failure, the faithful individual seeking God is still a locus theologicus, a place where God the Father pours out his Spirit through Christ.

In our current age we should investigate anew what theology can and should be. My abbey hosts a three-day conference featuring lectures by theologians and professors of other disciplines. For the past twenty years, this symposium has annually attracted 300-400 participants. Part of the attraction of this ecumenical 20

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Christian conference is its monastic setting. This is one example of how academic theology can engage in dialogue with other disciplines when it is tied to a living faith tradition.

Theology should stem from living faith and be practiced in service to believers and the church. Theology is an act of belief and a way to worship God and prepare God’s kingdom. Theology, then, has to be distinguished from religious studies (though religious studies may supply valuable insights).

In sum, theology grounded in religious practice is vital for the faith, as is religious practice informed and transformed by theology. Current renewals in monasticism in the Western world are tied to a strong theological enterprise. Religious practice needs theological reflection with its critical edge and its keen awareness of our time. Monastic life is in need of theology—both academic and non-academic— that has this outlook. v

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Theological Education for Life Abundant

Spiritual Disciplines in Theological Education, for Life Rabbi Cheryl Peretz

Ministerial Calling in Today’s World

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he call to serve God is a deeply personal one, usually driven by one’s own faith in the divine and personal experience of a faith community. Whether through inspiration stretching from childhood or in response to an adult epiphany of God’s presence, theological students come to seminaries seeking to integrate religious doctrine with their personal experience. Today’s religious leaders choose this path because they genuinely want to make a difference. Most hope at the individual level to attend to every needy person God puts in their path, and at the societal level they hope to influence the thinking and actions of their local, national, and even international communities.

We are living in a time of great pain and tragedy. Mass shootings, natural disasters, hate speech, discrimination, harassment, personal heartache: every day brings new awareness that our world is consumed by violence and chaos. Rabbis and ministers are essential in helping instill hope and inspiration in moments of hopelessness and loss, and to add wisdom gleaned through millennia of experience and reflection as we adapt and move forward. A burning desire to be prepared to meet all diverse individual and societal needs is what inspires many to pursue a theological education. The magnitude and uniqueness of contemporary challenges is also a reason to think anew about theological education.

For more than twenty years, I have served as associate dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles. During that time, one of the most common reflections I have heard both from those studying to be ordained as rabbis and from ordained graduates concerns the challenge of integrating academic learn-

Cheryl Peretz is the associate dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles, where she also received her ordination. She also holds an MBA in marketing management from Baruch College and helps bring those skills and expertise into the operational practices of rabbis and congregations throughout North America.

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ing and professional skills training with their own and others’ journeys of spiritual meaning, ecstatic religious expression of prayer and ritual, and personal experience of God.

When seminary students complete their studies and move into employment, the communal positions for which they are hired demand that they be prepared to run organizations, plan programs, administer, fund raise, and manage. All this in addition to pastoral counseling, teaching, leading prayer, and facilitating births, bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings, funerals, and the like. These are all deeply meaningful activities, yet too often we hear of clergy experiencing burnout, loneliness, addiction, doubt, and pain so severe that many feel driven away from God. In some cases the very life of the individual minister has been at stake. When clergy suffer in this fashion, we are deeply concerned not only for those clergy, but for a general loss of confidence in religious leadership and faith communities.

People of faith at all seminaries must think about theological education that goes beyond academic courses in Bible, history, doctrine, and language. We must teach students how to engage others in healthy, life-sustaining ways in their faith journeys, and we must teach them how to maintain and nurture their own faith in the face of adversity and pressure. In some ways, this is no different than what we teach our clergy to do for members of their communities. And yet, even as ministers serve as vessels for others’ spiritual growth, it is crucial that they continue to cultivate their own spiritual lives. Seeking to address all these concerns, theological education at the Ziegler School includes two new components that have had a tremendous impact on the experience of students and their long-term success as clergy: Hevruta (paired) learning and spiritual practice.

Hevruta (paired) Learning Each day at the Ziegler School, students are engaged in hevruta learning, a method of learning that is as old as study of our most ancient Jewish texts. In hevruta, the pair struggles to understand the language and meaning of each passage. They discuss how to apply it to the larger issues in their communities as well as to their own lives. On one level, hevruta learning is about the technical work of reading, translating, and decoding Hebrew text in order to be prepared for class. This type of learning, however, is not limited to technical study of sacred text, doctrines, or languages—as important as all that is—for in stepping beyond the technical, hevruta learning invokes and strives to instill other principles that are essential to resilient theological formation and religious life:

We are each responsible for one another. Each member of the pair is responsible for his or her own learning and is also responsible for the learning of the other.

If one is not finished with the work, then neither is finished. Through disciplined practice of this principle, students learn they are connected to one another, dependent on each other, and can rely on one another for support and nurturing.

I don’t have to agree with you to hear/value your opinion. In talking about the text, each member of the pair is encouraged to share language, literary, and/or theological questions and challenges, even when the two disagree. Rabbinic writ23

Theological Education for Life Abundant ings on hevruta encourage disagreement, even amongst those who love and respect one another, for it is through dialogue and openness that we can ultimately understand our own positions and challenge ourselves to new understanding. Putting this principle into practice gives students concrete experience of valuing and respecting one another amidst disagreements, an experience of growing and learning through disagreement. These are vital skills, because in every faith community in which they minister they will need to navigate disagreement and model concern and enduring community (within limits) with those with whom they disagree.

So important is this type of learning that the Talmud proclaims: “o havruta o mituta” translated provocatively by Jacob Neusner as, “Give me hevruta or give me death.” Some scholars understand the phrase to mean that the individual needs society and the respect of others, and without them life is not worth living. At the same time, many scholars cite this phrase to illustrate the centrality of study in hevruta. Without others to share our learning and to challenge us, we cannot survive. When hevruta works best, pairs of learners continue to learn together on a regular basis even after graduating and moving on into diverse ministries. Where that is not possible, the experience of hevruta has inspired other graduates to set up new hevruta pairings with clergy in their local area (often in interfaith settings).

Cultivating Spiritual Practice Historically, rabbinic and other seminaries have been very good at making sure that future clergy know how to conduct prayer services—even when that meant memorizing words and participating in rote recitation of blessing and prayer. Daily Jewish prayer is a compilation of fixed liturgy using psalms, scriptural passages, and rabbinic words of communal request and expression. There is a tension in Jewish prayer between fixed prayer and spontaneous prayer, which many would say is brought together through recognition that we bring our own individual intention to the fixed words. For others, however, the difficulty in finding the self in the ancient words can be an impediment. In any case, while there may be variety in the particulars, spirituality is the deliberate cultivation of gratitude and steady joy.

Ideally, daily prayer—the practice of addressing the universe in the second person as an object of marvel, wonder, and delight—can help us to cultivate this gratitude and joy. Spiritual disciplines are ways of cultivating tranquility and mindfulness and greater access to peace. Spiritual disciplines also address a yearning for intimacy with God, a hunger to remake oneself as a living exemplar of God’s wisdom, and a desire to wrap ourselves in a life made holy through service to God.

Jewish daily practice involves prayer, ritual, and practices that cultivate spiritual development. Still, theological education cannot assume that people (even clergy) will be successful in pursuing these vital daily practices on their own. So, there is a need to integrate into theological training practice in the discipline of taking time for quiet meditation, taking time to sit in God’s presence, to reflect on who I am and how I am doing (the Hebrew word for prayer is l’hitpalel, a reflexive verb that means “to judge oneself”). For the contemporary religious person, this could take the form of prayer, silence, meditation, or song.

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Here at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, we have created a cohort-based program addressing the existential realities of each student’s life. We strive together to name struggles and hopes, opportunities and disappointments, and then, using theological resources and trained leaders, we work together to bring spiritual strength and wisdom to those living challenges. For instance, led by a spiritual guide from within the community and accompanied by song, text, group discussion, and reflection, students may be invited to identify and reflect over a period of weeks or months upon an area of spiritual growth.

All this helps future ministers viscerally understand that their spirit matters, that faith is dynamic and changing, and that we are best equipped to do this spiritual work on disciplined journeys undertaken with others. The individual and group work both model what can be done with future congregants and gives explicit permission for and affirmation of the need to make time to attend to spiritual practices that are sustaining and nourishing for one’s own journey of faith in this beautiful and horror-filled world.

Of course, traditional academic study remains essential. Judaism is primarily understood through the lens of the ancient rabbis, whose understanding of civil and ceremonial law and legend is recorded in the Talmud. In order for our spirituality, our daily prayer, meditation, reflections, and contemporary teaching to carry the substance of millenia of accumulated wisdom, it must be anchored in learned study of the Talmud. Still, the Talmud invites open conversation and innovation, and we have found hevruta learning and also practice in engaging in spiritual disciplines to be essential supplements to traditional academic theological education. v

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Pastors’ Panel We asked pastors to reflect on theological education and abundant life in their congregational contexts. Here is what they told us.

What is your vision of abundant life?

Reverend Stella Burkhalter (MDiv’10) Pastor of Kyle United Methodist Church, Kyle, Texas Biblical language is such a gift. Abundant life captures the essence of a life that is whole and at peace, but more than that. It is a life that is so full of joy that it bubbles up, bursts out, and spills over. When scripture promises abundant life to us, we, like the woman at the well, immediately want to know where we can get it. Also, like the woman at the well, we have trouble grasping the definition, but we know it when we see it. She saw it in Jesus, and so do we. Since 1 Peter admonishes us to be always prepared to give a defense for the hope that is in us, I will try this: Abundant life is what it looks like when perfect love casts out all fear.

Reverend Matthew Miller (MDiv’03) Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Albuquerque, New Mexico A life that is abundant is more than simple survival and reproduction. Rather, abundance suggests thriving, or to use the Psalmist’s image, a cup overflowing. This requires that a person have access to an unending source of that which allows one to thrive. Ultimately, for me, that means a connection to God as that source. In a sense, connecting to God is a little like connecting to the internet—to do so opens up a whole universe (one might say an abundance) of other connections: to one’s neighbors, to the wonder of creation, and to the truest form of one’s self.

Reverend Hannah Hooks (MDiv’05) Pastor of Shorter Chapel AME Church, Giddings, Texas When I envision an abundant life, I see a balance between the personal, emotional, home, work, spiritual, and social areas. An abundant life is full engagement in each aspect—not easy to achieve. One’s personal life requires prioritizing, time management, self-awareness, and communication. When these areas are intentionally addressed it leads us to a more satisfying and productive life. The ability to design and follow a well-balanced life allows us to better follow the commandment “love your neighbor as yourself.” We are commanded to go into all the world to create disciples, which means having a healthy and balanced life guiding our discipling. This is an abundant life, living God’s commandments and showing God’s love, grace, and mercy—living a life of worship.

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Pastors’ Panel Derek Forbes (MDiv’08) Pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Logan, Logan, Utah The idea of abundant life speaks to me of living outside oneself. Living only for ourselves makes abundant life elusive. But living outside ourselves, as part of a community, with and for that community, makes abundant life more accessible.

As a congregation, one of the more important activities we do together is to gather for worship. But merely worshiping together with no awareness of the needs of the community can leave us with an inward, rather than outward, focus. Which in turn means that we must prepare ourselves to carry our focus during worship—Jesus Christ—to the world outside of our walls.

What in your community cries out for healing?

Derek Forbes Loving our neighbors requires us to be aware of the way that our communities are crying out for healing. I serve a congregation in northern Utah, and we are keenly aware that a good number of people in our larger community are hurting because they have been shunned not only by their faith community but also by their families. Many think that they will never be accepted in a faith community again.

Matthew Miller In keeping with my vision of abundant life, I think what most cries out for healing are the wounds created by disconnection. This is the ironic difference between God and the internet. The internet provides an array of unprecedented connections, yet often leaves people terribly lonely, like being at a party surrounded by people and feeling lonelier than you would being all alone. This epidemic of loneliness is exacerbated by systems that isolate people groups and are intentional in dividing people from their neighbors.

Hannah Hooks I live in a small community and pastor a small, but loving and open congregation.

The town’s populace, however, tends toward conservative and fundamentalist Christianity and politics. The greatest healing need that I have found is deliverance from religious practices created by implicit biases and narrow theological teachings.

The community is great at rallying in times of crisis, but the acts of compassion tend to end with the crisis, until the next emergency arises, rather than the transforming agape love of a God-inspired heart.

Stella Burkhalter Kyle, Texas, is one of the fastest growing cities in the country; you can almost hear the growing pains. (You can definitely hear the road construction crews!) The church I am serving was established in 1880, so when I arrived, I expected to find deeply entrenched people who might be unwilling to change. I certainly found many elderly people, but surprisingly, most of them are fairly new arrivals and all were 27

Theological Education for Life Abundant graciously open to new ideas, even hungry for them. Once during a sermon, I asked if anyone was from Kyle and not one person raised a hand. In the second service, the one hand that went up belonged to a 15-year-old. Like all communities, we deal with cancer diagnoses, broken families, addiction, and mourning, but uniquely, we are dealing with the loneliness of displaced, rootless people longing for home.

How do you prepare church members for carrying out the church’s mission of healing the hurts of the world?

Hannah Hooks In Bible study and in my sermons, I use many examples of LOVE and how it is a better tool than hate and apathy. I encourage the congregation to become involved in different community volunteer programs, and I teach them how to recognize divine opportunity. I try to lead by example in my own personal community service.

One shouldn’t expect the congregants to do what we pastoral leaders would not do.

Stella Burkhalter Especially during Lent, I seek opportunities to teach spiritual disciplines. Thankfully, the liturgical calendar serves as a good reminder of the soul work we have to do and re-do. We cannot hear the cries of God’s people when our own cries are drowning them out, so I lean on this season to go deep and address our own hurts.

I also use this season to set definable challenges in the areas of prayer, fasting, and service.

Matthew Miller I think one of the best things that pastors can do is facilitate connections by encouraging friendship within a church community as well as strengthening relationships with the communities in which churches are located. If the second great commandment is to love one’s neighbor as ourselves, we need to know our neighbors.

So much healing begins with simply getting to know each other in the personal ways that run much deeper than the labels we use to classify each other.

Derek Forbes As a pastor I address such issues in sermons and through other means, but I am most grateful that the people of this Presbyterian congregation seem to take the message of the gospel quite seriously. Over many years their Christian faith has been formed to welcome those on the margins in our community, those who have been shunned by other faith communities, and in doing so they encounter this thing which we describe as abundant life.

We took time during worship recently to allow everyone in our congregation to pack food bags for hungry children and their families, along with other emergency food bags for local seniors who might be home bound during a winter blizzard. We packed nearly 400 food bags that morning. We turned “worship” into helping to heal wounds in our community. Our Mission Committee has asked if we can hold 28

Pastors’ Panel two of these Mission Sundays during the coming year. Our next conversations will be about how we might help the situations of hungry families in the long term, in addition to providing the temporary support of the food bags. Christ calls each of us not only to live, but to live abundantly. Abundant life for one should lead to abundant life for others.

What aspect of your theological education has proven most valuable for your practice of ministry?

Matthew Miller I couldn’t pick one facet of the coursework that I consider more valuable than another. I certainly had my preferences. But from this distance, what I see as most valuable is the way theological education gave me the skills to frame things in terms of what is ultimate. One of the variables in that is the experience of grappling with these questions in conversation with professors who have thought deeply from their specialty, as well as with classmates from a wide range of traditions and perspectives. I do have to remind people sometimes that I didn’t get an MBA, or a master’s in counseling. To me, having an MDiv means that I am a trained theologian.

What’s most valuable about that is that it allows me to approach things from an entirely different framework that often points to what is easily avoided.

Hannah Hooks Pastoral care has benefitted me well, because I pastor an aging family congregation and it requires understanding family dynamics in times of crisis as well as in times of joy. This knowledge has also helped in my assimilating back into small-town life.

Theological education is second, only because people don’t care about what you have to say until they know how much you care. Love says it all!

Stella Burkhalter I entered seminary expecting to learn to speak with authority and eloquence. The most valuable training I received, though, was in listening. The offer of excellent spiritual direction helped me deal with the things that made me feel I had to say important things in order to be valued. Pastoral care classes taught me techniques to get myself out of the way. Christian education called my attention to the Holy Spirit going before us and inspiring interactions. Bible, theology, and history classes encouraged me to appreciate and identify differing experiences and perspectives that influence how we see. Supervised Practice of Ministry allowed me to watch how miscommunication can torpedo ministry. Interaction with classmates and professors provided a treasure trove of things worth listening to. Over the years, any eloquence or authority I have been able to muster has flowed from this aspect of my education. If I speak well at all, it is only because I have received training in listening. v

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Faculty Books Recent publications by Austin Seminary professors Preaching About Racism: A Guide for Faith Leaders and Anxious to Talk About it: Helping White Christians Talk Faithfully about Racism,

by Carolyn B. Helsel, Assistant Professor of Homiletics, Austin Seminary

of anxiety. Having made that confession, she is able to acknowledge anxieties possibly felt by readers. Nonetheless, she writes in the hope that “by reading it, you will feel yourself honored and cared for, your emotions attended to, and not feel shamed for getting it wrong” (3). In other words, this isn’t a harangue about racism meant to create shame or guilt. Instead, this is a guide to a conversation that can transform the lives of readers, as well as the church and society. In the six chapters of this book, Helsel addresses questions such as whether we should be colorblind (isn’t that the point of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream?).

When I picked up Preaching about Racism, I figured it might be just another guide to preaching against racism. It is a guide to preaching against racism, but it offers a more realistic picture than I expected, including the challenges of addressing racism in the context of predominately white congregations that see themselves as progressive and welcoming. For Helsel, preaching about racism is more than standing in the pulpit and railing against white privilege and white supremacy, using guilt and shame as the key motivators. The “righteous indignation” that often goes by the name of prophetic preaching might get some applause in certain circles, but it likely doesn’t get us far toward change. It might make the preacher feel good, but if it doesn’t lead to real change, is it worth the breath? At the same time, racism must be addressed from the pulpit if change is to take place. Silence is not appropriate.

Helsel recognizes racism is a politically powerful subject, making conversation more difficult in congregations that like to avoid politically sensitive issues.

While it is political, however, it is not partisan. It is a concern of the polis, the community, of which the congregation is a part. Yes, preachers could lose jobs if

Chalice Press, 2018, 231 pages / 128 pages, $20 /$16 (paper). Reviewed

by Rev. Dr. Robert D. Cornwall, senior minister of Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Troy, Michigan

R

arely does one admit to being racist. So how do you have a conversation about something most people believe is someone else’s problem? Considering that churches, for the most part, are racially segregated, how do predominantly white congregations have this conversation without feeling shame and guilt? Accompanying this question: How do white preachers take up the subject in constructive ways?

Carolyn Helsel’s books Preaching about Racism and Anxious to Talk About It—honored as companion pieces by the Academy of Parish Clergy as Book of the Year (I am the chair of the awards committee)—answer both questions.

Anxious invites predominantly white congregations to explore a topic most of us are reluctant to engage with, while Preaching helps preachers take up the subject in constructive ways in the pulpit. In both books, Helsel addresses this deep-seated anxiety that inhabits the lives of white Christians, especially those who believe in justice and equality for all, and helps us move forward to more healthy responses.

As Helsel reveals up front, she wrote Anxious to Talk About It out of her own sense

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Faculty Books they broach the subject, but again, it is one of the most important conversations of our day. It affects so many other conversations, including conversations on immigration, poverty, policing, and more. Helsel strives to provide foundations and strategies that can succeed without simply making people feel guilty or endangering the jobs of preachers.

I read Preaching About Racism first and found it powerful and compelling.

There is overlap between the two books, but they are directed toward different audiences. If you are clergy, I suggest reading Preaching about Racism first. It takes the conversations deeper. After clergy work through the preaching book, they will be ready to take their congregations into the conversation using Anxious to Talk About It. It is my sense that most people of good faith and heart do not wish to be racist. Yet, we know that many of us have been taught ideas that create fears and stereotypes.

Although it’s easier to avoid the questions, progress in our world requires that we all address racism. Carolyn Helsel provides us with an excellent set of tools for accomplishing this goal. The reason why these books are important is that they help those of us who are white to understand how to take steps toward reconciliation.

This involves addressing our own past as well as our own perceptions of ourselves and our neighbors. If we do this, we can move into new and exciting relationships that cross racial and ethnic lines. I invite my white brothers and sisters to take and read.

is held up as something venerated or “other.” For many in these days, faith is something to be held far away. So, I was more than intrigued when I offered a class for adults that required them to purchase a copy of Dr. Rigby’s book and read and study a chapter before coming to class.

In advertising I noted the subtitle: “A Practical Introduction to Christian Doctrine.” One church member asked me if it was possible to be “practical” about anything having to do with “Christian doctrine.” For him, a selfidentified “evangelical,” those terms seemed mutually opposed. I smiled and invited him to come find out for himself. To my delight, he accepted my invitation. So did twenty-six others.

We met from 10 to 11 a.m. every Thursday morning for ten weeks. Since we met during the day, I thought the students would all be retirees, but I was surprised to discover that four persons worked (including one lawyer with her own private practice and one realtor with flexibility in her schedule). There were also two young stay-at-home mothers who arranged care for their toddlers.

All lay persons, a few of them had taken religion classes long ago as undergrads.

At our first session, I invited all to introduce themselves and tell why they chose to attend. The responses were as varied as the participants. A number were just curious. Others yearned for a serious study about God and God’s activity in the world. One young mother said she wanted to know how to respond to her toddler’s questions about God. One older woman’s husband of sixty-two years had died, and she found herself filled with questions about life and meaning and death. Ever since he had died, she said she had been praying and praying, but that God was not responding. So she signed up and was stunned when she read the first

Holding Faith: A Practical Introduction to Christian Doctrine,

by Cynthia Rigby, The W.C. Brown Professor of Theology, Austin Seminary Abingdon Press, 2018, 408 pages, $44 (hardback). Reviewed by Rev. Dr. Rodger Nishioka, senior associate pastor at Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kansas

“H

olding faith.” For some, those two words mean faith is embraced and treasured. For others, they mean faith

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Faculty Books chapter about the doctrine of revelation— about how God chooses to reveal God’s self to us. Thus, the adventure began.

As each week passed, the group became more comfortable with one another. As they grew more trusting, their questions and our discussion became more real, more honest. All of this was prompted by the Holy Spirit through Rigby’s faithful work.

Through ten chapters and nearly 400 pages, Rigby invites the reader to engage the doctrines of revelation, scripture, incarnation, the Trinity, creation, sin and salvation, the church, the Christian life, Christian hope, and Christian vocation. As she explains each doctrine, she weaves in the history of the church, citing Councils and Church Fathers in ways that are instructive but not burdensome. She relates doctrines to her own experience as a teacher, scholar, pastor, spouse, mother, daughter, friend. She connects the doctrine to how the church worships, how we are governed, and how we go about mission in the world. One of the class members, knowing that I know Rigby personally, resonated with the author so much she kept asking me, “So, what is she REALLY like?” She admitted that Cindy Rigby was her latest “author crush” and seemed glad when I assured her that Cindy really is smart, funny, honest, real, and pretty much lives just the way she

writes—with great hope and humility.

As we read, we kept our Bibles nearby to explore Rigby’s numerous biblical citations. A helpful scripture index is provided. We began using the reflection and discussion questions provided, but by the third week the students were coming with their own queries and comments.

I marveled at the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit as each week it seemed the particular doctrine we studied resonated in profound ways with persons in the class. When studying incarnation, one member shared she was struggling with infertility. When studying creation, one student related she had just experienced her first gleaning of a field in rural Kansas.

When studying Christian vocation, one member told us her husband had just been laid off. Time and again, Holding Faith helped us live the intersection between practice and doctrine.

When finished, the class opted to share a potluck lunch. One member invited everyone to sign a card to send to the author. Sitting next to me was that evangelical. As he passed Cindy’s card to me, he smiled and said, “Remember when I told you that I didn’t think ‘practical’ had anything to do with ‘doctrine?’ I get it now,” he said, “in the very best sense, ‘practical’ and ‘Christian doctrine’ belong together.” v

Coming in the fall issue:

Professor Cynthia L. Rigby “Disarming the Demonic” 32

Christianity & Culture

Leaving Religion, Needing Religion Melissa Wiginton

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mericans are notoriously religious, and while today the place of Christianity may be weakening, spirituality abounds. Scholars in recent decades have extensively theorized the shift away from theocentric religion. Recently, David Zahl put flesh on the theoretical bones in Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became our New Religion and What To Do About It (Fortress Press, 2019). Zahl innovates the term “seculosity� as a catchall for pseudo-religious activities people do here on earth without reference to God. Zahl argues that the human needs historically met by big-R Religion have not waned as 3,500 churches close each year. In fact, people are seeking to fulfill those needs in a diverse array of small-r religious practices of seculosity.

Zahl, an Episcopal priest and co-founder of Mockingbird Ministries, elaborates seculosity with generosity, not judgmentalism. He affirms the value of commitment to health, parenting, work, and more. Good practices, he explains, become religious when people vest them with salvific power, believing that when they accomplish their goals, loneliness, meaninglessness, guilt, or despair will fall away, and their lives will become fulfilling and whole.

Melissa Wiginton is research professor in Methodist studies and

serves on the administrative cabinet at Austin Seminary. As vice president for Education Beyond the Walls, she has developed innovative programs for faith leaders and learners. She holds MDiv and JD degrees and served twelve years at the Fund for Theological Education prior to her appointment at Austin Seminary.

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Christianity and Culture

Take the example of food. Zahl wonderfully unfolds the way the culinary arts now permeate television, magazines and newspapers, social media and social life, and have even become significant markers for identity and morality. Yes, Zahl says, attention to diet is positive. Enjoying the pleasure of food is lovely. But a person is not “bad” if they eat a bag of Fritos or “good” if they eat a carrot instead. In Zahl’s view, a tragic failing of small r-religion is unmasked by the toxic results of overdependence on its promises. For instance, he points to a new eating disorder, orthorexia, the obsession with healthful or proper eating.

While Zahl focuses on describing small r-religion in individual lives, Angie Thurston and Casper ter Kuile (pronounced “ter Kyle”), two graduates of Harvard Divinity School, look at it from the perspective of community. Where, they ask, do young adults gather to meet religious needs if not in church? They studied dozens of communities which incorporate spiritual dimensions of life. Six themes of the small r-religious life, to use Zahl’s terminology, emerged: community, personal transformation, social transformation, purpose finding, creativity, and accountability. Not every organization encompasses all six themes, but each provides community. (Their four monographs, How We Gather, Care of Souls, Something More and Faithful, are available for download at https://sacred.design/insights.)

“CrossFit” illustrates Thurston and ter Kuile’s analysis. CrossFit boxes (gyms) are workout places for the people Zahl describes in his chapter on “Seculosity and Leisure.” CrossFitters follow a small-l liturgy. All the boxes do the same workouts on the same days. Many workouts are named for soldiers or other heroes (saints?) who have died. Further, members publicly set aspirational goals, hold each other to them, and celebrate when they are accomplished. Members also engage in care for each other outside the box. They hold fundraisers to support each other’s causes and pick up each other’s dogs at the vet.

The Dinner Party is another example, but of a different genesis. Founder Lennon Flowers’s mother died at age 53 when Ms. Flowers was in her 20s. Few peers shared this experience, so she created the community she needed. People in their 20s and 30s who have had a significant loss get together over homemade food to talk about their losses and how they impact their lives. Communities exist all over the country. They share recipes and rituals to welcome strangers to tables in their homes.

To understand why people gather in these ways, and not in institutional religious communities, Thurston and ter Kuile draw from “Jobs to be Done” theory originated at Harvard Business School. The theory drives producers to pay close attention to users’ needs. Rather than making improvements that engineers recommend from their offices, they get curious about the contexts and purposes of their users. Applied to religion, Thurston and ter Kuile argue that people “fire” institutional religion because it does not do the jobs they need done—belonging (rather than believing) and becoming something more. People then “hire” other experiences, like CrossFit and Dinner Party, because those communities do the jobs they need done. Thurston and ter Kuile focus on young adults, but the percent of older generations leaving institutional religious organizations is on the rise, perhaps for similar reasons.

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Wiginton

Thurston and ter Kuile’s theory of firing church has its limitations. Many young adults have never participated in a Christian congregation to fire. And it may be that the polemical rhetoric of the Religious Right alienates large numbers of people from churches generally, including mainline and progressive churches. Moreover, the notion of Jobs to be Done leans mechanical, while holy mystery, not only need, lies at the heart of religion. Nevertheless, Christians have something to learn from Thurston and ter Kuile.

Thurston and ter Kuile, and Zahl, bring the good news that the religious impulse is alive in America. People are investing time and resources striving to meet these needs. But while we can affirm these diverse efforts, we who have been touched by gracious love might expect the Holy Spirit to be stirring a desire for something more; that is, for God who is and gives gracious love. We can worry that these self projects rely on a kind of earned salvation. Christianity holds that salvation—freedom from the hell of our fundamental alienation, fear, and hopelessness and for love—cannot be earned.

To be sure, many practicing Christians are also in the thick of seculosity, trying to earn salvation with everyone else. A pastor told me last week that in her high-achieving, upper middle-class congregation of white professionals, people are tortured by anxiety they are not doing enough—at work, with children, at home, in relationships, for their health, with their leisure. “Hear the good news,” she wants to proclaim … “Nothing you do will ever be enough. By grace you are enough.” What can that mean in a world of small r-religion?

Christianity teaches the promise of grace is for all. Indeed, grace does weave through communities like the ones described in Thurston and ter Kuile’s work— not only through communities with “Christian” in the name. But the reality and distinct gifts of grace are hobbled by the practical idolatry of individual work and achievement. Christianity pulls from a different center. It holds forth texts and traditions that name, encourage, and enhance the concrete reality and power of grace.

The question that burdens my soul is this: Where and how do we enter the conversation? How can we understand and share Christian understandings and practices of grace that meet the religious needs for belonging and becoming?

Zahl offers one grace-filled approach. He starts with compassion for the ways people are trying to do the jobs of meaning-making, connection, and love for self and other. He lifts up the life-giving practices embedded in the ways of small-r religions. For example, he recognizes the value of mindfulness as a practice of leisure addressing our need for respite. Then, as he does in each section, he brings good news not as a scold but as a vital supplement. He says, “Yes. And …” He opens up the impulse to reliance on more than self-invention. He turns to scripture and Christian teaching to bless and to deepen. He affirms seculosity even as he strives to make manifest Luther’s conviction: “It is impossible to gain peace by the methods and means of the world … We find no rest for our weary bones unless we cling to the word of grace.”

Some congregations also work to bridge faith and seculosity. ’Sup? is a regular dinner conversation among young adults in Austin and First English Lutheran 35

Christianity and Culture Church. The congregation buys dinner at a good restaurant and invites an equal number of young adults and older church members. Guests linger over excellent food as they share, learn, listen, and offer wisdom, inspiration, and mutual appreciation. They don’t necessarily talk about Christianity, but they gather around a table where there is enough for all and relationships are born. ‘Sup? is not about getting people to join First English. It is about being Christian people in relationship. One young adult woman told an older church member, “I don’t have a church, but if I did, I would want it to be just like yours.” She has “fired” some church or idea of church. Perhaps she is “hiring” the community feeding her with physical and spiritual food.

This is not the first time in American history that small r-religions are flourishing as people desperately strive to meet spiritual needs. But this is our time. We can see with empathetic eyes the goods of seculosity. We can hear with compassionate ears the longing for meaning, connection, and love of self and neighbor. What is the Holy Spirit stirring? How can we, as individuals and as churches, attend and respond with humility, creativity, and courage and, ultimately, bear forth grace? v

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Theodore J. Wardlaw, President

Board of Trustees G. Archer Frierson II, Chair James C. Allison Janice L. Bryant (MDiv’01, DMin’11) Kelley Cooper Cameron Claudia D. Carroll Katherine B. Cummings (MDiv’05) Thomas Christian Currie James A. DeMent (MDiv’17) Jill Duffield (DMin’13) Britta Martin Dukes (MDiv’05) Jackson Farrow Jr. Beth Blanton Flowers, M.D. Stephen Giles Jesús Juan González (MDiv’92) William Greenway Walter Harris Jr. John S. Hartman

Keatan A. King Steve LeBlanc Sue B. McCoy Matthew Miller (MDiv’03) David Pardue Denice Nance Pierce (MATS’11) Mark B. Ramsey Stephen J. Rhoades Sharon Risher (MDiv’07) Conrad M. Rocha Lana Russell Lita Simpson John L. Van Osdall Teresa Welborn Elizabeth C. Williams Michael G. Wright

Trustees Emeriti Lyndon Olson, B.W. Payne, Max Sherman, Anne Vickery Stevenson, Louis H. Zbinden Jr.

Spring 2020

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