Volume 4 Issue 1: Scripture

Religio Engaging

the

Bible

Portraits

of

Grace

Post Modern Interpretation

THE UNDERGRADUATE JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT AT DUKE

April 2010 | Volume 4 | Issue 1

Scripture Encountering God

in the

Word

Religio

Religio

April 2010 | Vol. 4 | Iss. 1

Note from the Editors

We are pleased to bring you the seventh issue of Religio, “Scripture: Encountering God in the Word.” Religio began in spring 2007 as a way for students to read, write and reflect on their Christian faith.

This university is founded on the premise that knowledge and religion, eruditio et religio, are fundamental to the development and formation of all persons. Our mission is once again to bring Christianity into dialogue with the learning of this university. This project is ecumenical in its nature, and we draw upon people from a diverse range of Christian traditions and fellowships on campus.

This journal is part of a larger initiative called “The Augustine Project,” seeking to establish journals of Christian thought at college and university campuses across the nation. The journal is a grateful partner of Pathways, a ministry of Duke Chapel that helps students discover their calling through programs of theological exploration and vocational discernment.

The Gospel of John opens with a profound introduction of the Word of God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Jesus Christ, the living Word, dwelt among us two thousand years ago. Since then, Christians have sought to know God through the study of scripture.

Christians look to Hebrew Scriptures and find Jesus of Nazareth as the fulfillment of Messianic hope. They proclaim again the anticipation of the prophets of Israel awaiting the arrival of the Prince of Peace. Christ’s interactions with people sparked a vast collection of writings bearing witness to his life, death and resurrection. Sorting through these writings, councils and church fathers collected and debated a canon for the faithful. Throughout two millennia, Christians have consulted and proclaimed scripture as an integral part of the discernment process. In this issue, our authors continue the ongoing discussion.

Religio is now accessible online at www.duke.edu/web/religio. You can view this issue and our archives at this site. If you are interested in writing an article, submitting photography, or joining our staff, please email us at religio@duke.edu.

Editorial Board Chrissy Booth Peter Farmer Matthew Gay Harrison Hines Gregory Morrison* Publication Manager Michael Gay Outreach and Distribution Manager Jenny Denton Staff Advisor Dr. Adam Hollowell Contributing Writers Troy Shelton Kaitlyn Sanders John Maletis Michael Gay Kristen Davis Chelsea Echenique Alison Khoo Jamie Patrick Grant Meeker Chrissy Booth John Harris Contributing Photographers Brandon Semel Michael Gay Matthew Gay Jenny Denton

Peace, Chrissy Booth Trinity, ‘10 Photo: Brandon Semel

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Gregory Morrison Trinity, ‘11

*Editor on Leave

Inside

Featured Article

Reading Scripture: A Conversation Scholars

with

Interviews with Mark Goodacre and Kavin Rowe

14 The Heart of the Christian Tradition Troy Shelton pg. 4 Grace Hill: A Photographic Essay Michael Gay pg. 10 The Prisspot Emails Kristen Davis pg. 20 Between Scripture and the Cross Grant Meeker pg. 26 In Spirit and in Truth John Harris pg. 32

Lectio Divina Kaitlyn Sanders pg. 7 The Passion of Kierkegard John Maletis pg. 12 Spring Breaks of Service Pathways Students pg. 24 Call and Response Chrissy Booth pg. 29

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Troy Shelton

The Heart of

Tradition C

hristians have always relied upon Holy Scripture as a refuge of hope and a fountain of joy. Scripture’s position within Christianity, however, has been less well defined.

Though most of the writings comprising the New Testament were written before 100 A.D., the different texts in circulation were not organized until the fourth century. This process of canonization was important for at least two reasons. First, only a fixed canon could rebuff the spread of heresy. Heretics like Arius, who rejected the divinity of Christ, and Marcion, who rejected the authority of the Old Testament books because of Gnostic principles, were persuading Christians to leave the Church and join

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Photo: Brandon Semel new, separate sects. Second, and most importantly, the Scriptures were organized to reveal a clear and unambiguous faith in Christ as delivered by the apostles to the local churches.

Christians of the fourth century were compelled to make plain the apostolic faith and to show it as the faith of the church catholic. St. Vincent of Lerins appeals to this idea when he writes in his Commonitory: “all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all.” The organization of the Christian canon is itself a declaration of this universal and apostolic faith, of the Christian Tradition. The Christian faith and practices handed down from the apostles extend beyond the books of the Old

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and New Testaments, but Scripture is undoubtedly the heart of this Tradition.

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ome may ask, “What is Tradition? Isn’t Tradition everything outside the Bible?” This hesitation to embrace Tradition primarily comes from the Reformation period, but is not ill-conceived. Rather, such concerns are themselves witnesses to the importance of holding the apostolic faith. Understanding the exact relation between Scripture and Tradition clarifies the issue. According to the twentieth century Russian theologian Georges Florovsky, Tradition is “the paradosis, the handing down of what God chose to disclose and communicate to men.” The wide scope of this

definition locates Scripture within Tradition, as implying Tradition. Essentially, wherever there is Scripture, there is Tradition. Tradition casts a wide net, including such elements as general church councils, biblical exegesis, and sacraments. Each element of Tradition, likewise, rests on Scripture, but we shall turn to this later. Some may ask why the modern world, with its increasingly vast body of knowledge unknown to the ancients, has any need for Tradition.

Some may even criticize Tradition for hindering our world from future “progress.”

Jaroslav Pelikan, one of the greatest Christian scholars of our time, drew a critical distinction in his Vindication of Tradition: “Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”

Tradition does not exist to kill the Christian spirit but to enliven and encourage it with the vitality of the past. Tradition has also been conceived of as the “democracy of the dead” whereby a group decides to consult both contemporary and past opinions in order to make the best possible decision for the future. Such an embrace of the past, without a rigid and inflexible imitation of it, keeps contemporary society humble and prevents presumptuous dismissals of Tradition.

Church, there is no standard method of interpreting the Scriptures that recalls the apostolic meaning of the texts. The Holy Spirit, the comforter and guide of the faithful, works through Tradition and Scripture to make the Church transcend time.

Though we live in the present, we are taught the truth delivered by Christ in the first century A.D., and we live in anticipation of the Kingdom of God. Tradition and Scripture need the Church, and the Church needs

authority of the Church’s interpretation?” For this reason—because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another….Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of ecclesiastical and catholic interpretation.

“What is Tradition? Isn’t Tradition everything outside of the Bible?”

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his defense of the Christian Tradition is important because Scripture itself is inseparable from Tradition. The Church unites these two essential elements of Christianity. Without the Church, there is no body committed to the steadfast preservation of the teachings of Christ and His apostles. Without the

Tradition and Scripture to teach the faithful and convert the world. Understanding the mutual dependency of these three—Church, Tradition, and Scripture—illuminates the problem of a doctrine like sola scriptura, which asserts that Scripture alone is the guide to salvation. An initial reaction to such a claim is that it fails its own criteria, since such a doctrine cannot be found in Scripture. More importantly, it introduces confusion into the writings of the New and Old Testaments because no text can speak for itself—every text necessitates interpretation. The only standard Christianity has for interpreting a text is consulting the Church for the Traditional meaning of a verse of Scripture. In the fifth century, St. Vincent anticipated such beliefs by arguing:

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ut here someone perhaps will ask, “Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the

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ince Tradition includes more than Scripture, and the two are mutually dependent, it must be shown how the other elements comprising Tradition are related to Scripture. It has already been argued that the Church preserves the correct way of interpreting Scripture, but the instrument by which it does so is the council. The early church began meeting in councils during the apostolic era, recorded as early as the Book of Acts. The first general and ecumenical council was called by the Roman Emperor Constantine at Nicaea in 325 A.D. Following the practice of the apostles, decisions were made on practice and belief by the church catholic, with bishops attending from all Christian lands. Most importantly, these councils came to be an opportunity for the church as a whole to decide how to correctly interpret Scripture against heretical innovations.

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he decisions of these councils were sometimes recorded as creeds, another significant element

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of the Christian Tradition. Most significant is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. The document is astonishingly unoriginal: every phrase has a biblical citation. Interestingly, the most controversial word of the text is

“Just as the body cannot live without a heart, neither can the Church’s life—Tradition— survive without Scripture.” homoousios, a Greek word meaning “same essence” or “same being.” Some bishops at the council hesitated to apply homoousios to the relationship between the Father and the Son because it was not used in Scripture. The debate and final decision to include it reveals the centrality of Scripture at these councils as well as the reliance on Tradition—as opposed to traditionalism—to make a clear statement of belief consistent with the “faith believed everywhere, always, by all.”

ing the service is taken straight from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Likewise, the primary liturgies for the Eucharist were compiled from biblical hymns and doxologies of the early church, including practices such as the kiss of peace commanded by Peter and Paul in their epistles.

entirely scriptural mind. They were compelled to shine light into the darkness of ignorance by explaining who Christ was and how our salvation is accomplished. Rather than depend on complex philosophical systems, they relied on Scripture. They believed Scripture to be central to the life of the Church, as the heart of Tradition.

inally, there are the writings of the Church fathers. Many of the earliest fathers, like Saints Polycarp, Ignatius, and Clement, were either ordained or converted by the apostles. But even later Christians could still be instruments of the Holy Spirit, articulating divine truths. Most importantly, however, all of them would take Scripture as the foundation for their beliefs. Their purpose in writing was the same as ours today: to explain what God has done for man by sending his Son incarnate to trample death by death. Many are surprised to find that the church fathers are more accessible than modern theologians that create bulky theological systems separating Christianity as conceived from Christianity as lived. Yet this should not be so surprising because these early writers had acquired an

ust as the body cannot live without a heart, neither can the Church’s life—Tradition—survive without Scripture. The two are inseparable and mutually dependent. Without Tradition informing us, we have no organized canon. Without Scripture eternally inspiring, we have no Eucharist, no understanding, no life.

Today there are “Bible churches” that fail to provide the framework of Tradition to understand the faith.

Likewise, there are churches that follow the letter of liturgical rubrics and canon, yet fail to guide people into biblical lives. Rather than tending to either extrzzeme, perhaps we can let Tradition and Scripture again stand together instead of at odds. Let us rejoice in faith in Christ, as taught in the Scriptures and handed down to us in Tradition.

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he sacraments and liturgical rites of the Church are likewise founded on Scripture. Across all Christian practices, the consecration of the Eucharist, the greatest of the sacraments, employs the Words of Institution of Christ at the Last Supper, “Take, eat; this is My body…Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant.” Baptism also follows the procedure seen in the New Testament. In the liturgical practice of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the primary hymn sung repeatedly dur-

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J

Troy Shelton is a Trinity junior

from Winston-Salem, NC. He is majoring in History and minoring in Classics—he loves that old, old time religion. He is active with Pathways as a Lilly Scholar and currently serves as president of Duke’s Orthodox Christian Fellowship. Special thanks go to his girlfriend Molly for her help and support.

Lectio Divina: Praying Through

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cripture can be read in a number of different ways.

As a religion major, I spend a lot of time critically analyzing the Old and New Testament.

In my classes, we try to determine who wrote the texts, what community they came from, when they were written and what other sources influenced the specific text. Scripture can also be studied as a piece of literature, looking at the themes, motifs, styles and approaches that are taken in different books of the Bible. Scripture is an essential element of many worship services and sermons across all Chris-

tian denominations. As a Catholic, I hear four passages from scripture every Sunday at Mass. It can also be studied in a devotional context, where a specific book or topic is studied in depth and people seek to apply the teachings from scripture to their every day life.

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ut how do we really pray scripture? Is simply reading prayer?

Can listening or studying be prayer?

The ancient art of lectio divina takes aspects from a variety of techniques of studying the Bible and combines them to create a meditative process

the

Scriptures

Kaitlyn Sanders

through which scripture can truly be prayed. Lectio divina, translated as sacred or divine reading, provides an opportunity to immerse yourself in scripture and pray through it in a different way than is typically undertaken in a Bible study or reading at church. In this article I will give a brief history of lectio divina, describe the four-step process, share some of my own experiences and give tips on how to pray lectio divina successfully.

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t. Benedict and Pope Gregory I are credited with founding the practice of lectio divina. While early

Photo: Kaitlyn Sanders

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Christians such as Origen, St. Jerome, St. Augustine and St. Antony studied and encouraged the reading of scripture, literacy was not prevalent among peasants and lay people.

Thus, most knowledge of scripture came from public readings. When St. Benedict wrote the guidelines for his monastic community, The Rule of St. Benedict, in the 6th century, he clearly stated that monks should spend three hours a day reading.

While this included reading other spiritual works, the Bible was an essential text for the monks. Pope Gregory I, a monk who followed The Rule of St. Benedict, emphasized the community aspect of lectio divina. He felt that the scriptures could be better understood through others, and that together we can both dialogue about and dialogue with the text.

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constraints, which is why it can be so difficult. I often find myself rushing through prayers for completion, so I can move on to other things. However, lectio divina requires 30-45 minutes to have a deep and meaningful experience. I usually practice lectio divina seated, in a comfortable room or chapel. A focal point of a cross, crucifix, icon or piece of art helps me to focus. I avoid trying to do lectio divina when I am overly tired or distracted because I tend to enter into deep sleep rather than deep prayer.

When I lived in intentional Christian community one summer, we tried to mix up our traditional breakfast Bible studying by doing lectio divina once or twice a week. While it was a good idea, in practice it did not work out so well because it was very early in the morning and we were all still waking up. Oratio and comptemplatio often turned into naptime. Lectio divina can be practiced alone or in a small group. I like praying it in a small group so that I can gain wisdom and insight on different parts of the passage from other people. I have always used scripture for lectio divina, though other devotional texts can be used as well. The Gospel reading from the lectionary is a great place to start if you are looking for an appropriate text to use.

n the 12th century, a Carthusian monk named Giogio II officially codified the four-step process of lectio divina. He described the four stages as rungs on a ladder that leads from heaven to earth. The four steps put forward by Giogio are still used today and are referred to by their Latin names. Lectio, or reading, is first, followed by meditatio, meditation, and oratio, prayer, with a final step of contemplatio, contemplation. Each fter a few minutes of silence step deserves proper attention and in order to quiet the spirit and a closer look, but first a few general words on the setting and selection of open the mind, the process of lectio divina begins. Lectio, or reading, is texts for lectio divina. ectio divina should be undertak- the most straightforward of the first en with patience and free of time four steps of lectio divina. The goal of this step is to simply understand the text. When in a group, it is best to read the text aloud slowly 2-3 times, preferably by a few different people.

Adequate time to reflect in silence should be allotted between readings in order to process the passage. During this step you are seeking God in the text and trying to discern what the text says. For me, lectio is about

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familiarizing myself with the passage and opening myself to the prayer experience.

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editatio, or meditation, is the next step. During this time you are contextualizing the meaning of the text and committing a portion of it to memory. It is recommended that you focus on one word or short phrase that you feel drawn to. I like

“After spending time act ing, and praying conte opportunity to revel in termine how this text

Photo: Michael Habashi

to repeat this word or phrase over and over in my head and see what types of feelings it brings up in me.

Does this word comfort me? Does it challenge me? Why did this word jump out at me? Why does God want me to focus on it? Thought it may seem counterintuitive, you should not pray about the phrase yet.

Meditation consists of simply finding the phrase, assessing why this specific piece of the passage spoke to you and reflecting on it. When I am in a group, I find it beneficial to have the participants share the word or phrase they are meditating on.

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fter sufficient time for silent meditation, the participant

moves into prayer, or oratio. This is a time to converse with God about specific parts of the text, movements in your spirit as a result of this reading, or prayers for clarification and guidance. You are asking for the grace to understand and apply the specific text to your life. You have the opportunity to talk to God about what you liked about the text, what chal-

an opportunity to experience a taste of communion with God. I struggle with this step a lot, but find that I still receive the benefits of contemplating even when I feel like I do not achieve full rest in God.

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oday, lectio divina is still used daily in monastic communities around the world, as well as by lay Catholics and Protestants in many different settings. During the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, the Roman Catholic bishops re-emphasized the value of lectio divina for all people. Pope Benedict XVI has also encouraged Catholics to participate in lectio divina in order to bring about an “intimate dialogue in which the person reading hears God who is speaking, and in praying, responds lenged you, or what resonated with to Him with trusting openness of you. During oratio, I like to ask God heart.” As contemplative prayer where He wants me to go as a result has gained popularity among many of the text. Do I have a relationship I Christians, so has lectio divina. need to repair? Is God calling me to or me, lectio divina provides a something new? I often find myself new perspective on scripture each praying for unexpected things during lectio divina, because the text has led time I participate. I am able to find me in a new direction. It can also be a new wisdom from passages that are a time of prayer in thanksgiving for extremely familiar to me and come new enlightenment or a deepening of to appreciate the word of God in a new way. Lectio divina often defies understanding. my expectations. I may pick a pasinally, it is time for contemplatio, sage intending to focus on a specific or contemplation. This step fotheme, but during my time of medicuses on meeting God in the text and tation, I feel called to a completely resting in God’s comfort. You simply different word of phrase. These times contemplate God’s love, peace, grace remind me that it is God who sets and forgiveness. After spending time the agenda in prayer, not me. Lectio actively reading, meditating, and divina helps me to move from speedpraying, contemplation provides an reading scripture for completion to opportunity to revel in God’s presactually engaging with it and making ence and determine how this text it a part of my prayer life. It helps me will affect your life. Though it can to pray through scripture by combinbe the most difficult step of lectio ing reading, quiet, and conversation divina, contemplation is described as with God. the peak or the practice because it is

tively reading, meditatemplation provides an God’s presence and det will affect your life.”

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ectio divina is not easy. Patience is not a gift that I have an abundance of, and sitting in silence for up to an hour can be very trying.

My mind wanders and I get frustrated when I don’t feel God’s presence. However, with practice and repetition, lectio divina can be an extremely fruitful practice and a way to approach scripture when you want some variety in your normal bible study routine. For me, I learn a lot about myself when I do lectio divina and I also find that God opens new doors in our relationship through this prayer form. His word comes alive when it is prayed with such intention. I recommend lectio divina because it puts the emphasis on God speaking to me through the text, as opposed to what I can glean from the text.

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cripture is one of the greatest gifts that God has given to us, and lectio divina is one of the best tools I have found to fully appreciate this gift. We can speak to God in prayer as God speaks to us in reading. You can move beyond a superficial or analytical reading of the Bible and truly pray through the word of God. I encourage you to try lectio divina a few times, and not to be discouraged if it is difficult at first. As with anything, you will get better with practice, and we are also blessed with the wonderful gift of God’s grace that will help us through the process when we feel frustrated or inadequate.

Kaitlyn Sanders is a senior Religion major. She is involved with the Duke Catholic Center and will be returning to Duke next year to work as their Peer Ministry Coordinator. She is also a Pathways Lilly Scholar. Her favorite hobbies include dancing and cooking.

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Portaits of Grace

The last issue of Religio, entitled The Struggling Bride, focused primariliy on the theme of the church, with essays written on topics such as denominations, church membership, identity, and envangilism.

But what is a church? Why, in small town with churches on every corner, does a group of 20 young families come together to start afresh?

Sunday morning as can be imagined, is a lot like other churches. They worship in songs and in prayer. They repent of sins, make confessions of faith, and rejoice in the taking of communion. The children attend Sunday school classes, while Pastor Ross Durham preaches to his adult congregation. But throughout all that is expected, there is something different; there is an underlying feeling of being known, and of being in communion with those around you. Grace Hill is intentional about sharing life together, which most visibly happens in the sharing of meals. Each Sunday, at the conclusion of the service, the chairs are moved aside, tables are laid down, and the potluck lunch

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begins. The building is filled with the noise of conversations and the laughter of the children.

As the weather warms, these church lunches have turned into picnics, the dads start throwing a football, and wiffleball bats and balls are brought out.

The depth of these relationships and the discussion of the sermons, core values, vision, and struggles of the church happen in small groups.

Weekly, families gather in homes. Parents rotate taking turns watching the children upstairs, and the rest share in discussion and prayer in the living room bellow.

Grace Hill is these families, these individuals, these children. The people don’t simply make up this church, but they are the church. This community is united in their faith in the gospel and their hope in Christ.They are portraits of God’s Grace.

Grace Hill Church is a joint church plant between the Church of the Good Shephered and the Associate Re-

formed Presbyterian Church. Members from Rivertown Presybetrian Church of Hillsborough, asked CGS and the ARP to plant a new church after their pastor stepped down, and beginning in January of this year Pastor Ross Durham, and 15 families from CGS came and joined those who remained at Rivertown. Over the past four months, the church has been renamed (to Grace Hill) and has moved to a new building, symbolizing the beginnings of a new church. Ross was recently formally installed April 18th, and beginning April 25th, Grace Hill will begin to reach out to noew visitors

Michael Gay is a Trinity freshman from Greenville, NC, studying Public Policy. “Portaits of

Grace” is a portion of a larger documentary photography project to chronicle the town of Hillsborough through the class Small Town USA. Michael has thoroughly enjoyed witnessing the Grace Hill Church plant and is grateful to the congregation for their hospitality and friendship.

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The Passion of Kierkegaard:

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often feel that everything which could possibly be written or said about Scripture has already been published or discussed and nothing remains. Just as often I find that still more exists on which to comment. There are always new analytical methods, interpretations, and theories that shed light on passages taken for granted by countless Christians. The degree of complexity to the entire system is nauseating. The ability to coherently articulate your personal interpretation of a passage has been nearly suffocated by the sheer volume of existent interpretations.

Sometimes, images that are not even relevant to Scripture are the first that come to mind when reading a passage. For example, John 3:16 conjures

Scripture

in a

Post Modern World

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ur culture today is clearly postmodern, i.e., nothing, no truth, is absolutely certain. It embraces the realization that what is true for you is true for you and what is true for me is true for me. We must interpret the world around us according to our individual worldviews. The same principle applies to scriptural interpretation. Scripture is everywhere in many different forms, all conveying different meanings. It becomes increasingly difficult to choose a method to interpret Scripture, let alone discover your own interpretation. What should one do among all these seemingly contradictory voices?

What is the meaning within these passages? These questions of biblical hermeneutics plague our postmodern

“You must choose for yourself how to interpret Scripture, because the meaning has value to you alone” up images of a rainbow-colored wig (sports fans know what I’m talking about). Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 – “a time to sow and a time to reap” – reminds me of a song in Forest Gump by The Byrds (movie fans know what I’m talking about). 2 Corinthians 12:7 – “a thorn in the flesh” – brings a great song by The Smiths to mind (music fans know what I’m talking about).

Scripture takes on many different meanings depending on the context and the person who interprets it. The problem posed in a postmodern culture is how one can choose amongst the infinite interpretations?

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world. You must choose for yourself how to interpret Scripture because the meaning has value to you alone.

On this matter, Kierkegaard offers valuable insight. anish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard boldly declared that “subjectivity is truth” in describing how true Christian faith relates an individual to God. Faith, according to Kierkegaard, is an interior kind of passion which cannot be objectively grasped but only cultivated through one’s inward subjectivity.

Kierkegaard despised the casual approach to Scripture and God popularized in 19th century Denmark.

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He made the distinction between Christendom (the outward expression of the Danish Lutheran Church) and Christianity (the inward passion of faith in Christ). He also took offense toward G.W.F. Hegel’s objective historical conception of Christianity, an ideology which inspired notable works including Karl Marx’s Capital and Ludwig Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity. To say the least, Kierkegaard was not well received either in his hometown of Copenhagen nor in Berlin where he studied Hegel’s philosophy alongside Marx.

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isillusioned with the growingscholarly interest in biblical criticism, Kierkegaard wrote fervently about the importance of relating to the Bible through faith and impassioned subjectivity in the face of objective, dispassionate biblical scholarship: Thus everything is assumed to be in order with regard to Holy Scripture – what then? Has the person who did not believe come a single step closer to faith?

No, not a single step. Faith does not result from straightforward scholarly deliberation, nor does it come directly; on the contrary, in this objectivity one loses that infinite, personal, impassioned interestedness, which is the condition of faith … if passion is taken away, faith no longer exists.[i] Kierkegaard was trying to describe the paradox inherent in declaring “subjectivity is truth”. At first glance, “truth” seems to be something external (like mathematical proofs), residing in a realm that is unchangeable,

self-evident, and universal. Truth is often defined as synonymous with fact; this definition is simply not accurate. In order for a fact to become a truth, it must be interpreted as such by an individual. For example, there is no such thing as an objective interpretation. There can be a consensus of interpretation between multiple people, but each person arrives at an individual conclusion subjectively.

Only the individual can declare what is true and what is not true. Neither does truth necessitate certainty. Certainty is useful in trying to convince others of why you believe something to be true, but it is not a condition of truth. On the contrary, faith is necessary to discern truth from fiction. Kierkegaard wrote, “Faith is the contradiction between the infinite passion of inwardness and the objective uncertainty … in objective uncertainty I am ‘out on 70,000 fathoms of water’ and still have faith.”[ii] The image of Kierkegaard floating upon 70,000 fathoms of water is a powerful reminder that faith can be maintained even in the face of an absurd situation where rational odds do not matter.

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oday, individual Christians are faced with a situation just as absurd regarding the interpretation of Scripture. If you are willing to “take up and read”, as Augustine did in the garden, you will be forced to form your own interpretation. As you well already know, various interpretations abound in every situation. A small Bible study group even demonstrates this variance of interpretations. Central to Kierkegaard’s argument for impassioned faith is establishing that personal truth is true for you. Kierkegaard strongly argues that unless the reader engages meaningfully with Scripture and reflects on its impact on his/her life, reading Scripture is useless. Kierkegaard would approve of someone passionately refusing to “take up and read” because Scripture

fails to relate to him/her over another who half-heartedly chooses to integrate Scripture as it relates to his/her life. Matters of faith tend to be very either/or with Kierkegaard. [iii]

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oward the end of his life, Kierkegaard wrote a diatribe entitled Judge for Yourself!. It attacked a style of biblical interpretation which, according to him, emphasized objectivity and facts about the Bible instead of faith within the Bible. The Bible became an object for closer analysis in order to understand the original author’s intent; a sort of scientia biblica. Kierkegaard was not against biblical scholarship per se, but rather, he opposed the idea that the Word of God could be correctly read without relating it to one’s self. Like his postmodern successors, Kierkegaard argued that the meaning of a passage was not found in the author’s original intent, but in the reader’s personal interpretation through its relation to his/her life. Kierkegaard informs us, “While you are reading you must incessantly say to yourself: it is I to whom it is speaking, it is I about whom it is speaking.”[iv]

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ierkegaard’s bold statement, that “subjectivity is truth”, signaled an epistemological shift which deobjectified truth while emphasizing the individual’s freedom to choose in the face of infinite choices. With regards to biblical hermeneutics, this lead to the postmodern dilemma of interpreting Scripture for oneself in the midst of millions upon millions of other interpretations. Kierkegaard anticipated this problem and emphasized subjectivity, faith, and passion over objectivity, uncertainty, and apathy. God’s Word is not the collection of words found within the Bible, but the passion and faith cultivated by the reader viewing his/her life within the passages. The significance of Scripture does not reside at some distance

– like a Platonic idea that you need to analyze in order to understand. For Kierkegaard, the significance is seeing yourself as the subject of the text, the person whom it is addressing. I believe that Kierkegaard was really onto something, but in true Kierkegaardian form, I can only proclaim this philosophy to be true for me, not necessarily for you. Your mission is in choosing what is true for you – you have only a lifetime to do it!

Footnotes [i] Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, pg 29. [ii] Ibid pg 204. [iii] Either/Or was one of Kierkegaard’s earliest books and the foundation of his philosophy. [iv] Søren Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination/Judge For Yourself!, pg 37.

John Maletis is a fifth year senior studying Public Policy originally from Portland Oregon.

He is a student intern for the Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) chapter at Duke. Maletis was also a co-founder of Religio along with Andy Crewson and Nate Jones.

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Reading Scripture:

A Conversation

with

Scholars

Interviews with Mark Goodacre and Kavin Rowe

Photo: Brandon Semel

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ow can the person of Jesus Christ be understood through scripture, and how does his theology shape the way that people wrote about him?

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ark Goodacre: The way I think about it is witness. The Bible is a whole series of witnesses. First of all, there are the original witnesses to what he’s saying, then you’ve got people in the church who are sharing things those witnesses have said, then ultimately you’ve got the evangelists who are kind of witnesses to that process and tradition. Even after that are different manuscripts. And all throughout the process is hearing, witnessing, attempting to represent.

And in that process is change, embellishment, differences. That’s the problem isn’t it? The Holy Grail would be unmitigated, pure transcripts of what Jesus is saying. We’d all have to learn Aramaic of course in order to understand it, but that’s not what we’ve got.

It’s nothing like that. So you have to wade through.

The hook on which Christians often hang their explanations of theology, ethics, history, and faith, scripture has played a role of utmost importance in the church. That role, however, has varied through history and among different congregations and individuals. Biblical Scholars Mark Goodacre and Kavin Rowe each graciously spoke with Religio in seperate interviews about the challenges of understanding identity, translation, and synthesis in scripture.

MG: The great thing about the New Testament is, you’re confronted straight away by four versions of things. Four witnesses, all quite different. I’m always baffled by people who are overly literalistic in their interpretations of the New Testament because as soon as you start you are confronted with similarities and differences. There are basic differences between the synoptic gospels and John’s gospel. There is no point in pretending that the Jesus they present is the same. There’s a very different portrait of Jesus in John than in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

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avin Rowe has published two books on the writings of Luke, both in Luke’s gospel and in Acts. He first addresses our question through Luke’s eyes: How can the identity of Jesus be under-

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stood in the writings of Luke?

able perspectives, how could someone Kavin Rowe: The challenge is to not reading scripture begin to understand fit the gospel into your conception of what is more or less authentic? Can Jesus’ identity, but to look for a nar- conclusions be drawn about to what exratively shaped human identity in tent Scripture has historical authority? scripture. This identity will be differ- KR: I would want to back up a few ent in Luke than from other perspec- steps. Studying Scripture allows you tives. About a hundred times Luke uses “Kyrios”, meaning Lord, to narrate Jesus as a human and as the living presence of the God of Israel. Because of this, when you ask “Who is Jesus?” and you are reading Luke, you must include God in your answer. Reading Luke, you hear Luke’s voice, different from any of the other Gospels.

ferent way. What’s history, what’s not, what’s earlier, what’s later are terms with which I’m not entirely comfortable. For example, what category do we have to explain the resurrection of a dead person? The New Testament says that’s what Jesus is about. His resurrection rearranges all. We don’t

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ow should a Christian today read Scripture?

KR: Coming into the 20th century, Martin Kahler wrote that laypersons shouldn’t be dependent on scholars for knowledge of Jesus through scripture, for this leads to a road to death in which people stop reading scripture. They place a sense of God’s call on their lives in the hands of disagreeing scholars. So, how should someone read scripture? In a community of faith. Reading alone is important, but it doesn’t provide the fruits and checks of the church. It doesn’t make

to think differently about what you mean by history. Usually when people talk about what is history and what is not, they are wondering what can be proven via some sort of aca-

“The challenge is to not fit the gospel into your conception of Jesus’ identity, but to look for a narratively shaped human identity in scripture.”

- Kavin Rowe sense to read the Bible without the church, so read in the church for devotion. And seek the teaching of the church because ministers have cultivated skills and leadership.

demic research and taken as “scientific historical knowledge.” You can read the gospels in that way and come out with something, but what you don’t come out with is their purpose, ith the changes over time, manu- telos, or end goal. They would want scripts lost, and variety of avail- you to think about history in a dif-

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have a category to stuff resurrection into and call it history or not. It’s new creation. Having said that, Id say it’s historical in that it really happened.

God really did raise Jesus from the dead, and that really is new creation.

I don’t think I have something I can employ, as a scholar, to prove that.

MG: Start comparing and contrasting different accounts. If we’re trying to get to authenticity and originality, you’ve got to understand the contours of the problem first. Often, churches don’t encourage people to read the New Testament critically, they even discourage it. But actually, that’s an exciting thing about the New Testament. Not just in different gospels, but within writings, there is variation. If you look at Paul’s writing, Galatians looks like an early draft of Romans. He’s changed his mind on

some things by the time he gets to Romans. That’s exciting as well. Don’t go looking for a single voice. You’ll find a range of voices and witnesses.

And read different translations. Not just one great big leather bound Bible. Read from several perspectives.

ficult. When people talk about the tightness of translation, you have to wonder if they are going for a literal or dynamic translation. That will affect whether you translate Jesus’ closing to “Amen Amen” or “Right On.” The current translations are not as he Bible has been transcribed over radical as Luther translating Scripcenturies, translated into so many ture into German. As opposed to the languages, and interpreted all along the Qur’an, in which holiness is embedway in a myriad of ways. How can and ded in the language, there is nothing should changes in translation and in- more holy about reading Scripture in Greek. terpretation influence theology? ave these changes in translation MG: I encourage people to look at as communicated a very different many translations as possible because message than they meant to? Islam says they will often be struck by the difthat Jesus was a prophet, and that all ferences they see, especially if they don’t have access to the Hebrew and the verses in scripture saying that he was Greek. For example, the New Inter- the Son of God have been added in later national Version (NIV) translates the by the people copying and transcribing Greek word “sarcs” for flesh as “sinful texts. Could translations greatly change nature” throughout Paul’s letters. The Christology?

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ends when the women flee the tomb.

The story in John 8 about the woman to be stoned for adultery is one of the most famous stories in the Bible, but it is not included in the first version of John. Somewhere it got added.

And the number of the beast, in the earliest manuscripts found of Revelation, it is 616, not 666. A minor difference, but it’s a difference in something iconic.

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ow did the transcribed, translated, compilation of various texts in the canon come to be seen as an authority on history, ethics, and the Christian life? How do Christians come to understand the Divine Authority of Scripture?

MG: I’ll answer historically; studying the development of the canon

“Don’t go looking for a single voice.

You’ll find a range of voices and witnesses.”

-Mark Goodacre

NIV is so popular that people think Paul is always talking about sinful nature. I encourage them to read the New American Standard, The New Revised Standard Version. They’ll get a very different feel reading about “flesh” instead of “sinful nature.”

MG: When you look at manuscript transmission you don’t see that earliest texts have Jesus as a prophet and as you got through ages he becomes the Son of God. All the most shocking statements are there in the earliest witnesses. So in John’s gospel, you have “Before Abraham was I am. I KR: The Gospel is equally commuam the resurrection and the Life.” We nicable in any language. Nothing is don’t have earlier versions of the gosheld back in the Greek that you can’t pel that lack those things, so the Bible understand in other languages. The didn’t become corrupted and move to effects carry over. Jesus spoke in Araa higher Christological nature over maic, and then the earliest sources time. were written in Greek, so the translation in embedded early in the pro- MG: There are huge differences cess. The question of fidelity, of how among manuscripts, though. Some of you know which versions are more the earliest versions of Mark lack resfaithful to the original message, is dif- urrection encounters. The story just

is exciting. It wasn’t the case that, in 367 CE, people sat around a big table and looked at all these texts and said, “Lets pare it down to 27.” That didn’t happen. The thing just evolved. There are different bits of history from which we can conclude that, at this time period, this text was viewed as authoritative. From the earliest times, people were arguing about these texts.

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People didn’t like Revelation much, many were skeptical. Luther even disliked Revelation and James. So there are always arguments. In perhaps the oldest collection of texts of the Greek Bible, there’s a book called the “Shepherd of Hermas.” Now, how many people know what is in the Shepherd of Hermas? But it very nearly made it. If that book had made it into the established canon, people would be quoting it all the time. The process of evolution of scripture is the process of determining how many people were using books in how widespread a context. Matthew’s gospel so clearly makes it because it was well loved from antiquity. People quoted it, copied it, used it in worship. They saw it as admirable. So there is an intricate and dynamic historical process of scriptural evolution with human activity. In this process, we’ve lost some really interesting texts. The gospel of Thomas, for instance, was

fairly popular in the second and third centuries. Though once regarded as authoritative, people stopped copying it. As certain writings became unpalatable to the church, they elbowed things out, got rid of things, and some texts survived only by the skin of their teeth. They may have fit well with what we understand about Judaism and early Christianity, they just weren’t included.

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f Christians started reading the gospel of Thomas in church, would it fit with their current understanding of the gospels? What would surprise them?

MG: In the gospel of Thomas, what isn’t there is surprising. No miracles, no resurrection; it’s a sayings gospel.

And the Jesus in Thomas is really weird. He says, “be passersby.” Is that the opposite of the Good Samaritan?

And you know the passage “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render unto God what is God’s” in the gospels? Well in Thomas he adds, “And render unto me what’s mine.”

So does Jesus differentiate himself from God? It’s a really enigmatic text.

Photo: Brandon Semel

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ow do Christians today integrate the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures with the New Testament?

How do both contribute to the church’s theology?

MG: One thing I notice a lot in popular discourse about Bible is something verging on anti-Semitism. You see it particularly in phrase “The Old Testament God.” People describe this God as being full of terrible characteristics. And who we really like is the God of the New Testament, who is a thoroughly nice chap. The kind you’d like to have tea with. And that’s early Christian heresy. Marcion, in the secutside of ond century, thought the Old Testas c r i p t u r e , ment Creator God was evil and in need of redemption. Academic study what book, or books, would you of Christian origins in the Bible helps to steer clear of caricatured, heretical, recommend that common ideas like this.

Christians read to better understand KR: As a whole, congregations have simplistic and wrong dichotomy scripture? hen you based on long tradition of viewing the New Testament as standing a s k e d over and against the Old. There is about one book or author folks this false idea that, in the Old Testashould read be- ment you’ve got a God who is angry. sides the Bible, I He’s about judgment and law. In the first thought of New Testament you have a good guy named Jesus, who is really nice and

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Tolstoy. It occurred to me that you may have meant the average person who would not necessarily read Tolstoy. Another recommendation is N.T. Wright’s book called “Simply Christian,” which helps to show clearly and rather simply what Christian life is. There are tons of others, too. Wright also has a series called the “Everyman” series in which he writes little books on the various books of the Bible (so Paul for Everyman, etc.).

These are excellent in helping folks to understand scripture. I recommend them highly. They are well-written, engaging, and clear - without dumbing down or writing for intellectuals.

talks about love and justice. He says, “Don’t worry about law. God loves you anyway.” That gives you two different Gods. This is Marcion’s position from 2nd century. If you have the Bible witnessing to two Gods you’ve got about as basic a problem as you could come up with.

Testament means. For example, the Sabbath controversies in which Jesus engages are often seen as Jesus breaking the law and saying it doesn’t apply anymore. That’s not what he’s doing.

Really, he’s giving a good legal argument on the basis of Old Testament for what he’s doing. So, if you want to understand something about these passages, you ought to read Leviticus.

It’s not usually on the top of the list for Christians to read, but the New Testament cares a lot about Leviticus.

The Sermon on the Mount is often

MG: One big challenge is how to view the Old Testament in an empathetic way if you’re calling it the “Old” Testament. There’s a presupposition there. We have seen a move to call it not the “Old Testament” but the “Hebrew Scriptures” or “Hebrew Bible.” When the New Testament says that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, it doesn’t say according to the “Old Testament.”

It’s according to scripture, because that was their Bible. We need to get a read as an antithesis, saying the old fresh sense of the importance of these has been debunked, here is the new.

The old is not good enough, here is scriptures to early Christians. the new. But in the same gospel, Jen the classes you teach, how do you sus says he has come not to abolish suggest that Biblical Scholars begin law but to fulfill it as the Kingdom of synthesizing the theology of the Old and Heaven is coming.

New Testaments?

KR: There’s a lot of work to be done KR: One task of a Biblical scholar is in trying to show how it’s the same to show the way the New Testament God. On a literary and historical levpresupposes at every level the Old el, the New Testament presupposes Testament to mean what the New the Old to say what it is trying to say.

A term used in the Divinity School is “Traditioned Innovation.” It means all the new, all the innovation, is done not against tradition but through tradition. Even the new has been shaped out of what comes before.

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ny questions you would urge Christians to ask as they approach scripture?

KR: A question to start with is “Why read the Bible at all?” It’s not Tolstoy.

Barnes and Noble is packed with books, so what about scripture calls forth our interest?

You can justify it in banal, cultural, or economic reasons, but if it doesn’t have something to do with the Words of Life, why read it? Bible study at merely the academic level betrays the experiences in God’s word. The truth claims in the Bible reach the core of humanity. Scripture speaks to our position, as we rush or creep toward death and are longing for life. It meets us there. Nietzsche is a friend to Christians because he erased the idea of studying the Bible as a cultural artifact. He reminds us what is at stake—reminds us that scripture says something more.

“Scripture speaks to our position, as we rush or creep toward death and are longing for life.

It meets us there.”

- Kavin Rowe

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Mark Goodacre is an Associate Professor of New Testament courses in Duke’s Religion Department. His courses include The Historical Jesus and the Life and Letters of Paul, and he will additionally be teaching a course on noncanonical texts in the fall. His books include “The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze” and “The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem.”

Kavin Rowe is an Assistant Professor of New Testament in the Duke Divinity School. He is the author of two books: “Early Narrative Christology” and “World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age.” He is additionally working on a book on the interpretation of the Gospel of Luke and Acts.

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The Prisspot Emails

by Kristen Davis To: CatdungTempter@veryhotmail.com From: PrisspotDemon@veryhotmail.com RE: Going to Earth My dear Catdung, It gives me eternal pleasure to hear that you have been dispatched on your first official tempting assignment to Earth. I assume that you have heard why you have been assigned to this particular patient, but allow me to fill you in on the details of your promotion.

The demon on this assignment before you—Weevelsneeze was her name—was removed by the Second in Command Officer to Our Father Below. She was unable to keep her patient from making friends with a group of intelligent Christians in high school. Weevelsneeze failed to adequately implement the mind twisting tactics that our dark masters spend so much valuable time teaching you young tempters. She could not convince the human girl that the few Christian kids at her school were too uncool in a “Jesus-freak” kind of way. Younger humans, whom they nowadays refer to as “teenagers,” are typically very susceptible to being drawn away from particular groups and individuals who are deemed “uncool”—meaning those groups or individuals who are considered so unfashionable or socially inferior that they stir up feelings of insecurity and disdain when one thinks of them. Exploiting this social stratification, the most successful tempters manage plant superficial and judgmental thoughts about other humans into their patient’s head. That way, the patient constantly judges all humans she encounters and

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places them in one of two categories: “cool” or “uncool.” Once she has placed someone in her “uncool” category, she will thenceforth be too ashamed to associate with that human. But I digress. The bottom line is that Weevelsneeze failed in her task at keeping the patient away from Christian peers with whom she enjoys spending her precious earthly time. During her junior year in high school, one of the patient’s friends introduced her to that infernal author C.S. Lewis. He was the wretched human who revealed to the world your grandfather Wormwood’s letters from his uncle Screwtape. It has been increasingly harder for us to control the minds of humans who have read the book.

Now your patient is an incoming freshman at Duke University. Your task is to woo this disgusting female earth creature away from all Christian contact, so that she will never actually develop a relationship with the Almighty Enemy Himself.

Remember that “Principle of the Uncool” I mentioned earlier Catdung? Do not be fooled by your patient’s semblance of maturity now that she is in college. Although humans tend to be swayed less and less by “The Principle of the Uncool” as they age, many freshmen in college find the elusive status of “coolness” very alluring. We here in Hell are especially pleased that the fraternity and sorority hierarchies of social merit have been preserved at Duke University.

Because your patient is a Caucasian female, I will specifically address the atmosphere of Panhellenic sororities. These groups of female humans formed decades ago to encourage meaningful, sisterly bonds among members.

But thanks to many tactful tempters whose patients joined sororities, these groups nowadays are more like drinking clubs, which readily encourage hedonistic pleasure over genuine friendship. It makes us very proud down here in Hell when our tempters succeed in turning their patients into binge drinkers whose supposed friendships primarily revolve around talking about their drunken escapades and “hook ups” with male humans.

The term “hook up” is a curiously vague term in the modern American English vernacular. It is used commonly and casually among college students to refer to anything from kissing to intercourse. Many of our tempters have succeeded in convincing their patients that sex is only meant for pleasure and that there is no real chance of pregnancy or long-term emotional damage. For this century of humans, Hell’s goal is to make them believe that feeling or displaying emotions weaken a person. This seems to be quite a difficult task, given that the Almighty Enemy designed much of their brains to process emotion. But we have succeeded in making emotions uncool, while reason is cool.

See the “Principle of Uncool” coming into play again, Catdung?

You must utilize this method of tempting at once. Your patient must be made to think that she will be utterly doomed to the category of “uncool” if she does not join a sorority at the pinnacle of the social hierarchy. Once she feels very insecure about herself, she will begin to judge all of those around her much more harshly, noticing how one girl’s bangs don’t fall where they ought to or how she can’t believe that a certain girl who looks like that got into a certain sorority. This judgment of other female humans around her is what we want to encourage. Urge her to dwell on her physical appearance as she goes through the recruitment process. As she is getting ready for a round, remind her that her stomach pooches out a bit too much and that her shoulders stick out too far like she has permanent shoulder pads sewn under her skin. Encourage her to think that no one would notice her if she did not wear make up at all times outside of her dorm room. If she becomes convinced that she needs make up for her beauty to show, we have succeeded in dragging her further away from the Almighty Enemy who created her. We here below still do not understand why the Almighty Enemy thinks that all of the female humans are beautiful as they are, without artificial enhancements. Perhaps it is connected in some way to that unconditional love principle that the Enemy created. I suppose all of this rambling has given you enough to think about for now. Do update me soon on your progress. You can best reach me at PrisspotDemon@hellmail.com.

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To: CatdungTempter@veryhotmail.com From: PrisspotDemon@veryhotmail.com RE: Sorority success!

My dear Catdung, You are no doubt proud of yourself for persuading your patient to sign up for sorority recruitment in the spring. But you cannot celebrate too early. You novices have a tendency to think that just because we encourage a certain path that it must be inherently evil, and thus good for the goal of eternal damnation. This might be difficult for you to comprehend right now, but nothing on Earth is inherently good or evil—Panhellenic sororities included. Your patient may have signed up due to delusions of social grandeur; on the other hand, it may have been in response to a deeper yearning for a sense of meaningful community. In reality, it was probably a combination of the two, though most likely more of the second.

Success for Hell is not determined easily. We must use certain created institutions to twist the humans away from seeking a relationship with the Almighty Enemy, who alone can envelop them in joy and peace. Sororities are just one example of a social tool we can use to pry the humans away from finding everlasting fulfillment. So once your patient joins a sorority, you must encourage her to try and befriend girls who seek a meaningful life in purely having fun for the sake of fun. Pleasure and fun, like everything else, are not inherently good or bad.

In fact, the Almighty Enemy created fun, so its root is actually good. But we have learned that directing a college-aged human’s mind toward pleasurable materialistic experiences, such as getting drunk, shopping incessantly, and having frequent intercourse, can yield favorable results for Hell. Sensory pleasure tends to draw the human mind away from investigating itself and the possibility of a greater purpose.

Your ultimate goal is to keep your patient as self-absorbed as possible. Persuade her to make friends, not because she finds certain inner qualities attractive, but because she wants an entourage of good-looking, cool humans around her at all times. Once she has established her clique, she will be afraid to wander outside of her safe zone. She will completely ignore others who do not operate in her same social echelon, not because she really believes herself to be better than them, but because she is too emotionally fragile to extend her hand to new people. Self-absorbed humans are very contradictory, actually. They think about themselves all the time, yet they only think about themselves in regards to how they believe other humans see them. They try to read the minds of the other humans around them, which is impossible.

So, ultimately, self-absorbed individuals live a shallow existence and never quite figure out who their Creator intended them to be. How fortunate for us when that happens! Never let your patient find out her true identity while she is in college. She must not discover that she is unconditionally loved by the One who created her, otherwise we will have lost another soul. Before you write me back, study your patient’s intellectual interests. Then inform me of them!

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Your affectionate aunt, Prisspot www.duke.edu/web/religio

To: CatdungTempter@veryhotmail.com From: PrisspotDemon@veryhotmail.com RE: Patient’s classes My dear Catdung, You have done well by collecting the information I asked for, in regards to your patient’s intellectual interests.

It seems that we have a relatively intelligent human on our hands. But now that she is at Duke, she is constantly surrounded by humans who are equally or more intelligent. You need to remind her of this fact as frequently as possible. Let her overhear conversations among other freshman while she is riding the bus back to East Campus. Then rile her up when she hears two freshman boys casually discussing something high-brow like philosophy. She will become defensive of her own intelligence in the midst of other intellectually gifted humans. Do not let her forget that a great deal of her identity is wrapped up in continually getting good grades in school and being respected as the “smart kid” in her class.

Your goal here is to cultivate in her a strong sense of intellectual pomposity. She will become irate with herself and with her professors when she receives a grade below an A-minus. She will show up at office hours with tears streaming out of her eyes, delivering her professor blackmail in liquid form. When you see this scene happen, you will know you have succeeded in deepening her identity in the higher functions of her own brain, instead of something beyond herself.

Intelligence, we have to admit, is a gift from the Almighty Enemy to certain humans. But intelligence, like anything, can be used for good or twisted to create evil. The modern university education equips humans with many intellectual tools that, when rightly used, facilitate liberal, humanitarian thinking. Yet some of these same tools can be used by tempters like you. For example, you mentioned that your patient has enrolled in an introductory Women’s Studies class. This course will teach her to look critically at her culture and look for possibilities beyond capitalistic patriarchy. This is not favorable for us. We want her to examine her life as little as possible, but if she is going to examine anyway, we must use these intellectual tools against her. Do not let her think critically to help solve social problems for the benefit of other humans. Instead, encourage her to analyze herself and everyone she cares about.

Let her adopt the “post-modern” version of thinking—that way she will believe that all religions are just socially constructed and absolute truth does not exist. You want to steer her away from the Absolute Truth with all your Hellish might, or the lost soul will be your fault! And for Hell’s sake, don’t let this correspondence fall into human hands!

Your affectionate aunt, Prisspot Kristen Davis is a Trinity senior graduating May 2010 with an English major, Women’s Studies minor, and Distinction in Creative Writing. Her dream is to spread God’s love and the Christian gospel with her passion for writing, and to eventually live on a farm with her future family and her best friend Katie Anderson. She is a big fan of C.S. Lewis. She believes that, even though he does not rely heavily on scripture in his writing, his message in The Screwtape Letters—about the power of temptation and the even greater power of redemption—accurately represents the heart of the gospel.

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Pathways

Student Reflections

Honduras

Costa Rica

he thing that struck me most about Honduras, aside from its natural beauty, was the hospitality and generosity of its people. From the staff at Hotel San Jorge to the homeowners’ families of the houses we built, everyone went out of their way to welcome us and share what they had with us. They live so simply, yet find such joy in sharing and giving. Once, when I walked into the house next door to use the restroom, the homeowner’s mother offered to teach me how to make tortillas on the stove. Another time, I got into a conversation with my new friend Brenda about our Catholic faith. The next time I saw her, she brought me a beautiful small rosary to give to me as a “regalo,” a gift. I later gave her one of my own rosaries. This exchange of gifts was a precious act of friendship that touched my heart. Love has no boundaries, be they boundaries of language or distance. found God everywhere in Honduras. I saw Him in the beauty of the mountains where we hiked. I heard Him in the voices of the young girls who sang to us at the Franciscan orphanage, and in the cries of the babies at the Sisters of Charity orphanage. I met Him in the weathered smiles of the masons, and in the companionship and laughter of the other Habitat volunteers. We often go on mission trips thinking we’re “doing God’s work” or “bringing God” to the host country through our service. Instead, in Honduras, I experienced how God is already at work. He is already doing amazing things in and with the beautiful people of Honduras, and it was a privilege to be able to witness His loving work.

ne of the best ways to spend spring break is to travel on a Pathways Missions trip coordinated through Duke Chapel.

My experiences in Costa Rica had a profound impact on the way that I witness the oneness that is God and the unity created by God. I understood this concept before spring break, but it was made profoundly real to me over the course of the trip.

Though I did not know the Costa Ricans, uniting with them in the Eucharist made me feel we were intimately connected in some way. In Costa Rica, I was

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Spring Breaks

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Service

Belize

reminded that the God who is alive at Duke is the same Lord who is present in every corner of the world, uniting all those who come to Him.

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Allison Khoo

uring their cherished, one-week-only holiday in the spring, Duke students have a wide selection of ways to spend their time. My choice this spring break was a Pathways mission trip to Belize, and I am confident that no other trip would have been better for me. Amid the many gorgeous tourist destinations in the country of Belize there also lies desperate poverty born out of broken political promises and neglect. In the swampland region where the team of ten Duke students and two adults worked, there is an entire community living and working on wooden planks that sit just barely above swamp water. It was in this setting, an area called San Mateo, that the team set to work at Holy Cross Anglican School, founded by former renowned jewelry designer Vernon Wilson. Even the school’s beginning speaks of God’s great providence; Wilson, at the peak of his jewelry career, felt led by God to build a school in the swamplands of Belize.

That school grew from 50 to 500 students in three years and is now revolutionizing education policies in Belize. Our task in San Mateo was to contribute to the mission of the school through constructing more buildings and spending time with the children. The work was humbling in every way, even tutoring demanded more patience and energy from me than I thought I cold give.

What surprised me about the trip was witnessing that God had not ended his work in Belize; although the school was up-and-running and full of students already growing in knowledge and faith, God still saw fit to use our unassuming team from Duke to build, not only school buildings, but also relationships and believers in Belize.

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Between Scripture & the Cross

Grant Meeker is a Trinity junior. He is an active member of the Duke Lutherans, and in his free time, he enjoys golfing, fishing, and spending time outdoors.

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wo days after Christmas, I ventured across the Atlantic for my first trip abroad.

We landed in Tel Aviv ten and a half hours later in a country that looked similar to the one what we had just left, but the geography and architecture immediately told me I had left Winchester.

of memoirs, devotionals, and faithbased discussions that are not centered on the Word. At the basis of Protestantism are the five solas: sola scriptura (by scripture alone), sola fide (by faith alone), sola gratia (by grace alone), solo Christo (through Christ alone), and sola deo gloria (glory to God alone). Sola scriptura means that slept on the bus ride to our con- it is by scripture alone that we are to vent, but after we unpacked in find the basis of our church doctrine.

Jerusalem, where we would sleep for It is difficult to imagine the time bethe next week, I began my journey fore the Reformation when scripture through the Holy Land. We visited was not available to the laity because many of the places Jesus walked, but it had not been translated into the at the Holy Sepulchre, I found my vernacular. As very few could read Latin and Greek and Aramaic, the faith being challenged by what I witnessed. I had to reconcile my faith with those around me—to see Christianity that is not Protestant. My first exposure to Orthodox Christianity occurred in the weeks I spent in Israel. As I looked only way people knew scripture was around, seeing all the images and the way in which it was presented by icons used in those churches, I won- the Catholic Church. s Luther began the Reformadered momentarily how these differtion—one of the most influenent Christian traditions could possibly unite. How could they come tial moments of the last thousand from the same beginning, believe in years—with the 95 Theses, he transthe same things, and work together lated the Bible into German so that the laity could finally be exposed to toward a common goal? the word of God in written form. It is uddenly I remembered the unifyastounding that Luther, while fleeing ing forces of Christianity: Christ for his life from the Catholic Church and scripture. who not only wants to excommunicripture’s importance in Christi- cate him, but also put him on trial for anity is often overlooked in favor

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heresy (a capital offense in that time), worked to translate the Bible so that it could be in the hands of the people. Brother Barout, centuries later in Laos, crossed the Mekong River in the middle of winter, sick with fever, so that he could bring a bag full of Bibles to the near village. Though the machine guns were loaded in the guard tower watching the river, he and his companion went anyway, knowing scripture’s importance.

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ola scriptura. I must confess that I am far from the most regular reader of my Bible. Indeed, I just pulled it off my desk and literally had to dust off the front cover, but I know that when life gets tough, it is necessary to go the Bible for comfort. It’s amazing when you delve into it—It speaks to every emotion, every situation, and every difficult decision. The Bible is not a stale history book, but a book containing far more than miracles and stories of grandeur about the savior of the world. This is a book of fear and faith, of conquest and catastrophe, of God’s wrath and the Jesus’ words. Poetry permeates the pages, from Paul’s description of love to the song of Moses in Exodus 15—from to the Psalms, a collection of poems dealing with every emotion expressed

by God and his followers, to the Song of Solomon.

“And as I stood there, looking in the small room, being jostled roughly by the other tourists fighting their way closer to this epicenter of the Christian faith, I wondered, “How could Christ be reduced to this?”

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od’s emotions in the book extend from alpha to omega. In Judges, God’s emotions oscillate between love for creation, to anger and disappointment, much like a father upset with his children. In Genesis, God shows his intense love for man by placing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where they have but one rule. In the same book, he reduces the entire world to two of every animal and Noah’s family. God Simultaneously shows his disappointment and love. Through this display, we can begin to understand the God whom we worship—whose love is the most pervasive force in the world. Ultimately scripture narrates the greatest love story of all time. When God “so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten son” such that we may be

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saved by his self-sacrifice, this act was not merely caring for the people he had created, but love so intense that he would suffer humiliation in human form instead of ascending into Heaven. He allowed himself to be crucified at Golgotha, where one of Christianity’s most holy sites would one day be built.

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e stood, on that first day, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, looking at the stone on which, according to tradition, Jesus was laid when they removed him from the cross. We watched as people put their shopping bags and their hands on the stone so that they may be blessed. We stood in line, waiting for the chance to walk into what tradition says is the tomb where Jesus’ body was laid

and where the stone was rolled away.

And as I stood there, looking in the small room, being jostled roughly by the other tourists fighting their way closer to this epicenter of the Christian faith, I wondered, “How could Christ be reduced to this?”

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s a Protestant Christian, it was hard for me to look around at those places and find God there, especially when they are revered in a way that seemed so counter-intuitive.

On the day we visited Capernaum, I presented to the class about pilgrimage through the region of Galilee.

Once we were finished with our discussion on the day’s readings, a few of us walked down to the Sea of Galilee, the place where Jesus began his ministries - where he walked on water

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and fed the 5,000 - where he gave the Sermon on the Mount and healed the sick. And I wondered, “how could a man walk on this water—how could this support him?” Trying to balance science and miracle—Christianity and belief with history and archaeology—was something impossible

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for me at that moment. It’s amazing how a trip to Israel can impact people so differently. People go to the Holy Land to strengthen their faith, to see the sites, to walk where Jesus walked.

As I stood on the stones at the shore of the Sea of Galilee, picking the small, smooth stones to send back into the sea after a few skips, I began to doubt even more the possibility of Jesus’ existence and miraculous doings.

also take this to be fact. You can’t take the Bible in pieces. As much as people would like to dismiss the verses concerning God’s wrath from the Old Testament and instead focus on the kind, gentle, loving God in the form of his son, Jesus Bar Joseph, we can’t do that. While many may have thought that we should have thrown out the Old Testament because of Jesus and the new covenant, it is necessary to look at the book of Judges and see how the Israelites continuously fell away from God and were once more drawn back to him through his love. This book of books, this story filled with stories - this is the basis for the Christian faith.

of Paul, I was certain of the truth in the Bible. Just as Luther, in the 16th century knew the importance of the laity being able to read and interpret the Bible, so I understood that the Bible was the way in which we could always remember the life of Christ and the things that oral tradition would both forget and embellish.

From those incredible tales of Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead or giving a social outcast the opportunity to once again join society to the stories of God’s wrathful vengeance being taken out on Sodom and Gomorrah, the Bible catalogs it all. It tells us of the incredible Lord who has loved us so much.

n the last few days of our trip we went to Caesarea. There, we found the place where it was said that Paul appealed to Caesar as a Roman citizen so that his life may be spared from death at that time. That story, the one I had read long ago in Acts and had discussed in Professor Goodacre’s “Life and Letters of Paul” class, came alive at that moment. Standing on the stones left over from the days

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, the comfort me.”

And so does your word.

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Amen.

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ola Scriptura. “Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd.

After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land.

He saw the disciples straining at the oars...he went out to them, walking on the lake...the cried out because they all saw him and were terrified... then he climbed into the boat.”

(Mark 6: 45-51) Just as I believe in Genesis 1 when it says that God created the Earth and all the creatures that have ever walked on it, I must

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Chrissy Booth is a Religion major and Chemistry minor working toward a certificate in Global Health. She is grateful to have been a part of the Religio editorial staff over the past few years. In February, she delivered this sermon in the Duke Chapel for Student Preacher Sunday.

Call and Response

Lectionary Texts: Isaiah 6:1- calling out “Holy, Holy, Holy is the into a capable prophet with the refinLORD Almighty.” As smoke fills the er’s fire. An angel flew to Isaiah with a 8 and Luke 5:1-11 “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was an easy question to answer when I was younger, when I wanted to be a poet and inventor and rescuer of endangered species. However, as my classmates and I approach graduation, the question of vocation has become more serious.

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he uneasiness of uncertainty and desire to know what’s next are certainly not unique to students.

Many of us, in all stages of life, may have wished that our future would suddenly be revealed to us. Vocation, however, is much more than the fulfillment of a job search. It extends beyond an affirmation of one’s gifts and talents. The commission of Isaiah in Isaiah 6 and the call of three disciples in Luke 5 offer two striking accounts of God revealing vocations to his people. In these examples, we see that, thought God’s call may confuse us, and may not be easy, it compels us to discipleship.

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od surprises his people by calling them to remarkable, radical, difficult tasks. His choices are almost ironic. He called Abraham, an old man with no children, to found a nation, Moses, an ineloquent speaker to stand up to pharaoh, Mary, a teenaged unwed girl, to give birth to his Son. To the people he is calling, God’s call does not seem to make a lot of sense.

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onsider Isaiah. He sees the Lord sitting on a throne, and the temple is too small to contain just the train of his robe. There are angels

temple and the doorposts and thresholds are shaking, Isaiah is struck by the magnitude of God’s glory, and, in contrast, by the depth of his own inadequacy.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

live coal in his hand, taken with tongs straight from the altar and touched it to Isaiah’s unclean mouth. His sin was taken away to prepare him for the task at hand, but it wasn’t painless.

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o I wonder, if I say “Here I am” to God, will a burning coal be required before I can best serve him?

he necessity of purification is not a punishment. It’s the rough scrubbing and sloughing off of old grime, the snapping of a light stick so it can glow, the quick chill of the waters of baptism. Not for our harm, “Woe is me” he cries out “I am ruined but for our flourishing, we’re made to – for I am a man of unclean lips.” Isa- confess and be changed before we can iah’s humility, his recognition of his serve. In this act of purification, God own sinfulness, reiterates that God prepares the unprepared and sanctiis the Almighty one, and that God fies the unholy to do his work. doesn’t need a perfect agent to carry espite the fact that Isaiah will be out his will. It reminds us that Isaiah called to deliver a harsh message didn’t look like the best man for the to calloused, confused people, despite job. And perhaps it reminds us that, before we can be open to really lis- the need to prophesy to unhearing tening for God’s call in our lives, we people til the cities lie ruined and the also have to call out “Woe is me.” We land is utterly forsaken, Isaiah offers have to confess our shortcomings and himself. “Here I am. Send me.” admit that, without God, we’re really en and women have more renot good enough for the job either. cently repeated these words.

Among them is German theologian tories of God calling ordinary people to exceptional work re- and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, mind us that shortcomings and weak- called at a young age to ministry and nesses don’t render us ineligible for later to the German Resistance moveGod’s work. He gives regular people ment. Bonhoeffer helped found the forerunner to the Confessing Church, challenging tasks. a movement of Christian opposition nd this is where we may falter. to Hitler, and maintained that Christ To be an instrument of peace is was the only head of the church, deno easy task. For Isaiah to recognize nouncing the idolatrous devotion and confess his unclean lips was not to Hitler. Though given opportunienough; God had to transform him

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ties to move to London and New York, he returned to Germany each time and endured harassment from Nazis. Called to risk everything, he spoke out with strength and conviction. Bonhoeffer faithfully opposed injustice until his execution in a concentration camp. In one of his letters from prison he wrote, “I am sure of God’s hand and guidance… You must never doubt that I am thankful and glad to go the way which I am being led.” What compels this courage?

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y the shores of Lake Gennesaret, three fishermen followed Jesus’ instructions, despite their hours of unsuccessful fishing, and tossed their nets into the sea. To their utter surprise, they caught so many fish that their nets began to break. Recognizing the glory of the man before him, Peter fell down and, like Isaiah, confessed his unworthy nature as a sinful

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man. Jesus assuaged the disciples’ fear and revealed their calling – a vocation which, upon first hearing, must have been confusing to the fishermen.

“From now on,” Jesus said, “you will catch people.”

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o Peter, James, and John, whose entire livelihoods were fishing, pulled their boats up on the shore, left everything, and followed him.

Let’s not gloss over this move. They didn’t ask questions? Didn’t try to haul all those fish to the market first?

Not Peter, James, and John. They left everything and followed him.

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ietrich Bonhoeffer recalls this moment in a discussion of grace. “Costly grace” he says, “is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him.” Contrasted to “cheap grace,” which is “forgiveness without repentance, baptism without discipline, commu-

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nion without confession, and grace without the cross,” Costly grace recognizes the need for the refiner’s fire, for the live coal in the temple, for the personal confessions of Isaiah and Peter. Though his challenges may seem overwhelming, his understanding of costly grace illuminates God’s call and our response. “Such Grace” says Bonhoeffer, “is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ … it is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life… It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow Him; it is grace because Jesus says, “My yoke is easy and My burden light.”

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his past summer I worked on a Global Health project in Thomassique, Haiti. I was blessed to meet some incredible people both while in Thomassique, and once I returned at

a conference in Durham. The Haiti Connection Conference, here in North Carolina, resulted in my inclusion on a list serve of physicians, nurses, international organizations, public health outreach projects, clinics, and a variety of people in Haiti and in the states. In the fall, I would receive occasional emails mentioning an upcoming presentation, or a shipment of supplies. Immediately after the earthquake on January 12th, I was overwhelmed by the barrage of emails coming through the list everyday saying: “I’m an ER surgeon in North Carolina ready to volunteer immediately – when can I leave?

We’re a team of four nurses and two P.As – how can we help? I’m a French, English, and Kreyol speaking Haitian ready to go to Port au Prince – what can I do?”

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onfronted not with burning coals and soaring angels in a temple, but with an earthquake, these people are literally exclaiming, “Here I am. Send me.” Offering their own gifts and the training they have acquired, some of them, like the disciples, have left everything to respond to a pressing and challenging call. I

find myself wondering if I would be willing to respond to God’s call with the same eagerness, speed, and faith.

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would like to hope that if I found myself in a temple filled with smoke, angels, and the train of God’s robe, I would listen up. But in the presence of a somewhat more subtle call, would we rationalize our way out of it? How easily our own interests and desires could muddle our understanding of God’s call. How easily we can settle into complacency and stop listening. Or, we could just keep listening, trying to be sure and not presumptuous and therefore never taking action.

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n addition to the enormous, lifealtering calls heard by people like Isaiah and the disciples, God calls us to discipleship each day. God’s people, according to scripture, are called “from labor to rest”, “from death to life”, “from darkness to light”, “from bondage to liberty and peace.” We won’t all be like Bonhoeffer, won’t all leave everything to immerse ourselves in disaster relief, but each of us can listen for and respond to an equally significant and transformational call closer to home. This more subtle call

may not be life-altering, but a daily call to service: A call, like Isaiah’s, to speak truth in the face of difficulty.

A call to take our ordinary lives and let them be transformed into a ministry – just as the disciples transformed their vocation as fishermen into fishers of men.

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nowing that God calls us to challenging tasks which we might not consider ourselves worthy of or prepared for, answering such a call is intimidating. Whether we hear a call to move across the world and take on a new challenge or move across the office and minister to a neighbor, we might feel in over our heads. The examples of Isaiah and Peter tell us otherwise, and Scripture offers us a few things to expect.

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irst, that Gods call may not make sense to us. He finds people who aren’t confident or extremely capable, and calls them to greatness. By choosing ordinary people, who could never accomplish such tasks without God, his power is made perfect in weakness. Second, God’s call isn’t easy. It’s a call to take up our cross and follow Christ. Whether our whole world is transformed, or just our daily purpose, it is a call to leave everything and, supported by grace, fix our eyes on the Almighty God. Finally, God’s call is to be answered with discipleship. Whether a life changing event or a daily call to minister and serve, we are to get up and follow Christ saying, “Here I am. Send me.” Amen.

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In Spirit and Realizing our Spiritual Identity in Truth: “God is spirit, and his worship- bands such as AC-DC, Led Zeppelin, ers must worship in spirit, and in or maybe even the Rolling Stones. truth.” (John 4:24) glanced back at my classmate. He was an upstanding young gentlet was my senior year in high school, and I sat among the plush couches men dressed in shirt and tie, our prep in the senior lounge where my liter- school dress code. While he may have ary seminar on “The Search for a enjoyed the Rolling Stones once or Perfect Society” met. A young man twice, this was the most I could beof seventeen sat across from me in grudge him from that list. He was the crude circle that we attempted to obviously not a wild sinner. make from the sofas and chairs. As we y second conclusion was that discussed Huxley’s landmark novel this young man clearly had no Brave New World, he began to make concept of the Bible and Christianan argument that I have heard many ity. Someone with exposure to regular times in the university setting. We sermons, religious music, and a weekare nothing more than the biological ly church service surely could not processes which compose us, he said. espouse such views. But this young Love, hate, fear, peace, anxiousness— man knew many of the ins and outs these emotions are nothing more of Christianity, having learned and than chemical reactions which aid understood a great deal from church humans in their ultimate evolution- experiences and his family. How ary goals of survival and reproduc- then, could I account for such a statetion. I held a very different view of ment, such a blatant rejection of the such emotions and thus pressed my Christian God? I couldn’t. He simply friend. “Are you saying that you have did not believe. Moreover, he did not no concept of something greater in or reject just the Christian God. He refor human beings other than electrijected any spiritual existence. cal and chemical processes?” His rehat is when I started to realize ply was an unequivocal yes. that the Christian church is facaturally, based on my theo- ing one of the greatest challenges it logical and biblical training, has ever faced. A-spirituality is bethere were a couple of conclusions coming pervasive in our culture, as that I must have drawn after such people reject not only any particular an exchange. First and foremost, this God, but the existence of a spiritual young man was a wild sinner who obworld that defines human existence viously engaged in egregious behav- and our relation to each other and to ior beyond the comprehension of my our Creator. As I have progressed in innocent mind. Surely he frequently my college career, I have begun to see took part in the consumption of for- the failure of the church in addressbidden substances, participated in ing this dilemma. I hope to outline sexual intercourse outside the bonds here my view of Christian spirituality of marriage, and of course listened to and why it is so necessary to reach our

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generation.

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et me begin by quickly elaborating on exactly what I mean by Christian spirituality. I must begin at creation. However, I do not intend to get into any scientific debate. I will start here because the creation narrative in Genesis establishes two important truths.

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irst, God, who is spirit, created the natural world and has dominion over it. This establishes from the very beginning the dichotomy between the spiritual and natural world which we see around us. God established the natural world and its governing principles of gravity, physics, energy, and the like. God, being spirit, existed outside the natural world which He created and thus has power over it.

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he second truth is that men and women, unlike the birds of the air or the beasts of the field, were created in the image of God. It is clear that this is not a physical image, for God did not yet have a physical embodiment. This image is the spiritual quality present in human beings. We are unique in all creation, for God specifically ordained us to be both physical and spiritual beings, so that we could inhabit the natural world He had created while living in communion with Him.

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hose two truths then establish the entirety of Christianity, setting up a dynamic between man and God, resolved by the advent, death, and resurrection of Christ.

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e rejected God spiritually, so He established the Law as a means to reconnect with Him—rules defining physical cleanliness and material sacrifices. Through supernatural occurrences, He has continually intervened in His created world to reveal His existence, His power, and His love to mankind. I am often flummoxed by History Channel shows that try to “naturalize” biblical events such as the ten plagues of Egypt; as if by doing so, the phenomena become more legitimate. In fact, these events occurred on such a grand scale that the only possible explanation is that something was operating outside the laws confining the natural world. Seas do not split themselves.

City walls do not just fall because of shouts and trumpet blasts. Lame men do not just suddenly walk and blind men do not just suddenly see. And that is the point. Sometimes God uses natural means to protect, to aid, to heal. But other times He uses supernatural means to intervene, usually when He wants to reveal Himself.

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n the greatest supernatural revelation of all, Jesus Christ came into the world, once again embodying both the physical and spiritual. However, because Christ was God incarnate, he did not suffer from the spiritual and physical rebellion we have all inherited as a result of the Fall. Therefore, he offered himself, both physically and spiritually, as a sacrifice to redeem our thoroughly physical and spiritual selves, and was raised, both physically and spiritually, from the dead through the power of God.

Such a sacrifice signifies that we, too, will live on after our physical deaths.

that is most dangerous of all—pride.

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n the end, Christianity is not about what you do at all. It is about recognizing who you are and whose you are—someone loved by God, a rejecter of God, and finally someone redeemed by God through Christ. hristianity shows us, from be- Christianity is ultimately about recginning to end, that our spiri- ognizing your identity; and that identuality is the very essence of who we tity is spiritual. are. It is beyond physical or chemical o, the question remains. How can interactions. It is what inspires awe. the twenty-first century church It is what inspires art. And more im- reach an a-spiritual generation? Cerportantly, it is the “God-shaped hole” tainly not by continuing in legalism. referenced by Augustine—the desire Certainly not by making more rules. to know our Creator.

And certainly not by being more judgnd this is where we run into mental. When Christ said that God is the current problem with the Spirit, he was talking to a Samaritan Church. I think that most non-Chris- woman. Being a Samaritan, she was tians, and a lot of people who call a target of racism by traditional Jews themselves Christians for that matter, of that day. She was someone who do not perceive Christianity in this had made a lot of mistakes. She had way. Having grown up the son of a lost her spiritual identity in the midst of seeking male attention and sexual minister, I have time and time again seen the Church caught up in legal- satisfaction. But Christ spoke to her.

He understood her spiritual thirst ism, focusing on morality—the do’s and don’ts. Go to church on Sunday and offered her living water. If we morning at 10:30 am. Don’t steal. want to win an a-spiritual generation, Read the Bible. Wear knee length we must go to those who have lost shorts, if you have to wear shorts. sight of their spiritual identity and show them ours. Show them that it Don’t get drunk and don’t do drugs.

These are inevitably physical things. is real. Only then does morality find While morality has importance in its place. Our actions begin to reveal our identity, and our identity points reflecting our spirituality, focusing merely on morality has left believers others away from ourselves and tolegalistic and judgmental. When you wards Christ. Then they will say, as begin to measure how good you are, the Samaritans said, “We no longer you inevitably start to measure how believe just because of what you said; bad someone else is. This creates hier- now we have heard for ourselves, and archy and division, and also plants the we know that this man really is the seeds for the type of spiritual identity Savior of the world” (John 4:42).

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od sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in those that have faith in the power of Christ’s sacrifice, which allows us to overcome our spiritual rebellion and live lives that honor God.

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John Harris is a Sophomore Robertson Scholar from Charlotte, NC.

He is visiting Duke this spring on his semester switch from UNC. He is a Political Science major and attends the Summit Church in Durham, where he loves to be in the midst of godly people and hear a great message.

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Letter to the Editor

In the Fall 2009 issue we published an essay written by Michelle Sohn entitled, “God and the LGBT Conflict: Finding Common Ground.” We recieved this letter in response.

To the Editors: Michelle is right to say that, as Christians, we are called to love other people, a point Jesus stresses in Mathew 22:37-39 as the second greatest commandment. Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” which ultimately means that we must love a perfect and holy God. Loving God also means following his commandments (1 John 5:3). Among many sins, Paul discusses sexual perversions and specifically homosexual sex in Romans 1:24-29. Describing people who knew God but abandoned his commandments, Paul says, “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones...

Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion” (Romans 1:26-28). He goes on to speak of wickedness, evil, and greed among many other things that were sinful acts; nevertheless, he included homosexual sex among them (Romans 1:29-32).

Homosexual relations have always been considered sin. In Genesis 19:611, Sodom was destroyed for the sin that filled the city. Homosexual sex in particular is emphasized. Lot brings two angels (in the forms of men) into his house and the men of the town come to Lot’s house demanding to sleep with the angels. Lot pleads, “Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man” (Genesis 19:7). Homosexual sex was so serious that Lot offered his virgin daughters instead! Sodom was destroyed afterwards for all of the sin committed by its people.

Nowhere in the Bible is sin condoned. Despite our own imperfections, we must try to obey God and avoid sexual perversions. We cannot appease society by adapting to its standard of tolerance (Romans 12:12). We must love and spread the Gospel, but we cannot ignore sin in order to please society.

-Caleb Duncanson Trinity ‘12

Photo: Brandon Semel

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IT’S FOR YOU.

PathWays helps students discover their calling.

PathWays is a ministry of Duke Chapel centered on three paths of exploration and discovery: Duke Chapel PathWays Summer Internships and Fellowship Year Education Summer Interns (undergraduates) andWorld” Fellows(PPS195 (recent with graduates) work in a and variety of placeCourses such as “Ethics in an Unjust Dean Sam Wells) “Politics, based upon their with faith,Adam values, and gifts.

Religion, and Radicalments Democracy” (PPS196S Hollowell) Theological reading groups on subjects like Mereorganizations, Christianity byand C.S.social Lewisenterprises Placements include churches, non-profit Relationships Stipend, housing, retreats, and guided theological reflection are provided.

Small groups of students, faculty, and community members gathering to discover God’s call Information Session and Reception: Thursday, Individual counseling with PathWays and Chapel staff Nov. 19 from 7:45p - 9:00p.

Service at the PathWays Home at 1115 West Chapel Hill Street Summer internships working churches and non-profits in Durham For more information on DukeatChapel PathWays internship and fellowship opportunities, Spring Break mission trips to Belize, Costa Rica, and Honduras please visit at www.chapel.duke.edu/pathways or email Keith Daniel at kd1@duke.edu

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For questions or to get involved in the life of the Chapel, contact Meghan Feldmeyer, Director of Worship at Duke Chapel, Meghan.feldmeyer@duke.edu

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