tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22554204530054140112024-03-13T13:38:52.188-04:00KYRIE ELEISON"When the proletariat says that Jesus is a good human being it means more than the bourgeoisie means when it says Jesus is God."
- BonhoefferKait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.comBlogger170125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-75232526298855215352021-12-07T10:47:00.017-05:002021-12-09T23:01:30.379-05:00More Thoughts on My Time as a Distance PhD Student<p>In my last post, I tried to give practical advice about all the elements involved in being a distance PhD student in a European PhD program. One thing I did not get into much detail about was my particular reasons for pursuing the part-time distance degree at the University of Aberdeen. So I thought it might be helpful to write a bit more about that here in case anyone finds it useful for their own process.</p><p>In 2013, I graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary with my M.Div degree. My intention was to pursue doctoral studies, but I wanted to take a year off. I had been a student with only a one year break since I was in pre-school, and I was 28 by this point. I needed time to recover from five years of graduate studies before pursuing PhD studies. </p><p>Right after graduation in July 2013, I was given the life-changing opportunity to serve as the Curator of the Barth collection for the <a href="https://barth.ptsem.edu/" target="_blank">Center for Barth Studies</a> at Princeton Theological Seminary. The idea was that I would be the interim Curator for one year while they found someone more permanent for the position. And this arrangement would allow me to pursue PhD studies after I was finished with my one year appointment. </p><p>Some time in the fall of 2013, around October, my supervisor Dr. Bruce McCormack, asked me if I would consider staying longer at the Center for Barth Studies for various reasons. I was intimately familiar with the research collection, and they needed someone with knowledge of the collection to oversee its transition back to the Center for Barth Studies after the library renovation (this was before the new Wright library was officially complete). I was humbled by this request, but I did not know how I would accept the offer and still pursue my PhD studies. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiAutWTsI2Mf4lMlY8EBuc0Ac858vF3Hd5yV2K3baD6cAmx8gztvH4gal4wPkHmezujdvmViZaqqFY_mOe4OyF9ViAaquwu6Tupwk1Kkuxum_OlAGIzTFY76h2ZnX8FFFjuNPi6FArO7et7WUcuhJnYjYESpxAKCS9LFXwMBs_7Cei8OYpLE8ttaSDA7A=s698" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="698" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiAutWTsI2Mf4lMlY8EBuc0Ac858vF3Hd5yV2K3baD6cAmx8gztvH4gal4wPkHmezujdvmViZaqqFY_mOe4OyF9ViAaquwu6Tupwk1Kkuxum_OlAGIzTFY76h2ZnX8FFFjuNPi6FArO7et7WUcuhJnYjYESpxAKCS9LFXwMBs_7Cei8OYpLE8ttaSDA7A=s320" width="320" /></a></div>Around this same time, I learned the University of Aberdeen was offering a new distance model PhD program. I always admired the work of my future advisor at the University of Aberdeen, <a href="https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/people/profiles/p.ziegler" target="_blank">Dr. Philip Ziegler</a>, given my interest in both systematic theology and Pauline apocalyptic theology. Phil always seemed like the best fit for my research interests, but I could never afford to be a full-time residential student at the University of Aberdeen. I was (and still am) a single woman, so I had to support myself. And that's virtually impossible when you move overseas and try to get a job while pursuing a PhD program. Plus, PhD programs in the UK do not offer much financial aid, so I would need to take out loans to cover the cost of tuition, and potentially more loans to cover my living expenses. I already had student debt from my undergraduate and two graduate degrees, so taking out more loans was not an option for me. <p></p><p>The distance PhD program solved a lot of these problems. I could pursue the degree part-time, which would mean the tuition amount would be substantially less. I would not need to live in Aberdeen, so I could retain my full-time job at the Center for Barth Studies (most PhD programs in the US do not allow you to have a full-time job while you are a full-time student and receive a stipend). And I would be given the opportunity to study with a scholar who was a perfect fit for my particular research interests. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjokogmbO2AI4thqxUScYh5q0KhTqkGtg8O3D6ehNpTECbfD81q8JRQ8JqJHpKQY2O597KhTDheEtiKGkKqo7w_ZuZmqaX9pCt2v0AaQ5TVSJ7Sd1JP9_FZxl0Mt_jzUcB67FOxQB-ejFgaO0m7TVQ0Kk-Q5KhL_wQg3ea_ZcfRERo9Ky6zqCMj0PG7yA=s960" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="387" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjokogmbO2AI4thqxUScYh5q0KhTqkGtg8O3D6ehNpTECbfD81q8JRQ8JqJHpKQY2O597KhTDheEtiKGkKqo7w_ZuZmqaX9pCt2v0AaQ5TVSJ7Sd1JP9_FZxl0Mt_jzUcB67FOxQB-ejFgaO0m7TVQ0Kk-Q5KhL_wQg3ea_ZcfRERo9Ky6zqCMj0PG7yA=w291-h387" width="291" /></a></div>When I approached my supervisor at the Center for Barth Studies about this possibility, Bruce was very supportive of the idea. Eventually the plan was approved by the seminary administration, and I started my part-time distance PhD studies in October 2014.<p></p><p>What I didn't quite realize when I signed up for this arrangement is just how difficult it would be to reach the finish line. In many ways, I had the best possible circumstances for a part-time distance PhD student. I had access to one of the largest theological libraries in the world. I was regularly in conversation with theologians and those working directly in my field of study given my job. I was immersed in the life of a theological seminary, which benefitted me greatly. </p><p>But it was still really difficult. I receive many emails from potential students asking me about the distance program, and I don't want to deter them from pursuing a distance degree, but I do not think we are honest enough about how difficult it is to work remotely alone as a student for 3-6 years. Unlike a traditional on-campus PhD program, you do not have a designated carrel or office where you can go to study every day with your colleagues or cohort. You won't be able to attend lectures in-person and engage in the get togethers with other students afterwards. You won't be able to meet with your advisor face to face on a regular basis. You will meet with your advisor on Zoom regularly, but nothing can replace face to face interaction with your advisor (in my opinion). I say all of this as a serious introvert. I love my alone time, and I like to do things by myself. But you can't finish a PhD program alone. You need support, you need the energy and feedback of your colleagues, and that can be difficult to find when you are working remotely in your program across the ocean from your school. </p><p>If you work full-time like I did, your job always comes first. And my job has been demanding, especially as my staff decreased over the years. I always felt like I was stealing time away from some other part of my life to write. You will need to wake up at ungodly early hours in the morning. You will need to write every weekend at some point. You will need to cancel social plans to write. You will need to write and work on Friday nights. You will need to spend your lunch breaks working. It is a constant weight to carry and balance, and it is difficult. You will most likely feel guilty constantly for taking any time off. Most of my vacation for seven years was spent on my dissertation. It will wear you down. Someone needs to tell you that this model is uniquely challenging, despite whatever advantages it might afford you. If you are lucky enough to work part-time or not at all, more power to you. </p><p>Some other things I was not prepared for is just how much I would change theologically over the course of my studies. It can be very exciting to learn new ideas and realize you are changing directions, but it can also be unnerving and scary. You will be a different person when you finish your program than when you start with different ideas about yourself, God, and the world. </p><p>I also could not have prepared myself for everything that would unfold in my life in the seven years of my program. No one gives you a manual about how to process yet another mass shooting, another natural disaster, another black individual murdered by the police that leads to massive social unrest, or the unfolding of a pandemic that claims millions of lives all while trying to find space to reflect and write. We are living in traumatic times, and you have to figure out what care for your mental, emotional, and spiritual health looks like while you are a PhD student. I also experienced many personal hardships that left their marks. Therapy and exercise was absolutely critical for me.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhuOYf2VCkO60mk6wWttdogzE1SXtGvV-LEUs8yO-LC02rHv-eCERxqpLY5i9tVHC1dn38vwEzmOZpZtjBEb-PpxRfaXD0EEz3-_dZrHKIZ4MAuJ0fU7dmJoE0tKYLEwCmHUIjhEBe4NXrK3sjdgbWC6m9aMN9BxYpkVlC4_Y3MADTcaCEe3xXpYQgs6g=s695" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="695" data-original-width="554" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhuOYf2VCkO60mk6wWttdogzE1SXtGvV-LEUs8yO-LC02rHv-eCERxqpLY5i9tVHC1dn38vwEzmOZpZtjBEb-PpxRfaXD0EEz3-_dZrHKIZ4MAuJ0fU7dmJoE0tKYLEwCmHUIjhEBe4NXrK3sjdgbWC6m9aMN9BxYpkVlC4_Y3MADTcaCEe3xXpYQgs6g=w296-h371" width="296" /></a></div>Now that I look back on the last seven years, I also realize what a gift I had been given. There is no other point in my life where I will have that much time and space to read, think, explore, and write. I had the opportunity to pursue <i>exactly</i> what I wanted to study. I stared down theological questions that meant everything to me, existentially speaking, and even though I ended my program with more questions than when I started, I can say that I gave myself the chance to relentlessly ask critical questions about a topic where much is at stake for me. <p></p><p>Sidenote: at times, I did not know why I was continuing with my PhD program. The job market is bleak. And even though I have a full-time job, I thought I would someday pursue a tenure-track position somewhere. With those jobs becoming more and more rare and the challenges I faced in my program, I wondered what the point was in finishing my program. For me, I had to come to a place where finishing my dissertation for the sake of pursuing my own questions and curiosity had to be enough. If nothing else came after I completed my degree, so be it. Not everyone can afford this telos. But I do think there is something beneficial about studying and asking critical questions at this particular moment in history even if you don't go on to become a tenured professor. </p><p>I also had the chance to learn from my advisor Phil who is kind, brilliant, and humble—a pretty rare combination for a PhD advisor. The supervisory meetings I had over the course of seven years shaped my thinking tremendously and it made me a better thinker, researcher, writer, and student. </p><p>If I had to do it again, I would do it again. I truly mean it. Despite everything that I endured, I am so proud and thankful that I completed my dissertation. I met many wonderful colleagues and made some lifelong friends. And I proved to myself that I can overcome much more than I ever thought possible. </p>Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-42764600065268306422021-12-06T20:41:00.015-05:002021-12-08T15:00:14.505-05:00My Experience as a Distance PhD Student<p>About once a month for the last several years, I receive a message or email from someone asking me about my experience as a part-time distance PhD student at the University of Aberdeen. I started my program in 2014, and I recently passed my viva (dissertation defense) in September. Now that I'm finished with my program, I have given some thought to what kind of advice or insight I would give to someone who is either considering the option of becoming a distance PhD student or starting the distance PhD program. The distance PhD program is fairly new, but it is becoming more common among European schools. In the United States, if you are accepted into a PhD program, usually the program comes with a stipend, and you are required to take courses and physically be on-campus for a certain period of time. The distance PhD programs in Europe offer greater flexibility since there are no required courses in the European PhD model, and the entire degree is the written dissertation (which can be written anywhere, hypothetically speaking). </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifKxp8-7bTBrMjQNg7uErs3aOYuGDUmYVTJz30VIbC_Vd_0_LHCAtaqneTfhsZXC0KYzxy7ECZPHuuVI7oejog6Ze4o3SQqUJWrCnawA9b_0LyBX_kfgEJB5odgU0Ov1dQRica1VfdGrk8Zrxmh8o1Z7XI7MleC25O6r_oYSWlWijmMbaxkT8ZmimQCw=s1594" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1594" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifKxp8-7bTBrMjQNg7uErs3aOYuGDUmYVTJz30VIbC_Vd_0_LHCAtaqneTfhsZXC0KYzxy7ECZPHuuVI7oejog6Ze4o3SQqUJWrCnawA9b_0LyBX_kfgEJB5odgU0Ov1dQRica1VfdGrk8Zrxmh8o1Z7XI7MleC25O6r_oYSWlWijmMbaxkT8ZmimQCw=s320" width="289" /></a></div>I started my distance PhD program in October 2014. Back then, the University of Aberdeen only allowed part-time distance students 5 years to complete the degree program, so I was scheduled to be done my program by September 30, 2019. But due to some personal issues, I asked for 6 months in research suspensions. Aberdeen also recently added another year to the part-time distance program, so now part-time distance students receive 6 years to complete their degree (full-time students receive 3 years). I successfully defended my dissertation (with only typographical corrections!!!) on September 17, 2021. I still can't believe it.<p></p><p>My distance PhD program was a long journey, and one I'll never forget. I can't tell you how many times I almost quit my program. It was quite lonely and difficult. I became bored with my research and with my own questions. I didn't see the point in doing theology at times when the world was falling apart all around me. Depression and anxiety hit hard at many points. My health declined at many points. And it is a struggle to stay motivated when you are by yourself in a distance program and the only thing getting you up and moving every day is your own sheer discipline, motivation, and will power. I made the joke once that writing a dissertation is 1% intelligence, 3% writing skills, and 96% resilience, perseverance, and a high capacity for suffering. I'm convinced of this now more than ever, especially for a distance PhD program.</p><p>In the end, even though the program was difficult and it involved a tremendous amount of struggle in so many ways, I am glad I never gave up. I needed to finish my dissertation for myself. I had questions I wanted to keep asking and researching. And there is something to be said about completing what you start (though there are definitely legitimate reasons to not complete what you start, don't get me wrong!). For me, I needed to complete my program, and it was a good decision. I also had an incredible PhD advisor, and amazing friends and colleagues who encouraged me every single day. They made the whole experience worth it in the end.</p><p>With all that said, here are some of the best insights I can offer as you consider or begin a distance PhD program in the United Kingdom or beyond. Please keep in mind that these insights are based on the assumption that you will <i>not</i> be living on-campus but will be studying from a distance:</p><p><b>Finances:</b></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Most PhD programs in the UK will charge tuition for students from the US. And it is difficult to find substantial scholarships to cover the cost of tuition. You may find modest scholarships here or there (for $500-$1000), but this will not cover the cost of your tuition. You need to consider what the cost of tuition will be for you and how to pay for it.<br /><br /></li><li>With that said, the part-time tuition fees at the University of Aberdeen are 50% of the full-time tuition rate. For that reason, I recommend that anyone considering a distance PhD program at Aberdeen seriously consider becoming a part-time student. You will pay less for tuition, and it will give you more time to complete your degree. If you finish sooner, great. That means you've paid less tuition all around. <br /><br /></li><li>The part-time PhD program will also give you the time and space to work, assuming you need to provide for yourself or your loved ones during the course of your program. I think it is beneficial for a theology student to work while they complete their PhD program. Emerging yourself within the world in all its complexities, struggles, and joys will make you a better theologian. It will also aid your writing.<br /><br /></li><li>I was fortunate enough to have tuition reimbursement available through my employer. It did not cover all of my tuition, but it helped a great deal. I also received generous donations from my church's educational fund. I also researched tons of grants and scholarships. Aberdeen always has a running list, although some are only available for Scottish nationals, and most are not substantial. But everything adds up. Here's a list for where to start looking:<br /><br /></li><ul><li><b>Aberdeen Divinity: </b><a href="https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/courses/divinity-and-theology-scholarships-1987.php" target="_blank">https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/courses/divinity-and-theology-scholarships-1987.php </a><br /><br /></li><li><b>Scholarships.com: </b><a href="https://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-scholarships/scholarships-by-major/religion-theology-scholarships/">https://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-scholarships/scholarships-by-major/religion-theology-scholarships/</a><br /><br /></li><li><b>Boston University Resource page:</b> <a href="https://www.bu.edu/sth/academics/tuition-financial-aid/scholarships-fellowships/outside-awards-scholarships/" target="_blank">https://www.bu.edu/sth/academics/tuition-financial-aid/scholarships-fellowships/outside-awards-scholarships/ </a><br /><br /></li><li><b>Best Colleges List:</b> <a href="https://www.bestcolleges.com/financial-aid/theology-and-religion-scholarships/">https://www.bestcolleges.com/financial-aid/theology-and-religion-scholarships/</a><br /><br /></li></ul></ul><div><b>Supervision:</b></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>You will want to do research to find a potential supervisor who might be a good fit for your research interests and questions. Once you find a scholar who fits that profile, send them an email introducing yourself and asking if they might be interested in your project. <br /><br /></li><li>Ask other students about their experiences with the scholar you've chosen as a potential advisor. Are they good at responding to email? Do they give timely and helpful feedback? Do they think <i>both</i> with and beyond you? Are they kind and encouraging? These details matter. Your supervisor will make or break your experience in a European distance PhD program.<br /><br /></li><li>If you are accepted into the PhD program, communicate regularly with your supervisor and determine a schedule for meetings, especially for the first year of your studies. Every supervisor will have a different style, but you should determine very early on what their expectations are and what your needs are.<br /><br /></li></ul><div><b>Writing and Research: <br /></b></div></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEinbyioX9xOak-bVhOVzbn-7iWOckE5ovHaftOEHRU28wgGy0jShb9jcwv-bcxT0cFH4RsrDOk6j7QZOA1Nlh4cqCDnFuzOV0DKYwZ5yrQd5JJja1TOM2Xjs_cWGMVRLeYVvnu1BPCgEQihq7pWtgyyx3MqNxMFcTALgY8ZZSh4bgODAco7EvYFHRE95g=s1800" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1440" height="369" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEinbyioX9xOak-bVhOVzbn-7iWOckE5ovHaftOEHRU28wgGy0jShb9jcwv-bcxT0cFH4RsrDOk6j7QZOA1Nlh4cqCDnFuzOV0DKYwZ5yrQd5JJja1TOM2Xjs_cWGMVRLeYVvnu1BPCgEQihq7pWtgyyx3MqNxMFcTALgY8ZZSh4bgODAco7EvYFHRE95g=w295-h369" width="295" /></a></div>Everyone told me to do this, and I didn't do it, but it's the best advice: write every day. The reason that this is good advice is not because what you write every day will be helpful or valuable. But if you write every day about your topic, it means your mind will be engaged in the subject matter. I can not overemphasize how valuable and important it is to stay in your material. I had weeks of time when I did not look at my writing or research. And when I returned to it, I would spend days getting back into it. It's much easier to keep something in motion than to get something moving. <br /><br /></li><li>Find spaces that help you focus and study. My home office was the best writing spot for my 5 AM wake up writing sessions. I had coffee shops (pre-Covid) that were my best writing venues in the late afternoons. Depending on my mood and my project, I knew which place would be the best for my particular writing session on any given day. It's important to know your writing and research rhythms and patterns.<br /><br /></li><li>Get a focus app. We all know how difficult it can be to drown out distractions, whether that be our phone, the internet, work email, family obligations, etc. Find a good focus app and use it regularly. I used the <a href="https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/pomodoro-technique" target="_blank">Pomodoro method</a> in the beginning of my program, which was very helpful to get me focused when I could not focus on certain days. It also structured my time. However, I realized at some point that 25 minutes was sometimes either too much time or more often not enough time for me when I was in a writing session. For this reason, I used the <a href="https://www.forestapp.cc/" target="_blank">"Forest" focus app</a> religiously towards the end of my program. You can set the timer for anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours. And the idea is that you can't touch your phone while the focus timer has been set on your phone. If you touch your phone during that time period, the tree you've planted will die. The cool thing is that after you've successfully "planted" so many trees, the app will actually plant real trees in other parts of the world for you. You can do these focus tree planting sessions with friends as well so you have more reason to not "kill your tree." The app is free and available on Apple and Android.<br /><br /></li><li>Find a friend or colleague in your program or who is also a fellow PhD student as a writing partner. You can not get through your program alone especially as a distance PhD student who won't see your colleagues on a regular basis and will be studying/writing alone most of the time. I was in regular communication with several friends and colleagues about my writing on a daily basis, so it felt like I almost had a cohort of my own. This virtual community kept me going more times than I can remember. <br /><br /></li><li>Read widely. Do not just read what you agree with or what you think is right or correct or who looks just like you do. Be curious and read as much as you can in your first year or two of your program. And immerse yourself in the news, watch movies and shows, travel. Be a student of the world and let it shape your questions, your ideas, and your false assumptions. <br /><br /></li><li>Become friends with those in the theological world that are very different from you theologically. Their critiques and insights about your theology will be correct at many points and will make you a better theologian.<br /><br /></li><li>Attend the annual distance PhD student retreats or the department retreats. Every year, I would try to travel to Aberdeen to attend the retreat for the systematic theology department, either in March or towards the end of the term in May. These retreats were helpful, because it would give me a chance to present something about my research, no matter how minor, and it would give me the time and space to think about my research and meet face to face with my advisor. It also was encouraging to be on-campus, and actually feel like a legit student. At times, these visits would give me the motivation and boost I needed to write for a few months. They are more than worth the investment if you can afford it. I think that the University of Aberdeen is now offering these kinds of distance PhD annual meetings in the United States for the US distance students, so that is also something to consider attending.<br /><br /></li><li>Present your research anywhere at least once a year. This will force you to write something and get parts of your chapters completed. In my last year of study, I presented my work in a systematic theology course for my department, and it single-handedly helped me finish the second half of my last chapter. I also received invaluable questions, feedback, and insights from my colleagues.<br /><br /></li><li>Communicate clearly and honestly with your advisor as much as possible. Do not ghost your advisor. In the last few months of my program, I knew I needed major help getting to the finish line. It was my seventh year of study. I was exhausted and the pandemic only made things worse. I wrote my advisor and told him that without his help, I would not get to the finish line. I did not expect him to finish my dissertation for me, but I asked him if we could come up with a solid plan for how I could finish within a certain time frame. We made an arrangement that every Friday, I would check in with him, no matter what I accomplished, to tell him what I did that week. And every two weeks, we discussed via Zoom what I had written. It was intense, but it was exactly what I needed to complete my program. What I wanted to do when I was so overwhelmed with the last few months of my writing was to avoid my advisor and wallow in guilt and shame. But I knew that I wanted to finish more than anything, so I was very direct and reached out for help. This is where having an incredible supervisor like I did will be beneficial!<br /><br /></li><li><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2L-A42s21TIda2L4GPf0ORc6p-Jm_Und8KpzVToIrWjrpK5ayQRg_P3ve-DU2AJJu1VuwCovSTRg_dUMfq43gp6bemFZ5ScB24aKsf5yPJYWhyBdWSw6xYDZAOg6thQMeYkcAgDT31yf5OJ90gNS1B-l8V8Y0emnTkKD6ob0UiHlhTuFNGZEK7CbtaQ=s960" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="409" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2L-A42s21TIda2L4GPf0ORc6p-Jm_Und8KpzVToIrWjrpK5ayQRg_P3ve-DU2AJJu1VuwCovSTRg_dUMfq43gp6bemFZ5ScB24aKsf5yPJYWhyBdWSw6xYDZAOg6thQMeYkcAgDT31yf5OJ90gNS1B-l8V8Y0emnTkKD6ob0UiHlhTuFNGZEK7CbtaQ=w308-h409" width="308" /></a></div>When all else fails, make a to-do list. At certain points, I could not write. I had no idea where I was going next and I didn't know what to do. I have so many notebooks with to-do lists, and I would list 5-10 things I needed to work on for a particular section. Before I would end a writing session, I would make a to-do list for the next day so that I had something to get me started. For instance, my list on any given day might look something like this:<br /><br /></li><ul><li>Re-read chapter 5 in Käsemann's Romans commentary</li><li>Fix footnote 7</li><li>Reword first paragraph of page 19 (shorten by half)</li><li>Figure out what is at stake in Käsemann's critique of Barth's exegesis of Romans 5:13<br /><br />This would get me working, build my confidence that I've gotten something done, and inevitably get me moving towards the goal of writing more substantial material for any given chapter of my dissertation.<br /><br /></li></ul><li>You don't need any fancy programs. I never once used Zotero (but if that's helpful for you, awesome!). I typed every footnote myself. I used Scrivener for my reading notes the first two years, but after that, the easiest thing for me was just to write in Word. I also used plain old notebooks. I would write out my thoughts on real paper. You have to find out what works for you and don't feel bad if that might not include all the newest or best technology.<br /><br /></li><li>Back up your writing in two places! I got a bit paranoid about this, but I think two backups are sufficient. I used DropBox and an external hard drive. Sometimes I would even email a draft of a chapter to myself just to be safe. You can also upload copies to iCloud. Just make sure to have one copy in a drive somewhere that isn't connected to your computer (Google Drive, iCloud, DropBox, etc.), and then a copy on a hard drive or a thumb drive. And make sure you save your document every couple hours. The worst moments of my writing were when I lost documents because I never saved them before I started writing.<br /><br /></li></ul><div><b>General Advice:</b></div></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Expect delays. I think what some might forget is that real life happens between when you start your PhD program and when you finish your program. I had multiple surgeries, deaths in my family, the pandemic happened, I had to move a few times, etc. It's not easy, and you should expect that life will happen and you need to be flexible. You can take suspensions if necessary through the University of Aberdeen. Do not be ashamed to use them if you truly need them, but talk with your supervisor first about what might be the best way forward.<br /><br /></li><li>Figure out your library access possibilities. My job afforded me access to one of the largest theological libraries in the world. Without access to the library where I work, I don't know how I would have completed my dissertation. This factor is often overlooked when students consider the distance program. Since you won't have regular access to the library at the school where you are studying, you have to ask the following questions: How will you get the research materials you need? Do you have funds to purchase books if you can't get them through a local library? Can you sign up for library access at a local seminary or theological school even for a fee? These are critical questions to ask <i>before</i> beginning your program.<br /><br /></li><li>You can read all the books, all the blogposts, and all the how-to manuals for finishing a dissertation, but at the end of the day, you have to sit in a chair and write. There's no magic sauce, it's just one step after another after another after another. It's about showing up every day and doing the work you need to do. It's a bunch of steps towards a goal that eventually add up to mean something. <br /><br /></li><li>Exercise (it whatever way you are physically capable). I can't tell you how much riding my bike helped me with my writing. It cleared my mind and gave me renewed focus countless times over the years. It also helped with my anxiety and stress related to my dissertation. And go for walks outside as much as you can (or just get outside for a bit every day). Walking helps for processing ideas and ruminating on your reading and writing. <br /><br /></li><li>Rest. I know I said above that you should stay in your material every day. And you can find creative ways to do that without working intensely every single day. Do not overextend yourself or work yourself into the ground. Academia is not worth it, and both your health and your writing will suffer for it. Take the weekends to recharge, be with your friends and loved ones (if you can get off work), and forget about theology for a little while.<br /><br /></li></ul><div>I hope this helps! If you want to chat more, find me on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/kaitdugan" target="_blank">@kaitdugan </a></div></div><div><br /></div><p></p>Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-56153693961653244942017-08-17T22:29:00.001-04:002017-08-19T20:13:54.599-04:00Charlottesville, Virginia<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">A few
times a day, I group text with two of my closest friends, Brandy and Jen. It
was a normal day on Thursday, August 3 when we were texting about our typical
subjects: academia, politics, our writing (or lack thereof!), dating, and hanging out with
each other again. None of us live near each other so this is the best way to
keep in touch. Shortly prior to this particular group text message, Brandy
moved to Charlottesville, Virginia for a post-doctoral fellowship in the
Religious Studies department at the University of Virginia. I live fairly close
to Virginia so I asked Brandy when she wanted me to come visit her during the
month of August. She joked at one point in the group text that I could come
down and join the clergy counter protest for this alt-right rally entitled “Unite
the Right”, which was supposed to take place on Saturday, August 11. If you
watch the news for any decent amount of time, you know who the alt-right are
and what they believe. I did not think it would be a particularly memorable
event, and without much thought, I agreed to attend so I could protest with my
friend. I then signed up for the Clergy Call organized and led by phenomenal leaders Seth Wispelwey and Smash Patty in local congregations in
Charlottesville. Little did I know what was coming for us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">A few days
later, I received an email from the Clergy Call organizers warning about the
dangers of attending the counter protest against the Neo-Nazis at the Unite the
Right rally. I read the email with some concern, but I still had no idea what
was coming for us. I told Brandy that due to personal reasons, I could not risk
getting arrested right now. She told me I could still attend the protest and be
the designated person to bail her out of jail. I quickly agreed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The few
days leading up to the Unite the Right rally on August 12 were very consuming
for me. I led a conference for my job, and I also faced some personal issues
that were unfolding at the same time. On Friday, August 11, I planned to drive
down to Charlottesville after my work conference wrapped up in the late
afternoon. By the time I actually made progress driving towards
Charlottesville, it was the early evening, and I was completely exhausted. At
one point during my drive, I called Brandy with the intention of telling her I
was going to skip the rally and drive home instead. I remember calling her, and
she talked about her preparations for the clergy counter protest. In that moment,
I did not have the heart to tell her I was too tired to visit. I wanted to be
there with her more than I wanted to go home and sleep, so I kept driving. Brandy
texted me late that evening while I was still driving to let me know that she
was stuck in the church where the clergy gathered that evening to worship in
order to prepare themselves spiritually for the counter protest on Saturday. I
did not know this at the time, but my friend was trapped inside that church,
because Neo-Nazis were outside the front doors blocking in the congregants with
tiki torches in hand. I am thankful she never told me all these details at that
time. I do not think I could have handled the truth in my state of exhaustion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I finally
arrived at Brandy’s apartment in Charlottesville shortly before midnight. She
told me that we were going to attend a sunrise service the next morning to
spiritually prepare for the counter protest. She said we had to be there by 6
AM. I was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not happy</i> about the early
wake-up call given my exhaustion. But she said Cornel West was preaching so I
knew it would be worth attending.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">We woke up
early and arrived to First Baptist Church on West Main Street where hundreds of
people gathered for an interfaith worship service. The church was energized as
we sang many African American spirituals sung during the civil rights era. It
was a moving worship time. At this point, I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">still
</i>had no idea what was in store for the day. I had no framework for what to
expect, and I was not expecting much beyond a peaceful protest and a few fascists
showing up to this rally. This was my first time in Charlottesville, after all.
How bad could it possibly get?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Once the
interfaith service ended, the leaders as<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">ked the clergy who were planning to be on the front lines of the counter
protest to meet in the front of the church. Only 40 or 50 clergy members and
other individuals stayed. It was disheartening to see how many people left the
church when the organizers of the counter protest hoped that we would have huge
numbers for the event. One of the leaders of the Clergy Call, </span></span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Rev.<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> Sekou Osagyefo, began to speak to the individuals who stayed to counter
protest in Emancipation Park. After kicking out media and government employees
from the sanctuary, Sekou spoke some harsh warnings to those in the room. He
told us that if we were not prepared to die that day, we should not attend this
protest. He told us that if we were not prepared to be beaten that day, we should
not attend this protest. At this point, I look over to my friend Brandy with my
eyes wide open with fear and panic and ask her what he is talking about. Brandy
assures me that we will not die, and we will not be injured. She tells me Sekou
is trying to prepare us for the absolute worst, but that death and injury properly
will not happen. But Sekou keeps repeating these warnings, and suddenly, I
realize that I am entering a real battle zone. </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I did not
prepare for any of this in any way – spiritually, emotionally, or mentally –
and I also did not receive the weeks of non-violent training that Brandy
underwent. At this point, I am convinced that I should stay as far behind as possible
to protect myself. When we finally formed a line to leave the church and march
towards Emancipation Park by foot, I stayed in the very back of the line with
the non-profit volunteer lawyers. I figured that if I stick with the lawyers, I
would be safe (probably not the best logic!). There was an eerie, almost
deafening silence in the town as we walked through the streets. It felt like a
ghost town as very few people could be seen anywhere in the streets. Right
before we made it to Emancipation Park, we had to make a left turn up a small
hill. I was still marching in the back at this point when I saw over a dozen
armed male militia at the top of the hill with AK-47s in hand. Fear engulfed my
entire body, and I quickly locked arms with other clergy members for fear of being
on the outside of the group. We finally made it to Emancipation Park when we
lined up along the one side of the park, arms interlocked with each other. I
believe the original goal was to have enough clergy to circle the entire park,
but there were only enough clergy present to line the one side. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KqFkDG4AFZ4/WZZJ5NJBFXI/AAAAAAAABds/vvSA1nlgLnISYutwNKPMEDKLrVVY-1dqwCLcBGAs/s1600/20799842_10100174581435993_558472245108586474_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="960" height="266" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KqFkDG4AFZ4/WZZJ5NJBFXI/AAAAAAAABds/vvSA1nlgLnISYutwNKPMEDKLrVVY-1dqwCLcBGAs/s400/20799842_10100174581435993_558472245108586474_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jill Harms Photography</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">It was around 9 AM when we made it to Emancipation Park. The first song we sang was “This
Little Light of Mine.” Never have the words to this song felt so vulnerable and
almost foolish. We sang this song as armed militia and a few Neo-Nazis began to
pass us on the sidewalk. As time went on, more and more Neo-Nazis began to
trickle into the park along the sidewalk. The clergy line kept singing songs of
freedom, praying, kneeling, and standing peacefully to be a counter witness to
the hate and violence of the Neo-Nazis in that space. At one point, we kneeled
on the ground to pray one by one while a member of the armed militia stood
directly across from me with his AK-47 in hand. I was overwhelmed with seeing a
weapon like that so close to my body as I kneeled on the pavement, weaponless
and full of fear. I have never felt so vulnerable before the powers of the
world before. I kept wondering, “is this what Jesus is calling me to do?” All my
theology of resistance became real in those moments alongside Emancipation
Park. We were fighting against the powers of darkness that engulfed this park. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E6ZUwlzwyTU/WZZKhIdlEpI/AAAAAAAABd0/WSeHn3ibxiwfFBM1AJgn8QkvVY_AdyNSACLcBGAs/s1600/1502804382796-AP_17226586802388.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1440" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E6ZUwlzwyTU/WZZKhIdlEpI/AAAAAAAABd0/WSeHn3ibxiwfFBM1AJgn8QkvVY_AdyNSACLcBGAs/s400/1502804382796-AP_17226586802388.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Albin Lohr-Jones/Pacific Press/Sipa USA via AP</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">As more
Neo-Nazis passed the clergy line, they verbally abused us one by one over the
course of a few hours. One man screamed that Jesus hates us. Another screamed
that we hate the white race and are contributing to white genocide. Another man
boldly came up to the clergy line and asked us if we have ever read Ephesians 5
and 6, because then we would know the Bible does not allow women to be clergy. He
said we should be submitting to men. Another man taunted us for a good while
asking us where we went to seminary, and tried to get us to answer questions
about theology and the Bible to prove we were legitimate clergy. I can not fully remember everything that was said to me that day on the clergy line. Online trolls
are one thing. We all know not to feed the trolls on the internet. But it is
another thing to have the trolls right before your face yelling vile truths
that contradict everything you believe. It took the sheer grace of God for me
to stay silent in the midst of the verbal abuse. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">One man
came up to the clergy line with a t-shirt of Adolf Hitler’s face right above a
large swastika. He was very eager and adamant to inform us that he worshipped
the same Jesus we do. It was in that moment that I realized how far darkness
can take a person into complete falsehood. I wanted to look that man in the eye
and tell him that his Jesus is not the one who hung from the cross for those he
despises. But I could not say a word. It nearly took my breath away when they chanted "Black Lives Don't Matter" and "Fuck You Faggots" over and over again. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">It felt
like they just kept coming one by one. They showed up by the dozens along the
sidewalk before my eyes with their weapons, shields, sticks, helmets, and
zealous hatred. There were so many of them and so few of us. They looked nothing like I expected. They were young boys who looked strikingly similar to my nephew, my cousin, my neighbor, or any average white kid you would see on a daily basis. This was not the hooded Nazi's of my parents generation. No, this was far more covert and dangerous.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">A few hours after the clergy arrived, the anti-fascists (or “Antifa”) showed up with their banners denouncing white supremacy. They
were small in number compared to the Neo-Nazis, but I was so thankful when they
finally arrived with their message that Black Lives Matter, that LGBTQ+ lives
matter, and that hatred will not win this fight. They offered members of the clergy line
water and food. Some put their hand on my shoulder and gave me a smile. I
finally breathed a sigh of relief. I felt less alone in this fight against
darkness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mEJjkfv6clY/WZZKJVvhbtI/AAAAAAAABdw/zspWhByNWAgjnx1DFqqmcEHr0vWvyTWnwCLcBGAs/s1600/Charlottesville-HW-500x375.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mEJjkfv6clY/WZZKJVvhbtI/AAAAAAAABdw/zspWhByNWAgjnx1DFqqmcEHr0vWvyTWnwCLcBGAs/s400/Charlottesville-HW-500x375.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Heather Wilson</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">At one point, the clergy line broke up as some clergy, including my friend Brandy, were
planning to form a blockade on the steps leading up to the park. The intention
was to stop Neo-Nazis from getting into the park to attend their rally. The
clergy knew how vulnerable they were next to the Neo-Nazis because each one
were committed to non-violence. Some of the clergy did not want to join the
blockade, but it was too dangerous to stay in the streets as more and more
violence was breaking out. Those clergy began running toward a café a few
blocks away, which served as our safe house for the day. I started running with
them when all the sudden I stopped, and said I could not leave my friend Brandy
behind. They told me twice that I could either stay or go, but that they had to
go. I did not know what to do. I wanted to go with them, but I could not leave
my friend without knowing if she was okay. I decided in that moment to turn
around and stay. I stood on the corner across the street from the steps of the
park and watched my friend lock arms with other clergy members. I had to watch
as Neo-Nazis came charging in by the dozens and forcefully plowed toward the
clergy blockade. A blanket of fear engulfed me as I watched my friend stand
there not knowing if she would make it out of there alive. If Antifa had not eventually stood between the clergy blockade and the Neo-Nazis, my friends would have either been badly beaten or died. Antifa saved their lives. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">While I
stood on the corner, I also tried to dodge the many bottles full of feces that
were thrown in the air from the Neo-Nazis. I tried to not breathe in the tear
gas and the pepper spray clouds that kept coming my way. At one point, the
clergy line dispersed, and I was reunited with Brandy. We did not know what to
do next so we tried to stay on the outskirts of the scene. The Neo-Nazis just
kept coming in groups over and over. We were far outnumbered, but I watched
countless Antifa youth risk their lives, one by one, to fight back. Many of
them were eventually carried away covered in blood from being beaten. Some
screamed in the middle of the street as their eyes burned from the pepper
spray. It was the most horrific scene I have ever seen in my life. I coughed so hard at one point from breathing in pepper spray that I wet myself. I could not stop coughing. It was terrifying. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">This
violence and chaos ensued for over an hour. The police did nothing. I looked
over at the police many times in the midst of the chaos only to find some laughing at certain points. I was not
surprised, but I was still disillusioned by their lack of response. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">As I looked on to see the crowds of people fighting and could hear the deafening sound of fists hitting flesh, I began to wonder if this is God’s judgment upon America for our original sin of racism and slavery. This nation was founded upon the kidnap, rape, and enslavement of African and Caribbean bodies for our profit. While the concentration of pure and unadulterated hatred in Emancipation Park might be novel for this time period, the seeds and roots of that hatred are as old as the United States. This country has never confronted and repented for the devastating and continual violence done against black and brown flesh. From slavery to lynching to segregation to imprisonment, we continue to oppress, enslave, and kill all that does not fit into the toxic mold of white supremacy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In the
early afternoon (the actual time escapes me), the Governor of Virginia declared a state of
emergency. The National Guard came out with a water tank, and told everyone through a loud speaker to leave the area, or we would be arrested. Brandy and I made our way
to the safe house at the café I mentioned earlier. We rested there for a bit, and the owners of the
café kindly gave us free food and beer. At one point in the afternoon, my
friend Gregory messaged me on Facebook to tell me that counter
protestors were forming again and headed towards Water Street. Word on the street was that the
Neo-Nazis were headed to a public housing area, and organizers in the area
asked for counter protestors to come help stop them. I wanted to join him and the other protestors, but
I did not know where Water Street was in relation to this café. I figured I
would join up with them later at some point.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">A few
minutes later, someone came into the café and told us we had to come out immediately as
something happened. A bunch of us from the cafe began running down the block to
Water Street where we were met with bodies spewed all across the street. I
would later learn that a Neo-Nazi terrorist drove his car into this crowd of
counter protestors and killed one protestor named Heather Heyer. It felt like a
war zone. Chaos and confusion filled those streets as we stood helplessly on
the sidewalks wondering how this could happen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Eventually,
Brandy and I left downtown Charlottesville and went back to her house to
sleep. It is hard to know how to recover from the horror we witnessed that day.
Do you drink? Do you sleep? Do you talk to others who were there? Do you watch
the news? Do you pray? What can you do to cope with such violence? How do you
make sense of it? Where do you go from there?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I left
Charlottesville the next day to return home. I drove home with an endless
amount of questions swimming through my head, not knowing if I will ever receive answers. My
theology was deeply challenged that day as I stood on that clergy line. I realized how deeply I am <i>already</i> part of the violence of white supremacy even if I committed to a nonviolent protest and even if I denounce the Neo-Nazis. I wondered what it means to witness against white supremacy today as a white Christian in light of the rise of the alt-right. I wondered if this rise in Nazism requires a different response than what I would normally advocate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I wrote this post, because since Saturday, I have been having great difficulty sleeping. I wake up in the middle of the night, and I can not get those rage-filled faces out of my mind as they play over and over again in my head. The heaviness of the future bears down on me, and I begin to realize how much work there is to do to fight against this darkness that is coming back over this nation afresh. I remember that blanket of fear that I felt as I watched my friend stand on those stairs as Nazis charged towards her. I begin worrying about war, violence against vulnerable communities, more hatred against those who are already oppressed, and what the future of Trump's presidency will mean not only for this nation, but for the world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I was told that writing my story could help with the trauma and the confusion. I hope at some point to share some theological reflections. But for now, I wanted to document my story from the front lines of Charlottesville and encourage you, dear reader, to resist the power of white supremacy on all fronts.</span></div>
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-->Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-49674910921943701802014-12-19T17:22:00.001-05:002014-12-19T17:40:10.825-05:00Ramblings.Hello? Can you hear me? It's me, Kait Dugan.<br />
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I realize now that I only blogged once in 2014 (!) Wow. This year has been a whirlwind for me. Between getting deeper into the throws of my full-time job at the Barth Center, moving to New York City, and starting my PhD last summer, this blog wasn't going to see the light of day. I don't know if that will change much in the future. But here I am today on my first day of my first <i>real </i>and glorious vacation in over a year and I had this spontaneous urge to blog while enjoying the quiet bliss of my apartment.<br />
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I don't do theological doodlings or things like that. I'm definitely not witty enough for such things. But I thought perhaps I would share a bunch of random thoughts that have been circulating through my mind these past however many months. They are occasional and fragmentary but still substantive. I hope this might prove useful or interesting to someone other than myself.<br />
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1. I can't get Willie Jennings' questions to Beverly Gaventa at this year's SBL Pauline soteriology session out of my mind. Gaventa gave, per usual, a fascinating paper on the justice of God and what that might mean from a Pauline perspective. As always, Gaventa championed the resounding "all" of God's salvation, which reverberates throughout Paul's letters. And in good apocalyptic agreement, I nodded with her as she proclaimed the cosmic scope of salvation for the world. Gaventa also put even further distance between divine and human conceptions of justice. I personally loved this. I have no idea what people mean or intend to communicate when the word "justice" is thrown around like a cheap piece of clothing. What does it mean to get justice for the death of Eric Gardner, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown and countless others who have died at the hands of racialized systemic violence in this country? Is an indictment actually <i>justice</i> for such unspeakable evils?<br />
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But Jennings, a man who I just received the privilege of meeting and talking, asked her some pressing questions. First, he wondered if it is the same thing for a Gentile to proclaim the universal language of the Pauline corpus compared to Paul himself? I sensed here that there's a flattening out of the very real distinction between oppressor and oppressed that might make it nearly impossible to truly speak prophetically against the evils of this world. But also, how is the pronouncement of universal salvation an enactment of whiteness? Second, he wanted to know how fruitful it is for us to press and emphasize the difference between human and divine justice? Does this not take the urgency out of our pursuit for political and social upheaval against oppression? Point dually noted. But I don't know. I can't shake the feeling that nothing less than the resurrection of the dead can be associated with <i>God's </i>justice.<br />
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2. I attended the Foley Square protest here in NYC the night after the grand jury released its decision in the Eric Gardner murder. Truth be told, I really didn't want to go. The protest started at 5:30. I didn't even step off the train coming back from work until 6:15. Then I had to travel all the way downtown to get to the protest. Serious pain. I'm exhausted, I'm in my work clothes. I'm not in any good form for something this important. And I'm a bit cynical. What will this accomplish? Isn't this just for my own white guilt, self-promotion and vanity? And why the hell are my questions making this mostly about me? But I can't shake this feeling I should go. So I press on downtown. I walk and walk and walk and finally find Foley Square. And it was there that something changed for me. There were countless people in this tight space with multiple helicopters hovering above us. There was a simultaneous calm and urgency there. This wasn't your mama's protest. This was something else. This was an interruption. This was an event. There was a spiritual quality to that night, which I still can't truly explain. As we marched through the streets, shut down traffic, and yelled "whose streets? our streets!," I began to believe that this was parabolic of the Kingdom of God coming into our midst. I don't say that lightly. I get nervous when anyone points to anything and says "see! there's the Kingdom of God! there's God at work in the world!" But countless people all struggling to resist the power of Death against black and brown bodies seems to be where Jesus can be found in this present world.<br />
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3. I've been reading Charles Marsh's new biography on Bonhoeffer recently entitled <i>Strange Glory</i>. It was on sale for $10 at AAR so I couldn't pass it up. I'm struck by the chapter on Bonhoeffer's time in America and more specifically in Harlem. Apparently his best friend Paul Lehmann, a professor at Union Theological Seminary, was concerned about Bonhoeffer at one point and thought he "was spending too much time in Harlem" (118). It struck me how much Bonhoeffer gave himself to this encounter with a new community. And it got me wondering, once again, if theology is more than simple second-order reflection, theorizing, or one's decision about material and form. Do the places in which we live and give ourselves over to the world matter at all? Does it matter if I do my theology in the zones of wealth and privilege? Leaving aside that there's no where to truly disavowal privilege no matter where you live and breathe on a daily basis, does it matter who we spend time with, who we are in close relationship with, where we sleep at night? Does it matter if all my friends think like me, look like me, act like me? Does it matter if I never have to encounter anyone on a daily basis or live in the same building with those forgotten by the world? Who are deemed meaningless by society? Is this not also critical for what our theology means and how it is formed? I'm not seeking purity or self-justification in these questions. I'm simply asking this as someone who thinks that the task of theology is discerning the spirits of the present age and resisting the powers that enslave us through speech and act. How can this happen if we live in the very places where the powers are not exposed in all their devastating violence?<br />
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4. I read a letter many months ago, which Karl Barth wrote to Juergen Moltmann on November 17th 1964 and I still haven't been able to stop thinking about it as I struggle through my own doctoral research. Barth writes that he has many critical concerns and hesitations about Moltmann's theology namely due to the "unilateral way in which you subsume all theology in eschatology, going beyond Blumhardt, Overbeck, and Schweitzer in this regard" (175). But I wonder if Karl subsumes all theology into protological categories through his doctrine of election. If it was balance he was after, he seems to perform the very act for which he is criticizing Moltmann but simply shifting the furniture around. Barth says Moltmann's theology suffers from "onesidedness" (176). But in these times, in this present evil age that Paul speaks about, might eschatological onesidedness be the only way to speak prophetically? Am I simply suffering from the youthful enthusiasm that I'll regret as I age?<br />
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5. I've been thumbing through Ted Smith's new <i>Weird John Brown</i> during some of my subway time. It's good. It's compelling. I don't quite know where Smith is taking me at this point, but I'm still in chapter three. He argues quite convincingly for the inadequacy of an immanent account of ethical action. Smith convincingly asserts the necessity of a particular and unique John Brown moment of apocalyptic interruption in our midst, which poses a question "to successive moments in national history." Only a transcendent apocalyptic interruption of a John Brown in our midst will "not so much secure existing powers as reveal them for what they are" (20). I like that.Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-10491604514802684472014-04-20T16:30:00.001-04:002014-04-20T16:55:40.517-04:00The Exercise of Power and the Refusal of PowerNobody says its like Lehmann, eh?<br />
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"The royal trappings worn by Jesus, viz., the crown of thorns and the purpose cloak (but not insignificantly perhaps minus the mock-scepter cane), are patently a mockery of Jesus' royal pretensions and a ridicule of his weakness masquerading as strength. How undangerous can any human being get! 'In fact, it is just such a man who claims to be the king of truth! The <i>ho logos sarx egeneto</i> has become visible in its most extreme consequences.' Jesus, on the other hand, at the apex of defenselessness, and all but at the nadir of helplessness, dramatically reverses the field. His silent presence turns that unmasking devised by his accusers and his judge against itself. It is <i>they</i> who stand before the world unmasked. ...<br />
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Perhaps the most awesome thing about the imminent crucifixion was - and is - the ambiguity hidden in its inevitability. Jesus, like Pilate, was on his way to his appointed end. But whereas Pilate's exercise of power was caught in the vise of inevitability and the will-to-power, Jesus' refusal of power was caught in the vise of inevitability and the will-to-death of the people of destiny. Pilate's reluctant acceptance of the unavoidable is the final irony of the exercise of power, the strength of which is weakness. The people's passionate pressure to make the unavoidable <i>happen</i> is the ultimate pathos in a refusal of power, the weakness of which is its strength. Like Nietzsche's tightrope walker, Jesus goes down before established power, which he must oppose, <i>and</i> the fury of the people of destiny whose destiny he has come to affirm and whose fury he has come to abate."<br />
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- Paul Lehmann, <i>Transfiguration of Politics</i>, 61-63.Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-65095015388421842742013-09-02T20:33:00.000-04:002013-09-02T20:34:43.225-04:00On Reading Barth: Another Form of Feminist Resistance (A Response to Janice Rees)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perhaps this post is really not a response to Janice Rees’ </span><a href="http://womenintheology.org/2013/09/01/on-not-reading-barth-my-measly-resistance/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">most recent post at WIT</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but rather a post that is a long-time coming. I can’t decide [1]. But nonetheless, it was her powerful post that inspired me to break my silence as a woman in theology studying Barth. </span><br />
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I, too, read Brandy Daniels’ <a href="http://womenintheology.org/2013/08/23/manly-me-theology-edition/">post at WIT</a> regarding the good old Boys Club with much relief, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">admiration, and thankfulness. Brandy, per usual, has the courageous ability to consistently offer a prophetic voice on many topics that few of us are willing to openly discuss. And if there is anyone who can relate to Brandy’s experience of said club, it is me. I often find myself one of the only women in various theological circles. As much as I’ve gotten used to this scene, it still can be rather taxing in various ways, to say the least. Similarly, I read Janice’s post with a lot of agreement and kept nodding my head with great relief, admiration, and thankfulness as well that </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">someone</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, hell </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">anyone</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, had finally written these things publicly. I support and understand her resistance to the academic guild of Barth studies. But I also felt, however unintentionally on the part of Janice, like I have so many countless times in the past, alienated from my women colleagues. Ironically, I often feel the most judgment and objection to studying Barth from other women. And this has repeatedly left me feeling like I don’t truly measure up as a feminist because I’m not refusing to engage or study Barth who lingers as the theological coach for so many white male academics. This can leave me wondering if there’s any place for me in the women’s club, either. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is no denying much of what Rees writes. I’ll engage her points accordingly. First, yes, Barth does seem to serve as a boundary line for what counts as “serious scholarship.” This frustrating ideological defense mechanism usually allows many the excuse to not engage with other critical voices and witnesses that might vulnerably and necessarily deconstruct one’s basic theological presuppositions through a hermeneutic of race, gender, sexuality, class, etc. Second, depending on where you stand within that “confessional identity” that Janice mentions, Barth is often touted as the line (or transgression of said line) of orthodoxy. For those who think Barth was not, in fact, the living embodiment of heresy (they really do exist!), the old Swiss gets brought up time and again about how </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not </span><span style="line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to do “liberal theology” (cue scary music). In a few sentences peppered with phrases like “turn to the subject,” “subjectivism,” and “reason,” these confessionals will tell you why they genuinely believe Barth is the savior of all theological discourse both then and now and until the second Parousia. It almost becomes a paint by number dialogue in which you know in advance, without even engaging folks like this, exactly what they will say and how they will say it in order to reject those they think warrant the Barth trump card against dangerous liberalism. And then finally, and most interesting to me, Rees explains her resistance to reading Barth by bravely asserting that Barth scholarship is an academic power in itself that must be resisted. American Barth scholarship is the personification of the white male heterosexual who feels sorry for himself that he gets persecuted for not engaging with more critical theologies. </span></span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So you might be asking what could I possibly have to say that would push back on any of this given my agreement with much of it. Well, I often wonder if our legitimate critiques of Barth and Barth scholarship leaves any room for women like myself who are genuinely interested in studying Karl Barth. [2] I can still remember a female friend asking me a couple of years ago how in the world </span><span style="font-style: italic; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I </span><span style="text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">could be interested in Barth since I was a woman and a feminist. Didn’t I know that the field was dominated by men? And wasn’t I turned off by Barth’s theology that was so masculine partially through the unfailing use of masculine pronouns referencing God? As a proper feminist, this should bother me to the point where I stop reading Barth and start publicly voicing my reasons for such rejection. From that moment on, I realized that studying Barth was going to be a bit of a lonely road. [3] Not only was it a boys club, but now some women were suspicious and somewhat disappointed when they found out that I’m interested in Barth (or apocalyptic theology for that matter!). Now I don’t measure up to what it takes to be in the girls club. And you can’t even begin to imagine the insecurity and isolation that occurs when you feel excluded from the “new feminist orthodoxy” as a woman and Barthian theologian. I often wonder if others, especially these female critics, think I am trying to fit into the boys club instead of assuming that I am seriously and authentically interested in this particular theology </span><span style="font-style: italic; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">precisely because</span><span style="text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I am, in fact, a feminist theologian.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wish there was space within the theological academy for women to critically engage and appropriate Barth in ways that brought him into desperately needed conversation with other critical theologies. And I’m not talking about the token engagement that can pass in certain projects. I’m interested in profound and rigorous bilateral dialogue between Barth and other critical theologians in order to create something new. [4] The most ironic part of all of this is when I realize just how “radical” Barth is on certain issues and the lines of continuity that can be drawn between him and other theologians who most within confessional boundaries might typically render “not serious” or “unorthodox.” [5] To my surprise, when I read Barth, I see him as an incredible support and ally for many basic theological concerns within theologies of race, gender, and sexuality. [6] And to my even greater surprise, there are very few individuals actually doing this work to highlight such critical and profound lines of continuity. [7] These voices rarely exist partly because of the points Janice mentions and also due to the fact that few people, especially women or people of color, are encouraged to enter into these spaces to say NO to such powers by creatively appropriating Barth in new and exciting ways. It is almost as if the push to not engage Barth is, ironically, a further solidification of his power within the academy. I am tempted to think that true and effective resistance to the problems of Barth scholarship can come about through using other theologians to deconstruct him and utilize his theology to support critical concerns and efforts. And I’d like to have other women and people of color in these spaces with me witnessing to the Gospel more faithfully through such critical engagement.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With everything said, I want to make one thing abundantly clear. At the end of the day, the issue isn’t truly about getting more people to read and study Karl Barth nor should it be. Women should be encouraged and free to engage anyone they want within theology and other academic disciplines including the male-dominated field of Barth studies. And women should feel free to follow Janice in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reading Barth if they don’t want to as a one form of powerful resistance. Afterall, isn’t that freedom for women to be exactly who they are and study whatever they want the true ethos of feminism? Unless women feel genuinely free of shame for doing so (or </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> doing so!), I fear that we are doing a disservice to the cause of gender equality. I hope to see more women free to go wherever they want and perhaps some of them will continue to infiltrate those spaces dominated by men including Barth studies.</span></span></div>
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[1] <span class="s2">This is an important disclaimer since some of this post extends beyond Janice’s own reasons for not studying Barth because it offers a response to those who object to women studying in male-dominated fields. </span><br />
<span class="s2">[2] </span><span class="s2">I am extremely indebted to Barth for many of my theological presuppositions and my general methodological orientation. However, my interests and theological concerns extend far beyond Karl Barth to include namely apocalyptic theology, feminist and womanist theologies among liberation theologies, gender theory, and various other figures including Bonhoeffer, Käsemann, Kiekegaard, Delores Williams, Judith Butler, Moltmann, and many more that would be too long to list here. If I continue to use and appropriate Barth, I will not necessarily be interested in doing so in order to “get Barth right” for the sake of Barth scholarship, but rather to offer a greater faithful witness to the Gospel.</span><br />
<span class="s2">[3] </span><span class="s2">I find the same is true for other topics in which I am interested, namely apocalyptic theology. I’ve received criticism for being interested in this discourse not only for the phallic and violent rhetoric, but also because the field is quite dominated by white heterosexual men.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">[4] </span><span class="s2">The (almost tragic) irony in all of this is that what I’m advocating here is exactly what Barth would have wanted: “Theological work is distinguished from other kinds of work by the fact that anyone who desires to do this work cannot proceed by building with complete confidence on the foundation of questions that are already settled, results that are already achieved, or conclusions that are already arrived at. [One] cannot continue to build today in any way on foundations that were laid yesterday for [one]self, and [one] cannot live today in any way on the interest from a capital amassed yesterday. [One’s] only possible procedure every day, in fact every hour, is to begin anew at the beginning” (Barth, <i>Evangelical Theology</i>, 165).</span><br />
<span class="s2">[5] </span><span class="s2">I use the word radical here, but I should admit that given the overuse of this word, I’m not entirely sure what it means any longer. </span><br />
<span class="s2">[6] </span><span class="s2">Just the other day, I stumbled across a fascinating essay by Jaime Ronaldo Balboa entitled “Church Dogmatics, Natural Theology, and the Slippery Slope of <i>Geschlecht: </i>A Constructivist-Gay Liberationist Reading of Barth” (Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 66/4, 771-789). Balboa’s essay serves as an exceptional example concerning how Barth’s own theology can be read against other parts of Barth’s theology namely his problematic conceptions of heteronormativity. </span><br />
<span class="s2">[7] </span><span class="s2">I would like to note that some of my colleagues are doing profound and interesting work in Barth studies that have direct implications for discourses regarding liberation from various forms of oppression including race, gender, sexuality, class, etc. even if their projects are not an overt engagement with these concerns.</span></div>
Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-64871612781024526342013-08-17T23:33:00.000-04:002013-08-17T23:39:40.896-04:00Recent Findings.I don't have much time to engage in leisure reading these days. Most of my time is devoted to my new job and doctoral applications. However, I manage to squeeze in some time to read theology usually while walking across town to a coffee shop (oddly enough, I do some of my best reading while walking) and I've been finding some great stuff. I am fully aware that this blog has been reduced to a quote machine, but you'll have to indulge that tendency for a bit longer (if I still have any readers out there!). Here are four random excerpts from what seems like a stack of books I've been trying slowly to make my way through this summer:<br />
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"A major -- if not <i>the</i> major -- significance of <i>The Theological Declaration of Barmen</i> is its documentation of the church on the way from confessional faithfulness to confessional responsibility. On record, it seems that the confessional story -- from Nicea, Chalcedon and the <i>Symbolum Romanum</i> to Trent; and from Trent, via Augsburg and the Formula or Concord, on the one hand, and the Geneva, Scots and Westminster Confessions, on the other, to the Catechisms: Roman, Lutheran and Reformed, and the unexcelled irenic tonalities of Heidelberg -- seems more preoccupied with the responsibility of faithfulness of the church to its calling to be the church than with the faithfulness of the church to the responsibility intrinsic to being the church in the world for the sake of the world. The watchwords of responsibility for faithfulness have been the formative and authoritative bearing of Holy Scripture upon the content and witness of the Confessions, the proclamation of the World and the celebration of the Sacraments, the grace, faith and obedience by which individual believers receive and express their salvation in this world and the next. The world -- for the sake of which the church is called to be the church -- was largely left to its own devices, under the custodial watchfulness of a power settlement which neatly, if not always smoothly, divided responsibility between things spiritual and things temporal. This arrangement, dubiously ascribed to divine appointment, managed, with less than unexceptional operational effectiveness, to keep the world in tow and on course until the unfailingly anticipated Second Advent, which seemed to have fallen into the awkward habit of continual postponement."<br />
- Paul Lehmann, "On Faithfulness, Responsibility and the Confessional State of the Church," 22-23.<br />
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"Like any systematic interpretation, systematic theology attempts to give an intelligible account of the maximum amount of data with the minimum amount of explanatory principles. The primary data to which the theology of the Christian church is committed comprise a tradition of witness in history, through varying cultural contexts, to the God made known in events concerning Jesus of Nazareth. The purpose of such an account is not, as the name 'systematic' might seem to suggest, to reduce the life of the Spirit to categories of rational abstraction. Nor is it to camouflage, and thereby domesticate, the subversive character of the church's mission amidst the sufferings of this world by painting that mission in colors merely conforming to some prevalent intellection (or anti-intellectual!) terrain. What is at stake in this disciple for the church - and I think for the academy as well - is at once a critical and constructive task: a 'testing of the spirits' (1 John 4:1) and an 'account for the hope' (1 Pet. 3:15)."<br />
- Christopher Morse, <i>The Logic of Promise in Moltmann's Theology</i>, ix.<br />
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"The central point in Bonhoeffer's critique of religion is the absolute distinction between Christ-centered reconciliation and 'redemption myths'. He could say that 'redemption is at the heart of the Gospel' but, also, more typically, that the idea of 'redemption' has become more difficult and remote in a 'world come of age', which is no longer interested in 'religious questions'. The fundamental problem with 'religions of redemption' is that they draw people out of the world instead of placing them more fully in the world. They treat God as a stopgap for our incomplete knowledge of nature, death, suffering and guilt. They prey on psychological weakness and intellectual ignorance and encourage the idea that faith is an escape from personal, scientific and political challenges. ...<br />
<br />
The way in which Christ encounters human beings is developed positively in Bonhoeffer's Christology by focusing on what it means to be truly human. <i>It is not enough to criticize religiosity in the cause of self-affirmation. </i>Nietzsche's disdain for self-sacrifice and the Christian idea of remission of sins must be met by its life-affirming alternative in the self-giving love of Christ for the world."<br />
- Max Champion, "Bonhoeffer: Redemption after Nietzsche?" 99-100.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">"Could we wish anything else that this saving hope should always be declared at the cross, should always set a boundary against everything in our world, and should always manifest itself at that boundary. Were we to know more of God than the groans of creation and our own groaning; were we to</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline; line-height: 18px;"> know a Jesus Christ otherwise than as crucified; were we to know the Holy Spirit otherwise than as the Spirit of Him that raised Jesus from the dead; ... There would be no salvation. *For hope that is seen is not hope* ... If Christianity be not altogether thoroughgoing eschatology, there remains in it no relationship whatever with Christ. Spirit which does not at every moment point from death to the new life is not the Holy Spirit ... All that is not hope is wooden, hobbledehoy, blunt-edges, and sharp-pointed ... There is no freedom, but only imprisonment; no grace, but only condemnation and corruption; no divine guidance, but only fate; no God, but only a mirror of unredeemed humanity. And this is so, be there never so much progress of social reform and never so much trumpeting of the grandeur of Christian redemption. Redemption is invisible, inaccessible, and impossible, for it meets us only in hope. Do we desire something better than hope? Do we with to be something more than [men and women] who hope? But to wait is the most profound truth of our normal, everyday life and work, quite apart from being Christians. Every agricultural labourer, every mother, every truly active or truly suffering man [or woman] knows the necessity of waiting. And we - we must wait, as though there was something lying beyond good and evil, joy and sorrow, life and death; as though in happiness and disappointment, in growth and decay, in the 'Yes' and in the 'No' of our life in the world, we were expecting something. We must wait, as though there were a God whom, in victory and in defeat, in life and in death, we must serve with love and devotion. 'As though?' Yes, this is the strange element in the situation. In our journey through time, we are still men [and women] who wait, as though we saw what we do not see, as though we were gazing upon the unseen. Hope is the solution of the riddle of our 'As though." We do see. Existentially we see what is invisible, and therefore we wait. Could we see nothing but the visible world, we should not wait: we should accept our present situation with joy or with grumbling. Our refusal to accept it and to regard our present existence as incapable of harmony, our certainty that there abides in us a secret waiting for what is not, is, however, intelligible in the unseen hope which is ours in God, in Christ, in the Spirit, in the hope by which we are existentially confronted by things which are not. We can then, if we understand ourselves aright, be none other than they who wait. We are satisfied to know no more than the sorrow of the creation and our own sorrow. We ask nothing better or higher than the Cross, where God is manifested as God. We must, in fact, be servants who wait for the coming of their Lord."<br />-Barth, Epistle to the Romans, 314-315.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline; line-height: 18px;">Also, f</span></span>or some reason, I became interested in the topic of boredom a couple of months ago. I think this was probably due to the fact that I found myself feeling boredom to whatever extent. Like the true nerd that I am, I solved my problem of boredom by reading about what other thinkers and theologians wrote about the topic. If I get time in the future, I'll post my thoughts on boredom and some interesting passages I discovered, most notably from Kierkegaard. I found a lot of relief and comfort in Kierkegaard's wisdom in his essay "Rotation of Crops."Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-26295711280218280052013-05-02T13:42:00.006-04:002013-05-02T13:43:28.928-04:00"Thy Kingdom Come!"This was too incredible not to share:<br />
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"'Thy Kingdom come' - this is not the prayer of the pious soul of the individual who wants to flee the world, nor is it the prayer of the utopian and fanatic, the stubborn world reformer. Rather, this is the prayer only of the church-community of children of the Earth, who do not set themselves apart, who have no special proposals for reforming the world to offer, who are no better than the world, but who persevere together in the midst of the world, in its depths, in the daily life and subjugation of the world. They persevere because they are, in their own curious way, true to this existence, and they steadfastly fix their gaze on that most unique place in the world where they witness, in amazement, the overcoming of the curse, the most profound yes of God to the world. Here, in the midst of the dying, torn, and thirsting world, something becomes evident to those who can believe, believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here is the absolute miracle has occurred. Here the law of death is shattered; here the kingdom of God itself comes to us, in our world; here is God's declaration to the world, God's blessing, which annuls the curse. This is the event that alone kindles the prayer for the kingdom. It is in this very event that the old Earth is affirmed and God is hailed as lord of the Earth; and it is against this event that overcomes, breaks through, and destroys the cursed Earth and promises the new Earth. God's kingdom is the <i>kingdom of resurrection</i> on Earth."<br />
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- Bonhoeffer, "Thy Kingdom Come!," 290-291.Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-63498493488941202242013-04-14T16:23:00.002-04:002013-04-14T16:28:26.054-04:00Käsemann on Paul and early CatholicismIn researching for a final paper, I came across this incredible (and lengthy) excerpt, which nicely highlights Käsemann's insistence upon the primacy of christology above all else, which is never eclipsed by or contingent upon ecclesiology or anthropology:<br />
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"The theme 'Paul and early catholicism' catches sight of only a segment of that radical transformation which led to the ancient Church. However, this segment has paradigmatic significance. Here it becomes apparent that the nascent catholicism was the historically necessary outcome of an original Christianity whose apocalyptic expectation has not been fulfilled. It may likewise become clear that - expressed or not - the mark of nascent catholicism is the message about the world-pervading Church as the reality of the kingdom of Christ on earth. We have thus arrived at a perspective relative to the total problem and can now go on to test its accuracy once more in detail.<br />
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Against my exposition it will probably be objected that Paul himself already understood the Church as the world-pervading domain of Christ; this understanding did not begin with early catholicism. In itself, such an observation is completely accurate, as is shown by the Pauline motif of the Church as the body of Christ. But I do not agree with the reasoning behind it, which is my opinion isolates the phenomenon instead of locating it historically. I would like to reverse the process: That observation shows that the Pauline concept of the Church pave the way for the early catholic view. Just as the apostle prescribed for his successors the horizon of their mission, so he also presented them with the basic theme of their theology. He was not by any means assimilated into their salvation history solely as a prisoner of their illusions. They did not comprehend his distinctiveness, but they found something in his personal and theological legacy which illuminated their own reality. For the conception of the Church as the body of Christ is the adequate expression for a community which carries on a worldwide mission in the name of Christ. In this respect it far surpasses the other conceptions of the people of God and the family of God. It is not accidental that this conception has been carried over into the doctrine of the mystical body of Christ, and in the process was developed and modified, as is characteristic of catholicism generally. Its deepest theological significance, however, lay in the fact that it inseparably linked ecclesiology and christology together and thus made the Church an integral factor in the salvation event.<br />
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No where is this more apparent than in the letter to the Ephesians, which for that very reason has become the classical document for all doctrine concerning the Church. Here even the connection between ecclesiology and christology is given a sacramental basis, so that becoming a disciple of Jesus is no longer the basis but the consequence of being a Christian. The Church grows as it were out of baptism, and in the celebration of the Lord's Supper it is constantly reunited out of all the dispersion to which its members are subject in everyday life. The decisive factor here is that men do not act on their own but are passively joined to the salvation event. As the sole actor, Christ mediates himself to those for whom he died and over whom he chooses now to reign. The drama of salvation is not concluded with Easter. Rather, precisely for the sake of the Easter event, it has an earthly continuation, because the exalted one desires to manifest himself as Lord of the world. ...<br />
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Even this view can claim a precedent in Paul. He did in fact make the sacramental incorporation into the worldwide body of Christ the criterion of being a Christian, and thus rejected a mere historical or ethical connection with Jesus of Nazareth as this criterion. For him also the lordship of Christ on earth rests on the fact that the exalted Lord, present in the Church, binds his own to himself and to one another. By endowing them with the Spirit, he makes them capable of permeating the old world as the inbreaking of the new, following his own precedent, and thus of demonstrating his omnipotence in every place and time. ...<br />
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For [Paul], the sacrament grants no guarantee of salvation, but makes it possible the overcoming of the world effected by the Spirit through a faith under threat by the world. It therefore opens up the dialectic of Christian existence, which is both under temptation and determined by the Lord at the same time. The reality of the new life stands and falls with the promise that God remains faithful and does not abandon his handiwork. Therefore statements about the sacrament are paralleled, and in a certain way even paralysed, by others about the gospel or faith. The Church is the world under the promise and commandment of the heavenly Lord, the host of those placed under the word and<i> thus summoned ever anew to the exodus of the people of God. </i>This means that Christian existence is no manageable phenomenon within the bounds of a clearly defined cultic society, and the effect of the sacraments can not be described as formulas <i>ex opere operato</i>. For the Giver cannot be separated from his gift and, on the other hand, he is not identical with his means of salvation, but he remains Lord and Judge over and in his gifts.<br />
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<i>There is for Paul no extension of the earthly Jesus in the Church as the earthly deputy of the exalted one. It is just where he speaks of the body of Christ that christology and ecclesiology are not interchangeable. The Lord's domain manifests the Lord, but it does not stand in his stead and take possession of him. </i>The body is the field and instrument of the Spirit, not its substitute or its fetters. Paul is utterly misunderstood if one regards the primacy of Christ over his Church as meaning anything other than the exclusive lordship of Christ. If the Pauline motif is used in another sense, the apostle necessarily, though against his will, becomes the pioneer of early catholic Christianity."<br />
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- Ernst Käsemann, "Paul and Early Catholicism," in <i>New Testament Questions of Today</i>, 242-245, emphasis added.Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-46101419251253565042013-03-23T21:58:00.001-04:002013-03-23T22:43:20.697-04:00Racism and Sexism.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've been reading some essays by Delores S. Williams this week in response to James Cone's black liberation theology. Williams responds to Cone from a black womanist perspective, and I wish I could express how challenging her writings have been to read over the last couple of days. There is so much to say about Williams and her questions, concerns, critiques, and objections to black liberation theology despite her support of it. One can not read Williams and emerge unchanged in relation to her particular critiques of black liberation theology (or a general biblical hermeneutic of liberation). What I find particularly remarkable about Williams' critiques of Cone is that she makes him aware of how critical sexism is to the fight for liberation and the inherent interconnectedness of racism and sexism. The patriarchal subjugation of black women is not simply a secondary or minor issue that must be addressed within the black community, but rather an essential part of the black struggle against racism. These are some of the powerful questions she asks of Cone:<br />
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"It sounded good, indeed, to hear Cone say, 'If we black male theologians do not take seriously the need to incorporate into our theology a critique of our sexist practices in the black community, then we have no right to complain when white theologians snub black theology.' </blockquote>
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Yet when I paraphrased some of the quotations from Malcolm X and others that Cone used in the 1986 preface [of <i>A Black Theology of Liberation</i>], I was stunned by the kind of action intimated for black women struggling to be free of sexist oppression in the black community. I found myself asking: Could Cone affirm the action for black women that logically follows what he and Malcolm X say in the book? For instance, take this quote from Malcolm X that appeared in Cone's new preface: 'I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any time I have to accept a religion that won't let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion.' As a black womanist-feminist theologian, I paraphrase that quotation to say, 'Any time I have to accept a religion that won't let me fight a battle for oppressed black women, I say to hell with that religion.' Inasmuch as black Christian religion - manifested in the practice and theology of the black church - is often antagonistic to women's struggle for liberation, black Christian women could say, 'To hell with the black church and the black expression of Christian religion in it.' This could mean that the black church in America might cease to exist, since black women are its blood, bone, and sinew. If black women said 'to hell with the sexist black churches' and left them, thereby allow them to crumble, could Cone validate this action? Part of me wants to say he could; another part of me is uneasy, given the <i>absence</i> of black women's words of wisdom and advice from Cone's preface. All the inspiration, wisdom, and advice contained in the material Cone quotes comes from men like Malcolm X, and on occasion, W.E.B. DuBois and Martin Luther King. Not a single woman is named, quoted, or given credit for contributing to the transformations Cone says he had made in his thought and style in the last twenty years. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
My attention focused upon another quotation from Malcolm X cited by Cone in his new preface: 'Don't let anybody who is oppressing us ever lay the ground rules. Don't go by their games, don't play by their rules. Let them know now that this is a new game, and we've got some new rules...' Paraphrased within my womanist-feminist framework this quote reads: 'Don't let anybody who is oppressing black women ever lay the ground rules. Don't go by their games, don't play the game by their rules. Let them know now that this is a new game, and black women have got some new rules...' In the African American community the rules for 'the church game,' 'the political game,' 'the mating game,' and a host of other games have been determined by males. Should black women, 'by whatever means necessary,' destroy the male rules and inaugurate new games determined by black women's rules? Can the new consciousness about black sexism which Cone claims in the 1986 preface support such a power shift in the black church, in the seminaries where black men and women teach, and in the black community? And I wonder if Cone, who says 'I knew racism was a heresy,' would also agree that sexism is heresy? Part of me says he would." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Delores S. Williams, "James Cone's Liberation: Twenty Years Later," 190-191.</blockquote>
Cone responds to Williams' questions with an incredible amount of openness and sincerity. I was genuinely impressed with the type of receptivity that Cone displayed in his response in light of Williams' quite pointed and critical essay. While Cone admits that he has a long way to go and didn't quite "get it" before given his particular male perspective and experiences, he expresses a sincere desire to appropriate womanist concerns as an <i>essential</i> part of his theological trajectory instead of making or viewing sexism as some sort auxiliary concern. There is so much for all theologians to learn from this exchange between Williams and Cone. I'm thankful that I had the opportunity to read it.Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-43705996640082676522013-03-17T20:46:00.001-04:002013-03-17T21:22:02.905-04:00The Question of ViolenceI've been seriously wrestling with the question of violence (read: abstractly) since last fall when I first came to seminary. When I was a college student, I read Gandhi and King and told myself that I was a pacifist. Truth be told, there was nothing at stake to prevent me from embracing this conviction and it seemed at the time like the only option for one seriously seeking to follow in the way of Jesus. Somewhere along the line, I didn't explicitly reject pacifism, but it became more complicated than simply affirming the principles of non-violence embraced in my youthful idealism. The question of pacifism came up afresh in an ethics class I took here at Princeton Seminary last fall and I found myself resistant to embracing pacifism like I had in the past. I was surprised by my resistance to pacifism given my history and also because I'm not exactly a proponent of just-war as I can't imagine many situations where war can ever be labeled "justified." And call me unreasonable, but I prefer to live in peace and don't exactly revel in the violence of American society that devours the most vulnerable among us. However, my rejection of pacifism last fall was more indebted to my ever progressing understanding of the nature of ethics from a Barthian view rather than any sort of excitement for "justified violence" (again, as if there is such a thing). In short, it seems like pacifism is simply another ethical principle that one can embrace and therefore the human agent can know <i>in advance</i> what to do in any given situation. This necessarily means that the human agent does not need to remain open to the command of God ever anew in the present to discern what action should be taken. Pacifism at its core means that I have my principle of peace and, therefore, I already know exactly what God is calling me to do in the present moment of decision; act non-violently. This creates a sort of creaturely autonomy in relation to human action that functionally negates the need for the command of God in the present when it comes to the question of force/violence. As such, my Barthian sympathies in this respect kept me from embracing pacifism full-stop and led me to say that while the burden of proof is always and forever upon the use of any type of force, I must remain open to the command of God in the present to act in a type of way that might defy certain principles of pacifism.<br />
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But more than any commitment to Barth or anyone else's specific conception of Christian ethics, I also questioned whether or not my specific situation of privilege would make pacifism all too easy to embrace. It seems a bit too convenient to declare pacifism as a white person of privilege. And there seems to be something a bit problematic about telling those who are being devoured by systematic structures of racial, ethnic, and class oppression that I directly and indirectly benefit from and support that they should be peaceful and not use force to fight against such structures. Where would I ever stand to justify such prescriptive norms? And just when you get comfortable, you find a wrench in it all when you encounter someone like Bonhoeffer who declares himself to be a pacifist in order to remain faithful to the radical call to discipleship within Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and <i>then</i> he proceeded to use force in an act of faith against the enslaving and crushing powers of his time. But he neither justified this action nor said he knew with absolute certainty that this was the right or the good. Instead, he simply says that he did this in faith in the hopes that this is what it meant for him to be a faithful disciple in the present. You can sense Bonhoeffer's deep insecurity in his decision even in the midst of his resoluteness to act forcefully.<br />
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These questions of violence, ethics, the command of God, white privilege, and discipleship came up again this semester as I read James Cone. While some may argue that Cone doesn't have true pacifists in mind, his condemnation of whites who refuse to use violence and their judgment of blacks who use it is incredibly powerful. I still haven't been able to come to any sort of conclusion regarding what to say by way of response to Cone's charges as I stand somewhere in between denying pacifism as a principle (for the reasons I list above), always hoping to seek the way of non-violence and wanting to remain open to God's command in the present at all times. In the midst of my confusion and wrestling, I read an article by Paul Lehmann sent to me by a friend a few weeks ago. Lehmann is attempting to respond to Cone's recent work back in 1975 on black theology in an article entitled "Black Theology and 'Christian' Theology" (note: the title makes it seem as though Lehmann is using the conjunction to make a stark dichotomy between the two but he is not) and at the end, he responds to Cone's questions concerning the use of violence. I'm particularly interested in the last line referencing the shift from ethical justifications to "the apocalyptic sphere" and what Cone might say by way of response to the claim that the gospel moves the question of violence to the apocalyptic arena. It might be interesting to ask whether or not Bonhoeffer makes this shift himself to "the apocalyptic sphere" when he remains committed to the way of non-violence while simultaneously rejecting any justification for his forceful actions against the Third Reich carried out in the ever uncertainty of faith.<br />
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"In pressing the questions: 'Whose violence?' and 'Whose reconciliation?', Professor Cone has brought that question to a point from which it is possible to make a theological move which regrettably he does not make. The theological move is that the questions: 'Whose violence?' and 'Whose reconciliation?' lead directly to the recognition of the fundamental human reality of violence as man's radical inhumanity to man which only God's reconciliation can prevent and heal. The gospel is that people can be reconciled with one another only as they are reconciled to God; and when people are thus reconciled to God they give themselves in thought and word and deed to the empowerment of the poor, to the liberation of the oppressed, to the struggle against every dehumanizing dimension of human existence. Cone rightly declares that 'reconciliation means that people cannot be human ... unless the creatures of God are liberated from that which enslaves and is dehumanizing. In this same sentence, Cone writes that 'God cannot be God' unless the creature is liberated. But putting it this way involves Cone in am imprecision as regards the gospel which is analogous to the imprecision which Professor Moltmann expresses as regards violence and nonviolence. The gospel is that God <i>refuses</i> to be God without being reconciled to man and in this empowerment man is to be reconciled to his fellowman. Similarly, Moltmann, whom Cone quotes, rightly declares that 'the problem of violence and non-violence is an illusionary problem.' But one cannot say, as Moltmann then does, that 'there is only the question of the justified and unjustified use of force and the question of whether the means are proportionate to the ends.' It is because the gospel transposes the question of violence from the ethical to the apocalyptic sphere that it also deprives force of every justification, not least the one which illusorily seeks a proportionate relation of means to ends."<br />
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- Paul Lehmann, "Black Theology and 'Christian' Theology," 36-37Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-16432892085272624762013-03-11T18:03:00.003-04:002013-03-11T18:06:07.559-04:00Complete Insecurity.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"What is said about the content of discipleship? Follow me, walk behind me! That is all. Going after him is something without specific content. It is truly not a program for one's life which would be sensible to implement. It is neither a goal nor an ideal to be sought. It is not even a matter for which, according to human inclination, it would be worth investing anything at all, much less oneself. And what happens? Those called leave everything they have, not in order to do something valuable. Instead, they do it simply for the sake of the call itself, because otherwise they could not walk behind Jesus. Nothing of importance is attached to this action in itself. It remains something completely insignificant, unworthy of notice. The bridges are torn down, and the followers simply move ahead. They are called away and are supposed to "step out" of their previous existence, they are supposed to "exist" in the strict sense of the word. Former things are left behind; they are completely given up. The disciple is thrown out of the relative security of life into complete insecurity (which in truth is absolute security and protection in community with Jesus); our of the foreseeable and calculable realm (which in truth is unreliable) into the completely unforeseeable, coincidental realm (which in truth is the only necessary and reliable one); out of the realm of possibilities (which in truth is that of unlimited possibilities) into the realm of unlimited possibilities (which in truth is the only liberating reality). Yet that is not a general law; it is, rather, the exact opposite of all legalism. Again, it is nothing other than being bound to Jesus Christ alone. This means completely breaking through anything preprogrammed, idealistic, or legalistic. No further content is possible because Jesus is the only content. There is no other content besides Jesus. He himself is it."<br />
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- Bonhoeffer, <i>Discipleship</i>, 59.<br />
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Truth be told, I was a bit nervous and afraid to read <i>Discipleship</i>. I knew that whatever agreements or disagreements I had with the text, it would disrupt my life in unwanted ways. Disruption, I think, is the best word to describe this book. And for whatever Bonhoeffer came to say later in his life about the dangers of this book (and there are many), what he says within its pages are still really important.<br />
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The truth of this one line has been really apparent for me as of late. Bonhoeffer writes that the life of discipleship is one of "complete insecurity." And most of us have our own conceptions of what that "complete insecurity" looks like. I have realized through my own life and personal theological struggles just how far down that "complete insecurity" goes. It can be quite unsettling to realize just how "complete" that insecurity is when you follow the call. Because where on earth is there to turn for security when Jesus Christ is the only content for the Gospel and the call to discipleship? Where can this Gospel and call be "plugged in" for the sake of verification or some other form of stability? It exists and is "suspended in mid-air" as Barth would say. You can't plug it into the Church, the tradition, the social program, the Bible, or some other apologetic to confirm its truth. You simply find yourself confessing and following.<br />
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To be quite honest, when I'm confronted with that "complete insecurity" that Bonhoeffer talks about, I don't find the same type of absolute security and protection that he mentions, which is found only in Jesus Christ himself. What I'm finding lately is yet another mode or means of security that I must dispossess in order to be faithful to the call of discipleship. I just continue to find my own desire for security in another form. For instance, it is no secret that I have become quite interested in apocalyptic theology over the past few years. But I've discerned that even disruption or the radical unstable nature of the Gospel becomes another mode of possession that ends up being an end in itself. While I believe that the Gospel of grace is disruptive to nature's very core, even disruption, instability, and radicalness for its own sake must be dispossessed. Do you know what that looks like? Because I haven't the faintest idea. Bonhoeffer says it looks like Jesus Christ himself alone. Does the fact that I don't have any idea what that means reveal that I'm radically missing his point?<br />
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As I've been asking these questions about the nature of discipleship lately, I'm finding the call (and great struggle) to abandon all forms of control that surface in the most subtle of ways. When I study theology, I'm studying how to be faithful in my words and thoughts and actions to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And yet, I'm learning that all of my words and thoughts and actions are so incredibly bound up with the Sin and Death that reigns in this world that I'm unsure of the truth of my own words and thoughts and actions even as I try to be faithful. And I'm learning that even my attempts to be faithful are usually faithless and that any faithfulness is nothing but a complete miracle. But somehow I'm "called" to forfeit this desire for security in my own words and thoughts and actions and only find security in not even the call itself, but only the person of Jesus Christ alone. And to be honest, once again, I'm finding that I have no idea what that really means or what that really looks like. I'm learning that the hardest thing about this whole call to discipleship that no one tells you about is that we always and continually lose sight of the reality that "there is no other content besides Jesus." Because the content isn't some program, system, principle, or some insecurity, instability or disruption or even the act of being a disciple itself. Somehow Bonhoeffer wants the reader to know that the content is only Jesus Christ. In myself, I have no idea what that means. But I pray for the grace and mercy to confess no other content besides Jesus himself.Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-2889712416606873872013-03-03T20:53:00.001-05:002013-03-03T22:16:44.833-05:00The Church and Divine Action<div class="tr_bq">
When I read George Lindbeck's <i>The</i> <i>Nature of Doctrine </i>last term,<i> </i>one of my many concerns was that he did not (and could not?) account for divine action. It was not simply Lindbeck's lack of mentioning or discussing divine action that troubled me when he talked about "the church" and "ecclesial practices," but rather his insistence upon the immanent nature of the Christian "religion." I wondered if it was not merely, like Healy says about Hauerwas in the article referenced below, that divine action, the Word, and pneumatology are presupposed. Rather, it becomes a question of Lindbeck's work whether or not certain conceptions of ecclesiology functionally negates the need for divine action entirely. And ecclesial notions that eliminate divine action involve a host of concerns for me namely the failure to attend to the ever-present need for the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God into our present age that is enslaved to the powers. In his essay entitled, "Karl Barth's Ecclesiology Reconsidered," Nicholas M. Healy discusses the same sort of ecclesial trend I just mentioned that is taken up by Hauerwas as well to whatever extent. While I have not personally engaged with the works of Hauerwas as much as other "postliberal" theologians, I thought that this excerpt nicely highlights the concerns Barth would hold in relation to the current ecclesiologies that I have also found problematic specifically for its "lack of attention to God's action in our midst." </div>
<blockquote>
"One gets the impression from <i>With the Grain of the Universe</i> as well as from his other writings that for Hauerwas, Christianity is fundamentally about living within a particular narrative, about being trained and formed so that one acquires Christian dispositions and thus a character that conforms to that narrative, all with a view to embodying the politics of Jesus, a politics that counters the liberal democratic politics of the USA. Hauerwas focuses his attention on the concrete church because it is there that the gospel is displayed in the lives of Christians. The church is discussed in terms of its practices and doctrines, in terms, that is, of human action and thought. And the church is at the center of Hauerwas’s theology. He spends far less time on the doctrines of the Word and the Spirit that make our witness and politics possible, though, to be sure, it is always clear that the person and work of Jesus Christ and the activity of the Holy Spirit are presupposed. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
This (relative) lack of attention to God’s action in our midst might well have been something that Barth would have brought up in his response to Hauerwas. For as Barth understood the matter, a Christian theological description of anything requires at some point a well-rounded account of the difference the activity of God makes, in both Word and Spirit. Hauerwas’s appropriation of social philosophies like those of Wittgenstein and MacIntyre over against Kant and his theological followers has been extraordinarily fruitful, making his work a truly prophetic force within the contemporary church. I suspect, though, that while Barth might have approved, he would say that the difference God makes to the church needs to be made clearer. It remains unclear what difference the Word and the Spirit’s active presence might make to descriptions of the church’s being and life that are couched in social-philosophical categories like ‘virtue’ and ‘narrative’. </blockquote>
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To be sure, Barth himself notes an example or two of special ethics done very successfully without the initial general ethics (CD 3/4, p. 4), and the same point surely applies to ecclesiology. But accounts of the concrete church and the activities of its members developed in varying degrees of independence from well-rounded accounts of more central doctrines seem in recent years have come to be more the rule than the exception. Barth might ask of Hauerwas and of those who follow his lead whether in their laudable – and quite reasonable – effort to recover an ecclesial politics, they have not veered a bit too far towards presenting – and, in some cases, maybe even thinking of? – the church, the Christian life and its forms and institutions, as an ‘end in itself’? And is this question, however it be answered,not made possible by what amount to largely theologically neutral accounts of the church and of human action within it? And when one writes of the church and human action with little or no reference to divine action, is it not all too easy to end up supporting a view of the church that will be reductive and thereby in some aspects in effect anti-Christian, in spite of good intentions to the contrary? For to omit or de-emphasize the primary constitutive element of the church – God’s action in Word and Spirit – is, Barth would say, to construct an abstract ecclesiology. It is to talk about the Scheinkirche, the church in its non-theological appearance, rather than what is truly the church (KD 4/2, p. 698; CD 4/2, p. 617)." </blockquote>
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- Nicholas M. Healy, "Karl Barth's Ecclesiology Revisited," 295-296.</blockquote>
Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-67914089568553542992013-02-12T10:50:00.003-05:002013-02-12T10:50:55.387-05:00Who is Christ?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm reading Bonhoeffer's Christology lectures this week for a presentation while also attempting to finish some James Cone reading for today's class on his Christology. I have enjoyed reading the Christology of Bonhoeffer and Cone simultaneously since I'm finding a lot of continuity between them. Both theologians are attempting to answer "Who is Christ?" for us here and now within contemporary society. Any Christology remains insufficient if it fails to answer the question of Christ <i>pro me </i>especially for Cone who emphasizes the need for liberation from oppression in the present. It was fascinating to read that both theologians agree in giving priority to the in-breaking of divine revelation that establishes and makes possible the question of "Who is Jesus" instead of this question becoming the precondition for faith. But more than this, I appreciated that for both men, the confrontation with divine revelation in Jesus Christ is the difference between life and death. This confrontation is the difference between liberation and oppression. Nothing but the the God-human in Jesus Christ in-breaking into this present situation of our life here and now will be sufficient to offer hope for humanity. Sometimes I ask myself what is the point of reading this or that theological work. But Bonhoeffer and Cone remind me that something is truly at stake in theology. Part of what is at stake in all of this is the very flourishing and liberation of humanity from the Sin and Death that reigns in the world that brings nothing but oppression under the weight of the powers of racism, classism, sexism, etc. And that vision, that understanding that something is at stake, really encourages me to keep pursuing this theological task. But enough from me. These are some great excerpts from Bonhoeffer and Cone that highlights important points of christological continuity (warning: the Bonhoeffer quote is a bit lengthy, but I couldn't justify shortening it):</div>
<blockquote>
"But what does all this mean in concrete terms? Human beings today still cannot get around the figure of Jesus Christ. They have to deal with him. Take Socrates and Goethe, for example. It may be that our education depends on the confrontation with these two. But on our confrontation with Jesus depend life and death, salvation and damnation. From an outside point of view, this is not understandable. It is from the church that we learn that the sentence on which everything depends is this: "There is salvation in no one else." The encounter with Jesus has a different cause than does the encounter with Socrates and Goethe. One can get past the person of Goethe, because he is dead. [The encounter with Jesus Christ is different.] The attempts to face up to this encounter and at the same time avoid it are thousandfold. </blockquote>
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For example, in the world of the proletariat Christ may appear to be as finished off as the church and bourgeois society as a whole. There seems to be no occasion for giving Jesus a qualified place. The church is the stultifying institution that sanctions the capitalist system. But this is not the case. The proletariat actually disassociates Jesus from his church and its religion. <i>When the proletariat says that Jesus is a good human being, it means more than the bourgeoisie means when it says that Jesus is God. </i>Jesus is present in factory halls as a worker among workers, in politics as the perfect idealist, in the life of the proletariat as a good human being. He stands beside members of the proletariat as a fighter in their ranks against the capitalist enemy. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Dostoyevsky portrays the idiot as a Christ figure. The idiot does not isolate himself, but he is awkward and gives offense. He associates not with the powerful but rather with children, who like him. He is mocked, and he is loved. He is the fool, and he is the wise one. He is the one who bears all things and forgives all things. He is the revolutionary, and also the one who goes along with everything. He is the one who, through no intent of his own, calls attention to himself by his very existence, so that the question pops up again and again, Who are you? Are you an idiot, or Jesus Christ himself? ... </blockquote>
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Here in the end we also have the question, Who are you really? So Jesus Christ passes through our time , through different stations and occupations in life, always being asked anew, Who are you? and yet always, when some person is aware of having confronted this question, being killed anew. These are all attempts to be finished with Christ. <i>Even theologians do the same. </i>Everywhere the Son of Man is betrayed with the kiss of Judas. Wanting to be finished with Christ means that now and then we kill him, crucify him, commit shameful acts against him, kneel before him with the scornful and say, "Greetings, Rabbi!" </blockquote>
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There are only two possibilities when a human being confronts Jesus: the human being must either die or kill Jesus. Thus the question, Who are you? remains ambiguous. It can also be the question of those who realize, as soon as they ask the question, that they themselves are meant by it, and instead of hearing the answer, hear the question in return: Who then are you? Only then is it the question of those judged by Jesus. The "who question" can only be asked of Jesus by those who know that it is being asked of them. But then it is not the human beings who are finished with Jesus, but rather Jesus who is finished with them. Strictly speaking, the "who question" can be asked only within the context of faith, and there is will receive its answer. As long as the christological question is one asked by our logos, it always remains within the ambiguity of the "how question." But as soon as it stands within the act of faith, it becomes a form of knowledge, which has the possibility of posing the 'who question'." </blockquote>
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- Bonhoeffer, "Lectures on Christology," 306-307, emphasis added. </blockquote>
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"We ask "Who is Jesus Christ for us today?" because we believe that the story of his life and death is the answer to the human story of oppression and suffering. <i>If our existence were not at stake, if we did not experience the pain and contradictions of life, then the christological question would be no more than an intellectual exercise for professional theologians. </i>But for Christians who have experienced the extreme absurdities of life, the christological question is not primarily theoretical but practical. It arises from the encounter with Christ in the struggle for freedom. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
The question, "Who is Christ?" is not prior to faith, as if the answer to the christological question is the precondition of faith. Rather, our question about Christ is derived from Christ himself as he breaks into our social existence, establishing the truth of freedom in our midst. This divine event of liberation places us in a new sociopolitical context wherein we are given the gift of faith for the creation of a new future for ourselves and for humanity. It is because we have encountered Christ in our historical situation and have been given the faith to struggle for truth that we are forced to inquire about the meaning of this truth for the totality of human existence." </blockquote>
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- James Cones, <i>God of the Oppressed</i>, 100, emphasis added.</blockquote>
Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-36831692051123505922013-01-28T21:52:00.001-05:002013-01-28T21:53:45.996-05:00Bonhoeffer and the Ultimate Invisibility of the Church.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I started reading Bonhoeffer's <i>Sanctorum Communio</i> for a seminar I am taking this term. I was troubled by the direct, exclusive, and necessary connection Bonhoeffer makes between Christ and the church in order to have any human connection to God. For various reasons, I find that this assertion has incredibly problematic implications if "the church" in this account is thought of or formulated in terms of visibility instead of an eschatological reality that is never in hand. My friend, Ry Siggelkow, sent me a paper that he wrote concerning Hauerwas' particular appropriation of Bonhoeffer for his own ecclesial project that emphasizes reading Bonhoeffer's claims in terms of such ecclesial visibility. In the end, I think Ry's paper persuasively offers a possible alternative reading of Bonhoeffer that escapes certain problems in thinking Christology as collapsed into or through ecclesiology. I thought the following excerpt was incredibly well-written and quite succinctly addresses the very concerns that I have with reading Bonhoeffer in the way that he could be read in terms of the visibility of the church as the sole locus for humanity's connection to God:<br />
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I want to be clear, from the outset, that my primary concern is not to establish that Hauerwas gets Bonhoeffer “wrong,” for, in the end, I am uninterested in contributing to the exercise of whether we finally get Bonhoeffer “right.” What is at stake here is not this or that interpretation or even our reception of Bonhoeffer today, but rather our faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the extent to which we are faithful to our commission to proclaim and witness to the gospel in the world. I will focus here on Hauerwas’s interpretation of Bonhoeffer and his ecclesiology because he is one influential example of a trend in recent ecclesiology to retrieve the “visibility” of the church by way of an emphasis on the ways in which the church’s “concrete practices” and its lived culture are in themselves intrinsically and directly “public” and “political.” Such accounts usually begin by stressing the extent to which the modern liberal order has sequestered faith to the “private realm” and thus made “faith” and by extension the “church’s witness” an invisible a-political and a-social reality. Such accounts observe that prior to the rise and dominance of modern political formations, the visible church was understood as a “public in its own right,” a fully visible polis wherein its concrete “empirical” practices (its liturgical rites, works of mercy, i.e. the church’s peculiar “economics,” institutional configuration, etc) were inseparable from its political life. What is needed, according to Hauerwas and others (to mention just a few who work from this line of thought—Reinhard Hütter, D. Stephen Long, and James K.A. Smith), is a retrieval of a proper understanding of the church’s visibility vis-à-vis secular political liberalism. Such retrieval, we are told, is the only way by which we can, once again, begin to think the church as a truly visible socio-political reality. It seems to me that more work must be done to interrogate the ways in which the gospel itself has too often, in recent ecclesiology, been instrumentalized in the service of a cultural-political production. For what is at stake with regard to this understanding of the church’s visibility is finally a question of the <i>dogmatic</i> basis of the church itself, and the extent to which we allow the one true <i>dogma</i>—the <i>doxa</i> of God revealed in Christ—to determine our thinking about the church’s visibility. What is often overlooked are the ways in which the doctrinal, in these accounts, are too often cultural-linguistically determined at the expense of this dogmatic basis. Dogma, and dogmatics, as Bonhoeffer defines it in his Berlin Christology lectures, must always and only be the singular <i>apocalypse</i> of God in Jesus Christ, which while including our “hiddenness” with Christ in God, refuses to reduce Christ into a mere doctrine by which we are inducted into a culture.</blockquote>
Ry O. Siggelkow, "On the Invisibility of the Church: Bonhoeffer Against Hauerwas," 4-6.Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-40346275862246416072013-01-27T15:02:00.004-05:002013-01-27T15:04:11.314-05:00James Cone on LiberalsI couldn't help but sit back in my seat and pause for a moment when I read these powerful words. I haven't read anything this striking in months.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The liberal, then, is one who sees 'both sides' of the issue and shies away from 'extremism' in any form. He wants to change the heart of the racist without ceasing to be his friend; he wants progress without conflict. Therefore, when he sees blacks engaging in civil disobedience and demanding 'Freedom Now,' he is disturbed. Black people know who the enemy is, and they are forcing the liberal to take sides. But the liberal wants to be a friend, that is, enjoy the rights and privileges pertaining to whiteness and also work for the 'Negro.' <i>He wants change without risk, victory without blood</i>. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The liberal white man is a strange creature; he verbalizes the right things. He intellectualizes on the racial problem beautifully. He roundly denounces racists, conservatives, and the moderately liberal. Sometimes, in rare moments and behind closed doors, he will even defend Rap Brown or Stokely Carmichael. Or he may go so far as to make the statement: 'I will let my daughter marry one,' and this is supposed to be the absolute evidence that he is raceless. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But he is still white to the very core of his being. What he fails to realize is that there is no place for him in this war of survival. Blacks do not want his patronizing, condescending words of sympathy. They do not need his concern, his 'love,' his money. It is that which dehumanizes; it is that which enslaves. Freedom is what happens to a man on the inside; it is what happens to a man's being. It has nothing to do with voting, marching, picketing, or rioting - though all may be manifestations of it. No man can give me freedom or 'help' me get it. A man is free when he can determine the style of his existence in an absurd world; a man is free when he sees himself for what he is and not as others define him. He is free when he determines the limites of his existence. And in this sense Sartre is right: 'Man is freedom'; or, better yet, man 'is condemned to be free.' A man is free when he accepts the responsibility for his own acts and knows that they involve not merely himself but all men. No one can 'give' or 'help get' freedom in that sense. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In this picture the liberal can find no place. His favorite question when backed against the wall is "What can I do?" One is tempted to reply, like Malcolm X did to the white girl who asked the same question, "Nothing." What the liberal really means is, 'What can I do and still receive the same privileges as other whites <i>and</i> - this is the key - be liked by Negroes?' Indeed the only answer is "Nothing." However, there are place in the Black Power picture for "radicals," that is, for men, white or black, who are prepared to risk life for freedom. There are places for the John Browns, men who hate evil and refuse to tolerate it anywhere."</blockquote>
- James Cone, <i>Black Theology and Black Power</i>, 28.<br />
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Cone's words about what accounts for true radicals reminds me of a clip I saw a few days ago of Cornel West on Bill Maher where another panelist accused him of offering mere "beautiful soundbites" in his rejection of American corporate greed. West nearly jumped over the table when he replied, "It is not a soundbite when I give my life for it!"<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/m2Bdu-K9wVE" width="560"></iframe>Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-14920920884234234992013-01-03T16:13:00.001-05:002013-01-03T16:22:27.180-05:00Revelation and Discipleship.In an attempt to channel my procrastination into something useful, I finally located Philip Ziegler's article entitled "Dietrich Bonhoeffer - An Ethics of God's Apocalypse?" I thought this was really quite helpful and so well-written:<br />
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"As such, revelation is not chiefly a cognitive affair, a matter of teaching believers to “consider the world differently.” For the achievement of reconciliation is the inauguration of a wholly new human situation. Paul’s talk of the human situation set to rights as <span class="s1">“<i>new creation</i></span>” (Gal. 6:14; 2 Cor. 5:17) signals the radical discontinuity between human captivity to sin and the gift of a restored relationship with God, something manifest in the “apocalyptic antinomies” of spirit and flesh, light and dark, old and new that populate the New Testament. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As an advocate for this new creation, the gospel is not mere reportage, but brings to bear “the power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1:18; 1 Cor. 1:18). Yet, it is testimony; a telling of the “good news” that human captivity to sin is ended by God’s graciously powerful rescue; the declaration that God has vindicated his name since “all the promises of God find their ‘Yes’ in [Christ]” (2 Cor. 1:20). As such, the gospel involves knowledge of God’s self-disclosure in Christ, albeit knowledge made strange by its being implicated in salvation. As Paul says he no longer knows of Christ in terms of the old situation (“according to the flesh”) but only in light of the new (“according to the cross”). Yet he does <span class="s1"><i>know</i></span>. Reconciliation thus <span class="s1">is </span>revelation. </blockquote>
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If the identification of revelation and reconciliation in this way is a first hallmark of Paul’s apocalyptic discourse, a second is its claim that evangelical talk is talk of <span class="s1"><i>reality</i></span>. The gospel speaks of what has taken place, and of the state of affairs that God’s “<span class="s1"><i>incursion</i></span>” for sinners’ sake has <span class="s1"><i>actually</i> </span>brought about. We have already noted that what matters supremely in this gospel is “God’s decision and deed in Jesus Christ,” the uncontigent gift of the new creation (Gal. 6:15). Now we are alerted to the fact that those who hear its message are always already implicated in that of which it speaks. The logic of the apocalyptic gospel is thus never one of <span class="s1"><i>possibility</i>—</span>neither of “if . . . then”, nor of an offer to be realized only upon its acceptance.<span class="s2"> </span>Nor is it an <span class="s1"><i>idea</i> </span>in need of embodiment in the world. Even when put in the mode of promise, accent falls upon the reality of God’s saving activity deciding the day (cf. Phil. 1:6). So, for example, Martyn restates the primary message of Galatians simply as, “‘<span class="s1"><i>God has done it!</i></span>’, to which there are two echoes: ‘You are to live it out!’ and ‘You are to live it out <span class="s1"><i>because</i> </span>God has done it<i> </i><span class="s1"><i>and</i> </span>because God will do it!’.”<span class="s2"> </span>Such a gospel, as Martinus de Boer says, “has little or nothing to do with a decision human beings must make, but everything to do with a decision God has already made on their behalf”, and identified with God’s enactment of salvation in Christ.<span class="s2"> </span>Reconciliation is real, and so God’s gracious justification establishes our “true position in the world” without awaiting our permission.<span class="s2"> </span>The Christian community together with the world as a whole is set in the time between God’s “having done” and “will do,” between <span class="s1"><i>apocalypse</i> </span>and <span class="s1"><i>parousia</i></span>. </blockquote>
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In sum, Paul’s apocalyptic gospel announces the vindication of God in the wayward world by the decisive incursion of his gracious and powerful presence to judge and so to save. Jesus Christ <span class="s1">is </span>this act of God. The scope of this act encompasses all things: there is “no reserve of space or time or concept or aspect of creation outside of, beyond or undetermined by the critical, decisive and final action of God in Jesus Christ.”<span class="s2"> </span>Christian life and thought take place firmly in the wake of “<span class="s1">God’s </span>crisis which has overtaken and overturned the world as it is" (581-582).</blockquote>
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There is something really extraordinary about this cosmic vision that continues to fascinate me. Even more, I find the notion that this apocalypse of God in Jesus Christ is not primarily "a cognitive affair" to be incredibly provocative. Instead, this revelation is the reconciliation of the cosmos to Godself. This move away from the cognitive dimensions of the Christian faith that become the primary focus is quite unsettling and refreshing to hear. But what do we make of this? What are the implications for Ziegler's assertions here?</div>
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These questions become all the more important in light of this line: "As such, the gospel involves knowledge of God’s self-disclosure in Christ, albeit knowledge made strange by its being implicated in salvation." What knowledge is made strange in the revelation of God? Any knowledge we think that we have about God previous to the revelation of cross and resurrection? Or does this also implicate the very knowledge we think we might have of God in the cross and resurrection itself? </div>
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I think all of this comes to greater focus in another article recently published by Ziegler entitled "Christ Must Reign: Ernst Käsemann and Soteriology in an Apocalyptic Key" where he says that "because Christians most fundamentally belong to their Lord, their very existence is conscripted into the service of making his lordship manifest. It is line of exposition makes discipleship the primary category by which to understand the Christian life, as the only self-understanding available to disciples of the Crucified One “arises from the act of following,” and not from any idea" (212-213). Thus, the Christian life does not become "a cognitive affair" of such in which we have ideas about God that must be made known in the world. Rather, the Christian life is essentially revolutionized to be about discipleship of the Crucified Lord into the depths of this world. Ironically enough, I think even the task of theology (and writing blogposts) becomes a bit awkward and called into question as discipleship is simply following rather than considering and assessing the cross and resurrection from some critical distance.</div>
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Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-42846057086587417652013-01-02T15:39:00.001-05:002013-01-02T15:57:44.061-05:00It's About God.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I found this excerpt from a sermon at Fleming Rutledge's <a href="http://www.generousorthodoxy.org/sermons/a-sermon-for-the-ordination-of-jack-gilpin.aspx">blog </a>this afternoon and I really appreciated it:<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The senior professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, Beverly Gaventa, was a student at Union Theological Seminary, where Jack studied, at the same time that I was. When I saw her again at Princeton a few years ago, I asked her what she was working on, and she said she was writing a commentary on the Book of Acts. Knowing that Acts has been called “the most disputed book in the New Testament,” I asked her somewhat warily, “What approach to Acts will you be taking?” I was thinking of stuff like, is it historically trustworthy? what about its depiction of Paul? what sort of community was it written for? is it Jewish or Hellenistic? what genre is it? and so forth. What’s your angle on Acts?<br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Professor Gaventa said something revolutionary. She said, “It’s about God.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s about God. In other words, the Acts of the Apostles is misnamed. It’s not about the actions of the apostles. It is about the actions of God. Now this may seem obvious to you, but it isn’t. More often than not, the Bible isn’t taught today as if it were about God. It’s taught as a repository of human religious thinking. It’s presented as an interesting and important document about human spiritual development. It’s treated as a collection of human imaginings about God. But this is precisely what the Bible is not. The Bible demands to be understood as the revelation of the one true God who is really God. This doesn’t have to be believed, of course, but it requires that we hear it the way it means to be heard, whether we believe it or not. It means to be understood as the Word of God. Not the dictated-directly-from-heaven Word, to be sure, but the true and living Word of God nonetheless."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Whatever could be amended or qualified regarding the nature of Scripture as "the" revelation of God is not what is important here. What's important is <i>how</i> the Bible is read. And for Rutledge, the Bible witnesses to divine action, not primarily to human action.)</span></div>
Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-15067199612641911102013-01-01T16:46:00.004-05:002013-01-01T16:56:15.115-05:00Lindbeck's "The Nature of Doctrine" I have been reading <i>The Nature of Doctrine</i> by George Lindbeck very closely for a final paper this term. There seems to be no shortage of questions that I'm asking of this text. I think this is due in part to the problematic <i>implications</i> of what is being said here from my own perspective. This semester, I took courses in Barth's Romans commentary, feminist/womanist theology, missional theology, and this postliberal reading course. Many of these questions are the direct product of personal questions that have surfaced through taking all of these courses at the same time. So in an attempt to think out loud, I figured I would write out a quote from Lindbeck and put some questions up that have been important to me in hopes that others might help me find answers (or move towards answers):<br />
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"The novelty of rule theory, we must next observe, is that it does not locate the abiding and doctrinally significant aspect of religion in propositionally formulated truths, much less in inner experiences, but in the story it tells and in the grammar that informs the way the story is told and used. From a cultural-linguistic perspective, it will be recalled, a religion is first of all a comprehensive interpretive medium or categorical framework within which one has certain kinds of experiences and makes certain kinds of affirmations. In the case of Christianity, the framework is supplied by the biblical narratives interrelated in certain specified ways (e.g., by Christ as center). ...<br />
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Even more than the grammar in grammar books, church doctrine is an inevitably imperfect and often misleading guide to the fundamental interconnections within a religion. In part, this is because every formulated rule has more exceptions than the grammarians and the theologians are aware of. Some rules may reflect temporary features of surface grammar or may even be arbitrary impositions ... The deep grammar of the language may escape detection. It may be impossible to find rules that show why some crucial usages are beautifully right and other dangerously wrong. The experts must on occasion bow to the superior wisdom of the competent speaker who simply knows that such and such is right or wrong even though it violates the rules they have formulated. Yet, despite these inadequacies, the guidance offered by the grammar or the doctrine of the textbooks may be indispensable, especially to those who are learning a language, to those who have not mastered it well, or to those who, for whatever reason, are in danger of corrupting it into meaninglessness" (80-82).<br />
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I am going to outline my questions and concerns as follows:<br />
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1. I want to be as fair and charitable as possible in my questions so I will make this crucial note: Lindbeck says repeatedly that this is a theory of religion rather than a theological account of Christianity. But given how many Christians find theological resources from Lindbeck's work, I think these are crucial questions to be asking in my own education for the sake of theological discourse today.<br />
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2. Is the "abiding and significant aspect of religion" located in "the story it tells" and in "the grammar" used? What would it mean to say that the essential meaning of the Christian faith lies in human stories and language? How can we ever be confident that these words and stories are not projections of the human subject or the collection of individuals in a community? How can it ever be proclaimed that the God preached in these stories and through our language is not a god made in human images if these stories and words are the primary essence of the Christian religion? Even more, is the confession that Jesus is Lord in the cross and resurrection a "religion" (i.e. human practices, systems of knowledge, etc.) of sorts or rather the confession through discipleship of unmitigated divine action for the sake of the world? It remains uncertain what is meant when we say the word "religion" in relation to the confession that Jesus is Lord. Religion seems to be, at least primarily, about <i>humanity</i> and not about God. <br />
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3. I am concerned more by what is not said than by what is said in these pages. There seems to be a lack of <i>theological</i> speech about the Gospel in that through the cross and resurrection, <i>God </i>has been revealed in Jesus Christ. And that same God is made known to the individual and the community of believers through the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit by faith, not primarily through the inculturation of Christian symbols, language, and religious grammar. And the primary mode of "being a Christian" after the God revealed in Jesus Christ is not so much understood through the lens of <i>discipleship </i>in abandonment to the forgotten of this world, but rather as maintaining and perfecting the religious practices of one's particular ecclesial community. Thus, the direction is always back to the church or the religious community, rather than following as disciples of Jesus Christ into the world for the sake of the world, not the church. How does this not then ultimately become about the Church securing power and visibility in the world by being over and against the world?<br />
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4. I remain concerned regarding the notion of grammar, rules, and who is deemed as the "experts" or those who are "competent" within the religious community. It seems that within the history of the Christian church, those who were such experts and competent learners in the religious language of the day were usually those with power who oppressed and marginalized those who were not male and white. For me, this is fundamentally an issue of power and who gets to speak and who doesn't. Even more, what does this mean for the cause of mission? Must those who come to confess the lordship of Christ be skilled and perfected in the language of grammar before they can be heard? And since Lindbeck wants to say that the categorical framework for the Christian faith is the biblical narratives, what do we do with those narratives that might actually lead to justifying the oppression and subjugation of those who don't have power?<br />
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5. Finally, as I read Barth's <i>Romerbrief </i>again this semester, I wondered what it means to take these words seriously and not as sheer reactionary hyperbole:<br />
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"To suppose that a direct road leads from art, or morals, or science, or even from religion, to God is sentimental, liberal self-deception. Such roads lead directly to the Church, to Churches, and to all kinds of religious communities. ... Only when the end of the blind alley of ecclesiastical humanity has been reached is it possible to raise radically and seriously the problem of God" (Romans, 337).</blockquote>
I take Barth's point to be that this sort of rule theory of religion fails to account for the utter crisis that humanity finds itself in that there is no point from humanity or no human possibility to reach God that can be created through the human side. And the climax of such human possibilities is manifested in the church and ecclesiastical communities. Can this theory of religion genuinely account for not only this crisis of humanity in relation to the Otherness of God, but also the radical in-breaking of revelation that occurs in the cross and resurrection? Does the rule theory account for the reality that we are continually in this state of helplessness since revelation does not occur once but must happen again and again? Is the emphasis upon the visible practices of the ecclesial community the practical manifestation of lacking such expectancy for God to continue to act in the world?Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-77237268365442260152012-12-10T21:41:00.002-05:002012-12-10T21:45:31.957-05:00Discipleship and pistis ChristouAs I've been researching for one of my final papers, I came across a section in Charles Cousar's <i>The Letters of Paul</i> that discusses the more recent trend in biblical scholarship to define <i>pistis Christou </i>as<i> "</i>faith of Christ" instead of "faith in Christ." The latter was the chosen translation of the Reformation so that "Christ" became the object of faith. Thus, the Reformers understood Paul to be "calling for trust in Christ rather than the carrying out of the law's commandments," which was entailed in the doctrine of justification by faith (130). In this revised reading of <i>pistis Christou</i>, "believers are justified not by their believing but by Jesus Christ's faithfulness in fulfilling God's redemptive purposes" (130). In anticipation that some might think replacing the preposition "in" with "of" means denying the importance of faith, Cousar offers three points defending why he believes this is not the case. In these three points, Cousar sees a reorientation of what faith means rather than the nullification of faith:<br />
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1. The essence of Paul's understanding of the Gospel supports the notion that "the salvation of 'those who believe' depends not on their knowing or believing but on the action of Jesus Christ who fulfills God's purpose. To put it another way, human faith is not the precondition for receiving God's grace, but the responding "Yes" to a grace <i>already given</i> in the Christ event" (131, emphasis added).<br />
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2. Human faith is not so much a response of the individual as much as "<i>participation </i>in the faithful obedience of Jesus. Believers claim their solidarity with him in his death, including fidelity to his divine vocation" (131). As far as I can tell, Cousar is not defining participation as some mystical union with Christ so that the individual believer is ontologically changed or somehow now shares in the divine nature of Jesus Christ. Participation is more in terms of sharing in the sufferings of Christ as an act of obedience that is carried out through the life of discipleship.<br />
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3. I found this point to be the most interesting. The response of the individual is "defined by the faith <i>of </i>Jesus. The Reformation understanding ("faith in Christ") has often resulted in a faith that is pure passivity, a "non-thing" that seeks only to avoid any taint of works. Jesus' faith, however, provides a pattern of response to grace that is active and aggressive, that risks much and becomes vulnerable to suffering. The believing community is drawn into the pattern of Jesus' faith ('conformed to the image of his Son' [Rom 8:39]), which is much more than the renunciation of works. Thus for Paul a bridge is built from justification to ethics" (131). Instead of negating the importance of faith, Cousar believes that the translation of <i>pistis Christou</i> actually opens up the individual and the community of believers to radical discipleship. And this takes the form of conformity to the image of Jesus Christ. And what do we witness in the life of Jesus Christ through the biblical witness? Radical solidarity with the least of those in this world. Faith defined in this way takes the disciple of Jesus Christ into the depths of this world's sufferings and death zones instead of some sort of escape from this present reality.<br />
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Whether or not some would find Cousar's presentation of the Reformed doctrine of justification by faith and the Reformers interpretation of "faith in Christ" to be sufficient (my guess is that some would not), I found it fascinating that Cousar seems to implicitly argue that faith means <i>discipleship</i>. Rather than faith as some sort of epistemic assurance of what Christ has done for me, faith is primarily an <i>action</i>. This, without doubt, has radical implications for how we can understand the life of faith for both the individual and the community of believers.Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-17242425679917769812012-12-02T17:46:00.000-05:002012-12-02T17:46:02.950-05:00An Alienating Antithesis.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two of my friends have referenced this excerpt from Barth in the past couple of weeks. I finally looked it up for myself and deeply appreciated these words that are found in the "later" Barth:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">"For Jesus, and as seen in the light of Jesus, there can be no doubt that all human orders are this old garment or old bottles, which are in the last resort quite incompatible with the new cloth and the new wine of the kingdom of God. The new cloth can only destroy the old garment, and the old bottles can only burst when the new wine of the kingdom of God is poured into them. All true and serious conservatism, and all true and serious belief in progress, presupposes that there is a certain compatibility between the new and the old, and that they can stand in a certain neutrality the one to the other. But the new thing of Jesus is the invading kingdom of God revealed in its alienating antithesis to the world and all its orders. And in this respect, too, the dictum is true: </span><span class="foreign" style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><span class="hiitalic" style="font-style: italic;">neutralitas non valet in regno Dei</span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"> [There can be no neutrality in the Kingdom of God]. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">There is thus concealed and revealed, both in what we called the passive conservatism of Jesus and the individual signs and penetrations which question the world of human orders as such, the radical and indissoluble antithesis of the kingdom of God to all human kingdoms, the unanswerable question, the irremediable unsettlement introduced by the kingdom of God into all human kingdoms."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">- Barth, <i>Church Dogmatics</i>, IV.2, 177.</span>Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-53176122649708056722012-11-21T13:08:00.001-05:002012-11-21T13:09:07.929-05:00The Transfiguration of PoliticsIn an effort to forestall my sermon writing, I picked up a book from the library today that I've been meaning to read through for a while now. I really liked this:<br />
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"The Christ story is the story of the presence and power of Jesus of Nazareth in and over the ambiguity of power in human affairs. It tells in word and deed of the liberating limits and the renewing possibilities within which revolutionary promises and passions make room for the freedom to be and to stay human in the world. As the inaugurator of a "new age," the "age to come" in the midst of the "old age" the "age that is passing away," Jesus is a revolutionary, as surely as revolution and humanization, history and fulfillment, are inseparable from one another. The divisive, healing, transfigured, and transfiguring Christ is not to be despoiled as the model of a new humanity because of what has been made of him - pantocratic ruler, spiritual teacher and leader, demogogue, or social idealist. As the model of a new humanity, he involves us in the struggle for a new and human future. The way leads from a politics of confrontation to a politics of transfiguration and the transfiguration of politics."<br />
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- Paul Lehmann, <i>The Transfiguration of Politics</i>, 20.<br />
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I'm still working out what it means that Jesus "involves *us* in the struggle for a new and human future" without falling into some sort of understanding that human action brings about "the age to come" while we live in the midst of "the age that is passing away" despite the fact that the "new age" has already been inaugurated by Christ alone. Lehmann says that revolution is "the lifestyle of truth" and nothing short of revolutionary action (whatever that might mean or look like, I don't know) is precisely what it means to "do" the truth according to the Gospel of John (5). So what does it mean to live in this way while still recognizing the distinction between divine and human action? I'm hoping he might answer some of these questions as I continue reading.Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-75927839131421879032012-11-12T09:41:00.001-05:002012-11-12T09:49:05.763-05:00Advent and the Kingdom of God.I'm assigned to preach a sermon today from a passage in the Hebrew Bible and orient the text to the Advent season. I chose Isaiah 65:17-25 where the Lord promises new heavens and a new earth in which "the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind." Given the apocalyptic aspects of this specific text, I turned to one of my favorite theologians, Ernst Käsemann, to see if he ever preached a sermon for Advent. I was in luck.<br />
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"At issue from now on till the end of days is that the kingdom of God is revealed on earth always and wherever the world has to do with this Jesus, and only where the gospel about him is preached and believed. This would not be possible if Jesus acquired no disciples whom he could send out as messengers and witnesses of his rule. To the messianic Advent of the kingdom of God essentially belongs that great mission in which people are called into service for this kingdom. The Lord is not without his community. The kingdom would be a utopia if it could not be visibly enfleshed on earth in members and instruments of his rule. Advent ties heaven and earth, ties the eternal God to his creatures, who continually seek to avoid him but whom he never leaves to themselves. When at Advent God's kingdom breaks into our world, it does so that, just as Israel at Sinai, we hear the first commandment with its promise and claim: 'I am the Lord your God ... you shall have no other gods before me!' The gospel is told so that it occurs where the poor, the sick, the despairing, and the possessed cry for help, where demons and tyrants play their evil game and afflict humankind, where in the midst of blindness, hate, scorn, blasphemy, and cowardice the cross of Golgotha makes visible God's rule as the self-humiliation of our Creator, that is, as love that seeks us out even in earth's inferno, sets itself alongside us, takes us in its supporting, comforting arms. As Israel once sensed the breeze or gale of freedom while in bondage to Egypt, so those who 'all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death' will sense it, and the redeemed will see the heavens above and the world around them opened to messengers of the gospel. This is what is taking place now if Advent is actually occurring among and for us."<br />
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- Ernst Käsemann, "Mark 1:16-20: On Discipleship of the Coming One" in <i>On Being a Disciple of the Crucified Nazarene</i>, 321.Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-3022875731375841312012-11-07T18:48:00.003-05:002012-11-07T19:00:29.413-05:00Feminist Movement as Revolutionary StruggleWe've been assigned to read a considerable number of essays and articles for this term's Feminist and Womanist Theologies. I've been reading the current assigned material more closely because we are required to write a final paper on how these readings condition and influence our own personal theologies. One article by bell hooks stood out to me. With powerful prose, hooks argues how sexism, racism, and classism (a direct product of capitalism) are all inter-related and based upon fundamental concepts of oppression. As a white woman, I have to admit that it is quite difficult to know how to come to terms with the relation between sexism, racism, and classism. Are my own theories and modes of action taking into account the fact that I am deeply complicit in this system of oppression? How can I become more conscious of the ways in which my own struggle to resist sexism might also come alongside those who struggle to resist the systems and structures of racism and classism? These are incredibly difficult questions that take nothing short of a lifetime to begin to answer.<br />
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Once hooks recognizes this complicated connected character of these various forms of oppression and dominance, she calls the reader to nothing short of revolutionary political action. Only this sort of revolutionary struggle will offer hope in the midst of those who advocate feminism. As one who has become sympathetic to revolution through my engagement with apocalyptic theology, I deeply appreciated hook's omission that this struggle is far from safe. But then again, this is the sort of mode of action I think Christians are called into as they seek to be a disciple of the Crucified Nazarene.<br />
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"Often emphasis on identity and lifestyle is appealing because it creates a false sense that one is engaged in praxis. However, praxis within any political movement that aims to have a radical transformative impact on society cannot be solely focused on creating spaces wherein would-be-radicals experience safety and support. Feminist movement to end sexist oppression actively engages participants in revolutionary struggle. Struggle is rarely safe or pleasurable.<br />
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Focusing on feminism as political commitment, we resist the emphasis on individual identity and lifestyle. (This should not be confused with the very real need to unite theory and practice.) Such resistance engages us in revolutionary praxis. The ethics of Western society informed by imperialism and capitalism are personal rather than social. They teach us that the individual good is more important than the collective good and consequently that individual change is of greater significance than collective change. This particular form of cultural imperialism has been reproduced in feminist movement in the form of individual women equating the fact that their lives have been changed in a meaningful way by feminism "as is" with a policy of no change need occur in the theory and praxis even if it has little or not impact on society as a whole, or on masses of women."<br />
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- bell hooks, "Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression", 54-55.Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2255420453005414011.post-32999803860981696782012-10-23T16:50:00.003-04:002012-10-23T16:50:28.795-04:00My hopes.Yesterday, one of my closest friends asked me quite directly why I continue to care about what very conservative parts of evangelicalism have to say about women and gender roles. My friend wonders why I continue to read certain blogs and leading male evangelical figures who constantly offer a patriarchal understanding of the relationship between men and women within the family unit, the Church, and society at large. I often feel this implicit pressure to simply "give up" on more conservative sects of evangelicalism that are insistent upon proclaiming a complimentarian view of gender. Afterall, I'm a feminist now. Why should I waste my time on preaching to those who refuse to engage with any understanding of the Gospel that is not directly tied to previous commitments of Calvinism (read: limited atonement), complimentarianism, and biblical inerrancy? Don't I know that the fight is useless and I am better to not waste my time on those who think I'm wasting their time with my liberal feminist anti-biblical views?<br />
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I want to give up sometimes. I am often so discouraged that I forget why I started on this road from the beginning.<br />
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But my response to my friend was finally this: I can't ignore these movements because <i>I</i> once believed this stuff. If it wasn't for the various witnesses in my own life that didn't waiver in their commitment to serve those within these conservative populations, I would have never come to believe what I do. I would still believe that to be a "faithful biblical Christian", I must be a complimentarian regardless of how much I hated it. Even more, I wished so often as I began to study this stuff more deeply in graduate school that I had female leadership and role models inside evangelicalism to model myself after. To be honest, I never once found an evangelical female theologian, ethicist or systematician to follow after. They didn't exist for me. Don't misunderstand me - I am so grateful for the male leadership that I found within evangelicalism that encouraged me to realize the freedom of the Gospel from traditionally conceived (and socially constructed) gender roles - but I really wish I would have found a <i>female</i> role model. So I had to be creative. I found a refuge in women like Judith Butler, Sarah Coakley, and then other individuals from different disciplines like Kasemann, Gaventa, Martyn, etc. And of course, there was Barth as well. Ironically, even though Barth is a complimentarian, it was Barth's overall theological vision that enabled me to read Barth against Barth and have a specific view of the Gospel that allowed me to reject his specific gender views. Slowly, I began to construct my own views of gender with all of these sources that were largely a direct product of my understanding of the Gospel. It is also important to note that while I want to study and do theology for the rest of my life, Lord-willing, I see this sort of feminism as sort of a consequence of my theology, rather than that which constitutes my theology. Because in the end, even the notion of feminism itself rendered in a specific way, is indebted to a sort of essentialism that I think can not be sustained in light of the Gospel. All that is to say, it took years to form my beliefs about these issues, and I'm still figuring it out, but there was a definitive break with previously held views. And this is due in large part because of theological mentors that refused to believe that individuals like myself were simply a waste of time and hopeless causes.<br />
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I guess I keep telling myself that if I can encourage one woman inside of evangelicalism to see that they do not have to believe that fidelity to the Gospel must necessarily mean a commitment to certain views of gender, I will feel like all of my education and work has been worthwhile. Said another way, I hope women don't believe that embracing "feminism" (whatever that means) and saying no to complimentarian is <i>not </i>necessarily a denial of the Gospel, a rejection of the biblical witness, and an abandonment of faith. Because let's be honest, most of these complimentarian circles tell men and women that in order to take the Gospel seriously and to understand the Bible as authoritative, we <i>must </i>render a sort of complimentarian account of gender.<br />
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My hope is that such fear-tactics can be dismantled and exposed for what they are. My hope is that women within evangelicalism will realize that the Gospel proclaimed in the Scriptures is a liberation from these sorts of identity-markers that seek to define and ultimately divide us. My hope is that more women within evangelicalism will be encouraged to become whatever the Lord might be calling them to be including a preacher of the Word of God and an administer of the sacrament regardless of their biological sex. My hope is that more women who come to disagree and break with conservative evangelical conceptions of gender will not give up on these circles in this respect, but will remain committed to these people in order to encourage more women to see the liberation that is offered in the Gospel of Jesus Christ for all persons. I have so many hopes for evangelical women. And I refuse to allow the conservative evangelical male leaders who are yelling the loudest to silence me.Kait Duganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05150771496092900070noreply@blogger.com8