Seminary has a way of investing one's affections and energies in very unpopular things. I'm not even talking about the obvious way in which seminary makes scripture and worship a much-needed part of one's daily routine. Seminary makes one passionate about things most people really couldn't care less about. And taking a step or two back from some of my newly held convictions, I myself wonder at their importance.

For example, I thought to myself the other day: there really ought to be a Johann Cruger fan club. If there isn't, I'd better drum up some interest; once the ELCA's new hymnal comes out, I'm sure Cruger's fabulous hymns-- the kind I like to belt out even though my voice cracks on the high notes-- will be relegated to the dust bin, along with all gendered pronouns referring to God, and any rites of confession that make strong statements about our culpability for sin. Dedication to sixteenth century hymnody, or passionate opinions on theology do not really make good party conversation.

Speaking of unpopular things, I'm taking a Pauline Studies course this semester. Of course, the debate about these letters is huge in Biblical studies, so theology-inclined people usually have a big stake in this argument! My Pauline studies class is wonderful in the sense that it is teaching me how to read the New Testament epistles very carefully.
But one frustrating thing is that my classmates & I have been getting a very heavy dose of the "New Perspective" on Paul. I suppose this shouldn't be a big surprise-- this is the scholarly status quo right now. Seminarians, pastors, and lay people involved in Biblical scholarship have all encountered the likes of "new Paul" types like E.P. Sanders or his inheritors like N.T. Wright, Richard B. Hays, James Dunn, et al. A good view (but biased) is found on: http://www.thepaulpage.com/

This "new perspective" is spot-on in many respects-- it locates Paul's message much more deeply in the Jewish millieu of the first century. Issues like justification, law, and forgiveness are deeply shaped by the Torah and the synagogue, both of which formed Paul's language and thought. New perspective scholars see justification, for example, as something much more than an abstract declaration about one's internal character or moral status. Rather, justification is something that takes place within a covenantal framework-- God proves his faithfulness to the covenant by vindicating ("justification" is not the best translation for the tricky greek word dikaio) those who trust in Jesus. So far, so good.

The "new" reading of Paul is right on in the way that it reframes the question in terms of the covenant, and the New Testament controversy over inclusion in the covenant. If the "new" reading is right, then Galatians, for example, is less about the problems of the individual in dealing with works versus grace and more about the controversy among the Jewish Christians over whether (and if so, how) the Gentiles were included.

I think that the revamped reading of Paul is right to focus on the historical aspects of the argument, but isn't there more going on in these texts than simply questions over inclusion? A key point of the "new" scholars are critical junctures in the text of Galatians, such as 2:16 which hinge on questions of faith. The greek-- pistou Christou-- is genitive, but is it subjective genitive "the faith of Jesus Christ" or is it the objective genitive: "faith in Jesus Christ?" The former places less emphasis on the faith of the individual believer, which is certainly theologically correct. But if Christ's faithfulness is the hinge on which Galatians turns, the decisive factor in Gentile inclusion-- rather than the faith of the Gentiles (and Jews) which brings them into the community. This all sounds very well, but I'm troubled by the way it casually jettisons the catholic, evangelical, and ecumenical discussion of these issues that have been going on for two thousand years. Paul might begin with the question of Gentile inclusion, but does it really end there? Isn't there more going on? Also, if the subjective genitive is correct, why is it that the Greek fathers never read it that way in their mother tongue?

I also have to confess a distaste for the way scholars like Krister Stendahl (and I think that most of the "new paul" scholars fundamentally agree with him) exude a kind of contempt for the Augustinian tradition and its reading of Paul. According to these readers, Augustine, Calvin & Luther all receive the Pauline message of justification as something that is entirely "internal." It's obvious to even this novice reader of Augustine that Stedahl has not so much as peeked inside the Confessions. And their reading of Luther has been received not from the Doctor Martin's own writings, but from the twentieth century German readers of Luther, who obviously had a stake in thinking the Christian life is "internal" and "invisible."

The New Paul scholarship exhibits such a strange confluence of historical-critical scholars
and evangelicals-- two groups that are usually at odds with each other, but seem happy to converge in their scorn of the catholic tradition. There's a funny form of Biblicism going on here-- something that's ironically fundamental to historical critical scholarship. We need some readers who are more sensitive to the received tradition-- from the Greeks in the East, and Augustine on down in the West.

New Perspective scholars might start by reading Risto Saarinen, one of the great new Finnish readers of Luther, who has a very interesting article in the latest issue of Pro Ecclesia (http://www.e-ccet.org/pe.htm#winter2k6) about Luther, the New Paul, and the law.

My teacher David Yeago will be publishing a theological commentary on Romans, which should be chock full of interesting things related to this debate. The series of avowedly theological commentaries by Brazos Press, looks really, really great. Pelikan has one on Acts already out. Hauerwas will have one on Matthew, David B. Hart will have one on Hebrews. Dr. Yeago has helped me to read the New Paul folks thoughtfully, and pointed me towards some of its intelligent critics like Westerholm and Stuhlmacher.

Now for something that many more people will be interested in...and will help to explain the art gracing this post!
1) My friend Brian, studying public policy at Pepperdine in California, recently got a job with Arnold Schwarzenneger's reelection campagin. This is his first big gig, and I'm sure it will be a great experience. Plus it will provide his friends with plenty of humor when we leave messages on his voicemail.

2) My friend Joe is engaged. This is wonderful news. Things have taken a decided turn for the better in his life over the past year-- he is headed toward seminary at Duke, where his fiancee is graduating from this Spring. Both seminary and marriage have changed me more than anything else I have ever experienced, and both for the better, I think. I hope the same will be true for him.

One of the groups I've become interested in lately is the Society of the Holy Trinity (STS, or Societas Trinitate Sanctae-- http://www.societyholytrinity.org), a group of Lutheran pastors dedicated to renewal in the Church.

One example of such renewal is private confession and absolution. That this has fallen out of use in recent centuries would certainly disappoint Luther and company, as they never intended to abolish confession. In fact, in the Augsburg Confession, Melanchthon includes Absolution as a sacrament. Luther does, too, in the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, though he waffles a bit toward the end of this treatise. Too bad that this practice is not widely available for us today as protestants.

I think it might help with the issues of discipline in the Church that I've been thinking about lately, and want to write about in my final essay for the Pastoral care course I'm taking. It's also, as the reformers pointed out, a sure evangelical word to those who are burdened by their sin. Absolution brings the word of forgiveness right to our doorstep, and is a valuable step toward the transformation that the Holy Spirit is working in us as the baptized.

My friends and I are trying to encourage one another to do this more regularly with our campus pastor. It takes gumption, but is worth it, I think.

One hurdle to get over is the disgusting notion that we have to wait until we have some really juicy sins to confess for it to be worthwhile. I confess that this probably, for me, comes from reading Augustine. I want to have some really deep and interesting reason for sinning. Just like Augustine's pears, I want to be able to say something really dark and poetic like The reason why I stole the pears and threw them away is because I am in love with destruction.

With all due respect to our venerable father St. Augustine, I think that usually our reasons for sinning are decidedly less cool. Usually, I just don't know why I do these things that destroy myself and others, these things that turn deliberately away from God and his intentions. Or else, the reasons are obviously dumb-- I wanted pleasure for myself.

Perhaps even a part of my life was spent trying to create cool sins to confess later so that at least I could have an interesting life and know, at least in part, what life is like outside the fold. This is what makes the prodigal life so prosaic and banal. Hanah Arendt, of course, writes about this very well in her essay on Eichmann in Jerusalem, "The Banality of Evil." The holocaust was not manufactured by evil megalomaniacs as much as it was by button-pushers and bricklayers and paper-pushers. Who built the death camps, anyway?

How much more exciting is the beautiful. The curve of sunlight refracted in the dew-slung tree-limb outside my window. The old woman shuffling around the altar to hold the bread before my mouth, whispering clearly, reminding me that I'm taking the Body of Christ. The wonders of marriage. The story of redemption is located here, in these things and we get to hear about them, and better yet, live them out in the Church. Thus, what a joy to confess: to turn away from what is ugly & stunted in my life, and towards that which is beautiful and full of meaning.

One of these days, hopefully this summer, I'm going to get around to reading David Bentley Hart's book The Beauty of the Infinite. Not only do I hear great raves, but this book delves into the relationship (indentity?) between beauty and truth, and locates both squarely in the Christian narrative. This book is an aesthetics of truth. As excited as I am about literature, I think it will be right up my alley. Of course, there's also Von Balthasar, and his eight volume Glory of the Lord. Whew. Maybe at some point I'll have the time and discipline!

Prayers for those who doubt-- and that includes all of us. Listen closely to the gospel lesson in the lectionary for this Sunday, the story of Thomas, our patron saint (also the confirmation name of my good friend Daniel).

Blessings.

The clock is ticking...three weeks left in the academic semester here and I have two big papers to begin. Luckily, I've been doing the research and getting some reading done for them.

I've decided to write the essay required for my Pastoral Conversations class on Pastoral initiative, specifically as that relates to Church guidance and discipline. I'm convinced that this is an important issue, especially after I read a great essay by my teacher David Yeago on the office of the keys in a Braaten / Jenson book on the marks of the Church.

I have to say, though, that I'm a bit nervous about writing it in a unabashedly theological manner, since the approach of our class seems very much geared toward the therapeutic and the psychological. Not that there's anything wrong at all with psychology, but if it becomes the driving impetus behind Pastoral conversation, something vital is lost.

In all fairness, it's not that our coursework is non-theological, but it takes its cues from the theologies of Tillich and Bultmann, who see the message of the gospel as less about the transformation of the Christian through the Holy Spirit acting in ecclesial practices rooted in the apostolic proclamation about Jesus Christ, and more about internal liberation from all structured moral demands. I just can't reconcile this with the theological formation that I've been receiving and so feel an immense tension between this course and my others.

I've been looking for some direction to take that can acknowledge the good insights of psychology without adopting that disicpline's confused anthropology. On this, Andrew Purves' book Reconstructing Pastoral Theology is very helpful, even if some of his constructive proposals for a new direction in pastoral care are astutely Calvinist and so, a tiny bit problematic for me as a Lutheran. That said, though, his christological approach to the foundations of Pastoral Care are just wonderful and much needed in the field.

On a lighter note, our seminary's Holy Week break seems to have lightened everyone's spirits. That and internship assignments for those of us MDiv's who are going to be vicars next year. My wife & I are going to be in Boone, NC, which we are pretty excited about. Good skiing nearby, all the culture of a college town, and a pretty cool congregation to serve at: http://www.graceboone.org

My friend Brian's birthday was yesterday and to celebrate, we went bowling with another friend of ours. As usual, I scored sub-100. Whew, I stink at this game. My wife beat the socks off me, as she usually does in anything athletic. Nonetheless, it was fun...

I might add a plug for those of you who are curious / excited /dreading the release of the ecclesial conspiracy movie concerning a certain Italian rennaisance painter and his ingenious code. Incidentally, it's due out the day after my birthday (I might also mention that the fee for my hospital chaplaincy this summer is due that day, too-- yeah, they're charging me for work! Happy Birthday to me!) What I mean to say here is that the very interesting reflections of Pr. Schnekloth over at Lutheran Confessions blog include some thoughts about the novel and film. I hope that he doesn't mind my mentioning him here, as it's out of admiration. Check it out: http://lutheranconfessions.blogspot.com/

Peace to you in these Great Fifty Days of Easter.

Sunday. It's always Sunday, according to Charles Wright. But today, Charles, is decidedly different. Today is the day after the great hush of Holy Saturday. Today, according to the witness of an initially fearful band of First Century Palestinian Jews, is the day when creation's renewal was begun. Today is the day when the crucified Jesus broke death's strong bands.
Something is certainly different in the order of things, and today is the day we Christians look to this origin for sustenance and renewal.

Yet, in some sense today confronted me with disapointment. In years past, I've always chalked up my faltering spirits at Christmas & Easter to the nature of expectation's meeting of reality; things can't always be as great as one expects. And once the parade is over, all that's left is ticker-tape and the smell of stale beer littering the gutters. An emptiness pervades.

But this isn't quite it-- the merely psychological seems pretty ill-equipped to give substance to what's really going on. My disappointment is a difficulty I feel in coming to grips with what's really happening, and a disconnect with those around me. Are we on the same page? Is this really happening for you, too?

After the intensity & intended discipline of Lent, today's worship at the congregation I attend (and serve as a second-year seminarian) seemed purple. As in purple prose, overly lush, ostentatious; too much braggadacio after the fast.

Most disconcerting of all is that this show was supposedly centered around the resurrection account in the lectionary for today, Mark's, which is downright scary. An empty tomb. A strange figure. Fear & desertion. "They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." What to make of that? Certainly not the carnival set before us today.

Does hope always boast such showy feathers? Is there not a more harrowing word to be said? Isn't Mark setting before us the ultimate fearsomeness of resurrection? I think that there is something deeper to be gotten at in the resurrection than acres of lillies, brass band accompaniments to Easter hymns, and the sea of unfamiliar faces decked out in their finery for the show. To truly hear the Easter message-- Mark's anyway-- is to look into the face, at last, of the terrifying beauty which is shaking the foundations of the universe as we know it and making things anew.

Mark's aesthetic, if the synoptics can be said to engage in "aesthetics" as such, is grim and terse. Mark is a minimalist and Jesus' acts speak volumes louder than his words. His disciples never really understand his words anyway, even when Jesus indulges in explanation. Yet, finally, the word he was imparting all along-- shown clearest in this gospel in chapter 8-- has come painfully clear. What he commanded his disciples to remain silent about before is now present, in the open, before everyone.

Some argue that Mark intended to end right here, with the fear of the disciples as the last word. This would be a sort of sly comment to his hearers. And what about you, witness of the resurrection?

For me, the clearest place to begin to hear the resurrection faithfully is with the Great Easter Vigil, on Saturday night. George Steiner, as my good friend Joe reminded me, has a wonderful passage on the Sabbatarian impulses of all great art-- it lies in waiting and tastes of ash; it draws its strength from the spiritual reservoir of Holy Saturday and the bearing with death. Here, in the darkness outside the sanctuary, we cry out for God to act. We gather crestfallen but with a glimmer of expectancy.

In darkness last night, my fellow members of my seminary community gathered outside the chapel, and processed into the crypt-dark chapel behind the fiery pillar of the vigil candle.

Our tiny candles were lit from its flame, and we moved further into the sanctuary, past the icon of Jesus descending into hell, his feet trampling down the doors that once held the captives there.

We gathered around the font listening to the song of salvation. All of us who hear the Exultet plunge deep into the waters of Christian mystery; we hear the narrative of God's deliverance, beginning all the way back at Creation, taking shape with Noah, the Exodus, all the mighty acts of God on our behalf, finally bearing fruit in the ultimate deliverance of Jesus-- Emmanu-el-- God with us as man.

It is here, in memory of God's saving acts, in the darkness of our lives, gathered around the sole light of Christ, around the font's birthing womb, that we are prepared for the resurrection, for the mystery of life eternal. It is here that our fears encounter the story that has been the ground beneath our feet all along, contrary to our own assurances.

One must endure waiting and darkness before the blinding light of Christ's new flesh. That promise is comforting to these eyes-- even as we suffer we are being made ready for what will not pass away. It's not always Sunday, master Charles, we have to pass through Saturday's darkness before we get there. Thanks be to God.