A new post by my old friend Kevin has psyched me up about philosophy, and he didn't even mention it. He is a student of philosophy, though.

Picking up a thread that's lain dormant for a while, I think I'd like to begin my summer reading (once I can finish my interminable exegesis of Romans 8) with a book one of my friends recommended-- Philosophy for Theology. (He actually reads long paragraphs of it when in our theological conversation we reach an impasse because of our philosophical ignorance).

Catholic seminarians really have it lucky in that they are trained in philosophy, which I think is essential if one is to really be engaging as a theologian (I might add that the Roman Catholic Church actually supports its seminarians financially, unlike the ELCA, which abandons its faithful future pastors to exorbitant debt-- I'm already at 26 grand and counting).

I think the history of Christianity has proven Tertullian's question: "what has Athens to do with Jerusalem" quite short-sighted. In fact, postmodernity is a particularly exciting time to engage philosophy since it opens up possibilities for Christian theology that high modern thought simply did not allow.

I remember from my literary theory class as an undergraduate finding the lecture notes of a theory teacher at Boulder very helpful:

http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/lecturelinks.html

The next few days are going to be grueling, I fear. All day Thursday with St. Paul, Friday escorting twenty children from the congregation I work at to what promises to be a long ceremony for our graduating seminarians, Saturday more time with St. Paul and a wedding!

All the best to those in the boat of finals, term papers and the like.