Spondizo

Properly indoctrinated?

Duane — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:15:00 +0000

Am I "a properly indoctrinated Marxist Brite graduate . . . probably coming to pastor a church near you"?

I've never found Marxist theory to be particularly helpful for my own theologizing. But I am a liberationist thinker. And that's a consciously chosen viewpoint, not the result of indoctrination.

So the characterization above probably isn't accurate.

Even so, I wish I had written what another former Brite student said yesterday about the school's affirmation of its decision to honor Jeremiah Wright.

It's amusing to read blogs and comments about Brite and see how the place is characterized by those who disagree.

Truth is, Brite never felt particularly "liberal" to me. Certainly, it was socially progressive and progressive in terms of scholarship--but I always found my theological education rather mainstream, compared to what I was reading and exploring on my own.

God's church, that community of those called out, is a wonderfully diverse place. That's what makes it so dynamic and so frustrating. Brite reflects that broader diversity.

The differing perspectives in the classroom--where students ranged from conserving and evangelical to progressive and insurrectionist--made my education there rich, engaging, and occasionally frustrating. Faculty (mostly) did a great job of modeling how to engage differing perspectives.

My experiences there prepared me wonderfully for the range of perspectives I would encounter in the local church and in denominational gatherings. I'm grateful for that.

The right Wright decision

Duane — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:03:00 +0000

Today I'm proud to be a graduate of Brite Divinity School, which has affirmed its decision to recognize Jeremiah Wright's ministry at this month's State of the Black Church awards banquet.

I don't know that God would damn America, as Rev. Wright suggested God ought, but the Holy One surely grieves the nation's racist history and the blood-stained wealth that continues to influence its cultures, politics, and educational institutions.

Recognizing the need to interpret Wright's statements with context, audience, and rhetorical intent in mind, Brite has made a courageous and just decision.

I am disappointed by TCU Chancellor Victor Boschini's statement distancing the university from the award.

(Now . . . if someone could just help Brite re-write its public response so the lede isn't buried and it doesn't sound so academic . . . .

I'd tend to say something like:

Brite is recognizing Dr. Wright for his forty-year ministry linking divine justice and social justice.
This is work that Brite seeks to further through its mission of educating women
and men—through its programs of instruction, research and scholarship, and other
forms of church and community service—for the ministry, witness, and outreach of the church of Jesus Christ in the world.
Brite does not endorse all of the statements or views of any of the church leaders recognized by the Divinity School.
But after careful review of Rev. Wright's statements, and understanding the sincere concerns many have voiced in response to recent media reports, Brite affirms the Black Church Studies Program’s decision, made months ago, to recognize the contributions of the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. at the fourth Annual State of the Black Church Awards Banquet.)

Sally Kern

Duane — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:10:00 +0000

There’s a certain irony in the fact that Sally Kern’s outraged and outrageous comments about “the homosexual lifestyle” came to the nation’s attention during the fifth week of Lent.

In many churches, the appointed gospel this week is the story of Jesus calling Lazarus from the tomb. It’s an iconic text for queer theologians.

In the passage, Jesus stands outside the cave where the body of Lazarus has been placed and hollers, as the Voice of Love: "Lazarus, come out!"

When he stumbles from the shadows of the tomb, hands and feet are bound by the linens strips placed on his corpse, Jesus commands the gathered community: “Unbind him.”

It’s an appropriate story for Lent, which is a time of reflection, preparation, and turning from the human norms, powers, and interpretations that bind our perceptions and experiences.

Lent seeks to prepare us for renewed reliance on a just and merciful God who seeks our freedom and release from oppression.

Now that Kern, an Oklahoma legislator, has stumbled from the shadows into the light—feeling, perhaps, “exposed” in the ways that Lent is intended to expose human brokenness—the Christian community can help unbind her from dangerous assumptions, questionable logic, and thin exegesis.

Certainly, we can unbind her from the presumptions that she speaks unilaterally for the Christian traditions and community, past and present.

But it’s hard to know where to begin.

Should we:

deconstruct the “facts” she cites, which appear to come from the discredited research of Paul Cameron?
contest the ahistorical nature of her comments about same-gender-loving people?
introduce her to the broad range of Christian understandings of same-gender love?
clarify her broad and totalizing comments about sexual orientation, which appear imprecise and outdated?

I’d like to know, for example, if Kern was speaking about people who experience same-sex attractions, engage in same-gender sexual behaviors, or self-identify as lesbian or gay. Did her comments include those who identify as bisexual, transgender, and/or queer, or only those who are exclusively homosexual in attraction, behavior, and identity?

Kern says now that she wasn't speaking about queer folk in general.

She says she was referring to wealthy, politically active people who don’t discriminate based on sexual identities and use their influence to advocate for lawmakers (and laws) that support their views.

So maybe she’s not opposed to “homosexuals,” but to people with power who think differently than she does and choose to influence public discourse and processes?

Kern's comments probably don’t meet legal definitions of “hate speech.” But I have no doubt that people die because of rhetoric like hers.

She apparently feels she is in danger herself because of her rhetoric, given the content of e-mails and phone calls she has received.

I'm troubled that some have threatened Kern or resorted to ad hominem attacks against her.

Our task as the church is to listen carefully to Kern, discern her needs, and respond appropriately and compassionately.

In the end, God is both just and merciful. For that, we—and Sally Kern—should be grateful.

Vocation and spiritual gifts

Duane — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:07:00 +0000

On Sunday and Monday, I am the speaker for the Fall Festival of Faith at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Denton, Texas.

Our focus will be spiritual gifts and vocation from a Presbyterian perspective--looking closely at the connections between our desires, our gifts, and their connection to abundant life.

St. Andrew is a wonderful congregation that's used to being "stretched" theologically and intellectually, so the Festival promises to offer rich conversation.

I hope my sermon and workshops will be helpful as people think about who they are called to be--and how they are called to contribute--in the particularity of their lives.

That last phrase, in fact, hints at the title of this year's Festival: In Particular: Our Desire, God's Gifts, One Purpose.

Worship--where I will preach the sermon "Catching God's Dreams"--is at 8:30a and 10:50a Sunday, accompanied at 9:30a by an adult class titled "Call Me! Hearing the Voice of Meaningful Work."

That night (at 5:30p), I will speak on desire and spiritual gifts at a session titled "Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want."

On Monday (also at 5:30p), I will speak on spiritual gifts and abundant life at a session titled "Yes, Your Majesty."

One of the joys of my own vocation is being able to bring my scholarship to local congregations in practical ways, so I'm really looking forward to the Festival.

If you decide to drop in, make a point to introduce yourself--I'd enjoy meeting you!

Mental-health parity

Duane — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:33:00 +0000

From Doug Ronsheim, director of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors:

The House and Senate have both moved forward with mental health parity bills, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007 (H.R. 1424) and the Mental Health Parity Act of 2007 (S. 558). Both bills require group health plans that provide both medical and surgical benefits to provide mental health and substance-related disorder benefits on an equivalent basis. Ultimately, the bills hope to prevent any limitation of treatment or imposition of additional financial requirements for patients in need of mental health or substance abuse services.

S. 558, sponsored by Senator Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) passed unanimously in the Senate on September 18th. Representative Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI) sponsored H.R. 1424, which was marked up by the House Ways and Means Committee on September 26th. H.R. 1424 was approved by the Energy and Commerce Committee on October 16 and it should be presented on the House floor in the first two weeks of November.

H.R. 1424 includes a number of provisions that the Senate bill does not. The House measure allows coverage for out-of-network services for mental health and substance abuse benefits if a health plan covers out-of-network services for medical and surgical benefits. Additionally, H.R. 1424 defines what are considered mental illnesses, based on the American Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual". The Senate version, on the other hand, allows insurers to define what is considered to be a mental illness, also allowing state law to decide whether certain conditions may be covered or not. House Republicans, with the backing of health insurers, favor this approach and hope it is adopted during conference. If passed, H.R. 1424 would go into effect on January 1st, 2008, whereas the Senate bill would go into effect one year after becoming a law.

The current Mental Health Parity Act of 1996, set to expire at the end of 2007, requires a far more limited parity between mental health and medical or surgical coverage than what is included in these bills. Advocates view these bills as vehicles for ending the discrimination that mental illness patients face and recognize the work that lies ahead to ensure that the President signs the provisions into law.

The support of people of faith will be essential for this legislative process. This is one way that you can actively participate in the "praxis of God" (to borrow Peter Hodgson's phrase) and promote social justice.

Take a few minutes to call your US Representative. The US Capital Switchboard is 202-224-3121. Urge support for House Bill 1424.

For other congressional information and contacts use: http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/.

How we know: new chapter available

Duane — Thu, 10 May 2007 08:09:00 +0000

The philosophy of knowledge is one of my interests these days--especially when it comes to clarifying what counts as "spiritual" knowledge and understanding how knowledge of all types shapes the work of clinicians (especially pastoral counselors).

So it's a delight to plug a book by friends that includes a chapter on the topic (especially since I wrote the chapter!): The Handbook of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Clinical Applications, edited by Thorana S. Nelson and Frank N. Thomas.

Aimed at mental-health professionals of all types, the book is a significant, "second-generation" contribution to the literature of solution-focused therapy. It includes a chapter on SFT in faith communities for those who have a specific interest in pastoral applications.

My own chapter traces the epistemological foundations of SFT, drawing on an Islamic theory of spiritual knowledge to propose one (ontological and metaphysical) way of understanding the tremendous shifts that can occur during conversations informed by solution-focused theory.

It's something I would like to write more about in the future from a particularly pastoral and theological perspective, as Western philosophy has been largely silent about the spiritual dimension of human knowing.

(Of course, Mark McIntosh's Discernment and Truth: The Spirituality and Theology of Knowledge is a recent and valuable exception to this vast generalization. Heartily recommended!)

I blushed when I read one early comment about my chapter:

WOW--this is an amazing piece. . . . And this chapter is going into the required reading list for my students (and me). One of the best and most accessible explications I've read.

(It probably helps that there aren't actually all that many explications of the epistemology of SFT!)

Several times during the American Academy of Religion meeting last fall, I heard panelists and members talking about the need to explore "alternative epistemologies" in the study of religion and spirituality.

Pastoral theology has done a good job exploring the limits of knowledge, particularly from a philosophical perspective. We've been less concerned, however, about the metaphysical and ontological dimensions/implications of how we know through and during our practices of care.

That's probably something we'll have to address if spirituality is going to become a source, norm, criterion and resource for pastoral care and counseling.

Who are we?

Duane — Tue, 01 May 2007 14:00:00 +0000

At the AAPC conference last weekend, I made a throwaway remark about "forming good clinicians."

Immediately, Lee Butler of Chicago Theological Seminary said something like: "We're not about forming 'good clinicians.' We're about forming pastoral theologians who have good clinical skills."

I appreciate Lee's comment (made to the Association's working group of faculty in graduate programs), not only because I agree but because he has succinctly named a primary issue faced by pastoral counselors today:

Are we primarily clinicians who also know how to reflect theologically and spiritually on the people and situations we encounter?

OR

Are we primarily pastoral theologians who also have good clinical skills?

It's not an either/or issue, of course. But it's at the heart of the formation of pastoral counselors today, of my work as a theological educator, and of the crisis of identity faced by AAPC.

The tension between these two approaches was evident--but unnamed--in the comments at a two-part session on theological reflection (during which Lee responded to a case presented by another pastoral counselor) and during much informal conversation at the conference.

(By the way: Don't bother with Wikipedia's entry on pastoral theology--it's hopelessly out of date with the ways the discipline has evolved into the 21st century.)

Christic Heart

Duane — Tue, 01 May 2007 02:34:00 +0000

I'll be delivering the 2007 Boreham Lectures in Pastoral Care later this week at Sparks Regional Medical Center in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

The title of the series is "Christic Heart: A Spiritual Theology for Pastoral Care," and the three lectures engage a close reading of the biblical "Song of Christ" from the second chapter of Philippians, exploring its implications for pastoral care and spiritual formation.

We'll start Thursday evening, May 3, with "Thickening Wisdom," a look at the type of practical, spiritual wisdom that is at the heart of the text.

On Friday morning, we'll turn to "Subverting the Emperor," which explores the social setting and rhetorical purpose of the text to propose how it can be used in spiritual and pastoral assessment.

Finally, on Friday afternoon we'll turn to "Evoking Majesty," which frames emptying, serving, and humbling as ways to help people identify and enrich their preferred ways of being and strengthen resistance to "the power of empire" in their lives in order to manifest the majesty that God intends for each person (and all of creation together).

So if you're around the south-central part of the country this week, and you'd like to spend some time exploring with others how spiritual theology can inform pastoral care, come join us. Registration and lunch are only $30.

For more information, contact the hospital's pastoral care department at 479-441-5452.

New book release

Duane — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 23:56:00 +0000

I'm delighted to announce the release of The Formation of Pastoral Counselors: Challenges and Opportunities.

Co-edited with Joretta Marshall of Eden Theological Seminary, the book arrived last week in both hard- and soft-cover.

It's the first comprehensive look at what it takes to nurture pastoral counselors for this day and time, paying special attention to the racial, ethnic, sexual, economic, theological, spiritual and theoretical diversities present in today's community of pastoral counselors in North America.

It takes a few months after finishing a project to get some critical distance on it, so I'm always a bit apprehensive the first time I see something I've written (or edited) in print.

But now that I've looked through the finished text, I can honestly say that the book feels like an important and substantial contribution to the future of our discipline.

(Of course, it's up to our peers to decide whether that's true. Many will get a first look at the text later this week during the annual meeting of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors in Portland, Oregon.)

Featuring essays by two dozen of the most prominent clinicians and scholars in the field, the book weaves critical scholarship with practical formation models already at work in pastoral counseling centers around the country.

Contributors include:

Han van den Blink and Margaret Kornfeld, past presidents of AAPC

Larry Graham and Jason Whitehead of Iliff School of Theology

Loren Townsend of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Pamela Cooper-White of Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia

Joe Driskill of Pacific School of Religion

Alice Graham of Hood Theological Seminary

Tapiwa Mucherera of Asbury Theological Seminary

Joretta Marshall of Eden Theological Seminary

Zina Jacque of Community Church of Barrington, IL

Duane Bidwell of Brite Divinity School

Mark Watts and David Reynolds of Pastoral Counseling Services in New Hampshire

Rebecca Radillo of New York Theological Seminary

Kathleen Greider, Bill Clements, and Sam Lee of Claremont School of Theology

Hunter Hill, Dennett Slemp, and Vic Maloy of the Virginia Institute of Pastoral Care and BonnaSue of Eastern Mennonite University

Charles Mendenhall of Care and Counseling Center of Georgia and Doug Ronsheim of AAPC

Order a copy, take a look, and let me know what you think.

Seeing detail

Duane — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 21:33:00 +0000

Brian looked at the quick outline I'd drawn of Scull's Angel by John Chamberlain.

"Good," he said. "You've done a great job simplifying the shapes [unspoken commentary: which is not what I asked or expected you to do].

"Now," he said, "try to capture what you see--all the idiosyncrasies, the imperfections."

The sculpture's basically a crushed car, man--everything about it is idiosyncratic.

But my drawing had reduced it to smooth, generic, almost geometric lines.

With one comment, this teacher identified what's demanded these days--and what I fight with--in my writing, my scholarship, my clinical work, my spirituality, my relationships:

Get specific. Fill in the details. Know one thing intimately. Don't generalize.

It's been at least 28 years since I've taken an art class (the required course at what was then Urbana Junior High). But this afternoon I ventured into "Drawing from the Collection," a free weekly class at The Modern.

It was a worthwhile lesson.

For the rest of that particular exercise, I focused on allowing the pencil to create the precise curves, warps, and crinkles in the metal; in the next exercise, on tearing sheets of paper to resemble the exact strokes of a Motherwell masterpiece.

Seeing and communicating detail is nothing like capturing the perfect, objective, almost-Platonic form I automatically look for "behind" or "within" what's in front of me.

Yet that's what accuracy requires--in thinking about Jesus, in relationships with those who are different, in simple sketches meant to get us out of our heads and into the world.

Seeing detail, being mindful of what's in front of us, can be difficult to do.

I wouldn't have acknowledged it until this afternoon, but too often, I--like many (Western, white, male, modern?) people--want to find the universal in the specific, the abstract in the particular, the essence in the idiosyncratic.

For me, it's a desire to identify and possess the perfect, but to keep my distance at the same time.

Too often the results (in art, in theology, in writing, in human interaction) are like a huge, shiny, deep red, supermarket apple that tastes like Styrofoam.

Blood

Duane — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 13:56:00 +0000

Last night, we watched the film Black Hawk Down.

In one scene, a sergeant walks through a field hospital just as an artery sprays a geyser of blood onto the floor. He stares at the pooled blood, grabs a sheet, drops to his knees. He begins mopping. (Of course, you can't really mop blood with a dry sheet; he mostly succeeds in smearing it around the floor.)

It is a desperate act that cannot make a difference.

Instantly, I am transported to the surgical ICU where I worked as a trauma chaplain nearly 10 years ago. The taste and smell of blood fill my nose, my mouth, my sinuses. I swallow hard to keep from gagging. My wife does not notice.

Our bodies carry memories--images, tastes, smells, emotions. In the midst of the everyday, we can be transported in an instant. We are created with this possibility; it is a part of our embodiment.

I am sitting in my rocking chair, watching a movie. But somewhere in my brain I am squatting in a pool of blood beside the head of a Mexican immigrant, saying the Lord's Prayer in Spanish.

Within seconds, all I can do is murmur, over and over, "Padre nuestro, Padre nuestro, Padre nuestro."

A desperate act that cannot make a difference?

He had arrived at work early that morning, the first to show up. He climbed into a giant tree chipper; he wanted to clean it before the others arrived. Responsible guy.

The next person who arrived thought he was alone. He decided to warm up the machine for his co-workers. He switched it on without looking inside.

The patient is hamburger. No matter how quickly the docs pump blood into his body, it oozes out like water from an oversaturated sponge, soaking the sheets, dripping from the bed, pooling on the floor. We are wading in the stuff.

My eyes make desperate appeals to the unit manager. This body cannot be saved; we are exhausting the hospital's blood supply; the precious stuff coagulates like jelly at the edges of the iron-rich pool. "Stop," I say. "Just stop."

The medical students insist on continuing. Surgeons believe they are gods.

By the time the patient's family and friends arrive, the floor is clean. Dry, white sheets have been placed on the bed. I have stripped off the bloody gown that covered my clothes, the booties that were pulled over my shoes. I have scrubbed the soles of my shoes in a surgical sink.

But I cannot eliminate the smell of blood from my nose or the chanted rhythm of "Padre nuestro, Padre nuestro, Padre nuestro" from my mind.

The doctors knew him as a problem to be solved. I will soon know him as brother, son, lover, friend, a man who left the world with a stranger's voice intoning the prayer he learned from his abuela: "Padre nuestro . . . ."

But there is remembrance of a different sort, too.

This morning I will say the Lord's Prayer in church, just as I did the morning after this bloodbath. I will chew the bread that is Christ's body. I will swallow the wine that is Christ's blood. I will feel it burn in the pit of my empty stomach.

I will pray: "Bless the Lord, O my soul! And all that is within me, bless God's holy name!"

Kneeling in the pew, I will close my eyes and see this patient: the curve of his cheek, the noble arc of his nose, the stubble on his chin.

And I will claim the blessing of apocatastasis,* cosmic reconciliation, for both of us, for all of us.

*Apocatastasis is the theological doctrine of the ultimate reconciliation of good and evil. It is based on the Biblical passage in 1 Corinthians 15:28, and was extensively preached in the eastern church by St. Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th century. It was formally condemned by the Synod of Constantinople in 543. There have been diverse attempts to revive the idea over the centuries. What apocatastasis means: 1) Restoration, re-establishment, renovation 2) Return to a previous condition 3) Return to the same apparent position, completion of a period of revolution. (From this groovy site.)

Affirming GLBT ministry: A call to Presbyterians

Duane — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 18:09:00 +0000

Two policies* of the Presbyterian Church (USA)--statements written and adopted nearly 30 years ago--promote outdated, polemical and condemning language about homosexuality.

No surprise.

But this year, recognizing how social and scientific understandings of sexual orientation have shifted since the 1970's, a regional body (the Presbytery of Cincinnati) asked the General Assembly, the national decision-making body of the denomination, to strike the most strident statements from these documents.

The denomination's Committee on Church Orders, the group responsible for recommending how the assembly should respond to the request, voted 28-27 last weekend (with one abstention) to maintain the outdated language. It was the narrowest vote the committee made this year.**

In response, 24 committee members of the committee signed a minority report asking the assembly to adopt a pastoral statement recognizing and affirming the ministry of LGBT people.

But commissioners declined to hear the minority report and declared the issue settled by two previous votes about ordination standards--even though the original overture and the new minority report had nothing to do with ordination.

Here is the statement the minority report asked the denomination to adopt:

We recognize that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people have served faithfully and nurtured others in the faith across the history of the church. Baptismal identity supercedes sexual identity.
Therefore, we make the following affirmation: All people are created in the image of God, and God calls each Christian by name to a vocation in the world, gifting them for their work on behalf of the gospel. Statements that denigrate the worth, personhood, and/or status of people based on sexual orientation are inconsistent with the mercy of God, the life of Jesus, and the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. The Presbyterian Church (USA) values and affirms the work and ministry of gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual persons.

This statement has nothing to do with ordination standards. It does not change authoritative interpretations of the church constitution. It does not amend the 1978 and 1979 statements that contain outdated information and polemical language.

But it does broaden and enrich what the denomination already says about the value of non-heterosexual people, their participation in the life of the church, and their Christian responsibility for the work and witness of the church in the world, as stated in the denomination's constitution.

If you are Presbyterian, I hope you will ask the Session of your congregation to adopt the pastoral statement offered by the minority report.

Further, I hope your Session will ask your presbytery to overture the 218th General Assembly, asking that this pastoral statement be adopted in 2008.

Taking these actions would be a small gesture of hope and gratitude for the thousands of lesbian, bisexual, transgender and gay members and officers of the PC(USA) who serve us with energy, intelligence, imagination, grace and love. Their witness and Christian vocations in the world make the whole church stronger.

It is time to acknowledge this.

Local adoption of the statement would be an act of pastoral care toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons and their families, contributing to the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God, enhancing our life together, and fostering reconciliation with long-alienated brothers and sisters.

*The 1978 Policy Statement and the 1979 Position Paper, portions of which have been elevated as an "authoritative interpretation" of the church's constitution.

** You can view the business item, including the minority report, here. Click on (04) Church Orders and then click on item 04-04 "On Amending the 1979 Policy Statement and the 1979 Position Paper from the PCUS by Deleting Certain Statements."

Lessons from General Assembly

Duane — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 18:26:00 +0000

From June 14-22, I served as a commissioner to the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA)--my denomination's national decision-making body.

Here are some of the things I learned:

Our church is split more radically than I realized.
One who hesitates, loses.
Certain elements in our denomination seek power at any cost.
We are losing our commitment to the idea that the Spirit, at times, speaks through the minority; we are unwilling to listen to every voice because we do not trust that more listening might bring something new to the conversation.

Overheard at the sushi bar

Duane — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 03:30:00 +0000

Mother: Next Saturday, we're going to Saturday night Mass.

Daughter: Why?

Mother: Because Sunday is Easter, and we're going sailing.

Photographic memories for grieving families

Duane — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 03:20:00 +0000

I've just learned about the organization "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep," which provides beautiful photographs to families whose children die at or shortly after birth.

Most hospitals have a way of honoring these children and creating permanent keepsakes, such as footprints, knitted caps, and baptismal certificates, for families to take home.

But nothing captures the love, grief and beauty of such deaths with the accuracy of these remarkable, sensitive portraits by volunteer photographers.

Photos like this would have meant everything to the grieving families I worked with as a hospital chaplain.

For me, the images expose raw and tender places I seldom visit these days--places connected to specific families and specific children, people I didn't realize I still carry in my heart. (If you spend time looking at the baby books on the site, I invite you to pray your way through each collection of photographs.)

Parish pastors would do well to identify the volunteer photographers in their cities and keep the names and numbers in their handheld computer or address book.

(Thanks, Linda, for leading me to the site!)

Student suicide

Duane — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 12:37:00 +0000

Twenty years later, a student suicide still affects college professor Pamela Johnston.

At the time, she had few resources for addressing the behavior she was seeing in the classroom. "I thought," she writes in today's Chronicle of Higher Education, "I was letting him off easy by ignoring him."

All college instructors--from graduate TA's to tenured full professors--ought to equip themselves to recognize and ask about signs of suicide, the "red flags" that students (and others) wave in hope that someone will intervene.

We know that people thinking about suicide are more likely to tell a caring person than a professional (and believe it or not, students sometimes perceive faculty as "caring").

For those who want to be better prepared for moments when students tell you suicide seems like an option, I highly recommend the programs offered by LivingWorks,* an international organization dedicated to creating "suicide safer" communities through empirically based education.

For those seeking to better understand suicide and how it continues to shape the lives of teachers and others who know someone who commits suicide, the LivingWorks website has comprehensive links to suicide-prevention resources from all over the globe.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I am a trainer for the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training program administered by LivingWorks.

God on the Quad

Duane — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 15:09:00 +0000

Interesting conversation at Inside Higher Ed about a draft document that asks colleges and universities to increase attention to religion across the curriculum.

Living in America, say the 25 scholars who drafted the "Wingspread Declaration on Religion and Public Life," means living in a religiously charged atmosphere.

And because of that, citizens ought to be "religiously literate," equipped to engage religious questions with civility, and able to integrate spiritual development with intellectual development, the document declares.

This is just the sort of movement that pastoral theologians ought to be championing, and seminaries and divinity schools could take the lead in critiquing the draft document, resourcing colleagues in non-religious academic disciplines about the questions involved, and implementing the final recommendations on campuses across the country.

The Wingspread Declaration has been created by the Society for Values in Higher Education, a "fellowship of teachers and others who care," which has also produced draft discussion questions for colleges and universities interested in the ongoing conversation about religion in public life.

Happiness creates success . . .

Duane — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 17:00:00 +0000

. . . but success doesn't necessarily create happiness.

A meta-analysis of 225 psychological studies suggests that "chronically happy people are in general more successful across many life domains than less happy people," in part because they seek out and engage new goals.

Importantly, the study examined the relationship between happiness and "culturally-valued success"--by which I presume the researchers mean North American, consumerist definitions of "making it."

Much previous research assumed that happiness followed from, rather than contributed to, successful personal and professional accomplishments.

I'm curious about how this study might correlate with pastoral theological understandings of hope, which tend to emphasize agency far more than positive affect. I am not aware of any research correlating Christian hope (or "spiritual hopefulness") with "success" of any type.

Stranger, host and guest

Duane — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 18:02:00 +0000

A student* wrote a lovely summary of Christian thought on hospitality, identifying the ambiguity of roles and relationships in guest/host interactions.

I am particulary intrigued that the Greek term xenos can simultaneously mean "stranger," "guest," and "host," suggesting a dynamic reciprocity of roles (or, perhaps, a particular type of relationship) in the practices and attitudes of hospitality (which, in Greek, is called philoxenia: love of stranger/guest/host).

It strikes me that "hospitality" could be a key theme for theological development of social constructionist ideas. To my knowledge, hospitality is not addressed in the literature of social constructionism, and pastoral theology has not attended to it much (with Katherine Godby and Margaret Guenther as notable exceptions).

As presented in the paper I received from Jennifer, the Semitic (and, more precisely, Christian) concepts of hospitality could be correlated with (and critique) John Shotter's concept of "joint action" in helpful ways (if you're not familiar with the technical term "joint action" in constructionist psychology, see this for more detail).

Thanks, Jennifer, for prompting helpful and generative reflections!

* To whom I cannot (unfortunately) provide a link; I cannot find her on the Web, in part because she is not listed on the website of the congregation where she works--reflecting, I suspect, the ambiguous and marginal role of women in ministry in her conservative, free-church tradition.

And here I must acknowledge that I am contributing to her marginalization by not naming her fully--a decision I made because I have not asked her permission to name her and because I do not want to create difficulties with her denomination by identifying her personally in a comment about her marginalization by the church.

Beauty

Duane — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 05:12:00 +0000

Tonight I was moved to tears by the haunting cry of a bird mixed with thunder in Nepal.

Go listen to "what the thunder said" at quietamerican.org and give thanks . . .

. . . for the wonder of sound,
. . . for the diversity of the natural world,
. . . for artistic souls who value everyday sounds.

(And if you're a fan of Vietnam, or have an intimate connection to that place and its people, make sure you visit the "field recordings" link.)

The Pill and the pew

Duane — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 13:21:00 +0000

Sex, not theology, caused the decline of the mainline church.

Simply put, conservatives breed more than liberals.

That's the argument of a trio of sociologists who say differences in fertility rates account for 70 percent of the loss of membership in mainline churches during the 20th century.

Their findings question the popular notion that conservative churches are growing because mainline churches are too liberal, suggesting that a simpler cause--the use of birth control--explains most of the mainline decline.

It's work like this that feeds my growing sense that every seminary needs a sociologist of religion on faculty . . . .

What pastors read (or, Is pastoral theology marginal to the parish?)

Duane — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 19:14:00 +0000

If the Barna Group can be trusted, the discipline of pastoral theology doesn't have much influence on pastors already working in the church.

A survey of books and authors that parish pastors identify as most helpful (published in May but unnoticed by me until Christian linked to it at faithasawayoflife) suggests that most Protestant clergy read books about:

"discipleship" and personal spiritual growth (54 percent)
church growth, congregational health or ministry dynamics (23 percent), and
leadership (22 percent)

Of 614 senior pastors surveyed, only 9 percent read theology texts and 6 percent, books about pastoring (which includes, I presume, works of pastoral theology).

These results ought to give pause to pastoral theologians.

The books and authors with the greatest influence on parish pastors could be considered, in some ways, works of practical theology. But they are far outside the interests and methodologies that shape the academic discipline of pastoral theology.

Consider, for example, the titles cited as most helpful: The Purpose-Driven Life and The Purpose-Driven Church.

The most influential authors included Rick Warren, John Maxwell, Phil Yancey, George Barna, John Eldredge, Henri Nouwen, and Leonard Sweet.

No pastoral theologians in that lists. And no pastoral theology texts cited, either.

I do not want our discipline to become more "market driven" than it is already (and it is driven by market concerns, both because of expectations for tenure and promotion and the limited resources of publishers).

But it might be prudent for members of our guild to talk about what this survey suggests for our work and our field--the relevance of pastoral theology to the day-by-day practice of ministry, its accessibility to those who have been out of seminary for some time, and its ability to address the pastoral concerns that are primary among those surveyed.

For example, the survey results make me wonder how the field of pastoral theology addresses spirituality and spiritual formation, topics related to the concerns most important to the broadest range of surveyed pastors. Do we adequately address these areas through theological reflection, theological praxis, and critical scholarship? [An answer to this question might be a topic for a longer post.]

The survey is particularly interesting for what it suggests about pastors under 40 years of age. These pastors, says researcher Barna,

lean toward books and authors that extol adventure, shared experiences, visionary leadership, supernatural guidance and relational connections. If their choices in reading are any indication, they seem less obsessed with church size and more interested in encounters with the living God. They are also less prone to identifying the most popular books in favor of those that are known for their passionate tone. The fact that less than half as many young pastors considered the Purpose Driven books to be influential in their ministry suggests that the new legion of young pastors may be primed to introduce new ways of thinking about Christianity and church life.

Religious romanticism

Duane — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 04:12:00 +0000

AKMA offers up a fine mini-rant about the curious, contemporary intersection of cultural romanticism and faith. I'll let you read it for yourself, but must say "Amen" to this sentence:

[R]omantic religion makes teaching practically impossible; romantically-conditioned audiences already know everything they need to, they are predisposed not simply to question but to disbelieve authority, and they may expect that anything that doesn't warm their hearts doesn't matter.

Anticipatory action

Duane — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 14:00:00 +0000

Combine a damp, grey, chilly morning with Elizabeth Stuart's chapter indicting lesbian and gay theologies for failing to address HIV/AIDS, and a memory arises.

In October 1992, the AIDS quilt was displayed in its entirety on the Mall in Washington, DC.

It was a heady time; certain of a Clinton victory in the coming month, tens of thousands of us clutching candles surrounded the White House chanting, "Four more weeks! No more Bush!" That night, Liza Minnelli led us in the Lord's Prayer as the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial refracted the candlelight into a universe of stars.

Later that weekend, a cold rain fell all night and into the morning. At dawn, a friend dropped me off at the Quilt display on the Mall. It was a ghost town.

I ducked into one of the canvas tents where merchandise had been sold one day before.

Inside was an old lady, nearing her 81st birthday. She had come to see her son's quilt panel. We chatted briefly, wondering if the Quilt could be pieced together in the rain.

Then we were quiet, listening to the rain drum on the tent while icy water swirled around our ankles.

After a while, a soaked man without a jacket or hat pushed through the tent flap. He sloshed in, clutching something wrapped in a black garbage bag.

"Where do you turn in panels?" he asked, anxiously. He was in his mid-30's, younger than I am now. "I have to catch my plane in about an hour."

He was from San Francisco. His partner's panel had been finished for more than a year, but he had not been able to part with it. Something had changed over that weekend, though, and he impulsively caught a red-eye flight to DC to hand over the memorial.

As minutes passed and no volunteers arrived at the site to receive quilt panels, he grew more and more agitated, pacing back and forth wordlessly in the cold water.

Finally, he stopped and looked at us. "I've got to go. Could one of you . . . ?" He held out the plastic-wrapped package.

The old lady reached for it. "I'd be honored," she said. She unwrapped the plastic bag. "May I?" she asked, reaching inside.

"No one but me has ever seen it."

There is a dramatic and graceful choreography to displaying the Quilt, in which volunteers dressed in white silently and purposely unfold each section like the opening of a lotus, turning a quarter turn after each movement. When the section is open, they lift it into the air where it billows like a parachute, settling slowly to the ground.

Without discussing it, we three strangers spontaneously performed that liturgy, unfolding this secret panel the size of a grave, turning as each petal opened, finally thrusting it toward heaven and letting it billow down until it was stretched between us.

It was gorgeous.

We stood silently, looking. Tears streamed down the man's face, and without a word or sign we began to fold the panel closed.

When we were done, he held it to his chest and looked at each of us, a penetrating gaze directly into our eyes. "Thank you," he whispered.

He handed the folded panel to the woman and slipped out of the tent.

That moment, for me, has always been a foretaste of God's reality, what my colleague Nancy Gorsuch calls "anticipatory action," in which kindred folk enact an eschatological reality, living for a moment the ultimate destiny of all things.

It was a moment of solidarity and justice, of grief and honor.

Simply put: grace.

"Versatile God": Queering the liturgy

Duane — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 12:36:00 +0000

My wife elbowed me after the eucharist last Sunday. "Why were you laughing during communion?"

Because God works in strange ways, sometimes.

As the pastors prayed the Great Thanksgiving during the World Communion Sunday liturgy, Fritz said, "Merciful God . . . ."

Except I heard, "Versatile God . . . " and couldn't help laughing.

(That's what I get for praying under the influence of too much queer theology [especially Robert Goss, whom I read all of last week].)

"Versatile" is the word that men who have sex with men use to describe a guy who enjoys both top and bottom--the "active" and "passive" positions during sex.

I laughed because the thought of Jesus as a versatile man seems radically appropriate, undermining all of the patriarchal theology and heterosexist assumptions of many congregations.

And doesn't that seem like something Jesus would do?

We tend to focus on race and ethnicity when talking about diversity in the church. But sexuality is an aspect of the diversity that God created, too.

I am sure someone, somewhere, has reflected at length on the versatility of God, an active/passive diety who delights in being with us in creative, subversive, passive and active ways--both to pleasure Godself and to pleasure us.

For me, mishearing one word in the Great Thanksgiving queered the liturgy in a way that gave new and richer meaning to the eucharist, changing my experience of receiving the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation--a physical and spiritual act in which Christ penetrates all that (and whom) we are, nourishing us to take an active role in the world on his behalf.

It is a moment that makes all Christians queer, undermining our sexual and gender identities in order to take into ourselves the power of a bisexual God who is neither male nor female, gay nor straight, but forever "in between" the human categories that hide and even serve to negate our baptismal identities as One in Christ.