Can We Afford Educated Clergy?
April 30, 2009
This is the question that Pastor Carol Howard Merritt (PC(USA)) asks in one of her recent posts (you can see it here, and a follow up here) As a side note, if I were in the PC(USA) and I was in a Presbytery or a place of influence, I would listen to (almost) everything she says. There are few in PC(USA) that has the pastoral sensitivity to critique both of the extreme sides of her denomination and to critically engage the “Presbymergents” (probably the largest wing of the “hyphen”-mergents) without simply buying into some of the more impatient youthfulness inherent in “Emergent” movements.
Anyway. Pastor Carol says point blank that they* cannot. *(I’m going to speak of “they” here because she knows the PC(USA) intimately, and it is difficult to speak honestly of the whole “Mainline” since there is more diversity than we think to make broad strokes, and I do not know even the educational problems in TEC and others) She says:
“The cost of undergraduate and seminary education has gone up too high, and our churches have gotten too small”
She goes on to say that there are pastors on food stamps, so how could we consider making pastors go to seminary and pay $30,000+ for an education? She asks the denomination to question honestly about the current trajectories in money and congregational size.
First I want to applaud her for speaking with such honesty. It has been said that the Mainline is still suffering from a power hangover (and Evangelicals are suffering from a power buzz-but that is changing as well). Some of us do not want to admit that we do not have the afluence to keep some schools open. I do not know the issues intimately in TEC, but I do know that we are selling buildings at some established schools and that Seabury/Western is no longer taking students.
(As another side note, this cannot be said to be a problem only of the Mainline which if often naively thought to suffer from God’s wrath on their being too “liberal.” Readers know that I believe classical liberal Protestantism is a dead end, but its influence is continuing to wain because 1) our younger crowd is not as dogmatically liberal as our forbearers and 2) Liberals are no longer on the cutting edge of theology and biblical studies as their worldview is still tied into the supposed assurity of a “modernist” epistomology. But without the work of “liberals,” we would not have the work of Wright, Dunn, Brueggemann et. al. So let’s all cut the liberals a break.)
So on one front I absolutely agree with her. According to the current modes-of-operation in the education of the Mainline, it seems that we truly cannot afford to continue to send clergy to their indebted death.
BUT . . .
Having come from a fellowship which historically (I know that this is not universally the case – I did study with the NCU uber-trio of scholars after all) scorns education and revels in anti-intellectualism I know first hand that when clergy are not educated, we can slip into strange heresies and errors (not as if education solves this problem, we have our own to be sure). Now more than ever we need people in the church (not necessarily clergy, but why not? and how otherwise?) who are able to dig into our collective history for wisdom and clarity. We NEED clergy who know the basics of Church History, the development of doctrine, the foundations of biblical criticism, theology that takes from Gregory of Nyssa and (gulp) Calvin more so that Jung and anthropologists. We need to know what we believe and why. And we cannot expect lay people to know all these things (though we should educate).
And where will our clergy be spiritually formed?
So, this for me is a starting point to begin to speak of some of my proposals for new models of education and formation which could aid in solving some of the problems developiong in the systems as we have them. My fellow Theophiliacs can tell you that I think about what a seminary can and should look like ALL THE TIME. So I want to pitch some ideas around, ideas that I don’t suppose are well developed, but ones that I hope will contribute to an ongoing conversation on the way that we can shepherd the Body.
Gramps’ Ups His Game
April 28, 2009
In the year 1986, America had still not recovered from the apostacy of Abolition. That is, the beer scene consisted in the heavy hitters: Budweiser, Miller, Coors, etc…. We had not yet been called to leave the land of watered down un-crafted beers; we were making bricks without enough straw. The same was of course true in Minnesota. But, in 1986 Summit Brewing Company ruined the land flowing with milk and Miller and instead gave us rivers of golden, hoppy, Summit Extra Pale Ale. The whole state was filled with the knowledge of true beer-craft, even as the waters cover the sea.
But things happen. We get old, we lose that competitive edge. In fact Summit had almost no competition for years. Sure there were a couple brew-pubs, and we still had Schell’s Brewing Co., but nobody to really compete in that emerging craft-beer market. But in 2005 a bomb went off. . . Her name was Surly. Surly was a young and sexy brewery. She broke all the rules. Her beers refused categorization and they entered the scene with not one but two glorious signature beers. And She has been pumping out the good stuff ever since. Be it an Octoberfest, an oatmeal Saison, a coffee Bender, an Imperial Stout; Surly was hot.
Meanwhile, Gramps was showing his age. To satisfy the masses he had a pilsner. He periodically released an oatmeal stout, which, though a great beer, didn’t have that pizzaz! Oatmeal stouts have been done. Don’t get me wrong, Summit’s EPA is a gift. You can walk into any dive bar and even if the whole draft rail is lite – lite – lite – lite Summit will be there to make sure you are not abandoned to the pit. But some began to wonder if we would ever have the same relationship we did when Gramps could run. More breweries popped: Flat Earth brewery in St. Paul came out with a new and bracing Stout. Could Summit be beat on its own home turf?
Enter Summit’s Horizon Red Ale. A genre-busting red-IPA. Bursting forth with that dry hoppy flavor that only American beers can manage, the Red finishes with a malty balance as it utilizes mohagany dark red malts. Malty, Hoppy, Red, Dry, Balanced, Creative Don’t count out Gramps just yet!
Soliloquy: Fear and Friendship
April 27, 2009
What is it to love another? To give, devoid of obligation? To harness a sinking capstone? I do not know it. I am obliged, my footing is weak.
Steps, cautious, lead my person to the bluff ahead. I tremor.
And what of love’s impression? A selfish and relentless impulse, it drives me away from rationality – forces my hand. Love’s chemist is a barbarian. Deep admiration is not the great act of the ages. When is love of pure motive, no motive?
Shaking now, I reach the crest.
My barrier to this is selfishness. I am misconceived in believing I should feel good by love. To love another is beyond assumption, achievement. My preservation takes an illicit first priority: a sycophantic pedestal of insecurity.
I lay down the stones of fear, I summon him through sobs of loathing.
Upon my altar of selfish motivation I call forth pain.
He rises from below, a freezing river.
My sickness lies: pain and love are the same. Emotion and logic rob me, as they are being robbed from me. I am stealing from myself to feed a liar.
Seizing now, I am awake and asleep.
This is the drowning nightmare. Skin becomes scale.
Pain is introduced, an inevitable acquaintance, I expect him to grasp me. I expect him to drown me. I expect him to spirit me away. The sea draws near, it calls to me: existence is pain; a destruction of ebbing tides.
A beam of heat.
The river stops, frothing at the mouth of the sea. Existence has an adversary. Pain has a healer. The warmth dries up the river, it sets me on the bottom of the dry channel.
I am still now. I slumber, a good death.
In my slumber I recall those altars upon which I warm:
a youth group …
a greek lab …
a small classroom …
Love is Immortality, a fire that tears off scales – revealing wings.
I dawn my cape
Why I’m an Anglican: A Joke
April 25, 2009
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said, “Stop! Don’t do it!” “Why shouldn’t I?” he said. I said, “Well, there’s so much to live for!” He said, “Like what?” I said, “Well, are you religious or atheist?” He said, “Religious.” I said, “Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?” He said, “Christian.” I said, “Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist? He said, “Baptist!” I said, “Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord? He said, Baptist Church of God!” I said, “Me too! Are you Original Baptist Church of God or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?” He said, “Reformed Baptist Church of God!” I said, “Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?” He said, “Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915!” I said, “Die, heretic scum!” and pushed him off.
An (agri)cultural Essay: Thanks Wendell Berry
April 24, 2009
I have been reading up on the well known and well honored agricultural and cultural thinker Wendell Berry. He is himself a farmer and a potent critic of what the federal government has done by way of legislation to undermine (he believes) the vital connection between agriculture and wellness, health and wholeness. I want to explore some of his critiques and assert that I agree with him: Rampant urbanization and denigration of the rural, has led to a dysfunctional cultural relationship of people to their food; that which necessarily sustains us all.
In Berry’s essay “The Body and the Earth,” Berry argues that “health” is best understood as “wholeness.” The healthy unity of life in its various parts; spiritual, relational, mental, physical – all of which are tied together via “culture.” That is, the lived way in which we construct our worlds. When one or more of these are neglected or inflated to an imbalanced proportion, other parts of life end up suffering from the disparity. People often speak of their life being “imbalanced,” but perhaps surprisingly, unless one is overtly obese or suffering from a painful illness, people do not often look to the food they eat as a possible reason why they are tired or depressed, spiritually inattentive or perennially bored.
This may be the symptom of highly compartmentalized lives that we often live in the city. We get up at home, we go to work, we head to school, we eat out, we go to church, and so our education, our living, our spirituality, our safety, our food; is all divided up to different locations, different times, different social crowds. All this divides our wholeness, our cultural unity, and especially in the age of “fast” and “diet” foods that allow us to speed along with the “important” things in life, we forget, with our concrete roads, our steel buildings, that even the most processed of fast foods had to come from a field somewhere even if it stopped at a factory along the way.
But the fields aren’t what they used to be. In order to provide the types of food to sustain a fast-paced urban society, effiency is the rule of the day. Which means that food is grown too much on fields which are depleted of their nutritional resources and even mildly (or not so mildly) poisoned by artificial fertilizers and pesticides which aren’t even spread anymore, but sprayed. And so “By dividing body and soul, we divide both from all else.” One might add, by dividing sustenance and life, we divide a part of life.
That which sustains life itself is marginalized to an afterthought in life. Where our food comes from, how it’s been treated and what it does for us is subsumed underneath the functional. Even if we like the taste of food, perhaps even taking pleasure in it, the real life connection between the field and the plate (or the box or the bag) becomes a mystery. Sacramentalized in the modern grocery store where we can have a pepper in December from Brazil, shipped on a freighter, coated in wax and “preserved” with an unripe picking and the spray of a wand.
This can only be seen if we decide not to view health as the mere absence of illness. A belief in this view of health can be strangely violent to our own bodies and their physicality. As if not-suffering somehow is rich enough not to need to be filled up by literature, music, relationships, sex. This is perhaps to be expected when art is now reserved for “artsy” people only and classical music is the weekend hobby of the rich. Instead people have entertainment. They listen only to “what’s on the radio,” not exclusively but while they drive; they dance in clubs, alone in the dark, to pounding music; they watch “reality tv” leaving their own lives shallow and tired.
What then of apples and oranges? Is it really right to connect the club and the farmer? Or is it a stretch? Berry says in another essay that the life of the farmer teaches an integrated life. One that doesn’t run on a clock but on intuition, lifelong learning, and endurance. It is not so much that everyone needs to move to the country (though I’m not always sure that’s not such a bad idea) and start feeding goats. But the knowledge of the rhythm of life that comes from being more deeply connected to creation and its pivitol role in providing the sustenance for life is not something to be dismissed lightly. Especially considering that it has only been the last several hundred years that we have moved past hundreds of thousands of years of essential connection to the earth.
So health must not be thought of in shallow and simple terms, as if it is just one more part of life. Rather health is the interconnectedness of the various aspects of living, related as a whole expressed by what we commonly call “culture.” Music is rich because cheese can be rich, and life can be balanced, as say a well aged India Pale Ale, food is life and life needs the circle completed.
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Earth Day: Communist Conspiracy or Scriptural Mandate?
April 22, 2009
Ok, I’ll be upfront. The title is probably a little bit misleading. It is in reference to a little bit of trivia I read earlier this morning which cites a TIME magazine article published back in May, 1970 (the month after the first Earth Day was celebrated) which suggests that the fact that Earth Day happened to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Vladimir Lenin’s birthday was not a coincidence. The article quotes the Daughters of the American Revolution making this shocking accusation against the organizers of the first Earth Day, ”Subversive elements plan to make American children live in an environment that is good for them.”
Despite the possibility of Earth Day being a secret communist plot to improve the health of our children, I thought I would post a few links commemorating the occasion.
The first link I want to post is where the “Scriptural Mandate” part of the title comes from. And, while there is no Scriptural mandate to celebrate Earth Day, the resources on the other end of this link contend that Scripture does mandate a reverence and concern for the Earth.
The next link is to a reflection by Brian McClaren (approriate to our recent discussion of the emergent church) which is published on the website of Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation (sorry Quickbeam). It’s a thought provoking piece about the Gospel, the environment, and the Economic Crisis.
I give you the next link in a begrudged (and failed) effort at impartiality. So here is a link to an encouraging (and completely impartial) FOX NEWS report suggesting that there’s no need to worry about the Antarctic melting. It turns out that the whole climate change thing is just another one of those communist conspiracies to force us to live in a healthier planet.
And finally, a thought provoking piece from the NY Times about meat, and its connections to the environment and global poverty. Read only if you are already considering either becoming a vegetarian or significantly reducing your meat consumption, or if you intend to stay a glutinous meat-eater who is also a glutton for self-loathing.
Happy Earth Day, Comrades!
Why I am Emergent: From a Guy Who Really Doesn’t Care
April 17, 2009
Since the other posts I’m working on will take a lot more time than this little thing I wanted to throw it out there as it has been on my mind; for like a day or something.
As I began to break away from fundamentalism I didn’t really have any books that helped me along. In a sort of awkward and stumbly way I came to most of my initial positions on basic questions surrounding Evangelicalism by myself. But on the recommendation of a friend I read Blue Like Jazz. It was a refreshing book; and I still recommend it to people; but by that time I was already there. His jokes about beer, swearing pastor’s and weed were funny and not uncomfortable for me. In time, because everyone else was doing it, I read Brian McLaren’s “A New Kind of Christian” and Rob Bell’s “Velvet Elvis” and had a similar experience.
But that’s about it as far as my active involvement with anything “Emergent.” I’ve never been to a cohort meeting (mostly because of the ungodly time and day for the cohort in Minneapolis – I’m not sure who thought that up) and I don’t call myself “Emerging” or “Emergent.” Not least because of all the culture wars that have sprung up around it.
But I was watching some panel discussion with Tony Jones, Scot McKnight, Kevin DeYoung, and two other guys I forgot their names, and I was just outright angry at the nonsense DeYoung was spilling. So I wanted to write this to defend EC from the neo-fundamental-reformed types who keep scouring the Church to destroy whomever they don’t like.
First, here are a couple reasons why I am not Emergent.
- I don’t want to constantly be talking about ‘who we are.’ I helped plant and fail a church, and for years all we could talk about is who we were and who we wanted to be. It got so incredibly boring and infuriating talking about it that it was part of the reason I left. That part of the ‘conversation’ is one that I just don’t care about.
- I don’t want to have to defend a group which is supposed to be amorphous. My mom has a book about how the ‘Emerging Church’ is an end times deception of Satan (it’s not hers, somebody gave it to her). My uncle is convinced that everything Al Molher says about the EC is right, and that I’m some latte’ sipping, St. Paul hating hippie who doesn’t believe in anything. It’s so funny because it’s so ridiculous. I, like Tony Jones, do not drink latte’s. If I drink something with cream it’s a cappuccino, unsweetened, from a reputable coffee shop, but for the most part I drink black coffee, French Pressed thank you very much. The point being is that I want EC to remain so vague and diverse that I can continue to say “there is no such thing as an emerging church.” If I start calling myself Emergent I have to deal with my fundamentalist relatives and defend myself which I just don’ care to do.
- I think that Phylis Tickle’s book went too far – way too far in defining the EC and giving it a theological (hegelian?) historical meta-narrative based on iffy ideas of major things happening every 500 years. Not only that but the changes are related to big garbage sales? And then every player in the EC game gushed over in praise of the book and for a second I thought that it was going to define the EC for good. I’m just too damned “post-modern” (whatever that means) to start to claim history as my vindicator over against current operating paradigms of Christianity. I do believe that God is working some new and great things in the Church, and that EC can be a part of it; but I prefer to let “reception” among the Churches be the dominating factor in deciding what changes are going to last.
- I think that sometimes the “post-modern” term is used flippantly without a conscious awareness that “post-modernity” is not the “end of history” nor of theology or epistemology. Indeed, it seems a legitimate point to me that the “postmoderns” rarely become thoroughgoingly “post”; most of they are a “hyper” modern. On this I definitely still buy the case put by certain strands of Radical Orthodoxy.
- Sometimes a couple leaders in the EC are too anti-establishment for my taste. A rather shortsighted position in my opinion, what about the children, and their children’s children? Are we going to canonize free church independent deconstructionism as the final destination on the Church train? Are we really talking about an internet magisterium? Please.
BUT
There are reasons that I am Emerging and why I defend the Village and plan on being more involved both in EC and in Anglimergent
- There needs to be a safe space for questions, legitimate doubts, non-confrontational conversation, ambiguity and grace. By (I believe) the grace of God, the EC has opened that space up. (I know Mainline, you’re tempted to say you can do that there, with that smug look on your face. No you cant’. Everything gets boiled down to heated and dirty exchanges over homosexuality and “inclusivity.” Battle lines are clearly drawn in the Mainline. Plus everyone still thinks the old liberal protestant magisterium is relevant. Theology has moved on guys, get over it) Until the Church at large is able to understand what it means to be in a somewhat post-denominational age, the neutral space is needed; and will probably forever be needed.
- Critique of both right and left is needed in the Church, and EC is at its best, able to do this.
- In my opinion, many attempts by Evangelicals to contribute to the EC are not brave enough to cope with the secular age. It is still strangely similar to just updating the clothing and relevance. For my buck that’s just not good enough. More radical changes are needed and so far most Evangelicals are not willing to move beyond arguing about inerrency and whether church history really goes back 1500 years earlier than they think it does.
- In my opinion, many attempts by the Mainline to contribute to the EC are not confessional enough. Until the Cross and Resurrection are returned to the center of even our ‘enlightened’ care for the poor we are kind of not going anywhere. Let me be clear. 1 – Pentecostals and Nazarene’s were ‘ordaining’ women before you were. 2 – Evangelicals and Catholics were helping the poor, um, since the beginning. You did not invent social justice, get over yourself. 3 – You are no longer the only ones doing critical study of the Bible and theology. Time to get off the high-horse and participate in the larger church with humility.
All that to say, I am Emergent. . . sort of
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
