Union Seminary Research Articles

The Autobiography of Bishop Wilhelm Wagner Orwig (1810–1889)

ABSTRACT Bishop Wilhem Wagner Orwig (1810–1889) was an influential leader in the Evangelische Gemeinschaft / Evangelical Association. Orwig founded the Association’s publishing house and developed its newspaper, Der Christliche Botschafter, into an important Christian periodical. Orwig held several other important positions throughout his career, including Bishop, President of Union Seminary, and President of the Missionary Society. Orwig also engaged in theological disputation, and was a key defender of the doctrine of entire sanctification. Orwig authored or compiled over 13 volumes, including sermon collections and hymn books. During Orwig’s lifetime, the Evangelische Gemeinschaft experienced profound language change. Orwig wrote primarily in German, but, by the time of his death, the younger members could no longer understand German. This language change has left German-language American Methodism relatively unstudied. Orwig’s autobiography, translated here, offers a glimpse into the spiritual and practical world of the German-speaking Gemeinschaft.

Engaging Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus with Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer’s selfinterpretation in relation to Williams’ reading of the Harlem Renaissance.Influences of Bonhoeffer’s Union Seminary theological discussion group of friends, and thepreaching of Adam Clayton Powell Sr. Question: the relative impacts on Bonhoeffer of theSermon on the Mount and the Harlem Renaissance. Bonhoeffer’s newly found 1934 letter toGandhi is a development of his 1931 thinking in New York. Reviewing Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesusposes questions regarding Bonhoeffer and the proletaria t in Germany, and also his theologicalconcept of Stellvertretung . Query: Why no reference to Josiah Young’s No Difference in theFare

Bonhoeffer's America: A Land Without Reformation by Joel Looper

Reviewed by: Bonhoeffer's America: A Land Without Reformation by Joel Looper H. Gaylon Barker Bonhoeffer's America: A Land Without Reformation. By Joel Looper. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2021. 260 pp. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was both attracted to and disappointed in America. His attraction led him to make two trips to America in the 1930s; one in 1930–31 to study at Union Theological Seminary in New York and the other briefly in 1939, when he sought refuge [End Page 105] from the war. In both instances, he was "bitterly disappointed" (16) because "there is no theology here" (17). When viewed through his European Lutheran eyes, America "lacked the gospel" (27). The one bright spot was Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem; while the churches Bonhoeffer attended in New York preached virtually everything except "the gospel of Jesus Christ" (17), at Abyssinian he found that the gospel was "truly preached and received with great welcome and visible emotion" (137). Bonhoeffer's experiences in and reflections on American church life and theology are the subject of Looper's study. The subtitle refers to Bonhoeffer's 1939 essay, "Protestantism without Reformation," which pronounced Bonhoeffer's verdict on American Christianity that it was not really Protestant. Looper examines Bonhoeffer's experiences in America and his responses through a detailed analysis of his written reports and identifies the sources for Bonhoeffer's critique. The first is traced to the work of Thomas Cuming Hall that located the origins and characteristics of American Christianity in the theology of John Wycliffe and the 15th century English pre-Reformation Lollard movement with its emphasis on individualism and conscience (or "the inner light"). When transplanted to America, it brought a "non-ecclesial, antidogmatic, inward-looking theology" (74) and adopted an attitude of tolerance that "involved jettisoning of the question of truth" (82). The second influence shaping Bonhoeffer's response was his use of Luther's "two kingdom" thinking. Drawing on Luther's insights, America, because of its "enthusiastic spiritualism [schwärmerishe Spiritualismus]," had conflated the two kingdoms, collapsing the "church into the world" (112). What was needed was for the church to "simply continue being the church because the world will most certainly continue to be the world" (119). Like Luther, "Bonhoeffer wanted the church to invade the world with the gospel rather than keeping the Word to itself" (190). Looper places Bonhoeffer's reflections in the context of 1930s American theology, contrasting them with the theology of his professors at Union Seminary. For example, the author discusses Bonhoeffer's use of Luther to critique Reinhold Niebuhr, in whom Bonhoeffer found "the person and work of Jesus Christ is missing" (57). In addition, Looper examines the history of Abyssinian Baptist [End Page 106] Church and its roots in American slavery to show how Bonhoeffer's experiences there continued to shape both his involvement in the resistance (his concern for the plight of the Jews) and his later theology. While Bonhoeffer is likely to have missed something in American church life, is what he saw valid? Consider the "radical individualism" that has come to embody American identity; if it indeed has roots in the Lollard movement and its abandonment of the church as institution in favor of following one's own conscience, many would agree that "individualistic religiosity" in American Christianity misses "the point of the gospel" (195). When Bonhoeffer envisioned the church of the future in some of his final writings, it is a church shaped by the gospel and two kingdoms teaching, the very things absent in the American church. This work, which takes seriously Bonhoeffer's reading of the American theological tradition, is a welcome addition to the secondary work on Bonhoeffer's theology. In addition, because of the scope of Looper's analysis, this work should be of interest to anyone who is concerned about the impulses that shaped America's version of Christianity that continue to have an impact on public life in the twenty-first century. As a side note, readers of Lutheran Quarterly might find Looper's analysis of Bonhoeffer's use of Luther's two kingdoms thinking for framing his evaluation of American Christianity an added bonus. H. Gaylon Barker Molloy...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ecumenical Quest by Keith Clements

Reviewed by: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ecumenical Quest by Keith Clements Thomas K. Johnson Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ecumenical Quest. By Keith Clements. Geneva: World Council of Churches Publications, 2015. 328 pp. Did Bonhoeffer have an explicit commitment to an ecumenical mission for the community of Christ? How did Bonhoeffer engage in the ecumenical movement and what role did he play in its development? These are Clement’s primary foci and after a thorough examination he concludes that Bonhoeffer demonstrated a deep passion for an ecumenical vision, but always did it his own way. Clements maintains that a broad variety of engagements, theological, pastoral, and political, as well as the relationships that he held dear, broadened Bonhoeffer’s understanding of what it means to be church. He demonstrates this through a chronological documentation of Bonhoeffer’s participation in ecumenical activities, beginning in 1927 and continuing with an appointment in Barcelona, a scholarship at Union Seminary (New York), and involvement in conferences. In the spirit of the ecumenical cause Bonhoeffer helped draft a new catechism in 1931, which addressed the key issues of the day: science and faith, war and peace, and the unity of the church. Bonhoeffer drew heavily upon his doctoral thesis Sanctorum Communio, to define the church as “being-with-one-another” as we bear mutual responsibility in the body of Christ. For Bonhoeffer, the movement was not about fostering more dialogue or finding common ground so as to resist the divisive powers in Germany, rather the ecumenical priority was the affirmation that the church of Christ exists for the whole inhabited earth and is given in and through God’s grace. Clements argues that since Bonhoeffer is better known for his social justice pursuits, we can miss his role as an ecumenist. The reader will find his case compelling as a closer look is provided of Bonhoeffer’s input at various ecumenical councils, including his [End Page 120] substantial contribution, The Confessing Church and the Ecumenical Movement (1934). Still it remains uncertain whether Bonhoeffer saw himself in this role or simply viewed the ecumenical stage as a place where his prophetic voice could be heard. Bonhoeffer was not always about promoting unity and collaboration both nationally and internationally. Instead, his primary concern was making grace real and being an advocate for peace and justice, and Clements admits that at times there was not a connection between these priorities and church unity. Even though Clements’ book is a valuable resource to understand Bonhoeffer’s contributions to numerous ecumenical conferences and to navigate through the complex issues involved, it still seems problematic to ascertain what his specific hopes and influences were for ecumenism as an enduring goal. Yet it is clear that Bonhoeffer has an ecumenical appeal today. His priorities on putting one’s faith into practice, being authentic and committed to justice, challenging nationalism and idolatry have influenced a wide array of Christian and non-Christian traditions. At my school, Claremont School of Theology, these common values enhance relationship building and a profound sense of community. It is clear that interdenominational, inter-cultural, and even interreligious experiences influenced Bonhoeffer’s vision of living out a broader practice of faith that was inclusive as well as grounded in Christ. As Bonhoeffer attempted to serve as the vital link between the Confessing Church and other church bodies, he voiced the concern that “the ecumenical movement lacked a theology” (7). Was it simply an endless array of conferences and talk, or was it embedded in and could launch an effective witness to the body of Christ, alive and active in every arena of life? Bonhoeffer struggled to discover and implement a foundation for the movement when he wrote On the Theological Foundation for the Work of the World Alliance (1932). Bonhoeffer ebbed and flowed with hope and frustration with his ecumenical experience. Yet ironically it was Bonhoeffer’s work, Clements believes, that served as the inspiration for the organization of the World Council of Churches. Clements sees Bonhoeffer as a resource for clarifying tensions we face today such as those involving the individual and the [End Page 121] community, freedom and responsibility, nationalism and dignity for all. Bonhoeffer’s honest evaluation of these...

Conversation with Paul Cézanne

Conversation with Paul Cézanne Micheal O’Siadhail (bio) Cézanne, still dauntless on your daily treks To paint Mont Sainte-Victoire from day to day; You clash with all your friends, recluse of Aix, Return to childhood’s chestnut-lined allée. Distrustful, trenchant, unpraised banker’s son, Both full of doubts and fed by complex pride, Your best-loved paintings, paintings not yet done— A falling short that’s never satisfied. Your father’s trees unleaf each falling year, Turn arabesques both bare and angular; Your eyes in love with luminous ripe spheres Keep glorying a still-lifed ginger jar And unities of tone-dissolving bright— Long live the sun that grants such stunning light. As boys Zola and I both learn to dream In words and paint, refusing to conform To bourgeois norms; while still at school we scheme How we’ll take Paris and the world by storm. My father’s disapproval salts a sore; A prodigal and guilty breakaway, I can’t just call myself a refuse— I’ll dare keep knocking on the Salon’s door. Courbet and Delacroix imbued my youth, Pissarro taught me much and fathered me; But now I fall in love with light and shade And learn to trust myself to paint the truth Of sailors, fruits and skulls – the things I see; My art’s creation’s ardour re-arrayed. Zola reneged, Monet, Degas, Renoir— Outsiders all—by now well moved inside; Though you’re rebuffed, a critic’s bête noire, Yet such neglect self-faith somehow defied. So long an outcast, loner blunt and brusque – [End Page 256] Still younger men get under your thin skin; You change and open up, a spiky husk Whose wariness conceals its seed within. ‘ A line’s a meeting place for coloured planes’ or ‘ light and shadow angles should concur’‘God’s sun’, you say, ‘ paints all the world contains’— And leave for vespers at Le Saint-Sauveur. Your heaven reached still layer by painful layer— Was every stroke a slowly entered prayer? I learned to let the colours draw for me To soak my senses in each liquid zone; Although I seek Poussin’s calm clarity, Nuancing shapes in tight mosaics of tone. I still refuse to kiss the fashion’s rod— Our insights turned to blotchy in-betweens— Once a certain age, there’s only God Whose reds and blues and yellows, blacks and greens Re-radiate from rocks and chestnut trees Or waistcoats, plums and smokers’ playing cards, A millstone, bathers in their bare delight, The caves near Château Noir, a man’s chemise; There’s nothing God’s hued glory disregards; All beauty’s light within a greater light. [End Page 257] Micheal O’Siadhail Micheal O’Siadhail is an Irish poet by birth, and a recent New Yorker by choice. His latest publications include Collected Poems (Bloodaxe 2113), Say but the Word: Vision and Voice in Poetry (Hinds, 2015) and One Crimson Thread (Bloodaxe, 2015). Awarded an Irish American Cultural Institute prize for poetry in 1981 and the Marten Toonder Prize for Literature in 1998, he was a member of the Arts Council of the Republic of Ireland (1988–93), and is distinguished poet-in-residence at the Union Seminary (NYC). The larger collection from which this poem is taken is entitled The Five Quintets (Baylor University Press, forthcoming in 2018). www.osiadhail.com. Copyright © 2017 Johns Hopkins University Press

Politics and Faith: Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich at Union Seminary in New York. By Ronald H.Stone. Pp. xix, 486, Macon, GA, Mercer University Press, 2012, £39.95/€47.00.

Politics and Faith: Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich at Union Seminary in New York. By Ronald H.Stone. Pp. xix, 486, Macon, GA, Mercer University Press, 2012, £39.95/€47.00.

Book review: Politics and Faith: Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich at Union Seminary in New York, written by Ronald Stone

Book review: Politics and Faith: Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich at Union Seminary in New York, written by Ronald Stone

An Unlikely Alliance: Adam Clayton Powell Sr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Seeds of Transformation

An Unlikely Alliance: Adam Clayton Powell Sr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Seeds of Transformation Louis Porter II New York City, Harlem, to be exact, and the year was 1930. Two strong forces were about to meet, one influencing the other in a transforming and ultimately historical way. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., then the prominent pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, was one of the most powerful African Americans in the nation at that time, but probably did not expect to come into contact with one Deitrich Bonhoeffer, then a Lutheran German visiting on a post‐graduate fellowship at nearby Union Theological Seminary. Surely, the fact that the church he led would have a profound effect on someone from the other side of the globe—at least in part creating level of understanding and sensitivity that would lead Bonhoeffer to become a martyr in World War II—could not have been foreseen. In reflecting upon his book, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, () Eric Metaxas said: “For the first time Bonhoeffer saw the gospel preached and lived out in obedience to God's commands. He was entirely captivated, and for the rest of his time in New York he was there every Sunday to worship and teach a Sunday School class of boys; he was active in a number of groups in the church…” Bonhoeffer later shared the power the old Negro spirituals had on him and would even teach them to students in his native country. In his online column, “The Report from Washington,” () Ellis Washington wrote: “Bonhoeffer returned to Germany by late June 1931, where he was one of the first citizens to begin actively plotting against Hitler and Nazism with other courageous Germans.” In 1945, Bonhoeffer was assassinated just before the end of the war. Much has been written about Bonhoeffer's time in Harlem; yet, the results of that visit deserve further reflection, particularly, the effects of Abyssinian and its then, pastor, the elder Powell (and father of the more famous Adam Clayton Powell Jr. who succeeded his father as pastor before being elected to Congress.) Beyond Bonhoeffer's symbolic act of defiance in attending an African American church in 1930, Bonhoeffer and Powell exemplified what would now be given various labels, including cross‐cultural communication and learning, a diversity case study, the difference an ally can make and the power of inclusion. Observers have noted that Bonhoeffer's ability to see and sympathize with “the other” at Powell's Abyssinian Baptist Church undoubtedly played a role in his later resistance to Hitler. “The black Baptist experience not only introduced him to an entirely new form of Christianity, but also provided the possibility for balancing the probable tensions in his own life and his central European Christianity between emotion and reason, between thought and action, between individual and group needs,” wrote Ruth Zerner in Union Seminary Quarterly Review. (Summer, ) Zerner also noted: The life‐affirming leitmotifs of black Christianity resounded with an emphasis upon the centrality of Jesus Christ and the supportive experience of community solidarity. The themes of Christ and community were familiar to Bonhoeffer, but novel was the unique, passionate exuberance with which they were expressed. Unforgettable for Bonhoeffer was the joyful, emotional liberation of Black Baptist worship, particularly in its music and audience participation. The action‐oriented program of Abyssinian Baptist Church also could not have escaped Bonhoeffer's attention. Abyssinian's pastor when Bonhoeffer attended, The Rev. Dr. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., was born in May of 1865, the son of an African‐Cherokee slave woman and a slave owner who was of German descent. Although a delinquent in his youth, Powell accepted Christ as a young man and eventually studied rigorously for the ministry. With Powell's light skin and straight, bushy hair, he could have passed for white, as many others of his era chose to do. Instead, he became an outspoken advocate for black people, with Abyssinian serving as his base. More than a place of rousing sermons and electrifying music, Powell's church during the time of Bonhoeffer's extended visit was an epicenter of community life, including not only Christian study, but educational, recreational, charitable, social and youth...

Editors’ Introduction

Editors’ Introduction Rita M. Gross and Terry C. Muck Returning to be guest editors of this journal for a short period of time, we are delighted to present such a rich 2014 issue. In April 2013, Union Theological Seminary in New York City welcomed a distinguished international group of scholars, theologians, and other commentators to a gathering of engaged Buddhists and Christian liberation theologians. Those of us who attended were invited for a conference that also celebrated the career and retirement of Paul Knitter, of the Union Seminary faculty and one of the great voices for Buddhist-Christian interchange in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. We were delighted when Paul took up a suggestion from Sallie King, the conference keynote speaker, that this journal publish some of the papers from that conference. Paul agreed and quickly expedited Sallie’s suggestion, clearing the way for this journal to publish the comments found in these pages. We are grateful to Sallie, Paul, and everyone else who made this a smooth and easy transition into our guest editorship. They made possible a wonderful issue. The conference itself, which Rita attended as one of the invited speakers, was a wonderful celebration of collegiality and friendship across continents, religions, generations, disciplines, and social concerns, as the table of contents for this issue will quickly demonstrate. Friendship and collegiality were enhanced by the fact that participants lived together in guest rooms at Union Seminary and ate together there, dining on a variety of ethnic cuisines. In addition to many distinguished speakers, only some of whom are represented in these pages, the event featured music, dance, liturgy, and meditation from a wide variety of religious and cultural traditions. The print medium of this journal cannot begin to capture all the richness provided by this conference. Nevertheless, we are delighted to bring some flavor of the conference to you through the papers selected for this issue of the journal. This conference also demonstrated what many would regard as a significant advance in what Buddhist-Christian interchange involves from standard fare in the earlier days of that encounter. Some will remember that this journal, founded by David Chappell in 1980, grew directly out of one of the first large English-language international gatherings dedicated to Buddhist-Christian interchange, which took place in Hawai’i and was also organized by David Chappell. That first issue of this journal published some papers from that early conference, including Rita’s. That paper was one of the very earliest statements on feminism and Buddhism, but papers dedicated to joint pursuit of solutions to large-scale social problems were much less [End Page vii] in evidence in those early years. The field has grown, such that subdisciplines within Buddhist-Christian interchange are now commonplace and no one is surprised that we can easily dedicate a whole issue of this journal simply to Engaged Buddhism and Christian liberation theology. We also take pride in the fact that both that very first issue and this issue, as well as many issues in between, contain articles and essays on gender and feminism. We take pride in this fact because even engaged Buddhists and Christian liberation theologians often forget that sexism in its many varieties, including heteronormativity, ranks very high among the causes of human misery. In addition, the conference and contributors to this issue took on issues of economic injustice, racism, and environmental degradation. Others spoke directly out of and about the experiences of those who suffer from those types of injustice. Theological and spiritual responses to those injustices are also presented. Conference organizer and newly minted PhD Kyeongil Jung and keynote speaker Sallie King present overviews of the conference itself and of interchanges between engaged Buddhists and Christian liberation theologians. Honoree Paul Knitter closed the conference with a moving tribute to his many friends in the worlds of engaged Buddhism and Christian liberation theology and an account of what he has learned from them over the many years we have all worked together. This set of conference papers is followed by a varied collection of book reviews and the News and Views section, thanks to Sid Brown, book review editor, and Jonathan Seitz...

Beverly Wildung Harrison: Forefronting Women's Moral Agency

Beverly Wildung Harrison:Forefronting Women’s Moral Agency Rebecca Todd Peters (bio) Beverly Wildung Harrison was a remarkably influential force in the history and development of Christian social ethics and, more broadly, in feminist ethics and theology. From 1967 until her retirement in 1999, Harrison was on the faculty of Union Theological Seminary in New York, where she had held the Carolyn Williams Beaird Professor of Christian Ethics chair since 1980. In the months since her death in December 2012, women and men from across both the academy and the church have offered testimony and thanksgiving for the courage, support, and solidarity that Harrison exhibited through her scholarship, advocacy, and mentoring. In the 1999 Union Seminary Quarterly Review festschrift for Harrison, social ethicist Larry Rasmussen argued that Christian ethics was a different discipline as a result of Harrison’s contributions and influence, citing her deep commitment to radical economic democracy, her insistence that ethical theory emerge from the material reality of injustice in the world, and her embodiment of inclusive and radical communities of mutuality as the starting point of ethical thinking and action.1 Harrison exemplified the collaborative model of feminist scholarship in her role as a public intellectual, scholar, and teacher who embraced the mutually constitutive process of theory and meaning making that happens in the classroom, around the kitchen table, in public halls, offices, and meetings, and on factory floors around the world. This commitment to the everyday lives, voices, and experiences of the people most directly affected by experiences of social injustice is nowhere more evident than in her groundbreaking work, Our Right to Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion, published in 1983.2 [End Page 121] In Our Right to Choose, Harrison developed a feminist moral argument for protecting the legal right to abortion that focused on respecting women’s moral agency and women’s bodily integrity. It was the first feminist book on abortion to make a moral rather than a legal argument supporting the right of women as a social group to make decisions about whether or not to have an abortion. While medical and technological advances combined with entrenched rhetoric on both sides have changed the contours of the abortion debate over the past thirty years, Harrison’s trenchant moral argument asserting women’s full moral agency remains remarkably persuasive. The essays collected here were first presented at an American Academy of Religion panel in November 2012 as part of a thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Our Right to Choose. Informed by Harrison’s work on the subject, the following essays discuss some of the challenges of the contemporary political debate and public policy related to issues of reproductive justice as well as how Harrison’s approach can help inform political controversies related to abortion in different cultural contexts. Rebecca Todd Peters Rebecca Todd Peters is Professor of Religious Studies and Director the Poverty and Social Justice program at Elon University. Her work as a feminist social ethicist is focused on globalization, economic, environmental, and reproductive justice. Her book In Search of the Good Life: The Ethics of Globalization (Continuum, 2004) won the 2003 Trinity Book Prize. She has co-edited four books and written numerous articles and book chapters. Her latest book, Solidarity Ethics: Transformation in a Globalized World, was published in January 2014 with Fortress Books. [rpeters@elon.edu] Footnotes 1. Larry Rasmussen, “A Different Discipline,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 53, nos. 3–4 (1999): 29–51. 2. Beverly Wildung Harrison, Our Right to Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983). Copyright © 2014 The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc.

Theology and Ethics Then, Now, and In-Between at Union Seminary and Elsewhere

The story of theology and ethics at Union Seminary from 1812 to the present illustrates the critical relationship between theology, ethics, and historical circumstances. In a distinctive fashion, it also reflects both the wider story and current challenges of theology and ethics in American Protestantism.

Identity, Politics, and Theological Ethics: A RevIew Article

On first looking into Richard Fox's Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), I had the sense of stepping into a landscape at once strange and familiar. Three decades ago I was a beginning theology student at Manhattan's Union Seminary as Niebuhr brought to a close his active teaching career. He was my first professor of Christian ethics and had been a factor in my decision to attend Union. I had already entered his world, having studied at his Alma Mater, Elmhurst College, where his name and fame were commonplace. I was an outsider to a Germanic world at Elmhurst, which delighted in the reflected glory brought to the school by Reinhold and his equally famous theologian-ethicist brother H. Richard Niebuhr.

Literary Theory, Philosophy of History and Exegesis

LITERARY THEORY, PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY AND EXEGESIS XYONE FAMILIAR with the present state of biblical studies is aware that there is a significant shift on the part of many ,scholars away from the historical critical method as it was practiced earlier toward methods that are based upon various theories of literature.1 Criteria for judging the aptitude of either the historical or literary method are often established on the ·basis of their practical effectiveness in " yielding a meaning," particularly one that seems to serve the believing community. The difficulty with such an approach is that the philosophical principles latent in and undedying the various methods are not examined directly and are thus left to function unquestioned while the debate centers on results. The purpose of this study is modest. It is to reflect critically on a concrete work of exegesis in order to see how exegesis actually proceeds or might proceed. I a1so wish to question some of the unexpressed epistemological principles that often operate in whrut biblical scholars do. Taking rus a model those historians who have reflected philosophically on what it means to do history, I wish in a similar manner to reflect on what it means to do exegesis·. Such an undertaking, it is hoped, will advance the dialogue between systematic theology and exegesis and indicate further avenues to be explored. We have arrived at a moment when it is in the interest of both disciplines to have a clearer notion of how to assess the results of biblical study. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the central issue in biblical studies is not method as such, though discussion of 1 For a description of more profound aspects of this shift, see: J. P. Martin, "Toward a Post-Critical Paradigm," New Testament Studies 33 (1987) 370-385. 575 576 FRANCIS MARTIN what is called the historical critical method, the literary method, etc. will always have its place. The core problem is that of developing a theology of human communication. This will be a theology that learns from the philosophy of language and literature and yet derives its primary lessons from the unique communication that each theologian experiences in his or her personal contact with the biblical text. The work done by Paul Ricoeur in the field of the philosophy of l1 anguage and literature can provide a, point of departure in the elaboration of such a theology of communication. In addition to reflecting philosophically on many aspects of human communication, Ricoeur has expressed himself from time to time on the relation of his philosophy to biblica,l issues. Thus, in his essay, " Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation ," 2 Ricoeur speaks of biblical hermeneutic as being " one regional hermeneutic within a general hermeneutic and a unique hermeneutic that is joined to philosophy as its organon ." 3 In discussing the expression of dependence without heteronomy, at the conclusion his essay, Ricoeur goes on to say: ... the experience of testimony can only provide the horizon for a specifically religious and biblical experience of revelation, without our ever being able to derive that experience from the philosophical categories of truth as manifestation and reflection as testimony .4 These statements, as we can easily recognize, touch upon a key dimension of the problem facing us as we attempt to locate the human communication of the scriptures in the context of revelation. The question is that of the presence of the unique existing within the common. It is the fact that the particular and irreducible nature of the biblical witness is necessarily made in language common to 1 alL Scripture directs itself, not 2Now found in L. Mudge (ed.), Essays iAi Bibliaal Interpretation (Philadelphia : Fortress, 1980), pp. 73-118. See in addition, "Naming God," Union Seminary Quarterly Review 34 (1979) 215-227. 3" Toward a Hermeneutic," p. 104. 4Jbid., p. 117. LITERARY THEORY, HISTORY AND EXEGESIS 577 to a remote and privileged sphere of " religion," but rather to the marketplace where human thoughts about existence jostle one another in a desire to be heard: Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the open squares she raises her voice. Down the crowded ways she calls out, at the city gates she...

Where is Terabithia?

Where is Terabithia? Katherine Paterson When I returned from Japan in 1962, I went to New York City to study at Union Seminary there. I had every intention of returning to Japan after my year at Union was over, but in February a young minister from a church in Buffalo came to Union for a continuing education program. In my weekly letter home, I made the mistake of mentioning that I had met such a person. At this point I had had exactly one very public, and as far as I was concerned, very casual lunch with the fellow, but my mother at once leaped to the most drastic conclusion possible under the circumstances. She rushed to tell her best friend the dreadful thing that had occurred. Katherine had gotten herself involved with a preacher from Buffalo. "Why, Mary," said Helen, "that's lovely. If Katherine marries him she'll stay in this country. She won't be going back to Japan all by herself." The text was written in 1583 by the monk Fray Bernardino Sahagun and is one of the first books printed in this hemisphere. Until now it has never been translated from the original Nahuatl, the Aztec language. In 1523, two years after Cortez's military victory, monks were sent from Spain to consolidate the conquest of Mexico. And this they did. In the next five years, one million Aztecs were converted to Christianity; in twenty years there nine million converts. Bereft of their gods, which the Spaniards had toppled from the pyramids and demolished, the Indians turned to the monks and embraced the new religion with fervor. But they missed the elaborate processions and ceremonies that had accompanied the old Aztec religion. To fill this gap, the monks introduced miracle plays, of which The Spirit Child is one. It is the story of the Nativity. In it are the volcanoes, which the Aztecs believed to be the entrances to Hell before Jesus was born. And when Jesus was born, three suns shone over Tenochtitlan, the capitol of Mexico. Mary went to Bethlehem on foot. There was no donkey for her to ride, for prior to the coming of the Spaniards, the only domestic animals the Aztecs had were dogs and turkeys, and in 1583, when the text was written, the Indians were forbidden to ride the horses, mules, and donkeys introduced by the Spaniards on pain of death. In conclusion, I would like to quote from a book on Chinese painting—The Tao of Painting, by Mai Mai Sze: " . . . the literal aim of painting [was the magic that] happened when skill with brush could transmit the spirit to silk or paper." This is what I am trying to do. "But," replied my mother, "I've been to Japan. I've never been to Buffalo." I share this story with you to indicate the weird brand of parochialism that existed, and perhaps still exists, in my family. We're forever put off by people that find exotic the places we call home, whether they are in upper Jiangsu Province or Northern Shikoku or Southeast Virginia. But the idea of leaving home and heading for a place called Buffalo, New York, seems on a par with Columbus setting sail west for East India. Let me remind you that it was not that John was either Presbyterian or a pastor that bothered my mother. She herself had been married to a Presbyterian pastor for thirty nine years. It wasn't even the actual city of Buffalo that she was objecting to. She'd never been to Buffalo. What was bothering her was the idea of Buffalo, which conjured up vague visions of snow and ice, but which she couldn't really picture. Buffalo was simply not real to her. [End Page 153] Flannery O'Connor, whose words about writing have meant a great deal to me, has said that fiction is "incarnational." By "incarnational" we mean that somehow the word or the idea has taken on flesh, has become physical, actual, real, We mean that the abstract idea can be perceived by way of the senses. This immediately makes fiction different from other kinds of stories. The fairy...

What Did Augustine Confess?

What Did Augustine Confess? Samuel Laeuchli Samuel Laeuchli Samuel Laeuchli is Professor of Patristics at Temple University This play on Augustine's Confessions is part of the experimental work of Philadelphia's Mimesis Institute, a center for alternative science which combines the study of religion with participation in play, myth, and art. It was originally written for the 1978 annual convention of the American Academy of Religion and produced at New Orleans with Karon Brown of Drew, Sheldon Eisenberg of Florida State, Ernest Saunders of Garrett, and Gerard Sloyan of Temple reading the four parts The play was also given at Barnard College, Union Seminary in New York, Vanderbilt Divinity School, and at the International Patristic Conference at Oxford in 1979 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume L, Issue 3, September 1982, Pages 379–410, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/L.3.379 Published: 01 September 1982

Tracy’s Blessed Rage for Order: A Review Article

TRACY'S BLESSED RAGE FOR ORDER: A REVIEW ARTICLE * I REMEMBER WELL a winter afternoon in 1964 when, in a New York suburban rectory, David Tracy, our mutual friend Joseph Komonchak and I argued the value of philosophical theology . At the time I was in my first year of graduate theology at Union Seminary and a participant in a seminar on contemporary conceptions of God led by Daniel Day Williams and J. A. Martin. I had sworn off the neo-scholastic philosophy and theology of my seminary days. I could see no connection between them and the ministry I was engaged upon, but my inherited ' classical theism ' had not been replaced or modified by any conception that could be called contemporary. I had retreated to biblicism of a reasonably sophisticated sort. Fathers Tracy and Komonchak urged me to read Bernard Lonergan's Insight. In fact they gave me a copy. I read it, and the reading changed my mind on what the theologically significant issues were and where they lay. Whether as a result of my biblicism or my classical theism now reinforced by chapter XIX of Insight, I spent the semester mystified by the neo-classical or process theism of Professor Williams. A set of lectures by Charles Hartshorne did nothing to ease my mystification. Father Tracy was then a parish priest in Stamford, Connecticut. He returned to Rome the following year and wrote a doctoral dissertation on Lonergan's notion of method. From 1967 to 1969 he was assistant professor of systematics at Catholic University and there wrote The Achievement of Bernard Lonergan. He has since been an associate professor of systematics at the Divinity School of Chicago University. In these years he has published a number of important essays in foundational theology which marked out his own position, distinguished it significantly from Lonergan's, and show the increasing influence of his Chicago colleagues, especially Schubert Ogden. Appreciation of his talents and efforts by the Catholic theological community was made obvious when he was elected president of the Catholic Theological Society for 1976-1977. * David Tracy: Blessed Rage for Order, The New Pluralism in Theology (New York: Seabury Press, 1975). 665 666 WILLIAM M. SHEA Blessed Rage for Order is the outcome of a decade's labor. It is worth the labor. It is not so thoughtful or profound a philosophical interpretation of religion as Louis Dupre's The Other Dimension or W. E. Hocking's The Meaning of God in Human Experience. Nor will it achieve the classical status in American philosophical theology of Josiah Royce's The Problem of Christianity. But it easily rivals and in many respects surpasses the work of Ogden and Langdon Gilkey. It is a well-informed and persuasive analysis of the plurality of positions in theology based on a carefully articulated personal stance that has no trace of the evasion, idiosyncrasy, or common sense eclecticism that characterizes much of the work in the field. It interprets and interrelates the present state of scholarship in a dozen vital areas. It brings into Catholic theology a demand for revision of the theological tradition, presses that demand on the basis of the values of the tradition itself, and does so from a foundation radically different from inherited Catholic theological self-understanding. It forces the issue of truth and its criteria in theological discourse to the center of debate. Issued from that tower of contemporary scholarship in religion, the Chicago Divinity School, it will command the attention of any thinker concerned with the meaning of existence, with religion, with the question of God, and with the nature of theology as a contemporary discipline. It is quite possibly the best work ever done by an American Catholic in foundational theology. CONTENT Blessed Rage for Order is primarily concerned with theological method, with what theology is and does, with the stance and commitment of the theologian, and with the procedures and criteria necessary for a truly contemporary theology. Father Tracy means to define theology and, as he understands it, it is necessarily " revisionist ." In the first chapter the cognitive, ethical, and existential crises of modern theology are outlined. The first we are familiar with: since the Enlightenment...

Briefer Notices

Briefer Notices By Henry J. Cadbury In John Bright and the Empire, by James L. Sturgis (London, 1969) we have a new and useful discussion of Blight's attitude toward British policy during his years in Parliament. John Blight's Quakerism is discussed as one of the influences upon his life. Blight's efforts to find a creative solution to the Irish question are fully treated in three chapters. * * * Wyck, the Story of an Historic House, 1690-1970, by W. Edmunds Claussen (published by Mary T. Haines, 6026 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19144) is a difficult book to describe, but it is redolent of Quaker history of nearly three centuries. The ownership of this ancient house in Germantown (one of the three oldest in Philadelphia) has been in Quaker families, originally the Milans, Jansens, and Wistars, emigres from Holland and Germany. For the last two centuries Reuben Haines, the intimate first cousin of John Woolman, and his Haines descendants have been owners. The events connected with the house, its owners, the old letters and diaries, local and public affairs, with notable political, social, economic, artistic, and horticultural items, give the reader an unpredictable variety. * * * A Homespun Quaker Family Chronicle: A Story of Hoosier Home Life One Hundred Years Ago, by Mary Stubbs Painter, is a substantial well-illustrated and well-printed booklet (n.d., 86 pages; obtainable from the editor, Levinus K. Painter, 5075 S. Ellicott Rd., Orchard Park, N.Y. 14127). It was half-written by the author before her death in 1834 and afterwards supplemented by two of her children with filial zeal and good taste. It is a typical story of Quaker and farm life of the past as interpreted by a cultivated modern generation, and touches on the genealogy of other families besides those of Painter and Stubbs. * * * "Daniel Trotter: Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia Cabinetmaker ," by Anne Castrodale Golovin in the Winterthur Portfolio 6 (1970), pp. 151-184, is a detailed and illustrated account of this 57 58QUAKER HISTORY Quaker workman (1747-1800) who included Stephen Girard among his customers. Several pieces of his workmanship are in the furniture of the Girard College Collection. * * * Joseph Clark, Travels Among the Indians, 1797, is a neatly printed version of a Philadelphia Quaker's diary (Charles Ingerman , Doylestown, Pa. 1968). * * * A History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Part I, by Terry A. McNealy (Bucks County Historical-Tourist Commission, Fallsington , Pa., 1970, 154 pages) is the first of two volumes planned to cover up to 1776, and includes the Quaker background and local Friends meetings. It is closely printed and is supplied with over 450 notes and a good index. * * * Walter Klinefelter writes in the Winterthur Portfolio 6 (1970), pp. 41-74, on "Surveyor General Thomas Holme's Map of the Improved Part of the Province of Pennsylvania." This map of about 1687 discloses the evolving changes in the early survey. * * * Abstracts of the Records of the Society of Friends of Vermilion Quarterly Meeting in Vermilion Grove, Illinois (Illiana Genealogical and Historical Society, 1970, 265 pages) is a careful edition of records from 1826 through 1911. It is printed and arranged very much like the Hinshaw Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy , but with even more categories of information. * * * Willard Heiss has published Abstracts of the Records of the Society of Friends in Indiana, Part Three (Indianapolis, Indiana Historical Society, 1970, 557 pages); fifteen meetings are included, from Grant, Howard, Wabash, Miami, and Huntington counties. * * * Elizabeth Lawton Hazard: Friend at Large, 1889-1968, by Levinus K. Painter and George A. Badgley, is published with the approval of Representative Meeting of New York Yearly Meeting. It is an attractive testimony to a dedicated Friend. * * * In the Union Seminary Quarterly Review, XXV (1970), 197209 , is a valuable article on "Gerald Winstanley: A Case Study in the Relation of Religion and Culture." Though it deals more with method than with the personality of Winstanley it is relevant to the BRIEFER NOTICES59 early Quaker movement which was parallel to Winstanley and which he ultimately joined. The author is Charles Wellborn. * * * The first person selected by Jonathan Hughes in his book The Vital Few; American Economic Progress and its Protagonists (Boston, 1966) is William Penn (pp. 22-66...

Christian Ethics and the Community by James M. Gustafson

340 BOOK REVIEWS the human being truly constitute an existing whole or is he merely a dynamic unity of dimensions of a mind, in which consciousness affects the mental-physical, while this, as "explainable on the basis of the functioning of the body " (XIX) is incapable of exercising any causal influence upon the non-physical reflective awareness? Consciousness and Freedom discusses problems of the modern philosophy of mind in an intelligent and interesting manner; it does not answer the important questions of a realistic philosophy of man which it raises in its readers. The Catholic University of America Washington, D. C. MARms ScHNEIDER, 0. F. M. Christian Ethics and the Community. By JAMES M. GusTAFSON. Philadelphia : Pilgrim Press, 1971. $7.95. Eight of ten chapters in Gustafson's book consist in the reprinting of articles from such sources as the Union Seminary Quarterly Review, Una Sancta, and The Scope Of Theology (World Publishing Company, 1965). Another is printed from a lecture to the 1967 colloquium of the Contemporary Theology Institute, Loyola College, Montreal. Thus only two of ten sections contain material not otherwise available, and only one chapter "The Moral Conditions Necessary for Human Community" appears to have been written specifically for the book. The original chapter, moreover, appears the weakest by far of Gustafson's efforts. That human community cannot exist without faith, hope, and love (all broadly defined) is quite apparent to anybody who stops in the street to think about trusting traffic laws, sharing some measure of confidence in the future, and bearing at least minimal loyalty, reverence, and gratitude for others. By way of creative insight, then, Gustafson's book offers nothing beyond the contributions he has already made to the study of Christian ethics. On the other hand, Christian Ethics and the Community does collect and organize several expressions by Gustafson which continue to exercise considerable influence on the field. His " Context Versus Principles: A Misplaced Debate in Christian Ethics," reprinted from the Harvard Theological Review (1965), offered seasoned wisdom at the time of that encounter and several prophetic questions still are guiding much of the discussion . Again, his focus upon " The Conditions for Hope: Reflections on Human Experience" (Continuum, 1970) asks the bases and objects of hope. " Only when the object of hope is delineated with enough specificity BOOK REVIEWS 841 to make possible the inference of certain achievable moral intentions can it give relatively clear direction to moral actions " was the conclusion of his essay. The most appealing of his efforts is also his most lengthy, occupying almost dne third of the book. " Christian Ethics in America," a historical summary of the personalities and issues involved in the writing of ethics since 1930 remains a normative study of the recent history of the discipline. Viewed as an anthology of provocative writings rather than as a major contribution in its own right, Gustafson's work merits both attention and reflection of serious scholars, students, and others who will be interested. Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary Louisville, Kentucky LOUIS WEEKS The Search for Human Values: Moral Growth in an Evolving World. By CoRNELIUS J. VANDERPoEL, C. S. Sp. New York: Newman Press, 1971. 186 pp. $4.95. Van der Poel's recent book is a relatively comprehensive essay in moral theology, providing outlines of a theological anthropology necessary for understanding man as a moral agent, a methodology for evaluating the rightness or wrongness of human actions, a discussion of the role of conscience in the moral life of man, and a consideration of sin and virtue as manifestations of failures and successes in human self-fulfillment. Much that the author has to say is exceptionally valuable, in particular his stress on the dynamism of man's moral life, on the interpersonal relationships between human beings and between man and God that form the fabric of man's existence as a moral being, and on the need to take into account the total human or moral dimensions of an activity in evaluating its moral worth instead of focussing immediately on some isolated element within the activity. He is surely correct in stressing the historicity of man in discussing the way in which moral values are formulated and...

Tomorrow's education in medicine and ministry

becoming as fluid as the institutional walls. The recent medical student strikes in Berlin and Prague and the occupation of McCormick and Union Seminary buildings in this country reflect, beyond the immediate grievances, a pro found philosophical struggle concerned with the nature of medical and minis terial education. The winds of change now blow through the musty cor ridors of both kinds of institutions, creating an atmosphere in which con structive criticism that leads to greater institutional relevance is not only tolerated but welcomed.

Some Old Patterns for New in Missions

This article constitutes Dr. Jackson's inaugural address as Adjunet Professor on the Senior Faculty of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, delivered on October 25, 1961. It was published in the Union Seminary Quarterly Review. Vol. XVII, No. 1 (Nov. 1961), and is reproduced here by permission of the editors.