Updated Schedule

Dear Socratics,
There have been a couple of updates for our schedule. Notice particularly the event with Dr. Richard Hays has been moved to March 28 & 29. As well, a dialogue with the Islamic Student Association on Duke's campus has been scheduled for April 12. Hope to see you at all these events.
Peace and grace,
Tom

Homosexuality Discussion Group Series
Sacred Worth & Socratic Club Co-Sponsors
February 14 @ 12:20-1:20 – Eugene Rogers:
February 15 @ 12:20-1:20 – Discussion Groups

March 28 @ 12:20-1:20 – Richard Hays: What Makes for Peace and Upbuilding? Dealing with Our
Differences in the Homosexuality Debate
March 28 @ 1:30-2:30 – Discussion Groups Part I
March 29 @ 12:20-1:20 – Discussion Groups Part II

April 11 @ 12:20-1:20 – Organizer’s Dialogue
April 11 @ 1:30-2:30 – Discussion Groups

The Jesus Seminar?
March 27 @ 12:20-1:20 – Mark Rutledge (Associate Member of the Jesus Seminar)

Sacraments & The Emerging Church Movement
March 20 @ 12:20-1:20 – Ed Phillips & Tim Conder

Islamic Student Assocation Dialogue
April 12 @ 5:00-6:30PM

The Communicability of Blogs

It is such a curious genre, this. Offense boils out of every letter and all kindness seems only trite and condescending.

I am interested, after the devolution of a thread recently, what people think are the overwhelming difficulties of faceless communication of this nature? When does it become unhelpful and why do reactionaries and fundis seem to flock to it so much.

What blogs do you read and why and do you participate in any? Is the internet the death of moderatism because you never have to see a person' face or break bread with them? How do we, who see and know each other, embody a different reality on the internet?

On Natural Theology

People often point to the possibility of natural knowledge of God to justify God’s judgment on those who have never heard the gospel. The text for this position is Romans 1:18-23 (and following):

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. (RSV)

Now, let me put this alongside another famous passage from the same epistle, Romans 10:14-17:

But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news!” But they have not all heeded the gospel; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ. (RSV)

Here are my questions:

1. Can a person learn enough about God from the sort of knowing described in Romans 1 to avoid condemnation? If yes, then does not Paul’s string of rhetorical questions in Romans 10 fail (i.e., sent preachers are not necessary for men to call upon the Lord)? If no, then in what sense can the Romans 1 sort of knowing help us understand why God condemns those who are “without a preacher”?


2. Some might try to solve this problem by appealing to our broken epistemic apparatus that prevents us from seeing what “has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.” Fine. But then the question is, When did that apparatus break, and what difference does that make for God’s condemnation?

I’d like some help on these issues from our illustrious Socratics.

Christological Dialogue

This post is dedicated to Tom A. Tom, please read the whole thing this time, I took a good 45 minutes to write this for you. I write with hope that the Duke socratics will be able to enact a properly christological dialogue that, I think, has rather fallen by the wayside of late--much to the chagrin of our beloved spiritual founder, no doubt (not Tom, but Clive Staples)--not at all a surprising development, given the fact that christologically shaped things usually end up getting crucified (Mk. 8.34). I had earlier suggested this defition of dialogue:

"A provisional definition: what we do when we (a) do not know what is
true (b) do not have the courage to tell the truth."

That was based on the exegetical examination of the clear meaning of John 18-19. Yes, my friends: I fear that we have followed rather in the footsteps of that coward, Pilate, of late. But that is not true dialogue. Now we shall examine Jn. 4. We find there the christological defition of dialogue that shall prove to us invaluable (of course we might have learned it already from Jesus' example in Jn. 18-19--but perhaps that strikes us as too overbold). That is this:

"Dialogue is what we do when we know what is true, and we love people who are trapped in falsehood. Knowing that these people (for whom Christ had died) will not listen to the direct statement of the truth, we seek, gently, through conversation, to lead them to the truth by roundabout--but never false--means."

My my: that sounds rather Socratic. Well, to the exegesis.

Jn. 4.1-6: Note that Jesus intentionally strays into foreign territory. Good shepherds seek to save the one that is lost actively; we might say that they go looking for a fight--but that is, rightly, denounced as overly belligerent language.

4.7: "Give me a drink." The Word of God asks the woman for a drink. Clearly he doesn't need the water. He is the well of life from whom streams of living water flow. He says this, not to quench his thrist, but to begin to show the woman that she is thirsty. She doesn't know it. She thinks she knows what is true. She has drank from wells that are not exegetical--i.e., she drinks from wells other than the Word of God who is the well of life. Drinking from these poisoned waters--no doubt appropriating the latest sociological and pyschological theory--she is in fact dying of thirst. But she does not know it. Jesus must ask her a question that will, so to speak, through water over her sleepy head.

4.9: "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" The woman assumes that Jesus must be a samaraphobe. Surely he must be. Samaraphobes are afraid to even speak to Samaritans, let alone share water from a well. Clearly she is dumbfounded.

4.10: "If you knew the gift of God." She does not know the gift of God, and Jesus isn't going to beat around the bush about that. She is dying of thirst, and if she doesn't come to know the gift, she will surely die. He who eternally is the way, truth and life doesn't have the time for anything but the truth. "If you knew the gift of God... you would have asked [me], and [I] would have given you living water." Unabashed proclamation of the Gift.

4.11-12: "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep." The woman is still trapped by her critical theory. Jesus claims that he has living water--but this simply cannot be, because her canon of reason cannot allow it. The well is so DEEP! "Are you greater than our father Abraham?" There are so many important scholars, so many books to read, even a man name Eugene who has written something about Barth and Thomas and many fine sounding people--how could I leave off all of that to just drink from this water you offer me? You, a Jew, with nothing to draw water with. Are you greater than all of these?

4.13: "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again." She feeds her desire with critical theory, but her desire is too great to be satiated by the merely faddish. She is created for eternity and she knows this in her inner-being--although she doesn't seem to know this, and rebels against it with great force. But note how Jesus dialogues with her. He recognizes that she thirsts, that she has desires--he recognizes these are real and legitimate because they are created by God. They are natural. But in the woman they are disordered. She pursues the good, and good is the pursuit: but she goes by a wide path that leads only to destruction and, woe of woes, in the end shall find only the pain of unrequited love. Jesus knows all of this. And so he tells her: you will thirst again, if you keep on drinking from these poisoned waters.

4.14: "But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever." Jesus does not hide the truth from her, not for the sake of an easy conversion, not even for the sake of a too-easy friendship--which of course would only be a false friendship. He tells her the truth. Why? Because he loves her. He loves her too much to let her keep on drawing water from poisoned wells. He offers instead the water that gives life eternal. "Come to me, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!" (Is. 55.1).

4.15: "Sir give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water." The woman sees the truth partially. She realizes that this water is far better than her critical theory and pyschology; but she still thinks that it will satisfy her in the way that those earthly things were attempting to do. She still has her mind set on temporal things, and not eternal (2 Cor. 4.18). Her mind is set on things below, not on things above (Col. 3.1-4). But she has progressed, and Jesus does not sneer at the progression. She is coming to the truth.

4.16: "Go, call your husband." I need not complete the conversation. Jesus goes directly to the problem at hand, the issue that is keeping the woman from a total conversion. Note carefully that the issue is not intellectual. It is moral, it is spiritual. That is the way it always is. Those with whom we dialogue, those for whom Christ has died, are, in the end, rebels. We know that this is true because we are rebels ourselves, conquered in part by God's love--but conquered imperfectly, as yet. But note Jesus courage here in telling the truth. In this case the problem is sexuality. The woman is, as they say, 'living in sin.' It need not have been sexuality, it could have been any number of things, worst of all--worst--that which afflicts my sorry flesh, the sin of pride. But in this case, as in many cases, it is fallen sexuality. Jesus does not mince words. He speaks the truth that surely is painful, but he speaks it as one who is offering to this woman streams of living water. He is offering her life, love, friendship with God. He loves her. And so he speaks truth to her. And so he loves her. They are one and the same--for God is simple, and God is truth, and God is love. We are called to speak in the same way.

Well, we have to look at two more points.

First point. 4.27: "His disciples marveled that he was talking with a woman." When we are engaging in christological dialogue, not the world, but the CHURCH, will marvel at us. Why? Because the sight of a man who loves and so speaks truth and so loves, and loves so perfectly that he loves all without reserve and without partiality--that sight shocks us, offends, convicts (and that is the real problem, isn't it?). There is no room for samaraphobia in the church, but much there remains nevertheless. It will only be cast out by love. Why? Because perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn.). Now remember: perfect love is truth is God. There is no need to "balance" speaking truth and speaking love, because love and truth are, in the divine simplicity, one.

Second point. The woman becomes a great evangelist. "Many believed in him because of the woman's testimony" (4.39). The end, the telos, of truly christological dialogue, is the creation of a new person. And the new person is always an evangelist. How can they not be? One who was dead, and is alive again: one brought from death into life: this one cannot help but preach the good news.

Perhaps then we are still dead?

Scotus

"And therefore, those who deny such manifest things need punishment or knowledge or sense, for as Avicenna puts it: "Those who deny a first principle should be beaten or exposed to fire until they concede that to burn and not to burn, or to be beaten and not to be beaten, are not identical". And so too, those who deny that some being is contingent should be exposed to torments until they concede that it is possible for them not to be tormented."

Duns Scotus, Concerning Metaphysics 4


This is for Patristics Tom who gave me this quote overheard before. I find it slightly amusing that Scotus quotes Avicenna, but only slightly so

Now I know why I'm not a Baptist...

For if you have fallen in with some who are called Christians, but who do not admit this truth, and venture to blaspheme the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; who say there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are taken to heaven; [in that case,] do not imagine that they are Christians, even as one, if he would rightly consider it, would not admit that the Sadducees, or similar sects of Genistae, Meristae, Galilaeans, Hellenists, Pharisees, [or] Baptists are Jews.

Well, there you have it. Baptists are an illegitimate Jewish sect! That's probably why they're not very sacramental... :-)

Source: Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 80.

Finally, a voice for our oppressed minority....

Want to share a recent post to an Anglican blog I frequent that I think is important enough to warrant our prompt attention....

To the Most Reverend Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
From an Oppressed Minority


Your Grace,

As you know, evolutionary biologists now believe that sexual monogamy is quite unnatural. In fact, at least for human males, what has been somewhat critically described as "promiscuity" is a genetic/biological imperative. Male heterosexual activity with multiple female partners, traditionally condemned in Judeo-Christian cultural contexts is, according to the most respected research, merely the outward manifestation of genetically encoded predispositions and impulses. In other words, heterosexual men have an "orientation"

It made evolutionary sense, as the infant mortality rate was so high, for our ancient forefathers to live "promiscuously." On average, evolutionary anthropologists say, it was most profitable for males to mate with many different females. Indeed, the more females the better, genetically speaking, as with each mating the odds of the male seed being carried into future genetic pools and future generations increases.

Over the course of many millions of years, this evolutionary necessity has become bilogically/genetically "encoded" into hetersosexual male primates, including human beings.

Surely your grace recognizes the wide-ranging ramifications of this discovery for both culture and Church. What today is the considered the social norm, monogamous marriage, is essentially an act, perhaps even a crime, against nature.

Traditionally speaking, scripture has been understood to uniformly condemn "adultery" (a rather offensive and hateful term) in all forms and the Church has always strictly suppressed and restricted the expression of expansive heterosexual love.

However, in addition to and in light of the above advances in human self-knowledge there are now many reasons to move beyond the traditional interpretive bonds.

The passages found in the Old Testament in which promiscuity is apparently forbidden are, according to the most prominent OT scholars, likely the result of years and years of cultural diologue between ancient communities guarding distinctive ethnic boundaries and claims. The entire levitical code might be more profitably read as an expression of communal identity. The people who are now called, "Jews" (known in the ancient world as Hebrews and/or Israelites) have always been surrounded by foreign and sometimes hostile language/culture groups.

The great question for any ethnic community in such a hostile and fluid social context is, "How do we remain distinct? How do we maintain our identity while living amid others?". The Old Testament religious ritual and legal codes stand as a record of the gradual resolution of these questions. Given our recognition of the complex social/cultural milieu within which the OT was written, most mainstream Old Testament scholars believe that it is somewhat problematic, if not impossible, to take the vast number of legal proscriptions found in the levitical at face value.

In light of this scholarly consensus, in my own opinion, we need not take the seventh commandment against "adultery" or the levical injunctions against male promiscuity as universal injunctions but rather enjoy, experience, and live into them as cultural expressions of ethnic identity and inter-cultural dialogue. They say, in effect, "this is who we are."

But what of Jesus' famous words during his sermon on the mount. "He who looks at a woman lustfully has already commited adultery with her in his heart." Well, aside from the well documented fact that Jesus most likely never said these words (see "The Five Gospels"), it is obvious that Jesus was speaking from within a more limited worldview that did not acknowledge natural or inborn promiscuity as a genetic necessity. Jesus, as a first century Jew, most likely held to the prevailing primitive cultural ethic of his day; what he might have called, as fundamentalists do even today, the "Created Order;" the idea that human beings were given by God a natural desire for members of the opposite sex but that these desires were intended to be fulfilled in life-long marital-covenant unions between one man and one woman.

His injunctions ought then to be read in that sense. Jesus spoke from within a primitive culture. Had he known then what we know today, his opinion would undoubtedly more closely resemble my own.

This does not mean that Jesus' words are not to be taken as "authoritative."

We know that his injunctions against heterosexual "promiscuity" cannot be applied accurately to heterosexual men because heterosexual men are born with or, dare I say, "created" with the expansive desire to include as many women as possible in their physical expression of love. However, Jesus' proscriptive words regarding expanive heterosexual behavior may be more correctly applied to homosexual men who, acting against their own created orientation, might be tempted to act out unnaturally, in a heterosexual rather than homosexual way.

In this sense, perhaps Jesus' words in Matthew 5 ought to be seen as consistent or corollary with the principle St. Paul articulates in Romans 1: it is unnatural, a perversion if you will, for men who are heterosexually oriented by virtue of creation to have sexual relationships with other men. Likewise, then, according to Jesus, it is unnatural, a "perversion", for homosexual men to lust after or engage in expansive sexual activity with many women.

But, some may object, what of tradition? Need we even ask? The Church has ordained "promiscuous" heterosexual men from the very beginning. Doing so now, and openly, would both serve to acknowlede what has been a suppressed reality and affirm those who for centuries have been an oppressed minority. Such a move would allow heterosexual men to live and expansively love with honesty and with integrity.

Given all of this I plead with your Grace to encourage the various provinces of the Anglican Communion to stop the lie. It is time for heterosexual men to come out of the shadows and embrace the truth of who they are. And, more importantly, it is time for "promiscuous" heterosexual men to be embraced. I call on the Church develop and authorize rites for blessing expansive heterosexual unions; portable rites that may be applied prior to and/or after the loving union takes place. I also call on the Church to acknowledge the centuries of faithful service given by heterosexual men who live secret lives of expansive heterosexual love.

Sincerely Yours in the Expansive Love of Christ,

The Reverend Matt Kennedy

Yes, this is a parody.

Dialogue

What is dialogue?

A provisional definition: what we do when we (a) do not know what is
true (b) do not have the courage to tell the truth.

Here is an example of a dialogue. Pay attention to how the two
dramatis personae play their "roles" in the "dialogue."

"Are you the king of the Jews?"

"Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?"

"Am I a Jew? Your own nation and chief priests have delivered you over
to me. What have you done?" [stalling, excuses]

"My kingdom is not of this world..." [truth]

"So you are a king?" [willful incomprehension masked as ignorance;
stalling; the desire for more dialogue]

"You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born into the world:
to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my
voice." [truth plainly spoken; the truthful recognize truth;
implication: Pilate does not hear Jesus voice, ergo, Pilate is not of
the truth]

"What is truth?" [willful incomprehension, willful absurdity in the
face--the literal face--of the truth, postmodernism]

"I find no guilt in him" [relativism, weakness, cowardice]

...

A third party: "According to the law he ought to die, because he has
made himself the Son of God" [Canada, Sweden...]

Narrator: "When Pilate heard this he was afraid." [the coward cowers
before truth]

"Where are you from?" [more stalling, refusal to submit to the truth]

"You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given
to you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the
greater sin." [authority derives from the truth who is infinite power;
those who lead astray by the abuse of authority face a stricter judgment
(cf. James 3.1)]

Third party: "If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend."
[cowardice, mob insanity: the absurdity of democracy]

"Behold your king!" [mockery of the truth, shameless, postmodernism]

Narrator: So he delivered him over too be crucified. [a natural law:
the coward will always crucify the truth]



A second definition: Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman. I
will write about the second definition if one single person proves to
me that they care.

Christ's peace,

Phillip

Spring 2007 Calendar of Events

Dear Socratics,
Here's what's going on this semester:

Two Views on the Resurrection
Joel Marcus (Duke Divinity School) & Gary Habermas (Liberty University)
February 20 @ 12:20-1:20 – Gary Habermas: “The Resurrection of Jesus and Recent Scholarship”
February 20 @ 7:00-8:30 PM – Two Views on the Resurrection Dialogue (Marcus & Habermas)
Blog: http://resurrectiontwoviews.blogspot.com/
RSVP at resurrectiontwoviews@yahoo.com

Homosexuality Discussion Group Series
Sacred Worth & Socratic Club Co-Sponsors
February 14 @ 12:20-1:20 – Eugene Rogers:
February 15 @ 12:20-1:20 – Discussion Groups

March 7 @ 12:20-1:20 – Richard Hays: What Makes for Peace and Upbuilding? Dealing with Our
Differences in the Homosexuality Debate
March 7 @ 1:30-2:30 – Discussion Groups Part I
March 8 @ 12:20-1:20 – Discussion Groups Part II

April 11 @ 12:20-1:20 – Organizer’s Dialogue
April 11 @ 1:30-2:30 – Discussion Groups

The Jesus Seminar?
March 27 @ 12:20-1:20 – Mark Rutledge (Associate Member of the Jesus Seminar)

Sacraments & The Emerging Church Movement
March 20 @ 12:20-1:20 – Ed Phillips & Tim Conder

Race and the Divinity School
BSU (Black Seminarians Union) AME Connection (African Methodist Episcopal) & Socratic Club Co-Sponsors
February 22 @ 6:00-8:30PM – Dinner & Discussion Groups

Speaker Bios

Tim Conder (Pastor and Emergent Village Founder)
Tim Conder is the founding pastor of Emmaus Way in Durham, NC. He is married to Meredith and the father of Keenan (6th grade at the Durham School of the Arts) and Kendall (4th grade at W. G. Pearson). Tim is one of the founders of Emergent , the author of The Church in Transition: The Journey of Existing Churches into the Emerging Culture (Zondervan 2006), and is on the Board of Directors at Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle, WA. Locally, he serves on the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Steering Committee for Durham, NC.

Gary Habermas (Distinguished Research Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy and Theology, Liberty University)
Author of 27 books including most recently Resurrected? An Atheist & Theist Dialogue with Antony Flew (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). www.garyhabermas.com.

Richard Hays (George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament, Duke Divinity School)
Richard B. Hays is internationally recognized for his work on the letters of Paul and on New Testament ethics. His scholarly work has bridged the disciplines of biblical criticism and literary studies, exploring the innovative ways in which early Christian writers interpreted Israel’s Scripture. His book The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation was selected by Christianity Today as one of the 100 most important religious books of the twentieth century. His most recent books are The Art of Reading Scripture (2003, co-edited with Ellen Davis) and The Conversion of the Imagination (2005). Professor Hays has lectured widely in North America, Great Britain, Europe, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand. An ordained United Methodist minister, he has preached in settings ranging from rural Oklahoma churches to London’s Westminster Abbey. Professor Hays has chaired the Pauline Epistles Section of the Society of Biblical Literature, as well as the Seminar on New Testament Ethics in the Society for New Testament Studies. He convened the Consultation on Teaching the Bible in the Twenty-First Century and presently serves as convener of a research group on “The Identity of Jesus,” an initiative sponsored by the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton. He is also the chair of the Biblical Division at Duke Divinity School.

Joel Marcus (Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, Duke Divinity School)
Marcus teaches New Testament with an emphasis on the Gospels and the context of early Christianity in first-century Judaism. Jewish by birth, he has been a Christian for the past thirty years and an Episcopalian for the past twenty-five; the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, therefore, is an issue of existential as well as scholarly interest to him. His work attempts to fuse historical and theological concerns. His previous books include two monographs on Mark and the first part of a two-volume commentary on the same Gospel in the prestigious Anchor Bible series (Doubleday, 2000).

Ed Phillips (Associate Professor of the Practice of Christian Worship)
Professor Phillips interests are in the history of the practical and pastoral aspects of the church--how the church conducted worship, initiated Christians, and organized ministries--as a way to understand the development of Christian theology. This approach demonstrates the relevance of historical theology for men and women engaged in pastoral ministry, since these are tasks they will be confronting in their work.
He has chaired the United Methodist General Conference Holy Communion Study for the past three years. That study has produced the first comprehensive treatment of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper for the United Methodist Church or its predecessor denominations. As part of that work, he traveled to meet with Methodists throughout the United States, and in England, Germany, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Phillips' recent published work includes co-authorship of In Spirit and Truth: United Methodist Worship for the Emerging Church , and The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary , in the Hermeneia Commentary Series and a co-editorship of Studia Liturgica Diversa, Essays in Honor of Paul Bradshaw

Eugene Rogers (Professor, Department of Religious Studies, UNC Greensborough)
Educated at Princeton, Tübingen, Rome, and Yale, Rogers taught at Yale College and Divinity School, Shaw University Divinity School, St. Anselm College, and, from 1993 to 2005, at the University of Virginia, where for several years he chaired the Program in Theology, Ethics, and Culture. In 2002-03 he was Eli Lilly Visiting Associate Professor of Christian Thought and Practice in the Religion Department at Princeton University. He has held fellowships from the Fulbright Commission, the Mellon Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the Lilly Foundation, the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton Seminary, and the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University. He is author or editor of four books and over twenty articles and translations. He joined the UNCG faculty in 2005. His book Sexuality and the Christian Body presents a marriage theology (for both gay and straight) that is centered on the Triune God revealed in Jesus Christ.