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Wilson,
Is there a way to get an RSS feed on this blog so that I know when new posts have been added? If its already set up to do that, can you explain to me how to tap into that?
Thanks,
Tom

Episcopal Church Rejects Anglican Church Orders

The headline above is not mine; it is from the New York Times this morning.

Bottom line: The Episcopal Church bishops seem to have fudged once more, but many feel what they gave is not enough. The schismatic ship of the evangelical right was not given words which might have caused it to turn around.

You can read some interesting analysis of what they actually said, which the NYTimes article does not really "get" at Covenant, where we have five authors who have already done penetrating analysis of what this means.

My question: how will the Methodists and Presbyterians avoid this?

What is Duke Theology?

So, fish don't think about the water they swim in. Post-liberalism wasn't mentioned in any of my classes until last fall, and I don't know that it's been mentioned since. But that hasn't stopped many from imbibing the spirit of the old time Yale religion: although this hasn't forced us to actually think explicitly about the koolaid. We've been here for a while now; it's time to take account of what we've learned. I'd like to hear what my buddies think Duke theology is. In the meantime, I'd like to suggest some things that it is not. To get the conversation going, here are some proposals of what count as Duke heresies.

It's a Duke heresy to believe in:

1. The magisterial authority of God's Word written. This is best explained by noting the two sub-heresies that coalesce on this point: (a) the inerrancy of Scripture (b) the idea that the Bible can be interpreted apart from the community of faith.

2. "Propositional" theology. Dukies suspect propositions, fundamentally, because they have accepted the postmodern critique of metanarratives expressed via timeless, metaphysical systems. Accordingly, they suspect readings of Scripture that import extraneous philosophical language and conceptualities: that is, extraneous to either (a) the Bible (b) Karl Barth [that is, German Idealism] (c) Wittgenstein. And, despite the fact that Jesus said that he is the truth, this all leaves Dukies wary of making "truth claims" that could be thought to stand apart from the story as it is embodied in the community of faith. Problematically, this all leaves Dukies at odds with most of the greatest interpreters of the community's past; still, Dukies are certain that propositions are not fit for theology--even if they have to use propositions to express their disdain.

3. A strong distinction between Gospel and Church, soteriology and ecclesiology. If someone says something like, "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved," Dukies can be sure that he is a heretic, even if he is an apostle or an angel from heaven, because he's ignored the church.

4. Justification by Faith Alone, according to the "Lutheran" interpretation.

5. Supercessionism.

6. The invisibility of the Church. And, it should be noted, the rejection of this Protestant hallmark goes far in pushing many Dukies to the Roman Church.

7. Just war theory, even of the most rigorous variety (e.g., the Roman variety); and, more broadly, Christianly philosophical attempts to "justify" the "state," its "order," and its "justice." Appeal is sometimes made to Augustine, but only his negative evaluation of Roman claims to possess justice--never to his correlative positive valuation, based on his innovative theory that a commonwealth is a society of rational beings united by common agreement as to the common objects of their love. Exception: Yoder's middle axioms, grass-roots protesting, etc.

It's really very simple to test whether or not any particular idea is a Duke heresy. Just strike up a conversation with a fellow student about something, casually imply that you think, for example, that the gospel is not ultimately reducible to ecclesiology, and watch what happens. So, what do you all think? What is Duke theology?

The Littlest Socratic

Well, he's here: Josiah James Woodard-Lehman. Over two weeks early, working ahead of schedule already. Here's a photo of his first bedtime story, "On Forgiveness." Watch your back Zizek!

Everybody is happy and healthy. Looking forward to seeing you all soon. And thanks for what I am sure will be overwhelmingly generous and delicious meals.

Operation Diaper Drop 2.

It seems that the little guy is eager to meet us.

The fun starts tomorrow. Who's up?

--Edit--

Latest SMS message from the big D, says Jed is running a bit shy at the moment. Prayers for mom.

-pkj

Operation Diaper Drop.

Friends,

Soon there will be one more among us. Tara is more than ready for this pregnant thing to be over, and Derek is maintaining his calm cool and collected self. (Yet we all know he's on pins and needles with excitement!)

When the day and the munchkin arrive, Tara and Derek will be juggling many things. In an effort to let the family recuperate, let us band together to provide them with meals for the family.

The idea is that we can use the comments of this section to sign up for day 1, day 2, etc. Please use day # designators because we don't know when Muchkin Woodard-Lehman will grace us with his presence.

There is an ancillary conspiracy at Peace College, where Tara is a beloved saint. I will be coordinating with the Peace College homies, and posting their selected days in the comments for them. Once the list is setup for a couple weeks, a finalized one will be posted.

NB: If you would like to cook / provide but cannot deliver to Raleigh, sign up anyway and I'll deliver for ya.

Denominationalism and ontology

With the return to classes many of us (who are still at Duke, I am looking at you Japanese flag) have gone through some sort of scripted introductions, most of which include denominational affiliation. Like most of these sorts of questions, this one is far deeper than can be encapsulated into a 2-minute meet and greet, but it is a pressing one, I feel, especially for ministry. Where is the point that we can affiliate ourselves with a Church, practice at a Church, become a member of a Church, and then become methodist or presbyterian or episcopalian. I know craig has an affinity for the language of ecclesial whore but I wonder if the language of description has been lost amidst denominationalism and so that we know longer describe our Church by saying "I am anabaptist" but actually claim that as a part of our esse, and if this is the case, what does it mean that we can claim something of our esse.

Or maybe I am taking introductions too seriously and this will be another post no one cares about...

Update on questions raised about credit and usury

In July of this year, Wilson raised questions about credit and usury to which I responded with a portrait of life for a Galilean peasant in an effort to locate Jesus' parables within a context that may well provide helpful interpretative keys in our consideration of questions of usury.

Towards the end of that thread, Wes asked questions about bibliographic sources that help us to examine the ancient context. I responded with several, all of which, as I recall, I found in NT Wright's Victory of God (or the series).

I post now to lift up a single chapter in a book that provides a relatively concise summary of all of this material. Indeed I think the entire book is a treasure. I commend chapter 2 of Ched Meyer's Binding the Straw Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus as the best summary I have found of fairly recent scholarship on the socio-economic and geo-political context of the first century. One caveat I must add is that I have not investigated how that scholarship has evolved since publication of Meyer's commentary. And for those who don't recall, this is the commentary that Dean Sam Wells calls the single most important commentary since Barth's commentary on Romans (or something to that hyperbolic effect).