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Yesterday I sent in the revised copy-edited version of my book, Postliberal Theology and the Church Catholic: Conversations with George Lindbeck, David Burrell, and Stanley Hauerwas. After these changes are recorded, it is my understanding that the final galley proofs come out. Baker Academic/Brazos has done an excellent job; to work with them has been a joy. Of course I hope that an audience exists to receive the book. I think that it is written at a level that will be of interest to academicians, but also very much accessible to non-specialist readers -- or rather, readers who are interested in the life of the church. The core of the book arises from the interviews that I did with George Lindbeck, Dave Burrell, and Stan Hauerwas in 2007 at Nazarene Theological Seminary.

But that's not the main interest of this post. After our distribution today, I got a text message from Alison Waters that last night the police cleared out the whole two blocks around the post office and library down town. It must be that tourist season is soon to come fully on and the city officials desire to push people to the east and to the north. I'm not sure about the legality of the coerced governmental relocation program; but now we have work to do. On Tuesday the city had cleared out the front of the library; but overall the morale and the spirit was good -- people were caring for each other. Some of the load "party-ers" had gone elsewhere, and thus the people who live there were able to sleep better. This is important because if one lives on the streets, one does not have the opportunity for a nap without getting a ticket or arrested. Such it is with persons activities who belong to locally governmental authorized activities -- people who receive their salaries from local taxes.

Meanwhile, we had a surprise on Tuesday night when I returned home from being downtown. Sometime during the day the Federal Detention Center here in San Diego released 40 persons from Haiti to Pastor Anthony and thus to us at the church. We had no warning to make preparations. I do not know the full procedure; I do know that the practice has been to drop people off downtown with no language skills or social contacts. Of course Pastor Anthony has provided the social contacts that have spread back into the Detention Center. Many have already moved on to other family and social connections. It does not seem that anyone was left living in the building this morning. The particular needs as the groups become better integrated into San Diego social networks will emerge. The French-Speaking Congregation has grown substantially. There are stories to be told from this Spring as we have already received the gift of these friends that we didn't know that we had.

At any rate, it is fascinating that on a local level and federal level so much of our life as a congregation is responsive to conditions, not that we control, but to which we must respond if we are to fulfill basic commands of Jesus and now, be faithful to the friendships that God has given us.

Posted by johnwright at 10:17 AM

As seems typical for life, the last several weeks since I last posted has had disruptions. I had the honor of participating in a consultation for "The Colossians Forum" -- a new endeavor that I will share more with you later. This involved a trip to Chicago. After I arrived in Chicago, Kathy got a call from Ruby, her sister, and told her that she had better come to Newark, Ohio, immediately if she wished to talk to her father, Ron Stump, one last time. She and Tasha boarded a plane and flew to Ohio. Her father seemed to rally some, and the next day I flew home to San Diego.

I was awakened by Kathy's call, telling me that her father had died. We had our "First Friday" food distribution, and then Saturday early morning flew to Columbus. We drove to Newark, arriving 15 minutes before the family's viewing began.

Kathy's father died well in hope for the age to come. When the doctor came to talk to him several days in the hospice hospital, Ron told him that he was okay; "I am going to see Jesus." It confused the doctor, and Ron had to repeat it two more times. Ron's hope allowed him to approach death in love, and was a wonderful healing gift for Marjorie, his wife, and Kathy and her siblings.

Ron had never read Thomas Aquinas. His language to the doctor, however, and his hope was in what Christians have called "the beatific vision. Question 12 in the Part 1 of the Summa Theologia asks "How God is known by us." In Article 4, Aquinas writes, "It is impossible for any created intellect to see the essence of God by its own natural power." That does not mean, however, that created intellects cannot see God. "since the natural power of the created intellect does not avail to enable it to see the essence of God . . . it is necessary that the power of understanding should be added by divine grace. Now this increase of the intellectual powers is called the illumination of the intellect, as we also call the intelligible object itself by the name of light of illumination. And this is the light spoken of in the Apocalypse (Apoc. 21:23): 'The glory of God has enlightened it' -- that is, the society of the blessed who see God. By this light the blessed are made 'deiform' -- i.e., like to God, according to the saying: "when He shall appear we shall be like him, because we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 2:2).

Ron witnessed in his death to the same reality that Aquinas gives an account of in the Summa. Aquinas provides a language and the logic that had shaped Ron by his life in the church through the ages -- a reality in which Ron now participates in life everlasting. The language is not an end in itself; it is a gift of the intellect that makes sure that the witness of Ron in his death be honored and rendered intelligible. Without embodied witnesses like Ron, Aquinas' language can move into a dry, sterile rationalism. Without Aquinas's words, Ron's witness could lose its intellectual intelligibility and be dismissed as a type of denial. Together we literally see the form of the Christian hope through the supernatural fulfillment of our natural desire in the knowledge of God in life everlasting.

Posted by johnwright at 11:49 AM