Proxy Participation in the Wesleyan Theological Society meeting

This past weekend, the Wesleyan Theological Society met at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana. I think that the WTS is meeting is more important than the SBL or the AAR meetings, even as it now tends to subordinate scholars work to the "more universal" guilds -- which actually have a much narrower constituency than the world wide churches that the WTS now represents.

Unfortunately I was unable to attend -- in part because of my earlier papers given at the SBL meeting -- I never claimed consistency -- and other factors that arose. I was on the program, and Mark Mann, the Director of the Wesleyan Center for 21st Century studies, stood "in" for me in a panel on Nathan Kerr's new book, Christ, History, and Apocalyptic. Nate is a friend, and it was an honor to participate in the panel -- I have yet to hear how it went. The work has created quite a buzz on the internet, and I had responded already to his chapter on Stanley Hauerwas.

There is much, much, much positive about Nate's book. He has really helped my thinking become more precise, and shown me where I really need some work and help. I share my response in honor of Nate's work; I don't try to represent it all here, but focus on the last two chapters. I hope that the review helps whet your appetite to read Nate's work.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:47 PM | Comments (7)

John Wesley as an Augustinian Thomist

Since getting back from Kansas City, I've been working on a paper for the Wesleyan Philosophical Society and revising a book proposal out of the conversations with Professors Lindbeck, Burrell, and Hauerwas. We also had the honor of having Jim VanderKam, with whom I worked a year at Notre Dame, here on campus to give our Wiley Lectures. He lectured on the relationship between the Dead Sea Scrolls and earliest Christianity. He was delightful and gracious as always.

I'm posting the conclusion to my paper. It brings out the implications for the reading of Wesley and renewing the church catholic that looks to Wesley as possessing a special charism for the renewal of the church.

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Posted by johnwright at 12:25 PM | Comments (4)

Opening Address to "Is the Reformation Over? A Conversation between Friends"

I am just getting back on the ground from last weekends pilgrimage to Kansas City. Nazarene Theological Seminary was a wonderful place to meet for the little event, "Is the Reformation Over? George Lindbeck, David Burrell, and Stanley Hauerwas: A Conversation between Friends." Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete was not able to meet us due to health complications.

The weekend was as profound as it was exhausting. Thanks to all who attended, to President Ron Benefiel and Professor Andy Johnson and the NTS staff, and particularly, to my friends and students who were there. I will post here my opening address from last Thursday night. I was asked to provide the rationale and background for the event. As always, your responses are welcome!

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Posted by johnwright at 10:19 AM | Comments (46)

The Difference between a Congregation as Civil Society versus a School of Virtue

The following is a major and lengthy post that comes after much reflection, prayer, and reading over the past months and, particularly, the last few weeks. An essay by Alasdair MacIntrye provides the grist for the mill. MacIntyre writes as a philosopher, but his cultural analysis is so acute and his thought so profoundly shaped by Thomas Aquinas that it is very amendable to the life of the church -- as the work of Stanley Hauerwas shows.

Some call MacIntyre a "communitarian" -- a label he rightfully rejects. What I would like to call this is a radical Augustinian Thomism and distinguish it from understandings of the church within the category of a type of "civil society." MacIntyre gives a description of the underlying dynamics and hopes and differences of what I believe God calls us to be about at Mid-City -- but not merely Mid-City, but the church catholic throughout the world. Congregations would indeed become the "pilgrim people of God" if we could embrace such a life lived in openness to the Spirit's sanctifying grace to form us into a holy people, a kingdom of priests.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:16 PM | Comments (13)

Weber and 1 Peter on Vocation

The past few weeks have been very intense. I've missed blogging, especially continuing my commentary on Benedict XVI. Every extra moment I have put into a paper that I finally gave today at a conference at PLNU.

I'm going to post the conclusion to the paper here. It might not make much sense without the argument and analysis in its midst. It constitutes a rethinking of the supposedly "Protestant" notion of vocation -- a concept that really now finds its origins in Nietzsche's will-to-power via Max Weber. In contrast, I offer an analysis of vocation from 1 Peter, "To this you have been called": non-retaliation based upon the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Thanks for your patience during my cyber-absense!

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Posted by johnwright at 5:04 PM | Comments (34)

A Commentary on "Deus Caritas Est" -- #2

I took time tonight to begin to try out some concepts that I have been working on with Benedict's encyclical. I do so with some trepidation, open to correction by those who know much more and think much better than I. But I think that this is very important.

Commentators that I have briefly examined have not picked up the deeper theological structure of the encyclical in the Ressourcement or Nouveau Theologie that structured much of Vatican II, (though not its immediate reception in European cultures). If this analysis is correct, one sees the convergence of Benedict's thought with other forms of "post-modern Augustinianism" that have run like an undercurrent in contemporary thought and practice.

Tomorrow I will try to develop the argument of Section 1 in detail, and show some parallels with other "neo-Augustinians" -- non-Roman Catholic neo-Augustinians. This provides a wonderful way forward for conversation and dialogue in retrieving the full catholicity of the body of Christ in the world.

Please correct any inaccuracies in this post. I am a little uncomfortable in the wide categories that I use for explication -- I hope they are more helpful that distorting. If they do distort, please comment! Or if not, please comment!

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Posted by johnwright at 9:02 PM | Comments (2)

A Commentary on "Deus Caritas Est" -- #1

As part of my rest this afternoon, I began a commentary on Benedict XVI's encyclical of last week, "God is Love." It might surprise some to find a theologian and pastor in the Church of the Nazarene not only caring, yet positively endorsing, the writings of the contemporary bishop of Rome. I am convinced, however, that the commitment to holiness of heart and life in the tradition of the Church of the Nazarene must drive us to conversation and shared life with those within the Roman Catholic church, even or especially the bishop of Rome. We must because our Lord prayed that we be sancified in truth so that we might be one as the Father and the Son are One. Secondly, the message of holiness finds its most consistent teaching and embodiment in the Christian tradition within the teachings of the Catholic Church and the bodies of the saints. Thus I offer this series of essays, as I can get to them, in hope that the fragmented body of Christ may some day be healed so that the world may know the God who is Love.

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Posted by johnwright at 6:01 PM | Comments (11)

Ministry and Ecclesiology

The past several weeks I've been working on an essay on ministry for a Pt Loma Press publication. As we try to think outside the modernist categories of liberal/capitalist or socialist/Marxist, I discovered that these political economies have determined the churches understanding of ministry. I'd like to post some excerpts from my article in terms of implications when ministry is understood as "service" versus what I believe the sense of the Greek word diakonia really meant and means: re-presenting an authority bodily in a new situation. I hope to continue work on the subject as time allows in the future.

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Posted by johnwright at 3:06 PM | Comments (10)

When Radical Orthodoxy is Neither

I am posting an extended post -- I'm even calling it an essay -- on Radical Orthodoxy. The post has been "brewing" for a year or so within me, as I both found great help but consternation in reading texts within the "Radical Orthodoxy" book series. The assessment has its roots in Rusty Reno's review in First Things. A brief conversation last spring with Steve Long, an author in the series, told me that I wasn't alone in sensing substantial theological differences within the series, and it was Steve who directed me towards the text of Jamie Smith.

It is a long post, and technical. Perhaps I should work it into a form for professional review before offering it on the 'less rigorous' form of the blog, both to protect the readers and to allow for my ignorance to be privately corrected rather than responded to 'publicly' on the blog. Yet I offer it to those who might be interested, not as a final work, but as provisional reflections, perhaps someday, if worthy, to offer to the professional guild in a more documented, thorough form. Your observations will be helpful, both in regard to content and perhaps also the context where such reflections might find an appropriate home for a "print" audience.

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Posted by johnwright at 9:48 AM | Comments (9)

Luigi Giussani on the Psalms

On Tuesday night at UCLA and last night at Pt Loma Nazarene University, I had the honor of participating in a dialogue with Father Meinrad Miller, a Benedictine monk from St. Benedict's Abbey in Atchison, Kansas over the work on the Psalms by Father Luigi Giussani. The common sponsor at both meetings was Communion and Liberation, the lay Catholic renewal movemet begun by Father Giussani. Father Giussani died last spring right before John Paul II's death.

I have found great friendship and hope in the Communion and Liberation friends that I have made. The movement represents the best of post-Vatican II catholicism, a reason for "Protestants" to stop protesting and join in conversation and unity, grounded not in a social program outside the church or in some transcendental human "faith", but in, to use Father Giussani's language, "the fact of Jesus Christ". Catholicity, not ecumenicity, becomes the crucial commitment within this relationship. I believe that the descendants of another renewal movement within the church catholic, that begun by John Wesley in 18th century England, share much, much in common with this "new" renewal group, Communion and Liberation. Who knows what God has in store for the future?

My essay is enclosed in the extended essay where I try to flesh out some this commonality.

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Posted by johnwright at 7:51 AM | Comments (7)

Peeking at a Possible Future for the Church

I've just finished grading a set of finals for my Introduction to OT class -- 2 days of work. To reward myself, I go to some of my favorite spots on the web: ericisrad.com; ressourcement.blogspot.com; nouvelletheologie.blogspot.com; and tcrnews2.com. I found the following post on tcrnews2.com by one of their editors, Stephen Hand. While it presupposes some specific Roman Catholic history, the essay spells out quite clearly what I conceive the life of congregations of the future must become.

Ironically, I don't hear evangelical churches talking so much about such a future, especially church leaders in the Church of the Nazarene. Of course, it speaks for only some of Roman Catholicism in the United States today -- the most vibrant part of the church, but only a part of it.

What seems to me is two types of churches in the future: congregations like the one described in this essay, and congregations that find their life in therapeutic support of individuals in order to move towards a social activism to influence governments to take certain actions on the left or on the right of American culture.

I'd be interested what readers of the blog think about this essay.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:31 PM | Comments (12)

Beyond Secular Reason

As a human being, a Scripture scholar, a theologian, and a pastor, I have tried to commit my life to participating in the kingdom of God the Father initiated by Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit through the life of the visible body of Christ, the church, in the world. This has been and is the consistent passion of my life -- because I really think that it is true. As I have read and thought and pastored through the years, my judgment is that what has been called "liberalism" -- in its political (the liberal democratic nation-state), economic (capitalism), ethical (emotivism), anthropological (therapeutic individualism), cognitive forms -- provides the biggest obstacle to participate in the kingdom today. It seems to me that liberalism is so prevalent, whether in modern or post-modern, neo-liberal consumerist or egalitarian communitarian, militaristic or liberal pacificist, forms, that liberal commitments provide options within itself that makes living virtuously as part of the body of Christ very difficult.

I find that I am therefore often interpreted as "being against", rather than being for. Especially as a professor and clergy within a Christian group, the Church of the Nazarene, that is looking for influence and prominence within the US society, I find myself strangely out of step, as neither influence nor prominence matter to me. I would love for the kingdom of God to come on earth as it is in heaven -- I pray that daily and seek to participate in such a kingdom. If that is influence and prominence, I'm all for it. But I'm not sure that is what those around me are seeking.

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Posted by johnwright at 7:23 PM | Comments (7)

An Icon and an Idol

Yesterday the student newspaper at PLNU, The Point, published a little essay that I wrote in response to a request from a student. The essay compares two statues on campus, including the new statue in the business building.

Behind the essay lies the work of John Milbank in Theology and Social Theory. In his "post-modern critical Augustinianism" (see ericisrad.com, direct link here) Milbank takes Augustine's two cities and reinterprets the contemporary world in light of an "ontology of violence" that lies behind capitalism and certain strands of post-modern thought, and Augustine's trinitarian 'ontology of peace'. Yet Milbank's thought is so esoteric and difficult that it is hard to wade through. Yet his categories are important, I believe, to understanding forces that would distort the faith given to the saints. The statues provide a concrete display of two fundamentally different ontologies that Milbank also discusses.

My whole argument depends on the relationship of the statue in the business building to a pagan Greek temple. If one wants to check out these architectural form, one can go to http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Arts/GreekTemple.htm to see the architectural form of the greek temples, compared to the idol of the bull and bear in the business building here.

It is interesting to note that this struggle, seen here on the PLNU campus, parallels very closely the struggle that Tracey Rowland has discussed in the distinction between two types of catholicism within Roman Catholicism today: "Whig catholicism" and "Augustinian catholicism". Broader perspectives throughout the church catholic help us see more clearly what is at stake for us.

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Posted by johnwright at 7:46 AM | Comments (9)

Leave our Hymns Alone

As a follow up to the last (w)rant, I'd like to post an essay that I wrote several years back after George W. Bush's State of the Union address. I sent the essay to Christian Century as a response to the address and to Christianity Today, but neither decided to publish it. But it shows concretely what Smith argues is the parasitical nature of Moral Therapeutic (Relational) Deism.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:58 AM | Comments (1)

The Illegitimacy of the American Legal System for Christians

After the fullness of Holy Week, it seems that it's time I get back with my blogging. I got the urge in light of all the discussions of the American legal system recently. It seems to me that recent decisions show why Christians cannot recognize the legitimacy of the American judicial system, nor even hope that it may be reformed. It cannot be redeemed, only endured.

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Posted by johnwright at 10:21 AM | Comments (12)

Being Visible While Poor

December 24, 2004

A little over a year ago, some San Diego residents lost everything they owned in the Cedar fire. In response, families invited others into their homes; food services for the hungry appeared; emergency shelters sprung up quickly for the displaced; policy-makers established long-term programs for the sustainable life of those who suffered the calamity of their sudden poverty.

Last Sunday, Dave gathered to worship as part of our congregation. Dave had lost everything he owned the previous week as well. He watched from afar as police in La Jolla took his sleeping bag and backpack that he had carefully hidden in the bushes, threw them into the back of their squad car and pulled away. Despite his best attempts to remain inconspicuous, someone had seen where he was sleeping at night. Dave became visible, thus committing a crime in San Diego: being visible while poor.

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Posted by johnwright at 9:48 AM | Comments (9)