Compassionate Ministry and Social Justice

This Monday and Tuesday Nazarene Theological Seminary is presenting the Nees Lectures in Social Justice. NTS wisely overlaps recruiting visits with lecture series, and have put together a time of reflections and group discussions to go with the social justice lectures.

In the Wiley Lectures at PLNU, George Marsden mentioned the rise of the evangelical left in the late '60s, a group through persons like Tom Nees, Ron Sider, and Ron Benefiel, impacted me. They produced a call to social engagement by evangelicals in 1973. Interestingly, this groups was largely evangelical social scientists. In some ways deeply impacted by the presuppositions of the social gospel movement (in some ways, itself very evangelical in its underlying pietism), aspects of this movement, particularly in younger persons, moved towards liberation theology and now liberataion/post-colonial theology to express this evangelical left. Yet it's presuppositions remain tied to a mediating theological tradition that seeks to discipline the church by a social criticism found in "nature" to mobilize the church to the right type of political action in the world.

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Posted by johnwright at 5:31 PM | Comments (3)

An Invitation

I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to our annual multicongregational "Founder's Day" service next Sunday, starting around 10:30ish multicongregational time. After the service we will gather for a multicongregational potluck. It looks like we may even complete the basic remodeling of the kitchen before then! We know, at least, that the roaches have been evicted from the kitchen!!! As Sister Gehane said as we ripped out the old cupboards, "No more roaches!!!!"

This service is one of our four annual multicongregational services in a year. But this service stands out, at least to me, as very significant -- it marks our 10th anniversary together as a multicongregation, sharing life in Christ together in the building. We want to use this time to celebrate God's goodness to us through these years. Your presence, if possible, would deeply help us celebrate these ten years.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:10 AM | Comments (0)

Nihilism, Protestant Liberalism, and the "Wesleyan"

I've been wanting to share on the blog a correspondence that seems very interesting to me. I intended to move to this when I began blogging on Protestant liberalism -- what I see as coming back into play through certain varieties of "post-secular thought". The correlation comes from reading sections again from Michael Alan Gillespie's important Nihilism before Nietzche with Gary Dorrien's historical account of the rise of early American liberalism. If the correlation is accurate, I shows the deep affinity between Protestant liberalism as a proto-nihilistic reaction to late medieval theological shifts in the understanding of God from their high scholastic origins.

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Posted by johnwright at 7:53 PM | Comments (1)

More on Protestant Liberalism

The history of the church in the United States has been overdetermined by the liberal philosophical and political context in which the church has found itself. Whereas the origins of European liberalism was explicitly and strongly rhetorically anti-ecclesial, liberalism in the United States attempted to tone down this rhetoric except for "sectarian forms" of Christianity. History has shown that this rhetorical difference does make a difference; check the statistics for adherence to congregations in the US versus Western Europe. Yet it also shows, so it seems to me, that the underlying philosophical/theological antagonism of liberalism to the on-going, concrete institutional life of the church is very real and present.

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Posted by johnwright at 9:38 PM | Comments (4)

On Protestant Liberalism

To understate the obvious, I am not a fan of Protestant liberalism. I consider the holiness movement, and the Church of the Nazarene with its emphasis on Christian perfection to have embedded into its fundamental reason for existence to run counter to the accommodation to categories formed by "modernist" reason and liberal democratic political setting in which we find ourselves. I find such categories, even with the post-Vatican II struggles of Roman Catholicism, to violate the fundamental catholicity of the church and the communion of saints. Protestant liberal categories have proven death to congregations and larger ecclesial communities who have adopted them as fundamental to their language and mission.

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Posted by johnwright at 7:50 PM | Comments (0)

On the Fourth Day of Christmas

Today has been a bummer. I was up and down all night long with a sore throat; I awoke this morning to no voice at all. Of course, this is good news to Johnny, Carl, Tony, and Tasha. But I have been reduced to a slightly feverish, uncomfortable, achy glob of protoplasm. Sickness is no fun. I wonder how those who don't have a home survive even such minor discomfort as I'm experiencing.

I spent much of the day reading Gaudium et Spes, the Vatican II document, The Church in the Modern World. I recorded ever instance of the occurence of the word "hope" in it. I've wanted to write a small essay on reactions to Benedict XVIth Encyclical Spe Salvi. It is fascinating how the "spin" for the interpretation of Vatican II continues in various media. The reflections below address that continuous battle.

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Posted by johnwright at 5:35 PM | Comments (3)

Christmas Reflections

Last night less than twenty of us gathered in the "orange sanctuary" to begin the Feast of the Nativity. The French congregation met in the chapel; the Samoan congregation met for a full scale, "old time" Christmas paegant in the Fellowship hall. Earlier in the day Carl and Jeremiah Wood picked up a massive supply of bread after two weeks of scarcity. Tomorrow Scott Borger and I will have the honor of picking up more of these goods.

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Posted by johnwright at 6:09 PM | Comments (0)

To Stop Saber Rattling

We live in a day of wars and rumors of wars. The de-stabilization of Mesopotamia continues to threaten new outbreaks. Oil prices continue to climb. One wonders what would happen if, according to rumors in the press, the United States plan to bomb Iran would commence.

I finished reading the book by/about the Blessed Teresea of Calcutta, "Come Be My Light." It is profound at several levels; someone needs to do a Balthasarian type of study of her life as a type of first-order language of Christian theology. I recommend it to all. What I would like to do in light of this current situation is to copy Mother Teresea of Calcutta's letter that she wrote before the outbreak of armed hostilities in Iraqi in 1991. She addressed the letter to both George H. W. Bush and Saddam Hussein. Tragically, both parties ignored Teresea's wisdom. What she feared still goes on today.

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Posted by johnwright at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)

Tuesday Night Pastoring

I had hoped to focus a little more on my professorate responsibilities and reading and writing and revising today and tonight. Yet as I often find, God has other ideas. It ended up being a night of shock, suffering, and joy.

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Posted by johnwright at 9:56 PM | Comments (2)

Charles Taylor, In a Secular Age

Over the weekend I began Charles Taylor's new book. Secularity obviously cuts across my concerns and life. I was profoundly shaped by the positivism of the 1950s and 60s. To work in the academy or the church one must deal with secularity. To work in both at the same time one must come to an understanding of its insidious nature. It was the post-structuralists, such as Foucault and Baudrillard, who helped break the disciplinary chain of the secular so that I was able to see the disciplinary powers at work underneath it that belied its supposedly emanciatory claims. Of course, the emancipatory claims of the secular still continue today -- the books by Dawkins and Hitchens show the popularity of this mythology. But it was the work of persons like Hauerwas, Barth, Milbank, MacIntyre, Lindbeck and their friends and students who have helped me think the secular without reifying it. Of course, they have taught me that the ultimately capitulation to the secular would be to attempt to take control of the "secular apparatus" of the state as a Christian -- the futility of this strategy is seen in the utter moral, political, and intellectual wastage of the American political religious right at the end of the Bush administration. Instead of a strategy of control of the secular by making it 'sacred', the church must learn tactics of resistance to not let our life be colonialized by these forces. This colonial power runs straight through my body, the bodies of my students, and the bodies of my parishioners. I literally feel this in struggles of faith and doubt, allegiance to various groups, that we experience, all of us, because we live "in a secular age."

We must always remember that the "saeculum" is the time between the times of Christ's coming when the authority of a coercive "street gangs", the city of man in Augustinian terms, exists alongside the city of God. One of the key movements in modernist secularity is when this chronological understanding of the secular becomes a "space" so that a distinction might be drawn between the "secular" and the "sacred." The state becomes responsible for the secular, and grants, in its beneficence, a temporal amnesty over the "sacred" as long as the "sacred" capitulates ultimately to the power of the state. As a San Diego policemen once told me after arresting a person in one of our church services, "the church is ultimately just like K-Mart."

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Posted by johnwright at 3:38 PM | Comments (1)

A Swirl of Reading

I'm sitting in my eldest sons room, with stacks of books around me. I am reading these days to try and get a grasp of the cultural, philosophical, and theological undercurrents that have defined our contemporary scene, for pastoral, university teach and institutional, and writing reasons -- I continue to think about how to write the framing chapters for last winters interviews with Lindbeck, Burrell, and Hauerwas. It is quite a variety that provides a chance to see connections that I might otherwise miss.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:00 AM | Comments (0)

From Milbank to Zizek

I hope to get back to Milbank's preface to the Second Edition of Theology and Social Theory. Yet as I try to grasp the deep structure of thought and culture to which Milbank refers that has happened in the past 15 years, thinkers like Slavoj Zizek become both an ally in analysis, but problematic in solution. I think that I am understanding an intersecting project between Milbank and Zizek, even as they very deeply disagree with the nature of "the Real."

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Posted by johnwright at 8:48 PM | Comments (0)

Excellent Reflections on Mother Theresea

The soon-to-be published letters of Theresea of Calcutta have received some press. David Jones at ressourcement.blogspot.com linked to this excellent article by a preacher in the papal household. I found it, not only helpful, but moving

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Posted by johnwright at 1:01 PM | Comments (1)

Two Johns who Grew up Nazarene: Milbank and Wright

So the title of this post is a little pretentious -- okay, very pretentious, pretentious beyond irony to absurdity. This morning I spent some time reading a copy of the foreward to the second edition of Theology and Social Theory. As typical when I read Milbank, it will take me a couple of more times of reading the text to grasp it. Within the preface I find both clarifications about so-called "radical orthodoxy" and our contemporary intellectual-cultural situation and my dual thankfulness and reservations about the work. Of all Milbank's works, it is Theology and Social Theory that has helped me see better. The preface is a piece worthy of some sharing and reflection, I believe, because of the reflective and programmatic nature of the essay.

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Posted by johnwright at 10:30 AM | Comments (1)

Intellectual Strength, Cultural Weakness

The fourteen public lectures are now over -- I learned much that I hope to someday turn into a book. I am confident, now, however, that the formation of the Christian Scriptures into a "book", what we call the Bible, was primary a move internal to the life of the church, not an apologetic response outside of it. The first three days of the week were taken up with the Center for Pastoral Leadership at PLNU and a meeting of district center educators in the region for the Church of the Nazarene. Dr. Norm Shoemaker very graciously distributed my book, Telling the Story, to the participants in the event. I also took the group to the Scrolls exhibit at the Museum.

This weekend has a third wedding at which to officiate in the past three weeks -- a great honor but fills the evenings. Sunday and Monday Prof. Gene Ulrich from the University of Notre Dame arrives in town. Gene was a major professor of mine and I am his "in-town" host. I will introduce him at his public lecture on Monday night at the SD Natural History Museum. So events continue to move at a typical pace.

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Posted by johnwright at 10:54 AM | Comments (1)

Hiding in Qumran Cave 4

I can't believe how long it's been since I posted. I've been hiding in the caves around Khirbet Qumran, trying to correlate the archaeological non-manuscript finds with manuscript finds. I've also tried to get on top of exactly what is present and when it was copied. The key instrument is Discoveries from the Judaean Desert, vol. 39: Indices and an Introduction to the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Series. Of course, the direct reason has been the lecture series to which I committed myself.

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Posted by johnwright at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)

Scripture and Tradition with Yves Congar

I've been working feverishly on the archives of scrolls found in the region of Khirbet Qumran in conjunction with a class that I begin teaching next week: "From Qumran to Codex Alexandrinus: The Material Formation of the Christian Book." Pt Loma is supporting the exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum on the Dead Sea Scrolls. I am teaching the class with public lectures on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, from1:00-3:10 pm in the Fermanian Business Building 101 from June 18-July 19. Tomorrow I'll afix the class schedule here on the blog.

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Posted by johnwright at 7:47 AM | Comments (1)

"Whose 'Just' War? Which Peace?"

I have gone back lately to read Dispatches from the Front: Theological Engagements with the Secular by Stanley Hauerwas (Duke University Press, 1994). I am not sure that I find Stanley's text more entertaining, more intellectually stimulating, or more spiritually moving for me. I had a colleague at PLNU who long ago noted that I read Stanley devotionally -- which is true and, for Stanley, probably very ironic.

I will share from several essays in the book over the next week or so -- it has some excellent exemplars of Hauerwas' theological high journalism. One essay stuck out as immensely relevant now: "Whose 'Just' War? Which Peace?" He wrote the essay after the first Gulf War (which he merely called "The Gulf War" not knowing at the time that it would be continuing over a decade later in mutated form. The essay is remarkably astute, even clairavoyant, about the events to follow.

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Posted by johnwright at 2:17 PM | Comments (7)

Barth and Post-Vatican II Evangelical Catholicism: Last Post

As I continue to read and contemplate on the life of the church catholic in the 20th century, I continue to find myself rethinking the categories that seem 'natural' to us. I continue to find ways that seem to me to make the crucial distinctions not within "evangelical Protestant," "mainline Protestant," or "Roman Catholic" (not to leave Orthodoxy out!), but within each of these larger socio-historical Christian movements. I am coming more and more to see the difference as the groups within each that either find the center of their faith in Jesus Christ or those who seek to make Jesus Christ an answer to the local context to which the church seeks to address. In the 20th century, this local context has been either been the individual as defined by the liberal nation-state or its inverse, the collective, as defined by a socialist nation-state (or some sort of synthesis between the two).

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Posted by johnwright at 7:24 PM | Comments (1)

Barth and Benedict XVI

After finishing the bulk of grading yesterday, I finished John Webster's book, Karl Barth (2nd edition). It is hard knowing whether to be more impressed with the analytic clarity and fairness of Webster's treatment or with the beauty of Barth's thought. It is, however, an outstanding introduction to Barth in only 175 pages!!

I also printed out Benedict XVI's opening address to the Roman Catholic Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean. I had glanced over it last week. A friend, Aaron Friberg, had sent me a NY Times article on it .

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Posted by johnwright at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)

Post-Liberalism and Post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Theology

I am making my way through finals -- slowly but surely. I hope that the next weeks will afford me the opportunity to share thoughts and readings with you on my blog. The intensity of life has been reflected on the limits of blogging that I've done.

It is no secret that I am interesting in the growing convergence between evangelical catholics and catholic evangelicals and the remnants of evangelical and orthodox mainline Protestants as a source of great hope for the future faithful unity of witness and mission of Christ's one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. It is this particular convergence that produces (and shows the continual depths of division) in events such as when Francis Beckwith announced last week his return to the discipline of the Roman Catholic Church. It seems to me that what has been called "post-liberalism" provides a promising discourse to explore this new convergence as it is arising.

In some ways, I have no stake in the label "post-liberal". Obviously liberalism is still strong and vital in evangelicalism, mainline Protestantism, and even within Roman Catholicism. The liberal nation-state still maintains its hegemonic stranglehold on what counts as "political action" in the world. Moreover if "post-liberal" is meant to represent one consumerist choice among various theological methodologies to provide a way to speak of God within today's culture, I have no interest in the term at all. Yet if "post-liberal" can name a way of returning to the sources of the evangelical, catholic, and orthodox Christian tradition with a vitality to work for the unity of the church and its mission in the world, I'm all for it.

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Posted by johnwright at 12:09 PM | Comments (4)

It's a Book!

Last Friday Kathy received a FedEx package at home. She delivered it to me in the afternoon in my BibTheo class. It was what we expected -- my book, Telling God's Story: Narrative Preaching for Christian Formation (IVP Academic, 2007)!! IVP has done a marvelous job producing the book. Copies are available at IVP's customer service number: 1-800-843-9487. It is posted for pre-order here.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:53 AM | Comments (8)

More Reflections Hauerwas as a Catholic Theologian: On Reforming Yoder through Catholicity

Thom Stark wrote a second, important, well reasoned and correctly questioning response to my post on Hauerwas as a Catholic theologian. He rightfully notes that “As we've learned from Nation, catholicity is one of the distinctive marks of Yoder's theology . . . the way you write it, it sounds like you're pitting catholicity against radical reformation, which both Yoder and Hauerwas would argue is a big mistake.” Thom is exactly correct in what I am doing and very correct in cautioning me. What I want to claim is that Yoder’s retrieval of the Radical Reformation has a selective catholicity, is more determined by the Enlightenment than often recognized, and that there is an area of discontinuity in Hauerwas’ adoption of Yoder that Hauerwas’s rhetoric often obscures. This does not annul Thom’s observation that “the biggest difference between Hauerwas and MacIntyre is not the place they want to give to philosophy and theology in hierarchal order, but Yoder.” Thom is exactly correct here. But there is a richer catholicity that I believe we must retrieve to sustain Yoder’s catholic commitments. Yoder himself needs reformed by his own notion of catholicity.

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Posted by johnwright at 11:34 AM | Comments (1)

More Reflections Hauerwas as a Catholic Theologian: Community and Congregation

I can’t believe how quickly time has passed since I last blogged. Board meeting Monday night; Tuesday was a 16 hour day as I was involved in interview candidates for licensing and ordination on our district in the Church of the Nazarene – a moving, but exhausting day. Wednesday and Thursday night had pastoral tasks, with final grades still waiting for my Intro to OT class. I wanted to spend some time today responding to two excellent responses to my previous post. It is a joy to think through issues with those through a dialectic that the blog provides – its own type of medieval “questionis”-format. So I’d like to highlight and respond to Eric Lee today, and hopefully Thom Starke tomorrow, possibly without the full care that their questions deserve, but at least with a little more care than would afford a quick two sentence response.

Since I began this post, our congregation member and Eric’s good friend, David Overholt, has been stricken with a serious illness (for David’s adventures and giftedness, see streamdavid.com). Eric and his wife Tiana and other members of the congregation, spent yesterday in the hospital emergency room and ICU unit with David. It was a long and scary day. In some ways it makes the response to Eric’s question more existentially real. I am extremely humbled by the strength, wisdom, compassion, prudence, and love that Eric and others showed for David. They were a real, authentic, profound Christian community.

We are still awaiting word on the full diagnosis and prognosis for David. Here was a living, breathing witness to friendship and the type of community that Eric, if I am hearing correctly, rightly wants to keep as part of the church, coming together in a time of intense need, hours of friendship behind it, joint wisdom in decision making. I want to affirm those involved in their care of David, their support for each other during this time. If you could have seen the faithfulness to Christ and the body of Christ in the sick body of their friend David that Eric and others showed for David and each other, it would have humbled you concerning the depths of their participation in the Love that is God revealed to us in Christ by the Spirit. It is in this context of admiration, honor, and love for Eric and those who gathered in the hospital, over the phones, weaving a web of prayer, love, and support, and in prayer for David, that I want to frame my post.

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Posted by johnwright at 1:32 PM | Comments (4)

Stanley Hauerwas as a Catholic Theologian

I have spent some time this week reading Samuel Well's book, Transforming Fate into Destiny: The Theological Ethics of Stanley Hauerwas. I never formally studied under Stanley, but I met him during my first semester at Notre Dame in 1983 and have read him ever sense. In many ways Professor Hauerwas has been the single most theological influence on my life and thought. That probably is no secret for those who know me.

As I have reflected, however, it seems to me that I have read Prof. Hauerwas different from others -- and this difference has come to provide tensions within the congregation at Mid-City over times. I often have not recognized these differences because of the subtlety of the differences. Yet these subtle differences make significant practical differences as they have gotten run through Southern Californian culture. Samuel Wells has helped me see shifts in the Hauerwas text over time.

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Posted by johnwright at 12:36 PM | Comments (5)

Thankfulness and Shameless Self-Promotion

I'm just getting back from the Wesleyan Theological Society meeting in Kankakee, Illinois where the weather was down right ugly -- bringing back repressed memories of 25 degree temperatures and 30 mph winds from an earlier life -- but the friendship and collegiality was beautiful. Steve Long gave three outstanding papers in conjunction with the Wesleyan Philosophical Society, and Frances Young's lecture at the beginning of the Wesleyan Theological Society was profoundly moving. Perhaps later this week I can share some more reflections on the program. The panel in which I participated seemed to have been well received, and brought out, I think, some important issues within the Wesleyan tradition. Tom Oord did a very fine job responding to my paper, highlighting the issues and showing where I need to revise some.

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Posted by johnwright at 11:07 AM | Comments (1)

Catholicity versus Nihilism

We just finished a four week Epiphany series on the mission of the church -- both our congregation in Mid-City and the mission of all congregations amidst the church catholic. While each congregation participates in a very concrete, local context, this context does not define the mission of the congregation -- all congregations, in so far as that they are the body of Christ, live from the Gospel, the mystery of our faith: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. In the church locality and catholicity are not opposed, but coincide much like individuality and community [you (pl) are the body of Christ and individually members of it] and freedom and authority.

In light of the Transfiguration, a sign of the importance of history now in light of the age that is to come, the age of the resurrection, I couldn't help noticing the difference the catholic Christian convictions proclaim concerning the significance of human life, indeed of all creation, from the deepest convictions of the Western culture in which I live. Yesterday it was announced in Great Britain that "women who go through the medical procedure to harvest the eggs from their ovaries, which doctors describe as 'invasive' and possibly dangerous, will be paid £250 plus travel expenses" [source]. The commodification of human life proceeds apace, with nothing outside the realm of values that determines worth. What is Good, True, and Beautiful has dissipated into what is valued, ie., transformed into a commodity by human will that could be traded in a stock exchange -- neo-liberal economics that reduces all things to the competitive dynamics of the marketplace. All things become nothing except as assigned "value" by the "general" or "individual" will of humans. Transcendence is lost; all competes in a singular realm of pure immanence. Nihilism reigns, both on the neo-liberal right and the post-Marxist, post-colonial left.

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Posted by johnwright at 3:19 PM | Comments (1)

Transfigured!

Sunday is the last Sunday of Epiphany, its culmination in the reading from Luke of the transfiguration. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us of the importance of the Transfiguration: “the Transfiguration "is the sacrament of the second regeneration": our own Resurrection. From now on we share in the Lord's Resurrection through the Spirit who acts in the sacraments of the Body of Christ. The Transfiguration gives us a foretaste of Christ's glorious coming, when he "will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body." But it also recalls that "it is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God".”

The Gospel reading from Luke is profoundly shaped by stories from the OT, with many layers of meaning. Maybe the best way to enter the texts is to begin with the Epistle reading and then move to the Exodus passage and then to the Gospel.

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Posted by johnwright at 10:32 AM | Comments (2)

Hans Kung, George Lindbeck, and Benedict XVI

A week from today Nazarene Theological Seminary will host "A Conversation Between Friends: George Lindbeck, David Burrell, and Stanley Hauerwas." I hope that we can begin to overlap a type of catholic evangelicalism with an evangelical catholicism. I believe that this overlap is possible today because of the profound changes arising from Vatican II, and the work of persons such as George Lindbeck. Vatican II, particularly as interpreted by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, has fundamentally changed the landscape of the relationship between Roman Catholics and us protestors. Particularly those who trace the distinct form of our protest to John Wesley recognize that we have the necessity of committing to the unity of the church catholic.

I thought that as a bit of a "teaser," I would explore some parallel thoughts on Jesus Christ by Lindbeck and Benedict XVI. The fact that both have interacted deeply with the thought Hans Kung makes this more interesting. Joseph Ratzinger and Hans Kung's friendship and controversies, of course, are well known. Lindbeck, however, spent a year in Germany in the late 1950's and interacted with Kung's work for over twenty or more years -- Kung's early work on Barth and Justification particularly caught Lindbeck's attention.

Yet by the 1970's, Kung and Lindbeck had traveled different paths, even as Kung's and Ratzinger's had. Two essays particularly stand out of interest to show the closeness between Benedict and Lindbeck -- the new Preface to the upcoming book, Jesus of Nazareth, by Benedict XVI, already released (cf. www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=98747);and a brief 1980 essay from Lindbeck, "The Bible as Realistic Narrative" in Consensus in Theology? A Dialogue with Hans Kung and Edward Schillebeeckx (pp. 81-85). Benedict's Preface gives no direct evidence of direct dependence upon Professor Lindbeck's essay. Yet the underlying parrallel structures of thought are interesting.

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Posted by johnwright at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)

On the Fifth Day of Christmas

Five golden rings? No, but reflections on the Incarnation that arise out of the experiences of my life.

I finally turned in all final grades (except for one upon which I'm still waiting to receive the work!) yesterday. I'm humbled and thankful for my students. I probably need to be "meaner" to make sure that students get their work done and submitted on time. Too many other pressures jump in and distract from the primary end of university student life these days. Still the depth of reflection, the connections made, the seriousness with which many take my work with them -- it is very humbling.

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Posted by johnwright at 11:34 AM | Comments (2)

On the Second Day of Christmas

The Christmas season is a wonderful time to read the beginning of Barth's Church Dogmatics. If persons would take the beginning of the Church Dogmatics seriously, misrepresentations of Barth and his fundamental wisdom would become very apparent for us. For instance, he clearly writes that "it is indeed unfortunate that the question of the truth of talk about God should be handled as a question apart by a special faculty, and . . . we cannot find any final reasons to justify it" (p. 5). For Barth there is no final chasm between grace and nature. Indeed, "secular science generally do not have to be secular or pagan. There might be such a thing as philosophia christiana. . . o contest this principle is to combine despair of the world with over-valuation of the Christian world in a way which is incompatible either with Christian hope or Christian humility" (p. 5). Here Barth engages in subtle reference that was going on in Roman Catholic thought during this period, and ending up on the "Catholic side."

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Posted by johnwright at 4:34 PM | Comments (0)

Christmas Reflection by Bonhoeffer

My good friend, Rev. Dr. Bob Smith read me a quote from Bonhoeffer this week, embedded in a book on Bonhoeffer that he was reading. I've saved it for today to share with you as Bob shared it with me. Bonhoeffer's elegance is matched only by his truthfulness. Merry Christmas!

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Posted by johnwright at 6:55 PM | Comments (1)

I'm Back

The fall semester is over (although I admittedly still have one class yet to grade). Unfortunately blogging has taken a hit amidst the trials, work, strains, and joys of this past fall. I have not had opportunity to respond to comments even as I would like. As we come to the end of the Advent season and soon begin Christmas, I hope to blog consistency over the next several weeks.

Last night I turned to reading Church Dogmaticsby Karl Barth, Vol. 1.1. Barth's text helps me; I find myself in it. Reading Barth is a form of prayer and contemplation for me. I hear Barth's text as if it was written today; yet this volume was written in 1932. One finds in it warnings about what is to come in Germany and Europe, warnings about the church's complicity, the underlying intellectual commitments that made such complicity possible -- not only in Nazi Germany, but also in the atrocities of the Soviet bloc and those of the liberal regimes of those "victorious" in WWII.

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Posted by johnwright at 9:03 AM | Comments (3)

Eucharistic (Thanksgiving) Reflections

The United States government has declared tomorrow "Thanksgiving Day" -- and I am thankful to take a little break from the arduous fall through which we have moved. It is my understanding that Bible Studies won't be meeting this week -- after I missed blogging for them last week because of the duress of my schedule. I wanted to take opportunity to reflect some on the Christian Thanksgiving -- the Eucharist or Lord's Supper -- which the United State's Thanksgiving both parodies yet points to.

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Posted by johnwright at 9:15 AM | Comments (2)

More on Lindbeck and the Movement towards a Visible Catholicity of the Church

By Thursday nights I'm usually pretty exhausted from the bulk of my teaching and activities. So last night I went home and laid on my mat in front of my bed and read articles by George Lindbeck that had come in earlier in the day from other libraries. Interestingly, there is an essay on Aquinas that brings out his use of "illumination" language argued for by Milbank and Pickstock -- and puts Aquinas within an Augustinian tradition. One senses an early movement towards an "Augustinian Thomism" already here.

Yet one essay really stood out to me from 1970, "The Future of Dialogue: Pluralism or an Eventual Synthesis of Doctrine" from a book called Christian Action and Openness to the World. One senses here a difference already emerging that Lindbeck noticed in moving out of the 60's. He sensed the increasing irrelevance of classical Christian convictions for the life of the church already occuring in the light of commitment to a "secular ecumenism" which sees doctrine as an unnecessary hindrance to what really matters -- "What counts is Christian participation in revolutionary action or, if one insists on being theological, how to talk about God in a secular age" (p. 39). Yet he insists upon the practical importance to doctrinal dialogue for the future of the church -- a future that is coming upon us much quicker now. Ashe wrote, "Because activism, theological pluralism and the speed of change are now increasing, they assume that it will always be so. But most processes, whether physical, psychological, or social, are incapable of infinite extension. At some point they must stop or reverse themselves" (p. 39).

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Posted by johnwright at 8:39 AM | Comments (3)

George Lindbeck on the Future of Roman Catholicism

I have spent much time the past seven months working on a project to bring together George Lindbeck, David Burrell, and Stanley Hauerwas to discuss how the "back to the sources" movement that led to Vatican II has influenced so-called "postliberalism" or the "Yale School." I have many reasons to want to listen carefully to such a discussion. Largely, I must confess, I have committed myself to such a task because I see profound parallels between Roman Catholicism and the life of the Methodist-holiness movement, in particular the Church of the Nazarene in the 20th century. I see the contests within pre- and post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism as extremely enlightening even to understand the often contested mission of the Church of the Nazarene in Mid-City.

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Posted by johnwright at 6:33 AM | Comments (5)

Evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox

A recent article in The Christian Century ("Going Catholic: Six Journeys to Rome," 8/21/06) noted six prominent theologians who have recently become Roman Catholic. It is interesting because, as the articles author, Jason Byassee notes, "They are also relatively young, poised to influence students and congregations for several decades. They more or less fit the description of 'postliberal' in that they accept such mainline practices as historical criticism and women's ordination while wanting the church to exhibit more robust dogmatic commitments. All of them embrace what Mattox describes as an 'evangelical, catholic, and orthodox' vision of the church. They could not see a way to be all those things within mainline denominations" -- including Gerald Schlabach, who became a Roman Catholic from his Mennonite tradition. In some ways this is an outcome of the profound changes in Roman Catholicism in recovering its Christological moorings as a result of Vatican II and the papacies of Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:05 AM | Comments (4)

Pastoring and Resident Aliens -- Part Deux

I heartily confess that one of the themes of my blogs and my life is to blur the distinction between Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants, not merely intellectually, but pastorally. I pray to overcome in the United States what the sociologist Will Hersberg called the three religious communities in the United States of Catholic-Protestant-Jew at the point of blurring the distinction between the first two on the basis of the Jewish origins of the church in Jesus Christ. I have undertaken this out of my heritage and membership in the Church of the Nazarene as a group devoted to preserving the faith given to the saints and cooperation with all members of the body of Christ (see the Foreward to the Manual of the Church of the Nazarene), standing as we do, in the Methodist tradition beginning with John Wesley -- a "ressourcement theologian" if there ever was one.

After I wrote my jeremiad on the contemporary pastorate on Saturday (which, interestingly, has received no comments!!), I found that Benedict XVI had some comments up on Zenit.org/english concerning this very issue. In Roman Catholicism, because of the "shortage of priests", the issues are even more acute. Yet independently, it seems to me that both the awareness of the issues and the direction of pastoral response is similar. I'd like to share quotes from these addresses, and see how we can learn together. Benedict's first interview comes from Aug. 31 in an interview at the Papal Summer Residence, called "Some problems for priests." The second is from September 24, 2006 on Benedict XVI on Integrated Pastoral Care.

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Posted by johnwright at 12:48 PM | Comments (3)

Pastoring in the United States and "Resident Aliens"

I haven't had opportunity to blog much recently. Several projects, along with the typical business of teaching and pastoring, have occupied my time. I continue to read, talk, and think about the relationship between the so-called "Yale School" or "postliberal" theology and theological currents that led up to, deeply formed, and came out of Vatican II.

In light of recent experiences in the pastorate, this relationship has become more interesting. American culture places such an emphasis on the person of the pastor to personally and organizationall meet needs so that the office of the elder or priest as primarily about preaching the Word and conducting the Sacraments becomes relatively insignificant. Focusing on the correct demographics, democratic "inclusive" administration, administrative expertise of balancing the needs of those within the congregation with the needs that the congregation is attempting to meet, being a therapeutic helping professional to aid people cope with, adjust to, and heal from the psychological hurts and wounds, all become the crucial concerns of the laity -- and not without reason. Pastoring becomes hard work that is always vulnerable to profound criticism. Of course, such dynamics also encourage the flip side -- pastors who become authoritarian and demeaning to congregations so that it is the congregation members who become abused.

Pastoral authority is very difficult to exercise in a liberal culture that denies the legitimacy of authority except for the authority of the experiences of the individual or communal self. What persons "experience" (experiences always embedded in prior experiences) become determinative of naming how the pastor is perceived. As all pastors know, in the pastorate perception is reality -- and not without reason. This is our experience in the particular cultural formation that arises from liberalism's distinction of the private from the public, the therapeutic from the managerial, the realm of 'meaning' from the realm of 'bureaucracy.'

But what happens to the pastoral role in a congregation that is the "pilgrim-people of God" or "resident aliens"? My daughter, Tasha, picked up Willimon and Hauerwas's minor classic, Resident Aliens. It has an outstanding analysis of the contemporary pastorate in it that I've picked up and thumbed through as she had the book out. I'd like to share some quotes from it.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:24 AM | Comments (0)

The Peaceableness of Reason

Earlier this week I read Benedict XVI's lecture at the University of Regensburg. I was deeply impressed. Slowly this lecture filtered into the public media, though in a profoundly distorting manner. Some respondents have publicly stated that Benedict seeks to return to the crusades. The irony of this is that Benedict's lecture has a fundamental commitment to non-violence embedded within it. I'd like to spend some time analyzing this speech for what the lecture has to teach it because it reaches to the intersection of the academy and the church, nature and the supernatural. He adopts historical analysis very parallel to such works as David Burrell, Etionne Gilson, and recent Radical Orthodox thinkers. The response indicates the type of hard distinction between "faith" and "reason" that Benedict seeks to challenge.

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Posted by johnwright at 11:59 AM | Comments (6)

Transfiguration and the Eucharist

I have found it fascinating that Transfiguration Sunday is followed by three straight Sundays with readings around John 6 -- the Johanine Eucharistic passages. Eucharistic teaching is difficult today. Any teaching is difficult because the liberal democratic society that has shaped us collapses all Christian teaching into the subjectivity of individuals or the collective subjectivity of a "community." To make normative claims sounds absolutist, totalitarian or at best a market-option for the consumptions of "personal beliefs" or "values." Of course, such a position masks the totalitarian claims of the categories of the liberal society that reduces Christian teachings to expressions of personal subjectivities. The post-Reformation differences in the teachings of various churches, of course, do not help the matter, nor does the Protestant revivalist tradition that shapes much of conservative Protestant evangelicalism in the US today.

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Posted by johnwright at 11:58 AM | Comments (3)

Hope for the Future: Balthasar and Barth

I've spent much of my summer reading to fill a massive hole in my theological education. Much of my education and work has taken place within the institutions of the Church of the Nazarene -- an evangelical "denomination" that has looked to become "mainline Protestant" in the past forty years by looking back to Wesley as Lutherans look to Luther and Reformed Christians look back to Calvin, all the while trying to accomodate his thought to categories given by modern world. Not only did this perspective influence what material was seen as important to read (Tillich over Barth, and if Barth, a Barth who was called a "dialectical, existential theologian"), but it also determined how certain events were presented to me: for instance, the Augustinian and the Thomistic as two fundamentally different types of Christian theology (drawn from an essay on "Two Types of Philosophy of Religion" by Tillich). Whereas I've recognized these inadequacies for years now, this summer has allowed me to begin to fill in the pieces in much more thorough ways through readings on Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, 20th century Roman Catholic thought, Vatican II, and Communio theologians, particularly as they related to those who first opened up the inadequacy, intellectual and ecclesial, of the categories given to me: persons like George Lindbeck, Stanley Hauerwas, Robert Wilken, and even John Howard Yoder.

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Posted by johnwright at 7:29 AM | Comments (2)

Vacation and War

We've snuck away for a few days as a family -- a welcome respite from the constant demands of the parish and the academy. Sure, I have some books with me -- but included in them is the science fiction book, Eragon. Of course, we made sure the hotel had "free" wireless internet. But my cell phone is off, and I'm listening to Johnny's, Tony's, and Carl's beautiful laughs in the background as they watch some stupid movie. Tasha and Kathy are out at a book store -- what more can one ask? I may be back asleep for a nap within a half hour.

Yet I remain in prayer and plagued by the escalations of war and how the current United States governing regime and their support from US conservative protestant Christians continues to diminish the significance of human life for their geo-political-economic agenda. Congregations of the Church of the Nazarene in Lebanon continue to suffer. Nazarene Compassionate Ministries has means of living in solidarity with these congregations that we have to take up -- as do some persons at the American University in Beirut --now cut off by Israeli bombings. Hezbollah as well has escalated the situation by the numbers of missiles sent off. Meanwhile, Iraq continues to be a place of mayhem of death, as the numbers of US troops there rises.

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Posted by johnwright at 10:07 AM | Comments (33)

Communio within Creation

After various stops and starts, I finished David L. Schindler's book, Heart of the World, Center of the Church last night. Schindler develops a devastating intellectual and cultural critique of Christian accomodation to political liberalism from within the "Communio" movement. The book, written in 1996, draws deeply upon the interpretation of Vatican II given by John Paul II, and especially applies the thought of Hans Urs van Balthasar to an American context.

In its central Christological commitment and anti-liberalism, Schindler's work reminds me of the work of Stanley Hauerwas. Yet in its Catholic background, Schindler devotes much more time to speculative metaphysical arguments than Hauerwas and develops a doctrine of analogy in a way that softens some of Hauerwas' analysis, which is intentionally more polemic as the Hauerwas text comes from within mainline American Protestantism. A reader might find great benefit in reading the two theologians in tandem.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:24 AM | Comments (3)

Long Post: On Christian Protest Activism in a Liberal Democratic Society

I have struggled for years with the issue of Christian protest activism within a liberal-democratic regime such as ours. The injustice and evil, encoded within institutions and structures of our society, seem to call forth challenge from the depths of the church – a church much too often in acquiescence with the evil, or which responds with a blind eye and a shrug of the shoulders – after all, the task of the church, we are told, is not political, but spiritual.

What became early apparent to me that such responses are already embedded in the politics of liberalism – acquiescence obviously so; the complete distinction between the political and the spiritual accepting the liberal democratic distinction between the public and the private. Church-based political activism to transform the unjust, sinful structures seemed the only other response. Martin Luther King Jr. and Dorothy Day seem models for such activity.

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Posted by johnwright at 12:31 AM | Comments (5)

War -- What is it good for -- nothing, absolutely nothing

I have yet to comment on the mindless violence in Lebanon and Northern Israel. I had planned a rant this morning, but instead, found something much more profound. First, to follow the affairs, juancole.com is downright excellent. Professor Cole has personal connections in Lebanon; was recently there; and has a masterly command of the whole situation. His perspective is very different than the mainstream media and the US governments. The Israelis have planned this war for over a year, and when Hezbollah kidnapped the Israeli soldiers -- a string of kidnapping that began with Israeli soldiers taking two persons from Gaza, whose whereabouts is still unknown, the Israelis, with the full backing of the US, began their bombing. Though the media has not reported it, bombing raids have included Christian churches. Israel is conducting the raids to try to cut off the "Shia Cresent" from the Mediterranean Sea.

Second, this is related to Iraq. According to Juan Cole, the Dawa party, in exile from Iraq in the '90s, helped begin Hezbollah. With the rise of Shia power in Iraq, all the Sunnis in the Mideast who have controlled political processes in this region for the past half century, are very afraid of the rising coaltion of Shia power stretching from Iran through Iraq in to Syrian and Southern Lebanon.

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Posted by johnwright at 9:02 AM | Comments (4)

The Agenda of the Church: A Preview of my Book

Today I finally have gotten around to working on the conclusion of my upcoming book for Intervarsity Press, now officially titled, Telling God's Story: Narrative Preaching for Christian Formation. The book will soon be proceeding to the copy editor as soon as I write the conclusion. I waited to write the conclusion once the body had passed through all editorial stages.

I thought that I would post the draft of the introduction to my last chapter today -- since I've been working on it amidst the heat today. I do so, not only to elicit comments, but because it comes to the core of the mission of, not only my work, but local congregations, particularly our congregation at Mid-City. I think that it describes some of the tensions we sometimes experience because of our commitment to the poor and because, unlike so many Nazarene and evangelical churches, we refuse to allow the social, political, and even theological agenda of the conservative evangelicals guide us.

We harken back to a much older Christian tradition than that which divides so much of the contemporary North American Christianity, a division that is based actually on a much deeper commonality that rends the difference in certain ways. Thus, we just as distant from Jim Dobson as we are from Jim Wallis; from Pat Robinson as we are from Michael Lerner. If we are just as distant, we are also just as close to each as well. Yet the goal is never to react to these various poles determined by presuppositions that they share in common, but to act from the presupposition of the Triune God's creation of all things good in the very image of the Triune God and the restoration of this creation through Jesus Christ and the on-going life of the church.

I have found myself recently drawn to Augustine, both as a theologian, biblical scholar, and pastor, because he was profoundly all three, even as he was only one person. He provides a model of the unity of these vocations, that have become split by modernist institutions. Of course I cannot simply return to these days -- nor do I so desire. Yet there is something crucial in his life and witness for us to recover today. It is thus to him that I am looking for the conclusion of my book.

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Posted by johnwright at 1:26 PM | Comments (8)

More (or is it less?) on Freedom

In North American society, whenever you hear the word "freedom", the term carries with it massive theological and moral presuppositions that shape us in ways that make Christian discipleship more difficult. How the term functions within a liberal democratic political order such as the United States makes the world more violent and concentrates the world's material goods more and more in the hands of the wealthy. The word as used brings forth deep positive emotions in Americans, and has been used to justify war in the 20th century and now in the early 21st century.

To challenge "freedom" might end one up with the NSA listening to phone conversations. It is exactly what Zizek helped me see in the last post. Yet we know that we live in strange, yet wonderful days, when we can find nearly an identical thoughts shared between an atheist, post-Freudian, post-Marxist Eastern European nihilistic philosopher and a "conservative" Roman Catholic theologian who works as an expositor of John Paul II and Vatican II. What I'd like to share is some comments on David L. Schindler's interaction with the liberal concept of "freedom" in his excellent and important book, Heart of the World, Center of the Church.

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Posted by johnwright at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)

The Empty Promises of Liberal Freedom

I think that I am finally coming up for air after my Scotland trip. I have much to blog on in the coming weeks -- I hope that I can post over other day or so. I imagine that I've lost readership -- and rightly so. But I will try to write some reflections on readings and experiences especially as they interact with faithfulness in Christian witness amidst the contemporary culture of the United States for our congregation and through it, to others.

On the plane going over to Scotland, I read a little book by Slavoj Zizek -- a post-Marxist, post-Freudian Eastern Europian philosopher. I find his writings a bit random, yet filled with insight at certain times. He is an atheist, a type of nihilist that sees transcendence as excrement -- yet his cultural analysis, particular his critique of types of purportedly avant-garde post-modernity and post-modern "spirituality" is very good. He is also particularly acute in his criticism of the political and ideological liberalism that seems "natural" in todays world.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:34 AM | Comments (4)

Wisdom from Henri De Lubac

I've spent much of my summer reading and teaching from Henri de Lubac. John Milbank calls his book, Surnaturel, one of the three most important texts in the twentieth century, along with Heidegger's Being and Time and Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Yet unlike the high visibility of Heidegger and Wittgenstein, the significance of de Lubac's work remains largely subterranean, especially to those outside the Roman Catholicism in which he lived and flourished -- though at times painfully. Moreover, whereas Wittgenstein and Heidegger's publications are all highly abstract and inaccessible except to those initiated into the mysteries of their text, de Lubac, able to write obscure and learned prose, also exercised a pastoral task in his writing. His volumes on Paradoxes of Faith are little clips, vignettes, that provide profound insight into the Christian tradition and the concrete Christian life to which we are called. On this Saturday night, I'd like to post a couple of quotations from his work, Paradoxes of Faith, originally written in 1945, but translated and published (and inexpensive) from Ignatius Press in 1987.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:06 PM | Comments (3)

District Report and Deus Caritas Est

My computer melted down over the weekend; the hard disk more corrupt than Duke Cunningham. Today, however, I finally feel like I'm crawling out of the past several months of finals, ending the church year, and just a lot of 'stuff.'

Last week we had our District Assembly for the Southern California District of the Church of the Nazarene. In good Methodist tradition, pastors have to report to the district concerning the past year. Yet to make things move, we now videotape our reports with pictures in the background. Maybe Eric can teach me how to do this, because the slides were wonderful. Yet I did have a 60 second report to give.

I'll place this brief report in the extended entry. I don't know if a report in the Church of the Nazarene has previously quoted an encyclical from an encyclical of the Bishop of Rome before, but there has been one now!

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Posted by johnwright at 7:48 PM | Comments (0)

Backblogging

I have these profound mixed feelings about Memorial Day weekend. Of course, it is a parody of of the church's "All Saints Day"; any Christian must know that Christ died for them, a death participated in directly by the martyrs. There is no saving significance for the death of a solderier who has died in war. Yet there is merit in Christians pausing in mourning about the futility of war, and inability of war to bring peace. It is also important to remember the victims of war, including the soldiers and their families who bear in their bodies the wages of sin as a result of their engagement in battle.

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Posted by johnwright at 1:29 PM | Comments (0)

Specialists and/or Generalists: The Professor in the Christian Liberal Arts

I receive emails from a post called "The Wesleyan Theological Discussuion" group. Today I took some time to participate in a series of posts on the academic calling of theology in Christian liberal arts colleges and universities. The issue was one of the disciplinary work versus generalist work. I'll thought that I might as well attach it to my blog.

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Posted by johnwright at 5:11 PM | Comments (2)

Prayer for a Conscientious Objector to War

Tomorrow, April 6, an ex-student, friend, and a parishioner when she is in town, Lauren Crepeau, faces a military hearing in her application for status as a conscientious objector to war. The past six months she has worked within the military system for her application and I have traveled with her through the process from afar. The Catholic Peace Fellowship has been much closer and wonderful in her assistance. Her hearing is at 12:30 pm, west coast time, in El Paso, Texas. Please pray for Lauren as she continues her courageous stand for peace amidst a nation-state and regime that seems deeply committed to war.

Lauren has given me permission to post from her application for her status as a conscientious objector. In it she quotes the Manual of the Church of the Nazarene. She has faced the challenges with integrity and courage and faithfulness. She has humbled me with the strength of her faithfulness and convictions, and I really desire to honor her. Her story needs told. The following is the application and Lauren's response in certain sections.

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Posted by johnwright at 9:23 PM | Comments (7)

March 25,2006

I want to share a section from Wesley's sermon "The New Birth" this morning. It uses much of the same language that we have seen throughout this week. Yet I am impressed, over and over, how Wesley consistently reminds us that the whole Christian life must arise out of an awareness of God's love in Christ for each and every human being in our own particularity, indeed, all of creation in its particularity. Experiencing the love for human beings, the Love that is nothing less than God's Spirit, the Love that binds eternally the Father and the Son, is nothing less than participating in God. The whole Christian life is anchored in Christ's life, death, and resurrection, experienced as for me by faith in the forgiveness of my sins.

This awareness of the utter graciousness of God and participating in the Love that is the Spirit becomes "breathed into" our lives in Christ. The experience of forgiveness of our sins by God become the primary point of living all our life, the perspective that provides the basis for our inner and outer moral reworking by God. This is the new birth.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:02 AM | Comments (0)

The Witness of the Congregation

Yesterday morning and today have been very interesting. Sometimes it's hard to relate what goes on in and around the congregation in Mid-City because of the holy chaos and concerns to sustain the honor of those whom God gathers to us . Yet I think that I would like to write a little bit about yesterday. It is good just to get a feel of what goes on in and around the building, both for those whom God gathers in that place on Sunday mornings and for those who travel with me in this "cyber space".

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Posted by johnwright at 12:29 PM | Comments (1)

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday. We will begin our journey to Easter Sunday morning this evening at 7:00 for the imposition of Ashes, and the enrollment of baptismal candidates into our catechumenate.

As part of our Lenten observation, I also am going to post every morning at 4:00 am Pacific time brief quotes from the Standard Sermons of John Wesley for our congregation in Mid-City, and others. In the Wesleyan Theological Journal, William Abraham rightfully spoke of Wesley as a "spiritual father" within the wider canonical history of the church catholic. I hope that these reflections push us deeper in the love of God and neighbor through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit's power.

Posted by johnwright at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)

Sunday night musings

Among other things, my summer school teaching schedule came out next week. I am going to teach a The490 seminar on "The Theology of Henri de Lubac" -- an interesting foray for me. I have to order my books. At this point, I am planning to begin with the secondary source on him by Balthasar, and then read three works: The Drama of Atheistic Humanism; The Mystery of the Supernatural; and Catholicism. After those, I believe we will read Milbank's new book. Any comments about such a program would be helpful. Among other things, it is to start work on a project on Vatican II and the Wesleyan.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:55 PM | Comments (3)

What Kathy Has Learned This Week

This week has been another grueling week. We are filling two positions in the School of Theology at PLNU and the intellectual and relational work has been incredibly intense in interviewing candidates and mulling things over as a department. Last night we didn't get out of meetings until after 6:00 pm -- and when academics go that late on Friday night, you know that people are working hard!

So I haven't had time nor energy to blog. I still hope to get caught up. But Pastor Kathy, my wife, typed some wonderful things out this week that I'd like to share with you. Enjoy what she has learned this week. Names have been changed to protect the "guilty"!

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Posted by johnwright at 7:12 PM | Comments (1)

Eucharist, the Church of the Nazarene, and Benedict XVI

I have been asked from without and within about my conviction concerning Christ's real presence in the Eucharist, and the importance that I place on it for the life and witness of the church -- both our local congregation in Mid-City and the church catholic throughout the world. There have been times when it has been insinuated that I violate the discipline of the Church of the Nazarene in this conviction. The social implications, it's horizontal embracement of believers throughout the world and therefore, the potential to embrace all humanity, is wanted to be embraced without individual participation in Christ. The social meaning is set off against the real personal participation in Christ. In reading some historical documents from our local history in Mid-City, I can see that this has been an issue throughout our life together.

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Posted by johnwright at 1:09 PM | Comments (7)

What You Won't Hear on CNN

I quickly check juancole.com every day to keep up on the affairs in Iraq. He does emphasize the negative, but his command of Arabic allows him to read papers that I cannot access.

This morning I saw a reference to this Reuters report. Among other things it helps us see what the American invasion and occupation of Iraq continues to do to the Christian witness among non-Christians, and why Muslims believe that the American church is a religion of violence. Such activities demand that somehow we discover some way to distinguish an authentic Christian witness from these profoundly misguided brothers and sisters, or unbelievers who seek to use the cross as an offense, not only to Muslims, but to Christians as well.

How profound a difference from our reading from Acts 10:34=38 this morning about God sending a message to Israel when Jesus came preaching peace.

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Posted by johnwright at 4:59 PM | Comments (1)

The Last Day of Christmas: Toynbee, Benedict XVI, and George Lindbeck

'Tis finally the last day of Christmas -- tomorrow is Epiphany, the celebration of the revelation of God to the Gentiles in Jesus. There is much that could be discussed about this scene from the Gospel of Matthew -- but perhaps we could see the magi as they wandered into the hostile territory of the Roman empire under Caesar's Jewish minion Herod in light of Benedict XVI's recent First Things article on "Europe and its Discontents."

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Posted by johnwright at 9:20 AM | Comments (1)

The Feast of the Nativity and Capitalism

In a few days we will finally begin the Christmas season. I kind of like the fact that the 25th falls on a Sunday, as we will gather as a church for the First Christmas service (which we call the Christmas eve service). The Christian year harkens back to earlier Jewish time systems in which the day begins at nightfall. Thus what we call Christmas eve is really Christmas I. When we gather on Christmas morn, the Gospel readings differ. The narrative of Luke melds into the Gospel of John. The babe born in a manger is the Word made flesh. One encounters in the dual gospel readings the full wonder of the Incarnation.

Of course, between those services other practices will unfold in our household. We will celebrate the Feast of the Nativity through a meal together in the evening, and a sharing of gifts in the morning. Yes, we are completely and unabashedly and unashamedly bourgeois in this exchange of gifts. As I age, I understand the depth of this practice as a celebration of Christ's nativity, as well as it's dangers. I am very thankful for the time to be together as a family, and share in a material exchange of gifts in honor of our Lord. Amidst a society that would fragment and individuate us even as a family into different market groups, the economics of gifts come to us appropriately in honor of our Lord. I am particularly thankful about this year, as the time will be wedged between the times when we gather as a congregation in observance of the Nativity of the Word of God.

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Posted by johnwright at 11:40 AM | Comments (1)

After Finals -- Towards the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord

I got caught up with my grading today, and have all grades in except for my Christian Tradition class, that, as usual, seems to think due dates are human constructions, and not ontologically real. Imagine that.

I hope to get caught up in some blogging. Between my Society of Biblical Literature trip, the program on the Psalms by Luigi Giussani, finals, the beginning of Tasha's and Carl's high school soccer, time has been sparse. I hope to blog daily as we head into this weekend and throughout all twelve days of Christmas.

To renew I am reading Tracey Rowland's Culture and the Thomist Tradition After Vatican II in the Radical Orthodoxy series. Her work has an extreme analytic and constructive importance, not merely for Roman Catholics, but for both mainline and evangelical Protestants as well. I'd just like to leave you with a little quote that seems so important for congregations to embrace:

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Posted by johnwright at 8:12 PM | Comments (2)

'The Lord's Style of Language'

Robert Wilken, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, wrote a wonderful article in the September issue of First Things called "The Church's Way of Speaking". Professor Wilken was the first one to introduce me to the work of George Lindbeck when his Nature of Doctrine came out in Spring of 1984. I was in a PhD seminar with Professor Wilken at the time, a class on "Early Christian Interpretations of Romans." I read the book in one evening. Suddenly options that I did not know existed theologically opened in front of me.

I mention this because Wilken shows in this article indirectly that Lindbeck's "cultural-linguistic model" is not a form of modernist apologetic translation of Christian theology into Wittgensteinian language-games, but instead, represents a ressourcement, a return to the sources, from the early Christian mothers and fathers. He shows in this article, in the wonderfully accessible way that Professor Wilken writes, that Augustine noted that Christian language cannot be "translated" into another language without severe loss. As Wilken writes, "Augustine called Isaiah’s language 'the Lord’s style of language,' and he recognized that if he were to enter the Church he would have to learn this new tongue, hear it spoken, grow accustomed to its sounds, read the books that use it, learn its idioms, and finally speak it himself. He had to embark on a journey to acquaint himself with the mores of a new country. Becoming a Christian meant entering a strange and often alien world." I mention this because we are now entering a time of year when we, as Christians, are in severe danger of losing the church's language, 'the Lord's style of language'.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:47 PM | Comments (4)

Thanksgiving is the Eucharist

I'm finally back after two weeks of preparation for travel, travel, and recovery from travel. First Kathy flew to Kansas City to participate in a children's bible study program. On the way home, however, she got stranded in Phoenix at midnight because of fog (it actually cleared here when American West canceled the flight, but they had already sent the crew home). Then I took an all-night flight to Philadelphia for the Society of Biblical Literature meeting (more on that at a later time). When we arrived, our luggage did not (again, compliments of American West). I chaired a session with a University of Oxford professor (H.G.M. Williamson) and others, such as my friend Gary Knoppers, on Oded Lipschits new book, The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem, in a long sleeved t-shirt and jeans, not to mention, big glasses with lenses that occasionally fall out (like when I was talking for the first time with Jamie Smith on Sunday night). It was quite the fashion statement.

But that was then. Today is thanksgiving.

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Posted by johnwright at 4:58 PM | Comments (1)

War is an Atrocity

I am not a pacificist; I am a Christian. I do not want any other label to override my commitment. Don't get me wrong. I do not believe that God wants those who are followers of God's Son to kill. I believe that the New Testament prohibits returning evil for evil -- and killing is an evil. The kingdom of God will not come in its fullness by violence. I don't know why I'm so dull, but today I noticed in Matthew 5 that love of enemy directly leads to the command to be perfect as our Father in heaven in perfect. Come to think of it, Augustine had noticed that in On Christian Doctrine. To be committed to the doctrine of Christian perfection, perfect love, it seems to me that one must embrace Christ's teaching of enemy love.

Modern warfare is especially atrocious. Technology and strategy do not allow a proper distinction between civilians and military force. Such blurring of lines make it impossible to apply without moving to a Clinton-esque distinction of terms that ultimately show the moral bankruptcy of the position.

One case of this has been the use of chemical weapons in Iraq, particularly white phosphorous incidenary weapons in Fallujah (we could talk about napalm in Baghdad as well). During the punitive massacre and destruction of Fallujah, I was aware that these had been used -- ignored by the American press. But the story is slowly coming out -- in Europe, and ever so slowly in the US. Below is an editorial from The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1642575,00.html) -- whose coverage of the US aggressions in Iraq has been among the best in the English language. Barry Venable, after long denial by the US military that such weapons had been used, admitted that they had. Note his justification: "We use them primarily as obscurants, for smokescreens or target marking in some cases. However, it is an incendiary weapon and may be used against enemy combatants."
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051115/pl_afp/usiraqbritainitaly_051115220512). If you read below, you can see the moral/legal Clintonesque reasoning -- it is not listed as a chemical weapon when used in a certain way; however, as employed, it must certainly functioned as a chemical weapon. If one searches, one can find pictures of the incinerated human bodies from these weapons. Warning: they are obscene, but perhaps we need to see the atrocity that is war. Perhaps Christians can then understand why it is so important to follow the words of Jesus, rather than engage in cycles of violence to establish a human 'justice' today.

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Posted by johnwright at 10:11 PM | Comments (13)

Catholicity and Totalitarianism

I have tried to keep away from discussions about the politics of the contemporary liberal nation-state called the United States. First, I don't want to get sucked into the left-right dynamics in living and thinking as a Christian. Second, I don't think that the United States is 'real' -- I've never met the United States; I've never even seen it. It is a projection of human imagination that helps authorize certain individuals to control violence in a certain geographical area without fear of sanction. It's reality is only what we give it -- unlike the church which is real, the bodies of the poor are real, Christ's presence in the Eucharist is real. This is why I don't understand immigration issues because it presupposes that there are real lines on the earth called 'borders' that divide one part of humanity from another. I understand migration, mind you, just not immigration. The contemporary nation-state is merely a projection of human imagination, upheld by certain interests who benefit from such an imaginary construct.

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Posted by johnwright at 7:58 AM | Comments (15)

Eucharist and Peace

Recent months have found me nourished by many of the reflections at the "Traditional Catholic Review" (www.tcrnews2.com). Perhaps that sounds a bit curious for a Nazarene pastor and professor at a university of the Church of the Nazarene. Yet what I find here is a commitment to the full gospel that avoids the right/left dichotomy that shapes so much of American Protestant and Catholic life.

The following is a small piece from some reflections begun from a quote from Benedict XVI. Here's a quote that really struck out for me, something that I've come to think is very true:

"Christians represent to the world the alternative humanism which alone has the spiritual foundation to sustain the work of peace."

Of course, this also means that we have to learn to get along with each other in our local congregations as well! Enjoy the reflections!

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Posted by johnwright at 2:41 PM | Comments (0)

Brief Reflections on the Criminalization of Marijuana

A friend of our congregation was arrested last Friday for selling marijuana. The authorities must have been watching for awhile, because by arresting on Friday, the police can hold someone for five days without charges being formally filed. Today, however, he has his initial hearing. I have yet to get to see him.

Our friend lives on Social Security disability -- a very small amount, almost impossible to live on in San Diego. Perhaps he was trying to engage in a commercial activity as the month came to an end and his funds for living where running out.

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Posted by johnwright at 10:40 AM | Comments (1)

Reading

Life per usual has been very full. I'm working with classes and trying to prepare for the Society of Biblical Literature meetings, where I'm on a panel to discuss two new commentaries on Chronicles. In the meantime, I've been reading some of Karl Barth and James K. A. Smith, both that I hope to share along the way. I hope also to share some posts from other sites that I've found very interesting and helpful.

Yet David Jones, my friend at ressourcement.blogspot.com, graciously sent me some books from the founder of Communion and Liberation, an Italian priest named Luigi Giussani. He wrote a trilogy, and I've been reading the second book, "At the Origin of the Christian Claim". It's very excellent. I've been speaking of it to colleagues for use at our university at several levels. I hope also some of us in the parish might get together and read it as well.

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Posted by johnwright at 10:33 AM | Comments (2)

Sickness and after effects

It's been a long time since I've posted. Last Sunday afternoon it seems that I got some type of food poisoning that knocked me out for about 36 hours. I'll save you from the gory details. But it's put me behind the rest of the week. Monday I missed my first day of classes due to illness ever. I've taught with viral pneumonia and a 103 temp, within a week after an appendectomy, and 36 hours after dislocating my knee cap, sometimes without much of a voice. So Monday was a bit of a mile marker for me.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:24 AM | Comments (2)

One is only a person if you are a citizen

One of the underlying issues that God has brought to our local congregation is fifteen young men from Haiti, who were able to flee Haiti for their lives after the US-led "coup" of the democratically elected government. The pastor of our French-speaking congregation has looked to us for aide to try and find a way to secure a sustainable, stable life for these friends -- one of whom is an elder in the Church of the Nazarene.

We have tried many frustrating avenues -- visas, asylum. I have communicated with the Prime Minister and UN representatives by email. Brian Becker of our congregation has done yoeman's work in phone conversations, talking to lawyers and agencies here. Yet the ace in the hole that we had finally accomplished was contact with the Church of the Nazarene in Dominica! At least we could work with them to ameliorate their condition until we can work on legal means on this end -- or, in last resort, to find some illegal means of helping our brothers find a secure life here.

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Posted by johnwright at 12:41 PM | Comments (3)

Friends along the journey

As I travel down this road, trying to live the Gospel, not as a socialist or a capitalist, not as a neo-con or a civil libertarian, not as a "liberal" or a "conservative", but as a follower of Jesus Christ within the faith handed down to the saints through the ages, I find it often frustrating because of the labels that I receive, and the way that cultural dichotomies and modernist/post-modernist presuppositions push towards equally unacceptable positions. It seems that these tensions are almost inherent within American Protestant institutional cultures -- most likely because of the historical Protestant hegemony in the US, with its commitments to the church to provide the moral voice for the governance of the state. How does one find friends on the way, conversations so that one is not merely stupid, or "leftist" or "pietistic"? How does one maintain the perspective needed for the constant formation that one needs to go through in a culture like this so that one is not merely speaking one's "personal perspectives"?

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Posted by johnwright at 9:32 AM | Comments (1)

Saturday -- in memoriam

Saturday started early with a 1-0 victory for my girls rec soccer team, The Return of the Tropical Lawnmowers. The victory moves us to 3-0 -- we've won more already than in the past four years combined!!

Much more significant, however, was the funeral of John Kang. John was a friend, a refugee from the genocide in the Sudan. We had worked together for the benefit of his people here in San Diego as they adjusted to a foreign land. He sat in an ESL ministerial studies class that I and Kevin Timpe taught most recently. I was reminded that John had participated directly in the peace talks that has resulted in a peace agreement between the South Sudan and the Islamic government. It is a fragile peace, but better then the long civil war. Ironically, the government was established the week that John died.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:37 AM | Comments (1)

Health Care with the Poor

It seems that the past few weeks have brought me into extensive interaction with the "health care industry" in San Diego. While I need to blog more on what I've learned through interaction with the San Diego Health and Faith Alliance, I want to share two other experiences from the week.

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Posted by johnwright at 8:43 AM | Comments (0)

Another interesting day

Just quick updates for your prayers and reflections. Last night I went to Bread of Life. I was humbled as Shadow asked me to witness and bless his marriage as the officiating clergy. Of course, this raises certain issues that come to light with the nature of marriage and catechesis and Shadow. But I never will forget his love and concern for me when I fell and dislocated my knee 18 months ago at the church.

Then I went to see Bill Hatcher whom Deron had taken to the emergency room at Mercy Hospital in the afternoon. It was a little after 8:00 pm, and he was still in the emergency room. He still had not seen a doctor. I have yet to get today's update, but I'm sure he waited for hours before getting a room. The emergency room was full with sick and hurt people of all ages -- from geriatrics to an infant. As he was suffering no trauma and had no private insurance, I'm sure he was low on the triage scale. It was a depressing place to be -- I wonder how much longer such a slow system can exist in its care for the sick.

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Posted by johnwright at 2:45 PM | Comments (0)

New Orleans and the False Soteriology of the modern nation-state

Soteriology is a big, fancy word for the doctrine of salvation -- how salvation is wrought for whom by whom. For Christians, salvation takes place by the Triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through faith, sealed in baptism into the people of God, the church -- always a particular local congregation that is simultaneously one throughout the world. Yet this understanding of salvation is contested today through the soteriology of the modern nation-state. The state is willing to offer the church the realm of the salvation of souls, but its ideology articulates the responsibility for the salvation of its citizenry in the body. It takes on this responsibility through monopolizing coercion and violence in the bounded territory over which it claims authority. The most obvious example is the language that soldiers take the saving role of Jesus Christ in "sacrificing their lives so that we might live." The soteriology of the state is a parody of that provided by God through Christ by the power of Spirit that has engrafted us, Jew or Gentile, into the church.

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Posted by johnwright at 7:27 PM | Comments (5)

The Funeral of Michael Patterson

I'd like to post the liturgy for our brother Mike Patterson's funeral. The words do not substitute adequately for those gathered -- those who live on the beach, the various members of the congregation, Mike's brother, Liz, who cared for him, Laura and Ryan who took on legal responsibilities and the weight of making decisions. I don't have the beautiful words of Patrick, who though a bit inebriated at the time, shared his love and thankfulness of Mike, how he and Mike inverted an obscene gesture that they so often felt from the world around them to become a gesture of friendship and love. I don't have the words of "Hankster the Prankster" who now kind of oversees those who live on the beach in care, who models his life on Mike's care. I don't have the anonymous poem read by Sandy, and I don't have Liz's words of Mike's love for all of us.

I can't describe the finality as Pastor Kathy turned Mike's picture over at the Commitall. And I can't describe the peace when we shared food on the beach following the service, as the sun set over the waves.

But I can share with you the order of the service, and the words spoken. And I can elicit your prayers for Mike and the rest of us as we learn to go on remembering his life to call us to a more faithful life in the world.

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Posted by johnwright at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)

Distributed Today after Worship

We have a policy of "benign neglect" in our congregation concerning observing the calendar that the American government and society embraces. Honestly, pastorally one learns to dread "holiday weekends," for the congregation scatters to visit family (a good thing) or take advantage of the extra time for "leisure activities" (no comment). Thus on "Hallmark Days" we have made a habit of recognition following our worship, but not within the liturgy.

The issue came up last week for Labor Day, and the involvement of members within our congregation for the cause of labor -- a major issue in San Diego, where wages and benefits can often be exploitative. How do we call attention appropriately to the need for just wages without falling into the conflictual background of the contemporary labor movement as necessary to balance out competing self-interests? How do we observe Labor Day, without diminishing our commitment to the Truine God who has revealed God's own Self in Jesus Christ?

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Posted by johnwright at 3:35 PM | Comments (0)

Rest in Peace

Tonight around 9:45 pm, Michael Patterson left this life for life eternal. Mike had managed to get up and move around a little in the morning. As the day had worn on, Mike's breathing became more and more labored, though he was able to speak some with those around him through Friday afternoon. By Friday evening, his breathing had grown shallow and he was no longer able to communicate. He died surrounded by Liz, who had done such a wonderful job caring for him, Buddy, his brother, and with a cell phone connection to Sharon, his sister.

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Posted by johnwright at 2:01 AM | Comments (0)

Friends Passing Through -- Mike and Dave

Our Sunday reading spoke of our "exit" and "return" to God that is our life -- from God, through God, and to God are all things. We are sojourners in this world, just passing through. In some sense I think that culture teaches us that we belong here. Thus we want to deny our transience, look to accumulate goods, experiences, relationships, whatever, like we can build a permanent dwelling here.

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Posted by johnwright at 5:12 AM | Comments (0)

"Psycho Christians!"

Last Friday I had a conversation with a colleague in the School of Theology. In the midst he asked me, somewhat seriously, how long would it take until I was arrested. I replied that I never seek to be provoke the authorities; as a matter of fact, it had been a long time since I had been directly threatened with arrest. I guess some police were leery last December when the city shut down feeding the hungry from the Salvation Army for awhile, and we decided to go to the streets to distribute food. I'm not sure if our actions we