Monthly Archives: January 2010

The Death of Mary Daly

Posted on by
Reply

We learned yesterday of the death of Mary Daly, perhaps the most important feminist theologian in the twentieth century. She taught for more than thirty years at Boston College. I never met her but she had an enormous impact on Harvard Divinity School. When I arrived there in the early ’80s, feminist theology was beginning to make significant inroads there and her books were widely read.

Women still told war stories from the seventies when the concern over gendered language first surfaced. By the mid-eighties, that concern had morphed occasionally into silliness. I’ll never forget the time a female student castigated a male classmate who referrred to “the thrust” of an author’s argument. She said, “we don’t use that term anymore.”

Daly’s Beyond God the Father was an important work in my theological development, and I can remember laughing uproariously while reading Gyn/Ecology. Daly had a wicked sense of humor that she used effectively to show the patriarchal roots of language, symbolism, and religion.

There’s more about her death, and the reaction to her death, available here.

Religion’s return to the historical profession

Posted on by
Reply

Until recently, I was a historian. I suppose I still am, though I’ve not done any serious historical research in quite some time. But for fifteen years, I taught the History of Christianity in Religion departments. During that time, I worked closely with colleagues from History Departments and my own research was more interdisciplinary than purely “religious” in content. Still I struggled to carve a niche for myself and my discipline both within the Religion Department, and over against medievalists and early modern historians in History Departments. It was actually amusing at times when we were team-teaching Humanities courses to divvy up the lectures.

A recent survey put out by the AHA has gotten considerable press because “Religion” is now the most popular topic for researchers. What most of the articles don’t point out is that it received a total of 7.7% of the responses, beating out “Cultural History” by 0.2%. That’s hardly earth-shattering. One blog post discussing this is here.  I’m especially amused by the quotation from David Hollinger:

Religion is too important to be left in the hands of people who believe in it. Finally, historians are coming to grips with this simple truth.

That’s quite beside the point. What matters is how one approaches religion, what kinds of questions one asks, what methodology one uses. And how do you assess belief? How do you interpret claims of the supernatural, claims of revelation? These are questions that scholars of religion have struggled over for more than a century. Their answers are not particularly satisfying, but it would be helpful for historians to have some sense of that tradition so they can avoid making the same mistakes.

All this puts me in mind of a plenary session of the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference a decade or so ago where participants were anguished over the decreased investment by institutions in early modern history. Any number of people stood up to say how important it was to teach the Protestant and Catholic Reformations so students could understand where their faith traditions came from. These arguments came exclusively from people trained in social history and teaching in history departments. In fact, that was a primary reason I chose to do my degree in Religious Studies rather than History, so questions of faith could be addressed in the classroom.

Taking another road: Sermon for the Second Sunday of Christmas, 2010

Posted on by
Reply

Taking Another Road

Second Sunday after Christmas

January 3, 2009

Although Corrie would tell you otherwise, I’ve got a pretty good sense of direction. I was talking with someone a couple of weeks ago about having to find our way around, and he observed that there are two types of people: map people and directions people. Both he and I are map people. We have to see on a map where it is we are supposed to be going. Directions just won’t do. In my case, by the time I’ve received the third piece of information (take a left at the old Shell station), I will have forgotten the first two. But even with a map, and if I’ve made no wrong turns, it’s often the case that when I leave, retracing my steps is very difficult. Instead of turning right, you have to turn left, and what happens if there’s a one-way road? It often happens that a trip that took fifteen minutes one direction, can take a half hour the other. So finding the way to a new place can be difficult, but finding one’s way home is not always easy, either.

I was reminded of this while reading this week’s gospel—the story of the wise men and the star. We know it well, but we don’t often note that while the magi had little trouble finding their destination, thanks to the star, and a little help from Herod and his advisers, we know very little about their journey home. Matthew writes simply, “they returned home by another road.” The story ends there; the magi leave the scene, but continue to pique our curiosity.

In the reading from Jeremiah, the prophet promises that Yahweh will lead the people of God home. It’s actually not at all clear when this particular passage was written, but it seems to presuppose that the prophet is writing during the exile, when many of the people of Israel had been carried off in captivity to Babylon. God is promising them that their exile will cease, that God will bring them back to the promised land, that God will lead even the lame and the blind home. It is a powerful image and theme, common not only to the Hebrew Bible but also to the Christian New Testament, to both Judaism, and Christianity. Such imagery was also seen in our readings for Advent; with the cry of John the Baptizer: Prepare a way for the Lord.

But we often think of this imagery only in terms of God leading God’s people to a new place—the promised land, and not in terms of God leading God’s people back. The familiar story of the wise men is a good example. They followed a star from the east to Bethlehem, stopping in Jerusalem to confirm their directions. Let’s unpack this story a little bit; let’s make it strange instead of familiar.

First of all—the wise men themselves. As you know, there is no mention in the text of the number, that they were kings, and certainly not their names. All of that is later pious Christian accretion to the story. In fact, “wise men” is even something of a mistranslation. They are magi—astrologers. That they come from the east suggests that Matthew is trying to emphasize their foreign-ness, that they are exotic travelers. What’s more from the perspective of the Gospel of Matthew, to call someone a wise man is not necessarily a compliment. Matthew consistently contrasts wisdom and foolishness—the wisdom of the world is not true wisdom but folly.

To be sure, there are kings in Matthew’s story—two of them, Herod and Jesus with very different kingdoms and with different sorts of power. The magi come to Herod for directions, because Matthew wants to highlight the opposition between Herod and Jesus and because, I think, he wants to say that for all the magi’s knowledge, in fact, to call them wise is somewhat misleading. They have seen the star, and they want to follow it, but they still don’t know its meaning.

When they reach Bethlehem, they bow down and worship Jesus. And then they go home by another road. We don’t wonder what happened to them after that. Matthew isn’t interested in their journey home; just as Luke is not interested in what happened to the shepherds after their encounter with the infant Jesus.

I’m inclined to imagine that what happened to the magi and the shepherds after Christmas is very much like what happens to us, too. There’s this tremendous build-up: growing excitement, heightened activity, everyone’s just a little bit on edge with the planning, the parties, and all. And then comes Christmas, and inevitably, there’s something of a letdown.

But it’s not just Christmas that has such an effect. No doubt you’ve all experienced it—working toward some goal that was at once elusive, yet seemingly full of promise, even life-changing. Reaching that goal takes all of one’s effort, incredible psychic, spiritual, and sometimes physical energy. Then having achieved it, what’s next?

Perhaps some of you the George Clooney movie “Up in the Air.” His character lived and worked for a single goal, one that he hardly dared articulate to his friends. At the end of the movie he achieved it, but his victory seemed somewhat hollow. There was no one to share it with, no one who cared and the goal itself, 10 million frequent flyer miles, seemed hardly worth the effort.

For many of us, achieving the goals we laid out for ourselves may be something of a game, a way of challenging ourselves to improve our lot, to better our selves, and when we’ve achieved them, we set a new goal. For others, that goal may be our raison d’etre. And when we get there, we have nothing more to look forward to.

What the magi may have had in mind is quite beside the point. According to Matthew they saw the star; they followed it, and when they reached their destination, they returned home by another road. Did their long journey and the encounter at the end change them? Who knows? That’s not really the point. For Matthew, what mattered was to depict these men, come from afar, worshiping the newborn Christ, while others, most notably Herod, sought to kill him.

The magi knew to go home by a different road but what was next for them? Did they set new goals? If so, how? And we, like the magi, have encountered the incarnate Christ again at Christmas. What’s next for us? What are we looking forward to? How do we set those new goals? How do we find our bearings, when the star we were following no longer leads us, and we’ve reached our destination? Where do we go from here? Do we retrace our steps, or embark on a new journey?

These questions are especially compelling, now, with the beginning of a new year. We look forward to what might come, with some apprehension perhaps, but also with a sense that there are infinite possibilities lying ahead. We want to start over anew. We make new year’s resolutions to change our lives.

In the life of our parish, we have also reached an important milestone. After years of conflict and turmoil, uncertainty, many of us finally feel like we have achieved what we were working for the last few years. There seems to be some stability, new energy, and a new rector. Outgoing Senior Warden Sally Phelps and those vestry members who have seen us through so much in the past few years have stepped down. They may feel like they deserve a break, and indeed they do. As a parish, we need to thank them again and again for their hard work, and for having brought us to this place in our common life.

Yet all is not perfect by any means. There is work to be done and it is no time to rest on the journey. We must continue to move forward. Perhaps we do not yet have a clear goal in mind; there is no star leading us forward. The direction may not be clear.

The magi knew where they were going when they left Bethlehem, they were going home. They chose a different route for expediency’s sake. We may lack the clarity they had as they got up from the encounter with Christ but like them, we should be wise enough to choose the better road, for ourselves, and for Grace Church. Let us be like those, as the Psalmist says, whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way.

Wolf Hall

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been reading Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall over the holidays. It’s a marvelous book. There was a time when I could have rattled details of the English Reformation off the top of my head; I still could do it, I suppose. Cromwell is rarely depicted by historians as a sympathetic figure. Certainly not in recent years as revisionism has set in. Mantel makes him a human being–ruthless, power-hungry, acquisitive, to be sure, but with deep affection for his family, for Wolsey, and for those young men who have been given over to his care.

She also fleshes out Thomas More. At least since A Man for All Seasons if not for centuries earlier, More has been depicted as a gentle man of letters and deep religious faith. He was both of those things but he was also a ruthless hunter of religious dissidents and a tireless, and humorless polemicist against William Tyndale. For those who know him only as the author of Utopia and someone who died for his faith, a few hours spent reading his attacks on Tyndale will shed very different light on him.

I’m not quite done with the book which ends with More’s execution. It’s not clear why one would choose this particular period of Cromwell’s life on which to focus–from the fall of Wolsey to the execution of More. In some respects, the years immediately following More’s execution are even more interesting, with the execution of Anne Boleyn, the dissolution of the monasteries, and ultimately Cromwell’s fall.

For another interesting take on Cromwell, I would recommend the mystery novels of C. J. Sansom which are vivid portrayals of the religious and political turmoil in the 1530s and 1540s.

By the way, either is a much better portrayal of the period than the recent TV series The Tudors.

Night – The New York Review of Books

Posted on by
Reply

There’s a deeply moving, brief essay by Tony Judt in the New York Review of Books. Judt is a historian whose work I respect immensely. I began reading him during 1989 when the Iron Curtain was coming down and Corrie and I were making plans to live in Germany. I have followed his work ever since. He is an astute and perceptive commentator on current events, especially in Europe. His deep knowledge of European history allows him to see things that go unnoticed by others.

He was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gherig’s disease) in 2008 and is now paralyzed from the neck down. This meditation focuses on his experiences during the night. It’s available here: Night – The New York Review of Books.

He describes an existence that most of us find unfathomable–an active mind trapped in body that can’t move, but through which he continues to have feeling. He will continue to write these brief essays for the NYRB and they promise to give insight into this disease but I feel somewhat voyeuristic as I read.

His essay does raise questions about the relationship of body and mind that have long intrigued me and about which I may write more substantively some day.

Re-reading old sermons

Posted on by
Reply

In Maryanne Robinson’s Gilead, the elderly Protestant pastor is going through decades of sermons, ostensibly to put them in some sort of order for posterity. His sermons are written on paper. The exercise gives him the opportunity to reflect back on his ministry, on those many years of being with his congregation, on the changes that took place over those decades, and also, to ask about the meaning of it all.

I haven’t preached anywhere near as many sermons as that, and I’ve preached in several different contexts but I do go back and look over what I’ve written before. It is fascinating to do so. I find myself drawn back into the life of the parish in which I preached the sermon and very often into the mood of the time, even if fewer than five years have passed. Rereading those sermons often brings to mind members of those parishes, the struggles they were going through, and, inevitably, those people who have departed this life.

Very often I go back over past sermons in hopes of finding some nugget to include in the sermon I’m currently writing. This week, not having to write a sermon for the First Sunday after Christmas Day, I went back over some I had preached over the years. Given the heightened anxiety over terrorist attacks again, I thought it might be of interest to others:

Continue reading →