Remembering Reyolds Price

Reynolds Price, Novelist
(picture courtesy of Duke University)

I note with sadness the death of Reynolds Price, one of my favorite novelists.  He carried the second half of the 20th century as the essential North Carolina storyteller and thus Southern Writer.  His prose was always a delight to the ear and eye, his characters always carefully observed and developed, his description of culture and family and human nature in his particular time and place always universal. For me he articulated a both a deep sense of the irony of life and an abiding conviction that human life is precious to the creator.

He has helped me to articulate my sense of human nature as essentially good but prone to slip into destructiveness.  For example he referred to  many of his characters as "decent outlaws"--a phrase I have often used to describe several of the characters of the Hebrew Scriptures such as Jacob the Patriarch, and implicitly myself and other members of my tribe.

I was consistently drawn to and warmed by his underlying spirituality, drawn from his own experiences of mystical awareness.  In his book Letter to a Man in the Fire (Scribner, 1999, p. 27), he wrote:

"Starting on a warm afternoon in the summer of 1939, when I was wandering alone in the pine woods by our suburban house in piedmont North Carolina, I've experienced moments of sustained calm awareness that subsequent questioning has never discounted.  These moments, which recurred at unpredictable and widely spaced intervals till some thirteen years ago, still seem to me undeniable manifestations of the Creator's benign, or patiently watchful, interest in particular stretches of my life, though perhaps not all of it.  And each of these moments--never lasting for more than seconds but seeming, in retrospect, hours long--has taken the form of sudden and entirely unsought breakings-in upon my consciousness of a demonstration that all of visible and invisible nature (myself included) is a single reality, a single thought from a central mind."

Because I am one who relishes experiences of the Holy, I have appreciated the consummate word-smithing of Reynolds Price that has helped me  make sense of them in light of the Christian tradition. 

Not having Reynolds Price alive and writing is a loss!

Thinking Again about Missional Ecclesiology

Reading the proposed "New Form of Government" of the PC(USA) again in preparation for last weekend's Lay Diploma School in Western Kentucky, the starkness of the missional ecclesiology hit me harder than before.  I'll vote for it because I believe we need to streamline the denomination's constitution and this is a fair and balanced approach to that task.  I'm sorry we have bought the missional perspective as the primary model, however. 

What struck me this time is the heavy emphasis on hierarchical thinking in the missional model.  My concern is that missional theology is based firmly on neo-orthodox doctrine, whose notions of revelation are carefully argued from the scriptural witness to Jesus as Christ and who avoided fundamentalist orthodoxy by including the response of the faithful through the witness of the Holy Spirit.  Neo-orthodoxy grew in the soil of European rationalism of the 20th century with its assumption of male dominance and hierarchical order.  Without question these assumptions and values fit nicely into the traditional Presbyterian ethos as reflected in the constitutional documents already, so it's hard to argue against them.  The sense of hierarchy is there in the traditional words: Christ is Lord of All and everything is done in "obedience" to Christ.

I only wish we could have more openness to more relational terms and more breadth in our theological underpinnings.  I long for my denomination to recognize that the richness of human experience, particularly the witness of the creation, and the wisdom of science and the humanities play a partnering role in understanding our faith.  Other 20th century theologians such as the process, liberation and black and womanist theologians speak more from the heart of the human experience and approach hierarchy with more hard-earned skepticism. 

I wish Presbyterians would wake up to the movement of that same Holy Spirit calling us from the margins of the 21st century to really (and I mean really) reform our practices of governing and our theological assumptions.  I keep praying!

Chief Chaska and the Multicultural Church




Chaska and Little Crow

  An article in today's New York Times reminded me of how the church interacts with its culture.  It told of renewed efforts to have Chief Chaska pardoned. Minnesotans know the story of the Dakota revolt that led to capture and conviction of over 300 Dakota men for the violence.  Lincoln Pardoned most of them and 38 of them were hanged in a mass execution in Mankato MN December 26,1862. Chaska (his nickname--and a town near Minneapolis carries that name) had been pardoned but was slipped into the execution group, perhaps because he had been defended by a European-American woman. 

The combination of racism and sexism with the overarching narrative of manifest destiny (by which the European Americans assumed their absolute privilege to take over all of North America and eradicate any "dusky" people who got in their way) was much a part of the culture and also the faith of the church on the 19th century frontier. 

Yet there is another side of the story in church history.  Presbyterians were part of the effort to befriend the Dakota people, many of whom became Christians.  The Pond brothers were missionaries from the revival movements on the East Coast who moved to Minnesota out of their concern for the well-being of the Native Americans there.  I served for two years as interim pastor of one of the churches they founded, Oak Grove Presbyterian in Bloomington MN.  The story of the Mankato executions and echoes of the Presbyterian mission to the Dakota people are still alive there.

The church is usually multi-cultural.  It absorbs and lives out many of the values of its context, and it also makes a prophetic stance against many of those values.  It cannot be completely completely counter-cultural as some would wish because we are always people of our time and place.  But the church's finest hours have always been those moments when it attracted lots of people of many cultures to its message and its practices and still found ways to encourage some critiques of cultures as well--including the dominant cultures and its oppressive ways.

In the story of the last moments of Chaska and 37 others, a hymn now in The Presbyterian Hymnal (Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990, # 271)  plays an important role.  It has been told that on their walk from their cells to the scaffold, the condemned sang "Many and great, O God, Are Thy Things." It is a Dakota tune, titled "Lacquiparle" for the site of the mission where it was written. The words were adapted by missionary Joseph Renville who along with the Pond Brothers developed the alphabet and writing of the Dakota language there in southern Minnesota.  On their way to die for the crime of protecting their land and their livelihood, Dakota men expressed their multi-cultural heritage with these words, translated, of course, into English:

"Many and great, O God, are thy things,
Maker of earth and sky;
Thy hands have set the heavens with stars,
Thy fingers spread the mountains and plains.
Lo at Thy word the waters were formed,
Deep seas obeyed Thy voice.

"Grant unto us communion with Thee,
Thou star abiding One;
Come unto us and dwell with us;
With Thee are found the gifts of life.
Bless us with life that has not end,
Eternal life with Thee."

A Plea for Diplomacy and Leadership in Politics

My "senator of origin" is Everett McKinley Dirksen, Republican of Illinois.  He was the Republican Leader of the senate when Republicans were chronically in the minority.  I long for his stately manner, shock of white hair, mellifluous voice, poetic rhetoric, and willingness to sit down and talk to anybody about how to get something done for the good of the country, whether or not it was in the Republican Party's best interests.  Here's quote from the Senate's obituary when he died in 1969, that catches the spirit I'm remembering:

"There are 100 diverse personalities in the U.S. Senate.  Oh Great God.  What an amazing and dissonant 100 personalities they are!  What an amazing thing it is to harmonize them."  

The people running for Senate today seem to me to be lacking in any sense of the "amazing."  They're angry, pitifully immature, and reactive.  I can't believe I'm longing for a this Republican throwback! 

Of course living in Kentucky is especially hard for this kind of sensitivity.  I know Illinois may not be that much better than Kentucky in its narrowness and racism, but I have a high view of my home state because of the politicians of my youth like Dirksen, Adlai Stevenson and Paul Simon.

Don't even get me started on another positive icon:  Paul Wellstone of Minnesota!

Conflict Workshop in Cincinnati October 30

Deborah and I are leading a one day workshop on "Hope in Conflict" for the Presbytery of Cincinnati, Saturday, October 30, 9-3:30, at Lakeside Presbyterian Church, 2690 Dixie Highway, Lakeside Park, KY 41017 (in northern Kentucky, suburb of Cincinnati).  Church phone 859-341-1963.  Directions to Lakeside are on the Presbytery and Church websites.

Registration:  $10.00 per person /maximum $25 per church. Registration fee includes lunch. Checks payable to Presbytery of Cincinnati

Register through the Presbytery Office:  Speak to Marian at 513-221-4850  OR Register through Lakeside Presbyterian Church:  by e-mail to lakeside@lakesidechurch.org.

e-mail me for more information:  dsawyer@lpts.edu.  See our website at http://www.flourishingchurch.com/

Objectives for the Workshop

1. Establish in the Presbytery an ongoing learning environment about congregational conflict using the book as a learning tool.
2. Encourage a shift in perception that conflict is expected and potentially lifegiving for a congregation.
3. Learn tools of conflict utilization that can be used by any church leader to interpret conflict and learn from it.

Festival of Faiths and The Seminary Luncheon

Two events directly related to Louisville Seminary are on tap for the 2010 Festival of Faiths with the theme of "Sacred Soil."  This is an exciting way for LPTS to connect with the interfaith leaders of the community and commit to our Doors to Dialogue Initiative.

Monday, November 8, 2010, 7:30 am to 3 pm. Kentuckiana Interfaith Community Faith Leader’s Forum ”Why Being an Environmentalist of Faith is so Hard ... and Worth It: A Morning of Prayer, Meditation, Lecture, and Discussion”

Faith leaders are invited to enjoy a complimentary breakfast, interfaith panel discussion, scholarly lecture and open discussion. The morning will be led by Dr. Roger S. Gottlieb, professor of philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a well-known scholar and author on faith and environmental issues. The afternoon will be led by Mitch Hescox, CEO of the Evangelical Environment Network, speaking about “The Creation Care Challenge.” Other visiting scholars participating in the forum will be Dr. Larry Rasmussen, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary, and Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, author of Green Deen: What Islam Teaches about Protecting the Planet.

7:30 am – Faith Leader Breakfast and Conversation
9:00 am – Dr. Roger Gottlieb: Why Being an Environmentalist of Faith is so Hard: And Worth It
10 am – An Interfaith Panel Discussion on being a Religious Environmentalist
11 am – Group Discussion, Questions and Answers
12:30 – The Annual LPTS Luncheon, “Doors to Dialog”
2 pm – Mitch Hescox: The Creation Care Challeng

You are invited to participate in all or any of the events of the day. The event is free, but reservations are required for breakfast attendance.
 
 Monday, November 8, 2010, 12:30 to 2 pm. Annual Louisville Presbyterian Seminary Luncheon: "Setting the Seeds for Dialogue"

A seminary is a seedbed for cultivating knowledge about ultimate concerns. As LPTS announces a major commitment to interfaith cooperation with its “Doors to Dialogue” initiative, faith leaders will be invited to find common ground in specific ways to become partners in the initiative. Doors to Dialogue (D2D) is a new approach to seminary education at Louisville Seminary to enhance students’ learning to prepare them better to provide religious leadership in contexts of religious difference. At this lunch you will learn more of this initiative and of ways you can partner in it.

Bring your own lunch or order a box lunch from Miss Cs', a deli located in the Henry Clay.

Upcoming Fall Lectures at LPTS

The Church’s vital ministries of evangelism and justice will be the focus of the 2010 Edwards-Presler Lectures at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, October 21, 2010, as two church scholars and leaders present their ideas at the intersection of faith and the transformation of the world. 

This year's lectures will be especially poignant with the recent death of George Riley Edwards, long-time Professor of New Testament at the seminary in whose honor, along with his wife Jean, the lectureship was established 24 years ago.  George was a fearless and tireless advocate of peace and racial justice. 

On Thursday evenin g, October 21, at 7 p.m. in the seminary chapel, the Edwards Lecture will be given by Dr. Milburn Thompson of Bellarmine University, a self-professed admirer and supporter of Dr. Edwards' activist ministry.  Thompson will address the Church’s response to faithful stewardship and care of the earth and creation from a Roman Catholic perspective. Initiated in part by Pope Benedict XVI's 2010 World Day of Peace message on this topic, the Bellarmine University professor will explore the Church’s environmental ethic to be peacemakers with Earth.

 The Presler Lecture will be given at 11:30 on Thursday morning, October 21, by a son of the honorees of the lectureship, Canon Titus Presler. In his lecture, Presler will focus on the shadow cast by 9/11 on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Muslim-Christian relations and how competing claims such as secularization and religious extremism affect a theology of mission. He cites the Taliban’s massacre of Christian missionaries in Afghanistan and the debate about the “ground zero mosque” as the most recent “signs of hardening stances amid many calls for respectful dialogue.”