Qualified to Lead

Now that I've finished a few books that were on my personal to-read list, I am diving into Prof. Kathleen Flake's "American Religion Ph.D. Must-Read List." Essentially, the literature in which she believes any doctoral candidate in American Religion must be proficient. First up, Nathan Hatch's The Democratization of American Christianity. I'm familiar with his analysis (not a unique one) that religion in America took on a populist character, in keeping with the democracy guiding it politically. He begins by discussing the debate between Yale- and Harvard-educated theologians/ministers and the illiterate field preachers that were popping up all over the place in the early 19th century.

The elites and the commoners make similar arguments to what one might hear today between liberal divinity school graduates and those who attended Bible colleges, or between long-suffering, hoop-jumping United Methodist candidates for ordination, and young Baptists who were ordained at eighteen with no formal theological training whatsoever.

I definitely agree with Hatch's analysis, in that the freedom to determine for oneself what one believes, and the sufficiency of enthusiasm to empower one to preach is a thoroughly American concept, but I'm not sure where I come down on the issue in practical, modern-day terms.

Raised in the Disciples of Christ tradition (one of Hatch's major examples in this book), I vehemently reject creeds, as well as the notion that ordained clergy have special authority when it comes to administering sacraments like baptism and communion. (In the Disciples church, any baptized person can perform these sacraments.) On the other hand, I have a high-quality theological education, and firmly believe that historical-critical knowledge of the Bible, and objective analysis of religious history make my fellow scholars and I particularly qualified to teach and lead others in matters of religion. I feel that my academic studies have led me to a better understanding of God, and as a result, a deeper relationship with God. Does this make me more qualified, then, to provide leadership to a congregation, than I was when I was "merely" a baptized Christian, without theological education? Should all believers have equal authority and ability to proclaim the gospel (in both word and deed)? Or should academic training be a must for all those preaching from a position of authority?

I believe firmly in my right to accept or reject doctrines based on my own conscience and reason, and also in my capacity to share the blessings available to me as a Christian with others (in the form of sacraments). Leadership of a congregation, however, requires more than a sound mind and a giving heart--it requires the ability to spur other minds to their own understanding of the Gospel. Any faithful person could stand up and tell others what he or she believes about God, and listeners may either agree or disagree. A well-educated pastor, however, can tell others what many various schools of thought have believed, and ask the right questions of his or her listeners, in order to lead them to their own understanding of God. This is true spiritual leadership.

Reminiscing

I’ve really been missing college recently. My time at Furman University stimulated me intellectually and spiritually in ways I have not experienced before or since. It’s nice to be an independent adult, earning money, living in a pseudo-house rather than an apartment, owning a pet you don’t have to hide from authorities. And, of course, it’s definitely nice to be marrying a smart, loving, visionary man, and being in a relationship (with him) that is friendship-based and stable, without all the drama of teenage and even college relationships.

But, there’s still something about those mild afternoons by the Furman lake, sipping café mochas (my gateway drug into real coffee, post-college) at the Tower Café, keeping my best friend company while she worked in the religion-department office, eating those awesome black bean cakes in the Dining Hall, praying in the Chapel, hearing lectures by Will Willimon and Martin Marty, and other people with chicly-alliterative names. I’m odd, I guess, in that my most transformative experiences in college actually were the classes—Religion & Culture, and Religious Approaches to Meaning with Dr. Blackwell, Hebrew with Dr. Bibb, Astronomy with Dr. Moffett, who really, truly, looked and sounded like Drew Carey. I recall chatting with Dr. Granieri about Russian history, then traveling to Russia and Central Europe with him and 26 other Furmanites.

I’ve been perusing Furman’s website the last couple days, reminiscing, and I’ve read a few of the “Freshman Journals”—a brilliant idea of the admissions office (for whom I used to give tours, happily bragging on Furman’s academics, arts, and friendly atmosphere). Six freshmen kept online journals all year, mainly for the purpose of letting prospective students catch a glimpse of real life at Furman. I started with Claire, an obviously popular-girl-type Army brat who had tons of school (and hall) spirit from day one of orientation-week, and not-surprisingly joined KD when rush came around in January. She talked about parties and brother-sister hall gatherings, and all the “amazing women” in her sorority, and I was filled with nostalgia for a college life…completely unlike my own.

I hated the forced mingling of orientation. I was glued to my computer, e-mailing with friends from high school. Even after I adjusted to college life, I still preferred one-on-one chats with a friend to a whole-hall game night or fraternity party. It wasn’t until junior year that I really found my niche and made close friends. While tempted to say I’d do it differently, if I had it to do over again, I have to admit that probably not too much would change. I am a very different person now than I was at eighteen, but I’m still introverted and sometimes downright anti-social. I would still value my significant-other more than a hall-full of potential-friends. I would still feel awkward at parties and feel out of place with both the religious conservatives and the gregarious, socially-confident, let’s-all-hang-out-in-a-big-group sorts of people.

But that’s okay.

My college experience was wonderful, and it is primarily what is driving me toward the next academic step I hope to take: getting my Ph.D. and teaching at a liberal arts college. I hope to go back to Furman for a long weekend sometime, and remember the way I lived it—the way I loved it. I’ll set up my laptop at a table by the lake, sip a latte, and work on my dissertation.

Miller and Roper recommend...

(Ebert is sick, haven't you heard?)

In any case, I just wanted to take a second to recommend one of my favorite websites when it comes to analyzing American religion and culture, which I love to do.

The blogger, Slacktivist, AKA Fred Clark, has been reading Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' Left Behind, a page or two per week, for over a year, and elaborating in his Left Behind blog on various theological and cultural issues raised by these Bad Writers and their shallow characters. From literalism and dispensationalism to evangelicals' misconceptions about non-evangelical culture, Fred--himself an evangelical--offers a critique that fundamentalists and atheists alike read religiously. (Pun intended)

Take a look. You will not regret it.

Dust

Approximately four-and-a-half years ago, I discovered the wonder and beauty of high-church worship. Admittedly, this took several months of steady attendance at an Episcopal church, given that I grew up Disciples of Christ, a notoriously anti-credal, anti-liturgical denomination. Once involved in that Episcopal congregation, I observed Lent for the first time, beginning with that most unusual of high holy days, Ash Wednesday. I decided then and there that it was my favorite religious holiday.

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return," the priest intoned, marking an ashen cross on my forehead. While most ash impositions I've seen through the years end up looking like a smudgy thumbprint on the forehead, mine was a well-defined Greek cross an inch-and-a-half tall and wide. I wore it proudly, feeling a profound and silent connection with others I saw who had received ashes that day, knowing that they too embraced this ritual too often forgotten in most Protestant traditions.

I find the Ash Wednesday liturgy so meaningful because of those words spoken as the ashes are imposed: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Combine that with the overall message of solemnity and repentance preached that day, and one will be reminded of the brevity of life, and the weight one's relationship with God carries, given the fleeting and relatively (to the "great scheme of things") insignificant nature of our earthly existence.

While many may take issue with my assertion that our lives are insignificant, let me explain that I cling to that thought out of horror that the burdens of stress, depression, and feelings of inadequacy may really matter in the long run. Rather, I cling to the hope that those things don't really matter, and that my petty human worries will, at the end of my days, seem like specks of dust in the vast expanse of infinite time and space. The writer of Ecclesiastes seems to understand this line of thinking, asserting "Everything is hevel." "Everything is meaningless," some English translations say it, but a more accurate translation is vapor, vanity, or dust. Everything is vapor. All we are is dust in the wind, as the song says.

I remember a night in college, during the semester I took Astronomy. Having learned just how vast the universe is, and how small even our whole galaxy is in comparison to all of space, I looked up at the sky with a new perspective. Distressed over whatever guy was causing me trouble at the time, I cried out to God, and yet at the same time thought, "why should my problems matter? If the Milky Way is but a speck, how small is Earth, and how much smaller is my own aching heart?" Yet, in the midst of that existential realization, I believed that God still cared, no matter how small I am. It was I who needed to see my problems as but a speck.

As one of my favorite Christian songs says, I am a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow, a wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind. Still, You hear me when I'm calling, You catch me when I'm falling, and You told me who I am. I am Yours. That "still" is so poignant there, offering the listener the dual comfort of knowing the difficulties of one's life are fleeting, and yet God still cares.

I, for one, feel lucky to be dust.

Liberality of Love

I was raised a Republican. Fiscal conservatism was next to godliness in our house, and my father no doubt beamed with pride when in ninth grade, I wrote an essay called "Personal Responsibility and the Welfare System." My parents, thus, did not know what had come over me when late in college, I began to say things like "give to all who beg of you," and "turn the other cheek." That was not the Jessica--or the Jesus--they knew.

"Liberal" was a dirty word in our house, mainly equated with permissiveness. Liberals were those who didn't make people work for their livelihood, those who let guilty people walk free, and who didn't teach their children the evils of smoking, drinking, and sex.

Senior year, I learned a new definition to that nasty word. Dr. Blackwell, my favorite professor and mentor, often used the term "liberality of love," discussing the all-encompassing generosity with which Christ calls us to live our lives. Rather than a synonym for libertine, I came to understand "liberal" in the same sense a recipe would call for "a liberal amount of sugar." Not a willingness to allow all things without upholding standards, true liberalism is a willingness to give and give and give. To love and love and love.

Perhaps if liberals embraced this self-definition, and expressed their positions on welfare, war, life, and family in terms of a standard of caring for all humanity, others would understand that liberals do in fact stand for something, and that something is the thing that Christ told us was everything. Love.