big names

One of the cool things about studying here is that Columbia has some rather big names. Today I got the chance to interact with two of the biggest - Brian Wren and Walter Brueggemann.

First off, Brian Wren is retiring, and today he preached his last sermon in chapel. He had a stroke last year, and that has forced him to take things slowly. The sermon was pretty much on death, but said far more beautifully and eloquently than i will ever manage. For Brian, God has not chosen to give him the gift of certainty and full assurance about life (and death). Some people he knows are so certain of their faith. But, if God had gifted him in that way, then the only hymn he would ever be able to write is
"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine;
Oh what a foretaste of glory divine."
before he would have to shut the book and put down his pen. However, without this faith, his gift is to question, and think, and search, and lament. He has this become one of the most published and prolific of modern hymn writers, with his work published in hymnals all over the world. It was a moving, honest and hopeful sermon, and i saw him at coffee hour and thanked him for it. He also made an interesting remark about resurrection. Whatever the next world is to be, it won't be full of 'individualistic North Americans walking in the heavenly mall looking for fashion accessories.' He is who he is because of so many people, and in the resurrected life people will be just as intertwined and connected as they are today. I like that!

Community Softball and picnic on the seminary fields

I saw Walter Brueggemann (or 'Wally' as some students affectionately call him) at the community softball game last week, and asked him if i could come by and chat. He agreed, and today i popped into his office armed with a bunch of questions. I can't remember all that i asked, or all that he answered. A lot of it was over my head, and with no shared stories it felt a bit like an interview. Anyway, I liked what i understood, and think it will be a good idea to read some of his 55 books (correction: the count is up to 80 books now!), especially considering he is widely regarded as the foremost Old Testament theologian in the world! His name is more widely known than Columbia TS itself.

So, what did he say?
I asked him about where he sees the church going, and, after saying it's direction has to change, he directed me to his latest book on the contemporary church. A burning question of mine was how (and why) he reads the Bible. Social-historical criticism reading of the Bible has made it very tasteless for me, to the point that i hardly read anymore. Walter rather uses rhetorical criticism, and situates the text in our experiences. The really neat switch is that he sees God as a developing character in the text. When i brought up the problem of violence in the Old Testament, his reply is that God is a 'recovering violent-person' (as in 'recovering alcoholic.') This means that God did sanction violence in the past, but is 'recovering' and becoming more fully God. The 'fully-God' characteristics are the words we often see in the Bible such as mercy, steadfast love, grace etc. Those then are the attributes we are to try live into too, as we (also characters in the story) become more fully human. As to why he reads the Bible? It is the only text of its kind that explicitly speaks of the Divine. And it is our text. Finally, to answer 'What is the point of this all?' he used a Jewish phrase and says we are to 'mend the world'. Hooray for old, clever professors!