The experiment with interfaith leadership/clergy formation at Claremont is a bold initiative. The article in Time magazine “Training Pastors, Rabbis, and Imams Together†demonstrates several things. First the new sense of innovation that is sweeping theological education as the old economies and institutions continue to shrink and reconfigure themselves in a world after the cultural privilege of Christianity in the United States continues to subside.
One side of this is the Claremont experiment the other is the community that views this as anathema to the claims of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Each of these religions has super secessionist texts. On the one hand I find the Claremont experiment fascinating, on the other, it still seems odd to Texas Baptist.
How can those in the Anabaptist tradition such as Texas Baptist, moderate Baptists and Mennonites think through the question on interfaith dialog and shared theological education? The Association of Theological Schools want to support the Claremont experiment, at the same time its supports a close connection between the seminaries and their church constituencies. In many cases there is a substantial conflict between these two impulses.
We need to prepare Christian leaders for a religiously pluralistic community but the interpretation of this is only beginning to be explored in many moderate evangelical contexts (Baptist, Brethren, and Mennonite).
Monthly Archives: August 2010
Christ as What Creates Community
? In the opening convocation of Truett Seminary on Tuesday August 26, 2010 Dr. Tucker academic dean began our series of chapel sermons on Christian Community. He reminded us that what makes us a community is Jesus Christ. Let me say again, what holds us together is Jesus Christ. Now don’t confuse this with the affirmation that what holds us together is our common belief in Jesus Christ. If it was our belief in Christ that creates Christian community then the church is but another club or affinity group. If it is only our belief in Jesus Christ that makes us a community we have traded sole fides for a cold bowl of porridge. When we go back to the view of theological education modeled by Dietrich Bonehoeffer described in Life Together makes this point.
Bonhoeffer in his volume Life together and the emphasis of neo-orthodoxy on witness provide a light for us as we grope our way in the darkness of post-modernity, post-Constantinian church. Psalm 19 and the letter of James give us clues about the nature of our witness. These texts tell us†don’t be dumb.â€
Reflections on “The Lamb of God and the Forgiveness of Sin(s) in the Fourth Gospel “by Sandra M. Schneiders
The next several posts will be my attempts to process the compelling conversations at the recent meeting of the Catholic Biblical Association at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles. Today these are my notes on the presidential address of the Catholic Biblical Association given by Sandra Schneiders.
After a brief introduction she led us through a brief talk on the role of religion and violence. This is the backdrop for her discussion of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin(s) of the world. She uses Eugen Drewermann to provide a lens for the divine-human drama that is to say the structure of sin in the world. Drewermann describes a violent God image that derives from Genesis 3. From this analysis he determines that existential fear is the root for primal /original sin. This is the anxiety about the contingency of creaturehood.
Her second conversations partner is René Girard. Girard examine the role of sacralized violence. One element of Girard’s model that is helpful is the notion of mimetic desire. This is the desire to have what others have. This mimetic desire is a wellspring of violence. A mechanism of this violence is scapegoating. Through a process of myth and ritual the scapegoating becomes sacralized in sacrifice.
Often if not traditional Jesus execution is viewed as a scapegoating violence that is a good violence that is meant to offset bad violence. Schneiders commended to us the book by S. Mark Heim Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross. Generally when persons read this passage in the gospel of John they construe this passage as an expression of scapegoating hence providing a biblical foundation. Â She suggested that every scapegoating is a subversion of justice. One of the complicatinting factor is the fact that the Greek term the Lamb of God is a hapax legomena, (it is only found in one place) and that is in the Gospel of John. It never occurs in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Hence one must carefully navigate investigation to the background of the term.
Typically we think of Jesus as the scapegoat that takes on the sins of the world. In order to understand interpret Jesus as scapegoat: The Lamb of God first one must refer back to three Hebrew Bible/Old  Testament texts that provide a typology: The binding of Isaac (Gn 22:1-20); Passover lamb (Ex 12:1-14); Suffering servant (Is 52:13-53:12). Another element to understand the Lamb of God includes the first two types in the Passion narratives that is to say, what is God’s role in Jesus death (binding of Isaac) and the role of suffering in salvation (suffering servant).
Scheiders conclusions on the banquet of the Lamb and the forgiveness of sins provide an interesting backdrop for the ongoing discussion of penal substitution. This is the evocation of the third type that allows John 20:23 to provide an interpretative key for John 6. As the Father sent me (concerning the state of) sin, so I send you to forgive (behavior) sins. Jesus provides the vehicle to replace the fear of the contingency of creaturehood  (primal/original sin)with a belief in Jesus that is not proposition but rather participation in a post-fear enterprise of God.
I invite you to look for the full article when it appears in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly later this year.
Theological Education after the Decline of Mainline Protestantism
The decline of American Protestantism is an opportunity and a challenge to theological education. Bruce Reyes-Chow speaks insightfully about the need for theological education to prepare women and men for the church on the horizon. His suggestion that the seminaries connect to the church needs greater nuance. Most seminaries connect with constituent churches. The Association of Theological Schools has actively supported the turn to the church. The more seminaries turn to the church the more we recognize that North American churches are as balkanized as the rest of North American culture.
The challenge for the seminary today is to stay connected to the church but at the same time not be overwhelmed by the anxiety afoot in the church today in the face of cultural diversity at what sometimes seems the breaking point. The typical president of a mainline protestant seminary tries to stay connected to congregations that are culturally at very different places. Seminaries and other denominational bodies struggle to keep a “big tent†mentality amidst an age of anxiety that much prefers purity.
Reyes-Chow is correct about the need for the seminary to stay connected to the constituent congregations. What he needs to add to this practice is requisite skills as a non-anxious presence in the midst of substantial conflict between congregations that share a seminary. Every leader in theological education needs to read Leading through Conflict by Michael Gerzon, as well as Edwin Friedman’s Failure of Nerve.