Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog

James Innell Packer: a Brief Appreciation, and Interview.

I was doing some writing yesterday, and it including reflecting on the significant influence of James I. Packer on my theological formation. The years in question were the late eighties and very early nineties.

“…Anglican priest and theologian, James I Packer, and in particular his classic book Knowing God, had a profound effect on me. Later he would introduce me to the English Puritan’s through his book A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life. Reading the Puritan’s introduced me to Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a Welsh Protestant Minister and Medical Doctor, who for thirty years was the highly influential Minister of Westminster Chapel, in London, which I was to visit many years later to see and feel where he had preached. I was profoundly influenced by his Reformed Evangelical teaching, both his books, and his sermons, many of which I’d collected on audiotapes, to listen to as I drove out of town for work. I slowly started to collect the written works of those who influenced and shaped him, or who were positively endorsed by him. In particular, these works included those of many English Puritans, and American pastor / preacher Jonathan Edwards. Specialist publishers like, for example, Soli Deo Gloria Publications were re-printing, in fine hardcover editions, the classic works of the Puritans…”

Packer was later to introduce me to Regent College in Vancouver, and that introduction marked another important stage in my journey. I’d purchase audiotapes (and later CD’s and DVD’s) of lectures and talks given by the faculty of Regent College, and visiting lecturers. I discovered the writing and thinking of James Houston, Eugene H. Peterson, Gordon Fee, Bruce Waltke, R. Paul Stevens, in particular. Houston, Peterson, and Fee were to be particular influential and each contributed in significant ways to setting the trajectory of the next chapters in my story.

Anyway, I was visiting Regent’s website yesterday and came across this July 2018 written interview with Packer as he talks about the Puritan’s. Packer, born in Gloucester England on the 22^nd July 1926 has just marked his 92^nd birthday.  

Brother David Steindl-Rast - I am through you so I

Brother David Steindl-Rast OCSB most recent book is titled: I am through you so I (pub, Sept. 2017)

“Brother David Steindl-Rast OCSB, Hermit, Zen Christian, spiritual globetrotter: in time for his 90th birthday in July of 2016, "Brother David" tells his incomparably rich life story. Beginning with his childhood in Vienna, he describes his time in World War II and his years as a student after the war, his family's emigration to the US and his entry into the then newly founded Benedictine monastery in the state of New York. There, he soon began looking for what were then still untrodden spiritual paths with undiscovered entryways to non-Christian religions. He became particularly involved in the dialogue between Christianity and Buddhism, founding the "Center for Spiritual Studies" in 1968, together with Rabbis, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims. His work encouraging dialogue among religions earned him the 1975 Martin Buber Award. 

Contemplation and periods of public life alternate with Brother David: he spends half the year living as a recluse in the hermitage near his Benedictine monastery. Mysticism is his mission-but not a mysticism devoid of connection to the world. His is a mysticism of the everyday, of life immediate in the now, of experiencing fully. He is convinced that God's spirit speaks in and to us all.” 

Coming in at 232 pages, each chapter covers a decade of Br. David's life and should be regarded as memoir. He reflectively writes each. Each chapter also includes a dialogue, an interview / conversation between Brother David and interviewer Johannes Kaup. These are an attempt to explore Brother David’s life and thinking as well as opening up new horizons and questions that build on his reminiscences. I’m looking forward to reading my copy. Steindl-Rast has been important to me, particularly with respect to the importance of gratitude.

Lyndall Brown offers a brief review of the book in Tui Motu Interislands, New Zealand’s monthly independent Catholic magazine. You can read it online here.

John Philip Newell – The Spirit, the Earth and the Soul

I’ve read and listened to John Phillip Newell a little over the years. I haven’t read his book The Rebirthing of God: Christianity’s Struggle for New Beginnings (pub. 2014), but the concept and framework out of which he writes fascinates me. I think of radical reorientation; new seeing; Ken Wilber’s principal of “include and transcend” (cf. his Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World. Pub 2006. Or, more accessible, The Integral Vision. Pub. 2007); deeper discernment; mysticism (thinking here of a remark by Karl Rahner SJ: “…“the Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.” (The Christian of the Future (1965). See also this very helpful Harvey D. Egan SJ essay, or Egan’s excellent book Karl Rahner: Mystic of Everyday Life). As I listened I thought too of philosopher Richard Kearney’s notion of “Anatheism” – returning to God after God. I thought too of the practice of midwifery and midwifery as a metaphor. So much was evoked as I listened.

“…Christianity in the West is collapsing. Poet, peacemaker and scholar John Philip Newell believes we can either deny it’s happening, try to shore up the foundations of the old thing, or we can radically reorientate our vision and ask what new thing is trying to be born. So we ask John Philip what this new thing is that is trying to emerge from deep within us and from deep within the collective soul of Christianity…”

You can listen to the Nomad conversation with Newell here. The conversation itself starts 5mins in. 

Excerpt from Rebirthing God:

One sign of rebirthing, not only within the Christian household but also in the lives of many in the Western world today who do not identify with any particular religious tradition, is a reconnecting with spiritual practice. In the last two decades there has been an enormous burst of interest in yoga and other practices from the East, based on ancient teachings and disciplines that combine physical rigor with spiritual awareness. Likewise, we have seen a resurgence of labyrinth building in our church and public parks, and a reclaiming of other simple contemplative tools that speak of the desire to recover practices from the past to promote the rebirthing of spiritual well-being today.

One of the stations of the Iona pilgrimage is the Hermit’s Cell. It sits at the heart of the island. No more than a circular ruin of stones, it is the remains of an ancient Celtic beehive hut. Legend has it that Columba and his brothers would retreat there in turn for periods of solitude and prayer as a balance to their life together in community. The Hermit’s Cell stands as a sign of the relationship between contemplation and action, silence and expression, solitude and relationship.

On pilgrimage to the Hermit’s Cell I was once asked how many monks used to live here – a question that reveals the disorientation among many moderns in approaching the ancient practices of solitude and stillness. An interesting feature of the Iona Hermit’s Cell is its location. It is hidden amid hills in the interior of the island, so people often get lost trying to find it. They become disoriented. Similarly, so much of our culture, including our religious inheritance, has felt lost when it comes to spiritual practice. But we are in the midst of a reawakening.

One of the things that we remember on pilgrimage as we approach the Hermit’s Cell in silence together is that reclaiming the relationship between stillness and action, or between solitude and relationship, is part of the desire to come back into relationship with the wisdom of nature’s rhythms. The earth knows its patterns of night followed by day, of winter barrenness succeeded by spring energy and summer fruiting, of long periods of infolding and dormancy followed by seasons of unfolding and the expression of seed-force.

We know that if we do not give ourselves over to the darkness and dreaming of nighttime, entering its intimate invitation to sleep and rest, we will be only half-awake to the demands and creativity of the day. Yet at other levels we forget the natural patterns that we are part of. Or we pretend that we can be deeply engaged and productive while pushing ourselves and others in ways that are antithetical to the essential rhythms of earth’s cycles and seasons…”

~ The Rebirthing of God: Christianity's Struggle for New Beginnings. Vermont: Skylight Paths Publishing, 2014.

All Things Reconciled: Essays on Restorative Justice, Religious Violence, and the Interpretation of Scripture

One of my favourite New Zealand NT scholars – Christopher D. Marshall – had a new book published last month (June 2018)

I still remember attending lectures and talks given by Chris from over 25-years ago… they were so energising; rich encounters at the intersection of the NT exegesis, biblical studies, and contemporary cultural contexts. None more so than his, very formative for me, talks on Roman’s and later on human rights, peace-making, and justice. The first addition to my library was back in 1994 when I purchased Faith as a Theme in Mark’s Narrative (CUP, 1994), and his latest - All Things Reconciled: Essays on Restorative Justice, Religious Violence, and the Interpretation of Scripture (2018 / Cascade Books) – is in my book basket waiting for funds to purchase.  

About

"The modern restorative justice movement, perhaps one of the most important social movements of our time, was born in a Christian home to Christian parents, specifically to Christian peace workers striving to put their faith into action in the public arena. The first major book on the subject was written primarily for a church audience and drew deeply on biblical themes and values. But as restorative justice has moved into the mainstream of criminological thought and policy, the significance of its originating spiritual impulse has been minimized or denied, and subsequent theological scholarship has done little to probe the relevance of restorative perspectives for doctrine and discipleship.

In this collection of essays, Christopher D. Marshall, a biblical scholar and restorative practitioner who has devoted his career to exploring the relationship between the two fields, considers how peacemaking Christians can honor the witness and authority of Scripture, including its apparently violence-endorsing strands, as they strive to join in God’s great work in Christ of “reconciling to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20)."

Endorsement

“In this engaging book, Chris Marshall not only extends his groundbreaking work on restorative justice, but reflects on what his involvement in the movement for restorative justice has taught him about Christian engagement in secular civil society, and reflects on what restorative justice implies for the way we look at God . . . Throughout these chapters, Marshall shows himself to be both a skilled interpreter of the Bible and a wise guide to some of the most pressing social problems of today.”

—William T. Cavanaugh, DePaul University

The Monk's Record Player: Thomas Merton, Bob Dylan, and the Perilous Summer of 1966

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The Monk's Record Player (HC / Eerdmans, 14^th March 2018) by Robert Hudson records “the story of a monk, a minstrel, and the music that brought them together.”

“In 1965 writer-activist-monk Thomas Merton fulfilled a twenty-four-year dream and went to live as a hermit beyond the walls of his Trappist monastery. Seven months later, after a secret romance with a woman half his age, he was in danger of losing it all. Yet on the very day that his abbot uncovered the affair, Merton found solace in an unlikely place—the songs of Bob Dylan, who, as fate would have it, was experiencing his own personal and creative crises during the summer of 1966. 

In this striking parallel biography of two countercultural icons, Robert Hudson plumbs the depths of Dylan’s surprising influence on Merton’s life and writing, recounts each man’s interactions with the woman who linked them together—Joan Baez—and shows how each transcended his immediate troubles and went on to new heights of spiritual and artistic genius. Readers will discover here a riveting story of creativity and crisis, burnout and redemption, in the tumultuous era of 1960s America.”

Rowan Williams commends this book with these words:

“A warm and vivid picture of two very different but unexpectedly related countercultural icons in that extraordinary mid-sixties moment of hope and imaginative enlargement. This book enables us to see some of the deep currents of that era and to reacquaint ourselves with two great, unclassifiable figures.”

Rowan Williams wrote a fascinating little book on Merton back in 2011, It was titled A Silent Action: Engagements with Thomas Merton. I recommend it.

Stanley Hauerwas – Theological Existence Today

In March 2018, Dr. Stanley Hauerwas visited Regent College in Vancouver BC to deliver the 2018 Laing lectures, on the topic of "Theological Existence Today."

A: The Christian Message in the World Today 

After WWII, Karl Barth’s writings urged the European church to free itself from bondage to the societal and cultural status it had in the past. Rather than maintain its attachment to its own history, the church must root itself in the ultimate historical event—the incarnation of Christ. With Barth’s insights as a foundation, Hauerwas turns to the North American church, suggesting provocatively that perhaps we have not left Christendom behind so thoroughly as we might think—suggesting that we, like post-war Europeans, need to carefully consider where we may have mistaken devotion to nation for devotion to Christ.

B: The Christian Message and Humanism

In this lecture, Hauerwas turns his focus onto Karl Barth’s response to the “new humanism” of the late 1940s. At this time, many sought ways of re-establishing Enlightenment humanism in the face of the war’s worst atrocities. Barth would have none of it. It is not the return of a secular optimism toward humankind that we need, Barth argued, but rather the “humanism of God.” In contrast to the new humanism, Barth contended that all things human are to be regarded only from the cross. In today's context as in Barth's, only with anthropology planted firmly in Christ can the church find its lost theological voice amidst a fading Christendom.

C: The Church and Civil Society 

For Hauerwas, as for Karl Barth, the state is one of God’s redeemed creatures. Even a state that has rebelled against its divine calling can’t fully escape the reality of God’s purposes. And if the state is redeemed, then church must not wash its hands of it as it once washed its hands of Christ. Instead the church must learn to speak about Christ truthfully and boldly in the world. Hauerwas, grounded again in Barth, puts forward one method of how to do so: by anchoring our own political ideals not in this or that “ism,” but on what has been revealed to us of the workings of Christ’s Kingdom.

You’ll find details of the recordings of these lectures here, and a short video overview of Hauerwas’ visit to Regent here.

David Whyte: Just Beyond Yourself

I love this newly published poem by David Whyte. I’ve been reflecting on it for a few days now, and thought I’d share it. It’s from Whyte’s latest publication, which you can purchase directly via David’s website. It’s also available from Amazon.com

….

Just beyond 
yourself.

It’s where 
you need 
to be.

Half a step 
into 
self-forgetting
and the rest
restored 
by what 
you’ll meet.

There is a road 
always beckoning.

When you see
the two sides 
of it
closing together
at that far horizon
and deep in 
the foundations
of your own 
heart
at exactly
the same
time,

that’s how
you know 
it's where
you
have 
to go.

That’s how
you know
it’s the road
you 
have 
to follow.

That’s how
you know
you have
to go.

That’s
how you know.

It’s just beyond
yourself,
and
it’s 
where you 
need to be.

….

JUST BEYOND YOURSELF
from THE BELL AND THE BLACKBIRD. It was published April 20th 2018
© DAVID WHYTE AND MANY RIVER PRESS 2018

The True Self

"…The true self is a more spiritual level of awareness. We begin to be willing to accept ourselves just as we are. God is as God is and all reality as it is ...This is really what humility is, which is a basic disposition in the spiritual journey: the capacity to accept all reality -- God, ourselves, other people, all creation -- as they are and as they manifest in ... the present moment and it's content…"

~ Thomas Keating, from Invitation from God.

A Portrait of Wendell Berry

The documentary LOOK & SEE: A Portrait of Wendell Berry (2017) "revolves around the divergent stories of several residents of Henry County, Kentucky who each face difficult choices that will dramatically reshape their relationship with the land and their community.

In 1965, Wendell Berry returned home to Henry County, where he bought a small farm house and began a life of farming, writing and teaching. This lifelong relationship with the land and community would come to form the core of his prolific writings. A half century later Henry County, like many rural communities across America, has become a place of quiet ideological struggle. In the span of a generation, the agrarian virtues of simplicity, land stewardship, sustainable farming, local economies and rootedness to place have been replaced by a capital-intensive model of industrial agriculture characterized by machine labor, chemical fertilizers, soil erosion and debt - all of which have frayed the fabric of rural communities. Writing from a long wooden desk beneath a forty-paned window, Berry has watched this struggle unfold, becoming one of its most passionate and eloquent voices in defense of agrarian life.

Filmed across four seasons in the farming cycle, LOOK & SEE blends observational scenes of farming life, interviews with farmers and community members with evocative, carefully framed shots of the surrounding landscape. Thus, in the spirit of Berry's agrarian philosophy, Henry County itself will emerge as a character in the film - a place and a landscape that is deeply interdependent with the people that inhabit it."

More information here, including how you can purchase a copy. Trailer can be seen below -

You’ll find brief reviews here (NY Times), here (LA Times), and here (a critical one on Roger Ebert’s site).

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Stanley Hauerwas: The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

Today I want to highlight a new book – The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson - co-written by Stanley Hauerwas and Sam Wells. Available from April 15^th 2018.

“Would you invite Stanley Hauerwas—the famously “angry” theologian—to become your child’s godparent and agree to write a series of letters to your son or daughter? That is what the Rev. Dr. Samuel Wells and his wife did two decades ago, fully aware of the famous theologian’s “happy anger,” as Well describes it.

The Wells’s chose Hauerwas—and he agreed—because of the rock-solid foundation of Hauerwas’s prophetic voice: Truthfulness. “All I can promise is that I will try very hard never to lie to you,” the theologian writes in his first letter to little Laurie.

That’s exactly what the Wells’ were hoping. Samuel writes in this new book’s introduction:

“His restlessness resonated with my sense that Jesus came to unsettle, rather than to comfort, and the angles from which he addressed the issues of today and forever intrigued and challenged me to a degree I hadn’t found in any other contemporary theological writing. He was, in short, talking about the questions I was asking, with a fearless relish that I longed to imitate.”

That honest counsel about growing into a life of faith is precisely the role of an ideal godparent, Wells and Hauerwas both argue in this book.

Wells and Hauerwas became friends when Wells served as Dean of Chapel at Duke University, where Hauerwas has taught for many years. Today, they are separated by an ocean. Wells now is Vicar of the landmark St. Martin in the Fields at Trafalgar Square in London. Hauerwas is semi-retired but still teaches and writes—and agreed to publish these letters as a book with some collaboration in the form of a 28-page introductory essay by Wells about the role of an ideal godparent.

Then each of the letters in this volume reflects on a different Christian virtue—including Kindness, Truthfulness, Hope, Justice, Courage, Humility and Generosity. That opening section [written] by Wells [is about] what it means to serve as a godparent…”

You can read the full article online here.