Author: ppadmin

This is one of the most significant books of the past decades, treating moral discourse with a live sense of pluralism.  The most pressing current issue, Kaveny points out, is to incorporate a lively sense of humility into the practice of the jeremiad (passionate condemnations of sinful behaviour). Is it possible to condemn without contempt?

She examines two documents that say ‘yes’, that avoid prophetic rhetoric to change condemnation into contempt (p 4); ‘citizens rightly call each to account for violations of our most fundamental commitments.  Contempt, however, is a different matter’ (p x).

Kaveny articulates two instances of jeremiads:  Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and the Jewish prophetic book of Jonah, both characterized by humility, key element in effective treatment of the intersection of religion, morality public policy; Lincoln’s Adddress and Jonah evidence humility and self-criticism in prophetic speech, both qualities that became first victims of the 2016 American presidential campaigns (my aside).

Many of the contemporary understandings of western christian belief derive from our peculiar cultural interpretations of the bible.  When we immerse ourselves in strange Mediteranian readings of the bible, old interpretations are threatened, and we need to see through the eyes of someone socialized in a culture different from our own.  Eg westerners  know little about ‘the evil eye’, and when we read Mt 6:22,23 we find it difficult to understand Jesus’ words. In the text, an evil eye is bad for the person being looked at; Jesus’ hearers would have recognized that Jesus was talking about light that originates in the heart and could do them either good or evil.

High infant mortality rates (up to 30%) made children vulnerable; when mothers brought their children to Jesus it was not because of a sweet interest in children, but of ‘the vulnerable, the frightened and the terror-stricken who make up the implausible kingdom of G-d’ (p 5).  Jesus’ prayer, that we not be put to the test, is the plaintive cry of a peasant that he not be hauled into a debt court in front of a corrupt judge’ and have his land taken from him (p 6).

The book examines ten Mediterranean cultural strands (eg kinship, honour and shame, patronage, table fellowship) by referencing key social science studies; each chapter has at least one example of using contemporary anthropological studies in working with a biblical text (ie in the honour-shame discussion, ‘grace’ is the theological term that supercedes the ‘honour’ cultural theme), and has a helpful bibliography on the anthropological theme being examined, a good combination of theological and secular.

‘Early Christianity developed out of a culture which was more Greek and Roman than Jewish…. Preaching Christians borrowed their arguments and forms of address from Greek philosophers’ (p 2).  ‘Paul’s followers and interpreters took his familiarity with moral philosophy for granted….  He addressed some of the issues Epicureans, Cynics, Stoics and Platonists raised; not their metaphysical systems but their concerns  aimed at moral reformation….   He remains Paulus christianos without making him less Paulus hellenisticus (p 5, 9).

Malherbe takes key Pauline concepts and shows how they were used by his contemporary moral writers, so phrases such as ‘by no means’, ‘gentle as a nurse’, medical imagery, ‘in season and out of season’, ‘not in a corner,’ are key Pauline concepts that are traced back to their philosophical perspectives.  Eg, me genoito, by no means, has several formulations and is used in the diatribal literature of the philosophers. 

It’s a fascinating study of an early Christian thoroughly familiar with the traditions of his philosophical contemporaries, but using these for pastoral emphases (eg ‘nurse’ and ‘father’ in 1 Thessalonians) (p 53).  Paul’s use of the traditional hortatory philosophical tradition is marked by profound change as he reshapes the material to express his experience of G-d working in him or uses traditional Christian material to address issues of concern to pagan philosophers (p 66).

Paul, in Other Words attempts to interpret Paul’s letters by describing the symbolic universe of Paul as ‘a  first-century Eastern Mediterranean non-elite, typically viewing his cosmos’ (p 12), using cultural anthropology as a help in adjusting to a culture totally different from ours. Paul’s cosmos is made up of six areas:  purity, rites (rituals and ceremonies), body, sin, cosmology and evil.  Paul’s socialization was as a Jew of Pharisaic stripe, and a cultural context shared by Jews, Greeks and Christians.

Another key to Pauline interpretation is Neyrey’s listing of reading assumptions: occasional letters, inconsistency, conserver, reformer, saint Paul, history.  Insightful comments about the role of body language and metaphor draw heavily from 1 Corinthians (p 102ff).  Neyrey examines sin, pointing out Paul’s concept of sin as a two-fold phenomenon: rule breaking and/or corruption.

Also useful is Neyrey’s reflections on rituals and ceremonies in the church.  Rituals focus on acts that involve border crossings (graduations, sickness); ceremonies confirm the orderly separation (baptism).  Paul often disagrees with the divisions that rituals and ceremonies create, and ‘brings to the centre people usually left on the periphery’ (p 77); specific Pauline ceremonies include meals, the collections, and letters (p 78).

Paul the apostle exerted a more significant influence on the spread of Christianity than any other figure in history, establishing the first Christian church in Europe and Asia in the first century, transforming a minor sect into the largest western-produced religion, articulating the conviction that Christ could serve as a model for personal and corporate transcendence. His dramatic vision of G-d on the road to Damascus is one of the most powerful stories in Christianity.  Armstrong focuses on the geographical dimension of Paul’s work:  Damascus, Antioch, Macedonia (the Galatian exchange).  She draws her material from the seven letters generally regarded as Pauline (1 Thessalonians, Galatians; 1,2 Corinthians; Philippians, Philemon, Romans, p 13).

‘Paul was a lifelong opponent of the structural injustice of the Roman Empire…. And struggled to transcend the barriers of ethnicity, class and gender’ (pp 13,14).  (She does not place as much confidence in Acts—Luke’s emphasis there is an apologetic for Roman society, and Luke writes 20 years after Paul’s letters appear.)  (Cf her reason for the Pauline-Barnabas breakup, p 38, with that given in Acts 15:37)  Armstrong works hard at bringing clarity to two issues treated in the Paulines:  struggle against ‘super spiritualists (p 69), and his attempt to show intra-ekklesial support with the collection for the Jerusalem poor (p 46).  There’s a good treatment of the use of terms common in imperial propaganda that Paul then turned upside down (euangelion, soter, Eirene, p 54). 

A good perspective on Pauline contribution to the life of the church.

Soelle (1929-2003) was a prolific theological writer (25 books in English translation), rethinking Christian convictions in light of WWII and the Holocaust.  She organized ‘evening prayers’ from 1968-1972 as discussion groups held in the Cologne’s St.  Anthony’s Church, fostering critical thinking.  The over 1000 participants found that ‘dealing with theological issues necessarily leads into political engagement’ (p 57); issues such as the Vietnam War, the arms race and especially the rearmament of Germany, third world development, and women’s roles were central to discussion.  Her doctorate centred on the relation of theology and poetry and made her a popular speaker; her outspoken opinions resulted in both state and church refusing to grant academic employment.  (Some of her statements:  ‘Every theological statement must be a political statement as well.’ ‘The Third World is a permanent Auschwitz.’)  1975 – l987 saw her engaged six months out of the year as successor to Paul Tillich at Union Theological Seminary, New York (the other six months were spent with her husband in Germany).

Wind’s book is a moving overview of Soelle’s life and writing, carefully augments and illustrated by Soelle’s poetry.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

The concept of oral culture hit Sample at university when he realized the contrast between everyday oral culture and philosophic analysis of the world around us, the difference between the worlds of discussion of Will Rogers and Socrates.  Oral culture, of the everyday living, was ‘not one of discourse, systematic coherence, the consistent use of clear definitions and the writing of discursive prose that could withstand the whipsaws of academic critique’ (p 3).  An oral culture makes use of proverbs, sayings; lives by storytelling (the family traditions); thinking in relationships ( an issue that comes up will be considered in terms of the family and communal ties; religious beliefs will be understood much more in relational than discursive ways’ (p 5).

Sample writes compellingly that ‘literate clergy and laity may become far more appreciative of and adept at working with people who face life and death, morality and faith, and G-d and the world with a traditional morality’ (p 6).  This means that a significant part of the ministry and mission of our churches needs to be done in an apprenticeship way….  The teaching occurs through hands-on mission’ (p 19).  Churches need to be both literate and oral, utilizing the strengths of each:  forming small communal groups telling their stories to each other, to work (in ethical formation) on a morality that is concrete, operational and contextual, eg the AA model.  A study I did with palliative care level patients identified the most useful and helpful of those they were involved with as being not medical or religious (chaplain) people, but the cleaning staff!

A wonderful book to understand better the church’s mission.