For All Those Football Fans

Here's a little shout out to all those football fans at the beginning of the season. Who says theology doesn't apply to just about any area of life!?! How would you articulate your theology of football?

Enjoy!

Early Trinitarian Sources

Here are some of the earliest references to the Trinity:

Theophilus of Antioch (180 AD), in his To Autolycus, discusses the shape of God's creative activity as Father, Logos and Sophia. Here is a quote:

• "He is God, who heals and gives life through Logos and Sophia. God made everything through Logos and Sophia, but by his Logos the heavens were made firm and by his Spirit all their power [Ps 32:6]." Theolophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum, tr. by Robert M. Grant, Oxford: Claredon Press, 1970, I.7.
  

In another place, he says:

• "the three days prior to the luminaries are types of the triad of God and his Logos and his Sophia. In the forth place is man, who is in need of light--so that there might be God, Logos, Sophia, Man." (the footnote to this: "This 'triad' is not precisely the Trinity, since in Theolophilus' mind man can be added to it.") Theolophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum, tr. by Robert M. Grant, Oxford: Claredon Press, 1970, II.15.
  

Though this is not a perfect articulation of trinitarian theology, you can see how Theolophilus is attempting to put words and concepts to something that was already believed in early Christendom.

Another source of early trinitarian thought is Irenaeus of Lyon (125-203). He also talks about God creating through the Logos and Wisdom (Sophia), but more specifically talks about the Son and the Holy Spirit as the two hands of the Father:

• "It was not angels...who made us, nor who formed us, neither had angels power to make an image of God, nor any one else, except the Word of the Lord, nor any Power remotely distant from the Father of all things. For God did not stand in need of these [beings], in order to the accomplishing of what He had Himself determined with Himself beforehand should be done, as if He did not possess His own hands. For with Him were always present the Word and Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit, by whom and in whom, freely and spontaneously, He made all things..." Ireneaus, "Against Heresies," in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, Edinburgh: T&T Clark; Eerdmans, 1996, Book IV: chapter XX.1.

I hope this helps. If anyone wants to pursue other sources, let me know.

Peace,
Chelle

How Do We Listen?

Many of you have expressed an interest to learn more about contextual theology. My interest in this kind of contextual or critical theology stems from a desire to learn to listen. Often this means that I have to set aside my preconceived ideas (as much as I can at any given moment) and learn to hear what others have to say or to offer. Sometimes I feel threatened, sometimes I simply disagree. The challenge is to hear what others are actually saying, not to project onto others what I think they are saying from my preconceived ways of knowing.

This is a dangerous proposition. Who knows what will happen? How will we change? Perhaps we will learn to hear differently? We might even be significantly transformed in the process?

All of this sounds very mysterious or even frightening, but I would like to offer a bit of inspiration to you for this pursuit of listening well--not only to "the other" but also to ourselves. (Aren't we all in this together?) To help us understand this from a different perspective I will turn to music, my old friend. The following video is a TED talk by Evelyn Glennie, one of the world's foremost percussionists. She is an amazing performer, as you will hear. She is also profoundly deaf. Every time I hear her talk about music, performance and the art of hearing/listening I am deeply moved. She teaches me about myself as she tells me about her own experience in the world. If you want to hear more from Glennie, check out the documentary, "Touch the Sound." (There is a copy in the library.)

So, how do you hear/listen?

Enjoy!
Chelle

Author of *The Shack* in Town Friday

I just wanted to let you know that Paul Young, the author of The Shack (which we are reading for class) will be in town Friday (tomorrow) September 10th. Here are the details:

Paul Young will be at First United Methodist Church near downtown Seattle at 1PM on Friday September 10th. This is a free event. Here is the link for more info.

If you go, let me know what you think.

-Chelle

John Cage's "Rules for Students and Teachers"

John Cage performing 4'33'' at a toy piano

John Cage was a composer whose life spanned most of the 20th century (1912-1992). He was influenced by composers such as Schoenberg, Messiaen and Boulez. He believed in creating compositional space in which musicians and audiences alike could participate in the creation of the music. Cage's style can be thought of as controlled chaos or chance music. For example, he was known to make decisions while he was composing by rolling dice. His most famous piece is 4'33'', which involves a performer with his or her instrument sitting silently for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. The purpose of this composition is to explore the sound in the room, the "what might happen" in any given period of time and space. It is about chance in the moment. (A friend of mine performed this piece in a recital. A few of us knew about the piece beforehand, so we brought stuff to throw at him. It was a bit cheeky of us!)

"Fontana Mix" a composition by Cage

Cage is also known for redefining notation, the visual language of music. You can see here an example of his charting of improvisation and preparation--controlled chaos. This can also be called 'aleatoric' music. Often performers are given suggested notes for a given amount of time and they then have to improvise with the material offered. Thus, the performance is just as much determined by the performer as it is by the composer.



Click here to read about a recent dance concert inspired by Cage, performed in a rock quarry. The stage was set up in the round with the dancers in the center and the 150 musicians seated around the outside. The craziest part was that each of the musicians had their own part to play, and each was improvising with a given set of musical ideas. The concert sounds like it was amazing. I wish I could have been there.

Here is John Cage performing one of his pieces, "Water Walk", on a 50's TV show. Fascinating! 



As you can see, his music requires a lot of participation and engagement by musicians and audiences alike. It is not just a matter of just learning notes, or listening to notes and sounds for that matter. Cage's music gives space for listening to others and responding to the whole, or simply for the chance of the moment (e.g., the laughter of a TV audience). Whether or not you like his music, that is a totally different conversation. Mostly, I like the concepts that he is promoting as an example of engagement and participation, even if his music is not really my (or your) cup of tea. 

With this in mind, here are the rules of engagement that I talked about in class. May we learn to play together this year!

John Cage's "Rules for Students and Teachers"

1. Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile. 
2. General duties of a student—pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students. 
3. General duties of a teacher—pull everything out of your students. 
4. Consider everything an experiment. 
5. Be self-disciplined—this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way. 
6. Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail, there's only make. 
7. The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It's the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things. 
8. Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes. 
9. Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think. 
10. Break rules. Even your own rules. Leave plenty of room for X quantities.

"Mozart Mix" by John Cage

 

Welcome to Fall 2010!

Welcome to another year of Constructing the Theological Mosaic. I thought that I would start off the class blog with a few thoughts on why we should do theology:

    I believe that when we, as embodied human beings, experience the world around us, we tend to make certain assumptions about the world and begin to ask big questions. A few classic questions are: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” “What is the meaning of life?” or another way to ask this is “What brings meaning to life?” “Who are these people around me and what is my relationship to them?” “What is the definition of family in such a fragmented and alienated culture?”

    These questions are inherently theological because they ask how we are in the world in relation to that which is not ourselves. In other words, is there anything beyond and/or outside of the individual self? And, if so, what is it?

    We all ask these questions. The problem is, if we don’t take the time to explore and examine our presuppositions, then we are left with half articulated beliefs that seem proper or correct in the moment but don't have real substance for the long haul called life. So, when life happens and we come to the end of our understanding, we tend to either turn to anger and frustration or to simply reject faith all together; especially faith represented by the established church. I think that this is amazingly characteristic of our contemporary culture. How do we respond to this within our culture? Or, more honestly, how do we respond to this within ourselves?

    Again, we can ask the question, "Why do theology?" Well, you are here at this graduate school doing a degree at this particular time and place. I assume that you are interested in theological questions or you would not be here because you would have gone to a different school. However, you are diverse in your goals. Some of you are counseling students, some are training to be pastors and some of you are not sure why you are here . (There is nothing wrong with not really knowing why you are doing a degree. That was me when I went to do my master's degree and now I'm teaching at a seminary. You never know where you'll end up!) In that context, the challenge of this class (which is my task as much as it is your task) is to learn to connect our/your individual questions about life, the universe and everything to the discipline and tradition of Christian theology.

    I would like to challenge you, to charge you with this task: work hard in this class to push your own questions outward in order to connect those personal questions to the wider tradition of theology. In the midst of this, it is OK to disagree with me, with one another and even yourself. (I saw a bumper sticker once that said: “Don’t believe everything you think.” It is a good philosophy when approaching theology!!)

    I believe that theology should be transformative and even life-giving. But, in my own story, it wasn’t until theology was connected to my own questions that I could even understand the broader theological questions. In fact, it wasn’t until I connected theology and music that I became a theologian. Throughout my theological journey, I have worked to connect my questions and my ways of thinking with the traditional questions. It was hard work. I’m still working hard, and that is why I am here at Mars Hill Graduate School teaching. I want to understand how theology connects with life, with us as individuals and how the hard work of individual exploration can connect us back to a wider community that transcends time and space: throughout the world and throughout history. When we sing, when we proclaim and profess, when we preach and when we laugh and cry with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, we do so with Christians throughout the ages and the world. We sing “Holy, holy, holy,” together in the broadest sense of that word.

    Therefore, as we start this class, we need to acknowledge that we are not the first people to ask the ultimate questions. We are also not the first ones to offer answers. It is the height of arrogance to say that we understand the relationship between God and the world better than those believers that lived 50, 150 or 1500 years ago. However, we do understand the world differently. We have a different context and a different Zeitgeist. But to answer these questions in isolation, ignoring the tradition, is naive at best. Despite our attempts to answer these questions in isolation, we should acknowledge that we all have inherited many assumptions and beliefs, often unexamined. In this class, with respect I hope, we will work to question, critique, explore and sometimes even answer these inherited presuppositions.

    So, why do theology? Because it hits us in the intimate places where we live. It shapes the way we are in the world with ourselves and with one another.

To the Task!

Chelle

Reading Report

Here is the link for the READING REPORT, which is due this week.

Peace,
Chelle