We’ve thought a lot about current matters of politics, culture and faith lately and share our ruminations about these things in this Newsletter. And to mark the anniversary of 9/11, we’ve reproduced Dot’s 2001 painting of the Christ figure present at the fall of the Twin Towers.

Arab  Spring and American Fall

We see a  connection between the uprisings in the Arab world and the “Occupy Wall Street” ferment here in the U.S.A. Viewed through our theological lens both  coincide with challenges to the pyramiding of  power and its attendant corruption. We have been here before:—a No to the regnant “principalities and powers.” In our lifetime –and in these Newsletters—we have seen the “VLPs” speak up to the “VIPS.” The Very Little People of the 60s and 70s ranged from the unwhite, unrich and un-noticed to the blue collar populism of shut-down steel mills. Like the latter, today’s Tea Party is taken hostage by the very Powers to which Archie Bunker’s afflictions could be traced (See Gabe’ “The Blue Collar White and the Far Right” The Christian Century  , May 6, 1969) The same possibility of captivity by those of another agenda haunts this Arab Spring and our American Fall. If so, we shall see.  But the present momentum seems to have a more authentic populism that runs from  the streets of Tripoli, Libya to those of New York, Chicago and even Hyannis, Massachusetts (“Occupy Cape Cod”)

 How do we understand the immediate goals common to Arab Spring and the American Fall—the dispersion of power?  Is this a “parable of the kingdom” in Karl Barth’s terms, “the ‘democratic conception of the State’ as a justifiable expansion of the thought of the New Testament.” ?  (Church and State, page 80) Is it the extension into society of the very nature of the church, as charisms given from the bottom up instead of control by the top down? So the early Congregationalists thought as the participatory democracy of the congregation migrated to the political order—the rejection of the king paralleling the supplanting of the bishop. And some would argue that the latter traces itself finally to the very nature of the triune God and the coequality and coinherence of the three Persons.

While cheering on the best of the current efforts to topple tyranny-- political social and economic—we are enough Niebuhrian to be wary of the temptation to see the sin only in the foes of righteousness and not also in those who resist them. Those challenging the status quo easily fall into a simplistic “us and them” mindset. The contribution of Christians in these movements for social change is not only to support the dispersion of power but also to embody it and counsel it within these movements.

Also relevant are the learnings from Robert Hoover's  bell curve on effective social change. Every such movement requires not only the innovative and revolutionary 2 1/2 percent, but also the 13 1/2 percent early adopters and 34 percent early majoritarians. Will  or can movements of possibility look for these alliances, as well as avoid  seductions by ideological forces of one sort or another?

We follow the ferment with hope…a sober hope.

 The Future of the Mainline Churches

Craigville Theological Colloquy 29 deals with this subject with the tilt suggested by its title “Breaking News for a Broken World: the Gospel Unbound in the Mainline Churches.” Note this date on your calendar: July l6 to 12 , at Craigvlle MA. (Take  a look at its website.) Keynoter William McKinney will give us a glimpse of that future from his perspective--, no doubt taking off from the pace-making book of another era, American Mainline Religion, co-authored by McKinney and Wade Roof ( Rutgers University Press, 1987) . He will be teamed with Martha Grace Reese who will be present not in the flesh but through new telemonitoring technologies, discussing with participants her Unbinding the Gospel widely used on congregations along with other “unbinding’ books in evangelism and church renewal.

It is not for us to opine further on the subject, except to frame whatever is said in the light of  New Testament testimony about the apostolic church. As we wrote  in Christian Basics, the church is alive and well when the four signs of the Spirit that marked the first Christian communities described in the book of Acts are present with vitality: kerygma, leitourgia, diakonia, , koinonia—telling, celebrating, doing and being…together. Our guess is, from reading recent offerings of both leaders, that they will strike similar notes.

Interpreting Obama

For the past year the volleys from many on the right and the left have been deafening. Relentless accusations of “petulant and incmompetent”(Peter Wehner) from one side, and charges of abandoning principle for political expediency and thus a “monumental fraud” (a Nation article) from the other.

Barack Obama , by our reckoning is a “visionary realist.” As Gabe notes in the 2011 edition of The Promise of Reinhold Niebuhr,  the president cautions us to be wary of ‘emotional absolutionism’  and remember that ‘the perfect can be the enemy of the good.’ The good has to do with the maximum feasible goal in a particular circumstance in this world of competing self-interests that plague history to the End. Often that means that the visionary realist will find himself or herself opposed or misunderstood, on the one had by the visionary who assumes that the perfect is possible, and on the other by the simplistic  realist whose goals are too pragmatic or captive to the givens. Of course, the one who seeks to blend vision and reality is not exempt from the temptation to sacrifice one value for the sake of the other Stay tuned as we watch our president walk this tight- rope.” (p. xx)

Are the indictments of Obama the predictable complaints of the “emotional absolutist” of the left and right? Or  are they legitimate critiques of the president when he appears to abandon one  or the other accent? Sad to say, there have been occasions when Obama and his adminstration have succumbed to “the temptation to sacrifice one value for the sake of the other.” But more often than not, shrill denunciations  of his decisions by both the absolutist right and left are  the predictable response of their reductionisms. No doubt also the raised expectations generated by Obama’s campaign rhetoric about the “audacity of hope” have played their part. Better the sobriety of hope. Like Niebuhr, Obama is, at his best,  is a sober hoper.  He has regularly shown a mettle which the ideologues have obscured.We pray daily that our president keep his eye on the prize and his feet on the ground.

Tabletalk

We are approaching  the 50th anniversary of “Theological Tabletalk” Launched in the cafeteria of Pennsylvania’s Lancaster Theological Seminary in colleagueship with the Rev. Herbert Davis  to read together as pastors, teachers and seminary students current formative works in theology, it has gone through several phases and locations. At Lancaster, UCC clergy mostly together with librarian George Bricker and a few students, we began the morning with the eucharist then moved to the refectory for breakfast and vigorous back-and-forth on assigned readings. Tabletalk migrated to Andover Newton Theological School when Herb and Gabe moved to Newton in the 1970s and continued in the faculty lounge weekly for memorable exchanges, again reading current theological works (n eucharist or breakfast this time, just hard thinking about things worth thinking about with mostly pastors but also some “lay theologians” of the caliber of Michael Curtis, senior editor of Atlantic magazine and Chris Chace, dean of a local college and Elizabeth Bjorkman For the 25 years of my recollection the pastors who made it for Gabe his most engaging struggle with the thought of the theologians he taught in more formal classroom settings were in addition to Herb, Joe Bassett, Lelly Smith, Charlie Dickinson, Jim Crawford, Fr. John O’Donnell, Diane Kessler, Emil Beck, John Stendhal..  Students showed their mettle in this more casual conversational setting and may have learned more theology here with pastoral mentors than in academic venues. While an Andover Newton group has continued now meeting in a pastor’s home, the Fackres and Davises, serendipitously took up residence in Craigville, and Herb, once again pioneered with a small group of clergy. Later Gabe joined them, as did then retired seminary teacher Willis Ellitt and met for a few years in South Church, Centerville re-locating in 2009 to a round table in a Dennis union Church meeting room. No students now, ten to twelve pastors go at it with the same verve. An added feature of the Cape Cod group is the contact the Tabletalkers make with the authors they are reading with some lively e-mail give and take with such as Nicholas Wolterstorff, Marilynne Robinson Harvey Cox, Robert Jenson Walter Brueggemann…

The list of writers of current works over the decades  is a measure of how serious the participants have been about being stretch intellectual and spiritually in this reading community. A sampling in addition to those already mentioned—Wolfhart Pannenberg, Hendrikus Bekhof, Mary Daly, Rosemary Ruether, Karl Rahner, Peter Berger, James Cone, Edward Schillebeeckx, George Lindbeck, Ronald Thiemann, Edgar McKnight, Beverley Gaventa, Richad Hays, Rowan Williams, Robert Coles, Donald Bloesch, Miroslov Volf, David Wells, Martin Marty, Gustavo Guittierez, Charles Taylor, Reinhard Huetter, Catherine LaCugna  N.T Wright ,James Davison Hunter, Alisdair MacTyre, Alan Sell, Avery Dulles, Brevard Childs,   Karl Menninger,  Donna Freitas, Anthony Thistleton, Alan Wolfe, Anthony Robinson, Martin Copenhaver, Lillian Daniels, the BEM documents , the Mercersburg theologians series and more..

One result of the Andover Newton phase of Theological Tabletalk was the assist given by the 1983-84 group in establishing the first Craigville Theological Colloquy. Participants helped to persuade Cape Cod’se Craigville Conference Center administrator Richard Eggers to host the 1984 colloquy marking the 50th anniversary of the Barmen Declaration. They helped to organize 20 or so study groups around the country that prepared to address the issue of the United Church of Christ’s “theological deficit,” so described by the then President Avery Post, who took part with 160 other grassroots clergy and laity. At the close of the colloquy a Statement of Commitment was issued with its strong accent echoing Barmen that Christ is “the one Word we have to hear, trust and obey.” 

How important such a weekly gathering of pastors and teachers doing serious theological work! How much we wish for others this kind of life-long enrichment of ministry. 

Family Matters

2011 has been a challenging year for us. Dot’s brother died in October. Al Ashman was Dot’s inspiration growing up in Palmerton , Pennsylvania from the backyard swing to the ski slopes. Gabe knew him from Bucknell days. He will be sorely missed. We were not able to travel to Lancaster for the funeral, but with the remarkable  new technology available were able to participate by way of a web-cast of the service.

This year Dot suffered another fall and was briefly hospitalized and a receiver of many weeks of  outpatient therapy. A measure of her progress is our daily trips to the indoor walking track in Hyannis where we do our 6-12 laps together. (Not bad for 86 year olds with Parkinsons and lymphoma in remission. J)

Our family's loving support has meant much to us. Recently  members mounted a “Treetops” family blog  on the Internet which is a daily delight. Family does matter much.

Advent Blessings,