13AR18-44

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Apologia Report 18:44 (1,180)

December 5, 2013

Subject:  Death as an academic attraction

In this issue:

DEATH - academic non-Christian vantage turns "case studies of violent death" into "learning to celebrate life"?

PANENTHEISM - Roger Olson attempts a little course correction for the evangelical movement

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DEATH

The Death Class: A True Story About Life, by Erika Hayasaki [1] -- a look at the secular world's fascination with death. Publishers Weekly (Oct '13, #3) explains: "In this brisk, journalistic endeavor, full of case studies of violent death, a Los Angeles Times reporter chronicles her years shadowing Dr. Norma Bowe <www.ow.ly/rsaZ6 >, the 'professor of death' at Kean University in Union, N.J. [and] Bowe's class, Death in Perspective... Journalist Hayasaki was drawn to Bowe's class as a way of making sense of 'death's mercilessness and meaning,' and in memory of her own dear friend who was shot and killed by a jealous boyfriend when they attended high school in the mid-1990s in Lynnwood, Wash. In the course of dogging the professor over the semester, involving visits to cemeteries, a hospice, death row at a state prison, a mortuary, and a psych hospital, as well as thoughtful writing assignments such as composing a goodbye letter to her dead friend, Hayasaki unearths the wrenching personal stories of these traumatized students - and that of Bowe herself. The product of parents who never wanted her and beat her, Bowe grew up largely in the care of a doting grandmother; she found the career of a psychiatric nurse and teacher enormously therapeutic, and it also suited her compassionate temperament. Hayasaki's studies of the suicidal and mentally ill seem clinical and unrelenting, and there is an unsettling prurience in these stories of emotional cataclysm; nevertheless, the book helps make possible necessary conversations about death."

   Kirkus (Nov '13, #2) adds: "In the genre of uplifting books about inspiring people, former Los Angeles Times reporter Hayasaki (Literary Journalism/Univ. of California, Irvine) offers a portrait of Norma Bowe, a psychiatric nurse and teacher at Kean University, whose 'Death in Perspective' class has changed the lives of some of her most vulnerable students. The author, who has faced death and loss in her own life, used 'immersion' and 'participatory' journalism, following Bowe for four years, enrolling in the class and conducting extensive interviews. In addition, she read books and articles about death, dying and mental health, especially works by Erik Erikson <www.ow.ly/rsbsE>, whom Bowe champions. Hayasaki structures her narrative by focusing on several students whose lives were in dire crisis when they met Bowe. One's mother was a drug addict; another, whose father murdered his mother, cared for his schizophrenic younger brother; another struggled to wrest himself from a gang. Although reluctant to talk about herself, Bowe, too, revealed a dark past: She was an unwanted child, repeatedly battered by her cruel, narcissistic parents. Her grandmother raised her for part of her childhood. Indeed, besides Bowe, whom Hayasaki portrays as selfless and tireless, the heroines of this book are the many grandmothers who raised children their own offspring could not, or would not, care for. Bowe seems to have 'radar hardwired inside her' that alerts her to people in need. Cheerful even while traipsing through a cemetery or visiting a halfway house, she emitted 'an air of invincibility' and 'a feeling so magnetic' that students flocked to her. At the end of every chapter, Hayasaki includes an assignment from Bowe's syllabus - e.g., write your own eulogy, pretend you are a ghost and record your observations, write a goodbye letter to someone or something lost. These assignments invite readers to consider the essential question of Bowe's course - and Hayasaki's book: How can we learn to celebrate life?"

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PANENTHEISM

"A Postconservative Evangelical Response to Panentheism" by Roger E. Olson -- a sympathetic review of how "the term and concept 'panentheism' ... is undergoing changes. ...

   "Like many once useful theological labels, [panentheism] is being so stretched as to lose usefulness." Olson criticizes "using the term to cover a wide range of ideas about the God-world relationship. ... Traditionally, 'panentheism' has been the kiss of death [for a teaching position in theology], actually one among many, among evangelicals and conservative theologians generally. It should probably not be anymore. ...

   "First, I will discuss the traditional meaning of panentheism focusing on what scholars such as Charles Hartshorne and William Reese and more recently John Cooper call 'modern panentheism.' Second, I will discuss some of the reasons why evangelicals have traditionally rejected modern panentheism. Third, I will discuss recent changes in the meaning of 'panentheism' that have broadened it almost to the point of making it compatible with anything and everything (except hard core classical theism and hard core pantheism). Fourth, I will discuss what kind of panentheism is compatible with evangelical faith and why."

   As for the latter, Olson reports that the term now "includes 'soteriological' or 'qualified (Christian) panentheism' which means it does not necessarily imply that God is dependent on the world *except* insofar as God freely, voluntarily chooses to make himself in some qualified way dependent on the world. ... [O]ne cannot assume that an evangelical Christian adheres to any particular confessional statement. ... Many contemporary post-conservative evangelical thinkers are embracing what they call 'relational theism' which includes but is not limited to open theism. ...

   "So long as the gratuity of grace in creation and redemption is maintained and not sacrificed, evangelicals should be free to embrace panentheism, at least as that is being broadened and redefined to include, for example 'qualified (Christian) panentheism' in which God's inclusion of the world in his own being and life is voluntary and not necessary." Evangelical Quarterly, 85:4 - 2013, pp328-337.

   (Olson's wishful thinking makes us wonder what new theology *wouldn't* be welcome in his camp.)

POSTSCRIPT, Nov 19 '24:
( created <www.tinyurl.com/AR-on-R-Olson> )

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - The Death Class: A True Story About Life, by Erika Hayasaki (Simon & Schuster, January 2014, hardcover, 288 pages) <www.ow.ly/rjdbB>

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