faculty news & notes

The Flawed Family of God: Stories about the Imperfect Families of Genesis (WJK, 2021) is a new book by Professors Carolyn B. Helsel, Associate Professor in the Blair R. Monie Distinguished Chair in Homiletics, and Song-Mi Suzie Park, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Austin Seminary. In 2020 while Park was a visiting scholar for the pastor cohort gathering The Moveable Feast, she heard pastors discussing the lack of resources for thematic preaching. The seed that conversation planted blossomed when she began talking to her faculty colleague and fellow Connections commentary series editor about co-writing a book on family stories in the Bible.

They began with the questions, “What does the Bible say about what it means to be a family?” and “What does the Bible have to do with the current struggles of families today?” The answers revealed that the family dramas experienced in the Book of Genesis raise issues—about married vs. single life, sibling rivalry, infertility, family relocation, blended families—which are startlingly relevant to families of today. Throughout the book the writers invite the reader to consider these and many other connections as they reexamine the joys and complications of modern family life.

Designed for personal or group study, the book strives toward three goals: to allow the reader to see the relevance and connections between the biblical texts and the struggles of today’s families; to give voice to the silent characters in the text and remind the reader to listen for what isn’t spoken in their own families; and to enable the reader to form deeper connections with their own families and communities of faith.

Thomas G. Long, The Bandy Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Candler School of Theology, says of the book, “In this most creative book, Carolyn B. Helsel and Song-Mi Suzie Park have taken an unorthodox stroll through the book of Genesis. Where others find the creation story, Noah’s Ark, and the Tower of Babel, Helsel and Park find families—wonderful, human, complicated families … The authors provide insight into the frayed edges of our family life, but because the authors also find God in the broken places, they bring us profound hope.”

In his newest book, Reasonable Faith for a Post-Secular Age (Cascade, 2020), Professor of Philosophical Theology William Greenway argues there is an unrecognized, but real and potent, common core of global spiritual understanding shared by religious and secular communities. He claims that naming and affirming this core reality—the reality of agape—offers us our best chance as we face multiple global crises in the 21st century.

“Across the world we face extreme and growing economic inequalities … conflict-driven mass migrations … [and] epoch-level species and habitat lost. … For the first time in history, these challenges are rising on a global scale,” writes Greenway. “Good people from diverse secular and religious institutions fight these challenges to creaturely flourishing in a multitude of concrete ways … The vast majority share a common understanding of what is reasonable and respond to essentially the same love. But the reality of this common spiritual ground is largely invisible. The transition to a global village sharing a common language has been achieved in the natural and social sciences. … I believe that a common understanding of a spiritual dimension of reality is shared by multitudes across faith traditions and cultures … and I argue that naming this shared spiritual reality is vital for the flourishing of life on earth.”

Greenway writes as a Christian, but he argues that virtually all faith traditions, from Buddhism to Humanism to Wiccan, are rooted in agape—the reality of finding oneself seized by love for others. He illustrates how the moral reality of agape also rests at the heart of the ethics of those who are secular. Greenway explains how the “philosophical distinctions between secular metaphysics and the metaphysics of the world’s great faith traditions have collapsed,” and urges us to see this as a promising development, because it opens up interfaith and intercultural moral common ground, unveiling a basis for united ethical struggle against life-threatening global challenges.

In his endorsement of the book, Keith Ward, former Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, says: “This set of essays is a penetrating philosophical critique of philosophical naturalism and a defense of a more open concept of rationality that is able to take religion seriously. A very important contribution to debates about philosophy, metaphysics, and faith.”

Bridgett Green (New Testament) delivered, with Dr. Andrea Holman, the Bishop E.T. Dixon Lecture at Huston-Tillotson University on January 28. For two Sundays, March 14 and 21, she was the guest Bible study instructor at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Nashville, on “Connecting to Kairos in Lent.”

Bobbi Kaye Jones (pastoral leadership) preached on January 10 for worship at Saint John’s United Methodist Church, Austin.

Jennifer Lord (homiletics) authored the 2021 Celebrate the Gifts of Women Resource, an annual publication of the Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries of the PC(USA). She published the essay, “Baptismal Liminality: The Church’s Betwixt and Between,” in Reshaping the Liturgical Tradition: Ecumenical and Reformed (OSL publications). She and others will lead an EBW webinar on April 16, “Online Worship: Is It Really Accessible for ALL?” She is an accepted presenter for the Center for Applied Special Technology’s seventh annual Universal Design for Learning Symposium: The Future Designed.

Good. Reads. Two words companionably situated near the center of my selfunderstanding as long as I have selfunderstood. Earliest memories include learning to read at such a young age I was promptly sent to “kindergarten” as a three-year-old! By the time I hit first grade my reading was so good I was booted up to second. And thus has it ever been. Read. Good.

Until March of 2020. While some have sought solace in old and new books these past many months, my pandemic precautions shut that party down. My husband consumed books at his usual strong and steady rate, but I couldn’t stomach even the act of sitting with a book, turning its pages, and losing myself to a different world. Oh, I read. My screentime soared with Twitter scrolling and scientific journal scanning and the multiple on-line newspapers to which I subscribed. But I could not read for pleasure.

“When we read, we open ourselves up to connection and feeling,” says one friend. Exactly. I felt plenty open and exposed enough, thank you. For the first time in memory, reading became a defensive maneuver. A vital precaution. I read to know what news was new to keep self and family safe. People were dying from pandemic, politics, and the poisoning of community through racism-on-overdrive. No letting down from the hyper-vigilance I seemed to need. I’m not happy with my reaction, I’m simply sharing my story. I read a few books and articles for teaching, but stories had fled my scene.

Christmas brought a book gift from a daughter. For weeks it lay on my nightstand. Just lay there atop a tall and dusty pile. Then one recent Sunday afternoon I reached and it responded, almost tipping itself into my outstretched hand. We both opened up. I read my way into the world of words again. And it was good.

Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger, the memoir by Lisa Donovan, did all the things. I laughed, I frowned, I questioned her choices and cheered her successes. And my little worried heart felt a little lighter when I’d done.

I’ve now read two more books and even some magazines! Twitter time is down and I read more headlines than full articles. I have hope for our world because of science and frontline workers. I have hope for our denominations and congregations because of the Gospel, the resilience of the human spirit, and the astonishing commitment and competence of our students. I even have hope that book of poetry I ordered still wants to be my friend.

I am praying for the coming time when we will go out and be among people open-heartedly. I am praying this experience of separateness increases our appreciation for joining together. I am praying we are good for each other going forward. Very good. And reading.

—Written by Rev. Bobbi Kaye Jones, Professor in The Louis H. and Katherine S. Zbinden Distinguished Chair of Pastoral Ministry and Leadership

The publication of the spring issue of Insights: the faculty journal of Austin Seminary, coincided with the release of Episode 3 of the podcast by the same name. The conversation between Dr. David White, The C. Ellis and Nancy Gribble Nelson Professor of Christian Education, and Dr. William Greenway, professor of philosophical theology and the editor of Insights, provides space for Professor White to develop and explain the themes in his centerpiece essay “Tending the Fire that Burns at the Center of the World.”

Look for the podcast on our website: AustinSeminary.edu/ Insightspodcast and on more than a dozen podcast platforms.