Windows: A Hunger for Holy Places (Summer | Fall 2016)

Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

summer|fall 2016

In this Issue 2016 Commencement | 6

A Hunger for Holy Places | 8

Honor Roll of Donors | center

Substance.

Scripture.

Service.

Preparing strong, imaginative leaders for the church.

Find your own voice.

Discovery Weekend October 28-30, 2016 To confirm your place register online at AustinSeminary.edu/ falldiscovery

AUSTIN

AUSTIN PRESBYTERIAN

PRESBYTERIAN THEOLOGI C AL

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

SEMINARY

summer | fall 2016

Volume 131 | Number 3

President

Theodore J. Wardlaw

features

Board of Trustees

A Hunger for Holy Places 8 A Hunger for Holy Places

G. Archer Frierson II, Chair James C. Allison Whitney Bodman Janice Bryant (MDiv’01, DMin’11) Claudia D. Carroll Elizabeth Christian Joseph J. Clifford Katherine B. Cummings (MDiv’05) Thomas Christian Currie Consuelo Donahue (MDiv’96) Jackson Farrow Jr. Beth Blanton Flowers, MD Jesús Juan González (MDiv’92) John Hartman Ann E. Herlin (MDiv’01) Rhashell D. Hunter Steve LeBlanc Sue B. McCoy Matthew Miller (MDiv’03) Lyndon L. Olson Jr. B. W. Payne David Peeples Jeffrey Kyle Richard Conrad M. Rocha Lana Russell Lita Simpson Anne Vickery Stevenson Martha Crawley Tracey Karl Brian Travis Carlton D. Wilde Jr. Elizabeth Currie Williams Michael G. Wright

10 Four writers explore what it means to search for and to encounter holy places.

8

By David H. Jensen

10 The Way of St. James

By Jennifer L. Lord

13 The Chora of Mo

By Dick Powell

14 The Power of Music to

Create Space for the Holy

By Eric Wall Center: The 2015-16 Honor Roll of Donors

& departments

5

2

seminary & church

3

twenty-seventh & speedway

18 live & learn 19 faculty news & notes

Trustees Emeriti Stephen A. Matthews Max Sherman Louis Zbinden

20

Austin Seminary Association (ASA) Board

20 alumni news & notes 21 teaching & ministry

Kristy Vits (MDiv’98), President Matt Miles (MDiv’99),Vice President Barrett Abernethy (MDiv’13), Secretary Dieter Heinzl (MDiv’98), Past President Timothy Blodgett (MDiv’07) Tony Chambless (MDiv’07) Sandra Kern (MDiv’93) Denise Odom (MDiv’99) Andrew Parnell (MDiv’05) Stephen Plunkett (MDiv’80) Valerie Sansing (MDiv’00) Sheila Sidberry-Thomas (MDiv’14) Michael Ulasewich (MDiv’05)

Editor

Randal Whittington

Contributors

Lemuel Garcia Jacqueline Hefley Gary Mathews Claire Mathias Alison Riemersma Sharon Sandberg Ann Serrano Kristy Sorensen Adam Sweeney

Windows is published three times each year by Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Austin Seminary Windows Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary 100 E. 27th St. Austin, TX 78705-5711 phone: 512-404-4808 e-mail: windows@austinseminary.edu fax: 512-479-0738 AustinSeminary.edu ISSN 2056-0556; Non-profit bulk mail permit no. 2473

seminary church

from the president |

W

President’s Schedule Sept. 11 – Preach, St. Charles Presbyterian Church, New Orleans, Louisiana Sept. 22 – Evening with the President, Houston, Texas Oct. 6 – Preach, Grace Presbytery Stated Meeting, First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas Oct. 11 – Partner Luncheon, Fort Worth, Texas Oct. 16 – Preach, First Presbyterian Church, Bentonville, Arkansas

hen I was in seminary, I went for a weekend to a Cistercian monastery in the hills and mountains of western Virginia. Later, a formative (and formidable) theology professor chided me for having done that. “After all,” he said, “Calvin was opposed to monasteries; he said the whole world is a monastery.”

I thought about that for a long time and decided finally that we nonetheless need monasteries and other such destinations that point us in specific ways toward what is holy about our journeys. Professor Jennifer Lord, reflecting on her multiple experiences of the Camino de Santiago, explores the profundity of the liminal journey that is, ultimately, life itself. Alumnus Dick Powell, president of Mo-Ranch, reminds us of how that gorgeous oasis in the midst of the Texas Hill Country has served countless pilgrims as either a destination or a point of beginning—or both. Professor and Dean of the Chapel Eric Wall exegetes a musical composition as its own sort of journey, “wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling.” Dean David Jensen acknowledges what my seminary professor suggested—that there is in our tradition a suspicion of holy places—but argues persuasively in favor of them anyway. I believe he is right to observe that our tradition “has come full circle” and now embraces holy places for their deep spiritual value.

And there are as many such destinations wrapped in holiness as there are people setting out on journeys. Two weeks ago, as I write these words, Kay and I went to the museum recently opened in New York, at the base of what used to be the twin towers of the World Trade Center. It memorializes the terrible events of September 11, 2001, which are seared into the consciousness of most of the world’s population. We went there to see the tangled fire trucks, the victims’ names memorialized, the video clips capturing the footage of the atrocity, and we remembered where we were and what we were doing when the planes attacked their targets. More than that, though, we remembered the fragility of life, the power of violence, and the greater power of hope as exhibited in the sacrifices made by first responders and all of the rest of us forced to find a greater meaning in the rubble left behind.

I’m still thinking about that museum. It’s not a cathedral, not a monastery; but it is nonetheless a holy place—the end and the beginning of a journey. May the pages ahead evoke in you some deeper sense of your own journey and of the Alpha and Omega that frames it and makes it holy.

Oct. 25 – Evening with the President, Dallas Nov. 17 – Partner Lunch, Little Rock, Arkansas

Faithfully yours,

January 21, 2017 – Preach, Presbyterian Association of Musicians, University Presbyterian Church, Austin

Theodore J. Wardlaw President

March 30 – Partner Luncheon, Austin, Texas April 27 – Evening with the President, Albuquerque, New Mexico 2 | Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

twenty-seventh speedway

Austin Seminary calls Philip Browning Helsel to be assistant professor of pastoral care

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ustin Seminary has called the Reverend Dr. Philip Browning Helsel as assistant professor of pastoral care, effective July 1, 2016.

“Phil Helsel is one of the leading pastoral theologians in the nation; he is already widely published and read.

He combines cutting-edge scholarly research with deep commitment to the church,” said Austin Seminary Academic Dean David H. Jensen. “His cross-cultural experience in chaplaincy includes experience in the borderlands communities of San Antonio and Yuma, Arizona. Phil has particular interests in class and economic issues as they relate to pastoral care, and he pays close attention to the trauma and mental distress that America’s working class experiences in the current economic climate. The gifts that Phil brings to Austin Seminary will benefit our students and the church for years to come.”

Helsel comes to Austin Seminary from Boston College School of Theology and Ministry in Brighton, Massachusetts, where he has been assistant professor of pastoral care and counseling since 2012. His courses there included: Introduction to Pastoral Care and Counseling; Integrating Faith, Counseling, and Services of Justice; and Trauma and Addiction. Active in many organizations, he has served as co-chair of the Group on Interreligious and Intercultural Pastoral Theology for the Society for Pastoral Theology, and he was a member of the Advisory Group on Clinical Pastoral Education for the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and the Committee on Ministry for Boston Presbytery.

Helsel earned his PhD in pastoral theology and practical theology from Princeton Theological Seminary in 2012. He also holds the MDiv in pastoral care and counseling from Princeton Theological Seminary (2004) and the BA, summa cum laude, in Bible and religion from Anderson University (2000). Helsel is ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and was parish associate for pastoral care at Freehold Presbyterian Church in Freehold, New Jersey.

Helsel published his first book, Pastoral Power Beyond Psychology’s Marginalization: Resisting the Discourses of the Psy-Complex (Palgrave Macmillan, New Approaches to Religion & Power Series) in 2015 and has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters. He also serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling.

“We are pleased to welcome Phil Helsel to our community and look forward to the gifts and areas of interest in pastoral care that he will bring to us,” said Austin Seminary President Theodore J. Wardlaw. “He will make even more exciting the rich texture of interdisciplinary conversation that currently enriches our faculty and student body.”

Phil Helsel is married to Carolyn Browning Helsel, assistant professor of homiletics at Austin Seminary, and they are parents to Caleb and Evelyn.

Accreditation granted for new Master of Arts in Youth Ministry degree

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n partnership with the Center for Youth Ministry Training (CYMT), Austin Seminary will begin offering the Master of Arts in Youth Ministry (MAYM) degree beginning with the fall 2016 term.

The curriculum design comprises four core components: students will take on-campus, retreat-based classes, serve in an internship in a local church supervised by a youth director or pastor, receive coaching from a youth ministry veteran, and join a cohort of peers with whom to journey.

According to the web site for The Center for Youth Ministry Training, “In today’s world, good youth ministry requires more than just games and guitars. For youth to experience a lifechanging faith, they need an intentional community where they can have a personal encounter with God. For this kind of youth ministry to happen, both youth workers and churches need training.”

In addition to the vocational support, Graduate Residents in this program receive an all-inclusive scholarship covering tuition, books, and retreat costs; housing and utilities; and a $1,000 monthly stipend.

“This degree program brings to Austin Seminary a new approach to theological education for church leadership that will serve these students well,” says Jack Barden, vice president for admissions. “These students will have access to the amazing wisdom of our resident faculty while also gaining experience in the local church as they put into practice what they are learning in the classroom. I’m excited that we now offer this flexible professional degree program for those who are feeling a call to ministry with young people.”

Find out more here: AustinSeminary.edu/MAYM. Summer | Fall 2016 | 3

twenty-seventh speedway

Symposia Fund honors musicians Hal and Martha Hopson

Student T Kay Browning offers a comment following the keynote address

by Dr. Wil Gafney.

The event marked the opening of 2016 HESED the Lectures, April 1-2, on the theme “Which Lives Matter?”

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4 | Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Photo by Daniel Williams (MDiv’16)

Sheila Sturgis Craig, associate commissioner at Texas Health and Human Services Center for Elimination of Disproportionality and Disparities, meets with the 2016 Fellows in Pastoral Leadership for Public Life on April 18. The Fellows explored structural and systemic dimensions of difference in services in relation to race.

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eorge Thomas Aggen and Maria Hopson Aggen have honored Maria’s parents, Hal H. and Martha S. Hopson, by endowing a symposium at Austin Seminary that focuses on their shared passion, sacred music.

The fund will generate the resources necessary to enhance The Gene Alice Sherman Chair of Sacred Music, providing students and practitioners with educational opportunities beyond the classroom. It will make possible a variety of opportunities such as guest musicians, residencies, hymn festivals, commissioning of hymns and songs, and music- and worship-related workshops and conferences.

Austin Seminary President Theodore J. Wardlaw was delighted at the potential for the Hal H. and Martha S. Hopson Endowed Symposium Fund.

He said, “Hal and Martha Hopson are icons of sacred music in America. Not only have they influenced generations of musicians by their compositions and hymn settings, they have also been equally comfortable at the organ bench—both playing the service and directing choirs. Choir directors, organists, and parishioners all over the country know and appreciate their lifetime of service in shaping the song of the church. Austin Seminary is deeply blessed to steward into the future the Hopson Symposia!”

One of the most prolific church music composers of his generation, Hal Hopson has published more than 1,800 works, including more than a dozen in Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal.

Trustee Emeritus Max Sherman, whose generosity made possible the Sherman Chair, said, “Hal and Martha Hopson’s DNA is music and worship in the church. Gene Alice and I are thrilled to join hands with them in the ministry of sacred music at Austin Seminary.”

Photo by Janine Zabriskie

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On June 13 Austin Seminary students held a vigil honoring the victims of the shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Photo by John Everett

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For twenty-three years, the Southeast Asian Lay Leadership Training has met on the Austin Seminary campus for instruction by our resident faculty. Four students who have completed that training were honored with a reception on June 3.

Connections, the new venture between Austin Seminary and Westminster John Knox Press, held its first editorial meeting May 12-13. General editors Cynthia Rigby, Tom Long, Joel Green, and Luke Powery were joined by Austin Seminary faculty editors Carolyn Helsel, Jennifer Lord, Blair Monie, William Greenway, Gregory Cuéllar, and Suzie Park, along with other editors and staff.

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During May the apartments affectionately known as “the bomb shelter” were demolished to make way for construction of The John and Sue McCoy

House.

The new student apartment building is scheduled to be open for the 2017-18 term.

Summer | Fall 2016 | 5

The Class of 2016

twenty-seventh speedway

Graduates hear from PC(USA) moderator

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ustin Presbyterian Theological Seminary held its commencement on Sunday, May 22, at University Presbyterian Church, Austin, with an address by Dr. Heath Rada, Moderator of the 221st General Assembly (2014) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Fortyeight students in four degree programs comprise the Class of 2016: thirty-nine received the Master of Divinity degree; four, the Master of Arts (Theological Studies) degree; one, the Master of Arts in Ministry Practice degree; and four, the Doctor of Ministry degree.

Commencement exercises included the granting of special awards (see

box below) to graduating seniors who distinguished themselves during their seminary experience and a charge from President Wardlaw (page 7) who also shared a number of actions regarding faculty taken by the Austin Seminary Board of Trustees at its May meeting.

The board reappointed the Reverend Dr. Paul Hooker, associate dean for ministerial formation and advanced studies; reappointed the Reverend Dr. David W. Johnson, associate professor of church history and Christian spirituality; appointed the Reverend Dr. Philip Browning Helsel as assistant professor of pastoral care, effective July

1, 2016; promoted Dr. Bill Greenway to professor of philosophical theology, effective July 1, 2016; promoted Dr. Song-Mi Suzie Park to associate professor of Old Testament, effective July 1, 2016; accepted the sabbatical report of Timothy D. Lincoln; approved a six-month sabbatical leave for the Reverend Dr. David White, beginning July 1, 2016; approved a twelve-month sabbatical leave for the Reverend Dr. Gregory CuĂŠllar, effective July 1, 2017; and approved a six-month sabbatical leave for Dr. Philip Wingeier-Rayo, beginning July 1, 2017. v

2016 Graduate Awards Donald Capps Award in Pastoral Care: Christine Wagner Chidester Preaching Award: Daniel Williams Rachel Henderlite Award: Jarell Wilson Hendrick-Smith Award for Mission & Evangelism: Greg Six Ethel Lance Human & Civil Rights Award: Cheryl Wilson Carl Kilborn Book Award: Candace Combs The Class of 2016: Doctor of Ministry graduates (above) and Master of Divinity, Master of Arts (Theological Studies), and Master of Arts in Ministry Practice graduates (below).

6 | Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Charles L. King Preaching Award: Kelly Shoenfelt John B. Spragens Award: Marsha Clarke Max Sherman & Barbara Jordan Fellowship: JosĂŠ Ruiz

The Class of 2016 Charge to the Class of 2016

“Use your words.”

By President Theodore J. Wardlaw

A

beloved tradition in the life of our seminary is that graduation isn’t over until the president has given a charge to the graduating class. I love this tradition. It terrifies me—choosing hopefully the right “last admonition” to offer each graduating class (kind of a cross between a final thrashing and a benediction)—but I still love this annual responsibility, and each charge is different because, of course, each graduating class is different.

And here, in a nutshell, is my charge to you. Listen carefully: “Use your words.”

Use your words. This is not the first place where you’ve heard that admonition. At some point, early in your childhood, you went stomping into the kitchen— a complete, unhinged tornado of emotion motivated by only God knows what—and you knocked things over and you screamed and you cried and you kicked … and one of your parents knelt down on the floor and got into your face, eyeball to eyeball, and said patiently: “Use your words.”

That was one of the earliest lessons in your life, and you didn’t get the hang of it right away. It took some time to learn it. To take the rage and the passion and the hurt and the disappointment and the joy and the bliss—and turn it all into words.

Use them. Use them well. Because we live in a culture where words are cheap, and we don’t take them seriously enough. We’ve discounted their power. If you want some evidence of that, just look at this bizarre election season we’re living through. Have we ever seen anything like it?

The way words are being used? In this morning’s New York Times, there’s a story about how Donald Trump is trying to raise a billion dollars, before November’s election, from the established big-ticket donors who normally, at about this moment in an election year, step up and give wads of money. But this year, that task is much harder, apparently, and a lot of big donors are sitting on their hands.

Many of them feel that Mr. Trump is unfit to serve in the oval office. One of them, a billionaire from Connecticut, is quoted today in The Times saying that Mr. Trump is “an

President Wardlaw visits with Alice and Arnold Mlindakaya Phiri (MATS’16).

Following graduation the Phiris returned to Malawi to put Arnold’s new Austin Seminary education to work.

ignorant, amoral, dishonest, manipulative, misogynistic, philandering, hyper-litigious, isolationist, protectionist blowhard.” He says he’s thinking about supporting Hillary Clinton instead, describing her as a devil—“the devil we know.” Maybe they both have earned that. But listen to those lacerating words!

We’re not the first generation, though, to ever discount the importance of words. This problem goes back a long way, as far back as the Garden of Eden. Tom Long said somewhere that it was there where the serpent said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” thus casting suspicion on the power of even God’s words (Whispering the Lyrics). And the biblical understanding of our development from that point on associates the Fall—the Fall from Grace—with the fact that we became liars, learning to use words to twist and deceive and distort.

And now, by the way, we have a new platform upon which to do all of that, so that this process of deception and distortion has been accelerated in our time—so filled with Facebook and other technological opportunities that are both promising and perilous—by what journalist Frank Bruni (How Facebook Warps Our Worlds) calls “the groupthink of micro-communities.” And just think about the ways in which we have used our words on that platform—myself included. Words that discourage dissent, words that shame people until they are afraid to step out of line, words that encourage the phenomenon of tribalism, which has never been more dangerous, I believe, than it is now. “In an era,” says Bruni, “that teems with choice, brims with niche marketing, and exalts individualism to the extent that ours does, we’re sorting ourselves with a chillingly ruthless efficiency. We’ve surrendered universal points of reference. We’ve lost common ground.” And friends, we’ve also done that in the church!

So part of what it means to be redeemed, I think, is to be given our language back. To be given words that don’t just lacerate, but disclose and unlock and liberate. Words that tear down the walls built by other words. Words that

Continued on page 16 Summer | Fall 2016 | 7

A Hunger for Holy

8 | Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Places

R

By David H. Jensen

eformed Christianity has sometimes been suspicious of holy places. Excessive regard of any place as “holy,” according to this tradition, can impede our worship of the living God. We are factories of idols who often revere places or things rather than the One who brings all creation into being. Some of Calvin’s heirs took this wisdom in extreme directions: smashing idols, clearing worship spaces of any ornamentation that might distract us from the holiness that belongs to God alone. The Presbyterian sanctuary of my childhood reflected some of this sensibility, with its plain, whitewashed walls and pews that allowed us to focus on the Word proclaimed from the pulpit. This sanctuary had its own simple beauty, but it could not be confused with excessive, sensory allure. I don’t think I heard the words “holy place” or “pilgrimage” ever uttered from that pulpit.

Many Reformed Christians today, however, hunger for holy places. I believe this hunger is consistent with the best of the Reformed tradition as well as resonant with our deepest human experiences. All of us, at one point or another, long for place. For those of us who have moved away from the towns where we grew up, we might experience hunger in a homecoming. I remember several years ago when I walked the grounds of my old elementary school, remembering how I ran on that field, hung from the branches of that tree, and learned to dribble a basketball on that court. Being in a place where I had spent so many hours with friends thirty-five years prior kindled memories and connection to community past and present.

Places summon and evoke us. College basketball fans visit the Palestra in Philadelphia, often referred to as a “cathedral” to the sport. For others that holy place is Taos Pueblo, the Alamo, Fenway Park, or Mt. Rainier. Or maybe it’s the house where we grew up. Several years ago, I led a travel seminar to historic sites of the Protestant Reformation. We visited the Wittenberg church where Luther posted his ninety-five theses and walked the streets of Calvin’s Geneva. Being in these places made the dusty history of the Reformation come alive, connecting us to a cloud of witnesses from the past as we looked to the church’s future. That trip was, of course, a pilgrimage: to places where our Protestant forefathers and foremothers sometimes inveighed against pilgrimages!

Perhaps the Reformed tradition has come full circle: from a suspicion of holy places to an embrace of them. Or maybe what is happening now is a deeper reflection of something the Reformed tradition has always maintained. Because there is no rigid hierarchy of holiness in the world (where some people and places are holier than others), and because God showers blessing and grace upon all creation, our eyes are opened to the v holy in every place.

David Hadley Jensen is academic dean and professor in the Clarence N. and Betty B. Frierson Distinguished Chair of Reformed Theology. He is the author of nine books and editor of the series Compass (Fortress Press) that encourages theological reflection on everyday practices such as eating, shopping, playing, and working.

Summer | Fall 2016 | 9

a hunger for

Holy Places

“There is a Camino one walks and a Camino one lives—often as a result of having walked it.”

–Laurie Dennet, “Spirit of the Pilgrimage”

“The Way of St. James” by Jennifer Lord continued on page 11 after the Honor Roll of Donors 10 | Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

The Way of St. James

By Jennifer L. Lord

T

he Camino de Santiago is a worldwide hit.

The Pilgrim’s Welcome Office tracks the hundred-thousands of pilgrims arriving each year and the broad swath of nationalities represented. Even the pilgrimage path itself has been deemed a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Martin Sheen movie The Way, books by Paulo Coelho and Shirley MacLaine, and arrivals by Oprah-status celebrities have popularized the best-known section of this ancient pilgrimage: the 500-mile Camino Francès stretching from the Pyrenees to Santiago, Spain.

Before this recent extraordinary revival, a Roman Catholic priest re-popularized the route, too: in 1967 Don Elias Valiña Sampedro, a Galician priest, wrote his doctoral thesis on the importance of the pilgrimage and subsequently published guidebooks for pilgrims walking the Camino Francès. Perhaps most notably, he personally way-marked the route from the Pyrenees to Santiago, using yellow paint he begged from the Galician highway authority to mark rocks, houses, and trees with the yellow arrows familiar to all pilgrims on this route. The Roman Catholic Church encourages the faithful to make this

pilgrimage, especially in Holy Years. In 1986, 2500 pilgrims reported to the Pilgrim’s Welcome Office, the place where one presents to apply for the Church’s certificate, the Compostela, authenticating the pilgrimage. In 2015, 262,000 pilgrims presented themselves. Pilgrim historians believe that there were as many as 100,000 pilgrims on the Camino Francès in the 12th century.

My husband, Casey, and I have walked this Camino in three countries over the last decade. Our recent and lengthiest installment began where we’d left off in France: we then walked 1207 kilometers (750 miles) to Santiago, Spain. As is custom, we arrived at the Cathedral of Santiago where the relics of Sant Iago (St. James) are interred. Legend states that the Apostle James, the elder, one of the sons of Zebedee, after evangelizing in Jerusalem and Iberia, was martyred in Jerusalem. His body was brought to Iberia but the place of interment forgotten. In the ninth century a hermit discovered the tomb through a vision, the local bishop authenticated the remains, and the pilgrimage began.

Santiago is the pilgrimage destination. Even if a pilgrim begins in Finland or Russia or Hungary or France,

Jennifer Lord is the Dorothy B. Vickery Professor of Homiletics and Liturgical Studies at Austin Seminary. She works on issues related to preaching, presiding/worship leadership, spirituality, and renewal of Sunday worship practices. Current projects, informed by her pilgrim journey, include All In a Day’s Walk: Pilgrimage, Liminality, and Meaning and Pilgrimage: A Lenten Devotional.

Summer | Fall 2016 | 11

a way-marker shows the distance to Santiago. It’s as if your state of being is measured by how far you are from Santiago. Recently Jackie Saxon (MDiv’00), Austin Seminary’s Vice President for Student Affairs and Vocation and fellow pilgrim, and I laughed as we imagined placing a Camino marker on campus. According to Google maps, our marker would read “Santiago: 7712 kilometers (4792 miles).”

In Reformed theology we’ve cautioned against zeal for holy places and any belief in God as more present there than here. We understand instead that God in Christ has redeemed all time and space. We know we are free from needing to travel to meet God. God is all in all even as God makes Godself known in the particularity of persons and place. We do not need to make pilgrimage, and we are certainly not required to make a penitential walk.

Still. People make pilgrimage to Santiago, to Our Lady of Guadalupe, to Jerusalem, Rome, Iona, Lourdes, Bethlehem, and to Mecca, the Temple Mount, the Ganges, and Lumbini. Some walk for devotion, some in hope of a cure, some as penance, some as a fulfillment of a vow.

Medieval pilgrims to Santiago walked amidst dangers of brigands, accidents, sickness, bears, and wolves.

Today people of all faiths and no faith walk this pilgrimage route. Some seek the destination for traditional Christian purposes. But most pilgrims walk with a spiritual sense of the way itself, a desire to deepen communion with God (however they name God) throughout the pilgrimage. These pilgrims are: open to encounters with others; willing to sacrifice comfort and familiar structures; willing to endure the physical hardship of continuous walking; willing to accommodate to silence, solitude, sharing, trials, inter-dependence; willing to engage more deeply in the network of others; willing to be changed in the process. The normal circumstances of everyday life have been set aside: there is opportunity for a different quality of soul seeking.

People tend to ask us these three questions: Did we go all the way to the ocean at Finisterre/Muxia? Did we see the giant incense burner at Santiago? Did we finish the pilgrimage? And I respond: 1) We did not. It was fogged in. I’m glad we didn’t go but hope to at some point. 2) Oh my yes. The botafumeiro is a spectacle and it does exactly what it is supposed to do: give a sign of blessing. This oversized thurible seemed to seal our pilgrim’s communitas: blessing all that we had 12 | Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

done and who we had become, inter-dependently, in the process. 3) Did we finish the pilgrimage? It’s a wonderful question. One response is: yes. We walked the famous section; we arrived at Plaza del Obradoiro and the Cathedral. Another response is: Goodness No we didn’t finish!

Who could walk all of the paths that are the Camino, all the paths created by medieval pilgrims who left their villages, farms, and cities and walked to Santiago and back home again? But my third response to that question is: Does anyone ever finish a pilgrimage?

I’ve been helped reflecting on the meaning of our pilgrimage by thinking with liminality. Liminality, a term coined by ethnographer Arnold van Gennep, describes persons/groups in their in-between state during a rite, passing from one identity to another. Liminality is the betwixt and between, for example, as girls go through a rite of passage to identify as a woman, boys as men, and two individuals as wedded. Liminality is the transitional phase (between separation and incorporation) and is characterized by disruption, unknowing, a state of suspense, lack of structure, even chaos. Years later anthropologist Victor Turner nuanced the concept of liminality, expanding its meaning for acts like pilgrimage. He determined that the pilgrim’s arrival is not the end to the liminal phase; the liminal extends beyond the ending.

We certainly experienced this as true. Outwardly we had arrived. We stopped walking 12-15 miles a day, we no longer carried all we needed on our backs, and we now blended in with tourists. Very little outward pilgrim signification remained. But inwardly we continued to experience the disrupted, transitional, suspended phase: the pilgrimage experience was still remaking us.

Certainly it is true that thousands make this pilgrimage for the classic Christian reasons of penitence, the efficacious prayers of a saint, and pious devotion. But more people walk because they know that the pilgrimage changes them and their relationship with God, others, the world. Contemporary pilgrims discover that this Camino is also called the Path of the Stars, a title signifying that holiness is not only at Santiago but also all along the way. Why do we keep returning to this pilgrimage? Because its intensity makes us know again that every step of the way is of God. There and here. Why do Jackie, Casey, and I enjoy the idea of a way-marker on campus? Because it’s a sign of the Camino we’ve walked and a sign v that we are all on The Way.

a hunger for

Holy Places

The Chora of Mo “Something “Something far far greater greater than than my my own own plans plans brought brought me me to to Mo-Ranch Mo-Ranch in in the the summer summer of of 1964.

1964. And And something something inexplicable inexplicable and and holy holy has has directed directed me me since. since. Mo-Ranch Mo-Ranch was was the the place place where where the the call call to to ministry ministry became became most most clear clear to to me. me. And And through through the the years, years, it it has has served served to to maintain maintain my my perspective perspective on on all all that that call call has has come come to to mean.” mean.”

By Dick Powell

F

or the Presbyterian minister who spoke the words above, Mo is more than just a part of his story; the place profoundly shaped his identity.

Mo-Ranch is a place, a spot on a map.

The Greeks have two words for place: topos and chora. The meaning of topos is obvious; we get the word topography from it. Aristotle defined topos as a point no different from any other point. A spot on a map is a spot like any other spot on a map; the ethos and characteristics of Dallas indistinguishable from those of Chicago.

By contrast chora is defined as “the wet-nurse feeding all things.” A McDonald’s is a place to get semi-edible food at a reasonable price; it’s a spot on a map, a store with golden arches out front just like the other 14,000 McDonald’s in the US. But if you proposed to your spouse there, for the two of you that McDonald’s is no longer just a McDonald’s; it is the McDonald’s, it’s chora, and a part of your story is fixed to that place.

Nearly seventy years ago, fueled by a vision and possessed by a burning passion to create a place of Christian nurture and transformation, R. Matthew Lynn, Margret Wyatt, Tom Currie Jr., Toddie Wynne, Mrs. J. Percy Terrell, Franklin Flato, Elizabeth Hickerson Moore, and Ernest Nicklos, giants in the synod and greater church, came to Mo. There they witnessed chora and deemed Mo-Ranch worthy of the investment of time and personal capital; they willed it into being. Matthew Lynn later said, “It is my conviction that Mo-Ranch has rendered a great ser-

vice to the Synod of Texas and can in the future provide a rallying point, not only for instruction in leadership but for inspiration of the Synod of Texas as no other place or institution would be capable of doing.”

And so it has been.

The river and hills, trees and rocks speak to the soul and park themselves deep in the recesses of our memory.

Mo is a part of our story—our long biblical narrative—as much as is Elijah hearing a still small voice or Jesus calling disciples beside the waters.

Every season we are adding new paragraphs to the Mo narrative, such as when parents gather at Nicklos Place for A Safe Place Retreat, sharing their mutual, unimaginable pain at the loss of a child; holding each other up, as only one who knows that pain can. It is chora.

“When I left there, I started to live again,” said one participant. “It’s safe; there are others gathered with you who don’t need to hear words. They understand that sometimes the only prayers you can offer are tears.”

Or the Women’s Conference where Gladys and Dorothy gather, again, as they have for more than sixty-six years, both to remember and catch up and add a new sentence or two to their long, long story. All the while others are writing original stories which will, in turn, be added to.

Several years ago, I reviewed a book called Coming of Age. It is a study of 18- to 30-year-old men in church. This

Continued on page 15

Dick Powell (MDiv’07) is president and CEO of Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly in the Texas Hill Country. Prior to attending seminary, he was an executive with international corporations specializing in strategic planning and turnaround situations.

Summer | Fall 2016 | 13

a hunger for

Holy Places

Photo of pipe organ by Reinhhold Möller

The Power of Music to Create Space for the Holy

By Eric Wall

A

uthor Joseph Horowitz, in Classical Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall, describes the opening of American composer Roy Harris’s Third Symphony: “A loping, striding cello song probes the surrounding silence. The long lines of this melody, the irregular phrases seamlessly bound, the spacious textures and open fourths and fifths suggest … plainchant (pun and all.)”

Describing the symphony’s middle section, Horowitz continues, “It is Harris’s practice to discard the usual symphonic structures in favor of an ‘organic’ continuity … listeners must keep the faith … Harris wrestles with a curt, thrusting theme: he thwacks it, turns it upside down, sets it astride galloping strings.”

Though brief, the excerpt contains at least ten references to movement and space (“loping song,” “surrounding silence”). Whether metaphorical or literal, such descriptions are common in music. Harmonies may be “open” and chords “inverted”; simultaneous musical ideas are “layered.” An unfocused performance may “wander;” a cohesive one “goes somewhere.” Harmony—vertiEric Wall is assistant professor of sacred music and dean of the chapel at Austin Seminary. He also serves as the Conference Center Musician at Montreat Conference Center.

14 | Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

cal combinations of pitches—is by definition spatial, and melody’s single line is spatial by its rise and fall. The physics and wave forms that cause music to exist as sound at all are spatial: sound waves travel and their length determines pitch.

Music’s temporality is part of its “horizontal” space.

We experience it in time, which means that, at any given musical moment, we are “located” in its duration. A song may take three or four minutes to sing; a Mahler symphony is an hour’s journey or more. As in a film or a novel, we are somewhere in music’s unfolding, whether the music is written down or improvised. The master drummer signals where the drum circle is and when change happens; band members who work together regularly know what to listen for and what comes next. Any present musical moment is always in relationship to what has come before and what is yet to be sounded. Even in music with little obvious variation —think of “minimalist” scores by Philip Glass or Steve Reich—the cumulative time spent with repeating figurations or harmonies can evoke space and motion: time may seem suspended, but we don’t feel immobile. Music travels and we travel with it. This is what Horowitz captures so well above: the way music emerges, takes up residence, makes a space, and moves around in it.

Space and time, time and space: music bends and pulls at these in ways both real and imaginative—or maybe it is truer to say that real and imaginative are versions of the same experience. Real and imaginative—not imaginary. One of music’s great gifts to worship is its ability to create space and knit a community together. It is real: we breathe together, we join our voices to common songs, we make sounds that fill rooms. It is also imaginative: singing and listening, we partake of a wordless art that reaches us at wordless, metaphorical, multivalent levels; we engage memory and vision the future; we bring to life an imaginative embodiment of the prayer that links us to “the saints of every time and place.”

Music invites us to participate in worship; it moves toward the sacraments; it makes us aware of others near and far; it helps us say and feel and remember. We make space for others when we sing their songs; people may make space for us by singing on our behalf when we can’t.

Like the symphony described above, our music in worship—particularly congregational song—probes, shapes, reveals the space where liturgy happens. More deeply, it is sung theology that probes our lives and probes the world. It is not just the words we sing that are theological: music itself is part of our theological utterance. Like other arts, music invites us to hear God at the heights and depths (more space) that words cannot reach, and to ask God to hear us at those heights and depths. Deep lament, fullness of joy, that which would burst from us if unuttered—the language of space is unavoidable, and music gives us ways to be full, deep, bursting. A poem by Siegfried Sassoon, “Everyone Sang,” begins, “Everyone suddenly burst out singing, and I was filled with delight.”

More space.

Whenever worship is over, the room where it happened is a curious place to me. Were we really there? Did the service really stop? The walls always seem still to be vibrating with the words and music that were offered; I imagine the liturgy still echoing. Echoes depend on space: space reflecting its sounds back to itself. A hymn by Adam Tice imagines all sound as an echo of the Big Bang: “… this psalm pouring out … an echo of the voice of God.” An earlier hymn (Bianco da Siena, c. 1367/trans. Richard F. Littledale, 1867) imagines the ultimate Maker of space: Come down, O Love Divine; seek out this soul of mine, and visit it with your own ardor glowing … … For none can guess God’s grace, till Love creates a place v wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling.

Chora Continued from page 13 is not a demographic who usually occupies church pews.

When asked why they were in church; a common response was that they had experienced a crisis in their life— they’d gotten divorced, they’d gotten married, they’d lost a job, or a parent, a child had been born—something had caused them to pause and take stock of their lives.

The researchers understood the crisis bit, but questioned, Why the church? More than 80% said it was because they’d had a positive experience at a Christian camp or conference. They remembered their story.

It was a Saturday at Mo. The children from the summer camp session were doing what children do—running, laughing, playing—while parents were gathering at the pavilion for the closing ceremony. One woman was watching the children play, tears flowed down in torrents.

One of our folks noticed and asked if she could help.

“Thank you” she said, “These are tears of joy. See that boy over there?” Looking, they saw a child of twelve or so; he was running and laughing and having a good old camp time. “He’s my son and I knew that about Tuesday you were going to call me to come get him.” Her story— a single mom, abandoned; no support, no husband, no dad. The son had spent more time in detention than class this past year, lots of fights, evidence of smoking, cursing. He came to Mo because of the generosity of a donor who funded a full-camp scholarship.

“Look at him now; he’s a normal little boy!”

I don’t know when, six, twelve, eighteen years from now, that little boy will become a young man and he will face a crisis. And when he does, he’s likely to return to a pew; because he’ll remember Mo as that place, where for a time all was well. Chora!

Hear these words written to me from a 14-year-old Mo summer camper: “When I first came to Mo, I was nervous and scared … the staff showed me what I was capable of and made me who I am today. Thank you all.

This is why I want to be an LIT (Leadership in Training) counselor—to show people they don’t have to be scared, that they have a second family, that they can tell their story. I’ve never forgotten Mo-Ranch, and I never will. I want to go back the most—to become a story in someone else’s life.”

Mo defines chora, yet Mo is more than even that; it’s a place set apart, a place where stories are made; memories are lived. It’s more than a place on a map, it’s a place in v our hearts.

Summer | Fall 2016 | 15

twenty-seventh speedway

Words

Continued from page 7 blossom and encourage and embrace and enlarge and heal. Words that go deep down to the marrow of who we are and begin from there to do their business. If someone has ever spoken to you words like that, you know, I imagine, what a difference they make.

One of the reasons that I love this church—not just the Presbyterian Church, but the church of Jesus Christ generally considered, the gathering of people on this earth so capable of missing the mark, so foolish and faithless and disappointing, so able to make a mess of things until sometimes we’re just tempted to throw our hands up and say “to Hell with it”—nonetheless, one of the reasons that I love the church … actually, in the final analysis, the only reason that I love the church … is that Jesus Christ loves the church.

Don’t ask me why, but in the gospels, there is instance after instance after instance of him using his words to tell people what they look like in the eyes of God. Starting with Peter. There’s a lot of biblical evidence for what a dunderhead he was. Up there on that Mount of Transfiguration, when Jesus was joined by Moses and Elijah, Peter didn’t know what to say, writes Mark, so here’s what he said, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let’s build three

microdwellings—one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah, and we’ll just stay up here forever. That was a stupid thing to say! When our trustee Chris Currie preached in chapel this past Friday, he read a text I’ve heard a hundred times before—John 21, Jesus standing on the shore coaching seven disciples in the boat as to where to cast in order to catch some fish. And when Peter saw the resurrected Jesus—he was naked there in that boat, it was probably a hot day, it was just the boys—he put on some clothes and jumped into the sea! Who puts on a pair of slacks and a tie and some shoes to go swimming? Peter was not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. But Jesus sees him the way God sees him; and ultimately he uses his words to say, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.”

Words like that—if you’re the one speaking them to somebody else, or if somebody else is speaking them to you—may be the most important words ever spoken in your life. “In the beginning was the Word,” writes John in his first chapter, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth …” And because that Word still becomes flesh, and still dwells amongst even us and even now, I charge you to go out into a world filled with words … to speak words that make a difference.

Words that are full of grace and truth. v

The Class of 2016 Doctor of Ministry Graduates Duncan McColl

Master of Arts (Theological Studies) Graduates

Johanna Elizabeth Tice McLeod

UMC; Community Pastor, Riverside Community Church, San Antonio, Texas

Pastor, Head of Staff, First Presbyterian Church, Fullerton, California; Doctoral Project: “Rising Above The Gutenberg Ceiling: Learning to Preach to Digital Natives” Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Alpine, Texas; Moderator, Tres Rios Presbytery; Doctoral Project: “Presbyterian Mission Initiatives in the Caribbean and Latin America, 1555-2012: A Summary of Where We Have Been and Where We Are Going”

John Hinkebein

Arnold Mlindakaya Phiri

Church of Central Africa-Presbyterian; Director, Lay Training Center for Mission and Evangelism, CCAP Church, Mzuzu, Malawi

Lori Ruge-Jones

Pastor, Living Word Lutheran Church, Buda, Texas; Doctoral Project: “Written on Our Hearts: Biblical Storytelling as Spiritual Discipline”

Ken Snodgrass

UMC; Plans to network with local churches in the Austin area to address socio-economic needs

Jonathan Tribin Scanlon

Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Clarion, Pennsylvania; Doctoral Project: “Why Can’t We Be Friends?

An Effort at Reconciliation”

Lee Stewart

PC(USA); Plans to volunteer and serve in a lay capacity

Master of Arts in Ministry Practice Graduate Reese Henry III

UMC, Rio Texas Conference; Pastor, Hope Arise United Methodist Church, San Antonio, Texas

16 | Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

The Class of 2016 Master of Divinity Graduates Matthew Aldas

Courtney Hill Root

Jan Quirl

PC(USA), Mission Presbytery; Director of Children and Youth Ministries, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Austin, Texas

PC(USA), Mission Presbytery; Completing candidacy requirements in the PC(USA)

Tricia Argust

PC(USA), Mission Presbytery; Completing candidacy requirements in the PC(USA)

UMC, Rio Texas Conference; Pastor, First United Methodist Church, Carrizo Springs, Texas

UMC, Rio Texas Conference; Pastor, First United Methodist Church, Weimar, Texas

Laura Arthur

Church of Christ; Working in Accounts Receivable, Austin Wood Recycling, Cedar Park, Texas

Sarah Kammerdiener

American Baptist & Alliance of Baptists; CPE Residency at Seton Hospital System, Austin, Texas

Nondenominational; Young Adult and Latino Ministries Leader, One Chapel, Austin, Texas

Dagne Balcha

Mike Koski

UMC, Rio Texas Conference; Discipleship Formation Team and Worship Leader, Bethany United Methodist Church, Austin, Texas

Baptist; Director of Ethiopian Outreach, High Pointe Baptist Church, Austin, Texas

Brianna Benzinger

PC(USA), Grace Presbytery; Pursuing a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Ecumenical Studies, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Kris Brown

PC(USA), Mission Presbytery; Certified ready to receive a call

Sarah Chancellor-Watson ‡

PC(USA), Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery; Associate Pastor for Mission, St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church, New Orleans, Louisiana

Marsha Clarke

Nondenominational; Currently employed

by Texas Department of Health and Human Services, Austin, Texas

Candice Combs

Lutheran, ELCA; Externship, Triumphant Love Lutheran Church, Austin, Texas

Ryan Gaffney

PC(USA), Northern Kansas Presbytery; Completing candidacy requirements in the PC(USA)

Jacob Hunter

Southern Baptist; Pursuing a ThM degree in Theology at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas

Sarah Lancaster

UMC, Rio Texas Conference; Seeking church employment in the southwest Texas area

Ryan Larkin

PC(USA), Mission Presbytery; Director of Children,Youth, and Young Adults, First Presbyterian Church, Palo Alto, California

Greg Six

PC(USA), Palo Duro Presbytery; Seeking employment with Mobile Loaves and Fishes of Austin

Barbara Tomek-White

PC(USA), South Louisiana Presbytery; Certified ready to receive a call

Christine Wagner

Andy Lemlyn

PC(USA), Mission Presbytery; Pastoral Externship, First Presbyterian Church, Cuero, Texas

Amanda Mackey

PC(USA), Heartland Presbytery; Certified ready to receive a call

Wendy Manuel

Janet Hahn

Kevin Henderson

Kelly Shoenfelt

National Baptist; Associate Minister for Youth, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Austin, Texas

UMC, Central Texas Conference; Associate Pastor, First United Methodist Church, Temple, Texas

PC(USA), Sheppards and Lapsley Presbytery; Pursuing CPE Residency programs in Texas

José Ruiz Jr.

Kathy Lee-Cornell ‡

PC(USA), South Louisiana Presbytery; Certified ready to receive a call in the PC(USA) in the Houston, Texas, area

Travis Gould

UMC, Rio Texas Conference; Pastor, Lytton Springs United Methodist Church, Lytton Springs, Texas

Susan Rang

PC(USA), Presbytery of Northern Kansas; Certified ready to receive a call in Kansas

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); CPE Residency program, Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital, St. Louis Park, Minnesota

Lutheran, ELCA; Externship, First English Lutheran Church, Austin; also part-time work with Zen Learning Project

Lutheran, ELCA; CPE Residency at Seton Hospital System, Austin, Texas

Don Moore

Jessica Percer

Episcopal Church; Pursuing teaching opportunities in the Austin, Texas, area

Walter Prescher III UMC, Rio Texas Conference; Pastor, Leakey United Methodist Church, Leakey, Texas

William West

Linda Whiteside

Unity Church; Pastor, Unity Church of Georgetown, Georgetown, Texas

Daniel Williams

PC(USA), Presbytery of Santa Fe; Director of Education, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Austin, Texas

Cheryl Wilson

AME Church, 10th District; Pastor of Salter Chapel AME Church in Victoria, Texas

Jarell Wilson

UMC, Rio Texas Conference; Church Planting Residency, Urban Village Church, Chicago, Illinois

Adrienne Zermeno

UMC, Rio Texas Conference; Pastor, First United Methodist Church of Three Rivers, Three Rivers, Texas

‡ Recipient of a Dual Degree with The University of Texas School of Social Work Summer | Fall 2016 | 17

live learn

upcoming from education beyond the walls | Word in the Wilderness | Sept. 8-10 | In Partnership with Dwight Mission Camp and Conference Center, Oklahoma | Dr. Suzie Park | This is a new event for pastors, elders, and all who wish to learn more about God’s word in an outdoor ministry setting. The event will combine thoughtful and challenging lectures from the academy, powerful preaching and worship, activities that range from adventurous to leisurely, and the joy of fellowship with God’s people in God’s creation. | For anyone interested in a retreat with a biblical focus | Cost: $250 (includes food and lodging)

Caregiving: Beyond Casseroles – Holistic Care for New Moms and Dads | Sept. 10, 9:00 a.m.–noon | Rev. Stephanie Spitzer-Hanks | What are faith

communities uniquely positioned to offer to parents as they navigate the emotional and spiritual transition of bringing a child into the world? Learn about the crucial role your church can play in supporting moms and dads who struggle with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, birth trauma, and other challenges specific to the childbearing year. | For pastoral care staff, caregivers of all kinds, and both new and seasoned parents | Cost: $25

Who is Jesus? What a Difference a Lens Makes | Sept. 24, 9:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. | Rev. Dr. Judy Yates Siker | Come, go on a journey of heart and mind to expand your understanding of who Jesus was and is. Prepare to lead others through this year’s Presbyterian Women’s Horizons Bible Study as you explore with its author various lenses on the life of Jesus. | Cost: $60/person; $25/person in groups of two or more (lunch included) REFOCUS: Healing the Hurt 2.0 | Oct. 10-12 | Dr. Chap Clark | People who work with youth spend their hearts, souls, minds, and energy nurturing teenagers. REFOCUS creates time and space for nurturing these workers with resources, fellowship, a fresh outlook, and a time to be on the receiving end of ministry. During the process, you’ll also learn how to provide meaningful pastoral care to today’s teenagers. | For parents, pastors, and youth workers of all kinds | Cost: $100-$150 (some meals included) Cross-Generational Ministry | Oct. 17-19 | Rev. Jon Brown | In Partnership with

SCRAPCE | We are called to be the “Beloved Community.” Too often we are age-segregated groups existing together. Learn from proven models and experiences of worship, mission, education, and fellowship to discover how we can reach beyond the usual boundaries to become the Beloved Community we were meant to be! | For Christian educators, clergy, and other church leaders | Cost: $175 ($75 for APCE Members & UMC Commissioned Parish Christian Educators; some meals included)

The Power and Practice of Personal Storytelling | Oct. 24-26 | Mr. Mark Yaconelli | In Association with The College of Pastoral Leaders | Discover how to tell the story of your life, to connect it with God’s story, and to lead other people toward the same discovery.

Through contemplative exercises, theological reflection, and a variety of narrative practices, participants will encounter the power of personal storytelling for healing, community building, social justice, and other ministries. The seminar will culminate in a night of public storytelling at a local Austin venue. | For pastors, educators, and people in all kinds of leadership roles | Cost: $275 (meals included)

o SoulSt Renewa

ey e Jo u rn l fo r th

Soul Stop is designed to provide a space for renewal and a community of peers with whom pastors can share regular practices of reflection, experiences of refreshment, and the stimulation of new ideas.

Within a group of twelve participants, you will spend four days on the Seminary campus, November 7-10.

Each day you will have time for silence and solitude, for mutual engagement, for learning, and for fun. You will meet with three Austin Seminary professors and Mark Yaconelli, founder of The Hearth. Over the next year, you will stay connected by gathering in cyberspace for an hour each month.

In its inaugural year, registration is limited to Austin Seminary graduates.

For more information: AustinSeminary.edu/soul

webXtra:

Communitas, the journal of Education Beyond the Walls, is a collection of essays written by 2014 Fellows in Pastoral Leadership for Public Life.

Post-Election Detox | Nov. 9, 7:00–9:00 p.m. | In Partnership with The Front Porch

| Votes will be in and counted; political ads will have come to a close. How will you recover from the political rhetoric and pernicious pageantry of the November election? Join us for a playful, creative, and nonpartisan post-election detox service where local poets, improvisers, and musicians will be your guides to regaining a sense of sanity, belonging, and a focus on the eternal. Stay for a dialogue with the artists to consider ways you can incorporate new art forms into your faith community’s worship. | For people of faith, people of no particular faith, and anyone with election fatigue | Cost: $10 suggested donation

AustinSeminary.edu/ AustinSeminary.edu/ebwworkshops Communitas

18 | Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

p

faculty news notes

faculty notes | Jennifer Lord, The Dorothy B. Vickery Professor of Homiletics and Liturgical Studies, is researching the recent history of church bell-ringing in the Russian tradition. She presented a brief history of the formation and theology of the Revised Common Lectionary for the editorial board of Connections.

At General Assembly this summer Paul Hooker, associate dean for ministerial formation and advanced studies, co-taught (with Cliff Kirkpatrick) a course, “Presbyterianism: Policies and Procedures” about the operation of the General Assembly, and served as committee parliamentarian for Committee 04, The Way Forward, which deals with a variety of proposals for structural change in the assembly’s operations.

Always Being Reformed: Challenges and Prospects for the Future of Reformed Theology, a book edited by Academic Dean David H. Jensen is out from Pickwick Publications. It is the collection of essays that emerged from Austin Seminary’s first Frierson Conference on Reformed Theology.

W.C. Brown Professor of Theology Cynthia L. Rigby presented the paper, “Confessing Sin, Undoing Hypocrisy,” at a conference for philosophers and theologians at Notre Dame University in May. Philip Wingeier-Rayo, associate professor of evangelism, mission, and Methodist studies, has a chapter published in Global Renewal Christianity (eds. Vinson Synon, Amos Yong, and Miguel Alvarez).

Eric Wall, assistant professor of sacred music and dean of the chapel, wrote “What is a Hymn Festival?” in the spring 2016 issue of The Hymn: A Journal of Congregational Song (the journal of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada). v

good reads |

C

lick on the American Movie Classics channel and you will likely enter into a world that seems quite distinct from America in 2016. Whether glamorous or quaint, portraying polite civility or eyewidening racism or sexism, the way people lived was different. Were people different?

David Brooks convincingly argues that the shape of our characters, and how our characters are shaped, has changed. The meritocracy now reigns in which people are formed to make the most of their capacities to make a living with precious little knowledge about how to live.

For people who intuit this change and want more understanding, this book is a page-turner. Drawing from the two creation stories in Genesis, Brooks establishes a code for two fundamental human virtues: Adam I has “résumé virtues.”

He wants to build, discover, produce, achieve, and be successful. Adam II has “eulogy virtues.” He attends to the inner life, charity, redemption, love, relationship, and humility. People with character, according to Brooks, find Adam I bowing before Adam II. Each chapter unfolds the story of a moral exemplar, a person who cultivated strong character and draws out the lessons from their lives without being pedantic. He shows us their virtues and complexities without collapsing them into one-dimensional hero figures.

Brooks argues that Adam I and Adam II are out of balance. He skillfully avoids the simplistic but tempting “Adam I bad/Adam II good” dichotomy. Instead, he claims our current culture makes it difficult to develop deep moral character. The last chapter includes a satisfying walk on the path from biblical worldview of moral realism to the

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21st-century meritocracy. This alone is worth the price of the book.

While this is not a “Christian” book, Christianity shows up in Brooks’ work. Some of the moral exemplars come to a place of Christian faith at their center—Augustine of Hippo, Dorothy Day, Frances Perkins. But also, the road to character marked by Brooks includes reliance on something outside the self at critical moments. Friends, family, and God all appear as necessary companions.

Brooks talks about sin as a fundamental truth, respected rather than ridiculed as old-fashioned.

In fact, here Christian readers might find fresh language and new expressions for our vocabularies to replace the worn out words that alienate people outside the faith.

Finally, this is a work of integrity: the writing itself does what the author suggests the readers should do. Brooks does not put himself in the story, as is appropriate for a person of good character, but he does tell this story to find his own road to character as much as offering it for others, as he very briefly and quite modestly self-discloses in the Introduction. (“I wrote it, to be honest, to save my soul.”) But once he launches into the plan of the book, as he calls it, he walks along with the reader as a learned interpreter who shares what he has come to see without bombast, vehemence, shaming, or ideology. Brooks offers us his gift with grace. v —Written by Melissa Wiginton, vice president for Education Beyond the Walls and research professor in Methodist studies.

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Summer | Fall 2016 | 19

alumni news notes

class notes |

Where there’s a

Will there’s a Legacy

Please visit our Planned Giving website Estate planning information to assist you in creating the legacy that is right for you. http://austinseminary. giftlegacy.com

1990s Brian L. Merritt (MDiv’98), Carol Howard Merritt (MDiv’98), and Annanda Barclay (MDiv’14) contributed to the new book by Rick UffordChase, Faithful Resistance: Gospel Visions for the Church in a Time of Empire (Unshelved, 2016).

2000s Kevin Downer (MDiv’06) earned the DMin from Chicago Theological Seminary in May. He has been called as the interim senior pastor of Founders Metropolitan Community Church in Los Angeles, the founding congregation of the MCC denomination.

Helen Boursier (MDiv’07) gave two papers at an AAR/SBL meeting related to her work inside the immigrant family detention center at Karnes City, Texas. She was honorably retired from Mission Presbytery in June and is teaching theological and religious studies online.

2010s Jonathan Scanlon (DMin’16) is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Clarion, Pennsylvania.

Ryan J. Gaffney (MDiv’16) married Tiffany Taylor, June 26, 2016.

Travis E. Gould (MDiv’16) married Katy Fitzhugh, June 4, 2016.

ordinations | • Personal Planning • Financial News • Tips for Savvy Living and more

Austin Seminary trustee and alumnus James Lee dies

Mitchell D. Kolls (MDiv’12), ordained and installed as associate pastor, Dripping Springs Presbyterian Church, March 6, 2016 Krystal Leedy (MDiv’11), ordained and installed as associate pastor, University Presbyterian Church, Austin, April 3, 2016

in memoriam | Marcie D. Brown (MDiv’98), Sanderson, Texas, May 1, 2016

20 | Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

James Lee celebrated, with characteristic joy, the wedding last summer of Michelle Bach and John Harrison (MDiv’15).

T

he Reverend James Hickson Lee (MDiv’00), who held a unique position in the life and work of Austin Seminary as student, employee, alumni association board member, and current member of the board of trustees, died on May 6. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), he served New Covenant Fellowship (NCF) in Austin, Texas, a new church development he started in 2003.

“The Austin Seminary community mourns the loss of the Reverend James Lee,” said Austin Seminary President Theodore J. Wardlaw. “He was a mentor and pastor to numerous students and alums and an ongoing friend of so many members of this community. We share deep sadness with all those he touched and give witness to the Resurrection with thanksgiving for his amazing life.”

Lee was the current moderator of Mission Presbytery.

He was also moderator of the Presbyterian Intercultural Network and served on the Board of Mo-Ranch; he was a consultant for and member of the African American Ministries in the Synod of the Sun, served as chair for the Church Development and Evangelism Division for Mission Presbytery, and served on the field staff for the Intercultural Ministries of the PC(USA).

After playing football and graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, Lee earned the MDiv and was ordained to serve as director of Racial Ethnic Ministries and Recruitment for Austin Seminary in 2002. He served on the Austin Seminary Association Board (2004-2007) and on the Seminary’s Board of Trustees (2010-present).

Before attending seminary, Lee spent more than ten years serving as an associate pastor at the East Nineteenth Street Missionary Baptist Church in Austin, Texas.

Services were held on May 17 at Shoreline Church in Austin; Trish Holland (MDiv’68) and Jeff Saddington (MDiv’11) assisted in the service.

teaching ministry

Reflections on Christian education in a modern world

By David F. White, The C. Ellis and Nancy Gribble Nelson Professor of Christian Education & Professor of Methodist Studies

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hristian education involves a set of practices to form the church for participation in God’s work of redemption. The mention of Christian education evokes, for some, images of busy children in Sunday school classrooms gathered around Bible stories or well-rehearsed doctrines—once creatively displayed in flannel boards, now replaced by video media. In many such classrooms, good foundations for Christian faith have been laid; yet, it is limited in its focus on children, classrooms, and the life of the mind. This model is also problematic because it envisions Christian learning as something individuals engage for individualistic purposes—such as attaining good personal theology, personal salvation, or equipping individuals for engaging in merely personal mission.

In light of our society’s overwhelming emphasis on individualism, we are well served in our bid to understand the aims of Christian education to know something about Christian theology. In other words, we must be able to perceive human flourishing in light of God’s coming reign glimpsed in the church. In the church we learn to see with new eyes, hear with new ears, and feel with new hearts a world enchanted by God, who invites all creatures to live more fully into the purpose for which we are created—to worship and enjoy God forever. In the church, liturgy is the work of the people that overflows the sanctuary into the broken world. As we celebrate the beauty of God’s gift in Jesus Christ in worship, so then we offer our gifts back to God, crafting lives fitting to the gift we have been given— not as indulgence, but as gratitude. If Christian education is to grasp its true purpose then it must take seriously the identity and role of the church in

God’s ecology of salvation. These are the initiating impulses of Christian education. The first and guiding concept in Christian education is “the church” as a people, a corporate body.

Unfortunately some seem to think they can simply bypass the role of the church on the way to some kind of salvation. Recently, I overheard a pastor proclaim, “Jesus is the heart of faith--not the church.” He added that the church was flawed, and what was truly important was his rather individualistic endeavor to bring justice to a broken society. It is of course true that anyone doing good, seeking truth, or creating beauty participates in God’s work; nevertheless, such a comment ignores the fact that the church is the culmination of God’s salvation for which we yearn most. Yes, the church finds its source in the heart of Jesus Christ, but the church also represents a vast elaboration and extension of God’s heart, eventually encompassing the entire cosmos.

While it would be foolish to ignore the faults of the church on this far side of modernity, it is even more foolish to think that virtues such as love, justice, kindness, loyalty, self-control, and humility—virtues that make life worth living—are simply breathed in with the air of our secular world by individuals apart from a religious tradition. God’s salvation empowers us for a life in which love overcomes hatred; in which God opens our eyes to all creatures’ witness to God; in which generosity is more normative than self-seeking; in which we entrust our good to others; in which joy prevails even amidst suffering; in which we trust God’s promises of deliverance; in which we learn to live in paschal rhythms of lifedeath-life, giving ourselves on behalf of others, even as God gave himself to us; in which communities live in mystical

union with Christ; and by their very reconciled and reconciling differences, challenge the powers that be.

But as expansive and glorious as this vision may be, it demands to be expressed in concrete practices. If our salvation is to be complete—and more than random acts of kindness—there must be places where bands of believers gather at table, in prayer for each other and the world, to remind each other of God’s mighty acts in history, to be once again amazed by God’s Incarnate gift, and to hear how God still calls to us, in our common life and beyond.

Christian education—for those with courage to heed its challenge— involves teaching us how to be God’s beloved community. In Christian education we learn the stories that give shape to our common identity and help us to resist the consumer treadmill of discontent and never-ending yearning.

We learn the rhythms of liturgy that create in us habits of unity, humility, joy, and openness to God and neighbor.

We learn the practices of hospitality, forgiveness, prayer, discernment, truthtelling, justice-seeking, healing, singing, community-building, peace-making, giving testimony, and Sabbath-keeping that keep our lives in continuity with our worship and extend our worship throughout our world.

huIn short, Christian education does not merely tack on old beliefs or new ideas onto our lives, but transforms us in the shape of God’s community and the coming Kingdom. Only in this way will our salvation be complete. Only in this way will the world glimpse the beauty of God in this world. Only in this way will the world be caught up in God’s reign. v Summer Summer||Fall Fall2016 2016| 21

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Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary 100 East 27th Street, Austin, Texas 78705-5711

2017 MidWinters Jan. 30 - Feb. 1 Currie Lecturer

Ted A. Smith

Associate Professor of Preaching and Ethics, Candler School of Theology at Emory University Jones Lecturer

Jerry D. Andrews Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, San Diego Westervelt Lecturer

Donyelle McCray Assistant Professor of Homiletics, Yale Divinity School Preacher

Jill Duffield

Editor of The Presbyterian Outlook Reunions for the Classes of 1957, 1967, 1977, 1987, 1997 & 2007-2016

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