theo|digital

Well, it’s been a difficult road. I’ve been on a brief hiatus from the thesis for about five days—last Friday I turned in a full draft for my advisor’s editing pen. I’m afraid it’ll be rather torn up when it comes back. Instead of feeling relief as I expected, it was probably a low point, feeling like much of my 135 pages of writing was actually rather poor.

I’m feeling a little bit better now (though I haven’t gotten it back yet), although I’m acutely aware of two mental lists: one of edits in each chapter that must happen before I turn in a final draft—things like missing paragraphs, errors, footnote corrections, etc. The other is on general content—sections that I think could use an overhaul. The problem here is that this list is pretty long. I could probably edit and re-write for about a year before I felt like there was stuff here worthy of turning in.

Instead, I think I’m going to have to do the hard work of settling for something that doesn’t meet my expectations, or better put—lower some unrealistic expectations. This is my first attempt at answering a fairly complex question: how does scripture exist and work in a digital context? There are a variety of approaches, and inexhaustible list of questions, and not a few unprovable conjectures. As I hope to continue thinking about these questions for a long time, I’d rather think about this as an opening stab.

Because my advisor (who has enough responsibilities poured on him that I’m not sure how even finds time to read) doesn’t have my copy back yet, there’s not a lot I can complete from my editing lists until I get it back. Even so, I finished writing the short personal introduction today and this afternoon plan on generating a good draft of my bibliography (from Zotero) —something I didn’t include in my draft.

Final copies to readers will probably have to be done by 29 Oct around 2:30pm—Scot McKnight is only around on campus on Thursday afternoon until about this time, and I need to make sure he has enough time to read it.

I’ve never run a marathon. There are good reasons for this. I’ve watched my friends do it, and they don’t look like they’re having fun to me. A whole lot of sweat and bananas and aching lungs and cramps. And their facial expressions. Have you ever seen a marathoner grinning as they run? Plus, when you’re training for the big day, you do this “long run” every Saturday which essentially counts as as mini pain-based rehearsal. Every weekend for months and months. Fun.

Speaking of writing a masters thesis…

I feel like I’ve been mentally training for this race for almost a year and half, and now that I’m in it, I’m pretty sure my brain has a pulled muscle. Don’t get me wrong, I actually still love the topic, which makes me think that I didn’t make the wrong choice when setting my questions. There’s something here I think I will want to continue studying and writing on for the rest of my life. (I guess I’ll admit the real running people have some sorta of the same idea–they *like* running. Weird.)

But for now, the pain is real, and though I’m tired, I’ve gotta keep the pace up as much as I can for the next weeks.

My blog remains on hiatus, sadly.

Upcoming finish lines:
16 Oct – Full Thesis Draft Due
5 Nov – Thesis Defense

phew. where’s that aid station?

The latest issue of Innocent Words is out today, including my review of Brooklyn-based Anthem In.

Today is also my first official day of classes, and I’ve already mentally moved to writing arcane run-on sentences in academic style. It’s always hard to make the shift. I’ll probably have to come back with the editing pen and cut out all those illegal contractions and pop-culture references. Sigh.

I realized last Thursday afternoon right as I was about to being my second class of the morning (“Church and Sacrament”) that I feel Done.

Done with seminary classroom learning.  Ready to move to the next thing.

By done I don’t mean “want to quit” or “frustrated” or “need to escape” or “overwhelmed.”  I mean more “done” in the sense we feel after a robust meal–the main dish still sitting as an invitation in the middle of the table, but receiving less attention than the conversation and brandy and smiles slowing the evening.  Satiated.  Done.

It’s hard to believe I’ve almost completed two full years of classes.  And they’ve tasted good.  Old and New Testaments, Church History, Christianity and culture.  Despite reading widely in Christian worlds before arriving, this experience calibrated me for the academic landscape of the history of Christian thought.  Gave me challenges and new ideas, but mostly taught me better how to teach myself.

This is important, because the one thing you find out fast is how much you don’t know, and how much you probably won’t get to.  Not even in the next twenty years.  It’s this feeling of swimming in the ocean of knowledge. I know it because I sense it every time I see a new pile of free books discarded by a professor in the basement of the seminary—available for the taking.  I’m too eager… reading titles, setting aside my stack… wondering how it’s possible I don’t even know how to *classify* some of them.  And eventually, if I’m not careful, my intellectual curiosity drowns me into irrelevance.

So I need to start moving away from the seminary book table in Life, and head back outside.  A few things stirred this in me in the last weeks.  Seeing pictures of my home church serving the underprivileged in Memphis.  Visiting a city home group that sat and discussed how to follow Jesus.  A long conversation with a friend that orbited the gospel as the only real answer to love and purpose.  This is remembering how powerful being a “minister of the gospel” really is.  How much I have loved this and want to continue.

I don’t regret this decision to take a step back and study.  I was so excited!  I know many of my classmates arrived somewhat “Done” in the first month (a side effect, sadly, of a system that requires an identical “professional” degree for those that seek pastoral leadership, regardless of their diverse gifting).  But I wasn’t.  This is one of the ways he’s made me—this crazy mental curiousity.  I’ve lasted almost a year and a half.  Sure there have been a couple classes that were partial duds.  And plenty of times where I’ve been exhausted from the work and needed rest.  But in general, my intrinsic motivation remained very strong.

But now I think I’m Done.

I’ll make it through these last requirements.  I still have several:  complete this term.  Then finish a thesis and six additional hours in the Fall.  But I’ll find myself looking toward the future.  Toward turning my gifts toward buiding the kingdom again, back on the front line.  Not in the basement.

When I was originally on my grad school and then seminary search, I was hugely attracted to Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle. Already familiar with their President Dan Allender, the way MGHS framed their approach to theological education through a Deep Beauty view of the world called to me like family I hadn’t yet known.

But in the end, though I struggled, I wound up dismissing them because they did not yet have the accreditation I needed to keep the door open for PhD work. But I still like to keep tabs on them now and then.  Check out this great promo video on loving your neighbor.

mhgs what no. 2 from blaine hogan on Vimeo.
(I don’t know who Blaine Hogan is, but I have noticed that it looks like he just recently moved over to my neck of the woods to work for Willow)

I still have this funny hope that’ll I’ll find some connection with MHGS people. It’s been a rather different experience here at NPTS… as an artist I sense I’ve shelved an entire side of me.  The social tone and space is warm, but encourages a traditionalism more akin to the Thanksgiving silk flowers on your parents table than the open mic, silver and expectant in the upstairs part of the gallery. The portraits in the halls are of elderly Swedes (none of whom I know about).  Culture is recognized here, but as something “other?”—something to be studied (vs. created). Sometimes it is perhaps presented in contradictory ways. My communicating the faith class made attempts, but at the end of the day had a superficial, contrived approach (to its defense–it’s focus was personal evangelism). My theology class and others have had a incredibly dim view of beauty in the face of sin. I haven’t had a class with missiologist Paul DeNeui (I typically find the missiologists the most insightful on culture in general). But I suspect that none of our classes embody expression that is detailed, creative, playful, and revelatory. I haven’t seen professors here that think this way. (Nor at TEDS, where I’ve taken some additional courses).  Honestly, I think there are only a few classmates here that would naturally fit in a MHGS-lensed world.  Only a few of us who want to talk about life as art, indie music, and discover truth while tracing a twilight skyline.

Which again is hardly to discount the things I like very much at North Park. Just to wonder again at how I’m a “different person” here than I might be elsewhere.

First snow that’s stuck.

The Covenant Church website has a feature story on my roommate and classmate, Luke Johnson.

‘Frisbee’ Passion Drives Student’s Choice of Seminary

By Stan Friedman

CHICAGO, IL (November 11, 2008) –  Luke Johnson had to decide whether to work fulltime for Young Life or attend North Park Theological Seminary. The decision was a difficult one as the seminary had offered him a Presidential Scholarship, which would pay all of his tuition.

In the end, Johnson says he chose the seminary because it gave him the opportunity to play Ultimate Frisbee.

Johnson is one of a number of North Park students and Covenanters – especially youth groups – across the country who are passionate about the game. The school also increasingly has become a national presence in both men’s and women’s competition.
Read the rest

One of easiest ways to stress myself out is spin myself into a materialistic web of anxious theological book shopping.  The Logos/Libronix software is my downfall on this. When I first hit seminary, I realized a Bible software program could be really helpful.  Though my professors tend to use Bibleworks in class, I looked at the options and chose Logos for two reasons:  it seemed better suited for a well-rounded collection with commentaries, etc.  And it’s interface design was significantly better than Bibleworks (which has toolbars that look as if a programmer mashed them together using tinkertoys).

I had sticker shock when I first looked at the base-packages—they range from $150 to $1379.95—whoa! Because my degree was going to be more theological in nature and wasn’t going to allow me to do any original language work, I chose the Bible Study Library package. It really didn’t have everything I wanted, but I couldn’t justify jumping to the Scholars library, which had lots of resources I’d just never use (I really think they ought to have a better “between” package there… but maybe more on that another time).

So now I’ve slowly been buying additional resources to add to my library, which is fun but really expensive.

Until Nov 10th, Logos has a sale again for North Park students (they do this every semester), so I’m back to wanting more stuff.

Here’s the possibilities:

1. Interlinear LXX (Septuagint) – $109.  Greek version of the Old Testament.  Almost essential to word studies, etc.
2. BDAG/HALOT – $275.  The most authoritative academic standard lexicons (dictionaries) for Greek and Hebrew.
3. IVP Reference Dictionaries.  $120 Includes Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, and like eight others.
4. Anchor Bible Dictionary.- $250  More comprehensive, scholarly, and liberal than the IVP stuff, but will it be too redundant?
5. The TDNT (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, aka. “Kittel”) – $199.  Massive standard comprehensive theological dictionary.
6. The Word Biblical Commentary Series.  $700  Pretty much all my Bible professors (including McKnight and Snodgrass) say that you shouldn’t purchase one particular series of commentaries–each book tends to have it’s best author, and it can be published in any one of the major series.  But the upside to buying an entire series at once is PRICE… Word Biblical Commentaries tend to be $35-$40 each.  Buy all 60-ish volumes at once?   $12 each!

Argh!  I can’t afford all that!  I can’t afford even smaller portions of that.  I’m not sure who these prices are made for, but not for seminary students living off part-time ministry financial support and student loans.  But to take advantage of the student discount I can get (which helps cut these prices a little, but not enough), I should buy now, while I’m in school.  Plus, I can USE them while in school.  I’ve gotta think about this as long-term investments, I think.

Decisions, decisions…  the sale ends Nov 10.

Seeking to study the intersection of theology with communications and culture has been a deeper sea than I imagined. I’m starting to realize that only two years of formal study can barely scratch the surface, and the overwhelming nature (plus my insatiable curiosity), means that I sometimes find myself out of intellectual oxygen and gasping for shore. It’s been helpful to understand that part of the dilemma is the number of academic approaches that can be taken. It’s this interdisciplinary synthesis that I’m sure is so attractive to me, but also makes me feel like I need to be an expert in all of these areas: which of course is impossible?

I know that I’ve pushed myself toward Communication Studies—and possibly more specifically media studies—as an approach, but this is interdisciplinary as well. Phew.

So approaching my thesis… argh! I’m so wrapped up in grasping an approach, that a specific topic still feels miles away.

From a missiological article:

Comprehensive contextualization is interdisciplinary in its approach to culture. While contextualization is anchored in the Bible, it brings to bear a number of disciplines, each of which has a distinct contribution to make. For example, history enables us to see how faithful Christian communities (and perhaps unfaithful ones as well) have dealt with similar or parallel issues that we face today. Theology helps us to think in biblical ways about a variety of issues being faced. Anthropology offers insights into societies and cultural values, symbols and artifacts that need to be brought into focus through the lens of Scripture. Sociology enables insight into social networks and associations and helps us understand church structures and polity. Linguistics gives insight into the word forms and language issues that are so crucial to communication of the faith. Communication studies offer tools for analysis of persuasion and methods of communication. Psychology helps us understand human dynamics — especially such things as motivations and decision-making — as they are played out in faith settings. Economics helps us understand exchange processes that are essential to the survival of institutionalized faith structures, and politics helps us understand political and legal processes both in and out of the church.
~ Scott Moreau

Sigh. Oh good, I’m not crazy when my brain flips between these things as quickly as changing lanes.

And the most helpful:

Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language. ~ Raymond Williams

Well, I’ve used this blog for years on a variety of ministry and personal topics, including this past year the experience of heading to fulltime work in theological studies for a couple years.

This year marks an entire year of classwork finished, and I’m beginning to need to focus.  The main goal for the next 5-6 months:  choose a specific thesis proposal.

The general topic for my course of study is the “intersection of theology, communications, and culture.”  This means I’ve been focusing on communication studies approaches for looking at theology, but even this is difficult to navigate.

A communications approach could focus on how we communicate theology (e.g. evangelism or “preaching”) and therefore be classified in “ministry” or “missiology.”  Missiology has possibly done some of the best integrative work in communications and culture globally, some of the insights which are finally coming back to hit our local North American context.

OR it could instead look at the process of doing theology (theological reflection) itself.  Noting the cultural context and invisible context which creates fish-in-water assumptions during the process.  I’m particularly curious about the difference the generational distinction of current writing pastors and theologians compared to those that will have grown up in an information age (which I’m sorta on the bleeding age of… 30 years old).  How will the process and assumptions change?  This possibly gets into theological prolegomena (epistomology, etc), which I’ve not had tons of training in.  On the other hand, I can speak with a little bit of cultural knowledge from an online society.

OR I could look at a particular doctrine and the communications dimension within that doctrine, which probably less examines the process.  Ex:  what are the communicative elements of incarnation or sacraments or ecclesiology?

OR… I could look at a theology of communication, a la Vanhoozer’s text as a communicative act that demands a moral responsibility.

Anyway, I hope to upgrade this space to help me process my thoughts in the area, and invite my current friends, partners, but also new friends from the blog world to interact with me as I move through this year of research.