focus is made possible by donations from BU STH alumni and friends

Adventures in Ethics in Adventures Preacher Poet The Marriage Gay for Risking All Play Needs to Church the Why 7 T? 17 12 : Inside S THE S THE 40 H DOING C CHUR ABOUT I communities still struggle struggle still communities of the Dream. a share for I WHAT It’s been more than 50 been more It’s Martin since Luther years against fought King, Jr., but some these wrongs, Spring 2014

Spring 2014 PAID Nonprofit Boston MA US Postage Permit No. 1839 (’90) has always believed believed (’90) has always Hazel Findley Elizabeth And she see God.” that we that “it is in community in the Boston of God more the presence has felt than community School of Theology University else. anywhere through community supports the STH Hazel outright gifts and a bequest aimed at relieving that can be a barrier for the financial constraints strength greatest aspiring theology students. “The

. or [email protected] BU Planned Giving at 800-645-2347 contact learn more, To of planned giving for me is the ability to keep a scholarship running after a scholarship keep to me is the ability of planned giving for I use money The with no children. “I am a widow she explains. death,” my that would of money pool be made part could of a larger living expenses for on.” live to enable the scholarship School of University of Boston the richness is “to keep she says, goal, Hazel’s the awareness open the least because they flowing—not programs Theology other schools and surrounding the communities to presence of God’s and earth heaven between Making the distance in the University. programs shorter is an important faith.” part of my School School of Theology

Boston Boston University 745 Commonwealth Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02215

pursuits, and loved ones. their own passions, educational the School while honoring meaningful ways to strengthen and friends of STH have found Planned Giving office, many alums and support BU. Working with the and support BU. Working both provide tax-exempt income estate, and life-income gifts that estate, and life-income gifts that including bequests, gifts of real alternatives to standard donations, alternatives to standard donations, Planned giving offers many Gift Work That Plans Boston University School of Theology Spring 2014

Dean MARY ELIZABETH MOORE He wasn’t just our teacher. Director of Development & Alumni Relations, retired He was our friend. TED KARPF (’74) Alumni Relations O cer JACLYN K. JONES (’06) Editor JULIE RATTEY Journal Reviewer STEPHANIE A. BUDWEY (’04, ’12) Contributing Writers hat stands out “like a mini- LARA EHRLICH (UNI’03) ANDREW THURSTON Wskirt at a church social”? According to Time magazine in 1966, Designer the answer was motive, the former SHOLA FRIEDENSOHN motive magazine of the Methodist Student Produced by Boston University Movement. First edited by Harold Creative Services Magazine Ehrensperger, who was a profes- focus is funded by donations from sor at Boston University School of alumni and friends to the Boston goes Theology, and published from 1941 University School of Theology to 1972, the magazine was known for Annual Fund. Learn more at digital its avant-garde approach to issues www.bu.edu/sth/giving. including civil rights, the Vietnam War, and homosexuality. Methodist Opinions expressed in focus do activists and figures, including former not necessarily re ect the views Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, of Boston University or the School credit the publication as a formative of Theology. influence, and the Columbia School of Journalism named it runner-up to STAY CONNECTED TO THE Life as Magazine of the Year in 1965. But though scholars study the pub- SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY lication, only the School of Theology Professor Harrell F. Beck (1922–1987) Keep up with STH, share and a few other institutions hold a complete archive, making it di“cult to brought the Hebrew Bible to life as no one else could. your latest news, and access access. STH is digitizing its collection free religious articles at Help STH carry on his legacy with the for the public, with the cooperation of http://go.bu.edu/focus/alums. the United Methodist Church (which HARRELL F. BECK CHAIR holds motive’s copyright) and spon- sorship from STH’s Center for Global OF HEBREW SCRIPTURE. Christianity & Mission. Readers will be able to access the magazines free online and search for content using The goal is to raise $300,000 to fully endow Please recycle this historic position. keywords. STH expects to complete In keeping with Boston University’s the project this spring. Learn more commitment to sustainability, this publication is printed on FSC-certied about motive at www.bu.edu/cgcm/ To contribute, email [email protected], call paper. motive-magazine. q

617-353-2349, or visit www.bu.edu/sth/giving. Courtesy of the General Board of Higher Education & Ministry of the United Methodist Church

0314 TABLE of CONTENTS DEAN’S MESSAGE 2 JOURNAL: SEARCHING FOR JUSTICE

Justice for the 18 Luisa Capetillo’s Dream 36 FEATURES LGBTQ Community Christian anarchists have long In the push for acceptance, churches struggled against oppression and State of Play 10 are among the cause’s greatest allies striven for an alternative vision Former soccer pro Austin and greatest opponents. of communal life. Washington (’16) switches up his By Robert Cummings Neville By Rady Roldán-Figueroa (’05) game as a new student at STH. Professor of philosophy, religion, Assistant professor of the history and theology and dean emeritus The Poet Preacher 12 of Christianity For four decades, Theodore Keeping the Faith 2 4 Lockhart (CAS’65, STH’68) has been Playing toward Liberation 40 For black women facing con ict ghting—and writing—to end prejudice. Make-believe isn’t just for children. between what’s preached at church Playing at the kingdom of God helps Border Crossing 14 and what they experience in their make it a reality. A visit with Syrian refugees and daily lives, it takes creativity to keep By Courtney T. Goto activists taught Erin McKinney (’14) God and faith in the picture. Assistant professor of religious education about keeping the peace. By Phillis Isabella Sheppard Associate professor of pastoral Dreaming with Eyes Open 44 Faith behind Bars 16 psychology and theology As BU’s history reveals, it’s only How prison chaplain Jim Pall (’76) when we match dreams with deeds stays positive in a challenging Strength for the Struggle 28 that great change is possible. ministry When we suer a setback in the By Bishop Peter D. Weaver (’75, search for justice, we needn’t fear Hon.’13) Risking It All 17 that our dreams are out of reach. Why Dean Snyder (’72) puts his By Cameron Partridge Power of the Question 48 ordination on the line to perform Episcopal chaplain In our lifelong pursuit of God, same-sex marriages asking questions is just as important as nding answers. Songs of Justice 32 Following the example of By Ted Karpf (’74) civil rights-era black people, Director of development & alumni relations, the LGBTQ community is retired harnessing hymns to advance its own rights movement. By Stephanie A. Budwey (’04, ’12) ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

STH News: Campaign Update, 4 the Rolling Stones, Women in the World, and More

Lifelong Learning: Livestreaming 52 and Interactive Webinars at STH

motive Magazine Goes Digital 53 Opposite: Photo courtesy of the Beck family

DEAN’S MESSAGE

A DEMANDING DREAM and to love your neighbor as yourself BY MARY ELIZABETH MOORE (12:29–31). Luke oers a dierent sce- nario for these same commands (10:25– What does the Lord require of you 38). His story unfolds with a volley of but to do justice, and to love kindness, questions when a man asks Jesus what and to walk humbly with your God? he must do to inherit eternal life. When (Micah 6:8) Jesus turns the question back to him, the man responds with the commands to Micah’s words pose a demanding answer love God and neighbor. In both Gospels, to the question, “With what shall I come the question has to do with how to live Dean Mary Elizabeth Moore before the Lord, and bow myself before or what God requires, and each time the God on high?” (6:6). He points beyond response is love. the sacricial practice of burnt oer- The commands set forth by Micah ings, even “thousands of rams, with tens and the Gospels are as captivating as they of thousands of rivers of oil” (6:7). He are daunting. They echo in King’s calls instead for a way of living that is Dream speech of more than 50 years thoroughly just, thoroughly loving, and ago; in the eorts of many Muslims, thoroughly humble. Jews, and Christians to build peace in Surely Micah, like Martin Luther the Middle East; in local and global King, Jr. (GRS’55, Hon.’59), had a eorts to eliminate poverty and provide dream that his people might be “free health care for all people. They echo in at last” if they opened themselves to eorts to create religious communities complete transformation. Such pleas for that include every race and ethnicity, justice are unrelenting in Hebrew scrip- gender and gender preference, social ture and in many traditional Jewish prac- class, sexual orientation, and theological tices, whether daily mitzvot, Sabbath, or perspective. Such comprehensive visions Jubilee. And as we see in Micah, justice require justice, kindness, and humility. and kindness are not opposing values; They cannot become realities if people each is a pathway to the other. True are unwilling to stand boldly for justice, justice opens people to deep respect for or if they trample others with unkind- the dignity of the “other,” while true ness, or if they settle for righteous indig- kindness demands justice. And both nation in place of humility. The hollow require humility. places in this world cry out for whole- These themes vibrate in most religious bodied ethical action, which cannot traditions, and they certainly sing out forfeit kindness for justice or justice in Christianity. In Mark, for example, a for humility. scribe asks Jesus, “Which commandment is the rst of all?” (12:28). Jesus gives a A NEW VIE W OF NEIGHBOR radical response—to love God with all We catch glimpses of this ethical

your heart, soul, mind, and strength, action today. In June 2013, the Photo by Chitose Suzuki

22 bostonboston universityuniversity

DEAN’SSupreme Court MESSAGE ruled that married richer and the poor get poorer. We have same-sex couples could receive federal to stretch our attitudes when engag- benets, and it allowed same-sex ing questions of sexuality in a world marriages to continue in California where LGBTQ people struggle for equal by declining to decide (and potentially rights and are continually dismissed as an reverse) a lower court case. In these “issue.” We must stretch our perspec- landmark decisions, the possibility of tives on dialogue to move beyond in- same-gender unions was legally upheld; group agreement and out-group ghting however, clergy in toward genuine listening and respect. some communions We need to be just and kind—to those are still condemned who are like us, those who are dier- We see the dream alive if they perform ent, and those with whom we radically such marriages, disagree. This is the demanding dream today in communities and lesbian, presented by focus 2014. protesting the dispropor- gay, bisexual, tionate number of African transgender, and NO TIME TO LOSE queer (LGBTQ) Now is the time to enact this dream. American men in US prisons, couples continually The goals of justice, kindness, and humil- in the mother who intervenes face discrimination ity seem unrealizable and antithetical, but and recrimination. the world has waited too long to reach for her child whose disability Christian churches for them. It will take bold action, hard attracts daily taunts, and in still mostly fail to decisions, and massive eort. But it can discuss gay marriage be done. We see the dream alive today the father who defends his and all other in communities protesting the dispro- gay child against bullying. matters of sexuality portionate number of African American and gender with men in US prisons, in the mother who We see it in those who say openness to diverse intervenes for her child whose disability Dean Mary Elizabeth Moore “no” to condemnatory points of view, attracts daily taunts, and in the father and they create who defends his gay child against bully- attitudes and habits that few spaces for all ing. We see it in those who say “no” to perpetuate despair among people to live condemnatory attitudes and habits that well together. perpetuate despair among LGBTQ teens. LGBTQ teens. How should we This issue of focus uncovers realities live in such a world? of injustice and possibilities for kind- The weight of ness and humility on the Syrian border, scripture points to a challenging vision. in prisons, and in local congregations. It Give your love fully to God and neigh- uncovers inner struggles of black women bor, and, while you are at it, stretch and discouraging setbacks on the justice your understanding of neighbor. We journey. But it also poses practices of have to expand our visions of justice in a singing for justice, liberative play, and world so accustomed to violent injustice. persistent questioning. These dreams and We must stretch our comprehension of actions ask much of us, but they also economic systems in which the rich get promise much in return. q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 3 STH NEWS

RAISED IN ENDOWED THE MISSION CONTINUES SCHOLARSHIPS:

ore distance learn- ing opportunities, FUNDING RAISED FOR Mprestigious faculty, FACULTY CHAIRS research funding, and exciting student travel are coming to the $1M School of Theology thanks to its first-ever campaign, o’cially launched in 2012. STH is nearly HARRELL F. BECK CHAIR halfway to its $25 million goal. OF HEBREW SCRIPTURE: Here are highlights from the CAMPAIGN GOAL: campaign, to be accomplished by 2017: 70% $25,000,000

RAISED: RECORD NUMBER OF ALUMS WHO GAVE TO $12,000,300 STH IN FISCAL YEAR 2013: WALTER G. MUELDER CHAIR OF SOCIAL ETHICS: 100%

832 RAISED TO CREATE THE STH RAISED FOR COMMUNITY CENTER: STUDENT HOUSING: TRUMAN COLLINS CHAIR OF WORLD CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY OF MISSION: $1.4M 100% $1.2M

Read more about STH’s FACULTY, STAFF, campaign goals and AND DEAN’S projects at www.bu.edu/ ADVISORY BOARD sth/giving. MEMBERS WHO’VE PLEDGED SUPPORT: 100%

4 boston university STH NEWS

INVESTIGATING THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIANITY

brainstorm about what work is needed, and explore ideas for col- laboration. They also discussed what “world Christianity” means today— a topic that could spark a future conference. Research in the area still generally re ects world Christianity’s origins in issues relat- ing to the Global South and immi- grant churches in the West, but many teachers now include Europe and North America as well. Connecting world Christianity

Photo courtesy of the CGCM centers and their resources will Center for Global Christianity & Mission Director Dana L. Robert with three of her former stu- dents at the World Christianity Forum. From left to right: Xiyi Yao (’00) of Gordon-Conwell assist not only scholars and center Theological Seminary, Charles Farhadian (GRS’01) of Westmont College, and Sung Deuk leaders, but also STH students. Oak (’02) of UCLA “We have a lot of international Centers of world Christianity until now. In October 2013, center students, and they want docu- don’t just document religion’s leaders and world Christianity mentation on how Christianity past—they also investigate its scholars from the United States and started in their countries,” says future, by exploring everything Europe visited STH for a ground- Dana L. Robert, CGCM’s direc- from Christianity’s growing popu- breaking meeting. The three-day tor and Truman Collins Professor larity in Asia to implications of the World Christianity Forum, cospon- of World Christianity and History rise of global Islam. There’s much sored by STH’s Center for Global of Mission. “This is like the begin- that leaders of these academic orga- Christianity & Mission (CGCM), ning of their own histories.” nizations could share, but they’ve gave attendees a chance to discuss For more information, visit had little opportunity to connect— the role centers play in the eld, www.bu.edu/cgcm. q

STH LAUNCHES QUEER THEOLOGY COURSE

How did queer theology emerge, Queer Theology, which was held brothers and sisters as wholly con- and how does it a ect Christian at Union and was previously avail- servative,” says Pamela Lightsey, faith and practice? This is the able at STH only as an independent the STH clinical assistant professor focus of a groundbreaking course study, is believed to be the only of contextual theology who taught launched in September 2013 by graduate class of its kind taught with the course, “and I wanted to say, STH and Union United Methodist a mainline congregation. It is tenta- ‘No, there are black churches that Church, Boston’s only LGBTQ- tively slated to repeat in fall 2014. are open and arming and that arming black church and a former “The black Church has been want to have a discussion about stop on the Underground Railroad. sort of put up by our conservative sexual identity.’” q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 5 STH NEWS

FINDING FEMALE They’re bright, talented, and such as, “As a woman, how do POWER successful—but they feel like you negotiate power dynamics in imposters. “A lot of women— your unique leadership position?” even career women in really and “What are the places where advanced positions—sometimes you feel powerless?” The annual struggle with low self-con- conference, says Choi, encourages dence. They doubt their ability women to recognize their innate to be leaders,” says Choi Hee value. “We give them the voice An, director of STH’s Anna to be heard.” Howard Shaw Center. Choi The conference will take place hopes the center’s 2014 Women March 26 at the Anna Howard in the World Conference— Shaw Center. To register for “Leadership: Women and Power the conference and/or the Anna Dynamics”—will help women Howard Shaw Award Banquet, “nd what powers they have which follows the conference and inside of them.” Speakers, includ- honors STH Lecturer and Bishop ing former Massachusetts State in Residence Susan Hassinger, visit Representative Shirley Owens- http://go.bu.edu/women2014 or Choi Hee An Hicks, will explore questions call 617-353-3059. q Photo by Pippa Mpunzwana

CONGREGATIONAL TROUBLESHOOTING ONLINE

How can a congregation and social media. The website, Start your congregational trou- increase racial diversity, success- supported by $300,000 from the bleshooting at www.studying fully share worship space with Lilly Endowment, aims in part to congregations.org. q another community, or conduct replace the project team’s popular research to learn why its attendance print handbooks on congrega- numbers are falling? Church lead- tional studies. ers can nd answers to these and Website Director Ellen Childs other questions at www.studying expects the site will act as a digital congregations.org, a free web- consultant for dwindling, nancially site hosted by STH and Hartford challenged congregations, helping Seminary’s Congregational Studies them gain access to useful research Project Team. The site, which and determine what questions and launched in November 2013, oers issues to explore. “We’re trying to resources for studying and lead- give them a ghting chance at dis- ing congregations, including case cussion,” says Childs. “That’s what studies, expert commentary, and congregational consultants do: they social science methods and theo- observe and listen and create a plan ries. Site visitors can interact with for the future, and not everybody experts and each other via a blog can aord that.”

6 boston university STH NEWS

ADVENTURES IN ETHICS What do you most hope to impart respect one another, and maybe to STH students? we can come together on some I think what I most want to impart other issues in the future.” is the diversity of ethical arguments, whether they are religiously based What gives you hope that we can move or not. I try to communicate that in that direction despite how polarized there’s no one Christian perspec- society can be? tive. And I try to get students away The things that give me hope from the notion that ethics is one are organizations like the United thing, and that their ethics is the Nations, ecumenical organiza- only one thing. I think that makes tions, interfaith organizations. for humility on the part of people Congress, as stalemated as it has trying to act in a moral way. It’s been, still stands as a beacon of important not simply to arm in a the necessity of people repre- Photo courtesy of Peter J. Paris Peter J. Paris vacuous way that others are moral, senting diverse communities and but to learn something about the constituencies guring out ways Peter J. Paris’s adventures in ways in which they are moral, the of working together. There’s no ethics and justice have led him ways in which they consider them- blueprint that tells them how to everywhere, from Nigeria— selves to be moral, and the accents do it; they have to do it anew where he worked with the Student they place on certain values that each time. Every achievement Christian Movement as the coun- may be diminished in your own opens up a set of possibilities for try was shaking o colonialism—to moral position. the next move, which then has Chicago, where he participated in to be negotiated again and again Martin Luther King, Jr.’s (GRS’55, Can you provide an example from past and again. Hon.’59) rst freedom rally in the classes you’ve taught? city and his march to city hall. I think in order to have, say, a This issue of focus touches on the He’s served as a Baptist assistant discussion in a class about free 50th anniversary of King’s Dream pastor, presided over organizations choice and pro-life, it’s impor- speech. What do you believe that speech such as the Society of Christian tant to lay some ground rules. has to say to us today? Ethics, and has been dubbed “one You can, by virtue of trying to King began with the preamble to of the greatest Christian ethicists promote your own righteousness, the Declaration of Independence— of our time” by philosopher harm someone else whose experi- that we’re all created equal, and academic Cornel West. In ence can be quite dierent. (At endowed with unalienable rights— fall 2013, Paris became the new other universities) I’ve had people and he hoped the day would come Visiting Walter G. Muelder either leave the classroom very when the United States would live Professor of Social Ethics at STH, abruptly or come to my oce vir- out the meaning of its creed. That where he teaches courses includ- tually in tears because they were day has not yet come. But vari- ing Christian Thinking about hurt by the tone and the argument ous things have been set in motion Moral Decisions as well as Ethics another person was making. It’s by King and by others to place us and Public Policy. focus spoke with sort of like being in an assembly of in the right direction. There’s still Paris about ethics in the classroom, the United Nations. You’re laying a long way to go on every front hope in a polarized society, and a groundwork that says, “We are because that’s the nature of the King’s Dream today. not together on this issue but we human condition. q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 7 STH NEWS

FOUR ALUMS, THREE CHALLENGES ALUM MAKES HISTORY IN ROME tor of Spiritual Care Services at the University of California, San Francisco, (UCSF) Medical Center and the UCSF Benio Children’s Hospital; Deborah Lieder Kiesey (’76), bishop of the Michigan Area of the United Methodist Church; and David Farley (’78), pastor of Echo Park United Methodist Church in Los Angeles. Not pic- tured: Andy Crouch (’94), execu- tive editor of Christianity Today. The diverse missions of STH’s After receiving their awards, the 2013 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients gathered at STH for the recipients have taken them from panel discussion, “What Are the Gerald Anderson (’55, GRS’60), above left, urban immigrant communities to Three Greatest Challenges Facing with Father Alberto Trevisiol (center) and the halls of hospitals to the oces Us in the Next Decade?” To watch Cardinal Fernando Filoni of a global media ministry. The the panel, and to see videos of recipients are, as pictured from other STH events, search “STH” The Pontical Urbaniana left, Michele Shields (’81), direc- at www.bu.edu/buniverse. q University in Rome has existed for nearly 400 years, but it hadn’t given an honorary degree to a Protestant until November 14, 2013. Gerald Anderson (’55, v REMEMBERING ORLO STRUNK GRS’60) received a Doctor of Missiology from the rector, Father “Embracing the complex, the con- Pastoral Care, and a fellow in Alberto Trevisiol, and chancellor, troversial, the unknown” was Orlo the American Psychological Cardinal Fernando Filoni. A for- C. Strunk, Jr.’s modus operandi, Association. Presiding over the mer United Methodist missionary psychiatrist Robert Charles Powell ceremony in which the College in the Philippines and the emeritus once said. Strunk (’55, GRS’57), a of Pastoral Supervision and director of the Overseas Ministries leader in pastoral psychology who Psychotherapy presented Strunk Study Center in New Haven, taught psychology of religion and with a significant contribution Connecticut, Anderson deliv- pastoral psychology at Boston award in 2011, Powell praised how ered a lecture entitled “A New University for 16 years, died in Strunk, “with courageous persis- Missionary Age” to students and September 2013 at age 88. Strunk tence, promoted and defended faculty. Speaking about the perse- was also a United Methodist min- the formulation of new views” cution of Christians in many parts ister, counselor, author, former in the field, “even if these were of the world today, he said, “Once managing editor of the Journal of not popular.” q again we are coming to know that the blood of the martyrs is the seed q of the Church.” Photos by Chitose Suzuki (top left), Brooks Anderson (top right)

8 boston university STH NEWS

SINGING WITH Stones’s scout chose BU’s Marsh THE STONES Chapel Choir, which includes stu- dents and alums, professional sing- When Sarah Zenir’s choir direc- ers, and Boston residents. Director tor announced that the group Scott Jarrett (CFA’99, ’08) had had been invited to sing with three weeks to pull together a the Rolling Stones, she thought group of 24 singers and rehearse. he was joking. But on June 12 and Zenir, a master’s student of 14, 2013, Zenir (’14) found her- sacred music and choral conduct- self onstage with Mick Jagger and ing, admits she had a tough time the rest of the band at Boston’s sleeping the night before the con- TD Garden, performing “You cert. Singing with legends for such Can’t Always Get What You a large audience, she says, was both Sarah Zenir at TD Garden to sing with the Want” to the screams of 12,000 nerve-racking and exhilarating. Rolling Stones fans. At each stop on their “50 “I’ve never had a rock-and-roll & Counting” tour, the Stones experience before, and getting to teamed with a local choir to per- do it at that high level, perform- still don’t believe me when I tell form the song; for Boston, the ing with a musical icon. . . . People them that this happened.” q

THEY’VE GOT MAIL EXPLORING A RELIGIOUS RESPONSE Being a new student can be TO TRAGEDY daunting. Wouldn’t it help to receive a welcoming letter from On April 11, in anticipation an alum? Micah Christian (’12) of the one-year anniversary thought so. Along with STH of the April 15, 2013, Boston sta, he launched the “Cloud of Marathon bombings, the School Witnesses” letter-writing pro- of Theology’s Center for gram, named for a reference in Practical Theology will sponsor Hebrews 12:1. In January, after a moderated panel discussion the bustle of the rst semester, about feminist and womanist each new STH student receives theological responses to com- a letter from a graduate sharing munal tragedy. Presenters thoughts on topics such as how Micah Christian include Wendy Farley of Emory seminary has played a role in University, Susan Abraham of his or her life. STH matches the School as it is now, and for the Loyola Marymount University, writers and recipients, hoping to student to have a connection to Melanie Harris of Texas spark ongoing conversation and the legacy of the School,” says Christian University, indepen- support. The program is now in Alumni Relations Ocer Jaclyn dent scholar Sharon Betcher, its second year. “We want the Jones (’06). Interested alums may and others. To RSVP, visit q Photo courtesy of Sarah Zenir (top); by Vernon Doucette (bottom) alum to have a connection to the email [email protected]. www.bu.edu/cpt. q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 9 FEATURE

STATE OF PLAY

FORMER SOCCER PRO AUSTIN WASHINGTON (’16) SWITCHES UP HIS GAME AS A NEW STUDENT AT STH.

BY ANDREW THURSTON shifts are not unheard of—scooping salmon eggs from sacks, lathering them The Estadio Banorte is sold out. in soy sauce, and packaging them for It’s just a preseason game, but you hungry customers in Japan. Good-bye, wouldn’t guess it from the more than big leagues. 20,000 soccer fans cheering, whoop- Since getting cut from the Fire, Austin Washington ing, whistling, and singing. The sound Washington has started over, com- reverberates around the home of the pleting his undergraduate degree and Club Social y Deportivo Sinaloa—the working in patient care and on a main- Dorados—in western Mexico. tenance crew to pay the bills. Now, It’s February 27, 2008, and this is he has a new career plan. It doesn’t Austin Washington’s Major League involve professional soccer or, he can Soccer (MLS) debut: the Chicago say with relief, sh factories. That’s just Fire versus the Dorados. Among the a summer job to pay for what comes defender’s Fire teammates are American, next—seminary. Mexican, and Malian internationals . Five weeks before—until the Fire picked him FROM DRAFTING TO WAIVING in the fourth round of the 2008 MLS There was never a plan B. Washington SuperDraft—Washington (’16) was just loved soccer. He dreamed of playing another college soccer prospect. Now, abroad. When he won a scholarship he’s limbering up below a wall of noise, to Gonzaga University and “gured swallowing the rising panic. The referee out I was capable enough to compete, puts the whistle to his lips. The din of really compete,” the dream seemed the crowd tumbles from the stands. One like it might become reality. Five last stretch. The referee throws his arms weeks after the draft call came, he was forward and blows hard on the whistle. in the Estadio Banorte, playing a solid The crowds still roar, but not for 83 minutes for the one-time MLS Washington. In January 2010, the Cup-winning Chicago Fire. In his two Fire hired a new coach; the following years with the Fire, Washington played month, it announced in a press release defense and mideld, reached a North it was waiving Washington. American SuperLiga nal, and spent Three years have passed. It’s sum- a spell on loan to the Cleveland mer 2013 and the former soccer star is City Stars. about to start a shift in the roe room He hasn’t kicked a ball competi- of an Alaskan canning factory. There, tively since. When you’ve starred at

Washington spends long days—20-hour the top, he says, it’s “almost like Photo by Ylisse Bess

10 boston university going backwards” to play anywhere called to ministry, the nerves will prob- else. Besides, he adds, “I don’t want ably disappear, just as they did at his Fire to get injured anymore, kicked any- debut in Mexico. “It’s really about giv- more. I do like playing soccer with ing what’s asked,” he says of any possible kids; they just want to be out there pastoral post. having a good time—you don’t have For the past three years, Washington to worry about people being too has been a deacon of the Church of competitive.” God in Christ, leading youth in Bible Without soccer, he needed another study, driving congregants to services, calling. A pastor friend suggested divinity and presenting the occasional sermon. As school, so in spring 2013, Washington someone who grew up in a Pentecostal decided on a dierent kind church that held a literal interpretation of tryout. “I was think- of the Bible, Washington says STH has “I don’t want to get injured ing about peace-building,” prompted him to question his beliefs and anymore, kicked anymore. I do he says, so he took two let his “own theology just fall apart, my classes at Boston University own opinions, everything, just melt.” It’s like playing soccer with kids; School of Theology, uncomfortable, he admits, but that’s why they just want to be out there renowned for its Religion he chose a seminary beyond the comfort & Con ict Transformation zone of his upbringing. “The whole idea having a good time—you don’t program. It drafted him— is to know God. I imagine that’s why, have to worry about people or he drafted it—and on some level, everyone goes to divin- he started in fall 2013 ity school. The better I can understand being too competitive.” as a full-time Master of what’s going on or just how to approach

—Austin Washington Divinity student. life, the better.” There was another big factor in GIVING WHAT’S ASKED his decision to come to STH: learn- STH is where Washington ing more about former Dean of Marsh hopes to gure out what God is asking Chapel Howard Thurman (Hon.’67). “I of him. At the moment, he’s trying to was thoroughly impressed with him. I’d discern whether his future lies at the pul- love to take a class on him, as well as pit or in a nonprot focused on con ict on Martin Luther King, Jr.” resolution. Soft-spoken and a reluctant Washington is looking forward: he’s public speaker, Washington doesn’t seem excited to learn more about Thurman, like a natural preacher, but appearances study the Hebrew Bible, and “gure can be deceptive. As a soccer player, he out who Christ was.” He’s no longer often surprised people who only knew an ex-soccer player looking back; he’s him o the eld. “I tend to be a pretty just another student contemplating laid-back person and people don’t often what he can do with life and where think I’m as competitive as I am.” If he’s he can be of help. q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 11 FEATURE THE POET PREACHER

FOR FOUR DECADES, THEODORE LOCKHART (CAS’65, STH ‘68) HAS BEEN FIGHTING—AND WRITING—TO END PREJUDICE.

BY LARA EHRLICH support the newly discharged Lockhart’s spiritual journey and encouraged him In January 1957, Theodore Lockhart to apply to Boston University with (CAS’65, STH’68) had just turned 18 the promise of nancial aid. Once he and was en route from his hometown of was accepted, however, the funds fell St. Petersburg, Florida, to an Air Force through. He got by at BU on his earn- base in Japan when he felt the call to ings from a summer job, but when the ministry “thundering in my conscious- money ran out, he told his mother he ness.” He’d have to wait four years to was coming home. Intending to take out Theodore Lockhart answer the call. Lockhart had planned a second mortgage on her house, Vivian to follow in his uncle’s military footsteps Lockhart asked Rev. Louise Beaty, the and had signed up for a four-year term white minister of First Unity Church in the Air Force. in St. Petersburg, for a reference to the Religion had always been a source bank. Instead, Beaty wrote a check. of strength for Lockhart. “Growing up When Lockhart met Beaty for the rst in the South meant that my world was time at a church service over Christmas full of real trouble and life-threatening break, “she smiled and gave me a wink,” danger for violating Lockhart wrote in a presentation to the laws and customs St. Petersburg College students. “Imagine “Growing up in the South of racial segregation,” that, a white woman and black man meant that my world was he says, but it was exchanging smiling winks in the days of through an expression Jim Crow segregation!” full of real trouble and of Christianity “specic life-threatening danger for to the life of Negro WORKING FOR INCLUSION Christians under segre- After graduating, Lockhart strove to violating the laws and customs gation that I was able to give other African Americans a leg up in of racial segregation.” endure segregation in education, as Beaty had given him. As the South and deal with assistant dean of Boston College’s Black —Theodore Lockhart its manifestations in the Talent Search, the university’s rst eort North.” at racial inclusion in the wake of Martin Lockhart’s career as a Luther King, Jr.’s (GRS’55, Hon.’59) United Methodist minister spanned four assassination, Lockhart helped African decades and traversed historic changes in American students enroll and excel at BC. the Church and American society. But it He also served on BC’s Black Forum, a started out with a challenge that helped program dedicated to establishing a black shape the course of his life. Ocials of studies department, a new concept among the United Methodist Church oered to universities eager to recruit African Photo by Lifetouch Portrait Studios Inc.

12 boston university American students. Lockhart was equally asked him about the United Methodist committed to fostering inclusiveness in Church’s position on homosexuality. the Church. In 1969, he became chair- Several members were “shocked” by person of the New England Conference the Church’s noninclusive position Board of Christian Social Concerns and and formed a task force that, over four authored a resolution calling for the years, looked into becoming a rec- appointment of minorities to churches onciling church. Their mission state- within the conference. ment drew upon the Bible and African The African American experience American spirituals: “There’s plenty is fundamental to Lockhart’s career— good room, plenty good room in ma and to the poetry he has been writing Father’s Kingdom, plenty good room, since he was a child. His new book, plenty good room—just choose your Before Blackness, Lying After Truth, In seat and sit down.” In 2000, UUMC Rabbitude, and Other Poems, includes became the rst ocial African poems from the 1960s to 2011 that are American United Methodist reconcil- in uenced by black folk culture, the ing church. black consciousness movement, and Lockhart’s in uence has reverber- events like King’s assassination, as in ated at UUMC in the years since his “April’s Repetition”: retirement. The church holds discus- sions about AIDS, features a “Happy “Ted! Ted! Pride” sign on the front lawn, and They’ve shot Martin Luther King Junior! hosts a gospel brunch during Pride They’ve killed him dead!” Weekend. It was also the rst African Well I’ll be damned. American church to hold Boston’s I’ll be goddamn! Annual Gay Pride Interfaith Prayer Another man done gone! Service. In his retirement, Lockhart Another man done in! has remained an active supporter of Another man done! inclusion, serving as interim pastor Another Black Man! at one of Florida’s two reconciling churches. And his voice in the African AN UNEXPECTED MISSION American community is still powerful Though Lockhart has always been in poems inspired by current events, invested in African American rights, such as the shooting of Trayvon in 1996 he took up another rights Martin: What’s the right pace for me to battle he never expected to join. run/You who hold the gun./Should I He was serving as minister at Union run at the joggers pace/Or do you want United Methodist Church (UUMC) my sprinter race. In his roles as both in Boston’s South End—an area into a preacher and a poet, he says, he which more gay people were moving “attempts to help others see things as at the time—when a church member they show up in lived experience.” q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 13 FEATURE BORDER CROSSING

A VISIT WITH SYRIAN REFUGEES AND ACTIVISTS TAUGHT ERIN MCKINNEY (’14) ABOUT KEEPING THE PEACE.

BY JULIE RATTEY were demanding political change as part of the Arab Spring protest move- “I was scared,” Erin McKinney wrote in ment. Assad’s government has since her journal. “I kept looking from face to been accused of using chemical weap- face in my group, searching for someone ons against its own citizens. More than to make it better. Then it hit me: Who 125,000 Syrians have been killed in the hell am I to need consolation?” the war, and over 1.5 million have ed Erin McKinney For three days after she returned the country. from Turkey, McKinney (’14) felt McKinney says her visit to the refu- like she was dreaming. Jet lag wasn’t gee camp on the Turkey-Syria border the only reason: returning to campus was “shocking, chaotic, overwhelming, life felt surreal after spending nearly and one of the scariest, life-altering two weeks meeting people impacted moments” she’s ever experienced. by civil war. The journal was an When she and her group passed attempt to help her process experi- through the camp gates, they were ences such as a visit to a camp of swarmed by eager children. In the 14,000 Syrian refugees. press of the crowd, McKinney realized McKinney, a Master of Divinity how easy it would be for a friendly student in the School of Theology’s interaction to be misinterpreted. As Religion & Con ict Transformation she later wrote in her journal, she program, visited Turkey over spring felt scared and in need of consola- break in March 2013. The trip was tion. What if camp security thought part of an independent study that she her group was in danger and red a and classmate Irene Willis (’13) created weapon? What if a riot broke out? But with the help of STH Springboard concern gave way to compassion. “I funding. Traveling with Palestinian had to hold my panic in check,” she peace activist Aziz Abu Sarah and wrote, “while we visited the refugees members of a citizen diplomacy class who had already experienced more from George Mason University, than any of us ever had.” McKinney and Willis met with gov- She remembers the refugees’ ernment ocials, activists, aid workers, donated clothing, slightly dusty from and refugees to learn about Syria’s civil the desert environment; the rows upon war and Turkey’s response. The war rows of tents in the fenced-in enclo- began in 2011 after Syrian President sure; the children who didn’t know Bashar al-Assad’s government issued whether their fathers and uncles in

a violent crackdown on citizens who Syria were still alive. But the moment Photo courtesy of Erin McKinney

14 boston university that made McKinney cry was when, doesn’t necessarily have to be politi- as the group was saying its good-byes, cians who are doing this negotiating. a refugee boy who appeared to be We can just go and be with people— about eight years old began excitedly share a meal or hear their story. They chanting “Allahu akbar!” can appreciate our presence because (“God is greater!”) and we’re new visitors, and we can appre- “Most of the people other children joined in. ciate theirs because they opened our we talked to, The cultural saying is one eyes and touched our lives.” of “throwing things up to That’s an insight McKinney plans whether they were God,” says McKinney, and to use in a possible career in com- injured citizens or she’d heard it in every- munity building, con ict transforma- thing from celebratory din- tion and mediation, and interfaith activists, honestly ners in Turkey to activists’ education. Specically, she’d like to felt like the world YouTube videos exposing help a university prepare to welcome government violence in and support religiously and culturally was just watching Syria. Speculating on what diverse students and promote healthy them all die.” the children wanted to student interactions. “Relationship- convey, she says, “All of building on the levels that are so low —Erin McKinney the people we met on the we actually forget about them is really trip were really driven. I’m important, especially across diverse sure this has trickled down backgrounds. So on a college campus, to the kids. So the impres- I would arrange for students to have sion I got was, ‘We’re stronger than meals together or attend fun events this. This will end.’” that would break the ice. People Struck by the plight of the refu- would become friends rst and then gees and activists she was meeting, learn about each other’s religions and McKinney found herself wondering dierences.” what her visit could accomplish, but She would also encourage students she’s since realized “the power of per- to travel to the Middle East as she sonal relationships.” has done, to “see a dierent way of “Most of the people we talked to, life” and grasp some of the complex- whether they were injured citizens or ity behind local tensions and con ict. activists, honestly felt like the world She cites an earlier trip to Israel and was just watching them all die. So Palestine that she took with STH they’d say, ‘Thanks for caring. Thanks as an example. “You can’t help but for traveling all this way just to come have sympathy for both sides but still see me. God bless you.’” Establishing acknowledge the wrong that’s being connections on a grassroots level, she done,” she says. “I think it’s good to says, can make a positive impact. “It complicate people’s worlds.” q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 15 FEATURE FAITH BEHIND BARS

HOW PRISON CHAPLAIN JIM PALL (’76) STAYS POSITIVE IN A CHALLENGING MINISTRY

BY LARA EHRLICH going to hear the word ‘forgiveness’ but in the chapel?” Dress conservatively. Leave your cell SCI Dallas’s chapel serves multiple phone in the car. Sign in upon enter- religions—and even has a revolving ing. As you pass through the metal altar for Jewish, Protestant, and detector at the State Correctional Catholic services. Coordinating the Institution (SCI) in Dallas, Pennsyl- inmates’ varied activities has broad- vania, you might feel a little oppressed. ened Pall’s own perspective on faith. Jim Pall But though prison chaplain Jim Pall He likes to say that he was a United (’76) goes through this routine every Methodist when he began working day, he doesn’t feel demoralized. at the prison 26 years ago, and now When he was 11, he suered a brain considers himself a “Wese-Metho- hemorrhage in school, and a teacher Presby-Lutha-Bapta-Penta-Chari- saved his life with CPR. Looking Fundagelical.” Pall’s duties range back, he says, he came to realize the from ling hair length exemptions “fragility” of life and was called by for Rastafarians to conducting the God to the ministry. “Ever since that Protestant Sunday morning services time, I have joy. Even a bad day is a to counseling inmates when they suf- good day. A phrase that is repeated fer the death of a loved one. He’s also frequently here in the prison is, ‘No contributed to the creation of Toolkit one is promised tomorrow.’” for Enhancing End-of-Life Care, a pro- Pall’s positivity serves him well in his gram applicable to all county, state, and role as SCI Dallas’s facility chaplaincy federal prisons in the United States that program director. He even brings lev- includes training for inmates to attend ity to his wardrobe: he must wear a tie a fellow prisoner around-the-clock so every day, so he “bought some very that “no one dies alone.” interesting bow ties.” Though he is You might think that serving in restricted from sharing details about a prison for more than two decades the inmates, Pall speaks passionately would take a toll on Pall’s home life, about helping them practice their faith. but he takes preventative measures. “Religion gives many inmates a sense He selected “a very interesting, large, of peace and acceptance,” he says. “In strong tree” outside the prison walls, the articial monasticism of prison life, and when something is weighing him many inmates come to terms with the down at the end of the day—whether mistakes they have made and are led by the death of an inmate or a dicult our religious services to be repentant. counseling session—he leaves his wor- q Where else in the prison are they ever ries in its branches. Photo by Garrett Pall

16 boston university RISKING IT ALL

WHY DEAN SNYDER (’72) PUTS HIS ORDINATION ON THE LINE TO PERFORM SAME-SEX MARRIAGES

BY JULIE RATTEY congregation members. “Everyone immediately understood that it would Every day, Dean Snyder is at risk of be disrespectful to Sam and Doug not losing his ordination. As a United to celebrate their wedding the way Methodist pastor who performs gay and that we celebrate everyone else’s,” says lesbian marriages, Snyder (’72) openly Snyder. outs the Church’s ocial position In September 2010, with a vote of against such unions. Though his con- 367 to 8, Foundry Church members Rev. Dean Snyder preaching gregation stands behind him, it would accepted marriage equality for their at Foundry only take one person ling a complaint congregation. A year later, Snyder mar- to trigger a process that could oust ried Doug and Sam, who had been him from his role as senior pastor of together more than 20 years. “It ended Foundry United Methodist Church in up meaning a lot more than I’d ever Washington, DC. Yet Snyder doesn’t imagined,” says Doug. “It meant that see himself as a revolutionary: he simply you’re home, that you belong.” Doug believes he’s doing the right thing. says the ceremony also moved Sam, The same-sex marriage question who’d lived in the segregated South came to the table for Snyder in fall and experienced prejudice as a gay man 2009, when he heard that marriage growing up fundamentalist Southern equality was coming to the district. Baptist. “After we were married, Sam Since up to one-third of Foundry’s lifted his ring nger up in the air and congregation is openly gay and lesbian, said, ‘No longer the back of the bus.’” Snyder thought it was imperative that Snyder says United Methodists “need Foundry respond. Would it continue to keep organizing, educating, and to y under the radar by holding public explaining in order to help the Church services to honor gay and lesbian com- as a whole, to give churches like mine mitted relationships, or risk performing that have a signicant presence of gay same-sex marriages in church? and lesbian people the ability and free- The congregation explored options dom to minister to our people.” It’s to avoid overtly breaking the rules, important, he adds, “to have heroic such as hiring a wedding ociant from congregations and heroic pastors.” q another denomination, but a com- ment from congregation member Doug Barker provided a turning point: “I To hear a sermon on marriage equal- want to be married in my church by ity that Snyder delivered at Marsh my pastor.” Barker and his partner Chapel, visit http://go.bu.edu/snyder.

Photo by Phil Carney Sam were dedicated and well-known

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 17 JOURNAL n the push for acceptance, churches are among the Icause’s greatest allies and greatest opponents. BY ROBERT CUMMINGS were viewed with what psychologists NEVILLE, professor of philosophy, today call “disgust reactions.” religion, and theology and dean emeritus As King said, the institutions of seg- regation and discrimination were still in Slightly over 50 years ago, on August place in 1963. I was raised in St. Louis, 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., which still had separate toilets and water began his “I Have a Dream” speech at fountains for “white” and “colored.” In the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, the summer of 1963, I was ordained a DC, with these words: deacon in the Methodist Church, which segregated all its “colored” into a Central Five score years ago, a great Jurisdiction that was not eliminated until American, in whose symbolic 1968, with the founding of the United shadow we stand today, signed the Methodist Church.2 Now, 50 years since Emancipation Proclamation. This King’s speech, most of those institutional momentous decree came as a great barriers have been taken down, or at beacon of hope to millions of Negro least attempts have been made to do slaves who had been seared in the so—as with school busing policies, equal ames of withering injustice. It opportunity and armative action pro- came as a joyous daybreak to end grams, and changing church structures. the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the 1. Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream” (speech, Negro still is not free. One hundred Washington, DC, August 28, years later, the life of the Negro is 1963), American Rhetoric, http:// still sadly crippled by the manacles www.americanrhetoric.com/ of segregation and the chains of speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm. About the discrimination.1 2. The segregated Central Professor Jurisdiction was not an inven- tion of the antebellum or even Abraham Lincoln’s generation had Reconstruction-era Methodist known, re ectively, that slavery was Robert Cummings Neville writes and bodies but of the uniting confer- wrong and that African Americans teaches in the fields of philosophy, ence of 1939, the year I was born; had the same right to freedom and religious studies, and systematic the- the wooden chairs now in Room ology. He was dean of the School of 325 of the School of Theology respect as any other group. Yet there Theology from 1988 to 2003, and dean were used by the bishops of the were strong social and cultural interests of Marsh Chapel from 2003 to 2006. 1939 uniting conference that cre- that resisted this knowledge because Neville was ordained an elder in the ated the Methodist Church out of United Methodist Church in 1966 it implied that traditions from which and has published numerous books the Methodist Episcopal Church, and articles. the Methodist Protestant Church, many drew their identity would have and the Methodist Episcopal to change radically. Also, for many

Church South. Americans, those of African descent Photo by Frank Curran

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 19 Our social ethics program no longer has negative disgust reactions or belong 3. Most of the public debate has to justify freedom and justice for African to cultural groups that dene them- been with regard to homosexual- ity and gay rights, but the issues Americans, only gure out ways to com- selves in part by exclusion and hatred nearly always pertain to all sexual plete emancipation. of LGBTQ people.3 LGBTQ people minorities, hence LGBTQ. Churches, includ- have been regarded 4. For a detailed history of ing the United not as naturally the gay rights movement, see Methodist Church, Churches, including the second-class human Dudley Clendinen and Adam are in the vanguard beings, but as Nagourney’s Out for Good: The United Methodist Church, Struggle to Build a Gay Rights of change; but they unnatural. Whereas Movement in America (New York: also are the deepest are in the vanguard of African Americans Simon and Schuster, 1999). sea anchor oppos- have been mur- 5. The medicalization move- change; but they also are ing change. Where dered for being ment stemmed from Richard von do we stand with the deepest sea anchor perceived to have Krat-Ebing’s Psychpathia Sexualis, translated by Harry E. Wedeck regard to the unjust crossed segrega- opposing change. (New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1965: treatment of our tion lines, LGBTQ orig. pub. 1886). The points made lesbian, gay, bisex- people have been in this paragraph about medical- ual, transgender, murdered simply ization and medical treatment are and queer (LGBTQ) people? As with for being who they are. Matthew neatly summarized in Chandler Burr’s “Homosexuality and African Americans, many Americans Shepard’s 1998 murder in Wyoming Biology” in Homosexuality in the regard sexual minorities with deep was justied in the eyes of many bib- Church: Both Sides of the Debate,

20 boston university lically religious people by Leviticus ministries” were established to help ed. Jerey S. Siker (Louisville: 20:13: “If a man lies with a male as LGBTQ people reverse that choice Westminster John Knox Press, with a woman, both of them have and break out of the sexual minority 1994), 116–134. committed an abomination; they “lifestyle.” But over the last quarter 6. Burr, 118. shall be put to death; their blood is century, ample scientic evidence has 7. The Christian change ministries upon them.” Because of deep cultural shown that sexual orientation is given are ineective. Alan Chambers, the prejudice against sexual minorities, at birth and cannot be changed any longtime leader of Exodus, one many LGBTQ people have feared to more than other biological givens.7 of the largest change ministries, resigned in 2013 with an acknowl- come out as who they are, even to For many Christians, the most edgment that the change tech- their own families; families frequently important consideration about homo- niques simply don’t work. have rejected those who do. African sexuality, if not all sexual minority 8. John Boswell, Christianity, American families do not reject their states, is what the Bible says and how Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality children because they are black, the Bible is to be interpreted. John (Chicago: University of Chicago although they often do if their chil- Boswell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance, Press, 1980). dren are gay. and Homosexuality 9. See my “The Dean’s Re ective broke open the Re ections: Homosexuality and the Church in Theological people in Lincoln’s Over the last quarter scholarly question Education,” focus (Fall/Winter time generally in 1980 by argu- 2000): 18–22, and John Silber’s knew that slavery century, ample scientific ing that the Bible “Re ections on Homosexuality was wrong and that is not of one voice in the Bible and in Methodism,” evidence has shown that focus (Spring 2001): 25–26. See people of African in the matter and sexual orientation is given also Professor Carrie Doehring’s descent were not that the Christian “Living with Theological inferior, but re ec- at birth and cannot be Church has often Dierences” and Professor Simon tive people in tolerated homo- Parker’s “Homosexuality and America a century changed any more than sexuality.8 Disputes the Bible,” focus (Fall/Winter 2000): 23–25; Bishop Mack B. later still were other biological givens. raged (not too Stokes’s “Response to Dean debating whether strong a term) in Neville’s Article ‘Homosexuality it was wrong to the scholarly and and the Church in Theological be LGBTQ and, the religious press, Education,’” focus (Spring 2001): 4 9 27; and my response to Silber and if so, in what sense. From the early including in this very journal. Dale Stokes, “The Dean Comments,” twentieth century to the 1970s, some B. Martin’s Sex and the Single Savior, focus (Spring 2001): 28–29. in the medical establishment had perhaps the best recent summary of 10. Dale B. Martin, Sex and the argued that minority sexual orienta- the scholarship, showed in eect that Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality tion was a disease, not a moral failing, there is no reason to take the negative in Biblical Interpretation (Louisville: which was supposed to be a progres- things the Bible might be construed Westminster John Knox Press, 5 2006). sive advance. Attempts to cure it to say about homosexuality as norma- 10 11. Roman Catholic thinkers are included electroshock, psychosurgery, tive for us today. In 2014, it is hard obliged by Church authority to say and behavioral aversion therapy, to nd any serious scholar who would homosexuality is “disordered”— as well as various forms of psycho- say that any sexual minority status is that is, not directed to the goal for analysis.6 At the same time, many morally wrong, unnatural, or con- which sex acts are natural—but other people had argued that minor- demnable on biblical grounds.11 few would defend the Aristotelian teleology on which this argument ity sexual orientation was a morally In the last few years, public attitudes is based. perverse choice. Christian “change toward homosexuality, usually focused

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 21 on same-sex marriage, have rapidly neighbors for who they are. As with become much more tolerant. Increasing segregation and racial discrimination in numbers of states have legitimated King’s time, the question now is not so same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court much what is right concerning LGBTQ has struck down the relevant nega- issues, but rather how to bring our soci- tive elements of the ety into conformity Defense of Marriage with what we know Act. Increasingly, Rejection of homophobia to be right. Just the rights of as most of us now is now a mark of Christian LGBTQ people to would not attend a be free from dis- identity just as rejection of congregation that crimination are fails to welcome racism was a generation ago. being legislated into African Americans law. Although much on the same basis of the leadership for as others, it is time gay rights has come from the churches, that we also avoid congregations that including from United Methodists, gen- do not welcome LGBTQ people with erally churches are the main conserva- the same hospitality and respect that tive drag behind the curve. This is true are shown to others. Rejection of of the United Methodist Church. But homophobia is now a mark of Christian disgust reactions are crumbling as peo- identity just as rejection of racism was a ple come to know their sexual minority generation ago. q

22 boston university WE TAUGHT HIM FOR TWO YEARS. HE’S BEEN TEACHING US EVER SINCE. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s (PhD’55) ethical leadership is the marker by which we judge ourselves today.

bu.edu/sth

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 23 JOURNALJOURNAL bringing mission to life BY ADA FOCER (‘05, ‘10) or black women facing con ict between what’s preached at church and what they experience in their daily lives, it takes creativity to keep God Fand faith in the picture. BY PHILLIS ISABELLA SHEPPARD, resting in and between social, cultural, associate professor of pastoral psychology and and psychological processes. It is mir- theology ror and prediction; it is social com- mentary and theological re ection; it At least three years ago, my is frightening and it is hopeful. One father’s God stopped being my God. reading of her Parable series is that His church stopped being my church. Butler makes religion a trope for the And yet, today, because I am a cow- psychology of the self in uctuation. ard, I let myself be initiated into that Parable of the Sower, then, requires the church. I let my father baptize me reader to consider black religion as in all three names of that God who deeply psychological—for the indi- isn’t mine any more. My God has vidual and cultural context—and it is another name.1 inextricable from these overlapping domains. We must not only recover Lauren Olamina, a young black the psychological aspect of religious woman trying to survive in the cha- experience, we must take time to otic and violent world depicted in cultivate spaces for it to appear. As Octavia E. Butler’s science ction with any psychological work, what novel, Parable of the Sower, reveals we discover may initially be obscure the complicated and sometimes hid- only to become discernible and nally, den relationship she has to religion. The daughter of a Baptist minister, Lauren is a woman hiding two secrets: her extraordinary empathic sensi- bilities and her self-created religion, Earthseed. Under the scrutiny of her About the father’s Baptist faith, Lauren is viewed Professor as strange and unwanted. Perceiving that danger from the outside world Phillis Isabella Sheppard is a womanist is about to encroach on her gated practical theologian, psychoanalyst, and community, Lauren prepares to leave sometime poet. She is the author of Self, home. Her newly constructed faith Culture, and Others in Womanist Practical Theology and is active in the Evangelical will guide her for the life beyond her Covenant Church. She is on the editorial family, beyond the Baptist church, and board of the Journal of Pastoral Theology and is a member of the American beyond those whose hopes rest in the Academy of Religion’s steering committee for the Womanist Approaches to Religion 1. Octavia E. Butler, Parable of God of three names. and Society Group. the Sower (New York: Four Walls Religious life in Butler’s literary

Eight Windows, 1993), 3. imagination is a thorny experience Photo © Pamela R. Lightsey 2013

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 25 explicit. This makes black religious preached about religion and sexuality, experience a complex matter. and the practices of their day-to-day lives. They lived religion outside the ocially SEX, RELIGION, AND SECRECY recognized religious sites. Quite often, Like many who began graduate school these women felt that they could not over 25 years ago, my introduction to the live up to the religious ideals they heard study of black religion assumed a fairly in their churches concerning sexuality one-dimensional read: black religion is or gender. And yet, what was initially Christian, institutionalized, a faith-fueled surprising to me was the way in which social activist project, and, while denomi- these women carried religious ideas inside nationally diverse, painted on a primarily their lesbian identities—even those that Protestant canvas. con icted with lived Womanist approaches experience. In other to black religion These women felt they words, they felt they were in an embry- could not attend could not attend religious onic phase. I became religious services, interested in the services, but the language, but the language, complexity of black idioms, and views on idioms, and views on gender women’s experience gender representa- of religion while representation and sexuality tion and sexuality interviewing them permeated their lives. permeated their lives. They for a project related They loved other to sexuality, religious loved other women, they women, they cre- experience, and ated ceremonies to created ceremonies to mark secrecy in the lives of mark the important black lesbians. the important events of their events of their lives, The women I they raised children, lives, they raised children, interviewed mostly and they prayed to described them- and they prayed to the only the only God they selves as religious God they knew—the one they knew—the one they but only occasionally had initially heard involved in institu- had initially heard about about in church. tional religion. By in church. most standards, their LIVING IN TENSION narratives of religion Black religious cul- were complicated experiences dotted ture was the psychological glue in their with hope and betrayal. Religion, while lives, and gender and sexuality were part described as a needed resource in their and parcel of their cultural milieu, but day-to-day survival, was also a source of not the totality or dening aspect of it. confusion, pain, and longing for accep- On one hand, they turned an ear toward tance. For some, there existed an uneasy past religious messages; on the other, disconnect between what they heard they carved out a world in which self-

26 boston university 2. Mignon R. Moore, “Lipstick or identiers such as butch, femme, and sexual-gendered identities and their reli- Timberlands? Meanings of Gender lesbian were acknowledged, valued, and gious cultural identities, and while not Presentation in Black Lesbian formed with intentionality and purpose. without disappointment and loss, they Communities,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 32, In her research on gender representation formed and maintained communities, no. 1 (2006): 113–39, 114–15. by black lesbians in New York City, relationships, and families that mirrored 3. Patricia Hill Collins, “Learning Mignon R. Moore found that “there are the self-sustaining reality of their lives. from the Outsider Within: The various physical representations of gen- Religious experience, in all of its com- Sociological Signicance of der in black lesbian communities. They plexity, was inextricable from their lives. Black Feminist Thought,” in suggest that these portrayals of gender Religious experience, regardless Feminist Approaches to Theory and Methodology, ed. Sharlene Hesse- are not arbitrary . . . [and that] presenta- of the sites where it is produced, is Biber, Christina Gilmartin, and tions of self among black lesbians are not a space for the embodiment of the Robin Lydenberg (New York: mere sexual play. Once formed, the gen- psychological as well as the gendered, Oxford University Press, 1999), der style women choose tends to remain sexual, racial, and cultural aspects of 157. consistent over the self. My cur- 4. Ibid., 160. time.”2 As Patricia rent research is 5. Mark J. Gehrie, “The Self Hill Collins reminds concerned with and the Group: A Tentative How does one explain the Exploration in Applied Self us, “Self-denition the complex Psychology,” in Advances in Self involves challenging complexity of religion in place of religion Psychology, ed. Arnold Goldberg the political knowl- these women’s lives? in the lives of (New York: International edge-validation pro- black women and Universities Press, 1980), 371. cess that has resulted The multiplicity of messages begins with these in externally dened, they internalized and three questions: 1) stereotypical images What is the rela- of Afro-American those they rejected? tionship between womanhood. black women’s In contrast, self- religious experi- valuation stresses the content of black ences in private and cultural spaces women’s self-denitions”3 and allows and psychological processes? 2) What “Afro-American women to reject inter- kind of methodology is required for nalized, psychological oppression.”4 such a project? and 3) What are the How does one explain the complex- implications of this relationship for a ity of religion in these women’s lives? womanist psychology of religion? The multiplicity of messages they inter- I am convinced that religious con- nalized and those they rejected? If it is texts give shape and form to identity, the true that the manner in which a person ways in which it is expressed, and the congures her association to her cultural language used in its communication. group re ects her state or relationship to Discovering meaning in the practices her self,5 then it follows that the ways in of religion in the lives of black which she structures her sexuality, gen- women, and the psychological pro- der identity, and religion in her cultural cesses involved, is no small feat. Such contexts re ect the state of her sense of an eort demands a sensitive curiosity self or self-state. Most of these women as well as deep respect, and a posture held in tension the nexus between their of receptive introspection. q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 27 JOURNALJOURNAL bringing mission to life BY ADA FOCER (‘05, ‘10) hen we suer a setback in the search for justice, we needn’t fear that our dreams Ware out of reach. BY CAMERON PARTRIDGE, HOPES AND DREAMS Episcopal chaplain From this vantage point, the US Supreme Court’s striking down of On August 28, 2013, I stood with the Defense of Marriage Act and the friends and colleagues near Boston Senate’s approval of the Employment University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Non-Discrimination Act in November 1. Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial sculpture on Marsh Plaza. 2013 lls me with a renewed sense “I Have a Dream” (speech, We blinked in the brilliant sunlight as of hope. So have the increases in Washington, DC, August 28, we read aloud the “I Have a Dream” legal protections based on “gender 1963), American Rhetoric, http:// speech, rst given 50 years earlier. As I identity and expression” enacted www.americanrhetoric.com/ speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm. read my assigned section, railing against across the country, from Massachusetts 2. Verna Dozier, The Dream of what King called the “bad check” to California. And so, too, have God: A Call to Return (New York: issued to people of color by a country my denomination’s actions at its Seabury Classics, 2006), 33. that “guaranteed the ‘unalienable rights’ 2012 General Convention, formally 3. By the terms “transgender” of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of hap- arming that transgender people can and “trans*” I refer to those piness,’”1 I felt overwhelmed—over- serve in all levels of ministry, lay and whose gender identity or expres- whelmed by how far we have come ordained. sion does not conform to the sex to which they were assigned at since 1963 and also by how much we At the same time, the decidedly birth. Gender identity refers to still have to do to realize King’s Dream unnished state of God’s dream needs one’s inner sense of their gender— of the Beloved Community, a world our engagement more than ever. The of being a man, a woman, or in which we are agents of justice and Supreme Court’s striking down of another gender. Gender expres- sion refers to the ways in which reconciliation rather than oppression. part of the Voting Rights Act, and the one enacts one’s gender in the Episcopal theologian Verna Dozier outcome of the Trayvon Martin case, world—through mannerisms, hair- called this dream, quite simply, “[the] struck profound blows. And the trans* style, clothing, speech, etc. Some high calling to be a new thing in the trans* people transition medically world and [to] show all people another and some do not. Some have 2 binary gender identities—male or possibility for life.” female—while others identify as I look upon this dream as someone other than simply male or female. multiply embedded—as an Episcopal About the The asterisk following “trans” chaplain at BU, as an academic theolo- signals the variety of gender Author identities included in the term— gian teaching in a multireligious divinity such as agender, transvestite, and school, as an Episcopal priest who for two-spirit. several years has participated in a wider Cameron Partridge is the Episcopal Anglican conversation about sexuality and chaplain at Boston University and a gender, and as a transgender man seeking lecturer and denominational counselor A memorial service held at Marsh for Anglican/Episcopal students at Plaza for Martin Luther King, Jr., to help transform the “bad check” with Harvard Divinity School. on April 5, 1968, the day after his which so many fellow members of the assassination. 3 Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

Photo by Boston University Photography trans* community are faced.

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 29 community continues to struggle against forward [epekteinomenos] to what lies 4. See the important 2011 study widespread discrimination in housing ahead, I press on towards the goal for by Jaime M. Grant, Lisa A. and access to health care, employment, the prize of the heavenly call of God Mottet, and Justin Tanis, Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the 4 and credit. When combined in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12–14). National Transgender Discrimination with systemic racism, anti-transgender This straining and stretching is an Survey. bias wreaks incredible havoc. ongoing and deeply eschatological 5. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of November 28, 2013, notion for Gregory. Moses, trans. Abraham Malherbe marked the 15th Its implications are and Everett Ferguson (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1978), 115. anniversary of the The decidedly unfinished also as concrete as unsolved murder of they are mystical. Rita Hester, a trans- state of God’s dream Epektasis signals a gender woman of needs our engagement time and space that color. Occurring a erupts into and trans- more than ever. The mere mile from BU, forms the here and Hester’s death sparked Supreme Court’s striking now, stretching its a movement— boundaries as it takes down of part of the Transgender Day of on the qualities of Remembrance—that Voting Rights Act, and God’s deepest desires. is now observed Indeed, epektasis the outcome of the around the world. In is also a concept suf- so many ways, the Trayvon Martin case, fused with desire. struggle stretches Gregory elaborates struck profound blows. forward. on it in dialogue And the trans* community with several bibli- cal texts and gures, THE continues to struggle TRANSFORMING particularly the Song POWER against widespread of Songs and his Life OF DESIRE discrimination in housing of Moses. In the latter, Stretching forward he speaks of Moses as draws upon a key and access to health care, one whose yearning concept for which employment, and credit. for both the promises the fourth-century and the innite beauty theologian Gregory of God transformed of Nyssa is known: him, rendered him epektasis. The idea is inspired by Paul’s afresh, and always caused him to long comments regarding participation in for more. “Hope always draws the soul the paschal mystery: “I press on to from the beauty which is seen to what make it my own, because Christ Jesus is beyond, always kindles the desire for has made me his own. Beloved, I do the hidden through what is constantly not consider that I have made it my perceived.”5 For Gregory, God is by own; but this one thing I do: forget- denition unencloseable, ungraspable. ting what lies behind and straining And yet God grants a “true sight” that

30 boston university 6. Ibid., 115. Emphasis mine. “consists in this, that the one who lens. The struggle to participate in the 7. Here I think particularly looks up to God never ceases in that unfolding dream of God challenges all of Gloria Anzaldúa’s work in desire.” As soon as the yearning heart of us to open our hearts, to allow our- Borderlands/La Frontera: The New is lled with the divine, God expands selves to be changed in and through our Mestiza (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1999) on the holiness and the heart’s capacity and invites it to relational bonds with one another, to danger of borders, the ways in desire still more. Therefore, “what experience this transformation as part of which they are mapped on our Moses yearned for is satised by the our ongoing, individual, and communal bodies. very things which leave his desire epektasis, our stretching forth toward the 8. Adrienne Rich, “Integrity,” unsatised.”6 heart of God. This is not a linear pro- in The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Thoroughly paradoxical was the gression, nor is it bound by time. We Selected and New, 1950–1984 (New York: W. W. Norton & life of the one whom God inspired may stride forward and later step back, Company, Inc., 1984), 273. to lead his people only to move for- out of bondage in ward once more. Egypt, across the The struggle to participate In the meantime, Red Sea, into the in the unfolding dream of as the possibilities wilderness, and ulti- of transformation mately—beyond the God challenges all of us to open out before us, boundaries of his open our hearts, to allow we are located on own life—into the and in a threshold. promised land. In this ourselves to be changed in We are always in vision, the promised and through our relational some sense perched land is not a linear, between—located stable, clearly identi- bonds with one another. in the already and ed space. It appears the not yet. Truly, more as a peculiar space-time that this location can madden as much as refuses to be contained by our imagina- inspire, not simply because of its ambi- tions and that constantly works upon guity, but because this cusp is also far our hearts—enlarging us, stretching us, from static. This threshold in which transforming us from the inside out, we stand is dynamic, shifting, danger- constantly imprinting us afresh with the ous, inviting.7 And so, with Paul, we image of the One who made us. groan in labor with all creation “while we wait for adoption, the redemp- THETHRILL OF tion of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). THE THRESHOLD With the late poet Adrienne Rich we If perhaps we grow weary of the con- declaim, “A wild patience has taken tinuing struggle to be truly “free at last,” me this far.”8 With Martin Luther if we fear that there will never be an King, Jr., we strive to sing “free at last, end to the process of understanding and free at last,” knowing that the dream fully incorporating human dierence, if will continue to stretch out before us, we worry that gains made today will be transforming us into a people we can rolled back tomorrow, perhaps we might only begin to imagine: a people after view this process through this Nyssen God’s own heart. q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 31 JOURNALJOURNAL bringing mission to life SongsBY ADA of FOCER (‘05, ‘10) ollowing the example of civil rights-era black people, the LGBTQ community is harnessing hymns to F advance its own rights movement. BY STEPHANIE A. BUDWEY Overcome” that created the “central (’04, ’12) social process” of the “mobilization of tradition.”3 Music and politics are a We live between the is and the powerful combination, and when they ought to be of the world. This is are joined together in the context of a a primal site of the deepest moral social movement, they are “an impor- and theological dilemmas in human tant, if often overlooked, source of cul- existence. The actual state of tural transformation.”4 aairs—whether injustice, greed, In his discussion of African American tyranny, or suering born of war and hymnody, James Abbington highlights 1. Don Saliers, “Theological Foundations of Liturgical Reform” famine—reveals that the world is the direct link between ongoing “social, (paper presented at the XXIV not as it ought to be. This elemental political, and economic reforms” of the Congress of Societas Liturgica, fact generates permanent tensions for 1960s and their in uence on African Würzburg, Germany, August 6, all worldviews and ritual practices. American congregational song.5 He 2013). When the gap between the “is” and also holds up the work of Wyatt Tee 2. Ron Eyerman and Andrew the “ought” becomes too great, the Walker, who traced the movement of Jamison, Music and Social Movements: Mobilizing Traditions in impulse for revolution is ignited. the songs from “Spiritual” to “Freedom the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Song”6 and pointed out the strong Cambridge University Press, — Don Saliers, “Theological connection between the political mes- 1998), 1. Foundations of Liturgical Reform”1 sage of the movement and the music 3. Ibid., 1–2. They dene the that supported the message: “The mobilization of tradition in this While reading his paper to an audience music of the struggle soon belonged manner: “in social movements, musical and other kinds of cul- of liturgists at the Congress of Societas tural traditions are made and Liturgica in Germany in 2013, theolo- remade, and after the movements gian Don Saliers paused here, adding fade away as political forces, the that the civil rights movement of the music remains as a memory and as a potential way to inspire new 1960s was a time when singing human waves of mobilization.” beings moved between what “is” and 4. Ibid., 4. what “ought” to be. In their discussion About the 5. James Abbington, “If It concerning the connection between Author Had Not Been for the Lord music and social movements, academ- on My Side: Hymnody in ics Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison African-American Churches,” note that music has the unique abil- Stephanie A. Budwey graduated from the in New Songs of Celebration ity to act as “an important vehicle for School of Theology in 2004 with a Master Render: Congregational Song in of Sacred Music in Organ and in 2012 with the Twenty-First Century, ed. C. the diusion of movement ideas into a Doctor of Theology in Liturgical Studies Michael Hawn (Chicago: GIA the broader culture.”2 The civil rights and Church Music. Publications, Inc., 2013), 73. movement was such a time, accom-

6. Ibid. panied by songs such as “We Shall Photo by Pippa Mpunzwana

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 33 rejected, and vilied in the name of to any sympathetic supporter of the 7. Wyatt Tee Walker, God and Jesus. But they were not just movement.”7 These songs were versa- “Somebody’s Calling My Name”: singing, they were testifying.9 Black Sacred Music and Social tile in that they could be sung within Change (Valley Forge, PA: Judson both “sacred” and “secular” venues; Through their reappropriation of Press, 1979), 153. Abbington writes that the freedom songs these hymns, the “brave voices” Creech 8. Abbington, “If It Had Not were “not only sung in freedom marches heard were queering the hymns as they Been for the Lord on My Side,” and rallies but also were regularly sung claimed “that they, too, were children 74. as congregational songs in worship, of a loving God who had blessed them 9. Jimmy Creech, Adam’s Gift: A especially in churches throughout the with innate dignity and integrity.”10 Memoir of a Pastor’s Calling to Defy South.”8 They boldly reappropriated hymns sung the Church’s Persecution of Lesbians and Gays (Durham and London: in conservative churches that had pre- Duke University Press, 2011), TAKING HYMNS TO THE STREETS viously shunned them, and were now 50–51. A similar phenomenon is characteristic proudly singing them in the streets 10. Ibid., 51. of the LGBTQ rights during a gay pride 11. Eyerman and Jamison, Music movement. Jimmy parade. Eyerman and and Social Movements, 78. Creech, a former At STH’s 2013 Service of Jamison describe this United Methodist min- Matriculation, we sang the action of “recon- ister who was removed stitution”: “But in from ministry after hymn “The Arc of History,” taking on a political celebrating a same- joining together the civil dimension within sex union, poignantly social movements, describes the scene rights and LGBT Q rights oral traditions—the at the 1988 North movements in many ways. forms of musical and Carolina Gay Pride cultural expression— Weekend: are reconstituted. By becoming sources of empowerment, Just behind us, members of St. education, and ‘consciousness-raising,’ John’s Metropolitan Community musical expression can thus serve as a Church pulled a little red wagon form of exemplary social action.”11 carrying a boom box playing familiar hymns—“Jesus Loves Me, This I NEW SONGS FOR NEW EXPERIEN CES Know,” “Blessed Assurance, Jesus Early on in the LGBTQ rights move- Is Mine,” and “Just as I Am, with- ment, these hymns were sung in out One Plea.” They sang as they churches too, as LGBTQ people had walked, transforming the hymns from no other hymns to sing. But soon, they songs of private piety into profound and their allies would begin to write public armation of a faith in God’s their own hymns, born out of their own radically unconditional love and accep- experiences. At STH’s 2013 Service of tance. These lesbian, gay, transgender, Matriculation, we sang the hymn “The and bisexual people had every reason Arc of History,” joining together the to turn their backs on the [C]hurch civil rights and LGBTQ rights move- because they had been condemned, ments in many ways. Though there has

34 boston university 12. Adam M. L. Tice (b. 1979) been much debate about the connec- is a Mennonite hymn writer: tion of these two movements, they www.adammltice.com. Adam became inextricably linked by the back- M. L. Tice, 2013; © 2013, GIA to-back rulings of the Supreme Court Publications, Inc. All rights The Arc of History reserved. Used by permission. on June 25 and 26, 2013, striking down www.giamusic.com. part of the Voting Rights Act and the 13. The original line is “the love Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Editor’s note: This hymn is inspired that dare not speak its name,” How could those of us in the LGBTQ by the 2013 Supreme Court ruling against the Defense of Marriage Act. which comes from Lord Alfred community fully celebrate the striking Douglas’ 1894 poem “Two Loves.” Douglas and Oscar Wilde down of DOMA while our African were reported to be lovers and the American sisters and brothers were dealt 1. The arc of hist’ry bends today quote came up at Wilde’s 1895 the blow of the decision on the Voting again t’ward peace, its aim, trial for “gross indecency.” Rights Act only the day before? as love, once more, has found a way, 14. See particularly Tice’s stanza Adam M. L. Tice’s hymn “The Arc and dares to speak its name. three: “though surely as one of History”12 addresses this tension, struggle ends, / another takes its place.” and the constant struggle between 2. As shame and silence lose their hold, what Saliers described as the gap we learn to sing new songs; between what “is” and what “ought” new voices lead us, proud and bold, to be. Tice composed this text imme- to overturn old wrongs. diately after the Supreme Court rul- ing on DOMA, and through text and music, he intertwines the civil rights 3. The arc of hist’ry always bends and LGBTQ rights movements: he sets when people share God’s grace; the text to “McKee,” a spiritual, and though surely as one struggle ends, the text makes references to both well- another takes its place. known civil rights quotes—“the arc of the moral universe,” as made famous 4. For dreams deferred and rights denied by Martin Luther King, Jr.—and a our churches must lament; famous reference to same-sex love and when ours is the priv’leged side, (the love that now “dares to speak its Christ calls us to repent. name” in stanza one).13 Although the text celebrates the striking down of DOMA, it does not allow us to rest 5. The arc of hist’ry bends t’ward peace; on our laurels.14 As Professor Peter J. come, see what God has done! Paris so powerfully charged those at Where justice, grace, and love increase, the Service of Matriculation in his ser- a new world is begun. mon “The Prophetic Vision of Justice and Love,” there is still work to be done because there is still injustice in —Adam M. L. Tice the world. May those of us from the School of the Prophets take up such a worthy call. q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 35 JOURNALJOURNAL bringing mission to life BY ADA FOCER (‘05, ‘10) hristian anarchists have long struggled against oppression and striven for an alternative vision Cof communal life. BY RADY ROLDÁN-FIGUEROA to her political ideas. Yet Capetillo, like (’05), assistant professor of the history of Tolstoy, Ellul, and other Christian anar- Christianity chists, harmonized her faith in human progress, belief in the possibilities of As we commemorate the 50th anniver- mutualism, and despisement of the cor- sary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have rupting character of statist structures with a Dream” speech, it is also important to her deep admiration, even reverence, for remember how other equally inspired g- the inspiring gure of Jesus of Nazareth. ures confronted the ills of inequality and Her love for liberty was as uncompromis- oppression. Christian anarchists, for exam- ing as her passion for social and gender ple, have long articulated an alternative equality. vision of human communal existence. Born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, to a Historically, anarchists have been both French mother and a father from the internationalists and antimilitarists, as well Basque provinces of Spain, Capetillo was as stubbornly committed to both liberty baptized in 1890 at age 11 and raised and equality. Christian anarchists such as Roman Catholic. In 1906, she became a Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) and Jacques “reader” in a local cigar-making factory. Ellul (1912–1994) rejected political coer- Her new role, which required her to read cion and the need for the state in favor of to the artisans as they crafted cigars made communal organization based on mutual with tobacco leaves, enabled her to get cooperation. Both derived their political acquainted with socialist and anarchist convictions from their own readings of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth and primitive Christianity.1 The Puerto Rican feminist and labor organizer Luisa Capetillo (1879–1922) About the was another exponent of Christian anar- Professor chism.2 Recently rediscovered after a 1. See Jacques Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity (Grand Rapids: Wm. long period of unjustied neglect, she is B. Eerdmans, 1988). now widely recognized as one of Latin Rady Roldán-Figueroaspecializes in the early modern period of Christian history with 2. For her biography, see Norma America’s earliest feminists, and former a particular emphasis on Spanish spirituality Valle Ferrer, Luisa Capetillo: President Bill Clinton placed her amongst and the projection of Tridentine Christianity Pioneer Puerto Rican Feminist (New the likes of suragist Susan B. Anthony throughout the Spanish Empire. He is the York: Peter Lang, 2006). (1820–1906).3 The intimate relationship theology track director of the Sixteenth Century Society & Conference and is on the 3. William J. Clinton, “Women’s between Capetillo’s political and reli- editorial board of theJournal of Early Modern History Month, 1998, gious views, however, has not received Christianity. Proclamation 7071,” Code of Federal Regulations, title 3, 1998 the same level of attention. Her religious

Compilation (1999), 12. convictions are still seen as peripheral Photo by Pippa Mpunzwana

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 37 ideas that were common within the work- Capetillo’s religious views represent an 4. For a complete anthology of ers’ movement of the period. amalgam of traditional Christian ideas and her writings and bibliography, emerging currents of Christian Spiritism. see Norma Valle Ferrer, ed., Luisa Capetillo: obra completa: “Mi WOMAN ON A MISSION In her play In uencias de las ideas modernas, patria es la libertad” (San Juan, Capetillo devoted all her life to the work- included in the book of the same name, P.R.: Departamento del Trabajo ers’ movement as a labor organizer and the central character explains how her y Recursos Humanos; Cayey: author. She was an active member of the independent study of Spiritism led her to Universidad de Puerto Rico en Cayey, 2008). Federación Libre de Trabajadores (FLT), anarchism: “This made me a revolution- the rst labor union established in Puerto ary, because it explained to me that all 5. Luisa Capetillo, In uencias de las ideas modernas, in Absolute Equality, Rico after the American invasion of 1898. men are brothers, that no one has the trans. Lara Walker (Houston: Arte Her aliation with the FLT and work as a right to hurt others or to impose their Público Press, 2009), 29. reader for cigar makers ideas on them or to 6. Capetillo, Ensayos libertarios paved the way for her enslave them, and (Arecibo, P.R.: Real Hermanos, 1907). rst book, Ensayos liber- Capetillo denounced the I also realized that tarios (Liberation Essays, luxury was a crime 7. Ibid., 11. 1907), which was fol- rich who hid behind a veil as long as there was lowed by La humanidad of false Christianity and misery.”5 In Ensayos del futuro (Humanity in libertarios 6—a collec- the Future, 1910) and reproached them for not tion of short columns Mi opinión sobre las lib- showing the abnegation of and speeches that she ertades, derechos y deberes either wrote for a de la mujer (My Opinion true Christians. workers’ newspaper or on the Liberties, Rights, delivered at political and Duties of Women, meetings—Capetillo 1911).4 decried the poor living conditions of Capetillo expanded her eld of work workers in Puerto Rico. For instance, by joining the growing Puerto Rican she reported that coee workers earned exodus to the then-sprawling industrial an average of 50 to 60 cents per day.7 centers of the northeastern United States. Moreover, she articulated the themes that In 1912, she moved to New York and a signaled her intellectual independence as a year later to Florida, where she worked Christian anarchist. Her political program with cigar makers in Ybor City and consisted of the promotion of autodidac- Tampa. Her involvement with Cuban ticism, nonviolence, mutual aid, and self- workers in Tampa led her to move to reliance for the removal of the corrupting Havana, where she stayed from 1915 to force of egoism. Capetillo advocated the 1916. There, she ran into diculties with use of the general strike as the only tactic the authorities not only for her organizing for achieving workers’ emancipation, and work but also for cross-dressing as a man. proposed the abolition of national bound- After she was deported, she returned to aries in order to create an international Puerto Rico and published In uencias de fraternity of humankind. las ideas modernas (The In uence of Modern Capetillo also made a visceral attack on Ideas, 1916), a collection of plays, stories, the Roman Catholic Church, holding cler- and other small works. gy’s religious “mercantilism” responsible for

38 boston university 8. Ibid., 5. “godlessness, skepticism, blasphemy, and For Capetillo, religious temples were the 9. Ibid., 25. even crime.”8 For Capetillo, free thought loci of idolatry, where the hypocrisy of 10. Capetillo, Ensayos, 6. did not preclude belief in God. She rea- the rich could be disguised alongside the 11. Ibid., 16. soned that if free thinkers rejected God’s frivolity of exterior ceremonials. Nature, 12. Ibid., 11. existence, it was only because “priests and on the other hand, was the real scenario friars” were liars and made “commerce” of the divine. Hence, workers needed 13. Ibid., 25–26. with their religious “tales.”9 to turn to nature to nd the principle of 14. Ibid., 9–10. equality that would eradicate the evil of 15. Ibid. THE TRUE CHRISTIANS egoism. Anarchists did not have to wait 16. Ibid., 32. Capetillo argued that the true Christians for God to end injustice. The teachings were the anarchists. She was reacting of Christ were all they needed: “With to the Puerto Rican society of her time the Christian maxims we ought to rule when the major- ourselves, and in that ity of the people way we worship God were Catholics, Capetillo’s commitment without temples, or including the rich altars, or recitations, landlords. But to the cause of liberty and or litanies.”16 she also criticized equality for all should serve Luisa Capetillo wealthy Spiritists. died of tuberculosis She denounced as an inspiring call to action in 1922. She was the rich who hid for all people of conscience. almost destitute at the behind a veil of time, and the work- false Christianity ers’ movement she and reproached them for not showing sought to inspire was experiencing major the abnegation of true Christians.10 She transformations under the in uence of said that to let a hungry person go to jail rising nationalism. Her commitment to for stealing bread was the most impious, the cause of liberty and equality for all, “anti-Christian” act.11 however, should serve as an inspiring call Workers, in contrast, were called to to action for all people of conscience. be “practicing Christians,” following Certainly, we are in a better position to the teachings of Jesus. Moreover, she transcend her anti-Catholicism. More saw herself as “preaching the practices importantly, we need to rekindle hope of Christ.”12 Capetillo saw anarchist for King’s Dream. The need is particu- ideals as the purest expression of the larly urgent at a time characterized by the teachings of Jesus, whom she repre- unprecedented concentration of wealth, sented as a free thinker who venerated the development of powerful technolo- nature.13 He was the founder of a new gies that monitor our daily living, the “cult” (culto) inspired by forgiveness and demagogic undermining of democratic predicated upon love and respect for institutions, and the spread of gender the dignity of life.14 violence. Like King, Capetillo had a Christ’s cult was characterized by deep dream—a dream for a society of genu- reverence for nature: “Christ prayed in ine human proportions predicated upon open nature, this is the true temple.”15 liberty and equality for all. q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 39 JOURNAL

Toward LIB ER AT IO N ake-believe isn’t just for children. Playing at the kingdom of God helps make it a reality. Tow M ard LI BY COURTNEY T. GOTO, assistant verb prospoieomai, which means “to pre- BE professor of religious education tend,” play involves a world character- RA ized not only by make-believe, but of T In a world of suering, oppression, and acting or believing as though something IO injustice, one might assume there is were true.2 In playing, possibilities N neither time nor place for playing. Play abound. Alternatives and visions can be is often considered frivolous—associ- inhabited, explored, and abandoned. ated with children, adolescents, and A child plays with a cardboard box as entertainment—and irrelevant to the if it were a house. Readers suspend serious business of Christianity’s role in their disbelief when they enter the c- human liberation and Christian forma- tional world of a book. Soldiers ght as tion. On church grounds, play is often though they are in a combat situation thought to be restricted to areas such as when they engage in war games. the nursery, the playground, or meeting Even in dangerous times, playing rooms for youth. Churches intention- pretend can be vital. In the midst of ally isolate play from “serious” areas like slavery, African Americans continued the sanctuary and the pastor’s oce. to practice forms of play that preserved In religious education literature, play human dignity.3 Playing helped slaves remains on the periphery, relegated to to resist and to indirectly make a mock- discussions of youth and children’s min- istry and omitted from discourse about 1. Jerome Berryman advocates adult lay education and clergy forma- for play in religious education. tion.1 However, play allows human The author argues that godly play beings to negotiate perceptions of real- is not only for children but also About the ity and possibilities for changing it. for adults. However, the major Professor contribution of Berryman’s work To play is to lose oneself in a revela- is in the area of children’s play tory mode of engaging reality “as if,” and religious education. Jerome Berryman, Godly Play: A Way of exploring freely a world of possibilities Religious Education (San Francisco: bounded by the practices that struc- Courtney T. Goto is assistant professor of HarperSanFrancisco, 1991). ture it. Playing allows a person to sense religious education and a codirector of the Center for Practical Theology. Her research 2. David LeRoy Miller, Gods and what is true or authentic by inviting the interests include aesthetic teaching and Games: Toward a Theology of Play player to enter a world of imagination, learning; intersections between faith and (New York: Harper & Row, creativity, and the senses. This entails culture; and imagination, creativity, and 1973), 143. embodied knowing in adult religious edu- setting aside just enough disbelief, cation. Her latest book project is The Grace 3. James H. Evans, Jr., Playing: appearances, or literal ways of thinking of Play: Pedagogies for Leaning Into God’s Christian Explorations of Daily Living New Creation. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), to shift temporarily into another way of

21–28. engaging reality. Rooted in the Greek Photo courtesy of Courtney T. Goto

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 41 ery of white slave owners.4 Reframing harmony, and authenticity. In taking 4. Evans discusses the “corn an unfathomable reality by temporarily Communion (a practice that invites shucking ritual,” which separating themselves from it was key to playing), the faithful sense the reality to allowed slaves to poke fun at the master under the cover of their survival, giving them hope, dig- which Christians are called by believ- frivolity. Ibid., 25. nity, and vision. Playing allowed African ing “as if ” and being reconciled to one 5. Jürgen Moltmann, Americans to experience who they truly another and to God in the sharing of Theology of Play (New York: were and to reject racist understandings Christ’s body. Paradoxically, sometimes Harper & Row, 1972), of slaves imposed in everyday life. By Christian communities play in the king- 12–13. playing, they were creating what Jürgen dom of God, which has both a not-yet 6. Ibid. Moltmann calls an “anti-environment” and already dimension. Human beings 7. The term “kingdom of or a “counter-environment.” Such an are already children of God, related God” carries with it patriar- environment opens to God and to one chal overtones that foreclose the possibility of playing for people to “creative another by grace. some. However, I use this freedom and future In playing at the Playing has been key familiar language to illumine alternatives” through to Christian faith for a perhaps less-familiar notion kingdom of God, “conscious confronta- generations of believ- of Christians playing. tion.”5 Playing with Christian communities ers, but play has been more liberating pos- attempt to create the named otherwise or not sibilities is vital to at all because of play’s exploring them, claim- world to which Jesus’ negative connotations. ing them, and making life, death, and Christians routinely play them real.6 through liturgy, while resurrection point— interpreting the Bible, PLAYING AT a place where all in singing, and in other POSSIBILITIES practices that evoke cre- Christian communi- of creation can live ativity, imagination, and ties often play at or in in justice, harmony, the senses. Furthermore, the kingdom of God,7 religious educators have losing themselves in and authenticity. long taught through exploring a world of the play of imagination possibilities in Christ, and the arts. However, so that they might live into them more if Christians were able to recognize fully. Much of Jesus’ life and teach- play in more critical, theoretical terms, ing attempts to strip away barriers and the faithful could intentionally retrieve social norms that keep people from and deepen play for the sake of libera- recognizing the inherent worth of all tion. Becoming aware of when, how, people, including those who are mar- and why they are playing in church, the ginalized. In playing at the kingdom of faithful could then facilitate experiences God, Christian communities attempt of creating and inhabiting more visionary to create the world to which Jesus’ life, counter-environments, which encourage death, and resurrection point—a place and challenge people to live into more where all of creation can live in justice, liberative ways of being and being with

42 boston university 8. Hans Urs von Balthasar, one another for the sake of the world. PARTNERING WITH THE SPIRIT Explorations in Theology, vol. 3: Playing can be subversive, involving the When church communities play Creator Spirit, trans. Brian McNeil unexpected. It can often bring people creatively with stories that inform (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 169. to a more honest place of recogniz- faith, they practice seeking inspira- 9. Ibid., 129. ing and questioning habits of thinking, tion from the Creator Spirit. In feeling, and doing that they take for playing, one partners with the Spirit 10. Ibid., 169. granted and that serve to hide what to “leap over one’s own boundary,” they would rather not know. as Hans Urs von Balthasar says, to imagine and participate in creating BRINGING STORIES TO LIFE what transforms.8 The Holy Spirit Christians could seek and live into new works within and among the willing counter-environ- faithful to empower ments by entertain- them to do what ing the stories of the Playing can be they cannot accom- Gospel and Christian plish alone.9 In Jesus’ subversive, involving heritage that are key life, it was in healing to the faith of margin- the unexpected. It the sick and raising alized and oppressed can often bring people the dead. In contem- people. Playing with porary times, playing and through these to a more honest place can contribute to the stories might entail of recognizing and process of liberation. re-creating them and Any leap toward bringing them to questioning habits of freedom inevitably life through poetry, thinking, feeling, and involves death— theater, or visual art. perhaps the death The intention is to doing that they take for of holding patterns explore these nar- granted and that serve that have long held ratives of faith from one captive—and it a new perspective, to hide what they would involves resurrection, trying them on as if rather not know. including the birth they were stepping of new critical into the shoes of awareness and more those who have suered. Eventually, a abundant ways of thinking, feeling, church community could create other and doing.10 renditions of the story, to speak to Playing enables Christians to what feels urgent for the community’s practice leaping over their own transformation. For example, a church boundaries with grace rather than that does not have a history of partici- sheer will. The world created in play- pating in the Underground Railroad ing entices a person to venture into can experience the story through play- a new reality, even if temporarily. ing, creating their own rendition and However, a person never emerges claiming it as their own. quite the same. q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 43 JOURNAL SERMON s BU’s history reveals, it’s only when we match A dreams with deeds that great change is possible. BY BISHOP PETER D. WEAVER (’75, We have all had eye-opening expe- Hon.’13) riences as we have faced the chal- lenges of this life and world. Boston The following is adapted from Weaver’s University has always been a place and baccalaureate address at Marsh Chapel for a community that calls us to dream Boston University’s 2013 Commencement. with our eyes open, keeping an eye on The Scriptures read for the service were reality as well as an eye on possibility. Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 and Romans 12:1–2, 9–13. AN EYE ON REALITY Every time I walk across Marsh Plaza, This morning as I walked across I am swept up again in the events of Marsh Chapel Plaza, I remembered 1970 when I was a student here. On Commencement Day 2012. I’d heard May 4 of that year, four students were one of the graduates say to his family killed at Kent State University, and and friends, “This is a dream come BU students packed Marsh Plaza in true!” Without skipping a beat, his protest. The next day, BU’s adminis- father replied, “And what is your next tration building was rebombed and dream?”—probably hoping it wasn’t the deans voted to cancel exams and to live at home the rest of his life. It’s Commencement. Waves of bomb scares a great question, whoever you are: on campus continued that year: in one “What is your next dream?” 10-day period there were 35 threats. This conversation reminded me of a phrase about dreams crafted by Elie Wiesel (Hon.’74) for his novel The Time of the Uprooted. One of the great profes- sors and human beings here at Boston University, Wiesel is a Holocaust survi- About the Author vor and Nobel Peace Prize winner who has confronted the worst in humanity and sought to call forth the best. In The Time of the Uprooted, the central char- Peter D. Weaver is the retired resident bishop for the New England Conference of acter, Gamaliel Friedman, has faced the United Methodist Church and a former extraordinary challenges and pain. At Boston University trustee. He has worked one point, he re ects on human beings with Jim Wallis and others on the Make Poverty History campaign. Weaver has as “the restless and mysterious shadow of served as president of the global Council a dream, and that dream may be God’s.” of Bishops of the United Methodist Church, 1. Elie Wiesel, The Time of the for which he works in Washington, DC. Uprooted (New York: Alfred A. His hope, he says, is to “dream with my 1 Knopf, 2005), 5. eyes open.” Photo by Cydney Scott

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 45 In the many rallies on the plaza, we Castillo’s memorial to BU graduate 2. Ed McCurdy, “Last Night I would sing: “Last night I had the strang- Martin Luther King, Jr., lifts my spirit. Had the Strangest Dream” (1950). est dream I’d ever had before/I dreamed It is titled Free at Last, echoing the last 3. Martin Luther King, Jr., the world had all agreed to put an end lines of King’s Dream speech deliv- “I Have a Dream” (speech, Washington, DC, August 28, 2 to war.” There we were dreaming of ered 50 years ago. King spoke with 1963), American Rhetoric, a world without war, but with our eyes eyes open to searing realities as well http://www.americanrhetoric. closed to the very reality of violence as soaring possibilities. Too often we com/speeches/mlkihaveadream. in our own BU world. Our dreams of forget that although his words focused htm. transformation were somehow discon- on human civil rights, the breadth of nected from the schemes of coercion in his spirit and dreams—born of God which we were participating. and nurtured in this University—could More than 40 years have passed, and not be contained or limited. His eye there is still war, violence, and hatred all became focused on the possibility of around us. Whether it takes place at the confronting not only racism, but also nish line of a marathon, or in response war, poverty, and all that diminishes or to heinous acts in Syria, or in a street destroys our God-given humanity. ght in Boston, or in a domestic argu- If the dreams of peace, justice, and ment gone ballistic, violence seems to equality for all are to become reality, be the response of choice. And racial, we must, like the doves of peace in religious, and sexual minorities are still Free at Last, launch ourselves from the at risk in this society. University toward the city and the Too often we turn a blind eye to the world—with eyes open to do the work realities of violence, injustice, and suer- of peace, to y in the face of injustice, to ing in which we ourselves are complicit. continue to dream “even though,” Too often we have not been clear-eyed as King said, “we face the diculties of about the evils embedded in the realities today and tomorrow.” 3 If these dreams, in which we participate, nor farsighted and the true “common-wealth” of about the commitments that are neces- economic resources and community sary to live into the possibilities of which power, are to become reality, the we dream. We too easily drift into con- dream-doers must leave Marsh Plaza and formity to the world, as Paul reminded Commonwealth Avenue; they must get the Romans (12:1-2), and abandon on the MBTA and go to the Financial dreams of transformation. District, to Government Center, the An eye on reality should bring us all to Theater District, and over to Dorchester confession. Dreaming with our eyes open where eight-year-old Boston Marathon lets us see that dreams without deeds are bombing victim Martin Richard lived. simply daydreams, and deeds detached He had talked of coming to BU. He from great dreams are simply mindless, had held up his dream on a blue poster sleepwalking conformity to what is. board: “No more hurting people. Peace.” Can it happen? AN EYEON POSSIBILITY It is the story of this University. With Something else happens every time an eye on reality and an eye on possibil- I walk across Marsh Plaza: Sergio ity, the BU vision arises. This University

46 boston university and its graduates are not just about before there were any buildings, fac- education, but education that prepares ulty, or students. That’s an incarnation for the doing of dreams, the incarna- of imagination—matching the dream tion of imagination. It is in the DNA with a deed. It was the largest single of BU: Dreams Nurturing Action. This donation that had ever been made to an has never been a university content American college or university at that with mimicking others—in the words time. What followed was amazing and of Paul to the Romans, “conforming.” transformational. Here from BU gradu- Rather, our history has been about ated the rst woman PhD in America, transforming—about dreams nurturing the nation’s rst black psychiatrist, the action re ecting the imagination of God. rst woman with a Bachelor of Divinity degree, the rst woman to be admitted MATCHING to the Massachusetts DREAM WITH Bar. Here, DEED This has never been a Alexander Graham In the 1860s, three Bell strung wires Methodists had an university content with across his class- eye on a radical mimicking others—in the room, leading to possibility. They the invention of the words of Paul to the Romans, believed every telephone. Here, person was created “conforming.” Rather, our Edgar Helms (1893, in God’s image Hon.’40) imagined history has been about and deserved an the ministries that education. They transforming. became Goodwill had a dream of a Industries. Here, university open to Alexander Golob everyone—men and women, all races (CFA’16, CAS’16), seeing a drab, bare (they were passionately antislavery), all wall in a BU parking lot, organized economic statuses, and people of all seniors and other artistic dreamers and religions or no religion. This was a rad- doers to create an amazing mural trans- ical notion. They already had a school forming our campus. And here, with of theology that Harvard had oered eyes open to the environmental crisis, to take under its wing, but they refused the Class of 2013 wore red graduation because of the compelling dream they gowns transformed into fabric from had of fully inclusive education and 107,000 recycled bottles. society. Their dream was that this What is your next dream? With an education would be free to everyone, eye to realities and an eye to possibili- supported by scholarships (we’re still ties, what is the incarnation of imagina- working on some dreams). tion you yearn to live into? At age 84, With eyes wide open to reality, Elie Wiesel said recently, “I get the and the dream of possibilities clear to feeling I haven’t even begun. I have him, Isaac Rich, a BU founder, gave so much else to do.” Let’s begin. his entire fortune to the dream, even Let’s commence. q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 47 We all share a common destiny: that of continuing the ongoing pursuit of God and discerning what God is up to—and what that may mean. As physicist Sir Arthur Eddington noted, “Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.”1 I want to know: what is that something up to? In the Bible, Esdras raises fundamental questions about human destiny, particularly our propensity for good or evil. God’s reply is a pretest to learning “the answer”: God gives Esdras three problems, saying, “If you can solve one of them for me, then I will teach you why the heart is evil.” (2 Esdras 4) While at STH you may have thought your doctoral defense was a bear or your master’s thesis was an agony, imagine being asked by God to “weigh for me a mea- sure of re, or measure for me a blast of wind, or call back for me a day that is past.” (2 Esdras 5) It is the notion of questions—whether you are asking them or being asked—and their sig- nicance that I would like to explore. Questions help us to locate—literally, personally, and spiritually—where we are and oer direction about ways we might go. Some 40 years ago, upon completing the last lecture of the semester, the late Professor of Hebrew Scriptures Harrell F. Beck asked, “How many of you feel that you have acquired something of value in this course?” All hands went up. Then he asked, “So what have you acquired or learned?” I raised my hand and stammered, “But, I don’t know.” Beck smiled and went on: “I can only hope I have exposed you to some of the deeper questions, the possibilities, and the potential resourcesJOURNAL for struggling with them. I hope you have gained a vision of what you may wish to know but do not yet know. I hope you have begun to realize that it is the questions—not the answers—to which Holy Writ speaks and stirs us.” He looked at me and winked, saying, “A responsible answer, Mr. Karpf.” My favorite poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, describes the search for wisdomSERMON this way: When a baby is taken from the wet nurse, it easily forgets her and starts eating solid food. Seeds feed awhile on ground, then lift up into the sun. So you should taste the ltered light and work your way toward wisdom with no personal covering. That’s how you came here, like a star without a name. Move across the night sky with those anonymous lights. Perhaps—even now—you still have a question or two about what your time at STH was about. That is good; keep the questions coming. For those of you who have gured out all your answers, question them for more insight. Some years ago, while on mission in South Africa to build response to the overwhelming calamity of HIV/AIDS, I ran out of questions, doubting myself and my sanity. Hope dried up as every week I opened yet another diocese or community to the possibility of doing the impossible: caring for those suering from AIDS and preventing more infections. Early one Sunday morning on another ight out, the Chief Hasidic Rabbi of South Africa and I were seated together. As the plane took o, we both opened our prayer books, the rebbe donned his prayer shawl, and we said our individual morning prayers. Then we settled back and began to tell each other the stories of our lives. In this intimate conversation we encountered true communion. When one of those individual conversational silences came, as they do, the rebbe looked intently at me and asked, “What’s troubling you?” I replied, “There is a lot of horror in my life with megadeath due to AIDS; deceit and inertia from government; silence from the Church; and fumbling in communities.” He nodded in agreement and paused just long enough for me to ask a question that had been burning in me. “Tell me, with all that you and your community have endured, and all that you have seen and experienced, how do you dare pray?” After a while, he answered as only a rebbe can—with three questions. “Tell me,” he asked, “have you a friend with whom you pray, as those concerned for one another?” I shook my head “no.” “Have you a teacher with whom you pray as a student of prayer?” I shook my head again. “Have you a student to whom you teach prayer?” I confessed that I was alone. “Aha,” he said. “You have lost your anchors in the sea of desolation. Without these anchors you are adrift in your own experience and can only hope that you are in the hands of God. Without these anchors you may not be hearing the voice of God in the silences between the words and your experience.” Nodding silently, I began to weep in my empti- ness. From that day, the rebbe became my teacher. Later, I found a friend and a student. If you don’t submit to the questions, you may nd yourself staring into the void today, wondering how to weigh a measure of re, or believing that you have been tasked to catch a blast of wind, or that you will actually try to call back a day that is past. It is, after all, about the questions. You may know the social work window in the center stairwell of the School of Theology. It has been a place of solace for many. I was recently shocked to discover that it really doesn’t tell a story as much as it begs questions. The window says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach.”3 It is a poor paraphrase of the biblical passage, an artifact of another age. Encountering the window, each of us must ask: To whom are we preaching? About what? Why is this Good News? What will this change? In the context of the right questions, the window points to larger purposes impelling us toward relief and release, toward justice-seeking and peacemaking by, for, and with all people. What I learned from that window is how I needed to expend my life—by touching and being touched over and over again by society’s ills: disease, death, heartbreak, injustice, inequity, poverty, and indignity. I have been tossed into the world of brokenness and horror only to learn and relearn that this great commission is neither theoretical nor some trumped-up piety, but a daily fact of life in which we always have the choice to touch or be touched. What does it mean when we have no questions or have run out of them? The lack of questioning signals our end, our death: physical, psychological, or spiritual. But new questions can lead to new life, our rebirth. What are your questions today? Where are you going? Whom will you love and how? Where is your imagination on re? How can your life bring meaning? Let me return to Sir Arthur Eddington, who leaves us with this discovery: “We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origins. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own.”4 Indeed, continuing to question leads us home—home to ourselves and ultimately, home to God. And so hear this invitation from Rumi to a life of questioning: Come, come, whoever you are. Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vow a thousand times Come, yet again, come, come.5 As the holy one blesses, so may you be blessed—with the illumination of a million ques- tions and the brightness of wondrous possibilities. q We all share a common destiny: that of continuing the ongoing pursuit of God and discerning what God is up to—and what that may mean. As physicist Sir Arthur Eddington noted, “Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.”1 I want to know: what is that something up to? In the Bible, Esdras raises fundamental questions about human destiny, particularly our propensity for good or evil. God’s reply is a pretest to learning “the answer”: God gives Esdras three problems, saying, “If you can solve one of them for me, then I will teach you why the heart is evil.” (2 Esdras 4) While at STH you may have thought your doctoral defense was a bear or your master’s thesis was an agony, imag- ine being asked by God to “weigh for me a measure of re, or measure for me a blast of wind, or call back for me a day that is past.” (2 Esdras 5) It is the notion of questions—whether you are asking them or being asked—and their signicance that I would like to explore. Questions help us to locate—literally, personally, and spiritually—where we are and oer direction about ways we might go. Some 40 years ago, upon completing the last lecture of the semester, the late Professor of Hebrew Scriptures Harrell F. Beck asked, “How many of you feel that you have acquired something of value in this course?” All hands went up. Then he asked, “So what have you acquired or learned?” I raised my hand and stammered, “But, I don’t know.” Beck smiled and went on: “I can only hope I have exposed you to some of the deeper questions, the possibilities, and the potential resources for struggling with them. I hope you have gained a vision of what you may wish to know but do not yet know. I hope you have begun to realize that it is the questions—not the answers—to which Holy Writ speaks and stirs us.” He looked at meQUESTION and winked, saying, “A responsible answer, Mr. Karpf.” My favorite poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, describes the search for wisdom this way: When a baby is taken from the wet nurse, it easily for- gets her and starts eating solid food. Seeds feed awhile on ground, then lift up into the sun. So you should taste the ltered light and work your way toward wisdom with no personal covering. That’s how you came here, like a star without a name. Move across the night sky with those anonymous lights. Perhaps—even now—you still have a question or two about what your time at STH was about. That is good; keep the questions coming. For those of you who have gured out all your answers, question them for more insight. Some years ago, while on mission in South Africa to build response to the overwhelming calamity of HIV/AIDS, I ran out of questions, doubting myself and my sanity. Hope dried up as every week I opened yet another diocese or community to the possibility of doing the impossible: caring for those suering from AIDS and preventing more infections. Early one Sunday morning on another ight out, the Chief Hasidic Rabbi of South Africa and I were seated together. As the plane took o, we both opened our prayer books, the rebbe donned his prayer shawl, and we said our individual morning prayers. Then we settled back and began to tell each other the stories of our lives. In this intimate conversation we encountered true communion. When one of those individual conversational silences came, as they do, the rebbe looked intently at me and asked, “What’s troubling you?” I replied, “There is a lot of horror in my life with megadeath due to AIDS; deceit and inertia from government; silence from the Church; and fumbling in communities.” He nodded in agreement and paused just long enough for me to ask a question that had been burning in me. “Tell me, with all that you and your community have endured, and all that you have seen and experienced, how do you dare pray?” After a while, he answered as only a rebbe can—with three questions. “Tell me,” he asked, “have you a friend with whom you pray, as those concerned for one another?” I shook my head “no.” “Have you a teacher with whom you pray as a student of prayer?” I shook my head again. “Have you a student to whom you teach prayer?” I confessed that I was alone. “Aha,” he said. “You have lost your anchors in the sea of desolation. Without these anchors you are adrift in your own experience and can only hope that you are in the hands of God. Without these anchors you may not be hearing the voice of God in the silences between the words and your experience.” Nodding silently, I began to weep in my emptiness. From that day, the rebbe became my teacher. Later, I found a friend and a student. If you don’t submit to the questions, you may nd yourself star- ing into the void today, wondering how to weigh a measure of re, or believing that you have been tasked to catch a blast of wind, or that you will actually try to call back a day that is past. It is, after all, about the questions. You may know the social work window in the center stairwell of the School of Theology. It has been a place of solace for many. I was recently shocked to discover that it really doesn’t tell a story as much as it begs questions. The window says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach.”3 It is a poor paraphrase of the biblical passage, an artifact of another age. Encountering the window, each of us must ask: To whom are we preaching? About what? Why is this Good News? What will this change? In the context of the right questions, the window points to larger purposes impelling us toward relief and release, toward justice-seeking and peacemaking by, for, and with all people. What I learned from that window is how I needed to expend my life—by touching and being touched over and over again by society’s ills: disease, death, heartbreak, injustice, inequity, poverty, and indignity. I have been tossed into the world of brokenness and horror only to learn and relearn that this great commission is neither theoretical nor some trumped-up piety, but a daily fact of life in which we always have the choice to touch or be touched. What does it mean when we have no questions or have run out of them? The lack of questioning signals our end, our death: physical, psychological, or spiritual. But new questions can lead to new life, our rebirth. What are your questions today? Where are you going? Whom will you love and how? Where is your imagination on re? How can your life bring meaning? Let me return to Sir Arthur Eddington, who leaves us with this discovery: “We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origins. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own.”4 Indeed, continuing to ques- tion leads us home—home to ourselves and ultimately, home to God. And so hear this invitation from Rumi to a life of questioning: Come, come, whoever you are. Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vow a thousand times Come, yet again, come, come.5 As the holy one blesses, so may you be blessed— with the illumination of a million questions and the brightness of wondrous possibilities. q We all share a common destiny: that of continuing the ongoing pursuit of God and discerning what God is up to—and what that may mean. As physicist Sir Arthur Eddington noted, “Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.”1 I want to know: what is that something up to? In the Bible, Esdras raises fundamental questions about human destiny, particularly our propensity for good or evil. God’s reply is a pretest to learning “the answer”: God gives Esdras three problems, saying, “If you can solve one of them for me, then I will teach you why the heart is evil.” (2 Esdras 4) While at STH you may have thought your doctoral defense was a bear or your master’s thesis was an agony, imagine being asked by God to “weigh for me a measure of re, or measure for me a blast of wind, or call back for me a day that is past.” (2 Esdras 5) It is the notion of questions—whether you are asking them or being asked—and their signicance that I would like to explore. Questions help us to locate—literally, personally, and spiritually— where we are and oer direction about ways we might go. Some 40 years ago, upon completing the last lecture of the semester, the late Professor of Hebrew Scriptures Harrell F. Beck asked, “How many of you feel that you have acquired something of value in this course?” All hands went up. Then he asked, “So what have you acquired or learned?” I raised my hand and stammered, “But, I don’t know.” Beck smiled and went on: “I can only hope I have exposed you to some of the deeper questions, the possibilities, and the potential resources for struggling with them. I hope you have gained a vision of what you may wish to know but do not yet know. I hope you have begun to realize that it is the questions—not the answers—to which Holy Writ speaks and stirs us.” He looked at me and winked, saying, “A responsible answer, Mr. Karpf.” My favorite poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, describes the search for wisdom this way: When a baby is taken from the wet nurse, it easily forgets her and starts eating solid food. Seeds feed awhile on ground, then lift up into the sun. So you should taste the ltered light and work your way toward wisdom with no personal covering. That’s how you came here, like a star without a name. Move across the night sky with those anonymous lights. Perhaps—even now—you still have a question or two about what your time at STH was about. That is good; keep the questions coming. For those of you who have gured out all your answers, question them for more insight. Some years ago, while on We all share a common destiny: that of continuing the ongoing pursuit of God and discerning what God is up to—and what that may mean. As physicist Sir Arthur Eddington noted, “Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.”1 I want to know: what is that something up to? In the Bible, Esdras raises fundamental questions about human destiny, particularly our propensity for good or evil. God’s reply is a pretest to learning “the answer”: God gives Esdras three problems, saying, “If you can solve one of them for me, then I will teach you why the heart is evil.” (2 Esdras 4) While at STH you may have thought your doctoral defense was a bear or your master’s thesis was an agony, imagine being asked by God to “weigh for me a mea- sure of re, or measure for me a blast of wind, or call back for me a day that is past.” (2 Esdras 5) It is the notion of questions—whether you are asking them or being asked—and their sig- nicance that I would like to explore. Questions help us to locate—literally, personally, and spiritually—where we are and oer direction about ways we might go. Some 40 years ago, upon completing the last lecture of the semester, the late Professor of Hebrew Scriptures Harrell F. Beck asked, “How many of you feel that you have acquired something of value in this course?” All hands went up. Then he asked, “So what have you acquired or learned?” I raised my hand and stammered, “But, I don’t know.” Beck smiled and went on: “I can only hope I have exposed you to some of the deeper questions, the possibilities, and the potential resources for struggling with them. I hope you have gained a vision of what you may wish to know but do not yet know. I hope you have begun to realize that it is the questions—not the answers—to which Holy Writ speaks and stirs us.” He looked at me and winked, saying, “A responsible answer, Mr. Karpf.” My favorite poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, describes the search for wisdom this way: When a baby is taken from the wet nurse, it easily forgets her and starts eating solid food. Seeds feed awhile on ground, then lift up into the sun. So you should taste the ltered light and work your way toward wisdom with no personal covering. That’s how you came here, like a star without a name. Move across the night sky with those anonymous lights. Perhaps—even now—you still have a question or two about what your time at STH was about. That is good; keep the questions coming. For those of you who have gured out all your answers, question them for more insight. Some years ago, while on mission in South Africa to build response to the overwhelming calamity of n our lifelong pursuit of God, asking questions HIV/AIDS, I ran out of questions, doubting myself and my sanity. Hope dried up as every week I opened yet another diocese or community to the possibility of doing the impossible: caring for those suering from AIDS and preventing more infections. Early one Sunday morning on another ight out, the Chief Hasidic Rabbi of South Africa and I were seated together. As the plane is just as important as nding answers. took o, we both opened our prayer books, the rebbe donned his prayer shawl, and we said our individual morning prayers. Then we settled back and began to tell each other the stories of our lives. In this intimate conversation we encountered true communion. When one of those individual conversational silences came, as they do, the rebbe looked intently at me and asked, “What’s I troubling you?” I replied, “There is a lot of horror in my life with megadeath due to AIDS; deceit and inertia from government; silence from the Church; and fumbling in communities.” He nodded in agreement and paused just long enough for me to ask a question that had been burning in me. “Tell me, with all that you and your community have endured, and all that you have BY TED KARPF (’74) the semester, the late Professor of seen and experienced, how do you dare pray?” After a while, he answered as only a rebbe can—with three questions. “Tell me,” he asked, “have you a friend with whom you pray, as those concerned for one another?” I shook my head “no.” “Have you a teacher with whom you pray as a student of prayer?” I shook my head again. “Have you a student to whom you teach Hebrew Scriptures Harrell F. Beck (’45, prayer?” I confessed that I was alone. “Aha,” he said. “You have lost your anchors in the sea of desolation. Without these anchors you are adrift in your own experience and can only hope that you The following is adapted from Karpf ’s GRS’54) asked, “How many of you are in the hands of God. Without these anchors you may not be hearing the voice of God in the silences between the words and your experience.” Nodding silently, I began to weep in my empti- ness. From that day, the rebbe became my teacher. Later, I found a friend and a student. If you don’t submit to the questions, you may nd yourself staring into the void today, wondering how to weigh address at Marsh Chapel for the Boston feel that you have acquired something a measure of re, or believing that you have been tasked to catch a blast of wind, or that you will actually try to call back a day that is past. It is, after all, about the questions. You may know the social work window in the center stairwell of the School of Theology. It has been a place of solace for many. I was recently shocked to discover that it really doesn’t tell a story as much as it begs questions. University School of Theology Hooding of value in this course?” All hands went The window says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach.”3 It is a poor paraphrase of the biblical passage, an artifact of another age. Encountering the window, each Ceremony in 2013. up. Then he asked, “So what have of us must ask: To whom are we preaching? About what? Why is this Good News? What will this change? In the context of the right questions, the window points to larger purposes impelling us toward relief and release, toward justice-seeking and peacemaking by, for, and with all people. What I learned from that window is how I needed to expend my life—by touching and being you acquired or learned?” I raised my touched over and over again by society’s ills: disease, death, heartbreak, injustice, inequity, poverty, and indignity. I have been tossed into the world of brokenness and horror only to learn and relearn that this great commission is neither theoretical nor some trumped-up piety, but a daily fact of life in which we always have the choice to touch or be touched. What does it mean We all share a common destiny: that of hand and stammered, “But, I don’t when we have no questions or have run out of them? The lack of questioning signals our end, our death: physical, psychological, or spiritual. But new questions can lead to new life, our know.” Beck smiled and went on: “I rebirth. What are your questions today? Where are you going? Whom will you love and how? Where is your imagination on re? How can your life bring meaning? Let me return to Sir continuing the ongoing pursuit of God Arthur Eddington, who leaves us with this discovery: “We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account and discerning what God is up to—and can only hope I have exposed you to for its origins. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own.”4 Indeed, continuing to question leads us home—home to ourselves and ultimately, home to God. And so hear this invitation from Rumi to a life of questioning: Come, come, whoever you are. Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a what that may mean. As physicist Sir some of the deeper questions, the pos- caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vow a thousand times Come, yet again, come, come.5 As the holy one blesses, so may you be blessed—with the illumination of a million ques- tions and the brightness of wondrous possibilities. q We all share a common destiny: that of continuing the ongoing pursuit of God and discerning what God is up to—and what that may Arthur Eddington noted, “Something sibilities, and the potential resources for mean. As physicist Sir Arthur Eddington noted, “Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.”1 I want to know: what is that something up to? In the Bible, Esdras raises fundamental unknown is doing we don’t know struggling with them. I hope you have questions about human destiny, particularly our propensity for good or evil. God’s reply is a pretest to learning “the answer”: God gives Esdras three problems, saying, “If you can solve one of them for me, then I will teach you why the heart is evil.” (2 Esdras 4) While at STH you may have thought your doctoral defense was a bear or your master’s thesis was an agony, imag- what.”1 I want to know: what is that gained a vision of what you may wish ine being asked by God to “weigh for me a measure of re, or measure for me a blast of wind, or call back for me a day that is past.” (2 Esdras 5) It is the notion of questions—whether you are asking them or being asked—and their signicance that I would like to explore. Questions help us to locate—literally, personally, and spiritually—where we are and oer direction about something up to? to know but do not yet know. I hope ways we might go. Some 40 years ago, upon completing the last lecture of the semester, the late Professor of Hebrew Scriptures Harrell F. Beck asked, “How many of you feel that you have In the Bible, Esdras raises funda- you have begun to realize that it is the acquired something of value in this course?” All hands went up. Then he asked, “So what have you acquired or learned?” I raised my hand and stammered, “But, I don’t know.” Beck smiled and went on: “I can only hope I have exposed you to some of the deeper questions, the possibilities, and the potential resources for struggling with them. I hope you have gained a mental questions about human destiny, questions—not the answers—to which vision of what you may wish to know but do not yet know. I hope you have begun to realize that it is the questions—not the answers—to which Holy Writ speaks and stirs us.” He looked at me and winked, saying, “A responsible answer, Mr. Karpf.” My favorite poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, describes the search for wisdom this way: When a baby is taken from the wet nurse, it easily for- particularly our propensity for good or Holy Writ speaks and stirs us.” He gets her and starts eating solid food. Seeds feed awhile on ground, then lift up into the sun. So you should taste the ltered light and work your way toward wisdom with no personal covering. That’s how you evil. God’s reply is a pretest to learning looked at me and winked, saying, “A came here, like a star without a name. Move across the night sky with those anonymous lights. Perhaps—even now—you still have a question or two about what your time at STH was about. That is good; keep the questions coming. For those of you who have gured out all your answers, question them for more insight. Some years ago, while on mission in South Africa to build “the answer”: God gives Esdras three responsible answer, Mr. Karpf.” response to the overwhelming calamity of HIV/AIDS, I ran out of questions, doubting myself and my sanity. Hope dried up as every week I opened yet another diocese or community to the possibility of doing the impossible: caring for those suering from AIDS and preventing more infections. Early one Sunday morning on another ight out, the Chief Hasidic Rabbi of South problems, saying, “If you can solve one My favorite poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, Africa and I were seated together. As the plane took o, we both opened our prayer books, the rebbe donned his prayer shawl, and we said our individual morning prayers. Then we settled back of them for me, then I . . . will teach describes the search for wisdom this way: and began to tell each other the stories of our lives. In this intimate conversation we encountered true communion. When one of those individual conversational silences came, as they do, the rebbe looked intently at me and asked, “What’s troubling you?” I replied, “There is a lot of horror in my life with megadeath due to AIDS; deceit and inertia from government; silence from the you why the heart is evil” (2 Esdras 4:4). Church; and fumbling in communities.” He nodded in agreement and paused just long enough for me to ask a question that had been burning in me. “Tell me, with all that you and your community have endured, and all that you have seen and experienced, how do you dare pray?” After a while, he answered as only a rebbe can—with three questions. “Tell me,” he asked, While at STH you may have thought “have you a friend with whom you pray, as those concerned for one another?” I shook my head “no.” “Have you a teacher with whom you pray as a student of prayer?” I shook my head again. “Have you a student to whom you teach prayer?” I confessed that I was alone. “Aha,” he said. “You have lost your anchors in the sea of desolation. Without these anchors you are adrift in your doctoral defense was a bear or your your own experience and can only hope that you are in the hands of God. Without these anchors you may not be hearing the voice of God in the silences between the words and your experience.” master’s thesis was an agony, imagine Nodding silently, I began to weep in my emptiness. From that day, the rebbe became my teacher. Later, I found a friend and a student. If you don’t submit to the questions, you may nd yourself star- About the ing into the void today, wondering how to weigh a measure of re, or believing that you have been tasked to catch a blast of wind, or that you will actually try to call back a day that is past. It is, after all, being asked by God to “weigh for me about the questions. You may know the social work window in the center stairwell of the School of Theology. It has been a place of solace for many. I was recently shocked to discover that it really Author doesn’t tell a story as much as it begs questions. The window says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach.”3 It is a poor paraphrase of the biblical passage, an artifact the weight of re, or measure for me of another age. Encountering the window, each of us must ask: To whom are we preaching? About what? Why is this Good News? What will this change? In the context of the right questions, the a blast of wind, or call back for me the window points to larger purposes impelling us toward relief and release, toward justice-seeking and peacemaking by, for, and with all people. What I learned from that window is how I needed to expend my life—by touching and being touched over and over again by society’s ills: disease, death, heartbreak, injustice, inequity, poverty, and indignity. I have been tossed into the world of day that is past” (2 Esdras 4:5). It is the brokenness and horror only to learn and relearn that this great commission is neither theoretical nor some trumped-up piety, but a daily fact of life in which we always have the choice to touch Ted Karpf is the former STH director or be touched. What does it mean when we have no questions or have run out of them? The lack of questioning signals our end, our death: physical, psychological, or spiritual. But new notion of questions—whether you are questions can lead to new life, our rebirth. What are your questions today? Where are you going? Whom will you love and how? Where is your imagination on re? How can your life asking them or being asked—and their of development & alumni relations. He bring meaning? Let me return to Sir Arthur Eddington, who leaves us with this discovery: “We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound is an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of theories, one after another, to account for its origins. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own.”4 Indeed, continuing to ques- signicance that I would like to explore. Washington, where he was also Canon tion leads us home—home to ourselves and ultimately, home to God. And so hear this invitation from Rumi to a life of questioning: Come, come, whoever you are. Wonderer, worshipper, lover 5 Questions help us to locate—literally, to the Ordinary for Clergy Deployment of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vow a thousand times Come, yet again, come, come. As the holy one blesses, so may you be blessed— and Congregational Development with the illumination of a million questions and the brightness of wondrous possibilities. q We all share a common destiny: that of continuing the ongoing pursuit of God and discerning what personally, and spiritually—where we God is up to—and what that may mean. As physicist Sir Arthur Eddington noted, “Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.”1 I want to know: what is that something up to? In 1. Arthur Stanley Eddington, The and a canon of Washington National Cathedral. He is living in a small village the Bible, Esdras raises fundamental questions about human destiny, particularly our propensity for good or evil. God’s reply is a pretest to learning “the answer”: God gives Esdras three Nature of the Physical World (New are and oer direction about ways problems, saying, “If you can solve one of them for me, then I will teach you why the heart is evil.” (2 Esdras 4) While at STH you may have thought your doctoral defense was a bear or in New Mexico, praying. your master’s thesis was an agony, imagine being asked by God to “weigh for me a measure of re, or measure for me a blast of wind, or call back for me a day that is past.” (2 Esdras 5) It is York: The Macmillan Company, we might go. Some 40 years ago, the notion of questions—whether you are asking them or being asked—and their signicance that I would like to explore. Questions help us to locate—literally, personally, and spiritually— 1928). upon completing the last lecture of Photo by Kalman Zabarsky where we are and oer direction about ways we might go. Some 40 years ago, upon completing the last lecture of the semester, the late Professor of Hebrew Scriptures Harrell F. Beck asked, “How many of you feel that you have acquired something of value in this course?” All hands went up. Then he asked, “So what have you acquired or learned?” I raised my hand and stammered, “But, I don’t know.” Beck smiled and went on: “I can only hope I have exposed you to some of the deeper questions, the possibilities, and the potential resources for struggling with them. I hope you have gained a vision of what you may wish to know but do not yet know. I hope you have begun to realize that it is the questions—not the answers—to which Holy Writ speaks and stirs us.” He looked at me and winked, saying, “A responsible answer, Mr. Karpf.” My favorite poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, describes the search for wisdom this way: When a baby school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 49 is taken from the wet nurse, it easily forgets her and starts eating solid food. Seeds feed awhile on ground, then lift up into the sun. So you should taste the ltered light and work your way toward wisdom with no personal covering. That’s how you came here, like a star without a name. Move across the night sky with those anonymous lights. Perhaps—even now—you still have a question or two about what your time at STH was about. That is good; keep the questions coming. For those of you who have gured out all your answers, question them for more insight. Some years ago, while on When a baby is taken from the wet nurse, both opened our prayer books, the rebbe 2. Jalaluddin Rumi, “A Star it easily forgets her donned his prayer shawl, and we said our Without a Name,” Masnavi and starts eating solid food. individual morning prayers. Then we set- Book III, Say I Am You: Poetry Interspersed With Stories of Rumi tled back and began to tell each other the and Shams, trans. John Moyne Seeds feed awhile on ground, stories of our lives. In this intimate conver- and Coleman Barks (Athens, GA: then lift up into the sun. sation we encountered true communion. Maypop, 1994). When one of those individual conversa- So you should taste the ltered light tional silences came, as they do, the rebbe and work your way toward wisdom looked intently at me and asked, “What’s with no personal covering. troubling you?” I replied, “There is a lot of horror in my life with megadeath due That’s how you came here, like a star to HIV/AIDS; deceit and inertia from without a name. Move across the night sky government; silence from the Church; and with those anonymous lights.2 fumbling in communities.” He nodded in agreement and paused Perhaps—even now—you still have a just long enough for me to ask a question question or two about what your time that had been burning in me. “Tell me, at STH was about. That is good; keep with all that you and your community the questions coming. have endured, and all For those of you who that you have seen and The rebbe paused just have gured out all experienced, how do your answers, question long enough for me to ask you dare pray?” After them for more insight. a while, he answered a question that had been as only a rebbe can— THETHREE burning in me. “T ell me, with three questions. “Tell me,” he ANCHORS OF PRAYER with all that you and your Some years ago, while asked, “have you a on mission in South community have endured, friend with whom Africa to build response and all that you have you pray, as those to the overwhelm- concerned for one ing calamity of HIV/ seen and experienced, another?” I shook my AIDS, I ran out of how do you dare pray?” head “no.” questions, doubting “Have you a myself and my sanity. teacher with whom Hope dried up as every week I opened you pray as a student of prayer?” I shook yet another diocese or community to the my head again. possibility of doing the impossible: caring “Have you a student to whom you for those suering from AIDS and pre- teach prayer?” I confessed that I was alone. venting more infections. Early one Sunday “Aha,” he said. “You have lost your morning on another ight out, the Chief anchors in the sea of desolation. Without Hasidic Rabbi of South Africa and I were these anchors you are adrift in your own seated together. As the plane took o, we experience and can only hope that you

50 boston university 3. Luke 4:18, my emphasis. are in the hands of God. Without these mission is neither theoretical nor some 4. Arthur Stanley Eddington, anchors you may not be hearing the voice trumped-up piety, but a daily fact of life Space, Time and Gravitation: An of God in the silences between the words in which we always have the choice to Outline of the General Relativity and your experience.” Nodding silently, touch or be touched. Theory (Cambridge, England: University Press, 1920). I began to weep in my emptiness. From What does it mean when we have that day, the rebbe became my teacher. no questions or have run out of them? 5. Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir, Nobody, Son of Nobody: Poems Later, I found a friend and a student. The lack of questioning signals our end, of Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir, If you don’t submit to the questions, our death: physical, psychological, or trans. Vraje Abramian (Prescott, you may nd yourself staring into the void spiritual. But new questions can lead Arizona: Hohm Press, 2001), 4. today, wondering how to weigh a measure to new life, our rebirth. What are your of re, or believing that you have been questions today? Where are you going? tasked to catch a blast of wind, or that you Whom will you love and how? Where will actually try to call back a day that is is your imagination on re? How can past. It is, after all, about the questions. your life bring meaning? Let me return to Sir Arthur NEW QUESTIONS, NEW LIFE Eddington, who leaves us with this dis- You may know the social work window covery: “We have found a strange foot- in the center stairwell of the School of print on the shores of the unknown. Theology. It has been a place of solace for We have devised profound theories, many. I was recently shocked to discover one after another, to account for its that it really doesn’t tell a story as much as origins. At last we have succeeded in it begs questions. The window says: “The reconstructing the creature that made Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the footprint. And lo! It is our own.”4 he has anointed me to preach.”3 It is a Indeed, continuing to question leads poor paraphrase of the biblical passage, an us home—home to ourselves and ulti- artifact of another age. Encountering the mately, home to God. window, each of us must ask: To whom And so hear this invitation to a life are we preaching? About what? Why is of questioning: this Good News? What will this change? In the context of the right questions, the Come back. Come back, no matter what window points to larger purposes impel- you think you are. ling us toward relief and release, toward An idol worshipper? A non-believer? justice-seeking and peacemaking by, for, Come back. and with all people. This gate, no one leaves hopeless. What I learned from that window is If you have broken your vows ten how I needed to expend my life—by thousand times, touching and being touched over and Come back.5 over again by society’s ills: disease, death, heartbreak, injustice, inequity, poverty, As the holy one blesses, so may you and indignity. I have been tossed into be blessed—with the illumination of a the world of brokenness and horror only million questions and the brightness of to learn and relearn that this great com- wondrous possibilities. q

school of theology | www.bu.edu/sth 51 NEW WAYS TO LEARN WITH STH

THANKS TO LIVESTREAM BROADCASTS AND INTERACTIVE WEBINARS, ALUMS CAN STAY MORE CONNECTED TO STH THAN EVER.

BY PAMELA LIGHTSEY, associate nars packaged as a prerecorded dean for community life and lifelong learning PowerPoint with voice-over. Though that model has its ben- In the 1947 edition of the Morehouse ets, it can be rather boring. We College student newspaper, a young format our webinars with a short Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote, “The PowerPoint presentation to pique function of education, therefore, is your interest, and conclude with Pamela Lightsey to teach one to think intensively and a live, visual broadcast of a faculty to think critically.” Throughout each member responding to questions year, the School of Theology Lifelong that have arisen from the 20-to- Learning program supports ongoing 30-minute instructional session. critical thinking in alums, current and During the fall 2013 semester we prospective students, as well as the produced three webinars: Mass public. We now have a new approach Incarceration, Retributive Justice; to lifelong learning that involves bold, Reformation and Marriage; and energetic use of modern technology. Revisiting the American Dream, Here’s what’s new: which you can access along with upcoming webinars at http:// • Livestream broadcasts: Anyone go.bu.edu/focus/webinars. interested in STH presentations by distinguished scholars and faith lead- • Credit programs: We continue to ers can now watch them as livestream oer residential learning opportu- broadcasts (real-time video feeds). nities, such as the Pastor Scholar Joining a broadcast requires only a program. Learners earn continuing computer and an Internet connec- education units (CEUs) by select- tion. This means we can now reach ing, registering for, and completing a larger audience of learners—includ- one of several courses on campus. ing our alums—located around the Participants have the advantage of globe. You can watch presenta- attending intellectually rewarding, tions like our Center for Practical for-credit courses on cutting-edge Theology’s annual lecture and our research topics. CEUs are also avail- Lowell Lectures live or after the fact able by attending Lifelong Learning- at http://go.bu.edu/focus/live. sponsored conferences, including the annual Anna Howard Shaw Center • Interactive webinars: You may conference. Learn more at http:// q

be accustomed to seeing webi- go.bu.edu/focus/lifelong. Carol Taylor Photography

52 boston university Boston University School of Theology Spring 2014

Dean MARY ELIZABETH MOORE He wasn’t just our teacher. Director of Development & Alumni Relations, retired He was our friend. TED KARPF (’74) Alumni Relations O cer JACLYN K. JONES (’06) Editor JULIE RATTEY Journal Reviewer STEPHANIE A. BUDWEY (’04, ’12) Contributing Writers hat stands out “like a mini- LARA EHRLICH (UNI’03) ANDREW THURSTON Wskirt at a church social”? According to Time magazine in 1966, Designer the answer was motive, the former SHOLA FRIEDENSOHN motive magazine of the Methodist Student Produced by Boston University Movement. First edited by Harold Creative Services Magazine Ehrensperger, who was a profes- focus is funded by donations from sor at Boston University School of alumni and friends to the Boston goes Theology, and published from 1941 University School of Theology to 1972, the magazine was known for Annual Fund. Learn more at digital its avant-garde approach to issues www.bu.edu/sth/giving. including civil rights, the Vietnam War, and homosexuality. Methodist Opinions expressed in focus do activists and figures, including former not necessarily re ect the views Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, of Boston University or the School credit the publication as a formative of Theology. influence, and the Columbia School of Journalism named it runner-up to STAY CONNECTED TO THE Life as Magazine of the Year in 1965. But though scholars study the pub- SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY lication, only the School of Theology Professor Harrell F. Beck (1922–1987) Keep up with STH, share and a few other institutions hold a complete archive, making it di“cult to brought the Hebrew Bible to life as no one else could. your latest news, and access access. STH is digitizing its collection free religious articles at Help STH carry on his legacy with the for the public, with the cooperation of http://go.bu.edu/focus/alums. the United Methodist Church (which HARRELL F. BECK CHAIR holds motive’s copyright) and spon- sorship from STH’s Center for Global OF HEBREW SCRIPTURE. Christianity & Mission. Readers will be able to access the magazines free online and search for content using The goal is to raise $300,000 to fully endow Please recycle this historic position. keywords. STH expects to complete In keeping with Boston University’s the project this spring. Learn more commitment to sustainability, this publication is printed on FSC-certied about motive at www.bu.edu/cgcm/ To contribute, email [email protected], call paper. motive-magazine. q

617-353-2349, or visit www.bu.edu/sth/giving. Courtesy of the General Board of Higher Education & Ministry of the United Methodist Church

0314 focus is made possible by donations from BU STH alumni and friends

Adventures in Ethics in Adventures Preacher Poet The Marriage Gay for Risking All Play Needs to Church the Why 7 T? 17 12 : Inside S THE S THE 40 H DOING C CHUR ABOUT I communities still struggle struggle still communities of the Dream. a share for I WHAT It’s been more than 50 been more It’s Martin since Luther years against fought King, Jr., but some these wrongs, Spring 2014

Spring 2014 PAID Nonprofit Boston MA US Postage Permit No. 1839 (’90) has always believed believed (’90) has always Hazel Findley Elizabeth And she see God.” that we that “it is in community in the Boston of God more the presence has felt than community School of Theology University else. anywhere through community supports the STH Hazel outright gifts and a bequest aimed at relieving that can be a barrier for the financial constraints strength greatest aspiring theology students. “The

. or [email protected] BU Planned Giving at 800-645-2347 contact learn more, To of planned giving for me is the ability to keep a scholarship running after a scholarship keep to me is the ability of planned giving for I use money The with no children. “I am a widow she explains. death,” my that would of money pool be made part could of a larger living expenses for on.” live to enable the scholarship School of University of Boston the richness is “to keep she says, goal, Hazel’s the awareness open the least because they flowing—not programs Theology other schools and surrounding the communities to presence of God’s and earth heaven between Making the distance in the University. programs shorter is an important faith.” part of my School School of Theology

Boston Boston University 745 Commonwealth Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02215

pursuits, and loved ones. their own passions, educational the School while honoring meaningful ways to strengthen and friends of STH have found Planned Giving office, many alums and support BU. Working with the and support BU. Working both provide tax-exempt income estate, and life-income gifts that estate, and life-income gifts that including bequests, gifts of real alternatives to standard donations, alternatives to standard donations, Planned giving offers many Gift Work That Plans