VOLUME 29, NUMBER 1 SUMMER 2012 The SPie Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Graduate Department of Religion, and Oberlin Graduate School of Theology El Nacimiento del Mesías 2010 by José Ignacio Fletes Cruz León, Nicaragua (born 1952, Managua, Nicaragua) oil on canvas 20” x 16” courtesy of Zacharey Austin Carmichael, BA’10, MA’12 from the exhibition The Religion, Art, and Politics of Solentiname: Reminiscences and Visions commissioned for Vanderbilt University Divinity School The SPie Volume 29 • Number 1 • Summer 2012 The Spire is published by Vanderbilt University Divinity School in cooperation with the Office of Development and Alumni/ae Relations. Let - ters to the editor are welcomed, and alumni/ae Features of the Divinity School, the Graduate School’s Department of Religion, and the Oberlin Grad - uate School of Theology are encouraged to sub - mit news of their personal and professional 10 accomplishments to: A Hermeneutic of Hope The Spire Dominican priest Gustavo Gutiérrez reflects upon the fortieth John Frederick Oberlin Quadrangle anniversary of the liberation theology movement and how we become Office 115 “neighbors” through our gifts of faith, hope, and love. 411 21st Avenue, South Nashville, Tennessee 37240-1121 by e-mail: [email protected] 16 _________________________________________ Art and Articulation James Hudnut-Beumler, Justin Owings, a student in the master of theological studies degree program, discusses the ways Dean and the Anne Potter Wilson Distinguished Cornel West and Gustavo Gutiérrez encourage us to “observe love in the margins.” Professor of American Religious History Victor Judge, BS’77, MS’79, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs 22 and Editor The Exodus from God to God Katrina Stone, who has completed her first year of studies Zacharey Austin Carmichael, BA’10, MA’12, for the master of divinity degree, examines the “theological Editorial Assistant abuse” that may ensue from the power of images. Kitty Norton Jones, MDiv’98, Executive Director of Development and Alumni/ae Relations 24 Meagan Burton-Krieger, Far From the Maddening Ministerial Rush Assistant Director of Development Alumna Jane Herring offers creative strategies for pastors and Alumni/ae Relations to remain “spiritually alive.” Jenni Ohnstad, Designer and Assistant Art Director On the cover: In commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the Theology of Liberation, Vanderbilt University Divinity _________________________________________ School commissioned eleven oil paintings by Nicaraguan artist José Ignacio Fletes Cruz. A member of the community of primi - tivistic painters in Solentiname, Fletes Cruz sought refuge in Vanderbilt University is committed to the principles Costa Rica during the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1978-79 but of equal opportunity and affirmative action. returned to his homeland where he paints the flora and fauna of the countryside. El Arca de Noé is among the paintings from the Divinity School’s exhibition, The Religion, Art, and Politics “Vanderbilt” and the Vanderbilt logo are registered of Solentiname: Reminiscences and Visions, and is reprinted, l e courtesy of the editor. a trademarks and service marks of Vanderbilt University. h c i m Left: Nicaraguan artist José Ignacio Fletes Cruz and Latin Amer - r a c ican theologian, Sister Ivone Gebara of Brazil, shown with their y © 2012 Vanderbilt University e hosts, Professor Fernando Segovia and Professor Elena Olaza - r a gasti-Segovia, attended the Divinity School’s program on the h c a Misa Campesina Nicaragüense, the Nicaraguan Peasant Mass, Z as part of the School’s commemoration of the fortieth anniver - sary of liberation theology. Summer 2012 1 In Memoriam Verna Anne Poarch Myers, MDV1 (May 6, 1947 — December 8, 2011) “Somewhere the flower of farewell is blooming. Endlessly it yields its pollen, which we breath. Even in the breeze of this beginning hour we breathe farewell.” —Rainer Maria Rilke 2 THE SPIRE From the Dean On Friday, May 11, 2012, seventy-seven graduates from the Divinity School became the newest members of our alumni/ae community after receiving the following charge from the dean. Pouring Yourself into Ministry By JAMES HUDNUT-BEUMLER, PH.D. DEAN AND THE ANNE POTTER WiLSON DiSTiNGUiSHED PROFESSOR OF AMERiCAN RELiGiOUS HiSTORy f fifty-one or eighty-four credit hours, or nurse who does not nurse patients, thousands of real hours of study, or mil - no one benefits from a minister who Ilions of words of reading have qualified does not minister to people. The you for nothing else, they will have made value of your degree comes from reading the popular theology on bumper pouring yourself out for others. stickers painful for the rest of your lives. The great difference between Some are not so bad. The one that says ministry and being a doctor or a COEXiST where the letters are made with nurse is that only a little of our work the symbols of the world’s major religions— comes to us when we are ready and that is pretty good. Some are more obvious: waiting in a building with a big “God is not a Republican; God is not a cross on the side. People talk about Democrat.”—a simple, but worthy reminder having doctor’s appointments; they in this election year. do not talk about having minister’s l l Others are sophomoric while trying too appointments. This is a problem and e s s u hard to be clever: “God is dead,” Nietzsche. a great opportunity. r n h “Nietzsche is dead,” God. So real ministry does not fit on a o J The one that is under my skin today is the bumper sticker, and it rarely signs in one that says: “Try to look busy. God's at the front desk and shows its insurance body, and you became, in no uncertain watching.” —as if we can fool God, as if the card. But it is real, and we, your teachers, terms, a minister worthy of the name. great cosmic game is all about rewards for watch with joy as our students and gradu - Also this year, i became aware that a looking good rather than genuinely being ates become ministers, in the deep sense of Divinity School alumna, who later enrolled in good. Just once i would like to be behind a minister as verb. Here are two glimpses of the Graduate School, has reemerged as the car where the bumper has a sticker saying: such ministry. voice in Tennessee organizing the interfaith “Be still and know that i am God” and have One of you receiving your degree today religious community on behalf of undocu - some confidence that the driver does not experienced ministry up close and personal mented immigrants and their human rights think that the sticker refers to himself. when you visited an aged parishioner in a in this state. This young woman did not This is, of course, to start by way of nursing home, and you poured yourself out become the Bible professor she set out to digression to acknowledge that the essential for another person. The parishioner was a become; she became something harder, per - question of graduation from the Divinity ninety-four-year-old man, who is remem - haps better, she became a prophet after the school is: How will life be different because bered as somewhat of a difficult figure in the examples of Moses and Deborah, a fighting of your experience here? Some of you may be church, even in his better days. All the senior voice leading a people who wanted to do slower than others to claim for yourselves minister could say was how much the something in their hearts but needed a the word “minister,” but whether you are parishioner and the facility smelled. leader to make it happen. being graduated into a church that likes to On the day a long put-off visit occurred, And you? When have you been, and use the term in a special clerical sense, or the senior minister was overcome by the when will you be ministers? God alone may whether you will teach, or lead, or serve in odor, plugged her nose, and spoke in a loud know, but God will be watching, of that we another sense, i urge you to keep the verb voice from across the room. And you? you may be assured. minister close to your identity the rest of smelled what everyone else smelled, but you i, therefore, charge you: Go and minister, your lives, especially if you are part of one of walked across the room and touched the arm each in your own way as your gifts and the those traditions that says that people like of your brother, another child of God, and needs of others give you opportunity. Place you cannot be a minister. left your hand there all the time you talked. your confidence and purposes larger than Minister is a verb just like nurse, doctor, you do not know why you did that. But there yourself, yes even in God’s purposes. Be of and engineer. This is a strong clue that the is a time to touch and a time to refrain from good courage. Uphold the weak. Seek the usefulness of any minister, as in the person, touching, and on that day in the midst of the truth with humility. Teach others what you is a restorative, constructive, or transforma - facility no one wants to occupy, you reached have found to be wise. Continue to learn all tive action. Just as no one gets better from a out to the boy and to the man inside the frail the days of your lives. Amen. Summer 2012 3 quAroaund th r Angle Founder’s Medalist 2012 l l e s s u r n h o J y b s o t o h p Left: Dean James Hudnut-Beumler and Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos congratulate Kyle Brent Thompson Lambelet upon receiving the Founder’s Medal for the Divinity School during Commencement 2012.