Letter from the Dean

CIRCA News from the University of Chicago Divinity School THE GREATEST SATIRE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, JONATHAN SWIFT’S GULLIVER’S Travels, famously concludes with a final voyage in which Lemuel Gulliver travels to “the land of the Houhynhymns,” a community consisting of two classes: an oligarchy of horses who rule, and a rebellious servant class of small, ape-like beings the horses have designated as “yahoos.” Swift twists the voyage ironically at two moments. First, Gulliver becomes utterly loyal to and admiring of the Houhynhymns and their rationally ordered lives and society, achieve Gulliver’s momentary insight and but then is banished by them because they eloquence, and sustain it over time. The ready- conclude that he is a yahoo with a brain, and to-hand answer is that religions in their thus could lead a rebellion and overturn their theories and their practices are purposeful, social order. The distraught Gulliver complies Letter even supervisory. Creed and code combine and eventually returns home to England, but to encourage focus on what is true and good once there he literally becomes a “neigh sayer,” and beautiful. The aim is thus to establish shunning what we would call civil society for conditions in which the appeal of a Lincoln the company of horses in a barn, with whom from the —and the recourse to justice tempered with he passes as much time as he can in rational mercy—is at least regularly recalled and conversation. honored. The danger is to become like the How are we to understand Gulliver’s Dean Houhynhymns, whose justice knows no experience with the Houhynhymns, and his mercy and thus is not justice. continued allegiance, and eventual self-ostra- This danger—which we might term cization, despite their rejection of him? Any the danger of ideology, the danger of so answer is of course complex. It does seem emphasizing one aspect of the truth that its clear that Swift wants his reader to reckon remainder is forgotten and the whole thus with the fact that neither the hyperrational perverted—is brilliantly addressed by Swift horses nor the brutely instinctive yahoos in his depiction of the yahoos. Here criticism represent fully realized humanity. It is also and irony become crucial counterpoints to clear that Gulliver, who might represent a purpose and supervision. Swift reveals through combination of them, emphatically allies Gulliver the close connection between devo- himself, and not incidentally his self-under- tion and contempt, even the way in which standing, with the former. Swift does give one feeds upon the other. To avoid Gulliver’s Gulliver one moment of equipoise—one fate we need to avoid this particular, if all too time when he is able to marry reason and human, equation. Swift helps us by under- emotion, head and heart. In it, Gulliver scoring empirically the connections Gulliver appeals the decision to banish him by denies: the yahoo females uninhibitedly suggesting that true justice requires mercy. express their sexual attraction to Gulliver, Swift here renders Gulliver both incisive and and Gulliver himself continually if unwit- eloquent. Yet the moment is both fleeting tingly notes their shared physiognomy. and ineffectual. Creed and code combine To fully grasp what Swift shows in Gulliver Swift’s tale is rarely invoked in discussions to encourage focus on what is we might here again take recourse, but this of religion, but it should be. With regard true and good and beautiful. time contrastively, to Lincoln: Gulliver’s to the Houhynhymns, Gulliver behaves like resolute stigmatization of the yahoos is the a member of what we would call a cult. He The aim is thus to establish opposite of Lincoln’s steadfast refusal to deploys the rituals from those horses when he conditions in which the appeal demonize the Confederacy during the Civil returns to England. Swift thus demonstrates War. Here Swift’s counsel about religion for us the dangers in uncritical adoption of a of a Lincoln—and the recourse would appear to suggest that creed and code tradition. Yet in highlighting Gulliver’s appeal, to justice tempered with mercy must always be modulated by scrupulous be it noted in a moment of extreme duress, —is at least regularly recalled attention to any effort to demonize the that justice be tempered with mercy, Swift “other.” In this sense, civil society and also illustrates for the reader what Abraham and honored. religion can and must be complementary. Lincoln would later term “the better angels Given the rarity of Lincolns — and of Swifts of our nature.” — in our midst, it behooves us to recall their The difficulty for all readers of Swift, This is an index of his art: it compels us to examples as we make the way forward. ❑ particularly for divines who study religion, is think harder than we might otherwise about that Swift leaves us to draw the conclusions. both whether, and if so how, religions can Richard A. Rosengarten, Dean AUTUMN/WINTER 2007–2008 | NUMBER 28 Faculty News and Notes Journal of Systematic Theology, Modern Theology, and Scottish Journal of Theology, his fall, the Divinity School welcomes three new full-time and he is currently working on two books: faculty members, two new associated faculty members, and Theology without Gaps: The Meaning, Truth, and Reference of God-talk and The three visiting faculty members to its fold. To access online Recognition of the Spirit: A Constructive T Pneumatology. faculty profiles, which include bibliographies, photographs, and con- Otten Appointed Professor tact information for each faculty member, please see http://divinity of the History of Christianity .uchicago.edu/faculty/index.html and Theology Willemien Otten Appointments is a scholar of the history of Chris- tianity and Chris- and their relation to ongoing debates about Evans Appointed Assistant tian thought with the place of blacks in the nation. His research Professor of the History a strong focus emphases are the relationship between cul- on the western of Christianity tural representations and social scientific medieval and the understandings of African American religion early Christian Curtis Evans is an American religions histo- and culture, and shifting conceptions of the theological tradition, including the conti- rian. His teaching interests include African nature of religious and intellectual capacity nuity of (Neo) Platonic themes. After her American religion, the intersection of race and as signal traits of humanity and their impact monograph on The Anthropology of Johannes religion in American history, and churches on discussions of African American cultural Scottus Eriugena (Leiden 1991), she researched and the problem of social and political reform. capacities. His current (tentative) research twelfth-century thought. This resulted in her His current book, The Burden of Black Reli- project includes an analysis of liberal Protes- study From Paradise to Paradigm: A Study of gion: Representing, Vindicating, and Uplifting tant theories of childhood religious nurture Twelfth-Century Humanism (Leiden 2004), the Race, forthcoming from Oxford Univer- alongside advice manuals, sermonic mate- which featured, among others, Peter Abelard sity Press, focuses on cultural images and rial, and instructional media on childrearing and ‘Chartrian’ authors like Bernard Silvestris academic interpretations of black religion by African American religious leaders from and Alan of Lille. the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth Underlying her historical-theological century. work is a structural attempt to see the con- tribution of (early) medieval theologians Hector Appointed Assistant as more than the sum total of ancient and Professor of Theology patristic influences. Instead, she wants to analyze the cultural outlook which allowed Kevin Hector does constructive Christian these influences to become woven into the theology in conversation with contemporary fabric of an encyclopaedic, humanist tradi- philosophy. Hector’s scholarship is animated tion, by which the treatment of theological by three problems: the modern problem of questions is embedded in the broader study relating God, the world, and human persons; of the liberal arts. Pursuing this line of the problem of metaphysics (and the dualistic thought, she is currently researching connec- pictures which underwrite it); and the problem tions between Eriugena and Ralph Waldo of establishing increasingly just social practices. Emerson in their thinking on nature and Hector has published essays in International creation. 2CIRCA Visiting Faculty theological anthropology, eschatology, medieval fessor of Religious Ethics, the Philosophy of theology (including St. Bonaventure and Religion, and Theology and the Margaret E. Edith Blumhofer is Visiting Professor of Nicholas of Cusa), the thought of Hans Urs Burton Distinguished Service Professor of the the History of Christianity at the Divinity von Balthasar, and Hispanic/Latino theology. History of Christianity and Theology. School and Professor of History and Director He has edited or coedited: Christian Spiritu- of the Institute for the Study of American ality and the Culture of Modernity: The Thought New Associate Faculty 1998 Evangelicals at Wheaton College. Her most of Louis Dupré (Eerdmans, ), Cuerpo recent book is Her Heart Can See: The Life de Cristo: The Hispanic Presence in the U.S. Philip V. Bohlman is the Mary Werkman 1998 and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby. Among her Catholic Church (Crossroad, ), and Distinguished Service Professor of the Human- current projects are two books, Evangelicalism:

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