DUKEDI UNIVERSITY SPRINGV 2013 INITY Preaching with Your Mouth Shut O OU NDERSTAND HAT OU ARE DDo YYou UUnderstand W What Y You BY LUKE A. POWERY RareEA DReading?ING? A Formation of Scriptural Imagination Imagining Death—and Dying Well BY ALLEN VERHEY BY C. KAVIN ROWE I was so grateful to learn that many people appreciate the great opportunity provided by the Divinity Annual Fund. ~ Goodie Bell, D’13 Ministry Made Possible by You Here’s an important question: How many people does it take to make possible a seminary education? Answer: Unlimited—and your help is needed! Goodie Bell came to Duke Divinity School after spending time in campus ministry. She knew God was calling her to service for the church, and she wanted to pursue this call and be trained here with faculty and students who were committed to the church. But she never could have afforded the tuition on her own. That’s where the supporters to Divinity Annual Fund come into the picture. With help from the annual fund, Goodie is about to graduate and go into ministry—a ministry made possible by friends and donors who believe in the importance of God’s church and well-prepared ministers. Every gift makes a difference. Every gift is welcome. Join us today with a gift to Divinity Annual Fund, and make ministry possible. For more information about helping students answer the call to ministry through Divinity Annual Fund, call 919-660-3456. To give online, see www.divinity.duke.edu/about/make-gift FEATURES DIVINITY 4 22 SPRING 2013 “Do YOU UNDERSTAND “WHY MUST I GO ABOUT VOLUME 12, NUMBER 2 WHAT YOU ARE READing?” Mourning?” THE PSALMS A FORMATION OF OF LAMENT FOR A PEOPLE SCRIPTURAL IMAGINATION IN GRIEF PUBLISHER Scriptural imagination is a way Reclaiming the psalms of lament Richard B. Hays of being in the world in which all gives the church a vocabulary for Dean and George Washington of life is shaped by the habits of times of suffering Ivey Professor of New Testament reading Scripture By Jacob Onyumbe EDITOR By C. Kavin Rowe Heather Moffitt Associate Director of Communications 26 Produced by the Office of Communications, 10 A HEALTHY SCRIPTURAL Duke Divinity School A PLAYGROUND FOR THE IMAGINATION: A MATTER Audrey Ward, Executive Director FORMATION OF SCRIPTURAL OF LIFE AND DEATH IMAGINATION: LESSONS Proofreading by Derek Keefe Forming and re-forming a FROM CHURCH HISTORY healthy scriptural imagination Design by Regina Barnhill-Bordo Church history can instruct requires us to be readers of the www.bdesign-studio.com us in the parameters as well world, not just the text Copyright © 2013 Duke Divinity School as the flexibility of a By Willie James Jennings All rights reserved. scriptural imagination DIVINITY magazine publishes a Fall and By G. Sujin Pak Spring issue each year. The magazine 28 represents the engagement of Duke Divinity THE FORMATION OF School with important topics and invites 14 SCRIPTURAL IMAGINATION friends, supporters, alumni, and others in IMAGINING DEAth— AND THE RENEWAL OF our community to participate in the story AND DYING WELL THE CHURCH of what is happening here. A scriptural imagination will A panel discussion between We’d like to hear from you! shape our view of death through Dean Richard Hays, Ellen Davis, For comments or feedback on remembering the death and and Stanley Hauerwas DIVINITY magazine, please write: resurrection of Jesus Editor, DIVINITY magazine By Allen Verhey Duke Divinity School DEPARTMENTS Box 90970 Durham, NC 27708-0970 3 18 The Dean’s Perspective Or email: [email protected] PREACHING WITH YOUR 32 New Books from Duke Please include a daytime phone number and MOUTH SHUT Divinity Faculty an email address. Letters to the editor may Sometimes the best sermons be edited for clarity or length. 34 Faculty and Staff Notes are the ones that don’t say a word out loud 38 Gifts By Luke A. Powery 39 New Members of the Board of Visitors 40 Class Notes ON THE COVER information to come... 42 Deaths 44 Meditation WWW.DIVINITY.DUKE.EDU/MAGAZINE SPRING 2013 | 1 CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE C. KAVIN ROWE G. SUJIN PAK ALLEN VERHEY LUKE A. POWERY is an associate professor of New is the associate dean for academic is professor of Christian ethics at is the dean of Duke Chapel and Testament at Duke Divinity School. programs and assistant research Duke Divinity School. His work has associate professor of the practice His research focuses on Luke-Acts, professor of the history of Christianity. focused on the application of Christian of homiletics at Duke Divinity School. and among his many awards are Her teaching focuses on the theology ethics, especially in the areas of His teaching and research interests the Christian Faith and Life Grant of the Protestant reformers, women medical and health practice. He has are at the intersection of preaching, from the Louisville Institute and and the Reformation, the Protestant degrees from Yale University and worship, pneumatology, and culture, the John Templeton Award for Reformation and the Jews, and the Calvin Theological Seminary. particularly expressions of the Theological Promise. history of biblical interpretation. African Diaspora. She is a United Methodist layperson who frequently serves as teacher and lay preacher. JACOB ONYUMBE WILLIE JENNINGS ELLEN DAVIS is currently a student at Duke Divinity is associate professor of theology is Amos Ragan Kearns Professor of School in the Th.D. program. He is and black church studies at Duke Bible and Practical Theology at Duke a Roman Catholic priest from the Divinity School. He teaches in the Divinity School. Her research interests Democratic Republic of Congo and area of systematic theology and black focus on how biblical interpretation served for five years in New York church and cultural studies. He is bears on the life of faith communities City. His research is on the psalms of an ordained Baptist minister who and their response to urgent public lament and the vocabulary they provide maintains an active preaching and issues. She is now cooperating with for a suffering church. teaching schedule. His book, The the Episcopal Church of South Sudan Christian Imagination: Theology and to develop theological education, the Origin of Race, received an Award community health, and sustainable for Excellence from the American agriculture. Academy of Religion. 2 | DIVINITY THE DEAn’S PERSPECTIVE Forming Scriptural Imagination BY RICHARD B. HAYS SCRIPTURAL IMAGINATION is the faculty that enables the exodus from Egypt become typological foreshadowing us to see the world through the lenses of the Bible’s images of the Christian experience of the sacraments of baptism and and stories—and to be transformed by what we see. To the Lord’s Supper. Once the Corinthians understand them- exercise scriptural imagination does not mean living in a selves as characters in the continuation of this same story, fantasy world where we ignore the daily realities around they will grasp that they—like their Israelite ancestors— us; rather, it is to have our eyes opened to recognize that should “flee from the worship of idols” (1 Corinthians 10:14). the story Scripture tells is the true story of the world. To Seeing the world through the lens of this story will enable look at the world through scriptural lenses is to have our the Corinthians to discern a faithful response to the imme- vision corrected so that our illusions are stripped away and diate problem they face in their own time. we see the world as it really is: created by a loving God but That is scriptural imagination at work for pastoral fallen into disobedience and alienation. Through the lenses purposes, forming the imagination of the church. That of Scripture, we also see this real world same sort of formation is at the heart of redeemed and transformed by Jesus We read Scripture to the mission of the theological education Christ’s death and resurrection. With our offered by Duke Divinity School. Kavin vision thus corrected, we can join Paul learn the unfolding Rowe explores this in more depth in his in discerning “that the sufferings of this story in which we too article in this issue of DIVINITY. This present time are not worth comparing issue also offers several perspectives on the with the glory about to be revealed to us” are characters, and to ways in which scriptural imagination can (Romans 8:18). understand the role we be formed or malformed, and how it can Additionally, scriptural imagina- empower the work of the church. Sujin Pak tion enables us to inhabit the story that are called to play in it. presents lessons from church history for Scripture tells. We read the Bible not just envisioning the parameters and context of to find devotional tidbits, “illustrations” of something we scriptural imagination, and Willie Jennings describes how already knew on other grounds, or general principles to Christian leaders and institutions form healthy scriptural shape our lives. Instead, we read it to learn the unfolding imaginations. Scriptural imagination is far from abstract, story in which we too are characters, and to understand the however. Allen Verhey explores the way it shapes our role we are called to play in it. conceptions of death and dying, and Th.D. student Jacob That is what Paul does when he addresses his fledgling Onyumbe articulates the importance of a scriptural imagi- converts who were Gentiles in Corinth about the problem nation shaped by the psalms of lament for a community of of whether they should eat meat offered to pagan idols. He believers who are suffering. The new Dean of Duke Chapel, does not just give them a ruling on the question.