A couple of weekends ago, I attended the regional meeting of the AAR/SBL/ASOR at Luther Seminary. Before too much time passes, then, I’d like to highlight a few of the weekend’s events.
The graduate student luncheon was outstanding. Corrine Carvalho (St. Thomas) and Jeannine K. Brown (Bethel Sem.) led a professional development seminar to discuss the job market, interview skills, etc. I think everyone there learned some valuable tips and I, for one, feel more confident about going into an interview at some point.
As always, there was a variety of paper sessions. For the most part, I attended the Philosophy of Religion/Systematic Theology sessions presided by Paul Capetz. I’ll highlight three papers from those sessions, as well as one in Philip Stoltzfus‘ Religion, Art & Culture session.
Douglas Erickson (Marquette) presented a new reading of Rauschenbusch on the Holy Spirit, one that he argues withstands the critiques of Reinhold Niebuhr. His reading is largely based on Rauschenbusch’s earlier writings on the kingdom of God that have been largely overlooked.
Anna Mercedes (St Benedict/St John’s) navigated the often turbulent waters between traditional and feminist theology by augmenting the well-known feminist critique of sin-as-pride with a discussion of desire in the context of kenosis. It was a fascinating paper, leading me to rethink some of the claims in my own paper, “Redeeming the Dionysian: desire & resolution in musical performance.” I had not considered kenosis in relation to the interpretation of desire as lack of fulfillment. I look forward to examining this further, and I sincerely hope Mercedes’ paper will eventually find its way into publication.
The following day, Don Schweitzer (St Andrews College) presented on “Truth and Pride in the Book of Job,” in which he distinguished between merited and unmerited pride – that is, a pride that is truthful in its accordance with reality (i.e. Job’s self-assessment) and the more hubristic pride that is dishonest and egocentric.
The paper that excited me the most, however, was in the final set of sessions, on Religion, Art & Culture. Laurence Broadhurst (Manitoba) presented part of his work-in-progress on early Christian music. He is doing some fascinating original research on early Christian hymn manuscripts, texts which actually contain tabulation, as well as ancient inscriptions that contain musical references. His research interests me on two fronts: 1) existing anthologies of early Christian thought on music are exclusively text-driven, i.e. sermons and epistles by bishops. But Broadhurst has found that numerous ancient inscriptions (in catacombs, for instance) include references to how music was considered by early Christians. 2) Broadhurst set his own research in the context of the debate between those who see early Christian music as an extension of the liturgies of the synagogue (i.e Eric Werner) and those who see it as reacting against the synagogue and adopting ritual elements from the temple worship of Greco-Roman polytheism.
His reference to Werner caught my own ear, as Pope Benedict XVI has made extensive use of Werner’s work in his own historical account of liturgical music. As one might expect, Benny wants to anchor contemporary liturgical music in an unbroken tradition that began with Jewish psalmody. Furthermore, in his ongoing clash with culture, he presents the trajectory of Christian music as having to continually define itself over against pagan elements. Thus early Christian music stuck to the synagogue in order to contrast itself from the polytheists. Late medieval Christian music rejected polyphony and measured time not because they were intrinsically bad, but because such practices compromised the purity of the Church over against pagan culture. Which of course leads into his diatribe against rock and pop music (but he’s not quite as consistent here, as at times he seems to be saying that there are some intrinsically bad elements in rock/pop).
In any event, I eagerly anticipate publication of Broadhurst’s research as well; I expect it should prove to be an invaluable contribution to the field.
Also while at the conference, I picked up both volumes of Charles Wesley’s Manuscript Journals, just recently published by the Charles Wesley Society through Kingswood Books, as well as Jeremy Begbie’s Resounding Truth and Christopher Seitz’s Prophecy and Hermeneutics, both of which are out on Baker Academic. I hope to include some reviews of those resources on here (or elsewhere) soon.
