Thinking about what to read: Why all of these choices?

You may be wondering why there are so many choices for the Reading Pods. I know that it feels complicated or unnecessary, but there is a method to my madness. 

A few years ago, Dr. Hollins and I attended an Association of Theological Schools (ATS) conference on Race and Ethnicity in Theological Education. ATS is looking ahead to 2040 when it is projected that white Americans will become a minority in the US. They are concerned that Seminaries are not prepared for this major change in American culture. Are the pastors of the future prepared for such diversity in churches, or will Sunday morning continue to be the most segregated morning of the week? Their assertion is that we won't know until we experience this reality, but for now, we can practice what it means to listen more broadly in our theological explorations. 

After I came back from this conference, I decided to change up my reading lists for The Theological Mosaic class. I wanted students to read more broadly, yet find one space where they read more deeply. My hope is that this diversity with spill into discussions and dialogue both in and outside of class. Theology is a mixture of seeking out the least inadequate language through which to talk about God (Colin Gunton) and how that reality intersects and forms our views of culture, humanity, and the sacred in every day life. 

The complication is that we live constantly with great mystery - e.g., God, trees, cabbages, the person sitting next to you on the bus, etc. Mystery is sometimes thought to be those things that you cannot know. I disagree. Mystery is not an unknowing or an ignorance. Instead, mystery is a pressing into what we can only know in part. British theologian, Sarah Coakley, encourages us to press into the task of doing theology, to learn the discipline, read, think, and discern. It is only at this point, when we push the boundaries of our knowing, that we can understand the boundlessness of the mystery of God and of one another.  

With this in mind, I'll leave you with a quote from the Swiss theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar. Every time I read this quote, I realize that this articulation of mystery and prayer are foundational for how I do theology. So, I invite you to come and dive into the abyss with me...

“Contemplation starts at the point where the believing mind begins to perceive a dawning light in the abyss of the mystery, where the mystery begins to reveal itself in all its vast proportions. Not in the sense of doubt, of loosening the tautness of the dogmatic affirmation, but in an astonishment which reaches to the very roots of our being (Balthasar, Hans Urs von,  Prayer,  Tr. By Graham Harrison, San Francisco: Igantius Press, 1986, 158.).”