Nelson Jones writes for the New Statesman on the present shape of the CofE in Britain's secular society. After some judiciously worded statements about the appeal of the CofE for weddings and funerals and positioning in a multi-faith society, the article concludes:

There are dangers for the Church in embracing an enhanced multi-faith role in a society in which strong religious commitment is waning.  By speaking out on behalf of faith, forming alliances with other churches and religious groups, it risks losing that comforting and liberal image that has, until now, made it a source of national unity rather than division.  It risks losing that vague connection with the people without which it ceases to be in any proper sense a national church and becoming once more a bastion of religious conservatism and even prejudice.  

By coming out so strongly against same-sex marriage, for example, the Church leadership has made itself look to many people out of touch and divisive, including to many of its natural supporters, including to many of its practising members and even clergy.  It's hard to believe that the C of E has much of a future as the Daily Mail at prayer. 




(Update: even the conservative Church Times has some cautionary words about the statements against same-sex marriage attributed to the Anglican Church.)

A Season for Renewal: Engaging the Bible in Mainline Churches

At the ABS on June 18th: A Season for Renewal: Engaging the Bible in Mainline Churches

Date: June 18, 2012

Registration/Lunch: 12-1pm (unfortunately not available)

Conference: 1 - 5:30pm

Location: 

American Bible Society Auditorium

1865 Broadway, New York, NY

Cost of Event: Free (Suggested Donation: $20)

Sponsored by:

New York Theological Seminary

475 Riverside Drive Suite 500, New York, NY

In Partnership with: 

The Nida Institute of American Bible Society

This conference is underwritten by the generous support of:

The Hostetter-Habib Program Fund at NYTS 

For more information, please contact:

Dr. Jin H. Han

Professor of Biblical Studies

Phone: 1.212.870.1220

email: bibleconference@nyts.edu

I'll be one of 4 lecturers! 

Tractarian Church of Llangasty-Talyllyn near Brecon in Powys, Wales

1847 stained glass window of Perpetua before her martyrdom from the Church of Llangasty-Talyllyn near Brecon, Powys. Perpetua, you will recall, has just given birth and so hands the child over (here: to tonsured ecclesiastics) before her martyrdom.

This is the only church in the world dedicated to St. Gastyn who was tutor to St Cynog whom he also baptized 150 years before Augustine came to Canterbury. In the mid-19th C the church was rebuilt by Robert Raikes in accordance with Tractarian principles and employing architect John Loughborough Pearson later famous for Gothic revival style.

Pilgrims Way to Canterbury

Walking along in the footsteps of pilgrims is a wonderful experience. This is part of the North Downs Way which allegedly follows the route of pilgrims to Canterbury and to the tomb of St Thomas a Becket. It is not of course the exact path but it's close enough for me to find the experience almost religious.

On another day at another time, I'll do more of the walk than my mother and I did today. But for now, this suffices. And whilst I am an enthusiast of cyber-pilgrimages, there's nothing quite like the real thing. 

Interfaith Presentation on Sacred Texts Deirdre Good, Professor of New Testament, will join a rabbi and a Muslim scholar on Sunday, May 20, at the Congregation of Saint Saviour of The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in teaching a course on The Uses and Abuses of Sacred Texts: The Hebrew Bible, The New Testament and The Qu’ran. What do these sacred texts really say about contemporary issues? When public figures justify their opinions and biases by quoting from one of these holy books, are these proof texts legitimate? Can these quotes, taken out of context, be valid as proofs of “higher values”? Together, Prof. Good, Rabbi Leonard Schoolman and Dr. Hussein Rashid will invite participants to study frequently quoted texts and see what they really mean. The registration fee of $20 includes lunch beginning at 12:45 pm, with the course running from 1:15 pm to 3:15 pm. To learn more, visit the congregation’s website.

Jesus was literate

Chris Keith has a book, The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of  Jesus (New Testament Tools, Studies, and Documents 38; Leiden: E.J. Brill,  2009), in which he argues cogently (according to Michael J. Kruger) that the pericope of the woman taken in adultery is designed to show that Jesus was indeed literate and that --since it is an independent pericope--it was perhaps inserted into the text in the third century CE to answer accusations and pagan challenges that Jesus and Jesus' followers were illiterate. Previous scholarship on "the woman taken in adultery" focuses on what Jesus wrote, not that he wrote, and this is a helpful refocus. There is of course much more to say about the book, a revised dissertation. 

Neoplatonism, anyone?

Good overview and discussion of Neoplatonism over on BBC Radio 4 in the programme "In Our Time" introduced and moderated by Melvin Bragg with various scholars. Here's an introduction to Neoplatonism, and Plotinus.

When Plato dies, the academy falls into the hand of Plato's successors. In 155 BCE Carneades leads the academy in the direction of a school of skeptical philosophy. Plato is appropriated in various ways including Epicureanism. Neoplatonism takes Plato's divisions between sensible material world and the world of forms, including the form of the good, and seeks to return to the true essence of Plato by unveiling true meanings of Platonic texts. Everything that is comes from unity and the intelligible world of forms which then devolves into multiplicity. The notion of "the One"goes back to Plato's Republic in which the form of "the Good" is the ultimate value and source of all. It is compared to the sun and it brings all things into being. Plotinus also had several mystical experiences of ecstatic union with "the One." Union with "the One" is achieved through a program of rigorous philosophy and self-discipline turning away from the sensible world.

Plotinus' (d.270CE) biography was written by Porphyry and his writings the Enneads are well known. Educated in Alexandria, he also went east on military campaigns perhaps encountering Indian philosophy. Settling in Rome, Plotinus opened a public school for aristocracy and other interested people as a public sage.

Successors of Plotinus like Porphyry and other Neoplatonists are in dialogue with Christianity, Judaism, and even Islam particularly for a defense of monotheism. Iamblichus was much more interested in magic and theurgy. Proclus is the most important late Neoplatonist who lived and wrote in Athens. He integrates pagan religious belief into his philosophy. The ruins of his house have been discovered with remains of animal sacrifice in it.

These are the discussants:

Angie Hobbs
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Senior Fellow in the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Warwick

Peter Adamson
Professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at King's College London

Anne Sheppard
Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London

Meet the Romans with Mary Beard +Update

is an excerpt from a BBC series "Meet the Romans" currently on BBC 2. Mary Beard is a wonderfully accessible commentator on the Roman world.

Update: There's quite a controversy about one aspect of the series: Mary Beard's appearance. Ridiculous really. Here's her defense. In the meantime, most comments about the programme have been positive. 

Virtual Pilgrimages at Trinity Wall Street April 15-May 20

Everyone is welcome to join us this coming Sunday at Trinity Wall Street for all sessions or only parts!

Virtual Pilgrimages

Eastertide 2012

Trinity Wall Street

Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. April 15, 22, 29, May 6, 13 and 20

To understand pilgrimages, it's essential to know the quintessential journey of the ancient world in the Hellenistic period: Homer's Odyssey, the journey of Odysseus from Troy to his home in Ithaca. Therefore, this mini-course will start with Homer's Odyssey so as to identify themes of the journey including hospitality, human identity and deception, and the meaning of home. Then we will continue with journeys in the Hellenistic period including: 1) Philo's Treatise on the Preliminary Studies, in which the 1st Century Alexandrian writer Philo depicts Abraham's journey as the movement of the soul from bodily passions towards true wisdom and virtue through paideia, education; 2) real pilgrimages e.g. to the Asklepion in Pergamon and to the House of John in Ephesus and 3) otherworldly journeys in apocalypses like Enoch, the Testament of Abraham, and Revelation.

Helpful text: Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity eds. Jas´ Elsner and Ian Rutherford (OUP 2005)

April 15 Homer's Odyssey—Prof Peter Meineck, New York University (interactive map of Odysseus' Journey: http://www.classics.upenn.edu/myth/php/homer/index.php?page=odymap)

April 22 Journey as metaphor: Philo of Alexandria, The Preliminary Studies (see http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/book18.html)

April 29 Otherworldly Journeys: Apocalypse of Abraham (see http://www.cimmay.us/pdf/box_landsman.pdf), Testament of Abraham (see http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1007.htm), The Apocalypse of Paul (see http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/ascp.html)

May 6 Pergamon—Professor Brigitte Kahl, Union Theological Seminary

May 13 Ephesus--Professor Katherine Shaner, General Theological Seminary

May 20 Ethos of pilgrimage: mindset and impact—Green pilgrimages 

Jesus' tomb?

ABC has a segment reporting the recent announcement about Jesus' tomb. Professor James Tabor is interviewed and also Professor Mark Goodacre.  Here is the site of the discoverers. Mark Goodacre has been posting on the topic for several weeks and here are his 10 problems. A full discussion can be read on the ASOR blog which I urge everyone to read.

The American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), founded in 1900 and located at Boston University, is the preeminent society for individuals interested in the archaeology and history of the eastern Mediterranean. ASOR is an international organization that has about 1,500 individual members and about 85 member institutions. ASOR supports and encourages the study of the peoples and cultures of the Near East, from the earliest times to the present. It is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization and is apolitical and has no religious affiliation.

Update: useful Q&A with Profs Eric Meyers and Mark Goodacre from Duke on the topic here. They include assessments of Prof Tabor's scholarship and their collegiality, the context for the topic (Easter/Passover) and their take on the subject. Prof James Tabor replies here. 

Put Women Back Into Holy Week

Cynthia Bourgeault has a piece in the Washington Post: "Put Women Back Into Holy Week" in which describes her Holy Week this year. She certainly give us something to ponder.

I have spent the entire Holy Week leading a meditation retreat in a small retreat center tucked away in central Minnesota, and as part of our Holy Week commemoration we have added a new liturgy- which rightfully should have been there all along. It re-enacts the loving anointing of Jesus, shortly before the crucifixion, by a woman whom tradition remembers as Mary Magdalene. I first witnessed a version of this ritual in France many years ago and brought it home with me (in a slightly revised format) to the states. This is the second Holy Week now that I have experienced through the launch pad of anointing, and I am more convinced than ever that without it, our understanding of what Jesus was up to in his Holy Week self-offering is incomplete--in fact, it is badly distorted.

This anointing ceremony, based on an episode recounted in all four Gospels, focuses on Mary Magdalene and rightfully restores her central place in the Holy Week mystery- a place explicitly accorded to her in the Gospels themselves but deliberately down-played (or eliminated altogether!) in traditional Holy Week liturgies.

With the anointing ceremony repositioned as the opening act in the Holy Week drama, the entire shape of Holy Week shifts subtly but decisively. In this reconfiguration the meaning of anointing is itself transformed. It emerges as the sacramental seal upon all our human passages through those things which would appear to destroy or separate us, but in fact draws us more deeply toward the heart of divine love.

Cynthia Bourgeault is the author of The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of the Christian Tradition (2010).