Call for Papers - Canadian Theological Society

Canadian Theological Society 2012 Annual Meeting
May 28-30, 2012
Waterloo, Ontario

The theme of this Congress—Crossroads: Scholarship for an Uncertain World— invites us to reflect on uncertain changes in the disciplines in humanities and social sciences, as well as the need to generate scholarship that addresses challenges facing our uncertain world. Theologians are often practiced in engaging the uncertainties that surround our religious communities, our vocation, as well as the chronic uncertainties that well up in human life. Therefore, the theme seems one to which our members may be responsive in diverse ways.

In order to offer a cohesive program, we invite proposals on the theme of Theological Responses to an Uncertain World. We will also consider proposals on any topic in theology.

We invite submissions in two formats:

1) 20/20 Presentations


We will again follow the 20/20 format that we used for the 2011 Congress, inviting presentations of 20 minutes with 20 minutes discussion to follow. Typically the presentation will be an account of a larger research project. Since members work in a variety of fields and specializations, attention should be given to presenting advanced work in an accessible way.

Submit a proposal that includes:

• Presenter’s name, institution, and contact information
• Title of presentation
• Proposal of 250-300 words which includes an abstract, the problem your scholarship engages, and the contribution you plan to make.
• Requests for audio-visual equipment (A/V equipment will be available only if it is requested in the proposal)

2) Panels

We invite panels on issues that are relevant to members, especially as related to the theme of the annual meeting. Panel proposals should be developed to foster dialogue among the panelists and with those attending in the audience. Thus, we discourage panels which consist of the reading of several papers.

Submit a proposal that includes:

• Convener’s name, institution, and contact information. The convener will be the link between the panel and the CTS.
• Names, institutions and contact information of all members of the panel
• Either the name and contact information of the moderator, or a request that CTS provide a moderator
• Title of panel
• Length of panel (40 or 80 minutes)
• Proposal of 300-400 words which includes an abstract, the problem your scholarship engages, the contribution you plan to make, and how you plan to foster dialogue among panelists and audience (e.g., use and allotment of time)
• Requests for audio-visual equipment (A/V equipment will be available only if it is requested in the proposal)

All proposals should be submitted in a Word or .rtf file by email attachment by January 15, 2012 to: Jeremy Bergen, CTS Program Chair

We will confirm receipt of all proposals submitted by email.

Selection Criteria

In selecting proposals for 20/20 presentations or for panels, the committee will consider:

• The clarity and significance of the proposal
• The quality of the contribution to scholarship
• The relationship of the presentation to the thematic focus of the annual meeting
• The contribution of the presentation to a diversity of perspectives and approaches
• The potential for inspiring discussion and engagement among the members

Our goal as a Society is to foster collegial discussion of members’ work and of the work of other Canadian theologians. All presenters and attendees are encouraged to participate in as much of the program as possible. We welcome all members, students, and other interested persons to join us this year at the annual meeting in Waterloo, Ontario.

Poverty? Greed?

Plato once claimed that poverty is not a decrease in our possessions, but an increase in our greed. As a middle class (have) individual this has a strong ring of truth to it. It speaks to the endless fascination with material success that is so prevalent in Western society. Yet, this statement also alerts me to a need for distinction with the term poverty. While I agree that our greed impoverishes us - poverty has many roots and causes. And the kind of poverty that is caused by greed is, in my opinion, more of a spiritual poverty than a material poverty.

This spiritual poverty is not necessarily synonymous with the inability to provide sustenance for ones family. Nor  is it always indicative of an inability to "catch a break" socially that will allow your most basic needs to be met. The difference between spiritual and material poverty seems to describe the gulf between the haves and have nots - where the have nots often face destructive material poverty their concerns are grounded in the reality of putting food on the table not on having too little equity to buy a second car for purely convenience sake. Perhaps this is why I so appreciate the epistemological privilege that  Liberation Theology offers to the poor? Indeed the real remedy for spiritual impoverishment must lie in the path of solidarity with the truly poor - that is the materially poor. In fact, dare I say, one can only climb out of spiritual poverty with the help of the materially poor - because the greed that offers only spiritual poverty can never be sated, and can never offer us freedom.

Food for thought.

Theory of Religion

In the Winter semester I will be exploring the world of religions with a new class. I have some students signing up from my previous classes which has to look good to the admin! It is going to be challenging both for me and the students. I've done this sort of work as an undergrad but my grad work has all been struggling with an inside conversation - specifically focused on the nitty gritty world of evangelicals. In this course we will be trying to develop an outside perspective on a plurality of religions - putting aside our own commitments.

Yet, at the same time I want to find the place for our own commitments to come into the conversation. So the first class will have to introduce the idea of navigating conversations about world religions from a perspective of humility, expectation, and desire to bring out the best in others (and even to have the best brought out of our own religious commitment!)

My director often says that the problem with a lot of contemporary theology is that it lacks a good theory of religion. Where I think she is right is that we often think that what we practice is not religion but is somehow above the religious conversation, it has a privileged place. What is disturbing is that we all do it - Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc.  We all talk about religion in essentially two modes: world religions as a phenomenon and our religion as the only reasonable and reliable faith. Where this gets tricky is that in one sense I believe this should be why we stick with our own religious commitment - why would you adhere to a religion that you don't completely buy into? If you do you will at best only follow the bits of it that are comfortable. Religion, at its best, cannot function this way.

But the other extreme - our way the only way - is what makes religions function at their worst.

This coming semester we will be seeking to find the balance. A good theory of religion. A humble approach to the other. And a desire to be the best of our religious heritage. Sound like a challenge? I think so.

Did you Miss Me?

Ok. Semester is almost done. It is all over but the exam marking. Yikes. At least now I know what I am in for.

Needless to say I learned a lot this semester.

There are things I'm going to do differently if I run Intro to Theology again (which I hope I get that opportunity to do). For one thing I'd add a textbook. Yup, you heard right. I'd add a textbook that covered the historical stuff I want to cover. My brief romp through the history of Christian thought was all too quick and if I was supplementing a text reading then I could be more focused on a few key thinkers instead of a broad swathe.

What I wouldn't change much is my Christian Spirituality course. I really liked the way it came together and the way the students engaged with the lectures. Sure I'd tune it a bit here and there, but I think it is a good solid foundation to the study of spiritualities and Christian spiritualities in particular. Those students have a take home exam which comes in Friday after next. Hopefully I'll have all the Intro exams marked so I can focus on those at that time.

I've already started my course prep for next semester. I'm doing Religion, Culture and Diversity which is a second year course. This one is going to be challenging as it is not a course on a specific religion, in fact it is a religion studies course at heart. I will focus on North American religions and in particular those that are purposeful in spreading their ideas/beliefs beyond their cultural settings (Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism) but more because I need to set some limits on the material. The course will be broken into three parts:

1) Theory of Religion - this will have lots of case studies and class discussions.
2) Culture - this will be a brief section on cultural anthropology with a focus on the role of religious imagination in culture.
3) Diversity - this last section will focus on the diverse ways that religions speak into issues of contemporary importance, primarily ecological issues but I'm going to branch out from there. Again, lots of case studies and class discussions.

It should be a fun course.

OK, in the meanwhile I am around. But this time I won't promise to be back blogging. I'm behind still on lots of life stuff. But I'm confident that I'll find a rhythm soon.

Reading Week

What a crazy run this has been. I'm more than halfway through my courses and still loving it. But it has kept me so busy that I have been struggling to have enough time with my family let alone blogging and all the other hobby activities I engage in. I really hope that I get to teach either of these courses again, a second run through will see me so much more prepared. But I'm not sure it would be that much less work.

Marking is not something I liked when I was teaching IT. It was definitely easier to mark something if it is definitely right or wrong - but essays don't work that way. Especially when you are dealing with some highly abstract concepts at times. Most of my students (that I have evaluated) are doing quite well with the tasks and responding very well to my feedback on completed assignments. That is most satisfying. I am still committed to the idea that a big role for me in the Intro to Theology class is to give students tools with which to approach their whole time at Saint Paul University. Strangely enough though, I actually like the process of marking. I have taken the wise advice of others and built a grid for each different assignment - and after reading the paper and making comments I simply walk through the grid and end up with a grade. This ensures that the results are fair and, hopefully, consistent. It also prevents me from taking off a tonne of marks for repeated mistakes.

I was hoping to have several lectures prepared in advance - not the reality. I do have them all roughly mapped out - but each week I am constructing two sets of power point slides as well as two sets of lecture notes. The strategy of using slides to guide the conversation is helpful - it also means that my slides do not need to convey real content. Sometimes an image will suffice for a 20 minute conversation. It is the notes that really needs a lot of work. I use word and drop in mini images of the slides that the lecture section references. I've found that 12-18 pages is enough in the Intro to Theology class where students interact less and 10-14 pages is usually more than enough in the Christian Spirituality where the conversations can really take off. Took me a few weeks to get that sense for how much material will fit into the lecture based on how much interaction I can expect from the class. Interaction is a big variable - I have tonnes of experience timing out talking head material. I should say that my notes are far from detailed - lots of points. Really they keep me from getting off track - sometimes I do that especially when students start asking great questions.

This week, being reading week, is a chance to catch up on all the little tasks I've forgotten as well as prepare my final lectures. I commented to a student that I don't know who is learning more - it is an incredibly enriching experience teaching. You have to be on your toes the whole time (mentally exhausting) and ready for anything. One student even commented, out of the blue, that he could not imagine me without my goatee. That really can throw you when you are expecting a serious question. I shaved it down to my soul patch chin hawk before the next class (mostly for my wife who prefers that look)  and shocked him when he came in. Aside from being on your toes for mostly serious questions - I am learning the boundaries of my knowledge. Fortunately, I've long moved past the need to know everything and always have an answer. I'm good at thinking on my feet, but I also think I know when to defer things until I've had a chance to look into it further.

I hope to be blogging a bit more this week.

Tight Squeeze

Last night Sharon commented that she thought my working would afford us more time together. In fact it feels like we are both still running on opposite schedules. She's getting home just as I need to leave, and vice versa. Last night I was feeling overwhelmed with the need to have today's lecture completed. I was home alone with the kids in the evening and only had notes for half of it (although I really knew what I wanted to cover, the thing is writing it out helps solidify and organize things for me, and it helps me know if my slides and board word work will do the trick). I started getting angry with the kids, much to my shame. After supper they seemed to settle into a tv show and I thought I could sneak down and crank out a few more pages. Not long into it though Chelsea came down to tell me she has homework and needs help. It was an overwhelming moment, I sort of panicked and wanted to write a nasty letter to her teacher (selfish I know). I called my loving wife and she started sharing her own frustrations about being so busy at work that she hadn't been able to eat her meal. That was like a punch in the gut actually. I knew I couldn't write a letter - that was just me taking out my frustration on my family. So I actually took a few minutes to calm down and went to find Chelsea (she went off to play frustrated that she was going to have to drag her math book (who still uses math books???) back tomorrow night to do her homework then). I apologized for my poor behaviour, explained the circumstance and helped her figure out how to do her homework. She was just a bit stuck, so I unstuck her and she was off to the races.  I did get to work a bit on my notes while she did the questions she could - but after that I came up and helped her think through the last one. Then she decided to stay up and draw while I did my workout (another stress was that I hadn't gotten to that yet!) then I spent time putting her to bed. After that I realized that Elyssa needed me too - so we spent time with Buttercup Sprinkles (our new hamster) and she told me a long story about hamster facts she is reading. At this point I was no longer worried about my notes. But funny enough, after Elyssa was down I was able to finish most of my notes before Sharon got home. I did end up staying up late - but that is not such a bad price to pay for time with my kids. 

Journey Conference is this Weekend!

I knew taking on two courses would be a lot of work - but two courses and planning a conference - yikes! I am so excited (and glad) that our Journey of the Universe film premiere and conference is this weekend. Registration is really healthy and all of the last minute details are coming together. We have a great line-up of presenters on the Saturday, with the whole emphasis being on the implications of this film. Executive Producer Mary Evelyn Tucker is our keynote speaker and will be with us throughout the conference. I've seen the film already and it is very well done. I am actually really impressed that even though it is carefully not anchored in any religious or spiritual tradition - the film provides ample opportunity for people of faith to find themselves in this story. It is true to Thomas Berry's idea that religions can't offer us the solutions we need, but neither can a solution come that does not include religions. The task for those of us who are devout people of faith and take this cosmology seriously is to find the ways in which our stories are found in the great story of the Universe (or as I like to think of it, the really big picture of how truly amazing Creation is when we stop thinking Creation is just about our planet). In many ways this is the inevitable end of the Copernican revolution - we may assent to a non-geocentric cosmology, but we still often get caught up in our anthropocentrism.

Here is the line up:

Opening comments: Dr. Karlijn Demasure, Dean, Faculty of Human Sciences (Saint Paul University)
Keynote address: Dr. Mary Evelyn Tucker

Two sets of two concurrent panels:

Panel A: One Earth: Many Religions

• Heather Eaton (Ph.D.) Saint Paul University: Christianity 
• Iman Ibrahim (MA International Affairs): Islam 
• James Miller (Ph.D.) Queen’s University: Daoism 
• Noel Salmond (Ph.D.) Carleton University: Hinduism and Buddhism 
• Moderator: Frank Emanuel (yours truly) 

Panel B: Natural Sciences 

• Simon Appolloni (Ph.D. cand.) University of Toronto 
• William David, Senior Policy Analyst, Assembly of First Nations 
• Aaron Gross (Ph.D.) University of San Diego, Religion and Animals 
• John Stone (Ph.D.) Carleton University, IPCC 
• Moderator: Jessica Hetherington (Ph.D. cand.) 

Panel C: Spirituality

• Cindy Gaudet (M.A.) Metis, Moon Lodge Canada 
• Miriam Martin (Ed.D.) Saint Paul University, Religious Education 
• Ian Prattis (Ph.D.) Carleton University emeritus, Zen 
• Anne Taylor (M.P.S.) Kairos Spirituality for Social Justice Centre 
• Moderator: Kathryn Guindon (M.Sc.) 

Panel D: Social Sciences and Political Action 

• Tony Clarke, Director Polaris Institute 
• Joe Gunn, Director Citizens for Public Justice 
• Elizabeth May MP, Leader, Green Party of Canada 
• Vern Neufeld Redekop (Ph.D.) Saint Paul University, Conflict Studies 
• Moderator: Marlene Kelly (gsic), Team member of Kairos Spirituality for Social Justice Centre

Hope to see you there!

Mourning the Loss of our first Family Pet

Gracie recently celebrated her first year with us. We even baked a hamster friendly cake - honey not sugar and full of the nuts she loved. We had been treating her for an eye infection and she had been quite lethargic as of late. We noticed because she was always so full of life. Even when we were giving her eye drops she never complained or nipped. And she seemed to be pulling through, but yesterday Sharon noticed that she seemed to be getting worse again. She passed away in her sleep, the girls found her in the morning. She looked so peaceful curled up. I found an appropriately sized box which the girls decorated. We all wrote messages for Gracie on the box and placed her in there with lots of shavings, just the way she liked to sleep. We also gave her her salt lick and a wooden heart she had for chewing. I dug a deep hole in the garden (about 2.5 feet) and we spent some time sharing the things we liked most about Gracie, good memories. I loved the way she would crawl all over my arms in the evenings. We capped the burial site with some stones the girls had painted at a vacation bible school they attended this summer. I think they were supposed to make images of Jesus or the cross - but my kids never do what you expect, they had both made pictures of Gracie. So these serve as a fitting reminder of the hamster we loved so much. It is a good opportunity to learn how to grieve together. Hard as that is I think it is an important part of life. Life is fragile. My youngest asked me if I thought Gracie would go to heaven. I asked her if she believed that God loved and cared for all God created. She said she did and I told her that was her answer. I am really aware that what we say about the dead is always for the living - her final words to Gracie were about being happy in heaven. Many, many tears were shed today, and I imagine more will come tonight. Rest in peace Gracie, you will be greatly missed.

Settling in at Saint Paul

In exactly one hour I will be standing in front of a bit over 30 students talking about what we will do this semester in Introduction to Theology. I'm pretty excited. Just got situated with all my books and finally connected to the new wifi network at the school. Now to get my blackberry setup on the same WIFI so I can control my slides that way - Vectir rocks. If you are in my course, I'll be seeing you soon.

Week One - P90X

OK I am officially one week into the P90X fitness programme. It is indeed intense. All the standard workouts are fine - I'm using bands to simulate pull ups. Even the squats and lunges, which I'm not so good at, are fine. I didn't do YogaX, simply because I needed a recovery day and wanted to do some restorative yoga that day - so I did an hour of yoga with lots of breathing. Plus it is hard for me to think of yoga as just a fitness practice - I like the spiritual aspect and it was often incorporated into my own personal devotions. I did like StretchX today - which is more like my own practice. Just missed the shavasana and praying at the end. I wasn't too fussy about Plyometrics - my heart rate spiked at 216 in that one, had to sit down! And it was the only one that got my heart rate to go too high. Even KenpoX only had me hovering around 145.

Speaking of KenpoX, that was my least favourite workout. I think I would be more comfortable doing that in a class where I can get some guidance on technique. Yoga was better after practicing in a studio for about a year. Those little adjustments start to build muscle memory so you can just feel when something is not quite right. All through KenpoX I was second guessing my moves, and not getting how they were combining all the movements through the body. I need the moves done in slow motion until I know what is going on - then put them into a practice. It isn't martial arts - I used to do Karate as a youth and loved learning kata. But this isn't kata, it is aerobics with intricate (and I bet helpful) moves.

I've lost 4 pounds this week - 4 good pounds because I'm 4 lower than the low end of my usual weight fluctuations. And the pain of the first couple sessions has subsided - I can really feel the work outs but they aren't killing me anymore. In fact my body is starting to feel good! I need to work on sleep and I also need to adjust diet this week. I was hoping to be further into this before school started back up, but better late than never.

Note: this is my before picture, I'll post another at the next fitness test.

I Must Be Insane

I started the P90X programme today. Yeah, I still feel the shoulder work out. It actually feels good. I wanted to start this at the first of the month, but Sharon wasn't ready. Seems that after today she still isn't ready but I'm waiting no longer. Tomorrow I do plyometrics - apparently it is pure evil. I'll be doing it on my own too. I'll let you know how it goes, if I just get rid of my belly and am able to resume my regular yoga practice then I'll be happy.

Course Prep Continues

I finally have ordered both courses and have begun putting the actual lectures together. I'm hoping to keep two lectures ahead of the class. I have an idea for the Intro to theology class that might be a bit tricky to pull off. I want them to read a short snippet from a theologian doing theology from the framework we will be discussing that day. But I do not want them to know who they are reading until we take the article up in class. I'm probably messing with copyright laws to do that - but we'll see what I can pull off. Perhaps I can find stuff that is useful and I can obtain permission to withhold the credit for a week.

I will want an article for each of the following: Historical (descriptive), Political, Liberationist, Feminist, Hermeneutics, Dogmatics, and Biblical. I've laid out the texts I'm drawing the lectures from, but I would think working with actual theological writing will be very helpful for students. I'm determined to make this course something that will serve these students for their whole academic careers - their first methodology course. Should be fun.

I'm getting excited about this coming semester.

Free Will and the Adjustment Bureau

Not the best film in the world but I felt it was trying to answer a serious question - theodicy. It is trying to explain why so many bad things happen in this world that is supposed to be created by a benevolent and loving God. Or put another way, it is trying to determine the relationship between an interventionist God and human free will. That said it would have been great if they had a theologian help out (if there was one they did a bad job) with the story. What it ends up doing is something I hear a lot from folks when they face trouble or set-backs in life: shouldn't God fix this?

The short answer is always no, and the film does try to go there. But the harder answer is what kind of God are you appealing to? It is a serious and tough question because how you answer it has far reaching implications on our lives of faith. For instance, if you believe that God is never interventionist then what is the purpose of praying? But if you believe God is interventionist (meaning God steps in at will and alters reality) then why does it seem that God only intervenes for rich white Westerners and is oblivious to the poorest of the poor? Conundrums like this are why theologians spend their whole lives on just this problem.

Spoiler Alert: If you want to enjoy the movie you should watch it before reading further - you have been warned.

What kind of God does this movie portray?

This is a God that writes and re-writes "the plan" at will.
This is a God who has angels micro-manage the execution of "the plan".
This is a God who seems to want human free will, but, if Thompson is to be believed, cannot really trust humanity with free will. At least not yet.
This is a God who values reason above emotion.
This is a God who buys into the Enlightenment error that reason alone can give us a perfect society (world).
This is a God swayed by enacted emotion.
This is a God who blames all the evil in the world on free will and all the (so-called) good on God's direct intervention via "the plan".
This is a God who is absent.
This is a God who is male (male angels and God referred to as the Chairman).

I'm not trying to wade through what of this is conflicting, rather what is presented through the film. There may be more you could add, but this gives us a place to start.

Does this sound like the Judeo-Christian God? What is scary is that it sounds a lot like the God that many of my Christian friends understand God to be. They want a God they can blame when things go bad and ignore when things go right. Such a God is about as useless as the Chairman in this film - Matt Damon was right to not respect this God or "his" plan. But in the film the main character is aided and praised for going against God's plan? Worse, to go against this plan for emotional reasons!

So where is God when it hurts? Do we have to fall back on the polarity of interventionist/non-interventionist? supernatural/non-supernatural? I don't think so. But I must admit that sometimes the only answer we get is the one God gives Job - "do you think you could do better?" If the writers of Job were writing this movie they'd be convinced that God wants us to say yes and do it. But that isn't the answer a righteous Job gives. In fact it is not the answer to theodicy any more than to make God some sort of bi-polar cosmic monster.

Personally, I prefer the approach of theologians like Moltmann who find God entering into our pain with us. That approach doesn't mean altering God to fit our expectations - rather it means we meet God as who God is and find the God who not only names our pain but works with us to right the wrongs (Job's tragic tale ends with a righteous Job making right his view of humanity, especially of women.) But that is not the God of the Adjustment Bureau.

Odd Blog Traffic

I just noticed that the top three referring sites this week have names that lead me to think they are pornographic (and spammy) in nature. I'll resist following up on these links, but for all of you who came here looking for penis extensions and naked people - I think you will be disappointed. On the up side you might find something to better occupy your time.

In the meanwhile I leave you with a comic my friend David aka the Naked Pastor did. Feel free to get up and do a little dance to the song in your head. Oh and David is metaphorically naked, in case you think I'm just trying to redirect you to what you came here looking for.

Thanks for dropping by.

Why I'm a Lucky Guy

Blessed is probably a better word for it. However you put it, I have a lot to be thankful for. This shot is of my beautiful wife, taken at the cottage of some amazing friends on a vacation that was so good.

Ok enough boasting. I'm home from holidays now, time to buckle down and finish up some loose ends in terms of writing. Grabbed my missing Spirituality books from Matte in Montreal so I'm all set to tackle course prep. Sharon is taking our kids camping for a few days so I will have a few days to get my bearings.

What is Free about the Gospel?

Driving around I saw a church sign that said: "The gospel is free, you just need to receive it." Clearly free is not a good descriptor here. If it was free then you end up with a universalism which I'm sure is not the intent of the little Baptist church with that sign. So what is free about the gospel?

I actually think the opposite - the gospel is costly.

Not only does it cost receiving it - hardly a passive action. It involves investing your whole life into. Perhaps what bugs me about the free statement is that it promises something it cannot really deliver. What does it mean to receive the gospel? Does it mean some intellectual nod of the head at what God did with little following implications? That hardly fits with any evangelical doctrines of salvation I know about. I'm not advocating a works here - but rather a responsibility. The gospel isn't free, it will demand our whole lives. It is costly.

There is a cost that is paid for - at least in terms of substitutionary atonement - but that is not the part of the gospel that I think we are trying to get at. We are not trying to compare God's cost against ours and say that in comparison what we have to do is pretty much free. I doubt that. In fact if anything the command to take up our own crosses implies that the gospel has the same potential (cost-wise) as it did for Jesus. It could very well demand out lives.

Why do we want it to be stripped of this cost? Do we think that a costly gospel is less appealing? Maybe we sugar coat the gospel and tell people lies like "God has a wonderful plan for your life" in order to con them into the Kingdom. It doesn't work. A costless gospel is not a gospel at all. It is a fatalism, an easy believism, that is not good news at all. What I mean by this is that it is not good news because it has no ability to do anything in the world except lull individuals into a false sense of security. If the gospel is really good news it has to be good news for the whole of creation, anything less undersells God and turns the gospel into a farce.

I think we should drop the lame slogans and return to a costly gospel. That pearl of great price that once you find you are willing to give up everything for. A free gospel is really only worth the price you paid for it - nothing. I have a hard time believing that Jesus would be willing to lay down his life for something so meaningless as a so-called free gospel.

I think the only sense in which we might be able to talk about a free gospel is in terms of money - but even there the gospel makes huge demands on us. Sure I can offer it to you without charging you money. But what I'm offering, when I present the gospel, really demands your everything. And you can bet that will impact your pocketbook at some point. The gospel is costly. I'm actually quite ok with that. Only a costly gospel is worthy of the God who is willing to risk everything for us.

Wedding Prep

I'm not doing this one, but I am playing at it. My license does not extend beyond Ontario, but my half-aunt Sharon is a Lutheran minister down there. My niece Alex is getting married. I am going to be playing a couple songs in the service though. They wanted something to come down the aisle to and something to go back on. I chose two songs: I'm Yours (Jason Mraz) which is a great song with odd lyrics and Dancing through the Minefields (Andrew Peterson) which was suggested by my buddy Poulsen. I'm actually thinking of doing Dancing for them coming up - but I'll have to work out the timings for how long the walk is. I'm Yours is easy to vamp over so I'll just wing it as they leave. Probably do the two straighter verses and the chorus a few times (extended and simple). Should work fine.

When I started putting this together it made me realize how little I've been playing guitar. But the fingers are hardening up again.

Always busy. Kids are out of school now so it is catch as catch can to get my thesis work done. I need to start prepping classes too. I had loaned out a pile of spirituality books to my buddy Matte in Montreal, I'll have those back soon. Those are mostly the masters level books. I plan on doing quite a bit of reading over the next little while. I'll try to post as I go along though.

Course Prep

Slow start today, but time for a quick post. I just submitted my required and recommended texts for both Fall courses.

For Introduction to Theology I chose:

• Stone, Howard & Duke, James, How to Think Theologically (Fortress, 1996)
  
• Ormerod, Neil, Introducing Contemporary Theologies (Orbis, 1997)
  
• Recommended: Moltmann, Jürgen, Experiences in Theology (Fortress, 2000)
  

My focus in this course will be methodology. I'm also starting to line up speakers who will come in for up to 30 minutes and share how they do theology within their area of specialty.

For Christian Spirituality I chose:

• David Perrin, Studying Christian Spirituality (Routledge, 2007)
  
• Jean Vanier, Becoming Human (Anansi, 1998)
  
• Recommended: Ramón Matínez de Pison, God: From Knowing to Experiencing (Novalis, 2009)
  

This course is really easy to put together. Perrin's book is a great guide for the first part of the course, but for the reconstructive bit I'm turning to Vanier.

I've gathered all the books I need to prep for these courses. August I'll put together the first 4-5 sessions as outlines with PowerPoint slide decks.

Introduction to Theology (THO 2189)

This is a dream come true. I was just asked if I could teach this course in the Fall. Literally a dream because when I was in my second year I took this course from one of my favourite profs, and in a dream one night he gave me his course. Freaky eh. I hope I do justice to the excellent course this was when I took it.

Basically this is a course on how to think theologically. I'm looking into textbooks now, I'm thinking of Stone and Duke (How to Think Theologically) and maybe Soelle's Thinking about God. I have eliminated McGrath's text simply because I need something ecumenical.

This was the course where I discovered Moltmann. Trinity and the Kingdom of God was my first introduction and the start of a deep respect for German political theology that influences almost everything I do theologically. I hope I can use it to introduce others to the amazing theologians that will shape their future work. This is the course where it all begins.

Can you tell I'm stoked?

Congress - Where Were You?

I am becoming increasingly concerned with the lack of new evangelical scholarship at Congress. Congress is a wonderful environment for students and other scholars to share their projects with a wider academic community. It is a place where we can discover new resources, establish key connections and get valuable feedback on our projects. What concerns me is that it seems like such events are no longer a priority for students and professors.

On the student side, there is a need for doing our work amongst our peers. Young scholars can benefit not only from the pool of wisdom at Congress, but from the mere fact of presenting their work to academics outside of their own, sometimes isolated, school experience. In fact sometimes such presentations are the only way we can get the critical distance we need to do our work with academic integrity. Students need to be here.

On the professor side, there is an onus to encourage our students to do the things that will help them develop a career. Attending events like Congress is critically important for developing an academic career. In fact as professors we owe it to our students to suggest excellent papers be submitted to student essay contests. We owe it to them to connect them to research partners and acclimatise them to the academic culture in which they aspire to work. Graduate education is not just about thinking skills - it is about preparing the next generation to encourage the development of our disciplines.

How many of you students ever had a prof tell you how important academic societies are?. How many of you didn't even know Congress was on? How many professors encouraged a student to submit an essay to the contest?