Replying to My Hard Question

Father AKMA graciously has pointed me to some commentary on his work that might interest you. Bls often says that some of the best theology is being done on the blogs, but I am heartened to see one among the relatively small number of theologians in our church trying to engage the church on this issue. I am sure there are others. I wonder if and why they have been shut out of the debate.

The first piece is an essay on the last chapter of Faithful Interpretation like a fascinating essay, very resonant with many of the conversations that go on in our particular neighborhood. I, of course, have been reading Romans lately, so I think one solution to the issue of our privy members is that the virtuous and godly manner of life is the one in which they are offered to God: either directly in the kenotic signs present in matrimony and fratrimony/sororimony or indirectly in which we forgo their use for a time or maybe even permanently in order that our other members may praise God all the more. The common critique of the mystical understanding of sexually intimate human relationships is that it is dismissive of the bodies God created. But we are likewise dismissive of the invisible things which God also made when we restrict our use of our members only to visible ends: a key failing of the natural law tradition.

He also sent me another link, but it's tricky to load. The only solution I suppose is to give myself Faithful Interpretation as an Easter present.

Sundry Matters

Graduate school is very quickly heating up again. I have two classes next term. Furthermore, I have two ongoing research projects, which really don't seem to be coming to a gracious close very soon. As you can tell from the various series on this blog, I very rarely finish anything. Indeed, I have profound trouble with completion generally. On top of that, I have two conference papers due Easter Wednesday. I'm TAing a course and volunteered to guest lecture on Easter Friday. Holy Week is my favorite week of the year, but it looks like it will be a rather unbalanced mix of work and prayer.
Tomorrow, however, I will be seeing Die Grosse Stille . If you're lucky, you may get a review.

If you get a chance, read AKMA's latest piece. It's very much in the vein of a lot of writing these days about "polity," but he makes it a bit more palatable than other dishes. I've asked him a hard question through his e-mail comment system. He also will have a piece in the Christian Century that will go online fairly soon, which he fears will lose him friends. Knowing many clergy in his Diocese, it is my profound hope that his friends there will keep an open mind. Because I suspect that there's an astonishing secret behind AKMA's life. That seven years after Rowan Williams was born, AKMA was formed by God to act as an American analog to Williams, so that one could divine Williams' thoughts by asking Adam. Some would say they are simpatico .

Well, that's a strange thought for the night. I guess the nightly phantasms came early.