Enthused! \in-'thüzd\:

“Real people, real possibilities, real world,” our slogan declares. Come to the Candler School of Theology and discover real commitment, real change, and a real story. Some may find all this talk of “real” cheesy. But make no mistake—the human capacity for self-deception is infinite. Very often do we mistake our own inauthentic existence for real being. The question of what is real, we insist here at Candler, must be held ever before us. Only a relentless commitment to rigorous self-examination and to critical engagement with those around us can keep such deceit in check. The same is true in our classrooms, in our pews, and in our offices.

Perhaps now more than ever is critical reflection on what is real so urgently needed. The world is changing rapidly. New technologies are presenting unprecedented ethical and existential dilemmas. The not-too-distant arrival of molecular nanotechnology, super-intelligence, cryonics, genetic engineering, and uploading[1] will soon put our understanding of what constitutes a real human being to the test. We are slowly but steadily merging with our technology; some are already predicting that by the time our children are in college they will know people who are hybrids of the organic and inorganic. In these uncertain times it will grow progressively more difficult to look to the past for guidance in the future. It will be tough (but not impossible) to see how Paul, Augustine, Luther, or Barth can help us chart a faithful and responsible course. But this is not to say we are doomed to drift rudderless into a dystopian future.[2] There is still time to prepare. Enter MTS600T: Transhumanism/Posthumanism, a course devoted to identifying and dissecting some of the challenges that await us.

What is transhumanism/posthumanism? According to Humanity Plus, a leading transhumanist group, transhumanism is “a way of thinking about the future that is based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development but rather a comparatively early phase.” Those of us inhabiting this “early phase,” they reason, are in dire need of improvement. The telos of all transhumanist thinking is to overcome or transcend fundamental human limitations, including susceptibility to disease, limited intelligence, physical weakness, and even death itself. Now, before you dismiss these people to the lunatic fringe, know that great progress is being made on each of these fronts.[3] What is being accomplished in laboratories today borders on the miraculous. Scientists, computer programmers, and theorists of great repute are among the transhumanist ranks. It is now only a matter of time before people of all faiths will have to come to grips with a technological existence unlike anything we have ever known.

The religious implications of such technological advances are obviously enormous. What or where is the imago dei in this future? Does this technology represent a fundamental breach in the created order? Or perhaps its fulfillment? If we become fundamentally different beings than those originally addressed in Scripture, how do we appropriate and embody it? Again, crafting a faithful and intelligent response to such awesome technological power will be every seminarian’s duty. To that end, MTS600T: Transhumanism/Posthumanism is giving us a head start. Rest assured that there are astute, capable, and real people already thinking about these matters at the Candler School of Theology.      

- David Ranzolin

David is a second year MTS student from California and a Student Ambassador.

I find the question, how did I get here? utterly fascinating. As a person of faith, tracing the myriad trajectories of my past becomes a theologically important exercise. How can I make sense of my life thus far? Where do I see God’s hand? See, we Christians are not free to believe that our lives are merely the sum of our choices. We really believe we worship a God that intervenes, even intrudes into our lives in subtle, unexpected ways. I cannot answer how did I get here? with, “because I as a free, moral agent willed it.” Sometimes, the chief culprit is most likely “the God Variable.” I recently became acutely aware of its influence, but only in hindsight. Let me explain.

How did I get here? The question comes rushing at me. I scan the classroom of uniformed women and glance at James, my teaching partner, dear friend, and fellow MTS student at Candler. We are in prison. Namely, the Arrendale State Prison about an hour’s drive from familiar, cosmopolitan Atlanta. Coming from California, living in the South is strange enough; teaching at a women’s prison in rural Georgia only compounds the strangeness. We’re also reading a strange story. “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson. It’s a story about a pleasant, homey town that holds an annual “lottery” in which the “winner” is immediately stoned to death. The reader doesn’t find out until the end of the story—which is now rapidly approaching. I chuckle nervously. The story suddenly seems inappropriate. I’m not entirely sure how the women will react to the story’s bizarre, violent denouement. Seriously, how did I get here?

See, being here at Candler is unsurprising. My father is a religion teacher, I majored in religious studies, Candler is a good school, I didn’t want to find a real job after college, etc., etc. But teaching here in prison—that is unprecedented. I just don’t do things that interesting. I came to Candler to get on the fast-track to a Ph.D; dusty scholarship was in my future. But something happened, or better yet, somethings happened, and the future is suddenly more mysterious than if I had been left to my own devices.

As it turned out my worry was entirely misplaced. The women in our class attacked “The Lottery” with gusto, incisively assessing the text from all angles. But still, how did I get here? The question lingered. I could point to a few things I remember: the women’s choir performance from the prison at chapel last year, James and I excitedly discussing classes we would want to co-teach some day in the future, seeing the ad soliciting teachers in the Candler Chronicle—none of these adequately explains how we got here. Only something as radical, as wonderful, as grace-filled as “the God Variable” can account for our presence here in this prison. The truth is, about a million different coincidences had to occur to lead me to this very moment. And like Jesus’ signs, if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

Mathematicians may insist that attempting to detect patterns of divine prescience is absurd—what I imagine I’m seeing is merely the unraveling of an infinite series. Ergo, an unlikely event (even one as unlikely as a California boy teaming up with a North Carolina mountain man to teach literature at a women’s prison) is actually likely to occur. This illogical habit of theological retrospection is what makes me an “innumerate,” colloquially and pejoratively speaking. As the great Plutarch observes, “It is no great wonder if, in the long process of time, while fortune takes her course hither and thither, numerous coincidences should spontaneously occur.” I respectfully disagree. The God Variable is always present.

- David Ranzolin

David is a second year MTS student from the Bay Area of California and a Student Ambassador.

It’s crazy to think that in a couple of months, I will be facing yet another transition in my life. It seems like only yesterday that I hopped on a plane to fly across the country (literally – from California) to start my graduate education. Personally, coming to Candler was a HUGE decision. In so many ways, it was out of character for me to choose to invest so much time and money into an education that could not guarantee me a set career. And to get up and leave my family, friends and comfort zone to go to the South! What could the South possibly offer me that LA couldn’t? However, I knew that if I chose to ignore the opportunity set before me and refused to take that leap of faith, I would be left wondering “what if…”

Many people have told me that you need to be really intentional about spending time with God in seminary. Doesn’t seem to make much sense right? Shouldn’t it be easier since I will be reading, writing, breathing and living everything God? But it’s true–the academic demand does cause a spiritual disconnect at times. However, my studies here at Candler have also enriched my relationship with God in so many ways. I have been introduced to so many great thinkers, writers, theologians, preachers and the like. The readings that I actually got around to really challenged me to go deeper in my understanding of God and His Word. Similarly, the discussions with which I engaged during classes have also stretched me to look at things in new and different ways. Even though I know that God isn’t calling me vocationally to ministry (whew!), the skills that I have found and honed here at Candler will be an asset wherever I go.

So. Was it worth it? Was it worth getting past my fears and insecurities, of trusting that God will somehow make everything work? Most definitely. This of course does not mean that I have all the answers. Graduation is in 3 months and I still have no answer to where I will be going next. But that leap of faith has brought me to trust in God at a different level. He not only met me here in s-l-o-w Atlanta, but He revealed different parts of Himself to me in the green trees and the curvy one-lane roads and even on the MARTA bus. He answered my prayers for real community and good people in a way that I didn’t think possible. I am astonished at how much God has grown me and stretched me in the past two years. Not only have I learned new things about myself but I have started a journey in finding parts of me that I have lost along the way. To think that I would’ve missed out on all of that…

- Jung Won An

Jung Won is a second year MTS student from Los Angeles, CA and a Student Ambassador.

It’s the other way around, isn’t it? A school of theology should teach the aspiring biblical scholar how to read the parables of Jesus with the correct exegetical tools and provide the necessary skills for aptitude in interpretation. While this has been the case for me via a number of exegesis courses at Candler School of Theology, I would also like to use this space to illustrate in broad strokes how my experience with New Testament parabolic literature has trained me to read (perceive, examine, and indeed, exegete) the form, function, and nature of my seminary/theological training.

If the reader will forgive some generalizations, I’ll begin by commenting on a few things that characterize Jesus’ parables before demonstrating their application to my experience at CST. I have gleaned much of this from Steven Kraftchick’s Parables of Jesus course during this semester. First of all, parables are perhaps the best locus for seeing one of the foundational elements of language, namely metaphor. As is indicated in the term itself, a parable casts one (imagined or innovated) reality alongside another. In the case of Jesus’ parables, metaphoricity creates, via fictive (and often extended) analogy, another way of seeing a present reality like the Kingdom of God. Parables also often take the form of a narrative. A story is constructed with particular narrative dynamics, grounded in modes of being and thinking not unfamiliar to the intended audience, and with certain parameters that act to focus attention on one thing or another. An effective parable will meet the requisite cognitive and affective conditions so that the reader/hearer will at first find herself comfortable in the world constructed by the narrative analogy. It will then, either in the body or conclusion, shift typical cultural evaluations of meaning, most often by proffering unanticipated behavior by one or several of the parable’s characters. This shift allows (or perhaps forces) the audience to rethink their present reality in light of the slanted perspective of the parable. This is similar to Kierkegaard’s notion of “wounding from behind.”

The aforementioned characteristics of Jesus’ parables and my meditation on them in and outside of Dr. Kraftchick’s course have helped me to rethink precisely what I am doing and, more importantly, what is happening to me at CST. I have come to see that my training here is more than a 2-year data acquisition program. My relationships here, the coursework, the reading assignments, the papers and projects all cast alongside my vision of life an alternative and fictive account of reality. Furthermore, it is cast in the structure of a narrative. I don’t think in binary. Rather, I recount and contemplate my experiences in the form of story. My participation in Timothy Jackson’s Christian Ethics course begins with a relative feeling of ease concerning my certainty about morality, the ethics of war, Christian character, etc. But it is not long before I find myself “thinking it slant,” being cognitively coerced into reformulating the ethical boundaries of the Christian life. The conversations I have with friends after a day of class take me to the liminal spaces of my theological imagination and I am given a glimpse of an alternative world, wherein the life-destroying and oppressive systems of violent domination have lost their dominion. In short, reading parables has taught me how to read my time at Candler School of Theology and, for that, I am indeed grateful.

- Justin Rose

Justin is a 2nd year MTS student from Florida and a Student Ambassador.

As we begin another year at Candler and welcome 177 new students to this incredible community, a few second year students offer this deep reflection.

- Patrick Littlefield, Kristoffer Park, & Alex Thompson

Neo-Assyrian soldiers stretch out naked foes on the ground, preparing to flay them alive. Captive children witness the gruesome display.

One of the highlights of my trip to Israel this summer was visiting the site of ancient Lachish, about thirty-five miles southwest of Jerusalem. This Judahite city was the last to fall to the mighty Neo-Assyrian army before it set its sights squarely on Jerusalem (701 B.C.E.). King Sennacherib was so proud of this conquest that he had scenes from the siege of Lachish etched into the walls at his palace at Nineveh. Now displayed in the British Museum in London, these reliefs depict (among other things) the execution and torture of Judahite soldiers and dignitaries as well as the forced migration of the city’s inhabitants.

Neo-Assyrian troops impale citizens of Lachish on long poles while archers and soldiers armed with slings ascend the siege ramp.

I visited Tel Lachish late in the afternoon on a scorching day in July. Except for the birds and the occasional lizard that skittered by, I was completely alone at the site. It was eerily quiet. And as I stood atop the tel, I let my historical imagination run wild.

One can still see very clearly the huge earthen ramp that the Neo-Assyrians built to surmount the city’s walls. It is massive and an impressive feat of engineering even now. I imagined the dread that the citizens must have felt looking down from the walls to see below the greatest fighting force that the world had ever known. As Sennacherib’s troops slowly assembled the siege ramp rock by rock, the city surely knew what was coming. Once the ramp was finished, there could be no repelling Sennacherib’s raiders.

Sennacherib resting comfortably on his throne in his camp outside of Lachish.

As I saw this historical drama playing itself out before me, I could picture the Neo-Assyrian soldiers in full armor, with a taste for blood and a lust for loot. I imagined a smug Sennacherib munching some grapes in his plush camp just out of range of Lachish’s archers. Why did he have to come all the way from Nineveh to wreak so much havoc here? Looking down on the site of Sennacherib’s camp, I had the urge to utter a curse against those damn Neo-Assyrians. And suddenly, quite unexpectedly, I felt a new kinship with old Jonah, who certainly had no love lost on these people (cf. Jonah 3-4). The memory of violence, even violence from thousands of year ago, can still have profound and disturbing effects.

Another very different highlight of my trip was visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. I wasn’t really planning on visiting the church, intending instead to focus on the numerous Old Testament “places of interest” in and around Jerusalem (like Lachish). Yet when I happened upon the church, I just couldn’t resist going in.

I have to admit that once inside I found the people far more interesting than the architecture, relics, and this or that shrine. As I navigated the various holy sites within the church, I realized I was walking alongside people from all over the world. It struck me powerfully that millions of Christians over hundreds of years had travelled to this very building and had walked on these very stones.

Why had we all come? Was it curiosity? Devotion? Adventure? And who were we exactly? Pilgrims? Or tourists? Or worse, crusaders? Or were we something in between, some mixture of all three? I couldn’t tell, but walking through the church gave me the sense that I was participating in something that was far bigger than me. To be sure, that something was very messy and complicated and rife with contradiction, but also somehow profoundly true.

Crosses etched into the walls by pilgrims at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Of all the images from the church that day, what most struck me was seeing the thousands of crosses cut in the stone blocks on the stairway down to the crypt of St. Helen. Those simple etchings testified to the presence and faith of so many who had come before me. Even in the few minutes I stood at the steps there taking it all in, scores of new pilgrims walked by.

- Dr. Joel LeMon

Dr. LeMon is Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Candler and will be teaching OT501 this year.  His research focuses on the Psalms, Hebrew and Ugaritic poetry, and (as you can tell) ancient Near Eastern history, literature, and art. He is the author of Yahweh’s Winged Form in the Psalms (Academic Press, 2010) and the co-editor of Method Matters (with Kent H. Richards, Society of Biblical Literature, 2009). LeMon is an elder in the Virginia Conference of The United Methodist Church.

Ever wonder what types of issues are discussed within joint degree programs at Candler or why student choose to pursue two graduate degrees simultaneously? Here Brian Green talks about his experiences within Candler’s MTS program, the JD program at Emory University School of Law, and Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion:

During a Candler chapel service known as “Songs and Prayers for the Lenten Journey,” several students shared spoken word reflections.  For the next few Wednesdays we will share some of these reflections with you.

This week’s reflection is from 1st year MDiv student Marques Harvey.

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Psalm 121 Lenten Reflection

By: Marques Harvey

March 2011 (Copyright pending)

‘I lift up my eyes to the hills– where does my help come from? 2 My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot slip– he who watches over you will not slumber; 4 indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.’

In this season of Lent, my time is being spent discovering that this God of Israel- IS REAL and I mean that environmentally. For God is stretching me to break- fast from traditions of seeing God just as some ‘cosmic sugar Daddy’, this Agape poppy, who whenever I need a blessing I just send a praise up, and my blessings come down.  But this time around, in this season of Lent, less time is being spent craving the obesities of life. You know the fat ride, with the extremely large house, even though it’s only occupants are you and your spouse. All those things which contribute to this energy crisis- in which the inflation in the prices- has got us wondering just where Christ is.     So like the Psalmist, we lift up our eyes to the hills, only to discover they aren’t there anymore.  Cause the country’s economic plan of mountain top removals has crossed the burning sands and Mt. Zion is being converted into a mole hill – things are getting REAL in Israel.

In this season of Lent, my time is being spent discovering that this God of Israel – IS REAL – and I mean that sociologically, God is really challenging me to break-fast from traditions of simply fasting the sweets, treats and meats in my diet.  Moving from Daniel’s fast to a fast so REAL Isaiah encourages everyone to try it.  It’s a fast that’s not about just me, but with just-us.

It beckons that us who too often fuss with us, would begin discussing trust with us so that God would no longer find disgust in us…where the words of one KRS & the One Christos help remove the proverbial planks from our eyes until we realize that this God of Israel – IS REAL – and I mean that ontologically.  God is awakening us to see that Israel is not just a man, not just some ancient land, not just the daughters of the dust but Israel is in each one of us.  I ask you, from where will my help come when the earth’s hidden faults cause disasters in the land, when impenetrable levees can no longer stand? You responded our help comes from the One who made heaven and Japan, from the One who made heaven and Iran, from the One who made heaven and Sudan.  For the God who keeps Israel is the One who will not sleep nor slumber. For at times like these, we no longer have to wonder.  All we have to do is take notice and know this – that this God of Israel – IS REAL.

Marques holds a Masters in Public Health from the Morehouse  School of Medicine and is a graduate of Benedict College.

Allow me to begin this post with a necessary disclaimer. I am in the Master of Theological Studies program, but I certainly do not represent every student in it. My peers hail from quite a diverse number of religious traditions and denominational backgrounds, possessing an equally diverse number of theological sentiments. So it would be a disservice to them and a gross generalization if I wrote about the spiritual life without dissolving the implication that we share these notions in common. This is, however, one of the treasured attributes of the MTS program at Candler. It allows students to shape their own academic/research paths with an impressive degree of flexibility and individual tailoring.   Thus, we contribute an extensively plural and multivalent number of personalities, intellectual perspectives, and spiritual/religious orientations to the Candler community (and to the larger university as well). Because of the program’s embrace of individually crafted academic paths and lack of a more rigid structure (the kind one might encounter in a program like the MDiv), the personal responsibility to maintain and cultivate the spiritual life becomes a challenging and pertinent task.

I came to Candler after completing my BA at a small Pentecostal university in central Florida. The unflinching chapel attendance requirements, my involvement in spiritual formation and mentoring, and residing in a primarily on-campus residential school made spiritual cultivation a largely inevitable event. This strict, yet enriching experience ended in the Spring of 2010 and a much more open-ended but equally promising journey began at Candler in the Fall. I discovered that the Cannon chapel services offered the kind of diverse, ecumenical liturgical opportunities for which I had hoped. But apart from these worship settings, where tangible religious gestures are conveniently facilitated, the MTS student will inevitably discover opportunities for spiritual activity and reflection within the less explicitly worshipful classrooms of the CST (Candler School of Theology) building.

In my Luke course with Dr. Holladay last semester, I found new ways of thinking and meditating on episodes of Christological profundity in sacred texts. Thanks to my 1 and 2 Thessalonians Greek Exegesis course that I have with Dr. Kraftchick this semester, I am working with texts and developing exegetical skills that foster many Christian virtues . . . especially patience. I must say though that nothing has quite met the degree to which I am being spiritually challenged in Womanist Theology and Narrative Identity, which is taught by Dr. Andrea White. Every Monday, we (a couple dozen students of distinct racial, ethnic, gender, and religious identities) meet to engage in reflection on Womanist scholarship and the questions pertinent to the hermeneutic of Black women’s lived experiences. As a white male in the course, I have found the quest for accurate theological thinking, justice, and insight into a social and intellectual location with which I had not previously engaged to be a daunting, humbling, but infinitely rewarding spiritual endeavor.

Precisely how you will integrate spirituality into your life at Candler is not yet a realized dynamic. As I wrote above, the students in the MTS program all construct distinct and unique approaches to their religious lives, both within and outside of the school of theology. The process is open-ended and depends a great deal on the spiritual identity that you bring with you to the program. But I can assure you that Candler and the MTS program are optimal spatial and intellectual locations for that process, both effulgent with multitudinous opportunities for spiritual maturation and growth.

- Justin Rose

Justin is a 1st year MTS student from Navarre, FL and a Student Ambassador

As I entered Cannon Chapel, I was greeted by noise.  Several students were spread throughout the Brooks Commons foyer and up the staircase towards the Chapel.  They were reading, praying, meditating in unison.  I was surrounded by sound, but it was not the unpleasant sound of large crowds or chatty groups.  It was the sound of God ushering his children to worship, leading them towards Himself with His words.  I felt guided up the stairs, almost as if I was being moved forward by the nudge of scripture and praise.

The diversity of worship life at Candler allows for many different student groups and denominations to lead worship throughout the semester.  This week, the Black Student Caucus led of large group of students, faculty, and staff in yet another unique style of worship to help celebrate Black History Month.  Noise is of course a component of every worship experience in Cannon Chapel, but the noise this week had a certain power and force to it, as I noticed before I even entered the space of worship.  The noise seemed to move.  It moved in and out of mouths and ears, up and down walls and ceilings, over and around bodies and clasped hands.  It not only moved throughout the space, but forced the space to move with it.

The service began with singing.  An organ, a saxophone, a piano, a drum set accompanied rich, vibrant voices.  There were not words to read from a hymnal or off a screen.  The words of the song were on repeat, it seemed.  Everyone joined in, participating in the repetition of noise.  Some shouted the noise out of joy and happiness; others whispered it out of reverence and humility.  Different tones, different inflections floated around the chapel, offering themselves up to God in their diversity.   The variations of the noise became unified, for each distinct sounds moved in the same direction.  Upward.

Singing rarely involves just the movement of the mouth.  Arms, legs, and heads were moving, too, adding to the rhythm of the noise being created in the space.  The whole chapel was noisy with movement, from the swaying of hips to the raising of hands.  Bodies became instruments as they harmonized with the notes being played and sung.  Every single body participated in the song as it reacted to the noise.  Each person added their own personalized notes, creating a song that God had never heard before.

A time of prayer was sandwiched between the sounds of song.    Individuals approached the middle of the chapel floor one by one, uttering words of both praise and sorrow.   The Candler community gathered around these bodies and their noise as a petition to God, a petition to grow them closer and more unified.  Working to tear down boundaries and to end habits of division were the words of these few, but the cry of all.  The noise of both verbal and silent prayer rose, again, upward.

The loudest sound of the whole service was indeed the footsteps exiting the chapel – the sound of God’s noise moving out into the world.

-Sara LaDew

Sara is a 2nd year MTS student from Greensboro, NC and a Student Ambassador.