Notes on L. Gregory Jones’ Beliefs, Desires, Practices, and the Ends of Theological Education

Jones, L. Gregory. “Beliefs, Desires, Practices, and the Ends of Theological Education.” in Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life. eds. Miroslav Volf and Dorothy C. Bass. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 2002.

L. Gregory Jones argues convincingly from biblical and patristic sources devoted to Christian initiation that belief, desire, and practice reinforced each other and functioned as a coherent whole in the early church. He re-imagines theological education broadened to include these three reinforcing elements, implemented in support of, and eventually by means of, a more fluid and complementary relationship between the church congregation, the theological academy, and the social setting.

Jones’ re-imagination of theological education begins with a particular vision of the Christian life in which belief, desire, and practice are all cultivated, and act synergistically to deepen the life of faith. Interpreting Romans 7, he argues that “embracing an authentically Christian way of live involves us in redirecting our desires toward God; unlearning wrongly held convictions in order to learn and discern the truth about God, the world, and our own lives; and reshaping our activities to enable faithful living in the world.” (189) Christian formation should include “mutually reinforcing pedagogical movements of catechesis, formal learning, and faithful living in the world,” (190) as existed in South Africa and were influential in the fight against apartheid.

Reflections on Serene Jones’ Graced Practices: Excellence and Freedom in Christian Life

Jones, Serene. “Graced Practices: Excellence and Freedom in Christian Life.” in Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life. eds. Miroslav Volf and Dorothy C. Bass. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 2002.

Serene Jones interprets Christian practice in terms of the Reformed understanding of justification and sanctification, identifying the latter with the aspiration to excellence through formational practices ad intra, and the former with the freedom to take risks in practices of witness and service ad extra. She draws on feminist analyses of identity performance and adornment as interpretations of practice, and the metaphors of imaginative space and drama for doctrine, to effectively show how doctrine and practice are interrelated.

I was struck by Jones’ use of identity performance in this paper, because I had previously turned to this familiar concept from feminist discourse to concisely convey the themes of agency, intention, creativity, and art in James Alison’s discussion of ecclesial practice in The Joy of Being Wrong.

Jones writes, “When one is sanctified, one performs and is performed by the script of divine love that comes to us in Jesus Christ, a script mediated to us ecclesially.” (60)

Notes on Bedford’s Theological Reflection on Discernment

Bedford, Nancy. “Little Moves Against Destructiveness: Theology and the Practice of Discernment,” in Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life. eds. Miroslav Volf and Dorothy C. Bass. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 2002.

Nancy Bedford presents discernment as a practice that must be informed by the tools of theological analysis and vitally responsive to the realities of the community in which it is practiced. She reflects theologically on the specific experience of a small church community situated in an Argentine barrio as it practices discernment.

I’ve quoted from this paper before, but reread the paper more analytically today. There’s less here that is directly relevant to my thesis than in some other material I’m reading.

Bedford emphasizes that discernment, like all practices, is inherently “ambiguous” and “penultimate”: susceptible to misuse as well as right use; and a means, rather than an end in itself. (159) Her specific church community defines discernment as “figuring out what to do, all together as a church, with the help of God’s Spirit.” (167) As a church community, they are attempting to discern, first,

Reflections on Pauw’s Attending to the Gaps between Beliefs and Practices

Pauw, Amy Plantinga. “Attending to the Gaps between Beliefs and Practices.” Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life. eds. Miroslav Volf and Dorothy C. Bass. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 2002.

Amy Plantinga Pauw argues for a significant affective element in the life of believers that strongly influences the relationship between beliefs and practices. She examines the epistemological and moral implications of discrepancies between belief and practice, both for the faithful individual (epitomized by Jonah) and the faith community. She argues that belief and practice cannot be properly understood except in light of desire.

Faith communities are generally understood as constituted by belief, but religious practices, too, are communal in nature. Some practices are obviously and inherently communal, performed communally when the community is gathered for religious activity. Others, such as the discipline of fasting or the corporal works of mercy, are generally perceived as individual activities to which all individual members of the community are individually called. Pauw, however, argues convincingly that these practices too have “breadth” as well as depth, and must be understood in communal context: this context provides a supportive and formational framework for its members’ attempts to faithfully carry out these practices. It transforms acts of religious practice from individual piety to communal faithfulness, from an individual striving to live rightly to a people striving to live faithfully. [1]

Christians who act in ways that are at odds with their proclaimed beliefs are frequently criticized or even dismissed as hypocrites. Likewise, persons who engage in religious practices in the absence of an active desire are frequently accused of merely going through the motions, engaging in rote rituals, or succumbing to social expectations. In our society, it is generally assumed that authentic religious activity is defined by a spontaneous, wholehearted (autonomous/unprompted) desire to perform every instance of the activity, and that anything “less” is inherently hypocritical.[2] Pauw deconstructs these critiques by, among other things, appealing to the lived experience of motherhood. A mother may sincerely love and delight in her infant; but when she is repeatedly awakened in the middle of the night for days on end to nurse or otherwise care for her child, only a person whose romantic notions of Motherhood have entirely lost touch with reality could imagine that she spontaneously, wholeheartedly desires to perform every act of tending her child, and experiences that love and delight with every soiled diaper.

Mothers and fathers who tend their children through their own distaste, exhaustion, and boredom are valorized for putting their relationship with and duty to the child who depends on them ahead of their own personal inclinations in the moment. Why, then, are believers who persist in their spiritual practices even in the absence of desire not likewise valorized?

Catholic Men* Discuss God, Man, and Atheism

(*and three Catholic women)

Given my interest in dialogue with atheists, I was excited to find out about a new blog, Strange Notions, via a story in Vox Nova today. Discussion that engages the theist-atheist boundary is all too often mired in over-simplifications (to the point of caricature) of one position or the other, and I took a plug from VN as a good sign that this one might really engage with educated opinions on both sides.

I was disappointed, as was the VN blogger, to see that this is not, in fact, a Catholic-Atheist blog, but rather, a Catholic blog devoted to discussions of atheism. Real joint ventures in interfaith dialogue are certainly possible, and intrinsically have more credibility than a dialogue hosted by one side or the other, even when there are regular contributors from the other side, as there are planned to be in this case.

However, that’s not all that disappoints me about this new blog.

“God” and “Man” are the first two topical menus in the blog’s header. Considering that the other menus include entries for “Morality” and “Religion,” you’d think there would have been room for “Humanity” as that second entry.

The page titled “Main Contributors” lists 29 contributors. 24 of them are men, and one is a group of men.

Cardinal Braz de Aviz’ Remarks on Authority in the Church

Let me start this essay with a sort of dramatis personae:

The International Union of Superiors General (IUSG) is an organization consisting of the leadership of all the vowed religions orders of women and men (ie, nuns and monks). The “superior” in its name is the same as in the title “Mother Superior” that may be somewhat familiar from books and movies about Catholic nuns. This organization includes the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the leadership body for most (80%) of the communities of American nuns.

This week, the IUSG is meeting in Rome for its triennial meeting.

Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz is the head of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (the CICL), which is one of a number of departments of the bureaucratic structure of the Roman Catholic church. Collectively, this structure is called the Curia, or less precisely “the Vatican.” As you may be able to tell from its name, this department is the one in charge of all forms of consecrated and communal religious life and societies (ie, nuns, monks, and some lesser known forms). Cardinal Braz de Aviz has led this department since 2011.

Today, he addressed a session of the IUSG which included about 800 leaders of vowed women religious in an “open dialogue session.”

The session was anticipated with great interest, given the difficult and painful state of affairs between “the nuns and the bishops”, or more precisely, between the LCWR, the CICL, and the CDF: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a different department of the Curia, which is in charge of investigations into questions of doctrine.

He also spoke at a press conference following the session, and preached at Mass for the sisters earlier Sunday morning.

Got all that? Okay — now on to what he said![1]

The cardinal spoke on two themes that I want to talk about. First, regarding the doctrinal assessment of the LCWR, which (as I’ve written before) was presented as a joint assessment of the CDF (the doctrine department) and the CICL (the nuns and monks department) in April 2012 and included the appointment of three American bishops who were charged and empowered to review and revise the charter, activities, and materials of the LCWR.

Letters from the Future

Notice something different about the readings at Mass these past few weeks?

We normally talk about the three readings as “Old Testament, New Testament, Gospel.” (Not that the Gospels are not part of the New Testament, but they are in a special category.)

During the Easter season, that’s not what happens, though. The first reading is from the Acts of the Apostles! And this year, year C of the lectionary cycle, the second reading is from the Revelation of John! What’s going on?

There’s an older way of describing the three readings that helped this make sense to me. Sometimes they are described as readings from the Prophets, the Epistles, and the Gospel.

During Eastertide, we emphasize the “already” in our “already-and-not-yet” inaugurated eschatology. Liturgically, we are living in the new age inaugurated by the Resurrection; and from the perspective of that new age, the stories of the infant church told in Acts are stories of “the prophets”. There’s a sort of analogy —
Old Testament age : Church age :: Church age : Age to come

And in Year C, instead of getting passages from the letters of Peter or John that were written for and about early church, our epistles are passages from the Revelation of John that describe the church in its eschatological fullness, with all the faithful gathered around and worshiping the Lamb, when the old heaven and the old earth have passed away.

Letters from the future!

Did you watch?

Were you watching the coverage from Boston today? Were you watching the final stages this evening?

If you were watching (or listening),
– Why were you watching? Why did you turn it on? Why did you keep watching?
– How did you feel while you were watching? How did your feelings change as you continued to watch? How did your body react? (breath, heartbeat, muscle tension, etc)
– What were you focusing on? What affected you most strongly, and how?
– How did you feel afterwards?
– How do you feel about the suspects? about Boston? What relationship do you feel you have with them? (with the suspects; and with Boston)
– What do you think should happen now? Is that what you would have thought before you watched?

Interesting take on Francis’ reform commission

The Tablet interprets the context, charter, and membership of this commission as a move that may have profound ecclesiological significance. I’d noticed, too, that the commission is made up almost exclusively of current or former bishops, and that more than half were current or former heads of episcopal conferences of national or broader scope.

H/T Fr @JamesMartinSJ

What should ecclesiology study?

Ecclesiology should study the church in all its complexity, both synchronic and diachronic, historical and eschatological.

This complex church comprises the social/communal human response – initiated, shaped, and sustained by the Holy Spirit – to the Christ event. It is sent out into the historical world as eschatological leaven.

The human and the divine, the historical and the eschatological, the christological and the pneumatological are its constitutive characteristics; its constitutive tasks are formation ad intra, and mission ad extra. These tasks and characteristics are of equal importance, and should be equally emphasized in ecclesiological reflection.