Leaving Sydney

After nine years in Sydney I have taught my last classes and said my prayers and am moving on.

There comes a time in a man’s life when what he really wants is to be able to teach Plato and Shakespeare as well as Calvin and Augustine. That time has come for me. So I’ve accepted a job at the Millis Institute, a liberal arts program of CHC in Brisbane. My job will be to direct the various liberal arts degree programs as well as to teach in philosophy, theology, and literature. The classes there involve no lectures and no textbooks. Each class is a Socratic-style discussion of primary sources. That, reader, is my true love and forte, and it’s the same approach that I’ve tried to bring to theological education in Sydney. The first thing I did when I got off the plane in Sydney nine years ago was to abolish all textbooks and to replace them with primary sources. Then I unpacked my bags.

Some of my happiest memories here are of the books that I’ve been able to read and discuss with my students. When I cast my mind back over the years I am astounded at the number of these books, and even more astounded that SVS Press has never paid me a commission for forcing so many students to buy them. The ones I can recall using as class texts include:

• Melito of Sardis, On Pascha
• Athanagoras, Resurrection of the Dead
• Irenaeus, Against the Heresies (books 1 and 3)
• Tertullian, Against Hermogenes
• Clement of Alexandria, Christ the Educator (selections)
• Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks
• Origen, Commentary on John (books 1-10)
• Origen, On Prayer
• Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom
• Origen, On Pascha
• Origen, Commentary & Homilies on the Song of Songs
• Hans Urs von Balthasar, Spirit and Fire (Origen anthology)
• Athanasius, On the Incarnation
• Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus (on the Psalms)
• Didymus the Blind, On the Holy Spirit
• Basil, On Social Justice (selection of homilies in the SVS Popular Patristics series)
• Basil, On the Human Condition (ditto)
• Basil, On Fasting and Feasts (ditto)
• Basil, On the Holy Spirit
• Gregory of Nazianzus, Theological Orations
• Gregory of Nazianzus, Festal Orations (selection of homilies the SVS Popular Patristics)
• John Chrysostom, On Marriage and Family Life (ditto)
• Augustine, Confessions
• Augustine, The Trinity
• Augustine, City of God
• Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (a few tiny selections)
• Julian of Norwich, Revelations
• Calvin, Institutes (in Elsie McKee’s translation of the 1541 French edition: with this edition available, no teacher can be forgiven for asking students to read so much as a page of Beveridge or McNeill)
• Karl Barth, Epistle to the Romans
• Karl Barth, The Word of God and Theology
• Karl Barth, On Religion: The Revelation of God as the Sublimation of Religion
• Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1, §59.1
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship
• H. Richard Niebuhr, Responsibility of the Church for Society (selections)
• James Cone, Black Theology and Black Power
• Jürgen Moltmann, Trinity and the Kingdom
• Jürgen Moltmann, Spirit and Life
• Tom Smail, The Giving Gift: The Holy Spirit in Person
• Catherine LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life
• Elizabeth Johnson, Consider Jesus: Waves of Renewal in Christology
• James H. Evans, We Have Been Believers: An African American Systematic Theology
• Richard Hays, Moral Vision of the New Testament
• Rainbow Spirit Elders, Rainbow Spirit Theology
• Sarah Coakley, Powers and Submissions (selections)
• Kathryn Tanner, Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity
• Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture
• Mark McIntosh, Mystical Theology (selections)
• Mark McIntosh, Discernment and Truth (selections)
• Mark McIntosh, Divine Teaching
• Eugene Rogers, After the Spirit
• Eugene Rogers, The Holy Spirit (anthology of sources)
• Ian McFarland, Creation and Humanity (ditto)
• Alister McGrath, Christian Theology Reader (ditto)
• Sam Wells, Christian Ethics (ditto)
• Ford, Higton, Zahl, Modern Theologians Reader (ditto)
• Amos Yong, The Bible, Disability, and the Church
• Frances Young, God’s Presence: A Contemporary Recapitulation of Early Christianity
• Simon Chan, Grassroots Asian Theology
• Katherine Sonderegger, Systematic Theology volume 1 (selections)

I have loved these books – most of them anyway – and have loved to see the effect they have on my students. There are books that amazed me with their power to provoke meaningful disagreement and rich discussion. In this respect Augustine’s Confessions towers over all other Christian books that I have tried. That makes the Confessions a uniquely valuable thing to have in a classroom.

There are other books that I rejected after trying them once in the classroom because they seemed only to mirror back what students already thought (or worse: felt), and therefore provoked no debate and no real learning. In my experience Moltmann’s books are especially egregious for classroom use: though I admit that a different (more conservative?) student demographic might respond quite differently to Moltmann. The main rule is to avoid those books that leave a student nodding in agreement and saying: Ah yes, it’s just as I thought.

Other books have moved me deeply by their power to teach. Athanasius’s On the Incarnation and Calvin’s Institutes are, for me, the highlights in this regard. These great books seem first to alienate students by plunging them into a totally different world and a totally different way of thinking about life. I have never met a student who appreciated anything about Calvin in the first two weeks of reading him. But then, by slow degrees, these books seem to take matters into their own hands and to teach students how to read them. Without ever having to dismiss their prior understanding of the faith, students begin to integrate their own view with the wider vision of the text. They find language and concepts to describe things that before they had only dimly intuited. By a mysterious act of spiritual recognition, it dawns on me that what Calvin is talking about is my faith. Once I have had that epiphany, even my disagreements with Calvin will be meaningful disagreements based on shared commitments, very different from the arbitrary and trivial disagreements of strangers. I always feel that students have begun to think theologically – that they have become theologians – when for the first time they are able to articulate a meaningful disagreement of this kind.

So that is what I will miss the most about Sydney: these many books and the many students who have read them with me. And it’s what I’m looking forward to the most in Brisbane: more books and more of God’s friends to share them with.

Templeton funding available

You can now submit online funding inquiries to the Templeton Foundation in the areas of philosophy and theology. Formal submissions will need to be placed between 1 February and 16 April.

I've talked to some people from Templeton, and I understand the scope of their funded projects is becoming broader these days. They seem to be interested in funding more theological projects, and they've been funding lots of stuff relating to analytic theology. They've also announced that philosophical projects in this round of funding won't need to have an explicitly religious focus.

You can see a list of recently funded projects here.

Princeton research fellowships: evolution and human nature

This year at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, twelve resident scholars will be exploring the theme of evolution and human nature. The program will be launched by theological genius Sarah Coakley together with Melvin Konner, author of the massive new work on The Evolution of Childhood.

With support from the Templeton Foundation, CTI is also offering eight Research Fellowships of $70,000 and two Postdoctoral Fellowships of $40,000 – the deadline for applications is 30 November (sorry for the late notice – I've been away from computers lately!).

We welcome proposals to explore how the explosion of new research in evolutionary biology, psychology, and anthropology is challenging and changing our understanding of human nature and development, not least in relation to religion and theological accounts of the human condition. Our field of inquiry encompasses these evolutionary and human sciences, theological anthropology, practical theology, psychology of religion, religious studies, and the history and philosophy of science.

Theology events in Sydney

The University of Notre Dame in Sydney is advertising for a Professor of Theology: details here [pdf].

In other Sydney theology news, my new colleague Jeff Aernie arrives this week to begin teaching New Testament. And my friend Matt Tan (who blogs at The Divine Wedgie) has begun teaching theology at the Catholic liberal arts institution, Campion College.

There are some good events coming up in Sydney too. The Greek Orthodox seminary is hosting a series of Wednesday night seminars on the theology of Gregory of Nyssa [pdf]. In a public debate at the City Recital Hall, Scott Stephens and Peter Jensen will debate Jane Caro and Tamas Pataki on the theme Atheists Are Wrong. And my own college is holding a day-conference on climate change and the common good with Ernst Conradie and Clive Hamilton, followed by a conference on atheism.

Israeli writer Amos Oz was also in Sydney this month. He gave a very entertaining lecture at the Shalom Institute on the theme of fanaticism – you can hear it on ABC radio.

A little in the year, the Australian Bonhoeffer Conference will be exploring the theme: Practical Mysticism: Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Conversation with Mary MacKillop.

Changing places: academic jobs

A few movements in the world of theological academia (if you know of any others, add a comment):

• Oliver Crisp is leaving drizzly Bristol to work on his suntan, and to take up the chair in systematic theology at Fuller Seminary
• Our blogging friend Travis McMaken is taking up an appointment at Lindenwood University
• Aberdeen continues to expand its empire: Steve Mason is taking up a chair in New Testament; Bernd Wannenwetsch is moving to a chair of theological ethics; and Tom Greggs is taking up a chair in Historical and Doctrinal Theology
• At my own college, Jeff Aernie is coming from Aberdeen to become lecturer in New Testament studies.

In other job news, Murdoch University in Perth is looking for a New Testament lecturer.

Systematic theology job: Geneva

In his Confessions, Augustine asks the beautiful, aching question: "Do we remember happiness as one who has seen Carthage remembers it?" I have never been to Carthage: but I have been to Lake Geneva.

I mentioned the other day that theologian, historian, and grand amateur de jazz Christophe Chalamet will soon be leaving Fordham for Geneva. Christophe also informs me of a job opening at the University of Geneva's Faculty of Protestant Theology. The position involves working on a doctoral dissertation in systematic theology, as well as working as a theological assistant (e-learning, research support, administration, etc).

The position is nearly full-time (80%), and pays around 50,000 Swiss francs per annum (about 38,000 euros). Applicants must have excellent French-English, a Masters degree or equivalent, and a strong interest in 20th-century and contemporary theology. Further details are available here.