Things I Learned at Patristics Camp

Last week I was given the wonderful opportunity to work as a Teaching Fellow for an intensive summer program at a seminary in Boston. I jokingly referred to the week as "patristics camp," but this actually turned out to be a fairly apt descriptor for the week. It consisted of approximately six hours each day spent doing close readings of texts from the early church in small groups, interrupted only by meals in the dining hall and occasional trips around the lake to buy ice cream. My job was to guide these discussions under the supervision of a faculty member, and in my class the topic happened to be that of my dissertation: Patristic Homiletics (i.e. preaching in the early church). The program director had also described the week as a chance for graduate students to explore their vocations as teachers, and I also found that to be true. In no particular order, here are a few thoughts I had through the course of my week:

• I'm not sure how "comfortable" I will ever feel about the act of teaching. I believe I've grown a lot in the past decade; things like presenting my work at professional conferences are now thinkable for me in ways that maybe they wouldn't have been ten years ago. But if shyness and self-confidence are still issues for me at 30, then I don't know that they are things I can just shake off, or that I will wake up one day to discover they have been abruptly healed. I think I will just have to keep confronting them, one day, one situation at a time. It's frustrating, too, when my best efforts at assertiveness seem to be undermined by the fact that many people interpret me to be much younger than I actually am. (I've been told I should feel flattered by this; mostly, it's just maddening.)
• On the other hand, the effort expended on such things is often worth it, because I have found that interacting with others around my work is one of the only things that motivates me academically. This has come as a big surprise to me in the past year. I had always assumed that, because of my personality, I would thrive when it came time to spend most of my days alone at my desk, immersed in my own research. So, when that time came and I found it to be a tremendous struggle, it was quite disorienting for me. I've even been wondering if I'm cut out for academia at all! But I wonder if it simply means that I am less of an eccentric hermit than my own self-caricature had suggested. I noticed that I felt so much more motivated while I was talking with students and colleagues about my research than I do when I've spent weeks toiling, often fruitlessly, in my home office. I have noticed similar things from attending conferences, as I did in May, or even just chatting with people (especially pastors) on the topic of patristic preaching. I suppose it makes a lot of sense. I mean, the past year has largely consisted of spending time alone with nothing to listen to but my own thoughts -- sometimes without even the outlet of being able to write them down in a coherent fashion. No wonder I've felt like I've been losing my marbles in the past year! So, looking ahead, I'm trying to think of some ways that I could incorporate . . . *gasp* . . . more social interaction into my working routine.
• It's possible that I have been experiencing some burnout in focusing so intensively on the Early Church period. And I don't think that's a crime. I need to persevere with it for the time being, because it is too late for me to switch my major area of concentration, but I think that in later years, I might be just as excited, or more, about working on Reformation/early modern material, and that's okay. In fact, maybe it will even be an asset to my teaching, lending a broader scope to my scholarship. It wouldn't change anything about my fundamental sense of academic calling.
• In that vein, I think we really, really need a Reformation Camp! How awesome would this be? I've lost count of the number of times I've talked with people in churches, who are not academics, but nevertheless have a strong interest in the history of their tradition, yet don't necessarily have the opportunity to sift through the foundational writings or know where to begin. I think there is a subset of people who would jump at the chance to spend a few days reading, say, Calvin's Institutes or some Puritan texts in a low-pressure environment. I would love to be involved in something like this!
• The Lord keeps putting me into situations where I am in the minority theologically. This has never been a very comfortable position for me, but I know there must be a reason for it. First there was Yale. Now I am a confessional Protestant enrolled in a Jesuit Catholic university. Last week, I was one of relatively few students who was not Eastern Orthodox. Some of these students grew up Protestant and converted to Orthodoxy at a later age. It should be noted that, at one point not so many years ago, I believed I would likely end up among them. Since then, I have obviously chosen not to convert (though I have definitely changed!). I think that any time someone joins a church that is markedly different from the tradition in which he or she grew up, that intensely personal, hard-won "choice" can easily become freighted with defensiveness. I have a lot of thoughts about this, but for now I'll just say that last week gave me the opportunity to recognize some of those same roots of defensiveness in myself and to understand why others, who ended up in very different places than I did, feel them just as acutely. I think there are times when speaking defensively is not all bad, but it probably depends on just what one is defending and how . . . and it takes wisdom to discern the difference. There are times when it is better to back off and abandon the defensive posture, no matter how chafing someone else's offhand critical remarks might be, and last week was definitely such a time for me.
• Finally, one of the highlights of the week was getting to visit with my sister-in-law and nieces in Maine before I flew home. The visit confirmed my belief that my family and close friends are one of the most important things in the world to me, a joy I would rank high above anything academic. I long to be able to make such trips a priority in future years.

Book Review: Prepared by Grace, for Grace

Prepared by Grace, for Grace: The Puritans on God's Ordinary Way of Leading Sinners to Christ by Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley
Reformation Heritage Books (2013); 287 pp.
Cross Focused Reviews Blog Tour


One of the things that helped me find my home in the Reformed tradition is its emphasis on the fact that salvation is something that God accomplishes, from beginning to end. As one of my favorite hymn-texts puts it, "The work which his goodness began,/ The arm of his strength will complete."

But from the earliest generations, Reformed thinkers have not neglected the question of how human faculties are engaged in the process of spiritual birth. Indeed, their historical circumstances forced them to contend openly with this question. They had to differentiate the Reformed position from the Roman Catholic teaching of "congruent merit" on one hand and Arminian teaching on the human capacity to respond to the gospel on the other. In doing so, they sometimes differed slightly from one another.

Beeke and Smalley aim to show, however, that the concept of "preparation for salvation" was a thread which ran consistently through early Reformed thought, from Calvin to the eighteenth century. In making their argument, they counter much modern scholarship, traced especially to Perry Miller, which reads the theological development of preparation as a betrayal of Calvin, even an Arminian encroachment. The key point here is the doctrine of creation -- God created our mind and conscience, and while the Holy Spirit could sovereignly override these faculties to effect our salvation, he ordinarily chooses to work through them. As they sum it up so well, "Puritan preparation was a thoughtful attempt to do justice both to man's total inability to love God apart from spiritual renewal and his remaining dignity, responsibility, and ability as a person created in God's image." (69)

The authors illustrate this attempt by delving into writings from both sides of the Atlantic: English figures such as William Perkins, Richard Sibbes, Jeremiah Burroughs, and John Flavel, and figures from New England such as Thomas Hooker, Thomas Shepard, and Jonathan Edwards. While their study of each writer's corpus is not exhaustive, it is thorough and careful enough to highlight subtle distinctions. For example, Thomas Hooker laid great stress on the "saving sorrow" people ought to experience before salvation, to the extent that he blurred the line between initial conviction of sin and actual conversion to and union with Christ. Later figures like Thomas Goodwin and Giles Firmin critiqued this ambiguity, as well as what they saw as Hooker's over-emphasis on the Law at the expense of pointing people to the grace of Christ. Jonathan Edwards, too, sought to make the teaching on preparation more biblically consistent. Over-schematizing the steps of preparation could actually draw attention away from the central truth of justification by faith in Christ, and pastors must remember that not all people will experience distinct "steps" in a set order. Finally, the point of preparation is not to set one's spiritual house in order so that it will be fit for Christ; rather, it is to make the sinner realize how helpless and enslaved by sin he truly is, and so to drive him to Christ alone.

For a student of historical theology, the draw of this study is self-evident. Indeed, I would have loved to read even more about each figure's historical/intellectual context to understand why preparation was a crucial matter back then. But why should a pastor invest the time in reading this book today? In a Reformed setting, I think the most obvious reason is to help one think through the role of the Law in the preaching of the gospel. The Puritans took for granted that human beings needed to be brought to grief over the offense of their sins; this way of thinking does not come naturally to most of us today. The past often surprises with fresh insights, especially when it touches on matters we tend to regard as uniquely pressing in our generation, such as approaches to preaching and evangelism.

As you will likely have gathered, these are deep theological waters, and I would not recommend this book to readers who do not have a basic exposure to Puritan texts and systematic theology. But an advanced degree in theology isn't necessary, either. Beeke and Smalley do an excellent job of guiding readers through the thickets of seventeenth-century literature, and the book, believe it or not, is a pleasure to read. It reminded me anew of how precious Christ is, and that the only goal of preparation is that the soul be "so far cast down as it sets a high price on Christ, and on grace, above all things in the world." (Richard Sibbes, 47)

The publisher provided me with a review copy of this book, and I was under no obligation to give a favorable review.

Disappointment, bits of encouragement, and the prospect of a long summer

I know my posting on this blog has been pretty sparse this year. With the exception of book reviews, that is. As much as I enjoy doing the book reviews, it has never been my intention that this be primarily a book review blog. I anticipate doing at least one of them this summer, but aside from that, I'm hoping to get back to more of the blog's original purpose -- to keep my family and friends up-to-date on what I'm doing, and to provide an informal platform for other thoughts.

So what have I been up to in recent weeks? I can tell you something that hasn't happened; I didn't succeed in getting my dissertation proposal approved before the end of the semester. That's something I had hoped would happen back in the fall semester, if you remember, and I'd hoped that I'd be well on my way to completing a couple of chapters by now. So that's a major disappointment. In fact, it's probably the hardest academic struggle I've ever faced, and it's been enough to bring on some doubts about my chosen career path. I have always assumed that because I'm introverted, bookish, and good at school, that tasks like independent research and writing would come very naturally to me. So it's rather disorienting to find those tasks so difficult and unappealing at this stage. I just really don't know what to do with that data. How seriously do I take the fact that this year has been such a (largely) unhappy sludge? Does it necessarily mean I'm not cut out for this kind of work?

On the other hand, I presented a paper at a conference last week. It was the primary conference in my field; relatively small, but attended by most of the top scholars in the study of Early Christianity. In case you're not familiar with academic conferences, the main idea is to provide an opportunity for discussion and networking within your field. Each conference presenter has about 20 minutes to present an excerpt from his or her current research and then to receive questions and feedback. As you can imagine, that's an intimidating prospect even for someone who isn't particularly shy. I have presented at conferences before, but this was my first time presenting my work at such a major one. My presentation on Gregory of Nazianzus was well received, though, and I got some nice feedback -- including, notably, some very warm words from an elderly, retired clergyman who appreciated the richness of my material and asked me to share a copy of what I had written with him. It was so kind of him to encourage me like that! And it reassured me that, whatever happens on the academic end of things, there still may be an audience for the kind of writing I'm good at.

So there you go. It seems I do have things to say that may be helpful for people, whether or not that audience falls primarily inside of academia or outside of it; the question remains whether I can sustain the energy and motivation to finish this degree and seek out a niche where I can do that kind of work. At the moment I just can't envision what that's going to look like.

And as for this summer? I'll keep trying to revise my proposal in the hope of getting it defended and approved first thing in the fall semester. Hopefully I'll emerge from that, too, with some solid material that can be readily developed into chapters; that way I won't be so terribly far behind.

Honestly, summers in St. Louis have not tended to be the most fun, and in light of everything I have to do, I'm hoping I can manage to keep my spirits up. I will really need some encouragement in the coming weeks and months.

Thanks for reading, and I will try to keep you all posted more regularly, even though I don't imagine it's going to be the most fascinating thing to read!

Book Review: Contentment, Prosperity, and God's Glory by Jeremiah Burroughs

Contentment, Prosperity, and God's Glory (Puritan Treasures for Today), by Jeremiah Burroughs; edited by Phillip L. Simpson
Reformation Heritage Books (2013); 119 pp.
Cross Focused Reviews Blog Tour

If you know me personally and/or academically, you can probably guess how excited I was to have the chance to review an edition of a work by Jeremiah Burroughs (1600–1646), a Puritan Congregationalist minister and Westminster divine. I have scarcely waded into the vast body of Puritan literature so far, but I have enjoyed everything I have had the opportunity to read from this era. About two years ago I read Burrough's lovely (and better-known) work, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, so when I saw that the contents of Contentment, Prosperity, and God's Glory had been intended as an appendix to the former book, I was eager for more.

This book is part of Reformation Heritage Books' "Puritan Treasures for Today" series, which is meant to remove barriers to modern readers by smoothing out difficult seventeenth-century language and presenting works in a less intimidating (shorter!) format. After reading this book, I think the editors are onto something great. First, I didn't feel that the "updating" of the language was at all clunky or distracting; it was readable and still felt true to the style of other (decidedly not updated!) Puritan works I've read. Second, though this isn't the type of thing I would usually dwell on, the book is quite pretty! The paperback is attractively designed and the perfect size to stick in my bag to read at spare moments.

I don't want to belabor the details of this book, because I think the best way to entice you to read it is to offer a sampling of rich quotations. But I'll preface that by noting that Burroughs' theme is a simple one: based on Paul's statement in Philippians 4:12, he wants his readers to "learn how to be full." While he wants Christians to know how to suffer affliction faithfully, Burroughs' concern here is the difficult, in some ways more subtle, calling of stewarding abundance with a contented heart. It's also important to note that, while he refers to those who administer vast estates and own prosperous businesses, he classifies as "full" anyone whose daily needs are amply supplied.

• "A man knows how to be full when he can keep under his command everything he enjoys, and he can retain command over his own spirit in what he enjoys. Therefore, he is not a slave to what he has, but he makes what he has a slave to himself." (21)
• "You do not know how to abound when you cannot take into account the good of mercy when you consider an affliction. Even when God afflicts you in something, He still gives you an abundance of occasions to bless Him and praise Him. But when you can bless God for all mercies and be humbled for all afflictions at the same time, then you are a man who knows how to abound." (32)
• "Fullness will . . . feed self-love to the extreme. When a man perceives himself to be self-sufficient, he sees no need for God or Christ or mercy or the Word and its promises. [. . .] This is the reason the Word rarely ever does any good to those who are full." (43)
• "A godly man learns how to be full by regularly surrendering up his estate, his comforts, and his possessions to God . . . This is a way that a natural man understands little of--to know how to enjoy his comforts by surrendering them up--yet that is the way of a gracious heart. [. . .] A man who can just as easily resign everything up to God as he can receive anything from God . . . is the only man who is blessed in what he enjoys in this world." (77)
• "God has set this time of your life as the time to provide for eternity . . . This would make you cautious of spending so much time in the use and enjoyment of the things of this world if they hinder you in the least in fulfilling the great work for which you live: the advancement of the gospel and your own spiritual good. Learning this lesson would move you to use all that you own, to the utmost of your ability, for these great purposes. In doing this, you will learn how to truly abound." (100–101)

If you have never read Puritan writings before, don't be intimidated by the thought of a book that's going on 400 years old. I think you'll find this book to be as timely, inviting, yet challenging as I did.

Signs of Health

This post can serve as a "state of the dissertation" update of sorts. When I last updated, things were pretty unsettled with my topic and proposal draft. Realizing that was less than six weeks ago, I am thankful to be able to report that the proposal is coming along much better. In fact, the proposal is essentially written. Right now, I'm basically revising.

My defense date is still up in the air. Even though I've received some excellent feedback from my colleagues at school, there's still quite a bit of work to be done, and plenty of consultation with my advisor that will need to happen, before I can meet with my full committee. Because it's so perilously close to the end of the semester, that's a lot to ask for at this point; I'm not 100% sure the defense will happen within the timeframe that's technically required. But, given where I was a couple of months ago, I'm relieved to be where I am.

The other great thing, and this is more the intended focus of this post, is that my attitude is markedly improved. I feel more confidence in what I'm doing and more hopeful that it's worth doing and can be done. It's still very difficult; I've become painfully aware of the weaknesses in my work ethic and ability to self-structure. There are days like today, when I find it next to impossible to make headway. But I think my mindset and morale on most days reflects an undeniable improvement. That's a definite answer to prayer, so thank you to everyone who's been following along.

I'll have more to write about this later, but I think one of the toughest things about this phase is that all your academic insecurities have a way of surfacing. If that starts to get the better of you, to the point that you've all but ceased believing in your project, then motivation dies. Too often, self-regard and sense of direction go with it. No matter how well you know that your self-worth isn't supposed to be determined by your academic success or failure. When you've sunk years into academia as your main area of gifting, and then you lose both your edge and your will to fight for it, it is devastating. It also starts to feel as if everyone in the world is more "useful" and is doing something more worthwhile than you. It's a terrible cycle.

However, I have been encouraged lately to see what I am interpreting as signs of health, personally and vocationally, in a few areas. The first is simply the fact that I can envision a future for my current project. A lot of the credit for this goes to my colleagues who've hung in there with me through several different drafts and offered genuinely helpful feedback. When people you respect are excited about your work, it's harder to dismiss it, no matter how much you might want to!

Second: Since I started my doctoral program, on the recommendation of a professor, I've been keeping a list of ideas for future research and possible books and articles. I have no idea how soon I will have the opportunity to pursue any of them, much less how many of them will prove viable and interesting. But the encouraging thing is that I have been adding things to the list again. For a while, I felt so burdened by the mere idea of a future in academia that I wanted to pretend that the list didn't exist.

The last thing is that, recently -- I forget which day it was, maybe it was Monday, maybe last week -- I found myself thinking, sincerely, "I am thankful to be in graduate school." I can promise you I don't say that every day. But the fact that I was able to say it and mean it, after the troubled months I've had, is a huge deal.

My feelings about where I am in my life right now remain pretty complicated. But I am glad I didn't quit.

Book Review: John Newton by John Crotts

John Newton (Bitesize Biographies series) by John Crotts
EP Books (2013); 141 pp.
Cross Focused Reviews Blog Tour

I had the opportunity to review a Bitesize Biography a couple of months ago and enjoyed it, so when I learned that a volume on John Newton -- author of one of my favorite hymn texts -- was available for review, I couldn't pass it up.

One thing I appreciate about this series, at least in the couple of examples I have read, is the various styles of the authors. Simonetta Carr's Renée of France has a historian's touch. While that style is more to my taste, John Crotts' lively storytelling would probably appeal to readers who aren't typically drawn to biographies. His book also struck me as being just as well-researched.

Crotts has an infectious love for his subject that leads the reader to give thanks for God's gracious work in sinners, including themselves, as they move through Newton's story. It wasn't hard to share his enthusiasm for Newton: I immediately started learning new things about this remarkable pastor. Many people have heard about Newton's involvement in the slave trade, his eventual repentance, and his authorship of "Amazing Grace." There's so much more to his story, however.

I appreciated Crotts' emphasis on the slowness of Newton's conversion. I find it comforting to read accounts like this -- not everyone can pinpoint the moment when the Holy Spirit regenerated them, or they may be led to doubt the genuineness of their conversion because of later failings. It took awhile for spiritual fruit to become evident in Newton's life, but he was able to look back on his prodigal youth with gratitude for the Lord's patience and mercy.

Probably my favorite part of the book, though, was the story of Newton's friendship with the gifted poet William Cowper, who suffered terribly from depression. Even though I was familiar with the basic outline, I couldn't read this section without tears.

This book could be especially encouraging for ministers or seminarians; I was quite impressed as I read about Newton's sheer energy and creativity for sharing the gospel and caring for his flock. He personally catechized children, hosted (beside his wife) teas and prayer-meetings in his home, became an adoptive father at an advanced age, and seemed to have an equal love for preaching God's Word in rural and urban settings. Of course, he is best remembered for his prolific hymn- and letter-writing ministries, which Crotts sums up very nicely in the book's final chapters.

It's a quick read, it's engagingly written, and I recommend it. If you're anything like me, you'll be inspired to track down a copy of Newton's published letters as soon as you can. At the very least, you'll be moved to celebrate God's gracious work in sinners like Newton and yourself.

The publisher provided me with a review copy of this book, and I was under no obligation to give a favorable review.

State of the Dissertation update (March)

The last time I posted an update about my dissertation, things were a lot less settled than I had hoped they would be by that stage. Truth be told, they still are . . . hence the lack of updates. There have been several frustrating ups and downs even since the beginning of this semester. And now we're approaching the end of the semester with alarming speed.

The upshot is, I have about a month to finish writing my proposal draft. There's really no wiggle room on that. I have to complete it before the end of my third year. And after the draft is complete, I have to submit it and defend it before a committee of about five faculty members. This is frightening, because it's hard for me to imagine that I will be prepared to pass a rigorous oral defense in six weeks' time.

The good news is that I seem to have a better developed thesis than I did a few months ago. Also, one of my professors helped me break down the parts of my draft and assign due dates over the next several weeks, so that I have a path for getting the entire thing written and critiqued in an organized way.

I think it can be done. It does mean that I will have to work harder than I have done all year, basically. Because, truthfully, my brainpower, energy, and engagement with this project has been effectively halved since last summer; I've been aware all along that I am operating at half my capacity, at best. I'm not really able to account for that. I have some inklings about what's at the root of some of it, but I can't really explain it. Not that there would be an excuse, even if I could explain it. It doesn't change the fact that I have to get this done.

I'm praying that I will gain the physical energy to concentrate on this project, as well as the renewed sense of investment I need to really own it and have confidence in what I'm doing. Also faith that the Holy Spirit is supplying what I need through this process. Any piece of that would feel like a miracle at this point. I just want to do what I need to do in order to pass my defense, advance to candidacy, and begin actual writing. Less than two months, now, in which to pull that off.