Theology Update for the Week of August 16

Dear friends in Christ,

The following email was written before I left for vacation. Since then, we have had the sudden and tragic, utterly unexpected death of John Scott. If this is the first time you have heard this news, please visit this page for details. John Scott was immensely admirable, serious and deep. May his soul now rest in peace, as he awaits, as we all do, the return of our Lord in glory.

A wise priest once said (turning the burial sentence on its head), “In the midst of death we are in life.” While our loss is immeasurable, nonetheless we continue to worship our Lord, and to seek wisdom, and to live faithfully.

. . .

This Sunday at 10 o’clock in Andrew Hall on the 3rd floor, we have our second, “summer special” panel discussion. This one will be Reflections on “Hamlet,” and our panelists this week are Heather Cross, David Daniel, and Kari Jenson Gold. You do not need to have read the play to attend the class. There will be time for questions and discussion. I hope you will be able to enjoy this class.

There will be no Monday class on August 17.

Next Sunday, August 23, I will resume the class on the 39 Articles of Religion, with Articles VI and VII on the use and extent of the Bible, and the continuing importance of the Old Testament. This 10 o’clock Sunday class will then be repeated on Monday, August 24, at 12:40pm.

Can fair be foul or foul fair? Coming soon, a seminar discussion of “Macbeth” by Shakespeare, on Monday, September 14, at 6:15pm. Anyone who reads the play is welcome to the conversation. (And what good conversations we have had these past three months on Shakespeare!)

Starting September 15, a Tuesday evening course on Faith Within Reason. The book (by Herbert McCabe) is in the bookstore; for the first class, the reading is chapter one, “Is Belief Wishful Thinking?” I highly recommend Herbert McCabe to anyone who looks for a coherent, insightful, and witty presentation of Christian thought.

Finally, an announcement of our Fall Theology Lecture. “2 Esdras: The Apocryphal Apocalype” will be given by Professor Karina Hogan of Fordham University. I like to say that it may be the most interesting biblical book you’ve never read. September 30 at 6:30pm; free and open to the public.

. . . And what, you may well ask, is 2 Esdras? In addition to Daniel and Revelation, the apocalypses in the Old and New Testaments, there is a third apocalypse in the Apocrypha: 2 Esdras. The Jewish core of 2 Esdras (chapters 3-14) was written in the late first century A.D., after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in A.D. 70, making it roughly contemporary with the book of Revelation. There are two Christian additions to the Jewish core, chapters 1-2 and 15-16, which were written in the second and third centuries respectively. The book as a whole was included in the Gutenberg Bible (even though its status as Scripture was dubious) and thereafter enjoyed immense popularity in the West from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment and beyond.

Peace,

Father Austin