Don November 23rd, 2009
EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY ANNUAL MEETING, new Orleans, LA, November 18-20, 2009: a REPORT
It was a pleasant (as far as the weather went) half-mile walk from my affordable hotel to the main one where the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting was held in New Orleans, about a quarter mile of it down Bourbon Street. This was an interesting, er, cross-cultural experience, especially when returning in the evening. For then the tourists were milling about trying to “earn their beads” (flung down from the out-jutting balconies above as a reward for people who “flash” publicly various body parts intended to be shared only privately in intimate moments), and the clubs were sending their exotic dancers out into the street to entice passers by into their establishments by, shall we say, displaying their wares. As is my wont in such situations, I waxed objective and scientific, yea, clinical, as an observer, regarding my own reactions with the same cool and detached eye as I was using for the phenomena to which I was being “exposed” (what a fortuitous choice of words!). I was not tempted (at all) nor even disgusted (very much), but saddened (mostly), thinking what a poor substitute all these shenanigans were for a real relationship, such as two people who had known True Love might enjoy with one another.
The conference itself I make bold to pronounce a success. My paper (on the validity of Lewis’s “Trilemma” argument) was well attended and enthusiastically received, the response including two editors (Global Journal of Classical Theology and Southwest Theological Journal) fighting over the right to publish it. I had to say that Touchstone had beaten them to that privilege (scheduled for spring of 2010), but that if Touchstone required sufficient cutting to make a more scholarly version justifiable, and then agreed to it, I would be in touch with them. And so I departed with their cards safely tucked away in my pocket.
Several of the other papers were worth hearing. A young Indian scholar, Ashish Varma, spoke of Calvin on Virtue: Forensic Justification and Imputed Righteousness seem like a mere legal fiction leading to license to those who do not realize that Calvin goes out of his way to tie them to Union with Christ. When they are seen as flowing from that Union, then rather than hindering Virtue they become the only things that make it truly possible for fallen men, since the only Virtue that matters flows to us from Him. We can only be joined to Christ if we are righteous, and the only righteousness that makes this possible is His imputed to us, since, if we waited until we had attained our own, not an eternity in Purgatory would suffice. But it is imputed to the end that, being joined to Him, we may be conformed to his image as His Spirit brings His life into our own. It was encouraging to hear such things being said so well in clipped Indian English.
Gene Fant explicated the sacrament of Communion by means of the biological concept of Homeostasis. Our bodies cannot exist without exchange with things outside of us. It is a picture of Sola Gratia, a reminder of our total dependence on that which is other, turned into a synechdoche for the things of the Spirit.
While Michael Travers was expounding the use of anthropomorphic imagery as a way of revealing the nature of God (one fourth of all the references to ears and eyes in the OT are to God’s!), I suddenly found himself cross-referencing this discussion with the absolute prohibition of images in Yahweh worship, which is grounded in the observation that on Sinai Israel saw no form. If visual images are verboten, why are verbal ones OK? There is certainly a kind of tension there, from which some great fruit of understanding ought to be born. Then I realized that all the verbal images are anthropomorphic. God brings Israel to Himself on eagles’ wings, but He himself has no wings; He gathers us like a Hen, but it is always a simile, not a metaphor when the comparison is to an animal. Only when the images are human is full metaphor allowed; and then only to one part at a time, not to the whole image of a Man, lest we think God a man that he should lie. Whence all this if not to prepare us for (and shut us up to) the Incarnation, the only adequate Image? That was the tangent I hurtled off on, more interesting perhaps than the paper itself.
Dorian Coover-Cox quoted Walter Eichrodt to the effect that all the other NE religions are nature religions; that is, the god is a personification of the natural powers of a given land and its people whose power flows from below, i.e., from them; but Yahweh is the opposite. He is wholly from above, the Suzerain from another country who elects Israel as his vassal. She noted the many OT passages that use the form of the ancient NE suzerainty treaty to convey what it means to be in covenant with God; the Covenant is precisely a suzerainty treaty. But what a difference! Suzerainty treaties are imposed by a conquering overlord, while Yahweh invites men into covenant with Himself; normal suzerains rule from a distance, but Yahweh comes to dwell with his people in the Tabernacle; other suzerains exact tribute to support their rule, but the Tabernacle is built with freewill offerings; other suzerains rule for their own benefit, or at most that of their own people (the angels in God’s case?), not that of the vassal people; but Yahweh feeds his people with manna and then with milk and honey Therefore, instead of resenting this Suzerain and rebelling against Him when we get the chance, as we would with any earthly one, we ought to realize that He deserves our obedience and devotion because of His grace.
I don’t want to be unfair to New Orleans. Just a few blocks from Bourbon Street the French Quarter is delightful, with wonderful little restaurants and Dixieland bands. The locals say that they never go to Bourbon Street; it is too “trashy” (their word) and only for tourists, and the better food and music is elsewhere. They are right. There is nothing but Rock and Country on Bourbon Street itself; no Dixieland, no Cajun! What would Pete Fountain and Al Hirt say? But off Bourbon it gets interesting. The beignet at the Café du Monde are the snacks of the gods. And Old Man River rolls on toward the sea, reminding one of history as well as nature, two endless topics of fruitful rumination.
If anyone would like a copy of my paper, write me at dtw@tfc.edu and just ask.
Toccoa Falls College, Georgia