Led through grief – Old Testament responses to crisis

n July 1989, together with my husband David Hunter, I arrived in Cape Town to undertake masters’ studies in the School of Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town. The programme was recommended to us by John de Gruchy whom we had met while students at an international Baptist seminary in Switzerland. The opportunity to live and study in South Africa at such a momentous time in its history was a great privilege, and an experience that significantly shaped our theological reflection and practice. We were able to participate in “the Struggle” in small ways: by attending protest rallies, funerals and prayer services; visiting prisoners on Robben Island and welcoming some upon their release; joining in Baptist Fellowship groups; and being present in the crowd welcoming Nelson Mandela in his first public appearance following his release (a notable highlight amongst my life’s experiences). We had deeply appreciated our studies, instructors and fellow students in the Baptist Seminary from which we had come to South Africa but studying in Switzerland had been a somewhat “ivory tower” experience, with very little interaction between our studies and the political and social context in our host country. Living and studying in Cape Town was an entirely different experience. There the context shaped both life and learning, and our lecturers and fellow students were exemplary models for theology engaging with the concerns of the day. We arrived not long after the release of the Kairos Document and were challenged by its expressed prophetic theology, where we found resonances with our own Australian context with its inherent disadvantage amongst its indigenous population. John de Gruchy’s writings on Bonhoeffer and the Anabaptist tradition were of particular interest for us as Baptist students and subsequently pastors. While in Cape Town we were involved with the Rondebosch Uniting Church where the De Gruchy family were members and we lived in a house belonging to John and Isobel. Although we only resided in Cape Town for 18 months, it was a time that made a huge impact on us, and the theological perspective embraced there continued to influence our life and work back in Australia in churches and theological institutions. In recent years I have shared another experience with John de Gruchy – that of grieving a loved one. Aside from the birth of our three sons, David’s death due to cancer in 2003 has been the event that has had the largest impact on my life. As so eloquently expressed in Led into Mystery, when one grieves the loss of a loved one, “the intellectual and existential dimensions of being human [are] brought together … in a new way.”1 Undoubtedly, sudden accidental death and slow deterioration due to disease affect those involved in different ways, yet there are universal dimensions to the death of a partner or close relative that create a sympathetic solidarity between those who have grieved such a loss. Moreover, watching someone one loves “struggle for the fullness of life” as they face the challenge of certain death gives a new dimension to the concept of “Humanity Fully Alive.” In the years that David lived with cancer he was also working on a PhD thesis entitled “Signs of Life” – a study of the sign narratives in the Gospel of John via the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur. The title is indicative of his desire to find resources within the Scriptures for “living life well,” even when life was threatened by illness. My academic work has been focused on the Old Testament, so I have naturally turned to its pages to seek offerings from the intellect of our spiritual forebears in the light of my existential experience. As I have explored the various genres and perspectives offered by Old Testament writers another sentence from Led into Mystery has been the impetus for further reflection: “not everyone ‘owns grief’ in the same way.”2 It occurs to me that Old Testament responses to tragedy are examples of contextual theology at work, where each discrete theological perspective is a response to its own unique context.

The Women Gather

The following poetic piece comes from a sermon originally preached on Monday, March 2, 2015, at the American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley, California during the weekly chapel service fourteen months after my 21-year-old son was murdered. I have permission from my niece, Clanci, to use her name in this sermon. The introduction was added in June 2017. The lament, “The Women Gather,” as sung by the acapella group, Sweet Honey in the Rock, was chanted throughout the sermon and it is quoted in this written rendition of the message.

Repairers of the breach

The following article is taken from the 2016 Graduation Ceremonies of the American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley, CA. In this graduation speech, Dr. Cowden highlights the schism the nation was experiencing as the then presidential candidates were doing their work on the campaign trail—a schism that we are still experiencing today. In this speech Dr. Cowden calls the graduates to be about the work of repairing the breach.

Radical hospitality and table fellowship in a time of unwelcome: Being church

This is an expanded version of my Senior Sermon given at American Baptist Seminary of the West in April of 2017. The sermon was inspired by the work of my Mentor Project which shares the title of this piece. The work was the ministry of radical hospitality and table fellowship at the (A)Rise in Power National Convergence of radical Christian activists, which took place in February of 2017 on Oakland. The purpose of the work was to create a space of radical hospitality, welcome, and table fellowship as an expression of radical love, as a venue for spiritual healing, and as a model for ecclesiology. This work uses the vision of being church given in the book of Acts 2:42–47. This vision provides an alternative vision of our shared life together as Christians, and in this work I posit that to be church is to work to create this vision, whether in the walls of the church building, in the kitchen, or on the streets. This vision of church is fleeting, but as followers of Jesus we must continue to pursue it.

Unveiling Islam

Many books have been written on Muslims and Islam since 9/1 I. Amajority of them have tried to show Islam's negative side in an attempt toprove that Islam teaches violence and that Muslims love to engage injihad to become martyrs. Such contentions are generally made by antiMusliminterest groups, certain religious organizations, and politiciansunder the influence of such extremists. These people stir up anti-Muslimsentiments to influence public opinion and bend government policies infavor of such groups. This book is a similar attempt to gain popularity forthe authors and arouse anti-Muslim sentiment at a time that is trying formost Americans. The authors, Ergun Caner and Emir Caner, are brothers.The senior author is professor of theology at Criswell College, Dallas,Texas, and the second author teaches at the Baptist Seminary in WakeForest, North Carolina.The book contains a preface and introduction, I 6 chapters on variousaspects of Islam, and four appendices, including an index to the Qur'anand a glossary of Arabic terms. The preface is a story of the clash ofculturesbetween the authors' Muslim (Turkish) father and Swedish mother,which resulted in a divorce when the Caner brothers were still veryyoung. The father had visitation rights and would take Ergun and Emir tothe Islamic Center in Columbus, Ohio, on weekends "to do the prayers,celebrate Ramadhan and read the Qur'an." This was the children's onlyexposure to Islam, until Ergun was I 5 and visited a church after his bestfriend invited him to do so. Ergun found the people at church warm and"didn't mock when he stumbled through the hymns." He joined thegospel ministry in 1982 and has since been preaching (against Islam) inorder "to bring salvation for 1.2 billion Muslims." Thus the title of thebook is itself deceiving, as it conveys that a practicing Muslim became aChristian, when, in fact, the authors actually became Christians in theirearly teens and had almost no education in Islam.It is appalling that the introductory chapter opens with a threat from"Shaikh" Osama bin Laden to the Americans and blessings for those whogave their lives to k.ill the 9/1 I victims. The authors portray bin Laden asa typical Muslim who is out to get all people who refuse to accept Islam ...