Lots of Ministry and Some Hebrew Grammar Next Quarter
I registered for my second to last quarter today. I have some ministry requirements to fulfill that have been put on hold while I’ve taken courses on New Testament and related issues. That said, it’s not that I’m not interested in the ministry courses. It’s just that I have a bit of tunnel vision with my academic plans, so I have had to focus on New Testament, early Judaism, and Christian origins. Without further adieu, here are the classes I’ve signed on for next quarter (the course links take you to descriptions, the teacher links to their homepages at Fuller):
- The Congregation as a Learning Community with Mark Lau Branson. Ths class fulfills the “Christian Formation and Discipleship” requirement for the M.Div. From what I understand, Branson has good Anabaptist leanings!
- Grief, Loss, Death and Dying with David Augsburger. This one hits the “Pastoral Counseling” requirement. Forget Anabaptist “leanings,” Augsburger is a great Anabaptist leader and scholar. You may have seen his recent book, Dissident Discipleship. I think half my church has read it.
- Making Doctrine Live with Marguerite Shuster. This class is one of the three classes needed to fulfill the “Preaching and Communication” requirement: one class generally on Homiletics, then two practicums. This would be my first practicum. Actually, I tried to stay with my current professor for Homiletics, Doug Nason, but both of his practicums were taken. I’m waitlisted for those, so I might switch over if space opens up. All the practicum listings have only 8 or 9 spots. We all preach (or speak) twice in the quarter and give comments to the other preachers/speakers.
And for the final elective of my Fuller career:
- Advanced Hebrew Grammar with Jeremy Smoak, who is, according to the website, a post-doctoral fellow at UCLA’s NELC department.
So it should be an interesting quarter. In the summer quarter, I hope to take my final preaching practicum in communication, fulfill two church history courses (with “Medieval and Reformation History” and “Post-Reformation and Modern Theology”–the latter taught by Richard Muller), and take “Intro to Islam” as an IDL. Then, I’m all done with this seminary thing! It’s hard to believe.
"The Fuller Seminary Generation"
Those are the words of Jim Wallis in his most recent blog post. I didn’t go to his talk during his Fuller visit, but I hear he said a lot of the stuff that he usually says. I like Wallis’ message, but he does tend to repeat himself. That said, do check out the post, if for no other reason than he actually uses the words “the Fuller Seminary generation.”
Snapshot of Political Leanings at Fuller Seminary
In academia, Fuller Theological Seminary has a reputation for being a conservative place. Within Evangelicalism, Fuller has a reputation of being a progressive, or even liberal place. I am not a big fan of the terms “conservative” or “liberal” in either the political or theological spheres. I do not find I “fit” within such a spectrum. I have too many questions about either side to associate myself with them. I don’t even want to call myself a “moderate” because that term still defines me within the liberal-conservative continuum.
But people still use the terms and, much of the time, pejoratively. Or if not pejoratively, then at least tied to some kind of value judgment about “conservatism” or “liberalism.” So, one unscientific way to explore the political leanings of Fuller Seminary, which may or may not have bearing on the theological leanings of Fuller Seminary, is via Facebook. Facebook has this feature to select your political leaning from a range of options (you can only select one): Very Liberal, Liberal, Moderate, Conservative, Very Conservative, Apathetic, Libertarian, or Other. Many people feel comfortable selecting one of these for their Facebook friends to see (I have picked “Other”) and you can thus search through a given “Network” of people on Facebook for those who have chosen those identifiers. Granted, not everybody picks the most accurate category. For example, for awhile, Josh McManaway jokingly selected “Very Conservative” to go with his tongue-in-cheek write-in answer for “Religious Views”: “Very Christian.” [I'd like to say that my favorite answer to Religious Views, by the way, is my friend Alan, who wrote: "Yes, I have some."] Nevertheless, I think people are usually pretty honest about where they feel they fall in the political spectrum.
Facebook created a network for Fuller Seminary about five months ago. Since then (at the time of writing this post), we’ve garnered 742 students, alums, faculty and staff with Fuller email addresses who have joined (you need an official email address to join a school network). Here is a breakdown of those who identify themselves with one of the above mentioned political categories (percentages are of the total who have chosen a category: 327):
- Moderate: 160 (49%)
- Other: 73 (22%)
- Liberal: 48 (15%)
- Conservative: 30 (9%)
- Very Liberal: 5 (2%)
- Apathetic: 4 (1%)
- Libertarian: 4 (1%)
- Very Conservative: 3 (1%)
I’m happy that the vast majority of my Fuller peers in this little Facebook poll are also uncomfortable with the terms “liberal” and “conservative.” We should note, however, that there are one and a half times more self-declared “liberals” than “conservatives” in the Fuller network. It may be fodder for those Evangelicals who believe Fuller is a bastion of “heretical” liberalism, but the numbers should at least give one pause before slapping a singular label on the school and all who reside there.
The suspicious beeping box at Fuller Seminary
My Greek Reading class was canceled this evening because the building in which it meets was closed down “due to the receipt of a suspicious package in a nearby building.” We received an update later this evening that things are back to normal after the Fuller Psychology building, the bookstore and the 490 E. Walnut Building had been closed from approximately 4:45 p.m. until 7:25 p.m. while police were investigating.
What was this suspicious box?
The box came from an unknown sender and made a beeping sound. An appropriate response was taken and a thorough investigation was made. We were relieved to hear from the police that the box contained normal desk clocks. We are grateful that the issue has been resolved and we appreciate your patience during the closure of these three Fuller buildings and the surrounding campus area.
I’m glad things are under control and I sure hope that those are some darn good clocks.
Update (05/04/07): I have gotten some more details about this. The box was apparently unsolicited (so it wasn’t a placed order of desk clocks, but rather a “gift” from a third party vendor) and the address was hand-written, with the return address being the same as the sending address (even though it was postmarked from somewhere in Texas). The bomb squad x-rayed the contents first and could tell there were clock-like devices in there, but didn’t know what else, so they “detonated” the box themselves. They could tell it was merely a box of clocks from the exploded remnants left behind. In retrospect, then, I hope that they weren’t darn good clocks.
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Elsewhere . . .- Blog titles beginning with "A" to "Z" on your reader Mark Goodacre
- Of making many books there is no end Chris Brady
- Free Online: The Liddell-Scott Jones Lexicon S and C
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? II agathos
- Steven J. Friesen and the Identity of Satan’s Throne in Pergamum alan
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? agathos
- Bloomsbury buys Continuum Mark Goodacre
- Imperial America Peter J. Leithart
- C.F.D. Moule on the Birth of the New Testament d. miller
- Responding to Kostenberger (with comparisons to Marshall) Jeremiah
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