Monday was a late start for me.  I had intended to go see Herb Hain’s presentation, “Genesis on Stage: The Story of Isaac as a ‘Divine’ (Greek) Comedy” in the Performance Criticism section, though I did not make it.  I did, however, go hear Brian Jones of Wartburg College give a paper on Job’s “Hunter-Warrior God,” but it was not what I expected.  This is not a critique of his paper as much as it is a critique of my expectations! 

From there I grabbed lunch at the Sheraton with two Baylor colleagues and then headed to the Book of Psalms section at 1:00, where one of my colleagues, Roy Garton, was presenting his paper entitled “The Death of a Psalmist: A Structural Analysis and Literary Reading of Psalm 88.”  The paper has intrigued me since I first read it some two years ago, and I have heard it now 2 or 3 times since.  Roy is a master of handouts, always making very colorful and fancy charts.  I often razz him by saying one of two things, both of which I think are hilarious (but probably more so if you actually know him): 1) that his first publishing venture should be a collected volume of only his handouts; 2) that if he ever has a festschrift, I will gladly submit a colorful handout for it!  Roy is a proponent of the historical-critical method in Hebrew Bible studies, but don’t worry . . . I still consider him a dear friend!!  Seriously, though, this is a very fine paper, and he has only strengthened it as time has passed.  I stayed for this entire session, hearing a paper also by fellow blogger Art Boulet.  Truth be told, I was a bit puzzled at Boulet’s devoting of the early bulk of his presentation to refuting Davidic authorship of certain Psalms/the Psalter.  I suspect for many (most?) in the audience this was unnecessary.  There was also a paper on Ethics in the Psalms, and I was intrigued to hear that the topic for the Book of Psalms section for the 2010 SBL meeting in Atlanta is the Psalms and Ethics.  I’m not so sure I know how that will turn out, but I am curious . . .

I was also glad to be able to talk with Joseph Kelly, who blogs at kol ha-adam, at length before the session on various matters, including having children while in a Ph.D. program, my paper the following day, applying to Baylor, etc.  We also had some good discussion afterwards, and I (re-)introduced him to my teacher Bill Bellinger.  I don’t know if that helps or hurts his chances to be associated with me (wink!).

The next session I attended was the Pentateuch session at 4.  Again, I was running late, but I really wanted to hear the papers by Bruce Wells on ‘The Story of the Hated Wife in Genesis and in Deuteronomy,” and by Calum Carmichael entitled “Jacob’s ‘Red, Red Dish’ and the Ritual of the Red Heifer.”  Wells argued that the Hebrew “hate” (sanah) here most likely means the demotion of a wife or banishment from the household, which the male could do without grounding the demotion in any sort of misconduct of the wife.  During the Q & A session, one audience member asked a question I also had: is it not possible that Leah was demoted by Jacob because of the deception occurring on the wedding night?  Certainly Laban is the one ‘blamed,’ but Leah hardly seems to be an unwitting participant.  Wells replied he would have to give that some thought.  A very fine question in my view.  And the final paper by Carmichael was a delight.  For those unfamiliar with Carmichael’s work, he is quite creative in trying to tether specific biblical laws to specific biblical narratives.  His central argument is that the narratives come first, and the laws arise from them.  His paper specifically looked at the odd text in Num 18-19 about the red heifer and how it is informed by the birthright episode in Gen 25:27-34. Carmichael argued that the “red” (edom) stew Jacob is cooking up was interpreted by Esau to be blood, given that Esau had returned from the field famished, unable to find any “meat with blood.”  This is hardly a new argument, and I remain unconvinced the text supplies any warrant to speculate or psychologize as to Esau’s train of thought at the moment.  Carmichael did, however, highlight an interesting connection immediatley after the red heifer text in Num 20, noting the text concerns Moses and Edom, and the text records something to the effect of “Thus says your brother Esau.”  Where I did agree with Carmichael, though, was on a few points of general interpretation of the passage: 1) Esau is portrayed unflatteringly as an animal with prey when he returns from the field; 2) the birthright can’t be undone because of the oath Esau swears; 3) Jacob (deceptively?) fails to name the true contents of the dish of red until the very end, revealing it is merely a pot of lentils. 

All in all, another good day of papers.  But I am always surprised at how physically and mentally draining it is to sit and listen to papers all day.  I now have a greater respect for my students!

This continues my week-late blogging series on my time at SBL.  On Sunday morning I attended the Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures session, the topic of which was a review of Marvin Sweeney’s 2008 Fortress Press volume Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah: Engaging Holocaust Theology.  The panel consisted of Walter Brueggemann, Frederick Greenspahn, Dennis Olson, and Patricia Tull, with a final response by Marvin Sweeney.  It was a very fine set of reviews.  Brueggemann offered a judicious review, but pressed Sweeney on not looking at the dialogical character of God in these matters; vintage Brueggemann!  In a tongue-in-cheek moment I am certain, Brueggemann concluded his reflections by praising Sweeney’s volume, but noting that it in no way offers a “final solution to the problem” (get it?).  Greenspahn’s paper took a bit of a different knack, doing less review and more of his own constructive work, looking at how it is that this discussion informs the contemporary Israeli/Palestinian conflict (his comments were reminiscent of Marc Ellis, if you are familiar with his work, though Greenspahn had more of a biblical grounding).  One powerful moment was when he cited Jon Levenson’s statement that the Hebrew Bible does not possess anything akin to Christian anti-Judaism because, fortunately, the Canaanites and Amalekites are no longer in existence.  This drew a chuckle from the crowd, but then he noted that contemporary Israelis–even seminal, not just militant, ones–have and do refer to Palestinians as “Amalek,” thus attempting to advance a biblical legitimation of mass destruction and death.  It was a powerful image, and one worthy of a great deal of thought and reflection.

From there I met with a Genesis scholar from the UK, Laurence Turner.  For those that are unfamiliar with Turner’s work, I have noted my deep appreciation for it several times (see HERE and HERE, as well as the comments to this latter post w here Turner responds).  It was a very fine time discussing these texts with someone who has thought about them as much–perhaps even more–than I have done.  I look forward to continuing to dialogue with Turner; I even gave him a copy of my initial dissertation chapter.

At 4:00 I went and heard Rolf Jacobson’s paper on “Theological Implications of Creation’s Praise of the LORD.”  Jacobson is a very fine presenter with a stellar and quick wit and very fine sense of humor.  It was a fine paper, and I understand he has a volume forthcoming on the Psalms he is editing that will contain a series of essays.  I look forward to that (perhaps if Dr. Jacobson is reading this he can respond and clarify the project a bit?). 

I left the session early and headed to Cafe Giovanni for the bibliobloggers dinner.  I was only there for a short time, because at 6:30 I had dinner with other Baylor OT folk lined up, but more importantly, with Bill Bellinger, my dissertation advisor.  So I was only at the blogging dinner for about 20 minutes.  I had hoped to speak with some in more depth, but there’s always next year.  I chatted with Mike Whitenton and Rob Kashow at first, then Bryan Bibb and Brooke Lester.  It was great also to meet Claude Mariottini, Ken Brown, and a few others I trust I am forgetting (mea culpa!).  Again it was good to talk with Jim West briefly; he walked past me and I dared him to call me a “git” or a “dilletante.”  He just laughed sheepishly (yes, sheepishly) and moved on. 

The dinner with Bellinger and other Baylor folk OT folk was a good time.  We went a ways from the conference hotel to a place called Mulattes.  We enjoyed good company, some Zydeco music, and watching people dance.  It was a bit loud, though, with the band, so we had to yell to speak to one another.  Between there, the trip to NO and the general amount of talking I did at the conference, my voice is still recuping.

These are the books I came away from SBL 2009 with:

Purchased:

Jon D. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (Yale)

Gordon Wenham, Genesis 16-50. Word Biblical Commentary.

Hermann Gunkel, Genesis (Mercer). (I got this for $15!!!  It sells for upwards of $60 new.  Thanks Mercer!).

Freebies (from publishers, professors, and friends):

Brian Webster, The Cambridge Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (Thanks Mike W!).

Laurence Turner, Genesis. Readings Commentary (Sheffield Phoenix; thanks Dr. Turner!).

Mike Bird, Crossing Over Sea and Land: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (Hendrickson; thanks Bobby K!).

In the Mail:

I also returned home from SBL to find I had received my copy of James Barr’s The Concept of Biblical Theology.  So far Barr is quite the deconstructionist . . . it is a shame he passed away before he could finish his more constructive piece.

Here are some of the pictures I took at SBL New Orleans 2009:

Walter Brueggemann and I

Jim West at the blogging dinner

The Blogging Dinner

New Orleans from the 41st floor of the Marriott

New Orleans from 41st floor of Marriott

Happy thanksgiving friends and colleagues!! My day has been eventful thus far…my wife and I were awakened by our 2 yr old son who had thrown up in bed. He has since thrown up several times. It has now been 4 hrs since his last episode, but it has been a long night. And as I write this he’s jumping off a clothes basket!! So resilient!

So, I am thankful for sleep, my incredible wife who let me sleep a few hours and stayed with him because she knows I’m still lagged from SBL, myfamily, but most importantly my son’s health.

UPDATE: We’re at 7 hours since and he’s playing and doing well.  I hope the rest of the day and tonight proves him to be well.

A funny story (which, I will confess, is far funnier when you hear me tell it, so reading it may not deliver the same oomph.  You’ve been cautioned!).

On Saturday I planned to attend a paper by Norman Gottwald, a seminal Hebrew Bible scholar.  I very much like his socio-literary approach to the biblical text (see, for instance, his abridged introductory volume, which I review HERE).  His session was on the 41st floor of the hotel, and you had to use a special bank of elevators to get to this floor.  Here’s how high-tech these elevators were, though: you didn’t just push “up” or “down” but actually typed in the number of the floor to which you wanted to go.  The display panel then told you what elevator to take.  We didn’t quite understand this yet.  Apparently neither did Gottwald.

My friend and I got into the elevator, assuming we were heading for the 41st floor.  Next thing we know Norman Gottwald gets into the elevator with us.  Mind you, this is about 3 minutes before his paper is to start.  Well, after a few stops, we get to the 40th floor.  Someone gets off and says he’ll type in “41″ for us.  And we wait.  And the elevator does nothing.  We get off and type “41″ again.  Nothing.  We then bring a staircase to Gottwald’s attention.  By this time he is already late.  So he takes the staircase.  For those who don’t know, Gottwald is not a young man, but he was hauling up those 2-3 flights of stairs!  It was Gottwald, an older gentleman with us who also wanted to attend his paper, then myself and my colleague pulling up the rear.  Upon entering the staircase (which was the equivalent of what you see in old apartments; it was more of a fire escape than anything) Gottwald was hauling and we were trying to keep up.  Unfortunately, I got stuck behind the older gentleman who was also apparently trying to find the 41st floor.  I made the comment on the way up the stairs, “wow, Gottwald is a mover” and the older gentleman turned around to look at me, clearly exhausted, and exclaimed “he sure is!”  It was a hilarious moment.  But the story doesn’t end there.

We get to the 41st floor and lo and behold what is it?  Nothing more than a narrow stretch of concrete hallway leading to the equivalent of a janitor’s closet!  My friend quickly rushed up one more flight of stairs to check, only to find a locked door.  At this news, Gottwald took off back down the stairs with equal speed as he had coming up.  And we waited.  And waited.  And finally an elevator came that took us to the 41st floor.  He was late for his session, but he was first up so they had not yet started without him.  But it was a hilarious story we enjoyed telling to our friends and colleagues . . . and we’d like to think we helped at least a little in getting Norman Gottwald to his session!

This was my insane day.  At 9:30 am I had a recording session with Chris Heard for Pepperdine’s iTunesU/SBL, giving a 5-6 minute talk on Jacob the Blessed Trickster.  It was great to meet Chris; I very much respect and appreciate his work (though we disagree on several matters of interpretation regarding Genesis).  In fact, it was reading his volume, Dynamics of Diselection, that really began to cement my interest in Genesis, so I suppose Chris deserves some credit there.  I am especially thankful for his patience; he has a tremendous amount (ok, I exaggerate a little, right Chris?) of outtake material that had better never see the light of day!!  Ha!  Actually, he was very good and patient, and I was thankful for his willingness to ask and include me in the project.  I am hopeful I gave him something worthwhile as well.  At the end of the session, I did something Chris said was “geeky” . . . I asked him to sign my copy of Dynamics of Diselection.  Which he did.  Good stuff!

From there I had a job interview at 11 am, off-site.  It went well, I think.  I feel good about it, and I haven’t lost any sleep over it.  Let’s hope that is a good sign.

At 11:30 I had lunch with Psalms scholar and Baylor grad Nancy deClaisse-Walford and her husband, Steve (click HERE for my interview with her).  It was great conversation, and they were a delight.  It was fun to talk about how Baylor was and how it is now.  A very fine time, and I hope they enjoyed themselves as well.

Next, at 2, I had another job interview.  This one was in the career center.  I still feel good about the interview, but the career center is an entirely different atmosphere.  It is essentially a giant auditorium sized room with a small space quartered off only by thin black sheets.  You can see and hear those next to you quite easily.  But again, I feel good about it, and I hope and pray I hear good news about it.

After the interview was my first time to hit the book exhibit.  I tend to live in the book exhibit at the meeting.  I ran in to a few other bloggers, namely Pat McCullough (who is actually a very tall man; I didn’t expect that), Chris Tilling, and I think I spotted Brandon Wason.  Tilling recognized me as the “Old Testament blog” to which I responded, in jest, “Hebrew Bible.”  He then made some crack about an inferior testament, and I quickly responded by calling him Marcion.  It was all in good fun!  I also ran in to Jim West talking with some other bloggers.  Let me say this . . . Jim is a very kind, gentle, unassuming man in person.  He is nothing like the dilletante-bashing, git-calling person you read on his blog.  I actually think I made him a bit nervous.  Anytime I tried to razz him he didn’t say much back.  I was glad to meet him though.  He snapped this picture:

Me, Chris Tilling, Kevin Scull, and Brandon Wason

From there I met with Walter Brueggemann (picture coming in a later post, once I actually get those uploaded) to discuss some matters of common interest.  It was kind of funny as we walked around the hotel trying to find a place to sit.  We noticed one free chair in one place and another around the corner, so Brueggemann and I went over and began to drag the one, big chair over to the other.  There was someone sitting next to the chair we were dragging, and he was kind enough, though–recognizing Brueggemann–to give up his seat!  Later when Brueggemann went to find someone to take a picture of he and I together, the person he asked responded by saying “It would be an honor, Dr. Brueggemann.”  Very cool.  Readers may recall that Brueggemann read my article and responded very favorably to it.  We discussed how to handle those who want to challenge the textual existence of such problematic portrayals of God; Brueggemann’s response was simple: “keep showing them texts.”  It was a very fine, enjoyable meeting, and Brueggemann is a delightful ball of energy with a tremendous sense of humor.  He was kind enough to sign my copy of his newest volume, An Unsettling God: The Heart of the Hebrew Bible with some very kind words, concluding his written message by saying “I am glad we are at the same task.”  Very cool.

From there I went to hear Norman Gottwald’s paper 4:00 . . . my first of the conference.  Unfortunately, the room had no mic, and it was quite hard to hear and follow him for the full 30 minutes.  Ishare a brief, funny story about Gottwald and getting to this paper in THIS POST.  After his paper it was off to the book exhibit.  Saturday was a long day, and the morning and early afternoon’s activities had drained me.

After supper I headed, alone, to the Fortress Press reception, where I ran in to Rob Kashow and his posse of folk, including Dan Wallace of Greek grammar fame.  I joined them for a bit of the evening, though I trust Rob and others were well aware of my fatigue by this point.  Back to the room to crash . . . and I wore  a breathe-right strip this time.  My roomies said it made some difference.

At 8 am I, along with two colleagues from the Baylor Ph.D. program, set out for New Orleans.  Driving.  10 hours.  It was, though, quite a good time, full of incessant laughs, intellectual conversation, and our expectations and hopes for the meeting. 

We arrived in New Orleans at about 6ish, though my friend’s GPS on his phone wasn’t working too well (read: it was totally useless).  Finally, after circling a long strip twice, we spotted our hotel in the distance.  We were fortunate enough to park in front of a parking meter; the receptionist at our hotel (the JW Marriott) informed us the meter would be free all weekend.  Score!  That saved us about $35/day on parking. 

We headed to the conference hotel to check in.  By that time, though, they had stopped handing out tote bags, but I realized I had forgotten my name badge at home.  Fortunately, SBL had this covered, and printed me up a new one.  Thanks!  I would’ve been quite embarrassed walking around with a hand-written one all weekend!

On the way out from checking in, I saw someone who looked very much like Mike Whitenton of Ecce Homo fame.  Indeed, it was.  I went over and introduced myself briefly; Rob Kashow was also there.  Rob has blogged his initial impression of that encounter HERE.  I don’t know why my tremendously deep voice is so surprising.  Oh well!  It was good to meet them!

We then set out for supper, asking someone at a local coffee shop next to our hotel for recommendations of something reasonably priced.  She suggested a place a few blocks away that she claimed had the best burritos.  Ok.  So we went there.  And were underwhelmed.  Later we returned to the coffee shop to sit and chat with some others, and the worker asked us how we liked it.  We were polite, but explained to her that such a reaction was to be expected when you send three Texas guys to a burrito shop outside Texas.

It was an early night on Friday.  I had two job interviews in the morning, as well as a recording session with Chris Heard for the Pepperdine iTunesU/SBL project on the topic of Jacob the Trickster.  Plus, we were all tired from the driving. 

And in the interest of full disclosure, my roommates were quite unhappy to realize that I snore.  Loudly.  Like a banshee.  I got razzed pretty good for that in the morning.  They were, however, kind enough to let me sleep, given my two interviews.

I am back from SBL.  It was, as always, a good time.  Plenty busy!  And now that I am back and can process a bit, I will do a series of posts on various aspects of the conference and my time there.  There was much going on . . . and much good humor.  Here are a few of the things I have planned . . . .

-Summation of each day’s activities for me
-The books I purchased
-Thoughts and impressions on delivering my paper
-A funny anecdote about how a buddy of mine and I helped get Norman Gottwald to his session, albeit late

AND . . . . the big one (ok, I’m being really sarcastic by calling this a big one . . . wink).  An all-access, expose on Jim West.  Seriously, who is this guy in reality?  Hardly the guy we see behind the computer.  He wouldn’t even call me a “git” or “dilletante” to my face when I challenged him to do so.  C’mon Jim, don’t disappoint!! 

I would also like to share a story about my time back home thus far.  I arrived at the house last night about 10:30 or 11:00, so my two-year old son was already asleep.  I went in and kissed him and told him I love him; this was the longest I’ve ever been away from him.  This morning he was quite surprised to see me.  Well, because I am swamped with work, I suggested he go to daycare today, and he won’t have daycare the rest of the week.  So we got him all ready, strapped in the carseat in the car and ready to pull out of the driveway when he says “I don’t want to go to school, I want to stay with daddy.”  I asked him again . . . daddy or school.  He said daddy.  So I unbuckled him and we’re having a guys’ day.  Seriously, who can say no to that?

Fortress Press’ new venture, the Fortress Forum, has seemingly christened this new venture by posting an interview with Walter Brueggemann on his new book, An Unsettling God: The Heart of the Hebrew Bible.  The original interview can be seen HERE, though I have reproduced it in its entirety below.  Do, though, go to the Fortress Forum and leave comments!

Fortress Press: Everyone talks about the death of biblical theology, but in your work, specifically An Unsettling God, how do you make the case for that discipline?

Walter Brueggemann: Obviously, the discipline of biblical theology needs no “case” to be made for it, and certainly not by me. There is deep and wide ferment in the field, indicating that scholars and interpreters across the theological spectrum are ready to be engaged in work that is fresh and suggestive. It is possible that such an interpretive enterprise may be primarily historical, that is, reading old texts to see what they “meant.”

My own interest is much more “confessional,” as I am a church person who reads for the sake of the faith and life of my community. I suppose, without great intentionality, that I read according to Ricoeur’s nice pairing of “suspicion and retrieval.” The “suspicion” is an awareness that every text and every reading, including my own, is laden with ideological interest. This is true of skeptics, minimalists, and fideists of all kinds. The “retrieval” is to see what may be said after one has done rigorous criticism. What one finds, after criticism, is that there is still this character “God,” who continues to haunt and evoke and summon and address. No sort of criticism, so it seems to me, finally disposes of that character. Now it may be that the character is an act of literary imagination; or it may be that the character is indeed an agent who is in, with, and under the text. Either way, one cannot dispose of that character. I find myself moving back and forth between a literary character and an active agent. Either way, that character haunts and causes everything to be redefined.
But being haunted by this character is not just a confessional act for “believers.” I believe the best exposition of this testimony for “non-believers” is by Terry Eagleton in his Terry Lectures at Yale. Eagleton is not a “believer,” but he takes seriously the claims of this text that are more than “literary.” Eagleton shows that the claims are not merely cognitive and so readily dismissed by “silly atheists.” Rather, Eagleton sees that the claims of the tradition are that this holy character is linked to the valuing of “the scum” of the earth. The point is a practical one, not an intellectual one.

Given the current frailty of the capitalist system and the fact that the “big money” continues to grow while ordinary people increasingly become poor and homeless, I suspect that this character, embedded in this tradition, is a wake-up call for contemporary social-political thought. It is not difficult to imagine that dominant ideologies and narrative explanations of reality have reached a dead end. For that reason I judge that it is a worth-while effort, regardless of one’s “faith commitments,” to continue to pay attention to and exposit this character and the tradition that clusters around the character. I understand that to be the work of biblical theology. Such a perspective refuses to be boxed in by the critical categories of Enlightenment rationality, for it is a reach behind that rationality to see about the haunting that cannot be so readily dismissed. I take that to be an important task. And if some judge it not to be important, it is at least interesting.

FP: Your work espouses the implications of biblical theology for social justice. How do Christians formulate that for the public square, or can they?

WB: This is an ongoing and difficult task. I believe that there is no ready and obvious “connect” between the claims of the Bible and matters of the contemporary public square. And we should be suspicious of any who treat those connections as direct and obvious. At best, there is an articulation of broad principles, the kind that Eagleton has so well explicated. But the “connect” requires a leap of imagination in order to see how the ancient imperative in one social context can be credible in a contemporary context that is in every regard quite unlike the old one. There are of course thick mediating traditions of theological and ethical interpretation among the great intellectuals and in the faith traditions of Jews and Christians, so that the imaginative leap is never de novo or in a vacuum. But clearly the biblical tradition, since the exodus and the commands of Sinai, has focused attention on the common good and on the socio-economic policies and practices that work for or against the common good. It takes no great imagination to see that such a claim for the common good is in profound tension with the modern narratives of collectivism or individualism. As Michael Walzer has seen, the Exodus and the consequent covenant at Sinai constitute a revolutionary breakthrough in the history of thought and practice. There is no doubt that biblical interpretation must continue to explore the interface that is crucial for any authentic contemporary reading.

FP: Sometimes it seems that the Bible is used in a simplistic or biblicist way by conservatives to address the public sphere. On the other hand, the historical-critical method seems too arcane to address pressing public conversations (such as gay marriage or abortion or immigration). What’s your approach?

WB: The capacity to find an alternative to biblicism or historical criticism requires skillful hermeneutical moves, whether made intentionally or intuitively. If one begins with the assumption of neighborly covenant—the outcome of Sinai—then neighborliness becomes the test for policy and practice. Such a focus does not resolve all of the complexities of real-life decisions, but it does preclude from consideration some possibilities that are anti-neighborly and anti-covenantal. Such an approach does not just find a specific text, as is so often done, but participates, as we are able, in the “world” that is constructed by the text. It is odd and disappointing that some of the loudest citers of texts love to refer to specific texts but have no interest in or awareness of the broad claims of the text or the way in which the dots are connected to provide an alternative vision of social reality and derivatively, an alternative mandate about social reality. Thus I believe that the clue to fruitful connections is a practice of imagination that is self-aware and well-informed about the complexity of the issues. There is no reason for biblical interpreters to be simplistic or to imagine that easy or ready connections can be made.

FP: How have you changed your attitude toward and approach to the future of the church, especially in its biblical appropriation? Where do your hopes lie?

WB: As I have gotten older and as our social scene has become more dysfunctional, I have become more aware of the ways in which the central claims of the Bible contradict the practices of our culture. This means, in my judgment, that now as never in my lifetime the full and bold articulation of biblical claims is urgent as a serious offer in our pluralistic society. There are no easy accommodations between those claims and the dominant modes of our culture, even though the old model in which I was nurtured—“Christ transforming culture”—mostly imagined an easier connect. My practical hope is not very great. I do think that the younger generation in our society is not so boxed in on the hard questions as are many older people. I think, moreover, that the growing diversity in our society may offer openness for genuinely human options, as I do not think that our diverse and younger population will settle easily for the old answers of the privileged. After all of that, of course, our hope is not a pragmatic one; it is an evangelical one, that God is faithful and that God’s purposes will out. The wonder of the Biblical tradition is that the holy purposes of God cohere readily with the pain of the vulnerable. It is entirely possible that the convergence of holy purpose and vulnerable pain may “change the wind,” as Jim Wallis voices it. Since the old resolutions of our problems are clearly now failed, there may be an openness to initiatives that are more humane. That of course depends on courageous, sustained testimony… and it is a fearful time.