Theology 7372, Fall 2009

I am serving as Pastor of a small church just outside of Glen Rose, TX.  The church is Rainbow Baptist Church (yes I know all the good and bad that goes with that name), it is a small country church with some of the most rural and real people I have ever met!  I grew up in a small town so this is right up my alley.  I haved as a youth minister, music minister, and Young Adult minister in my time in the ministry.  I was ordained on Novermber 5th, 2005 at FBC Longview.

I did my undergraduate at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.  I graduated with a BA in Religion and minor in music.

After Truett, I intend to do what I am doing now.  I love the pastorate (especially preaching), and I feel like this is my lifelong calling.  I have toyed with doing doctrial work of some kind, but at this point I (and my wife) are ready to be done with schooling (being as we have a 5 year old, almost 2 year old, and are planning on adopting from Africa (possibly as early as this summer).

This course can help me in the study of the latter portion of the Hebrew Bible.  I thoroughly enjoy the OT and feel like it needs to be preached as much as the NT, because it is a unified work that has relevance for all of life!

Brad Reedy!

I am a baptist minister currently attending Truett Seminary for an MDIV with a concentration in Theology. My family and I have been a member of The Church Without Walls (Dr. Ralph D. West, Sr, Senior Pastor and Founder) in Houston, TX since February 2001. On June 25, 2002 I surrendered to the calling on my life for ministry, and received my license as a minister on November 30, 2006 under the leadership of my pastor Dr. Ralph D. West. I have served in various ministries at TCWW including the roles of Coordinator and Facilitator of the Men’s Discipleship Ministry. Since attending Truett, my family and I joined Antioch Missionary Baptist Church (Dr. Delvin A. Atchison I, Senior Pastor) in December 2008. I serve in the college ministry at Antioch. I have a B.S. in Computer Science from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX.

As for career plans after Truett, I am open to whatever and wherever God desires for me to serve. I believe God has called me to the pastoral ministry. Yet I know God works in mysterious ways and he has the final say so in such matters. I believe this course can best serve me by digging into the theological, social and cultural issues of the text. I desire to grasp the intention of the text intended for the original audience, the ability to identify the differences between the biblical audience and us today, identify the theological principles in the text and finally make the transition to application of those theological principles to Christians today.

Tonight I do not want to write a long entry as much as I want to share some treasures I have found.  Our class is off to a good start. I have found insightful questions and thought provoking observations. I want to add to this mix a blog entry by Gardner Campbell on the nature of academic blogging. I found this helpful piece on the nature of blogging for class. Enjoy! Pastors/theologians work in new media. The writers of the Frankfurt school would describe us as knowledge workers.  Scott Rosenberg explains how the task of knowledge workers has been transformed by blogs.

I did a twitter search on personal learning environments. Here is what I learned. Gavin Heaton’s blog has some sections that we should examine. He lifts up three elements of personal learning environments:  1) gather information and knowledge 2) filter and process this data, and 3) act on the knowledge that we have acquired.  The most compelling thing that he wrote was “It is essential that you establish a personal space which is conducive to your own learning.”

The blog Mollybob Goes to School examines the personal learning network and personal learning environment. It raises the question of how networks and environments interact with helpful insights. A key question for theological education is how does the personal learning network enhanced by the seminary interacts and synergizes the personal learning environments in classes.

Educause also has resources on personal learning environments (PLEs). Often the PLE is contrasted against the learning management system (LMS) this is from the series 7 things you should know about…

My elegant friends have introduced me to many things bracers, bow ties, and fountain pens. When I am dressed for business I almost always wear a fountain pen. However, it is an anachronism. A fountain pen makes a permanent mark, inscription in a world that is far from permanent. The reading I have done in how to improve your writing as well as leadership often use the metaphor write in pencil to describe the need for flexibility and the openness to change. A Web 2.0 world takes this write in pencil. Talking with Gardner Campbell he reminded me that one of the hallmarks of Web 2.0 is the notion of permanent beta. The company Google has embodied this as much as any one company. This oxymoronic term captures well the sense of the age permanent but always changing to meet the demand of end users.

How is Scriptures like the big pencil of Web 2.0? James Sanders wrote an article that might give some perspective on this question. He wrote that it is in the nature of canon to be adaptable to the demands of the era. As such it is multivalent enough to serve over the course of many years. So while one might affirm that he Bible does not change on the one hand, it is in permanent beta on the other.

The emperor Constantine I ended the persecution of Christians sponsored by Diocletian with the Edict of Milan in 313 and proclaimed religious toleration as an emblem of the Roman Empire. He later made Christianity the official religion of the empire. The Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Churches forged a model of the state church as a political/religious institution. The Reformation shifted the players but did not dislodge Christian privilege.  Even the Enlightenment did not completely dislodge Christian privilege. However, one of the key elements of post-modernity is the end to Christian privilege. Some call this the post-Constantinian era.

Before the talk of post-modernity Lesslie Newbigin observed the sunset of Christian cultural hegemony. Others have taken his insights and forms what has become the “missional church” conversation. Darrell L. Guder has championed this perspective in the United States. He has edited a book Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America which has a selection available through google books.

Newbigin reminds the careful reader that North America and Europe have much to learn from Africa, South America, and Asia. More controversial Fareed Zakaria described a Post-American World that replaces bilateralism with a multi-lateralism. The super-powers of the “cold war” are replaced with a new configuration of world power. What Zakaria argues for in the economic and political realm has a parallel with the work of Phillip Jenkins. The Next Christendom: The Rise of Global Christianity and the Lost History of Christianity. Today’s North American Christian minister needs better skills in listening to Christians in other continents.

Missional church and global Christianity in a post-Constantinian world means that the institutional and corporate church that dominated church life and theological education in the middle to the twentieth century in no longer the default setting for seminarians.

Terry Muck observes that global Christianity and the changing demographics in North America mean that Christian hegemony gives way to Alien Gods on American Turf: How World Religions are Evangelizing in Your Neighborhood.

These realities shape how we encounter Christian Scriptures 1 and 2 classes. What impact would you anticipate?

The domain assumptions about the church and the world shape the way that I have structured my courses especially here at George W. Truett Theological Seminary. The first meeting of Christian Scriptures class this semester will explore our mutual domain assumptions. For instance we will assume that Web 2.0 is an emergent reality. Web 2.0 a term coined Tim O’Reilly to describe the transformation of technology and the Internet. The implications for higher education were outlined by Bryan Alexander . Key to a Web 2.0 perspective is the appreciation of openness and participation. Web 2.0 pedagogy resonates with Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed and bell hooks Teaching to Transgress. The implementation of this domain assumption requires sophistication as Esther Grassian of the UCLA College Library points out.  I look forward to a robust conversation.

I grew up in a small church on the edge Dayton Ohio. Dayton was a northern city with de facto segregation. The black folk were set on the west side, where I grew up. Beyond that was the county where our church was located.  I went to a church related college. There I majored in religion at Manchester College in Indiana. I went to seminary in Chicago at Bethany Theological Seminary. I took a Ph.D. at Emory University in Atlanta.

I have served congregations as interim pastor, associate pastor and member in congregations in Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, California and Texas.

What are your career plans after Truett? I came to Truett last year and I hope that my career plans after Truett as retirement.

How can the course serve me best? I want the course to help me hear the text afresh every day. The church in Texas that is North America today must address the reality of global Christianity.