AKMA’s Random Thoughts

I was shocked to learn that I'm John Calvin!

You'd want to be Newman? Hey, if you ever feel an urge to explain why the _Apologia_ is supposed to be a classic of spiritual autobiography, please indulge. I mean, I recognize Newman's profound impact on both the Anglican and Catholic communities, but I found the Apologia remarkably difficult to get interested in. Among Newman's works, I think I prefer _On Consulting The Faithful_.

Augustine was the only other one on that list whom I could have accepted without flinching. Luther or Wesley... well, maybe, sort of, kind of, in a zillion years. (I'd rather be Charles Wesley, really -- great hymns, less whining.) Calvin, nope, no way. But I think our respective suggestions for which Christian theologian we'd _rather_ be are more entertaining. I cheated, though, and picked someone pre-Nicaea so I didn't have to filter out high Christology and full-blown Trinitarian -- those not being the sorts of things your average Jewish girl affirms. If I don't do that, well, the Christian theologian towards whom I am most sympathetic is quite probably Jean Gerson -- but that's a matter of juggling vocations, not of theological supposition _per se_ -- and the Christian theologian whom I most closely resemble doctrinally is Simone Weil. Or is that cheating too? ;)

That seems brillaintly a propos. I left out de Lubac, with whom Margaret is fascinated, on the assumption that he’s to twentieth-century and not prominent enough, but I’d be happy to attain de Lubac-osity.

The Apologia didn’t get me all het up—it was no Seven-Story Mountain, for instance—but I admire Newman’s example as an intellectual catholic-Anglican who was a dedicated preacher (we’ll leave the poetry out). I just think he came down on the wrong side of the binary choice he felt forced into.

Being a good Catholic boy, I too have the Augustinian code, AKMA and shall post it as some stage. Answering these questions, I don't really know whether the revelation of our theological identities makes us saints or saps but, as far as your and your bishop's expectations go, I'll leave them to you and manage the inkblot side of the business :).

Oooh, I like de Lubac, too, for both professional _and_ theological reasons. The interpretation of God's Word _should_, in fact, be a more complicated task than choosing an ice-cream flavor at Baskin-Robbins. It should also be equally enjoyable. ;) But I have a professional soft spot for any theologian who knows his church history, whence my acceptance of both de Lubac and Newman.

And I'm more attracted to a _via media_, but I actually _do_ sympathize with Newman's reaction to all that "judgment of the world" stuff -- the fons et origo, my friends tell me, of Vatican II's _sensus fidelium_. If I were a Christian _and_ I accepted Augustine as a Church Father, the concept of catholicity would pose a major challenge to any of my preferred ecclesiologies, most of which are way the heck "mystical."

(Speaking of Newman's poetry, I sort of like the "Dream of Gerontius." It makes an especially interesting contrast with T.S. Eliot's "Gerontion." The absence of salvation in the latter is all the more striking.)

Maybe I shouldn't be a Methodist after all, it appears I am Karl Barth.

Hey, how come the Presbyterians/Reformed get *two* theologians?

It's not especially pious, of course, but I love Newman because he wrote some of the most delicious English prose ever. One of the people I was in PhD classes with, Fred Aquino, is a big Newman guy now, on the basis of Newman's religious epistemology, which I always found a bit dull.

As for which theologian, I was Augustine, not too surprising since I did lots of work on him with Bill Babcock at SMU. As for which theologian I'd like to be, that one's easy: Schubert Ogden. No question.