  Letters to the Editor
To the Editor: In response to your interview with my former colleague, John H. Leith, (and for the record) I can only hope that your readers will do two things. 1) Read what I say about Jesus Christ and about resurrection in my book, Jesus Christ and Christian Vision, published by Westminster/John Knox Press, and in my article, “Meditation on Easter Sunday,” published by The Presbyterian Outlook for April 1, 1996. 2) Ponder whether the church is perhaps not better served by more than one theologian and more than one view on this matter. (Those who want to know more of what I think might take a look at Reforming Protestantism: Christian Commitment in Today’s World, also published by Westminster/John Knox.) Douglas F. Ottati Professor of Theology and Ethics Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education Richmond, Virginia John Leith replies To the Editor Professor Ottati’s one answer to my interview is an advertisement for his two books and his article on the resurrection in The Presbyterian Outlook April 1, 1996. Reading Professor Ottati’s books and articles will establish the point I made in the interview and much more, if the reader understands his theological vocabulary and references. The authority of Scripture In Jesus Christ and Christian Vision Professor Ottati speaks of the Scripture as “the original and seminal expression of the orientation of the Christian movement,” or as the charter document of historical Christian identity. Professor Ottati does not speak of the normative character of Scripture which is affirmed vigorously in all the Reformed creeds. For Professor Ottati, Scripture is only one authority along with many others, and as far as I can tell, these authorities stand on an equal playing field. Scripture does not provide for Professor Ottati the indispensable framework for understanding human existence, from the creation of the world to the consummation of all things. Jesus Christ, Lord of all Professor Ottati concludes his book by declaring that Jesus Christ is the one who guides and empowers the way of life that we follow, but we have no right to make pronouncements upon the ultimate authority of Jesus Christ or the ultimate values of other ways that have come to other people. It is difficult for me to understand how one can affirm that Jesus Christ is the authority for us without also affirming that he is the authority for all people, or to put it more theologically, that he is the Word of God made flesh. Resurrection: from subject to significance Professor Ottati recommends the article on the resurrection that he wrote for the Presbyterian Outlook. This article was adequately critiqued by Professor James Mays, an Old Testament scholar. (1) Professor Mays insisted that the resurrection of Jesus cannot be reduced to meaning. The term, “meaning,” is a favored and elusive device by which some theologians shift attention from subject to significance. It is used ten times in the article and is said to be the truly important thing about the resurrection. (2) The resurrection, Professor Mays insists, has to be understood as an event. The issue is not the uncertainty of the “physics” as Professor Ottati seems to insist. The issue is the objective historicity of the event referred to as the resurrection of Jesus. A responsible case, Professor Mays contends, can be made for the historical reliability of the traditions of the appearances of Jesus and of the empty tomb. (3) Professor Mays concludes his critique by saying “it is amazing that the positions of Barth and Bultmann are both said to be acceptable on this issue” (Presbyterian Outlook, April 22, 1996). Changes at Union Theological Seminary Professor Ottati’s theology represents a 180 degree change from anything that was taught at Union Theological Seminary prior to 1980 or that dominated prior to 1990. No one in the UTS theology department now represents the mainstream of Reformed theology that nurtured the Presbyterian church in this area of the United States and that built Union Theological Seminary. A number of Union Theological Seminary graduates who grew up in the constituency and who represent the traditional theology that built the Presbyterian churches and seminaries were available to appointments at Union Seminary. The group includes some of the ablest young theologians in the country. Yet they were passed over by the faculty. I can only conclude from my observations that Professor Charles Swezey and Professor Douglas Ottati deliberately and intentionally changed the entire theological direction of the seminary. The tragedy is that they succeeded because of a weak board of trustees. Living off the past Theological seminaries are supported in considerable measure by people who have memories of what the institution was in the 1950s or ’60s or ’70s. They give their money today without realizing that the seminary has radically changed in theological substance and direction. Union Theological Seminary traditionally was closely tied legally to its Presbyterian constituency, especially in North Carolina and Virginia. In the ’80s Union Seminary became a free-standing institution with no ties to any church court except with the loosest ties to the General Assembly. Sooner or later the constituency of the seminary will realize that the theological direction of the seminary has been radically changed and that the seminary is now no longer under the control of the Presbyterian church. The constituency will eventually learn this in spite of slick paper public relations and clever theological rhetoric. Writing this letter is a great disappointment to me. I was very disappointed when Douglas Ottati gave up his long-term candidacy for the ministry as he received tenure. I have been even further disappointed by his leadership after receiving tenure along with that of the leadership of Professor Swezey. I recommended Professor Ottati for promotion from instructor to assistant professor, and our guest book testifies to the number of meals he ate in our home in those early days. But our personal friendship does not mitigate my deep concern for the present plight of Union Theological Seminary, much of it due to the theology that he represents. Sincerely yours, John H. Leith Dawn DeVries responds to John Leith interview To the Editor: I have followed with great dismay your coverage of Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. You have misrepresented what goes on in campus classrooms and slandered the good name of a colleague in theology. But when I read your interview with Professor Emeritus John Leith, particularly his thoughts on the importance of the doctrine of the resurrection, I could not resist responding with a quotation from Calvin’s response to Cardinal Sadoleto: It is not very sound theology to confine a man’s thoughts so much to himself, and not to set before him, as the prime motive of his existence, zeal to illustrate the glory of God. For we are born first of all for God, and not for ourselves…. This zeal ought to exceed all thought and care for our own good and advantage, and since natural equity also teaches that God does not receive what is his own, unless he is preferred to all things, it certainly is the part of a Christian man to ascend higher than merely to seek and secure the salvation of his own soul. I am persuaded, therefore, that there is no man imbued with true piety, who will not consider as insipid that long and laboured exhortation to zeal for the heavenly life, a zeal which keeps a man entirely devoted to himself, and does not, even by one expression, arouse him to sanctify the name of God (Calvin’s Tracts and Treatises, trans. Henry Beveridge, 7 vols., reprint ed. [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983], 1:33-34). Is it possible that concern with the resurrection of Jesus that focuses on “any difference to our fate at death or at the end of history” represents precisely the kind of egocentric piety that Calvin here denounces? Yours, Dawn DeVries Professor of Theology Union Theological Seminary Richmond, Virginia John Leith replies To the Editor Layman coverage On the basis of having taught at Union Seminary for 31 years and observed its history for the eight years since my retirement, I would like to state as emphatically as I can that the Layman’s reports of what has been going on at Union Theological Seminary have been clinically exact, however painful they may have been to some who were involved. I would also like to pay tribute to Parker Williamson, who was one of the best students I taught at Union Theological Seminary in my 31 years there. As a student he was president of the Mid-Atlantic Region of the Inter-Seminary Movement and led in the integration of Roman Catholics into the Inter-Seminary movement which was a very significant thing in 1962. Later, after completing his work at Union and earning a graduate degree at Yale, Parker Williamson achieved a documentable record in the struggle for racial justice and for feeding the poor, a much better record, I might indicate, than many of his critics. I admire his courage and honesty. The Calvin quote Professor Dawn DeVries has quoted one of my favorite passages from Calvin that I have commented on in other books. I regret that my statement that some theologians understand the resurrection in a way that has no significance for our fate at death or our fate at the end of history should be classified as being more concerned about our personal salvation than the glory of God. I recognize that the hope of eternal life can be corrupted by human selfishness. I have written and spoken against this. Christian Hope The proclamation of Christian hope is one of the primary ways in which the Christian church has traditionally glorified and praised God. The apostle Paul declared that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, we are of all people the most miserable (I Corinthians 15). Every page of the New Testament declares the Christian hope of eternal life and the lordship of Jesus Christ at the consummation of the world. John Calvin himself emphasized that the hope of eternal life delivers us from bondage to the world. Is there any way that we can glorify God more than by proclaiming that at the end of history human life and historical existence is brought, not to a finish, but to fulfillment as well as judgment? Reinhold Niebuhr in his great book on the limits and possibility of history (The Nature and Destiny of Man) knew that without the hope of eternal life, the resurrection of the body, the judgment and the second coming of Christ, you cannot make sense out of history from a Christian point of view. The Doctrine of God The fundamental issue is the doctrine of God. Every page of the Bible and every page of Calvin’s Institutes proclaims the living God who is personally active in the created orders of history and nature. I do not understand how theologians who dismiss a personal God and God’s personal activity in creation and history can continue to call themselves Christians, much less Calvinists in the light of the authority of Scripture and of the role in Calvin’s theology in our Reformed heritage. Christian faith, as it has been traditionally believed and expounded by great theologians such as William Temple, gives us the confidence to trust God who called us into existence, who knows us by name, who hears our prayers and answers them according to his will. Christians have always believed that prayer was not an exercise in self-development, but an appeal to God who would do in the created order what he could not otherwise have done without our prayers. Every parent knows there are some things you cannot give to a child until the child asks for it. Respecting unbelievers I have respect for people that do not believe anything significant happens when a person dies and that the person simply ceases to exist. I also have respect for people who believe that our planet and its history will some day come to an end leaving no memory that it ever was. I admire the clarity and the brilliance with which Bertrand Russell stated this faith in the Worship of a Free Man. I must point out, however, that Bertrand Russell was not being paid the money of believing people to be pastors of churches or teachers in the seminary. Whenever Christians come to the point they no longer believe in a personal God who is personally active in the created order of history and nature, they ought to honestly say so and not to deceive the people with theological words that have lost their meaning. Scientific teaching Some of the leading scientists of our day, such as John Polkinghorne, a leading theoretical physicist, and Owen Gengerich, the director of the Smithsonian Observatory at Harvard, as well as professor of astronomy, vigorously affirm the personal activity of God and the Christian hope. The issue is crucial. If we cannot say there is hope for eternal life in the presence of death, and that at the end of history God shall consummate all things in his new heaven and his new earth, my response is, why bother with faith anyway, much less maintain churches and seminaries? Let’s be honest I think the time has come for those of us who are ministers and teachers of Christian faith to be clearly honest in what we believe and what we say. If we do not believe that when a person dies there is a hope for eternal life and the continuation of our existence with God, let us say so clearly. If we believe that the universe will simply end in debris without any meaning or significance, let us say so clearly. If we no longer believe that God works personally in the created order, if we no longer believe God knows us by name, hears our prayers and responds to our prayers in ways beyond our imagining, let us say so clearly. Glorifying God If we do believe that God truly raised Jesus from the dead, calling forth faith and establishing the church, if we believe that God promises to us eternal life beyond death, if we believe that history will be brought to its conclusion by Jesus Christ who is its sovereign lord, then let us say so clearly. And in so doing, let us glorify the God in whom we believe. The time has come for honesty. People may be deceived initially by clever rhetoric and the use of traditional liturgies, as for example at funerals, from which the substance has vanished. But sooner or later, they will understand that their preachers are voicing empty words. I appreciate Professor DeVries uttering the word of warning from Calvin’s reply to Sadoleto, but the issue is much deeper than the corruption of eternal hope. The issue before us is, do we really believe in the Christian hope, a hope that it seems to me Professor Ottati’s theology wholly undercuts. Sincerely yours, John H . Leith Thank God for John Leith! To The Editor: I want to commend you for the fine article on John Leith in the May/June issue of the Layman. He is beyond question a “theologian for the Church.” Even his annual Christmas letter to his friends is a profound theological statement! Yet as one who has known him for some fifty years I would like to add something that goes beyond his profound influence as a theologian, and that’s John, the human being. Those who know him only through his books, lectures, articles, etc., really have missed something. John is a true and loyal friend who will stand by you through thick and thin. Now, he’ll tell you in a New York minute if he doesn’t agree with you and exhort you to change your ways! But he won’t “ditch” you. During the sixties when I was pastor of a church in Jackson, Miss., at the height of the racial upheaval there, John acted as a pastor to me, writing me letters and calling me to see how I was holding out and encouraging me to stand for the Gospel. When years later I went through a wrenching crisis in my life – a divorce – no fellow minister in my presbytery offered any sympathy, counsel or anything else. But John wrote me the most compassionate pastoral letter I ever received. It moved me to tears and sustained me in a most remarkable way. Of course, I am just one of a long list of ministers and laymen who know this side of John, and his many years of friendship, counsel, teaching – his “telling it like it is” – I will always cherish. Thank God for John Leith! Robert Lawrence, Greenville, SC |
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John Leith: A theologian in the service of the Church, May/June 1998 The Presbyterian Layman |
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The Presbyterian Layman, July/August 1998 contents |
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