Walter Wink, 76, a world-class biblical scholar and non-violent practitioner, crossed over to God on May 10 at his home in Western Massachusetts. Following a slow decline, he had been in hospice for several [...]]]> Courtesy of Bill Wylie-Kellermann, writer, community activist, and pastor of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Detroit.

Walter Wink, 76, a world-class biblical scholar and non-violent practitioner, crossed over to God on May 10 at his home in Western Massachusetts. Following a slow decline, he had been in hospice for several weeks in the company of his beloved June and their family.

As a first year seminarian in New York City, more than 35 years ago, I was fortunate to have Walter as my New Testament instructor. In a seminar session on the “pearl of great price” in Matthew, I have a vivid memory of him breaking the discussion so we could go round the circle and each reply to the question: “For what would you be willing to die?” I don’t so much recall my own halting answer, as the depth of the question he understood was put to us by the text. It’s since become my conviction that no one should escape seminary (or baptismal preparation for that matter) without facing with that query.

Which is to say he was himself an engaged scholar, connecting the academy with the risk of the streets. While filling his first teaching post at Union Seminary in New York he was simultaneously serving on the national steering committee of Clergy and Laity Concerned about the War in Vietnam (1967-76).

He was notorious for foundation-shaking works. When I met him, Walter was a rising star in the biblical guild, on the fast track at Union. Then he published a little polemical book called The Bible in Human Transformation (1973) which made bold to declare, “Historical biblical criticism is bankrupt.” It assailed the myth of scientific objectivity, the disembodied approach which kept the text at arms length and pre-empted commitment. In many respects it anticipated the contextualizing hermeneutics of feminist and liberation readings, but it didn’t win him friends in the academic guild.

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In this comprehensive collection of his work, Craig Keen’s voice emerges as that of a theologian who has indeed learned to whistle. In a day when much of what passes for academic “theology” is careful to [...]]]> “In this dark, when we all talk at once, some of us must learn to whistle.”

In this comprehensive collection of his work, Craig Keen’s voice emerges as that of a theologian who has indeed learned to whistle. In a day when much of what passes for academic “theology” is careful to maintain a safe distance from any determinate act of faith or work of praise, Keen evinces a single-minded determination to think and to speak, to write and to live doxologically. And whether writing or lecturing, teaching or conversing, Keen understands theology to be nothing less than an invitation to work out one’s faith with fear and trembling.

Throughout this volume Keen argues that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus disrupt all metaphysical attempts to determine the reality of “God,” and suggests instead that theology is to be done liturgically and eucharistically–as the work of a people whose labor is carried out with open hands, free from all attempts to grasp and control. Keen discusses doctrinal issues–the Trinity, incarnation, creation–as well as a number of critical theological concerns–church and culture, justice, holiness, Christian education–in this light. The result is a profound set of reflections on the ways in which the word of the cross simultaneously transgresses our constructions of “God” and gives us to live transgressively in love.

“We’ve come to expect from Craig Keen that he will make things theological more difficult and complex than we thought they were. Then, after inviting us to accompany him in several unfamiliar paths, he makes us more trusting of the gospel without insisting that we eschew the complexity or arrive at a presumptuous conclusion. Masterful teacher that he is, he proffers only accompaniment, in all the richness of that term, knowing that each one will find the way only by being found by the Way. This is the method of these essays. What they also reveal is a writer whose humility and deference to God’s grace is palpable holiness. Would that this holy way could spread among theologians.”
- M. Douglas Meeks
Cal Turner Chancellor Professor of Theology and Wesleyan Studies
Vanderbilt Divinity School

“Talk of self-involving knowledge and performative speech has become so widespread in recent years that I almost hesitate to use it. But in relation to Craig Keen’s work, there is really no alternative. Keen’s writing is animated by a deep personal desire for an authentically kenotic existence, and a longing for the coming of a community of women and men who understand that they cannot live until they die. There is pain and anguish in these essays but there is also well-founded hope. I cannot read them without being reminded very forcibly of the crisis theology of the young Karl Barth. This is a book to be read and savored-and read again.”
- Bruce McCormack
Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology
Princeton Theological Seminary

Craig Keen is Professor of Systematic Theology at Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, California.

Poet Christian Wiman on Love, Faith, and Cancer from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Since archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann began investigating the site of Mycenae in Greece in 1874, excavations have focused on the citadel itself while work in the surrounding area has been [...]]]> The Getty Villa
Date: Thursday, February 23, 2012
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Getty Villa, Auditorium
For tickets, click here.

Since archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann began investigating the site of Mycenae in Greece in 1874, excavations have focused on the citadel itself while work in the surrounding area has been limited to cemeteries and a few buildings. Recent systematic geophysical surveys combining ground-based remote-sensing methods and digital technology have traced and mapped visible and buried structures in the vicinity and pointed to the existence of another urban center outside the city walls. Christofilis Maggidis, field director of the excavations at Mycenae, shares his research about the discovery of the “Lower Town,” the numerous domestic and commercial buildings, and the thousands of artifacts—including weapons, jewelry, vases, and metal and stone tools—recovered from this preeminent Greek Bronze Age site.

Born in Greece, Christofilis Maggidis received his education in the Classical Lyceum of the Anavryta Model School and at the University of Athens, and he received his Ph.D. in classical archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994. He has held numerous fellowships, including a postdoctoral grant at Brown University. In 1999 he was elected to membership in the Athens Archaeological Society, and in 2001 he was appointed to his current position: Christopher Roberts Professor of Archaeology at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His main research and teaching interests focus on Aegean prehistory, especially Minoan and Mycenaean pottery, architecture, religion, and socioeconomic structure; classical sculpture and architecture; and archaeological methodology and interpretation. Maggidis is an active field archaeologist with many years experience at major archaeological sites in Greece including Thera, the Idaean Cave and Archanes in Crete, and Mycenae, where he is currently field director and assistant to the director of the excavations.

Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo.

This video is a collaboration between Sheldon Neill and Colin Delehanty. All timelapses were shot on the Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon L and Zeiss CP.2 Lenses.