Peter Rollins - The Price of Happiness

It’s very easy for us to question the possibility of experiencing a lasting happiness.

Can we really find it?

Is it something that we can hold onto for prolonged periods of time?

The answer is likely ‘yes’. Indeed there are many who have dedicated their entire lives to cultivating it, even creating retreats and seminars designed to help others realize it.

However, in psychoanalysis there is a price to pay for happiness: the fundamental compromise of your desire. The more that happiness pervades ones life, the more that individual becomes estranged from their unspeakable passion.

In this way, people like Zizek refer to happiness as the category of the fool. It is the pursuit undertaken by one who would rather avoid confronting the contradictions and antagonisms that lie within them. Contenting themselves instead with a peace that is opposed to chaos, rather than a peace that is hard won via tarrying the chaos.

In this pop-up seminar I’ll be exploring the chasm that lies between happiness and desire via reference to an ancient Jewish parable and the Lacanian notion of the barred subject.

Against Happiness

by Peter Rollins

Streamed live on Dec 8, 2020

Comment: Peter. I was wondering if you could do a talk on the damage done to mental health of kids, and still when these kids are adults, by extreme fundamentalists, especially Calvinists. Here in Northern Ireland it would be churches like Free Presbyterians, Independent Methodists, Reformed Baptists, Brethren. I had to attend a Free P school and I, and others, are still mentally affected. My father was moderator of the Free P church, so I have significant inside knowledge if you need details privately. There are a huge number of people struggling as as a result of their upbringing. Many thanks.

* * * * * * *

Wikipedia - The Graph of Desire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_of_desire

Lacan devised numerous quasi-mathematical diagrams to represent the structure of the unconscious and its points of contact with empirical and mental reality. He adapted figures from the field of topology in order to represent the Freudian view of the mind as embodying a 'double inscription' (which could be defined as the ultimate inseparability of unconscious motivations from conscious ones).

Graph

The graph of desire was first proposed in a 1960 colloquium, and was later published in the Ecrits. It depends on ideas developed originally in Lacan's Schema R, a graph in which fundamental organising structures of the human mind are shown in a schematic relationship to the domains or 'orders' which in turn structure human reality: the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real.

The graph of desire is a 'flattened' representation of a signifying chain as it crosses a pathway Lacan called a vector of desire. It appears as two curved lines which cross one another at two separate points. Each line has a symbolic meaning.

Elements of the graph

The signifying chain begins in a linguistic sign (S) and progresses to a signification (S'), or a linguistic meaning. It can be expressed sententially and has a duration.

The vector of desire is a representation of the volition and will of the split or barred subject ($). Unlike the signifying chain, the vector of desire is expressed metaphorically, and has no duration.

It is necessary to bear in mind the special conception of the subject Lacan means by the $ symbol. The barred subject is the internally conflicted result of the processes of individuation that begin in infancy. In Lacan's account of individuation, the infant must respond to the loss of symbiosis with the mother by creating a symbol of this lack. In doing so the infant is constrained by the always-already present structures of a natural language. There is a certain relief in the summoning of a symbolically present 'mother', but the experience of the mother who returns to the infant as someone-signified-by-the-word-'mother' is nevertheless one of absolute, irremediable loss. Mother — and the world — is now mediated by the Symbolic order and the exigencies of language.

With this in mind, the crossing of the two pathways in the graph of desire can be understood to connote interference and constraint. Desire for the primordial object is not fulfilled except through the constraints of the signifying chain. The vector of desire is metaphorical, substituting various objects for the absolutely lost primordial one, and irrupting into language without regard for the passage of time, or for the particular human relationship through which the vector moves.

Finally, the points at which the vector of desire and the signifying chain cross can be seen as instances of Freudian double inscription. The 'conscious and unconscious' significance of an act or utterance are one and the same, and each constrains the other.

* * * * * * *

Lacanian Graph of Desire

http://freudquotes.blogspot.com/2015/07/lacanian-graph-of-desire.html

Lacan developed his graph of desire in four stages – you find them below. The graphs and the theory behind it can be found in the 1960 essay “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious.”

In: Jacques Lacan, Ecrits, trans. Bruce Fink (New York: W.W.Norton &Company, 2006), p. 435.

The concept of desire is at the center of Lacanian psychoanalysis as a theoretical, ethical and clinical point of reference.

See also:

Introducing Lacan: A Graphic Guide

~ Lacan For Beginners

Free Ebook - 

The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis

* * * * * * *

Happiness and Desire by Peter Rollins

or, the Meaningfulness of Opposition and Contradiction

Abridged Notes by R.E. Slater

December 10, 2020

Optimized Therapies help one become happy whereas Productive Maladaptation Psychoanalysis confronts the contradictions of one’s self whereby one may (mal)adapt to find a less conflicted sense of purpose, meaning, contentment again.

Pete tells of a Jewish Parable to help explain The Elemental Signifier "S" in the Graph of Desire by Jacques Lacan:

In the parable God interrupts two rabbis who have been arguing about a subject for twenty years. Growing weary of the conflict God goes to tell them what the topic of their division means but as soon as God introduces Himself the two rabbis ask God to bugger off so that they may continue arguing about their differences.

What is the meaning of this Jewish parable? First, God is the incoming of happiness which neither want. They want the struggle to discover who they are, not the answer to their difference. Second, the rabbis represent the Torah which presents the interpretive struggle of their context. Without the struggle there can be no discovered meaning which might significantly change their being. And lastly, the removal of God’s Self from the argument is the pleasure of God in allowing freewill beings to gather meaning in order to garner resolve and productive movement into and through their lives.

In Lacanian terms we would deconstruct our idea of happiness against our desire for happiness knowing that it is in the contradiction to happiness that we might find in the struggle of one’s self "that which we are and which we want."

In religious terms God is the One who brings wholeness and peace into our lives. Conversely, the Torah is seen to represent the signifying chain which are a set of meanings or words which convey a form of communication between one to the other. But not exactly in the same ideations but in close approximation of meaningful ideations. (Cf. Signifying chain by Jacques Lacan. Also see, Lacanianism in Wikipedia)

Along this signifying chain, or line of personal meaning, is the process of discovery where we start at one place and end up at another. However, without the process of discovery, of struggle, of opposition, there can be no meaningful or significant “end” of discussion, or change of being, should the process be denied, interrupted, or mediated in less oppositional terms.

It also can mean that once we arrive at a meaningful discovery or deconstruction point in our lives, then by looking back on our past, or on some aspect of meaning we had held as significant, that all those self-placement points of meaning will have now shifted to become either more meaningful or less meaningful in the personal reconstruction process. It is in this way which Lacan is seen in post-structural terms of postmodernism.

Hence, the signifying chain of one’s being is both a process moment of forward activity as well as a retroactive moment of letting go of the past process that was becoming us. Though Pete doesn’t say this, Lacan has identified what the Process Logician Alfred North Whitehead would call a very process moment of “being and becoming.” (Cf. Process and Reality by Whitehead)

. 

.

.

Addendum

While listening to Pete's discussion to the vain pursuit of happiness I thought I might twist it a bit to show how Lacan may easily fit in with Whitehead's philosophy of process. As an integral theory, Whiteheadian thought is by its nature inclusive to any and all parts of academic and biblical discussions. No longer may other 'isms rule such as Plato or Neo-Platonism nor any biblical theologies based upon Hellenised Platonisms (or Scholasticisms, or Modernisms). Process thought is best expressed through postmodern post-structuralism and should continue to be an integrating force far beyond the 21st Century. But it was first best expressed in postmodernism. And so, while we struggle with fear and uncertainty, we must also know that in the bible, in Israelite societies and all societies coming after them, that fear and uncertainty is a constant in human survival. Process thought says to allow it be, learn from it, and build better societies from there. In biblical terms this means we replace fear of life with trust in God's presence in our lives. That we replace division of society because of uncertainty to trust with one another to work together towards a better unity. And that at the last, having gone through common struggles of survival with one another we might also have formed tighter bonds of fidelity and wellbeing with one another. It is vain to pursue happiness when in the very pursuit we deny to ourselves the process of being and becoming which is the very thing we are attempting to artificially create but cannot against the reality of disallowing deconstruction, contradiction, and opposition to shape us towards a more meaning personal identity held with the bounds of societal togetherness. - res

Christian Resolutions 2021 - In the Face of Uncertainty, "How Should We Then Live?"

In the Face of Uncertainty,

"How Should We Then Live?"

Resolutions for 2021

by R.E. Slater

December 9, 2020

"Faith is not certainty. It is the courage to live with uncertainty."

I wrote down the statement above in 2012 as a remembrance to the days of blackness which I had been delivered from; which had suddenly enter my life with an unknown ferocity for nearly an entire year shy one month back in 2011. We all have heard the stories that when the Spirit of God calls it comes in the midst of our cluttered lives with a force which upends everything we're doing. So it was for me from 2011-2012.

At the very moment I was asking God the deep, grief-filled laments He had laid upon my heart, these then became that same moment when a period of spiritual darkness suddenly descended upon me. When God let loose all my spiritual moorings to my past church teachings, religious beliefs, and personal convictions. It came hard and it came suddenly. But not as a turned to atheism or agnostism . But as an atheism to my faith. A distrust of it. Perhaps a hatred of it.

I felt this intense spiritual rupture as soon as God came into my life with a whirlwind of darkness and deep spiritual lostness. And as I stood within feeling its force upon my soul I remember not wanting to be there as all grounds of being gave way. And then, just as surprisingly God left too. He left me as immediately as He had brought me into this barren wastelands. Alone. No one. No thing. Alone. It was a pit of darkness without seeming hope.

And there I was. Day after day, month after month, with this deep burden holding me in a place of unknowing and uncertainty. Normally, I would have fled such a dungeon but not in this period of my life. Here I knew I must stay. And learn. And rejoice. To let go. To receive abandonment. To only be removed by the Spirit when God had chosen my darkness to lift. Until then I was withheld from the Land of the Living where the Holy One dwelt.

More curious, I did not wish to rush the process. To leave this place of unbeing. To tell God, "Enough. I've learned your lessons now let me go." No, the Spirit forbade me to entertain such thoughts. I shut my mouth to listen. To contemplate. To hear the meditations placed there upon my heart. To discern my remaining days against the past days I had lived. To let my wilderness journeys take me where I must go. To not rush the process. To wait like the children of Israel under Moses in a wilderness of abandon. Of nourishment. Of failure. And of renewed faith. Who believed a promise land would some day come to them and their generations but not by their biding until they had learned the lessons God was bringing to them in their hundredfolds.

Heaven-Sent Wildernesses

This place of spiritual abandonment. Of blackness. Where no God lived was where I thrived and grew under the Spirit of God's embrace. I cannot explain it. Still can't. God had left me. He was gone. Nowhere to found. But not His Spirit. Though God had left He had also left His Spirit. I felt the Spirit's comfort during the days of wilderness. Which I know sounds crazy but it felt very "Jesus-like. Very Cross-like" as Jesus cried out "Do not abandon Me, My Father." "Where are You?" "I give my forsaken soul unto Your care." And though Jesus felt His Father-God had left Him, the Spirit of God enveloped His very soul and being. This was my experience.

I didn't like it. It disrupted everything in my life. But it meant everything to me as well. I was in a place to unlearn what I had learned so that I might relearn what I had unlearned in a different manner. It was a deep dive into the very heart of personal belief deconstruction. Of removing religious certainties for faith's uncertainties. Of learning to discern the doctrinal and creedal injustices and untruths I had been taught over a lifetime by gifted teachers having learned it from earlier gifted teachers. It was seriously difficult. And seriously needed a length of time to wander through just listening and learning from the Spirit of God. I could not escape this place until I had learned to undo all my past. It would be a very long time.

It disrupted my life, my family, my work, my faith, my church, my friends, and my family when they chose to slow down and listen. No one wished to sit with me. I had no friends like Job to lament with me, who, as it turned out, were a worthless lot altogether. It was me, alone, in sackcloth, lamenting loss. The loss of a Christian faith I had committed my entire life too. And in the disruption the more curious thing was that no souls were affected around me but my own soul. Whether I was being rejected, becoming unwashed, beheld as fallen from the faith. I know not. With the except of God's Spirit I was alone. It did not grieve me as my destruction if untrue, should be alone. But it did rejoice my heart that this aloneness was also my temple of sanctuary unentered by unholy feet. Here, God and I communed, without interruption, for a very long time.

And when the time came to leave this heaven-sent wilderness of rocks and sand and spiritual hardship I found myself back where I had started but seriously different. "I was no longer who I once was." I had changed but the world I had left was still the same old, unsanctified world of spiritual death and secular faith. One speaking death into the lives of the living. It was then I knew what my calling should be. Not till then. Just then. It set my course perhaps for the remainder of my days. DV (Latin, Deus Volent, "God Willing")

Lands of Unbelief and Calling

It became readily clear my calling was one of guiding other like-minded souls through their own personal wildernesses to the lands of bounty and blessing. Having no personal socio-religious platforms in the church any longer to speak from I used what I had left... my pen and my interests. I had by then transitioned from full-time self-employment to earning a recent Master Naturalist certification from Michigan State University to help me in volunteering with area earth groups, organizations, political organizations, and educational institutions. I had a passion to speak to green technology, green infrastructure, and much, much later, to developing a theology of (cosmo)ecological civilizations.

Thus I had chosen to publicly volunteer my time to the communities about me while at the same time to write and edit my knowledge and training. Having originally retired to write a life list of poems, my Jeremiah-like experience now turned me to developing a traunch of writings concentrating on repairing and respeaking what a contemporary theology might look like if such a thing could be envisioned and written down. At once, it became raw, painful, and sorrowful. But it was as well releasing, revitalizing, renewing. Along the way I learned I was not alone in my burdens but like Elisha had thousands about me having trod the same paths and writing of their experiences (1 Kings 19 NASB) of a God who had left the church to re-establish His own Church again.

At the last, I came to see this time as a gift of God. One that came belatedly in life. Others, like Rachel Held Evans, had gone before me. She was one of the thousands I later came to know, read, and sympathize with; who had take similar Spirit-filled journeys into the unknown to come back and speak out against unchurchly practices of unlove and unfaith.

I look back now and understand that God had prepared a special set of people ahead of time to lead His people who were falling from their faith into religious practices and fellowships of unfaith. Who would speak against the normative churchly practices of hate and judgment to learn to see again their abandoned communities about them as God saw them. I think of Shaine Clairborne's Red Letter Christians whom we heard one day at Mars Hill under Rob Bell.

  

I call this period of the church the years of Trumplicanism or Trumpvangelism. Horrid years of unlove and unfaith. It showed the earthly church for what it was. Ungodly, secular, motivated by racism and bigotry over truth, love, and justice. It was a thing to be condemned and abandoned. Once Christian fundamentalism and Evangelicalism had its place in the stream of life. Today, it has cast off by the ten thousands the Nones and Dones discouraged by the faith practices of their fallen church. To theses God has sent his disciples ahead into the wilderness to lead those seeking Jesus again and no longer the false prophets and teachers of their faiths.

  

In hindsight, I think the wisdom of God has helped prepare the church for the difficult times it has entered into. Not unlike my own lands of waste and barrenness are these conservative lands of unknowing and darkness misled by their own unsanctified leaders. Yet I tell you that a "Faith which is not certain is a Faith that can give courage in live the days of ahead of uncertainty."

“Faith is not certainty. It is the courage to live with uncertainty.”

Though the populist church as turned to follow an opposite path by embracing what they should have let go God has turned many onto the paths of His Spirit. And as a process guy who always sees an open future, I know God will address my wayward brethren's path some day to join us. It may be awhile but in the meantime we pray for their souls and discernment.

Entering then into 2021 I believe we must always learn to live with uncertainty and doubt in all matters of faith, bible, and God. This statement is just as relevant today as it was for me back in 2012. Either we allow the Lord to burn the dross clinging to our faith of Jesus or continue to live under the cancerous idolatries of its faith in the Pharaohs of the land. The Pharaohs whom Israel fled from under a former member of Pharaoh's family, Moses. An adopted son who had adopted the pagan culture of his land but now was led to lead his people into the wilderness to unlearn in order to relearn what their holy faith was about. And by way of a clue let me tell you they learned to love and trust again. Not fear and hate.

Conclusion

And finally, let me say that I would tweak our phrase a bit by saying:

"Great opportunities come with uncertainty."

• Thus and thus an open and relational process-based faith fears no future but the future unholy churchmen would build and control. Men who fear the future, act unkindly and without honor, who corrupt all the good they would destroy. An open and relational process faith rejects the conformity of the church to sin and evil.

• Thus and thus we join together to create fair and equal poly-pluralistic ecological civilizations which are postmodern, post-capitalism, post-socialism - removing all the bad but not all the good found in these systems such as greed and control for benevolence and trust.

• Thus and thus Ecology is the center of a return to humanitarianism and earth justice for all societies. It gives both democracies and autocracies a worthy goal to move towards with one another. It is peaceable, sharing, other-centered.

• Thus and thus the church repents and rejects its unloving bankrupt teachings and returns to the faith of Jesus from the lands of Eqypt.

• Thus and thus Christians abandon the secular world of power and return to the holy worlds of loving service.

• Thus and thus the charlatans within Christianity are abandoned for teachers of the Spirit blessing the world with the Spirit's grace gifts of forgiveness and mercy to one another.

• Thus and thus we, the faithful, live up to the banners and slogans we once claimed with vigor to "walk with Jesus daily" (WWJD).

• Thus and thus we repent of our worldly faith, rip it apart, and learn to see God as love and not judgment. To strip repugnant officious creeds and doctrines of their hatreds and ungodly judgments to see the good, the loving, the beautiful.

• And finally, thus and thus we see uncertainty ever and always as Jesus-filled opportunities to build, create, and lead the church and humanity by embracing the world with goodness, love, and trust. To reject hatred and division. To hold unto lovingkindness and justice for all against the preening religious harlots who speak ungodliness and sedition to the God who loves. 

R.E. Slater, DV

"Thank you Lord for those you prepare who go ahead of us."

"Land of Smoke and Mountains, an uncertain land, a beautiful land"

Eulogy to Terrence Freitheim by Walter Brueggemann

Theologian Terrence Fretheim

Eulogy to Terrence Freitheim

by Walter Brueggemann

November 30, 2020

Upon the death of Terry Fretheim, Old Testament study has lost a great force. Terry was a powerful, influential shaper of our discipline. For a generation, since the publication of his ground-breaking book, The Suffering of God (1984), he has led the way in our work. In his death, theological education has lost a great teacher, for Terry had a way of engaging students without imposing conclusions on them. And the church has lost a great pastor, for Terry’s pastoral sensibility was always apparent to those around him.

Beyond all of that, I have lost a great friend. Terry was my longest-running conversation partner in Old Testament study. He and I, both rooted in the best traditions of German pietism, were twinned together in much of our work. Early on in the commentary series, Interpretation, Terry wrote Exodus and I wrote Genesis. Later on in The New Interpreter’s Bible, we reversed the work; he wrote Genesis, and I wrote Exodus. Over time, enough difference between us emerged to evoke an ongoing conversation about the ways in which the Old Testament bears witness to the action of God in the world.

Through his focus on creation themes, Terry drew the conclusion that God’s work in the world was a part of an ongoing process; thus he was attracted to the categories of Process Theology. He judged, moreover, that in the governance of history God’s action was characteristically in and through historical agents, and not directly. Thus, for example, mighty Assyria could be “the rod of my anger” (Isaiah 10:5), and Cyrus the Persian king could be the “messiah” (Isaiah 45:1).

Conversely, my attention was especially drawn to the emancipation narratives of the Old Testament that I have read through a liberation hermeneutic. Through that lens, God is portrayed as being the help of the helpless when “other helpers fail and comforts flee.” Consequently, as in the Exodus narrative, God is seen to act through direct agency.

Terry’s judgment was that I had been excessively influenced by the “strong God” of John Calvin whom he thought had overstated the direct agency of God. Conversely, I thought Terry, in his embrace of a process hermeneutic, had given away too much of the direct agency of God as sovereign. Surely there are enough biblical texts to argue in either direction, and so our exchange was left without resolution. It is likely, moreover, that our different interpretive stances were complexly formed by our theological upbringing, by our personalities, and by our social locations.

It is likely that Terry had the better of that argument, given how it is that God is known in the world. However our shared wonderment might have been resolved, I am glad to add the following as a tribute and a salute to my dear friend. I want to consider the remarkable characterization of God in Deuteronomy 10:14-18. These verses in the mouth of Moses articulate the glorious mystery of God whom Israel knows in majesty and in mercy. At the outset of this doxology it is affirmed that all of heaven, all of earth, and all of earth’s creatures belong to God (v. 14). The arresting “yet” of verse 15 reverses field and affirms God’s peculiar singular commitment to Israel alone, both its ancestors and its descendants. The interface of cosmic governance in verse 14 and singular love in verse 15 marks the wonder of biblical faith. That same move from majesty to mercy is reiterated in verses 17 and 18. In verse 17, the majestic sovereignty of YHWH is affirmed in a striking doxology. But then in verse 18, the attentive reach of YHWH’s rule concerns widows, orphans, and strangers for whom the necessities of life (food and clothing) are provided by YHWH. Moses readily affirms that the majestic rule of God pivots in attentive care for the forgotten and the excluded.

We, Terry and I, may ask, “How is it that God gives bread?” We know of course about the manna narrative in which God’s bread simply appears for Israel in the wilderness as the dew lifts in the morning:

When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground (Exodus 16:14). 

When Moses is queried about the wondrous bread, he answered:

It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat (v. 15; see Psalms 78:20, 105:40).

The affirmation explains nothing, because God’s gift of bread is beyond explanation. We know, moreover, of the doxological exuberance of Isaiah concerning the faithfulness of God:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater... (Isaiah 55:10). 

And in YHWH’s commitment to Zion it is promised:

I will abundantly bless its provisions; I will satisfy its poor with bread (Psalm 132:15).

Israel is not reluctant in its recognition that God gives bread, just as Moses had declared.

These affirmations, however, tell us nothing about how bread from the creator God is given in the earth. In my conversations with Terry, I had been content to let those claims of bread from God stand as they are, without further explanation. Terry, however, would readily press the point to ask, how that bread is to be delivered. He would likely call attention to the next verse in Deuteronomy 10:19. After Moses makes his sweeping claim for God, the next verse moves, as covenantal faith always does, to an imperative:

You (plural) shall also love the stranger (v. 19).

Israel had been a stranger (immigrant) in Egypt; and should therefore be attentive to the needs of other strangers (immigrants). And from that single mandate, we can freely extrapolate other mandates I take to be tacit in the utterance of Moses:

You shall also love the widow;

You shall also love the orphan;

You shall be sure to execute justice;

You shall provide clothing;

You shall provide bread.

Terry would surely conclude that God’s gift of bread is given through human agency.

So how is God’s bread given in the world?

§  Bread is given through governmental policy. In the ancient world, the king had an obligation to provide food for the hungry (see II Kings 6:16). In current U.S. policy, food is provided through the food stamp program of the Department of Agriculture. Many persons rely on that provision, even if Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Purdue, is parsimonious in his fear that someone will “become dependent” on such food. Imagine becoming dependent on a reliable food supply! Perdue’s gut fear no doubt is that someone will get something for free, alas!

§  Bread is given through a host of NGOs. We may be grateful for the lobbying efforts of such agencies as Bread for the World that relentlessly pursue good food policy in its address to widespread hunger, on which see Hunger: the Oldest Problem by Martin Caparros.

§  Bread is given through the efforts of a myriad of volunteers, often organized through the church, to provide food for the food deprived. In my community, an organization of volunteers provides a daily truck circuit to pick up large amounts of surplus food for distribution in a variety of local venues. Among the many diligent, committed, hard-working volunteers in such enterprises is the indefatigable Mary Brown who presides over this blog platform.

On all these counts — government policy, action organizations, and local volunteers — the bread given by God is made available through human agency. Terry would have no doubt that it is God who gives bread. But Terry would also insist that bread from God is not magical or supernatural. It is rather the faithful, proper functioning of the human community that makes bread available; it is a human performance of mercy, compassion, and generosity that constitute the delivery system for God’s good bread. Thus, as we pray for “daily bread,” we may also be grateful for the actions of human governments, human organizations, and human volunteers who function to deliver that daily bread, most especially among those who possess no bread supply of their own.

For good reason I am glad to recognize that Terry, in his honed theological sensibility, is surely right about God’s gift via human agency. Such a recognition on my part simply adds to the awareness we all have that Terry has been among us a shrewd and discerning interpreter. He understood that bread is an important, indispensable part of the ongoing process whereby creation is sustained and fed. Terry for good reason made a great deal out of the creation hymn of Psalm 104 that sings out:

You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the human heart (vv. 14-15).

Terry was endlessly my teacher who would not let me get by with anything, and certainly not with careless thinking about texts I had overlooked. His great legacy will continue to teach us for many years. And we, in his wake, will be alert to the processive power and beauty of creation. He has vigorously reminded us of our vocation in creation that has been entrusted to us:

God’s way into the future with this creation is dependent at least in part on what human beings do and say. This state of affairs brings human responsibility to the forefront of the conversation. Many of us would just as soon leave everything up to God, and God can then be blamed when things go wrong, tragically or otherwise. A way between pessimism in the face of the difficulties on the one hand and a Messiah complex on the other will not always be easy to locate. But God calls human beings to take up these God-given tasks with insight and energy—for the sake of God’s world and all its creatures, indeed for God’s sake (God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology, 277-278).

Of course I do not know what Terry’s vocation is to be in “the age to come.” But I do know that he will perform faithfully, through his assignment, the rule of the God of justice whom he knew to be the God of mercy.

- Walter Brueggemann

From Church Anew - https://churchanew.org/brueggemann/for-terry-fretheim?fbclid=IwAR1iGmjlmNjUku1jfGDrNMBdV2_zjRPsbw-uVaLlQlktD0CX3IitzVFmFMo

* * * * * * * *

Walter Brueggemann and Terry Fretheim Conversation

Streamed live on Sep 23, 2014

Comments: I quite enjoyed the back-and-forth between

Terry and Walter. It was humorous, questioning,

searchingly deep and overall spiritually enlightening

to how we think of God and the world. - R.E. Slater

ORT on Fretheim w/ Tom Oord and Tripp Fuller

Feb 22, 2019

Comment: I have listened to Tripp and Tom's

podcast and found it easy to listen too, humorous

at times, and very information on the beloved

theologian Terence Fretheim. - R.E. Slater

* * * * * * * *

Obituary: Rev. Dr. Terence Fretheim

https://www.luthersem.edu/news/2020/11/20/obituary-rev-dr-terence-fretheim/

Posted on November 20, 2020

Rev. Dr. Terence Erling Fretheim

January 27, 1936 – November 16, 2020

Terry, 84, died at home on what would have been his mother’s 113th birthday. He had been diagnosed with plasma cell leukemia. Terry is survived by his wife of 64 years, Faith; daughters Tanya Fretheim and Andrea Fretheim; grandchildren Kelly, Shannon, and Emre; his youngest brother, Stephen; sister-in-law Judy; four nieces and nephews; as well as many extended family and friends. He is preceded in death by his parents Erling and Marie, brothers Gary and Mark, sister-in-law LaVila, aunt Ada, and uncle Phil.

Terry was the oldest of four boys—his father was a Lutheran pastor, his mother, a nurse. In addition to his dad, his uncle and his grandfather were also Lutheran pastors. His first steps on the Luther Seminary campus came in 1939 when he was three years old, and his dad was attending Luther Seminary. As a high school student, Terry attended Augustana Academy in Canton, SD, and went on to Luther College in Decorah, IA, where he sang in the Nordic Choir under Weston Noble, earned his BA in 1956, and met his soon-to-be bride, Faith. They were married in August 1956, and shortly thereafter, Terry and Faith moved to the Twin Cities, where Terry took his next steps on the Luther Seminary campus—this time as a student himself. In addition to being a student, he was a teaching fellow in Greek in 1958–60 and earned his MDiv in 1960. Terry received a Fulbright Scholarship and studied at the University of Durham, England, from 1960–61. He was an instructor in Old Testament at Augsburg College and Seminary, Minneapolis, from 1961–63 and assistant professor of religion at Augsburg College from 1967–68. In between those years, Terry studied at Princeton Theological Seminary, taught Old Testament from 1965-67 as a student, and earned his ThD in 1967.

During his 1967–68 year at Augsburg, Terry received a call from Luther Seminary to teach Old Testament. He accepted and was ordained in June 1968—the same day his daughter was baptized. He served the Dennison and Vang Parishes in Dennison, MN, while simultaneously stepping onto Luther Seminary’s campus as an assistant professor, wrote his first two books, and became a dad, twice. In 1971, Terry and Faith and their two daughters, Tanya and Andrea, moved to St. Paul a stone’s throw from the Luther Seminary campus. During his 45-year career at Luther Seminary, he taught Old Testament theology, had a 10-year stint as Dean of Academic Affairs, and team-taught a class with Dr. Paul Sponheim (lovingly dubbed “the Heim Brothers”) for 20 years titled, “God, Evil, Suffering.” He took sabbaticals in 1975–76, associated with Heidelberg University, Germany, and wrote The Message of Jonah. In 1982–83, he associated with Mansfield College, Oxford University, England, during which time he wrote The Suffering of God, and in 1988–89 associated with University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, where he wrote Exodus: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Starting in 1988, Terry spent weekdays in St. Paul and weekends in Chicago when Faith took a job with the Women of the ELCA at the Churchwide office in Chicago. Terry was rostered in the Southwestern Washington synod and was a member of the candidacy selection committee for more than 20 years. During the summers of 2003 and 2004, Terry associated with Tyndale House research library, Cambridge University, England, where he wrote God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation. In total, Terry wrote more than 25 books on Old Testament theology—including Creation Untamed: The Bible, God, and Natural Disasters and his most recent book published in August 2020, God So Enters Into Relationships That…—and countless articles which have helped shape pastoral students over the last 50 years and counting. Terry officially retired from Luther Seminary in 2013 after 45 years of service.

Terry was an advocate and leader in some key changes within the Lutheran church. As a biblical scholar he participated on the theological team that made the ordination of women possible in the ELCA. He was one of the first to help make distance learning a possibility for students who could not attend Luther Seminary in the traditional way (long before Zoom and remote learning was commonplace). And, Terry worked with the ELCA Task Force on Sexuality which opened the way for the full participation of people who identify as GLBTQ, including marriage and ordination.

In addition to receiving a Fulbright Scholarship, Terry was the recipient of the Lutheran Brotherhood Seminary Graduate Scholarship, the Martin Luther Scholarship, the Fredrik A. Schiotz Fellowship Award, and the ATS Scholarship for Theological Research. He became the first recipient of the Elva B. Lovell Chair of Old Testament in 1978. As a Luther College alumnus, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1995. In 2006, Terry was honored with his Festschrift.

He had been visiting professor at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago and both visiting professor and lecturer at the University of Chicago Divinity School. In addition, he had been a visiting professor at Sabah Theological Seminary in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia; Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia, PA; Lutheran Theological Seminary Tai Wai in Hong Kong (twice); Trinity Seminary in Columbus, OH; Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, Egypt; and Candler Theological Seminary at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. The list is long where Terry was also a guest professor or had a lectureship. He particularly enjoyed his guest lecturing and stays in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Christikon, MT, and Holden Village, WA.

Joining in 1972 and continuing until this day, Terry and Faith have enjoyed reading and discussing books monthly with a group of Seminary professors and their spouses with whom they have forged life-long friendships.

Terry’s family will remember the sweet smell of his pipe tobacco wafting through his office, classical music playing in the background, and the clacking of his typewriter keys and later computer keyboard as he wrote, and wrote, and wrote…

The family requests any memorial gifts be sent to:

Terence E. and Faith L. Fretheim Scholarship for

Environmental Studies and The Care of Creation

Development Office – Loyalty Hall

700 College Drive

Decorah, IA 52101

There will be a virtual live-streaming Celebration of Life ceremony on December 5, 2020, at 11 am CST. More info can be found at luthersem.edu/news/2020/11/19/fretheim.

Please share your memories of Rev. Dr. Fretheim in the comments section below, which we are using as a guestbook.

* * * * * * * *

YouTube Videos by/of

Theologian Terrence Freitheim

Other Videos here - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=terrence+freitheim+walter+brueggemann

2014_10_14_Terence E. Fretheim_Prentice A Meador Jr. Lecture_

559 views6 years ago
 Lipscomb University

This video is about 2014_10_14_Prentice A Meador Jr. Lecture_Terence E. Fretheim.

1:17:23NOW PLAYING

That Darned Flood: Fall #3 with Terence Fretheim - Darkwood Brew

1.3K views8 years ago

Sogo Media TV

Failing, Falling and Flying: Genesis Stories of Original Grace -- Week 4: "That Darned Flood: Fall #3" featuring Skype guest ...

CC

20:07NOW PLAYING

Augsburg Chapel Talk: Dr. Terence Fretheim (1968-02-17)

112 views2 years ago

Augsburg University Archives

Dr. Terence Fretheim delivers the chapel talk at Augsburg College (now Augsburg University) on 1968 February 16. This chapel ...

1:17:11NOW PLAYING

Fretheim Lecture in Biblical Theology - Why the Old Testament Must not Go Away

9.6K viewsStreamed 6 years ago

LutherSeminary

Dr. Walter Brueggemann, Professor Emeritus of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary This presentation will consider ...

55:31NOW PLAYING

Walter Brueggemann and Terry Fretheim Conversation

2.7K viewsStreamed 6 years ago

LutherSeminary

A conversation between Walter Brueggemann and Terry Fretheim.

7:42NOW PLAYING

Backyard Bible Study: Introduction to Terence Fretheim's Book

112 views7 months ago

Lutheran Church of the Resurrection

Pastor Dave discusses the text we're using in Backyard Bible Study, and both how it approaches scriptures as well as questions ...

26:29NOW PLAYING

Daily Chapel, September 23rd 2014

1K viewsStreamed 6 years ago

LutherSeminary

Terry Fretheim, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament Portions of this service are streamed with permission using OneLicense.net ...

3:53NOW PLAYING

Abraham by Terence E Fretheim

322 views8 years ago

Tim Lundeen

"Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith" by Terence E Fretheim, narrated by Tim Lundeen. Available for purchase at Audible.com ...

10:17NOW PLAYING

God, Suffering, and Evil

636 views5 years ago

SteveThomason

This Thketch attempts to visualize Dr. Terence Fretheim's article entitle "Something to Say -- About God, Suffering, and Evil.

CC

8:41NOW PLAYING

Backyard Bible Study: Introduction - Conservative vs. Classic Mainline perspectives

140 views7 months ago

Lutheran Church of the Resurrection

Pastor Dave kicks off his Backyard Bible Study with some initial information, including how to get involved with the live class.

CC

1:09:01NOW PLAYING

Dennis Olson - 2016 Fretheim Lecture

927 viewsStreamed 4 years ago

LutherSeminary

Dr. Dennis Olson (Charles Haley Professor of Old Testament Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary) delivers the 2016 ...

6NOW PLAYING

Fretheim, Terence

TheologyEthics

• Augsburg Chapel Talk: Dr. Terence Fretheim (1968-02-17)
  20:07
• Augsburg Chapel Talk: Terance Fretheim (1963-2-10)
  19:09

VIEW FULL PLAYLIST