The Weekend in Black and White - June 3, 2022

 

                                  The river in spring

                        For Weekend in Black & White

Book Review: 100 Views from This Seat

Author: Leroy Seat

Publisher: 4-L Publications, paperback, x, + 200 pages

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author 

The Rev. Dr. Leroy Seat served as a Baptist pastor, he earned his PhD in theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and was a Baptist missionary in Japan from 1966 to 2004. His doctoral dissertation was titled “The Meaning of ‘Paradox’: A Study of the Use of the Word ‘Paradox’ in Contemporary Theological and Philosophical Writings with Special Reference to Søren Kierkegaard.” He was full-time professor at Seinan Gakuin University in Fukuoka, Japan from 1968 until his retirement in 2004. Professor Seat served as Chancellor of Seinan Gakuin from 1996 to 2004. He also taught as an adjunct professor at Rockhurst University from 2006 to 2014. In his retirement years, since 2009, Dr. Seat has been a blogger at: The View from This Seat: Reflections about Life, Love, Light, and Liberty (the 4-Ls).

Contents

100 Views from This Seat contains a selection of 100 out of his 800 blog posts, with a wide variety of topics, dating from 2010 to 2020. Indeed, as a blogger myself, that is how I came upon Professor Seat’s blog, occasionally leaving comments on his blog posts. The book is divided into the twelve months of the year, each month includes eight or nine blog posts that were not chosen in any particular order. The blog posts address serious religious, ethical and political subjects. 

In Appreciation

One of the factors that has always annoyed me about the academic world is, among some academics—certainly not all of them!--a sense of superiority and snobbery. In reading Professor Seat’s blog posts, I have been delighted to learn that that is not the case! I truly appreciate his clear, concise and hospitable prose, which reflect his academic learning as well as his faith. Even though he, at times, addresses controversial issues, he avoids engagement in character assassination and other disrespectful commentary. 

In this review, I have chosen to focus on three blog posts, which hopefully stimulate readers to purchase this volume, and/or visit Professor Seat’s blog. 

One of his blog posts is titled Baptist with a Small “b,” (pp. 29-30). He cites the Schleitheim Confession, which, among other things, referred to a rejection of violence and capital punishment. Over the years, Dr. Seat grew increasingly uncomfortable within the Baptist denomination because of their movement further to the right politically. In July 2012 he and his wife became Mennonites. 

A second, informative blog post, titled In Praise of Toyohiko Kagawa (pp. 101-102), is one of my favourites. Even though I have previously read about Kagawa several years ago, I found it interesting that he, among other things, developed trachoma while living among the poor, was involved in founding the first Japanese labour unions, and visited the U.S. in 1941 as a peace activist, attempting to avert war in the Pacific. 

The third blog post I appreciated was titled, Remembering Søren Kierkegaard, who influenced Professor Seat. He mentions Vernard Eller’s book, who “emphasized that real Christianity must include “radical discipleship,” to use Eller’s words.” (p. 170) Professor Seat highly recommends Charles E. Moore’s book, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard, which highlights Kierkegaard’s thought, is a compilation of certain exerpts and aphorisms, and enlightens readers on the practical living out of the Christian faith. 

Conclusion

As a “retired” pastor and professor, Leroy Seat continues to be an active blogger, writing about a variety of contemporary issues. I encourage readers of this review to purchase this volume at Amazon for the reasonable price of $5.95, and to visit his blogsite here.

The SingAble Elements Participatory Performance Art Project

 

                          Four of the original members of SingAble-Yours Truly wearing beard

From the beginning, four years ago now, I’ve enjoyed singing in our local SingAble Choir, conducted by Dr. Ardelle Ries, and accompanied by Dr. Roger Admiral on piano (an excellent husband and wife team). We were also accompanied by The SingAble Elements Band. SingAble members passionately celebrate diversity, inclusion and collaborative creativity. We meet every Tuesday evening, at the Faith & Life Chapel, Augustana Campus, and sing for about seven or eight months of the year. 

Our most recent concert called, “The SingAble Elements: Fire, Earth, Water, Air,” was free of charge, although those attending were encouraged to bring a donation for our local food bank. The SingAble Elements included music compositions, songs, poetry, movement, improvisation, photographs (three of mine were included in the project), and oil pastels on canvas. It was a celebration of and appreciation for Earth Month-April. 

The exploration of the four classical elements: Fire, Earth, Water, Air was influenced by one of Canada's esteemed composers R. Murray Schafer (1933-2021). He achieved an international reputation as a composer, an educator, environmentalist, scholar and visual artist. At Simon Fraser University, with grants from UNESCO and the Donner Canadian Foundation, he set up the World Soundscape Project for the study of the relationships between people and their acoustic environment. Readers can visit his Soundscape Composition Portfolio here: and learn more about soundscapes here: and read more about the composer here.

I was quite inspired and amazed at how well our program came together on the night of the Participatory Performance. The program consisted of four soundscape compositions for each of the four elements by local composer, Thomas Merklinger, and twenty songs. The photographs and paintings were also displayed. The audience seemed quite willing to participate in singing the songs along with the SingAble Choir. All-in-all, it made for a wonderful, joy-filled, inspiring evening! We love to sing because we are able! 

Wordless Wednesday: April 6, 2022

 

                                                                                        Underpass mural

                                      For Wordless Wednesday

March is Women's History-Herstory Month

 

March is Women’s History Month

March is women’s history (herstory) month. For centuries, women have been ignored, underappreciated and forgotten by too many men who occupied positions of power. Thus it is appropriate, and long overdue, that women be recognised, respected, honoured and appreciated for their many contributions to the church and society. Therefore, in this post, I’d like to highlight three women of the church who have made significant biblical and theological contributions whom you may or may not be familiar with, and whom I encourage you to either read online about online, and/or purchase their works, or borrow from a library.

Professor Doctor Eileen M. Schuller

Professor Doctor Eileen M. Schuller grew up and studied in Alberta, Canada, and received one of her degrees at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. She has studied and written extensively on the Dead Sea Scrolls. She received her Ph.D from Harvard University in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and has taught at Newman Theological College and St. Joseph's College in Edmonton, and the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax. Presently, she is a professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton. She was the associate editor for The HarperCollins Study Bible, a joint project of HarperCollins Press and the Society of Biblical Literature (1990-1993). She was also an associate editor for the Dead Sea Scrolls Encyclopedia, Oxford University Press (1995-2000), the New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Abingdon (2003-2009), and The Paulist Biblical Commentary at Paulist Press (2013- ). Alongside Marie-Theres Wacker, Eileen M. Schuller was co-editor for a symposium (June 2015) and a volume in the series The Bible and Women: An Encyclopedia of Exegesis and Cultural History. For further information, visit this Wikipedia article.

Doctor Aruna Gnanadason

Doctor Gnanadason is a member of the church of South India, a theologian, and was executive secretary of the All India Council of Christian Women, and vice-moderator of the World Council of Churches’s Sub-unit on Women in Church and Society. She directed the global programme on Women in Church and Society of the World Council of Churches, Geneva and coordinated its programme on Justice, Peace and Creation (1991 till 2009). She holds a doctorate in ministries (DMin) in feminist theologies and a Master’s in English literature and has three honorary doctorates. She now lives in Chennai, India and resources the churches and the ecumenical movement in India and globally reflecting on the role, the challenge and the alternatives offered by the gospel in addressing the impact of patriarchy, caste and global capitalism on the people and the earth. Since returning to Chennai she has been active in the Indian Christian Women’s Movement – an informal movement of Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox women of which she presently is National Convener. Her most recent book, published in 2020, is With Courage and Compassion: Women and the Ecumenical Movement, available with her other publications on Amazon.

Doctor Musimbi R. A. Kanyoro

Musimbi R. A. Kanyoro is a Kenyan who has earned two doctorates: one from the University of Texas at Austin in linguistics, and the other in feminist theology from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She is also a human rights advocate, involved in a variety of organizations, including leading the Global Fund for Women for eight years. In her career, she has served with the Lutheran World Federation, worked as a Bible translation consultant, and served as a Hebrew and Old Testament visiting scholar at Harvard. She is also a member of the World Health Organization. Her research interests include gender issues, HIV/AIDS, among others. Her publications include Groaning in Faith: African women in the household of God (as a co-editor), Introducing Feminist Cultural Hermeneutics: An African Perspective, “Cultural Hermeneutics: An African contribution” in Other Ways of Reading: African Women and the Bible, and “Engendered Communal Theology: African Women’s Contribution to Theology in the 21st Century.” For further information, visit this Wikipedia article.

Brief Review: A Mill Behind Every Stump

Author: Marianne Van Osch

Publisher: Heritage House Publishing Company Ltd., paperback, 187 pages 

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author

Marianne Van Osch is a Cariboo-based author and former teacher. She writes about pioneers homesteading, their struggles of daily survival, with neighbours few and far between, and distant mail service. Van Osch has written stories for the 100 Mile Free Press and various magazines. She has visited elementary schools for interactive historical presentations, and presented short story and book readings. 

Contents

This volume contains a Preface, 43 mostly short chapters, an Epilogue, Acknowledgements, and an Index of People.

Brief Observations

This local history focusses mainly on the Judson family, in particular Louis Judson, who pioneered in the Cariboo region of British Columbia. Louis Judson’s grandfather Noble Roger Judson and his sons Matney and Marion immigrated to British Columbia from Washington in 1910. Louis was born in Ashcroft, BC in 1924. The Judson family originally came from Yorkshire, England to the United States in 1634. Adoniram Judson served as an American missionary in Burma in the 1800s, and translated the Bible into Burmese. Judson College opened in Marion, Alabama and a Judson University in Elgin, Alabama were both religious schools. 

Life was difficult in the early homesteading days. In addition to farming, they tried prospecting for gold, but were not very successful. Louis remembered the first Judson family home in the Cariboo. It was a ten-by-ten cabin, cold and very uncomfortable. 

The children learned how to work when they were quite young, each had chores to do. Louis started milking when he was only seven. He and his siblings Alonzo and Marjorie walked to school in the Bradley Creek area. The school was built by Louis’s dad, Davey Jones, and Walter Van de Camp. Mr. Van de Camp was given the name ‘Pork and Beans,’ because he was full of hot air. Dances were also held at the school.

Louis describes the process of constructing various buildings. When he was only thirteen, he and his sister Margie constructed a log outhouse. In the younger years, there were picnics, sack and wheelbarrow races, fishing trips, swimming outings, looking after traplines, and several other activities. 

Over the years, Louis worked at a variety of jobs. Eventually he had his own portable sawmill, which he moved to a number of locations to work. He tells stories about the mill, the work, employees, and losing his foot while milling and building his own peg leg. 

There are other stories about meeting and marrying his wife Sheila, raising their family, and their house at Ruth Creek, growing older, and the celebration of Louis’s parents’ golden wedding anniversary. 

It is, among other things, is a volume highlighting the strength of community, hard work, and celebrating the history of pioneer life in British Columbia. 

Read the Bible in a Year final: The New Testament

By the grace of God, I finished my commitment to read the Bible in one year, ahead of schedule, on December 23, 2021. If you haven’t already, you can read my previous blog posts on this commitment here and here and here. 

The Process

Some days were very challenging; having to read up to seven chapters. Reading seven chapters and making notes and writing brief introductions to each biblical book added to the time required to keep up with the suggested daily schedule. However, with much discipline, and God’s grace, I was able to finish ahead of the schedule that I was following in the Good News Translation of the Bible. My actual reading involved a rotation of seven additional translations though, including: the New Revised Standard Version, the Revised English Bible, the Revised Standard Version, the King James Version, the New American Standard Bible, The Jerusalem Bible, and the New International Version. 

Notes and Introductions

As I mentioned, I wrote brief notes on every chapter and wrote introductions to each biblical book. Some days it was a struggle to concentrate and write, especially when those days were filled with other commitments. The days I wasn’t able to read the required number of chapters, I spent more time reading to catch up on other days. Taking notes and writing introductions helped me to reflect more on the content than if I were only reading. Altogether, I filled nearly four spiral note books with my notes and introductions! I plan on consulting these from time to time in the future, and possibly even expanding on them for my own devotional purposes; as well as for Bible studies and sermon preparation. 

The New Testament

I enjoyed reading the synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John and noting some of their unique theological and biographical presentations of Jesus. Matthew presents Jesus as the Messiah who has come and fulfilled the Hebrew Bible messianic prophecies; Mark describes Jesus as the God/Man of action with a heavy itinerary of preaching, teaching and healing; and Luke sees Jesus as friend of sinners, seeker of the lost, and companion of the poor; John has a multi-pictured Jesus, including: the Word working with God the Father to create the universe, the bread of life, the way, truth and life, the true light, the Saviour/Messiah of the world who brings eternal life, and several others. 

The Pauline epistles, of course, are most profound theologically, as Paul was likely “the” key early theologian and intellectual of the Christian faith, as well as missionary to the Gentile world. His message—which he was able to preach while considering the specific context of each audience—of salvation by grace alone; and his emphasis on responding to that saving grace through faith active in love; obviously appealed to many Gentiles throughout the Mediterranean world. 

Many of the other New Testament letters focus on specific misunderstandings, divisions and troubles within the early faith communities: including false teachers and teachings, good works, illness and healing, prayer, worship, persecution, the meaning and implications for believers of Jesus’s suffering, death and resurrection. 

The final Book of Revelation is a difficult one. Apocalyptic literature, often written in the context of persecution to give those persecuted encouragement and hope for the future, is hard to interpret. It lends itself to fundamentalists having a field day by coming up with outlandish scenarios of the end-times; and interpreting events that are described in Revelation as referring to present-day events, people and places. Such events described in Revelation are highly symbolic—most likely by design an underground language to avoid being censored by authorities hostile to Christian communities—and referred to events back at the time the author wrote Revelation, not events happening today. Because of the difficult nature of Revelation, Christians were reluctant to include it in the biblical canon. One wonders if, through the centuries, it has done more harm than good to its readers. 

Final Thoughts

One thing I appreciated about this project was the opportunity to read many of the biblical stories in their larger context. I also appreciated reading some of the books that I hadn’t read for a long time. We all have our favourite books, as well as those we tend to avoid. All-in-all, I do believe that my faith has been strengthened by reading the Bible in one year—as has my appreciation for God the Author of the Bible, and for my ancestors, both Jewish and Gentile, who preserved, canonized, translated and passed on the Bible from generation to generation, right up to the present day. May the Bible continue to be a best seller, if not “the” best seller for generations to come! I would encourage readers of this blog post to commit to reading the Bible in one year—you will be blessed!