Father Cantalamessa (The Preacher to the Pope)

Here are the promised pictures of Raniero Cantalamessa's visit to Asbury along with a digital short to give you a taste of the events.

Our first interaction with Cantalamessa was in a thirty minute Question and Answer session that Dr. Baucum set up for the Beeson students and a few other guests.

The picture shows how genuine this man is. He was a joy to hear.

I admit that I wanted him to talk more about what it's like to have papal preaching duties, but that wasn't the purpose of his visit. He didn't say much about that part of his vocation (he was appointed to this position, by the way, by the late Pope John Paul. He was retained by Pope Benedict). His purpose in coming to Asbury was to talk about preaching as it relates to our ministries . . . hence . . . no need to drag the Pope into things!

I asked him to talk about the use of allegory in sermons and how to recover it in approriate ways for preaching. He is a Patristics scholar by training (he taught at the University of Milan for a time). His answer was, essentially, that it just takes some wisdom and some common sense; that a preacher must always be careful not to abuse interpretation whether allegory was being used or not.

His understanding of what it takes to interpret scripture kept reminding me of my mother's use of scripture, even though she studied scripture very differently than Cantalamessa. She didn't bring a Ph.D. to the table, but she brought the same spirit to scripture as this man. Over and over I heard echos of my mother's understanding of how God blesses scripture and people and the interaction of the two.

In Bryan Bucher's blog he mentions how amazing it is that the papal pastor was asked to speak at a conservative Methodist seminary in the hinterlands of Kentucky. He's absolutely right. What's even more amazing is that Cantalamessa accepted. He has made it part of his mission to work for Christian unity . . . and that warms the cockles of my heart of Stone-Campbell.

If pictures are worth a thousand words, then this video might be worth seventeen or eighteen words. There is nothing funny in it. No trains will burst onto your screen. I just thought it might be nice to catch a snippet of the action with video. If you're two minutes ahead of schedule today, go ahead and check it out. I also included a little clip of the worship leader, Matt Maher.

The Pope's Preacher

I am, of course, working on my disseratation this week--but not much on Tuesday. On Tuesday I will have the opportunity to hear Raniero Cantalamessa lecture on preaching. Cantalamessa is the preacher to the papal household. You can find out a bit more about him by following this link: Papal Preacher.

We Beeson students get to hear two lectures from him. He will also preach in chapel. I'm looking forward to finding out more about him and from him. My understanding is that he is a charismatic Roman Catholic (which is quite different, I suspect, from a charismatic pentecostal). His emphasis on the Holy Spirit is obvious in his books, two of which we have read for classes here at Asbury. I've liked his books.
Also on tap for this week is my first opportunity to preach in Dr. Baucum's class. That will be on Thursday. I will, of course, try to get some pictures of all these things for the blog.

The dissertation is the main thing now. All of the papers, sermons, books and assignments for classes have to be scheduled in and around the dissertation work. Those assignments essentially provide a break from the unending searching through books that is dissertation work.

Right now I'm trying to define the "kingdom of God." Which is silly. Jesus didn't define it. He told us what the kingdom is like. He lived in a kingdom way so we could see how it works. But he never gave us the kind of list that we could use to look at a person and be sure of his or her citizenship in the kingdom.

Alexander Campbell (our John Wesley, for those of you who are Methodists...or even if you're a Christian church person!) seemed quite sure who was and who was not in the kingdom. He was much better at seeing things in black and white than I am. He lived in a different time, though. In his day he was making bold moves by including more Christians in the kingdom, not just a denomination or two.

In our day I've been won over, however, by the likes of Steve Chalke, Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., and Dallas Willard. If we follow their understanding of the kingdom then we have simply to do the things we think Jesus would do with anyone (of any stripe) who will join in. We become less concerned with who is in and who is out, and more concerned with sharing the knowledge of Christ while we share the labor of Christ. This fits best with some of the things we do at Grandview, things like the Interfaith Hospitality Network, where we wind up serving alongside people who might not call themselves Christians.

Besides "defining" the kingdom, I'm trying to uncover specific ways churches "reach out in relationships." The best person to read on that topic appears to be Steve Sjogren, who planted a church in Cincinnatti and who wrote the book, "Conspiracy of Kindness." His book "The Perfectly Imperfect Church" is good too. Simple . . . but good (or, maybe it's good because it's simple).