Post-Script - First Graduate-Level Course

Due to my new responsibilities as a graduate student, I have not been able to post as much, but I finally have a small break.  Classes are a little different for us in graduate-level, especially at the university I attend, due to the fact that they run in 8-week sessions, but that is fine.  I wanted to reflect a little today on my past 8 weeks, as it has been challenging but overall a good experience. 

As many of you reading this may know, my course of study is Theology, and the program I am in is what is called a MATS degree (Master of Arts in Theological Studies).   It is something I have been looking forward to for a long time, as it has been 16 years since I have gotten my undergraduate degree.  But, here we are - we have completed the first class, and two years yet to go! 

The first course I took was basically a graduate-level hermeneutics (for those not familiar with this discipline, it is the study of Biblical interpretation) course, although it was under a different name.  The professor, Dr. Ken Archer, was actually good and he was also a fantastic indidual to get to know as a person as well as an instructor.   However, the workload was intense - many, MANY pages of reading, and written responses on practically every chapter as well as an exegetical paper which turned out to be almost 35 pages for me.  However, despite the intensity, it was a good course and I would recommend it to anyone. 

If there were negatives, I would say that some of the theological/ideological views I came across in both the reading and the lecture material involved things I was at variance with.  To put it this way, I am doing this at the same Pentecostal college I earned my undergraduate degree, but it is much different than it would have been back at that time.  For one thing, there is a lot of sympathy in the faculty for what is called "postmodern theology," which essentially at times can be a little too inclusive for my taste (we read this one textbook for instance by this philosopher, Merold Westphal, which was just bizarre - this guy believed that Nietzsche, Freud, and Marx were "prophetic voices from God," and I thought Westphal had been ingesting too many toadstools out of his yard to even suggest such a thing).  Secondly, some of the professor's views were at variance with mine as well on some issues, but the good thing is that everything was discussed in a civil way, and Archer overall didn't seek to have 100% assent for his views even in class - he understood his role as being to equip us as his students with the tools we need to responsibly carry out the task, and in the end I believe that goal was accomplished.  I must admit though that his book on Pentecostal Hermeneutic was excellent, especially since it seems as if there has been a very positive and open attitude on his and other scholars' parts to engage the full Christian community - even us Catholics! - as fellow believers and that we can inspire each other's traditions with mutual respect.  I of course have taught that for years.   That is certainly a BIG leap from my earlier years in the undergraduate program when one of the Missions professors, Dr. Andreas Carrodeguas, was so anti-Catholic and vitriolic that I actually had to go to my faculty advisor to request that he tone down that rhetoric.   And as for Carrodeguas, let me give a little background.  He was a former Catholic priest who, desiring to marry, left the Church to become a Pentecostal, and when he did he got mixed up at the time in Jimmy Swaggart's circle and developed an anti-Catholic attitude that would have even made Jack Chick flinch.  Another Catholic apologist who also is a former Pentecostal, Tim Staples, actually had Carrodeguas as one of his instructors at JSBC, and at the time Staples was at that school, he became a Catholic and was immediately referred to "counseling" with Carrodeguas.  When Staples gave his conversion testimony at a conference we attended some years back, he mentioned that Carrodeguas became so violently angry at the very mention of the word "Catholic" that it was practically impossible to carry on a rational conversation with the man.  I found him to be pretty much the same way when I had him for an undergraduate missions course back in 1995 - although otherwise a quiet man with a great sense of humor, as well as possessing a great intellect, Carrodeguas nonetheless needed seriously to work through some issues.  Thankfully, today at that same college someone like Carrodeguas would not be entertained on campus, and in a sense that is a great thing.   However, I suppose that we need to pray for Dr. Carrodeguas, as a great mind like his can easily be overshadowed by personal biases and bad theology.  In the past several years, not much has been heard out of him, except that I believe he now is on the faculty at a Pentecostal college in Spain somewhere.

I have now been in the process of mapping out my course of action as far as a thesis is concerned, and what I have decided on is maybe doing something along the lines of creating a new spiritually-empowered model for independent Catholic/Anglican ecclesiology with the Catholic Apostolic Church movement of the 1830's as a model to use.  It will take some work formulating it, as there are other factors involved, but I will be talking more about that at length later on.   I have been purchasing a number of books to aid in the process over the past month, and think I almost have everything in my "toolbox" to start construction when the time arrives.   But, at most, that is 18 months away yet.  

I will try to visit a little more often as I am able, although don't expect me a lot!  The workload involved in graduate classes is a little more intensive, and thus time factors don't allow much of the leisure I once was afforded.  Any rate, take care, and we'll be seeing you soon.