Two of the seminars Calvin is offering next summer look interesting. They are not conferences, since they run over several weeks.
Liturgical Identities: Global, National, Ecclesial
Michael L. Budde and D. Stephen Long
June 25-July 20, 2007
Liturgies form identities. They set forth what is important, focus our attention, shape our bodies through particular practices, and bear communal memory in ways that form who we are, whose we are, and what matters most in life.
Liturgical practices bear in themselves an intentionality about how to live. This is true not only for the church, but other associations such as the nation-state and economic entities. The nation-state, for example, has its own hymns, ritual practices, saints and martyrs, and sacred calendar. Corporations increasingly construct â??liturgiesâ?? that create brand loyalty and allegiance, and shape the affections, dispositions and desires of people.
This seminar will draw upon traditional patterns of Christian worship in order to highlight similarities and difference, points of convergence and conflict, among formative communities â?? ecclesial and secular. It will provide participants the opportunity to explore how Christian ecclesiologies and forms of worship interact with other powerful practices that shape allegiances, identities and loyalties in our world.
Biblical Studies Across the Curriculum: Discerning Scripture for the Disciplines
James K.A. Smith and J. Richard Middleton
July 9-27, 2007
Over the past decade, a vision of integral Christian scholarship across the disciplines has flourished. But curiously absent from much of this discussion is any robust role for Scripture. While Christian scholars across the disciplines mine the resources of the Christian theological tradition for constructive work in their field, they often donâ??t dig down to the level of first-hand, rigorous engagement with the Bible. Or when Christian scholars do invoke Scripture, too often it is in the mode of â??proof-texting,â?? drawing on a less-than-sufficient acquaintance with the Bible that tends to de-contextualize Scripture, wresting passages from their canonical and historical context, or simply reducing them to propositions for logical operations.
The paucity of biblical engagement in Christian scholarship stems from a lack of opportunity for faculty development in this area. (In fact, it first stems from a certain failure of churches to provide solid formation in biblical interpretation.) Scholars are formed in ways that donâ??t provide opportunities to learn how to read Scripture well, and how to read it as scholarsâ??and along with scholars in biblical studies. The goal of this proposed summer seminar is to provide a faculty development opportunity that will rectify this situation. We aim to bring together a team of 12 scholars from across the disciplines who are eager to acquaint themselves with the best of critical, confessional scholarship on Scripture with a view to its impact for thinking across the curriculum. As such, we believe the seminar will have both scholarly and pedagogical impact.
