{"id":1365,"date":"2013-05-02T10:35:37","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T16:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/carynriswold\/?p=1365"},"modified":"2013-05-02T10:35:37","modified_gmt":"2013-05-02T16:35:37","slug":"open-letter-to-a-bishop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/carynriswold\/2013\/05\/open-letter-to-a-bishop\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Letter to a Bishop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201cIf you could have me read one article, what would it be? \u2026 Basically, what do you know that I should know?\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>One article!\u00a0 One article?\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s the first challenge.\u00a0 Ask any college professor for one reading recommendation, and you\u2019re likely to get more than you bargained for.\u00a0 However, I know that the work of being a bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America<\/a><\/em> leaves precious little time for theological reflection and academic reading.\u00a0 I appreciated your honesty about what the daily and weekly work of \u201cbishoping\u201d actually looks like for you in the church today when we met a few weeks ago.\u00a0 Human resource management and conflict mediation probably consumes more of your time than indulgent theological study these days.\u00a0 It is obviously important work, but in some ways it represents a loss for the theological vitality of our ecclesial leaders.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad that you told me you\u2019re already reading or have read Deanna Thompson\u2019s book Crossing the Divide: Luther, Feminism & the Cross<\/a><\/em>, and the work that Marit Trelstad edited in Cross Examinations: Readings on the Meaning of the Cross Today<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 I appreciate that you\u2019ve started working through some of the pieces in our Transformative Lutheran Theologies: Feminist, Womanist, and Mujerista Perspectives<\/a><\/em> volume, edited by Mary Streufert.\u00a0 Those books and chapters in them would have been exactly where I suggest that a bishop serving this church start.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And so the challenge of what to suggest you read next remains.<\/p>\n

I could offer a shameless plug of my own slim volume Feminism and Christianity: Questions & Answers in the Third Wave<\/a><\/em>, especially part two which focuses on Christian questions of feminism, starting with \u201cWhy should Christians care about feminism?\u201d\u00a0 I did write it for precisely folks like you who are doing and living the work of the church, maybe people who\u2019ve lost interest in or never understood the importance of feminism.\u00a0 And it\u2019s brief, I promise.\u00a0 You can even get it on Kindle<\/a> \u2026!<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s a little self-promoting, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 I apologize.\u00a0 So I think of the creative and interesting theological work happening online, in what we call the blogosphere.\u00a0 And not just my own feminismxianity<\/a><\/em> blog \u2026 but others here at Patheos including Femmevangelical<\/a><\/em>, Irreverin<\/a><\/em>, and Coming Out Christian<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 There\u2019s great work happening over at Feminism and Religion<\/a><\/em>, and at the Feminist Studies in Religion<\/a><\/em> blog too.<\/p>\n

Hold on, though.\u00a0 I can\u2019t just have you reading primarily white women, even though the synod and church you serve is predominantly white.\u00a0 I want you to read things by Anthea Butler<\/a> and Melissa Harris-Perry<\/a> and Monica Coleman<\/a> and certainly Delores S. Williams<\/a> and Alice Walker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, after you read Mary Lowe\u2019s chapter on queering Lutheran theology in the Transformative Lutheran Theologies <\/em>volume, you should look at Patrick Cheng\u2019s book Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t even think that you should only read theology and only read Christian authors.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t yet encountered the work of Eboo Patel and the Interfaith Youth Core<\/a>, now is definitely the time.\u00a0 First year students where I teach will all be reading his memoir Acts of Faith<\/a><\/em> in the fall, as we begin to think as a community about interreligious cooperation as a defining issue for life in the 21st<\/sup> century.\u00a0 I\u2019m finally getting around to reading his more recent book Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America<\/a><\/em> this summer.\u00a0 Interfaith cooperation is the only way that we will find a way to live together, advance the common good, and alleviate mounting local and global conflicts in the decades to come, and as a faith leader, you are primed to serve your synod in figuring out how to do that responsibly.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So I want to apologize to you, Bishop, because I just can\u2019t recommend an article for you to read.<\/p>\n

What do I know that you should know?\u00a0 I know that our church is stronger when leaders like you ask questions like \u201cwhat should I be reading next?\u201d\u00a0 I know too that there isn\u2019t just one author, one voice, one perspective that you need to read.\u00a0 I know that you need to listen broadly to women of color, our queer neighbors, our nonChristian and even nonreligious friends in order to figure out what role the Lutheran tradition plays in equipping people to live meaningful lives of service to others in a complicated and messy world.<\/p>\n

I also know that you should be online as much as you are in people\u2019s homes and lives.\u00a0 Because that too is where the faithful live and work and struggle.\u00a0 So much creative, constructive, honest, and challenging writing and thinking is going on here today, and I think you should follow some of these hyperlinks (they are the new footnotes!) and even get into the thick of Twitter<\/a> as one more way to engage the messy world that social media is reflecting.<\/p>\n

The ELCA website on interreligious relations quotes Romans 12:18 saying \u201cIf it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.\u201d\u00a0 It then goes on<\/a> to say:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe reside as Lutheran Christians in\u00a0a rich pluralistic world\u00a0where people maintain sometimes conflicting opinions, moral standards, social perspectives, political allegiances, and religious fidelities.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And in the spirit of Martin Luther himself who embraced doubt and struggle, the anfechtung<\/em> that is life lived in relationship with God and in community with other saints and sinners, I confess that I just don\u2019t have an answer for you.<\/p>\n

I cannot recommend just one article for you to read.<\/p>\n

Hoping for forgiveness and looking forward to conversation,<\/p>\n

Caryn<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf you could have me read one article, what would it be? \u2026 Basically, what do you know that I should know?\u201d One article!\u00a0 One article?\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s the first challenge.\u00a0 Ask any college professor for one reading recommendation, and you\u2019re likely to get more than you bargained for.\u00a0 However, I know that the work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1142,"featured_media":501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,8,7,6],"tags":[240,436,434,51,198,433,432,435,200,83],"class_list":["post-1365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianity","category-feminism","category-islam","category-lgbt","category-race","tag-anthea-butler","tag-bishop","tag-deanna-thompson","tag-elca","tag-feminist-theology","tag-interfaith-youth-core","tag-lutheran-theology","tag-marit-trelstad","tag-mary-streufert","tag-melissa-harris-perry"],"yoast_head":"\nOpen Letter to a Bishop<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cIf you could have me read one article, what would it be? ... 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