Today's the Feast of Lewis, being the 45th anniversary of his death, as well as those of Kennedy and Huxley.

My birth certificate showed up in the mail, which was a relief. My identity remains my own for another day. So all my paperwork is in order, and my files can be put away for another decade. The day was spent digging back into Chapter 1 of the dissertation, refreshing myself with what I had done there so that I could clarify in my mind what remained to do in this next chapter. I had a headache through most of Friday, though, which was discouraging. Still, over meals I watched a few episodes of the 1965 season of The Avengers, which I had found on sale the other day for a mere dollar. I hadn't seen these since I was in junior high, when they were my first exposure to quirky British television and intrinsic British coolness, as well as the more fundamental fascinations of Mrs. Emma Peel in a leather catsuit. The music, the camerawork, the locations: it was all great fun to watch now as an adult, and to remember 1965's contradictions from a 2008 perspective – of people who moved between upscale London buildings with their modern amenities and open-fire village pubs and houses, as both being "normal." The countryside village conditions, from my eye, though, were hardly removed from what I grew up considering "camping," they were so basic. Ireland was the last of the European nations to so modernize, with a lot of folks describing to me in 1997 how different things had been just a few years earlier, and how much more prosperous everyone was feeling in that "Celtic Tiger" economy as it made fundamental changes in the popular standard of living. So watching these were both fun "spy-fi" in themselves, as well as interesting historical documents in indirect ways.

The other morning I attended Fortunate's dissertation defense with Mike and Ellen, which was quite fun because this was one defense where I already knew the material in great depth, which is not often the case in our diverse and specialized dissertations. But Fortunate is an Augustine scholar, among other Early Christianity interests, who dissertated under Barnes, and did an historical project that he nevertheless tied in interesting ways to struggles today in divisions among African Christians, offering his work as a model of an historical pattern worth trying to avoid. The rest of the committee – Zemler-Cizewski, Dempsey, Johnson and Carey – all asked potent and interesting questions from their various specialties and perspectives. Mine was the only "public" question. In my own work, touching on the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, I had been struck by the fact that, as with many Church councils, no one had ever attended a council before, since there had been none in their lifetimes. So they sort of had to make up their own way of having a council. Since Fortunate's dissertation, and the faculty conversation regarding it, was more explicit about the African cultural elements Augustine and the other African council leaders were trying to rein in or modify, I asked about any particularly African characteristics in their councils themselves that Fortunate might have noticed. Most of that conversation seemed to stay in the moral mode, as well as mentioning the African concern with universal perspective or function in the Church, which one can see back to Cyprian in particular.

"Broken Nets": Augustine, Schisms, and Rejuvenating Councils in North Africa
Fortunate Ojiako, B.A., B.Th., M.A., M.A.
Marquette University, 2008.

This dissertation studies the schisms ("broken nets" according to Augustine) [he was using the image of the story of Jesus instructing disciples where to fish, with one casting of their nets resulting in a catch that burst the nets] that bedeviled the North African Church, as well as its moral conditions during the late fourth and early fifth centuries. This study equally shows the rejuvenating nature of the Aurelian/Augustinian councils. These councils sought to regenerate debased and erroneous aspects of North African customs. The sanative nature of the Aurelian/Augustinian councils is not only buttressed from Augustine's Letter 22, but also from the content of the conciliar decrees emanating from the North African councils. These reforms were liturgical, moral, as well as disciplinary in nature. In correcting the African Church customs, Augustine sought to align them with those of the universal church.

The trademark moral rigorism of the African Church that had dire consequence for her is likewise highlighted in this work. Rigorist views were espoused by Tertullian, Cyprian, the Donatists, and even Augustine's Catholic Church. Rigorism is also present in the consuetudo or the so-called African theology that sought exclusion for apostates and also rebaptized former heretics and schismatics. This work adumbrates that nets and broken nets were products of the time. While the Decian persecution of 251 AD gave rise to the lapsi, (and in extension Novatianism) the Diocletian persecution of 312 produced the traditores, which in turn aided the Donatist schism.

Part two of this work explores the state of the North African Church that Augustine and his cohorts sought through councils to reform. This section also examines the Cyprianic councils and the impact of customs and scriptural interpretations on the controversy in the North African Church.

The result of this dissertation will not only show the rejuvenating nature of the Aurelian and Augustinian councils, but also adds its voice to those among Augustinian scholarship that see a greater need and importance of studying Augustine more from his African environment. This is not in any way an attempt to discountenance the importance of other paradigms that go a long way toward a better understanding of Augustine.

It was interesting to trip across this AP article today, and to read it in light of a long conversation I had with Fortunate Ojiako at the picnic on Saturday. He spoke, somewhat in complaint, of the Western tendency to dismiss the African perspective, particularly African metaphysics, which he said is distinct from that of the West, even when operating in their Western Christian context. The African experience, he said, is one of a directly-perceived interaction with the spiritual world, to which Western perspectives have been blinded by materialist philosophies or anemic, self-absorbed spiritualities. So he spoke about the confrontation between Christian prayer and native magic as a constant and dynamic clash of power that was quite visible. It was so much more like some of the Jewish perspectives that I'm used to from the first century, and I just tried to ask as many questions as I could.

So it struck me what an example of Western tendencies this AP article was, in its implicit assumptions that religion was expressive of mere "belief" that had nothing to do with objective reality, and that it was the Western concept of "culture" that was paramount and unquestioned. The article never considers the kind of African perspective Fortunate reported to me, whether Christian or animist, and only quotes those who buy into the Western concept of culture, where the implied African duty is simply to preserve their society and artifacts according these philosophical assumptions. Without our conversation, I would have never noticed anything near like the conflict of perspectives that this article represents, other than the ones it chooses to select and judge on the writers own, undeclared terms.

Christianity Vs. the Old Gods of Nigeria
Sep 4, 1:19 PM (ET)

By DULUE MBACHU

ACHINA, Nigeria (AP) - Born to a family of traditional priests, Ibe Nwigwe converted to Christianity as a boy. Under the sway of born-again fervor as a man, he gathered the paraphernalia of ancestral worship - a centuries-old stool, a metal staff with a wooden handle and the carved figure of a god - and burned them as his pastor watched.

"I had experienced a series of misfortunes and my pastor told me it was because I had not completely broken the covenant with my ancestral idols," the 52-year-old Nwigwe said of the bonfire three years ago. "Now that I have done that, I hope I will be truly liberated."

( Read more... )

Reprinted from a letter from this time:

The steroids (prednizone) have really kicked in today and I've been eating like it was going out of style. That has proved to be the bulk of my day, except for movie-watching. This is the first time I've actually entertained myself while home sick. Turner Movie Classics is going through this huge review of Oscar winners and Oscar-nominated films. I've watched a ton over the past five days, most of which I've never seen before.

These include:

Harvey
The Gorgeous Hussy
The Valley of Decision
Flight Command
The Great Ziegfeld
Unconquered
Casanova Brown
Mrs. Miniver
Lassie Come Home
Mystery Street
Oliver!
2001: A Space Odyssey
Sweethearts
Madame Bovary
The V.I.P.s
The Great Escape
The Magnificent Seven
How the West Was Won
West Side Story
Annie Was a Wonder
Julius Caesar
The Mark of Zorro
The Black Swan
The Guns of Navarone
The Pink Panther
and
What's New Pussycat?

The last I just finished at 10 and made myself a bowl of soup and here I am. In the midst of this quality entertainment, I also watched an episode of Voyager and The Maclaughlin Group this morning. But best of all, last night I left (missing the second half of Julius Caesar, which is great but I'd seen before) to go to Karen and Scott Kirner's place for dinner and some music afterwards. The chief delight of the night was the guest of honour: our own Chrysogonus Waddell, who was up for a conference in Chicago and stuck around to spend today with Steve confering about a project. Josh Warner was already there, Steve and Michelle showed up shortly having just flown in from a conference in Washington, D. C., and then later we were joined by Nathan Warner, who's home from the Manhattan School of Music on his two-week spring break. Erik stopped in later, having been out to eat already. The Warners left shortly after the food, alas, but the rest of us carried on.

Dinner was a wonderful Lasagna, with a successful use of Turkey Sausage by Scott. At the end of the dinner, though, we had a cake and ice cream (with Raspberry sauce) because somehow they'd discovered that Chrysogonus had just turned 70 on the 2nd of March. So we had a birthday party and Chrysogonus was terribly excited, as it was his first birthday party in over 50 years!

The conversation was great of course, and I got to hear of Chrysogonus' journeys this past summer in Kenya and Uganda, where he was speaking to a few gatherings and staying with Trappists in that area. He had lots of comments on the liturgies! Actually, he was surprised by how restrained they were, although they sounded like they let loose at the end! He and I then compared notes on Celtic sites and was asking me all sorts of questions about Skellig Michael, which he said would have terrified him since he was afraid of heights. We then got into these Celtic prayers that Karen and Scott have set to music and heard a fair sample of them. There was also a lot of talk about books, of course. Chrysogonus just recently discovered Madeleine L'Engle, actually, and wants to read all of her work. He said that he finds he's going back and re-reading lots of his favourite stories nowadays and that got me into The Lord of the Rings, which I myself just re-read, finishing that up in the midst of these movies. And we spoke of movies, too, including the great lengths he went to last spring, missing a Holy Saturday service in New York City to see Shakespeare in Love at the last place that it was being shown, with him rationalising to himself that he wouldn't get another chance to see it. He said he was then "punished" because it was the film on two of his next flights.

Wheeee! What fun! So we talked and played a little music until around eleven last night, at which point Chrysogonus had been up quite a while (and still needed to say his evening office.) He was also in a quandry because he was staying in the Bishop's Room in Corby Hall, which featured a well-stocked liquor cabinet, and which Chrysogonus was sure they'd be able to check and see how much he drank of what. This was to him no small quandry. And that was about the last I saw of him. He and Erik dropped me off and now I have to read Augustine for tomorrow.