A book worth discussing: Leonard Hummel, Clothed in Nothingness.

Clothed in Nothingness: Consolation for Suffering. By Leonard M. Hummel. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004, 201 pages. Paper. $18.00.

Leonard Hummel's book Clothed in Nothingness: Consolation for Suffering is arguably the first monograph specifically on Lutheran pastoral theology since Martin Marty's Health and Medicine in the Lutheran Tradition, published by the Park Ridge Center for Health, Faith and Ethics in its denominational series published in the 1980s. (1) In this approach. Hummel joins pastoral theologians from other traditions, Nancy Gorsuch (2) (Reformed) and Pamela Couture (3) (Wesleyan), in contributing a volume from a distinct denominational perspective. Although Hummel is careful to bring critical questions to this enterprise, he walks a fine line between investigating the distinctiveness of his given tradition, and apologetic. How well does he succeed in navigating this? What is the role of apologetic in pastoral theology?

Hummel grounds his theology of consolation both in the Lutheran theological tradition, particularly in what he identifies within that tradition as a "predilection for what is finite, fragile, and human," and in contemporary pastoral theology more generally, with its emphasis on the human situation and human suffering as its starting point for all theological reflection. The title "clothed in nothingness" is drawn from Luther himself:

Therefore our life is simply contained in the bare Word; for we have
Christ, we have eternal life, eternal righteousness, help and
consolation. But where is it? We neither possess it in coffers nor hold
it in our hands, but have it only in the bare Word. Thus has God clothed
his object in nothingness. (xii) (4)

He further differentiates between tradition as it claims to be "true," articulated in the form of doctrine, and lived religious tradition as it is "real"--that is, practiced by Lutherans seeking consolation for actual suffering. He uses both of these sources, doctrine and lived tradition, to understand the contributions of the Lutheran theological tradition to an understanding and practice of consolation for suffering.

Hummel explicitly states that he is not undertaking here to propose a grand theological project, for example a pastoral theology of justification or a theology of the cross, nor is he proposing a prescriptive pastoral theology based on Luther and the Lutheran Confessions per se. His aims seem more modest, and therefore also more postmodern, rooted in the particularity of the everyday lives of his research subjects: "an effort to understand the experience of suffering and consolation in the lived religion of a few members of the Lutheran tradition," bringing "the lens of tradition to their experiences to determine what that lens clarifies and what it obscures" (p. 17).

In his review of how consolation came to be viewed and to function historically in the Lutheran tradition, as a "gift from God that fortifies sufferers" (p. 21), Hummel argues with those who would seem to understand consolation as a private, world-avoiding matter between God and believers. He attempts to show how Lutheran tradition affirms the mediation of consolation by human carers, the "priesthood of all believers," and embodied in human means--the ministries of word and sacrament: preaching and pastoral care, and working for the common good with a "confident and helpful worldliness" (p. 44).

At the center of the book is a qualitative research study of seven Lutherans whose lives have been significantly touched by suffering or, using Kenneth Pargament's language, (5) by a "significant negative event" (p. 49). Hummel takes an ethnographic research approach, characterized by conversation and collaboration with his research subjects, whom he calls his "co-researchers." This method, increasingly adopted in social scientific and now also pastoral psychological research, aims at a nuanced and rich understanding of the particularities of research participants' experiences, a "thick description," to quote anthropologist Clifford Geertz, (6) rather than a sweepingly generalizable or universal theory. As such, Hummel claims results that are "not meant to be conclusive, but suggestive--the first step in an ongoing practical theological study in the relationship between tradition and lived religion not only among Lutherans, but also among members of other religious traditions" (p. 50). Following Don Browning's method, set forth in A Fundamental Practical Theology, (7) this research is intended to be "value active" rather than value neutral, seeking "to challenge and to be challenged by the subjects of his study" (p. 50). Qualitative research of this kind is guided not by a hypothesis, as in quantitative research, but by an open-ended research question. Hummel's overarching question is: What is "the relationship between the co-researchers' lived religious experience and the normative teachings of their tradition"? (p. 53)

It should be noted that Hummel does not employ a pure qualitative approach. His method departs from entirely open-ended forms of postmodern, constructivist research in several ways. He uses semi-structured interviews, in which he maintains some control over the flow of the research dialogue. He also administers traditional quantitative instruments to amplify his interpretation of the interview data (p. 53)--although he does so as a means of triangulation, seeking corroboration from additional sources--and he does share these ratings with his participants and invites their interpretations of those results.

The greatest departure from purely qualitative research is Hummel's decision not to return to his subjects with his findings for their continued engagement and critique of his interpretations, a process commonly called "checking back." His reasoning, following German sociologist Regina Sommer and other European researchers, (8) was that to have done so was to move from the role of researcher to "quasi-therapist" (p. 68). However, this begs the question whether all interpretation must be therapeutic, or, indeed, whether therapeutic interpretation itself is somehow too dangerous to share with the client. Contemporary schools of psychoanalysis, like contemporary qualitative researchers, stress the importance of intersubjectivity and shared exploration rather than interpretation. (9) In this way, Hummel might be challenged to include his "co-researchers" more deeply in subsequent stages of the research beyond the interview phase, inviting their feedback on his summaries of the interview data and his conclusions.

Hummel further keeps one foot in the modernist camp, even as he takes seriously postmodern critiques and questions, by taking up a dialogue throughout the book with Kathryn Tanner's book Theories of Culture. (10) He contends, contra Tanner, that even in a postmodern age there still is validity to the concept of a religious--in this case, Lutheran--tradition and that the Harnackian metaphor of the "red thread" (11) still can be fruitfully applied to the writings of Luther and the Book of Concord as they continue to inform contemporary Lutheran thought, identity, and behavior. Here the question of an apologetic approach raises the further problem, To what degree can an exponent and practitioner of a given religious tradition fairly critique that tradition? Hummel's work perhaps offers an answer that straddles the modern/postmodern divide: While there may be bias (and where is there not?), who would be better attuned than a researcher from within the tradition, especially if using at least quasi-qualitative research where some intersub-jectivity is assumed, to the nuances and details of interview partners' expressed beliefs and experiences? Taking Tanner's critiques seriously, he poses the questions: "What does analyzing lived religion through the lens of that religion's tradition reveal? What does it obscure?" (p. 73)

Hummel is interested in the particularities of Lutherans' beliefs as they are lived in real life. "No one's beliefs and practices are carbon copies of any tradition" (p. 79). And yet, as his interviews demonstrate, those formed in the Lutheran tradition (Bildung) since birth (p. 132) do seem to differ somewhat in their worldview from the one participant who married into the church in adulthood and who retained both Christian Science and Baptist beliefs.

Boundaries of the tradition are therefore more fluid than the most orthodox respondents, as self-identified, tended to think. Hummel finds in his data evidence of "permeable boundaries and other threads" as sources of consolation for suffering (p. 80) besides the red thread of sixteenth-century Lutheran doctrine. Examples include his interviewee Charles's use of the idea of Gelassenheit, a state of mystical surrender to the will of God, appropriated into Lutheran Pietism but with roots in the Anabaptist tradition; Ruth's reliance on traditional African American approaches to suffering, especially a belief in God's active involvement and control over the affairs of this world and consolation in the belief that "God is in charge" (p. 86); and Oscar's sense that his upbringing as a Lutheran actually endowed him with some positive rewards--leaning toward a "victory theology" in which the faithful may be rewarded by outward signs of God's favor. At the same time, the feeling of being trapped in sin, the subjective experience of Anfechtung that so plagued Luther, and the deep unease generated by the fear of the "hidden side of God" and God's "alien work," while clearly consonant with Lutheran theological categories, warred against the experience of consolation for Robert, Allison, and Ruth: "God is frightening" (p. 91). Julia's comments, in contrast, were an example of "a kind of theology of the cross in claiming that she believed that God could bring light to her darkness, bring some creation out of her experience of chaos" (p. 94). However, she distinguished clearly between her suffering and the will of God, stating, "Christ's suffering in life and on the cross is related to a gift of grace from God. It has nothing to do, in my mind, with the suffering that would happen to a human being because of our relationships or illness or whatever" (p. 95).

In summary, Hummel's research leads him to the following assertion:

The theology of the cross and suffering in the Lutheran tradition is
complex, nuanced, and varied. It teaches--or more accurately warns--that
God works in an alien manner by sending suffering. It also teaches--or
proclaims--that God cares for those who suffer and dissuades them from
dwelling on God's alien work. The reports of these seven Lutherans
reveal similarly complex, nuanced, and varied understandings of the
relationship between God and human sufferings. Neither those who make
correlations between their negative events and the will of God, nor
those who deny the possibility of such correlations, express beliefs
outside the norm of their tradition. Furthermore, most of them expressed
their beliefs with a sense of personal urgency and earnestness, focusing
on them for significant portions of their interviews. In their lived
religion, the will of God, their suffering, and all suffering, was a
lived reality. (p. 97)

Hummel further stresses the importance of practices to mediate the negative effects of belief in a theology that holds the tension between God's salvation and God's condemnation (p. 98): reading comforting passages in the Bible, hymns received as gifts from the tradition, and, for one respondent, the context of a new, welcoming congregation, including the sacraments and the experience of the priesthood of all believers. A "priest-psychiatrist" also played an important role for one respondent, holding implications for the importance of the integration of psychology and spirituality in pastoral counseling and psychotherapy.

Hummel further investigates responses to consolation, including valuing creation, strength to face difficulties, learning from one's mistakes, and recognizing the sacred in the secular. He also identifies systemic social factors that influence the experience of consolation and tribulation--loss of church community after a divorce, failures of the health-care system, economic stresses of single motherhood, the impact of a social position of powerlessness on women's depression (p. 117, citing Susan Dunlap (12)), and the effects of a "punishing economic system" (p. 118) on both women and men.

In recapitulating his research, Hummel states that the false dichotomy between beliefs and practices is now "undone" by his findings (p. 123). His research might be summarized that Lutherans' beliefs and practices around consolation for suffering are less tied to concepts of doctrinal purity and congruence with a received textual tradition--although lifelong Lutherans tend to be able to describe their experiences in reference to those religious norms and beliefs--than what those who call themselves Lutherans actually do. Whatever the "Lutheran tradition" is, then, it is more complicated than a series of doctrinal assertions. As Hummel cites religious historian David D. Hall's "contention that multiple narratives inform religious lives," (13) lived religion is "'messier' than any received tradition" (p. 131). Hummel returns to the modern/postmodern fence, contending (helpfully, I believe) that

I have confounded post-structuralist sensibilities by indicating that
there is something like a metanarrative of tradition informing the
beliefs and practices of most co-researchers. At the same time, I
believe that I have also confounded post-liberal sensibilities by
bringing to attention a medley of incongruent traditions, voices, and
experiences at work in their lives. To say it differently, my study
reveals that there may be something like a red line of tradition to be
found in living religion, but that red line is invariably broken or
twisted or braided with other threads. (p. 131)

Hummel concludes this consideration of the role of tradition by engaging in dialogue with concepts of consolation in two other traditions, Wesleyan and Reformed, respectively, through the works of Couture and Gorsuch cited above. He finds parallels in feminist writers' critical appropriations of their traditions with the Lutheran theology of the cross, especially as elaborated by feminist Lutheran theologian Mary Solberg, (14) Sharon Thornton, (15) and the Lutheran Pietist August Hermann Francke, (16) in addressing the invisibility of disenfranchised persons in poverty. From these sources, he argues that to advocate for justice and empowerment is another mode of consolation by addressing the root societal causes of oppression and suffering. He contends, on the other hand, with Gorsuch's Reformed radical separation of divine and human agency, asserting with Luther that "the infinite may be born 'in, with, and under' the most finite forms of consoling ministries" and that "the Lutheran perspective on consolation is that pastoral care is itself the revelation of God" (p. 141).

In his conclusion, Hummel reaffirms Luther's words that the consolation of God is "clothed in nothingness" (p. 141)--the "bare word"--not in theology per se but in Word and Sacrament (citing Jane Strohl (17)), the promise of God repeated by human lips over the ages, and by the practices of the faithful community that, although ephemeral as time, communicate hope and encouragement.

To return to the question of the role of apologetic in pastoral theology, Hummel navigates this inquiry into a specific tradition's sources of consolation with care and balance. If this book were seen only as an examination of the effect of the Lutheran tradition on the consolation for suffering of Lutheran believers, Hummel's aims might be rightly criticized as unduly insular and of little account to Christians (or others) outside the Lutheran fold. To the extent that Hummel seems at times to lean toward the side of defending Lutheran modes of consolation, this may be a danger. But those instances are few. Perhaps an enduring value of this book is precisely in Hummel's attempt to propose a method by which a tradition's theological norms and categories--its "meta-linguistic stipulation of what kind of talking, whatever contents, can properly be proclamation and word of the church" (p. 27, quoting Gritsch and Jenson (18))--may be honestly and critically examined both in light of the lived experience of believers and in comparison with other traditions. He offers pastoral theologians within and outside his own Lutheran tradition a challenge and a stimulus: to further engage in the important question raised by Tanner's work: To what extent does each of our traditions really function as a tradition at all, except as a fictive source of culture and unity for its believers? By holding Tanner's critical question consistently before him, Hummel offers us a method for a tradition-centered pastoral research that engages the details of believers' lives with both the comforts and the critical edges of this perhaps fictive but nevertheless functioning category of "religious tradition."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Pamela Cooper-White

Professor of Pastoral Theology

Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.

1. Martin Marty, Health and Medicine in the Lutheran Tradition (New York: Crossroad, 1983). See also Carter Lindberg, "The Lutheran Tradition," in Care and Curing: Health and Medicine in the Western Religious Traditions, ed. R. L. Numbers and D. W. Amundsen (New York: Macmillan, 1986). 174. Herbert Anderson's many publications, such as All Our Losses, All Our Griefs: Resources for Pastoral Care, written with Kenneth Anderson (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1983), draw from the Lutheran tradition as a Lutheran pastoral theologian but do not address the question of a systematic Lutheran pastoral theology per se. A symposium took place at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, "Luther, Prayer and Pastoral Care," that included Jane Strohl, "Luther and the Word of Consolation." and Herbert Stroup, "Pastoral Theology: Reformation or Regression?" Lutheran Theological Seminary Bulletin (Winter 1987), 23-53. For historical overviews of Luther's approach to pastoral consolation see also Strohl, "Luther's 'Fourteen Consolations,'" Lutheran Quarterly 3 (1989): 181, and Galen Tinder, "Luther's Theology of Christian Suffering and Its Implications for Pastoral Care," Dialog 25/2 (1986): 109. Hummel provides a more exhaustive overview of Seelsorge and consolation in the history of Lutheranism in his Chapter 2, pp. 21-48.

2. Nancy Gorsuch, "Revelation and Pastoral Theology: Cooperation, Collision, and Communication," Journal of Pastoral Theology 9 (1999): 35-48; Deborah van Dusen Hunsinger, Theology and Pastoral Counseling (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995).

3. Pamela Couture, "Feminist, Wesleyan, Practical Theology and the Practice of Pastoral Care," in Liberating Faith Practices: Feminist Practical Theologies in Context, ed. Denise Ackermann and Riet Bons-Storm (Leuven: Peeters, 1998), and "Revelation in Pastoral Theology: A Wesleyan Perspective," Journal of Pastoral Theology 9 (1999): 21-34.

4. D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar: Bohlau, 1883-1993), 32:123, 25-29, trans. Jane Strohl in "Luther's Eschatology: The Last Times and the Last Things," unpublished Ph.D. diss. (University of Chicago, 1989), 120. Hummel has changed Strohl's translation of Trost from "comfort" to "consolation."

5. Kenneth Pargament, The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice (New York: Guilford, 1997), cited in Hummel, 49, 177.

6. My own association, not Hummel's. Clifford Geertz, "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretative Theory of Culture," in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973).

7. Don Browning, A Fundamental Practical Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991).

8. Regina Sommer, Lebensgeschichte und gelebte Religion von Frauen (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1998), and other researchers cited in Hummel, 178-79.

9. For a discussion of this distinction, see Pamela Cooper-White, Shared Wisdom: Use of the Self in Pastoral Care and Counseling (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004).

10. Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997).

11. Adolf von Hamack, What Is Christianity? trans. T. B. Saunders (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), 298.

12. Susan Dunlap, Counseling Depressed Women (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1997).

13. David D. Hall, Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997).

14. Mary Solberg, Compelling Knowledge: A Feminist Proposal for an Epistemology of the Cross (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997).

15. Sharon Thornton, Broken Yet Beloved: A Pastoral Theology of the Cross (Saint Louis: Chalice. 2002).

16. Citing Marcia Bunge, "The Child in German Pietism," in The Child in Christian Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 252.

17. Jane Strohl, "Evangelism and the Congregation," presentation to the New England Synod Assembly, ELCA, Sturbridge, MA, June 2, 1994.

18. Eric W. Gritsch and Robert W. Jenson, Lutheranism: The Theological Movement and Its Confessional Writings (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 42-43.