Marburg Revisited: more essays in honor of Albert (Pete) Pero.

I first visited Marburg, Germany, about twenty-five years ago. I was a tourist then, but now my wife and I have come back for a six-month sabbatical, and we daily climb up and down the hills of this old medieval town, the home of the oldest Lutheran university in the world and the site where Protestantism experienced one of its largest schisms. Each day I sit in the theological library that is within a stone's throw of the castle where Luther and Zwingli battled it out--and split from one another--nearly five centuries ago. As luck would have it, I lectured in Zurich, Switzerland, last week and saw there a huge statue of Zwingli near his home, a home which he left two years after Marburg to die in battle for the faith.

Some years ago North American colleagues reflected on the religious history of this town in a book titled Marburg Revisited. As I have been pondering what to say about Pete Pero in this editorial, I have wondered what he would have said if he had been up there in the castle, with Martin and Huldrych, for the gospel's side, for humanity's side, for God's side. What would Pete bring to the table, leave on the table, or take from the table? The following essays suggest some possible answers. My hope is that Pete might provide his own answer to that question in the future.

Mark P. Bangert provides an extensive history of the origins and characteristics of Gospel music, noting its roots in African, African American, and revivalist circles. He also names and offers perspectives on some of the problems perceived in this music. Theological assumptions behind the texts can be troublesome when conversion is overemphasized or double predestination lurks in the background. The entertainment value of Gospel music is at once its strength and a potential weakness, especially when Gospel music is exploited for commercial gain today. Bodily involvement in this music and related worship may at times imply romantic notions of the "primitive" being better or more natural, and use of Gospel music has at times been used as a litmus test for determining how committed persons are to anti-racism. Finally he explores the "ring shout" for its potential in articulating the gospel and a wholistic ecclesiology in a powerful way. The ring is well suited to express and even "enact" Christian eucharistic assembly.

Kathleen D. Billman describes Pete Pero as a person called to a world house. He has always tried to articulate the African American Lutheran contribution to the world house and to contend (not just intellectually but with his very life) that African American Christianity has always had a "world house" dimension. Pete has taught generations of students that ministry is not just about keeping house but about engaging the brokenness of the world. As Walter Brueggemann has reminded us, "To divide things up into the pastoral and the prophetic is to betray both." Pete's witness is a reminder that lament and hope are not opposites but, rather, presuppose each other. LSTC is all the richer for having had and in many ways still having Pete Pero among us.

Philip Hefner offers an interpretation of the nonviolent movements of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and focuses on five areas: clarifying the terms passive resistance, nonviolent resistance, and militant nonviolence; militant nonviolence as a process of double conversion; militant nonviolence as a process of spiritual transformation; the larger human significance of militant nonviolence; and militant nonviolence as a process of love and altruism. Gandhi and King both wrote that militant nonviolence is the response of strong men and women, not weak ones; nonviolence is not for cowards. Double conversion refers to the conversion of the militant nonviolent confronter to trust in the one who is confronted. This takes the risk that the opponent will undergo a conversion that will enable him or her to respond in a reciprocal trust. Hefner follows the theories of Gandhi and King in their confrontations with oppression and then turns to an exploration of the terms altruism and love. For King nonviolent resistance emerged as the technique of the movement, while love stood as the regulating ideal. Today, violence is at the center of our attention as an American nation. It has never been clearer that Gandhi and King were right in their judgment that violence is not eradicated by counterviolence.

Ralph W. Klein cuts a cross section through the sixty-five chapters of the Books of Chronicles and asks particularly about the Chronicler's knowledge of Africa and Africans and how Africans related to and interacted with Israel in the Books of Chronicles. The land of Israel has strong ties with Africa in Chronicles. The genealogies in 1 Chronicles 1-9 show the Chronicler's openness to marriage with outsiders, and Solomon is praised by neighboring royalty, Huram of Tyre and the queen of Sheba, both of whom are connected in one way or another with Ham/Africa. Shishak of Egypt and Zerah the Cushite/Ethiopian figure prominently in the story line of Chronicles. The Chronicler turns the African Pharaoh Neco into a prophet. Neco warns Josiah that God had commanded him to hurry toward Mesopotamia and that Josiah should therefore cease from opposing Neco or he would be destroyed. Naturally we would like to know more about the relationship of Israel to Africa and Africans in the fourth century B.C.E. The Chronicler needed information about Africa and Africans to tell his story about Israel completely. As Pete Pero has demonstrated many times, no one can tell the story of Lutheranism credibly either without including Africans and African Americans in the account.

David Rhoads points out that the purpose of Galatians is to reclaim the gentile believers of Galatia as children of Abraham and therefore as children of God. They became such children by God's grace through faith and not by observing the Law of the Judean nation. To become a child of Abraham in a metaphorical sense was to be like Abraham, to do as Abraham did. Faithfulness is what made Jesus the seed of Abraham who was able to fulfill the promise. If Christ suffered the curse for Paul in a representative sense, then Paul has been "crucified with Christ." Jesus' life established the pattern of faith and, at the same time, freed others to be able to follow that pattern by having faith in Jesus. Jesus' death established the conditions that would enable everyone, Judeans and gentiles alike, to be justified before God by faith in the promise. The metaphorical incorporation into the children of Abraham includes and transcends the identity of those who are physical descendents of Abraham (Judeans) and those who are not (gentiles). A study of metaphorical kinship helps to explain how Paul's gospel transcended ethnocentricity and embraced all nations as potential children of God.

Jose David Rodriguez stresses the importance of popular religion and seeks its traces in the works of the Afro-Puerto Rican author Piri Thomas. This author wants to stimulate a critical examination of the religious and spiritual expression of traditionally underrepresented constituencies in North American society. The myths, utopias, and faith expressed in literature may help us overcome the messianic drought in which we now live. Thomas's writings have been described as the literature of "lower case" people. His works express protest and an unequivocal confession of the faith. Such a witness of faith demands integrity and showing respect for the dignity of human beings, who are all a product of God's gracious creative initiative. Those living in the ghetto are not litter or inferior. Hanging on a ghetto cross, rendered by the scorn and deceit of evil forces, Thomas encountered once again the gracious initiative of God he had experienced in the past through the loving care of his mother. His writings give eloquent expression to the vital and enduring contribution of the spirit of Protestantism from a popular perspective.

Linda E. Thomas tells the story of her own theological education and ministerial service and sets forth a number of theses on ministry and theological education in the third Christian millennium. The church needs to face the challenge and necessity of normalizing diversity within theological education and of creating avenues for justice to recast power imbalances. We must learn to accept the constructs of our own tradition and appreciate at the same time the validity of other ways of viewing Christianity and faith in general. Theological education must recognize and take seriously the contextual, local, and multicultural conditions of our intellectual environment. Theological education in the third millennium must have bishops, presidents, and deans who understand the nuances of their own particular culture and remember that we construct truths from our local contexts. Moving from hegemony to valuing differences provides a great opportunity for theological education to shift from rationalist paradigms to more imaginative theological models.

Mark Thomsen reflects on an African proverb: To be or to be human is to belong. Western society, by contrast, often focuses on thinking or doing to claim its identity. Experience as a missionary in Africa showed how corporate responsibilities can take priority over personal desires. Experience with a gravely ill granddaughter, who never grew enough to think but who surely belonged to her family and to her God, expanded the sense of the African proverb. Two of the greatest insights of the New Testament advocate love for the enemy and justification of sinners. Everyone belongs and is cared about--that is the gospel. Jonah, that reluctant missionary to ancient Assyria (modern Iraq), learned the hard way that everyone belongs, no one is "out." I belong; therefore, I am. I am loved; therefore, I am.

I remember, no doubt somewhat inaccurately, the lyrics from the song "The Gambler" of some decades ago: "You've got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run." There's much food for thought in that song about the choices one makes in Christian life and ministry. Pete Pero has taken his turn at the table/altar with distinction, with much energy, and with many new perspectives. Yet we are still, or even especially, within the church a divided people in need of some "action" at the table.

Pete, go to Marburg!

Ralph W. Klein, Editor