Soul and Psyche: A Critical Assessment

Wayne G. Rollins has been the key organizer of the Psychology and Biblical Studies program unit of the Society of Biblical Literature, where on numerous occasions I have observed the gentle kindness and buoyant enthusiasm with which he has hosted and moderated the meetings. I have also benefitted from personal and professional conversations with him. Consequently, it is an honor, and more than a little daunting, to respond to his book. Rollins has three goals for this volume: to provide a history of the discipline he calls psychological biblical criticism, to define this academic field, and to propose an agenda for this field as applied to biblical exegesis and hermeneutics. Rollins hopes for a rapprochement between the historical and psychological approaches to biblical studies.     

Human Development and Pastoral Care in a Postmodern Age: Donald Capps,Erik H. Erikson,and Beyond

This article discusses Donald Capps’s use of Erik H. Erikson’s life-cycle theory as the basic psychological framework for his theory of pastoral care. Capps was attracted to Erikson’s existential-psychological model, his hermeneutic approach, and his religious sensitivity. Capps’s thought develops from first exploring biblical foundations for using Eriksonian theory for pastoral care to gradually embracing certain postmodern features. The article concludes with reflections on the usefulness of Erikson’s life-cycle theory and Capps’s work for contemporary pastoral care.     

Psychobiography and the Psychology of Religion: A Tribute to the Work of Donald Capps

This article examines Donald Capps’s work on the psychology of major religious figures and the social forces that informed their psychic lives, spiritual worldviews, and teachings. Drawing on four texts that were published between 2000 and 2014, the essay explores Capps’s views on the importance of psychobiography to the study of religion and the specific contributions his thinking has made to a greater understanding of the historical Jesus. The article considers Capps’s analysis of Jesus’s illegitimacy and his role as healer within the society in which he lived and preached. Building on Capps’s work, the article also expands on feminist and postcolonial theories that offer insight into the psychosocial development of religious figures whose teachings and beliefs emerged out of their individual life circumstances and the larger socio-political culture in which they lived.     

THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE,BIBLICAL CRITICISM,AND THE FUNDAMENTALS

The Victoria Institute was established in London in 1865. Although billed as an anti‐evolutionary organization, and stridently anti‐Darwinian in its rhetoric, it spent relatively little time debating the theory of natural selection. Instead, it served as a haven for a specific set of intellectual commitments. Most important among these was the Baconian scientific methodology, which prized empiricism and induction, and was suspicious of speculation. Darwin's use of hypotheses meant that the Victoria Institute members were unconvinced that his work was truly scientific, but even more concerning for them was the specter of biblical criticism. This approach to biblical studies incorporated techniques from literary criticism, treating it as any other document. Since it also relied on hypotheses, the Victoria Institute members were similarly skeptical that biblical criticism was scientific, and spent much of their time attempting to refute it. In this way, they functioned as an incubator for the concerns that would animate the fundamentalist–modernist controversies of the early twentieth century.     

A diptych reading of Christ’s transfiguration: trans and intersex aesthetics reveal baptismal identity

ABSTRACT

The synoptic Gospels describe Jesus Christ’s transfiguration not as a mode of ontological change, but rather as a means of revelation – that he is the second person of the Trinity. Through a diptych reading of Christ’s transfiguration and crucifixion, I argue that those who experience hate crimes share in Christ’s misrecognition in the midst of revealing truth, which can result in violence and death. Additionally, I offer a constructive, biblical theology of trans and intersex aesthetics that runs counter to neoliberal identity politics by illuminating how the bodily presentation of trans and intersex persons of faith reveal a baptismal truth – that through Christ humanity is adopted as co-heirs with him.     

In Search of a More Reliable Truth: Mourning and Donald Capps’s Psychological Portrait of Jesus

This article is an abridged version of a chapter in my dissertation. In my dissertation, I examine the relationship between personal experience and public theory within certain strands of contemporary psychology of religion and pastoral theology. My guiding theory is Peter Homans’s “mourning religion” thesis. In this chapter, I examine the life and work of Donald Capps, who is the most prolific contemporary writer in the fields of psychology of religion and pastoral theology. I argue that Capps addressed various personal losses in a deeply personal way during his fifties, and I believe that the key moment for Capps in overcoming his melancholia occurred after his application of his melancholia theory to Jesus, because there Capps was able to integrate and to sustain in a satisfying way his various selves and, therefore, open himself up to mourn in a non-defensive way—the way of humor.     

Psychology and the Bible: Three Worlds of the Text

While biblical scholars have all too often remained skeptical, preachers and pastoral counselors have always known, consciously or not, that the Bible is a richly psychological document. Until recently, psychological biblical criticism has been one of the hidden avenues of biblical interpretation, made more inaccessible due to the lack of organization and coherence within the literature. Recent shifts in the discipline of biblical studies, along with the increasing influence of psychological perspectives on the culture in general have made psychological approaches to the Bible more visible. It is useful to identify three dimensions or levels of the biblical text: the world behind the text, the world of the text and the world in front of the text. Such a division can help to identify the goals of a particular psychological approach and the appropriateness of its aims.     

The Sayings of Jesus in Family Guy: A Pastoral Reading of “I Dream of Jesus”

This essay offers a pastoral reading of an episode of the cartoon Family Guy. The episode is titled ??I Dream of Jesus.?? In doing so, I explore six sayings of Jesus in this episode, and I identify nine theological themes that are raised by these sayings. On the basis of this pastoral reading of ??I Dream of Jesus,?? I argue that Family Guy can be used as a source for theological reflection, and I suggest, in closing, that the show might be a practical way for combating biblical and theological illiteracy among youth and young adults. This article also contains a table that can be useful for creating Sunday School or youth group lessons based on this episode. It is worth pointing out that this essay was written for the ??Group for New Directions in Pastoral Theology.?? The ??group?? was formed to celebrate the career of Donald Capps on the occasion of his retirement from Princeton Theological Seminary. The theme for the conference this year was the sayings of Jesus. While the choice of focusing on a contemporary cartoon for such an occasion may seem odd or quirky, the author does so to demonstrate the unique freedom that pastoral theologians enjoy with regard to what Robert Dykstra calls ??the acceptable latitude of inquiry?? in pastoral theology. Another way of putting this is to say that both the Apostle Peter and the animated Peter can serve as resources for theological reflection.     

FROM DIVINE ORACLES TO THE HIGHER CRITICISM: ANDREW D. WHITE AND THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE WITH THEOLOGY IN CHRISTENDOM

Historians of science and religion have given little attention to how historical‐critical scholarship influenced perceptions of the relationship between science and religion in the nineteenth century. However, the so‐called “cofounders” of the “conflict thesis,” the idea that science and religion are fundamentally and irrevocable at odds, were greatly affected by this literature. Indeed, in his two‐volume magnum opus, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896), Andrew D. White, in his longest and final chapter of his masterpiece, traced the development of the “scientific interpretation” of the Bible. In this article, I argue that developments in biblical criticism had a direct impact on how White constructed his historical understanding of the relationship between science and religion. By examining more carefully how biblical criticism played a significant role in the thought of White and other alleged cofounders of the conflict thesis, this article hopes to relocate the origins, development, and meaning of the science–religion debate at the end of the nineteenth century.     

The Book of Job and Male Melancholia: A Bizarre Story about Hating Mother God and the Maternal Jesus,Featuring Mel Gibson

This article tells, or advocates, a bizarre story about male revenge. By drawing from literature in the psychology of religion that deals with the Book of Job and by assuming the standpoint of “cultural hermeneutics” in biblical studies, the author playfully takes up an issue identified by Donald Capps: the issue of repressed rage in male melancholia. The author takes his cue from a recent doctoral dissertation from Princeton Theological Seminary. Jacobus Hamman (2000) applies a Winnicottian analysis to the Book of Job and argues that the Book of Job can be a useful pastoral resource today in a number of ways, including his proposal for believers to direct their aggression toward God. Implicit in Hamman’s Winnicottian analysis, but never explicitly stated, is the fact that God is Mother. The plot here is how the Book of Job might lead contemporary American men to hate Mother God and the maternal Jesus, thereby aiding them in externalizing their repressed and self-directed rage. Mel Gibson stars, if only briefly, in this childish story that presses the limits of Christian theology.     

Biblical criticism and cultural Zionism prior to the first world war*

This essay examines the initial stages of the relationship between Jewish nationalism and modern biblical criticism. Its point of departure is Ahad Ha’am, the founder of cultural Zionism, who kept his distance from biblical criticism, and proceeds with Joseph Klausner, Ahad Ha’am’s successor as the editor of Ha-shiloah, who moved in the opposite direction by incorporating biblical criticism into his own writing and teaching. After examining the opposition to Klausner, the essay turns to the work of Ben-Zion Mossinson, who introduced the results of biblical criticism into the teaching of the Bible in the modern schools of the Yishuv. This initiative generated controversy and broad opposition, especially in the European Hebrew press. Shortly before World War I, and in this controversy’s immediate aftermath, Joseph Klausner, then in Palestine, published a small pamphlet in Hebrew making the case for biblical criticism. At about the same time, in Russia, Max Soloveitchik made a similar argument in a book of his own. Neither of these two works had resounding significance, but each testifies to the growing self-confidence of the exponents of cultural Zionist in promoting modern biblical criticism in the Jewish school. *Research for this easy was completed with generous support from a 2003 Harry Starr Fellowship in Jewish Studies at Harvard University.     

Eschatological Images of Prophet and Priest in Edward Schillebeeckx's Theology of suffering for Others

Eschatological images of Jesus as found in Jewish and Christian texts constitute the foundation of Edward Schillebeeckx’s positive orientation to suffering for others. Jewish prototypes provided the early Christians with an understanding of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection as the advent of the eschaton. The pre‐existing biblical figures, which early Jewish Christians appropriated in the aftermath of the devastating crucifixion, provided traditional categories through which the life and death of Jesus could be meaningfully interpreted. Jesus as the eschatological prophet‐martyr and Jesus as the suffering, eschatological high priest of the Epistle to the Hebrews are the most prominent and complex of the ancient figures. In Schillebeeckx’s analysis, each of the two composite titles ascribed to Jesus is an amplification of a prophetic or priestly prototype. The use of both models is predicted on Jesus’ compassionate and redemptive response to suffering – healing the sick, comforting the bereaved, giving hope to the oppressed, and proclaiming eschatological salvation. Schillebeeckx’s historical‐critical investigation of Jesus’ perception of his anticipated death, as revealed in the Last supper narrative, and his analysis of the meaning ascribed to the crucifixion in primitive Christianity establish the basis for a theology of redemptive suffering in the early church. Schillebeeckx has critically examined three pre‐New Testament interpretations applied to Jesus’ crucifixion: (1) the death of the eschatological prophet‐martyr in the Deuteronomic tradition of the prophets whose proclamations were typically misjudged by Israel; (2) the fulfilment of the divine scheme of salvation through the suffering of the ‘righteous one’, who is ultimately exonerated by God; and (3) a vicarious, atoning sacrifice (the Jewish prototype that later influenced Anselm’s substitution theory). The interpretative categories examined by Schillebeeckx with respect to the crucifixion are closely related to the biblical images upon which his theology of suffering is based.     

From “The Depleted Self” to “The Will to Believe”: Excavating the Hermeneutics of Donald Capps

The concept of “reframing” lies at the heart of the pastoral psychology of Donald Capps. In previous articles I have argued that the process of reframing follows a circular hermeneutics. An excavation of Capps’ hermeneutics reveals foundations in the fields of philosophy and psychology. This article focuses on the legacy of Johann Gottfried von Herder, Friedrich Schleiermacher, William James and Paul Ricoeur. It explores the differences and commonalities between William James and Friedrich Schleiermacher’s understanding of religious experience as well as Paul Ricoeur’s understanding of narrativity and traces these strains to Capps’ pastoral psychology. As illustration of his pastoral approach to healing and wholeness the problem of “the depleted self,” so prevalent in “our narcissistic age,” encounters the healing narrative of Jesus that appeals to “the will to believe.”     

Mission,Reconciliation, and the Politics of Place

Through the retelling of some familiar biblical stories – Jonah, Acts 1, Acts 10 – and gospel narratives of inclusion, this paper looks at the transformation of politics and identities made possible by the sending of the Holy Spirit and the mission of reconciliation to which Christians are called. Through an examination of the themes of power, prejudice, partnership, and identity, the paper aims to offer a concrete approach to rethinking the spaces and places where a reconciling mission can be enacted. Central to an understanding of reconciliation are the disruption and transgressing of boundaries in which Jesus engaged. In addition to this, Jesus creates these unique spaces for reconciliation around his very person, and the Spirit leads the church into these same contexts. Finally, selections of John 17 are examined through a biographical lens in order to offer a new understanding of the politics of identity and the surprising contexts where God’s Spirit reconciles all things in Christ.     

A Life with Roots: Narrative Pastoral Care and Communities of Identity in the Parable of the “Good Soil”

This article interprets the parable traditionally known as the parable of the sower by arguing that it is actually a parable focusing on good soil. It analyzes the parable??s placement next to Gospel narratives in which Jesus redefines his kin network and maintains that the good soil metaphor suggests ideal conditions of growth in which persons surround themselves with consciously chosen communities of support that help them to live out God??s purposes in their lives. Using Michael White??s re-membering conversations, I indicate how pastoral caregivers and psychotherapists can help persons use their previous mentorship relationships as a source of support and motivation. Finally, I argue, using Donald Capps??s psychological reconstructions based on historical Jesus scholarship, that Jesus?? emphasis on his new relationships in the Kingdom of God is best understood in relationship to his struggles with father absence.     

Jesus the Healer: A Sermon in Honor of the Memory of Donald Eric Capps (1939–2015)

The article below is a sermon preached in 2008. It was inspired by Donald Capps’s book, Jesus the Village Psychiatrist. I offer this sermon in honor of his memory as a creative contributor to the work of the Journal as well as his distinguished career as Professor of Pastoral Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Many of us have been blessed by his profound psychological and theological insights into the human psyche, his scholarly explorations of the relationship of psychology and religion, and his remarkable sense of humor. We are diminished by his absence.     

A Note on Scripture in the Summa theologiae

Beginning with the question of whether Aquinas's  Summa theologiae  inevitably distorts the meaning of biblical texts by removing them from their narrative context, this essay suggests that one way to think about Aquinas's use of Scripture in the  Summa theologiae  is to read together, as an ensemble, the biblical texts that he cites when treating a particular theme. Focusing on his first four questions on the virtue of faith ( ST  II-II, qq. 1–4), I argue that Aquinas's selection of biblical texts from across the canonical Scriptures enables him to provide a nuanced biblical perspective on a particular theme even without finding it necessary to quote Scripture in every article. I seek to bring to light the way that the various biblical texts in the question—whose functions within the articles are widely diverse, from providing the hinge for a  responsio  to framing a minor objection–complement and echo one another.