Friends,
I went to seminary at a time (the early ’90s), in a place (Princeton, New Jersey), and among people (mostly White, middle-class Americans from the Eastern Seaboard), in which and for whom the ideal Presbyterian minister was urbane, erudite, cultured, well-read, and well-versed in the arts; a clergyperson was to be politically liberal but not radical and theologically modern without losing touch with tradition.
I’m not under the impression that many seminaries (including my own alma mater) are using this mold to cast pastors anymore, and even 30 years ago I suspect the pastoral ideal that formed me was a bit passed its sell-by date. I really liked the idea of being such a pastor but I discovered the model to be particularly useless when at the age of 25 I found myself in possession of a pulpit in a small town surrounded by broccoli and lettuce fields, in the Salinas Valley, whose beautiful and sometimes-volatile mix of Salinan, Spanish, Mexican, Californio, Swiss-Italian, and White American history was beyond the imagination of my blue-blooded theological educators.
In the 19th and 20th centuries the culture of Princeton Theological Seminary gave the world endless debates about the role modern thinking should play in theological formation; in the 19th and 20th centuries the culture of the Salinas Valley gave the world Monterey Jack cheese. I rather suspect the latter may be a more important contribution to the human condition, but I confess I still kind of like the idea that a pastor can be well-educated, well-read, and artistically astute in a way that abuts but doesn’t quite embrace snobbishness—especially if cheese is still involved.
The Presbyterian minister who, for me, most embodied the kind of educated and cultured clergyman I was trained to be was a man named Frederic Buechner. Buechner was a fine preacher and an even better writer. His erudition was gentle, good-humored, and beautifully articulated. His books taught me that the Gospel can be tragedy, comedy, and fairy tale. His wisdom suggested that God just might be calling me to that magical place where my deepest gladness and the world’s deepest need meet. And his words about doubt saved my faith.
In one place he wrote:
“Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts, you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep us awake and moving. (From Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC)
In another place Buechner wrote,
“Not the least of my problems is that I can hardly even imagine what kind of an experience a genuine, self-authenticating religious experience would be. Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me.” (from The Alphabet of Grace)
Frederick Buechner passed away on Monday at the age of 96. I trust he is finally experiencing a self-authenticating religious experience, and he leaves this world a gentler, kinder, more beautiful place. I am grateful for his work and for its impact on my life.
God’s Peace, Ben