Mark Calhoun

It is finished...

Graduation is starting to feel like a possibility....

...just a few more papers.

Saint Paul School of Theology

Kansas City, Missouri

announces that

Mark D. Calhoun

is a candidate for the degree

of

Master of Divinity

with a specialization in Evangelism

at the

Forty-seventh Commencement Convocation

Friday, May sixteenth

Two-thousand eight

at four o’clock

The United Methodist

Church of the Resurrection

13720 Roe Avenue

Leawood, Kansas 66224

Reception immediately following

Quick Survey...

OK gang... here's the dealio... If I have to go back to seminary, you all have to go back with me. I am taking three great classes this semester...

People of the Book: This course examines historical and theological relations among the three major religions known as “people of the book”: Judaism: Christianity, and Islam. Course topics include understandings of scripture, scriptural authority, and scriptural interpretation as well as comparative work on particular figures and themes of the respective scriptures.

19th Century Protestant Theology: This is a study of “modern” Protestant theology from Schleiermacher to the Dialectical Theology of the early 20^th Century. This course attends to the issues posed to theology in the “modern” period, including the rise of historical consciousness, the challenge of the scientific world view, and the call for just social and economic structures, and examines important and representative responses to these issues.

Preaching the Literary Forms of the New Testament: An intensive study of the diverse literary forms of the New Testament and the role of such forms in sermon preparation, both hermeneutically and homiletically.  The course also considers the ways in which rhetorical critical approaches to New Testament interpretation intersect with the interpretation of the local church context, and thereby influence the preacher’s own repertoire of sermon forms.

Sooo... from time to time I will try to post some stuff from my classes. Here is my first installment, a few questions from my, "People of the Book Course." There are only 12 questions on the survey, but they are separated into three pages, so make sure that you click on the "next" button at the bottom of each page in order to hit all three pages.

Click Here to take survey

Feel free to pass this along and check back here in a couple of weeks to see the developing results.

Back at it...

...school that is. It's hard to believe that weeks one and two are already in the history book. With only 13 weeks of class this semester, that means only 11 to go. It was great to get back and see a number of familiar faces as well as a bunch of new ones. Week one started out fairly strong with our annual remembrance pilgrimage to Minsky's. Each year, since our first year we have kicked things off at a local pizza place called Minsky's. Years two, three, and now four have all started out with pizza and a red beer to commemorate and remember our good friend Mark Griffith, as well as dedicate our semester and year in his image. This has historically been our biggest outing of the year, and this time was no exception. Mark, we miss you, we love you, and we are with you just as you are with us. You are on our minds as we enter into our final year of seminary...

Coming home to John Wesley...

For the past several years I’ve oriented myself toward “emergent,” more on that later, and those within the emergent conversation who are about the task of engaging mission in ministry within the context of the 21^st century. (which, by the way, happens to be the century in which we live… this may be a newsflash to the institutionalized churches of our day). To me, one of the key aspects of engaging mission in ministry in current times attaches itself to the notion that we, as the Christian church, need to strive to think theologically within the context of our culture. By thinking theologically in our context I mean to say that we must engage in the practices of the early apostles and the early church mothers and fathers as they thought theologically about what it meant to be a Christian in the context of their respective cultures. As Doug puts it so eloquently, “We are called to be communities that are caldrons of theological imagination not “authorized re-staters” of past ideas. What we have in our communities are not simply people who need to have the Gospel applied to their lives, but people who know in themselves and in their situations what the Good News of God means. So our job as leaders of communities is not to simply apply the well-founded answers of previous generations’ questions or assumptions to the lives of our people, but rather to guide, extract, and join with the hopes and aspirations deeply embedded by God in the lives of our people.”

Just a couple of random thoughts....

1. Today is the last day of school for the semester....only two years to go.
2. I Love John Denver
3. For the love of the living God, could we please refrain from mixing the coffee flavored Jelly Beans into the same bowl as fruity flavored ones...

That is all...

SPST Film Screening

SPST Emergent will be hosting the viewing of a documentary that explores the "interesting," and repulsive work of Fred Phelps. This documentary was produced by University of Kansas film student Ryan Jones, and will be screened on Tuesday April 11th at 8pm, in Hendrix Hall. The documentary is about an hour long and will be followed by conversation and dialogue with the film-maker.

If you have any question please email me.

Ethics Project

In light of the upcoming vote in the Kansas City area, regarding the roof over the sports complex, I thought I would post this little video we made for ethics class last semester. All the film footage is original footage that we shot last fall in the Kansas City area. The "Actors" in the skit, in the middle of the video, were members of our small group. The download is about 55 MB.

Download ethics_project_fall_05.mpg

Doctrine Exam - Question 1

Section A:

Question 2: According to Wesley, how do we know God? How do we grow in that Knowledge?

            As a starting point for an understanding of John Wesley’s notion of “knowing God,” and how we, as followers of Christ, might grow in that knowledge, we must first labor to develop a working definition of knowledge. For the purposes of this dialogue, I propose that we consider the perspective that, to know is to perceive directly, to have direct cognition of, to have understanding of, or to recognize the nature of something (MWO). Knowledge, therefore, can be understood in this light, to be the fact or condition of understanding something with familiarity gained through experience or association (MWO). Epistemology, then, can be seen as the study of how human knowledge is obtained, its bases, forms, and criteria (McKim, 91). In the instance of this dialogue we shall pursue the notion of Wesley’s dealings with epistemology to be grounded theologically, that is, Wesley’s engagement of how we might “know God,” and subsequently, how we might grow in that knowledge of God.

Doctrine Exam - Question 2

My thoughts on bumper stickers and perfection.....

Section B:

Question 1: A bumper sticker reads, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven!” How would Wesley respond to this?

Imagine for a moment that you are transported, back in time, to the scene of a newly concocted Methodist legend that is situated in the eighteenth century. Star Date, the late-1700s. As you navigate through the heavily occupied cobble stone streets of a typical European city, you notice the erratic actions of a middle aged, well dressed, pious looking character who is storming around a carriage in some sort of Holy rage. As you get closer you can see that this is the one that they call John Wesley, the founder of the radical group known as the Methodist’s. When you arrive at the scene of the public disturbance you can see that a crowd has gathered. Being new to the location, era, and situation you approach one of the bystanders and ask, “What’s all the ruckus about?” As it turns out the disconcerted Mr. Wesley has stumbled across a carriage. The carriage has all the attributes of a typical carriage including the fact that it is covered with a thick coat of mud and dirt that serves as a reminder of the recent rain storm. Moving in for a closer look, you can see that a prankster has used his finger to craft a message in the dirt, on the back of the buggy. Getting a closer look you can see that the message reads, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven!” Noticing that you’ve come in for a closer look, the agitated Mr. Wesley engages you through eye contact and asks, “What do you make of this?” Having recently been a participant in the United Methodist Doctrine course, you take a stab at it, and proclaim: