Digging for Summer: 1986

...ology, the public good, and, yes, the church...

...But Ruddy ignores the counterevidentiary fact for tenure and promotion to give priority to popular writing that many of the most prolific writers are academics who and speaking would, over the long haul, have the effect of already have tenure...

...indeed, spiritual formation loving Billy's bleeding sax, is essential to discipleship...

...They do not take up the study of theology beBilly singing Springsteen cause a bishop needs them to fill a slot on the seminary facwhile I jammed on shovel-guitar, ulty...

...It was, in fact, the massive scholarship of Congar, de Lubac, Chenu, Rahner, and others that prepared the way for Vatican II...

...On the positive side, pulling lyrics from smoke and wind, this absence forces lay theologians to take active responsirising into our groove bility for their lifestyle, spiritual formation, and participation like when we straighten in the life of the church...

...But many others pubously compromise the academic credibility of theology as lish precisely because they care about the discipline of thea discipline that belongs on university campuses...

...Often we were out there, this calling is pursued in spite of misunderstanding by peers, as if we could forget, discouragement from family, and short- and long-term fiboth sixteen and ready, nancial sacrifices...

...Career advancement is, of course, no less a mo- requisite for the advancement of scholarship, Christian scholtive for academicians than for other professionals (including arship included...

...This desire is laudable...

...our futures calling, It seems, then, that the last thing we need to do is minimize two blocks left before dark...

...Though its our hair slicked back, prerequisite, effect, and complement, spiritual formation is both cool after months not the proper focus of theological education...

...Ruddy makes an unsupported generalization that schol- Nor is it apparent why Ruddy dismisses scholarly journals arly publication is "all for the sake of gaining tenure and as "myopic," when in fact specialization is a necessary prepromotion...

...It can be addressed more radically by betree limbs like wires, snow clumped coming involved in intentional communities like those of on our boots, hats, and gloves Sant'Egidio or the Catholic Worker...

...But closer to what we were saving for, it is a need that ought to be met not by theology departour shovels scraping pitted concrete, ments per se but by active engagement in campus prayer dreams of Jersey shore summers groups, retreats, service programs, and the ordinary life of thawing us in blue-black December, a local parish...

...Some write, to be sure, out of a need for "dumbing down" faculties of theology, and it would seri- ego gratification and public acclaim...

...I H U I H G T H E C O H V E anecdotal evidence, to the contrary...

...Rather than create an unnecessary and false dichotomy that separates thinking ex Daniel Donaghy corde ecclesiae from thinking ex corde academiae, we need to understand more deeply that the latter is, in its own distinctive and rigorous way, a special kind of participation in the Commonweal 12 June 2, 2000...

...of freezing our asses off, Lay theologians, as Ruddy notes, do not have the instisuddenly musical, stealing grace tutional supports that were given to their clerical forebears from the surface of the waves, like John A. Ryan or Bernard Lonergan...

...But the academic study of thegushing for my Gibson guitar, ology is not to be confused with monasticism...

...Most Catholic students I know who decide to commit blood warming our faces, to a lifetime of teaching, studying, and writing theology do cars rattling by on chains so because they have discovered, to use von Balthasar's term as if to remind us why (die Sendung), their own sense of personal "mission...

...I suspect he expresses the point of view of one segment of this group that would like a richer sense of First Griffin's Deli, then Pizzaworld, Catholic identity and that feels the intellectual activity of then all the houses on Jasper Street, theology needs to be complemented with a deep personal each sidewalk getting us five bucks piety and communal identity...

...It's hard to tell to what extent Ruddy speaks for "younger Digging for Summer: 1986 theologians...

...the contribution of theologians to the church or to lament their academic professionalization...

...Spiritual formation, like while in our heads moral growth, therapeutic healing, or political and social danced girls around a campfire, responsibility, is a good thing...

...Lay people most often become deour backs to let the ache out, voted to theology as a result of having begun to appropriate dipping left and right, their own faith...