I'm a master's student in theology. AMA.

[DC Al Fine]

Why did you choose a Wesleyanish institution if you were a high church Episcopalian when applying?

What specifically do you find faintly repelling about the historical critical method?

The other outlier students seem more outlierish than you. I.e. they aren't Christian. Why are they there, and do you have any observations about how they interact with the material?

[DC Al Fine]

Why did you choose a Wesleyanish institution if you were a high church Episcopalian when applying?

Because I wanted to stay within New England and the Episcopal-oriented divinity schools in New England are/were all hot messes except for Yale, where I didn't finish my application to in time.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by 'hot mess'? Do you mean like organizationally, or in terms of even more theologically liberal than what you described BU as, or something else entirely?

Sorry to keep coming back to this, but its kind of interesting that you are going to an institution so far outside of your tradition, especially liturgically.

[DC Al Fine]

I briefly considered seminary at one point. My pastor counselled me not to go to a liberal school because, "they train social workers, not pastors" among other things. When I skimmed the curriculums of several liberal and conservative Presbyterian seminaries that certainly appeared to be the case.

Now I know you are taking an M.Th not an M.Div, but given that you have spent a fair amount of time researching Episcopal seminaries, do you believe this criticism of liberal seminaries M. Div programs is fair?

[DC Al Fine]

What do you think of Rachel Held Evans? Is her Biblical Womanhood books as big a strawman as the cover would suggest?

[DC Al Fine]

A few more questions:

1) From a Protestant point of view, Catholic/Orthodox apologists often have this annoying tendency to give the farm away when it comes to higher criticism of scripture, but turn into obstinate fundamentalists when it comes to the historical evidence for 'their' traditions.

It's puzzling, because from my (admittedly biased standpoint), it seems like there is much better evidence for say, an early date for John's Gospel, than for early use of icons or prayers to the Virgin. How do you as a Catholic reconcile this apparent discrepancy?

2) How would you say Pope Francis is doing on 'non-Western' issues?

3) You are head of the Catholic/Mainline/Evangelical movements in the USA and have total authority so long as you don't make changes that fundamentally alter their identity. What do you change in each movement's approach, praxis etc, and what do you keep the same?

[DC Al Fine]

Wow so many followup questions

A few more questions:

1) From a Protestant point of view, Catholic/Orthodox apologists often have this annoying tendency to give the farm away when it comes to higher criticism of scripture, but turn into obstinate fundamentalists when it comes to the historical evidence for 'their' traditions.

It's puzzling, because from my (admittedly biased standpoint), it seems like there is much better evidence for say, an early date for John's Gospel, than for early use of icons or prayers to the Virgin. How do you as a Catholic reconcile this apparent discrepancy?

I don't see it as a discrepancy mostly because I believe that there's both good evidence for a high view of Scripture and good evidence for an early origin for many Catholic/Orthodox traditions, or at least early things that developed into those traditions. For example, there's at least one extant Marian prayer that's probably from the third century--not the Apostolic Age, but pre-Constantine, so I'd still consider it "early Church". But, yes, I totally agree that there isn't high enough a view of Scripture among some of these people.

How early is "early" for John's Gospel? The dates I tend to hear are within the last decade or two of the first century--after the other Gospels, but easily within a somewhat-longer-than-average lifespan assuming the Apostle John was in his late teens at the Crucifixion/Resurrection.

Fair enough. My issue is more with the 'giving the farm away' on the Bible than the early date for icons.

Before ~100AD would be enough for me, although I've heard people throw out the 70's with okay reasoning.

What exactly is that extant Marian prayer you mentioned?

The most annoying historical-critical argument about Gospel dating that I've heard was from my Intro to New Testament professor last year, who insisted on a post-Roman-Jewish War date for Mark because Jesus prophesies the destruction of the Temple in Mark. I pointed out that, entirely ignoring the fact that she, an ordained minister, was presupposing that Jesus wasn't supernatural, it's far from out of the ordinary for radical preachers to prophesy disaster, so it shouldn't be surprising even to a thoroughgoing naturalist that Jesus predicted something that did in fact happen. She refused to respond and acted affronted that I'd questioned her even though one of our readings for the class made the same point I had, and I left class that day with deeply mixed feelings about coming to BU for my theology degree.

That's exactly the sort of nonsense I'm talking about. I have no idea why this sort of thing gets so much respect in liberal denominations, or the secular academy for that matter. Many of the major ideas of higher criticism completely fail when applied to modern day issues (e.g. Your example of prophesying disaster, or that academic who 'proved' Winnie the Pooh was written by four different authors over a couple hundred years using the same reasoning for JEDP).

I'm curious now. Could you give a rough idea of where you stand on the the dating and authorship of the New Testament?

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To be honest, I'm not quite sure, but I can speak to this anecdotally. Non-white/non-Western Catholics I know tend to be wary of some of what Francis is doing or trying to do on big sexy Western ~social issues~ but not as strongly critical of him otherwise as First World conservative Catholics tend to be. I have a Mexican Catholic acquaintance who explicitly identifies himself as "a trad" but strongly approves of the Pope on issues related to immigration/refugees, war, the environment, and so forth, despite being pretty alarmed by things like that one footnote in Amoris, and a Filipina Catholic acquaintance who seems to feel similarly, although I discuss Church politics with her less. Uncomplicated support of and uncomplicated opposition to Francis both seem to be "Western things".

Let me rephrase. I was mainly thinking about an issue that doesn't get a lot of play in Western media; the competition the Roman Church is getting from Evangelicalism/Pentecostalism in Latin America and a few other places. Has he been making any changes or taking any stances about that?

3. Form partnerships of some sort between healthier and less-healthy parishes to share people, resources, etc. rather than closing and merging parishes as a matter of first and only resort. Some positive steps in this direction are already being made, but not enough.

Could you elaborate on this?

1. Stop ordaining ministers who can't get through the Apostles' Creed without crossing their fingers.

AMEN!