A Tribute to Robert W. Jenson
Read at the opening celebration for the Jenson papers at the Center for Barth Studies of Princeton Theological Seminary
The Center for Barth Studies invited me to give a reflection on Robert Jenson for the opening of his papers at the PTS Library. Jens is more than an intellectual interlocutor for me. I am also his family’s parish priest and he is buried in Trinity’s Memorial Garden. It was an honor to share in celebrating his legacy.
As I write this reflection, I am painfully aware that I am the only person speaking at this event who never knew Jens in the way that most of the people in this room did. I came to Trinity Church and to Princeton 3 months after he died, so Jens and I will have to wait for the consummation of all things to meet each other in that face-to-face sense. I met him through his words, first through Stanley Hauerwas, who introduced me and many other eager Duke seminarians to that famous sentence, the one that Stanley said took decades to be able to write: “God is whoever raised Jesus from the dead, having before raised Israel from Egypt.” I met him next during my dissertation research as an interpreter of Barth, of course, and that is why we are here today at the Barth Center.
But finally, and most importantly, I met him as a husband, father, and grandfather, as a parishioner who is buried in the memorial garden that stands between this library and the entrance to Trinity Church. He is one of our ‘great cloud of witnesses.’ It is exquisitely appropriate that Jens awaits the coming of the one who is Alpha and Omega in that fruitful space between Trinity Church and PTS, where the ecclesial and academic worlds meet each other. It's also appropriate that he is buried closer to the church, because he was – he is – a theologian for the church.
He has taught us all that theology should be theological. That is to say, that it should be about God, and not a form of psychology, sociology, or politics shouted in a loud voice. At the same time, he taught us that the theological worldview permeates every aspect of how we live our lives: personal, familial, political, and cultural. And, he has taught us all that theology cannot exist without the Church. On all these points, Jens and Barth continue to speak to us together against some of the most troubling (and not particularly new) currents in the discipline.
Last summer, I had the opportunity to give a lecture to a group of Episcopal clergy on the topic of “formation for the church today,” and I used a little essay Jens wrote called “The Return to Baptism” in Encounters with Luther. Drawing on the Large Catechism, he writes, “baptism is the casting of the old into the waters and the appearance of the new. Not just in Luther, but in the whole tradition, baptism has never been understood as merely the beginning of new life. Baptism is that ending of the old and beginning of the new which is life…the old life ends when I submit myself to the waters, and the new self is an eschatological self, a self in the kingdom, a self in the Spirit.” And while there is an absolute once-and-for-all aspect to the sacramental act, the Christian life after baptism does not exist on an upward trajectory where we never again have to return to these questions. Specifically, he says, “How do we return to baptism?” The answer is simple but wrenching: “Give up your past life again to the judgment of God, as you did when you first gave up yourself to the waters” where in the pattern of the sacraments we apprehend again “the death of the old and the birth of the new.” There is no room for a narrative of progress here, and no room for a theology of baptism that marks a beginning but not an end, a welcome without true transformation. Here, the old Adam must die, and die, and die again.
What happened when I said these things out loud in front of a group of Episcopal clergy was interesting to say the least. Most people thought it was exactly right. “Why don’t we hear more of this from the pulpit? I need to hear this,” exclaimed the one lay person in the room. But then there was the one priest who said he was “shocked” (in a bad way) to hear someone talk about sin and judgment so vehemently in an Episcopal context. I said yes, maybe we should talk about it more and then perhaps it won’t be so shocking! But this is the gift that Jens gave to us, and to me: the gift of truthful and courageous speech about the reality of God and the reality of the human condition, the gift of the true story in a world that has lost its story.
There are many more things I could say about his massive contributions to systematic theology, or about his theological engagements with culture, or about his contributions to the study of Lutheranism. But as someone who is mostly a parish priest these days, I would like to give particular thanks for his commitment to Christian teaching in the church, what many people call “Christian formation” but which he called “Christian nurture.” I will let other people talk about his other works, but I want to express my particular gratitude for his real magnum opus: Conversations with Poppi About God.
I love that little book. I love it so much that I gave a copy to my godson Robbie last weekend at his baptism. I love it so much that I want Trinity Church to give a copy to every child baptized in our parish. I am not entirely kidding when I say it’s his magnum opus, because if a theologian can’t answer the questions of an eight year old in a way that she can understand, even an eight year old as precocious as Solveig, then he doesn’t actually understand what he’s doing on the deepest level. But Jens understood. That act of translation shows the depth of his gifts.
At one point in that book, Solveig and Poppi are talking about the Nicene Creed, and in particular about the line “through him all things were made.” At that point Solveig says, “Well, I would like to say that Jesus is not the one who wrote the many movies Daddy is writing. He did not write your systematic theology.” Poppi responds, “That’s certainly true. But that’s the same point we had earlier, isn’t it? In one way, we do what we do, but we would not do it if it were not for God.”
That, I think, is a fair summary of the legacy of Robert W. Jenson: He would not have done it, if it were not for God. Thank you all - and thank you, Jens.