Diary of a Theologian

  I was touched to be asked to speak at the fiesta in which we in Dallas celebrated Bishop George Sumner and his wife, Stephanie Hodgkins. What I ventured was a little “Sumnerian” frame, a miniature of theology. It was a sunny and pleasant Saturday afternoon; it was November 22; we were gathered outside on the cathedral green. But November 22 is a sober day. It is the day that, 63 years ago, the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was killed; the assassination took place in Dallas. But there’s more. Seven hours earlier that same day Aldous Huxley, a then-famous skeptical agnostic, died of painful oral cancer. Then just an hour before the President was shot, C. S. Lewis collapsed in his bedroom, dying of end-stage kidney failure. 

    Within a few hours: a man of great political power, a sharp philosopher, and the author of the Narnia tales. Put those three in one frame: each of them points to an aspect of the decade George and Stephanie have spent amongst us. 

    President Kennedy stands for political power, and in a sense for our country. But there is of course a country, a kingdom, that supercedes all the countries of this world, the king being Jesus Christ whose Gospel is for every person the world over. From the world over George Sumner has brought many bishops to spend time with us in Dallas, and he has encouraged missionaries and other connections be made by us with our fellow citizens of the kingdom of God in other lands. This is a light which shows the importance, but also the relativity, of our American political commitments. We note that even as he is leaving us, Bishop Sumner has asked that we give support to our diocesan missionary family in Egypt.

    Turning to the philosopher: A couple of years ago I received one of the bishop’s famously cryptic emails, to the effect that we should invite the diocese to see a film and to talk afterwards. The film was called “Freud’s Last Session,” an imagined encounter and argument between a young C. S. Lewis and a Sigmund Freud who was dying—as Huxley later did—of oral cancer. The relationship of psychology (or philosophy) and Christianity is something Bishop Sumner has thought about long and hard. We need not fear these encounters: God’s truth is always true, and God does shed light on every aspect of human existence.

    Turning to Lewis the Christian: That film showed Lewis moved to compassion when he saw the pain that Freud lived with. We know also that Lewis was often anonymously generous when he saw someone in need. He wanted everyone, even children, to understand that God valued their lives and that they were capable of great things. This compassion for our neighbor has been encouraged amongst us in many concrete ways this past decade.

    Kennedy, Huxley, and Lewis point to three marks of the Gospel here in Dallas, here in 2025. (1) We belong to an international kingdom. (2) We bear the truth of a Gospel that will prevail over skepticism. (3) And our hearts are continually being converted, with Jesus, to see and love the least of these our brethren.

    I give thanks for what the bishop and Stephanie have allowed God to give our diocese through their life among us.

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    Out & About: This Sunday—Advent Sunday, Nov. 30—I am to be the preacher at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas. The services are at 9 and 11:15 a.m. At 10:20, between the services, I will speak on Book VII of Augustine’s Confessions. 

    Sunday, Dec. 14, I am to preach at Church of the Epiphany in Richardson, Tex.