[Postscript on Creationism added December 18, 2024]
The coverage of the murder of United Healthcare’s CEO near the New York Hilton Midtown hotel (1335 Sixth Avenue from 53rd Street to 44th Street) reminded me of a happier, pre-digital-age event with which I’ll always associate that building: the annual convention of the American Academy of Religion, 42 years ago this coming week. In those days I ran the mailroom of Philip Johnson’s architectural firm[1], but I asked for and got a workday off. Into my diary went these words:
Sunday, December 19, 1982
Full day at the American Academy of Religion conference. It cost $30, but it was worth it to mingle with hundreds of theologians. The publishers had their impressive displays I couldn’t believe all the new books that are coming out. Should have talked to Clark Pinnock (1937-2010) when I had the chance. Didn’t see [Norman] Geisler.[2] Maybe he won’t be there until Tues. when he reads his paper on creationism. I enjoyed being well-dressed, eating breakfast in a nice coffee shop after registering, having a bite at Amy’s around 5, getting into a few (not nearly enough) conversations, including one with an Episcopal[ian] priest, Frederick Fox who went over the options of a theological career with me, giving me a few leads. The final address of the evening, attacking the documentary hypothesis as a literary fiction, was surprising. Called Gabe [Monheim][3], Mom, and Mike [Brennan] to tell them the highlights.
Seriously thinking of taking off Tues. to catch all the goodies. But I’ll probably have to settle for Geisler at 1:30 and [Edward] Schillebeeckx [1914-2009] at 8:00. Raymond Brown is tomorrow night at 8:00.
I was definitely in my element today. Hope it’s a sign of things to come.
Monday, December 20, 1982 (I worked that day but returned to the convention that evening and got the following day off.)
It scares me to think that 2 weeks ago I was unaware of it [the conference] and might have missed it altogether if it were not for that Dallas Theological Seminary magazine. Mrs. [Lillian] Hogan [Johnson’s office manager] graciously gave me the day off tom’w to take in a whole day of panels and speeches!
After having a good dinner and talking with Mike Walko[4], I went to hear Father Raymond Brown, PSS [1928-1998] speak on how his mind changed since the publication of his classic John commentary[5]. I found the whole discussion, with commentators, surprisingly accessible. Brown recommended an introductory text to NT [New Testament] studies.[6] Called Gabe to seriously suggest presenting his position [at the time, more or less that of Otis Q. Sellers] on Paul’s ministry, whether in writing or in person.[7] Called Gloria [girlfriend, future wife] to tell her I’d be leaving later tom’w [Tuesday] morning (so I won’t be going in[to Manhattan from Jackson Heights to work] with her). Should be a great day tom’w; sharing a table with Geisler will be worth the admission price alone.
Tuesday, December 21, 1982
What a fantastic day! More than I could ever ask for. I met Matthew Lamb [8] [1937-2018] and Charles Davis [9] [1923-1999] at the seminar on dialectics, suggested a panel with Michael Novak [10] which [suggestion] was well received at the [Lonergan] business meeting [which was] organizing the proposed 5-year “Lonergan and Theology” seminars.
Then I went to lunch with these two Lonergan scholars to tell them of my suspicions of political theology as it exists. It was a wonderful exchange, which ended with an exchange of addresses. Lamb promised to put me on various mailing lists, including the Lonergan Workshop. These are the contacts I’ve always wanted. Lamb is someone I can discuss the profession of theology with.
Ran back to the Hilton to sit at Geisler’s ‘roundtable’ discussion of
creationism. He read a beautiful defense of the scientific rights of creationism, a paper he distributed along with his Creator in the Courtroom. [See the Postscript on Creationism below.] He had to leave promptly at 3 to catch a plane, but I managed to get his home phone number in order to pursue at leisure certain questions with him. Two Lonergan contacts and Geisler’s number! What more could I want. I’m in debt to Mrs. Hogan for letting me have the day off.
Tried to get Raymond Brown to visit Mervin Stiles[11], the Hebrew Scriptures synchronizer at his table, but he was pressed for time, though he did promise to visit it later on. Don’t know if he did. Stiles is a remarkable Bible student who spent a bit of time explaining his work to me.
Well, I’m on my way. 1983 will be a year of theological contact and study, on my way to a ministry.
It was, but I wasn’t “on my way to a ministry” (at least not a traditional one). I let those heady experiences seduce me into suppressing, gradually but unrighteously, what I learned from Sellers. It would be many years before this prodigal son returned.
Notes
[1] In 1982, three corporate headquarters were under construction close to one another: Philip Johnson/John Burgee’s AT&T Building (550 Madison Avenue); Edward Larrabee Barnes’s IBM Building (590 Madison Avenue); and Der Scutt’s Trump Tower (721–725 Fifth Avenue). At this time I was also discovering the writings of and meeting Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) and Rothbardian Catholic priest James A. Sadowsky, SJ (1923-2012).
[2] In 1980 I wrote to Geisler about George Smith’s Atheism: The Case against
God; he responded with a handwritten note you can read on this site: see Anthony G. Flood, “Norman Leo Geisler, 1932-2019: indefatigable and prolific Christian apologist,” December 10, 2019. In 2019 I wrote Atheism Analyzed: The Implosion of George Smith’s “Case against God,” downloadable from Amazon for ninety-nine cents.
[3] The Bible Versus the Churches, self-published, 1977; The Bible, Jesus, and the Jews, Philosophical Library, 1980 (or the 2022 Rakuten Kobo edition).
[4] For a late-December 1973 snapshot of fellow Christian Individualists Mike Walko (b. 1948), Otis Q. Sellers (1901-1992), and Gabe Monheim (1936-2015), see Anthony G. Flood, “Soil-Body, Blood-Life, the Human Spirit, and the Divine Atmosphere It Breathes: Sellers on the Soul—Part IV,” January 6, 2022.
[5] The Gospel according to John (I-XII). Anchor Bible, Vol. 29. Doubleday, 1966; The Gospel according to John (XIII-XXI). Anchor Bible, Vol. 30. Doubleday, 1970.
[6] He urged on me Pheme Perkins, Reading the New Testament: An Introduction. New York: Paulist, 1978. I procured it, read it, but it didn’t “take.”
[7] Again, those pre-historic, pre-email days!
[8] I’d meet Father Lamb again at the 1983 Lonergan Workshop at Boston College, thanks to the mediatorship of my aunt, Sr. Anne T. Flood, PhD (1927-2013). See Anthony G. Flood, “Bernard Lonergan’s ‘Insight’: on becoming an intellectually fulfilled theist,” November 16, 2018. On one day of the conference, Lamb drove me around the college area; we wound up at Pizzeria Uno for lunch.
[9] See, e.g., Davis’s Theology for Today, Sheed & Ward, 1967; A Question of Conscience: The Moral Dilemma of the Catholic Priest. Sheed & Ward, 1969.
[10] “About twenty years ago at a conference I had the pleasure of thanking Michael Novak (1933-2017) who had studied [for the priesthood] under Lonergan at the Gregorianum, for writing Belief and Unbelief, a Philosophy of Self-Knowledge, an accessible introduction to Insight’s themes. Absorbing (and promiscuously annotating) that 1966 paperback was the prelude to my immersion in the masterwork.” Anthony G. Flood, “Bernard Lonergan’s “Insight”: on becoming an intellectually fulfilled theist, November 16, 2018. Novak did speak at the 1984 AAR convention in Dallas, but whether it was to the Lonergan panel or a broader audience, I don’t know. Sometime in the 1990s, I believe at the Union League Club I Manhattan, I mentioned this effort of mine to him, and he thanked me.
[11] Mervin Stiles (1917–1996) has left almost no internet footprint. There is correspondence (1974, 1980) in the archives of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center: “Correspondence from Mervin Stiles, an authority on Israelite history, who provided [Harold] Lindsell [1913-1998, author of The Battle for the Bible] with material on inerrancy.”
An Old Testament scholar and American clergyman, he was born in Cazadero, California; served as a pastor in Oregon and Washington in the late ‘40s, early ‘50s; worked as a teacher and advisory board member at the New Life Center in Santa Cruz, California (1972-1990); and earned a Bachelor of Arts from Simpson Bible College in San Francisco in 1959. A contributor to meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature (1973-1990), Stiles authored Synchronizing Hebrew Originals from Available Records, a self-published (late ‘70s, probably in Aptos, California) series of books that included analyses of historical events as documented in the Hebrew Scriptures. (The June 1983 issue of the Journal of Biblical Literature noted receipt of a copy.) Aiming to align scriptural references with historical incidents, Stiles provided a chronological framework for events from the reign of Saul through the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., and it was that volume that I am almost certain he showed me at the convention. I’d appreciate hearing from those who can and are willing to share more of his story and correct any errors that mar this footnote.
Postscript on Creationism: Earlier that year, specifically on January 20, 1982, the New York Times published my letter critical of the 1982 Arkansas decision on creationism, that is, McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255 (E.D. Ark. 1982), a landmark case in which a U.S. District Court struck down Arkansas Act 590, which required public schools to teach creation science alongside evolution. The court ruled that the act violated the First Amendment because it advanced a particular religious viewpoint. Geisler’s Creator in the Courtroom took that ruling apart root and branch. I did not argue there but believe that Judge Overton’s ruling advanced a viewpoint no less religious than the one it ostensibly opposed, i.e., Evangelical Christianity. Here’s the letter:
