Letters to a Young Theologian

Letters to a Young Theologian

Letters to a Young Theologian

Edited by Henco van der Westhuizen

Fortress Press

Minneapolis

LETTERS TO A YOUNG THEOLOGIAN

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Chapter 10 is a version of an article that originally appeared as Stanley Hauerwas, Go with God: An Open Letter to Young Christians on Their Way to College, First Things, November 2010, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/10/go-with-god. Reprinted with permission.

Chapter 16 is a version of an article that originally appeared as Kevin Vanhoozer, Letter to an Aspiring Theologian: How to Speak of God Truly, First Things, August 2018, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/08/letter-to-an-aspiring-theologian. Reprinted with permission.

Cover design: Kristin Miller

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-7879-1

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-7880-7

While the author and 1517 Media have confirmed that all references to website addresses (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing, URLs may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Contents

Introduction

On Ways to Theology

1. Hanna Reichel

2. Jürgen Moltmann

3. Miroslav Volf (I)

4. Michael Welker

5. David Fergusson

6. Nicholas Wolterstorff

On Hermeneutics, Reading, Writing

7. Richard Kearney

8. Piet Naudé

9. Karen Kilby

10. Stanley Hauerwas

11. Miroslav Volf (II)

On Ways in Theology

12. Jan-Olav Henriksen

13. Katherine Sonderegger

14. Christoph Schwoebel

15. Paul T. Nimmo

16. Kevin Vanhoozer

17. Bram van de Beek

18. Daniel Migliore

19. Wolfgang Huber

On Flourishing, Blossoming, Liberating

20. Miroslav Volf (III)

21. Robert Vosloo

22. Ellen T. Charry

23. Emmanuel Katongole

24. Mitzi Smith

25. Traci C. West

26. Allan Boesak

27. Willie James Jennings

28. Adam Neder

On Healing, Wholeness, Dignity

29. Rachel Muers

30. Denise Ackermann

31. Catherine Keller

32. John de Gruchy

33. Michael Mawson

34. Douglas F. Ottati

On Public Life, Science, Interreligious Dialogue

35. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm

36. Graham Ward

37. Gijsbert van den Brink

38. Alister E. McGrath

39. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen

On Fun, Joy, Imagination

40. Johan Cilliers

41. Cynthia L. Rigby

Introduction

By the way, it would be very nice if you didn’t throw away my theological letters. . . . Perhaps I might want to read them again later. . . . One writes some things more freely and more vividly in a letter than in a book, and often I have better thoughts in a conversation by correspondence than by myself.

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer, To Eberhard Bethge, Tegel, July 8 and 9, 1944

Letter-writing is a great way to do theology.

—John de Gruchy, On Locusts and Wild Honey—Letter Writing as Doing Theology

Although there have been many books with the title Letters to a Young . . . , the title of this book by no means speaks for itself. In fact, all five of the words in the title—theologian, young, a, to, and letters—are significant.

I will begin with the end of the title, with theologian.

With theologian, I have in mind those interested in why we study theology; in what it means to study theology, to really study theology; in what makes theology theology; in what it means to be a theologian. Why do many say that studying theology is an odyssey, a pilgrimage, a sojourn? Whereto does this lead? What will we have to look out for? Who do we listen to, what do we touch or taste?

With theologian, I also have in mind those who are theologians, those who would want to be theologians, those interested in theology and the doing thereof, particularly those doing theology in and through these letters.

But I also and foremostly have in mind those who are interested in theology—interested in God, in the triune God, and therefore in ways to and in theology; in hermeneutics, reading, and writing; in flourishing, blossoming, and liberating; in healing, wholeness, and dignity; in fun, joy, and imagination; in dialogue and conversation.

Thus with theologian I have in mind those intrigued by questions, for whom asking good questions is more interesting than answering those that are bad.

The letters, so the title reads, are for young theologians.

The young in these letters refers, of course, to those who are young to or in the field of theology. For them, I want these letters to be the pictures on postcards from afar—a door, a window to where others have been, to what others have heard, seen, felt, and tasted.

But like postcards, they are just that—doors and windows through which each and every young will have to pass in their own ways. They aren’t the picture, for the young will take their own.

With young, however, I also have in mind those who look back on being young, who, like Schleiermacher, would year after year prefix their signatures with stud, Theo.—that is, stating that they are not merely still theology students but students in theology. As I was reminded by Barth in Evangelical Theology, "Theological study and the impulse which compels it are not passing stages of life. The forms which this study assumes may and must change slightly with the times. But the theologian, if [they] were in fact a studiosus theologiae, remains so [i.e., a student]."¹

I deliberately decided on letters.

There are a lot of letters related to theology, but theology itself is also related to letters, to words, to sentences, to paragraphs—also as they are inscribed in letters.

Letters were for years and years the way in which theology was done, without the writers thinking about the letter or the writing thereof as such as theological. Letters were the medium.

Think of letters in the biblical traditions, of the evangelion in and through letters, of the epistles—but later also Augustine’s Enchiridion, his thoughts on the evangelion, itself a letter.

Or think of Luther or Calvin. This was oftentimes not merely the medium but the way that these theologians did their theology—that is, in and through letters. Both Luther and Calvin wrote hundreds of letters. Think, for example, of the forewords of the many editions of the Institutes that allow one to understand the different addressees with whom Calvin wanted to engage and that are also, of course, of importance for those who want to engage with and understand the Institutes today.

Think of Bonhoeffer and Barth, not only the former’s letters in and from prison but the letters of both throughout their lives.

Also think of more recent letters—for example, those in and from South Africa, from where I write this introduction—letters that accompanied a status confessionis, that accompanied the Confession of Belhar.

Or think of letters in and amidst troubled times, of Denise Ackermann and her letters in After the Locusts:

I wanted to write . . . to . . . anyone who might be interested in the theological reflections of a white South African woman on the life of faith. Eventually I found what I wanted, a vehicle. . . . I would write letters to people who mattered to me, about the themes that have been at the core of my search for healing. . . . [I would write] about my efforts to discover what is worth living for in the midst of troubled times. Taking complex theological doctrines and philosophical concepts and attempting to make them simple and straightforward lays me open to [many] charges [but] I am passionate about theology. I believe in its potential to change people, to deepen faith and understanding, and to heal our wounds.²

Thus a mere look at these theological letters, of letters with a theological tone, highlights why I entitled this book Letters to a Young Theologian.

But it is about more than that. Letters themselves are also a way of doing theology. There is theology in the writing of letters itself.

The letters in this book are written not merely by someone but by a particular someone. They are, in many ways, handwritten.

The letters, in this way, transcribe something of those who wrote them, as they are often part autobiography. And like autobiographies, they allow us, at least in part, into the biography of the other—the otherness of the other.

In the otherness, however, we are also allowed to look at our own biographies. They are pathways through the other to who we are, as we are who we are in and through them, particularly because of their being other.

They are, as with letters, accompanied by an address from somewhere such as Sydney, Stellenbosch, Cape Town, Amsterdam, Oxford, Cambridge, Aberdeen, Tübingen, Berlin, Heidelberg, Princeton, Yale, and elsewhere. The letters are from a place, they are emplaced (Ricoeur).

They are written in these times, in time in our time. They are, so to say, stamped. They have a date and a time and are therefore not dated but timely.

In short, they are from someone, somewhere, at some time.

These letters are for someone, somewhere, at some time. Letters are posted; they are sent.

With letters being posted, they are in letter boxes, in envelopes. They have to be unboxed, unenveloped. With their being sent, there is boxed and enveloped within them what is unexpected. There is an unexpectedness to a letter that allows it to be an event:

What a joy for me to hear from you at such length! It’s really quite wonderful that we are still keeping up our dialogue, and for me it is always the most rewarding one that I have. It must be one of the laws of the way our minds work that when one’s own thoughts have been understood by another, they are also transformed and stimulated through the medium of that other person. This is what makes a letter such an event.³

A letter has an address; it is addressed to a particular someone. And in its particularity, in its being addressed to someone particular, it is addressed to whoever takes the time to engage it—to be engaged by it. It was written not from the abstract all to the particular, or from the particular to the abstract all, but from the particular to the particular and therein for all in their particularity.

The letter itself is a medium. In and through the letter, the writer becomes bodily present. The letter becomes an embodied presence in its physicality. It has a signature not only on it but to it. It is in the embodied presence there that it is heard, seen, felt, and tasted.

Of course, also what is written in the letter is a medium. In whatever is written in the letter, there already is calligraphic engagement, there is engaged conversation. And through these letters, these conversations are continued elsewhere, in other conversations already engaged in calligraphically.

Thus I want these letters to be received, to be read, and in the end, to be truly received. I want these letters to allow those who receive and read them to also receive what the letter writers have been writing throughout the years, to also add an address to that.

I end off with the a in the title. The a doesn’t speak for itself. These are letters to a young theologian, not merely letters to theologians. This is because I want these letters to be for a theologian in all their particularity and diversity.

Theology—also theology in and through letters—is done by a theologian in conversation with other theologians in their particular differences. How we do theology, how we speak about God, will only ever be someone somewhere at some time speaking about God—who within Godself has room for diversity—to someone somewhere at some time spoken to about God.

It is for this reason that Barth, in his last letter (written with the handwriting of Busch), says, Nun ist es Eure Aufgabe, in eurer neuen, anderen, und eigenen Lage mit Kopf und Hertz, mit Mund und Händen christlichen Theologie zu treiben (It is now your task, in your new, different and own situation, to practise Christian theology with head and heart, with mouth and hands). He continues, Ich kann Euch dazu nur Mut machen: Ja, tut das nur—sagt das, was Ihr um Gottes willen als Christen zu sagen habt, verantwortlich und konkret wirklich mit Euren eigenen Worten und Gedanken, Vorstellungen und Handlungsweisen! Je verantwortlicher und konkreter, desto Besser, desto christlicher! (I can only embolden you to do that: yes, just do it—say, for the sake of God, what you have to say as Christians, responsibly and concretely, really with your own words and thoughts, images and actions! The more responsible and concrete, the better, the more Christian!)⁴

It is in this manner that we who are letters written by God (2 Cor 3:2)—are letters for God and, therefore, to all.

I thank Adam Neder, Alister E. McGrath, Allan Boesak, Bram van de Beek, Catherine Keller, Christoph Schwoebel, Cynthia L. Rigby, Daniel Migliore, David Fergusson, Denise Ackermann, Douglas F. Ottati, Ellen T. Charry, Emmanuel Katongole, Gijsbert van den Brink, Graham Ward, Hanna Reichel, Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, Jan-Olav Henriksen, Johan Cilliers, John de Gruchy, Jürgen Moltmann, Karen Kilby, Katherine Sonderegger, Kevin Vanhoozer, Michael Mawson, Michael Welker, Miroslav Volf, Mitzi Smith, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Paul T. Nimmo, Piet Naudé, Rachel Muers, Richard Kearney, Robert Vosloo, Stanley Hauerwas, Traci C. West, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Willie James Jennings, and Wolfgang Huber for not only writing but being these letters for young theologians like myself.

Henco van der Westhuizen

Bloemfontein

Notes

1 Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1963), 172.

2 Denise Ackermann, After the Locusts: Letters from a Landscape of Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), xii–xiii.

3 Dietrich Bonhoffer, To Eberhard Bethge, Tegel, March 24, 25, and 27, 1944, in Letters and Papers from Prison, English ed., ed. John de Gruchy, trans. Christian Gremmels, Eberhard Bethge, and Renate Bethge, with Ilse Tödt (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), 328.

4 Karl Barth, An Christen in Südostasien, in Offene Briefe 1945–1968. Karl Barth Gesamtausgabe V. Briefe (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1984), 551–56.

On Ways to Theology

1

Hanna Reichel

Questions

Idon’t know about you, but I have so many questions. They ring loudly within me with the questions I find in the Scriptures.

How long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult? (Ps 94:3 ESV).

When I see that there is no justice. When I see that those who crush the dignity of others walk unperturbed while thousands and thousands are locked away in prisons, cages, asylums, and clinics. When I see that some are definitely more equal than others in their access to education, health care, jobs, housing, and opportunities to pursue their own and other people’s happiness. When I see that our societies are divided by opportunities and recognition, by segregation and alienation, by hatred and resentment. When I see that in our political system, lies and self-interest, narcissism and chauvinism reign and that all over the world, democracy is becoming a farce. When I see how quick we are to wage wars.

What have we done? Where are you, Lord? Where are—we?

When I see that we have probably passed the planetary tipping point, but nothing, nothing can shake us out of the stupor of our mass consumption, exploitation, and complacency. Let the world go to hell, let continents burn, let apparently natural disasters and societal upheavals shake the earth—but sure, let us continue to build infrastructures around cars, let us enjoy our take-out burger and our convenient plane travel, and let’s just build bigger walls to insulate ourselves from the issues we cause.

What have we done? Where are you, Lord? Where are—we?

When I see how random, chance events can so easily crush life and hope. When I see that your Word fails to give comfort, or is even weaponized. When I see that supposedly Christian values are used to exclude and discriminate. When I see that the name of the Lord is wielded for religious, national, and racial supremacy.

What have we done? Where are you, Lord? Where are—we?

When I see that even in such an intentional community as this one, there are walls dividing us. That many of our members are lonely and isolated and do not feel like they belong. That many of our members are poor and insecure. That many of our members suffer emotional and sometimes even physical violence in this community. That many of our members are afraid to speak, are not sure whether they are accepted, whether they will be respected, whether their voice will count as much as that of others.

What have we done? Where are you, Lord? Where are—we?

I have so many questions.

And among them, on top of them, the nagging superquestion: What am I even doing here? Deciphering texts. Mincing words. And maybe—maybe!—small-scale institutional reform, trickle-down education, and a thesis or a sermon that just might change someone’s mind.

In all of the turmoil of the world, doing theology is a very questionable business. How dare we sit here in this prestigious, beautiful, neat place and read and write our books as if nothing had happened (like Karl Barth said in the face of the Nazi rise to power).¹

And aren’t we—who aspire to be leaders of the church and of society, light on the hill and salt for the world—the ones who are supposed to help people find answers? Solutions? Provide comfort and closure for people’s burning questions?

I must admit that in the years that I have been doing theology, my questions have become more rather than less. What are we doing here?

Theology as Wrestling with God and the World

This morning, I opened an intro to theology class with Luke’s story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. And I claimed along the lines of this story that theology is a conversation, a conversation we are having among ourselves on the road.

I didn’t exactly lie. But I may have made it sound much more peaceful, much more serene than I myself feel most of the time.

Let me read you a story of a different encounter on a different road, from Genesis 32:24–32:

Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, Let me go, for the day is breaking. But Jacob said, I will not let you go, unless you bless me. So he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. Then the man said, You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked him, Please tell me your name. But he said, Why is it that you ask my name? And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved. The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.

In Jacob’s story, it becomes clear that the road is a rather perilous place and that the encounter with the Other may be far from peaceful. So to amend or complement the conversation metaphor I used this morning, let me now suggest the following: doing theology, as we are doing here, means wrestling with God and the world.

And even on the road to Emmaus, the disciples were wrestling, wrestling with the hard questions and not having any answers, really. Remember, this story picks up right after the Gospel of Mark ends: the grave that marks the end of our hope, disillusionment, frustration, fear, and trembling. The disciples are moving away—even if not moving on, precisely—not knowing what to make of the strange experiences and the even stranger appearances that are haunting them. Their conversation, far from being serene, is marked by deep wrestling.

Jacob, on the road, is also wrestling. Wrestling with his guilt, with the brother he has betrayed, with his anxiety of what the future will bring and whether he will have a place in it. Jacob is wrestling with all that assails him in the darkest hour of the night. And before he knows it, he finds himself wrestling physically, trying to cross over to the other side, but he cannot: God stands in his way: You cannot pass.

Jacob may not even understand who or what he is actually wrestling with, or does he? Do we ever? At the bottom of our questions, it is not God who gives us answers; it is God who stands in our way. God draws us into this fight.

Is it possible to wrestle with God and the world—and to prevail? Or, maybe more precisely, What would prevailing even mean in such a conflict?

From Jacob’s story, we get a glimpse. At the very least, he is no longer running, no longer running from his past and his demons; he confronts them, confronts God, he is now committed not to let go, even if it means the end of him, he won’t be overcome, he will wrestle through this.

In the darkness of this stubbornness—of this desperation, really—Jacob, who had first been assailed, now becomes the assailant. And God is not able to disentangle Godself either: I will not let you go, says Jacob, unless you bless me (Gen 32:26).

Does Jacob . . . win? Well, he survives the fight. He doesn’t get answers or solutions, but he is transformed, and he is allowed to continue his journey changed. He comes away with a new name and a blessing that will be with him on the road he continues to travel—with all the anxieties, the guilt, and the new beginnings. He also comes away with a limp: this fight marks him for life, it makes him who he is, down to his name and to his physical appearance.

In the hard questions that we raise today, with all our anxieties and all our guilt, we too may ask, Is it possible to wrestle with God and the world and to prevail—even as we cannot come out unscathed?

God’s Questions

Because God is limping too. God does not come out of God’s wrestling with this world unscathed, pristine, and vastly superior. God has wounds to show from God’s wrestling with us, as well, wounds that will forever mark who God is. Look at Christ’s hands, feet, and side.

Because it is not just we who are wrestling with God and the world and asking all the hard questions. God has questions too, even as we all too often conveniently ignore them or betray them by prematurely pretending that they have all already been answered (the ultimate temptation of every theologian, let me tell you).

That God asks us these questions is both terrifying and a ground for hope.

Terrifying and a ground for hope because it shows that God is faithful. God is not done with us. God stays in conversation with us and won’t let us go. God is still waiting for our reply.

Terrifying and a ground for hope because it shows that God is moved. God suffers from this world, its injustice, its despair, its godforsakenness as much as we do. (Maybe more than we, finite creatures, can fathom.) And God is asking us to stand with God in this suffering, to not let go.

Being Christian: Staying with the Trouble, Stubbornly Faithful

Maybe God can be wrestled with? Maybe the world can be wrestled with? Maybe that is precisely the faithfulness that is demanded of us?

Bonhoeffer’s poem Who Am I? puts our questions and suffering, our need and our longing, in deep solidarity with the questions and suffering, the need and the longing of all the world. All have questions, all are in distress, all need redemption.²

We are not smarter than anyone else. We are not holier than anyone else. And, I regret to tell you, at the end of the day, we may not have any more answers than anyone else.

The only thing that may set us apart is that (maybe!) we are just a little bit more stubborn. That we refuse to give up on God and the world. That we stubbornly cling to God’s faithfulness, to God’s faithfulness to this unredeemed world.

If we are stubbornly faithful, that means we do not walk away from God. We do not let God go. We do not let God off the hook, but we also do not leave God alone with the weight of the world. We do not give easy answers; instead, we lean into the questions, hard, and we confront God with them. Lifting the world’s suffering and injustices, our fragmentation and brokenness and despair, and this whole unredeemed existence up and holding it before God—a defiant prayer that refuses to let go because things are just not right. We demand a response, we demand a blessing: You have promised, God! Why have you forsaken us? Where are you? What is your name?

If we are stubbornly faithful, that also means we do not walk away from the world. We sit with God in God’s suffering from this world, and we confront the world. We hold God’s suffering and despair, God’s own wounds before the world, and we demand a response, demand a blessing. We have been called to be God’s creatures, God’s people. What have we done? What are we doing? Where (the fuck) are we?

That’s what being a Christian, that’s what doing theology is about: being stubbornly faithful, staying with the trouble, and wrestling with God and the world until they yield a blessing.

Somewhere in this faithful wrestling, there may even be a strange peace to be found.

The restless peace Abraham found, who refused to accept certain doom and who bargained with God for the lives of the world.

The restless peace Hagar found, who called God by a new name and claimed God’s promises for those whom God had overlooked.

The restless peace Jacob found, wrestling with whatever assailed him on his dark and crooked road and finding that it may have been God.

The restless peace who found the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

With the promise of their peace, we too continue this conversation. We too wrestle with the promises, with our distress, with our lack of understanding, and with the queer hope that sometimes, a stranger on the road will encounter us; that sometimes, our hearts will burn inside of us and open up new beginnings; that sometimes, God will meet us on this road; and that sometimes, even as we are still unaware of God’s presence, we are being blessed, we are being nourished, and we are being sent back on the road—with a limp, a new name, and the dawn of a new day on our faces.

The restless peace of God in all its stubborn faithfulness to this unredeemed world, a peace that will greet the next traveler whom we meet.

And may this peace of God, which surpasses all our understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Best,

H

Princeton

Notes

1 Karl Barth, Theological Existence Today! A Plea for Theological Freedom (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1933), 9.

2 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Who Am I? Tegel, Summer 1944, in Letters and Papers from Prison, English ed., ed. John de Gruchy, trans. Christian Gremmels, Eberhard Bethge, and Renate Bethge, with Ilse Tödt (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), 459–60.

2

Jürgen Moltmann

Every Believer Is a Theologian

Some people may think that a proper theologian must at least have studied at the famous Yale Divinity School or at one of the no-less-famous two theological faculties in Tübingen. Proper theologians have to know Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. They have to have successfully passed diverse theological exams and must have at least a PhD or a doctorate in theology. But the real top dog in theology has a chair, and preferably a chair for systemic theology, because systematic theology is the crown of all the theological disciplines. No one is higher than the professor of theology—except God himself. And God is curious to discover what the professor has to say about him and consequently puts up with him with a degree of divine irony. But so that the professors of theology don’t get too much above themselves, something very unpleasant happened at their creation. The German academic legend runs as follows:

After God had created human beings, he created from among them the most beautiful, the cleverest, and the most wonderful creature he could think of: the German professor of theology. And the angels came and marveled over him. But on the evening of the same day, the devil came along and created the ugliest, the stupidest, and the most odious creature imaginable, and that was the professor’s colleague.

Of course, this is profoundly mortifying for the arrogant professor, but when all is said and done, his colleague is a professor too. So all the rivalries and conflicts remain in the family, so to speak.

But the students present a much sadder problem. The professors—I am talking about Germany—teach what they can, and put themselves forward, for what they are. What they see in front of them in the lecture rooms are potential doctoral students, helpful assistants, and future professors who are destined one day to carry on their scholarly work. In actual fact, most of the students in their lecture rooms don’t want to take up an academic career at all. They want to be pastors for their congregations in the church. They want to know what good all the theological theories will do them later, in their sermons, in their pastoral work, and in the building up of their congregations. But about that, a great many professors haven’t a notion because they were never congregational pastors themselves and—at least in Germany—have sometimes an extremely detached relationship to their local church. So in the theological faculties, a gulf opens up between academic theory on the one hand and pastoral practice on the other, a broad and repellent ditch.

And students, who then arrive in their congregations, proudly equipped with a Tübingen doctorate in theology or a Princeton PhD, have become strange and alien to normal Christians, and so they have to make a painful leap over that broad ditch between the educated and the uneducated and have first to learn again that in Christ, the difference between Greeks and barbarians counts for nothing and that all are one. After all, the apostles, men and women both, had no PhDs, and—except perhaps for Paul—none of them would have passed our theological exams.

I have vivid memories of my first congregation. I had studied theology in Gӧttingen, had a doctorate in theology, and came to a little country church near Bremen. Sixty farms, five hundred souls, and three thousand cows. So there I stood in the pulpit with all my learning and felt pretty much of a fool. Fortunately, I had earlier spent more than three years in the hard school of life and had lived with farmers and workers in prisoner of war camps in Scotland and England. It was out of those experiences that I then preached, not out of