The Communities of the Religion Scholar: Institution, Academy, Church

by Frank Kaufmann For the retirement symposium of Professor Daniel Patte Page 1

Abstract
Professor Patte's evolution as a scholar existed fully within him, even in his early years as a teacher. Dr. Patte's efforts to guide me through my course work, and through unanticipated challenges in my doctoral studies, revealed qualities of character that later emerged in developed form in his path breaking scholarship. Indebtedness of the heart, expression of gratitude, and above all invitation are not horizons of critical exegesis for Professor Patte, they are his way of life.

Gratitude
I am honored and grateful for the chance to write on the occasion of Dr. Daniel Patte's graduation to the next phase of his mission for our education.

Introduction
We are guided by symposium organizers to offer thoughts on Reading Communities. Reading Scripture; Reading Responsibly. Here I write on The Communities of the Religion Scholar, which I identify as institution, academy, and church. My closest time with Professor Patte was from 1982 through 1987, though I have collaborated with him occasionally in the intervening years. I greatly enjoyed my years at Vanderbilt University, which included two years as the school's scholarship recipient for its then exchange program with Die Freie Universitt Berlin. After graduation, I did not stay in the academy as my life vocation, instead followed my calling as an international peace activist. I worked in the arena of religion and peace, involving myself in conflict resolution, including in areas of war and violence. As such I have not maintained sufficient knowledge nor command of the religion academy's avant garde, with greatest apologies including the evolution of Professor Patte's thought and work.

The Communities of the Religion Scholar: Institution, Academy, Church

by Frank Kaufmann For the retirement symposium of Professor Daniel Patte Page 2

Begging the indulgence of my readers then, these reflections lean toward tale telling and less in the direction of theory adorned in scholarly raiment. As I researched for the sake of this small offering, I was fascinated to learn how fully Professor Patte lived in what later came to have expression in the fullness of his scholarship and influence on the academy. As Gary Phillips speaks of a passionate drive to read with others, [Phillips & Duran, 2002, p. x] I extend this to recommend, based on my direct experience, a passionate drive to be with others. Not as in needing social company, but in the deep and mystical qualities of communion, the true with that informs responsibility and community. Professor Patte was my dissertation supervisor. I believe I'd have been satisfied with this functional, impersonal term to describe this work as it is used in the United States, had my supervisor been anyone else. But Professor Patte's truly, fatherly care and immersion into my work and efforts has resulted in me only ever using the German word Doktorvater to describe him, no matter how many times I have had to translate it in conversation. I majored in Church History, minored in New Testament. My nature (as interracial offspring, in a non-interracial era) and my inevitable nurture therefrom, makes of me a bridge-builder and harmonizer. I believe that things are better together. I am a one state solution type. When I was in graduate school (in the early 1980s) semiotics and structural criticism was radical and new. But as a history major, my department was especially nondisposed by its very definition to embrace semiotic theory and structural exegesis. It presumed that historical scholarship means historical criticism. The all-American church history department at the time was quite fully and happily doing battle on the frontiers of conventional historical criticism and did not feel any need for a Frenchman with a suitcase full of inscrutable neologisms thank you very much. They knew a fad when they saw one. But division caused by the proliferation of private methodological languages [Kaufmann, 1992, p. ix] disturbed me. Frank the dreamy bridge-builder explained and argued that potential benefit was being lost behind walls of division, especially between those driven by historical critical impulses, and those in literary critical schools.' [Kaufmann, 1992, p. ix] Determined to chart new ground, and help us all grow and become better, and because I know that harmony beats division every time, I charted a dissertation to

The Communities of the Religion Scholar: Institution, Academy, Church

by Frank Kaufmann For the retirement symposium of Professor Daniel Patte Page 3

apply Greimasian literary analysis beyond scripture to second order texts, to church histories. Surely this anticipated Professor Patte's later efforts to read with to solicit the other whomever that might be, [Phillips & Duran, 2002, p. ix] By inviting exegetes from an entirely different discipline, I chose to address differences not merely of interpreting Biblical passages, but even across fortified lines of scholarly methodologies. This effort informs my reflections here on two of the communities of religion scholars, namely institution and academy. I sought to embrace, and live invitationallyand responsibly in these communities with the help of Professor Patte. Institutions are the community of the scholar comprising colleagues, students, staff, and administrations. The the academy is the global community of scholars, teachers, researchers, students, and readers many of whom we may never meet. Trusting Professor Patte's fatherly oversight for my work, I sought to extend a tender olive shoot from semiotics to the guardians of the empire. The third community of the religion scholar Professor Patte taught me about is Church, which also is both local in congregation, and global in denomination.

The Foundations of Modern Church History

This is the title of the book I wrote under Dr. Patte's tutelage. In its introduction, I posit that semiotics and structuralism are valuable methods, capable of augmenting extant historical work [but] have tended to be isolated within the discipline of biblical studies. This is unfortunate, I wrote, because these methods can be of great service to the discipline of church history. [Kaufmann, 1992, p. 8] I sought to introduce to the discipline of church history the exciting imagination in structuralism that the true essence of things may be said to lie not in the things themselves, but in the relationships which we construct, and then perceive, between them. [Hawkes, 1977, p. 17] I compared the complete writings of the most prominent church historians of the 19th century, August Wilhelm Neander from the University of Berlin, and Ferdinand Christian Bauer of Tubingen at the level of fundamental and narrative semantics, with the purpose to unearth their respective systems of convictions, and insodoing support greater understanding related development in Christian thought. I concluded the results are exciting, and bear out my view that dialogue and cooperation yield understanding. [Kaufmann, 1992, p. x]

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by Frank Kaufmann For the retirement symposium of Professor Daniel Patte Page 4

I was called from New York back to Nashville in 1985 to defend my work, and sent home denied a hearing. I was single at the time. My favorite graduation photo however is the one where I pose in cap and gown beside Professor Patte similarly adorned, holding my one year old daughter. This 1987 photo is the sign of Professor Patte's victory over my rage and despair. What was designed by antagonists to perpetrate tragedy was raised to a story of ashes and rising, and of brokenness and repair, and of a teacher who reveals the mysterious truths in Romans 12, and Matthew 5.

The Untouchable
In the strangeness of God's ways, my chosen spiritual path makes of me a walking litmus test, a Dalit to champions of equality, and a heretic to champions of religious inclusion, a special minority, exempt from the embrace or concerns of liberal, humanitarian paragons of social conscience; a member of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. Three such creatures passed through Vanderbilt in the early 1980s. Guess who's coming to dinner? To make matters worse I also was politically conservative. Another tar and featherable offense. With that said, I offer humble praise and gratitude to the many faculty and students who struggled against fears, limitations, and the demons of exclusion. Some failed but most chipped away faithfully, pushing back the lines to draw wider circles of inclusion. The beauty and grace of your efforts and courage are etched in the story of my life by tears. And where was Professor Patte in this drama, so long before the emergence of reading with on the scholarly and exegetical front? What was this person like when not authoring interruption, but rather interrupted, not intentionally but by the inadvertent presence of an untouchable? Did memory of the horrid persecution and massacres of the Huguenots remain somewhere in the folds of his inheritance? Did the habits of his family that protected Jews from the Nazi Holocaust persist in his own habits when faced with a challenge of the same flavor his own classroom and in his department? Was the ecumenism propounded by the Taize community in his affections a true ecumenical openness? Was the future paragon of utang na loob so early on, in the formative stages of career building, truly capable of reading the Bible with (not for or to) [an] other Affirming [truly] different readings of the Bible?

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by Frank Kaufmann For the retirement symposium of Professor Daniel Patte Page 5

[Phillips & Duran, 2002, p. ix]. Could the future ethics and context champion read with an outcast, a heretic, a member of a dangerous, brainwashing cult? Or was this advocacy of exegetical inclusion to come only later in the safer spaces of theory, and the comfort of a mature, seasoned status? The answer to these questions is simple and unequivocal. The ways of Professor Patte are and were true from stem to stern, and from alpha to omega. What matured into brilliant and indispensable scholarly horizons emerged as expressions of resident, unblemished integrity from the first moment, and for life, with never a blink nor pause. Professor Patte always stood between the accused and the volley of stones. This was not heroism, grand, studied, or tactically applied. It was natural, like breathing. It was with ease. It was Christian, not humanistic braying of righteous demands. His alms were in secret, and his prayers in the closet, not like the hypocrites in the synagogues and in the streets [Mt. 6:2, 6] If there was loneliness in suspicion and exclusion, it was not permitted to obtain in Professor Patte's classroom. But loneliness or aloneness was not permitted to obtain anywhere around the Pattes, Daniel and Aline. On long holidays, the Vanderbilt campus was a ghost town, even graduate students left to be with family. Those few who lived too far, or could not afford to get home to family were not left to that special aloneness brought uniquely in holiday seasons. No. We were at the banquet of Thanksgiving warmth, and of Christmas feasts in the Patte home. Not occasionally, but always, every holiday. Side by side with their own children, we always had a home and a family in the holidays. Professor Patte's moral challenge did not emerge mysteriously in the later period when writing the Ethics of Biblical Interpretation, and Discipleship according to the Sermon on the Mount. It emerges from the Sermon on the Mount itself, for the Patte's a guide and a way of life. Furthermore, this substantial goodness was not limited to private life and private acts of personal charity like opening their home for students every holiday. It also was wrought courageously in the arenas personal and public risk, reputation, and livelihood. It is one thing, glorious as it might be to have a heretic in your home, beside your children, head bowed in prayer over Christmas dinner, it is another thing altogether, to risk all and read with the heretic in the public square, writing with his finger on the ground, gazing at arms cocked with stones in hand.

The Dissertation

The Communities of the Religion Scholar: Institution, Academy, Church

by Frank Kaufmann For the retirement symposium of Professor Daniel Patte Page 6

My dissertation committee comprised four church historians, and one lonely French, proponent of Greimasian, narrative semiotics. And for whose sake was this folly undertaken? It was done so shoulder to shoulder with the school's elephant man, its member of a dangerous, brainwashing cult. Why? The task was to expand the relevance and application of intratextual methods to second order texts, and by doing so enhance and complement historical critical methods for church historical scholarship. This was an epic venture into reading with. I moved to Germany, learned German (because you cannot perform structuralist criticism to a translation), wrote the first draft of my dissertation in German, and lived for three years lived in dissertation-writer's hell (like us all). Finally the day came. My Doktorvater decided, we are ready. The work is good and complete. We now will submit it to the committee for review. By this time I was living in New York City, already active in my profession leading a large international peace organization. We were devoted to the distinct area of religion and peace, and in my capacity as the organization's director, I enjoyed intimate relations with high profile clerical leaders in all religions, and religion scholars from powerful universities in all fields of study. In due course, I received a letter and a call inviting me to fly to Nashville and report for my defense. Nervous but hopeful , I arrived in Nashville supported by the prayers and well wishes of family, friends, and with my international, professional network excitedly behind me. Leaders the world over knew of this long awaited moment in my life, they cheered me on, and assured me, you'll do great. My defense was scheduled for 10 am, and I arrived at the appointed room a good quarter of an hour early. But at 10:20, one of the 5 committee members came out of the room, apologized for the delay and begged my patience. For the next two hours friends, students, staff, and faculty passed by with looks of sympathy, knowing of my scheduled defense, and seeing me outside a closed door in confusion. I stood in the hall for close to two hours when finally the door opened and I was invited in. As I sat down, I was informed, we have decided that we will not consider this meeting your defense, but we would just like to ask you some questions about your work.

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by Frank Kaufmann For the retirement symposium of Professor Daniel Patte Page 7

It turned out that one member of the committee had devoted himself to sabotage my efforts. This person consistently and openly derided my faith throughout my years as a student at Vanderbilt. This person made it clear that Unification believers were unwelcome at the school and surely should not be fortified with Vanderbilt doctoral bona fides. This fellow had colluded with two other committee members in advance of the meeting to deny me the opportunity of a defense, and this came to light only as the committee convened on the day of scheduled defense. My two hours in the hall was due the fact that conversation time among committee members was suddenly needed upon discovering the plot and design of my antagonist. My non-defense and the few questions lasted two hours. I was put through a gauntlet typical of dissertation defense, but in an especially hostile environment, and most importantly one that was pre-determined, and openly committed to deny my candidacy. As the questions were presented, it immediately became clear that my antagonist had not read my work, but rather was opposed to my success grounded in bias and bigotry, not only against my faith, but as much so against textual critical methods, which he found illegitimate. Having seized upon Saussure, Hemslev, Jacobs, and Greimas's elementary structure of signification, all the way back on page 10 of my work, he bellowed These are not new, and explained between chuckles, when I went to school we called them views. But a serious mis-calculation was made. In opening fire on a mere, expendable member of a dangerous cult, he inadvertently hit with his volley a distinguished, fellow member of the faculty, and not just any faculty member, the head of the Graduate Department of Religion. For it wasn't I who declared the work complete and ready to defend. It was Professor Patte who submitted the work as complete and ready. In pre-meeting agreements to denounce the work as unworthy, and denying the defense in a surprise attack, the plan mis-fired. The volley hit a Moonie yes, but also directly attacked a vibrant, pioneering scholar and head of a school in the university, a trail blazer in an international community of energetic young scholars breaking new ground with new methods and new horizons. The non-defense ended with a victory for the work submitted, but with a defeat for the candidacy. Dr. Patte then took a dashed, dejected, lynched, enraged, and surely impossible to console student to lunch in the cafeteria for a pastoral care session of the most unenviable order. But why should he be bound only to console the student, for the offense to his dignity, stature, and academic judgment was every bit as poignant as my disappointment.

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by Frank Kaufmann For the retirement symposium of Professor Daniel Patte Page 8

As we sat there, did we fuel one another's rage at injustice, bigotry, narrowmindedness, and underhanded collusion? Was Professor Patte so distracted by the attack on his method and school of thought that he painstakingly nurtured in the development of my work, that he would stew more over the larger attack on semiotic-structuralism than the pain of a single pitiable student? No. In that time in a quiet corner of the cafeteria, it was impossible to find even the most remote shred of personal concern in Professor Patte. He cared only to console and comfort me from my ordeal, and to quiet my rage and indignance. He was calm, hopeful, encouraging, and exhorting. For Professor Patte, and fully expected of me, the only fact that existed was the work that lay ahead. The honorable completion of my studies at Vanderbilt, and my future as a scholar. I flew home empty handed. My many well-wishers eagerly awaiting me with congratulations were shocked. Especially since I had received an official and formal date to defend, and my life already by that time was so public. As such, I was strongly encouraged by several of my professional associates to sue Vanderbilt for religious discrimination according to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. An increasing number of scholars from the great theological schools were lining up to engage Vanderbilt on my behalf, and lawyers offered their services to me pro bono.

Healing
Dr. Patte's response when I reported this potential course of legal action was simple, quiet, and terse, just as he had been with me in the cafeteria, and as he has been with me all my life. In the cafeteria he told me, Frank, completely re-write your dissertation using every question that was leveled against you this morning, so that the end result will be impossible to oppose. The fact, he explained, that you were hated and unjustly opposed is a gift to you. It gives you the chance to preempt inevitable detractors and challenges that always come to new scholars upon publication their work. You have been given a gift. Soon afterward, when I told Dr. Patte of pending lawsuits in the works, he said only this, Frank, do you know what the words Alma Mater mean? He said only, You want to be able to love your Alma Mater all your life.

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by Frank Kaufmann For the retirement symposium of Professor Daniel Patte Page 9

I agreed to re-write my work, and not to sue. For the next two years Professor Patte stood over me, a stern and persistent, task master guiding and supporting me to create of my dissertation an impenetrable fortress, and an invitation to the ideals and hopes of our method, and to the constructive dreams of inter-methodological harmony and cooperation. He walked wth me in every word. Once again, now for a second time Professor Patte declared the work ready and submitted it to the dissertation committee. I waited. I waited for the call to my defense. That call never came. Instead I received in the mail that coveted page that tells the student that he or she is a student no more. That page carries the signatures of your committee members. They test you and try you, but in the end welcome you. You have suffered and prevailed. You are now a colleague. That page that came in the mail had 4 signatures. One line was blank. I was born on that day, the son of my Vater and my Mater, though one invitee chose not to read with us. The dissertation was approved without a defense. It was published by Peter Lang without a single word changed, and brought me royalty checks for years. In the whole of these twists and turns Professor Patte proved to be fully in resonance with his own call to be explicitly in relationship to the culture he inhabits. He protected his institution, even when attacked from within it, and furthermore filled a victim with release and light, enough do the same. The book he midwifed remains an unflinching invitation to friends and cousins in the academy, that global community in which scholars live beyond their local institutions. Foundations was a very early invitation to read with, and for us all to become a community of better readers. [Phillips & Duran, 2002, p. xiii] It was an invitation to traverse not merely the challenging lines of diverse and divergent, Biblical interpretation, but to dare cross lines perhaps more rigid, aggressive, embattled, those silos of critical methods and private methodological languages. [Kaufmann, 1992, p. ix]

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by Frank Kaufmann For the retirement symposium of Professor Daniel Patte Page 10

By God's grace, the utang na loob, [Phillips & Duran, 2002, p. ix] integrated inexorably in the steps and voice of Professor Patte has manifest consistently, and in ever greater fullness and abundance throughout his career. We must be thankful for his enduring genius, courage, and industry. The importance of the third community of the religion scholar, Church was also infused in me by the humble do as I do instruction I received from Professor Patte. This too has remained with me as saving grace throughout my life. This third part of the story can be told another time.

Endnotes
Hawkes, Terrence, Structuralism and Semiotics (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press), 1977 Kaufmann, Frank, Foundations of Modern Church History, (New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishers) 1992 Phillips, Gary A., and Duran, Nicole Wilkinson eds., Reading Communities Reading Scripture: Essays in Honor of Daniel Patte (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International), 2002