Life to the full
WHAT TO say when a beloved friend dies? Krister Stendahl - once the Harvard Divinity School dean, Lutheran Bishop of Sweden, distinguished theologian, husband and father, man of God - would not have been troubled by mere silence. Krister knew how the mysteries of existence can strike us dumb. Awed speechlessness can be a signal that the holy is near. But Krister was also a man of the Word, and he understood that humans were put here to give expression to an otherwise mute creation.
Let me speak personally. Before I ever knew him, Krister Stendahl was key to the most important transformation of my life. I grew up afraid of God. When I received my first wallet as a gift, I was also given a card to carry in it: "I am a Catholic. In case of an accident, please call a priest." I had a typical dread of dying without having my sins forgiven, and my faith was the antidote to that fear.
But as a young man, training to be a priest, I read an essay published in 1963, entitled "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West." In it, Krister Stendahl argued that Christians - at least since Martin Luther, if not since St. Augustine - had misread the testimony of that early apostle. In this misreading, St. Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus was taken as rescue from a troubled preoccupation with sin and guilt, establishing the paradigm of Christian grace, which saves, against Mosaic Law, which condemns. Stendahl showed that St. Paul's conscience, instead of anguished, was "robust." His stance before God was overwhelmingly one of confidence, not terror. God's constant love, not God's threat, was Paul's driving force.
The "Introspective Conscience" article was a milestone, stimulating theological reconsiderations that put Krister Stendahl in rank with Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr. Instead of understanding St. Paul as one who had left his Jewishness behind because it was inadequate to save him from a damning Old Testament God, readers could see that Paul never thought of himself as abandoning his beloved Israel. Jesus, too, was only and forever a Jew. The Old Testament-New Testament polarity, like the Law-grace dichotomy, was false. By emphasizing Paul's commitment to Jewish-Gentile amity over the dominant reading of Paul as Israel's critic, Stendahl restored a Christian mode of respect for Judaism, a foundation stone on which a new Jewish-Christian reconciliation could be built. For the rest of his life, Stendahl was a prophet of that reconciliation.
Stendahl's article, and subsequent writings, spawned a new understanding of how the individualist preoccupations of modernity skewed perceptions of early Christianity. St. Paul's notion of sin was not "sins," the misdeeds that haunt a miserable penitent before a judging God, but rather the condition of being caught in flawed human structures. The good news for Paul consisted in Christ's having submitted to those structures as a way of transforming them. Social justice, not individual perfection, was Paul's concern. Stendahl's vision here helped propel the astounding change in church life that brought war, civil rights, economic opportunity, and gender equality into the center of moral concern. On those questions, too, Krister Stendahl became a prophet. Above all, he demonstrated how real-world issues must influence theological perception, which in turn can underwrite major social change. Now, generations of scholars and ministers carry on what he began.
But if, for me, the revelation tied most powerfully to Krister Stendahl involved the move from a judging to a loving God, that theoretical transformation became intensely personal when, by an amazing turn in my life story, I became his friend. Because of an arthritic condition, he carried himself stiffly, and his Scandinavian demeanor was reserved. But there was nothing stiff or reserved in the way, with his brilliant and large-hearted wife Brita, Krister welcomed me into their intimate circle. What I then discovered was how large that circle is, how many like me are recipients of their overflowing interest and affection. Krister Stendahl, as priest, bishop, teacher, husband, father, grandfather, and friend not only brought the constant love of God out of silence into words. He brought it to life. "L'Chaim!" he loved to say. Life to the full.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe. 