Beeson Podcast, Episode 496 Rev. Dr. Nathan White May 12, 2020 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, I am Doug Sweeney here with my co-host Kristen Padilla. Today, on the podcast, we have another outstanding Beeson alumnus as a guest. I can�t see him, however, for this particular guest is actually joining us by phone. Now, Kristen, would you please introduce today�s podcast guest? >>Kristen Padilla: Welcome, everyone, to the Beeson podcast. I�m excited to have a fellow Beeson alum with us today, Reverend Doctor Nathan White. He is Associate Dean for the US Army Chaplain Graduate School in Columbia, South Carolina, and the Executive Director of the Institute for Faith and Resilience. An ordained Anglican priest, Nathan has served local parishes and the US Army as a Chaplain. He is married to Caroline and they have three children. In fact, the third child is fairly new. So, congratulations, Nathan, on your most recent child and welcome to the podcast. >>Nathan White: Thanks so much, and thank you for having me. Yeah, Henry is not even a month old yet. So, we�re still trying to get some sleep at times. [laughter] >>Kristen Padilla: Well, we�re glad to have you here. We always like to begin by getting to know you on a better, more personal, level. Why don�t you tell us where you�re from and anything about your spiritual journey? >>Nathan White: Yeah. Glad to. Well, I�m from Kansas originally, Wichita, Kansas, and I grew up there mostly. So, I�m a Midwesterner. I have an identical twin brother. So, that was kind of fun growing up. I grew up in a non denominational tradition for the most part. Accepted Christ at a young age, was baptized, and really sought to serve the Lord from a young age. When I was in kind of junior high and high school I had kind of a crisis of faith. Not so much in doubting, but more in a deep struggle with depression that I had during those years. Just really trying to wrestle with where was God in the midst of all that. But in the midst of that I had a very clear sense of calling to ministry and I thought a calling to missions. But I wasn�t quite sure what that looked like. So, after high school I went to the Chicago area, Wheaton College, where I pursued a degree in Christian Education to try to see what the Lord would have for me next. >>Doug Sweeney: Dr. White, tell us a little bit about your ministry journey. Particularly after college. How did you know you were supposed to become a pastor? What was your call to ministry like? And what has your pastoral experience been like? >>Nathan White: Yeah, it was kind of gradual, I guess I would have to say. I had a sense of calling to the ministry, but I, to be honest, was a bit scared of preaching, or more than a bit scared. But when I was at Wheaton I had the privilege of being mentored by Dr. Lyle Dorsett who would go on to serve at Beeson as well. And he really mentored me, and once I graduated from Wheaton was trying to figure out what I was going to do. I was invited by him to come with him to Beeson, because he was moving at that time. I was quite hesitant to go to seminary, because of the preaching aspect. I wanted to do missions and do ministry, but I was quite introverted and so didn�t really know if that was my cup of tea. So, after almost backing out I decided to try it out and go to Beeson. And I loved it. I loved, actually, my preaching class there at Beeson with Dr. Robert Smith, who just was incredible to work with. During that time when I went to Wheaton I had started attending an Anglican Church there that Dr. Dorsett had planted. And when I went to Beeson I continued in that journey and was ordained in the Anglican tradition while I was serving ... while I was at Beeson I got to serve both at St. Peters there in Birmingham, and then to help be part of the team that planted Christ the King Anglican Church. And I guess the story of my life was my calling was unfolding as I took the next step. While I was in seminary I started to think about the Army chaplaincy. It was not something that I had ever considered before, really, especially given my family. My dad grew up Quaker and my mother grew up Mennonite. So, very strong traditions of not serving in the military. But I felt a very strong calling at that time, especially with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan going on, to serve the soldiers who were in harm�s way. Kind of what I learned about the chaplain�s ministry, essentially there was no one else there who would minister to the spiritual needs of these soldiers. I felt a deep sense of calling, in a sense to be a missionary to this culture, these soldiers, to learn their new language, lingo, their culture, and to be with them in some of the most difficult times of their lives. When no one else could be there because of being deployed. So, I did that straight out of seminary. And was on active duty for a number of years. And then following the few years I decided to join the reserves and to pursue further doctoral studies in England and then following that I�ve been doing some teaching as well as served as Associate Rector for an Anglican Church. So, quite a varied array of pastoral ministry. >>Kristen Padilla: One of your interests is in the area of resilience, and this is something that we really want to dive in on today�s show. You have a new book that you co-edited with Christopher C. H. Cook called, �Biblical and Theological Visions of Resilience: Pastor and Clinical Insights.� So, let�s begin with what led you to put this book together and who did you recruit to work on the project? >>Nathan White: Well, this book really was derived from my experiences as a chaplain. So, as I was serving as a chaplain I deployed both to Iraq and to Afghanistan, separate times, and while I was in Afghanistan I was wounded in combat. I had a traumatic brain injury. And so as I was seeking to recover from that over kind of the year and years following, and as I was seeking to be a chaplain to these soldiers, I found in my own ministry that there were not the theological resources out there that I would have liked to have seen to help my soldiers and myself through these times of difficulty. There were some things, but I didn�t feel that they went as deeply as I would have liked them to do. So, this really kind of led me to go and do my doctoral work at Durham University in the UK where I studied with Chris Cook who co-edited this with me. He�s a psychiatrist as well as a theologian and an Anglican priest. What I did in my dissertation is to really look at resilience and to try and dig deep both with the actual social science research that is out there regarding human resilience through adversity, but also the theological depth of resources within the Christian tradition that are there to meet those needs. So, my doctoral dissertation focused on the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur and the theology of Julian of Norwich as a way of kind of grappling with narrative identity. Then after I finished I just kind of woke up in the middle of the night one night thinking there are so many riches in the Christian tradition to help people through their adversity and through difficult circumstances, so why not kind of delve into those? So, I wanted to bring together a group of serious biblical scholars and theologians who could relate their own areas of expertise to this area of resilience, which has kind of in some ways become a very significant cultural construct for us. So, Chris and I, we worked together to get a great group of scholars, including at Oxford, Carol Harrison, and Joanna Cullicut McGrath, and [inaudible 00:10:21] Aberdeen. And then others from Baylor and Durham and Emory, and then a couple of Beeson alums, even, Andy Byers and then [inaudible 00:10:30], Rebecca [inaudible 00:10:32] as well as Beeson�s Carl Beckwith. We had a lot of great people who contributed to this. Skipped her name as well. The idea was all of these people who have a great depth of insight into the biblical canon as well as to particular theologians. Why not have them kind of take this and have a very pastoral implications of their work all within one volume? >>Doug Sweeney: So, tell us a little bit, Nathan, about the riches that you�ve referred to? What is in the book? What are you and your authors doing in it? What are the biblical and theological visions of resilience that you�re serving us with here? >>Nathan White: Yeah, great question. Well, I wish we could have included more, because there�s so much that could have been included. Like we weren�t able to include anything on the Book of Job for instance, but there�s just so much we had to stop somewhere. But it�s everywhere from [Noel 00:11:37] took the Book of Deuteronomy and Israel�s desert wandering and related that to our experiences, sometimes, of spiritual deserts and dryness. [Andy Byers 00:11:48] took the Gospel of John and related the themes of biding in Christ to resilience. Others take the Book of Lamentations ... what do you do when you cannot form a coherent narrative about what God is doing in the situation and how should that inform the way we understand resilience? And then all the way to various theologians throughout the Church. So, Cark Beckwith took Martin Luther and the promise of the gospel and how should this inform how we view the world in our own experiences of difficulty. All the way to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and J�rgen Moltmann. We don�t have time to go into all of it, but it�s interesting we said �visions of resilience,� because I kind of feel like it�s kind of like a crystal where there are so many different facets in each book of the Bible, each theologian kind of provides a different facet to help understand how we might apply the riches that are contained there within our current situations today. >>Kristen Padilla: What about ... you mentioned that the bible has, of course, something to say to us about resiliency but how might a biblical text, such as ... what comes to mind is Lamentations, inform a Christian understanding of resilience? >>Nathan White: Yeah, great question. Well, I think in our culture today we�re very apt to try to jump to the answer; to say we�ve got it all figured out or God makes everything better, or don�t worry about it, it will all be better in the future. Which at one level, perhaps, is partially true. At another level is not as pastorally sensitive or helpful. And the Book of Lamentations provides kind of a cautionary tale in this respect where you have the Israelites in the aftermath of terrible destruction sitting and lamenting. They aren�t able to put the pieces together. They�re still in the midst of their pain of the difficulty and crying out to God for it. What the particular author has to say in this volume is essentially that this is a form of resilience to be able to sit with our pain without it being fully synthesized, without everything being made right, but to be able to, nonetheless, turn that into a prayer. And so in some sense this is a vision of resilience, that everything doesn�t have to be made right, right now. We can sit in the pain and be real with God in the midst of it. >>Doug Sweeney: Nathan, do you want to say a word about what this has to do with our congregational lives? How would we apply the contents of your book to the ministries of pastors, to the ministries of church people, who are trying to be an encouragement to one another? >>Nathan White: I think the scriptures and the Christian tradition have so much to offer our ministries and those sitting in the pews. And I think just too often we don�t catch that vision of how it might be applied. And so these are just kind of a couple of examples that we�re trying to give of these are ways that these texts can speak very deeply to us in the midst of our difficulty, currently. I mean, there�s a lot of research that shows that our culture is becoming less resilient instead of more resilient. Especially if you look at the data concerning young people. Suicides and mental health issues. All these kinds of things. And you could point your finger in a number of different directions of why that might be. But I think the point for us, as ministers, is that these aren�t issues that we can kind of sweep under the rug, but we as pastors have a role to play, alongside healthcare practitioners and others, to bring the life of Christ and to bring holistic ministry and holistic healing to those in the congregation. And the wisdom of the scriptures, the wisdom of the Church through the ages has so much to speak to this. I mean, even if you look at Martin Luther, for instance, and his table talks, so many of these were about dealing with depression and talking with young pastors and those at his table how to deal with a lot of these things. And yet these resources are not often known or appropriated or applied today. And so when we talk kind of being resilient and that sort of thing one of the things I�m trying to help us to see is we don�t have to come up with new solutions. These aren�t necessarily new problems that we�re having and there are so many resources within our tradition that we can draw upon to help those to whom we minister. >>Kristen Padilla: You�ve talked about your own experience as a military chaplain and being wounded in service. How does resiliency, as you think about those in the military and as serving in chaplaincy, maybe a word as resiliency relates to those serving in those capacities? And also for those who are considering chaplaincy, specifically military chaplaincy, as way to work out their vocational call to ministry, what special role do chaplains play and why should men and women consider military chaplaincy? >>Nathan White: Well, for me, I found it to be a very rewarding ministry. There are very few places in American society today where there is so much regard for formalized ministers and in the military every unit has a chaplain. And so I was the chaplain for anywhere between 600 and 1800 soldiers and their families. A lot of whom, most of whom were not Christians. But I had a very unique and special opportunity just to be with these soldiers in the midst of what they�re going through, whether they were on exercise or whether they were just doing maintenance on vehicles. I just would hang out with them, spend time with them, get to know them. And many who would never darken the door of a church, when they were facing difficulties whether with family or marriage issues or anxiety or sleep issues, they would come and talk with me. And that gave me an opportunity to be the presence of Christ there with them, to share with them the hope that I had. So, I found it to be just a very unique and rewarding ministry. I got to do a lot of fun stuff, too, like travel a lot, rappel out of helicopters, and fun things like that � that are fun for some people at least. As well as really unique opportunities like giving aid personally to Iraqi school children and interfacing with local religious leaders overseas. I find it to be just a special type of ministry that is parallel to and engages with local parish ministry, but you get to be with your parishioners for 24/7 essentially a lot of times. These are also people who wouldn�t normally come to a church. So, it�s a unique opportunity and I believe that God is calling some people into this type of ministry and I�d encourage them to look into it if that is the case. >>Doug Sweeney: So many of us are talking about the importance of resilience in ministry today, and it sure is good to have real experts with us to help us out. You have been listening to Beeson alumnus, the Reverend Doctor Nathan White, who is the Associate Dean for US Army Chaplain Graduate School in Columbia, South Carolina, and Executive Director of the Institute for Faith and Resilience. We are grateful to him for being on today�s program. Thank you for joining us. Goodbye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You�ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.