One of the last assignments our former managing editor Harold Smith worked with was this issue’s cover story (p. 16). He sent former associate editor Rodney Clapp to downtown Chicago to sniff around the edges of the world’s largest assembly of theologians and scholars of religion, the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature (AAR/SBL). Harold wanted Rodney to write an impressionistic account of what this endangered species looks like in one of its natural habitats, the professional meeting.
At the meeting, Rodney met with and listened to theologians of all kinds: literalists and deconstructionists, conservatives and liberals, local and foreign. He came back with reams of notes and ideas, and together with Harold picked the ones they thought could best convey the atmosphere of such a meeting.
Both editor Smith and writer Clapp have done themselves proud. The “you were there” format allows the article to tell far more than a straight news report could. And Rodney makes it clear that theologians are very important people—but when you get 5,000 of them together, some strange things can happen.
Actually, the article makes all of us on the staff realize how gifted our two colleagues are, and how much we will miss them as Harold takes up expanded editorial duties here at CTi and Rodney returns to school for more theological training. We are grateful for the time they spent with us.
TERRY C. MUCK, Executive Editor
