Br. Jerrold Thompson of the Priory of the Incarnation in Omaha sent the following comments after watching the our You Tube video A Brief Introduction to the Meaning of Katherine Tanner for  the Local Congregation.

We are most grateful of them and pleased that he agreed to share them with you.    Michael

I just watched your talk on Tanner and find it thought-provoking on two - well, really, three - levels. I have two degrees in English literature and language and have always been fascinated with language. So the discussion around first-level and second-level God talk is especially engaging. I've often thought, although in other terms, that parish priests live in that odd and (hopefully in our best moments) creative place of combining the two. I also think that many of the problems in American Christianity arise from a lack of respect for the two levels and combining them in a creative way. Your observation about average Christian people being engaged with sound theology not so long ago is spot on and is a very real loss to the quality of theological talk. 

I was also taken by your brief story about the monk who runs from the room during the talk about the transcendence of God. Both the immanence and the transcendence have to be held in a creative tension. It's one of the great gifts of the Christian faith from my perspective, although it's very much found in Judaism as well. Again, we get into trouble when we leave one to the side, or when we are not explicit about our emphasis of one over the other in a given context. This discussion also relates back to language, and language's ability to point us in the direction of God, even reveal God, and yet never capture the entirety of God. Which also relates deeply to the subject of prayer. Interesting how prayer and language are so deeply connected. 

And finally, your unanswered question at the end. How is Tanner specifically an Anglican theologian?  You know her way better than I. I'll be interested to hear what you think!

Watch on You Tube and add comments or questions.