THQ has entered a state of suspended (as in no new posts) animation (as in what been archived is still quite lively!)
I must admit, perched on the cusp of a new year as I am in this moment, that my personality is not well suited for nostalgia, Auld Lang Syne notwithstanding.
Maybe it's because my memory is so pathetic. That’s something I would attribute to too much Testor™ model glue and paint—as I was an avid kit builder growing up—were it not for my dear mother’s propensity to be thinking about so much stuff all the time that some things just get pushed aside. Kind of like that monkeys jumping on the bed nursery rhyme.
All this is to say I’ve been cooking up a lot of new stuff over at Fortress Press, including a new blog site, http://www.seminariumblog.org/ , and our enhanced Inkling textbooks. The energy around new project development has afforded me precious little time to pause and reflect and even recall all the amazing stories that have surrounded my involvement in www.thehardestquestion.org
By “involvement” I don’t mean the grand idea of midrashic engagement around the Revised Common Lectionary texts. In fact, I dare say, prior to meeting Russell Rathbun in the early stages of this project, I had given no thought whatsoever to the idea that Midrash might inspire a different kind of Christian conversation around these Bible texts.
Creative aspirations for THQ - mapped out at sparkhouse.
Coming from a more conservative background, not to mention Modernity, I was so accustomed to dueling hermeneutics—as in, I’m right and you’re wrong—that the kind of playful competition modeled by Russell in his effort to get at (tongue-firmly-pressed-into-cheek) the “Hardest Question” was like a blast of refreshing, and deeply irenic, air to me. Did I mention fun? My favorite Rev'd Russell quotes, stemming from the earliest moments of the THQ project’s conception, remain with me to this moment: “Don’t be afraid to question the text, because the text won’t break” and “I like questioning the text to the point of ridiculous because that’s when the Holy Spirit shows up.”
You knew when a commenter failed to understand what THQ was all about when they prosaically lambasted rather than cleverly retorted with another question. You know that one of our amazing (and there have been many!) contributors like Carol Howard Merritt totally got it when a tweet about her post read: “Luckily this one is for @hardestquestion, so I don’t have to put a happy face on it.” That was exactly what we had envisoned for THQ—that it could be a safe place for some rather off-kilter conversation about texts that desperate preachers had wrung out time and time again. In driving towards “The Hardest Question” both bloggers and readers saw very familiar texts in brand new, often paradigm smashing, ways.
I was continually blown away, in my role as managing editor, how people like Phyllis Tickle, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Danielle Shroyer, Debbie Blue, Lauren Winner, Nanette Sawyer, and Lia Scholl could explode a text and put in back together in ways that amalgamated incredible humor with profound insight. And do you notice something about that list? Russell was adamant that we would counter-point the predominately male blogroll—as in mostly Russell—with the voice of female homileticians.
This was not exclusively so as Mark Stenberg, Clint Schnekloth, Bruce Reyes-Chow, Mike Stavlund, Roy Terry, Michael Danner and the monks of Unvirtuous Abbey were all regulars. We even enjoyed some cameo blogs from Mark Labberton, Will Willimon, Mark Scandrette and many, many, others male and female. But all this is to say, that THQ has been blessed by a host of folks who truly cared about the weekly grind of sermonizing and were pleased to offer some grist to that mill!
344,000 visitors! Three years of THQ traffic - RCL A, B, and C!
The weekly heartbeat of traffic to the site inevitably spiked on Saturdays lending credence to the idea that we were indeed a go-to place for a homiletical shot in the arm. I could quote a host of comments that I have gleaned from both the site and from social media outlets to further that assertion, but one of my favorites was written on an Easter Sunday morning by Pastor Billy Kurtz:
I am grateful for the Hardest Question because it often helps me see the story or pericope from a different angle that then lets me re-imagine the scripture. I may not use what I read but I do think I am strengthened each time I read it. This one was both entertaining and enlightening.
In a moment of bittersweet Auld Lang Syne (now that’s a text that could bear some midrash), I would like to think that the spirit of THQ'n will live on in a Church that both treasures and plays with its most sacred texts. Not in a “parallel play” kind of toddler-esque you-do-your-thing-and-I’ll-do-mine way, but in an “iron-sharpens-iron,” sparks may fly, but we are all the sharper for it kind of way—a way, above all, tempered with grace.
We need an edge that’s less dull, I think, more clever and full of as, @davebuer has said, #zestygospelyfun!
It’s been my pleasure to serve as the site “creator”—in the sense of the building an arena for that THQ fun to happen—and the site’s managing editor—in the sense of making sure the THQ show went on week after week. And I can honestly say the hardest question for me now is how to let go of a community that’s been generated from zero to a couple thousand each and every week.
It helps to know that you have Russell’s http://www.questionthetext.org/ to go on to, that’s for sure!
We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine;
But seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne.
And there’s a hand my trusty friend ! And give me a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught, for auld lang syne.
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THQ goes live - 6/16/10
The thumb is attached to David Schoenknecht who continues to work for Augsburg Fortress Publishers as the Resource Developer for Fortress Press and managing editor of www.seminariumblog.org.
In his previous role with sparkhouse, in addition to overseeing THQ, David was the lead developer for animate.Faith™ and served as a resource developer for the re:form™ series.
