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STUDENT (droning): "The Lord is my external-internal integrative mechanism. I shall not be deprived of gratifications for my viscerogenic hungers or my need-dispositions. He motivates me to orient myself towards a nonsocial object with effective significance."
The student falls into a dreamlike trance during which Professor Gummidge tiptoes off and is replaced by the Rev. Mr. Logos, who continues the psalm.
LOGOS: "He positions me in a nondecisional situation. He maximizes my adjustment . . ." (As the student wakes up): I'm the Reverend Mr. Logos. Bless you, my son.
STUDENT: I see you're wearing a turned-around collar and a yarmulke. Just what is your religion?
LOGOS: I am a theologian. Does that answer you?
STUDENT: No.
LOGOS: Splendid. How would you refer to a priest disagreeing with a minister?
STUDENT: As two guys arguing?
LOGOS: No, no, no! Religious leaders never argue, they have dialogues, or I-Thou relationships.
STUDENT: If their studies are mainly about Jesus?
LOGOS: They are Christocentrically oriented. If they are interpreting the Bible, hermeneutics is the term.
STUDENT: Can you predict what words will be In for the theological year ahead?
LOGOS: Certainly. Demythologizing, optimism, theology of hope, engage and commitment.
STUDENT: I like dialectic theology and conceptualism.
LOGOS: Forget them. They're all Out. Concentrate on phenomenology, sociological inspiration, ethical activism, crisis of authority.
STUDENT: Suppose someone realizes that I don't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about?
LOGOS: Then accuse him of objectification. If he doesn't go away, ask him what he did before he got religion, before his ultimate faith-concern, or better still, Selbstverständnis.
STUDENT: But that's not even English.
LOGOS: All the better. Many influential theologians wrote in German—Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, Barth—and German not only offers us a chance to obfuscate, it adds a tangy foreign flavor. For instance, there is Historic, meaning bare facts, Geschichte, meaning interpretive history.
STUDENT: Sort of like the difference between The World Almanac and Toynbee.
LOGOS: Remember Gummidge's Law: don't clarify!
STUDENT: Sorry.
LOGOS: Don't let it happen again. Vorverständnis is one of my favorites. It means presupposition. Wissenschaft is far better than saying simply discipline or science, and anxiety sounds much deeper if you say Angst. If you grow weary of German, there is always Greek—almost everyone has seen Never on Sunday—with such splendid specimens as kerygma (message of the Scriptures) and agape (divine love).
STUDENT (writing furiously): Are you sure Jargon really works? In religion, I mean?
LOGOS: Does it? I quote from a distinguished cleric: "I can't make heads or tails out of a great deal of what Tillich says." The confessor is Dr. Billy Graham himself.
At this, the Rev. Mr. Logos is borne away by the laity to edit a book of his sermons entitled Through Exegesis and Hermeneutics We Arrive at Kerygma. In his place steps Dr. Beazle, who takes the student's blood pressure, temperature, hemoglobin count and wallet.