{"id":20657,"date":"2013-07-18T09:44:10","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T13:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/?p=20657"},"modified":"2019-09-16T14:23:50","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T18:23:50","slug":"andrew-tripp-sth-09-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/andrew-tripp-sth-09-16\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Tripp (STH '09, '16)"},"content":{"rendered":"

STH Student Tackles Questions of Faith, Through Comics<\/b>
\nGaining a better understanding of what it means to be human
\n07.18.2013By Jessica Ullian (GRS\u201909)
\n\"Andrew<\/a>
\nAndrew Tripp (STH\u201909,\u201916) says that the superheroes popularized in comic books have much to teach us about what it means to be human. Photo by Ryan Hyde<\/a>
\nAndrew Tripp believes in the power of stories, and his favorites tackle questions about Christianity, morality, and humanity. The Book of Job is one. Spider-Man<\/i> is another.
\n\u201cPeter Parker is finding out what it means to be a good person and how to use your talents for the common good,\u201d says Tripp (STH\u201909,\u201916), a doctoral candidate in the School of Theology\u2019s Center for Practical Theology<\/a>, of the teenager behind Spider-Man\u2019s mask. \u201cThere\u2019s a huge segment of our culture that\u2019s not religious, but has its moral cultivation met through that story.\u201d
\nComic books aren\u2019t the core of Tripp\u2019s research\u2014he\u2019s writing his dissertation about urban congregations with strong antipoverty programs\u2014but they\u2019re far more than a side interest. The self-proclaimed nerd is fascinated by the pop-culture narratives that people explore when they turn away from the church\u2014and in using those narratives to understand how people think about right and wrong.
\n\u201cAs America grows more secular, there\u2019s a need for clergy to understand how the unchurched have had their moral development,\u201d Tripp says. \u201cWhen you\u2019re pastorally caring for someone, and you\u2019re helping them integrate into a healthier story, you need to know the stories that have shaped their lives.\u201d
\n\"Andrew<\/a>
\nAndrew Tripp’s favorite stories, among them the Book of Job and Spider-Man<\/i>, tackle questions about Christianity, morality, and humanity. Photo courtesy of the School of Theology
\nHis interest in the issue is more than academic. Raised in the Unitarian Universalist tradition, he found himself drifting away from the church at the end of high school, after his mother died. Still wrestling with questions about spirituality, he found solace in comics, where each character seemed to be struggling with issues he found familiar: Iron Man constantly battled his personal weaknesses while trying to represent peace and justice. The Fantastic Four<\/i>\u2019s Thing appeared impenetrably strong, but mourned for the loss of his humanity.
\n\u201cIt gave me a place to play,\u201d Tripp says. \u201cThe superheroes and the comeback characters spoke to something profound about what it meant to be human.\u201d
\nHe studied chemistry in college and took a job in information technology after graduation. But he found himself longing for the sense of community a church provided, and he joined a congregation near his hometown of Buffalo, N.Y. As he became involved with the church\u2019s committees and community service programs, he learned how the older parishioners had made service to the needy a priority throughout their lives and careers.
\n\u201cChristian love can be such a nebulous term, but the Bible stories concretize what love is: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked,\u201d Tripp says. \u201cAnd in a community that lives out the stories, the wisdom we have about moral discernment comes from those stories.\u201d
\nHis \u201ccall moment,\u201d when it came, was inspired by the many members of his congregation who asked him which seminary he\u2019d be attending\u2014before he\u2019d even applied. \u201cThe world was saying, \u2018This is for you,\u2019\u201d he says. After hearing the stories of the church elders, he was finally ready to begin writing his own.
\nTripp, who earned a master\u2019s degree at STH before continuing on to the doctoral program, hasn\u2019t strayed far from the path that brought him to divinity school: his dissertation focuses on three affluent Boston-area churches that run homeless shelters in their sanctuaries and invite the homeless to participate in regular worship. They\u2019re taking Bible verses about economic responsibility very literally, he says, in a way that many affluent congregations do not.
\n\u201cI want to see if the way they tell the Christian stories differs and affects how they live out the Christian story,\u201d he says.
\nThroughout his studies at STH, and his work as a hospital and hospice chaplain, he\u2019s also found a rich life beyond the page. In his conversations with parishioners and patients, he\u2019s come to value the discussions that emerge around Scripture as much as the Scripture itself. Much as The Avengers<\/i> helped him develop moral reasoning, the conversations he\u2019s had have helped him refine it.
\n\u201cWhen Scripture\u2019s only read as a book of truth statements, it reduces it. What\u2019s important isn\u2019t one side or the other; it\u2019s the discussion,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen people have that conversation, the many different voices and many different minds will have a greater wisdom than any one could have.\u201d
\nThat\u2019s not to say he\u2019ll ever leave comic books behind. He contributed a chapter to Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels<\/i> (Continuum, 2010), edited by BU lecturer A. David Lewis<\/a> (GRS\u201912) and Christine Hoff Kraemer (GRS\u201908), and remains an enthusiastic consumer\u2014and critic\u2014of the ongoing Marvel Comics movie franchises. True to form, he prefers the human struggle of Iron Man<\/i> to the glamorous deities of The Avengers<\/i>.
\n\u201cI\u2019m never going to be Thor,\u201d admits Tripp, referring to the superhuman strength and powers over nature possessed by Marvel\u2019s thunder god character. \u201cBut some days, I can be Iron Man.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STH Student Tackles Questions of Faith, Through Comics Gaining a better understanding of what it means to be human 07.18.2013By Jessica Ullian (GRS\u201909) Andrew Tripp (STH\u201909,\u201916) says that the superheroes popularized in comic books have much to teach us about what it means to be human. Photo by Ryan Hyde Andrew Tripp believes in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12612,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[177],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20657"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12612"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20657"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39216,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20657\/revisions\/39216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}