About

Marvin Lance Wiser is currently an English teacher and missionary in Mexico City with his wife Yuliana León-Wiser.  He has been living there since August 2007.  He was raised in Fayetteville, TN (just north of Huntsville, AL) and spent four years in Arkansas where he studied at and, in May 2007, received his B.A. from Harding University in Searcy, AR.  His studies included psychology, languages, and biblical studies.  He and Yuliana León were married in July 2008. He loves to travel and is politically and socially progressive.

He is an avid listener of Jazz (i.e. Dave Douglas, Donny McCaslin, Michael Brecker, Branford Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Joe Lovano, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Wayne Shorter, Brad Mehldau, Pat Metheney, Dave Holland, Enrico Rava, Béla Fleck, Jaco Pastorius, Jim Black, and Chris Potter- just to name a few- check out his jazz links).  He also enjoys listening to “Tintinnabuli” chamber/choral music (Arvo Pärt being his favorite composer), Mozart, Dvorak, Hadyn, Menndelsohn, Vivaldi, Debussy, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Jimmy Buffet, and U2. For more of a complete list see his Facebook profile.

His drug of choice is coffee- black, no sugar.  Preferred brew: French Press

His favorite theologians (for the time being) are Walter Brueggemann and Paul Tillich

He receives much joy from seeing and supporting his wife as she completes her master’s in Marriage & Family Therapy.  At this point in his life he is seeking discernment- probing various institutions in preparation for his Master’s (update: most likely in the Boston area); creating didactic material in Spanish for biblical studies; and learning how ecology, politics, psychology, sociology, and social awareness and action intersect with biblical studies and biblical interpretation.

When he isn’t teaching English, ministering, listening to jazz, or taking a coffee break (or watching House) with his wife, he is reading something concerning the Hebrew Bible (Walter Brueggemann, Gerhard von Rad, William P. Brown, Bruce C. Birch, John G. Gammie, John J. Collins, Abraham Heschel, Leo G. Perdue, James L. Crenshaw, John H. Hayes, Carol Newsom, Norman Gottwald, David L. Peterson, Jacob Milgrom, Mark S. Smith, Samuel Terrien, Susan Niditch, Phyllis Trible, Jon D. Levenson, Michael Fishbane, Paul D. Hanson, & Terence E. Fretheim are some of his many favorite authors)- which is where he intends to concentrate his studies. In addition, he also likes to drudge through Postmodern studies (thanks to his wife) and tamper with Continental Philosophy, reading up on Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Berger, Lyotard, etc. He definitely thinks Brueggemann along with others are going some where with deconstruction, social constructionism, etc. when applying it to the Hebrew Bible and utilizing Literary Theory as does Terry Eagleton.  Speech is power.

His aspirations are to minister in a church setting (UCC and Disciples traditions) and to one day earn a PhD or ThD in Hebrew Bible.  His academic interests (broad and numerous as they may be in his early stage of academic pursuits- he’s just getting his feet wet. . .) are the Torah, and the books of Jeremiah, Deutero & Trito Isaiah, Ruth, Jonah, and Job; as well as various biblical criticisms (source, textual, rhetorical, social etc.); Ancient Near Eastern studies, Hebrew, Greek, Akkadian, and Aramaic language studies, Northwest Semitic philology and epigraphy, biblical theology, socio-literary approaches, liberation theologies, Latin American history, narrative therapy, process theology, inter-faith and ecumenical studies, creational and relational theologies, inner-biblical exegesis and interpretation, the power of metaphors, literary theory, post-modern interpretation, social constructionism and constructivism, conflict and violence within the Bible, forgiveness as forming community, religion and conflict, divine-human dialogue, the Yahwist and natural theology, the vocation of sage, pollution in Leviticus, an ecological theology of “the land”, social ethics and poetics in the prophets,  reinterpretation of the prophetic traditions, midrash, Jewish origions, the “immigrant”, the issue of theodicy, the democratizing of holiness, theologies of protest (especially in Ruth, Jonah, and Job), pre-exilic vs. post exilic views of women and foreigners, the transmutation of mishpat in the Priestly source, the construal of alternative realities in Jeremiah, universalism in Amos and Isaiah, the Zadokite opposition, the Ezekelian School, Second-Temple Judaism- the Persian Period, the Tannaim, Palestinian Judaism, the New Perspective on Paul, the beginnings of Rabbinical Judaism, the relationship with Judaism and Christianity in the first centuries of the common era; and the motifs of chaos, death, creation, life,  justice, jubilee, abundance, equilibrium, and empire (as it spans both testaments) or the invariable penultimate superpower and globalization.  In addition he is interested in how the behavioral and social sciences intersect with and influence biblical interpretation, and how politics influenced the development of the canon.

A dream that both he and his wife share, is to aid and/or open a counseling clinic in Latin America: helping people find solutions to their concerns, riding maladaptive patterns and combating death among people; helping them discover new ways to solve problems, allowing for healing and reparation through therapy, continuously working towards the advancement and growth of the church, the community, and life among and in creation as a whole.

Their motto is: “To equip, enable, empower, & encourage!”

Isaiah 56:7

II Corinthians 2:14

–MLW

Kierkegaard