tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post6941664496970525313..comments2024-03-28T11:33:16.271-05:00Comments on Adventus: The Square and Stationary InternetUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-22070830120743320362017-08-26T13:50:06.337-05:002017-08-26T13:50:06.337-05:00I think, in general, Biblical scholars make poor t...I think, in general, Biblical scholars make poor theologians. Bultmann's work on the gospel of John is magisterial; his more "popular" works, meant for a general audience, on his idea of "demythologizing," seem to me a failure.<br /><br />But the JS was set up precisely to counter Biblical inerrancy and fundamentalist exegesis. I suppose you can say that's aimed at middle-class white people, but it made no claim to be liberation theology or womanist or black theology, so i don't get the criticism from this guy.<br /><br />As you say, all we seem capable of now is moderating our popular raging xenophobia. Which is probably a middle-class white word, too; come to think of it.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-3358914940869094422017-08-26T12:05:13.498-05:002017-08-26T12:05:13.498-05:00In my later and possibly declining years I have ta...In my later and possibly declining years I have taken a more critical view of historical criticism and its implications, but the idea that it's discredited because it's steeped in "white, middle class privilege" seems a little goofy to me. You could say the same, probably, about most literature, and history, and science, and philosophy, and just about any field based on a rigorous academic background.<br /><br />I've been reading some Bultmann lately, and though I am critical of his starting point, and some of his historical assertions have been challenged (as happens normally with history), I am still challenged by his vision. If the appreciation of the rather brilliant working out of an approach to Christianity that I consider not ultimately fruitful is only the indulgence of middle class privilege, I will plead guilty. <br /><br />Philosophy, in its many forms, is something I've never made a dime from, but it has enriched my life, and I truly wish there were a way that it could be more widely appreciated. Unhappily, these days we have to count ourselves lucky if we can moderate our popular raging xenophobia.rick allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07612435616018593956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-69910822793594304022017-08-26T09:27:50.654-05:002017-08-26T09:27:50.654-05:00I take some good from the Jesus Seminar, but I don...I take some good from the Jesus Seminar, but I don't take everything they did without a grain of salt. Crossan is a serious scholar, Borg and especially Spong less so.<br /><br />But nobody gets everything right; and that swipe at their theology makes the whole project sound like professional jealousy. If you've got something to say, stake your claim. Kicking somebody else to prove your bona fides is a poor way to establish anything except bitterness and not having much to say on your own.<br /><br />I go to RD occasionally, mostly to see what new outrage they're a-feared of, or what new distortion they can put on matters that really require nuanced thinking. After your post today, I'm gonna quit reading on-line crap and start reading Marilynne Robinson. About time I got around to that.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-13493038938047324972017-08-26T08:49:36.773-05:002017-08-26T08:49:36.773-05:00The last time I looked at Crossan what he had to s...The last time I looked at Crossan what he had to say about the cultural and historical background was what I found most striking. Though I will always be grateful to him because reading The Historical Jesus was an important step in my real conversion which is incomplete and ongoing and, for which, I find other authors with other points of view more important. I also have to credit his book about Paul for getting me to look harder at the epistles, both those deemed genuinely Pauline and those not and seeing that most of the things that had scandalized me about them were his responses to problems of the gentile communities he'd founded and couldn't be understood outside of the pagan contexts they were always in danger from. Both unwelcomed violence and seductive back sliding. <br /><br />I've read little of Marcus Borg. <br /><br />Spong is someone I have never had any interest in, he's a publicity hound. I used to think of him as the successor of Bishop James Pike, though James Pike was a far more substantial figure so I don't think of him that way, anymore. <br /><br />I doubt I'll read the book. Religion Dispatches lost me. <br /><br />Anthony Alumkal's other book, Asian American Evangelical Churches: Race, Ethnicity, and Assimilation in the Second Generation, has an interesting title. I've been tempted to go check out the tiny Indonesian Christian church the next town over, I don't even know what denomination it is. They took over from a real eccentric former Congregationalist who didn't take to the formation of the UCC and started his own church. I knew him slightly and think he'd probably be kind of stunned to find out who is worshiping in his chapel now. Though not because he was a racist, as far as I know, he wasn't. It would not have been expected. <br /><br />The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.com