tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post3332531325882444416..comments2023-08-12T03:31:24.561-07:00Comments on postpostochlophobist: spatiamentum, and other fragments, in slight payment of an old debt. Part II.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-88037377293308422852012-09-28T16:54:10.632-07:002012-09-28T16:54:10.632-07:00LOL! Yeah we have some Dicks in Phoenix. We have s...LOL! Yeah we have some Dicks in Phoenix. We have some lower rent sporting chains that aren't in malls, that's where I go for shoes and stuff.Steve Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04319784922747041297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-15080061406154654142012-09-27T20:47:30.841-07:002012-09-27T20:47:30.841-07:00Gabriel,
With one exception you echo my experienc...Gabriel,<br /><br />With one exception you echo my experience.<br /><br />But one time, I had this priest who I later learned was working on a LCSW, hear my confession. I confessed 4 sins, all 4 very common, none very pretty. Of the 4, he wanted know in 3 cases if I had considered counseling, because a good shrink could probably get me over my problems.<br /><br />I wanted to ask him what good the damn confessional was, and what a shrink was going to say to get me to stop touching myself or losing patience in traffic. Instead I said the Act and got out of there. He didn't even give me a penance. (A seminarian friend said the confession WAS my penance, but I'm not so sure...)<br /><br />Hezekiah GarrettAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-44086630929406795462012-09-27T20:40:41.473-07:002012-09-27T20:40:41.473-07:00No, they're usually in malls, but I guess I...No, they're usually in malls, but I guess I'll have to get over my aversion, if the local grocer and druggist can't get them anymore. (The grocer, Kroger, could care less. The druggist was more sympathetic but has to sell what corporate sends him.) So thanks for the tip!!!<br /><br />I was going to say sporting goods stores are usually Dicks, but then I realised not everybody has that chain and might not get the joke.<br /><br />Hezekiah GarrettAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-45137626319327558722012-09-26T21:00:36.228-07:002012-09-26T21:00:36.228-07:00Hezekiah, have you checked sporting goods stores t...Hezekiah, have you checked sporting goods stores that have shoe departments? (Big 5 in my town) I've gotten good replacement insoles for my work shoes for about 15.00. Steve Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04319784922747041297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-51066126822731424072012-09-26T13:17:53.248-07:002012-09-26T13:17:53.248-07:00I really wasn't expecting to find a grey matte...I really wasn't expecting to find a grey matter circle jerk when I wondered over here.<br /><br />The place sounds awesome though. Or at least the smoke pad out back. Wish I had a boss and co-workers like that. Sounds like family. I do like the way you write, it kills time sitting on a truck. And I doubt I get ran off from here for not being nice enough to suit somebody.<br /><br />Got any recommendations on insoles? I have flat arches and can't find anything but like $30 Dr Scholls things these days. Used to be able to get decent ones for 6 or 7.<br /><br />Hezekiah GarrettAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-68477663923832772132012-09-26T11:11:16.179-07:002012-09-26T11:11:16.179-07:00the American Religion people I know are mostly ext...<i>the American Religion people I know are mostly extremely smart former div students</i><br /><br />I second that assertion, and I've wondered about it for years. As much as I hate to admit anything good ever coming out of Wheaton, Mark Noll's disciples tended to be pretty damn bright (and they tended to convert to Catholicism, or become mainline Prots). I suppose his Notre Dame disciples are probably above par as well. Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-74365788868306639412012-09-26T10:59:27.152-07:002012-09-26T10:59:27.152-07:00But lets also be honest -- has anyone spent much t...<i>But lets also be honest -- has anyone spent much time talking with sociology, literature, or philosophy students? Most have no idea what they are talking about. The humanities now are completely awry.</i><br /><br />Daniel, I've long made it a rule not to let such truths get in the way of my personal favorite bitch&gripe points. Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-18778507167222183642012-09-25T23:38:19.954-07:002012-09-25T23:38:19.954-07:00I don't at all think you can do theology witho...I don't at all think you can do theology without reference to outside intellectual disciplines. I'm not even sure what that would look like. It's just that the way outside disciplines often get utilized is amateurish, which for me is just a symptom of the typically low quality of theology student, though the brightest div students usually manage to go into Religious Studies PhD's to do something straightforwardly historical-- even if they're not language-obsessives, the American Religion people I know are mostly extremely smart former div students.<br /><br /><br />I think academic theology is significantly worse off than the other humanities, even English and Comp Lit. The economic and institutional reasons Owen mentioned are a part of it, but the bottom line is that the stakes are just too damn low for it to be a serious discipline in our social context...Samn!https://www.blogger.com/profile/14142811721903345946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-56160413987035308722012-09-25T21:06:10.030-07:002012-09-25T21:06:10.030-07:00Sam, you hit VDS on the head --Lots of emoting-- ...Sam, you hit VDS on the head --Lots of emoting-- and most of it is lots of posturing and no real intellectual responsibility or serious formation. I seriously had to mention law of noncontradiction the other day because of HOW absolutely inane the convo got. <br /><br />There are a ton of Yale Div students here doing Phds -- I am sure you know some of them...Danielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12462791786546752315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-60866471227372270462012-09-25T21:03:39.071-07:002012-09-25T21:03:39.071-07:00I hear what you all are saying and agree with a lo...I hear what you all are saying and agree with a lot of it. <br /><br />Most div schools stay open now because probably 1/4 of the student body should not be there. In my personal experience of VDS this is absolutely true. Part of this is because folks did degrees in bullshit areas (Moral Leadership ? Organizational Skills or something or other) and HAVE no background in history, texts, languages, or philosophy. So apocalyptic jewish literature and its impact on early christian texts?? They dont have a clue in the slightest. They basically keep the school afloat with loans....<br /><br /><br />but on a grander scheme ---<br />Hasnt theology always gone awhoring? Egyptian spoils? Aquinas and aristotle? most modern theology and Heidegger?<br /><br /><br />But lets also be honest -- has anyone spent much time talking with sociology, literature, or philosophy students? Most have no idea what they are talking about. The humanities now are completely awry.Danielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12462791786546752315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-11978324783024588512012-09-25T20:50:39.325-07:002012-09-25T20:50:39.325-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Danielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12462791786546752315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-66467409414488186402012-09-25T18:59:12.928-07:002012-09-25T18:59:12.928-07:00Anon and Och, Spot on. Preach it my brothers! &quo...Anon and Och, Spot on. Preach it my brothers! "Theology" has whored itself out to interdisciplinary scholarship so it can be seen with the "real intellectuals" of the age and perhaps some validation might rub off on it. Heck, no one wants to spend 6-10 years in college only to be regarded as some backwater hillbilly bible thumping ignoramus. Steve Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04319784922747041297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-34982571878837657172012-09-25T16:28:21.736-07:002012-09-25T16:28:21.736-07:00Same Anon here. (Actually it's Billy but I do...Same Anon here. (Actually it's Billy but I don't have the right sort of account to post any other way, it seems). <br /><br />The point about recentish theological scholarship being third-rate and two decades after the fact is spot on. I remember reading recently an early 199x commentary on John that advertised itself as "reader-response" (Fish's Surprised by Sin was published in 1967). If I write a French phenomenological commentary on John and publish it by 2025 I would probably be a cutting edge new testament scholar. (Of course Michel Henry's idiosyncratic reading of John was published long ago, but that can't really be called a commentary). And another thing. Why is it that biblical studies and or theological scholarship more generally has to advertise and defend their critical methodology in advance of actually performing the work? Nearly every post 1970s commentary I come across is prefaced with some kind of cartoonish and simplified account of the "critical methodology" that will actually be implemented in the following text. So, for example, a structuralist reading of John will contain seven or eight somewhat embarrassing pages rehashing levi-strauss, saussurre, etc., while a reader-response approach will give an embarrassingly simple story of new criticism, close reading, etc. But, come to think of it, theology as a scholarly discipline is not alone in this respect: law articles and scholarship (when they branch outside of narrow case commentary) do the same thing. Thus a paper on law and virtue written in, oh, 1999, will contain a primer on "virtue-ethics" and a summation of After Virtue--as though nobody's heard of this before. All disciplines, I'm sure, play this game somewhat when engaging in cross-disciplinarity work (excuse the term), but law and, especially, theology foreground the awkwardness of the endeavor in a special way. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-91741892068597394832012-09-25T11:12:51.751-07:002012-09-25T11:12:51.751-07:00What Anon said and this - I'm not one of these...What Anon said and this - I'm not one of these 19th century German scholarship fetishists or as fundamentalist about philology as Samn!y is - I appreciate those avenues, but I also find them stifling when left to themselves, and I think the advent of critical theory and modern social theory to be fine things overall. Academic theology, it seems to me, is nothing more than the application of borrowed methodologies to religious texts, religious histories, etc. There is a reason that a mind like Samn!y's didn't end up in a theo department - he's too bright for that. Theology dept's that do philological work are going to do third rate philology. Theo dept's that do critical theory are going to do third rate critical theory. It's all rather embarrassing. It's an incredibly insular and navel gazing academic world - even by contemporary humanities standards, and when academic theologians do "interdisciplinary" work there and embrace whatever chosen trend that has been going on in academia for 30 years and is now somewhat dated, there is supposed to be this shazaam gravitas moment, apparently because some small circle of academic theologians is now engaged in whatever 20 or 30 year old theoretical or methodological construct is currently being embraced. <br /><br />As for the reasons why this is so - I think it simplistic to point just to secularization or even to the disarray of the humanities. I think part of it, in both Europe and America, was the awakening of persons of intellect to the politicization of theology and the parsings that followed. I think especially in America there is the history of divinity schools having been the only higher education game around for generations, and then the dominant education game for generations after that, and all of the ramifications that came into play when that model fell. The subordination of academic subjects to theology for generations somehow seemed to have invited the fury with which those emancipated disciplines would send theology as academic study to the side halls of irrelevancy. And there are other factors - the commodification of education. There are business reasons to have at least marginally operative humanities programs around. The relationship between business interests and academic theology is obviously going to be much more frustrated. Yet at the same time theology departments haven't seen themselves as bastions of real education offering protected refuges from commodified education models - instead they still operate as if kissing corporate ass and they are so often infected with that sort of intellectual disease which thinks that going after Pew-Templeton grant money a good thing. <br /> Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-89218025645937178592012-09-24T19:40:20.470-07:002012-09-24T19:40:20.470-07:00I wonder if this holds as true -- on average -- fo...I wonder if this holds as true -- on average -- for Catholic priests. I'll be the last one to deny that in the wake of Vatican II there were a lot of, umm, undesirable seminarians ordained to the priesthood. (Thankfully Father Time is handling that problem -- slowly but surely.) But by and large the educational-training demands for Catholic seminarians far exceeds those required to be a Protestant minister (some exceptions exist) or an Orthodox priest. I suppose one might toss in the reality that most Catholic priests are simply too busy these days to get <i>that involved</i> in the lives of their parishioners; that may also serve as a barrier. I don't really know, though. It's just something that pops into my head from time to time while I'm standing in line at the Confessional...<br /><br />I should add in that my impression of most Catholic priests -- thus far at least -- is a distant one. I have only spoken to one in any real detail about my life and the others I know either from their personalty at the pulpit (which, thankfully, ranges from a mixture of fascinating and edifying on the high end to just plain boring on the low end) or in the Confessional (which is also a little bit of a mixed bag, but with the worst of it being, "Oh that's not really a sin..."). I haven't had any encounters with self-anoited spiritual gurus and, to be honest, I don't really expect to. I've always found most of their advice pretty down-to-earth ("Stop arguing with your wife, idiot") and if there's a spiritual ring, it's the healthy sort I can get behind ("Do you pray the Rosary? Why don't you go do that instead of arguing with your wife, idiot").G Sanchezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11797757461858023882noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-88914622242257800322012-09-24T17:33:00.398-07:002012-09-24T17:33:00.398-07:00My take on "theology/ministry" majors ov...My take on "theology/ministry" majors over the past 40 years is (in general, there are exceptions)... "ministry" has become the lazy person's way to become a "therapist" or a social worker, "therapists/social workere" are generally people working out personal issues and have a messiah complex and what better validation of your vocation than "God's will for your life". Any vocation that gives you power over people's lives by virtue of a title or position regardless of how psychologically healthy you are attracts goofballs. <br /><br />"Theology" as an intellectual discipline is a separate issue in my mind. Most "theologians" end up in "ministry" of some kind because theology is the passport to the vocation. Steve Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04319784922747041297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-12791656322206435632012-09-24T17:22:43.740-07:002012-09-24T17:22:43.740-07:00Samn, you crack me up. But yeah, it's true.......Samn, you crack me up. But yeah, it's true....Steve Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04319784922747041297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-24213704077581759632012-09-24T13:20:48.211-07:002012-09-24T13:20:48.211-07:00W/R/T this question, it is similarly the case for ...W/R/T this question, it is similarly the case for any humanistic discipline that assumes as given (and not even as its starting point) a broad familiarity with european (and even semitic) languages, literature, culture, etc., which two generations ago would have constituted the curriculum of one's grammar and secondary school. This is why, for all their faults, I don't think we'll ever see a class of modern scholars like those heralding from early 20th century German gymnasiums again. Sure, we know different stuff and all that; but people like Eric Auerbach, Ernst Robert Curtius, Leo Spitzer, are no longer possible to replicate given the structure of education (which, of course, reflects a larger shift in what society as a whole values and will fund). Was there a lot of problems with, say, the stodginess of classical scholarship built upon this foundation (or something close to it)? Sure there was-at least as early as the mid 19th century, in fact. (Just ask Nietzsche). Then again, while wary of falling into a kind of monumental view of the past, I do think one could make the case that such a foundation allowed for the creation of people that, for better or worse, we just don't see anymore. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-48680259929056746552012-09-24T11:23:43.494-07:002012-09-24T11:23:43.494-07:00Isn't that largely because it's built into...Isn't that largely because it's built into the nature of academic theology that you can't actually evaluate any of the truth-claims someone is making? The whole thing is designed to be arguing about who has built the better castle in the sky. So, the ways that you can evaluate one theology student against another are very subjective, and so they usually boil down to ideological litmus tests....<br /><br />I guess the old hurdle for keeping out non-serious students was having skill at philology, which is more a test of raw brainpower, mild autism, or sheer dorkiness than really a test of the skills necessary to do theology. Even if, being a philologist myself, I totally don't take theological writers seriously if they don't know their language arcana. <br /><br />Having spent a ton of time around Yale Div and UTS students (and dating someone with an MAR from the former), it seems to me like there are two kinds of div students, at least at that level--- people who want to do a PhD but need to fill in some gaps (often in languages) and get better recs and lesbians in the midst of a midlife crisis...Samn!https://www.blogger.com/profile/14142811721903345946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-79822898138535585472012-09-24T11:19:52.598-07:002012-09-24T11:19:52.598-07:00I don't want to pull you too far off the inten...I don't want to pull you too far off the intention of this post, but I am curious if you have any insight from your former coworkers as to whether the rather poor state of theology students is intrinsic to the field or whether or not it represents a decline in theological studies generally from some given point in time (my guess would be the mid-20th C., but I'm not sure). It seems to me that there was once an expectation that a genuine student of theology, i.e., one who was taking a theology degree for purposes other than fleshing out their knowledge for the purposes of becoming either a priest or preacher had to carry a great weight on their shoulders insofar as they should not only be familiar with the canonical theological readings of their given confession, but also those primary sources from contending points on the Christian landscape (which, I suppose, also includes philosophical texts as well which self-conscious come from beyond (and sometimes directly against) the confessional divides). Then, of course, there's all that nasty training in dead languages, Scripture, history, etc. which, again, strikes me as a very necessary part of theological studies in the "highest sense." Maybe such expectations were only ever made of a chosen few in some "golden past" and I wonder if there are any extant programs which would make them today.<br />G Sanchezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11797757461858023882noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-87827386330894046692012-09-24T10:00:03.792-07:002012-09-24T10:00:03.792-07:00I'd like to echo your comments on the *disliki...I'd like to echo your comments on the *disliking* of theological students --- especially their feigned learnedness --- Lets be honest, most theology grad students I have met are (especially NOW) not well read and very narrow minded....Danielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12462791786546752315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-73088135614921803582012-09-23T11:53:19.994-07:002012-09-23T11:53:19.994-07:00Just re-read and saw your questions. No, I was not...Just re-read and saw your questions. No, I was not an MK. We lived in Burnsville and drove in to attend church and school. I didn't live on campus. Most of my friends did though, so I spent endless hours there.jmwhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06600452580513720840noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-56370619731693703172012-09-23T11:51:51.607-07:002012-09-23T11:51:51.607-07:00Wow, pretty wild that it is true. I left there aro...Wow, pretty wild that it is true. I left there around 87, so probably not much overlap. I still talk to Brooks occasionally (very occasionally). We went to church there as well as the school when we lived in Minnesota. Moved away and haven't been back. When I think of the theological influences there that I assumed were normal, I cringe: Watchman Nee, Finney, and Bloomfield on the end times. But that's because I'm Anglican and Reformed now, so I moved a lot, but in different directions from you obviously. <br />Was Jack Hallman on staff when you were there? I always liked him. I don't know Correll at all. <br />I can imagine the Kool Aide comment. When I try to explain to people the pooling of resources that the first generation did to establish the place, it is difficult. It does sound bizarre, although it seemed normal to me growing up because it is what I was used to.jmwhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06600452580513720840noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-70070509587474337852012-09-23T09:58:28.319-07:002012-09-23T09:58:28.319-07:00I am sorry to hear of your traumatic childhood. We...I am sorry to hear of your traumatic childhood. We're you an MK? What were your parents doing there? I don't recognize your last name so I can't place you with a staff family. <br /><br />Yes, I am a BCOM survivor. Perhaps you will appreciate this bit: After working at Loome's a few years I went to BCOM with my friend and coworker Danny to pick up Grace, my wife's friend, who was going to go with us to The Dubliner (on University Ave.) just before those damn business majors from U of St. Thomas discovered it and ruined the place. Anyway, we arrive at BCOM and had to walk to the missionary housing where Grace was staying, and after my preface explaining the place to Danny and about a minute of walking on the campus, during which he seemed nervous, he looks at me in a distressed manner and asks "when do they bring out the Kool Aide?" It struck me that this was a natural response from a 'normal' person when encountering BCOM. <br /><br />I once led a minor student rebellion there, and I once venerated T.A. Hegre's grave. Long stories. All in all, it was an interesting place, and mixed. I had, largely via flukes looking back on it, a few extraordinarily good profs there during the years I was there (the class one year ahead of mine got the best profs in the history of BCOM, hands down). But then there was Dudek who had us, in freshman Into to NT class, sing the 12 apostles song. I shit you not.<br /><br />I was told of the place by a leader of the missions trip I took to Russia, a guy who was something of a moderate Evangelical. My liberal Evangelical parents only really got gung ho about it after we went to visit. What happened was that they assigned each visiting potential student to an upperclassman. My upperclassman (Mike Ellis, who is famous in BCOM lore of the early to mid 90s), was in the last class during a period where you could opt out of going on internship - so he was, in essense, a true junior at BCOM, and could take whatever classes he wanted. So the days I tailed him I was in three classes with Tom Correll (this liberal Evangelical who had taught before at Bethel, and Berkeley, and Brown, and was a top notch anthropologist/linguist), and one with the famous (at Bethany) Alec Brooks, who whatever one thinks of him was one hell of a lecturer (he left me with the perpetual opinion that only Scotsmen should be allowed to lecture on theology). I was enthralled. My parents met Correll and were impressed. But, because of that quirky exposure, I hadn't a damn clue what I was getting into.<br /><br />So my first class my freshman year was with Leroy Dugan, and in that first class he referred to Roman Catholicism as "the world's biggest cult" and also gave us the basic outline of how he thought the world was going to end soon, rapture, etc. I had grown up in a home where my American Baptist father had me reading Bonhoeffer and Barth in my mid teens. Let's just say BCOM and I weren't the best match. At the same time, were it not for BCOM I would have never met Tom Correll, the most important intellect in my life, I would have never ended up encountering Loome's and the people there who are so important to me, I would have never met my since age 19 best friend Dave, I would have never met my wife who gave the world the three cutest female children in existence. So all in all, no regrets. <br /><br />Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6519837413200053629.post-61439499363871587802012-09-23T08:57:18.059-07:002012-09-23T08:57:18.059-07:00What a weird, small world it would be if true. I g...What a weird, small world it would be if true. I grew up there and went to school there (the private school, not the mission school). Stumbled onto your blog via Arturo via Steven Wedgeworth a couple years ago. Never in a million years thought you would have gone there.jmwhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06600452580513720840noreply@blogger.com