That's why there's such a threat to higher education today: many people are enraged at the idea that historians or biologists or sociologists or psychologists or philosophers have anything useful to say or do. We already have the Bible, so why should we pay people to spread satanic lies?
I think it remains the case that many religious conservatives don't think that anything good has happened, other than the invention of new technologies, since the Bible was written.
People emphasize the political side of that (understandably), but there's also a theological side where holding to principles like biblical inerrancy and presuppositional apologetics is an effort to rewind the clock and freeze reality so one doesn't have to engage with any post-Bronze Age changes.
As I wrap up drafting the last pieces of my book manuscript, I've been revisiting a lot of Rushdoony. The most striking thing to me is that he and people who embrace his thought tend to be deeply uncomfortable with the modern world, so they turn against it in rage and try to destroy it.
In my current project, I'm not doing ethnography, which constantly surprises people, but I have no reason to think I'd get better data by doing so and good reasons to think the people whose ideas I'm researching tend to mislead researchers who interview them. But I probably did miss some funding!
Probably, but I also think there's a kind of authenticity people find in ethnographic data in contrast to "armchair" thinking. There were similar moves in both social gospel and liberation theologies, and even in experimental philosophy.
and Just War Theory, in its best iterations, is not saying that God is on the side of one side or the other in a war, but that given the fallen and fallible nature of human beings and societies, there are times when war is a necessary lesser evil.
Maybe the recent wave of scandals uncovered at Bethel by evangelicals like Mike Winger.
Yeah, I know its just racism, but they're barely even trying. What if they tried.
The "Western Civilization" thing on the Right is bizarre to me. I love reading Plato and Augustine and Kant. I love playing music by Chopin and Debussy.
There are also so many other interesting and helpful things from other times and places in philosophy and the arts, and those are great too.
You can disagree with the approach, and I understand that the public perception of crime is in general very wrong, but to say this antisocial behavior is not happening on transit is asking riders and employees to ignore what’s in front of their faces. It’s a totally different world than 2019.
Also like, trains are a public *transit* good. They’re not a space to hang out and cause havoc for free to the detriment of others, they’re a utility to transport people safely without cars. If a car is a significantly calmer, cleaner, and “safer” transit mode people won’t switch to trains.
Cover of Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right by Laura K. Field
People comment on the Holy Father’s appeals for peace as if unaware that contemporary warfare includes massive suffering & casualties of non-combatants. The lost innocents are not “regrettably necessary”. They are the judgment of God on us, the blood on our hands of Isaiah 1,15.
Cover of the book Lost Subways of North America, by Jake Berman
Got to see the authors talk at my neighborhood bar the other day, a quick three block walk from my apartment. I wish everyone could have opportunities like that!
Announcement: KILLED TRADES EXPO
Why we still need the humanities
in persian culture, telling someone "we're going to kill you all" is considered deeply offensive
President Trump threatened to obliterate every power station and bridge in a country of 90 million people on Tuesday night in prime time and basically no one is bothering to even ask him how that is not a “war” that would require authorization from Congress under Article I of the Constitution.
*working out, lol
Also listened to this while working on today. Nothing shocking, but kind of unnerving to hear it all so matter-of-factly from an expert.
It is absolute demagoguery to say that a foreign student took anyone's spot. Foreign students have enriched and, bluntly, funded U.S. universities. Those universities will be less successful and less desirable as a result of this rank protectionism.
*guy rallying crowd*: "I say 'Library of,' you say 'Congress'"
Most people use "Christian nationalism" as a catch-all, as if there was one united movement aiming for Christian power.
But there are actually 3 distinct movements competing for power in Trump's America — with different theologies, different strategies, and real tensions between them.
My latest.
I should look into that again. Maybe propose a series of pieces on the theology of drug patents or something.
Most outlets doing something similar really do one or the other: religion journalism/opinion that doesn't get too much into theology or academic theology that isn't accessible. If you know of someone looking to fund the missing middle area of accessible theology, let me know!
A bigger obstacle, I suspect, is that there just aren't many outlets simultaneously clamoring for theological expertise and committed making it accessible to a broad non-academic audience. I should probably actually restart ye olde theologyandsociety.com
NYT editor calls for theologians to do more public theology
This is something I also hope for, but I'm not sure that the main obstacle is a failure of theologians to "venture courageously," although most certainly could learn to accessibly communicate about things that people care about.
Anti-Infrastructure Week
