Thread: Is Tillich Studied or Considered a Relevant Anymore? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
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I first read Tillich's The Courage to Be at the age of 14 in 1968. Since then I've read various essays, excerpts, etc, and listened to some of the few recorded Tillich interviews or lectures available on the internet. I have never tried to conquer Tillich's 3 volume Systematic Theology as a whole.
I never find anyone here or elsewhere who really seems to have a good knowledge of Tillich. How much is he now read or taught?
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
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Apologies for typos -- doing this on iphone.
Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on
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The liberation critique of Tillich's concept of God is that by completely depersonalizing God, i.e. "the Ground of Being", Tillich thus robs Christian theology of its radical social justice implications.
If God can't feel/doesn't feel compassion for the marginalized, then Christianity doesn't have any good news for the marginalized.
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
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In that respect I must say that Tillich expressed my own ultimate theism more than my specific Christianity. Tillich, however, viewed a personal(ised) God - as "symbol" - as necessary to the individual experience of the divine. So I don't see that Tillich's theology diminishes the Gospel and essential Christian narrative in the faith life of thd believer. Or maybe I'm just a jumped up amateur who doesn't know his place ( with apologies to Morrissey).
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I never find anyone here or elsewhere who really seems to have a good knowledge of Tillich. How much is he now read or taught?
Pretty sure he was taught at UD in Modern European Intellectual History in the 90s.
Not that that means that anyone has/had a good knowledge of him; IIRC we were all pretty much just trying to keep our heads above the water in that class.
I read The Courage to Be but can't currently recall what was in it.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
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On the Paisley/Pannenberg thread, several have made comments along the line that the study of most academics' work is limited to their time. I think that Tillich falls into that category. While some of his propositions might inform the thoughts of others on a longer -term basis, his time has come and gone. Who now studies Marcuse?
Posted by Demas (# 24) on
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Makes sense. The exceptions are where they become symbolic of some movement or other, in which case lots of people name drop them without ever reading them and their thoughts are reduced to a dot point caricature anyway. Maybe being forgotten is better...
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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Back in the first half of the twentieth century J. Gresham Machen asserted that liberal Protestantism was not a branch of Christianity, but a separate religion.
Pannenberg did not go quite that far, but he did give a hostage to fortune by predicting that liberal Christian theology would have disappeared before the end of the twenty-first century - I can't put my hand on the quote, which I think was in something by Alister McGrath.
Not a particularly daring or defined prophecy, of course, first because he wasn't going to be around if it failed, and secondly, because the meaning of terms such as liberal and conservative might well have changed drastically by the year 2100.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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'Ground of our being' includes social justice, pace what someone posted above.
Tillich's ideas have been the guiding principles throiughout my 40 years' involvement in education, trying to make links between the revealed God and the shared human values in secular life.
Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on
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Tillich is your classic existentialist theologian of the mid-20th century. I was at a lecture once by Jurgen Moltmann, who asked where all the existentialists had gone? His own answer was that in 1968, they all became Marxists overnight! (which fits with Anglican_Brat's point about liberation theology.)
He also has a very bad reputation when it comes to women, not just in terms of being a serial philanderer (not good for a Christian theologian), but for pursuing his female students in a way that would be considered abusive nowadays. This doesn't necessarily invalidate his work, but it doesn't help with his modern reception.
Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on
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I read "The Courage to Be" a bit later than Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras.
I was - and remain - an atheist but Tillich came closer than anyone else to shaking my foundations. Which is probably why I've still got the (now tatty) paperback I bought for 8/- in 1975.
For the benefit of younger persons, 8/- was a way of writing 8 shillings (40p) in the old days.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
... He also has a very bad reputation when it comes to women, not just in terms of being a serial philanderer (not good for a Christian theologian), but for pursuing his female students in a way that would be considered abusive nowadays. This doesn't necessarily invalidate his work, ...
Not sure about that. I think in the case of a theologian, it probably does.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I first read Tillich's The Courage to Be at the age of 14 in 1968. Since then I've read various essays, excerpts, etc, and listened to some of the few recorded Tillich interviews or lectures available on the internet. I have never tried to conquer Tillich's 3 volume Systematic Theology as a whole.
I never find anyone here or elsewhere who really seems to have a good knowledge of Tillich. How much is he now read or taught?
I think in my Bachelor of Theology he was taught once or twice in systematic theology units.
But I read a quote of his in Susan Howatch's fiction series on the C of E about 10 years ago and it transformed my life. It was the description of Grace:
"You are accepted".
The whole "ground of being" thing has also been instrumental for me. It changed the way I thought about God: from a top down model to a bottom up model. Perhaps a prelude to my like of Aquinas.
I've only just then looked up the context of the "You are accepted" quote.
What was interesting about it was that it matched the feeling of my mystical experience of Christ some five years before reading the words.
quote:
Moral progress may be a fruit of grace; but it is not grace itself, and it can even prevent us from receiving grace. For there is too often a graceless acceptance of Christian doctrines and a graceless battle against the structures of evil in our personalities. Such a graceless relation to God may lead us by necessity either to arrogance or to despair. It would be better to refuse God and the Christ and the Bible than to accept them without grace.
Here it is.
[quote edited to a reasonable length. The link contains the quote in its entirety]
[ 22. September 2014, 11:29: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
But I read a quote of his in Susan Howatch's fiction series on the C of E about 10 years ago and it transformed my life. It was the description of Grace:
"You are accepted".
I've only just then looked up the context of the "You are accepted" quote.
What was interesting about it was that it matched the feeling of my mystical experience of Christ some five years before reading the words.
quote:
Moral progress may be a fruit of grace; but it is not grace itself, and it can even prevent us from receiving grace. For there is too often a graceless acceptance of Christian doctrines and a graceless battle against the structures of evil in our personalities. Such a graceless relation to God may lead us by necessity either to arrogance or to despair. It would be better to refuse God and the Christ and the Bible than to accept them without grace.
Here it is.
[quote edited to a reasonable length. The link contains the quote in its entirety]
It also strikes me as very Lutheran, indeed very like Luther himself -- which would be fitting for Tillich.
Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on
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Not taught at all in my systematic theology (1990's)
What I've read of him since seems to fly in the face of social justice. A theology lecturer once told us students (on matters of systematic theology): "Never trust a dead German to get it right"
Posted by Byron (# 15532) on
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quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Not taught at all in my systematic theology (1990's)
What I've read of him since seems to fly in the face of social justice. A theology lecturer once told us students (on matters of systematic theology): "Never trust a dead German to get it right"
A'hem ...
Posted by John D. Ward (# 1378) on
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[tangent/]
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
Which is probably why I've still got the (now tatty) paperback I bought for 8/- in 1975.
For the benefit of younger persons, 8/- was a way of writing 8 shillings (40p) in the old days.
Britain changed to decimal currency in 1971. If you had bought the book in 1975, you would have paid 40p for it.
i) If you did buy the book in 1975, and the cover price shown on the book was 8/-, it would have been a pre-1971 printing still in stock.
ii) Your memory about the year of purchase may be at fault.
iii) Is 1975 a typo for 1965?
[/tangent]
Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on
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I have a copy of "The Shaking of the Foundations" (the 1966 Pelican reprint for 3/6) on my shelves. Is it worth a reread?
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
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I heard Tillich speak in Germany in 1955, and it was a very strange experience.
I had been in Germany about three months when he came to speak. I could speak German well enough to get by, and I understood about three-quarters of what was said to me.
I don't remember anything Tillich said, but his German amazed me. It seemed to me that he was making a lot of grammatical mistakes, and he fumbled for words. Afterwards, I asked a German friend about the way he spoke. She told me that I spoke better German than he did!
He had left Germany less than twenty years before. How could he forget his native language?
Moo
Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on
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quote:
Originally posted by John D. Ward:
i) If you did buy the book in 1975, and the cover price shown on the book was 8/-, it would have been a pre-1971 printing still in stock.
ii) Your memory about the year of purchase may be at fault.
iii) Is 1975 a typo for 1965?
iv) I bought it second hand.
It says "Sixth Impression, November 1970" and looking again it says (40p) after 8/-. But I definitely bought it in 1975. And I put horizontal bars through my 7s.)
Posted by Sir Pellinore (# 12163) on
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Interesting what people have had to say about Paul Tillich, both the influence of his writing on them (even if secondhand through Susan Howatch) and what he was like in real life. Re the latter, I think many theologians and clerics have feet of clay as far as relating with other people, sexually or otherwise, go. The late Donald Mackinnon used to conduct some supervisions (tutorials) at Cambridge crouching under a table. I guess he had a psychiatric problem. Very few people ("Ask not for whom the bell tolls...") are thoroughly integrated, mature and balanced. Theologians are, by definition, good at discussing theology. I guess anything else is a plus. Re being touched by Tillich or Tillich via Howatch: it happens. Without wishing to sound pompous, I think the Almighty can work through anything or anyone. I have little time for Howatch, but my wife (at least as bright as yours truly) does. Tastes differ.
Posted by Gildas (# 525) on
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There is a good joke about Paul Tillich:
One morning the Pope was surprised to find the head of the CDF bursting into his apartments in a state of agitation. "Your Holiness, terrible news! They've found the body". The Pope spends the morning sounding out Cardinals and theologians and, eventually, one of them says: "Try ringing Paul Tillich. He won't be put out in the slightest". So the Pope rings Paul Tillich and explains the situation. There is an awful silence on the other end of the phone. Nervously the Pope asks. "Herr Tillich, are you still there, are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm here, but I'm simply aghast"
"Well yes, it's been a big shock for all of us".
"You mean to say that Jesus of Nazareth actually existed...
Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Sir Pellinore:
Interesting what people have had to say about Paul Tillich, both the influence of his writing on them (even if secondhand through Susan Howatch) and what he was like in real life. Re the latter, I think many theologians and clerics have feet of clay as far as relating with other people, sexually or otherwise, go. The late Donald Mackinnon used to conduct some supervisions (tutorials) at Cambridge crouching under a table. I guess he had a psychiatric problem. Very few people ("Ask not for whom the bell tolls...") are thoroughly integrated, mature and balanced. Theologians are, by definition, good at discussing theology. I guess anything else is a plus.
Donald Mackinnon's behaviour is bizarre, but not abusive. Plenty of people struggle to relate to others, but are not abusive. Some theologians have behaved badly, even in sexual terms (eg, Karl Barth's long affair with a woman other than his wife), but have not actually been abusive. I'll give the non-abusive ones a reasonably free pass on the 'feet of clay' defence, unless I see it clearly influencing their theology at some point. Hans Urs von Balthasar's very odd relationship with Adrienne von Speyr, for example, had a definite (and IMO unhealthy) influence on his theology of the Church.
The reason it matters is illustrated by the case of John Howard Yoder. He, of course, is famous for his theological thinking-through of pacifism and non-resistance to violence. Now that he has been exposed as a life-long sexual harasser of women, whose crimes were swept under the carpet by an establishment who wanted to maintain him as the Mennonite posterboy ... well, suddenly a theology of non-resistance becomes very suspect indeed when it is espoused by an abuser.
Tillich now - I don't know. I haven't read enough of him, or given it enough thought. But there could well be a connection between his abstract, non-embodied version of God, and his abuse of the female body. At least, there's enough that someone out there could do a thesis on that.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
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quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
I have a copy of "The Shaking of the Foundations" (the 1966 Pelican reprint for 3/6) on my shelves. Is it worth a reread?
If you do re-read it, I'll be interested to hear what you make of it.
I recall my reaction being that it's an odd mixture of nails being whacked firmly on the head, and long, windy attempts to avoid something or other. I was told (by a genuine student of Tillich!) that the latter is often because he sometimes redefines words to suit himself, so you have to be very careful to work out if he means what you think he means. IIRC, both "transcendent" and "immanent" are redefined in his lexicon.
(Yeah, Gildas, very funny!)
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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The Shaking of the Foundations is a collection of sermons, some very short, mainly preached at Union Theological Seminary. My copy is a first reprint of the British edition, from 1954 - not sure if I win anything for that.
I think his novel use of words is one of his chief interests today. Take the sermon The Depth of Existence (a long one) where he suggests that depth is a better word than height to talk about God.
The Yoke of Religion has been influential on me. 'It would not be worthwhile to teach Christianity, if it were for the sake of Christianity .. We call Jesus the Christ not because he brought a new religion, but because he is the end of religion, above religion and irreligion, above Christianity and non-Christianity.'
Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on
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Thanks. I'll look at some of the sermons; whether I'll have anything useful to comment is uncertain.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
The Shaking of the Foundations is a collection of sermons, some very short, mainly preached at Union Theological Seminary. My copy is a first reprint of the British edition, from 1954 - not sure if I win anything for that.
I think his novel use of words is one of his chief interests today. Take the sermon The Depth of Existence (a long one) where he suggests that depth is a better word than height to talk about God.
The Yoke of Religion has been influential on me. 'It would not be worthwhile to teach Christianity, if it were for the sake of Christianity .. We call Jesus the Christ not because he brought a new religion, but because he is the end of religion, above religion and irreligion, above Christianity and non-Christianity.'
I suspect that most people have encountered his ideas via John A T Robinson's work,especially his 'Honest to god'.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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Like many great people Tillich had a dark side to him according to his wife, who got fed up with his womanising.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
... He also has a very bad reputation when it comes to women, not just in terms of being a serial philanderer (not good for a Christian theologian), but for pursuing his female students in a way that would be considered abusive nowadays. This doesn't necessarily invalidate his work, ...
Not sure about that. I think in the case of a theologian, it probably does.
Someone better let the Karl Barth brigade know, then, as he was effectively in an open marriage with his wife and his live-in secretary for most of his adult life.
Of course it doesn't invalidate the work. For either Tillich or Barth.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
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I must admit I've never read Courage to Be. I have however absorbed the equally famous and influential book Dynamics of Faith, which is an excellent defence of faith written for intelligent skeptics. Much like the great Schleiermacher, the father of modern theology, Tillich's work was largely apologetic and aimed at the intelligent critics of his time.
He featured in a couple of chapters in my recent book. But I don't think he is taught enough around these parts. Very modern for these ostensibly "postmodern" (whatever the fuck that means) times.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
He also has a very bad reputation when it comes to women, not just in terms of being a serial philanderer (not good for a Christian theologian), but for pursuing his female students in a way that would be considered abusive nowadays.
I suppose you have some evidence to support your claim that he would be regarded as abusive today? Can you point me to it, please?
Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
He also has a very bad reputation when it comes to women, not just in terms of being a serial philanderer (not good for a Christian theologian), but for pursuing his female students in a way that would be considered abusive nowadays.
I suppose you have some evidence to support your claim that he would be regarded as abusive today? Can you point me to it, please?
Here. It cites a 1998 article, which also cites a 1985 biography of Reinhold Niebuhr - see the end of the article.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Someone better let the Karl Barth brigade know, then, as he was effectively in an open marriage with his wife and his live-in secretary for most of his adult life.
Of course it doesn't invalidate the work. For either Tillich or Barth.
I've not heard that.
If it doesn't call into question the work of an eminent theologian, why should it matter when tele-evangelists and the like do that sort of thing?
Or are we saying that as with so called 'great artists', if you are an intellectual, you are let off ethical consistency.
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
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Modernism : Rationalism is better than old myth-derived narratives as a way of understanding and engaging the world.
Post-modernism : Rationalism is just another narrative.
Posted by Sir Pellinore (# 12163) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
...Donald Mackinnon's behaviour is bizarre, but not abusive. Plenty of people struggle to relate to others, but are not abusive. Some theologians have behaved badly, even in sexual terms (eg, Karl Barth's long affair with a woman other than his wife), but have not actually been abusive. I'll give the non-abusive ones a reasonably free pass on the 'feet of clay' defence, unless I see it clearly influencing their theology at some point...
The reason it matters is illustrated by the case of John Howard Yoder. He, of course, is famous for his theological thinking-through of pacifism and non-resistance to violence. Now that he has been exposed as a life-long sexual harasser of women, whose crimes were swept under the carpet by an establishment who wanted to maintain him as the Mennonite posterboy ... well, suddenly a theology of non-resistance becomes very suspect indeed when it is espoused by an abuser...
[/QB]
You make a valid point, especially when dealing with the bizarre dichotomy of Yoder's preaching versus practice. Donald Mackinnon was the mildest of men, and, as far as I am aware, had no dark hidden Shadow side. My point is that theologians (like clerics, which most of them are) are very good at preaching but that preaching often doesn't translate into life. Hence, I think, Kierkegaard's dictum that the theologian was the Antichrist. I think there is a lot in that. To go right outside the square for the moment, though I think it is relevant, Christ to me was not, like Tillich merely a brilliant theoretician. He was also a fully integrated, fully functional person who was prepared to sacrifice his life for what he believed in. Few theologians have. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the late Bayers Naude (not murdered but had his life and career severely curtailed under apartheid) were obvious exceptions.Another, slightly off track, comment: I think many (not all by any means) clergy today are not mature, fully integrated people and I think much of their thinking is secondhand. I think an academic, merely academic, interest in theology and discussing it with fellow aficionados or one's spiritual groupies can be an attempt, subconscious or conscious, to escape from the painful process of self-discovery and transformation which Jesus was on about. Reading someone like Tillich can be the beginning of the journey. It is definitely not the end.
Posted by Demas (# 24) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I heard Tillich speak in Germany in 1955, and it was a very strange experience.
I had been in Germany about three months when he came to speak. I could speak German well enough to get by, and I understood about three-quarters of what was said to me.
I don't remember anything Tillich said, but his German amazed me. It seemed to me that he was making a lot of grammatical mistakes, and he fumbled for words. Afterwards, I asked a German friend about the way he spoke. She told me that I spoke better German than he did!
He had left Germany less than twenty years before. How could he forget his native language?
Moo
That's interesting. Tillich himself commented on language in his post-War lectures in Germany in the late 40s in "Beyond Religious Socialism":
quote:
The English language has worked on me what my German friends and former students considered a miracle: it has made me understandable. No Anglicisms occurred in the innumerable speeches I delivered, but the spirit of the English language dominated every sentence—the spirit of clarity, soberness and concreteness. This forced itself upon me, often against my natural inclinations. It taught me to avoid the accumulation of substantives to which German is prone and to use verbs instead. It forbade the ambiguities in which, because of its origin in medieval mystical literature, German philosophical language so often indulges. It prohibited the use of logically unsharp or incomplete propositions. It pricked my conscience when I dwelt too long in abstractions. All this was very well received by my German audiences and was felt as my most impressive change of mind.
Posted by Demas (# 24) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Of course it doesn't invalidate the work. For either Tillich or Barth.
Maybe. There is something which was commonly considered private about sexual matters - still is, although we are thankfully much more concerned about issues of consent than in the past. But I'm wary of going too far in separating theology from action. Surely for example George Whitefield's theology is made suspect by his open advocacy for introducing slavery to Georgia and his subsequent purchase of slaves.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
Here. It cites a 1998 article, which also cites a 1985 biography of Reinhold Niebuhr - see the end of the article.
Thank you. From that footnote, I agree that constitutes one instance of what sounds like sexual harassment. To call it "abuse," as the blogger implies, is to draw a very long bow. We would need to know a lot more about what happened in that room to make that call.
The reason I would call it harassment is because of the power relationship involved. Which is what was wrong with Barth's relationship with Charlotte von Kirschbaum, who lived with him and his wife, but was also an employee, hence in a power relationship. Again, I wouldn't call that "abuse," but I don't see why he should get a free pass.
I found fascinating Fessenden's thesis that Tillich's sexual history and his theology converged. I think that is almost certainly true, and would have been interested to hear more. I was a silly 16 year old in 1993, but I would be interested in a study that pursued that now.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Someone better let the Karl Barth brigade know, then, as he was effectively in an open marriage with his wife and his live-in secretary for most of his adult life.
Of course it doesn't invalidate the work. For either Tillich or Barth.
I've not heard that.
If it doesn't call into question the work of an eminent theologian, why should it matter when tele-evangelists and the like do that sort of thing?
Or are we saying that as with so called 'great artists', if you are an intellectual, you are let off ethical consistency.
No, and that's nonsense. I didn't say anything of the sort.
You are conflating a few ideas here. People like Jimmy Swaggart of Ted Haggart are not simply invalidated because of their sexual indiscretions, but because of rank hypocrisy. In both cases, they were on record as saying the exact behaviour they were engaging in was immoral. In Swaggart's case, he was loudly criticising it in others, namely that other Jimmy guy ... I want to say Bakker? Is that right?
Had Tillich been an ethicist (like John Howard Yoder - I found that interesting and troubling) who publicly stated that sexual immorality was wrong, that might be another discussion.
Rather than an artist, a better example at the end of your post would be a scientist who came up with a vaccine. Would her or his work be invalidated by her or his sex life? Of course not.
Was MLK's work and legacy tarnished by his legendary philandering? I would say categorically no.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Not taught at all in my systematic theology (1990's)
What I've read of him since seems to fly in the face of social justice. A theology lecturer once told us students (on matters of systematic theology): "Never trust a dead German to get it right"
A'hem ...
Indeed. Tillich was no Bonhoeffer (no one was Bonhoeffer), but he was one of the first to object to Nazism, and lost his position for it. Had he not left for the US at Reinhold Niehbuhr's invitation, he would probably have been executed.
EM, either your lecturer was being ironic, or he or she was probably an idiot. That is one of the dumbest statements I have ever heard. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
Posted by Byron (# 15532) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
[...] People like Jimmy Swaggart of Ted Haggart are not simply invalidated because of their sexual indiscretions, but because of rank hypocrisy. [...]
Exactly. There's a world of difference between using "indiscretions" to attack someone's personal credibility, and using them to attack their ideas.
The latter's a straight-up ad hom. If Tillich were a homicidal lunatic who numbered amongst his hobbies the axe-murder of his students while he bellowed Wagner, you'd have grounds to complain to the Union tenure board, but it'd do nothing to invalidate his ideas.
Televangalists getting caught with their pants down isn't used to undermine their teaching (as their hackwork's just Elmer Gantry sans irony, why bother) but to undermine them.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
... Was MLK's work and legacy tarnished by his legendary philandering? I would say categorically no.
I would say categorically yes.
Going back to Tillich, I really can't see much difference between what is described of him and the various tele-evangelists that have come a cropper. It's also nonsense to say that somehow one lets Tillich off the accusation of hypocrisy because he was a theologian rather than a preacher. He occupied a place in public debate as a Christian figure.
There is a huge difference between a story like that of Stanley Hauwerwas who wrestled with a terrible situation that was largely of his first wife's making, and groping or attempting to grope female students.
If that sort of thing isn't regarded as acceptable for a disc jockey, it is less so for, of all people, a theologian.
I can't see any way of getting round this obvious point. If you are in the public space as a Christian figure, you owe it to God, your spouse, yourself and those who look up to you to keep your ding-a-long or its female equivalent where it belongs. If you don't, can't or don't think it matters, it reduces dramatically any claim you have to be listened to or taken seriously.
Posted by Byron (# 15532) on
:
Yeah, sure, Tillich was a horndog who should've muzzled his sturm und drang. Thing is, he wasn't a leader, he was an academic; it's his ideas, not him personally, that carried weight. It's different in kind.
If he was, say, screwing around as a Lutheran pastor, he'd be as bad as the homophobic televangelists caught hoovering coke off rent-boys. But he wasn't in that position, so it's irrelevant.
If you can find anything worth hearing from Haggard et al, same goes for their pearls of wisdom.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
What Byron said.
And as I said, Haggard and Swaggart did exactly what they preached against. That's the hypocrisy. It's not at all the same with Tillich.
And I'd like to hear more from Enoch on how MLK's legacy is tarnished.
[ 24. September 2014, 09:29: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
Posted by Byron (# 15532) on
:
MLK would only be a hypocrite if he funded segregation on the Q.T., which is (pause for the most heroic of understatements) not especially likely. ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
Here. It cites a 1998 article, which also cites a 1985 biography of Reinhold Niebuhr - see the end of the article.
Thank you. From that footnote, I agree that constitutes one instance of what sounds like sexual harassment. To call it "abuse," as the blogger implies, is to draw a very long bow. We would need to know a lot more about what happened in that room to make that call.
The reason I would call it harassment is because of the power relationship involved. Which is what was wrong with Barth's relationship with Charlotte von Kirschbaum, who lived with him and his wife, but was also an employee, hence in a power relationship. Again, I wouldn't call that "abuse," but I don't see why he should get a free pass.
I would call it Tillich's treatment of that student 'abuse'; you would call it 'sexual harassment'. Frankly, I would call all sexual harassment abuse, and because these were his students, the power dynamic is very pronounced. But we may be using different terms for the same thing here. Charlotte von Kirschbaum, by contrast, was a grown woman, part of the same circle of friends, and Barth's intellectual peer. Their affair was morally wrong, but I don't think anyone has ever suggested it was anything but fully consensual. This account gives you more detail.
So yes, with Tillich, that was just one incident, but you asked for evidence, and I provided it. Realistically, you are not going to find much written evidence from pre-1965. It never came to a formal complaint that I know of, and it never came to court. How could it? Sexual harassment/abuse of women was not taken seriously then. Yoder's victims first came forward in the 1990s, and the thing was swept under the carpet even then. And note that Niebuhr's biographer in the 1980s describes Tillich's promiscuity as 'exuberant' - a positive word - so that this instance with the female student is given simply and uncritically as an example of this 'exhuberance'. If anything, the anecdote - brief though it is - might be read to imply that Niebuhr is a dry old stick for objecting to Tillich's treatment of the student. And despite Niebuhr's disgust at Tillich, he does not seem to have made any report. This incident is related as a spat between two powerful men, and the victim remains unknown.
Moreover, even if they did object to his treatment of them, Tillich's students would have had no recourse. Did you know that Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and Union Theological Seminary are all private institutions? This means that students even now do not enjoy the protection or rights that students in the UK do. For a dissertation or thesis, for example, they may have only one supervisor. And if that supervisor fails them, they have no right of appeal. This was the case at the American institution I attended for a time. While that institution was generally benevolent, it was known that a student's career could be ruined by a simple personality clash.
We know that Tillich pursued his female students. What we don't know is whether they all enjoyed it or not. How would we know? No one ever asked them. It may well be that many of his students enjoyed his attentions and responded to them (although that is also a very convenient narrative for Tillich and his protectors to tell themselves). But even if this is the case, this does not excuse Tillich, and I would still call it abuse. I have also been a university lecturer, and to have created a sexually-charged atmosphere in my classes and to pursue any of my students as he did would have been a disgusting and abusive act on my part. Yes, I am judging him by the standards of today. But that was my original point.
So I am sorry if you don't find that one instance compelling. I do. I think that even one instance is one too many, and most probably was not an isolated instance, because these things rarely are. The rest of the data is anecdotal, but I have moved enough in these circles to have heard it as accepted knowledge, as in the blogger's account of being told this in class by her professor.
For further back-up, you may also want to check the footnote (footnote!) here.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
We can certainly argue the toss about the semantics of the word "abuse," - I am using it in a more forensic sense I think - and I'm not about to countenance arguments from silence as to how many people Tillich "might have" harassed, but I've already conceded it was harassment. So you can bypass the "if you don't find this compelling, I do" line, I think.
No one was Barth's intellectual peer. And my point is not that von Kirscshbaum was consenting or not, but that a power relationship existed which privileged Barth. She was his secretary. Just as with Tillich, he took advantage of his powerful position in regard to his student.
I'm not really all that interested in this, as I think Tillich's intellectual legacy is far larger than this (Barth's too). The dream of Tillich and his theology of culture was to draw a theology which not only prophesied to culture, but was drawn from culture. It would be the ultimate apologetic theology - religion is not something apart from culture, but culture can be the raw material of theology itself (and not only reflection on culture). In DofF he tries this by defining faith as "that which is of ultimate concern", thus casting it in language that are relatable to those outside religion. Concerns which are not ultimate - by which Tillich means transcending life itself, so bigger than this life or even this world (he was Neo-Platonist after all) - he could critique as being unworthy of faith. He specifically critiques nationalism in this regard, as a form of concern which is transient and not ultimate. One can imagine him doing this with scientism also.
I think his theology of culture fails in the end, which he seems to have conceded. But it was a worthy attempt.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
... And I'd like to hear more from Enoch on how MLK's legacy is tarnished.
In much the same way as John F Kennedy's is by his well known philanderings, and his brother's is by what happened on July 18th 1969, and they weren't even ministers of religion.
Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
We can certainly argue the toss about the semantics of the word "abuse," - I am using it in a more forensic sense I think - and I'm not about to countenance arguments from silence as to how many people Tillich "might have" harassed, but I've already conceded it was harassment. So you can bypass the "if you don't find this compelling, I do" line, I think.
No one was Barth's intellectual peer. And my point is not that von Kirscshbaum was consenting or not, but that a power relationship existed which privileged Barth. She was his secretary. Just as with Tillich, he took advantage of his powerful position in regard to his student.
I'm not really all that interested in this, as I think Tillich's intellectual legacy is far larger than this (Barth's too).
I'm not disputing Tillich's intellectual legacy. He was a big-hitter, and anyone writing about mid-20th century Protestant theology has to deal with him. I did myself. But as with Yoder, if one is to appreciate the whole of a person's intellectual legacy, then one has to factor in what is known about their wider life. Same with Barth. Because as I argued above, that can affect how they are read, perhaps particularly in the area of theology and ethics.
I appreciate your concession that the incident with the student was harassment. I would also appreciate a concession that Tillich pursued his female students, and that this was an abuse of them and of his position. I would be content to leave it there.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
I'm not conceding what you haven't demonstrated. And I'm not about to agree to broadening the semantic range of "abuse" to the point where it is meaningless as a concept. Do with that as you must.
To return to the topic, I would think Tillich as an apologetic theologian could be useful in a time when people are fond of the "spiritual/religious" dichotomy. People are fond of declaring themselves opposed to religion, while being very spiritual. Tillich can show us that wherever there is ultimate concern, there is faith, and there is religion. Faith and religion are not confined within the church, they are not what people think they are. Those who have a passion for spirituality can find in the church a resource, as barriers break down.
Posted by Charles Read (# 3963) on
:
The OP asked if Tillich is in favour or not today.
I included Tillich in a course I taught between 1994 and 1999 at a UK Pentecostal seminary. I really only discovered Tillich by teaching that course! (It was on 20th century theology.)
Now I refer to Tillich in both liturgy and doctrine classes - his work on symbols is still intellectually stimulating and has practical import for worship - not least maybe Fresh Expressions.
His adage 'Just accept you are accepted' is a good summary of the doctrine of assurance.
I now regret not taking David Pailin's first year module at Manchester (Where I did my undergraduate theology) because I know he included a fair bit of stuff an Tillich (that was in 1978).
I'm currently reading Tillich's systematic theology vol. 2 and finding it insightful and provokes me to thought. I don't agree with everything Tillich wrote but then I don't agree with I write either - that is not the point.
I would welcome a new interest in Tillich's thought - and since I'd self-describe as a charismatic evangelical Anglican, some might find that unexpected!
But the issues raised here arising from his harassing of students, philandering etc. are also important. More on that maybe later...
Posted by FCB (# 1495) on
:
TIllich was something of a "house theologian" in the Religion Department where I studied as an undergrad. I'm sure he's influenced me in all sorts of ways I'm no longer aware of, though it's been years since I've read him seriously (or taken him all that seriously)--if I want to read a Protestant liberal I go straight to Schleiermacher, who is a truly seminal thinker.
Tillich has virtually no influence in the world of Catholic theology and I don't think he has much influence on Protestant theologians under the age of 65. I suspect he is simply too much a product of his age. It was precisely what made him seem so terribly relevant in the 50s and early 60s--all the existentialist stuff about anxiety and ultimate concern--that makes him seem so terribly dated today. Oddly enough, Barth, who seemed increasingly irrelevant in the 60s, has had a much longer shelf life.
Posted by Holy Smoke (# 14866) on
:
I guess Tillich, like MacQuarrie, provided a means for someone to engage with Christianity, who found it difficult to accept the tenets of orthodox doctrine as literally or historically true. The problem is that such people as were obliged to practice within a Christian framework for social or cultural reasons don't even get as far as the front porch these days, instead exploring other spiritual avenues.
So, very much a product of his time, still worth reading, but only really relevant to a shrinking market of old-fashioned theological liberals. It's just very hard to see his kind of liberal protestantism surviving as a stand-alone entity - it was always parasitic of a far more conservative tradition. But there again, without the element of compulsion, it's hard to see the latter surviving either.
Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
I'm not conceding what you haven't demonstrated. And I'm not about to agree to broadening the semantic range of "abuse" to the point where it is meaningless as a concept. Do with that as you must.
The word 'concede' was yours. You 'conceded it was harassment', in reference to the incident in Niebuhr's biography. You asked me to demonstrate my claim that Tillich would be regarded as abusive today. I demonstrated it; you conceded that it demonstrated harassment, but not abuse. I am genuinely confused as to why you think harassment is not abuse, and would appreciate a definition of the two terms as you are using them.
If I am reading you correctly, you also seem to be disputing that this groping incident happened more than once. Fair enough: in return, I concede that I have not demonstrated that. One instance may be suggestive, but it does not make a pattern. But perhaps you can concede (having already conceded harassment) that he could be prosecuted for that one instance nowadays.
Although I have not demonstrated repeated instances of groping, I have demonstrated that Tillich "frequently exploited the erotic spell he was able to cast to move his relations with women students in an explicitly sexual direction". Whatever this means in actual terms - and it could mean anything from sexual talk to full intercourse - to my mind, this is an abuse of the professor-student relationship. Therefore it is an abuse of the student, as within the power dynamic that I explained above, consent cannot be given freely. You may wish to put this differently, and I will gladly hear you.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
The erotic spell stuff? That sounds like what I imagine one of those Shades of Grey novels contains. No, you haven't demonstrated that.
I'm not a lawyer (thank Christ), so I'm not going to comment on what someone could be prosecuted for. I think harassing a student in the way described in that footnote is immoral.
Happy to concede it was an abuse of power. Abuse does I guess connote to me the sort of thing that one can be criminally prosecuted for, so perhaps breaking my own rule there. But I'm very reluctant to use that word, and I am here.
That really is all I'm going to say about this. I think it's off topic.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Charles Read:
The OP asked if Tillich is in favour or not today.
I included Tillich in a course I taught between 1994 and 1999 at a UK Pentecostal seminary. I really only discovered Tillich by teaching that course! (It was on 20th century theology.)
Now I refer to Tillich in both liturgy and doctrine classes - his work on symbols is still intellectually stimulating and has practical import for worship - not least maybe Fresh Expressions.
His adage 'Just accept you are accepted' is a good summary of the doctrine of assurance.
I now regret not taking David Pailin's first year module at Manchester (Where I did my undergraduate theology) because I know he included a fair bit of stuff an Tillich (that was in 1978).
I'm currently reading Tillich's systematic theology vol. 2 and finding it insightful and provokes me to thought. I don't agree with everything Tillich wrote but then I don't agree with I write either - that is not the point.
I would welcome a new interest in Tillich's thought - and since I'd self-describe as a charismatic evangelical Anglican, some might find that unexpected!
But the issues raised here arising from his harassing of students, philandering etc. are also important. More on that maybe later...
That's interesting, Charles. I identify as Pentecostal myself, and I find Schleiermacher and Tillich great resources for understanding a theology that centres on experience. There certainly is a renaissance of Schleiermacher studies in religious studies at the moment. Perhaps the same will be the case for Tillich some day.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
But I'm wary of going too far in separating theology from action.
Aye.
MLK was a philanderer? Tillich was? Barth was?
Dayem. I didn't know that.
I've lost respect for them.
Potentially a logical fallacy of the slippery slope, but still. I'd think fidelity was a fairly basic Christian premise.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
But I'm wary of going too far in separating theology from action.
Aye.
MLK was a philanderer? Tillich was? Barth was?
Dayem. I didn't know that.
I've lost respect for them.
You may ruin out of people to respect, then.
Many of the great people who made a mark had feet of clay.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
I don't think he has much influence on Protestant theologians under the age of 65. I suspect he is simply too much a product of his age.
He was still being taught in universities in, at least, 1975.
His influence lived on for a very long time in the religious education world - at least until the late 1990s.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
But I'm wary of going too far in separating theology from action.
Aye.
MLK was a philanderer? Tillich was? Barth was?
Dayem. I didn't know that.
I've lost respect for them.
You may ruin out of people to respect, then.
Many of the great people who made a mark had feet of clay.
Maybe we've effed up the definition of great then.
Infidelity is not one I'm willing to compromise on.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Maybe we've effed up the definition of great then.
Infidelity is not one I'm willing to compromise on.
This would be worth a thread of its own. We once had a brilliant preacher who was, in everyone's eyes, also a wonderful family man. I knew different when he felt my bum, reaching up my skirt, in the Church kitchen.
I never listened to him again and didn't go to his funeral. My friends wondered why I didn't speak well of him. I didn't speak ill of him either - I just changed the subject.
Of course, these days he'd be another DLT awaiting sentencing.
My point is that it didn't matter how brilliant his words were - his actions told a different story and thus made his words utterly untrustworthy.
I think.
Intellectually that sounds all wrong - but didn't Jesus say something similar?
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
By their fruits you shall know them. Beware false prophets.
[ 24. September 2014, 14:05: Message edited by: Evensong ]
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
Boogie - I am really sorry to hear that. That's awful.
Evensong: are you actually calling MLK, Paul Tillich and Karl Barth false prophets? Because that makes the dead Germans line above seem erudite and considered.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
On the one hand I can sympathize with those who want to include the lives of the theologian as part of the process that evaluates the theology - especially in cases like that of Yoder for the reasons Cottontail mentions.
OTOH, it may well be that Yoder's ideas are theologically consistent and valid, in spite of him having pushed them partially for venal reasons.
ISTM that whilst there are reasons why theology is different to any other intellectual endeavour, there are also powerful similarities. That plus common grace would explain why someone could be very insightful theologically whilst not living a life that comports with the beliefs that spring from that theology.
In each case we can examine the theologies produced to see if there is anything in them that might lead to the behaviour we find problematic. This is much easier to do in the case of someone like Yoder, because of his record in attempting to in some way defend his behaviours.
Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
No, you haven't demonstrated that.
I'm not a lawyer (thank Christ), so I'm not going to comment on what someone could be prosecuted for. I think harassing a student in the way described in that footnote is immoral.
Happy to concede it was an abuse of power. Abuse does I guess connote to me the sort of thing that one can be criminally prosecuted for, so perhaps breaking my own rule there. But I'm very reluctant to use that word, and I am here.
That really is all I'm going to say about this. I think it's off topic.
Okay. I'm fine with that, and will leave it there too. Thanks.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
By their fruits you shall know them. Beware false prophets.
If you want to bandy quotations, 'We have this treasure in earthern vessels.'
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Evensong: are you actually calling MLK, Paul Tillich and Karl Barth false prophets?
Well ideas can technically stand or fall on their own merit.
But integrity seems to become an issue in this case.
Personally I think the virtue of fidelity is more important than the virtue of a brilliant idea.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
By their fruits you shall know them. Beware false prophets.
If you want to bandy quotations, 'We have this treasure in earthern vessels.'
If the cracks in the vessel are too big, it won't hold water. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Evensong: are you actually calling MLK, Paul Tillich and Karl Barth false prophets?
Well ideas can technically stand or fall on their own merit.
But integrity seems to become an issue in this case.
Personally I think the virtue of fidelity is more important than the virtue of a brilliant idea.
If you really think that MLK's work in civil rights and his legacy is less important than his marital fidelity, you're wronger than a wrong thing that is wrong.
And the idea that he is a false prophet is just plain dumb. Same goes for Tillich or Barth.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
On the one hand I can sympathize with those who want to include the lives of the theologian as part of the process that evaluates the theology - especially in cases like that of Yoder for the reasons Cottontail mentions.
OTOH, it may well be that Yoder's ideas are theologically consistent and valid, in spite of him having pushed them partially for venal reasons.
ISTM that whilst there are reasons why theology is different to any other intellectual endeavour, there are also powerful similarities. That plus common grace would explain why someone could be very insightful theologically whilst not living a life that comports with the beliefs that spring from that theology.
In each case we can examine the theologies produced to see if there is anything in them that might lead to the behaviour we find problematic. This is much easier to do in the case of someone like Yoder, because of his record in attempting to in some way defend his behaviours.
I thought this was a useful contribution. That's why I was interested in the blog Cottontail posted the link to, and the idea that Tillich's sexual philandering and his theology may have had some overlap. As much as I think the work can be regarded as discrete from someone's private life, I also think they can inform each other, and I would be interested to see how that may have happened in Tillich's case. Or how Barth came to terms with his theology and his relationship with von Kirschbaum. But I guess this thread is about Tillich.
Posted by Byron (# 15532) on
:
Even if we're judging Tillich's character, people must be judged in the context of their time.
In contemporary society, Tillich's actions are beyond the pale. In contemporary society, someone who expressed Abraham Lincoln's views on race would be ostracized, and rightly so. If we can make allowance for Lincoln, we can make allowance for Tillich, without soft-soaping what he did.
A lot of it rests on what Tillich had the potential to do. There's no evidence been provided that he ever did harm a student's career for rejecting him. Thankfully, we live in different times. Since Tillich died, Tile IX's been passed, which would impose sever penalty on any institution proved to tolerate sexual harassment from faculty members. (Even in the Sixties, depending on the contract the student signed, there may well have been some legal recourse for a supervisor who blatantly failed a student out of personal animus.)
We can take a balanced view of Tillich without downplaying the harm done by sexual harassment.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
f you really think that MLK's work in civil rights and his legacy is less important than his marital fidelity, you're wronger than a wrong thing that is wrong.
Doubt his family would agree.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Well ideas can technically stand or fall on their own merit.
But integrity seems to become an issue in this case.
Personally I think the virtue of fidelity is more important than the virtue of a brilliant idea.
It's about trust.
If they can't be trusted in such a fundamental area of life - can they be trusted in any other area; intellectual, political or theological?
Posted by Byron (# 15532) on
:
Trust plays no role in analyzing Tillich's arguments. We go on what we read.
In any case, there's been no suggestion that, in academia, Tillich was other than scrupulous. People behave differently in different spheres.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
f you really think that MLK's work in civil rights and his legacy is less important than his marital fidelity, you're wronger than a wrong thing that is wrong.
Doubt his family would agree.
Right. Because that's the test. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
f you really think that MLK's work in civil rights and his legacy is less important than his marital fidelity, you're wronger than a wrong thing that is wrong.
Doubt his family would agree.
King's family are still active in the civil rights movement, so I'm not convinced you're correct here. It doesn't seem one of those cases where the family feel they were treated as less important than other people's children.
(Mind you I think harassment is a degree worse than adultery.)
[ 25. September 2014, 08:30: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Personally I think the virtue of fidelity is more important than the virtue of a brilliant idea.
In judging the character of the person - yes. But then you have to judge their idea itself to some extent separately.
So it's possible to be subscribe to the civil rights ideas of MLK and be grateful that *someone* had the courage to hold to them, whilst still finding his particular behaviour problematic.
God works through flawed people, and often in spite of those flaws.
The problem is that when it comes to theology we can automatically assume that it must necessarily be primarily a case of prophetic inspiration, when perhaps it is sometimes better served by thinking of it as rather analogous to philosophy, albeit with its own vocabulary. I'm not saying that that's all it is - but perhaps considering in that way takes off the implicit feeling that a theologian is therefore automatically a great man go God.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
Yes chris stiles.
Brilliant but flawed - there are plenty of people in that category.
Our problem, I think, isn't so much with the flawed people as with the pedistals we put them on. So we assume good character where there is none.
Trust is a funny thing 'tho - once lost it's hard to regain no matter how detached one tries to be. If I can't trust the wo/man I find it very hard to believe what s/he says, however convincing their arguments.
Another brilliant bloke I know 'runs' (controls) two families - one didn't know about the other for four years. Now the first family is in a terrible way. I don't read his stuff - I can't be that detached.
I'm sure plenty of people can, or he wouldn't continue to write it.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
Some years ago I had an article in a national magazine called (from Solzhenitsyn) The Line Through The Heart.
Some former inmates of an orphanage were claiming that William Slim, governor-general of Australia, and previously commander of the Fourteenth Army in Burma, had molested them during official visits during the 1950s.
I tried to argue that assuming the allegations were true (and FWIW I think they were), his behaviour was totally unacceptable, but did not in any way cancel out his brilliant military success in helping defeat a bestial empire – the two things had to be kept separate.
In the same article I referred to George Orwell’s use of young (I hope not prepubescent) prostitutes in Burma and Morocco, and Arthur Koestler’s notoriety for serial sexual harassment, both of which were very serious, but do not compromise the value of their anti-Stalinism.
F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time”.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
f you really think that MLK's work in civil rights and his legacy is less important than his marital fidelity, you're wronger than a wrong thing that is wrong.
Doubt his family would agree.
Right. Because that's the test.
For me it would be yes. YMMV
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time”.
Bullshit. That's called compartmentalising so the cognitive dissonance doesn't tear you apart. It's just a coping mechanism.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Well ideas can technically stand or fall on their own merit.
But integrity seems to become an issue in this case.
Personally I think the virtue of fidelity is more important than the virtue of a brilliant idea.
It's about trust.
If they can't be trusted in such a fundamental area of life - can they be trusted in any other area; intellectual, political or theological?
Yup. People matter. I don't see how its fine to treat your family like shit and go "save the world". Double standards.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I thought that you Christians think that we're all fallible and broken (and sinful)?
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
Are you implying Christians should accept all types of behaviour on that basis?
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Well ideas can technically stand or fall on their own merit.
But integrity seems to become an issue in this case.
Personally I think the virtue of fidelity is more important than the virtue of a brilliant idea.
It's about trust.
If they can't be trusted in such a fundamental area of life - can they be trusted in any other area; intellectual, political or theological?
Yup. People matter. I don't see how its fine to treat your family like shit and go "save the world". Double standards.
I'm with Evensong on this.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Are you implying Christians should accept all types of behaviour on that basis?
No, that's not the point. You seem to be saying that a writer or thinker with various questionable traits should not be read or listened to. That seems very purist to me, and I would not do that, but if you would, fine.
Some of my favourite artists and writers had very dodgy private lives, but I still go and look at their pictures or read their books.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
It's a question of integrity. One definition of which is " of being whole and undivided".
Walk the talk. If they're not Christian then it probably doesn't matter. If they are, it does.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
It's a question of integrity. One definition of which is " of being whole and undivided".
Walk the talk. If they're not Christian then it probably doesn't matter. If they are, it does.
So what do you do with people like Dr King? I mean do you turn the TV off when they appear? Or you would refuse to read Tillich?
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Walk the talk. If they're not Christian then it probably doesn't matter. If they are, it does.
How so? I didn't think being Christian was about having arrived at some perfect place, moral or otherwise.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time”.
Bullshit. That's called compartmentalising so the cognitive dissonance doesn't tear you apart. It's just a coping mechanism.
It's true that compartmentalising can facilitate all kinds of terrible behaviour and abuse.
But is reading and appreciating the work of a 'compartmentalisor' wrong?
I don't know.
Where do you draw the line? Would the people who find no difficulty appreciating the work of a flawed genius feel the same if that flawed genius had comitted mass murder, for example?
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Are you implying Christians should accept all types of behaviour on that basis?
Not all types of behaviour but all types of people.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
It's a question of integrity. One definition of which is " of being whole and undivided".
Walk the talk. If they're not Christian then it probably doesn't matter. If they are, it does.
So what do you do with people like Dr King? I mean do you turn the TV off when they appear? Or you would refuse to read Tillich?
Leaving aside what utter crap the whole "walk the talk" line is, given that, indeed, most forms of Christianity I am aware of have a baseline understanding that people are imperfect, I am also curious to hear the answer to this question.
To return to the OP, what makes Tillich or any theologian relevant today is how their work is interpreted and used today. Tillich's has slipped into obscurity, ironically because the questions he addressed are not being asked anymore. I say "ironically" because Tillich's correlation method was designed to answer questions posed by culture through theology.
We do not disregard Luther's work because of his antisemitism, or Calvin's because he burned Spinoza, or Paul de Lagard's because of his disturbing nationalism, nor Kittle's theological dictionary because he was a Nazi. If marital infidelity or sexual harassment are special classes of sin that lead to us disregarding a person's work, I didn't get that memo.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
We do not disregard Luther's work because of his antisemitism, or Calvin's because he burned Spinoza, or Paul de Lagard's because of his disturbing nationalism, nor Kittle's theological dictionary because he was a Nazi. If marital infidelity or sexual harassment are special classes of sin that lead to us disregarding a person's work, I didn't get that memo.
So would you draw any lines at all? Would you continue to regard the work of a mass murderer, for example?
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
Like St Paul, for example?
Of course. I don't entirely disregard the life of an author of a text or set of texts - this is why I'm interested in how Tillich's sex life interacted with his thought. But I can assess the work on its own terms also.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Well, Christians burned people for about a 1000 years. I don't know whether the people who turn their nose up at Dr King for being a womanizer, would therefore refuse to read any writings or ideas by Christians who had been involved in these punishments?
Posted by Byron (# 15532) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
[...] To return to the OP, ...
Hooray! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
quote:
... what makes Tillich or any theologian relevant today is how their work is interpreted and used today. Tillich's has slipped into obscurity, ironically because the questions he addressed are not being asked anymore. I say "ironically" because Tillich's correlation method was designed to answer questions posed by culture through theology. [...]
Yup, major league irony, especially as Tillich's attempt to reconcile theology with modernity would be a powerful riposte to new atheism. Problem is, most of those who'd be attracted by his work have straight-up abandoned religion, either for "spirituality," or non-belief.
Those who're left are, as a rule, either neo-orthodox, or more interested in social justice than theology as such. It's sad to see so many Episcopalians greet criticism of Tillich's popularizer, Spong, with a defensive, "We're not all like him, y'know!"
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Like St Paul, for example?
Maybe I should have said 'an unrepentant mass murderer'!
I find myself looking for motivations for everything, especially in those who compartmentalise.
But, as I said earlier, it's another subject and should have a thread of its own.
I'll shut up now ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on
:
Dark Knight wrote:
quote:
We do not disregard Luther's work because of his antisemitism, or Calvin's because he burned Spinoza
Minor correction, but I think you mean Servetus, not Spinoza, as the guy burned by Calvin.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
If marital infidelity or sexual harassment are special classes of sin that lead to us disregarding a person's work, I didn't get that memo.
I think in general 'we' find it easier to excuse the faults of people who are long dead than people who are of more recent vintage.
See various publishers who have pulled books by Christians who have 'fallen from grace'.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
If marital infidelity or sexual harassment are special classes of sin that lead to us disregarding a person's work, I didn't get that memo.
I think in general 'we' find it easier to excuse the faults of people who are long dead than people who are of more recent vintage. ...
I don't think we are just making an issue of sexual misconduct. I am sure there are tele-evangelists who have had their hands in the till or lavished all manner of goodies, luxury homes, yachts, personal jets etc. on themselves and yet never been unfaithful to their wives. And what was wrong about what happened on July 18th 1969 isn't a possible suspicion of sexual irregularity. I'm not even sure that has ever been alleged.
It is also, of course, unfair to measure people in the past by standards other than those generally accepted as good conduct in the age in which they lived.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
It's a question of integrity. One definition of which is " of being whole and undivided".
Walk the talk. If they're not Christian then it probably doesn't matter. If they are, it does.
So what do you do with people like Dr King? I mean do you turn the TV off when they appear? Or you would refuse to read Tillich?
I'll engage if I need to, but I wouldn't go out of my way to read their sermons (for example).
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I'll engage if I need to, but I wouldn't go out of my way to read their sermons (for example).
Donatism (the belief that a sinful priest is unable to celebrate valid sacraments) is a heresy. I think the position that the spiritual value of someone's sermons depends on their lack of sin comes perilously close to that.
I would question the value of a sermon by someone who is unable to recognise themselves as a sinner.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Dark Knight wrote:
quote:
We do not disregard Luther's work because of his antisemitism, or Calvin's because he burned Spinoza
Minor correction, but I think you mean Servetus, not Spinoza, as the guy burned by Calvin.
Not minor at all! I killed off Spinoza! At Calvin's hand! Oh, the shame. Thank you, a very gracious correction. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
It's a question of integrity. One definition of which is " of being whole and undivided".
Walk the talk. If they're not Christian then it probably doesn't matter. If they are, it does.
So what do you do with people like Dr King? I mean do you turn the TV off when they appear? Or you would refuse to read Tillich?
I'll engage if I need to, but I wouldn't go out of my way to read their sermons (for example).
Cool. So you don't read anything? I guess everything has been written by those pesky imperfect human beings.
This Pelagian core to your posts is quite troubling.
Again returning to the OP (I keep trying and failing, which is the human condition I guess), I need to do a bit more contextual study on this, but I tend to read Tillich in light of Barth. Now, this may be incorrect, because I gather that at the time, Tillich was actually the bigger name - a kind of rock star theologian (which may explain, but of course does not excuse, his access to lots of sexual partners). But when I read Tillich, I find someone trying to be unapologetically apologetic (excuse the terrible pun), in the context of Barth's absolute refusal to engage in apologetic theology of any kind. Tillich famously referred to Barth's theology as a rock thrown at people's heads - absolutely brilliant (my words, not Tillich's, as I love Barth's theology) but presenting a God and theology that is radically other, more so even than anything we find in Otto. There is nothing in us that can relate to this God, he has to connect with us entirely. In contrast, Tillich saw in just about everything a symbol or metaphor that could be used for God-talk. In that regard, I think he stands in the tradition of Schleiermacher as one who tried to relate our faith to those who would skeptically reject it out of hand. Indeed, as Byron said earlier, possibly a natural resource that we ignore in engaging with new atheism.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
It's a question of integrity. One definition of which is " of being whole and undivided".
Walk the talk. If they're not Christian then it probably doesn't matter. If they are, it does.
So what do you do with people like Dr King? I mean do you turn the TV off when they appear? Or you would refuse to read Tillich?
I'll engage if I need to, but I wouldn't go out of my way to read their sermons (for example).
Cool. So you don't read anything? I guess everything has been written by those pesky imperfect human beings.
This Pelagian core to your posts is quite troubling.
I never said anything about perfection. I just have no respect for fuckabouts that treat people like shit so there's no reason to go out of my way to read them. Adultery is a grievous sin that harms many.
If you find my posts troublingly pelagic, then your separation of faith and works and life and thought is quite troubling. Doesn't matter what you do as long as you're a brilliant thinker?
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
Nice misrepresentation of my posts.
I'm not going to derail this further. Take me to hell if you want.
Posted by Galilit (# 16470) on
:
Didn't read this thread after I saw the first few posts did not mention Tillich's pre-occupation with pornography - specifically flims of naked crucified women in various bound postures.
Just imagine the "work" and " money" that went into producing and acquiring such material in those pre-internet days!
I read this in 1979 (quoted from Hannah T's book that has been previously mentioned).
Coming back to the thread now in a moment of idle wondering I see he took this "exuberant sexuality" into Real Life as well. Not surprising - this Old School feminist believes there is no limit to the male theologian's capacity for .... well, anything really.
Does it invalidate his scholarship and insight? Not in the slightest. It just means I will never read him and will take every opportunity to bring this other dimension of the man to any discussion I hear.
I am now so old I think people can make up their own minds (or penises)
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
If you find my posts troublingly pelagic,
I am familiar with the confusion of Arminian with Armenian, and Augustine of Hippo with Augustine of Canterbury, but pelagic with Pelagian is wonderful.
Pelagius is now engraved forever in my mind as a fearsome sea-monster.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
That's called compartmentalising so the cognitive dissonance doesn't tear you apart. It's just a coping mechanism.
Compartmentalisation can be “just a coping mechanism”, and it can be dangerous, but the fact is that we all use it all the time to some degree, because without it relationship would be impossible, given that no individual we encounter (including ourselves!) is completely consistent and integrated.
The alternative is zero-tolerance of ambiguity, a disorder known as authoritarian personality.
“MLK was a plagiarist and a serial adulterer, and to that extent was a bad person and an example to be avoided; MLK led a courageous struggle against racial discrimination, and to that extent was a hero to be respected and if possible emulated”.
It’s not that difficult.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Galilit:
Didn't read this thread after I saw the first few posts did not mention Tillich's pre-occupation with pornography - specifically flims of naked crucified women in various bound postures.
Just imagine the "work" and " money" that went into producing and acquiring such material in those pre-internet days!
I read this in 1979 (quoted from Hannah T's book that has been previously mentioned).
Coming back to the thread now in a moment of idle wondering I see he took this "exuberant sexuality" into Real Life as well. Not surprising - this Old School feminist believes there is no limit to the male theologian's capacity for .... well, anything really.
Does it invalidate his scholarship and insight? Not in the slightest. It just means I will never read him and will take every opportunity to bring this other dimension of the man to any discussion I hear.
I am now so old I think people can make up their own minds (or penises)
That's very interesting, but if their son Rene is anything to go by, Hannah's own words should probably be read with one or two grains of salt. (actually, maybe just grab a salt shaker).
But mostly what Kaplan said ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
[ 26. September 2014, 07:04: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
Posted by Demas (# 24) on
:
(cross posted with DarkKnight)
quote:
Originally posted by Galilit:
(quoted from Hannah T's book that has been previously mentioned)
I'm really inclined to reserve judgement on this sort of stuff. You can read the comments in "My father, Paul Tillich" by Hannah and Paul's son, Rene for a somewhat more nuanced view.
One apropos comment from Rene (a psychotherapist):
quote:
[Paul] practiced the cure people of my profession and persuasion would prescribe, namely, honest self-exploration. Well, God knows, Paul did honest self-exploration, only one step removed. He did it in his theology - it's there in his work, very clear - where he explained himself with courage and rigor that are awesome, refusing to make nice what was not nice in the human soul and, by extension, in himself. He acknowledged the reality of the demonic in humans and argued it must be embraced, dealt with. He refused to separate sexual desire from love, and he refused to solve the problem of sexual excess by relegating it to the moral ash bin. And, I believe, he was looking at those questions in himself, even as he was struggling with them theological terms. (p 18, My Father - Paul Tillich, 2001)
[ 26. September 2014, 07:12: Message edited by: Demas ]
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Nice misrepresentation of my posts.
Not my intention at all.
But happy to stop there if you want to.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
(re Demas above)
That's an interesting quote, and reminds me of MLK's supposed exultant remark, 'I'm fucking for God'.
It reminds of various pagan ideas - that sexuality is a pathway to the divine, or the numinous - but I suppose it sits oddly within Christianity.
I was wondering about someone like Thomas More, who supposedly imprisoned people in his own house, and lauded burning people.
If these things are correct, would some Christians avoid More?
[ 26. September 2014, 08:20: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
Posted by Gildas (# 525) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
If you find my posts troublingly pelagic,
I am familiar with the confusion of Arminian with Armenian, and Augustine of Hippo with Augustine of Canterbury, but pelagic with Pelagian is wonderful.
Pelagius is now engraved forever in my mind as a fearsome sea-monster.
Same root, I presume?
Posted by Twangist (# 16208) on
:
quote:
I was wondering about someone like Thomas More, who supposedly imprisoned people in his own house, and lauded burning people.
If these things are correct, would some Christians avoid More?
Those he was imprisoning etc were probably keen to aviod him ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I think what comes across here and in the thread about Paisley amongst others is fascinating - The whole question or where we draw the line between "we're all sinners, God can use broken people, he can draw a straight line with a crooked stick" and "some stuff is bang out of order for a Xtian and invalidates what you say about God".
I wonder how and if peoples theology was shaped to allow for their particular besetting sins? (And also more pertinantly if and how the rest of us do the same)
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Twangist:
quote:
I was wondering about someone like Thomas More, who supposedly imprisoned people in his own house, and lauded burning people.
If these things are correct, would some Christians avoid More?
Those he was imprisoning etc were probably keen to aviod him
I think what comes across here and in the thread about Paisley amongst others is fascinating - The whole question or where we draw the line between "we're all sinners, God can use broken people, he can draw a straight line with a crooked stick" and "some stuff is bang out of order for a Xtian and invalidates what you say about God".
I wonder how and if peoples theology was shaped to allow for their particular besetting sins? (And also more pertinantly if and how the rest of us do the same)
Yes, well put. It would also require quite a lot of vetting, wouldn't it, before one could read a particular author with a clear conscience? Do you have to check out their possible sexual indiscretions, before cracking open a book?
I like reading art history, where you just couldn't take such an approach!
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
(re Demas above)
That's an interesting quote, and reminds me of MLK's supposed exultant remark, 'I'm fucking for God'.
You can't be serious. What a twerp. ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif)
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
If you find my posts troublingly pelagic,
I am familiar with the confusion of Arminian with Armenian, and Augustine of Hippo with Augustine of Canterbury, but pelagic with Pelagian is wonderful.
Pelagius is now engraved forever in my mind as a fearsome sea-monster.
Same root, I presume?
Yes
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
That's called compartmentalising so the cognitive dissonance doesn't tear you apart. It's just a coping mechanism.
Compartmentalisation can be “just a coping mechanism”, and it can be dangerous, but the fact is that we all use it all the time to some degree, because without it relationship would be impossible, given that no individual we encounter (including ourselves!) is completely consistent and integrated.
The alternative is zero-tolerance of ambiguity, a disorder known as authoritarian personality.
“MLK was a plagiarist and a serial adulterer, and to that extent was a bad person and an example to be avoided; MLK led a courageous struggle against racial discrimination, and to that extent was a hero to be respected and if possible emulated”.
It’s not that difficult.
Would you enjoin Boogie to still take the spiritual and theological council of the minister that lifted her skirts seriously then?
It's not that simple.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
You're fucking right it's not that simple. The one proposing simple binaries is you. Theologian does bad stuff in the sack, therefore toss out all of his work.
It's. Not. That. Simple.
And no one has said anything like that to Boogie. And you know it.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
You're fucking right it's not that simple. The one proposing simple binaries is you.
I don't think I'm suggesting simple binaries. I've said as much here.
If his adultery doesn't bother you and you can compartmentalise the two then carry on. But I won't. As Gallit or Enoch won't.
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
And no one has said anything like that to Boogie. And you know it.
That's because it's the elephant in the room. No one has made the connection or said anything because it's too hard. What should Boogie have done?
IMV Boogie was quite correct to disregard him. Compartmentalising was not an option.
Why should it be different with Tillich who was apparently a Lutheran pastor?
[ 26. September 2014, 10:33: Message edited by: Evensong ]
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
No one has said that because this is a thread about Tillich. No one is asking any of Tillich's paramours or victims about their view of his theology either.
And while in the post you have linked to you leave open the possibility that a work can stand on its own merits, you have not actually taken that position at all throughout this discussion. You have in actuality assumed the binary that sexual infidelity and harrassment invalidates a theologian's work. So, yes, you are the one oversimplifying.
If you want to have a conversation about how Tillich's sexuality informed or affected his theology, I am more than willing to have that discussion, and have said so several times. If you think you can disregard his work based on it, you certainly haven't demonstrated that is a legitimate move.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I also think that if a work does not stand on it merits, we are in for a hectic time, vetting writers and thinkers for their various errors. Many of these only come out much later, partly because early biographers were rather coy about such matters, whereas modern biographers are much more frank.
Maybe a whole raft of writers and thinkers will become 'not to be read' as new revelations emerge.
As I said earlier, apparently Thomas More praised burning people - who is going to consciously ignore him? I believe he is listed in the C of E calendar, and is obviously a Catholic saint. Anybody willing to ostracize him?
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
No one has said that because this is a thread about Tillich.
Threads go where they will DK. Anyone can take up a gauntlet. Happens all the time. Boogie threw hers down. No-one picked it up.
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
And while in the post you have linked to you leave open the possibility that a work can stand on its own merits, you have not actually taken that position at all throughout this discussion. You have in actuality assumed the binary that sexual infidelity and harrassment invalidates a theologian's work. So, yes, you are the one oversimplifying.
For me personally yes. Adultery is not an everyday sin. It cuts at the core of the Christian ethic. But as I said before, YMMV and anyone else's may too if they're happy to separate the two. I'm not. Boogie wasn't either.
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
If you want to have a conversation about how Tillich's sexuality informed or affected his theology, I am more than willing to have that discussion, and have said so several times. If you think you can disregard his work based on it, you certainly haven't demonstrated that is a legitimate move.
No I'm not interested in how his sexuality affected his work. I'll leave that to you and other interested parties.
And I think Boogie's example and the Christian basic ethic demonstrates why it is a legitimate move to not be interested in his work.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I also think that if a work does not stand on it merits, we are in for a hectic time, vetting writers and thinkers for their various errors. Many of these only come out much later, partly because early biographers were rather coy about such matters, whereas modern biographers are much more frank.
No one can know everything. You change as new information emerges. That's pretty standard. Doesn't mean you should continue to accept whatever once you know better.
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
As I said earlier, apparently Thomas More praised burning people - who is going to consciously ignore him? I believe he is listed in the C of E calendar, and is obviously a Catholic saint. Anybody willing to ostracize him?
Sure. Burning people is wrong. In the C of E, I don't have to venerate him if I don't want to.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Twangist:
I think what comes across here and in the thread about Paisley amongst others is fascinating - The whole question or where we draw the line between "we're all sinners, God can use broken people, he can draw a straight line with a crooked stick" and "some stuff is bang out of order for a Xtian and invalidates what you say about God".
Yes. And the line will be drawn differently for each of us depending on our experiences and how ready we are to compartmentalise.
I cannot compartmentalise on adultery. I have seen it's destructive power too much first hand.
I doubt many would be willing to compartmentalise on Hitler's policies on the Jews while doing an impressive job of unifying the Germans in a sense of national solidarity and improving the economy.
I doubt many would be willing to compartmentalise on pedophilia if their child had been subject to it by a brilliant theologian or teacher.
Some things are simply no go in terms of tolerance.
A popular phrase in my neck of the woods is the "cracks in the jar let the light in". i.e. God can work through our suffering and pain and faults. But if the jar is too cracked, it doesn't let the light in, it destroys others. And that is not acceptable.
[ 26. September 2014, 11:31: Message edited by: Evensong ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
From adultery to Hitler in one fell swoop. Hmm, certainly an interesting connection.
I was thinking of the great painter Caravaggio, who was, as is well known, on the run for part of his career for murder. I think I shall take sunglasses, next time I go to see his works, then his full depravity may not blind me.
Posted by Elephenor (# 4026) on
:
Donald Mackinnon himself delivered a 1975 lecture "Tillich, Frege, Kittel: Some Reflections on a Dark Theme" ruminating on the relationship of moral goodness to intellectual insight. On the one hand a "mathematician's argument is faulted for lack of rigour in proof, not for the financial or matrimonial tangles (however much he may be to blame for them) that have disturbed his concentration and led to the flaws in his argument"; yet surely he is "not alone in being deeply disturbed by the books treating of the life of the theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich....when I recall now his lectures at Aberdeen twenty years ago, I ask myself what I am to make of the startling contrast between the staid, sombrely dressed, elderly Professor, and the man living in those same years in the USA the life his wife describes." He goes on to discern a relation between Tillich's intellectual and sexual risk-taking: "we have to reckon with the built-in risk of a deep corruption in a theology that would cultivate a temper of exploration."
Two gossipy footnotes: 1) Mackinnon's own emotional intimacy with Iris Murdoch, while she was his student, was close enough to strain his marriage. 2) A distinguished Christian ethicist was sacked by a UK university last year following a conviction for groping a sleeping stranger.
There are a lot of awkward and creepy things once you start looking underneath these rocks.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
FFS, ES. Boogie did not throw down a gauntlet. What are you reading?
You have not demonstrated enough to dismiss Tillich's work, even if you think you have. I'm pretty bored of talking about that with you now.
The reflections on darkness in the work of Tillich is interesting. I brought this up with some colleagues today. There can be no question that his dark side influenced his theology. This is a long bow, perhaps, but in attempting to be the man on the boundaries, perhaps he thought he could breach a few.
[ 26. September 2014, 12:38: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
Perhaps this has been cast in rather too lurid a way - that anything less than squeaky-clean probity somehow devalues the authors entire output.
Well, it doesn't. But what it does tend to do is surround discussions of that person with an ill-defined miasma, a sort of bad smell that accompanies their ghost wherever s/he goes. The proto-fascism of Richard Wagner - the bizarre sexuality of Eric Gill - the murderous habits of Carlo Gesualdo, just to add to those already mentioned. These things may add to the frisson of reading about them perhaps, but it seems to devalue the appreciation of the whole person.
Is that helpful? I don't really know. Classical biographies simply ignored all such considerations. Nowadays, there seem to be more works poring over famous peoples' personal lives than reasoned summaries of their achievements.
Are we really the most prurient of ages? Perhaps we shall be judged that way by future generations - who knows what they will say about us?
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
FFS, ES. Boogie did not throw down a gauntlet. What are you reading?
If Evensong is pissing you off, Dark Knight, you know where to take it. The exchanges between you have been getting a mite tetchy. Please cool it, at least here.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
Posted by Galilit (# 16470) on
:
Well, Queztzalcoatl et al, what I did was not read any books written by men (apart from the Bible) for nigh on 30 years.
But if I felt it was really necessary I made an exception eg Linus Pauling on vitamin C and Douglas Adams are 2 that spring to mind.
I am reading male authors these days (last 5 years) now and quite happily so with the exception of Colm Toibin's Testment of Mary - which just proved my policy...
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
If you find my posts troublingly pelagic,
I am familiar with the confusion of Arminian with Armenian, and Augustine of Hippo with Augustine of Canterbury, but pelagic with Pelagian is wonderful.
Pelagius is now engraved forever in my mind as a fearsome sea-monster.
The pelagic argosy sights land.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
My sincere apologies, B62. You are absolutely right.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
Part of what is enraging me, and may be enraging Evensong and Boogie, is that Tillich and Martin Luther King, are both people who are held up as great men, heroes in their fields. In the latter case, he even has his own day. Once a person attains that status, people start to take the line that this man is great; therefore what he said and did has a special credibility. We should accept the worth and significance of what they said or did because it was them who said and did it.
If part of their public status is as a Christian figure, I don't think we should either give them that that sort of super-credibility or exhort others to do so, if their lives are seriously inconsistent with the faith for which they stand. This is particularly so, if at the core of their life there appears to lie betrayal. We can say, 'well I've considered argument x and am persuaded by its intellectual persuasiveness'. We can no longer say, 'I am persuaded simply because it is Paul Tillich or Martin Luther King who said it'.
Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on
:
ISTM one of the themes of Scripture is that otherwise faithful people do fucked-up things. Abraham pimped out his wife; that's worse than adultery. Moses killed a man and fled justice; that's worse than adultery. Then you have the shining example of David, combining adultery and murder. Shall I go on? Shall we have nothing to do with the Abrahamic covenant, Torah, the Psalms, because we are too good for such scoundrels?
And do I have to repeat the tired refrain of, "That is not to excuse pimping or murder or adultery." When Christians do illegal or immoral things, they ought to be called on it, and encouraged to repent and reconcile if possible. But the good they have done ought not to be discounted.
Evensong, you have alluded to some personal impact: quote:
I cannot compartmentalise on adultery. I have seen its destructive power too much first hand.
Perhaps this is clouding your judgment? I don't disagree with you about the heinous effects of adultery. I just don't think you or I or an adulterer is made more or less of a child of God, for the fact that they have different ways of fucking up their lives than you or I. If I can read the Psalms or the Decalogue, I can read Tillich and MLK, and hope that God will forgive all of us.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Part of what is enraging me, and may be enraging Evensong and Boogie, is that Tillich and Martin Luther King, are both people who are held up as great men, heroes in their fields. In the latter case, he even has his own day. Once a person attains that status, people start to take the line that this man is great; therefore what he said and did has a special credibility. We should accept the worth and significance of what they said or did because it was them who said and did it.
If part of their public status is as a Christian figure, I don't think we should either give them that that sort of super-credibility or exhort others to do so, if their lives are seriously inconsistent with the faith for which they stand. This is particularly so, if at the core of their life there appears to lie betrayal. We can say, 'well I've considered argument x and am persuaded by its intellectual persuasiveness'. We can no longer say, 'I am persuaded simply because it is Paul Tillich or Martin Luther King who said it'.
Which is a good position to come to. It's my starting point.
It's also a misrepresentation of what's going on here. The fallacious argument I see being made is more like "I am not persuaded of the value of the things Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, MLK, Luther, Calvin, de la Garde, Kittel etc. said or did because of certain other bad things they said or did." Which is, as Byron pointed out, ad hominem, and therefore a logical fallacy. Or if you prefer, a form of Donatism (as someone else upthread has already suggested).
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Would you enjoin Boogie to still take the spiritual and theological council of the minister that lifted her skirts seriously then?
I’m not sure that was “throwing down a gauntlet”, and if she was, I’m sure she’s quite capable of making her own accusation that no-one picked it up.
I'm more than sure that I have not the slightest intention of "enjoining" Boogie to do anything, and that the suggestion that I (or anyone else) should do so verges on the bizarre.
Her response to the mistreatment she suffered is in some ways reminiscent of Roman Catholics who abandon their church after they, or someone close to them, is sexually abused by a priest.
It is not a rational reaction, because the abuse is irrelevant to the question of the truth or otherwise of Roman Catholic faith claims, but it is entirely understandable, and one for which few would judge them - certainly not me.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
Facinating.
Nobody wants to tell Boogie she shouldn't dismiss the priests counsel because he manhandled her.
Why not?
IMV, this is a case in point of microcosm verses macrocosm. No-one wants to discuss the microcosm but are happy to say it shouldn't be a problem in macrocosm. Abstractions are safer than real life.
Is it because it's personal in this instance and not impersonal so it's easier to compartmentalise?
FWIW Kaplan Corday, Boogie's case is not reminiscent of your example. She is still a practising Christian AFAIK.
Leaf: Good point about the Patriarchs. I don't know what to say to that except to say that some of them were active before the law and didn't know any better and were just going along with the cultural mores of the time. David technically should have but there is some argument that The Law was really only "resurrected" in Josiah's time and the Pentateuch was only strongly formalised during the exilic period. But the Patriarchs and David are certainly not people we would "look up to" today.
As for my experience of adultery clouding my judgement. I wouldn't describe it that way. I'd say it was informing my judgement.
Again, this is not to say ideas can be discussed on their own merit. But integrity and incarnational theology becomes a problem for some of us such that we may not seek out those ideas if we don't have to.
[ 27. September 2014, 11:36: Message edited by: Evensong ]
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
Meant to say this is not to say ideas cannot discussed on their own merit.
Missed the edit window.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Nobody wants to tell Boogie she shouldn't dismiss the priests counsel because he manhandled her.
I'm back to answer some questions as my experience is being used as an example. Which is fine, that's why I mentioned it.
He wasn't a priest, he was a Local Preacher and Headteacher of a local school. I continued to go to the same Church and even some of his services. I still go to the same Church. I simply didn't listen to him again. He was so well thought of I also had to extracate myself from conversations about him. People were surprised I didn't go to his funeral - it was a big affair.
My point is that, when it becomes personal, you can't take any of their ideas seriously - as you know they are untrustworthy people, so why should you trust their ideas? Nothing could make me listen to them - never mind believe him, but that was just an emotional reaction I suppose?
I think Evensong is right on the 'big picture' thing - we can ignore mis-doings and concentrate on achievements if they don't affect us. The closer to home they come the harder detachment is. Not to everyone, some can compartmentalise so well they are sociopathic/psychopathic of course.
I wasn't throwing down a gauntlet, I was asking a question. Should I have taken notice of any of his words, knowing what kind of man he was - and knowing what he'd done to me and who knows who else?
If not, why should we do so with others? Does the fact that the harm they did is 'distant' make it OK to appreciate their work?
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
Actually, Kaplan did address Boogie's situation. You should read it again. There is probably some merit in your points about microcosms versus macrocosms, but more on point is the fact that when someone is directly emotionally affected by the criminal and abusive actions of someone, they're reaction to anything that person says and does will also be affected by that. You're actually comparing apples and oranges. If this were a conversation about whether or not Tillich's work was still relevant to one of his victims, your arguments would have some validity.
I was thinking some more about Tillich today, and thinking also about current theological trends on the relationship between scientific understandings of the world and theological or religious ones. Tillich's project was to bring these worlds together. I actually don't think they go together. God is wholly other, as Otto told us, and can't be known through scientific methods (this, incidentally, is what Dawkins' tiny little brain can't seem to grasp). Barth is thus more in line with current thinking, and likely to be for awhile. I think.
X-post with Boogie
[ 27. September 2014, 12:37: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
...but more on point is the fact that when someone is directly emotionally affected by the criminal and abusive actions of someone, they're reaction to anything that person says and does will also be affected by that. You're actually comparing apples and oranges.
But surely, if we have any empathy for the victims, we will also be affected by that?
Are you saying we shouldn't be?
[ 27. September 2014, 13:22: Message edited by: Boogie ]
Posted by Elephenor (# 4026) on
:
Much earlier in the thread cottontail linked to a blog which mentions that the Mennonite Church's publishing arm has now begun to print a statement at the front of John Howard Yoder's books mentioning his history of sexual harassment and the difficulties it raises: "We believe that Yoder and those who write about his work deserve to be heard; we also believe readers should know that Yoder engaged in abusive behavior." This seems to me a constructive approach.
I think it was from Hauerwas' autobiography I first heard about Yoder having been disciplined by his church for (Hauerwas' words:) inappropriate relationships with women. There is a lot more information available on the internet today, and this thread has prompted me to read some of it. I found this article from a local newspaper at the time of the disciplinary process especially interesting as it covers the responses both of (two of) his victims and of his friends to the continuing value of his work. The victims quoted would struggle to use his writings themselves, but do think they might still be of value to others.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
...but more on point is the fact that when someone is directly emotionally affected by the criminal and abusive actions of someone, they're reaction to anything that person says and does will also be affected by that. You're actually comparing apples and oranges.
But surely, if we have any empathy for the victims, we will also be affected by that?
Are you saying we shouldn't be?
No. And you and ES are quite right to point out the empathy for victims required in coming to terms with the work. It's a factor in interpretation. But to allow that to invalidate the work together is fallacious.
Posted by Twangist (# 16208) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Elephenor:
Much earlier in the thread cottontail linked to a blog which mentions that the Mennonite Church's publishing arm has now begun to print a statement at the front of John Howard Yoder's books mentioning his history of sexual harassment and the difficulties it raises: "We believe that Yoder and those who write about his work deserve to be heard; we also believe readers should know that Yoder engaged in abusive behavior." This seems to me a constructive approach.
I think it was from Hauerwas' autobiography I first heard about Yoder having been disciplined by his church for (Hauerwas' words:) inappropriate relationships with women. There is a lot more information available on the internet today, and this thread has prompted me to read some of it. I found this article from a local newspaper at the time of the disciplinary process especially interesting as it covers the responses both of (two of) his victims and of his friends to the continuing value of his work. The victims quoted would struggle to use his writings themselves, but do think they might still be of value to others.
Wow
Yoder seems to have been treated in line with his own teaching. I'm not sure if that is ironic or what?
The Mennonites seem to have demonstrated real integrity
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I don't know what to say to that except to say that some of them were active before the law and didn't know any better and were just going along with the cultural mores of the time. David technically should have but there is some argument that The Law was really only
I have a hard time with the argument that the Patriachs didn't know murder and adultery were wrong because "The Law" hadn't been given yet.
[Apart from the eye rolling aspect, you then have to wonder why Nathan's pronouncement of "you are the man" had so much weight].
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
I have a hard time with the argument that the Patriachs didn't know murder and adultery were wrong because "The Law" hadn't been given yet.
Before Moses there were the seven noahide laws
Moo
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
I have a hard time with the argument that the Patriachs didn't know murder and adultery were wrong because "The Law" hadn't been given yet.
Before Moses there were the seven noahide laws
Well quite. I was trying to be polite.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Facinating.
Nobody wants to tell Boogie she shouldn't dismiss the priests counsel because he manhandled her.
No, what's fascinating is your imagining that any of us has the right to "tell" Boogie what she should or shouldn't do.
Boogie appears to have been so disgusted with his behaviour that she decided to no longer listen to anything he had to say, and that is OK.
If she had decided to thenceforth to listen to him, but try to judge what he had to say purely on its merits, irrespective of his character and behaviour, that would have been OK also.
In such cases, when it comes to affected individuals' choices as to how to respond, we would do well to mind our own business.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
If she had decided to thenceforth to listen to him, but try to judge what he had to say purely on its merits, irrespective of his character and behaviour, that would have been OK also.
This is what this whole thread is about. I brought it down to the personal because it can make it more real to us - bring it home, so to speak.
If we have empathy for the victims it means we feel for them.
So my question was 'does this affect our reading/listening to their ideas'?
You seem to be saying 'mind your own business' but surely that's what happens all the time in allowing abusers to continue to abuse?
Jesus called us to be salt and light - a little salt goes a long way. In my view a little harm goes a long way too.
To put these harmers on pedistals just because they have great intellects bothers me quite a lot. Those who harm and have no standing in the world end up in jail.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
You seem to be saying 'mind your own business' but surely that's what happens all the time in allowing abusers to continue to abuse?
The "mind your own business" in my post referred to respecting the decisions of the recipients of abuse in choosing how to respond to it.
If their decision is to raise an almighty shitstorm and expose the abuser, no matter what their stature and reputation, then that choice should be respected too - and supported.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
Yes, sorry, and this is waaay off topic again
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
People keep saying it's off-topic, which puzzles me. If one reason that Tillich is not considered relevant by some people, is because of his sexual behaviour, and others are saying that in fact, he discusses 'dark' sexuality in his work - how is that not germane to an overall consideration of Tillich?
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
People keep saying it's off-topic, which puzzles me. If one reason that Tillich is not considered relevant by some people
I think relevance is a separate issue. I think we have to do two things simultaneously when examining his ideas, judge them both on their individual merits and then - because of his behaviour - evaluate how they might be tainted by his thoughts on other areas. This latter would not necessarily invalidate them - but may make us wary of the reasons for why people push certain ideas (see the example of Yoder).
I don't think that to do so would necessarily constitute putting him on a pedestal.
I think the dynamics in the case of a church leader are somewhat different - and often they are put on a pedestal by the very nature of their work (see the other thread on priests as a walking sacrament).
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
It seems to me to be a false dichotomy to propose that either we validate a person and his or her work or we reject both out of hand. As I've said several times now, in coming to terms with Tillich's work what we know (which isn't much, and in not including the self-interested narrative of Hannah Tillich for reasons already discussed) of his sexual behaviour, both right and wrong, must be a factor in coming to terms with his message. This is not about honouring the man so much as it is about recognising the importance of his work and it's enduring value.
If we want to say the man was a poor role model or example to live by, you'll find very little argument from me. But to reject his work on the basis of his life is wrong-headed. Mind you, it would significantly reduce the size of the canon of great literature, classics and learned texts if we were to take this approach. Apart from the names already mentioned, we'd need to discard Hiedegger, Sartre, Evelyn Waugh, Germaine Greer, Foucault, Socrates, Virginia Wolf ... I could go on. That's just looking at my bookshelf for five minutes.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
I think the dynamics in the case of a church leader are somewhat different - and often they are put on a pedestal by the very nature of their work (see the other thread on priests as a walking sacrament).
Wasn't Tillich a Lutheran pastor? Did he give it up?
I think Enoch hit the nail on the head here.
As long as these people are not considered "great men or women" I'm cool with whatever.
Boogie's point that those considered "great men" should not be allowed to get away with abuse is also important.
[ 28. September 2014, 11:11: Message edited by: Evensong ]
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I think Enoch hit the nail on the head here.
No he/she didn't. Enoch made the mistake you and he/she have made this whole thread - conflating the value and validity of a person's work with their life independent of that work.
quote:
As long as these people are not considered "great men or women" I'm cool with whatever.
Finally!
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I do wonder how much people check out a writer's or thinker's moral credentials before reading or listening to them. After all, many people probably have dark secrets, and it's only if you are famous, that these might be exposed in later biographies.
A lot of my favourite artists had quite dubious private lives - well, who would have believed it! I was thinking recently about Walter Sickert, who was not really Jack the Ripper, but who none the less, had a fascination with prostitutes and general low life. Check out his Camden Town paintings if you are curious.
Posted by Galilit (# 16470) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I do wonder how much people check out a writer's or thinker's moral credentials before reading or listening to them.
I do.
But I am a feminist of a very certain stripe. (A relict from the late 1970's)
That's why I stopped reading books written by men for 3 decades. And now, while I do read a few, I never actually *buy* them with my own money.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Galilit:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I do wonder how much people check out a writer's or thinker's moral credentials before reading or listening to them.
I do.
But I am a feminist of a very certain stripe. (A relict from the late 1970's)
That's why I stopped reading books written by men for 3 decades. And now, while I do read a few, I never actually *buy* them with my own money.
I must say, 'relict' is a wonderful word - do you know that it used to mean 'widow'?
Anyway, do you check out the moral credentials of women writers and thinkers?
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I do wonder how much people check out a writer's or thinker's moral credentials before reading or listening to them. After all, many people probably have dark secrets, and it's only if you are famous, that these might be exposed in later biographies.
This is an important part of hermeneutics, I think. But it also involves a critical appraisal, perhaps a historiography, of the sources used for constructing a moral history of a person. I don't dispute the source Cottontail put up that strongly suggested Tillich harassed one of his students. I am very dubious about claims based on Hannah Tillich's work, as I and others have said.
Posted by Holy Smoke (# 14866) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
...As long as these people are not considered "great men or women" I'm cool with whatever.
Boogie's point that those considered "great men" should not be allowed to get away with abuse is also important.
If they made major contributions to society in other ways, should they not be looked on more leniently when they transgress against cultural mores? Surely so, in the case of Kennedy, MLK, Tiger Woods, etc. Otherwise is it not simply a case of trying to drag people down to one's own level of mediocrity?
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
If they made major contributions to society in other ways, should they not be looked on more leniently when they transgress against cultural mores? Surely so, in the case of Kennedy, MLK, Tiger Woods, etc. Otherwise is it not simply a case of trying to drag people down to one's own level of mediocrity?
Certainly not. Exactly the opposite in my opinion. If you are a public figure who aspires to occupy a public role and whom we are exhorted to respect and admire, a particular responsibility rests upon you to live up to that expectation.
I just don't buy the notion that somehow the great and the good are entitled to be given extra slack that the rest of us are not, just because they are great, good and important, or their surname happens to be King, Kennedy or Tillich.
That is one of the reasons why I keep rabbiting on about July 18th 1969.
Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
If they made major contributions to society in other ways, should they not be looked on more leniently when they transgress against cultural mores? Surely so, in the case of Kennedy, MLK, Tiger Woods, etc. Otherwise is it not simply a case of trying to drag people down to one's own level of mediocrity?
My initial reaction to this was an instinctive "Ewww." But I will try to respond more thoughtfully.
This position presupposes some causal link between "transgressing against cultural mores" and achievement. I do not understand how pointing out the fault, and calling for repentance and making amends, is a form of imposing mediocrity. I think it imposes accountability, which is no bad thing.
I also find it an interesting rhetorical move to refer to adultery, not as a sin - let alone one of the Top Ten - but as a mere cultural more, and thereby more easily dismissed, perhaps?
We are also conflating adultery and sexual harassment in this conversation, when they are two different things. Adultery is bad enough; sexual harassment IMO is worse.
This thread has had a range of opinions on what is too compartmentalized, and what is too inappropriately mixed together. I noticed one of the comments in the article linked by hit the "too compartmentalized" end of the spectrum:
quote:
“There’s an enormous burden on that church to protect the heritage [John Howard Yoder] is a part of,” said James William McClendon, distinguished scholar-in-residence at the evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. “If he is slandered and defamed and abused, that’s going to hurt all of us who are grateful for the enormously important work he’s done for half a century.”
This made me so angry I had to step away from the computer for a while. The concern was all for the abuser and potential harm to his reputation. Two academics were quoted praising Yoder's "humbling himself" to the process of inquiry; if they also praised the courage of the women in coming forward, that was not included in the article.
One of the women in this case, "Clara", was quoted with what seemed a thoughtful, balanced, understandable point of view: quote:
“I cannot use his writings at this point. (I) feel that they’re not at all credible,” Clara said. “He does not live up to what he writes and what he speaks.” Yet Clara drew a distinction between the appropriateness of Yoder’s work for her personal use and its use by the wider Christian community. “The church needs to be very honest and candid and raise questions about whether one can legitimately use his material, knowing his behavior patterns,” she said. “His writings are legitimate, even if his behavior isn’t.”
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leaf:
... This position presupposes some causal link between "transgressing against cultural mores" and achievement. I do not understand how pointing out the fault, and calling for repentance and making amends, is a form of imposing mediocrity. I think it imposes accountability, which is no bad thing.
Well said.
The alternative is quote:
"Only the little people pay taxes."
or in this context, "only the little people are faithful to their husbands or wives" quote:
I also find it an interesting rhetorical move to refer to adultery, not as a sin - let alone one of the Top Ten - but as a mere cultural more, and thereby more easily dismissed, perhaps?
Again, well said.
quote:
We are also conflating adultery and sexual harassment in this conversation, when they are two different things. Adultery is bad enough; sexual harassment IMO is worse.
Although it depends on the level and nature of harassment, and how insistent it is, unless harassment tips over into actual rape, I would personally regard adultery as worse because of the betrayal, breaking of faith, involved. However, I really don't think one can grade these, with one being more or less serious than the other. They are both bad. It is like saying a cabbage is a better or worse vegetable than a carrot.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
Wot he said.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
I think the idea that adultery is worse than harrassment is absurd, given that harrassment involves a breach of consent. Also, Enoch has essentially flattened out the narrative, as if all adultery is the same. Tillich and Barth were adulterers, but the context of this adultery was that it took place with the knowledge and consent of their partners.
In short, as has happened several times in this thread, you have oversimplified some complicated issues.
And comparing Tillich to Ted Kennedy? Really?
If I agree that Tillich was not a great man, or any kind of moral example to live up to, something I've long ago agreed to, can we wonder idly about his theological legacy? Or is that a lost cause?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
Byron: "What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, / Is much more common where the climate's sultry".
Yes, all adultery and all sexual harassment is wrong, but they can be wrong in different ways and degrees.
When, in the incident I referred to upthread, George Orwell visited a young Arab prostitute in Morrocco, he was exploiting both a gender and an imperial power differential (all the more culpable because of his explicit denunciation of the latter), but he did so with the knowledge and permission of his wife, so to that extent at least it was arguably not a betrayal of a personal relationship.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Or is that a lost cause?
Right up there with communism, the Southern Confederacy and disco, I reckon.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
If they made major contributions to society in other ways, should they not be looked on more leniently when they transgress against cultural mores? Surely so, in the case of Kennedy, MLK, Tiger Woods, etc. Otherwise is it not simply a case of trying to drag people down to one's own level of mediocrity?
So, if someone was a popular and successful figure and huge contributor to society's good causes you would look on them leniently if they transgressed 'cultural mores'?
Interesting that.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Or is that a lost cause?
Right up there with communism, the Southern Confederacy and disco, I reckon.
There's a Marx-reading, slave-holding, flare-wearing individual somewhere who, for reasons unknown to him/herself, just shed a single tear.
And he/she just picked up a copy of The Courage to Be.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Or is that a lost cause?
Right up there with communism, the Southern Confederacy and disco, I reckon.
You said, Dark Knight, a page or two back, that Otto has shown us that God is wholly other. I think that Tillich is one of those who may offer an alternative to the defeatism of Otto and Barth (not sure they really go together), and any others who think there can be no conversation between faith and reason.
Tillich's description of God as our ultimate concern - that which we take completely seriously, without any reservation - seems a useful idea, to me. It's where I'd start in a conversation with Dawkins. 'Prof. Dawkins, you've spoken movingly of the wonder of life and the evolutionary processes we see at work, and you clearly delight in your ability to explain scientific ideas to others, as many scientists do. How do you think science and scientists can help us overcome ignorance and commercial greed and tackle the great problems of climate change and poverty?' I would try to bring his great meta-narratives to the surface and exchange ideas at that level.
I'm no expert on Tillich, but I think his writings show a flare for the dramatic turn of phrase, and that he is always interested in the question of what you do with your theology, what difference it makes to how you see the world and live. I think 'so what?' is often the most important question. Unfortunately, he often seems to have bought far too deeply into the psychology and sociology of his day.
I suppose I see him as a preacher more than a theologian. He is best when he has his eye on the (then) contemporary world, making connections and asking questions in both directions between theology and 'modern' life.
But very sharp. I remember, long ago, when I first got my hands on a copy of his systematic theology, finding a line in his discussion of the concept of God where he says something to the effect that to insist on the existence of God is atheistic. I cheered.
Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
So, if someone was a popular and successful figure and huge contributor to society's good causes you would look on them leniently if they transgressed 'cultural mores'?
No, but it wouldn't be the only standard I applied to what they had achieved. How about these. Do they, if true, imply a flaw in him or in his work?
I appreciate theology may be different. And I've never read Rousseau because he was such a s***.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
hatless - I like that. Reminds me of his "God above God" line.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Or is that a lost cause?
Right up there with communism, the Southern Confederacy and disco, I reckon.
There's a Marx-reading, slave-holding, flare-wearing individual somewhere who, for reasons unknown to him/herself, just shed a single tear.
And he/she just picked up a copy of The Courage to Be.
They are currently on bail awaiting trial. Difficult to see them having much enthusiasm for Tillich. Still, you never know.
Slightly more seriously, the business about the existence of God as an orthodox belief goes back at least to the Cappadocian fathers, so it's hardly new. However, the problem with Tillich, as so frequently, is that it is not immediately obvious what he means by it, at least not without having an extensive knowledge of his underlying theology, which I don't have.
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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If I wanted to tie together the sexual misconduct with the theology in Tillich, it's the fear I'd have that his God becomes so impersonal that it doesn't really matter. It's an abstraction that leads to hedonism, kind of like some of the gnostics who, deciding the material world was a sham, cared less about what happened to it. So what if you hurt someone, it's just a philosophical exercise. And the desire for a ground of all being is basically selfish.
When I was in seminary, I made up a joke about the way that some liberals of a certain kind would stare down the void that Nietzsche warned of, and then paint a big smiley face on it. They want to be able to name it and contain it and tell people what it is, to grasp it per John 1. But we ultimately fail, because we're human.
For a while I found Tillich useful, it was probably around the time I'd flirted with Spong for a bit, I recall reading someone, probably here, saying that Spong was just watered down Tillich, and there's some truth to that.
His thoughts influenced me, and in some level they're still there, but I think, especially since reading Bonhoeffer (who I still regard as one of the more influential theologians I've read) that I'm not comfortable at all to reducing God to a "ground of all being."
It sounds like you're creating a "God shaped hole" in your existential universe to plug god into, or assuming such a hole, but such a hole does not require a Jesus plug. I think if I'd stuck with Tillich, I'd be an atheist by now.
If I dared to comment on MLK, based on reading, his philandering was, like his theology, eminently pragmatic. He was a very passionate, lustful man who was away from his wife for very long periods of time, and as he couldn't handle his libido, he found practical outlets for it. He was too busy managing his movement to manage himself. Something I read online indicates that he also suffered from serious health problems due to poor diet and exercise, and he was gaining weight.
On one level, that's not much to reflect on, it's a lot like many secular politicians, a sad byproduct of a job that requires being away for your family for an unhealthily long time. And perhaps also reflective of the liberal tendency to veer away from personal piety into social holiness, as if one can exclude the other.
All this personal history, for me, is no reason to reject someone, but it is something to work into their theology. It's just another angle to take, some negative examples to put along with the positive.
I can completely understand, on that note, especially for cases of personal history, why some people would avoid these guys like the plague. It isn't very pretty.
Posted by Demas (# 24) on
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If God is our symbol for God then we should pick the best symbol we have. If the symbol we pick is an impersonal force or philosophic concept then that probably says something about what we value. If the symbol we pick is a man who wept then that says something else.
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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Yes. Sometimes I feel like "ground of all being" is just a placeholder. And maybe the point is to keep the placeholder vacant, kind of like the holy of holies in the Temple. But that doesn't seem practical, and maybe even the empty space can turn into an idol.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
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The idea of "God above God" is that whatever your idea of God is, be it an impersonal force or a man who wept, it is inadequate. Whatever your idea of God is, the actual God transcends that. One of the few points of Tillich's theology that connects with Barth, who also famously stated that "when man thinks of God he makes an idol."
So I'd argue that Tillich helps, rather than harms, with that problem.
And to reply to Bullfrog, all we have to do is look at the ministers who had a conservative theology who also engaged in sexual infidelity to see the flimsiness of the proposition that this is related to liberalism. Invalid.
Posted by Demas (# 24) on
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Everything is inadequate, and that includes nothing. Quaker silence is a liturgy, the Holy of Holies was an idol; without symbols we must pass over in silence but if we stay silent the very stones will cry out.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
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That was kind of my point.
Posted by Twangist (# 16208) on
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The idea of "God above God" is that whatever your idea of God is, be it an impersonal force or a man who wept, it is inadequate
Our human idea and apprehension of the "man who wept" is inevitably going to be inadequate. However it seems probable that the Word made flesh was and (eternally) is a rather good representation of himself.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
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Indeed. And all Christian theology is, to some degree, talk about him.
I'm not sure I see your point.
Posted by Twangist (# 16208) on
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that if we over-emphasise the "un-knowability" of God then we by necessity minimise the fact that He has made himself known, and thus maybe even cease to be engaging in Christian theology. Which seemed to be where the conversation was tending.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
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Firstly, I disagree that Tillich is focusing on the unknowableness of God. That is really something we more associate with the theology of Otto and Barth. Tillich is the opposite, an apologist for theology who hoped to correlate ideas and phenomena from culture and philosophy to the ideas and symbols of theology. In that regard, like Schleiermacher, he wants to show what we all share, and as humans before God we all - religious or not - imagine God not as he/she/it is, but as we imagine he/she/it to be. So I think what is actually going on here is a discussion about the knowableness of God, contrary to your assertion.
Secondly, and this is an area I claim far less knowledge of, but the apophatic tradition in theology, most commonly associated with Eastern Orthodoxy is a tremendous resource for God-talk, one I think is largely untapped in the Western Christian tradition. So I think even if that were where the conversation were to go, this would not be unproductive.
Posted by Twangist (# 16208) on
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I must have misread
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
The idea of "God above God" is that whatever your idea of God is, be it an impersonal force or a man who wept, it is inadequate. Whatever your idea of God is, the actual God transcends that. One of the few points of Tillich's theology that connects with Barth, who also famously stated that "when man thinks of God he makes an idol."
So I'd argue that Tillich helps, rather than harms, with that problem.
And to reply to Bullfrog, all we have to do is look at the ministers who had a conservative theology who also engaged in sexual infidelity to see the flimsiness of the proposition that this is related to liberalism. Invalid.
For what it's worth that was not intended to attack liberalism in general, just conjecturing a link between theology and practice. I do remember thinking Tillich is sometimes too abstract, though admittedly it's been a while since I read him.
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