Posted                       

quote:

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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).

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Posted                       

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Originally posted by Stetson:
Dark Knight wrote:

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We do not disregard Luther's work because of his antisemitism, or Calvin's because he burned Spinoza

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Minor correction, but I think you mean Servetus, not Spinoza, as the guy burned by Calvin.

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Not minor at all! I killed off Spinoza! At Calvin's hand! Oh, the shame. Thank you, a very gracious correction.

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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U

----
Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

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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.

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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?

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I'll engage if I need to, but I wouldn't go out of my way to read their sermons (for example).

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Posted                          

quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:

quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

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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.

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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?

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I'll engage if I need to, but I wouldn't go out of my way to read their sermons (for example).

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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.

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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?

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a theological scrapbook

Posted                   

quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:


If you find my posts troublingly pelagic,

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Posted                   

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Originally posted by Evensong:
That's called compartmentalising so the cognitive dissonance doesn't tear you apart. It's just a coping mechanism.

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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)

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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

[ 26. September 2014, 07:04: Message edited by: Dark Knight ]

--------------------
So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U

----
Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).

Posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by Galilit:
(quoted from Hannah T's book that has been previously mentioned)

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quote:

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[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)

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Posted                          

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Nice misrepresentation of my posts.

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Posted                      

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

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Originally posted by Evensong:


If you find my posts troublingly pelagic,

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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.

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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?

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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)

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JJ
SDG
blog

Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by Twangist:

quote:

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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?

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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)

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Posted                          

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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'.

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You can't be serious. What a twerp.

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a theological scrapbook

Posted                   

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Originally posted by Gildas:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:


If you find my posts troublingly pelagic,

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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.

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Same root, I presume?

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Posted                          

quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:
That's called compartmentalising so the cognitive dissonance doesn't tear you apart. It's just a coping mechanism.

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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.

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Posted                          

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
You're fucking right it's not that simple. The one proposing simple binaries is you.

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
And no one has said anything like that to Boogie. And you know it.

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Posted                          

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
No one has said that because this is a thread about Tillich.

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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.

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quote:

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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.

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Posted                          

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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.

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quote:

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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?

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Posted                          

quote:

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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".

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Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
FFS, ES. Boogie did not throw down a gauntlet. What are you reading?

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Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:


If you find my posts troublingly pelagic,

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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.

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Posted                      

quote:

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I cannot compartmentalise on adultery. I have seen its destructive power too much first hand.

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Posted                       

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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'.

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Posted                   

quote:

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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?

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Posted                      

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Originally posted by Evensong:

Nobody wants to tell Boogie she shouldn't dismiss the priests counsel because he manhandled her.

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Posted                      

quote:

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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.

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Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:

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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.

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But surely, if we have any empathy for the victims, we will also be affected by that?

Are you saying we shouldn't be?

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Posted                          

quote:

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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.

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Posted                       

quote:

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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

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Posted                       

quote:

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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.

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Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by Moo:

quote:

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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.

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Before Moses there were the seven noahide laws

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Posted                   

quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:
Facinating.

Nobody wants to tell Boogie she shouldn't dismiss the priests counsel because he manhandled her.

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Posted                      

quote:

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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.

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