Antiquitopia

The following article was in the NY Times and can be found in most newspapers (through the AP). The Vatican has reaffirmed the ban on women becoming priests to the point of excommunicating any woman who undergoes ordination and any clergy who ordain women. Part of the reason given is that Jesus only had male apostles. This conveniently ignores ancient traditions that calls Mary Magdalene the Apostle to the Apostles and in Orthodox tradition as "equal to the apostles" (see the comments by Shades of Gray and Black ). Although Orthodox traditions, too, do not ordain women. This also ignores the prominent role women played in the early Christian movement, being leaders in the community, especially in association with and evidenced by Paul (figures such as Priscilla, Lydia, Euodia, Syntyche, Phoebe, who was a deacon, etc.), before their leadership roles were curtailed in later centuries. The other reason that is often offered is that God is male and, therefore, can only be r...

April DeConick, in the comments of her posts, has expressed some concerns with the term "polymorphic." Firstly, she notes that she had considered it before coming up with "polydoxy," and her reasons for rejecting it are: 1. Primarily, it is the same problem with "Christianities"--it just denotes varieties, but does not give any hints pertaining how these groups interact with one another or how they understand themselves. Although, I should note, "polymorphic" is not as grammatically jarring as "Christianities" or "Judaisms." 2. There is nothing particularly Christian about polymorphic--something I consider in its favor, but if one is trying to capture the interactions exclusively between Christians rather than Christians and other groups or just all groups in antiquity, then something with a more Christian ring, with "doxy" or "praxy" would be preferable. I consider the first point the real potential pr...

April DeConick, on Forbidden Gospels, has opened up an issue of how to refer to primarily 2nd and 3rd century Christianity, saying that we need a new term. She writes, and I quote at length: "Orthodoxy did not exist as a totalitarian entity, although each type of Christianity may have thought of itself as orthodox while everyone else were heretics. So the discussion of heresiology is important to maintain, as long as one understands that the heretic is so only from the point of view of one party. An orthodox Christianity doesn't emerge until the fourth century. Even then, it struggles through council after council, swinging from Arian to anti-Arian for over fifty years. Not until the fifth century are the major lines put into place that will determine the shape of "orthodox" Christianity for the centuries to come. "Heterodoxy is not any better because it describes religions that deviate from the orthodox. Since we don't have orthodoxy yet, we can't have...

In the previous post, I noted the disenchantment of many evangelical voters with the GOP, many leaving to become Democrats and others Independents. In this post, one sees the persistence of GOP loyalty among both conservative Evangelicals and conservative Catholics. Anyone who knows anything about the past 500 years of history realizes that Catholics and Protestants haven't always gotten along very well (again, I like to understate things). But the politics of the past two and a half decades has shown a rapprochement not necessarily in terms of ecumenical understanding (which usually occurs among more liberal-leaning believers, although not exclusively so), but in terms of political expediency. Thus, Texan Evangelical leader, John Hagee, has recently made anti-Catholic remarks and has recently endorsed John McCain. Prominent Catholic figures on the conservative side have pushed McCain to reject Hagee's endorsement. McCain, however, needing Evangelical voters (who have gener...

In recent years there have been growing fissures between Evangelical Christians and the GOP, an association that has been rather strong since about 1980. These fissures are evident especially (but not exclusively) among younger Evangelicals. They still dislike abortion (understatement of the year), but they seem to balance it with other issues that are more characteristic of Democratic concerns: poverty, environment, social justice, and immigration. In addition, a growing number oppose the war in Iraq. They are also sick of people like James Dobson, founder of "Focus on the Family," supposedly being considered a representative voice. While there are fissures and many Evangelicals are leaving the GOP, not all are joining the Democratic party. Many seem to be caught in the middle and see no party that really aligns with their mixture of concerns. Yet, come November, there may be many Evangelical votes going for Obama. Moreover, more conservative Evangelicals, like Dobso...

By the way, I almost forgot, but today is the Mexican Independence Day! Happy Cinco de Mayo! As someone in my class said today, there should be a huge party on the U.S./Mexican border, perhaps around the wall on the Rio Grande! In any case, it is a good excuse for a party!

In the previous post, I pasted my closing comments to the "Instituting Religion" conference from April 10, and my friend Jodi raised some issues in the relationship between funding (and academic advancement) and teaching, noting that as long as research is the primary means of advancement within academe that teaching will get the short end of the stick. She also raises several important issues of the relationship between pedagogy and theory (bringing theoretical savvy to teaching and practical teaching experience to theory), between research and teaching (bringing research into teaching and teaching issues into research), and speaking in general about the contingency of context for these issues (concerning the type of school, its funding structures, and so on). Given all of these interrelationships, I thought it would be appropriate to announce to my blog-reading public my situation next year: I will be teaching Literature of the Humanities next year at Columbia, which, acc...