Feast Your Eyes on This! St Clair (Dunedin) Surfies …

Tags

Bible and Critical Theory, Dunedin, St Clair, Undie 500

What you might expect to see WHEN you come to the B&CT Conference next Feb …

This guy’s name is Little Ollie and you might get lucky enough to see him:

OR, if you prefer …

Dunedin? IT’S ALL RIGHT HERE!

And these guys are STUDENTS, in case you didn’t realise – a migratory species of bird that arrive in February …

Putting Faiths/Religion (anything really!) on the Same Level …

Tags

bookshelves, juxtaposition, Religion, Theology

Here is a brilliant bookshelf idea that every Theology/Religious Studies Department should have!

The JUXTAPOSED: Religion Bookcase by BlankBlank plays by the numbers: it holds just 7 selected theological books, was made in a very limited edition of 50, and costs $2,500. Once you get past that, it’s easy to appreciate the unique attributes of this most unusual reclaimed hardwood shelf that puts very different religious books, for example the Bhagavad Gita, Bible, Qur’an, Analects of Confucius, the Tao Te Ching, Discourses of the Buddha and the Torah on the same level. Literally.

Other University Departments could design their own shelves: Politics could have space for Marx, Machiavelli, & Mill et al; Philosophy could have Butler, Baudrillard, & Buber et al! The scope for this is endless!

Thanks to The Weburbanist site for this information and to Geoff Pound for alerting me to it!

Checking Under the Referendum(b) Stone …

Tags

patriachy, referendum, smacking

On a slightly different note to Deane’s posting on the Referendum(b), it seems to me that underlying a lot of the arguments in this debate – in general, not necessarily on his post – is the fear by some that “the family” is being undermined …  That certain people feel that this “smacking issue” is just one more way in which their (oft-called Christian) model of family is being “attacked” – not a lot dissimilar to the anxiety the same groups express that if gays are allowed to marry then somehow that will mean “the family” (ie. Christian, white, middle class, nuclear, capitalist etc.) will be threatened ..

(Just type family, slippery slope, gay marriage etc into Google …)

Somehow gay/lesbian families, or straight families which have a more egalitarian view of children/adult and male/female “roles” threaten what are seen as “traditional” families (with their “traditional family values”) … The “rise” of this egalitarian-style of family is seen as a direct (and deliberate) challenge to the traditional-style. But why is this?

I think that is a stone worth peering under – what nasty things are crawling around under there??

My suspicion is that underneath this anxiety lies the fear that what will really be lost is the authority of the father – the patriarchal right to discipline, to be the head of his home, to be THE authoritative figure in perhaps one of the few remaining places where he can be assured of this status …

And for some of these people, this of course equates with the loss of authority of the God-Father figure – once that has been “undermined” then all chaos breaks out (supposedly).  And for the State to be a party to this emasculating of both men/fathers/God, then no wonder the debate is fierce!!!

We need to talk …

Tags

cigar, Karl Barth, pipe

So I am in this amazing study, right, and it’s just lined with books. I am running my fingers along the spines, not even looking at the titles really – it’s the overall feel of them that tells you all you need to know.  And he is sitting just over there, in that leather armchair, barely visible through the smoke. I don’t mind the smoke – it’s from a pipe, or a cigar maybe, take your pick.  He’s got that look in his eye, I just know it – you know the one – a smoldering sparkle just ready to burst into flame.  I can tell even if I am not looking at him. I pretend to look at the books.

But sooner or later we are going to have to talk and it will be me that has to say something, we both know this.  Why would he say anything? He is the one all comfortable in that chair. All smug with the world revolving around his finger.  The weight of the room tells me this, the feel of all those spines tells me this. Even the smoke tells me, intoxicating me with its sweet strength.  I am the one who is light, who barely leaves a mark on the thick carpet as I circle the room.  I am the one who might bend or break.  He knows this, is sure of this, and so can just watch through the smoke as I let my hand caress those spines.

My circling has taken me to the dark corner behind his chair.  And although the leather back of it is high and its arms curve wide to embrace him, I reach around and take the pipe (although I think it’s a cigar) from his mouth.  He likes this. He thinks it’s a game.  It’s not just his eyes that are sparkling now.  This is a game he likes to play, has played before, and wins every time.  Why talk when you can play this game?  But I don’t want to play this little game anymore. There are rules I want to bend and break.

So instead of straddling his lap, and replacing the pipe (it’s definitely a cigar) with my lips, and letting him win, I walk over to the other armchair in the room (they are a pair), and I make myself comfortable with one leg draped over the side, and I take a long deep pull on that pipe-that-is-a-cigar and after exhaling that sweet strong smoke I say, “Karl, we need to talk.”