24 Tuesday Apr 2012
Posted in Academics, Biblical Studies, Queer, Sex
Tags
Ben Witherington, ex-lesbian, fluid sexuality, gay sex, Hard complementarian, Hard homophobe, Heath was far too young, homophobia, James Crossley, Michael Bird, perfect happy wife and mother, Soft complementarian, Soft homophobe
For context, see Ben Witherington the Third, Michael Bird, James Crossley, Michael Bird, Michael Bird (with some Robert Gagnon and Robert Gagbag).
11 Friday Nov 2011
Posted in Academics, Biblical Studies, Sex
Tags
AAR, American Academy of Religion, ETS, Evangelical Theological Society, SBL, Society of Biblical Literature
Qualitative analysis indicates that, even though only 1% of participants at the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) annual conference are women, the level of sexual promiscuity among all participants is at much the same, relatively high, level as at the SBL and AAR annual conferences.*
* Results based on initial survey results. Final results may differ. Qualitative analysis is inherently subjective; results should not be accorded the sacred status of objective scientificity (Wissenschaftlichkeit) as is quantitative analysis. Amen.
01 Thursday Apr 2010
Posted in Christianity, Sex
Here’s the spectre of Derrida speaking:
“… scenes of public repentance and pleas for forgiveness abound today, sometimes seeming to innovate in descending from the summits of the state, from the head or chief of state, sometimes also from the highest authorities of church, country, or nation state (France, Poland, Germany, not yet the Vatican)…”
(Jacques Derrida, Literature in Secret (U o Chicago, 2008): 140)
So, nothing much has changed since Jacques left this mortal coil. He goes on to point out that, occasionally, even God repents when He fucks up:
“… didn’t Yahweh go back on his error after the flood? Didn’t he take it back? Didn’t he repent, as though asking for forgiveness, in fact regretting the evil of a curse that he had pronounced… didn’t he renounce the evil he had committed and the curse preceding that?… God undertakes therefore to do no more what he has done. What he has done will have been the evil of a misdeed, an evil never to be repeated, and so having to be forgiven, even if by himself.” (141-142)
Now, that could be a precedent that even the Pope might deign to follow. Maybe.
06 Saturday Mar 2010
Tags
Gerard Reve (1923-2006) was a Dutch Catholic communist homosexual author, who in 1966-1968 fought the state of The Netherlands in a two-year blasphemy trial, a trial which centred on Reve’s literary description in which he thrice fucks God during His incarnation as a donkey.
Yet there is little here that you can’t find in the medieval mystics, albeit updated for the twentieth century:
“Reve describes how God vists him in the form of a donkey and how, in an upsurge of love and devotion, he takes the incarnated God to bed:
En God Zelf zou bij mij langs komen in de gedaante van een éénjarige, muisgrijze Ezel en voor de deur staan en aanbellen en zeggen: ‘Gerard, dat boek van je–weet je dat Ik bij sommige stukken gehuid heb?’ ‘Mijn Heer en mijn God! Geloofd weze Uw Naam tot in alle Eeuwigheid! Ik houd zo verschrikkelijk veel van U,’ zou ik proberen te zeggen, maar halverwege zou ik al in janken uitbarsten, en Hem beginnen te kussen en naar binnen trekken, en na een gewildige klauterpartij om de trap naar het slaapkamertje op te komen, zou ik Hem drie keer achter elkaar langdurig in Zijn Geheime Opening bezitten, en daarna een presenteksemplaar geven… met de opdracht: Voor de Oneindige. Zonder Woorden. (Nader [tot U] 112-113)
And God Himself would visit me in the form of a one-year-old, mouse grey Donkey and stand in front of my door and ring the bell and say: ‘Gerard, that book of yours–did you know that I wept while reading some of its passages?’ ‘My Lord and my God! Praise be Your Name to all Eternity! I love You so immensely,’ I would try to say, but would burst out crying halfway, and start to kiss Him and pull Him inside, and after a colossal climb up the stairs to the little bedroom, I would possess Him three times in a row and at great length in His Secret Opening, and afterwards give Him a free copy… of my book with the dedication: To the Infinite. Without Words (Trans. Jesseka Batteau).
As is evident from the above, Reve combines the high rhetoric of the Bible with the banal and carnal, using capital letters in an ironic manner.”
(Jesseka Batteau, “Literary Icons and the Religious Past in the Netherlands” (2009), 239)
Ah – but what intense devotion!
The Dunedin School 