Jolyon White, University of Otago Theology Graduate, Corrects Misleading Advertising on National Party Billboards

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billboards, drill it mine it sell it, Jolyon White, National Party, Social justice enabler, the rich deserve more, Theology, University of Otago, Waihopai

Jolyon White, a graduate in Theology from the University of Otago, has been cleaning up those misleading National Party Billboards that have been littering the landscape recently.

White co-ordinated the campaign which added ”The rich deserve more” and ”Drill it, mine it, sell it” stickers to signs around the country.
– The Press

National Party Billboard with the truth added

The Press alleges that Jolyon managed to fix up some “700 National billboards”, which is just an outstanding effort. Compare this with Jesus, who only cleansed the one Temple.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (56th session) notes that while the extent of child poverty has declined in recent years, it remains concerned that about 20% of children in New Zealand are living under the poverty line…. New Zealand is ranked in the bottom third of the OECD for income inequality…. Incomes remain much more unequal than during the 1980s…. New Zealand has large and persistent income differences between ethnic and gender groups.  There are also an unacceptably large number of children experiencing hardship.  The choice to favour investment in other segments of the population over children will have adverse consequences for New Zealand in the future.  Insufficient response to this very unsatisfactory situation contributes to the overall grade of D.
– The New Zealand Institute

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Jolyon White interviewed on Close Up (click to view)

Jolyon is currently the poster boy for doing Theology at the University of Otago:

Jolyon joins the ranks of other famous social justice protestors in recent years who have utilised creative vandalism, including one group that caused $1m worth of damages to the U.S. spy base at Waihopai – a military unit based in New Zealand which participates in the slaughter of Iraqi and Afghani men, women, and children. On 21 October 2010, the Centre for Theology and Public Issues invited one of the Waihopai protestors to speak at the University of Otago.

Now these are real heroes. Like this guy:

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

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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!

Kurt Noll on Religious Studies versus Theology

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Biblical Studies, Chronicle Review, Kurt Noll, religious studies, Theology

Kurt Noll’s op-ed in The Chronicle Review, ‘The Ethics of Being a Theologian’ (27 July 2009) has generated a fair bit of discussion. As always, he’s controversial and stimulating. At best he makes succinct points that cut through the BS which is the unfortunate yet not always inappropriate acronym of Biblical Studies. At worst, his near positivism could do with some nuancing.

Noll makes great statements like this, which might resonate with many people involved in religious or biblical studies:

“Most people do not understand what religious study really is. Professors of religion are often confused with, or assumed to be allies of, professors of theology. The reason for the confusion is no secret. All too often, even at public universities, the religion department is peopled by theologians…”

And then there is Noll’s contrast between religious/biblical studies and theology:

“Religious study attempts to advance knowledge by advancing our understanding about why and how humans are religious, what religion actually does, and how religion has evolved historically… Theology also views itself as an academic discipline, but it does not attempt to advance knowledge. Rather, theologians practice and defend religion.”

There is something quite true in this contrast, in that some methodologies are inherently better than others at finding new aspects of what is true and real. Astronomy wins hands down over Astrology, for example. But when Noll talks about non-theological methodologies which are “unencumbered by overtly ideological agendas”, everything turns on Noll’s use of the word “overtly”. Theology is overtly a means to use data to defend existing presuppositions. By contrast, in biblical and religious studies, at best, our ideologies are less overt. They’re still there, of course, as “the trendy postmodern” thinkers highlighted. Yet a fundamental difference exists in that so many more of the presuppositions of religious and biblical studies are themselves open to challenge and reformulation. It’s not enough to just point the finger and say, “You’ve got presuppositions too!” Well, d’uh. Of course we do. Instead, the salient question is this: “What kind and how many presuppositions aren’t you willing to challenge?” Sure, in practice, our willingness to change our presuppositions and paradigms might be slow. But only in theology are too many such changes prevented on a priori grounds, and only in theology is this defence of so much of what is already believed held up as a virtue.

The difference between serving your ideology and being open to data is always one of degree. But it is this very relative difference which makes the distinction between theology and academic studies so fundamental.