in the presence of the divine trinity, we need to strip down the drab grey of our own self-enclosed selves and cultures and embrace others so that their bright colours, painted on our very selves, will begin to shine.

P60

Volf, J. M. G., & Volf, M. (1997). A Spacious Heart Essays on identity and belongingHarrisburg: Trinity Press International.

Back in 1931… the Great Depression was going on, so that the station and the streets teemed with homeless people, just as they do today. The newspapers were full of worker layoffs and farm foreclosures and bank failures, just as they are today. All that has changed, in my opinion, is that, thanks to television we can now hide a Great Depression. We may even be hiding a third world war.

Kurt Vonnegut

Bluebeard p82

1989

Kurt Vonnegut
Bluebeard
Paladin 1989
P23

Found this from Marcella Athaus-Reid in a piece criticising liberation theology for being insufficient.

Unless we have theologians from the slums (not just living there as part of a church project) the liberationist argument of theological representatives contradicts itself.

Althaus-Reid M. Another Possible World. London: SCM Press; 2007. p37

This is a big question as it seems that the voice of a rich, white prod is irrelevant to the conversation. My very existence is complicit in the systems that keep people oppressed.

But it also outlines another problem – what do theologians of the slums look like? Indeed how can they do theology, when it is required that you not only read and write but are highly educated and do work in the context of the academy. It seems, in order to be a theologian of the slums, you must leave the slums and become as middle class as the rest of this.

The whole thing seems a bit irresolvable as it stands.

Any thoughts welcome.

Choose an example of marginalization and/or exclusion from your contemporary world. How can radical hermeneutics help and/or hinder your interpretation of that example?

Any tips of good things to read on this are appreciated!

This is fascinating stuff. Though, as always there’s far too much to read and never enough time

The question we were given “outline an acceptable notion of sacrifice in the old testament and the contemporary world”

Which the more I think about, the more I realise how much there is to be written about it. Problem was (as I see it), most of the reading we were given was on the Aqedah (the binding of Isaac) in Genesis 22. While it does indeed concern the potential sacrifice of a son, in reality, the sacrifice does not actually happen. Indeed the New Testament doesn’t seem to read it as a story about the nature of sacrifice but more as one of obedience.

There are all kinds of takes on the Aqedah. From Boehm, who thought that Abraham gives us a model of holy and defining disobedience in Gen 22, to Gunn, who sees Abraham as the arch-bastard patriarch whose character is revealed as wholly lacking in his willingness to sacrifice his son.

After all the reading, I came to the conclusion that there’s nothing much “acceptable” about sacrifice and Gen 22.

That being said there might be a whole lot that could be said about the Hebrew people’s understanding of sacrifice when you see it in the light and context of something like Leviticus.

In terms of the contemporary world, we have lots of acceptable sacrifice; as long as it’s

a) voluntary/autonomous and basically self-sacrificing

b) for the appropriate cause – war is still top of the list here I suspect. We can accept those who sacrifice their own lives in the pursuit of peace/justice etc…

One of the (many) problems with the essay I just submitted is that I talked a lot about Gen 22 and how it wasn’t really about an acceptable notion of sacrifice and neglected the more fruitful leviticus and modern stuff. My excuse will be that none of the reading covered that but we’ll see…

For those really interested I’ve included my bibliography below:

Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics III.3. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010.

Boehm, Omri. 2007. The binding of Isaac: a religious model of disobedience. London: T&T Clark.

Douglas, Mary. Purity and danger: an analysis of concept of pollution and taboo. London: Psychology Press, 2002.

Fewell, Danna Nolan, and David M Gunn. “Tipping the Balance: Sternberg’s Reader and the Rape of Dinah.” Journal of Biblical Literature 110, No. 2 (1991): 193–211.

Girard, René. Violence and the sacred. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.

Gunn, David M, and Danna Nolan Fewell. Narrative in the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Kierkegaard, Søren. Fear and Trembling. London: Penguin Classics, 2005.

Klawans, Jonathan. Purity, sacrifice, and the temple: symbolism and supersessionism in the study of ancient Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/.

LaCocque, Andre. “About the ‘Aqedah’ in Genesis 22: A Response to Laurence A. Kant.” Lexington Theological Quarterly 40 (2005): 191–201.

Moberly, R W L. The theology of the book of Genesis. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Sternberg, Meir. “Biblical Poetics and Sexual Politics: From Reading to Counterreading.” Journal of Biblical Literature 111, No. 3 (1992): 463–488.

Taylor, Charles. A secular age. Cambridge: Belknap Press.

Von Rad, Gerhard. Genesis – a Commentary. Trans. John H Marks  London: S.C.M. Press, 1972.

Westermann, Claus. 1985. Genesis 12-36: a commentary. Trans. John Scullion London: SPCK, 2007.

Yang, Andrew S. “Abraham and Isaac, Child Abuse and Martin Luther.” Lutheran Quarterly 19 (2005): 153–166.

On the second command, and the tendency for us to make theological graven images, he says this:

theology is a very dangerous game and always teeters on the brink of idolatry, with the tendency, intentional or not, of seeking to get at God for our own well-being and program

P58

Miller, Patrick D. 2009. The Lord Alone. The Ten Commandments. Westminster John Knox Press

When talking about euthanasia and aggressive, intensive medical care in the face of a terminal prognosis, Ramsey suggest that these two, quite dissimilar things are really expressing the same thing. They are both expressing a denial of death.

To pursue aggressive medical means till the body is decaying is to deny that part of our human existence its end.

And to choose and actively pursue death either at the individuals choice or via a surrogate is an attempt to escape the death before us.